My Lords, to be honest I was going to home, because I am number 30 on the list and I have listened to all the speeches—well, most of them. I was going to stand up and declare my interest
as the chief executive of a charity and a social enterprise and the chair of another charity, as well as my membership of many others, and then speak in favour of the Bill to provide some light relief.
I think that what is at stake is really quite serious. I have been involved in the not-for-profit sector, lobbying, for about 30 years and I struggle to understand what the Bill is about. In those 30 years, I have yet to come across a member of the not-for-profit sector who would breach the intent even of this Bill. I would be fascinated to know examples of where that has occurred other than the one referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, who pointed out that there was a picture of a fellow charity chief executive in the Conservative Party manifesto. So there is a real problem with justifying what the Bill is about.
Part 1 has been referred to as being about transparency. There is an over-hackneyed phrase about sunlight being the best disinfectant. That may be true, but partial light creates shadows, and Part 1 creates too many of them. We all know that if you want to get around this you create in-house lobbies. The fact is that Permanent Secretaries and Ministers can list their meetings—we know how it works. The one thing that I find really quite disturbing and which makes me angry is having my time wasted and seeing people being treated as though they are not intelligent enough to know that. Then I sit here and listen to the speeches, many of which have been absolutely brilliant. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, just about said it all when he mentioned the £3 million versus £30 million. I would love to have the kind of money that I see in the hands of many of the major companies that march through this House lobbying Ministers and civil servants. It is nonsense to argue that we are somehow at risk of tipping up democracy.
More to the point, let us have a look at social history. Do noble Lords really think that the suffragettes, the people who campaigned against slavery or, for that matter, the Tolpuddle Martyrs would have asked themselves, “How much can we spend in Wakefield on lobbying our local Lord”, who then was the only person with the right to vote, “to try to persuade him”—and it was a him—“to take notice of the interests of the poor and the disenfranchised?”. Let us be real. It never happened and it should not happen now. It is ridiculous. Social change occurs because of people outside these Chambers taking up concerns that we do not yet know of and lobbying people such as us and those in the other place precisely when the local and national elections are in the minds of the public and the lobbyists. And so they should. Why? Because they pay for it all.
The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, gave an example of local interests. It must have been a terrible experience but I sat here and thought, “Tough”. That is democracy; that is how it works. People either are or are not persuaded and, frankly, the amount of money spent by people who wish to persuade candidates in a local area is neither here nor there. I can tell noble Lords that people in middle-class areas do not spend a penny, but they use their elbows and persuade people, and they change what happens in local elections. I knew that the noble Lord would want to say something, so I shall sit down.