Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

Sarah Newton Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Thomas]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. One way to have transparency and clarity and to minimise the burden of regulation for the industry would be to ensure that there is one clear code of conduct and therefore one clear set of principles that everybody has to sign up to in order to do business.

Another provision in the APPC code—one that seems eminently sensible, at least on the face of it—says that

“practitioners”—

that is, lobbyists—

“must not make misleading, exaggerated or extravagant claims to clients about”

what they can do for them. That is hardly an unreasonable or burdensome principle to have in a code of conduct either, so I ask again: why do Ministers not want such a basic principle covered in a clear code of conduct? The APPC code contains other suggestions that we might take forward, including the proposal that

“Political practitioners must not…Make any award or payment in money or in kind (including equity in a member firm)…to any member of…the National Assembly of Wales or the Northern Ireland Assembly or the Greater London Authority”.

As I understand the drafting of the Bill, Ministers have not gone so far as to cover those bodies. Perhaps the Minister can use her response to this debate as an opportunity to explain why a code of conduct should not cover those organisations as well.

Including such requirements or versions of them—I do not want to be prescriptive; there should be proper consultation with all stakeholders about what should be in a code of conduct—would help to raise the standards of the whole profession and, as a result, give the registrar the means to begin to challenge any poor behaviour in the industry that he or she might come across.

New clause 2 would help to ensure proper oversight and better public scrutiny of any potential conflicts of interest when senior roles are taken up in Government by people who were—or, indeed, perhaps still are—lobbyists. It would require the Government to disclose the names of any professional lobbyists who work for them, including those employed directly by the Government and those employed by the political parties that form the Government. The new clause would help to prevent a situation in which the country did not know definitively whether a lobbyist working at the heart of government for a political party, with access to the inner sanctums of No. 10 and No. 11, was at the same time lobbying on behalf of commercial interests such as big tobacco or the alcohol industry.

It is surely worth drawing the Committee’s attention to the scandal surrounding Lynton Crosby. The reason that that will not go away as an issue for the Conservatives is that the country does not know whether he is lobbying Ministers on behalf of any big commercial business groups here in the UK. New clause 2—coupled with other amendments to widen the definition of lobbying and to require an estimate of expenditure on lobbying activity—would help to tease out whether Mr Crosby was able to use his position working for the Conservative party to raise the concerns of other clients that he or his business might have.

The issues relating to Lynton Crosby raise the question of whether other lobbyists are employed, perhaps part time, to work for the Government while separately working for their clients to lobby Ministers, permanent secretaries, other senior civil servants or special advisers. New clause 2 is a sensible proposal that would help to make transparent the role of lobbyists who pass from an area of commercial life to become more actively engaged in public life as well.

Big tobacco appears to have successfully exerted considerable influence on Ministers recently. Similarly, minimum alcohol pricing seems to have been dropped as a major Government priority. The presence in the Conservative party of a lobbyist who has access to No. 10, who is notorious in other countries for his other interests and who will not, at first glance, be covered by the legislation does not help to ease people’s fears that Ministers are not being quite so straightforward in their professed commitment to transparency as they might be.

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman clearly sees the new clause as providing some kind of Lynton Crosby moment. Perhaps I can put him out of his misery by reminding him that the Prime Minister has made it clear that Lynton Crosby’s role was to help the Conservative party win the next election—that and that alone. Any meeting along the lines that the hon. Gentleman is suggesting or implying would quite properly be covered by existing rules on the disclosure of who meets whom. This is a complete red herring.

[Mr Thomas]

With all due respect to the hon. Lady, I do not share her view. New clause 2 would help to prevent any similar concern—

[Sarah Newton]

rose—

[Mr Thomas]

Just let me try to answer the question a little further. The new clause would stop the ongoing concern around Lynton Crosby’s role. I accept that the Conservative party is going to need all the help it can get at the next election, but we need to look further ahead in regard to the future of the lobbying industry. I gently suggest that new clause 2 would prevent further media storms of the kind that has evolved around Lynton Crosby’s role.

[Sarah Newton]

The hon. Gentleman seems keen to create a media storm around Lynton Crosby’s involvement, but it could not have been made more clear that he has an election role. He is involved in work on polling data, and the Prime Minister has made it extremely clear that he is not involved in policy development at all. He would therefore not be involved in the kind of lobbying that the hon. Gentleman is referring to. It would be interesting to find out whether Labour is going to apply the same standards to the team that it will undoubtedly be employing and has employed in the past for the purpose of winning general elections.

[Mr Thomas]

If Lynton Crosby is only doing a bit of analytical work on polling data, I would gently suggest that the Conservative party is paying rather a lot of money for that service. If the hon. Lady votes with us to ensure that new clause 2 becomes part of the Bill, I put it to her that when we form the next Government, as we surely will do, we will of course be covered by its provisions.