Members’ Paid Directorships and Consultancies

Fiona O'Donnell Excerpts

Wednesday 25th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ms Eagle]

No, I am right at the end of my speech and I have given way a lot.

The choice is clear. Are we here to serve our constituents or are we here to serve our own self-interest? Are were going to change a broken system or are we going to ignore the public’s clamour for reform? After the election, no Labour MP will have a paid directorship or consultancy, and Labour’s manifesto will include a promise to ensure that that applies to all MPs. Wider reform is now being rejected because the Conservatives are the defenders of a tired and discredited status quo. To reform our politics, we need to stand up to vested interests, not cosy up to them. We need to stand up for the powerless, not the powerful. And we need to accept that sometimes in this place, things need to change. That time has come.

[Fiona O’Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek your guidance. I am sure that no Member would wish to contribute to the debate, given its subject matter, without declaring any relevant interests. What guidance can you give to Members, given the terms of the motion, on what they should declare before intervening or making a speech?

[Mr Speaker]

It is the responsibility of each individual Member to declare as appropriate. The obligation is no different in this debate from it would be in any other debate, and I assume that all hon. and right hon. Members are fully conscious of their responsibilities in this matter.

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[Sir Alan Duncan (Rutland and Melton) (Con)]

As we approach the general election in May, all of us sit in a House that is browbeaten, diminished and increasingly dysfunctional. This place is supposed to be the pinnacle of our democracy, both in providing the Government and in scrutinising them, but, if I may say so, it is not helped by such undignified squabbling.

The sort of Parliament we end up having in a few years’ time will determine whether politicians can meet the challenges of big government and a dangerous world, and serve the long-term interests of the people who elect us, or whether, with the diminution of our political wisdom and conduct, all we do is oversee the country’s perpetual decline. The composition of Parliament and its rules are crucial to that fate. All rules should be fair and even-handed and should not favour one side over another.

Instead of sinking ever more deeply into petty recrimination, today we should ask what Parliament should be. Politics is about interest, about competing opinions and differing views, and about civilised discourse and making laws with the consent of the people. If we try to sanitise all politics by removing all identifiable interests, all we will do is destroy real politics and reduce Members of Parliament to vacuous functionaries. This House needs people of quality and variety who bring genuine experience that is of greater value than the theoretical study of politics and careers founded only in the student union, the special adviser’s office and the party machine.

[Fiona O’Donnell]

I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the register; I have an income from a rental property in Edinburgh.

Will the right hon. Gentleman dissociate himself from the remarks of the Father of the House today at Prime Minister’s questions, when he asked what kind of person would come to this place if they could not have a second job? There is and always should be a place in this House for people who have never dreamt of earning £67,000 a year.

[Sir Alan Duncan]

There needs to be a variety of people, including those who think that money matters, and those who feel that they have forgone so much to be here that there is no disgrace in topping up the salary. We should accept that difference, otherwise we are ruling out of this House a body of people who wish to serve in it, but who might not if they were forced to accept only the salary.

Let me chuck away my notes and, in the short time that I have, say what I think. If we sanitise this House, as people are suggesting, we will end up nationalising the entire process of politics. This House of Commons should be where people come together from all corners of the country, and from whatever background, to do whatever they believe is in the interests of the country.

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[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. It contains an entry for JHC, which stands for John Hemming & Co., a company I founded in 1983. It currently employs about 260 staff and has a turnover of £20 million. I have declared in the register an income of around £180,000 from that company. I attend a meeting once a month and chair the board meeting. I am a full-time Member of Parliament. I spend five full days during the week and two half days at the weekend on political business. Oddly enough, the motion is so badly drafted that it would not affect me, because the £180,000 I receive is from a partnership, and the motion does not refer to partnerships. Obviously, there is a lot of confusion about equity interest and payment per hour. I spend under four hours a month on the work set out in my declaration of interests.

What do I do? Well, today I met the Latvian Justice Minister, who is concerned about what is happening in the family courts in England as it affects Latvian citizens. I have attended two Select Committee meetings today. I actually sit on five Select Committees, and I probably attend more Delegated Legislation Committees than any other Member of Parliament. Therefore, when it comes to parliamentary activity, I can claim to be as busy in Parliament as one can be. Indeed, one of my colleagues said that he did not think that I had a second job because he always sees me here, and I am here a lot.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

May I ask why the hon. Gentleman decided to donate to charity his income from taking part in ComRes consultations but not to donate income from his other employment?

[John Hemming]

The problem with that question is that the hon. Lady has made an assumption that I do not make other donations to charity. I do make other donations, but they are not set out in my entry in the register. I am sorry, but that claim is basically wrong.

