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

Debate between Angela Eagle and Baroness Bray of Coln

Tuesday 3rd September 2013 Commons Chamber

[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”.

[Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)]

That is a lobbying group.

[Ms Eagle]

Conservative Members might not like the causes that 38 Degrees takes up, but surely we live in a free society and it has the right to do so. The hon. Lady has rather betrayed some of the partisan motivation that lies behind this Bill. Since she does not like 38 Degrees, perhaps she will listen to the TaxPayers Alliance, which has said:

“The bill is a serious threat to independent politics that will stifle free and open democratic debate.”

Yesterday even Owen Jones and “Guido Fawkes” were agreeing that this Bill is “undemocratic”, so the Government have managed to cause some unlikely coalitions, of which that is probably the most unlikely. We must be under no illusion: if these rules pass into law unamended they will seriously undermine free and fair democratic debate in the run-up to the next election. Blogs may well be regulated and stifled too. The changes in part 2 have met with universal opposition. Even “ConservativeHome” and “Liberal Democrat Voice” have joined “LabourList” in publishing highly critical pieces condemning their own Government’s clampdown on free speech.

[Angie Bray]

I am sure that the hon. Lady would agree that it is perfectly reasonable to describe 38 Degrees as a lobbying outfit. That is what it calls itself; it comprises lobbyists. I have been lobbied by it on many different occasions. Unless she is saying that to call somebody a lobbyist is somehow an insult, I think that it is perfectly legitimate to call it a lobbying organisation.

[Ms Eagle]

The hon. Lady needs to look at her own Government’s Bill to see that it defines 38 Degrees not as a lobbying organisation but as a third-party organisation, and the Bill attempts to gag the ability of third-party organisations to make points on policy and politics during an election campaign.