An all-party parliamentary group (APPG) is a grouping in the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the Parliamentary sovereignty in the United Kingdom, supreme Legislature, legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of We ...

that is composed of members of parliament from all political parties, but have no official status within Parliament.

Description and functions

All-party parliamentary groups are informal cross-party groups of members of the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

and the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster ...

and have no official status within Parliament. APPGs generally have officers drawn from the major political parties from both houses. APPG members meet to discuss a particular issue of concern and explore relevant issues relating to their topic. APPGs regularly examine issues of policy relating to a particular areas, discussing new developments, inviting stakeholders and government ministers to speak at their meetings, and holding inquiries into a pertinent matter. APPGs have no formal place in the legislature, but are an effective way of bringing together parliamentarians and interested stakeholders. Every APPG must hold at least two meetings during its reporting year, one of which must be an annual general meeting (AGM) or a meeting which involves an inaugural election of officers. APPGs cease to exist when Parliament is dissolved for a general election, and must be reconstituted. The official register of APPGs is updated about every six weeks. The number of APPGs is very variable. For example, in 2015 there were more than 550 APPGs. On 2 January 2019, there were 692 APPGs. As of 24 February 2020, there were 355 APPGs.

Examples

APPGs are either country-based, such as the APPGs on Chile or Zimbabwe, or subject-based, such as the APPG on

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, with the topics reflecting parliamentarians' concerns. , examples of subject-based APPGs include: *

Adult education Adult education, distinct from child education, is a practice in which adults engage in systematic and sustained self-educating activities in order to gain new forms of knowledge, skills, attitudes, or values.Merriam, Sharan B. & Brockett, Ralp ...

* ADHD *

Climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...

* Coronavirus * Drug policy reform *Fire safety and rescue * Frozen British pensions *

Human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

* Limits to growth * Maritime and ports *

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Obesity Obesity is a medical condition, sometimes considered a disease, in which excess body fat has accumulated to such an extent that it may negatively affect health. People are classified as obese when their body mass index (BMI)—a person's ...

Poverty Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little income. Poverty can have diverse < ...

Pro-life Anti-abortion movements, also self-styled as pro-life or abolitionist movements, are involved in the abortion debate advocating against the practice of abortion Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of ...

Rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...

School food A school meal or school lunch (also known as hot lunch, a school dinner, or school breakfast) is a meal provided to students and sometimes teachers at a school, typically in the middle or beginning of the school day. Countries around the world ...

Social integration Social integration is the process during which newcomers or minorities are incorporated into the social structure of the host society. Social integration, together with economic integration and identity integration, are three main dimensions ...

Taxis A taxis (; ) is the movement of an organism in response to a stimulus such as light or the presence of food. Taxes are innate behavioural responses. A taxis differs from a tropism (turning response, often growth towards or away from a stimul ...

Uyghurs The Uyghurs; ; ; ; zh, s=, t=, p=Wéiwú'ěr, IPA: ( ), alternatively spelled Uighurs, Uygurs or Uigurs, are a Turkic ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central and East Asia. The Uyghur ...

Whistleblowing A whistleblower (also written as whistle-blower or whistle blower) is a person, often an employee, who reveals information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe or fraudulent. Whi ...

Zoos A zoo (short for zoological garden; also called an animal park or menagerie) is a facility in which animals are kept within enclosures for public exhibition and often bred for conservation purposes. The term ''zoological garden'' refers to zoo ...

and aquariums

Involvement of other bodies

APPGs allow campaign groups, charities, and other non-governmental organisations active in the field to become involved in discussions and influence politicians. Often a relevant charity or other organisation will provide a secretariat for the APPG, helping to arrange meetings and keeping track of its members. Examples of this include: *

Survival International Survival International is a human rights organisation formed in 1969, a London based charity that campaigns for the collective rights, rights of indigenous peoples, indigenous and/or tribal peoples and uncontacted peoples. The organisation's ca ...

acting as secretariat for the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Tribal Peoples. *

Humanists UK Humanists UK, known from 1967 until May 2017 as the British Humanist Association (BHA), is a charitable organisation which promotes secular humanism and aims to represent "people who seek to live good lives without religious or superstitious b ...

acting as secretariat for the All Party Parliamentary Humanist Group. * The APPG on Christianity being administered by a staff member from the

Bible Society A Bible society is a non-profit organization, usually nondenominational in makeup, devoted to translating, publishing, and distributing the Bible at affordable prices. In recent years they also are increasingly involved in advocating its credib ...

. * Housing Justice administering the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Homelessness and Housing Need. * InterClimate Network acting as secretariat for the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Youth Action against Climate Change. * Polar Research and Policy Initiative acting as secretariat for the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Greenland. * Local Trust acting as secretariat for the All-Party Parliamentary Group for 'left behind' neighbourhoods. Other ways of administering APPGs include borrowing capacity from an MP or peer's office, or by employing staff independently. The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Freedom of Religion or Belief, for example, employs two members of staff paid for through subscriptions from its stakeholders. The

APPG on Agriculture and Food for Development The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Agriculture and Food for Development is a cross-party group in the UK Parliament, co-chaired by Heidi Alexander, a Labour Member of Parliament and Lord Cameron of Dillington, a cross-bench Peer. The AP ...

uses a similar model. Other APPGs may have less stringent administrative needs, such as the UK parliament's

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Associate parliamentary groups

In the

, an associate parliamentary group is similar to an all-party parliamentary group except that it is made up of not only members of the House of Commons or Lords but can also include members from outside Parliament.

Criticism

In early 2016, the

Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists The Office of the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists is a United Kingdom independent statutory body set up under the provisions of the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014. It maintains a register ...

launched an inquiry into concerns that APPGs were being used to bypass lobbying registration rules, following reports that lobbyists were acting as APPG secretariats and so gaining access to legislators. As sponsorship for trip to Pakistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir" between 18 and 22 February 2020, the APPG on Kashmir (APPGK), chaired by Labour MP Debbie Abrahams, received a "benefit in kind" of amounting £31,501 (Rs 29.7 lakh) and £33,000 (Rs 31.2 lakh) on 18 February 2020 from the

Government of Pakistan The Government of Pakistan ( ur, , translit=hakúmat-e pákistán) abbreviated as GoP, is a federal government established by the Constitution of Pakistan as a constituted governing authority of the four provinces, two autonomous territorie ...

References

{{reflist

External links

Information on APPGs on the UK Parliament website

Register of All-Party Parliamentary Groups
Parliament of the United Kingdom