Deregulation Bill

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Philip Davies

Wednesday 14th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chi Onwurah]

As my hon. Friend says, it was forward thinking. However, those 10 years have elapsed and we are left bereft of a long-term strategy. With no communications Green Paper and no communications strategy, is it any wonder that it is left to Members such as the hon. Member for Shipley to raise such key issues? Having said that, we are not confident, given the lack of strategy and long-term vision, that the Government would have a handle on the impact of repealing this measure. We therefore find it difficult to support amendment 73.

I will turn briefly to amendment 4 on defamation. As the Solicitor-General said, it has cross-party support and it appears to be sensible, so we will support it.

[Philip Davies]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah), and I am grateful for her kind words. From what she said I understood that there is overall, general support—if perhaps not specific support—for my point. This is the second day running on which my amendments seem to have had more support from the Labour Front Bench than from the Government Front Bench—a rather uncomfortable position in which to find myself, but I am grateful nevertheless.

I will speak briefly because time is limited and I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) wishes to contribute. Section 73 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 was created in the 1980s, when the Government—understandably—wanted to encourage the roll-out of the cable network to stimulate competition with terrestrial TV. That was a noble aim, but it has been achieved. The cable network now reaches half the population, and there is fierce inter-platform competition between pay-TV platforms and free-to-air TV platforms. It is therefore clear that section 73 is completely outdated and not achieving the purpose for which it was intended. That purpose has already been achieved, so the measure needs to be repealed.

Since cable TV derives even greater value from public service content, and delivers less and less in return as more adverts are skipped on pay TV, section 73 is preventing the normal commercial response, which would be to commercially negotiate the supply of content, putting at risk investment in the programmes that people want to see. Why should public service broadcasters, which are investing heavily in the UK’s creative economy, subsidise the business models of large global companies such as Liberty Global? That is clearly not fair. The litigation that the Solicitor-General mentioned has already taken four years and could still take a while longer, and I am not sure that we can afford to sit back and wait more years, while the issue is kicked into the long grass in such a way. Under the Communications Act 2003, public service broadcasters must, under their current licences, offer their public service broadcast channels to cable and satellite platforms so that consumers will not lose out if that is repealed.

Commercial Lobbyists (Registration and Code of Conduct) Bill

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Philip Davies

Friday 1st February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chi Onwurah]

I do not feel it is appropriate to mention the names that have been presented to me of organisations set up in London to lobby in the United States—I can give that much information. If the hon. Gentleman is particularly interested, I will take advice and will happily write to him later if doing so does not breach the confidence of the person who shared that information with me.

We wholeheartedly agree that lobbyists play an important role in our democracy. Individuals, charities and business must have open access to Government, and that access should not be impeded by legislation. However, that access should also be transparent, and any register should not impede that.

Lobbying is not, and should not be considered to be, a murky or disreputable business that takes place in the shadows. It is in the interests of the lobbying industry to put that reputation behind it, and a Bill such as this one would help it to do so.

I think all Members on both sides of the House agree on the principles and that a register is necessary.

[Philip Davies]

No, we don’t.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

May I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) on bringing before the House this morning not only this Bill, but a list of Bills? He is an expert in parliamentary procedure, and I commend him for that and for his initiative in making sure he got his Bill to the top of this morning’s list.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall), I am less impressed with the merits of the Bill. My hon. Friend did us a favour this morning when he introduced into the debate the following issue: what problem are we trying to solve? It is no good examining a Bill’s merits in isolation; that can be done only when we look at what we are trying to deal with. Like him, I have not been persuaded today as to what problem we are so desperately trying to deal with. One is left with the impression that what lies behind all this—to the credit of the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife, he did not put himself in this camp—is some kind of view that lobbying, particularly commercial lobbying, is a bad, grubby thing that should be discouraged. We appear to be trying to find a way to clamp down on commercial lobbying. The consequence—where we will end up with all of this agenda—is that we will make Members of Parliament lobby shy. We seem to be trying to get to the stage where Members of Parliament avoid, at all costs, coming into contact with lobbyists— particularly “commercial lobbyists”, as they are described—and that would be a very dangerous thing.

I will put my cards on the table: I think that lobbying, including commercial lobbying, is a very good thing, not simply something to be tolerated. I may be unique in my lack of knowledge on a variety of subjects, and I am sure that there are many in this House, and outside, who would want to describe at length my ignorance on a range of issues. I acknowledge that; we cannot be experts in every subject. We know more about certain subjects than others, based on our interests and our experience, but there are many, many issues where our knowledge is limited. I have many such subjects. How on earth are we supposed to learn about them? How are we supposed to learn about the different points of view that people have in a debate?

There are many occasions when constituents contact me about issues on which I have very limited knowledge, inviting me to agree with them about something and take forward a particular point of view. It may be a very popular point of view, at least superficially. I like to say to my constituents, “I understand the point you are making. You appear, at face value, to be making a very good point. But before I commit myself one way or the other I would like to hear the other opinion.” If it is not a popular opinion, with no great groundswell of public support for it, that does not make it any less valid and it does not make it any less important that the voice is heard. Occasionally, the only people prepared to put such a point of view are lobbyists, and in order to do that they are often paid by the organisation concerned. I think that is a perfectly respectable thing for them to do. The view may well be completely unpopular and it may be beyond the pale for many people, but it is entitled to be heard. Before people make decisions in this House about issues that will have a bearing on people’s future livelihood, they are entitled to have heard the opposing point of view, too.

Just because somebody is lobbied vigorously does not mean that they necessarily have to agree with the person doing the lobbying. I make no apology for being available to people. I serve on the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport and I make no apology for allowing people who have a genuine interest, and organisations that have a financial interest, in the field of culture, media and sport, no matter which side of the argument they are on, to come to see me to let me know their view. That means that when we have evidence sessions before the Committee I can better understand the issues. It can prompt me to put certain points of view to others giving evidence.

