But far from increasing transparency, the government is now proposing to expand the scope for the use of informal tendering. Plans set out in its Transforming Public Procurement green paper would give new powers to the cabinet secretary to declare crisis conditions that would allow greater use of ‘direct awards’ – contracts let without competition. They would also exempt contracts from automatic suspension even if they were being legally challenged. Such plans would formalise the short-cuts we saw in the pandemic, and make it even easier for minsters to award contracts to their friends.
This scandal started with David Cameron, a former Conservative prime minister, attempting to influence senior Conservative ministers on behalf of now defunct finance firm Greensill Capital. We must keep the focus on corporate lobbying and the award of contracts.
Unions and charities are a predictable distraction
Some MPs will want, for their own reasons, to divert attention from Tory sleaze. They will seek to draw on the conduct of charities and unions in influencing policymaking. It’s a predictable distraction, and one we should be prepared for. Johnson himself pulled this trick, responding to a recent question from Labour MP Matt Western about Tory sleaze and “big donor bungs” by claiming it is Labour which is soft on lobbyists “because of its relationship with the trade unions”.
There is no reason to include charities or unions in an expanded register of lobbyists. Both charities and unions are already highly regulated.
Charities must not have political purposes, must be party-politically neutral, and may only campaign in tightly circumscribed circumstances in the pursuit of their charitable objectives.
Unions are some of the most regulated organisations in the UK – and have been subjected to even more onerous transparency requirements recently, in the 2014 and 2016 Trade Union Acts. Unions have to make detailed disclosures of our membership, financial affairs, industrial action and political activity. If we want to spend money on political activities, unions must create a separate opt-in political fund. Every ten years this fund must be re-authorised in a ballot of all members. And every year unions have to report and publish detailed information about how they spent their political fund to the Certification Officer.
We support transparency in lobbying. But it is bizarre that we are talking about further regulation of unions and charities in response to a former Conservative prime minister lobbying his Conservative successors on behalf of his current employer.
We should instead seize this moment to find out who ministers and special advisors are meeting, make departments comply with freedom of information laws, and clean up the awarding of government contracts.
Print
Antonia Bance | Radio Free (2021-04-30T13:30:26+00:00) Don’t let Johnson muddy the water – the lobbying scandal is about contracts, not unions. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2021/04/30/dont-let-johnson-muddy-the-water-the-lobbying-scandal-is-about-contracts-not-unions/
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