Responding to Labour Party leader Ed Miliband’s speech in the House of Commons today on funding for political parties, Natalie Bennett commented:
“While it is heartening to hear the Labour leader calling for serious reform of political parties there are still huge problems that need to be addressed. Mr Miliband is right to identify a political problem with rich individuals or companies having an undue influence on the political process. However the problem is not with the amount of the donation but in whether that donation gives the donor undue political influence over party policy.
“This has clearly been the case under the present government; for example the £25m hedge fund donation given to the Conservative party resulted in a £145m tax break for hedge funds. Lord Browne, the former chief executive of BP and now chairman of Cuadrilla, one of the UK's main shale prospectors, is an adviser to the government. In this year’s budget Chancellor George Osborne offered tax breaks to the shale gas industry.”
Miliband also appeared to call for a ban on second jobs for MPs. Responding to this, Bennett said:
“The Labour leader is right to identify a problem with MPs, in what should be fulltime elected roles, taking on other employment, particularly when this clearly involves pecuniary interests that conflict with their primary role.
“We should not, however, be excluding people who have paid or unpaid roles that they feel unable to drop from becoming MPs. The proposal to have job-share MPs, championed by the Green Party, would deal with this issue – so that everyone from a brain surgeon who wants to maintain their skills, to an adult who wants to continue to provide significant care for an ill parent would be able to fulfil both a political and a personal role within the job-share framework.”
The Green party has long called for political parties to be funded by the state which would take politics out of the hands of big business and the influence of the super-rich.