I am rather glad that I took that Intervention, and learned the mood of the House. I might otherwise have been tempted to move a little further than the precise terms of the order.

The Opposition support the order. We recognise the need to uprate the amount of money that candidates can spend in line with inflation. Nevertheless, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I beg your indulgence so that I may comment on some of the inadequacies of the order. It deals only with expenditure at local level in electioneering.

Nowadays—in contrast to the days, 50 years ago or more, when Parliament first drew up orders such as this—the expenditure incurred by a local candidate pales into insignificance compared with the amount incurred by parties nationally in a General Election campaign. It seems to me a little crazy that we can examine only the expenditure that a candidate can incur at a local level, and cannot consider how much is incurred by his political party at national level.

Hon. Members will make their own judgment on how any political party can best get its general election message over. Some may believe that it is still more effective to tramp around the streets, knock on doors or charm the locals in a club, but others—I include myself in this category—think otherwise. We recognise the importance of those factors, but by-elections are different, in that only a small margin of votes may be at stake, with a large effort concentrated on them. In a general election, that kind of campaigning, which is relatively cheap, is not so effective, and does not influence public opinion in the same way as the bashing of political parties on billboards, direct mailing—which is very expensive—or saturation propaganda in newspaper advertisements.

If we believe that that second group of factors has become more and more important in persuading people in our political system, it strikes me as logical that regulations governing the amount that any political party can spend in an election should also focus on the ability of parties to raise funds for campaigning purposes.

I am told by Library staff that a candidate can spend an average of £8,000. There were 651 candidates at the last general election, which means that the total was £65.2 million. That pales into insignificance compared with the war chest of £40 million which this morning's newspapers tell us the Conservative party will have at its disposal in the election. The House needs to conduct a review of the way that political parties and elections are funded. It is not enough to regulate what is happening locally, although that is important. It is crucial to look beyond that, at how public opinion is influenced and how political parties raise funds to influence public opinion.

The British people would not want rich people similar to Ross Perot in America, Berlusconi in Italy—[Interruption.]—or Sir James Goldsmith, as the Government Whip mutters—because it is not right that those who are phenomenally rich should be able to build up a political party and move into the political spectrum with virtually no support among the people. The vast Majority of people will not agree with that, and that is why they will fully support a review of the regulations.

It is not possible at this time, eight weeks before a general election, to undertake a major review of the matter, but the next Parliament should look not only at how political parties are regulated and how much expenditure they can incur locally, but at national provisions as well. That is the way to ensure long-term democracy, and the British people will expect serious politicians to support it.

Like the Minister, I have trawled my brains on the order. I support it, because the change is necessary. However, it is also necessary for the House to signal a long-term review of the funding of political parties and election campaigns, to make sure that the public and democracy are protected and that the rich cannot just move in and buy political power.