I counsel my hon. Friend to read the many excellent briefings from the Electoral Commission, which point out that the 2000 legislation contains an objective test. I shall argue for a return to those words because that is an objective test that is relatively understandable. Objective tests can, of course, be argued in a court of law—we all know that—but they have a far greater degree of certainty than a subjective test. That is why I will not be seduced down the route of amendment 101.
I want principally to confine my remarks to the other amendments, proposed by the Government in response to the amendments I tabled in Committee, which I was asked to withdraw so that the Government could make their own proposals. Like the hon. Member for Nottingham North, let me state my gratitude that on that occasion the Government clearly understood what we were trying to do.
Let me give some of the background behind those amendments. Basically, the Government were seeking to redefine the legislation based on the request they had received from the Electoral Commission and others. This was seen at the time—when that legislation arrived before us—as making significant and potentially unintended changes that we had not been able to look into. Incidentally, I reiterate the point that I made on Second Reading and in Committee, which is that if ever a Bill deserved pre-legislative scrutiny, it was this one. But as has been said before, when we want to go to a certain place, we might not have wished to start from here, but we are here, so let’s get on with it and go to where we want to be.
It seemed to me that the sensible course of action to deal with the concerns being expressed by all the people who were in contact with me was to say, okay, let’s not make those changes. Let’s stick with the existing wording, and if we stick with the wording that exists already, we will have addressed that problem. That was what I proposed and what the Government said they would do. The test for me today is, therefore, whether the amendments do what we wanted the Government to do, and that is where I shall concentrate my remarks.
Following on from two of the interventions that I have made today, I shall try to answer one of the critical questions behind the Bill: what is the purpose of part 2? If one does not believe in the purpose of part 2, there is not a great deal of point in seeking to amend it to achieve the objective. To me, part 2 is a critical and essential part of the Bill. Part 2 sets out to regulate the political campaigning activities in favour of or against candidates by third parties. As such, it hardly touches on charities, which are already regulated, as has been mentioned, by charity law. That is not the target and that is why we are not seeking to regulate on that. The target is the non-charity third parties. That is why, among other things, the 2000 Act was brought into being and passed, and it is thoroughly appropriate to look again at it.
I look across the Atlantic, as I mentioned earlier, and I see what happens when organisations such as the National Rifle Association or others start to pour large amounts of money into one district, Senate seat or state, or into one issue. Such organisations have had considerable success in that country in changing the political representation in the House of Representatives and the Senate. I observe in passing that the extremism that has entered American politics over recent years seems to have followed naturally from that.
In our United Kingdom we have a plurality and a diversity in our politics which I think is exceptionally precious and needs to be preserved. I hope we would agree on that. I do see a danger of third-party organisations being created and funded in a way that could have a serious impact on the body politic, which I do not want to see. For me, part 2, far from gagging charities, is an enabler of the freedom of speech of the smaller people in politics throughout the United Kingdom.
I stand wholly behind the principle, as indeed did the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) an hour and a half ago, when I asked him this precise question and he responded that those on the Opposition Front Bench were in favour of the principle being put forward and were behind the 2000 Act. They agreed that the Act needed updating. The point of his reply to a straightforward question was that the principle behind part 2 was in essence one with which the Opposition still agreed. If the Opposition feel that there should be no regulation of third parties, if they genuinely feel that third parties in politics—great rich blocs of people—can come and shove money into distant constituencies and get away with it unregulated, I invite them to say so. If not, I hope for their support for the principle of the Bill.