Armed Forces (Prevention of Discrimination) Bill
Debate between Philip Davies and Thomas Docherty(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak—I hope relatively briefly—about an important issue. As I am sure hon. Members are aware, this is my second attempt to change the law on the protection our society offers to members of the armed services, including the reserves and veterans, as well as their families.
I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), to her place. To begin on a consensual note, she has a very hard act to follow in her role, because her predecessor, the Minister for the Armed Forces, cares deeply about armed forces and their welfare. I think that the whole House congratulates him on his new role. I hope that the hon. Lady and I will continue the debate in the same manner that he and I finished it at approximately this time last year.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
We are all delighted to see the Minister in her place. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman is slightly surprised, as I am, to see her there, because from my reading of it, the Bill appears to be more a criminal justice one than an armed forces one. What are his thoughts on which Minister should respond to this debate?
Thomas Docherty
I think that the hon. Gentleman is on occasion slightly closer to the Government than I am, so he is better placed to speculate about which Minister should reply. Perhaps the hon. Lady will pick up that point when she speaks.
I hope that the House will unite on the issue. I very much welcome the constructive way in which hon. Members on both sides of the House have approached the subject not just today, but during the past 18 months. Of course there are times when we have different perspectives on the future of our armed forces and on how they should best be deployed and equipped. However, I hope that the whole House will agree on one point—that we owe a special duty to the brave men and women who risk their lives defending our freedoms and our rights. I very much welcome the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), to his place, which is a welcome sign of my party’s commitment on this important issue. I think that the whole House recognises that we owe a very special debt to those who risk their lives abroad to defend our freedoms in ensuring that they receive, as they deserve, the full shield of Government protection when they return home.
I will not repeat what I said last year, but I want to talk briefly about the first two clauses. Clause 1, which would amend the Criminal Justice Act 2003—the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) has already mentioned criminal justice—simply says that an assault on a member of the armed forces or their family that is motivated by their service to our country should be treated as an aggravated offence.
The House will recall that the noble Lord Ashcroft, who I suspect is in the other place—I understand that a minor issue is being considered at that end of the Building—carried out a survey, with the support of the Ministry of Defence, of some 9,000 serving personnel across the three armed forces in 2012. Some quite astonishing and, dare I say, horrific figures came out of that survey. About 5% of members of our armed forces reported that they or their family had suffered physical or attempted physical assault during the previous five years, while 18% or 19% of them reported that they had been the victim of verbal abuse in that period. I am sure we can all think of the type of abuse that, regrettably, is hurled by a mindless minority at members of our armed forces, and I will cite one example that my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling might also refer to.
A few years ago the Royal Anglian regiment came back, I think in 2010, for its homecoming parade, and an extremist organisation called Muslims Against Crusades organised an attack on that parade, which I think crossed the line between free speech and intimidation. The survey by Lord Ashcroft also reported that almost one in five members of the armed forces have been refused service in shops, pubs and clubs for being members of the armed forces, and clause 2 of the Bill covers that issue.
Philip Davies
The hon. Gentleman said earlier, if I heard him correctly, that he was trying to extend the law to cover somebody who was, or was presumed to be, a service person in the course of their duties—or along those lines. I wonder where the Bill refers to that, because it states simply
“the victim being, or being presumed to be, a service person,”
without any qualification. He seemed to be adding a qualification to his remarks that I cannot see in the Bill, and I wonder whether he can clarify that.
Thomas Docherty
I expect the hon. Gentleman was wistfully thinking about all the times he has supported his Government, and he therefore misheard what I said earlier on. This measure is not about people who are carrying out their duties, but about those who are members of the armed forces. If he will indulge me, I will explain that briefly as I do not wish to detain the House.
Thomas Docherty
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and the House will want to pay tribute to his work championing the armed forces in Scotland. He served on the Defence Committee for a number of years, and has taken a keen interest in his local barracks at Glencorse.
It might help if I give a couple of examples of what we are talking about.
Thomas Docherty
The hon. Gentleman has tempted me, so I will let him intervene once more.
Philip Davies
The hon. Gentleman was right about what he said earlier, and the qualification he referred to—which I mistook—is someone being a member of the armed forces. Nobody disagrees with any of that sentiment, but I wonder where the Bill refers specifically to the fact that the abuse is happening because someone is a member of the armed forces. I cannot see that in the Bill. I understand that that is its purpose, but I cannot see where it states that specifically.
