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Government exposed by games over lobbying register

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http://spinwatch.org/index.php/issues/lobbying/item/5530-government-exposed-by-games-over-lobbying-register

By Tamasin Cave

The government’s so-called ‘Lobbying Bill’ has provoked a furious response from charities and unions. They are right to be up in arms. The Bill couples a fake lobbying register with a very real assault on democracy in the form of a clampdown on the ability of charities and unions to campaign.

One consequence of this unannounced swipe at charities and unions in the same Bill is that debate over the proposals for a register of lobbyists have been muted. The very real concerns people have about the influence large companies have on our government have been silenced. The fundamental weaknesses of the current proposals for a register of lobbyists have been eclipsed. The attack on charities and unions is a very useful diversion. It is as if the government planned it.

The game-playing was predictable. Despite its firm commitment to shine a light on lobbying, this government has shown no appetite to expose its dealmaking with lobbyists to public scrutiny.

A brief look at the recent history of the lobbying register exposes how little regard they have for transparency and our right to know who is bending their ear.

<snipped>

May 2010

  • The Coalition commits to tackling lobbying through the introduction of a statutory register of lobbyists.
  • More lobbying scandals hit the headlines: Liam Fox resigns over links to lobbyist; agency Bell Pottinger boasts of access to No10; and undue influence of corporations dogs NHS reforms.
  • But no action is taken for nearly two years.

January 2012

  • Senior Conservative Party figures reported as saying that election strategist and lobbyist, Lynton Crosby advised government to drop register of lobbyists from Queen’s Speech.

July 2013

  • Government has had enough and publishes its proposals for a register of lobbyists. They are worse than its previous plans. What they have proposed is a fake register. Government decides to couple this with an attack on charities and unions, which could put them at risk of prosecution and could be in breach of the right to free speech.

If these proposals weren’t so damaging they would be absurd. But what they are is a diversion from the problem sketched out above, which is that commercial lobbying is embedded in our politics.

Ninety per cent of the UK public believe that ‘the country’s government is run by a few big interests looking out for themselves‘. Over half of people in the UK think that Parliament is corrupt or extremely corrupt.

The government’s answer to this is to play silly games.

 

 

 

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Bill protects lobbyists while targeting civil society

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David Miller, Professor of Sociology at University of Bath

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The government bill on lobbying currently making its way through parliament has trade unions and most of the non-government organisation (NGO) world up in arms. But they are not complaining about the provisions on lobbying – focusing instead on the “gagging” clauses in the bill.

These – which are in the second part of the bill – bring in new restrictions on the activities of any organisation spending £5,000 a year on non-party-political campaigning on broadly defined “political issues”. The law will apply to campaigning that “may” influence an election and will be in force for a whole year before elections.

As Polly Toynbee notes, if charities “trip into electoral law they must send weekly reports of all their spending during the electoral period, when any slip risks criminal charges”. Part three of the bill also brings in new onerous regulations targeting trade unions.

Meanwhile the lobbying provisions in part one, promised in the Coalition agreement of May 2010, are seriously inadequate. Remember that David Cameron pointed to lobbying as the “next big scandal waiting to happen” in early 2010. This came after mounting lobbying scandals and stories of corruption in public life under successive governments. Who can forget Labour transport minister Stephen Byers and the “cab for hire” affair?

Since then the problems of the subterranean influence of lobbying and privileged access for corporate leaders has only got worse. To name a few: Conservative Party co-treasurer Peter Cruddas resigned over the cash-for-access affair; ministerial adviser Adam Smith resigned over News Corp’s lobbying on the BSkyB bid; retired “generals for hire” offered to lobby for arms companies; MP Patrick Mercer was caught out; as were two members of the House of Lords; and details emerged of Lynton Crosby’s clients.

Bill misses targets

In response to all this, the provisions of the bill would cover only lobbyists working as consultants, rather than in-house corporate lobbyists. This already excludes around 80% of lobbyists from registration.

But the bill is even worse, in that lobbying consultancies will only have to register if they meet with ministers or permanent secretaries. Meetings with special advisers and all other civil servants don’t count and nor does any other activity.

Thus, as the lobbying consultants’ lobby group, the Association of Professional Political Consultants notes, ministers in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills had 988 meetings with lobbyists in 2012 – only two of which were with lobbying consultants. That is less than 1% of ministerial meetings, never mind the wider activities essential to lobbying and influence peddling.

It is not clear whether the gagging clauses have been put into the bill by fiendishly clever sleight of hand to distract attention from the lobbying register. Perhaps the hope is that the lobbying provisions will slip through unnoticed.

