Dame Angela Eagle
MP for Wallasey · Labour · United Kingdom
“The Kremlin increasingly relies on proxy organisations to pursue its objectives, seeking to undermine our security while maintaining a degree of plausible deniability. The so-called GRU Volunteer Corps is a clear example of that approach. It is not an independent force or a loose collection of volunteers.”
“This Government have introduced support for the Jewish communities who have been threatened and directly targeted by IRGC proxies. Just a couple of days ago, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced an extra £250 million for policing to ensure that we can support and protect our Jewish communities.”
“I will move on to the Islamic Movement of Companions of the Right. The IMCR has publicly claimed seven attacks at UK locations linked to Jewish and Israeli communities and to Persian-language media, including the antisemitic arson attack on four Hatzola ambulances in Golders Green on 23 March.”
“We expect platforms to act responsibly and not to provide space for state threat-linked activity, propaganda or recruitment. We will be keeping a close eye on that, as well as liaising with social media companies to tell them about how this law impacts them.”
“The IRGC Quds Force and the IRGC Intelligence Organisation, together with the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, form the Iranian intelligence apparatus. As a key component of the Iranian state’s security apparatus, the IRGC is answerable directly to Iran’s Supreme Leader.”
“It provides a targeted and proportionate means of disrupting those involved in foreign power threat activity based on the recommendations of Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of state threat legislation. To answer the hon.”
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“I thank the right hon. Gentleman. Many people would want him to reassure third parties and charities, but he seems to me to be complacent about the issue. The Electoral Commission briefing for today’s debate states that, “the Bill creates significant regulatory uncertainty for large and small organisations that campaign on, or even discuss, public policy issues in the year before the…general election, and imposes significant new burdens on such organisations”. Surely, the right hon. Gentleman’s complacent attitude is completely at odds with what the Electoral Commission—his own regulator—has written to all of us.”
“They have looked at the ceiling; they have looked at the floor; they have muttered among themselves in the hope that they would not be chosen to pilot the Bill through the House. The Leader of the House has drawn the short straw, along with the ever-willing Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith). This is Bill is hurried, badly drafted and an agglomeration of the inadequate, the sinister and the partisan. From a Government who solemnly promised that they would fix our broken politics, the Bill will do the complete opposite.”
“This is one of the worst Bills that I have seen any Government produce in a very long time. The last Bill this bad might even have been the Health and Social Care Act 2012, and the Leader of the House of Commons had his fingerprints all over that one, too. To be fair to him, he has found himself in a very difficult place. He has been landed with this risible and misconceived Bill and told to ram it through the Commons with unseemly haste in time for the next election. I am told that it is not a Bill with many champions in government, where a history of previous employment in the lobbying industry is common. Nothing wrong with that, we might say, but it has created a notable reluctance on the part of all sorts of Ministers to touch the Bill with a bargepole, and this afternoon we all understand why.”
“I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add: “this House affirms its belief in the need for greater transparency in the lobbying industry and in British politics, and considers that there should be a universal register of all professional lobbyists backed by a code of conduct and sanctions, clear rules on third party campaigning, and real reform to get the big money out of politics; but declines to give a Second Reading to the Transparency of Lobbying, Third Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill because the proposals on lobbying cover only a tiny minority of the industry and will make lobbying less transparent, and the proposals on third party campaigning amount to a gag on charities and campaigners who have a democratic right to participate in important debates in the run up to elections; and strongly believes that the publication of such a Bill should have been preceded by a full process of pre-legislative scrutiny and consultation with affected parties.”
“My hon. Friend is right. The Bill can best be summed up as furious displacement activity by a Government who hope that the public will not notice their problems with lobbying.”
“The hon. Lady is right that we should control the cost of politics, but third parties spent only 10% of what political parties spent at the last election, so I wonder why there have been attempts in the Bill—”
“I will give way in due course when I have finished answering the point made by the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey). Third-party campaigners spent 10% of what political parties spent. If we wanted to reform politics and get rid of the big money from politics, we should look at the cost of fighting election campaigns for political parties, too.”
