Umbrella bodies ask Electoral Commission to explain opposition to lobbying act reform

The NCVO, Acevo and Bond have written to chief executive Claire Bassett asking her to tell them why her organisation apparently came out against reforms suggested by a peer

Three charity umbrella bodies have called on the Electoral Commission to explain its apparent opposition to amendments to the lobbying act suggested by Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts.

The National Council for Voluntary Organisations, the chief executives body Acevo and the international development umbrella body Bond have written to Claire Bassett, chief executive of the Electoral Commission, asking her to explain her organisation’s apparent opposition to the amendments put forward by Hodgson in his government-commissioned review of the act.

The act sets spending limits and makes it a legal necessity for all organisations that spend more that £20,000 in England or £10,000 in Wales on regulated campaigning in the year prior to an election to register with the Electoral Commission. 

Hodgson’s review, completed last year, called for a number of reforms, including reducing the regulated campaign period to four months before an election and changes to the rules on joint campaigning.

The review also recommended that the scope of the lobbying act be reduced to include only activity intended to influence how members of the public vote.

But it emerged last month that the government had decided against enacting Hodgson’s reforms.

Today’s letter says the three charities recently had a meeting with Tracey Crouch, the Minister for Civil Society, and Chris Skidmore, the constitution minister, to discuss reform of the lobbying act.

It says the three organisations were extremely disappointed to hear that the government did not intend to take Hodgson’s recommendations forward “and that this is in part due to concerns raised by the Electoral Commission”.

It says: “We understand that as the body charged with enforcing the rules you may have a different view about some of the changes proposed, but we are aware that the Electoral Commission itself has found some parts of the act to be a challenge to implement and enforce.

“We also hope you will agree that by not enacting the reforms we risk continuing the confusion about the act, and allowing the problems we saw earlier this year to reappear at all future general elections.”

The letter asks the regulator to “clarify in detail what specific changes to the rules the Electoral Commission is opposed to”, and on what grounds.

“That would not only mean that we have a better understanding of our respective positions, but it could also enable an open conversation about possible solutions moving forward,” it says.

Sir Stuart Etherington, chief executive of the NCVO, said in a statement he was extremely disappointed by the commission’s position.

“What’s needed is an open conversation about how the rules on non-party campaigning can be changed so they meet their objective of ensuring fair elections,” he said.

“There is consistent evidence that the law has a detrimental impact on the ability and willingness of the voluntary sector to speak out. We need prompt answers from the Electoral Commission so that we can get that discussion under way.”

Asked to comment on the letter, an Electoral Commission spokesman said the regulator supported the majority of Hodgson’s recommendations in its formal response to the proposals last year, albeit with some areas of concern.

“Now it has been indicated that there will be no legislative reform to the rules, the government and others – ourselves included – must look for ways to work with campaigners to address inaccurate perceptions of the legislation so that charities and other third sector organisations can confidently continue their campaigning work,” he said.

“Charities and other non-party campaigners are vital to a healthy democracy and, as a society, we must encourage their active participation during, as well as outside of, election campaign periods. The non-party campaigner rules have been in place since 2000 and they do not prevent third parties from campaigning or engaging in public debate.”

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Sector too ready to use lobbying act as an excuse, says JRRT chief

Fiona Weir, chief executive of the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, tells NPC annual conference that misplaced fears about the act are stopping charities from campaigning

The voluntary sector is too ready to use the effect of the lobbying act as an excuse not to campaign, Fiona Weir, chief executive of the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, has said.

Speaking at the annual conference of the think tank NPC in London today in a session on how charities can achieve social change in London, Weir said charities had a duty to speak up on behalf of their beneficiaries.

“We cannot adequately support people we work with unless we achieve social change,” she said.

But charities’ misplaced fears about the restrictions of the lobbying act were preventing too many charities from campaigning, she said.

“We are far too ready as a sector to allow the so-called ‘chilling effect’ as an excuse,” she said.

