Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (Northern Ireland Political Parties) Order 2007

rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 21 June be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, at the end of 2005, the Government carried out a full public consultation on the issue of political donations in Northern Ireland. Their response to the consultation exercise was published in January 2006. It outlined a number of measures that were later given legislative effect in the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act of the same year. The Act is, as I am sure noble Lords are aware, the parent Act of the order before us today. Since it received Royal Assent in July last year, we have had a series of discussions with the Irish Government and the Electoral Commission on the detail of how the new donations arrangements in Northern Ireland will work, and the order seeks to give effect to those discussions. I am fully aware—and indeed I am reminded of it as I read my notes—of the concerns that some expressed about these provisions during the passage of the 2006 Act, and in the recent debate on this order in the other place, and I know that those concerns are shared by some noble Lords here today. Given that, I should like to set out the detail of the order in context as clearly as possible. Until now, the source of donations to political parties in Northern Ireland has been completely unregulated. The provisions of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 which banned foreign donations and introduced a system of public reporting of donations in the United Kingdom were disapplied from Northern Ireland. Donations have been permitted in Northern Ireland from anywhere in the world and the Electoral Commission has not been notified about who donates what. This exemption was for what we considered to be sound reasons—concerns relating to the possible intimidation of donors to political parties in the event of their identities being made public, and to allow Northern Ireland recipients to accept donations from Ireland in a manner consistent with the spirit of the Good Friday agreement. However, in 2005 we concluded that the time was right to introduce effective regulation of donations in Northern Ireland in order to inject some transparency into the system. The Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2006 therefore made provision for political parties registered in the Northern Ireland register and regulated donees, known collectively as ““Northern Ireland recipients””, to continue to be exempt from the provisions relating to the control of political donations which are set out in Part IV of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 for one final period. Under Section 11 of the 2006 Act, that period of disapplication expires on 31 October this year. From 1 November, all of Part 4 of the 2000 Act will apply to Northern Ireland for the first time, but with two significant modifications. First, Northern Ireland recipients will continue to be able to receive donations not only from all existing permissible donors under the 2000 Act, but also from Irish citizens and prescribed Irish bodies. Secondly, Northern Ireland donation reports will be held confidentially and checked privately by the Electoral Commission for an initial period of three years, or longer if extended by order of the Secretary of State. It is worth repeating a point I made during the passage of the 2006 Act: these changes, whatever is said about them, represent a very considerable narrowing of the regime that exists at present. I should repeat that the present system allows Northern Ireland recipients to accept donations from anybody of any nationality resident anywhere on the planet. What is more, they do not have to report them to any regulatory body. Any move from that to introduce more transparency and a degree of regulation will represent a narrowing of the regime. The confidentiality arrangements in relation to Northern Ireland reports which are set out in the order are temporary. The Act provides that they will fall away in 2010, bringing Northern Ireland even further into line with Great Britain. Although the period is extended by order it is our firm hope that, when the time comes, we will not have to seek Parliament’s approval to do so. The provisions enabling Northern Ireland recipients to continue to accept donations from Irish citizens and Irish bodies meeting prescribed conditions are contained in the 2006 Act and are, by contrast, permanent. This order simply puts flesh on the bones of Part 3 of last year’s Act by setting out precisely what the conditions are, how the Electoral Commission may verify the source of any donation, and what steps it can take if impermissible donations are found to have been accepted. The provisions of the 2006 Act are in line with the original recommendations of the Neill committee which gave rise to the 2000 Act in the first place: that because of the special role of Ireland in Northern Ireland’s political life, as set out in the Belfast agreement and elsewhere, it would not be right to ban contributions from there. In contrast to the position on confidentiality of donations, which as I have said we hope will no longer be relevant in 2010, we do not see any circumstances in which the recommendation in relation to Irish donations is going to lose its relevance at any point in the near future. For this reason, the measures in the 2006 Act and this order to meet this recommendation are not time-limited. But the order-making power in the 2006 Act allows us to vary widely, with the consent of Parliament, who should qualify as an Irish donor. As I have indicated, the order puts flesh on the bones of the relevant provisions and I will briefly summarise them. Part 1 of the order specifies the conditions which an Irish citizen must meet in order to be able to donate to a Northern Ireland recipient. It also specifies the categories of Irish bodies which will be entitled to donate to Northern Ireland recipients from 1 November onwards. Schedule 1 sets out the information which must be provided in relation to donations from Irish donors in donation reports from Northern Ireland recipients. The steps which the Electoral Commission must take in order to verify the information contained in the donation reports submitted by Northern Ireland recipients are set out in Part 2 of the order. The Electoral Commission must check 50 per cent of donations from individuals and 100 per cent of donations from bodies reported by Northern Ireland recipients. It may verify the information provided in the donation reports by, among other things, contacting the bodies listed in Article 11 to which it is able to disclose information. For example, the commission could contact the Northern Ireland Assembly Commission to verify information relating to payments made under the Financial Assistance for Political Parties Act (Northern Ireland) 2000 or could contact the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment in relation to companies registered in Northern Ireland. The commission is under a duty of confidentiality in relation to information contained in reports from Northern Ireland recipients during the prescribed period. However, the commission has the power under the 2000 Act, as modified by last year’s Act, to release information contained in a Northern Ireland donation report if it believes on reasonable grounds that the donation was from an impermissible or unidentifiable donor. Article 10 sets out the requirements in relation to which such information must be released. The commission would release the amount of the donation and the party to which it was made but not the identity of the donor. This is in recognition of the fact there may be circumstances in which the publication of a donor’s personal details—their name and address—could lead to a threat to that individual’s life. It was suggested in the debate in the other place that if this order was not passed the relevant measures in the miscellaneous provisions Act would fall away on 31 October. I stress that this is not the case. If this order fails to pass, the relevant sections of the 2006 Act would still take effect on 1 November this year; however, without the details of this order the new regime would not work effectively. For example, no provision would be made about the contents of donation reports which relate to Irish donations, and there would be no mechanism in place for the Electoral Commission to check both Irish and UK donations to Northern Ireland recipients during the prescribed period. This would mean that while Northern Ireland recipients would be required to submit donation reports in relation to donations from the UK and not those from Ireland, these reports would not be scrutinised properly. I am sure noble Lords agree that would be very undesirable. I should also like to clear up any potential misunderstanding concerning the issue of Northern Ireland parties being able to pass on Irish donations to their counterpart parties in Great Britain. There are two separate registers of political parties—one each for Great Britain and Northern Ireland. A party may be registered in both the Great Britain and the Northern Ireland registers, but in such a case it is treated as two separate registered parties. This was set out in the original legislation in 2000. New Section 71C of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, which was inserted by Section 12 of the 2006 Act, further prevents parties registered in Northern Ireland making donations to parties registered in Great Britain or to regulated donees in Great Britain. The effect of this is that Irish citizens and prescribed bodies meeting the prescribed conditions will be able to donate only to parties registered in the Northern Ireland register. This means that there is no back door by which Irish donations can legitimately reach parties registered in Great Britain. They would be classified as foreign donations—it is as simple as that—and would be ruled out. That was the position established by the 2000 Act and the 2006 Act maintains that situation. I hope noble Lords agree that the order represents an important step towards aligning donation controls in Northern Ireland more fully with those for the rest of the UK and along the path to achieving full transparency. It does not duplicate what happens in Great Britain—I fully accept that—and that is made clear throughout. It represents the principles of the Good Friday agreement by allowing donations from Ireland. I shall do my best to answer any questions. I beg to move. Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 21 June be approved. 21st Report from the Statutory Instruments Committee.—(Lord Rooker.)