“The Government will have to do a lot more work to persuade the official Opposition and most of civil society that they have got the balance right. From a Government who solemnly promised that they would fix our broken politics, this Bill does the complete opposite. It is a sop to powerful vested interests, a sinister gag on democratic debate in the run-up to the general election and a shameful abuse of the legislative process to make cheap partisan points. This is a very bad Bill. It will let Lynton Crosby continue to advise the Prime Minister on tobacco policy. It will let big tobacco continue to target the Government, without requiring those interests to register at all, but it could stop an organisation like Cancer Research UK campaigning against them.”
“Yes. We will vote against the timetable, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will join us in the Lobby, because one of the things that the Bill needs is more time for pre-legislative scrutiny and a closer look, so that we can get it right.”
“There is only one conclusion: they are trying to ram through their gag on charities and campaigners in clause 2 so that they are silenced in time for the next general election, and they are trying to avoid the scrutiny that will show the public what a disgrace the Bill is.”
“Drafting it has been a process that goes against every principle that the right hon. Gentleman claims to have championed in his role as Leader of the House. The Bill was published out of the blue just two days before we rose for the summer recess and the August holiday season. If last week’s unexpected recall had not taken place, we would have found ourselves taking the Second Reading of the Bill on our second day back. We have only three sitting days until we begin the Committee stage on the Floor of the House on Monday next week. After three years of silence and prevarication on lobbying, it is important to ask why the Government are in such a sudden headlong rush.”
“Yes, the hon. Lady is exactly right. I will come on to talk in detail about the worries about part 2 that are being widely expressed outside the House, and the Government would be wise to listen and consider some major amendments to the suggestions that they have put before us today—or, better, to delay the Bill, so that we can have proper pre-legislative scrutiny. This is not a transparency of lobbying Bill; it should be renamed the “Let Lynton Lobby” Bill. The Bill will make things worse, not better. It is a wasted opportunity for political reform, and the Government must go back to the drawing board. Before I look in detail at each part of the Bill, I shall comment on the way the Bill has been handled by the Government to date, because it is a perfect lesson in how not to legislate.”
“I agree. The House of Lords must get its house in order and the Bill touches on none of the lobbying scandals that seemingly forced the Prime Minister’s hand before he suddenly decided to come up with the Bill at the end of June.”
“My hon. Friend is right. Lawyers who have looked at the changes that the Government are proposing to make in part 2 agree with the worries of the charitable sector. A mere assertion from those on the Government Benches that the measure does not mean what everybody else thinks it means will not be enough to reassure people on these matters.”
“That is a real fear, which is supported by the briefing from the Electoral Commission to accompany Second Reading. These are the issues that we need to explore extremely carefully during the unfortunately extremely rushed Committee stage next week.”
“I am happy to give way, but I want to get on with my remarks. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) has been trying to get in for a while and I shall let him do so.”
“Let us remind ourselves of what the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith), who is now the responsible Minister, told the House in April this year—”
“As always, my hon. Friend puts his finger on an extremely relevant point. The Leader of the House made much of his personal commitment to the pre-legislative scrutiny of Bills, and I will be the first to praise him for that. However, his commitment is ringing pretty hollow now. The Government promised that there would be pre-legislative scrutiny on the lobbying proposals in part 1. In May 2012, when he was the Minister responsible, the present Minister for Immigration, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), told this House: “We are going to . . . publish our proposals and put them up for pre-legislative scrutiny”. —[ Official Report , 22 May 2012; Vol. 545, c. 972.] There has been none, and the Government have deliberately chosen to preclude it by taking the Bill so quickly and on the Floor of the House.”
“Gentleman gave evidence to the Committee this morning. The Chair of the Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), spoke for many in this House, I know, when he said last week that the proposals on lobbying in the Bill amount to a “dog’s breakfast”. The hon. Member for Clacton (Mr Carswell), who I see in his place, immediately objected to the use of the term “dog’s breakfast” because in his words, “Far more thought has gone into pet nutrition than into this Bill.” As a Member whose constituency once contained a Spillers dog biscuit factory, I can tell the hon. Gentleman from my personal experience of pet nutrition that he is absolutely right.”
