My Lords, I thank the Minister for his brave attempt to introduce this bad little Bill and certainly look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Horam, who has been in both my party and that of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, but now resides on the Conservative Benches. I may end his career by saying that he gets 12 positive mentions in my book on the Labour Party in the 1970s.
Alas, the Bill will get no positive mentions in anyone’s memoirs. Three years ago, we were promised a statutory register of lobbyists. Instead, we have a skeleton register of only consultant lobbyists, exempting 80% of the
industry. The word “transparency” in the title is a misnomer. It misses most lobbyists—HS2, Heathrow, the trade associations, the ABI, the BBA, British Gas, npower and the pharmaceutical, defence, tobacco and sugar manufacturers—as they all have in-house lobbyists; and it misses most of those being lobbied. It covers only Ministers and Permanent Secretaries, not senior civil servants, spads and chairs of Select Committees—the name Tim Yeo comes to mind—so defence firms can continue to lobby senior civil servants behind closed doors, untouched by the Bill.
The Bill contains no code of conduct, so any sanction would be only for non-filing of returns, not for unethical behaviour. Without a code and effective sanctions, the Bill will fail to drive up standards.
Furthermore, the Bill is just silly. Anyone who wants to use a lobbyist has only to employ that person directly rather than through a consultant, and then that person does not have to register. The leader of the Commons says that this is to know, when a Minister meets a lobby firm, who its clients are, but he could do that by a flick of the wrist. He simply has to tell Ministers, as they publish their diaries, to name not just the lobby firm but the client on whose behalf the meeting took place. He could do that by 10 o’clock tonight. Instead, as the CBI says,
“any register must go hand-in-hand with strengthening existing reporting of ministers’ and senior officials’ meetings”.
There is nothing in the Bill on that.
Perhaps most pernicious, the Bill hits the small body, not the big. The House knows that I had a certain interest in minimum alcohol pricing. Drinks companies can lobby via their own public affairs staff, but tiny Alcohol Concern, too small for an in-house lobbyist, must use an agency, which must then register. The same is true with plain packaging of cigarettes: Forest can lobby in secret, but should ASH want to use a PR firm, it would have to register and report. That is nonsense.
Just about everyone considers this to be a non-register and that it should instead include paid, professional lobbyists, not simply third-party consultants. As the Law Society of Scotland put it, to apply different rules to different levels of lobbyists may obscure transparency and give rise to confusion by the public, who are unlikely to differentiate between consultants and in-house lobbyists and, because it does not cover lobbying of MPs or civil servants below Permanent Secretaries, it would dilute the objective of true transparency. The Law Society of Scotland is hardly a suspicious, left-wing organisation.
Indeed, the register would list only a tiny proportion of those already on a voluntary register and undermine the good work of professional organisations, such as the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, which states that the Bill,
“shows a clear lack of understanding of what the practice of lobbying actually entails”,
and will leave out a majority of lobbyists. The Bill fails to support the existing PRCA industry code of ethical conduct and will tell us nothing about who is lobbying whom on what.
Turning to Part 2 of the Bill, there was no prior consultation with the Electoral Commission which will have to police it, or with the organisations concerned.
The Electoral Commission, the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, the Joint Committee on Human Rights, your Lordships’ Constitution Committee and the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission all criticise the rush, the absence of pre-legislative scrutiny and the potential impact on rights to freedoms of expression and of assembly. Is this to stop charities campaigning, because if so what is the mischief that it seeks to end? The chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee calls it a solution in search of a problem, for there is no evidence of any problem. Or is this simply about Mr Clegg, afraid of the NUS in Sheffield in 2015, given his broken promises on tuition fees? In that case, perhaps we can rename the Bill the “Sheffield Hallam Retention Bill”.
Or is it the British Legion that the Government have not forgiven for defeating their attempt to abolish the chief coroner? Maybe it is the Association of Medical Royal Colleges, which will no longer be able to print its manifestos in Welsh thanks to the ridiculously low limits. Given that the Electoral Commission says that policy campaigns could be covered, the Law Society is concerned that its comments on legal aid, access to justice and the Human Rights Act will be caught by the Bill. The BMA is similarly deeply concerned, as, should tobacco control become an electoral issue, its campaign could be caught, silencing serious public health arguments. Not for nothing has Tom Burke, chair of E3G called Part 2,
“misconceived in intent, carelessly drafted and being promoted with such indecent haste as to call into question the motives of its promoters”.
