Political Parties and Elections Bill

I have a great deal of sympathy with that point. Although it is important to get big money out of politics and protect the political process from the economy and from money, we should not go down the route of treating politics merely as an activity of the state. It is an activity of everybody. To that extent, I agree with the right hon. Member for Horsham (Mr. Maude). The voluntary aspect of politics is immensely important; it is part of our democratic tradition. However, we have to do something about the rising cynicism about politics in our country, and the Bill is inadequate for the task. There are some useful reforms. I shall not go through all the aspects of the Bill that I happen to agree with. I think that it is a good idea for there to be better regulation of donations by unincorporated bodies. However, we need not tinkering, but comprehensive reform. This is the time not for tactics, but for a clear, statesman-like strategy for rescuing the reputation of the political system. One can see precisely such a strategy, at least in outline, in the Constitutional Affairs Committee report and the Hayden Phillips proposals for a draft agreement. Those reports do not go far enough for me in many ways, but they propose big enough steps in the right direction—steps that imply sacrifices by all parties which would give people confidence that the proposals are serious and provide a chance for starting the process of rebuilding public confidence. I want to mention three aspects of a possible strategy and way forward in what the Constitutional Affairs Committee and Hayden Phillips proposed; that is all that I want to do tonight. First, they proposed a £50,000 cap on donations. That was far too high for me personally and other people, but it was a start. As the right hon. Member for Horsham said, we have to prevent any real or apparent possibility of buying policies, elections or access. We all know that upward flickers for any party in the opinion polls suddenly result in the arrival of new and surprising friends, just as lottery winners suddenly find themselves popular. We all know what that is about. There are also dangers in large donations from more principled sources—those who give in support of a particular point of view. All parties are coalitions that have internal debates, and money should not play any real or apparent role in policy formation within parties. There is also the question of the so-called arms race. I do not want to enter the debate about whether total spending by all the parties is rising or not, although it seems a bit odd to try to calculate total party spending by missing out the Ashcroft money or completely ignoring the spending of my own party. However, the real problem with the arms race is that each party is obsessed not with its total spending, but with the gap between its spending and that of the other parties; parties are always trying to catch up with or stay ahead of other parties' spending. That is one reason why they become so obsessed with large donations for centralised national campaigning. It is easier to raise a large amount from a few big cheques than from lots of small donors. That is one reason why the influence of large donors is seen as having risen. On the subject of small donors and in reference to the point made by the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright), I should say that I was glad that the Lord Chancellor said that he was willing to think again about clause 8. It seems wrong to impose bureaucratically on small donations while doing nothing at all to cap large ones. The priorities seem entirely wrong.