Commons committee renews call for statutory lobbying register

The Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) has renewed its call for a statutory register of parliamentary lobbyists, while also criticising the government for its slow progress in bringing about effective self-regulation of the lobbying industry.

PASC published a lengthy report on lobbying in January, to which the government responded in October, rejecting PASC’s calls for a statutory lobbying register and opting instead to allow voluntary self-regulation.

However, in a follow-up report published today, PASC chair Dr Tony Wright MP said: ‘There is much more that should be done if public concern about this issue is to be addressed. I think we will ultimately end up with a statutory register of lobbying activity and I urge the government to look again at this.’

Public affairs practices in a number of City law firms argue that they cannot disclose the names of their lobbying clients under a voluntary scheme. They say that to do so would breach solicitors’ client confidentiality rules, and therefore the government should legislate.

PASC suggested in its latest report that some lobbyists might be delaying the implementation of voluntary self-regulation ‘in the hope that the concentration on their activities will die down after a general election’.

‘This would be a cynical attitude,’ the report says. ‘If the industry is serious about trying to avoid external regulation then it needs to have robust procedures in place for self-regulation before the general election.’

Following the publication of PASC’s January report, Lobbying: Access and Influence in Whitehall, the three largest lobbying representative groups – the Association of Professional Political Consultants (APPC), the Public Relations Consultants Association (PRCA), and the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) – formed the Public Affairs Council Working Party in order to make proposals for self-regulation.

However, PASC said that it was disappointed that the working party has to date failed to publish any proposals.

Source:lawgazette.co.uk/