Nuclear War: International Conference

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to attend the international conference in Mexico in February 2014 on the humanitarian impact of nuclear war.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, we have not yet received an invitation to the conference in Mexico on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons and have not yet made a decision on whether the UK will attend. We continue to have concerns that the initiative would divert attention from the 2010 action plan agreed by states parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his reply, which is a little more positive than I had feared in that at least it is not a negative. Does he see a problem in that, on the one hand, last April the Prime Minister claimed that Britain had taken the lead in pushing for progress towards multilateral disarmament while, on the other hand, we have not taken part in the UN open-ended working group that was set up to try to overcome the 17-year impasse on the Conference on Disarmament, and yesterday, in the UN General Assembly, the UK voted against resolution L34 to take forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations—which are exactly the sort of negotiations the Prime Minister called for last April? How does he think that the rest of the world is viewing us?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

As regards attendance at a conference that is still four months away, British officials have had conversations in Mexico City, Geneva and New York about whether we may attend. It remains very much an open question. Perhaps I may simply say to the noble Baroness that there are a great many different, and in some ways conflicting, bodies in which disarmament is now being discussed. These include the Nuclear Security Summit which will meet again in 2014, the UN Disarmament Commission and the Conference on Disarmament. There have also been a number of discussions on nuclear-weapon-free zones. The question of where one puts the priority and where you think it is most worthwhile to push for development is difficult We hold that the NPT review conference of 2015 should remain one of our priorities. We also think that there is value in the P5 process, on which Britain has been one of the leaders, and in the P5-plus process in which the P5 members discuss these issues with India and Pakistan.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, do the Government agree with the principal conclusion of the Oslo conference that no state and no international organisation has the capability to address the consequences of the explosion of a nuclear weapon and, much more worryingly, the view supported by experts that it might not be possible to develop such capacities? I hope that the Government disagree. If they do, where is the evidence that we have such capabilities?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the valuable contribution that the Norwegians and others have been making on this whole question of the humanitarian and, incidentally, climatic consequences of the explosion of a nuclear weapon are very much something that the UK Government are taking seriously. We see this as a very useful expert contribution. Looking at how, if there were to be—heaven forfend—a nuclear explosion, we would cope as an international community with the consequences, is something that is very valuable to take forward.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD)]

Does my noble friend agree that there was very substantial political support for the United Nations resolution on working on methods of dealing with nuclear disarmament, and in particular that although half of the NATO members voted in favour of that resolution, the United Kingdom and the P5, with the exception of China, all voted against it? Perhaps I may remind him that the United Kingdom has established a substantial record—perhaps the leading record among the P5—for work on specific actions such as the verification principle that has given us a great reputation on this issue. We might put that at risk if we do not recognise the strength of the pressures from not only the United Nations but many of our allies in this respect.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, this is an extremely serious area of international security that we take very seriously. We are worried about some of these conferences where it is easier to pass resolutions than to accept that we need, for example, to control: the storage of fissile materials; the creation of additional fissile material; and the potential trade in fissile material. This is what the currently blocked fissile material cut-off treaty is about, and what the nuclear security summit next year will also be concerned with.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, will the Minister be able to say what attitude the US Government are taking to attending the Mexico conference? Could it possibly be that we are just waiting to see which way they jump? If so, is that the best way to approach this matter?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the United States has also not yet taken a decision. My understanding is that the other members of the P5 are unlikely to attend. I suspect that the considerations of the US Administration may not be totally dissimilar from those that are concerning the British Government.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords, would the Government consider sponsoring a joint parliamentary delegation to attend the conference?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That thought had not occurred to me or, as far as I am aware, to anyone else. If the noble Lord would care to attend, we will consider his request.

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

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2013 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

To move that the order of the House of 28 October be vacated, and that it be an instruction to the Committee of the Whole House to which the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill has been committed that they consider the Bill in the following order:

Clauses 1 and 2, Schedule 1, Clause 3, Schedule 2, Clauses 4 to 25, Clauses 36 to 39, Clause 26, Schedule 3, Clauses 27 to 32, Schedule 4, Clauses 33 to 35, Clauses 40 to 44.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.

[Lord McFall of Alcluith (Lab)]

My Lords, by mismanaging the lobbying Bill, the Government are wrecking the work of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards, which was set up to reform the culture in the banking industry, by bringing forward this Bill early—on 18 November. That is the unanimous view of all members of the banking commission, who have said that they need until the new year to study these government amendments for the simple reason that this is an entirely new Bill. This is a Bill that left the House of Commons 35 pages long. It is now more than 160 pages and the government amendments are four times the size of their original Bill. This morning I spoke to Andrew Tyrie MP, the chairman of the commission, who said that if the Government go ahead before due consideration to this increasingly complex and dense legislation, the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards will not be able to carry out the mandate that the Government gave it to reform the banking industry. The collective efforts over one year—almost 200 hours of public evidence and 10,000 questions —will be wasted. The Government will not only be betraying their promise when they established the commission, but will be seen and disowned by members of the commission for indulging in cynical, low, political-level, sharp practice. I ask the Government to think again and give due time to the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards by bringing this Bill back in the New Year when it is appropriate.

Health: Birth Defects

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to raise the subject of fortifying white flour with folic acid in the interests of public health.

Deficiencies in folic acid have been found to lead to neural tube birth defects, including spina bifida and hydrocephalus. It is both a national and an international issue. Public health policy has been to encourage those planning to become pregnant to ensure a voluntary input of folates, either by supplement or by folate-rich foods, in that crucial period covering conception and the first 12 weeks. However, this policy is known to fall on deaf ears in some socioeconomic groups, and does not cover the issue of unplanned or unintended pregnancies. In some countries, where bread is part of the staple diet, it has been found that fortifying bread flour with folic acid can cover both the issues of the target group and unplanned pregnancy.

Bread has been a staple food in the UK for centuries. Consumption has fallen a little but it still contains more than 10% of our daily intake of key nutrients and remains a major source of them. Since the 1940s, just after the war, most of our bread flour has been fortified with four added nutrients, and that is still the case today. On 5 August this year, at the start of the Recess, Defra announced the result of the consultation on the bread and flour regulations, which was that the mandatory fortification of flour will continue on health and scientific grounds.

The idea of folic acid fortification has been around for many years. I can confirm from my own personal experience that in 1999, as Minister for food safety—before my Food Standards Agency days—I was lobbied on the issue by a leading scientist during a journey to a food conference. My initial reaction was, “It’s mass medication”. But I soon realised it was not then, and it is not now. By 2007, Her Majesty’s Government had been advised by the independent Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition and the Food Standards Agency to go down the route of mandatory fortification. This advice was reinforced in 2009-10, during my term as chair of the Food Standards Agency.

Scientists involved in the research, such as Professor Nicholas Wald of the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, have chased the issue up over the years. Others, such as Professor Colin Blakemore, have raised more generally the issue of the lack of feedback from government on advice from scientists, where there seems to be no clear decision on policy or action to be taken, or not taken, on the basis of the advice. He cited folic fortification as a recent example.

Delay has been caused by some scientific doubts regarding the effect of too much folate in the diet, which might be the cause of some rare cancers. Justifiably, Ministers and Chief Medical Officers required reassurance on this aspect. I believe—and this is why I am raising the issue now, after leaving the FSA—that the publication in March this year of the paper by Vollset et al in the Lancet puts the concerns to rest. The study analysed data on 49,621 individuals in 13 evenly randomised trials and found that there was no significant effect of folic acid supplementation on the incidence of cancer of the large intestine, prostate, lung, breast or any specific site. Furthermore, in interpretation, the scientists pointed out that the fortification of flour and cereal products involves doses of folic acid that are on average an order of magnitude smaller than the doses used in the trials they examined.

On 1 July the noble Earl, Lord Howe, the Health Minister for England, told Parliament that Ministers were “taking stock”. Has that included talking to Ministers in the other three countries of the UK? More than 50 countries are fortifying flour with folic acid, including the United States, Canada, Iran, Argentina and South Africa. So far, none in Europe are, due to the concerns I have mentioned, which are no longer justified.

Australia introduced mandatory folic fortification in September 2009. It has been found, in a paper by Brown et al in the Medical Journal of Australia in January 2011, that,

“the introduction of mandatory fortification with folic acid has significantly reduced the prevalence of folate deficiency in Australia, including in woman of childbearing age”.

A study in the American Journal of Medical Genetics in 2010 found that food fortification with folic acid prevents neural tube defects but not other types of congenital abnormalities. The study covered more than 3 million births in Chile, Argentina and Brazil over a 25-year period, according to the authors, Lopez-Camelo et al. The paper by Blencowe et al in 2010 in the International Journal of Epidemiology concluded:

“The evidence supports both folic acid supplementation and fortification as effective in reducing neonatal mortality from NTDs”.

So it works.

The latest study, published earlier in the year in the Lancet, clears the way to vastly improve the health position in the UK. We start from a low position. England has the highest rate of unintended or unplanned pregnancies after the USA—well in excess of 200,000. As such, the women concerned will see no need for supplementation. So far as the pregnancies that are affected by neural tube defects are concerned, there are hidden and avoidable family tragedies involved.

The best figures I have—they are a little old but I am advised they are the best—are those used by SACN, the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition, in its report, drawn to my attention by the Shine charity. In England and Wales, there were 178 neural tube defect-affected births from 853 neural tube defect-affected pregnancies. That means that there were 675 terminations. In Northern Ireland, there were 11 affected births and no terminations. In Scotland, there were 49 affected pregnancies with 50% terminations. That means that there were more or less 238 neural tube defect-affected births and 913 affected pregnancies, with around 700 terminations. These will be late, following the 20-week scan, when neural tube defects show. In summary, therefore, there are 150 to 200 babies born with neural tube defects leading to spina bifida and other conditions, with a total of 750 to 1,000 pregnancies. Eighty per cent of the neural tube defect-affected pregnancies are terminated.

Nothing I say diminishes my life-long support for a woman's right to chose, but it is self-evident that decisions for termination based on neural tube defect-affected pregnancies would decline with folate increases. More than one in 1,000 pregnancies in the UK is affected each year. Folic fortification has been shown in the countries that have a mandatory policy to have prevented between 27% and 50% of cases of neural tube defects. Based on these figures, we have a potential to save 100-plus neural tube defect-affected births per year in UK; and significantly we could prevent hundreds of late terminations every year. Putting it crudely, the current reduction in the number of babies born with neural tube defects is actually brought about by the termination of pregnancies. I do not like the idea that in the past some DoH officials have claimed that NTD is well managed.

The Prime Minister said at PMQs on 27 February that,

“conditions such as spina bifida have come down and that folic acid has an important role to play”.—[Official Report, Commons, 27/2/13; col. 311.]

They have “come down” as terminations go up, due to the rate of diagnosis getting more accurate. What we need is primary prevention. Putting folic acid in white bread flour is not mass medication. Those who wish to avoid it just avoid white sliced bread. It gets to the groups of women most difficult to get to.

I want to hear what assessment the Government have made of the impact over the past seven months while they have been taking stock of the operation in England and what discussions have taken place with the devolved Administrations and their Chief Medical Officers. It is better to have a UK solution, as I know that flour mills are not always in the most convenient locations for four separate policies.

The science policy advice to government is to do it. Scientific concerns have been raised and cleared. It is not mass medication; it saves lives and misery, and it saves money. It reduces the hidden cost of the present policy, namely the costs of terminations as a management tool. It produces more healthy babies and improves public health.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, one speaker has scratched. That will allow us to stretch speaking times from seven to nine minutes, provided that the next four speakers all observe that when 9 comes up on the clock, they stop.

EU: Balance of Competences Review

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dykes]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they will next hold discussions with the Council of Ministers and the European Commission on the current United Kingdom review of European Union competences.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, my right honourable friend the Minister for Europe recently briefed the September General Affairs Council of the European Union on the balance of competences review. This is but one example of the regular conversations that we are having with our European partners and the Commission as the review progresses. Lead departments also regularly engage with the institutions and their foreign counterparts during the consultation period for reports. Ministers will continue to raise the findings from each semester with EU partners and institutions.

