I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

With this it will be convenient to consider the following:

New clause 3—Cost and impact of Part 2—

‘Within one month of Royal Assent, the Electoral Commission must lay before Parliament—

(a) full cost projections of the impact of Part 2 on their running costs;

(b) their assessment of the administrative impact on third parties.’.

Amendment 65, in clause 41, page 47, line 40, at end insert—

‘(A1) None of Part 2 shall come into force until the report of any inquiry undertaken by a Committee of either House of Parliament during the passage of the Act into the impact of the Act has been published.’.

Amendment 66, page 48,line 2, leave out subsection (1)(b).

Amendment 4, page 48, line 3, leave out sub-paragraph (i).

Amendment 5, page 48, line 6, leave out sub-paragraph (iii).

Amendment 6, page 48, line 7, leave out sub-paragraph (iv).

Amendment 67, page 48, line 17, leave out subsection (3)(b).

Amendment 10, in clause 42, page 48, line 37, leave out subsections (3) to (6).

Amendment 11, page 49, line 18, leave out subsections (7) and (8).

Amendment 12, page 49, line 29, leave out subsection (9).

It gives me no great pleasure to move new clause 2, because, essentially, the Opposition are concerned about the lack of prior thought to, or prior serious consultation on, the Bill’s impact on the devolved institutions. When I mentioned the devolved institutions in Committee, there was a blank look on the Minister’s face. Some people believe that the legislation applies only to preparations for UK general elections, but it has an impact on devolved elections, too. New clause 2 seeks to focus on devolved institutions and the referendum, so that proper consideration is given to the Bill’s impact and so that there is proper planning for the legislation’s implementation phase.

I mentioned the lack of prior consultation. My understanding from the Office of the First Minister of the Welsh Government is that there was no prior consultation at all—the Assembly Government were asked for their comments on the day that the Bill was published in the House. I expect that there was the same lack of consultation with the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Scottish Parliament. That is very worrying. One of the Opposition’s concerns from the beginning is the hurried way in which the legislation was put together.

I can underline my hon. Friend’s point. All Welsh Assembly Members received a letter from the Wales Council for Voluntary Action, which would have been involved in any consultation with the Welsh Government. What he says is absolutely right and confirmed by wider civil society in Wales.

I thank my hon. Friend, the Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, for that accurate comment, which strongly reinforces my point. He suggests that, if there had been prior consultation, the Welsh Government would have wanted properly to consult civil society in Wales. In a sense, that underlines a wider point. The Electoral Commission’s comments on Second Reading, which were circulated to all hon. Members, state:

“It has been suggested to us that”

the effects of the legislation would

“be particularly significant in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, where civil society has often had a prominent role in the development and discussion of new policy and legislation in recent years.”

We are therefore not talking about mechanical consultation; there was a desire for meaningful prior consultation with civil society in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

My hon. Friend refers to Wales, but the Government generally lack realisation of how important civil society engagement is in Northern Ireland. In fact, civil society engagement is a cornerstone of the peace process. That is one reason why great progress has been made in Northern Ireland. It is extremely worrying that the Bill undermines that process. It does so not deliberately, but unintentionally. However, that is indicative of a lack of any real understanding or desire to ensure that there is a holistic, consensual approach to such legislation.

I stress the word “consensual” because Labour Members hold very firmly the view—we adhered to this in government—that we need not only cross-party consultation and discussion, but agreement, so that we can proceed consensually, in the interests not of any political party, but of democracy as a whole. That concept of democracy is not confined to the House; it also involves consultation with the devolved institutions and civil society throughout the UK. That is my first point—the lack of engagement.

My second point relates to the technical impact of the legislation. The following changes will apply to all the devolved institutions: clause 26 and schedule 3 on the wider scope of regulated spending; clause 27 on the reduced registration thresholds; and clause 31 on the new notification requirements for relevant participators when registering with the Electoral Commission. Those three crucial aspects of the Bill will apply to the devolved institutions.

The hon. Gentleman will know that the Government propose to postpone the Northern Ireland Assembly elections from 2015 to 2016. If the House supported the new clause, would part 2 of the Act not come into force until after the Assembly elections in 2016 or have I misunderstood him?

The fact that the elections in Northern Ireland are being postponed will provide a greater opportunity for these matters to be considered carefully. The hon. Lady’s question is essentially one for the Government. How they respond to this situation is up to them. What is clear is that this work has to be done in preparation for all the elections to the devolved institutions. We want to be satisfied that the Government have considered carefully all the Bill’s implications before it is approved.

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I did not want to throw cold water over the new clause. I want to reinforce his opening remarks about Northern Ireland. Since the Good Friday agreement 15 years ago, civil society in Northern Ireland has been able to participate willingly and openly in responding to Government proposals. A lot of that activity has been done by groups from different denominations and all communities in Northern Ireland working together. Those groups are extremely worried about the impact of part 2 on that activity because of the reductions and limitations on expenditure and because of the span of activities that will be caught by the Bill. I did not want to deter the hon. Gentleman from pursuing the new clause, but wanted clarification on the date until he wanted part 2 to be postponed.

I thank the hon. Lady for her question about the delayed election in Northern Ireland and for her extremely important comments from first-hand experience about the important role that civil society plays in Northern Ireland. That role is sometimes not fully appreciated by politicians in Great Britain.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Dr Francis) mentioned, the participation of civil society in Wales has been increasing. The same is true of Scotland. However, the participation of civil society in those countries is not nearly as important as in Northern Ireland. It is not to put it too strongly to say that the engagement of civil society is one of the anchors of the peace agreement. It is a key reason why so much progress has been made in Northern Ireland over the past few years. I reiterate that that has been accepted by the Electoral Commission and by many politicians of all political affiliations in the north of Ireland. This is not a party political issue, but a question of how democracy can best flourish and function.

I am involved in civil society in Wales in a modest way. My background is in the youth service, and I am the president of the Council for Wales of Voluntary Youth Services, which, through the Welsh Council for Voluntary Action, has made representations on the Bill. Its concern is first that the stipulations are onerous—I will come to that in a moment—but also that there has been no prior consultation with the devolved institutions or civil society. That sends out a negative message about the lack of thought and, as some might say, the less than benign intentions behind the Bill. All those points have been well made, and I thank those who have reinforced them.

I will now move on to consider new clause 3 if I may—[Interruption.] I was just making sure that you were hanging on my every word, Mr Speaker, and I am pleased to say that you are. New clause 3 is short but important:

“Within one month of Royal Assent, the Electoral Commission must lay before Parliament—

(a) full cost projections of the impact of Part 2 on their running costs;

(b) their assessment of the administrative impact on third parties.”.

The new clause is straightforward but underlines that, frankly, not enough work has gone into the Bill, much of which gives the impression that it was written on the back of an envelope in a rush, and there has been no proper consultation, drafting or consideration.

As many have noted, the Electoral Commission is extremely critical of the proposed legislation for a number of good reasons. One of its concerns is the lack of consideration given to the technical implementation of the Bill, and how much it will cost to be implemented properly in practice. The Electoral Commission is not a party political body; it is truly and genuinely impartial, and considers the technical implementation of a piece of legislation with regard to regulation and elections. Its responsibility is to ensure that elections are conducted properly and fairly, according to the law.

There have been various estimates of how much the proposed legislation will cost the Electoral Commission to implement. A conservative figure is £390,000, although others have said it will cost a heck of a lot more. It has even been suggested that the legislation would be so complex, and the burden on third sector organisations so great, that it is unlikely it could be implemented properly in practice, and certainly not to the extremely short time scale envisaged. This is not about all elections being delayed, as in Northern Ireland, but about the first impact and the general election in May 2015. To get this complex Bill up and running, not just here in the centre of the process but to have a proper understanding of all the things that voluntary and campaigning organisations must do to comply, will be extremely difficult. In essence, the new clause asks the Government to pause and realise that it is all well and good to enact the Bill and say that this or that will happen, but they must also have cognisance of what it will mean on the ground, both for the Electoral Commission and for third parties.

The hon. Gentleman’s last point is precisely not dealt with by the new clause. The new clause asks for an assessment to be made within one month of Royal Assent, and then lets the matter stand on its own. It does not require the Government to take any action as a result of that assessment. Does that not make the new clause rather nugatory?

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point, but this is a modest new clause and we are not attempting to solve all problems not of our making. We hope that in all common sense, if it is clearly shown that the implementation of the Bill is far more complicated than the Government appear to recognise, they will hold back and perhaps delay its implementation, or provide massive increased resources so that it is effectively implemented by the Electoral Commission. Above all, the new clause flags up the issue in a big, simple and straightforward way.

Does the hon. Gentleman imply that perhaps the Bill will not be ready by May 2015 and should, if necessary, be pushed beyond that date?

If necessary, yes. In all fairness I cannot believe that the Government would seek to soldier on with a piece of legislation when all objective evidence shows that the time scale is so tight, and the difficulties to be faced so enormous, that it cannot be introduced effectively in time for the run-up to the next election. I stress the run-up because we must not talk only about the general election but the period before it. If the new clause is accepted by the Government—I genuinely hope it will be—it would be part of the legislative base. As a consequence, if the objective information is provided, the Government will do what is necessary to prevent a ridiculous and farcical situation from developing. Such a situation would harm not the Conservative or Labour parties but democracy itself, and it would further undermine people’s support, involvement and engagement in our democratic process.

The hon. Gentleman argues in favour of new clause 3, and he has—rightly—mentioned the excellent work done by the Electoral Commission. Whatever problem he has defined, however, the solution proposed in the new clause is one the Electoral Commission does not support. Is it the case that whatever argument he is making, the solution he proposes is not the right one?

I am not here to answer for the Electoral Commission. Its emphasis has been on identifying the problem, and it is up to us as politicians to identify the solution.

I hope my hon. Friend does not dispense with that point too quickly. If we are in the business of accepting the views of the Electoral Commission—in light of comments made by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso), I feel we could accept one or two of its views—perhaps we should accept its views on virtually every other paragraph in the Bill, which, almost to a clause, have been disparaged in the most polite civil service language by the Electoral Commission. If the hon. Gentleman is in the position to make such an offer, I think my hon. Friend should negotiate and get a good deal.

That is a telling intervention from the Chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, and to return to a point I made earlier, it is sad and unfortunate that the Electoral Commission, like everyone else, was not consulted about the Bill. That makes for bad legislation and poor electoral administration, which is worrying.

Does the hon. Gentleman have the benefit of knowing how many people in the Electoral Commission are engaged in looking after controlled expenditure relating to the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, and how many would have to be recruited to deal with the extended range of activities by the extended group of people and campaigners who will be caught by the Bill if it is passed unamended?

The honest answer is that I do not know. I asked the Electoral Commission if it would like to elaborate on its submission, and perhaps the Chair of the Select Committee can help in that respect.

Just by chance, the Electoral Commission came to the House yesterday and offered its services, knowledge and advice to all Members. I am delighted to say that the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) was present. I believe that the EC said it had 12 people—I will stand corrected if I am wrong. Although they have not been consulted, they will be required to police the provisions in the clauses that relate to freedom of speech. They may be required to act between contending parties. Let us imagine that there is a bit of a bust-up between the League Against Cruel Sports and the Countryside Alliance in the constituency of the Leader of the House—if he were to get wind of such a thing he would of course report it to the Electoral Commission. Presumably, the EC would have to get some big lads—I do not know if they have any—to take down the bunting, intervene in the debate and stop the bad things, as defined in the Bill, being done. If that happens, 12 people will not be enough to police even one constituency, so a recruitment campaign might be necessary.

I thank my hon. Friend for his informed comments. I am sure Members will appreciate that in the past few days my mind has been elsewhere, but he makes a valid point.

I refer Members to the Electoral Commission’s written evidence:

“The regulatory burden created by the Bill is likely to be significant. The Impact Assessment states that the estimated cost of compliance with the Bill changes for registered campaigners will be in the range from zero to £800. This assumes among other things that campaigners will need two hours to become familiar with the new definition of regulated activity since it is ‘a relatively clear and simple requirement’—

the Government are tabling an amendment on this, which might change things slightly—

“and that a day of additional information recording will suffice to deal with the new requirement. On the basis of our experience of the effort that campaigners need to make to comply with the current rules, and of our discussions with organisations that may be affected by the new rules, we do not think these estimates are credible.”

That is strong language. The Electoral Commission recognises that it will have a huge new burden, and that there will be a huge new burden on voluntary organisations, charities and campaigning organisations. To say that the estimates are not credible is a strong use of language: it does not say that they are underestimates or not correctly thought through, but that they are not credible. It worries me that the governmental body, the impartial organisation charged with the implementation of the Bill, says that the Government’s estimates of the costs and burdens on voluntary organisations are not credible. In the interests of democracy, the Government need to swallow their pride and recognise that more work needs to be done. That is what new clause 3 seeks to do.

The Electoral Commission’s written evidence goes on to state:

“The Impact Assessment also estimates that the changes to registration thresholds will lead to between zero and 30 additional campaigners needing to register in 2015 compared to 2010. It is difficult to estimate the likely level of additional registration…but again this appears likely to be a severe under-estimate on the basis of our recent discussions with campaigners.”

Not only is there a lack of credibility, there is now a severe underestimate.

The uncertainty and the burdens the Bill will place on campaigners could be mitigated by recasting the definitions of what is covered, and the Government are making some—only some—attempts to do that. That is not a straightforward process, however, and the complexity of the situation is, if anything, being made worse and the legal uncertainty greater. It will require careful testing for those potentially affected by the definitions.

The shame of the Bill is this: many of us suspect that the level of burden and complexity will be such a disincentive for campaigning organisations that they simply will not bother. If campaigning organisations absent themselves from the democratic process, democracy will be the loser. In the run-up to all elections—in devolved elections, as well as general elections—civil society increasingly plays a positive role in asking candidates where they stand, putting political parties on the spot, asking the difficult questions that us politicians sometimes do not want to answer and raising issues that the general public might not have thought of.

My hon. Friend is making an important and non-partisan point. The campaigning by the Royal British Legion was welcomed by all political parties, because so many Members—probably all of them—endorsed the military covenant.

My hon. Friend makes a truly excellent point. Sadly, the criticism levelled at those of us who have strong reservations about the Bill is that we somehow want to promote extremists or those in our political camp. The truth is a long way from that—it could not be further away.

The example of the Royal British Legion is a very good one. I think, largely due to its excellent work in support of the covenant, that there is consensus in the House on how we need to give the greatest possible support to former members of the armed forces who have given so much to defend this country. That consensus was in large part achieved due to the work of the Royal British Legion in the run-up to the general election. All of us received representations, and long may it be able to do that kind of work. The Royal British Legion is one of the organisations that has made representations to MPs to express concerns about the Bill, even though the Government have made some concessions. I welcome those concessions, but even the Royal British Legion thinks that there is a heck of a long way to go.

It is my understanding that if the House accepts the Government amendments, which reflect those I tabled in Committee, the Royal British Legion’s concern will have been met. If that is the case, is there not a danger that we are looking at the wrong point in the Bill? What we do not want, and what part 2 is designed to deal with, is something like the National Rifle Association in America or the Tea party movement. That is the danger we need to guard against far more than a potential unintended consequence that the Government are trying to mitigate.

