Equal Lives has received this letter from Baroness Jane Campbell urging us to respond to the Lobbying Bill which is currently going through parliament. Please respond if you are able.
Defend disabled people’s right to a voice in politics!
I am writing to alert you to the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Political Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill currently being considered by Parliament.
The Joint Committee on Human Rights, in a report published in October, called for the Bill to be paused and amended. It believes that in its current form it will have a “chilling effect on free speech and freedom of association”.
Among various measures, the Bill lowers the threshold that a charity is allowed to spend in the run-up to an election from £10,000 to £5,000 in England. If this sum is exceeded the charity must register with the Electoral Commission, which is highly bureaucratic as each expenditure must be accounted for. The National Council for Voluntary Organisations has pointed out that the bill will “tie charities up in red tape”.
With the scale of the agenda faced by disability charities, and reduced resources, this could have the effect of gagging disability charities and limiting disabled people’s participation in public debate.
The Bill has already passed its Common stages and many flaws remain. As a result of vigorous debate in the Lords and pressure from the third sector, the Government has agreed to pause the Bill and conduct a six-week consultation (there was no such consultation with organisations affected prior to its introduction).
As you may know, I have campaigned for disability rights for over 30 years and currently co-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Disability Group. Our voice in politics had to be fought for. Nothing about us, still has be our central mission. This Bill needs to hear it loud and strong on this issue.
The disabled people’s movement for rights and freedoms is a political movement but not a party political movement. Of course, we have engaged with the proposed and actual policies of particular parties and with governments on particular issues. But not in a way that advocates the election of one party rather than another.
It may be right that there is a comprehensive register of people or companies involved in political lobbying and limits on how much they spend, (eg Millions to ensure that the party they support is elected). But that is entirely different from the charity approach. This bill could severely restrict the ability of disability organisations – and many other organisations in the third sector working on issue from world hunger to climate change – to contribute to discussion on national laws and policies.
I am deeply concerned that the clumsy and unnecessary additional restrictions on organisations such as yours, may undermine our attempts to raise publicly issues faced by people sometimes literally without a voice.
The All Party Parliamentary Disability Group, in common with many other all-party groups, receives support with secretariat services from Disability Rights UK and is in frequency contact with a range on organisations of and for disabled people. Most of them are bound by regulations enforced by the Charity Commission and we fail to see how the current Bill can enhance our activities. The status quo and its effective balance of political impartiality, and stimulation of reasoned public debate, works. Why change it?
If you share my concerns, I urge you to fill in the survey on the website of the Commission on Civil Society and Democratic Engagement: http://civilsocietycommission.info/submit-evidence/. The evidence gathered will be used to influence discussions about the future of the Lobbying Bill.
Yours sincerely
Baroness Campbell of Surbiton
Co-Chair
All Party Parliamentary Disability Group
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