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

Earl of Sandwich Excerpts

Wednesday 18th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Mallalieu (Lab)]

My Lords, I put my name also to Amendments 167A and 167B on which the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, has just spoken. Essentially they are amendments about registration thresholds and I will confine what I am going to say, quite briefly, to that aspect. It is clearly accepted that the thresholds are going to go up from those proposed in the Bill, which are very low indeed. The question is clearly: how far? If the aim is to catch wealthy organisations and individuals and to prevent undue influence on the electoral process by those with money, the response has got to be proportionate, as I am sure the Minister would accept.

As the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, said, the mesh of the net has got to be set so that small NGOs and charities can carry on with their campaigning work without being frightened off by the fear of the expense and the staff time that registration and its associated bureaucracy—which I hope later we will cut down to a degree—will entail. The larger organisations are to be caught; the smaller ones should not be, so that they can carry on with their usual activity.

The current thresholds under PPERA have done just that; hence the lack of problems arising from the drafting of the definition. This was revealed only by the most recent consultation, because most small organisations simply did not meet the existing threshold. However, those thresholds will not be enough if the activities covered by the Bill, even the non-contentious ones, are included, as everyone agrees that larger staff costs will be included with them.

I remind the House that the Electoral Commission said in relation to this very aspect that,

“we think the Bill’s Impact Assessment under-estimates both the regulatory burden that the Bill would impose on registered campaigners, and the number of non-party campaigners that may need to register with us as a result of the Bill’s provisions”,

and the lower threshold. The Electoral Commission is going to be faced with a great deal more work.

I am sorry hear to that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has been having difficulty sleeping. Indeed, the speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, on Monday caused me some lack of sleep. She chided me about what I had said about ogres coming out of the woodwork, so I had a further look at it. Because she has just raised the point now, I will say this. She produced shocking figures about what was going on in America and raised the spectre of this somehow creeping across the Atlantic and affecting our electoral process. No specific evidence has been produced for the need for specific constituency spending limits. The Government have produced no specific examples in defence of their argument on this topic—for example, of disproportionate spending in one constituency that has had undue influence on the outcome.

However, this is not the only piece of legislation that deals with this matter. There is also the Representation of the People Act 1983. Even if there were to be targeting of a specific candidate in a specific constituency, that Act covers constituency spending by candidates and also—this needs to be restated—spending by non-party campaigners who have campaigned for or against a specific candidate. What is more, breaches of the Representation of the People Act are the responsibility of the police to investigate, with all the sanctions that follow from that. The Electoral Commission does not have the enforcement powers for these rules. So, if these people exist, we in this country already have the powers to deal with them and the mechanism to do so.

[The Earl of Sandwich (CB)]

My Lords, I have not been part of the commission, but I support what the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, and my noble and right reverend friend said about Amendments 167A and 167B. I was convinced by these amendments and then, when I heard the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, with his extraordinary mathematics on inflation, telling us how much it actually costs to put on a show, be it a conference or a different occasion, I was completely convinced. Then the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, said that these things were costing far too much. Has he seen printers’ bills lately and does he know how much 3,000 leaflets will take out of your pocket in no time at all? These figures are still really quite limited, and I hope that the Government have seen sense. I have a feeling that we are not going to hear their answers because they are reserving them all for Report.

The issue I mentioned in relation to Clause 26 was that of smaller charities. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, was quite right in describing the role of smaller charities. My particular question for the Minister was: what happens if these charities are linked in a coalition? I know that we are going to discuss the coalitions again, but it hinges on this a little bit. Many of these charities which were spawned by the larger charities—Oxfam and Christian Aid—are now growing in their own right but nevertheless have a symbiotic connection and are often seen together in conferences. Will the Government reflect on that effect on smaller charities as well?

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 167A and 167B. I have two questions for the Government that have not been raised. First, we have had no specific evidence from the Government that the previous spending limits were overly permissive, resulting in undue influence on the outcome of general elections. Therefore, I would be grateful if the Minister would outline what specific evidence gave rise to this clause.

Secondly, because it again comes from the Government, I note that the Electoral Commission thinks that the regulatory burden that the Bill would impose on registered campaigners has been grossly underestimated in the Bill’s impact assessment. With many Bills coming before this House, I have had occasion to question the depth of the impact assessment. It really must go into the impact on others who will be affected by the Bill, and that has not happened in this case.