There has not been broad agreement—in fact, there has been very little agreement—that the Government’s amendments are anywhere near enough. I said in Committee that I welcomed the fact that the Leader of the House had had discussions with the National Council for Voluntary Organisations and given certain verbal commitments. Since then, however, the NCVO has said, “Hang on, we’ll see what is actually proposed,” and now it has considered the proposals in detail and, more importantly, taken legal advice, there is a consensus among most voluntary organisations that the proposals are not sufficient and arguably create further complications, which underlines the point that we have made consistently: this is the wrong way to approach this kind of Bill. We should not be in this position, but unfortunately we cannot turn the clock back, which is why it is important to focus on new clause 3 and at least recognise the need for the Government to take stock of the implications, many of which they have not given proper consideration to.

Had there been a general election in November or December 1913, would the South Wales Miners Federation, on this day 100 years ago, have been prevented from campaigning for a health and safety at work Act following the explosion in Senghenydd, when 439 miners were killed?

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point and refers to the Senghenydd disaster, in my constituency, of October 1913. I will not speak at length about it, but the point is that historically all civil society organisations have been able to campaign on issues of concern to them and their members, and today’s health and safety legislation came about through the active campaigning by men and women in places of work. As a direct consequence of what happened in Senghenydd in 1901, when 81 men lost their lives, legislation was introduced, but unfortunately it was not implemented by the coalers and so there was another horrific explosion in the same colliery a few years later, when 439 men and boys lost their lives. Of course, things have improved enormously since those days, but the point is that many great social advances come about not because politicians decide in an ivory tower that something is good for people, but because in a democracy people have the ability and wherewithal to campaign for measures that will improve their and their communities’ lives. Our fundamental concern about part 2 is that the encumbrances created are so great that a raft of civil society organisations might think that things are far too complicated and onerous for them to bother to engage in the democratic process.

It is arguable that the Labour party itself would not have been created had these measures been in place. It is the only party created outside Parliament, rather than as the product of splits among those already in Parliament. It was created by people who we might say today were part of the big society. The Labour Representation Committee—a joint committee of the kind covered by the Bill—created a new political party in order to do certain things in Parliament, and I would speculate that while legislation in the 1900s made the birth, funding and advancement of the Labour party incredibly difficult, even with the help of our good friends in the Liberal party—perhaps we could reinvent that pact in the near future—this Bill would have made its creation impossible. We should take that into account, in view of the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Dr Francis).

I am sure that my hon. Friend makes a good point—and my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon, who is a professional historian, is smiling and probably agrees. It is not just about the Labour party, however; other parties have been formed recently as well, and who knows what the future holds? The point is that society has changed. The Labour party might have been the precursor to a new kind of politics in this country, but increasingly we are seeing politics from the bottom up, rather than the top down, which is to be encouraged in society.

I do not want to stray from the point, Mr Speaker, and talk about the nature of democracy. [Interruption.] You are nodding that I should, Mr Speaker. In this day and age, it is of fundamental importance that democracy should not be seen as something involving just the highest echelons of society or handed down on a plate for consumers to accept or reject. Politics is about the creation of a healthy democratic society, which is why the involvement of the third sector is fundamental to the health of modern Britain. We hope—we have seen it in Northern Ireland—that this can be a permanent, developing and organic future for British democracy.

I am about to resume my seat, but I will first refer to human rights. It is my understanding that the Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon is the Chair, is considering the human rights implications of the Bill, and its report will be concluded in time to be properly considered when the Bill goes to the other place. When talking about democratic engagement, we are talking about human rights in the broader sense of the term. A number of people have drawn my attention to the severe reservations of people who rightly believe in the importance of human rights and who think that the Bill might infringe the human rights of many people in the third sector, which is another reason we are making our case so strongly. For goodness’ sake, let us pause and properly assess all the Bill’s ramifications and implications, and let us do it before it is implemented.

Many of us in this place are privileged to spend time in developing countries, and when we do so, we often meet civil society and third sector organisations, and recognise, particularly in parts of Asia, Latin and South America and Africa, the importance they play and sometimes how undemocratic Governments seek to assert control over civil society. We have quite rightly spent endless hours in this House debating press freedom. In that context, it is important that we should take the time to give due consideration to the brakes that the Government are strongly perceived to be putting on the third sector and civil society in our own country, and to the handicap that Ministers will receive in the months ahead if we proceed in this way.

Indeed. We are coming to the end of the rather truncated process of deliberation on the Bill in this House, but my right hon. Friend makes a powerful point in underlining our concerns about this part of the legislation. We are concerned about democracy. We like to say that this is the mother of Parliaments and to regard Britain as a beacon of democracy in the world, and it concerns me enormously that so many people—ourselves included—believe that the Bill will take us backwards rather than forwards by undermining the principles and relationships that are fundamental to our concept of modern society.

I want to ask the hon. Gentleman a question about this point of principle. His party, when in government, passed the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. That Act accepts that the regulation of third parties is desirable and necessary. Is he now saying that his party got it wrong, or does he accept the principle and are we now arguing only about the detail?

That is a good question, and I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman has asked it. He is right to say that we introduced that legislation in 2000. We are not saying for a moment that it is perfect, however, or that it does not need to be modified in the light of subsequent practice. In fact, the Electoral Commission has been conducting a review and has produced more than 50 recommendations for improving the legislation. We strongly believe that it needs to be improved; we are on record as saying that we need to find a way of taking the big money out of politics. We are not defending the status quo. We want change, but we want it to be introduced properly, systematically and on the basis of dialogue and consensus, not on the basis of this Bill, whose rushed, back-of-an-envelope proposals have been pursued—some would say—on a partisan basis. We have to be careful and say yes to change, but for goodness’ sake let us work together. What is wrong with working together to ensure that we achieve a proper consensus? That would work not to our own political advantage but to the political advantage of society and democracy as a whole.

We know that those who are fundamentally concerned about part 2 of the Bill do not have any running anxieties about the existing legislation. They are concerned about the imposition of reduced caps, the wider scope of the controlled expenditure and the absolute minefield of difficulties—the veritable twilight zone—that is being created in and around the devolved regions, in relation not only to the conduct of elections there but potentially to the conduct of Assembly business in Northern Ireland. For example, people could well say that the Assembly should not be in the business of legislating on same-sex marriage in the same year as a run-up to a Westminster election, as that could be deemed to be a re-run of the debate here, which could influence the election. None of this has been properly considered by the Government.

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. He has referred succinctly to a large number of issues, which serves to crystallise the multitude of concerns that people have about the Bill.

We have had a useful exchange of views, but we should not be in this position now if we want to consider these issues properly. We are in this position, however, and in new clauses 2 and 3, we are saying that we should for goodness’ sake allow the Electoral Commission and others fully and properly to assess the Bill’s implications before it reaches the statute book. Let us do that now, before it is too late. It is much better to take such action in a measured, systematic way than to rush into something and repent at leisure. I ask the Government please to give sympathetic consideration to new clauses 2 and 3.

I should like to address my remarks to amendments 4, 5, 6, 10, 11 and 12, which have been included in this group with the new clauses. I am grateful that they have been so included, because they were tabled in Committee but were not reached because we ran out of time. It is therefore an agreeable surprise that I have this opportunity to speak to them today.

My concern has always been that the House should introduce legislation that is clear and precise. That is particularly true of legislation relating to electoral law, which is becoming increasingly complex in this country. It could almost be argued that it now presents a barrier to entry to new people who want to start a political party, to engage in the political process or to contribute to an established party.

Before I address the amendments, I should like to put on record my appreciation of the work of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, whose Chairman, the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), is here today. I have had the privilege of serving on the Committee since it was first set up at the beginning of this Parliament. It is frustrating at the best of times to serve on a Select Committee, but it is doubly frustrating when a Committee produces reports to which the Government say they will respond but never do so, and merely bring forward their own legislation, ex cathedra, as they have done with this Bill.

The Committee met in early September to try to deal with these issues, as well as at the end of July, soon after the Bill had been published. We raised a lot of questions with the then Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith), some of which have resulted in the welcome tabling of Government amendments in Committee and now, on Report. It would have been far better, however, if this had been done the other way round. We should have had proper pre-legislative scrutiny, consultations and exchanges of views with bodies such as the Electoral Commission, which were established specifically to advise Parliament and the Government on issues of electoral law.

My concern about new clauses 2 and 3 is that, although they recognise the reality of the situation, they would not provide an effective remedy. It is no good saying that there should be a report on the implications of the legislation within a month of its receiving Royal Assent. Nothing would happen as a result of that, because it would be too late to change the law. Regulatory impact assessments should be produced while legislation is being considered by this House, so that we can respond to them by tabling appropriate amendments.

My amendments—modest as they are, as always—were designed to bring clarity to the question of commencement. At the moment, clause 41 provides for the Bill’s provisions to come into effect on the day in which the Act is passed, but with a whole lot of exceptions, some of which are set out. I am seeking to remove those exceptions through my amendments 4, 5 and 6, which would leave out sub-paragraphs (i), (iii) and (iv). Thus clauses 30, 34 and 35 would come into effect on the day the Act is passed rather than on some subsequent day when a Minister might decide to bring forward a commencement order.

Obviously, if a Bill that becomes an Act of Parliament makes certain provisions, which are not implemented immediately but might be implemented at some stage in the future, that in itself creates doubt. Clause 30, for example, to which my amendment 4 refers, deals with

“Extension of power to vary specified sums”

under section 155 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, enabling the Secretary of State, “by order”, to

“vary any percentage for the time being specified”

in that Act’s provisions. That amounts to an order-making power. Why does the order-making power itself need to be made subject to another order-making power? If clause 30 came into effect and into law on the day the Bill received Royal Assent, its provisions would still be subject to the Secretary of State’s having the power to make a variation. If we want to give the Secretary of State that power, why do we need to cover it by saying, “Well, we won’t give him the power to make an order until he has brought forward an order giving himself the power to make the order”? By including sub-paragraph (i) in clause 41, we are making the provisions less direct and more confusing. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s explanation of why he thinks clause 41 is so vital.

Similar arguments relate to my amendments 5 and 6, which would ensure that clauses 30, 34 and 35 came into effect directly on the date of Royal Assent. Looking at those clauses, one again wonders why the Government are nervous about allowing these provisions to take legal effect from the day of Royal Assent. Clause 34 deals with

“Third party expenditure in respect of candidates”,

changing the limit from £500 to £700. If that is a good idea—I am not disputing that it might be—why not include it and implement it from the day of Royal Assent? Why leave everybody guessing about whether the provisions might be brought forward at some subsequent stage through an order-making power? Again, I look forward to hearing the Minister’s explanation.

Similarly, clause 35, dealing with

“Functions of Electoral Commission with respect to compliance”,

changes the general function and substitutes the expression “duties”. It deals with legislation relating to the Electoral Commission. If that is a good thing—obviously, the Government think it is—why is it not such a good thing that it cannot be brought into effect on the day of Royal Assent?

The way in which the Government do legislation nowadays seems to me to be about leaving as many opportunities as possible for further order-making, when the statute book and our democracy would be enhanced if we were able to have greater clarity so that the provisions enacted were actually implemented from the commencement of the Act, alongside all the other provisions. Again, I would be interested to hear what the Minister thinks about that.

My second group of amendments—10, 11 and 12 —relate to clause 42. Amendment 10 would leave out subsections (3) to (6); amendment 11 would leave out subsections (7) and (8); and amendment 12 would leave out subsection (9). Clause 42 is quite important, because it deals with “Transitional provision”. It is quite complex. The explanatory notes state that because of the interaction of the European Parliament elections in the latter part of May next year and the fixed-term Parliament provisions that assure us of a general election in May 2015, we need special provisions to cover that scenario. As explained therein:

“Clause 42 makes provision to deal with this situation by creating”

what is described as

“a bespoke regulated period…that will apply only in relation to the next UK general parliamentary election.”

I am instinctively suspicious of “bespoke” regulated periods or of anything brought into statute in order to deal with a particular scenario; I am much more in favour of general principles that can be applied whatever the circumstances. We are getting into dangerous territory whereby the Government are taking transitional powers, interfering with existing law, and doing so on the grounds that the situation is complicated by the European parliamentary elections next May, while at the same time not dealing with the situation of the Scottish referendum in September next year. I do not understand why there are no transitional provisions for that Scottish referendum; perhaps the Minister will be able to tell us. If we are to have strict limits on spending by registered political parties during a period that includes what amounts to a national referendum in Scotland on whether or not Scotland should remain part of the United Kingdom, surely we need some special provision to deal with related expenditure.

I do not understand what these provisions are all about, but the Bill would be better if these specific provisions were excluded from it. In a sense, my amendments could properly be described as probing amendments. As I say, I cannot really understand all the detail of clause 42, but I think the Bill would be better without the provisions which my amendments would remove. I would certainly be interested to hear what the Minister has to say about why we have a bespoke regulated period for one particular scenario, while such a bespoke period will not be necessary in the future. Why has no provision been made for the interaction of the general election and the proposed Scottish referendum?

I thank the hon. Gentleman and would like to put on record my thanks to other colleagues who sit on the Select Committee, some of whom are in the Chamber today. We faced incredibly difficult conditions, providing a report for this House at very short notice, which meant being called back during the recess. I compliment the hon. Gentleman and the rest of my Select Committee for doing that and for giving the House half a chance to debate this issue seriously.

The hon. Gentleman seems surprised that stuff that we are meant to have in front of us—on Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—is not in front of us, while we are halfway through the Bill’s proceedings. However, he answered his own question in his opening remarks when he referred to the Government’s failure to provide the proper amount of time, consideration and consultation that we should expect in the House. Let me quote, very briefly, what has been said by the Electoral Commission:

“We await confirmation of the Government’s view of the impact of the Bill on the referendum on independence for Scotland.”

I am perfectly sure that had that impact been known, even today, a great many more Members from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would have been present. This is an outrageous attempt to push a measure through with great speed, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will continue to emphasise that in his speech.

I was wondering whether at some point the hon. Gentleman might wish to make a speech on the matter, but then I realised that he had in fact just done so. We are grateful to him, and I remind those who are attending to our proceedings beyond the Chamber that his celebrity status should now be universally known. He is, of course, the Chair of the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform, and it is, I know, in that capacity that he seeks to advise the House. Even so, he will want to ensure that the subsequent interventions that he will make from time to time are moderately briefer.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his succinct intervention, and also for his generous comments. The points that he has made are exactly the points that caused me to vote against the programme motion yesterday. I think the least that can be done if a Bill has not been given sufficient pre-legislative scrutiny is to ensure that there is sufficient time for it to be scrutinised properly in the House. I may be wrong, but I doubt very much whether we shall have time even to debate all the groups of amendments and new clauses that have been tabled for debate today. As I said earlier, we were not able to reach some of the amendments that were tabled in Committee, although fortunately some of them were tabled again on Report, and are being debated now.

I do not think that I need to make a meal of this, and I am sure that the House will wish to hear further from the Chairman of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, but I will say that I do not think that new clause 2 really cuts the mustard. All that it says is:

“Part 2 of this Act shall not come into force until the Electoral Commission and the Minister have laid a report before both Houses of Parliament”.

