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

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, that is, on the face of it, a compelling argument. However, I am trying to put it to the House that the Charity Commission’s own advice here is faulty. It admitted as much in our conversation this morning and said that it would circulate a letter forthwith.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

Which it has not done.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

Which, of course, it has not done. I suspect the reason is that when the person I was speaking to went back to the chief commissioner and the chief executive, they said, “My goodness, we can’t go into print admitting that we’ve made a mistake”.

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[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I have attended a number of meetings which the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, has convened and I, for one, am extremely grateful to him for the leadership that he has given and the amount of time he has devoted to the Bill over the past few months. Last week, following those meetings, I met with the chief executive officers of two important charities. I do not intend to name them because I did not say that I would, but when I asked them, “If we could get only one amendment through the House next week, where would your priority be?”, they said that it would be on staffing costs.

Any regulations imposed as a result of the Bill should be clear, simple and, above all, fair. The problem with this is that we would be faced with regulations that would be far from clear or simple, and which would most certainly not be fair. Because I do not want to take the time of the House when we have already had a clear and brief exposition from the noble and right reverend Lord, all I will say is: let us this evening make sure, as far as we can, that that clarity, simplicity and fairness is in the Bill.

I, too, am grateful to my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness and to the other Lord Wallace, my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire, who we are all delighted to see back—but I urge them to go this one further step. They have done a great deal to try to make a bad Bill better; they can take another step this evening.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, the inclusion of staffing costs is hugely burdensome for large and small campaigning organisations. We have heard that tonight and we have all received e-mails and had discussions with campaigning organisations. Like the Electoral Commission, our preference would be for all staffing costs to be taken out for the 2015 election period. However, we recognise that this is an excellent compromise and I urge the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, to accept it. Later on this evening the noble and learned Lord will be putting a review into the Bill, which could be an opportunity to revisit these things, so I very much hope that he will accept the amendment.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I thank the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, for his amendment, because I, too, recognise that this issue has been regularly raised in many of the meetings that we have had—as did my noble friend Lord Cormack and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall. The noble and right reverend Lord’s amendment seeks to exclude those staff costs associated with staff directly employed by a third party from the calculation of controlled expenditure for transport, press conferences and organised media events, and for public rallies and public events.

The starting point is to recognise that the PPERA Act 2000 has always required third parties to account for staff costs. I acknowledge that the Bill extends the range of activities that may incur controlled expenditure; these are the activities that the noble and right reverend Lord seeks by his amendment to remove from staff costs. The Bill seeks to retain the need for staff costs to be included. As I said, I recognise that there has been concern, first, over the unfairness of third parties having to account for these costs when political parties do not. I think that my noble friend Lord Tyler mentioned that. Secondly, there has been concern about the difficulty for third parties in calculating the staff time attributable to activities giving rise to controlled expenditure.

On the issue of third parties having to account for these costs while political parties do not, your Lordships will be aware that when Parliament passed the 2000 Act it felt that it would be transparent and proportionate for a third party to account for staff time. This was on the basis that a third party undertakes campaigning activities other than simply political campaigning, and where a third party enters into political campaigning its spending for those purposes should be fully transparent. I am sure that that was the underlying thinking behind the 2000 Act. I would at least hope that someone who is employed by the Liberal Democrats during an election is actually working for the Liberal Democrats. Indeed, I am sure that the other parties would hope the same on behalf of their staff. It is as transparent as it possibly can be.

Regarding the concerns of third parties over the difficulties associated with calculating staff time, this is an existing element of the regulatory regimes. Its operation in the last two general elections, alongside Electoral Commission guidance on this, highlighted that such costs can be accounted for without becoming overly burdensome. The Electoral Commission takes a proportionate approach in current guidance to the calculation of controlled expenditure, including staff costs, by clearly stating that third parties should make an honest assessment of the costs that need to be reported.

I have shared with a number of the groups which have come to see me since Committee the fact that we did examine whether it would be possible to put in a de minimis exemption. Quite frankly, having seen what its terms would be, it would give rise to more concern about legal definitions than it merited, particularly if we had a de minimis exemption in statute. That would make it much more difficult for the Electoral Commission to take that proportionate approach to the calculation of controlled expenditure which it has done through its guidance.

It should also be noted that with the increases in the registration threshold the smaller organisations to which my noble friend referred, be they charities or campaigning organisations, will not be subject to regulation and the need to calculate staff costs. The best way of addressing the de minimis question is by what we have done in raising the threshold and taking so many of these organisations outwith the scope of controlled expenditure altogether.

My noble friend quite properly paid tribute to the work done by volunteers, not only for charities but for so many campaigning organisations. In many respects, they are the people who make the wheels of campaigning and democracy go round. However, volunteer costs will continue to be excluded from the calculation of controlled expenditure. In Amendment 44, which the House has just agreed, volunteer costs are excluded from the calculation of staff costs by virtue of paragraph 1A(1)(c) of new Schedule 8A. They were excluded under the existing regime, but it is important to emphasise that volunteer costs will also be excluded under what we are proposing. There is a world of difference between volunteer costs, which will be excluded, and the great advantage that there can be to candidates or political parties of third parties putting paid staff into campaigning activity in constituencies, or into running media events, press conferences or rallies.

The result of the amendment proposed by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, would be to exempt that kind of expenditure associated with paid staff being moved in at the time of an election to facilitate the electoral advantage of a particular party or candidate. It is for that reason that the Government do not feel able to accept the noble and right reverend Lord’s amendment, and I invite him to withdraw it.

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[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.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I acknowledge the welcome that has been expressed for these amendments, which lift a considerable administrative burden from campaigning organisations. I note what the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, has said, echoed by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall.

