Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill
Debate between Lady Hermon and Graham Allen(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Allen
I do not pretend to speak for all those people—and I certainly do not speak for the friends of the badgers, of whom I think the hon. Gentleman is the patron, if not the patron saint. These people are making their own representations through our democratic process—such as it has been—on this Bill, and they are making noise. They are saying the way we are doing this is not satisfactory.
Lady Hermon
I endorse the comments that have just been made and to say this is, perhaps, the piece of proposed legislation on which I have received the most correspondence. In Northern Ireland—and the other regions of Scotland and Wales—the threshold has for some reason been reduced by more than half to £2,000 for no good reason. No justification has been given for that at all. A number of cross-community organisations in Northern Ireland are exceedingly concerned about the impact on them and how they will be able to make representations to candidates in the run-up to any of the elections that are coming up in Northern Ireland.
Mr Allen
The hon. Lady makes a clear and succinct point. The sad fact is that this provision is a mystery; clause 27 has no antecedents and no pedigree, and we are not sure why it is in the Bill. Nobody has asked for a reduction in the interaction. Many colleagues throughout the House want a greater interaction—dare I cite the Prime Minister talking about the big society? I welcomed those words, because I would like to see that. This provision does not welcome the big society; it shrinks the big society to a slightly smaller big society that feels unloved, chilled, unable to get its point of view over and unable to articulate the things that drive it to be in existence.
My reason for moving amendment 102 and asking colleagues in all parts of the House to support it is, again, to send a signal to the Government that they should think again on the issue—this is not the end of the process. They should go away, take good advice, perhaps even listen to this House and perhaps even set up an arrangement whereby further evidence can be taken. My Committee, which is all-party, and its unanimous report might be able to help in that, and we are keen to find a way forward that arrives at a consensus. The only way in which we will get that pause, and get the Government to have another think and a little more of a listen to all the people who are writing to us today on this issue—people whose credentials are unimpeachable—is by voting down clause 27 tonight. The only way to do that is to support amendment 102 and I urge all colleagues to do so.
Tom Brake
Third parties may campaign in a relevant election up to a particular threshold without being subject to any electoral controls or restrictions on their activities. The Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 sets the threshold for third parties campaigning in England at £10,000, and at £5,000 for third parties campaigning in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Third parties may exceed these thresholds only if they register with the Electoral Commission as “recognised third parties”. They are then permitted to incur “controlled expenditure”, as it is defined by clause 26 of this Bill
Upon registration, third parties also become subject to spending and donations controls for the duration of the regulated period of the relevant election. The Bill’s intention is to ensure greater transparency of campaign finance, and so provides that a third party must register with the Electoral Commission as a “recognised third party” if it wishes to spend more than the revised threshold in the Bill—£5,000 in England or £2,000 in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. That will have the effect that more third parties will account for their expenditure and provide details of the donations they receive. It is not clear to me what the Opposition’s concerns about this provision are. It is about providing more transparency so that people can see who is campaigning locally in support of a party or candidates.
Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill
Debate between Lady Hermon and Graham Allen(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Lady Hermon
I would never lead an hon. Member astray. The hon. Gentleman has raised a serious issue to do with the transparency of lobbying. Those are the words in the Bill: transparency of lobbying. Therefore, it is essential that the subject matter of the lobbyist group that meets the Minister or senior civil servant, talks to them, phones or whatever is noted. Clause 4(2)(g) says that the entry must include
“such other information as may be specified in regulations.”
Therefore, I would like the Leader of the House to confirm tonight that there is provision in the Bill for the subject matter of the lobbying to be required by regulation. If he were to give the House that assurance tonight, would that influence the hon. Gentleman’s decision on whether to press amendment 100 this evening?
