We need new rules, but for lobbyists PDF Print E-mail
Tamasin Cave 5 February 2009

All agree that the allegations made against the four Lords are serious. More serious than the scandal that hit the Commons over a decade ago when MPs were found to be in the pay of lobbyists. Now, as then, though, the focus of our attention is on the seller of influence rather than the buyer.

Back in 1994, in the wake of cash-for-questions, the Nolan Committee set up to deal with the crisis, fell shy of regulating lobbyists. It was impossible, they claimed, to arrive at a satisfactory definition of who or what a lobbyist is, thus making any system unworkable. Instead the lobbying industry was asked to go away and regulate itself.

Just as Nolan’s Committee was struggling with a definition, law-makers in the United States found one. The Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 introduced a single, mandatory register of all professional lobbyists. Its primary aim was the public disclosure of the potentially corrupting nexus between lobbyists, money and legislators.

What concentrated minds was political scandal. Congress had been caught up in a sensational case of corruption touching several members. It was controversy again, involving the super-lobbyists Jack Abramoff, that led to another sweeping series of lobbying and governmental ethics reforms in 2007, signed in rather reluctantly by George Bush. The recent Presidential race was largely scandal-free, but curbing the power of lobbyists was front of voter’s minds. In a move designed to signal change, President Obama chose his first day in office to tighten the rules further, putting stops on the ‘revolving door’ between his administration and the industry, and introducing a ban on gifts by lobbyists.

Meanwhile, the UK has had to make do with a system of self-regulation for lobbyists. A system that a recent Parliamentary report on lobbying described as “little better than the Emperor’s new clothes”. Last week the former chairman of one of the trade bodies involved acknowledged its central weakness – its voluntary nature - and conceded that there might be a case for a compulsory lobbying register.

The Parliamentary report into lobbying published by the Public Administration Select Committee just last month, recommended that the UK introduce a mandatory register akin to that in the US. It argued what is now blindingly obvious: that there is a public interest in knowing who is lobbying whom on what, and that “transparency is key.”

Their proposed register would make public: the names of lobbyists, their employers or clients, information on the revolving door between the lobbying industry and officials, and details of meetings between lobbyists and decision-makers. It falls short of the United States in one respect. It would not reveal lobbying expenditure.

We must now demand lobbying transparency in the UK. Tightening the rules for Lords will not expose lobbying to public scrutiny. Nor will it restore public trust. The sums of money involved may differ between the US and the UK, but the industry that allows some interests to buy access and influence remains the same.