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

David Anderson Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Ian Lavery]

I fully agree with my hon. Friend’s remarks. I will come on to that point in the later part of my contribution.

The Bill misses the Lynton Crosbys and the Lord Ashcrofts, and will allow them to plough millions and millions of pounds into constituencies while other people are constrained in how they want to do their business. Not only does it fail to deal with corporate lobbyists, but it effectively stitches together the lips of the big society, in the year before a general election, for fear of breaking the rules. In her excellent contribution, my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) mentioned that my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), the Chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, who has just left the Chamber, described the reforms as a dog’s breakfast. The hon. Member for Clacton (Mr Carswell) disagreed, saying

“He is wrong, of course. Far more thought has gone into pet nutrition than into this Bill.”

The hon. Member for Clacton has great experience of being a Government attack dog and someone here is barking up the wrong tree. For a Government who created a Minister for the big society to create such a Bill would be laughable if it was not so frightening. It has been described as having a chilling effect on the work of charities, pressure organisations and local community groups. This is an unprecedented attack on our national institutions of democracy and on individual free speech.

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker, for being late for this debate; I have been in a Committee meeting. My hon. Friend said that the Bill was unprecedented. Does he agree that the other constitutional changes that the Government parties have tried to get through this House, such as boundary changes, Lords reform and changing the voting system, are the same as this Bill? They are using the constitution to give themselves political advantage at the next election and future elections. That is what this Bill is about.

[Ian Lavery]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments; he is absolutely right. Everything in this Bill is about giving the coalition political advantage in the year running up to the next election—and, indeed, at every election.

The Bill is an unprecedented attack. Charities, campaigning organisations and local groups are frightened by the Bill, but they should wait until they hear the detail and see how it develops. We will see people leaving local groups. There will be no voice for the local opposition to wind turbines, fracking or anything else. We will not have trustees on trustee boards of charities because they will be frightened in case they break the law, because they do not even understand what this law means, and they are not the only ones. We had a meeting this morning with some barristers who said that they had spoken to the Electoral Commission and they did not have a clue what the legislation meant. What is more, they said that the Electoral Commission was not even consulted on the legislation. They are the people who will be policing the legislation and they have not even been consulted on any of the detail. It is absolutely unbelievable that the Government have approached the issue in that manner.

Charities and campaigners have worked tirelessly. They have opposed the bedroom tax, reductions in doctors and nurses, reductions in the police and the fire service, and reductions in many other public servants. Those groups have opposed increases in tuition fees and issues such as fracking, wind turbines and nuclear power. You name it, Madam Deputy Speaker, local charities and groups have been involved, and good on them. Do we not want people to be involved in politics? Are we happy to come here as 650 MPs just to discuss ourselves and ignore what the rest of the country wants? Is that what we want? I am sure it is not, so we need to listen to what is being said out there by the people.

The people who have been e-mailing me are hardly raving militants looking for a revolution. What they want is fairness. They want to be able to understand what this legislation is about. I was embarrassed for the Leader of the House. He made a botch-up of the NHS Bill and here he is the second time, with a Bill placed before him that he could not even defend.

--- Later in debate ---

[Natascha Engel]

That is exactly right and it is why the debate today has been a missed opportunity. We would all like to do something quickly about curbing the excesses of the wrong kind of lobbying, but the Bill captures the right sort of lobbying—exactly the sort that we as politicians should encourage. We want people to influence the way that we make decisions because it is their democratic right to do so, and those are not the sort of people that we want to criminalise.

It is on trade unions that I have the greatest problems. In the run-up to the 2005 general election I worked as the trade union liaison officer for the Labour party, and straight after the general election I helped to co-ordinate the last round of political fund ballots, so I know from personal experience just how heavily regulated trade union political activity and financial matters are. They are extremely heavily regulated. Membership records are up to date. Trade unions must have up-to-date membership records; otherwise they would be cutting down their own income. When they ballot members for strike action, they need to know who those members are and where they live, and when they want them to participate in internal elections, it is in their own interest that their membership records are up to date. They are also kept up to date by law.

Trade unions are democratic and accountable institutions. The Leader of the House implied that trade unions are somehow unaccountable institutions. That is absolutely not so. Any trade union member has the right to opt out of paying into a political fund. Members may choose not to pay the political levy. Every 10 years they are balloted about whether they want a political fund in their trade union. Also, in those ballots every 10 years—we are going into the fourth one now—more than 90% of members who vote are in favour of keeping their political fund. These are massive figures, which we as political parties can only dream of.

It is important to remember that freedom of affiliation is a fundamental pillar of our democracy. Before we rush into changing the way that these very important institutions work in society, we should reflect more carefully on what the perfectly foreseeable consequences of such legislation could be. The Bill is badly drafted. I take the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) that it may be a deliberate attempt to do something else.

[Mr Anderson]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Natascha Engel]

I need to finish quickly so that other Members can come in.

The Bill is badly drafted because it is badly motivated. It is a panicked response to corrupt activities that have been taking place and are already against the law. The current law captures everything that has happened in the past, but it was broken. It needs to be better enforced. The Bill will do nothing to change people’s behaviour, but it will stop non-party campaigners speaking out for or against candidates and policies 12 months before a general election. That worries me.

I look forward to voting against the Bill tonight. I hope it goes the way of the boundary review, Lords reform, the alternative vote referendum and all the other pieces of gerrymandering dressed up as constitutional reform, and that it ends up in the bin.