House of Lords
Lobbying Transparency (In-house Lobbyists) Bill [HL]
Friday 3rd July 2026
(3 weeks, 4 days ago)
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Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
That the Bill be read a second time.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, I should make it clear at the outset that I am pro-lobbying—how could I not be, given how much I have done in my time? It has been particularly helpful in the Lords. We do not have constituents to inform us of what needs doing, or not doing, by a Government, so it is good that those with a particular interest or knowledge make their way to Westminster, bringing their lived experience and the legitimate needs of their sector, company or beneficiaries to us and into the public forum—into our actual or metaphorical Peers’ Lobby.
We have seen laws be changed for the better by effective lobbying. The NSPCC and children’s charities helped achieve the Domestic Abuse Act 2021. The British Lung Foundation’s work on banning smoking in cars carrying children led to the Smoke-free (Private Vehicles) Regulations 2015. Pressure on Ministers by the Samaritans and others helped create the Online Safety Act 2023. The British Heart Foundation and family groups provided the momentum for the Organ Donation (Deemed Consent) Act 2019.
Meanwhile, the ABI and other bodies wisely used their access to help rewrite the National Security Act 2023 in order to ensure that the foreign influence registration scheme was fit for purpose. The RAC’s meeting with a Minister about headlight glare resulted in a change of approach to this problem. The Royal Osteoporosis Society will continue to meet Ministers to ensure that they keep their promise to make fracture liaison services available nationwide by the end of the decade.
So lobbying is legitimate and beneficial to how we make our laws, and I support it. It is not always successful, of course. My campaign to increase duty on alcohol seems for ever doomed. You win some, you lose some.
In a democracy, good governance depends on decision-makers hearing from a wide range of voices, but businesses, interest groups, think tanks, trade associations and charities should not depend for their access on whom they happen to know or which conduit they can use to get a hearing. More than that, we should all know who has the ear of government. Legitimate representations should be open and above board, not hidden below the waves. This Bill is about transparency, which is crucial for public trust, as we discussed in our debate yesterday.
There are two sides to lobbying, of course: those doing the lobbying and those being lobbied. Neither’s regime is working properly, although the Ethics and Integrity Commission, which has been tasked by the Prime Minister to improve transparency around lobbying, will consider those being lobbied when it reports next week.
My Bill is about those doing the lobbying and seeing Ministers and Permanent Secretaries to put their valid points of view on legislation, policy or procurement. At the moment, the only organisations that have to register and report are consultant lobbyists, which probably covers around 5% of this country’s lobbying activity. The other 95% is done directly by companies, trade associations, professional bodies, think tanks and charities, using their own personnel rather than outside consultants.
Yet these approaches to government from in-house people are excluded from the need to register under the 2014 Act. They fly under the radar. Say a small pressure group, an SME or a consumer representative wants to talk to Ministers about the safety of a fertiliser, alcohol duty, the use of a weapon, online safety or a local planning issue. Should such a small organisation need outside help to make its case to a Minister, it would find its advisers and itself named on the register.
By contrast, any organisation—such as pharmaceutical companies, drinks trade associations, defence companies, big tech or developers—that uses its own people, whether its public affairs department or its chief executive or chair, to speak to government can see a Minister without any requirement to register or report, and with no obligation to sign up to any lobbying code of conduct. That is an inequality of openness between those making their case to government themselves and those using an outside agency to help.
The public—directly or via MPs, journalists or interested parties—have the right to know who is talking to Ministers about decisions that are about to be taken. Therefore, any organisation seeking to influence government policy or practice, legislation or procurement, should have to register and report. A bit of sunlight will do no one any harm.
We have two options. We can wait until we have another scandal and then rush through legislation or we can grasp the nettle now. This is what lobbyist representatives—the CIPR and the PRCA—want, bringing the hidden 95% of lobbying into the open. Passing this Bill would enable the existing register of consultant lobbyists to become a register of lobbying, no longer just catching the tiny minority operating as consultants.
The Bill would extend the existing register from covering only those lobbying firms to put any organisation that puts its view to a Minister, Permanent Secretary or spad on to the register. This goes no further than other comparative democracies do. It requires openness about normal legal behaviour undertaken by in-house executives. Our UK register lists just under 300 entries. Scotland, by contrast, has 1,500 and Canada has 8,000 because both cover in-house lobbyists—as do most other countries’ registers.
Let us do it now. Let us now wait for a scandal. Any organisation that lobbies should register. It is not difficult. It is the right thing to do. I beg to move.
Baroness Finn (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, on her success in the Private Members’ Bill ballot. Although the Official Opposition cannot support the Bill in its current form, it is a very interesting Bill which seeks to address one of the most important issues in any free democratic society—transparency.
In the interests of transparency, eyebrows were raised when Peers received an email from Inflect Partners, a strategic communications and public affairs consultancy. The email said:
“I am writing on behalf of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) to share a short briefing and to ask whether you would consider speaking in support of Baroness Hayter’s Lobbying Transparency (In-house Lobbyists) Bill at the Second Reading debate on Friday 3 July”.
There is some irony in a lobbying email being issued to support a Bill on lobbying. Does the Chartered Institute of Public Relations stand to gain from this Bill? Perhaps the noble Baroness can illuminate us.
Although the Bill is very short, its effect is very broad. The noble Baroness is correct that the current registration rules under the 2014 Act cover just a small number of the activities that could be termed lobbying. There are just 240 registered consultant lobbyists in the country. The Office of the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists employs just three staff members in addition to the registrar. The 2014 Act was never meant to be comprehensive. The Bill before us, though it may be tightly drafted, is not targeted. It expands the registration rules to encompass a whole range of communications.
If the Bill becomes law, almost all persons communicating with Ministers or Permanent Secretaries on behalf of their employer, engager or principal, or with the intent of furthering the interests of their employer, engager or principal, will have to register. Yes, many would like to see greater transparency of engagements between stakeholders and Ministers, but that broad and well-intentioned principle would represent a huge administrative burden on business. We are concerned that such a burden would disincentivise businesses, charities and other stakeholders from engaging freely with Ministers.
I hope that we can have a constructive debate today, in Committee and on Report. The principle of transparency is not contested. It is essential that Ministers and departments are transparent in their contact with lobbyists. The previous Government committed to develop a single database to collate and publish departments’ transparency returns. This appears to have been scrapped. Can the Minister tell us why this might be the case?
Our foremost concern is to avoid unintended and unexpected negative consequences for small businesses, charities and stakeholders. We are also interested in the risks to well-intentioned individuals who are simply unaware of the new, broader rules; the capacity for the Office of the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists to handle the rise in registrations; and the issue of the annual registration fee.
On burdens, the broader application of the lobbying register rules will see many more people subject to the burden of registering with the office of the registrar. In some ways, this is not a cumbersome step. The register is now well established and should not be difficult for individuals to use. However, no matter how easy it is to register, this is a new administrative burden. Furthermore, we must not forget that those registered with the UK Office for the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists pay annual fees of £1,000. Nothing in the noble Baroness’s Bill amends Section 22 of the 2014 Act. This means that the £1,000 annual fee will apply to in-house lobbyists just as it applies to consultant lobbyists. Contrast that with how the average UK small business has a profit margin of £70,000 and we see that two members of staff having to register at a total cost of £2,000 is not an insignificant burden for smaller organisations. As we proceed to Committee and Report, we will seek to establish protections for small and medium-sized businesses and other smaller stakeholders.
We want businesses, especially small ones, and other stakeholders to have open channels of regular communication with Ministers. Has the noble Baroness reflected on the interaction between the £1,000 per annum registration fees and the proposed wider rules on stakeholders’ willingness to make representations to Government?
Further to that, I would be grateful if the noble Baroness could confirm one point. Should a Minister, for example, meet a pub landlord on a visit, and that landlord goes on to tell him or her that the Government must cut alcohol duty, reform business rates or abandon Ed Miliband’s obsessive net-zero policy, would the landlord have to register and pay his £1,000 fee? If yes, does the noble Baroness accept that landlords will feel disinclined to give the Minister a piece of their mind? Is that not an obstruction to good government? I accept that this is an unlikely hypothetical scenario, since the Prime Minister and Chancellor, along with many Ministers and government MPs, are banned from their local pubs in protest against the Government’s appalling anti-business policies, but it illustrates my point.
On unintended harms to individuals, I would like to consider another example. Under the Bill, an in-house lobbyist who fails to register within the three-month registration period, whether by a mistake or not, faces a civil penalty of up to £7,500 or an unlimited fine on conviction. Is it reasonable and proportional for a small business owner who may be unaware of these rules to face that? What thought has the noble Baroness given to protections for well-intentioned, upstanding people who fall foul of the rules through ignorance, as they will if we broaden the scope of the law in this way?
On the possible backlogs in registration, what assessment has the noble Baroness made of the capacity of the four people currently in the office of the registrar to cope with the large increases in registrations? As she pointed out, there are just 240 people currently on the register; the EU has more than 17,500 organisations on its register and the Scottish Parliament has 1,642.
Finally, can the noble Baroness tell the House what her view is of the £1,000 annual registration fee? Does she feel that that is reasonable for a small business or charity, simply for allowing the Prime Minister or any other Minister to visit and discuss business?
I hope we can all have a constructive debate on the principles underpinning the Bill, but there are a number of unanswered questions to consider. I look forward to the response of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, and to our further debates at later stages.
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, I am very pleased to contribute to today’s debate and it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness. Like many Members, I occasionally show visitors, including Americans, around the House. I take them to Central Lobby and I say, “Here it is. It is a place; it is a noun. Of course, it is also a verb. It is the place where people come to meet their Members of Parliament, as they have every right to do”. There is nothing wrong with lobbying: it is an integral part of our system of parliament and government, and indeed all Members of Parliament themselves—including humble Back-Benchers on the Government’s side in this House—are lobbying and lobbyists. The dangers begin to emerge only when financial benefit arises and when money is involved. I want to concentrate on the benefits of lobbying for influence, which goes on all the time.
This is a Bill about transparency and accountability, which I would like to think are two principles that commend themselves to all sides of this House. I mentioned Americans, and tomorrow is of course the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the foundation of the United States. I quote one of the most famous justices of the American Supreme Court, Mr Justice Brandeis:
“Sunlight is … the best of disinfectants”.
This phrase remains very relevant when discussing the subject of the Bill.
My noble friend has argued that the rules, as they currently are under the 2014 Act, leave a large loophole and that the Bill provides the remedy, although it does involve some considerable administrative consequences. Previous Governments have argued—perhaps my noble friend the Minister will argue the same today—that there is already a regime in place whereby Government Ministers and Permanent Secretaries of government departments voluntarily disclose information about whom they meet on a quarterly basis, but is this enough? I do not think so.
The Committee on Standards in Public Life produced a report in 2021—not long after I arrived here—which specifically argued for the Cabinet Office to collate all departmental transparency information and publish it in an accessible and, above all, searchable database. It also advocated an expansion of the register to include contact between lobbying companies, spads and senior director-level civil servants. Perhaps my noble friend the Minister has something to say on this point. That committee stopped short of calling for the register to be expanded to include in-house lobbyists.
As the House knows, the post-legislative scrutiny of the Act by PACAC, the committee of the other place, also stopped short of recommending the extension to cover in-house lobbyists. However, it referred to “loopholes” that should be closed. The March 2026 Rycroft Review specifically drew attention to the current VAT exemption under the 2014 Act which, in effect, now allows lobbying firms of foreign-based subsidiaries of UK lobbying companies not to register. This is an error, and I hope my noble friend the Minister will address it.
As has been mentioned already, in March our outgoing Prime Minister commissioned the new Ethics and Integrity Commission to review, among other things,
“whether the current arrangements for transparency around lobbying are sufficient”.
If the report is being published next week, we look forward to reading what the answer will be. Maybe the Minister could also say something about that.
The Chartered Institute of Public Relations has already been referred to; its survey found that two-thirds wanted the lobbying register to include both consultants and in-house lobbyists.
If the House wants to know why I take a close interest in this Private Member’s Bill, it is this: my own experience. Before I was elected to serve in this House, I worked on behalf of and for the science community. As I knew a little about how Parliament works—indeed, in the family in which I grew up, it was impossible not to know a little—I was called upon to help represent the science community to both Parliament and government. I did so in various ways, such as organising events and arranging meetings. I suppose one could say that I did this work in-house. I organised on behalf of the science community—year after year, and decade after decade—the biggest science events ever held in the House. I hope the House will not mind if I give a couple of examples.
Parliamentary Links Day brought together the whole scientific community on a single day each summer. It comprised a huge meeting in the Commons, with standing room only, and another major event here in this House. You had to look only at the invitation cards to see what I mean: all the major sectoral science societies were represented—biology, maths, physics, chemistry, engineering—as well as many of our national academies, such as the Royal Society. The event was all about educating Members on science and technology issues and making the case for science and technology and the resources needed to fund them. We got speakers year after year from the Cabinet: the Foreign Secretary; the Environment Secretary; the Health Secretary; the International Development Secretary; the Science Minister, who was not always in the Cabinet but was crucial; and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Twenty-one years ago this year, the then Prime Minister himself addressed Parliamentary Links Day and I can well remember the frisson in the room. People were astonished to find a Prime Minister walking in to address them.
In 2001, I brought together a wide range of science organisations to produce the first ever Charter for Science and Engineering, to which the then Chancellor subsequently responded point by point, when he launched the 10-year investment strategy for science.
The Voice of the Future is another event that is still going. It brings young scientists and engineers to Parliament, who sit around the horseshoe questioning the Minister, the shadow Minister, the Chief Scientific Adviser, and members of both Houses’ Select Committees on Science and Technology, who sit at the witness table. It used to be launched by the Speaker himself.
I also organised parliamentary receptions—not just the Christmas reception at which we gave awards for outstanding contributions to the cause of science but others. Indeed, my noble friend Lord Anderson, who is in his seat, will remember the reception we organised to welcome back Helen Sharman, the first British person in space. That was quite a long time ago.
About 10 years ago, I arranged for Tim Peake—a name your Lordships may also remember—to give the first ever evidence from space to a Select Committee, in the Boothroyd Room. I remember meeting the parliamentary engineers, who worked in the basement at Millbank, and they were thrilled when the first signals conveying Tim Peake came through from NASA. The now noble Baroness, Lady Blackwood—sadly, not in her place at the moment—was the chair of the committee at the time so, if you do not believe me, ask her all about it. It was really quite an event.
Working in parallel to all this is the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee—of which, as it happens, I am now president—which organises the annual STEM for Britain event, in the other place. It brings early-career scientists and engineers here to meet their local Members of Parliament and exhibit their work. It is highly competitive. My purpose in giving these examples is to illustrate that lobbying activity of this kind goes on all the time. It is about seeking influence.
I have run out of time. Parliament is not a museum, it is a workshop, and this type of activity is to be encouraged. Expanding the 2014 Act register will do no harm and may well increase the sunlight we can shine on the whole area of lobbying. When it comes to this Bill, I will be voting for sunlight.
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate. I was much entertained by his speech. He, along with the Bill’s proposer, rightly said that this is not about trying to restrict lobbying activity; rather, it is about trying to introduce transparency in lobbying activity. We want to see lobbying take place.
I am reminded that Benjamin Franklin’s major contribution to the Declaration of Independence during the American Revolutionary War was, of course, as a lobbyist in London and Paris. So, lobbying can play an essential part in creating democracy as well as in sustaining it.
I declare an interest: I am a director of a company that is on the register of consultant lobbyists, in recent times principally only because it acts as a secretariat to development forums and contacts housing and planning Ministers in that context. I am also an adviser to a company in Brussels that is on the EU transparency register. I will come back to the comparison between those two registers. I also declare an interest in that I was the Minister responsible for the 2014 legislation under the coalition Government, and had the benefit of being supported in that task in the other place by the then deputy leader of that House, Tom Brake, who is now the distinguished director of Unlock Democracy and is, I suspect, a supporter of this Bill.
It may surprise the Bill’s proposer that I support in principle what she is attempting to do. I will, I am afraid, irritate her by saying that, while I agree in principle, I disagree with almost every practicality of how she is doing it. The reason why—here, I come back to the comparison between the Westminster register and the EU transparency register—is that it is virtually impossible in the Westminster register to reconcile the quarterly information reports that Ministers make about their meetings with the consultant lobbyists who are on the register to try to see how they directly relate to one another as regards meetings and, especially, content. There is nothing about the content.
I should remind the House that in 2013-14, when the Bill was going through—unusually, this is not reflected accurately in the Library briefing—it was not extended to companies that were not consultant lobbyists because, in 2010, we in the coalition Government had introduced the ministerial reporting requirement. At that time, as far as we were concerned, the ministerial return would make it perfectly transparent if any company met a Minister on its own behalf, because that would appear in the return. The point was that a meeting between a public affairs or consultant firm and a Minister might appear in the Minister’s return, but you did not know on whose behalf they were speaking. That was why the register of consultant lobbying was established and why it had the parameters it did. The intention was not to restrict transparency but to add a transparent register where the quarterly information returned would not provide the information.
Why do I think we need to go further? There is capacity within the Act to go further, which Administrations since 2014 have not used. That capacity is twofold. First, as was mentioned previously, special advisers could be included along with Ministers and Permanent Secretaries, because consultant lobbyists know perfectly well that special advisers are an extremely effective way of avoiding the transparency the register is meant to provide. That is available, through secondary legislation, under Chapter 2 of the Act. Secondly, Chapter 23 gives Ministers the regulatory power to change what information is required to be provided to the register.
There is a very big difference. I will not bore the House by enumerating the differences between the Westminster register return and the EU return, but the latter is far more substantial in terms of what you know about an organisation that is seeking to influence the policy of the European Union. You know on whose behalf it is working, what clients it has, what funding it receives, which band of financial activity it is devoting to this task, and so on.
