The Commons yesterday voted to remove two Lords amendments to the lobbying bill which would have reduced its impact on charities.
The Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill is intended to regulate political activity by third parties in the run up to an election, but charities say it will harm their ability to campaign.
The government was defeated in the Lords over two amendments proposed by crossbench peer Lord Harries, which would have reduced the burden of rules on staff costs and spending in individual constituencies.
But yesterday the Commons voted to remove Harries' amendments from the bill, by 310 votes to 278 and by 314 votes to 274 respectively.
Andrew Lansley, Conservative MP for South Cambridgeshire and leader of the House of Commons, said during a debate on the amendments that rules on staff costs and constituency limits were a necessary part of the bill.
Lansley said that charities were increasingly adopting a “mature approach” to the bill, accepted the need for its provisions, and understood they would only be regulated “in very limited circumstances”.
“Many charities completely understood and agreed that it was right for those who wished to influence election outcomes to do so openly and transparently,” he said. “That is what the bill is all about.”
But Elizabeth Chamberlain, policy manager at the NCVO, told civilsociety.co.uk that even with Lord Harries’ amendments the bill had been “extremely problematic” for charities, but that it was now even worse without them.
“The most frustrating thing is to see the level of concern and criticism from MPs regarding this bill,” she said. “Despite work to improve it, it remains a difficult, burdensome bill, and it would have been even if Lord Harries’ amendments had stood.”
Chamberlain said a series of government-backed amendments had “slightly” improved the bill but did not solve its main problems.
These amendments, agreed in the Commons yesterday but first put forward in the Lords earlier this month, increase the threshold for registration, so that campaigners could spend £20,000 before being covered by the rules, and increase the spending limits by £20,000 in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, so that organisations are now able to spend £448,000 across the UK.
They also introduce “lead campaigner” rules which will make lobbying easier for coalitions of campaigning bodies, and reduce the period the bill will cover in the run up to the 2015 election.
The bill is now in a process called “ping pong”, where it will continue to move between the Commons and the Lords until it is agreed by both houses. It will return to the Lords next week.
Chamberlain said that charity campaigners were now running out of time to win changes that would make the bill workable.
“We can try to get new amendments tabled in the Lords which will be acceptable to the government,” she said. “But that will be very difficult to do. The previous amendments were already quite limited, and were rejected.”
