The Guardian

By Tania Branigan

May 26, 2006

The parliamentary sleaze watchdog has called for substantial reforms to the rules governing relations between MPs and political lobbyists, following an investigation into the conduct of all-party groups.

The powerful Commons' committee on standards and privileges will now consult on whether to implement Sir Philip Mawer's recommendations, which aim to ensure greater transparency in the funding of the bodies, which have mushroomed over the last two decades.

There are now more than 440 such groups, bringing together MPs from across the political spectrum to discuss anything from particular countries to industries or even hobbies.

Businesses and non-profit groups contribute in the hope that they will influence government policy and legislation, although the groups have no official status and lack the clout of parliamentary committees.

The parliamentary commissioner investigated six all-party groups who had declared the name of the lobbyist backing them, but not the client represented.

The committee on standards and privileges agreed with Sir Philip in upholding a complaint against three groups which have now had to disclose their ultimate backers.

In three other cases, they again backed him by clearing those involved because the groups did not receive assistance "at the request of, or with the specific financial help of, a particular client" - even though the lobbyists had clients with relevant interests. One group failed to register two areas of financial support worth more than £6,000 from BT and O2.

Sir Philip has proposed changing the rules to cover such cases in future, adding: "In my view, it would be inappropriate if the requirement to identify clients of a consultancy with an interest in a particular group assisted by the consultancy could be intentionally circumvented simply by the device of funding the assistance out of the general fee income of the firm."

About a fifth of lobbying firms do not subscribe to the voluntary code which requires them to disclose all their clients.

The commissioner warned: "Transparency would undoubtedly be assisted if all consultancies named their clients and when considering whether or not to accept assistance from a consultancy, officers of all-party groups [MPs] may wish to check whether the consultancy does so."

He accepted that it was not improper for lobbyists to write reports for the groups, but said they should be named in such documents and accompanying press releases.

The committee warned all-party groups that strict compliance in declaring their backers was important in maintaining public confidence in their work.

Sir Philip's investigation followed a complaint from the Times, which had investigated the role of lobbyists in the groups. The Times reported that some industries were even writing policy reports in the name of all-party groups.