Candid Caborn PDF Print E-mail

29 March 2010

If only MPs were as candid with Parliamentary Select Committees as they are with potential employers.

Richard Caborn MP is the latest ex-minister to be caught out by the Sunday Times lobbying sting. His claims to undercover journalists of what he would be prepared to do for the fake lobbying firm are in stark contrast to his account of his 'consultancy' work for engineering giant Amec, given to Tony Wright's Public Administration Select Committee during its recent inquiry into lobbying.

The Sunday Times reports that Caborn talked about a number of services he could offer the fictitious lobbying firm (at a daily rate of £2,500 “plus expenses”). He said he would be willing to build relations with ministers who were “good friends”. He was also happy to approach senior Conservatives if they came to power.

Caborn was also taped claiming that he may be in line for a peerage, which would boost his chances of extracting valuable information from the corridors of Westminster. Asked how he could help the firm if he were in the Lords, Caborn replied: “Well, access. Access to people ... You are in the environment, you’re moving around.” This included access to ministers.


He later elaborated on the advantages of the Lords: “All this is all about contacts, it really is. It’s not so much always about influencing, it’s about getting information, and that’s absolutely key because if you can get information that is very powerful.”

Caborn continued: "If a client was a “big hitter”, he said, it could gain access to the highest levels of government. This was true of Amec’s chief executive, Samir Brikho. “If Samir Brikho wants to see the prime minister, Samir Brikho sees the prime minister,” said Caborn.

Asked whether this was something he helped to arrange, he said it was.

How this contrasts though with the evidence Caborn gave to the Public Administration Select Committee last year during its inquiry into lobbying.

When questioned by the MPs on the Committee about his work for Amec, Caborn denied it had anything to do with lobbying: "It is not about lobbying at all" he said; "it is about the fact that I am an engineer and I have had a lot of experience in Europe and have been a trade union official... I am not in the game of lobbying government in that sense; I am there to advise on the skills I had before I became a minister."

His responses were met with a healthy dose of skepticism from a number of the Committee's members. A prophetic Paul Flynn even ventured: "Someone in your constituency might cynically suggest that what you are doing as a retiring MP with a short time to go and expectations of going to the Lords is feathering your nest in order to get a comfortable job after you stand down as an MP?"

To which Caborn replied: "If they want to make that judgment they will do so. They might be as cynical as you, Mr Flynn."

 

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