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By ANNABELLE DICKSON
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Good Thursday morning. This is Annabelle Dickson bringing you London Influence for the last time. It’s been a blast. Matt is back from leave and ready to receive your tips, tales and traumas in the usual place: @matt_hfoster or [email protected] | View in your browser
SNEAK PEEK
— Ministers are determined to crack down on harmful content — but the tech lobby’s urging caution.
— Coming attraction: Angela Rayner readies Labour’s plan on standards.
— Is Britain alone in its MP second jobs tangle?
LOBBYING WESTMINSTER
CONTENT WARNING: MPs need to think about how the much-heralded clampdown on harmful online content will actually work in practice, the head of a major U.K. tech lobby group is warning.
Regulate us, please: “People keep thinking that tech companies don’t want to be regulated — it’s not true, we do,” Julian David, chief executive of Tech UK told Influence. “But what we want is to get that balance right between innovation and invention, but also responsible use of tech, and the ability for people to participate.”
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Reminder: The Online Safety Bill is a hot political topic after a raft of online scandals — from the racist abuse of England’s football team to anonymous death threats against MPs — pushed it up the agenda. The legislation will impose a legal duty of care on big tech firms to protect users from illegal content plus content deemed legal but harmful. They’ll face big fines if they fail to comply, so there’s plenty at stake.
Go faster: David says tech firms would actually have liked the bill — first conceived during the premiership of Theresa May — to move faster. The “direction of travel is reasonably good,” he says, citing a framework that gives regulators a “bit more flexibility” on policing content.
But but but … Industry is waiting with bated breath to see how the bill actually progresses through parliament, and David’s expecting “challenge.”
He says of harmful content: “Do people understand the practicalities of what they’re asking for, or are parliamentarians and others just going to say ‘we want this not to happen?’ You have to understand how it does happen, and what can you do about it — and then you need to implement practical measures.”
Getting better: David’s been at the helm of Tech UK — and its predecessor Intellect — for almost a decade. He reckons ministers’ understanding of tech has improved over time. “I think it’s fair to say that officials and politicians haven’t always understood tech,” David says, recalling one politician who told him years ago that people weren’t bringing digital up on the doorstep. “Well, they do now — for good and for bad.”
Changing climate: David’s also keen to talk up the role of tech in the government’s bid to go green. “The only possible way we’re going to be able to do the transformation of all the industries that we’re talking about is by using digital technology, making those industries smarter, so they can become greener.”
Cash needed: But innovation needs investment — and Tech UK will be lobbying for plenty more of that next year. Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s delayed his research and development target in the spending review and Whitehall looks unlikely to hit the 2.4 percent of GDP spend on R&D it promised in its 2019 manifesto. “We keep challenging the government: ‘come on then, let’s have 2.4 percent of GDP on R&D, and let’s go to 3 percent,’” David says. “It was good that they’re on that path, a little disappointing they’ve slowed it down a little bit — but at least they are growing it.”
Data driven: One big win for industry of late has been on data. Tech UK had to push hard as the Brexit vote put data flows with the European Union under threat, but David has warm words on the outcome, praising “really good digital chapters” in recent U.K. trade deals that “really do address that question of the ability to move data, to use data, again with that global perspective, as well as the local perspective.” It wasn’t always obvious to Whitehall though, David says, describing “a journey we had to sort of go on with them to show why it mattered.”
DCMS churn? David is sanguine about the high turnover of ministers in the U.K.’s digital department in recent years. Boris Johnson moved or sacked all his digital ministers in the reshuffle, leaving tech lobbyists with a whole new team to get to know. “Officials do provide an enormous amount of continuity, and they’ve been stable for some time,” David points out.
Realist: Tech’s rarely out of the headlines, and David acknowledges the industry has plenty of challenges. He says Tech UK’s “not ignorant” of big questions over cybersecurity, keeping people safe online, and, increasingly, the digital divide. He warns of the “danger of people being excluded because they don’t have access” to technology, an issue thrown into sharp relief as the pandemic favored kids with multiple digital devices and data.