Thomas Docherty
If the hon. Gentleman looks, for example, at clause 1(a), (b), (c) and indeed (d), “service person” is mentioned repeatedly. I want to make a bit of progress because otherwise there is a danger that we could be perceived as trying to slow the progress of this important Bill.
We all saw with horror the events that took place in summer last year in Woolwich, and I am sure the whole House was in a state of revulsion at what happened. That is an extreme example, but later in the summer there was a lot of media interest in the Bill, and the BBC made a series of case studies as part of a day covering the issue of discrimination against the armed forces. The number of anecdotal examples that service personnel had suffered—although not on that same extreme level—was astonishing.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
It is a genuine pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), who knows full well that I am a big fan of his. He made it clear today why I am such a fan, because he set out his case reasonably clearly and in a way that many of us could subscribe to. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty), who is a regular on a Friday. He pursues his agenda with vigour, and has done the same again today, and I do not doubt the sincerity of the case he makes. The shadow Minister made one of the most pertinent points when he said this was not about our regard for the armed forces. It goes without saying that we are all strong supporters of the armed forces, on both sides of the House; I am not aware of anybody who is not. The issue is whether the Bill is the right way to proceed.
Philip Davies
Yes, I know Bradford West. It is my neighbouring constituency. I have not heard even the hon. Member for Bradford West (George Galloway) say anything against our armed forces. He might disagree with the conflicts in which they participate, but I have not heard my parliamentary neighbour say anything adverse about them—but that is for him to deal with.
In this debate, I generally come down on the side of my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), who I thought made an excellent speech, as he always does in this place. He made an excellent case and one to which I wholeheartedly subscribe. My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), who I rarely disagree with, and the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife said several times that the Bill was important in order to send a signal. My hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border rightly picked up on that point. Yes, it is often important to send a signal about things we consider important, either individually or collectively, and that is often the purpose of our debates. What I question, and what I think my hon. Friend questions, is whether that is a sensible basis on which to pass a law. That is my issue with the Bill.
Thomas Docherty
It might help if I clarify this point. Sending a signal is a valuable part of the Bill, but the simple hard facts, which the MOD has not been able to dispute, is that from Lord Ashcroft’s studies and our experiences as MPs, we know that one in four members of our armed forces has reported, through the study, that they have suffered discrimination. With that level of discrimination, it is not a matter of symbolism, but a need that requires action.
Philip Davies
I am not sure I totally follow the hon. Gentleman’s logic. Of course we want to send our support to the armed forces; we all agree with that. For goodness’ sake, they put their lives on the line to defend our freedoms. I have no doubt either that members of the armed forces—he gave examples—have faced discrimination for being members of the armed forces. I do not quibble with that. Personally, I think that any attack on or discrimination against service personnel based simply on their being service personnel should be and would be wholeheartedly condemned by every right-thinking person not only in the House but in the country. Of course it would. I do not think anybody is disputing that for one minute.
If we follow the hon. Gentleman’s logic, however, we could name all sorts of categories of people who might say that their category has faced discrimination on many occasions, and it goes way beyond the already protected characteristics that my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border set out. I know lots of people who would say they had been discriminated against in the workplace because they were bald, fat or had ginger hair, or for all sorts of other reasons. I am sure that the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife accepts that many people in those categories have said that from time to time they have faced discrimination that has been totally unfair, without merit and irrational. I am not sure whether he is suggesting that everybody who comes along and says, “We have faced discrimination at some point in the past,” should have their characteristic protected. Surely even he would not want to go that far.
Thomas Docherty
Let me say first that I cannot imagine why anyone would ever discriminate against people with reddish hair, Madam Deputy Speaker—except, perhaps, out of jealousy.
If the hon. Gentleman can point to a category of people in which one in four has suffered physical or verbal assault or have been turned away from trade and sales outlets, I genuinely think that that should be looked into, but I suspect that he cannot name a single such category.
Philip Davies
I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman can prove beyond any doubt that people in any category have not been discriminated against. I suspect that no research has been done to ascertain whether people with the characteristics that I have mentioned have or have not experienced discrimination. It just so happens that the characteristic identified by him has been the subject of research by Lord Ashcroft—whose excellent polling activities I am sure we all welcome—and the hon. Gentleman knows about it for that reason. There may be other discrimination issues that we do not yet know about because no such polling has been carried out.
