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

Debate between Helen Goodman and Susan Elan Jones

Tuesday 10th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Susan Elan Jones]

My hon. Friend could well write the episode of the soap opera that I was describing.

As a co-chair of the all-party group on civil society and volunteering, along with the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) and Baroness Pitkeathley, I was delighted to see the voluntary sector speak up loudly on this issue—rightly so, given the attacks on civic society in this Bill. I know that many hon. Members have been deluged with e-mails, letters, telephone calls and requests for meetings about this. We know the NCVO’s serious concerns from its briefing, and it raised the specific point of how damaging it feels the legislation would be for expenditure thresholds and activities and how they relate to small charitable groups.

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about this. One thing voluntary groups do is use campaigns to raise their profiles so that they can raise funds to do more practical work. Their campaigning activities are part of all their work and it all fits together for them. The Bill will damage not only their ability to speak but, potentially, their ability to do some practical work.

[Susan Elan Jones]

That is absolutely right.

Many concerned voices were heard in last week’s debate and many thoughtful speeches, too, none more so than that of my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), who is Chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. I do not quite concur with one small aspect of his speech, however. He said that

“one of the most wonderful parts of my life experience as a Member of Parliament is when we come towards a general election, and all those different bodies start to get hold of us, lobby us, knock on our doors, phone us and send letters—‘Come to our meeting. You will not get our vote unless we know exactly what you are doing on this.’ Someone on the opposite side then says exactly the same thing”.—[Official Report, 3 September 2013; Vol. 567, c. 205.]

In truth, although at times such meetings will be bliss itself and will be meaningful, sometimes they will frustrate and annoy many Members and the Government—any Government. That is why it is correct that the right of such organisations to do this must be protected at all costs so that they can put forward their view unhindered, without being entangled in red tape, and can speak truth to power unhindered by the certainties of this Bill.

I wonder how the Bill would affect the pro and anti-HS2 lobbies, the campaign for digital hearing aids, the campaign for the rights of Gurkhas to settle in this country and some of the campaigns run by the Royal British Legion.

Public Bodies Bill [Lords]

Debate between Helen Goodman and Susan Elan Jones

Tuesday 12th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

I wish to speak up for our one Welsh language television channel, S4C. I call for the provisions that affect it to be totally removed from the Bill. How did they come to be included? Was the plan for S4C’s future the result of meticulous thought, planning and consultation? No. It was a backdoor deal between Ministers from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, who declared that they had never actually seen the channel, but had a liking for Fireman Sam, and the BBC, on the eve of the comprehensive spending review. The BBC offered up S4C as a concession—an appetiser in the face of Government threats of much deeper cuts. This deal was the result.

The Government announced that they would slash direct funding by 94% and shoehorn S4C into a so-called “partnership” deal with the BBC, which would pick up some of the shortfall. The BBC has agreed to top up funding to 75% of previous levels until 2015; after that, S4C will have to pitch for funds and the BBC will be free to do what it wants, even though its own funding is guaranteed for much longer.

The Government have had to throw S4C into the Public Bodies Bill to get their plan through because S4C’s funding is currently protected by law. S4C’s status and funding were set in law in recognition of the crucial role that it plays in protecting and promoting a language classified as “vulnerable” by no less august a body than UNESCO—a language that has steadily disappeared from communities over the last 100 years and is now spoken by just over 20% of Welsh people, down from 60% at the dawn of the 20th century.

Welsh does have a future, however. Its use is now rising for the first time in living memory—precisely because of hard-fought initiatives like S4C. The cross-party Welsh Affairs Committee, of which I am a member under the august chairmanship of the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies)—I hope he will be a right hon. Member one day—stated in the plainest possible terms in its recent report that S4C has played a

“key part… in bolstering the everyday use of the Welsh language”,

and concluded that S4C

“brought the Welsh language into many homes where it may not have been heard previously.”

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend is making an eloquent case in citing the private deals made by the Ministers in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Has she considered the possibility that they took account of the views of News International and the plurality issue?

[Susan Elan Jones]

They probably took as much account of those factors as they appear to have taken of everything else involving S4C.