Third-party Election Campaigning

Lord Suri Excerpts

Thursday 13th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Suri (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak on this subject. I thank the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, for securing the required time.

Many of us in this place will remember the big society initiative. Indeed, some of us had the chance to work on the plans and be consulted beforehand. The initiative failed but it hammered home the point that civil society and the charity sector have an enormous role to play in our society, both with a support function and as an outlet for voluntary activity. However, charities should be extremely wary of a number of things. Political campaigning is one of them. I have been disappointed recently to see a number of charities go beyond their remits to engage in political campaigns, using donations from members of the public and government grants to do so.

Recently, there has been a collapse in trust in charities in this country. The recent survey on trust in charities and the overseas development sector revealed a fall in the proportion of adults who said that they trusted charities “a great deal” or “quite a lot” to 54%, compared with 60% a year earlier. I find this a saddening state of affairs. British people still trust charitable sectors, but not to the extent that they will turn a blind eye to abuse and injustice. Recent scandals involving Oxfam and Médecins Sans Frontières have brought shame on the sector; trust must be rebuilt. Charities ought to focus on their charitable activities, rather than attempting to become similar to think tanks in producing policy reports, lobbying and running campaigns during elections and referenda.

The advantage of the Act is that it gives the public confidence that charitable institutions are being regulated on a similar basis to private enterprises and think tanks that might have an interest in voting behaviour and the influencing thereof. Indeed, it encourages charities to focus on their original mission and, when they do attempt to make political interventions, to be careful about how they go about it. This is particularly important in the case of elections.

There has been much talk recently here and in the other place about the overspending by both sides in the European Union referendum. That strikes a cautionary warning about the influence of money in our elections. Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, which were quoted by my noble friends, were fined for running undeclared campaigns during the 2017 election, and the Electoral Commission noted that the manifesto scorecard published on Greenpeace’s website was a political judgment and liable to influence voting behaviour.

My sympathy is with charities when it comes to the actual legislation. It is true that the wording used can be unclear and confusing and, reading as a lay man, I would struggle to advise a third party on what they could do. This is a particular problem for the smaller charities, which may wish to bring up entirely legitimate and apolitical points but cannot for fear they might fall foul of the legislation. If clearer legislation cannot be produced in amended form, it would be a magnanimous gesture for the Government to lay out in clear English the precise rights and obligations of third-party organisations.