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

John Bercow Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[Mr Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to consider the following:

New clause 3—Cost and impact of Part 2—

‘Within one month of Royal Assent, the Electoral Commission must lay before Parliament—

(a) full cost projections of the impact of Part 2 on their running costs;

(b) their assessment of the administrative impact on third parties.’.

Amendment 65, in clause 41, page 47, line 40, at end insert—

‘(A1) None of Part 2 shall come into force until the report of any inquiry undertaken by a Committee of either House of Parliament during the passage of the Act into the impact of the Act has been published.’.

Amendment 66, page 48,line 2, leave out subsection (1)(b).

Amendment 4, page 48, line 3, leave out sub-paragraph (i).

Amendment 5, page 48, line 6, leave out sub-paragraph (iii).

Amendment 6, page 48, line 7, leave out sub-paragraph (iv).

Amendment 67, page 48, line 17, leave out subsection (3)(b).

Amendment 10, in clause 42, page 48, line 37, leave out subsections (3) to (6).

Amendment 11, page 49, line 18, leave out subsections (7) and (8).

Amendment 12, page 49, line 29, leave out subsection (9).

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[Mr Allen]

I thank the hon. Gentleman and would like to put on record my thanks to other colleagues who sit on the Select Committee, some of whom are in the Chamber today. We faced incredibly difficult conditions, providing a report for this House at very short notice, which meant being called back during the recess. I compliment the hon. Gentleman and the rest of my Select Committee for doing that and for giving the House half a chance to debate this issue seriously.

The hon. Gentleman seems surprised that stuff that we are meant to have in front of us—on Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—is not in front of us, while we are halfway through the Bill’s proceedings. However, he answered his own question in his opening remarks when he referred to the Government’s failure to provide the proper amount of time, consideration and consultation that we should expect in the House. Let me quote, very briefly, what has been said by the Electoral Commission:

“We await confirmation of the Government’s view of the impact of the Bill on the referendum on independence for Scotland.”

I am perfectly sure that had that impact been known, even today, a great many more Members from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would have been present. This is an outrageous attempt to push a measure through with great speed, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will continue to emphasise that in his speech.

[Mr Speaker]

I was wondering whether at some point the hon. Gentleman might wish to make a speech on the matter, but then I realised that he had in fact just done so. We are grateful to him, and I remind those who are attending to our proceedings beyond the Chamber that his celebrity status should now be universally known. He is, of course, the Chair of the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform, and it is, I know, in that capacity that he seeks to advise the House. Even so, he will want to ensure that the subsequent interventions that he will make from time to time are moderately briefer.

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

Among the many anomalies in the Bill are the cross-border implications —England, Wales and Scotland. We can well envisage a situation in which the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Wales is campaigning on an issue and broadcast and print media could be received on the other side of the border. The RSPCA would say, “We’re from Wales and this area is devolved,” whereupon the response might be, “But it has an impact on the UK general election.”

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I make the point that, I have noticed in my two spells chairing the debate, interventions have not decreased in length? If anything, they have tended to get longer. They need to be a little shorter.

[Mr Harris]

My hon. Friend is right to raise that concern. It occurs to me that, no matter how complicated a problem is, it will be a lot more complicated when we introduce talk of any of the devolved Administrations.

I want to offer one more important example that has been raised previously with the Minister. The National Union of Students might arrive in his constituency in the year running up to May 2015 with a leaflet saying, “Here is a photograph of your MP, Tom Brake, signing a pledge not to vote in any circumstances for increased tuition fees. This is what he said, and this is how he voted.” Will he confirm—yes or no—whether that campaign or that union would fall foul of the spending limits and the sanctions in the Bill? That is a reasonable question, and it is reasonable to ask the Minister to say, one way or another, whether that is the case.

At the last general election, I attended a number of hustings. At the very end of one that was organised by a church—a charitable organisation—it was announced that the candidates present would be asked to sign a public pledge and that a photograph of the candidates signing the pledge would be subsequently distributed to voters. The pledge was to campaign to allow asylum seekers to get work legally. I said, “No, I don’t believe in that policy,” and had to walk off the stage and allow the other candidates to have their photograph taken, which would have had an effect on the voting intentions of certain groups of people in my constituency. A charitable organisation was distributing information that had an effect on my election. Will the Minister say whether that, in his opinion, according to the legislation, will fall foul of the limits and sanctions in the Bill?

