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    Crackdown on ‘Westminster influence’ urged after ‘extraordinary’ number of Labour MPs report family members work as lobbyists
    United Kingdom

    Crackdown on ‘Westminster influence’ urged after ‘extraordinary’ number of Labour MPs report family members work as lobbyists

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    14 Comments

    1. marketrent on

      Excerpts of [article](https://bylinetimes.com/2024/09/05/wesminster-lobbying-labour-family-members/) by Andrew Kersley:

      *Anti-corruption charities have expressed concerns that ministers may risk conflicts of interests in their roles overseeing industries that could include some of the clients their family lobby for.*

      *The findings come after the Sunday Times revealed in July that being a lobbyist or working in strategic communications was the most common professional background for newly elected Labour MPs, with one third of those winning their seats coming from the sector.*

      *“The extraordinary number of Labour politicians who were formerly lobbyists, or whose close family members are lobbyists, underlines the need for robust measures to safeguard public decision-making from outside interests,” said George Havenhand, a senior legal researcher for Spotlight on Corruption.*

      *He added that there needs to be more transparency on what arrangements, if any, are being taken to manage “potential conflicts of interest between ministers and their family members” and suggested more scrutiny was needed to “ensure that spouses and partners do not misuse parliamentary passes as a license to lobby”.*

      *Rose Whiffen, senior research officer for Transparency International, warned that the lack of rules on lobbying meant the burden for ensuring “personal connections are not abused for professional advantage” was solely “on MPs and the lobbyists themselves”.*

      *All of the MPs named in the article did not reply to a request for comment.*

    3. denyer-no1-fan on

      Reminds me of when Ed Balls interviewed Yvette Cooper, his wife, on the day of the riots. Stuff like this really erodes trust in politics as people will rightfully believe politics are actually run by a small number of cliques and families.

    5. rejs7 on

      Remember the good old days when getting elected meant work for the whole family? Pepper Bridge Farage remembers.

    6. Capital-Wolverine532 on

      It’s called ‘looting the public purse’ because your time is limited when you set policies to let pensioners freeze to death

    7. Scr1mmyBingus on

      I bet that lass that absolutely isn’t Boris Johnson’s daughter but has been given a peerage at 22 of however old she is will deal with this ASAP

    8. TinFish77 on

      Labour were not elected so much as became the government by default… I don’t see that the public liked what they saw, but whatcha gonna do? Tories out, obviously,

      I just don’t like these people already, normally it would take me a few years to get to that level of ick.

    9. dolphbottle on

      Not sure the party that has party rules allowing certain groups to buy direct influence in the form of NEC seats is best places to determine appropriate influence behaviour.

    10. FuzzBuket on

      Starting to think that whilst the labour left was a basket of issues, replacing them with just soulless corporate shills might have been starmer not acting in the publics best interest.