My Lords, this has been a vigorous debate with a wide range of opinions forcefully expressed around the House. First, the Government are listening and consulting, and we will continue to do so. We will take this carefully through Committee, and we are concerned to make sure that the Bill as it emerges from this House reassures the very evident concerns, particularly from the charity sector. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, rightly said that the charity sector perceives this as an attack. That is, by and large, a mistaken perception. However, of course we have to reassure people and make sure, as we take this Bill through the various stages, that we have a Bill that we are all happy with as it emerges from this House.
Let me take the three parts in order. First on the lobbying issue, as a number of noble Lords said, lobbying is a legitimate activity. Indeed, it is central to any thriving democracy and is an almost universal activity. Almost every working day Parliament is being lobbied. Those who had offices on the West Front particularly enjoyed the London Gay Men’s Chorus lobbying us several nights in a row. We wished that they would come back more often. It was one of the most enjoyable bits of lobbying that we have had so far.
Part 1 is intended to focus on professional lobbyists, the skilled and the well paid, those who provide their services for hire. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, talked about lobbying companies which do not even declare their clients. That is precisely what Part 1 addresses to make sure that lobbying companies declare their clients. That is where we started out in our consultation in 2010-11. I regret to say that the various respondents to that consultation came back with a whole range of discordant and dissentious responses.
The Government have decided to take the Australian approach to a lobbying register, which is to have a register of professional and consultant lobbyists, not a universal register.