I certainly agree that we need a level playing field. In the past, noble Lords have been treated to my views on political funding, which is out of line with regard to all the parties. I do not think that public money should be used for political funding, and there should be a severe limit on how much can be donated to parties, so we agree on that.
This clause, however, as I understand it, is not aimed at preventing unions contributing; it merely asks that they be exempt from contributing from their political funds. Personally, I do not accept that argument: if there is going to be a political fund, that is what it should be used for. I fully accept the work done by the trade union movement, which the noble Lord, Lord Hain, has outlined; it was considerable. I was a part of it at that time and I remember slightly more members of the Conservative Party than he does, but I will concede that they were not a majority at any point.
I also counsel that some of the arguments put forward by the noble Lord on the Front Bench were not strictly about political funds. The Minister will know that in the last few weeks I have introduced her to no fewer than 10 trade unions, all from what we would call the moderate wing of the trade union movement, and only one with a political fund—and that one not affiliated with the Labour Party. There is a consensus in certain quarters that a political fund is not necessary to defend the legitimate interests of unions’ members. That is possibly why the majority of unions do not have political funds. In short, they can do what they want to defend their own trade union members within their general fund. It is only when they want to step outside that and organise what I would call extramural activity, which is not often closely connected with the aims of their individual members, that we run into this sort of problem.
This is probably the only speech that I shall make that is helpful for the Minister, but I hope that she will resist this amendment and that the unions will continue to use their political funds for this. They should not be exempt.