MPs’ groups are taking millions from private interests – that can’t go unchecked

theguardian.com:

All-party parliamentary groups may be informal, but they provide a great service in our democracy. In good hands, they can foster better relations with other countries, keep a weather eye on an authoritarian regime, or bring into sharp focus a policy issue that may otherwise have been forgotten.

In that vein, I set up the APPG on acquired brain injury, which produced a report with a list of recommendations after a series of round tables with patients, families and practitioners. Just before Christmas, that bore fruit in the shape of a government commitment to launch a new national strategy on the issue. So an APPG can make a big difference, and the vast majority are run simply and cheaply on the back of the enthusiasm of a few MPs and peers without any extra spending.

It’s also an important way of baking cross-party working into the system. No MP can launch their own APPG with the support of their party colleagues alone – they need support from across the benches.

But I worry that the number of APPGs has risen dramatically in the last few years. Instead of one cancer APPG, there are now more than a dozen.

Some industries are especially well-resourced, with every part of the supply chain and every trade body getting its own group. Some countries have more than one. We now have more APPGs than we do MPs. It sometimes feels as if every MP wants their own APPG, and every lobbying company sees them as an ideal way to make a quick buck out of a trade or industry body. “Look,” they say, “if you really want to get this on the agenda politically, we can get you access to MPs, peers and ministers – but the more financial support you give the APPG (through us, of course) the more effective the group will be.” Hence the rise in the