All-Party Parliamentary Groups · All-Party Parliamentary Groups 5 1 Introduction Background to...

HC 357

House of Commons

Committee on Standards

All-Party Parliamentary Groups

Sixth Report of Session 2013–14

HC 357 Published on 29 November 2013

by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited

House of Commons

Committee on Standards

All-Party Parliamentary Groups

Sixth Report of Session 2013–14

Volume I: Report, together with formal minutes, oral and written evidence

Additional written evidence is contained in Volume II, available on the Committee website at www.parliament.uk/Standards

Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 19 November 2013

£15.50

The Committee on Standards

The Committee on Standards is appointed by the House of Commons to oversee the work of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards; to examine the arrangements proposed by the Commissioner for the compilation, maintenance and accessibility of the Register of Members’ Interests and any other registers of interest established by the House; to review from time to time the form and content of those registers; to consider any specific complaints made in relation to the registering or declaring of interests referred to it by the Commissioner; to consider any matter relating to the conduct of Members, including specific complaints in relation to alleged breaches in the Code of Conduct which have been drawn to the Committee’s attention by the Commissioner; and to recommend any modifications to the Code of Conduct as may from time to time appear to be necessary.

Current membership

Rt Hon Kevin Barron MP (Labour, Rother Valley) (Chair) Sir Paul Beresford MP (Conservative, Mole Valley) Mr Robert Buckland MP (Conservative, South Swindon) Rt Hon Tom Clarke MP (Labour, Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) Mr Christopher Chope MP (Conservative, Christchurch) Mr Geoffrey Cox MP (Conservative, Torridge and West Devon) Sharon Darcy (Lay Member) Sir Nick Harvey MP (Liberal Democrat, North Devon) Mr Peter Jinman (Lay Member) Fiona O’Donnell MP (Labour, East Lothian) Mr Walter Rader (Lay Member) Heather Wheeler MP (Conservative, South Derbyshire) Dr Alan Whitehead MP (Labour, Southampton Test)

The following were also Members of the Committee during the Parliament: Annette Brooke MP (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

Powers

The constitution and powers of the Committee are set out in Standing Order No. 149. In particular, the Committee has power to order the attendance of any Member of Parliament before the committee and to require that specific documents or records in the possession of a Member relating to its inquiries, or to the inquiries of the Commissioner, be laid before the Committee. The Committee has power to refuse to allow its public proceedings to be broadcast. The Law Officers, if they are Members of Parliament, may attend and take part in the Committee’s proceedings, but may not vote.

Publications

The Reports and evidence of the Committee are published by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. All publications of the Committee (including press notices) are on the Internet at: www.parliament.uk/standards.

Committee staff

The current staff of the Committee are Eve Samson (Clerk), Danielle Nash (Second Clerk) and Miss Christine McGrane (Committee Assistant).

Contacts

All correspondence should be addressed to The Clerk of the Committee on Standards, Journal Office, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA. The telephone number for general enquiries is 020 7219 6615.

All-Party Parliamentary Groups 1

Contents

Report Page

Summary 3

1 Introduction 5 Background to this inquiry 5

2 The role of APPGs 7 Current regulation 8 Lobbying and Influence 12

Financial support 14 Conclusion 17

3 A revised regulatory regime 18 General approach 18 Key Principles 18 Refining the rules 20 Access to the Parliamentary Estate 21 Abolition of Associate APPGs 22 Criteria for registration 23 Meetings 23 APPG finances 24

Current rules 24 Proposals for change 24

Improving the provision of information 26 The All-Party whip 29

APPGs and select committees 29 The Crowned Portcullis 30 Identifying unregistered groups 31

Reporting 32 Enforcement 32

Administration Committee recommendations 33 Conclusion 34 Implementation 34

Timetable for implementation 35 Decisions for the House 36

Conclusions and recommendations 37

Annex 1: Proposed Rules for APPGs 43

Annex 2: Committee’s questionnaire 46

Appendix 1: Letter from the Committee on Standards and Privileges to Mr Speaker, dated 3 December 2012 49

Appendix 2: Consolidated Resolution relating to APPGs 52

2 All-Party Parliamentary Groups

Formal Minutes 54

Witnesses 55

List of printed written evidence 55

List of additional written evidence 56


Summary

All-Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs) are groups of Members, from both Houses, who may or may not be supported by outside organisations, and are established for a wide range of purposes. They range from the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Hockey, whose purpose is to promote and play hockey, and which has no external support or staff, to the British American Parliamentary Group, which receives £99,000 per annum provided jointly by the House of Commons Commission and the House Committee of the House of Lords. There is a Register of such groups, overseen by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards which is available on the internet.

There has been increasing concern that APPGs pose a reputational risk to the House in several ways:

they may provide access for lobbyists;

they put pressure on resources; and

their output is confused with that of official select committees.

All these concerns are valid, but APPGs also provide:

a forum for cross-party interaction which is not controlled by the whips;

a forum for interaction between the Members of the Commons and the Lords;

a forum for parliamentarians, academics, business people, the third sector and other interested parties;

time and space for policy discussion and debate; and

a means for back bench parliamentarians to set the policy agenda.

There is a longstanding dilemma about the regulation of APPGs: they are essentially informal groupings, established by individual Members, yet the more restrictions and requirements that are placed on them, the more they appear to be endorsed by the House. Work of this sort would continue whether or not APPGs were regulated; there would simply be less transparency about it.

We believe that this problem can only be resolved by ensuring the rules require appropriate transparency from APPGs, while giving groups of Members sufficient incentives to register and abide by the APPG rules. One incentive would be to ensure that groups which are not registered as APPGs, and so avoid the House’s requirements, should not benefit from the “brand of Parliament”.

The House of Commons Commission has already decided to withdraw the passes of APPG staff and this is a significant step. We propose a package of further reforms. We have aimed to streamline regulation to ensure that Members’ responsibility for APPG activity is clear; that those responsible for APPGs can be held to account if necessary; that there is


transparency not only about external support, but also about the activities funded by such support; and that there is far greater clarity about the status of the various types of informal work that Members carry out.

(Please note: conclusions are in bold and recommendations are in bold italics.1)

1 Para 79, Liaison Committee, Third Report, Session 2012–13, Select committee effectiveness, resources and powers,

HC 912


1 Introduction

Background to this inquiry

1. This inquiry was prompted by the report of the Speakers’ Working Group on APGs2, which was set up in November 2011 by the Speakers of both Houses and which reported in June 2012.3 The Working Group report was intended to form the basis of more detailed work by committees and other bodies. Several parts of the House of Commons are involved in considering the ways in which APPGs operate and are regulated. The Committee on Standards makes recommendations on rules about registration and related matters; the Administration Committee has responsibility for advising on matters to do with passes, and access to and use of the precincts. In addition the House of Commons Commission has responsibility for ultimate decisions about passes and Mr Speaker for use of the Crowned Portcullis.

2. When the Working Group reported the Committee on Standards and Privileges decided it would not itself undertake a formal inquiry since it was clear at the time that the Committee would be split into a Committee of Privileges and a Committee on Standards with effect from January 2013. The division of the two committees was to allow the new Committee on Standards to contain three lay members, and it was felt that an inquiry into APPGs would benefit from the external perspective that those lay members would bring. Nonetheless, the Committee on Standards and Privileges discussed the Working Group’s conclusions and responded to them in a letter to the Speaker in December 2012.4

3. The new Committee on Standards began an inquiry into APPGs as soon as it was established. As both the Standards Committee and the Administration Committee have responsibilities in this area, the two Committees agreed to work together, sharing evidence and holding discussions between the Chairs as appropriate. As a first step a questionnaire from both Committees was sent to all APPGs on the Register to draw attention to the inquiry, and to make sure there was a foundation of evidence on which to draw. We took oral evidence from Members of the House, political consultants, charities, other groups involved in supporting APPGs, and from the campaign group Unlock Democracy. We are grateful to all those who gave oral or written evidence, or completed the Committees’ questionnaire.

4. In making this Report we have two aims. The principal one is to propose a package of measures which will retain the benefits which APPGs bring, while putting in place stronger measures to ensure transparency and propriety. The other is to improve understanding of APPGs’ place in Parliament.

5. Since our inquiry began there have been allegations that a Member was attempting to set up an APPG at the request of a political consultant. That matter is currently under investigation and we will not comment on it in this Report. The immediate outcome of the

2 The terms APG and APPG have been used interchangeably in the past. In this Report we use the abbreviation

“APPG”–All-Party Parliamentary Group, but APG may appear in some quotations .

3 Speakers’ Working Group on All-Party Groups, Report to the Speaker and Lord Speaker, June 2012

4 See Appendix 1.


publicity surrounding the allegations was that the Administration Committee considered the matter of access to the House as a matter of urgency and recommended to the House of Commons Commission that there should no longer be a separate category of pass for the staff of APPGs. We concurred with that recommendation, and the Commission has now withdrawn such passes.


2 The role of APPGs 6. APPGs are not official Parliamentary bodies. They are groups of Members, who may come from both Houses, who may or may not be supported by outside organisations, which are established for a wide range of purposes. To register groups have to have 20 qualifying Members drawn from both Government and Opposition, and to abide by the rules.

7. The Register of APPGs is divided into “subject” groups and “country” groups, but APPG activity ranges widely. Some were described as “agreeable semi-social, or entirely social, organisations”; some very occasional things “where you have a particular interest in some country or something you keep half an eye on developments in it”;5 others can be a means for Members to educate themselves, or campaigning organisations.

8. Something of the range of activities was conveyed by Andrew Miller MP, describing two groups in which he was involved:

In the case of the Hungary group, I got involved in that country when I was asked by Prime Minister Blair to help on the political issues around the accession of Hungary to the EU, and have maintained a strong relationship with that country, even though I have fundamental disagreements with its current Government. That group, like many country groups, is small and tends to be based on people’s personal involvement in countries [...and] runs purely as a friendship organisation and has no budget whatsoever. One of our colleagues is the only hon. treasurer—well, I suppose there are lots of others—who has no money, income or expenditure, at his disposal.

This organisation—the [Parliamentary and Scientific Committee]—was the first All-Party Group, created in 1939 to help the war effort. [...] That is the kind of work it has done, focusing on big scientific issues of the day over many years. There is also a huge amount of outreach with the annual competition [Science, Engineering and Technology] for Britain, which brings in hundreds of young scientists. [....] Obviously, there is a big budget associated with that. [...] It is quite a different beast.6

9. What APPGs have in common is that they abide by the rules which enable them to be entered on to the APPG Register. Registered APPGs can use the term “parliamentary” in their title, may advertise their meetings on the All-Party Whip and have some priority in room bookings, although they will be displaced by official committees of either House if necessary.

10. Witnesses agreed that APPGs provided an opportunity for backbenchers to set the agenda. Paul Birch, a technology entrepreneur and founder of all-party.org, was attracted by “the vast array of topics that they covered, the fact is that a lot of those were driven by public interest; they were quite dynamic—new ones were created and some were closed”.7 Ann Coffey MP stressed that APPGs allowed cross-party working, “because, in a sense,

5 Q 23

6 Q 182

7 Q 94


some of that very strict division between party lines is taken out, which enables you to work with Ministers, whatever the nature of the Government”.8 Barry Sheerman MP said that “anything that empowers us against the Whips or against the House administration and is about empowering Members of Parliament is a good thing”.9

11. There was also consensus that it was important that outside interests had access to Members and were able to share expertise.10 Charities described the APPG on cancer as a “network for collaboration”, not just between charities and politicians, but between various organisations working in similar fields.11 Mark D’Arcy, Westminster correspondent for the BBC, told us that APPGs were “a very important network” and that they get “information through the outer defences of Westminster to the people who need it”.12

12. In summary, the case for APPGs is that they provide:

a forum for cross-party interaction which is not controlled by the whips;

a forum for interaction between parliamentarians in both Houses;

a forum for parliamentarians, academics, business people, the third sector and other interested parties;

a time and space for policy discussion and debate; and

a means for parliamentarians to set the policy agenda, which is normally dictated by the front benches and in particular, by the Government’s legislative priorities.

