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Commercial Lobbyists (Registration and Code of Conduct) Bill
(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I would like to begin by thanking the Clerks for their assistance in drafting the Bill. I know that you are a fan of our Clerks, Mr Speaker, and it is important to place on the record my thanks to Kate Emms and Simon Patrick for their help in drafting this Bill—and one or two others on today’s Order Paper. I am also grateful to the Minister for taking the time to meet me to discuss this issue. Without wishing to damage her career, I want to say it was a productive and useful conversation; I hope the Whips were not paying too much attention to that comment!
I shall address each clause in turn, and will be happy to hear any observations or questions from colleagues. I would observe, however, that a number of other Bills are on the Order Paper, so I hope that we can have a productive and focused discussion, bearing in mind the serious issues to be dealt with later.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
The Bill became available in the Vote Office only a couple of days ago, as the hon. Gentleman will know, and when I asked about it, I was told that there were no explanatory notes. I hope that he will bear that in mind as he goes through the Bill.
Thomas Docherty
The Bill is simple enough, but I commend to the hon. Gentleman both the Public Administration Committee report and the Library note.
On the question of what a lobbyist is, I think we sometimes get things back to front. We have tended to try to define what a lobbyist is, rather than lobbying. For the purposes of the Bill, the groups of people and organisations we are trying to capture are those that are paid or receive financial recompense for carrying out this activity.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
Has the hon. Gentleman drawn any distinction between a small business that would naturally go to its local MP with any issue and a company, perhaps a multinational, with no links at all to that constituency?
Thomas Docherty
The hon. Gentleman is entirely right. If he will bear with me for a couple of moments, I will explain exactly how the Bill makes the distinction, and again I would commend to him the PASC report, which talks about that very issue.
A high-profile Bill on equal marriage is coming before the House next Tuesday. Like many Members on both sides of the House, I have received a number of letters from constituents and organisations about it. I will take one example. If my local parish priest were to write to me, either as a constituent or on behalf of his congregation, expressing a view either way, he would not be captured by this definition, because he would not be getting paid to undertake that activity. It would be in addition to his remunerated post. If, however, the Church of England, the Church of Scotland, the Roman Catholic Church or any other Church were to employ a public affairs officer to draft a letter or organise meetings, he or she would clearly be getting paid to organise, either directly or as an adviser, that lobbying activity.
Thomas Docherty
I have a delightful choice. I will give way to the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) first.
Mr Chope
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for trying to explain the distinction. I will give him another example. The noble Lord Mandelson is in receipt of a European Union pension and as a former commissioner is under an obligation to campaign for the EU. He has recently started a lobbying campaign against the UK leaving the EU. Is that commercial lobbying? It is certainly driven by the noble Lord’s financial interest as a former EU commissioner. Should that be registered as well?
Thomas Docherty
I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that example. He will see that we talk about peers in later clauses. With his indulgence, I would like to return later to the issue of peers undertaking lobbying activities later. On the principle, however, if we were to leave the European Union, the pension of the Deputy Prime Minister, for example, as a former euro civil servant, would not be affected. In the same way, that consideration would probably not apply in the case that the hon. Gentleman raises.
Philip Davies
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will bear in mind the fact that EU pensions are forfeitable, unlike most other pensions. However, let me return to the point I raised initially. Where a managing director of a small business, perhaps in my constituency, took on a number of roles because of the nature of that business and one of them was explaining to the local Member of Parliament exactly what was necessary for the livelihood of his business, would that constitute lobbying for financial gain—it would clearly be in the financial interests of the company—and would it thereby be captured by the Bill?
Thomas Docherty
I am genuinely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that point. Perhaps I could present two separate examples and then he can tell me whether I have answered his question fully. If a local business person is the chairman or chairwoman of a local chamber of commerce that meets regularly on behalf of its members to lobby on issues of concern, they would not be covered by the Bill, nor should they be. However, if a Member of this House voluntarily or, as occasionally happens, involuntarily loses their seat and sets themselves up as a sole trader or limited company for the express purpose of being a lobbyist—like, I am sure, many Members, I have had the opportunity to meet former Members who are engaged in that profession—they would be covered by the Bill. The Association of Professional Political Consultants is the largest trade body for third-party lobbyists. A large number of its members are small businesses that are sole traders or perhaps employ only two or three people.
James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman has raised the issue of former Members having to comply with “any code”. Why did he exempt former Members from the passholder requirements? Clause 3(3) says: “Any code shall provide”, and so on—it basically constrains the number of people with passes to this place who can lobby—but exempts former Members of either House of Parliament. That seems unfair.
Thomas Docherty
The Commission is examining that matter, through the Administration Committee, and I did not wish to cut across the work of the Commission, for which I have the highest regard. My personal view—I think I am on record as having said this to the Administration Committee—is that former Members should not be allowed to have passes. I hope we can examine that in the Committee stage of this Bill. I would certainly be receptive to the idea of making alterations to remove the reference to former passholders, but I am mindful that this issue is on the Administration Committee’s agenda and I did not wish to prejudge anything. I hope that has provided some reassurance to the hon. Gentleman.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that issue, because he has led me on nicely—perhaps he read my mind—to the registration of lobbyists, which is dealt with in clause 1. As set out in the Bill, those who undertake this activity—I hope we have had a good discussion and have now established what the definition is—
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, but I am not entirely sure that we have clarified the definition. I would like to return to his example of the priest who lobbies on behalf of his religion. For proselytising religions, surely lobbying is part of the function for which they receive remuneration, even if, in the case of a Catholic priest, it is only a modest income to allow them subsistence.
Thomas Docherty
I have an incredible amount of respect for the hon. Gentleman, with whom I have the privilege of serving on the Procedure Committee, but I do not share his analysis of the role of a Catholic priest or, indeed, any other person of the cloth. It is not in their job description to be lobbying on public policy issues. I am sure that on another day the hon. Gentleman might be tempted to start the debate about the Reformation and the limitations placed on the Church of England to prevent interference in the monarch’s role in legislating, but I know that he is saving that for another day.
James Duddridge
I thank the hon. Gentleman for amending his Bill in relation to former Members of Parliament, but I must agree with my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). The definition of “lobbying” is totally inadequate. Not only that, but the word “commercial” has been bunged into the long title without any definition whatever. One can make assumptions about that, but where do trade unions or voluntary organisations with commercial arms fit into this? The hon. Gentleman might have an idea of what “commercial” means, but he does not define it in the Bill or leave it open to the Government to define, subsequent to the Bill becoming an Act.
Thomas Docherty
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his observations. I would say gently to him that this is not the definition that I drew up; it is the definition from the Public Affairs Council’s website and its evidence to the Public Administration Select Committee, and it was accepted by the Committee as a reasonable definition. However, he may wish to take the matter up with the Public Affairs Council, which represents all lobbyists.
Thomas Docherty
The term “commercial” has been used to distinguish those concerned from those working in a voluntary capacity. I return to the example raised by the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). This is not about an individual constituent, such as the chair of the local chamber of commerce or the chair of a residents’ association, who will understandably wish to lobby their Member of Parliament or local councillor about issues that affect them, but in respect of which they receive no remuneration.
It sounds as though the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) is keen to serve on the Bill Committee. He could probably be accommodated, because he might bring an interesting perspective to some of our forthcoming discussions on the Bill. Indeed, some of the issues he raises could be dealt with in Committee.
James Duddridge
I am more than happy to serve on the Committee. However, I have listened to the hon. Gentleman and, from my initial parsing of the Bill, I think that despite its being drafted by a very excellent Clerk of the House, Kate Emms, it is fundamentally flawed.
Thomas Docherty
I am sure that as this day goes on, my arguments and those of other colleagues will persuade the hon. Gentleman to change his mind. In fact, we might even be lobbying him later.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am more sympathetic to the Bill than my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) is, but there is a grey area that has not been satisfactorily defined. That involves people who, within their paid work, end up doing a bit of lobbying. It would be hard to explain that they were being paid to work 39 hours a week and that for one hour a week they were volunteers. I do not see how we could make a legal definition along those lines.
Thomas Docherty
The hon. Gentleman has made a significant point. I served as a lobbyist, both in-house and as a third-party consultant, for a number of years. He is right to suggest that someone could undertake what most people would define as lobbying activity on a part-time basis. For three years, I worked in the nuclear industry, for British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. My official title was press and public affairs officer, and, in effect ran BNFL’s operation in Scotland. I was responsible for working with the local community on a range of stakeholder issues, I drafted the press releases for the Chapelcross and Hunterston sites, and I looked after Sellafield’s inquiries in Scotland, which involved going to the Scottish Parliament. I also recall spending two or three wonderful days in the Western Isles making a presentation to the council on technetium discharges into the Irish sea.
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that someone can undertake lobbying activities without that being their sole purpose. Any relatively reasonable individual—I can think of no better description for the hon. Gentleman—who looked at a job description and saw lobbying activities among the core functions, or the outcome of lobbying as a measure related to pay, would draw a reasonable assumption from that.
I must remind the House that the definition I have used is the one used by the UK Public Affairs Council in its submission to the PASC inquiry on this subject. I have met representatives of a wide range of organisations, including the Association of Professional Political Consultants and Unlock Democracy, and they have been satisfied that the definition is suitably robust. The Bill tries to strike the right balance by using a definition that goes as widely as is reasonable without inadvertently drawing in the kind of individuals that Conservative Members have mentioned, such as members of the local chamber of commerce or people who come along to make representations to their Member of Parliament or local authority.
I will make some progress now, as I am conscious that other Members wish to speak in the debate. A registration process exists at the moment. The largest single organisation is the Association of Professional Political Consultants, which has been in existence for about 18 years. It is made up of most of the well-known lobbying and public affairs companies and many small companies, as well as political consultants—that is, third-party lobbyists. The association has a membership of about 50 companies and individuals who work as sole traders. They all sign up to the association’s register, and they have to abide by its code of conduct. They also have to publish on a quarterly basis a list of their clients, including those for whom they are doing paid work and those for whom they are working pro bono. It is interesting to note that a number of companies undertake pro bono work. They do so for various reasons, and I dare say that some of them do it to get some good PR for themselves.
In 2009, when the then Cabinet Office Ministers were considering their response to the previous PASC report on this issue, a number of the leading players in public relations got together. They included not only APPC members but representatives of the law firms that have public relations arms and of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations. They decided that they had a choice, and that a statutory body would be set up if they took no further steps and failed to recognise the significant problems that the PASC report had identified, which Ministers were considering. That was one of the clear outcomes of the PASC report. They therefore set up the body known as UKPAC—the United Kingdom Public Affairs Council.
I was the secretary of the Scottish branch of the APPC for a while, and I attended one of the meetings in the summer of 2009 at which the APPC board discussed UKPAC. I remember counselling the board that a voluntary system would not work, and in the two and a half years since it was set up, it has not worked. I will explain more about that later. It is interesting to note that there was agreement on this issue among those in the industry. It is important to remember that it is an important, multi-billion pound industry.
Lobbying is a healthy part of our democracy. We have already heard some examples of the roles that it can play, and no one has criticised them. We have heard about local businesses or religious organisations being involved, as well as companies being employed by individuals. In a parliamentary democracy such as ours, it is every citizen’s right to lobby their Member of Parliament, and I believe that it is their right either to lobby their MP themselves or, if they feel that they do not have the time or the skills to do that, to employ someone else either individually or collectively to do it for them. That is not to say that those who are so employed and who make a financial gain from lobbying should be allowed to do so unchecked, without any rules whatever. Registration is an important step in the right direction.
A journalist from a relatively august newspaper—not quite The Times; it was an almost august newspaper— phoned me yesterday to ask me how many people worked in lobbying and public affairs. I have taken a close interest in this issue, both before I entered the House and since, but I did not know how many people were working in that field. I think it was the Library briefing note that estimated that only 1% of those working in public affairs were third-party lobbyists—that is, consultants—and that 99% worked in-house. It is therefore vital that registration should cover not only third-party lobbyists but all those who undertake commercial, paid lobbying. Both PASC reports have acknowledged that, as have the industry players and Unlock Democracy—not, perhaps, a natural ally of the lobbying industry. Indeed, everyone—bar one important group of people—believes that any register or code of conduct should cover all those who undertake commercial lobbying.
To use a made-up example, it would be ridiculous if “Landmines R Us” were not required to register its multi-million pound public affairs operation because that operation was in-house, while those whom it employed as third-party consultants were required to be registered even though they accounted for only a tiny proportion of the time and money the company spent in that area.
A Member asked me a question this morning in the Tea Room. I am always loth to give away Tea Room secrets—[Interruption.] To be fair, as I recall it, he was heading out of the door, so I take that into account. He asked me why the Bill did not deal only with third-party lobbyists, and the answer is that they are such a small percentage. It would be strange if it dealt only with the third-party lobbyists and not those who work in-house. We need a level playing field. That was the conclusion of PASC and Unlock Democracy, and it was the conclusion reached by the industry itself. I am not sure that the Cabinet Office is there yet, but I know the Minister is considering the matter carefully. Perhaps she will be in a position to comment either today or in the near future.
Philip Davies
I am just wondering how great a revelation it will be for the general public to find out that the public affairs manager for Asda is registered as doing lobbying on behalf of Asda.
Thomas Docherty
The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point about the point of registration. The point is not simply to put people’s names on to a register, which is why the code of conduct is so important. The PASC report said that having a register that is not backed up by a code of conduct is, in itself, pointless. The hon. Gentleman is therefore entirely correct to suggest that a having a register for its own sake does not do anything. If no offences can be charged against the people on the register and there are no rules of behaviour, the register will be pointless. I do not know whether what I am going to say will be worse for his career or for mine—
Thomas Docherty
I am sure the hon. Gentleman has a bright future and is good stalking-horse material. Anyway, I entirely agree with him that a register by itself would be a waste of everyone’s time and money.
James Duddridge
Will the hon. Gentleman explain what exactly is being registered? Will it be a company or an individual? In the example mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), the head of public relations or public affairs for Asda will clearly be involved in lobbying, but surely we would also expect the finance director to be involved in lobbying in some shape or form. Would they have to register separately, or would a kind of group registration apply? I am also concerned about the fact that individuals come and go in organisations, as there will be a heavy bureaucratic cost in registering every individual if it is not the group that is registered as a whole.
Thomas Docherty
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, but I would like to put a question back to him. Can he explain why he thinks the finance director would have to be on the register of lobbyists?
James Duddridge
Because I think the finance director of any organisation should take a strong interest in the taxation arrangements and in the regulatory burdens imposed by the state on the individual company. All that is a broader aspect of being on a company board. On this basis, one would expect the full board to register individually. Quite frankly, if it is not trying to influence the Government, it is not doing its job.
Thomas Docherty
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his clarification. I see where he has gone with that point, and I apologise if I have not articulated the position clearly enough. Let me try to explain it again. The finance director, in and of himself, would not be—and is not at the moment—a lobbyist according to anyone’s definition. If a company secretary or executive officer has a job description that includes a reference to being a director of internal communications or to company relations, for example, that individual would need to be on the register. The hon. Gentleman is right about that. On the other hand, an individual who has an interest in those areas in the course of carrying out their normal duties, but whose job description does not refer to lobbying activity as part of their paid role, would not need to be on the register. He is entirely right to raise these questions, but I refer him to the two Select Committee reports produced in this Parliament and the previous one, as well as to the Cabinet Office discussions on this matter under this Government and the previous one. I also refer him to the discussions with the industry and with champions of more transparent behaviour, none of which said there was a problem. I hope that that provides some reassurance.
James Duddridge
I hope to make my own speech later, so perhaps I can drill down in more detail then. The hon. Gentleman has been clear about people more senior than a public affairs director, but what about more junior posts? A director of public affairs and a senior manager will, as the hon. Gentleman has explained, need to register, but what about other people within those teams? How low down in the organisation does it go? Could this prove to be a disincentive to be employed as a secretary in the public affairs team rather than the finance team?
Thomas Docherty
I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question, and I would like to answer it before responding to the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies).
There are three different organisations at UK level that keep various registers, and there is an organisation in Scotland called ASPA—the Association for Scottish Public Affairs. Let me give a further example to explain the position. My wife, who is currently on maternity leave, works for Age Scotland. Age Scotland has a public affairs or public relations operation and is a member of ASPA. It declares to ASPA the people who in the public affairs or public relations team; indeed, its head of public relations is this year’s convener; for those who have not had the benefit of a Scottish education, a convener is a Scottish version of a chairman or chairwoman. Because my wife has no direct link to the comms operation, she is not registered. The fact that a relatively small charity such as Age Scotland is able to comply with those requirements shows that this is not an unreasonable burden.
As Conservative Members may know, I am something of a free marketeer and I do not always agree that regulation is the best way forward. What this Bill seeks to do is place a reasonable burden on those organisations for which there is a financial reward from the activity of lobbying. As I say, this goes no further than the Association of Professional Political Consultants already requires its members to do—members that are as large as Weber Shandwick and Bell Pottinger, and as small as some sole traders.
Philip Davies
I am getting more and more confused, which you might say is not difficult, Mr Speaker. I think my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) could be on to something with his examples of the finance director and board members. The hon. Gentleman’s own definition of lobbying does not seem to match what he thinks should be covered. The Bill defines lobbying as
“any activity carried out in the course of a business or employment which are undertaken for financial gain and are designed to influence the Government of the United Kingdom.”
That seems absolutely to meet the criteria set out by my hon. Friend when he talked about the role of the finance director, for example.
Thomas Docherty
I am always happy to engage in a lively debate, and this has been quite an informative one. As I say, there is a danger of trying to second-guess two Select Committees, UKPAC, the APPC and Unlock Democracy, all of which have concurred on what is an acceptable definition of lobbying. Nevertheless, there was a genuine question—I apologise for not yet addressing it—about who within an organisation would be expected to be registered. That brings me back to the proposals of the last Minister for the Cabinet Office. We do not know yet what revised proposals may emerge.
The question posed by the APPC for the purpose of its register is “Do you have a public-facing role in which you articulate a policy on behalf of the client?” That applies to companies large and small. When I was an account director and wanted to lobby a Member of Parliament, it would not always be me who telephoned the Member’s office or drafted a letter to the Member, although it would be me who signed the letter. It might be an account manager or an account executive who did the chasing up or issued the request for a meeting, as is the case in many organisations, and because that person would be dealing directly with the Member’s office, according to the APPC’s own definition he or she ought to be registered. The person who came in to clean the office in the morning, or the security officer, would not be performing a public-facing role or trying to influence public policy. I see one or two puzzled faces—
Thomas Docherty
I am always happy to give way, but let me finish my point first.
As I was saying, I see one or two puzzled faces, but everyone who works in the industry, either in a third-party role or in-house, considers the definition that I have given to be reasonable. I would never suggest that Opposition Members know less than those who work in the industry, but I am myself slightly puzzled about why some of them, who I know are phenomenally intelligent, cannot get their heads around that fact.
Mr Nuttall
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way; he is being very generous. I am not sure whether I heard him correctly. Was he suggesting that someone who rings up a Member of Parliament to make an appointment needs to be registered?
Thomas Docherty
That is the current requirement. The Minister may be able to say more when she responds to the debate, but I think that it is what the Government are proposing as well.
Philip Davies
Just because it is the Government’s proposal does not make it a good one.
Thomas Docherty
That’s the hon. Gentleman’s career over, then.
I am going no further than the Government in this regard. I am arguing—and I suspect that the Minister agrees, although I must wait to hear what she says—that introducing a statutory register that simply replicates the voluntary register that already exists will involve no cost to the taxpayer other than the initial costs of the Bill’s publication and a small amount of Cabinet Office time. Now that the House of Lords proposal has been defeated, the Cabinet Office has a lot more time on its hands. There will be no cost to the taxpayer, because all the fees associated with the running and maintaining of the register and the council will be met by those who work in the industry, as happens at present.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I think that there is always a cost to the taxpayer in these cases, one way or another, but may I return the hon. Gentleman to the issue of the definition? He has talked about industry standards, the way in which lobbying is defined by existing lobbying groups and so forth, but we are talking about the definition in clause 4, which is the definition that will go into the black letter of the law. It seems to me that the black letter of the law is very wide in this context, and that it would include the finance director and the chief executive. I believe that the definition needs to be tightened up in legislative terms, although it may be more appropriate to deal with that in Committee.
Thomas Docherty
I know that the hon. Gentleman has always been a passionate supporter of debates on the clause 4s of this land. As he suggested, the issue that he has raised could be considered in Committee—and I think that I am seeing a volunteer for the Committee, if he can fit us in with his various other important roles in the House.
Even if we accept that there will be a marginal cost to the taxpayer in connection with the work of the Cabinet Office, surely the benefits of a transparent and cleaned-up lobbying industry will far outweigh it.
Let me now say a little about the composition of the lobbying registration council.
Thomas Docherty
I have started, so I will finish. I have always wanted to say that.
Organisations such as Unlock Democracy have argued that the council’s membership should consist entirely of people who do not work in the industry. That is a reasonable argument, but others advance the counter-argument that the council needs people with a professional understanding of the industry, as is the case with ASPA. At the risk of sounding like a Liberal Democrat—or perhaps more like Tony Blair—I seek a middle way. I believe that there should be a mix, just as there is on the General Medical Council, whose membership includes both people with a background in medicine and people with no association with the profession. Before becoming Chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron) served for many years on the GMC’s disciplinary committee in the latter capacity. Getting that balance right is a long-established convention in the professions.
I do not wish to prescribe the precise composition of the council. I therefore propose that Parliament should have an absolute right to determine its composition, but that the Minister should introduce delegated legislation in the form of an order to establish it. I hope that the House will look favourably on that proposal.
Let me now reply to another question. Again, I apologise for not answering it earlier: so many lively questions have been thrown at me today. I was asked what interests companies and individuals would be required to declare. I consider it vital for not just companies but individuals to be registered, for a very simple reason. It is a relatively rare occurrence, but, at present, if an individual who is not registered breaks the code of conduct, that individual can simply move to another company, in which case—if I may use a colloquialism—there will be no comeback. That is why I think that not just companies but the individuals within them should be registered.
Mr Nuttall
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, although this is not the point that I was going to raise when I tried to intervene earlier. The Bill does not actually contain even a draft code of conduct. Could the hon. Gentleman give at least some flavour of the provisions that he would expect the code of conduct to contain?
Thomas Docherty
As ever, the hon. Gentleman has anticipated what I am about to say. The question of the code of conduct goes to the heart of the issue. At present there is, dare I say, some divergence between my starting point and that of the Minister, but she is an entirely reasonable Minister, and I know that she is reflecting on the matter.
The code of conduct is crucial, because without a code of conduct a council registration is entirely pointless. If we do not define an acceptable activity, what is the point of spending time on maintaining a register? Let me say a little about what the code of conduct should include and what it may include, and, perhaps, give the House an example of appalling behaviour on the part of someone who has repeatedly failed to sign up to such a code.
For the same reasons that I articulated about the composition of the council, I have tried today to avoid prescribing the full terms of the code of conduct. Some of it will be self-evident; we all know what is and is not acceptable behaviour. I have referred, however, to the specific example of parliamentary passes, which the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East touched on earlier. I believe it is entirely legitimate for an individual to own shares in a company. I am glad we have a free market, as I believe in the capitalist system—I am probably doing my cause with my party no good at all by saying such things.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
But the hon. Gentleman is making himself much more popular with the voters of Somerset by doing so.
Thomas Docherty
Oh good; I have always thought that the residents of Somerset are sound people, and their cream is pretty good as well.
I have no problem at all with an individual making a comfortable living by any reasonable means, and the fact that someone holds public office should not prevent them from holding shares in companies. At present there are specific rules about how Ministers must conduct their financial affairs. I recall a meeting I had with a Conservative Minister—regrettably, he has now left the Government. I had not heard of him before, so before meeting him I looked up his register of interests. He was appointed by the current Prime Minister to the House of Lords, and he had a vast number of interests, some of which were fascinating. For example, he was director of “Wisden”, which is a very sound organisation. Although he had a long list of interests, however, we all had confidence that he had placed his shares into a trust. It is entirely appropriate that Members of either House should be able to own shares in any company, provided they have no direct influence on it.
However, I do not think it is acceptable—and I think the public agree on this—for serving Members of either House, in addition to their remuneration for their work at Parliament, to be paid by outside organisations to lobby. There were some very regrettable incidents in the last Parliament and in previous Parliaments. A very small number of Members—I will not say hon. Members, because they clearly were not that—undertook activities of which the House and the country greatly disapproved.
There is currently a significant loophole in the other place, as Members there can receive significant remuneration from outside organisations for lobbying—under the definition of that term as set out, and which is accepted by everyone. I will not name the individuals concerned, but I have given the Minister a couple of examples that have caused some controversy. Under the Bill, serving peers—indeed, any passholder—would not be able to receive remuneration from outside organisations for seeking, for financial gain and in addition to their parliamentary activities, to influence public policy.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman, but I am concerned that there may be a pedantic loophole in clause 3. A Member of Parliament who is married to another Member of either House might be exempt from the requirement set down. Is that the case, or is there to be a hierarchy of passes?
Thomas Docherty
I think we all agree that the hon. Gentleman comes at the top of any hierarchy in this House, and I bow to no one in my admiration for his ability to find pedantic loopholes, but I do not think he has done so on this occasion. I am happy to talk again to the Clerks who drafted the Bill, however—and it is again clear that the hon. Gentleman wants to serve on the Committee. To answer his question, the other person will not have received their pass because they are a spouse; they will have their pass because they are a Member in their own right. I hope that satisfies the hon. Gentleman.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
It does. It is clear that there is a hierarchy of passes. Someone might be entitled to a pass as a spouse, but having a pass as a Member of Parliament trumps that. I am grateful for the clarification.
Thomas Docherty
I shall return to the broader point on the code of conduct. For the same reasons that I have not prescribed the membership of the council, I have tried today to avoid prescribing the full terms of the code of conduct. Other than stating some of the broad principles, I think it is for the Cabinet Office, following a full consultation, to draw up the contents of such a code. However, I would draw the House’s attention to the codes of conduct that do exist in various forms. Some of them are a bit motherhood and apple pie, but they give an indication of the type of behaviour to be covered.
James Duddridge
If this Bill does not complete its stages but the Government introduce a Bill on lobbying, will the hon. Gentleman encourage them to publish the code of conduct alongside the draft Bill and publish the details of the lobbying registration council, so at least we have some idea of the detail? This discussion feels more like a general debate on lobbying than a Second Reading debate, largely because we are not addressing the details, and the devil is in the detail. I therefore ask the hon. Gentleman to give us some further information.
Thomas Docherty
I am surprised that Ministers are reluctant to have a code of conduct, and I hope the Minister responding to this debate will set out why they are reluctant. The hon. Gentleman is right that it would be helpful to have a code of conduct. If it helps provide reassurance, perhaps I should give a guarantee that I would bring forward a draft code of conduct prior to any Committee stage of this Bill.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on introducing this Bill. Does any other country have the kind of lobbying code of conduct that he wants to see implemented here?
Thomas Docherty
Is the hon. Gentleman asking about codes on a statutory, rather than a voluntary, footing?
Thomas Docherty
There is already a voluntary code for the Association of Professional Political Consultants and for the UK Public Affairs Council, and I understand that a number of countries around the world have codes of conduct. Perhaps it will be helpful if I write to the hon. Gentleman after this short debate, sending him a full list. He raises the valid point that this is not a ground-breaking revolutionary idea.
Thomas Docherty
That is a valid question. I am nervous about answering, however, because I fear we might end up in a cul-de-sac. Under the current European rules, the employees of companies who operate in the UK would be open to sanctions, even if the company is not based in the UK. I hope the hon. Gentleman will forgive me for not getting drawn further into that cul-de-sac today, however.
One of the reasons why I am so passionate about the need for statutory regulation is that voluntary regulation has not worked. Let me give an example of poor behaviour, which I hope will illustrate why it has not worked. One could see it coming a mile off. The vast majority of individuals and organisations involved in public policy lobbying, particularly of Parliament, are credible and honourable, have strongly held views and enjoy the political process. It would be better if there were more people who were interested in the political process.
Let me take as an example the Bill before the House next Tuesday—the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill. There has been a good and lively debate, with representations overwhelmingly made by individuals and organisations in sensible and moderate terms. I know that many colleagues would agree that the language in that debate has been much more appropriate than many of us feared it would be, and the people lobbying on both sides of the debate have conducted themselves in the way that I think we would all want to see. There are, however, some individuals who do not conduct themselves in an appropriate way. I want to talk about one individual and one company of whom I have some knowledge—a company called Invicta Public Affairs and an individual called Mr Mark Cummings.
