From climate to health: the private firms helping to run MPs’ interest groups

A framework of rules applies to APPGs. However, the system is largely self-policed. Photograph: osterman/Getty Images/iStockphoto

For charities and campaigning backbenchers like the late Sir David Amess, all-party parliamentary groups (APPGs) are vital platforms for a plethora of good causes and interest areas they wish to promote. To their critics, they can appear as unreformed relics of a past, less-regulated Westminster landscape.

But amid the swirl of roundtable discussions, drinks, overseas trips and reports, dozens of communications and public affairs companies are helping to run more than 100 such groups, out of a total of 755, with sponsorship from corporate interests.