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

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I take that on board. The question of designing a system that is easily accessible to everyone, including if one has such a very large register as that which the noble Lord and some others are proposing, is one with which we all have to deal. The Government are indeed looking at making the ministerial diaries more readily and more rapidly available. At present we submit them every three months, so they are sometimes three months or more in arrears. We are aware of that problem. However, we are much more transparent than previous Governments in this respect and are, to that extent, moving forward.

Looking at the Canadian system, we are not persuaded that we need a comprehensive register in which everyone who might be said to be lobbying as a matter of their employment would be included. The Canadian system was introduced in response to a system in which it was felt that there was no information about who Ministers were meeting. We have dealt with the issue of who Ministers are meeting by other means.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

If wonder if I can help my noble friend, and the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. There is a specific amendment which I hope will help with the point he raised. It is not necessary therefore to include every in-house lobbyist because they are already going to be recorded in those meetings and it is fairly obvious why they are there.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we are more persuaded from other countries that have the light-touch system we are proposing that it is more effective at addressing the problem than the large, expensive and comprehensive system the Canadians have gone in for.

There are a large number of amendments in this group. I will try to address as many of the issues as I can.

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[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 25, which is in my name and that of my noble friend, and is a very specific amendment. Before I do so I will respond to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. I have a very open mind about the wider additions that have been proposed in different parts of the House, and I shall listen with great interest to the noble Baroness—whichever noble Baroness that will be—when she speaks to Amendment 18, as that may well clarify our minds.

The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, makes a very interesting point about non-ministerial government departments, precisely because they are not in the hierarchy of any department. They have a different relationship to the Permanent Secretary and the Minister from all the other civil servants. While I would be very worried about going too far down the list of civil servants—down the hierarchy—he makes a very valuable point and I shall look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say on it.

Rather late last night, after leaving the House, I renewed my acquaintance with a very interesting book, Dr Andrew Blick’s history of the special adviser in British politics, published nine years ago in 2004, which is entitled People Who Live in the Dark. That is a quotation from Clare Short that some of my noble friends may recall. Very many distinguished Members of this House, on both sides, are of course former special advisers, and I do not in any way intend what I have to say to be a slur on their reputations. Of course, it is also true that some important Members of the other House have been special advisers, not least Mr Ed Miliband and Mr Ed Balls, both of whom feature very prominently in Dr Andrew Blick’s account of how the Treasury clique operated under Gordon Brown. Then, of course, there was the “special special adviser”, Mr Alastair Campbell.

No sooner had I got myself to sleep last night by reading Andrew Blick—it was rather late—than I woke up again at 4am. I usually find that a good book sends me straight back to sleep, but unfortunately Dr Blick’s book is so interesting that I was awake for several more hours this morning. Therefore, if I am slightly less articulate than usual, that is entirely his fault. I will quote from page 313:

“The Thatcher years had a centralised, private-sector flavour, with individuals making a great impact. In Major’s premiership, temporary civil servants were less remarkable, subject to more formal regulation and perhaps more intrigue-prone. Finally, the Blair period saw expansion in terms of significance and numbers, and the exercise of pronounced managerial and media roles, leading to high levels of publicity”.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, I realise that the noble Lord is quoting from a book, but I point out that recent figures showed just last week that the number of special advisers has risen quite extensively under this Government as compared to the previous Government.

[Lord Tyler]

I am absolutely aware of what the noble Baroness has said, and I will come to that very point. Of course, it is not just a question of the numbers but about the role they play. I am trying to demonstrate that this is not a new problem but is certainly a central issue for the Bill and hence for my amendment.

Dr Blick goes on to say:

“If there was a change over time, it was in aides becoming more firmly established and accepted, and, to a limited extent, officially defined”.

Therefore they are recognised there and so they should be recognised in this legislation.

Then, as now, these political appointees acted as gatekeepers for senior Ministers. Then, as no doubt now, too many lobbyists found their way to the top decision-makers by this route. It was their particular way forward. If the spad did not feel that it would be politically helpful for the lobbying exercise to reach his or her Minister, it often failed at that hurdle. However, in many cases that was and is the gate through which the lobbyist has to go. It is certainly true in the present Government—I endorse what the noble Baroness said.

With both Labour and Conservative Ministers, we know that this was the route taken by representatives of the Murdoch media empire. Since 2010, there have been two serious scandals involving lobbying at this level that resulted in resignations. In one case it involved a spad and in another an adviser who clearly thought that he was a sort of special spad—a sort of spadoid. As I indicated at Second Reading, it would be ridiculous to exclude those extremely important decision-makers who are outwith the normal hierarchy of responsibility to the Permanent Secretary.

The advantage of the amendment is that it is simple to add spads into the regime. Consultant lobbyists who approach them should have to register, and the spads should have to publish details of their meetings with all external organisations, in precisely the same way, I am glad to say, as the coalition Government have now insisted that Ministers should do. I understand the arguments for extending the scope of transparency still further down the Civil Service chain, but the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, made a very valid point. It will be difficult to know where to stop, if you go down the departmental hierarchy. The cases that he mentioned are not within that hierarchy, of course. If we went further down that hierarchy, there would be a substantial administrative burden; for the move to be effective, hundreds and perhaps thousands of civil servants would have to publish their diaries. As it is, the Permanent Secretary is responsible for what happens at lower levels.

I welcome the fact that this Government have, for the first time, introduced very considerable transparency in terms of the meetings that take place. As I said at Second Reading—the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, referred to this—there is an amendment that would address the particular difficulty that the public, the media and parliamentarians have at present in identifying, in precise terms and quickly, when a meeting has taken place of this nature, with whom and on what subject. Therefore, it is extremely important that we have that clarity and access. Adding hundreds more people into the declaration regime would risk giving an excuse for delay in the publication of details about meetings with those who strongly influence decision-makers, and those who really do take those decisions—who must surely be the political appointees, special assistants and senior Ministers.

As we have heard in this debate, the lobbying register proposed by the Government is limited.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Did I mishear the noble Lord when he said that adding hundreds to the list would lead to delay? Surely, if he supports the position taken by my noble friend Lord Rooker, that is precisely what will happen.

[Lord Tyler]

I referred specifically to the non-ministerial government departments, on which the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, made a very valid point, because they are not within the hierarchy of departments responsible to the Permanent Secretary, in the same way as other civil servants. So I do not accept that. The addition to which he specifically referred would have considerable merit. I would look at that very carefully, and I hope that my noble friend the Minister will, as well.

Unlike others, I accept that we are making a limited addition to the transparency of the whole process with the register. Far more important is to make sure that the meetings that take place with whoever is lobbying are as transparent, timely and accessible as we can make them. What surely should not be limited should be the encounter with such critical political decision-makers and their advisers as the special advisers attached to senior Ministers. Therefore, I hope that my amendment will find favour with the House and with my noble friend the Minister.

[Lord Norton of Louth]

My Lords, I have amendments in the grouping as well. My amendments have similar aims to those of the noble Lords, Lord Hardie and Lord Rooker, and of the noble Baronesses, Lady Royall and Lady Hayter. I was very attracted by the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, because of the breadth of what it covers. However, I also noticed an omission; it does not encompass senior members of the Civil Service but confines itself to Permanent Secretaries. I think that there is a problem there.

When this Bill was considered in the other place, the point was well made that it appears to have been written by people who do not understand lobbying—clearly people who have not read the book by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. If it helps, I have a copy of his book on my shelf.

There are a number of problems but, as has been identified, Clause 2(3) is particularly problematic as it is so narrow. If you are going to lobby, the target is normally the Minister, and you therefore have to focus on the channels for reaching the Minister. The Permanent Secretary is not a significant channel for this purpose. Other officials will deal with that particular policy area—or a special adviser or the parliamentary private secretary. In saying that, I have nothing against special advisers; they play an extraordinarily valuable role from which Ministers and civil servants benefit. Parliamentary private secretaries also play a valuable role, so both should be included in the measure.

I know the objection as regards PPSs will be that they are private members, but increasingly they have been drawn within government. They are now mentioned in the Ministerial Code and are subject to certain requirements under it. Therefore, they are particularly good channels for reaching Ministers. We should encompass within the Bill’s remit all those who are being lobbied for the purposes of affecting public policy. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, does a valuable job in that regard, but one could add to it. I suspect that between now and Report we could come up with an amendment that brings together the various points that have been made and ensures that if we are to go down this route—and I am not persuaded that we should—those who are lobbied with a view to affecting public policy will be included in the Bill.

As it stands, Clause 2 is too narrow and, as I say, Permanent Secretaries should not feature significantly in it. I commend the various amendments that seek to widen the provision, so that if the Government go down this route at least they will do so effectively.

