28/03/2012 CF99

Hello and welcome to CF99.

How much would you pay for dinner with the minister?

No, not after a Sunday service,

but at Downing Street maybe, or even in Cardiff Bay.

After Mr Cameron's dinner problems at his flat,

there's an opportunity tonight

to look at the lobbying industry here in Wales.

We'll be asking whether it's time we, the taxpayers,

financed the political parties?

Joining us tonight is the journalist, Gareth Hughes.

Daran Hill, the chief consultant

at the Positive Politics public affairs company.

And Reverend Aled Edwards, the chief executive of CYTUN.

Welcome to you all.

A few months before becoming Prime Minister, David Cameron warned

that lobbying would be the next big scandal to hit Westminster.

This week, he was proved right.

But Mr Cameron is unlikely to be pleased about that.

The co-treasurer of the Conservative Party, Peter Cruddas,

resigned on Sunday after he suggested

that money could buy influence within the party.

Tonight, there are calls for stricter rules

to control the lobbying industry here in Wales

in order to avoid the kind of scandals that have occurred

in Westminster over the years.

James Williams reports.

A housing charity setting up its stall before the May elections,

just a stone's throw away from the Senedd.

But how important is it to have the ear of a politician?

It is very important.

We have to make sure that there isn't too much of a gap

between the people who create policy

and bodies like housing organisations, for example,

that are going to implement that policy.

But it's very important that politicians

listen to external bodies that are trying to deal with change.

When the Senedd was designed, the idea was to create a building

that would reflect the open and transparent nature

of the new establishment.

But some are concerned that those principles aren't being implemented

in all aspects of the Government's work.

Unlike the coalition in Westminster, the Welsh Government

doesn't publish the details of its of meetings with lobbyists.

That's despite the calls from the opposition parties

and the industry itself to change the system.

A month ago, BBC Wales asked the information

about the First Minister's meetings with external bodies

over a period of six months under the Freedom of Information Act.

However, the request was rejected.

A spokesperson for the Welsh Government said,

"We're open and transparent

"and we publish a wide variety of information.

"One of the advantages of devolution is that ministers and officials

"are much closer to the people."

In January, a consultation was launched by the UK Government

on introducing a legal register of lobbyists that meet ministers.

There's an option to extend the register to include the Assembly.

The group representing the industry in Wales

is considering its response at the moment.

To be honest, the Westminster Government hasn't gone far enough.

We're willing to say that that at Public Affairs Wales.

We hope that the Assembly commission and the Welsh Government

will look at what's happening and the results of the consultation

and say, the public affairs industry is more than just trading companies.

There are charities and people that work for internal organisations,

like we have in Public Affairs Wales.

Our members come from a huge cross-section.

So if you want to create new rules to govern the industry,

you have to include everybody because that's what lobbying is.

Cardiff Bay is a mix of politicians, lobbyists and journalists

meeting in a variety of different formal and informal situations.

People move to work from one side to the other relatively often.

After all, the Welsh political world is a small world.

And that's a concern for some.

The danger in Cardiff, if there is one,

is that the small bubble makes it easier for that to happen.

People become very friendly.

There are advantages to that as well as disadvantages

but we've to be sure, as the public,

that people aren't buying influence on policy.

When the people of Wales voted in favour of extending

the Assembly's powers last year, it became obvious

that there would be more opportunities to influence on policy.

Wales' public life and policy work has matured after devolution.

That's a very good thing.

There's a Welsh forum for making laws and policies now.

We've been at the forefront of the way the lobbying industry works.

We have a code of behaviour

and we've been working very closely with the Assembly commission

and the Assembly's Presiding Officer

to find a Welsh answer for a Welsh industry.

The industry in Wales is very different to the one in Westminster.

So far, it is scandals in Westminster that have filled the newspapers.

But as the lobbying industry in Cardiff Bay continues to grow,

there's increasing pressure to ensure

that the Assembly doesn't hit the headlines.

James Williams reporting there.

Daran, can you define what a lobbyist is for us?

Anybody who meets any politician to discuss anything is lobbying.

On one level, they are.

But a lobbyist has a specific skill

and that is helping shape information in an intelligent way

with a lot of understanding for a political audience.

