The Lobbying Act is silencing the voices of non-party campaigners, writes Stephen Bubb

Cast your mind back, for a moment, to the months before this election campaign began. Last summer we were looking forward to the then-anticipated leaders’ debates between the three candidates to be the next prime minister. And we were already enjoying the public debate provoked by two record-breaking charity campaigns, #nomakeupselfie and #icebucketchallenge. Cancer Research UK and the ALS Association not only raised record sums, but also got the country talking about charity in a way even politicians could not ignore.

But since 19 September last year the government’s Lobbying Act put an end to campaigns like this. For the seven and a half months before polling day on 7 May, charities and campaigners are unable to speak out in the pre-election debate. The concerns voiced by campaigners against the Lobbying Act have proved to be all too accurate. The next government must urgently repeal this awful law.

The Lobbying Act is really an amalgam of three unrelated areas of statute. Part 1 creates a largely meaningless register of professional lobbyists. Part 3 creates yet more administration for trade unions going about their usual work. Part 2 – the most dangerous of all – limits the activity of campaigners who are not from political parties. It is meant to prevent third party campaigns being used to circumvent political party spending limits, but in practice it defines ‘political material’ so broadly and vaguely that many independent charity campaigns risk getting caught.

The act’s effects are hard to define precisely. That would mean getting charities to share examples of campaigns that they thought of doing but then dropped. Its specific threats, though, are easy to outline. Acevo, the organisation I head, worked closely with Richard Harries’ Commission on Civil Society and Democratic Engagement to collect evidence of how organisations are coping with the act. It found clear examples of a ‘chilling effect’ that has left our political debate less informed and less interesting for the lack of non-party voices.

The latest Harries report’s conclusions are stark: 63 per cent of respondents to its surveys stated that the Lobbying Act is making some or all of their organisational or charitable objectives harder to achieve. Many respondents said they had specifically changed their campaigning plans to avoid having to register with the Electoral Commission and face the full weight of regulation that the act imposes. The Harries report suggested that the act’s ‘chilling effect’ was down to three main causes: its vagueness, its red tape, and its brake on coalition working.

First, the Lobbying Act’s vagueness makes people afraid to campaign, as it is not entirely clear what is and is not allowed. One medium-sized NGO told the commission it was scaling back campaigning ‘to be on the safe side’. Given that government ministers were not clear exactly what the act was meant to regulate, campaigners can be forgiven for taking a cautious stance.

Second, the legislation creates expensive bureaucratic red tape for campaigners to comply with. I know of one large national homelessness charity which sent 42 members of staff on two half-day workshops to learn how the act works. As a member of the public donating to that charity, I would be frustrated to see the money being used to jump through hoops unnecessarily created by government. Even the Wildlife Trusts, not known for their political radicalism, estimate they will have spent close to £10,000 just in due diligence to comply with the act.

Third, the act makes it ‘almost impossible’ for campaigning groups to work in coalitions to campaign before the election. Some of the greatest charity campaigns in recent years have been coalitions, like Make Poverty History or the IF campaign. But the act makes each coalition member individually liable for the spending of the whole campaign. So we have not seen any campaigns like these before this election, as they just are not worth the risk.

The Lobbying Act will most seriously affect people who depend on civil society groups for their political voice, often society’s most vulnerable. Some of the most important issues at this election – homelessness, foreign aid and mental health to pick just three – will receive less attention and less debate as a direct consequence of this law. The act is part of a worrying climate of suspicion about civil society campaigns that all political parties should work to change after the election. Labour and the Green party have said they will repeal the Lobbying Act straight away. They must now look more broadly at protecting charity free speech, and other parties must follow.

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Stephen Bubb is chief executive of the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations

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Photo: Howard Lake