That in itself introduces a concept of indecision. People looking at the legislation will want to know when part 2 will come into force. If things are found to be wrong with part 2 as a result of

“an assessment of the separate and specific impacts of Part 2…on third-party engagement”,

and so on, that will need to be put right before Royal Assent, rather than being left to a post-legislative assessment on a time scale that is imprecise and unspecified. I understand why the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) is frustrated by this whole process, but I beg to differ with him on whether his proposed solution is the right one.

Similarly, as I said earlier in an intervention on the hon. Gentleman’s speech, I do not think that the requirement in new clause 3 for

“Within one month of Royal Assent…full cost projections of the impact of Part 2 on their running costs”

from the Electoral Commission, along with an

“assessment of the administrative impact”

is any good. It would, at best, be closing the stable door after the horse had bolted, and it would not be a helpful substitute for dealing effectively with the substance of the Bill before we give it final approval and it receives Royal Assent. The time to do that is now, and we are doing it. Obviously we hope that those in the other place will do even more of it, and that when the Bill returns to the Commons, it will be much better than it was before.

I end as I began, by regretting that this process has caused us to deal too much with the form and the process rather than with the substance, which is what we should be dealing with in this House.

rose—

I will give way once more.

Before the hon. Gentleman—who is a distinguished member of the Select Committee—ends his speech, may I return, very briefly, to the question of the controlling of expenditure of non-party campaigners? Will he underline the fact that the Electoral Commission does not know what impact the Bill will have on the referendums in Scotland? Are we not in danger of jumping straight into a hornets’ nest if we do not consider that before the Bill is passed, rather than saying “Let us see what happens”?

If I were a member of the Government faced with such advice from a body on which the Government rely to give them advice, I would say “We will withdraw the Bill, or at least delay further consideration of it until we have received a proper response.” That, I think, would have been the mature way in which to deal with the matter, if I may put in it in a somewhat patronising way.

There are many examples of Bills that have been held up between their Committee and Report stages. Normally they have been held up for a good reason, namely that the Government have been having a rethink, discussing with third parties and other interests what is the best solution. Here we have a glaring example of something else. Effectively, the statutory adviser on these issues has said to the Government “We do not know what the implications are. Please help us. We can help you, but we need a bit of time if we are to do so.”

As the hon. Gentleman knows, I am always an optimist. I hope that, before the end of this evening’s proceedings, we shall have heard the Government say that they wish not to press the matter to the end, but to give the House a chance to engage in further debates, and that they will table further amendments.

As the hon. Gentleman implies, there is nothing to stop the Government from saying, at any stage, “We have listened to the concerns of Members on both sides of the House, and we have listened to what people outside the Chamber are saying. We will withdraw the legislation, and will engage in full consultation.” Labour Members can give a cast-iron commitment that if that were to happen, we should be only too happy to engage with the Government, the Electoral Commission and others in an attempt to achieve a consensus on how our electoral law can be modified and made appropriate for the modern age. That is a perfectly reasonable suggestion, and I only hope that the Government will feel able to respond to it. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it represents a good way forward?

Obviously I do. I am often suspicious of the word “consensus”, but I think that when we are dealing with changes in electoral law, consensus is very important.

In my capacity as a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, I go off and monitor a fair number of elections, and the most difficult cases with which to deal are those in which a Government have used their majority to introduce changes in the electoral law, and, in some cases, have used a politically motivated electoral commission to support their actions. That brings democracy into disrepute, especially in some of the emerging democracies in eastern Europe. I think that this is an instance in which we should be aiming for consensus, and if consensus could be achieved by the Government’s withdrawing the Bill, or not continuing with it at the current pace, I should be all in favour of it.

The hon. Gentleman’s approach is precisely the approach adopted by the Joint Committee on Human Rights. We said as much in our meeting this morning, and I was delegated to convey that sentiment to the House this afternoon.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. It is invidious to make comparisons, and I know that his is a Joint Committee of both Houses, but I think it a pity that the Committee has not been able to present a report to the House by this stage. If our Committee could do it, I am sure that his Committee would, or should, have been able to do it as well. It is very sad that his Committee’s no doubt excellent report will be available to their lordships, but is not available to Members of this House. This is not a criticism of the hon. Gentleman, but I hope in future he will cancel all leave when necessary and bring his troops back.

I note the hon. Gentleman’s concern about the word consensus, but is it not sad that there is broadly common agreement which could be arrived at if the will were there?

I am not going to get into the semantics of the difference between consensus and common agreement, but I hear what the hon. Gentleman says.

I am pleased the Government have done quite a lot of listening. They have brought forward a number of amendments and put forward various propositions. Some people are claiming what the Government are saying will not work in practice in the way they say it would, but that is a reason for having further discussions, instead of forcing inadequate law through this House.

I share some of the concerns of the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) around the muddle and clutter in the Bill in relation to variable commencement dates and the transitional provisions. The Government may well say that the clauses are framed in a way that allows for slippage if that is needed, but slippage at the hands of a Minister in relation to commencement will give rise to suspicions of slipperiness and the possibility of partisan motivations. The variable commencement provisions that apply to different parts of part 2 are evidence of just how scrappy the thinking has been, and provide an argument for there being a longer pause for thought.

I wish to speak particularly in support of new clauses 2 and 3. Some Members have said that neither of the clauses on their own goes far enough. That may be so, but they do recognise gross deficiencies in the Bill. They may not meet them in full, but at least if this Chamber agrees to these amendments it will be creating a basis on which there will be further amendments and further consideration to meet those gross deficiencies. It is a derelict argument to say that, because they do not completely meet the deficiencies, we should not adopt them. There are even more inadequacies in the Bill that we would leave unamended, so saying that they do not go far enough and would need to be supplemented by other changes should not be used as a justification for voting against them.

New clause 2 refers to the very confusing impact this legislation would have in the context of the devolved areas. I have a particular interest in Northern Ireland, of course. I have no wish to bungee jump in and out of the debate about the Scottish referendum, but I take on board the point that has been made on a number of occasions by the Chairman of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee and we need to hear it answered as it seems to be a pretty basic and fundamental one.

I want again to inform the House that many Members have referred to the vast numbers of third sector groups—charities, Churches, policy advocacy groups—that have expressed concern throughout England, Scotland and Wales, and they have also done so in Northern Ireland. In many ways their concerns are even more vexed because, as the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) has said, civil society in Northern Ireland has been playing a significant, telling and growing role in helping to move politics on and improving the content and climate of political debate in Northern Ireland.

It is good to follow the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan). I am still hoping to get to Derry/Londonderry, the great city of culture for 2013, before the end of the year, but I am conscious that time is running out—[Interruption.] My speech will not take us to that date.

I want to make a couple of comments on these new clauses and amendments on timetabling and scope. I thank the Leader of the House for the letter that he sent and the amendments that the Government have tabled, which we shall reach later, and I thank my right hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House for his conversations, briefings and help in dealing with the Bill.

I assume that those on the Front Bench accept the spirit of amendment 65, although I do not assume that they will accept the amendment itself. It states that the Bill will not be enacted until all Committees of both Houses that are reporting on it have reported. I am a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights—our Chair is also in the Chamber now—and it is common knowledge that we are considering the Bill. It is no secret that we hope to complete our work this month—we are doing it as quickly as we can—and to publish our report. The amendment is effectively asking the Government to take into account the deliberations of the cross-party Committee of both Houses and any other Committees before there is further detailed consideration of the Bill. I hope that there will be general acceptance of that.

I am not competent to speak about the details of new clause 2, but the Electoral Commission, to which we are grateful for its up-to-date briefing, has an open mind on it—at least, that is how it expresses it. The commission’s summary states that

“we expect that as far as possible Parliament will wish the Government to set out a thorough assessment of the likely impact of the provisions in Part 2 before the Bill is passed.”

I assume that the Government will do that and that the new clause seeks to deal with elections and campaigns other than the general election in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. They are clearly relevant and we must consider them. My reading is clear: the Electoral Commission has not come down specifically in favour of or against the new clause in its briefing, although it has a clear view on other parts of the work before us today.

The right hon. Gentleman has accurately referred to the Electoral Commission’s commentary on new clause 2. The commission expresses the hope that the Government will set out a thorough assessment of the likely impact of the provisions, but as things stand, I am not aware of a firm commitment that the Government intend to do that.

That is why my assumption is that, although the Government might not respond directly by accepting the new clause, colleagues on the Front Bench will be able to answer the point made by the Electoral Commission, as there is obviously regular engagement between the Government and the commission. I hope those on the Front Bench will be positive about that point.

It is clear, as my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) said earlier, that new clause 3 is not supported by the Electoral Commission. For want of other guidance, the Electoral Commission is always the best place to go to for a steer on the appropriate response, so I will not support the new clause.

My concern is that the Government should give time for Committees to report and for their deliberations to be considered and that, when the Electoral Commission expressly supports the Government’s proposals or proposed changes, the Government should be responsive.

Let me make a general point about the timetable. Obviously, the Bill took a huge amount of time in gestation and was then born very quickly—it shot out of the cot, or cradle, or wherever it had been kept—

That is often the way.

Yes, it is. The Bill was held in dock for a long time, but then somebody suddenly pressed the button and out it came. I do not think that anyone can complain that there has not been enough time in Committee or on Report; the complaint is that, as people know, we have not had the pre-legislative scrutiny that all Bills ideally should have. I know that the Leader of the House would accept that in principle.

We are in the second day on Report and we must have Third Reading, so we cannot now do all the revision and careful scrutiny that we would like to. That is probably true across the House. I am in favour of many of the Bill’s principles, so I do not have issues with some of the changes, but I hope that the Government will ensure that there is the time for that careful consideration and to listen to the voices before the Bill goes from this place to the House of Lords.

A commission has been set up, prompted by the voluntary sector, to be chaired by the Lord Bishop of Oxford, who is a Member of the House of Lords. It is considering these issues and will have a valuable contribution to make, provided it can report soon. I hope, too, that the Government will take seriously what it says.

Will the right hon. Gentleman outline to the House how he thinks we can have further scrutiny of the Bill between the completion of business today and its progress to the House of Lords?

I made it clear that because this is the second and last day on Report and because we must have Third Reading, at this round of our deliberations we cannot do that in this building. Other work is taking place, however, not least in the Joint Committee on which I serve with colleagues from both Houses. We want to report in time for our work to be taken into account up the corridor in the House of Lords. Any amendments made in the Lords must still come back to this place, so I ask the Government to give time for the Committees that are working and have not reported to report and for those reports to be considered by the Government in good time to be seen by colleagues in the Lords and for the independent commission to report and to be seen, provided it gets on with the job quickly.

Before I tackle new clauses 2 and 3 and the amendments, I welcome the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) to his place. I am not sure whether this is his last appearance in his current position—

Probably.

Okay. I also welcome the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), who is making his first appearance in this capacity, as well as the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith), who is staying put, I believe. This is also perhaps the first opportunity for me to welcome the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark). He might be familiar with a quote from Christopher Hitchens:

“What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.”

He might have found during the debate that a lot is being asserted by Opposition Members without evidence. Clearly, the Government dismiss that with evidence rather than without it.

The hon. Member for Caerphilly made an enticing offer that we should pause the Bill, but I am afraid that I shall have to decline. I can only imagine the hue and cry from Labour were we to do nothing with the Bill only for someone to spend just under £1 million in one constituency or another during the run-up to the next general election to try to unseat a candidate they did not want to support. Would the hon. Gentleman then accuse us of failing to take action?

We have also heard some examples of Opposition Members’ belief that the Bill would have stopped updated health and safety provisions in relation to mining disasters. We heard from the Chair of the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform that the Labour party would not have existed had the Bill been in place. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State will become familiar with such arguments, which are completely outwith anything the Government propose in the Bill.

New clause 2 would require the Government and the Electoral Commission to undertake a post-legislative assessment of the impact of part 2 on third parties campaigning in elections to the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly and on third parties campaigning in Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland constituencies for the UK parliamentary elections. That assessment would also have to consider the impact of part 2 on referendums in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Part 2 would not come into force until a report of the assessment was laid before Parliament.

Only some of the part 2 provisions apply to third parties campaigning in elections to the devolved Administrations. At the time of the Bill’s introduction, the Government published an impact assessment to accompany it. The analysis has been thorough. To require the Government to undertake another analysis at a later date serves no purpose. In addition, the Electoral Commission already has a statutory function of reporting on the conduct of elections under current legislation. As part of that function, the Government would expect the commission to examine the impact of changes to rules on third-party campaigning at future elections. It would not be for the Government to duplicate the role of the independent regulator.

The main thrust of the remarks of the hon. Member for Caerphilly was about the potential risk of impact on the Scottish referendum. I want to make it clear that the Bill does not have an impact on referendums. Although the regulated period for the 2015 UK parliamentary election will overlap with the regulated period for the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, spending in the Scottish referendum is a matter for the Scottish Parliament. Such expenditure could not, in our view, reasonably be regarded as intended to promote electoral success and would therefore not be controlled under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 or regulated by the Bill. We believe that expenditure incurred during the regulated period for the referendum would be treated as referendum expenditure and not controlled expenditure for the election, unless there was a clear or direct link to a campaign in the election. We do not think that the commencement of part 2 should be delayed as the hon. Gentleman said.

Up until yesterday, the Electoral Commission, which is charged by Government and the House in these matters, was still stating:

“We await confirmation of the Government’s view of the impact of the Bill on the referendum on independence for Scotland.”

So even yesterday, the Electoral Commission was unclear. The Minister is stating unequivocally that there will be no impact whatsoever on the contending parties—those that support voting yes, voting no or whatever—and there will be no impact whatsoever on the independence campaign by any of the players or third parties. This was not made clear to the Electoral Commission even yesterday, when the question arose.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, which gives me an opportunity to restate the fact that the Bill has no impact on the Scottish referendum. The Electoral Commission wanted that clarified, and I have today very publicly done so. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House had clarified that point in discussions with the Electoral Commission yesterday.

Surely, the comment from the Deputy Leader of the House depends on clearly differentiating expenditure for election campaigning and referendum campaigning. We might find that sums of money are used for identical purposes at the same time. Common sense dictates that that is bound to lead to complications.

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was in the House in 1999 when PPERA was being debated and when it became an Act in 2000. That Act seeks to address that sort of issue. Our position is clear. I do not think that I need to restate it a third time, but I will: the Scottish referendum is not affected in any way by what we are debating here.

I shall move on to new clause 3, which would require the Electoral Commission to identify the Bill’s impact on both its own resources and on third parties. It would require the commission to lay a full cost projection before Parliament within one month of the Bill receiving Royal Assent. As I have just explained, the Government have already published an impact assessment to accompany the Bill. That assessment considers the impact on both the Electoral Commission and third parties. The assessment estimates that the lowered registration thresholds will bring 30 more third parties into the regime administered by the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000—that is, third parties that campaign for the electoral success of a party or candidate.

The assessment also estimates that only 10% of third-party organisations will see their expenditure affected by the reduced spending limits proposed in the Bill. At the 2010 UK general election, only two organisations even passed the lower limits proposed in the Bill. There will be a relatively small administrative cost to each registered third party as a result of the new reporting provisions that the Bill introduces. The impact assessment considers that the enforcement cost to the Electoral Commission will rise by a maximum of £390,000 annually. Let me say again that this analysis is comprehensive, and I see no need to repeat it after the Bill has received Royal Assent.

