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

Lord Martin of Springburn Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 55, I apologise to the House for not having been in the Chamber for the debate immediately preceding the dinner break, where some aspects of the position of the registrar of lobbyists were discussed—how he will be appointed, who can be appointed and some method for reporting on his performance. My amendment is, at this stage of course, a probing amendment, and is concerned with the other end of the appointment, the question of dismissal.

Paragraph 3(6) of Schedule 2 says:

“The Minister may dismiss the Registrar if the Minister is satisfied that the Registrar is unable, unwilling or unfit to perform the functions of the office”.

Those are quite big words, capable of pretty wide interpretation. Rather gratifyingly, after I had tabled this amendment, I was written to by a number of groups that are interested in this: the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and a group called Spinwatch, which said it thought this was an issue worth probing.

As I said at Second Reading, the registrar of lobbyists will have a pretty key role in the efficient functioning of the new system. From time to time, for he or she to be effective, he or she will be required to be disobliging—to lobbyists, of course, but also to be prepared to speak truth to power, which can be quite uncomfortable. As I have just explained by reading out the clause, the Minister has summary powers as far as the removal of the registrar is concerned.

I reflected on what might be done to provide what might be described as a little air cover for the registrar in the work that he is doing. I looked at two examples. Both are bodies that have some connection to this Bill. First is the Charity Commission. Paragraph 3(3) of Schedule 1 to the Charities Act says:

“Before removing a member of the Commission the Minister must consult … the Commission, and … if the member was appointed following consultation with the Welsh Ministers, the Welsh Ministers”,

so he has no power to remove the head of the Charity Commission without at least having to go through an iteration with fellow members of the commission. More specifically, the Electoral Commission, the other body with which we are concerned, has a considerably higher threshold. Paragraph 3(4) of Schedule 1 to the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act says:

“An Electoral Commissioner may be removed from office by Her Majesty in pursuance of an Address from the House of Commons”.

I thought that, at least to get the discussion going, it would be helpful to put down here that the Speakers of both Houses would have to be consulted.

This is wider than the Electoral Commission because lobbying concerns both Houses, whereas of course the Electoral Commission is concerned with elections, which, at least to date, do not concern your Lordships’ House. I am not wedded to these specific proposals. I do not suppose for a moment that the Government will accept them in their present form, but it is worth exploring how we are going to make sure that the registrar, who has this important role to play, has some protection if he or she wishes to carry out his or her work in a way that the Government of the day may find disobliging. I beg to move.

[Lord Martin of Springburn (CB)]

My Lords, I know that the noble Lord put this amendment down in good faith. I can see the negative aspect of consulting with the Speaker and the Lord Speaker. First, the legislation states that the person who shall appoint the registrar is the Minister, not the Speakers of both Houses. There is an old saying that if you hire the person, the unpleasant task of firing them is also yours. Things would need to get very serious indeed for a Minister to find that the registrar was so unfit that he or she would have to be removed.

There is a danger, which has happened with other appointees to the House, where the individual concerned could appear on the face of it to have a good personality and to be a likeable person; they strike up a rapport with the media and use the media against the authority that has decided to remove them. It is easy for the media to indulge in a good person/bad person scenario.

I think that the question that the media would ask is: have the Speaker of the House of Commons and the Speaker of the House of Lords been consulted? The Minister might find it quite easy to say, “Yes, they have been consulted”. If dismissal is to take place, it goes without saying that the Speakers of both Houses have agreed with that proposition. If the responsibility is given to the Minister via the Bill, any difficulties should be left at the Minister’s door.

I think that the parliamentary commissioner, whom we have for both Houses, is appointed for either four or five years nonrenewable. That is a satisfactory way to deal with the matter: the registrar gets a five-year nonrenewable appointment—I know that that is not what the amendment provides. Then, when there is a parting of the ways, there are no hard feelings, whereas the Bill talks about a third renewed appointment. I have not looked fully into the responsibilities of the registrar, but I know about the parliamentary commissioner. If the third reappointment is not given, it would be considered a slur on the incumbent.

