David Miller 24 January 2008 

The logo of the now defunct charity

The Public Administration Select committee is currently in the early stages of an inquiry into lobbying which is the best chance for more than a decade of progress towards transparency on lobbying. The arguments for transparency are unassailable.  They are founded on the widespread public mistrust of the political process and of the influence of corporations within it - as shown by the Power Inquiry in 2005.  On top of this is the reluctance of many lobbying and PR firms to disclose who they work for and on what.  They trade on access and are protected by secrecy.  Only a mandatory system requiring disclosure of clients, fees and the issues on which they lobby can correct this.  The trend on lobbying throughout western countries is all one way. Lobbying rules are being introduced –for example in Poland and Hungary and at the European Commission  - or tightened - in the US, Canada and Australia.

Lobbying is much more widespread than is recognised.  It is not just the 'face time' between lobbyists and decision makers.  Blair will be 'personally involved' in lobbying simply by advising his new employers.  Underlying the misperception is the idea that lobbyists are only found in lobbying firms.  This is false.  The lobbying consultancies which became a feature of public life in the 1980s are only a small fraction of the industry.  Also involved are in-house practitioners, think tanks, 'front groups', charities and non government organisations.  As a result groups like the Association of Professional Political Consultants can never represent more than a fraction of the field, meaning their self regulatory approach simply cannot work.

One indication of the lack of transparency in lobbying is the case of TOAST (The Obesity Awareness and Solutions Trust) which used a PR agency called The Whitehouse Consultancy to recruit parliamentary 'patrons' and to raise the issue of obesity on Parliament.  TOAST admitted on its own site that it was engaged in lobbying, noting that it had been 'extremely successful'. The charity claimed to be ‘completely independent’ and to ‘derive its income from individual donations and membership fees’.   However, an investigation by Spinwatch revealed that almost all of it funding came from a diet company called LighterLife .  In addition two of Lighterlife’s directors were also directors of TOAST. TOAST was in other words a kind of ‘front group’. No fewer than nine of the twenty one parliamentary patrons have now gone on record stating that they were not told of the links between TOAST and Lighterlife.  Dr Ian Gibson MP stated ‘I was absolutely not aware of this connection and my initial reaction is to be pretty cheesed off.’

The obvious conclusion from this affair is that lobbyists come in may guises and do not always disclose their links, clients and motives even to the MPs and others who they recruit to support them.  A voluntary system of self regulation as proposed by the APPC would do nothing to solve such problems.  The lobby firm involved with TOAST is an APPC member and it discloses in the APPC register that it has TOAST and Lighterlife as clients, but not the relation between them.  The case of TOAST also shows why it is important not only to regulate lobbying firms but also campaigning groups and even charities.

One of the key lobbyists who encouraged big business support for Labour and was subsequently elevated to the Lords was Dennis Stevenson.  One of his first acts on becoming the chair of the board at Pearson in the 1990s was to stop political donations.  Instead funding was channelled to think thanks to lobby for policy outcomes.  This was part of a major expansion of think tanks across the narrowed political spectrum with Demos, IPPR, the Social Market Foundation and others advocating the business friendly policies favoured by their funders. The think tanks are able to get close to ministers and key figures at party conferences and other events – to act as lobbyists in other words.  Any measures to address privileged access and lobbying transparency must include these kinds of policy actors, as well as commercial consultants, in-house lobbyists and campaigning NGOs.

These problems are compounded by issues of privileged access to MPs, ministers and civil servants. We are seeing a complex nexus of relationships fostered by the revolving door in which former politicians like Blair (or Thatcher or Major before him – and last week Patricia Hewitt's consultancy with Boots and advisory work for Cinven ) or civil servants take up lucrative positions with corporations in order to secure business interests.  Allied with the revolving door are other symptoms of privileged access such as secondments into and out of the civil service for business people.  This can mean that organisations seeking government contracts or market advantage can have someone on the inside taking part in procurement or policy development processes. 

The only way to ensure transparency, to begin to combat the revolving door and end privileged access to policy making is to introduce mandatory disclosure measures and enhanced ethics regulation.  No amount of self-serving rhetoric from the lobbyists can disguise that.

David Miller is Professor of Sociology at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow and co-founder of Spinwatch.org.  His Latest book (with William Dinan), A Century of Spin: How Public Relations Became the Cutting Edge of Corporate Power has just been published by Pluto. He gives evidence before the Public Administration Select Committee on Thursday 24^th January