I first knew Mr Cummings because he was head of the office of the public affairs company where I started working in 2007, so he was technically the chap who hired me to come and work at that company. Mr Cummings left the company about five weeks later under rather a large cloud, partly because it was discovered that he was trying to set up his own business, which is a perfectly legitimate thing for someone to do, and partly because it was becoming apparent that he believed that lobbying should be conducted in a way that perhaps was not appropriate for a company with a long-standing ethos, such as the company I worked for. Let me give the House a couple of examples.
James Duddridge
Out of curiosity, is the hon. Gentleman using his privilege here to say something in the House that he is not able to say outside, or are these comments that he would be equally happy to share outside? I genuinely do not know the case.
Thomas Docherty
Some of the comments are a matter of public record. On some I have kept my council until an appropriate opportunity. Of course, it is always a privilege to speak in the House.
Mr Cummings specialises in planning applications. Anyone who reads Private Eye—which I know many members of the Government are caught reading furtively on the tube on their iPads—will be familiar with the section “Rotten Boroughs”. I was talking to an hon. Friend of mine about the Bill a couple of weeks ago. He recounted that when he was a councillor, he once had a meeting with a developer about a planning application and at the end of the meeting the developer said, “Oh, by the way, here’s something for you to read,” and left an envelope on the desk. Some Members can see where this is going. When the developer had left the room, the councillor turned to his officials, packed the meeting up and opened the envelope to find a number of sheets of paper, each with a common theme of £20.
That would probably be covered by the Bribery Act, although the Minister may wish to clarify that when she responds. That was an isolated case involving a developer, but the problem is still too widespread. I know that many hon. Members have served in local authorities and know that a small number of developers and practitioners of lobbying think such behaviour is acceptable. I want to talk about one such type of behaviour.
Mr Cummings specialises largely but not exclusively in planning and has worked for a number of companies. It is interesting that on his website, invictapa, he does not list who his clients are. This goes back to the lively debate we had earlier on registration. It is important that people are able to see who public affairs lobbyists are working for, and I will come to that in more detail later.
There is a good debate to be had about what happens if someone phones and purports to represent, say, Taylor Wimpey, and you agree to meet them because you are, for example—because he happened to catch my eye—the hon. Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson). If someone phones and says, “My boss works for Taylor Wimpey. He would like to have a meeting with your boss regarding a possible development on the outskirts of Carlisle,” and the researcher says to the hon. Member for Carlisle, “I think it would be interesting to meet this person,” we would all expect that when the hon. Gentleman meets that individual, he is clear whether the person works for Taylor Wimpey directly and therefore can answer questions about Taylor Wimpey more widely, or whether the person is employed as a third-party lobbyist specifically on that project. That is not unreasonable.
Thomas Docherty
Of course I give way to the hon. Gentleman, having mentioned him.
John Stevenson
What, then, does one do with people who are, say, planning specialists? That is their profession and they are employed by a business to act on its behalf in connection with planning matters.
Thomas Docherty
The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point. Let me segue slightly into that. For the benefit of hon. Members, “segway” is a type of transport that is currently fashionable with many younger people who work outside the House. More and more planning companies are setting up public affairs arms to lobby on planning applications. That is particularly true in Scotland under the new Scottish planning policy, where for a development over a certain size—say, 50 houses—a public consultation must be undertaken.
The hon. Gentleman is right to say that if a planning consultancy is directly undertaking the lobbying to influence and shape the policy of the councillors, it should be covered, but if a planner attends a meeting to provide technical answers, that is factual, in the same way as architects and transport consultants would provide technical answers. To return to my example of retailers, if Sainsbury’s brings its head of sourcing along to answer technical questions, nobody outside the House believes that they should be captured by the legislation. I hope that answers the hon. Gentleman’s question.
Let me return to the example of Mr Cummings. There is an assumption that a person who is going to meet someone should be transparent about their status and the purpose of the meeting. So the hon. Member for Carlisle has agreed to meet someone because they purport to be an employee of a company that he would trust. Trust is an important factor. I know that many hon. Members have a principled view that they will not meet third-party lobbyists. I respect that viewpoint; they are entitled to it. It is vital that both in-house and third-party lobbyists are registered, so that others can go on to the company’s website, type in such-and-such a name and see if they work for Taylor Wimpey, in this example, or if they work for a third party. The hon. Gentleman may not have agreed to the meeting if the person was a third-party lobbyist.
Once the hon. Gentleman has agreed to a meeting about a particular planning application—he might serve on a Select Committee and be approached in that role, or he might be a Front Bencher with a particular policy responsibility and a company might approach him and say, “That is within our bivouac. I am keen to meet to make our points to you,”—it is crucial that the hon. Gentleman is comfortable that he knows who that individual actually works for. What should not happen is for the first 45 minutes of the meeting to be spent on the subject matter on which he has agreed to meet, but then he is ambushed for the last 15 minutes because the person says, “By the way, I also happen to represent another completely different company—“Landmines R Us” in my made-up example—and while I’ve got you here, I just want to say a few words about it.”
That is inappropriate behaviour. Under the APPC code, which to an extent is motherhood and apple pie, but none the less is a step in the right direction, that is not allowed. When a meeting is requested, it must be clear whether a consultant works for the company that they purport to represent or is employed as a third party on its behalf, and the meeting should be on the agreed subject matter only. If an hon. Member wishes to raise a further matter, that is for them, but Members should not be ambushed.
When Mr. Cummings is pitching to clients or has a client, he will often play off his contacts. To use a legal analogy, we would expect that in advocating a case the success of those who are fortunate enough to be lawyers—I use my brief loosely—would be based on the strength of the argument, not on whether they know the judge. If a lawyer told a constituent that he should hire him because he knows the judge and has another case in front of the same judge and so can have a bit of a word with him, I think the Minister would probably agree that that would not be acceptable. It is unethical and immoral to both clients falsely to purport to have a level of influence or access to a Member of Parliament or councillor on one case and to use it for another case. Having spoken to colleagues on both sides of the House, it is probably fair to say that if they were aware that people such as Mr Cummings were using their access to raise other issues, they would be horrified.
Some colleagues will recall that the Cabinet Office introduced a Bill earlier in this Session to reform the House of Lords. For a reason that I never fully understood the Government dropped that, regrettably. I spoke in the debate and said that I thought that the Lords Temporal should be removed in a reformed House of Lords.
Thomas Docherty
I am grateful, as ever. Lords Spiritual. The following day, on the chair in my office was a brochure from the National Secular Society. I thought it had come in the post and did not think much about it. It went into the round filing cabinet shortly afterwards. Later my researcher asked if I had seen it and told me that it had been on the desk when he came into work. I should probably confess to the Serjeant at Arms that I had not locked my door overnight. A lobbyist employed by the NSS had been given a pass to the House of Lords by a peer, whom I shall not name. It turns out that he was using his pass to walk up and down the corridors of the House of Commons, dropping off materials to Members. He knocked on my office door two or three times, just dropped by, without any invitation at all, looking to have a word with me because I had spoken in the debate. I think you would probably agree, Mr Speaker, that that is unacceptable. Here was somebody with privileged access to the House in a way that other individuals did not have, and used it to obtain undue influence. I hope that you will look carefully at this issue of peers providing passes to lobbyists outside. I know that you have established a commission of inquiry under my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), and you will be aware that APPG passes are being considered by the Administration Committee.
There is a broader issue here about Members of the House of Lords handing out passes, ostensibly for research purposes, to outside organisations who then use that access to come down to the House of Commons to hand out materials and try to catch Members of Parliament without appointments.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I felt slightly guilty when the hon. Gentleman used that example, because it occurred to me that many of us may have done something similar when canvassing, trying to get into blocks of flats that were locked. Perhaps people in glass houses should not throw too many stones.
Thomas Docherty
My house is made of bricks and mortar. Perhaps it is not as fancy as those of other hon. Members. I am not sure how many tenements there are in North East Somerset; probably slightly fewer than there are in central Fife, where the hon. Gentleman was not quite so successful when he stood for election. However, there is an important difference in that any member of the public can buzz on the tenement trade services door—I suspect that the hon. Gentleman does not often do so, although he might for canvassing purposes—but any member of the public cannot simply have access to the corridors of Portcullis House, Star Chamber Court or the Upper Committee Corridor.
Thomas Docherty
I think the hon. Gentleman agrees. The House authorities should discuss that matter with the House of Lords. I hope that satisfies the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East on why passholders should not undertake paid lobbying.
To return to the example I was describing, it is not just a matter of the unethical behaviour of purporting to represent one client and seeking a meeting with another. We would frown on that and it needs to be stamped out, but in itself it is not Mr Cummings’s worst offence. The House will be aware that particularly in local government there are rules about what councillors can say publicly and privately during a planning application. That is true throughout the United Kingdom and there are good reasons for it, but there are also reasons why a Member on a Select Committee or considering a matter before the House may wish to keep their counsel on a particular matter. From time to time, we receive phone calls from journalists seeking our views—some more than others, I suspect. It is not unnatural to be happy to provide some background briefing to journalists on a non-attributable basis in order to be helpful, and I know that all hon. Members are always helpful to the media.
Mr Cummings employs someone to phone up politicians or councillors, including Members of the Scottish Parliament, because he operates largely in Scotland, and that person claims to be a freelance journalist interested in retail development in Fife. The caller asks for 10 minutes, off the record, to get people’s thoughts on the provision available and whether there are too many Tescos in the area. The politicians do not know that that is a complete pile of cobblers. This is an employee of a lobbying firm who is trying to establish the views of politicians, either during or before the lodging of planning applications for a major supermarket, for some housing developers. The problem is that it is not a crime to impersonate a journalist. I am not sure why someone would want to impersonate a journalist in particular, but that is the kind of behaviour that the House would regard as completely unacceptable. Many developers are not aware that Mr Cummings is using that tactic, but it needs to be brought to the public’s attention. I hope that the Minister will accept that that is why a code of conduct is so important.
Mr Cummings also seems to revel in bullying. He likes to intimidate people who disagree with his clients’ views. He believes that it is perfectly acceptable to plant employees in public meetings, to support his projects. He does the same if there is a rival project. If two supermarkets or house builders are going for the same development in a town, for example, and the council has only a limited allocation to grant, he will put plants into meetings to heckle those who oppose his clients’ schemes or to whip up opposition to other people’s schemes, often on unfounded grounds.
Mr Cummings also has the interesting habit of putting up candidates for community council elections. For the benefit of those who do not have the privilege of living in Scotland, I should say that a community council is a body of statutory consultation that, unlike town and parish councils, has no levying powers, although it will often get small amounts of money from local authorities to spend on flower beds and clean-up-the-village campaigns. It is a statutory consultee on any planning application. Mr Cummings will find supporters early in the planning process and at the next community council election, which is often uncontested, will stand four or five people to get them the jobs of chair, secretary and planning secretary, to make sure that his clients receive favour.
Such behaviour is utterly unacceptable; no one in the House would regard it as appropriate. It needs to be stamped out, which is why a code of conduct to underpin the register is so important. Without that, Mr Cummings would simply register and then carry on with his utterly reprehensible behaviour.
James Duddridge
I hope not to cause the hon. Gentleman too much trouble, but I advise him gently to take a look at the Invicta website and circulate his speech more widely to some of his colleagues, so that they can consider their relationships with the organisation.
Thomas Docherty
That is helpful. I might well take that opportunity and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for suggesting it. One or two members of the Press Gallery might look at the Official Report as well. I keep my website updated with copies of speeches, and after today I hope to place at least a couple of Second Reading speeches on it. The hon. Gentleman has been helpful, and I will take up his suggestion.
I have detained the House for quite a while.
Thomas Docherty
The hon. Gentleman is, as ever, courteous and kind, although perhaps mischievous on this occasion.
There has been a genuine discussion about the principles of lobbying—what we think is acceptable and unacceptable. Let me close with an anecdote about something that affected me personally. As a parliamentary candidate, I opposed one of Mr Cummings’s planning applications for 2,000 new houses in my constituency, in the north of Dunfermline. I supported the local residents near that wonderful greenfield site, which was open for recreation and well used. I should say that Mr Cummings’s client had every right to bring forward an application, and I will not mention their name; I think they were innocent in this matter.
Two things happened that the Minister might want to reflect on. Mr Cummings was organising workshops for the local residents. He portrayed them as an opportunity for an independent mediator to listen to the residents’ concerns. He said that that would allow him and his client to listen constructively to those concerns and to go away and adjust the plans. He did not tell the residents who turned up for the meeting that the so-called independent facilitator was his live-in girlfriend, who was being paid by Invicta to conduct the so-called independent facilitating meetings that were supposed to allow proper feedback.
Any reasonable person would think that a live-in lover who was being paid to hold the meeting would be unlikely to be entirely independent. That is why a register of every employee involved in lobbying is important.
Mr Nuttall
There is a difference between someone who is paid as a one-off and someone who has a contract of employment. Would someone have to register if they were holding a one-off event?
Thomas Docherty
That goes back to the quarterly register. For the quarter during which the person had been employed, they would be on the register. That is why the register must be updated regularly. It is reasonable for a member of the public who goes to a policy or planning workshop to want to see the employees of the company in question and to expect the relevant website to be updated regularly.
Mr Nuttall
If the register were updated retrospectively, how would that benefit the member of the public? Two months later would be too late.
Thomas Docherty
The issue is about reasonable balance. Most planning and public policy processes take several months. If the register were updated every quarter, people could see the information in retrospect and say to the developer, non-governmental organisation or commercial company, “Hang on a second—you told me this person was an independent facilitator. It turns out they are an employee of the company.”
Let me be clear. What I have described was not a one-off event, but what Mr Cummings was doing with all his controversial proposals; he would bring in the so-called independent facilitator who supposedly had no links to him or his business. He portrayed her as an academic who specialised in bringing together opposing parties. However, the hon. Gentleman has raised a valid point.
Let me give the final part of my example, because I have detained the House for far longer than I had envisaged. With the local community council, I was mounting a campaign against the size of the development. I have worked in property and believe we need more houses, but the sheer size of this development was the issue. My campaign, in July, about nine months before the general election, was quite effective; the local council was coming under pressure to mitigate, at least, the size of the development. One Saturday evening at about half-past 6, I received a text message. I had known Mr Cummings so I had his name in my phone. I am aware that I am not allowed under “Erskine May” to use unparliamentary language even in quotations, so I will not push my luck on this. Those who are vaguely familiar with sectarianism will know of a thing called the “Famine Song”, which is sung by the more illiterate of those who claim to support Rangers football club and says some fairly nasty things about Catholics, suggesting in particular that they may wish to “go home”. I cannot go into the content of the lyrics of the song without breaching “Erskine May”, but it is hugely offensive.
Mr Speaker
Order. May I say to the hon. Gentleman that I think that a charitable person would say that this anecdote is tangentially related to the Bill and an uncharitable person would say that its relationship to the Bill is non-existent? In his presenting this anecdote, I am inclined to err on the side of charity, and I feel sure that he will do so most pithily.
Thomas Docherty
I am most grateful, Mr Speaker. You are, of course, one of the most charitable people one has the privilege of serving with. My apologies for having forgotten to wish you a very happy 50th birthday a couple of weeks ago. Last time I was here on a Friday with a private Member’s Bill, it was your birthday, and it was remiss of me not to take the opportunity to place that on the record—I apologise.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman thinks that Mr Speaker, like Her Majesty, should have two birthdays so that it can be doubly celebrated.
Thomas Docherty
I think that every day is a birthday for us when we are in the company of Mr Speaker, but perhaps I will leave it there before I get sidetracked from what is a genuinely serious point.
When I received the text message I was pretty shocked, because it was incredibly offensive. I texted Mr Cummings back and said, “Why have you sent this to me?”, and he said, “Because you are one.” It was clear to me and to others in the community that the only reason I had received this offensive and, frankly, intimidatory text message was that I was opposing a planning application that he was pressing for. I am not alone in receiving intimidatory behaviour from Mr Cummings, who is well known for bullying and becoming aggressive, particularly towards women opponents of schemes. He sends people into meetings to heckle those who oppose him. The police took the text very seriously, and Mr Cummings was questioned. He denied that he had sent the text, claiming that it must have been sent by somebody else, and the police ultimately did not press charges. However, I am certain, as were local residents and the police, that it was the result of my opposing a planning application that he was promoting and being paid to promote.
If for no other reason that is why we need a code of conduct that says, “You cannot intimidate those in public life as you conduct your affairs.” Lobbying is a legitimate and respectable activity that is an acceptable part of our democratic process, but there must be standards of behaviour. I commend the Bill to the House.
James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for calling me so early in the debate. I was chatting to the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) earlier and he asked me to be brief in my comments. I had intended to be so, but I am now not quite sure what “brief” really means following a speech of an hour and half; however, it had very good content.
I support the concept of a register but oppose this Bill. This is a very complicated issue, and, in all candour, the Bill sidesteps all the important aspects and all the controversy by kicking that into the long grass and leaving the Government to do the hard work on the nature of the lobbying registration council and what should go into a code of conduct, if there is one, as that could form part of a broader piece of legislation. The hon. Gentleman gave examples from elsewhere around the world which, laser-like, address some of the issues that this Bill fails to go into. The devil is truly in the detail, and the Government are right to go slowly. It is better to do the right thing very slowly than do the wrong thing, or the flawed thing, in haste. We have seen that far too often here in the Chamber.
Transparency and open data alongside lobbying are at the heart of the Government’s reform agenda. They are committed to introducing a statutory register of lobbyists. I welcome that commitment, despite there being opposing ideas from other individuals in the House and in Select Committees. I am pleased that the Government have stated that they will regulate lobbying by introducing a statutory register and ensuring greater transparency. Transparency in lobbying is important for building the public’s trust. Where lobbying is not transparent, it can erode public confidence in the political process—a problem we have seen time and again across a range of issues. Politics works better when legislators listen to the opinions not just of constituents but of interested parties such as businesses, charities, and a wide range of other organisations. That is why I intervened on the hon. Gentleman to probe him on the use of the word “commercial”. The world is more complex than a simple division between “commercial” and “non-commercial”, because several organisations fit within neither category.
Thomas Docherty
Perhaps it is my fault for not being clearer. I take the hon. Gentleman’s point, but the reason for using the word “commercial” rather than “financial” is that there is a very specific group of people who lobby on financial matters around the Treasury. Perhaps “professional” is a word that we could consider in more detail in Committee.
James Duddridge
I am happy to serve on the Bill Committee if we get to that stage. I will follow this process whether it be through this Bill or a Government Bill.
I think Members in all parts of the House feel that there is a need to have legislation on this subject, but also to get it right, because putting the wrong legislation in place that does not do the job could be more damaging than not acting at all. I am not sure that either “commercial” or “financial” is right. Probably, looking at international examples, we need to go into specific detail and potentially exempt organisations rather than define them in relation to the Bill. Sometimes when we go backwards and forwards in debating these issues in the Commons, we intuitively think, “No, those people shouldn’t be included”, but struggle to find a definition that excludes them. Instead of struggling with that problem, perhaps a better way forward is to exempt people, in the way the hon. Gentleman suggests lobbying MPs should be exempted.
Lobbying has a clear function. It allows the concerns of businesses, charities and voluntary organisations to be expressed, and it is perfectly acceptable in a modern democracy. It is not fair to say, as some do, that lobbying benefits only the advantaged. The hon. Gentleman referred to a fictional company, “Landmines R Us”, that we could all rally against. Equally, though, there are powerful lobby groups that represent the disadvantaged, Shelter being an obvious example. There are also charities that represent the third world and developing countries, not only helping them directly but lobbying Government for financial gain—not for themselves but for people in those countries. That is perfectly legitimate, and we would not want to exclude them or to put additional costs on to them as a result of this Bill.
There is much debate about the definition. The hon. Gentleman has prayed in aid the consensus among lobbyists on the definition, but I gently say to him that if we took the consensus of lobbyists on all issues we would not need this Bill. Lobbyists historically have got this issue wrong. They have not behaved well, as the hon. Gentleman’s example has ably demonstrated.
Thomas Docherty
The hon. Gentleman would be right if it was purely the lobbyists who want this, but, having met earlier this week representatives from Unlock Democracy—which has been one of the harshest critics, and rightly so, of lobbyists—I know that they are also satisfied with the definition of lobbying.
James Duddridge
I am not desperately familiar with Unlock Democracy, but I remember the name and having a disagreement with it over policy substance, so I suspect that the organisation does not share my views in totality. I am not sure that it is effective to pray in aid that organisation, among others.
Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)
As a point of interest, I understand that the organisation was born out of the Communist party and that it runs out of its old offices.
James Duddridge
I know that Labour Members have a deep background in socialist as well as Labour history, and I appreciate that some of them also have a deep background in and understanding of communist history, which certainly brings something to the House.
This debate has been well received. I was going to point out, slightly more aggressively, to the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife that Labour did not undertake anything to deal with this problem in 13 years of government, but that is unnecessary because we are building a broad consensus. However, those 13 years, as opposed to the timely debate on this Bill and the proposed Government legislation, put in context the time it has taken this Government to come up with some details, particularly considering that we are mindful of wanting to do the right thing slowly, rather than the wrong thing quickly.
I want to outline the background to the situation. I am sure there are many other examples like Invicta, but I do not want to go into them. Members of Parliament need to be very careful when dealing with such organisations. I was particularly interested to hear about Invicta’s manipulation, for want of a better word, of the political process by putting up candidates. I would encourage the hon. Gentleman to look at whether Government or Opposition Members contribute to the Invicta magazine and consider whether it is appropriate to share that information.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the Public Administration Committee, which produced an interesting report. It was kicked off in 2007 and published in January 2009, and the fact that it took so long is itself an indication that this is a complex subject. That is an exceptional amount of time to take over a report. I am not suggesting that the Committee was in any way tardy, but that this is a complicated subject and that the Committee took appropriate time to consider it.
The Committee identified five principles for the register of lobbying activity. The first is that it should be mandatory, and the report goes on to describe what that would mean. The report also says that
“it should cover all those outside the public sector”,
and defines exempt organisations, but even there we have to be careful. Under the previous Labour Government, commercial lobbyists were employed by quangos to lobby central Government. This Government feel that that is inappropriate for a financial reason. It may well also be inappropriate for reasons of transparency. If future Governments were to do as the previous Government did and used lobbyists to lobby other parts of the Government, surely they should be defined as being within rather than outside the public sector, so I disagree with the Committee in that respect, although the principle of defining people outside the public sector is a good one.
The Committee’s idea that the register
“should be managed and enforced by a body independent of both Government and lobbyists”
is also a good one. I reel with discomfort at the idea that the body should involve only lobbyists. It is important for corporate structure and governance to involve a wide range of people. I would encourage the body to include people not only from outside, but from within government, by which I mean from the civil service or, perhaps, the House of Commons, to give their perspective. One of the anecdotes used by the hon. Gentleman was that of someone roaming the corridors with a pass for one thing but lobbying on another. I do not think that anyone outside this place would envisage that type of problem, even if it is not too dissimilar from gaining entry to a tenement block. I think that a Member of Parliament, alongside a policy-related civil servant, would add an awful lot of value. When we set up these rules, we need to think about how a lobbyist or organisation would try to get round them. We have examples of organisations that have tried to get round the current best practices and rules and regulations.
The Committee also suggested that the register should include
“information of genuine potential value to the general public”.
Who should define that? I believe in open government and in the production of as much information as possible. Often, from the open-source viewpoint, the most valuable information produced is that whose value the Government have no idea about. It is for people outside this place and outside lobbying bodies to decide. I would be inclined to make the production of information as large as possible.
Earlier we debated who should be registered—whether it should be the body corporate or individuals. I was not convinced by the argument deployed by the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife that things have been sufficiently thought through. The examples of the finance director or board lobbying at a more senior level and a secretary or someone who had non-contact time but who worked in public affairs were not considered adequately. The hon. Gentleman spoke of some Members of Parliament accepting meetings with organisations directly, rather than lobbyists. I must admit, however, that when I go through my invites I am much more inclined to meet someone with a solid business title, such as a chief executive, a finance director or a regional head of a business, than someone whose title relates to public affairs or corporate affairs. Inadvertently, I suppose I am pulling those individuals into the lobbying sphere. I would worry if this Bill progressed and the code of conduct remained as defined by the hon. Gentleman. That would make it less likely for those chief executives and business leaders to be prepared to lobby me, because they would need the protection of having to go on the register, which would be very costly. They could not be fleet of foot. I had a meeting arranged with a chief executive earlier this week to discuss an issue. They wanted to lobby me and I wanted to hear about their industry, but their plane was delayed. They are based overseas and, according to the method that has been described, could not have sent someone else if they had not been on the register.
I am also unsure about individual registration—giving a “get out of jail free” card to some of the senior management. If someone lower down the organisation who is not registered inadvertently or purposefully lobbies, who is responsible? Is it the most senior person in the company who is on the register? Is it the company’s chief executive? These are not insurmountable problems; they can be overcome, but there are a few issues with the Bill.
The Public Administration Committee also proposed that certain information would need to be provided by lobbyists and by the target of their lobbying, in order to abide by the principles. The information includes
“the names of the individuals carrying out lobbying activity and of any organisation employing or hiring them”.
When I looked at the job titles at a couple of lobbying organisations, I found them a little confusing. I understand the titles “account director” and “senior manager”, but a lot of organisations are proud to hire “consultants”. I am not sure whether that is because they do not have the critical mass required or because they bring in additional people for certain clients. However, it is essential that we look at the consultants who work through such organisations. That is particularly relevant to the planning example.
I am not convinced that publication every three months is sufficient, because a lot can happen in three months. From my experience of lobbying, although an issue may be long standing for those in the relevant industry, it can crop up quite quickly. For example, the House of Commons can have an Opposition day debate that is announced only 48 hours in advance. We will receive a plethora of publications, some of which are produced not by full-time employees, but by a so-called consultant—somebody on the lobby firm’s books—whom they phone up. Such consultants are often people who are well connected to this place and who could lever that relationship for the most nefarious of purposes.
Thomas Docherty
I am listening to the hon. Gentleman attentively and he is making a lot of valid points. Does he agree that when Members of this House receive e-mails, for example from Mr Joe Bloggs, it would be appropriate for the person who sends them to be absolutely clear about who he is, whom he is representing and which company he works for? I am sure that the hon. Gentleman and you, Mr Speaker, have noticed that such details are often misleading at the moment.
James Duddridge
The hon. Gentleman’s suggestion is tempting. However, the detail might make it problematic. I would not want to do anything that put barriers between me and my constituents. Most of my constituents are good and proper people who are not trying to lobby me for commercial gain. I would not want to put barriers in their way by setting a higher test in order to guard against the activities of commercial organisations.
James Duddridge
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, particularly if he has a good way of overcoming that. Is there a way of giving greater protection, without making it harder for constituents to come to me? They might not want to declare who their employer is.
Thomas Docherty
Let me explain briefly what I mean. If a member of the APPC sends an e-mail on behalf of one of their clients, they have to put on the e-mail not only the client’s name, but their name, job title and company. Although most of us do not take the time to read the bottom of the e-mail, at least the information is there. It will say something like, “Timothy Bell, Weber Shandwick, Account Director” and give the address. In that way, Members are not confused or misled about whom the correspondence comes from.
James Duddridge
I accept that absolutely in relation to pure lobbying firms. However, I have been lobbied by individual constituents, but have been a little suspicious about whether their letters were written by an individual or an organisation because of the level of complexity and technical detail. On some occasions, the same individual has written with a level of detail and complexity on a number of issues. When I have sat down with those constituents, it has turned out that they have been encouraged to write by their employer or their employer’s organisation. We must differentiate between professional lobbyists and such people who represent an organisation and want to lobby us. I would accept the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion if we could do it in a way that did not disadvantage our constituents.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am interested by this line of argument. I wonder whether there should be a general exemption for constituents, because it would be quite hard for a lobbying organisation to find 650 people, one in each constituency, to lobby MPs individually, but nothing should be put in the way of constituents having direct access to their Member of Parliament.
James Duddridge
I thank my hon. Friend. I think that that is the first intervention that I have taken from him and I look forward to many more.
There is a great deal of complexity in this matter. The Royal Society of Chemistry has a great way of lobbying Members of Parliament. It does identify an individual who is on its membership for each Member of Parliament. My constituent came and had tea with me in the Pugin Room and said, “I do not want to lobby you on anything in particular, but hopefully you will be here for a few years—maybe four, maybe longer—so this is the beginning of an ongoing relationship.” That is a kind of hybrid example.
We need to consider these matters in a lot more detail. We have talked about considering the Bill in Committee, but there seems to be an increasing list of things that we must consider in Committee. I wonder whether the Bill has more flaws than can be resolved in Committee.
