UK Parliament / Open data

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

My Lords, I strongly suggest to the Conservative Party that if it does not know the answer to that it should go and have a chat with the Electoral Commission, because that relates to the operation of the GB register. However, as far as I know we are a United Kingdom and any business anywhere in the United Kingdom can do business with other areas. That is a business transaction. This is part of electoral law, but there should be a satisfactory answer that does not stop political parties organising themselves. That is not the intention. The intention is to stop money-laundering via the Irish route to Northern Ireland and to GB parties, because we do not accept donations from foreigners or foreign countries in Great Britain—and that legally would be the situation. The noble Lord, Lord Smith, asked about the words ““eligible to obtain””, which is clearly a legitimate question. The order is drafted to take account of the legal concept of Irish citizenship. Not to put too fine a point on it, it was not thought appropriate for us to legislate in the UK to dictate what status someone in Ireland should have. That is why the route is the other way. I shall explain how the checks will be done, because that will explain the position. What safeguards or checks will there be on Irish donors being entitled to donate to Northern Ireland parties? All citizens permitted under Irish law to donate to political parties in Ireland will have to meet the prescribed condition to be eligible to donate. That is, they must be eligible to obtain at the time of making the donation one of the three following documents indicative of citizenship: an Irish passport, a certificate of nationality or a certificate of naturalisation. It is not appropriate for us in the UK to legislate to dictate which one of those documents people should have or whether they should have it; all that we have laid down is that they should be eligible to obtain such a document. A certified copy of those documents must accompany the report in which the Northern Ireland recipient reports the relevant donation. In other words, the political party that reports the donation to the Electoral Commission must have a document stating that the donor was eligible to obtain a certificate of nationality, a certificate of naturalisation or an Irish passport at the time they made the donation. That would satisfy the rules; it would ensure that one has closed the groups of people who would be eligible for that. Those documents—the Irish passport, a certificate of nationality or a certificate of naturalisation—would be certified by Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs. That closes down the people who are not Irish citizens, or those eligible to be Irish citizens, in Timbuktu or anywhere else being able to shove money into Northern Ireland parties. The effect is the same as if we had legislated, which would have been considered improper, to say that they must hold one of those documents. That was agreed between the two Governments.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

694 c634-5 

Session

2006-07

Chamber / Committee

House of Lords chamber
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