The Conservative peer Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts is expected to urge the government to introduce a code of practice covering activities that could be seen as influencing elections and reduce the time period during which election proceedings are deemed to be active for lobbying purposes.
The Elections Bill, which has already completed its passage through the House of Commons, will be debated at its second reading in the House of Lords today.
It covers matters relating to the running of UK elections and areas including the functions of the Electoral Commission and the regulation of political expenditure.
In 2016, Hodgson completed his government-commissioned review of the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014, commonly known as the lobbying act.
He recommended that the scope of the act be reduced to include only activity intended to influence how the public votes and for the period during which the rules apply to be reduced.
The legislation updated reporting requirements around campaigning activities that could “reasonably be regarded as intended to procure electoral success”, which has been perceived to have had a “chilling effect” on charities’ lobbying work.
Speaking before the debate on the Elections Bill, Hodgson told Third Sector: “The issue is, who decides what is ‘reasonably regarded’? It is the Electoral Commission, which is slightly marking its own homework.
“I’ve been trying to suggest to the government that what we need is a code of practice, put before parliament and approved by parliament,” he said.
Hodgson had previously suggested in his 2016 review that the “reasonably regarded” definition should be amended to reflect campaigning groups’ actual intentions – so charities would only be in breach of the law if it could be shown they had meant to campaign in favour of a party or candidate. But this was not accepted by the government.
He also said yesterday he would like to see a reduction from 12 months to four in the time period during which electoral proceedings are deemed to be active and therefore require charities and other organisations to record the amount they spend on campaigning, if it is above certain thresholds.
This was a recommendation Hodgson made in his 2016 review, but it was not accepted by the government at the time.
Hodgson, who also conducted a review of the Charities Act 2006, said he also hoped to raise issues around what constitutes a member of a charity and the recording of costs for small charities that undertake joint campaigns.