UK Parliament / Open data

Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

Both interventions raise the same point. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, that I tried to explain how the £9,750 registration limit comes into play, but I also went on to indicate that the Electoral Commission, in its guidance, will make very clear the operation of the various registration thresholds, including this one with regard to the constituency limit, so campaigners should be in no doubt. In response to that and to my noble friend Lady Williams, I have a lot of sympathy with the point, but the figure of £5,000 is better than a percentage. I do not want to embark on the theology of the percentages because they run through the Bill, but the figure itself will appear in the guidance from the Electoral Commission.

One of the concerns about the administrative burden is that smaller organisations could be caught up. It may be that in one particular constituency there is one constituency issue with which a small campaigning group has become engaged. If we set the limit at £5,000, they may find suddenly that they have to put in place a bureaucracy and administration to deal with that. The higher limit of £9,750 would probably address such concerns, which is what we want to try to ensure. It is often so when you have an individual campaign in an individual constituency. I accept that there is no perfect answer to this. It was a judgment call as to

whether we should keep the limit as low as £5,000 or, having listened to those who thought that was too low for individual constituency cases, whether it might be possible to raise the sum. For that reason and to strike that balance, we thought that £9,750 was an appropriate amount. Therefore, I invite my noble friend to withdraw his amendment. I give way to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

751 cc583-4 

Session

2013-14

Chamber / Committee

House of Lords chamber
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