Lobbying

Debate between Grahame Morris and Alan Whitehead

Tuesday 25th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[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.