[Lord Dykes (LD)]

I thank my noble friend for that Answer. No doubt he would agree that emotional fans of the review of competences were few and far between, but even they would agree with the excellent results of the last EU summit at the end of October and the firm and detailed agreement reached by President Barroso and the Council of Ministers on a secure reform agenda for the future, which has also helped to anchor the United Kingdom membership into the Union even more strongly.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am pleased to hear my noble friend echoing the speech that the Prime Minister made to the CBI only yesterday. The balance of competences review is only one of the things that the coalition Government are undertaking on European issues. It is intended to be an evidence- based review, and we have so far had well over 1,000 contributions to the reports published and under consideration.

[Lord Barnett (Lab)]

My Lords, could the Minister tell us how many of these competences he expects the Government to have agreed by 2017?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, it is not a question of which competences we agree. We are asking various stakeholders, and getting very large pieces of evidence from producer groups, about the current balance of competences. I think that the Scotch Whisky Association has produced the most pieces of evidence so far—clearly a stakeholder. As Ministers have said before from this Dispatch Box, the current Lisbon treaty has a lot of headroom on competences, not all of which are currently exercised by the European Union. We are asking stakeholders to say whether they are happy with the current balance, whether there are areas in which they would like the balance to be tipped back towards the national level or whether there are areas in which they would like the balance to be tipped further towards common European policies.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

Would my noble friend, who knows a lot about these things, accept that it is not just a question of looking at the balance of competences? It is also about looking at unpicking and unravelling some of the categories of competences, which are now substantially out of date, as they were invented in the last century. For instance, agriculture now embraces all aspects of climate, energy and scientific issues as well; and many aspects of social policy, which used to be centralised, are now much better handled at a very local level. Those are all areas in which it is not just a question of taking the competence as it stands but unravelling and unpicking it to see what aspects are best dealt with at a global, national or local level. Would he take that message back to his ministerial colleagues?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, one thing that has come across strongly to me from the first round—and the second round, which we are currently considering—is the dynamics of globalisation, on which the noble Lord is himself a great expert, and the extent to which the context in which we operate with our European partners in a great many sectors differs fundamentally from the context in which we joined in 1973. As I have stressed before, we are not seeking to arrive at policy recommendations in this review; we are asking for evidence of how far the current arrangements satisfy the various stakeholders and where there is room for improvement, reform or change.

[Lord Clinton-Davis (Lab)]

With regard to the claims by some members of the Conservative Party that we should withdraw entirely from Europe, I suspect that the reaction of the people whom the Government are consulting has been almost unanimously opposed to that extreme view.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Prime Minister made it clear in his speech to the CBI that he is interested in a reform and not a repatriation agenda, and that he seeks to use the process of reform as a way in which to convince the sceptical British public that our national interests remain in staying in the European Union.

[Lord Waddington (Con)]

My Lords, why do we allow the powers that be to translate competences as competences, when in plain English what we are talking about is powers? Why are we not talking about powers?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am not a lawyer, so far be it for me to question the sort of language they use, in particular international lawyers.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

As our officials wander around Europe begging for bits and pieces that might be repatriated, does the Minister sometimes worry that the Government will end up generating a good deal of diplomatic irritation without achieving any genuine reconstitution of the relation between Britain and Europe?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

No, my Lords, I do not. I am very struck by the extent to which a number of other Governments are following a similar agenda to ours. I am sure that the noble Lord is familiar with the Dutch Government’s recent study of subsidiarity. In the process of publishing the opening stage of papers, the Minister for Europe and I spoke to Ministers in other European Governments and many of them have very similar views to our own. We are pursuing a reform agenda for which there is a great deal of sympathy in a number of other Governments.

[Baroness Knight of Collingtree (Con)]

My Lords, will my noble friend get the message across to the Europeans clearly and strongly that the British housewife does not consider them competent to tell her how much sugar she should put in her jam?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The other day my wife and I were discussing how much sugar she puts in jam. We have rather a surplus of fruit from our allotment this year. I simply remind the noble Baroness that Britain is also a European country.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, while the Government conduct this interesting and potentially valuable but, in truth, somewhat academic exercise, has the Minister noticed the CBI report published yesterday which shows that the benefit to Britain of our membership is between £62 billion and £78 billion a year—4% to 5% of our GDP? Can he imagine any circumstances in which any British Government would be crazy enough to throw away these benefits, whatever the results of his review of competences?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, academic exercises have their valuable purposes as well. I look forward to hearing the Labour leadership say frequently and openly that they also agree with the CBI’s statement.

[Lord Vinson (Con)]

My Lords, in any future renegotiation, I hope the Government will bear in mind that currently we have a massive imbalance of trade with Europe, equivalent to £80 billion a year. Thus we are creating in Europe 1.5 million jobs more than are its trade with us creates. We also import 800,000 more cars from Europe than it buys from us. All these factors mean that in many respects from a trade point of view Europe needs us more than we need it. I hope that this imbalance of trade will be well remembered in any future negotiations. It is something that the CBI surprisingly missed.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, Britain has a trade deficit in goods with a great many countries, including China. I am not sure where the noble Lord’s argument is taking him. We have a surplus in financial services and other services with the European Union and a number of other countries as well.

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

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I should make it abundantly clear from the start, as I have done to the Leader of the House and the Minister, that far from being a wrecking Motion, this is a saving Motion designed to save the Government from doing untold damage to a very precious part of the big society that they claim to champion—namely, the voluntary sector—and to save the vast majority of voluntary sector organisations which have nothing whatever to do with the electoral process. That is why my Motion is confined to a very specific part of the Bill and organisations with which I and, I suspect, every other Member of the House are in regular contact.

I freely admit that it would have been more normal for me to have tabled my Motion at Second Reading, but it was only when the masterly report of the Commission on Civil Society and Democratic Engagement entitled Non-Party Campaigning Ahead of Elections, under the outstanding chairmanship of my noble and right reverend friend Lord Harries of Pentregarth, was published after Second Reading that the need for urgent preventive action became abundantly clear. The report accentuated the points made by the constitutional Select Committees of both Houses and the Joint Committee on Human Rights to the effect that there are serious flaws in what is being proposed that the Government need to address. However, these could have been exposed had the Government allowed the three-month consultation period that hitherto they had been so keen to promote. By not engaging with the sector and pressing ahead with the Bill, which essentially addresses political matters, the Government appear to be oblivious to what they claim to be the unintended consequences for what I described at Second Reading as one of the “jewels in our national crown”; namely, the vast number of organisations that have nothing to do with the political process.

Last week, when we debated the unfortunate redundancies imposed on members of the Armed Forces within days and weeks of qualification for pensions, I mentioned the damage that this had done to the all-important mutual trust that there should be between government and people. I fear that the way that this Bill is being handled will seriously damage the trust that the voluntary sector has in the Government, which is something that the alleged champions of the big society can ill afford to lose. Indeed, the very clear exposition of the consequences set out in the commission’s report reminds me of the most succinct but unenforceable instruction that I ever saw in the Army: a note pinned to a company notice board which read, “A breach of common sense is a breach of the rules”. I was therefore glad when the Leader of the House contacted me last night, after I had tabled this Motion, to see whether there was a way of avoiding confrontation—which was, I assured him, the very last thing I wanted.

I hoped that a way could be found to mitigate the damage that had been done and to assuage a voluntary sector that is understandably worried and incensed. As it forms such an indispensable and irreplaceable part of our national infrastructure, I have to admit that I was amazed that the Government did not realise the risk they were running in tabling this part of the Bill. At Second Reading, I asked why the Secretary of State for Justice had not complained about the likely damage to those voluntary organisations that he hopes to engage as partners in his rehabilitation revolution. Like me, many Members of the House are wearing the annual symbol of the Royal British Legion, which, along with countless other organisations helping military veterans, is deeply concerned about these clauses.

During the day today I have had meetings with the Leader of the House, the Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, the opposition Chief Whip and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, as well as regular contact with the voluntary sector. As a result of that, the Leader of the House has given me his word that he will alter the order of consideration of the parts of the Bill and instruct the Minister to consult my noble and right reverend friend Lord Harries over the composition and terms of reference of an examination of the recommendations of the reports of the two constitution committees and the Joint Committee on Human Rights, as well as of the report of the commission, and to produce a report to the whole House before a delayed Committee stage. I know that many in the House and in the deeply suspicious voluntary sector will feel that the Leader’s word is not enough and that what he has offered is less than I was seeking, which was for a Select Committee to be allowed to specify a three-month consultation period to conduct a similar inquiry.

The Leader added that, of course, opportunities still remain for amendment in Committee and on Report. As a soldier, I am accustomed to accepting pledges given by my Government in good faith. Therefore, if I do not press my Motion to a Division, knowing that I shall face the opprobrium of those members of the voluntary sector who do not share my faith, I would be doing so because the word of the Government is on the line. I know that this House and the nation know what to do and to think about those who do not keep their word. If the regulation is felt to need tweaking, by all means tweak it, but not in this way. I beg to move.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, for coming to talk to the Leader of the House and me this morning to set out frankly his concerns about the passage of the Bill to date. Following our conversations, and having taken on board his constructive suggestions, I am glad to say that we seem to have an agreed way forward. I believe that we have come up with a way of delivering a pause in our consideration of Part 2 of the Bill so that there can be wide consultation over the coming weeks and so that the Government can try to address the concerns of those involved and interested in Part 2.

One of the suggestions made by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, was that we could revise the order of consideration to delay our consideration of Part 2. I can undertake to return to the House tomorrow with a revised order of consideration Motion, to take Parts 1 and 3 first and Part 2 last. I understand from the Chief Whip that I can also undertake that the two days in Committee on Part 2 will not be scheduled before 16 December, on the understanding that we need to finish Committee this side of the Christmas Recess. That effectively gives a near six-week pause in our formal consideration of Part 2.

In that period, I and my colleagues in Government responsible for the Bill will consult widely with all the interested parties—Members of the House and the many others outside. We intend to draw on the work of the Commission on Civil Society, chaired so ably by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, and to build on it so that the charity sector has a proper opportunity to explain to the Government its concerns not only with this Bill but, as we discovered in our conversations, with the current statute electoral law in this area, in particular the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. We can also consider the reports generated by the two Houses. I also hope to facilitate further discussions between the Electoral Commission and the Charity Commission about each of their sets of guidance, in the hope of achieving something straightforward and agreed for those who have to work within it.

If the commission of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, could report in three weeks, I am confident that we can find a solution in nearly double those three weeks. I stress that we are listening and that we want to listen. We have already shown willing: we announced this morning that we will bring forward an amendment, the effect of which will immediately be to exempt all smaller charities from the provisions of the Bill. If that listening ultimately proves not to satisfy all the concerns in this House, then there can of course be Divisions in Committee and on Report, as is usual and proper, and the House will have a final opportunity to stop the Bill completely on the Motion that the Bill do now pass at the end of the process. The House will therefore scrutinise the Bill in detail.

I believe that my proposal satisfies the concerns that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and others hold and offers us a practical way forward this afternoon, one that will better enable the House to go about its scrutiny of the Bill as we all seek to get it right.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, I was very concerned about the Motion that was put down today. I am very glad that a compromise has been reached for dealing with this issue without going ahead with the Motion. It has been said that five weeks is not enough. As we know, these things are not absolutely inflexible, but we know how quickly the Governments can work and how quickly amendments can be produced when there is the political will to do so. I accept the assurances that have been given on behalf of the Government about the spirit in which this is being done.

I was extremely concerned about the idea that we should depart from our ordinary practice for the scrutiny of Bills. As far as I know, one part of a Bill has never been sent to a Select Committee in this way. In my time, the whole of a Bill was sent when an office that had lasted for more than 1,000 years was to be abolished by a press release from No. 10; the House then sent the whole of the Bill to a Select Committee. So far as I know, though, a Select Committee has never been appointed to deal with part of a Bill.