Mr Allen
I do not want to incur the wrath of the Deputy Speaker, so I had better not say anything on clause 4(2)(g) as my amendment relates to clause 5. I do not intend to press my amendment to a Division, however. What I wish to do is engage the Leader of the House on an issue on which there is both concern and a lot of constructive activity. If he chooses to tap into it, there is a lot of constructive endeavour out there seeking to get this right for all the people who are concerned about lobbying. On that basis I am putting a number of items on the record in the hope that, either here or in the other place, we examine the following very difficult question: if we are going to register lobbying, do we register the subject too, and if so, how do we best do that for the sake both of convenience and of the transparency and accountability on which this whole Bill rests? I am sure that it is not beyond the wit of my Select Committee, and that it is absolutely not beyond the wit of Government, to come up with something, put it on the Order Paper in the second Chamber and find a way forward that allows everybody to make progress.
We are not talking about a detailed note and a minute and so forth—I do not imagine the hon. Lady is talking about that either. Alexandra Runswick, the director of Unlock Democracy, is one of the people who gave evidence to us. She said:
“I think that misrepresents the nature of the information we are looking for in the register. We are not expecting a transcript of the meeting, but what policy area it is that is being lobbied on. There are already individual MPs who publish their diaries and say, for example, ‘I met Unlock Democracy about the Lobbying Bill.’ That is the level of information that we are looking at—the policy that is being lobbied about, not the exact information that was shared with the person whom you are lobbying.”
That strikes me as eminently reasonable, but if it is not in those exact words something that the Government feel they can adopt, perhaps it is something they feel they can work with, so what we produce from these Houses is not a laughing stock to people out there who say, “There they go again; the old boys in the club have stitched it up again. Look at what they’ve done. This isn’t going to tackle lobbying. We’ve seen that it’s not tackling some of the key lobbying issues that got this subject into the public domain, and now look at it! They’re not even going to tell us what they want to talk about in two words.”
That does not do a service to the House or to this Bill. Lobbyists and those being lobbied are also very clear that that does not help them in what most of them do, which is a fair day’s honest work trying to do their job effectively. They understand that this looks as though there is something to hide, when in fact, as in most walks of life, 99.9% of them are just doing a fair day’s work.
Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill
Debate between Lady Hermon and Graham Allen(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Allen
Give me the time to undertake accurate pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill and I will give the right hon. Gentleman his answer.
What we should be doing in this place is adding to the rich tapestry of our democracy, not emaciating, frightening, chilling or putting a shadow over it. We should not be having people who fear engaging with their politicians and fear being part of our electoral process. We should have people who say, “We are welcome. Parliament is passing something that says, ‘Come in, we want to hear you. You are the big society. We want to listen to what you have to say.’” Are we saying that today? No, we are not, as we can see when we look at clause 27. This House should be sending out a much more positive message to those organisations, and to everybody else who wants to support and develop our democracy.
Lady Hermon
It is kind of the hon. Gentleman to take an intervention, and I appreciate his patience. He has recognised that clause 27 has particular implications for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. May I urge him to use his persuasive powers on the Deputy Leader of the House and his colleagues on the Front Bench to ensure that when they amend clause 26, as they have agreed to do, and, in line with it, clause 27, they consult not only the Opposition, including him, but representatives from the regions?
Mr Allen
I would love to use what little persuasive powers I have on the Deputy Leader of the House and the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith), who has responsibility for constitutional affairs. I think they would be receptive, because they are affable and approachable, and they have always been understanding of what the House needs. Unfortunately, the people we need to persuade are not here. They are not listening to our debates, but we need to make sure that that message gets to them. Inconvenient as it may be when we get e-mails and letters from the big organisations I mentioned, that is their cry for help. They are requesting us to get that message over not to the people on the Front Bench at the moment, but to people a little deeper in the No. 10 and Whitehall machine. Those people must start to listen.
What amazes me is that we started off more than 16 or 17 months ago with a lobbying Bill. That was what we were looking at, and it was what my Select Committee was looking at for more than a year. We were pottering along, not very urgently, as it looked like the steam had gone out of it. There was a lot of stuff going on around the election period, but there was no great rush. When we completed our consideration, some members of our Committee—former members who are in the Chamber today—had moved on to greater things. Being on my Select Committee is a great way of getting promotion—he says, trying to fill one or two vacancies. Those people had moved on to other things before the Government got around to answering the report; it took them more than a year. The report was about lobbying.
Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill
Debate between Lady Hermon and Graham Allen(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Lady Hermon
It is a lovely surprise to be called to speak so early in this debate. First, I must say that I am absolutely delighted that the Leader of the House is present, particularly as amendments 136 and 138 in my name and those of other hon. Members were prompted by his comments on Second Reading, when he said, with great enthusiasm:
“To ensure the independence of the system, the register will be administered and enforced by an independent registrar of consultant lobbyists”—[Official Report, 3 September 2013; Vol. 567, c. 176.]
His use of the phrases “independent registrar” and “independence of the system” fascinated me because I read the Bill very carefully from beginning to end and those phrases never appear in it. Instead, the Bill states that the registrar is to be appointed by the Minister—a term which, of course, includes the Secretary of State—but, it is stated in paragraph 3(6) of schedule 2, the poor old registrar can also be dismissed by the Minister
“if the Minister is satisfied that the Registrar is unable, unwilling or unfit to perform the functions of the office.”
So the Minister does not even have to have reasonable cause to dismiss the registrar. He does not have to have reasonable suspicion or reasonable belief. Under the Bill as currently drafted, the Minister appoints the registrar and can dismiss the registrar if he is “satisfied” of those things. That is far too weak.
We must remember that the powers of the registrar as set up under this Bill are quite extensive. More to the point, my constituents have lobbied me—written to me; “lobbied” is almost a bad word—on many topics, and it was not fair for the Leader of the House or for the Deputy Leader of the House to suggest on Second Reading that we were all alarmed because of trade union scaremongering. That is not the case. I have not received a single letter or e-mail from a trade union, but I have received them from charities, which want reassurance that the registrar will be independent of Government. The registrar will have the power to keep and publish the register. They must keep the register up to date, they have the power to monitor compliance with obligations, and they can issue information notices if they believe that consultant lobbyists have not registered.
There are significant penalties, including criminal conviction and civil penalties for non-compliance with the terms and conditions of part 1. It is essential for public confidence in the new register that, as the Leader of the House promised on Second Reading, the new system is independent of Government and the registrar enjoys independence. The amendments that I have tabled would require the Minister to allow the registrar to act independently. There must be an assurance in the Bill that the functions of the registrar will be exercised independently of any other person.
The Leader of the House suggested on Second Reading that the register would be funded by the lobbying industry via a subscription charge. Again, I urge the coalition Government to heed the lack of confidence engendered in the general public because of lobbying scandals. It is incumbent on all of us to do all that we can to restore that confidence. For the Leader of the House to suggest that the lobbying industry would pay for the register through a subscription is not helpful. My amendments would ensure that the independence of the registrar and of the register is guaranteed, and I hope that the Government will look at them sympathetically.
Mr Allen
I strongly support the points that have just been made, and I am happy to add my name to the amendments.
We should return to the point that I made briefly about pre-legislative scrutiny. It would have saved a great deal of grief if we had undertaken such scrutiny, and it is incumbent on all of us to consider how we do so in future, so that we avoid the mistakes and so that the Government—I do not mean just this Government but the one before and the one to come—listen to Parliament. As a result of that sentiment and the fact that Parliament has a contribution to make, the report that members of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee hurriedly put together after having returned early from the recess to take evidence made it clear that the Standing Orders of the House should be amended to say:
“No public Bill shall be presented unless a) a draft of the Bill has received pre-legislative scrutiny by a Committee of the House or a joint Committee of both Houses, or b) it has been certified by the Speaker as a Bill that requires immediate scrutiny and pre-legislative scrutiny would be inexpedient.”
