Political Parties and Elections Bill

I have rather more sympathy for that view. I have said that I favour a tighter cap on election spending, affecting all the major parties. It would be much easier to control any problems that parties may see in the current system through spending controls, rather than through donation controls. That would be easier to police. We know that it is quite possible to police a spending control because there is one in place at the moment; such a control applies to each one of us when we seek re-election, and applies at the national level to each major party. There have not been too many problems with those spending caps. That is a productive and sensible suggestion. I cannot see why we need also look at limiting categories of people who are allowed to donate. As hon. Friends have said, if someone is entitled to vote in an election, surely they should be entitled to back their vote with a donation. If someone is allowed to run for office in an election to gain even more influence, what is to stop them making a donation to support their or someone else's campaign? The whole thing is quite absurd if looked at from the outside. It makes sense only if one goes down the route taken by the hon. Member for Pendle and reveals the raw politics behind the rather elegant legal debate that we have had, for most of the time, this afternoon. I urge the Government to think again. Such changes cannot be made without consensus. They relate to the system of election for all parties, and they need to be seen to be fair by all parties involved, but that clearly is not so with this Bill. Such changes cannot be made in haste, and the latest, very chunky, amendments that we are considering have been drafted very quickly, in a way that not even the Government think is reasonable.