The Electoral Commission states in its parliamentary briefing:

“We do not support this amendment since there are more appropriate vehicles for consideration of these issues.”

The Electoral Commission is already required, under PPERA, to submit an estimate of its income and expenditure to the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission each financial year. That estimate must indicate what the commission considers its requirements for resources for the next five-year period might be. There is therefore already provision in legislation for the commission to provide the information that the amendment seeks.

I thank the Minister for giving way; he is very generous. Before we move on from new clauses 2 and 3, may I ask whether he is categorically rejecting the Electoral Commission’s request for a thorough assessment of the likely impact of these provisions? Let us be clear that he is rejecting that Electoral Commission advice.

I am afraid I am going to disappoint the hon. Gentleman by restating what I have said. We have already carried out an impact assessment and the Electoral Commission will no doubt want to conduct one on the impact of third parties.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) referred to amendment 65. I can assure him that the Government will listen to the Committee’s views, although we are working to a timetable that requires the Bill to be in place to address the next general election, and the regulated period for that starts 12 months before. We will of course listen to the Committee’s views and to the views expressed by others, including the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, the Electoral Commission or anyone else who has views on the subject. We are not closed to other views.

Is the Deputy Leader of the House therefore saying that he and the Government will listen to the views of the Committee and the independent commission before the Bill goes to the House of Lords?

No. The hon. Lady paraphrases me incorrectly. That is not what I said. I said that we would listen to the views, but at the same time we are working to a timetable. The sooner those views are available the better, and the sooner there will be an opportunity for them to be considered.

Amendment 65 would amend clause 41 in order to prevent part 2 from coming into force until a Committee of either House has undertaken an inquiry and published a report on the impact of the Bill. As drafted, however, the amendment does not in fact require an inquiry to take place—it merely assumes that one might. The amendment’s effectiveness is therefore limited, as in the absence of any inquiry part 2 will come into force regardless. I once more reiterate my earlier comments: the Government have already published an impact assessment to accompany the Bill. That assessment considers the impact on both the Electoral Commission and third parties, and is thorough.

Amendments 66, 4, 5 and 6, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) spoke, would amend clause 41 so that the entire provisions of part 2 came into force on Royal Assent, subject of course to the transitional provision in clause 42. It is more appropriate—this is the response to the query he raised—for certain provisions, namely clauses 30, 31, 34 and 35, to be commenced at a date appointed by the Secretary of State, rather than on Royal Assent. That is normal practice. The purpose is to allow preparations to take place and the people involved to be brought up to speed on those aspects of the law, rather than forcing adoption on the day of Royal Assent.

The right hon. Gentleman says that it is important that people should be able to get up to speed, but many of the Bill’s provisions will take effect on the day of Royal Assent. How is it that people will be able to get up to speed on those provisions in time but not on this provision?

Clearly the Government have made an assessment of the areas where it is possible to prepare in time for Royal Assent and those where it is not, which I think is reflected in the clauses to which I have just referred.

Clauses 30, 31, 34 and 35 do not have a direct effect on the regulated period of the other provisions in part 2, which are affected by the transitional provision. It is more appropriate for clauses 30, 31, 34 and 35 to be subject to commencement by order in the usual way. Amendment 67 takes the opposite approach and appears to intend that, subject to amendment 66, which we have just discussed, all of part 2 but clauses 30, 31, 34 and 35 would not come into force on Royal Assent. However, its effect would in fact be the contrary. In the absence of any considered commencement and transitional provision, all of part 2 would come into force on Royal Assent. I suspect that that is not the intention, but it would be the effect.

In relation to amendments 10, 11 and 12, tabled and spoken to by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, it appears that he is seeking to delay the Act’s measures, rather than to have them swiftly implemented. He has already tabled amendments 4, 5 and 6 to clause 41 so that all of part 2 would come into force at the same time and then become subject to the transitional provisions of clause 42. I know that he was seeking to bring clarity, but the effect of amendments 10, 11 and 12, together with amendments 4, 5 and 6, is that the measures in part 2 would not come into effect before the 2015 general election. Amendments 10, 11 and 12 would remove the transitional provision of clause 42 altogether, with the result that the part 2 provisions would come into effect only at the commencement of the next regulated period after Royal Assent, which is unlikely to be the regulated period for the 2015 general election. The Government are committed to enhancing the transparency of spending by third parties, and that includes enacting the measures within part 2 in time for the regulated period of the 2015 general election. I therefore do not consider it appropriate to delay their implementation until after the 2015 general election.

Going back to the point about people needing to be given time to get up to speed, if clause 30 was brought in immediately on Royal Assent, it would state:

“The Secretary of State may by order vary any percentage for the time being specified”.

What is the point of not bringing that into effect on Royal Assent, because the only impact of doing so would be to give the Secretary of State the power to bring it in? Does the Secretary of State need to be brought up to speed?

That is a challenging question, so I might need to get back to my hon. Friend shortly on it. I think that the whole issue of percentages is one that might require a response from others and measures to address it. I have heard his query and will ensure that he gets a specific response.

rose—

I urge my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and the hon. Member for Caerphilly not to press their amendments.

I will make a small contribution in order to make a request on behalf of those of us who have considerable respect for the opinions expressed about Northern Ireland and concern about the impact of the Bill there. I think that the Deputy Leader of the House inadvertently passed over that without responding to the pertinent points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan). This takes the whole question of people intervening when there are questions of free speech to a rather more delicate and, indeed, darker level. I hope that the Deputy Leader of the House has some response to the points made by my hon. Friend.

I will respond to those points, subject to your approval, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I think that would be helpful.

I hope that the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) will agree that I tend to take many interventions and make a point of trying to respond to them. To respond to his point on the impact in Northern Ireland, clearly the new definition of controlled expenditure will have an impact on the devolved Administrations. The lowered registration thresholds will also have an impact in Northern Ireland. With regard to Northern Ireland Assembly elections, the amount that a third-party organisation can spend campaigning against a named candidate is being increased from £500 to £700 through this legislation.

Will the Deputy Leader of the House clarify something? If there is a non-party campaign on a legislative proposal in the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Scottish Parliament or the Welsh National Assembly in the same calendar year as a Westminster election, will that count as being within the regulated period, and will that campaign about devolved legislative proposals count as part of controlled expenditure?

The hon. Gentleman asks a very specific and detailed question. The difficulty in answering it is the extent to which any local community campaign organised at any level would have an impact on Westminster elections. Rather than giving him an off-the-cuff response, I will ensure that he gets a detailed reply. On that point, I will conclude my remarks.

It is not the Opposition’s intention to press new clauses 2 and 3, on the basis of the commitment the Deputy Leader of the House has given to have further discussions, particularly in the House of Lords, which we hope will lead to substantive change. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 26

Meaning of “controlled expenditure”

I beg to move amendment 32, page 12, leave out lines 31 to 33 and insert ‘“where—

(a) the expenses fall within Part 1 of Schedule 8A, and

‘(b) the expenditure can reasonably be regarded as intended to promote or procure electoral success at any relevant election for—

(i) one or more particular registered parties,

(ii) one or more registered parties who advocate (or do not advocate) particular policies or who otherwise fall within a particular category of such parties, or

(iii) candidates who hold (or do not hold) particular opinions or who advocate (or do not advocate) particular policies or who otherwise fall within a particular category of candidates.”’.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Government amendment 33

Amendment 101, page 12, leave out line 37 to line 9 on page 13 and insert—

‘“For election purposes” means activity which can reasonably be regarded as intended for the primary purpose of—

(a) promoting or procuring electoral success at any relevant election for—

(i) one or more particular registered parties;

(ii) one or more registered parties who advocate (or do not advocate) particular policies or who otherwise fall within a particular category of such parties; or

(iii) candidates who hold (or do not hold) particular opinions or who advocate (or do not advocate) particular policies or who otherwise fall within a particular category of candidates.’.

Government amendments 34 to 45.

Clause 26 sets out the test that third parties need to meet in order to incur controlled expenditure. There has been extensive comment from a number of bodies, such as charities and voluntary organisations, that the Bill will capture their ordinary campaigning activities. That was not the case. However, the Government gave an undertaking in Committee to revert to a test based on the wording of the existing legislation, which provides that controlled expenditure is only that

“which can reasonably be regarded as intended”

to promote or procure the electoral success of parties or candidates. The Government’s amendments meet that commitment.

I would like to thank the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, the Electoral Commission and others for the constructive discussion we have had in relation to the amendments. I accept that there is not total agreement on our amendments, but I know that the NCVO, for instance, is at least partially happy about the proposals we have come forward with.

The Deputy Leader of the House will have seen the letter today from Sir Stuart Etherington of NCVO, which states:

“Simply returning to the previous form of words does not solve the problem… In our view, the assurances given by ministers on the floor of the house that charities campaigning on policy issues will not be affected have not been met”.

I am aware of that, but I am equally aware that Karl Wilding, the NCVO’s director of public policy, said yesterday that it is partially happy about what the Government have done and that we have made some progress. [Interruption.] Yes, I accept that it is partially happy, but it is worth remembering that one of the NCVO’s other concerns, as highlighted in its letter, is the PPERA legislation, which goes back to 2000, under the previous Government. It may be pertinent to remind the Labour party what the then Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), said:

“In terms of the day-to-day non-campaigning part of their activity, third parties will not be caught by the provision but, if they seek to influence an election, which is the expenditure in question, our proposed arrangements are reasonable.”—[Official Report, 10 January 2000; Vol. 342, c. 41.]

That is very much our view. We are in the same place.

I know that the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) is new to his position, but I am sure that he will have been told in his briefing that, in response to a request from one of my right hon. Friends, the Government undertook to ensure that we reverted to the definition applied in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. That is precisely what we have done.

If the statutory arrangements put in place by the previous Government in the 2000 Act were satisfactory, why does the Minister wish to change them now? Can he list even one example of behaviour by third parties that has led him to believe that new legislation is needed?

The hon. Gentleman may not have understood. The fact is that we had no intention of changing the test of what constituted promoting or procuring the electoral success of a party or candidate. By reverting to the PPERA legislation, we have put charities and other organisations back to where they were in the run-up to the 2005 and 2010 general elections in relation to what constituted procuring the electoral success of a party or candidate. I accept that in other ways we have changed things in response to the Electoral Commission’s request about the definition of controlled expenditure.

In his letter, Sir Stuart Etherington says:

“A health charity could publish a leaflet highlighting the dangers of smoking. If smoking legislation became a party political issue in an election this activity could be deemed to have the effect of supporting a party’s campaign”.

Has he simply misunderstood the legislation?

If an anti-smoking organisation ran a campaign subsequently adopted by a party, that would not count as controlled expenditure unless that organisation subsequently said, “Oh, by the way, party X is supporting our campaign, so vote for party X.” The mere fact of running a campaign supported by a party would not incur controlled expenditure. That is clear.

There is another point. Back in 2010, the Royal British Legion ran a campaign called “Time to do your bit”. There seems to be an illusion that that would not be possible under the new legislation. Can the Minister assure me that such a campaign would be possible?

I thank my hon. Friend for that point. That campaign was clearly run on the basis of PPERA, which is what we are reverting to. If the Royal British Legion said, “We are endorsing a candidate who has supported our position and encourage people to vote for them,” it would be caught. [Interruption.] Of course it would be caught, because it would be procuring the electoral success of a party or candidate. If it intended doing such a thing in the 2015 general election, it could choose to register as a non-party organisation and spend £390,000 across the country running that campaign. However, I question whether the Royal British Legion would want to be in such a position.

rose—

I will give way once more, then I need to make progress.

Will the Minister respond to the specific point raised earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) about the Royal British Legion campaign? In that case, what might apply in England, Wales and Scotland would for obvious reasons not apply in Northern Ireland.

What applies in Northern Ireland could equally apply in Scotland, England or Wales. It would all depend on whether the Royal British Legion in Northern Ireland was in some way or other promoting or procuring the electoral success of a party or candidate. If it was doing that, it could be caught. If, for instance, it was promoting or procuring the electoral support of a number of candidates because a number had endorsed its message, that would also be deducted from its spend as a third-party organisation if it was promoting the electoral success of a party or candidate. As I said, I doubt whether the Royal British Legion would want to be in the position of promoting a party or candidate. That is not what it does.

Is not the point that all the organisations that we describe in these case studies do not seek the support of one political party, but set out to win a consensus across the political divide for their cause? Therefore they should have nothing to fear.

That is absolutely the point. I would make a stronger point. In all the conversations that I have had with charities, they have gone to great extremes to underline the fact that as charities they do not campaign for the electoral success of a party or candidate because the Charity Commission would stop their charitable status if they were seen to be campaigning politically. They do not do that, so the argument that the threshold or total national cap is being dropped or will in some way inhibit charities is not true.

Charities do not campaign for the electoral success of a party or candidate so the threshold would not apply and they would not need to keep details of controlled expenditure. [Interruption.] I find it hard to believe that the question is still being asked. Charities are not affected by the Bill because they do not campaign for electoral success.

The Government amendments meet the commitment we made in Committee, and I thank the organisations that we have worked with on the issue. We believe our amendments provide clarification and reassurance to charities, voluntary organisations, community groups and other campaigners that their normal engagement with public policy will not be subject to regulation as long as it cannot reasonably be regarded as intended to promote or procure the electoral success of a party or candidate.

By reverting to the existing terminology, amendment 32 achieves the aim of making the test for controlled expenditure one that has been in existence since 2000. I have seen continued comment from some organisations that the rules will prevent charities and other campaigners from making their views known. Those objections are based not on what is being done in the Bill but on the rules already set out in PPERA. Those rules have been in place for a number of elections, including the 2005 and 2010 general elections. I am sure that everyone on both sides would agree that, during those elections, charities and other campaigners were not prevented from engaging and influencing public policy.

Why change it then?

I will come to that. Others in the House will know from experience that campaigners make their views abundantly clear at election time, as they should.

In answer to the sedentary intervention from the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby, I should say that we are changing the controlled expenditure provisions because the Electoral Commission asked us to bring in line the controlled expenditure that applies to third- party organisations to that which applies to political parties. Do the Opposition believe that the current ability for an individual or group of organisations to spend a large amount in one parliamentary constituency is acceptable, or do they think that it should be controlled, as we do?

The Minister made a good point in stating that the Royal British Legion would not want to be associated with any particular party or candidate. That charity is a good example of one that tries to generate consensus across the electorate.

May I ask the Minister about a different kind of campaign? The RSPCA has a well known objection to the badger cull. It is possible that, in the run-up to the 2015 election, it will run information campaigns opposing the cull. They would not be national campaigns, because they would focus on areas where the cull was happening. Such campaigns would not be for or against any particular party, but we all know what conclusion voters would draw. Would such a campaign be included in this legislation?

The hon. Gentleman is inviting me to judge whether that campaign would fall foul of the rules without sufficient detail about what it might constitute. It is not my position to do that; it is for the Electoral Commission. If the RSPCA ran a campaign in a number of constituencies saying, “We are against the badger cull”, and subsequently a candidate announced that they were also against it, provided that the RSPCA did not say, “Candidate A is backing our campaign—vote for candidate A”, it would be able to proceed with campaigning. [Interruption.] Someone is saying that I am not able to give a detailed answer. In fact, I am sure that in the run-up to the 2005 and 2010 elections the Electoral Commission had discussions with a number of different organisations to clarify where the boundaries lie on these issues, and it is right for it to do so.