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend is entirely right. Indeed, I think that we could go somewhat further. We have probably all come across evidence of people working in jobcentres who have faced terrible abuse because they have had to turn someone down for a benefit. As I have said, we all appreciate the work done by our armed forces, but I struggle to understand why attacking someone for being a member of the armed forces—bad though that is—should necessarily be considered any worse than attacking someone simply for being a member of staff at a jobcentre who happened to implement a policy that he or she was employed to implement. Surely those attacks are equally unacceptable and equally unjustifiable.
Similarly, we hear of accident and emergency staff being subjected to terrible attacks and abuse on a regular basis, and I consider that to be as unacceptable and unjustifiable as any attack on someone simply for being a member of the armed forces. I cannot for the life of me understand why the hon. Gentleman wants to restrict himself to members of the armed forces. If he feels that a certain category of people should not be abused simply because of the role that they perform, surely he must want to extend that to those in all the other occupations I have mentioned. If he does not, I should like to know why. It seems to me that they, too, do a fantastic job in the public service, and should be recognised for that reason.
Thomas Docherty
I do not think that I need probe my own logic. My position is absolutely clear. I have established that there is a systemic problem: evidence provided, with the support of the Ministry of Defence, shows that one in four members of our armed forces has suffered physical or verbal assault, or other forms of discrimination. The MOD has yet to provide any evidence to refute that. As I said, it promised last year to undertake a study, but has so far failed to do so.
Philip Davies
We seem to be going round in circles, and I am trying to resist doing that, because I am sure we all want to hear from the Minister.
I have not yet heard anyone—including my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border—deny that people may well, on occasion, feel that they have been discriminated against or abused simply because of their membership of the armed forces. I have heard no one disagree with that premise as yet. The fact is, however—and this is what the hon. Gentleman does not seem to accept—that the same thing happens to plenty of other people simply as a consequence of their jobs. Staff in jobcentres, people who work in accident and emergency departments, and other public sector workers who do a fantastic job for the country should not suffer assaults and abuse either, and yet they do.
I do not want to start trying to decide which jobs are more important than others, because I do not think that would be particularly healthy. They are all crucial jobs. We all rely on the people who do those jobs, and, in my view, they all deserve equal protection before the law. For instance, I cannot think of anything that the hon. Gentleman has said that would not apply to police officers. They get terrible abuse simply for being police officers. I hear them being called all sorts of names that are totally unacceptable. The police do a fantastic job.
Where the law does apply specifically to the police is the special offence for an assault on a police constable in execution of his duty. I might be reasonably sympathetic to the hon. Gentleman’s case if he came along and said, “I think that what happens for the armed forces should mirror what happens for the police,” but he is not trying to bring in an equivalent measure. He is trying to bring in something completely different which has nothing to do with the execution of duties. It simply relates to the occupation of members of our armed forces.
My hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border touched on the point that there is a slight irony in the Bill and I want to highlight it. Clause 2, on the prohibition of discrimination, is designed to ensure that members of the armed forces are treated equally with everybody else in the country. It is a perfectly laudable aim that people should be treated equally. It is one that I agree with. However, clause 1 tries to ensure that members of the armed forces are not treated equally compared with everybody else, but that in some respects they should be treated differently from other people in the eyes of the law. I have always thought that an essential tenet of the law is that everybody is equal in the face of it. I think that should apply to victims as well as people who commit crimes. We should not be trying to separate out different categories of people. We should look at the offence committed and prosecute people based on the seriousness of the offence, and the victim should be treated equally whoever the victim happens to be, based on what happened to them. When we start trying to pick and choose and say attacks on one category of people are more serious than those on another, we are going down a dangerous road.
There are some exceptions; my hon. Friend touched on them. I particularly feel that attacks on people who have a disability are especially abhorrent for all sorts of reasons, but the main one is that they are often vulnerable people who are in no position to defend themselves. Cruelty to children can be put in a similar category. But these are all matters of individual viewpoint and down to our own values.
Beyond that, however, it becomes very difficult to decide which person is more important and which offence is more suitable simply based on the fact of who has been attacked as opposed to the nature of the offence.
Sittings of the House (22 March)
Debate between Philip Davies and Thomas Docherty(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Thomas Docherty
As ever, Mr Speaker, I know exactly where I am heading and I think I have placed my marker down on that point.
