Schedule 3
Political Parties and Elections Bill
Public Bill Committees, 20 November 2008, 1:15 pm
Jonathan Djanogly (Shadow Minister, Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform; Huntingdon, Conservative)
I am not sure whether it is for me to judge, and as it is not part of the Bill, it is not a topic on which I have done a huge amount of preparation. However, we believe that proxy donations and intentionally using an unincorporated association as an agent are already covered by PPERA. That threatens to create large volumes of red tape for the voluntary sector, which could be discouraging for donations to voluntary organisations and, in turn, to political parties. We also have general concerns about the focus on transparency issues for only one small donor sector. There are other donor sectors, not least the trade unions, that should be looked at in the context of the whole. We do not think that the focus should be on individual sectors, but we would be prepared to examine the issue in the round.