13. It has long been recognised that parliamentary work is not limited to participation in formal proceedings. We agree with the Speakers’ Working Group that:

[APPGs] can enable Members of both Houses, working together, to inform themselves about specific subjects, make common cause on issues, and — perhaps most importantly—respond to outside concerns and have direct contact with those who express them. We were struck by the commitment of Members, and those outside Parliament, to APGs and note how effective they can be in raising issues with the government.[....] At a time when politicians are felt by some to be remote we must not cut ourselves off from the wider world.13

Current regulation

14. APPGs are already regulated by the House of Commons to ensure some transparency and propriety. The Register of All-Party Groups is the responsibility of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards who has delegated oversight of the Register to the Registrar of

8 Q 149

9 Q 45

10 Q 116 [Alexandra Runswick]

11 Qq 73–74

12 Q 23

13 Speakers’ Working Group on All-Party Groups, Report to the Speaker and Lord Speaker, June 2012, para 2


Members’ Financial Interests and the Assistant Registrar. The current requirements for APPGs are set out in Table 1.14

Table1: Summary of Rules governing APPGs

Requirements that groups must meet to qualify for inclusion on the Register

1. Membership must be open to all Members of the House of Commons and House of Lords.

2. Must have at least 20 Members (each of whom must be a Member of the House of Commons or House of Lords), comprising: at least 10 Members who are from the same political party or parties as the government, and at least 10 who are not from the government party or parties (of whom at least 6 must be from the main opposition party).

3. Must hold an inaugural election of officers advertised in advance on the All-Party Notices. Must elect a minimum of 2 officers, at least one of whom must be an MP. Registered Contact of group must be both an officer and an MP, and is the person nominated by the group as its main contact and as the person ultimately responsible for ensuring the group’s compliance with the House’s rules.

Information that groups must register

4. Group’s title, which must include the term Associate Parliamentary Group or All-Party Parliamentary Group and must not replicate title of an existing group.

5. Brief statement of the group’s purpose.

6. Date of inaugural election of officers.

7. Name and post held of each of group’s officers.

8. Names of the group’s 20 qualifying members. (If a qualifying member informs the group that he or she no longer wishes to be a member of the group, the group must register the name of a suitable replacement within 28 days of the member resigning).

9. Name and contact details of the MP who is the group’s registered contact.

10. Address of the group’s website (if it has one).

11. Name of any staff to the group who hold an APG security pass. Staff issued with an APG pass are required to register: any paid employment for which they receive more than 0.5% of the parliamentary salary; and any gift, benefit or hospitality they receive, if the gift, benefit or hospitality in any way relates to or arises from their work in Parliament and its value is over 0.5% of the parliamentary salary in the course of a calendar year.15

12. Financial or material benefits whose total value of £1500 or more in a calendar year from the same extra-parliamentary source (must be registered within 28 days). For financial benefits register the amount and donor; for material benefits register the donor and a description of the benefit. Any further donation received, whether singly or cumulatively, from the same source in the same calendar year should be registered if its value exceeds £500.

13. Name and website of any organisation that is acting as the group’s secretariat: If a consultancy organisation acts as the group’s secretariat, the name of any client

14 This summary is based on guidance and rules in: House of Commons, Guide to the Rules on All-Party Groups, March

2012

15 Overtaken by the withdrawal of APG passes


specifically paying the consultancy to act as the secretariat. (The consultancy must either publish its full client list on its website or else agree to provide such a list, on request).

If a charity or not-for-profit organisation acts as the group’s secretariat it must agree to make available, on request, a list citing any commercial company which has donated either as a single sum or cumulatively more than £5,000 to the charity or not-for-profit organisation in the course of the 12 months prior to the month in which the request is made, otherwise the charity or not-for-profit organisation is not allowed to act as the group’s secretariat.

If someone is acting in a personal and unpaid capacity as the group’s secretariat and if the provision of this service constitutes a benefit worth £1,500 or more per calendar year to the group, register the person’s name and contact details.

14. Register any affiliation held by country groups to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association or Inter-Parliamentary Union.

15. Any registrable change (ie any addition or deletion required under the rules to the group’s Register entry) must be put by the group in writing to the Commissioner’s office within 28 days of the change (eg the receipt of a donation) occurring, so that the entry may be updated.

16. Unless the group re-registers within two months from the date when Parliament first meets after a general election, it ceases to exist then and is removed from the Register.

Requirements groups must meet to remain registered (apart from registration requirements)

Membership

1. Group must maintain a comprehensive and up-to-date membership list.

2. Any Member of the House of Commons or House of Lords may join the group; anyone else may only join at the discretion of the group.

3. The group may charge members a subscription fee if it chooses. The maximum subscription fee chargeable to a Member of either House is £5 per year. Fees for any other person or organisations are therefore at the discretion of the group.

Meetings

1. The group must meet at least twice per calendar year. An AGM counts as one meeting. The other meeting must be held on a different day from the AGM to qualify as a separate meeting.

2. The group’s officers are responsible for ensuring that the group complies with the House’s rules on the use of parliamentary facilities. Meetings should mostly be held at Parliament and on a day when both Houses are sitting. Annual General Meetings (AGMs) must be held at Parliament and on a day when both Houses are sitting.

3. Group must hold an AGM every 12 months at Parliament and on a day when both Houses are sitting; advertise the AGM in advance on the All-Party Notices; hold an election of officers at the AGM; register the result of the AGM by whatever deadline the group has been given by submitting an amended copy of the group’s Register entry signed by an officer.

4. Ordinary meetings (ie any meeting other than an AGM or a meeting at which officers are elected) need not be advertised on the All-Party Notices, but AGMs and any other meeting at which officers are elected must be.

5. The quorum for any meeting of the group is three members, at least one of whom must be an officer of the group. Each of the three must be a Member of either the House of Commons or the House of Lords.

6. Any Member of either House may turn up and speak at any meeting of the group;


anyone else may only attend if invited by the group.

7. Any Member of the House of Commons or House of Lords may vote at any meeting of the group—unless a subscription is charged, in which case the group may decide to allow only paid-up members of the group to vote. Meetings of the group must never be advertised anywhere as ‘public meetings’ as this may cause security problems.

8. Apart from the voting rights cited above, there are no rules on the process by which officers are nominated or how they are elected at the meeting, so procedures may vary from group to group.

9. The form, content and distribution of minutes is a matter for the group, except that the group must keep sufficient records to enable it to prove that every meeting of the group is quorate and that the group meets at least twice each calendar year.

Communications

1. It is important that groups distinguish themselves from committees of the House in their activities, the language they use and the way in which their reports are presented, so that they do not appear in the public mind to be select committees. The group’s publications should not give the impression that the group has been appointed by the House or is part of its official structure.

2. Groups may use the Crowned Portcullis on their official stationery, reports and websites provided that it is appropriate to demonstrate a connection with the House in this way, and provided that there is no risk that the use of the Crowned Portcullis might suggest that the group or its communications have the authority of the House.

3. Group publications (e.g. reports, press notices) should make clear who authored them, name the group’s secretariat, and name any body that sponsored the production of the publication concerned (eg by meeting associated printing costs).

4. Group websites using the Crowned Portcullis must carry a disclaimer to make it clear that the House of Commons does not take responsibility for the content of that website.

5. Group’s website (if it has one) should specify any external sponsors and secretariat.

15. Despite the extensive regulation already in place, concerns remain. The Speakers’ Working Group noted:

concerns have been expressed about the potential combined effect of the involvement of outside interests and misconceptions about the groups’ status.16

16. The concerns are fed by the sheer number of APPGs. Despite the fact APPGs need to be reconstituted after each general election, and will be removed from the Register if they do not comply with the registration requirements, there is a clear upward trend both in the absolute numbers of APPGs, and in the number of groups registering benefits.



Figure 1: Total number of APPGs17

17. This trend raises the question of whether APPG work may “drown out” the work of official committees of the House. Still more seriously, it reinforces concerns about the extent to which Members are in fact driving the work of APPGs, and gives rise to fears that APPGs may lend themselves to improper lobbying activity.

Lobbying and Influence

18. While we do not underplay the concern and irritation which the confusion between APPGs’ work and the work of formal select committees can cause, the greater concerns expressed to us were about lobbying and influence. The Speakers’ Working Group noted that in the results of their survey of Members 48 per cent of respondents agreed with the proposition that APPGs were prone to be manipulated by public affairs and lobby groups for their own purposes. Accordingly, we devoted much of the inquiry into exploring whether APPGs were in fact being manipulated, and the risks they posed to the reputation of the House.

19. Whether or not APPGs are an effective route for lobbying, the Committee recognises, as Ann Coffey MP stated in her evidence to the Committee, that:

Lobbying is part of the parliamentary process, and it is right that people from outside feel that they can contribute to the democratic decisions that are made. It is the strength of democracy.18

Parliament should not exist in a bubble. Indeed, the House of Commons Outreach service identifies APPGs as one way in which members of the public and campaigning groups can find Members likely to support them.19 The challenge is to make sure that such lobbying as is permitted is appropriate. Whatever the rules, it is always possible for there to be improper lobbying. Nonetheless our evidence suggested that even as the system currently

17 Speakers’ Working Group on All-Party Groups, Report to the Speaker and Lord Speaker, June 2012

18 Q 164

19 House of Commons, Get your voice heard: a guide to campaigning at Westminster, available at www.parliament.uk


stands, the risks that APPGs are an effective route for improper lobbying, or that they are controlled by external organisations rather than MPs, are relatively low.

20. APPGs are not necessarily an effective way to lobby for particular policies or interests. Mark D’Arcy noted that someone had told him that “if anyone was going round touting the idea that All-Party Groups have genuine influence on Government policy, they should be done for fraud, not for corruption”.20 This was echoed by Douglas Carswell MP who said that parliamentarians were often:

baffled at the gravitas awarded to All-Party Parliamentary Groups. We look at them and we realise that many of them are of absolutely no consequence whatsoever. We know that lobbyists are of very little influence; often, on particular cases, lobbyists are of absolutely zero influence.21

21. Nonetheless, despite his view of their effectiveness, Douglas Carswell MP described some APPGs as “front organisations”, which failed to take a diverse range of opinions:

my real concern is, in some cases, who provides the secretariat. I think some All-Party Parliamentary Groups cease to be a group of MPs coming together as members of the legislature to develop a common position on something, which is a good thing; there is a difference between that and an outside organisation running an APPG in order to impress their clients and to get fat fees for supposedly influencing public policy.22

22. The impression that Members do not control APPG activities may be increased by the system in which every APPG has to have 20 qualifying members, and only those Members’ names are published. Many Members are on the list of qualifying members for multiple APPGs. The (incorrect) assumption that all qualifying Members will play some part in directing and controlling an APPG gives rise to concerns that those Members who appear on a great many APPGs will be unable to scrutinise their activities effectively. In fact, many witnesses told us that whatever the perception, parliamentarians did in fact control APPG activities. While there could be dialogue between MPs and external supporters of an APPG about its programme to which external supporters would bring both expertise and their own opinions, the final decisions rested with Members, particularly the group’s officers.23

23. It is notable that APPGs meet more frequently than some reports suggested. Only a minority of the groups who responded to our questionnaire simply satisfied the minimum requirement to remain on the Register by meeting two times a year and 33.8 per cent of groups met five or more times in the last 12 months.