“Why, then, has he chosen to ignore the impressive piece of work on lobbying done by the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, which his Government have had in their in-tray for nearly a year? We had an apology from the right hon. Gentleman today, but does he really think that a two-paragraph response from the Government after this Bill was published is the way his Government should treat a serious piece of work by a well-respected Select Committee? He can hardly be surprised that the Committee believes that the Government have shown “a lack of respect for Parliament and for the many people who contributed to our inquiry.” The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee is so concerned about the Bill that it has been forced to hold emergency hearings during the recess. The right hon.”
“I will give way in due course to the hon. Gentleman, but I am in full flow making a particular point. If he will let me finish it, I will come back to him. The current Minister in the Cabinet Office stated earlier this year: “Cabinet Office Ministers have had no meetings with interested parties on the Government's plans for a proposed statutory register of lobbyists since September 2012.” —[ Official Report , 26 March 2013; Vol. 560, c. 1057W.] The hon. Lady appears to be completely unperturbed by her lack of consultation and engagement on these important matters. The Leader of the House has regularly praised the work of Select Committees since the Wright reforms were implemented, and claimed the credit for their increasing power and influence.”
“He has moved on. I give way to the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton).”
“Let me get on. I will give way to the hon. Lady in a moment. The Standards and Privileges Committee is also worried, as the Chair of that august body told us today, about the implications for privilege and for the remit given to the Standards Commissioner, especially by the contents in schedule 1 and clauses 1 to 3, about which the Committee was not consulted. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have raised that with the Leader of the House. I look forward to the contributions of members of both of those distinguished Committees to our debate today, as I look forward to seeing any reports on these matters. I know that Members are working hard to produce them before we get to the Committee stage next week. We will all benefit from their expertise and opinions. I give way to the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg).”
“I do not know which Bill the hon. Lady refers to. The principle of pre-legislative scrutiny has been developing and we should continue to develop it. It is a principle that we on the Opposition Benches support.”
“My hon. Friend takes every opportunity, with great eloquence, to further his views on how we should change the House’s procedures for the better.”
“The Electoral Commission has said: “We share the concerns that the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee expressed… about the timing of the Bill and the absence of pre-legislative scrutiny.” I cannot believe that the Leader of the House is content with this shameful and shambolic process. He has provided an abject lesson in how not to develop and propose legislation. This is a Bill that he should be embarrassed to be associated with.”
“My hon. Friend is of course right. Parts 2 and 3 of the Bill came as a complete surprise to all those in civil society who will be affected, be they charities, campaigners or trade unions. The Government designed the changes in secret and sprung them on everyone in a baleful attempt to bounce them quickly on to the statute book. They have not even bothered to consult those affected. Discussions I have had during meetings with stakeholders on all three parts of the Bill suggest that time after time e-mails, letters and calls requesting conversations with Ministers were left unanswered. The Government did not even tell the Electoral Commission until the end of June that they were going to alter the rules that it is required by law to police, so they have kept their own regulator in the dark.”
“The hon. Gentleman is exactly right and reinforces the point, which we have heard from both sides of the House, that much more thought should have been given to the way the Bill was drafted.”
“My hon. Friend makes an extremely powerful point. I do not think that it is right, without proper consultation, to seek to quash the kinds of activities that are political but not party political, especially during an election period.”
“Moreover, it would be extremely easy to rearrange how such lobbying is conducted to evade the need to appear on the new register at all. The Bill is so narrow that it would fail to cover not only the lobbyist currently barnacle-scraping at the heart of No.10, but any of the lobbying scandals that have beset the Prime Minister in this Parliament. My second point is that there is a real risk that the proposals will make lobbying less transparent than it is now. The Government’s proposed register would cover fewer lobbyists than the existing voluntary register run by the UK Public Affairs Council.”
“He did not tell us then that he was going to do nothing about it for over three years but survive a series of lobbying scandals and then produce a Bill so flawed that it would actually make things worse. I have two key points to make about the proposals on lobbying set out in part 1. The first relates to the laughably narrow definition of “consultant lobbyist”. Under the Government’s definition, someone will count as a lobbyist only if they lobby directly Ministers or permanent secretaries and if their business is mainly for the purposes of lobbying. It is estimated that that will cover less than one fifth of those people currently working in the £2 billion lobbying industry, and the Association of Professional Political Consultants estimates that only 1% of ministerial meetings organised by lobbyists would be covered.”
