THE head of the sleaze watchdog has urged Parliament to overhaul rules governing all-party groups after an investigation by The Times disclosed that lobbyists had infiltrated the supposedly independent groups of MPs.

Sir Alistair Graham, the chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, has recommended that all-party groups should be forced to declare the names of any sponsors on all reports and press notices. At the moment they have to declare them only on the parliamentary website.

The matter will be considered by the Committee on Standards and Privileges, amid growing pressure from MPs for the activities of lobbyists to be made more transparent. A poll of 160 MPs for Public Affairs News found that three quarters of Labour MPs wanted tighter regulations for lobbyists, including a compulsory register, as did two thirds of all MPs.

The Times showed that organisations in the nuclear and pharmaceutical industries are funding and even writing policy reports in the name of all-party groups of MPs and peers.

It was discovered that six all-party groups listed a lobbyist company as their sponsor, in an apparent breach of parliamentary rules that state: “Where a public-relations agency provides the assistance, the ultimate client should be named.”

In a letter to Sir George Young, the chairman of the Committee on Standards and Privileges, which is responsible for the rules, Sir Alistair said that the committee should consider “further, simple measures” to improve transparency for the public about the funding of all-party groups.

He wrote: “In particular, the committee raised the issue of whether all-party parliamentary groups should be required to declare details and sources of funding in their published reports and press notices. Such a change would be relatively simple for the APPGs to comply with and would counter some of the criticisms made in the Times article about a perceived lack of transparency between APPG reports and their sources of funding.”

Sir Philip Mawer, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, has indicated that he will be examining the specific cases in which lobbyists have failed to list the name of their backer, and the more general issues about the adequacy of the existing rules. Sir Philip is required to report directly to Sir George and the Committee on Standards and Privileges when his investigation is completed. Sir George refused to comment on the letter.

Jolyon Kimble, the editor of Public Affairs News, said that his magazine’s poll, which was taken before the Times investigation was published, reflected a general level of mistrust of lobbyists among MPs. “Even though lobbyists are generally on very good terms with politicians and there are a lot of personal ties, it seems that collectively MPs, especially on the government side, still view public-affairs consultants with deep suspicion,” he said.

“The scandals of the 1990s will clearly continue to colour attitudes towards the profession.”

In a letter to the magazine PR Week, Francis Ingham, the head of public affairs at the Chartered Institute for Public Affairs, which represents some lobbyists, said that the revelations in The Times posed serious questions for lobbyists and Parliament. “In the longer term Parliament needs to take action to improve its own reputation. Providing dedicated support for APPGs would be one small, but perhaps now necessary, part of this process.

“It is time that Parliament took the issue of reputation seriously.”

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