My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, for what I think is his support for the approach we are taking on this.
Of course, Amendment 23 would be only permissive. It does not require the registrar to publish a code of conduct; it simply permits the registrar, should at some time in the future he or she feel the need to, to be able to do so. I am slightly surprised that the Government cannot even allow a registrar at some time in the future to be able to publish a code of conduct. They seem to be turning their back on any interest in raising standards.
The Minister spoke about the Bribery Act. Of course, the issue is that nobody will be able to be removed from this register for any criminal offence. We could have people convicted all sorts of tax evasion—anything—still on the register. I and others think that this would be very misleading as it will appear that they are on a statutory register and therefore have some stamp of approval.
As to the question of who would not sign up to it, I am sure that your Lordships’ House is well aware that the Association of Professional Political Consultants is supporting our amendment. It very much feels that it will be only the bad boy who does not bother signing up and that this really undermines the code of conduct.
I am not going to test the opinion of the House on this amendment. But in withdrawing it, I will say two things. First, it was very sad to read in the paper yesterday that the UN special rapporteur called this Bill,
“a stain on British democracy”.
Secondly, my fear is that, as per the warning of the Prime Minister, the next scandal waiting to happen will be from a consultant lobbyist, it will be behaviour that would have been caught by this code and it will be this Government who said they did not want to make signing up to a code mandatory. With those words, I withdraw the amendment.