Downing Street Says » Party Funding Review/Statement

The Leader was asked what he thought the chances were of cross-party agreement and the position of the trade unions in relation to funding. Mr Straw said that, if the parties entered into the proposed discussions in a constructive spirit, where no party should have a veto over the outcome of the talks and each party took into account the circumstances of the others, then he believed an agreement could be reached. He then referred to comments he had made in the course of exchanges on his earlier oral statement on the report by Sir Hayden Phillips. Specifically, he commented on the Opposition’s views previously on trade union funding, including the historical background. The Leader said that the Government would sit down with other parties and Sir Hayden to discuss all aspects of the report.

In response to further questions, he accepted that the issue of trade union funding was a consequential issue which needed to be resolved, but it was not the main issue. The fundamental problem was the scale of the spending "arms race" which, as Sir Hayden had reported, had led to a large increase before the last election. The second problem, in terms of public perception, was large-scale individual donations which were opaque. Thirdly, there was the use of completely opaque third party organisations.

Mr Straw referred further to the issue of trade union donations to the Labour Party, and said that he was ready to discuss this with other parties. But it had to be in the context that any change to party funding – as stated by the report of the Constitutional Affairs Committee – "must not stray into prescriptive devices to require political parties to organise internally in ways that violate their democratic relationships with other institutions". Sir Hayden had endorsed that. It would require goodwill in the negotiations and a willingness to reach agreement.

Again pressed to say what the chances were of a deal, the Leader said he could not. Talks had not yet begun, but he would do his best. Asked to response to the view in the report that there should be no "cherry-picking" of its conclusions, Mr Straw said that Sir Hayden had taken the view that nothing should be agreed until everything was agreed in forthcoming talks. No-one was seeking to impose a partial deal, and the final outcome would be more elaborate than what was contained in what was a very brief report, he added. The Leader said that the parties had agreed that the "arms race" on spending could not continue.

The Leader said that, if the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, had been fully effective – as he had hoped and everybody had anticipated – in terms of catching loopholes, they would not be in the present position. He pointed out that all parties were agreed that there should be changes to the Electoral Commission in any event. It was put to the Leader that the use of the term "arms race" was an exaggeration. He said he had not seen that suggestion, but he did not think it was valid. By 2005, the total spending had risen from £65m in the year before to £90m. Mr Straw also pointed out that the distinction between national and local spending had become more blurred.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Post a public comment

Name (required)
E-mail (required)
(You must give an email address, but it will not be displayed to the public.)
Website
(You may give your website, and it will be displayed to the public.)

Comments:

This is not a way of contacting the Prime Minister. If you would like to contact the Prime Minister, go to the 10 Downing Street official site.

Privacy note: Shortly after posting, your name and comment will be displayed on the site. This means that people searching for your name on the Internet will be able to find and read your comment.

Original PMOS briefings are © Crown Copyright. Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. Click-use licence number C02W0004089. Material is reproduced from the original 10 Downing Street source, but may not be the most up-to-date version of the briefings, which might be revised at the original source. Users should check with the original source in case of revisions. Comments are © Copyright contributors. Everything else is © Copyright Downing Street Says.

» Thursday, March 15, 2007

Party Funding Review/Statement

No Comments »

Post a public comment

Search

Supported by

Recent Briefings

Archives

Links

Syndicate (RSS/XML)

Credits

Enquiries