Blears: Parties have got to be paid for

Hazel Blears has voiced her backing for increased state funding for political parties.

In an interview with ePolitix.com, the Labour Party chairman said the public could be persuaded to give more of its taxes towards policy and candidate development.

However she said voters may resist giving parties a free rein to spend public money on overt "partisan campaigning".

Blears is leading Labour's response to former senior civil servant Sir Hayden Phillips' independent review of party funding, which was set up in the wake of the 'cash for peerages' row.

With state funding one of the issues the review is considering, Labour is currently consulting members on what stance to take.

Support

The Labour chairman, who doubles as a cabinet minister, gave her personal backing to "increased state support".

"We have got state support now - Short funding, Cranborne moneys and all of that, there is a policy development grant which I think is only £2m at the moment, shared between all of the parties – and I think the public have an interest in good governance," she told ePolitix.com.

"That means that parties have got to be paid for. I certainly think there is a case for having good policy development.

"Certainly for training good quality candidates at every level of your parties, because the public have an interest in people who know what they are doing.

"There are a range of issues on which the public would be willing to support an enhanced democracy.

"Whether or not they are prepared to support general partisan campaigning I think is another matter."

Spending

Blears also said the review must consider spending caps on campaigning that apply outside of official election periods.

"I think most people want to see an end to the vastly escalated sums that people spend on elections," she said.

"I am not convinced that spending £5m on billboards is necessarily a good use of money. The evidence is that it doesn't make that much difference to how people vote.

"Having caps on spending at local and national level, all year round and every year, I think is important.

"I don't think it is fair that people can put a massive amount of money into particular constituencies, as the Tories did at the last election, and then get double the swing because they have been able to throw money in that way."

Donations

However she resisted Conservative calls for a cap on individual donations to apply to Labour's trade union funding.

"If you look at affiliations from trade unions, where the bulk of our money comes from, those are not donations," she argued.

"Those are basically a collective membership fee. If you look at that from the individual member’s point of view, it is probably 10 pence per person per week."

"It is pretty transparent now and very highly regulated," she added.

"People have to vote in a ballot to have a political fund. They then have to say that they want to pay it when they sign up, they can opt out of it."