Elections Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-17
Topic: Civil Rights
Shami Chakrabarti (Labour, Centre-left): I will get advice from my noble friend on that afterwards I am concerned about third parties campaigning in a free democratic society and unintended consequences. My background is as a human rights campaigner, on civil liberties and civil rights in particular. In my experience the nature of those campaigns is that you are always having to side with the opposition of the day—not just the Labour Party but any opposition of the day. Just google me and you will find lots of reasons for my noble friends to be cross with me. I am not expressing hurt feelings on behalf of the Labour Party on this occasion. I am concerned about the ability of human rights organisations and civil society to function in the future, regardless of who is in power While I commend the sentiment behind these amendments, I worry about whether the fundamental problem that they attempt to respond to is the one touched on by my noble friend Lord Collins in the last group, which goes back to PPERA itself: the concern about what joint campaigning is and how one is touched by these third-party controls. I totally understand successive Governments’ concerns about third parties who are proxies for political parties in a way that we have seen in other jurisdictions, where one sees even TV commercials funded by so-called civil society organisations that are proxies for political parties. That drives a coach and horses through any kind of regulation, and I understand that, but, at the same time, as someone who was the director of the National Council for Civil Liberties in 2014 when the legislation came in, I can testify about the chronic anxiety that it caused among civil rights organisations that were really not party political in any sense that would be understood in this place or the other place I support the instinct behind the amendments. The Minister has been so kind as to say that he wants to drill down a little more before Report. In whatever time is available in his discussions, I ask him to bear in mind that there are ongoing anxieties about that fundamental problem. It is wonderful to have guidance, but, as we always do with legislation when there are ambiguities and concerns, we say, "Well, we’ll have this regulator who will help. We’ll have this guidance that will help after the fact"—whereas, if we are really talking about rights, freedoms and the constitution, ideally we would have sufficient clarity in the primary legislation itself We have heard from trade unions, with their particular link with the Labour Party, but we could be talking about all sorts of charities, NGOs or grass-roots campaigns, from the Countryside Alliance to Liberty, which I worked for. I listened carefully to the Minister on the previous group. This is not about climate catastrophe or poverty—except "It isn’t until it is". It is not an issue until it seems to be the biggest issue of the day and people think that it is then capable of toppling a Government or making an opposition party. I am looking for that level of comfort and—the word has been used a number of times—clarity, not in just for future guidance but in current law.