HC Deb 13 March 2000 vol 346 cc119-21
Mr. Evans

I beg to move amendment No. 156, in page 27, leave out line 13.

I do not know what Mrs. Brown would think of this amendment.

Mr. Stunell

I can tell the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Evans

I wait with bated breath.

The amendment deals with the provisions in clause 45 about sponsorship. Clause 45(2)(a) to (e) are fairly straightforward and deal with gifts of property and money to a party, subscriptions, fees, gifts in kind and money lent to a party. Those provisions are clearly defined.

However, it is in clause 45(2)(e) that the Government—and not just the Government—are in a stew. Lord Neill has been unclear as to what constitutes sponsorship of a party. Pepper v. Hart was mentioned earlier, and I hope that the Government will take this opportunity to tell us clearly what constitutes sponsorship of a political party.

As I said, the clause contains clear and unclear areas, and it is the grey areas that we should attempt to clarify. The Government have said that, under the Bill, they will not give tax concessions to people making small contributions to political parties, but all the political parties are looking for smaller donations from a wider variety of sources. That is healthier for democracy, so the provisions for sponsorship should be clarified.

I do not believe that the Government intend to stop the Motorsport Industry Association from asking Members to drive motor racing cars for charity. However, hon. Members have to approach businesses in our constituencies to raise funds and, last year, the limit on that was £1,000. Goodness knows what it will be this year. Such approaches do not benefit the political parties as such, but there is a relationship between firms in the constituencies and individual Members of Parliament. I assume that the Government have no intention of preventing such relationships.

The grey area is demonstrated by a letter of 17 January 2000 from the Home Secretary to Lord Neill. The Home Secretary asks for a clearer definition and refers to the fact that my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) is looking for clarification about the treatment of exhibition stands at party conferences. That is an issue of increasing interest to all political parties, because such stands provide a tremendous opportunity for firms to meet party representatives, councillors, Members of Parliament, Ministers and members of Her Majesty's Opposition. I cannot see any problem with that.

The Home Secretary goes on to say in his letter that he is inclined to think that we ought to amend the Bill so as to clarify the matter of exhibition stands. There is also the point about whether the stands are from a permissible source, which could affect exhibitions by the Government of Gibraltar and charities. There would perhaps be no need for shareholder approval for those stands to be made available at party conferences.

The Home Secretary goes on to talk about the possibility that sponsorship from companies in the range of £20,000 to £40,000 a year would not need shareholder approval. Lord Neill is not so keen on that abstention, and says that over several years that could amount to a large sum.

On stands, Lord Neill says to the Home Secretary that this broad sub-set of "donation" would exclude those examples of transactions that you describe in your letter as "plainly of a purely commercial character" and exhibition stands provided at or below a commercial rate. Lord Neill also mentions dinners where people are asked to pay large amounts of money. I do not know about other hon. Members, but when I am asked to pay about £150 to go to a dinner, I do not expect to get £150-worth of food—indeed, some of us would be hard put to eat £150-worth of food—so I expect that some of the money will be a donation to the cause concerned. In the United States it is common to have dinners that cost $1,000, $2,000 or even $5,000 a plate, where diners can listen to the President or other senior politicians. That is an interesting issue that needs to be considered.

What constitutes a commercial rate? That is an important point. If a political party holds a big dinner, and companies buy tables at, perhaps, £500 per head, one aspect of whether that is a commercial rate is whether the contributions need shareholder approval. Brochures containing advertisements may be available at the tables, and the menu card may be sponsored. The dinner itself or individual courses may be subsidised or sponsored by a particular company. What is a commercial rate for such activity? I should like the Minister to address that question.

At some of the dinners that I have been privileged to attend over the past few years, Lord Archer and several other people have been feted for doing auctions. That poses another problem about what is commercial, and it is a serious point. I have been at functions where a painting has been made available or someone has been commissioned to do a painting if a guest bids a sufficient sum. The painting itself may be worth £10,000 and the winning bid may be about £15,000. Does the fact that someone has offered a painting worth £10,000 count as one donation, and the fact that someone has paid £15,000 for it count as another donation, so that donations of £25,000 have been made for the same item?

Mr. Stunell

Will the hon. Gentleman turn his mind to a situation that sometimes faces the Liberal Democrats: the bid is for only £5,000?

Mr. Evans

And that is for the entire political party! I would say that the person had been had. Let us take another example of tickets. I was at a dinner the other day where four tickets for the England-Wales rugby game were on offer. Their face value was about 160, but much more would be bid for such scarce tickets. Indeed, ordinary punters find it difficult to get hold of them.

Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst)

Will my hon. Friend explain how he manages to retain his youthful figure while going to all these dinners?

Mr. Evans

I am sponsored by Whitbread plc—it is declared in the Register of Members' Interests—which allows me regularly to use its gym at County Hall. I am sure that my right hon. Friend would be more than welcome to join me in one or two sessions.

We need clarification of sponsorship in respect of tickets for Wimbledon or other sporting occasions—the value often vastly exceeds the face value—especially when companies have bought them. Indeed, we do not know whether it has paid over the odds in order to get hold of such tickets.

At one Labour party conference, a famous leading supermarket sponsored the ribbons that held passes that Labour representatives and delegates wore around their necks. We do not know how much the supermarket paid for the privilege.

Companies often sponsor forums at conferences. I remember one a couple of years ago that was sponsored by Sky, which had something to do with sport—I believe that it held such a forum at every party conference—at which food was available. Such sponsorship must be taken into account.

Will the Minister say something about a raffle in which somebody buys many tickets? For a valuable first prize, somebody might buy a lot of tickets as a way of making a donation and circumventing some of the sensible rules and regulations proposed. We need clarification. We have tabled the amendment not to prohibit sponsorship but to clarify matters on which Lord Neill has proved inadequate. Such a grey area is enormously difficult; I look forward to the Minister's response.

Mr. Stunell

The Committee discussed this matter on several occasions; it concerns a series of anomalies and paradoxes. There is the question of commercial value, whether scarcity should be taken into account—the auction point—and whether there could be some objective assessment.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Mr. Bruce) and I moved an amendment proposing that the Electoral Commission set guidelines that could be quoted as, say, alibis for valuations submitted by parties—in the absence of the availability of anything else. The Minister did not seem inclined to accept the proposal, but in the light of further expositions of the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans), perhaps he will bear in mind the fact that the Bill does not address significant grey areas.

Some of the grey areas are amusing. For example, what happens if bids at auction are lower than the market value for the prize? That might be unheard of in Conservative circles, but I assure hon. Members that it is not in others. Can we have a discount? Such issues appear trivial, but we are working in the context of quite small voluntary organisations. We are not speaking of high-powered accountants and solicitors, and legal eagles working out all the rules.