Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill
Debate between Lady Hermon and Lord Lansley(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Lansley
I hope I will be clear, just as I thought my right hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House was clear during discussions on part 2 of the Bill. We had a number of meetings with a range of organisations, and we listened carefully to points raised in this House and by those organisations. I met the National Council for Voluntary Organisations before Committee stage, and I was clear that we would make changes to the definition of expenditure for electoral purposes, to remove what it regarded as the risks and uncertainty associated with those definitions. It was not our intention to change in substance the test for what constitutes expenditure for electoral purposes, albeit that we intend—rightly, I think—to introduce greater transparency by including the range of controlled activities in a way consistent with recommendations by the Electoral Commission in its regulatory review.
It is important for us to have a registration threshold, so that those who want to spend a significant amount of money to influence electoral outcomes do so openly. They will not be prevented from doing that, but they will have to do it in a transparent way. It is important to get big money out of trying to influence electoral outcomes. It is therefore important to bring down the threshold, and for it to be disaggregated so that it cannot be spent disproportionately in individual constituencies or small geographic areas.
We did not want to change the test, in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, that only expenditure that could reasonably be regarded as intended to procure or promote the electoral success of a party or candidate should be controlled expenditure. That will still be true. In fact, it will be even more narrowly true, because we have taken out the strand relating to enhancing the standing of political parties at relevant elections, as it was capable of being used to create uncertainty.
Members have quoted from the letter by Sir Stuart Etherington, the chief executive of NVCO. I urge them to read it carefully. It says that there is uncertainty associated with the definition in the 2000 Act, and that that continues to be the case. It is the job of the Electoral Commission—taking the test we have here, which is as clear as we could make it—to inform organisations through the guidance it produces. We stand ready to work with the Electoral Commission. It is an independent organisation and it is for it to decide how it goes about that task, but we could not have made it any clearer.
Lady Hermon
The Leader of the House is being most generous in taking interventions. May I ask him to address one particular issue that pertains to Northern Ireland? He emphasised the need for transparency and the need to know who influences elections, and I think we all agree that that is important. However, the Government have agreed that the anonymity of donations to political parties in Northern Ireland will continue. That can no longer be justified on security grounds, because Northern Ireland has successfully hosted, without incident, the G8 summit in Fermanagh and the world police and fire games. How does he square those two things?
Mr Lansley
Each has its own particular characteristics and the Speaker will forgive me if I do not respond to that point, as I think it is outwith the terms of the Bill. We do not intend to change that. We are introducing transparency relating to expenditure by third parties seeking to influence the outcome of elections. The Bill has no impact on the donations that individuals or organisations make to political parties, or on how political parties spend money at elections.
We were not able, on Report, to discuss the final group of amendments on part 3 of the Bill. We continue to value the important role trade unions play in public life. We recognise that their influence extends beyond their own members, which is why it is important for members, employers and the public to have confidence that unions know who their members are. The Bill is in no sense an attack on trade unions. That is not correct. The measures are not designed to make it harder for unions to operate. I will be clear: the Bill will not prevent unions from taking industrial action; it will not require unions to collect more data; and nor will it place membership data in the hands of employers. Instead, it provides the public with reassurance that trade unions are fulfilling the duties to which they are already bound. Part 3 of the Bill strengthens requirements in existing legislation to ensure that unions can demonstrate that they keep an up-to-date and accurate membership register.
Part 1 will create transparency with regard to who is lobbying whom in relation to key decision makers. The Labour party, and last year’s report by the Select Committee on the earlier consultation, seeks a different Bill—one that creates a large-scale bureaucracy listing everybody who engages in any kind of lobbying activity. We have looked at that approach, and, frankly, it is not remotely justified. Transparency is the way forward: transparency in lobbying and in third-party campaigning. When people set out to influence the electoral outcomes, they must do so in a transparent way.
Charities, voluntary organisations and third parties who want to campaign on policies and issues will continue to be free to do so, as long as they do not step over the line and set out to influence electoral outcomes directly. There will be transparency in how trade unions represent their members, because they will know who their members are. These are the ways we will provide reassurance in the political system and enhance confidence through transparency and accountability. I commend the Bill to the House.
Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill
Debate between Lady Hermon and Lord Lansley(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Lansley
I am grateful to hon. Members for their contributions to this short debate, and particularly to my hon. Friends the Members for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) and for Stone (Mr Cash) for tabling the new clause. I hope I will be able to reassure them that, through Government amendments 28 and 29, we will achieve the objectives that they and other Members seek. I hope that this debate on Report will begin with full agreement on how the Bill should be structured.
