If the new government wishes to avoid lobbying scandals, it must change the law – fast, writes Rachel Clamp
It wasn’t that long ago, as focus on the pandemic started to fade, that the front pages were dedicated to stories about politicians – and former politicians – using their “little black books” to lobby the government on behalf of paying businesses. Only their little black books were actually mobile phones and they were busy Whatsapping their friends in government, waiting for the two little blue ticks to appear in the hope that their lobbying was seen by the right person at the right time.
But it wasn’t supposed to be this way. Over a decade ago the Cameron government, concerned that lobbying was the next big scandal waiting to happen, passed the 2014 Lobbying Act, creating a public register so voters could see who was lobbying whom. The ‘light of transparency’ would now be shone on British politics.
And yet, in almost cosmic irony, the lobbying scandal prophesied would break and it would involve the very architect of the act. As businesses across the country were writing countless letters and emails to MPs, ministers and civil servants desperately searching for financial support in the midst of the pandemic, news broke that none other than Lord Cameron himself had tried to jump the queue by firing off Whatsapps to the highest echelons of the Johnson government.
For all the public outrage, the resulting investigation by the Office of the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists (ORCL) – the lobbying watchdog – found that Cameron had done no wrong in the eyes of the law. As an employee of Greensill, and therefore not a consultant lobbyist, he was exempt from signing the register. His behind-the-scenes lobbying was perfectly permissible, with the investigation merely demonstrating the flaws in the act.
After all, the act serves to keep the overwhelming majority of lobbying from public view via six key exemptions, as the latest research from the CIPR shows in a report titled Failure by Design. These include exempting the following groups from signing: those working in-house, rather than for a third party; those who are not VAT registered; and, slightly strangely, those who do work for an agency and are VAT registered, but can claim lobbying is only an incidental business activity. In other words, a senior banker could fire off a text a minute on behalf of his employer for a month and, no matter how significant or successful the lobbying, there is no obligation to make this known to the public.
Thus, it is no surprise that, at the time we published our report, a civil penalty had been imposed in only around four per cent of ORCL’s investigations into suspected unregistered lobbying. The inescapable conclusion is that the Lobbying Act is simply more loophole than law.
This matters because the investigations include not just the Cameron affair, but 13 cases involving sitting or former politicians, with each finding that any lobbying that may have taken place was exempt from registration. And where Cameron was ultimately found to be completely exempt on the grounds that he was employed by Greensill, other politicians have been exempted for reasons including not being VAT registered or proving incidental business activity. This is not to say that those involved ought not to have lobbied, or are in the wrong – it’s just that any activity should be visible.
The manifestos of the two parties vying for office could have been a seminal moment in the quest for lobbying reform. Sadly, however, the opportunity was missed. Although the Labour Party’s proposed Ethics and Integrity Commission recognises the need to rebuild trust in politics even as the Conservative manifesto stayed silent, it still stops short of calling for the overhaul of the Lobbying Act it once suggested it might.
Unless and until we ditch the broken register of lobbyists in favour of a register of lobbying – wide in scope like those in other Western nations – our watchdog will find itself powerless to stop the never-ending string of scandals. And given just how much-repeated scandals have damaged politics, if the new government wishes to avoid a very brief honeymoon of decency, it ought to act soon.