Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

Debate between Angela Eagle and Caroline Lucas

Tuesday 3rd September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas]

The hon. Lady makes a very compelling case. A moment ago she spoke about transparency. Does she agree that that should include financial transparency so that we can see a genuine, good-faith estimate of how much money has been spent on lobbying activities and thus compare what the large multinational corporations are spending versus non-profit organisations?

[Ms Eagle]

The hon. Lady makes another good point. We have to see what the size and value is as well as the fact that there have been meetings.

Part 2 covers third-party campaigning in the run-up to an election. All hon. Members will remember how the Prime Minister used to evangelise about the big society, but in one of the most sinister bits of legislation that I have seen in some time, this Bill twists the rules on third-party campaigning to scare charities and campaigners away from speaking out. It is an assault on the big society that the Prime Minister once claimed to revere. I say this because part 2 broadens significantly what activities will be caught by the phrase “election campaign”. That is set out in detail in new schedule 8A to the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.

Part 2 creates in clause 26 a new and extremely wide definition of “electoral purposes”. It is clear that these changes will have wide-ranging implications for many hundreds of charities and campaigners local and national, large and small. Some of them have told us that they will have to pull back from almost all engagement in debates on public policy in the year before the election. These changes have created massive uncertainty for those who may fall within the regulations in a way that the Electoral Commission has deplored. The changes will mean that third-party campaigning will be restricted even if it was not intended to affect the outcome of an election—for example, engaging in public policy debate. Staff costs and overheads will also have to be included in what has to be declared—something that does not apply in this way to political parties. The Electoral Commission has said that these changes could have a “dampening effect” on public debate. The National Council for Voluntary Organisations has said that the changes will

“have the result of muting charities and groups of all sorts and sizes on the issues that matter most to them and the people that they support.”

38 Degrees has said that the changes will

“have a chilling effect on British democracy”.

Fuel Prices and the Cost of Living

Debate between Angela Eagle and Caroline Lucas

Wednesday 16th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Ms Eagle]

I am pleased that the competition authorities have launched an investigation into what has been going on with heating oil. My hon. Friend is right to point out that transport in rural areas is a particular issue.

People who are already financially stretched by this Government’s slash-and-burn approach now find themselves trying to cope with sudden sharp increases in the price of essentials such as food, energy and fuel. Recent OECD figures put UK food inflation at 6.3%. That is higher than the consumer prices index, higher than the retail prices index, and higher than in most of the rest of Europe. In my constituency, parents are now worried about the rising cost of providing balanced meals for their children.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that the fuel duty escalator is an important tool to send a clear message that oil prices are going to have to continue to rise, not only for geopolitical reasons but because of peak oil and climate change, and that a way of ensuring that the poorest are not hardest hit would be to scrap the recent VAT increase in totality and replace it with a crackdown on things such as tax evasion and tax avoidance?

[Ms Eagle]

The hon. Lady is right that there has to be a balance between the environmental aspects of taxes on fuel and living standards. However, I find, all too often, that on the green side of the argument the social justice aspects of imposing environmental tax rises are not thought about enough, and such measures tend to hit hardest people whom we are least able to help. She needs to help all of us, when we are thinking about this, by bearing in mind the effects on poverty of environmental taxes.