1. Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration
Bill
Main Points:
Looking at what has happened to the Philipines there has been an urgent importance placed
on charities to provide life saving aid to the country. Charities need our support in order to
provide this aid. Governments also are urged to provide aid. Surely in this case you can not
say we either have to support (I’m guessing this is to do with funding from the public too) a
political party in the whole year before an election or charities. Why not both?
Will non-party campaigners have to choose between supporting charities or their
preferred Political party for a whole year before an election?
Charities may lose vital revenuefunding in the whole year leading to a general
election.
To be honest how can this policy be enforced? The majority of users (including nonpolitical) on social media sites are likely to support charities and their political party
preference anyway. They can still affect the election result.
Stating that there should be a ban on supporting charities a whole year before an
election incase they influence the votes doesn’t give a good impression to society.
People may be wandering what type of values the government holds.
Surely it is better to support charities as they are all voters too and have a lot of
support nationally for example Just Giving: "Since our launch in 2001, we’ve enabled
over 21 million people to raise £1.5 billion for over 13,000 charities and causes in
radically new ways." The government may lose a lot of crucial votes here.
Charities should be able to participate and actively become involved in the democratic
process as it may benefit their cause.
Remember charities are made up of individuals, their friends, families and those that
support charities who have the power to vote. If this Bill stands these individuals may
vote against a government that doesn’t stand up for them and their values.

2. You can download ActionAid’s Parliamentary briefing on the Bill here:
www.actionaid.org.uk/lobbying_bill_briefing and
https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/pages/the_gagging_law
Rupinder K Gill