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

Lord Aberdare Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, I will try to outline my thoughts on the Bill without going into too much detail since most of the points I wish to make have been made already and may well be made again. I will address Parts 1 and 2. I have no problem with the principles of the Bill. I believe that a register of lobbyists is important to ensure the openness and transparency of lobbying activity, and I also support the aim of Part 2 to take the big money out of politics, as we have heard it described. However, I have two broad concerns about the Bill as drafted. Does it risk going too far and actually taking the politics out of politics and will it achieve its laudable aims in a workable, effective and not too burdensome manner?

On Part 1, I start from the principle that lobbying is a vital part of our democratic system. I worked in IBM’s government relations departments in both the UK and the USA and was then a partner in a public affairs consultancy, so at times I engaged in lobbying myself. However, I, and perhaps other noble Lords, might not be able to contribute to debate on this Bill in an informed way if it were not for the lobbying efforts of numerous organisations interested in or concerned by it. It is important that lobbying should be open, transparent and above board. The system to achieve that should be clear, fair, workable, reasonably straightforward and comprehensive, so I have considerable questions about how the proposed register is to be set up.

First, why are only consultant lobbyists covered? What about in-house lobbyists, other corporate advisers such as management consultants, law firms and accountants, trade associations and other such representative bodies? Consultant lobbyists represent a very small proportion of total lobbying, perhaps not much more than 10%. In my experience they generally accompany their clients in lobbying situations, if they take part in them at all, and it is the client who has the most direct interaction with the person being lobbied. It is hard to see how the omission of the bulk of lobbyists and their activities from the register will achieve the aims of increasing transparency and public confidence.

Secondly, why does the Bill extend only to lobbying of Ministers and Permanent Secretaries? A huge amount of lobbying takes place at lower levels, including with special advisers, for example, both before and after any direct contacts with Ministers or Permanent Secretaries. Moreover, as we have heard, Ministers and Permanent Secretaries are already supposed to publish details of their meetings with external organisations. If the public need to know who those organisations represent, why could this information not just be added to those reports? After all, if Ministers or Permanent Secretaries do not know who the lobbyists they meet are representing, the lobbying effort seems unlikely to be effective. In this context, I was quite attracted by the proposal from the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, about turning the whole thing around and looking at it from the point of view of the people being lobbied.

Although I welcome the evident desire of the Government to adopt a minimalist approach, I wonder if there is not a danger of ending up—and here I echo what the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, said about Part 2—with an overlarge sledgehammer to crack a small, though admittedly irritating, nut. If we are to have a register and a registrar should they not be a little more comprehensive in their coverage without, of course, imposing undue burdens on lobbyists or their employers? Perhaps something can be learnt from existing systems elsewhere. For example, I have heard the European Union system described, with some approval, as a “coerced voluntary register”.

Finally, should there not be some encouragement for lobbyists to sign up, preferably on a voluntary basis, to codes of conduct such as that of the Association of Professional Political Consultants, which has been in existence for some 20 years? Could the system not make some sort of allowance for lobbyists who show that they adhere to a recognised code of conduct, as was suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler?

I find myself in a similar situation with Part 2. The aim may be worthy, but its implementation falls far short of being as clear, workable and proportionate as it should be. I have been very struck by the number of significant and reputable representative organisations expressing concern about this part of the Bill. To pick just a few, there are: the NCVO, with some 10,000 members; its Welsh equivalent, the WCVA, with more than 3,000 members; Bond, which represents 400 international development bodies; 13 faith groups; and the Commission on Civil Society and Democratic Engagement, chaired by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, which was formed by some 50 very diverse third-sector organisations specifically in response to concerns about this Bill. Numerous bodies have added their voices to these concerns such as the CBI, Citizens Advice, the Countryside Alliance, the National Trust, the National Federation of Women’s Institutes and the Royal British Legion, to mention just a few. No doubt briefings are still coming in from further organisations as we speak. Then there is the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in another place, the Joint Committee on Human Rights, your Lordships’ own Constitution Committee and even the Electoral Commission itself. Such a breadth of concern, with little or no countervailing opinion, should surely raise serious pause for thought.

The definition of “controlled expenditure”, even after the amendments made in another place to bring it more in line with the previously existing situation, remains complicated and unclear. One thing that is clear is that Clause 26, combined with Schedule 3, considerably extends the range of expenses covered, for example to include staff costs, if not even volunteer time, although I was reassured by what the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, said on that matter. While the scope of controlled expenditure is widened, the thresholds for registration to be necessary are significantly lowered in the Bill, by half in England, and more than half in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The limits on the maximum amounts that can be spent are also reduced, again by more than half. I have seen no rationale or justification for these reductions. Several organisations have said that the previous regime under PPERA was tolerable only because the thresholds and spending limits were sufficiently high not to affect the great majority of campaigns.

The reduced thresholds and limits are likely to bear down particularly hard on third-party organisations in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. For example, no allowance is made for the fact that in Wales much of the material now classified as election material has to be produced in two languages, with significant extra costs. Nearly all organisations commenting on the Bill, including the Electoral Commission, believe that the Government’s estimates of the number of bodies likely to be affected are unrealistically low.

The rules on coalition campaigns, where each member of a coalition has to include the full amount of coalition expenditure as part of its own controllable expenses, seem likely to have a strongly discouraging effect on campaigns of this nature, although in most other respects they seem positively desirable, as well as effective. Given that charities are already regulated by the Charity Commission under charity law, which prohibits them campaigning on party-political issues, I can understand why the question of whether they should not be specifically excluded from coverage under this new system has been raised.

I will not go into questions of why the Bill was not subject to greater pre-legislative scrutiny and consultation, as it surely should have been—and indeed should still be—or why there is such an unseemly rush to get Part 2 in place before the next general election, so that all the third-party organisations newly brought within its scope will have to have their future campaigning plans in place as soon as next May, despite all the issues raised in today’s debate.

The Bill in its current form seems likely to represent a significant burden on organisations, many of them small, which could by no stretch of the imagination be regarded as the sort of big money that could realistically distort elections, and to drive a coach and horses through this Government’s claim to be committed to deregulation and the big society. Even worse than that, it could risk causing significant collateral damage to the workings of our civil society as a whole. I hope the Bill will emerge from your Lordships’ House with significant improvements so that it fulfils its worthwhile aims without such undesirable side effects.