There are two issues with regard to this group of amendments: one is parliamentary privilege and the other is the position of Members of Parliament themselves. I reassure Members that the Government are committed to ensuring that the Bill’s provisions do not infringe on parliamentary privilege. The Government recognise that the privileges of Parliament are an integral and, indeed, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stone has said, necessary part of our constitutional arrangements. As the 18th century Clerk of the House, John Hatsell, commented, they are absolutely necessary for the due execution of Parliament’s powers.
Parliamentary privilege is an intrinsic and essential element of our democracy. It upholds Members’ right to freedom of speech and protects Parliament from external interference.
Article IX of the Bill of Rights 1689 reflects those historic and vital rights by providing that
“the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament should not be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament”.
This Bill will in no way challenge the freedom of speech of parliamentarians.
Equally, we are committed to ensuring that the provisions do not intrude on Parliament’s exclusive cognisance and to upholding the principle famously set out by Sir William Blackstone in 1830, that
“the whole of the law and custom of Parliament has its origin in this one maxim, that whatever matter arises concerning either House of Parliament, ought to be examined, discussed and adjudged in that House and not elsewhere.”
As Members have made clear and helpfully acknowledged, following careful consideration we have concluded that the inclusion of a reference to parliamentary privilege in the Bill—either in the manner provided for by paragraph 1 of schedule 1 or in that outlined in new clause 1, if we were to proceed with it—could invite examination, discussion and judgment from sources external to Parliament. The retention or inclusion of such a provision could prompt unhelpful rulings by the courts regarding the nature or extent of privilege or its interaction with other statute. That point has been made by my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex and by the report of the Standards and Privileges Committee.
I am grateful to the Committee and to its Chairman for his contribution to the debate. The Committee’s view and its helpful reference to the views of Lord Judge have helped us reach a conclusion. I hope the Committee will agree that Government amendment 28 meets its objective.
I am confident that Members will share our desire to protect Parliament’s right to regulate its own affairs and, as provided in the Bill of Rights, not to have its proceedings questioned. I am equally confident that the way in which that will be ensured in the context of this Bill will be to remove the reference to privilege outlined in paragraph 1 of schedule 1 and, as a consequence and for the same reason, to resist the inclusion of a similar provision as proposed by new clause 1. Government amendment 28 will therefore help to protect the privileges of Parliament from undue judicial interpretation in the context of this statute. I would be grateful if my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex would withdraw the new clause in consequence of Government amendment 28.
Lady Hermon
I have listened carefully to the Leader of House’s explanation and am slightly concerned. Paragraph 22 of the explanatory notes states specifically that paragraphs 1 and 2 of schedule 1
“make provision to ensure that no provision of the bill could be infringing parliamentary privilege”.
Is the Leader of the House saying, therefore, that if paragraphs 1 and 2 are removed by the Government’s amendments there is no possibility of any other provision in the Bill infringing parliamentary privilege? Is that the assurance he is giving?
Mr Lansley
I understand that completely. If I have not explained my point fully, let me explain it again. Under clause 2(1)(a), part of the definition of consultant lobbying is that it is carried out
“in the course of a business and in return for payment”.
When the Bill was introduced, in order to make it absolutely clear that Members of Parliament were not covered, we included a provision about the communications that are made by Members of Parliament in paragraph 2 of schedule 1.
On Second Reading, I explained that we believed that Members of Parliament were exempt by virtue of their public duty meaning that they were not engaged in the course of a business. It was clear that the inclusion of the additional provision in schedule 1 created an unnecessary and unhelpful confusion because, as has been said in this debate, it does not encapsulate all the activities of a Member of Parliament in carrying out their functions.
Members will recall that my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith) said in Committee that we would therefore adopt a different approach. I thank her for all her work on the Bill and welcome the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), who has responsibility for cities and constitution. I will not ask him to explain the Bill at this stage, but will allow him to take responsibility for the policy when he has had a chance to apply his considerable talents to it.
We discussed, welcomed and accepted what the Chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee said and, in Committee, we accepted an amendment that he tabled. That amendment resulted in an improved exemption in schedule 1, which clarified the interaction between parliamentarians and the register. Members will recall that the definition of consultant lobbying states that it must be
“in the course of a business and in return for payment”.
