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.
A register will never capture all lobbying. To try to design a system that does would be foolish. What matters is that it captures the majority, the professionals and the bigger spenders.
These arguments and more were previously aired in the 2007-09 Parliamentary inquiry into lobbying conducted by the Public Administration Select Committee, which recommended the introduction of a statutory register of lobbyists.
According to PASC member Paul Flynn MP, the committee is announcing a new probe into lobbying today.
Let's hope they don't have to go over the same ground again.
For an overview of the lobbyists' objections during the first PASC inquiry, as well as some fine exchanges between Committee MPs and Peter Bingle of Bell Pottinger, watch SpinWatch's short film from March 2008.
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