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

Debate between Stephen Doughty and Graham Allen

Wednesday 22nd January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Allen]

Given that the Government want to get the Bill implemented in order to influence the expenditure limits in the next general election, I do not maintain that it should be held over for months and months. Hon. Members may wish to read the report from my Select Committee, which we produced last night, starting at 6.30 pm, and which I delivered by e-mail to every Member just before midnight. If the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues are prepared to say, “These guys are serious, and we should at least have a look at their report”, I suggest that we should have at least two days to read the papers and to table measured amendments.

Thanks to the great assistance of the Clerks, I was able to table several amendments on behalf of my Committee last night, but I imagine that few hon. Members know their way around the Order Paper well enough to do that. The Table Office was open until 10 this morning, which means about two working hours for colleagues to read the report, listen to the Government, read the proceedings in the other place and decide whether to support an all-party view—as expressed in the report—and to table, as some have managed to do, their own amendments. The way we conduct our business helps us to get better law. It means that what we produce will stand the test of time, rather than need reviewing or stitching back together when the gaps appear over the next few years.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I add my thanks to those of hon. Members who have thanked my hon. Friend for the work that he and his Committee have done overnight. As a relatively new Member, I find it an extraordinary abuse of process for the Bill to be conducted in this way—I read the report at 12.15 last night, and I tried to do it justice, given the effort that had been made.

Like many other hon. Members, I struggled to balance two or three other responsibilities this morning, including attending Committees, with doing justice to this extraordinary Bill. Does my hon. Friend agree that we cannot go on in this way?

[Mr Allen]

Indeed. All parties are now, for the first time in a fixed-term Parliament, entering a prolonged discussion of policy and undertaking a manifesto process that will no longer take just 28 days and be decided only by party leaders. We will all have a chance to influence the process. If hon. Members care about Parliament, whatever their party, and want to make it relevant to the electorate, who hold us in contempt, I urge them to propose ways in which the House can make a contribution to our democratic process. We would all be stronger for that and start to win back some of the reputation that we have lost in recent years.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Allen]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a sound point, and I hope that he and the House will forgive me, but it is important that people outside the House should understand why we do not have a full day to discuss this and why we have not had two days to consider the key issues. Those people who wish to campaign on the Bill did not know how to respond or how to contact their Member of Parliament. They did not know what the issues might be.

I came into the Chamber rather hurriedly this morning because, even minutes before I was due to get to my feet to speak, I did not know which matters might be votable today. I did not know which amendments might be discussed. I have been in this place for 26 years, and I know my way round the Order Paper, but even experienced parliamentarians did not know exactly how today’s business would be conducted, or how the amendments might be grouped. Mr Speaker, you have had a discussion about that within the past couple of hours. How is a constituent of the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood), for example, who cares about their charity and wants to get hold of the right hon. Gentleman, supposed to know what is going on? They might have wanted to ask him to listen to their points and to make a case on behalf of the local charity that they represent.

However, I shall take on board the right hon. Gentleman’s chiding, in order to pre-empt your own, Mr Speaker. I shall move on to the specific matter of the amendments that I tabled on behalf of my all-party Select Committee late yesterday, not long before the debate began today. Our main amendment to this part of the Bill, on lobbying, is amendment (a). It deals with the question of who is being lobbied. Our original report found that it was ludicrous not to include senior civil servants among those who should declare clearly, honestly and transparently that they had been lobbied.

I remember the debates on this matter well; members of all parties contributed to them. I will not go over that ground again, other than to say that a number of us—myself included—said that people never sought to lobby a permanent secretary. We noted that although getting in to see a permanent secretary involved a feat of genius, it would actually not do much good. That was because the permanent secretary would take the matter to the director-general who, in turn, would go to the desk officer. If people want to get something done—on nursery care, for example, or on cycle lanes—they do not go to the permanent secretary. They certainly do not go to them if big money is involved. They of course go to senior civil servants, which my Select Committee defined as being at grade 5 and above, and in our view those senior civil servants should be included in the group that is required to make a declaration in respect of being lobbied. That is self-evident and sensible. Excluding the very people who are lobbied the most in the Government will render the Bill an absolute laughing stock. We all know the truth of this matter.

[Stephen Doughty]

I completely concur with my hon. Friend’s point. Speaking as a former special adviser and a lobbyist for a charity, I can confirm that senior civil servants are exactly the kind of people that I was speaking to, although even special advisers get very little time with permanent secretaries. My hon. Friend is making his point well, and I hope that the Government are listening to what he is saying.

[Mr Allen]

A number of expert witnesses from the lobbying business came to see the Committee, at our request, and I will read a quote from just one. The Whitehouse Consultancy, a public affairs company, said:

“Our clients…want to develop relationships with other officials and policymakers, such as those at Director-General level or below”.

That view was repeated over and over again; I have a list here, but I will not bore you by reading it into the record, Mr Speaker. My hon. Friend makes a succinct point: those people—the doers; the people who are going to write those background papers and feed a yes or no recommendation to a Minister—perhaps even above Ministers, and certainly above permanent secretaries, should be first on the list.