I am grateful, Mr Caton, to catch your eye in this debate.
Many colleagues have commented on the drafting of the Bill. I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) about the merits of the private Member’s Bill. Last year I introduced a
private Member’s Bill on this very subject, supported by our Front-Bench team. I was lucky to work with Simon Patrick and the formidable Kate Emms on the drafting of that Bill. May I helpfully suggest to the Deputy Leader of the House that the Clerks of the House might be well qualified to help the Government draft a more effective and fully baked Bill than the one before us?
I gently point out to my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda that he mentioned my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) by name. I know that my hon. Friend is not a properly read parliamentarian, but I am fairly confident that according to “Erskine May” we are not allowed to mention the name of a right hon. Member, even in a quotation, but I am sure that he did not mean to do so. As he is a new boy in this place, we will let that one pass.
The Government have been caught by their own phenomenally tight definition. I shall speak mainly about Opposition amendment 18, which would remove paragraph 3(1)(a) and (b) of schedule 1, which is ambiguous and creates uncertainty. Sub-paragraph (1) creates a loophole which cripples the aims of the Bill. On Second Reading and in the debate today, I have been struck by the fact that the Government consistently believe that, if they say that a measure is not intended to have a particular effect, that somehow means that it will not have that effect.
The Government were correct one time. As the Deputy Leader of the House said earlier, the Government are not seeking to capture lobbyists—they are seeking to capture 1% of those who would otherwise be defined as lobbyists. Credit is due to the Government; that is the one element that is consistent with their intentions. Unfortunately, sub-paragraph (1) does not capture even that 1%. Sub-paragraph (1)(a) excludes
“a business which is mainly a non-lobbying business”,
and sub-paragraph (1)(b) excludes a business whose lobbying efforts are
“an insubstantial proportion of that business.”
That would mean, for example, that big tobacco firms did not have to declare their in-house lobbying activities, but a small firm of public affairs professionals or consultants campaigning on behalf of, say, Action on Smoking and Health, would have to do so. I will return to that point later. The term “non-lobbying business” is insubstantial and too vague and does not have any real meaning.
The Government’s attempt to try to correct this error, amendment 93, which says
“consists mainly of non-lobbying”,
does not improve matters in the slightest. Unfortunately, what the Government by their own definition mean by lobbying is purely that direct communication with Ministers of the Crown and permanent secretaries. I could understand if the Government were defining lobbying as being what we think of as lobbying. It is interesting the number of Members on both sides of the House who describe themselves as lobbyists. Unfortunately, I suspect that none of those so-called lobbyists are actually lobbyists under the Government’s own definition. They have defeated themselves by drawing their amendments so closely.
7.30 pm
You do not have to take my word for it, Mr Caton. Iain Anderson, deputy chairman of the Association of Professional Political Consultants, an organisation of which I used to be a member, says:
“There cannot be a grey area. I cannot work out whether my business and our members should be working out for ourselves whether we should be registering. That is a completely crazy situation.”
Unfortunately for the Government, such vague terms and ambiguity is how loopholes, on which lawyers become even richer, are formed. This morning, the Financial Times called on the Government to withdraw the Bill and look again at their proposals. The editorial says that this is simply not good law making. This loophole in the Government’s proposals shows just how little they understand about the lobbying profession. The chief executive of a major company may lobby the Prime Minister for an hour during a cosy kitchen supper, which I understand starts at £100,000 a go, and have a huge impact on Government policy.
Let us take a fictitious example related to tobacco. An adviser may have a big impact on the Government’s policy, much bigger than the Secretary of State for Health for example, but because his business is mainly non-lobbying, he does not have to register. That is the influence that goes on behind closed doors, whereas small businesses that are lobbying for change, those SMEs that work as public affairs consultants, have to bear the burden of regulation. As has already been touched upon, the burden is horrific. The impact assessment is fundamentally flawed. As I said earlier, it has simply been transposed from the systems in Australia and Canada. It has been assumed that that is how our system works. Given that the Minister and our civil servants had not had a single meeting, until last week, with any part of the lobbying industry, I am bemused as to how they came to that conclusion.
I appreciate that the Minister is getting her advice from the Treasury Whip, but I hope that when she replies she will spell out which lobbying professionals agree with her definition and think that Australia and Canada are a suitable comparator. As someone who has worked for eight years in the industry, it strikes me that civil servants have licked their finger, stuck it in the air and come up with a figure of—[Interruption.] The Deputy Leader of the House chunters from a sedentary position. Perhaps he wishes to add something to the debate. Apparently not. We are going to get the usual curmudgeonly Deputy Leader of the House role; the second Liberal Democrat to do that with such skill and grace in the last few years, and heckle anyone who has the temerity to disagree with his views.