Yesterday, I wrote about the need to get young people active and highlighted the importance of encouraging them to have contact with nature. This is something that the RSPB cares about deeply, has worked on for many years and will continue to do so.
Yet, in my still-burgeoning post holiday in-box is a briefing on the new Transparency of Lobbying Bill which gets its Second Reading tomorrow. As highlighted by the NCVO yesterday (see here), there are fears that this Bill will curtail the ability of organisations to influence social/environmental change particularly during election periods. And arguably, this would affect our attempts to highlight and get a response to the major environmental crises of the day - such as the importance of getting every child outdoors.
In the run up to the 2005 General Election, for example, the RSPB joined forces with other charities to try to get more political support for children to have contact with nature as part of their formal education. At the time, many politicians were shocked that so few children had an opportunity to get 'real world learning'. Our campaign helped to put a spotlight on barriers to outdoors education and we were delighted that we managed to secure manifesto commitments from each of the major parties to address this issue. This laid the foundation for fruitful (although ultimately inadequate) post-election conversations as politicians were obliged to pursue manifesto commitments.
From what we can gather, the Lobbying Bill will make it harder for charities and other non-governmental organisations to campaign/lobby/influence change particularly during election year. We don't know whether this is cock-up or conspiracy, but as the Bill is being introduced at pace without pre-legislative scrutiny, there is little time to understand the reasons why the Bill has been drafted in the way it has, so we have to work with others to try to influence it during its passage through parliament.
Without good campaigning during an election period, our finest wildlife sites would not receive the protection they command today. There are countless examples of positive change (be it environmental, economic or social) though good campaigning even during election periods. I hope that MPs recognise this and act to amend the Bill during its passage through Parliament.
RSPB appear to be honest and open in their campaigning and lobbying and surely this is what matters ? There is surely a stronger case case for exposing lobbyists who try to operate behind closed doors than there is to (clumsily) limit spending - especially as one suspects some of those more covert lobbies are spending far more than RSPB could ever afford. The current Government seems to be running a narrative that unreasonable opposition is preventing the progress of Government policy which it would claim to be in the national interest, whereas over a whole range of issues more and more people no more politically partisan than the RSPB are trying to check poorly thought through and damaging measures.