Lobbying Transparency (In-house Lobbyists) Bill [HL]

Lord Pack Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 3rd July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pack (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, on winning the legislative lottery. I too am envious of her luck and thank her for choosing this focused but important topic.

I used to work for a consultancy firm and some of that work involved lobbying, so I have personal experience of being subject to the regulatory regime that we are talking about. It is perhaps no surprise, therefore, that I share the view that others have expressed about the benefits that good, reputable lobbying can bring in fostering useful dialogue and a useful exchange of information and expertise that can inform and, therefore, improve decision-making. However, as the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, said, sunlight is the best disinfectant. There absolutely are aspects of lobbying to be concerned or nervous about, but the best way of protecting the good, genuinely beneficial side of lobbying is a strong dose of sunlight to distinguish that from other activities and behaviour.

I will talk a little more about the light-touch nature of the current set-up in a moment, as that has come up in some of the speeches this morning, but first, it is worth highlighting just how back-to-front the situation we have ended up in is. We had a bit of a history lesson as to how we have ended up where we are, but it is a very odd, back-to-front situation. Normally when we talk about regulation, we do it on the basis that the larger, the more powerful, the richer you are, the more important it is to be regulated. Instead, we have ended up with the opposite situation: the small outfit that cannot afford an in-house lobbying operation employs consultant lobbyists and is therefore regulated, while the large, rich, more powerful organisation that can afford an in-house team escapes regulation. It is the exact opposite of what we have repeatedly legislated for in all sorts of other areas.

It is also a back-to-front situation in that normally, when we discuss regulation in one form or another, one of the elements of the debate is hearing the people who will be most directly affected by the regulation saying, “Please don’t go too far. We don’t want too many burdens placed on us”. We obviously have to judge that against the wider interest, but in this case it is again back-to-front. As we have heard from the CIPR and other industry bodies, the view of the lobbying industry overall, collectively, is very much that they wish the regulation to change. It feels a little Alice in Wonderland, in that we have been doing the exact opposite of what we usually do in other areas.

As there have been some references to the potential administrative burden of extending the current regime, it is worth highlighting a couple of points. One is that it is a pretty light-touch regime. I certainly did not feel that I was being unduly burdened. There was certainly a little nervousness each time I collated the list of things that we needed to make sure that we were declaring, because you really do not want to leave something out of that list by mistake, but it is fundamentally a light-touch, low-cost regime.

The noble Baroness, Lady Finn, said that, in some ways, this is not a cumbersome step. I disagree only slightly: I would say that in every way it is not a cumbersome step. However, I would also say that if we compare the administrative and financial burdens, small though they are, that the Bill would extend to some firms to the burdens that, for example, any of those firms who export goods or services to the European Union now face following Brexit then this is extremely small compared with those additional burdens that some in this House, at least, have enthusiastically argued are reasonable and acceptable.

There has also been some reference to the Government’s transparency data, the extent to which it provides an appropriate form of regulation of lobbying and whether we therefore need to extend the current regime. A couple of points are worth reflecting on. Since that government transparency data was first introduced, there have been continuing queries, comments and, sometimes, complaints about the quality, timeliness and format of that data. There is a point at which it is reasonable to say that the problem has been going on for so long that simply hoping that it will be fixed and everything will therefore be resolved is maybe not the right step to take.

More fundamentally, there are occasions when double transparency, or double regulation, as one might wish to call it, is the right thing to do. It is beneficial to have not only the government transparency data—in, one hopes, an improved and enhanced format—but a requirement on lobbyists. That double procedure acts as a double protection. Indeed, we are quite used to the idea of doing something twice to be absolutely sure that we have it right, such as with double-entry bookkeeping. Nobody who does double-entry bookkeeping thinks, “This is an awful administrative burden. What a waste having to do everything twice”. Double-entry bookkeeping has become so widespread because the very act of doing things twice is a cross check to make sure that you are getting it right. In this case, that sunlight is so important that having transparency requirements on both ends of the process is not a duplication or unnecessary; it is an essential part of having a robust system in which we can trust.

I suspect that the Minister will tell us that the Ethics and Integrity Commission’s report on lobbying is coming shortly and that, in many ways, it makes sense to roll this issue into a wider government response to that. As the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, the noble Lords, Lord Lansley, Lord Norton and Lord Empey, the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, and others have raised in this debate, there are certainly other important aspects to this topic that need addressing. But whatever route we choose to take, whether it is through the Bill immediately in front of us now, a wider government response in due course or perhaps even through both routes, it is important that there is change. This is about enhancing and protecting our democracy, and, frankly, our own reputations. The more controversy, doubt, conspiracy theories and scandals there are around lobbying, the more that damages all of us in this House and in politics in general. One might think that that is an important act of self-interest, but it is also an important act of public good to improve and enhance our systems.

We should do more than what the Bill offers, but that is not a reason not to do the bit that the Bill in front of us gives us the opportunity to do. So often we hear action being promised “when legislative time allows”. Well, we have some legislative time and a piece of legislation in front of us. I hope that the Government and this House will, in due course, support the Bill.