Those are important questions. If the Minister can answer them one way or the other, he would help a great deal in reassuring members of civic society and the heads of charities on whether their activities in the run-up to the next general election will, after all, be perfectly legal and not subject to sanctions.

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[Mr Allen]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The right hon. Gentleman is misleading the House inadvertently about the words that I used and my intent. I would be happy to see amendment 101 in the Bill. However, I feel that there is sufficient time for the Government—even this Government—to improve the wording. I do not claim that it is perfect. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman, who has conducted the debate quite civilly to date, will not misrepresent me again.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman has made his point, to which there is no requirement for a reply. The Deputy Leader of the House may continue with his advocacy.

[Tom Brake]

I have noted the hon. Gentleman’s point. The Opposition spokesman said that he would support amendment 101. Personally, I think that it should be put into room 101.

The hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) supported what the Government are doing, which I welcome. He said that he would not support the loss of freedom of speech and nor would I or anybody else on the Front Bench. This is a good opportunity to remind people that this Government have got rid of ID cards, stopped the retention of the DNA of innocent people, got rid of internal exile and reduced the pre-charge detention period from 28 to 14 days. We will take no lectures on civil liberties from the Opposition.

The Chairman of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee explained the he is the trustee of a charity. I congratulate him on that. He said that he would advise his charity not to campaign on policy issues. I hope that that is not the case. We are talking about the PPERA legislation from 2005 and 2010. I assume that he did not advise his charity not to campaign on policy issues in 2005 and 2010, so I hope that he will not give it that advice now.

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[Mr Allen]

I beg to move amendment 102, page 13, line 37, leave out clause 27.

[Mr Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 59,  page 13, line 38, leave out subsection (1).

Amendment 60,  page 14, line 10, at end add—

‘(3) Subsections (1) and (2) may not come into force until such time as the Electoral Commission has placed before Parliament a report on the impact of those subsections on relative controlled expenditure by political parties and non-parties in regulated periods’.’.

Amendment 61, page 14, line 11, leave out clause 28.

Amendment 103, in clause 28, page 15, leave out lines 26 to 35 and insert—

‘(2A) The Secretary of State may by order set limits applying to controlled expenditure which is incurred by or on behalf of a recognised third party in the relevant period in any particular parliamentary constituency in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

(2B) The Secretary of State may by order set limits applying to controlled expenditure which is incurred by or on behalf of a recognised third party in the post-dissolution part of the relevant period in any particular parliamentary constituency in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.’.

Amendment 105, page 18, line 25, leave out clause 29.

Amendment 106, page 23, line 25, leave out clause 30.

Amendment 62, in clause 30, page 23, line 30, leave out from beginning to end of line 35 and insert—

‘(5) If the Minister considers it appropriate to proceed with the making of an order under section 155 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, the Minister must lay before Parliament—

(a) a draft of the Order, and

(b) an explanatory document explaining the proposals.

(6) Sections 15 to 19 of the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006 (choosing between negative, affirmative and super-affirmative parliamentary procedure) are to apply in relation to an explanatory document and draft order laid under section 155 but as if references to section 14 of that Act were references to section 155.’.

Amendment 107, page 23, line 37, leave out clause 31.

Amendment 2, in clause 31, page 23, line 39, at end insert—

‘(1A) In subsection (3)(a), after subparagraph (i) insert (before the “, and” at the end)—

“(ia) where that individual has received a Peerage within the last six months, details of any donations made by the individual to a registered party within the last 10 years.”.’.

Amendment 3,  page 24, line 2, at end insert—

‘(2A) In subsection (3)(b), after subparagraph (ii) insert (before the “, and” at the end)—

“(iia) where any of the relevant participators in relation to the body have received a Peerage within the last six months, details of any donations made by the body to a registered party within the last 10 years.”.’.

Amendment 108, page 24, line 28, leave out clause 32.

Amendment 63, in clause 32, page 26, line 33, leave out sections 95C and 95D.

Amendment 109, page 32, line 14, leave out clause 33.

Amendment 64, in clause 33, page 33, line 20, at end insert—

‘(c) that controlled expenditure incurred by or on behalf of a recognised third party in any relevant part or parts of the United Kingdom does not exceed the limits in section 27 (1).’.

Amendment 110, page 35, line 33, leave out clause 34.

Amendment 111, page 37, line 14, leave out clause 35.