Paragraph 6(2) of schedule 1 states that “payment” in those circumstances
“does not include any sums payable to a member of either House of Parliament”—
again, this refers to the point about Members of the House of Lords—under the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009, pursuant to a resolution, or out of money provided by Parliament or the Consolidated Fund.
Members of Parliament are therefore exempt under both limbs of the definition. They are not engaged in the course of a business and the payment that they receive is not regarded as payment for the purposes of the Bill. For that reason, we think that there is now a cast-iron, belt-and-braces exemption for Members of Parliament.
I might add that Members of the House of Lords are exempt in so far as they are acting in their public duties. If a Member of this House received payment for contacting a Minister or permanent secretary, it would be contrary to the Members’ code of conduct. The Chairman of the Standards Committee will correct me if I am wrong. The code in the House of Lords makes it clear that nobody can undertake paid advocacy in the House of Lords or advise somebody on the proceedings of the House, but it does not preclude somebody engaging in lobbying activity in the course of a business and in return for payment. My reading is that it is not inconceivable that some Members of the House of Lords would be required to register as consultant lobbyists as a consequence of their business activities. They would certainly not be required to register by virtue of their activities as Members of the House of Lords. I apologise for that detour.
As a consequence of accepting the amendment tabled by the Chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, we would have removed paragraph 2 of schedule 1 in Committee, but it was not reached. Amendment 29 will remove that redundant paragraph. I hope that the Opposition accept that amendment 78 is therefore unnecessary. I also ask my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex to withdraw new clause 1.
Lady Hermon
I am most grateful to the Leader of the House for his very helpful explanation. Just to be sure, will he confirm that if I receive communications from constituents of the five absentee Sinn Fein Members—and, indeed, of any other Members of this House who take their seats—and I make representations or write to a Minister, the Director of Public Prosecutions or a senior Government official, that will not be caught by the Bill?
Mr Lansley
Yes, I can give the hon. Lady that assurance. She would not be affected by the Bill as she would be behaving as a Member of Parliament and not engaging in the course of a business. The payment she receives as a Member of Parliament is not regarded as payment for these purposes, and she can undertake all her normal activities. The same is true for the hon. Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas) who sits on the Opposition Front Bench, because shadow Ministers and Members may raise any issues they wish. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) can represent not only her constituents but anybody she likes in her responsibilities as a Member of Parliament, and is in no way constrained from doing so.
Mr Lansley
Let me make some progress, then I will give way again. There are quite a number of amendments in the group and I want to address each of them briefly.
New clause 6 requires that the registrar provide an annual report to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. The Chair of the Committee did not, I think, refer to new clause 6, and I am not aware that the Committee made such a proposal. If the Committee wants to call the registrar to give evidence to it on an annual basis, it is quite within its rights to do so, and the Government would be happy to support that, but we do not believe it is appropriate to set this down as a statutory requirement.
Opposition amendment 84 requires the Minister to consult the PCRC before dismissing the registrar—another interesting proposal, but I am not sure that the amendment adds anything of substance to the Bill. In essence, this is part of the same issue as the independence of the registrar, which I believe is already made clear in the wording of the Bill. The registrar will be independent of the lobbying industry and the Government and will have a clear remit to operate independently of both. The Minister will be able to dismiss the registrar only when he or she is satisfied that the registrar is unable, unwilling or unfit to perform the functions of his or her office, and any decision by the Minster could be challenged in the usual way via judicial review.
Opposition amendment 85 removes the requirement that lobbyists who have no business address must register their private residence. I can understand the concern to protect the privacy of individuals on the register, especially given the more onerous and invasive reporting requirements proposed elsewhere by the Opposition, but I am not sure that the removal of the requirement to register an address is a helpful one. A registered address is critical if the registrar is successfully to issue information notices, investigate compliance, and serve penalty notices. The great majority of consultant lobbyists will have one or more dedicated business addresses, so no issue will arise. The handful of individual consultant lobbyists who have no separate business address—I recognise that there is no requirement to register for those who do not meet the threshold of undertaking a business that is VAT-registered—can choose to obtain such an address and use that or they can submit their personal residential address. I therefore do not agree that this step is a wise one.
Given the Opposition’s concern about privacy, do they really want to require, as proposed by their amendment 86, that every organisation that lobbies must declare the names of all members of staff employed? Let us take an example. Given the way in which other Opposition amendments would apply, if an academic were engaged in contact with a Minister in pursuance of a subject on which they had undertaken research, the Opposition’s definition—not ours—would require that to be registered, whereas we would say that that was incidental and that the academic was not engaged mainly in lobbying activity. The Opposition would say that it should be included and, by extension, the names of everybody who works for the university should be entered in the register. That is unrealistic and makes no sense.
