THE latest Business Appointment Rules show the continued circulation of people from the Cabinet Office — the heart of government — to corporate lobbying.

The “Rules” are a half-hearted attempt to stop corporations getting influence when they hire government insiders.

When government staff — on what are called senior Civil Service grades 1 and 2 or SCS1 and SCS2 — leave departments, their new jobs have to be looked at under the Business Appointment Rules and agreed by the permanent secretary, the top official in the department.

SCS1 and SCS2 are the directors and deputy directors who sit third and fourth from the top of government departments. More senior staff go through a similar process, ruled over by a grander, but also ineffectual committee called ACoBA — the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments.

The permanent secretaries never really use these rules to slow the spinning “revolving door” between business and politics — because they too will want to go through this spinning door at some point. If they are generous to their lower grades, they can assume ACoBA will be generous to them in the future.

The rules don’t really work, but they do mean the moves through the revolving door are reported, albeit in some quite obscure government files.

Which tell us that Paul Harrison was Theresa May’s press secretary until July 2019. Before that he was a special adviser to then health secretary Jeremy Hunt. In January 2020 Harrison became “senior counsel” at lobbyists Lexington Communications.

Lexington say their consultants’ “political backgrounds” mean they can “assist clients to cut through the political ‘noise’ and really get under the skin of who and what really matters to their issues.” They will schmooze the right people by “targeted contact programmes and by staging events, receptions and conferences.”

So having a top Tory contact like Harrison could well help their clients, who include investment bank Goldman Sachs (nicknamed the Giant Vampire Squid because of its money-sucking qualities), Housebuilders Bloor Homes and Taylor Wimpey, private health firm Nuffield and drug corporations Pfizer and Gilead.

The files say Nick Vaughan was one of Boris Johnson’s special advisers until November 2019. Then in March 2020 he joined lobbying company MHP, who celebrated “Nick’s knowledge of the inner working of government.”

MHP claims it can help corporations “navigate the corridors of power” and “advise companies on achieving favourable regulatory outcomes, avoiding intervention, influencing legislation, winning public contracts.”

MHP clients include Atos, the privatiser making millions running much criticised PIP disability-benefit tests, Coca Cola and drug firm GlaxoSmithKline. Pharma firm Gilead employs both MHP and Lexington, so they get two shots at the target.

The Business Appointment Rules also tell us Fraser Raleigh was a special adviser to Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster David Lidington until July 2019.

In January 2020 he became an associate director of lobbying firm Newington Communications. Newington says: “We have secured policy change across Westminster,” and helped clients “cultivate relationships with the people that matter most,” including of politicians and government officials.

Their clients include house builder Taylor Wimpey — who hire a lot of lobbyists — privatiser Engie, Anglian Water, construction and services giant Kier and train/bus operator Keolis.

According to the rules, Paul, Nick and Fraser are banned from “lobbying” for two years and advised they “should not draw on privileged information available to [them] as a Crown servant.” But these are just gentlemen’s agreements, with no enforcement.

Either lobbying firms want to hire political insiders like this because they think they give clients the advantage of “inside knowledge,” or because they think they were just really good at stuff: I think the former more likely.

What this little sheaf of “rules” advice shows is that the big house builders who rely on public subsidy but won’t build low-cost housing, the privatisers, the sugar-heavy food firms and the pharma giants can all hire people who were close to the centres of power. And all the people at the centres of power are not going to try put any pressure on those corporations — because one day, they will work for them too.