22OCT

Peers table 160 changes to voting Bill

3 min read

16:26UTC

The House of Lords will take the elections Bill through six committee sittings from 2 November, with 160 amendments down and none from a minister.

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PoliticsAssessed

Key takeaway

Peers have tabled 160 amendments, and none carries a minister's name.

The House of Lords will take the Representation of the People Bill through committee stage in six sittings: 2, 4, 24 and 30 November and 9 and 14 December⁠¹. The amendment list has grown from 73 after Second Reading to 160. Conservative peers lead with 66, Liberal Democrats have 48, non-affiliated peers 23, crossbenchers 12, Labour backbenchers 10 and the bishops one. No amendment stands in a minister's name, so the Government backs none of the four amendments, tabled by 5 October, that would cap how much one donor may give.

Among the 160, several test who may give rather than how much. Lord Blunkett's amendment would bar anyone convicted of a financial crime, in the UK or abroad, if the sentence was a fine, prison or a suspended term in the last ten years⁠². It would reach a donor on a UK electoral register with a foreign conviction.

Baroness Hayter and Lord Pack, the Liberal Democrat peer who keeps the councillor tracker, would bar donors who use the foreign income and gains regime. Pack and Lord Wallace of Saltaire would also force disclosure of past cryptoasset gifts, and Baroness Finn proposes a foreign-citizen test.

Until now the donor fight was about size: the Commons capped only gifts from overseas electors, and the day after it voted, the register showed £4m given in cash, which the cryptoasset ban does not reach. None of the amendments names a donor. Every one is an opposition or backbench proposal, and ministers can resist them all at committee. Labour peers including Blunkett and Neil Kinnock have also tabled compulsory voting and a "None of the above" ballot option.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Laws in Britain must pass both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The Representation of the People Bill changes election rules, including letting 16- and 17-year-olds vote. The Commons has already passed it. Now the Lords, the unelected second chamber, will go through it clause by clause at what is called committee stage. Members of the Lords, known as peers, can propose changes, called amendments. Many of the 160 proposed changes concern who may give money to political parties. The Government has not proposed any changes of its own.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

The regime was built to stop foreign money, not bad money. The Committee on Standards in Public Life, chaired by Lord Neill, designed it in its October 1998 report, and permissibility has rested on residence and registration ever since.

Lords procedure gives backbenchers room. The chair does not select amendments, and there is no programme motion or guillotine, so any peer's proposal can be moved and debated at committee. That openness explains why the list more than doubled once dates were set.

The Government has not sought to shape the debate with its own text. With no ministerial amendment tabled, every change on the list comes from opposition or backbench peers.

What could happen next?

Consequence
Committee running to 14 December leaves report stage and third reading for 2027, putting Royal Assent into the new year.
Medium term · Assessed
Risk
If peers carry donor tests the Government opposes, the Bill would shuttle between the two Houses, adding weeks to its passage.
Medium term · Suggested
Precedent
A conduct-based donor bar, if enacted, would be the first test in UK party finance law that looks at a donor's record rather than residence or registration.
Long term · Suggested

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources

Primary parallel: The Political Parties and Elections Act 2009 added a test requiring large donors to be resident in the UK for tax purposes. Ministers never brought those sections into force, so the test passed into law and never applied to a single donation.

Counter-parallel: The Elections Act 2022 went the other way. It scrapped the 15-year limit on overseas electors, which widened the pool of permissible donors to British citizens abroad however long they had lived away.

Consensus view: The donor rules the Electoral Commission enforces under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 test a giver's status, not conduct: an individual is permissible if on a UK electoral register, a company if registered and trading in the UK. Lord Blunkett's amendment would add the first conduct test, and the checking burden would fall on party treasurers, who already confirm register entries before banking a gift.

Counter-view: The Electoral Commission is still reviewing the wider campaign finance framework, with recommendations due in July 2027. Peers adding new donor tests now are legislating ahead of the regulator's own evidence on how the whole system fits together.

Key tension: How a party treasurer could verify a foreign financial-crime conviction, when no shared register of overseas convictions exists for that purpose.

Sources:UK Parliament·UK Parliament

Mentions:House of Lords →Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town →Lord Wallace of Saltaire →Baroness Finn →Conservative Party →Liberal Democrats →House of Commons →Elections Act 2022 →Electoral Commission →Labour Party →Mark Pack →Representation of the People Bill →Lord Blunkett →Committee on Standards in Public Life →Neil Kinnock →

First Reported In

Update #19 · ITV footage drives Reform councillors out

UK Parliament· 22 Oct 2026

Read original →

Causes and effects

Caused by

Peers table four caps on party donors

Second Reading sent the Bill to committee with 73 amendments then tabled.

Occurred 14 Sept 2026

Read story →

Delo's £4m arrived as cash, not crypto

Cash gifts outside the cryptoasset ban framed the donor debate peers took up.

Occurred 3 Sept 2026

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This Event

Peers table 160 changes to voting Bill

Peers have moved the donor fight from how much one person may give to who may give at all.

Led to

MHCLG seeks £2.8m for votes at 16

The committee timetable to 14 December sits before the Government's Spring 2027 expectation.

Occurred 22 Oct 2026

Read story →

Different Perspectives

Scottish National Party / John Swinney

Swinney told the SNP conference in Aberdeen on 17 October that Scotland is ready for independence, but set no referendum date, bill or Section 30 request. He launched a new campaign instead and extended the £2 bus fare cap to the north east from April 2027.

Liberal Democrats / Ed Davey

Davey ruled out a national partnership with the Greens on 19 October after their Brighton conference passed a "Zionism is racism" motion, and wrote to two Jewish community bodies. He left untouched the councils the two parties already run together.

Reform UK / Richard Tice

Tice alleged ITV's reporter used false details to get a press-office job and said ITV had "likely broken the law", telling members not to speak to it until it apologises. Reform also opened investigations into members, with some suspensions, so the party is contesting the broadcaster and disciplining councillors at once.

Rhun ap Iorwerth / Welsh Government (Plaid Cymru)

Ap Iorwerth presented six priorities to the Senedd on 22 September without numeric targets or a named partner party, promising to work across the chamber where there is common ground. He says his government will be judged on results.

Michael Marra / Scottish Labour

Marra won the leadership on 19 September, and three days later his 17 MSPs backed Swinney's right-to-decide motion once their child-poverty amendment was written in. He says Scottish Labour's task is to tell voters what it stands for.

Andy Burnham / Labour Party

Burnham told conference in Liverpool on 29 September that Labour's next manifesto will commit to changing the electoral system, and invited every party into a National Commission on Electoral Reform. He has not named a replacement system, and no chair or remit has been published.

Written with AI from Lowdown's published reporting. Not individually reviewed by an editor. Editorial standards.