Redesigning lobbying

This article appeared in the December issue of Total Politics

The Adam Werritty story contained so many elements of the classic political scandal that it risked descending into cliché: a right-wing cabinet minister who didn’t always see eye-to-eye with his leader, arms deals, secret funding, sexual innuendo. Aside from costing Liam Fox his job, the long-term impact is likely to be particularly keenly felt by the lobbying industry, despite its having had very little to do with the story.

The lobbying industry has been variously described as the second-oldest profession and ‘politics for ugly people’. Reviewing its recent history is like watching a very slow-motion train crash. The rot set in with the ‘cash for questions’ scandal, which was uncovered by David Hencke at The Guardian in 1994.

The key allegation then was that Ian Greer had bribed two MPs on behalf of Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed in return for tabling parliamentary questions. What seems shocking in retrospect is not so much the bribery allegations, but rather that parliamentary questions were regarded as so important as to merit payment. The scandal cost Greer his company and Neil Hamilton his parliamentary career.

Those who lived through the Greer days will recall the response from his commercial competitors; it was like a Mexican shoot-out as company briefed against company, dragging the wider industry into the whole affair. Aside from the media barrage against the industry, it resulted in John Major setting up the committee on standards in public life, the Nolan committee, which is still in existence today. The impartial observer might understandably question its impact in the wake of the 2009 expenses scandal.

In the wake of Werrittygate, the calls that ‘something must be done’ resulted in the government pledge to introduce a statutory register of lobbyists. This was a promise originally included in the coalition agreement, but it got wheeled out again as a convenient way of diverting public attention and killing the political story.

In reality, a statutory register would not be particularly revolutionary – after all, it’s been a feature of life in Brussels for some time, and the lobbying industry has operated its own voluntary register set up by the UK Public Affairs Council (UKPAC) in March 2011. However, UKPAC does not cover the whole of the industry and has not had a smooth ride – including from some within its own membership – since its launch.

The crucial question is what amount of information the register will require to be published. The EU version, for example, requires lobbying firms to disclose their clients and how much they spend on lobbying. Such an approach in the UK could meet with heated opposition, as would any proposal to require the additional publication of diary records and minutes of meetings. At that point, it is argued, the demands of openness start conflicting with the desirability of maximising external input to policy making.

Organisations, it is claimed, may become ‘lobby-shy’ if all contact and its contents are made public. MPs themselves are sympathetic to that argument: the charts on the opposite page are from a major survey of parliamentarians conducted in early 2009, but they still hold good today. To discourage lobbying altogether, the argument runs, would lead to poorer law-making.

The lobbying industry has consistently failed to speak with one voice; indeed, it’s probably more fragmented than ever before and – ironically – has a poor track record when it comes to getting its message across with clarity and potency.

As a former lobbyist, here are three observations about the future of lobbying and its regulation. First, the most active (and, some would say, effective) lobbyists are not acting for businesses at all. In another survey for Ellwood and Atfield/Hansard Society, ComRes asked MPs about the number of approaches they typically receive each week from different organisations. The results were startling: 59 per cent of MPs said they receive 20 or more approaches from ‘interest groups’, 51 per cent said the same of charities, 39 per cent from business, 31 per cent from public sector organisations and 22 per cent from trade associations. In all, interest groups which include trade unions and NGOs such as Greenpeace out-gun the corporate world with their sheer lobbying volume.

To be fair, the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency fully accepts that a statutory register would encompass charities too, although Tamasin Cave at Spinwatch is perhaps rather optimistic in hoping that “a good register will not capture the activities of smaller, less well-resourced charities”. The problem is that laws made in the wake of a public outcry or political scandal are seldom ‘good’: just ask the British Olympic shooting team.
So, observation number one is that business lobbyists will always get more flack than not-for-profit lobbyists, and more regulation will never be enough.

Corporate lobbyists are not as ubiquitous as those in the not-for-profit sector, nor do they get as sympathetic a hearing from politicians. It’s counter-intuitive to say it, but business lobbyists are swimming against some powerful tides so need to work all the harder.

Second, and at the risk of sounding Eeyore-ish, there will be more lobbying scandals in the future irrespective of whether there is a register or not. The very term connotes secrecy, power, money and intrigue. Technology will make it even more possible: the sort of technology that enabled the Vince Cable sting conducted by the Daily Telegraph in a constituency surgery is omnipresent. Take one recent example: without mobile technology, it’s extremely unlikely that the pictures of a mumbling, injured Colonel Gaddafi would have been transmitted around the world within minutes of his capture, and therefore no international outcry at his death. Even without mobile technology, it’s likely that another lobbying outrage would have broken before long: with it, everything is subject to exposure, whether or not obtained covertly.

Third, with each successive lobbying scandal the media nudges us closer to taxpayer funding for political parties. If it succeeds, it will be deeply unpopular with voters.

Don’t be misled by quoting selectively from favourable polls on the issue: it’s easy to get a cheap headline by quoting how people don’t like rich donors appearing to buy influence, but they will like even less the idea of the taxpayer bankrolling political parties to campaign to persuade them of their support. Focus grouping shows that voters don’t feel political parties listen to them, despite competing for their votes and their money, and they are in no mood to pay more for what they don’t want.

The glorious irony of the current talk of a statutory register is that it emanates from a political story about a politician’s error of judgment, not from a lobbying scandal.

As the defenders of the industry would point out, it takes two to make a scandal. As long as there is power to be wielded, the temptation to influence politicians by foul means or fair will remain.