Lord Mott (Con)

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, for securing this important debate. I will be positive. Legitimacy and transparency must be at the heart of political-party finance. I share the concerns about hostile foreign states trying to exert influence in this way, but these concerns must not lead us down the road of substantially increased public funding of political parties. Having to attract donations, big and small, is part of a competitive electoral landscape and one of the ways in which parties are challenged to remain relevant. As updates to the law are made, we need to ensure that they are compatible with new technology. I disagree slightly with my noble friend Lord Leigh. We need safeguards around things such as crypto donations, but the system should work to facilitate them in a legitimate manner, not try to prevent them. We are missing an important question in this debate. We should be asking: how do we make it more attractive for people to become donors to political parties? Legitimate UK voters and businesses donating to a political party is not a shameful act—far from it. In fact, it should be celebrated as a positive way for people to participate in political life, a fundamental enabler of our democratic system and an important way in which we can exercise our democratic rights. To support this view, we should look to provide tax relief on political donations in a similar way to what we already do for charitable donations. This would not only make it more attractive for people to donate but send a clear signal that legitimately made and transparently declared donations are of benefit to our democracy and that political parties are essential institutions worthy of support, which must be led by people, not the state. In designing such a system, I recognise that there may be a need for a limit to the amount of tax relief on offer, but I do not think such relief needs to go hand in hand with a cap on donations. For example, as the noble Lord, Lord Watson, mentioned, we should look to Germany, where there is no limit on how much someone can donate, but the first €3,300 attracts tax relief. Will the Minister commit to looking seriously at such a proposal as part of any update to the law on political donations?