Fresh calls for lobbying reform

23 April 2014

Australia's rules for lobbyists, which the UK has chosen to copy, are set to be reformed in the wake of yet more lobbying scandals. 

Prime Minister Tony Abbott is said to be 'deeply concerned' about the continuing behaviour of officials and former MPs in his Liberal Party as they try to covertly influence government decisions outside of the rules. In recent weeks, an official inquiry has exposed evidence of murky political ­influence-peddling in the party.

As a consequence, Australia's weak transparency regulations for lobbyists have come under scrutiny. Currently, only lobbyists-for-hire working on behalf of third party clients are required to declare their existence on a public register. Lobbyists working in-house for corporations are exempt from the rules. 

This is the model register of lobbyists adopted by the UK government earlier this year. It will require that only a tiny fraction of lobbyists sign up. As one former Australian politician says of this system: 'What you've got covered is the tip of the iceberg.'

'Chairmen of boards, boards of directors, CEOs, directors of government relations for any Australian company can walk in and out of any Australian parliament unrecorded and unregulated.'

The UK government has been warned that scandals involving lobbyists will continue to dog politics unless robust transparency rules are put in place. Yet, it is determined to follow the weak system adopted by Australia, a system now undergoing urgent reform. 

“We need to bite the bullet and get this process done and dusted," Liberal party member and long-term advocate for party reform, John Ruddick, told the Guardian.

The UK government seems intent on taking the same road, one that inevitably leads to more scandals, resignations and damage to the reputation of politics. 

Labour commits to tougher rules for lobbyists

4 April 2014

Labour has pledged to repeal the Lobbying Act if it gets into power. This is welcome news. The 'dog's breakfast' of a law is not fit-for-purpose and must be rewritten.

The Lobbying Act, which was passed by the Coalition in January this year, purports to introduce new transparency rules for lobbyists. The statutory register of lobbyists contained in the Act, however, is a fake. It will not allow the public to see who is lobbying the government. 

Ed Miliband has now committed Labour to introducing a more robust register. Sensibly, Labour's register would cover all lobbyists. The Coalition's covers only a small fraction of the industry. It remains to be seen, however, whether the opposition would require lobbyists to reveal enough information to allow us to know who is lobbying whom in government, what they are seeking to influence, whether that's fracking regulations, NHS contracts, or more tax breaks for multi-nationals. The current register, as laid out in the Lobbying Act, would reveal none of this. It is merely a list of (some) lobbying companies and their clients. 

A robust register of lobbyists that is fit-for-purpose must: 

• Cover all lobbyists, including: those working in-house, whether in a corporation, a trade union, a charity or a trade body; and all lobbyists-for-hire, whether working for a lobbying agency, a law firm, an accountancy firm, in a management consultancy or a think tank. 
   
• Require lobbyists to reveal sufficient information, namely: who is lobbying and for whom; what they are lobbying for; whom they are lobbying in government; and how much they are spending to influence government. 
   
• Be financed by the public purse. We know from other countries that have robust transparency rules for lobbyists, that the costs associated with operating a register are not significant. Transparency in policy-making is the responsibility of the state, and should not be financed by the industry.

The government must now own up to the fact that its new rules for lobbyists are a sham. Everyone knows they are a sham (including the commercial lobbying industry). Any more lobbying scandals in the run up to the general election will expose them for what they are. 

Lobbying: it will come back to bite them

29 January 2014

The government's proposed register of lobbyists is set to become law, as the controversial Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill passed through the Lords last night. 

The register of lobbyists that will now be introduced will not open lobbying as promised by the coalition in May 2010. As the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency has said all along, the government's register is a sham. A fake. It will not allow the public to see who is influencing our politicians. It merely allows the government to tick a box.

As the graphics below show, the government's register fails in two key ways. First, it covers barely any lobbyists, requiring only those working as lobbyists-for-hire who meet ministers (or permanent secretaries) to register. All in-house lobbyists working inside banks, energy firms, payday loan lenders, alcohol and tobacco companies etc are exempt, as are corporate lobbyists in business lobby groups like the CBI, as is anyone who doesn't lobby a minister directly, which is the majority.

