Starmer is ignoring an open goal

Labour might not be off to an unblemished start on this front – it has had a needless row over civil service appointments, and another over giving a donor a Number 10 pass (which has since been rescinded) – but generally this is still seen as something where Labour can get an easy win, show it is different from its predecessors, and improve standards in public life – and with it trust in the political system itself.

All of which makes it somewhat puzzling that Labour seems to have gone a little cool on some of its reforms to how lobbyists interact with politicians. What is making it particularly unusual is that it is the industry body for the lobbying industry – the lobbyists’ lobbyist, so to speak – that is trying to get them to crack down on the rules, and who is waiting to hear them promise to do so.

It was David Cameron’s coalition government that introduced rules governing the lobbying industry, which required some professional lobbyists to register themselves and to publish a list of their paid clients.

The issue is that these rules are full of loopholes so big you can drive a truck through them – as David Cameron did himself, when he was personally embroiled in the Greensill scandal. Cameron was working for Greensill, which was keen to promote a bizarre financial scheme to the government, and in this capacity helped set up meetings with government ministers. 

But the lobbying rules Cameron set up only cover third-party lobbying firms, not in-house lobbyists – meaning Cameron’s conduct wasn’t covered by his own conduct.

That is one of six major failings in the current lobbying laws that the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) is calling on the new government to fix by tightening up the rules – which they say will benefit the good players in the sector, benefit government and the public, and ultimately benefit people who employ legitimate lobbyists by cleaning up the industry’s murky reputation.

But while Labour were very keen on these measures in opposition, the CIPR says they have gone a little quiet now that they’re in government.

“The initial noises from the meetings we had with Labour before the election suggested that the party was fully onboard with overhauling the UK’s lobbying laws,” CIPR CEO Alastair McCapra told The New European. “In fact, when asked at a panel event outright if she supported an expanded statutory lobbying register, Angela Rayner said ‘yes’ immediately.”

“Since the election, though, things have gone really quiet. At one point it looked as though we were on the cusp of change, but today it does feel as though we’ve taken several steps backwards.”

McCapra noted that Labour has recommitted itself to curbing MPs’ second jobs, including an outright ban on members of parliament themselves working as lobbyists – but says this isn’t enough.

“Yes, MPs can’t now be paid to carry out lobbying, but what about MPs being lobbied?” he asked. “There’d still be no obligation for corporate lobbyists to declare this correspondence, which is what the public is calling for. To put it bluntly, the problem is that we have a Lobbying Act that is more loophole than law.”

Labour has not ruled out such changes – it has just stopped sounding quite so enthusiastic about them. But governments are most likely to make real changes to ethics rules early in their term, before the scandals start to build up during their own tenure. There is a window of opportunity that is closing.

It is surely an unusual situation to have a situation where the public wants an industry to be registered, and the representative body itself agrees – and even has a set of proposals the government previously said it liked, but the government is not acting. Keir Starmer has said his government is all about the “tough choices” – does that mean he’s ruling out the no-brainers?