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

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

Before the noble and learned Lord sits down, I have a question about the e-mail from the Charity Commission, which I have here. My reading of it is that the question about resource implications is a subsidiary argument, and that the key argument is:

“We do not believe that, in the best interests of public trust and confidence in charities, an exemption for charities is the most appropriate method for the regulation of charities during an election period”.

Surely that is the argument that the Charity Commission is putting forward against this amendment. The question about resources is just supporting that.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

The reason that that is a difficulty is because it cannot be relied upon to enforce the law. There is no question of trust in charities being damaged by propaganda and that kind of thing. If it were shown that charities were not obeying charitable law, that would damage trust and confidence. If the commission does not have enough resources to pursue that properly—as paragraph 4, I think, says—that is a problem. I can see that if that is justified, it is a problem, but it is a very serious problem if organisations set up to ensure that the law is observed in a particular area say that they do not have sufficient resources to do it properly.