Civil Society and the Democratic Process

Debate between Baroness Mallalieu and Lord Young of Cookham

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The stakes are rising by the minute in this exchange about electoral expenditure. As I said a few moments ago, if transparency of income is one of the recommendations, it will be addressed by the Government. The whole House will have noted the challenge laid down by my noble friend Lord Lawson.

[Baroness Mallalieu (Lab)]

My Lords, the report by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, on the flaws in this piece of legislation was published some considerable time ago. In view of the clear evidence of chilling on the part of the charities who felt unable to conduct their proper campaigning during the last election and the one before, will the Minister tell us when those recommendations will be implemented?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness. It is indeed the case that the Hodgson review was published in March last year. Since then, we have had the report by the Select Committee and one of its recommendations was that the Hodgson report should be implemented in full. In due course, we will respond to the report and, by implication, to the Hodgson review, but at the same time there are other pressures on the Government in this field. We have had Eric Pickles’s report on electoral fraud and the Law Commission report on electoral law. We have also just had a general election and it might be useful to look at the experience of civil society during the recent election before we come to a final decision on whether legislation needs to be reviewed.