Coalition lobbying bill risks suffocating climate policy debate
A new government bill could inadvertently squeeze the life out of the UK’s climate policy debate, charities are warning. The draft law is designed to stop lobbyists unfairly influencing the outcome of the coming election, but risks hitting charities hardest.
The bill could mean charities unexpectedly find themselves unable to write reports on parties’ energy policies, conduct polls on which party is best placed to lead on environmental issues, or organise climate change awareness events for 12 months before the election due to a new definition of the term ‘electoral activities’. The new rules could also discourage smaller, community-led charities from taking part in the debate at all.
A lot of the bill’s detail is still unclear, but if it is adopted without amendment, it could be bad news for healthy climate policy debate as the election nears.
New regulations
The draft ‘Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill‘ (to give its full title) was published in July, following allegations that business and trade union representatives were unduly influencing parliamentarians. But the proposals have been met with outcry from charities, who say it would affect their activities far more than the lobbyists it was supposed to curtail. That could be a problem for charities wanting to get parties to commit to climate change action in the run-up to the election.
If passed, the bill would slash the amount charities can spend on election campaigning in the 12 months leading up to an election from £989,000 to £390,000, while broadening the definition of what could be considered activity ‘for election purposes’. It would deem any action which could affect the outcome of an election as electoral activity, regardless of the motivation. So charities could find their normal activities subjected to stringent new regulations for a year before the election, even if they’re not trying to influence the result.
This could lead to a bizarre situation where charities scale back their day-to-day operations just before the election for fear of being penalised. For instance, it’s possible that a wide range of groups could land in hot water with the Electoral Commission if the Conservatives suddenly committed to a decarbonisation target – as Labour and the Liberal Democrats already have – even though charities have been campaigning on it for months.
The National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) – representing over 100 charities – has written a letter urging the Minister for Political and Constitutional Reform, Chloe Smith, to rethink the bill. Campaign group 38 Degrees has also launched an email campaign asking its more than one million members to highlight the bill’s flaws.
Fewer voices
The new regulations could force smaller groups out of the election debate in key constituencies, preventing them lobbying their MP on community-sensitive climate and energy issues.
The new reporting procedures could be a drain on resources, and it’s likely not all groups would have the expertise to meet the criteria – particularly those with a local focus or which rely on volunteers. Often, these groups are part of larger coalitions to pool resources, such as Stop Climate Chaos. But the new bill wouldn’t differentiate between their budgets, so small charities could find themselves caught under the new regulations even if they had little to do with the coalition’s spending.
The new rules could also prevent groups focusing finances on particular locations, limiting spending to £9,750 per constituency. That could make mounting campaigns to challenge party or company messages on particularly important local issues – such as fracking in Balcombe or windfarms around the greenbelt – difficult.
As a result, groups with specialist experience and knowledge of climate and energy issues could find themselves cut from the debate altogether, unable to check the parties’ climate change policy promises.
Suffocating debate
The charities are due to give evidence to the House of Commons select committee responsible for scrutinising the bill this afternoon. They will urge MPs to redraw the lobbying bill as – without amendment – it could suffocate civil society debate around important issues such as climate change at just the moment voters might be most willing to engage.
As it stands, the government’s lobbying bill could cut charities’ non-partisan, specialist voices from a debate which desperately needs them at the time they are most likely to be heard.