My Lords, in moving Amendment 5, tabled in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Royall, I shall speak also to Amendment 93. I would expect a Bill on lobbying to do two things. First, it should show who is lobbying whom over what, which was the issue of the first two groups of amendments. Secondly, it should raise standards in the industry to help make it a profession, with all that that implies for ethics, training and good practice. As I made clear earlier, I am not against lobbying. Like many other noble Lords, I spent too many years seeking to influence civil servants and politicians, sometimes with success and sometimes with none, but always, I hope, by employing honest arguments and with the most open of motives and the cleanest of hands. For me, it is particularly sad that the golden
opportunity for this Bill to introduce a requirement for registered lobbyists to abide by a code of conduct has been lost. A code is absolutely key if we wish to raise standards.
We are not arguing for a code to be spelt out in the Bill—far from it—but we are arguing that the registrar, after discussion with representatives of the industry, should be able to adopt or approve a code; and that, if it was shown that someone had breached it, that would lead to a sanction. It would signal to the industry how the registrar judges any misdemeanours. It would be a code rather like the one that noble Lords sign at the Table as we take the Oath, and anyone putting their name on the register would also have to sign up.
The Sheila McKechnie Foundation states that,
“an effective register would include an obligatory code of conduct for all registrants, along with clear sanctions for non-compliance or breaches”.
Indeed, we need to be able to prevent the worst offenders from continuing to practise by removing them from the register, but without a code and the power to judge someone in reference to it, how will we see offenders taken out of this industry?
Understandably, the Government do not want a statutory code written into the Bill. Nor do we, but neither that nor their response to the Select Committee report explains why they do not want to make it mandatory for the registrar to give approval to a code that she or he has drawn up or endorsed in consultation with the industry and other stakeholders. Just as the royal charter does not itself set up a press regulatory body, but simply ensures that whatever is established is up to standard, so the Bill should simply require the registrar to endorse and lay before Parliament the code against which she or he would judge the behaviour of anyone on the register. The code would set the standard for the behaviour of those who seek to influence the Government of this country. I beg to move.
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