29 Jan 2012

The Sunday Times reports this morning that the Cabinet Office official in charge of government efforts to clean-up of lobbying has stepped down after posting a message on Twitter saying she hoped a group fighting for better regulation of the industry “would die”.

The remark appeared in a series of tweets by Eirian Walsh Atkins, who resigned as head of constitutional policy at the Cabinet Office on Friday. She now faces an internal investigation into possible breaches of the civil service code of conduct.

The paper reports: 'Walsh Atkins will be asked to explain the tweet she posted on December 22, saying: “I wish Unlock Democracy [the campaign group] would die. I am prepared to help it along.”

Asked by The Sunday Times to explain her comment about Unlock Democracy, she replied: “That I don’t like them,” and hung up.

However, more important than her apparent dislike of transparency campaigners is the fact that Walsh Atkins has held regular meetings with lobbyists seeking to influence the government's proposed statutory register of lobbyists, which she was responsible for preparing. She has met with the UK Public Affairs Council (UKPAC), a lobby industry body promoting self-regulation, on at least four occasions since September 2010. At the same time, transparency campaigners have been denied access.

The government's proposals for a statutory register, published last week, were widely seen as a whitewash, with lobbyists' fingerprints all over them.

The fact that the lobbying industry's lobbying of Walsh Atkins would remain a secret under the government's current proposals, will not do the government's case for minimal reform any favours. 

19 January 2012

The government is expected to announce its plans for a statutory register of lobbyists tomorrow (Friday 20 January). Ahead of publication of its consultation, Tamasin Cave of the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency said:

"The devil will be in the detail. We need a robust, compulsory register to reveal: who is lobbying whom, what they are lobbying about, and how much is being spent trying to influence our politicians. And it needs to be overseen by a body independent of the industry.

Anything less and we can assume that the government is putting the interests of its friends in the influence industry above public demands for full transparency.

David Cameron has voiced deep concerns about lobbying in the UK getting 'out of control'. The government must now tackle this £2billion industry and bring their activities into the open. Britain needs to catch up with other countries and allow real public scrutiny of lobbying with a robust register of lobbyists. Only then will we be able to fully understand the impact they have on the way this country is run."

The Alliance for Lobbying Transparency is calling for a robust statutory register, which would require lobbyists – whether companies or trade unions, lobbying agencies or law firms, and larger charities (above a minimum financial threshold) – to regularly declare on a public register:

• Names of individual lobbyists;
• The special interest lobbying (either the employer or agency clients);
• Public body being lobbied;
• Information on any public office held by lobbyists within 5 years (to reveal the 'revolving door')
• Area of policy they seek to influence, whether legislation, regulation or 
public contract;
• Amount of money spent on lobbying (good faith estimate). This will reveal scale, disparities and trends in lobbying.

8 December 2011

Following this week's revelations about lobbying, the Independent reports today that "the trade body which represents the UK's public relations and lobbying industry is to investigate Bell Pottinger over claims made by executives during a business pitch to undercover reporters".

A rival lobbyist, Mark 'stand up for lobbying' Adams, has made the complaint to the Public Relations Consultants Association (PRCA), one of three trade bodies running the lobbying industry's system of self-regulation. 

Adams states: "I am a strong proponent of self-regulation for the lobbying industry...Ideally Bell Pottinger will clear their name and demonstrate they have done nothing wrong. But if they have behaved in an unethical manner, then the appropriate sanctions should be taken against them."

The toughest sanction available to the PRCA is that they terminate Bell Pottinger's membership. That's it. And you thought the Press Complaints Commission lacked teeth.

8 December 2011

As demonstrators shut down Washington's K Street, the historic home of the US lobbying industry, new research from the US shows how corporations are paying more for lobbyists than they are in taxes. The report by Public Campaign finds, for example, that General Electric — one of the top 10 most profitable companies in the world — got a net tax rebate of $4.7 billion between 2008 and 2010. Meanwhile, it spent $84 million lobbying Washington. 

At the moment, we have no comparable figures for companies in the UK. Unlike their US colleagues, lobbyists in Britain aren't forced to make public who they are lobbying in government, which areas of policy they are seeking to influence, and crucially, how much money they are spending in the process.

People aren't yet protesting outside the London offices of the UK's major lobbying firms, but public demands for the Coalition government to finally introduce its proposed compulsory register of lobbyists are getting much louder.

Tamasin Cave, 6 December 2011

Claims of influence and access by lobbying firm Bell Pottinger have been met by an astonishing denial from Downing Street, the prime minister's official spokesman telling reporters today:

“It simply isn't true to say that Bell Pottinger or any other lobbying company has influenced government policy... I am challenging this idea that this company or any other lobbying company have influenced policy.”

It’s in the interests of lobbyists to advertise their influence on politicians, and in politicians’ interest to deny it. But is there any truth in the government’s claim; should lobbying firms just shut up shop and go home?