“They should be afraid, Madam Deputy Speaker—very afraid. I now want to look at each part of the Bill in turn, beginning with the part on lobbying. The Leader of the House attempted to keep a straight face when he claimed that the proposals will make the lobbying industry more transparent, but I am not sure that even he believes it—almost no one else does. Only this Government could think that the way to clean up lobbying is with a Bill that does not even capture Lynton Crosby. Only this Government could think that the way to clean up lobbying is with a Bill that would allow a lobbyist lobbying an MP about the lobbying Bill to escape the requirement to sign its proposed register. Three and a half years ago the Prime Minister, when Leader of the Opposition, told us that lobbying was “the next big scandal waiting to happen”.”
“We will table a number of amendments to the Bill to bring in a universal register of all professional lobbyists, with a code of conduct backed by effective sanctions. We will also table amendments to close the revolving door between ministerial jobs and the private sector, and we will close the loophole that allows Lynton Crosby to be at the heart of No. 10 and yet to evade accountability and avoid publishing his client list.”
“I agree with the hon. Gentleman, but the Government had better get right all the issues of privilege, because otherwise MPs might end up having to be registered as lobbyists, which would be completely ridiculous. The Bill also does not propose any code of conduct for lobbyists, which is a step backwards from the various voluntary registers that already govern parts of the industry. The Bill is so bad that it has achieved the unique feat of uniting both transparency campaigners and the lobbying industry against it. The Association of Professional Political Consultants spoke for them all when it told the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee that it sees “a very real risk that the overall effect will be to reduce transparency”. The Opposition firmly believe that we need greater transparency in lobbying, not less.”
“Staff costs and overheads will also have to be included in what has to be declared—something that does not apply in this way to political parties. The Electoral Commission has said that these changes could have a “dampening effect” on public debate. The National Council for Voluntary Organisations has said that the changes will “have the result of muting charities and groups of all sorts and sizes on the issues that matter most to them and the people that they support.” 38 Degrees has said that the changes will “have a chilling effect on British democracy”.”
“Part 2 creates in clause 26 a new and extremely wide definition of “electoral purposes”. It is clear that these changes will have wide-ranging implications for many hundreds of charities and campaigners local and national, large and small. Some of them have told us that they will have to pull back from almost all engagement in debates on public policy in the year before the election. These changes have created massive uncertainty for those who may fall within the regulations in a way that the Electoral Commission has deplored. The changes will mean that third-party campaigning will be restricted even if it was not intended to affect the outcome of an election—for example, engaging in public policy debate.”
“The hon. Lady makes another good point. We have to see what the size and value is as well as the fact that there have been meetings. Part 2 covers third-party campaigning in the run-up to an election. All hon. Members will remember how the Prime Minister used to evangelise about the big society, but in one of the most sinister bits of legislation that I have seen in some time, this Bill twists the rules on third-party campaigning to scare charities and campaigners away from speaking out. It is an assault on the big society that the Prime Minister once claimed to revere. I say this because part 2 broadens significantly what activities will be caught by the phrase “election campaign”. That is set out in detail in new schedule 8A to the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.”
“Blogs may well be regulated and stifled too. The changes in part 2 have met with universal opposition. Even “ConservativeHome” and “Liberal Democrat Voice” have joined “LabourList” in publishing highly critical pieces condemning their own Government’s clampdown on free speech.”
“Conservative Members might not like the causes that 38 Degrees takes up, but surely we live in a free society and it has the right to do so. The hon. Lady has rather betrayed some of the partisan motivation that lies behind this Bill. Since she does not like 38 Degrees, perhaps she will listen to the TaxPayers Alliance, which has said: “The bill is a serious threat to independent politics that will stifle free and open democratic debate.” Yesterday even Owen Jones and “Guido Fawkes” were agreeing that this Bill is “undemocratic”, so the Government have managed to cause some unlikely coalitions, of which that is probably the most unlikely. We must be under no illusion: if these rules pass into law unamended they will seriously undermine free and fair democratic debate in the run-up to the next election.”
“The hon. Lady needs to look at her own Government’s Bill to see that it defines 38 Degrees not as a lobbying organisation but as a third-party organisation, and the Bill attempts to gag the ability of third-party organisations to make points on policy and politics during an election campaign.”
