Political Parties

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 6:30 pm on 5 May 2004.

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Photo of Lord Shutt of Greetland Lord Shutt of Greetland Shadow Minister, Northern Ireland Affairs, Deputy Chief Whip 6:30, 5 May 2004

My Lords, I too thank the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, for initiating this debate today, calling attention to the role played by political parties in public life. It is an important, but neglected, issue. I thank him for his balanced contribution. I am particularly pleased at his reference to proportional representation, and I forgive him his one-minute party political broadcast.

There have been attempts to define a political party. The major element of a political party is its generalist nature, rather than being a single-issue pressure group. I have written down, "a loose grouping of men and women, nationally, regionally and locally based, with similar values and ethos, leading to principles, and then that is followed by policies". It is interesting that it is national, regional and local. Indeed, the main political parties have been regionally based and had regional organisations long before thoughts of devolution.

I perhaps ought to declare an interest, as a Liberal Democrat and a former Liberal, having had involvement politically at national, regional and local level. I am also a director of the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust Ltd, and a trustee of the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, chairing its democracy committee. Those two organisations make grants in the general area of democracy.

To be effective, political parties need members. The numbers of those members have been going down hill fast for a long time. There is almost a secret at the level of decline. People do not want to own up that their party does not have quite as many members as they would like people to think it had. Members are needed; they are needed to be candidates. We are a few days away from a nomination day, when in metropolitan areas, because of the all-out nature of elections, political parties that want to be vibrant must fight all the seats, with the maximum number of candidates. That means that there is a bit of scratching in terms of those who are persuaded that perhaps it would be a wonderful thing if their name were to be on the ballot paper.

Activists are also needed. In some work done by the Joseph Rowntree trusts, on local government elections in Calderdale, Burnley and Oldham, it is interesting that the people are saying that they want to see people on doorsteps, and they want to be able to speak to representatives of those political parties. There is a decline in the numbers who are prepared to do that work and be the foot soldiers. There is a disinclination to join political parties. There is a perception that nice people do not do it.

Yet, these political parties do change. If you look at the major parties, the Conservative Party was a one-nation party, and it changed itself into a rather different sort of party; the Labour Party was the old Labour Party, and has become new Labour; the Liberal Party and the SDP merged to become the Liberal Democrats. We have seen a resurgence in the national parties in Scotland and Wales. We have seen new entrants, and they—the Greens, the UKIP, the BNP—have a tendency to be on certain issues only. Particularly with the latter, it is worth making the point that if gaps are made, someone will fill them.

It is interesting that people compare the numbers involved in political parties with the numbers who join the RSPB and the National Trust. I do not know how active members are in those organisations, or whether they like the picture books that may come along. We need a climate where it is thought that membership of a political party is a high calling. It is a great shame, although I see an array of Bishops in front of me, that we do not have a Bishop or a Cross-Bencher taking part in this debate. Party politics is too important to leave to the politicos. Unless we are moving to a point where there is a post-political party politics en route, political parties are essential in terms of elected office, policy, campaigning, and they need ideas, people and money.

In the times that we are living in, it seems that there is a choice of where the money comes from. It would be interesting to put the question to the British people of whether they want their politics funded by on the one hand, rich people, or on the other hand, the state. Which answer would they come up with? In my book, they would say "neither". They would say, "Oh no, we would sooner it be ordinary folk, ordinary volunteers". Of course, they are not there in numbers and the resources that they are able to bring in voluntary subscriptions are not sufficient to the needs of a political party. We ought to be moving to a time when membership is linked to money, and there is a system of funding whereby there could be a tax rebate or a grant, provided that a subscription is paid in the first place to that political party. The incentive of getting more money and more members may well be a route to more activists and more people. Such a scheme would work only if there was a local return in the case of those moneys; an incentive to local people, and not a sense that any subscriptions, rebate or tax deduction would go to a headquarters in London.

Perhaps I have spent far too long on the present position, but I did so because it is serious. Political parties are in a state of serious decline. The question here is the role that they play in public life. I often have carried a receipt book about for my political party and signed up people as members from time to time. It should not be a liability to be a member. It has not been unusual for me to suggest that someone had the right attitude and perhaps ought to be a member of the political party of my choice, and for them to say, "Well, I must be very careful, I could not really commit myself".

Political parties are important in the role of our proceedings. We presently have state funding, in terms of that policy money. We have an involvement in terms of the list systems for elections, which, if the numbers in the parties are so reduced, means that very important decisions are in the hands of a tiny group of people. Political parties are too important to be seen only as a place for the deviant or the anorak.