Westminster Hall
Thursday 7 January 2010
[Mr. Joe Benton in the Chair]
Lobbying (Whitehall)
[Relevant documents: First Report of the Public Administration Committee on Lobbying: Access and Influence in Whitehall, HC 36-I, Session 2008-09, and the Government Response, HC 1058, Session 2008-09.]
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.-(Angela E. Smith.)
2.30 pm
Dr. Tony Wright (Cannock Chase) (Lab): I wish I could say that the House is clearly galvanised by this issue, but sadly it is not. I also suspect that many of us feel the need to depart this place as soon as we can, to reach further parts of the kingdom.
None the less, it is a great pleasure to introduce on behalf of the Public Administration Committee our report, "Lobbying: Access and Influence in Whitehall", to which is attached the Government response, and a further report that the Committee produced in December 2009. We first reported in January 2009 and the Government, for a variety of reasons, were not able to reply to that report until October 2009. It will be noticed that that is rather longer than the normal two-month reply period, but we understood some of the reasons for that, not least that Ministers changed during that time, which is always a difficulty. I just want to say to my right hon. Friend the Minister that I know that today is her birthday and I feel particularly bad about detaining her, when I know that she wants to go out and celebrate this great day. So I will try not to detain her too long. Then, in December 2009, the Committee produced a further report commenting on the Government's reply and taking the issue forward.
I want to start by explaining why the Committee thought that it was a good idea to look at lobbying. It was not because we were in the middle of a scandal; sometimes, that is the reason why we decide to look at a particular issue. In this case, there was not a pressing contemporary scandal, but we thought that there was an issue that needed attending to.
I pay particular tribute here to my hon. Friend the Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan), who I see has now been promoted to honorary Parliamentary Private Secretary for the afternoon. As he just said to me, it is the highest accolade of his political career and I must say that it is well-deserved and indeed long overdue. He had been concerned for some time about a particular issue, which was the failure of multi-client consultancies to disclose their clients. He talked to me about that issue, I then talked to the Committee about it and we thought that it was an issue worth exploring. However, we thought that the way to do so was to have a more general look at the lobbying industry itself, which had not been done in modern times. It had not really been done at all inside Parliament for 15 years, and at that time it had been done only in relation to Parliament itself and not in relation to Government. So we wanted to take a step
back and look at what lobbying was, how it organised itself, its interaction with Government and whether there were issues that required attention.
Now we all know that lobbying makes the world go round. We all lobby. As Members of Parliament, we are both lobbied all the time and we lobby all the time. We are vigorous lobbyists on behalf of all the interests and causes in our constituencies and indeed on behalf of many interests and causes beyond our constituencies. Everybody- every interest and cause in the land-lobbies, either directly or indirectly. We know that Prince Charles lobbies and we know that he does so regularly and assiduously.
I am in favour of all this lobbying. I think that good lobbying helps to make good government, for two reasons. The first is that people in a democracy are entitled to express their views, to have their interests recognised and to press those views and interests on public policy and on government. The second is that, on the other side, the Government benefit hugely from their contact with the world of lobbying, because they need to know the things that lobbyists know. The Government need to have the detailed knowledge that comes from knowing every area of life and activity.
Mr. Gordon Prentice (Pendle) (Lab): My Friend mentioned Prince Charles. Does he believe, as I do, that the Prince's lobbying of Government Departments should be put in the public domain?
Dr. Wright: I am actually quite ambivalent about that. I say that as a great man for openness, freedom of information and so on. However, if I was Prince Charles-there is a thought-and the heir to the throne and I thought that I had a role of advising, encouraging and warning, which is part of what a monarchy does, then I would probably want to exercise that role, certainly not in areas that were party contentious but over a wide terrain. I would write vigorously to Ministers about all the things that I was concerned with and I would probably write less vigorously if I thought that those letters were going to be published. That is the reason for my ambivalence. The easy answer would be to say, "Yes, of course, they should be published". However, the older I get, the more old-fashioned I get, and I quite like the idea of monarchs writing to Prime Ministers, Prime Ministers writing to monarchs and all that kind of thing, but no doubt that is just a sign of ageing.
Anyway, lobbying is intrinsically a good and necessary thing. So why should we be concerned with it? Why on earth should we investigate it and inquire into it? Of course, it is because lobbying carries with it, as well as intrinsic goods, some intrinsic dangers too. Those dangers are pretty obvious; if some people have privileged access to power, policy and Government, that creates disadvantages for other people. So, as far as possible, we need to know who is lobbying whom about what. If we do not know that, of course people will draw all kinds of conclusions about the policy process. When Governments take decisions, unless we know something about the process by which those decisions have been taken openly, it can simply be asserted that they have been taken because certain interests have had their way with a Government in a manner that is not open and that has not been challenged.