So is the aim to persuade them to do something?

Or is it just to provide information so that they can decide what to do?

At the end of the day, politicians make the decisions.

They're not stupid. Yes, you try to persuade people.

You try to shape the information

to make sure it has the biggest possible impact.

But in a lot of ways, you are trying to make the process simpler.

For example, if somebody comes to me

and they have not used a lobbying company before,

I don't arrange to speak on their behalf.

I just give them some information or some advice

about a legislative programme maybe, or how the Assembly works,

so that they can make a better impact and a quicker one.

Depending on how much that person pays you,

can you offer different levels of influence?

I don't offer influence.

I offer information on how to shape the thing they're trying to do.

Aled, Daran's company and other companies

work for a wide variety of clients, but is there a difference

between what he does and what you do on behalf of CYTUN?

You're lobbying by coming in

to discuss different things with ministers.

But God pays better!

I don't think there's much difference

because at the end of the day, what we do is provide information.

I will give you an example.

Some years ago, we were dealing with refugees

and we wanted a special scheme to train doctors.

Now, around 74 doctors have been transferred

to work in the health service.

But we had to provide the minister with information

and give information to officials

about what was appropriate and suitable. It was persuasion.

You can't buy anything

but it was a process of transferring information

in a professional way and I am proud of that.

To be honest,

I am quite confident in the industry in Wales on the whole.

We do work on the basis of information and policy.

There's a dog here ready to bark!

Two different types of lobbyists here, trying to persuade people,

what's wrong with that?

It's influence they want to buy, and that's what they do.

If you look at what comes out...

I'll give you an example -

when the backbenchers here put an application in

for a law which would grant the right for lawmaking powers.

When they were considering that at the beginning of this session,

nearly three quarters of them said the same thing.

Now, don't tell me they all saw the light and said,

"Oh, that's what we want to do."

No, it's because someone persuaded them to put that law in.

Now, OK, there's no problem with that,

if each individual in Wales, or any small body,

has fair play to get the same influence.

And you'll never do that, because they don't have the money to pay.

And we pay these people to have influence, that's what it is.

People who understand how to use the system, how to play the system,

succeed, but people outside this system

perhaps don't know of your existence or people like you,

and can't have an influence.

In the same ballot, the person who was chosen, Ken Skates,

his idea was one he'd brought forward himself,

with the support, some amount of support,

from a very, very small charity.

So I understand that people can sometimes see...

-It's not black and white.

-I understand that,

but I back horse races and I know the outsider sometimes gets to win,

but this time you were unlucky,

but everyone else, three quarters of them, were in the ballot.

I didn't work on that measure, I have to say,

and none of my clients had tried to get any politicians

into the first ballot.

There was a good reason for that -

I always think back to the First World War,

-sending the sheep over the minefield before you go over it yourself.

-BETHAN LAUGHS

Can I ask you a question, Aled?

It's something James raised in the film.

The size of the bubble, if you like.

That is, you see former AMs going to lobbying companies.

If you go over there to the Eli Jenkins pub,

you'll see ministers, journalists and lobbyists talking to each other.

That is, you don't want to separate everyone

and say that ministers and AMs can only drink in a bar

where no-one else can go, but it is a problem, isn't it,

that we're talking about quite a small circle of people

who move back and forth.

I'm not sure how realistic that is, to tell the truth,

because, you know, the kind of things that concern me,

a classic would be, I don't think the churches, for example,

as Daran says, would have asked for a measure about organs, for example.

There's a lot of very, very strong friction there

between faith communities and very different lobbyists.

And there is a very, very wide area of specialism

which goes further than the Eli Jenkins,

with that kind of power.

And in a healthy democracy, and here I disagree with Gareth,

you can't be innocent somewhere like this.

This is a place where public policy is created.

And it's very easy in a democracy to profess influence.

And if you're good at your craft, not because of money or power,

but because of the strength of your argument,

you can have an influence.

Gareth, do you think there's maladministration going on here,

or is there a scandal waiting to be revealed,

or is it just talking in a pub down the road?

-Is there a scandal here?

-We don't know.

That's the problem. Nobody knows.

There's no register of any of the lobbyists

that already exist in Wales,

we don't know how much connection there is.

