Lobbying Transparency (In-house Lobbyists) Bill [HL]

Baroness Finn Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 3rd July 2026 Lords Chamber

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

Political Donations: Cap

Baroness Finn Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My noble friend makes a very interesting point. I reassure him that we are going to look at the whole issue of electoral reform, and we will bring legislation forward. There is nothing timetabled in this Session, but it is difficult to specify a particular date. We will take away the issues my noble friend raises and consider them when we bring legislation forward, looking at not just political donations but wider electoral reform.

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

My Lords, if His Majesty’s Government intend to cap donations to political parties, can the Minister confirm that this cap will also extend to clothes and glasses?

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, all I can say is that the point the noble Baroness makes is not relevant to the Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard.

Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill

Baroness Finn Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 29th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group concentrate on yet another aspect of the regime that fleeces home owners with unexpected and extortionate charges, but in this case, they are levied on residential freeholders living on private and mixed-tenure estates.

I had one or two such encounters as a councillor. In one case, there was a five-year battle to get an estate through-road adopted as a public highway because the residents were facing extraordinary and unaffordable costs for highway repairs; and in another, a series of children’s play spaces were abandoned by developers as soon as their sales were completed, with no provision made for maintenance, health and safety checks or upgrading to meet the latest safety standards. But it was not until I campaigned for my honourable friend Alistair Strathern, now the excellent MP for Mid Bedfordshire, that I saw the volume of housebuilding that had gone on with the assumption that new residents would be responsible for a wide range of maintenance to highways and public spaces, and other exceptional costs that had clearly not been set out in a transparent way at the time of purchase.

As my honourable friend put it,

“Across the country, homeowners in a state of adoption limbo are being left exposed to exploitative and often unaccountable management companies. Despite their warm words, sadly the Government did not take any of the actions that the Competition and Markets Authority urged them to take in order to end the issue of fleecehold once and for all”.—[Official Report, Commons, 4/3/24; col. 631.]


My honourable friend pointed out that residents of estates across the constituency are trapped in extortive relationships with unaccountable private management companies, while their estates go unadopted.

Of course, this sharp practice is not limited to Bedfordshire. The Conservative MP Neil O’Brien has written of this:

“Across the country many people are moving into new build homes, only to discover something nasty which they didn’t expect.


Often the first they know of it is when a large bill comes through the door, from an obscure company they’ve never heard of.


The bill demands that they pay a large sum for the maintenance of their new estate, and warns them that they could lose their house if they don’t pay up.


These bills can be of a scary size, and the bills often escalate sharply over time.


To add insult to injury, residents often find that the work they are paying for isn’t actually done, and then find that trying to get any redress is impossible: the firm sending the bills is opaque and uncontactable. People are sometimes billed for baffling things”.


Mr O’Brien went on to look at the large numbers of those affected. The estimate is about 20,000 housing estates, so this could affect up to 1.5 million home owners. The Competition and Markets Authority has examined this in great detail, and commented on the fact that

“over the last five years 80% of the freehold properties built by the 11 largest housebuilders … are likely to be subject to such charges”.

Our amendments in this group seek to address the fleecehold issues still outstanding, which we believe the Bill must address to avoid a continuation of this escalating trend, which is simply providing another method of extorting money from hard-pressed home owners, effectively making them leaseholders of the public space on their estates. As my honourable friend the shadow Secretary of State for housing said in the other place,

“Underpinning all those issues of concern is a fundamental absence of adequate regulation or oversight of the practices of estate management companies”.—[Official Report, Commons, 13/7/23; col. 193WH.]


and the fact that residential freeholders currently do not enjoy statutory rights equivalent to those held by leaseholders.

There was cross-party support for the fact that this situation is untenable, so I hope the Minister will be able to respond positively to amendments in this group so that we can make some progress. Our Amendment 64 would give residential freeholders on private and mixed-tenure estates the same right to challenge the reasonableness of estate management companies and their charges as leaseholders have. As Matthew Pennycook said in Committee:

“We also believe that it is right in principle that there is parity between residential leaseholders and freeholders when it comes to the right to manage”.—[Official Report, Commons, Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill Committee, 30/1/24; col. 436.]


Our Amendment 87 would prevent developers building to a lower standard. The government amendment would remove estate charge costs that should be borne by local authorities, and then expect private management companies to pay for them themselves, as they can no longer pass the costs on to the occupants. However, this would motivate developers to leave degradation of buildings rather than repairing them. Further, our amendment would put the onus on the developer to ensure high standards are in place from the moment they pass the estate over.

Amendment 93 asks the Government to carry out a review of such non-standard terms and charges included in freehold deeds, including those relating to estate management companies. The alternative is that the Government implement the recommendations so clearly set out in the report of the Competition and Markets Authority.

We support the other amendments in this group tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, which are essentially driving at the same issue of tightening up on those dreadful fleecehold practices. The amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, relate to the kind of issue I mentioned earlier, when developers sometimes provide public amenities that are not of an adoptable standard. It is not reasonable for leaseholders to be required to make up the difference. The noble Baroness’s second amendment refers to the money-for-nothing culture of leaseholders being charged for services that they do not receive. We would support both of those amendments, and we look forward to hearing from the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, and to hearing the Minister’s reply. I beg to move.

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor. I shall speak to Amendments 87A and 87B, in my name. The first amendment seeks to prohibit future freehold “fleecehold” estates, where freehold home owners can be tied into expensive maintenance costs for public amenities and open space, without recourse. I recognise and welcome the provisions in the Bill that currently provide additional redress for people trapped in fleecehold, but it is important to make sure that no more people become accidental fleeceholders. Fleecehold has become prevalent not because of any policy decision by an elected Government but rather as a way for developers and managing agents to make more money at the expense of unsuspecting home owners. My honourable friend Neil O’Brien has spoken out many times about the fleecehold estate scandal. He has compared it to the Post Office scandal, in that it is an injustice that has ruined so many people’s lives, yet nothing has been done.

