Statistics: Accuracy

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Monday 1st July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

If the noble Lord looks at the website of the UK Statistics Authority, he will see when Sir David has intervened since August 2017. Counting the interventions when he has written directly to a parliamentarian, raising issues with their presentation of statistics, four are Conservatives and five are Labour. However—to avoid accusations of misuse of statistics—if one then looks at the indirectly critical letters, where Sir David has written to a third party, agreeing with them and copying the letter to the parliamentarian, my party is the worst offender.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister recall occasions in the other place where, immediately when it was pointed out that statistics or other information given to that House was misleading, Ministers immediately came to the House—not waiting for somebody dealing with statistics in their department or whatever—to make an apology and clear up the matter? Is it not much better to own up? Do Ministers not get more respect from their respective House if they are prepared to accept that what has happened is not right? I recall such an occasion, when a statement was made and an apology was made to me. Does he not recall that too?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

Under the Ministerial Code, if a Minister misleads the House, he or she is obliged to put it right. So far as Ministers doing the right thing, a year ago the Home Secretary resigned after inadvertently misleading the House. I say in passing that when it comes to the creative use of figures, none of us can lay a glove on the Liberal Democrats, with their use of bar charts—“Only the Lib Dems can win here”. These multicoloured instruments of fantasy now have a website all of their own on Buzzfeed.

Preparing Legislation for Parliament (Constitution Committee Report)

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, it is a very difficult experience for me to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. I look forward with great interest to the Minister’s response to him. I have known the Minister for a very long time and I have great respect for his debating skills, but he has to produce quite an answer for us this evening because the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, brings expertise, experience and powers of persuasion to your Lordships’ House which not many others of us can hope to replicate.

I was extremely impressed with the introduction to this debate by the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, who, of course, had a major role in the production of these reports over the years and of the whole series that he described—these are just two of four. This is a whole comprehensive analysis of the way in which Parliament does business. They contain a formidable and forensic analysis of a major weakness of our Parliament, one that Members on all sides of the House have referred to today—I think particularly of the very interesting description by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, of their severity.

We have also had the benefit of four members of the committee bringing different aspects of their experience to bear on this problem—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, of course; my noble friend Lord Beith with his long experience of analysis of legislation in the Commons; the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, as a former Minster; and the noble Lord, Lord Norton, himself—so we heard a whole range of views. The approach has been so comprehensive over the years, and now with these two reports, that it is very difficult to find any fault in the reports. A great deal of thought can be given to what we can do to implement their recommendations.

For example, I have not been around as long as other Members in either House, but I remember the days when we used to have a Green Paper, a White Paper, occasionally a draft Bill and then the Bill itself. Then, of course, there has been the suggestion that we should have post-legislative scrutiny afterwards. When did we last have an effective Green Paper process, let alone a good White Paper that was sufficiently comprehensive to deal with all the issues that were going to be raised in the draft Bill? These reports are extremely timely and very relevant, of course, after the bruising experience we have had—all of us, in both Houses, with primary and secondary legislation—during the Brexit process. As some of us anticipated early on, all too often we have been urged to cut corners and short-circuit normal procedures in the interests of expediency, with no regard for the very dangerous precedents we might be setting, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, just said.

My prime example is one that has already been referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. Curiously, it is that of a Private Member’s Bill handed down by Defra, which Ministers feared would not be handled at speed if, in the Brexit shambles, it was processed in the correct way, as a hybrid Bill. He referred to the report we produced in the Delegated Powers Committee. I want to quote one sentence from the conclusion, which he did not mention, that demonstrates what our committee felt:

“It is an attempt, upon flimsy grounds, to set aside the procedures which Parliament has put in place to protect the interests of citizens who would be unfairly affected by legislation”.


