Donations to Political Parties

Private Notice Question

Asked by

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have, if any, to tighten the rules regarding donations to political parties.

My Lords, foreign interference is a threat to our democracy. That is why we are currently legislating to tighten the rules on who can make political donations and strengthening checks on and the transparency of those donations. We are also acting on the recommendations of Philip Rycroft’s independent review into foreign financial interference. We are capping donations from overseas electors and bringing forward a moratorium on crypto asset donations. We will issue a full response to the Rycroft report in due course.

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for that really helpful Answer. I agree with everything that she has said. However, will she now consider tightening the rules on the expenditure of Short money which is allocated specifically to opposition parties at Westminster? If there is any misspending of that money, who is responsible for dealing with it? Is it the Public Accounts Committee or the Government? Does she agree with me that whoever it is should be dealing with it as a matter of urgency?

It is important that any money spent from the public purse is spent in a way that commands the confidence of the public. It is critical that processes are in place to monitor that spending and to make sure that it is used for the purposes it is there for. It is critical that it is properly and legally audited, so that we can all be assured of that. One of the big problems we have in the political world is an undermining of confidence in the political system. That is not helped when people do not have confidence in the financial systems that surround it. Those things are really important, and we continue to keep them under review.

If the Government consider making any changes to Short money, will the Minister make them retrospective for the last 10 years?

The allocation of Short money is beyond my ministerial brief, but all parties must think when they are in government about the proposals around Short money.

My Lords, under the Government’s current plans, Donald Trump could split ownership of a UK company between himself and his family members, keeping each individual share below the threshold that would trigger the significant control test in the Representation of the People Bill that is coming our way. That would then enable the company to legally donate to UK politicians or political parties, and indeed any foreign dictator or billionaire with family members could do exactly the same. Does the Minister agree that that is a dangerous and unwelcome loophole that needs to be closed?

I do not want to comment on such donations, particularly from the President of the United States’s family. However, we are taking immediate steps to implement Philip Rycroft’s recommendation for a cap on donations made by overseas electors. We will implement that through the Representation of the People Bill which is currently before Parliament—it is at Report stage in the Commons at the moment. We are committed to upholding and strengthening our democracy by protecting against this kind of foreign interference, improving political transparency and adding tougher checks for donations. However, it is the responsibility of receiving parties as well to carry out the necessary checks involved. I hope that all responsible parties will take their part in doing so.

My Lords, if we are concerned about preventing foreign interference and plugging loopholes, as I think we all are, will my noble friend the Minister consider personal donations—small change such as £5 million to a particular Member of Parliament, for example—and foreign money to UK think tanks that are really quite political in their activities?

With any donations, it is for those receiving them to make sure they are clear about where those donations come from and what they are for. There are investigations currently going on by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, as we know, so it is probably best that I do not comment specifically on those. Everyone must stop and think about how these donations are used and donated. We need to make sure that the rules that are set for political donations apply to everybody involved in political life, and that there are no exemptions for anybody.

My Lords, while the independent Rycroft review consulted political parties on political donations, the Government have singularly failed to do so. Why did Ministers fail to consult the Parliamentary Parties Panel on these measures?

My understanding is that there was extensive consultation with political parties during the course of the drawing up of the Bill. The Bill is being debated in Parliament now, and representations can still be made in Parliament. It will be debated in this House in due course.

My Lords, how are the Government going to get at the increasingly shadowy area of what the Minister has just called political life, where donations are not specifically to political parties but are being used to support particular causes? It is widely reported, for example, that Elon Musk is using Twitter to promote the Restore candidate in the forthcoming by-election and to support Restore altogether. Is that a political donation? At the Unite the Kingdom rally, Tommy Robinson specifically thanked two US donors who had helped to fund the rally. That is not, within the current terms, a political donation, but it is clearly financial interference in British political life. How are we going to get at that?

As the noble Lord indicated, this is a complex area, but we must endeavour to make sure that, as we pass the legislation, we close loopholes that allow donations that are not subject to the usual checks and balances—they must be subject to those checks and balances. We intend to commence existing provisions in primary legislation that will require donors to declare any benefits or sources of funding connected to their donation and render them liable to criminal prosecution for false declarations. We need to go that far to make sure that we avoid the kind of circumstances that the noble Lord raised.

My Lords, my friends in the Liberal Democrats talk about money from America. Unfortunately, we in Northern Ireland have been dealing with money from America for quite some time, which is coming to Sinn Féin through the Irish Republic. Will that be dealt with in the legislation? It gives an unfair advantage to Sinn Féin in elections in Northern Ireland, whether it is standing for the UK Parliament or the Northern Ireland Assembly.

As the noble Baroness will probably be more aware than I am, donations from Ireland are permitted in some circumstances. I will take back the issue she raised. It is important that all donations to all political parties are subject to the same legal requirements, and that is what the Representation of the People Bill is seeking to achieve.

My Lords, the present system has some controls during an election period but then, in a non-election period, there seems to be very little control, with one right-wing individual donating £10 million to one political party. Will the review deal with this issue?