It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford). I echo her comments about the denial on the Government Benches that the Bill will be restrictive. One has only to look at clause 26, and even the explanatory notes by implication identify that the Bill will be restrictive, because the Government are extending and broadening types of expenditure that can be regulated. The most damning comment in the explanatory notes is this one:
“regardless of whether those incurring the expenditure intended it (or also intended it) for another purpose.”
Therefore, a small local charity’s campaign on a local issue could be taken up by a candidate in a general election, but before we can say, “Bob’s your uncle,” the charity finds itself in breach of the legislation.
Like many other hon. Members, I spent a great deal of my working life before I became an MP in the voluntary sector. I was the deputy director Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations. With the greatest respect to the Deputy Leader of the House, who will wind up the debate for the Government, the Bill, and
certainly part 2, is predicated on a misunderstanding of the role of charities in our society. There has hardly been a piece of social legislation in the past 150 years that has not had the involvement of charities or voluntary sector organisations. Some of the pressure and some of the great reforms have come from charities. I fear that the Bill reveals the Government’s tunnel vision about what charities and voluntary sector organisations are about. And we should make the distinction between charities and voluntary organisations, which are not always exactly the same.
The big society seems to be about services, not involvement in public debate. If the Government really believe in a big society, they should be encouraging charities and voluntary organisations to be involved in our public discourse. There is sometimes an arrogance among full-time politicians. They assume that they are the only people who are interested in politics, that somehow politics is our particular preserve. The reality is that civic society has proved, over many years, that it has a significant role to play in our public discourse.
Independence is crucial to the voluntary sector. I was astonished to hear the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) imply that because the National Council for Voluntary Organisations takes money from Government, it should not be independent and should not be allowed to express the opinions it wants to express.