I will look specifically at what the noble and right reverend Lord said, but I know that there were a number of other things that the Government looked at and decided they did not wish to accept—it is not as if they have come out of the blue. However, I will check that the suggestions that we looked at and decided not to go ahead with were those to which he referred; it is only fair that we do so. However, I do not want to do that with any raising of expectation, because, as I think the noble and right reverend Lord will realise, we have given considerable consideration to these points. I ask the House to accept the amendments.

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[Lord Cormack]

Briefly, I add my congratulations and thanks. Those who criticise—and I have been very critical of aspects of the Bill—should always praise when the right thing is done. I am exceptionally grateful to my noble friend and his ministerial colleagues for putting this amendment into the Bill. It is a very satisfactory outcome and I agree entirely with what the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, and my noble friend Lord Tyler said.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, we, too, warmly welcome this amendment and the fact that there will be a review, and that a report will be laid before Parliament. The timing is absolutely correct. Should there be a Labour Government after 2015—and in 2016 when the report is laid before Parliament—as I very much hope, if there are any recommendations for change I will guarantee at this Dispatch Box that there will be proper consultation and that if any legislation is necessary, there will be pre-legislative scrutiny of such legislation.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I am most grateful for what has been a short but quite buoyant debate. It is important that we have this review. My noble friend Lord Tyler referred to the 2000 Act and a number of problems there which had not been properly identified. I am very mindful of what the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, has said. Who knows what the result will be? However, there are always lessons to be learnt from all these adventures that we have.

I say to my noble friend Lord Hodgson that it is absolutely clear that the reviewer has to have the appropriate resources to do a proper job. My noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby asked about evidence. It is clear that for the reviewer to do a proper and thorough task, that person should seek views from many sources. Clearly, it would be sensible that those in the front line of political activity, such as candidates and elected representatives, should be part of that process.

It was nice of my noble friend Lord Cormack to be cheerful about this amendment. There is important work to be done and I understand what the noble and right reverend Lord said about his inclination or desire to have a parliamentary committee. However, I have no doubt that we will see the reviewer doing what we expect him or her to do—a thorough piece of work. I look forward to that, in whatever capacity I remain.

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[Baroness Corston (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise very briefly to support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours. It takes me back 40 years to the Houghton committee on state aid for political parties. Both political parties ran away from the idea at the time—and there were only two major parties at that time, it has to be said. The campaign itself for the Houghton committee was under the slogan of “A penny from the workers to support our politics”. It was said that we had our politics on the cheap. The amount of money that is now required to mount a political campaign or to support a political party in a constituency is eye-watering compared with what was considered to be normal in 1974. Now, we are all more and more dependent on very large donations from a very small pool of people. Whether or not those people seek personal advantage from it, the public think that that is what will happen.

The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, is entirely right about the attitude of young people towards politics. We find a great deal of apathy and disgust, as well as a decline in participation in politics and certainly a decline in turnout in local and general elections. It is never the right time to introduce a measure such as this. I have been active as an organiser and a parliamentarian for well over 40 years and I have never, ever heard anybody from a Front Bench say, “Perhaps this is the time”; it is always, “Well, this is a really good idea, but not yet”.

The person whom I think of as my noble friend, the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, has just referred to President Obama. He was wise enough and smart enough to see that this issue was poisoning politics in the United States. What did he do? He had a deliberate strategy of asking for $20 from millions of people. Can any of us remember—I certainly can—what Washington looked like on the day of his inauguration? Washington had never seen so many people turning up for an inauguration, and I do not think that that was an accident.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I am sorry to be the sad spectre at the feast. I am grateful to my noble friend for the important changes that he has made to his amendment since Committee. I am also grateful to him for providing answers to the various hurdles raised in Committee and in the many discussions that he has had since.

All noble Lords are absolutely right to say that the current situation is untenable. None of us—nobody who is active in politics—is comfortable in any way with the current situation. We absolutely have to get big money out of politics, and we have to find a solution to the problem of party funding, which is undoubtedly a running sore that diminishes trust in politics. That trust must be restored if our democratic system is to thrive.

As has been said—and I completely agree—politics is a noble part of our civic life and we have to find a way forward. The proposal from my noble friend could well be part of that solution. Of course, it is correct to say that there is never a good time to put forward such proposals, but I take issue with my noble friend when he says that it is always a time of austerity. I do not think that that is true and I do not think that now is a particularly good time to put forward this proposal. However, I understand why my noble friend is doing it and I recognise that, should he wish to test the opinion of the House, he will undoubtedly have the support of some of my colleagues. However, my party’s position is that, while, as I said, this may well be part of a solution, it should not be dealt with in isolation. We have to find a comprehensive solution to the problem of party funding and it is incumbent on all of us to try to do that. Until we do, as has been said, politics will suffer, our democracy will suffer and young people will not have the faith in politics that we would wish them to have in order that we may have a healthy, democratic society.

Having said that, although I think that it is an interesting idea, should my noble friend wish to test the opinion of the House, I regret that I will not be following him into the Lobby this evening.

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[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.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I did not actually respond to anything that my noble friend said, so there was no commitment. I said to officials immediately after that it would be appropriate if we went back and talked to the Electoral Commission, but that was without any commitment that we would bring an amendment back. We would take the points that were raised on my noble friend’s amendment to the Electoral Commission but, to make it clear, without a commitment on bringing it back. That is only fair because I did not actually make any commitment.

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[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I am grateful for that clarification but I very much hope that, having spoken to the Electoral Commission, while I understand that the noble and learned Lord has not made a commitment, it will lead to him bringing something back at Third Reading. Having said that, I warmly welcome this group of amendments, which amend the regulated period. I am glad that it pertains only to the upcoming election, when it will be seven months. I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord and his officials for listening.

Amendment 126 agreed.