Member

At this point, I want to talk directly to my colleagues on the Labour Benches. I have huge amounts of respect for all of them and the challenges we face on this. I go back to our manifesto, which did not specify foreign donations; it recognised that all donations were having a distorting effect and therefore needed to be reviewed. That is why we should welcome the fact that the Bill offers us a vehicle and formats for doing that. I know that there are colleagues who are implacably opposed—they will not even speak to me about these issues at all. I hope that is not because they are thinking that when their career in Westminster ends, the comfortable world of an expense account and lobbying their mates awaits. There are also those who are worried—understandably so, because in the past this conversation has come up—that such a cap would open a Pandora’s box on trade union funding, which is one of the cleanest ways we know to fund our politics. It is a way of funding that I will always defend and speak up for.