Tagged on to this debate is a report by the Committee on Standards and Privileges, which I chair, that we published on the day of the Bill’s Second Reading. It was all a bit of a hurry because of the Government’s haste to get these provisions into Parliament. On 18 July I wrote to the Leader of the House with some major concerns that we had about the Bill’s implications for Members of Parliament and the consequential implications for the codes of conduct—our own rules in relation to Members’ activities.
The House of Commons has long been concerned about lobbying. As early as 1695, the House resolved:
“The Offer of any Money, or other Advantage, to any Member of Parliament, for the promoting of any Matter whatsoever, depending, or to be transacted, in Parliament, is a high Crime and Misdemeanour, and tends to the Subversion of the Constitution.”
Successive resolutions have restricted what Members are permitted to do. The current code of conduct states:
“No Member shall act as a paid advocate in any proceedings of the House.”
Indeed, the “Guide to the Rules relating to the Code of Conduct of Members” makes it clear that prohibition on advocacy is not limited to proceedings in the House or approaches to Ministers but extends to approaches to colleagues and to any servants of the Crown. Consultant lobbying is usually understood to consist of the acceptance of money in direct return for lobbying activity. Under the code of conduct as currently written, this would almost certainly be a breach of the advocacy rule. We noted that the requirements for the registration of Members’ financial interests are far more detailed than the Bill’s requirements for entries in the register of consultant lobbyists. There was grave concern that had it remained as first published, there would have been major conflict between Members of this House and organisations outside.
We recognised that although Members are permitted to have outside interests, a Member who carried out consultant lobbying would be breaking the current rules
of conduct of the House. None the less, we also recognised that that could change if the House changed its rules to permit such activity, though we considered that to be extremely unlikely. If that were the case, Members would then not be immune from the general, nor should they be. If the advocacy rule were ever rescinded, a Member who acted as a consultant lobbyist should be subject to the same rules as any other such lobbyist.
We had to draw up the report very quickly because of the timetable that we have had for the Bill. We brought up two major concerns in our conclusion. First, we said:
“In our view, the difficulties about the way in which the legislation applies to Members of Parliament would be swept away if paragraph 2 of Schedule 1 was removed.”
The Government’s amendment 29 does that, I am pleased to say. As has been clearly pointed out in the debate, under the paragraph I would be potentially restricted to lobbying the Secretary of State or a senior civil servant only on the basis of a constituent having contacted me about an issue. That would be nonsensical. It would mean that to be able to do the work that I have been doing on public health for many years in this Chamber, I would first have to get a constituent to write to me about it. It could also affect my ability to go to a recognised charity that is concerned about public health issues and work with it in the hope of getting more effective legislation. We all do that, as the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) said.
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I was deeply concerned, and remain so, about the registrar’s powers to decide on the powers of consultant lobbyists. Numerous people pointed out to us in written evidence that, in effect, there was no consultation between the registrar and Parliament about the rules that could be brought in and about lobbying in relation to constituents. We saw a great danger that, as a consequence, there could be conflict not just with the registrar but with the law, which would potentially become involved and get mixed up in our rules.
Secondly, we said:
“We consider it necessary to make clear that Members’ ordinary work is not caught by the Bill.”
In our correspondence during the few weeks up until 3 September, the Leader of the House clarified that that was to be the case. We also said that the Bill should state that
“reference to payment does not include a reference to the salary”
of a Member of Parliament. To the Government’s credit, that was taken out in Committee and during the early proceedings on the Bill. It was fairly well clarified that neither the registrar nor anybody else could say that someone’s salary for being a Member of this House could be construed as being a payment for lobbying.
On those two issues, I am quite happy with the action that the Government have taken, as is, I am sure, the rest of the Committee. However, this is hasty legislation that has been thrown into the public domain. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), I came back a day early and gave evidence to his Committee on this matter, although we were all brought back anyway on wider issues. These things need to be better thought out.
As an individual Member,I have further concerns that my Committee did not much look at, such as the powers of the registrar, which could mean that we end up with conflict. I am worried about the effect on charities, be they locally or nationally based. Charities play a major role in lobbying us as Back Benchers, as opposed to Front Benchers, about what should or should not be happening in legislation. If we are not able to be lobbied by charities and others, we will just become creatures of the Executive, who will be telling us what should and should not be happening. That would be unhelpful.