Sleaze returns to Parliament

However much personal relief he may feel, therefore, at the humiliation being suffered by Patrick Mercer, one of the Prime Minister’s staunchest backbench critics, Mr Cameron must realise that this latest lobbying scandal, unless he acts quickly, will further damage the standing of politicians in the eyes of the public with inevitable consequences for the next General Election.

However, as claims continue to be made, taking in the Lords as well as the Commons, Mr Cameron’s principal concern should not be the fact that Mr Mercer is a Tory – even though it is a fact which the UK Independence Party will 
no doubt emphasise whenever it gets its next electoral chance – but 
that the reputation of Parliament itself is on the line once again even though it has barely had time to recover from the expenses scandal.

Mr Mercer resigned the Conservative whip last week after the Newark MP tabled parliamentary questions after receiving a payment from reporters posing as lobbyists wanting to overturn sanctions imposed on Fiji. But the ramifications stretch much further and expose failings in the parliamentary system which the Prime Minister has to address.

In particular, the 
procedure allowing MPs to set up special interest groups in Parliament will rightly come under scrutiny following Mr Mercer’s reported admission that many of these could be “utterly useless” but that they were attractive to MPs seeking taxpayer-funded trips to foreign locations.

The impression given is that a scheme established with the best of intentions is, at the very least, so lacking in transparency that it is open to misuse. It is therefore imperative that the parliamentary investigation into the role of lobbyists in organising such groups reports at the earliest opportunity.

It is now three years 
since Mr Cameron 
declared lobbying “the next big scandal waiting 
to happen” after which 
a promise to regulate 
the activity, through a statutory register, was included in the Government’s coalition agreement. But, so far, nothing has happened.

Unless this question is addressed with renewed urgency, however, it will not merely be the Conservatives facing the corrosive effects of sleaze, but the entire parliamentary process.