Weir said research by the Charities Aid Foundation showed that 84 per cent of people thought charities were best placed to speak up on their behalf, and she encouraged charities to make sure they were campaigning for the beneficiaries.

“We have got to stop squandering our unique selling point as a sector,” she said.

“We see every day how the latest policy pronouncement is not working,” she said, adding that charities must speak up when they found policy shortcomings.

Weir told Third Sector that charities commonly expressed fears about losing statutory funding as a reason for not wanting to campaign. Risk-averse boards were another factor, she added.

She said in the session that there was too much focus in the voluntary sector on the share of large public contracts that charities secured in large government procurement exercises, when they should be asking if those contracts were fit for purpose.

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Lord Hodgson disappointed his lobbying act recommendations will be ignored

The Conservative peer says the decision risks more confusion occurring at election times

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts has said the government’s decision to not enact his reforms to the lobbying act is “disappointing” and risked allowing problems with the act to reappear at the next general election.

The Conservative peer, who carried out a government-commissioned review of the lobbying act that was published last year, told Third Sector his proposals were received well by both the sector and the government, and warned that not enacting the reforms risked confusion about the act resurfacing in the future.

His comments come after the decision announced by the Cabinet Office earlier today to not enact the reforms, which Third Sector understands related to a lack of space in the legislative programme.

The lobbying act sets spending limits and makes it a legal necessity for all organisations that spend more that £20,000 in England or £10,000 in Wales on regulated campaigning in the year prior to an election to register with the Electoral Commission.

Hodgson’s review of the lobbying act called for a number of reforms, including reducing the regulated campaign period to four months before an election, changes to the rules on joint campaigning and reducing the scope of the lobbying act to include only activity intended to influence how members of the public vote.

Hodgson told Third Sector: “Obviously I’m disappointed because it was well received by the sector and it was well received by the government. There were a number of statements from ministers that they proposed to bring the reforms forward.

“The question is are they going back on their previous belief that the proposals were quite sensible and could provide the basis for some discussions or legislation, or is it because there is not enough time? Is it in the long grass or is it in the pavilion, so to speak?”

Hodgson said he understood that Brexit had taken up a significant amount of the legislative programme, but by not legislating to reform the lobbying act the government was making it likely that problems would reappear at future elections.

“We’re bound to be under a certain amount of Brexit pressure; from now until 2019 there’s bound to be a lot of pressure on the timetable,” Hodgson said.

“The question of course is that these things only really come to the fore when we have an election, and in between it is out of sight, out of mind. We are mid-election and nobody cares about this at all that much. But of course it will then come up during election time when there is a problem and it will be too late then to do anything about it.”

Hodgson’s comments come after condemnation of the government’s decision by several charity sector representative bodies, including Acevo, the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, the international development umbrella body Bond and the Charities Aid Foundation. 

Steve Reed, the shadow minister for civil society, said: “It’s shocking that the government is ignoring the Hodgson review’s recommendations. It’s the latest in a long line of decisions that show utter contempt for the sector.

“Yet again this weak government has shown it is afraid to be challenged and fearful of being questioned.

“More than 100 organisations have now publicly called for the government to remove the gag it has placed on charities. A Labour government will listen to them and scrap the lobbying act so charities can once again speak up for the people they work with.”

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More than 100 charities call on minister to reform the lobbying act

A joint letter, addressed to the charities minister Tracey Crouch, calls for revisions to make the legislation less ‘confusing and burdensome’

A letter signed by 122 charity sector bodies, including the National Council for Voluntary Organisations and the Charity Finance Group, has called for reforms to the lobbying act amid concerns that the legislation limits charities’ participation in the democratic process.

The letter, which was organised by the international development network Bond and is addressed to Tracey Crouch, the Minister for Sport and Civil Society, calls for the implementation of the Conservative peer Lord Hodgson’s proposed revisions to the lobbying act to make the legislation less “confusing and burdensome”.

