Lobbygate: Milking the system

In 2009, the Rt Reverend and Crossbench Peer Lord Eames, was appointed as the head of a cross party review group to draw up new rules that would ban Lords from taking money from lobby firms to ask questions in parliament.

The rule change took place following allegations that four Labour Lords had offered to try and amend laws for up to £120,000. At the time, not only were there no rules to prevent such behaviour, but there was also no Commissioner for Standards to investigate wrongdoing.

Lord Eames concluded in a report that the rules needed to change, a commissioner for standards needed to be instated because “We need to restore public confidence in the House of Lords, and in the conduct of its members…There is no place in the House of Lords for 'peers for hire'." At least these two proposals were implemented, but the House of Lords has remained an open house to lobbyists.

Part of the problem for this stems from a lack of punishment for those who abuse their position. When a ‘noble’ peer is caught red-handed breaking the rules, they are left to remain in the corridors of power able to vote and debate on legislation as they were able to before. One of those accused in the 2009 sting by the Sunday Times was Lord Snape.

The paper stated that the Labour peer had agreed to obtain an exemption in a Business Rates Supplement Bill in exchange for £24,000. The subsequent investigation found he had "expressed a clear willingness to breach the Code of Conduct". No action was taken.

Lord Taylor of Blackburn was recorded saying "Some companies that I work with would pay me £100,000 a year." His punishment was to be suspended for six months but he too remains in his position as a Lord.

When Cameron was vying for votes prior to the election, he gave a speech, in which he highlighted the issues of lobbying, stating it would be the next big scandal. “We can’t go on like this”, he informed us, “I believe it’s time we shone the light of transparency on lobbying in our country and forced our politics to come clean about who is buying power and influence.”

Access to Cameron

But what has he done. Well the answer to that is nothing of substance. When Peter Cruddas the former Tory party co-treasurer was caught on camera announcing access to the Prime Minister for a donation of a quarter of a million, David Cameron said "It's quite right that Peter Cruddas has resigned. I will make sure there is a proper party inquiry to make sure this can't happen again." What can’t happen again? If Peter Cruddas was to be believed, and he probably shouldn’t, then he was lying about access to the Prime Minister. If this was the case, then all that needed to happen was to get rid of him. He was of course allowed to resign rather than be sacked, which is another matter that angers people. The Conservative party will miss his money, as he has given over a million pounds to the party since 2009 and £200,000 of that just a week before his resignation.

So what else has Cameron done to defeat the sleaze that oozes through the walls of Westminster?

ACOBA toothless

In 2011, the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA) became responsible for providing restrictions to ministers or senior civil servants who wish to work in the privatesector. This Conservative promise means that when Jim Easton left his position as ‘Director of Improvement and Efficiency’, at the Department of Health to become Managing director of Care UK, ACOBA stated that there must be ‘a waiting period of three months from his last day of service; that for 12 months, he should not become involved in advising on bids or contracts for Department of Health business; and that, for two years from the same date, he should not become personally involved in lobbying UK Government on behalf of his new employer.’

ACOBA, which is overseen by Lords, has been accused of having no teeth. Paul Flynn, the Labour MP who has worked tirelessly on the issue of lobbying, has described the body as being run by people who “think it's normal for an MP being paid £65,000 for a full-time job to take on five other jobs."

And the rest?
However, aside from minor restrictions imposed by an otherwise compliant ACOBA, we are still waiting for real measures to come in. The register of lobbyists is on its way as part of a lobbying bill to be brought in by the end of July, a register once opposed by Labour back in 2006. On the face of it, Clegg, who was leading the charge chose to stand away from the process because his wife is a lobbyist, which was slowed the process. Now, as the scandal breaks on corruption in parliament, a bill has miraculously appeared. However, rather than bring into line corporations, this government appear to have focused on unions who will be required to produce an annual audit of their membership, which can then evaluate accuracy for strike action ballots. Quite what state the bill will be in once it reaches its conclusions, is unclear, and no doubt we will see the irony of lobbying taking place to weaken the lobbying bill's content.

Parliament is full of lobbyists. Research conducted by transparency campaigners Spin Watch, revealed 15% of Tory MPs electedduring the last election were from a lobbying background. Not only that, but Cameron has chosen to hire a lobbyist directly into the heart of his health policy unit up until the election. Nick Seddon was the former deputy director of the free market think tank, Reform. He worked tirelessly to help ensure competition remained in the Health and Social Care Act on behalf of Reform’s corporate supporters of which over half are companies involved in healthcare.

