Yesterday the long, and at times tortuous, journey of the Transparency Bill through Parliament came to an end. It will shortly receive Royal Assent. The Bill had many critics, so it is worth reiterating the purpose of the parts of the Bill I was closely involved with as a Minister.
Part 1, sets up a Statutory Register of Lobbyists, to complement the existing regime of quarterly data published by Ministers about which external organisations they meet. Liberal Democrats have successfully pushed for this data to become much more accessible and useful in future, so that all the data is published in the same place. Until now, citizens and journalists had to trawl 26 separate spreadsheets each quarter. It will soon be easier to see, for example, which Ministers Tescos have met in each three month period, and how often. The subject of the meeting is already made public. The Register means consultant lobbyists, who meet Ministers and Permanent Secretaries on behalf of others, will have to publish a list of clients. They will also have to make public which of the voluntary public affairs codes of conduct they adhere to. If they adhere to none, this will be out in the open for the first time. Thanks to the Liberal Democrats, transparency could also immediately be extended to meetings consultant lobbyists have with Special Advisors, if and when our Coalition partners agree to it!
Part 2, on non-party campaigning, was controversial. This section is about often opaque, well-funded organisations flooding constituencies with election campaigning well in excess of what a party or candidate could spend in the same place. Under the existing law, nearly £800,000 could be spent in one English constituency by a non-party campaigner (or indeed over and over by several campaigners) in the year before a General Election, in support of or against one of the political parties. These sorts of campaigns spent £3m across the UK in 2010, and all the indications were that they were set to increase, as they have in the United States.
The Liberal Democrat teams in both Houses, government and backbench, have worked tirelessly to ensure that organisations which were concerned about the Bill have been listened to. We also listened carefully to the Commission on Civil Society and Democratic Engagement led by Lord Harries of Pentregarth. As a result, an election campaigner will now need to spend £20,000 in England, or £10,000 in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland before they even have to register their spending. No small, local organisations will have to consider this legislation at all. Charities of course are largely barred from conducting political campaigning in support of a party or candidate, so were very unlikely to be affected by the Bill.
Anyone who has fought an election knows that £20,000 is a very significant sum in campaigning terms. It is surely reasonable to ask an organisation which “could reasonably be regarded as intending to promote or procure the electoral success of a party or candidate”, and which spends this much money doing so, to register with the Electoral Commission. All they will have to do is present an expenses return, make a statement of accounts and publish donations reports. Electors are entitled to know who is behind well-funded non-party campaigns in their constituencies. Spending by any one non-party organisation will be limited to a generous £450,000 across the UK, and to £9,750 in any one constituency.
There were two issues still in question yesterday in the House of Lords. These were how constituency spending limits would work, and which staff costs should be accounted for. On the first, the Harries amendment simply wasn’t workable. Paul Tyler explained why here. On the second, my colleague Jim Wallace was able to give a very firm reassurance here.
The Bill is very different now to when it was published in July 2013. These changes have arisen following extensive consultation with a huge range of charities and organisations.
However, if anyone still tells you the Bill is about ‘gagging charities’ you might ask why so many charities opposed an exemption for them from electoral law of this kind. Paul Tyler and Shirley Williams made the case here, but charities largely rejected this call saying they thought they should be regulated if they intervened in election campaigns. If the Bill was such a threat to charities’ work, it isn’t clear why its opponents (including Labour) were so determined charities should remain within its scope!
We are now working closely with the Electoral Commission to ensure their guidance is as clear and straightforward as possible for campaigners to follow. And we will ensure they publish joint guidance with the Charities Commission to explain the extremely limited circumstances in which a charity could be affected. We stated our intention at the outset to regulate only what organisations may spend on election campaigning, not what they may say during election campaigns. After a lot of work from Liberal Democrat MPs and Peers, that is categorically what the Bill achieves.
* Tom Brake is Liberal Democrat MP for Carshalton and Wallington, and the Lib Dem Foreign Affairs Spokesman
