Government amendments to the lobbying bill announced today are helpful but still leave more to be done, charity representatives have said.
The Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill, introduced last year, places new restrictions on political activity by third parties in the year before an election, which charities say will reduce their ability to campaign.
The bill is currently making its way through the Lords, and the report stage is due to take place on Monday.
In a letter sent today to charity leaders, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, the advocate general for Scotland, says the government plans to change the spending threshold for registration, from £5,000 in England and £2,000 in Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland, to £20,000 in England and £10,000 in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
He also says the government will also allow a lead campaigner to report on the actions of other organisations if they form a coalition, rather that requiring all members to report individually.
And he says the regulated period for the general election in May 2015 will start on 18th September this year, after the Scottish referendum, rather than a year beforehand. A review after the general election will “ensure the regulatory system remains effective and proportionate”.
Lord Wallace said that the changes were “designed to remove campaigners who incur small amounts of controlled expenditure from the regulatory regime, and “ensure the reporting requirements are not overly burdensome.”
However Elizabeth Chamberlain, policy manager at the NCVO, said the amendments do not address a requirement to account for the amount of staff time spent on campaigning, which could be highly burdensome, particularly for small charities.
She said the bill will still introduce a new spending limit of just under £10,000 in each constituency, and will reduce the total amount that a campaigning group can spend from £988,000 to £390,000.
"The changes that government has put forward are very helpful but they don't solve some problems for charities and the wider voluntary sector," she said. "Staff costs in particular are hugely problematic."
Joe Irvin, chief executive of local infrastructure body Navca, said it would be “churlish to not accept that the government amendments are an improvement,” but “we still have a bill that restricts the freedom to campaign, makes it harder for groups to raise legitimate concerns with politicians and creates unnecessary red tape for charities”.
