Government: Commercial Lobbying of Ministers

Tuesday 25th October 2011 Lords Chamber

Question

15:01

Asked By

[Lord Low of Dalston]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will set up an inquiry into the nature and extent of commercial lobbying of Ministers, outside the normal processes of Government.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Ministerial Code sets out the ways of working for Ministers. On taking office, the Prime Minister committed to the quarterly publication of Minister’s meetings with external organisations and the hospitality received. He also strengthened the code in relation to former Ministers to include a two-year ban on lobbying Government and a requirement for former Ministers, for two years after leaving office, to obtain the advice of the independent Advisory Committee On Business Appointments about any job or appointment they wish to take up, and to abide by the committee’s advice, which is made public.

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, following the Prime Minister’s request to him to investigate the former Defence Secretary’s conduct in relation to the Ministerial Code, the Cabinet Secretary wrote in his report that more allegations had arisen,

“which will be the responsibility of others to answer”.

If the Government do not intend to set up an inquiry, how do they propose to go about getting those answers, which I am sure both Parliament and the country will be anxious to hear?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there has been an inquiry on the Werrity affair, and I was not aware that we needed a further inquiry on it. The Government are committed to as much transparency as possible, not only in ministerial meetings—I assure the noble Lord that it relates to people as far down the food chain as me, in terms of what is required about my diary being published—but in the funding that is provided for various activities.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, I fully welcome the steps taken by the Prime Minister. Will my noble friend agree that a further move toward a register of lobbyists would be extremely useful in controlling what has become a very fast-moving interest group in the field of politics? Will he also agree that this would make an inquiry of the kind requested by the noble Lord, Lord Low, very much more straightforward?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the coalition Government are committed to introducing a statutory register of lobbyists, and will publish proposals in the form of a consultation document next month.

[Lord Dykes]

My Lords, to what extent in the last 12 months has the senior corporate chairmen’s group visited No. 10? Will the Minister assess its influence in those regular visits and say how many have occurred?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I do not have details on that, so I will have to write to the noble Lord about it.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, can we return to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Low, who identified that there are still matters in the Cabinet Secretary’s report that need to be answered? That is why a further inquiry is required. Will the noble Lord say why the Government will not institute such an inquiry?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Minister about whose conduct that inquiry was held has now resigned. The Government will look again at the report and see whether there are matters that need further investigation. Perhaps I may remind the noble Lord that when a statutory register of lobbyists was proposed by the Public Affairs Select Committee in 2009, the previous Government declined to accept that report and said that they preferred a voluntary register. However, to their credit, the Labour Government in their manifesto for the last election supported a statutory register.

[Baroness Whitaker]

When the Minister responds to the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, about the senior corporate chairmen’s group, will he include information about what representations it made to the Prime Minister about the corruption Bill?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

As regards the Bribery Bill, we will do our best to provide whatever information is available. I say to noble Lords that lobbying is a huge industry. My notes say that professional lobbying is a £2 billion industry that has a huge presence in Parliament. The Hansard Society estimates that some MPs are approached by lobbyists more than 100 times per week. I suspect that Members of this House may feel that non-commercial lobbies, too, are sometimes fairly pressing. We have had a large number of messages and letters in the past week, not only on the NHS—some of them might be considered self-interested—but on Amendment 80 to the Education Bill.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord will wish to be put right in relation to the point that he has just made. We did go for a voluntary register as a first base, but we were always prepared to legislate if necessary. It is actions undertaken on his Government's watch that have made a regulatory system needed under statute.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I look forward very much to the comments that the noble Lord and others in his party will make on the consultation document when it is published next month. Having looked at this, I say that defining a commercial lobby is not entirely easy at the edges. That is one reason why the consultation document has been delayed. I have in my notes the phrase, “If it looks like lobbying and sounds like lobbying, we think it is lobbying”—but I suspect that we need a rather clearer definition than that.

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean]

My Lords, I apologise if I misunderstood what the noble Lord said a moment or two ago. He seemed to imply, in answer to an earlier supplementary question, that if a Minister resigns the Government will somehow escape scrutiny for what happened on their watch. He said: “But the Minister has now resigned”. The point made was that the Cabinet Secretary has said that since the first investigation further matters have arisen. The question we put to the Minister is: how will this now be investigated? Surely he cannot be suggesting that the former Minister will escape scrutiny.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

If there are further matters to be investigated, I assure the noble Baroness that they will be. Some of these matters are not simply of the behaviour of one Minister; they concern standards of conduct in public life.