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

Baroness Howarth of Breckland Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker]

My Lords, I will take three minutes; I am not going into technicalities and I freely admit I am going to introduce a bit of partisanship.

The Charity Commission states:

“Charities must never support political parties”.

If that was the case—if that was the norm—we would not have a problem. I would like to vote for this but charities have got to be regulated, even during the electoral period. I make no apology: I raised this before, at Second Reading.

Page 14 of the Conservative manifesto for the 2010 election shows a full-page portrait of the chief executive of a large national charity, extolling the virtues of the policies set out on the subsequent pages. This was the Conservative Party manifesto using a charity for party-political purposes. I was appalled when I saw it and could not understand why there was not a row about it. That chief executive, whom I later recognised, turned up in this House a few months later. I am not going to mention her name because I have not given notice, but the charity is Tomorrow’s People. This was a thundering disgrace and I would like, in the discussions that are about to take place, an assurance that political parties will submit their manifestos to the Charity Commission and the Electoral Commission to make sure that this kind of abuse of the system and of charities does not happen again, either by the Conservative Party or, inadvertently, by any other political party.

I apologise for introducing a note of partisanship, but I have been waiting a long time to say this.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

My Lords, with due respect to the House, as I have not spoken on this, a number of the noble Lords who are proposing the amendment are suggesting that they will not take it forward but that there will be other debates. There are amendments later which are extremely important and vital to the sector if it is to carry out its work. I would be grateful if the House could move on.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, that being said, I will speak quickly and shortly to say that, while we absolutely understand the desire to stop the bureaucracy being placed on charities, we do not want that for other bits of the third sector either. This is why we want a much more fundamental change which takes them out too. They also use volunteers and have all these problems. We do not think the rest of the voluntary sector should be caught by something which other campaigners will not be. We are, obviously, interested in the Government’s response, but if the issue is simply about dual regulation then there may be a way for the Electoral Commission to devolve its responsibilities in this area to the Charity Commission. However, if it could not answer its phone to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, last night, I am not sure I would devolve much to it at the moment.

There is a difference: there is an area of activity which is completely legitimate for charities but which will not be covered by the Charity Commission, which only polices charitable law. Even at the moment, under PPERA, there are a whole lot of things which charities are covered by but which are not policed by the Charity Commission, so extra work would be going to them. As the noble Lord, Lord Horam, said, this clause covers work which is completely within their charitable aims and, therefore, eligible under charitable law. To take out one part of the voluntary sector and leave the other in is something we cannot understand. The charities themselves did not ask for this when they gave evidence—oral and written—to the commission chaired by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries. The Electoral Commission is against it, as are the NCVO and the Charity Commission. There may be a good reason for this: the overwhelming majority of charities that have contacted me are not in favour of it.

As I think the last speaker said, we are very interested in the important issue of staff costs. That is what the charities really want taking out, so I hope we can move quickly to it and the House can have a decision.