Lobbying

Debate between John Glen and Graham Allen

Tuesday 25th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[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.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very measured and reasonable speech, particularly in respect of his point about responding to Select Committees. Does he agree that one of the basic principles we should endorse is that both the Opposition and the Government should publish details of meetings, and would he encourage his Front-Bench colleagues to give that undertaking to the House today?

[Mr Allen]

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is treating this matter a little more superficially than I would have hoped. There are some important questions, and no doubt he can raise them, but I am not going to get involved in that sort of frippery. I am capable of going in that direction, but I will not do so because there are some serious issues here that concern the hon. Gentleman as well as everybody else.

My Select Committee looked at the possibility of having a hybrid code of conduct to operate alongside the statutory register. We addressed that idea carefully. It is possible to do it, and we believe that, just as we commanded support in our own disparate all-party Select Committee, it is possible for the House to come to a satisfactory conclusion on that. It would mean that organisations and individuals on the register would sign up to their particular industry’s code of conduct.

We must use the time we have available to do some pre-legislative scrutiny. The Bill will be introduced very soon. I hope the Leader of the House will give us a month or so in September, so that we can do the job properly for the House.