Carwyn refuses to publish what meetings he has with whom.

So we don't know if there's influence being wielded or not.

We don't know, and nobody knows at the moment, and that's the problem.

-Nothing to hide, Daran?

-I don't think there's anything to hide.

Can I just state what Dewi said in the package just now,

Public Affairs Cymru, the umbrella body,

we want the Government to publish

what meetings they have and with whom.

We're also ready - at the moment, we're considering recommending

that any meetings between AMs and lobbyists,

that they should all be registered.

There is an argument, Gareth.

And if there's a register in Westminster, there'll have to be one here, won't there?

Or it would look bad.

Well, I believe that there's a chance for us here

to go further than what's happening in Westminster,

to be more open and more transparent about things.

We don't have to follow Westminster, and to be honest,

I wouldn't want to see the Westminster government

drawing up a law that controls how the Assembly here runs

in terms of operating on that level.

Gareth, if we look at a strange connection,

if we look at the referendum campaign last year,

the "yes" campaign, and who was running it,

it was full of lobbyists, Daran amongst them.

Does that imply that there's excessive closeness

between the politicians and the lobbyists?

Well, that campaign was certainly run by...

Daran was a leading figure in the effort

for the referendum before that,

and I don't blame the Government for asking...

No, I'm not suggesting he was doing it for reasons...

..for asking Daran to do that.

But Welsh politics is certainly a small bubble,

and there is influence.

If he only says,

"Well, I know the First Minister after that referendum,"

it makes it easy, easier,

for those people who are part of that bubble to contact him.

-And that's their work.

-Daran, come back on that point.

Sorry, we don't sell cash for access.

What people do is advise other bodies

within the bodies they work for on how to operate better,

and I think it's a bit of a slur on the First Minister

and any other politician if you think it's easier

to get some kind of access to the First Minister of Wales

just because someone's happened to meet them in some former life.

Well, it's easier for you to do that than Mrs Jones up the road in Bangor

because you're close to him.

That's what I'm saying.

Can I say, let's get away from this stereotype

that we're small and closed.

I was quoted alongside an influential person on WikiLeaks,

and it was all over the Western Mail.

Thankfully, I'd told my employer,

I'd told the people I was answerable to exactly what I was doing.

And what we're doing here

has meaning and influence far beyond Wales.

And I think we have to be professional when we're doing this.

This isn't a small bubble at all.

Thank you very much.

Well, it seems that the weekend's events

will lead to cross-party discussions on party funding.

There's no great disagreement in Westminster

about the need to change the system,

but reaching that aim is proving more difficult.

We asked some shoppers in Carmarthen whether they'd be willing

to pay for political parties through their taxes.

If parties are being funded through inappropriate means,

such as giving dinner to people, I think that's unfair

because it's not all above board.

So I'd hope... It's up to each party to get its money,

and when it works like that,

it needs to be done in a fair way, I think.

I don't know, I've been thinking about this matter.

What kind of cap could we place on them, and what would the limit be.

But it's obvious that we need to do something about the present system.

We pay enough already.

-I pay poll tax, pay water, I pay all those things.

-Yes.

I don't believe in it much. I've lost faith in these MPs.

I've lost faith in them.

They raid the country worse than normal people.

We're being asked to pay for a lot of things already,

so asking for additional things

will just push ordinary people lower down,

and they'll just be fighting then

to keep their heads above water, really.

Well, no, I don't want to pay.

No, I'm happy as it is now.

I don't want to pay extra on my taxation, no.

Yes, the people of Carmarthen there.

Gareth, that's the problem, isn't it?

If you want to clean up politics, if you like,

public money is maybe the answer,

and things are tight, and people don't want to pay.

No, and I don't blame them, to be honest.

On the one hand, you're a member of a party,

and you pay your money into that party,

and that's how money is raised for elections.

Now, of course, the cost of election campaigns has gone up and up and up,

so you're talking about big money.

I think it's possible to cap the amount

each party can spend on an election, but you need some kind of formula

that doesn't disadvantage poorer parties,

for example the Liberal Democrats,

they're at a disadvantage at the moment.

And you have to give the choice to the unions

to choose more than one party.