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[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, Amendment 78, tabled in my name and those of my noble friends, attacks—if that is the appropriate verb to use—the same point that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, has addressed, but in a slightly different way. We have heard a lot about the need for a statutory code of conduct for lobbyists both in the debate on Second Reading and, to some extent, in our debates today. However, the Bill is not about regulating lobbying but about trying to make lobbying more transparent. My own amendment maintains that spirit. There is a genuine concern that the Bill, by setting out in law some of the things that consultant lobbyists must do, could imply by omission that there are some things that we do not expect them to do. Hence, it is important to make some reference to the existing codes.

I confess that although I have not been involved with the lobbying industry for many years, when I had a real job before politics, I headed up a public affairs consultancy. In those days I do not think we even referred to it as lobbying. It was thought to be simply informing decision-makers about important issues and so on. I can see noble Lords opposite observing that there is hardly any distinction between the two activities. However, I appreciate very much the extent to which the lobbying industry has improved its transparency and its codes of conduct, of which I understand there are several. It is important that we should refer to the voluntary codes of conduct that various professional associations and their membership bodies have now signed up to.

The UK Public Affairs Council has said that,

“the range of membership bodies, trade associations, companies and other organisations involved to a lesser or greater extent in lobbying makes a single self-regulatory code unobtainable for the foreseeable future”.

That is a realistic position, but surely it does not mean that we should ignore what is already in place. UKPAC went on to say that,

“effective self regulation can nonetheless be achieved if everyone in a business or employed in a capacity which involves lobbying subscribes to an appropriate Code of Conduct”.

The Bill can only do that for consultant lobbyists because, as we have heard, it is not about a telephone directory-style register of everyone who ever lobbies. However, it should ensure that those whom it does cover are encouraged to continue their compliance with existing voluntary codes by requiring that they are transparent as to whether they do so or not. All concerned—those on the receiving end of lobbying, those who engage these services to lobby on their behalf, the general public and we as parliamentarians representing them—would then be aware of whether they have subscribed to the voluntary codes. Our amendment deals simply with that objective.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Opposition’s proposed amendment would prohibit lobbying unless the person had signed up to the registrar’s code of conduct. Their new clause would require the registrar, after consultation with relevant stakeholders, to produce a code of conduct which would include a provision that any inappropriate relations between lobbyists and parliamentarians were strictly forbidden. Amendment 108, which has been grouped elsewhere, would enable the registrar to impose civil penalties for breaches of the code of conduct. The Government are not persuaded that a statutory code of conduct is appropriate, and I suggest that the proposed amendments are based on a miscomprehension of the role of codes, either statutory or voluntary, in the regulation of lobbying. The Opposition appear to suggest that such codes are in existence and are operating successfully in other jurisdictions. Perhaps I may draw their attention to international examples of statutory codes of conduct, of which there are very few.

The Australian statutory code of conduct establishes a statutory register of consultant lobbyists and prohibits the lobbying of government on behalf of a third party without registration. That is exactly what this Bill provides for and, if that is what the Opposition are seeking to achieve, the amendments are not needed. In Canada, the Lobbyists’ Code of Conduct promotes three principles—integrity and honesty, openness and professionalism—and requires that lobbyists act transparently, that they respect confidentiality, and that they avoid conflicts of interest. That code is not a statutory instrument and there is no sanction for non-compliance other than a report from the registrar outlining the lobbyist’s misdemeanour. That is appropriate, because determining non-compliance with these very broad principles is a challenging, uncertain and subjective process.

We have not been able to identify any international precedent for the type of code the Opposition propose. Indeed, even the overwhelmingly high-regulation system in the USA, which requires a 900-plus page handbook to aid compliance, does not incorporate a statutory code of conduct of this sort. Perhaps the fact that the Opposition have been able to propose just one provision for their code of conduct illustrates why such an approach has not been adopted elsewhere.

The Government recognise the industry’s efforts to improve lobbying practice by introducing its own codes of conduct and are confident that that will continue. Those codes promote the ethical behaviour that is essential to the integrity and reputation of the lobbying industry. The codes contain laudable principles and good practice guidance, but their translation into statute does not seem sensible or feasible.

Amendment 78, in the name of my noble friend Lord Tyler, would instead amend Clause 5(4) so that regulations could be made to enable lobbyists to include details in their information returns of the voluntary codes of conduct that they had subscribed to; but no other additional types of information unrelated to voluntary codes of conduct could be so specified. My noble friend appears to agree with the Government that a statutory code of conduct is not necessary and that the existing voluntary codes should be endorsed and promoted. I am happy to tell my noble friend that the Government are committed to ensuring that the statutory register complements the existing self-regulatory regime.

A specific reference on the statutory register to the voluntary code to which a lobbyist has subscribed is an interesting proposal that the Government are willing to consider further. However, we are not persuaded that the power under Clause 5(4) should be restricted so that it could be used to make regulations only in relation to voluntary codes, which is the—perhaps unintended—effect of my noble friend’s amendment. We will consider this further. Meanwhile, I urge the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment and my noble friend not to press his.

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[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, I apologise to my noble friend if I misunderstood slightly what he was driving at. But it begs the question as to whether the 350 companies that the Minister referred to at the Dispatch Box include some of those companies that my noble friend was arguing were excluded from the legislation. The Minister might want to provide for us a more detailed analysis of how that list of 350 was drawn up so that we can see whether it includes some organisations that we believe are excluded under the legislation.

Amendment 17, which was in the first group, and Amendment 19, which is in this group, are in my name and deal with essentially the same issue. Amendment 19 stems from an unease I harbour about how some lobbying works in practice. I want to make it clear that I understand the vital role lobbying plays within our system of government. What I worry about is how people interpret the word “lobbying”.

Clause 2(3) defines lobbying as “oral or written communications” but there are oral communications and oral communications. This came out during an interview on the “Andrew Marr Show” on 7 October this year. The Prime Minister, Mr Cameron, was asked by Andrew Marr whether he had been lobbied by Lynton Crosby, the Conservative Party strategist, on the issue of tobacco. He replied, after the question had been repeated, that Lynton Crosby “has not intervened”. It was a curious construction of the language. You got the feeling that some wriggling was going on. I want to make it absolutely clear that I have no idea where the truth lies. I am sure that Mr Crosby is a perfectly excellent gentleman; that is not the point that I am making. I am simply drawing on that as an example of how there can be a wriggle on the use of the term.

The answers given by the Prime Minister during that interview reminded me of the answers given by the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Lympne, during the famous Paxman interview. It also brought memories back of the many conversations we had in the Select Committee on Members’ Interests in the 1980s during the course of our inquiry into lobbying nearly 30 years ago, under the chairmanship of the late Sir Geoffrey Johnson-Smith. There was endless discussion on formal as against informal discussion—formal as against informal lobbying—the word in the back of the cab as against the discussion across the table in the department with civil servants or a Minister present; the word on the golf circuit as against the formal response to a consultation.

The issue is where you draw the line. To this day I do not know, and I have asked Ministers over the years where they draw the line and there has always been much ambiguity as to where that line is to be drawn. When is an intervention not lobbying? When is lobbying not an intervention? This is a probing amendment to tease out some guidelines on where that line is to be drawn.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I read with interest Amendment 12, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, because there is a serious point here, although I am not sure that that is the right way to approach it. As I mentioned earlier, way back in the 1980s, I headed a public affairs consultancy. I recall that on many occasions I and my colleagues would advise clients. They were not, on the whole, commercial clients. They were usually trade associations, local authority associations, environmental groups, the Countryside Commission, the Rural Development Commission, and so on. Ministers and their senior team would always rather hear from the horse’s mouth, not from me as an intermediary. I had some experience; I had previously been a Member of Parliament; but it was far more effective for bodies of such reputation to speak directly to Ministers. So there is the definition suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, that not just those who are themselves making representations but those who, in return for payment, provide professional advice on how to lobby should be within the subsection.

However, we may be losing the effective target for the legislation. It would not be appropriate to deal with the next group of amendments in great detail, but the critical issue is who meets who when and what is discussed. In those days, I may have advised a client to take a particular line, think about the implications, talk to particular people in whatever context or perhaps given them bullet points as to what to say. For example, I recall advising a client on what approach they should take when talking to the then Prime Minister about which of the options should be supported by the Government for the Channel crossing. We went into detail about exactly what should be said. We did not go to see the Prime Minister in No. 10, and Sir Nicholas Henderson, who was the leader of that particular team, did not take a great deal of advice from me—he was far too experienced at dealing with Prime Ministers, not least Mrs Thatcher.