The Friday after the Budget, as colleagues on both sides of the House have mentioned, is normally a day for visiting our constituencies and for going to see our loved ones, our staff and our constituents. Over the past couple of years, I have attended a post-Budget seminar organised by a local accountancy firm, Thomson Cooper. It is always hugely informative and I am sure that many other colleagues take part in similar events on the Friday. I find Mr Andrew Croxford’s presentation extremely enlightening and often come back with nuggets of information that I am able to use in the following week’s Budget debates. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, judging from last year’s performance, could probably benefit from finding an accountancy firm in Cheshire that could do a similar exercise for him.
As a good parliamentarian, I will make every effort to be in the Chamber on the Friday to take part in the debate and I will therefore have the opportunity to take part in the post-Budget analysis. As my hon. Friend the shadow Leader of the House has pointed out, it will perhaps benefit everyone, including the Chancellor.
Philip Davies
Although I was persuaded by the case being made by my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), I am less persuaded by the case that the hon. Gentleman is making. These are the kind of decisions that people have to make. The hon. Gentleman does not have to be in the Chamber for the Budget debate on the Friday. If he has a better date somewhere else, he can make the decision to be somewhere else. The same applies when Parliament is recalled during recess, as people might well have things organised and they then have to make the choice about which is most important. Surely the same applies in this case.
Thomas Docherty
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He and I have shared quite a few Fridays over the past year and I must attest that the debates are extremely good. In fact, I would suggest that the quality of debate on Fridays is often of a higher standard than that of some of the other debates we have had in the past year.
The key point is that the Government announced the Friday sitting dates as long ago as last May. Some reference has been made to the fact that this motion was tabled in December, but the sitting Fridays were set out 10 months ago. At that point, the Leader of the House’s predecessor did not say that this Friday would be coming up. A number of colleagues will have made constituency plans and will have engagements that it will be difficult for them to break. For those who come from Belfast and elsewhere, travelling back to their constituencies on a Friday afternoon can be quite challenging. Anyone who has been to City airport or Heathrow knows how busy they can be. The fact is that the House will be sitting until 2.30 pm, and if our constituencies are outside the M25, it will become difficult to engage at all with our constituents on that Friday.
I also disagree with the logic of the Leader of the House when he states that the dates are published and cannot be changed. I am not yet aware that the Government have announced the date for the Queen’s Speech or for Prorogation. Someone who was not a parliamentarian or a knowledgeable member of the public might think, looking at the calendar, that once the House came back on 15 April it would sit right through until the recess on 21 May. I am probably not giving anything away if I say that we expect this Session to finish at the end of April, and there will then be a recess. The logic that the Leader of the House seems to have applied—that because dates have been published, those dates are fixed—falls when it is subjected to scrutiny.
The Leader of the House also referred to the fact that the Budget date was set for March in December. Given the Chancellor’s record on U-turns, we on the Opposition Benches were not entirely convinced that that would hold water; of course, the autumn statement took place in December. I know, Mr Speaker, that Buckinghamshire is a wonderful, delightful county and that every day must feel like a summer’s day in Buckinghamshire, but in Dunfermline and West Fife it is probably fair to say that 5 December certainly feels like we are into winter, rather than autumn. The Leader of the House should not labour the argument that the date was set and fixed several months ago. Perhaps he should reflect that the Chancellor would have more credibility on these dates if he once in a while stuck to what he said he was going to do.
A valid point was made about the House business committee. May I gently correct some of the assumptions made by Government Members? My understanding, having read the Wright report, is that the chair of the House business committee would be the Leader of the House. There is a fair possibility that the hon. Member for Kettering may receive a promotion in the near future, and he may become the Leader of the House, but my understanding is that he would have to be the Leader of the House in order to chair the House business committee.
Commercial Lobbyists (Registration and Code of Conduct) Bill
Debate between Philip Davies and Thomas Docherty(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Thomas Docherty
The Bill is simple enough, but I commend to the hon. Gentleman both the Public Administration Committee report and the Library note.
On the question of what a lobbyist is, I think we sometimes get things back to front. We have tended to try to define what a lobbyist is, rather than lobbying. For the purposes of the Bill, the groups of people and organisations we are trying to capture are those that are paid or receive financial recompense for carrying out this activity.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
Has the hon. Gentleman drawn any distinction between a small business that would naturally go to its local MP with any issue and a company, perhaps a multinational, with no links at all to that constituency?
