Meeting of the Parliament 10 March 2016
The Government also asked the current convener to host that inquiry, as the minister confirmed in the letter that he sent to me.
The bill was watered down to such an extent that, when we attended an expert seminar on the bill at the University of Stirling, a US professor of public policy who is an authority on lobbying said that, if the US system gets six out of 10 for transparency, the bill gets two at best. Of course, since then, the bill has got a whole lot worse because of the ridiculous amendments that were moved by the minister today—a minister who has shown zero interest in, enthusiasm for or knowledge of the issue since day 1.
In its present form, the bill is as clear a statement as anyone could wish for that the Government has no interest in enhancing the principles of openness, transparency and accountability that the Parliament was supposedly founded upon. I am afraid that these are now tokenistic words that fail to match the reality for the public and their representatives, who are searching for answers to serious questions. After nine years in government, the SNP is Scotland’s new establishment, and it is more interested in protecting its associations, its networks and the web of helpful connections that it has built up in that time and in looking as though it is up for scrutiny while closing it down at every turn.
If the minister’s remit from the First Minister was to make the bill tokenistic, weak and full of loopholes, he has passed with flying colours, but it is not something that he should be proud of. When the bill is passed, he will have done his party proud but the Parliament will have missed a major opportunity to reform our democracy for the better.
We will support the bill despite its being woefully inadequate, because at least it gets lobbying on the statute book. However, we will seek to amend almost every element of it at the review in the next session of Parliament to make it fit for purpose. A bill that fails to recognise that we live in an electronic age, a bill that means that the Confederation of British Industry, the Institute of Directors and others are not covered and a bill that allows the political elite to use their contact books for commercial advancement without any scrutiny is a bill that is not fit for purpose.
16:05