[Mr Allen]

Following on from that interesting vote, I should like to point out that had 19 more colleagues voted for the amendment rather than against it, it would have been carried. I am sure that that will be noted by the thousands of people who have sent in requests to colleagues to consider their plight seriously. The fact is that those requests have been ignored by large numbers of Members of Parliament who might well feel that the voluntary and community sectors will be their supporters in the next election. I do not know whether the law will now mean that those people will be able to be prosecuted in some way, but I am sure that the voluntary sector and the charities will study the record with great interest. I also hope that they will study the record of our deliberations on clause 27.

Clause 27 is not about symbols or about gagging, as our previous discussions have been. It is about cash. It is about the ability of charities to put across their point of view, to have the money to do that, and to be able to enjoy the interaction with the democratic process that they have come to know in recent years. This is not about a Government handout or about some back-door way of influencing the Government. It is not about charities having to pay, as a professional lobbyist might. It is about their freedom to enter the democratic process in an election year. That is a right that they have enjoyed, but it is going to be changed if we allow clause 27 to go through tonight. That is why I wish to notify the Chair that I should like to call a vote on amendment 102. That will allow every Member of Parliament to make a simple statement by answering a very straightforward, black-and-white, yes-or-no question. They could state that the activity that charities have hitherto enjoyed in interacting with our democracy in an election year is fine and that they should continue to be able to do so, and that whatever else we have said about the Bill, the expenditure limits set out before clause 27 are okay. Alternatively, they could endorse the provisions in clause 27.

Those Members who have laboured through the Committee and Report stages of the Bill have probably heard this before. When the Select Committee was denied the right to give the Bill proper pre-legislative scrutiny, we attempted hurriedly to pull together witnesses. They and members of my Select Committee—some of whom are in the Chamber this evening—gave up their time to do some really quick pre-legislative scrutiny. That is absolutely not the way to do it.

One thing that I can say about this Bill—and one thing that we will remember about it—is that there are lots of firsts and lots of examples of how not to conduct a proper legislative process. It may be that the Electoral Commission, set up to deal with these issues, has not been listened to. The Government attitude seems to be, “Don’t let’s talk to them; don’t even tell them that we are changing their terms of reference until very late in the day”; and “Let’s not involve the people who are affected until we have drafted a Bill and it is virtually ready to go into print. At that point, perhaps we will talk to them”; and “Let’s not involve Parliament—a body so contemptible and useless that we do not want to involve this bunch of clowns in a pre-legislative process so that evidence from outside bodies could be gathered and people could come in and provide some advice.” Parliament, it seems, deserves total contempt—“They do not get to do any pre-legislative scrutiny until after a Bill is published; and if they want to do that, we will give them three working days between the Bill’s publication and its Second Reading.”

If we reflect on all that, we can see that the absence of proper pre-legislative scrutiny is not the worst crime that we have seen with this Bill. When it comes to abuse of the legislative process, this is about as bad it gets. Our hope has to be that our unelected friends down the other end of the corridor in the other place will see that, due to the lack of time Parliament has had to discuss the Bill and the lack of input from those affected by it, clause 27 shows the legislative process at its most pernicious. Why? Because as yet—perhaps this is the night—no justification, no evidence and no reason has been given for why clause 27 should exist. I know that the Deputy Leader of the House has been working hard on this during the Bill’s parliamentary stages, and I am sure that tonight is going to be the night on which he is going to tell us why there is a clause 27. Our Select Committee looked pretty hard at clause 27. We asked the Government, as well as other people, to give evidence to us, but we could not find the reason for it. I remain optimistic that we are actually going to hear it tonight, which would be a good occasion for all of us and a parliamentary first on this Bill.

What the Select Committee said about the lack of evidence in this area was:

“We have stated already that we have not seen adequate evidence for the setting of the new thresholds”—

the lower thresholds—

“for expenditure at the levels to be imposed by Part 2 of the Bill. The Government must explain the reasoning behind its decisions during the passage of the Bill. Even if the Government can make the case for imposing lower levels, it must be able to give a convincing account of why it has chosen these particular limits”—

I shall come back to that later in my remarks—

“as opposed to any others. If it cannot do so, we”—

the Political and Constitutional Reform Select Committee, comprising Members of all parties—

“recommend that the existing levels continue to apply until such point as the case for change has been made.”

Such was the summation and conclusion of the Select Committee on clause 27. No case has been made, and certainly no case has yet been made about the figures. Why have particular limits been chosen? Again, we are hopeful that the Deputy Leader of the House will tell us this evening.