I do a vast amount of casework. I have my advice bureau on Saturdays, and the maximum number I have dealt with is 38 groups of people. Admittedly, that took a little longer than normal, but I see everybody who turns up at my office on a Saturday without an appointment—many colleagues who claim to be full-time Members of Parliament require appointments, but I do not. I have been a full-time politician since 2004, when I was deputy leader of Birmingham city council, which is also a full-time job. From a casework point of view, having dealt with about 30,000 cases of varying complexity since then, I am a full-time MP. I run campaigns about secret imprisonment, term-time absence, parents being prosecuted because their children are ill and dealing with people who leave this country because they are persecuted by the state. That is part of my job as a full-time MP.

I am also a pianist, as is well known. I play the piano at the party conference and later in March I have a gig in my constituency in Birmingham for Macmillan Cancer Support, which is sold out. Admittedly, that will all go to charity. As the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) knows, I play jazz music in various places for charitable purposes. This year we are not raising money jointly for Macmillan at the Palace of Varieties show, but these things still go on.

I have additional business costs because I am an MP, but where is the conflict of interest? There is a conflict of interest for Ministers, because if they vote against the Government they are fined by losing their ministerial salary. That is why Ministers are called the payroll—they are paid extra money by the Government in order to back the Government and vote with the Government, whether they agree with them or not. So it is very clear, with our system of failed separation of powers, that a conflict of interest arises from the second job of being a Minister.

How do my constituents benefit from me? I have a little bit more money, that is true, so I pay beyond parliamentary expenses for a benefits adviser who comes to my office to give specialist benefits advice. I was able to take legal action against the city council to try to get it to clean up the streets, which was good in that it got the council to clean up the streets, but bad in that I was ordered to pay costs against the council. That is being appealed through the courts.

Since 2009 I have claimed no second home expenses and I am the most cost-effective Member of Parliament in Birmingham. I use saver return tickets to get to the House of Commons. That keeps my travel costs low so, although I go between London and Birmingham every week because I live in Birmingham, I am by a long way the cheapest MP in Birmingham in terms of personal expenses.

I deliver for my constituents. I deliver more widely on campaign issues. What is the problem with me spending four hours a month continuing to have an interest in the business that I founded more than 30 years ago, which pays a large amount of tax and provides jobs for 260-plus people?

Devolution (Scotland Referendum)

Fiona O'Donnell Excerpts

Tuesday 14th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I speak as a Conservative and as a Unionist, and as a graduate of the finest university in Scotland. Indeed, I was an undergraduate there at the time of the Perth declaration in 1968 and I recall the birth of Scottish nationalist campaigning at that time. I was on the other side of that argument, as I am today. However, the recent referendum has been brilliant for democracy. It has been liberating, and I hope that in due course the parties on the Opposition Benches will join us in saying, “Let’s have a referendum on the European Union.”

I am delighted that the people of Scotland have reaffirmed their support for our Union. The Command Paper published yesterday states, on page 16:

“Proposals to strengthen the Scottish Parliament provide an opportunity to reach a strong and lasting constitutional settlement across the UK.”

One means by which that could be achieved permanently would be to require that no part of the United Kingdom could become independent from the rest of the United Kingdom without a two-thirds majority voting in favour. Many of us were nervous about the prospect of changing our United Kingdom constitution on a bare majority, given that even the rules at the local golf club cannot be changed without a two-thirds majority.

The leader of the Conservative party has made two pledges on devolution. The first was made on 10 September, and that vow was made without the authority or agreement of Parliament. I highlighted that in Parliament, and it was also highlighted by Nicola Sturgeon in the yes campaign. She argued that the vow was dependent on parliamentary approval, which could not be guaranteed—in one of her speeches she even referred to me as being a reason for that—and therefore nobody should be relying on it. Yet now we find the SNP saying that the vow was solemn and influenced the result. Surely the yes campaign is prevented from now relying on what it described at the time as “salesman’s puff”, which it denounced and persuaded its supporters to regard as not being of any importance whatsoever.

[Fiona O’Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)]

On having a two-thirds majority for constitutional change, is the hon. Gentleman saying that he would require such a majority on a vote to leave the EU?

[Mr Chope]

No, I am not saying that. I would put the question round the other way and require a two-thirds majority for us to stay in the EU. What the hon. Lady seems not to understand is that the United Kingdom is a sovereign country with a sovereign Parliament and that the European Union is an alien structure that has been imposed upon us as a result of the referendum carried out some time ago. Many people who are now electors have not had the chance to vote on the issue.