The critical issue is the details of the meeting: who, when and how? That is why, in the next group of amendments, we will address that to a greater extent. It is important that we concentrate on that. I give credit to the present Government because they have made that a great deal more transparent than it has been in the recent past. That is a real step forward, and we must make sure that the Bill builds on that.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

I support these probing amendments from my noble friends Lord Rooker and Lord Campbell-Savours, and certainly look forward to the Minister’s response. On Amendment 30, I certainly agree with my noble friend Lord Rooker that such an amendment would afford important protection to the Minister and his office but, as he acknowledged, that should be a matter of good practice, and I am not sure that one can always legislate for good practice. It will be interesting to hear the Minister’s views.

My noble friend Lady Hayter and I have tabled Amendments 21, 28 and 48 to 50. There are three essential issues: the inclusion of electronic communications; the inclusion of lobbying about European legislation; and the exclusion of parts of the schedule that limit the definitions of lobbying. In the 21st century, I think we would all accept that electronic communications are probably the principal way by which we all communicate, yet the Bill defines communications as “oral or in writing” and fails to make clear whether electronic indications are also included. I hope that the Minister will be able to clarify that. If electronic communications are not included, I hope that the Government will consider that issue and, if not, I will certainly come back with an amendment at a later stage.

Apparently, the Australian register of lobbyists states that communications with a government representative includes oral, written and electronic communications, and the USA register provides that the term lobbying contact means any oral or written communication, including an electronic communication. Were electronic communications not to be included, there would be a loophole. I am sorry to keep banging on about this, but Jeremy Hunt’s texts to News Corporation lobbyist Frederic Michel about Rupert Murdoch’s proposed takeover of BSkyB were in electronic form. It is important that that should be captured.

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[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, my Amendment 63 comes within this group. It is an extremely important amendment and one that is so central to the Bill that I hope there will be general agreement with its purpose. It may not be in perfect form; that is a different matter.

The amendment would insist that, alongside, there would be a central database of meetings between Ministers and external organisations, as recorded under the Ministerial Code. As the Minister said earlier, and as has been said on other occasions, not least at Second Reading, there is wide agreement across your Lordships’ House that the movement towards more transparency on meetings, with reports from various Ministers about what meetings have taken place with outside organisations, has been a major step forward under the present coalition Government. In fact, I was astonished to learn that this is the first Government to proactively publish the details of such meetings.

There is nevertheless a concept known among transparency campaigners as “hidden in plain sight”. That means that important information about who is bringing influence to bear in government may be published but may still be obscured by the form in which it is published. That is the issue to which I made reference at Second Reading and to which the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, made reference earlier, when we had a brief exchange. That is critical to making progress in this direction.

To find out who Tesco has met in government over the past 12 months, you need to go manually to each of 26 different departmental websites, and then you have to look at spreadsheets for each quarter. There are therefore 104 spreadsheets that you need to find, and you then need to download them—just to get one simple bit of information: who has Tesco been talking to over the past 12 months? You will probably find that one or two departments have not even got around to publishing for the latest quarter, so it is not in real time. Indeed, by the time that department does publish that information, the influence that has been exerted over important legislation might have come and gone, right through Parliament. There is simply no opportunity to see what has happened.

You might find that one or two departments have broken or defective links that lead nowhere; we discovered that when we looked at some of the relevant spreadsheets. Surely it should not be necessary for a citizen, journalist or indeed parliamentarian to spend days looking for such simple information. The technology is there. Having made such a good start, this Government should surely not be hiding what is happening at this level simply because the systems that they are using are not up to the job.

If the Government took up the suggestion in our amendment, a simple and searchable central database for all their meeting data would mean that we could take the sting out of the calls, here and elsewhere, for an enormous lobbying register. We would have immediate access. This would fulfil my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth’s objectives: we would have the information, very accessibly, at our fingertips very quickly. It would not matter whether the lobbyist was a professional consultant or an in-house one, a charity or some other organisation; the information about who was talking to whom within the governmental system would be available relatively accessibly.

In my office we started to try to put together the spreadsheets for different departments. We just did two or three departments for one quarter in order to see if this experiment could be undertaken by anyone—parliamentarians or people outside. Excel itself can then produce a list of external organisations that have met Ministers. Quickly we could see who had met Ministers in more than one department, right across Whitehall. Surely that should be the objective that we all have. If we can do that in my office, there is no reason why departments and the Government collectively should not and could not do so. If it was done professionally, the data would then need to be parsed to ensure that if a meeting with BT came up, for example, it was indicated whether the meeting was registered as with BT, with BT Group or in other formats. Clearly there has to be some moderating intervention, but in this day and age that is surely not too difficult or expensive a task to ask of Government in the interests of transparency, which is surely what this initiative is all about. Then the result will be a fully searchable database, online, for all to examine—interested citizens, organisations outside Parliament, journalists and us. We could see what exactly had happened in the process of influencing legislation or executive decisions.

To make it more effective still, government departments should surely be able to publish these data at least on a monthly basis. Previously the Minister explained that he records very carefully all such meetings. Why should other Ministers not do so on a monthly basis rather than a quarterly basis? Surely that is no more difficult than doing so on a wider time basis. Anyone who has tried to influence the Government knows that time is critical. Get in at the right moment, or you fail. Given the way in which legislation, particularly statutory instruments, can go through both Houses of Parliament relatively speedily, if you do not know who has talked to whom within a matter of a few weeks after their meeting has taken place, the exercise becomes purely academic.

We need to see when people have been exerting influence at the same time as that influence may have had effect, not three or six months later. These would be very simple but very significant improvements. I hope that the Government, who have now created a more transparent system for meetings—the first time that any Government have attempted this—can see that this is the way to be more transparent still, and that surely is precisely what Parliament should be asking in the context of this legislation.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

My Lords, I support what my noble friend just said. It seems rather silly to have done what is required in order to be transparent without taking the necessary steps to make it easy for other people to access that transparency. For example, ministerial diaries will be done on a daily basis, I assume, or possibly on a weekly basis, in advance, I hope, so the basic structure is there almost immediately. I cannot see why the diary cannot immediately be put out. Obviously, the diary sometimes has to be corrected, because even ministerial diaries sometimes do not actually transpire as intended, but an immediate correction could be made to make sure that it is accurate. I cannot see why it could not be done immediately, on a daily basis. Certainly, weekly would seem perfectly possible. If not, having made what one might regard as an important step towards transparency, the Government are losing the full benefit of that transparency by the difficulty that people have in accessing it.

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[Lord Martin of Springburn]

My Lords, I am slightly worried about the speed which is being talked about by the noble Lords, Lord Kerr and Lord Tyler. I have no objection to getting up-to-date information but, if I understand correctly, we are talking about the information going out the following day. There have to be security implications. When I held of the office of Speaker, I was warned that there are fixated individuals who watch, stalk, make a pest of themselves and can be even more dangerous than that. The information would not only show up who the Minister was meeting but could well show up the venue, the place where the Minister was meeting. If it showed on a regular basis over a number of weeks that a meeting was taking place at a certain venue—let us say that the Minister by preference wanted to meet in his or her native city and said, “Make it a Friday at my constituency central office”—it could throw up a pattern of where the Minister was every Friday or every Monday for that matter, before they moved down to Westminster. I put that in as a word of caution. If the information says that the Minister met a representative from BT or Centrica, I would not be too unhappy, but if it showed a Minister meeting at a certain venue, I would worry about that.

[Lord Tyler]

I think I should make it clear that I suggested monthly. The present arrangement is three-monthly, but sometimes it is three months beyond that. I am less in a hurry than the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, who is much more radical. I am modest on these matters.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

I could live with that.

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

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, I want to reinforce the contributions that have been made on these two amendments, particularly the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn, about the relationship between a constituency Member of Parliament and any representatives of any interests in that constituency. As I understand it—as I recall, this was reinforced in the other place on Report—there is nothing in the Bill that in any way impedes the opportunity and the responsibility of representing the people of one’s constituency in any way that may be appropriate. It is very important that we reiterate that principle now. I am very pleased to hear the noble Lord, Lord Martin, make that point again.

[Lord Norton of Louth]

My Lords, I will be very interested to see whether anyone reports the words of the noble Lord, Lord Martin, about the Press Gallery.

I rise to support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, because he makes a very important point—I am surprised that it has not come up more in our discussions on the Bill—and that is this point about a kitemark for lobbying firms. Lobbying has always been a contentious activity. When I was writing about lobbying in the 1980s I made the point then that quite often the problem is not in the relationship between the lobbyist and the parliamentarian. Parliamentarians know perfectly well when they are being lobbied and essentially where it is coming from and can assess what is happening; if you like, they know the quality of the lobbying. The real problem, I argued, was between the client and the lobbyist, because clients would not necessarily know the quality of the firms they were employing to make representations. Lobbying firms are very good at making grand claims for their success rates.

