Monday, 23 February 2015 16:21

Just because Everyone's At It, doesn't make it right

By
Just because Everyone's At It, doesn't make it right

Malcolm Rifkind and Jack Straw were unlucky enough, or silly enough, to get caught. But just because hundreds of MPs and Lords have paid jobs advising companies, doesn't excuse them. It makes it worse.

When the MPs expenses scandal broke in 2009 the immediate defence of many MPs was that what they were doing was all 'within the rules of Parliament'. But that didn't make it right. Nor did it alter public opinion. It took a while for the penny to drop, but finally, MPs realised that their behaviour - moat cleaning, duck housing, wisteria trimming, second homing all on the public purse – was unacceptable to the wider public. Finally, the bubble burst.

Today, we have arrived back at the issue of MPs and their second (third, fourth) jobs. The two MPs at the centre of the sting, Malcolm Rifkind and Jack Straw, both lawyers, conducted their own defence this morning. Both appear to be using the same playbook. It goes something like this: 

  1. 'Anything I said I would do has been taken out of context and anyway, it's all perfectly innocent.'
    From the few clips released by the programme makers ahead of tonight's Dispatches, I suspect this defence will fairly rapidly fall apart as the undercover films are aired. Some of it is truly shocking, whether Jack Straw's 'charm and menace' tactics, or Rifkind who is clearly under the impression that he doesn't have a job or a salary as an MP.
  • 'Everyone's doing it'.
    Both MPs this morning pointed out the huge number of MPs who are working for companies on the side. Two hundred was the figure given by Rifkind. As a result, they saw nothing unusual in this approach from a (fictitious) Chinese company. ‘Everyone’s at it’ was also a common refrain among MPs caught up in the expenses scandal. It was just how the system worked, why couldn't the public get it. It was also the defence used by Tory donor, Stanley Fink when he admitted a fortnight ago that he did take “vanilla” tax avoidance measures, but then 'everyone does it’. It doesn't make it right, though, and it doesn't make it any more palatable to the majority who don't. What's clear in this instance, from what Straw and Rifkind are telling us, is how engrained lobbying is in the culture of Westminster. To be paid to provide access to a private company is normal in their world.

  • 'The public want MPs with business experience'.
    Rifkind riffed on this a bit this morning and other commentators have picked it up. Who wants a Parliament full of professional politicians who have done nothing but work for a think tank. The answer is no one. But does that mean we have to have politicians who live in an equally small bubble, representing an equally narrow range of elite business interests? The kind of experience Rifkind is talking about does little to help MPs understand the concerns of the majority of those in business in the UK: the MD of an SME; the self-employed IT worker; the local restaurateur. Just because Straw has advised a large commodity trader with a Ukrainian problem, does that give him insight into the concerns of these businesses?

  • ‘I have never, nor would I lobby for a company in exchange for money’.
    Lobbying is the dirty word in this sentence. MPs might agree to advise a company for payment, but never lobby. This is about words and definitions. Straw and Rifkind talked on camera of providing access to government, and about gathering information for companies on policy. But what is this if not lobbying? Political persuasion is a subtle business, which involves building relationships and knowledge. The first step towards influencing government is having access to information and the people inside government. Access is key: you can only cook up deals once you’re in the kitchen. Straw and Rifkind are providers of access. 

  • 'It is all within the rules'.
    True, or not, this is the worst of the excuses. Rules without independent oversight, monitoring, or meaningful sanctions are worthless. Rules that allow unacceptable behaviour are worse still. It was often cried by MPs facing the wrath of constituents over their expenses ('you're a thieving toad'; 'but it was all within the rules'). Who outside of Westminster thinks that the rules governing MPs behaviour are up to the job?  

    • So, where does that leave us? Exactly where we were five years ago, the last time Dispatches and the Telegraph decided to set our politicians this test. Cameron used the previous scandal as an opportunity to mark himself as a modern politician in favour of transparency. The Conservatives were going to 'sort all this out', he promised. 

    In the intervening years, his government has done nothing to open up lobbying to public scrutiny. Really, nothing. The register of lobbyists introduced by the Coalition that he boasted about this lunchtime is a fake. They went through the rigmarole of legislating for a register (only after another lobbying scandal broke) that does nothing to allow the British public to see who is influencing our politicians. 

    A decent register of lobbyists would provide a list of all organisations lobbying government, Chinese or otherwise. It would make public who they employ, including any former foreign secretaries. A proper register also would tell us whom they were lobbying in government and what they were lobbying for. The Conservatives hate the idea. Labour have yet to commit, which is odd given their position today on second jobs.

    But, we need a ban too on MPs taking paid jobs to top up their salaries. The House will not come falling down if those who can only survive on £100k+ desert it. To suggest that a Parliament of people willing to accept a lesser salary will be somehow sub-standard is a bit insulting. Either that or put MPs' salaries up.

    The current situation, though, where it's impossible to know if an MP is speaking as a former health minister, or as chair of the health advisory group of a multi-national management consultancy bent on privatising the NHS, is untenable. 

    MPs may see this as all perfectly normal and 'within the rules'. As with MPs expenses, it's time we burst their bubble. 

    Published in Lobbying transparency
    Tagged under
    Tamasin Cave

    Tamasin is a director of Spinwatch and leads the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency campaign. She is co-author, with Andy Rowell, of A Quiet Word: Lobbying, Crony Capitalism and Broken Politics in Britain (Bodley Head, 2014) 

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