Thomas Docherty
The hon. Gentleman is entirely right. If he will bear with me for a couple of moments, I will explain exactly how the Bill makes the distinction, and again I would commend to him the PASC report, which talks about that very issue.
A high-profile Bill on equal marriage is coming before the House next Tuesday. Like many Members on both sides of the House, I have received a number of letters from constituents and organisations about it. I will take one example. If my local parish priest were to write to me, either as a constituent or on behalf of his congregation, expressing a view either way, he would not be captured by this definition, because he would not be getting paid to undertake that activity. It would be in addition to his remunerated post. If, however, the Church of England, the Church of Scotland, the Roman Catholic Church or any other Church were to employ a public affairs officer to draft a letter or organise meetings, he or she would clearly be getting paid to organise, either directly or as an adviser, that lobbying activity.
Thomas Docherty
I have a delightful choice. I will give way to the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) first.
Thomas Docherty
I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that example. He will see that we talk about peers in later clauses. With his indulgence, I would like to return later to the issue of peers undertaking lobbying activities later. On the principle, however, if we were to leave the European Union, the pension of the Deputy Prime Minister, for example, as a former euro civil servant, would not be affected. In the same way, that consideration would probably not apply in the case that the hon. Gentleman raises.
Philip Davies
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will bear in mind the fact that EU pensions are forfeitable, unlike most other pensions. However, let me return to the point I raised initially. Where a managing director of a small business, perhaps in my constituency, took on a number of roles because of the nature of that business and one of them was explaining to the local Member of Parliament exactly what was necessary for the livelihood of his business, would that constitute lobbying for financial gain—it would clearly be in the financial interests of the company—and would it thereby be captured by the Bill?
Thomas Docherty
I am genuinely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that point. Perhaps I could present two separate examples and then he can tell me whether I have answered his question fully. If a local business person is the chairman or chairwoman of a local chamber of commerce that meets regularly on behalf of its members to lobby on issues of concern, they would not be covered by the Bill, nor should they be. However, if a Member of this House voluntarily or, as occasionally happens, involuntarily loses their seat and sets themselves up as a sole trader or limited company for the express purpose of being a lobbyist—like, I am sure, many Members, I have had the opportunity to meet former Members who are engaged in that profession—they would be covered by the Bill. The Association of Professional Political Consultants is the largest trade body for third-party lobbyists. A large number of its members are small businesses that are sole traders or perhaps employ only two or three people.
Thomas Docherty
The hon. Gentleman has made a significant point. I served as a lobbyist, both in-house and as a third-party consultant, for a number of years. He is right to suggest that someone could undertake what most people would define as lobbying activity on a part-time basis. For three years, I worked in the nuclear industry, for British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. My official title was press and public affairs officer, and, in effect ran BNFL’s operation in Scotland. I was responsible for working with the local community on a range of stakeholder issues, I drafted the press releases for the Chapelcross and Hunterston sites, and I looked after Sellafield’s inquiries in Scotland, which involved going to the Scottish Parliament. I also recall spending two or three wonderful days in the Western Isles making a presentation to the council on technetium discharges into the Irish sea.
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that someone can undertake lobbying activities without that being their sole purpose. Any relatively reasonable individual—I can think of no better description for the hon. Gentleman—who looked at a job description and saw lobbying activities among the core functions, or the outcome of lobbying as a measure related to pay, would draw a reasonable assumption from that.
I must remind the House that the definition I have used is the one used by the UK Public Affairs Council in its submission to the PASC inquiry on this subject. I have met representatives of a wide range of organisations, including the Association of Professional Political Consultants and Unlock Democracy, and they have been satisfied that the definition is suitably robust. The Bill tries to strike the right balance by using a definition that goes as widely as is reasonable without inadvertently drawing in the kind of individuals that Conservative Members have mentioned, such as members of the local chamber of commerce or people who come along to make representations to their Member of Parliament or local authority.