Amendments 87, 89 and 90 would amend the information requirements outlined in clause 4 to require that lobbyists also disclose financial information. Amendment 100, as I mentioned earlier, would alter the information requirements outlined in clause 4. We have been very clear that the objective of the register is the identification of the interests that are being represented by consultant lobbying firms. Lobbyists should therefore be required to disclose their clients. We are not persuaded that the burden of providing further information that would be imposed on the industry and the regulator is justified by the limited insight that it would provide. One can readily envisage the administrative nightmare that would result from trying to determine the costs of lobbying activity, especially where this had to be disaggregated from wider business activities. Requiring the disclosure of financial information relating to lobbying activity is not, in our view, proportionate to the problem identified.
Amendment 92 makes it explicit that the registrar may publish the register in written form. I can assure the Opposition that this is already implicit in 7(2), which states that the register may publish the register
“in such other form or forms as the Registrar thinks appropriate.”
The registrar can do whatever is necessary, including publishing the register in written form.
Lady Hermon
I am grateful to the Leader of the House for allowing me to intervene, even at this stage. Before he concludes his comments rejecting amendment 100, may I remind him of his opening remarks in response to this group of clauses? He said that the Government intend to shine the light of transparency—a great phrase—on lobbying, and we say, “Hear, hear” to that, but I cannot understand his justification for not requiring the subject matter of a meeting to be registered. He suggested that that is publication of the diaries of Ministers and permanent secretaries, but the Leader of the House will know better than any of us that the definition of permanent secretary includes the DPP, the chief medical officer and the chief executive of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. Are they obliged to publish their diaries?
Mr Lansley
The point I was making is that the register that the Bill establishes is not where meetings will be listed. Meetings will be listed in the diary of the Minister or the permanent secretary. Consequently, in so far as it is appropriate for a meeting’s character to be disclosed, it will be disclosed in the ministerial diaries. To try to construct in the Bill the idea that the subject of meetings will be disclosed in the register would be to misunderstand what the register does. The register discloses the clients of consultant lobbyists, not the subjects on which they are lobbying.
Mr Lansley
With respect, I do not think that the hon. Gentleman was listening to my previous answer. Consultant lobbyists disclose in the register who their clients are. The diaries of Ministers and permanent secretaries disclose who they meet. If the Secretary of State for Transport meets British Airways, it is transparent that British Airways is representing its interests. However, if the XYZ airline is represented by a consultant lobbyist, the register will disclose that the airline is the client of that lobbyist, and it will be transparent through the Minister’s diary that he or she has met that lobbyist and, as a consequence, it will be clear who they are meeting. The issue is not whether there is transparency but the mechanism by which transparency is delivered. It is delivered through the publication of Ministers’ diaries, and the gap in transparency that we have identified, and which the Bill remedies, is the gap in understanding, if Ministers or permanent secretaries meet consultant lobbyists, who their clients are.
Mr Lansley
No, I have answered that question.
Amendment 93, tabled by the Opposition, would remove clause 10. I must confess that I am still bemused. We made it quite clear in Committee that the effect of doing so would be that in response to an information notice a person would not be required to provide any self-incriminating information, including in relation to any offence committed in relation to the register itself. The amendment would entirely undermine the enforcement regime relating to the register.
The Opposition’s amendments 94, 95 and 96 would make it an offence for consultant lobbyists to report misleading information. Although the intention behind the amendments is undoubtedly sound, I do not believe that they would have a substantive effect, as in order to be misleading the information must be either inaccurate or incomplete, and that is already covered by the clause.
The Government’s amendments in this group include amendment 31, which will allow the registrar to make direct payments to staff who have been seconded to support the office holder in addition to or instead of payments being made to the Minister or other person who seconded staff to the registrar. The registrar can also make payments to Ministers or other persons who supply accommodation or other services to the registrar under the general provision to make arrangements set out in paragraph 8(1)(b) of schedule 2.
Clause 4(3) outlines the client information that should be included in each register entry. Amendment 17 clarifies that if the registered consultant lobbyist has not engaged in lobbying or been paid to engage in lobbying during that quarter, its register entry for that quarter will contain a statement to that effect, as set out in clause 5(5), in lieu of any client information.
