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LONDON — Rishi Sunak’s government is reviewing its much-vaunted plans for a U.S.-style foreign lobbying register after an outcry from businesses worried it will spook overseas investment.
The Foreign Influence Registration Scheme — contained in the National Security Bill currently making its way through the U.K. parliament — is meant to shield British politics from malign foreign influence.
It has long been called for by MPs worried about covert lobbying by hostile states like Russia and China, and the Home Office has looked to similar schemes in the United States and Australia for inspiration.
But overseas firms doing business in the U.K. have warned that the current drafting of the scheme is far broader than international equivalents, and say it risks deterring investment as well as scuttling day-to-day engagement by firms based in countries friendly to the U.K.
One senior business figure — representing a large overseas firm in a country allied with the U.K. — described the scheme as it stands as one of the “most bone-headed, dunder-headed, ill-thought-through pieces of legislation” they had ever seen.
A U.K. government official confirmed to POLITICO that the register is now being reconsidered.
“It’s under review,” the official said. “There has been a lot of opposition, and it has been noted.”
The planned scheme, which the government hopes will shed light on hostile powers attempting to sway U.K. decision-makers, will require most foreign organizations, including businesses and charities, to publicly register every interaction they have with a U.K. policymaker or risk committing a criminal offense that carries potential jail time.
All communications with ministers, officials, MPs and election candidates deemed to be “for the purpose of influencing U.K. public life” will have to be registered ahead of time, and within 10 days of being planned.
But while ministers have promised registration requirements will be “clear, simple and proportionate,” they have yet to unveil specifics of how the scheme will operate. Firms say they were blindsided by the plan’s unveiling just before the Christmas break.
“We’re not going to stop lobbying or stop doing business in the U.K., but it’s potentially going to be hugely bureaucratic,” the overseas business figure said.
“It’s going to lead to over-compliance,” they added, “and in some extreme cases, speaking to some of my counterparts in other businesses and business organizations, their view on this is it’s going be so complicated that they’re just not going to bother engaging with the government.”
‘Crackers’
Business groups have raised a host of specific concerns about the current scheme — which was originally promised by Boris Johnson’s government — and have been pressing the U.K.’s Home Office for a rethink.
Officials from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy have also been relaying concerns to the Home Office.
Critics of the proposed register argue that it fails to differentiate between hostile powers and countries with whom Britain has a strong relationship, with some firms calling on the Home Office to bring in a “whitelist” of countries whose businesses will not have to register.
“It’s just crackers in the way that it doesn’t distinguish between a company from Norway and a company from North Korea,” the business person quoted above said.
The government has also been warned that the way the new scheme interacts with the U.K.’s current lobbying laws — long-criticized as inadequate by transparency campaigners — will mean a vast swathe of domestic lobbyists continue to be exempt from any requirement to register, even as those working for foreign companies are forced to do so.
Other suggestions pitched to ministers in a bid to improve the plan include bringing in a U.S.-style exemption for commercial activity, or ditching the scheme’s so-called “primary tier” — requiring widespread registration — in favor of more targeted moves from government to name specific foreign powers and companies it wants to hone in on.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “The Foreign Influence Registration Scheme is designed to strengthen the integrity of British democracy and protect the U.K. from state threats.”
They added: “Openness and transparency are vital in a democracy and the government is clear that the scheme will highlight the nature and scale of foreign influence in the U.K.”