Why do I think the EU register is now a better way of doing things? Because you can reconcile the content of the lobbying with the organisation that is doing it, on whose behalf it is doing it and what resources it is devoting to it. If we are going to be transparent, we might as well go to the EU register, but it is substantively different from the one in the 2014 Act. The 2014 Act is constructed around regulating the person who lobbies, whereas the EU register is about regulating the nature of the activity itself. It is possible to move the 2014 Act in that direction, and I suggest that we should, but this Bill does not do that sufficiently.
I will give just one example. In paragraph 1(1) of Schedule 1, an exception from the requirement to register is provided if the person conducting the communication with Ministers or Permanent Secretaries does so for a business whose main activity is not lobbying. Most organisations will say, “We’re covered by the exemption. Lobbying is incidental to what we do, so we don’t need to register”. When they do register, they will get very confused about who they register. Should it be the chief executive? Should it be everybody? The EU register does not have that problem—the organisation is registered, not the individuals within it.
I suggest that at this stage, given that it is Second Reading, we say yes to the principle of trying to do something about this, but in Committee we may have to look in some detail at how we do it. It is not about simply putting “in-house lobbyist” alongside “consultant lobbyist”; it is about shifting from consultant lobbying and in-house lobbying to creating a register of organisations that are seeking to influence government legislation and policy. They should be on the register, in the same way as is true of the Brussels register.
Baroness Carberry of Muswell Hill (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Hayter on bringing forward this Bill, and I agree with every single word of her introduction.
Going back to first principles, I agree that lobbying is a useful part of democracy. Like many Members of this House, I have done my fair share of lobbying—possibly more than my fair share—meeting Ministers over many decades to talk about issues that concerned organisations I represented. That is a legitimate type of democratic participation and it is a good thing, because decision-making benefits when decision-makers hear from a very wide range of voices. However, lobbying is widely regarded as a bit dodgy, a bit grubby and a bit suspicious. In many cases, people who hold those views are right, as some of the well-publicised scandals we have seen testify. We all meet people in our daily lives who suspect that a privileged few are getting an unfair chance to shape government decisions behind closed doors.
The basis of the Bill is the contention that too much is left hidden from view, and it is not too lofty to say that the Bill can help build more public confidence in our democratic institutions, because it introduces more transparency to who is trying to influence Ministers and senior decision-makers, and on whose behalf. Greater openness would strengthen confidence in government. Our current system just is not rational.
As things stand, two lobbyists could walk tomorrow into the same ministerial meeting and talk about the same issues. One might have to register, because they are an external consultant acting for a client. The other might represent a major corporation employing its own in-house public affairs team and would avoid the statutory register altogether. Try explaining that distinction to the average concerned member of the public. It makes little sense. The political influence on policy does not depend on whether the lobbyist receives a consultancy fee or a salary from the organisation they represent.
We have a system now that reflects organisational structure rather than the reality of influence. I had an example recently from a senior partner in a consultancy, who set out why the current system needs to change. Not long ago, one of their clients, a prominent financial institution, was sending experienced in-house government relations specialists into the Treasury to have material conversations about banking regulations. Those meetings did not have to be registered. But when a young employee of the consultancy wrote to a Minister simply requesting a meeting, that fell under the definition of “direct lobbying” under the Act and needed to be registered. I think that that is more than a harmless anomaly, because it contributes to public mistrust in government decision-making. So it is about time we had the straightforward change that this Bill would bring about by simply extending transparency to in-house lobbying. I hope that the Government will give it consideration.
As the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, mentioned, it is relevant in this discussion to talk about the Government’s transparency releases. As my noble friend Lord Stansgate said, as it stands, these releases are hard to find and hard to search. They are published in different places, in different formats, and with different names. They could be published in a single, accessible, searchable format. I hope the Government will give that consideration.
I also invite the Government to consider the remit of the Office of the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists while they are at it. It has admirably performed the role Parliament assigned to it, but it is reasonable now to ask whether its scope is still relevant more than a decade after the original legislation because, since then, the practice of lobbying has evolved. More large organisations have invested in sophisticated in-house government relations teams and there is more digital campaigning. The boundary between public affairs, strategic communication and direct government engagement has become less distinct. It is therefore legitimate to ask whether the regulator’s remit should evolve as well.
In that context, Ministers might look at the experience elsewhere. The Scottish system, for example, operates under a broader framework. It focuses on recording lobbying activity itself, rather than relying so heavily on distinctions between different categories of lobbyists. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, gave another example: that of the EU register. I am not suggesting simply copying another model, but there could be lessons worth learning about proportionality, coverage and public accessibility. A review of the registrar’s remit could consider questions such as whether the current definitions are still fit for purpose, whether the public can easily understand who needs to register and who does not and whether reporting requirements are proportionate.
The system we should be aiming for needs to be comprehensive enough to command public confidence, proportionate enough not to discourage legitimate engagement and, recognising the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, made about businesses, proportionate enough not to place disproportionate burdens on business. The system should also be straightforward enough for organisations and the public to understand. I think that this Bill makes an important contribution towards that goal. It recognises that transparency should focus on influence, not merely organisational form; it begins to correct anomalies that have become increasingly difficult to justify; and it offers an opportunity to modernise a framework that has not kept pace with changes in the lobbying profession.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, on this excellent Bill, enabling us to have a crucial discussion about transparency. We have a huge problem with public trust in government. Just 27% of the population trust the national Government. There is very good evidence that transparency is one of the key drivers of trust. Others have already referred to Transparency International research showing that the current lobbying register covers, at most, 4% of those engaged in lobbying activity. I do not think that, if you went out on the street and surveyed 100 people, many people would know that figure, but there is a strong and rightful sense that a lot of murky things happen here in Westminster, and that damages trust.
However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, said when introducing the Bill, a lot of lobbying is positive and we need to keep that sense when it is lobbying in the public interest: by NGOs and campaign groups, patient or consumer groups, or communities affected by proposed developments. However, most lobbying is not in the public interest but for private interests, such as that by big oil and gas, big tobacco—and boy did we see some shameless examples of big tobacco lobbying in the recent Tobacco and Vapes Bill—big supermarkets, big developers and big finance, including, of course, the City of London Corporation, whose special access I am addressing in other areas.
It is worth saying that it is up to the Government to decide who to meet, who to hear and who to listen to. Successive Governments have very much balanced access in favour of these big interests, not in favour of those lobbying for public interests. Also, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter said, the current way the register is arranged means a lack of transparency for big lobbying and creates extra work and barriers for those lobbying in the public interest. It might seem to be a deliberate weakness in the law, and I commend the noble Baroness for seeking to fill it.
It is worth noting that we rely very heavily on journalists to dig and burrow to find out links. They make an expensive investment in finding out what is going on in companies that are trying to get windfall profits while the public good is ignored. It is worth noting, as a number of noble Lords have said, that we are effectively relying on stronger laws in other jurisdictions—we have to note the much stronger laws in Scotland and the EU—to occasionally draw back the veil. I note the publication this week on the substack Democracy for Sale of an article by Adam Bychawski and Peter Geoghegan that is an interesting case study of that. I do not know whether this Bill would solve that problem, but it is concerning. Andy Burnham’s incoming chief of staff, James Purnell, was until very recently the chief executive of Flint Global. Flint has said that its British client list is confidential and has declared just two clients in the UK in five years. But, on the EU lobbying register, it emerges that Flint works for Uber, Amazon and Diageo. You might say that they are very clearly big interests.
That is one interesting case study but we have heard some horrific case studies, and reference has been made to those. We have to think of Greensill, Westferry and the Covid-19 VIP lane. I declare, in the interests of transparency, that the rest of what I am going to say has been informed by lobbying from Spotlight on Corruption, Unlock Democracy and Transparency International UK, and it is they who stress those examples of the transparency gap that the Bill could partially fill. I understand that the noble Baroness kept the Bill narrow and focused—in my upcoming Bill, I have gone very much in the other direction of having a very broad Private Member’s Bill—but it is important to raise some of the gaps, which I hope the Government will say they intend to act on, and other issues that this Bill does not cover that we need to see action on.
The VAT registration requirements represent a problematic loophole, and other similar registers of consultant lobbyists do not present these exemptions. There is a real problem with timeliness, and it has not got better. Knowing what has happened before a Government make a decision is important, but, too often, we find out only months after the fact. That is something the Government themselves should be promising to solve.
The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and a number of other noble Lords, said that we get descriptions of meetings from Governments that do not really tell us anything meaningful about what was discussed or what the subject of the meeting was. We have registrations of lobbyists saying they are working for a particular company, but how do all these pieces match up? That has to be solved, so that the public can see who indeed has Ministers’ ears. We should know what the purpose of the meeting was. If it was a meeting to discuss “trade issues”, what does that mean precisely? Are you meeting to discuss Australian beef imports or sanitary and phytosanitary standards? Knowing those details is crucial to understanding what is going on.
I again commend the noble Baroness. This is an interesting and important discussion. I hope that the Government—whatever “the Government” means—are listening.
Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, on bringing forward the Bill. I understand why she has done so, but I want to make a more general point about what effect the Bill might have.
One of the big problems we have had over many years has been the growing gap between government and business. We need to make sure that there is a greater understanding among people who are making economic decisions in government about what the business community needs in order to advance the economy and achieve what Governments talk about all the time, which is economic growth. I therefore ask myself how the Bill would work in practice and what effect it might have on the relationships between government and business.
I have in mind a very pro-business, proactive Government, who want to break down the barriers between business and government, and want Ministers to be out there understanding what motivates businesses and what they need to get on with their job of growing businesses, creating jobs and so on. I imagine a Chancellor of the Exchequer or a business Minister at a conference. He or she is working the room and talking to different business leaders, and a chief executive of a housebuilding company explains that he is sitting on various pockets of land and would like to develop them but the planning regulations, tax system and so on need to be changed. Does that person become an in-house consultant when he has that conversation with the Minister?
Imagine that the chief executive of an international bank is worried about what the Government might be doing around banking regulations or other aspects of banking, and he or she speaks to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and makes it clear that, if these changes in banking rules or regulations or taxation happen, the bank may have to consider relisting somewhere else. At that point, is the chief executive of the bank an in-house consultant?
I then look at the Bill before us today. New Section 5A(4) to be inserted by Clause 1(8) talks about regulations that would require the “topics of discussion” to be disclosed. Would that have an inhibiting effect on communication between business leaders and government? I do not think the noble Baroness would want to see the Bill having that sort of inhibiting effect on relations. It would be helpful, in her wind-up and perhaps when we come to the details of the Bill in Committee, for the noble Baroness to explain how we can avoid these unintended consequences.
Lord Norton of Louth (Con)
My Lords, I agree with a great deal of what has been said by a number of speakers, which has the advantage that I will be able to shorten my contribution to today’s debate.
This is a modest Bill that seeks to improve an Act that is not up to the task of enhancing the transparency of lobbying. The 2014 Act was fundamentally flawed. Its name bore no relation to its contents. I moved an amendment to change the Long Title that would have replaced “transparency of lobbying” with “registration of lobbyists”. The measure did not enhance transparency of the substance of lobbying; it required the registration of lobbyists—or rather, as we have heard, certain lobbyists. It was notable as much for who was not required to register as for who was. If we are going to stick with the 2014 Act then it makes sense to extend its scope so that the register lives up to its name. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, moved an amendment then to include in-house lobbyists and was supported by many other noble Lords. For her, it is unfinished business.
I urge the Minister to go further. The 2014 Act was a missed opportunity. There was no statutory code of conduct and no stipulation of the principles that should govern that conduct. We could have put ourselves on a par with other nations in embracing best practice, ensuring that representations made to the Government, Ministers, civil servants and advisers were put in the public domain.
I moved an amendment when the Bill was being considered in 2013 to provide for that, stipulating that representations made to the Government should be published when a policy was announced. That would have extended what my noble friend Lord Lansley was referring to in the quarterly return and would have been far more targeted to the actual policy that was being announced. Such a reform is essential for tackling declining trust in politics, as has already been referred to.
The 2014 Act, as I argued, was an output of the “something must be done” mentality. Scandals surrounding lobbying are nothing new, and, as we have heard, they undermine public trust. Simply requiring lobbyists—or rather some lobbyists—to be on a register has not really tackled the problem. As we have heard, the objection to extending the register to cover in-house lobbyists is one of cost, yet what we have is a limited register that requires a bureaucracy, albeit not a large one, that puts a burden on the public purse. As it stands, I am not sure it justifies the expense. We expend the money for no clear benefit in public trust. We need a radical reset if we are to ensure that lobbying operates in a fully transparent manner. The problem is not so much one of resources but of political will.
The answer is to ensure that there is transparency at the point when a policy is announced. If the representations made are revealed, then one has openness. It produces discipline, with Ministers knowing that what has been put to them is known. That should help to bolster support for their policies, if they can show the persuasive arguments that have been placed before them. The focus shifts from the status of those lobbying to the content of the lobbying: in essence, it removes the need for a register. As I said in 2013:
“Any representations made to anyone in the department would be shown. It would not matter who the lobbyists were: full-time independent lobbyists, in-house lobbyists, part-time lobbyists or individuals making representations on that particular issue—all would be caught. We would thus have true, comprehensive transparency. That is the key point, and it is important that we establish the principle”.—[Official Report, 5/11/13; col. 191]
The Minister responding to that debate was the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire. He said of my amendment:
“I took him down as saying that the Government believe in transparency but not too far. I would say that the Government believe in transparency, but want to be proportionate in our approach”.—[Official Report, 5/11/12; col. 196]
That was an interesting concept. Perhaps the Minister today can tell us the threshold for determining disproportionate transparency.
The public money used to maintain the register could be deployed instead to facilitate the release of representations made to government. Such transparency was achievable when we debated the Bill back in 2013 and, given the strides made in technology since, this can now be achieved far more efficiently than was the case then.
This takes us beyond the content of the Bill before us, but it helps make the case for it. The argument I have deployed emphasises that what is before us is a modest but necessary measure to address a deficiency in the 2014 Act. I hope the Minister will give it a fair wind. It would be even better, of course, if she announces that the Government are prepared to go further and ensure that we have full transparency. Let us pass this Bill, and then get on and be a leader internationally in ensuring the transparency of lobbying.
Viscount Chandos (Lab)
I congratulate my noble friend Lady Hayter of Kentish Town on her success in the ballot for Private Members’ Bills—I have asked her to advise me on my future selection of lottery numbers—and on her compelling introduction to this important and overdue Bill. Like my noble friend and other speakers, I believe that lobbying is an essential and potentially productive component in the communication between government and business, consumer groups and other constituencies. Governments should not determine policy or propose legislation in a vacuum but rather do so, as far as possible, after considered and thoughtful interaction with all interested parties.
The quality of that interaction is directly related to the transparency of the conversations that the Government have, to enable everyone, from legislators to the public, to form a view as to how the balance has been struck between the arguments and the interests of different parties. The Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014, amid its many other more overtly partisan measures, attempted to increase the transparency with which lobbying was conducted. But this start was fundamentally flawed, with a statutory register set up, as we have heard, only in respect of external consultants and not in-house lobbyists. Without disrespect to the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, this was demonstrably a wrong call by the then coalition Government, even though arguments were made at the time that other initiatives were supposedly in train that made it inappropriate to cast the net wider to include in-house lobbying.
The past 12 years have laid bare the failure of those other initiatives and processes, which were meant to create the level playing field and necessary level of transparency for all lobbying. That is why I welcome and support this Bill so strongly and wish to see it on the statute book, or instead, in the light of the Prime Minister’s commissioning in March this year of the Ethics and Integrity Commission to review the issue of lobbying, disclosure and access to government, have its measures incorporated into wider government legislation.
My support for the Bill is informed by two past roles I have held and by one current one, which I will formally declare as an interest. Some time ago, I was the chair of a public relations and public affairs consultancy, albeit as a corporate suit rather than as a lobbying practitioner, and more recently, until last February, I was chair of a trade association. In both cases—one already required to register and one which would be required to register under the terms of this Bill—I believe that these organisations would see this as a desirable and positive change.
My current role, as included in my entry in the register, is as a director of Digbeth Loc. Studios Ltd, a company now operating the first phase of a film and television studio in Digbeth, Birmingham, and planning further phases as part of the overall regeneration of Digbeth. One of my co-directors is the distinguished screenwriter Steven Knight, who has been the driving force for over 10 years in rectifying the historical underrepresentation of the West Midlands in film and television production, and hence employment in the skilled sectors needed for that activity.
Steven Knight is a passionate and, not surprisingly, articulate advocate for his vision with Ministers and regional and local government leaders. Indeed, if he grows tired of screenwriting, he would be an outstanding professional lobbyist, however much that would disappoint the fans of “Peaky Blinders” and James Bond, whose next film he is writing. For many years, he operated essentially on a solo basis. Even now, with a very small corporate infrastructure in place, there is not a public affairs department of the sort that large companies and organisations will have. The noble Baroness, Lady Finn, has flagged her concern at the implications of the Bill for small businesses and organisations. I offer Digbeth Loc. Studios as a vivid case of what may not represent a large proportion of lobbying activity but can be vital for innovation and for social and economic change.
I do not believe that there should be any exemption for small companies and organisations. The ludicrousness of the VAT threshold exemption for consultancies should be a warning against that. I do not believe either that the registration fee is a meaningful issue. Even small companies have to incur similar or greater costs in the ordinary course of their business. What is crucial, though, is ensuring that the registration process, both initial and continuing, is as streamlined as possible for organisations that do not have the established public affairs department of, say, a big pharma or energy company. That said, I strongly support my noble friend’s Bill and look forward to the later stages when we can address the details and issues which I and other noble Lords have raised.
Baroness Helic (Con)
My Lords, I warmly welcome the Bill introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. I congratulate her on bringing this important measure before the House and seeking to bring the United Kingdom more closely into line with jurisdictions including Scotland, Canada and others, all of which have adopted broader approaches to lobbying transparency. I also welcome the words of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and support his proposals.
