My Lords, my amendment would inject the words “of government” after the words in Clause 1(1):
“A person must not carry on the business of consultant lobbying”.
I should make it clear that I am amending a part of the Bill which I believe in principle to be totally inadequate to deal with the problem of the lack of transparency; I am only amending what is on offer.
Amendment 3 would clarify in the first clause of the Bill exactly the intention of the Government behind the legislation. The Bill restricts its remit and reach to limited areas in the institution of government. My amendment would make it clear that at this stage, the Government’s intention has been deliberately to exclude other important areas of government influence over public policy and decision-taking from the reach of the Bill. I tabled this amendment last Thursday to draw on the wider debate about those bodies that were being deliberately excluded—namely, government in its wider form, and Parliament—since when, on Friday, my noble friends Lady Royall of Blaisdon and Lady Hayter of Kentish Town tabled their Amendments 18 and 22, which more roundly deal with the issue of Parliament. I therefore yesterday withdrew the reference to Parliament in my amendment and will leave that to them to deal with.
My amendment would bring under the Bill government as a whole, as against the cherry-picked sectors which the Government propose. My case is that executive agencies, which are staffed by civil servants, non-departmental public bodies, which are staffed with a mix of non-civil servants and civil servants, and non-ministerial departments are all crucial parts of government.
The document Categories of Public Bodies: A Guide for Departments, of December 2012, sets out each of the three areas of government to which I have referred. Non-ministerial departments are described as,
“government departments in their own right—but they do not have their own minister”.
They include the Charity Commission for England and Wales, the Food Standards Agency, HM Revenue and Customs, the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets, Ofsted, the Office for Standards in Education and Children’s Services and Skills, Ofwat, the Office of Water Services, and the UK Statistics Authority.
Executive agencies are defined in the document as,
“business units headed up by a chief executive … often supported by a management board. Executive agencies carry out executive functions, with policy set by ministers”.
They include HM Courts and Tribunals Service, the Identity and Passport Service, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and the UK Border Agency. Finally, there are non-departmental public bodies, which are described as carrying out,
“a wide range of administrative, commercial, executive and regulatory or technical functions which are considered to be better delivered at arm’s length from Ministers”.
All these bodies are part of government and deal with contracts as set out in Clause 2(3)(c)(i). Some deal with grants and “other financial assistance”, as set out in Clause 2(3)(c)(ii), and some grant licences and other authorisations, as set out in Clause 2(3)(c)(iii). In other words, they are very much at the heart of government and carrying out the functions described in the Bill, and which the Bill is intended to catch. My
amendment, which at this stage is a probing amendment, asks the Government why these bodies are to be excluded. I beg to move.