At this point I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, the chairman of that committee. I think he will understand that when he took over as chairman from the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, some of us had some concern and just a little hesitation: after a distinguished ministerial career, we wondered whether he would be quite as forthright and robust as the noble Baroness. I have to say he has been more than, and has been extremely effective as our leader and chairman. I am delighted to pay tribute to him as I come to the end of my service on that committee.

This is an exceptional but demonstrably vivid example of the way in which the Executive have been trying to undermine parliamentary scrutiny and the opportunities in this case for public engagement, but the charge sheet is collecting other examples. I will concentrate on the delegated powers report, because of my DPRR Committee work, but my approach to both sets of recommendations owes much to my previous membership of the Joint Committee on Conventions of 2006. Here, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. He emphasised that holding the Executive to account is the prime function of Parliament and of course, that Joint Committee of both Houses looked very carefully at the scrutiny role of your Lordships’ House in that context. Central to its recommendations were some extremely important suggestions about how we in this House should operate. It had the endorsement of MPs as well, as I shall come to in a moment. For today’s debate, I shall mention a couple of points.

In updating the so-called Salisbury/Addison convention, the committee was unable to make a definitive recommendation on the status of legislation brought forward by a minority Government. Having identified Bills introduced by an incoming majority Government as “manifesto Bills”, which deserve respectful treatment by the Lords, obviously the status of a Government whose manifesto had not been supported by a majority was less easily defined, so we were not able to make a recommendation on that point. However, the committee made a very robust recommendation about secondary legislation. I am sorry to read it at length but I think it is extremely important in the context of today’s debate.

“The Government appear to consider that any defeat of an SI by the Lords is a breach of convention. We disagree. It is not incompatible with the role of a revising chamber to reject an SI, since (a) the Lords (rightly or wrongly) cannot exercise its revising role by amending the SI or in any other way, (b) the Government can bring the SI forward again immediately, with or without substantive amendment, as described by the Clerk of the Parliaments, and (c) the power to reject SIs gives purpose and leverage to scrutiny by the Joint Committee on SIs, and by the new Lords Committee on the Merits of SIs. The Government’s argument that ‘it is for the Commons, as the source of Ministers’ authority, to withhold or grant their endorsement of Ministers’ actions’ is an argument against having a second chamber at all, and we reject it”.


That is the context of these reports from the Constitution Committee and it should be noted, first, that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, was then Leader of the Opposition, so he was a vigorous and vociferous supporter of that view. Secondly, the committee’s report and recommendations were unanimously agreed by both Houses. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, has consistently argued, not least this afternoon, there is obviously a democratic deficit here, one which has been brought into sharp relief in recent years, especially during the tsunami of Brexit secondary legislation in the last 18 months. As an example of the totally inadequate care taken in drafting major legislation, reporting on the Agriculture Bill our committee described the number of delegated powers as “ominous” and concluded that,

“it cannot even be said that the devil is in the detail, because the Bill contains so little detail”.

The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, our chairman, referred to that Bill earlier.

In passing, I also strongly endorse the views expressed by the noble and learned Lords, Lord Mackay of Clashfern and Lord Judge, and the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, about the extent to which the use of “guidance” seemed to have slipped into this system: it seems very often to be given the same significance and credibility as ministerial assurances to us as an attempt at more substantial orders. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, referred to the use of “for example”: this seems to be one step further.

In the report we are discussing today, the Constitution Committee is characteristically forthright, saying:

“If the Government uses delegated powers to propose secondary legislation which makes technical provision within the boundaries of the policy and has previously been agreed in primary legislation, Parliament is unlikely to wish to block statutory instruments. However, we are concerned”—


and this report has shown—

“that these boundaries are not always respected and that ministers may seek to use statutory instruments to give effect to significant policy decisions. Without a genuine risk of defeat, and no amendment possible, Parliament is doing little more than rubber-stamping the Government’s secondary legislation. This is constitutionally unacceptable … If the Government’s current approach to delegated legislation persists, or the situation deteriorates further, the established constitutional restraint shown by the House of Lords towards secondary legislation may not be sustained”.