The Electoral Commission has made clear its view that it should enforce the rules already laid down by Parliament, not determine the rules. The Deputy Leader of the House said that it is up to the commission to decide what is permissible and what is not; surely that is not right.

The Electoral Commission has produced guidance that the different organisations have to work within, and it will investigate any issues that are believed to have arisen. It clearly has an important role. The Government are not in a position to set out in legislation each and every possible type of campaign that the commission might have to account for. That is why it produces guidance and why—we will support it in this—it will sit down with campaigning organisations to ensure that that guidance is available for them so that they can work effectively.

I recognise that some progress has been made on the precise wording of the clause, but there remains a huge amount of uncertainty among the charities and, indeed, the Electoral Commission as to how this will work. Does the Minister recognise that that makes it very difficult for people not only to understand it but to support it?

I do. It would be foolish of me to say that some charities are not concerned about this issue. Clearly they are, and the NCVO and others have expressed their concerns. Our role is to restate as many times as is required that, as my hon. Friend will know, charities overwhelmingly do not campaign for the electoral success of a party or candidate and therefore are not caught by our proposals. We can restate that in as much contact with charities as possible. Of course, as I think she would agree, other organisations that are clearly campaigning for the electoral success of a party or candidate should be caught by this legislation, as they are caught by the current legislation. Nothing that we are proposing changes that, apart from the things that I mentioned earlier as regards, for instance, the level of controlled expenditure that we allow.

The theme of the Deputy Leader of the House’s remarks is that there is considerable misunderstanding out there among voluntary organisations. Would it not be reasonable and decent to provide more time for his proposals to be better understood?

What is reasonable and appropriate is for us, as a Government, to set out very clearly our intention, which is not to stop charities campaigning on policy issues, and to restate that intention as often as is required so that charities can see what it is. That is what we will carry on doing, and I am confident that we will get the message across.

Government amendment 33 removes the additional test that expenditure might otherwise enhance the standing of a party or candidate. I hope that charities and campaigning organisations will see this as a positive step in providing them with greater clarity. Although we do not consider it to be a significant change, we recognise that this additional limb of the existing PPERA test was perhaps less clear and might have suggested a more remote connection from promoting electoral success, and we want to be clear that that is not our aim. This should provide further clarity and reassurance to campaigners as to the test they have to meet in order to incur controlled expenditure.

My right hon. Friend has set out all the things that should be of reassurance, which is very helpful to those in the House and, I hope, outside it. Will he repeat the assurance that he and the Leader of the House are willing, if necessary, to have a further conversation with Stuart Etherington or the commission to make sure, face to face, that what has been said is understood? A great deal of heat and noise has been generated, and at the beginning there might have been some justification for that. The Government are trying to deal with it, but it might be better dealt with by also having some further conversation to make sure that there is dialogue as opposed to just two separate statements in different places.

I can reassure my right hon. Friend that the doors of the Leader of the House’s office and mine are permanently open to that sort of approach. In fact, the dialogue with the NCVO has been very active and constant, and I am keen to pursue that. The NCVO is, as I stated earlier, at least partially happy and has in the past said that the amendments significantly meet its concerns. There is common ground and we want to ensure that it is developed further.

Although the Deputy Leader of the House has said that this issue is clearly to do with candidates or parties, there is a slight problem with the wording of lines 1 to 4 on page 13, which note that “for election purposes” means

“for the purpose of or in connection with…candidates who hold (or do not hold) particular opinions or who advocate (or do not advocate) particular policies”.

Although this is a valuable Bill which has been widely misrepresented by 38 Degrees and others, I think that wording presents a potential risk to charities such as the one for which I used to work and campaign, in that it might restrict what they perceive to be their political activity.

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. My issue with his concern is that that terminology is used in PPERA, which has been around for 13 years. One would therefore have expected such concerns to have emerged in the past 13 years, and seeing as they have not, I am reasonably confident that they will not emerge by 2015 either.

I welcome the fact that the Government are in listening mode on these issues. Given that Government Members often accuse Labour Members of listening too much to trade unions, I was particularly interested to hear that the Deputy Leader of the House and the Department have been listening to the TUC with regard to the annual conference, so perhaps they are not exempt from lobbying by the unions. The issue of the annual conference is obviously one for the main political parties and some of the minor political parties plus the TUC. Is there a list of defined organisations for these annual conferences?

I am not aware of a list of defined organisations. If hon. Members look at the list of third-party organisations that registered in 2010 and 2005 they might be able to draw some conclusions about which annual conferences I have in mind.

As I have said, the Government believe that the amendments provide the clarity and reassurance that charities, voluntary organisations and the Electoral Commission have sought. We are aware that campaigners will want to understand how to comply with the provisions of the regulatory regime as amended by the Bill. Just as it has for previous elections, the independent regulator, the Electoral Commission, will develop and produce guidance to inform campaigners what expenditure it is likely to consider to be regulated or not regulated. The Government stand ready to support this work.

Amendment 101, tabled by the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), seeks, along broadly similar lines to Government amendment 32, to revise the definition of “for election purposes” to be activity which can reasonably be regarded as promoting or procuring the success of a party or candidate. However, the amendment would also introduce a new primary purpose test, which the Government cannot support. Such a test would be likely to create greater regulatory uncertainty and an obvious avenue for avoidance activity that could fatally undermine these rules, which are supported in principle by the hon. Gentleman’s party.

The concerns of campaigners and the Electoral Commission on the introduction of the draft Bill was that the revised language was untested and caused uncertainty. Our purpose in reverting to the original PPERA test is to address those concerns by reintroducing a test with which the commission and campaigners are familiar, and on which the commission has existing guidance and experience. Introducing a new and untested primary purpose test would completely undermine those benefits. Rather than having the clear test of whether the expenditure can be reasonably regarded as intended to promote electoral success there would be two tests: can it be so regarded and is it also the primary purpose? The opportunity for uncertainty and legal challenge would only be increased by the following questions. What is the primary purpose of your campaign? Is it to promote the issue or to promote those who support your issue? That is an additional test which does nothing to provide the clarity that campaigners say they want.

Perhaps more damaging is the opportunity for avoidance. The primary purpose of an environmental organisation’s advertising campaign might be claimed to be to recruit new members and encourage donations, but it might also urge support for its preferred party. It may be said that the primary purpose is to protect animal welfare, but that may be done only by encouraging support for particular candidates. Those are activities that are and ought to be regulated. The primary purpose test would drive a coach and horses through the legislation. Groups carrying out these activities have previously undertaken campaigning as recognised third parties, which is perfectly appropriate: they can campaign without restrictions. Under the hon. Gentleman’s amendment, however, all could be potentially excluded from registration. The Government have responded to concerns from the Electoral Commission and other groups that the test for controlled expenditure needs to be clear. The amendment would introduce unwanted uncertainty for campaigners.

The amendment would also create a loophole in the law that third parties could use as an avenue for avoidance and that would undermine the regulatory regime. That is not just my or the Government’s view. The Electoral Commission has expressed concerns that the amendment would introduce a new subjective element test which could lead to significant regulatory difficulty. It has also stated that it does not support an exemption for charities from these rules. I urge the hon. Gentleman not to press his amendment.

May I first put on record my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) and the hon. Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith), who, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith), have led on the Bill until now? I also welcome to his post the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), whom I will be shadowing in my new role.

I have heard very little today to change the view I held before the debate started that part 2 of the Bill is little more than a gag on charities and campaigners which, as hon. Members of all parties have said, both today and during the Bill’s earlier stages, will have a chilling effect on our national political debate. Earlier my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly reminded the House that the Bill underwent no pre-legislative scrutiny, and doesn’t it show? Given that it was published just before the summer recess, it is to the particular credit of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), that it was able to give the Bill a degree of scrutiny and table a number of constructive amendments in September and today. What we are left with from the Government is a half-baked set of proposals that pose a real danger of causing more harm than good. It is clear from the widespread concerns raised by charities and campaigning organisations that the lack of consultation and full scrutiny will limit their activities in practice—not in furthering political objectives, but simply in meeting their own charitable objectives.

I listened very carefully to the Deputy Leader of the House’s speeches on this and the previous group of amendments. Nothing that he said has changed the sense I had in preparing for today’s debate that part 2 is a solution in search of a problem.

As the Minister has rightly reminded us, the previous Labour Government introduced a cap on third-party spending, because we do not want to go down the American route of unaccountable organisations spending vast sums of money. We introduced the cap and have no objection to a tough cap on third-party spending. However, the big money in British politics is not third-party spending but spending by the political parties. At the last election, political parties spent 10 times more than third parties. If the Government were serious—[Interruption.] The Leader of the House heckles me from a sedentary position—I cannot quite hear what he is saying—but if he and the Conservative party in particular are serious, why do they not confront their reliance on a tiny number of wealthy donors from the City of London? There is nothing on that in the Bill, which is supposedly about getting the big money out of politics.

In the 2010 general election, political parties nationally spent £31 million; third-party campaigners spent £3 million. The biggest third-party expenditure was 4% of the £17 million spent by the Conservative party, which spent the same as all the other parties and all the third parties added together. Let us be clear: if the Government were serious about taking big money out of politics, they would consider ideas such as a reduction in the overall expenditure cap for political parties during election years and the introduction of a £5,000 cap on donations to political parties.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I will give way when I have made this point. This Government—[Interruption.] Do I get a permanent commentary on my speeches from the Leader of the House? I will get used to it. The Government have wasted an opportunity to tackle the real problem of big money in politics, and thereby ripped up a cross-party approach to party political funding.

The hon. Gentleman will know that no agreement has been reached on party funding, but the Liberal Democrats would clearly welcome one. The Committee on Standards in Public Life has said that the overall controlled expenditure cap is generous, but does the Labour party believe that it should be reduced or that it is set at the right level?

I will come to that, but I am not aware of a problem. When an hon. Friend intervened, we did not get an answer from the Minister on whether there is an example in practice of the limit being too high. However, the Opposition do not have a closed mind on a proper cross-party, evidence-based debate on the matter. We do not believe the Government have done that.

One thing that puzzles me is that, during previous debates on electoral legislation in the House, Labour Backbenchers pleaded time and again with the then Labour Government to do something about expenditure in marginal constituencies—Ashcroft money. Some of them are no longer Members of the House. Why did the Labour Government not do anything?

The hon. Gentleman moves the debate to party political spending, which is not addressed in the Bill. I would happily work with him and his colleagues to address party political funding—I would be delighted to do so. Perhaps we can pursue that beyond today’s debate.

In Committee, the Minister, who has led for the Government today, promised

“to ensure that, on Report, the fundamental concern of charities over the confusion that they say the Government have introduced into the definition of election materials and election purposes will be addressed.”—[Official Report, 10 September 2013; Vol. 567, c. 862.]

In reality, the Government amendments simply fail to fulfil his promise.

I refer the House to the legal opinion of Ros Baston, who has been working with a number of third sector organisations. Her legal opinion, which is one of a number of which the Minister will be aware, demonstrates why we need far more scrutiny and consideration of part 2. It states:

“Issues-based campaigning will continue to be covered by regulation. It appears that the government considers that removing the previous reference to ‘enhancing the standing’ of parties or candidates has a significant effect on the scope of what is covered…In my view, it does not…The natural meaning of ‘promote’ is to enhance the standing of, or make people think better of, something or someone…The natural construction, therefore, is that issues-based campaigning will be covered where it can be reasonably regarded as intended to encourage voters to look more favourably at candidates or parties who do or don’t support particular policies, as well as support for a specific party or candidates. This is primarily an objective test, and, in simple terms, looks at the likely effect of the activity.”

The Minister spoke of intent, but Ros Baston asks us to look at the likely effect of the activity. If an activity is likely to make people think better of parties or candidates who support something, it might be covered by the Bill, even if there are reasons for it such as awareness-raising—the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) has made that point.

Ros Baston also states:

“Campaigns could fall within regulation if they…promote policies which, for whatever reason, are associated with one or more political parties or candidates”

and not others

“such as housing, welfare, a referendum on EU membership, wind farms or HS2”

and

“use MPs or candidates as active advocates of their cause”.

She continues:

“I do not consider it sustainable to argue that the campaign is not hoping that people or parties sympathetic to its cause are elected. Therefore, when it undertakes public awareness activity in the run-up to elections, it may well at some level intend to improve the chances of election for those who support their cause as well as to encourage others to join the campaign. There is, after all, no requirement in the Bill or the proposed amendments for the activity to be directly or obviously partisan, or for candidates to be named.”

The opinion goes on:

“The effect of the Bill remains that more charities and low spending campaigners will be subject to the enhanced and much more onerous restrictions. This is because the range of activities covered will increase”—

that is why it is not simply the same as the current legislation—

“and the thresholds for registration will decrease to just £5,000 in England and £2,000 in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland”.

We will discuss those thresholds under the next group. Furthermore, it states that the additional

“limit on spending in individual constituencies could mean that a single joint campaign on a specific issue in one area could result in further spending—local or national—being unlawful.”

Ros Baston’s final point is that the

“amendments make two changes which are of concern to campaigning organisations.”

Those relate to “market research and advertising” and to

“the definition of a ‘section of the public’, and the removal of the exclusion for material sent to ‘relevant supporters’”.

She states:

“It remains unclear as to whether the costs for research which is used in publications are included, and the government has not excluded staff costs (which are excluded for political parties). It also remains very probable that many political blogs will be covered notwithstanding the amendments. This could lead to a bizarre situation where political parties would not have to account for spending on certain types of market research, but that non-party campaigners would have to do so.”

I do not want my entire speech to be made up of the opinion of Ros Baston, but I will give one final quotation because it is an interesting and forceful opinion:

“The drafting is so vague that campaigns will have to consider whether market research will be caught, regardless of whether the results are used to produce material available to the public or to target particular members of the public. Further, there is no requirement for the research to actually be used in practice at all.”

I listened to the whole of the hon. Gentleman’s point about the legal advice because I wanted to hear exactly where it was going. Leaving aside the issues that do not relate to this group of amendments, does he agree that the amendments will take the definition back to that in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendum Act 2000, which is largely what I sought to do in Committee? The opinion of Ros Baston, which is full of conditionals such as coulds, mights and subjunctives, is a commentary on the wording of the 2000 Act. Should we not take into account what happened in 2005 and 2010, because that would show what is actually happening?

I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman, who attempted to improve this appalling Bill in Committee. However, as is made clear in the extensive quotation that I gave from Ros Baston’s opinion, she does not accept his point that the amendments simply restore the status quo because of the other changes that we will discuss later. We are merely scratching the surface of the changes that the Government are proposing.

Is not the point that if senior counsel extensively examines legislation and suggests that big gaps and vacuums exist within it, there will be litigation? For the third sector, that means that money that people have raised will go to lawyers and not towards the causes. That is serious. The purpose of the legislation must therefore be agreed across the House. If senior barristers are arguing against the proposals, it suggests that much litigation will follow.

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that one risk is that the Bill will result in litigation and a shift in the use of moneys that charities would otherwise use to fulfil their charitable objectives. However, I think that the situation might be worse. As I have said, nothing that I have heard today has changed my view, which has been expressed by other Labour Front Benchers, that many organisations will be gagged because they will simply stop their campaigning work owing to their fears about the legislation. [Interruption.] The Leader of the House and the Deputy Leader of the House can shake their heads, but that is what organisations fear. That is deeply unhealthy for our democracy.

