Boardman Report

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what actions they have taken in response to the recommendation of the Boardman Report into the Development and Use of Supply Chain Finance (and Associated Schemes) in Government, published in September 2021, that they should consult on (1) whether think tanks, research institutes and lobbying academics should be required to disclose their sources of funding, and (2) whether there are circumstances when they ought to be required to register as consultant lobbyists.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as someone who worked at a think tank for 12 years and at universities for rather longer, and as the Minister who took the transparency of lobbying Bill through this House. Does the Minister agree with the Boardman—

[Noble Lords]

No!

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

I apologise. Does the Minister agree with the recommendations—

[Noble Lords]

No!

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)]

I think we all need to calm down.

The Government are currently considering the recommendations of the Boardman review and will update noble Lords on such work in due course. The register of consultant lobbyists, which complements the existing mechanism of ministerial transparency returns, has increased transparency around the work of consultant lobbyists by providing accessible online information about those undertaking consultant lobbying and their clients. Any changes to that framework will build on that foundation.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I recognise that the Boardman review had a large number of recommendations that will take some time to work through, but does the Minister recognise the point that think tanks that act as lobbyists, which are extremely non-transparent in not publishing any of the donations that they receive, and which in many ways have been very close to the Government, are in effect lobbying and therefore should be made to be much more transparent? Policy Exchange announced that, in effect, the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill had almost been written in Policy Exchange, and the Minister will recall that when Liz Truss became Prime Minister a large number of people from those think tanks entered government. This is a very close relationship that needs to be much more transparent.