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

Debate between Martin Caton and Helen Goodman

Monday 9th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend is making his case rumbustiously, but I just wonder whether I could bring him back to the problems of definition and the limitations of this Bill by giving a couple of examples. I spent 16 years as a Treasury civil servant, and we were subject to highly formalised lobbying every year before the Budget from the Scotch Whisky Association, the tobacco people, the cider people, the motor manufacturers and so forth, and in the case of the UK offshore operators, we had a whole joint committee between the industry and the civil service in order to work out the north sea fiscal regime—

[The Temporary Chair (Mr Martin Caton)]

Order. That was a very long intervention.