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

Debate between Stephen McPartland and Graham Allen

Wednesday 22nd January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Stephen McPartland]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention. I shall have to wrap up my remarks in a moment so that other Members can contribute.

The reality is that the Bill proves that the Government listened. They are the most transparent Government ever. The Bill has been consistently improved by Members on both sides of both Houses, and that is something the Government should be given credit for. I am proud to be a part of this Government, who work closely with charities across the country. Every Member of this House works hard with charities in their local communities, and those charities will not be affected by the Bill. I shall therefore be pleased to support the Government today in the Lobby.

On Lords amendment 108, which relates to excluding staff costs for charities and third party organisations, small charities in our constituencies will not be in a position to campaign in 80 or 90 other constituencies; they are just trying to survive in their small towns, cities and villages and to deliver for local people. Members should not use the frightening rhetoric that we have heard in relation to the Bill. That rhetoric stops charities and community groups engaging with us and getting involved in the political process. I urge all the community groups and charities in my constituency not to be frightened but to continue to engage with us and do what they always do, which is to campaign on policies and try to get them implemented.

[Mr Allen]

It is a great privilege to speak in the debate on this group of amendments—the first time I have done so when you have been in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. Should I run dry, I will refer to my deputy Chair from her days on the Select Committee, who I am sure will be able to help me out!

Before speaking to the amendments, I would like to thank one or two people. I thank colleagues in the second Chamber, who I think have done an excellent job. I would certainly like to put on the record my thanks to members of the Select Committee, our Clerk and staff for the brilliant job they have done yet again in very short order. I would also like to thank the Leader of the House. He gets a bit tetchy when Select Committees and Parliament do their job of holding the Government to account, but I think that he is a decent man. Although he sometimes tries not to, I think that he has inadvertently listened to one or two of the arguments made in the House and made some helpful changes in the second Chamber. I would like to put on the record my gratitude to him for that. If he can do it on a number of occasions, he can probably do so on two or three more, giving the Bill the wonderful finale that it so thoroughly deserves.

We have heard about the changes proposed in the other House with which the Government wish to disagree. Given the time available, I will not go over them again, but they relate to staff costs and material costs not being included in the definition of the amount to be spent, which will of course diminish. I urge the House and the Government to support these sensible proposals as they are supported by the Select Committee. In principle, we would not wish staff costs to be excluded, but on this occasion, as we are running into an almost immediate election, with 469 days until election day, it makes sense to be practical by not including them.

The Leader of the House referred to the three amendments on reporting requirements that I tabled on behalf of my Committee. The essence of this is that we are dealing with charities. As representatives of the second Chamber eloquently explained, many of those institutions do not have the infrastructure to handle heavy bureaucracy. The Government have accepted that argument, to some extent, and I ask them to look again at our amendments. It is surely not in anyone’s interests, least of all those of the Government, who say so much about deregulation, to place such huge amounts of red tape and bureaucratic burdens on to charitable institutions that are trying to participate in the democratic life of this country. Difficulties are placed in their way by excessive reporting, and surely that is not what the Government are trying to achieve.

The crux of the matter is that we are coming up to one minute to midnight and no one has identified the problem that part 2 is intended to address. What was the burning issue that led people to demand it? Unlike part 1 on lobbying, where clearly abuses were taking place, although none of them is being addressed, part 2 is not needed to deal with any abuses, public scandals or big political issues. Even now, at one minute to midnight, the question of what the problem is has not been satisfactorily answered.

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

Debate between Stephen McPartland and Graham Allen

Wednesday 9th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen McPartland]

I am afraid that I cannot give the hon. Gentleman such an example. I would love to do so, but that is not the point that I am trying to make. People have suggested that, if a candidate refused to sign up to a pledge with a certain charity, that charity could e-mail its members to tell them which candidates had signed up and which had not. Under the current law, any such candidate who felt that such activity would have an impact on the outcome of the election could complain to the Charity Commission, on the grounds that the charity had been seeking to secure the political benefit of one candidate over another. The current law would then determine whether such activity would fall under the rules on controlled expenditure. A lot of the examples that we have heard today would fall under those rules.

[Mr Allen]

I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman, who made a particularly pertinent and sensible speech in Committee. I have a question for him, but I do not know whether he can answer it. Perhaps he could write to me if he cannot answer it now. As a member of the Conservative party who voted against the badger cull and who has spoken eloquently against the cull, would he object to being on a list—produced by, say, the RSPCA—giving details of which way Members of Parliament had voted on that issue?

[Stephen McPartland]

I imagine that I am already on such a list of Members of Parliament—

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen McPartland]

My hon. Friend is indeed a great friend. He is no doubt on a number of those lists with me, but probably not with regard to badgers—especially when his constituency is Daventry.

