Lobbying Transparency (In-house Lobbyists) Bill [HL]

Second Reading

10:06:00

Moved by

Baroness Hayter of Kentish TownThat the Bill be read a second time.

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)My Lords, I should make it clear at the outset that I am pro-lobbying—how could I not be, given how much I have done in my time? It has been particularly helpful in the Lords. We do not have constituents to inform us of what needs doing, or not doing, by a Government, so it is good that those with a particular interest or knowledge make their way to Westminster, bringing their lived experience and the legitimate needs of their sector, company or beneficiaries to us and into the public forum—into our actual or metaphorical Peers’ Lobby.

We have seen laws be changed for the better by effective lobbying. The NSPCC and children’s charities helped achieve the Domestic Abuse Act 2021. The British Lung Foundation’s work on banning smoking in cars carrying children led to the Smoke-free (Private Vehicles) Regulations 2015. Pressure on Ministers by the Samaritans and others helped create the Online Safety Act 2023. The British Heart Foundation and family groups provided the momentum for the Organ Donation (Deemed Consent) Act 2019.

Meanwhile, the ABI and other bodies wisely used their access to help rewrite the National Security Act 2023 in order to ensure that the foreign influence registration scheme was fit for purpose. The RAC’s meeting with a Minister about headlight glare resulted in a change of approach to this problem. The Royal Osteoporosis Society will continue to meet Ministers to ensure that they keep their promise to make fracture liaison services available nationwide by the end of the decade.

So lobbying is legitimate and beneficial to how we make our laws, and I support it. It is not always successful, of course. My campaign to increase duty on alcohol seems for ever doomed. You win some, you lose some.

In a democracy, good governance depends on decision-makers hearing from a wide range of voices, but businesses, interest groups, think tanks, trade associations and charities should not depend for their access on whom they happen to know or which conduit they can use to get a hearing. More than that, we should all know who has the ear of government. Legitimate representations should be open and above board, not hidden below the waves. This Bill is about transparency, which is crucial for public trust, as we discussed in our debate yesterday.

There are two sides to lobbying, of coursethose doing the lobbying and those being lobbied. Neither’s regime is working properly, although the Ethics and Integrity Commission, which has been tasked by the Prime Minister to improve transparency around lobbying, will consider those being lobbied when it reports next week.

My Bill is about those doing the lobbying and seeing Ministers and Permanent Secretaries to put their valid points of view on legislation, policy or procurement. At the moment, the only organisations that have to register and report are consultant lobbyists, which probably covers around 5% of this country’s lobbying activity. The other 95% is done directly by companies, trade associations, professional bodies, think tanks and charities, using their own personnel rather than outside consultants.

Yet these approaches to government from in-house people are excluded from the need to register under the 2014 Act. They fly under the radar. Say a small pressure group, an SME or a consumer representative wants to talk to Ministers about the safety of a fertiliser, alcohol duty, the use of a weapon, online safety or a local planning issue. Should such a small organisation need outside help to make its case to a Minister, it would find its advisers and itself named on the register.

By contrast, any organisation—such as pharmaceutical companies, drinks trade associations, defence companies, big tech or developers—that uses its own people, whether its public affairs department or its chief executive or chair, to speak to government can see a Minister without any requirement to register or report, and with no obligation to sign up to any lobbying code of conduct. That is an inequality of openness between those making their case to government themselves and those using an outside agency to help.

The public—directly or via MPs, journalists or interested parties—have the right to know who is talking to Ministers about decisions that are about to be taken. Therefore, any organisation seeking to influence government policy or practice, legislation or procurement, should have to register and report. A bit of sunlight will do no one any harm.

We have two options. We can wait until we have another scandal and then rush through legislation or we can grasp the nettle now. This is what lobbyist representatives—the CIPR and the PRCA—want, bringing the hidden 95% of lobbying into the open. Passing this Bill would enable the existing register of consultant lobbyists to become a register of lobbying, no longer just catching the tiny minority operating as consultants.

The Bill would extend the existing register from covering only those lobbying firms to put any organisation that puts its view to a Minister, Permanent Secretary or spad on to the register. This goes no further than other comparative democracies do. It requires openness about normal legal behaviour undertaken by in-house executives. Our UK register lists just under 300 entries. Scotland, by contrast, has 1,500 and Canada has 8,000 because both cover in-house lobbyists—as do most other countries’ registers. Let us do it now. Let us now wait for a scandal. Any organisation that lobbies should register. It is not difficult. It is the right thing to do. I beg to move.

10:14:00

Baroness Finn (Con)My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, on her success in the Private Members’ Bill ballot. Although the Official Opposition cannot support the Bill in its current form, it is a very interesting Bill which seeks to address one of the most important issues in any free democratic society—transparency.

In the interests of transparency, eyebrows were raised when Peers received an email from Inflect Partners, a strategic communications and public affairs consultancy. The email said:

“I am writing on behalf of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) to share a short briefing and to ask whether you would consider speaking in support of Baroness Hayter’s Lobbying Transparency (In-house Lobbyists) Bill at the Second Reading debate on Friday 3 July”.

There is some irony in a lobbying email being issued to support a Bill on lobbying. Does the Chartered Institute of Public Relations stand to gain from this Bill? Perhaps the noble Baroness can illuminate us.

Although the Bill is very short, its effect is very broad. The noble Baroness is correct that the current registration rules under the 2014 Act cover just a small number of the activities that could be termed lobbying. There are just 240 registered consultant lobbyists in the country. The Office of the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists employs just three staff members in addition to the registrar. The 2014 Act was never meant to be comprehensive. The Bill before us, though it may be tightly drafted, is not targeted. It expands the registration rules to encompass a whole range of communications.

If the Bill becomes law, almost all persons communicating with Ministers or Permanent Secretaries on behalf of their employer, engager or principal, or with the intent of furthering the interests of their employer, engager or principal, will have to register. Yes, many would like to see greater transparency of engagements between stakeholders and Ministers, but that broad and well-intentioned principle would represent a huge administrative burden on business. We are concerned that such a burden would disincentivise businesses, charities and other stakeholders from engaging freely with Ministers.

I hope that we can have a constructive debate today, in Committee and on Report. The principle of transparency is not contested. It is essential that Ministers and departments are transparent in their contact with lobbyists. The previous Government committed to develop a single database to collate and publish departments’ transparency returns. This appears to have been scrapped. Can the Minister tell us why this might be the case?

Our foremost concern is to avoid unintended and unexpected negative consequences for small businesses, charities and stakeholders. We are also interested in the risks to well-intentioned individuals who are simply unaware of the new, broader rules; the capacity for the Office of the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists to handle the rise in registrations; and the issue of the annual registration fee.

On burdens, the broader application of the lobbying register rules will see many more people subject to the burden of registering with the office of the registrar. In some ways, this is not a cumbersome step. The register is now well established and should not be difficult for individuals to use. However, no matter how easy it is to register, this is a new administrative burden. Furthermore, we must not forget that those registered with the UK Office for the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists pay annual fees of £1,000. Nothing in the noble Baroness’s Bill amends Section 22 of the 2014 Act. This means that the £1,000 annual fee will apply to in-house lobbyists just as it applies to consultant lobbyists. Contrast that with how the average UK small business has a profit margin of £70,000 and we see that two members of staff having to register at a total cost of £2,000 is not an insignificant burden for smaller organisations. As we proceed to Committee and Report, we will seek to establish protections for small and medium-sized businesses and other smaller stakeholders.

We want businesses, especially small ones, and other stakeholders to have open channels of regular communication with Ministers. Has the noble Baroness reflected on the interaction between the £1,000 per annum registration fees and the proposed wider rules on stakeholders’ willingness to make representations to Government?

Further to that, I would be grateful if the noble Baroness could confirm one point. Should a Minister, for example, meet a pub landlord on a visit, and that landlord goes on to tell him or her that the Government must cut alcohol duty, reform business rates or abandon Ed Miliband’s obsessive net-zero policy, would the landlord have to register and pay his £1,000 fee? If yes, does the noble Baroness accept that landlords will feel disinclined to give the Minister a piece of their mind? Is that not an obstruction to good government? I accept that this is an unlikely hypothetical scenario, since the Prime Minister and Chancellor, along with many Ministers and government MPs, are banned from their local pubs in protest against the Government’s appalling anti-business policies, but it illustrates my point.

On unintended harms to individuals, I would like to consider another example. Under the Bill, an in-house lobbyist who fails to register within the three-month registration period, whether by a mistake or not, faces a civil penalty of up to £7,500 or an unlimited fine on conviction. Is it reasonable and proportional for a small business owner who may be unaware of these rules to face that? What thought has the noble Baroness given to protections for well-intentioned, upstanding people who fall foul of the rules through ignorance, as they will if we broaden the scope of the law in this way?