The danger that I see about that is that if it were to be done, it would suggest that we were not confident in our own procedures for dealing with all forms of questions. It would undermine the confidence that exists at the moment in the integrity of the parliamentary process that we have come to know and respect. One thing about this House that I seek to emphasise as often as I can is that anyone who has a point of view that they can persuade a Peer to raise will see it raised in consideration of the Bill in this House, and the Government will have to give an answer. People may not always be very keen on that answer, but at least they can get one. That is a very valuable aspect of our House’s procedure, and I am delighted that it has been preserved in the arrangement that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has made with my colleagues.

Another danger here would be if we departed from our ordinary procedure in a particular case in which a lot of Members of this House are particularly involved, as they are in the charitable and third sectors— I am a member of a number of charities, as noble Lords might have thought—whereas, for example, we never subject to special procedure Bills on disabled people or on the particularly poor. I am very relieved that this has been agreed to, and I sincerely hope that it will work. I am sure that the Government can work very speedily, with political will, if that should be necessary.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I assure the House that the Government are open-minded on the possibility of changing a number of aspects of the Bill. One thing we discovered in the course of the consultation is that the language of PPERA 2000, particularly of Part 6, does not meet the needs or requirements of a very large number of those who are now to be affected by it. I hope I will not embarrass my noble friend Lord Greaves if I quote him as having said that he had never previously read Part 6 of PPERA 2000, and now that he has, he does not like it very much. I think that opinion is shared by a number of voluntary organisations outside the House.

Clearly, we will need to look at that in consultation with others. It may well be that we will need a government amendment. That is the process through which we should go on that and a number of other concerns that were set out very well in the Harries commission report: for example, the range of activities covered, the treatment of campaigning coalitions, the reporting procedures requested of campaigning groups and so on. We are open to listening, we are open to adjustment, and we expect that when we come back to Committee and Report, this House will give the Bill the detailed scrutiny that it needs.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

I have one narrow point. That was just a list of things that would be considered. One thing was mentioned specifically. It figures very largely in the report. It is the special situation in Northern Ireland. Will that be taken seriously in the five weeks? I was Minister for Northern Ireland for only a year, unlike many Members of this place, but I know that the nature of the third sector there and of its relationship with the political process is completely different from that in the rest of the United Kingdom.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I give an absolute assurance that we will take that fully into consideration. If the noble Lord would like to come to talk to me about it, I will be very happy to hear from him as well as from others.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

I am very grateful to all those who have spoken in this short response to the Motion. In particular, I paid great attention to what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, said. In fact, in preparation for this, I consulted a previous recommendation to a Select Committee, which was made by my noble friend Lord Owen at the time of the Health and Social Care Bill. It was proposed and debated, but it related to a constitutional measure rather that a measure like this. However, I entirely agree with the noble and learned Lord that the processes of the House should be allowed to proceed.

After reflecting on this and, in particular, listening to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and her catalogue of things that need to be addressed, which I did not list, I hope that the Minister will be able to exercise the flexibility that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, mentioned, and that if, when this consultation and examination gets under way, it is discovered that the work needed cannot be done in the time before the new date for Committee, rather than rush things through, consideration will be given to pushing the Committee date yet further back to enable all the proper consultation and examination. As the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, and others said, this is a hugely important matter that cannot be allowed to go by default.

However, in the spirit of the assurances given to me by the Leader of the House, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion withdrawn.

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

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

I had to go abroad on the day of Second Reading and I very much regret that I was unable to make a contribution. I do not intend to make a Second Reading speech. However, I should declare a couple of interests. Some years ago I wrote a book on lobbying. It is a very small interest because it is out of print and no one can buy it. It was a do-it-yourself book on how to lobby and was intended specifically for the voluntary sector. The other interest I want to declare is that I spent some years until coming into this House as chief executive of the Refugee Council. Indeed, one of the things that I did most was to lobby. The organisation did quite a lot of lobbying on refugee policy.

I cannot for the life of me understand why that activity should not be incorporated in the register. If we had had the money, we could have hired a firm of lobbyists, which might have had to be on the register. The fact is that we did not have the money and I simply carried out that activity myself. It took me to all three party conferences: going to the Lib-Dem and Tory party conferences, as well as the Labour Party conference, is a subject for another day. I lobbied quite blatantly and I had two members of staff who also did quite a lot of lobbying. I hope that the Minister can tell me why that activity should not be covered in the proposed register.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, let me start by stressing that lobbying is a normal, valuable, regular aspect of any healthy democratic political system. The question is one of transparency and certainly not one of trying to reduce the level of lobbying in this country. Part 1 was designed to address the problem of consultant lobbying firms entertaining and going to see Ministers without it being clear who they were representing. The Government have dealt with the question of employed lobbyists—members of charities and others—through their arrangements for transparency. Every three months, I and others have to declare who we have met and what organisations employ them, including anyone who happens to be an old friend, perhaps from student days: I have to list “the Information Commissioner” or whoever it may be because a meeting has taken place.

We have looked at other systems, in particular the Canadian one, which adopts the universal system of wishing to take on board every single lobbyist. It is a very large and expensive system and unlike what we propose—I should point out to the noble Lord, Lord Norton—it is funded by the public purse and costs the equivalent of £3 million a year.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

The Minister talks about the system he has to use. Did he listen to the contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, at Second Reading? I think it was he who recalled how very complicated the current system is, how you often have to trawl through hundreds or even thousands of documents, and that it is almost impossible for the general public to have access to that kind of material. It is just too complicated. Does he take that on board?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I take that on board. The question of designing a system that is easily accessible to everyone, including if one has such a very large register as that which the noble Lord and some others are proposing, is one with which we all have to deal. The Government are indeed looking at making the ministerial diaries more readily and more rapidly available. At present we submit them every three months, so they are sometimes three months or more in arrears. We are aware of that problem. However, we are much more transparent than previous Governments in this respect and are, to that extent, moving forward.

Looking at the Canadian system, we are not persuaded that we need a comprehensive register in which everyone who might be said to be lobbying as a matter of their employment would be included. The Canadian system was introduced in response to a system in which it was felt that there was no information about who Ministers were meeting. We have dealt with the issue of who Ministers are meeting by other means.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

If wonder if I can help my noble friend, and the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. There is a specific amendment which I hope will help with the point he raised. It is not necessary therefore to include every in-house lobbyist because they are already going to be recorded in those meetings and it is fairly obvious why they are there.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we are more persuaded from other countries that have the light-touch system we are proposing that it is more effective at addressing the problem than the large, expensive and comprehensive system the Canadians have gone in for.

There are a large number of amendments in this group. I will try to address as many of the issues as I can.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, before the Minister goes on to the detail of those, I think he has not answered the point—it was made more at Second Reading—of why the existing publication could not simply deal with this. If any Minister meets a consultant lobbyist they name the organisation on behalf of which they have met that consultant and the purpose of it. I still do not understand why that would not meet the objectives there seem to be for the register.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there was considerable concern while the previous Government were in office that consultant lobbyists were a powerful element in our political system, that we did not know who they represented and that it would be better if the public were informed who their clients were. The noble Baroness has, on a number of occasions, stressed the point that perhaps one should also add what subjects they are discussing with the Government. I am very happy to take that away and perhaps on a belt-and-braces principle that should be tied in. However, I do not think it takes away the issue that for transparency of the democratic process it is desirable to know who consultant lobbyists are representing and who therefore is paying them.

Perhaps I may move on to answer some of the questions. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, asks what our assessment is of the number of lobbying organisations that will be required to register. Our current estimate is that it will be somewhere in the order of 350. We have held a number of constructive meetings with representatives of the industry at which we discussed the voluntary register and the code of conduct, and we have talked with the three main industry bodies concerned. They were able to give a reassurance that many of the concerns regarding the application are being met by that.

I turn now to the details. As I said to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, if the tobacco industry lobbies on behalf of its own industry, we know what is going on. If it is a consultant lobbyist lobbying on behalf of the industry, that is a great deal less clear. That is the underlying distinction between a consultant lobbyist and a professional lobbyist. Because I am concerned with the EU balance of competences exercise, over the past nine months I have read a great deal of evidence produced by the Scotch Whisky Association. I know exactly where the association is coming from and what it is lobbying about. If it were a consultant lobbyist, that would be a different situation. That is the distinction we are making.

On the question of whether we extend this to professional lobbyists, I cannot see the justification for excluding charities from it. As a Minister, I have met a number of charity representatives who have lobbied us on policy issues. That is quite properly a part of what charities themselves do.

[Lord Hardie]

Does the Minister not accept that charities would be exempt in terms of the schedule because what they do would be incidental to their other activities?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am not sure that I do accept that. I am a member of the National Trust. Yesterday I received an e-mail from the trust which talked about the National Trust’s “vital” campaigning and advocacy work. I have to admit that I did not actually join the National Trust primarily in order to support its campaigning and advocacy work, but it regards that work not as an incidental part of what the trust is for. Noble Lords should look at the most recent announcement made by Oxfam. It is changing its internal organisation so as to put more stress on its campaigning dimension. Campaigning is at the centre of what Oxfam regards as its entirely appropriate charitable activities. Part of campaigning is, of course, lobbying Governments. I therefore do not accept that distinction.

We see the Canadian example as one that suggests overregulation, and therefore distinguish between professional lobbyists and consultant lobbyists. The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and I were at a conference over the weekend. At one point we were both sitting with a senior executive from BP, and indeed one consultant lobbyist was there. I forgot to ask him precisely who his clients were, and perhaps I should have done. However, when you are talking to a representative of a company, you know who you are talking to and what you are talking about. I came away from the conference much better informed about BP’s involvement in the Southern Corridor pipeline project than I had been, and I trust that that will inform me in future discussions with those Governments through whose territories the pipeline will go.

Transparency is about knowing who these consultant lobbyists are representing. A number of amendments in this group address that point. The Government are not persuaded, but of course we are open to further discussions about particular areas where noble Lords feel that there is an overlap between consultancy and professional lobbying, although I do not entirely see how a particular lobbyist, being employed part time by five or 10 different companies, would somehow get around this legislation, as has been suggested.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

A little earlier, the noble Lord mentioned that the Government favoured a light touch. In case the light touch does not work as effectively as he or the Government expect it to, can he amend the Bill in any way as it goes through to provide for adjustments to be made that do not need further primary legislation? It will be years before we come back to this and if we do not get the outcome that many people wish to see, it will be a lost opportunity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That is, again, a fair point, which the Government will look at. We are extending regulation into lobbying here and are reluctant to go too far too quickly. There may be a means of considering further extension on review. The noble Lord will know that we now have a regular practice of having a five-year review of legislation. If whichever Government are then in power decide that this is inadequate, we will see what can be done.

[Lord Norton of Louth]

I come back to my noble friend’s point about who would be included in the register. He gave the figure of 350. Does he know how many of those would be caught who do not already reveal who their clients are?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, that stretches my expertise very considerably. I will have to consult and write to the noble Lord about that. It is a good academic question. The Government have been quite clear that there is no exemption from the requirement to register for large multidisciplinary firms that conduct consultant lobbying. We refined the exception provided in paragraph 1 by amendment in Committee in the other place to clarify that it will not be enjoyed by organisations such as, for example, law firms if they run consultant lobbying operations and lobby in a manner which is not incidental to their other activity—even if consultant lobbying is not their primary activity. As such, they will be required to register if they meet the other criteria outlined in the definition of consultant lobbying. The provisions outlined in paragraph 1 provide an important and effective exemption for those whose limited involvement in lobbying is in a manner which is merely incidental to their normal professional activity. However, it brings within its scope those that provide consultant lobbying as a major part of their activities and firms for which consultant lobbying is a significant part of their activity.

