Green Party MP Shares List Of All Her Meetings And Urges Colleagues To Do The Same
Siân Berry was elected as one of four Green Party MPs in the general election last year (Alamy)
3 min read
Exclusive: Green MP and former party leader Siân Berry has shared a list of all her official meetings with lobbyists and has urged all other MPs to do the same to promote transparency.
Berry, who was elected as the Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion last year, has shared a full log with PoliticsHome of her first year of meetings with campaigners, unions, community groups, businesses and other lobbyists. She has now shared the list on her website.
The MP and former London Assembly member is urging all MPs to do the same and is calling for reform of the 2014 Lobbying Act to tighten the rules.
While government ministers have to record and release details of all official meetings, backbench MPs are not currently subject to the same rules, and only have to declare their vested interests and any substantial gifts and hospitality.
Berry’s log shows she has held meetings with more than 190 representatives of local and national groups, including more than 75 campaign groups and charities, multiple trade union representatives, and more than 50 local organisations in Brighton.
The only exception is that she has not published meetings with journalists, as it could “give away what they were working on” and required “different levels of confidentiality”.
“The public has a right to know who their MPs are meeting and who might be influencing our work,” Berry told PoliticsHome.
“This is an important part of following the Nolan principles of public life and working without fear or favour to vested interests.
“I have heard arguments before that this kind of record-keeping is hard to do, but if a backbench MP from a party with much less resources than many other parties can do it, today’s release proves exactly how simple it can be to keep simple notes of our meetings and make them available for scrutiny.”
Berry is particularly keen to see the disclosure of meetings carried out by Reform MPs.
“We do know what a high level of party donations they get from the fossil fuel industry, and so I would very much like to see what other meetings and dealings they have with what groups, and that would shed a light on some of the arguments they're making,” she said.
According to her log of meetings, Berry has not met a single representative from the fossil fuel industry since she was elected.
PoliticsHome recently revealed the new careers of former MPs who lost their seats in last year’s election – the most popular job being public affairs on behalf of private companies.
Labour donor and gambling reform campaigner Derek Webb told PoliticsHome he was concerned about the vulnerability of policymakers to industry lobbying, and said the ‘revolving door’ between MPs and public affairs was “symptomatic” of fundamental problems with lobbying across multiple sectors.
Berry also wants changes to the rules around government lobbying. The Committee for Standards in Public Life (CSPL)’s published recommendations in 2021 to improve the quality of data released by ministers, but these have not yet been taken up.