20 Q 3

21 Q 125

22 Q 116 [Mr Carswell)

23 Q 157


Figure 2: Number of meetings held by APPGs in the last 12 months24

Financial support

24. Even though the effectiveness of individual APPGs may depend on the force of their arguments and the commitment of the parliamentarians who are involved in them the perception that they provide a conduit for lobbying could be damaging. In evidence to the Committee Alexandra Runswick, Director of Unlock Democracy, said that “the way it is perceived by the public is that outside interests can buy influence and access to parliamentarians”.25

25. The rules on APPGs allow any organisation, including charities, companies, not-for-profit-groups and consultancies, to give financial and material support to APPGs. The concern has been that by providing this support, certain external groups have access to MPs and through them can influence parliamentary debates or even Government policy. The concern is not simply about commercial access to Parliament; charities’ involvement in APPG work has also been raised in evidence with us.26

26. While APPGs can be funded by a small number of external bodies or individuals, some seek to put distance between the APPG and those who support it and/or to draw on a wide range of supporters. For example, the All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Anti-Semitism receives funding, as declared, from the Parliamentary Committee Against Anti-Semitism Foundation (PCAAF), which is a registered charity. We were told that Policy Connect was established to support certain APPGs in a way which ensured Members were

24 Figures from the Committee’s joint survey with the Administration Committee. Raw data: Less than 3–69; 3–5–100;

5–10–69; and more than 10–17.


26 For example see Ev w3.


in charge, and that the organisation sought funding on the principle of “safety in numbers”.27

27. It is also important not to overstate the extent to which APPGs are supported by external organisations. 49.8 per cent of the respondents to our survey received no external support, and only 23.1 per cent received benefits other than secretariat support.

Figure 3: Breakdown of APPG support from external bodies28

The secretariat support provided to APPGs was frequently modest: 85.1 per cent received no support or fewer than six hours of secretariat support per week and only 3.9 per cent of respondents received more than 26 hours of support a week.

Figure 4: Secretariat hours provided by external body (per week)29

27 Qq 46–47

28 Figures from the Committee’s joint survey with the Administration Committee. Raw data: any other pre-existing body–87; foreign government–1; No external support–127; no response-4; trade association–34; and trust set up for purpose–2.

29 Figures from the Committee’s joint survey with the Administration Committee. Raw data: none–156; 1 hour-38; 2 to 5 hours–23; 6 to 15 hours–21; 16 to 25 hours–7; 26 to 37 hours–7; and 37+ hours–3.

87

1

127

4

342

Breakdown of APPG support from external bodies

Breakdown of APPG support from external bodies

Any other pre-exisi�ng body

Foreign Government

No external support

No response

Trade Associa�on

Trust set up for purpose

15638

23

21

7 7 3

Secretariat hours provided by an external body (per week)

None

1

2-5

6-15

16-25

26-37

37+


APPGs used the benefits they received in a variety of ways, supporting a range of events, from panel discussions (Women in Parliament) and conferences (Cancer) to working dinners and breakfasts (Gardening and Horticulture and Housing and Planning), reports30 or report launches. One of the largest events is the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee’s SET for Britain event, in which young researchers present their research to Parliamentarians.

Figure 5: How funding and benefits are used by APPGs31

28. Douglas Carswell MP proposed a simple solution to the twin problems of the proliferation of APPGs and the concerns about outside influence: that APPG activities should be funded through Members’ staffing allowances. A Member who wished to support an APPG could devote, say, £1,000, of his or her staffing allowance to that purpose.32 His suggestion was opposed by Andrew Miller MP, who considered this would simply not raise the necessary resources for a body like the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee, which is funded through subscriptions from members who range from individuals to scientific bodies.33 The most recent financial statement for the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee shows that just over 72 per cent of their expenditure is on staffing (£57, 438),34 so devoting a proportion of a Member’s staffing allowance to APPG work could, in this case, “bankrupt [the Member] personally”.35

30 Support for research and reports would also be provided through secretariat services.

31 Figures from the Committee’s joint survey with the Administration Committee. Raw data: admin–1; events/dinners–36; none–180; research/reports– 8; social-10; and travel–20.

32 Q 130 [Mr Carswell]

33 Q 193

34 The Parliamentary and Scientific Committee, Financial Statements for the year ended 31 December 2012

35 Q 193


Conclusion

29. One response to the concern about lobbying is ensuring that there is greater knowledge of what APPGs do, and of how they are effective. It was clear from evidence, and from our own experience, that the effectiveness and status of an APPG depends on the commitment of the politicians involved, and the force of their arguments, not on external lobbying. As Mark D’Arcy said:

Where you have something that seems to be genuinely a quite impressive all-party attempt to get to the bottom of an issue, to come up with good policy ideas—like the cycling group recently—that is something I would be very interested in going and reporting on. Where it is clearly an amen chorus for some obvious commercial interest, I do not honestly think that that many people are that impressed by its antics.36

30. Even so external funding, no matter from what source, imports a degree of risk. Westminster insiders may be able to distinguish between the “amen chorus for obvious commercial interest”37 and policy driven groups, but those outside the system may be less able to do so. Charities and campaign groups may wish to ensure that their view reaches Members as much as commercial organisations do. That said, we have no reason to doubt the Chief Executive of Macmillan’s claim that his organisation considered supporting the APPG on Cancer as “a bit of a duty on the likes of us to do it—because we can”.38 It would be naive to think that all the organisations supporting APPGs do so entirely for altruistic reasons or as a contribution to corporate social responsibility; it would be over-cynical to assume that APPGs are supported only because they directly advantage the organisation giving support.

31. The fact that APPGs can draw on a variety of funding, including external support, brings significant benefits as well as risks. It enables them to carry out proper research, to network and to conduct public information events. While we agree with the Speakers’ Working Group that “APPGs must not be seen as enabling outside interests to ‘buy the logo’ of Parliament’’,39 we do not believe it would be proportionate to ban external support. We agree that Parliament should not be used as a way for lobbyists to impress their clients. Nonetheless it is important that the response to these fears is proportionate. In the main, our witnesses considered the interplay between parliamentarians and those from wider society to be beneficial. Ultimately, we consider the best safeguard against abuse is a system which ensures that APPGs are controlled by parliamentarians and which requires appropriate financial transparency about both the support APPGs receive, and their use of such support. We make recommendations on these points below.

36 Q 22

37 Ibid.

38 Q 74



3 A revised regulatory regime 32. Every regulatory regime needs to be reviewed to ensure it remains appropriate. APPGs can do a great deal of good, but it is reasonable to ask questions about their sources of funding and about external influences on their activity. The increase in the number of APPGs is also a source of real concern. Groups which meet in the Palace may not draw on public resources directly, but there is a cost in the use of the building, security and visitor handling.

General approach

33. As the Chairman of Committees in the House of Lords said in response to a written parliamentary question:

The regulation and registration of All-Party Groups (APGs) are managed by the House of Commons, and the House of Commons has rules which formally recognise APGs. The House of Lords does not give any such recognition to APGs, and plays no major role in their regulation.40

Our proposals are therefore directed to the House of Commons. We considered introducing a regime designed for the House of Commons only, but we do not wish to exclude Members of the Lords from APPGs. Since regulation and registration is the responsibility of the House of Commons, we suggest rebalancing the system to ensure that Commons’ Members recognise the responsibility they undertake when setting up an APPG.

Key Principles

34. The existing rules are extensive and detailed, and so our proposals have to be similarly detailed, but there are a number of key principles behind them:

APPGs should be driven and controlled by Parliamentarians;

Members playing an active part in an APPG’s activities should recognise their responsibility for its governance and understand they may be held to account over any failings;

there should be transparency about APPGs’ activities and expenditure, as well as about the support they receive from external sources;

information should be provided in a way which makes it easier for the public to understand how APPGs work and how they are regulated; and

regulation should be appropriate to an APPG’s size and activities.

35. Like the Speakers’ Working Group:

40 HL Deb, 4 July 2013, col 243WA


We have borne in mind the fact that Members are free to work together in groups which are not APGs. One possible implication of additional regulation is that more activity is conducted which is not subject to group registration at all.41

Members already work closely with charities and other groups on matters which concern them.42 Members and Peers are free to associate with each other, to meet and discuss issues and even to hold an inquiry if they wish. There is no onus on informal groups to register their existence or to abide by any standards of transparency and conduct the House might prescribe for APPGs. While individual Members ought to register the support they receive, it is possible that such informal and unregulated groups could receive financial support from external sources which did not reach the registration threshold for individual Members, and so would be completely unreported.

36. We have no evidence that Members are using informal groups to evade registration requirements, and we do not believe they are doing so. There are many reasons why such groups may not register as APPGs—they may be formed to deal with a single inquiry or issue, or may not meet the full registration requirements. But any change to the regulatory regime needs to balance the rewards of registration with the inconvenience and restrictions that registration will impose. We do not wish to give APPGs an incentive to de-register which would bring about a reduction rather than an increase in transparency.

37. We are also struck by Mark D’Arcy’s warning that a vast compliance agenda on all-party groups could mean “it became [an] administrative [impossibility] for a lot of them to operate without some kind of paid secretariat” and “at that point you are almost killing off the good groups and keeping the groups that are perhaps more the tools of some outside interest that has got the money”.43

38. We do not believe it is appropriate to try to drive down the number of APPGs directly. If the increase in the number of APPGs results from increasing commitment to the transparency which the APPG regime brings, it is to be welcomed. While we see the attraction of the Speakers’ Working Group’s suggestion that there should be a panel of Members from both Houses to “draw the attention of prospective new groups to issues concerning overlaps or appropriateness”,44 we are concerned that such a group, while having no direct power of veto, could inhibit the ability of Members to respond to policy developments swiftly and flexibly. We believe that if the reforms we suggest below are implemented it is likely that the number of groups will reduce in consequence. We will keep the number of APPGs under review.


42 For example, a report in January 2013 on ‘Asylum Support of Children and Young People’ was produced by a panel of Members running a parliamentary inquiry supported by the Children’s Society. They were not a registered APPG. The Children’s Society does provide partial secretariat support for the APPG on Runaway and Missing Children and Adults.

43 Q 19



Refining the rules

39. As we have seen, APPGs undertake a wide range of activities from social get-togethers to large-scale campaigning. We recommend that the Register should be refined to distinguish between bodies which are effectively clubs, such as the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hockey, and APPGs with broader purposes. We have considered whether it would be possible to have a lighter regime for clubs and associations, but some groups without any campaigning purpose, such as the Parliamentary Choir, receive significant support, which is properly declared and should continue to be so. We believe the regulation requirements should depend on the income of the group in question, not its purpose.

40. Later sections of this chapter deal with our detailed proposals in a number of areas: access to the Parliamentary Estate, associate APPGs, criteria for registration, meetings, APG finances, improving the provision of information, making APPG status clear and, enforcement. Table 2 summarises how the detail of these proposals relates to the principles which we believe should underpin regulation.

Table 2: Summary of proposals

Ensuring Parliamentary control

i. Abolition of Associate All-Party Parliamentary Groups, in which non-parliamentarians have voting rights.

ii. Meetings and AGMs be advertised on the All-Party Notice (or equivalent) so that all parliamentarians can attend.

iii. All parliamentarians entitled to vote.

iv. AGMs and meetings at which officers are elected to be held at Westminster on a sitting day.

v. Increase in quorum from three to five.

Responsibility and Accountability

vi. Commons Chair clearly responsible for compliance with the rules.

vii. Elections to take place only if a Member of the Commons is present.

viii. Clearer rules on how Members may present work which is not linked either to proceedings or APPGs.

ix. Investigation of complaints to be the responsibility of the House of Commons Commissioner for Standards, rather than being delegated to the Registrar.

x. Contact on the All-Party Notices to have a parliamentary email.

xi. APPG passes no longer available in the Commons.

