I thank my hon. Friend for his comments; he is absolutely right. Everything in this Bill is about giving the coalition political advantage in the year running up to the next election—and, indeed, at every election.
The Bill is an unprecedented attack. Charities, campaigning organisations and local groups are frightened by the Bill, but they should wait until they hear the detail and see how it develops. We will see people leaving local groups. There will be no voice for the local opposition to wind turbines, fracking or anything else. We will not have trustees on trustee boards of charities because they will be frightened in case they break the law, because they do not even understand what this law means, and they are not the only ones. We had a meeting this morning with some barristers who said that they had spoken to the Electoral Commission and they did not have a clue what the legislation meant. What is more, they said that the Electoral Commission was not even consulted on the legislation. They are the people who will be policing the legislation and they have not even been consulted on any of the detail. It is absolutely unbelievable that the Government have approached the issue in that manner.
Charities and campaigners have worked tirelessly. They have opposed the bedroom tax, reductions in doctors and nurses, reductions in the police and the fire service, and reductions in many other public servants. Those groups have opposed increases in tuition fees and issues such as fracking, wind turbines and nuclear power. You name it, Madam Deputy Speaker, local charities and groups have been involved, and good on them. Do we not want people to be involved in politics? Are we happy to come here as 650 MPs just to discuss ourselves and ignore what the rest of the country wants? Is that
what we want? I am sure it is not, so we need to listen to what is being said out there by the people.
The people who have been e-mailing me are hardly raving militants looking for a revolution. What they want is fairness. They want to be able to understand what this legislation is about. I was embarrassed for the Leader of the House. He made a botch-up of the NHS Bill and here he is the second time, with a Bill placed before him that he could not even defend.