I understand that we may be seeking a vote at some early moment, so I shall speed through my remarks.

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[Mark Durkan]

The Deputy Leader of the House says that the Government wanted a figure that was straightforward. Were the existing figures not straightforward enough? Who has been running rings around them? What has been the ambit of the abuse that the Government are trying to deal with? What problem has been solved? Problems have been created, but the Deputy Leader of the House has not told us what problem is being solved.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Before the Deputy Leader of the House responds, I ought to emphasise what should be apparent to everybody—namely, that we are operating under very tight time constraints. There are amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) about which he might wish, perfectly reasonably, to speak and others also wish to contribute. A degree of self-discipline is now imperative.

[Tom Brake]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for that guidance. The answer to the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) is that the provision is about transparency and making people aware of a wider range of organisations that are campaigning in constituencies up and down the country in support of a party or candidate.

Once a third party has registered with the Electoral Commission it may then only incur controlled expenditure to a maximum spending limit, which is currently set at approximately 5% of the potential party spend. That amounts to just under £1 million—£988,000—across the UK. Evidence from recent elections shows that the third-party spending limit for UK parliamentary elections, which applies separately for each of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, is so high that third parties are effectively unrestricted in their level of spending. That renders the limit ineffective as a spending control.

As Members will be aware, clause 27 lowers the spending limits for the purposes of UK parliamentary elections to 2% of the maximum campaign expenditure limit that applies to political parties campaigning in UK parliamentary elections. That is equivalent to £319,800 in England, £35,400 in Scotland, £24,000 in Wales and £10,800 in Northern Ireland. The Bill lowers the thresholds to increase transparency by identifying third parties that campaign in the political process, and I should have thought that Opposition Members would support that. Amendment 59 would amend clause 27 so that it no longer does that.

It is right to distinguish which organisations incur expenditure campaigning at elections and to ensure their funds are fully accounted for, but we recognise that there is a balance to be struck between transparency and placing regulatory requirements on third parties. We also need to take account of the spending limit in constituencies, to which I shall come shortly.

Amendment 60 proposes that until the Electoral Commission has undertaken an assessment of the impact of clause 27 on both political parties and third parties, and until that report is laid before Parliament, the provisions of clause 27 may not come into effect. A few hours ago, we had a lengthy debate on the impact assessments that the Government has carried out and that we would expect the Electoral Commission, as part of its normal duties, to conduct after the legislation is implemented and elections have taken place.

At the last general election, the largest 10% of third parties spent more than the remaining 90% put together. We are seeking a level playing field for the different third parties that might oppose each other in the course of an election campaign. It is worth noting that only two organisations spent more than the new lowered limits proposed in the Bill—Unison and Vote for a Change. That demonstrates that the spending limit is so high as to be ineffectual in creating the level playing field that spending limits seek to provide.

Clause 28 sets the constituency limits and the Government have been put on the spot and asked why we want to reduce the national spending cap. Third parties must comply with particular spending limits according to whether they are campaigning in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. Under the provisions of the Bill, they may spend up to an aggregate £390,000 campaigning in a UK parliamentary election, a figure that we think allows third parties to campaign vigorously nationally but that also provides a greater degree of control over spending to ensure that big money does not seek to play a part in influencing the outcome of elections, particularly in a limited number of constituencies, distorting the electoral process. A third party could, however, choose to direct the entire national spending limit at only a small part of the UK. Again it is not clear whether the Opposition are comfortable with the current situation, where that is possible, or whether they would like to see change. Our view is that we do not want disproportionately large amounts of money to be focused on a limited number of seats. In other circumstances, that is the argument that the Opposition would put to us today if we were not taking the action that we are taking.

Clause 28 therefore introduces an entirely new provision whereby third parties will be permitted to spend only up to a certain proportion of their controlled expenditure in individual constituencies. Subsection (6) limits this per constituency spending to 0.05% of the maximum campaign expenditure limits applied to political parties, which amounts to £9,750. This limit applies for the duration of the regulated period for a UK parliamentary general election.

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[Tom Brake]

I would have hoped that the hon. Gentleman would agree that election campaigns were about political parties fighting together to secure the election of one of the candidates, and that if, for instance, an industrialist who was very pro-fracking decided that he or she wanted to unseat a parliamentary candidate who was anti-fracking and was prepared to spend just under £1 million under the current legislation in unseating that candidate, the hon. Gentleman would not support that. We certainly do not want to allow that to happen.