Second, it will reveal nothing of what or whom they are seeking to influence. Lobbyists in those agencies that have direct contact with ministers will be required to list merely their clients. There will be no record of dealings with special advisers, civil servants or regulators; no information on what they are seeking to influence or what deals are being done; nor how much money is being spent to sway government. 

The government's decision to pretend to open up lobbying will come back to bite them. Lobbyists are a permanent feature in British politics. They are not going away and neither will the widespread feeling that their private interests are being favoured over the public interest.

This new law will do nothing to open up decision-making and restore trust. It is an exercise in time-wasting. 

Only a tiny minority of lobbyists will be covered by the new law

This minority will only be required to disclose minimal information on their lobbying

Broken promise to 'sort out' secret corporate lobbying

Statement from the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency on part 1 of the Lobbying Bill

22 January 2014
 

The government's register of lobbyists being yanked through Parliament will do nothing to expose the £2bn influence industry that is embedded in our political system. 

Today ministers rejected even minor improvements put forward by the Lords to the Lobbying Bill. Crucially, the government has ignored pleas to include lobbying of ministerial special advisers (as a trigger for registration). This is to wilfully ignore the central role these advisers play in the lives of lobbyists. 

The government has shown itself to be deaf to the legitimate concerns people have over 'secret corporate lobbying', as David Cameron described it in opposition. The panicked way the bill is being rushed through Parliament also reveals the government's contempt for Parliamentary process and public debate. 

The bill does nothing to expose big money corporate lobbying, but it will muzzle public interest campaign groups. You couldn't make it up. 

Regulate all of us!

Commercial lobbyists overwhelmingly think that they should be regulated, according to a poll published today by lobbyists' trade body the Public Relations Consultants Association. 

Ninety one per cent of the industry polled thought that the proposed register of lobbyists should include all lobbyists, regardless of whether they work for an agency or in-house. 

The government, in its wisdom, disagrees. The register it is introducing, which could compete its journey through Parliament in a matter of days, excludes all in-house lobbyists and even some working in agencies. 

Which is why, according to the survey, only four per cent of lobbyists believe the government’s lobbying bill will significantly increase the transparency of the industry.

Lobbying: a roundup of the week

17 January 2014
 

Westminster’s failed attempt to open up lobbying continues

The Lobbying Bill, working its way through the Lords, remains a dog’s breakfast, despite efforts by some peers to improve it. 

Monday’s session in the House of Lords created the potential for a tiny tweak to the Bill. One of the major loopholes in the government’s Bill was made marginally smaller when peers voted through an amendment that would require lobbyists who meet with ministerial special advisers (SpAds) to register their lobbying.  

As it is currently drafted, only lobbying of ministers and permanent secretaries would trigger registration, which as any commercial lobbyist will confirm, is seldom the case. It remains to be seen whether the government will accept this minor change to the Bill. 

Regardless,  the register of lobbyists proposed in the Bill remains bogus. It will not allow us to see who is influencing our politicians and for what, whether that’s a tax break, more privatisation or fighting against public health measures. As shadow cabinet office minister, Baroness Hayter remarked this week: 'It introduces a register of lobbyists so limited that it is not worthy of the name and might actually make things worse.'

Scotland: the threat of a good example?

Meanwhile the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and others campaigning for a register have given evidence this week to Members of the Scottish Parliament conducting an inquiry into the need for a register at Holyrood. Commercial lobbyists in Scotland were also given the opportunity to present their case.

Downplaying their role in influencing the decisions of government, representatives of the lobbying industry insisted their role was merely to ‘inform’ politicians’ decisions. No mention was made of the massive, persuasive campaigns orchestrated by lobbyists to shift government thinking.   