As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, has said, this is a committee representing all parts of your Lordships’ House. This is not just the opposition parties, or just those who have never had experience of ministerial office; it is people of real experience from all sides of the House who are putting down a very important marker for us all. I remind your Lordships that this report was published as long ago as 20 November last year, since when I think it would be fair to say that the situation has undoubtedly deteriorated further. The avalanche of ill-considered Brexit-related SIs is really extraordinary.

The response of the then Leader of the Commons was dated 25 January. I entirely understand the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, that the committee did not find that answer very acceptable. Had there been another answer since then as a result of some of the recent experiences we have all had, we would find it even more complacent. In her letter, she wrote:

“The Government agrees that all those involved in the preparation of legislation have a responsibility to assess thoroughly whether a proposed grant of a delegated power is appropriate. The Government will continue to work to ensure that this is something that is properly scrutinised during the bill preparation phase so that powers are included in bills only where appropriate and where their use can be justified to Parliament”.


The noble Lord, Lord Cope, described that response as cavalier. He is always so tactful, having had experience in both Houses; now we would say something even stronger as a result of our more recent experience. Subsequent experience of the balance between primary and secondary legislative proposals from her ministerial colleagues suggests that her attempt at reassurance was entirely without foundation. The noble Lords, Lord Trefgarne and Lord Blencathra, have had such a difficult time in their respective committees dealing with the SIs that have come forward in recent months.

Members of your Lordships’ House may not be aware that some MPs are also increasingly appreciative of the increasing deficiency in the balance of power between the Executive and legislature in this respect. There has been widespread welcome among MPs for early sight of DPRRC recommendations. Indeed, they have used them in Bill Committees there. Although this was a pragmatic response to vital Brexit legislation, I am sure that the enthusiastic use of these reports will ensure that they continue to be supplied in good order and good time to Members of the other place.

Members of the other place have also observed in the context of Brexit the unfortunate precedents which could be established in the name of expediency. The series of crash-out no-deal SIs that came before both Houses as the then 31 March deadline loomed persuaded many MPs, as well as Peers, that we were all being treated as voting lobby fodder. In that context I particularly admire the work done under very difficult circumstances by the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, and his colleagues in the SLSC.

What is to be done? Ideally both Houses, perhaps with a Joint Select Committee, will have to address these issues. However, given the constitutional challenges now threatening the Commons and likely to preoccupy MPs for many weeks to come—as we have again been reminded today—maybe your Lordships’ House should take the lead. Given the widespread acknowledgment that we have given much more attention to this scrutiny role, that may well be logical and acceptable to all sides.

Personally, I hope that we can look again at modifying the all-or-nothing bilateral choice between acceptance and rejection of SIs. Perhaps we could again look at instituting a Motion that asks the Executive, with our reasons given, to reconsider. That would reduce the need for extreme veto and probably phase out meaningless regret Motions. As my noble friend Lord Beith said, regret Motions do not really have a happy history. What is surely unarguable is that the clear, consistent and compelling recommendations of your Lordships’ Constitution Committee cannot be left to gather dust on some bureaucratic shelves in Westminster or Whitehall.

European Parliament Elections: Non-UK EU Citizens

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Wednesday 5th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his response. I am sorry if anybody who had done the right thing was thereafter denied the right to vote. As he knows, the Electoral Commission will undertake its normal inquiry into this election, as with any other election, and of course we will reflect on the results.

On the noble Lord’s general point, I repeat what I have said on an earlier occasion—probably in response to a question from him—that we have an analogue system in a digital age. We are taking some steps: for example, imprints on digital communications; and the Electoral Commission is issuing statutory guidance to distinguish between candidate expenditure and national expenditure. But I repeat my acceptance of an offer that he made earlier to have an all-party meeting with the Minister for the Constitution to see whether we can find a consensual way forward to make sure that we have an electoral system fit for the digital age and fit for purpose.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, given that the Prime Minister dithered for four weeks between the agreement to extend the Article 50 process, on 11 April, and the official go-ahead for the EP elections, on 7 May, should not the Government take the principal blame for the foreshortened period and the consequent problems that were left in the hands of the electoral authorities? This was also, of course, the main cause of the difficulties with postal votes for UK citizens overseas. Does the Minister accept that this major democratic deficit would not have occurred if the Government had accepted the recommendations made by the Electoral Commission four years ago as a result of difficulties with the previous European parliamentary elections?