Therefore, there is an issue of lobbying firms wanting to portray themselves in a certain way. My concern here is the one made by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours: you will get firms on the register using that to promote their interests to potential clients—putting on the notepaper something such as “Registered lobbyist, regulated by the Registrar of Lobbying Companies”, as a way of giving themselves the seal of approval. I fully endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, is trying to do in his amendment but I think that it raises that broader issue which he has touched on and which we need to be very much aware of. I am surprised that we have not considered that to a greater extent. It is just one of the problems if you go down this particular route of having a formal register, especially if there is no code attached to it.

Voting Age (Comprehensive Reduction) Bill [HL]

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Friday 25th October 2013 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Tyler]

That the Bill be read a second time.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to those from all parts of the House who have encouraged me to introduce the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, from the Conservative Benches, who is going to be here shortly, has pioneered discussion of the issue in your Lordships’ House. Then there is the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Hornsey, from the Cross Benches, who is on the speakers list, and the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, a very distinguished Member from the Labour Benches who is, unfortunately, not able to be here today, but has indicated to me his strong support. I am very encouraged to see a number of colleagues from all sides of the House who intend to speak in this debate, most notably the noble Baroness, Lady Royall. I am very grateful, given her very busy life, that she is able to be here today. No doubt she will be able to report to your Lordships’ House that our Bill, with cross-party support, has also now the official support of the Official Opposition.

I do not intend to speak at great length, not least because I am very well aware that esteemed colleagues on all sides of the House are anxious to make progress on the two important Bills that follow. I hope that we can complete this stage of our Bill as quickly as possible, for that reason. I am especially encouraged by the presence of my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire, who will give the ministerial response to our debate. He has an enviable reputation for integrity, logic and rational analysis, which may stem more from his academic background than from his political allegiance. He will, I am sure, be the first to see the inevitable case for this Bill. Whatever ministerial brief he has been handed, I invite him to apply these invaluable assets to the situation that we find ourselves in.

Whatever others may say, my noble friend will recognise that the Government have in principle accepted the case for the extension of the franchise to 16 and 17 year-olds. I pay tribute to my right honourable friend the Prime Minister—and I never thought that in 50 years of public life I could say that—and to my right honourable friend Michael Moore, for their role in achieving the Edinburgh agreement. The proper role of these young people to decide on the future of Scotland was accepted in that agreement; they will now be entitled to vote in next year’s referendum. It was acknowledged by the coalition Government that in such far-reaching decisions, which could affect their whole lives, the whole nation would benefit from their opportunity to participate.

Of course, as those of us who are committed to the maintenance of the union must agree, it would be intolerable if our citizens in different parts of the United Kingdom were to enjoy totally different basic civic rights or civic responsibilities. That would not be a united kingdom. Other minor matters—some quite important, perhaps—may be devolved; but surely we cannot sustain the argument that the franchise, the most basic building block of our representative democracy in the UK, should not be approached on a coherent and cohesive basis. The Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House has frequently urged the Government to be consistent and to avoid ad hoc change in this field. I trust that it will itself be consistent in this respect.

In our debate in the Grand Committee in the Moses Room on 27 February, I quoted a specific recommendation from our Constitution Committee entitled, “Agreement on a Referendum on Independence for Scotland”, where it was said that relevant authorities must act—and this is the quote,

“in accordance with their constitutional responsibilities of fairness and equal treatment”.

If that applies north of the border, it must surely also apply south of the border. I very much hope that we will see that recommendation if the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House looks again at this issue.

Let us suppose this enfranchisement is denied to 16 and 17 year-olds in future referendums—for example, on the continued membership of this country in the European Union. I cannot think of any issue with more long-term implications for this age group than that. If that happened, I suspect that the Joint Committee on Human Rights would have something to say. It will surely be bad enough for this age group in England, Wales and Northern Ireland to be disfranchised in the general election in 2015, but what will Ministers say to 17 year-olds who have voted in 2014 in Scotland but cannot do so a year later? And what if there is a local, Scottish Parliament or even Westminster by-election in a Scottish area on the same day as the independence referendum? How could the Minister’s impeccable logic explain to this group that it was mature enough for one decision but not for the other?

I am delighted to see a number of noble friends on all sides of the House—and I mean that sincerely—who are going to speak today. I am sure that they will be able to spell out the extent to which that age group has become much better informed and able to deal with decisions of this sort. That was very much the theme of our debate in the Moses Room on 27 February. I hope that the copious evidence that was produced there on all sides gives strong support to this point. Since then, of course, the Labour Party has specifically endorsed our campaign.

A number of other organisations have also made general or specific recommendations in support of this change: for example, the British Youth Council, Bite the Ballot and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Voter Registration. That last group is especially relevant. As I pointed out at Question Time yesterday, it was found in Northern Ireland, when the new system of individual electoral registration was piloted there, that the anticipated catastrophic collapse in registration among younger age groups was averted by attaching preparatory processing of registration to the citizenship syllabus in secondary schools. I hope that that will occur in this part of the United Kingdom. It is surely a natural and practical end product of these courses in schools and colleges that when students achieve that greater understanding they can then have greater impact in practical terms as they will be prepared for registration to be full electoral citizens in our country. It is far easier to do that at that age group than when many people have left their home environment for work or further education at 18.

I have in mind particularly a very interesting conclusion of the so-called Kenny report entitled How Do Politics and Economics Affect Gangs and Serious Youth Violence Across the UK?. When it was published, its author Kenny Imafidon, who has direct personal experience of that side of life in south-east London, came to see me and drew my attention to the following recommendation. Under the heading, “Lowering the voting age for young people from 18 to 16”, it states:

“Why is it possible for young people to go to prison at 10, give full consent to medical treatment at 16, leave school and enter work or training at 16, pay income tax and National Insurance at 16, obtain tax credits and welfare benefits in their own right at 16, consent to sexual relationships at 16, get married or enter a civil partnership at 16, change their name by deed poll at 16, join the armed forces at 16, but they cannot vote at 16? … Because there is no right to vote at the age of 16, many young people are disenfranchised before they even get a chance to vote. The political system is weighted in favour of those who are eligible to vote at the expense of young people who cannot. The impact of young people not being able to vote regarding critical services that affect their life chances are highlighted in the recommendations below”.

Of course, this Bill will not solve all those problems. How could it? It is not a cure-all for such deep and formidable difficulties in our civil society, but it could make a useful contribution. It is in those terms that I and colleagues from other parts of the House wish to make progress on this issue. The Kenny report sums up that case admirably.

In the interests of brevity I will say no more except to add that this is a very modest, brief and positive Bill, so I trust that my noble friend’s response can be all those things too, and that he will just say yes. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, this has been a very high-quality debate, and I am enormously grateful to all those who have spoken, and indeed those who have attended. I do not know whether this is the normal attendance on a Friday morning, but I think that all those who have listened to the debate as well as contributed will agree that this has been the House of Lords at its best.

We are sometimes slightly complacent about the quality of our debates, so I should perhaps draw to your Lordships’ attention that the other place on 24 January voted by 119 MPs to 46 in support of a similar Motion to this—so they are not quite as retrograde as we sometimes think.

Your Lordships have demonstrated a maturity of judgment this morning, but also that we are young at heart. I am grateful to all those who have taken part. I do not propose to comment on all the contributions, because there are other important Bills to follow, but I want to take up one or two points very quickly. I am delighted that my noble friend Lord Lexden is joining the team at the Hansard Society, in which I am also involved. The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and my noble friend Lord Goodhart pointed out that one of our problems about disengagement is that people get out of the habit of voting before they even start. That is a strong argument for combining this proposal with the natural thread of the citizenship programme.

I am particularly grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, for her commitment. She said honestly that she had changed her mind on this issue through a combination of principle and practical experience. Many of us are in the same position. I must say to my noble friend Lord Wallace that I suspect that his official brief was rather less equivocal than he was, because he is obviously having to tread a very careful path. I say to him, as a fellow historian, imagine if the great Whig Government of 1832 had said in preparing for the Reform Bill, “We will seek a consensus”. A very distinguished constitutional historian in my former college, Exeter College, Oxford, said recently apropos of the Lords reform process—I paraphrase, because I do not have his book before me, but I recommend it—that the search for consensus is a shortcut to a dead end. My noble friends should beware of the idea that we must always go at the speed of the slowest, with the lowest common denominator.