Philip Davies
As my hon. Friend knows, I agree with him on most issues, but I am in danger of parting company with him on this. I do not see the distinction that he sees between a constituent who works for an organisation and has been asked by it to lobby their local MP, and the public affairs manager for the same organisation who lobbies as many MPs as agree to see them. I do not see the great distinction that we should be so troubled about.
James Duddridge
The fact that this matter has driven my hon. Friend to disagree with me is evidence enough that it is complex. It is a criticism of the Bill as a whole if there is no shared understanding of how we should proceed on these matters.
The lobbying industry responded to the report of the Public Administration Committee in March 2010. The three main lobbying organisations were involved in that. I shall not repeat their names because the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife has given some background on them. There was an agreement to maintain a register of those engaged in lobbying and of the organisations and clients on whose behalf they lobby.
It is right that there is clarity on who the lobbyists are working for, particularly given the issue of what might happen in the last 15 minutes of the meeting. Lobbyists will sometimes start the meeting on a nice warm and cosy issue, and then hit the Member of Parliament with the landmines issue or, dare I say it, the nuclear issue—a harder subject that the Member of Parliament might be less likely to accept a meeting on when pressed for time.
Mr Nuttall
The promoter of the Bill made that point and my hon. Friend is repeating it. Surely a Member of Parliament is free to say, “I am sorry, but that issue is not the purpose of this meeting and I will end it there because I have other things to get on with.” They can then get up and go.
James Duddridge
My hon. Friend is right. However, he has as much experience of constituency meetings as I have, and will know that quite often, lobbyists come to meetings with constituents. If it is a meeting with somebody who is purely commercial, the Member of Parliament can say, “Sling your hook! We agreed to have a meeting for an hour on this subject and you are going off the subject and abusing the office and the time that I gave you.” However, I have occasionally found myself, perhaps wrongly, allowing an issue to be raised because a constituent is there and is happy for it to be discussed.
Philip Davies
To probe my hon. Friend further, will he tell the House what is the problem with listening to a point of view on a subject other than the agreed subject? It is as if lobbying is a bad thing. Surely lobbying is a good thing if it helps us to understand a point of view a bit better. What is the harm in listening? We do not have to agree or sympathise with a given point of view.
James Duddridge
My hon. Friend makes a good point. However, the promoter of the Bill was referring to systematic abuse. He was not talking about somebody saying, “While I’m here, can we discuss X or Y, rather than arrange a second meeting?” He was talking about the sole purpose of the original meeting being to gain entry into the MP’s office to raise an issue that they had not agreed to discuss.
I prepare quite heavily for meetings with constituents or lobbying organisations, because I do not want to be bamboozled by special interests, but want to be sure that I have an independent view on the subject. If the meeting is hijacked, there is no time for such preparation or to give a good view. When I have meetings, I want to be able to summarise the matter and take a view, rather than saying, “Let me go away and think about it.”
Thomas Docherty
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s courtesy. He and the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) are both courteous individuals, but such courtesy is part of the problem and many Members of the House might feel uncomfortable in being as robust as they have suggested that they would be. Some might feel trapped into the last 10 or 15 minutes of a meeting because they would not want to say—to use a colloquialism—“sling your hook!” That is the point; people should not feel trapped or ambushed.
James Duddridge
With the House’s permission, I will accept that comment and move on. This is a broad Bill, and having criticised the House for moving to a general debate, I want to focus specifically on the Bill.
The proposed register does not intend to capture or deter any range of activities essential to a vibrant democracy. I fear, however, that too much bureaucracy will lead people not to come forward to discuss issues with Members of Parliament. In fact, some of the most useful lobbying is very informal. For example, if an issue is raised in the House about the health service, I might be more likely to have a chat to my local GP or those at the local primary health trust, because I know their capabilities and biases and can filter those as appropriate, than to go to a lobby organisation directly. Some of the most effective lobbying will be totally off the register and therefore outside the remit under discussion.
The costs of the consultation have been mentioned and I am deeply concerned about those costs and their impacts. Just because something is of moderate cost to the Cabinet Office, it should not be brushed aside as insignificant. There is a direct cost to the Government that must be funded by the taxpayer, and even more importantly I am concerned about the cost to business. That is not because I am particularly pro-business for the sake of it, but businesses employ people and have consumers. At the end of the day, business cost must be transferred in some way, shape or form, either to shareholders—that is our pension fund and nation’s prosperity—or to consumers. The price of a packet of bourbon biscuits will go up at Asda, however marginally.
We must remember that lobbyists are business people as well. We have said that lobbying is a legitimate activity, but the provisions represent a big barrier to entry. A small business owner who, for argument’s sake, acts in a consultancy in a particular sector, might find that they are increasingly asked for public relations advice by the press. That might not be their core competence, although they might do a bit of it. Where does the barrier between public relations and public affairs end and start? I want people who run small businesses to be able to evolve their business over time. We need some type of de minimis threshold for a business to be allowed to operate within a public affairs arena.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way once again. He is absolutely right on this issue. A compulsory levy for an organisation is a hypothecated tax, but a tax none the less, and we are therefore talking about a tax on business. This House should be very wary about increasing the burden of taxation in this country.
James Duddridge
I totally agree with my hon. Friend and I cannot evidence in the Bill any thought or consideration of different sizes of businesses. There is a massive difference between Asda or the might of a FTSE 100 company that might be involved in lobbying, and one or two individual businesses. There is no consideration of whether the fee should be fixed for all businesses, fixed per person, or be a threshold to allow businesses to move into the sector without signing up. There is no consideration of corporate structures. Gone are the days where we have one simple limited company or one simple plc. Many companies have subsidiaries, are wholly owned, separately floated or floated in different jurisdictions. There is a whole level of complexity that will make some details of the Bill difficult to iron out.
There are also difficulties in relation to an organisation that is trying to get round some of the proposed rules. People are not always well meaning and will look for holes in the legislation and see whether they can register offshore, have consultants or separate out the lobbying into a subsidiary area. They will see whether they can disguise what they are doing and define their lobbying activity by way of a consultation or public relations, rather than public affairs.
The consultation said that a number of questions had been raised, such as the definition of lobbying and lobbyists. I am concerned about that and about who will be included and excluded in the register. It strikes me, for example, that trade unions should form part of the provisions. One clear role of a trade union is to lobby organisations and the Government for better working conditions, pay and arrangements, and that is quite proper and a healthy part of democracy. Clearly, trade unions are lobbyists, but they are certainly not commercial and nor, on the other end of the scale, are they charities. They do not belong to those two categories and are neither one thing nor the other. We need to define that, and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) that we have not done that.
John Stevenson
Does my hon. Friend agree that one fundamental flaw with the Bill is that it contains no specific definition of lobbyist?
James Duddridge
Absolutely, and I would not want to see the Bill go into Committee without such a definition. I would want the Government to define what a lobbyist is—perhaps the way forward is to define a lobbyist by what it is not, rather than by what it is, so that we have absolute certainty that certain organisations will be exempt from the provisions. I am sure that we will have a debate; I am sure Labour Members will want trade unions to be exempt from the register, although I would quite like them to remain on it. We might wish to give preference to and exempt some trade organisations, but we will want others to be very much part of such a register so that we have the transparency sought by the Bill.
I was glad that the consultation received more than 260 responses. Lord Wallace of Saltaire from the other place has eloquently summarised the feedback. At one point, the Government summary of replies to the consultation document states
“in effect, a lot of those consulted regard themselves as a legitimate part of the political process but regard everybody else as lobbyists”.
That is spot on, and quite often people who come to us talk in similar language. Lord Wallace said that although there is need for reform,
“there is a quite remarkable dissensus among respondents”
I was unfamiliar with the word “dissensus”, but I can work out what he means and I broadly agree with his conclusion.
I look forward to seeing the Government response to the consultation. I believe that some of the inputs to the consultation have been published, but I could not find that, so I assume the Government have not yet responded, given that the consultation was in January 2012—[Interruption.] The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith) is kindly passing me a document, but I am unclear whether it is a summary of responses or the Government position. Flipping through, it seems to be the summary of responses, rather than the Government response to those responses.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Miss Chloe Smith)
indicated assent.
James Duddridge
My hon. Friend nods and I am grateful to her. I have looked at part of those responses, although not at them all. Perhaps in her concluding remarks she will indicate when the Government will respond to the consultation as that would be helpful for the House. I would certainly find it interesting to read the Government’s response alongside the summary of responses to the Cabinet Office consultation document, “Introducing a Statutory Register of Lobbyists”. The majority of respondents welcomed the Government’s commitment to achieve greater transparency and were supportive of a statutory register of lobby interests. However, there was a definite overlap between the responses on definition and scope; the definition presented a particular issue for many respondents and there was a widespread recognition that arriving at the right definition would be fundamental to the register’s effectiveness. The Bill completely sidesteps that issue, despite making an attempt to define lobbying.
The overarching theme that emerged from the consultation was that the proposed definition was narrow, and a number of respondents stressed that until the definition was clear, it would be difficult to determine other factors raised by the subsequent questions, especially scope. There was also considerable support for consistency in application to ensure equal treatment of all parties. In keeping with the emerging theme on definition, the predominant view expressed under the question of scope was that a wider scope was preferred but that that should not result in disproportionate burdens. That is very difficult to do; I suspect that a balancing act will be needed in relation to scope, and what is in the code and who should be subject to it.
There was general consensus among respondents that it was difficult to address the question of the information to be provided without clarity on definition and scope. The majority of respondents favoured the disclosure of financial information alongside other information. Such an approach is entirely right; it is insufficient simply to say, “You are lobbying on behalf of A, B or C.” Although I said that more information should be available, people can become bogged down by information if we are talking simply about volume over a small number of categories and they might not be able to see the bigger picture. One can imagine lobbyists listing client upon client and our then finding that they are billing some of them only a few thousand pounds, whereas they might be charging some of the bigger clients £1 million. Such information allows us to estimate the size of the work that they are doing, which then allows people to track things down. They can ask, “Why are X, Y and Z companies getting £1 million? Why are they on a £1 million retainer for this?” People would be able to examine the marketplace, see what lobbying activity they have said they have done and see press speculation. If there is any gap, people could investigate further, so that information would be very useful.
We have already discussed when the register should be updated. The idea of a formal publication quarterly could work, although we could force people to register slightly earlier and put things on the internet. The idea that we should have a quarterly written publication that is produced and pumped out to all interested parties is somewhat old-fashioned. It would be quite possible to have a rolling register on the internet. That may be more appropriate, even if it were to contain only a rolling number of names of individuals and amounts, prior to a formal publication each quarter, if indeed that were needed. In the case of some of the specific examples discussed today, it would be essential—this is more than a preference—for us to have that information on a regular basis.
We have already discussed funding, so I will not detain the House any longer on that. Interestingly, there was support for strong sanctions to apply to those on the register, so we must ask what happens when things go wrong. We have not debated that at great length, but it goes to the heart of the matter. If someone could carry on acting in the same way, there would be little point in the register. This is not a monitoring exercise. We should not feel better about ourselves just because we catch people doing wrong—or what we perceive to be wrong. That is what we legislate for; this should be about improving the quality of democracy. We need to consider the sanctions. We need to consider how we fine people and whether it is purely a matter for the lobbying registration council or whether the state should take a greater view. Are we going to say that in some cases it is a criminal offence to do certain things in respect of lobbying rather than saying that it is an offence against the lobbying registration council that will be punished internally? Are we saying that the law is sufficient at the moment? This matter is crucial and, as on the code of conduct, it will be incumbent on the Government when they publish a draft Bill to give us a copy of the documents that they are proposing, even if some of the detail is not included and even if the documents are only in draft. Without that information it will be very hard to see from the Government Bill whether it is indeed the appropriate way forward. Cross-party support would be encouraged by the publication of as much information as possible, particularly on the issue of sanctions, which has not been touched on during this debate.
I was going to go into more detail on the definition of lobbying, but I do not wish to do that now as we have covered a lot of that territory. However, I would like to caution against accepting the lobby industry’s definition of lobbying. Clearly, if the industry had been operating well, properly and transparently in the interests of democracy, we would not be here today. So it is somewhat ludicrous simply to say, “Well it is agreed by the industry” and then move forward.
Clause 4(2) exempts the activities of Members of Parliament from the definition of lobbying, and I very much welcome that. Clause 3(3) deals with the issue of passes, and I was disappointed that the words
“or former member of either House”
found their way into the Bill. I listened to the reasons that the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife gave, and I think he disagrees with that provision but left it in the Bill out of courtesy to other Committees of the House that were considering it. It would be wholly inappropriate if the duties we put on a lobbyist—someone trying to lobby this current House—were less for a ex-Member of either House than for a member of the public. Someone is either a Member of Parliament or an ex-Member of Parliament, and I do not think we should blur the lines on lobbying.
I have outlined the case for caution, and I wish to discuss the arrangements in other countries. However, for the sake of the debate, before I do so I shall touch on issues in the United Kingdom. The UK has a specific problem with commercial lobbying in the House of Commons, and it relates to all-party groups. We have not discussed this matter in detail, but we have touched on it tangentially. I am sure that many of us here are members of all-party groups, which provide a strong function for the House of Commons, despite confusion among the public as to what an all-party group does and what a Select Committee does. Sometimes, these groups are sparsely attended by MPs and Lords, but are very professional operations, and sometimes at their heart are industry lobbyists.
I was once surprised in Parliament to bump into an old friend with an interest in politics, because I thought they worked in outside industry. They were not of an age at which I would have expected them to be an intern, and neither were they one of the more senior staff members. I could not see their pass, so I asked, “What brings you here?” They turned it around, and it was a blue pass. I am not sure if you are familiar with blue passes, Mr Speaker, but they are for all-party groups. This individual was paid by an external lobbying organisation and had a House of Commons pass not issued by an MP. I am not sure who issues them.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
Is it not astonishing that all-party groups are issued with passes, but our colleagues in the European Parliament are not?
James Duddridge
I will not be tempted down that line, because I suspect I take a different view in relation to MEPs. It would be an interesting but fruitless tangent to this debate.
It is shocking that people can get passes as staff of all-party groups. If I was a chair or senior officer of an all-party group and had a spare pass—we are allocated three or four passes—and, in my name and on my authority, granted it to an individual working for an all-party group, that would be fine. I would be taking personal responsibility for their behaviour on the estate; such people would be representatives of parliamentarians. It is wrong, however, that paid lobbyists have passes not signed off by an MP. Our passes are rationed, as we can issue only three or four, so I have to decide, for instance, whether to issue one to my caseworker who occasionally comes up from Southend. As well as rationing, there must be a proper analysis of what passholders are doing here.
On 2 January, The Times published an interesting investigation into the funding of all-party groups that again raised the issue of defining lobbying. In some cases, organisations have good reasons for funding all-party groups; for instance, they might want a genuine debate on their broad subject area. I am sure, however, that we have all felt uncomfortable about the dominance of funding in certain all-party groups or about what the secretariat was doing—who is it representing, is it genuinely representing the Lords and MPs or the people who pay the secretariat?
Having said that, it would be inappropriate to throw out all the secretariats and financial relationships. For instance, I spend a lot of time on African issues, many of which cannot easily be funded by commercial organisations or the countries themselves, and in those cases it is entirely appropriate to have academic institutions funding secretariats. I am less comfortable, however, with big businesses funding such arrangements. The Times thought that at least a dozen all-party groups had received funding or benefits from outside organisations in the past 12 months, with the amounts involved totalling more than £1 million a year.
I think that Members might be sleepwalking towards potential problems. A couple of times, I have been asked to sign up to an all-party group of perhaps tangential interest to me or my constituency. On those occasions, I have lent my name to the group with the intention of attending perhaps only one or two meetings a year, but these groups meet regularly and churn out reports that are perceived to carry the authority of the House of Commons. Quite often in the morning, Radio 4 will mention a report from the House of Commons. Sometimes, it refers to a Select Committee report, but sometimes I think, “That’s a little odd; the Committee wouldn’t have said that,” and it turns out to be an all-party group funded by outside support. Given our limited resources for members of staff, it is often only with outside support that we can produce an extensive paper.
I would therefore like the Bill to take account of all-party groups. I have raised the issue of blue passes and have tabled a few probing written questions about the number of people involved.
Thomas Docherty
I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s comments. May I propose, because he is making some valid observations, that he write to the PAC, which, as I said, will shortly be examining the issue of passes and resources provided by the House to all-party groups?
James Duddridge
I will certainly discuss it with the PAC, but I think it odd when MPs give evidence to other MPs; there are more eloquent ways to do it than through formal evidence. If a written submission would be helpful, however, I would be more than happy to make one.
James Duddridge
The hon. Gentleman indicates that it would be helpful, so I undertake to do so.
Let me return to the issue of commercial lobbying and the experience from outside the UK. There is a wealth of information about what happens elsewhere. I have looked at the history of how other countries have developed their commercial register and the problems they have encountered. In virtually every case I have come across three or four problems, not only for the implementation of this Bill, but for the broader issue of establishing a register, which is a commitment from the coalition.
Mr Nuttall
Does my hon. Friend agree that the conclusions he has drawn from the experience in other countries support my view that we would be better off not having a register at all?
James Duddridge
I certainly agree that we are better off not having a register than having one on a flawed basis. Just because it is complicated, it does not follow that we should not try; but if we try, yet fail to deal with the complexity, I will certainly support my hon Friend’s view that we should not proceed.
I hope that I do not further agitate my hon. Friends on the Benches behind me by mentioning the European Parliament and the European Commission, which have a transparency register—it is rather like a people’s democratic republic, which will normally do the opposite of what it says on the tin. The transparency register builds on earlier, separate registers from the European Parliament and the Commission, and was launched on 23 June 2011 to register and monitor organisations and self-employed individuals engaged in EU policy making and policy implementation. I am amazed at the number of people of my age who seem to flit backwards and forward from here to Brussels lobbying. These are not people who are interested in politics or specialist EU lawyers; they are people from mainstream organisations and industry specialists who are having to spend more and more time with the European Parliament and the Commission.
Mr Nuttall
It appears from the definition of lobbying in clause 4(1) that a company that was set up in this country for the purposes of lobbying Members of the European Parliament would not need to register. Does my hon. Friend think that is right?
James Duddridge
I am a little confused. I stand to be corrected, but I think that such a company would need to register while we remained part of the European Union. Interestingly, the register there is free, so the European Union is looking at getting the maximum amount of information and funding that from general taxation—our taxation.
Philip Davies
I should point out—I suppose this is an indication of how confusing the issue is—that my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) makes a valid point, because the definition of lobbying in clause 4 refers to
“activity carried out in the course of a business or employment which are undertaken for financial gain and are designed to influence the Government of the United Kingdom, Parliament, any local authority in England or any member or employee of any of those bodies in formulating its official policy.”
Surely it is clear from that definition that what my hon. Friend said about the register not applying to people working with the European Parliament is correct.
James Duddridge
I now understand the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) was making. My hon. Friends are absolutely right: under this Bill, there is nothing to compel an organisation from the United Kingdom—or, indeed, anywhere else—that lobbies the European Parliament. I wonder whether, because of the nature of the European Parliament’s rules, there are any EU regulations about that. Logically, I expect that we would be forced by some directive to push it through by the back door; otherwise, if each country did not have to abide by it, such a register would be pretty meaningless.
Thomas Docherty
I think we are all fascinated by the hon. Gentleman’s contribution, but I suspect that we are in danger of losing track of time. Has he had a chance to look at the Order Paper? If so, has he seen that we might, quite inadvertently, accidentally talk out a subsequent Bill for which there is a great deal of public support?
James Duddridge
I fully understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. I can assure him unequivocally that I will not speak for anywhere near as long as he did. It is quite common in this place to have certain individuals—I shall not name them—shamelessly talking Bills out, but never before have I seen an hon. Member trying to talk out his own Bill. I ask him to intervene on me again if I get anywhere close to the length of his speech.
I will try to be brief, but there are a number of countries with really interesting examples. Just before I leave the subject of European Union, I want to point out that it has gone for a wide scope, yet it leaves out certain organisations, one category of which is described as “social partners”. I was not quite sure what social partners were, particularly in the light of the debate that we will have next Tuesday, but it turns out that they include trade unions and trade associations, both of which I would like to see included in the register. So if four or five companies in, say, the concrete industry had their own lobbying organisations, those organisations would have to be on the register, but if they spent the same money employing a trade association to do the same job, that trade association would not have to be on the register. That is absolutely bonkers, but it illustrates how the European Parliament has done what I fear the Bill might do, and what the Government might be tempted to do. I fear that, in the interest of trying to do the right thing, they might actually cause a lot more confusion and complexity. I could go on about the specific information requirements. An annual information update is required, yet I get the feeling that hon. Members think that a quarterly update is insufficient.
Turning to the regulations in the United States, I am amazed by their detail and complexity. They make the EU look almost lightweight in comparison.
James Duddridge
Yes; I look forward to hearing more information about the Communist party.
Mark Tami
I have nothing more to add on the Communist party at the moment. The hon. Gentleman has mentioned the US. Does he agree that its regulations go to ludicrous lengths? I understand, for instance, that people are not allowed to have a sit-down meal with a lobbyist, although they are allowed to eat finger food. They are not, however, allowed to eat that food with a fork, because that would constitute a meal. They also have to wear badges with an L on, to identify them as lobbyists. Does he think that that is going too far?
James Duddridge
The hon. Gentleman’s research into this subject is much greater than mine. The arrangements are even more ludicrous than I had thought. Even here in the UK we have some ludicrous examples. One person on the Greater London assembly has told me that, when they are invited out to lunch with someone who might be a friend but who might also be lobbying them, they look down the menu and pick whatever ensures that they stay below the threshold, simply to avoid the administrative hassle, rather than to avoid declaring the relationship. All sorts of odd scenarios come about because of the level of complexity in the regulations.
Gone are the days of companies being in just one jurisdiction. British companies already bear the burdens of EU requirements—I am not quite sure how—and of US regulations. These provisions would be an additional issue for them. They would not be incremental additions; they would create added complexity as all the different requirements were put together.
One area in which the Americans have got it right is setting out details of punishment for people who do not comply with the regulations. The Bill does not touch on that matter, and it has not been discussed today. Turning to neighbouring Canada, its first attempt to regulate lobbying was the Lobbyists Registration Act, which came into force in 1989. It was not the first such attempt in the world; I will come to the Australian example later, if time permits. That 1989 Act provided for the public registration of individuals paid to lobby public office holders. It covered consultant lobbyists, commercial in-house lobbyists and not-for-profit organisations. It is interesting that it included that last category; the Bill does not do so, and I think that that area needs much greater consideration, particularly as not-for-profit organisations sometimes have commercial arms that cross-subsidise their other work. The lines between each type of work are often unclear.
In Australia, the first attempt at regulating the lobbying industry was the lobbyist registration scheme of 1983. The scheme set up two confidential registers: one for lobbyists representing foreign clients and a general one for lobbyists representing domestic clients. It is fascinating to think about how that worked; I cannot really see the need for two registers. The scheme required lobbyists to apply to register each time they took on a client and to give a short description of the task undertaken. Although I like the idea of having ample information, I am concerned that some of it might be commercially sensitive. A lobbying organisation might want to speak to the Government and other people about a new product and how it would fit in within existing legislation, but might not want to give competitors an idea of what exactly is going on.
The Australian example—we should remember that this is the most long-standing example of a commercial register—becomes very interesting when it comes to the definition of a lobbyist. A lobbyist is defined as
“any person, company or organisation who conducts lobbying activities on behalf of a third party client or whose employees conduct lobbying activities on behalf of a third party client”.
The definition goes on, however, to state what is not included. This is something that I have said this Bill should do—exempt certain organisations from its scope. Priests were mentioned earlier, and religious organisations are exempt in this case, as are charitable organisations. However, there is a confusing reference to
“funds that are endorsed as deductible gift recipients”.
To be frank, I am not entirely sure what the implications are. An example that I had not thought of was
“members of trade delegations visiting Australia”.
If Australian Members of Parliament came to the UK to encourage us to invest more in Australia, would they have to register under the Bill? Clearly, there was an issue with delegations coming in to Australia, and I think we should look at the same point.
Before I conclude, I would like to mention some other organisations that have registers and some of the issues they face, as a way of probing some of the complexity and detail that surrounds any register. The General Dental Council, for example, is governed by the Dentists Act 1984, which provides for a criminal offence punishable by a fine of up to £5,000. This Bill, however, which is not self-regulatory, does not state what the fines will be or, indeed, whether there will be a criminal fine at all. Costs to the GDC are about £24 million, but we have had no indication of the cost of the commercial lobbyist register; nobody has provided any information. One of the weaknesses of private Members’ Bills, alongside their many benefits, is that there is no regulatory assessment and no clear statement of the burdens placed on businesses. It is clear in the case of this Bill that there will be significant costs. There are about 38,000 dentists, but no one has identified how many lobbyists there are, and this is particularly worrying given the lack of clarity over whether chief executives, finance directors or secretaries of public affairs departments need to register. The size of the register has not been considered.
Ofsted is another interesting example. A vast number of cases and concerns—whole processes—are at issue, including failing to comply with a register, but we have not probed or even touched on those points in this debate. If we allow this Bill to pass, I wonder whether we will be in Committee for ever.
I promised not to speak as long as the Bill’s promoter, the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife, did. I congratulate him on securing the opportunity to debate this Bill today, which has been incredibly useful. I am sure that the Minister and her Department will have listened to the points that the hon. Gentleman and other colleagues have raised. Our debate should be informative and contribute to shaping the Government’s response to the more formal consultation. I urge the hon. Gentleman, now that he has listened to the debate, not to press for a vote, to withdraw his Bill and to seek reassurances from the Minister that the Government are taking the issues forward in a proper and timely way.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
It is appropriate for me to follow the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge). In his comprehensive speech, he raised some questions about Labour’s position, which I shall be happy to set out. Let me begin, however, by saying that I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) has given the House an opportunity to debate this important issue—an opportunity that the Government seem strangely reluctant to provide, as we shall see.
I am sure all Members agree that lobbying is an essential part of a democratic system. We have all been lobbied, and, as we have heard, we all lobby, on behalf of our constituents and in favour of causes that we care about. At its best, lobbying gives diverse sections of our diverse democracy—groups and individuals—an opportunity to make their voices heard, and therefore makes for better, and better-informed, Government decisions. I am sure the House agrees that that is in all our interests. However, as the Prime Minister has infamously said, lobbying
“is the next…scandal waiting to happen.”
Foresight is not necessarily a quality that we associate with the Prime Minister. For example, he foresaw the end of the Conservative party’s “banging on” about Europe. On this occasion, however, he was correct, although he did not say whether he foresaw himself being at the centre of those lobbying scandals.
During the past two years, there has been a string of disreputable stories. We have had opaque links with special advisers in certain well-known news organisations, we have had the Adam Werrritty affair, and we have had cosy “kitchen suppers” in Downing street. I am told that a “kitchen supper” is a meal without the servants and the silver; I suppose that, to that extent, I have been having kitchen suppers all my life without knowing it. Stories of that kind fuel a public perception that those who can afford it have access and influence at the very highest levels, whereas ordinary people are left on the outside looking in.
Ours is a divided nation: divided by access to power. On this side of the House, our one nation vision is one in which politics is open to all and transparent to all, in which political lobbying companies and corporate interests do not boast of having special influence in Downing street, and in which Government Departments do not summarise the views of more than 1,000 people who have responded to a consultation—ironically, on lobbying—under a single heading, next to a list of separate summaries of the views of individual corporate respondents. I hope that the Minister can explain how that happened.
Only this week, we heard of big alcohol companies pouring money into lobbying agencies in an attempt to influence the debate on minimum pricing, which is an important health issue. Their tactics were described by Alcohol Concern as similar to those of the tobacco industry, designed to
“mislead, bully and spend their way to a policy change.”
At the same time, health charities on the other side of the debate about minimum pricing have seen their funding cut.
Politicians in this country have yet to repair the damage done to public confidence by the expenses scandal. Part of the process of doing so must involve a Parliament that represents the interests, and therefore the influence, of the many, not the few.
Let me now deal specifically with the Bill. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife for introducing it. We believe that some issues, several of which have been raised today, would benefit from further parliamentary scrutiny. It is essential that any legislation does not interfere with, or put undue burdens on, the legitimate activities of businesses, charities, consumer organisations or constituents, and some Members have given examples of how that might happen. Consequences, intended and otherwise, especially in respect of local authorities, must be thoroughly examined in Committee.
