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

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

Monday 16th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 165B, 161A and 165C, to which I have added my name. I find it rather distressing that, here again, we have another issue where there is no evidence from the Government that the current arrangements result in undue influence of non-party campaigning in elections. Where is the justification for starting down this route?

On Amendment 165B, I declare two interests, first, as chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Speech and Language Difficulties and, secondly, as chairman of the Criminal Justice and Acquired Brain Injury Interest Group. I was concerned to read that paragraph 1(1) of the proposed new schedule to be inserted by Schedule 3 states that “Controlled expenditure: qualifying expenses” includes:

“The production or publication of material which is made available to the public at large or any section of the public (in whatever form and by whatever means)”.

Both at Second Reading and in my consideration Motion, I mentioned the problems experienced by organisations working in this area in the criminal justice system. We shall come back to them when we discuss coalitions.

One of the areas that we have been considering in Bill after Bill has been the problem of those with learning difficulties and learning disabilities who require special arrangements to enable them to understand the legal process in which they may become involved. This requires both written material and the provision of people who can explain things to them, because the police and others may not necessarily be able to do so. I am therefore asking the Minister if what we have here is a cross-counting nonsense because, in Bill after Bill, we have been trying to impose or introduce something to enable people to engage with the criminal justice system in this way. Yet, if you take what is written in this Bill, it would seem that this is now to be impossible.

I fully support Amendment 165B which has the list of those things which ought to be included in the Bill and excluded from the expenses. I am not going to discuss the staff expenses at this stage because I agree with my noble and right reverend friend Lord Harries of Pentregarth and with the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu.

I turn briefly to Amendment 161A. I am concerned that the word “research” might be removed. At the moment, we are conducting research into the number of prisoners with acquired brain injuries as we want to find out whether special arrangements need to be made for them. An experiment carried out in Leeds prison has discovered a large number of such prisoners and the people involved say that supporters are needed to help these people back into the community. However, such an initiative would be subject to the election provisions in the Bill. Why? It has nothing to do with elections, so why threaten such a sanction and why make the people concerned in this very important public service unnecessarily alarmed if that is not going to happen?

As regards Amendment 165C, I find it very distressing that the Bill states:

“The Secretary of State may by order make such amendments of Part 1 of this Schedule as he considers appropriate”.

Surely, such a measure ought not to be included in the Bill. It should not be up to the Secretary of State to make such amendments as he considers appropriate when so much work has gone into the Bill.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I add my support to Amendment 160J, to which my name is attached. As I was heavily involved in the Care Bill and the Children and Families Bill, I was unable to speak at Second Reading of this Bill, for which I apologise to the House. I should also mention my interests as president of the National Children’s Bureau, vice-president of the charity Relate, and chair of the Making Every Adult Matter coalition of charities. I will speak about charity coalitions on later amendments.

Amendment 160J is intended to clarify exactly what is meant by “committed supporters”. The fear here, which has already been expressed, is that contacting people, charities and other campaigning organisations that bodies consider to be supportive will be classed as regulated activity and therefore come under “controlled expenditure”. I wish to make two main points. First, as my noble friend Lord Tyler said, these days, membership of charities and other campaigning organisations is generally not defined by an annual subscription. It might have much more to do with following the organisation on social media, actively agreeing to receive e-mails or some other way of actively engaging with the organisation concerned. Certainly, my experience of the organisations for which I have worked, and which I continue to support, perhaps in connection with children and families or campaigning for older people, is that you might feel very strongly indeed about a particular issue, perhaps to do with health, a specific disability or housing, and therefore lend your support to it. Indeed, you might be very actively engaged with it from time to time but do not necessarily support every activity and issue that the organisation concerned is involved in. However, you should still count as a very committed supporter of the relevant organisation.

Although there are other amendments in this group, and Amendment 165B clearly also tries to get the right definition of “committed supporters”, I support Amendment 160J as it sets the bar in the right place in terms of having to have some sort of active engagement with an organisation rather than simply being a passive recipient of e-mails, for reasons we have already heard. Amendment 160J would improve the Bill, if it were accepted.