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

Debate between Baroness Royall of Blaisdon and Lord Bishop of Oxford

Wednesday 15th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth]

My Lords, while I welcome the government amendments, I draw the attention of the House to the report of the Electoral Commission on Amendments 74 to 81, 83 to 97 and 99 to 106. It says that it supports the amendments,

“which go some way to simplify the donation reporting requirements”,

but it goes on to say:

“We regret that the Government has not adopted other recommendations we have made to reduce burdens on registered campaigners further without affecting transparency”.

It indicates what these are and ends:

“We continue to recommend these changes … we now recommend two further changes to reduce burdens further”.

Will the Minister, even in the short time between now and Third Reading, have further conversations with the Electoral Commission to see whether some of its recommendations could be accepted by the Government? From the point of view of the charities and campaigning groups there is still a huge amount of regulation to be carried with the Bill.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I, too, welcome the amendments that have been put forward by the Government, as far as they go, but as the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, said, there is more work to be done and it would be excellent if the Government would commit to come back at Third Reading with further amendments. This might seem a bit curmudgeonly, because the Government have received plaudits throughout our debate this afternoon for having moved a long way and tabled many amendments. However, if it had not been for the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, his commission, which has also received praise this afternoon, and the excellent work that it has done, the Bill would still be the exceedingly bad Bill that it was when it arrived in our House, precisely because it was rushed, did not have proper pre-legislative scrutiny and a great deal of it was not necessary. So while I thank the Government for having listened—and they have moved—I place on record that none of that would have happened without the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, and his fellow commissioners, who undertook the consultation that the Government themselves should have undertaken in the first place.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth]

My Lords, I warmly welcome this shorter regulatory period for the 2015 election, for the reasons that the noble and learned Lord stated: it will enable the Electoral Commission to prepare the guidance to educate the people who will have to conform to it. However, I express the hope that in the review, the review body will look seriously at the recommendation of the commission which I chaired, that for third-party campaigners there should be a six-month period. This seven and a half-month period is absolutely right for this election but a six-month period should be reconsidered afterwards.

Perhaps I might end on one final point. We are all very much aware that this whole process has, towards the end, been extraordinarily compressed. Normally, the Government would listen first, bring forward amendments in Committee and then report those back on Report. We did not have any government amendments in Committee. The Government listened, and I am glad that they did, but this means that this Report stage has been a kind of compression of Committee and Report all in one. The implication of this is that I very much hope that the Minister will take seriously those amendments that we did not press to a vote, while hoping that he might come back at Third Reading having thought again. Because of this very compressed period, that would be a great help to the House.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, following on immediately from what the noble and right reverend Lord was saying about this compressed period, I particularly hope that in view of what the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, said in withdrawing his Amendment 52 on constituency limits, the Government will bring that back at Third Reading. As I understand it, the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, believes that the Government made a commitment to do so. That was the basis on which he withdrew his amendment. I do not wish to have a discussion this evening but I hope that the noble and learned Lord will look at it.