Parliamentary Lobbying
Debate between Andrew Smith and Paul Flynn(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Paul Flynn
One MP who gave evidence to the Committee was taking £70,000 a year from a commercial company. [Interruption.] Wait a minute. His offence related to the fact that the commercial company had interests in his Department. He said that jobs were going in his constituency and he was doing his job as a constituency MP. The answer the Committee members gave was that we all do our jobs as constituency MPs by fighting for jobs in our constituency, but we do not have to take a £70,000 bung for doing so, which is what the public look at.
Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate and, as ever, I am following his remarks with close interest. Is not transparency the greatest safeguard? Do we not therefore need not only a register of lobbyists and an open record of contact between the Government and lobbyists, but full disclosure on the funding of lobbyists?
Paul Flynn
That is exactly what we need, and it was the main recommendation of the Select Committee.
I hope that the Minister will tell us whether he has had the same treatment as his Labour predecessor. Has he been approached by the lobbying organisations explaining how difficult reform would be, how difficult it is to reach a definition of “lobbyists”, and how reform will be so unfair to charities and trade unions? Will he tell us what he has declined to tell that splendid organisation, SpinWatch, which is investigating these matters—how many times and on what dates he has been lobbied, and what messages were conveyed to him? It looks as though the lobbyists have succeeded again by lobbying the Government to delay any activity or any sign of reform.