Financial transparency

xii. Members should remain responsible for registering any individual benefits they themselves receive as a result of APPG membership.


xiii. The threshold for an APPG to register specific benefits or cumulative benefits from a single source remains at £1,500.

xiv. Material benefits should both be described and have an approximate financial value appended to them, be registered in bands of £1,500, £1,501-£3,000 etc.

xv. Financial and material benefits should be registered by date of receipt by the group as well as date of registration.

xvi. Groups which receive a total of £12,500 per year or more should submit annual income and expenditure statements.

xvii. Secretariat support should be declared and consultancies providing secretariatsshould make information about their clients available either on their website or on request.

Improving understanding

xviii. Clearer rules for Members’ non-APPG work, including a ban on the use of the Crowned Portcullis by groups which are not registered APPGs, and enforcement of the existing rules limiting the use of terms such as “Parliamentary”.

xix. Better information about APPGs on the Parliamentary website.

xx. Individual APPGs supported to report more about their activities and supporters online.

xxi. APPG publications to indicate any extra-parliamentary sources of support.

xxii. Clear APPG branding.

xxiii. Publication of the All-Party Notices.

Proportionality

xxiv. Ending the requirement for 20 qualifying members.

xxv. An appropriate regime for financial reporting.

xxvi. Allowing submission of charity accounts where income and expenditure statements are required if these give appropriate detail.

Access to the Parliamentary Estate

41. The most far-reaching reform has already been taken by the House of Commons Commission which on 15 July 2013, on advice from the Administration Committee, abolished the category of APPG staff passes, which gave access to the Parliamentary Estate, without the right to escort visitors.45 We have no doubt that the APPG staff pass was useful for those who used it to attend meetings with parliamentarians running their APPGs, to set up meeting rooms, and otherwise to assist with APPG events. But the existence of this pass category has increased concerns that external groups were able to buy access to the Parliamentary Estate.

45 “APPG Passes”, The House of Commons Commission latest news, 16 July 2013


42. Withdrawing the APPG pass should also have the beneficial effect of ensuring that Members are engaged in APPG work, since they will now bear full responsibility for ensuring APPG events within Parliament are properly administered, and devoting some resources to this, even if it is simply a staff member tasked to ensure a room is properly set up or to escort visitors. We support the decision to withdraw APPG passes.

Abolition of Associate APPGs

43. The current rules contain a category of Associate All-Party Group—that is, a group in which non-parliamentarians may vote. The Speakers’ Working Group concluded that:

We believe that there is a fundamental problem of having a Parliamentary Group which allows non-parliamentarians a say—possibly the controlling say—in its affairs. We think that this status should be discontinued. Existing Groups with Associate Parliamentary Group status may wish to convert to All-Party Parliamentary Group status (ie with only parliamentarians having voting rights). 46

44. Several of the 28 Associate Parliamentary Groups currently on the Register in fact allow voting rights to Parliamentarians alone, and are already planning to change their status.47 The Parliamentary and Scientific Group is perhaps the most prominent associate group, and has many distinguished scientists among its officers. In written evidence Andrew Miller MP explained that:

Under the Group’s Constitution there is scope for up to ten Vice-Presidents and an Advisory Panel of three. These individuals are not officers of the Group, and their role is purely honorary. They act in an advisory capacity as members, together with the officers and others, of the Council. [...] Decisions are reached as the result of consensus and votes are never taken. [...] In the unlikely event of that happening, any decision would be determined by Parliamentary members only.48

45. Alexandra Runswick of Unlock Democracy considered that there were some benefits in Associate status in that it increased transparency, since it was clear which outside organisations were involved in a group. Nonetheless she agreed that Associate Parliamentary Groups added confusion to an already misunderstood system and increased concerns that outside interests could be seen as taking over an APPG.49

46. As a matter of principle, we consider that it is wrong for external individuals or organisations to have a vote on the activities of parliamentary organisations, and accordingly we recommend that the category of Associate All-Party Group be abolished.

47. We recommend the abolition of Associate All-Party Groups as a separate category, and the ending of voting rights for non-Members. If the House approves our recommendations, such groups should have a six-month grace period to enable them to amend their constitutions. We recognise the value external experts can bring to an All-


47 Q 60

48 Ev 56



Party Parliamentary Group, and the benefits of transparency about this. We have no objection to any group which wishes to create honorary, non-voting, posts which can be held by non-parliamentarians, if it clearly sets out the rationale for these posts, and the responsibilities attached to them in its constitution or equivalent documentation.

Criteria for registration

48. We recommend that to qualify for registration as an APPG, a group should meet the following basic criteria:

the group must be open to all Members of both Houses;

a minimum of four officers should be required, including at least one from the government party (or parties) and at least one from the main opposition party. At least two (half of a group’s) officers should be from the House of Commons;

the group must have a Commons chair; Peers can be co-chairs;

the Commons chair must be responsible for the group’s compliance with parliamentary rules and must therefore be the group’s Registered Contact; and

groups must advertise elections (including inaugural elections) on the All-Party Whip, giving at least a week’s notice, and such elections should take place when both Houses are sitting.

49. Twenty qualifying Members, ten from Government and ten from Opposition parties, are currently required for each APPG. Rather than ensuring that groups command significant cross-party support, this has led to a situation in which Members will agree to be on the list of qualifying members for an APPG promoted by a colleague in return for similar support for their own APPG. This reduces the sense of ownership that Members should feel for any APPG in which they expect to play an active part, and has demonstrably failed to control the growth in the number of groups.

50. While we recommend a reduction in the number of qualifying members, we consider that officers should take their responsibilities seriously. The requirements that the Chair should be a Member of the House of Commons, and that the Chair should be explicitly responsible for adherence to the rules should ensure this.

51. The existing requirements that groups must be open to all Members and that meetings where officers are elected should be advertised, and take place when Members can be expected to attend, provide some check on a group’s activity. They act as a means for the majority of parliamentarians to intervene if they feel it is necessary. We recommend that these requirements be retained. The corollary of these requirements is that there should be no limit on the number of groups a Member can join.

Meetings

52. We recommend that APPGs should hold a minimum of two meetings per year, of which one should be an AGM at which officers will be elected.


53. We recommend that a quorum for a meeting should be five Members of either House of Parliament, save that at least one Member of the House of Commons should be present at any meeting where an officer is elected.

54. As we heard in evidence, the flexibility and responsiveness of APPGs is an advantage. For that reason, we see no need to change the requirement that the AGM and one other meeting should be the only formal APPG meetings required by the House.

55. We consider the current quorum (three Members of either House, one of whom must be an officer of the group) is too low. If the purpose of APPGs is to enable Members to share views or gather information from external bodies, then Members should be in the room when such meetings take place. We recognise that there may be circumstances such as divisions in which the quorum may be temporarily lost, but a minimum of five Members should take part in any “formal” meeting, although there may be circumstances, such as consideration of draft papers, where more informal discussion is appropriate.

56. We value the bi-cameral nature of APPGs, but since regulation is a matter for the Commons we believe it is appropriate for elections to take place only when a Member of the House of Commons is present.

APPG finances

Current rules

57. Any Member who receives a registrable benefit as a result of his or her membership of an APPG is required to enter that benefit on the Register. For example, Members who have benefited from externally-funded visits as part of their work for APPGs must register those visits if the cost is above the threshold for registration. Moreover, Members who have received such benefits are bound by the advocacy rule, and prohibited from lobbying for measures which would provide an exclusive benefit to the organisation which funded them. If the House agrees to the changes to the Guide to the Rules relating to the conduct of Members recommended by the Committee on Standards and Privileges the advocacy rule will be made more restrictive.50 Members will be prohibited from initiating any measure which would provide any financial or material benefit to an organisation or person from which or whom they received reward or consideration.

58. In addition to the restrictions on individual Members, APPGs themselves are required to register financial or material amounts over £1,500 (in total or cumulatively) from a single source. There are currently no requirements to register expenditure, although several groups, most of which are companies or registered charities, have chosen to produce accounts and make them available on the Internet.

Proposals for change

59. The Speakers’ Working Group recommended that in addition to the current requirements:

50 Committee on Standards and Privileges, Third Report of Session 2012–13, Proposed Revisions to the Guide to the

Rules relating to the conduct of Members, HC 636


- any APG receiving more than £3,300 in total, including both financial and material benefits, over a financial year should be required to prepare an income and expenditure statement listing all financial and material benefits received (in the case of material benefits, with an estimate of their value); the source of the benefits; and details of expenditure, to be supplied to the Commissioner’s office and electronically available via a link from the online version of the Register; and

- the threshold for the registration of both financial and material benefits on the APG Register should be lowered to £660 (to be at the same level as the threshold which is currently used in certain categories of the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, but is subject to review).51

60. The figure of £3,300 was chosen as the threshold for producing financial statements as it was five times the £660 threshold for registering individual benefits.

61. We agree that there should be more financial transparency, but we are also mindful of the need to be proportionate. Much of the support for APPGs is collective, and the individual benefit to any member of the APPG is small; if it is not, it must be registered. Relatively few APPGs receive significant benefits, but many receive some support for their secretariats. Some organisations actively seek funding from a wide range of donors, to ensure no single donor has undue influence. 52

62. We are attracted to the model of funding APPGs through relatively small subscriptions or donations from a variety of sources. A threshold for registering individual benefits which is set too low could actively discourage those APPGs which require outside funding from trying to secure such funding through a range of supporters, rather than relying on a single donor. The Committee on Standards and Privileges agreed with the Working Group’s recommendation that the thresholds for registration for APPGs should be equivalent to those for individual Members. Having considered the evidence we believe that such a threshold would be too low.

63. Witnesses raised further problems with the proposal that the value of benefits in-kind be registered. The All-Party Africa Group told us:

many of the in-kind benefits accrued to APPGs (such as office space, access to a newsletter or a staff member helping to organise a handful of meetings a year) are not easy to monetise. Reporting such benefits as in-kind prevents inconsistencies in reporting and is more transparent, as it shows exactly what was donated.53

On the other hand the Federation of Small Business was able to quantify the extent of its in-kind support for the small business APPG without difficulty.54

64. We consider the appropriate benchmark for registration of benefits to APPGs is that of donations to local political parties, where Members have to register donations of


52 Q 67

53 Ev w1

54 Q 247


over £1,500 if those donations are prompted by their membership of the House. We recognise the potential difficulties in providing precise valuation of some in-kind support, but recommend that there should be a broad indication of the value of such benefits, as well as of its nature.

65. We recommend that:

i. Members should remain responsible for registering in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests any benefits they themselves receive as a result of APPG membership, and the thresholds for registering such benefits should be no different from those which apply to any benefit to individual Members;

ii. the threshold for an APPG to register specific benefits or cumulative benefits from a single source should be £1,500;

iii. material benefits should both be described and have an approximate financial value appended to them, to be registered in bands of £1,500: £1,501–£3,000, and so on;

iv. financial and material benefits should be registered by date of receipt by the group as well as date of registration (as in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests); and

v. whether or not a group receives benefits which reach the registrable threshold under paragraph ii above, groups which receive financial or material support worth a total of £12,500 per year or more should publish annual income and expenditure statements (identifying the support received and the purposes for which it was used) or make them available upon request.

Improving the provision of information

66. The rules currently require that groups should declare both when an external organisation provides a secretariat and, if funding for this is provided from a third party, the source of that funding. They also require that consultancies providing secretariats make information about their other clients available either on their website or on request. We recommend that these provisions continue.

67. We consider that the Register should continue to publish information about each group, including its title, remit, officers, information on funding and the provision of secretariat services, the Chair’s contact details, any further contact point, and a link to the group’s website if it has one. The Registrar should also keep a record of past entries in the Register.

68. In addition we recommend each APPG itself should make the following available on the internet or on request: a list of active members, dates of meetings, minutes of meetings including records of attendance and decisions), and any reports it has issued.

