Downing Street Says » Party Funding

Asked if Sir Hayden Phillips would be responsible for investigating allegations of impropriety in political party finance, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that Sir Hayden Phillips was looking at the future of political funding and party funding and that was where his focus would be. It was an attempt to build a consensus amongst the parties and that was the role he had taken on. Asked by Sky News when it was decided that Lord Falconer would make a statement in the Lords announcing changes to the electoral law bill, the PMOS said that he had been asked that question this morning and he had said then that he refused to get into processology, his position had not changed since then, nor would it. Put to him therefore that it had obviously been decided at some point this afternoon, the PMOS said that he could answer the question his way and the journalist from Sky News could try and put words into his mouth in his his own way, but the end result was the same.

Put to him that sometimes when he was asked similar questions he would say that the issue had been under consideration for months and he wasn’t saying that now, the PMOS tried to explain that what he was saying was that we had made the Government’s position on loans clear over the weekend and Lord Falconer had made his announcement today. Put to him by Sky News that since Lord Falconer had made this statement today when they went to speak to the Labour party chairman, the party treasurer and the Deputy Prime Minister they could be expected to all deny knowledge, the PMOS with some degree of exasperation told the journalist that there was no point having this kind of conversation if the journalist was going to keep putting words into his mouth. Put to him, again by the journalist from Sky News that since he had not said that this had been under consideration for a long time then this was clearly a back of the cigarette packet job, the PMOS asked the journalist if he would like to take the briefing since he was clearly not prepared to listen to anything anyone else might have to say.

Put to him again that this had been a rush job, the PMOS patiently explained that as he had said, he would not be getting into processology, he had already said that at the beginning of this conversation and also this morning when the journalist’s colleague had been present. Perhaps if the journalist had co-ordinated with his colleague he would know that. Put to him that now the statement had been made so the situation was now different, the PMOS said that did not change the fact that he did not intend to get into processology. This conversation did not seem to be getting us anywhere.

Asked if there had been an investigation in Downing Street as to how the Labour party chairman came to say that there was no financial relationship between the nominees for peerages and the Labour Party, the PMOS said that was first and foremost a party matter. However Downing Street had categorically denied the suggestions in the Sunday Telegraph.

Asked if Government had a view about caps on party spending and donations and whether Hayden Phillips would investigate this, the PMOS said that it was entirely up to Sir Hayden Phillips what territory he covered. What the Government had done was to set out a series of questions for Sir Hayden Phillips to address, but frankly they were fairly obvious questions for anyone who was going to investigate this issue. As the Prime Minister had said in his press conference on Thursday, if you looked at the range of options, whether parties relied on private companies or individuals or trade unions there were concerns for each of those areas. Equally there was a reluctance in terms of public funding. The fact of the matter was that political parties did have to be funded because they were an essential part of democracy. The question therefore was how you got the right balance. For instance you already had elements of state funding for the various political parties. This was not therefore something new on the agenda.

Asked if the House of Lords Appointments Commission been in contact today with Downing Street with concerns about the backgrounds of any more of their nominations for peerages, the PMOS said that he was not aware of any contact but that was really a matter for the Appointments Commission. Under the present rules as he understood them said it wasn’t necessary to notify them of loans as opposed to gifts.

Asked why Sir Hayden Phillips was carrying out this investigation rather than the Electoral Commission, the PMOS said that Sir Hayden Phillips would take evidence from the Electoral Commission, among others. He did not wish to speak for all the parties, but there seemed to be a recognition that it would be useful to have a completely independent figure, outside of the process, trying to liaise with all the stakeholders in the process to try and reach a consensus. That included the Electoral Commission.

Asked if he thought it was helpful that Lord Falconer had made a joke about not becoming a peer prior to being flatmates with the Prime Minister, the PMOS said that he was not aware of the specific remarks so he couldn’t comment.

Asked if it was under Sir Hayden Phillip’s remit to consider other country’s systems of party funding, the PMOS said that whether he wanted to or not was a matter for him. However he suspected that he would be principally guided by the views of the parties. Whether those were shaped by experiences elsewhere was a matter for the parties. The important thing was not that we tried to impose a particular model or solution, because frankly if that had been available somebody would have reached for it a long time ago. The important thing was that we tried to get a genuine consensus on moving forward. Because this was a difficult issue for all parties, it was right and proper to get a consensus which addressed the problem rationally and which as many people as possible could buy into.

Asked if the Prime Minister would be happy to see a new funding formula that might drastically reduce the amount of money going into political parties, the PMOS said that he did not want to get into hypothetical questions. However as he said this morning it was important that we recognised that political parties were an essential part of our democracy and that they could not just live on fresh air. Equally it was important to recognise that political parties didn’t just exist during election time, they existed between campaigns as well. Any idea that you could have cut-price democracy was not one which people recognised as being feasible. As others had said over the weekend there were conflicting views about whether people wanted the parties to exist solely on state funding or on other sources of funds. These were all questions that could be looked at by Sir Hayden Phillips.

Put to him that since Sir Hayden Phillips had such a wide remit he could theoretically investigate any episodes of impropriety, the PMOS said that that was the same question as he had been asked earlier. The important thing was that Sir Hayden Phillip’s job was to find a consensus about the future of party funding. Everyone knew the issues and the perception that had arisen, but his job was about finding a consensus for the future. Asked who had drawn up his terms of reference, the PMOS said that his terms of reference had been drawn up in consultation with Sir Hayden Phillips.

Put to him that we had a situation where a group of men lent money to the party and were put forward for peerages and the Prime Minister was simply asking people to accept that it was unfortunate and move on, the PMOS said that these were essentially party matters, however he didn’t recognise that summary of the situation nor the implicit smears it contained.

Asked to comment on former Iraqi Prime Minister Alyad Alawi suggesting that Iraq was already in a state of civil war and whether he had been speaking for the allied governments, the PMOS said that first of all Mr. Alawi was a politician in his own right and we should recognise that. Secondly in terms of what he had actually said, he had said himself that we had not reached the point of no return yet. Of course the present situation was dangerous but equally we should recognised that 85% of attacks in Iraq occurred in 4 of the 18 provinces. We should also recognise that we were still in the process of forming a coalition government. We had always recognised that there were difficulties, and we should recognise that those difficulties came from terrorists determined to undermine the democratic process. Therefore the Prime Minister made it very clear that we should not allow terrorists to undermine the democratic process.

Put to him that terrorism was not the same as civil war, the PMOS said that from his experience terrorists could be part of an attempt to engender civil war. That was precisely what the terrorists were trying to do, to provoke Sunni’s into attacking Shia and vice versa. The important thing was to show that politics worked and resist the attempts to try and provoke a civil war.

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» Monday, March 20, 2006

Party Funding

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