Political Parties and Elections Bill

Perhaps I could get a paragraph or two into the speech before, very happily, giving way to the hon. Gentleman. It is a matter of the greatest regret that a Bill has been introduced by Labour that every other party seems to oppose. It has long been a tradition, as the Justice Secretary acknowledged, that on such matters every effort should be made to reach agreement between the major parties. It is undesirable that a Government should use their majority to force through a major change that would advantage the governing party against opposing parties without even trying to consult those other parties. More broadly, the Bill is a wasted opportunity. After months of discussions and negotiations under the patient and resourceful chairmanship of Sir Hayden Phillips, we had the chance to put through serious reforms to party funding that would create a long-term settlement to deal once and for all with the big-donor culture. We do not favour additional state funding for political parties, but we agreed from the outset of those discussions that if all the current concerns were dealt with by means of a comprehensive cap on donations, we would reluctantly go along with additional state funding. As it turned out, despite Tony Blair's intentions—good intentions, I think—Labour simply refused to agree that donation caps should apply equally to trade union affiliation fees, so the chance to settle these matters once and for all was lost.