Alison White attends University of Stirling seminar on lobbying registration

Published on: Monday 30th November 2015

On 20 November, Alison White, the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists, spoke at the ‘Lobbying transparency and disclosure: expert and regulator seminar’ at the University of Stirling.

The seminar was timed to coincide with the publication of the Lobbying (Scotland) Bill which was introduced into the Scottish Parliament on 30 October and which, if passed, will establish a register of lobbying activity of paid consultant and in-house lobbyists in Scotland.  The seminar was an opportunity for Scottish policy-makers to directly hear from registration experts and other stakeholders, including from Ireland, the United States, the OECD and the EU, about their experiences.

The seminar was attended by members of the Scottish Parliament, including the Chair of the Standards, Procedure and Public Appointments Committee, who is leading on scrutiny of the Bill; the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life; civil servants from the Scottish Government who drafted the Bill, and academics from the University.

Alison said afterwards: “I was delighted to attend this seminar, and share my experiences of setting up and operating the UK statutory Register of Consultant Lobbyists. I hope that my contribution will prove helpful to Scottish policy-makers as they move forward with this legislation”.