If you're a member of a union,

currently you can choose to give your money to the Labour Party,

but you don't have the right to give your money to any other party.

I think that's disadvantageous.

That's a big problem, isn't it, the unions and the Labour Party, Daran.

If you're going to restrict individuals' donations,

you have to look at the unions, don't you?

Well, but you also have the factor

that the Labour Party grew out of the trade union movement

to be a representative voice for them in Westminster.

So I think it's much more complicated than some people claim,

especially when they just attack trade unions.

Having said that, I think Gareth has a valuable point

about the way unions are restricted to one party only, perhaps.

Can I raise another point with you, Daran,

we heard today the former Labour Party general secretary

saying that the essence of the problem

is that parties spend too much, and spend unnecessarily.

He said, "Look, in the last general election,

"the Labour Party had no money, to be honest,

"we couldn't afford posters, but the campaign was just as effective."

And there's some kind of war, an arms race,

going on between the parties,

and the truth is that they spend too much.

That might be a very valuable point he's making,

spending has risen and risen and risen.

There's thinking within the Labour Party

that they have to in some way match the Conservative Party,

because the Conservative Party

usually has a lot more money than the Labour Party specifically.

Personally, I don't... Perhaps a cap would solve that problem,

but personally, I don't agree with a cap, either.

Well, Aled, campaigning is cheaper, possibly. You tweet non-stop.

It's possible to campaign by pressing a button these days,

there's no need for big, colourful manifestos, and so on.

To a point. Darren and I were busy with the Yes campaign

and Twitter was important once there was no money for it.

When I was on the All Wales Convention,

our main concern was people wouldn't get the proper debate.

I think that this is making the problem worse.

We haven't got our own national newspaper which is widely read.

Rupert Murdoch can have more influence on our politics

than what's healthy.

You raised the point about the less affluent parties.

How would that work if we do go and spend money from the public purse?

Labour could centrally spend a specific amount of money in the UK.

Plaid Cymru only in Wales. How would that work?

You would have to work to a formula

to make sure that other parties aren't disadvantaged.

It's possible that you could have something public like that,

then the extreme parties would get money

and the public wouldn't be happy with that.

You have to be sensitive regarding how you go about it.

I believe that Lloyd George is right. Selling honours.

That's the right way of raising money. He was right.

It was just snobbery.

It is hard because Westminster decides.

Multi-party talks are going ahead in Westminster

where people can get so many pennies

for voting in Westminster only

and that doesn't benefit Plaid Cymru.

You can't give money to Welsh parties because the Tory Party

and the Welsh Labour Party doesn't exist separately.

The body of the Scottish churches have also made the same point

in terms of lobbying and financially.

You have to have a devolved debate about it.

I think that is very important.

But at least in Scotland, the Tories and Labour are units and are parties.

The Welsh Labour Party and the Welsh Conservatives are not.

The most natural thing to do is to give them these structures in Wales.

When you look at the Assembly elections,

Plaid Cymru spent the most and they were in the lead.

No, the Tories were in the lead.

-I thought it was Plaid Cymru.

-So, what's the answer then?

If there's no desire to take it from the taxpayers, what's the answer?

The dining with Mr Cameron will carry on.

I don't think that there is an elementary problem with the system.

What we need are rules on some aspects

like the Come Dine With Me, or whatever you want to call it.

As long as you deal with those bits, I think you're all right.

I don't think that people want to pay for political parties

through tax.

But you pay for influence.

It's on all the parties' websites.

The President's Club.

Or the Leader's Club. It depends which parties you go to.

Yes, but Politicians are not stupid.

At the end of the day, they are answerable for their decisions.

I don't think they are so naive to think

that just because they have paid for dinner that they can change

a politician's mind. My life would be easier if it happened like that.

But we do remember the time when Tony Blair and Formula 1

when they wanted to tackle smoking.

They had to withdraw

because a lot of money was given to the Labour Party.

All the parties have had difficulties.

Thank you very much, our chat has come to an end.

That's all for tonight. We're having a break for a fortnight

but we'll be back on 18 April and by then, the candidates

will be knocking on doors to get your vote

in the local elections in May.

-Until then, goodnight and have a happy Easter.

-Goodnight.