§ Mr. Mike O'BrienI beg to move amendment No. 16, in page 35, line 14, at end insert—
§ '(10A) However, for the purposes of subsections (3) to (7) in their application in relation to the central organisation and any year by virtue of subsection (10), any donation—
- (a) which is accepted from a permissible donor by any of the accounting units during that year, but
- (b) which is not required to be recorded under subsection (4) or (6) (as they apply by virtue of subsection (10)) as a donation accepted by the accounting unit.
§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord)With this, it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments Nos. 94, 95 and 17 to 21.
§ Mr. O'BrienLast summer's White Paper said that a disclosable donation should include a series of donations, which together total £5,000 or more, from a single source, made either to the central party organisation or to a number of accounting units, or to both, within the same year. Clause 55 as it stands does not meet that objective; amendment No. 16 will remedy the deficiency.
Amendments Nos. 94 and 95 make consequential amendments to schedule 5, which details the information that a party must submit to the Electoral Commission in its donation reports. Where the new aggregation rule applies, a party will declare the donations as if they had been accepted by the central organisation of the party. That will avoid the bureaucracy of having to record in a donation report each and every accounting unit to which a donor has made his or her donations.
Amendments Nos. 18 to 21 are essentially technical amendments to clause 59. The clause sets out the form of the declaration that a registered treasurer must make when submitting a quarterly or weekly donation report to the Electoral Commission. Subsection (2) is defective as it stands, in that the terms of the declaration do not fit the case of a treasurer making a nil return—that is, a return stating that there were no recordable donations in the period concerned. Amendment No. 21 therefore introduces a new subsection (2A), which sets out the form of the declaration to be returned in such circumstances.
Amendments Nos. 18 to 20 are paving amendments for amendment 21. Amendment No. 17 is a drafting amendment. The substance of clause 58(8) is already covered in clause 57(9), so the former provision is unnecessary.
§ Mr. WalterThe amendments reflect the spirit of the Standing Committee, where a number of proposals were made and a number of flaws in the Bill identified. The substance of the amendments does not concern me 133 greatly; many are consequential and drafting amendments. However, I was somewhat surprised by amendment No. 94, which inserts "(i)" and by amendment No. 95, which inserts a provision beginning with "(ii)". I thought that something was slightly odd, because paragraph 4 of schedule 5 appears to contain two sub-paragraphs (a). The Minister might also like to consider that as a drafting amendment at a later stage. Otherwise, we are relatively content with the amendments.
§ Mr. Mike O'BrienI will certainly consider that.
§ Amendment agreed to.