If what the Conservative leader said then was a vow, it certainly cannot be relied upon by the Scottish nationalists because they opposed it and ridiculed it at the time. The second pledge was made in his capacity as Prime Minister on the steps of 10 Downing street at 7 am on 19 September. It is worth putting on the record exactly what he said:

“We have heard the voice of Scotland—and now the millions of voices of England must not go ignored…So, just as Scotland will vote separately in the Scottish Parliament on their issues of tax, spending and welfare, so too England, as well as Wales and Northern Ireland, should be able to vote on these issues and all this must take place in tandem with, and at the same pace as, the settlement for Scotland.”

Those words of the Prime Minister were more warmly received by my constituents and party supporters than any others he has offered us during the rest of this Parliament. That shows the extent to which he struck a chord with my constituents and, I believe, with the people of England. So there cannot be any going back on that commitment. I put my tandem challenge to the Leader of the House, and I hope that he will take it up, because how can the Prime Minister’s pledge on 19 September be delivered without constitutional change in Scotland being dependent on change being delivered in the rest of the United Kingdom? Indeed, that is exactly what the Chief Whip said in his article in The Times on 20 September.

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

Fiona O'Donnell Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake]

My right hon. Friend will be aware that the third-party register of lobbyists focuses specifically on Ministers or permanent secretaries. That is what is before us today.

We are not persuaded that the calls to capture communications with special advisers are sufficiently strong to justify amending the Bill in the manner that Lord Tyler proposes. We are, however, aware that the discussion about including such communications within the scope of the register is likely to continue. We therefore propose as a contingency an amendment in lieu that would introduce a power for the Minister to amend the definition of consultant lobbying provided for by clause 2 so that it could subsequently, if necessary, include communications with special advisers. Such a power would enable Ministers to extend the scope as suggested if and when they were persuaded of the case for doing so without the need for primary legislation. It should therefore assuage the concerns of those who have asked that we do not eliminate the possibility of expansion of the scope if it is justified in future.

[Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)]

Will the Deputy Leader of the House tell us how many groups or organisations have met the permanent secretary at his Department in relation to this Bill, so that we get a flavour of how an effective a route that is?

[Tom Brake]

I am afraid that I cannot give the hon. Lady an answer to that question immediately. However, if she wants, she can do what a number of newspapers have done when they have produced so-called scoops. They have gone through the quarterly ministerial reports, looked at the meetings registered and added up the number of meetings with the permanent secretary. That information is there if she wants to pursue the question.

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

Fiona O'Donnell Excerpts

Tuesday 10th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[John Cryer]

That goes to the heart of the problem in part 2 of the Bill, which has been hastily cobbled together over the past few weeks. I presume that is why the Government have tabled amendments to try to sort out the situation and redeem themselves in the eyes of a lot of charities, non-governmental organisations and others up and down the country.

[Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)]

I apologise, Mr Sheridan, for not having been present for the whole debate. Does my hon. Friend agree that the concerns are not just about localised campaigns, but about UK-wide campaigns and the difficulties facing charities in different parts of the UK in calculating whether they will have crossed the threshold, given that they will have no way of judging the impact of campaigns conducted via websites and e-mail on different parts of the country?

[John Cryer]

I agree with my hon. Friend. One of the reasons I mentioned Hope not Hate is that it is a classic example of an organisation that conducts not only national but local campaigns in specific constituencies, boroughs and districts. According to Hope not Hate, with which I and many Members from all parties have done a lot of work in the past, its spending in the run-up to the next election will be cut by 70%. It also calculates, accurately, that its limit per constituency over the same period will be about £9,000. That will have a material effect on anti-racist campaigning in the run-up to the next election. As I have said, Hope not Hate campaigns with all democratic parties, not just one or two.

I cannot help thinking that part 2 is not entirely divorced from the fact that one or two Liberal Democrat MPs will be facing potentially strenuous campaigns by the National Union of Students in the run-up to the next election. One Member who springs to mind is the Deputy Prime Minister. For those who do not know Sheffield that well, I point out that his constituency is surrounded by a sea of student accommodation for a large university. I suspect that the Deputy Prime Minister is a little bit worried that the student voices that were sympathetic to the Liberal Democrats at the last election will now be saying, “Well, hang on a minute: the leader of the Liberal Democratic party stood on a specific pledge of not raising tuition fees, but he went back on it and voted for, and actually helped introduce, legislation that tripled tuition fees.” I do not think that that was a million miles away from his mind when he was considering part 2 of this Bill, and I think that is why it is receiving enthusiastic support from not all but certain Liberal Democrat Members.

