Cryer: Parliament is heart of multi-billion pound lobbying industry

Labour MP John Cryer comments to PoliticsHome on the Bureau of Investigative Journalism lobbying sting operation:

"Parliament is at the centre of a multi-billion pound lobbying industry. These issues of influence have been with us for centuries.

"After a series of scandals in the seventeenth century, the House of Commons passed a resolution which declared that 'the offer of any money, or other advantage, to a Member of parliament for the promoting of any matter whatsoever depending or to be transacted in parliament, is a high crime and misdemeanour and tends to the subversion of the English constitution'.

"For 300 years, that resolution has not been implemented and perhaps it is now time that it should be."