The Office for the Register of Consultant Lobbyists (ORCL) is currently investigating an agency for not properly declaring Ministerial contact, the first potential instance of non-compliance. As ORCL approaches its first anniversary, demonstrating the teeth of its regulatory powers is understandable but also a timely reminder of the weakness of the original legislation.
It is well documented that the extremely narrow focus of the Act on third party consultant lobbyists works to ignore the vast majority of the lobbying taking place in Westminster. Indeed, many of the consultancies signed up to the statutory register often declare ‘nil returns’ for a quarter as they have not engaged directly with Ministers or Permanent Secretaries on behalf of a paying client. Clearly there is a lack of understanding within the Act about what professional lobbyists actually do. It also begs the far more serious question, “Can the statutory register increase transparency at all?”
Indeed as Alison White herself puts it in a recent piece in the Financial Times, “there are all sorts of exemptions in the act….the legislation is quite narrowly drafted”. In the same article, Paul Flynn MP expresses his concern that “the register doesn’t pick up the big in-house corporate lobbyists or the legal firms that provide public affairs advice.” However, the legislation was never intended to pick up the in-house lobbyists of law firms, despite the repeated insistence of the lobbying industry and transparency campaigners that the register should encompass all those who lobby. Indeed, these loopholes were the reason the CIPR introduced the UK Lobbying Register (UKLR). By covering in-house, agency and freelance lobbyists, the UKLR helps to plug the gaps left by the UK Government’s legislation.
One only has to look at the Lobbying Register in Ireland to see how an inclusive piece of legislation can help to deliver significant levels of transparency. In Ireland over a 1,000 lobbyists have signed up to their register, submitting 568 returns for the first quarter of operation, whereas the UK Register has only 119 registrants. Indeed, any business or individual making an approach to a public official with a view to influencing public policy comes under the Irish legislation, which means that there is suddenly a wealth of information available to the public about the democratic process.
In Scotland, the Lobbying Bill continues its progress and whilst it can be argued to have some weaknesses (particularly around digital communications), the Parliamentary scrutiny applied to it has resulted in genuine improvements (including contact with special advisors and potentially other senior civil servants). These improvements did not happen during the passage of the UK Lobbying Act and consequently the Scottish register will be far more useful to the public than the UK Register.
There seems to be little appetite at the moment from Government to revisit the Lobbying Act, which seems at odds with their commitment to transparency. Perhaps it will take another ‘lobbying scandal’ involving parliamentarians with no professional lobbyist in sight to help persuade the Government that the Act is not fit for purpose.
Paul Beckford is the Chair of CIPR Public Affairs Group and an Account Director at Connect Communications.
The CIPR owns and operates the open, universal and free UK Lobbying Register (UKLR), a register of individual lobbyists and organisations which are involved in lobbying.