I shall not say more. I am very grateful to all those who have contributed but, in the interests of brevity and those who are to speak in the later debates, I now invite your Lordships’ House to give the Bill a Second Reading.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

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

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, in many years of public life I cannot recall a set of proposals that have been so misunderstood and, to some extent, misrepresented. I hope that during this debate, and particularly in Committee, we will be able to reassure the many charities and smaller campaign groups that have been in touch with us that the Bill is not about stopping them contributing to our democracy. As my noble friend the Minister said, the target is the very wealthy and powerful interests that would seek to influence executive decisions and our elections, and which evidently feel threatened by greater transparency. I am interested to see that some charities that have been in touch with me now see that they have more of a problem with charity law than with the Bill. They may have to look carefully at the intentions of the Bill and at the detail of the charity law with which they may have a problem.

The Bill is a first, essential step towards taking big money out of politics: an issue that has been with us ever since Bernie Ecclestone, the tobacco lobby and Formula 1 was brought to our attention in the early years of the Blair regime. That has obviously increased our awareness of the threat to our democracy. I recall that the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, urged the Government to introduce a lobbying Bill in her contribution to the debates in May—and I endorsed her request. Ironically, she referred specifically to the tobacco lobby and to the Murdoch empire. Her colleagues in the previous Government have good reason to remember both those organisations.

I think that it was the present Prime Minister who said that sunlight was the best disinfectant. As the Minister said, important steps have already been taken to increase transparency in Whitehall about who is meeting whom. However, the Bill will take that a step further, and if we can improve it further again by building on the register, as I will come to in a minute, that will be a very important step forward.

Part 2 deals with the considerable potential threat from “super-PACs”, which are now so evident in the USA. We have to face up to the fact that the capacity of millionaires to set up organisations that could each spend £793,500 in England—and do so in just one constituency if they chose to, under present law—could have a major impact in distorting results.

I am alarmed to note that I have contested some 12 elections, and on each occasion have been advised, on pain of serious penalty, to watch every penny spent in support of my candidature. On one occasion, however, when I was defending a majority of just nine votes, I was targeted by a shadowy pro-apartheid group that helped to secure my subsequent defeat. I want to see that type of activity brought into the light of day, and the Bill will start that process.

On Part 1, if I may go into a little more detail, I also have some practical experience since at one time, before politics took over, I had a real job as the head of a public affairs consultancy advising NGOs, environmental organisations, local government and trade associations—what I suppose would now be described as lobbying. The Government’s intention—rightly, in my view—is not to regulate lobbying but to ensure that the sunshine is very firmly imposed on it. We need to know who has the ear of Ministers and other decision-makers. To my mind, including in-house lobbyists would be a red herring and would create a huge telephone directory-style registry, including a huge number of people who would actually be irrelevant to greater transparency. It would not improve the extent to which we could see what was actually going on, because it would lose the wood for the enormous forest of trees, and hide in plain sight what was being done in the name of those paying for it to be done.

Meeting data about interactions with in-house lobbyists are already published, as my noble friend said, and if Oxfam or even Tesco meet a Minister, we know whose interests they are promoting. However, this could of course be greatly improved with a central database, an easily accessible online front end, through which anyone—the media, individual citizens, Members of your Lordships’ House—could establish who has met whom in Government, and indeed what the subject has been at what stage, without, as is currently the case, having to go through 60 different Excel spreadsheets, each parcelled away in different obscure parts of departmental websites. The key to transparency is easy access and simplicity, and the register is a very good first step in that direction.

During the passage of the Bill I will examine two key areas for the improvement of Part 1. First, as has already been referred to, we have to ensure that the meetings of special advisers, who are not directly responsible to the Permanent Secretaries in the same way as other members of the Civil Service, with any consultant lobbyists who have interacted with them are appropriately registered. We should remember that two of the most dramatic scandals involving privileged access in recent years involved ministerial advisers rather than Ministers themselves. Secondly, we have to look very carefully to see how the new statutory register can complement existing voluntary arrangements. The register that the Government propose is deliberately a statutory minimum, but surely it would be perverse if lobbyists then departed from their responsibilities under existing codes put in place by the UK Public Affairs Council.

As I said earlier, there has been a great deal of understandable misunderstanding, but some mis- information as well, about Part 2 of the Bill. I suspect that other Members of your Lordships’ House over recent weeks—in my case, over recent months—have been receiving e-mails referring to a supposed threat to freedom of speech. This is not a gagging Bill; it concerns itself not with what people say but with what they spend. That is the critical issue.

Those of us who have experience of electoral law know that that principle has been there since 1883, since people back in the 19th century were very concerned about buying votes. I cannot see why anyone who is attempting to influence the outcome of an election—to buy votes, if you like—who happens not to be standing as a candidate, should be able to spend unlimited sums on,

“promoting or procuring electoral success”.

As has already been made clear, that definition has stood four-square in two general elections, and MPs have done the right thing in returning to it.

The current definition in Clause 26 of activities that,

“can reasonably be regarded as intended to promote or procure electoral success”,

for a party or candidate, has been in place since PPERA 2000. The Commons rightly agreed to take out the rather vaguer phrase about “otherwise enhancing the standing” of parties or candidates.

I absolve the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, of any responsibility for the 2000 Act, since I do not think that she was directly involved then. However, many of us at both ends of this building were involved. We should assure her that it has stood the test of time. We took infinite trouble in both Houses to get the definition right. Surely it is ridiculous to say at this stage that the definition is defective, as she implied. If it had been so defective, surely the Electoral Commission, with its practical experience, would have recommended over many years that it needed updating, and, presumably, the Labour Government of the day would have implemented the recommendation. Can we at least accept that the definition stands four-square and is accepted on all sides?

I accept that there is quite a different issue when we come from the definitions to the spending limits, which are at present probably indefensible. The total limit for the United Kingdom is just shy of £1 million. The English limit of £793,500 could be focused on just one constituency. What if the oil companies decided to target a certain Brighton constituency to remove a Green MP, or other interests piled into a few seats held by Members of Parliament opposed to the review of the Hunting Act—which is a practical proposition—or piled into constituencies of prominent Conservatives who happen to favour continued United Kingdom membership of the European Union? The Americans have been teaching many people in this country how to target with big money.

In the past few days I have met representatives of the RSPB, Countryside Alliance, Transparency International, 38 Degrees and Friends of the Earth, and have discussed the situation with many others, through the good offices of the commission of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, to whom I pay tribute. All the organisations seem to agree that the existing regulations may be flawed, so the question is how to get the revised regulations right.

For example, the threshold for registration is obviously a big concern for these organisations. You could plot on a graph transparency on the one hand and bureaucracy on the other in very many areas of life. If transparency is low, the regulatory burden tends to be low, too. If accountability is strong, it is likely that the regulatory burden will be significant. The threshold is a question of where we plot this legislation on that graph. The lower thresholds proposed by the Government will improve and increase the accountability of campaign spending. Conversely, they inevitably increase the burden on smaller organisations. It will be our responsibility in your Lordships’ House to get the balance right when we come to Committee.

The second area of concern among a number of organisations is Schedule 3. These provisions flow directly from the Electoral Commission’s recommendation that the activities for which non-parties should have to account should be the same as those for which parties have to account. In that, it is perfectly reasonable to question how staff costs should be applied in the schedule. We will all listen to what the groups say about this and will probe the matter in Committee.

Reference was made to the way in which the Government’s proposals have been examined. Obviously, I think that we would all agree that if timing had permitted, pre-legislative scrutiny would have been desirable. However, the cross-party talks—of which I have direct knowledge—between the three major parties on the area of political funding effectively prevented this. It may well be a criticism that the Deputy Prime Minister should have realised that he was being strung along by the other two parties—that they were not serious about getting a result. However, given that they could not come to an agreement, it was obviously important to move on this particular issue, which was also agreed between the three parties.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, can I nail the myth that is going around that was perpetuated by the Deputy Prime Minister in the Commons last Tuesday? There were no substantive talks at all on third-party funding in the talks to which the noble Lord refers. Far from the current proposals being discussed extensively, they were never raised, never proposed and never discussed. Also, the talks did not break down; they ceased but they did not break down. I wish the noble Lord would not keep perpetuating that myth.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, my information is different on both points. We can have a further discussion after this debate. There was, of course, agreement between the three major parties that there was a need to address the issue. I hope the noble Baroness will agree on that, because there certainly was. Since then, unfortunately, there has been a tendency to jump on the bandwagon.

Meanwhile, there has also been a repetition of the idea that somehow the Electoral Commission was never involved in the exercise. As I have previously told your Lordships’ House, I have served on an informal all-party advisory group for the Electoral Commission for some years. It is simply not accurate to say that the commission has made no contribution to the thought process that led to this Bill. I will quote two warnings given by the commission in February 2013, under the heading, “Regulating Third Party Campaigning in the UK”. The first states that,

“the rules on general campaigning that is intended to influence voters should reflect the rules for political parties by covering events, media work and polling, as well as election material”.

