On Thursday 25th October, I attended a discussion at the Scottish Parliament regarding the consultation of the Lobbying Transparency Bill. The deadline for the consultation has been extended to 7th November.
The Bill was introduced by Neil Findlay MSP and its aim is to 'require certain individuals and organisations who lobby MSPs, Scottish Ministers or relevant public officials, either on their own account or on behalf of third parties, to record relevant information about their lobbying activity in a published register'.
Lobbying disclosure is already mandatory in some other Countries, including - ironically - the USA and Canada.
Given Shell's activities in Arctic and the current campaign, I thought I would indulge in a little fact finding by accessing the USA's lobbying portal opensecrets.org. The initial figures make interesting reading. Barrack Obama for example received $59,202 from Shell this year. One of the most intriguing facets of this site is the data for the revolving door, of which 16 out of 34 Royal Dutch Shell lobbyists in 2012 have previously held government jobs.
This is exactly the sort of transparency we would come to expect if this bill became law in Scotland.
In order to facilitate public involvment in the consultation within the time remaining, a series of questions have been presented on survey monkey. So if you want to have your say then do the survey.
Returning to the meeting noted above, contributing along with Neil Findlay were Peter Facey - Unlock Democracy, Willie Sullivan - Electoral Reform Society Scotland and Will Dinan - Spinwatch Scotland.
A few of the key points that came out of the discussion were:
- As the Scottish Parliament gains in overall power, lobbying will increase.
- All parties should be covered by the leglislation i.e. charities as well as corporate interests.
- International references e.g opensecrets.org, EU Transparency Directive, OECD report on lobying.
Suffice to say the bill has attracted its critics as reported in heraldscotland.
So will we be able to see who's dirty laundry is being put out to dry? If you use the word democracy, then yes I think we should.
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