69. The requirement of 20 qualifying members conceals the real level of interest in the group since the list given in the Register is limited to 20 members, no matter how much support there is for a group. We recognise that groups will have a core of actively


interested Members. We recommend that there should be transparency about those Members. Each group is likely to keep a list of its active members at present, even if only in the form of a list of those who regularly receive its communications. This list should be available either on its website or on request.

70. Information should be as accessible as easily as possible. The obvious way to ensure this is through greater use of the Internet. We note that Allparty.org, an independent website, has already produced all-party group pages which are flexible and searchable. The parliamentary data project should facilitate production of data in a way which allows external organisations to use it, and also improve Parliament’s own presentation of information.

71. Better presentation of existing information will in itself not address the lack of understanding of MPs’ work in Westminster recently identified by IPSA.55 As Ann Coffey said, Members’ informal activities need to be better understood, as well as their role in formal parliamentary proceedings.

72. The Parliamentary website contains a mine of information on the workings of Parliament itself, and some links to material produced by individual MPs and Members of the House of Lords. We consider it could usefully provide descriptive material about the more informal activities conducted on the precincts, including an explanation of APPGs which sets out that while APPG activity is not in any way endorsed by the House, organisations which register as APPGs conform to rules about cross-party working and transparency about funding. Given the extent to which the information is accessed through search engines, we encourage the Web and Intranet Service to consider ways in which this material can be made most accessible.

73. In our survey conducted in March 2013, 77.6 per cent of respondents said that their APPG did not have a website and 79.6 per cent of respondents did not have a dedicated space on another organisation’s website. 62.4 per cent of respondents said that they did not have the resources to support a website.

55 Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, MPs’ Pay and Pensions: A New Package, July 2013, para 165


Figure 6: Does the group have the resources to set up and/or maintain a website?56

Ann Coffey proposed an APPG site giving details about the different groups and their activities.57 Similarly, Luther Pendragon suggested that APPGs could have a website on which they could describe recent activities and list any organisations which supported the group.58

74. We are attracted to the idea that more information should be available on the Internet. Nonetheless, hosting APPGs directly on the Parliamentary website may appear to give them a status they do not possess. Moreover, while webpages themselves may cost little, there could well be considerable associated training and support costs. Many APPGs already have excellent websites, and there is no need to replicate such work, particularly if public money is required to do so. Requiring all APPGs to establish websites on which they published supplementary information required by the House would disadvantage precisely the smaller responsive APPGs which may be most valuable. Not all APPGs need a web presence, but if an APPG is required to prepare an annual financial statement it would be sensible for such a statement to be published online. If transparency is required by the House, then the House may have to bear some modest costs. If this Report is approved by the House, we recommend that the responsible parliamentary authorities explore ways in which smaller APPGs could be provided with an accessible web presence. We ask them to report on this to us and the Administration Committee within six months of this Report being published.

56 Figures from the Committee’s joint survey with the Administration Committee. Raw data: yes–59; no–195; and no

response–11.

57 Q 173

58 Q 245 [Simon Whale]

85

159

11

Does the Group have the resources to set up/maintain a website

Yes

No

No response


The All-Party whip

75. Details of APPG activity are currently published internally on the All-Party Notices, or “All-Party Whip” which is collated within the Government Whips Office, as a service to all parties. While this document is widely circulated within Parliament it is not freely available. Mark D’Arcy suggested it should be published “so that interested parties [and] the press, could come along and see those All-Party Groups in action, [and it] might be another helper for transparency.”59

76. Although we expect journalists would be welcome at most APPG meetings, they are not necessarily open to the public or journalists, nor should they be. Some provide forums for internal discussion; some are for invited guests. With this caveat, we recommend that details of forthcoming All-Party Parliamentary group meetings be placed on the parliamentary website.

77. The simplest way to do this would be through publication of the All-Party Whip, but this is very much an internal working document, and we would have no objection to publishing the information in another way.

78. The Administration Committee recommended that entries on the All-Party Whip should include a contact, with a parliamentary e-mail address, to approach about particular meetings. While it should remain legitimate to provide secretariat services from outside the House, we endorse the Administration Committee’s recommendation. Since APPG passes have been withdrawn, there needs to be an in-House contact point. Moreover, this provision emphasises that Members are ultimately responsible for the activity of APPGs. We also endorse the Administration Committee’s recommendation that the names of external speakers at meetings be listed on the All-Party Whip.

APPGs and select committees

79. One of the issues considered by the Speakers’ Working Group was the potential confusion between APPGs and select committees.60 It is necessary to distinguish between APPGs and the official committees of each House. While all Members are in principle able to vote for the officers of APPGs, and have a say in their running, APPGs normally operate as “coalitions of the willing” with a self defined remit.61 They have no official status, no power to compel evidence and their reports, if any, require no government reply. They may have no secretariat, or secretariat services may be provided by Members’ staff, or an external body. They are not proceedings in Parliament and so have no protection from legal proceedings or absolute freedom of speech.

80. Select committees are established officially either under the Standing Orders of each House, or by a motion on the floor of the House in question, and each have a remit given by that House. Their composition is almost invariably in proportion to party membership within the House. They are supported by impartial staff from whichever House they serve. Their proceedings and publications are protected by parliamentary privilege, so that

59 Q 7

60 Speakers’ Working Group on All-Party Groups, Report to the Speaker and Lord Speaker, June 2012, paras 47–49

61 Q 44


witnesses and the committee itself can speak freely. They generally have powers to compel evidence if they feel it is necessary. The Government is expected to respond to their Reports.

81. We recognise that there are many instances where the use of the Crowned Portcullis, along with other similarities with select committee reports, could lead to confusion over the official status of the publication. In his evidence to the Committee, Andrew Miller MP acknowledged that there were groups who engaged in “publishing inquiry reports that were intended to look like, to all intents and purposes, select committee reports”.62 He stressed that the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee made efforts to clearly define their publications as APPG reports, and that he did not think that using the Crowned Portcullis was taken seriously enough. Other witnesses noted that they too included disclaimers on their reports, and some made clear sources of funding.

82. It is inevitable that APPGs will on occasion use committee methods; indeed it is a tribute to the effectiveness of select committees that they do so. As Barry Sheerman explained “it is a brilliant way of developing policy. What is better than having an experienced group of people taking oral and written evidence, making visits and coming up with a report that might change policy in a decent direction?”63 The challenge is to ensure that the status of any APPG work and any APPG report is clear. It would be helpful for APPGs to avoid use of terms like “clerk” and “call for evidence”, but it would be inappropriate to prohibit this, and almost impossible to police. We have considered other ways of making APPGs’ status clear.

83. The Speakers’ Working Group recommended that all APPG reports should display a rubric on the front cover which clearly states:

This is not an official publication of the House of Commons or the House of Lords. It has not been approved by either House or its committees. All-Party Groups are informal groups of Members of both Houses with a common interest in particular issues. The views expressed in this Report are those of the Group.

We agree. We further recommend that where the report has been compiled or funded by an external organisation, the rubric should make this clear through wording such as “This Report was researched by xxx and funded by xxx”

84. We further recommend that APPGs should use their headed paper to identify sources of external funding. This would ensure the current rules about declaring such support were applied in a fully effective way.

The Crowned Portcullis

85. The Speakers’ Working Group recommended banning the use of the Crowned Portcullis by APPGs since:

62 Q 204

63 Q 66


the potential confusion of reports of APGs with those of select committees as a problem which needs to be addressed. This this ties in [...with] the need to avoid any sense that outside bodies can be seen as “buying the logo of parliament.64

86. Currently the Guide to the Rules on APPGs states that:

Groups may use the Crowned Portcullis on their official stationery, reports and websites provided that it is appropriate to demonstrate a connection with the House in this way, and provided that there is no risk that the use of the Crowned Portcullis might suggest that the group or its communications have the authority of the House.65

87. The Committee believes that banning the use of the Crowned Portcullis by APPGs is disproportionate. APPGs are parliamentary groups and part of the incentive to register is that registration makes a group’s association with Parliament clear. On the other hand the Committee recognises the need for clarity and understanding of the nature of APPG publications. We recommend that All-Party Parliamentary Groups be invited to use a branded Crowned Portcullis on registering, along the lines of the logo used by the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee. There would be text around the Crowned Portcullis either giving the name of the group or reading ‘All-Party Parliamentary Group’. This would only be available to registered groups.

88. We also note that some APPGs have been using the Crowned Portcullis as their Twitter logo. This could cause confusion with select committees who also use Twitter and the Crowned Portcullis. In his evidence to the Committee Sir Malcolm Bruce MP pointed out that alongside the International Development Committee, there are several APPGs which focus on development and there could easily be confusion between them on Twitter. We recommend that if APPGs wish to use a Twitter logo they should only use the APPG branded Portcullis.

Identifying unregistered groups

89. We also understand that informal, non-APPG groups have made use of the Crowned Portcullis. It is possible to use parliamentary publications to work out that a particular group is neither an official committee nor an APPG, but this can only be done if the person inquiring already understands both the select committee system and the system for regulating APPGs. In evidence to the inquiry we were made aware that this had caused concern:

Peers and/or MPs undertaking a cross-party investigation of an issue where it is not official business should clearly identify which APPGs, underpin the basis of that investigation; as I have found, the failure to do this means that there is no recourse for standards investigation. Rules applying to the APPGs, which explicitly requires that APPGs make clear that their business is not official, have no application in circumstances where an APPG does not appear to form the basis of a so-called Inquiry, Committee, or Commission. Moreover, in the absence of it being official


65 House of Commons, Guide to the Rules on All-Party Groups, March 2012, para 115


business, the standards which relate to this cannot be applied. In other words, there is a black hole into which some work being undertaken in Parliament falls, but work which is of a misleading character and is not subject to rules which apply to APPGs or Official Business.66

90. While individual Members are entitled to use the Crowned Portcullis, we consider that the scope for public misunderstanding is increased if informal unregistered groups do so. We recommend that informal, unregistered groups be banned from using the Crowned Portcullis on their stationery or publications. We also draw attention to the current rule that “only registered cross-party groups are allowed to call themselves an ‘All-Party Parliamentary Group’ or ‘Associate Parliamentary Group’ or use any part of those terms (with the exception of the word ‘group’) in their title.”

Reporting

91. However clearly APPGs and other groups indicate their status on the published work, most people will become aware of reports from Members through media reporting. Mark D’Arcy told us the “feeling is that procedure and finer organisational distinctions are a turn off for the readers, and if the word “Committee” appears in the first paragraph of stories, most readers will read no further, which is why you get phrases like “a group of MPs” cropping up. It is usually “an influential”—choose your adjective—“group of MPs”.67 He was pessimistic about the potential to change this: “I am not quite sure how you make people do it other than by occasionally whinging at them when you meet them in the bars and saying, ‘You have got this wrong’”.68

92. The two Houses devote significant effort to explaining the way Parliament works through the Parliament website, and the education and outreach services. We have suggested that the institution itself could make small changes to improve understanding of APPGs. We recognise that we cannot control reporting, but the media have some responsibility to improve understanding of the things which they report, and we agree with Mark D’Arcy that “frankly, professional journalists should get these things right”.69

Enforcement

93. If the regime is proportionate, APPGs will wish to ensure they comply with the rules, as entry on the Register will show they meet the House’s standards of transparency and will give them some limited legitimacy. Removal from the Register should be a significant sanction for failure to comply with the requirements of the rules, and should be applied promptly if, for example, groups fail to hold AGMs as they should. Previous APPG Registers should remain on the internet so that it is clear when such sanctions are applied.

