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

Debate between Lord Bishop of Oxford and Lord Low of Dalston

Wednesday 15th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Low of Dalston]

I thank the noble and right reverend Lord for giving way. Does he not agree that to be caught by the legislation the expenditure has to be “intended” to procure that effect?

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth]

The whole point of those provisions, which is where the sting is, is that you can campaign on and focus on an issue and that can be reasonably regarded as indirectly supporting a particular candidate or party, or you can even do so inadvertently. Let us be quite clear: charities are able to campaign on issues.

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth]

Then why does the Charity Commission guidance—and I have read carefully both its main guidance and its guidance in relation to the Electoral Commission—include a series of examples, just like the Electoral Commission, where charities may or may not be caught? This is a borderline area. Charities are able to campaign and to campaign vigorously, and many trustees encourage them to do so. Therefore, it is always possible for them to come within the scope of this provision.

If you take out charities, only two courses are open to you. Either you have an unlevel playing field so that you have a charity campaigning against a campaigning group which is not a charity, and the charity, if it were taken out, would be able to spend an unlimited amount of money, whereas the non-charitable campaigning group would have very strict limits on what it was allowed to spend, or the Charity Commission could set up a much stronger policing body than it has at the moment—one which would match that of the Electoral Commission.

[Lord Low of Dalston]

I am grateful to the noble and right reverend Lord and I apologise for intervening again, but does he not agree that we are continuing to get bogged down in technicalities about the interpretation of very detailed points in this clause? If the point is taken that there will be discussions before Third Reading and we can look for something more fully considered to come back then, it will make a lot of sense to put into that review the points that the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, is dealing with at the moment.

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth]

My Lords, I take the point but it was important to state the argument because some people are understandably initially very attracted to this idea. It would lift the regulatory burden, and people are attracted to the idea of taking out charities. However, there are very strong, compelling and rational reasons why this should not be done, and that is why it is opposed by the Electoral Commission, the Charity Commission, the commission that I chair, the NCVO, ACEVO and all the others.