‘Greedy’ MPs shouldn’t blame the cash for access scandal on the lobbying industry, says PRCA director general
Public Relations Consultants Association (PRCA) director general Francis Ingham has leapt to the defence of the lobbying industry after a Daily Telegraph and Channel 4 Dispatches sting caught former foreign secretaries offering political access for a fee.
Following Jack Straw and Sir Malcolm Rifkind being caught by undercover reporters allegedly discussing a fee for political access, Ingham of the PRCA issued a statement condemning what he asserted was the root of the issue - MPs “greed”.
He also issued a reminder to the public that the “lobbying scandal [as it has been branded in the media] involves no lobbyists whatsoever,” adding that the scheme only involved “politicians at the end of their careers and persuasive undercover journalists, setting them up on camera”.
In a defence of the lobbying industry over which the PRCA resides, Ingham stated: “Genuine lobbyists do not employ sitting MPs; nor do they operate in the terms and manner seen in the coverage released so far. They abide by rigorously-enforced Codes of Conduct, and ensure that their activities are transparent and ethical.”
Citing previous cash for access stings, Ingham claimed that MPs had previously framed the incidents as a fundamental problem in the public affairs industry to mask “the greed displayed by members of their own profession,” asserting that they must not be allowed to use the lobbying industry “as an air raid shelter to protect themselves”.
Ingham concluded: “Parliamentary authorities [need] to address the culture of entitlement which appears to have become entrenched in the minds of former ministers as there is a massive gulf between public and Parliamentary expectations of what is and is not acceptable as a second job.”