These processes are all part of the revolving door that see people come and go through parliament and leave into big business, offering the company an insight into government thinking.  In the other direction, they are lobbyists and having  lobbied government, they are then invited in to produce policy for corporations they used to represent and then off they go again.

Healthcare coup
Social Investigations discovered over200 parliamentarians with recent past or present links to companies or individuals involved in healthcare. All of them able to vote, make amendments and in one case move their company into a position to make money from the legislation on which they voted. The same companies that employ Lords and MPs, are the same ones who sit as corporate partners in think tanks who are invited to help them produce reports, which end up as policy which often opens up opportunities for increased revenues.

Take Conservative Peer Lord Blackwell, he voted on the Health and Social Care Bill, then the company of which he is a chairman, enteredinto a new area for them, with an increased market made possible by his vote. No wonder these people are a target for lobbyists and highly employable.

Sting operation

Many Lords may not be trustworthy, but they are certainly trusting and have once more fallen for a sting operation. Cabinet Minister, Francis Maude has stated he would be ‘astonished’ if the lobby register didn’t make an appearance, but why are the media looking for his word on any matter? In 2009, he was found to have claimed£35,000 in two-years for mortgage interest payments on a London flat, when he owned a house just down the road.

Power corrupts, it is not easy to be in power and behave properly, so the rules need to be a lot tighter than they are and the punishment a genuine deterrent. To be in a position whereby you can change law to better the public good, is a position of privilege, one that is abused with regularity which is a disgrace that must be met head on.

People will have their own views on what that should happen. We could make it so that Lords get elected, which was something so vociferously opposed by the Lords and then crushed by the Conservatives or we could abolish them all together as considered hereby Tony Benn?

If Cameron truly wanted to do something to prevent the benefits of lobbying, then he could make it against the rules for MPs and Lords to be able to vote, ask a question or make an amendment if they have a non-financial or financial link to any organisation. This would take the sting out of the reason why so many parliamentarians are offered employment in key positions in so many companies. Any Lord or MP caught breaking the more serious of rules ought to be sacked, not allowed to resign or simply suspended only to return and if they break the law well that’s clearly a matter for the police.

For the moment we are in a situation whereby those who have been a part of the various scandals that have taken place over the last 4 years, remain in charge of introducing new rules to prevent future scandals. This is intolerable. It is important to note that local councillors have many more restrictions on their ability to vote and debate when they have a prejudicial interest. It would be good if they were to denounce the flaws in the system.

Could it be that the MPs and Lords have allowed themselves more freedom so that lobbying can carry on as normal? The lobbying bill will be of interest, though I am quite sure key measures will be omitted. They have been forced to announce it but they are also very clever at taking the sting out of rising anger. This bill, will likely do nothing to prevent the institutional corruption that exists, the revolving door, the directorships and appointments that provide a seat in power for the corporations writing policy for themselves. This battle for democracy continues. 

 

UK Politics: Public Servants, Lies and the Future is Corporate?

We understand that humans will potentially behave badly when they have power or are faced with being able to make a lot of money. So with this in mind, we as a society have demanded access to information that allows the public and the press to monitor our so-called public servants. The Freedom of Information Act as George Monbiot points out in his articlein the Guardian today, is of no use when it comes to the corporations, who are holding the taxpayer to ransom, and the consumer in contempt.

As it stands Corporations hide behind ‘corporate confidentiality’, aided by a willing set of politicians who are happy to defend the deals they have created on behalf of their paymasters. This behaviour and protection should play no part in a transparent society, but then again, our MPs and Lords are not only representing the needs of the corporations over the public, they are the corporations. They sit on the boards, they are the directors, advisors and seats in government, they make the rules for themselves, and they then vote on these rules despite the conflicts of interest.

Our politics is broken, 60% of our ecosystems are degraded, deregulation and greed is taking us to the brink, surveillance is everywhere, police monitor protesters who are legitimately using their right to protest, feeding information to the corporations who are being targeted; and create blacklists preventing politically involved people from getting jobs. We have seen how corrupt they are, taking payments from Murdoch’s hacks, and occasionally getting away with murder. All this happening without a privatised force, what will they be like once they are owned by a corporation? This frightening handing over of our services to corporations is increasingly in every area of our lives, our schools, energy, health, roads, water, housing, government, and it appears there is no limit to their greed.

