The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee
will conduct post-legislative scrutiny of the Lobbying Act 2014
in a new inquiry. The inquiry will examine how effectively the
Act is regulating lobbying activity and was requested by the
Government after the Greensill scandal exposed apparent
weaknesses in lobbying rules.
MPs will also consider the Government’s wider lobbying
transparency regime, looking at compliance with the requirement
for Departments to disclose Ministers’, senior officials’ and
SpAds’ external meetings. These are supposed to be published
quarterly, though have often been delayed, and the descriptions
of the purpose of the meetings have been criticised for a lack of
detail and for inconsistency between Departments. The
transparency of possible routes of influence not currently
captured in the Government disclosures, such as lobbying through
Whatsapp or social meetings, will also be assessed.
The inquiry will review the scope of Register of Consultant
Lobbyists. It will examine calls for its scope to be widened to
include in-house lobbyists and those in law, accountancy and
other types of consultancy firms who also engage in lobbying
activities but who are not currently included on the Register.
Chair's comment
Chair of PACAC said:
“The Government charged this Committee with post-legislative
scrutiny of the Lobbying Act in order to learn the lessons from
the Greensill scandal. Recent revelations about privileged,
off-the-books meetings between Uber and Ministers shine a
spotlight on some of the shortcomings of our lobbying laws. It is
important we are reassured that this kind of influencing
operation cannot go undetected.
Gaps in current regulations have already been recognised in the
Boardman inquiry and by the Committee on Standards in Public
Life. Our inquiry will build on this work and look at how we
ensure lobbying transparency.
We aim to come up with robust, practical, cross-party proposals
which will bolster our political system against undue influence.”