I will finish with a couple of quotes that successfully set out the problem with part 2. First, the Royal British Legion, which is not particularly known for being a wild-eyed, left-wing organisation of agitators, has said—Members have probably seen the briefing paper—that the definition of “for election purposes” is “far too broad”.

Secondly, Karl Wilding from the NCVO, which my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman) mentioned earlier, said only a couple of weeks ago:

“The Bill takes us from a situation in which everyone understands the rules on what charities can do and considers them reasonable, into a position where no one has any idea what the rules are, but could nevertheless face criminal prosecution for getting them wrong. This is what happens when legislation is rushed through with no consultation.”

I rest my case.

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

Fiona O'Donnell Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Ms Eagle]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point about the chilling and dampening effect on the vibrancy of our democracy of this Government’s approach.

I thought at first that the Government might just have made a mess of the drafting—after all, they often do that and this Bill is certainly a mess—but it seems from the Cabinet Office response and from what the Leader of the House said today that they have deliberately set out to gag critical third-party voices. They have had repeated opportunities to address the concerns put to them by charities and campaigners, but they have dismissed them. This leaves me with the only conclusion that we can draw—that this is a deliberate and cynical attempt by the Government to insulate their policies and their record from scrutiny in the run up to the 2015 general election. Part 2 is totally unacceptable in its current form and it must be changed.

The Leader of the House tried to justify these draconian measures by arguing that they tackle the problem of third-party spending in politics, but he completely misses the point. Third parties spent less than 10% of the money spent by political parties in the last election. We all know that one of the biggest problems in our democracy today is the election expenditure arms race between political parties, not the expenditure of third parties. That is what drives the search for big-money donors. This Bill was a chance to tackle the big money in our politics, and the Government have completely squandered it.

This Government are happy to be financed by donors who pay huge sums to come for dodgy dinners in Downing street. They are a Government so shameless in their search for big-party donations that they were happy to split between the two coalition parties the proceeds of the late Joan Edwards’ half-a-million-pounds of life savings, which she had generously bequeathed to the nation in her will. Their squalid behaviour is left unaffected by this Bill; instead, it seeks to silence legitimate third-party campaigning organisations.

[Fiona O’Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)]

Has my hon. Friend had any indication that the Government have considered the impact on third-party organisations wishing to speak out in the run-up to the referendum on Scottish independence, which will fall within the 12-month period?

[Ms Eagle]

Again, I am afraid there is very little evidence I can give my hon. Friend that the Government have considered in any serious way the impact of anything, since they consulted nobody before they came up with these proposals.

Finally, I want to comment on part 3, which centres on trade union membership records. There appears to be no policy motive for the introduction of this new law other than as a vehicle for cheap, partisan attacks on the trade unions, of which only a minority are actually affiliated to the Labour party.

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[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)]

Before the debate started, I was quite optimistic about the Bill, because I thought it was a positive step forward. As the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), the Chairman of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, said, it would be quite nice to have a consensual way forward. I am pleased that we are debating the Second Reading of the Bill, because it gives us the opportunity next week to try to make some amendments, if people feel the Bill needs amending, and allows the charities dealt with in part 2—I shall come to that in a moment—to get commitments from the Minister at the Dispatch Box on what the provisions in the Bill mean.

Before I go through the bits of the Bill that I want to discuss, I should point out that a lot of those charities’ concerns apply to the law as it stands, as opposed to what is in the Bill. If the Bill did not go through, those charities and third-party organisations would still have a lot of those concerns about the current law, because of what we heard earlier about regulated expenditure. We have an opportunity to have the Bill spoken about on the Floor of the House next week, to get as many of us as possible involved and ask as many questions as possible, and then to get those issues out in the open, so I welcome the Bill in that sense.

I also welcome the fact that the Bill establishes a statutory register of professional consultant lobbyists. I know that it does not do enough for some of us, but it is the first step along the way.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

Would the hon. Gentleman not concede that the reductions in the ceiling for registering for political activity and in spending limits will have a huge impact on third parties?

[Stephen McPartland]

The hon. Lady makes an interesting point. I do not think those reductions will have any impact whatever. I have 400 charities and voluntary groups in my constituency, and if any of them could spend £400,000 they would be over the moon. The reality is that the reductions will not affect them whatever.

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[Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Mr Harris). Like him, I welcome lobbying from constituents and organisations, whether they agree with me or not. I thank the hundreds of constituents who- have e-mailed me in recent weeks about this issue, Syria, the badger cull and so many other things. It makes life difficult for us, but life should be difficult for us, because the decisions we make in this place can be of the utmost gravity and have an impact on the people of these islands and beyond these shores. Never was that more clear than last week, so I was very pleased to receive so many e-mails scrutinising my thought process and my decision. On gay marriage, too, many organisations and individuals in my constituency told me how disappointed they were that I supported that legislation. However, it meant that when I walked through the Lobby in support of that Bill, I was unshakably certain that I was doing the right thing. That is the healthy and, at times, slightly humbling process that we all go through.

