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

The hon. Gentleman is inviting me to judge whether that campaign would fall foul of the rules without sufficient detail about what it might constitute. It is not my position to do that; it is for the Electoral Commission. If the RSPCA ran a campaign in a number of constituencies saying, “We are against the badger cull”, and subsequently a candidate announced that they were also against it, provided that the RSPCA did not say, “Candidate A is backing our campaign—vote for candidate A”, it would be able to proceed with campaigning. [Interruption.] Someone is saying that I am not able to give a detailed answer. In fact, I am sure that in the run-up to the 2005 and 2010 elections the Electoral Commission had discussions with a number of different organisations to clarify where the boundaries lie on these issues, and it is right for it to do so.