Lord Beecham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Beecham on 2016-02-10.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government to what extent their proposed new restrictions on lobbying by charities extend the existing restrictions imposed by charity legislation.

Lord Bridges of Headley

The announcement on 6 February was on a new clause for all government grant agreements. This new clause makes clear that grant recipients must not use the grant funding for political campaigning and lobbying unless it is expressly authorised in the grant agreement.

Charities remain free to lobby the government, subject to charity law restrictions. They simply cannot use government grant funding to do so.