Opposition Amendment 39 provides a long list of exemptions from the Opposition’s definition of professional lobbying. Exemptions are provided for constituents contacting their Member of Parliament, persons making communications on their own behalf, persons responding to government consultations or an invitation to submit evidence to a parliamentary committee, persons acting on behalf of government, persons not receiving remuneration, and those responding to a court order. That is a very large and unwieldy list of exceptions partly because once one extends this to professional lobbying, the question of definition itself becomes much more difficult. That is, again, partly why we have stuck to consultant lobbying in our approach.

Finally, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, asked about sovereign powers and the Government of Taiwan. It is very helpful that he has raised Taiwan but it would probably be better, to be absolutely sure that I am correct, that I offer to write to him on that specific point. I would like to reassure him as far as I can.

I hope that I have managed to answer most of the points in these amendments. I have outlined why it is not necessary to extend the register to those who lobby on their own or their employer’s behalf, because it is clear whose interests are being represented. Our proposals will deliver a focused, problem-specific register and, as such, we believe that these amendments are not necessary. I urge the noble and learned Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

Is a consultant lobbyist somebody who has more than one client? Is that what constitutes a consultant—somebody who has at least two clients? So far as “professional lobbyist” is concerned, I am not too clear in my own mind so far—no doubt it is my fault—as to what exactly is meant by a professional lobbyist. For example, if a company has engineering matters that it wants to deal with, it might send along an engineer to tell the Minister what it is all about. He might not be described as a professional lobbyist but, being an engineer, at least he knows about the subject matter. Does a professional lobbyist have to have some professional qualification or does professional mean something else? I am rather befogged.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, that is a very fair intervention. That is one of the reasons why we hesitate to include people whose main responsibilities within the charity or company for which they work is to contact government. The public affairs departments of major companies are the ones dealing with government, trying to interface between the company and the political process, and it would be the public affairs departments of many companies with which one would therefore logically deal. I know many people who have gone to work in the public affairs departments of companies—I am sure we all do. It is very often where people who have been involved in politics go afterwards to earn what they failed to earn in politics.

The noble and learned Lord is absolutely correct to say that in the exact definition of a professional lobbyist we are talking about people who are employed by a company, campaigning group or charity and pursue its interests in its relations with government. A consultant lobbyist is someone who lobbies on behalf of someone else apart from their own company. Theoretically, I suppose it is possible to imagine a consultant lobbyist all of whose income comes from one external client but the majority of consultant lobbying firms provide assistance, advice and lobbying for a large number of clients. That is the industry with which we are all familiar and with which those of us in government often interact. That is the distinction we make.

[Lord Norton of Louth]

My Lords, before the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, responds, my noble friend has really not addressed the distinction between those who do the activity and the activity itself. The Government are supposed to be trying to provide transparency about the activity, not simply listing those who may engage in it—in this case, only some who engage in it.

The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, referred to what I said at Second Reading about what is in effect an alternative to this rather clunky mechanism being proposed by the Government. What I was proposing gets fairly comprehensively at the activity of who is lobbying on each measure that the Government bring forward. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, may wish to note that my Amendment 115 is intended to get at that. It is an alternative to what the Government are proposing and it would actually deal with that particular problem. My noble friend may wish to bear that in mind in responding to the amendments because I am not sure he has established that there is a need for this part of the Bill, certainly not compared with the alternative that I am putting forward, which actually gets at the nub of ensuring transparency of lobbying.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

If I might add to that, particularly if there are only 350 registrations.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Organisations, I should have said.

[Lord Hardie]

I am grateful to noble Lords for their contributions to this short debate and to the Minister for his reply.

To answer the point raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, the definition of professional has been slightly widened over the years. I imagine that those who undertake lobbying activity for a living would probably prefer to be called a profession rather than a trade. Therefore, those who lobby, whether they are lobbying as employees on behalf of employers or as consultants, might be described as professional lobbyists.

As the Minister pointed out, consultant lobbyists might well have only one client, although that might be a rare case. Indeed, the Bill itself recognises that the consultant is a person who,

“makes communications … on behalf of another person or persons”,

so the singular is certainly envisaged.

I am grateful to the Minister for his response and want to reflect on his comments about charities and the exemptions—if they are exempt. I note that he said that he is open to further discussion and that the Government will look in response to the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, at possible further extensions without further legislation. Those matters ought to be and will be explored between now and Report. I may come back at Report with a more focused amendment, but, in the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I will first answer some of the specific questions raised. I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, that Part 4 will be taken in Committee after Part 2, as is logical in the Bill.

The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, suggested that the Diplomatic Service is not part of the Civil Service. When I was a young academic people talked about the Home Civil Service as opposed to the Diplomatic Civil Service, which I understood was the overseas Civil Service.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

I have never been criticised for being civil.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Both of those services were as opposed to the military service—and I am not sure that I would think of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, as particularly military.

The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, asked who needed to know. It is not Ministers who need to know primarily. Transparency is about the public being better informed, and campaigning groups and civil society organisations making the information easy to obtain.

The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said that perhaps if the information was easier to obtain we would not have newspapers any longer claiming that they had discovered such and such. As I listened to him, I recollected that yesterday in the Daily Mail, I think that I read the same “We have discovered” story for about the third time in about four years. Newspapers have a tendency to claim that they have discovered something that was all there already. Indeed, many years ago when I criticised the financial services industry in the Channel Islands, the local press announced that it had discovered that I was a French spy. Its evidence for this—that my wife and I had both been decorated by the French Government—came from that deeply obscure publication, Who’s Who. I am sure the press will go on “discovering” things that could already have been found out easily. Again, that is the way the press behave.

As I have listened to this debate, I have been thinking about the debate we had in the Cabinet Office about the mistake previous Governments made in going for really grandiose IT projects, trying to put absolutely everything into what they were doing and eventually coming unstuck. The Cabinet Office has now decided that incremental change in IT is easier to control. If we are moving towards transparency we have to be careful that we do not say we want absolutely everyone to be included. The best can be the enemy of the good here. The first target is lobbyists rather than every single representative of government that they meet in all circumstances. The definition of who they meet in government was adopted as “those within government who now have to publish their diaries: their lists of whom they meet”.

Amendment 3 from the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, in many ways stands on its own. We need to think about it in a different context from the others here. Other amendments extend the register to parliamentarians, Ministers, Permanent Secretaries, other civil servants, special advisers, all Members and staff of Parliament, all non-ministerial departments, parliamentary private secretaries and so on. We are talking about, I suspect, between 15,000 and 20,000 people. There are 5,000 members of the senior Civil Service—Permanent Secretaries, directors general, directors and deputy directors. The figure in my head for the number who work in Parliament is more than 6,000, and then we have to include non-ministerial departments. How fast and how far we go certainly needs to be considered.

[Lord Rooker]

There is an organisation in the Civil Service that they all want to belong to—the Top 200. It is an official classification. The figure the Minister has just given for the kind of people who will be covered as the decision-makers and opinion formers is preposterous. I am not saying it is limited to 200, but within the Civil Service being a member of the Top 200 means you are there. It is not just the Permanent Secretaries but the directors general as well. You are not talking about thousands. They are the chief executives of some of the departments I referred to.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I take that. I was about to say that the issue of proportionality—how far we go—is a really difficult one here. However, if one is talking about who gives you access to a Minister perhaps we need to include diary secretaries for example. Who we include and who we do not is itself a matter of some difficulty.

[Lord Dubs]

As I was one the of noble Lords who mentioned that point, surely it is those civil servants who are senior enough to decide that they will put to the Minister the prospect of a meeting with the lobbyists?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Perhaps we need to discuss between Committee and Report which definition of senior civil servants Ministers and various Members of the House wish to adopt. I was adopting my own understanding of the senior Civil Service, which is the 5,000 I mentioned.

I will be interested to hear from the Opposition whether they also need to be included in this. Again, that is something that perhaps the Opposition Front Bench and the Government should usefully discuss between Committee and Report. I come back to say that the best can be the enemy of the good in requiring too many people to be brought within the context of this Bill. I take the very powerful speech from the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, about non-ministerial departments to mind. I also take some of his other points about particular senior civil servants. We will consider all these points and, in that light, I trust that the noble Lord will be willing to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Norton of Louth]

My Lords, I do not understand my noble friend’s point about numbers. It is irrelevant in the sense that it is the consultants who are doing the lobbying to those people. It does not matter how many they are. It is merely the fact that they are engaging with some of them that requires them to register.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The register is of lobbyists. If we wish to include in the register every single Member of Parliament and others with whom they interact, we would get into a very complicated business. The question is who you wish to define as a consultant lobbying—as Amendment 3 says—to government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, Amendment 78, tabled in my name and those of my noble friends, attacks—if that is the appropriate verb to use—the same point that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, has addressed, but in a slightly different way. We have heard a lot about the need for a statutory code of conduct for lobbyists both in the debate on Second Reading and, to some extent, in our debates today. However, the Bill is not about regulating lobbying but about trying to make lobbying more transparent. My own amendment maintains that spirit. There is a genuine concern that the Bill, by setting out in law some of the things that consultant lobbyists must do, could imply by omission that there are some things that we do not expect them to do. Hence, it is important to make some reference to the existing codes.

I confess that although I have not been involved with the lobbying industry for many years, when I had a real job before politics, I headed up a public affairs consultancy. In those days I do not think we even referred to it as lobbying. It was thought to be simply informing decision-makers about important issues and so on. I can see noble Lords opposite observing that there is hardly any distinction between the two activities. However, I appreciate very much the extent to which the lobbying industry has improved its transparency and its codes of conduct, of which I understand there are several. It is important that we should refer to the voluntary codes of conduct that various professional associations and their membership bodies have now signed up to.

The UK Public Affairs Council has said that,

“the range of membership bodies, trade associations, companies and other organisations involved to a lesser or greater extent in lobbying makes a single self-regulatory code unobtainable for the foreseeable future”.

That is a realistic position, but surely it does not mean that we should ignore what is already in place. UKPAC went on to say that,

“effective self regulation can nonetheless be achieved if everyone in a business or employed in a capacity which involves lobbying subscribes to an appropriate Code of Conduct”.

The Bill can only do that for consultant lobbyists because, as we have heard, it is not about a telephone directory-style register of everyone who ever lobbies. However, it should ensure that those whom it does cover are encouraged to continue their compliance with existing voluntary codes by requiring that they are transparent as to whether they do so or not. All concerned—those on the receiving end of lobbying, those who engage these services to lobby on their behalf, the general public and we as parliamentarians representing them—would then be aware of whether they have subscribed to the voluntary codes. Our amendment deals simply with that objective.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Opposition’s proposed amendment would prohibit lobbying unless the person had signed up to the registrar’s code of conduct. Their new clause would require the registrar, after consultation with relevant stakeholders, to produce a code of conduct which would include a provision that any inappropriate relations between lobbyists and parliamentarians were strictly forbidden. Amendment 108, which has been grouped elsewhere, would enable the registrar to impose civil penalties for breaches of the code of conduct. The Government are not persuaded that a statutory code of conduct is appropriate, and I suggest that the proposed amendments are based on a miscomprehension of the role of codes, either statutory or voluntary, in the regulation of lobbying. The Opposition appear to suggest that such codes are in existence and are operating successfully in other jurisdictions. Perhaps I may draw their attention to international examples of statutory codes of conduct, of which there are very few.

The Australian statutory code of conduct establishes a statutory register of consultant lobbyists and prohibits the lobbying of government on behalf of a third party without registration. That is exactly what this Bill provides for and, if that is what the Opposition are seeking to achieve, the amendments are not needed. In Canada, the Lobbyists’ Code of Conduct promotes three principles—integrity and honesty, openness and professionalism—and requires that lobbyists act transparently, that they respect confidentiality, and that they avoid conflicts of interest. That code is not a statutory instrument and there is no sanction for non-compliance other than a report from the registrar outlining the lobbyist’s misdemeanour. That is appropriate, because determining non-compliance with these very broad principles is a challenging, uncertain and subjective process.

