Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

Debate between Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts and Lord Martin of Springburn

Tuesday 5th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 55, I apologise to the House for not having been in the Chamber for the debate immediately preceding the dinner break, where some aspects of the position of the registrar of lobbyists were discussed—how he will be appointed, who can be appointed and some method for reporting on his performance. My amendment is, at this stage of course, a probing amendment, and is concerned with the other end of the appointment, the question of dismissal.

Paragraph 3(6) of Schedule 2 says:

“The Minister may dismiss the Registrar if the Minister is satisfied that the Registrar is unable, unwilling or unfit to perform the functions of the office”.

Those are quite big words, capable of pretty wide interpretation. Rather gratifyingly, after I had tabled this amendment, I was written to by a number of groups that are interested in this: the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and a group called Spinwatch, which said it thought this was an issue worth probing.

As I said at Second Reading, the registrar of lobbyists will have a pretty key role in the efficient functioning of the new system. From time to time, for he or she to be effective, he or she will be required to be disobliging—to lobbyists, of course, but also to be prepared to speak truth to power, which can be quite uncomfortable. As I have just explained by reading out the clause, the Minister has summary powers as far as the removal of the registrar is concerned.

I reflected on what might be done to provide what might be described as a little air cover for the registrar in the work that he is doing. I looked at two examples. Both are bodies that have some connection to this Bill. First is the Charity Commission. Paragraph 3(3) of Schedule 1 to the Charities Act says:

“Before removing a member of the Commission the Minister must consult … the Commission, and … if the member was appointed following consultation with the Welsh Ministers, the Welsh Ministers”,

so he has no power to remove the head of the Charity Commission without at least having to go through an iteration with fellow members of the commission. More specifically, the Electoral Commission, the other body with which we are concerned, has a considerably higher threshold. Paragraph 3(4) of Schedule 1 to the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act says:

“An Electoral Commissioner may be removed from office by Her Majesty in pursuance of an Address from the House of Commons”.

I thought that, at least to get the discussion going, it would be helpful to put down here that the Speakers of both Houses would have to be consulted.

This is wider than the Electoral Commission because lobbying concerns both Houses, whereas of course the Electoral Commission is concerned with elections, which, at least to date, do not concern your Lordships’ House. I am not wedded to these specific proposals. I do not suppose for a moment that the Government will accept them in their present form, but it is worth exploring how we are going to make sure that the registrar, who has this important role to play, has some protection if he or she wishes to carry out his or her work in a way that the Government of the day may find disobliging. I beg to move.

[Lord Martin of Springburn (CB)]

My Lords, I know that the noble Lord put this amendment down in good faith. I can see the negative aspect of consulting with the Speaker and the Lord Speaker. First, the legislation states that the person who shall appoint the registrar is the Minister, not the Speakers of both Houses. There is an old saying that if you hire the person, the unpleasant task of firing them is also yours. Things would need to get very serious indeed for a Minister to find that the registrar was so unfit that he or she would have to be removed.

There is a danger, which has happened with other appointees to the House, where the individual concerned could appear on the face of it to have a good personality and to be a likeable person; they strike up a rapport with the media and use the media against the authority that has decided to remove them. It is easy for the media to indulge in a good person/bad person scenario.

I think that the question that the media would ask is: have the Speaker of the House of Commons and the Speaker of the House of Lords been consulted? The Minister might find it quite easy to say, “Yes, they have been consulted”. If dismissal is to take place, it goes without saying that the Speakers of both Houses have agreed with that proposition. If the responsibility is given to the Minister via the Bill, any difficulties should be left at the Minister’s door.

I think that the parliamentary commissioner, whom we have for both Houses, is appointed for either four or five years nonrenewable. That is a satisfactory way to deal with the matter: the registrar gets a five-year nonrenewable appointment—I know that that is not what the amendment provides. Then, when there is a parting of the ways, there are no hard feelings, whereas the Bill talks about a third renewed appointment. I have not looked fully into the responsibilities of the registrar, but I know about the parliamentary commissioner. If the third reappointment is not given, it would be considered a slur on the incumbent.

I understand that in the 1950s and prior to that, no one bothered the Speaker or the Lord Chancellor—they did not have a Lord Speaker. In recent years, the Speaker has been attacked for many reasons, and he or she is an easy target because the rule for a Speaker is that you do not respond to a press attack. That makes him or her a very easy target. I would be happier if the Minister who made the appointment made the decision. It would take a genius of a registrar to get things so badly wrong as to get him or herself sacked. In such a controversial situation, we should leave both high offices out of the legislation.