Reading News: Clegg pledges new regulation to tackle lobbying

Đọc Báo Tiếng Anh  | Nguồn : Daily Telegraph

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The Daily Telegraph reports Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg will announce lobbyists will be regulated and voters will get the power to sack their MPs after the latest sleaze scandal to hit Parliament.

VOCABULARY:

Sleaze :

You use sleaze to describe activities that you consider immoral, dishonest, or not respectable, especially in politics, business, journalism, or entertainment.

• The latest, depressing sleaze revelations are only going to increase public cynicism about politics and parliament.

NEWS: Cash for access: Clegg pledges new regulation to tackle lobbying By Peter Dominiczak, Political Correspondent

Lobbyists will be regulated and voters will get the power to sack their MPs after the latest sleaze scandal to hit Parliament, Nick Clegg will say. Following disclosures by The Telegraph about MPs and peers taking money from undercover reporters posing as lobbyists, the Deputy Prime Minister pledges to bring in laws to create a “cleaner, better politics”. Writing in The Telegraph, Mr Clegg says the lobbying scandal has again shown that our “political system has long been crying out for head-to-toe reform”. His comments came as a peer, Lord Laird, resigned from the Ulster Unionist Party. Two other peers were suspended by Labour after further cash-for-questions revelations. The MP Patrick Mercer has already quit the Tory party following an investigation by The Telegraph and BBC’s Panorama that revealed he tabled parliamentary questions and motions and offered lobbyists a security pass to the Commons after being paid thousands of pounds. Mr Clegg says the Government will now introduce laws to create a statutory register of lobbyists and give constituents the “powers of recall” to force a by-election if an MP engages in serious wrongdoing. In 2010, before he took office, David Cameron identified lobbying as “the next big scandal waiting to happen” in British politics. On taking office, the Coalition promised to create a statutory register of lobbyists, to ensure the industry was regulated. But after more than three years in office, the Government has yet to fulfil that pledge. “I know that the absence of the register from last month’s Queen’s Speech raised some concerns,” Mr Clegg says. “So let me be clear: it will happen. The detail is being looked at thoroughly.” Mr Clegg says he and Mr Cameron are “determined that the register should go ahead” as part of a broad package to clean up politics. Despite Mr Clegg’s claim of a united position with the Conservatives, many Liberal Democrats blame Mr Cameron’s party for blocking action on lobbying. Lord Newby, a Lib Dem minister, said that the Conservatives and Labour had blocked the creation of a register. “It’s totally depressing,” he said. “We haven’t met with universal support from other parties.” Mr Clegg says the “overwhelming majority of lobbying activity is legitimate”. However, “greater transparency” is needed to stop people abusing the system, he says. Mr Clegg also assures voters that the Government still intends to give them the power to remove MPs who break the law or Commons rules. Voters are likely to be able to force a by-election if a petition wins the backing of about 10 per cent of constituents. The Government has previously published a draft of a Bill it says would give voters the ability to sack MPs. But that draft has been dismissed as inadequate by many campaigners, including several MPs, who say party leaders would still have too much influence over a recall vote. Zac Goldsmith, the Conservative MP for Richmond Park, said the promises of action were inadequate. “The Government will bring in a version of recall that empowers party bosses not voters,” he said. “On every level, it’s a stitch up.” Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, said he would be “astonished” if the Government did not introduce new legislation for a register of lobbyists by the 2015 election. “We all want it to happen,” Mr Maude told the Sunday Politics programme on BBC One. “It will come into effect.” While Mr Clegg praised The Daily Telegraph for disclosing the scandal, some politicians said the affair should lead to tougher rules on press regulation. Lord Soley, a Labour peer, said yesterday there was a “Leveson agenda” behind the investigations into MPs and peers willing to accept money from lobbyists. He told BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend that he had warned his colleagues to “be alert” because the press was “trying to target” MPs and peers. He said: “I’ve said it to both MPs and peers at times, 'Be very alert at the moment’ because there is a call for proper regulation of the press. “That doesn’t justify anything that may or may not have happened but I recognise there is a Leveson agenda here.”

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