EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - A UK cross-party parliamentary committee inquiry into the lobbying industry has issued a report that criticises the European Commission's voluntary registry of lobbyists as having "no real benefit" and of being no model for the introduction of a similar registry in Britain. The Council has decided not to participate in the joint lobbying registry After a year and a half of investigations into the sector and its influence on legislation, the eleven-member Public Administration Select Committee on Monday (5 January) called for the creation of a registry of lobbying activity for the UK, but insists that, unlike in the case of the commission's current framework, lobbyists should be forced to sign up to it. "We see no advantage whatsoever to a voluntary register, which, as has been shown in the European Commission's case," the report reads, "allows those who wish to hide the nature and scale of their activity to do so, and leads to the availability of uneven and partial information of no real benefit to those wishing to assess the scale and nature of lobbying activity."
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - A UK cross-party parliamentary committee inquiry into the lobbying industry has issued a report that criticises the European Commission's voluntary registry of lobbyists as having "no real benefit" and of being no model for the introduction of a similar registry in Britain.
The Council has decided not to participate in the joint lobbying registry
After a year and a half of investigations into the sector and its influence on legislation, the eleven-member Public Administration Select Committee on Monday (5 January) called for the creation of a registry of lobbying activity for the UK, but insists that, unlike in the case of the commission's current framework, lobbyists should be forced to sign up to it.
"We see no advantage whatsoever to a voluntary register, which, as has been shown in the European Commission's case," the report reads, "allows those who wish to hide the nature and scale of their activity to do so, and leads to the availability of uneven and partial information of no real benefit to those wishing to assess the scale and nature of lobbying activity."