66 Ev w 2

67 Q 26

68 Q 26

69 Q 30


94. There may be cases in which the alleged wrongdoing is more than failure to abide by the technical rules. In its letter to the Speaker the Committee on Standards and Privileges noted:

It is important that Members realise that conduct which significantly damages the reputation and integrity of the House of Commons as a whole is a breach of the Code of Conduct: If a Member’s conduct or activities in the course of his or her involvement with an APG caused such reputational damage, this could be a matter for the Commissioner, and ultimately, the Committee on Standards and Privileges. These circumstances would have to be such as to clearly associate the damage with the named Member, but Members should bear the Code in mind when dealing with APGs, just as they should in other aspects of their Parliamentary life.70

Our proposals will have the effect of making clear the link between APPG conduct and individual Members who act as their officers. While minor complaints about APPGs may continue to be dealt with by the Registrar, as they are at present, allegations of significant breaches of the rules should be dealt with by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and the Committee on Standards.

95. The question then arises as to what sanction, if any, will apply if such a Member or group of Members misuses the Crowned Portcullis or wilfully misrepresents non-APPG activities as being in some way endorsed by Parliament, when in fact they are not. We stress that not all Members’ activities are, or should be, regulated. It will remain possible for Members to work collectively with one another or with an outside organisation to inform themselves or campaign on specific topics without registration as an APPG. There is nothing improper about that, and we would not wish to restrict Members’ ability to connect with wider society in any way. We remind Members that the Chairs of informal groups other than APPGs should include any registrable benefits for those groups in their own Register entry. Each case must be decided on its own merits, but we warn that just as it is possible to breach the Code through APPG work, so it is possible to breach the Code through the work of informal groups.

96. There are ways to mitigate this risk by:

making clear the status and funding of any such activity;

observing the current rule which prohibits the use of “Parliamentary” except in connection with registered APPGs; and

observing the rules on use of the Crowned Portcullis.

Administration Committee recommendations

97. The Administration Committee made a number of recommendations designed to reduce the pressure that APPGs place on the Parliamentary Estate. We share their concern about the pressure on visitor entrances when large numbers of visitors need to be screened at busy times. Nonetheless we have some reservations about their proposals.

70 See Appendix 1.


98. It is important that there should be an incentive to register as an APPG with the transparency that the APPG registration regime brings. We consider the priority that APPGs have over room bookings as such an incentive. We cannot support the Administration Committee recommendation that APPGs should lose their priority in room bookings, since this would both privilege single Members over groups of Members, and remove one of the incentives to register groups as APPGs, with the transparency that provides.

99. We also have concerns about the recommendation that room bookings should be limited on Tuesdays and Wednesdays till after busy periods; our analysis of APPG meeting times shows that those are, unsurprisingly, the most popular periods for meetings. We are concerned that a ban on APPGs meeting at particular times would discourage groups from registering as APPGs. While we are against a ban, we wholeheartedly support the proposition that there should be some system to ensure that APPG bookings are scheduled in a way which ensures that pressure on access points to the Palace is minimised.

100. We do not consider that we have a role in considering the recommendation about APPG payment of banqueting services, other than to stress that any new charging regime should avoid perverse incentives. An event arranged by an APPG should not be more expensive than an equivalent event arranged through an individual Member.

Conclusion

101. Transparency should have beneficial effects both in increasing understanding and in enabling potentially improper behaviour to be identified and investigated, and if necessary, punished.

102. Transparency may also lead to criticisms of behaviour which is not improper. No one wants a Parliament where Members have no interaction with wider society, take no steps to inform themselves about matters of public concern, or are simply lobby fodder for whichever party they represent. APPGs perform a useful function in allowing Members to set the agenda and in allowing wider groups to put their case to interested parliamentarians within a framework which ensures transparency and control by Parliament. The alternative to the APPG regime is not that there would be no external funding of activities involving Members, but that there would be less transparency about such activities. Once Parliament is satisfied that the regulatory system is proportionate and robust, it must be prepared to explain and defend the APPG regulatory regime.

Implementation

103. The detailed rules relating to APPGs are currently found in the Guide to the Rules on All-Party Groups.71 Those in turn rest on the Resolution of the House of 17 December 1985, as amended on 7 February 2011.72 The Resolution sets out the requirements for

71 House of Commons, Guide to the Rules on All-Party Groups, March 2012

72 The amendment of 7 February brought in the most significant changes. Other amendments have also been made over the intervening years.


registration for groups whose membership is open to all Members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords, have more than 20 qualifying Members and at least one officer on the Commons. The amendments made on 7 February 2011 include a list of 11 requirements. There was a subsequent amendment to require staff holding APGs passes to register their interests, which is now obsolete. A consolidated version of the Resolution73 is attached as Appendix 2. As this history shows, it is not otherwise easily accessible.

104. When the Committee on Standards and Privileges was considering updating the Guide to the Rules relating to the Conduct of Members, it noted that “defining the rules of the House through a series of Resolutions of varying antiquity, which need to be regularly amended, is unsatisfactory”.74 Any system of rules may need minor amendment from time to time, either in respect of changing circumstances, or when practical difficulties in implementation arise. For example, we propose that those groups which receive more than £12,500 worth of support should prepare income and expenditure statements. Currently we have an open mind as to whether this should be included in the Register, or whether groups themselves should be responsible for making available either on the website or on request. Much depends on technical possibilities. There may need to be further guidance on the content of such statements in the light of experience. The Committee on Standards was given responsibility under Standing Order No. 149 for examining the compilation, maintenance and accessibility of the Registers, and to review the content of those Registers. We consider that this responsibility should extend to making or approving minor changes to the registration requirements and the related rules for All-Party Groups.

Timetable for implementation

105. As we have noted, there will be points of detail to work through if the House agrees the thrust of our recommendations. There will also need to be technical changes to the way in which the Registers are compiled, and we have recommended that the House Authorities consider what can be done to improve smaller groups’ access to the web.

106. We recommend that the complete new rules for APPGs should take effect from the beginning of the next Parliament. That will not only give us time to prepare, but will allow us to consult on matters of detail, such as the content of income and expenditure statements.

107. There are some matters which can, and should, be taken forward more quickly. These are:

the abolition of Associate All-Party Groups;

the requirements for a clear disclaimer and funding statement on APPG reports;

wider publication of the information in the All-Party notices; and

the publication of income and expenditure statements, on a voluntary interim basis.

73 Insofar as it applies to APPGs

74 Committee on Standards and Privileges, Third Report of Session 2012–13, Proposed Revisions to the Guide to the Rules relating to the conduct of Members, HC 636, para 7


This timetable will only be possible if the House considers these proposals more speedily than it has considered the Committee on Standards and Privileges’s earlier Report on Proposed Changes to the Guide to the Rules of conduct for Members. We regret the delay in this. We recognise that the House has the final decision on rules and may not agree with our proposals. Leaving suggested changes in limbo is undesirable not only in itself, but hinders the Commissioner and the Committee’s work.

Decisions for the House

108. If the House agrees with our recommendations we suggest that it implements them by:

approving this Report, and the Rules relating to APPGs which are appended to it;

giving the Committee on Standards power to update the Guide to the Rules relating to APPGs from time to time and to make such minor changes to the rules on APPGs as are necessary to ensure the effective operation of the Register and regulatory regime; this will allow the Guide to be reissued to reflect those changes we believe should come into force immediately, and allow us to give guidance on matters of detail; and

agreeing that the 1985 Resolution be amended (with effect from the beginning of the next Parliament) by leaving out paragraph 3 and 4 and inserting a more general provision to ensure that the responsible officer of All-Party Parliamentary Groups be required to register the matters specified in the rules for such groups.

109. We recommend that our successor Committee in the next Parliament revisit this issue and assess the effect of any changes on the way that APPGs operate.


Conclusions and recommendations

The Role of APPGs

1. It has long been recognised that parliamentary work is not limited to participation in formal proceedings. We agree with the Speakers’ Working Group that:

[APPGs] can enable Members of both Houses, working together, to inform themselves about specific subjects, make common cause on issues, and—perhaps most importantly—respond to outside concerns and have direct contact with those who express them. We were struck by the commitment of Members, and those outside Parliament, to APGs and note how effective they can be in raising issues with the government.[....] At a time when politicians are felt by some to be remote we must not cut ourselves off from the wider world. (Paragraph 13)

2. We agree that Parliament should not be used as a way for lobbyists to impress their clients. Nonetheless it is important that the response to these fears is proportionate. In the main, our witnesses considered the interplay between parliamentarians and those from wider society to be beneficial. Ultimately, we consider the best safeguard against abuse is a system which ensures that APPGs are controlled by parliamentarians and which requires appropriate financial transparency about both the support APPGs receive, and their use of such support. (Paragraph 31)

A revised regulatory regime

3. We do not wish to give APPGs an incentive to de-register which would bring about a reduction rather than an increase in transparency. (Paragraph 36)

4. APPGs undertake a wide range of activities from social get-togethers to large-scale campaigning. We recommend that the Register should be refined to distinguish between bodies which are effectively clubs, such as the Hockey group, and APPGs with broader purposes. (Paragraph 39)

5. We support the decision to withdraw APPG passes. (Paragraph 42)

6. We recommend the abolition of Associate All-Party Groups as a separate category, and the ending of voting rights for non-Members. If the House approves our recommendations, such groups should have a six-month grace period to enable them to amend their constitutions. (Paragraph 47)

Criteria for registration

7. We recommend that to qualify for registration as an APPG, a group should meet the following basic criteria:

the group must be open to all Members of both Houses;


a minimum of four officers should be required, including at least one from the government party (or parties) and at least one from the main opposition party. At least two (half of a group’s) officers should be from the House of Commons;

the group must have a Commons chair; Peers can be co-chairs;

the Commons chair must be responsible for the group’s compliance with parliamentary rules and must therefore be the group’s Registered Contact; and

groups must advertise elections (including inaugural elections) on the All-Party Whip, giving at least a week’s notice, and such elections should take place when both Houses are sitting. (Paragraph 48)

8. The existing requirements that groups must be open to all Members and that meetings where officers are elected should be advertised, and take place when Members can be expected to attend, provide some check on a group’s activity. They act as a means for the majority of parliamentarians to intervene if they feel it is necessary. We recommend that these requirements be retained. The corollary of these requirements is that there should be no limit on the number of groups a Member can join. (Paragraph 51)

Meetings

9. We recommend that APPGs should hold a minimum of two meetings per year, of which one should be an AGM, at which officers will be elected. (Paragraph 52)

10. We recommend that a quorum for a meeting should be five Members of either House of Parliament, save that at least one Member of the House of Commons should be present at any meeting where an officer is elected. (Paragraph 53)

11. As we heard in evidence, the flexibility and responsiveness of APPGs is an advantage. For that reason, we see no need to change the requirement that the AGM and one other meeting should be the only formal APPG meetings required by the House. (Paragraph 54)

APPG finances

12. We consider the appropriate benchmark for registration of benefits to APPGs is that of donations to local political parties, where Members have to register donations of over £1,500 if those donations are prompted by their membership of the House. (Paragraph 64)

13. We recommend that:

i. Members should remain responsible for registering in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests any benefits they themselves receive as a result of APPG membership, and the thresholds for registering such benefits should be no different from those which apply to any benefit to individual Members;

ii. the threshold for an APPG to register specific benefits or cumulative benefits from a single source should be £1,500;


iii. material benefits should both be described and have an approximate financial value appended to them, to be registered in bands of £1,500: £1,501–£3,000, and so on;

iv. financial and material benefits should be registered by date of receipt by the group as well as date of registration (as in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests);

v. whether or not a group receives benefits which reach the registrable threshold under paragraph ii above, groups which receive financial or material support worth a total of £12,500 per year or more should publish annual income and expenditure statements (identifying the support received and the purposes for which it was used) or make them available upon request. (Paragraph 65)

Improving the provision of information

14. The rules currently require that groups should declare both when an external organisation provides a secretariat and, if funding for this is provided from a third party, the source of that funding. They also require that consultancies providing secretariats make information about their other clients available either on their website or on request. We recommend that these provisions continue (Paragraph 66)

