I share some of the concerns of the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) around the muddle and clutter in the Bill in relation to variable commencement dates and the transitional provisions. The Government may well say that the clauses are framed in a way that allows for slippage if that is needed, but slippage at the hands of a Minister in relation to commencement will give rise to suspicions of slipperiness and the possibility of partisan motivations. The variable commencement provisions that apply to different parts of part 2 are evidence of just how scrappy the thinking has been, and provide an argument for there being a longer pause for thought.
I wish to speak particularly in support of new clauses 2 and 3. Some Members have said that neither of the clauses on their own goes far enough. That may be so, but they do recognise gross deficiencies in the Bill. They may not meet them in full, but at least if this Chamber agrees to these amendments it will be creating a basis on which there will be further amendments and further consideration to meet those gross deficiencies. It is a derelict argument to say that, because they do not completely meet the deficiencies, we should not adopt them. There are even more inadequacies in the Bill that we would leave unamended, so saying that they do not go far enough and would need to be supplemented by other changes should not be used as a justification for voting against them.
New clause 2 refers to the very confusing impact this legislation would have in the context of the devolved areas. I have a particular interest in Northern Ireland, of course. I have no wish to bungee jump in and out of the debate about the Scottish referendum, but I take on board the point that has been made on a number of occasions by the Chairman of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee and we need to hear it answered as it seems to be a pretty basic and fundamental one.
I want again to inform the House that many Members have referred to the vast numbers of third sector groups—charities, Churches, policy advocacy groups—that have
expressed concern throughout England, Scotland and Wales, and they have also done so in Northern Ireland. In many ways their concerns are even more vexed because, as the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) has said, civil society in Northern Ireland has been playing a significant, telling and growing role in helping to move politics on and improving the content and climate of political debate in Northern Ireland.
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The key British-Irish axis, the power-sharing institutions and the new beginning to policing are three important wheels of the peace process, but the fourth wheel on which the peace process runs is that played by civil society in reinforcing the sense of progressive political debate and helping to inform an otherwise sectarian binary political debate, which passes for political exchange but does not really address some of the underlying public policy issues that affect people’s economic, social, environmental or cultural interests. Anything that puts at risk the growing role of civil society in improving politics in Northern Ireland has to be a cause for worry.
The problems do not relate just to the chill factor, which we have heard discussed by other Members today and in previous debates, that will potentially be created through controlling and measuring people’s contributions to public policy debate in a Westminster election year. They could extend to the very conduct of the Assembly itself and of politics at other levels. I will explain that because Ministers will say, “No, this is clearly in the main about Westminster elections.” The fact is, it is not always about Westminster elections. Some aspects of clauses 26, 27 and 28, for example, apply to Northern Ireland Assembly elections while others do not, but that creates uncertainty and confusion, and it means that at any time any campaign group—a charity, a service delivery group, a body promoting policies, or a conglomerate of different interests and groups hopefully on a truly cross-community basis—might be stuck with having to check their legal position, what resources they might bring to any campaign, and what may or may not be counted against them. We do not want that sort of chill factor to change the nature of political exchange in Northern Ireland.
We must also recognise that, even in a separately designated Westminster election year, politics still continues at other levels—local government or the Assembly. During the relevant period leading up to a Westminster election there could be very live issues that need to be debated in the context of the Northern Ireland Assembly. They could be live issues on which many groups would want to campaign—put forward their views, support a private Member’s Bill, object to Bills being put forward by Departments or rallying behind amendments proposed or championed by one of the Assembly Committees. However, some of those issues on which the Assembly might be deliberating might also be issues on which the parties and candidates lining up for the Westminster elections have different and distinct views. Will we then have a situation whereby the Electoral Commission is asked to judge whether a campaign around a proposed piece of legislation is really a non-party campaign with the aim of procuring support for parties or candidates in the Westminster election pretending to be a campaign around legislation in the Assembly? Do we really put it past parties or individuals in the Assembly to come up
with proposals for Assembly legislation, which may be specious or speculative on one level, or worthy and worthwhile on another? Such proposals should be able to be the subject of a campaign, for or against, and people should be able to make legitimate points. However, we will be told that it is okay to do that in Northern Ireland, even though it has a direct impact on people standing in a Westminster election, because it is happening under the Assembly, but that would not be the case in another context.
In an earlier intervention, I gave the example that the Northern Ireland Assembly may or may not be asked to legislate on same-sex marriage. The Assembly has expressed a view and voted, with a majority of the Members voting in favour of same-sex marriage. However, that was on the basis that it did not have cross-community support and that therefore the vote would not stand. It was a statement of opinion or wish; it was not a legislative proposal. Should a legislative proposal come before the Assembly in the same year as a Westminster election, will people argue that that is really a way of groups advertising where they stand on how Northern Ireland Members—possible candidates in that Westminster election—voted on same-sex marriage when that Bill was being considered by the House of Commons?