The second states that,

“the Government should have order-making powers to update the rules on general campaigning, in order to deal with changing campaign methods in future”.

In the months that followed, between February and the publication of the Bill, there was indeed a continual dialogue, and I have a letter from the chair of the commission to confirm that. It is perfectly true that it was not consulted over every single part of the Bill, but a general dialogue continued about the necessary modernisation of the regulatory regime. I think that most Members of your Lordships’ House would say that it is preferable to have full scrutiny of a statutory process than to have a change in ministerial order-making powers.

Our duty now is to get the detail of the Bill right and to reassure those charities that have been unduly concerned. In particular, we will have to be satisfied that registration thresholds, the scope of Schedule 3 and the expenditure limits strike the right balance between transparency and bureaucracy. Delay will not help those who are concerned with this detail. Campaigners need time to assess their plans for the run-up to the May 2015 general election—and, of course, the Electoral Commission needs certainty so that it can give good advice. That is why it recommended opposition to the delaying tactics proposed in the other place.

Your Lordships’ House has an excellent reputation for detailed scrutiny. I hope there will be agreement today that we should get on with that job. This can be a good change in the law that will shine a light on a small but significant area of opacity in lobbying and will prevent the distortion of our politics by wealthy interests.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Phillips. I hope very much that the Minister will agree with that.

There is just one other point I would like to make. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has suggested that the present definition of an electoral activity promoting or procuring electoral success at any relevant election is accepted by virtually everyone concerned. I think that charities have not in fact been quite so happy about that as he suggests. There is still genuine uncertainty because this is a genuinely difficult area. If, for instance, a campaigning group on climate change looks at the policies of the different parties and assesses them according to whether it thinks that their policies are desirable as far as climate change is concerned, does that count as an activity for promoting or procuring electoral success at any general election? It seems to me that people of good will could argue that either way. Therefore, is there not a need for government lawyers, Charity Commission lawyers and the lawyers of charities to get together to see whether this really is the best definition or whether we can come up with something better?

[Lord Tyler]

I agree precisely with what the noble and right reverend Lord has just said. As was said earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, it is charity law that has restricted many of these activities in the past. We have to make sure that these particular forms of legislation are mutually compatible so that everybody is clear where they stand.

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth]

That highlights the final point I want to make. Before this Bill proceeds any further, would it not be sensible for the Government to get government lawyers and charity lawyers together to see if we can get total agreement about the definition of the key phrase in this Bill?

This highlights the final recommendation of the Joint Committee on Human Rights that there should be a pause in this legislation. The committee says that,

“our primary recommendation is to urge the Government to 'pause' the Bill's passage through Parliament in order to allow for further consultation and scrutiny”.

It would be much better to have a Bill before the House which unites the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the Constitution Committee, the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, the Electoral Commission and the charities—bodies which at the moment appear to have very severe doubts about it.

Profumo Inquiry

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for giving me the opportunity to go into this fascinating case. There has been a series of constructive non-decisions. Had decisions been taken on several occasions, the papers would have been destroyed. Indeed, in a debate in this House in April 1977, Lord Denning announced that the papers had been destroyed. The following day the Lord Chancellor stood up to say that he had not permitted this and that this action had not been taken. Given, however, the assurances Lord Denning gave to all of those he interviewed that these records were entirely confidential and that they would never be published, it seems acceptable that they should not be published while those who were interviewed by Lord Denning are still alive.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, given the suspicions at the time of Soviet espionage and all the excitement of Cabinet members being involved in regular orgies, it is perhaps not surprising that 50 years on we still do not know the truth of the Profumo affair. Will my noble friend tell us by what criteria it is decided how much time has to lapse before such matters are made public? Who takes that decision? When and how are those decisions reviewed and by whom—or are these matters also secret?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am conscious that there are several Members of this House who would love to write the next book on the Profumo affair. If I were asked to advise on the decision on this, I would say that we should hold to the principle not that the content should never be published but that it should not be published while those who gave confidential information on the assurance that it would not be published are still alive—and some of those who gave that evidence are still alive. The decision will have to be approved by the Lord Chancellor and the Minister for the Cabinet Office. The Master of the Rolls—as Lord Denning was then—also plays a role in such decisions as chair of the advisory board on public records.

Lobbyists: Register

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I take the point. Of course, as in all delicate legislation of this kind, the wider the consensus we can get the better. The lobbying area is immensely more complex than I understood before I began to go into it. This is one of the many areas where we need to work together as widely as we can.

[Lord Tyler]

On the answer that he has just given, can my noble friend confirm that the Labour Party, which, after all, failed over 13 years to deal with this problem, is prepared to co-operate fully so that we can take the whole issue under consideration? All three parties committed themselves to taking big money out of politics. Can he confirm that the Government’s objective is to have maximum transparency and simplicity so that our fellow citizens can see precisely where influence and access are being bought? In that context, can he also indicate that that should be the objective even if sometimes that big money is being used in a tax-efficient way?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, every three months I am amazed by the detail in which the Government Whips’ Office on behalf of the Cabinet Office Propriety and Ethics Team goes through my diary and asks me exactly who I met and when. This Government are extremely tight in terms of looking at who has contact with all members of the ministerial team. The problem, of course, is that we meet all sorts of people. I have one or two friends from school or university who are now working in major public affairs organisations. If I meet them as part of that friendship, do we also happen to overlap into other matters? There are many difficult issues around how this can be taken and where to draw the line.

Electoral Registration (Disclosure of Electoral Registers) Regulations 2013

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I have only a very small contribution to make, but with one practical improvement, which I hope the Minister will take back to those responsible, my contribution might be even more succinct and brief.

I am a member of the informal cross-party group of parliamentarians which advises the Electoral Commission and therefore very aware of the concerns the commission has had during this process. The Minister may know that both here, in Grand Committee, and in the Chamber I have been living with IER even longer than he has and it is beginning to wear me down. I hope that we are not going to have too many more of these splendidly erudite occasions.

My problem is the way in which consultation is undertaken. The Minister referred to the consultation with the Electoral Commission and this is referred to in the explanatory notes on the statutory instrument referring to disclosure of electoral registers in paragraph 8(1), where it reads:

“The Commission has recommended that it should be under an express duty to evaluate the confirmation trials, with a power to require those concerned to provide relevant information. The Cabinet Office and the Commission have discussed this point and have subsequently agreed that the general power to require a report, set out in primary legislation, is sufficient”.

Neither the explanatory note nor the document to which I am about to refer from the commission itself is dated; we do not know which comes before which. If that was the conclusion of the consultation with the Electoral Commission, it is therefore surprising that in the last few days those of us who are interested in these matters received directly from the Electoral Commission a document saying the following:

“We have asked the Government to confirm that it will request the Electoral Commission to evaluate the confirmation trials … in the debate on this Order in the House of Commons on 11 March, the Government did not give such assurances. The Commission cannot undertake the necessary evaluation without a direction from the Government. The Government should confirm that it intends to require the Commission to prepare a report under Section 53(6) of the Representation of the People Act 1983 on the operation of the confirmation process trials under these Regulations”.

My noble friend has laid great stress on the importance of these confirmation trials; I entirely agree with him and endorse everything he said. Who though will judge the validity of those trials if it is not the commission? As I understand it, from this brief from the commission, which as I say is not dated either, I do not know which comes before which. Was there a happy and successful conclusion to the discussions between my noble friend’s colleagues and the commission or was there not?

I am afraid the same problem arises under the other draft statutory instrument that we have before us, although perhaps on a more minor point. This is the very important question of what flexibility is given to the EROs to decide the gap between making their canvass in the autumn of 2013 and the new register in February 2014. The undated Explanatory Memorandum from my noble friend’s department says:

“The Commission recommended … the Order should be amended to specify that canvass activity should not begin before 1^st November 2013, so reducing the period between the start of the canvass and the July 2014 confirmation exercise while still allowing meaningful canvass activity to start before Christmas 2013”.

That is at variance, again, with the advice given in the undated advice from the Electoral Commission in the last few days, where it still sticks to the point that it thinks the gap may well be too long and that giving flexibility to the ERO may actually cause the eventual result statistically to be less accurate and less effective.

My speech could have been cut into a quarter if these two documents had been properly dated. We are always asking for documents put before your Lordships’ House to be properly dated. It would seem to be the most basic and simple administrative convenience for Members of your Lordships’ House to know which document comes before which. I make that plea again and I hope that my noble friend, who is amazingly effective in getting civil servants to do what we expect of them—to be as efficient and effective as they usually are—will be more successful on this occasion than previously.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I have to say that if the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has really been worn down by all these debates on IER, he is showing no sign of it whatever.