The principle behind the Bill is straightforward: if consultant lobbyists are required to disclose their activities, there is no convincing reason why large organisations with substantial in-house lobbying operations should not be subject to a comparable transparency requirement. Greater transparency strengthens public confidence, improves accountability and increasingly serves our national security interests. I therefore strongly support both the purpose and direction of this Bill.
However, registration is only the beginning. Transparency has real value only if the information disclosed is examined, understood and, where appropriate, acted on. A register should not simply be a repository of information; it should be a tool that enables government and Parliament to identify patterns of influence, assess potential risks and ensure that lobbying is conducted openly and responsibly.
The foreign influence registration scheme provides a useful illustration. Although it serves a different purpose from the lobbying regime before us, it demonstrates that disclosure alone cannot answer the more difficult policy questions. Political influence activity may lawfully be registered under FIRS on behalf of overseas public authorities or bodies connected to individuals or entities that are under United Kingdom sanctions, based on the fact that it influences and engages UK defence and security policy—currently, there is at least one example. Registration provides transparency, but it does not resolve the question of whether such activity is compatible with the public interest or whether it warrants closer scrutiny. Disclosure is therefore the beginning of effective oversight, not its conclusion.
The same principle applies to the Bill. Extending the register of consultant lobbyists to encompass significant in-house lobbying operations will undoubtedly improve transparency, yet the success of the measure will depend not simply on the volume of information that we collect but on whether that information is systematically analysed, emerging risks are identified and appropriate action follows. Otherwise, we risk creating the appearance of accountability without fully achieving it.
Other jurisdictions have recognised this. Germany’s lobbying register requires lobbyists to identify the legislation and policy proposal they seek to influence, while the United States’s Foreign Agents Registration Act requires considerably more detailed reporting of clients, activities and expenditure. These approaches demonstrate that transparency is most effective when it generates information that enables meaningful scrutiny, rather than merely satisfying a reporting requirement.
This is particularly relevant at a time when democratic institutions face increasingly sophisticated attempts to shape public policy or political debate by external factors. Most lobbying is entirely legitimate and makes a valuable contribution to better policy-making. The challenge for the Government is to distinguish legitimate engagement from activity that may undermine the public interest or present wider risks. That requires not only transparency but effective analysis, proportionate oversight and informed judgment.
Against this background, I have three questions for the Minister. First, how will the Government ensure that the additional information generated by this Bill is systematically analysed so that it strengthens accountability and informs policy-making, rather than simply increasing compliance requirements? Secondly, where lobbying activity raises concerns related to foreign policy, national security or other significant public interests, what mechanisms exist to ensure that transparency is accompanied by appropriate risk assessment and, where necessary, proportionate action? Thirdly, as the Government review the operation of the foreign influence registration scheme and the register of consultant lobbyists, will they consider whether lessons from each regime can be used to inform the future development of the other so that the United Kingdom has a coherent and effective framework for transparency in political influence?
I welcome the Bill because it addresses an important gap in the current framework. It represents a significant step towards greater openness and accountability. But, as I have said, transparency should be regarded as the beginning of effective oversight, not its end. Unless the information disclosed is thematically analysed and used to inform the Government’s decision-making, we risk creating the appearance of accountability without fully delivering it. The Bill provides an opportunity not only to expand transparency but to ensure that transparency serves its proper purpose in strengthening confidence in our democratic institutions.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
My Lords, I am pleased to add my support to my noble friend Lady Hayter of Kentish Town. We need more lobbying transparency in the Lords.
We have been here before. My noble friend encouraged me to table a Private Member’s Bill on this topic back in 2016. I remind the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, that we managed to get it through. The noble Lord contributed significantly, with many amendments. I look forward to seeing him do that again, and to him giving support to try to get this Bill on to the statute book.
We had the Second Reading of my Bill on 9 September 2016. It endeavoured to build on the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014, which had its deficiencies. It is very important indeed, in the light of what happened with Covid, that we are back on this topic. I am not going to speak at great length. If anybody wants any great justification from me for supporting this, I suggest they look at the Hansard for 2016, which I have recently refreshed myself on. I read many of the speeches again.
The case is compelling and I believe that we have heard a general movement towards support for the Bill as this debate has proceeded, even though the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, was rather more strident in her opposition than her counterpart was back in 2016. I hope that she will be prepared to move her ground a little bit, because change is needed. Transparency is needed. We need to build that trust. The House of Lords is certainly out of step with the Commons, Scotland and Europe, and well out of step, as demonstrated by the previous speaker, with what happens in the United States. I hope that we can see a coming together and that this time around it will be different because—I will conclude on this—we have a different Government in power.
I have a question to my Front-Bench colleague. I hope she will indicate that this Government will support this Private Member’s Bill. It seeks a modest change. At a minimum, if the Minister cannot say that she will embrace it totally, I hope she will be prepared to indicate the way in which we can take the substance and principles of this change and add it to other legislation that may be in prospect, to ensure that we have greater transparency and accountability in the Lords than we have at the moment.
Lord Empey (UUP)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to be in the Chamber discussing a piece of legislation on a Friday morning; it is a bit of a change from the atmosphere of the Colosseum that we have been used to on Friday mornings this year. Nevertheless, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, has struck a chord. There is clearly a broad consensus. The previous speaker was perhaps a little harsh on the Opposition; I think the principle is accepted, as opposed to the minutiae. We all look forward to getting to Committee, when we can get down to the detail.
The big thing that has happened in the past 12 years since the current arrangements were introduced is that not only has the technology changed but the whole structure of government and access to government has changed. We have had an exponential growth in spads. Of course, these people are now the recipients of a lot of lobbying. The Government themselves—as we have all done in bringing forward legislation—actively seek consultation as part of our process. The noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, and others have pointed to some of the anomalies, and they may not be included in the current legislation. VAT is one thing; it does not make sense.
Of course we do not wish to get into a hugely bureaucratic process, but what is perfectly obvious is that what we have today is not doing it. We need look no further than this House itself, where, unfortunately, some Members have found themselves falling foul of our own procedures and there is scepticism in the general public as to whether things are open and clear. The noble Lord, Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury, made a valid point: we all lobby Ministers; we do so, perhaps, during a vote. This sort of thing happens every day and it is part of the process, but it is a question of getting a balance and the fact of the matter is that the balance is wrong at the moment. We have an opportunity here.
I suspect that the Minister’s response will be, “We will have the EIC report next week and we will wait and see what that says”—it is on page two of her briefing. I understand that and that is fine but, because there is a broad feeling around the Chamber that we need to do something, it would be good if the Minister could guarantee either that the Government will provide more time for this Bill or, better still, that they will adopt its principles and bring forward their own proposals. I think that would be broadly welcomed around the Chamber.
The other anomaly is, of course, the limit to the Minister and the Perm Sec. My experience is that the Permanent Secretary does not, by and large, get involved in the day-to-day things; it goes much further down, to directors or people of that calibre.
I think we all know what needs to be done. The Bill is on the table; let us do it. I hope the Minister will be able to send us away rejoicing at the end of this debate that she will adopt this and be its champion as we move forward to the next stage.
Lord Hayward (Con)
My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to speak in the gap. I did not put my name down to speak because I was at a Madonna concert last night and I was not absolutely certain that I would be available. That is relevant, in that I was a guest of a major company. That company was Grindr, and the question about lobbying is relevant in terms of the actions of major companies. I noticed a number of noble Lords’ response to my presence at the gig last night; it looked like jealousy.
The important thing about this welcome Bill from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, is that it raises questions about how people lobby now. We have heard a lot of contributions about how circumstances have changed, particularly concerning those people who are paid but do not, at the moment, have to declare the fact that they are actually lobbying. One of the groups that comes to mind is lawyers. Lawyers will claim client confidentiality or say that it is a peripheral interest, but if they are paid to represent a particular view or to advise in relation to a particular issue, it is appropriate that major law firms—or small law firms, for that matter—should be obliged to disclose what they are doing in the same way that others who will be affected by the noble Baroness’s Bill should be required to disclose their actions.
In conclusion, I agree with the questions that the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, raised about some of the implications of the Bill, because it is easy to pass a piece of legislation and think, “Oh, it doesn’t affect small businesses”; there has been reference to small businesses. Every bit of regulation that impacts on a small business adds to cost. Therefore, there are two ways of looking at, or exempting, certain circumstances or occasions that have been cited about private conversations and the like. One way is to ask whether they are paid to do so, and the other is some form of de minimis turnover that might apply in relation to small businesses. It is just too easy to say, “Oh, well, it’s just a little sum of money”. Lots of little sums of money can send a lot of small businesses under and we certainly would not want that to happen. But in broad principle, I welcome the Bill’s objective because it brings us up to date with where we are in terms of lobbying in 2026.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Barker) (LD)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, is hoping to take part remotely, but he has been having audio problems. It appears that the problems have not been resolved, therefore I call the noble Lord, Lord Pack.
Lord Pack (LD)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, on winning the legislative lottery. I too am envious of her luck and thank her for choosing this focused but important topic.
I used to work for a consultancy firm and some of that work involved lobbying, so I have personal experience of being subject to the regulatory regime that we are talking about. It is perhaps no surprise, therefore, that I share the view that others have expressed about the benefits that good, reputable lobbying can bring in fostering useful dialogue and a useful exchange of information and expertise that can inform and, therefore, improve decision-making. However, as the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, said, sunlight is the best disinfectant. There absolutely are aspects of lobbying to be concerned or nervous about, but the best way of protecting the good, genuinely beneficial side of lobbying is a strong dose of sunlight to distinguish that from other activities and behaviour.
I will talk a little more about the light-touch nature of the current set-up in a moment, as that has come up in some of the speeches this morning, but first, it is worth highlighting just how back-to-front the situation we have ended up in is. We had a bit of a history lesson as to how we have ended up where we are, but it is a very odd, back-to-front situation. Normally when we talk about regulation, we do it on the basis that the larger, the more powerful, the richer you are, the more important it is to be regulated. Instead, we have ended up with the opposite situation: the small outfit that cannot afford an in-house lobbying operation employs consultant lobbyists and is therefore regulated, while the large, rich, more powerful organisation that can afford an in-house team escapes regulation. It is the exact opposite of what we have repeatedly legislated for in all sorts of other areas.
It is also a back-to-front situation in that normally, when we discuss regulation in one form or another, one of the elements of the debate is hearing the people who will be most directly affected by the regulation saying, “Please don’t go too far. We don’t want too many burdens placed on us”. We obviously have to judge that against the wider interest, but in this case it is again back-to-front. As we have heard from the CIPR and other industry bodies, the view of the lobbying industry overall, collectively, is very much that they wish the regulation to change. It feels a little Alice in Wonderland, in that we have been doing the exact opposite of what we usually do in other areas.
As there have been some references to the potential administrative burden of extending the current regime, it is worth highlighting a couple of points. One is that it is a pretty light-touch regime. I certainly did not feel that I was being unduly burdened. There was certainly a little nervousness each time I collated the list of things that we needed to make sure that we were declaring, because you really do not want to leave something out of that list by mistake, but it is fundamentally a light-touch, low-cost regime.
The noble Baroness, Lady Finn, said that, in some ways, this is not a cumbersome step. I disagree only slightly: I would say that in every way it is not a cumbersome step. However, I would also say that if we compare the administrative and financial burdens, small though they are, that the Bill would extend to some firms to the burdens that, for example, any of those firms who export goods or services to the European Union now face following Brexit then this is extremely small compared with those additional burdens that some in this House, at least, have enthusiastically argued are reasonable and acceptable.
There has also been some reference to the Government’s transparency data, the extent to which it provides an appropriate form of regulation of lobbying and whether we therefore need to extend the current regime. A couple of points are worth reflecting on. Since that government transparency data was first introduced, there have been continuing queries, comments and, sometimes, complaints about the quality, timeliness and format of that data. There is a point at which it is reasonable to say that the problem has been going on for so long that simply hoping that it will be fixed and everything will therefore be resolved is maybe not the right step to take.
More fundamentally, there are occasions when double transparency, or double regulation, as one might wish to call it, is the right thing to do. It is beneficial to have not only the government transparency data—in, one hopes, an improved and enhanced format—but a requirement on lobbyists. That double procedure acts as a double protection. Indeed, we are quite used to the idea of doing something twice to be absolutely sure that we have it right, such as with double-entry bookkeeping. Nobody who does double-entry bookkeeping thinks, “This is an awful administrative burden. What a waste having to do everything twice”. Double-entry bookkeeping has become so widespread because the very act of doing things twice is a cross check to make sure that you are getting it right. In this case, that sunlight is so important that having transparency requirements on both ends of the process is not a duplication or unnecessary; it is an essential part of having a robust system in which we can trust.
I suspect that the Minister will tell us that the Ethics and Integrity Commission’s report on lobbying is coming shortly and that, in many ways, it makes sense to roll this issue into a wider government response to that. As the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, the noble Lords, Lord Lansley, Lord Norton and Lord Empey, the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, and others have raised in this debate, there are certainly other important aspects to this topic that need addressing. But whatever route we choose to take, whether it is through the Bill immediately in front of us now, a wider government response in due course or perhaps even through both routes, it is important that there is change. This is about enhancing and protecting our democracy, and, frankly, our own reputations. The more controversy, doubt, conspiracy theories and scandals there are around lobbying, the more that damages all of us in this House and in politics in general. One might think that that is an important act of self-interest, but it is also an important act of public good to improve and enhance our systems.
We should do more than what the Bill offers, but that is not a reason not to do the bit that the Bill in front of us gives us the opportunity to do. So often we hear action being promised “when legislative time allows”. Well, we have some legislative time and a piece of legislation in front of us. I hope that the Government and this House will, in due course, support the Bill.
Lord Shinkwin (Con) [V]
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to be able to speak in support of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, twice in the same week. I do so today because I start from the premise that transparency is inherently a good thing.
Transparency in lobbying is not only a good thing; it is crucial, because transparency engenders and underpins trust in individuals, in the decision-making system and in the policy-influencing process informing it. The noble Baroness’s Bill makes sense because transparency makes sense. The fact that this modest Bill addresses an omission from the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014 makes the measures within it both logical and necessary—necessary because, as we have already heard, while consultant lobbyists comprise around 20% of those who lobby, they are currently the only group the register covers. In other words, the vast majority are not on the register. They need to be.
I speak as someone who was privileged to spend 95% of his career before coming to the House as an in-house lobbyist for some of the UK’s best household names in the charity sector. In fact, it was through working for charities such as RNID, Macmillan Cancer Relief, as it then was, Cancer Research UK and the Royal British Legion that I came to really appreciate the value of your Lordships’ House. On Monday of next week, the latest Armed Forces Bill, which this time focuses on the Armed Forces covenant, will receive its Second Reading. That is happening only because the principles of the Armed Forces covenant were enshrined in law for the first time in the Armed Forces Act 2011, when I led the public affairs team at the Royal British Legion. That, in turn, came about only because Philip Hollobone, formerly of the other place, and then your Lordships’ House took it to the wire and backed the legion’s campaign on the Armed Forces covenant right through to ping-pong—if my memory serves me correctly.
At no point in that campaign did I or any of my team act without transparency. Indeed, the Prime Minister at the time, now the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, might have wished that we had, at least in the directness of our campaigning. We did not pull our punches, and he was very gracious in the way he conceded the need for the covenant principles of no disadvantage due to service and special treatment where injury is sustained on service to be enshrined in law—and in none the less recommending me for a peerage a few years later. I thank him on both counts. I would never have had a problem with being required to sign a register of in-house lobbyists, and of lobbyists overall, and I cannot imagine why anyone who has nothing to hide would either.
I close by returning to the point about the importance of trust. It is the glue that binds people and politicians together. Earlier this week, the House recognised the urgency of getting the National Security (State Threats) Bill on to the statute book as soon as possible. It did so because democracy is under attack by hostile state and non-state actors as never before. This Bill is the other side of the same coin because it recognises that enhancing faith in our democratic parliamentary system is crucial to taking the fight to those who would seek to undermine our democratic principles. Now is the time to enhance trust through transparency. This Bill does that, and I welcome it.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, this has been a thought-provoking debate, with excellent contributions from all sides of the House. Private Members’ Bills are so often a good way to start a debate on a topic that otherwise would not be discussed in so much detail. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, has certainly achieved that with this Bill. The Bill has provoked an interesting debate on the important balance between transparency—which, like other noble Lords across the Chamber, we strongly support—and administrative burdens, particularly those on small businesses.
Ministers rely on open and frank conversations with stakeholders, whether they be businesses or charities. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, has been very clear that she is not opposed to that. Our concern is that this Bill, by placing an administrative and financial burden—as my noble friend Lord Hayward also highlighted—on organisations that engage with Ministers, could disincentivise those open and frank channels of discussions that Ministers rely on.
Furthermore, we are concerned about the unintended consequences. My noble friend Lady Finn gave the example of a pub landlord who might have to register following a conversation with a visiting Minister. My noble friend Lord Sherbourne spoke eloquently about the impact of the Bill on the relationship between government and the business community and gave a number of examples where there could rightly be some confusion.
I would like to give two further scenarios for the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, to consider as she prepares to take her Bill forward to Committee. First, her Bill made me think of the much-loved British cabbie. All of us will have got into a taxi and immediately found ourselves in conversation with the taxi driver on the issues of the day. Cabbies talk to their customers about their day, their work, the businesses they run and the challenges they are facing in those businesses. If a cab driver were to say to a customer who happened to be a Minister that the Government ought to change policy to make it easier for him to do business, would he have to register as an in-house lobbyist? It is these brush-by conversations and social interactions that risk confusion, registration and attendant costs.
The second scenario I would like to put to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, is that of the Minister meeting a local business at a constituency surgery: a local businessman, employee or charity goes to a constituency surgery with their local Member of Parliament to inform them of a particular challenge they are facing. Is this not deemed to be lobbying? It is merely, I quote now from Edmund Burke, an MP doing their duty to be in:
“the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents”.
