My Lords, I rise very briefly to speak in favour of this clause not standing part of the Bill. I should declare an interest that, as a Green, I am well used to always being on the wrong side of the unfair financial advantage the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, referred to. We obviously have an arms race in spending and politics paid for by the people who pump the money in. I have what might be considered a radical amendment later in this Bill to suggest that we put a very tight limit on donations. It starts from the other end of these things, saying that the quality of our politics is not benefiting from money being pumped in. This clause stand part notice suggests that we do not allow an escalation of the concentration of money even further.
Moving away from the interests of parties that do not have that sort of money—I am sure that many people who have done practical politics will know the reality of this—very often you have a street, down which is the boundary of a constituency or a council ward, and the people on one side are in a hotly contested marginal constituency and those on the other are in a safe seat. Neighbours talk to each other; one says, “I’ve got so many election leaflets coming through my door, my recycling bin is totally overflowing”, and one from the other side of the street says, “Oh, is there an election on? I didn’t know.” Think about what kind of disrepute that brings our politics into, when massive amounts of resources are concentrated in a small number of seats. People can see that this is not right or balanced, or a national political contest.
The idea of allowing notional expenditure just to roll on takes us to a very bad place, so I back the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, on this.