We support the aims and much of the substance of the Bill, however. The last Labour Government were the most open and transparent Government ever. The Labour party opened up Government by introducing the Freedom of Information Act, created a code of conduct for special advisers, introduced and strengthened the ministerial code, and published the private interests of Members on a six-monthly basis. When we left office in 2010, we had committed to introducing a statutory register of lobbyists, requiring people to register as lobbyists and also to register the identities of their clients. That is not a particularly radical idea; many democracies have similar registers of varying depth and breadth.
We know that a London loophole has developed for the financial industry. I understand that some lobbying organisations choose to lobby from London because of the lack of transparency here. I hope the Minister agrees that we do not want London to become a destination for obfuscation.
James Duddridge
Does the hon. Lady have any relevant examples that she can mention of organisations that have been set up in London rather than another jurisdiction?
Chi Onwurah
I do not feel it is appropriate to mention the names that have been presented to me of organisations set up in London to lobby in the United States—I can give that much information. If the hon. Gentleman is particularly interested, I will take advice and will happily write to him later if doing so does not breach the confidence of the person who shared that information with me.
We wholeheartedly agree that lobbyists play an important role in our democracy. Individuals, charities and business must have open access to Government, and that access should not be impeded by legislation. However, that access should also be transparent, and any register should not impede that.
Lobbying is not, and should not be considered to be, a murky or disreputable business that takes place in the shadows. It is in the interests of the lobbying industry to put that reputation behind it, and a Bill such as this one would help it to do so.
I think all Members on both sides of the House agree on the principles and that a register is necessary.
Chi Onwurah
With some honourable exceptions, we agree on the principles and that a register is necessary. That was in the coalition agreement and it was in our manifesto. [Interruption.] There may be some disunity as to what is supported in the coalition agreement, but it sets out the original intentions of the coalition, as cemented in the rose garden those many months ago. [Interruption.] Yes, cemented with roses. I apologise for the mixed metaphor.
As we have heard, it is important that we have the right register and the right regime behind it. The Bill goes much of the way to getting us where we need to be. It is important that there is no cost to the taxpayer. A register should therefore be funded by industry and it should comprise all those who lobby, including agencies and in-house lobbyists. Although meetings with third-party lobbyists make up less than 1% of all meetings with Ministers, they allow vested interests to hide their lobbying activity from the public eye. We therefore support the inclusion of a code of conduct. It is necessary if the register is to be enforceable, as my hon. Friend set out, and it is sensible that it be drawn up by an industry council. A model similar to that of the General Medical Council seems appropriate, but these are details to be discussed in Committee.
I am puzzled as to why we have been waiting so long on an issue on which there is relative agreement on the main principles. We are mid-way through this Parliament and we have yet to see any legislation. I read the Government’s own mid-term review with interest. The commitment to a statutory register is there, repeated on page 39, although with no further details about when or what it might look like—a commitment with no action associated with it. The commitment was in the same box as the boundary review. Those of us on the Opposition Benches are beginning to wonder whether the Government’s plans for the register have gone the same way as those for the boundary review. We sincerely hope that is not the case. Whatever the reason, it is unfortunate that here we are, halfway through this Parliament, yet the Government have not introduced their own Bill and continue to drag their feet on doing so.
The 2010 Labour manifesto pledged to bring forward statutory registration. The Conservative manifesto pledged to do so if the lobbying industry failed to regulate itself. The lobbying industry was already, as it were, drinking in the last chance saloon prior to the last election, so even then the Conservatives were a step behind. Conservative Members seem to think the last chance saloon never closes.
I cannot help but draw parallels between the Government’s inaction on lobbying and their inaction on the Leveson inquiry—two industries that are a vital part of the democratic system, two industries that have repeatedly been the sources of scandals that undermine public confidence, two industries untouched by Government action. As with the media, the Government seem to be ordering the lobbying industry yet another round of cocktails in the last chance saloon, only it is our democracy which is paying the bill.
Shortly after the election Sir Philip Mawer, chairman of the UKPAC implementation group, said that lobbyists are fooling themselves if they expect a respite in politicians’ scrutiny of the industry. I pay tribute to Sir Philip and his efforts, but perhaps he reckoned without this Government’s complacency two and a half years later.
I am conscious of time—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]—as are other right hon. and hon. Members. I am also eager to hear what the Minister and other Members have to say, but I have one or two questions before I conclude. I am keen for an update on what the Government have done since the consultation closed. I note that the Cabinet Office business plan commits to publishing a White Paper and legislation on establishing a statutory register for lobbyists by March 2013. A week may be a long time in politics, but that still does not leave the Minister much time to meet her own deadline. Unfortunately for the Government, this is not a leap year; we have just 28 days. On which of those days can we expect to see this draft legislation? Does the Minister have a long-term timetable for introducing the Government’s legislation, or will they use this Bill to meet their commitments? I am also eager to hear the Minister’s thoughts on what a register should look like. Do the Government support a code of conduct? Do they envisage including details of what companies are lobbying on, who their clients are and how much is being spent?
We need a statutory register of lobbyists. That has cross-party support, and in the absence of any action from this Government, we would welcome the Bill and support its progression.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
I listened with interest to the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah). She gave the impression that she was impatient for Government action, but made no mention of the fact that the Labour party was in power for 13 years and had plenty of opportunity to legislate if it thought that this matter was so important.
Chi Onwurah
The Labour party in government consulted on a statutory register and, as I said, made it clear that the lobbying industry was drinking in the last chance saloon. It took some time to reach that position. Is the hon. Gentleman saying that there is not enough time in the current slightly open legislative programme for this Government to build on that, or is he saying that he disagrees with the conclusion that we came to?
Mr Nuttall
I start from the position that we jumped into this debate this morning and overlooked whether we needed a register in the first place. It seemed to be accepted from the moment that the debate started nearly three hours ago that it was all about how one defines a lobbyist and lobbying, whereas I want to start with what is the problem. The Bill’s promoter cited one or two specific instances that he was concerned about, but as always I would argue that one or two cases make bad law. We should not pick on one or two instances, which seemed to border on criminal behaviour, to claim that the solution is to introduce a register for lobbyists. Just as we cannot rid society of theft or burglary by making them criminal offences, if there is a problem with lobbying and lobbyists the answer is not to provide yet more regulation. It is almost as though legislators look around society to find a group that is not legislated for and then come up with a scheme to bring them under the control of the legislature.
On Friday mornings, Back-Bench Government Members will often try to pilot through a Government handout Bill; it is somewhat more surprising to see an Opposition Member promoting a Bill that is broadly in line with the coalition programme for government, although I accept that there are differences.
Mr Nuttall
As ever, the hon. Gentleman is trying to be helpful to the Government.
James Duddridge
Has my hon. Friend noted that the Government need help in this regard? At no point today have our coalition partner Members of Parliament been here to offer support; none have wandered through the Chamber, taken interventions or made speeches. Exactly the same thing happened last Friday, when they were also completely absent.
Mr Nuttall
Those Members must answer for their absence, but it would have been interesting to hear the views of our coalition partners on this matter. They have been absent this morning, so we can only guess at their views.
I am not clear what the problem is. My postbag is not overflowing with complaints about lobbying, although it is overflowing with opinions about lots of other matters, some of which are being discussed next Tuesday. I have been involved in politics for more than 30 years, and I can honestly say that in all that time I do not recall a single occasion when anybody brought to my attention a complaint about lobbying or lobbyists. I fail to see why the issue is such a big problem in our society.
There is a problem with the whole principle of the Bill, and its benefits are not clear. It was said earlier that this debate—and this is a good thing, to some extent—had become a general one about lobbying rather than a traditional Second Reading debate. I submit that that is because, although the Bill appears at first sight to contain lots of detail, it is in fact extremely vague. Much of the Bill raises more questions than it answers. All the way along, we are told that the answers will come further down the line and that we will find out in the fullness of time all the details about which I have questions. Even if I agreed with the principle of the Bill, which I do not, I would think that any Bill that left open as much to future legislation and definition, by way of orders and regulations through statutory instruments, as this one does should not proceed into Committee.
Clause 1 defines what is meant by “lobbying” in terms of the public register, and the purpose of the Bill is to establish such a register. It states:
“There shall be a register of organisations and individuals who carry out lobbying of Parliament, the Government and local authorities for financial gain, which shall be made public.”
We have not heard about the influence of all the quangos. In many spheres of life, the Government have effectively palmed off responsibility for regulation and control to third-party organisations—quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations—that govern so many areas of life today. Many of the decisions that they make are just as important as the decisions made by Ministers or Departments.
Philip Davies
I agree with my hon. Friend. On a similar theme, he might like to comment on the civil service. We have all seen in “Yes Minister” how the civil service lobbies the Government in a surreptitious manner to try to protect its interests. Perhaps, on that basis, it might need to be placed on the register.
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend makes a good point. It is probably common ground among Members on both sides of the House and from all parties that when one arrives in this place one soon begins to realise that the real power lies with the civil service. In fact, it is often the civil servants the lobbyists want to see, because they know that influencing the thinking of the civil service can be far more effective than, for example, influencing what a Back-Bench Member of this House may think.
I cannot see what would be the benefit to society of having a register of lobbyists. I can see lots of downsides, but I cannot see its purpose. Would it really be the case that every time somebody rang up to make an appointment with a Member, they, or their staff, would bother to consult it? It just would not happen, and even if it did, I cannot see what the purpose would be. Members of the lobbying profession are often, by definition, in the business of promoting themselves. Their websites often contain huge lists of their clients; it is not as though they are trying to hide on whose behalf they are acting. When somebody rings up, one knows straight away, or can quickly find out by asking one or two questions, on whose behalf they are calling. I am not confident that there would be any real use in having such a register.
That brings me on to the question of how the register would be arranged and organised and, more importantly, who would keep it. The Bill suggests that a new organisation, the lobbying registration council—not a new quango but a new industry-funded body—would be responsible for maintaining and supervising the register and keeping it up to date. However, we have no idea of what particulars would be entered on it. It is a blank canvas. Obviously, there would be the name and address of the company or individual and details of their clients, but how long would it be before someone said, “Well, frankly, that’s not much use”? It would be the thin end of the wedge. I suspect that those who thought that it was a good idea to have a register would soon be saying, “What we really want is to know who these lobbyists have met, and we want that recorded on the register. We want to know for how long they met a given individual, where they met, what was the purpose of the meeting, and what was its outcome.” Before long, what started off as a simple register of names, addresses and lists of clients would develop into an enormous database of facts and figures and lists of meetings. It would become a bureaucratic nightmare for those involved in the lobbying industry.
How will my constituents benefit from all that regulation and registration? When I look at things, I always ask, “How will my constituents benefit from this?” I can see that those who may want to engage in the lobbying industry will suffer as a result of the Bill, but I fail to see how my constituents would benefit in any meaningful way from a register of lobbyists.
We do not know what all this will cost. Again, it has been glossed over. We have heard about and debated lots of other things, but we have no idea about that crucial question. One of the first things that a lobbyist would ask is, “How much will this cost?” We have no idea.
Thomas Docherty
I know that the hon. Gentleman does not plan to detain the House, so it might be helpful if I point out to him that the current cost of the APPC register is only £200 to £300 per individual. I hope that that gives him an idea of the cost.
Mr Nuttall
That is a useful contribution, but the cost of £200 to £300 is for an entirely different register from that which the Bill proposes, which is statutorily based. The lobbying registration council will be funded by those who will pay to be on the register, so in order to determine the cost of registration we have to look at the LRC itself, which, as I have said, is a blank canvas.
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend might want also to consider the potential cost to other parts of the state, such as the police force. According to clause 3, a breach of the proposed code of conduct will be a criminal offence. I presume that the police would have to investigate complaints of any breaches and that the Crown Prosecution Service would have to consider whether to press charges, so the cost to the public purse would be much bigger than the figure of zero that we were led to believe earlier.
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. If I have the chance later, I will address the fact that, before long, it will be argued that he who pays the piper calls the tune. This is meant to be a self-funded organisation, so it follows that, as soon as the first scandal arises—and, as sure as eggs is eggs, it will—everybody will say, “Ah! That’s happened because the organisation that’s meant to be supervising the register is paid for by the industry itself. It’s not an effective regulator after all. It’s not keeping an effective register. It’s not doing its job.” Before long, there will be calls for the organisation to be removed from “self-regulation” and for it to be paid for by the public purse. As my hon. Friend has said, however, even before we get to that stage there will be increased costs for the public purse, even if complaints are unproven and the police say there is no cause for prosecution. Given that we do not know what will be in the code, we do not know how likely that is to happen—it might be very likely.
Philip Davies
Given that two of the postcodes in my constituency are in the top 20 burglary hotspots in the country, I would prefer the police to concentrate on sorting out that issue than to dance around the issues in clause 3 of this Bill.
Mr Nuttall
I am sure that my constituents would agree with that. They would much rather that the police were on the streets fighting the crime that they are concerned about than wondering whether a lobbyist in London, Manchester, Liverpool, Nottingham or Glasgow has breached a provision of some code, the details of which we know not. I am extremely concerned about that.
The cost of the lobbying registration council will be dependent on its size and nature. There will be no obligation on it to scrimp or save, because no matter what the organisation costs, it will be passed on to those who by law—they have no choice in the matter—have to register. That is a licence to print money. The council can employ as many people as it likes. It can have as many expense accounts as it likes. It can have offices as lavish as it likes. It could have a whole office block in the centre of London and it would not matter. It could give all of its employees company cars and it would not matter.
Philip Davies
We might end up with the ridiculous situation in which the lobbying registration council has to register on its own register because it is lobbying to take further powers and increase the size of its bureaucracy.
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. It probably will have to register on its own register, because I am sure that before long it will want greater powers and to extend its reach into new areas. We have already come across a possible new area this morning. As has been pointed out, one of the gaps in the Bill is that it does not provide for the registration of those who want to lobby the European Parliament. The council may well lobby the Government to amend the legislation to cover that area. My hon. Friend is right that, on that basis, it would have to be on its own register.
We do not know how many members will be on the council. Will it be two or three, or thirty or forty? How representative will it be? Will it have to have members from every region of the country? Will it have to have members from different lobbying organisations?
Thomas Docherty
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way again, because I know that he is trying to move towards a conclusion. I remind him that all those matters will rightly be subject to parliamentary scrutiny. I am sure that he has even more confidence in his Ministers than I do.
Mr Nuttall
I have every confidence in our Ministers. I hope that, as a result of this debate, the Government will continue to worry about the path that they have sent themselves down with the consultation. It is clear from the consultation that it is easy to say, “Let’s have a register of lobbyists,” but that when one looks at the detail, the problems arise. The devil is in the detail.
As I have said, I fail to see how a register of lobbyists would help anybody. That is what we should be thinking about. How will a register help? How will it solve any of the so-called problems? I fail to see that there are problems. I am not bothered about them, but perhaps other people are. In a healthy democracy, everybody lobbies their MP. I am sure that every MP has the same experience at the weekend. I will be going down the street and somebody will tap me on the shoulder and say, “I know it’s the weekend, but I would like to have a quick word with you about blah-de-blah-de-blah.” They want to explain their point of view and to influence me. That is the nature of representative democracy in this country; it happens every day of the week. Some people do it because they are interested, and others do it for reward. I fail to see, however, how having a register will help to solve those problems in any way, shape or form.
Not only do we not know how many members will be on this lobbying registration council, it is not clear who will appoint them. How will they be appointed? Will they be appointed by the Government? Indeed, will they be appointed at all? Will they be elected? Will all members of the lobbying organisation, who have to pay for it, get to elect its members? Who will be eligible to serve on that august body? Will they need a qualification to be a member of the lobbying registration council?
This is the thin end of the wedge and I have seen no evidence this morning to convince me that a register is a good or sensible idea that will benefit my constituents in any way. A likely consequence of the Bill is that, just as we saw last week with the Offshore Gambling Bill, something that ostensibly starts out as a good idea will rapidly turn into the opposite of that. Given that the Act would apply only to England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, we may find that lobbying organisations faced with enormous regulation and fees will move offshore. They will say, “I’m not staying here and paying vast fees of thousands and thousands of pounds each year; I will move.” They will move offshore, either to Gibraltar or indeed outside the European Union altogether.
The promoter of the Bill mentioned that the fees might be £200 or £300, but it is not clear whether that will be standardised. Will the fee be the same for an individual as for a huge conglomerate or large multinational company with a huge client base? I suspect that the one-man band will pay one fee, and that the huge multinational will pay another—many thousands of pounds. For that reason, those multinationals might be inclined to think, “If we are faced with these fees and all that bureaucracy, we will move offshore.”
Thomas Docherty
I am conscious that the hon. Gentleman is trying to conclude his remarks. The point he raises is a matter for delegated legislation. The principle is that the fee will be based on the number of people who are signed up, but I urge the hon. Gentleman to look at the clauses that state that it will be a matter for delegated legislation.
Mr Nuttall
I am grateful for that clarification, but the fee is something else that we simply do not know about. We are being asked to take it on trust. We do not know about it; it is a blank canvas and will be dealt with in the future. I am not satisfied by the principle behind the Bill, and even if I were I think it is a Trojan horse. Even if one accepts that it is sensible to have such a register—which I do not—this Bill would be the thin end of the wedge. Before long, what started off as a fairly simple exercise would soon grow like Topsy into expensive, unnecessary bureaucracy that would put British jobs at risk. For that reason, and many others, I oppose the Bill and urge Members of all parties to reject its Second Reading.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
May I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) on bringing before the House this morning not only this Bill, but a list of Bills? He is an expert in parliamentary procedure, and I commend him for that and for his initiative in making sure he got his Bill to the top of this morning’s list.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall), I am less impressed with the merits of the Bill. My hon. Friend did us a favour this morning when he introduced into the debate the following issue: what problem are we trying to solve? It is no good examining a Bill’s merits in isolation; that can be done only when we look at what we are trying to deal with. Like him, I have not been persuaded today as to what problem we are so desperately trying to deal with. One is left with the impression that what lies behind all this—to the credit of the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife, he did not put himself in this camp—is some kind of view that lobbying, particularly commercial lobbying, is a bad, grubby thing that should be discouraged. We appear to be trying to find a way to clamp down on commercial lobbying. The consequence—where we will end up with all of this agenda—is that we will make Members of Parliament lobby shy. We seem to be trying to get to the stage where Members of Parliament avoid, at all costs, coming into contact with lobbyists— particularly “commercial lobbyists”, as they are described—and that would be a very dangerous thing.
I will put my cards on the table: I think that lobbying, including commercial lobbying, is a very good thing, not simply something to be tolerated. I may be unique in my lack of knowledge on a variety of subjects, and I am sure that there are many in this House, and outside, who would want to describe at length my ignorance on a range of issues. I acknowledge that; we cannot be experts in every subject. We know more about certain subjects than others, based on our interests and our experience, but there are many, many issues where our knowledge is limited. I have many such subjects. How on earth are we supposed to learn about them? How are we supposed to learn about the different points of view that people have in a debate?
There are many occasions when constituents contact me about issues on which I have very limited knowledge, inviting me to agree with them about something and take forward a particular point of view. It may be a very popular point of view, at least superficially. I like to say to my constituents, “I understand the point you are making. You appear, at face value, to be making a very good point. But before I commit myself one way or the other I would like to hear the other opinion.” If it is not a popular opinion, with no great groundswell of public support for it, that does not make it any less valid and it does not make it any less important that the voice is heard. Occasionally, the only people prepared to put such a point of view are lobbyists, and in order to do that they are often paid by the organisation concerned. I think that is a perfectly respectable thing for them to do. The view may well be completely unpopular and it may be beyond the pale for many people, but it is entitled to be heard. Before people make decisions in this House about issues that will have a bearing on people’s future livelihood, they are entitled to have heard the opposing point of view, too.
Just because somebody is lobbied vigorously does not mean that they necessarily have to agree with the person doing the lobbying. I make no apology for being available to people. I serve on the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport and I make no apology for allowing people who have a genuine interest, and organisations that have a financial interest, in the field of culture, media and sport, no matter which side of the argument they are on, to come to see me to let me know their view. That means that when we have evidence sessions before the Committee I can better understand the issues. It can prompt me to put certain points of view to others giving evidence.
Lobbying is therefore an essential part of the democratic process, and if we want to have good laws in this country, we should be making it as easy as possible for people to lobby us on their interests. We should not be doing anything to make it harder—anything that deters them from lobbying us or deters MPs from seeing them. The whole agenda is going off in completely the wrong direction. Parliament is much healthier thanks to the lobbying industry.
To be fair, I think that the promoter of the Bill would concur with many of my comments and would argue that the Bill seeks not to stop lobbying, but to legitimise it, and to make it more acceptable to the public—to clean it up. If I understood, that was also the case that the shadow Minister made: the Bill would legitimise, not stop, lobbying and make it seem more above board. That is a naive view. I do not think it will happen. I see the merit of the view of thinking, “Hold on. This lobbying is a bit murky, a bit behind closed doors. I wonder what’s going on. Let’s try and open it up, and all of a sudden the public will think lobbying a mighty fine thing,” but I am afraid they will not think that.
In fact, I suspect that instead of combating that attitude the Bill would make those points of view even noisier. If every MP had to register every meeting with a commercial or any other lobbyist—how on earth that would work, I do not know, but that is the agenda in the Bill—does anyone really think that certain interest groups and members of the public who take this cynical view would say, “Well, that’s fine, because it’s now all above board”? No, they will pore over every statement we make and every meeting we have had, and say, “Well, they’re only saying that because they had that meeting with that particular group.” This would not legitimise lobbying or make it any better. It would make it even worse, in terms of public opinion. It is naive to think otherwise.
Chi Onwurah
To clarify, my view is not that a register would mean that everyone would think lobbying is fantastic—I would not want to answer for the consequences for the industry in that regard—but that opinion would be better informed and that living in a democracy we want better informed debate and a better understanding of the access, means and process of power.
Philip Davies
I appreciate the shadow Minister’s view, but I simply do not agree with it. I do not see where the lack of transparency is. I have no problem telling anyone who asks me about which organisations I have met. If my constituents want to know who I have met—what lobbying firms and organisations—I would have no problem telling them, and I would like to think that that would be the attitude of most of my colleagues on both sides of the House. I do not see where the secretiveness is. If anybody is in an organisation relating to culture, media and sport, whichever side of the argument they are on, I am happy, time allowing, to meet them. As far as I can see, that is perfectly transparent. So I do not see the problem the Bill seeks to solve.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North, I oppose the Bill in principle. It will be a dog’s dinner, to be honest, and will not deal with any of the perceived problems we have heard about. In fact, the Bill is probably the worst of all dog’s dinners.
Let me turn to clause 1, which deals with the registration of lobbyists, and to the fact that there would be a register and the fees that would be charged. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North had an interesting exchange with the promoter of the Bill, the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife, about fees. The promoter not only intended to be helpful but actually was helpful in setting out the fees that he thought would be charged. However, I share my hon. Friend’s cynicism about fees, in the sense that we all know where they start off but there is no telling where they will end up, particularly when a bureaucracy has an audience that has no choice over whether to join. People will have to join because it will be the law of the land for them to join, so the bureaucracy can end up charging what it likes.
Let me therefore say to the promoter of the Bill—I hope the Minister will hear this too, because if she and the Government are so misguided as to go down this path, we may as well try to make it as good as we can—that it would be helpful to have a cap in the Bill on the fees that could be charged. Just to make a suggestion, perhaps the fees would be no more than the £200 to £300 that the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife seemed to think would be suitable. That would at least remove the issue of people thinking that the fees would go up and up, in a never-ending spiral, to try to satisfy a never-ending bureaucracy that would grow up as a result of this Bill.
We all see how these things work. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North talked about how such bodies start off being self-funded but end up having to be funded by the state. I think he is probably right. It is not an exact comparison, but we are seeing the start of something similar with the Press Complaints Commission. It is a self-funded body, but it is seen as being too close to the industry it is supposed to be looking after, so people are asking whether that is good enough and whether we need to do something else or get the state more involved. We can see how these things develop, and there is no reason why the same would not happen under this Bill.
I am sure that people will correct me, but it seems to me that clause 2 would introduce the offence of non-registration of one’s organisation. Then there is another criminal offence under clause 3 for breaching the code of conduct—the Labour party created lots of new criminal offences when it was in government and it appears to be continuing the same theme in this Bill. The promoter of the Bill said that we should not worry because everything would be subject to parliamentary scrutiny and approval, and that that was fine—let me say in passing that he has more confidence in parliamentary scrutiny than I do—but as far as I can see the Bill makes no great provision for parliamentary scrutiny. Parliamentary scrutiny is what we are doing now, by discussing the merits of the Bill. It is the council set up under this Bill that would prepare the code of conduct with which, under clause 3,
“those included on the register shall comply”.
It will not be Parliament that draws up the code of conduct, so there will be no parliamentary control there. Once we had passed this Bill, the council would be free to establish the code of conduct as it saw fit and that would be that.
Clause 3 then says, in subsection (2):
“The Secretary of State shall give statutory effect to the code and any revised code by order.”
There is no great parliamentary scrutiny there either. We are basically giving the Secretary of State huge powers to act on his or her own terms and whatever he or she happens to think is the right thing to do. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North, I have a great deal of time for the Minister, but she will know, as we all do, that she will not be the Minister for ever, and we might not get as good a Minister in future. Indeed, we might be left with one who is not as talented and sensible. We might—if we want to be very depressing—end up with the Labour party in government. Who knows what we might end up with at that point? [Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. What I do know is that we are going to get straight back to the Bill and not get into speculation about the next election.
Philip Davies
As ever, Mr Deputy Speaker, you are quite right. I was getting carried away with myself—the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife did not help when he invited me to consider the prospect of a Lib Dem Government, which does not even bear thinking about. I will move on, for the sake of my own sanity more than anything else.
The idea that there will be a great deal of parliamentary scrutiny of the terms of the register and the code of conduct is not one that I recognise from my reading of the Bill. Also, I asked earlier who would enforce the criminal offences that the Bill creates. There will no doubt be all sorts of vexatious complaints from people who do not like a particular industry, from people who have been lobbying someone about something, and counter-organisations that do not like a particular industry will put in vexatious complaints here and there. People will be contacting their local police and crime commissioner, their local chief superintendent and their chief constable, and putting pressure on them to investigate this or that case. The police’s resources are stretched enough as it is. I have been opposed to the reductions to the police budget that have taken place over the past few years. Surely at a time when the police budget is going down, the last thing they need is more of these kinds of offences to investigate, when there is much more bread-and-butter crime to be dealt with.
Then we have to consider the Crown Prosecution Service. What will be the chances of getting a conviction for such offences? We all know what the CPS is like. It is very reluctant to take a case to court unless there is a cast-iron guaranteed certainty of a conviction. There will be all sorts of complaints relating to whether the code of conduct has been breached, for example, and it is hard to imagine the CPS taking anyone to court, no matter how much time the police have spent investigating a case.
The whole thing is a complete dog’s breakfast, and that is before we even come to the definition of lobbying in clause 4. Clauses 1 to 3 were bad enough, but clause 4 is the worst clause of all. We have had an interesting debate on the definition of lobbying. There is so much to say on that, and so little time in which to say it. I do not intend to speak at length. As you will know better than anyone, Mr Deputy Speaker, I am always anxious to proceed at a pace on a Friday so that we can get on to the next piece of legislation, and I do not intend to do anything different today. I will make a few remarks about the definition of lobbying, but I just want to say to the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife that I hope his second Bill, which I trust we will get on to in the not-too-distant future, is better than his first one. The first one has not been a good start.
Clause 4 gives the definition of lobbying as
“any activity carried out in the course of a business or employment which are undertaken for financial gain and are designed to influence the Government of the United Kingdom, Parliament, any local authority in England or any member or employee of any of those bodies in formulating its official policy.”
We could spend hours talking about clause 4, because it contains all sorts of loopholes, flaws and omissions. The whole point of anybody approaching a Member of Parliament, on any basis, is to lobby them. It might be to lobby them because the person believes strongly in something, perhaps in their local community, or to lobby them for financial gain. It tends to be one or the other. Someone might come to see me because they want to reduce the amount that they owe to the Child Support Agency, for example. That is a perfectly legitimate thing to come and see an MP about. I cannot always sort such things out, but I will always do my best for my constituents. They are lobbying me for financial gain, of course they are—it is a perfectly legitimate, respectable thing to do.
The hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife seems to be trying to distinguish between different types of financial gain. From his definition in the Bill, he seems to be saying that some kinds of lobbying for financial gain are fine, while other kinds are not so fine and need to have something done about them.
