Lobbying

Alan Whitehead Excerpts

Tuesday 25th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Allen]

I think there are many ways to skin this particular cat. If the Government are serious about creating an effective lobbying Bill—as many Back-Bench Members and my Select Committee are—then where there is a will, there is a way. We can find a way to do that, but the measure in its current form is a reactive and short-term measure, and it is not part of a serious, well-thought-out reform package, either by the media, who are keen to nail individual Members of Parliament, or, more seriously, by the Government, and, indeed, previous Governments of different political colours.

Parliament must take a lead on the specific issue of lobbying, but I very much hope we do not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Lobbying is a very important part of our democracy. I imagine most Members of this enfeebled Parliament use lobbying ourselves very directly with Ministers to try to make our points, and many of us create all-party groups. Some of us lobby effectively, although, speaking as someone who is lobbying for the Government to keep their promise on bringing forward proposals for a House business committee, which was in the coalition agreement, some of us are also obviously failing in getting the Government to fulfil their own promises. Government Front-Bench Members will not be surprised to learn that we will continue to press that issue as well, however.

My Select Committee has looked at the lobbying question very seriously. We spent a long time interviewing witnesses. We have eminent Committee members from different parties—some of whom are present in the Chamber—and they might not in the normal shape of things be soul mates or agree on all matters, but they produced a report that the Government have had in their possession for the best part of a year. It is a measure of how seriously the Government take this matter that, first, the Leader of the House is chatting away and not listening to the Chairman of the Select Committee, who is asking him to do something he should have done nine months ago, and, secondly, he does not respond to this House, let alone to me or to my Committee members. That Ministers just do not bother answering is regarded by many as rather cavalier.

However, if a scandal is revealed by Fleet street and Ministers feel they need to show how tough they are by taking action and doing something, suddenly a Bill appears, or the promise of a Bill is made, even before they respond to a Select Committee of this House. I hope the Leader of the House will take these matters a little more seriously, because if he does, and he dares to allow Parliament to be a partner in the process of making the law—rather than finding something off the shelf in the Department—he may be in serious danger of creating a Bill that will command all-party support and the support of this House.

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

Has my hon. Friend had any communication in his capacity as Chair of the Select Committee from the Government on why such a response has been so long delayed? Have any particular reasons been put to him, or is it his view that they simply have not noticed that there is a report to be responded to?

[Mr Allen]

I would be very happy to give way on that point either to the Leader of the House or the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith), who very kindly came to our Select Committee last week. They may wish to speak for themselves, but there has certainly been a lot of correspondence in trying to get a response. That is expected—it is standard practice—and I do not know whether I should raise the matter with the Chair. However, I would hope that Select Committees of this House that undertake serious study and scrutiny of Government are usually responded to in a proper way, because that will help us to make better law, instead of having a knee-jerk response because of one person being entrapped by the media—I am not expressing any view on that, as this is still under study—that seems to me to put the cart before the horse. On an issue where there should be support across the House, it seems that there is almost a deliberate attempt to break any potential for consensus on, and longevity for, the legislation that we may bring forward.

As with the Dangerous Dogs Act, we are in danger of introducing a dangerous Members of Parliament Act, and we may well regret that in the longer term. This is not just a news story or just a way of refuting Fleet street in that corrupting partnership between Government and media. This is about an important part of the fabric of our democracy. Lobbying is important, and this is about allowing it to flourish, and getting things right, and making sure the people who put it in such bad odour are exposed.

Lobbying in the UK is currently unregulated. The UK Public Affairs Council operates a voluntary register, but registration rates are low. The Government agree that a voluntary register is not working. A commitment to introducing a statutory register of lobbyists was included in the coalition agreement. My Committee looked at this. We took oral evidence over many sessions and produced our report. I hope the Government listen to what we have said, which was not damning, saying, “This couldn’t happen.” Instead, we suggested how something can be introduced in a way that is sustainable.

The first fatal flaw we asked the Government to look at was the fact that so much of the lobbying industry would not be covered by a statutory register. Just covering third-party lobbyists does not do the job. There are lots of different figures available, but we found 100 organisations that were third-party lobbyists. Spinwatch, at one end of the spectrum in this debate, says there are between 3,500 and 4,000 full-time lobbyists. This proposal does not do the job, therefore, because it is one-eighth of a lobbying Bill, rather than a Bill that covers lobbyists in their entirety.

The second flaw is that we do not have an effective definition of lobbying, so that we all know what we are talking about—and so that lobbyists know what we are talking about, and that Members of Parliament talking to someone in either a private or public meeting, perhaps with a tape recorder or video camera concealed and recording them, know exactly where the lines are. That will enable us to produce something that is sustainable and that people can live with for many years to come. My Committee therefore also asked for a clearer definition.

We came to the conclusion that we were only scratching the surface of the issue. We therefore proposed what we called a medium regulation system as a starting point for a statutory register of lobbyists. A lot of Members have got great ideas, and I hope there will be a process by which they can be fed into our law-making process. There needs to be that starting point—that foundation or bedrock—that we can build on in future years. Let us put this in place. Some may regard it as the lowest common denominator, but that in itself is a good starting point, so that if problems arise, those colleagues who come after us can build on something that commands a consensus of support in this House.

