I am conscious of a number of meetings with ACEVO, the NCVO and a number of other organisations over the past few months—and we are continuing to consult them. So we are not just about to start; we have been consulting.
I was quite surprised that no one had looked at the list of registered third parties for controlled expenditure for the 2010 general election, which seems to be a relevant part of the background. There are 30 of them on the list that I have here; six of them are in the field of animal welfare, which is hardly surprising—and the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, is nodding at me as I say this. There are two major unions. Among others, there is an interesting body called the Young Britons’ Foundation. I Googled several of these bodies just to discover them, and perhaps I can read something for those noble Lords who think that American campaigning has not yet reached Britain. It says that the foundation,
“was launched in July 2003 at a conference of the Young America’s Foundation in Washington, D.C., and it has said that it aims to ‘import American political techniques into the UK’”.
On the most recent knowledge that I have, its advisory board included,
“representatives of the Heritage Foundation … US Competitive Enterprise Institute and American Conservative Union”,
and a number of other, similar bodies.