A report commissioned by the Committee on Standards in Public Life has suggested the watchdog should set aside its proposals to overhaul the funding of political parties and concentrate on more achievable goals.
Earlier this year, the committee commissioned Michael Pinto-Duschinsky to update his 2011 paper on British political party expenditure to take account of the coalition government years – during which time the CSPL sought to end “big donor culture” to parties and MPs.
The committee’s proposals included an annual donor cap of £10,000 a year, and the provision of £23m in state funding to eligible political parties.
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But in a paper published on the same day as the CSPL’s annual report, Pinto-Duschinsky recommends that the watchdog accept that there is no political consensus on the introduction of large-scale public funding for political parties and “avoids the ‘grand vision’ of reform”.
Pinto-Duschinsky, who is president of the research committee on political finance and political corruption at the International Political Science Association, said lesser reform may have more chance of gaining cross-party support.
He said “a limited package of reforms designed to limit large donations and to encourage small ones” could be viable, and that the committee could also focus more on how effectively the existing political finance laws were enforced.
Writing in the CSPL’s annual report, chairman Lord Paul Bew voiced his personal exasperation with the impasse on funding reform, but insisted the committee would continue to seek change.
“The issue of party funding cannot be resolved without political will,” he said.
“The committee believes it is long overdue for the main political parties to show leadership, put aside partisan positions and re-convene talks to reach cross-party agreement on possible reforms.
“Given the destructive nature of this issue for politics in the UK, I believe it is necessary to continue to press for reform.”
Pinto-Duschinsky’s research gave a breakdown of known income of the UK’s major political parties between 2010 and 2014. It cited figures of £153.8m for the Conservative Party; £173.5m for the Labour Party; £39.6m for the Liberal Democrats; £18.2m for the Scottish National Party; and £12.7m for UKIP.
The research identified more than 10 donations to the Conservative Party during the last parliament that came from individuals and were in excess of £1m. The largest amounted to £4.5m from Lord Michael Farmer, Conservative Party co-treasurer. Also noted was a donation of £2.9m made to the party by JCB Research.
According to Pinto-Duschinsky's research, the Labour Party received just one donation worth more than £1m from an individual during the last parliament, while no identified company donation exceeded £1m. Neverheless, the party received £60m from trade unions over the course of the parliament. The largest individual contribution was listed as £18m from Unite.
The Liberal Democrats were listed as having received one individual donation above £1m, but three such donations from companies, the highest of which was £1.8m from charity the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
Four individual donations to the SNP in excess of £1m were identified, the largest of which were contributions worth just over £4m from EuroMillions lottery winners Christine and Colin Weir.
No donations worth £1m or more to UKIP were listed as having been made by individuals, however one corporate donation of £1.3m from property developer Paul Sykes’ Highstone Group was recorded.