Amendments 18 and 19 will ensure the clarity and consistency of references to the periods for which consultant lobbyists are obliged to provide information. In the existing Bill, the three-month period prior to their initial registration about which consultant lobbyists must provide information in their register entry is called the “relevant pre-registration period”. This amendment changes the references to that phrase in clause 4 to the phrase “pre-registration quarter”, reflecting the references to the quarters for which client information is required after registration and ensuring consistency across the Bill. I hope that is clear.
Amendment 20 will ensure that the parameters of the pre-registration quarter are unambiguously defined as the three months ending on the date on which the person applies to be registered. The amendment changes the definition of the relevant pre-registration quarter period from the period of three months preceding the application date to the period of three months ending on the application date.
Amendments 21 and 22 will make it clear that register entries must include the names of the person or persons on whose behalf lobbying is undertaken, reflecting the reality that consultant lobbyists are likely to be engaged by more than one person during a quarter, and ensures consistency across the provisions of the Bill.
Amendment 23 clarifies the registrar's duty to update the register in accordance with the information returns submitted by consultant lobbyists by removing the unnecessary reference to “receiving the information return” which is covered in the following sub-paragraph.
Amendment 24 makes clear the separation of what the registrar is required to do, and what it may do. The registrar must publish the register in accordance with requirements set out in section 6. The registrar may also publish entries in respect of persons who were but are no longer entered in the register, but this is not a subset of its requirements under section 6.
Amendment 25 makes it clear that it is an offence for a “registered” person to carry on the business of consultant lobbying if they have submitted incomplete information to the registrar. This puts beyond any shadow of a doubt the class of person that is caught by this provision.
Amendment 26 will clarify that a person guilty of an offence relating to the register is liable to a fine, whether they are summarily convicted or are convicted on indictment. If convicted in a Crown court, the fine will be unlimited. If convicted in a magistrates court in Scotland or Northern Ireland, the fine will not exceed the statutory maximum. If convicted in a magistrates court in England or Wales before the coming into force of section 85 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, the fine will not exceed the statutory maximum; if convicted after the coming into force of that Act, which removes the statutory maximum in England and Wales, the fine will be unlimited.
Amendment 27 further clarifies that an appeal against an information notice or the notice or imposition of a penalty can be heard either by the first tier tribunal or, if so determined by or under the tribunal procedure rules, the upper tribunal.
When the time comes, I would welcome the opportunity to move the Government amendments standing in my name.
Draft Voting Eligibility (Prisoners) Bill (Joint Committee)
Debate between Lady Hermon and Lord Lansley(11 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Lansley
If I may, I do not mean to detain the House too long, but the shadow Leader of the House and my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) made some important points and I want to respond to a number of them.
My hon. Friend put some interesting points, but I remind him that when we make changes to our procedures we should proceed on the basis of full consultation and discussion across the House, and on the basis of investigation and recommendation from our Select Committees. As it happens, not only does the Procedure Committee intend to consider questions relating to the Selection Committee, as the shadow Leader of the House made clear, but I remind my hon. Friend and the House that the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee is considering progress on the implementation of the Wright reforms.
I have not heard in the course of the debate an objection as such to the proposed membership of the Joint Committee from this House, and I perceive no delay on the part of Government once the Lords has completed its process of finding members. My hon. Friend’s arguments left out the Lords in this context. As we are talking about a Joint Committee, it is important to recognise that balancing the Committee is important across both Houses, not just in this House.
I continue to depart from my hon. Friend on the issue of elections for specific legislative scrutiny. Notwithstanding the points he makes, I think there is a point of principle about the risk of the election of Members to that scrutiny committee prejudicing the process of dispassionate scrutiny. I heard what he said about the nominations coming through a process of consultation within the usual channels. The shadow Leader of the House and I are not the usual channels. The proposal emerged from within the usual channels. If my hon. Friend looks at the proposed membership, I think he will certainly conclude that the proposed membership of the Joint Committee will clearly be dispassionate and independent in its scrutiny, the members of the Committee having taken differing positions themselves and having obvious expertise to bring to the subject.
Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)
I am grateful to the Leader of the House for taking an intervention. May I remind him ever so nicely that in Northern Ireland we have 1.8 million people? Will he explain why no representative in the House from Northern Ireland has been selected to sit on the Committee? We do have some prisoners in Northern Ireland. It is a very controversial issue in Northern Ireland. Please do not tell me that justice is devolved. I do not sit in the Northern Ireland Assembly. I sit in this House.