Former ministers are cashing in on inside knowledge “with impunity”, according to a committee of MPs that wants tougher regulation of lobbying.

Safeguards to prevent senior politicians and civil servants using information and contacts made in office for private gain need wholesale reform, the Commons Public Administration Committee’s report says.

The report also calls for a mandatory code and register for lobbyists, policed by an independent body, to replace a failed effort at self-regulation.

The investigation into influence-peddling is most scathing about rules on the “revolving door” between government and the private sector.

Former ministers are required to seek advice — and abide by it – from an advisory committee when taking outside jobs related to their former responsibilities. The MPs found that the body’s recommendations were so varied and vague as to allow most activity to proceed unchecked. “We are strongly concerned that, with the rules as loosely and as variously interpreted as they currently are, former ministers in particular appear to be able to use with impunity the contacts they built up as public servants to further a private interest,” they said.

“We think that this is unacceptable, particularly where they continue to be paid from the public purse as sitting Members of Parliament. The rules need to reflect this.”

The MPs dismissed the efforts of lobbying companies to regulate themselves, pointing out that only three complaints had been investigated in a decade. “In the current climate of public mistrust, voluntary self-regulation of lobbying activity risks being little better than the Emperor’s New Clothes,” the report concluded.

There should be a compulsory register, monitored by a watchdog, to record who was lobbying government about what, who their clients were, the interests of decision-makers and the records of meetings and conversations, it suggested. The industry should introduce a “kitemark” standard to be granted by a watchdog, with lobbyists who broke the rules stripped of membership. Otherwise, the Government should force the industry to create, and fund, such a system, the report said.

“Lobbying the Government should, in a democracy, involve explicit agreement about the terms on which this lobbying is conducted.

“The result of doing nothing would be to increase public mistrust of government, and to solidify the impression that government listens to favoured groups – big business and party donors in particular – with far more attention than it gives to others.”

The committee called for fuller publication of gifts and hospitality received by ministers and civil servants, warning that such information appeared not to have been kept “as rigorously as it might”.

The committee concluded: “There seems to be a culture of secrecy in some parts of government beyond that which is strictly necessary, and beyond that seen in some countries.

“Government should and could be more open and more transparent about how it formulates policy and takes decisions.”

The report mentioned Stephen Ladyman, who was subject to a lobbying “ban” after leaving his job as Transport Minister but was able to arrange meetings with senior officials when it ended and use his former office “as a way of introducing himself when lobbying” for a traffic information company.

Other ex-ministers who have subsequently taken jobs with private companies connected to their former portfolios include the former health ministers Patricia Hewitt, Alan Milburn and Melanie Johnson. The report draws particular attention to the number of former ministers employed by nuclear companies. They include Ian McCartney, Brian Wilson and Richard Caborn.

Tony Wright, Labour chairman of the Public Administration Committee, said: “Lobbying enhances democracy, but it can also subvert it.

“Government has accepted that it should be more open to outside interests and ideas, and this has brought benefits. But there are risks too, around influence and public mistrust of government, and these risks have not been managed closely enough.”

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