Lobbying (Transparency) Bill [HL]

Lord Beith Excerpts

Friday 9th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, I am glad we have the opportunity to debate this Bill because there is no doubt that the scale and opacity of lobbying is a problem. What is more in doubt is whether as presently constructed it will materially assist us in dealing with and regulating the problem. I have some reservations about it and some suggestions on what to include in it which might do more to assist us than merely extending the register on a very large scale, as the Bill proposes. Indeed, I fear that the Bill could be crushed under its own weight because of the sheer number of people who would be drawn in to the definition of a lobbyist. There are people about whom there is no doubt that if they raise a matter with public officials, they are doing so on behalf of the organisation they work for, but the net would be very wide. It would include the garage manager who calls the Environment Agency because he wants a bit more time to comply with the requirements that have been set or the teacher who writes not to her own Member of Parliament but to the Secretary of State for Education to say that the new curriculum proposals are extremely unhelpful. A huge range of people would be caught in that they would be required to be registered, but it would not really get us very far.

Although I can see the underlying logic of asking why people who are commercial lobbyists working for several different interests should be registered while in-house lobbyists are not, at least with the latter you know who they are lobbying for. We know that they are people working for an organisation and are likely to advance its interests using whatever opportunities they have. So the question is: how can we make sure that the process people are engaged in when they are lobbying is more transparent than it has been in the past? It is on that area that the Bill could more usefully concentrate.

So far as commercial lobbyists are concerned, we would be in a better position if we knew more about their sources of finance; that is, if we knew how just much money companies are paying commercial lobbyists to lobby on their behalf. The fact that under the register system at the moment a firm can declare no clients at all seems suspicious. If there were further requirements for financial declaration, the question of who is paying the piper could be asked more effectively. That is an area in which commercial lobbying could be addressed by improvements in the legislation.

On the wider range of the Bill, again, rather than looking to alter the register, why do we not improve the information that is available about the lobbying that is taking place? Meetings can be covered by very brief and insufficient descriptions such as, “Defence matters are being discussed”. That could be anything from the potential threat on the eastern borders of NATO’s territory to the precise details of the next warship order—if there ever is a next warship order—that the department is going to place. Even in areas where there are not the same confidentiality requirements as might be imposed in defence, if the matter being discussed is “aviation” or “the railway industry”, that is not enough to provide an explanation of what lobbying is taking place. It would be helpful if all these statements could be gathered together on the government website and that was searchable. That would be a distinct improvement on the current arrangements, and I ask the Minister to look at this.

Whose meetings should be involved? I refer back to what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. Meetings with special advisers are clearly sought after by lobbying organisations to press their case because they play a crucial role. It is unimaginable that they should continue to be left out of the process. Meetings with special advisers therefore ought to be included. Noble Lords will recall that before my time here the House agreed to that, and an amendment to that effect was removed in the Commons in the course of the exchanges between the Houses on that Bill. It is something that we ought to return to. There is a series of quite specific things which could gather up the lobbying that is taking place more effectively than trying to impose a regime right across the activities of the entire commercial and public sectors. That would be a huge task.

Several comments have been made about the 2014 legislation. I am in favour of post-legislative scrutiny. It is important that there should be some scrutiny of that legislation. After all, an awful lot of things were said at the time not only about the lobbying aspects of it, but even more about the impact of other parts. It would be a bit of a challenge for a committee to retain its non-partisan approach when carrying out such scrutiny, but the Bill before us today is a reminder that that Bill was only part of a process that needs to be continued. However, in continuing it we should concentrate on what will improve our knowledge of what is going on rather than simply create a mechanism so wide and involving so many people that a lot of money would be spent to very little outcome.

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[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, I am grateful to all Peers who have contributed to this very interesting debate, and I will endeavour to answer as many of the questions they have raised as I can. I start with the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, who is opposed to the Bill. However, having heard him and then the Minister’s response, I rather wish that he was back in government. There is a balance to be struck. Often my Front Bench say to me that I am too nice to people. However, when I hear the Government respond in the way they have, I look for that little bit of anger inside me that rarely comes to the fore. As I said, there is obviously a balance to be struck, but almost every speaker today has said that the existing law is not working and is not fit for purpose—it is not producing anything.

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, talked about the burden that the Bill would impose. I conceded that there would be an added burden, but I responded to that in terms of my practical experience of life and talked about how, by using technology—I underline technology very much, and my noble friend Lord Howarth picked up on that too—we can do things much faster than we ever did before without placing a great burden on people.

Several noble Lords spoke about the diaries and I will come back to that. When I read through the previous debate on this matter, I was rather attracted to the concept of diaries being developed and of them being at the heart of this issue. However, the more work that I have done—my noble friend Lady Hayter put her finger on this—the more I have seen that in many respects the diaries are not fit for purpose. That is especially the case when one learns that many Ministers keep two diaries—one for public presentation and the second for other activities that fall in the political field, where indeed lobbyists turn up as well.

I freely concede that definitions are not easy, yet the Bill would broaden the definition of lobbying, making it significantly wider than it is at present. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, said that spads should be included. I believe that many more people beyond spads should also be included. For many years I have campaigned on alcohol issues and I speak to people at the middle levels of the Civil Service. The noble Lord said that they are the decision-makers. They do not take the decisions but, by God, do they have an influence on when the decisions are made. We need a register that covers the contingency, and it needs to be extended to take in the people at those middle levels right across the public service. They are very influential people indeed. Ministers come and go but many civil servants stay, and that must be borne in mind.

The noble Lord mentioned APPGs. We should have put those on the list to be covered and I regret that we overlooked that. If he would like to include that in an amendment, we would be prepared to look at it. If the noble Lord has any other specific issues that he would like to discuss with me, I am happy to accommodate him and to make changes. I am very much in the mode of trying to keep this moving forward seriously. When I look at what we have before us and what it is costing, I think it truly is a scandal. There has to be a change and very quickly. The Bill presents the alternative.

I am grateful for what was, as usual, an outstanding speech from my noble friend Lord Howarth and for his support. Like my noble friend Lady Kennedy, he highlighted the influence of lobbying across such a wide front. That is not just in the UK but worldwide. Capitalism is now running around the whole world. It is quite unaccountable in many areas and this legislation is an attempt to bring it to book.

My noble friend mentioned digital technology, which is very helpful. He also raised the issue of “commercial in confidence”, which is used in many instances to avoid answering the direct questions that come from parliamentarians. That should be brought to an end.

The noble Lord, Lord Beith, talked about the difficulty of definitions around the edge, and I do not deny that. However, I think he took it to the other extreme, and I am happy that he was corrected by other speakers.

Without a doubt, there are problems around websites. The noble Lord also raised the point about diaries, which I will come back to. The diaries are a step in the right direction but they do not provide all the information that we need to answer the kind of criticisms that we are getting.

The noble Lord, Lord Beith, talked about who should be involved. Again, I emphasise that we need to go way beyond those presently defined in the Act. There is a sensible point between when someone is lobbying and not lobbying and who is involved. I believe that that balance is provided in the legislation I am proposing. The noble Lord proposed post-legislative scrutiny as an alternative—

[Lord Beith]

Not an alternative.