Pendle MP, Gordon Prentice, today predicted the Government would legislate to ban tax exiles from bankrolling UK political parties.

On Monday (15 June) the House of Lords carried amendments to the Political Parties and Elections Bill which would close the "Ashcroft Loophole".

The amendments were originally tabled in the Commons by the Pendle MP and had the support of 216 MPs but were not taken for procedural reasons. Prentice then asked Lord Dale Campbell Savours to table exactly the same amendments in the Lords – and these have now been debated and carried.

Speaking from Westminster earlier today, the Pendle MP said: "46 Labour Peers defied the Labour whip, including two former General Secretaries of the Labour Party – Larry Whitty and Tom Sawyer, to back Dale."

"Over the past two years, my Pendle constituency has been awash with Ashcroft cash. It reminds me of the pre 1832 Reform Act era when people could buy rotten boroughs. No other political party in Pendle can match the Conservatives in the scale of their spending."

"It is a complete mystery why the Government wants to allow tax exiles to fund political parties."

The Bill, as amended in the Lords, will return to the Commons in early July.