Jamie Stone

Jamie Stone

Liberal Democrat — Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross

Speaking in the House of Commons on 31 March 2025

Debate

Political Donations

Contribution

Thank you, Mrs Harris. I do not want to add much to what I said in my intervention. This is a very dangerous principle. I have people saying to me in the street, “It’s getting like America—you can buy political results, politicians and policies.” This strikes me as fundamentally dangerous. We call ourselves the mother of Parliaments, and we pride ourselves on the way we do democracy in this country. Every time such things are said to me, I feel that another little brick has been taken out of the edifice of what we do. As the Chair of the Petitions Committee, I thank the petitioners for bringing forward the petition, which expresses what an awful lot of people out there think. The very fact that the Committee, which I have the honour of chairing, gets the honour of a Government reply each time we have a petitions debate strikes me as a very good thing indeed. I will leave my comments there. As I said in my intervention, there are more subtle ways of influencing politics in any country than a cheque or cash in the bank. We need to be constantly vigilant.

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