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[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

Like many hon. Members, I am lobbied every day, by my electorate and by people who have an interest in the things that I am interested in as an MP. It is a perfectly honourable process. Provided that it is carried out in an honourable, straightforward and transparent way, lobbying adds to the substance of Parliament and does not detract from it.

However, there is rather more to the issue than simply whether lobbying is carried out in a transparent way. It is a question not just of whether sunlight is the best disinfectant, but whether in addition to sunlight we need Sunlight soap in order to scrub the process clean. That is what the public remain concerned about. As hon. Members have said, it is not just about the transparency of lobbying, but about the way in which it is carried out, the secrecy of substantial elements of it and the influence that is brought to bear as a result of certain arrangements that lobbyists can make regarding resources, access and various other things. Those concerns relate not only to third-party lobbyists but are across the board.

Perhaps we ought to apply a comparative principle in devising what we want to achieve by having a register of lobbyists. If we think about it for a moment, we realise that what we—the parties set up in this House—do in seeking votes is lobby the electorate, and we must do so in a reasonable, bounded and temperate way. A number of sanctions have been laid down in law for a very long time to ensure that lobbying of the electorate is restrained and that we do not go beyond those bounds. They are known as the electoral offences.

There is the offence of bribery. As far as lobbying is concerned, if a Member of this House was asked, “Would you like to be a director of my company? I’ll give you £24,000”, that is a very straightforward approximation of the offence of bribery as it relates to this House. There is also the offence of treating, which means saying to the electorate, “I’ll buy you a slap-up dinner, and drinks at the bar are on us, provided you vote for us.” The parallel, as far as our affairs are concerned, would be offering a week’s holiday or substantial trips around the world in order to exercise some advantage.

[Grahame M. Morris]

That is a really important point, because there is a distinction between what happens in this place and what happens in local government, for example. If I was serving on a planning committee and owned a building firm, it would not be good enough for me simply to say, “I declare an interest”; I would not be able to take any part. All that happens here is that people declare an interest, but they are still taking money from private health care companies and then voting through the Health and Social Care Bill.

[Dr Whitehead]

My hon. Friend emphasises the power of Sunlight soap in other parts of the body politic, as opposed to our proceedings.

There are two other main electoral offences that relate to our lobbying of the electorate, and the Secretary of State has referred to one in relation to the content of his proposed Bill. He said that we want to know who is lobbying us and that the Government will legislate to fill that gap. That is the offence of personation. We need to know who is exercising the vote. If we were to try to defraud the electorate by having someone vote in place of the person who really had the vote, an electoral offence would be committed.

The final major electoral offence is that of undue influence. That is the parallel offence that is wholly absent from the proposed legislation as it relates to our proceedings. Undue influence is not about whether someone is paid or given a weekend away, or whether someone else stands in their place; it is about someone exercising various means of persuading another person to vote for them that are beyond the cause of reasonable lobbying. That seems to me to be the crux of the issue. The proposals do not provide for an overall register of all lobbyists, with sanctions and the ability to throw people off it, properly to take account of the question of undue influence in the lobbying process.

I am sorry that that appears to be the way the proposed legislation is proceeding, because it could easily be fixed by some fairly brief discussions between the parties. After all, this is a matter that affects not just one particular party or Government. The legislation needs to stand the test of different Governments of different parties. It is an issue that concerns all parties and this House. Therefore, it seems to me that above all the legislation must be proceeded with on the basis of what the parties think is the right way forward.

It is shocking that the Government have taken a year to respond to the all-party Select Committee inquiry on lobbying and what can be done about it. That is way out of line with what is normally expected of Government responses to Select Committee reports. That ought to be rectified immediately. Pre-legislative scrutiny of what is proposed would not derail the legislation unduly. For example, the Energy and Climate Change Committee was recently given six weeks to consider the entire draft Energy Bill before it came to the House. Pre-legislative scrutiny would give a vital opportunity to get something that works across the House.

I am a little disappointed that much of this afternoon’s debate has been something of a knockabout rather than about principle. I have tried to inject into the proceedings a little focus on what we are really about, which is principles for legislation. Between us, we must ensure that the legislation works for the future. If that takes a few weeks of discussions between parties to get it right, and if there is a little give and take with regard to how it will work, that will be a good thing for the House. If it ensures that undue influence is not exercised in the House by lobbyists, if it is clear about who should be included in the rules, and if the public are confident that the right people are included in those rules, that, too, would be a gain for us all.

I hope that the Government will not decide this afternoon that this is about bashing the Opposition’s motion and getting their amendment through; it is about trying to get something through that is good for us all. If that means both sides laying the motion on the Table in order to proceed, perhaps that would be a good thing for the House. I think that above all we need to get the legislation on lobbying right so that everyone benefits in future. It is not about one party scoring a few points from the other in the short term.

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[Dr Whitehead]

rose—

[Helen Jones]

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