Lobbying (Transparency) Bill [HL]

Lord Norton of Louth Excerpts

Friday 9th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Norton of Louth (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, on bringing this Bill before the House. It addresses the glaring and predictable deficiencies in Part 1 of the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act. Indeed, the Bill would be worth enacting even if it were confined to Clause 11.

As I said in a debate in Grand Committee yesterday, if the short title of an Act was subject to the Trade Descriptions Act, the Government would not have a defence in respect of the title of the 2014 Act. The Act, as I pointed out when we debated the Bill, does not provide for transparency of lobbying. It deals with the person: the lobbyist, not the activity of lobbying. It is not geared to enhancing transparency. If anything, it provides less transparency than the self-regulating system that preceded it. A more accurate title for the first part of the Act would be “The registration of some lobbyists”. That would be it. Even the Long Title qualifies the scope. It is so narrowly drawn that most of those who engage professionally in lobbying do not fall within its scope.

The 2014 Act does not deliver on what my noble friend Lord Lansley said was the purpose of the Bill when he introduced it on Second Reading in the other place. It does not give effect to the principle that he enunciated,

“that the public should be able to see how third parties seek to influence the political system”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/9/13; col. 169.]

It covers only some third parties and does not deal with the how, only the who. What has the Act done to make lobbying more transparent? We know the number of lobbyists who have registered under the Act; it is far less than the Government predicted. But even if the number had been in line with Government predictions, there is still the question: so what? I return to the question: what has it done to make lobbying—the activity—more transparent?

If we really want to make lobbying more transparent, then the answer lies with the amendment to the Bill which I proposed on Report. It stipulated that:

“A Minister of the Crown, at the time of making a statement relating to any of the matters referred to in section 2(3)(a) to (d), shall publish details of any oral or written communication received in respect of that matter by the Minister of the Crown, or civil servants within the Minister’s Department, or a special adviser”.

That amendment was designed to link lobbying to the policies produced by government. One could link the lobbying with the outcomes. That was clearly a step too far for the Government, who resisted the amendment in the Division Lobby. The Minister, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, did so essentially on the grounds that it was too much trouble—never mind the principle, feel the workload.

The Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, does not go quite as far as my amendment but it certainly goes in the right direction. It not only widens the scope for registration but addresses activity. In this regard, Clause 5(2)(f), and Clause 6 are especially welcome. The former requires the subject of lobbying to be reported, so we would start to learn not only who is lobbying but on what Bill or policy. Clause 6 provides for the information to be supplied at quarterly intervals, so we would start to get some dynamic of the activity. That is completely lacking in the existing legislation.

The Bill before us addresses those who engage in professional lobbying. I seem to be reading a different Bill to that read by my noble friend Lord Lansley and the noble Lord, Lord Beith. We have a definition of lobbying in Clause 2 but they, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Beith, seemed to omit to say that it is then qualified by Clause 4(3). As I read it, virtually all the people mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Beith, would not be caught by the need to register. It is more limited than has been suggested. It would require registration by those who are professional lobbyists and paid at a certain level. The point has been made that the demands might be quite onerous but I do not think they are too onerous. Clause 6(3) tempers Clause 6(2), so that one would get some idea of the sums spent on lobbying but not in the sort of detail that is unduly burdensome.

If I were to quibble about the provisions, my concern would be about the commencement in Clause 12. I am not sure I would leave it to Ministers to determine when to bring the provisions into effect. There are too many provisions of Acts passed in recent years that have still not been commenced. I would have been inclined to provide that Sections 1 to 11 come into force on a specified day, say six months after the day on which the Act is passed.

The existing Act has not really achieved anything. Perhaps my noble friend Lady Chisholm, in replying, can tell us the cost to the public purse to date of the Act and what assessment the Government have made of its effect. Do the Government judge that the 2014 Act has delivered value for money and, if so, how? If not, what do they plan to do? If the Act is having no appreciable effect on public awareness of lobbying of government, if it is not providing the sort of limited but very important effects that the noble Lord, Lord Bew, identified as being delivered by transparency, what possible justification is there for maintaining the register? I know it has not been in existence for that long, but it has been in existence long enough to determine that it is not achieving, and is not likely to achieve, any discernible public benefit. Maintaining the register as it stands serves no clear purpose. One can either scrap it—just take Clause 11 of the Bill—or one can, in effect, replace it with a Bill that is designed to deliver some transparency in lobbying. If the Bill before us is not that Bill, the onus is on the Government to produce a better Bill.

Finding fault with the Bill before us and doing nothing else will not be acceptable. If the Government do not move in the direction of accepting this Bill, I may be minded to bring one forward to give effect to the amendment I moved at Report stage of the Government’s Bill. I trust that that may help concentrate the mind of my noble friend the Minister, for whom I have the highest regard. If the Government believe in transparency in lobbying, now is the time to show it.