Lobbying Transparency (In-house Lobbyists) Bill [HL]

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 3rd July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, on this excellent Bill, enabling us to have a crucial discussion about transparency. We have a huge problem with public trust in government. Just 27% of the population trust the national Government. There is very good evidence that transparency is one of the key drivers of trust. Others have already referred to Transparency International research showing that the current lobbying register covers, at most, 4% of those engaged in lobbying activity. I do not think that, if you went out on the street and surveyed 100 people, many people would know that figure, but there is a strong and rightful sense that a lot of murky things happen here in Westminster, and that damages trust.

However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, said when introducing the Bill, a lot of lobbying is positive and we need to keep that sense when it is lobbying in the public interest: by NGOs and campaign groups, patient or consumer groups, or communities affected by proposed developments. However, most lobbying is not in the public interest but for private interests, such as that by big oil and gas, big tobacco—and boy did we see some shameless examples of big tobacco lobbying in the recent Tobacco and Vapes Bill—big supermarkets, big developers and big finance, including, of course, the City of London Corporation, whose special access I am addressing in other areas.

It is worth saying that it is up to the Government to decide who to meet, who to hear and who to listen to. Successive Governments have very much balanced access in favour of these big interests, not in favour of those lobbying for public interests. Also, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter said, the current way the register is arranged means a lack of transparency for big lobbying and creates extra work and barriers for those lobbying in the public interest. It might seem to be a deliberate weakness in the law, and I commend the noble Baroness for seeking to fill it.

It is worth noting that we rely very heavily on journalists to dig and burrow to find out links. They make an expensive investment in finding out what is going on in companies that are trying to get windfall profits while the public good is ignored. It is worth noting, as a number of noble Lords have said, that we are effectively relying on stronger laws in other jurisdictions—we have to note the much stronger laws in Scotland and the EU—to occasionally draw back the veil. I note the publication this week on the substack Democracy for Sale of an article by Adam Bychawski and Peter Geoghegan that is an interesting case study of that. I do not know whether this Bill would solve that problem, but it is concerning. Andy Burnham’s incoming chief of staff, James Purnell, was until very recently the chief executive of Flint Global. Flint has said that its British client list is confidential and has declared just two clients in the UK in five years. But, on the EU lobbying register, it emerges that Flint works for Uber, Amazon and Diageo. You might say that they are very clearly big interests.

That is one interesting case study but we have heard some horrific case studies, and reference has been made to those. We have to think of Greensill, Westferry and the Covid-19 VIP lane. I declare, in the interests of transparency, that the rest of what I am going to say has been informed by lobbying from Spotlight on Corruption, Unlock Democracy and Transparency International UK, and it is they who stress those examples of the transparency gap that the Bill could partially fill. I understand that the noble Baroness kept the Bill narrow and focused—in my upcoming Bill, I have gone very much in the other direction of having a very broad Private Member’s Bill—but it is important to raise some of the gaps, which I hope the Government will say they intend to act on, and other issues that this Bill does not cover that we need to see action on.

The VAT registration requirements represent a problematic loophole, and other similar registers of consultant lobbyists do not present these exemptions. There is a real problem with timeliness, and it has not got better. Knowing what has happened before a Government make a decision is important, but, too often, we find out only months after the fact. That is something the Government themselves should be promising to solve.

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and a number of other noble Lords, said that we get descriptions of meetings from Governments that do not really tell us anything meaningful about what was discussed or what the subject of the meeting was. We have registrations of lobbyists saying they are working for a particular company, but how do all these pieces match up? That has to be solved, so that the public can see who indeed has Ministers’ ears. We should know what the purpose of the meeting was. If it was a meeting to discuss “trade issues”, what does that mean precisely? Are you meeting to discuss Australian beef imports or sanitary and phytosanitary standards? Knowing those details is crucial to understanding what is going on.

I again commend the noble Baroness. This is an interesting and important discussion. I hope that the Government—whatever “the Government” means—are listening.