I will make some progress now, as I am conscious that other Members wish to speak in the debate. A registration process exists at the moment. The largest single organisation is the Association of Professional Political Consultants, which has been in existence for about 18 years. It is made up of most of the well-known lobbying and public affairs companies and many small companies, as well as political consultants—that is, third-party lobbyists. The association has a membership of about 50 companies and individuals who work as sole traders. They all sign up to the association’s register, and they have to abide by its code of conduct. They also have to publish on a quarterly basis a list of their clients, including those for whom they are doing paid work and those for whom they are working pro bono. It is interesting to note that a number of companies undertake pro bono work. They do so for various reasons, and I dare say that some of them do it to get some good PR for themselves.
In 2009, when the then Cabinet Office Ministers were considering their response to the previous PASC report on this issue, a number of the leading players in public relations got together. They included not only APPC members but representatives of the law firms that have public relations arms and of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations. They decided that they had a choice, and that a statutory body would be set up if they took no further steps and failed to recognise the significant problems that the PASC report had identified, which Ministers were considering. That was one of the clear outcomes of the PASC report. They therefore set up the body known as UKPAC—the United Kingdom Public Affairs Council.
I was the secretary of the Scottish branch of the APPC for a while, and I attended one of the meetings in the summer of 2009 at which the APPC board discussed UKPAC. I remember counselling the board that a voluntary system would not work, and in the two and a half years since it was set up, it has not worked. I will explain more about that later. It is interesting to note that there was agreement on this issue among those in the industry. It is important to remember that it is an important, multi-billion pound industry.
Lobbying is a healthy part of our democracy. We have already heard some examples of the roles that it can play, and no one has criticised them. We have heard about local businesses or religious organisations being involved, as well as companies being employed by individuals. In a parliamentary democracy such as ours, it is every citizen’s right to lobby their Member of Parliament, and I believe that it is their right either to lobby their MP themselves or, if they feel that they do not have the time or the skills to do that, to employ someone else either individually or collectively to do it for them. That is not to say that those who are so employed and who make a financial gain from lobbying should be allowed to do so unchecked, without any rules whatever. Registration is an important step in the right direction.
A journalist from a relatively august newspaper—not quite The Times; it was an almost august newspaper— phoned me yesterday to ask me how many people worked in lobbying and public affairs. I have taken a close interest in this issue, both before I entered the House and since, but I did not know how many people were working in that field. I think it was the Library briefing note that estimated that only 1% of those working in public affairs were third-party lobbyists—that is, consultants—and that 99% worked in-house. It is therefore vital that registration should cover not only third-party lobbyists but all those who undertake commercial, paid lobbying. Both PASC reports have acknowledged that, as have the industry players and Unlock Democracy—not, perhaps, a natural ally of the lobbying industry. Indeed, everyone—bar one important group of people—believes that any register or code of conduct should cover all those who undertake commercial lobbying.
To use a made-up example, it would be ridiculous if “Landmines R Us” were not required to register its multi-million pound public affairs operation because that operation was in-house, while those whom it employed as third-party consultants were required to be registered even though they accounted for only a tiny proportion of the time and money the company spent in that area.
A Member asked me a question this morning in the Tea Room. I am always loth to give away Tea Room secrets—[Interruption.] To be fair, as I recall it, he was heading out of the door, so I take that into account. He asked me why the Bill did not deal only with third-party lobbyists, and the answer is that they are such a small percentage. It would be strange if it dealt only with the third-party lobbyists and not those who work in-house. We need a level playing field. That was the conclusion of PASC and Unlock Democracy, and it was the conclusion reached by the industry itself. I am not sure that the Cabinet Office is there yet, but I know the Minister is considering the matter carefully. Perhaps she will be in a position to comment either today or in the near future.
Philip Davies
I am just wondering how great a revelation it will be for the general public to find out that the public affairs manager for Asda is registered as doing lobbying on behalf of Asda.
Thomas Docherty
The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point about the point of registration. The point is not simply to put people’s names on to a register, which is why the code of conduct is so important. The PASC report said that having a register that is not backed up by a code of conduct is, in itself, pointless. The hon. Gentleman is therefore entirely correct to suggest that a having a register for its own sake does not do anything. If no offences can be charged against the people on the register and there are no rules of behaviour, the register will be pointless. I do not know whether what I am going to say will be worse for his career or for mine—
Thomas Docherty
I am sure the hon. Gentleman has a bright future and is good stalking-horse material. Anyway, I entirely agree with him that a register by itself would be a waste of everyone’s time and money.
Thomas Docherty
I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question, and I would like to answer it before responding to the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies).