Let us try to avoid, for the sake of all future Governments, getting into this sort of shambolic mess—a mess whereby people push through a Bill, do not discuss it with Parliament or with any of the relevant organisations before releasing it into the public and parliamentary domain a day before the recess, where it is then debated on the Floor of the House a day after our return from recess.
Mr Allen
Sir Roger, my hon. Friend on the Front Bench deserves a severe reprimand for trying to mislead me again into talking about matters not covered by the present group of amendments. It is a matter of great regret that that issue is another one that, as he points out, will not be discussed. This is not to make a point for or against either Front-Bench team, but Members have a right to voice an opinion on key aspects of legislation. That will not now take place. I do not point a finger at anybody. I merely say that that is not an acceptable way to run a sweet shop, let alone a Parliament.
To describe the heart of what we are considering in the present group, I shall quote extensively from the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee report, which states:
“There was a significant degree of agreement that the additional information should include disclosure of the subject matter of the lobbying, and some agreement around the idea of including the purpose of the lobbying and a list of who had been lobbied.”
I talked earlier about an evidence base. However hurriedly it took place in the time frame we had to put our evidence base together, a wide variety of organisations, which are listed in the report, submitted evidence, quotations from which are included. Spinwatch said that the information required under the Bill was “wholly insufficient”, adding
“For a register to meaningfully allow public scrutiny of lobbying, it must include information from lobbyists on their interactions with government. In other words: whom they are meeting and what issues they are discussing. Members of the public wanting to see which outside organisations are exerting influence on a particular policy area, for example, will be unable to do so under this proposal.”
We also had a joint submission from three eminent academics, Dr Hogan, Professor Murphy and Dr Chari, who argued for the inclusion in the register of
“the subject matter and purpose of the lobbying”.
The Royal College of Midwives said:
“It is hard to see how the information requested will add greatly to the transparency of the lobbying process…Would it be too burdensome, at the very least, to ask for the register also to spell out the issues on which clients are seeking to lobby (e.g. improved conditions for farm animals), and the nature of the lobbying that has taken place (e.g. an all-party group on road hauliers established)?”
The oft-quoted tonight Iain Anderson, the deputy chair of APPC, supported publishing information about the purpose and subject matter of lobbying, but suggested that this could be done most effectively and efficiently when details of ministerial and official meetings were published rather than in the register. That is a perfectly acceptable matter for the Committee to explore, but time will not allow us to do so, although we could make a serious contribution to the development of the Bill.
The Committee on Standards in Public Life also argued that information on the subject matter could be included, either on the register or in the details that were published of meetings. The difficulty with including the information in the data about ministerial and official meetings is that if the definition of lobbying is expanded to encompass contact with the rest of the civil service, special advisers and others who do not necessarily publish details of their meetings, such information would necessarily be quite patchy.
Lady Hermon
That was said with great enthusiasm. I thank the hon. Gentleman for gladly giving way. That is very kind indeed.
Can the hon. Gentleman throw light on one particular aspect that I am genuinely extremely concerned about? We are talking here about oral and written communications with Ministers and permanent secretaries, described by the Minister as the key decision makers. Did the hon. Gentleman’s Committee and the witnesses comment on or even criticise the fact that “permanent secretary” is defined to include the Director of Public of Prosecutions? What we are aiming to look at here is what goes on behind the scenes of Government. The DPP should not be included. He is independent of Government and his independence should be guaranteed.
Mr Allen
Witnesses did indeed express great concern about the narrowness of the provision whereby those who can be regarded as falling into the category of being lobbied include Ministers and permanent secretaries only. There was nothing precisely about the DPP that I can immediately bring to mind, but I will go back over the evidence and make sure that I drop a line to the hon. Lady should there be anything along those lines.
Lady Hermon
I am not testing the hon. Gentleman’s memory at all. I am sure that his recall is clear and that he does not need to go back over the evidence. But does he himself think that it is proper that the DPP should be included within the definition of a permanent secretary?