I hope that right now the National Union of Students is calculating how many pairs of flip-flops it can buy before the general election. I hope that animal rights groups and the proponents and opponents of gay marriage are all getting ready to remind our constituents how we have voted. If we have treated the process seriously, we have nothing to fear from that.

I was tempted to quote Owen Jones, who wrote an excellent piece in The Independent yesterday, but I thought I would have a better chance of getting the Government to listen if I used the commentary of the Electoral Commission and many other organisations.

This is a bad Bill, but we should not be surprised about that, given the form of the Leader of the House. This is a man who drives policy through with a finger in both ears, refusing to listen. He should reflect today on the process that he went through with the Health and Social Care Bill. When he finally took his fingers out of his ears and listened, it was a better Bill. I would like to know whether he agrees with that. I want the Lib Dems to think about what puppets they were during the passage of that legislation. They sat on the original Public Bill Committee and voted down Labour amendments, and then found themselves having to support the same amendments in the name of the Government in the Committee of the recommitted Bill. I hope that this time the Lib Dems will do the right thing. When they see amendments that will improve the Bill, I hope they will support them. Let us make this a better Bill, because there is certainly lots of room for improvement.

The hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) completely missed the point today. I am always amazed when he rises from a prone position to speak, as if using a secreted system of hydraulics. He has completely missed the point on this Bill. Even the Electoral Commission has said that defining electoral purposes is extremely difficult. If the independent regulator says that it will be difficult to reach a definition, what hope is there for the Bill in its current form? The Electoral Commission also says that the Bill is devoid of policy aims. It is not clear what the Bill is trying to do. In fact, it is so directionless that I am surprised the Deputy Prime Minister has not turned up to close the debate for the Government.

I ask everybody in the House to think about the people who are involved in the voluntary sector. My hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson) and others have spoken about the volunteers who are worried what the Bill will mean for them. For Scotland, the limit for registering will be £2,000 and the limit on expenditure will be £35,000. That is the cost of one member of staff—one political communications officer—in a voluntary organisation. What will that do to the quality of debate in Scotland?

The marriage of the Government parties is a rocky one. It is perhaps not surprising that what we have today is the worst kind of shotgun legislation. The Bill has been rushed through at the last minute. I do not know why that is. I do not know whether the Government mean the Bill to be bad or do not know that it is bad. Either possibility is undesirable. We do not have time to debate it or scrutinise it properly in this place. There has been no public consultation. Even worse, there will be no time for voluntary organisations to prepare for the legislation coming into force before the next general election. In Scotland, where there will be a referendum on independence in 2014, the legislation will make many third-party organisations very nervous about speaking out. That is to be regretted. It is not what we need in Scotland and it is not helpful.

I will close by quoting David McColgan of the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations:

“It is universally accepted that democracy and public policy right across the United Kingdom is richer when all corners of society participate and feel they are free to do so. This bill deters engagement. It deters dissenters and it deters open reasoned debate.”

The Government have to get their fingers out of their ears and improve this Bill.

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[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

I am glad we have the opportunity to debate the influence of third parties and non-elected actors on our political process, and I think the regulation of such activities needs to be reviewed. So far, however, the Bill is proving a flawed means of doing that, and we all agree that there needs to be much greater transparency of lobbyists. I echo concerns already raised about the missed opportunity to include a code of conduct in that process, and I cannot help but observe and echo observations by other hon. Members that not a single lobbying scandal from recent years would have been in any way affected had this Bill been enacted.

Part 1 of the Bill, wholly inadequate as it is, relates to matters that are largely devolved in Scotland, so in the short time available I will address part 2. The measures in part 2 are particularly deeply flawed, and in spite of all the assurances we have heard from the Leader of the House, they will place undue restrictions on the ability of campaigning organisations to raise legitimate concerns about public policy issues. Although it is not a declarable interest, I feel I ought to put on record my background working in public affairs and campaigning in the voluntary sector, as well as my past directorships of charities, both large and small. I am also a member of the Electoral Commission parliamentary advisory group.