But under this Bill, if the local Member of Parliament is a Minister, it seems the local business could be deemed to be an in-house lobbyist. Can the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, comment on that discrepancy?
It is clear from these examples that the definition of an in-house lobbyist in this Bill is far too broad. Where is the line? We would be happy, though, to work with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, to seek to improve on this as we go into both Committee and then Report.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)
My Lords, first, I thank my noble friend Lady Hayter for bringing forward this Bill and facilitating such a thought-provoking debate on such an important topic. I find myself in the very unusual position, for a Lords Minister, of actually speaking from the Dispatch Box on a policy area that I am in theory responsible for, so we will see how well this goes.
My noble friend Lady Hayter has campaigned with admirable vigour on this issue over many years. Indeed, many of the issues raised across your Lordships’ House today were highlighted with foresight by my noble friend in Opposition during the passage of the lobbying Act 12 years ago. Along with the active campaigning of the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, and my noble friend Lord Brooke, I think it is fair to say that there is considered to be unfinished business in this area.
As we have heard, this Bill would transform the register of consultant lobbyists into to a broader register of all lobbyists, including in-house lobbyists working on behalf of their employer, engager or principal. In doing so, it would significantly expand the 2014 Act’s prohibition on consultant lobbying unless registered and the associated civil and criminal penalties scheme. When considering the question of transparency around lobbying, we should note that it is the Government’s own publication of Ministers’ and senior officials’ meetings that has carried the weight of our transparency obligations on lobbying over many years. This dataset is published to reflect those lobbying engagements which have received sufficiently serious consideration by government that the issue has warranted a meeting with the relevant Minister or official.
The 2014 Act was designed to complement this dataset, as the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, rightly highlighted. Where a Minister or senior official is meeting with a consultant lobbying company and making a declaration as such, it would not be immediately clear whose interests were being advocated for. The 2014 Act was designed to remedy that flaw, requiring all consultant lobbyists to publish a list of their clients. However, the Government recognise the view of a number of Members of your Lordships’ House and across the wider public relations sector that this system of transparency around lobbying does not have widespread support and is widely viewed as insufficient. I repeat: it is unfinished business.
The Prime Minister recognised that there is more to be done on transparency around lobbying to further strengthen standards in public life. High standards of integrity in public life create stability and certainty. In turn, this builds trust in the consistency of public authorities and the conduct of their officials. Trust creates confidence, particularly for members of the public and businesses that want to make decisions that are positive for economic growth in the knowledge that they may face less risk.
There are also, as the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, highlighted, national security considerations, as transparency can help protect us from the efforts of bad faith actors too. In the current climate, it is a very important element of this discussion, and that is why we commissioned the Ethics and Integrity Commission to look into this matter—I say to the noble Lord, Lord Empey, that that was point 12, not page 2. Noble Lords will be aware that the EIC is due to report very shortly, and we are grateful for the work it has completed at significant pace.
While we await the EIC’s recommendation, I hope noble Lords will accept that the Government must express our reservations about progressing this Bill today. On receipt of the EIC’s recommendations, we will consider the case for legislative reform very carefully, and while the views of noble Lords expressed in this debate will undoubtedly form an important part of that consideration, we will need to take some time to consider these issues in the round. Undoubtedly, the next Prime Minister will also have strong views on strengthening trust in public life.
When the Government consider the question of reforming the 2014 lobbying Act on receipt of the EIC report, we will want to look at all aspects of the lobbying scheme: privileged access to decision-makers, transparency arrangements and business appointment rules, as well as the recommendations of the Rycroft review, rather than solely the question of whether or not to bring in-house lobbyists into scope. But that does not mean that I am not sympathetic to many of the points raised in this debate.
With that being said, I will now turn to some of the specific points raised in the debate on the 2014 Act. I believe this debate raises three questions for the Government to consider when we receive the Ethics and Integrity Commission’s report. The first question at the heart of the debate on transparency around lobbying is: should it be the Government who carry the transparency obligation or the lobbyist? Our current system places that obligation almost entirely on government, with the register of consultant lobbyists providing transparency only on a very small element of the lobbying conducted.
I have heard the arguments from across your Lordships’ House and from important stakeholders that the public relations sector feels we have got the balance wrong. I recognise there is a desire from the public relations sector for lobbyists to carry more of the transparency obligation, and for all lobbyists—rather than just consultant lobbyists—to declare their lobbying activity. This is, of course, the purpose of my noble friend’s Bill, but it provides the opportunity also to establish a kitemark in lobbying, making it clear both for Ministers and others who it is acceptable to engage with. Which brings me to the next point.
At the heart of this Bill is the question of who is a lobbyist, as touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Hayward. The Bill is drafted to amend the 2014 lobbying Act to include the term “in-house lobbyist” throughout, covering those working on behalf of their employer, engager or principal. We should be clear that when we think of an in-house lobbyist, we are not just thinking of public affairs managers at large corporations or other private sector bodies; in-house lobbyists may include a wide range of organisations making representations to government, including charities, campaign groups, think tanks and others. We should not fall into the trap of thinking that transparency around lobbying is required only for those advocating on behalf of private or corporate interests. I want to assure your Lordships’ House that, as we consider reforms to the lobbying transparency scheme, we will use a definition of lobbyists that is fair and proportionate across different sectors and types of organisations.
We must also however ensure that we do not create unnecessary or disproportionate bureaucratic obstacles to individual citizens’ routine engagement with government. As many Members of your Lordships’ House have stated, and I agree, lobbying is not a bad word. Engagement with Ministers is a core British right and value. Listening to our fellow citizens is also a sensible approach for any Government seeking to make their legislation work.
In terms of making our legislation work, good definitions are key. The 2014 lobbying Act defines lobbying as
“oral or written communications made personally to a Minister of the Crown or permanent secretary”,
relating to any potential government legislation, policy or functions. Such a definition is broad in scope.
I recognise my noble friend’s view that this definition is sufficient in capturing the range of government engagements that might commonly be seen as lobbying. While this may be the case when the definition is applied solely to public relations professionals—be they in-house or consultants—we would want to think carefully about how such a definition might work if applied to a much wider range of government organisations and engagements.
Ministers will have all manner of engagements and conversations in the course of their work on matters of government business. Not all of these, however, could reasonably be said to constitute lobbying, and fewer still of these engagements might be said to constitute lobbying formal enough, or taken seriously enough, to warrant publication on an external transparency register.
A change in approach to the scope of declaration requirements, such as applying the 2014 Act’s definition to a far wider range of lobbyists, would require careful consideration to ensure that the right balance is struck between informing the public about meaningful lobbying engagements, and not putting too much irrelevant or trivial information into a transparency scheme, which means it is of limited value.
Turning to some of the questions I have been asked, not least by the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, and my noble friend Lady Carberry about the single transparency register, I reassure your Lordships’ House this was not scrapped by this Government: it was not funded by the last Government. They announced it without any budget associated to it and it therefore has not been progressed. However, this is a matter which the EIC is considering and that we will reflect on after the publication of its report.
With regard to another point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, the flat fee scheme, we are aware of concerns raised about its disproportionate impact on smaller businesses, and any decision on funding will depend on the scope and range of a revised register, if changes were to be made.
The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, touched on declaring the subject matter of lobbying approaches on the register. I recognise concerns that the information published on the register does not always enable the public to understand the subject matter of the lobbying approach. Requiring consultant lobbyists to publish the subject matter of their lobbying could be one way to approach the issue, and we will consider this carefully. Ministers and senior officials already publish the subject matter of their meetings, which goes some way to putting this information into the public domain, although I appreciate that there may be further recommendations from the EIC in this space, and we will reflect on them.
Several Members of your Lordships’ House also touched on the issue of the VAT exemption, not least my noble friend Lord Stansgate, the noble Lord, Lord Empey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. The Government recognise that the current VAT exemption has had the unintended consequence of exempting foreign-based lobbying from the ORCL transparency scheme. We are grateful to Philip Rycroft for his review and will consider this change carefully. The change would require primary legislation, and we will consider all recommendations for legislative change together.
The noble Baroness, Lady Helic, also asked me to consider three points: on the strengthening of accountability and how we analyse data, transparency and risk assessment, and FIRS versus ORCL. As we are awaiting such a substantial report in this area of recommendations, I will ensure that those issues are included in the round when we are debating next steps in terms of the EIC’s report.
The noble Lord, Lord Hayward, also rightly focused on lawyers, but there are other organisations which also campaign—or lobby directly—in this space under the “incidental purpose” exemption. We are aware of the concerns that a significant amount of lobbying can and does fall under the incidental purpose exemption. We will want to consider carefully any possible amendments to this exemption, which will be affected by the scope and range of any revisions to the register. As I have said, it is possible by calling yourself a think tank, or a lawyer, or through other ways, to get round the current process, which is why, as my noble friend Lady Hayter highlighted, fewer than 5% of people are currently touched by the regime.
In conclusion, I thank my noble friend Lady Hayter for raising this important issue and provoking a discussion on reform to the 2014 lobbying Act. I applaud her consistent campaigning—or should I say lobbying?—on this issue and her commitment to improving the transparency and integrity of our democracy, an aspiration I genuinely share.
We know there is more that can be done on transparency around lobbying. That is exactly why the Prime Minister has commissioned the Ethics and Integrity Commission to report on this matter, and I look forward to its report. However, until we have its report, the Government are not in a position to make any policy commitments on reform, and therefore I cannot support the Bill. However, I am sure all noble Lords will look forward to seeing the conclusions of the EIC review, and the Government will give that report the full and fair consideration it deserves, in a timely manner.
As a final point, I hope my response genuinely does not disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Empey—I would hate to do that—and that he and many Members of your Lordships’ House have a little hope about our direction of travel.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, I do not know what flatters me most. I think it is the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, moving from Madonna to myself—which I think is the biggest vote of confidence I have ever had from anyone.
I am delighted by those who have come today. I do not know whether I would call the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, one of the “guilty men” for having put through a Bill I think we now agree was perhaps a little too modest. In fact, even the Bill today is being called too modest. The noble Lords, Lord Norton and Lord Pack, and my noble friend Lord Brooke, all called it modest, which is a good start from where we go.
I thank the Minister, my noble friend Lady Anderson. She said this is unfinished business. I am going to take that as a very positive statement that she is promising the Government will do a little more—because what we all know is that it is time for change. I am not going to try to answer all the points she has so nicely dealt with, but it is important to note the breadth of support we have had. The noble Baroness, Lady Helic, also pointed not just to transparency but to the responsibility of lobbying: that it should be in the public interest. The noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, also expressed how transparency itself can enhance trust, which my noble friend Lady Carberry also said.
I think we all agree that lobbying is good and we do not want it to be in any way diminished by this. However, there is issue of sunlight, which I mentioned, and my noble friend Lord Stansgate reminded us that it was Justice Brandeis who first used that phrase. As the noble Lord, Lord Empey, said, this is timely, but we also know what needs to be done. My plea to the Minister is not to delay. My noble friend Lord Brooke mentioned the Covid inquiry, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, mentioned Greensill. We cannot wait for another scandal; let us get this right and let us do it quickly.
Issues were raised about cost. I have to say that that is a bit of red herring. I am very sympathetic, having run very small charities, but if you go to a consultant lobbyist, it costs you much more than £1,000 to get their advice. If you happen to be based in Manchester—I do not know why I mentioned Manchester—and you bring three of your people down to meet a Minister, that is going to cost you more than £1,000. So, let us not use this as an excuse for not bringing a bit more sunlight into this.
There are some other issues about administration and determining what is a private conversation. I have to say, I think the example of the cabbie was a bit OTT. What is a private conversation? Is it meeting? That is all covered in the Act now, because if a consultant lobbyist has a brush by or happens to meet someone at a school, a pub or anywhere else, the issue of what counts as a Minister is dealt with in the current law. So perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, ought to be asking, “What exactly did it mean by a meeting?”, because that is the current law. All we are saying is that it is relevant whether it is a consultant lobbyist or the chair of a PLC having a formal conversation with a Minister.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Sherbourne, that we do not want this to have a chilling effect, but we need to know who is talking to Ministers about what. The problem at the moment is that the ministerial declarations are nowhere near detailed enough. So, they may meet a publican, but they do not know whether that meeting is about alcohol pricing, the general age at which you can drink, or whether pubs should stay open until 5 am for a football match. Those are general policy issues, but if a publican saying, “I need something for my pub or brewery”, Ministers need to know whether they are being lobbied, in which case they should have a civil servant there, and they know what they should do. Let us not pretend that this is a new issue.
There is a difference between lobbying and general discussion. The Public Bill Office, when it helped me with writing the Bill, talked me through this. A headteacher meets a Minister and talks about general education. Is that an issue? No. They talk about how they find young people today. Is that an issue? No. If they ask for planning permission to extend their playground, that is lobbying. Ministers know it, and lobbyists know it.
I have left the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, until last. I have to say that I was very disappointed. I was disappointed yesterday, when we had a general discussion about the funding of political parties. Her answer seemed to be, “Don’t interfere with the size of donations given to political parties”. This does not seem a very good approach to these issues. One of her big questions was, “Is £1,000 too much for an organisation?”—
Baroness Finn (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for giving way. I find it rather disappointing that she is conflating today’s debate with a debate we had yesterday on political party funding, when I raised some serious concerns about the asymmetry of the Government’s approach. I did not necessarily want to go any further on the size or otherwise of donations, but I do not think it is relevant to the conversation today and why that was a disappointment.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
The issue is whether we want greater trust in democracy. That is what the Bill is about. The idea that we start putting technical and administrative difficulties—
Baroness Finn (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness again for giving way. If we are talking about trust in democracy, the point I was making yesterday was that if the Government of the day inflict substantial damage on opposition parties in terms of political party funding, that will call into question trust in democracy.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
I disagreed with what the noble Baroness was saying yesterday, but we do not need to go into the details of that. The point I am trying to make is that the Bill is about the core issue of enhancing trust in democracy, rather than constantly being concerned with how to get there, the cost or the administration. It may be too modest a Bill and it may not be the right Bill, but we are talking about enhancing trust in democracy. It is a shame that that attitude of the Official Opposition, whom the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, is speaking on behalf of, is all about the problems and not the great steps forward we could make.
I think that most people who spoke today were in favour of the Bill’s direction of travel, which is that we should not just regulate or register 5% of lobbying, as now, but move towards the other 95%. I think that is what we all want to achieve. I hope my noble friend the Minister will move more speedily than perhaps sometimes happens in government, for understandable reasons, and that we will soon move forward on this. For the moment, I beg to move.
Nature’s Rights Bill [HL]
(3 weeks, 4 days ago)
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle
That the Bill be now read a second time.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I begin by quoting the Government’s own words from a biodiversity strategy published jointly with the devolved Governments in February 2025:
“Biodiversity is key to all the processes that support life on Earth. We rely on it for our essential needs, like food, shelter, energy and medicine, as well as for the ecosystem services it provides, such as climate regulation, flood management, water purification, disease and pest control, and pollination. Additionally, more than half of the world’s gross domestic product … is highly or moderately dependent on nature”.
You would therefore think that the Government, and Governments around the world, would have established legal systems and forms to effectively protect and enhance nature, but that is not what is happening—particularly in the UK, one of the most nature-depleted countries on earth, as the State of Nature report of 2023 concluded. That report was arguably very soon after the 2021 Environment Act, which set the very modest target of halting the decline in species abundance by 2030.
But half a decade after the Act, there are still scant signs of progress. For evidence, I go to a peer-reviewed study by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, out this year, which found little sign of an end to the spiralling decline. Its lead author pointed to the grave risk of loss of the merlin, the mountain ringlet, large heath butterflies and plants such as burnt orchid, grass-of-parnassus and alpine gentian, and many other species. The lead author said:
“This will negatively affect local habitats and a range of ecological functions, from soil health and nutrient cycling to pollination and food production, with knock-on effects for wildlife and people”.
That reflects what is happening around the world. The UN Environment Programme found in 2019 that 150 countries have enshrined environmental protection or the right to a healthy environment in their constitutions, 176 countries have environmental framework laws and 164 countries have created cabinet-level bodies for environmental protection.
However, the laws for environmental protection have not worked. That is not surprising, for as Mari Margil from the US Centre for Democratic and Environmental Rights explains,
“environmental laws are put in place to determine how much we can harm or exploit nature”.
Environmental laws and regulations have not fundamentally changed the rate of environmental destruction, despite 60 years or more of awareness of environmental issues and half a century of environmental law. Short-term economic interests, particularly of powerful companies—now with resources and power rivalling those of all but the largest states—and nations’ determination to exploit and extract from states unable or unwilling to resist them, through mining, logging and polluting, have overwhelmed what are essentially ineffective legal provisions.
That has potentially existential consequences for humans and for our nation. The long-delayed and still not fully released joint intelligence chiefs’ report that finally emerged in January identified six ecosystem regions that it called
“critical for UK national security”
and which it said were, on a reasonable worst-case scenario, on the “pathway to collapse”.
The search has therefore begun for an alternative approach to secure the future of our biosphere and all our futures. The approach that many have settled on, and which the Bill brings in, is that of rights to nature.
I thank the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology for setting out a clear briefing about the ethical framework of rights to nature. It notes that there are “competing views” on this, and I expect we will hear some of those today, but it is worth going back through the origins of this issue.
The origins of this alternative approach are often traced back to Christopher Stone’s Should Trees Have Standing?, published in 1972, who noted that, for many centuries, women and slaves were not fully recognised as legal subjects, and described how there had been a progressive widening of the law’s circle of concern. Stone proposed that
“we give legal rights to forests, oceans, rivers and other so-called ‘natural objects’ in the environment—indeed, to the natural environment as a whole”—
which is what the Bill does.
The “rights to nature” approach offers a reset in our relationship and the ending of the disastrous 17th-century paradigm: a mechanistic worldview that falsely separates people, nature and the economy as though they can operate independently. Global application of that paradigm has led to this disaster, as the Stockholm Resilience Centre charts—literally, in the case of one diagram showing the current state of human impacts on nine planetary boundaries; seven of them have not just been exceeded but smashed. As the European Economic and Social Committee spokesman said:
“It’s irrational to have societal systems that undermine Nature”.