15. We consider that the Register should continue to publish information about each group, including its title, remit, officers, information on funding and the provision of secretariat services, the Chair’s contact details, any further contact point, and a link to the group’s website if it has one. The Registrar should also keep a record of past entries in the Register. (Paragraph 67)

16. In addition we recommend each APPG itself should make the following available on the internet or on request: a list of active members, dates of meetings, minutes of meetings including records of attendance and decisions), and any reports it has issued. (Paragraph 68)

17. We recognise that groups will have a core of actively interested Members. We recommend that there should be transparency about those Members. Each group is likely to keep a list of its active members at present, even if only in the form of a list of those who regularly receive its communications. This list should be available either on its website or on request. (Paragraph 69)

18. The Parliamentary website contains a mine of information on the workings of Parliament itself, and some links to material produced by individual MPs and Members of the House of Lords. We consider it could usefully provide descriptive material about the more informal activities conducted on the precincts, including an explanation of APPGs which sets out that while APPG activity is not in any way endorsed by the House, organisations which register as APPGs conform to rules about cross-party working and transparency about funding. Given the extent to which the information is accessed through search engines, we encourage the Web and Intranet Service to consider ways in which this material can be made most accessible. (Paragraph 72)


19. If transparency is required by the House, then the House may have to bear some modest costs. If this Report is approved by the House, we recommend that the responsible parliamentary authorities explore ways in which smaller APPGs could be provided with an accessible web presence. We ask them to report on this to us and the Administration Committee within six months of this Report being published (Paragraph 74)

20. Although we expect journalists would be welcome at most APPG meetings, they are not necessarily open to the public or journalists, nor should they be. Some provide forums for internal discussion; some are for invited guests. With this caveat, we recommend that details of forthcoming All-Party Parliamentary group meetings be placed on the parliamentary website. (Paragraph 75)

21. The Administration Committee recommended that entries on the All-Party Whip should include a contact, with a parliamentary e-mail address, to approach about particular meetings. While it should remain legitimate to provide secretariat services from outside the House, we endorse the Administration Committee’s recommendation. Since APPG passes have been withdrawn, there needs to be an in-House contact point. Moreover, this provision emphasises that Members are ultimately responsible for the activity of APPGs. We also endorse the Administration Committee’s recommendation that the names of external speakers at meetings be listed on the All-Party Whip (Paragraph 78)

APPGs and select committees

22. The Speakers’ Working Group recommended that all APPG reports should display a rubric on the front cover which clearly states:

This is not an official publication of the House of Commons or the House of Lords. It has not been approved by either House or its committees. All-Party Groups are informal groups of Members of both Houses with a common interest in particular issues. The views expressed in this Report are those of the Group.

We agree. We further recommend that where the report has been compiled or funded by an external organisation, the rubric should make this clear through wording such as “This Report was researched by xxx and funded by xxx” (Paragraph 83)

23. We further recommend that APPGs should use their headed paper to identify sources of external funding. This would ensure the current rules about declaring such support were applied in a fully effective way. (Paragraph 84)

24. We recommend that All-Party Parliamentary Groups be invited to use a branded Crowned Portcullis on registering, along the lines of the logo used by the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee. There would be text around the Crowned Portcullis either giving the name of the group or reading ‘ All-Party Parliamentary Group’. This would only be available to registered groups. (Paragraph 87)


25. We recommend that if APPGs wish to use a Twitter logo they should only use the APPG branded Portcullis. (Paragraph 88)

26. We recommend that informal, unregistered groups be banned from using the Crowned Portcullis on their stationery or publications. We also draw attention to the current rule that “only registered cross-party groups are allowed to call themselves an ‘All-Party Parliamentary Group’ or ‘Associate Parliamentary Group’ or use any part of those terms (with the exception of the word ‘group’) in their title.” (Paragraph 90)

Reporting

27. Removal from the Register should be a significant sanction for failure to comply with the requirements of the rules, and should be applied promptly if, for example, groups fail to hold AGMs as they should. Previous APPG Registers should remain on the internet so that it is clear when such sanctions are applied. (Paragraph 93)

28. Our proposals will have the effect of making clear the link between APPG conduct and individual Members who act as their officers. While minor complaints about APPGs may continue to be dealt with by the Registrar, as they are at present, allegations of significant breaches of the rules should be dealt with by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and the Committee on Standards (Paragraph 94)

29. We remind Members that the Chairs of informal groups other than APPGs should include any registrable benefits for those groups in their own Register entry. Each case must be decided on its own merits, but we warn that just as it is possible to breach the Code through APPG work, so it is possible to breach the Code through the work of informal groups. (Paragraph 95)

Administration Committee recommendations

30. We cannot support the Administration Committee recommendation that APPGs should lose their priority in room bookings, since this would both privilege single Members over groups of Members, and remove one of the incentives to register groups as APPGs, with the transparency that provides. (Paragraph 98)

31. We are concerned that a ban on APPGs meeting at particular times would discourage groups from registering as APPGs. While we are against a ban, we wholeheartedly support the proposition that there should be some system to ensure that APPG bookings are scheduled in a way which ensures that pressure on access points to the Palace is minimised. (Paragraph 99)

32. We do not consider that we have a role in considering the recommendation about APPG payment of banqueting services, other than to stress that any new charging regime should avoid perverse incentives. An event arranged by an APPG should not be more expensive than an equivalent event arranged through an individual Member. (Paragraph 100)


Conclusion

33. Transparency should have beneficial effects both in increasing understanding and in enabling potentially improper behaviour to be identified and investigated, and if necessary, punished. (Paragraph 101)

34. Transparency may also lead to criticisms of behaviour which is not improper. No one wants a Parliament where Members have no interaction with wider society, take no steps to inform themselves about matters of public concern, or are simply lobby fodder for whichever party they represent. APPGs perform a useful function in allowing Members to set the agenda and in allowing wider groups to put their case to interested parliamentarians within a framework which ensures transparency and control by Parliament. The alternative to the APPG regime is not that there would be no external funding of activities involving Members, but that there would be less transparency about such activities. Once Parliament is satisfied that the regulatory system is proportionate and robust, it must be prepared to explain and defend the APPG regulatory regime. (Paragraph 102)

Timetable for implementation

35. We recommend that the complete new rules for APPGs should take effect from the beginning of the next Parliament. That will not only give us time to prepare, but will allow us to consult on matters of detail, such as the content of income and expenditure statements. (Paragraph 106)

36. There are some matters which can, and should, be taken forward more quickly. These are:

the abolition of Associate All-Party Groups;

the requirements for a clear disclaimer and funding statement on APPG reports;

wider publication of the information in the All-Party notice; and

the publication of income and expenditure statements, on a voluntary interim basis. (Paragraph 107)

37. We recommend that our successor Committee in the next Parliament revisit this issue and assess the effect of any changes on the way that APPGs operate. (Paragraph 109)


Annex 1: Proposed Rules for APPGs

Benefits of registration

All-Party Parliamentary Groups are groups of parliamentarians who share particular interests, and have chosen to abide by the rules relating to the registration of APPGs and declaration of their interests. The advantages of registration as an APPG are as follows:

it is explicit that the group is committed to abiding by the principles of transparency which underpin these rules;

members of the public can establish whether or not a group of Members has registered as an APPG;

registered APPGs are entitled to use the term “parliamentary” to describe their activities, and to use the APPG Portcullis badge;

APPGs can publish details of their meetings on the All-Party Whip; and

APPGs are able to book rooms on the Parliamentary estate.

Membership and officers

The group must be open to all Members of both Houses.

A minimum of four officers required, including at least one from the government party (or parties) and at least one from the main opposition party. At least two officers should be from the Commons.

The group must have a Commons chair; Peers can be co-chairs.

The Commons chair must be responsible for the group’s compliance with parliamentary rules and must therefore be the group’s Registered Contact.

Groups must advertise elections (including inaugural elections) on the All-Party Whip, giving at least a week’s notice, and such elections should take place when both Houses are sitting.

At least one Member of the House of Commons should be present at any meeting where elections are held

Meetings

APPGs should hold a minimum of two meetings per year, of which one should be an AGM, at which officers will be elected;

The quorum for a meeting should be five Members of either House of Parliament, save that at least one Member of the House of Commons should be present at any meeting where an officer is elected;


sufficient minutes should be kept to demonstrate what meetings have been held and that such meetings have been quorate; and

the group should comply with the rules on registering financial benefits

Registering financial benefits

(i) Specific benefits or cumulative benefits from a single source above the value of £1,500 must be registered.

(ii) Material benefits should be registered. They should both be described and have an approximate financial value appended to them in bands of: £1,501–£3,000; £3,000–£6,000 and so on.

(iii) Financial and material benefits should be registered promptly with information about the date of receipt by group as well as date of registration.

(iv) Whether or not a group receives benefits which reach the registrable threshold under paragraph ii above, groups which receive a total of £12,500 per year or more must prepare annual income and expenditure statements identifying the support received and the purposes for which it was used.

APPGs should declare when an external organisation provides a secretariat and, if funding for this is provided from a third party, the source of that funding. Where a secretariat is provided by a consultancy, that consultancy should make information about their clients available either on their website on request.

Individual Members remain responsible for registering any benefits they themselves receive as a result of APPG membership, and the thresholds for registering such benefits should be those applying to individual Members.

Other registration requirements

Any registrable change must be made in writing to the Commissioner’s office within 28 days of the change.

Website addresses must be included in the Register entry.

Communications

APPGs should provide lists of active members either on their website or, if they do not have a website, on request. For these purposes, an active member is one who has asked to be on the APPGs electronic or hard copy mailing list.

In communicating with stakeholders and the general public APPGs should be as clear as possible about their status and their sources of funding.

APPGs should take care to use only the appropriate APPG Portcullis in any communication, including electronic transmission such as twitter feeds

All APPG reports should display a rubric on the front cover which clearly states:


This is not an official publication of the House of Commons or the House of Lords. It has not been approved by either House or its committees. All-Party Groups are informal groups of Members of both Houses with a common interest in particular issues. The views expressed in this Report are those of the group.

Where the report has been compiled or funded by an external organisation, the rubric should make this clear through wording such as “This Report was researched by xxx and funded by xxx”.

Details of forthcoming meetings should be advertised on the All-Party Whip, including details of any external speakers.


Annex 2: Committee’s questionnaire

Please fill out this short questionnaire on the membership and benefits of any all-party group that you act as leader/convener/secretariat of.

1. Which APG are you responding on behalf of?

2. Are your secretariat staff paid by an external body? YES/NO

If yes, is this: Pre-existent body Trust set up for purpose Trade Association Foreign Governments

Please give details:

3. Does your group receive benefits, other than directly provided secretariat services, from an external body? YES/NO

If yes does it receive (including financial AND material benefit but excluding secretariat services provided directly)?

Up to £3,000 per annum £3,001–10,000 per annum £10,001–20,000 per annum £20,001–50,000 per annum More than £50,000

Please give brief description of this support

4. In 2012 did your group have any travel, accommodation and/or hospitality costs funded by an external body? YES/NO

If so please provide details of costs covered and who met them

5. Does the group have staff who are not also Parliamentary staff of an MP or a member of the House of Lords


Yes–one Yes–two Yes–three No

If yes, do any such staff hold security passes for the purposes of their APG work?

Yes–one Yes–two Yes–three No

6. Are any of the group’s staff (excluding those who are also staff of a Member of Parliament or member of the House of Lords) given a workstation in the House? If yes, how much time do such staff spend in the House?

Yes–1/2 day per week Yes–1–2 days per week Yes–3–4 days per week Yes– full time No

7. How often did your APG meet in 2012?

Fewer than 3 times 3–5 times 5–10 times More than 10 times

8. Did all meetings take place in the precincts of Westminster? If not, how many meetings (not visits) took place outside the precincts?

