Commercial Lobbyists (Registration and Code of Conduct) Bill

Debate between John Stevenson and James Duddridge

Friday 1st February 2013 Commons Chamber

[James Duddridge]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend and I cannot evidence in the Bill any thought or consideration of different sizes of businesses. There is a massive difference between Asda or the might of a FTSE 100 company that might be involved in lobbying, and one or two individual businesses. There is no consideration of whether the fee should be fixed for all businesses, fixed per person, or be a threshold to allow businesses to move into the sector without signing up. There is no consideration of corporate structures. Gone are the days where we have one simple limited company or one simple plc. Many companies have subsidiaries, are wholly owned, separately floated or floated in different jurisdictions. There is a whole level of complexity that will make some details of the Bill difficult to iron out.

There are also difficulties in relation to an organisation that is trying to get round some of the proposed rules. People are not always well meaning and will look for holes in the legislation and see whether they can register offshore, have consultants or separate out the lobbying into a subsidiary area. They will see whether they can disguise what they are doing and define their lobbying activity by way of a consultation or public relations, rather than public affairs.

The consultation said that a number of questions had been raised, such as the definition of lobbying and lobbyists. I am concerned about that and about who will be included and excluded in the register. It strikes me, for example, that trade unions should form part of the provisions. One clear role of a trade union is to lobby organisations and the Government for better working conditions, pay and arrangements, and that is quite proper and a healthy part of democracy. Clearly, trade unions are lobbyists, but they are certainly not commercial and nor, on the other end of the scale, are they charities. They do not belong to those two categories and are neither one thing nor the other. We need to define that, and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) that we have not done that.

[John Stevenson]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one fundamental flaw with the Bill is that it contains no specific definition of lobbyist?

[James Duddridge]

Absolutely, and I would not want to see the Bill go into Committee without such a definition. I would want the Government to define what a lobbyist is—perhaps the way forward is to define a lobbyist by what it is not, rather than by what it is, so that we have absolute certainty that certain organisations will be exempt from the provisions. I am sure that we will have a debate; I am sure Labour Members will want trade unions to be exempt from the register, although I would quite like them to remain on it. We might wish to give preference to and exempt some trade organisations, but we will want others to be very much part of such a register so that we have the transparency sought by the Bill.

I was glad that the consultation received more than 260 responses. Lord Wallace of Saltaire from the other place has eloquently summarised the feedback. At one point, the Government summary of replies to the consultation document states

“in effect, a lot of those consulted regard themselves as a legitimate part of the political process but regard everybody else as lobbyists”.

That is spot on, and quite often people who come to us talk in similar language. Lord Wallace said that although there is need for reform,

“there is a quite remarkable dissensus among respondents”

I was unfamiliar with the word “dissensus”, but I can work out what he means and I broadly agree with his conclusion.

I look forward to seeing the Government response to the consultation. I believe that some of the inputs to the consultation have been published, but I could not find that, so I assume the Government have not yet responded, given that the consultation was in January 2012—[Interruption.] The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith) is kindly passing me a document, but I am unclear whether it is a summary of responses or the Government position. Flipping through, it seems to be the summary of responses, rather than the Government response to those responses.