Does our Parliament really care what we think, are they interested in our views, or do they simply want us to endorse their party political ideology in between elections? At the beginning of November the House of Lords forced the Government to put on hold, the progress of the ‘Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill 2013-14’ in order to allow Ministers to “consult widely all of the interested parties, members of this House and the many others outside”. The period of this consultation was set as 6 weeks, a period that runs till 16th December 2013.

This was not an outright rejection of this Bill which many people feel is very poorly drafted, but rather a desire to see one part of it removed or significantly changed. The Bill is supposedly an attempt to deal with the lobbying which David Cameron recognised as the “next big scandal waiting to happen” when he was the leader of the opposition before the 2010 General Election. However when this Bill was rushed out in July 2013, just before the Parliamentary recess, commentators were surprised to see that the proposals were far too weak to deal adequately with commercial lobbying and that the bill includes two parts that have nothing to do with conventional lobbying. Part two relates to the engagement by charities with MPs and Governments, in the year prior to any election (although there is now some suggestion this period will be reduced to 6 months) and part three relates to the work of trade unions. The Lords delay relates only to part two which relates to charities. Charities are already regulated regarding their involvement in Political campaigning. Part two of this Bill is poorly thought through and totally unnecessary.

In the context of my work for Churches Together in Sussex I wrote to all of the MPs in Sussex to find out how they intended to engage with charities in their constituencies, in order that I could alert local churches to participate. This is in part because some churches have expressed that their usual practice of holding hustings meetings prior to elections is under threat due to their interpretation of the Lobbying Bill. I have blogged on the progress each Friday since then. The last account was here. Since then there has been a bit more progress.

Two Sussex MPs oppose the Lobbying Bill, Caroline Lucas and Stephen Lloyd. The remaining 14 have voted for it on its third reading in the Commons, 13 Conservatives and 1 Lib Dem including three members of the Government:

Francis Maude, MP for Horsham and one of the Ministers involved in the negotiations on this Bill has allowed me to share the response from his office: “With apologies for the delay in responding, Mr Maude has asked me to thank you for your e-mail and to let you know that intense discussions with representatives of the voluntary sector are taking place and that he is hopeful of a satisfactory outcome. He will of course continue to monitor the situation closely.” Sadly I could not find out what he meant by a satisfactory outcome, nor if he was planning to meet locally with charities.

Simon Kirby is MP for Kemptown and Peacehaven. After a great deal of correspondence, mostly on twitter, Simon has offered to meet with me and 2-3 representatives of the charities in his constituency for 15 minutes. This meeting is planned for 6th December.

Greg Barker, also a Minister has sent me a letter explaining his position on the Bill which he is happy for me to share with his constituents. Peter Bottomley sent me a message suggesting he thinks that concerns regarding the Bill are an over-reaction. Since last week Tim Loughton has written in a similar vein to Peter Bottomley, explaining that he had recently met with some local churches who did not raise any concerns with him.

Three MPs have written explaining that they are willing to receive correspondence from constituents on this subject and by implication that they don’t wish to hold a consultative or speculative meetings, and also that they don’t wish to make a statement explaining why they have voted as they have. Clearly I cannot tell if they would be more open with their views to a constituent. These MPs are Charles Hendry, Andrew Tyrie and Mike Weatherley.

Nick Gibb and Amber Rudd have written to explain that they cannot correspond with me, and whilst I have pointed out I am writing to find out how constituents who I work for can best engage with them over this matter they reiterated that Parliamentary protocol prevents them from writing to me. Nicholas Soames Office has sent a response saying they are dealing with my request! The remaining three MPs have not responded to my email or other correspondence in any way at all. They are Norman Baker, Nick Herbert and Henry Smith. Of these Norman Baker is a Government Minister, the type of person who the Government statement claimed was going to consult widely!

It would be unfair to suggest that MPs are judged for anything other than their own individual performance, but based on this sample of 14 coalition MPs, it seems that the vast majority of our Parliament is only interested in listening to us, when it suits them, and otherwise when the government announces it is wanting to consult with people, they really don’t mean what they say. In 18 months time most of these people will want to persuade local residents to re-elect them to continue to act as their representatives!