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

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner of Kimble, for the unfailing courtesy in the discussion that we had on my amendment. When I moved a similar amendment in Committee, with the support of a number of my noble friends and no one dissenting, I said that I hoped that I and all of us concerned with the status of the use of the Welsh language had nothing to worry about. Now the Government have tabled Amendment 44, which includes such provision in new paragraph 1A(1)(b), and I welcome that as a very important step indeed.

Given the history of the success in ensuring equal validity for the language over the years, I presume the failure to include in the Bill a declaratory statement of the kind now in the Government’s amendment was an unintended omission. I was particularly encouraged by the considered statement of the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, in his reply to the previous debate, where he stated that,

“the Government believe that the Welsh Language Act 1993 includes an obligation to treat Welsh and English on an equal basis and that there is a strong and compelling case for translation costs to be excluded”—

that is, excluded from the ceiling. He added, with regard to the references that had been made to the history of the language, that,

“the Government will consider how this exclusion would operate and will want to return to this important issue on Report”. —[Official Report, 16/12/13; col. 1093.]

That is what they have done, and I welcome that. Hence my noble friend and I tabled the original amendment, and I am grateful for the support of all who spoke in Committee.

The Minister said that there is “no legal obligation” to translate election material from English to Welsh and vice versa, and that is absolutely right. In reality, however, given the sea change in the use of the Welsh language in Wales, in some parts in practice it would not be possible to make any electoral headway without the use of both languages. All parties in Wales recognise this and implement the public expectation of the use of both languages. Indeed, in my time as a constituency Member of Parliament, this is what happened and many people made representations to me in both languages.

The Welsh Language Commissioner, Meri Huws, was concerned about this lacuna in the Bill and sought my support. The Bill defines “controlled expenditure” to include,

“the production … of material which is made available to the public at large”.

Since the cost of translation of electoral material falls within that definition, the commissioner was concerned that the reduced expenditure would adversely affect the provision of bilingual election material in Wales. Non-political organisations might well choose not to use bilingual election material. That was the issue. The mischief which concerned the Welsh Language Commissioner was the possible inhibition of third parties from issuing bilingual material.

I would argue that the Government have sought to meet our need. You cannot translate anything unless you have an original document. Material produced for the public at large by definition includes the production cost. The bilingual production of the document for translation is a preliminary step towards its publication, so it is totally unreasonable to limit the exception to, for example, the actual payment to the translator, which could be quite small. Following my conversation with the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, this morning, I hope that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, who I understand will reply, will give me the assurance I seek that “production” is basically a part of the process leading to the translation. Any other interpretation would put my noble friends, and indeed the Government, in an impossible situation.

Let me describe the situation where I was wrong and the expenditure was confined strictly to the actual costs of, for example, paying the translator. Whereas in England the NSPCC may issue material only in one language, the NSPCC in Wales would be obliged to prepare and translate a similar document in both languages. If the whole costs could not be excluded from the expenditure ceiling, that would certainly inhibit it from doing what it would like to do. If I am wrong—perhaps those advising the Minister will want to consider the reply, which I am sure will be helpful—the mischief of discouraging people from producing bilingual pamphlets and material would still be there.

I hope very much that I can have the assurance that I want. I refer again to what the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, said in Committee, that the Government want to fulfil their obligations,

“to treat Welsh and English on an equal basis”.—[Official Report, 16/12/13; col. 1093.]

I hope and believe that the legislation should leave this House on as perfect a basis as possible.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

Before the noble and learned Lord sits down, can he emphasise that the cost of production includes additional paper and printing as well as the cost of translation? That is the point where his amendment, to which my name is attached, has merit over and above the Government’s amendment. There needs to be clarification that the cost of production includes the extra costs related to having the production in two languages.

[Lord Morris of Aberavon]

Given that the definition I have quoted refers to “production of material”, I assume that that material is included in the definition. You cannot usually translate anything unless you have something on paper to look at, which enables you to translate it. Therefore, this is an initial step in production. I emphasise, for the third time, that the definition refers to,

“the production … of material which is made available to the public”.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Wallace of Tankerness) (LD)]

My Lords, first, I thank those who have contributed to this debate, in particular those who have welcomed the government amendments. We certainly sought to listen and take on board comments from a wide range of those engaged in campaigning. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire, who met far more groups than I did. These meetings and deliberations, and indeed the contributions made in Committee in your Lordships’ House, have very much informed the proposals that we have come forward with today. Again, I thank the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, and the other members of the Commission on Civil Society and Democratic Engagement for their contribution to this debate.