We have not been able to identify any international precedent for the type of code the Opposition propose. Indeed, even the overwhelmingly high-regulation system in the USA, which requires a 900-plus page handbook to aid compliance, does not incorporate a statutory code of conduct of this sort. Perhaps the fact that the Opposition have been able to propose just one provision for their code of conduct illustrates why such an approach has not been adopted elsewhere.

The Government recognise the industry’s efforts to improve lobbying practice by introducing its own codes of conduct and are confident that that will continue. Those codes promote the ethical behaviour that is essential to the integrity and reputation of the lobbying industry. The codes contain laudable principles and good practice guidance, but their translation into statute does not seem sensible or feasible.

Amendment 78, in the name of my noble friend Lord Tyler, would instead amend Clause 5(4) so that regulations could be made to enable lobbyists to include details in their information returns of the voluntary codes of conduct that they had subscribed to; but no other additional types of information unrelated to voluntary codes of conduct could be so specified. My noble friend appears to agree with the Government that a statutory code of conduct is not necessary and that the existing voluntary codes should be endorsed and promoted. I am happy to tell my noble friend that the Government are committed to ensuring that the statutory register complements the existing self-regulatory regime.

A specific reference on the statutory register to the voluntary code to which a lobbyist has subscribed is an interesting proposal that the Government are willing to consider further. However, we are not persuaded that the power under Clause 5(4) should be restricted so that it could be used to make regulations only in relation to voluntary codes, which is the—perhaps unintended—effect of my noble friend’s amendment. We will consider this further. Meanwhile, I urge the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment and my noble friend not to press his.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

I fear that that reply was written before I made my speech. I made it very clear that I do not want a statutory code of conduct. The reply that the Minister gave was about why we should not have a statutory code of conduct: I agree, and we did not ask for it. What we are asking is for the registrar to endorse a code of conduct. I assume that it would be based either on the format of five principles that other professions use or maybe on the existing voluntary code. That would be a matter for the registrar, but I very clearly said that we did not want a statutory register.

I am delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, is in her seat as she will remember very well discussing whether the regulation of letting agents should be statutory or—as it is now—voluntary. The letting agents had a very good voluntary code but if you did not obey it and were taken to the ombudsman, you could simply say, “I will leave the code, walk off and not remain signed up to the voluntary code”. All the good boys were signed up to the code but—guess what—the cowboys were not. If anyone was caught breaking the code they just resigned. The noble Baroness did at one point ask me to stop thanking her for this but I will never stop doing so because, through her work, we agreed the amendment that makes it compulsory for letting agents to belong to an ombudsman scheme. As part of that, there will be a code, overseen by the ombudsman, by which will be judged any misbehaviour by letting agents.

Effectively, that is what we are asking for here. Once you have a register of consultants, they should have to sign up to some code of good practice or ethical principles against which it will be judged whether they should be taken off the register. I am not asking for a statutory code, although it was very nice to hear the Minister make a speech against it. What we want is, if you like, a blessing to the voluntary code that says more than simply, “Please read it”. If you are on a register, I imagine it would become quite a kitemark. People would say, “I am a registered consultant lobbyist” —or, if our amendment were passed, a proper lobbyist, not just a consultant. It would be a kitemark to be on the register. However, if it implies no requirement to keep to an ethical code or a code of good behaviour, the kitemark could itself be quite misleading.

We will definitely return to this and I hope that the Minister has heard what we are really asking for: not a statutory code but a requirement that the registrar should have a code that anyone on the register would have to sign up to. I will leave that until Report for the moment—whenever that will be—and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

Most importantly, I hope that the Minister will address the amendments relating to electronic communication and about UKRep, because I truly believe that that is extremely important for the people of our nation, who want to know who in Brussels is being lobbied about legislation which has a real impact on their lives in this country.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords, in particular the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, for the detail of the various amendments. I will take them all back and consider them. First, on Amendment 10, it was absolutely the intention of the Bill to capture consultant lobbyists who lobby as a profession, not the neighbour who is lobbying for a friend about a housing development, or whatever, for no payment. That is part of informal campaigning, which is different from the professional consultant lobbyists with whom Part 1 is intended to deal.

I clearly need to have a long tutorial with the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and I promise that I will give him a good deal of my time, but I hope that that gives him some comfort. I also take the noble Lord’s point, which I had noted in the committee report, about not only direct lobbying but the sort of indirect lobbying that comes through professional advice and the danger that public affairs companies will retreat from saying that they are lobbying to saying that they are merely providing advice. We clearly need to ensure that we cover that.

On the question of VAT, the Government were looking for a simple means to exclude the very small fry from the Bill. It was felt that whether or not a business has a large enough turnover to have to register for VAT was the simplest and easiest method to exclude the small fry and include the large ones. That is the intention. If the noble Lord has a better way to do it, I look forward to discussing it, but there is nothing more intended by that provision.

The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, had an interesting thought about whether communications include interventions. I am advised that interventions are communications, but, again, we will consider in detail the subtle differences that may occur. I am certainly advised that it is established practice in legislative drafting that the now ubiquitous nature of electronic communications is accepted as being included in the term “writing”, except in cases where the context specifically demands otherwise. The Bill therefore makes no distinction between a handwritten note, a typewriter-produced letter—if such still exist—a dot matrix-printed telegram, a fax, an e-mail, a text message, a personal tweet or a BlackBerry messenger conversation, so I assure the noble Lord that the amendment is not necessary.

On the inclusion of “European” in the Bill, I understand that the intention is that lobbying the UK Government in respect of European legislation will be captured. Our understanding is that lobbying with respect to government policy, including government policy towards the European Union, is covered by the Bill but we will look at that to make sure that it is fully covered.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, that is very welcome but would that include our officials who are working in Brussels?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Let me take that back and be absolutely sure. We are all conscious that, as has been said, Brussels is the seat of lobbying on the largest scale, after Washington. We need to make sure that the interaction between those huge American law firms based in Brussels, which have large lobbying activities, and others is not excluded from the Bill. I will certainly take that back.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

I am grateful for what the Minister says. The other point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, was about level. When you are looking at UKRep and thinking about Brussels, it would be best to think not just about the Permanent Representative and the Deputy Permanent Representative, because in many ways those are figureheads. The real work is done in working groups by quite junior public servants. Some are diplomats and some civil servants but they are often in their early 30s and, in those working groups, they are doing serious legislation. They certainly are beset by lobbyists from outside all the time, so if you are going wide then you need to look down in seniority a bit, well below the top brass.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, in answering these amendments I set out to avoid reading out any of the note prepared beforehand, in order to satisfy the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. However, let me read out the paragraph I have on that. I can assure noble Lords that any lobbying of the UK Government in relation to European legislation is indeed captured by the Government’s provision at Clause 2(3)(a), which captures communications in relation to government policy. Communications in relation to the development, adoption or modification of the Government’s policy on any element of European legislation would therefore be captured by the definition of lobbying as drafted.

The overlap between what happens in Brussels and London is, I appreciate, a slightly more subtle issue than that. The question of what happens when everyone is abroad is a constant of globalisation, and one which the British Parliament may find it a little difficult to cover entirely by legislation.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

The question is of how policy develops in response to a development in the negotiation. Policy is not an artefact made in London, whole and entire, which stays like that all the way through a negotiation. Policy has to take account of what others do or what amendments emerge from the European Parliament. The process of legislation in Brussels is very much ongoing and the key figure is often the young man or woman who is sitting in the relevant working group. Yes, they will be contacting London but they will also be contacting their opposite numbers. The chances are that most of the decisions on how we react in a war of movement will be taken on the ground, without reference up to Ministers. Of course the Ministers will see every night how we are getting on but, over there in Brussels, the lobbyists are very close to this. If you are to take an interest in contact between lobbyists and UKRep, do not cut it off at the Permanent Representative and Deputy Permanent Representative.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the political process flows through a whole series of meetings. Capturing every single dimension of the political process may be beyond the wit of man or woman to achieve. We are looking here at making lobbying more transparent and capturing the main actors involved. The Bill specifically includes the lobbying of Ministers wherever they are: in London, Brussels or Washington. How far down the chain of officials we go, outside the United Kingdom as well as inside it, is a matter that we need to consider under the issue of proportionality and how far we think we need to cover absolutely everything.

Perhaps I may turn to Amendment 30, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, which is on note-taking. Perhaps recording rather than note-taking is what we might now be considering. As the noble Lord said, the question of how far one can legislate for good practice under all circumstances is very difficult but, again, I will take that back and discuss the matter further with him.

The noble Lord’s Amendment 51 takes us back to the definition of directly employed lobbyists versus consultant lobbyists. As I said on a previous grouping, Part 1 is intended to deal fundamentally with consultant lobbyists—lobbyists for hire—rather than those directly employed in the public affairs departments of multinational companies. From my own experience, perhaps I may say that companies and banks based in London often operate directly with government and we know who they are. Consultant lobbyists are often representing companies based abroad, foreign Governments or others who are not used to knowing how the British political system works. That is one reason why they come to consultant lobbyists, who are specialists. They advise them and then often lobby for them. That is part of what we want to catch in a globalised political system where non-British actors, so to speak, are taking an active part in our political process.

Having, I hope, answered some of the points raised and repeated that I am open to further conversations off the Floor with those who have tabled these amendments, I invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Rooker]

My Lords, I thank the Minister very much for his response. What the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said in his intervention regarding Brussels is absolutely right. It so happens that about 95% of the legislation affecting food in this country, and which is implemented by the government department—the Food Standards Agency—is actually European. It starts in Brussels. At the point when I joined the FSA in about 2009, my predecessor had already decided to embed someone in UKRep because we were too often too slow. If you are not there when the conveyor belt starts, you cannot influence it and we were too far down it.

Look at the evidence of what happened with the way that the food information regulations were dealt with in Europe. There was massive lobbying against some of the things that we wanted to do, such as traffic-light labelling. I will not criticise people from other countries but the international lobbying was massive. We got a first-class individual, exactly as described by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. I will not name them. There are negotiations and meetings while they are trying to get this stuff ready for the Parliament, which has more interference now—I meant more contact and should not have said that; parliamentarians should interfere but the EU Parliament has a different role now in this area—but there is no way that you would get all that detail back for Ministers and perm secs. The decisions would be done, so it is on a different level completely.

I wanted to reinforce that from my own little window of experience from the last few years. I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 10.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Norton of Louth]

I add my support to my noble friend’s amendment, but it does not go far enough. Partly for the reason he just mentioned, I would be more ambitious, along the lines indicated by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. There is no reason why you cannot have a rolling publication after the event excluding, following the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Martin, the venue because that is not really germane. It is the substance of the discussion that matters. I would be more ambitious than my noble friend Lord Tyler.

As the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours said, the amendment links to what I am arguing. It moves us in the right direction, so I am fully in support; it is just that I want to go further because this is a database of meetings between Ministers and external organisations and we need to extend it in terms of who is being seen. Just confining it to Ministers creates problems, so we need a larger database, or we certainly need to be able to identify those who are being lobbied.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am fascinated to hear this great outbreak of revolution in transparency. We thought that we were set out on a constructive step forward on transparency. I am not sure that I want all Ministers’ and civil servants’ diaries published the day after they meet anyone, which I think is what the noble Lord, Lord Norton, was beginning to suggest.

I will try to answer the various probing amendments. A number of them, starting with Amendment 54, are about stiffening the independence of the registrar. Amendment 54 would require the Minister to consult with the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee before appointing the registrar. I am not aware whether that has yet been requested by the committee itself, but it is an interesting proposal.

The amendments of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, would prevent any person who had been a civil servant or a political adviser in the previous five years being appointed registrar. This is also thoughtful, and designed to provide assurance regarding the independence of the registrar which, of course, the Government are entirely committed to establishing and maintaining. Under the Bill, the registrar will be appointed according to the public appointment principles of open and fair competition and the Minister will be able to dismiss the registrar only where they are satisfied that there are reasonable grounds that he is unable, unwilling or unfit to perform the functions of his office. If thought unreasonable, any such decision by a Minister could be challenged in the usual way, by judicial review. The registrar will be independent of the lobbying industry and the Government, and will have a clear remit to operate independently of the lobbying industry and the Government.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, seeks to extend the positions that will not be eligible for appointment as registrar to capture those officials who would be required to submit information to him or her under his new clause. The Government are not persuaded of the case for the noble and learned Lord’s additions, and would therefore resist this amendment.

