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

Debate between Stephen Twigg and Baroness Primarolo

Wednesday 22nd January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

I now have to announce the result of the deferred Division on the question relating to the draft civil legal aid regulations. The Ayes were 304 and the Noes were 231, so the Question was agreed to.

[The Division list is published at the end of today’s debates.]

[Stephen Twigg]

A total of 1 hour and 50 minutes has been allocated for this important debate on part 2 of the Bill, and the Leader of the House has just spoken for almost three quarters of an hour. That leaves the rest of us just over an hour to address an issue on which Members on both sides of the House have received dozens of items of correspondence in the past few days.

Let us remind ourselves that the Bill started out as a lobbying measure. It was meant to be the Government’s response to what the Prime Minister called

“the next big scandal waiting to happen”.

However, the Bill has been a disaster from the very beginning. It was meant to address the next big scandal; instead, it has turned into an attack on civil society, on campaigners and on trade unions. It was meant to fix our broken politics; instead, it risks stifling free and open democratic debate. It was supposedly about stopping big money coming into our politics; instead, it creates the risk that civil society will face unnecessary and burdensome regulations.

It was noted in our earlier discussions on part 1 that the process by which the Bill has been conducted through Parliament is entirely in line with the draconian nature of the Bill itself. There has been a distinct lack of scrutiny at every stage. It has been a shambles. Deliberations on the Bill in the other place finished yesterday—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I am listening carefully to what the hon. Gentleman is saying. It is very interesting, but I must remind him that this is not a Third Reading debate. His remarks should refer specifically to the amendments before us, and I presume that he was about to speak to them before I interrupted him.

[Stephen Twigg]

I am grateful to you for that, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will deal with the amendments in a moment, but it is important that we consider the context, because the speed with which the Bill has been considered, particularly in the past few days, has affected the ability of Members in this House to propose amendments in lieu of the Lords amendments. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) said in the debate on the previous group, Baroness Williams of Crosby said yesterday that the timings, whereby the Lords finished yesterday and the Commons resumed consideration today, are “ludicrous”.

In moving on to deal with the amendments, I wish to praise one of the proponents of the amendments in the Lords, the former Bishop of Oxford, Lord Harries. He has worked diligently to propose sensible amendments on behalf of his Commission on Civil Society and Democratic Engagement in an attempt to improve a deeply flawed Bill. Weeks of engagement, careful drafting of amendments, debate and consultation led to a position where, as has been said, the Government were defeated on three amendments, one in part 1 and two in part 2. As the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) said, there are lessons to be learned by this Government from this process. Some of these issues might not have arisen had the Government published this legislation and enabled pre-legislative scrutiny to take place.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), the Chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, and all the other members of the Committee. As my hon. Friend reminded us, the Government parties have a majority on the Committee yet it offered a damning indictment of the way in which the Bill has been handled. The Committee stated:

“The haste with which Lords amendments are returning to the Commons is yet another example of the way in which this Bill has been rushed through Parliament. The timetable that the Government has imposed for this Bill indicates a contempt for Parliament and a lack of belief in the value of parliamentary scrutiny.”

I remind the House that last September we asked the Government to think again.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. Context we have got, time we have not. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman should now move on from the context—we are not on Third Reading—to the specifics. Other hon. Members are waiting to speak.

[Stephen Twigg]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and let me move on to address some of the specific Lords amendments. First, may I welcome changes that have been made which respond to concerns that have been raised by civil society, but I urge the Government today, notwithstanding what the Leader of the House has just said, to go further and accept the Lords amendments on staffing costs and on constituency limits? Raising registration thresholds is a sensible move that will stop many small and local campaigners becoming entangled in complicated and burdensome regulations. Allowing large campaigners to provide a single expenditure report on behalf of a coalition of smaller campaigners will incentivise and help collaborative working by organisations of different sizes. Simplifying the reporting regime is also a sensible reform.