My Lords, Amendment 39 relates to arrangements between third parties notified to the Electoral Commission. In our earlier debates, this was referred to as the coalition issue—not be confused with the coalition—and in the meetings I attended with charities and campaign groups it was probably the issue that was raised more often than any other. My noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire agrees.
The Government received many representations to this effect and I would like to make it clear, as I have done on previous occasions, that this Bill does not amend the controls on third parties that each incur controlled expenditure as part of a coalition. In addition, only coalitions that incur expenditure that can, in the phrase we have been using,
“reasonably be regarded as intended to promote or procure the electoral success”,
of political parties or candidates are regulated and will continue to be regulated. Those rules are necessary and I will take a moment to clarify their operation.
Section 94(6) of PPERA requires that if two or more third parties work together to incur expenditure to a common plan or arrangement, the entirety of the expenditure they incur as part of that coalition must count against each third party’s individual spending limit. However, it is also important to be clear about what is not caught.
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Organisations working together as coalitions on campaigns unrelated to electoral success would not be considered as working together for the purposes of PPERA. Make Poverty History is a very good example of that. The test is, as I said, whether their activities can,
“reasonably be regarded as intended to promote or procure the electoral success”,
of political parties or candidates. I hope noble Lords agree that the rules on coalitions are a necessary anti-avoidance measure. If third parties in a coalition did not have to count each other’s expenditure they would be able to evade the spending limits by splintering into many groups.
The Electoral Commission has also expressed its support for these rules, believing them to be necessary. I refer noble Lords to the Electoral Commission’s briefing before Committee stage, in which the current rules were described as,
“a vital element of the controls on election spending. Without these controls, individuals or organisations could spend unlimited sums of money by arranging for multiple ‘front’ organisations to campaign on the same issue. This would undermine the fundamental principle of controlling non-party campaigning”.
The Government agree with this sentiment but accept that small campaigners, by which I mean those that only incur small amounts of money when campaigning, should not be subject to unduly burdensome controls. That should be the case across the regime and, in relation to other aspects of the Bill, the Government have already tabled amendments intended to remove burdens from small campaigners.
I shall now explain how government Amendment 39 would work in relation to third parties that operate in coalitions. The Government cannot take full credit for this amendment, as it is inspired by and based on that put forward in Committee by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth. I am grateful to him, to my noble friend Lord Tyler and to the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon, who also tabled amendments to the rules on coalition working in Committee, which led to a very useful and fruitful discussion. Other than some consequential changes, government Amendment 39 leaves unchanged the current Section 94(6) rules on coalition campaigning.
Instead, Amendment 39 introduces an entirely new provision. It has the effect that a third party can nominate another third party, one it is in a coalition with, to act as a “lead campaigner”. The original third party would then become a “minor campaigner” and provided that certain conditions are met, the minor campaigner would not then in any way be required to account for either its own expenditure or that of the wider coalition. Reporting to the Electoral Commission would be done only by the lead campaigner for its own expenditure and that incurred by the minor campaigner. The conditions that must be met before minor third
parties can benefit in this way from the provision, are, first, that the minor third party’s expenditure must have been incurred as part of a common plan under Section 94(6); that the lead campaigner must notify the Electoral Commission of this arrangement and provide details of the minor campaigner before any expenditure has been incurred; and that the minor campaigner may not itself spend more than the limits that apply to the registration thresholds, either as part of this or another common plan, or independently.
It is on this last point that this amendment differs from that put down in Committee by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth. The government amendment allows minor campaigners also to participate in one or more coalitions and campaign independently alongside. They must just ensure that they do not, across the various types of campaigns, incur total spend above the registration thresholds. Lead and minor campaigners would, of course, have to agree among themselves appropriate arrangements to ensure that the minor campaigner provided the lead campaigner with the necessary information for it to report, but I hope that this give some assurance to noble Lords that the Government have seriously considered the impact on small campaigners and taken steps to remove unnecessary burdens.
The Government believe that this amendment gives campaigners greater flexibility and better reflects the way that campaigners in coalitions operate in practice. I hope that noble Lords will accept that this amendment goes quite some way to addressing the concerns of those campaigners and that the smallest campaigners will not be unduly burdened with administrative obligations. I should add that the Government intend to bring forward several clarifying and consequential amendments to this provision at Third Reading. As noble Lords will know, it was a moving feast, and while we do not intend to alter the policy, the drafting can spell out more clearly the Government’s intention that there should be no restriction on there being more than one lead campaigner in an arrangement, and that the lead campaigner would report only for any minor campaigner it had identified in a notice. We think that this provides the flexibility that campaigners seek.
We also intend to make it clearer that a lead campaigner that has notified the Electoral Commission of this arrangement can supplement that notice to identify further minor campaigners. As I said, these clarifying measures are needed to ensure that the drafting of this amendment has the effect sought.
There are two further government amendments in this group, Amendments 63 and 64, which relate to Amendment 39. These are minor amendments, which make consequential amendments to the third-party reporting rules. I shall respond to the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Tyler after he has spoken. In the mean time, I beg to move.