I thank the Minister for introducing these measures. I turn first to the disclosure regulations. The Committee will recall that we welcomed all the efforts made to locate and contact eligible voters absent from the register, and to confirm those already on the household list. We therefore fully support this dry run, which will assist EROs to compare their data against datasets kept by DWP and to test the confirmation exercises.

Noble Lords will not be surprised that I have a number of questions. I had hoped that if the exercise had revealed the names and addresses of people not on the current list, the ERO would then be able to write and invite them to register. The Minister said that there would be no contact, but I do not know whether that means that even if an ERO finds from DWP material someone who is not on the register, the ERO will be unable to approach that person. Perhaps the Minister can clarify that.

We know that the Minister in another place confirmed the Government’s confidence that everything, including the resources, is sufficiently in place for this work to happen within the required timescale. Perhaps he can repeat that assurance for the benefit of the Committee, together with any comfort that he has received from the Electoral Commission.

The other issue that I had intended to raise was that mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler—to ask Minister to confirm that the Electoral Commission will be required to evaluate these pilots and therefore to report back to the House.

Will the Minister also confirm that the regulations will give the necessary authority for all the relevant parties to release the data necessary for this work? Perhaps he can also assure the Committee that all the relevant parties involved will be clear about their duties and responsibilities under the Data Protection Act before any data-sharing begins. Perhaps he can set out what safeguards are in place to protect individuals’ data security. We noted in previous discussions on individual registration that some people, including those in your Lordships’ House, tend to register their vote at one address but use another address for correspondence. That will clearly be a major issue when using the DWP material. Perhaps the Minister can outline how this is to be dealt with in the pilots.

I turn to the second measure, on the postponement of the 2013 household canvass, which is now to be published in England in February 2014, and in March in Scotland and Wales. The Minister will recall my sadly unsuccessful attempt to remove from the then ERA Bill the ability of the Secretary of State to abolish the canvass. That is an indication of how important we see this tool in seeking out and registering all citizens with an entitlement to vote. Clearly, this will be even more important in the move to IER, which will fully replace the household register only in 2016. I ask the Minister to confirm that he is confident that the Government’s plans will ensure that by 2016 we will have a better register than we have at present, and that the Government remain clear that there will be no dropping of the household register before 2016.

We are very content that the Government push ahead with locating non-registered but eligible electors, so that by 2016 we have the maximum possible number of individually registered electors by a variety of means and no one is inadvertently denied their vote in 2016. But we seek assurance that any such work is not with the idea of bringing forward sole reliance on the individual rather than household-registered electorate. In the mean time, however, while we remain with household lists, as the Minister has said that registers decline in accuracy by about 1% a month, we are content with the canvass taking place slightly later—provided that the information is then made available to political parties as soon as possible thereafter, so that their work on the lists can begin, as he mentioned. This is key. The Committee knows that much of the business of alerting voters to the fact that they are or are not on the electoral roll is done by political parties, as the voting cards tend to go out only a short time before an election. It will be more and more important, with the gradual shift to IER, for parties to have early and easy access to the new registers so that they can undertake their canvass work and so that anyone left off can be identified in time to rectify that absence. We also need, as early as possible after the delayed canvass, publication, perhaps monthly, of a rolling register, showing IER flags.

We know that the ERA allows for transfer to IER to be completed by the end of December 2016, which is a sensible date. The Committee will understand that we remain a little nervous. The Act retains a power to hurry it through earlier than that, but we hope that the Government are not trying to do that, given the risk of losing eligible voters. We would also query—and this was another point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler—whether there is a satisfactory way in which to judge whether the 2016 date is appropriate to complete the transition. We would like to know what criteria would be applied and what would be the role of the Electoral Commission in such a process. Under the Labour Government’s legislation on IER, the Electoral Commission had a pivotal role in deciding whether progress had been sufficient to create safe conditions for the final move to be made. This Government removed that role, but surely the commission must have a duty to press the “Go” button, if that decision is to clearly non-political and based on solid data.

Perhaps I could use this opportunity to ask the Minister two questions.

Referendums

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I had indeed reread that section of the Constitution Committee’s report, which said, as the noble Baroness has remarked,

“we regret the ad hoc manner in which referendums have been used, often as a tactical device, by the government of the day … Where possible, cross-party agreement should be sought as to the circumstances in which it is appropriate for referendums to be used”.

Let us hope that we can reach cross-party agreement on such matters in the future.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, given the precedent of the Scottish independence referendum next year, is it now the Government’s position that any future national referendum with long-term consequences should extend the franchise to 16 and 17 year-olds?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we have debated this before and I do not want to go too far down this road. The Scots have decided that for this one referendum they would like to extend the vote to 16 and 17 year- olds. No doubt we will discuss time and again how much further that should be extended.

Elections: Voting Age

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Grand Committee

Tabled By

[Lord Tyler]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they intend to respond to the majority vote in the House of Commons calling for a reduction in the voting age to 16.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet seem to have accepted the case for extending the franchise to 16 and 17 year-olds. They have not just promised to accept the change but have acted to make it a reality. Before noble Lords express incredulity, let me add an important caveat. They have indeed done so, but only, of course, for our fellow citizens in Scotland, and only for the specific 2014 vote on whether Scotland should become independent. It is a matter of record—I refer noble Lords to the statement made by the Secretary of State for Scotland on 15 January—that the Government have accepted that this could happen under the Edinburgh agreement. The Secretary of State said that,

“what happens in Scotland affects the whole United Kingdom”.—[Official Report, Commons, 15/1/13; col. 748.].

It was in that context that on 24 January, MPs voted by 119 to 46 for a Motion to rationalise the extension of the franchise in this respect throughout the United Kingdom. The support was cross-party, just as it is for my own Voting Age (Comprehensive Reduction) Bill, which has received support from all parts of your Lordships’ House. In my view, cross-party support is absolutely critical for an issue of this sort. Some politicians advocate changes in the electorate, such as those who advocate the extension to overseas voting, because they hope that it is going to be to their political advantage. But in this case the sole advantage is to the electorate as a whole and its reconnection with the political process as a whole. I am therefore delighted that my noble friend Lord Lucas is hoping to be able to participate in this debate shortly, along with the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Hornsey. All three intend to participate because they have given their support to my Bill. However, I pay special tribute to my noble friend Lord Lucas because I have shamelessly plagiarised his Bill of 10 years ago.

It would be patently inequitable, irrational and absurd to limit this reform of the franchise to one part of the country for one occasion only. As things stand, the same cohort of the Scottish population that will be added to the register for the referendum will then be refused a vote in the general election a few months later. That makes no sense. What if a Westminster, Holyrood or local government by-election poll takes place in Scotland on the same day as the referendum? Are 16 and 17 year-olds to be issued with only one ballot paper for the referendum, but excluded from choosing their representative? Would 16 and 17 year-olds be refused a vote in any subsequent referendum, such as on our continuing membership of the European Union? Quite apart from the issues of principle, let us imagine the complex bureaucratic nightmare of such markedly different registers for different purposes if these inequities are allowed to continue.

It is being trailed that the Scottish change was agreed only reluctantly because the First Minister demanded it in exchange for meeting the UK Government’s insistence on one simple, approved question in the referendum and a supervisory role for the Electoral Commission. It has even been suggested that Mr Salmond made it a condition of accepting these other requirements because he anticipated that they would be refused. Some cynics take pleasure in noting that not only did the Westminster Ministers and all parties call his bluff, but all the signs are that younger people are just as doubtful about the merits of breaking up the UK as everyone else.

Whatever may have been the cause of this acceptance of a temporary change to the Scottish electorate, surely no one can deny that it would be irresponsible and damaging if it led to what the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House has always warned us against—namely an,

“ad hoc and piecemeal approach to constitutional reform”.

In its report, The agreement on a referendum on independence for Scotland, our committee also insists that the relevant authorities must act,

“in accordance with their constitutional responsibilities of fairness and equal treatment”.

If that applies north of the border, surely it must also apply everywhere else in the United Kingdom. The case for equality in the franchise must make itself for the whole of our country.

However, to those Members of both Houses who regularly attend sixth-forms—in the case of Members of the other House, in their constituencies; or for Members of this House, on behalf of the Lord Speaker’s outreach programme—the substantive case for extending the franchise must be just as clear. Students of this age cohort are far better informed about the major issues of our day than I was at that age. Fifty years ago, most people inherited their opinions and political allegiances from their parents. This was all too apparent when I first canvassed in the 1960s.

It is of course also true that 18 year-olds at present are, on average, unlikely to have the opportunity to vote in a general election until they are well over 20. Even if the franchise is extended, 16 and 17 year-olds may not have that opportunity until they are 18 or more. However, getting on the electoral register with full entitlement to vote would be a natural end product of the citizenship course in schools. It would become part of the normal process towards complete legal maturity, and addressing it in school would deal with some of the fears about under-registration that have been expressed in this House.

