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

Debate between Mark Durkan and Peter Luff

Monday 9th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mark Durkan]

I do. At risk of receiving a caution from the Chair, I must agree that my hon. Friend is contrasting the inadequate provisions in part 1 of the Bill with the egregious and excessive provisions in part 2. Many of us suspect that those charities, voluntary organisations and public advocacy campaign groups that will find themselves in line of danger under part 2 are being used as a human shield to protect those that should have been targeted in part 1 but have deliberately been given free licence and allowed to escape. This part of the Bill, particularly in the light of some of the Government amendments, will say to those who might be sitting on the next big scandal, “Carry on regardless. Carry on happily. We don’t want to touch you, and we have deliberately framed this legislation so that it will not touch you.”

[Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

As a former lobbyist and an honorary fellow of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, I have to say that it is actually worse than that. Unless the Government accept amendment 52, which would make it necessary for management consultancies, lawyers and accountant to register, lobbying will become much less transparent as a direct result of the Bill.

[Mark Durkan]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very pertinent point.

This is why so many people are dissatisfied with the Bill, including bona fide, honest-to-goodness, up-front lobbyists who want to be able to conduct their business on good terms. They need to know that the register exists to ensure that they can conduct their business not only on good terms but on equal terms with anyone else who is competing to provide similar services, peddling similar influence and perhaps having an even greater effect on Government decisions on policy, on the framing of legislation, on programmes or on projects.

I hope that we will come to the amendments that try to address other problems relating to the Bill, but I am speaking in support of those Opposition amendments that are properly seeking to change the definitions relating to consultant lobbying. My own amendment 161 would ensure that the Bill covered more people involved in commercial lobbying who provide either full-time or significant part-time lobbying services on behalf of what the Government call non-lobbying or mainly non-lobbying businesses, and that they too would need to register. Such a provision would protect those who meet those lobbyists, be they MPs, members of Select Committees, Ministers, Parliamentary Private Secretaries, permanent secretaries or senior civil servants. I would like all of them to be scoped into the Bill, rather than it simply focusing on Ministers and permanent secretaries. They would all be better protected if the legislation were better cast.

I am sorry that the Government have scrambled the Bill in this way. If we do not take the time now to get it right, many people will have to pay the price later. Some people will deservedly find themselves caught up in a scandal, but others who do not deserve it will also find themselves in that predicament, because we are deliberately leaving twilight zones in which people will bump into things that they did not realise were there. People might be told that certain things are okay under the legislation—just as people were told that certain things were okay under the expenses rules—only for a different assessment to be made following public scrutiny. We must be vigilant about the standards we are setting for ourselves and others. That means that we need to support the Opposition amendments, and particularly those tabled by the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee.

I fully respect the points made by the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) about new clause 5, but I have problems with some of the details of the proposal, and not least with its implications for charities and other bodies. It also sticks to the narrow definition of consultant lobbying, even if it completely recasts that definition by what it subsequently goes on to propose. I understand that she tabled the new clause to make a point, and she has made a valid point very well. She has indicated that she will not press the new clause to a Division, and I will not press my amendment to a vote either.