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

David Anderson Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

I have tried to sit through most of the proceedings on this Bill but unfortunately yesterday I had to stay at home because I had to have an MRI scan. I do not know whether any other Member has had an MRI scan. Part of the patient’s body goes into a magnetic field and it is very noisy; there are moans and groans, bangs and clangs, whistles and whines to the extent that they give the patient a pair of headphones. Fortunately I had enough sense to take along with me the “Essential Bob Dylan” CD, and I lay there for 40 minutes and I was just getting into “Maggie’s Farm”, which is a tune I really enjoy at any time.

When I was listening earlier today to the Deputy Leader and the Leader of the House I wished to God I was back there with the headphones on, because they were making such a noise in order to try and hide what is going on here. They are the people who should be scanned, and they will be scanned very clearly about what has gone on here today and over the past few weeks, because this is not a mistake. Instead, this is part of a pattern of abuse that the two coalition parties have undertaken since this Parliament started.

There has been a range of constitutional changes for one reason and that is to get the two parties through the 2015 general election. That is not how constitutional matters should be handled. Constitutional matters should be about making this Parliament respond properly to the people of this country, not purely seeking electoral gain.

We should look at the record. What about the boundary changes? If that fix had gone through, what would we have seen? They tried to reduce the numbers to give themselves electoral advantage. They tried to put in a mathematical formula which every professional electoral registration officer said would not work, and thankfully it fell down.

They also fell down on Lords reform, which again would have given them an advantage, but they bounced back on that one. As the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) said earlier, they have stuffed the other place with hundreds of people who should have been subject to this Bill’s provisions on the cash for questions issue. They have stacked the other place with people like that. Money for ermine; that is what was done.

They had the alternative vote referendum. Thankfully, that was thrown out, too. What was it for? It was for one thing and one thing only: to try to give the Liberal Democrats a constant seat in power, which they will never achieve on their own. They need to get some sort of cobbled constitutional fix which will keep them in their positions.

Now we have come to this: they have realised they are not going to be able to beat the people so they are going to try and get rid of stroppy campaigners. They want to shut people up, put them in the dark, and stop them campaigning when the people of Britain are tuned in for probably the only time in the whole Parliament—when the people want to hear what is being said, and what has been done in their name for the previous five years. They are trying to shut up the people who really know: the campaigners, the students, the Royal British Legion, the voluntary organisations, the pro and anti-hunt lobbies, and, in particular, the trade unions. They do not want them to have their say. They do not want them to expose what has been going on in their name for the previous five years.

The truth is the people have not been fooled by this. The Government must not think they have got away with this if the Bill passes tonight, goes along the corridor and comes back here in a few weeks. We know that this is being rushed through because they want it signed, sealed, delivered and stamped by the Queen before 8 May next year so there will be a full year before the election on 7 May 2015 when they can get away with hiding the facts from the nation and stopping people complaining. It will not work because the people will not forget this. They will not be forgiven for what they have done. This is not just abuse of this House, it is abuse of genuine accountable democracy.