I understand that in the 1950s and prior to that, no one bothered the Speaker or the Lord Chancellor—they did not have a Lord Speaker. In recent years, the Speaker has been attacked for many reasons, and he or she is an easy target because the rule for a Speaker is that you do not respond to a press attack. That makes him or her a very easy target. I would be happier if the Minister who made the appointment made the decision. It would take a genius of a registrar to get things so badly wrong as to get him or herself sacked. In such a controversial situation, we should leave both high offices out of the legislation.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, in a sentence, I oppose the amendment. The registrar is not an officer of Parliament. If the registrar had been an officer of Parliament, I would be in favour of the amendment.

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[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, this amendment is about the use of the portcullis. This is an issue that concentrated the minds of Members of the House of Commons Select Committee who considered the issue of lobbying during the 1980s, nearly 30 years ago. That inquiry followed the previous inquiries of 1969 and 1974 by the Select Committee on Members’ Interests (Declaration). At that time in the 1980s, we had been considering a register for those in the industry who had access to Parliament, not government. In an attempt to think through the consequences of adopting such a register, we visited Canada, a country that at the time had only recently introduced a system that included registering lobbying activity, thereby going further than the Government’s current proposals.

What quickly became obvious to us during the course of our inquiry and from what we learnt in Canada was that many in the lobbying industry saw registered access to Parliament as a marketing tool. As Sir Trevor Lloyd-Hughes, a leading influence in the industry at the time, said in his evidence:

“Some of the PR people may announce claims in their glossy brochures of all kinds of entrée to the House of Commons and their ability to do this and that and the other, which I think are almost against the fair trading description legislation”.

He went on to say that he did not do that himself, although he added:

“If you are in business, surely you are entitled to say, we can do this and in my case as quite a few of you know I have been here since 1949. I say I have got experience and contacts. I have. It is true”.

Now I recognise that we are not talking here about Parliament but about government. However, there is an element of overlap. The moment that an organisation receives registration approval, that approval will bring with it an element of public recognition. The assumption will be made, particularly abroad, that a code exists and standards are being met. For many, government and Parliament will be indistinguishable. They will be regarded as the same, perhaps even by some here at home. I am in my amendment simply seeking, in the absence of a proper code of conduct, to lay down a requirement that at least the portcullis, a symbol of Parliament, is not used to promote a particular lobbying operation or organisation.

As Gavin Devine, chief executive of MHP Communications, said in his evidence to the House of Commons Political and Constitutional Reform Committee during its inquiry:

“There is a real danger that a register by itself may make the situation worse, since it is likely those on the register will describe themselves as a ‘registered’ or ‘approved’ lobbyists, without having to meet at least some minimum standards. In short, there is a risk that the register will give a kitemark or endorsement to some who do not deserve it”.

Again I say that I recognise that Parliament is tangential to the Bill. Nevertheless, we need to make it clear in the Bill that we will not tolerate the use of the portcullis as a marketing tool in what, in effect, is to be an unregulated marketplace. I beg to move.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 73 but, before doing so, I wish to say that I fully endorse the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, in relation to Amendment 72. He may recall that one particular Member of Parliament decided to publish a book—an act of fiction—on the front cover of which was the portcullis. It was clearly there to try to give the impression that the book was authorised by the House. The Member would not listen but the publisher did, to the extent that the royal crown—I think it was the prince’s crown—was taken off the second edition, although the portcullis gate was left on. That, at least, was something. It is right and fitting that the portcullis should be the symbol of both our Houses and not of any individual organisation.

Turning to Amendment 73, I recall the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, saying in an earlier debate that you have to know whom you are dealing with. That has to be clear. Those who hold press cards in the House of Commons are very well looked after, but it is the taxpayer, not their newspaper, who provides them with a desk and facilities. In fact, I believe that some journalists do not even have a place to hang their hat at their newspaper’s head office. I recall that only about five years ago the health and safety situation here was so bad for journalists—some of the senior reporters were using portakabins—that it was put to me that it was time we did something. Both Houses paid a share of £8 million to refurbish the Press Gallery. We even opened a restaurant, which is named after a highly respected journalist called Chris Moncrieff—it is called Moncrieff’s bar. We did all that and it is lovely. I was there to officiate at the opening, and so was Chris Moncrieff. I said, “It’s not bad that two teetotallers have opened up a drinking place”.