On the possible backlogs in registration, what assessment has the noble Baroness made of the capacity of the four people currently in the office of the registrar to cope with the large increases in registrations? As she pointed out, there are just 240 people currently on the register; the EU has more than 17,500 organisations on its register and the Scottish Parliament has 1,642. Finally, can the noble Baroness tell the House what her view is of the £1,000 annual registration fee? Does she feel that that is reasonable for a small business or charity, simply for allowing the Prime Minister or any other Minister to visit and discuss business?

I hope we can all have a constructive debate on the principles underpinning the Bill, but there are a number of unanswered questions to consider. I look forward to the response of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, and to our further debates at later stages.

10:22:00

Viscount Stansgate (Lab)My Lords, I am very pleased to contribute to today’s debate and it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness. Like many Members, I occasionally show visitors, including Americans, around the House. I take them to Central Lobby and I say, “Here it is. It is a place; it is a noun. Of course, it is also a verb. It is the place where people come to meet their Members of Parliament, as they have every right to do”. There is nothing wrong with lobbying: it is an integral part of our system of parliament and government, and indeed all Members of Parliament themselves—including humble Back-Benchers on the Government’s side in this House—are lobbying and lobbyists. The dangers begin to emerge only when financial benefit arises and when money is involved. I want to concentrate on the benefits of lobbying for influence, which goes on all the time.

This is a Bill about transparency and accountability, which I would like to think are two principles that commend themselves to all sides of this House. I mentioned Americans, and tomorrow is of course the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the foundation of the United States. I quote one of the most famous justices of the American Supreme Court, Mr Justice Brandeis:

“Sunlight is … the best of disinfectants”.

This phrase remains very relevant when discussing the subject of the Bill.

My noble friend has argued that the rules, as they currently are under the 2014 Act, leave a large loophole and that the Bill provides the remedy, although it does involve some considerable administrative consequences. Previous Governments have argued—perhaps my noble friend the Minister will argue the same today—that there is already a regime in place whereby Government Ministers and Permanent Secretaries of government departments voluntarily disclose information about whom they meet on a quarterly basis, but is this enough? I do not think so.

The Committee on Standards in Public Life produced a report in 2021—not long after I arrived here—which specifically argued for the Cabinet Office to collate all departmental transparency information and publish it in an accessible and, above all, searchable database. It also advocated an expansion of the register to include contact between lobbying companies, spads and senior director-level civil servants. Perhaps my noble friend the Minister has something to say on this point. That committee stopped short of calling for the register to be expanded to include in-house lobbyists.

As the House knows, the post-legislative scrutiny of the Act by PACAC, the committee of the other place, also stopped short of recommending the extension to cover in-house lobbyists. However, it referred to “loopholes” that should be closed. The March 2026 Rycroft Review specifically drew attention to the current VAT exemption under the 2014 Act which, in effect, now allows lobbying firms of foreign-based subsidiaries of UK lobbying companies not to register. This is an error, and I hope my noble friend the Minister will address it.

As has been mentioned already, in March our outgoing Prime Minister commissioned the new Ethics and Integrity Commission to review, among other things,

“whether the current arrangements for transparency around lobbying are sufficient”.

If the report is being published next week, we look forward to reading what the answer will be. Maybe the Minister could also say something about that.

The Chartered Institute of Public Relations has already been referred to; its survey found that two-thirds wanted the lobbying register to include both consultants and in-house lobbyists.

If the House wants to know why I take a close interest in this Private Member’s Bill, it is this: my own experience. Before I was elected to serve in this House, I worked on behalf of and for the science community. As I knew a little about how Parliament works—indeed, in the family in which I grew up, it was impossible not to know a little—I was called upon to help represent the science community to both Parliament and government. I did so in various ways, such as organising events and arranging meetings. I suppose one could say that I did this work in-house. I organised on behalf of the science community—year after year, and decade after decade—the biggest science events ever held in the House. I hope the House will not mind if I give a couple of examples.

Parliamentary Links Day brought together the whole scientific community on a single day each summer. It comprised a huge meeting in the Commons, with standing room only, and another major event here in this House. You had to look only at the invitation cards to see what I mean: all the major sectoral science societies were represented—biology, maths, physics, chemistry, engineering—as well as many of our national academies, such as the Royal Society. The event was all about educating Members on science and technology issues and making the case for science and technology and the resources needed to fund them. We got speakers year after year from the Cabinet: the Foreign Secretary; the Environment Secretary; the Health Secretary; the International Development Secretary; the Science Minister, who was not always in the Cabinet but was crucial; and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Twenty-one years ago this year, the then Prime Minister himself addressed Parliamentary Links Day and I can well remember the frisson in the room. People were astonished to find a Prime Minister walking in to address them.

In 2001, I brought together a wide range of science organisations to produce the first ever Charter for Science and Engineering , to which the then Chancellor subsequently responded point by point, when he launched the 10-year investment strategy for science.

The Voice of the Future is another event that is still going. It brings young scientists and engineers to Parliament, who sit around the horseshoe questioning the Minister, the shadow Minister, the Chief Scientific Adviser, and members of both Houses’ Select Committees on Science and Technology, who sit at the witness table. It used to be launched by the Speaker himself.

I also organised parliamentary receptions—not just the Christmas reception at which we gave awards for outstanding contributions to the cause of science but others. Indeed, my noble friend Lord Anderson, who is in his seat, will remember the reception we organised to welcome back Helen Sharman, the first British person in space. That was quite a long time ago.

About 10 years ago, I arranged for Tim Peake—a name your Lordships may also remember—to give the first ever evidence from space to a Select Committee, in the Boothroyd Room. I remember meeting the parliamentary engineers, who worked in the basement at Millbank, and they were thrilled when the first signals conveying Tim Peake came through from NASA. The now noble Baroness, Lady Blackwood—sadly, not in her place at the moment—was the chair of the committee at the time so, if you do not believe me, ask her all about it. It was really quite an event.

Working in parallel to all this is the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee—of which, as it happens, I am now president—which organises the annual STEM for Britain event, in the other place. It brings early-career scientists and engineers here to meet their local Members of Parliament and exhibit their work. It is highly competitive. My purpose in giving these examples is to illustrate that lobbying activity of this kind goes on all the time. It is about seeking influence.

I have run out of time. Parliament is not a museum, it is a workshop, and this type of activity is to be encouraged. Expanding the 2014 Act register will do no harm and may well increase the sunlight we can shine on the whole area of lobbying. When it comes to this Bill, I will be voting for sunlight.

10:30:00

Lord Lansley (Con)My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate. I was much entertained by his speech. He, along with the Bill’s proposer, rightly said that this is not about trying to restrict lobbying activity; rather, it is about trying to introduce transparency in lobbying activity. We want to see lobbying take place.

I am reminded that Benjamin Franklin’s major contribution to the Declaration of Independence during the American Revolutionary War was, of course, as a lobbyist in London and Paris. So, lobbying can play an essential part in creating democracy as well as in sustaining it.

I declare an interestI am a director of a company that is on the register of consultant lobbyists, in recent times principally only because it acts as a secretariat to development forums and contacts housing and planning Ministers in that context. I am also an adviser to a company in Brussels that is on the EU transparency register. I will come back to the comparison between those two registers. I also declare an interest in that I was the Minister responsible for the 2014 legislation under the coalition Government, and had the benefit of being supported in that task in the other place by the then deputy leader of that House, Tom Brake, who is now the distinguished director of Unlock Democracy and is, I suspect, a supporter of this Bill.

It may surprise the Bill’s proposer that I support in principle what she is attempting to do. I will, I am afraid, irritate her by saying that, while I agree in principle, I disagree with almost every practicality of how she is doing it. The reason why—here, I come back to the comparison between the Westminster register and the EU transparency register—is that it is virtually impossible in the Westminster register to reconcile the quarterly information reports that Ministers make about their meetings with the consultant lobbyists who are on the register to try to see how they directly relate to one another as regards meetings and, especially, content. There is nothing about the content.

I should remind the House that in 2013-14, when the Bill was going through—unusually, this is not reflected accurately in the Library briefing—it was not extended to companies that were not consultant lobbyists because, in 2010, we in the coalition Government had introduced the ministerial reporting requirement. At that time, as far as we were concerned, the ministerial return would make it perfectly transparent if any company met a Minister on its own behalf, because that would appear in the return. The point was that a meeting between a public affairs or consultant firm and a Minister might appear in the Minister’s return, but you did not know on whose behalf they were speaking. That was why the register of consultant lobbying was established and why it had the parameters it did. The intention was not to restrict transparency but to add a transparent register where the quarterly information returned would not provide the information.

