Recommendation 35

The Government continues to rely on a largely voluntary model of PMC regulation. Our predecessor committee conducted a detailed report into the subject of PMCs in 2002. Even then, the risks of a voluntary model were clear, in that it does little to prevent the “activities of disreputable companies” that are “detrimental to the United Kingdom’s interests”. The current approach also does little to protect the UK’s domestic PMCs, which may be tarred with the same brush as malign actors. We do not want our successor committee to have to raise these issues again in 20 years’ time.