There are three different organisations at UK level that keep various registers, and there is an organisation in Scotland called ASPA—the Association for Scottish Public Affairs. Let me give a further example to explain the position. My wife, who is currently on maternity leave, works for Age Scotland. Age Scotland has a public affairs or public relations operation and is a member of ASPA. It declares to ASPA the people who in the public affairs or public relations team; indeed, its head of public relations is this year’s convener; for those who have not had the benefit of a Scottish education, a convener is a Scottish version of a chairman or chairwoman. Because my wife has no direct link to the comms operation, she is not registered. The fact that a relatively small charity such as Age Scotland is able to comply with those requirements shows that this is not an unreasonable burden.
As Conservative Members may know, I am something of a free marketeer and I do not always agree that regulation is the best way forward. What this Bill seeks to do is place a reasonable burden on those organisations for which there is a financial reward from the activity of lobbying. As I say, this goes no further than the Association of Professional Political Consultants already requires its members to do—members that are as large as Weber Shandwick and Bell Pottinger, and as small as some sole traders.
Philip Davies
I am getting more and more confused, which you might say is not difficult, Mr Speaker. I think my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) could be on to something with his examples of the finance director and board members. The hon. Gentleman’s own definition of lobbying does not seem to match what he thinks should be covered. The Bill defines lobbying as
“any activity carried out in the course of a business or employment which are undertaken for financial gain and are designed to influence the Government of the United Kingdom.”
That seems absolutely to meet the criteria set out by my hon. Friend when he talked about the role of the finance director, for example.
Thomas Docherty
I am always happy to engage in a lively debate, and this has been quite an informative one. As I say, there is a danger of trying to second-guess two Select Committees, UKPAC, the APPC and Unlock Democracy, all of which have concurred on what is an acceptable definition of lobbying. Nevertheless, there was a genuine question—I apologise for not yet addressing it—about who within an organisation would be expected to be registered. That brings me back to the proposals of the last Minister for the Cabinet Office. We do not know yet what revised proposals may emerge.
The question posed by the APPC for the purpose of its register is “Do you have a public-facing role in which you articulate a policy on behalf of the client?” That applies to companies large and small. When I was an account director and wanted to lobby a Member of Parliament, it would not always be me who telephoned the Member’s office or drafted a letter to the Member, although it would be me who signed the letter. It might be an account manager or an account executive who did the chasing up or issued the request for a meeting, as is the case in many organisations, and because that person would be dealing directly with the Member’s office, according to the APPC’s own definition he or she ought to be registered. The person who came in to clean the office in the morning, or the security officer, would not be performing a public-facing role or trying to influence public policy. I see one or two puzzled faces—
Thomas Docherty
That is the current requirement. The Minister may be able to say more when she responds to the debate, but I think that it is what the Government are proposing as well.
Philip Davies
Just because it is the Government’s proposal does not make it a good one.
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. It probably will have to register on its own register, because I am sure that before long it will want greater powers and to extend its reach into new areas. We have already come across a possible new area this morning. As has been pointed out, one of the gaps in the Bill is that it does not provide for the registration of those who want to lobby the European Parliament. The council may well lobby the Government to amend the legislation to cover that area. My hon. Friend is right that, on that basis, it would have to be on its own register.
We do not know how many members will be on the council. Will it be two or three, or thirty or forty? How representative will it be? Will it have to have members from every region of the country? Will it have to have members from different lobbying organisations?
Thomas Docherty
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way again, because I know that he is trying to move towards a conclusion. I remind him that all those matters will rightly be subject to parliamentary scrutiny. I am sure that he has even more confidence in his Ministers than I do.
Philip Davies
As ever, Mr Deputy Speaker, you are quite right. I was getting carried away with myself—the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife did not help when he invited me to consider the prospect of a Lib Dem Government, which does not even bear thinking about. I will move on, for the sake of my own sanity more than anything else.
The idea that there will be a great deal of parliamentary scrutiny of the terms of the register and the code of conduct is not one that I recognise from my reading of the Bill. Also, I asked earlier who would enforce the criminal offences that the Bill creates. There will no doubt be all sorts of vexatious complaints from people who do not like a particular industry, from people who have been lobbying someone about something, and counter-organisations that do not like a particular industry will put in vexatious complaints here and there. People will be contacting their local police and crime commissioner, their local chief superintendent and their chief constable, and putting pressure on them to investigate this or that case. The police’s resources are stretched enough as it is. I have been opposed to the reductions to the police budget that have taken place over the past few years. Surely at a time when the police budget is going down, the last thing they need is more of these kinds of offences to investigate, when there is much more bread-and-butter crime to be dealt with.
