Tamasin Cave, 26 May 2009

Wow. Strong words from David Cameron today. Only six years after a national poll found that over half of us felt we had "no say over what government does", he's today calling for "the redistribution of power from the powerful to the powerless".

"Through decentralisation, transparency and accountability we must take power from the elite and hand it to the man and woman in the street," he says.

But is his analysis of the public mood and need for reform complete?

Why is it that we feel excluded from politics? Is it the power of the whips? Is it that MPs have been prevented from voting for select committee chairs? Or even that councils have lost the power to make local decisions? Is he reflecting public opinion when he says the solution lies in limiting the power of Government?

One thing that Cameron - or indeed any senior politician - has failed to mention, but which is frequently in minds of voters, is this: people may not think they have the ear of government, but they're pretty sure that commercial interests do. Back in 2004, over two thirds of a public poll said that they felt large corporations had influence over government policies (while only a third said they should). The Power Inquiry survey of 2006, which polled the nation to find out why we had disengaged from formal politics, spoke of the need to "address the extraordinary power of corporations and their lobbying groups." The report cites as an indicative quote: “It is not just perception that corporate lobbying influences government policy – it is actuality. Until the actuality changes, the perception will not.”

No discussion on reform is complete without an acknowledgment of this. We may not be enjoying influence and power, or "control on the world around us", as Cameron puts it, but someone is.

He's right, however, that the answer partly lies in greater openness. If the perception or actuality of undue corporate influence is to be changed, we need transparency -  ie public scrutiny of political decision-making. This includes the part played by lobbyists, the people who get paid to influence government.

In January this year, the Public Administration Select Committee, full of the type of independent MPs Cameron appears to be championing, recommended that Parliament adopt new rules for lobbyists. The Committee concluded that there is a public interest in knowing who is influencing whom and on what. They called on the government to introduce a mandatory register of lobbyists, which would put this information into the public domain so the rest of us could see what they were up to.

Chair of the select committee, Tony Wright, who has been proved right on the issue of expenses, warned: "The  result  of  doing nothing would be to increase  public  mistrust  of Government, and solidify the impression that  government  listens  to  favoured groups—big business and party  donors  in  particular—with  far  more attention than it gives to others.”

Backbenchers seem to get it. So far just under 200 of them have signed a petition calling on the Government to introduce a mandatory register of lobbying activity (we probably need reform for this to make a difference).

So, what has been the Tories' response to the idea that lobbyists should operate in the light of day? Very little so far. To be fair, the Government too has been very quiet. It was due to respond before Easter. You can't help but wonder if it's heading for the long grass.

Cameron says he wants to open up the legislative process to outsiders, with "text alerts on the progress of parliamentary bills". Not a bad idea, but lets start by seeing who is actually sitting down with our public officials to craft that Bill to suit their own private interests.