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Continue ReadingBill protects lobbyists while targeting civil society

Child poverty UK

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http://www.cpag.org.uk/child-poverty-facts-and-figures

Child poverty facts and figures

  • There are 3.5 million children living in poverty in the UK today. That’s 27 per cent of children, or more than one in four.1
  • There are even more serious concentrations of child poverty at a local level: in 100 local wards, for example, between 50 and 70 per cent of children are growing up in poverty.2
  • Work does not provide a guaranteed route out of poverty in the UK. Two-thirds (66 per cent) of children growing up in poverty live in a family where at least one member works.3
  • People are poor for many reasons. But explanations which put poverty down to drug and alcohol dependency, family breakdown, poor parenting, or a culture of worklessness are not supported by the facts.4
  • Child poverty blights childhoods. Growing up in poverty means being cold, going hungry, not being able to join in activities with friends. For example, 61 per cent of families in the bottom income quintile would like, but cannot afford, to take their children on holiday for one week a year.5
  • Child poverty has long-lasting effects. By 16, children receiving free school meals achieve 1.7 grades lower at GCSE than their wealthier peers.6 Leaving school with fewer qualifications translates into lower earnings over the course of a working life.
  • Poverty is also related to more complicated health histories over the course of a lifetime, again influencing earnings as well as the overall quality – and indeed length – of life. Professionals live, on average, eight years longer than unskilled workers.7
  • Child poverty imposes costs on broader society – estimated to be at least £29 billion a year.8 Governments forgo prospective revenues as well as commit themselves to providing services in the future if they fail to address child poverty in the here and now.
  • Child poverty reduced dramatically between 1998/9-2011/12 when 1.1 million children were lifted out of poverty (BHC).9 This reduction is credited in large part to measures that increased the levels of lone parents working, as well as real and often significant increases in the level of benefits paid to families with children.
  • Under current government policies, child poverty is projected to rise from 2012/13 with an expected 600,000 more children living in poverty by 2015/16.10 This upward trend is expected to continue with 4.7 million children projected to be living in poverty by 2020.

 

  • 1. Households Below Average Income, An analysis of the income distribution 1994/95 : 2011/12, Tables 4.1tr and 4.3tr. Department for Work and Pensions, 2013
  • 2. Child Poverty Map of the UK, End Child Poverty, March 2011
  • 3. Households Below Average Income, An analysis of the income distribution 1994/95 : 2011/12, Table 4.3db. Department for Work and Pensions, 2013
  • 4. For example, G Hay and L Bauld, Population estimates of problematic drug users in England who access DWP benefits, Department for Work and Pensions, 2008, suggest that 6.6 per cent of the total number of benefit claimants in England were problem drug users. While drug misuse may prove to be a key reason this group of people finds it hard to escape poverty, it clearly has no explanatory power for the other 93.4 per cent of claimants.
  • 5. Households Below Average Income, An analysis of the income distribution 1994/95 : 2011/12, Table 4.7 db. Department for Work and Pensions, 2012
  • 6. GCSE and Equivalent Attainment by Pupil Characteristics in England 2009/10, Department for Education 2011
  • 7. Life expectancy at birth and at the age of 65 by local areas in the UK, 2004-6 and 2008-10, Office of National Statistics, October 2011
  • 8. D Hirsch, Estimating the costs of child poverty, 2013
  • 9. Households Below Average Income, An analysis of the income distribution 1994/95 – 2011/2, Department for Work and Pensions, 2013
  • 10. J Browne, A Hood and R Joyce, Child and working age poverty in Northern Ireland, Institute for Fiscal Studies, 2103

 

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UK parliament to discuss Syria tomorrow

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The UK Parliament has been recalled to discuss military intervention in Syria tomorrow.

There are strong suggestions that there will be opposition to Cameron, Hague, et al’s obvious determination to go to war for imperialist reasons. There are suggestions that many Conservative MPs are very uneasy and talk of the Labour Party abstaining and promoting their own amendment. The Lib-Dems only ever pretended not to be Tories and they are nowhere to be seen now.

As yet there is no confirmation that chemical weapons have been used or that they were used by Assad’s government. This is a very difficult test since the terrorist ‘rebels’ supported by the West are known to have had possession of chemical weapons when they were arrested in Turkey.

What I would like to see tomorrow is an absolute commitment to international law. That’s respect for human rights – they are universal after all – including respect to the right to life and an absolute commitment to enforce international law. I’m saying that people need to be tried for war crimes. It’s not going to happen since Israel have been bombing Syria. There’s also the absolute hypocrisy of USUK using chemical weapons at Fallujah and Israel’s use of White Phosphorous. It would appear for some reason that Depleted Uranium is not classed as a chemical weapon, probably because it’s used by USUK.

What’s happening is that there is a huge rush to war before the US weapons inspectors have reported. There’s a rush because the UN inspectors are very likely to report that it’s unclear who was responsible, unclear if there was actually any use of chemical weapons and that they were not obstructed by the Syrian government.

Obomber has turned out to be a disappointment breaking many commitments on Iraq, Guantanamo Bay and transparency on drones. Now he wants war. Drones killing people in distant lands is criminal anyway, never mind being transparent about it.

Continue ReadingUK parliament to discuss Syria tomorrow