Then we have to consider the Crown Prosecution Service. What will be the chances of getting a conviction for such offences? We all know what the CPS is like. It is very reluctant to take a case to court unless there is a cast-iron guaranteed certainty of a conviction. There will be all sorts of complaints relating to whether the code of conduct has been breached, for example, and it is hard to imagine the CPS taking anyone to court, no matter how much time the police have spent investigating a case.
The whole thing is a complete dog’s breakfast, and that is before we even come to the definition of lobbying in clause 4. Clauses 1 to 3 were bad enough, but clause 4 is the worst clause of all. We have had an interesting debate on the definition of lobbying. There is so much to say on that, and so little time in which to say it. I do not intend to speak at length. As you will know better than anyone, Mr Deputy Speaker, I am always anxious to proceed at a pace on a Friday so that we can get on to the next piece of legislation, and I do not intend to do anything different today. I will make a few remarks about the definition of lobbying, but I just want to say to the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife that I hope his second Bill, which I trust we will get on to in the not-too-distant future, is better than his first one. The first one has not been a good start.
Clause 4 gives the definition of lobbying as
“any activity carried out in the course of a business or employment which are undertaken for financial gain and are designed to influence the Government of the United Kingdom, Parliament, any local authority in England or any member or employee of any of those bodies in formulating its official policy.”
We could spend hours talking about clause 4, because it contains all sorts of loopholes, flaws and omissions. The whole point of anybody approaching a Member of Parliament, on any basis, is to lobby them. It might be to lobby them because the person believes strongly in something, perhaps in their local community, or to lobby them for financial gain. It tends to be one or the other. Someone might come to see me because they want to reduce the amount that they owe to the Child Support Agency, for example. That is a perfectly legitimate thing to come and see an MP about. I cannot always sort such things out, but I will always do my best for my constituents. They are lobbying me for financial gain, of course they are—it is a perfectly legitimate, respectable thing to do.
The hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife seems to be trying to distinguish between different types of financial gain. From his definition in the Bill, he seems to be saying that some kinds of lobbying for financial gain are fine, while other kinds are not so fine and need to have something done about them.
Thomas Docherty
I am nervous about intervening on the hon. Gentleman and prolonging what has been a genuinely good discussion. Briefly, I am drawing a distinction between someone who is remunerated for carrying out the activity of trying to influence, and someone who receives a financial reward if they are successful. The former is lobbying; the latter is not.
Philip Davies
The hon. Gentleman tries to concoct some distinction through his Bill’s definition, but I do not accept the distinction he is trying to draw. For me, lobbying is what people do to Members of Parliament for whatever particular reason they have. It is perfectly legitimate, and I see no point in drawing a distinction between different types of lobbying—as if commercial lobbying is bad and any other kind of lobbying is good. All lobbying is good, and Members of Parliament should be open to all sorts of lobbying. They can take anybody’s self-interest into account when they are listening to the lobbying. I am sure we will all have said at some time, “Well, of course, you would say that, wouldn’t you, given the situation you are in.” We are all capable of doing that.
When I read the Bill, I presumed that it was all about protecting the public and giving them more confidence in the system. I do not think that that would be a consequence, but I can at least see the motivation. From what the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife said in his opening speech, however, the Bill seemed to be much more about protecting us from commercial lobbyists so that we do not get hijacked at a constituency surgery or something like that. I do not need protecting. I can protect myself and look after myself. If I do not want to listen to somebody’s argument, I will tell them I am not interested in what they are saying. I am perfectly capable of doing that without the help of the hon. Gentleman and his Bill. Frankly, if any Member is not capable of doing that, they should perhaps consider whether they are in the right profession. We certainly do need legislation to protect Members from people coming to see them and trying to force an issue down their throat. I would hope that we are all perfectly capable of dealing with that.
In conclusion, the Bill is unnecessary. I disagree with it in principle; I think it is going completely down the wrong lines. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North, even if I thought this was a good thing in principle, I would remain of the view that the Bill was a very bad attempt to act on it.