[Mr Allen]

With the hon. Gentleman’s best interest at heart, will he have a discussion with the RSPCA? I would hate anyone during a whole year before an election inadvertently to produce a list that shows some Members supporting various things on a public vote and other Members not supporting them, particularly if such a list is available during an election year. The hon. Gentleman should take some advice from the RSPCA about its activities—perfectly innocent activities—because if he does not, the person who will decide the matter will not be the Deputy Leader of the House, who is talking away from a sedentary position preparing his next intervention, but a judge. I would always accept the view of the Deputy Leader of the House, but it will not be him who decides.

[Stephen McPartland]

I have great respect for the Chairman of the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform, and I read his reports with great interest—probably with greater interest than some other Members—because I genuinely believe that they are valuable. We agree a great deal about pre-legislative scrutiny, but without teasing him too much, when it comes to the Bill, I am very happy to stand on my record in Parliament. I am very happy for the RSPCA or other organisations to put me on their lists. The point that I would make, however, is that if they then e-mailed their members, asking them to support one candidate or another, that might—under current law and under the Bill—affect the outcome of the election, which would be considered wrong and would fall under the auspices of controlled expenditure. I am comfortable with that.

[Mr Allen]

The hon. Gentleman does not know what the outcome would be—neither do I and neither do Front Benchers on either side; that is the problem we face. The additional problem for the hon. Gentleman—I am looking out for him again—is that, unfortunately, some of the expenditure of a body such as the RSPCA in this hypothetical situation would be added to his own election expenses without his knowledge. He must be very careful. Both Front-Bench teams should be very careful, too, about committing into law provisions that will have what the Electoral Commission views as totally unforeseen outcomes.

[Stephen McPartland]

I take the hon. Gentleman’s warning to heart, and I will take it away and review it more closely and in greater detail, as well as speak to the RSPCA about it. Amendment 101 would introduce the primary purpose, but I am not sure why it is much better than the present amendment in addressing the questions that the hon. Gentleman raised with me. If I have to decide which way to vote, I shall vote in support of the lead Government amendment 32.

I genuinely believe that we pressed the Government hard on Second Reading and in Committee and received commitments from the Dispatch Box that Ministers would listen, try to improve the Bill and try to allay some of the charities’ fears. I believe that they have done that, as the amendment provides for a reasonable assumption. British law is founded on reasonable assumptions. If a judge is to make a test of someone’s behaviour, it will be based on reasonableness; the judge will determine whether the expectation that behaviour has led to one or another outcome is reasonable. For once, then, I congratulate our Front-Bench team on moving our way and on providing greater clarity, so that I can support the amendment.

As for the NCVO and the Electoral Commission, the Electoral Commission has produced a report today, stating that it welcomes and is pleased with the steps that the Government have taken. I understand that the NCVO, too, is broadly pleased with the outcome. Many queries come down to the question of definition in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, which has been in place for 13 years, and there have been three general elections since. The questions put to me as I have tried to support Government amendment 32 have revolved around not the welcome reception of the reasonability test, but “what if?” scenarios and what might occur.

Members have referred to e-mails and election material. The cost of an e-mail is probably 0.0001p, so a great many people would have to be engaged in such activity for it to have an overall effect. Many of the campaigns to which we have been party since we have been elected—in my case, since 2010—have been e-mail-based, as is 95% of the correspondence that I receive from my constituents. In fact, I prefer to deal with constituents face-to-face, because it is much quicker and more interactive. I think that much of the concern about the impact of issues such as cost on larger charities will not come to the fore if the amendment is passed. It really would improve the Bill, and I think that if it were voted down, the Bill would be left in a much worse state. At least the amendment makes clear that the expenditure must

“reasonably be regarded as intended”

to change the outcome of the election of candidature process.

Earlier, in an intervention on the Minister, the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) said that he hoped that representatives of the NCVO and the Minister could sit down and have another conversation at some stage, and the Minister said that his door was always open. As has been pointed out by the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), there is so much more that unites us on these issues in Parliament than divides us. We need to send a strong message to the many charities out there that the Bill does nothing to gag them or to alter the way in which they campaign. We should tell them, “Please campaign as much as you can, and become involved in the process as much as you can. Add your voice, add the voices of your members, and try to influence what is going on in government and in local communities.”

I fear that the suggestion that this is a gagging Bill will deter smaller charities from engaging in the process. I fear that not the Bill itself, but the language surrounding it, will put them off. That frightens me, because I am a great defender of freedom of speech and freedom of choice, and I think it important for us to do all that we can to involve as many people and organisations as we can in politics and issues that affect their local communities. I shall end my speech there, because my voice is going again.

[Mr Allen]

I should begin by declaring an interest, which is in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I am the chair and founder member of a charity. We do not need to read what Sir Stuart Etherington thinks might happen, because I can say what I think might happen on the basis of my experience as a trustee and the chair of a charity.

Having listened to the debate today, I am even more convinced about how I shall respond if my chief executive comes to me and says, “We should get involved, because this is a great year in which to influence politics and people on the issue that we care about, that of children and babies. This is our moment: MPs are at their most open, and we can gain access to them and talk to them. It is absolutely wonderful.” I shall say, unreservedly and without equivocation, “Do not go anywhere near this just because that nice Mr Brake—that nice Deputy Leader of the House—has said that it is all going to be okay.”