Economies of scale: Tech UK says its members employ about three-quarters of a million people across the U.K. (plus millions more if you include those firms’ international footprint). It’s got a “footprint across the whole of the industry — from chips to clicks” — and David wants Whitehall to know that’s not just an advantage for members, but a “big advantage” for policymakers who can “see the whole of the challenge or the opportunity” on tech.
QUICK HITS
LABOUR POISED: Date for your diaries. Labour Deputy Leader Angela Rayner will be at the Institute for Government on Monday setting out how Labour would shake up the regulation of public life following weeks of sleaze revelations kicked off by the Owen Paterson lobbying scandal. The online event kicks off at 11 a.m.
DIARY DATE 2: Also coming Monday is the Commons standards committee’s report on the MP code of conduct in the wake of the Paterson row. Chairman Chris Bryant is warning any leak of the report is against the rules, so naturally we’ve closed our DMs forever.
CAMERON GROUNDHOG DAY: David Cameron lobbied Lloyds Banking Group to reverse a decision to sever ties with the struggling finance firm Greensill Capital — and made his case to a former Tory treasurer he had ennobled as PM, the FT’s Greensill supergroup of Stephen Morris, Robert Smith and Jim Pickard report.
WHAT VOTERS WANT FROM LEVELING UP: Agency Public First has done what it describes as its “most detailed quantitative research” yet on leveling up to see the actual policy decisions government could make and how they’ll fly with voters. Director James Frayne has a summary of the findings on Conservative Home, and links to the poll results for those who really want to dig deep.
CALL THE COPS: Could the recent conduct scandal dent the government’s authority on climate change? Intriguingly, and worryingly, More in Common’s Luke Tryl says participants in a recent focus group made the link. More in the Times here.
CONTRACTS WATCH: With a bit of prodding from the Guardian and Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth, the UK Health Security Agency published data showing the COVID-19 test and trace system is still spending more than £1m a day on consultants. Full story.
SPEAKING OF CONSULTANTS: Behavioral Insights Ltd won a £269,000 contract to find out if the Department for Work and Pensions can “nudge” people into making greener pension choices … IBM was drafted in on a £900,000 contract to improve data at the DWP … And the Ministry of Defence brought in M&C Saatchi on a £108,000 contract to “inform a revise of its Army Brand.”
GLOBAL GLANCE
SECOND JOBS AROUND THE WORLD: Is Westminster unique in its sleaze travails? Will the sky fall in if MPs are banned from having second jobs? Influence has been digging into how others do it – and what the “mother of parliaments” might learn from her offspring.
Close to home: If MPs want to see a ban on second jobbing as parliamentary consultants in action, they don’t have to look far. “Holyrood, the Senedd and even the Lords have prohibited their members from holding roles as parliamentary advisors, yet the Commons is still yet to do so,” Rose Whiffen, research officer at Transparency International UK tells us.
The experience: Neil Findlay, a former Labour MSP, lodged a members’ bill while in the Scottish parliament seeking to ban MSPs from certain external jobs. He sees no reason why Westminster shouldn’t follow Scotland’s lead on consultants. “This idea that if we don’t have paid consultants somehow parliament will be diminished, it’s just garbage,” he tells Influence. “We don’t hear the same people demand more cleaners in parliament or more social care workers in parliament,” he says.
Across the Atlantic: U.S. lawmakers may also be surprised at the leeway U.K. MPs currently have when it comes to second jobs. The House of Representatives Committee on Ethics entirely prohibits members from consulting or advising on business matters and political consulting. Members may not “receive compensation for affiliating with or being employed by a firm, partnership, association, corporation, or other entity that provides professional services involving a fiduciary relationship, except for the practice of medicine,” its guidance says.