Why do I think we need to go further? There is capacity within the Act to go further, which Administrations since 2014 have not used. That capacity is twofold. First, as was mentioned previously, special advisers could be included along with Ministers and Permanent Secretaries, because consultant lobbyists know perfectly well that special advisers are an extremely effective way of avoiding the transparency the register is meant to provide. That is available, through secondary legislation, under Chapter 2 of the Act. Secondly, Chapter 23 gives Ministers the regulatory power to change what information is required to be provided to the register.

There is a very big difference. I will not bore the House by enumerating the differences between the Westminster register return and the EU return, but the latter is far more substantial in terms of what you know about an organisation that is seeking to influence the policy of the European Union. You know on whose behalf it is working, what clients it has, what funding it receives, which band of financial activity it is devoting to this task, and so on.

Why do I think the EU register is now a better way of doing things? Because you can reconcile the content of the lobbying with the organisation that is doing it, on whose behalf it is doing it and what resources it is devoting to it. If we are going to be transparent, we might as well go to the EU register, but it is substantively different from the one in the 2014 Act. The 2014 Act is constructed around regulating the person who lobbies, whereas the EU register is about regulating the nature of the activity itself. It is possible to move the 2014 Act in that direction, and I suggest that we should, but this Bill does not do that sufficiently.

I will give just one example. In paragraph 1(1) of Schedule 1, an exception from the requirement to register is provided if the person conducting the communication with Ministers or Permanent Secretaries does so for a business whose main activity is not lobbying. Most organisations will say, “We’re covered by the exemption. Lobbying is incidental to what we do, so we don’t need to register”. When they do register, they will get very confused about who they register. Should it be the chief executive? Should it be everybody? The EU register does not have that problem—the organisation is registered, not the individuals within it.

I suggest that at this stage, given that it is Second Reading, we say yes to the principle of trying to do something about this, but in Committee we may have to look in some detail at how we do it. It is not about simply putting “in-house lobbyist” alongside “consultant lobbyist”; it is about shifting from consultant lobbying and in-house lobbying to creating a register of organisations that are seeking to influence government legislation and policy. They should be on the register, in the same way as is true of the Brussels register.

10:37:00

Baroness Carberry of Muswell Hill (Lab)My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Hayter on bringing forward this Bill, and I agree with every single word of her introduction.

Going back to first principles, I agree that lobbying is a useful part of democracy. Like many Members of this House, I have done my fair share of lobbying—possibly more than my fair share—meeting Ministers over many decades to talk about issues that concerned organisations I represented. That is a legitimate type of democratic participation and it is a good thing, because decision-making benefits when decision-makers hear from a very wide range of voices. However, lobbying is widely regarded as a bit dodgy, a bit grubby and a bit suspicious. In many cases, people who hold those views are right, as some of the well-publicised scandals we have seen testify. We all meet people in our daily lives who suspect that a privileged few are getting an unfair chance to shape government decisions behind closed doors.

The basis of the Bill is the contention that too much is left hidden from view, and it is not too lofty to say that the Bill can help build more public confidence in our democratic institutions, because it introduces more transparency to who is trying to influence Ministers and senior decision-makers, and on whose behalf. Greater openness would strengthen confidence in government. Our current system just is not rational.

As things stand, two lobbyists could walk tomorrow into the same ministerial meeting and talk about the same issues. One might have to register, because they are an external consultant acting for a client. The other might represent a major corporation employing its own in-house public affairs team and would avoid the statutory register altogether. Try explaining that distinction to the average concerned member of the public. It makes little sense. The political influence on policy does not depend on whether the lobbyist receives a consultancy fee or a salary from the organisation they represent.

We have a system now that reflects organisational structure rather than the reality of influence. I had an example recently from a senior partner in a consultancy, who set out why the current system needs to change. Not long ago, one of their clients, a prominent financial institution, was sending experienced in-house government relations specialists into the Treasury to have material conversations about banking regulations. Those meetings did not have to be registered. But when a young employee of the consultancy wrote to a Minister simply requesting a meeting, that fell under the definition of “direct lobbying” under the Act and needed to be registered. I think that that is more than a harmless anomaly, because it contributes to public mistrust in government decision-making. So it is about time we had the straightforward change that this Bill would bring about by simply extending transparency to in-house lobbying. I hope that the Government will give it consideration.

As the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, mentioned, it is relevant in this discussion to talk about the Government’s transparency releases. As my noble friend Lord Stansgate said, as it stands, these releases are hard to find and hard to search. They are published in different places, in different formats, and with different names. They could be published in a single, accessible, searchable format. I hope the Government will give that consideration.

I also invite the Government to consider the remit of the Office of the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists while they are at it. It has admirably performed the role Parliament assigned to it, but it is reasonable now to ask whether its scope is still relevant more than a decade after the original legislation because, since then, the practice of lobbying has evolved. More large organisations have invested in sophisticated in-house government relations teams and there is more digital campaigning. The boundary between public affairs, strategic communication and direct government engagement has become less distinct. It is therefore legitimate to ask whether the regulator’s remit should evolve as well.

In that context, Ministers might look at the experience elsewhere. The Scottish system, for example, operates under a broader framework. It focuses on recording lobbying activity itself, rather than relying so heavily on distinctions between different categories of lobbyists. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, gave another example: that of the EU register. I am not suggesting simply copying another model, but there could be lessons worth learning about proportionality, coverage and public accessibility. A review of the registrar’s remit could consider questions such as whether the current definitions are still fit for purpose, whether the public can easily understand who needs to register and who does not and whether reporting requirements are proportionate.

The system we should be aiming for needs to be comprehensive enough to command public confidence, proportionate enough not to discourage legitimate engagement and, recognising the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, made about businesses, proportionate enough not to place disproportionate burdens on business. The system should also be straightforward enough for organisations and the public to understand. I think that this Bill makes an important contribution towards that goal. It recognises that transparency should focus on influence, not merely organisational form; it begins to correct anomalies that have become increasingly difficult to justify; and it offers an opportunity to modernise a framework that has not kept pace with changes in the lobbying profession.

10:45:00

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, on this excellent Bill, enabling us to have a crucial discussion about transparency. We have a huge problem with public trust in government. Just 27% of the population trust the national Government. There is very good evidence that transparency is one of the key drivers of trust. Others have already referred to Transparency International research showing that the current lobbying register covers, at most, 4% of those engaged in lobbying activity. I do not think that, if you went out on the street and surveyed 100 people, many people would know that figure, but there is a strong and rightful sense that a lot of murky things happen here in Westminster, and that damages trust.

However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, said when introducing the Bill, a lot of lobbying is positive and we need to keep that sense when it is lobbying in the public interest: by NGOs and campaign groups, patient or consumer groups, or communities affected by proposed developments. However, most lobbying is not in the public interest but for private interests, such as that by big oil and gas, big tobacco—and boy did we see some shameless examples of big tobacco lobbying in the recent Tobacco and Vapes Bill—big supermarkets, big developers and big finance, including, of course, the City of London Corporation, whose special access I am addressing in other areas.

It is worth saying that it is up to the Government to decide who to meet, who to hear and who to listen to. Successive Governments have very much balanced access in favour of these big interests, not in favour of those lobbying for public interests. Also, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter said, the current way the register is arranged means a lack of transparency for big lobbying and creates extra work and barriers for those lobbying in the public interest. It might seem to be a deliberate weakness in the law, and I commend the noble Baroness for seeking to fill it.

It is worth noting that we rely very heavily on journalists to dig and burrow to find out links. They make an expensive investment in finding out what is going on in companies that are trying to get windfall profits while the public good is ignored. It is worth noting, as a number of noble Lords have said, that we are effectively relying on stronger laws in other jurisdictions—we have to note the much stronger laws in Scotland and the EU—to occasionally draw back the veil. I note the publication this week on the substack Democracy for Sale of an article by Adam Bychawski and Peter Geoghegan that is an interesting case study of that. I do not know whether this Bill would solve that problem, but it is concerning. Andy Burnham’s incoming chief of staff, James Purnell, was until very recently the chief executive of Flint Global. Flint has said that its British client list is confidential and has declared just two clients in the UK in five years. But, on the EU lobbying register, it emerges that Flint works for Uber, Amazon and Diageo. You might say that they are very clearly big interests.

That is one interesting case study but we have heard some horrific case studies, and reference has been made to those. We have to think of Greensill, Westferry and the Covid-19 VIP lane. I declare, in the interests of transparency, that the rest of what I am going to say has been informed by lobbying from Spotlight on Corruption, Unlock Democracy and Transparency International UK, and it is they who stress those examples of the transparency gap that the Bill could partially fill. I understand that the noble Baroness kept the Bill narrow and focused—in my upcoming Bill, I have gone very much in the other direction of having a very broad Private Member’s Bill—but it is important to raise some of the gaps, which I hope the Government will say they intend to act on, and other issues that this Bill does not cover that we need to see action on.