In conclusion, will the Government amendments mean that issue-based campaigning will be excluded from the regulations? From Ros Baston and other lawyers it is an unequivocal “no”. Secondly, and crucial to today’s discussion, will the amendments make any significant changes to the categories of activities to be covered by regulation? Ros Baston finds that the changes will not improve the clarity of proposed regulation, and indeed are likely to result in new uncertainties. In other words, instead of making progress, the Government amendments risk making a bad situation even worse.

We have already heard about the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, which the Deputy Leader of the House said was partially happy. I invite colleagues to read the letter, dated today, from Sir Stuart Etherington, chief executive of the NCVO. He states:

“The Leader of the House suggests that at both the 2005 and 2010 election this wording has not prevented charities and voluntary organisations from campaigning and influencing policy…The Leader misses an important point. At previous elections the definition of controlled expenditure only applied to ‘election material’ (a much narrower category of activity) and expenditure thresholds were set at reasonable and workable levels. The Bill in its current form has significantly expanded the list of activities, and considerably lowered the threshold. The overall effect will therefore be that more charities and voluntary organisations will be subject to the enhanced and much more onerous rules.”

I am afraid that the phrase I have repeated many times will get repeated again. Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that charities and voluntary organisations do not campaign for the electoral success of a party or candidates, and therefore will not be caught by controlled expenditure?

If that is the case, why are we having this conversation and debate? If there is no issue, why have the Government brought this Bill before the House, unless there is something about which they are concerned?

As others have said, there is a real risk of a chilling effect on our national debate given the timing and rush of this Bill. The Minister has acknowledged that the Government are in a rush to get the legislation in place for the 2015 general election, and inevitably people will think that they are trying to insulate their own record, MPs and candidates from legitimate democratic criticism. A number of high-profile campaigns could have been stymied by the legislation, such as that run by the National Union of Students in 2010 on tuition fees, the equal marriage campaign by Stonewall, or, as many Members have said, the Royal British Legion military covenant campaign.

At a time when trust in politics is at an all-time low, why are the Government bringing forward a measure that could restrict the one part of our politics that is doing a good job of engaging people? As well as having a chilling effect on debate, the Bill could also allow this Government, and future Governments, to escape scrutiny on their record and policies. To pluck an example of interest to the Liberal Democrats, might it stop the National Union of Students from holding them to account for how they voted on tuition fees, stop organisations such as the excellent Family and Childcare Trust from highlighting how the Government have driven up the cost of child care for working families, or stop the Royal College of Nursing from warning the public about the impact of Government health policies?

The Royal British Legion was mentioned earlier in the debate, and its circular makes an incredibly powerful case about the weakness of the Government amendment. The Royal British Legion remains

“unconvinced that legitimate awareness-raising activities won’t be captured by the revised definition”.

The Electoral Commission’s own briefing confirms those concerns:

“activity does not have to be ‘party political’ for its costs to be regulated.”

Is it really the Government’s intention for the excellent work of organisations such as the Royal British Legion to be curtailed because of this hastily thrown together Bill? Surely it is not. Had they undertaken proper pre-legislative scrutiny—a case made powerfully by the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee—they would have discovered the problems that this clause and this part of the Bill will create.

Each member of the EC having to monitor 50 constituencies is a breathtaking statistic. I hope my hon. Friend will also mention that that is not just for a four-week period, but for a year. In one year out of every five, those 12 people will have to do a job that cannot be done.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. My recollection is that it was not 12 people, but six, so they would actually have to monitor more than 100 constituencies each for a year.

A joint statement from the NCVO and the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations states that the Government’s commitment to address the legitimate concerns of many charities remains welcome, but that the proposed amendments do not go far enough:

“Legal advice provided to NCVO indicates that the proposed amendments put forward by the government will mean that much campaigning activity by charities and other voluntary groups will still be covered by this excessively bureaucratic and burdensome regime.”

Sir Stephen Bubb—[Interruption.] There seems to be some dissent toward Sir Stephen on the Liberal Democrat Benches. Sir Stephen Bubb, chief executive of ACEVO, said:

“The government is clearly keen to show it is listening to civil society, but these amendments don’t prevent the Bill curbing freedom of speech around elections. The Bill greatly increases bureaucracy for civil society groups in the year before an election, by halving the spending thresholds above which organisations have to register with the Electoral Commission. It also drastically restricts civil society’s spending on public campaigns in election years. The public wants legislation that makes politics and corporate lobbying more transparent. Instead this Bill makes almost no change to lobbying rules while punishing civil society for a loss of trust in politics that is not its fault. Publishing these amendments today leaves 2 working days for civil society to consider them before they are debated in the Commons. This rushed timeframe is an object lesson in poor law-making, and will only necessitate further damage-limiting amendments after the next debates.”

I referred earlier to the important work of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, under the excellent chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North. Our view, which I have expressed, is that the Government amendments tabled today fail completely to meet Ministers’ promises in Committee. For that reason, we will support my hon. Friend’s amendment 101. We believe that the Government need to reconsider this whole issue and that the definition in their amendment needs to be tested widely and consulted on. Our view is that amendment 101 provides a better basis for reform than the dog’s breakfast put forward by the Government.

The Prime Minister used to talk about the big society and about how we could strengthen the role of the voluntary and charitable sector. In part 2, we have a direct assault on that sector and a sinister gag on legitimate democratic activity. It is a solution in search of a problem. Even at this late stage, I urge the Government to go back to the drawing board and work on a cross-party basis with the Select Committees and the voluntary sector. We believe that amendment 101 provides a basis on which to do that, and I urge Members on both sides of the House to support it.

It is a great pleasure to be given the opportunity to contribute to the debate. I welcome Government amendment 32, with its reference to expenditure that could

“reasonably be regarded as intended to…procure electoral success”,

because it demonstrates that the Government listened in Committee. On Second Reading and in Committee, we discussed the concern of charitable organisations that they would be captured by a wide-ranging definition, leading to their suffering the sort of litigation that we heard about earlier. I would be interested to hear what such litigation could be. As I understand the Bill, it would not change what charities have been able to do for the past three elections. My view is simply that we are moving back towards the definition in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, since when there have been three general elections.

The hon. Gentleman raises a point that I and my colleagues on the Labour Front Bench have also raised. If nothing has changed, why must we have these provisions in the Bill? Has he been told by Ministers why these provisions are in front of us, if everything is going so swimmingly?

The hon. Gentleman might be surprised to know that my communication with Front Benchers is not as great as it should be. I voted against the badger cull, to which he referred earlier, so I would imagine that the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals will not be running a campaign in my constituency.

I always vote on the Bill and the amendments placed in front of me, not on what happened 13 or 14 years ago, and I am happy with Government amendment 32. It demonstrates that Ministers listened in Committee and on Second Reading when we talked about charities’ concerns and their wish to understand better how the Bill would affect them.

I have listened carefully to the examples given, and I understand that there is nervousness, but I hate the word “gagging”, with which people have tried to scare the third sector almost into stopping their campaigning. [Hon. Members: “It’s the Government who are scaring them.”] I do not think the third sector is scared. I am proud of the more than 400 charities and local community groups in Stevenage, none of which have approached me independently to talk about their concerns.

Hon. Members have mentioned the concerns about the campaigns that large charities might wish to run, but I do not think that that will be an issue. One of the big points people are missing is that charities are not allowed to engage in political activity that could affect the outcome of an election at the moment.

A lot of the activity that has been referred to today would already be captured by the controlled expenditure regulations in PPERA. Additionally, those engaging in such activity could be referred to the Charity Commission and investigated to determine whether they should retain their charitable status. We need to explain that to the third sector, because this talk of gagging is causing great fear among the wider charitable sector. As I have said, none of the smaller local charities in my constituency has had a problem with the proposals, but some of the larger national ones are concerned. I understand that the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, which represents 10,500 charities, has a range of concerns.

I said in my speech on Second Reading that I would never be involved in a Bill that would lead to any loss of freedom of speech. A constituent spoke to me the other week about the Bill. He jokingly made a good point that an organisation that tried to gag the press might then complain of being gagged itself if the provisions were deemed to affect it as well. It seems to depend on one’s point of view. The amendment demonstrates that the Government have come our way, and I am pleased that they have listened.

In the 12 months leading up to a general election, given the differing views and policies of the political parties involved, would there be anything that a charity could campaign on that was not political?

Most charities campaign for improvement. I am the chairman of a large number of all-party parliamentary groups, and we meet various charities that campaign for improvements in respiratory health, for example. As the law stands, those charities can do that. The amendments demonstrate that that will continue to be the case. A problem would arise, however, if a charity were to say, “If you vote for this candidate, that would be best for our charitable purposes.”

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can answer a question that the Minister failed to answer. He has just talked about charities endorsing particular candidates. Which charities? Which candidates? Can he give me one example of that?

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.

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?

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

It is in the Whips Office.

I am definitely on a list in the Whips Office, as my hon. Friend says. I would love to write to the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) about this. It is highly unlikely that I shall get preferment—[Interruption.] Sorry, I am choking with laughter. It is highly unlikely that I shall get preferment in this Parliament. If the RSPCA were to e-mail its members in my constituency and ask them to support me as a candidate because I had voted in a particular way, I would be very uncomfortable about that.

I am sure that the Whips do have my hon. Friend’s name on a list, but that is a matter of public record; the votes in this place are always a matter of public record. I would be surprised if Members of any party were not keen to stand on their voting records in the House, and I am sure that my hon. Friend is keen to stand on his record. Surely, then, he could answer the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) by saying, “Yes, I am on a list, which is in the public interest and on public record.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Deputy Leader of the House made it clear in relation to amendment 101 that not only will these decisions be taken by people in wig and gown, but that the “primary purpose” definition in amendment 101 will result in legal dispute and interpretation. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, and what is his defence of the expression “primary purpose”?

I will get to that, but what I will say now is that this is an old trick. The civil service has got loads of people writing drafts, and hopefully they are doing the job well, and a Back Bencher then gets up with a proposal that comes in through the voluntary organisations, and the response is, “Oh, there are difficulties about the drafting here.” I will accept that. We will not divide the House on a nuance of drafting. I am very happy that my words do not appear in any Bill. Even though we will divide along party lines, what is uniting the House is that we all know this is a dog’s breakfast and clauses 26 and 27 are the heart of what is wrong with the Bill. The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) has made a game attempt to try to get it right, but we all know there is something wrong here. I will not be hung on a particular set of words, therefore.

I hope the House votes in favour of amendment 101. If we do so, we will be sending the strongest signal to the Government not that the words of the amendment should be added to the Bill, but that the Government should go away, think again, listen and do the consultation they should have done over a year ago. If we pass the amendment, the House will in effect be allowing the Government to put right the mess they made in previous times. That is the role of the House and it is something we can do.

Where did this start to go wrong again in the last week or so? I pay tribute to the Government for having listened to the outrage there was about clause 26. They realised that legislating and changing the rules was wrong. So off they went and, all credit to them, they have come back, having listened to the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross—we supported each other in that debate—and said, “Okay, let’s back off quickly lads and see if we can get back to where we were before we even opened this can of worms.”

The hon. Gentleman mentioned Pandora’s box. He is Chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, but I understood him to be suggesting that he wanted us to vote for a form of words, as an amendment to a Bill, that he did not want in the Bill. If that were the general practice throughout the House of Commons, it would create a strange precedent, would it not?

Well, we were just being serious for a moment there. The hon. Gentleman normally joins me in being serious about the role of Parliament. I know that he is having a bit of fun, but this is a serious issue. Some 10,500 voluntary organisations and their parent organisations are saying, “We think you’ve got this wrong—think again.” If he feels that if the amendment were to be won tonight—whatever form of words we use—it would survive the process in the second Chamber and come back, he is having a little joke and we can all have a laugh at that. [Interruption.] I am being told to speed up so that we can get to the vote, so I would like to be allowed to make progress.

I am not just talking about 38 Degrees getting a bad press—rightly, some might argue—or people sometimes being annoyed, depending on their political view, with those on the fringes of some voluntary organisations, because a lot of other people have written to us just this day. A number of them have said things such as they fear this Bill, they are worried about unintended consequences and this does not have legal certainty. Are those the wild and wacky people we need to legislate against? I shall tell hon. Members who these people are; I shall tell the House who said those three things. They were said by Rabbi Sybil Sheridan of the Assembly of Reform Rabbis UK, Neil Thomas of the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development, Farooq Murad of the Muslim Council of Britain and Paul Parker of the Quakers. I could go on to cite a list of about 20 people from faith groups. According to the Leader of the House, they are making something up in order to embarrass the Government or because they have been wound up. I do not believe these people are so frail-minded. These people are anxious, just as the chairman of a charity who is standing before you is anxious, that we are putting in the Bill and into law something that will chill our ability to campaign. I guarantee to the House that it will chill my organisation’s ability to campaign, because if some bright spark wants to take a case, for some reason or other, against what has been said inadvertently, my budget—I go around cap in hand trying to raise money for my charity—will be spent in a court of law, not on providing the service that I think is appropriate through my charity for babies, children and young people. How many staff would I have to fire if I got landed with a £200,000 legal bill? That is why amendment 101 and the symbolism of tonight’s vote are important. They are important for all those charities outside that have been inundating us with their views.

As the Chair of the Select Committee, elected by this House on an all-party basis, and not as a Back Bencher on the Labour side doing the bidding of the Whips to cause a few problems for the Government, I have a request for Members from all parties. When we last considered the question, the difference between the proposal’s falling, meaning it had to be reconsidered, and its passing was 16 votes. I am asking 16 Members of this House to vote with those who voted last time on amendment 101. That will mean that we give the Government a chance to rearrange the clause in a way that will satisfy people in this House and, above all, that will satisfy people outside who fear what we are going to do today.

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), and we often agree on these points more than we disagree. I was not going to begin by referring to amendment 101, but following his speech, let me address it with one or two short remarks. His argument is that we should vote for amendment 101 because it sends a signal by introducing the primary purpose test. He invites us to vote for that, knowing that if it is successful it could be put right with a better form of words at a later stage. He asks us to support the symbol rather than any particular words, a concept with which I am familiar and to which I often agree in legislation.

I have a much more significant problem with amendment 101, however, in that it introduces something that worries me greatly in legislation—that is, a subjective as opposed to an objective test. I have been involved in various bits of legislation, many of them rather dry and sometimes technical, such as the creation of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, where we have sought to introduce tests that get certain things done. Whenever one is tempted to introduce a test that is not purely objective and does not have objective criteria, one comes up against all sorts of difficulties. Although I have a lot of sympathy with the concept, I could not support this amendment because, for me, it crosses a major legislative Rubicon between the objective test and the subjective test.

In that case, in what way is the intention described in Government amendment 32 any less subjective than that proposed in amendment 101?

I counsel my hon. Friend to read the many excellent briefings from the Electoral Commission, which point out that the 2000 legislation contains an objective test. I shall argue for a return to those words because that is an objective test that is relatively understandable. Objective tests can, of course, be argued in a court of law—we all know that—but they have a far greater degree of certainty than a subjective test. That is why I will not be seduced down the route of amendment 101.