As the Minister has just said, and as he has repeated on a number of occasions, we are now faced with a legislative hiatus. Would this not be a good opportunity not just, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, said, to look at the overall problems with electoral law but particularly to look at the problems that occurred with the last referendum so that we can get it into a better shape before we have the next one this autumn?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord raises a number of points, and I shall try to deal with all of them. We were working with the Electoral Commission on streamlining the process following its recommendations after the last European elections, but given the result of the 2016 referendum it was not the Government’s policy to take the reforms forward because our policy was to leave the European Union before the end of March 2019 and therefore before the next election was due.

On his accusations of dithering, I think I can rebut those. On 5 April, when it was clear that we would not be leaving the EU as planned, the Electoral Commission issued guidance that EROs should identify all EU citizens on the local government register and send them the UC1 declaration form accompanied by relevant information about what to do if they wanted to vote for a UK MEP. It also asked the EROs to take additional steps to raise the profile of this requirement. Perhaps I could write to the noble Lord about the arrangements for postal votes.

On the noble Lord’s final point, were there to be another referendum later this year, as he implied, he will know that there would be primary legislation to bring that into effect, and he would have the opportunity to propose any amendments that he wished to the current regime.

Census (Return Particulars and Removal of Penalties) Bill [HL]

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 4th June 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I support the amendments in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and apologise for being unable to speak at Second Reading. As we have said, this is a very sensitive issue. This is about people making very sensitive decisions about whether to put something on an official form that will be used by the Government. When people come to express their sexuality or gender identity, the threat of it being a potential criminal act could sway people on whether they answer that question.

I want to talk about the context of how the census will be filled in. As the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, says, if there is ambiguity—if people do not understand the difference between a criminal offence and a penalty—there could be a social media campaign, maybe by a group that, for genuine reasons, does not want people of a particular gender identity or sexual orientation to be seen to be breaking the law. There could be a social media campaign to prevent people openly and honestly answering this question because it is perceived to be breaking the law, and people do not wish to break the law. I totally agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey. I am not a lawyer, but I am somebody who understands the sensitivity of this particular question and the questions that will be posed. Any ambiguity or overarching threat that this is breaking the law, even though there is no penalty, will be counterproductive. Therefore when the Minister answers, could he do so in a way that is very clear to the ordinary man or woman in the street who will be filling in the form? Will he clearly state why it does not create ambiguity and a potential threat to answering this question openly?

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, I have a very simple point to make. On a constitutional principle, something as important as this should be in the Bill. It will not be sufficient for it to appear in guidance, in the autumn or thereafter. If it is not in the Bill, any explanation or qualification that may result from the ONS rehearsal if this turns out to be an important issue will not be satisfactory. Something as important as this should be in the Bill. I therefore strongly support the amendments in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge.

Political Parties: Donation Rules

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister will be aware that, ever since the report of the CSPL some eight years ago, I have been putting forward draft legislation to deal with the problem that is now before us. Does he recognise that his colleagues in the Conservative Party will get a drubbing tomorrow precisely because, for so many years, they thought that this particular system was working to their advantage and have done nothing about it?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

Were my party to do badly tomorrow, I think it would be for reasons other than those the noble Lord has just given.