There was not one bad piece of publicity about that £8 million but nor was there one good piece of publicity about it. Nothing was said about it. Even now, I get very angry when I read pieces by journalists who are taking cheap shots. I also hear them doing it on Sky News. They say, “Oh, they’re getting subsidised drink”, but they do not tell you that they are partaking of the subsidised food and drink.

That brings me to my concern, which is dual membership. You have to know whom you are dealing with. I could be in one of the cafeterias here having a cup of tea or whatever and bump into someone who I think is a journalist. If we enter into a discussion, I know whom I am dealing with. However, it would not do if the journalist were both a journalist and a lobbyist. You might ask whether that is possible. It is. Some people in the Press Gallery have been there for years and years, and they are entitled to be there, but sometimes their newspaper will say, “We’re sorry but you’re no longer required. You’re redundant”. That must have happened to the boys on the News of the World and there are others in that category. Some of them get to like this place so much that they will go to a regional newspaper or a publication and say, “I will be your reporter”. That would allow them to retain their press status, although not the salary.

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[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I think it is important to get chapter and verse for the noble Lord and, indeed, for myself, because I would not want to mislead him in any way. That is the reason the Government, having thought about this particular point, felt that the House authorities should have continued to have the prerogative.

I turn now to the amendment spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Martin. Again, it is designed to address the problem he has identified in relation to accredited parliamentary lobby journalists, specifically that some are acting as lobbyists and/or are servicing all-party groups. As my noble friend Lord Younger of Leckie observed in his letter to the noble Lord following his intervention in the debate on Second Reading, matters relating to the conduct of accredited lobby journalists and to the administration of all-party groups are the prerogative of the Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. I understand, however, that a core requirement of many of the voluntary codes of conduct that lobbyists currently already sign up to require that they do not hold parliamentary passes.

I also understand that, pursuant to a resolution of the other place, holders of photo-identity passes as lobby journalists accredited to the Parliamentary Press Gallery or for parliamentary broadcasting are required to declare relevant interests on the register of journalists’ interests. That register is compiled and maintained by the Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. The commissioner also has responsibility for the rules governing all-party groups and hosts the register of groups recognised by Parliament, who their officers are, and information about the source and extent of financial and material assistance received by groups from outside Parliament.

Given the oversight of these matters by the House authorities, I suggest that it would not be appropriate for the Government to legislate quite in the manner that the noble Lord has presented in his well meaning amendment. However, I will consider the points made by both noble Lords on their amendments and I shall certainly clarify the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. In the circumstances I have outlined, I hope that he will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

My Lords, is the Minister telling me that I have the option of going to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner if I find it to be the case that someone who is holding a Parliamentary Press Gallery credential is also holding a lobbyist’s credential? Is that what the Minister is saying? I find that difficult to take in because the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner must work within the rules and regulations of the House. He might say to me, “I am sorry, but there has been no breach of the rules. Reporter A can be a lobbyist as well as a journalist”.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My understanding, as I have said and as is set out in the letter the noble Lord has received from my noble friend the Minister, is that pursuant to the resolution, holders of photo-identity passes as lobby journalists accredited to the Parliamentary Press Gallery or for parliamentary broadcasting are required to declare relevant interests on the register of journalists’ interests. The letter also suggested that if the noble Lord had concerns, he should perhaps consider approaching the assistant registrar. However, I would like to take up the point that the noble Lord has posed to me because I want to be absolutely certain that what I am suggesting is correct. I want to clarify it because clearly that is the most important thing of all.

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[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

The prudent thing to do is to reflect on what both noble Lords have said. I will come back to them.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

That sounds good to me.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I do not want to delay the House. I think I heard the Minister say that he was going to consider our amendments. In that light, I beg leave to withdraw.