Labour Press Team · @labourpress
17th Jul 2013 from TwitLonger
Labour is tabling amendments to the Lobbying Bill after the Government published proposals that will only apply to a tiny proportion of the lobbying industry. Earlier this afternoon, Ed Miliband wrote to the Cabinet Secretary over Lynton Crosby.
The amendments Labour is tabling are below in editor’s notes.
Jon Trickett MP, Labour’s Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office, said:
“David Cameron has today revealed that he is not up to the challenge of restoring trust in our politics.
“With questions raging over the influence of Lynton Crosby in David Cameron’s regime we need real action to clean up the lobbying at the heart of Downing Street. Instead we’ve a Prime Minister who has revealed how he continually stands up for the wrong people, trying to dodge questions over Lynton Crosby and bringing forward totally inadequate proposals which will only apply to a tiny proportion of the lobbying industry.
“If David Cameron won’t clean up politics, Labour will. We would introduce a statutory register of lobbyists, a code of conduct backed by sanctions and measures to ensure that anyone doing a senior job for the government of the day who is a professional lobbyist must be declared.”
Ends
Labour will table the following amendments to the Bill:
1. Purpose: close the loophole that lets Crosby get around being on the register.
Amendment: All professional lobbyists working in the UK will be required to declare their full list of clients on a statutory register and also declare the approximate value of their lobbying activity.
2. Purpose: ensure people doing senior jobs in politics can't also be lobbying without people knowing about it.
Amendment: Anyone doing a senior job for the government of the day - whether in-house or a contractor, formally for the party or directly by the government - who is a professional lobbyist must be declared.
3. Purpose: ensure there is proper oversight of conflicts of interests when people take up senior roles in government, and people do not use their new role to further other interests.
Amendment: senior officials or ministers leaving Government to take up posts in related areas have their appointment scrutinised by a committee, and potentially have conditions put on their activities. The same should apply to people coming into senior roles in Government, with the potential to ensure they are not involved in discussions that they retain an interest in, such as Crosby on tobacco packaging.