My key point is that an active, politically engaged, challenging civil society is a hallmark of democracy and the lifeblood of live political culture, every bit as much as a free press or free and fair elections. I have grave concerns that a side effect of the Bill will be to restrict the discursive space where citizens can make a fuss about public policies that affect their lives. In Scotland, as the hon. Member for East Lothian (Fiona O'Donnell) outlined, there has been considerable concern about how the Bill will restrict perfectly legitimate activities. Martin Sime, the chief executive of the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, has gone so far as to say it is an

“assault on…charities’ right to campaign”.

That is strong language from organisations that are not usually prepared to put their heads above the parapet so quickly.

As legislators and decision makers we are often challenged in the ways that citizens want us to meet their expectations. They share their experiences and views with us in ways that immeasurably enhance the democratic process, and any dilution of their ability to engage with us and hold us to account for our decisions is a wholly retrograde step. Sometimes that can be uncomfortable for us in the Chamber and in Parliaments and council chambers around these islands, but without the ability to raise concerns through collective efforts, our citizens will be deprived of important avenues of engagement in the political process and our democracy will be immeasurably poorer.

It is important to remember that campaigning civil society organisations that are also charities are already highly regulated by the Charity Commission, the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland, and the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator. Charitable organisations are already prevented from campaigning in a politically partisan way, and during election periods they are already restricted in the kinds of activities they can undertake. In my experience, charities take those responsibilities extremely seriously and are careful about the public statements and activities they undertake ahead of elections. The proposals, however, go much further. Existing legislation on charities is working well, and we should not be looking to increase the regulatory burden on charities through the Bill. Part 2 of the Bill would do exactly that, and serious concerns have been raised about the unworkability of the proposals and the changes to definitions they would involve. I have listened carefully to those on the Front Benches this afternoon.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

Does the hon. Lady agree that we also need clarity about coalitions of charities—they may be experts on this—and what happens when individual members in a network engage in political campaigning?

[Dr Whiteford]

That is an important point and I will return to a concrete example from my experience and highlight the work of the Stop Climate Chaos coalition in Scotland, which I think enabled and facilitated cross-party support for the passage of a world-leading piece of legislation—the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009. It is exactly such campaigns that will be in jeopardy and might simply not happen, if we take the Electoral Commission’s evidence seriously.

Another concern is that a much wider range of activities will be regulated, including organisations’ media activities. The explanatory notes state:

“The definition of ‘for election purposes’ does not rely solely on the intent of the third party; the effect of the expenditure must also be considered.”

Such spending can be controlled

“regardless of whether incurring the expenditure”

is

“intended…for another purpose.”

That belies the Government’s statement, made to try to assuage hon. Members, that the measure will not have a restrictive effect—it clearly will have such an effect.

The Electoral Commission has raised some of the most serious concerns about the Bill, including the lack of pre-legislative scrutiny. I cannot help but believe that pre-legislative scrutiny would have gone an awfully long way to address problems with the Bill. However, in pointing out the obvious—that campaigning organisations are not like political parties—the commission highlights the difficulties it foresees in the discretion it will have to interpret what activity will be regulated as political campaigning. It has made it clear that it does not believe it is appropriate for it to have such wide-ranging discretion. In any case, it is concerned that the wide definition in the Bill and its explanatory notes of “election purposes” will be open to legal challenge.

I know from my involvement in charities that they are often very risk-averse—other hon. Members with extensive involvement in charities have said the same. They will shy away from anything that might embroil them in difficult legal wrangling and threaten their charitable purposes under their charitable status. The measure will lead to a risk-averse and self-censoring culture among charitable organisations. Also, no hon. Member has so far mentioned the capacity of the Electoral Commission to deal with the new layer of bureaucracy.

It is important for the Government to address the regulation of third-party spending at elections, but they must do so in a coherent way. Part 2 of the Bill goes much further than their stated intentions. I hope they take on board the concerns hon. Members have highlighted in the debate about the duplication and spiralling of regulation.

I have not had time to go into the referendum in Scotland and the regulations that have been agreed. However, I hope the Deputy Leader of the House takes the opportunity when winding-up to address that and other issues, and that he affirms the positive role of an outspoken civil society.

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[The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Tom Brake)]

We have had a lengthy and impassioned debate, and I am grateful to all Members for their contributions. I am afraid that in the nine or so minutes that are left I will not be able to address all the points that have been made.

First, let me remind Members of what this Bill is intended to achieve. It will push this Government’s culture of openness and transparency further by creating a statutory register of lobbyists, which the Government promised to do in the coalition programme. It will ensure that third parties that campaign at elections do so openly and within a fair regulatory framework. It will provide assurance that trade unions, as increasingly large and diverse membership organisations, know who their members are and can engage effectively with them. Those are all reasonable and valuable changes to our political system.

