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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 2 April 2025

Debate

Foreign Influence Registration Scheme

Contribution

My Lords, this Statement is about the foreign influence registration scheme, which, as the Minister said, is trying to ensure transparency and control of the lobbying influence of certain states in the UK. But this is part of a much larger issue. The lobbying Act 2014, passed under the coalition Government, is now a decade old. By coincidence, I started today—some time ago—at a round table which was considering a forthcoming report from the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, titled No Rules Britannia? The UK’s Lobbying Laws Exposed on the Global Stage. That report is still under embargo but I do not think institute will mind me sharing a phrase from the foreword, which says that “the UK’s lobbying laws leave us languishing at the lower end of global governance rankings making it harder to promote our democratic values on the world stage”. Is the Minister prepared to look at the report when it is released, if I share it with him and his team? He may want to respond later in writing, but are the Government prepared to look seriously at the lobbying Act of 10 years ago to see what needs to be done to bring us up to somewhere near global standards?

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