Trade Union Political Funds and Political Party Funding — House of Lords, 2016-03-09
Topic: Government Operations
James Lupton (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I declare my various interests in this debate: first, and somewhat posthumously, as the voluntary national treasurer of the Conservative Party until last month; secondly, as a continuing board member of the Conservative Party; thirdly, as a very willing and voluntary donor—past, present and no doubt future—to the Conservative Party. And that goes to the nub of the issue concerning Clause 10, which is not to do with the funding of political parties, despite the Opposition’s attempts to obfuscate their position by claiming that it is. In my view, this clause is all to do with the principle that donations to political parties should be made with active intent, with a willingness and a desire to donate your money to a particular political party. This is, in the Conservative Party at least, a matter of transparency, personal choice and active intent As my noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley reminded us earlier, many years ago, in 2001, the rules about public limited company donations to political parties changed so that the prior consent of shareholders in general meeting was required. Such a rule affected the Conservatives the most, but it became accepted, even though previously the decision had been left to the discretion of a board of directors appointed by those shareholders in general meeting. Although it may not satisfy my noble friend Lord Forsyth’s point of principle, I thought that the numbers would at least inform that particular debate. According to Electoral Commission figures, since the rules changed in 2001, total donations—that is, the aggregate sum of all donations from all public limited companies, including the unlisted ones, which comprise most of those plcs—come to only £7.4 million in those 15 years, of which £4.4 million went to the Conservative Party and £3 million went to other parties. To put that in context—and the number has been declining over those years—that is under 2% of the average annual spending and funding of the political parties. It is a small sum The inappropriateness of the current opt-out practice was vividly demonstrated to me by one of my daughters in the usual lively debate over dinner about politics. I am, I mainly think, blessed with four quite brilliant adult children who have been raised to be fiercely independent in thinking, with the result that I think none of them votes for my party—although I live in hope. One of my daughters, who consented to me telling this tale, is in her third year as a fully qualified teacher in an academy school, having completed the remarkable and fantastic Teach First programme. In her first year she joined the NASUWT, which describes itself on its website as "The Teachers’ Union". She joined mainly, I think, because it was free in the first year but also, I recall, because it offered litigation insurance for teachers. She was very surprised to hear, over our dinner table, that had she been paying union dues some of her money could have been diverted—horror of horrors—to my political party, or indeed to the Labour Party. She did not appreciate that she would have had to opt out of such a donation to prevent that.