Wistful: One former Republican member of Congress appears rather jealous of the current U.K. parliamentary rules, telling my Washington-based colleague Daniel Lippman: “When I was in Congress, if I could have worked, I would have done it. Keeping two residences at home and in DC is near impossible on the salary and that’s why folks have roommates and sleep in their offices,” he added.
Meanwhile in France: Elisa Braun, author of our sister publication Paris Influence, emails to explain: “In theory, nothing prevents an MP from working in France, and there are still lawyers, doctors and sometimes university teachers at the National Assembly.”
But but but: “However, many exemptions are included in the French law to avoid conflicts of interest, which makes it difficult or impossible for many of them to maintain their activities,” she explains. “For instance, MPs cannot hold a mandate with non-elective functions such as members of the government, magistrate and a very large list of high level public servants positions. It is also impossible for them to hold management positions in national companies or private companies receiving subsidies or benefits granted by the public authorities.”
Remember this? Elisa tells us consulting’s been under scrutiny since the so-called “Fillon Affair,” which revealed that François Fillon, the former prime minister of Nicolas Sarkozy and candidate for the presidential election in 2016, came under fire for earning private consulting fees. “Lawmakers now have to create their consulting firm at least one year before the beginning of their mandate if they want to maintain their activities during their mandates,” she says. “However, they cannot work as lobbyists for firms that have declared lobbying activities. They also have to declare all their activities to the High Authority for Transparency (HATVP) which can control them and, should they not abide to the law, file a complaint.”
Down under: In New Zealand, where the parliamentary and legal system is modeled on the U.K., the issue of second jobs “hasn’t been a problem,” Grant Duncan, associate professor at Massey University in Auckland tells Influence. There is no explicit ban, but if anything has a clear conflict of interest in a pecuniary or political sense it’s ruled out, he explains.
Not acceptable: Absences from the House are only allowed as leave so it would become “embarrassingly obvious” if an MP had a second job and was away because of it, Duncan says. “I do think that one of the reasons why it wouldn’t happen is precisely because it would make a member very unpopular — and the party itself would probably want to rein the person in,” he says.
ON THE MOVE
Daniel Sugarman is the new director of public affairs at the Board of Deputies of British Jews.
Ark Schools’ head of public affairs and engagement, John Blake, has been appointed as the new director for fair access and participation at the government’s Office for Students.
Former First Minister of Northern Ireland Arlene Foster has been named director of “all-island peace-building organisation” Co-operation Ireland.
Giles Derrington will be Tik Tok’s new senior public policy and government relations manager, joining from Deliveroo.
Treasury spinner Angharad Knill is moving on to head up comms for tech company Stripe, she announced on LinkedIn.
Bex Couper will be the new director of strategic communications at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, according to PRWeek.
Martin Piers will take over as chair of the Centre for Economics and Business Research in January, Civil Service World reports.
Margaret Beels has been made the government’s director of labor market enforcement.
Jobs jobs jobs: The Coalition for Global Prosperity is looking for a head of Research and head of Overseas Visits … the Westminster Foundation for Democracy wants a director for its Global Equality Project … the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales is after a policy and research director.
Events horizon: The Institute for Fiscal Studies will be looking at early years inequalities in the wake of the pandemic on Friday … The UK in a Changing Europe talks public opinion and Brexit with polling guru John Curtice on December 3 … Minister Neil O’Brien and the FT’s Sebastian Payne talk leveling up at the Institute for Government on December 16.
Thanks: To the meticulous and wise Matt Honeycombe-Foster (subs please check) for actually coming back from leave.
**A message from Equinor: At Equinor, we believe that hydrogen is key to reducing carbon emissions, because when used as a fuel, the only emission it produces is water. Our H2H Saltend project aims to bring hydrogen power to the Humber, the UK’s most carbon-intensive industrial cluster. Find out more about how we’re accelerating the UK energy transition at equinor.co.uk.**
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