Thomas Docherty
I am nervous about intervening on the hon. Gentleman and prolonging what has been a genuinely good discussion. Briefly, I am drawing a distinction between someone who is remunerated for carrying out the activity of trying to influence, and someone who receives a financial reward if they are successful. The former is lobbying; the latter is not.
Philip Davies
The hon. Gentleman tries to concoct some distinction through his Bill’s definition, but I do not accept the distinction he is trying to draw. For me, lobbying is what people do to Members of Parliament for whatever particular reason they have. It is perfectly legitimate, and I see no point in drawing a distinction between different types of lobbying—as if commercial lobbying is bad and any other kind of lobbying is good. All lobbying is good, and Members of Parliament should be open to all sorts of lobbying. They can take anybody’s self-interest into account when they are listening to the lobbying. I am sure we will all have said at some time, “Well, of course, you would say that, wouldn’t you, given the situation you are in.” We are all capable of doing that.
When I read the Bill, I presumed that it was all about protecting the public and giving them more confidence in the system. I do not think that that would be a consequence, but I can at least see the motivation. From what the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife said in his opening speech, however, the Bill seemed to be much more about protecting us from commercial lobbyists so that we do not get hijacked at a constituency surgery or something like that. I do not need protecting. I can protect myself and look after myself. If I do not want to listen to somebody’s argument, I will tell them I am not interested in what they are saying. I am perfectly capable of doing that without the help of the hon. Gentleman and his Bill. Frankly, if any Member is not capable of doing that, they should perhaps consider whether they are in the right profession. We certainly do need legislation to protect Members from people coming to see them and trying to force an issue down their throat. I would hope that we are all perfectly capable of dealing with that.
In conclusion, the Bill is unnecessary. I disagree with it in principle; I think it is going completely down the wrong lines. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North, even if I thought this was a good thing in principle, I would remain of the view that the Bill was a very bad attempt to act on it.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Miss Chloe Smith)
I join those who have contributed to today’s debate in congratulating the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) on securing a debate on this Bill, and, as I understand it, he has another five on the Order Paper today and four last Friday, which is no mean feat. I thank the hon. Gentleman for having brought today’s proposals to the House and for allowing us to have what I think has been a very constructive debate.
Albeit from one of my ministerial colleagues, I have certainly learned a new word today—“dissensus”, which is presumably the opposite of “consensus”. I think it is a fine word and that it has a place in today’s debate—perhaps as a description of some hon. Members’ comments—but I am more interested in the opposite idea of consensus. I know we have all acknowledged how complicated the issue is and how important it is to be careful to get such legislation right.
The Government are committed to introducing a statutory register of lobbyists. Following the election of May 2010, the Government said in the coalition’s programme for government:
“We will regulate lobbying through introducing a statutory register of lobbyists and ensuring greater transparency.”
We said in our consultation document:
“The purpose of the UK register is to increase transparency by making available to the public, to decision-makers and to other interested parties authoritative and easily-accessible information about who is lobbying and for whom. This will help ensure that those seeking to influence decisions do so in a way that is open to scrutiny, improving knowledge about the process and the accountability of those involved in it.”
At this point, I pause to pay tribute to the notion of my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) that anybody in public office ought to be able to hold a robust conversation with anybody who comes their way. I have no doubt that the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife would agree with that.
Another important point in our consultation document is that
“the register is not intended to capture or deter a range of activity that is essential to a vibrant democracy. So, for example, the register is not intended to cover the normal interaction between constituents and their MPs. Nor should the essential flow of communication between business leaders and Government, civil figures, community organisations…and so on, be included.”
I think that helps to provide an answer to some of the many and varied points made today about the appropriate bounds of this debate.
Let me say something about transparency. The Government already release a significant amount of information—which Members and anyone else who is observing our debate can find on the website data.gov. uk.—and we have made a clear commitment to increasing the transparency of what we do and making it easier for the public to hold politicians and public bodies to account. That has resulted in the quarterly publication of details of ministerial meetings and Government procurement, and a number of other items of public interest.
I acknowledge what was said by, for instance, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) about the importance of transparency and the efforts made by many Governments in that regard. In my view, the present Government publish an unprecedented amount of information about those who are met by Ministers and senior officials, but at present it is not always obvious whom those people represent. The Government therefore want a register that will bring more transparency to the lobbying process.
With that in mind, I accept that some elements of the hon. Gentleman’s proposals have merit. I think he grasps the importance of having a relatively simple register that does not impose disproportionate burdens on those who are required to comply with his Bill. The Government are also determined to avoid unnecessary regulatory burdens that would prove detrimental to the United Kingdom economy. I am very mindful of the costs that may be associated with the statutory register, and I want to explore that issue fully as we develop and introduce our own proposals.
The hon. Gentleman recognises the importance of avoiding ambiguity when defining lobbying activity. That, too, is a view that I heard loud and clear in the responses to last year’s consultation. The Government are making it a priority to consider a wide range of definitions, including international definitions. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge), who gave us a tour d’horizon of the systems used elsewhere. The parameters of the chosen definition will be made very clear in the context of the UK lobbying industry: I intend there to be no scope for ambiguity, so that we can ensure the success and effectiveness of the register.
The hon. Gentleman also recognises that there is little appetite for a publicly funded register of lobbyists, and his proposals for a fee-based system are certainly worth considering. A range of responses to the consultation dealt with that point; they can be found in “A Summary of Responses to the Cabinet Office's Consultation Document ‘Introducing a Statutory Register of Lobbyists’”, which has already been brandished by my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East.
There are other parts of the Bill which I believe need further exploration. There is, for example, the hon. Gentleman’s proposal for the establishment of a lobbying registration council, for which he was taken to task in some detail by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall). I think that it is an interesting idea, but, like others, I should like to know more about the council’s membership.
The hon. Gentleman proposes that the Secretary of State should be able to decide, through secondary legislation, what level of information disclosure should be required of those who are on the register. I should like to go into the matter in more detail with the hon. Gentleman. I look forward to working with him constructively on that and other issues, including the issue of the code of practice which his Bill empowers the council to draw up. That is clearly a significant role for the council, and I should like to know how the necessary authority and expertise could be channelled in a way that would enable the code to be effective and enforceable.
I think that there is much to applaud in the hon. Gentleman’s Bill, but it raises further questions which, as I know he agrees, need to be explored fully. I look forward to working collaboratively with him on those issues.
Miss Smith
I can only assure my hon. Friend that on Fridays in the House we all seek to have debates that are to some degree collaborative.
Mr Nuttall
Has my hon. Friend had a chance to look at “A Summary of Responses to the Cabinet Office's Consultation Document ‘Introducing a Statutory Register of Lobbyists’”? Paragraph 95 states:
“Concerns were also raised by a large number of respondents who said they could not identify the problem that the register was aiming to solve.”
Miss Smith
That takes me to exactly the points to which I want to return. As I have said, the Government are committed to the establishment of a statutory register of lobbyists, which we think would be an important step towards making politics more transparent. I certainly think it important to open up politics and make it more accessible to everyone. I agree with my hon. Friend that lobbying has an important function in politics, namely the putting forward of legitimate views when they are held. That helps in the development of better legislation. However, we need to address the question that he raises: what is the gap that needs to be filled in this case?
In our consultation on introducing a statutory register of lobbyists, various parties, organisations, individuals and businesses told us what the register should look like and what the gap is. That information is helping the Government reach conclusions on some very tricky questions, such as how we should define “lobbyist” and “lobbying”, what sort of information should be held on the register, and what penalties should be imposed on those who do not register. The hon. Gentleman has made various suggestions, which I want to take into account alongside those received from the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee.
Although the Government have made strides in increasing the transparency of what we do, thus making it easier for the public to hold politicians and public bodies to account, there is one important gap. Our consultation document states that
“under the current system, when Ministers meet lobbying firms it is not transparent on whose behalf they are lobbying”,
and that is the gap we should address through this sort of legislation.
The Government consultation received a large response, showing just how important the issue is to the public and why we are working so hard to get our proposals right. Following the consultation, we are currently taking stock. The evidence from the consultation and the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee report will allow us to develop the statutory register in a way that increases transparency while ensuring equal treatment of all parties, and without placing disproportionate burdens on those affected.
The Government are committed to introducing a statutory register of lobbyists.
Thomas Docherty
Does the Minister intend to publish the revised proposals before the House rises at the end of the Session or, failing that, before the summer recess?
Miss Smith
As I have said, we are currently taking stock. It is important to take time to get these proposals right. This remains a coalition commitment, and I look forward to working with the hon. Gentleman to move it forward.
Thomas Docherty
I thank all Members on both sides of the House for contributing to what has been a constructive and useful debate. The hon. Members for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) and for Shipley (Philip Davies) raised the issue of meetings. I find myself in full agreement with the Minister. We already have a ministerial quarterly statement—although I tried to check when it was last updated, and she might like to press her civil servants, to ensure that happens as frequently as intended. This Bill would not increase bureaucracy for Members of either House.
Questions were raised about the wider bureaucracy that might be involved. Earlier, I did not dwell on the General Medical Council system. As the hon. Member for Bury North knows, it was established under the Medical Act 1858. The current fee is the princely sum of £390, and the system has all the functions to which we have alluded. I hope that that reassures him and the hon. Member for Shipley as to the sums involved.
This debate has not gone on for as long as the Turks and Caicos election count, for which we are all grateful. As I am not a Liberal Democrat politician, I always believe in sticking to my promises, and I made a promise about withdrawing the Bill if the Minister was sufficiently eloquent. She has been eloquent about her intention to bring forward proposals in the very near future and about her promise to work with me and others on that. I am therefore satisfied that we are making progress on this issue, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
Bill withdrawn.
Armed Forces (Prevention of Discrimination) Bill
(11 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
“In this age of moral equivalence it must be said that no other occupational group in the United Kingdom matches up to UNMS”—
the unique nature of military service.
“In particular, none belong 24/7 to the Crown, is exempted from normal working practices of the sort governed by the European working-time directive and national minimum wage legislation, has no organised representation, may not easily terminate their service particularly on notice for deployment, will probably sustain some sort of illness or injury if deployed and has liability up to and including death with all that means for dependants cascading through the generations.”
Those are eloquent words, and because they are eloquent words, Mr Deputy Speaker, I am sure you realised that they were not mine. They are the words of the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), who I think, in the genuine cross-party spirit of this subject matter, has eloquently defined the unique challenges facing our military.
I have introduced the Bill after reading, as I know the Minister has done, the report published last year about some of the adversities that our armed forces face, not on the battlefield, not in theatre of operations, but when they are here in the United Kingdom. I pay tribute to the Minister of State, Ministry of Defence, the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois). I have had the privilege of serving with him in the House for the past two and a half years. I know he is a passionate supporter and champion of our military personnel and I welcome him to his role. I think this is the first time we have had an opportunity to debate the issue.
I thank The Sun, which has supported our campaign to put in statute particular protection for members of our armed forces. It is fair to say that there is no sensible Member of the House present today—I see that the hon. Member for Bradford West (George Galloway) is not here, so I am fairly confident that I can say that—who does not believe that protecting our armed forces is the first duty of the Ministry of Defence.
I have drawn the Bill narrowly. I place on record my thanks to Ms Kate Emms and Mr Simon Patrick for their incredibly sterling work in helping to draft the Bill. Let me clarify what the Bill does not cover. It does not cover the issue of trade and sales, or the outrageous cases in which service personnel are refused entry to pubs. I commend to the Minister of State an excellent book which he can probably get from the Library, although as I know he has deep pockets, he would probably go on to a website and buy his ministerial colleague’s book, “Tommy This an’ Tommy That”, which eloquently sets out some examples. There was the notorious case where Harrods refused service to a serving member of the armed forces who, I think, had come in after a Remembrance day parade.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Mr Mark Francois)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his kind words earlier and also for his reference to the book, which was written by the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), who is sitting on the Front Bench next to me. I am delighted to reassure the hon. Gentleman that I was present at my hon. Friend’s book launch and purchased a copy of the book from my own perhaps not quite so deep pockets. It is a very good read.
Thomas Docherty
I am grateful for that, and I am reassured that the right hon. Gentleman used his own money to purchase the book and did not borrow the £15 from his ministerial colleague.
As the book sets out, there have been some ridiculous examples, such as the one, when somebody in their uniform who had been at a Remembrance day service was refused service by Harrods. The Under-Secretary subsequently visited the store after a bit of a campaign in which he had been involved, and thankfully Harrods has changed its policy. I am sure, Mr Deputy Speaker, that in your own constituency and others you are aware of incidents where, regrettably, members of the armed forces have been refused service on rare occasions.
The report contains allegations that banks and building societies have turned down mortgage applications from armed forces personnel, and they have been unable to get mobile phones. I am conscious of hon. Members’ comments on previous occasions about narrowly defining Bills, so on this occasion I have not put such incidents into the Bill, but when the Minister responds I hope he will consider how widespread the problem is. The Ministry of Defence may wish to use a report mechanism to provide greater clarity on it.
I want to focus on the even more abhorrent incidents, which, thankfully, are relatively rare, but do occur, of verbal and physical abuse of members of our armed forces. No one present today and no one watching our proceedings would not condemn unequivocally the actions of a mindless tiny minority who when, for example, the coffins returned from theatre felt the need to hurl abuse and intimidate those who had gathered to pay their respects. I know that the Minister takes that very seriously.
The report also contains accounts of an RAF recruiter who reported that she had regularly faced verbal abuse. People had apparently called her a baby killer, which I am sure the House would find utterly despicable. It is such incidents that the Bill seeks to address, as well as physical assaults. I am clear, as I am sure is the House, that we are not talking about where soldiers, sailors or RAF personnel get into a fight as any other person might, but where they have been subject to an assault because of the fact that they are either in or out of uniform.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful case for his Bill. In my constituency we are proud of our links with the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, which has now effectively taken over from the Lancashire Fusiliers. Fortunately, I have not come across any cases like those he describes. Has he had representations resulting from occurrences in his constituency, and if so, will he outline them to the House?
Thomas Docherty
I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s attendance today and the points he has made. I refer him for the detail to the report, or indeed to the Under-Secretary’s excellent book, which he can purchase for a small sum. Just to give one example from the book, I am sure that the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) will recall, as I am sure you will, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that in June 2010, an organisation calling itself Muslims against Crusades attacked members of the 1st Battalion the Royal Anglian Regiment’s homecoming parade in Barking. That is the kind of despicable act that he asks about, which we all take incredibly seriously.
Another point that the Under-Secretary makes very well in his book is that this works both ways. The Chief of the Defence Staff and the Chief of the General Staff have also made that point. The Minister of State will recall that when we had the privilege of serving together on the Armed Forces Public Bill Committee we discussed the difference between our culture and that of the United States, which holds its armed forces in great respect. On the rare occasions that you get away from the House of Commons, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and travel to an airport in the United States, you will often find a VSO office providing refreshments and the opportunity to enjoy some relaxation. Regrettably, we have not yet persuaded our airports to do something similar. Perhaps the Minister will reflect on how we could do that.
The Chief of the Defence Staff makes the valid point that members of the armed forces have not always helped themselves. There is an ill-judged perception that some soldiers have gone looking for trouble. I think that perception is false, but I welcome what Army representatives said to the Defence Committee—that the issue is a cultural thing that they are working on. That is why the Bill is so important. It says that we recognise that the military have to do more, but we have to do more to protect the military.
James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
The Bill is incredibly important. Has the hon. Gentleman received any correspondence or communication from my friends and colleagues on the Liberal Democrat Benches apologising for not contributing in any way to the debate and not being here at all today—or, indeed, last Friday? Perhaps they have sent a note of apology and said they are all in Eastleigh delivering leaflets.
Thomas Docherty
I often think that Liberal Democrats are neither here nor there.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I am sure that we are not going to get distracted on to discussing the Liberal Democrats or the coalition. We are going to discuss the Bill, which is about discrimination against the armed forces.
Thomas Docherty
You are entirely right, Mr Deputy Speaker; we should discuss serious matters, rather than the Liberal Democrats. It is right that the issue we are discussing should be approached by grown-up parties in a grown-up manner, as is happening today.
There is a genuine need for us to recognise that we can do more to protect our armed forces. I pay tribute to our armed forces. As a member of the Defence Committee, I have had the opportunity to spend a little time with them. I shall not open up the debate about service allowances. I know that the Minister never takes any pleasure in the choices that he feels he has been forced to make, but I hope the Bill is a small measure that will symbolise our determination not to tolerate hate crimes against our armed forces, that will move the debate on and that will provide greater protection for men and women who, as Ministers have in the past so eloquently set out, operate under unique and special circumstances. I commend the Bill to the House.
James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
I welcome the Bill. I particularly thank the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) for introducing it, because he is a Scottish Member and the Bill applies to England and Wales. I hope that colleagues in the Scottish Parliament are looking carefully to see how it progresses in this Parliament, so that the whole of the United Kingdom benefits. One of the curious problems of devolution is that some sensible things that should apply to the whole of the United Kingdom do not because of the nature of the devolution settlement.
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on getting so much on to the Order Paper today, most of which appears to be devoted to his Bills. Perhaps he could talk to colleagues on the Procedure Committee to ask whether it is appropriate, despite his many talents, for so many Bills to be taken forward by one person in any one day. Apart from anything else, it is an enormous burden for the hon. Gentleman, who spoke for an hour and a half in the first debate, to make a significant contribution to the second debate as well.
I turn to the Bill’s substance. To be frank, I am unclear about what has changed over time. I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman was not here in 2008, although given his experience and command of the House, it is easy to think that he was. The former Member for Grantham and Stamford, who is now in another place—I am not sure whether to describe him as a colleague from the Government or Opposition Benches—proposed a similar Bill, which was rejected by the then Labour Government.
I am trying to establish whether this Bill is fundamentally different, whether the circumstances have fundamentally changed and whether the hon. Gentleman is saying, in retrospect, that the last Labour Government were wrong not to take forward the Bill on the national recognition of the armed forces proposed by the former Member. In all candour, I do not know whether the former Member was Conservative or Labour in 2008, although I am not sure that that is relevant.
I applaud the motives behind this Bill, which concerns an incredibly important issue that has been raised outside the House. I should like to go into a bit more detail on Lord Ashcroft’s report of May 2012 on the perceptions of our armed forces in society generally. It said that nearly one in 20 of the 9,000 personnel surveyed had had experience of violence or attempted violence in the previous five years. We should put this into perspective by saying that the level of violence towards other uniformed organisations—our fire service, ambulance service and police service—is equally appalling. I understand that there are differing circumstances. I also recognise that other Members would have criticised the Bill if the hon. Gentleman had drafted it even more widely. I merely raise this as a background issue rather than encouraging him to widen the scope of the Bill. I assume that it covers all our armed forces, including the Territorial Army.
James Duddridge
That is good to know, and I apologise for not having picked it up in my reading of the Bill.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the service chiefs. As the Bill progresses, I would be interested to find out a bit more about the representations made by service chiefs and other members of the armed forces and the degree to which they see this as a major problem in terms of the number of offences. Clearly, one offence is one too many. This is about sending a message of support to our troops in saying that we want them to be uniformed when off duty or going about their business, because that is a very positive thing, but the question is whether it is also about addressing the problem of a large number of offences.
Thomas Docherty
The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that it would be inappropriate for the services to make representations to Members of Parliament outside the ministerial channels. On the numbers involved, I am sure he agrees that even one would be one too many.
James Duddridge
Absolutely. The hon. Gentleman is right, and he paraphrases my point. I also accept what he says about the service chiefs. Perhaps that question would be better directed at the Minister, but I suspect that he will find time to mention representations from service chiefs and other members of the armed forces. The armed forces are in a peculiar position compared with an accountant or a banker in making representations to Members of Parliament, and rightly so.
Let me turn to the detail of the Ashcroft report. We should not overplay the scale of the problem. We have said that one is too many, but 80% of our armed forces have not experienced problems or discrimination. In fact, 56% had had strangers come up to them and offer support, 29% had had strangers come up to them and offer to buy them a drink to thank them for the very good work that they are doing, and 26% had had spontaneous offers of discounts in shops and businesses—something that I would fully encourage. There were some problems at the other end of the scale, but there were many more positive than negative responses.
It is important that we send out a message to the armed forces that we support them and that we do take this seriously, but that in all probability they will not experience problems when going out and about in their uniform, which is a very positive thing to do in order to create civic pride and ensure that there is no gap between citizens and servicemen. It allows people to start conversations about what the armed forces do, it encourages recruitment, and it helps to do away with stereotypes in any way, shape or form. Although it is right to have this debate, I would not want members of the armed services to get the message that this is a massive problem that should deter them from wearing their uniform in public. In fact, as the Ashcroft report demonstrates, they are much more likely to be offered thanks, support, drinks and discounts than to experience any problems.
In June 2012 the Defence Secretary wrote to the shadow Defence Secretary, the right hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy), on concerns about discrimination:
“You suggest the need for anti-discrimination legislation to protect those serving in the Armed Forces, similar, I assume, to legislation we already have to protect other groups in society. My advice is that the Armed Forces do not want to be singled out in this way”.
That is interesting and I hope that the Minister will probe in more detail the feedback he has received from the service chiefs and the armed forces more generally. I am not sure what the logic behind the argument is, but if they are saying that they do not want to be singled out we should take that seriously.
Thomas Docherty
This has been a constructive debate. We need to be clear—I hope the Minister will address this point—that, even though the armed forces would not expect to be singled out to an extent, we would none the less, despite their modesty, want to provide them with support, as this morning’s Sun has done.
James Duddridge
I see where the hon. Gentleman is going and think it sends a message. This also relates to the other uniformed services. We could do something collectively—perhaps not by amending this Bill, but more widely—to create respect for people who serve us, whether they be in the ambulance service, the fire and police services or the armed forces. Indeed, in my constituency of Rochford and Southend East there seems to be a worrying number of people who feel that it is right to take a pot shot at national health service staff. There is now a police station in Southend hospital to deter that type of activity. That is of particular concern and perhaps presents the case for a slightly wider Bill than this narrow one.
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend might be moving on to this point, but if this Bill becomes law, those employed by the national health service might want to suggest that they should be given similar protection.
James Duddridge
Absolutely. One wonders whether we should look to raise standards overall. It is unacceptable to shout abuse at anyone, whether it be racist, homophobic or religious. The Ashcroft report states that some of those who responded to its survey had suffered absolute discrimination, such as being refused service in pubs or hotels, and 6% suffered violence or attempted violence. We should not necessarily distinguish between violence against someone in an Army or Navy uniform and violence against someone in an NHS uniform or, indeed, someone in a suit or jeans and T-shirt who is going about their business. There are many ways to tackle the underlying issues.
Having listened carefully to the speech made by the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife and the interventions that have been made, I think there is a need to send a specific message to the armed forces. Perhaps that is something that the armed forces covenant can look at and perhaps it, rather than this or any other Bill, could send the message to the general public.
I again thank the hon. Gentleman for proposing the Bill. I also want to reiterate and lay on record my gratitude to the armed forces and ask them to continue to wear their uniform in public. We like it and respect it. It helps to initiate conversations about what the armed forces are doing and it allows for pride. It is right that we discuss issues relating to the protection of people in uniform, as the hon. Gentleman has done. I thank him for initiating this debate and look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
I rise to support the important Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty). I congratulate him, not least because it is very unusual to see a Bill that takes up just one side of paper. As a former lawyer, I think that we see that far too rarely. I also thank my hon. Friends the Members for North Tyneside (Mrs Glindon), for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) and for Halton (Derek Twigg) for supporting the Bill.
We have been fortunate recently to have had many opportunities in the House to debate the armed forces and, in particular, the armed forces covenant, which the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) has just mentioned. I am pleased that the Government and Members from all parts of the House—even our absent Liberal Democrat friends—have supported making progress on the covenant, although perhaps not as quickly as some of us would like. That reflects the widespread support for our armed forces, which I think has increased enormously in recent years. Perhaps that is because of their enormously important and professional work in the military action that we have taken in various parts of the world.
A key principle of the covenant is that no one in the service community should face disadvantage because of their service. That needs to be applied right across society. I therefore welcome the Bill because it seeks to strengthen the covenant further by making a simple change to the Criminal Justice Act 2003. It would add service in the forces to the characteristics of a victim that can constitute an aggravating factor when the offender is sentenced. That protection is in place in relation to race, religion, disability and sexual orientation. We think that it is time to consider it for members of our armed forces.
We have heard reference to the valuable report by Lord Ashcroft, “The Armed Forces and Society”, which showed clearly that some members of the armed forces encounter problems in the community in everyday life. It showed that, regrettably, in the last five years, one in five members of the forces has experienced strangers shouting abuse at them while they have been wearing their uniform in public in the UK.
Members of this House must always bear it in mind that, on occasion, we ask the members of our armed forces to go to war. That is a profound decision for us as Members of Parliament and for Governments, and one that this House always takes very seriously. The individuals we put in that position must have our absolute support. We must therefore send out the message that we will not tolerate any individual receiving criticism for wearing the uniform that they wear so bravely at our request. It is quite unacceptable for them to be treated in that way. That is why we support the Bill.
As the Minister and other hon. Members will know, this is not the first time that discrimination against members of the armed forces and their families has been raised in this House in recent months. In June last year, my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State for Defence called on the Government to consider measures to tackle discrimination against members of the forces in the light of the publication of Lord Ashcroft’s report. We asked the Secretary of State to set up talks that brought together all parties, the armed forces and the service charities to consider how discrimination could be tackled.
It is clear from Lord Ashcroft’s evidence that there is a significant problem with the attitude of some people towards our forces. We believe that we need to look at that problem seriously. We are disappointed that our suggestions have not been carried forward by the Government and we would like them to respond more positively. If the Government are serious about taking forward the covenant and helping to make a difference to the everyday lives of the service community, they must accept that discrimination needs to be tackled. I therefore urge the Government to back this important Bill.
The Opposition welcome the changes in the Bill that would protect further our armed forces. Reference has been made to less obvious types of discrimination, and we should not overlook those, because applications for credit cards, mobile phone contracts and so on are sometimes difficult for service personnel. We are pleased that the Government have made progress on those issues, particularly in relation to the pairing of British Forces Post Office with standard UK postcodes, and giving greater recognition to addresses. The first annual covenant report was published late last year and I am sure all hon. Members look forward to debating it fully, hopefully in the coming months. There is a commitment to work with financial companies and credit agencies to overcome problems that service personnel might experience in accessing services, and I would welcome any further update that the Minister can provide about progress on that front.
We hope that the Government will support this Bill. If they do not, they will be failing to take a step that adequately reflects the position that we owe to our armed forces.
James Duddridge
To be clear, Her Majesty’s official Opposition are urging the Government to do something, but there was an opportunity to introduce such a measure in 2008. Is the hon. Gentleman saying that there was a problem in 2008 but that it was not evidenced and that that is why the Government did not act? Has Lord Ashcroft’s report now provided evidence that gives the hon. Gentleman confidence to suggest a change that his Government did not take forward?
Ian Lucas
One of the advantages of losing elections—if there are any—is that it enables one to reflect and collate more evidence. We have heard reference to the incidents in Barking in 2010, and the additional evidence provided by Lord Ashcroft. As a result of that additional information, we have had the opportunity to reflect and I have outlined our position today. I do not know the particulars of the 2008 legislation, but we entirely support the Bill under discussion. I know there is a great deal of good will across the House on this matter, and we have today heard the strength of support for our armed forces. We hope that that will be carried forward by the Government in their response to this excellent Bill. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife on his eloquence and on his audacity in promoting so many Bills today. I hope he will receive a positive response from the Minister who is, of course, so committed to the armed forces.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Mr Mark Francois)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) and I commend the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) for bringing this Bill before the House and giving us the opportunity to discuss what we all instinctively agree is an important subject. I also pay tribute to his knowledgeable service on the Defence Committee. He mentioned the important work of the Armed Forces Bill Committee. That led to the Armed Forces Act 2011—to which I shall refer in a few minutes—which enshrined the key principles of the armed forces covenant in law. I believe that we all did the right thing in that Act, and as I shall outline in my speech, it provides us with additional powers that may come in handy in responding to this Bill.
In a debate of this kind, which is rightfully conducted in a non-partisan spirit, it is important to make clear at the outset where we agree, as well as where we might differ. I think I speak for the whole House in saying that we all hold the same view about discrimination against members of the armed forces: it is a completely unacceptable form of behaviour towards the men and women who have committed themselves to defending this country, its people and its way of life—to defending us and our families. In doing so they make sacrifices and give up freedoms that their fellow citizens perhaps sometimes take for granted. Those who discriminate against service personnel, or against other members of the wider armed forces community, succeed only in diminishing themselves. In this House we can debate the best way of combating discrimination, but there is no dispute about the objective.