EU Referendum: Lessons Learned

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, as I listened to my noble friend warm to his theme of trust, I asked myself whether his infamous depiction in House of Cards of the Government Chief Whip—a position I was privileged to hold—as a duplicitous, homicidal adulterer had enhanced trust in our profession. As for my noble friend’s question and request for a debate, he will have noticed that the Government’s legislative programme currently has a bit of headroom. I hope there will be time for a debate, and the usual channels will have noted his request. To answer his question more seriously, since the referendum there has been a serious issue of trust between the people and Parliament. It is well known that most of Parliament voted to remain and the people voted to leave, and the resultant deadlock has helped undermine confidence in our democratic institutions. My view is that we will not begin to restore trust until that deadlock is resolved one way or another.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister recognise that members of all parties represented in Parliament share the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs? We need to take them seriously, despite what the Minister just said. Surely, however, a royal commission is far too slow. Given that the 2016 leave campaign has been found guilty of breaking electoral law, and accepting that a further referendum may be required later this year, surely the Government will have to act much faster. As the Minister knows and has indicated, there is space for legislation at the moment. The legislation drafted by our cross-party group could be approved and receive Royal Assent before the Summer Recess, and then the poll could take place in September. However, does he not agree that effective regulation of campaign expenses should be agreed as a matter of urgency?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

Were there to be another referendum, as the noble Lord knows, there would have to be primary legislation first, so noble Lords would have an opportunity to amend it. Last time, the House of Lords changed the legislation for the referendum to make it more difficult for parties to act in concert. However, if the noble Lord wants a referendum, my advice to his party is that it needs to vote for the deal. Unless you have a deal, you cannot have a referendum, and the referendum does not just happen—you need a Bill. The right thing for the noble Lord and his colleagues to do is to vote for the deal and then seek to amend the Bill to see whether there is public support in the other place for a referendum.

Elections and Referendums: Foreign Interference

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Tyler]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the adequacy of the regulatory framework for protecting elections and referendum campaigns in the United Kingdom from foreign interference, including financial contributions.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the UK has a robust electoral system with processes in place to defend it, and there is ongoing work to ensure our elections remain secure. The Government are committed to protecting electoral and democratic processes from foreign interference into the future. Measures such as those announced by the Government this week will continue to strengthen our resilience against any foreign interference and ensure that the regulatory framework is as watertight as possible.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, do the Government recognise that there is now an emergency? There is no time for new legislation. The statement made by the Cabinet Office at the weekend of a new consultation is far too little and far too late. Shadowy campaign organisations are already spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on Brexit messages on digital media, and nobody knows where their money is coming from. Just two—Britain’s Future and We Are The 52%—have outspent all the political parties, clearly seeking to distort the poll, which is in just 14 days. The Brexit Party will not tell the Electoral Commission where a £100,000 donation has come from until well after polling day. Surely the Minister recognises that it is totally unsatisfactory for Parliament and government to rely on the investigations of BuzzFeed, the Guardian, the Observer and Channel 4 to defend the integrity of our electoral system. The Government must now recognise that the outcome of the poll on 23 May, in 14 days, could be as dodgy as that in June 2016. Will the Minister undertake to meet me to discuss what can be done urgently to address this serious situation?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

As I have said before from this Dispatch Box, there is no evidence of successful interference in the electoral process in this country, either in referendums or elections. As I said in the Answer I gave to the noble Lord a few moments ago, we are considering the issues. While we do not believe there has been abuse, we are anxious to be ahead of the game. We are now considering increasing the transparency of digital political advertising, including by third parties; closing loopholes on foreign spending in elections; preventing shell companies from sidestepping the current rules on political finance; and taking action to tackle foreign lobbying. I hope the noble Lord welcomes the announcements we have just made.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 15th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, that is the noble Lord’s interpretation of the agreement. I was not party to it, but it was introduced by the then Lord Chancellor, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, and it was binding in Privy Council terms on all of us who took part in that debate. That was a binding commitment. I have tabled an amendment that we shall come to later to try to help the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, get to the same position that I want to get to, which is to get rid of the hereditary Peers in this House.