“My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. Part of the effect of this Bill, if unamended, will be to chill, damp down and frighten people who might otherwise campaign because they will be threatened with the criminal law if they get anything wrong.”
“It is beholden on the Government to demonstrate that it will not, given that they have widened the meaning of the term “political purposes” and cut the amount of money that can be spent before it is necessary to register; that part of the Bill deals with coalitions and how they account for the cost of what they are doing; and that they have inserted some extremely uncertain definitions of “electoral purposes”. I do not want to get into a Committee-stage debate, but the Government cannot simply declaim that nothing has changed when they have changed, broadened and widened definitions and cut the amount of money that can be spent lawfully during an election period.”
“They are a Government so shameless in their search for big-party donations that they were happy to split between the two coalition parties the proceeds of the late Joan Edwards’ half-a-million-pounds of life savings, which she had generously bequeathed to the nation in her will. Their squalid behaviour is left unaffected by this Bill; instead, it seeks to silence legitimate third-party campaigning organisations.”
“Part 2 is totally unacceptable in its current form and it must be changed. The Leader of the House tried to justify these draconian measures by arguing that they tackle the problem of third-party spending in politics, but he completely misses the point. Third parties spent less than 10% of the money spent by political parties in the last election. We all know that one of the biggest problems in our democracy today is the election expenditure arms race between political parties, not the expenditure of third parties. That is what drives the search for big-money donors. This Bill was a chance to tackle the big money in our politics, and the Government have completely squandered it. This Government are happy to be financed by donors who pay huge sums to come for dodgy dinners in Downing street.”
“My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point about the chilling and dampening effect on the vibrancy of our democracy of this Government’s approach. I thought at first that the Government might just have made a mess of the drafting—after all, they often do that and this Bill is certainly a mess—but it seems from the Cabinet Office response and from what the Leader of the House said today that they have deliberately set out to gag critical third-party voices. They have had repeated opportunities to address the concerns put to them by charities and campaigners, but they have dismissed them. This leaves me with the only conclusion that we can draw—that this is a deliberate and cynical attempt by the Government to insulate their policies and their record from scrutiny in the run up to the 2015 general election.”
“Again, I am afraid there is very little evidence I can give my hon. Friend that the Government have considered in any serious way the impact of anything, since they consulted nobody before they came up with these proposals. Finally, I want to comment on part 3, which centres on trade union membership records. There appears to be no policy motive for the introduction of this new law other than as a vehicle for cheap, partisan attacks on the trade unions, of which only a minority are actually affiliated to the Labour party.”
“I agree wholeheartedly. Officials from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills have been totally unable to explain the problem that this part of the Bill is designed to solve. During a belated consultation meeting with the TUC—it took place after the Bill had been published—BIS officials could cast no light on why part 3 exists at all. Nor were they able to explain the origin of these proposals beyond their oft-repeated mantra that the provisions contained in part 3 “came out of a high level meeting between the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister”. I think that revelation tells us all we need to know about the grubby, partisan nature of the measures.”
“I have serious concerns about the implications of these changes for the security of membership data. We all know that the blacklisting of trade union members may well still exist in our country. Blacklisting has ruined many lives and these changes could have some very dangerous implications, especially in the construction industry, where many are afraid to declare their membership of a trade union openly for fear of the repercussions.”
“I am rather sorry that I gave way to my hon. Friend, because he has just ruined one of my lines from later in my speech. Great minds think alike. These proposals seem deliberately designed to burden trade unions with additional cost and bureaucracy from a Government who claim they are against red tape. This is despite the fact that unions already have a statutory duty to maintain registers of members. I understand from the TUC that neither the certification officer nor ACAS has made any representations to suggest that that was not already sufficient. The Government have to date failed to provide any evidence or rationale for these changes, so I can only conclude that this is a deliberate attempt to hamper unions with red tape because a minority of them have the temerity to support the Labour party.”
“It has been developed in a high-level meeting between the Prime Minister and his deputy, but with no other consultation. It is a sop to vested interests, an illiberal attack on democratic debate and involvement, and a cheap, partisan and cynical misuse of the legislative process for the Government’s own ends. We will vote against it and I urge Government Members to join us.”