Statutory register of consultant lobbyists

Part 1 of the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014 provides for a statutory register of consultant lobbyists.

The register will be an important way of increasing the transparency between people who lobby on behalf of a third party and senior officials in government. It will:

• increase transparency by requiring those who lobby on behalf of a third party to disclose the names of their clients on a publicly available register
• require lobbyists to declare whether or not they subscribe to a publicly available code of conduct
• help improve standards by enhancing the scrutiny of the ethical principles for lobbyists

The regulations relate to:

• limitations on the duty to supply information to the Registrar
• the charging structure that will recover the full costs of the Registrar’s activity
• the supply of VAT-registration information by HM Revenue & Customs
• the detail of the information that lobbyists will be required to submit in information returns

We are inviting comments on the draft regulations that will complete the statutory framework needed to implement the register. We are also seeking information from lobbyists to help set an appropriate charge in the draft regulation for the first year.