Perhaps I may return to my amendments. I set out in quite considerable detail how the House of Lords statutory appointments commission should work. It will come as no surprise to my noble friend Lord Young on the Front Bench because he will recognise the details. They come from Schedules 5 and 6 to the 2012 Bill, which, sadly, failed in another place. I would have supported it had it come to this House. His name was on that Bill, as indeed was Danny Alexander’s, so I presume that the Liberal party still supports a statutory appointments commission, and I look forward to getting the support of its Members for this.

I do something slightly different from my noble friend. I set out that there should be a House of Lords appointments commission, and, equally and importantly, that there should be a Speakers’ committee comprising 13 members, as designed in 2012, to oversee the statutory appointments commission. It was drafted by a government draftsman, so I will not go into any detail, but I hope that the House will give this consideration. As my noble friend Lord Strathclyde said, there would be a lacuna. When the hereditary Peers go, it would be a much better arrangement if there were a totally independent committee to look at all appointments. My amendment covers all that. Proposed new subsection (4) in Amendment 58 says that it should come into operation,

“on a statutory basis, with the role of screening, selecting and recommending all persons for appointment to the House of Lords”.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

Does the noble Earl recall that he advanced this argument at length in Committee on 23 November 2018? Does he also recall that the Companion says at paragraph 8.138:

“Arguments fully deployed either in Committee of the whole House or in Grand Committee should not be repeated at length on report”?


What does he have to say to that?

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, I raised this amendment in Committee and, as with many amendments tabled in Committee, I have brought it forward again on Report. Where I disagree with the noble Lord is in him saying that I raised it at length; it was a very short speech.

EU Referendum: Conduct

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, the Prime Minister has made her position quite clear on a second referendum: she does not want one. The Electoral Commission is investigating whether Mr Banks was the true source of the loans reported by a referendum campaign in his name and whether any individual facilitated a transaction with a non-qualifying person. But it is important to keep this in perspective. The Atlantic Council and the Oxford Research Institute, both of which have researched this, found that the impact of the Russians on the referendum was at best marginal. One estimate was 0.3% of tweets. I was as disappointed as the noble Lord with the outcome of the referendum, but unlike him I do not believe that it was lost because of what I might call the Zinoviev Twitter.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, this is the Act of Parliament that set out the conditions under which the referendum was fought. This is not a minor matter of rules or regulations; this is the law of the land. Can the noble Lord confirm that the Electoral Commission passed files detailing what had happened in terms of lawbreaking by the leavers during the campaign to the Metropolitan Police several months ago? Can he reassure the House that the police will never halt or delay an investigation because it is claimed that there are political sensitivities?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I think it is a malign slur on the police to imply that they would defer to political pressure in that way. It is indeed the case that the responsible person for Vote Leave has been referred to the police, as has Mr Grimes, in relation to false declarations of campaign spending. A number of pro-remain organisations were also fined by the EC for breaking referendum law, including the Liberal Democrats.

Third-party Election Campaigning

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Thursday 13th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, I am delighted to take part in this debate. In response to the point made earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, I suspect every Member of this House is involved in a number of charities and I have also been a full-time employee of a major charity in the past—so I have an awareness of their concerns and current interests.

We are enormously indebted to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, not just for securing this debate but for his leadership of the very important group that looked from outside Parliament at the work we were undertaking in preparation for the original Bill, and then through its passage and beyond. The four commission reports to which he referred are extremely important and I am glad that much attention is being paid to them today.

I am also extremely conscious of the importance of the work by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts. Noble Lords may recall that there was huge support across the House for the proposition built into the Bill that there should be a review. I acknowledge the success that the House had in doing that. I think that the Commons had not even thought that that might be useful and necessary; we thought that it was and we were fully justified by the very effective report that the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, produced. In it he emphasised, as he has again today, the importance of the word “transparency”. That did not appear in the Bill’s title by accident. It is the purpose of the legislation. It might well be said that we need more transparency in other areas of politics—I shall come back to that—but that was a very important motivation.