The Government recognise the importance of ensuring that the registrar is independent. We are confident that our proposals secure that, but are grateful for these suggestions and will of course consider whether they should be pursued further.

Amendment 63 has attracted a considerable amount of support. It would require that, in addition to the statutory register of consultant lobbyists, the registrar would be required to keep and publish a central database of ministerial meetings with external organisations.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

When the Minister responded to the amendment of my noble friend Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, I heard him say that the Government would consider the amendment; he will find that that is what he said in Hansard. If that is the case, can we be assured, then, that the chairman of that committee in the Commons will be consulted so that there can be discussion in the committee about to what extent it thinks that it is a realistic possibility for it to carry out that function, so that Ministers at least have the view of the committee when they make a judgment as to whether to accept my noble friend’s amendment?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am not going to give that commitment now because there are larger questions about how many public appointments should be overseen by Commons committees. That is a much broader issue than this appointment alone. I will take that back and consult with others but, as I said earlier, the Government are not currently persuaded of these amendments.

I return to the central database issue, which raises some large issues about the role of the registrar and whether or not ministerial appointments should be handed over, so to speak, for collation by an independent body associated with the Government. We have listened to those who have asked that the reports be available from one central location and have responded by migrating all meeting reports to gov.uk, where they can be readily accessed as both PDF and open-format CSV files. We have responded to those that suggested that the timeliness of reporting could be improved by committing to publishing all meeting information in the quarter immediately after that in which the meeting took place. I note the pressure to go further. The Government are committed to the principles of open government and we continue to investigate how we can further improve the value of the information that we make available to the public. However, we are not at present persuaded that we should be going as far as the noble Lord suggests.

Opposition Amendment 74 would require the registrar to submit an annual report to the PCRC on the operation of the register. Again, this is not a provision that I understand that the committee itself has sought—perhaps because it recognises that the registrar is already required by the drafting to submit their annual accounts to Parliament and that the committee will be perfectly entitled and able to call the registrar to provide evidence at any time. I would have thought that that would be enough to hold them to account.

The new clause of the noble Lord, Lord Norton, is by far the most ambitious amendment. It would require the Government to publish alongside any statement on a matter of policy, legislation or a contract or grant, records of any oral or written communication directed to a Minister, the Minister’s parliamentary private secretary or special adviser, and any departmental civil servants relating to that matter. The noble Lord, Lord Norton, provides exemptions from the requirement to publish for commercial or security-sensitive material. This is certainly an intriguing proposal but, I suggest, neither a feasible nor proportionate one. At a time when our focus should be on ensuring more efficient and effective government, a statutory requirement that every oral or written communication received by every civil servant, special adviser, PPS or Minister be recorded, collated and published in parallel with any relevant statement would appear ill advised. It would of course be an absolute goldmine for an academic researcher.

Not only would such a system impose an unwelcome bureaucratic burden on the public sector, it would likely impose information overload on the members of the public—perhaps even academic researchers. The volume of information that the Government would likely be required to publish in relation to a Budget Statement or a Queen’s Speech would be so overwhelming that any transparency value would be entirely undermined by the inaccessibility and quantity of the information. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, who talked about “hiding in plain sight”. When there is too much information provided, it is sometimes hard to weed out what is crucial.

The Government’s objective is to provide the public with valuable information which they can utilise to scrutinise our actions and hold us to account. The focus should be on the value of information and the insight it can provide, not on the volume. The Government already publish unprecedented amounts of information about decision-making, and the register is intended to extend that transparency to those who seek to influence decision-makers. It is already standard practice that responses to government consultations are published in full and in summary, and if the public require further information about certain policies or decisions then they have a right to request that information using the Freedom of Information Act.

I recognise that the noble Lord is urging the Government to extend our information publication regime a good deal further. We will continue to consider how enhanced transparency can best be achieved. I suggest, however, that a statutory requirement of this nature is not the most appropriate manner in which to do so. I therefore resist that amendment, and urge the noble Baroness to withdraw it.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, this has turned into a more interesting and wide-ranging debate than we had anticipated. There are two parts to it. One is about this database. On the idea that there is too much for us and therefore the Government do not want to put it out there—they should try harder than that. The House knows I have a certain thing about alcohol misuse. I just want to know how many drinks companies lobbied the Government about tax before the Budget. It ought to be possible to know that. I do not want all the other submissions. Someone who is interested in the environment or any other issue will just be focused and want to drill down to one thing. If it is a good system, an awful lot of noise out there will not matter.

When I am not spending my time here at 7.30 pm I am quite often at the National Theatre. You can go there with a tiny card and you have ordered perhaps four different lots of tickets for different nights and different theatres. You put in your little card and you get them all back. Its computer system can do it very easily. I cannot believe that it is beyond the wit of man—even men—to produce a similar system for this database, which is currently completely unsearchable. It is not, in the words of the Minister readily available. I have tried to search it, although I did not try for quite as long as the noble Lord, Lord Tyler—in future I will come to his office when I am trying to find this out. However, it is not searchable or rapid, and is therefore almost irrelevant, so late is it. I cannot see why it cannot be available the next day. If there was a will, there would certainly be a way.

On the report going to a committee of the other House, I take the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, that it probably should be both rather than one. I think that that is right. The consultation would be about the job description and the sort of person, not necessarily about the individual. However, on the report back, which the Minister says will be published in Parliament anyway, by saying that this is the committee, or committees, that will see it, a significance is given to the registrar’s report. When we were debating the Financial Services Bill we wrote in it that quite a few things would go to the Treasury Select Committee. That tells the person writing the report where they will be interrogated or interviewed about it.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

From time to time Parliament does change the structure and the nomenclature of its committees. I think the Government would be a little hesitant to write the current structure of committees into legislation.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

The words “relevant select committee” could be used.

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

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I recognise that this amendment, like some of those we were discussing in the previous group, is concerned with reinforcing the independence of the registrar in appointment, accountability to parliamentary committees and obstacles to what might be challengeable dismissal. Let me reassure noble Lords that the Government are committed to ensuring the independence of the registrar. The registrar’s ability to operate independently is clearly essential for the successful operation of the register.

The amendment specifically concerns potential dismissal. The Government are confident that the provisions as drafted will assure the independence of the registrar without those reinforcements. We will, however, continue to listen to and explore all suggestions for reiterating and firmly establishing that independence. Having given that assurance, I urge the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reassuring response. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Martin, for raising some of the practical issues. I tabled the amendment just to have a discussion about who can provide some back-up to the registrar, if needed. I think that the Minister has shown a willingness to listen. I am grateful for that and, in the circumstances, I am happy to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Lang of Monkton, suggested at Second Reading—that a lobbying register is a more effective approach to the lobbying issue, but such a register should include entries by lobbyists as well as anyone in government. It would provide another form of central database available to the public from which the public could determine the involvement of others in the formulation of policy and in influencing the Government generally. The enforcement powers given to the registrar would make this an effective tool in the search for transparency. Will the Minister tell the House whether the Government considered such a register before introducing the Bill? If not, given that this issue was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Lang, has this matter been considered since Second Reading? What has been the outcome of that consideration?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord—I am having a total blank.

[Noble Lords]

Stevenson.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My apologies. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for making the comparison with the United States. We are, of course, concerned to avoid British politics being invaded by the scale of money there; indeed, that is partly what Part 2 responds to, as I said at Second Reading. We make comparisons with the scale of lobbying in the United States but, thankfully, that problem has not yet arisen.

I am slightly puzzled by the Opposition’s Amendment 65, which would remove the requirement for lobbyists to provide a residential address in the absence of any registered address. That seems to us to provide a basic element of information. The consequence of the amendment would be that where there is no registered business address a lobbyist would not be required to provide any contact details. The information to the public would thus be reduced, and the registrar’s ability to investigate compliance and to enforce the registration requirements would be undermined.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

It will be worth clarifying this so that we understand each other. You may forget my name, but surely you will understand what I am trying to say. This is a probing amendment, so we do not expect that the wording will necessarily be accepted. However, if it is possible for someone simply to record themselves as a lobbyist on the register and give only their private address, the information that should be available—which business they are acting for—will be missing. One would hope that they would put in their business address, but if the current phrasing is adopted that will be a loophole. We are simply asking the Minister if he will take this away.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I will certainly take it away, and I am very happy to do so.

An amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, would alter Clause 4 to require lobbyists to disclose the recipient of the payment for lobbying and the focus and subject of lobbying activity. The Opposition’s further amendments would require that lobbyists disclose the approximate value of spending on lobbying activity during a quarter. I suppose that I should welcome the pressure that is coming across the room for even greater transparency than we propose in the Bill; that is a splendid step forward. Under the previous Government there was some considerable resistance to this level of transparency.

We have been very clear that the objective of the register is limited, in our view, to the identification of the interests that are represented by consultant lobbying firms. Consultant lobbyists should therefore be required to disclose their clients. We are not yet persuaded that the burden that would be imposed on both the industry and the regulator of requiring further information—for example, spending and financial data—is justified by the limited insight it will provide. That sounds to me like something else we may discuss in the Corridors. However, we are not yet persuaded that that provides a proportionate approach to the problem identified. It is not necessary to require the disclosure of the subject or target due to the Government’s transparency regime, whereby Ministers’ and Permanent Secretaries’ meetings with external organisations are already declared.

I compliment the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, on the detail and care with which he has prepared a large number of amendments. His new clause proposed in Amendment 81 would establish a second register—the register of lobbying activities, as he has explained—which would run in parallel to the register of lobbyists. He has tabled a number of consequential amendments with that. The register would record information both from lobbyists and from public officials in receipt of lobbying communications.

The Government are not persuaded that a register of lobbying activities is necessary, nor do we think it necessary to require that both the maker and the recipient of a lobbying communication submit a report on that activity. The noble and learned Lord’s register would duplicate existing information—that provided in government transparency reporting—and the information requirements of the register appear to duplicate each other: both the lobbyist and the recipient of the lobbying would have to report any interaction. Even the American system does not come close to imposing such onerous requirements on industry and public officials. The administrative cost of complying with such a scheme would be high, both for industry and for public bodies. The cost of regulating it could be ever more expensive—costs which would surely fall either on the industry or the public purse.

Amendment 112, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, would provide that the subscription charge be set as a percentage of the lobbyist’s turnover. The noble Lord does not specify at what percentage the charge should be set and instead provides that the level could be set in regulations. As outlined in our impact assessment, we anticipate that the charge will be approximately £650. That figure should not prove too burdensome on any organisations that undertake professional consultant lobbying. Indeed, it compares favourably with the fee charged by the host of the industry’s voluntary register. The fee will be set to recover the full costs of the registrar’s activities—including those in relation to enforcement—and will ensure that the register is not funded by public money.

The noble Lord may be concerned that such a charge should be minimised for the smallest businesses. However, as I commented earlier, the VAT exemption is intended to exempt the smallest businesses from the requirement to register.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Does the Minister accept that, if the charge is going to be £650, some companies may well simply deregister and the professional lobbyists’ lists may no longer exist? In so far as those lists have more information than what is currently provided by the Bill, would that be helpful to the issue of transparency?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I think that that is unlikely, but this is obviously something on which we should perhaps consult informally with the industry, to see whether there are any serious concerns. I am not aware that there are and, as I have said, the current voluntary register is in the same league but slightly more expensive.

Amendment 113, from the Opposition, would amend the reference to the setting of the subscription charge from one that requires the Minister to seek to recover the full costs to one that would require the Minister to ensure that the charge is set so as to recover the full costs of the registrar’s activities. I recognise that it is intended to emphasise the importance of ensuring that the charge recoups completely the cost of the register, but assure the Opposition that the Government are very well aware of the importance of ensuring that the register is fully funded by the industry.