Discrimination can take many forms. Some of it is thoughtless or uninformed, for example, when public services fail to take account of the special circumstances in which armed forces personnel find themselves. Some of it is based on myth and prejudice—a view that soldiers create trouble or are unreliable customers. Like the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife, I do not believe that that is normally the case, but we have to accept that some people have that misperception and we must challenge it. Some discrimination or abuse stems from genuine hostility to members of the armed forces, motivated by politics or perhaps by some unfortunate personal experience. It is on that very narrow part of the spectrum that the Bill principally focuses.
The Bill would have the effect of amending section 146 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which lays down circumstances in which the criminal courts must treat an offence as aggravated, for the purpose of deciding on the appropriate sentence. The aggravating factors currently set out in section 146 are that the offender either demonstrates, or is motivated by, a hostility towards the victim which is based on the victim’s disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity. Section 145 of that Act is also relevant, as it allows for an offence to be “racially or religiously aggravated” when a sentence is decided.
This Bill would add a further characteristic, so that the offence is aggravated if the offender’s hostility is based on the victim “being a service person”. The subsection on the meaning of a “service person” refers across to section 343B of the Armed Forces Act 2006, which was added by the Armed Forces Act 2011 and relates to the armed forces covenant. The definition in subsection (1) of section 343B is pertinent. It states:
“service people means—
(a) members of the regular forces and the reserve forces;
(b) members of British overseas territory forces who are subject to service law;
(c) former members of any of Her Majesty’s forces who are ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom; and
(d) relevant family members.”
Mr Nuttall
My right hon. Friend did not mention cadets in that list. I am not sure if any guidance has been given on whether cadets would be covered by that definition, but does he think they would be?
Mr Francois
That is a good question. My understanding is that cadets would not ordinarily be covered per se, but they might be covered if they were a family member of a service person. We could be making law here, so it is important to understand the technicalities of the drafting. I hope that the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife will understand that we have taken his Bill seriously and we have looked very carefully at the legal effect of what he proposes.
James Duddridge
I apologise if my right hon. Friend has already covered this issue, but I would like to ask about the many uniformed armed personnel who are not British citizens; I think of American soldiers and service personnel based in this country. They are used to wearing service uniform and being easily identified as servicemen in America, but they may also wish to receive the same protections in the UK as this Bill proposes for our own servicemen. Are they also covered?
Mr Francois
I must confess that in preparing for this debate I had not looked at that question. My instinctive answer is that they would not be, because the Bill relates mainly to UK service personnel.
Mr Francois
I see that the hon. Gentleman is nodding, so I hope I have that right.
Further on in section 343B, subsection (4) gives the meaning of the term “relevant family member”, but effectively allows the Secretary of State to interpret it as best fits the context. The Bill, however, replaces that discretion, for this purpose, by specifying that it should cover “any relative”. If I have understood the hon. Gentleman’s intentions correctly—I hope I have—he wishes the new provision to cover a large group of people, including all former members of the armed forces and all relatives of current or former service personnel. Offences against them would be treated more seriously, if motivated by hostility to service people.
Thomas Docherty
Perhaps I can assist the Minister. He will be aware, from the examples cited, that the types of occasions concerned are those such as remembrance services and funerals. That is why the Bill is so framed. He was right to highlight it, but there have been regrettable incidents at such occasions.
Mr Francois
Again, I can follow the hon. Gentleman’s thinking, but as I will explain it could present practical difficulties, if the Bill was passed, including for the courts. If he will allow me, I shall explain—clearly, I hope—why they might be.
We need to be clear about what the Bill will not do. Over the years, there have been reports of incidents in which hostility has been directed against service personnel because of their membership of the armed forces. Some of the actions of anti-war demonstrators, for example, fall into this category and have been widely and rightly condemned. The hon. Gentleman mentioned a protest at the homecoming parade of 1st Battalion the Royal Anglian Regiment. As that was my old regiment, I feel that particularly strongly, as he can imagine.
Those incidents should not be confused, however, with situations such as a refusal to admit members of the armed forces to a hotel or bar. These, too, have led to widespread public indignation, but it is important to recognise that the Bill does not address those situations, because they generally do not involve a criminal offence.
Mr Francois
The hon. Gentleman nods in assent.
I recognise what the hon. Gentleman is trying to do, and I have no difficulty in principle with the signal he wants Parliament to send—that offences motivated by hostility to the armed forces are serious offences—but I have considerable practical difficulty with how he proposes to send that signal. In effect, I believe that the law of unintended consequences would apply, and I will explain why in a moment.
As a general rule, before we go down the route of new legislation, we must consider whether there is a need for it. The answer in this case is, on balance, no. The courts already have a wide power in sentencing to take into account factors that make conduct more serious. Criminal acts based on an irrational hostility to a person because he or she is in the armed forces will, if anything, often lead to a higher sentence anyway.
Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)
Does the Minister not accept that we need to send a clear message to people that such acts will be treated very severely?
Mr Francois
As I said, I can understand the signal that the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife is trying to send, but if we are talking about changing the law of the land, we need to look at the practical effect, including on the courts. I am trying to walk the House through what might be the practical effect in the courtroom. If the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) will bear with me, I shall attempt to develop that point.
I am aware of no evidence of courts finding that they have insufficient powers to give an appropriate sentence to an offender in this regard. I am not aware that we have received representations from the courts asking us to amend the law in this way.
In contrast, converting the flexibility that the courts currently exercise into a mandatory requirement—which is what the Bill says—would present them with practical difficulties. For example, in demonstrating to a court that the aggravating factor was present and should apply, the prosecution would need to show that the hostility was present. Perhaps that would be relatively straightforward in the case of a soldier in uniform, but the Bill as drafted extends the same protection to those not in uniform, which might be more difficult to prove. As we have seen, this provision also includes the families of service personnel and our veteran community—all 4.6 million of them, or about one in 10 of the adult population of this country.
Under the Bill as drafted, the court would presumably have to decide whether the offender was aware of that fact and whether it motivated the effect. The court might need to establish whether a victim was a relative—“any relative”—of a member of the armed forces. How are the courts to deal with a situation where an offence is motivated by excessive rivalry between different sections of the armed forces or, perhaps, a domestic dispute? A mandatory requirement for a higher sentence reduces the courts’ ability to take a sensible, common-sense approach to what is really going on in the circumstances they are examining.
Thomas Docherty
I regret that the Minister and I are slightly diverging in our perspectives. My concern is that some of these arguments could well have been used by civil servants who were sceptical about the provisions in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 dealing with relatives and how someone knows that someone else is gay. The Minister is a wise individual with a great deal of common sense. He knows what we are talking about, even if his civil servants do not necessarily know, and I am confident that if he was on a jury, he would know what he was looking at.
Mr Francois
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s vote of confidence in that respect. It is kind of him. The point I am making is that his Bill would mandate the courts. My argument is that the courts already have sufficient power to increase sentences if they believe that such sentiments are an aggravating factor, but can make that choice at their own discretion. It is not as though the courts could not do that without the Bill. They already can; it is just that the Bill would mandate them to do so, which might lead to some practical difficulties.
It is also worth pointing out that there is a fundamental difference between offences provoked by hostility to the work of the victim and offences motivated by prejudice against the inherent characteristics of the victim, such as homophobic crime. Section 146 of the 2003 Act is designed to help to change deep-rooted prejudices. It would be quite wrong to suggest that such provisions were necessary in relation to the armed forces, because I do not believe that such deep-seated prejudices necessarily apply.
I have not yet mentioned what I regard as the most telling argument against the Bill: the views of the intended beneficiaries. I am not aware of any general desire in the armed forces community for legislation of this type and it has certainly never been proposed to me by any of the chiefs of staff. The servicemen and women who wear their uniforms with pride want to be respected in their communities and to be considered part of those communities, and rightly so. We should not necessarily put them in a position where they are forced to explain why they require protection in law in a way that is not enjoyed by, for example, firemen or ambulance staff. It is a firm principle of the armed forces covenant that special provision for service people may be appropriate in some cases, but I am not necessarily convinced at this stage that the way the hon. Gentleman has drafted his Bill would achieve the desired effect.
Finally, we have to recognise that the criminal law is a devolved matter. The hon. Gentleman is aware that this is a difficult area—in fairness to him, the Bill clearly states that, as drafted, it extends to England and Wales only, so he is definitely cognisant of that—but the Bill opens the way to a situation where offences against members of the armed services could be handled differently across the UK. We have no interest in creating further anomalies of this kind. I have no doubt that the Scottish Parliament would be as firm as Westminster in its views on discrimination, but we also need to acknowledge and recognise that the question is perhaps not as straightforward when seen from the perspective of Belfast. The introduction of a provision similar to the one we are discussing today could, practically, be quite problematic in Northern Ireland under certain circumstances.
In pointing out the problems with the Bill, I would not wish the House to draw the conclusion that the Government are complacent or that we are doing nothing to counter discrimination against service personnel—quite the opposite. The armed forces covenant and the principles that we enshrined in statute in 2011 have a high profile across the whole of Whitehall and beyond. The first principle, that members of the armed forces community should not suffer disadvantage as a result of that membership, has given rise to many initiatives that are making a real, practical difference.
In the first statutory annual report on the armed forces covenant, published in December 2012, we described what we were doing to make those principles a reality. Let me give the House some examples. We are working to remove the disadvantage that the children of service personnel can face in the schools system as a result of their mobility, through the admissions code and through the service pupil premium. We have been consulting on the disadvantages faced by reservists in the workplace. We are ensuring that service personnel and leavers encounter a level playing field in access to social housing or Government-funded home ownership schemes.
At the same time, we are working to build the links between the armed forces community and the wider community, to improve the knowledge and understanding that must be at the centre of that relationship. From knowledge flows the esteem for our servicemen and women that is ultimately the most powerful way to counter discrimination. The community covenant has now been signed in over 230 local authority areas from Cornwall to the north of Scotland, signifying a real determination to strengthen ties with the armed forces. I am confident that, during the year, it will continue to gain further support. The grant scheme linked to the community covenant has allowed us to back a range of schemes that will help to put those declarations into practice. To that, we can now add the £35 million fund created as a result of the LIBOR fines, which will support charities with projects to help the armed forces and their families.
In giving the Bill careful consideration, I hope that the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife will not mind me pointing out that it is not an entirely new proposal. That fact was highlighted earlier by my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour, the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge). It is always good to see him in his place in the House of Commons. Something very similar was proposed by the then Member for Grantham and Stamford, now Lord Davies of Stamford, in his “Report of Inquiry into National Recognition of the Armed Forces” in 2008. The hon. Member for Wrexham said that he could not quite remember the details of the report, so I shall refresh his memory. On page 6, in the chapter on “Increasing Visibility”, the then Member for Grantham and Stamford said:
“We further recommend that the Home Office, Crown Prosecution Service and Ministry of Justice consider issuing guidance respectively to the Police, Prosecutors and Judiciary to the effect that where victims of violence or threats of violence are persons in military uniform, those offences should be considered aggravated by that fact.”
The Labour Government of the day responded to that report a few months later, in the name of the right hon. Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth). By then, of course, the author of the report had become a Defence Minister. Nevertheless, the Government’s response to the recommendation I have just referred to was very clear. It stated:
“We are confident…that Service personnel are properly protected against criminal offences by the criminal law as it stands.”
It went on to state that
“we do not think that a change in the law is necessary or appropriate.”
Given that robust response, I had expected the Opposition to take the same view of the Bill as we do.
James Duddridge
I had previously held the noble Lord Davies of Stamford in high regard, but I reassessed that because I felt that he had moved from this side of the House to the other side for reasons of naked opportunism. Is my right hon. Friend correcting me, and saying that it was not naked opportunism but related to his services to—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. The hon. Gentleman should not mention a Member of the other House in that way. I am sure that he will want to withdraw that comment.
James Duddridge
I withdraw the term “naked” and the other word that I used. I do not know which—
James Duddridge
A plethora of apologies to cover all bases. Perhaps it is best if I leave my right hon. Friend the Minister to reply in any way that he deems permissible.
Mr Francois
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. Lord Davies might have changed parties, but I will leave it to others to decide whether he has changed his mind.
Across the country, attitudes to our armed forces are positive and healthy. That is not only a good thing in itself; it is also an important contributor to morale. We should not underestimate the strength that our servicemen and women draw in doing their very difficult job from the knowledge that they have the respect and backing of their fellow citizens. They deserve it, and they earn it; we do not need to enlist the help of the criminal courts in order to engender respect for our armed forces.
Mr Francois
I am about to conclude, but I will give way briefly if the hon. Gentleman wants me to.
Thomas Docherty
Very briefly, is this an issue that the Minister will look at in the coming armed forces covenant report, and will he consider reporting back to the House on it?
Mr Francois
The hon. Gentleman pre-empts me. I was about to say that as a result of the Armed Forces Act 2011, we have a new vehicle at our disposal in the form of an annual report to Parliament—effectively a report on the state of the armed forces covenant. As I have already mentioned, we produced the first report in December last year. I acknowledge that it does not refer in detail to the issues we have been debating this afternoon. Given the concerns expressed, however, I can see the case for monitoring developments in this area, and for including any findings in the next report at the end of 2013. The focus of the annual report on the removal of disadvantage as one of the key covenant principles gives us sufficient latitude to do so. I sense no will in the House to object to our being able to achieve that.
On that basis, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that my caution about the law of unintended consequences does not diminish in any way my respect for what he is trying to achieve. On the understanding that we will most definitely look at this issue in the context of the armed forces covenant report, I hope he will consider withdrawing his Bill.
Thomas Docherty
This has been a very positive, consensual and useful debate. Briefly, I think there is a difference between the armed forces and other uniforms. The armed forces are unique in that they have no professional body; there is no equivalent of the Police Federation, the Fire Brigades Union or the GMB. That is an important point to note.
I am heartened by the fact that two Ministers have been prepared to give up their time to be here. I am heartened, too, by the pledge given by the Minister of State. I welcome that, and I look forward to working with him on it. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
Bill withdrawn.
Train Companies (Minimum Fares) Bill
(11 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I am grateful to have so much time to speak to this Bill this afternoon. I regret that my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) will probably not get too long to discuss his excellent Bill, and indeed that my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown) will not get long to discuss the Bill he has so ably brought before us.
I am sure that your constituents, Mr Deputy Speaker, just like mine, are facing rising costs in train fares. A recent report by Passenger Focus found that 40% of passengers were over-paying for their train fares. In 2009, the Select Committee on Transport published an excellent report that received cross-party support, and that said that the current fare structure was cumbersome, bureaucratic and difficult to understand. I am sure that you, Mr Deputy Speaker, would be as surprised as I was to learn that the current fare regulations stretch to more than 1,000 pages. That goes back to the fact that when the railways were privatised, British Rail—not the most flexible organisation—had a bureaucratic and cumbersome process.
I very much welcome the fact that the Department for Transport is now reviewing the fare process, even if, like some trains, it is going a bit slower than we would like. I have been contacted by many constituents about this issue. It is interesting to note that under the current devolution settlement, this matter is reserved to the UK Parliament, so it is great to see in his place one of the devolution Ministers, who I am sure will respond in due course. I do not know whether the Government are talking actively to the Welsh Assembly Government or the Scottish Executive about this matter.
I shall be brief, because I hope to give the Minister a chance to respond in a few minutes.
James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
James Duddridge
Would the hon. Gentleman consider amending the Bill to allow the issue of tickets enabling people to travel throughout the United Kingdom for a fixed price for a whole year? That system operates in Germany.
Thomas Docherty
It is a very good idea, although it would be Great Britain rather than the United Kingdom, because Ireland has a separate deal with Northern Ireland.
If my constituents go to one of my local railway stations at 8 am, ScotRail is not required to tell them what is the lowest fare. If they ask, ScotRail—
Business without Debate
(11 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Hon. Members
Object.
Debate to be resumed on Friday 1 March.
FREE SCHOOL MEALS (CHILDREN OVER THE AGE OF 16) BILL
Motion made, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Hon. Members
Object.
Bill to be read a Second time on Friday 1 March.
COSMETIC SURGERY (MINIMUM STANDARDS) BILL
Motion made, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Hon. Members
Object.
Bill to be read a Second time on Friday 1 March.
TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING (CONTROL OF ADVERTISEMENTS) (ENGLAND) REGULATIONS 2007 (AMENDMENT) BILL
Motion made, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Chalk Stream Abstraction
(11 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)
Thank you for allowing me to speak on the Adjournment today, Mr Deputy Speaker. Let me begin by saying to the Minister that I am going to give him one hell of a beating over the next 15 minutes, and I hope he can suck it up and take it like a man.
We are a blessed nation. When God made this great world of ours, He gave India the Himalayas, He gave Brazil the Amazon rain forest, and He gave South Africa the savannah. Then God thought to Himself, “What can I give that great country, England? What can I give England that it can be proud of?”, and He gave us 85% of the world’s chalk streams. The world’s chalk streams are one of the most precious previous ecosystems available, and God decided that we should have custody of 85% of that resource; so we are indeed a blessed nation.
As I grew up with my grandfather in Hampshire and Wiltshire, I spent many happy days trundling down the river banks, fishing rod in hand, with my grandfather carrying the picnic basket containing the tomato soup and my grandmother’s cheese and ham baps. We would sit there on the river bank, looking at the sparkling water, the kingfishers, the damselflies, the mayflies and the water voles, and the two of us, for that moment in time, were kings. But now, I am afraid, the House must hear the bad news. For the last 30 or 40 years, we have watched our precious chalk streams die. We have watched them drain away, abstracted to death.
Just after my grandfather died in January 2012, I visited the River Kennet at Manton, where we had had so many adventures together. I stood in that river with the former Member of Parliament for Reading, West, Martin Salter, and it was dry: dry as a bone. We stood in that river with my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry), in whose constituency it falls. It was dry; it had gone. There was no more water, and there was no more wildlife: no voles, no fly life, no fish, nothing. There was just a tiny puddle in the weir pool. I said that there were no fish, but in fact there were about 20 fish left in the weir pool, clinging on for life.
That was in January 2012, when we were facing an environmental disaster. We were only saved by a once-in-a-hundred-years event—the coming of the great rains in the spring of last year, which lasted throughout the summer and continued into the winter. Without those rains, there would have been standpipes across the country, and we would have been in crisis. Cobra would have been meeting. That is how close we were to the water system failing and our losing many more of our rivers, not just the upper Kennet.
As a result of this near-disaster, the all-party group on angling and interested parties from around the country—chalk streams are to be found in the east of England, the west country and as far away as Yorkshire, as well as in Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire—held a summit at Stockbridge. The mood was one of extreme anger because this precious natural resource was being allowed to die, and we were standing aside and watching that happen—we were watching our chalk streams drain away.
We in this House lecture Brazil on the Amazon rain forest and Indonesia on its rain forest, yet we are appalling custodians of our own precious resources. We are not in any position to lecture anyone about the environment.
The Environment Agency attended that summit meeting, and its civil servants looked us in the eye and assured us that it had the highest regard for our chalk streams, and that it was committed to conserving them and making sure they remained for future generations to enjoy. I do not want to say this, but I am going to: what total and utter rubbish. You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time. I said to those at the EA, “You come and visit our streams in Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire.” If they were to visit them today, they would need a pair of waders, as we have had historically high levels of rainfall, but if they had come last spring, they would not have needed to bring waders, or even gumboots or ankle-boots. In fact they could have brought their bedroom slippers and still not got their feet wet, because these rivers have been abstracted to death, and some of them are not even there any more. Last year, we lost three, and another two were 50% dried up. They will come back, but there will not be any wildlife in them, there will not be any fly life and there will not be any fish.
What really sticks in the craw is that the EA puts out press releases saying, “Our rivers have never been cleaner than they are now.” Some of them might well be clean, but they might also be only 1 inch deep, so that message is deliberately misleading.
Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire are in this situation because we have been building houses for decades; we have been growing the population of the east of England for decades without any thought to how we are going to supply the water. We just keep sucking it out of the ground through abstraction. The last major reservoir that was built in the south-east and east was the Queen Mother reservoir, which was constructed 40 years ago. Hundreds of thousands of houses have been built in the intervening time.
In 1950, there was a debate in this Chamber about the state of the Mimram, running along the Hertfordshire-Buckinghamshire border. There was concern about its future back then, when households were abstracting an average of 60 litres of water a day. That figure now stands at 180 litres of water a day across the region, and, as I have said, there are so many more homes, too.
We are on the cusp of an historic event, as the draft water Bill will soon come before the House. The Bill must be robust. First, it must deal with Ofwat. I am not going to pull my punches: Ofwat is a really shocking organisation. It really is a disgrace, and it has worked against conservation in this country for many years. It has no regard for conservation. It is not interested in what happens in the natural environment. If a water company wants to install metering to try to reduce usage, it will not happen if it is going to cost anybody any money. Ofwat needs to be given some responsibility for the environmental consequences of its actions. We cannot carry on in the same way as at present.
We need to get far better at capturing and storing water. We currently have an abundance of water, but a lot of it is going down the rivers into the sea. As a result, it is replenishing the aquifers, which is a good thing, but the aquifers will be sucked dry again and in two or three years we will right back where we started. That means rivers that barely flow, rivers that do not support any life, rivers that are in essence dead—environmental vandalism on a extraordinary scale. As I said, how dare we lecture the developing world on its responsibilities to its natural environment when we so casually disregard our responsibilities to our natural environment?
I was educated in America, where people are far more aggressive in pursuit of conservation issues. Trout Unlimited in America routinely takes state and federal Governments to court when they are letting down the natural environment. It mounts court cases, fights court cases and wins court cases. I do not advocate direct action in this country. Sometimes I want to man the barricades, break the water pumps, let people know how I feel, burning tyres in the street in Stockbridge, for example, to make the point, but that is not the way forward. It might be tempting, it might be momentarily attractive to become a sort of middle-class Swampy, but that is not the way forward. If this Government, if future Governments cannot get it right, we have to go to law more often. We have to hold Governments to account.
We have an excellent Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon). His heart is in the right place. He has it within his powers to do something truly great. If he meets resistance in Ofwat, get rid of that resistance—show ’em the door. If the Environment Agency is not willing to step up to the plate, show those responsible the door. We need a can-do Government and a can-do Minister working in a can-do Department. We are at the business end of the coalition. We are halfway through the Parliament and now is the time to make the difference, to leave that legacy by which we will be judged.
So I urge the Minister in his remaining two and a half years at the Department—who knows, he might be there indefinitely as the Conservatives sweep the board in 2015, but I am almost sure that he has another two and a half years in that Department and I will ask him to do great things while he is there. This is not just about fishing, as much as I love fishing and catching beautiful wild brown trout that have swum our rivers since the ice age; it is about how we treat and regard our environment.
I am appalled when I hear that plans are made to build houses in Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire without any thought being given to how we are going to supply those houses with water. In my part of the world 70% of our water is abstracted and there are tens of thousands more houses to be built, so more and more abstraction. We have a roll-call of shame—the River Beane, the Ver, the Bulbourne, the Chess, the Misbourne, the Gade, the Wye, the Lea, the Colne, the Mimram—some of them on their knees, some no longer on their knees but in the dust, because there is no hope for them if things continue as they are now.
On many of the rivers that do not flow there are still abstraction licences that are not even being utilised. On the River Lea, which is at about 10% of its historical flow, 15% of what it was 300 or 400 years ago, there are abstraction licences that are not being exercised, but if the water companies see fit, they have the right to exercise them. We are on the cusp not just of things going along in an unsustainable way, but truly collapsing off the cliff.
I feel passionately about the matter. Normally I am a good-natured, mild-mannered Member of Parliament and I have tried to be good-natured today, but this Government must get a grip. We have kicked the issue into the long grass for far too long. Successive Governments have not tackled it. If we do not do so, we should say to Brazil, Indonesia and parts of Africa, “Get on with what you want to do with your own environment. We are totally useless at looking after our precious natural resources. Who are we to lecture you?” If I ever come to the House at a time when no action has been taken to address the problem of our own natural resources, if I ever come to the House and hear colleagues and Ministers pontificating about what Brazil should be doing in respect of the Amazon rain forest, I will either walk out in disgust or make a scene, which will be very unattractive for all concerned.
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for allowing me this opportunity, and Minister, I look forward to your response. You have the potential to be a great man. You are a great man in creation at the moment. I really do hope that the Department will march to your tune, that you will crack the whip and that Ofwat and the EA will get a grip, step up to the plate and sort out this terrible, terrible unfolding catastrophe.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon)
The House does not need to be told that my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) is passionate about this issue, and it is a passion that I share. I compliment him on his eloquence and look forward to addressing some of his points, but, more importantly, to being judged by my Department’s actions as we seek to resolve these issues.
My hon. Friend will know that I have form on this issue. I cut my political teeth trying to address over-abstraction in a chalk stream, the River Pang, which I am lucky enough to have flowing through my farm. I was a councillor at the time and I was asked to set up an environmental body that brought together local authorities, parishes, the local community, Thames Water, and the then National Rivers Authority, to see what could be done to improve the habitat around the river, to achieve better flows and to protect the environment. It was a passion that I had then over 20 years ago, and it is one that I now bring to this job as I seek to do precisely what he wants, which is to see rivers such as the River Pang and the ones he described in his part of the world restored to health.
One of the trends in conservation now is something that some people thought would never happen, and that is when green non-governmental organisations work with business to achieve a result that both desire. One of the best partnerships that I have come across in my job is the one between WWF and HSBC. Their Rivers on the Edge campaign seeks to restore chalk streams and is doing great work, and I feel both held to account by it but also passionately involved in making sure that it works.
My hon. Friend rightly says that our water resources are under pressure from development and a growing population, changes in lifestyle and changes in the climate, but there have been a number of changes in recent years that may just put us more in the right direction. One of them is the clear driver towards sustainable development. To me, that means developers having to prove as part of the planning process that what they are doing will at the very least have a minimal impact on the environment. In terms of water usage, that includes the demand end of the water supply in the home right through to the impact on the environment. That is key in terms of our catchment approach to river management.
At one level, I come before the House and say that we want to restore the health of these rivers because we have to comply with the water framework directive. But what a paucity of ambition that would be if it were the sum total of what we seek to do. We want to restore the health of these rivers because we want to restore them. They are, as my hon. Friend describes, part of our culture, part of our heritage. He described them as a divine gift, but whatever hon. Members believe, they are something that this country has and if we believe in good stewardship of our natural resources he is absolutely right: we must turn around these failing rivers and make them flow again and be vibrant environmental features for future generations.
There is a problem in Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire. Public water supplies come predominantly from the chalk groundwater—the same groundwater that flows through our chalk streams. Many of our chalk streams are in a poor state, and restoring flows is essential to increasing the diversity of plant, invertebrate and fish species found in those rivers.
My hon. Friend had some hard words for the Environment Agency. I am not complacent; I am not saying that how Government approach the issue has always been right. However, we do need to balance that argument with what is happening.
Mr Charles Walker
I shall give the Minister a specific example. As we speak, the River Mimram is being downgraded from “over-abstracted” to “over-licensed”. It is clearly over-abstracted. May I ask the Minister to look into that redesignation and come back to the House or write to me in response?
Richard Benyon
I certainly will. I have had my ear bent about the Mimram in the past, and I will make sure that I respond to that specific point.
The Environment Agency is working closely with local groups and environmental bodies to carry out habitat restoration to improve chalk streams. All rivers have targeted plans, actions and resources to remedy the poor conditions, so that local people can tell whether or not we are achieving what we set out to do.
Just over a year ago, we published our water White Paper, which set out a vision for a resilient and sustainable water industry and for future reform of the abstraction regime. We know that the current system is not flexible enough to cope with the challenges of climate change and the increased demand from a growing population, which my hon. Friend so eloquently described. The condition of our chalk rivers acutely highlights that.
The new system needs to be sustainable, resilient and ensure that water remains available to support growth, supply households and protect the environment. Reforming the regime is complex in both economic and environmental terms. Tackling over-abstraction and the damage that it causes is a priority, but we need to recognise that the water is being abstracted for uses that are critical to the operation of businesses and for households.
Mr Walker
Of course water is required by industry and households; that is why we need to build more reservoirs. We had the chance to build a major reservoir at Abingdon, but that project seems to have fallen by the wayside. We must start building major reservoirs in the east and south-east; it is the only environmentally responsible thing to do.
Richard Benyon
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State recently went to the Abberton reservoir in East Anglia. It has just been enlarged by a vast percentage of its original size by Northumbrian Water, which owns the water company in that area. There is extra capacity there, but I entirely agree with my hon. Friend.
