The desire to avoid onerous bureaucratic burdens on small or sole operator lobbyists is laudable. However, it is important that concerns about regulatory burden, which will already be lower on smaller operations undertaking less work, do not undermine the primary purpose of the Act, which is to ensure transparency in consultant lobbying. There are other ways of mitigating the regulatory burden on small firms that do not present such a sizeable loophole to allow lobbying to go undisclosed. To that end, the exemption from registration for consultant lobbyists who do not pay VAT should be removed.