The VAT registration requirements represent a problematic loophole, and other similar registers of consultant lobbyists do not present these exemptions. There is a real problem with timeliness, and it has not got better. Knowing what has happened before a Government make a decision is important, but, too often, we find out only months after the fact. That is something the Government themselves should be promising to solve.

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and a number of other noble Lords, said that we get descriptions of meetings from Governments that do not really tell us anything meaningful about what was discussed or what the subject of the meeting was. We have registrations of lobbyists saying they are working for a particular company, but how do all these pieces match up? That has to be solved, so that the public can see who indeed has Ministers’ ears. We should know what the purpose of the meeting was. If it was a meeting to discuss “trade issues”, what does that mean precisely? Are you meeting to discuss Australian beef imports or sanitary and phytosanitary standards? Knowing those details is crucial to understanding what is going on.

I again commend the noble Baroness. This is an interesting and important discussion. I hope that the Government—whatever “the Government” means—are listening.

10:52:00

Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, on bringing forward the Bill. I understand why she has done so, but I want to make a more general point about what effect the Bill might have.

One of the big problems we have had over many years has been the growing gap between government and business. We need to make sure that there is a greater understanding among people who are making economic decisions in government about what the business community needs in order to advance the economy and achieve what Governments talk about all the time, which is economic growth. I therefore ask myself how the Bill would work in practice and what effect it might have on the relationships between government and business.

I have in mind a very pro-business, proactive Government, who want to break down the barriers between business and government, and want Ministers to be out there understanding what motivates businesses and what they need to get on with their job of growing businesses, creating jobs and so on. I imagine a Chancellor of the Exchequer or a business Minister at a conference. He or she is working the room and talking to different business leaders, and a chief executive of a housebuilding company explains that he is sitting on various pockets of land and would like to develop them but the planning regulations, tax system and so on need to be changed. Does that person become an in-house consultant when he has that conversation with the Minister?

Imagine that the chief executive of an international bank is worried about what the Government might be doing around banking regulations or other aspects of banking, and he or she speaks to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and makes it clear that, if these changes in banking rules or regulations or taxation happen, the bank may have to consider relisting somewhere else. At that point, is the chief executive of the bank an in-house consultant?

I then look at the Bill before us today. New Section 5A(4) to be inserted by Clause 1(8) talks about regulations that would require the “topics of discussion” to be disclosed. Would that have an inhibiting effect on communication between business leaders and government? I do not think the noble Baroness would want to see the Bill having that sort of inhibiting effect on relations. It would be helpful, in her wind-up and perhaps when we come to the details of the Bill in Committee, for the noble Baroness to explain how we can avoid these unintended consequences.

10:56:00

Lord Norton of Louth (Con)My Lords, I agree with a great deal of what has been said by a number of speakers, which has the advantage that I will be able to shorten my contribution to today’s debate.

This is a modest Bill that seeks to improve an Act that is not up to the task of enhancing the transparency of lobbying. The 2014 Act was fundamentally flawed. Its name bore no relation to its contents. I moved an amendment to change the Long Title that would have replaced “transparency of lobbying” with “registration of lobbyists”. The measure did not enhance transparency of the substance of lobbying; it required the registration of lobbyists—or rather, as we have heard, certain lobbyists. It was notable as much for who was not required to register as for who was. If we are going to stick with the 2014 Act then it makes sense to extend its scope so that the register lives up to its name. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, moved an amendment then to include in-house lobbyists and was supported by many other noble Lords. For her, it is unfinished business. I urge the Minister to go further. The 2014 Act was a missed opportunity. There was no statutory code of conduct and no stipulation of the principles that should govern that conduct. We could have put ourselves on a par with other nations in embracing best practice, ensuring that representations made to the Government, Ministers, civil servants and advisers were put in the public domain.

I moved an amendment when the Bill was being considered in 2013 to provide for that, stipulating that representations made to the Government should be published when a policy was announced. That would have extended what my noble friend Lord Lansley was referring to in the quarterly return and would have been far more targeted to the actual policy that was being announced. Such a reform is essential for tackling declining trust in politics, as has already been referred to.

The 2014 Act, as I argued, was an output of the “something must be done” mentality. Scandals surrounding lobbying are nothing new, and, as we have heard, they undermine public trust. Simply requiring lobbyists—or rather some lobbyists—to be on a register has not really tackled the problem. As we have heard, the objection to extending the register to cover in-house lobbyists is one of cost, yet what we have is a limited register that requires a bureaucracy, albeit not a large one, that puts a burden on the public purse. As it stands, I am not sure it justifies the expense. We expend the money for no clear benefit in public trust. We need a radical reset if we are to ensure that lobbying operates in a fully transparent manner. The problem is not so much one of resources but of political will.

The answer is to ensure that there is transparency at the point when a policy is announced. If the representations made are revealed, then one has openness. It produces discipline, with Ministers knowing that what has been put to them is known. That should help to bolster support for their policies, if they can show the persuasive arguments that have been placed before them. The focus shifts from the status of those lobbying to the content of the lobbying: in essence, it removes the need for a register. As I said in 2013:

“Any representations made to anyone in the department would be shown. It would not matter who the lobbyists were: full-time independent lobbyists, in-house lobbyists, part-time lobbyists or individuals making representations on that particular issue—all would be caught. We would thus have true, comprehensive transparency. That is the key point, and it is important that we establish the principle”.—[Official Report, 5/11/13; col. 191]

The Minister responding to that debate was the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire. He said of my amendment:

“I took him down as saying that the Government believe in transparency but not too far. I would say that the Government believe in transparency, but want to be proportionate in our approach”.—[Official Report, 5/11/12; col. 196]

That was an interesting concept. Perhaps the Minister today can tell us the threshold for determining disproportionate transparency.

The public money used to maintain the register could be deployed instead to facilitate the release of representations made to government. Such transparency was achievable when we debated the Bill back in 2013 and, given the strides made in technology since, this can now be achieved far more efficiently than was the case then. This takes us beyond the content of the Bill before us, but it helps make the case for it. The argument I have deployed emphasises that what is before us is a modest but necessary measure to address a deficiency in the 2014 Act. I hope the Minister will give it a fair wind. It would be even better, of course, if she announces that the Government are prepared to go further and ensure that we have full transparency. Let us pass this Bill, and then get on and be a leader internationally in ensuring the transparency of lobbying.

11:02:00

Viscount Chandos (Lab)I congratulate my noble friend Lady Hayter of Kentish Town on her success in the ballot for Private Members’ Bills—I have asked her to advise me on my future selection of lottery numbers—and on her compelling introduction to this important and overdue Bill. Like my noble friend and other speakers, I believe that lobbying is an essential and potentially productive component in the communication between government and business, consumer groups and other constituencies. Governments should not determine policy or propose legislation in a vacuum but rather do so, as far as possible, after considered and thoughtful interaction with all interested parties.

The quality of that interaction is directly related to the transparency of the conversations that the Government have, to enable everyone, from legislators to the public, to form a view as to how the balance has been struck between the arguments and the interests of different parties. The Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014, amid its many other more overtly partisan measures, attempted to increase the transparency with which lobbying was conducted. But this start was fundamentally flawed, with a statutory register set up, as we have heard, only in respect of external consultants and not in-house lobbyists. Without disrespect to the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, this was demonstrably a wrong call by the then coalition Government, even though arguments were made at the time that other initiatives were supposedly in train that made it inappropriate to cast the net wider to include in-house lobbying.

The past 12 years have laid bare the failure of those other initiatives and processes, which were meant to create the level playing field and necessary level of transparency for all lobbying. That is why I welcome and support this Bill so strongly and wish to see it on the statute book, or instead, in the light of the Prime Minister’s commissioning in March this year of the Ethics and Integrity Commission to review the issue of lobbying, disclosure and access to government, have its measures incorporated into wider government legislation.

My support for the Bill is informed by two past roles I have held and by one current one, which I will formally declare as an interest. Some time ago, I was the chair of a public relations and public affairs consultancy, albeit as a corporate suit rather than as a lobbying practitioner, and more recently, until last February, I was chair of a trade association. In both cases—one already required to register and one which would be required to register under the terms of this Bill—I believe that these organisations would see this as a desirable and positive change. My current role, as included in my entry in the register, is as a director of Digbeth Loc. Studios Ltd, a company now operating the first phase of a film and television studio in Digbeth, Birmingham, and planning further phases as part of the overall regeneration of Digbeth. One of my co-directors is the distinguished screenwriter Steven Knight, who has been the driving force for over 10 years in rectifying the historical underrepresentation of the West Midlands in film and television production, and hence employment in the skilled sectors needed for that activity.

