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

Debate between Angela Smith and Susan Elan Jones

Tuesday 10th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Susan Elan Jones]

I agree totally.

I am sure that some Members will have read the beautiful article by the Royal British Legion’s director general Dr Simpkins in The Daily Telegraph last week, which told how:

“In 1921, a year before a General Election, The Royal British Legion successfully ran its first campaign, lobbying the Government to ensure that three-quarters of those employed on relief works were veterans of the First World War.”

Our tradition of charities being allowed to campaign on political issues germane to their charitable activities is at the heart of British life and our democracy. It has been established in case law since 1917, a year before universal male suffrage. Well before women had the vote, Lord Normand, in the case of Bowman v. Secular Society, held that a society whose predominant aim was not to change the law could be charitable when its campaign to change the law was merely a subsidiary activity. That tradition has a long pedigree in this country and I do not believe that it should be for tinkering politicians, perhaps fearful of the impact of Cameron and Clegg non-mania in 2015, to play with it.

[Angela Smith]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful argument in defence of the right of charities to engage in civil society. However, does she agree that we are up against it on this point? Only eight months ago, one contributor to “ConservativeHome” said:

“When exactly ARE we going to stop funding these so called ‘charities’…? For example, ‘Shelter’ do absolutely nothing to practically help the homeless. Their sole purpose is to lobby government to increase the funding for housing and homelessness. And for this, they are funded BY the government! Crazy!”

[Susan Elan Jones]

Happily, I am not responsible for what people write on “ConservativeHome.”

The Prime Minister once spoke the rhetoric of a big society and a coming together of hearts and minds, yet today we are sitting in this Chamber to discuss a Bill that could mean that a consortium of cancer charities has problems campaigning with realistic staffing levels whereas pro-tobacco lobbyist Lynton Crosby has nothing more to worry about than how much tobacco to put in his pipe. This remains a calamitous, bureaucratic Bill and should be replaced by one that deals with the villains of the piece and does not attack the voluntary sector.