The lobbying act sets spending limits and makes it a legal necessity for all organisations that spend more that £20,000 in England or £10,000 in Wales on regulated campaigning in the year prior to an election to register with the Electoral Commission.

Hodgson’s review of the lobbying act, which was commissioned by the government and published its recommendations last year, called for a number of reforms, including reducing the regulated campaign period to four months before an election and changes to the rules on joint campaigning.

But the government has yet to implement Hodgson’s recommendations. The letter says that Crouch should work with the Cabinet Office to ensure parliamentary time is set aside to discuss Hodgson’s proposals, and that the act needs to be made less “vague and confusing”.

The letter says: “Charities and non-partisan campaign groups have spent significant time attempting to understand the legislation and how to comply. However, many of the rules are vague and confusing, especially for smaller organisations.

“While some organisations have sought legal advice to help them interpret the legislation, this can be expensive and is simply not an option for many. The rules on joint campaigning are also a concern for smaller charities and have made organisations more hesitant to collaborate.”

The letter says that the law might be excluding some charities from public debate.

“While we recognise that regulation is necessary to ensure that no one individual or organisation can exert undue influence at an election, the lobbying act has had a disproportionate impact on civil society campaigning,” the letter says.

“We are concerned that it caused many organisations not to engage in the run-up to the recent general election, and resulted in some important voices being lost from public debate.”

The chief executives of the charity chief executives body Acevo and the infrastructure body Navca have signed the letter, as well as major charities and campaigning organisations including Action for Children, the Charities Aid Foundation, WWF, Save the Children, Leonard Cheshire Disability, Greenpeace and the RSPB. 

Today’s letter comes after a similar missive in June organised by Friends of the Earth and and signed by more than 50 charities, which called for the lobbying act to be repealed.

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Lobbying act must be repealed or reformed, sector leaders tell government

A letter to Cabinet Office minister Damian Green from a number of sector bodies says the legislation is ‘confusing and burdensome’

The lobbying act is a “confusing and burdensome piece of legislation that ultimately harms our democracy” and should be urgently reformed, charity sector leaders have told the government.

In a letter to Damian Green, the Cabinet Office minister, organisations including the National Council for Voluntary Organisations and the charity chief executives body Acevo call for Lord Hodgson’s reforms to the lobbying act to be implemented urgently.

The lobbying act sets spending limits and makes it a legal necessity for all organisations that spend more that £20,000 in England or £10,000 in Wales on regulated campaigning in the year prior to an election to register with the Electoral Commission.

Lord Hodgson’s review of the lobbying act, which was commissioned by the government and published last year, called for a number of reforms, including reducing the regulated campaign period to four months before an election and changes to the rules on joint campaigning.

But the government has yet to implement Lord Hodgson’s recommendations, and the letter calls for a meeting to discuss how the lobbying act’s “unintended consequences can be minimised”.

The letter says: “While we recognise that regulation is necessary to ensure that no one individual or organisation can exert undue influence at an election, the lobbying act has had a disproportionate impact on charity campaigning.

“This is despite the fact that, unlike organisations from many other sectors, charities are already subject to strict limitations on their political activity under charity law.

“The excessive and unreasonable red tape the lobbying act places on charities made it harder for them to campaign at the 2017 general election. Charities also find many of the non-party campaigning rules ambiguous.

“We are concerned that this caused many charities not to engage, resulting in some important voices being lost from public debate.”

More than 50 charities have recently called for the lobbying act to be repealed, citing the “enormous administrative and financial burden” it places on the sector.

There have also been warnings that the risk of another snap election after the 8 June election failed to provide any party with an outright majority means the next period of regulated campaigning might have already begun.

Sir Stuart Etherington, chief executive of the NCVO, said: “There is clear cross-party and sector support for the changes Lord Hodgson suggested. Adoption of them will be an important first step for the new government to show it is listening to charities, which are crucial to building a stronger economy and society.”