The noble Lord said that it was important that the public—all of us—should be aware of exactly who third-party campaigners are and what they are spending. It has again been emphasised to your Lordships today that this is not a new concept. It was not suddenly thought in 2013-14 that it was desirable to do this; it went right back to PPERA in 2000. As my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire, who was also involved in that process, emphasised, a great deal of thought went into trying to get the balance right. The fact that we did not get it completely right first time, as implied by the title of the review by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, may well indicate how important it is for your Lordships’ House and Parliament generally to undertake post-legislative scrutiny just as much as pre-legislative scrutiny. This is a classic case.

It would be worthwhile very quickly to refer to the excellent brief from the Lords Library on this debate, which summarises neatly the recommendations of the report from the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, which are:

“A revision of the statutory definition of regulated activity. The report argued that the current definition of regulated activity captured activity that could be ‘reasonably regarded’ as intended to influence voters, which created ‘too much ambiguity’ about what expenditure on campaigning activity was regulated. Therefore, the statutory definition should be changed to ‘one of actual intention’ … A reduction of the regulated period before a general election from twelve months to four … Clarification on how staff costs should be regulated to ensure that work undertaken on electoral campaigning that is ‘incidental’ to a person’s normal job does not count … Registration with the Electoral Commission which is published on their website should provide greater transparency about each individual third party campaigner, and therefore more information should be provided as to the purpose of the campaign, where that campaigning is planned to take place, and broad estimates of likely expenditure … The Government and the regulator to monitor the use of social media to ensure that the regulatory framework continued to strike the right balance”.


All those recommendations are valid. They meet a number of the points made by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, but they go beyond that. They open some very important questions about the integrity of our political process, especially in relation to social media. As a number of colleagues have said, life has moved on quite a long way since 2000—and even since 2014. While those recommendations echo some of those from the noble and right reverend Lord’s commission, a number of issues go beyond that which should now be taken seriously into account as the Government prepare for the next Session, which one hopes will not be dominated by the complete traffic jam of Brexit.

I am not sure that we have all yet taken full account of the changing circumstances to which the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, and my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire referred. For example, it is important to look back to some of the discussions that took place in 2014. For example, I recall my then noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby, who is an acknowledged expert on US politics because of her role at Harvard and a number of other roles on the other side of the Atlantic, warning of the increasing influence of a small group of right-wing billionaires in American politics outwith the party system. Indeed, since then I have read with huge interest the extraordinary book Dark Money, which is analytical and takes forensic interest in the way money is used in the United States. The Koch brothers, to whom my noble friend Lord Wallace referred, are among a number of people who have invested huge sums of money seeking to influence American politics outwith the party system.

Since 2014, we have had three important developments: Trump; the 2016 EU referendum, to which reference has been made; and the extraordinary increase in the amount of money invested between 2015 and 2017 in social media messages. Unsolicited campaign messaging in social media has exploded. Some say—I have heard the noble Lord, Lord Young, say it in the past—that we have no direct evidence that this is all very influential. Well, if it is not influential, it is an extraordinary waste of money.

On this side of the Atlantic, the increase in the amount of money invested by the political parties and by the campaign groups in the referendum in 2016, has been astronomical. It has gone from a few hundred thousand pounds in the case of the Labour Party to millions; and it has gone from millions to doubling millions in the Conservative Party—and, as my noble friend Lord Wallace said, we still do not know precisely how much money was spent by campaigning groups in the 2016 EU referendum. If all that expenditure had no impact on the result of the 2015 election, in the referendum of 2016 and in the election of 2017, the donors who provided all that money—whence I know not; in some cases, it was clearly foreign money—must surely believe that their money was wasted.

