All lobbying should be publicly declared in transparency laws shake-up, watchdog says

The proposals were welcomed by a leading public relations body which said it would ‘fundamentally reshape the relationship between lobbyists and Westminster’. Photograph: Vuk Valcic/Sopa Images/Shutterstock

All lobbying of government ministers, aides and senior officials should be publicly declared – from WhatsApp chats to party conference meetings – in a fundamental shake-up of transparency laws, the government’s ethics watchdog has said.

A review led by Doug Chalmers, the head of the ethics and integrity commission, has called for a new register to highlight who is lobbying, which policies they are seeking to influence and who in government they are meeting.