Let me now address some comments, concerns and myths. The Bill is not about closing down charities’ ability to influence policy, as many Members claimed. I want to put on record the following so that it is clear to Labour Members, because I think there is some confusion. At present, a charity can undertake non-party political activity where its trustees can show that it supports the charity’s purposes and will be an effective use of the charity’s resources. Charity law prohibits charities from engaging in party politics, from party political campaigning, from supporting political candidates, or from undertaking political activity unrelated to the charity’s purpose. Charities, and indeed all other organisations, currently need to register as third parties only if they are spending money on campaigning to procure or promote the electoral success of a party or candidates. That test will remain under the Bill.

As under the current provisions, charities can still give support to specific policies advocated by political parties if that would help to achieve their charitable purposes. Provided that charities continue to campaign as they currently do, maintaining their political neutrality and independence, expenditure incurred by them is unlikely to come within the definition of “controlled expenditure”. It does not now and it will not under our proposals. Of course, the Government have on a number of occasions expressed a willingness to work with charities to ensure that this is clear, and if more guidance is needed, we will certainly ensure that it is in place.

Before dealing with the myths, I want to touch on scientific theories. Today we have had a very significant scientific theory proven—that there are parallel universes. Labour Members are debating a Bill that will gag charities and destroy trade unions; we are building on the transparency already created by this Government in relation to Ministers reporting their meetings by establishing a register of consultant lobbyists, by reducing the risk of super-PACs, or political action committees, and by ensuring that trade unions have up-to-date membership lists.

I have never heard as many myths as enthusiastically mouthed and endorsed with so little evidence as I have by Labour Members today. The shadow Leader of the House spoke for 44 minutes during which she made no reference to her own party’s policy. We had high-octane rhetoric that was very low in calorific value. She talked about furious displacement activity—reference, presumably, to what happened in the 13 years of Labour Government, when there was furious displacement activity on lobbying but no lobbying legislation. This Government are now acting on that. I wonder whether the hon. Lady feels any embarrassment about her wildly inaccurate allegations about what the Bill will or will not do. I am not sure whether she is doing that because she has not actually read the Bill or because she has misunderstood it. I will give her a couple of examples.

There were a few interventions, one of which alleged that, under this Bill, Make Poverty History would not have happened. That is simply not true. As the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) will know, in 2005 that campaign did not register as a third party campaign, because it conducted its campaigning in the appropriate way as a charity. That will continue under this Bill. Another intervention was on whether the Bill would impact on the Scottish referendum. The shadow Leader of the House indicated that she believes it would have had an impact on Make Poverty History and that it will have an impact on the Scottish referendum, but neither of those cases is relevant to the Bill.

[Fiona O’Donnell]

If the Deputy Leader of the House is right that there is nothing for charities to fear from the Bill, why are they and the Electoral Commission all so concerned? Is it simply a case of the same old Government excuse of bad communication?

[Tom Brake]

Clearly, the Electoral Commission has expressed concerns and when the Bill goes through its Committee stage, I am absolutely certain that further clarity will be provided and the commission will be in a better position to provide the guidance it is required to give in order to ensure that charities understand the basis on which we are proceeding.

Business of the House

Fiona O'Donnell Excerpts

Thursday 13th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

Yes, I have seen the early-day motion in my hon. Friend’s name. Of course, the Charity Commission is not a regulator of religion, and it should be explaining its responsibilities and doing so in a way that commands confidence.

[Fiona O’Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)]

A high street payday loan broker in my constituency has been standing outside a primary school handing out balloons to children and leaflets asking whether they are struggling to afford a school uniform. May we have an urgent debate on effective regulation of this predatory sector?

[Mr Lansley]

I will, if I may, invite my hon. Friends from the Department for Education to respond on that issue, with which I confess I am not familiar.

House of Lords Reform Bill

Fiona O'Donnell Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Karl Turner]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a fair point, but this situation is very different. There are numerous examples under the previous Government where people were given the decision on constitutional reform—

[Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)]

On the Scottish Parliament—

[Karl Turner]

That is one example, as my hon. Friend reminds us from a sedentary position.

My second area of concern is the Government’s logic that an unelected House of Lords is also an unaccountable House of Lords. I cannot say that I disagree with that logic, but the Government’s plans to rectify the issue are wholly inappropriate. The Bill proposes a single, non-renewable 15-year term, and if we add that up, we find that it does little to improve accountability. Some would say that rather than improve the democratic element, it makes things less democratic. Once elected and safely in their 15-year term, these people will be able to do and say what they think, and they will not have to follow any particular line. In fact, they will not even have to turn up. This could be said to be just a bung for party loyalty: 15 years’ salary without really having to do much more than that.

