by René Lavanchy
LABOUR MPs were forced to defend the trade union link this week as Justice Secretary Jack Straw took legislation on political party funding through Parliament.
Tory shadow Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude accused unnamed unions of paying dishonestly inflated affiliation fees and said it was “ridiculous” to suggest that union members were making individual donations to the party.
But Labour MPs responded that funding was audited and that unions play a democratic role in the policy making process. The bill before Parliament does not regulate union donations.
Mr Maude said that the idea that trade union affiliations represented individual donations had been “blown out of the water” during cross-party discussions, which broke down last year.
He added: “Some trade unions casually register not just that 100 per cent of their members are making this ‘voluntary individual donation’, but in some cases more… The idea that this is an individual donation or subscription is ridiculous.” He complained that Labour had not been willing to discuss making unions include an option to opt out of the political fund in their membership forms.
Labour MP Gavin Strang said: “I feel that the fundamental issue is the Conservative party’s unwillingness to make a distinction between a donation from a trade union and an affiliation fee.
“The Labour Party is a federal party. The trade unions… participate in our affairs and help to make our policies. That is very different from what happens in the other parties.”
Current legislation does not require unions to include an opt-out clause on their forms, and not all unions do. A spokesperson for Unite, Labour’s biggest union donor, said that all their application forms include an opt-out.
The Government’s bill seeks to restrict the channeling of large amounts of money into seats, a practice associated with Tory donor Lord Ashcroft, by reintroducing the “trigger” rule which limits spending from the point of a party announcing a candidate in a given seat.
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