PM should 'shake up' lobbying world

Monday, 2 February 2009 12:00 AM

By Alex Stevenson

Gordon Brown could win "credibility" by supporting MPs' calls for a statutory register of lobbying activity, a Labour backbencher has said.

Kelvin Hopkins told politics.co.uk the prime minister should support the public administration select committee's (Pasc) proposals "very strongly. "if he's got any sense".

Its report, published earlier this month, also called on the government to appoint a single body to oversee the release of all lobbying information in a bid to avoid those on the inside having the potential to "wield privileged access and disproportionate influence".

Mr Hopkins, a Pasc member who describes himself as coming from the "puritanical left" preferring politics to be about altruism not money, said he believed Mr Brown is more likely to respond positively than his predecessor.

"[Tony] Blair would have resisted this absolutely. He was more fond of big business than he was of the Labour party," the Luton North MP said.

"The Tories are picking up on this. If Gordon Brown has any sense, he will legislate quickly and take the moral high ground. But he's got to do it quickly - strike while the iron is hot."

Mr Hopkins' comments came a day after a transparency in lobbying event in Westminster, hosted by the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency, which looked at lessons to be learned from the United States.

The Washington-based Centre for Responsive Politics' executive director Sheila Krumholz said: "This is an industry which sells influence. It needs to have greater transparency than before.

"Without accurate and powerful data. people won't hear about it. An inadequate disclosure system. gives the public comfort that oversight is happening when it is not."

Ms Holz argued Britain was better placed than the US to make a fresh start when it came to lobbying, adding: "The UK has the opportunity to create the world's most transparent system, which is a huge advantage. You won't have the same complacency we've had to overcome."

Britain's system of monitoring political party spending was much more rigorous than in the US, but it lags behind in terms of lobbying transparency.

Mr Hopkins added: "We haven't been captured by big business in the same way that we have seen in the US. We have an opportunity to stop that from happening."

He admitted the disrepute currently suffered by the House of Lords, which is seeing four Labour peers investigated in the so-called cash for amendments scandal, had "come at just the right time to make our case".

Yet, in spite of the "shock" to the lobbying industry by the Pasc report, there is some way to go before a register of lobbying activity is introduced.

Mr Hopkins added: "Getting to legislation is quite some way [off]. these things can be delayed. And prime ministers and civil servants are quite good at holding things back."

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