Political Parties and Elections Bill

I understand the hon. Gentleman's argument. Part of what concerned Lord Bach, other colleagues and I was ensuring some consistency between the regime for donations and that for more general participation in our system. As I said, the Government have decided that it is possible to accept the burden of the amendments, and I now want, if I may, to get some important points on the record, not least to take account of the point that the right hon. Member for Horsham made about the short time for tabling amendments. Lords amendments 11 and 12 refer to residence for the purposes of the Income Tax Act 2007, but residence is not appropriately or meaningfully defined. Part 14 simply sets out residence in certain specific cases. The amendments fail correctly to refer to the place where an individual is not domiciled. That risks casting unnecessary doubt on the way in which the provisions are supposed to work. The Government have therefore tabled amendments (a) to (f) in lieu of amendments 11 and 12. However, let me state from the outset that the amendments do not fully deal with the problems that the defects of the amendments in their current form cause. Should amendments (a) to (f) be agreed by the House today, the Government will table, when the Bill returns to another place, such further amendments as they consider necessary to put a fair and workable scheme in place. I am happy to make the drafts of those amendments available to members of other parties. I do not ask them to endorse them, but if they find it helpful to see them, it is our responsibility to provide them, and I happy to do that. I recognise the frustration about the time available. I also want to make it clear that any restriction on permissibility of donations—one of the major problems with the proposition—linked to an individual's taxation status would not currently be fully enforceable without further steps being taken. Should the amendments be agreed, we would want to discuss the implications carefully with the parties and the Electoral Commission before the new restriction came into force. Before describing the amendments in more detail, I briefly remind the House of the current structure relating to donations under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. Under the system that that Act introduced, political parties are not permitted to accept what are called "impermissible" donations of above £200, although the Bill raises that threshold to £500. When a party receives a donation above the threshold, it must take "all reasonable steps" to verify that it has been received from a permissible source. If it receives a donation from an impermissible source, it is required to return it in 30 days. It is an offence not to do so. The party must also report receipt of any impermissible donation to the Electoral Commission. Additionally, if a party accepts an impermissible donation, the Electoral Commission may apply to a court to seek forfeiture of an amount equal to the donation. Amendment (a) would add to the existing requirement for an individual to be registered on an electoral register by requiring that a registered party may not accept a donation from an individual unless that person is resident, ordinarily resident and domiciled in the United Kingdom in the previous year. Colleagues will know that an individual's tax status—particularly their residence status—can change from year to year. It is therefore almost impossible to establish somebody's tax status, and particularly residence status, in the middle of a tax year. For that reason, we have alighted on the previous year, although we are open to arguments about whether that approach is correct.