My Lords, I have to confess that I irritate my wonderful team in the Box when I say—and this of course plays straight into the attack—why is this not a consolidation Act? Of course, in the great scheme of things, consolidation Acts on all sorts of things would be wonderful. As I have said, this is intended to be a reforming Act dealing with some matters which are relatively urgent, but I agree that the way that it operates is relatively opaque and I understand why noble Lords have asked these questions.
Like others, I am not going to stray into Clause 25, although I realise there is an interrelation between the two. I know from the engagement I have had with colleagues on all Benches that Clause 25 is an issue which the House wants to consider in some detail, and I am fully ready for that. If the House will forgive me, I will not go into that except in so far as it deals with this matter.
Clause 24 is intended to do something that we would all like to do, which is to ensure that campaign spending comes only from UK-based or otherwise eligible sources. The clause is intended to address some of the
concerns raised by the DCMS Select Committee in the other place in a 2019 report on disinformation—so-called fake news and foreign interference in UK elections.
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The clause will restrict all third-party campaigner spending during a regulated period to entities that are eligible to register with the Electoral Commission. As has been said in the debate—the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, referred to it in her question—these are the bodies listed in Section 88(2) of PPERA. There is a long list there that includes charitable incorporated organisations under Part 11 of the Charities Act and Scottish charitable incorporated organisations. The clause also refers, in new Section 89A(7), to an unincorporated association with “the requisite UK connection”, which is connected to overseas electors.
The problem we seek to address is that, currently, foreign third-party campaigners can legally spend on UK elections underneath the recognised third-party campaigner registration thresholds, which are £20,000 during a regulated period in England and £10,000 in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This kind of activity becomes illegal only beyond those thresholds because foreign campaigners are unable to register with the Electoral Commission. We seek to control those campaigners. I think the Committee would agree that it is important that only those with a legitimate interest in UK elections are able to spend money campaigning and seeking to influence the UK electorate. Actually, the Electoral Commission recommended a specific ban on any campaign spending from abroad in its 2018 report Digital Campaigning. Again, I think there is agreement across the Committee that this is something we should seek to deal with.
Therefore, the clause is designed to remove the scope for any legal spending by foreign or otherwise ineligible third-party campaigners underneath the existing registration threshold. It brings that down to a £700 de minimis level, which is consistent with the “permitted sum” that a third party can incur when campaigning for or against a candidate without being authorised by an agent. That is in Section 75(1ZA) of the Representation of the People Act 1983. It is there; someone flashed it to me. I must not say that someone sent it to me on WhatsApp, otherwise I will appear all over the newspapers. It was sent to me in a hurry.
The sum in the Representation of the People Act 1983 has been increased over time. It went up most recently in 2014, after the ECHR held in the case of Bowman v United Kingdom in 1998 that the original limit in the 1983 Act was so low as to amount to an unjustified restriction on freedom of expression, so we were required to raise it.
Therefore, although I understand the puzzlement about the way this has been drafted, I hope that we can discuss the interlocking between Clauses 24 and 25. I understand the concerns about what organisations should and should not be there, but the purpose of this is the inclusion of the £700 de minimis threshold. It balances the desire that we all have to prohibit spending by foreign and other ineligible third parties with not criminalising low-level, potentially inadvertent breaches that are unlikely to adversely impact an election,
and where there has been jurisprudence on the matter. I will not go into Clause 25, but I understand the concerns expressed on other Benches. We will address that.
We are conscious that legitimate categories of third parties which are not currently on the list of categories of campaigners may emerge in the future. Under Clause 24, if they did so, they would be significantly restricted in their ability to campaign—they could only go up to £700, rather than the existing threshold—if they could not be added to the list quickly. So, the interlocking is intended to allow the Government to amend the list of categories of third-party campaigners as necessary, subject to parliamentary approval via affirmative resolution.
While there may be issues in relation to Clause 25 that we will wish to address, I hope that, with that explanation, noble Lords will understand that we are seeking to restrict foreign campaigning.