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

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

Thanks to the wonders of the internet, we already know what The Daily Telegraph thinks about today’s debate. It describes grisly scenes, referring to the contributions of Members on the Government Benches in today’s debate. It has been a particularly interesting debate and I hope the Government have listened very carefully to it—they have not listened to anyone else. They should at least listen to their own Back Benchers, and I will come to that in a moment.

The Government have achieved something remarkable —they have a Bill which is so dreadful that it has united the lobbying industry and campaigners who are trying to bring more openness and transparency to the lobbying industry. They seem to have united the whole of the so-called big society, but it is unity in opposition to the Government’s proposals. They even managed to ensure that the LabourList and ConservativeHome websites both came out against the Bill. Even the ultra-loyalist political blog Lib Dem Voice whispered its reservations about the Bill.

It has been a fascinating debate. We heard 27 or 28 Back-Bench contributions. I cannot refer to them all but, needless to say, there were powerful contributions from all parts of the House. Eighteen or 19 Opposition Back Benchers made the most powerful speeches in which a wide variety of concerns were articulated—concerns about the voluntary sector, trade unions and the way in which lobbying will effectively be left unregulated if the Bill goes through. Voices were clearly heard from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, which will face additional problems if the legislation is adopted.

Significant contributions were made from the Back Benches by two Members who have been witnesses to lobbying in their own constituencies. One was the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main), who described behind-the-scenes influence and the expenditure of £12 million on attempts to reverse a planning consent. Let me tell the hon. Lady and the House that the Bill would not cover that as local government is wholly excluded from it, which seems to me to be remiss. We heard witness evidence from my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), who described—whatever one’s view of the third runway at Heathrow—the most profound activities by employees, as I understand it, of BAA, who have passes to enter the Department for Transport. I have news for the House: those people would not be registered, as the register specifically excludes anybody who is a so-called in-house lobbyist.

The most important contributions of all came from three Chairs of Select Committees, speaking for all members of their Committees. The Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights said that he was very concerned that there had been no pre-legislative scrutiny and that the Bill would clearly impact on human rights. My right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron), the Chair of the Standards Committee, warned the House that paragraph 2 of schedule 1 is likely to imperil the privileges of Members of the House which, we heard, have stood intact since the Bill of Rights in 1688. The hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) was the only Member who made what sounded like a positive contribution in relation to the Bill, but he planted a small hand grenade in his speech: he said that he could not support any attack on the rights and privileges of hon. Members. Yet the legislation appears to do precisely that.

Then we heard from the Chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), who told us that the Committee was alarmed by the way the Bill has been introduced and pressed through in quite a reckless way. He assured the House that it was possible to reach a consensus on lobbying, even across the parties and across wider society, if only we took the time. A common theme running through all the contributions was this: why did the Government choose these particular time scales, which prevent pre-legislative scrutiny or witness statements being made to the Select Committee? I will return to that point in due course, because it is a disgrace.

There were seven contributions from Government Back Benchers, and each of them in their own way damned with faint praise either the entire Bill or elements of it. Whether or not the Leader of the House listens to contributions from the Opposition, he would be well advised to listen to the warning voices from Members behind him, particularly the story from St Albans. The hon. Members for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland), for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso), for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray), for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) and for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) all warned that powerful vested interests lurk in our society, seeking to influence with the power of money the way we make decisions. They all warned that the legislation is simply inadequate in its present form and needs to be amended. Indeed, the Leader of the House himself said that he thought some amendments would probably have to be brought forward.

The Bill simply fails to live up to the demands of the epoch through which we are living. We live in a time of great flux and of distrust in the ruling political and commercial elites. We live in a democratic century in which—rightly, in my view—the wider public long ago abandoned deferential attitudes to the people at the top. They want to know how decisions are taken and on whose behalf. A quiet revolution is taking place in our country, with the growth of active citizenship, which this House would be foolish to ignore. People are much more active in taking control of their lives, which partly explains the explosion in the number of campaigning organisations, not-for-profit groups and charities. It is not simply that the Government misunderstand the zeitgeist I am describing; in truth, they consistently make the wrong decisions because they are too tightly bound up with the interests of the most rich and powerful in our country, rather than the millions who work hard, play by the rules and struggle hard to get by.

This legislation runs contrary to the spirit of the times in which we live. It permits lobbying by the rich and powerful to continue in an unregulated way and in the shadows, while at the same time it seeks to silence wider civic society. Big tobacco’s voice will still be heard in the seats of power, while the voices of cancer activists will not. The voice of arms manufacturers will be heard, but not that of the Royal British Legion. The voice of private medicine will be heard, but not the unions representing nurses and hospital cleaners. The tax avoidance industry will be heard, but not the tax justice campaign.

The Bill is poorly drafted and needs to be radically amended. We have tabled our reasoned amendment, which I hope Members will vote for. If it is rejected by the House, we should vote against the Bill. We then need to make one further decision tonight, on the allocation of time. I hope that Members who have reservations listen carefully to the point I want to make. The Bill is being stampeded through, and there are strong reasons why more time needs to be given, so we will oppose the programme motion.

Let me give six reasons. First, there has been no pre-legislative scrutiny; secondly, witnesses have not been able to come before the House to react to the Bill; thirdly, the debate on part 1 next Monday will be curtailed because there will be a statement and other business; fourthly, as we have heard, the privileges of MPs will be affected; fifthly, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North has told us that he believes that with time we could get a consensus; and sixthly and most importantly, we are witnessing a Bill that will change the British constitution in quite a fundamental way. There is no precedent for imposing an allocation of time motion under those circumstances. I very much hope that the House votes against this Bill.