TRANSPARENCY campaigners have called on the Scottish Government to reform lobbying rules amid a pushback against short-term lets legislation...
and an “Edinburgh homesharing club leader”. They discussed “the tabled amendments and related policy proposals to regulate short-term lets, as well as Airbnb's position on tourism tax”.
He said: “As we have discovered through our investigations, it is far too easy for someone who intends to obscure their influence to deliberately hide their lobbying of the Scottish Parliament from the public record by limiting communication to email and phone calls or ensuring that the lobbying is done by people not being paid by the organisation they are lobbying on the behalf of.
He added: “In a case like this, where an emotive issue is dividing opinion, it is vital that people know exactly who has the ear of ministers making key decisions. It is also important that the public knows how much money is being spent on such lobbying campaigns. "Any reforms to lobbying regulations should consider how to monitor who is funding lobbying activity and why in order to shine a light on any corporate lobbying disguising itself as grassroots campaigning.
"Short-term lets landlord activists have used language comparing licensing to pogroms, they’ve called the licensing scheme sexist and damaging to their human rights. And now to learn that they have potentially had support from a multinational corporation to do all this highlights how out of reach they are with the wider community and how much of this is a co-ordinated lobbying effort to protect, in part, a multibillion-dollar company.
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