The head of Britain’s lobbying watchdog has called on ministers to tighten the transparency rules as figures show that just 6 per cent of investigations into suspected breaches of the Lobbying Act have resulted in penalties.
Harry Rich, the registrar of Consultant Lobbyists — whose job is to ensure the disclosure of contacts between paid third-party lobbyists and the government — urged ministers to end some of the loopholes that make it easier for lobbying to occur below the radar.
Rich said he was “disappointed” that there were still major “gaps” in the legislation which led to “really thin information” being provided by lobbyists.
While there are strict rules requiring disclosure of official meetings between paid lobbyists and ministers, interactions at social events or with special advisers, opposition politicians or more junior officials do not have to be recorded.
Paid external lobbyists are also required to register, while in-house public affairs experts are not.
This patchwork approach to lobbying disclosure has caused senior figures from across the industry to call for a more thorough overhaul of the system.
“They are not exactly loopholes that you need to crawl through; they are fairly easy to walk within,” said Jon Gerlis of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.
He called for a register of lobbying activity — rather than the register of lobbyists that exists currently — in order to capture the full scope of the activity.
“It needs a wholesale change, because ultimately we’re going to play around with a piece of legislation that is broken from the bottom up,” he said. The current exemptions provided a helpful guide for “those who wish to stay in the shadows”, he added.
In 2014, then-prime minister David Cameron brought in the Office of the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists, warning that lobbying could become “the next big scandal”. Cameron himself was embroiled in a lobbying scandal after leaving office.
While the Office of the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists investigates breaches of the UK’s lobbying rules, only a handful of cases it has taken on since its inception in 2015 have resulted in penalties.
Only four out of 70 investigations into suspected breaches of the Lobbying Act for which the registrar published case summaries have led to penalties such as fines, while none have led to a criminal prosecution.
The largest fine to date was for £7,500 against former Conservative cabinet minister Owen Paterson in February, after he acted as a paid consultant to medical diagnostics company Randox without first registering.
Additionally, dozens of companies have also been fined small amounts for largely administrative errors, with penalties typically being less than £200.
The UK’s professional lobbying industry has warned that the current system is riddled with loopholes that allow much activity to go unmonitored.
One senior industry figure said a particularly glaring discrepancy requires ministers to report lobbying in their office — but not if it takes place at a drinks party two hours later. “It doesn’t make sense”, they said.
Another added that WhatsApp has “changed the game” by making it easier to send messages — and see if they have been read — to junior advisers who are not subject to disclosure rules, with the understanding that their contents will trickle up to the right minister.
A third said an email drafted by an agency but sent to an in-house lobbyist to submit officially would not need to be declared — making a further mockery of the system.
Another loophole is that companies not registered for VAT are exempt from declarations — a rule designed to prevent smaller businesses with a turnover of less than £85,000 being caught, but which has been used by far larger companies.
Global Counsel — the lobbying firm co-founded by Lord Peter Mandelson — avoided reprimand after arguing that a 2023 meeting with a UK minister did not have to be registered because its Qatari client had paid a Middle Eastern subsidiary that was not registered for UK VAT.
Transparency campaigners have also questioned the use of political consultancies by tax-payer backed bodies such as Network Rail, whose close links with the Lexington consultancy have come under scrutiny.
Rich urged Labour ministers to implement a handful of reforms which could easily and swiftly be done through secondary legislation, including changing the VAT exemption, bringing special advisers into the remit of the register, and mandating discussion topics to be included in disclosures.
Rose Whiffen, senior research officer at Transparency International, said the Lobbing Act was “fundamentally flawed”.
She said the law “is not only riddled with loopholes but deliberately structured to omit crucial information about who lobbies politicians, their financial resources, and who they target”.
The way the rules are structured has also led to some surprising decisions by the regulator.
In 2021 Gill Morris, an industry veteran, was fined £203 after taking to the stage at an event to introduce COP26 president Alok Sharma and Stanley Johnson — father of then-prime minister Boris — when the moderator was delayed.
In contrast, the registrar cleared Baroness Michelle Mone after one of the most high-profile scandals of recent years.
Mone had emailed a minister to recommend PPE Medpro as a provider of personal protective equipment during the pandemic.
Although the company later received £200mn of contracts, her lawyer argued she knew nothing about these and did not benefit financially.
An internal HSBC report later indicated that Mone and her children ultimately received £29mn of profits from the contracts through an offshore trust.
Yet the registrar cleared Mone, deciding she “has not conducted unregistered consultant lobbying” because she was not directly paid for the communication.
Susan Hawley, executive director at Spotlight on Corruption said the case showed the rules were “full of absurdities”.
There have been official recommendations on how to tighten the rules.
The Greensill scandal — in which Cameron directly pressured former ministerial colleagues and officials to change the rules on behalf of Greensill Capital during the pandemic — led to multiple inquiries including an official report by lawyer Nigel Boardman.
Boardman’s recommendations included provisions for greater transparency on the content of meetings, such as details of the policy area and specific regulations, legislation, or funding under discussion.
Rich said he believed none of those suggestions had been implemented by government, saying meeting declarations still contain vague descriptions such as “regular catch-up” or discussing an “ongoing project”.
The new Labour government wants a new Ethics and Integrity Commission “to ensure probity in government” — while in opposition it pledged to restrict ministers from lobbying on companies they previously oversaw. However, it has so far failed to set out any detailed plans.
“No one’s really interested until something goes wrong,” said Rich, “so there’s no great incentive for any government to wade into this.”