As one of the many who have mustered on Instagram to support the Bill put it beautifully, we need a green Magna Carta—and that is what the Bill I present before your Lordships today is.
The Bill was written by lawyer Mumta Ito of the Nature’s Rights charity, drawing on experience working with the UN Harmony With Nature programme—for more of its foundations your Lordships can go to a study conducted for the European Economic and Social Committee, Towards an EU Fundamental Charter for the Rights of Nature. What I present here today is a new legal framework that recognises nature’s rights as the foundation of human rights and social and economic activity. It aligns law with modern scientific understanding.
This is a long Bill, particularly for a Private Member’s Bill, at 57 pages, and it not only sets down a major change in legal principle but would: establish a legal duty of care for public bodies, business and individuals; establish an integrated rights framework; introduce mechanisms for dispute resolution and legal enforcement; establish a nature guardianship council, bioregional councils and a nature’s rights tribunal; and create a governance structure for implementation and integration. As usual, our excellent Library briefing sets out the impact of the Bill clause by clause, and the Bill itself is written in clear and accessible language, with a particular focus on ensuring that democracy and local democratic voices are at the heart of decision-making across its proposals. If we are going to “Change Everything”—yes, I have a book out with that title—we have to set out a plan, as well as a paradigm shift.
However, in this introductory speech I will concentrate chiefly on the major change in legal principle and approach—nature’s rights—because making the case is the first step to delivering it. I will focus on making the case for rights of nature as the foundation of a healthy society—and for all our futures—to genuinely, at scale, not just protect the fragments of poisoned, degraded, limited nature that we have left but regenerate it.
To do that, I will briefly outline the international picture. For, while the Bill is, I believe, the most comprehensive to be considered by any global legislature, the concept of rights of nature, and its application, has been spreading like a rich and diverse mycorrhizal fungal network, nourishing a flourishing tree of legal change.
To quote the Oxford Handbook of Comparative Environmental Politics, published in 2021, rights of nature has gone from being a radical idea espoused by only a handful of marginalised actors to a legal strategy seriously considered in a wide variety of domestic and international policy areas. Its authors count 185 legal provisions recognising rights of nature in 17 countries across five continents, with 50 more pending in 2021 across a dozen other countries. Rights of nature are also now recognised in many international policy documents.
Two exemplars are to be found in New Zealand—centred on the Whanganui River, a famous example—and Ecuador. Both cases are inspired, as is the whole nature’s rights movement, by indigenous thinking: the foundations of cultures that have existed for many thousands and in some cases tens of thousands of years, which have allowed human societies to live and flourish without trashing their local environments or the planet. Perhaps the most globally comprehensive is Article 71 of the Ecuadorian constitution, written in 2008:
“Nature, or Pacha Mama, where life is reproduced and occurs, has the right to integral respect for its existence and for the maintenance and regeneration of its life cycles, structure, functions and evolutionary processes”.
It is important to say that the Bill does not represent an alternative to very strong local action, such as by the Friends of the Thames and the Western Sussex Rivers Trust, working on rights of rivers, and declarations of the rights of rivers—on which the House of Commons Library recently wrote an excellent report—but, rather, it is complementary to those efforts. Defending the rights of one river can have only a limited impact on the microplastic and nano plastic pollution that now covers the planet, the explosion of novel entity pollution that has far exceeded the planet’s limits, and of course the climate emergency, with every tonne of carbon dioxide emitted having global impacts and every tonne prevented being emitted being a global positive. All that demands far broader action than just a focus on one river, as important as that is.
It is also entirely complementary with the campaign, of which I declare I am a member, to create an international offence of ecocide, and calls—on which I am also working—to strengthen the rights of Antarctica to continue to exist as a healthy part of the cryosphere. It also fits very well with the One Health approach that acknowledges that human, animal and environmental health are all interdependent.
I very much look forward to our debate today, and I thank the wide range of Peers who have signed up to participate. I particularly look forward to the Minister’s response, for the world is watching—I can say that from the social media interest that this debate has already generated.
The UK Government currently have no stance on the rights of nature on the formal record that the House of Lords Library could find. Two years ago, at the United Nations, the Tory Government caused international upset at the United Nations by vehemently opposing a Motion from Bolivia on
“living well in balance and harmony with Mother Earth and Mother Earth-centric actions”.
That included a passage on the rights of nature.
However, we now have a Labour Government, and I trust that we will hear for the first time whether they have moved on from that disastrous anthropocentric perspective of 2024. Labour’s 2024 manifesto acknowledged that we are in a “nature emergency” and said it would tackle
“the unforgivable pollution of our rivers and seas … promote biodiversity, and protect our landscapes and wildlife”.
In the nature’s rights debate, the Government have a chance to acknowledge demands acknowledging a place for nature, not as a source for extraction but as a place for the human and the more than human to flourish.
To conclude, any noble Lords participating today might like to check out Instagram, to see a positive use of social media offering broad support for the Bill from around the UK and beyond. I will finish with the words of one of those posts, from 12 year-old artist and naturalist Benjamin Fallow, who made a video supporting the Bill. He said:
“Listen to the children … we need nature and wildlife to survive”.
I beg to move.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, on introducing the Bill. It is a comprehensive Bill, given the number of clauses in it, and I completely understand the sentiment with which the noble Baroness is bringing it forward. She is right to point out that the Environment Act was important legislation but still only an element along the way to aspects being commenced and the like. I also understand the noble Baroness’s huge concern in recognising that this Government are rowing back on a lot of the measures that were put in that Act deliberately to try to improve the standing of nature.
The Natural History Museum’s index states that the UK stands 189th out of 240 countries when it comes to considering the completeness of a country’s original nature, with the UK having only 53%. The phrase often used is that the UK is one of the most nature-depleted places in the world, but that does not recognise the amount of change that has happened, with the growth in population, industrialisation and the like.
It is fair to say that it was recognised that we needed to get nature back into balance, which is what brought about the Environment Act. In 2024, in the Environmental Performance Index, run by Yale and Columbia Universities, the UK was the fifth-best in the world at trying to improve the environment. The only countries ahead of it were Estonia, Luxembourg, Germany and Finland. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, is particularly interested in ecosystem vitality, and on that the UK was the 11th-best in the world. That is because there has been a real focus on trying to restore habitats, and it is why I am worried about other aspects of the consultations that are already under way and changes that were made to the Planning and Infrastructure Act that seem to put habitat aside if a building could be placed there instead.
I am conscious that there has to be an ongoing balance between nature and the development of humanity and the development of housing, but I understand the noble Baroness’s sentiments as to why she thinks the Bill may be necessary. But I feel that the existing legislation already has a lot of what the noble Baroness wants, and that some of the extra points may well be superfluous.
This is an ambitious Bill. It is UK-wide, with only a duty to consult the devolved Administrations. The Government already have statutory advisers: Natural England is the principal statutory adviser on nature, and there is the OEP for aspects of legislation. In the Bill, “nature” is not defined. Will it cover all flora and fauna? Is it about landscapes? Is it about ecosystems? Is it about cryosystems? That is not defined in the Bill. If it is to include fauna, will the definition exclude kept and farmed animals? Is it supposed to be only what is in the natural environment? We will need to probe this further in Committee.
On trust, as I have already started to set out, I agree somewhat with the noble Baroness’s concerns. This is why I will continue to press on other aspects of legislation that are already coming through. I encourage the Defra family to think a bit more carefully about the development of trust. We have seen it elsewhere, with the climate, where people think that the world is going to end tomorrow and ask why we are to be the ones who save it. People start to become rather sceptical. When they hear about the actions we are undertaking but then hear that nothing is happening in other parts of the world, things becomes difficult. Let me give a recent example. In March, there was huge publicity around the coastal path being fully open around the country, but the Parliamentary Answer given by the Minister showed that that was not the case. This sort of deception, in the sense of publicity, is not helpful.
I do not know the 2024 Motion to which the noble Baroness referred—I was not in office then. However, I was proud to be leading the delegation to the second meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity, held in Montreal. We listened to the EU’s concerns about our ambitions but put them aside, reopened negotiations and made it completely comprehensive. Of course we need to keep going to ensure that it is a reality, but that reflects the ambition of the Conservative Government. Indeed, my noble friend Lord Gove was the leading force in driving the Environment Act.
I turn to the scrutiny of the legislation. Clause 45 largely sets these out to be negative resolutions—which surprised me—apart from the establishing of the bodies in Clauses 15, 17 and 28. For criminal offences, that makes sense, but I am nervous about the huge Henry VIII powers that are set out in Clause 46 and Clause 45(f). I gently say that Clause 45(3) is one of the few places where affirmative resolutions are referred to, but it refers to “section 43(6)”, which is not actually in the Bill. Maybe something got deleted by accident. It would be interesting to hear what further parts of the Bill that was intended to apply to.
How do the noble Baroness and the Minister think this will work with the EU reset? An important part of this will be recognising that, if we are in an EU reset, very soon this Parliament will have no say. It will have no vote on any regulation that will then be applied in this country when it comes to a lot of the factors affecting this area, about which the noble Baroness is rightly concerned. I am interested to see what the new Prime Minister will have to say on some of the powers that have already been put in place which are depleting nature, some of which started yesterday. We will see if we have a Manchester reset on that aspect.
I am minded to table an amendment relating to Section 23 of the Environment Act. This concerns when a Minister makes a declaration in each House at Second Reading only. I asked the Procedures and Privileges Committee how the accuracy of those comments could be challenged. The answer was that we can ask a Parliamentary Question or ask the Minister. The Minister kindly said that Ministers were bound by the Ministerial Code. However, due to a legal action undertaken by Wild Justice, it was determined that these are parliamentary proceedings. It has got nothing to do with the Ministerial Code or any other aspect of law, but so far the Government will not release the legal opinion presented by First Treasury Counsel or Speaker’s Counsel provisions. It may be that I table some amendments on that point.
With that, while I wish the Baroness well generally, I am afraid that I will not be supporting her Bill through its full passage.
Lord Lebedev (CB)
My Lords, this Bill addresses one of the greatest crises of our times: the ravaging of nature and the destruction of the environment on which we depend and of which we are an inseparable part. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, on her good fortune in coming second in the Private Members’ Bill ballot and using that opportunity to bring forward this Bill. I lend my voice in support of her.
The noble Baroness has made the case for the Bill with admirable clarity and passion. She is right to remind us in this House of the scale and speed with which the natural world is being destroyed. With deforestation, loss of habitats, the hunting of endangered species for gain, unsustainable farming practices, the ruthless race for rare earths, the rapacious approach that so many nations take to mineral extraction, and the accumulation of plastics and other waste in our rivers and seas, mankind is, in so many ways, laying waste to the planet which is our only home and demonstrating a reckless disregard for its creations, of which we are only one part.
This global phenomenon is sadly all too apparent in our poor stewardship and disdainful lack of care for nature in these islands. The UK is one of the most depleted nations in the world. Valuable habitats have been lost to unsustainable development. Our rivers continue to be polluted by poorly regulated water companies and inadequately supported farmers.
The sanctity and preservation of nature is a deeply personal cause for me. My grandfather, Professor Vladimir Sokolov, was a pioneering zoologist and ecologist and a member of the Brundtland Commission, which helped to define our modern understanding of sustainable development. As a boy, I travelled with him to Africa and across the old Soviet Union, inspired by his tireless work to protect nature. I have tried in my own small way to carry on that work by campaigning against the illegal wildlife trade and supporting indigenous communities to protect their way of life and the precious environments on which they and the species they live alongside depend. I am particularly moved by the efforts I have been proud to support to safeguard African elephants and other megafauna, but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, reminds us all, nature demands our care and requires our protection.
I know that some aspects of the Bill and the expansive legal and regulatory protection it envisages will not be to the taste of many of your Lordships, but no one has been clearer about their wish that this Bill be improved through debate and dialogue than the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. Working with civil society, she has made clear that we need a broader conversation about precisely the measures we need to implement to recognise the interdependence between our species’ fate and that of others.
What cannot be in doubt is the need for greater urgency and action. The Government and their predecessors have taken some important steps, such as moving away from the wasteful system of subsidy we had in the common agricultural policy and providing public money for public goods such as carbon sinks and enhanced habitats. The 25-year environment plan, with its targets for habitat reclamation, the creation of marine protected areas and the establishment of the Office for Environmental Protection, is a welcome move forward, but the public expect us to go further. I am sure your Lordships are familiar with the work of the gifted nature writer Robert Macfarlane. His latest book Is a River Alive? is a runaway Sunday Times bestseller, its popularity speaking to the new clamour for us all to recognise what we owe nature. We need to recast the language of rights and duties to arrest and transcend the destruction of the natural world. This Bill will help us do just that, and I am pleased to be able to support it at its Second Reading.
Lord Frost (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for bringing forward this Bill. It is an extremely interesting Bill, well worthy of debate. It is good to have a Bill that raises properly philosophical issues; apart from the recent assisted dying Bill, we do not often get them.
The question of what nature is has preoccupied philosophers and theologians since the ancient Greeks. They have asked whether the natural order is itself divine, merely God’s handiwork, something in between or, more recently, none of those things. In examining this question, one issue very relevant to this Bill recurs—whether, and if so why, it is reasonable to personalise the concept of nature for theological, philosophical or political purposes. This Bill seems to do just that. One is led to speculate whether we are seeing not just the embodiment of the modern Gaia concept but a return to the “Lady Nature” of the early medieval Chartres school of Bernard Silvestris and Alain de Lille. These are not irrelevant or purely intellectual questions. The Bill asks us to believe that nature exists as a specific, recognisable and even self-evident concept, and builds an entire political structure around that. Yet intellectual history tells us that things are a bit more complicated. Get the concept wrong and the politics and the legislation will be wrong too. I fear that that is what is happening.
Despite what I have just said, I have more sympathy with the Bill’s proponent—the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett—in this area than she might perhaps imagine, even if she will not necessarily agree with the route by which I get there. The Bill is very problematic, as we will come on to, but it is trying to recognise something important with which I sympathise. I am rather with Thomas Aquinas in thinking that nature is distinct from the divine creator, but also in some way special. The natural world is not God, but nor is it just stuff; it is special and should be treated accordingly. It bears witness to God in a sacramental way. We should not be casual, therefore, or casually mistreating of our natural environment.
It is one thing to say that and another to turn it into meaningful, practical legislation. I worry that it is not possible to do this in a secular democracy. The reason I have begun with this theological excursus is precisely because I think the Bill is trying to bring in a kind of confessionalism by the backdoor. If we were to take it seriously, it would require every one of us and every organisation to pay obeisance to nature and its rights, as if it were some kind of goddess—someone or something with super-personal rights and superior status, reducing us as humans to beings subordinate to her. That is exactly what we find in Clause 4(2), in which humans and human rights are explicitly made secondary to the rights of “Nature”—with a capital “N”. I contend that this is a sort of religious approach, but not a Christian one. It is more of a pagan vision, which is fundamentally anti-human and antithetical to human flourishing and should therefore be resisted.
The Bill raises not only such philosophical issues but practical and important public policy issues. One is the way that this approach treats “Nature” as a single, unified, rights-bearing subject. But “Nature” is not a single “it”. Indeed, Clause 42 defines “Nature” at some length as
“the interconnected community of living organisms, ecosystems, habitats, species, landscapes”,
et cetera, collapsing an almost limitless heterogeneity of entities into one legal person in what I contend is a rather meaningless fashion.
I think the Bill’s proponent has summarised this by saying that “Nature” is everything there is and that the economy is a complete subset of it. I agree on that, but it is precisely the problem: how can “Nature” be a rights-bearing entity, as Clause 2 describes it, if it is everything that there is? How are we supposed to address all the trade-offs and conflicts that arise within that? The only way of doing it would be to do what we already do: to establish various rights—human, corporate, property, whatever—and adjudicate between them on the basis of agreed criteria. You cannot adjudicate between those rights and the whole system; they are on different levels and are different kinds of things. It simply does not make sense to try to do it. In that sense, the whole Bill is just not workable.
But suppose we try it anyway. The problem then is that nature is full of competing interests: predator versus prey, native versus colonising species, one bioregion’s water needs versus those of another. You could go on endlessly. Any coherent rights of nature framework needs some sort of metric to compare harms and benefits across radically different kinds of entities. The Bill’s definitions of concepts such as “ecological integrity”, “safe ecological limits” and “planetary boundaries”, as set out in Clause 42, all gesture at scientific precision but actually just relabel these same incommensurable variables as things that purport to be legally operative thresholds. They bring scientific contestability directly into binding law. In these circumstances, I contend that the judges, tribunals or members of the sinister-sounding “Nature Guardianship Council” will simply be making their own value judgments dressed up as adjudication. That risks becoming arbitrary government in its purest form.
To conclude, there are many other problems with the Bill. I will just mention a few. Clause 33 creates a sweeping new criminal offence—incredibly, with up to 20 years’ imprisonment as the maximum sentence—for “recklessly” causing “serious harm to Nature”. That is entirely disproportionate. Clause 30 allows proceedings to be brought “in the name of Nature” by charities, community bodies, public interest organisations—a long, long list—combined with a state-funded environmental justice fund. All of this is yet further subsidy to campaign groups to litigate against infrastructure, housing and farming—real activity in the real world—as if that was not problematic enough already.
We are seeing the enshrining of the precautionary principle in a very broad form in Clause 34. Clauses 10 and 11 direct the entire financial and banking sector to reorient lending, investment and pension decisions around ecological criteria. We are seeing the creation of huge regulation-making powers for Secretaries of State with very few limitations and, of course, the creation of a vast additional bureaucracy to support this new activity.