What have the corporations actually given us? Name a public utility privatisation that has benefited the taxpayer and the consumer? The price of fuel is going through the roof, house prices are astronomical, trains are the most expensive in Europe, and so it goes on. In this regard I present a great quote by Arian Hamilton, formerly of the Institute of Economic affairs when writing in the Observer on January 2^nd1994 on the privatisation of British Gas.

‘Whatever else privatisation has done, it has done little for the consumer, at least in the case of the electricity and resource industries. The City has done well out of the sales of shares. The users have been bribed with the offer of cut-price shares. The management has been bought off with huge pay rises and substantial share options. (The present chairman of British Gas earns as much in a year as his predecessor did in his entire career of building up the industry)…Privatisation of British Gas has been a scandal. As a nationalised industry, it had converted the entire country to natural gas and revolutionized the energy scene. As a privatised company, it has done little more than sit back and reward itself and its advisers from the benefits of former investments and its dominant position.’

Society is falling into a deep dark hole and it will take a huge effort to reverse this malignant politics, spearheaded by corrupt, bigoted minds such as Francis Maude. What on Earth is someone like Maude, who wishes to eradicate the state provision of public services, doing in public office? Francis Maude like so many of our politicians are happy to take a wage paid for by us, reap the benefits of a good pension, and then do their utmost to destroy everything that has been built over the years. The idea that he is a public servant is laughable, and he should be treated as such by both us and the media.

One look through the MP and Lords register of interests highlights the sheer volume of corporate dominance in our politics. The staggering number of 142 Lords with financial interests in companies involved in private healthcare is evidence enough of who our parliamentarians represent. Take Margot James, who is seen on a video at a pharmaceutical conference saying: ‘I keep saying ‘we’, but I’m not really part of the industry anymore, but I still feel it.’This would explain why she was so keen to sit on the Health and Social Care bill committee in order to: ‘play a part in that debate and go on the committee to really iron out the details...’

How are we meant to trust them, when we watch Peter Cruddas offering access to the Prime Minister for £250,000 and he is allowed to resign rather than be placed under arrest, and investigated. It was remarkable that the Conservatives wheeled out Francis Maude to say the revelations were nothing more than: ‘"embarrassing and wrong, and not true…That's not the way we do business and raise money, and we're very clear about that."

Why should the press accept anything he says as anything but a lie, fuelled by self-interests of his connections outside of parliament. Francis Maude who was a director a PR firm called Huntsworth, who are run by a Conservative Lord, called Lord Chadlington, who has donated money to Cameron as has his company. Why don’t the media with access to these interests challenge Maude’s authenticity when he speaks on such matters?

The list is endless. Cameron making Lord Popat a Peer after he donated money to the Conservative party, Mark Simmonds, paid £50,000 a year to work just 10 hours a month as “strategic adviser” to Circle Health, George Osbourne who received donation through Conservative Campaign Headquarters to run his office from Julian Schild. Julian Schild’s family made £184million in 2006 by selling hospital bed-makers Huntleigh Technology. Andrew Lansley who accepted money from Care UK chairman John Nash to run his office.

They behave this way, because they are allowed to get away with it. The BBC utterly failed to challenge Andrew Lansley on his private healthcare links throughout the course of the Health and Social Care bill. In fact, aside from an article in 2008 highlighting the links between cabinet ministers and their private donations, their challenging of the Health Secretary was notable in its absence.

However the media can only accept some of the blame, we the public have not taken to the streets in the numbers required, the Unions have not called a strike to protect the NHS, and when Andrew Lansley was found to have cheated his expenses by selling his home after renovating it on taxpayers money, he was voted back in.

The latest vote however has clearly stated this coalition is not wanted, but what damage will they do before they are ousted. Will Labour, the likely beneficiaries, shed the skin of New Labour and turn away from a free market capitalist system that has caused so much damage to both our society and our environment? France has chosen socialism in times of austerity, do we have that option or is our Labour party still the same party that lied to us about the Iraq war, and continued the expansion of privatisation unabated?