Over generations, we have decided that the cheapest way to provide water for homes and businesses is to suck it out of the ground. That is how we have kept bills low for households and businesses. Successive Governments have wished, perfectly reasonably, to keep water bills low. We continue to have that ambition, but we also have environmental ambitions. It is a question of whether we have the balance right, and I am prepared to concede that we do not. I urge my hon. Friend to read our White Paper to see how we set out the importance of a resilient water industry and sector. That will become clear as we develop the issue not only in the water Bill, but in other measures that do not need legislation.
Reforming the abstraction regime is complex, in both economic and environmental terms. Tackling over-abstraction and the damage that it causes is a priority. However, any change that we make will affect people’s livelihoods, so it is important that we take time to get the reform right and work with abstractors to understand and minimise the potential impacts. That is why we aim to legislate for that early in the next Parliament, rather than including specific abstraction measures in the water Bill that we hope will go through Parliament in the next Session. The key point is that we can start to address, without legislation, my hon. Friend’s concerns in many areas.
We are working closely with our stakeholders to understand the potential impacts of reform, from our national advisory group to the people on the ground who actually use the water. Through the year, we will be starting a number of dialogues with different groups, using social and digital media, in the run-up to our formal consultation at the end of the year, so that everyone who shares our passion for these rivers can be involved in this process.
Right now, we are tackling over-abstraction. Abstraction reform is only part of the story. We are able to take action to tackle the kind of abstraction that is damaging our rivers, and we want to make better use of the tools we already have. The Environment Agency has reviewed thousands of licences and changed many of the most damaging. Through the restoring sustainable abstraction process, the agency is working closely with water companies—the largest abstractors in Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire—to improve flows in these rivers. Their work on restoring sustainable abstraction, together with catchment-scale investigations to identify these and other issues, such as diffuse pollution, will give us early notice of the issues we need to tackle in the next river basin management plans, starting in 2015, when there may well be a requirement for new upstream water storage, such as reservoirs.
Mr Walker
Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) and my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Oliver Heald) on all the work they have done in support of local chalk streams, and my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (George Hollingbery), who is chairman of the all-party angling group, on his efforts?
Richard Benyon
This House is full of people with a real passion for these environments. As the MP for a constituency that contains a number of chalk streams, I know about the leadership that has been given over many years by the hon. Members my hon. Friend mentions, and by others who are no longer in this House. He referred to Martin Salter, a former colleague on the Labour Benches, whose work with the Angling Trust is very important in raising these matters. I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to our colleagues who campaign on this.
We want water companies to begin to prepare new water resources management plans for consultation in spring this year. We want them to include in those plans actions to address sustainable reductions where investigations have shown that these are needed or likely to be needed. Last year we published guiding principles that can be used by the Environment Agency to assess whether abstractors are causing serious damage to water bodies. This will enable the agency to use powers to modify the most damaging abstraction licences without the need to pay compensation. This is a major change and a major step forward.
We are also developing better tools and incentives to help water companies to manage their abstractions sustainably. We are working with Ofwat on something that we are calling our abstraction incentive mechanism, which was developed with WWF and several others, and which will encourage water companies to abstract their water from more sustainable sources. This is about making an environmental evaluation as to whether water abstraction is damaging or less damaging in terms of where it occurs. I commend it as one of the measures that we are taking in the next periodic price review process which will start to address the problems that my hon. Friend describes. We are also working with the Environment Agency and Ofwat to change how water companies are funded for changes to damaging abstraction licences. This offers us a real opportunity for a way forward.
I have had time to touch on only some of the measures that we are taking. There are other, more technical, means that I am happy to discuss with my hon. Friend and the all-party group. I am constantly trying to find new and better ways to make sure that over the next few years we reverse the decline in these extraordinary ecosystems. We are not just talking about the channel where the river flows through, beautiful though that is; rich in habitat, when healthy, though it is; and wonderful though it is for people like my hon. Friend and I who enjoy fishing. We are also talking about the whole catchment —the whole environment of the valley that the river flows through. It is absolutely vital that we in the Government, with voluntary bodies, local authorities, and, most importantly, water companies and other abstractors, work towards a solution in which these extraordinary habitats are restored to how they justly should be, so that people can come from all over the world to see a really special environmental feature.
Question put and agreed to.
Ministerial Correction
(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Welfare Spending
(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Mel Stride
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the progress that he has made in controlling welfare expenditure, particularly given that under the previous Government, the costs rose by no less than 60%. However, there is always more to do. Will he outline what we are doing to clamp down on welfare fraud?
Mr Duncan Smith
My hon. Friend is right about the situation that we were left. We are already bearing down on the problem. The figures show that we are making inroads into welfare fraud. Universal credit will have a much better record in this area, because we will be able to use real-time information to check up on who is in work and what they are earning on a monthly basis, rather than having to wait until the end of somebody’s time on tax credits at the end of a year and reconcile the figures over a long period. Under the current tax credits system, £5 billion has been written off as a result of fraud and error, and it looks like another £5 billion will also be written off.
[Official Report, 28 January 2013, Vol. 557, c. 658.]
Letter of correction from Iain Duncan Smith:
An error has been identified in the oral answer given to the hon. Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride).
The correct answer should have been:
Mr Duncan Smith
My hon. Friend is right about the situation that we were left. We are already bearing down on the problem. The figures show that we are making inroads into welfare fraud. Universal credit will have a much better record in this area, because we will be able to use real-time information to check up on who is in work and what they are earning on a monthly basis, rather than having to wait until the end of somebody’s time on tax credits at the end of a year and reconcile the figures over a long period. Under the current tax credits system, £4 billion has been written off as a result of fraud and error, and it looks like another £4 billion will also be written off.
Written Ministerial Statements
(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Extractive Industries (Transparency)
(11 years, 10 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)
The Government today set out their continuing commitment to transparency within the extractive industries. The Government continue to push for agreement at European level on new rules to require large and listed companies to report payment made to all levels of Government within the countries they operate. Strong EU action to create a new global standard for transparency in the extractive industry can help these citizens hold their Governments to account.
That is why we are giving careful consideration to whether the UK will sign up to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and an announcement on the outcome of this review will be made in due course.
New Homes Bonus
(11 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister for Housing (Mr Mark Prisk)
I refer to my written statement of 10 December 2012, Official Report, columns 1-2WS announcing provisional new homes bonus allocations for local authorities.
The representation period closed on 7 January 2013. In addition to the 29 authorities which we wrote to concerning empty homes data, we received a further nine representations. These have been taken into account in finalising the figures.
Commenced in April 2011, the bonus is based on the council tax of additional homes and those brought back into use, with an additional amount for affordable homes, and is paid for six years. It ensures that those local authorities which promote and welcome growth can share in its economic benefits, and build the communities in which people want to live and work.
The bonus will be paid in respect of 160,000 homes from October 2011 to October 2012 including 142,000 extra homes and 18,000 long-term empty properties brought back into use. The allocations also include an affordable homes enhancement, which totals £20 million in respect of 58,000 new affordable homes.
This means we will pay over £668 million of new homes bonus to local authorities in England. This includes the third instalment of £199 million in respect of year 1, the second instalment of £233 million in respect of year 2, and £236 million for housing growth in year 3.
These allocations bring the total amount of funding awarded under the new homes bonus since it began in April 2011 to £1.3 billion. This total recognises delivery of over 400,000 homes, and over 55,000 empty properties being brought back into use.
The Department is writing to local authorities confirming their final allocations and I have written to all Members of Parliament and local authority leaders in England.
A full list of the allocations is being placed in the Library of the House. Further information on the bonus can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/increasing-the-number-of-available-homes/supporting-pages/new-homes-bonus.
European Opt-in Decision (Nuclear Liability)
(11 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Mr John Hayes)
The UK has opted in to the proposal for a Council decision on ratification of the 1997 protocol amending the Vienna convention on civil liability for nuclear damage of 21 May 1963 (“the Vienna convention”). The proposal meets the criteria set out in the coalition agreement with regard to EU justice and home affairs measures. In particular, the Government consider that it is in the UK’s interest to opt in to the proposal because it will be of general benefit to EU citizens but it will not create any obligations in the UK.
The proposed decision authorises member states which are contracting parties to the Vienna convention to ratify the protocol of 12 September 1997 amending the Vienna convention in the interest of the European Union, or to accede to it. The Vienna convention was established to ensure fair and adequate compensation is available in the event of a nuclear accident. The protocol amendments will be beneficial to potential victims of nuclear accidents for which nuclear operators in states that are contracting parties to the Vienna convention are responsible. In particular, they mean that an increased amount of compensation will be available in respect of a broader range of damage across a wider geographical area.
The proposal will only apply to member states that are party to the Vienna convention, that is Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Slovakia and Poland (Latvia and Romania have already ratified the 1997 protocol). The proposal will not apply to the UK which is party to another international convention on liability for nuclear damage—the Paris convention on third party liability in the field of nuclear energy of 29 July 1960 as amended—which is based on similar principles to the Vienna convention.
Public Order Powers
(11 years, 10 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
The Government have today published a summary of the responses to this consultation and a copy has been placed in the House Library. The summary is also available on the Home Office website.
The Home Office published a consultation paper on 13 October 2011 to seek views on aspects of public order powers, one of which was the effect of the word “insulting” in section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986. The summary published today relates to responses on that issue.
Having considered the views of respondents and both Houses of Parliament, the Government intend to remove the word “insulting” in section 5.
The Government believe that behaviour such as swearing at police officers and burning poppy wreaths on Remembrance day are completely unacceptable and the police must have the powers they need to deal with them. However, in the light of the Director of Public Prosecutions’ view that the word “insulting” could safely be removed without undermining future prosecutions, the Government have decided not to reverse the amendment to this effect made on 12 December 2012 in the House of Lords to the Crime and Courts Bill.
The Government will ensure that the police have clear guidance on the range of powers that remain available to them for dealing with the sort of behaviour covered by section 5.
The Government are considering the consultation responses on proposals to strengthen existing police powers to demand removal of face coverings and the introduction of new powers to impose a general curfew. A response will be published by the end of March 2013.
College of Policing (Update)
(11 years, 10 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
In October I set out further information about the establishment of a professional body for policing, the College of Policing.
I can now update the House with progress on its establishment.
I am very pleased to announce my intention to appoint Professor Shirley Pearce as non-executive chair of the college. Professor Pearce recently concluded seven successful years as vice-chancellor at Loughborough university and brings with her a wealth of experience in developing the health professions, in higher education, in research and development, and in working in partnership across sectors to further joint interests.
Earlier in her career Professor Pearce qualified and practised as a clinical psychologist before taking on a range of lecturing and senior executive roles, primarily at University College London and the University of East Anglia. Professor Pearce will bring extensive experience in the education and professionalisation arenas, and significant senior leadership experience to her role at the college.
The college became operational on 1 December 2012 and it will be established on a statutory basis as soon as parliamentary time allows.
Alex Marshall takes up his full-time role as the chief executive of the college from Monday 4 February.
House of Lords
Antarctic Bill
(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Viscount Montgomery of Alamein
My Lords, the Bill, which has come from the House of Commons and was ably piloted through there by the honourable Member for Stroud, Neil Carmichael, now comes to us for further consideration and, I hope, for its passing into law. My interest in the Bill has been compiled entirely from information received from the Polar Regions Department, a very impressive department within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. It represents us at the consultative meetings of the Antarctic Treaty system, which take place regularly and regulate, as far as is possible, all activities in that great continent. It is the largest continent in the world and contains no less than 70% of all the fresh water available in it, so it is very important that we take everything connected with the Antarctic very seriously.
The Bill is designed to enhance the protection of the Antarctic environment. This is partly on account of the fact that Antarctic touring during the summer season, which is now—in January and February—has increased considerably, what with yachts, ships, cruise ships and other things all visiting in the very limited period when there are 24 hours of daylight, as opposed to the June/July period when there are 24 hours of darkness.
Part 1 of the Bill, headed “Environmental Emergencies”, would implement Annex VI to the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty into UK legislation, which is headed, “Liability Arising from Environmental Emergencies”, and is known as the liability annexe. This annexe obliges the consultative parties to require Antarctic operators, both governmental and non-governmental, first, to take preventive measures and to establish contingency plans in order to reduce environmental emergencies in Antarctica; secondly,
“to take prompt and effective response action to environmental emergencies arising from”,
their activities; and, thirdly, to obtain insurance or other financial guarantees to reimburse another party or pay into a special fund the costs of response action to an environmental emergency arising from their activities which the operators did not, or could not, undertake to organise themselves. This is a rather detailed and comprehensive arrangement and I have to make apologies for the fact that it seems intensely boring to some of your Lordships. It is in fact of considerable importance to the whole process.
The provisions of Part 1 set out the framework by which those who fail to make effective responses to an environmental emergency in Antarctica would be liable to reimburse the costs to those who take such action. Under the liability annexe, only a state may bring civil proceedings against an operator to recover the costs of response action undertaken. Following the successful passage of this Bill, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will establish an expert advisory group, consisting of UK Antarctic operators and others with appropriate expertise, to advise on what would have constituted “reasonable response action” in order to determine the level of payment which British operators should reasonably be expected to pay.
The intention would be to enable all financial liability matters to be resolved without the need for court proceedings. However, the Bill would provide the framework for such matters to be settled through the courts as a last resort. The Bill will provide protection for operators from double liability by making it clear that any liability under the Bill will be reduced if the operator is also liable for the same costs under Part IX of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995, which relates to salvage and wrecks.
The Bill will require all those who intend to undertake activities in Antarctica that are connected with the United Kingdom to take preventive measures to minimise the risk and potential impact of environmental emergencies, and to develop contingency plans for responding to any such emergency situation.
The Bill contains an indicative list of preventive measures which those planning to undertake activities would need to have considered prior to entering Antarctica. This list would not however be mandatory in every circumstance, nor is it exhaustive. The onus would be on the operator to demonstrate that they had taken measures to mitigate the environmental risk arising from an emergency. This requirement for contingency plans would cover both the handling of the response to an environmental emergency as well as the response to an incident that is not an environmental emergency but which may have a potential adverse effect on the Antarctic environment. These plans may include what action should be undertaken in response to potential emergencies or incidents, but it is not necessarily expected that every potential incident would be foreseen at the pre-planning stage.
It is proposed that it would be a criminal offence to fail to notify the Secretary of State of an environmental emergency in Antarctica that an organiser of activities becomes aware of as a result of them, their employees or their agents carrying out activities there. Organisers of activities will be required to ensure that mechanisms are in place to require their employees who become aware of an environmental emergency to ensure that the Secretary of State is notified as soon as practicable. The intention behind this requirement is to report all environmental emergencies that the activity organiser becomes aware of and not just those arising as a result of activities they have organised. This would ensure that the UK Government were in a position as soon as practicable to notify the other operators in the region, determine the likely cause of the environmental emergency, and consider what response action should be taken, in consultation with other treaty parties. This could result in some duplication of reporting but that would be better than no notification. The Government would use the criminal sanctions for failure to make such a notification only in extreme cases, and particularly where there was a specific intent not to make such a notification.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
I apologise for interrupting the noble Viscount. What is the definition of an environmental emergency?
Viscount Montgomery of Alamein
That is a very good question. I will refer it to the Minister to answer when he speaks later.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
For the assistance of the House, the most evident environmental emergency was one where an Argentinian ship ran aground in the Antarctic Ocean and lost a considerable amount of fuel oil. That is the most likely environmental emergency with which this deals.
Viscount Montgomery of Alamein
I am most grateful. I knew I would get into difficulty sooner or later. The Bill will treat the British Antarctic Survey, which provides a British permanent presence in the British Antarctic Territory, and other parts of the public sector who enter Antarctica on official business, as part of the Crown. It will also have the benefit of exempting those organisations from requiring insurance, as the UK Government provide self-insurance for their operations.
Now I come to the point that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, wanted me to answer. He was just a bit premature. [Laughter.] The Bill defines an environmental emergency as an accidental event that results in, or imminently threatens to result in, any significant harmful impact on the environment of Antarctica. This definition is derived directly from Article 2 of the liability annexe to which I have already referred. The definition of response action sets out the action that operators would be expected to undertake following an environmental emergency arising from activities. The Bill includes a definition of what constitutes reasonable response action. This is also derived from Article 2 of the liability annexe. Operators will need to ensure that any response action they take meets these criteria.
The proposed amendment to the Act would enable the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to issue permits to non-UK nationals wishing to undertake such activities, for the purpose of education or scientific research, while they are participating in a British expedition. Under the Antarctic Act 1994, it is an offence to damage, destroy or remove any part of a site or monument designated as a historic site or monument. However, in recent years, as a result of the warming climate in Antarctica and increasing access to such sites, it has become necessary to undertake considerable conservation work on historic sites and monuments in Antarctica. The provision to amend Section 10 of the Antarctic Act 1994 would enable a permit to be given for such conservation work including, where necessary, the removal of historic artefacts for their conservation or repair, consistent with environmental protocol obligations.
Annex II to the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty sets out the framework for the protection of Antarctic fauna and flora. As a result of a lengthy review, some small changes have been made to that annex and these are reflected in the Bill. That concludes this part of the proceedings. I beg to move.
The Earl of Selborne
On 25 May 1994, the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery, moved in this House the Second Reading of the Antarctic Bill, which ensured that we updated our obligations under the Antarctic Treaty, which we had been the first to ratify in 1961. After 19 years, he has returned. Once more, we have an obligation to update the treaty. We are enormously indebted to the noble Viscount for once more bringing it to our attention and enabling us to enact this legislation. He explained why it is necessary. After 19 years, with the recognition of just how sensitive the Antarctic is to climate change, environmental impacts from the increase in tourism and the vast increase in interest in the research that is being undertaken in the Antarctic, it is perhaps not surprising that the parties concerned have determined that in a number of respects the requirements of the Antarctic Treaty need updating.
As the noble Viscount explained, the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty already has five annexes in force, and Part 1 of the Bill, with the liability annexe, introduces a sixth. I assure the noble Viscount that, boring though the liability annexe may be—and one has to agree with him on that—it would not be boring if an environmental emergency happened; it would be a total disaster that would have untoward consequences without a doubt.
It is highly relevant to note that all 28 consultative parties have approved this annexe, as have the 22 non- consultative parties and observers—various NGOs and United Nations agencies. Perhaps most relevant of all, attending these annual Antarctic Treaty consultative meetings is the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators. If you really want an example of how international treaties work at their best, the Antarctic Treaty could be set up as an exemplar. All the parties, whether involved in scientific research, tourism or competing territorial claims, have agreed that territorial claims should be subsumed into this treaty. No other part of the world has ever had such a treaty and such an example of international collaboration.
I was lucky enough to visit the British Antarctic Survey’s base at Rothera on the Antarctic peninsula two years ago. At exactly the same time, my noble friend Lord Forsyth was much farther south and much higher summiting Mount Vinson, so I rather lost bragging rights in the Bishop’s Bar on that occasion. Nevertheless, I look forward enormously to hearing my noble friend’s first-hand experiences of the impact of being in such an astonishing part of the world. All visitors cannot help but be impressed by how all the research bases work together. There are some 80 bases belonging to 28 countries around the Antarctic, and they have to work together not just in times of crisis but in helping each other with fuel caches and in sharing research results. It is a wonderful example of international collaboration, particularly as the relevance of the Antarctic to so many studies of climate change, meteorology, communications and much else comes up the agenda. The updating of this treaty is a heartening example of how so many countries work together.
The preamble of the treaty states:
“it is in the interest of all mankind that Antarctica shall continue forever to be used exclusively for peaceful purposes and shall not become the scene or object of international discord”.
As we heard from the noble Viscount, the increase in tourism and the amount of research undertaken in Antarctica has demonstrated the need for this Bill. Part 1 contains provisions for the liability annexe, and Part 2 responds to the increasing pressure on the Antarctic environment from human activity. It is particularly relevant here to look at the marine environment. There is an enormous number of quite astonishing organisms in the Southern Ocean and in Antarctic waters. Thanks to modern technology and the ability to visit these remote regions of our planet, we now know a lot more about the remarkable biodiversity and the astonishingly fragile ecosystems.
Reverting to the question that my noble friend Lord Forsyth posed to the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery, it would not take an awful lot of impact to create a major emergency in the marine environment. It would not need a large Argentinean tourist liner; quite a minor spill could have impacts. We should remember how long some of these organisms take to grow; hundreds of years is not unusual. You do not have to visit Rothera, which is in the Antarctic peninsula at sea level, where they do much of this work on marine organisms. You can visit the British Antarctic Survey’s headquarters in Cambridge where you will see some of these marine organisms being further studied. Some of them are remarkable.
Part 2 also refers to historic sites. This country has a particular interest because of its leading role in Antarctic research. I am thinking, of course, of Scott and Shackleton. I pay tribute to the United Kingdom and New Zealand Antarctic heritage trusts, which have protected and conserved the huts of Scott, Shackleton and other explorers from the heroic age of Antarctic exploration. Part 2 refers to the need to be able to make funds from this country available to help these charities in their excellent work.
I enormously welcome the Bill. I congratulate the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery. If I have one criticism, it is a rather churlish one. It is simply that the Government having produced an excellent draft Bill, which went out to consultation two years ago, it has taken rather longer than I would have hoped for it to come before Parliament. However, thanks to Neil Carmichael MP in another place and the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery, we can now proceed with the ratification. We will not, alas, be the first this time—I wish we were—but the seventh. Perhaps the Minister can confirm that. This is a most important Bill, and we should be enormously grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery, for making it possible for us to take it forward.
Lord Giddens
My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery, on having introduced this Bill and on his succinct definition of environmental catastrophe. He is one of the few people who could get a laugh from such a thing. It was good to see him deal with it so ably.
I am happy to support the Bill, even if it is slightly surreal, since no one owns any part of the Antarctic, which is as it should be. Seven nations have claimed territory there. The claims are legal according to the laws of the nations in question, which makes this Bill worth pursuing. However, some countries do not recognise any national claims on the Antarctic; others assert their right to make claims in future. The Antarctic Treaty 1959 has been conspicuously successful, so far anyway, in preserving the region as a continent for science, as I think has already been mentioned. Long may that continue. Today, there are more than 40 scientific research stations dotted across the vast continent, attracting scientists from many countries.
I enjoyed reading the debate on this issue in the Commons from 2 November last year, where the Bill achieved impressive cross-party support. Amazingly, one or two Eurosceptic contributors managed to get in some obscure digs against the EU, even though it has no connection at all to the proposals, although it did liven up the debate. As a whole, the discussion in the Commons was good and balanced.
I spoke in the debate in your Lordships’ House to commemorate the centenary of Scott’s second expedition to the Antarctic. Many of us in that debate took it as an opportunity to oppose the plan to close down the British Antarctic Survey. As with those who spoke in the debate in the Commons, virtually everyone took the same view, I am happy to say. It is a relief that the BAS has been saved, even if there is work to do on the issue.
As has been said, the UK has long been the dominant scientific presence in the Arctic and, if anything, research in that vast frozen land and sea mass has become even more important than it was. Current research spans biology, geology, oceanography, medicine and many other sciences. The Antarctic is a laboratory for the study of climate change, and it is very interesting what is going on there in that respect. Some areas of the Arctic are becoming more frozen, not less, as a result of violent winds that circulate in the centre of the land mass, yet other areas are becoming warmed in a very significant way. The BAS research shows that the level of warming on the Antarctic peninsula,
“is among the highest seen anywhere on Earth in recent times”.
It is likely to have a profound effect on the ecosystems in the local area, but more disturbingly—
Lord Hunt of Chesterton
My Lords, this discovery of a great warming and how it happened was the joint effort of many universities and the British Antarctic Survey.
Lord Giddens
My Lords, I stand corrected, although I endorse the quotation, which does come from the British Antarctic Survey. Of course, almost all research in the Antarctic is collaborative, as the noble Lord points out. That is a good part of the British presence there.
I was about to say that the changes going on in the Arctic peninsula and the rest of the Antarctic could also have profound impact on wider world patterns. That is why it is so important to have a very strong scientific presence there. The significance of the Bill is that it shores up the UK’s treaty obligations and makes them part of British law. One clause applies the polluter pays principle to those operating in the Antarctic, and environmental disasters include cruise ships bashing into icebergs, which one or two of them have already done. Numerous other instances could be mentioned. This part of the Bill includes the need for insurance provision in relation to such incidents, while another part helps to provide protection for indigenous flora and fauna, as the noble Viscount said.
I endorse the Bill on the understanding that it is a contribution to the safety and sanctity of the Antarctic as an international zone of peaceful research. I do not support any geopolitical claims that might be drawn from it as giving the UK special rights that other nations might not have.
Lord Avebury
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery, on his skill in introducing the Bill and wish him every success in piloting it through this House, with his long experience and great knowledge of the Antarctic. I congratulate my honourable friend the Member for Stroud on choosing this important subject for his Private Member’s Bill and on his skill in piloting it successfully through another place.
The Antarctic is a region of tremendous political, scientific and environmental importance, and I am delighted to support this Bill today. The Antarctic Treaty, and the related agreements described together as the Antarctic Treaty System, is a great achievement, reserving as it does the whole of the land and ice shelves south of 60 degrees latitude for scientific research and excluding all military activity in the region. This was largely a British achievement as my honourable friend emphasised in another place, and we were the first to ratify the treaty in 1961.
Britain not only played a leading role in the development of the ATS, but we continue to provide an effective and powerful contribution to scientific research on the continent for the benefit of mankind as a whole through the British Antarctic Survey. I was delighted when the Government decided, on the basis of solid evidence, rehearsed here and in another place, to maintain the independence of the BAS. That outcome was a good example of Parliament working together with the Government to avert a serious error of judgment, and I am pleased to see that the BAS is specifically referred to in the Bill, as my honourable friend the Member for Cambridge pointed out in Committee in another place. If my noble friend the Minister could say anything about the timescale for the appointment of the new director, I am sure that would be appreciated by your Lordships.
This Bill tightens the protection of the Antarctic environment by enabling us to bring into force the mechanisms in the liability annex to the protocol, “Liability Arising from Environmental Emergencies”. The simple description of this process is that the polluter pays, as the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, explained. Every person, public or private, who organises an activity in Antarctica must take reasonable, prompt and effective action to deal with an environmental emergency, defined as an event which threatens or results in significant harm to the environment. Operators are required to insure against liabilities that may arise under this provision. The explanation by the Minister in another place of how the limits on liability in the schedule complement those in the 1996 protocol to the limitation of liability for maritime claims generally under the 1996 protocol was not entirely clear, and I look forward to discussing that with my noble friend the Minister, although I have no intention of delaying the Bill.
The most likely type of major environmental disaster to happen is the loss of, or spillage of oil from, a tourist vessel. The “Nordkapp” ran aground near Deception Island and spilled 757 litres of diesel oil, for instance, while the “Explorer”, with 150 passengers on board, sank near the South Shetland Islands in November 2007. Recently, much larger cruise ships have sailed into these waters, and, considering that the UK-occupied sections of the territory are the most popular destinations, I wonder whether the Government would consider imposing a charge for permits based on the number of passengers carried. Looking at the fees charged by the tour operators, £500 per passenger would not be an unreasonable levy, enabling us to accumulate a fund to cover some or all of the clean-up costs that were not within the maximum liability. I dare say the Minister will point out that if other parties to the liability annex did not impose similar levies, the operators would seek permits from state parties where the cost was lowest. Have the Government broached this subject with the other parties and would they take a lead on the matter, bearing in mind their general disposition to recover the cost to the taxpayer of providing all kinds of services?
The larger the volume of tourism to Antarctica, the greater the danger to its fragile environment. That applies particularly to the UK dependencies, which are the most popular destinations, such as Deception Island and the South Sandwich Islands. A charging regime such as I am suggesting would help to slow down the growth of the traffic, as well as providing a shield against recovery costs that exceed the limits in the schedule.
Tourism is not the only threat to Antarctica’s environment. Large-scale fishing operations have developed in recent years, and my noble friend will be able to confirm that they are not covered by the Bill. The activities carried out in Antarctica which are dealt with in Part 1 are defined in Clause 13(9) as those carried out on a British expedition, defined in turn in Section 3(3) of the Antarctic Act 1994 as an expedition organised or starting from the UK. That would seem to include the tourist ships but not fishing vessels, which are treated separately in the 1994 Act. If my interpretation is correct, does this not leave a gaping hole in the Bill, and presumably in the underlying “liability annex”, since fishing vessels are no less likely to have accidents that pollute the environment than tourist ships?