When the Government bring forward regulations for individual electoral registration, they could easily stipulate that all 14 and 15 year-olds in school should be registered in year 10 at school, in readiness for entitlement to vote, once they turn 16. The Government would, in turn, have to bring forward the time at which national insurance numbers are issued, or establish an alternative identifier for this group. That is not that difficult.

This simple but significant change would also help young people to appreciate that national elections are not the only occasions for democratic influence on the conditions in which they live. As my honourable friend Stephen Williams observed when he introduced a successful Motion in the other place on 24 January, this age group has shown a dramatically increased awareness of political issues and institutions in recent years. The audit undertaken by the Hansard Society has shown an increase from 17% to 31%, in a relatively short number of years, in that age group’s general knowledge of the working of Parliament, bringing them into line with the older electorate. It should be a logical further step in the success of citizenship education to bring them into the franchise.

I know that some Conservatives resist the idea that a 16 or 17 year-old is mature enough to cast a vote in a local or national election. However, as I noted in the January debate, the Minister responsible, Chloe Smith, was not able to deny that a 15 year-old can be a voting member of the Conservative Party, and therefore vote for the election of its leader. What I am asking the Minister to do this afternoon is accept that there is now a strong case for a proper examination of this issue.

As a member of the informal cross-party group of parliamentarians who advise the Electoral Commission, I am very conscious that the commission, rather than party politicians, should be responsible for advising Parliament on extensions to the franchise. However, it is now nearly 10 years since the commission studied the issue. Its report promised a,

“further formal review of the minimum voting age within five to seven years of this report”.

That was nine years ago, in 2004. In July 2007, the then Prime Minister promised yet more examination of the case, including an analysis of,

“whether reducing the voting age would increase participation in the political process”.

Although the resulting Youth Citizenship Commission found strong support for votes for 16 and 17 year-olds, it also identified “a real evidence gap” on the issue. That was nearly four years ago.

There are two areas in which further evidence could be sought immediately. The first is the claimed tendency that those who start voting young, continue to do so throughout their lives. Secondly, we need to take account of the practical experience of secondary schools in Northern Ireland where completion of citizenship naturally leads to inclusion on the individual electoral registration process.

I hope that the Minister will be able to give us a firm commitment, after all these previous promises, that the Government do not consider the upcoming franchise extension in the Scottish referendum as an ad hoc, piecemeal, self-contained irrelevance, and that the Electoral Commission will now be invited to fulfil its promise to undertake further comprehensive investigation as a matter of urgency.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, for bringing this debate to the Lords. He started his speech by referring to a debate in the Commons on 24 January, which I read with some interest, and I have to say that I found the most novel argument to be one that in a sense complements the argument just made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, which is that of the increasing imbalance in the electorate between the over-65s and young people. That imbalance will grow, and all political parties know that we are pulled in the direction of those who vote and thus are pulled towards putting resources into the over-65s and not into young people. The argument was made in one of the Commons speeches that this might be one way of beginning to redress the balance and to encourage political parties and Governments to think more actively about the needs and interests of young people. It is an argument that I think we all need to take into account.

Let me stress that the Government have no plans to lower the voting age in this Parliament and that, as has already been mentioned, there is no consensus within the coalition Government. That in turn reflects the different views held across society at large and the divergent positions on this topic both within and across the various political parties. After all, we have discovered over the course of the past two and a half years just how difficult political and constitutional change is and how on any proposals for political and constitutional change there are always at least 15 different and contradictory arguments for why nothing should be done, while fewer arguments are made in support of the case for change. Nevertheless, we welcome the ongoing discussions and debate on this issue and we would encourage the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and others to maintain their approach.

On the question of the age of majority, which was raised by a number of noble Lords, I simply repeat the comment made by the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, that there is no standard age of majority within the United Kingdom. The process of moving from childhood to majority takes place over several years, and the question of where that should be standardised would itself open up a very difficult process. However, the question of how to re-engage young people in our democracy, in citizenship and in local society is important and we all need to address it. When taking the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill through the House of Lords, I was struck by how severe a problem this is becoming. Younger people do not feel engaged in politics and they are not committed to political parties. In one way or another, we all have to address that problem. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said that providing the vote at the age of 16 is not the answer, but it may be one of the ways of contributing to an answer. It would certainly mean that schools and parties would pay much more attention to citizenship education, which is important, and we would have to think about how else we could hook young people into their local communities and into wider engagement as a whole.

We all recognise, as the noble Lord, Lord Norton, pointed out, that young people are already the least likely to vote. That is the problem, of course, and the question is how to tackle it. We know that a number of things have contributed to it: the increasing remoteness of national politics; the decline in local government and local politics; the decline in respect for our political institutions—above all for Westminster—and the decline of participation at all levels in intermediate bodies from churches and chapels to trade unions and social organisations. The question is: where do we go from here and how can we ensure that engagement in democracy at all levels from the local to the national does not continue to decline in the long term? We cannot let this question go.

Perhaps, as the noble Lord, Lord Wills, suggests, deliberative democracy on the Granada 500 model—I think that was what it was called—is something that we should be experimenting with again in terms of bridging the gap between the governors and the governed. However, I suspect that television companies would be less willing to invest in such activities today as they were 20 or 25 years ago, partly because they would be less convinced that it would command the sort of audience that those very interesting experiments did in the 1980s.

We have a real problem here; we do not yet have a consensus on how we should move forward, as the debate has again shown. The research that there has been in a number of different activities is itself inconclusive. The Government do not disagree with the conclusions of the youth commission report that the approach of using independent commissions to review this should not be used again in the near future. However, we all need to focus. All of us who are committed to democratic politics and want to see a high level of political engagement have a huge and rising problem. All the research that went into looking at the shift to individual electoral registration persuaded me that this is a large and secular issue to which we do not have much of an answer. In a week in which the combination of the Eastleigh by-election and the Leveson report has encouraged the press to throw almost everything it has got at politicians of one sort or another—and people cheerfully say, “Well, don’t worry, they will move on to another set next week”—we recognise how deep a problem of democratic disillusionment and disengagement we have.

[Lord Tyler]

I am very grateful to my noble friend the Minister for giving way. Since we have a few minutes in hand, will he specifically address the fact that both the Electoral Commission and the Youth Citizenship Commission have said that there is a real gap in the research in this area, which has been reflected throughout your Lordships’ discussion this afternoon? Will the Government at least give an undertaking today that they will look again at that lacuna, which has been so clearly identified, and invite the Electoral Commission to look specifically at this again?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I hesitate to make a commitment as broad as that, but I will certainly feed it back and we will look at the question of whether there is a substantial lacuna. One of the issues that we all face here is that we know what the situation is now, and we know that the evidence of demand from young people for votes at 16 is weak. The question that I take particularly from the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, is whether we are happy about that, and whether we ought to be getting out there to persuade young people that they should be interested in having the vote and they should want to be re-engaged in politics. That is a much larger set of issues.

The previous Government, to their great credit, did their best to get at the question of citizenship. A number of distinguished political scientists contributed to that with modest success. We all recognise that schools have all sorts of other priorities, and that PSHE has not been one of the grandest or most glorious aspects of the secondary curriculum. There is a large issue out there, and we need much more public debate on it. This is part of a much larger issue about popular disillusionment with democratic politics as such, which has to concern us all. None of us would wish to suggest that lowering the voting age would begin to solve that; it would be only a small part of a strategy which I suggest all of us interested in democratic politics, from whichever point of view, should recognise is a shared problem to which we all need to find some shared answers.

Ministerial Code

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

As the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, points out, I was in Berlin at the time so I was not involved in that particular dimension. I recall some time ago being asked by the noble Baroness, when she was on a committee, whether I felt that one could operate as a Government against the mandate of the manifesto. I pointed out that the strongest mandate in the 1997 Labour manifesto was a commitment that the Labour Government never fulfilled, so there is a degree of flexibility in all these issues.

[Lord Tyler]

Does my noble friend accept that on the specific occasion to which the noble Baroness referred, the Prime Minister himself accepted that there could not be collective responsibility where there had not been collective agreement? That was explicit in the coalition agreement and, as with Leveson, which we will refer to later, there are disagreements that are accepted. In a grown-up society, it is surely right to be transparent about that rather than covering up artificial disagreements, as in the previous Administration, where collective responsibility was disguised.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

As the opening paragraph of the coalition’s working agreement also stresses:

“In the working of the Coalition, the principle of balance will underpin both the Coalition Parties’ approaches to all aspects of the conduct of the Government’s business”.