If it were to be left to the Deputy Leader of the House to decide on these matters, I would be entirely reassured. I would not even be on my feet, because I trust the right hon. Gentleman implicitly on a personal level. The problem is that it will not be the Deputy Leader of the House who makes the decisions. Someone in a wig and gown down the road will decide what should happen in Stevenage if a certain body has said, “I want to show you the results of an historic vote that took place a while ago; I want to show you which Members of Parliament were for and which were against.”

I know that we have already had that debate. I apologise for intervening earlier on the hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland), but I realise that he is one of those Members who appreciate a dialogue in the Chamber rather than a monologue, and I think we both reached the conclusion that neither of us actually knew what the outcome would be. So we are going to employ our own solicitors to decide. It might be a very tight election in Stevenage; the hon. Gentleman might win by a handful over a Labour candidate who was desperate to kill, personally, as many badgers as he could lay his hands on.

This might be very significant, therefore. Situations such as an intervention by someone on—to be less humorous—an anti-racist platform or a pro-racist platform who says something totally outwith what the hon. Gentleman would want said on his behalf will start to influence our politics. It will not be well-meaning, good-hearted people in this House who decide on that. It will be people outside it; it will be people in the judiciary. They will not be taking the cases, however. The people who will be taking the cases will be people who are vexatious—people who normally do not like each other, people who are on opposite sides of a political, social or environmental argument. They will be pro-frackers and anti-frackers. They will be the League Against Cruel Sports and the Countryside Alliance. These guys do not lie down easily together. They will take opportunities to get hold of somebody and change our politics in a particular way; they have proven already in the right way that they are prepared to do that and long may that continue. It is something we should encourage. Those people should not be chilled from undertaking activities and campaigning in election year, and that should certainly not be the case for the broader range of people—the Royal British Legion, Civil Society, those in the big society and the third sector. These people are our lifeblood. They are the people who have supported us, and they include people who are affiliated to political parties as well. They are people who care about out politics and our democracy. It is those people, as well as my charity, who I will not allow to enter the minefield we today are in danger of creating.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Allen]

I am not suggesting anything other than that the Woodland Trust and many other organisations are writing to the right hon. Gentleman, myself and every Member of this House. Today he will have received something from Oxfam and something from the faith groups and something from the RBL—and I am sure Members could remind me of other organisations who have passed representations to us today. They are concerned about this, and we should reflect upon that concern and say that in respect of clause 27 we are just possibly not getting it right.

[Stephen McPartland]

The House of Commons Library did a very impressive briefing on third-party spending at the 2010 general election. In the back there is a table and the lowest sum is £4,100 for England, and none of the charities the hon. Gentleman mentioned was listed in that table.

[Mr Allen]

I do not pretend to speak for all those people—and I certainly do not speak for the friends of the badgers, of whom I think the hon. Gentleman is the patron, if not the patron saint. These people are making their own representations through our democratic process—such as it has been—on this Bill, and they are making noise. They are saying the way we are doing this is not satisfactory.

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

Debate between Stephen McPartland and Graham Allen

Tuesday 10th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen McPartland]

When I said that I had been encouraged to speak, I meant that I had been encouraged to speak by the contributions that had been made in the Chamber. If the hon. Gentleman took a moment to look at my voting record, he would realise that when the Whips encourage me to speak, it is often with the aim of discouraging me from speaking, because I spend a bit of time in the same Lobby as the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Allen]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on an excellent and well-balanced speech. He is teaching us that more unites us than divides us on these issues. In fact, on this occasion the division is between Parliament and Government, rather than between those on the Government and Opposition Benches.

May I correct, or rather add to, what the hon. Gentleman said about the Electoral Commission? In its evidence to our Committee, it said:

“we recognise that these are complex and potentially controversial changes that would need further thought and consultation before they are implemented.”

That view runs through the commission’s evidence, and underlines its fear that we are legislating in haste and will repent at leisure. The hon. Gentleman will have a chance to make another speech about this issue, probably at about the same time next year, if the Bill is passed in its current state.

[Stephen McPartland]

I understand what the Electoral Commission said, and I agree that that view runs through its evidence, but, as a Back-Bench Conservative Member, I have noticed that no matter what happens in the House, everyone is always calling for more time in which to debate a Bill. I am pleased that we have an opportunity, for once, to debate the Bill on the Floor of the House. I do not want to take up too much time, because I know that a range of issues are still to be debated, but I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s main point that there should be more pre-legislative scrutiny.

Let me now return to my central point. I genuinely believe that it is not the intention of part 2 to damage charities. We all work with charities in our constituencies, and we all support them. The intention of part 2 is to try to prevent super-PACs, or political action committees, and similar organisations from investing large amounts of money in a small number of constituencies in a way that could affect the outcome of a general election. I do not think that any Member on either side of the House would want that to happen.