So, on that basis, we set out a number of principles that we thought should inform lobbying. We said in our original report that we needed measures that would do three things:
"to promote ethical behaviour by lobbyists, with the prospect of sanctions if rules are broken...to ensure that the process of lobbying takes place in as public a way as possible, subject to the maximum reasonable degree of transparency...and to make it harder for politicians and public servants to use the information and contacts they have built up in office as an inducement to other potential employers."
That third and last principle relates to the issue of the so-called "revolving door".
In pursuing those principles, which I think would receive wide assent, we wanted to take an approach that would be effective in ensuring that the principles were actually safeguarded in some serious way. However, we also wanted to approach this subject in a way that was proportionate. We did not want to set up a bureaucratic structure that would be completely out of kilter with the nature of the problem. Those were the two aims that we brought to our approach.
We wanted to consider those who lobby and those who are lobbied. To take up a point that I mentioned at the beginning, we decided that we were concerned not just with the industry, and certainly not just with multi-client firms, but with all those who lobby regularly. Most lobbying is done by in-house lobbyists, not firms. I am always interested, by the way, by people who do not want to describe themselves as what they are. Lobbyists usually like to describe themselves not as lobbyists but as something else, usually people concerned with public affairs or Government relations. We know that they are lobbyists. If they think that lobbying is a good thing, they should say that they are lobbyists. They should set up lobbying companies and advertise themselves as lobbyists. They should not be coy about it.
We wanted to consider the whole activity of lobbying, wherever it came from, and not single out certain bits of the industry. In relation to those who lobby, although this was not our primary concern, we began to consider the industry. There are other issues that I will not touch on about whether it is worth spending large amounts of money on lobbyists to do a variety of jobs. Some people who spoke to us certainly did not think so, but that is not our concern.
We were struck by the fact that there was no single and effective system of regulation for the lobbying industry. There are three major industry associations or bodies that, although they all claim to have principles in common, are run in different ways. We know that industry is important to Government, but it does not have a single regulator to maintain ethical standards, so when issues blow up, the ability to deal with them depends on whether someone belongs to a particular association and whether it has standards that bite and can be enforced.
We took the view that we needed an umbrella regulator for the industry to approach the issue from the side of ethical regulation. The Government agreed with us in their reply, saying that they want a "single and credible" system of regulation-self-regulation, if possible-for the industry. We will discuss whether the industry is making progress towards a single, effective regulator.
What I have said so far relates to those who lobby, but our prime concern was those who are lobbied within the policy process and within Government and what we should be doing about them. We discussed the need for records of meetings between those who lobby and those who are lobbied, and we considered the provisions for declaring outside gifts and hospitality in relation to Ministers and civil servants.
Our central proposal involved a register of lobbying activity. In our report-I will not repeat it now, but it is worth reading for those who are interested-we have set down what principles we think should inform such a register and described what we think its content should be. We seek to show that it can be done both effectively and proportionately, and we give examples of different jurisdictions, showing what registers are like in the United States, Australia, Canada and parts of Europe. By the way, that indicates that the need to move towards a registration system is becoming common in many parts of the world. It is becoming common in Commonwealth and European systems and at the European level, and the United States has detailed provisions. One of the first acts of the new Administration in the United States was to introduce more effective lobbying regulation.
However, we did not want simply to copy those systems. We thought it important to devise a scheme appropriate for our political system. For example, when we went to the United States, we talked to lobbyists and those who were lobbied, and most of us returned with a feeling that the scale, volume and detail of what was legislated for there were not appropriate for our system. We went to a lobbying firm and met the lawyer whom it employed, whose job was to circumvent all the provisions to regulate who people can have a cup of coffee with and what contacts they can make. Due to the role of campaign finance in the United States, it is more pressing to regulate any contact between politicians and money people and outside lobbyists. Our system here is rather different. That is the point about combining effectiveness with proportionality.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton, North) (Lab): Is not the problem in Britain twofold, more so than in perhaps any other polity? We have a higher degree of secrecy in government and more centralisation of power. Therefore, we might need lobbying to be more exposed and made more public and transparent than many other countries.
Dr. Wright: That certainly has been the traditional picture here. Fortunately, things are improving. They have improved enormously as a result of freedom of information legislation, which this Government introduced and in which our Committee played a major role, if my hon. Friend remembers.
Kelvin Hopkins: My hon. Friend did so personally.
Dr. Wright: Well, there is a dark secret that I try not to tell our colleagues.
