Elections Bill

Committee (3rd Day) (Continued)

Amendment 52

52: Clause 27, leave out Clause 27 and insert the following new Clause— “Joint campaigning by registered parties and third parties (1) The Secretary of State must by regulations require registered parties to identify targeted expenditure incurred by a recognised third party that is subject to authorisation under section 94G of PPERA by the relevant registered party, and which exceeds the limits in section 94D(4) of PPERA. (2) Regulations under subsection (1) must include, for relevant returns submitted pursuant to section 80 of PPERA, provision for the introduction of a specific reporting category for targeted expenditure incurred by a recognised third party that is subject to authorisation under section 94G of PPERA by the relevant registered party, and which exceeds the limits in section 94D(4) of PPERA.”Member’s explanatory statement This amendment would replace provisions on joint campaigning with the recommendation made by the Committee on Standards in Public Life in their 2021 report Regulating Election Finance (see recommendation 21).

It’s that man again, as they say.

Despite the urgings of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, on this clause I shall take a little time, because it is a fundamental issue of principle, whether intended or not. I have tried to stress to the Minister that sometimes, though consequences may be unintended, they are serious in their effect. I want to go through why I believe it is unclear what the purpose of Clause 27 is. There does not appear to be a problem to solve. Spending by non-party campaigners in support of a political party is already highly regulated under the targeted spending rules and counts against the party’s spending limits. I do not believe this clause has been really thought through and it risks substantial unintended consequences that could include silencing independent trade unions and interfering with the right of the Labour Party to set its own rules and order its own business.

Of course, we have had previous debates about tying up small, largely voluntary organisations with close associations with particular parties in red tape and scaring off civil society organisations working with politicians and parties. I urge the Government to think again on this clause and to replace it with recommendation 21 from the Committee on Standards in Public Life, to shine a light on non-party spending authorised by political parties. They should be looking to lift the red tape burden on civil society organisations, not add to them, so that we can get the balance right when it comes to election campaigning.

What is this clause for? We have targeted spending rules already; parties already have to account. The clause brings big changes and risks substantial unintended consequences. My noble friend Lord Kennedy and I have had meetings with the Minister. My noble friend and I worked together in the Labour Party, I as general secretary and he as finance director, and we had a statutory responsibility for reporting and accounting properly for all our expenditure, including third-party expenditure. We are both very keen to know what misbehaviour this clause is attempting to stop. Some may have concerns that non-party campaigners give political parties two bites of the cherry, but this is not really the case with the targeted spending rules brought in in the lobbying Act.

This clause disadvantages transparency, basically. It disadvantages long-standing, open relationships, particularly the ones Labour Party has, and will do nothing to stop fly-by-night wheezes—people who are operating on the edges of a campaign, who we know are there but are very difficult to pin down. It will not address those issues and will have unintended consequences, particularly for those organisations with long-standing, formal, transparent links to a political party. I am talking, as I have referenced in a number of debates, about the Labour Party, which was established at the beginning of the last century as a federal party. It had no individual members; it was made up of members of trade unions. It was not until 1921 that individual membership was brought in, but it did not exclude those individual members of affiliated unions. It was a federal party and remains so to this day. The party has a formal link, which could be caught by this clause.

If we knew what this clause was attempting to stop, we might not be so suspicious about its intentions. However, as it stands—to come back to the test that the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, mentioned—in the hands of a very hostile Government it could be used in a way that would completely undermine the structure and organisation of a major political party: the Labour Party.

What should replace this clause? There should be transparency, instead of unnecessary, unfair regulation that has not been thought through. As I say, the targeted spending rules are already there, expanding their limits by working with third-party organisations, but they could be much more transparent. Parties currently have to declare the spend of third parties incurring expenditure in support of them, but while it must be included in their return and account against their limits, there is no requirement for it to be labelled as targeted spend. This makes identifying where parties have entered into such arrangements with non-party campaigners difficult.

In its 2021 report Regulating Election Finance, the Committee on Standards in Public Life made a clear recommendation to increase transparency in the reporting of targeted spend. Recommendation 21 states:

“Parties should be required to identify what is spent by third parties as targeted spending on their behalf. The government should introduce a specific reporting category for targeted expenditure that non-party campaigners have spent in relation to an authorisation given by a political party.”

The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, made the same recommendation in his review of the lobbying Act in 2016, in which he said in recommendation 16:

“There should be no change to the targeted spending provisions. However, political parties should have to distinguish what was spent by third parties as targeted spending on their behalf.”

I completely concur. Let us have more transparency, as the Minister has repeatedly said throughout this Bill, that puts the bureaucratic burden on the parties and not on civil society organisations.

I do not think we want to tie up non-party organisations with any more red tape than is already there. This amendment to delete Clause 27 and implement recommendation 21 from the Committee on Standards in Public Life puts an additional reporting burden on political parties, not on other organisations. Parties would have to ensure that their return accurately accounts for authorised targeted spend and by whom it was incurred. This is about getting the balance right on regulation.

It is important to be mindful of the role of non-party campaigning in the broader ecosystem of our democracy and pre-election spend. As the committee made clear when it first concluded that spending limits for non-party campaigners would be necessary, there is nothing wrong with individuals and organisations sending out explicitly political messaging in advance of and during an election campaign. Picking up on another theme that has run through our debates on this Bill, the Committee on Standards in Public Life said on page 95 of its report:

“On the contrary, a free society demands that they should be able to do so … The right to campaign is also protected by law through the right to freedom of expression. This should act as a check on ensuring that regulation strikes the right balance.”

One of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson—I hope that I will continue to reflect some of the positive things he has said and recommended throughout this Bill—is that we should make sure that the third-party rules are fit for purpose, not make them more complex and chilling and put off the very thing the Committee on Standards in Public Life said we should promote: the role of civil society and democracies in other countries, as I have repeatedly said in this Chamber. This country spends a substantial amount of money trying to ensure that civil society can exist in other countries, to promote that principle, yet in our domestic legislation we seem to be putting up more and more barriers. This chilling effect around third-party campaigning and this self-censoring element are the most frightening parts of this legislation. That fear of breaking the rules will have the consequences we have described.