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

Angela Watkinson Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I understand my hon. Friend’s point. We have set out to strike a balance, and, in Lords amendment 20, we have changed the limits applying to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. On the basis of all those arguments, I ask the House to resist amendment (a) if it is pursued by the hon. Member for Nottingham North.

Turning to amendment (a) to Lords amendment 55, the Government have worked closely with the Electoral Commission to ensure reporting requirements are not overly burdensome. The Government removed the need for nil reporting and have also reduced the regulated period. The regulated period for third parties will commence in September this year, not May, and this will allow additional time for the Electoral Commission to provide guidance and for campaigners to be fully aware of the regulatory regime. Owing to the reduced regulated period, this will impact on the quarterly reporting cycles for the 2015 general election, with the final “quarterly cycle” being compacted from September—three months is a short period running up to the general election.

The hon. Member for Nottingham North has tabled an amendment intending to deal with this situation. However, the Government believe that as this is late in the cycle and only reports of donations over £7,500 are required, third parties will have systems in place to cope with this reduced period. As there is no requirement for nil reports, a period—short or otherwise—will require nothing at all unless a large donation is accepted during that period. It should be noted that third parties will have to provide weekly reports after the Dissolution of Parliament, so the compacted final quarterly cycle will not result in an overly burdensome reporting requirement, particularly in the light of the Lords amendments, which we will come on to, relating to reporting requirements.

On the hon. Gentlemen’s amendment (a) to Lords amendment 59, third parties will have to submit a donations return to the Electoral Commission only where they have received a reportable donation of £7,500 or more. Where they have not received a donation of this value, no report needs to be submitted. This underpins the aim of part 2, which is to increase transparency without placing overly burdensome reporting requirements upon a third party. As is the current practice, under section 96 of PPERA a third party will have to provide a full report of reportable donations three months after polling day. This return is submitted to the Electoral Commission. The Government believe that the section 96 return provides an important safeguard where a full record of reportable donations is provided and visible. This will allow both the Electoral Commission and the general public to ascertain the amount and source of all reportable donations received by a third party during the regulated period. The Government do not believe that this requirement is overly burdensome, as the information will have already been prepared by the third party. It also allows the opportunity for the third party to declare any reportable donations which it has failed to declare previously. This underpins the regulatory regime. We therefore do not agree with the hon. Gentleman’s amendment, which requires the same donation to be reported only once as that would risk a lack of transparency through this section 96 return coming after the election.

[Dame Angela Watkinson (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)]

Most of the correspondence I have received from concerned members of the public is in support of charities, some very small, whose normal activities are not related to the electoral success of a political party or individual. Will the Leader of the House take this opportunity to set their minds at rest that this Bill will not be detrimental to them in any way?

[Mr Lansley]

Yes, I can, for two reasons. First, only expenditure which would reasonably be regarded as intended to promote or procure the success of a party or candidate might fall to be regulated as election expenditure, and it is demonstrable at previous elections under this regulatory regime that large amounts of policy-related campaigning has been undertaken by charities and that has not required to be regulated. The second reassurance, as we will come on to see with other amendments, is that we are proposing to lift the registration threshold up from the current level of £10,000 to £20,000. That will allow small-scale campaigning by organisations not to be part of the regulatory regime.

Turning to the hon. Gentleman’s amendment (a) to Lords amendment 75, a statement of accounts has to be provided only if the third party has incurred controlled expenditure over the registration threshold. In addition, an individual is excluded from the provisions. Those third parties who prepare accounts under another enactment need not prepare additional accounts if the commission is satisfied they include equivalent information. When a third party registers with the Electoral Commission it must state, using a simple tick box, whether it is an individual or one of the bodies that can register as a third party. From this information, the Electoral Commission can ascertain whether the body provides accounts under another enactment. As a result it would add unnecessary additional bureaucracy to ask the third party to submit a subsequent declaration that it is exempt from the provisions, as the amendment requires. I therefore hope the hon. Gentleman will not persist with that.

Turning to amendment (a) to Lords amendment 99 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) and the hon. Members for Foyle (Mark Durkan) and for Newport West (Paul Flynn), the order-making power, to which the hon. Member for Foyle just referred, would allow for the Government only to make consequential amendments. It would not allow the Government to amend the fundamental principles and provisions included in part 2 of the Bill. Any changes to primary legislation would be subject to affirmative resolution in any case. The power is also time limited, so that it could be used only until the date of the next general election. I should emphasise that I hope this power will not be needed, but I consider it prudent to insert it into the Bill, to ensure it is possible to make changes should unforeseen or unintended effects be identified after the Bill receives Royal Assent which could be put right by consequential provision.

The Government have introduced—the Lords is introducing—a number of amendments of significant benefit to campaigners, and we would not want to risk them being ineffective for any technical reason. We agree that it is important to consult the commission and I can assure the House that we will consult it before making an order under this power. The commission in its briefing agrees with this approach. Should the commission make a recommendation to us to use this power, we will consider such a recommendation extremely carefully. Because of the limited scope of the power and this assurance, the Government do not believe it is necessary to accept this amendment.

Baroness Thomas, the Chair of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in the House of Lords, described the power yesterday as

“well precedented and here it is very narrowly drawn. The House need not worry that the Government are in some way exceeding their powers or doing something they should not on this occasion.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 January 2014; Vol. 751, c. 615.]

Consequently, we cannot support the amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch.

Let me turn to the Lords amendments with which we agree. Lords amendments 106 to 107 set out in schedule 8A a consolidated and extensive list of the types of expenses which are excluded from counting as controlled expenditure. Further to the current exclusions provided for in PPERA, the Lords in these amendments extend them to include: expenses related to translating materials from English to Welsh or from Welsh to English; costs associated with providing protection of persons or property in relation to a public rally or event; and reasonable expenses incurred that are reasonably attributable to an individual’s disability. The exclusion of translation costs reflects the position of the Welsh language, which is governed by the Welsh Language Act 1993. Under that Act, the English and Welsh languages have equal status in Wales. This differs from other languages spoken in the UK, where the UK Parliament has not legislated to give them the same status as Welsh.

Lords amendment 19 increases the registration thresholds in the Bill, as I was discussing in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Dame Angela Watkinson). Those were set in the Bill at £5,000 for England and £2,000 for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The amendment however raises these amounts substantially, from £5,000 to £20,000 for England and from £2,000 to £10,000 in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This change is in response to the many representations this Government have received from campaigners who spend only small amounts of money and were concerned that the Bill’s transparency provisions, though essential, would in fact impose unduly onerous compliance requirements. It is important to recognise, as many organisations did, that election expenditure should in principle be disclosed and regulated, but there were concerns that smaller organisations would be caught by the provisions. By raising the thresholds to levels that also take into account the extended range of activities proposed by the Bill, small campaigners can be assured that they will not suddenly be subject to administrative controls that they are not resourced or equipped to comply with.