Bureau Recommends: MPs’ links to business under scrutiny
Questions over ministers’ links with the business world have been raised after analysis by the Guardian found over 1,500 meetings had been held with corporate representatives over the last 10 months.
Figures show that ministers met corporate representatives over 1,537 times including several hundred round-table meetings where numerous companies were present.
Trade bodies, think-tanks and other interest groups had 1,409 meetings while charities were met on just 803 occasions.
This has prompted claims of a ‘massive disparity in access’ by anti-lobbying groups.
The findings have revealed that no government department has published its record of meetings for any month more recent than March 2011.
Tamasin Cave, of the lobbying transparency group Spinwatch, suggested the records of ministerial meetings may only scratch the surface and that many ministers were meeting outside interests in a private capacity. ‘In this context, private simply means secret,’ she said.
Following the resignation of Liam Fox, several government ministers, including William Hague, have called for the system to be re-examined.
