Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill — Decline Second Reading — 3 Sep 2013 at 18:50

The majority of MPs voted in favour of introducing a register of lobbyists, to increase regulation of campaigners who are not standing, or putting up candidates, in general elections and to strengthen requirements on trade unions to maintain up to date membership lists.

MPs were considering the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill[1], they were debating a motion on if the Bill ought be read a second time, ie. if they approved the main principles of the Bill and were happy for it to continue on the path towards becoming law.

Parliament has summarised the main elements of the Bill as being[1]:

  • to introduce a statutory register of consultant lobbyists
  • to more closely regulate election campaign spending by those not standing for election or registered as political parties
  • to strengthen the legal requirements placed on trade unions in relation to their obligation to keep their list of members up to date.

An amendment which replaced the motion on a second reading was moved by Angela Eagle MP[2], that alternative motion which was rejected in this vote read:

  • That this House
  • affirms its belief in the need for greater transparency in the lobbying industry and in British politics, and considers that there should be a universal register of all professional lobbyists backed by a code of conduct and sanctions, clear rules on third party campaigning, and real reform to get the big money out of politics;
  • but declines to give a Second Reading to the Transparency of Lobbying, Third Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill because the proposals on lobbying cover only a tiny minority of the industry and will make lobbying less transparent, and the proposals on third party campaigning amount to a gag on charities and campaigners who have a democratic right to participate in important debates in the run up to elections; and
  • strongly believes that the publication of such a Bill should have been preceded by a full process of pre-legislative scrutiny and consultation with affected parties.

The operative element of that rejected motion was "declines to give a Second Reading ..."; the rest is an explanation of that stance.

Debate in Parliament | Source |

Public Whip is run as a free not-for-profit service. If you'd like to support us, please consider switching your (UK) electricity and/or gas to Octopus Energy or tip us via Ko-Fi.

Party Summary

Votes by party, red entries are votes against the majority for that party.

What is Tell? '+1 tell' means that in addition one member of that party was a teller for that division lobby.

What are Boths? An MP can vote both aye and no in the same division. The boths page explains this.

What is Turnout? This is measured against the total membership of the party at the time of the vote.

PartyMajority (No)Minority (Aye)BothTurnout
Alliance0 10100.0%
Con271 (+1 tell) 0089.2%
DUP0 5062.5%
Green0 10100.0%
Independent1 10100.0%
Lab0 225 (+2 tell)088.0%
LDem41 (+1 tell) 1076.8%
PC0 1033.3%
SDLP0 2066.7%
SNP0 60100.0%
Total:313 243087.1%

Rebel Voters - sorted by party

MPs for which their vote in this division differed from the majority vote of their party. You can see all votes in this division, or every eligible MP who could have voted in this division

Sort by: Name | Constituency | Party | Vote

NameConstituencyPartyVote
David WardBradford EastLDem (front bench)aye

About the Project

The Public Whip is a not-for-profit, open source website created in 2003 by Francis Irving and Julian Todd and now run by Bairwell Ltd.

The Whip on the Web

Help keep PublicWhip alive