We expect that the register will cost around £200,000 a year to run and that that cost will be borne not by the taxpayer but by the lobbying industry. The register that the Opposition have suggested would cost a great deal more—possibly nearer the £3 million that it costs to operate the Canadian register. Perhaps they would like to consider how they would ensure that those costs were recovered from the much larger number of individuals and organisations that they intend to capture.

The Opposition’s Amendment 114A would remove subsection (2) from Clause 24, thereby affecting the regulation-making powers under that part. The Joint Committee on Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform has recently published a very thorough and thoughtful report on the delegated powers included in the Bill. The Government are giving the committee’s recommendations careful consideration and will respond formally shortly.

I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Norton, that I responded to his Amendment 115 before he had spoken to it. Rather too many meetings over the past day left me less well organised than ideally I should have been. I took him down as saying that the Government believe in transparency but not too far. I would say that the Government believe in transparency, but want to be proportionate in our approach. I fear that some of the amendments that have been floated today have suggested that we move from a situation of extremely moderate transparency to one in which there will be a very burdensome set of regulations, which would go further than we need to at this time.

[Lord Norton of Louth]

My noble friend is now talking about moderate transparency rather than transparency, so he is already limiting it. He is very keen on “proportionate”, I have noticed; it has come up a number of times today. I am just wondering how proportionate it is to introduce a register of perhaps 350 companies when we have not established how many of them already publish their client list. If most of those who are going to be registered already publish their client list, it is proportionate at the wrong end, because there is no point, really, in doing it. It is not good enough just to establish how many would be covered by the register; we need to know whether it would actually add anything to our knowledge of what those companies are doing and who their clients are. There may not be any point in doing it.

My point is that, if you are going to do it, do it properly; if you want transparency for lobbying and you are going to be comprehensive, there will be a cost to it. If you are going to do it properly and have a register, I am afraid that you have to go down the Canadian route. My argument is that you can avoid doing that by going down my route, whereby you get transparency of lobbying, not simply listing lobbyists.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, as regards my noble friend’s reference to the Canadian system, the Government consider that that system is onerous, expensive and more than we need. My task in Committee and on Report is to convince this House that the proposals in the Bill are proportionate and provide additional transparency. However, I will check and get back to my noble friend on how many of the current lobbying companies on the voluntary register publish their clients’ names, as that is clearly an excellent question that deserves an answer.

[Lord Hardie]

I would like to clarify the following point. First, does the Minister accept that there would be benefit in enshrining in statute in some way—whether by accepting the measure proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, that proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, or my extreme proposal for a new clause—the practice that the Government have introduced of disclosing information to the public? The Government could claim credit for that initiative and could ensure that future Governments of any colour would be bound by the statute unless they sought to amend it. Secondly, can the noble Lord tell me what consideration the Government have given at any stage—either before the introduction of the Bill or after Second Reading—to creating a lobbying register?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I apologise to the noble and learned Lord; I should have answered his question about the noble Lord, Lord Lang. I am not aware that the Government have investigated that issue in detail but I will write to the noble and learned Lord as soon as I have the answer.

[Lord Hardie]

I am sorry; the noble Lord has not answered my first question: namely, whether he sees any advantage in enshrining the good practice to which I referred in statute.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Let me take that away and speak to the noble and learned Lord further. I understand his concerns and I am very grateful for the detailed interest that he is taking in the Bill. We will make sure that we have adequate answers for him.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his very full coverage of the points, although it is becoming clear that he is expending considerable effort in trying to give no more commitments on any of these questions than are in his brief, except to welcome occasional points that he will take back. The noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, is right to say that it is not worth discussing the Bill if it does not deliver—either directly or through voluntary means—something more than we have at present. The wicked thought occurred to me that perhaps the amendment we ought to be tabling and debating is whether the Title of the Bill should be changed to “The Proportionate and Moderate Transparency of Lobbying Bill”.

What is going on here? Does the Minister really believe that this Bill will add very much to what we have at present? If not, why on earth are we wasting our time on it? We are discussing Part 1, but I am afraid that the same questions will come back to haunt him in Part 2. He may well be able to escape the Bench on Part 3, but they will be there in Part 3 as well. This Bill does not add very much to the effectiveness of what most people in the country, and certainly Members around this House and in another place, would like to see happen. When we were in power, we moved forward on this. We did not move very fast because it is a difficult issue, as the Minister would accept, but we would not have got into the position where the Minister is today—that is very clear.

While I thank the Minister very much for taking back my proposal that we should look again at the possible loophole in Amendment 65, I do not think that he has given clear answers to my questions on Amendments 70, 71, 75, 76 and 77 about the money. Having said that the money is important and that we do not want to go the way that the Americans and those in other territories have gone, he also said that we could not possibly put a burden on those who have to participate in the system that would cause them difficulties. However, in Parts 2 and 3, burdens are being sallied out to charities and trade unions without any shame at all, as far as I can see. Apparently, what is meat for one is not meat for the other. The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, had it right in a very brief but salient interjection. Transparency is not capable of being moderated. Something is transparent or it is not. This Bill is heading towards having no transparency at all.

Finally, we were intrigued by the announcement about the likely fee of £650, if I correctly took down the figure. Why is there no variation on that figure between small and large firms? The scale in this sector is substantial, so even if we are going to have a register, the costs of which are met by those participating, it seems absurd to charge some of the large companies the same amount as those firms with one or two persons working in them. Perhaps the noble Lord can think about that. We on this side are not at all clear why our proposals for a more expanded register that would work only if it delivered full transparency—I understand that point—will cost so much more. Perhaps the noble Lord will write to explain how his calculations arrive at figures in the millions of pounds, when the figure for the current register is so modest. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, when considering the most appropriate sanctions in respect of non-compliance with the register, Ministers considered the option of removing a person from the register, thereby prohibiting them from continuing to operate as a lobbyist. However, we concluded that such a sanction would represent too extreme a penalty, as it would essentially take away their livelihood.

I am conscious that I speak on the edge of my expertise, but a number of professions have disciplinary procedures and appeals within those procedures, some of which are very complex. I was once approached to join the General Medical Council but once I understood what it did, I rapidly said no. The issues of due process and dismissal, judicial review et cetera are ones that we are reluctant to enter into in this respect. The sanctions regime that we have designed is therefore more limited and designed to provide on appropriate deterrent against, and punishment for, non-compliance with the register’s provisions.

As the Committee will know, breaches of the Bribery Act are punishable by unlimited fines, up to 10 years’ imprisonment, or both. I am not convinced that an additional sanction—that of being prohibited from carrying on a certain profession—should be added to those already significant penalties. Further, breaches of the Bribery Act must be proven beyond reasonable doubt in a criminal court, yet the Opposition’s amendment would enable the registrar to draw his or her own conclusion as to whether the Act had been breached, and to impose sanctions on the basis of that conclusion. I suggest that such a power or responsibility is not a suitable one for the registrar of a new register, but instead that breaches of the Bribery Act should continue to be determined in court.

Amendment 89, tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, would enable a person to appeal against the registrar’s decision to remove them from the register as per Clause 6(6). We do not envisage that the registrar would remove any person from the register unless they were confident that that person no longer engaged, or wished to engage in future, in consultant lobbying. The removal power is not intended as a sanction but rather as an administrative housekeeping measure to enable the registrar to maintain the accessibility and relevance of the register.

[Lord Hardie]

Does the Minister accept that while I do not dispute that the registrar would be operating in good faith, he may genuinely make a mistake—and if he does, it has the effect of removing someone from the register. Is there to be no appeal to the tribunal for that? There may not be many appeals at all. It is only if the person is aggrieved that he has a right of appeal.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, that seems unlikely, on the face of it, but I am very glad to go away and consult officials to make sure that there is not a lacuna here. I appreciate where the noble and learned Lord is coming from, with a genuine concern on this issue. If one were to accept some of his other amendments, the case for writing into the Bill the appeal to the tribunal would be stronger. If a person were to object, under our scheme, to the registrar’s decision they could advise him or her accordingly and reregister without difficulty. We do not therefore consider that appeals to the tribunal should be necessary in those circumstances.

The Opposition’s proposed amendments, Amendments 101, 105 and 106, appear designed to ensure that the provision of misleading information is captured by the offence outlined in Clause 12 and, as a consequence, by the civil penalty power provided for in Clause 14. I am advised that “incomplete or inaccurate register” also covers the question of “misleading”. I can therefore confirm that the provision of misleading information in any of these instances would be captured by the concept of,

“information which is inaccurate or incomplete in a material particular”,

as provided in subsections (2)(b), (3)(b) and (4)(b) of Clause 12.

The offence outlined in Clause 12 is designed to be applicable in both the civil and criminal systems. We anticipate that the provision of inaccurate or incomplete information due to administrative oversight will be sanctioned by the imposition of a civil penalty. If, however, inaccurate or incomplete information had been provided in an attempt to deliberately mislead, we could expect such non-compliance to be prosecuted in a criminal court.

The Opposition’s Amendment 108 would enable the registrar to impose civil penalties for breaches of the code of conduct. The establishment of sanctions, whether civil or criminal, requires detailed and measured consideration. The Opposition have been able to identify only one of the provisions to be included in the statutory register. I suggest that the provisions with which lobbyists would be required to comply should surely be identified before it was determined whether they should be liable to a civil penalty in the event of a breach.

Amendment 103, tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, would impose an offence on those who failed to submit lobbying activity reports as and when required. We recognise that this amendment is consequential to his other proposals so I will not address it further. His Amendment 109 would amend Clause 16(3) so that the maximum amount for a penalty notice would be reduced from £7,500 to £5,000. I note that his point of comparison is the Scottish civil penalty. In setting the maximum amount for a penalty notice at £7,500, the Government were mindful of comparable regulatory regimes, such as the fines imposed by the Companies Act in relation to the late filing of accounts, and we took that as our comparator. The Government are confident that the proposed limit of the civil penalty is thus an appropriate one and are not persuaded that it should be reduced, although of course the registrar is able to issue civil penalties of any amount up to £7,500, so not in every case would it be the amount.

The noble and learned Lord’s Amendment 110 would prevent the registrar from issuing a civil penalty to a person if that person had been acquitted of an offence under this part in relation to their conduct. We then get into interesting questions; as a non-lawyer, I am not entirely an expert on the difference between the evidence required to prove a criminal case and that which is required to produce a civil one. Perhaps we might consult on that off the Floor to resolve that very delicate distinction. Having answered some of those extremely interesting and detailed probing amendments, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

Before that happens, may I just be assured that I have understood that even if someone is convicted under the Bribery Act in a criminal case, they could still stay on the register?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The register is not intended to have sanctions on it, but let me take that away and come back. I appreciate that we are in an area here where the question is how much the register is intended to be one which you go on to if you are engaged in this activity, or whether the register should begin to develop a disciplinary dimension, which raises some of the questions that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, in particular has pursued.

