My Lords, I strongly support the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, on this amendment. Indeed, we had very co-operative discussions about how best to tackle this problem. I am grateful to him and, indeed, to others who effectively endorsed an amendment we tabled Committee on this crucial issue.
Given that there was much quotation of the Electoral Commission’s advice earlier, it is important that it has very explicitly said that Amendment 45 offers some advantages over the current position in the Bill. With this amendment, at least, we have that endorsement.
As I said in Committee, the Electoral Commission actually thinks that counting staff costs for political parties’ election expenses would be an appropriate way to proceed. Of course, that is not in front of us today; it may be for another day and another Bill. For the purposes of this Bill, the NGOs have been dealing with a considerable problem: namely, that the Bill includes not only staff costs on direct campaigning but what are called “background costs”.
As my noble friend will no doubt point out, staff costs for non-parties are already regulated for the production and distribution of election material. Our amendment suggests that this should continue but that costs should also be accounted for if they are incurred in direct relation to canvassing voters. In that context it seems that it would not be very difficult to identify the particular costs; equally, however, we do not want to increase the difficulties that could be caused by burdensome regulation on background costs that are not in any way so easy to account for. For example, the costs in relation to organising meeting rooms, travelling to a venue or setting up a press conference might be a matter of a few minutes of somebody’s time—and therefore, for many small organisations, a considerable absurdity.
Bluntly, I do not think that anyone cares if a policy officer, whose job for the rest of the year is something completely different, spends a little time booking a room for an election rally, or incurs costs travelling to it. These matters cannot be said to be likely to greatly affect the outcome of an election in that particular area, or nationally. However, if the regulations go through without us thinking about the implications, they could unnecessarily tie up campaigners in accounting for their time—and, worse still, could deter some from campaigning at all.
As was said so forcibly earlier, there are many organisations in this country—and thank God for them—that rely entirely on time being given voluntarily to this sort of activity. Would it be necessary to try to cost that time, or would it be difficult, in any case, whether they were employed or volunteers? Many a charity and many a non-charity would find that totally inconsistent with the Government’s intention of avoiding unnecessary spending on unnecessary bureaucracy.
This amendment, along with some of the others, helps the Government to do what they say they want to do. I hope, therefore, that my noble and learned friend will be able to find some way of making a sensible compromise on the whole issue of staffing costs.
The Government have moved sensibly in so many ways to try to meet the concerns and anxieties about the so-called chilling effect that many of us have understood to be the case with organisations with which we are involved. Many noble Lords are active members of charities and non-charities that do such important work in civil society today. Surely, the last thing that we want to happen is for the time, energy, enterprise, inventive activity and, indeed, the cost of those organisations to be unnecessarily distorted by new bureaucracy of the sort that could occur. Therefore, I very much hope that the Government will see that this is a sensible compromise on the whole issue of staffing costs.