The purpose of Schedule 3 is to extend the range of activities for which a third party incurs controlled expenditure. It takes forward a recommendation from the independent Electoral Commission to align the range of activities for which third parties incur controlled expenditure with that for political parties. The Electoral Commission has highlighted that there is no clear reason why controlled expenditure for third parties applies only to election material. This difference means that a potential gap arises in the rules governing elections in our country.

The Government and the Electoral Commission believe it is important that this potential gap in the regulatory regime is addressed. However, the Government also acknowledge some important issues that have been raised, not only by noble Lords but a number of campaigning groups. As such, we have tabled a number of amendments to Clause 26 and Schedule 3. I will take the opportunity to explain what they do.

Currently, the regime under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 outlines specific activities that do not incur controlled expenditure. These include volunteers, publications which are not advertisements in newspapers, broadcasts on certain channels such as the BBC or S4C, and certain reasonable personal expenses. Government Amendment 37 removes these exclusions from Section 87 of PPERA and Amendment 44 inserts them into new Schedule 8A and expands the types of expenses that are excluded from incurring controlled expenditure.

The full range of exclusions that the Government have brought forward includes amendments to expenses in respect of the translation of materials from English to Welsh or Welsh to English. I shall say something about the important points made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris, and the noble Lords, Lord Wigley and Lord Elystan-Morgan. At present, controlled expenditure is incurred on the production and publication of election materials, such as leaflets. The Bill retains this, but costs associated with translating these materials from English to Welsh or vice versa will be excluded. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris, said he hoped that this was an oversight and that it was not there in the first place. If there was an oversight, and I think there probably was, it was probably also an oversight in the 2000 Act, because election materials are covered by the provisions in that Act. I hope, albeit belatedly, that there is considerable cross-party and non-party consensus that it is something we should be doing.

The Government believe that this highlights the importance of the Welsh Language Act 1993, which treats the Welsh and English languages as equal. It follows the practice of producing election material and ballot papers in Welsh. We are grateful to the noble and learned Lord for raising this issue in Committee. He asked about production costs. When we are giving something it is easy to say that it is not as much as you thought we were giving, but we believe that extending the exemption further than the cost of translation would go too far. It would allow campaigns to print different material for different addresses without being regulated. For example, if a campaigner prints 100 leaflets in English, he can then print 100 leaflets in Welsh for an entirely different purpose. Therefore, we thought it important that this amendment should relate to the cost of translation, rather than the production of material.

Indeed, that is what we thought was intended by the noble and learned Lord’s amendment, when it says that production,

“shall not include costs incurred by the translation of those materials from English into Welsh or from Welsh into English”.

Indeed, the Government’s amendment refers to,

“expenses incurred in respect of the translation of anything from English into Welsh or from Welsh into English”,

which may even go further—there may be expenses other than translation expenses. I want to make it clear that we think, having considered this, that to relate it to the publication costs—to the printing of the leaflets—goes further than is needed to address the important point about Welsh translation.

[Lord Wigley]

Surely the Minister accepts that if an organisation—say, the NSPCC—requires a leaflet to be put out in England and in Wales, in England it might be in other languages but it need be only in English to meet the law. In Wales, it would be in Welsh bilingually with English. Sometimes that can mean double the size of the leaflet. Sometimes it might be constrained to six instead of eight pages in the way that bilingualism can be laid out, but the cost of producing something in a bilingual format for the customers is significant because of the print and the paper, not just the time taken to translate a leaflet. That is relative peanuts in the operation. If the Minister is excluding the other parts, there is a very serious implication.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, as I have indicated, we thought that the amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, has signed did not actually go further than we were going. I think there has been a proper debate on this. I do not want to mislead the House into thinking that we are willing to countenance in the Bill an opportunity to exploit it and to double up on the number of leaflets. I hear what the noble Lord says and, subject to what I have already said about not wanting to incur a loophole, I am prepared to consider whether the wording reflects what might be called a marginal cost of translation but not costs that might allow more leaflets to be published. The noble Lord is nodding his head; perhaps he agrees that that is not an unreasonable position.

I hope that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris, will agree that it is not entirely clear that these additional production costs were covered by his amendment either. Certainly, we did not think they were.