Markus Campbell-Savours

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell) for leading the debate. The Labour manifesto pledged to “protect democracy by strengthening the rules around donations to political parties.” I am pleased that these important proposals are being developed. Both today’s debate and the 2021 recommendations of the Committee on Standards in Public Life focus on foreign money entering the UK via companies and unincorporated associations, but I urge the Government, when they develop their proposals, to go further than that. In 2009, Lord Campbell-Savours of Allerdale, who also happens to be my father, was involved in the tortuous debates in the other place before the passing of the Political Parties and Elections Act 2009. He and other Members worked to secure an amendment to the Government’s proposals. That amendment meant that individuals giving or loaning more than £7,500 to a political party must be resident or ordinarily resident and domiciled in the UK for the tax year in which the relevant donation or loan is made. The Bill and the amendment were later given Royal Assent, but that clause, as with many other provisions of primary legislation, was subject to the development of commencement regulations. At the time, the Minister of State envisaged that secondary legislation would be completed not long after the summer of 2010. A general election interrupted that process. However, primary legislation is still in place, ready to be enacted—a quick win, one might say. As has been said, the Conservatives enormously expanded the number of foreign residents eligible to donate to political parties in our country by removing the 15-year limit on British citizens overseas being able to vote and donate to a political party. Now, up to 3.5 million overseas residents can influence elections. I am going to take on the baton handed to me by my father and his colleagues in the other place, some of whom are no longer with us, and urge the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Electoral Commission to take on the task of drafting the secondary legislation required to ensure that overseas residents who do not pay tax in this country are no longer allowed to influence the outcomes of elections with their money.