I want principally to confine my remarks to the other amendments, proposed by the Government in response to the amendments I tabled in Committee, which I was asked to withdraw so that the Government could make their own proposals. Like the hon. Member for Nottingham North, let me state my gratitude that on that occasion the Government clearly understood what we were trying to do.

Let me give some of the background behind those amendments. Basically, the Government were seeking to redefine the legislation based on the request they had received from the Electoral Commission and others. This was seen at the time—when that legislation arrived before us—as making significant and potentially unintended changes that we had not been able to look into. Incidentally, I reiterate the point that I made on Second Reading and in Committee, which is that if ever a Bill deserved pre-legislative scrutiny, it was this one. But as has been said before, when we want to go to a certain place, we might not have wished to start from here, but we are here, so let’s get on with it and go to where we want to be.

It seemed to me that the sensible course of action to deal with the concerns being expressed by all the people who were in contact with me was to say, okay, let’s not make those changes. Let’s stick with the existing wording, and if we stick with the wording that exists already, we will have addressed that problem. That was what I proposed and what the Government said they would do. The test for me today is, therefore, whether the amendments do what we wanted the Government to do, and that is where I shall concentrate my remarks.

Following on from two of the interventions that I have made today, I shall try to answer one of the critical questions behind the Bill: what is the purpose of part 2? If one does not believe in the purpose of part 2, there is not a great deal of point in seeking to amend it to achieve the objective. To me, part 2 is a critical and essential part of the Bill. Part 2 sets out to regulate the political campaigning activities in favour of or against candidates by third parties. As such, it hardly touches on charities, which are already regulated, as has been mentioned, by charity law. That is not the target and that is why we are not seeking to regulate on that. The target is the non-charity third parties. That is why, among other things, the 2000 Act was brought into being and passed, and it is thoroughly appropriate to look again at it.

I look across the Atlantic, as I mentioned earlier, and I see what happens when organisations such as the National Rifle Association or others start to pour large amounts of money into one district, Senate seat or state, or into one issue. Such organisations have had considerable success in that country in changing the political representation in the House of Representatives and the Senate. I observe in passing that the extremism that has entered American politics over recent years seems to have followed naturally from that.

In our United Kingdom we have a plurality and a diversity in our politics which I think is exceptionally precious and needs to be preserved. I hope we would agree on that. I do see a danger of third-party organisations being created and funded in a way that could have a serious impact on the body politic, which I do not want to see. For me, part 2, far from gagging charities, is an enabler of the freedom of speech of the smaller people in politics throughout the United Kingdom.

I stand wholly behind the principle, as indeed did the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) an hour and a half ago, when I asked him this precise question and he responded that those on the Opposition Front Bench were in favour of the principle being put forward and were behind the 2000 Act. They agreed that the Act needed updating. The point of his reply to a straightforward question was that the principle behind part 2 was in essence one with which the Opposition still agreed. If the Opposition feel that there should be no regulation of third parties, if they genuinely feel that third parties in politics—great rich blocs of people—can come and shove money into distant constituencies and get away with it unregulated, I invite them to say so. If not, I hope for their support for the principle of the Bill.

What a straw man the hon. Gentleman has just raised. Does he not realise that that is all avoided by the existing law, which was put in place in 2000? What we are dealing with here are changes that this Government are introducing, in a partial and partisan way, without any consultation or any attempt to discuss them with wider civil society, campaigners or third parties. What we need to do is take the Bill off the agenda and do it properly so that we can develop the electoral law for third parties and political parties on a cross-party basis in order to prevent the kinds of abuses he is talking about, which the existing law, unamended by the Bill, already prevents.

I have the greatest respect for the hon. Lady, but I fundamentally disagree with her assertion, because the 2000 Act, as her Front-Bench colleagues have already accepted, does not do the job she claims. That is why the Bill has been brought forward. The principle is that we want to ensure that those who wish to pour large amounts of money into certain constituencies, as has been done quite legally over the last period, will no longer be able to do so.

There is a very important reason why we should have the principle of part 2. The question before us is not whether that principle is right, but how best to put it into legislation. Therefore, what we need to consider is the extent to which the legislation before us achieves that and the extent to which it might act against the interests of those we want to be unaffected, the charities and civil society organisations.

On that score, the intention having been largely to return the definitions, which is the key point, to the status quo ante, I was grateful to read in the Electoral Commission’s latest briefing of 9 October:

“The Commission believes that, where significant non-party campaigning takes place, it is right that this is done transparently and is properly regulated. As we set out in our regulatory review of party and election finance earlier this year, although the current system works well and we have worked closely with third parties to achieve this, there is scope for improving transparency”,

which is what the Bill is all about. In relation to these amendments, it has said:

“In our view, the new wording is clearer than the wording in the Bill as introduced, and we think this change is helpful.”

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman inadvertently missed a page between those two quotations, because at the end of the first one, in relation to which he was praying in aid the Electoral Commission, it states:

“We were also clear in our review, however, that changes in this complex area require careful consideration.”

I think that he, being a fair man, would not say that what we have in discussing this without any pre-legislative consultation could be termed “careful consideration.”

I happily agree that in an ideal world there would have been pre-legislative scrutiny and a considerably improved process—the hon. Gentleman and I are as one on that. However, the Bill is before us and we are dealing with it. I think that the point I have made stands. I submit that the Government amendments reflect almost exactly the purpose of the amendments I proposed, and as such I am happy to support them. There are other parts of the Bill that we will come to later—I will not touch on them now, Mr Speaker, as you would call me to order—where I think there could be improvement. There are concerns about thresholds and other areas that we will come to, but I genuinely believe that this particular part has done the job required of it.

I want to mention briefly the legal advice that has been prayed in aid. I have total respect for the legal advice that has been put forward. They are called opinions, and they are called that for a reason: they have not been tested. In another place, I listened to opinions from a range of eminent QCs about how it was entirely unconstitutional to deprive people of seats there. During the passage of the Hunting Bill, a large number of eminent QCs said it was unconstitutional and so forth. In both cases, those opinions proved to be wrong.

The opinion in question is well written and contains a great deal of coulds and mights. However, its core is about not this Bill but the 2000 Act. The NCVO and other organisations are saying that the problem is the 2000 Act. That is not where we were in Committee, when we were talking about this Bill. I understand why the NCVO wishes to reopen the 2000 Act, but that is not the issue before us. It was a fine argument to make 13 years ago, but it is the wrong one now. The Act has been in force for two elections, 2005 and 2010, which have clearly demonstrated that the legislation can be lived with.

I know that others wish to speak. In conclusion, I should say that the amendments that I tabled and withdrew and the promise given by Front Benchers have been fulfilled. Some of the lobby letters that I have received, saying that this legislation is a gagging Bill, vastly overstate their case and fail entirely to put forward the need to ensure that the underlying principle of British politics—that people cannot buy a seat in the House or a proposition—should be upheld. That is why I say to my right hon. and hon. Friends that the amendments do the job that I asked them to do. They should support them.

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso), although I probably disagree with almost everything he has said.

I speak as the Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. At the outset, I should declare some interests. I am a member, albeit inactive, of the National Trust. I also belong to Community, my union, a well respected campaigning organisation. I also declare, as a historical footnote, that more than 40 years ago I worked for the Trades Union Congress.

My Committee met this morning to consider its report on the Bill; its work, although not yet complete, is well advanced. I have been asked to make important points about part 2 as it relates to human rights on the issue of non-party campaigning. Notwithstanding the Government’s amendments, my Committee’s view is that the overall effect of part 2, on lower spending limits, lower thresholds for registration and increased numbers of campaigning activities, may well be a chilling and adverse effect on free speech and freedom of assembly at a particularly important time—the run-up to general elections.

In September, yesterday and today, I have told the House about my Committee’s concerns about unseemly haste; one member of my Committee—not me—described it as “appalling haste”. We believe that that has a potential impact on the human rights aspects in part 2.

The Bill purports to address matters of democratic process, especially transparency and lobbying, so it is a bit rich to tell the public that there is not sufficient time for them to be properly consulted. My Committee has been almost overwhelmed, not just by the late Government amendments but by the volume of public concern—from Oxfam, the TUC, the Electoral Commission, the National Council for Voluntary Organisations and the Wales Council for Voluntary Action, particularly with regard to non-party funding and campaigning. My Committee believes that there should be a democratic pause to allow the Government and Parliament to reflect on all the concerns about part 2 and to give time for consideration of our report when it is published very shortly.

The debate thus far has revealed the complexities and mysteries of non-party campaigning and funding, which needs to be properly and thoroughly explored inside and outside this House. Part 2—of a Bill of great democratic importance—should be properly scrutinised by both Houses. With all due respect to the other place—a non-elected place, important and valuable as it is—this House should also be given sufficient time.

When we reflect on the grave concerns expressed by large and small charities and organisations about non-party funding, we should remind ourselves of the people who make democracy work at the local level—the volunteers, the organisers and the people who demonstrate. Demonstrating is part of our democratic right. I joined the TUC 40-odd years ago in the week after the demonstration against the Industrial Relations Bill on 21 February. That was a very important occasion. I wonder whether its cost, if there had been a general election that year, would have fallen on the TUC.

In my own constituency I think of Ted Clark, who died last night—a campaigner in many respects, not just a party political campaigner but an active member of his church and his trade union. I also think, in my neighbouring constituency, of Hefina Headon, who died at the weekend—a campaigner with the Air Training Corps and Banwen pony club and the secretary of the Neath, Dulais and Swansea Valley miners support group. These are the people—the volunteers—who could well be affected by this Bill, and it is an offence to them.

I am sure that if the Government respond to my hon. Friend’s points they will assure the House that that is not the kind of organisation they aim to affect through the Bill. However, is not the fact that these real fears are out there even more reason why time should be taken to undertake this consultation, have this discussion, and do this debating and decision making properly?

Indeed; that is the final point that I want to make. At this very late juncture, I implore the Government to have a democratic pause to allow them to allay these concerns. It would be an opportunity for both Houses to reflect not only on my Committee’s report but on the deep concerns of the many national and local organisations that have written to us. I think that our report will be more up to date than the Government’s position next week, because we will have taken on board all those concerns.

It is a pleasure to contribute to this debate, and particularly to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Dr Francis), who speaks with great authority and experience.

I would vote against anything that frustrated this part of the Bill, so I want to speak in support of amendment 101. All the problems with this provision stem from one mistake, which is that it is rushed and has not been consulted on. In the past I have been responsible for negotiating compacts with the voluntary sector. Compacts are not widely known about, and even in the voluntary community and social enterprise sector they are viewed with a huge degree of scepticism. It can be the devil’s own work getting charities to engage with the process because they do not trust the local authorities, the Government or other organisations taking part in it. Driving a coach and horses through the first principle of a compact will do nothing whatsoever to encourage a relationship of trust with organisations in this sector. There has been no consultation and no time to consider the amendments. This is doing more than anything else I can imagine to damage the relationship with our voluntary and community sector that was starting to be built up in Government and in local government across the country.

It is a matter of huge regret that the Government have managed carelessly to stir up a massive amount of distrust in the third sector at a time when we are, rightly, asking more and more of its organisations—this is not a new thing; it has been going on for a very long time—in very important and sometimes dangerous areas of public life, such as the supervision of offenders, safeguarding children and adult social care. That is reckless in the extreme and I will be voting in favour of amendment 101.

In a perfect world, how much extra time does the hon. Lady think would be required for a consultation?

I believe that good practice would be 12 months. Charities are very mindful of the rules that have stood since 2000. They do not engage in political activity and are very careful about not doing so. I do not understand why we cannot allow a proper consultation that would lead to a Bill that we could all agree on and support, and in which charities would also have faith.

Just to help my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), my Committee has said that we or another Committee of the House—it would not necessarily have to be us—could do that and meet the Government’s deadline for getting proper regulation before the next election.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. His is a reasonable offer and I encourage the Government to take him up on it.

I spoke on Second Reading last month, since when the Leader of the House has tabled a large number of amendments to try to repair or improve what was a dreadful Bill, but my goodness it is not much better now.

The Deputy Leader of the House has spent this whole debate repeatedly reassuring the House and the country that charities have nothing to fear, that there will be no chilling effect and that they will not be gagged. How, then, does he explain the absolute fact that heads of charities are still extremely concerned and feel gagged and that there is a chilling effect? Whatever the reassurances being given by the Deputy Leader of the House and the Government, they are not getting through to the charities. He needs to embark on a major information campaign, because civil society is not convinced.

I am still waiting for examples of charities that have been promoting and endorsing candidates and parties. Only those examples would justify the Bill’s measures; otherwise there is no point in having it. In my experience and that of all Members, charities are extremely careful not to break the rules of their charitable status, including not endorsing individual candidates. I am not sure why this provision needs to be in the Bill, unless the Minister can identify and tell us which charities have misbehaved in the past.

Do charities have to endorse a specific candidate or party in order to fall foul of the Bill? If a charity or another third party campaigning organisation were to embark on a campaign that was clearly, though not explicitly, helpful or unhelpful to a particular party or candidate, would that be covered by the sanctions?

When I intervened on the Deputy Leader of the House earlier in the debate, he said that he could not comment on whether a campaign by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals exposing the evils of the badger cull would fall foul of the Bill, because he did not have enough information to offer an opinion and that the decision would be up to the Electoral Commission. That is not acceptable. It is not good enough to ask Members of this House to vote for a controversial Bill when the Deputy Leader of the House cannot even give an absolute guarantee about a hypothetical situation.

Among the many anomalies in the Bill are the cross-border implications —England, Wales and Scotland. We can well envisage a situation in which the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Wales is campaigning on an issue and broadcast and print media could be received on the other side of the border. The RSPCA would say, “We’re from Wales and this area is devolved,” whereupon the response might be, “But it has an impact on the UK general election.”

Order. May I make the point that, I have noticed in my two spells chairing the debate, interventions have not decreased in length? If anything, they have tended to get longer. They need to be a little shorter.

My hon. Friend is right to raise that concern. It occurs to me that, no matter how complicated a problem is, it will be a lot more complicated when we introduce talk of any of the devolved Administrations.

I want to offer one more important example that has been raised previously with the Minister. The National Union of Students might arrive in his constituency in the year running up to May 2015 with a leaflet saying, “Here is a photograph of your MP, Tom Brake, signing a pledge not to vote in any circumstances for increased tuition fees. This is what he said, and this is how he voted.” Will he confirm—yes or no—whether that campaign or that union would fall foul of the spending limits and the sanctions in the Bill? That is a reasonable question, and it is reasonable to ask the Minister to say, one way or another, whether that is the case.

At the last general election, I attended a number of hustings. At the very end of one that was organised by a church—a charitable organisation—it was announced that the candidates present would be asked to sign a public pledge and that a photograph of the candidates signing the pledge would be subsequently distributed to voters. The pledge was to campaign to allow asylum seekers to get work legally. I said, “No, I don’t believe in that policy,” and had to walk off the stage and allow the other candidates to have their photograph taken, which would have had an effect on the voting intentions of certain groups of people in my constituency. A charitable organisation was distributing information that had an effect on my election. Will the Minister say whether that, in his opinion, according to the legislation, will fall foul of the limits and sanctions in the Bill?

