Political Parties and Elections Bill

My Lords, I declare an interest in that I was the chairman of the standards committee when it produced its original report on political parties. Another Member present, the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, was with me on the committee. We indeed used such language. We may have created the term "permissible donor", but we then had to define it, which we did as including people who were on the electoral register or were entitled to be on it. I am not addressing any particular case; the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, has argued about the amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, has spoken to. In life there could obviously be reasons why somebody’s name was not on the register. The simplest example is of somebody who thinks that they have sent in the document that will procure their registration but it has been lost in transmission. A second easy example would be of some administrative error by officials, meaning that someone had not been registered, although the document was duly received. It may even be a case where somebody has been negligent and should have taken a step but did not. In all these cases, the underlying policy is being complied with. The money comes from somebody who could have been on the register but for this error or fault, call it what you will. I ask your Lordships and the Minister to think again about this provision. What is urged against it is that it means a difficult inquiry into whether someone is entitled. It really hinges on whether they can produce proof that they were entitled to be on the register when they gave money to the local party. The party can then take the money and send the report to the commission. There is no sidestepping supervision. There will be supervision, but in the rare circumstances where this may happen it seems perfectly reasonable to allow the text as originally proposed by the committee.