If the Government are serious that the point of this Bill is to make sure that non-party campaigning cannot be done in a way that is prejudicial to people or parties in Westminster elections, they really have not come up with an answer to that. The proposals need to give further consideration to how any valid issues and concerns are addressed without giving rise to other serious problems.
All Members of this House rightly expressed support for the hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long) when she found herself, her home and her offices subjected to untoward threat and violence, with gross intimidation targeted at her and her party. Let us recall that the background to that was the issuing of leaflets by a political party pointing out the role of the Alliance party, my party and Sinn Fein in a vote in Belfast city council. The Democratic Unionist party’s agenda—I am sorry that nobody from the DUP is in the Chamber—clearly had nothing to do with the whether the flag was flying over Belfast city hall; it very much related to the DUP trying to undermine the position of the hon. Member for Belfast East, with a view to maximising its opportunity to take back that seat in the future.
If we can see that politics in a local council chamber in Northern Ireland can be used with an eye to future Westminster elections, we certainly cannot rule out the possibility that people might use politics or proposals within the Assembly in the same way. That unfortunate propensity for some political parties in Northern Ireland to fall back into negative stereotyping politics and rallying to the old binary polarities in Northern Ireland is all the more reason to make sure that civil society is confident and comfortable in the space it has been taking increasingly.
When we were negotiating the Good Friday agreement and we had difficulties with even getting talks started, the role of civil society at so many levels, in canvassing support for the possibility of progress, change and agreement, was important, just as it has been in building on the agreement. Indeed, we would have made far more progress on many areas if civil society had been in
greater command of the agenda and fewer things were vetoable by individual parties, whether on the Bill of Rights or other things.
Let us examine some areas where we have not made progress in Northern Ireland but where we could build fully on the spirit of the agreement. One thing we notice is that a number of the commissions that have been in place to deal with the vexed problems that the political process could not discharge, such as the Parades Commission, the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, also find themselves, from time to time, accused of having a particular slant or bias. Despite the difficulties they face and the nuances of the issues they are managing, they are able to cope with those accusations and tensions, and to manage them on the basis of their mandate and of their proven balance in their other work. However, there is a serious danger that we could inadvertently add the Electoral Commission to the list of commissions that get embroiled in the particular contentions of Northern Ireland politics.
If the Electoral Commission has a role whereby it has to arbitrate and adjudicate on whether campaigns were injurious to a particular candidate in a given constituency or to a party across the region, or on whether they had the effect of enhancing one, it will find itself resented, and not just for those issues where it does intervene and make a judgment; it will find itself accused on issues where it does not intervene and make a judgment. It will be put in an absolutely impossible position in Northern Ireland. It will be sucked into a quicksand of “whatabouttery” and will have to observe a completely contrived symmetry, whereby if it deals with an issue relating to one campaign, it will have to be seen to be dealing with another contrived issue relating to some other campaign. If it does not do so, it will find itself accused of being on one side or other of the old arguments that we are trying to move beyond in Northern Ireland. I ask the House to support new clause 2, not because it solves that problem completely, but because it begins to recognise that that problem and those implications will arise. It will then force us into doing a bigger job of work, engaging with the Assembly and others.
I noted in an earlier exchange that one hon. Member referred to the Royal British Legion and the work on the military covenant, which he said, all parties support. All parties in Great Britain do indeed support it and all parties in Northern Ireland have supported the RBL’s work. As I understand it, all parties in Northern Ireland, whether or not their individual members wear the poppy, subscribe to the campaign and the collection. Indeed, mayors of all parties, including Sinn Fein, have always launched the poppy campaign, so there has been that broad support. Is there universal support on the military covenant? No, there is not. Even the recent inquiry by the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs showed that there was not agreement on what the military covenant would or would not, and should or should not, mean in Northern Ireland. That is the case for obvious reasons. When that earlier exchange was taking place, I sensed that the Deputy Leader of the House was planning to say that the fact that there was consensus and that all parties agree on the military covenant proved that the RBL’s campaign would not be caught by this legislation. However, it could be caught in Northern Ireland, because not all parties would subscribe to it in the same way, for their particular reasons.
During campaigns in Northern Ireland where people are asking parties to say what they are going to do in Parliament, some parties campaign not to take their seats and some campaign to take their seats. That, in itself, creates a differential in Northern Ireland that does not exist anywhere else and could give rise to people saying, “We are supporting you because you are going to vote a particular way. We would not want to commend candidates who are not going to vote that way or take a stand on that sort of issue.” So we face added, particular difficulties in the context of Northern Ireland and the Government have simply not thought about them. I do not believe that even the parties in Northern Ireland have fully thought about them enough or that the Assembly has done so, perhaps because people are distracted by other issues.
If we do get deliverance out of things such as the Haass process and dealing with some of the other vexed issues, it would be an awful tragedy, having climbed that ladder, to then be pushed down a snake because of Westminster legislation that has not been properly thought through.
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