European Commission: Staffing

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the number of United Kingdom nationals on the staff of the European Commission.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the Government recognise that there is a problem with the level of UK representation among staff working in the European institutions. The UK represents 12% of the EU’s population but makes up only 5% of EU staff, half of whom are expected to retire over the next 10 years. The Government are committed to reversing this downward trend. In the short term, we are increasing the number of civil servants whom we send on secondment to the institutions and, for the long term, we are providing additional support to candidates who are preparing for the concours.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

I am sure that the Minister will agree that it is against our national interest that there has been such a dramatic decline in the number of British civil servants in Brussels and that, further, we have not succeeded with one British national in the concours since 2010. Does he not agree that part of the reason must be that able British civil servants are deterred by the constant sniping at Europe on the part of this Government—although not, I may say, on the part of the party that he represents? Could not that be in part allayed by giving a guarantee to any civil servant from the UK who goes to Brussels that they will be able to return if they so choose? That was something that was available when we first joined the European Community, as it was.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the decline in applicants for the European Commission started before the current Government came into office. It is partly a question of language inadequacy; you have to take the competition partly in your second language. Applicants from most other countries take it in English as their second language, in which they are very often highly fluent; we lack sufficient English, or British, students, who are fluent in French or German, the other two languages. If I may say so, there is no evidence that there has been a decline because of uncertainty about Britain’s future relations with the European Union. May I also say that the noble Lord is misinformed, and that some 20 British candidates have succeeded in the concours since 2010? He may have read an article that said that no British civil servant has succeeded in the concours since that date.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)]

My Lords, would my noble friend agree that a postgraduate degree qualification from the College of Europe greatly facilitates employment in the European institutions? Could he tell the House whether the scholarships to the College of Europe, suspended by the previous Government in 2010, have been reinstated—and, if so, at what level?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, it is widely accepted that a year studying in both French and English in the College of Europe, in Warsaw or in Bruges, is very helpful in getting students accustomed to the ways of Brussels and what is required in the concours. The last Government cancelled the 24 British scholarships for the College of Europe in 2009. They have been partly reinstituted, with five from BIS for British officials next year, and a number of others from the devolved institutions. In addition, a small group of people, which I think includes several Members of this House, have contributed to a private scholarship scheme, which will fund three scholarships this year. So we are working at it and the number of candidates is now rising again.

[Lord Wright of Richmond (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister not accept, in spite of what he has said, that many members of the UK public service may have been discouraged from applying for jobs in the Community institutions by the fact that they no longer have an assurance of a return ticket to the UK public service—quite apart from the career difficulties presented by the prospect of a referendum on whether or not we should remain in the European Union?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

All I can say on that is that the evidence is not there. In terms of the secondment of national experts into the European External Action Service, the British are second after the French in the number of those who have succeeded in gaining places; so there is some considerable evidence there. The members of the Diplomatic Service have also been going round to graduate recruitment fairs over the past two years and that has helped to double the number of British applicants for the concours this year.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords, surely as a Liberal Democrat Euro-enthusiast—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Surely the noble Lord—as a Liberal Democrat Euro-enthusiast; and I am also a Euro-enthusiast—would agree that the problem has been exacerbated by the uncertainty over our future position within Europe. Would he, if he were 20 or 30 years younger, really apply for such a risky position?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Prime Minister made it clear in his speech in January that it is in Britain’s long-term interest to stay within the European Union. The Deputy Prime Minister made an extremely strong speech about the position that we will be taking on future membership. I look forward to a speech from the leader of the Labour Party—I think that Europe was not mentioned once in this year’s Labour Party conference—which will ensure that all three parties hold a similar position.

[Lord Elton (Con)]

My Lords, after reminding the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, that he does not represent anybody any more than the rest of us do—we represent ourselves—could my noble friend tell us what steps Her Majesty’s Government are taking to ensure that the, we hope, increasing number of representatives of this country on the staff of the European Commission are aware of the detail of what the national interest actually is, and that they are kept aware also of the effects of European legislation and regulation on the economy, the community and the functioning of the law of this country?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, many of these things are very informal. When I go to Brussels I talk to British officials, as do many of my colleagues. There is a British-Brussels network. The last time I was in Brussels I addressed the alumni of an Oxford college that I used to teach in. There are informal contacts and they keep in touch. However, one does not wish to instruct officials of the Commission, who are there to do a good job and to network between the national and the European.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords—

Political Parties, Elections and Referendums (Civil Sanctions) (Amendment) Order 2013

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2013 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That the draft order and draft regulations laid before the House on 16 July be approved.

Relevant documents: 9th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, 11th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, considered in Grand Committee on 29 October.

Motions agreed.

Political Parties, Elections and Referendums (Civil Sanctions) (Amendment) Order 2013

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2013 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums (Civil Sanctions) (Amendment) Order 2013.

Relevant documents: 9th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, 11th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, in moving this Motion, I shall speak also to the next Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper—that is, on the Representation of the People (Ballot Paper) Regulations 2013. I shall speak to those regulations first. They amend provisions in the parliamentary elections rules set out in the Representation of the People Act 1983 to make changes to the form of the ballot paper used at UK parliamentary elections. The changes are being made following widespread consultation involving a programme of public user testing and are designed to make the ballot paper clearer and easier to use, and so to facilitate electors’ engagement with the voting process. The intention is for the new ballot paper to take effect for any UK parliamentary by-election arising on or after 22 May 2014, and for the general election scheduled for May 2015.

The draft regulations are being made as part of a wider exercise that will see the introduction through secondary legislation of a set of up-to-date forms and notices to be used by voters—including poll cards, postal voting statements and the ballot paper—at UK parliamentary, European parliamentary and local elections and also other statutory elections and referendums, which are intended to make the voting process more accessible. This reflects moves in recent years to modernise the appearance of forms used by voters at newly created polls, such as the police and crime commissioner elections and the 2011 referendum on the parliamentary voting system.

The revised material—including the ballot paper we are considering today—has been produced following a programme of public user testing and consultation with the Electoral Commission, the Association of Electoral Administrators, territorial offices, electoral services suppliers and with Scope. The regulations make changes to the layout of the ballot paper. They do this, first, by, for example, providing for the left alignment of candidates’ details, which reflects the way in which people read English—that is, left to right. Secondly, they introduce a requirement for the ballot paper to display the title of the election. The title of the election must also be printed inside a box to give it prominence. This helps to remind people which election they are voting in, which is particularly important if the election is combined with another poll.

Thirdly, the regulations replace the traditional grid pattern on the ballot paper with horizontal rules that allow the voting box to float freely between them. This will help electors with certain eyesight problems who found the old design difficult to use. Additionally, the regulations require a final bold horizontal rule to be added to delineate strongly the end of the ballot paper. The regulations amend the directions for the printing of the ballot paper to support the changes being made to the layout, wording and design of the ballot paper.

As I have indicated, the Government have consulted the Electoral Commission and other stakeholders over the new ballot paper. Further, in line with what has become established practice for new voting forms, the ballot paper has been subject to public user testing. Representative samples of members of the public in different parts of the UK have therefore had the opportunity to input their views on the clarity and accessibility of the current ballot paper and the proposed new ballot paper, and to influence the proposed changes. This resulted, for example, in the pictorial depiction of the cross to be put by the voter in the box next to their choice of candidate to be more prominent in the guidance to voters on the ballot paper. The Electoral Commission, stakeholders and members of the public involved in the user testing have all been supportive of the proposed changes, agreeing that they are an improvement on the current design.

The Government are committed to supporting electors’ participation in elections and effective electoral administration. The proposed changes to the form of the ballot paper provided by the regulations will make it clearer and easier to use and therefore will improve electors’ experience of voting in UK parliamentary elections. I commend the regulations to the Committee.

I turn now to the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums (Civil Sanctions) (Amendment) Order 2013. The Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 places a number of requirements on parties and officers. These include the provision of quarterly donation reports and annual accounts. The Political Parties and Elections Act 2009 provided the Electoral Commission with new investigatory and civil sanction powers. These powers were introduced to remedy the practical difficulties the Electoral Commission found with the limited investigative and sanctioning powers provided for by the 2000 Act. The Electoral Commission has been able to use these additional powers since 2010. They include fixed or variable monetary penalties, compliance notices and stop notices. The Political Parties, Elections and Referendums (Civil Sanctions) (Amendment) Order 2013 makes two technical amendments to this regime. These changes have been requested by the Electoral Commission in the light of its experience of using these civil sanctions.

First, the order allows the Electoral Commission to impose a fixed monetary penalty or discretionary requirements on a registered political party and similar bodies in circumstances where a party office holder or responsible person has committed a prescribed offence. The Electoral Commission has highlighted a concern that it is unable to sanction a party for breach where an individual has committed an offence; only the individual. In certain circumstances it is more appropriate to sanction the party, for example, where the individuals responsible for compliance are frequently changed or where the breach arises from the individual following a party policy.

Secondly, the Electoral Commission will be able to recover a non-compliance penalty in England and Wales as though it was payable under a court order. This means that if such a penalty is unpaid, the Electoral Commission does not need to make a claim in the courts in order to enforce payment. Instead, it can proceed straight to taking enforcement action as though it had already obtained a judgment following such a claim. Presently, this power is available to the Electoral Commission for various financial penalties under the civil sanctions regime, but not in relation to non-compliance penalties, which the order seeks to rectify.

The Electoral Commission has discussed these changes with all the political parties, which have raised no concerns. The Government have consulted the Electoral Commission on the draft order, which responded on 3 June 2013 to say that it is content that the drafting achieves the policy objectives set out in the Explanatory Note. I beg to move.

[Lord Maxton (Lab)]

My Lords, I will be brief. I welcome the order and the regulations because any changes that make it easier for people to vote are to be welcomed. However, we live in an electronic age, we no longer live in a paper age, and we certainly do not live in an age where we use a pencil. As I said in an earlier debate, the last place where an adult actually uses a pencil will be when they put a cross on a ballot paper. Even golfers will have turned to electronic means to keep their scores rather than recording them on a piece of paper. Surely it is time to wake up to the fact that our younger generation, who we are concerned to get involved in the political process, are moving further and further away from us in terms of how we carry on our democracy. This building is an example of how far behind the times we are in that we still practise our democracy in a building that is so out of date, being 18th or 19th century in its design.

If we are going to involve younger people, not only do we have to educate them, we have to change our democracy so that it takes them into account. They now use electronic means to do a variety of different things, as do some elderly people such as me, and use all forms of electronic devices. Why on earth are we not moving, rapidly, towards electronic voting and using ID cards—which this Government of course stopped—or smart card technology in order to ensure that the right people vote and the register is automatic? If we had some form of smart card, anybody could simply turn up and vote anywhere—eventually, even at home, by putting their card into their computer or their finger on their iPad, or whatever it might be, to prove who they are and then voting.

That would be quite possible these days and it should be part of the process. I hope that the Minister, having put these regulations through, will go away and at least start to think about where we go next.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I thank noble Lords for those comments. I am always extremely happy to listen to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, on why we should become electronic in every single way. I am sorry that he did not read his speech from his iPad. I would have liked to see that. I should declare that I have recently acquired an iPad and am taking advantage of the offer made by a number of noble Lords to assist us in learning how to deal with its quirks. I look forward to being helped by the noble Lord’s noble friend Lord Knight of Weymouth who has offered to assist me in this regard.

As the noble Lord knows, I am very sympathetic to his approach. The question of identity assurance is, of course, the key to all this. The Cabinet Office is discussing with the individual privacy lobby—if I may put it that way—the whole question of how we move forward on identity assurance. We will be bringing forward a draft data sharing Bill in January for discussion and, I stress, pre-legislative scrutiny. At that point there will be plenty for the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, to get his teeth and his iPad into, and we will take it further forward. With the move towards individual electoral registration, we have made it possible to register electronically. That is a step in the right direction. However, as we all understand, the identity assurance issue is very important.

[Lord Maxton]

At the moment, we can do this electronically, but we can confirm only. Is this a new way of registering? Am I correct in thinking that you can now register online?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That is my understanding. I will write and contradict myself if I discover that I am mistaken. Listening to the noble Lord, I recalled that at each Liberal Democrat party conference we sing the Land Song during which we all wave papers and sing, “Why should we be beggars with the ballot in our hand?”. It would not be quite the same if we were waving our iPhones. There is something tactile about the old-style ballot.

As regards the Welsh version, bilingual forms will be brought forward in due course before the polls in 2014. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, understands the subtle differences between “soon”, “in due course”, and “in good time”. The political parties have been made aware of the proposed changes to the ballot paper and other forms. We understand that Scope represented a number of disabled bodies, so we have consulted widely with those who have particular difficulties in this regard.

I hope that I have answered all the questions on these SIs. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, raised a number of wily issues about another Bill, which she and I need to discuss in the Corridor before we move to Committee stage. I have no doubt that we will have plenty of opportunities to discuss the question she raised over the next few weeks and months.

Motion agreed.