Further, also under subsection (6)—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I say very gently to the Deputy Leader of the House, to whose contribution I am listening with my usual interest and respect, that I know that he will want the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) to be able to speak from the Opposition Front Bench, as well as the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart). I therefore confidently anticipate that the right hon. Gentleman is approaching the conclusion of his oration.

[Tom Brake]

Indeed, I will do so.

Under subsection (6), only a proportion of the expenditure—£5,850—may be incurred during the period between the dissolution of Parliament and the date of poll. Third parties campaigning for or against a particular candidate or candidates already need to think carefully about their spending to ensure that they stay on the right side of the separate, existing rules on candidate expenditure in the Representation of the People Act 1983. Third parties clearly campaigning for or against a particular candidate or candidates may spend only up £500 doing so. Besides raising this amount to £800 through clause 34, the Bill does not otherwise affect those provisions.

There are many other amendments that I would have liked to have an opportunity to discuss today, but the Government can support none of the amendments in this group. I hope therefore that Members will seek to withdraw them.

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the Deputy Leader of the House for being so co-operative.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

It is unfortunate that the Deputy Leader of the House has not had the opportunity to address my very important amendments 2 and 3, which were part of this group of amendments. I very much support the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) and we will support him in the Lobby tonight.

I do not have an opportunity to talk about Scotland, which is what I wanted to talk a little bit about before I got on to my own amendments, other than to say what a dog’s breakfast the Bill has concocted on issues connected with the referendum. The failure to see this is a travesty on the Government’s part. The fact that we have the same expenditure threshold as Northern Ireland is a total disgrace. Northern Ireland has a population of 1.8 million. We have a population of 5.2 million, which is more than double, yet once again we are lumped in with the same threshold.

I shall speak briefly to my amendments 2 and 3. It has surprised me that there has been very little talk about big money and the House of Lords. One of the defining features of the previous Parliament was the cash for honours crisis. It was a disgrace that a sitting Prime Minister was interviewed by the police because there was a belief that millions of pounds had changed hands for a place in that place down the road. The police eventually did not pursue the matter, not because they could not find particular evidence, but because they believed that it was not in the public interest.

The public were appalled by cash for honours, but the Bill does absolutely nothing to address big money in the House of Lords. Only China’s National People’s Congress is larger than that big bloated Chamber, which has 786 Members, but in their wisdom they decided that it required another 30 Members. When we look at a list of those 30 new Members, we see that—surprise, surprise—£1.26 million had been donated in the last round of honours. The public will be aghast that that has been ignored and that the Bill does not even touch on cash for honours.

I will explain what I propose very quickly, because I know that the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) is still to speak. We have seen £1.26 million donated by the 30 new Members of the upper House. Sir William Haughey is among them, as is Sir Anthony Bamford and Howard Leigh, all Labour or Tory donors. Do not think the Liberals get off lightly, because they have already suggested a few Members who have given them significant amounts of money over the years. This is a cash cow for the UK parties and it has to stop.

We cannot have this as a feature of our democracy. The fact that someone can donate to a political party and then be rewarded with ermine in the unelected House of Lords, which the hon. Member for Nottingham North hopes might fix this mess of a Bill, is absurd. Is that any way to run a democracy in what is the fifth or sixth largest economy in the world? There will soon be 1,000 of these people if we do not do something about it. I do not know how much money that would bring in for the UK parties, but I suggest that it would be a lot.

My gentle little amendments are all about trying to address at least some of those concerns. I do not have time to go through them in detail, because I see that Labour Front Benchers are getting twitchy. I will not push this to a vote, but let us look at what goes on with big money and cash for honours. It is a disgrace and the public are appalled, so let us stop it.

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[Jonathan Edwards]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Before the hon. Gentleman intervenes, may I say for advisory purposes that I know of half a dozen Members who wish to speak? The Leader of the House is extremely experienced, and we do not need to repeat all the arguments in great detail. A pithy exposition will suffice, and then the majority of colleagues who want to speak will have the chance to do so. We will be led by the Leader of the House. I call Jonathan Edwards.

[Jonathan Edwards]

On Second Reading I listed a number of lobbying scandals that have decimated and dominated politics in this place for far too long: donations for dinners, cash for honours, cash for questions, a ministerial cab for hire. Which of those scandals will the Bill stop in future?