As all eyes in Whitehall were fixed on David Cameron’s Brussels summit, ministers are set to quietly publish online a ‘consultation’ on proposals to slash ‘Short Money’ grants by 19% this year and freeze it thereafter until 2020.
George Osborne had unveiled the plan last year, but following a backlash and claims that the cuts would ‘undermine democracy’ a fresh set of options have now been drafted.
Labour MPs, who are furious that the consultation is being published when the Commons is in recess, have recently accused Commons Leader Chris Grayling of wanting a 'one party state' by curbing money earmarked for Westminster policy work.
Under the plans, circulated to all parties and seen by HuffPost UK ahead of publication, instead of a ‘uniform’ reduction in funding, the cuts could be ‘tiered’ to affect smaller parties less than big ones.
And although ministers seem committed to the 19% figure overall, the consultation asks whether the Treasury’s 19% savings from ‘non-protected’ departments is ‘the right benchmark’ for work carried out by research staff in Parliament.
“There may be a case for different benchmark to calculate the savings,” the consultation paper states, though it does also offer the option of even deeper 22% cuts too.
Tory MPs and peers have been warning that slashing funding for the Opposition will come back to haunt the party when they are next out of Government.
The set of proposals seeks to head this off with the promise of inflationary rises being restored after the next election. It also suggests a change to the formula for calculating taxpayer aid to Westminster, basing it on MPs rather than votes, as at present.
“If Short money is for Parliamentary business, it can be argued that opposition parties with more MPs should receive more funding to assist their work in Parliament,” the paper states.
One result could be a net fall in funding for parties like UKIP which was still entitled to a large chunk of money despite having only one MP.
And although smaller parties could get short term protections, the big shift from votes to MPs could ensure the big two parties are insulated from cuts after the next election.
The consultation paper asks if there should be a ‘minimum funding floor’ for opposition parties. It also proposes that inflation rises in Short Money could start again after 2020 “to provide certainty to political parties at the beginning of the next Parliament”.
In another concession, it suggests that rather than starting the cuts this April, one option would be that “savings should commence slightly later” in the second half of this year.
Several parties have warned that they risk having to make redundancies in policy and research staff if the savings kick in at the start of the financial year. Today’s package says parties could have “three months’ space to implement efficiency savings”.
HuffPost revealed earlier this month that David Cameron was set to shift stance after a welter of criticism from smaller parties such as the Democratic Unionist Party, the SDLP, Greens and Plaid Cymru.
Original Article
Source: huffingtonpost.co.uk/
Author: Paul Waugh
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