Political Parties and Elections Bill

Yes, my hon. and learned Friend makes a fair point. I will not start weighing up the relative merits and demerits of the points that I have been making, but I hope that they are all relevant. We will need properly to review the Government amendments to consider how things will change. In addition, the parties and the commission would have to create new procedures and devolve additional resources in order to be in a position to ascertain or verify the residence and domicile status of donors. The new restrictions, we feel, would almost certainly be an infringement of the right to freedom of expression, which must be shown to be necessary and proportionate to the aim pursued. Taking that aim to be to prohibit foreign donors, it is arguable that the existing law already achieves that purpose by limiting donors to those on the electoral register. Since a connection with the UK is necessary in order to be on the electoral register, the amendment is therefore not necessary. However, if the aim, as intimated in debate in the other place on 30 April, is to attack the tax status of certain specific donors or to prevent undue influence on parties from large donors, it is arguable that both of those aims are better pursued through other measures, and that this particular measure is not proportionate in those contexts. The proposals would seem to run counter to the EU principle of free movement of people. They would alienate UK workers and residents abroad, breach regulatory principles, potentially link political rights with taxation and be extremely difficult to implement. They are certainly bad law. I say again that the Bill, with these proposals—whether or not they are amended by the Government—no longer carries cross-party support. We shall review these provisions in the detail that they deserve and return to them in the other place.