Lobbying is therefore an essential part of the democratic process, and if we want to have good laws in this country, we should be making it as easy as possible for people to lobby us on their interests. We should not be doing anything to make it harder—anything that deters them from lobbying us or deters MPs from seeing them. The whole agenda is going off in completely the wrong direction. Parliament is much healthier thanks to the lobbying industry.

To be fair, I think that the promoter of the Bill would concur with many of my comments and would argue that the Bill seeks not to stop lobbying, but to legitimise it, and to make it more acceptable to the public—to clean it up. If I understood, that was also the case that the shadow Minister made: the Bill would legitimise, not stop, lobbying and make it seem more above board. That is a naive view. I do not think it will happen. I see the merit of the view of thinking, “Hold on. This lobbying is a bit murky, a bit behind closed doors. I wonder what’s going on. Let’s try and open it up, and all of a sudden the public will think lobbying a mighty fine thing,” but I am afraid they will not think that.

In fact, I suspect that instead of combating that attitude the Bill would make those points of view even noisier. If every MP had to register every meeting with a commercial or any other lobbyist—how on earth that would work, I do not know, but that is the agenda in the Bill—does anyone really think that certain interest groups and members of the public who take this cynical view would say, “Well, that’s fine, because it’s now all above board”? No, they will pore over every statement we make and every meeting we have had, and say, “Well, they’re only saying that because they had that meeting with that particular group.” This would not legitimise lobbying or make it any better. It would make it even worse, in terms of public opinion. It is naive to think otherwise.

[Chi Onwurah]

To clarify, my view is not that a register would mean that everyone would think lobbying is fantastic—I would not want to answer for the consequences for the industry in that regard—but that opinion would be better informed and that living in a democracy we want better informed debate and a better understanding of the access, means and process of power.

[Philip Davies]

I appreciate the shadow Minister’s view, but I simply do not agree with it. I do not see where the lack of transparency is. I have no problem telling anyone who asks me about which organisations I have met. If my constituents want to know who I have met—what lobbying firms and organisations—I would have no problem telling them, and I would like to think that that would be the attitude of most of my colleagues on both sides of the House. I do not see where the secretiveness is. If anybody is in an organisation relating to culture, media and sport, whichever side of the argument they are on, I am happy, time allowing, to meet them. As far as I can see, that is perfectly transparent. So I do not see the problem the Bill seeks to solve.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North, I oppose the Bill in principle. It will be a dog’s dinner, to be honest, and will not deal with any of the perceived problems we have heard about. In fact, the Bill is probably the worst of all dog’s dinners.

Let me turn to clause 1, which deals with the registration of lobbyists, and to the fact that there would be a register and the fees that would be charged. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North had an interesting exchange with the promoter of the Bill, the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife, about fees. The promoter not only intended to be helpful but actually was helpful in setting out the fees that he thought would be charged. However, I share my hon. Friend’s cynicism about fees, in the sense that we all know where they start off but there is no telling where they will end up, particularly when a bureaucracy has an audience that has no choice over whether to join. People will have to join because it will be the law of the land for them to join, so the bureaucracy can end up charging what it likes.

Let me therefore say to the promoter of the Bill—I hope the Minister will hear this too, because if she and the Government are so misguided as to go down this path, we may as well try to make it as good as we can—that it would be helpful to have a cap in the Bill on the fees that could be charged. Just to make a suggestion, perhaps the fees would be no more than the £200 to £300 that the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife seemed to think would be suitable. That would at least remove the issue of people thinking that the fees would go up and up, in a never-ending spiral, to try to satisfy a never-ending bureaucracy that would grow up as a result of this Bill.

We all see how these things work. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North talked about how such bodies start off being self-funded but end up having to be funded by the state. I think he is probably right. It is not an exact comparison, but we are seeing the start of something similar with the Press Complaints Commission. It is a self-funded body, but it is seen as being too close to the industry it is supposed to be looking after, so people are asking whether that is good enough and whether we need to do something else or get the state more involved. We can see how these things develop, and there is no reason why the same would not happen under this Bill.

I am sure that people will correct me, but it seems to me that clause 2 would introduce the offence of non-registration of one’s organisation. Then there is another criminal offence under clause 3 for breaching the code of conduct—the Labour party created lots of new criminal offences when it was in government and it appears to be continuing the same theme in this Bill. The promoter of the Bill said that we should not worry because everything would be subject to parliamentary scrutiny and approval, and that that was fine—let me say in passing that he has more confidence in parliamentary scrutiny than I do—but as far as I can see the Bill makes no great provision for parliamentary scrutiny. Parliamentary scrutiny is what we are doing now, by discussing the merits of the Bill. It is the council set up under this Bill that would prepare the code of conduct with which, under clause 3,

“those included on the register shall comply”.

It will not be Parliament that draws up the code of conduct, so there will be no parliamentary control there. Once we had passed this Bill, the council would be free to establish the code of conduct as it saw fit and that would be that.

Clause 3 then says, in subsection (2):

“The Secretary of State shall give statutory effect to the code and any revised code by order.”

There is no great parliamentary scrutiny there either. We are basically giving the Secretary of State huge powers to act on his or her own terms and whatever he or she happens to think is the right thing to do. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North, I have a great deal of time for the Minister, but she will know, as we all do, that she will not be the Minister for ever, and we might not get as good a Minister in future. Indeed, we might be left with one who is not as talented and sensible. We might—if we want to be very depressing—end up with the Labour party in government. Who knows what we might end up with at that point? [Interruption.]