The way that the fleecehold system works is now well known. In recent decades, the builder would normally build a new estate, make sure that the roads and other facilities were up to spec and pay a Section 106 charge, and the council would then take over the running of it. Under the fleecehold model, however, the developer agrees to hand over the company to another company, which it may or may not own, to run many parts of the estate, such as roads, open spaces, play areas and even sewers. The developer thus pays less in Section 106 charges and the council abdicates the responsibility to maintain the road and other amenities but not, of course, council tax. The developer and council, in essence, split the profits while the residents and new tenants get the bill. This is not only collusion between the council and the developer but an extremely inefficient way to run things. Many of the people on these estates end up with a huge bill to sort problems that have arisen because the amenities were not sorted properly in the first place.

Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill

Baroness Finn Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 27th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, and to listen to so many well-informed and eloquent contributions. I thank my noble friend the Minister for her engagement on the Bill thus far. I am delighted to speak in favour of this important Bill, and in so doing recognise the tireless advocacy of so many noble Lords, especially my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy and Lord Best.

Just over a 100 years ago, a little-known thinker called Noel Skelton coined the idea of a property-owning democracy. That belief is still a core tenet of conservatism. However, today, we are talking about tenants, not just tenets. For far too many in England, property ownership has a fatal flaw: for far too many their ownership is fundamentally limited, in that they do not truly own the properties that they have saved to buy. They are merely tenants, albeit often on longer leases. In some cases, they are trapped by extortionate ground rents; in others, they risk losing the roof over their heads if they fail to make such payments. Some face exorbitant management charges or have to seek permission and pay a charge simply to change a kitchen cabinet.

Our leasehold system has its origins in the feudal property laws. Feudalism was a core part of my history degree; it has no place in contemporary Britain. This is why I am so delighted to speak in this debate today. Successive Governments have promised reforms to the leasehold system and failed to deliver. As we heard in the other place, Tony Blair’s new Labour promised to sweep it all away—it even produced a pamphlet about all its plans. However, the Labour Government did no such thing during their years in power. They retreated in the face of vocal opposition, and the situation of leaseholders today is little changed from that of the 1970s. That is why this Bill is so profoundly important.

The reforms are deeply conservative, championed by none other than Margaret Thatcher during her opposition and her premiership. I am encouraged that His Majesty’s Opposition plan to engage seriously, as we all have a common interest to ensure the Bill’s success.

The Bill corrects many injustices. Let me list just a few. It will end permanently the sale of new freehold houses; it will give new rights to existing leaseholders, making it cheaper and easier for them to extend their leases, and making such extensions 990 years as a default; it will bring new transparency over service charges and make it easier for leaseholders to enfranchise; it will protect more leaseholders from unfair and unjustified service charges; and it will improve the management of many buildings. These are huge steps forward, and I pay tribute to the work of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Levelling Up. Housing and Communities, as well as to the Housing Minister, Lee Rowley, and before him, Rachel Maclean. The reforms also build on the work of Sajid Javid as Housing Secretary, and incorporate many recommendations of the Law Commission. I welcome all of these measures. Taken together, this package is by far the biggest and most serious change to the leasehold system in recent decades.

However, I hope my friends in the Government will not object to me pressing them to go further in a few key areas, while recognising all that they have already secured. The first area is enfranchisement—the process by which leaseholders can take over their freehold. This will be improved by the Bill, but I urge the Government to go further and abolish the residential freehold exemption and lower the threshold of consenting flats required. Certainly, it should not be possible for a freeholder who also owns leases in a particular block to cast deciding votes on enfranchisement, and nor should absentee overseas owners be able to block the process.

Secondly, successive Housing Ministers have championed commonhold as a viable alternative to leasehold. I am encouraged that the Government have included a swathe of the Law Commission’s reforms, yet the Bill does not yet include the measures that the Law Commission considers necessary to make that system of tenure the new default. We need to move towards a commonhold system, and I sincerely hope that the necessary further measures can be incorporated as the Bill goes through its further stages. I hope that my noble friend the Minister can confirm that they will be included, so that we can finally get rid of the leasehold system.

Thirdly, my right honourable friend Boris Johnson secured a substantial majority just five years ago on a manifesto which included the promise to implement a

“ban on the sale of new leasehold homes”.

The Government have sought to suggest that banning leasehold houses fulfils this promise. It does not, for the majority of leaseholders are in flats. I recognise that no Government would want to ban immediately the sale of new leasehold flats, and that the commonhold fixes I have referenced above would need to be shown to work. However, I suggest that the Government take a power to allow the Secretary of State to end all leasehold, while committing here that it would be commenced only once the market was ready.

Fourthly and fifthly, we have heard a great deal in the other place about the need to address both forfeiture and the fleecehold estates. My honourable friend Rachel Maclean said quite simply that forfeiture must go, and she is right. It is simply wrong that a freeholder can make a tenant forfeit their flat over a disputed service charge. Likewise, my honourable friend Neil O’Brien was one of many who argued strongly about the need to end the model of fleecehold estates and to help the 3 million or 4 million people who are stuck with them. I will not repeat all the points made, save to say that I completely endorse the thrust of their arguments and call on my noble friend the Minister to commit to act now.

I have outlined five areas where I believe the Government should move further. I hope they will do so, so that the Bill, which already achieves so much, can be one which truly delivers the reforms needed to end leasehold for good.