Lobbying row erupts - Lobbying row erupts

Exclusive by Keren Sall



An industry insider this week slammed construction trade associations for paying vast sums of money to parliamentary lobbyists and duplicating payments.

It has emerged that the Construction Confederation was paying lobby company Lowe Bell Policitcal £8,000 a month for providing access to key members of the Labour Government after the General Election, while individual trade bodies continued to make similar payments separately.

The British Quarry Products Association and the National Council of Building Materials Producers were also paying Lowe Bell (now called Bell Pottinger) similar sums of money at the time. This duplication resulted in trade bodies employing Lowe Bell separately, and paying out up to four times more than they would under an umbrella arrangement.

A senior industry source told CJ this week: "It is a waste of members' money, as there was no way that the workload of political consultants increased greatly. Lowe Bell were just coining it in," he said.

However, the financial argument for entering a joint arrangement with Lowe Bell Political, which would reduce the combined expenditure, was opposed by two bodies, the Construction Industry Council and the Contractors Liaison Group, at a meeting just after Labour came to power.

The prime contact at Lowe Bell Political was lobbyist Ben Lucas, a former adviser to Home Secretary Jack Straw and head of research at the construction union Ucatt. Lucas also ran Prime Minister Tony Blair's briefing unit during the general election.

Examples of Lowe Bell's work for the Construction Confederation included arranging meetings for the body with the No 10 Policy Unit and with Labour MP Stephen Byers, now Chief Secretary to the Treasury, giving the Construction Confederation the opportunity to make amendments to Labour's draft Business Manifesto.

Of the three associations, only one now freely admits to retaining the services of Bell Pottinger - the British Quarry Products Association. "We do still use Bell Pottinger but we would not want that fact widely publicised," said a spokeswoman for the association.

The British Materials Producers Association, the most fervent advocate of employing Lowe Bell Political, stopped using the lobbying firm after the general election, according to its director general Nigel Chadelcott. "We employed them because we were unfamiliar with the new Government and Lowe Bell was able to provide background briefing on new ministers and arrange introductions."

The Construction Confederation said it also dropped Lowe Bell Political on employing its own public affairs man, Stephen Radcliffe.

Ian Deslandes, chief executive of the Construction Confederaion said: "We employed political consultants when we were in the process of becoming the Construction Confederation to do two pieces of work - preparation of a budget submission and the Business Manifesto. But we no longer employ them."

Bell Pottinger and Ben Lucas, who now runs a rival lobbying firm, refused to comment. CJ's inside source said: "They are all running scared after all that cash for access business with Derek Draper and Lucas, which tarred political lobbying with an unsavoury image. They have decided to distance themselves for the time being."