8 February 2008 

Representatives of the main trade bodies for the lobbying industry failed to inspire trust in self-regulation yesterday as they gave evidence to MPs as part of the current inquiry into lobbying.

In their opening statements to the Public Administration Select Committee, Gill Morris chair of the APPC, Rod Cartwright, head of the PRCA’s Public Affairs Committee and Lionel Zetter, immediate past president of the CIPR outlined the various systems of self-regulation operated by each group.

Questioning began in earnest with the return of Labour MP Paul Flynn. Having cited a number of cases of illegitimate or misleading behaviour by lobbyists – including paying Lords to “pimp for certain causes” and buying access to Ministers - he put a key question to the witnesses: How do we control the behviour of lobbyists that refuse to become members of your organisations and therefore opt out of self-regulation? Both Morris and Cartwright agreed that it was “unfortunate” that there are still major players that have chosen to stay outside the system.

Flynn added that there has been a trend for lobbyists to disguise themselves. “Is that legitimate?” he asked the witnesses. Zetter conceded that lobbyists don’t behave impeccably all of the time: “We’re all human, we all misbehave from time to time.” All Party Parliamentary Groups, Flynn continued, have come under attack from lobbyists, which try to “subvert them.”

To which Zetter admitted that the system was reliant on the judgment of MPs. “What advantage is there to employing MPs and ex-civil servants,” Flynn then asked. Zetter replied that it was done to get a better understanding of how the system works. Seemingly frustrated with the witness, Flynn said: “We’re not really getting to the truth on this.” “Your purpose is to promote your clients interests… they might be good causes, they might be very bad causes.”

The purpose of lobbying said Flynn, is to “give extra advantages to the already advantaged.” “You are there as persuaders to those causes that can afford you to the detriment of those causes who cannot afford lobbyists.” Zetter replied by pointing out that UK politics is an “adversarial system.”

Things didn’t get much easier as questioning moved to David Heyes MP. His impression, he said, from the commentary in the lobbying trade press, is of an industry unhappy about being in the spotlight, that there was a nerviness among lobbyists, and a sense that the attention was not welcome - contrary to what the witnesses said. (Presumably referring to comments made by industry leaders like Peter Bingle of Bell Pottinger Public Affairs. Writing in PR Week in September last year he said: “There is no point rehearsing in public the view that we welcome the inquiry. We don’t. I have yet to meet a member of the industry who does.”) Zetter said that the worry wasn’t that the spotlight would be cast on them as lobbyists but that it would be put on their clients.

Former lobbyist and Tory MP Charles Walker opened his questioning by saying how bored he was by the inquiry… before repeating the same point he raised with MPs giving evidence in the very first session of the inquiry back in December: That the real problem was the amount of bad (as in poor quality) lobbying that occurs. He concluded by saying that he didn’t care if lobbyists were members of any of the trade organizations, just that they were honest.

A number of the committee brought up this issue of honesty and trust as well as the disparity between the transparency rules for lobbyists and Parliament. The case of the front group TOAST was cited as an example of lobbyists deliberately misleading Parliamentarians. David Heyes MP said the impression he got from the witnesses was that self-regulation relied on “self-certification” and the “good chap principle” where problems were sorted out privately. He drew a parallel with the system for MPs “which has come under such criticism and has proved to be so flawed.” Lib Dem MP Paul Rowen added: “We [MPs] have a self-certifying system, but we have to declare it. You do not.”

Rowen also brought up the issue of improper and unethical behaviour, citing fake letter writing campaigns and front groups as examples. Again, the witnesses agreed that techniques like these were unacceptable. “The system is certainly not perfect,” said Cartwright. This inevitably led to the question of what to do with those that refused to join in. When asked by David Heyes MP how it was that the witnesses were so convinced that their industry is clean when there is such a different perception among the public, Zetter replied that people “in the dog and duck… couldn’t give a rat's arse about lobbyists.”

Finally, when asked for examples of where lobbying “made a difference in changing things”, witnesses cited a number of cases - interestingly all of which were in the public interest. Only later did Zetter give some insight into commercial reasons for lobbying: “Very often… it’s about a threat to your industry that needs to be headed off… sometimes it’s about an opportunity – an IT or defence contract – where [companies] will all lobby very vigorously to put themselves in a position where they are successful.”

Read on for the industry's take on the session...

Lobbyists tell MPs: 'We are cleaner than ever'

PR Week: David Singleton, 08 February 2008

Representatives of the CIPR and PRCA have attempted to persuade MPs that there is no need for tough regulation of the public affairs industry.

CIPR immediate past president Lionel Zetter and PRCA public affairs committee chair Rod Cartwright were summoned to appear before the public administration committee this week.

Association of Professional Political Consultants (APPC) chair Gill Morris also gave evidence as the committee pressed ahead with an inquiry into the transparency of the lobbying industry.

Morris told the MP: 'I'm proud to be a lobbyist.' Zetter said: 'We are convinced that the industry is cleaner than it has ever been.'

Meanwhile, Cartwright claimed that the PRCA's set-up 'makes it clear who is paying for lobbying' - an assertion that went unchallenged by the committee.

Members of the select committee appeared to have different takes on the public affairs industry.

Labour MP Paul Flynn laid in to the lobbyists, claiming: 'You give advantage to the already advantaged.'

But Tory Charles Walker said there was still scant evidence of lobbyists behaving improperly. 'We haven't found any smoking guns,' he said.

Committee chair Tony Wright, one of the best informed MPs on this subject, was not present at the session.