I do not agree. The consequence of large-scale statutory codes is considerable expenditure.
Let us consider the simple questions to which we have no answers. The new clause states only that there should not be inappropriate financial relationships; the hon. Gentleman does not tell us what those inappropriate relationships are or explain why they are not already prohibited by instruments such as parliamentarians’ codes of conduct, which we discussed earlier, or laws on bribery and corruption. How would the provisions of the code be enforced? What resources would the registrar require to monitor and enforce compliance, particularly if seeking to enforce compliance against imprecise, vague and wide-ranging—understandably so, as far as the voluntary code is concerned—principles and prescriptions? Trying to set up such a structure of enforcement in relation to such a wide-ranging code for such a large number of people is completely unsustainable. Who would foot the bill? The bill for the measures in Canada is equivalent to £3 million and this proposal would clearly cost much more. In any case, the Canadians go about things in a different way from us. It is not a case of adopting what they do, because they do not take our approach. We set out, through the transparency of Ministers’ and permanent secretaries’ diaries, to approach the issue in a completely different fashion.
We are not trying to set up a register that controls what the lobbying industry does. Our approach recognises that lobbyists have a job to do. They are engaged in a self-regulatory structure. We are not trying to introduce a bureaucratic monster to oversee all that. We are clear that the key decision makers should be transparent about who they are seeing, and that—as the Bill would now ensure—where it is not transparent, in that they are meeting someone who is representing, as it were, their own interests, where they meet consultant lobbyists, those consultant lobbyists, through the register, are required to disclose who their clients are.
I am afraid that new clause 4, and much of what we heard from those on the Labour Front Bench and from the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), suggests that either they are not clear about what problem they are trying to address or they are simply trying to create a bureaucracy. We are not in that business. They are trying to create something that the Government have been very clear we do not want to create. We believe in transparency. We do not believe in the large-scale regulation that they are pursuing.