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

Lord Adebowale Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adebowale (CB)]

My Lords, to be honest I was going to go home, because I am number 30 on the list and I have listened to all the speeches—well, most of them. I was going to stand up and declare my interest as the chief executive of a charity and a social enterprise and the chair of another charity, as well as my membership of many others, and then speak in favour of the Bill to provide some light relief.

I think that what is at stake is really quite serious. I have been involved in the not-for-profit sector, lobbying, for about 30 years and I struggle to understand what the Bill is about. In those 30 years, I have yet to come across a member of the not-for-profit sector who would breach the intent even of this Bill. I would be fascinated to know examples of where that has occurred other than the one referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, who pointed out that there was a picture of a fellow charity chief executive in the Conservative Party manifesto. So there is a real problem with justifying what the Bill is about.

Part 1 has been referred to as being about transparency. There is an over-hackneyed phrase about sunlight being the best disinfectant. That may be true, but partial light creates shadows, and Part 1 creates too many of them. We all know that if you want to get around this you create in-house lobbies. The fact is that Permanent Secretaries and Ministers can list their meetings—we know how it works. The one thing that I find really quite disturbing and which makes me angry is having my time wasted and seeing people being treated as though they are not intelligent enough to know that. Then I sit here and listen to the speeches, many of which have been absolutely brilliant. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, just about said it all when he mentioned the £3 million versus £30 million. I would love to have the kind of money that I see in the hands of many of the major companies that march through this House lobbying Ministers and civil servants. It is nonsense to argue that we are somehow at risk of tipping up democracy.

More to the point, let us have a look at social history. Do noble Lords really think that the suffragettes, the people who campaigned against slavery or, for that matter, the Tolpuddle Martyrs would have asked themselves, “How much can we spend in Wakefield on lobbying our local Lord”, who then was the only person with the right to vote, “to try to persuade him”—and it was a him—“to take notice of the interests of the poor and the disenfranchised?”. Let us be real. It never happened and it should not happen now. It is ridiculous. Social change occurs because of people outside these Chambers taking up concerns that we do not yet know of and lobbying people such as us and those in the other place precisely when the local and national elections are in the minds of the public and the lobbyists. And so they should. Why? Because they pay for it all.

The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, gave an example of local interests. It must have been a terrible experience but I sat here and thought, “Tough”. That is democracy; that is how it works. People either are or are not persuaded and, frankly, the amount of money spent by people who wish to persuade candidates in a local area is neither here nor there. I can tell noble Lords that people in middle-class areas do not spend a penny, but they use their elbows and persuade people, and they change what happens in local elections. I knew that the noble Lord would want to say something, so I shall sit down.

[Lord Greaves]

It was not a terrible experience at all; it was all part of the fun of local politics and local campaigning.

[Lord Adebowale]

Spoken like a true democrat.

The point is that the Bill is confusing. People cannot see the point of it. The NCVO, the Countryside Alliance and the National Trust are not organisations prone to hysterical statements about government policy; they are considered organisations that think very carefully about what they are going to say in support or in critique of government policy, and not one of them is for the Bill—not one. My e-mail account is full of people saying that this is wrong. It sends the wrong signal about how we value the opinions of people who do not have the privileges that we have to pontificate about the nature of democracy. It insults those people who gather, with or without money, to influence the people whom they put in the other place and who are paid to sit here. It does not create an understanding of how public policy works and how social change should happen in a civilised country and it does not shed enough light on the true nature of lobbying in this country. That is the truth of it.

Frankly, I think that we should start again. I do not think that it is so much a case of a pause or a chilling effect; it will be a freeze, let us make no mistake about that. There will be people who will be frightened by the contents of the Bill. We may well joke about the cost of lawyers. I happen to run an organisation that employs 3,000 people—some people would call us large and well resourced. I tell you now, with all due respect to noble Lords, that lawyers frighten me, not just because they are expensive, but because they do not always bring clarity. You think twice about whether you are going to campaign when you are faced with the complexity of Part 2. Part 1 will, frankly, provide plenty of loopholes—as has been pointed out by a number of noble Lords—and therefore an industry in advice to industry. We know that.

I do not want to hold up the House any further, other than to say this. My concern is not whether charities or not-for-profit organisations are held back; they have more organisation than the people I am really concerned about. I am not that concerned, even, about whether the Bill will impact on the industry of lobbyists. They will find a way around it—certainly as the Bill is drafted, they will have a field day. My concerns are for the people who do not have access and do not understand how this place or the other place works but who have concerns about how their community and how society work, who want to make a difference and who deserve to be heard. Those are my concerns and they should be the concerns of this House, the Government and society.