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

Debate between Tracey Crouch and Peter Luff

Monday 9th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Tracey Crouch]

I feel as if I am being rude to my Back-Bench colleagues, but yet again I think that that demonstrates a lack of understanding of the lobbying industry. Only very rarely would a lobbying company or consultancy have a direct meeting with a Member of Parliament or Minister. Such companies are the facilitators of meetings for their clients, who quite often happen to be big companies. I remember when I was an in-house lobbyist having a meeting with my hon. Friend when he was an adviser to the shadow Treasury team on matters relating to European tax legislation. We need to be clear that the lobbying industry today provides a very different service and is a very different industry from what it was 10 or 15 years ago.

[Peter Luff]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, and I agree with every word. On the subject of tax, however, I want to highlight one particular danger. A multinational company wanting to make representations to a Minister or a permanent secretary—that is very unlikely—is likely to be an accountancy firm, not a lobbying firm, but accountancy firms are specifically excluded from the Bill. It is a bizarre exclusion.

[Tracey Crouch]

I agree entirely with the principle to which my hon. Friend refers, but as it happens, we had tax experts in Aviva and we were able to use them. We did not need to employ accountancy firms, but we did on occasion need to employ experts from law firms. The problem with this part of the Bill is that it does not extend to that.

We need to be clear that lobbying must be transparent and there needs to be a level playing field. At present, I am afraid that clause 1 and the first part of the Bill do not allow that to happen. I hope that my Front-Bench team are listening and hope that they recognise the genuine concern about whether the definition goes far enough. I hope they will consider expanding the definition either today or in later stages of the Bill’s passage to ensure both transparency and a level playing field.