Yes–1 Yes–2–4 Yes– more than 4 No

9. Roughly what proportion of your meetings are closed meetings which only Members of either House can attend?

None 25% or less 25–50 50–75% More than 75%

10. Does your group have a website? YES/NO


11. Does your group have a dedicated space on an external organisation’s website? YES/NO

12. If not would it be willing to establish a website or a dedicated space on another website? YES/NO

13. Does the Group have the resources to set up a website? YES/NO

14. Does your group proactively publish its minutes/membership list/reports or financial reports? YES/NO

If not does it provide them on request? YES/NO

15. Does your group use the Portcullis symbol in its communications? YES/NO

Is there any information you wish to give, or comment you would like to make to the Committee?


Appendix 1: Letter from the Committee on Standards and Privileges to Mr Speaker, dated 3 December 2012

Earlier this year you asked for our opinion on the recommendations of the Speakers’ Working Group on APGs. Since this is something where the Administration Committee also has an interest, we thought it would be helpful to consult the Administration Committee, with the aim of making a coordinated response. The Report is wide ranging, and my Committee did not think it necessary to deal with every single one of its issues.

The Committee notes the Working Group’s findings on the concerns “about the potential combined effect of the involvement of outside interests and misconceptions about the Groups’ status” and the finding that of those Members and Peers who responded to the Working Group Survey, 48% “agreed strongly” or “tended to agree” with the proposition that “APGs are prone to be manipulated by public affairs and lobby groups for their own purposes”. It agrees that APGs must not be seen as enabling outside interests to ‘buy the logo’ of Parliament. There are significant issues of propriety here.

Nonetheless, Committee members considered there was a very difficult line to be drawn between avoiding abuse by unofficial groups and instituting a system of regulation which would appear to give APGs an official status they do not in fact enjoy. For this reason we favour an approach which ensures transparency, but does not give the impression that APGs are officially sanctioned, or that their activities are official proceedings of the House. A panel of Members reviewing proposals to set up new APGs could give such an impression. The Administration Committee considered that while the desire to limit the number of groups was laudable, it could be difficult to identify which groups duplicate others and two groups with similar names and remits could have different objectives.

It is important that Members realise that conduct which significantly damages the reputation and integrity of the House of Commons as a whole is a breach of the Code of Conduct: If a Member’s conduct or activities in the course of his or her involvement with an APG caused such reputational damage, this could be a matter for the Commissioner, and, ultimately, the Committee on Standards and Privileges. These circumstances would have to be such as to clearly associate the damage with the named Member, but Members should bear the Code in mind when dealing with APGs, just as they should in other aspects of their Parliamentary life.

The Committee supports the proposals to introduce much greater transparency into the way in which All Party Groups report the financial or in kind support they receive from external bodies, and to ensure groups receiving more than £3,300 per annum submit financial statements, and to reduce the threshold for registering benefits to £660. These changes effectively link the registration requirements with those which apply to


Members more generally, as a consequence of the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. The corollary would be that if the individual registration requirements changed, the APG thresholds would also change. The review of the Guide to the Rules is far advanced and changes to the registration thresholds for Members will be put before the House in due course. The Committee would expect that they would also be applied to other groups.

The Committee accepts the Working Group’s conclusion on Associate All-Party Groups that “there is a fundamental problem of having a Parliamentary Group which allows non-parliamentarians a say - possibly a controlling say - in its affairs”, and, agrees with the proposal to ban such groups, as does the Administration Committee. There is one caveat: we are aware of some groups where support from a number of bodies is channelled through a trust precisely to ensure that no one organisation controls the financial support available to the AAPG. In many cases, those trustees are not members. We see no reason why such trusts need to have a vote in the affairs of the AAPG itself, and support the principle that they should be invited to convert themselves to APGs. Nonetheless, we cannot discount the possibility that there may be unintended consequences from the abolition of AAPGs in this way. If any problems cannot be simply resolved, we believe the policy should be reviewed.

The Committee sees no reason to ban the use of the Portcullis by APGs. It agrees that there is a risk of confusion with select committees, which should be avoided, but believes there are other ways this can be achieved. In particular, we agree with the Working Group that the cover of any APG report should be required to contain wording which clearly distinguishes it from a Committee Reports, in a prominent typeface.

In addition, where the report has been compiled or funded by an external organisation, this should be made clear on the cover, again in reasonably large type. Wording such as This Report was researched and funded by xxxx would ensure transparency. It would be good practice for an APG’s headed paper to identify sources of external funding. This would ensure the current rules about declaring such support were applied in a fully effective way.

The Committee sees no advantage in identifying how many APGs are sponsored by a particular Member. Such information is already in the public domain, and collating it would require additional resources. Similarly, it sees no benefit in requiring contested elections to be held by secret ballot, or for increasing the number of meetings required to maintain an APG’s status. Each APG should ensure that it confirms with its qualifying members that they are content to continue as qualifying members before its AGM; we think it would be sensible to remind Groups of this existing requirement.

The Committee agrees that since the administration of the Register is a matter for the Commons the registered contact should continue to be a member of that House.

Although the Committee expects soon to be replaced by the Committee on Standards, that Committee has access to the papers of the Committee on Standards and Privileges. I


have asked the Clerk to draw the new Committee’s attention to those recommendations which are in its remit, so that it can Report to the House in due course.


Appendix 2: Consolidated Resolution relating to APPGs

[…matters relating to other registers]

3. Groups whose membership:

— is open to all Members of the House of Commons and House of Lords, and

— includes at least 20 Members (each of whom must be a Member of the House of Commons or House of Lords), comprising: at least 10 Members who are from the same political party as the Government, and at least 10 who are not from the Government’s party (of whom at least six must be from the main opposition party), and

— includes at least one officer who is a Member of the House of Commons

be required to register the following information on the Register of All-Party Groups:

a) The full title of the group. If persons other than Members of the Commons or Lords are allowed full membership (i.e. voting rights) the term ‘Associate Parliamentary Group’ must be included in the group’s title. If such persons are not allowed full membership the term ‘All-Party Parliamentary Group’ must be included instead. The rest of the group’s title should simply reflect the group’s subject so that the latter is obvious from its title alone.

b) A brief summary of the group’s main purpose.

c) The names of the group’s officers. At least one officer must be a Member of the House of Commons; each of the other officers must be a Member of the House of Commons or House of Lords.

d) The names of exactly 20 qualifying Members (each of whom must be a Member of the House of Commons or Lords), comprising: 10 Members who are from the same political party as the Government, and 10 who are not from the Government’s party (of which at least six must be from the main opposition party).

e) The contact details of the group’s registered contact, who must be both an officer of the group and a Member of the House of Commons, and is the person ultimately responsible for the group’s compliance with the rules of the House.

f) Any relevant gainful occupation of staff to the group who hold a parliamentary pass (relevant gainful occupation means any occupation that is advantaged by the privileged access afforded by the pass).

g) The source and extent of any financial benefit (e.g. donations) and the source and nature of any non-financial material benefit (e.g. provision of goods or services) received by the group from a single source outside Parliament, if the value of the benefit equals or exceeds the financial threshold for registration


(currently £1,500) in a calendar year. Once the group has made that initial registration, any further donation received from the same source in the same calendar year should be registered if its value exceeds £500.

h) The website address of any organisation registered as the group’s secretariat.

i. If a consultancy is registered as the group’s secretariat, the names and website of the consultancy plus the name of any client of theirs who is specifically paying the consultancy to act as the secretariat must also be registered. The consultancy must either publish on its website its full client list or agree to provide such a list on request, otherwise it is not allowed to act as the group’s secretariat.

ii. If a charity or not-for-profit organisation is registered as the group’s secretariat, the former’s name and website must also be registered. The charity or not-for-profit organisation must agree to make available on request a list citing any commercial company which has donated either as a single sum or cumulatively more than £5,000 in the course of the 12 months prior to the month in which the request is made, otherwise it is not allowed to act as the group’s secretariat.

i) The address of the group’s website, if it has its own website.

j) The date of the group’s inaugural election of officers and of any Annual General Meeting held thereafter.

k) Affiliation to the Inter-Parliamentary Union and Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, if the group is affiliated to either or both.

4. Holders of permanent passes as staff of All-Party Groups be required to register:

i. any paid employment for which they receive more than 0.5 per cent. of the parliamentary salary; and

ii. any gift, benefit or hospitality they receive, if the gift, benefit or hospitality in any way relates to or arises from their work in Parliament and its value is over 0.5 per cent. of the parliamentary salary in the course of a calendar year.

and that the Registers be made available for the public inspection under arrangements to be approved by the Committee on Standards and Privileges.

(17 December 1985, 10 March 1989, 29 July 1998, 7 February 2011, 12 March 2012)

54 All Party Parliamentary Groups

Formal Minutes

Tuesday 19 November 2013

Members present:

Mr Kevin Barron, in the Chair

Sir Paul Beresford Mr Robert Buckland Mr Tom Clarke Mr Christopher Chope Sharon Darcy

Sir Nick HarveyMr Peter Jinman Mr Walter Rader Heather Wheeler

Draft Report (All-Party Parliamentary Groups), proposed by the Chair, brought up and read.

Ordered, That the draft Report be read a second time, paragraph by paragraph.

Paragraphs 1 to 109 read and agreed to.

Annexes and Summary agreed to.

Two papers were appended to the Report.

Resolved, That the Report be the Sixth Report of the Committee to the House.

None of the lay members present wished to submit an opinion on the Report (Standing Order No. 149 (9)).

Ordered, That the Chair make the Report to the House.

Ordered, That embargoed copies of the Report be made available (Standing Order No. 134). Written evidence was ordered to be reported to the House for printing with the Report.

[Adjourned till Tuesday 3 December at 9.30 am

In the course of the inquiry all members of the Committee who are Members of the House declared interests as Chairs and members of All-Party Parliamentary Groups. Mr Peter Jinman also declared an interest as an attendee at the APPG on Science and Technology, and the APPG on Animal Welfare (15 January 2013 (Session 2012–13), 29 January 2013(Session 2012–13), 11 June 2013, 25 June 2013, 2 July 2013 and 9 July 2013).

All Party Parliamentary Groups 55

Witnesses

Tuesday 11 June 2013 Page

Mark D’Arcy, BBC Parliamentary Correspondent Ev 1

Tuesday 25 June 2013

Mr Barry Sheerman MP, Co-Founder and Chairman, Policy Connect, Lynva Russell, Chief Executive, Policy Connect, and Rachel Downing, Health Manager, The Chronic Pain Coalition Ev 11

Ciaran Devane, Chief Executive, Macmillan Cancer Support, Ellen Broome, Policy Director, The Children’s Society and Hilary Tovey, Assistant Director of Policy and Information at Breakthrough Breast Cancer Ev 18

Tuesday 2 July 2013

Paul Birch, allparty.org Ev 26

Mr Douglas Carswell MP, and Alexandra Runswick, Director, Unlock Democracy Ev 28

Ann Coffey MP Ev 35

Tuesday 9 July 2013

Andrew Miller MP, Chair, House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee, Paul Jackson, Chief Executive, EngineeringUK, and Dr Mark Downs, Chief Executive, Society of Biology Ev 40

Simon Whale, Managing Director, Luther Pendragon, Gavin Devine, Chief Executive Officer, MHP Communications, Mike Cherry, Chief Policy Chairman, Federation of Small Businesses, and Michael Burrell, Chair, Association of Professional Political Consultants (APPC) Ev 46

List of printed written evidence

1 Allparty.org Ev 52

2 Luther Pendragon Ev 54

3 Parliamentary and Scientific Committee Ev 56

56 All Party Parliamentary Groups

List of additional written evidence

(published in Volume II on the Committee’s website www.parliament.uk/standards)

1 Africa All Party Parliamentary Group Ev w1

2 John Mann MP Ev w1

3 Sir Malcolm Bruce MP Ev w2

4 Nicky Priaulx Ev w2

5 Sheila Kinsella Ev w3

6 Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Ev w4

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