A representative from the trade body, the Association of Professional Political Consultants, Illiam Costain McCade, did suggest, however, that commercial lobbyists would be willing to reveal more information on their lobbying activity, namely their interactions with politicians. He told the inquiry that lobbyists in the APPC would be willing to publicly declare more than just who is lobbying, but also who they’re meeting in government and what was discussed. Previously, the lobbying body has agreed only to reveal the names of lobbyists and their clients, information that is useless for anyone trying to find out about lobbyists’ dealings with politicians. This is a welcome step forward. 

The Scottish inquiry comes on the back of a commitment in the summer by the Scottish government to introduce a bill on Lobbying Transparency within this session of the Scottish Parliament, after Labour MSP Neil Findlay’s private members’ bill got cross-party support in Edinburgh. 

Lobbying exposed

Finally, looking forward to this programme from the BBC on Monday: Declared Interests: the business of politics (Radio 4, 8pm). It promises to expose ‘the ways in which outside interests try to gain access to the corridors of power without anyone breaking the rules.’ Timely stuff.  

Tell the UK government to open up secret corporate lobbying

9 December 2013
 

Sign our petition calling on the government to rewrite the lobbying Bill and introduce a proper register of lobbyists in the UK.

Launched by the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and the Open Knowledge Foundation, the petition demands the UK government gives citizens a proper register of lobbyists in the UK.

As we’ve written about before, the lobbying register proposed in the Lobbying Bill (which is currently going through parliament) only covers a small portion of the UK’s £2 billion influence industry. We think this needs to change and call on the government to rewrite the bill to address this. The full text of the petition is copied below, and you can sign up here.

If you agree that citizens should be able to see who is lobbying government and which decisions they are trying to influence, please sign and share the petition with friends and colleagues:
 

• http://you.38degrees.org.uk/p/secretlobbying

STOP SECRET CORPORATE LOBBYING

The government is poised to let corporate lobbyists off the hook: we have just weeks to stop them. Having been slammed for proposals that unfairly cracked down on charities, the government is now trying to pass a watered down ‘register of lobbyists’, which would do nothing to stop the malign influence of big corporations over our political system.
 

For a truly democratic result, all lobbyists must be obliged to say who they’re meeting, what decisions they are seeking to influence and how much they are spending. If the government is serious about rebuilding public trust, it must rewrite its proposals for a lobbying register now, and keep its promise to citizens.

Why is this important?

The UK has a £2 billion commercial lobbying industry – the third largest in the world – that is embedded in our political system. But the government’s current proposal would exclude the vast majority of commercial lobbyists and give the rest an easy ride. The new rules would apply to as little as 5% of all lobbying activity, and those they did affect would hardly have to provide any information at all.

David Cameron and Nick Clegg promised they would run the ‘the most open and transparent government in the world’ but they have yet to deliver on their promise to shine a light on secret corporate lobbying, which advances the interests of the few at the expense of the many. This is their last chance to propose a register that covers all lobbyists and includes meaningful information about their activities.

This petition is coordinated by the Open Knowledge Foundation and the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and endorsed by: Access Info, the Campaign for Freedom of Information, Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, Corporate Europe Observatory, Corporate Watch, Greenpeace, Spinwatch, the Sunlight Foundation, Unlock Democracy and War on Want. If your organisation would like to endorse the petition, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

The next big scandal: Cameron's 'lobbying' speech

13 Nov 2013

According to reports, the Conservative Party has just deleted its entire archive of speeches (and press releases) from 2000 until May 2010 from its website. This, it says, is to 'improve the experience for visitors' to its website. Others have accused it of pressing delete 'to make people forget about its broken promises and failures'.

This latter explanation appears to be backed up by evidence that the Tories have also deliberately deleted all trace of these past commitments and statements from the Wayback Archive, the main internet library, through which old webpages can be accessed. The pages can still be retrieved, however, from the British Library's own archive of the site, apparently. 

 
So, in the interests of providing access to this material, here is the relevant section from David Cameron's momentous speech on lobbying - 'The Next Big Scandal' - just ahead of the 2010 general election:

David Cameron, February 2010: 'Rebuilding Trust in Politics'

"Now we all know that expenses has dominated politics for the last year. But if anyone thinks that cleaning up politics means dealing with this alone and then forgetting about it, they are wrong. Because there is another big issue that we can no longer ignore.
 

