Today MPs are to hold the second reading of the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill. It seems as far away from the emergency debate on Syria, last Thursday as it is possible to get, however there are certain parallels. The debate on Syria, although a matter of great urgency due to the red line that had been crossed by the Syrian Government, was a debate that should have been held years earlier. The Assad Government has been killing and maiming its citizens for nearly three years and some analysts believe that the delay in finding an International solution has allowed Al Qaeda to infiltrate the rebel army making the political situation a great deal more complicated. To take an issue that has such a long history, and rush MPs into a debate with inadequate preparation was bound to lead to a poor outcome. We now have a Government that has decided not to act in a military manner, but there has been little said about the need to sharpen the diplomatic efforts and the opportunity to address the issue at the G20 which is meeting on Thursday. The parallel with lobbying is that having understood that the issue was not addressed by the previous Government, the Conservative party leader announced weeks before the anticipated General Election in February 2010 that if elected he would introduce legislation to ensure that lobbying does not become the next political scandal. Yet no further action was taken for over three years, despite a number of fresh revelations. The coalition did not even include the lobbying bill as one of their planned pieces of legislation in the Queens Speech in May this year. Then with  hours to go before the Summer recess, the Government smuggled the bill out for its first reading, demonstrating by their actions that they don’t want this to be done properly.

There is a second parallel with the Syrian debate. Whilst most people in the UK are not experts in matters of International Diplomacy, we do understand that when we see images of death and violent injuries on our screens that something must be done, even if we are not willing to tolerate the sort of intervention that took place in Iraq in 2003. The issue of lobbying is something that many people in the UK also feel very angry about. Every time an MP or Minister is caught in a compromising video or through correspondence the value and credibility of all of our legislators becomes devalued, and ultimately that damages you and me. Just as last Thursdays vote has not provided a proper response to Syria, so this Bill will not address the issue of lobbying. It even contains some damaging elements that could actually limit charities and good causes from communicating with legislators in a manner that is good for society. My own view is that in time these snags will be resolved or the good causes will find new ways of working. However far too much of the really damaging lobbying that continues to impact our national law-making will be ignore by this Bill. A failure to highlight how powerful lobbying groups infiltrate places such as Whitehall where our laws are really made and researched is the most disturbing of these. Many of the exposes by our newspapers only find the part of the iceberg that is above the water. If David Cameron was serious about resolving lobbying, he would have begun in February 2010 by asking people who are not mired in the process of law-making to propose how to clean up our legislative processes so that our Parliament could once again be a democracy that the rest of the world admires. Sadly this Bill is too little and in the context of this Government it is too late to live up to its expectations. Whether this Bill is passed or not, lobbying and Government corruption will remain a sore for a future Government to deal with, assuming that enough people with integrity can be found.