Steven Knight is a passionate and, not surprisingly, articulate advocate for his vision with Ministers and regional and local government leaders. Indeed, if he grows tired of screenwriting, he would be an outstanding professional lobbyist, however much that would disappoint the fans of “Peaky Blinders” and James Bond, whose next film he is writing. For many years, he operated essentially on a solo basis. Even now, with a very small corporate infrastructure in place, there is not a public affairs department of the sort that large companies and organisations will have. The noble Baroness, Lady Finn, has flagged her concern at the implications of the Bill for small businesses and organisations. I offer Digbeth Loc. Studios as a vivid case of what may not represent a large proportion of lobbying activity but can be vital for innovation and for social and economic change.

I do not believe that there should be any exemption for small companies and organisations. The ludicrousness of the VAT threshold exemption for consultancies should be a warning against that. I do not believe either that the registration fee is a meaningful issue. Even small companies have to incur similar or greater costs in the ordinary course of their business. What is crucial, though, is ensuring that the registration process, both initial and continuing, is as streamlined as possible for organisations that do not have the established public affairs department of, say, a big pharma or energy company. That said, I strongly support my noble friend’s Bill and look forward to the later stages when we can address the details and issues which I and other noble Lords have raised.

11:08:00

Baroness Helic (Con)My Lords, I warmly welcome the Bill introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. I congratulate her on bringing this important measure before the House and seeking to bring the United Kingdom more closely into line with jurisdictions including Scotland, Canada and others, all of which have adopted broader approaches to lobbying transparency. I also welcome the words of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and support his proposals.

The principle behind the Bill is straightforwardif consultant lobbyists are required to disclose their activities, there is no convincing reason why large organisations with substantial in-house lobbying operations should not be subject to a comparable transparency requirement. Greater transparency strengthens public confidence, improves accountability and increasingly serves our national security interests. I therefore strongly support both the purpose and direction of this Bill. However, registration is only the beginning. Transparency has real value only if the information disclosed is examined, understood and, where appropriate, acted on. A register should not simply be a repository of information; it should be a tool that enables government and Parliament to identify patterns of influence, assess potential risks and ensure that lobbying is conducted openly and responsibly.

The foreign influence registration scheme provides a useful illustration. Although it serves a different purpose from the lobbying regime before us, it demonstrates that disclosure alone cannot answer the more difficult policy questions. Political influence activity may lawfully be registered under FIRS on behalf of overseas public authorities or bodies connected to individuals or entities that are under United Kingdom sanctions, based on the fact that it influences and engages UK defence and security policy—currently, there is at least one example. Registration provides transparency, but it does not resolve the question of whether such activity is compatible with the public interest or whether it warrants closer scrutiny. Disclosure is therefore the beginning of effective oversight, not its conclusion.

The same principle applies to the Bill. Extending the register of consultant lobbyists to encompass significant in-house lobbying operations will undoubtedly improve transparency, yet the success of the measure will depend not simply on the volume of information that we collect but on whether that information is systematically analysed, emerging risks are identified and appropriate action follows. Otherwise, we risk creating the appearance of accountability without fully achieving it.

Other jurisdictions have recognised this. Germany’s lobbying register requires lobbyists to identify the legislation and policy proposal they seek to influence, while the United States’s Foreign Agents Registration Act requires considerably more detailed reporting of clients, activities and expenditure. These approaches demonstrate that transparency is most effective when it generates information that enables meaningful scrutiny, rather than merely satisfying a reporting requirement.

This is particularly relevant at a time when democratic institutions face increasingly sophisticated attempts to shape public policy or political debate by external factors. Most lobbying is entirely legitimate and makes a valuable contribution to better policy-making. The challenge for the Government is to distinguish legitimate engagement from activity that may undermine the public interest or present wider risks. That requires not only transparency but effective analysis, proportionate oversight and informed judgment.

Against this background, I have three questions for the Minister. First, how will the Government ensure that the additional information generated by this Bill is systematically analysed so that it strengthens accountability and informs policy-making, rather than simply increasing compliance requirements? Secondly, where lobbying activity raises concerns related to foreign policy, national security or other significant public interests, what mechanisms exist to ensure that transparency is accompanied by appropriate risk assessment and, where necessary, proportionate action? Thirdly, as the Government review the operation of the foreign influence registration scheme and the register of consultant lobbyists, will they consider whether lessons from each regime can be used to inform the future development of the other so that the United Kingdom has a coherent and effective framework for transparency in political influence?

I welcome the Bill because it addresses an important gap in the current framework. It represents a significant step towards greater openness and accountability. But, as I have said, transparency should be regarded as the beginning of effective oversight, not its end. Unless the information disclosed is thematically analysed and used to inform the Government’s decision-making, we risk creating the appearance of accountability without fully delivering it. The Bill provides an opportunity not only to expand transparency but to ensure that transparency serves its proper purpose in strengthening confidence in our democratic institutions.

11:14:00

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)My Lords, I am pleased to add my support to my noble friend Lady Hayter of Kentish Town. We need more lobbying transparency in the Lords.

We have been here before. My noble friend encouraged me to table a Private Member’s Bill on this topic back in 2016. I remind the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, that we managed to get it through. The noble Lord contributed significantly, with many amendments. I look forward to seeing him do that again, and to him giving support to try to get this Bill on to the statute book.

We had the Second Reading of my Bill on 9 September 2016. It endeavoured to build on the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014, which had its deficiencies. It is very important indeed, in the light of what happened with Covid, that we are back on this topic. I am not going to speak at great length. If anybody wants any great justification from me for supporting this, I suggest they look at the Hansard for 2016, which I have recently refreshed myself on. I read many of the speeches again.

The case is compelling and I believe that we have heard a general movement towards support for the Bill as this debate has proceeded, even though the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, was rather more strident in her opposition than her counterpart was back in 2016. I hope that she will be prepared to move her ground a little bit, because change is needed. Transparency is needed. We need to build that trust. The House of Lords is certainly out of step with the Commons, Scotland and Europe, and well out of step, as demonstrated by the previous speaker, with what happens in the United States. I hope that we can see a coming together and that this time around it will be different because—I will conclude on this—we have a different Government in power.

I have a question to my Front-Bench colleague. I hope she will indicate that this Government will support this Private Member’s Bill. It seeks a modest change. At a minimum, if the Minister cannot say that she will embrace it totally, I hope she will be prepared to indicate the way in which we can take the substance and principles of this change and add it to other legislation that may be in prospect, to ensure that we have greater transparency and accountability in the Lords than we have at the moment.

11:17:00

Lord Empey (UUP)My Lords, it is a pleasure to be in the Chamber discussing a piece of legislation on a Friday morning; it is a bit of a change from the atmosphere of the Colosseum that we have been used to on Friday mornings this year. Nevertheless, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, has struck a chord. There is clearly a broad consensus. The previous speaker was perhaps a little harsh on the Opposition; I think the principle is accepted, as opposed to the minutiae. We all look forward to getting to Committee, when we can get down to the detail.

The big thing that has happened in the past 12 years since the current arrangements were introduced is that not only has the technology changed but the whole structure of government and access to government has changed. We have had an exponential growth in spads. Of course, these people are now the recipients of a lot of lobbying. The Government themselves—as we have all done in bringing forward legislation—actively seek consultation as part of our process. The noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, and others have pointed to some of the anomalies, and they may not be included in the current legislation. VAT is one thing; it does not make sense.

Of course we do not wish to get into a hugely bureaucratic process, but what is perfectly obvious is that what we have today is not doing it. We need look no further than this House itself, where, unfortunately, some Members have found themselves falling foul of our own procedures and there is scepticism in the general public as to whether things are open and clear. The noble Lord, Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury, made a valid point: we all lobby Ministers; we do so, perhaps, during a vote. This sort of thing happens every day and it is part of the process, but it is a question of getting a balance and the fact of the matter is that the balance is wrong at the moment. We have an opportunity here.

I suspect that the Minister’s response will be, “We will have the EIC report next week and we will wait and see what that says”—it is on page two of her briefing. I understand that and that is fine but, because there is a broad feeling around the Chamber that we need to do something, it would be good if the Minister could guarantee either that the Government will provide more time for this Bill or, better still, that they will adopt its principles and bring forward their own proposals. I think that would be broadly welcomed around the Chamber.

The other anomaly is, of course, the limit to the Minister and the Perm Sec. My experience is that the Permanent Secretary does not, by and large, get involved in the day-to-day things; it goes much further down, to directors or people of that calibre.

I think we all know what needs to be done. The Bill is on the table; let us do it. I hope the Minister will be able to send us away rejoicing at the end of this debate that she will adopt this and be its champion as we move forward to the next stage.