To conclude, I say with a degree of sadness, for the reasons I set out at the start, that I am afraid the Bill is not just philosophically incoherent but probably unworkable. In saying all this, I am doing the Bill the courtesy of taking it seriously. I wonder whether one really should, given that it involves a complete upending of our economic, environmental and legal systems. It is difficult to imagine it could really make progress, given that. But I do think, to conclude, that it is worth identifying and dismantling these ideas now, while they are marginal and merely crankish, rather than risking them acquiring momentum and becoming actively dangerous. We have had enough bad ideas in politics in the last few years. Let us not import another one in this Bill now.
Baroness Smith of Llanfaes (PC)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for bringing forward this Bill and for her long-standing commitment to environmental protection and climate justice.
I draw the House’s attention to an Early Day Motion tabled in the other place this May, entitled “National Emergency”, sponsored by Members from the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party and my own party, Plaid Cymru. It highlighted the escalating risks posed by climate change and nature loss. It noted that one in four properties could be at risk of flooding by 2050, that heatwaves and wildfires are becoming more frequent and severe, and that
“the UK ranks among the lowest globally for biodiversity”.
It further recognised that
“food security, public health, and national security are increasingly threatened by climate-related impacts”.
The Motion called for “emergency legislation” to address the scale and urgency of these challenges. That is why I believe this Bill comes before us at a particularly important time and we must consider it seriously
We often speak of a climate emergency and a nature emergency, yet emergencies require more than declaration. They demand that we seriously consider new approaches and, where necessary, new legal frameworks. Time is not on our side. The systems upon which our society depends are under growing pressure and the consequences of inaction are becoming increasingly clear.
The central principle of this Bill is both simple and profound. Should nature itself be recognised in law as a subject possessing rights, rather than be regarded as property or a resource to be managed? In considering that question, we must be honest about the scale of the crisis that the Bill seeks to address and ask ourselves whether the status quo is delivering the protection that nature, and indeed future generations, require.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, has already referred to examples internationally, including in Ecuador, where recognition of the rights of nature has provided a new legal mechanism for environmental protection, including the successful defence of the Los Cedros forest against mining activity. Whether or not we conclude that that model is directly transferable to these islands, it demonstrates that alternative approaches are possible and worthy of serious consideration. I believe our legal frameworks must continue to evolve if they are to respond effectively to ecological decline. As legislators, we have a responsibility to engage constructively with ideas that seek to protect the natural world, which we all depend on, and which future generations have every right to inherit in a healthy condition.
For me, the Bill poses a fundamental question: if the well-being of future generations depends on clean water, healthy soils, thriving biodiversity, resilient ecosystems, pollinators and a stable climate, should the law continue to treat nature principally as a possession and a resource? Or should it begin to recognise nature as the living foundation upon which long-term societal resilience ultimately rests?
From a Welsh perspective, this question is particularly relevant. Wales has already sought to place future generations at the heart of public policy through the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. That legislation was pioneering in requiring public bodies to consider the long-term consequences of their decisions and the world they leave behind for those who will come after us. It reflects a growing recognition that prosperity, well-being and environmental stewardship cannot be separated from one another.
In many respects, the Bill can be seen as part of that broader evolution in governance. The future generations Act asks us to think about the well-being of future generations; this Bill invites us to consider more explicitly the ecological foundations on which that well-being depends. As this legislation progresses, there will undoubtedly be important questions about how such an approach would interact with existing Welsh legislation and devolved responsibilities. But I do not think that that should be consider a blocker. Those are precisely the kinds of issues that can and should be explored in Committee.
Ultimately, the key question at Second Reading is not whether every clause is perfect, but rather, whether the principle underpinning the Bill is worthy of further examination. In my view, the rights of nature are not in competition with human rights or economic prosperity. Rather, nature is the foundation on which they depend. A degraded natural world cannot support flourishing communities or resilient economies.
There is work still to do, and legitimate questions remain. Those questions should not prevent us examining the Bill further; they should encourage us to do so. Supporting its passage today would be a sign of the recognition that the challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss require us to examine new ideas with an open mind and, where necessary, improve them through scrutiny in Committee. This is what the public, and many young people, are asking for. For that reason, the Bill merits further consideration by this House, and I am pleased to support its progression today.
Baroness Helic (Con)
My Lords, I begin by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for bringing forward the Bill. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness’s speech. I agree with much of what she said.
As someone who has recently re-tabled my own Private Member’s Bill to introduce a close season for hares in England and Wales, I appreciate how much determination and luck is required to bring issues such as these before Parliament. I welcome the spirit of the Bill. It invites us to reconsider our relationship with the natural world and to reflect on whether our laws adequately recognise our responsibilities towards the species, habitats and ecosystems on which we all depend. In particular, I welcome its emphasis on the duties of public bodies, businesses and individuals to act as responsible stewards of nature.
The noble Baroness is right to argue that there remains a gap in our legal framework. Too often, nature is viewed primarily as something from which we derive benefit, rather than something to which we owe a duty of care. The result is that species and habitats that are widely admired and often deeply valued nevertheless remain inadequately protected.
The case of the wild hare illustrates that point particularly well. At present, hares are the only game species in England and Wales without a statutory closed season. They may be shot throughout the year, including during the breeding months between February and September. Other game species, whether deer, pheasants or partridges, receive seasonal protection during these sensitive periods. Hares alone remain exempt. The consequences are significant. Pregnant hares and nursing mothers may legally be killed, leaving dependent leverets orphaned. A 2017 peer-reviewed study published by the UK Health Security Agency found that between February and August, the majority of female hares are either pregnant, suckling young or both, and that, if a nursing female is killed, her leverets are unlikely to survive. This creates both an animal welfare problem and a conservation challenge, and is inconsistent with Natural England’s own guidance that the control of species during peak breeding seasons should be avoided. There is also a broader ecological concern. Evidence suggests that large, organised hare shoots can remove a substantial proportion of local populations, while the peak period for shooting coincides with the start of breeding season. This undermines population recovery and increases the risk of localised decline.
The wider picture is equally concerning. In 1880 there were an estimated 4 million brown hares in England and Wales but today there are fewer than 600,000 remaining. Agricultural change has undoubtedly been the principal driver of this decline, but unsustainable exploitation through shooting, poaching and coursing has also played a part. The United Kingdom has often been a leader in advancing animal welfare standards, yet in this instance we have fallen behind. Scotland introduced a statutory closed season more than a decade ago, and comparable protections already exist across much of Europe. England and Wales remain an exception. For many years, campaigners have sought to address that anomaly but they have failed.
I therefore welcome the Government’s animal welfare strategy, published last December, which committed to introducing a closed season between 1 February and 30 September. I was also grateful to hear the Minister reaffirm her commitment to animal welfare reform when we discussed this issue in the House last week. I have no doubt about either her personal commitment or her determination to secure legislative time. It was therefore deeply disappointing that, despite reports earlier this year suggesting that a closed season would be included in His Majesty’s gracious Speech, the proposal did not ultimately appear. That experience reflects one of the central themes of this Bill: responsibilities towards nature cannot always be postponed until a more convenient political moment. If we recognise that we have duties towards the natural world, then even relatively modest reforms should not repeatedly fall victim to competing legislative priorities.
A closed season for hares is one such reform. It would be modest in legislative terms but significant in its practical effect. It would prevent the unnecessary killing of pregnant and nursing hares, reduce the number of orphaned leverets, bring England and Wales into line with protections already established elsewhere, and contribute to the Government’s wider commitment under the Environment Act 2021 to halt species decline by 2030. It would also command considerable public support. Polling by More in Common found that 66% of the public support a closed season while only 6% oppose it. Whether noble Lords agree with every mechanism proposed in the Bill, it raises an important question: are we content with a legal framework that too often recognises the value of nature only after damage has occurred, or should our laws better reflect our responsibility to prevent that damage in the first place?
The story of the brown hare demonstrates how easily necessary and widely supported protections can be delayed. I hope the Bill will encourage us to translate our responsibilities into practical action, not only for hares but for the wider natural environment upon which future generations will depend.
Lord Winston (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the gap. I congratulate the noble Baroness on introducing this interesting debate. I hope the Bill goes to Committee where I am going to have some serious objections to it, but we will come to that in due course.
We have to accept that, if nature has rights, it is difficult to see how they can be enforced. If nature has rights, how do those rights become protected? If there is a conflict, who resolves that conflict? Is it merely lawyers? Because there will be different issues. We have to understand that the definition in the Bill of nature and of those rights is extremely difficult. They would need a great deal of disentangling if we did that.
This is the case even with medicine, and here I agree completely with the noble Lord, Lord Frost. One of the issues is that these things are so difficult to disentangle and very difficult to define. If we look at Aquinas on the history of the embryo, for example, even he had difficulty. He had to define the notion of life and whether in fact the embryo was alive. He decided that it might be once it had an anima, but maybe not while it merely had flesh. That was one of the issues with Chara.
I would argue that, ultimately, if we are really going to look at this, we have to recognise that even the conflicts in medicine are massive. The biggest single cause of death in humans worldwide is bacterial organisms. At what stage do we deal with this and how can we possibly do it in terms of natural justice?
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for providing the timely opportunity to examine this concept. As we have heard today, it involves practicality and philosophy. As she rightly said, nature is critical and we are on the brink of a mass extinction. I should declare an interest, as my daughter-in-law works as a scientist for Friends of the Dart, which I will mention later.
I have been thinking particularly about the issues around the rights of nature since the conference I went to recently, which was organised by the Real Farming Conference and the New York University School of Laws More-Than-Human Life—MOTH—programme. That conference was really exciting because we heard from agro-ecological farmers, citizen activists, scientists and local authorities. They are all taking very effective action and learning from each other about how to put nature’s well-being at the heart of their work, and that is what this Bill is about too. It is about a new way of thinking and working. As other noble Lords have mentioned, it is about economy and society working in harmony with nature.
Several noble Lords have mentioned Ecuador, and I will spend a little time on this because there are lessons to be learned. In 2008, Ecuador introduced the right of nature into its constitution; of course it has the Galápagos Islands, Amazon rainforests, volcanic landscapes, cloud forest and high elevation moorlands. In short, it has a diversity to protect that is internationally recognised as extraordinarily special. Obviously, it is a very different country from the UK, with very different strengths and problems, but there are some lessons we can learn from Ecuador.
First, there is the fact that scientific evidence is crucial. To argue the case for an ecosystem, there needs to be a sound scientific basis. Rights of nature work in Los Cedros, which is quoted by Robert Macfarlane in his book, Is a River Alive?, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Lebedev, has shown how inadequate the typical environmental impact assessment is for industrial projects. In Los Cedros, scientists and local farmers have found many more endangered species than the environmental impact assessments had reported.
Secondly, nature’s rights need to go hand in hand with human rights. A journalist who was investigating a lot of these issues in Ecuador, Katie Surma, wrote an interesting analysis in Inside Climate News that has global application. She said that Ecuador is
“emblematic of a global trend … governments and corporations increasingly relying on criminal charges, retaliatory lawsuits and other forms of legal harassment to stifle opposition”.
Having rights of nature in its constitution has not been a silver bullet, and it is not that its Government have always been on board. Currently, multiple heads and board members of the Amazon Sacred Headwaters Alliance, which protects 35 million hectares of the Amazon rainforest, are on the prosecutors’ list and face all sorts of things, such as frozen bank accounts.
Before noble Lords think, “Well, that wouldn’t happen here”, just remember the recent direction from judge to jury to disregard motives for protest—that was about climate change—and the arrests of those holding placards reminding juries of their rights. That was a shocking abuse of a fundamental right. Human rights and nature’s rights are absolutely intertwined.
Another lesson from Ecuador is about press freedom. Reporters Without Borders documented four cases of death threats just this year between January and February towards journalists in Ecuador reporting on environmental issues, who also face increasing restrictions imposed on the press by the state. Again, noble Lords should not think that press freedoms are a given in the UK. They are compromised at the moment by SLAPPs, strategic lawsuits against public participation. There are plenty of examples of public interest activism that is quelled by a SLAPP, for example on pollution, environmental reporting and corporate accountability. I hope all noble Lords will support the very important forthcoming Bill from the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, on SLAPPs.
Local activism is incredibly important. Perhaps the one thing for which we might thank the noble Lord, Lord Frost, in encouraging Brexit is that it really made people realise the value of their local rivers and what was happening to them once the water framework that had protected them all the time we were a member of the European Union disappeared. It took rivers to a different place—basically being used as drains by the water companies.
The “Rights of Rivers” charters and declarations have grown as a movement incredibly quickly in these last few years. Around my hometown is Friends of the Dart, which I have mentioned. It is a community interest company based in Totnes that works to protect and restore the River Dart through scientific monitoring, advocacy and community action, and it really brings people together to recognise that river. Of course, a more famous example is the River Wye, which had such issues with agricultural pollution. Herefordshire Council and Powys County Council came together to make sure that, from source to sea, that river is properly protected. The movement is at an early stage, but it is growing exponentially.
We also have local nature recovery strategies, which local authorities are putting into effect. In my home county of Devon, I can see that there will be immense beneficial effects as those strategies begin to bed down and work. I have a whole list of county and district councils which are doing all sorts of work that I will not weary the House with, as I am sure noble Lords are aware of them.
Although I support wholeheartedly the rights of nature principle, it is stronger to build it from local actions that are already happening and are effective. That will create much stronger foundations. My concern about the Bill at the moment is that it is very top-down and prescriptive and does not consider how it will mesh with the current law. Nor does it address the failure of enforcement and regulation. Current laws protecting nature are ignored. Just take the fly-tipping in Hoad’s Wood, for example, and sewage dumping in rivers. But the awareness of this and the anger that people feel have really begun to cut through, and local community action and citizen scientists are all nature’s guardians now. I worry that the approach in this Bill would mean tying up resources in lengthy legal battles.
On these Benches, we are very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for introducing her Bill and I look forward to discussing some of these issues in greater detail in Committee. In the meantime, I think the difference between us is that the Lib Dem approach is one of practical action and localism, and while we may legislate to have rights of nature in principle, fast action on the ground should rest at a local level.
The Earl of Effingham (Con)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for bringing this Bill before your Lordships’ House.
The Bill is clearly driven by good intentions, but it proposes a number of radical shifts, which the noble Lord, Lord Frost, referenced as problematic on several different levels and which the noble Lord, Lord Winston, suggested he had very serious objections to. His Majesty’s loyal Opposition also have significant concerns about the Bill’s practicalities and the implications for individuals, businesses and policy-making. Our concerns centre around two main points. Primarily, we do not believe in creating all-powerful governance structures which potentially override democratic decision-making, nor do we believe in imposing new requirements for nature which override existing legitimate considerations and interests.
I should clarify that His Majesty’s loyal Opposition stand tall on our principles when it comes to nature, and this is not a recent commitment. Lady Thatcher was crystal clear when she advised that:
“No generation has a freehold on this earth. All we have is a life tenancy—with a full repairing lease”.
We passed the Wildlife and Countryside Act in 1981 and established the modern framework for sites of special scientific interest and species protection. The noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, highlighted the Environment Act 2021; my noble friend Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park supported its passage through your Lordships’ House. We also championed the blue belt programme. In recent months, noble Lords on our Benches have consistently advocated for a brownfield-first approach to development to protect our land. We have advocated for reforms of arm’s-length bodies such as Natural England and to better enable private investment in nature restoration.
However, I am afraid to say that we are now seeing the consequences of a flawed approach to the environment for our industry and our cost of living. Instead of drilling our own oil and gas in the North Sea, we are importing it from Norway. Instead of growing more of our own food, we are covering productive farmland with solar panels, an estimated 68% of which come from China. We are weakening our energy security and increasing our reliance on imports. The Aberdeen South by-election was a referendum on homegrown oil and gas, and the result was overwhelming. The country wants a common-sense approach. Our major concern is that the Bill as currently drafted risks pitching economic growth against nature and giving the rights of nature precedence in all instances.
As I flagged earlier, we do not fault the intentions behind the Bill, but we have serious questions about how it will play out in practice. Nature will inevitably be impacted, perhaps on a site allocated for development, but biodiversity net gain requirements will compensate for this impact elsewhere. Yet, if our interpretation of Clause 3 is correct, the Bill would give nature the right to restoration and regeneration where the impact has occurred, potentially hindering development in that very location. We have to ask ourselves: do we want to risk slowing or even blocking housing needs, which are significant? Do we want to risk hampering infrastructure or energy investment at a time when delivery is absolutely critical for the country?
I turn now to the new governance structures proposed in the Bill, which would be tasked with implementing, monitoring and enforcing the Bill’s provisions. The membership, appointment, governance, procedure and accountability of the proposed nature guardianship council and the bioregional councils are left to the Secretary of State to determine via regulations. The appointment, qualifications and independence of members of a new nature’s rights tribunal are also left to the Secretary of State to decide. Yet these would be immensely powerful bodies.
The nature guardianship council would be tasked with interpreting the integrated rights framework, which would apply to all ministerial decisions, whether they were legislative, policy, fiscal, planning, procurement or investment decisions. The council would issue guidance on new rights impact assessments, which public authorities and UK entities would be required to carry out when any decision, policy, plan, programme, project, activity, financial decision or regulatory measure “may materially affect Nature”.
Furthermore, the Bill is explicit that there would be no exemptions for any entity, even on the grounds of national security, which, we would suggest, is the first duty of any Government. Much would depend on what is interpreted as lawful, what constitutes a significant effect on nature and how risk or harm is measured. Nor would the Bill’s rights and duties be applicable just to national and local government. It would establish a legal duty of care towards nature on all individuals, private businesses and public bodies. Trade, supply chains and overseas activities would have to comply with the Bill’s provisions.
