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

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprema ...

that is composed of members of parliament from all

political parties A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or pol ...

, 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 Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...

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

breast cancer Breast cancer is cancer that develops from breast tissue. Signs of breast cancer may include a lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, milk rejection, fluid coming from the nipple, a newly inverted nipple, or a re ...

, 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 Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by excessive amounts of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity that are pervasive, impairing in multiple contexts, and otherwise age-inapp ...

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 E ...

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Drug policy reform Drug liberalization is a drug policy process of decriminalizing or legalizing the use or sale of prohibited drugs. Variations of drug liberalization include: drug legalization, drug re-legalization and drug decriminalization. Proponents of drug ...

*Fire safety and rescue *

Frozen British pension Frozen state pensions is the practice of the British Government of "freezing" UK State Pensions, (that is, not uprating the amount in line with "Triple Lock" on an annual basis, as is done for residents in the UK), for pensioners who live in th ...

s *

Human rights Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, 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 ce ...

Limits to growth ''The Limits to Growth'' (''LTG'') is a 1972 report that discussed the possibility of exponential economic and population growth with finite supply of resources, studied by computer simulation. The study used the World3 computer model to simula ...

* Maritime and ports *

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Poverty Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little income. Poverty can have diverse social, economic, and political causes and effects. When evaluating poverty in ...

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 and its legality. Many anti-abortion movements began as countermovements in respons ...

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 *

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 of ...

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 stimulu ...

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 zool ...

and

aquarium An aquarium (plural: ''aquariums'' or ''aquaria'') is a vivarium of any size having at least one transparent side in which aquatic plants or animals are kept and displayed. Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amphibians, aq ...

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 rights of indigenous and/or tribal peoples and uncontacted peoples. The organisation's campaigns generally focus on tribal peopl ...

acting as secretariat for the

All-Party Parliamentary Group for Tribal Peoples The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Tribal Peoples was a group in the UK Parliament, chaired by Martin Horwood MP, that was founded in 2007. Its stated aim was to "raise parliamentary and public awareness of tribal peoples". During its operatio ...

. *

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 be ...

acting as secretariat for the

All Party Parliamentary Humanist Group All-Party Groups (APGs) within United Kingdom politics are informal, cross-party, interest groups of the UK Parliament. APGs have at least 20 members who are all Members of the House of Commons and House of Lords. The All-Party Parliamentary H ...

. * 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 credibi ...

. *

Housing Justice Housing Justice is a charitable organization, charity based in London formed in 2003 when the Catholic Housing Aid Society (CHAS) (founded in 1956) and the Churches' National Housing Coalition (CNHC) (founded in 1991) merged. It helps churches u ...

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 Polar Research and Policy Initiative, commonly known as PRPI or The Polar Connection, is an independent, international foreign policy think tank dedicated primarily to the Arctic, Nordic, Baltic and Antarctic regions, as well as energy and e ...

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 A ...

uses a similar model. Other APPGs may have less stringent administrative needs, such as the UK parliament's All Party Parliamentary Jazz Appreciation Group.

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 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 Administrative units of Pakistan, four provin ...

References

{{reflist

External links

Information on APPGs on the UK Parliament website

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