Kelvin Hopkins: We will not tell anyone.
Dr. Wright:
We can just say it quietly to each other here. If my hon. Friend remembers, when the draft Freedom of Information Bill came before our Committee 10 years or so ago, we noticed that it did not include Parliament. It was put to us that that was a strange
omission, and we recommended that Parliament should be included. The Government, in the shape of the current Justice Secretary, took that on board, and without dissent or demur, the House of Commons agreed to insert Parliament into the Act.
Mr. Gordon Prentice: So you are responsible.
Dr. Wright: We are responsible. I pause to reflect on the implications.
Things have changed. The Government took steps, and they have taken more steps since our report on lobbying, to make transparency requirements relating to Ministers' interests. They have agreed to produce quarterly online records of meetings between outside organisations and Ministers. We would like them to go further still-we say that they should include civil servants, too-but progress is being made, so I do not want my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins) to feel too downhearted. His life has not been entirely in vain.
Where are we now, all that having been done? The industry has responded. It is surprising, because the industry was concerned about our activities last year. Indeed, in some respects, they were preoccupied with them. What was striking was the industry's broad acceptance-I will not go as far as to say welcome-of the need to make changes. A meeting was convened in the House of Commons last year by the industry. I thought that we were being invited to be castigated and was surprised when major industry figures lined up to say they accepted that change had to come. They wanted to progress with the kind of approach that we had outlined.
Since then, the industry has taken steps to set up a public affairs council and move towards a single industry regulator. We have serious reservations about how serious that process is and how far it has gone. We reproduced a letter that came to the Select Committee from the person presiding over that initiative, from which it is not clear that the industry is moving towards a universal, compulsory system that brings in the whole industry. Unless that is done, we will not have the kind of regulatory body that we have for other areas of life. Anything less than that will not be satisfactory.
The Government response, although it took some time to come, was broadly positive. The Government signalled that they wanted the industry to move in the direction that we had suggested:
"The Government urges the industry to embrace the opportunity provided by the Committee's Report."
That was a pretty clear steer to the industry that it was not just a parliamentary Committee that had popped up and said these things, but that there was a general feeling in the Government that the time had come to put the lobbying industry on a different basis.
The Government thought that could be done on a voluntary basis. We were not so sure, although we wanted to give the industry time to do so and suggested a time frame of six months. We would now like to know what the Government think about the process so far. Do they think that it has met the requirements that we set out? We are doubtful about that. Some serious nudging may be required.
I have welcomed the Government's extension of the transparency arrangements for hospitality and gifts to Ministers and on their private interests, but there is room to go further. There could be published records of the meetings between outside groups and civil servants, as there are for Ministers. Civil servants' private interests could also be published. We welcome the online quarterly reporting of meetings between Ministers and outside groups.
The outstanding issue is that of a register and whether it should be introduced on a voluntary or statutory, mandatory basis. Our report made it clear that unless the register was statutory and mandatory, it simply would not be effective. That was the overwhelming tenor of the evidence that we received from people in this country and those who drew on overseas experience.
The Government reply is rather gnomic on that point:
"The Government agrees that any system of regulation, whether it is voluntary self-regulation or statutory regulation, requires a register of lobbyists to ensure that lobbying activity is transparent. The Government agrees with most of the elements for such a register outlined by the Committee."
With great respect to the Minister, that evades the issue of whether a register must be required, as opposed to voluntary. The volume of evidence on that point is compelling. In the last few days, we have received representations from the Law Society and others stating that they could operate only with a statutory register because of the requirement that solicitors have under the regulatory body for that profession.
Kelvin Hopkins: I do not know whether my hon. Friend has received the same intimations as I have. Before the Government response was published, there were hints that they might go further than they did and be much more positive. It is suggested that they rowed back from that. Did he receive any such intimations? Does he know whether the Government rowed back and, if so, for what reasons?
Dr. Wright: As always, my hon. Friend knows far more about the inner workings of government than I do. I yield to his superior knowledge of such matters. I know only what I am told, which is what the Government write in their responses.
I have tried to describe briefly how the Select Committee got into this issue and the work that we did. I give huge thanks to the members of the Select Committee for the work that they put in on this and every other inquiry. We are a persistent and durable Committee. I also express huge thanks to our Clerk, Steven Mark, and his team for their work in assisting us. Many things are wrong with Parliament-some of us spend a lot of time talking about them-but one thing that is not wrong is the service that we get from our officials, which is exemplary. [Hon. Members: "Hear, hear!"] Indeed, it is almost too good for us at times. That service was indispensable on this report.
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |