Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

John McDonnell Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2013 Commons Chamber

Finally, if the Government know that the legislation is so flawed that they have had to table many amendments—we are considering 15 Government amendments in this first group—it would make far more sense to say, “Let’s draw stumps. We all want a piece of legislation. Some parts of the Bill may be serviceable. Let’s give it to the Select Committee and suggest that it draft proper legislation that will work and meet the requirements of the whole House.” If we did so, we would enact a piece of legislation that would last not just until the general election but beyond and make our democratic system stronger rather than weaker.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I concur with my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). Consensus seems to be emerging among Members across the Committee, with the exception of Government Ministers. We want legislation that reflects, as the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) said, the reality of the lobbying industry as it operates at the moment.

Amendment 2, which was tabled by Labour spokespeople, amendments 48 and 49, which were tabled by members of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, amendment 161, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), and new clause 5, which was tabled by the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main), all seek to achieve some understanding in government that the Bill should reflect the real world. On Second Reading, one of the best speeches was by the hon. Member for St Albans, who talked about her personal experience of what lobbying does in a particular constituency and the impact that it can have on one’s constituents. We want legislation that protects the individual Member of Parliament as well as his or her constituents.

I raised the example in my own constituency of the proposal for a third runway at Heathrow and what has happened over the past three decades, but more intensively over the past decade. The homes of some 10,000 people are at risk; 50,000 people, and perhaps more, are at risk of the atmosphere being poisoned in such a way that air pollution far exceeds European limits; 2 million people will experience increased noise across London. There was lobbying from the aviation industry, particularly BAA, formerly the British Airports Authority. A lobbying firm was employed, but its activities were largely a smokescreen for the real lobbying by BAA employees. As I said on Second Reading, many of them had passes to enter the Department for Transport and meet officials. The Bill does not catch that aspect of lobbying, as we have heard in every interpretation by Members on both sides of the Committee.

Amendment 48, however, is rather inadequate, as its definition of lobbying relates to the lobbying of Ministers and permanent secretaries, and does not relate in any way to the real world of lobbying. In the BAA lobby on the third runway there was, as I said, wining and dining of Ministers and senior civil servants, but that was a smokescreen for the intensive lobbying of fairly junior civil servants who undertook the assessments of traffic growth, air pollution impacts, noise impacts and the logistical arrangements around the airport. By the time that the reports that they prepared landed on the desks of the permanent secretary and of Ministers the decision had virtually been made.

[Andy Sawford (Corby) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend illustrates the complexity of the situation. The staff of BAA would have been accompanied by planning consultants, highways consultants and lawyers, who also would have been on the payroll to lobby for the third runway and therefore should be included in our consideration if we want a proper Bill.

[John McDonnell]

That is an extremely valid point. In the real world of lobbying, I have experience of that constituency issue, with BAA employees employed virtually full-time—yes, with a range of experts—intensively lobbying relatively junior staff in the Department for Transport and the Treasury, building up a head of steam around a particular demand from BAA that eventually shapes the decision made by Ministers. My understanding of the debate so far is that such lobbying would not be covered by the Bill and BAA in its new form, as Heathrow airport, would not be caught by it.

Things have moved on. Governments are increasingly outsourcing the preparation of the material that will eventually enable Ministers to take decisions. That outsourcing relies upon the commissioning of external experts—not within Government, but often academics and others—and in addition to that, the setting up of various commissions. The Howard Davies commission is consulting various organisations on behalf of Government about the expansion of aviation in London and the south-east, especially the issues surrounding the expansion of Heathrow. My understanding of the Bill is that the lobbying of the external advisers and members of such commissions is also not caught by the legislation.

Members may have experienced that process, but let me explain. An intensive lobbying exercise is being undertaken by the aviation industry across the country. Businesses that own individual airports are intensively lobbying Howard Davies’s commission, and they are lobbying external experts commissioned to undertake pieces of work, because obviously they are looking to expand their particular airport. I do not believe, and I am happy if the Minister wants to advise me differently, that any of that lobbying will be caught by the Bill.

The plea from the hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox) and the hon. Members for Chatham and Aylesford, for St Albans and for Foyle—right across the piece—was that, if we are going to legislate, we must legislate in the real world, and we are not doing so. We are going through an exercise that people will think is a waste of time, and many will find it disingenuous. Some may think that, when we have ticked the box, we have sorted out lobbying, but the real-world lobbying will go on as before.

