Political Parties and Elections Bill

I beg to move,"That this House does not insist on its Amendments Nos. 12A to 12F in lieu of Lords Amendments Nos. 11 and 12, and agrees with the Lords in their Amendments Nos. 12G to 12N in lieu." As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice made clear at the time, amendments 12A to 12F were not fully workable. The Government therefore tabled further amendments 12G to 12N in lieu. Those amendments have been agreed to today in another place. The Government's amendments seek to address the legal, technical and basic operational deficiencies with the amendments moved by Lord Campbell-Savours. As such, should the amendments be agreed to, we would want to discuss carefully their implementation with the parties and the Electoral Commission in due course before the new restriction came into force. Amendments 12G to 12N remedy some of the deficiencies in amendments 12A to 12F. They raise the permissibility threshold in relation to taxation status from £500 to £7,500, aligning it with the threshold at which a declaration will be required. That will be far easier for parties and donors to operate. We have required aggregation of donations above £500 which in aggregate exceed £7,500 in a calendar year to the same recipient. The amendments ensure that the new restriction applies to loans as well as donations. They also ensure that for the purposes of the aggregation provisions, donations and loans from the same source must be added together. We have made it clear that in the majority of cases, a party or other donee will satisfy the requirement to take "all reasonable steps" to verify a donation's permissibility if it receives a declaration from the individual in regard to taxation status. A party would be required to take further steps only if it had reasonable grounds to consider the declaration to be incorrect. We believe that that approach strikes the right balance by minimising the burden on parties and donors and ensuring a workable restriction. Lords amendment 121 gives the Secretary of State power to make further supplementary incidental or consequential provision at the point of commencement of the new restriction. I hope that the amendments will be accepted here, as they were in another place. They would be a proportionate and effective way of maintaining the spirit of the amendments originally tabled by Lord Campbell-Savours, and I commend them to the House.