This would be a huge, radical and all-encompassing change. His Majesty’s loyal Opposition believe that we should never, on any account, risk sidelining the everyday economic realities of UK citizens, or indeed our national security. A cross-departmental approach to nature, driven by both evidence and data with advice from experts in their respective fields, is the way forward. Undoubtedly, there are significant improvements to be made to the status quo, but, in our opinion, this Bill is not the way to do so.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Baroness Hayman of Ullock) (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to today’s debate. The strength of feeling we have heard reflects a deep and widely shared concern for the state of our natural world. It also reflects the seriousness with which this House approaches questions of environmental protection, governance and accountability. I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for bringing forward the Bill and for her long-standing commitment to the protection and restoration of nature. Whatever our differences on the legislative route, there is no doubt about the sincerity, intellectual rigour and energy that she and those supporting the drafting of the Bill have brought to this issue and these proposals.
As the noble Lord, Lord Frost, mentioned, we have heard some very thoughtful contributions on the philosophical and ethical foundations of recognising nature’s intrinsic worth. We have heard reflections on international examples, on local initiatives and on the growing public desire for stronger action to protect the environment. These are important perspectives, and the Government recognise the legitimacy of the concerns that underpin them. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, recognised the Government’s commitment to this when she referenced our manifesto and our environmental commitments specifically.
However, as many noble Lords have also made clear, the question before us is not whether we value nature, nor whether we must act urgently to protect and restore it. The question is whether the mechanism proposed in this Bill—recognising nature as a legal subject with enforceable rights—is the correct approach within the UK’s constitutional and legal framework. The Government’s position is that it is not.
We already have in place a comprehensive, outcomes-focused and legally binding framework for environmental protection through the Environment Act 2021 and the Environmental Improvement Plan 2025. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, that this Government are not rowing back on any of our commitments. These provide long-term statutory targets, strengthened duties on public authorities and independent oversight through the Office for Environmental Protection. Importantly, they require government to act, report and be held to account. Taken together, these measures will help us to restore nature, improve environmental quality, create a circular economy, protect environmental security and improve people’s access to nature.
The Environmental Improvement Plan 2025 ensures that nature’s recovery is a key priority, fundamental to the Government’s approach to economic growth. This Government are committed to delivering for nature, taking action to meet our Environment Act targets and to restore and protect our natural world. This is not a system that lacks ambition or enforceability; it is one of the most robust environmental governance frameworks in the world, which sets out our goals and targets, how we will achieve them and who is responsible for delivery, and it is designed to integrate environmental considerations across government, regulators and local authorities.
Achieving our environmental ambitions requires collective action from individuals, communities and organisations across all sectors, as referenced to by the noble Baroness, Lady Helic. We have sought views and advice from civil society, business, landowners and managers, and local government in developing the Environmental Improvement Plan 2025, and we will work in partnership to achieve its goals and targets. We are also already strengthening nature recovery across government land by publishing a first-of-its-kind Government Estate Nature Plan, which improves co-ordination, evidence and delivery within our existing legal framework. This demonstrates that we can work together to accelerate nature recovery without creating new legal rights or legal personality for nature.
Introducing a parallel and overlapping rights-based system, as the Bill proposes, would create significant risks. It could duplicate or conflict with existing statutory duties. It could generate uncertainty for regulators, land managers, businesses and communities, and it could divert resources away from delivery and into litigation, procedural complexity and institutional restructuring.
The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, talked in particular about the impact on Wales and the challenges facing Wales. It is important to stress to noble Lords that the Bill has UK-wide ambition, but still preserves the devolved competence, which enables devolved Governments to make decisions around implementation.
We have also heard today about the serious legal and constitutional implications of recognising nature as a legal entity. Such a step, through the Bill’s proposed integrated rights framework, would require a fundamental reworking of long=established principles of administrative, property and planning law. It would introduce new enforcement bodies, including a nature guardianship council and nature rights tribunal, without clarity on how these would interact with existing regulators and courts. It could lead to a proliferation of claims brought on behalf of ecosystems or species. It is important to consider the whole system in the round, as demonstrated through our recently published land use framework, including considering wider, democratically determined priorities such as housing, infrastructure and economic development, and to utilise existing tools to assess their impacts on nature.
International examples of nature being recognised as a legal subject were cited in her introduction by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and they are important to consider. As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, said, we need to be aware of alternative approaches. However, evidence and outcomes are mixed, and the interaction with relevant domestic legal systems and frameworks is complex. While I acknowledge that “rights of nature” is a concept that is legally recognised in some countries, the UK’s consistent position in international negotiations, alongside many other countries, has been to focus on environmental outcomes, such as halting biodiversity loss, restoring ecosystems and reducing pollution, rather than debating legal constructs whose practical implications remain uncertain.
The noble Baroness, Lady Miller, spent some time talking about the fact that there has been a marked rise in international and domestic litigation drawing on existing human rights, such as the right to life and the right to private and family life, and linking these to adverse environmental conditions. The Council of Europe has been particularly active on the issue in recent years and has been scoping a possible new instrument on this right, which could create a new right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, alongside other human rights protected under the European Convention on Human Rights. So, I would like to clarify that the UK is open in principle to exploring a new instrument to enshrine the right. However, there is not yet consensus among member states on the type of instrument—whether it should be binding, for example—or the content, nature and scope of the right.
None of what we have just discussed diminishes the urgency of the challenge. The Government are clear-eyed about the pressures on nature. It underpins our security, prosperity and resilience, and understanding the threats we face from biodiversity loss is crucial to meeting them head-on. We are acting through the environmental improvement plan to restore habitats, improve water and air quality, strengthen resilience and invest significantly in nature recovery. This is a statutory, science-based and accountable framework, and it is the right one for our legal system.
Before closing, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, for her energy and determination on the need to bring in a close season for brown hares. I am sure we will hear from her again on this issue.
Finally, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for bringing the Bill forward and for stimulating an important and thoughtful debate. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Frost, said, legislation must be workable, coherent and compatible with the UK’s legal framework. For these reasons, while we share the ambition that motivates the Bill, the Government cannot support it. We will continue to focus on delivering the environmental improvement plan. We want to meet our legally binding targets, so that we can ensure that nature in this country is protected, restored and valued for generations to come. I commend the House for the quality of today’s debate.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I echo that. I thank all noble Lords who have participated in this debate. It has been a fine debate, and I thank everyone who has contributed.
Picking up the Minister’s comments to start with, I am taking encouragement from a part near the end where she said that the Government might be open in principle to considering the rights of nature in an international context. I will have to study the fine detail of her comments, but I am taking that as a positive step forward. I also acknowledge that she recognises the legitimacy of concerns about the state of nature, which are widespread.
Picking up what the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Frost, said about this being a transformative, even revolutionary Bill—step forward, rights of nature—I agree. The Minister talked about changing the UK’s constitutional and legal framework. Of course, that is a broader question we have before us today. We are going to have to see major changes to them to create a modern, functional, democratic constitution, and the rights of nature could be part of that transformation. The Minister also talked about a fundamental reworking of principles. As some of the early proponents of the rights of nature said, that is also what happened when we created rights for enslaved people and women. We have seen significant changes in the past.
I thank, in particular, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, for her strong support for the Bill. She summed up in one question why we need this Bill: is the status quo delivering for the protection of nature and the rights of future generations? No, the current framework is not. She also said that the rights of nature are not in competition with human rights or economic prosperity and explained, as did the Minister, how this fits within the Well-Being of Future Generations (Wales) Act. As the Minister acknowledged, this Bill acknowledges the competencies of the devolved Administrations. That has been carefully written into the Bill.
I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, who said we have looked at how we derive benefit from nature rather than seeing that we owe it a duty of care. I wish her Bill all fair winds behind it and thank her for starting my morning, as we had a pre-debate discussion, with a lovely picture of a leveret. That really cheered up my morning. I can recommend that any morning you need to be cheered up.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lebedev, for stressing the need for urgency and action. I am going to look up the work of his grandfather. I will be very interested to find out about that. I also thank him for his focus on the need to support indigenous communities. I have recently come back from the High North. Indigenous communities in the High North and Europe have a lot to teach us but are also under significant threat and need protection.
I thank the noble Baroness beside me for highlighting the work of Robert Macfarlane, Is a River Alive? It is a great book and anyone who has not read it should.
I engage now with the noble Lord, Lord Frost, and the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey. I sincerely thank them for seriously engaging with this debate and this Bill. I appreciate that. I am a little surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Frost, regarded as an argument against it that it would be a complete upending of our current arrangements. Coming from one of the chief proponents of Brexit, it seems a little curious that that would be an argument against the Bill—but I will park that there. However, I also note that the noble Lord said we should have more philosophical debates in our Chamber, and I agree. We have philosophies that have led us to a very bad place in the world at this moment. Debating philosophies and thinking about the foundations of our thought is something we need to do a great deal more of.
One of the points the noble Lord, Lord Frost, made was that there is a problem in how you balance various types of nature, organisms and ecosystems. A number of other noble Lords also said this. The noble Lord described this as an “incommensurable variable”. We have had about 4 billion years of life on this planet. It has always been a balance. It has very often been co-operation between organisms, co-operation between species, working out. That is what we would have to continue with as part of that nature.
The noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, asked about the definition of “Nature”. I point her to Clause 42; page 37 sets out that definition on the basis of the Bill. I really appreciate her careful engagement and her questions about negative and affirmative procedures, which I will very much look at.
The noble Baroness asked how this might work with the EU reset. I point out that a parallel effort is happening within the EU at this moment. The Rights for Nature: Empower Citizens to Represent and Protect Ecosystems initiative has been accepted under the European citizens’ initiative regulation and is being taken forward within Europe. Of course, should we return to being part of Europe, in the future, it would not be a problem at all any more.
I will pick up just a couple of the points from the noble Earl, Lord Effingham. I am aware of time. He said that national security is
“the first duty of any government”.
I point to the Joint Intelligence Committee’s report highlighting how biodiversity is essential to our security and how food security is a pressing problem because of those risks. These are not two things to set against each other.
The noble Earl seemed to find problems with a legal duty of care for companies and organisations with overseas activities. Again, I cross-reference the JIC report: those overseas activities are not faraway things with no impact on us; they have very close impacts on our “everyday economic realities”, in the noble Earl’s words.
The noble Lord, Lord Winston, said that this might give too much power to lawyers. Noble Lords will see that there is so much detail in the Bill because of its stress on democracy, particularly local democracy—to pick up the points of the noble Baroness, Lady Miller. That is where the power lies, rather than with the lawyers.
The noble Lord raised a fairly obvious point about bacteria. That is where we have to acknowledge that we are holobionts; we consist of some 50,000 species. We tend to think of bacteria as being that thing out there that we want to kill, but protecting the bacteria of our own microbiome is a crucial step to protecting our own health.
Finally, I will pick up the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, and wish the Friends of the Dart and all other similar groups around these islands the absolute best. The noble Baroness said that we need to address the failure of enforcement and regulation. Yes, we do, but we have been trying to do that for decades under our current model and it is not working.
The noble Baroness pointed to the limitations in the way that rights of nature have been working for Ecuador. I am not going to claim that any single Bill or action is a silver bullet to fix all our problems. If anyone tells you, “I have this one thing that is going to fix everything”, I would immediately tell you to disregard it. This is an essential foundation for our future. It does not solve all our problems or deliver everything that we need; it is a foundation to build on that acknowledges that our life is dependent on all other life. The noble Baroness mentioned agro-ecological farming and a new way of thinking and working. That is what we need: a new way of thinking and working. I commend the Bill to the House.
Local Plans (Burial Space) Bill [HL]
Friday 3rd July 2026
(3 weeks, 4 days ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Local Plans (Burial Space) Bill [HL] 2026-27 View all Local Plans (Burial Space) Bill [HL] 2026-27 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Mohammed of Tinsley
That the Bill be read a second time.
Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)
My Lords, we often hear that death is one of the few certainties in life, yet the question of where people may be laid to rest is all too often treated as an afterthought in our planning system. This Bill seeks to address that omission through a simple but important principle: every community should plan responsibly for the burial needs of its population.
At present, local authorities have powers to provide cemeteries, but they are under no statutory duty to ensure that sufficient burial space exists. In many areas, burial provision depends on a patchwork of local authority cemeteries, faith organisations and private providers, with no strategic assessment of long-term demand. The result is that, in some parts of England, burial capacity is becoming increasingly constrained, placing pressure on bereaved families and on the communities they serve.
The Bill does not seek to dictate where burial grounds should be located; nor does it impose unrealistic obligations on local authorities. Instead, it asks local planning authorities to do what they already do for housing, schools, transport and green infrastructure: assess future need, incorporate that assessment into their local plans, and publish a long-term strategy for meeting any shortfall in burial capacity. Planning is about looking ahead. We routinely plan decades into the future for homes, employment, land and public services. It seems only right that we should also plan for the final resting places that communities will inevitably require.
The urgency of this matter was recognised independently by the Law Commission in its comprehensive review of burial and cremation law. The commission concluded that England and Wales face growing pressures on burial capacity, particularly in urban areas. It described the existing legal framework as “fragmented and outdated”. It observed that many burial authorities are approaching capacity and that, outside London, councils generally have no powers to reuse old graves as a means of managing demand.
We can already see the consequences. Councils including Birmingham, Leicester, Slough and Luton, as well as several London boroughs, have all warned of diminishing burial capacity. I have seen at first hand the situation in Birmingham, Dewsbury and Kirklees, as well as in my home city of Sheffield. Although national surveys have found that around one in four local authorities has 10 years or less of burial space remaining, around one in six has less than five.
This issue has been particularly significant for many faith communities. For Muslims and Jews, for example, burial is a religious obligation, and cremation is not an acceptable alternative. Many Christian denominations also continue to place great importance on burial. Although the Bill has obvious benefits for those faith communities, it is not a sectarian measure. It is about ensuring that every family, whatever its belief or tradition, has access to a dignified burial within a reasonable distance of its community. Without forward planning, families may increasingly find themselves having to arrange burial many miles from where their loved ones lived, worked and worshipped. That creates unnecessary emotional distress at a time when people are already coping with bereavement.
The Bill also supports better land use planning. By requiring burial needs to be considered as part of a local planning process, it enables authorities to identify suitable land well in advance, rather than responding to shortages through emergency or piecemeal decisions. Early planning allows burial provisions to be balanced alongside competing demands for housing, environmental protection and other essential infrastructure.
Some may question whether these plans will place an additional burden on local authorities, and I recognise those concerns. However, the duties proposed are proportionate and aligned with existing planning processes. The Bill will not require every authority to provide a cemetery; rather, it will require authorities to understand local need, assess existing capacity and explain how any future demand will be met. Those are reasonable expectations for any effective planning system.
Others may argue that changing burial practices or increased cremation rates will reduce demand. While those trends are relevant, they are far from universal. Significant sections of our population continue to require burials, and demographic growth in many areas means that demand is likely to continue for decades. Ignoring the issue today will simply pass a greater problem to future generations.
This is a modest Bill but it addresses a genuine gap in our planning framework. It promotes foresight, rather than crisis management; supports local decision-making, rather than centralised prescription; and helps ensure that communities can continue to meet one of humanity’s oldest and most fundamental needs with dignity and respect. I hope that, whatever our views on planning policies are more broadly, noble Lords will agree that preparing responsibly for the future is one of the core purposes of local government. The Bill will help ensure that burial provision is no longer overlooked in that process. I therefore commend the Bill to the House. I beg to move.
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, tomorrow, we will commemorate 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, which established the United States as a republic—it is still, as far as I am aware, supposed to be a republic. I mention that because one of its founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, as the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, alluded to, was famous for having said that there are only two things in life that are certain: death and taxes. This is a Bill about death, or more particularly about where our dead bodies are put to rest.
Throughout human history, the way we deal with our dead bodies has a great deal to say about our humanity. I read recently that there is now archaeological evidence that the Neanderthals had burial practices, and of course we know a great deal about civilizations such as the Egyptians and the Chinese. More recently, HS2 unearthed a great deal of knowledge about the way in which people were buried in the 17th century, when the line was built through central London.
This is a Bill that the House should very much take seriously, even if it is not everybody’s cup of tea. I commend the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed of Tinsley, for sponsoring the Bill. He was kind enough to draw it to my attention, for which I thank him, and he adroitly made his case for the Bill today. I congratulated him on having been successful in the lottery for Private Members’ Bills. As someone who has myself piloted a Private Member’s Bill through on to the statute book, I wish him every success.
If you read the Bill carefully, you will find several references to the cultural practices of communities. I will return to this aspect later, because the Bill tackles issues of growing concern to people of all communities. Reference has already been made to the recent Law Commission report of March this year on burial and cremation, which concluded not only that the last serious survey of burial spaces is already 20 years old and out of date but that the burial space in Church of England and local authority burial grounds might run out within the coming decades. I rather regret the fact that the Bishops’ Bench is not contributing to today’s debate.
It may be a short debate, and I am sure we will hear some very interesting speeches, but before I say a bit more about the Bill itself, I hope the House will allow me to make a few general comments, because the Bill is best approached with some understanding of the recent history of burial in this country.
Suppose we were holding this debate 200 years ago today. What would it be about? There was widespread concern about body-snatching. It is 200 years since the great private cemeteries of London were being planned: Kensal Green, Nunhead, West Norwood, Highgate and so on. They were built by joint-stock companies, and their whole design was about security. It is no coincidence that they were built with high walls and imposing gates, because the whole point of them was to provide the emerging middle class with a safe and secure burial environment. Planned in the 1820s—literally 200 years ago now—and built in the 1830s, they were known as the “magnificent seven”. Incidentally, they no longer felt obliged to bury in the Christian east-west orientation of sunrise to sunset; they could be planned according to a more elaborate layout, hence you see the beautiful cemeteries that we have today.
Of course, on the whole, the aristocracy had provision for their burials in their own vaults and lands, but the poorest in society, by contrast, were most vulnerable to body-snatching, which was a very successful business that fulfilled a need for medical colleges as well as providing a lucrative living for the body snatchers. People were murdered for body-snatching and their bodies were sold to the anatomy schools. In the infamous case of Burke and Hare in Edinburgh, they murdered 16 people in the 1820s. That provided the impetus for Parliament to pass the Anatomy Act 1832. The murders raised public awareness of the need for bodies for medical research and contributed to the passing of the Act. Intervening in that way, Parliament sought to deal with the body-snatching problem.
