Parliamentary Lobbying

I listened with some amazement to the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) saying that we should be careful, because people will be put off lobbying. I assure him that the people of Bassetlaw do not require paid advisers to lobby their MP eloquently and effectively. We have a word for it—democracy. My problem and my constituents' problem is that access to MPs, and therefore access for my constituents, is squeezed and blocked by the number of paid lobbyists representing interests, gaining access preferentially and using their contacts, which stops the rest of us getting the access to the Government that we should be getting. My hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) has used the term ““incestuous””. I think that a better term to use is ““interchangeable””, because we are becoming a Parliament of paid, professional lobbyists. The reason is that the political class, the advisers and the researchers are entirely interchangeable with the lobby industry—they are literally interchangeable. People spend a couple of years as an adviser, then a couple of years as a lobbyist, then they go back to being an adviser, then they go back to being a lobbyist and then they go into Parliament as an MP. That is the way into this place, although I will not embarrass the dozens and dozens and dozens of colleagues who have entered the House in that way.