The Government also seek greater democratic legitimacy, but state that they will maintain a 20% appointed membership. Those who disagree will say that that is not enough, while those who want an elected element will say that it is too much. The Government have tried to split the difference but have left us with a foot in each door, so we will not quite have an elected House but we will not quite have an appointed House either. The Deputy Prime Minister has argued for the need for electoral legitimacy but undermines his argument by maintaining an appointed element. Furthermore, the Government have failed to use this opportunity to reform the place and role of bishops in the Lords.

Ministerial Code (Culture Secretary)

Fiona O'Donnell Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

This point is very pertinent, because I am here to respond to any allegations that the hon. Gentleman might make. If he is not prepared to come forward with evidence that I deliberately misled the House, I will have to assume that he does not have such evidence.

[Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)]

Perhaps I can give the Secretary of State the opportunity to answer one of the allegations. He told me that he had made no attempt to intervene while the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills was dealing with this matter. Will he tell me, therefore, what the purpose was of his memo to the Prime Minister, if not to influence the outcome?

[Mr Hunt]

Let me help the hon. Lady by telling her about the Enterprise Act 2002, which was passed by the Labour Government and which says—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Whittingdale]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Once responsibility was passed to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, he followed the advice that was given at every stage. Had the bid gone through as a result of his following the advice he was given, BSkyB would now have been subject to stronger safeguards against political interference than it is thanks to the fact that the bid did not go through.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

What does the hon. Gentleman think about his coalition partners’ decision not to go through the Lobby with his party tonight? If the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister have made such a convincing case, why can they not even convince their coalition partners?

[Mr Whittingdale]

I shall be disappointed if our coalition partners do not support the Government on this occasion. I hope that having heard my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State they might still do so later.

I want to make one or two comments about possible lessons from this affair that we should perhaps consider in the future, the first of which concerns the role of special advisers. I, too, was once a special adviser in the Department of Trade and Industry at a time of Conservative government in the late ’80s. I was a political adviser and I did not participate in discussions about competition policy as it was felt that political advisers were there to provide political input and it could not be clear what political input would be legitimate in a competition case. The role of special advisers has changed over the past 10 or 15 years and I must say to the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) that it was the previous Labour Government who changed the role of special advisers and gave them far more influence and power than they previously had. We need to reconsider that.

Business of the House

Fiona O'Donnell Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I suspect that many other Members have also encountered precisely that problem, where residents living in recently developed estates find that the roads are still in the ownership of the developer, that they are not up to a standard that the local authority will take over, and that the developer will not bring them up to the appropriate standard. I will contact my colleagues at the Department for Communities and Local Government to see if there are any steps that the Government need to take to ensure private developers honour their obligations, often under section 106, so that the residents on such estates have roads of a quality to which they are entitled.

[Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs initially promised to publish in 2010 a report on the humaneness and effective use of snaring and then, in response to a written parliamentary question, said she would release the report by the end of last year. We have still not had the report, however, which is preventing debate on this issue not only in this place, but in the Public Petitions Committee of the Scottish Parliament. While the Government are in an enabling mood in respect of Scotland, please will the Leader of the House press for the report to be published?

[Sir George Young]

I understand the hon. Lady’s concern. There will be an opportunity next Thursday to ask the Secretary of State about that report. I will make sure that Ministers in that Department are aware of the hon. Lady’s concern and let them know that there is a strong likelihood that they will be asked about that issue in a week’s time.

Business of the House

Fiona O'Donnell Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I hear Opposition Members shouting yes. Of course, I have announced an Opposition day and if they want to debate police matters, we are ready to debate them next Wednesday. What has struck me—I am sure that it has struck my hon. Friend too—is the number of chief constables who have come forward and identified ways in which economies can be made by sharing back-office functions and opting for joint procurement without impacting on front-line policing. As my hon. Friend knows, only 11% of police are visible and available to the public. I hope that all police authorities will look for economies that preserve the effectiveness of front-line policing and that they will do so in the back-office areas, where I believe such economies can be secured.

[Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House will no doubt have scrutinised the Scotland Bill and will be aware that much of the success of that Bill relies on good, effective working relationships between this House and the Scottish Parliament. Can he not see that to proceed to consider the Bill further on 22 March, before the consultation period is over, sends the wrong message to the Scottish Parliament?

[Sir George Young]

The Scottish Parliament has been advised by its Scotland Bill Committee to welcome and support the Bill, and I hope that it will do so. The procedure I outlined a few moments ago has been agreed by the three parties in the Scottish Parliament, which have written to commend that procedure.