11:21:00

Lord Hayward (Con)My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to speak in the gap. I did not put my name down to speak because I was at a Madonna concert last night and I was not absolutely certain that I would be available. That is relevant, in that I was a guest of a major company. That company was Grindr, and the question about lobbying is relevant in terms of the actions of major companies. I noticed a number of noble Lords’ response to my presence at the gig last night; it looked like jealousy.

The important thing about this welcome Bill from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, is that it raises questions about how people lobby now. We have heard a lot of contributions about how circumstances have changed, particularly concerning those people who are paid but do not, at the moment, have to declare the fact that they are actually lobbying. One of the groups that comes to mind is lawyers. Lawyers will claim client confidentiality or say that it is a peripheral interest, but if they are paid to represent a particular view or to advise in relation to a particular issue, it is appropriate that major law firms—or small law firms, for that matter—should be obliged to disclose what they are doing in the same way that others who will be affected by the noble Baroness’s Bill should be required to disclose their actions.

In conclusion, I agree with the questions that the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, raised about some of the implications of the Bill, because it is easy to pass a piece of legislation and think, “Oh, it doesn’t affect small businesses”; there has been reference to small businesses. Every bit of regulation that impacts on a small business adds to cost. Therefore, there are two ways of looking at, or exempting, certain circumstances or occasions that have been cited about private conversations and the like. One way is to ask whether they are paid to do so, and the other is some form of de minimis turnover that might apply in relation to small businesses. It is just too easy to say, “Oh, well, it’s just a little sum of money”. Lots of little sums of money can send a lot of small businesses under and we certainly would not want that to happen. But in broad principle, I welcome the Bill’s objective because it brings us up to date with where we are in terms of lobbying in 2026.

The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Barker) (LD)My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, is hoping to take part remotely, but he has been having audio problems. It appears that the problems have not been resolved, therefore I call the noble Lord, Lord Pack.

11:25:00

Lord Pack (LD)My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, on winning the legislative lottery. I too am envious of her luck and thank her for choosing this focused but important topic.

I used to work for a consultancy firm and some of that work involved lobbying, so I have personal experience of being subject to the regulatory regime that we are talking about. It is perhaps no surprise, therefore, that I share the view that others have expressed about the benefits that good, reputable lobbying can bring in fostering useful dialogue and a useful exchange of information and expertise that can inform and, therefore, improve decision-making. However, as the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, said, sunlight is the best disinfectant. There absolutely are aspects of lobbying to be concerned or nervous about, but the best way of protecting the good, genuinely beneficial side of lobbying is a strong dose of sunlight to distinguish that from other activities and behaviour.

I will talk a little more about the light-touch nature of the current set-up in a moment, as that has come up in some of the speeches this morning, but first, it is worth highlighting just how back-to-front the situation we have ended up in is. We had a bit of a history lesson as to how we have ended up where we are, but it is a very odd, back-to-front situation. Normally when we talk about regulation, we do it on the basis that the larger, the more powerful, the richer you are, the more important it is to be regulated. Instead, we have ended up with the opposite situation: the small outfit that cannot afford an in-house lobbying operation employs consultant lobbyists and is therefore regulated, while the large, rich, more powerful organisation that can afford an in-house team escapes regulation. It is the exact opposite of what we have repeatedly legislated for in all sorts of other areas.

It is also a back-to-front situation in that normally, when we discuss regulation in one form or another, one of the elements of the debate is hearing the people who will be most directly affected by the regulation saying, “Please don’t go too far. We don’t want too many burdens placed on us”. We obviously have to judge that against the wider interest, but in this case it is again back-to-front. As we have heard from the CIPR and other industry bodies, the view of the lobbying industry overall, collectively, is very much that they wish the regulation to change. It feels a little Alice in Wonderland, in that we have been doing the exact opposite of what we usually do in other areas.

As there have been some references to the potential administrative burden of extending the current regime, it is worth highlighting a couple of points. One is that it is a pretty light-touch regime. I certainly did not feel that I was being unduly burdened. There was certainly a little nervousness each time I collated the list of things that we needed to make sure that we were declaring, because you really do not want to leave something out of that list by mistake, but it is fundamentally a light-touch, low-cost regime.

The noble Baroness, Lady Finn, said that, in some ways, this is not a cumbersome step. I disagree only slightly: I would say that in every way it is not a cumbersome step. However, I would also say that if we compare the administrative and financial burdens, small though they are, that the Bill would extend to some firms to the burdens that, for example, any of those firms who export goods or services to the European Union now face following Brexit then this is extremely small compared with those additional burdens that some in this House, at least, have enthusiastically argued are reasonable and acceptable.

There has also been some reference to the Government’s transparency data, the extent to which it provides an appropriate form of regulation of lobbying and whether we therefore need to extend the current regime. A couple of points are worth reflecting on. Since that government transparency data was first introduced, there have been continuing queries, comments and, sometimes, complaints about the quality, timeliness and format of that data. There is a point at which it is reasonable to say that the problem has been going on for so long that simply hoping that it will be fixed and everything will therefore be resolved is maybe not the right step to take.

More fundamentally, there are occasions when double transparency, or double regulation, as one might wish to call it, is the right thing to do. It is beneficial to have not only the government transparency data—in, one hopes, an improved and enhanced format—but a requirement on lobbyists. That double procedure acts as a double protection. Indeed, we are quite used to the idea of doing something twice to be absolutely sure that we have it right, such as with double-entry bookkeeping. Nobody who does double-entry bookkeeping thinks, “This is an awful administrative burden. What a waste having to do everything twice”. Double-entry bookkeeping has become so widespread because the very act of doing things twice is a cross check to make sure that you are getting it right. In this case, that sunlight is so important that having transparency requirements on both ends of the process is not a duplication or unnecessary; it is an essential part of having a robust system in which we can trust.

I suspect that the Minister will tell us that the Ethics and Integrity Commission’s report on lobbying is coming shortly and that, in many ways, it makes sense to roll this issue into a wider government response to that. As the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, the noble Lords, Lord Lansley, Lord Norton and Lord Empey, the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, and others have raised in this debate, there are certainly other important aspects to this topic that need addressing. But whatever route we choose to take, whether it is through the Bill immediately in front of us now, a wider government response in due course or perhaps even through both routes, it is important that there is change. This is about enhancing and protecting our democracy, and, frankly, our own reputations. The more controversy, doubt, conspiracy theories and scandals there are around lobbying, the more that damages all of us in this House and in politics in general. One might think that that is an important act of self-interest, but it is also an important act of public good to improve and enhance our systems.

We should do more than what the Bill offers, but that is not a reason not to do the bit that the Bill in front of us gives us the opportunity to do. So often we hear action being promised “when legislative time allows”. Well, we have some legislative time and a piece of legislation in front of us. I hope that the Government and this House will, in due course, support the Bill.

11:32:00

Lord Shinkwin (Con) [V]My Lords, it is a great pleasure to be able to speak in support of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, twice in the same week. I do so today because I start from the premise that transparency is inherently a good thing. Transparency in lobbying is not only a good thing; it is crucial, because transparency engenders and underpins trust in individuals, in the decision-making system and in the policy-influencing process informing it. The noble Baroness’s Bill makes sense because transparency makes sense. The fact that this modest Bill addresses an omission from the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014 makes the measures within it both logical and necessary—necessary because, as we have already heard, while consultant lobbyists comprise around 20% of those who lobby, they are currently the only group the register covers. In other words, the vast majority are not on the register. They need to be.

I speak as someone who was privileged to spend 95% of his career before coming to the House as an in-house lobbyist for some of the UK’s best household names in the charity sector. In fact, it was through working for charities such as RNID, Macmillan Cancer Relief, as it then was, Cancer Research UK and the Royal British Legion that I came to really appreciate the value of your Lordships’ House. On Monday of next week, the latest Armed Forces Bill, which this time focuses on the Armed Forces covenant, will receive its Second Reading. That is happening only because the principles of the Armed Forces covenant were enshrined in law for the first time in the Armed Forces Act 2011, when I led the public affairs team at the Royal British Legion. That, in turn, came about only because Philip Hollobone, formerly of the other place, and then your Lordships’ House took it to the wire and backed the legion’s campaign on the Armed Forces covenant right through to ping-pong—if my memory serves me correctly.

At no point in that campaign did I or any of my team act without transparency. Indeed, the Prime Minister at the time, now the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, might have wished that we had, at least in the directness of our campaigning. We did not pull our punches, and he was very gracious in the way he conceded the need for the covenant principles of no disadvantage due to service and special treatment where injury is sustained on service to be enshrined in law—and in none the less recommending me for a peerage a few years later. I thank him on both counts. I would never have had a problem with being required to sign a register of in-house lobbyists, and of lobbyists overall, and I cannot imagine why anyone who has nothing to hide would either.

