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Hello and welcome to The Bench Report. You're listening to Amy and Ivan. One more episode today in our series on parliamentary procedure.

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Today, we're looking at all party parliamentary groups, APPGs for short.

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Right. These are those informal cross-party groups, members from the Commons, members from the Lords, all focused on a specific shared interest.

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Exactly. They operate outside the, let's say, official parliamentary structures. Important to note, though, Lords members can join but can't share them.

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And the House of Commons is really in the driving seat when it comes to regulation.

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Precisely. And our focus today is getting to groups with the current rules, especially some quite recent changes aimed at boosting transparency and oversight.

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We're drawing on a House of Commons library research briefing from April 2025 for this.

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So let's talk about these new rules. They were agreed in the Commons back on 19 July 2023. And they

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came into full effect right at the start of the 2024 Parliament.

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And what they brought in was this two-tier system. This came out of recommendations from the Committee on Standards in April 2023. A two-tier

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So a tier system, how does that work?

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Well, basically, if an APPG doesn't get any external financial benefits, money, or help from outside the requirements, they're pretty light touch.

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OK, simple enough for those groups.

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But if a group receives over 1,500 pounds a year in outside financial help, or what they call benefits in kind.

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Like free admin support from a company, maybe.

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Exactly, that sort of thing. Then they face additional requirements. These are specifically designed to increase transparency about who's funding them, what they're doing, and improve their governance overall.

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It's quite a shift from the previous setup, wasn't it? The old rules were from May 2014.

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A decade earlier, yes. And the Committee on Standards was given the power not just to update the rules, but also to oversee how the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards handles APPGs in relation to the Code of Conduct.

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So what prompted this big review? Why the change now?

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The Committee on Standards kicked off a review back in October 2020. There were definitely growing concerns about APPG governance and and well, how regulated they actually were.

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And the nature of those concerns had changed over time, hadn't it?

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It had. Back in 2013, the main worry seemed to be about lobbyists potentially misusing the groups.

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Well, by 2020.

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By 2020, the committee identified what they called the primary risk as something different. Improper access and influence by paid lobbyists and commercial entities or by hostile state actors. So a much wider concern, including foreign influence.

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And this wasn't just the committee's view?

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No, the Speaker of the House and Parliament's Director of Security apparently shared these concerns. It added quite a bit of weight.

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So the committee looked into this. What specific problems did they pinpoint in their April 2022 review?

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They outlined four main risks posed by APPGs at that time. First, just the sheer number of them. Too many groups made it hard to monitor effectively and increased the risk of improper influence creeping in.

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More groups, harder to track, makes sense. What else?

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Second, a lack of transparency It wasn't always clear who was funding these groups or providing their secretariats the administrative support.

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That links to the third point, I imagine.

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It does. The third concern was specifically about who should even be allowed to provide these secretariats. Could anyone just step in?

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And the final point.

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A need for stronger regulatory enforcement. Basically, tougher rules and making sure they were actually followed.

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OK, so those are the problems. What did the committee propose to fix them in April 2023? This

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is where the two-tier approach comes back in. They felt applying the strictest rules across the board might be disproportionate for smaller groups without much external funding.

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So differentiate based on financial activity. What rules apply to everyone now?

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A few key things for all APPGs. An MP can now only be an officer like chair, vice chair, treasurer in a maximum of six OPPGs.

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Stopping individuals spreading themselves too thin, perhaps?

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Possibly, yes. Also, every APPG now needs at least four officers.

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Ensuring a bit more collective responsibility.

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And if Parliament requests information, the APPG has a firm 28-day deadline to provide it. Plus, all groups now need to publish annual income and expenditure statements. Transparency across the board there.

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and for those groups getting over 1,500 pounds in benefits. What are the extra hurdles?

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They have more reporting to do. An annual report is now mandatory for them. They also need to hold a formal annual general meeting, an AGM. And crucially, this AGM must be chaired by someone who isn't a member of the ABPG itself.

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An independent chair for the AGM and minimum attendance.

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Yes. A quorum of eight members is needed for the AGM to be valid. And perhaps one of the biggest changes is that the four required officers in these higher benefit groups are now jointly and severally liable for making sure these extra rules are followed.

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Jointly liable, so they all share the responsibility legally.

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That's the idea. Although the chair still holds overall responsibility and acts as the registered contact, this shared liability aims to embed compliance more deeply.

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Any other major changes for these groups?

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A very significant one, effective from 16 October 2023, a ban on foreign governments providing or funding APPG secretariat.

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Just foreign governments

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specifically? Yes, initially. The UK government agreed with the two-tier approach generally, but they did suggest maybe thinking about extending that ban to all foreign organizations, not just governments. That's something for potential future consideration, perhaps.

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Implementing all this must have involved some phasing in. What were the transitional steps?

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It wasn't an instant switch. Initial plans were published on 18 July 2023, but they got tweaked. Originally, the foreign government secretariat ban was set for 16 October 2023. Okay,

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that date stuck.

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Yes. The other new rules were meant to be complied with either by the first AGM after the rules changed or by 31 March 2024, whichever came first. They even allowed virtual meetings for a while to help groups get the four officers sorted.

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And a compliance check was planned.

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Yes, an audit in April 2024 with the possibility of deregistering non-compliant groups by the end of March 2024. But there was some debate on the 19th of July 2023. Ah,

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feedback from MPs.

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Seems so. The committee promised to look at the suggestions made

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And did they revise the transition?

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They did fairly quickly. Revised arrangements came out on 12 September 2023. The foreign government mandate stayed as 16 October 2023. Okay. And the deadline for complying with the other new rules also stayed as 31 March 2024.

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So what changed in the revision?

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The key change was the six officer limit per MP. That was pushed back. It would only apply from the start of the next parliament.

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Ah, giving MPs more time to adjust their commitments.

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Precisely. The allowance for virtual meetings until March 2024 remained, as did the compliance audit and potential deregistration timeline.

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So the rules are in place. Has it made a difference? What do the numbers show?

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The numbers are quite telling, actually. Looking at the figures from 2018-19 through to 28 March 2025, well, there's been a dramatic drop.

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How dramatic?

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In the 2023-24 session, there were 722 registered APPGs. By March 2025, for the 2024-25 session, that number had fallen to 450.

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Wow, that's nearly a four 40% reduction, a huge drop.

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It really is. And that's reflected across both subject groups and country groups. We don't yet have the specific figure for how many of those 450 are registering benefits over the£1,500 threshold for 2024-25. That'll be

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in the next official report.

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Yes, from the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. But remember, since 31 March 2024, groups have had to report those benefits over£1,500 from a single outside source within the year.

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Wrapping this up, it seems these new regulations have had a pretty immediate and significant impact.

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Definitely looks that way. The clear aims were boosting transparency, cutting down the risk of undue influence, particularly from foreign governments and commercial entities.

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And that steep fall in the number of active APPGs strongly suggests the new rules, the higher compliance burden for some, and perhaps the officer limits, have directly led to a consolidation.

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It seems to be a direct consequence, yes. Fewer groups, but hopefully better regulated ones.

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A fascinating look at how Parliament tries to regulate these less formal aspects of its work.

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Indeed. An ongoing process, no doubt.

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Back to debate topics next week. As always, find us on social media at Bench Report UK. Take care.