Vicky Browning, chief executive of Acevo, said: “Charity leaders have told me that compliance with this ambiguous legislation has significant costs attached, particularly in terms of time, labour and money, which distracts and detracts from their activities.

“It is important that the new government now enacts the recommendations of its own review of the act.”

The Charities Aid Foundation, the infrastructure body Navca, the Small Charities Coalition and the international development network Bond also signed the letter.

The letter comes after a report from the UN Human Rights Council that was released two days before the general election. It criticised the lobbying act’s “chilling effect” on the charity sector and claimed it had a disproportionate impact on charities in comparison with the private sector.

Greenpeace, which was fined £30,000 by the Electoral Commission earlier this year for contravening the lobbying act prior to the 2015 general election, said the UN’s comments showed the act was an “international embarrassment” and should be either repealed or reformed.

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Fifty-plus charities urge parties to commit to repealing the lobbying act

A letter organised by Friends of the Earth to mainland parties at Westminster says the act has had a ‘chilling effect’ on legitimate charity campaigning during the election period

More than 50 charities have signed a letter calling on the leaders of the major Westminster parties to commit to repealing the lobbying act because of the “enormous administrative and financial burden” it is placing on voluntary sector organisations.

The letter, which was coordinated by Friends of the Earth, says the lobbying act has “had a significant chilling effect on legitimate charity sector campaigning in the pre-election period” and claims that some charities have had to reduce or alter their campaigning activities because of the act.

The lobbying act sets spending limits and makes it a legal necessity for all organisations that spend more that £20,000 in England or £10,000 in Wales on regulated campaigning prior to an election to register with the Electoral Commission.

The 53 signatories to the letter include ActionAid, Christian Aid, Age UK, Amnesty International, Greenpeace, Women’s Aid and Sue Ryder.

The development charity umbrella group Bond said it and several of its members had signed the letter.

“Voices are being lost at this crucial time, and our democracy is the poorer for it,” the letter says. “Those charities that continue to campaign to further their charitable objects are subject to an enormous and unreasonable administrative and financial burden.

“This is compounded by the retrospective year-long regulated period, which requires us to go back and assess campaigning from before we knew a general election would be called.”

The letter has been sent to the major parties from Great Britain represented in Westminster: the Conservatives, Labour, the Scottish National Party, the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party and Plaid Cymru.

Labour and the SNP have both committed to repealing the lobbying act in their manifestos, and the Green Party supported repealing the act at the 2015 general election.

The other three parties have made no explicit promises to repeal the act.

The letter comes after recent fines of £1,000 and £30,000 handed out to Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace respectively for failing to register with the Electoral Commission in relation an anti-fracking campaign the two charities ran before the 2015 general election.

Greenpeace subsequently threatened to take the Electoral Commission to court over its decision to retrospectively apply the election spending rules to the year before the snap election on 8 June.

Craig Bennett, chief executive of Friends of the Earth, said: “The problem with the lobbying act is that it seriously damages charities’ ability to do their job, and that job is to work for the greater public good.

“If the lobbying act is not reformed, democracy will ultimately suffer.” 

Tamsyn Barton, chief executive of Bond, said: “Campaigning during election time is a critical and legitimate part of what our members do. This is how charities ensure those who are vulnerable and marginalised have a voice. But the level of red tape involved in complying with the act is excessive and the cost of legal advice is unaffordable for smaller organisations, especially at such short notice.

“Shockingly, many organisations have felt unable to speak out during this snap election on issues that affect the people they aim to represent, and our democracy is all the poorer for it.”

But several prominent people in the charity sector, including Sir Stuart Etherington, chief executive of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, have said charities have been “unduly stifling their voices” by misunderstanding the act.

Sir Stephen Bubb, former chief executive of the charity chief executives body Acevo, and the philanthropist and campaigner Gina Miller have also called for charities to speak out more ahead of the general election.

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