I close by returning to the point about the importance of trust. It is the glue that binds people and politicians together. Earlier this week, the House recognised the urgency of getting the National Security (State Threats) Bill on to the statute book as soon as possible. It did so because democracy is under attack by hostile state and non-state actors as never before. This Bill is the other side of the same coin because it recognises that enhancing faith in our democratic parliamentary system is crucial to taking the fight to those who would seek to undermine our democratic principles. Now is the time to enhance trust through transparency. This Bill does that, and I welcome it.

11:38:00

Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)My Lords, this has been a thought-provoking debate, with excellent contributions from all sides of the House. Private Members’ Bills are so often a good way to start a debate on a topic that otherwise would not be discussed in so much detail. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, has certainly achieved that with this Bill. The Bill has provoked an interesting debate on the important balance between transparency—which, like other noble Lords across the Chamber, we strongly support—and administrative burdens, particularly those on small businesses.

Ministers rely on open and frank conversations with stakeholders, whether they be businesses or charities. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, has been very clear that she is not opposed to that. Our concern is that this Bill, by placing an administrative and financial burden—as my noble friend Lord Hayward also highlighted—on organisations that engage with Ministers, could disincentivise those open and frank channels of discussions that Ministers rely on.

Furthermore, we are concerned about the unintended consequences. My noble friend Lady Finn gave the example of a pub landlord who might have to register following a conversation with a visiting Minister. My noble friend Lord Sherbourne spoke eloquently about the impact of the Bill on the relationship between government and the business community and gave a number of examples where there could rightly be some confusion.

I would like to give two further scenarios for the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, to consider as she prepares to take her Bill forward to Committee. First, her Bill made me think of the much-loved British cabbie. All of us will have got into a taxi and immediately found ourselves in conversation with the taxi driver on the issues of the day. Cabbies talk to their customers about their day, their work, the businesses they run and the challenges they are facing in those businesses. If a cab driver were to say to a customer who happened to be a Minister that the Government ought to change policy to make it easier for him to do business, would he have to register as an in-house lobbyist? It is these brush-by conversations and social interactions that risk confusion, registration and attendant costs.

The second scenario I would like to put to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, is that of the Minister meeting a local business at a constituency surgery: a local businessman, employee or charity goes to a constituency surgery with their local Member of Parliament to inform them of a particular challenge they are facing. Is this not deemed to be lobbying? It is merely, I quote now from Edmund Burke, an MP doing their duty to be in:

“the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents”.

But under this Bill, if the local Member of Parliament is a Minister, it seems the local business could be deemed to be an in-house lobbyist. Can the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, comment on that discrepancy?

It is clear from these examples that the definition of an in-house lobbyist in this Bill is far too broad. Where is the line? We would be happy, though, to work with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, to seek to improve on this as we go into both Committee and then Report.

11:43:00

The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab): My Lords, first, I thank my noble friend Lady Hayter for bringing forward this Bill and facilitating such a thought-provoking debate on such an important topic. I find myself in the very unusual position, for a Lords Minister, of actually speaking from the Dispatch Box on a policy area that I am in theory responsible for, so we will see how well this goes.

My noble friend Lady Hayter has campaigned with admirable vigour on this issue over many years. Indeed, many of the issues raised across your Lordships’ House today were highlighted with foresight by my noble friend in Opposition during the passage of the lobbying Act 12 years ago. Along with the active campaigning of the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, and my noble friend Lord Brooke, I think it is fair to say that there is considered to be unfinished business in this area.

As we have heard, this Bill would transform the register of consultant lobbyists into to a broader register of all lobbyists, including in-house lobbyists working on behalf of their employer, engager or principal. In doing so, it would significantly expand the 2014 Act’s prohibition on consultant lobbying unless registered and the associated civil and criminal penalties scheme. When considering the question of transparency around lobbying, we should note that it is the Government’s own publication of Ministers’ and senior officials’ meetings that has carried the weight of our transparency obligations on lobbying over many years. This dataset is published to reflect those lobbying engagements which have received sufficiently serious consideration by government that the issue has warranted a meeting with the relevant Minister or official.

The 2014 Act was designed to complement this dataset, as the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, rightly highlighted. Where a Minister or senior official is meeting with a consultant lobbying company and making a declaration as such, it would not be immediately clear whose interests were being advocated for. The 2014 Act was designed to remedy that flaw, requiring all consultant lobbyists to publish a list of their clients. However, the Government recognise the view of a number of Members of your Lordships’ House and across the wider public relations sector that this system of transparency around lobbying does not have widespread support and is widely viewed as insufficient. I repeat: it is unfinished business.

The Prime Minister recognised that there is more to be done on transparency around lobbying to further strengthen standards in public life. High standards of integrity in public life create stability and certainty. In turn, this builds trust in the consistency of public authorities and the conduct of their officials. Trust creates confidence, particularly for members of the public and businesses that want to make decisions that are positive for economic growth in the knowledge that they may face less risk. There are also, as the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, highlighted, national security considerations, as transparency can help protect us from the efforts of bad faith actors too. In the current climate, it is a very important element of this discussion, and that is why we commissioned the Ethics and Integrity Commission to look into this matter—I say to the noble Lord, Lord Empey, that that was point 12, not page 2. Noble Lords will be aware that the EIC is due to report very shortly, and we are grateful for the work it has completed at significant pace.

While we await the EIC’s recommendation, I hope noble Lords will accept that the Government must express our reservations about progressing this Bill today. On receipt of the EIC’s recommendations, we will consider the case for legislative reform very carefully, and while the views of noble Lords expressed in this debate will undoubtedly form an important part of that consideration, we will need to take some time to consider these issues in the round. Undoubtedly, the next Prime Minister will also have strong views on strengthening trust in public life.

When the Government consider the question of reforming the 2014 lobbying Act on receipt of the EIC report, we will want to look at all aspects of the lobbying scheme: privileged access to decision-makers, transparency arrangements and business appointment rules, as well as the recommendations of the Rycroft review, rather than solely the question of whether or not to bring in-house lobbyists into scope. But that does not mean that I am not sympathetic to many of the points raised in this debate.

With that being said, I will now turn to some of the specific points raised in the debate on the 2014 Act. I believe this debate raises three questions for the Government to consider when we receive the Ethics and Integrity Commission’s report. The first question at the heart of the debate on transparency around lobbying is: should it be the Government who carry the transparency obligation or the lobbyist? Our current system places that obligation almost entirely on government, with the register of consultant lobbyists providing transparency only on a very small element of the lobbying conducted.

I have heard the arguments from across your Lordships’ House and from important stakeholders that the public relations sector feels we have got the balance wrong. I recognise there is a desire from the public relations sector for lobbyists to carry more of the transparency obligation, and for all lobbyists—rather than just consultant lobbyists—to declare their lobbying activity. This is, of course, the purpose of my noble friend’s Bill, but it provides the opportunity also to establish a kitemark in lobbying, making it clear both for Ministers and others who it is acceptable to engage with. Which brings me to the next point.

At the heart of this Bill is the question of who is a lobbyist, as touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Hayward. The Bill is drafted to amend the 2014 lobbying Act to include the term “in-house lobbyist” throughout, covering those working on behalf of their employer, engager or principal. We should be clear that when we think of an in-house lobbyist, we are not just thinking of public affairs managers at large corporations or other private sector bodies; in-house lobbyists may include a wide range of organisations making representations to government, including charities, campaign groups, think tanks and others. We should not fall into the trap of thinking that transparency around lobbying is required only for those advocating on behalf of private or corporate interests. I want to assure your Lordships’ House that, as we consider reforms to the lobbying transparency scheme, we will use a definition of lobbyists that is fair and proportionate across different sectors and types of organisations.

We must also however ensure that we do not create unnecessary or disproportionate bureaucratic obstacles to individual citizens’ routine engagement with government. As many Members of your Lordships’ House have stated, and I agree, lobbying is not a bad word. Engagement with Ministers is a core British right and value. Listening to our fellow citizens is also a sensible approach for any Government seeking to make their legislation work.

In terms of making our legislation work, good definitions are key. The 2014 lobbying Act defines lobbying as

“oral or written communications made personally to a Minister of the Crown or permanent secretary”,

relating to any potential government legislation, policy or functions. Such a definition is broad in scope.

I recognise my noble friend’s view that this definition is sufficient in capturing the range of government engagements that might commonly be seen as lobbying. While this may be the case when the definition is applied solely to public relations professionals—be they in-house or consultants—we would want to think carefully about how such a definition might work if applied to a much wider range of government organisations and engagements.

