King’s Speech

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy. Yes, he was my PhD supervisor, though I heard on the way in that he thought that the PhD of the noble Lord, Lord Case, was the best he had ever seen. However, I am happy to follow his interest by talking about just two aspects of the urgent task of cleaning up politics.

The first is about lobbying. I value being lobbied; I think it helps us understand the implications of proposed—or indeed, as we have just heard, much-needed—legislation, whether that affects business, finance, poverty, consumers, workers, localities or the environment, but lobbying in this country is basically unregulated. The coalition Government introduced what they called a register of lobbyists but, alas, it covered only consultant lobbying firms, not the much larger industry of in-house lobbyists. Luckily, however, I topped last week’s ballot for Private Members’ Bills, so my Bill, which will have its First Reading on 1 June, would extend the register to include in-house lobbyists. I trust that the House will support that Bill, as our rather crazy current situation is that the so-called register includes only consultancies and not the most effective of lobbyists, namely those who work within big companies. Lobbyists, or public affairs as they tend to be called, who are directly employed by defence companies, the drinks industry, utilities, developers or the financial sector, all work under the radar. In contrast, small bodies, be they SMEs or charities, are unable to employ their own public affairs departments and therefore call in the help of consultants and see that work registered. Advisers to a small charity, such as Alcohol Concern that I used to run, must register, but not the public affairs teams of drinks companies.

Secondly, I turn to the idea of a cap on donations from expat voters. I am very pleased that, following the report, the Government have said they will introduce a cap on donations from overseas voters, many of whom will not have lived in the UK for decades and probably have no intention of ever returning here. They do not pay UK tax, they do not use our services or contribute to our economy, but they will still be permitted to donate £100,000 a year to a political party—that is £200,000 for a couple, or a million pounds within a Parliament. We on our side of the House, and I hope on the other side, may rail against Nigel Farage’s receipt of £5 million from an expat, but why are we all so relaxed about £1 million per Parliament being donated from a non-resident British couple, with no skin in the game, where the source of their money, or even whether they are in prison, working for another Government or anything else, cannot be easily verified? It is very different from the way they treat us, as PEPs. Let us reduce the permitted donation cap for overseas residents to one-tenth, say £10,000 a year, or allow such donations only from UK taxpayers.

My noble friend the Minister said in her introduction that she wanted to rebuild trust in our British constitution. These two measures would move towards that.