As has already been said, it is extraordinary that we have not caught up with the need for imprints on all messages to all voters that come via social media in the way that there has to be with written material. I understand that that was a requirement during the referendum on Scottish independence. Having learned the lesson that it was important then, why did the Government not insist on such an addition for the elections and the referendum that have taken place since? I understand that the Electoral Commission recommended that about 10 years ago, so it at least was ahead of the game.

I will refer briefly to two further issues, because we should take them into account during this one opportunity that we are likely to have in the immediate future to debate these important concerns, to which all Members have referred. Members of your Lordships’ House may recall that Lady Williams and I suggested at quite an early stage of the Bill that we should at least examine whether its provisions should exclude charities. A number of colleagues here today have said how it is charities that seem to have been most affected by the so-called chilling effect. We argued that, since charities are already subject to the requirements of the Charity Commission, there was a perfectly valid argument for saying that they should be excluded from the legislation and treated differently—and if it was necessary to improve or update the charities legislation, and the role and responsibilities of the Charity Commission, so be it.

We undertook to pursue this with coalition Government Ministers at the time, who were sympathetic to that view. However, the charities seemed ambivalent as to whether that would be to their advantage. Other organisations from a very different background, some of which my noble friend referred to—a rather more right-wing background, if I may put it that way, that was much more comparable to what was going on in the United States—were only too pleased to keep the charities with them. It gave them a degree of extra respectability; it was a sort of human shield for some of their less desirable activities.

I do not know whether the charities still feel that they should be subject to this legislation; clearly, if it was going to be a matter for review and amendment, we should look at it again. The Sheila McKechnie Foundation, which provided us with an excellent brief—not least because it was very brief: just two pages—made the point that the Act as it stands:

“Makes it harder for charities to pursue their mission”.


It reduces the abilities of charities and—a key point:

“The effects of the Lobbying Act on how charities approach campaigning can’t be isolated from other policies and opinions that reduce the ability of charities to speak out”.


It would appear that its representations are actually just about charities. If that is the case, we should be open and honest about this and say that it is an issue that may need to be addressed in due course. I very much accept what the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said about charities. I have been active in support of charities over many years and continue to be, particularly charities concerned with international development in Africa and Asia, and I entirely understand the point he made.

There is one other issue I will refer to briefly, because I think it is important: it has been referred to obliquely by other noble Lords. I believe that it is about time we made sure that there was an even playing field between non-party campaigning and party campaigning. The present restrictions on party campaigning are clearly no longer fit for purpose in the present world of social media. We have had a number of discussions in your Lordships’ House and in the other place on this issue. We really need to look at it very seriously. I know that there is a problem of time, but in due course I hope that we will get to a Session when we are not completely tied down by Brexit legislation—and it will be important, for reasons that have already been advanced, that all this legislation is reviewed before the next general election.

It is simply not true that there is effective transparency on national expenditure in constituency campaigns. The two regimes that apply, and the difficulties that the Electoral Commission and even the police have in dealing with what should and should not appear in the reports of constituency candidates and their agents, are clearly matters of real concern that affect the whole integrity of our electoral process. Similarly, I have already mentioned the lack of effective transparency on unsolicited campaign material, and the vast increase in expenditure with very little identification of where it is coming from and who is paying for it. For all we know, the biggest single investors, in terms of time and staff, in the British electoral process at the moment are some Russian guys: it is extraordinary, the way we have allowed that to happen. It is being examined very carefully, of course, in the United States, with no conclusion. It is being examined by the DCMS Select Committee in the other place, but we have not yet had an authoritative response from the Government.

Reference has been made to the extent to which non-party campaigners are suffering from a disproportionate impact. That is due partly to the fact that the clarity of the law in terms of party campaigners has not been completely resolved: it is still work in progress, it is unfinished business and it is urgent. There is a need for thorough parliamentary review and reform, to apply not just to the non-party campaigning activities that are important to this country’s democratic health but to party campaigning as well. I have a Private Member’s Bill that might go some way towards that, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, knows. Maybe, one day, there will be a chance to get to Committee on that Bill.