Ministers will have all manner of engagements and conversations in the course of their work on matters of government business. Not all of these, however, could reasonably be said to constitute lobbying, and fewer still of these engagements might be said to constitute lobbying formal enough, or taken seriously enough, to warrant publication on an external transparency register.

A change in approach to the scope of declaration requirements, such as applying the 2014 Act’s definition to a far wider range of lobbyists, would require careful consideration to ensure that the right balance is struck between informing the public about meaningful lobbying engagements, and not putting too much irrelevant or trivial information into a transparency scheme, which means it is of limited value.

Turning to some of the questions I have been asked, not least by the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, and my noble friend Lady Carberry about the single transparency register, I reassure your Lordships’ House this was not scrapped by this Government: it was not funded by the last Government. They announced it without any budget associated to it and it therefore has not been progressed. However, this is a matter which the EIC is considering and that we will reflect on after the publication of its report. With regard to another point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, the flat fee scheme, we are aware of concerns raised about its disproportionate impact on smaller businesses, and any decision on funding will depend on the scope and range of a revised register, if changes were to be made.

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, touched on declaring the subject matter of lobbying approaches on the register. I recognise concerns that the information published on the register does not always enable the public to understand the subject matter of the lobbying approach. Requiring consultant lobbyists to publish the subject matter of their lobbying could be one way to approach the issue, and we will consider this carefully. Ministers and senior officials already publish the subject matter of their meetings, which goes some way to putting this information into the public domain, although I appreciate that there may be further recommendations from the EIC in this space, and we will reflect on them.

Several Members of your Lordships’ House also touched on the issue of the VAT exemption, not least my noble friend Lord Stansgate, the noble Lord, Lord Empey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. The Government recognise that the current VAT exemption has had the unintended consequence of exempting foreign-based lobbying from the ORCL transparency scheme. We are grateful to Philip Rycroft for his review and will consider this change carefully. The change would require primary legislation, and we will consider all recommendations for legislative change together.

The noble Baroness, Lady Helic, also asked me to consider three pointson the strengthening of accountability and how we analyse data, transparency and risk assessment, and FIRS versus ORCL. As we are awaiting such a substantial report in this area of recommendations, I will ensure that those issues are included in the round when we are debating next steps in terms of the EIC’s report.

The noble Lord, Lord Hayward, also rightly focused on lawyers, but there are other organisations which also campaign—or lobby directly—in this space under the “incidental purpose” exemption. We are aware of the concerns that a significant amount of lobbying can and does fall under the incidental purpose exemption. We will want to consider carefully any possible amendments to this exemption, which will be affected by the scope and range of any revisions to the register. As I have said, it is possible by calling yourself a think tank, or a lawyer, or through other ways, to get round the current process, which is why, as my noble friend Lady Hayter highlighted, fewer than 5% of people are currently touched by the regime.

In conclusion, I thank my noble friend Lady Hayter for raising this important issue and provoking a discussion on reform to the 2014 lobbying Act. I applaud her consistent campaigning—or should I say lobbying?—on this issue and her commitment to improving the transparency and integrity of our democracy, an aspiration I genuinely share.

We know there is more that can be done on transparency around lobbying. That is exactly why the Prime Minister has commissioned the Ethics and Integrity Commission to report on this matter, and I look forward to its report. However, until we have its report, the Government are not in a position to make any policy commitments on reform, and therefore I cannot support the Bill. However, I am sure all noble Lords will look forward to seeing the conclusions of the EIC review, and the Government will give that report the full and fair consideration it deserves, in a timely manner.

As a final point, I hope my response genuinely does not disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Empey—I would hate to do that—and that he and many Members of your Lordships’ House have a little hope about our direction of travel.

11:56:00

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)My Lords, I do not know what flatters me most. I think it is the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, moving from Madonna to myself—which I think is the biggest vote of confidence I have ever had from anyone.

I am delighted by those who have come today. I do not know whether I would call the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, one of the “guilty men” for having put through a Bill I think we now agree was perhaps a little too modest. In fact, even the Bill today is being called too modest. The noble Lords, Lord Norton and Lord Pack, and my noble friend Lord Brooke, all called it modest, which is a good start from where we go.

I thank the Minister, my noble friend Lady Anderson. She said this is unfinished business. I am going to take that as a very positive statement that she is promising the Government will do a little more—because what we all know is that it is time for change. I am not going to try to answer all the points she has so nicely dealt with, but it is important to note the breadth of support we have had. The noble Baroness, Lady Helic, also pointed not just to transparency but to the responsibility of lobbying: that it should be in the public interest. The noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, also expressed how transparency itself can enhance trust, which my noble friend Lady Carberry also said.

I think we all agree that lobbying is good and we do not want it to be in any way diminished by this. However, there is issue of sunlight, which I mentioned, and my noble friend Lord Stansgate reminded us that it was Justice Brandeis who first used that phrase. As the noble Lord, Lord Empey, said, this is timely, but we also know what needs to be done. My plea to the Minister is not to delay. My noble friend Lord Brooke mentioned the Covid inquiry, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, mentioned Greensill. We cannot wait for another scandal; let us get this right and let us do it quickly.

Issues were raised about cost. I have to say that that is a bit of red herring. I am very sympathetic, having run very small charities, but if you go to a consultant lobbyist, it costs you much more than £1,000 to get their advice. If you happen to be based in Manchester—I do not know why I mentioned Manchester—and you bring three of your people down to meet a Minister, that is going to cost you more than £1,000. So, let us not use this as an excuse for not bringing a bit more sunlight into this.

There are some other issues about administration and determining what is a private conversation. I have to say, I think the example of the cabbie was a bit OTT. What is a private conversation? Is it meeting? That is all covered in the Act now, because if a consultant lobbyist has a brush by or happens to meet someone at a school, a pub or anywhere else, the issue of what counts as a Minister is dealt with in the current law. So perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, ought to be asking, “What exactly did it mean by a meeting?”, because that is the current law. All we are saying is that it is relevant whether it is a consultant lobbyist or the chair of a PLC having a formal conversation with a Minister.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Sherbourne, that we do not want this to have a chilling effect, but we need to know who is talking to Ministers about what. The problem at the moment is that the ministerial declarations are nowhere near detailed enough. So, they may meet a publican, but they do not know whether that meeting is about alcohol pricing, the general age at which you can drink, or whether pubs should stay open until 5 am for a football match. Those are general policy issues, but if a publican saying, “I need something for my pub or brewery”, Ministers need to know whether they are being lobbied, in which case they should have a civil servant there, and they know what they should do. Let us not pretend that this is a new issue.

There is a difference between lobbying and general discussion. The Public Bill Office, when it helped me with writing the Bill, talked me through this. A headteacher meets a Minister and talks about general education. Is that an issue? No. They talk about how they find young people today. Is that an issue? No. If they ask for planning permission to extend their playground, that is lobbying. Ministers know it, and lobbyists know it.

I have left the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, until last. I have to say that I was very disappointed. I was disappointed yesterday, when we had a general discussion about the funding of political parties. Her answer seemed to be, “Don’t interfere with the size of donations given to political parties”. This does not seem a very good approach to these issues. One of her big questions was, “Is £1,000 too much for an organisation?”—

Baroness Finn (Con)I thank the noble Baroness for giving way. I find it rather disappointing that she is conflating today’s debate with a debate we had yesterday on political party funding, when I raised some serious concerns about the asymmetry of the Government’s approach. I did not necessarily want to go any further on the size or otherwise of donations, but I do not think it is relevant to the conversation today and why that was a disappointment.

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)The issue is whether we want greater trust in democracy. That is what the Bill is about. The idea that we start putting technical and administrative difficulties—

Baroness Finn (Con)I thank the noble Baroness again for giving way. If we are talking about trust in democracy, the point I was making yesterday was that if the Government of the day inflict substantial damage on opposition parties in terms of political party funding, that will call into question trust in democracy.

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)I disagreed with what the noble Baroness was saying yesterday, but we do not need to go into the details of that. The point I am trying to make is that the Bill is about the core issue of enhancing trust in democracy, rather than constantly being concerned with how to get there, the cost or the administration. It may be too modest a Bill and it may not be the right Bill, but we are talking about enhancing trust in democracy. It is a shame that that attitude of the Official Opposition, whom the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, is speaking on behalf of, is all about the problems and not the great steps forward we could make.

I think that most people who spoke today were in favour of the Bill’s direction of travel, which is that we should not just regulate or register 5% of lobbying, as now, but move towards the other 95%. I think that is what we all want to achieve. I hope my noble friend the Minister will move more speedily than perhaps sometimes happens in government, for understandable reasons, and that we will soon move forward on this. For the moment, I beg to move.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.