Schedule 3
Political Parties and Elections Bill
1:15 pm
Jonathan Djanogly (Shadow Minister, Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform; Huntingdon, Conservative)
We are keen to avoid imposing further administrative burdens on donors or party officials without a pressing need to do so. I note that a similar amendment, which did not propose the same threshold, was tabled but not selected. Although the commission might support additional transparency, which everyone probably supports, it is against the amendment, and it is worth putting that on the record. It states that
“the Commission does not support amendments 7 and 149 which seek to introduce new reporting requirements for donations from unincorporated associations. The Commission sees merit in increased transparency in this area, but any change to the regulatory regime should balance that against the additional administrative burdens on regulated entities and on donors. We do not think these amendments strike the right balance, since they impose sweeping new reporting requirements, going beyond those applying to e.g. registered companies or trade unions where the identities of those controlling the organisation are already in the public domain so do not need to be listed in the donation report.
The amendments also require details about donors to an association for any purpose . . . not just those whose donations are political in nature. Much of this information may be irrelevant and potentially misleading, since it is unlikely that all the members of and donors to the organisation will have participated to the decision to make any given donation. It may be helpful to introduce greater transparency about of those who provide substantial donations to unincorporated associations which fund political parties, but the workability of any new requirements in this area, and the administrative burden associated with them, would need careful thought.”
We agree with those points.