Fourth Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation
Monday 14 June 1999
[Mr. Bowen Wells in the Chair]
Draft Scottish Parliament (Assistance for Registered Political Parties) Order 1999
4.30 pm
The Advocate General for Scotland (Dr. Lynda Clark): I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Scottish Parliament (Assistance for Registered Political Parties) Order 1999.
The order was laid before Parliament by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland on 26 May. It provides for the payment of more than one third of a million pounds to political parties in the Scottish Parliament during the next nine months. In moving the order, I am aware that it has already been the subject of some controversy. No doubt we shall have a lively debate on it, although I hope that it will be short. To help inform that debate, I shall briefly explain the order's contents and background.
Recommendation 44 of the Neill committee's fifth report, which was published in October 1998, stated that
``The political parties within the Scottish Parliament . . . should consider making provision for their financial support from the available parliamentary . . . funds for . . . the better performance of their parliamentary . . . functions.''
The Committee will recall that, because the Scotland Bill received Royal Assent in early November, the Government had very little time to react to the Neill committee report. However, the Government did react by tabling an amendment that became section 97 of the Scotland Act. That amendment was welcomed on all sides and ensured that the power to support the parties represented in the Scottish Parliament would exist from the start of the Parliament's life. The order before us is made under powers conferred by section 97.
Section 97 of the Scotland Act fulfilled a short-term need, but the Government have always recognised that more fundamental change is necessary to meet the Neill committee's recommendation that the Scottish Parliament should be able to take such decisions itself. The Committee will doubtless recall that, under the Scotland Act, the funding of political parties is a reserved matter. Therefore, to fulfil the Neill committee's recommendation, we must give the Scottish Parliament legislative competence over that issue.
That is exactly what the Government want to do. Tomorrow, we hope to confer the necessary legislative competence on the Scottish Parliament and widen its powers by amending the Scotland Act through the tabling of a separate order under section 30(2) of the Act. That order will be considered by the Fifth Standing Committee tomorrow morning. If the order is approved, from 1 July the Scottish Parliament will be able to formulate and introduce its own scheme by using its own primary legislation powers.
Until the Scottish Parliament chooses to draw up its own scheme and pass the necessary Act, the order will provide an initial scheme of support. It will ensure that the parties in the Scottish Parliament can obtain substantial funding and perform their parliamentary duties from the moment that the Scottish Parliament and the Executive assume full powers on 1 July.
The order's structure provides for the Scottish parliamentary corporate body to make payments to qualifying political parties that will assist Members of the Scottish Parliament who are connected with such parties to perform their parliamentary duties. The cost of the scheme will be met from the Scottish Parliament's budget.
Article 1(2) defines a ``qualifying party'' as
``a registered political party with which any member of the Parliament is connected.''
Article 1(3) broadly defines a Member to be connected with a party if he or she was a candidate of that party at the time of an election. The scope of the provision includes a Member elected at a general election or a by-election, or taken from a party list to fill a mid-term vacancy for a regional seat.
Under article 2(1), the responsibility for making payments is vested in the Scottish parliamentary corporate body. From 1 July 1999, it will make payments to the parties for expenses incurred by them in the assitance of their Members' performance of their parliamentary duties. Article 2(2) provides that the maximum sum payable to any party in one period will be a relevant sum multiplied by the number of that party's Members of Parliament. Article 2(3) deals with the first, shortened, year of the Parliament, and provides that the maximum sum payable to a party between 1 July 1999 and 31 March 2000 will be £5,000 for each Member. It should be remembered that that sum covers a nine-month period.
Articles 2(4) to 2(7) provide that, in future years, the relevant sum for each Member will be £5,000, subject to an annual increase in line with the retail price index. The Scottish Parliament may change the arrangements for the period after 1 July 1999.
Article 3 deals with parties represented in the Scottish Executive. Under section 97(2) of the Scotland Act 1998, parties in government will receive no share of the support, except in so far as is provided for under section 97(3). The article specifies the circumstances in which such parties will not be prevented from receiving a share of the support. Article 3(2) specifies that a party may receive support under the order, provided that its Members hold no more than one-fifth of the total number of Scottish Executive and junior ministerial posts. Article 3(3) further provides that Members of such a party who hold posts in the Executive at the beginning of any period—usually the previous April—will be disregarded when the maximum amount that the party may claim in that period is calculated.
Sir Teddy Taylor (Rochford and Southend, East): Is the Minister saying that the Labour party will get nothing because its Members form the Executive, but that Members of the Liberal Democrat party will get money, even though they are part of the Administration? Is that not using public money to bribe a party to keep Labour in the Administration? That seems terrible, especially as it is against the principles of the Short money scheme, which was intended as an aid to Opposition parties.
Dr. Clark: I thank the hon. Member for his intervention, but hope that he will bear in mind that we are considering new arrangements, which follow from the Neill committee report. I accept that the arrangements concerning Short money are different, but that does not matter. The principle of these arrangements has already been approved—it is covered by section 97 of the Scotland Act. The Neill committee considered that arrangements for the Scottish Parliament could be different. I direct the hon. Member's attention to paragraph 9.30 of that committee's report.
Sir Teddy Taylor: Read it out.
Dr. Clark: I will. It says:
``The Committe is aware of the differences which will exist between the forms that the devolved bodies take. It is also aware that the procedures of the UK Parliament—within which Short money operates—may well not be directly appropriate to them, especially the Northern Ireland Assembly, which is designed to have an Executive Committee drawn from all the parties in the Assembly. In all three bodies''—
including, of course, the Scottish Parliament with its Executive—
``the political parties may well have functions related to the transaction of business, whether or not some of their members are part of the Executive. The considerations that led us not to favour the extension of Short money to Government backbenchers at Westminster may well not apply therefore. We would, on these grounds, support some sort of funding to political parties within the Scottish Parliament and the two Assemblies for the purpose of the better performance of their parliamentary or assembly functions.''
What follows is critical:
``It may be that the funding should be made available to all the parties, not just the minitority parites; it may also be that the funding should be made available to all the party groups as such, and not just spokesmen and spokeswomen. The detailed formulation must, we think, be a matter for the political parties within the individual assemblies.''
It is fair to say that during discussion in the Neill committee and on section 97 of the Scotland Act, it was envisaged that the arrangements in the Scottish Parliament would be different from those at Westminster, for obvious reasons. It was not considered necessary or appropriate in the Scottish context to exclude some funding for parties such as the Liberal Democrats with a small number of Ministers on the Executive.
Mr. Alasdair Morgan (Galloway and Upper Nithsdale): I can accept what the hon. and learned Lady is saying—that it is for the Scottish Parliament and the political parties there to come to an arrangement concerning their own Short money. But surely it is logical that if there is to be an interim arrangement, it should continue with something similar to the existing Short money arrangements at Westminster. Why was it necessary to dream up a new scheme with a limited life, which the Minister admits is an interim measure?
Dr. Lynda Clark: I am surprised—or perhaps disappointed—at the hon. Gentleman's position. I thought that his party wanted a different arrangement. The Scottish Parliament is a different arrangement with a different voting system and more representatives per head of the population than at Westminster. As a result, the hon. Gentleman's party has greater representation in the Scottish Parliament than at Westminster.
Mr. Douglas Alexander (Paisley, South): Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that the essence of devolution is diversity and that the Short money would be an inadequate model to follow, even for an interim period, because the establishment of a coalition of the new politics and new institution has created completely different circumstances from those encountered by a single Executive at Westminster?
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