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

My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to speak immediately after the noble Lord, Lord Bew, has made his maiden speech. He is a compatriot of mine and, although not quite a neighbour, is in very close association. He has given us, in those short eight minutes, a clear demonstration of his capabilities. He is indeed a professor of Irish politics at Queen’s, and has been part of Irish politics and all those things that have happened for probably the past 40 years. I sincerely hope that he will continue to attend your Lordships’ House regularly and give us his wit, knowledge and experience of Irish politics. I hope also that he will open that into a wider field than just Irish politics. He is very welcome here. I return to the business of elections and referendums—in other words, party funding. My party, as the Minister made clear he understands in his clear outlining of the order, is not totally happy about what is happening. The Northern Ireland Office seems to have done a lot of work to fill one of the gaps I was worried about, which was that money could flow in from almost anywhere, as the noble Lord, Lord Bew, said. There are Irish citizens all over the world, and money could flow from them into Ireland and into the parties in Northern Ireland. However, it was new to me tonight when I heard it, although it probably should not have been, that money cannot flow out from Northern Ireland into England, Scotland or Wales. As a Conservative in Northern Ireland I am rather disappointed about that; I thought we might have pulled an advantage over the Government. I wondered why the Labour Party was giving serious consideration to setting up in Northern Ireland. I thought maybe it was joining us in having a way into this potential pot of gold. But it seems that is not to be. I am sad that parts of the order are permanent. I believe it will need reviewing again. Like the noble Lord, Lord Bew, I find it pessimistic that we are still saying we cannot do the same in Northern Ireland as we can in the rest of the United Kingdom because, because. We must grasp the issue. The Government have grasped it pretty well for a while, and we must not let them start slipping back from it on matters that might be a little uncomfortable. I see no reason why the disciplines should not be operated in Northern Ireland the same as they are here, or why Irish citizens should be allowed to fund Northern Irish parties unless they are clearly domiciled within the 32 counties—I can see some right in that. But there is no right in any Irish citizen holding an Irish passport being able to ship money from anywhere in the world through the Bank of Ireland into wherever. I hope the Minister will be able to tell me that the homework has been done thoroughly there, and that only those people who are registered on an electoral roll in the Republic of Ireland and are inhabitants and taxpayers thereof will be in a position to move money to parties in the north. Overall we support the bulk of the order, but there are loopholes in it that still need to be tightened up, and the permanence of some aspects of it are disappointing. I have a final question. In the Republic, can we ship money down to Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the other political parties there? If the Conservative Party or the Labour Party wished to help to fund a campaign, or some of our wealthier members—I think there are more wealthy members on the government side than on our side these days—chose to help and support Fianna Fáil for their own reasons, or political reasons, could they do that?