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

Debate between Tom Clarke and Graham Allen

Tuesday 10th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Allen]

Absolutely. The Electoral Commission comes before us quite a lot and it is pretty hard to get anything off the straight and narrow out of those people. They are impartial civil servants—it is like talking to the Boundary Commission or comparable public officials—who take their jobs seriously. It is impossible, even with the talents I have on my Committee, to lure them into the political domain, quite rightly. I urge hon. Members to read what the Electoral Commission said in evidence about the spot it has been put in by how the Government have rushed the Bill through. I shall make a couple of points on that in a moment.

It used to be a lobbying Bill, but now it is a lobbying Bill and some. It is the “and some” that causes the problems. However, as we discovered during yesterday’s debates, the lobbying provisions apply to Mencap and Save the Children. I had not realised their massive significance in general elections in Britain. I thought they were a helpful adjunct and were interesting, challenging and demanding, but I had not realised that they decided the outcome of general elections. This lobbying Bill, however, leaves out some of the biggest beasts in our political firmament. It does not catch the people who said, “It’s The Sun wot won it,” after a general election. It does not capture those people, such as Rupert Murdoch, who have massive influence. So, even on its own terms, before 27 July, this was an inadequate Bill. Instead of our being able to focus on that, however, clause 27 has been added. As I mentioned yesterday, it impacts on, and has managed to create a unity in, the voluntary and charitable sector that has been hitherto unseen. That, I think, is a perverse achievement by the Government.

[Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making another excellent speech and has clearly done a splendid job. Was he as surprised as I was to look at the explanatory notes on the Bill, and particularly on clause 27, and see that Scotland is allocated a mere £35,400? Can he, with all his experience, tell me what I should say in my constituency if one third party wanted to campaign in favour of fox hunting and the other against it? For example, how could they employ people based on what seems to me to be a ridiculous amount?

[Mr Allen]

I do not want to get drawn into too many specific cases, but my right hon. Friend highlights one issue, which is, when two charities who wish to pursue their legitimate aims are at variance with each other, how do they not, in an election year—because it is known when the election will be; it is 602 days from today—launch legal action against each other? Such bodies can be a bit litigious. Will the League Against Cruel Sports allow the Countryside Alliance to get away with something that might just be embarrassing? Instead it will say, “Let’s see if we can nudge them into court; let’s tie ’em up a little bit.” Or is it possible—the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) is in his place—that the Countryside Alliance might even say to the League Against Cruel Sports, “You have stepped over the line here,” with such amounts of money as my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke) referred to?

Then in comes the police force. Who will be the police force? It will be the Electoral Commission. The Electoral Commission will be pushed in between two contending charities to be the referee—to push those people apart. And do what else? If it is informed by one slightly malicious party that an infringement is going to take place, does it have to send its own people? Do they have to stop people getting on the platform? Do they take down the advertisements outside? What are we doing making the Electoral Commission the thought police of free speech in this country—a job it does not want and has not asked for, and was not even consulted about before it picked up the Bill at The Stationery Office? It was not even consulted about the proposed change to its role.