Climate and Energy Lobbying in the UK

Executive Summary

InfluenceMap’s analysis indicates that there is a major transparency gap between the lobbying taking place in the UK, and that which is disclosed by companies and the Government. This report looks at corporate lobbying on key climate and energy policies, but its recommendations apply to lobbying transparency in general. (The term ‘lobbying’ is used in this report as an umbrella term defined by the OECD as the influencing of public policy - further details in the Glossary.)

Comparatively weak transparency rules and an over-reliance on voluntary corporate reporting are the cause of this gap, enabling strategic advocacy from a relatively narrow set of corporate interests (most adversely affected by progressive climate regulations) to threaten the UK’s transition to net zero. Stronger transparency rules are needed urgently to ensure companies are accountable for aligning their lobbying with their stated climate commitments.

• Despite a stream of major political scandals, the rules governing the interaction between ministers, civil servants and companies in the UK remain remarkably lax. The Government’s commitments to require the UK’s largest companies to publish credible net-zero transition plans — a critical tool to align whole business models, including lobbying, with sustainability goals — are now being consulted on. Without regulation of these plans, voluntary disclosures of lobbying will remain selective and patchy.
• Using data from InfluenceMap’s LobbyMap platform, this briefing summarises the tactics, narratives, and impacts of concerted and largely oppositional lobbying by the fossil fuel and energy sectors in three key policy areas: hydrogen for home heating, oil and gas licensing, and ‘sustainable’ aviation fuel. In each case study, InfluenceMap found significant gaps between disclosed lobbying and actual lobbying. Clear gaps in existing UK lobbying disclosure rules are as follows:
  • The failure to publish government consultation responses as standard (as is the case in the EU and US, in line with OECD guidance). Thus the key routes for transparency are reliance on ad hoc and long-delayed Freedom of Information (FOI) releases, used extensively by InfluenceMap for this research.
  • While the UK does have a lobbying register, it exempts the 85% of lobbyists who operate in-house, and ministerial and official meeting records are disparate, incomplete and often heavily delayed.
  • Existing disclosures by corporations on policy engagement are voluntary, which allows corporations to be selective and incomplete with their descriptions of policy advocacy positions and activities.
• Opaque lobbying rules provide an advantage to companies who would otherwise be held accountable for pushing oppositional positions on climate policy that contradict the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) findings on achieving 1.5°C, and their own climate commitments. This appears to have contributed to sustained indecision, delay and inefficiency in government policy delivery, resulting in missed economic opportunities.
• With investors and the public keen to see greater transparency on climate lobbying - and InfluenceMap research showing UK companies such as Unilever and SSE leading in this field - new rules would serve to level the playing field and hold all companies accountable for lobbying in line with their net-zero commitments.
• Net-zero goals are supported by the UK Government, the public and businesses alike. Indeed, almost every company and industry association cited in this briefing has committed to the Paris Agreement or net zero by 2050. Trust, however, is thin on the ground, with 74% of the UK public believing the British Government is “rigged to serve the rich and influential”. The recommendations below set out how the UK Government could deliver reform of lobbying rules and introduce world-leading transition plan requirements to restore trust, transparency and effectiveness in the net-zero policymaking process.

Recommendations

Reforming UK lobbying rules to deliver transparency and integrity

• The Government could reform the Lobbying Act to include in-house lobbying in the statutory register, and in the meantime (through secondary legislation) broaden the scope of information required from consultant lobbyists.
• The Government could deliver on the lobbying recommendations of the Committee for Standards in Public Life: to publish a single, searchable database of meetings with lobbyists; include the specific policy or legislation discussed; and broaden the scope to include Special Advisors and informal lobbying engagements (such as unscheduled phone calls and WhatsApps). It could go further, and publish all meeting minutes, as the European Commission now does.
• The Government could amend its Consultation Principles to include the publication of consultation responses as standard, as is the case in the EU and US, and in line with OECD guidance.

Introducing mandatory corporate transition planning

• The Government could take the opportunity of upcoming net-zero transition planning regulation to require disclosures on lobbying, matching the requirements of the Transition Plan Taskforce.

InfluenceMap CIC is not a political campaigning organisation as defined by The Community Interest Company Regulations 2005. This report and its recommendations are presented, based on InfluenceMap's extensive research into corporate policy influencing practices globally, in the interests of greater disclosure and transparency in the UK on the matter and form part of our mission as a Community Interest Company.