The big business of lobbying in Westminster

What’s wrong with lobbying?

There is nothing inherently sinister about seeking to influence the people who write our laws; indeed, it’s a vital part of any democracy. Any citizen has the right to lobby an MP – the verb was coined to describe people who collared lawmakers in public lobbies such as Parliament’s. But today, lobbying is a big industry: a study by the Hansard Society in 2007 estimated it was worth £1.9bn, and that the average MP was lobbied about 100 times per week.

The rules regulating it are patchy, and the process often seems open to abuse. In one recent case, the Tory MP Scott Benton was caught in a sting by The Times: he’d offered to lobby ministers on behalf of the gambling industry and to leak confidential information, in return for cash. Benton was cleared of wrongdoing by Parliament’s lobbying watchdog (though a Commons standards inquiry is still ongoing).

Who are these lobbyists?

Lobbying covers a wide range of endeavours, which makes it hard to regulate. A campaigning charity, such as Shelter, or a union are engaged in lobbying. Big companies have in-house “public affairs” teams to put their views across. Industry bodies such as the Food and Drink Federation will represent their sector over, say, food-labelling rules. There are PR firms, such as Brunswick and Teneo, which offer lobbying services as part of a package of public relations and business advice. There are also smaller specialist lobbyists, often staffed by former politicians and political aides, such as Hanbury Strategy and Portland Communications.

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Finally, there are individual operators. “All you really need to set up as a lobbyist,” says one former lobbyist, “is a phone, an internet connection, and maybe a laptop.” The Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), which runs a voluntary register, estimates that roughly 10,000 people work in lobbying in the UK.

What do they do?

Professional lobbyists tend to follow well-trodden paths. They put their client or employer’s case to ministers, MPs and civil servants, explaining the possible impact of this or that policy, and why they support it or why they don’t. They might order up polling to try to show MPs that a plan is popular or unpopular. They might pay economists to produce studies to back up their arguments. They often try to marshal influential voices in support, possibly organising op-eds or letters in the press. With a strong civil service and capable ministers, this kind of input can be very useful: the expertise helps governments understand how their policies are working or will work. But there’s a lot of room for things to go wrong.

What are the rules for lobbying?

They are a bit chaotic, with a series of codes and laws and watchdogs. The Code of Conduct for MPs, for instance, states that they can’t take payment in return for trying to influence ministers or legislation; but they can accept payment for “advice on public policy and current affairs” – so the line is rather blurred.

MPs are also required to register all such interests. Under the ministerial and civil service codes, meetings between lobbyists and ministers or permanent secretaries have to be reported; but MPs who aren’t ministers, and less senior civil servants, have no such obligations. On the lobbyists’ side, there’s the Lobbying Act of 2014, introduced by David Cameron to bring “transparency” to the area. But this focuses exclusively on third-party lobbyists (who represent clients): they have a duty to log their activities with the Office of the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists (ORCL). But individuals, and lobbyists directly employed by big companies (who make up the vast majority), are exempt.

What’s wrong with the system?

It means that a lot of dubious activity flies under the radar. In March, another sting saw a series of MPs, from Matt Hancock to Kwasi Kwarteng, offer to work for a bogus South Korean firm in return for up to £10,000 per day. When exposed, they argued that it was within the rules; they had only discussed advisory roles. Meanwhile, the Registrar, ORCL, is toothless: it’s staffed by one part-timer and its remit is narrow. It cleared Scott Benton because, though he had talked about bending the rules, he hadn’t actually taken any money.

In 2021, it emerged that David Cameron had contacted numerous ministers while seeking Covid funding for the collapsing finance firm Greensill Capital. The Cabinet Office concluded that he “did not breach the current lobbying rules”, because he was contracted by Greensill: as an in-house lobbyist, he wasn’t required to notify ORCL.

Why is the system so permissive?

The generous interpretation is that lobbying is simply hard to regulate: MPs need to be open to the world, and they have always been free to take outside work. The cynical view is that politicians don’t want it to change it because they benefit, both personally – because of the “revolving door” between politics and public affairs – and because big lobbyists such as the tech or energy industries are also important party donors. Big money buys access.

What should be done?

The lobbyists’ lobby, the CIPR, dislikes regulatory uncertainty as much as any other business does. It’s lobbying the Government for better regulation of lobbying. Its proposals include registering all lobbying activity, not just third-party consultants, by extending the need for transparency about meetings beyond ministers and senior civil servants; and expanding ORCL.

But reforming the lobbying system is not high on anyone’s agenda. There has been a long series of lobbying scandals, from “cash for questions” in the John Major era, to the flurry of cases to do with Covid procurement (involving the Tory peer Michelle Mone and the MP Owen Paterson, among others). Those are very unlikely to be the last.