The damaging and dangerous Lobbying Bill is about to become Law following votes in the Lords last night. Despite one very close result – 245 for and 245 against – all of the attempts by the Lords to reinstate their own amendments were lost as reported here. This means that there will be no further change to the Bills numerous clauses and criteria which have disturbed many of us and so the legislation in the form that it left the Commons last week will shortly receive Royal Assent and become law. Having previously written 19 other posts on the Act, this 20th piece will probably be the last. A time for reflection!

The Lobbying Act was introduced to the Commons in its first draft in July 2013, more than 3 years after the current Prime Minister claimed that Lobbying was the next big issue and needed to be a high priority for any new Government. There have been countless criticisms by commentators and Politicians on all sides for the failure or even abuse of process that the Government has adopted to get the Bill through in its current state. Several lobbying industry voices have pointed out that this Act will leave the majority of lobbying activity untouched, enabling amongst many others, large multinational businesses to continue to press for changes to laws due to their unlimited access to Parliament and Westminster, with only a modest level of transparency, none of which has come as a result of this Bill.

MPs have claimed extensively that this Bill has generated far more post and email correspondence than other pieces of legislation in recent years. Some MPs have claimed that this is because of organisation by lobbying groups such as 38 Degrees. In practice even if that were true it would suggest that 38 Degrees are much more effective at persuading people of their point of view than our elected representatives are, despite the enormous resource disparity between one small but effective charity and over half of the 650 MPs with office staff and free access to the broadcasters when the Government or Parties can be bothered to send a spokesperson to the studio. One of the true marks of leadership, is that people are following you, this should be a wake up call for the honourable members.

In practice the campaign against the Bill, benefited from a number of organisations that assisted charities and other organisations to mobilise their members and supporters. One of these was undoubtedly 38 Degrees, but they were far from alone and charities are not naturally inclined to speak up on their own behalf. As Graham Allen MP pointed out on 22nd January “it is quite an achievement for the Government to get the League Against Cruel Sports and the Countryside Alliance on the same side and working in unison” Any MP with the level of myopia that several have shown in their recent comments about 38 Degrees should be consulting their physician, not making laws on our behalf. Ironically yesterday in the Commons two MPs were suggesting that the reason why electors are losing confidence with the British Parliamentary system is because of the perceived impotence of the Commons by the European Parliament. I will write more about that tomorrow, but it is clear that they need to look closer to home.

It is too early to know how much of an impact the Lobbying Act will have on the work of charities. What is certain is that far too many of the MPs who are members of the coalition parties have shown themselves to be unwilling to listen or explain their views to charities in their constituencies. My own anecdotal evidence for this is based on 14 coalition MPs who have supported this Bill in Sussex, of which only one was willing to meet to listen, and one was willing to write an explanation of their support for the Bill. Half were not willing to even respond with anything more than a standardised letter. This Bill passing is a sad event, and all of Parliament should hang their heads in shame, sadly far too many are kidding themselves that the problem lies elsewhere!