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What price party funding reform?

Now is not a wise time to be bandying around the phrase ‘state funded’. It tends to provoke a lot of angst. And against a backdrop of successive bank bailouts, much of that is justified. Public expenditure is certainly an unpopular concept at the moment, but there remain some causes which the consensus still regards as tax-worthy: education, for example, and the NHS. However, one cause that probably won’t be regarded in the same bracket is political electioneering. That is, the funding of politician’s election campaigns. The ones in which they make those very appealing pledges that can subsequently get lost in the skid marks of a hasty policy U-turn.

However, state contribution towards political party campaigning is exactly what was advocated by a report on Tuesday from the Committee for Standards in Public Life. The flaws in the current system of party funding have been much in evidence recently: from the ‘cash-for-honours’ debacle, to the news that the Conservative party is largely financed by the City. And so the Committee, headed by Chairman Christopher Kelly, argues that significant reform is the only way to avoid another scandal. Kelly states, “All three main parties now depend on large donations from a very small number of individuals or organisations for the funds necessary for their survival”. This situation, he argues “cannot be healthy for democracy”. The report is therefore attempting to encourage a broadening of party support, so they cannot merely rely on wealthy individuals and businesses.

And whilst the notion of state funding is somewhat unpalatable at the moment, the projected figure of £100 million is misleading as it covers the payment over five years. Kelly offers some perspective on the matter by claiming that the annual cost amounts to 50p per elector per year. Or in other words, the cost of a 1st class stamp. The question this debate elicits is: would we be prepared to pay this price for a fairer party funding system?

This question, however, will probably be rendered irrelevant as initial party reactions to the report suggest that the proposed reform will never materialise anyway. A cross-party consensus is now needed for any reform to take effect but such a solution seems increasingly unlikely as the debate has hit a political impasse, stuck in the mire of party self-interest. Perhaps public expenditure is not the only answer, but any meaningful decision will require party concessions that don’t appear to be forthcoming any time soon. The Tory’s rejection of a donation cap was as inevitable as Labour’s “concerns” about altering the trade unions’ contributions. The result is that significant reform to improve our flawed party funding system is somewhere in the distance, far beyond the view of our short-sighted politicians.