Mr Allen
I do not feel competent to give an accurate and helpful answer to the hon. Lady’s point. She and those with a different view should participate in pre-legislative scrutiny and put their arguments and reasons to the Government, who then make a choice—they will execute, they will decide. At the moment, there is execution and decision without participation and consultation; it is blindfolded government not using Parliament as the effective partner it should be.
Alexandra Runswick, the director of Unlock Democracy, made points about the depth of the information required. Again, we go for black or white—either people want everything or do not want anything, but the truth is that we should have reasonable amounts of information that everyone feels is appropriate. Having discussed the issue with all parts of the lobbying industry and those interested in it, we got to a position of consensus. For example, Unlock Democracy said:
“We are not expecting a transcript of the meeting, but what policy area it is that is being lobbied on. There are already individual MPs who publish their diaries and say, for example, ‘I met Unlock Democracy about the Lobbying Bill.’ That is the level of information that we are looking at—the policy that is being lobbied about, not the exact information that was shared with the person whom you are lobbying.”
That led my Select Committee to table amendment 56, which we felt was appropriate, proportionate and helpful to the Government. Yet we are discussing it at the fag end of the sitting and many other issues will not even get an airing.
We suggested that the information that the register requires to be listed should be expanded to include the subject matter and purpose of lobbying when that is not already clear from a company’s name. To be clear, that should not involve the disclosure of detailed information about the content of the meeting, just a broad outline of the subject matter and intended outcome. For example, “Subject matter—lobbying; purpose—change the Transparency of Lobbying Bill.”
We also suggested in our report that there should be a financial threshold above which companies are required to provide information about the subject matter and purpose of lobbying. That is why we framed, as a Select Committee, an amendment that we felt was reasonable and helpful to the House and the Government.
I will conclude my remarks, as others wish to contribute. At the end of the day, we are trying to improve the Bill. It is a sad fact that if the House of Commons is not treated properly and if the process is cavalier and one in which Parliament’s view is neglected or not even regarded with respect, we sell the pass. When the public want an effectively lobbying Bill, we say, “We’re not even capable of discussing most of the groups of amendments on the agenda tonight.” As a House of Commons, we pass our responsibility over to the other place. That is not satisfactory to anyone in the House of any political description who feels that their role is to hold the Government to account and scrutinise legislation. If we do not do the job, the second Chamber will fill the vacuum. Any self-respecting Member of Parliament will feel that that is not a place where we should be.
Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill
Debate between Lady Hermon and Graham Allen(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)
I have the great privilege of being Chair of the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform, elected by Members of the whole House—not put on by the Whips or anybody else—to speak on behalf of Members throughout the House and try to give them a service in that policy field. Despite not having received great co-operation from the Government, we intend to fulfil that service, and on Thursday morning we will equip every Member of the House with a full set of the evidence we have received since putting out a call for evidence when we were told this Bill was coming. In addition to our report, we will also propose on an all-party basis a series of amendments to make the Bill workable.
We are doing that because—amazingly—if we want a lobbying Bill, it is possible to build one across the House. One has to work pretty hard to get Spinwatch on the one hand, and lobbying associations on the other, to come together and say, “We can do this,” but we have interviewed as witnesses people from those organisations and they have told us that by working with a special Committee of the House for several months we can produce a Bill to address the issues about which we are all concerned. That is partly the problem. I agreed with the Prime Minister when he said that the next big scandal may well be lobbying, so let us get in there now, sort it out and be pre-emptive. I am afraid, however, that the Bill does not tackle that problem.
I agree with the coalition parties and the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Members who pulled together the coalition agreement and said, “We should have something on the statute book about lobbying.” We are trying to fall out when it is easier to agree, and my Committee will produce the basis on which such agreement can happen, whether or not it is taken up.
Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)
May I make a suggestion for one of the amendments to be considered by the hon. Gentleman’s Committee? It relates to the “independence” of the registrar. The Leader of the House mentioned that word at least twice. I may need to go to Specsavers, but I have read the Bill and I cannot find a guarantee of the independence of the registrar.