MPs Warn Of Political Funding 'Scandal'

The Government must take action to clean up party political funding before another "scandal intervenes", MPs have warned.

The MPs called on the coalition to stick to pledges to reform party financing "in order to remove big money from politics".

A 15-month inquiry by the Committee on Standards in Public Life proposed last year that a £10,000 cap on donations be imposed in a bid to end "cash for influence" scandals and corruption allegations.

Under the plans, this funding would partly be paid for by a £23m-a-year taxpayer subsidy.

But the three biggest parties united to rule out asking voters to pay up in the present economic climate - even if the change was delayed until 2015.

The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee concedes that a cross-party solution "will not be easy to achieve" but called on the Government to look again at the proposals.

"Public confidence in politics risks being further undermined if some future scandal intervenes before a solution is in place," its report warns.

Committee chairman Graham Allen said: "Public concern about party political funding continues to undermine confidence in politics and MPs. It is high time this issue was resolved.

"The publication of the report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life provides a golden opportunity for the Government to get this issue back out of the box marked 'too difficult' and make a serious effort to find a fair solution which is acceptable to all parties."