UK Parliament / Open data

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

Having given the Chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee a second opportunity to state which organisations would be affected, I am afraid to say that he is unable to do so. I regret that. The impact assessment has been carefully prepared. Requiring the Electoral Commission to undertake another assessment is unnecessary, particularly if it would prevent a key provision of the Bill from being enacted before then. I therefore urge the hon. Gentleman not to press his amendment.

Concerns have been expressed about the cap in the Bill. We have set out why we think a national cap of £390,000 is appropriate. It would have affected only two organisations in the last general election. We have also set out why we believe that lowering the registration threshold to £5,000 would lead to greater transparency. People would be able to get more information about which organisations were campaigning in a general election. I therefore hope that the amendments in this grouping will not be pressed to a vote.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
567 c941 
Session
2013-14
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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