Those are important questions. If the Minister can answer them one way or the other, he would help a great deal in reassuring members of civic society and the heads of charities on whether their activities in the run-up to the next general election will, after all, be perfectly legal and not subject to sanctions.

With the leave of the House, Mr Speaker, I should like to respond to a couple of points.

The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) said that we need to address party funding. I agree with him. The Government offered the Labour party an opportunity in the Bill to address trade union funding, which the leader of the Labour party wants to address. I regret that that offer was not taken up.

The hon. Gentleman referred extensively to legal advice —he said that that was not the entirety of his speech, although it did feel that way. One point he did make was that, because of the Bill, organisations must consult to see whether what they propose to do is acceptable. However, they must do exactly that under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000—there will be circumstances in which organisations will want to check whether what they do is within the rules. There is no change in that respect.

I was hoping to hear from the hon. Gentleman something about what the Opposition believe. We have heard that they support the measure in principle, but, contrary to what he has said, we did not hear whether they believe that the cap is appropriate or that there is a need for a constituency limit, or whether they support the extension of controlled expenditure to other items, which the Electoral Commission has asked us to do.

The hon. Gentleman went on to explain that he would support amendment 101. The Chairman of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee said that although he wanted that amendment to be passed, he did not really want it to be in the Bill in practice. That was an unusual position to adopt.

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

I will not give way because I have only one minute to complete my remarks.

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The right hon. Gentleman is misleading the House inadvertently about the words that I used and my intent. I would be happy to see amendment 101 in the Bill. However, I feel that there is sufficient time for the Government—even this Government—to improve the wording. I do not claim that it is perfect. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman, who has conducted the debate quite civilly to date, will not misrepresent me again.

The hon. Gentleman has made his point, to which there is no requirement for a reply. The Deputy Leader of the House may continue with his advocacy.

I have noted the hon. Gentleman’s point. The Opposition spokesman said that he would support amendment 101. Personally, I think that it should be put into room 101.

The hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) supported what the Government are doing, which I welcome. He said that he would not support the loss of freedom of speech and nor would I or anybody else on the Front Bench. This is a good opportunity to remind people that this Government have got rid of ID cards, stopped the retention of the DNA of innocent people, got rid of internal exile and reduced the pre-charge detention period from 28 to 14 days. We will take no lectures on civil liberties from the Opposition.

The Chairman of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee explained the he is the trustee of a charity. I congratulate him on that. He said that he would advise his charity not to campaign on policy issues. I hope that that is not the case. We are talking about the PPERA legislation from 2005 and 2010. I assume that he did not advise his charity not to campaign on policy issues in 2005 and 2010, so I hope that he will not give it that advice now.

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

I am afraid that I am due to complete my remarks. I am happy to discuss the hon. Gentleman’s point of view with him later.

My hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) rightly highlighted the risk of having a subjective test. He pointed out what part 2 is about, which has been rather lost in this debate. It is about preventing organisations such as the National Rifle Association from playing a major part in elections in this country.

There were a number of other contributions. The Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights said that the Bill may well have a chilling effect on freedom of speech and assembly, and he called for a democratic pause. We will certainly consider his Committee’s report and we can work with the timetable that he set out for its publication. However, as I said in response to a similar intervention, we intend to move forward with the proposals.

The hon. Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman) expressed support for amendment 101, which the Government oppose adamantly.

Finally, the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Mr Harris) asked me again to comment on a number of theoretical campaigns, without providing the detail that I or anybody else would need to judge whether they would constitute promoting or procuring the electoral success of a party or candidate. I am therefore clearly not in a position to comment.

I have listened carefully to what the Opposition have said, but I will press the Government amendments.

Amendment 32 agreed to.

Amendment made: 33, page 12, line 34, leave out subsection (3) and insert—

‘( ) Omit subsection (3).’.—(Tom Brake.)

Amendment proposed: 101, page 12, leave out line 37 to line 9 on page 13 and insert—

‘“For election purposes” means activity which can reasonably be regarded as intended for the primary purpose of—

(a) promoting or procuring electoral success at any relevant election for—

(i) one or more particular registered parties;

(ii) one or more registered parties who advocate (or do not advocate) particular policies or who otherwise fall within a particular category of such parties; or

(iii) candidates who hold (or do not hold) particular opinions or who advocate (or do not advocate) particular policies or who otherwise fall within a particular category of candidates.’. —(Mr Allen.)

Question put, That the amendment be made.

I beg to move amendment 102, page 13, line 37, leave out clause 27.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 59,  page 13, line 38, leave out subsection (1).

Amendment 60,  page 14, line 10, at end add—

‘(3) Subsections (1) and (2) may not come into force until such time as the Electoral Commission has placed before Parliament a report on the impact of those subsections on relative controlled expenditure by political parties and non-parties in regulated periods’.’.

Amendment 61, page 14, line 11, leave out clause 28.

Amendment 103, in clause 28, page 15, leave out lines 26 to 35 and insert—

‘(2A) The Secretary of State may by order set limits applying to controlled expenditure which is incurred by or on behalf of a recognised third party in the relevant period in any particular parliamentary constituency in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

(2B) The Secretary of State may by order set limits applying to controlled expenditure which is incurred by or on behalf of a recognised third party in the post-dissolution part of the relevant period in any particular parliamentary constituency in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.’.

Amendment 105, page 18, line 25, leave out clause 29.

Amendment 106, page 23, line 25, leave out clause 30.

Amendment 62, in clause 30, page 23, line 30, leave out from beginning to end of line 35 and insert—

‘(5) If the Minister considers it appropriate to proceed with the making of an order under section 155 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, the Minister must lay before Parliament—

(a) a draft of the Order, and

(b) an explanatory document explaining the proposals.

(6) Sections 15 to 19 of the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006 (choosing between negative, affirmative and super-affirmative parliamentary procedure) are to apply in relation to an explanatory document and draft order laid under section 155 but as if references to section 14 of that Act were references to section 155.’.

Amendment 107, page 23, line 37, leave out clause 31.

Amendment 2, in clause 31, page 23, line 39, at end insert—

‘(1A) In subsection (3)(a), after subparagraph (i) insert (before the “, and” at the end)—

“(ia) where that individual has received a Peerage within the last six months, details of any donations made by the individual to a registered party within the last 10 years.”.’.

Amendment 3,  page 24, line 2, at end insert—

‘(2A) In subsection (3)(b), after subparagraph (ii) insert (before the “, and” at the end)—

“(iia) where any of the relevant participators in relation to the body have received a Peerage within the last six months, details of any donations made by the body to a registered party within the last 10 years.”.’.

Amendment 108, page 24, line 28, leave out clause 32.

Amendment 63, in clause 32, page 26, line 33, leave out sections 95C and 95D.

Amendment 109, page 32, line 14, leave out clause 33.

Amendment 64, in clause 33, page 33, line 20, at end insert—

‘(c) that controlled expenditure incurred by or on behalf of a recognised third party in any relevant part or parts of the United Kingdom does not exceed the limits in section 27 (1).’.

Amendment 110, page 35, line 33, leave out clause 34.

Amendment 111, page 37, line 14, leave out clause 35.

Following on from that interesting vote, I should like to point out that had 19 more colleagues voted for the amendment rather than against it, it would have been carried. I am sure that that will be noted by the thousands of people who have sent in requests to colleagues to consider their plight seriously. The fact is that those requests have been ignored by large numbers of Members of Parliament who might well feel that the voluntary and community sectors will be their supporters in the next election. I do not know whether the law will now mean that those people will be able to be prosecuted in some way, but I am sure that the voluntary sector and the charities will study the record with great interest. I also hope that they will study the record of our deliberations on clause 27.

Clause 27 is not about symbols or about gagging, as our previous discussions have been. It is about cash. It is about the ability of charities to put across their point of view, to have the money to do that, and to be able to enjoy the interaction with the democratic process that they have come to know in recent years. This is not about a Government handout or about some back-door way of influencing the Government. It is not about charities having to pay, as a professional lobbyist might. It is about their freedom to enter the democratic process in an election year. That is a right that they have enjoyed, but it is going to be changed if we allow clause 27 to go through tonight. That is why I wish to notify the Chair that I should like to call a vote on amendment 102. That will allow every Member of Parliament to make a simple statement by answering a very straightforward, black-and-white, yes-or-no question. They could state that the activity that charities have hitherto enjoyed in interacting with our democracy in an election year is fine and that they should continue to be able to do so, and that whatever else we have said about the Bill, the expenditure limits set out before clause 27 are okay. Alternatively, they could endorse the provisions in clause 27.

Those Members who have laboured through the Committee and Report stages of the Bill have probably heard this before. When the Select Committee was denied the right to give the Bill proper pre-legislative scrutiny, we attempted hurriedly to pull together witnesses. They and members of my Select Committee—some of whom are in the Chamber this evening—gave up their time to do some really quick pre-legislative scrutiny. That is absolutely not the way to do it.

One thing that I can say about this Bill—and one thing that we will remember about it—is that there are lots of firsts and lots of examples of how not to conduct a proper legislative process. It may be that the Electoral Commission, set up to deal with these issues, has not been listened to. The Government attitude seems to be, “Don’t let’s talk to them; don’t even tell them that we are changing their terms of reference until very late in the day”; and “Let’s not involve the people who are affected until we have drafted a Bill and it is virtually ready to go into print. At that point, perhaps we will talk to them”; and “Let’s not involve Parliament—a body so contemptible and useless that we do not want to involve this bunch of clowns in a pre-legislative process so that evidence from outside bodies could be gathered and people could come in and provide some advice.” Parliament, it seems, deserves total contempt—“They do not get to do any pre-legislative scrutiny until after a Bill is published; and if they want to do that, we will give them three working days between the Bill’s publication and its Second Reading.”

If we reflect on all that, we can see that the absence of proper pre-legislative scrutiny is not the worst crime that we have seen with this Bill. When it comes to abuse of the legislative process, this is about as bad it gets. Our hope has to be that our unelected friends down the other end of the corridor in the other place will see that, due to the lack of time Parliament has had to discuss the Bill and the lack of input from those affected by it, clause 27 shows the legislative process at its most pernicious. Why? Because as yet—perhaps this is the night—no justification, no evidence and no reason has been given for why clause 27 should exist. I know that the Deputy Leader of the House has been working hard on this during the Bill’s parliamentary stages, and I am sure that tonight is going to be the night on which he is going to tell us why there is a clause 27. Our Select Committee looked pretty hard at clause 27. We asked the Government, as well as other people, to give evidence to us, but we could not find the reason for it. I remain optimistic that we are actually going to hear it tonight, which would be a good occasion for all of us and a parliamentary first on this Bill.

What the Select Committee said about the lack of evidence in this area was:

“We have stated already that we have not seen adequate evidence for the setting of the new thresholds”—

the lower thresholds—

“for expenditure at the levels to be imposed by Part 2 of the Bill. The Government must explain the reasoning behind its decisions during the passage of the Bill. Even if the Government can make the case for imposing lower levels, it must be able to give a convincing account of why it has chosen these particular limits”—

I shall come back to that later in my remarks—

“as opposed to any others. If it cannot do so, we”—

the Political and Constitutional Reform Select Committee, comprising Members of all parties—

“recommend that the existing levels continue to apply until such point as the case for change has been made.”

Such was the summation and conclusion of the Select Committee on clause 27. No case has been made, and certainly no case has yet been made about the figures. Why have particular limits been chosen? Again, we are hopeful that the Deputy Leader of the House will tell us this evening.

I understand that we may be seeking a vote at some early moment, so I shall speed through my remarks.

It is my understanding that clause 27 relates not to actual expenditure, but to the point at which registration has to happen. What is the hon. Gentleman’s view of the fact that registration is different as between England and the other parts of the United Kingdom?

I am afraid I do not have a view on that. Being the Chair of a Select Committee is almost like being Speaker Lenthall. I can speak only when my Committee has considered some evidence, and the time that we were allowed in which to consider Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in respect of England was not sufficient.

Today we have heard of an interesting new development relating to the Bill’s impact—now, allegedly, no impact—on the referendums in Scotland. As of yesterday, the Electoral Commission was awaiting a view on what the impact would be, and no impact assessment had been done until, today, we heard some words from the Deputy Leader of the House.

Let me repeat that the Deputy Leader of the House is a very reasonable man, and very easy to do business with—if that does not condemn his political career—but neither he nor the Leader of the House will decide these matters. I think that Mr Salmond may have a view. I think that other friends in Scotland—perhaps people who are litigious—may have a view. Then it will be the judges who decide, not that kind-hearted Deputy Leader whom we have here in the House of Commons. It will not be his judgment; it will be the judgment of others.

I would love to have had the chance to explore those additional points, and perhaps if we vote down clause 27—which is the objective of amendment 102—we will give ourselves the option of doing so. Perhaps we will give ourselves the option of allowing the Government to think sensibly about the expenditure limits, and will give the Government the option of making a case that they have signally failed to make so far during the very truncated progress of the Bill.

Is this measure necessary? Lord Hodgson produced a very thorough report on the Charities Act 2006, in which he said that the current arguments were working very well indeed, and the Cabinet Office stated in its response that the regulations were working well. We have been searching hard for people who believe that there is a serious problem that we need to address. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) said earlier that in many respects part 2 was a solution looking for a problem, and here we go again.

We still do not quite know where all this stuff came from, which is partly because when my Select Committee, on behalf of the House, examined a consultative paper on the Bill, that consultative paper was all about lobbying and lobbyists. What we have before us now is something that none of us knew about until the end of July, one day before the House went into recess. Lo and behold, we did not get a lobbying Bill; we got a lobbying Bill, a Bill on limiting the activities of charities, and a Bill on this, that and the other. We got two thirds of a new Bill added to the one third that had been given cursory scrutiny by Committees of the House.

No wonder my colleagues are a little confused, and no wonder people outside feel that there is a lack of clarity about what the Government intend. We can have meetings with Government officials, finally. We can have a meeting with a Minister, finally. But if a Bill has popped out of the ether at the end of July, and if press releases are issued as part of a spin on the Bill and people feel that they are inaccurate, that does not provide clarity; it just adds to the confusion. That is why I think it appropriate to use a word that became commonplace in another context, and to suggest that there should be a pause in the Bill. That would enable scrutiny to take place, would enable me to answer the question posed by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso), and would enable the House to set up a proper process of scrutiny so that all the questions could be answered. How demeaning it is that the House cannot do that at present! We hope—fingers crossed—that the unelected people at the other end of the Corridor will help us out, and will put some of these matters right.

The case has not been proved. Whether we look at Lord Hodgson’s report on the Charities Act or at the Cabinet Office’s response, we see no evidence that people have demanded that these cuts in the expenditure of charities and limits on their ability to interact with us in an election year should be imposed.

I get a real kick out of the fact that we interact with our friends in the charitable and voluntary sector both in the normal way and when we come to a pre-election period, which is the point at which they can say, “Hey, come here. We want to hear from you. What’s your view on this? Where are you on the debate between badger cull or badger badge-wearing?” The hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) is familiar with that topic. “What’s your view on foxhunting? What about the League Against Cruel Sports or the Countryside Alliance?” That is the lifeblood of our democracy and it is writ large in our democracy in pre-election years.

I was listening to the hon. Gentleman with great interest, but is he seriously suggesting that at the last two elections the Woodland Trust engaged in expenditure that would be precluded under this legislation?