My Lords, as the noble and learned Lord has indicated, this is about the exclusion of background staff costs from regulated expenditure. First, let me emphasise that campaigning groups fully support the idea of a wider range of activities being brought within the scope of regulation than were originally in PPERA. They fully support this in the interests of greater transparency. This range of activities is set out in proposed Schedule 8A of PPERA, which refers to material being made available to the public, such as leaflets, canvassing and market research, press conferences and media events, transport costs, rallies and public events . The amendment before us reads:
“Nothing in sub-paragraphs (3) to (5) of paragraph 1 shall be taken as extending to any expenses incurred in respect of remuneration or allowances payable to any member of staff (whether permanent or otherwise) of the third party”.
The reference is only to sub-paragraphs (3) to (5) of the controlled activities referred to in Schedule 8A of PPERA—that is, to press conferences and media events, transport, rallies and public events. It would mean that background costs in relation to those events would not count as controlled expenditure. Let me stress that the cost of the events themselves would count—the cost of the hall, for example, or the cost of any canvassing, or the cost of transport or market research. What would not count would be the background costs, which are the occasional phone calls or e-mails in the course of a working day that might be connected with such events.
The Government gave no reason for their rejection of our original amendment, but just reiterated that all staff costs should be included. The amendment is not about the amount of money that could count towards controlled expenditure, it is about burdensome, unenforceable regulation. Indeed, the Electoral Commission has repeatedly emphasised that aspect and recommended that no staff costs should count towards controlled expenditure in 2015—after which, of course, the whole issue of controlled expenditure could be looked at again in the light of real experience rather than hypothetical threats.
The noble and learned Lord suggested that there had been no real problem in the previous two elections for campaigning groups or the Electoral Commission
in trying to ascertain what those background staff costs were. I suggest that, in fact, people were not really aware of the regulations during the two previous elections; they have only just woken up to them. It is very dangerous to use the example of the two previous elections as a guide to what should happen at the next one.
The Government have indeed made some changes to the bad Bill that first came before this House, but these changes do not make the process of identifying and accounting for staff costs any easier. The Bill very significantly reduces total spending limits by 60% in England. Introducing a wide range of additional staff costs at the same time in effect makes the spending limits even tighter. That is not a problem for smaller charities or campaigning groups; they will not reach the registration threshold. We are grateful that the Government have raised the threshold so that they will not come into it.
However, in addition to those smaller groups there are the big groups, such as Hope not Hate, and coalitions of charities and campaigning groups, such as Stop Climate Chaos. They are very concerned about that aspect of the Bill. I remind the House that all that campaigning potentially comes within the scope of the Bill, even if it is not particularly directed towards any particular party or candidate, because of the subsections to Clause 26 which provide that you do not have to mention the name of the party and it does not have to be your first intention, but you can still be reasonably interpreted as being biased towards one party or another. Any campaigning by those big organisations becomes problematical under the Bill.
The Government recently announced proudly that they were doing away with about 800 regulations for small businesses, but here they are imposing a huge regulatory burden on campaigning groups, groups which are now so fundamental to the effective working of our democratic process. Do the Government seriously expect charities and other groups campaigning now to log every phone call and e-mail concerned with organising a particular public event separately from all other calls and e-mails and then try to calculate what they cost?