Time for the lobbying rules to be changed
The row about David Cameron’s lobbying activities has grabbed newspaper headlines for months.
An MPs’ report accused Mr Cameron of ‘a significant lack of judgement’ in lobbying the government on behalf of Greensill Capital. Documents obtained by BBC Panorama suggest Mr Cameron made over £3million for his efforts on behalf of the company.
Cameron did not break any lobbying rules, but this affair begs the question of whether our current lobbying rules are fit for purpose. We conducted a survey to gather our supporters’ views on this, receiving over 3,500 responses.
The survey revealed that our supporters would like to see a change to the UK’s lobbying rules. 98% of Unlock Democracy’s supporters said that the UK’s current lobbying rules are too weak. To strengthen these rules, 93% of our supporters believe that ex-Ministers should be banned from lobbying for at least 5 years after leaving government.
Almost all our supporters disagreed with David Cameron’s behaviour during the Greensill debacle.
Here’s what some of you said -
“Cameron's lobbying activities are cashing in on the privilege of being Prime Minister, to the detriment of the public interest.”
“It's disgraceful and an abuse of power and connections.”
“Disgraceful and deeply undemocratic. He's using the privileges bestowed on him by the voters to feather his own nest rather than promote the good of the country. “
Unfortunately, it is not just former Ministers who have been involved in questionable lobbying activities.
Unlock Democracy has written to the Lord’s Commissioner for Standards regarding 40 peers whom we believe could be breaking transparency rules by not declaring their other jobs in enough detail.
We have also discovered a lobbying loophole that MPs may be exploiting by serving on All-Party Parliamentary Groups whilst working in second, related jobs.
Our supporters share our concerns about MPs lobbying while being in office. Our survey showed that 77% of them believe that MPs should not be allowed to have second jobs. Our supporters also called for harsher punishment for MPs who commit a serious breach of lobbying rules.
What’s clear to everyone is that the current rules on lobbying are hopelessly inadequate and are open to massive abuse.
Even when the existing weak lobbying rules are broken, there seems to be few consequences for those that break them. Politicians are behaving as if the rules don’t apply to them and they are being proved right by the system.
Organisations such as the Good Law Project and Transparency International are doing an excellent job shining the light on dodgy practices. But it’s not enough.
Until the Government decides to overhaul and update lobbying rules, we can expect to see many more stories like David Cameron’s. Government inaction on this issue suggests that they’d like people to believe that ‘there is nothing to see here’.
Unlock Democracy disagrees. Uncontrolled lobbying corrupts the system and we will campaign relentlessly to clean it up.