Party Funding

Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Defence – in the House of Commons at 3:39 pm on 26 March 2012.

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Photo of Francis Maude Francis Maude The Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office 3:39, 26 March 2012

I agree that it is essential that there should be a cap on donations, and we agreed in the previous discussions that an appropriate level—[Interruption.] Actually, all three parties agreed that the appropriate level was £50,000. There is room for discussion about that, which is fine. Sir Christopher Kelly also said, absolutely unequivocally, that the other side of the coin of a cap on donations was an increase in state funding, and I doubt whether anyone in the House wishes to go out to hard-pressed taxpayers at the moment and claim that the first call on their funds should be additional funding for political parties.