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

Debate between Wayne David and David Lammy

Wednesday 9th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Wayne David]

I am sure that my hon. Friend makes a good point—and my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon, who is a professional historian, is smiling and probably agrees. It is not just about the Labour party, however; other parties have been formed recently as well, and who knows what the future holds? The point is that society has changed. The Labour party might have been the precursor to a new kind of politics in this country, but increasingly we are seeing politics from the bottom up, rather than the top down, which is to be encouraged in society.

I do not want to stray from the point, Mr Speaker, and talk about the nature of democracy. [Interruption.] You are nodding that I should, Mr Speaker. In this day and age, it is of fundamental importance that democracy should not be seen as something involving just the highest echelons of society or handed down on a plate for consumers to accept or reject. Politics is about the creation of a healthy democratic society, which is why the involvement of the third sector is fundamental to the health of modern Britain. We hope—we have seen it in Northern Ireland—that this can be a permanent, developing and organic future for British democracy.

I am about to resume my seat, but I will first refer to human rights. It is my understanding that the Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon is the Chair, is considering the human rights implications of the Bill, and its report will be concluded in time to be properly considered when the Bill goes to the other place. When talking about democratic engagement, we are talking about human rights in the broader sense of the term. A number of people have drawn my attention to the severe reservations of people who rightly believe in the importance of human rights and who think that the Bill might infringe the human rights of many people in the third sector, which is another reason we are making our case so strongly. For goodness’ sake, let us pause and properly assess all the Bill’s ramifications and implications, and let us do it before it is implemented.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

Many of us in this place are privileged to spend time in developing countries, and when we do so, we often meet civil society and third sector organisations, and recognise, particularly in parts of Asia, Latin and South America and Africa, the importance they play and sometimes how undemocratic Governments seek to assert control over civil society. We have quite rightly spent endless hours in this House debating press freedom. In that context, it is important that we should take the time to give due consideration to the brakes that the Government are strongly perceived to be putting on the third sector and civil society in our own country, and to the handicap that Ministers will receive in the months ahead if we proceed in this way.

[Wayne David]

Indeed. We are coming to the end of the rather truncated process of deliberation on the Bill in this House, but my right hon. Friend makes a powerful point in underlining our concerns about this part of the legislation. We are concerned about democracy. We like to say that this is the mother of Parliaments and to regard Britain as a beacon of democracy in the world, and it concerns me enormously that so many people—ourselves included—believe that the Bill will take us backwards rather than forwards by undermining the principles and relationships that are fundamental to our concept of modern society.