Incidentally, that Bill made its way through Parliament at the same time as the Great Reform Bill. It was known as the “midnight Bill”, because it passed late at night when people were not as interested. The main business of Parliament, carried on during the day, became the Great Reform Act 1832, which most of us learn about in history at school. The Anatomy Act provided sufficient bodies for medical schools, and the pauper institutions were used as a means of furnishing the dead bodies required for them. Basically, if you qualified for a pauper funeral, you certainly qualified for dissection.
Other developments in the 19th century included the creation of Brookwood Cemetery. Some Members may know it. It was designed to deal with the rapidly expanding population of London. A special train service was set up, which ran from London Necropolis station in Waterloo and transported the bodies down to the cemetery near Woking. Bombing in the Second World War blew up the station; otherwise, you would still be able to see it today.
Cremation, as a means of dealing with death, started to appear only in the 1890s and began to take off after the Great War—perhaps, and this is only a guess, because the colossal death toll of that war and a natural fear of decomposition changed people in the Christian community’s perceptions of burial.
But the fact is that the growing trend towards cremation in the Christian community did not erode the pressures on burial space. Over the decades, churches and local authorities have had to make increasing provision for burial space. By the way, there is quite a market in burial spaces. One colleague in this House told me a couple of days ago that the going price for a space in his particular hoped-for cemetery is £24,000. That is not inconsiderable.
Perhaps this is a good moment to declare that a few years ago I was part of an Opposed Private Bill Committee. There are not many of them; they are something of a specialism. I am not sure whether many Members here have ever had experience of one, but I am glad to say that we have some clerks in this House who are great specialists. It was a Bill promoted by Bishop’s Stortford Town Council—known, I am sure, to my noble friend the Minister—which sought permission to reuse burial space in its cemetery because space was running out. Proposals such as these can arouse great emotion and depth of feeling. The proceedings were quasi-judicial and eventually the House granted permission for the proposal to proceed. I believe it was the first such Bill to succeed outside London.
The point I am making is that the pressure for increased burial space is growing, and the issues we are discussing today, whether or not this particular Bill succeeds, will not be going away, so we may as well tackle the underlying issues head on. No London borough could possibly afford burial space within its boundaries at the moment. It may be that my noble friend the Minister will agree that there is a real issue here and tell the House that it must be addressed but that perhaps this Bill is not the vehicle to do it. But the Bill seeks to meet those needs in the context of local authority planning, and we should closely debate what effects this may have up and down the country when we reach Committee.
Before we reach the Minister’s speech, I return to the phrase
“all faith and cultural communities”,
which appears in the Bill. Different communities have different burial traditions. For example, as has been mentioned, Jewish and Muslim communities have a strong preference for burial as soon as possible. That is hardly surprising as those religions originated in the Middle East when a quick burial was a health necessity. It is fair to observe that both communities still broadly prefer burial to cremation, although that is a generalisation, but some communities prefer an individual grave and dislike multiple graves, and people are entitled to have their own views. The effect of changing times on our many and varied communities is producing an explicit demand for more burial space.
I have run out of time. I need hardly add that I am very much looking forward to hearing what my noble friend the Minister has to say and, whatever approach the Government take to the Bill, to taking part in further proceedings on it.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed of Tinsley, on coming so high in the ballot; I hope his luck continues in his dealings with the Government on the Bill. I am one of those who support his efforts. I, too, would have welcomed the presence of some bishops today, given the nature of the subject. The Church of England probably has the majority of the acreage of burial ground around the country.
My interest in this comes from the fact that I am in my 80s and, in a sense, I am in the waiting room. I have long expressed a desire to be buried in the churchyard of St Paul’s Church in Alverthorpe, in Yorkshire. It is the parish of my birth and family roots, but space is limited there. With the help of my friend, Phillip Collins, who has used genealogy, WikiTree and AI, we have managed to trace a whole range of my forebears there. We think that some of the graves in which they are buried are not full. So there is an opportunity—a green opportunity, I would say—for me to be buried in one of those graves.
I would like to add to the suggestion from the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, that we should have an extra section at the end about the full use of existing cemeteries around the country. There are acres and acres of them. Given that we now have AI and other methods of genealogy, we can make a connection between graves and ancestors. Given what my noble friend Lord Stansgate has just said about someone being willing to pay £24,000 to find a burial ground, this is perhaps an amazing opportunity—certainly for the Church of England, and maybe the Roman Catholic Church and other faiths—to explore this and make a connection with individuals who would wish to be buried there if there is an opportunity to link with their forebears. They would probably be willing to pay for it.
Where have we got to? I wrote to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds and he has given me some assistance. I asked him to raise this issue with the Church of England—I think it may have been buried somewhere. So I raised it myself with Marsha de Cordova, who is my MP in Wandsworth. She is also one of the Church Commissioners, and she had an open meeting for the Church of England for anyone to raise questions. I raised it there, and there seemed to be little disposition towards giving support. One response was, “This is all about money”. Of course, the Church of England is badly in need of money for the upkeep of its churches, and so is the Roman Catholic Church. I think I have stumbled on a business opportunity for churches of all faiths. We should be exploring the link between technology, the new way of exploring our genealogy, and linking up with people who may have an interest in finding a burial spot, given that there is such pressure on finding appropriate places. In addition, we will need new space. I support the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, all the way with that.
I am wondering if my noble friend the Minister, who is at the end of a tiring week and does not want too much trouble from me, would be willing to explore this. I am not sure how we take this further forward. I have spoken to the Public Bill Office, which said that after we have had the debate and have seen how the Minister responds, we can then see whether we can table additional amendments—maybe a new clause about utilisation of existing burial grounds to their maximum extent. We could look at whether there is an opportunity there, as a green policy, particularly for those who own the churchyards, to raise additional money for the upkeep of their churches or the benefit of their local communities.
I am not causing trouble. It is an interesting area that I do not think has been explored. There are great opportunities; there are acres and acres of burial grounds around the country. That is all valuable land, and it has not been fully utilised. Before we start worrying, we need to extend but we can probably minimise the encroachment into other land if we use what we already have. I hope the Minister will give me a pointer on the direction I should go in, and I will then talk to the Public Bill Office and come back with some appropriate amendments, which I hope she might find acceptable.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
My Lords, I am also very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed of Tinsley, for bringing forward this Bill, and for the clarity of its purpose, which he spoke about.
This is a thoughtful and timely proposal for addressing an issue that other noble Lords have raised, which is clearly important. I declare my interest as a councillor in central Bedfordshire. Not unsurprisingly, space in cemeteries is a key issue. In one of my villages, Westoning, there are six spaces left in a village of around 2,000 souls. The noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, said that he is in the waiting room; we are all in the waiting room—some of us just wish to wait a little bit longer than maybe he does. That point is very pertinent for some of my residents, who are very conscious that they want to be buried in their local village. For the 17 years I have been there, I have been helping them try to find a site, but it is not necessarily easy. You would have thought that in a village in the middle of the green belt there would be space, but when you take account of land ownership and in my area the risk of flooding in particular—obviously, you have to have a water table well below the depth at which you bury people—it is not simple. However, it is very important, and I recognise that.
Responsibility for burial provision rests primarily with local authorities. I am not quite sure of the case in London but, in many rural areas, the actual delivery is done by parish councils, religious bodies and churches. With the pressures due to land use, demographic change and different faith and cultural communities, the current framework is frankly increasingly stretched. The Law Commission’s ongoing review of the death management system has highlighted the complexity of existing arrangements and the need for a more coherent and long-term view.
I also want to highlight what the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, raised. As he said, in the 17th and 18th centuries, this was a commercial opportunity. He mentioned the seven major cemeteries in London, one of which is Highgate Cemetery, which I had the pleasure of visiting about a year ago. That was set up as a private enterprise and made a lot of money, until it went bust. Running cemeteries is a long-term business. They are costly to set up and there are ongoing costs for a long period of time.
The noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, mentioned the price of £24,000. For many people, that is way out of reach. I would not like to go back to the 17th-century provision where the nobility can have themselves buried nicely and the paupers cannot. It is very important that we look at this in the round. I take his suggestion that maybe we should look at extending the Bill to look at how we can reuse existing facilities, bearing in mind that that would also raise the whole issue of the ownership of those facilities.
We recognise the challenges and the sensitivities, but ensuring that all communities have access to dignified, appropriate burial space is a basic matter of respect. The Bill’s emphasis on consultation with faith groups, burial authorities and neighbouring councils is very welcome. We also note the context of the Law Commission’s work on grave reuse. Although the Government have yet to publish their full response, the commission’s proposals on strengthening safeguards, extending powers beyond London and protecting war graves demonstrate the scale of reform that may be required in the years ahead. The Bill does not pre-empt that work but provides a practical interim framework for local planning.
There will clearly be questions in Committee. One that I will focus on is the resource implications. As I mentioned, it is not just about the cost of setting up a cemetery but of looking after it for not five, 10 or 20 years but potentially over 100. That cumulative cost is significant, and many local authorities are severely stretched. I appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed of Tinsley, implied that it would not necessarily be a burden on local councils but, as I understand it, as the Bill is written ultimately they are the backstop—if you are the backstop for anything, you need to make sure that you can afford it.
Given the stretched finances of local government, particularly after some recent cuts for some councils, what is the Government’s position on new burdens? This will be a new burden for local councils. Also, we need to look at the interaction between existing planning duties, the balance between local discretion and national prescription and the responsibilities for existing sites and how they will be managed. However, the principle that burial space should be planned for transparently, consistently and with due regard to community need is one that we support. I look forward to hearing contributions from across the House as we move forward on this Bill. The Opposition will not oppose the Bill and we welcome the opportunity to scrutinise it further.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)
My Lords, I will resist the temptation to talk about last thing on a Friday being the graveyard slot. This is a very serious topic. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, for tabling this Private Member’s Bill and for giving me the opportunity to meet with him yesterday to talk through what he wanted to do and the principles around the Bill. I also thank my noble friends Lord Stansgate and Lord Brooke for speaking to me in advance of the Bill coming before the House.
I start with a phrase that the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, used: that every family should have access to a dignified burial close to their community. That was a very important phrase to someone who has been involved with local government for as many years as I have, and I know he has. It is very important that we keep our focus on that. I recognise the importance of the provision of burial space. I have some reservations around the necessity for the Bill, which I will come to in a moment.
The Bill as proposed would require local planning authorities to include suitable provision for burial space in their local plans and put that on the statute book as a separate issue to other issues that come forward for planning. The National Planning Policy Framework sets out the policy expectations for what should be considered in the development of the plan, including local plans and in decision-making. The framework for what should be considered is set through policy and not statute, to offer the necessary flexibility to local planning authorities across the country to consider their local area and the specific needs of the local population.
It is a matter for local authorities to allocate local resources in line with their priorities, and this includes burial provision. In areas where this is an issue, such as London or Cambridge, many local authorities already include specific policies on burial grounds in their local plans. We want to ensure that local planning authorities can do this where there is a concern, but are not required to allocate where there is not an issue in their local area. The current NPPF includes policies to ensure that there is provision for community facilities and public service infrastructure in local areas.
The current version of the NPPF does not directly reference burial spaces. However, it sets out that strategic policies should set out an overall strategy for the pattern, scale and design quality of places that make sufficient provision for community facilities such as health, education and cultural infrastructure. It also allows for the provision of burial space on green-belt land. That might respond to one of the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, about treating that kind of development differently.
We consulted on an updated National Planning Policy Framework between September 2025 and March 2026. The draft NPPF is clear that development plans should promote the creation of healthy and inclusive places and the provision, retention and enhancement of appropriate community facilities and public service infrastructure. It is up to a local authority to determine the local need for those facilities, which could include burial grounds, as many local authorities have already done.
The proposed NPPF also offers protections for existing burial grounds through setting out that the presumption in favour of sustainable development is unlikely to apply in situations which would involve the whole or partial loss of undeveloped land which is used for a cemetery or burial ground. Furthermore, the draft NPPF sets out that burial grounds are a form of development where there are benefits to approval outside settlements and that they are not inappropriate in the green belt. We received over 20,000 responses to the consultation, including a small number on this specific issue. We are currently analysing all those responses and intend to publish our response with the new NPPF in the summer.
The Law Commission’s recent report was mentioned by a number of noble Lords. We are acutely aware of concerns around burial space, which were considered in that report. While the report did not call for statutory burial provision, as the Bill does, it did address a number of issues, such as burial ground management and records, which my colleagues in the Ministry of Justice are leading on. We will publish a government response to the Law Commission report in due course, and I look forward to working with MoJ colleagues and local government as we take these important issues forward.
Turning to some of the specific points raised by noble Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Stansgate for taking us through the history of burial and how it works. I found the HS2 excavations and some of the information that they have thrown up really fascinating. We have had our own example of that in Stevenage, where Roman remains were found when we were excavating sites. It is fascinating. Both he and my noble friend Lord Brooke mentioned the fact that the Bishops are not present today; I am sure that they will have their own views and that they will get involved in the Bill at a later stage. When my noble Lord Stansgate referred to the “midnight Bill” as the Anatomy Act 1832, it put me in mind of a much more up-to-date version, which was the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which saw us here at four o’clock in the morning—that practice was not limited to the 19th century. Of course, I am also aware of the issues around Bishop’s Stortford in the Bill that came through this House that he mentioned.
My noble friend Lord Brooke spoke about being in the waiting room. I hope he has as long a wait in that waiting room as we would all want him to have: we want to see him here long into the future. Both he and my noble friend Lord Stansgate mentioned the Church of England. Of course, burial on land consecrated by the Church of England is governed by the faculty jurisdiction and is a matter for the Church, and I am sure my noble friend Lord Brooke will continue his dialogue with the Church of England on that.
On the point that my noble friend Lord Brooke made about green policy, I want to highlight the very good practice we are seeing in some areas of providing for green burial grounds, which is very creditable. I pay tribute to my colleagues in local government for their action in this respect. I think that has been a really great development in recent times.
The noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, asked what the Government are currently doing on the provision of burial space. We are aware of increasing local pressure on burial spaces in some parts of the country. He will know that we do not have day-to-day operational responsibility for burial grounds, which are managed locally, and that there is no statutory duty on local authorities to make that provision. It is a matter for each local authority to allocate local resources, but the Law Commission’s recent report means that we are very keen to engage with stakeholders, including local authority representatives, to understand how, in the context of responding to the commission’s recommendations, we can best facilitate local provision and management of burial capacity going forward. Certainly, it is my intention to do that.
I have already spoken about the Law Commission recommendations. There is, of course, a very close connection between the work streams that the Law Commission has under way on this, and we will consider the most practical approach to publishing our response, including the timing.
The noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, mentioned the specific requirements for different communities in terms of burial practices, as did my noble friend Lord Stansgate. Measures have been taken in recent years to update crematoria, in particular, so that they better reflect and understand the needs of different cultures and faiths. It is for local authorities to deal with this because they can decide what their priorities are, depending on the groups they represent locally. We are keen to engage closely with representatives from faith communities on all issues in relation to death management, particularly when we work on that response to the Law Commission’s report.
The noble Lords, Lord Mohammed and Lord Jamieson, referred to the issue of funding for this. As I think was mentioned, it is a very long forward commitment. I think the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, was talking about Highgate cemetery. These are of course long-term commitments that have to be made by local authorities, so, if the Government were to support this Bill, we would consider relevant impacts, such as those set out in the new burdens doctrine. I hope that responds to those questions.
It is of course appropriate for these matters to be addressed in local plans rather than legislation, so that local planning authorities retain the flexibility to respond to the particular circumstances of their areas and needs, which may of course include the specific needs of their diverse communities and local population. This is a timely intervention because of the progress of the National Planning Policy Framework, so I am incredibly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, for prompting me, as we go through the stages of publishing the next version of the policy framework, to look in particular at this issue. We will respond to the recent consultation in due course and of course we will keep the matter under review, in the light of all the consultation responses we have had and the contributions in the House today. I am most grateful to the noble Lord.
Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)
My Lords, I thank everyone for their constructive comments. During the debate, my phone has been quite busy, particularly on the question of the attendance or not of the Lords spiritual. I have actually had a message from them, which I would like to share with your Lordships’ House. It says, “We apologise for this because it is ordination season and the majority of Lords spiritual are in their dioceses or ordaining new clergy. However, this does not reflect their lack of interest; actually they are very supportive of the Bill itself and welcome an opportunity to discuss taking it forward”.
Similarly, my colleagues at the South Yorkshire Muslim Burial Trust are watching, as are many others. Clearly, as we have heard, this issue goes across communities and faiths and, as we also heard, this Bill is serious. We have talked about all being in the waiting room. The fact is that we hope many of us will still be there to make sure that we see the change that this Bill requires.
Clearly, there may be disagreement between us on how we get to the destination, but it is clear from the debate, whether from the comments of the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, the noble Lords, Lord Brooke and Lord Jamieson, or the Minister, that we have all acknowledged there is an issue. There is a problem: how do we deal with it? As I said, it was the luck of the draw: I put my faith in that lottery and my name came out with this Bill. I know that other noble Lords, particularly the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, have talked about this issue in the past, and I look forward to getting into further debate in Committee.
During the debate, we heard £24,000 being charged for a burial plot. It is a huge issue, as that is way beyond the means of most average residents, and we have got to look at the supply side. Clearly, there are opportunities here: as I said in my speech, if we are planning for homes, businesses, schools et cetera, thought has to be given to how we deal with burials now. It is better if we do it by long-term planning rather than knee-jerk reactions when trying to find space. Clearly, this challenges London, as there are clearly land issues here. That is why I said that not every local authority has to have its own provisions. It is about asking how we deal with the need that is there.
As we heard from one of our contributors, death and taxes are a given in life and I really welcome the opportunity to present this Bill to your Lordships’ House.