Leaving aside the too-many-to-mention UK government policies covered in the fingerprints of lobbyists, and the obvious truth that companies wouldn't pay for lobbying if it didn't work, there are a number of studies that explain why companies invest in lobbying. (Most are from the US, which says a lot about the transparency they have in lobbying stateside, and how little knowledge we have of our industry here, clothed as it is in secrecy).

• American corporations currently spend about $3.5 billion/year on lobbying.  It has been estimated by the right-wing Cato Institute that the value of the resulting corporate welfare is about $90 billion/year.

• A recent study shows that the rate of return for money spent on lobbying for corporate tax benefits alone is between 6 and 21 times.

• Another study demonstrates that firms which lobby ‘significantly outperform non-lobbying firms with respect to increased market value of equity'.  This can be as high as adding another 2% per year to returns.    

• Related to this, the Economist reports that an index based on the amount of lobbying that American firms do has outperformed the broader market since its creation in 2008. “The results have been stunning,” reports the Economist, “comparable to the returns of the most blistering hedge fund".

• According to a study on the connections between lobbyists and politicians in the US, it’s been found that the most 'politically connected' lobbyists, those with the closest relationships to senators, suffered a 24% fall in revenues when 'their' senator left office. The value of direct access to influential Cabinet ministers has been estimated at £112,000.

Tamasin Cave, 6 December 2011

Wow! This is reminiscent of the old Tory days of sleaze. A Conservative government at the heart of yet another lobbying scandal. Last month’s led to the resignation of the defence secretary. This one leads to the Prime Minister himself.
 
One of the lobbyists caught by today’s investigation by the Independent / Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Tim Collins, is the chief lobbyist at Bell Pottinger Public Affairs. He is caught on camera boasting of his contacts:
 
“I was in the Conservative research department with David Cameron and George Osborne… I was in the Shadow Cabinet under two or three leaders, again with David Cameron and George Osborne… I've been working with people like Steve Hilton, David Cameron, George Osborne, for 20 years-plus. Edward Llewellyn, who's the Prime Minister's chief of staff, was my deputy in Central Office for a long time. Steve Hilton was my deputy in a different capacity. I know all these people. There is not a problem in getting the messages through to them.”

We all know how it works now.

19 October 2011

"Clamp on lobbyists will hit charities and unions" shouts the Times' front page this morning.

That's right. A compulsory register of lobbyists, which is what the article is referring to, can only work if it includes all those that lobby government: commercial lobbyists, companies, charities, unions, law firms, management consultants, trade bodies, think tanks. The whole of the public affairs industry. Was anyone suggesting different?

What's more, charities and unions are campaigning for the rules!

The membership of the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency, which has been pushing for a register for 4 years, consists solely of charities and unions, including: Action Aid, Campaign Against Arms Trade, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, National Union of Journalists, Platform, SpinWatch, Unlock Democracy, War on Want, and the World Development Movement.

These groups lobby government, and they think people should know about their attempts to influence it. (Also, the vast majority of lobbying in the UK's £2bn industry is done by commercial interests, but start exempting charities and that's where the money will flow, into non-profit front groups).

If the article is designed to scare the third sector, it shouldn't. A good register will not capture the activities of smaller, less well resourced charities. As is the case in other countries which regulate lobbying, there should be a sensible minimum financial threshold, below which charities or for that matter small businesses, would not have to sign up.

2 October 2011

With a straight face, the Policy Exchange think tank is hosting an event at next week’s Conservative conference called: Let there be Light: Technology, transparency and fixing Britain’s broken government.

The line up of speakers includes: Francis Maude MP, Minister for the Cabinet Office (and co-founder of Policy Exchange); Rishi Saha, Director at PR and lobbying giant Hill & Knowlton and former Head of Digital Communications in No 10; and Piotr Brzezinski, Head of Digital Government at the Policy Exchange.

So, should we be looking to politicians, think tanks and lobbyists for how to fix Britain’s broken government?

Let’s start with politicians: Policy Exchange’s first chair, Michael Gove, for example, appears to be using technology to hide rather than reveal government business from the public: he’s just been caught using a private email account (registered in his wife’s name) to discuss policy with his advisors. This, they (wrongly) claim, exempts such correspondence from Freedom of Information laws.

More regressive use of technology was revealed last week: the routine use of texts by ministers to contact corporate lobbyists about government business, again as a way to slip through the net of Freedom of Information requests.

Do think tanks fare any better on transparency?

1 October 2011, Tamasin Cave

The week before the government published its controversial reforms to England's planning system, Conservative planning minister, Bob Neill, was snapped looking relaxed, glass of wine in hand, at a Westminster party.

The occasion is the invitation-only summer get-together of lobbying firm Hanover, run by Charles Lewington, John Major’s former press secretary.

Neill is pictured with Lewington, and on his shoulder is Lucy Neville-Rolfe, chief lobbyist at Tesco.

Tesco will be a big winner under the new planning system with its presumption in favour of development.

The supermarket’s lobbying campaign continues at this weeks Conservative party conference, where tomorrow night (Sunday) it is sole sponsor of the Conservative Councillors' Association’s reception. The CCA represents nearly all local Tory politicians. A useful connection, one imagines, given their role in planning decisions.