Our own Constitution Committee warns that it will affect the fundamental common law right to freedom of political expression, and the ability of people and organisations to engage with the Government and to participate in political and electoral campaigning.
A large number of faith-based bodies, including the Salvation Army, World Jewish Relief, the Methodist Conference, Islamic Relief and the Quakers wrote to the Prime Minister, not only about the rushed timetable but about their fears that it might,
“curtail our ability to express deeply-held beliefs in the political arena”,
as it,
“does not adequately safeguard the activities of religious organisations, and that there is a very real risk”,
to “non-biased political activity.”
Why is there all this additional red tape, and costs on charities? The Heavy Reporting Requirements will start in May 2014, and include weekly returns during the short campaign. This is hard enough for a political party with all the procedures set up to do this and challenging for a large charity with a big back-office function. It is impossible for charities with volunteer treasurers.
The Government, we thought, wanted to encourage the big society and active citizenship. Yet, as the Hansard Society has said, when public interest in politics is at its lowest point and fewer than 1% are members of a political party, this is hardly the time to throw an ambiguous rulebook at organisations whose activities might actually interest the public in the political process. The RSPB reckons that it is illogical
to halve the threshold and caps at the same time as widening the activities that count towards them, and that this could seriously curtail legitimate charitable work. The National Trust fears that it could undermine its ability to perform its statutory role to promote the preservation of places of natural beauty and historic interest. It is concerned that this law could restrict the contribution that charities make to public policy debate. Oxfam, which would probably have to identify donors and the reason for their donation, says the Bill could have a severe impact on its work. The Newcastle Council for Voluntary Service fears the Bill is trying to gag it. It is involved in the Living Wage Campaign, studying the impact of government policy on local charities, and working with disability charities to minimise the impact of welfare reforms on users. All fall within its charitable objectives, yet all could fall subject to the Act.
The Bill’s uncertainty and its chilling effect will dampen the enthusiasm of local groups for campaigning since, as soon as they consider spending more than £2,000, or £5,000 in England—including voluntary and staff time, and travel—they will have to enter the nightmare of registration. Furthermore, any mistakes and we are talking criminal not civil sanctions, although whether this places trustees or staff at risk has yet to be clarified.
The Bill fails to live up to the aims of the Open Government Partnership, whose conference I understand that Francis Maude will chair next week. It is committed to freedoms of association and expression, and to the opening up and safeguarding of space for civil society to engage with government. This Bill does exactly the opposite. It seems designed to stifle engagement and make it harder for civil society to play a role.
Finally, what on earth is Part 3 about? It arrived with no prior consultation and following no complaints. The Leader of the Commons admitted that there is no evidence of inadequately kept trade unions records, so is this part simply trying to bankrupt unions by giving them an extra level of audit? This comes from the Government who are promoting a deregulation Bill. What have this Government got against working people and their representatives? They will do anything for business, announcing this month:
“Form filling for companies ditched in red tape cut”,
which a Minister trumpeted was about:
“Cutting unnecessary bureaucracy and red tape for businesses”.
But if there is any chance to clip the wings of employees’ representatives, they simply cannot resist. Perhaps the Minister can explain why, out of all the myriad professional, trade, social, legal, civil society, medical and other membership organisations, the unions alone are picked out by the Bill.
The Bill allows companies unfettered access to Ministers and Parliament but imposes restrictions and red tape on charities and unions. It has managed to unite the TaxPayers’ Alliance, the Countryside Alliance, the National Secular Society, faith groups, Business for Britain, the Peter Tatchell Foundation, the Women’s Institute and the Woodland Trust. They are all in opposition. I congratulate the Government on that achievement.
Part 1 fails to deal with the lobbying problem, Part 2 deals with a non-existent problem and Part 3 deals with a made-up problem. The Government would be well advised to pause as recommended by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, by the churches and faith groups which wrote to the Prime Minister and by just about every commentator. They should think again, consult, listen and then come back with a much better Bill. If they fail to do so, we will work in Committee and on Report to make this Bill better and workable.
3.52 pm