It is the next big scandal waiting to happen. It’s an issue that crosses party lines and has tainted our politics for too long, an issue that exposes the far-too-cosy relationship between politics, government, business and money.

I’m talking about lobbying – and we all know how it works. The lunches, the hospitality, the quiet word in your ear, the ex-ministers and ex-advisors for hire, helping big business find the right way to get its way. In this party, we believe in competition, not cronyism. We believe in market economics, not crony capitalism. So we must be the party that sorts all this out.

Now, I want to be clear: it’s not just big business that gets involved in lobbying. Charities and other organisations, including trade unions, do it too. What’s more, when it's open and transparent, when people know who is meeting who, for what reason and with what outcome, lobbying is perfectly reasonable.

It’s important that businesses, charities and other organisations feel they can make sure their voice is heard. And indeed, lobbying often makes for better, more workable, legislation. But I believe that it is increasingly clear that lobbying in this country is getting out of control.

Today it is a £2 billion industry that has a huge presence in Parliament. The Hansard Society has estimated that some MPs are approached over one hundred times a week by lobbyists. Much of the time this happens covertly.

We don’t know who is meeting whom. We don’t know whether any favours are being exchanged. We don’t know which outside interests are wielding unhealthy influence. This isn’t a minor issue with minor consequences. Commercial interests - not to mention government contracts - worth hundreds of billions of pounds are potentially at stake.

I believe that secret corporate lobbying, like the expenses scandal, goes to the heart of why people are so fed up with politics. It arouses people’s worst fears and suspicions about how our political system works, with money buying power, power fishing for money and a cosy club at the top making decisions in their own interest.

We can’t go on like this. I believe it’s time we shone the light of transparency on lobbying in our country and forced our politics to come clean about who is buying power and influence.

Politics should belong to people, not big business or big unions, and we need to sort this out. So if we win the election, we will take a lead on this issue by making sure that ex-ministers are not allowed to use their contacts and knowledge - gained while being paid by the public to serve the public - for their own private gain."

Key myths surrounding the register of lobbyists

6 November 2013

Yesterday's Lords debate on the Lobbying Bill included a statement by Lord Wallace for the government on why it is refusing to introduce a more comprehensive register of lobbyists. He said: 
 

'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 it is funded by the public purse and costs the equivalent of £3 million a year.'
 

Except, when we asked the Canadian official in charge how much its system cost, we were told that an annual budget of just C$1.1 million – £707,000 – is spent on its administration. Who is telling the truth?
 

This seems like a good time to lay out some of the central myths surrounding the lobbying register. Lobbying is a persuasive industry and many myths have been put forward by government (and the industry) as to why a robust register of lobbyists would be impossible or undesirable.
 


Myth 1: It is impossible to define who is a lobbyist

Read more: Key myths surrounding the register of lobbyists

A bonfire has been built under this Bill. Will the government set fire to it?

5 November 2013

The Lobbying Bill, or at least part of it, has been parked for a rethink.

Thanks to determined opposition to the bill, the government has been forced to pause another piece of legislation (this one, coincidentally, also steered by Andrew Lansley).

Ministers will now go away for up to six weeks to reflect and consult on its plans to place gagging orders on charities and civil society groups.

However, the rest of the bill will apparently proceed as intended. This means that the proposals for a register of lobbyists, in Part I of the bill, will not be rethought. This despite the wide opposition they have also drawn.

Criticism of the proposals has come from Parliament, including the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in the Commons and the House of Lords Constitution Committee. More recently, the heads of 11 trade unions added their weight to a campaign initiated by the commercial lobbying industry - a strange coalition, but then this is a strange bill – calling on the proposed lobbying register to include all lobbyists, not just the handful the government is proposing.

Rarely has a piece of legislation been so unpopular. The government has tuned in to critics from the charity sector. It must now show good sense and pause to reflect on its plans for a register of lobbyists.