As the Prime Minister rightly said, lobbying is open to the potential for scandal. There have been scandals. What causes me anxiety is that I am prevented from protecting my constituents from a heavily resourced and effective internal lobbying machine within an organisation that could destroy parts of my community and the quality of life of hundreds of thousands of people in west London. The Bill does not meet the purpose. It does not rise to the challenge that the Prime Minister set us, which is to ensure that we have a transparent lobbying process. That transparency can, we hope, enable us to have some element of probity within the system of lobbying overall.

I take what my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda said. The criticism has come from all parts of the Committee. There must be some recognition from Government that these legislative proposals do not stack up. I know that by way of a taunt to the Leader of the House what happened in the case of the NHS legislation was mentioned earlier, but I think the idea of a short pause while we try to get some consensus discussions going is the most constructive way forward. In that way we can learn the lessons from the lobbying industry itself. Members of this House across the parties have had years of experience of lobbying, so we can get some decent legislation in place, otherwise we will bring ourselves into potential disrepute. Members of the public who expect us to represent and protect them will think we are not doing our jobs effectively.

I urge the Government to listen to their own Back Benchers as much as to those on the Opposition Benches who have no axe to grind. Let us see whether we can have some cross-party discussions over the next week or two. We should not allow the Bill to leave this House and expect the House of Lords to sort it out, as usual. That is a derogation of our duty. We must do the work here and send the best Bill we possibly can to the other place, because that is what we are paid for.

[Thomas Docherty]

I am grateful, Mr Caton, to catch your eye in this debate.

Many colleagues have commented on the drafting of the Bill. I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) about the merits of the private Member’s Bill. Last year I introduced a private Member’s Bill on this very subject, supported by our Front-Bench team. I was lucky to work with Simon Patrick and the formidable Kate Emms on the drafting of that Bill. May I helpfully suggest to the Deputy Leader of the House that the Clerks of the House might be well qualified to help the Government draft a more effective and fully baked Bill than the one before us?

I gently point out to my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda that he mentioned my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) by name. I know that my hon. Friend is not a properly read parliamentarian, but I am fairly confident that according to “Erskine May” we are not allowed to mention the name of a right hon. Member, even in a quotation, but I am sure that he did not mean to do so. As he is a new boy in this place, we will let that one pass.

The Government have been caught by their own phenomenally tight definition. I shall speak mainly about Opposition amendment 18, which would remove paragraph 3(1)(a) and (b) of schedule 1, which is ambiguous and creates uncertainty. Sub-paragraph (1) creates a loophole which cripples the aims of the Bill. On Second Reading and in the debate today, I have been struck by the fact that the Government consistently believe that, if they say that a measure is not intended to have a particular effect, that somehow means that it will not have that effect.

The Government were correct one time. As the Deputy Leader of the House said earlier, the Government are not seeking to capture lobbyists—they are seeking to capture 1% of those who would otherwise be defined as lobbyists. Credit is due to the Government; that is the one element that is consistent with their intentions. Unfortunately, sub-paragraph (1) does not capture even that 1%. Sub-paragraph (1)(a) excludes

“a business which is mainly a non-lobbying business”,

and sub-paragraph (1)(b) excludes a business whose lobbying efforts are

“an insubstantial proportion of that business.”

That would mean, for example, that big tobacco firms did not have to declare their in-house lobbying activities, but a small firm of public affairs professionals or consultants campaigning on behalf of, say, Action on Smoking and Health, would have to do so. I will return to that point later. The term “non-lobbying business” is insubstantial and too vague and does not have any real meaning.

The Government’s attempt to try to correct this error, amendment 93, which says

“consists mainly of non-lobbying”,

does not improve matters in the slightest. Unfortunately, what the Government by their own definition mean by lobbying is purely that direct communication with Ministers of the Crown and permanent secretaries. I could understand if the Government were defining lobbying as being what we think of as lobbying. It is interesting the number of Members on both sides of the House who describe themselves as lobbyists. Unfortunately, I suspect that none of those so-called lobbyists are actually lobbyists under the Government’s own definition. They have defeated themselves by drawing their amendments so closely.