Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)

I begin by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Macintosh of Eastwood, on his excellent maiden speech. To reassure him, I continue to get lost after four years, and I think most Members of this House do. The doorkeepers in the other place are very keen to tell us where to go when we are in the wrong place at the wrong time. I declare an interest: I spent far too much of my adult life raising money for the Conservative Party. I do a lot less of it now, so I do not think I am conflicted. I found I ran out of friends—people were crossing the road to avoid me when I asked them for cash. But when I look at the Bill, I am afraid I see very little to celebrate. At best, it is performative politics. At worst, I am afraid, and I say this with sensitivity for some of the excellent speeches we have heard from the Benches opposite, it is old-fashioned, grubby, party-political gerrymandering. Giving 16 year-olds the vote is a fantastic idea but, as my noble friend Lady May said, this has been done, as far as I can see, for political reasons. After talking to my children, who will be given the vote for the first time, as people aged under 18, probably at the next election, I assure noble Lords that this will probably—almost certainly—backfire. As my noble friend said in her introduction, we won every election after the franchise was extended, and I am sure we will do the same again. I am delighted that we are seeing a more rational approach to civil penalties when it comes to people trying to raise money through the local village tombola, or whatever it is. This is proportionate, and I congratulate the Electoral Commission on the work it has done there. However, in other areas, such as social media, I think we are being left far behind. Another of my noble friends rightly raised the issue that AI will allow videos to be created containing deepfakes which will confuse the electorate significantly. There is really nothing in the Bill to cover that. There is a lot of complicated legislation being proposed around watermarks. As a politician who posts on social media, whether you like it or not—noble Lords are welcome to follow me @LordJohnson_—I know how complicated it can be. Will the Minister address this in a bit more detail? If I repost something, will I have to put a watermark on? Who will be responsible for putting their own watermark on? How will we make sure that we do not limit the free speech of individuals? I do, however, draw attention and caution to the extra checks that are proposed, and what I think is quite a complex and overbearing regime when it comes to corporate and personal donations. The fact is that we are all very fearful, as treasurers of any political party, about raising money in an inappropriate fashion. It denigrates politics and it reduces the reputation of the Conservative Party if we get the wrong type of donor in the wrong way, and we go to great lengths to make sure that we follow the law. All these laws are already in place. I think that what this does, and I am worried that there is an ulterior motive, is make it harder for the Conservative Party and other parties to raise money legitimately from their existing traditional donor base. As has been raised many times in the debate already, trying to be too cute with electoral law, with party fundraising or other systems always backfires, and I am concerned that this talk about donor caps will add fuel to a potential future Government playing even more dirty politics with electoral reform. There must be a consensus that we should all do the right thing, and it behoves this Government to make sure that they do. I am slightly surprised that no one has mentioned in enough detail the unions, because the biggest donor in British history is not some crypto billionaire living in Thailand, it is Unite the Union, which has, so far, since 2001, given £52 million to the Labour Party. It appears that the Government do not mind large donations; they just do not like large donations to insurgent parties that challenge their worldview. Also, in the workers’ rights legislation, which I read with interest ahead of this debate, if you are a member of a union, you now have to opt out of giving to a political party; you used to have to opt in. But it is not as simple as that. You cannot opt out whenever you like—you can opt out only on 1 January. It is the most bizarre, byzantine system to ensure that people who are members of unions, in effect, must donate to the union. Do any noble Lords know how frequently the union must remind this kind donor that they are giving to the Labour Party? The Prime Minister’s first act was to complain about Netflix and other streaming media having to remind subscribers every six months. In this legislation, it is not one year; it is not five years; it is 10 years that the union has to remind the poor sucker that they are giving money to the Labour Party year after year. Will the Minister look at that, considering it is the Prime Minister’s most important priority? My last point, which has been raised before, is that there is not enough about voter fraud. In fact, we are going to make it worse. We are switching photo ID for an old credit card. There is nothing on family voting. There is nothing on sectarian voting, which is a terrifying cancer in our democracy. There is nothing on the issue of Commonwealth voters in this country. When we talk about overseas voters, we should also address that. In my view, there is nothing to address the appalling violence that our candidates and representatives face. This violence culminated in the tragic bludgeoning to death of an 80 year-old woman over the summer, simply because she was a member of a legitimate political party. I hope the Government will answer those questions in their response.