New Zealand discovered the toothfish in the Ross Sea in 1996 and now some 3,000 tonnes of this fish are caught every year and sold as Chilean sea bass in expensive restaurants around the world. The New Zealand NGO, The Last Ocean, has initiated a campaign to ban commercial fishing altogether in the Ross Sea, claiming that it will destroy the natural ecosystem. The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, CCAMLR, has committed to designating a network of marine protected areas, including the Ross Sea, but according to The Last Ocean, that means allowing commercial fishing, including krill trawlers. The CCAMLR was established in 1982 by an international convention to conserve Antarctic marine life, but that does not exclude harvesting as long as it is sustainable and takes account of fishing’s effects on other components of the ecosystem.
The Antarctic Treaty System prohibits exploitation of natural resources on the land mass of Antarctica, but the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources allows for conditional exploitation of marine resources, including krill. The president of the World Bank and the noble Lord, Lord Stern, both issued warnings at Davos last week of far more serious climate change than has so far been predicted. As drought and floods reduce agricultural production, there will be huge pressure to loosen the controls on the abundant source of food in Antarctica.
It seems that there is a possible conflict between the objectives of the CCAMLR and the purpose of this Bill, which is to reduce the likelihood of environmental emergencies anywhere south of 60 degrees latitude, and to provide the resources for dealing with the situation when emergencies do occur. Allowing more shipping into sensitive areas such as the Ross Sea is bound to increase the risk of accidents, in addition to the risk of disturbing the ecosystem if the scientists who advise the CCAMLR get it wrong. Yet the duty to take preventive measures and make contingency plans in Clause 5 does not apply to fishing operators, nor will they be required to notify the Secretary of State as soon as they become aware of an environmental emergency. They may be required to pay compensation for any environmental emergency they cause under the Merchant Shipping Act 1995, but not to the Antarctic Environmental Liability Fund, as would be the case if they were subject to the Bill. Can my noble friend explain whether, in the event of an environmental emergency caused by a ship which is not an expedition, that fund receives compensation, or alternatively, how the operators can be made to pay the recoverable costs of the response action? In practice, the costs of recovery will fall on the BAS, and there must surely be a procedure for its reimbursement where ships that are not expeditions get into trouble.
I have a couple more questions about Part 1. What are the criteria that determine the threshold of an environmental emergency? In January 2007, the “Nordkapp”, operated by Hurtigruten, hit a rock near Deception Island and, as I said earlier, lost 757 litres of diesel fuel into the ocean. In December 2008, the “Ushuaia”, run by Fathom Expeditions, ran aground near Wilhelmina Bay and lost an unreported amount of diesel fuel, and there may well be other similar accidents that I have not been able to identify. Would these events have come under the provisions of the Bill, and what is the limit below which a loss of fuel need not be reported? Who is paying for the clean-up of the pollution caused by marine accidents generally in Antarctica now and until the liability annex comes into force?
The annex will come into force only when all the 28 parties to the protocol have ratified it, and when we have passed this Bill that will make only six out of the 28. My honourable friend the Minister said at Committee stage in another place that we would then encourage the remaining countries to get a move on with their own ratifications. Bearing in mind that it has taken seven and a half years since the adoption of the annex for less than a quarter of the states to ratify it, I hope this does not mean that the rest are going to delay implementation until 2035. If my noble friend can say anything about the prospects for accelerating the process, it might cheer us up.
On Part 2 I shall be very brief. I warmly welcome Clause 14, which allows multinational teams from UK universities to undertake research in a special area, provided the domestic legislation of their home country allows them to do so. My question here is whether this means that only nationals of the other five countries that have already ratified the annex can participate in our university expeditions, or whether any of the others have already made arrangements to grant their citizens the necessary permission.
With regard to the historic sites, I note that there are two that are co-managed with Chile and one that is co-managed with Argentina. Mawson’s Huts, remaining from the heroic Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1911-14, described in last Sunday’s Observer, are an exclusively Australian responsibility, but Sir Douglas himself was Yorkshire born and three of the 22 members of his expedition were British. Is there some way in which the UK might contribute expertise or resources to the management of Mawson’s Huts in recognition of our role in an enterprise which equalled those of Scott, Shackleton and Amundsen?
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
My Lords, I offer my congratulations to the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, on bringing this Bill before the House, and to Neil Carmichael in the other place. It is a vital Bill. I apologise to the noble Viscount for interrupting his speech and asking about the definition of an environmental emergency. I hope that the Minister will turn his attention to that matter. It is set out in the Bill in Clause 13(3), which states:
“In this Part, ‘environmental emergency’ means an accidental event that results in, or imminently threatens to result in, any significant harmful impact on the environment of Antarctica”.
Why is it limited to an accidental event? Why is “accidental” included in the subsection? Why does the measure not apply to any event that threatens to have a significant harmful impact? I have no doubt there is a simple explanation for that but it was not obvious to me on reading the Bill.
My noble friend Lord Baker reminded me that my right honourable friend the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, first became enthusiastic about the environment when she was told that a British Antarctic Survey team had discovered the hole in the ozone layer as a result of its work in the Antarctic. That was the origin of her pursuing the environment with the vigour that she did when she was Prime Minister.
As my noble friend Lord Selborne pointed out, I had the pleasure of going to Antarctica at Christmas 2010 to climb the highest mountain there. Almost all noble Lords supported that venture in aid of Marie Curie Cancer Care and we raised almost half a million pounds as a result of that visit. I have to say that it was one of the most expensive trips that I have ever taken anywhere. It is very difficult to get there and the costs and difficulties of operating there are immense.
Having been to Antarctica, I have to confess that I did not see any penguins or any animals at all because I went to the interior to climb a mountain and landed at the Union glacier, where it is so cold that no animals or even bacteria can exist. It is a completely lifeless place. For me, it was a quite astonishing, almost spiritual, experience. If you stand on a mountain in Antarctica on a calm day, which does not happen very often, the air is so clear and unpolluted that you can see for many more miles than we are used to doing in other parts of the globe. The thing that is most striking is the silence. There are no birds or airplanes. You look out on a completely unspoilt environment.
I am not noted as a great champion of rigorous regulation but the Antarctic Treaty has been an absolute triumph, as my noble friend Lord Selborne pointed out. Despite the injunctions of the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, I shall resist the temptation to compare it with European Union treaties. It has indeed been hugely successful. When I went to Antarctica, I was supported by an organisation run by former members of the British Antarctic Survey. We should be really proud of that body and what it has achieved—it has been immensely successful. The people involved are incredibly professional and understanding of what is required to operate in a very harsh and unforgiving environment. A simple mistake can mean the loss of fingers and toes or other vital parts of your body.
The treaty means that, for example, before you can leave Chile to get to Antarctica, you have to be briefed and you have to be aware of a set of rules. I do not wish to be indelicate but one thing that people always ask me about the expedition is: if the temperature is minus 35 degrees and you are in a tent, how do you manage with your ablutions? Under the rules, everything —and I mean everything—has to be carried back to Chile. It has to be put in a bag, frozen and carried back. Under the terms of the treaty, you are not allowed to take anything out of Antarctica and you are not allowed to leave anything behind. The only things that you can leave behind are your footprints, and the only things you can away are your memories and photographs. This is rigorously enforced.
I can hear my noble friend asking why that is. If people were to pee in the snow, there would be a series of yellow ice stacks up the mountain as the snow was blown away due to the katabatic winds. Therefore, strict control is applied right the way through. The result is that, when you go to Mount Vinson, it is as God left it—it is completely unspoilt. That is in stark contrast to other high mountains in the world such as Everest, Aconcagua or Kilimanjaro, which are completely strewn with rubbish and desperately polluted. The fact that Mount Vinson is unspoilt is entirely due to the operation of this treaty, and therefore I very much welcome the Bill, which takes it further forward.
The other point that I should like to make—this may seem a little hypocritical, having been there—is that when you go to Antarctica you fly from Punta Arenas and land on a natural ice runway in a Russian plane without windows, which is quite a scary experience. As you leave the plane, you immediately find yourself in Narnia: you are confronted with a blinding white light and a completely unspoilt environment. There is a camp there, which has to be set up every year, and it is amazingly well run and organised. Some of the best food and wine that I have eaten and drunk was at Union glacier. When I complained to the organisers that it seemed a bit extravagant to have such splendid claret, he said, “The cost of the claret is incidental. The real cost is getting it here and taking it out again”. Therefore, Union glacier is a very comfortable camp.
We were stuck at the camp for several days while waiting to get out and there were all kinds of people there. The most interesting people were of course the mountaineers. The next most interesting were the scientists. There are scientists involved in all kinds of work—from putting in GPS systems to working out the movements in the ice cap, measuring the effects of climate change and working out how many neutrinos are hitting the earth as part of deep space research. Others are involved in drilling into the ice core to try to establish the record of climate change. Several scientists pointed out to me that those who drill into the ice core occasionally find pockets of gas. That is the key thing: Antarctica is rich in natural resources—gas and rare metals—and therefore it is very important that the treaty protects it because it is indeed a very fragile environment.
Also at the camp were several Russian and one or two American billionaires in their seventies who had flown to the pole in a private aeroplane. The pole has now become a major tourist attraction for very wealthy people. I said to one lady, “Why are you here?”. She replied, “Well, I’ve been to the North Pole and I’ve booked my trip to space, so I thought I ought to come to the South Pole”. Good luck to her, but it seems to me that if this very fragile environment is subject to those kinds of pressures, it will be damaged, and damaged beyond repair.
Therefore, I congratulate the noble Viscount on this Bill. I believe that we have much to be proud of in the part that we have played as Brits in the preservation of this special part of the planet. It remains unspoilt and a natural laboratory from which we can do the necessary work in order to pass on to the next generation a world that is better than the one we inherited.
Lord Greenway
My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lord Montgomery for introducing this important Bill. I shall not wax lyrical about Antarctica like the noble Lord who has just spoken because I have not been there, although I have been ice-breaking up in the Arctic.
As your Lordships would expect, I shall confine my remarks basically to the maritime side of the Bill and, in particular, to cruise ships, which have been mentioned by a number of noble Lords.
Under the Bill, any vessel visiting Antarctica has a duty to have contingency plans in the event of an environmental emergency there. There is also a need to have adequate insurance cover or other financial security to cover liabilities in the event of an environmental emergency. The UK Chamber of Shipping and the International Group of P&I Clubs—that is, protection and indemnity clubs—raised some concerns while the Bill was going through the other place. They thought that it needed to be made clear that the liability limits found in existing conventions which allow ship operators to limit liability, as ratified by the UK, would be respected in implementing this Bill’s limits for environmental emergencies. Several exchanges took place and I believe that a ministerial Statement was made in the other place to try to quantify those concerns. I hope that the Minister can confirm that under this Bill the liability provisions will come in only when existing liability provisions, already ratified, have exhausted themselves.
There are a number of maritime conventions to which this country has provided ratification and which cover specific liabilities in relation to oil pollution and so on. For liabilities not covered by these conventions, there is the right to limit liability under the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims—the LLMC—of 1976, to which a protocol was added in 1996. In essence, the right to limit liability for ships or ship-source pollution stems from the need for the risk to be quantifiable, and therefore insurable, with the advantage of prompt settlement of claims arising from such incidents. I should be grateful if the Minister could confirm that.
I was interested in the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, that ships should be charged according to the number of passengers on board. The larger ships which used to visit Antarctica are not doing so so often now. They are mainly smaller ships—including expedition ships, as has been mentioned. A lot of them are former Russian ships which are ice-strengthened, and the Russian masters are very well versed in dealing with ice conditions.
Lord Avebury
Advertised tours include ships as large as 260 passengers. That seems to be about the maximum.
Lord Greenway
Yes, 260 passengers is a very small cruise ship these days when some of them can take 4,000 passengers. We are talking about fairly small ships. My understanding is that no large British ship has been there for a number of years and certainly no British ship is scheduled to visit this year. Basically, this Bill relates to the UK. Ships that belong to other countries, some of which have not ratified some of these conventions, are a different matter and there is concern about them.
I understand that the International Maritime Organisation is in the process of developing a new mandatory polar shipping code which could be completed next year but we do not know yet whether it will be. That was activated by the sinking of the “Explorer”, which the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, mentioned. These things are not always as simple as they seem. My feeling is that companies feel that it is difficult for the larger ships to visit Antarctica because, quite simply, there are too many people on board to go ashore. That is why smaller ships are being used.
This is a very worthwhile Bill and I think that it should be passed expeditiously.
Baroness Hooper
My Lords, as one of the fortunate few to have had the privilege of visiting Antarctica and seeing its extraordinary beauty and uniqueness at first hand, I am following this Bill with great interest. Although I visited as a tourist, I hasten to assure noble Lords that we travelled on a small British vessel and that the expert lectures on board, and the crew, were genuinely dedicated to minimising any undesirable impact that the passage of our ship or our visits might have on penguin and albatross colonies on shore.
I now realise that what at the time seemed to be over-fussy procedures were the necessary precautions to ensure that an environmental emergency, as defined by the Bill and by the noble Viscount, would not and should not take place. Therefore, I welcome the Bill as a means of making it the norm that all vessels and visitors to Antarctica should abide by strict structures, procedures and training to prevent and avoid accidental damage to the unique and pristine environment of that continent. What I experienced was clearly best practice, but I realise that a clear definition of what is required, complemented by adequate sanctions, will have a more general effect.
The other reason why I follow this Bill with interest, and trust that it will soon pass into law, is as a result of the debate which I introduced last October to celebrate the centenary of Scott’s expedition to Antarctica and its scientific legacy. The noble Lord, Lord Giddens, has already referred to that and, as has been said, that debate highlighted the issue over the future of the British Antarctic Survey, whose work we all admire greatly. I take this opportunity to thank all those concerned now that the problems that existed at that time seem to have been resolved satisfactorily.
My interest in the long-term preservation of the Scott and Shackleton huts, as significant monuments to those great explorers and their expeditions, also results from the campaign that we had some years ago to encourage the British Government to supplement the work and funding of the New Zealand Government in guaranteeing their survival. The huts are located in the New Zealand claim area on the north shore of Cape Evans on Ross Island. In that respect, I also pay tribute to the work of the Antarctic Heritage Trust, its science and conservation and its outreach programmes. It was on a visit to its centre in Christchurch, New Zealand, that I was inspired to pursue a visit to the continent.
Therefore, my intention today and during the later stages of the Bill is and will be to focus on Clause 15 and the preservation and conservation of historic sites and monuments. I understand that an amendment was introduced in the other place to ensure that it was absolutely clear that the protections provided by Clause 15 did not apply only to sites and monuments in the British Antarctic Territory but would apply equally in other areas such as the New Zealand claim area. In view of the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, about the Mawson’s huts, it should apply equally to the Australian sector. The mover of the amendment in the other place was sufficiently reassured by the Minister to withdraw it. I hope that the Minister will be able to reiterate that reassurance today so that I shall not feel compelled to reintroduce a similar amendment here at a later stage.
That said, I have only one further question for the Minister and a comment, both of which relate to Antarctica but not directly to the provisions of the Bill. My question relates to the fact that the secretariat of the Antarctic Treaty is based in Argentina, in Buenos Aires. Is my noble friend able to say whether we have regular contact with the work going on there and whether we are able to participate fully in the work of the secretariat? My comment is a reference to last year’s British joint services expedition to Antarctica led by Colonel Paul John Edwards. Its vision was to conduct scientific research and exploration in remote areas of the Antarctic Peninsula in the spirit of Scott, seeking to further the bounds of human exploration and knowledge. I attended the report back at the Royal Geographical Society recently and I was most impressed by their tales of fortitude and endurance and by the scientific legacy that they, too, established. In many ways, their experiences were similar to those of my noble friend, Lord Forsyth.
I congratulate the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery, on introducing the Bill. I think it is a good Bill and a necessary Bill, and I wish it safe passage.
Lord Hunt of Chesterton
My Lords, I speak in the gap to welcome this Bill. I have been working at the University College London Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling with the BAS for the past 14 years. I would like to emphasise two aspects. As the Antarctic environment is changing, it becomes more liable to artificial risks, a point made by the noble Earl, Lord Selborne. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, commented, some of these accidents may well be deliberate. Indeed, a novelist approached me recently to ask for various fiendish methods by which we could destroy the environment, so I came up with some interesting ones, which I will not tell you about.
I welcome Clause 5(2)(a) on the obligation to reduce risk, but Clause 8(1)(a) should surely be modified. Currently, it gives the Secretary of State power to require information about activities that “have given rise” to “an environmental emergency”. Surely, the Secretary of State should have power to require information about the risks of possible future emergencies. I believe that that clause needs to be changed. Indeed, I believe that the Secretary of State, in conjunction with the international panel in Buenos Aires and so on, should establish with other countries an ongoing and openly published document or website about future risks, as they keep changing.
Lord Triesman
My Lords, I join all other speakers in thanking the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, for introducing the Bill. I recall many occasions when he pressed serious questions about Antarctica, as other noble Lords here have done, upon me. It is good to see much of this work coming to fruition. I personally recall the early stages in the history of its discussion. I record the thanks of these Benches to Neil Carmichael in the other place for the work that he has done.
A number of noble Lords speaking in this debate have been concerned with these issues for a long time, such as the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, and the noble Lord, Lord Greenway. I congratulate them on their persistence. Plainly, having an involvement in Antarctica comes in many forms. I enjoyed enormously the account of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, of his mountaineering expedition in a most remarkable place, not least because he was doing it in such a good cause. Macmillan Cancer Support is dear to many of our hearts. What he achieved on that occasion was very important.
My final word of thanks is to the FCO team, whom I recall very well. They were a successful and effective team in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and was always at the forefront of ensuring that we took these issues seriously, and the environmental issues very seriously. I suspect that the House will already have realised that there is clear support for the Bill from these Benches, just as I am sure there is across the entire House. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, has just said, it is a very good Bill.
One of the privileges enjoyed by Ministers who are responsible for the British Overseas Territories—a varied portfolio of elements of world geography—is the role that we in this country have played in the Antarctic and the British Antarctic Territory. As a consequence, I have seen proposals for such a Bill over many years. Indeed, I had hoped that it might be possible to bring one forward while still in office at the FCO. That is one of the reasons that I expressed my delight that the same group of your Lordships are here to debate it today, just as they would have been then.
These long-standing interests in preserving the Antarctic extend well beyond your Lordships’ House. I took huge encouragement from the detailed interests so often and so well expressed by Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal. I met many of the British and New Zealand supporters of the great historical exploration sites, whose knowledge matched their enthusiasm. Like the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, I acknowledge that the Antarctic Heritage Trust has played an important role in respect of the historic sites. There were sometimes some vigorous discussions with the New Zealand Government about how we should fund it, and who should bear which part of the cost; but I do not think that we ever disagreed about the importance of doing so.
I have seen a consistent passion for Antarctica in the university community—which I think I know reasonably well—in the scientific community and others, where the dedicated need for longitudinal study is so evident. Of course, I have admired the MPs who have been concerned with Antarctica for such a long time and have had enduring aspirations for a Bill of this kind. They are a very diverse group, ranging from Mr Bill Cash to Mr Jeremy Corbyn; anything which manages to embrace both of them is either profoundly right or profoundly wrong.
What unites all those voices? First, there is a desire to protect a unique environment. It is often and rightly described as “pristine but fragile”, vulnerable to the impact of global warming, as is everywhere else, of course, but there, perhaps, particularly so. It is evident that much work has been done to preserve the physical environment, the ice where historic pollutants can be detected. I understand that, for example, that one way of measuring the impact of lead emissions from vehicles —fortunately now declining as lead emissions are themselves declining—has been by looking at the ice cores. It has been an extraordinary historical source for the study of pollutants and the history of the climate. To pick up one of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, about fisheries, it is evident that the remarkable fish stocks in the surrounding seas of the Southern Ocean are also at risk. Indeed, there are now risks due to whaling, and the pressures being exerted towards an extension of whaling by Japan, Norway and Iceland.
The balance of the flora and fauna demonstrates the interdependence of all of these things. We have a duty to protect them. I do not say this to be sanctimonious, but if we cannot protect these things on our planet then I do not think that we have the respect for our planet that we ought to have. I join the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, in mentioning the Ross Sea as an area where we should have some clear concern.
The duties also focus our attention on the emergence of tourism and the risks that are posed by significant increases in maritime transport. The noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery, was quite right to point out that two months of the year have significant, intense activity. The idea of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, of adding a licence fee to ensure that that work is done better is an interesting proposition. I had not considered it, and I will not pretend that today I have suddenly warmed to it or otherwise, but your Lordships’ House would certainly do well to consider that proposition.
That whole environmental question is one of the strands which unites us. The second is the need to ensure that no countries attempt land grabs, as my noble friend Lord Giddens was saying, in pursuit of minerals or any other assets. Two days ago, China and Ukraine announced that they opposed the protection zone around Antarctica being continued. Again, because of the fragility and circumstances on the continent, it is essential that Her Majesty’s Government take an inflexible line at the Berlin conference next year, where the protections are scheduled to be renewed. Can we receive an assurance from the Minister today that we will be absolutely rigorous and try to ensure that a kind of modern form of land piracy does not occur? Can the Minister be unambiguous on this?
Thirdly, Antarctica is a treasure trove of knowledge. It is a magnet for great science, as my noble friends Lord Giddens and Lord Hunt have said. Science also needs to respect what it studies. Happily, this has characterised the way in which United Kingdom science, and great scientific institutions around the world have played their role. There has been a key role for Cambridge University on the continent because of the location of the British Antarctic Survey board, but more widely, I take the view—as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and my noble friend Lord Hunt said—that the worldwide academic community has been well co-ordinated and has tried to ensure that there is proper co-ordination in this work.
The fourth reason that we are drawn together is the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury: this is not an area in which there is a military role or incursion. We should ensure that there never is one. It must be a military-free zone.
The fifth reason that all those voices have been brought together is the shared pleasure in the history of the Antarctic and Antarctic exploration, and in the historic sites. It is a story of bravery, of course, but also of intriguing rivalries. We should always note that it is a story of human curiosity, of a desire to collect and understand the things that have happened in the history of our planet. It is a history of the collection of knowledge, and doing so in a fearsome environment, as was described so well by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth.
The Bill protects the continent from recklessness and environmental emergencies, not least through the liability annexe. The FCO expert group is a vital ingredient in this, and I am sure that it will conduct its work with all of the vigour that, in my experience, it has had in the past.
The Bill is helpful in the protection of historic sites, although I suspect that there is more work to be done between countries to ensure that it is completely successful. The Bill is a mechanism for international co-operation to achieve the protection and preservation of the continent as a whole, bringing together the 28 executive and 20 non-executive parties for that goal. These are all things that we support.
The Bill will help to ensure that people take away everything that they bring. I know the Galapagos rather better than the Antarctic. Both places are beyond compare but so easily destroyed. For that reason, everybody needs to understand that there is an ethical priority in making sure that people take out what they bring in, that they do not wreck or spoil it and that, if they do—deliberately or accidentally—the consequences for them will be very serious.
My final point comes very close to the final comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper. Are there any indications of Argentinian willingness to co-operate fully in this? I do not ask that in order to be contentious, or to suggest any concessions that the United Kingdom should make to the more extraordinary and unpleasant objectives that the Argentinian Government sometimes express. I hope that the House will agree that we should seek reassurance that no other political impulses could endanger the Antarctic continent. Whatever we can do to help get consensus about the continent as a pristine but fragile environment must be helpful. We support the Bill.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, this has been an excellent and expert debate. It demonstrates that there is a complete consensus on the importance we attach to vigorously defending and protecting the environment of the Antarctic. The Bill allows us to ratify a further addition to the corpus of international law that governs the Antarctic continent. As noble Lords will know, Her Majesty’s Government regret—and have for several years—that we were not the first to ratify. However, if the Bill passes—as we very much hope it will—we will be the seventh country to ratify. That answers the question of the noble Earl, Lord Selborne.
So far, Finland, Peru, Poland, Spain and Sweden reported to the most recent Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting in June 2012 that they had ratified. Since then, Australia has ratified. When the Bill has completed its passage through both Houses, subject to the will of this House, I know that my honourable friend Neil Carmichael MP is planning a reception to celebrate the Bill and our ratification, to which representatives of the other state parties will be invited. This will provide us with the first opportunity to encourage others to follow us as rapidly as possible in completing the ratification of the treaty. I have just been passed a note stating that Argentina has indicated its intention to ratify the liability annexe.
We maintain absolutely our commitment. It is not just a question of the British Antarctic Survey. We are all aware of how competent and expert the FCO team covering this is. It was a slight shock to me when I met them this morning, having corresponded with them for some time. I had assumed from their level of expertise that they were all about my age and had been studying the Antarctic for 40 or 50 years. To discover that they were about half my age and nevertheless very expert was even more impressive.
I will rapidly respond to a number of points made in the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, asked about the timescale for the appointment of a new director of the British Antarctic Survey. The Natural Environment Research Council has advertised for a new director. The closing date was 17 January. We understand that the NERC plans to interview candidates in March, so we are making good progress.
In an extremely interesting speech, the noble Lord raised a large number of interesting points. I am amazed and sometimes appalled by the level of his expertise on parts of the world that often I have to start researching by looking them up on a map. On the question of how we might charge for permits to cover clean-up costs, the Government’s consideration on this is that the limits on charges and maximum liability set out in the Bill are already significant. Liability for the smallest vessels is just under £1 million. For larger vessels we are talking about anywhere between £12 million and £30 million. These are generous limits for the potential emergencies that we could envisage. Once the liability annexe comes into force, the Antarctic Treaty parties will review the liability limits. Many consider that they will then need to be raised, for example to come into line with the new limits to be introduced under the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims.
The noble Lord raised the question of protecting Mawson’s huts. The noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, also talked with particular passion about the protection of historic sites and monuments across all Antarctica. The Government are aware of a very extensive Australian restoration programme for Mawson’s huts and so do not think that they will fall into disrepair without British involvement. However, if the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust was invited to contribute expertise to that restoration project, I am sure that it would seriously consider the opportunity, which the Government would encourage it to accept. The Bill’s provisions on historic sites and monuments apply across all Antarctica, and we are engaged with other signatories in co-operative work in their protection.
The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, also raised the question of marine protected areas and fisheries. I confirm that Clause 9(3) specifically excludes the activity of fishing for profit from all requirements in Part 1 of the Bill. This is primarily because the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty does not cover fishing activities, which, as the noble Lord pointed out, are the subject of separate rules and regulations under the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, which I am told is pronounced “Camlar” as an acronym. As a result, they are specifically excluded from this liability annexe. However, they are covered by other existing international laws.
The British Government are committed to the protection of the Southern Ocean from excessive fishing. We note that fishing for Chilean sea bass has rapidly increased. When I am offered it, I will look at sea bass with an entirely different attitude, having read a number of things about it in the past few days. We have demonstrated our commitment to the designation of marine protected areas in the Southern Ocean. Earlier this year, the Government of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands announced one of the largest sustainable-use marine protected areas in the world, covering their entire maritime zone. This year we have developed a further proposal to designate marine protected areas in areas of the Antarctic peninsula that are currently covered by permanent ice.
The UK will also give its full support to the designation of marine protected areas in the east Antarctic and in the Ross Sea during the meeting of the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. The Ross Sea is one of the most biologically productive areas of the Southern Ocean. Therefore, as the noble Lord remarked, it is a potentially rich source of global protein. However, it must be fished responsibly and sustainably. That will require international collaboration in policing fishing activities—in which the British, of course, will play a full part.
A number of noble Lords raised the question of environmental emergency thresholds. There is no explicit threshold, either in the Bill or in the liability annexe, for what constitutes an environmental emergency. It is defined in Clause 13(3) as,
“an … event that results in, or imminently threatens to result in, any significant harmful impact on the environment of Antarctica”.
So ultimately it will be down to judgment as to what constitutes an environmental emergency. This is why Clause 8 is so important and is constructed to include a broader set of circumstances than simply environmental emergencies.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
I am sure that my noble friend did not mean to misquote the Bill but it does not actually say that. It does not say an event,
“that results in, or imminently threatens to result in, any significant harmful impact on the environment of Antarctica”.
It says, “an accidental event”. Could he deal with my point as to why the event is qualified by the word “accidental”?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
Certainly. I will come to that briefly and I thank the noble Lord for his intervention.
A number of marine-based activities undertaken in Antarctica are currently covered by earlier, existing conventions such as the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims. However, those not covered by such conventions, particularly yachts or land-based operations, are not currently liable for pollution costs. That explains why this extends to the liability set of issues.
The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, asked about non-accidental events. Sanctions can be brought under the Antarctic Act 1994 against those who are deliberately causing environmental damage in Antarctica and any person causing such damage will, by virtue of paragraph 1(5) of the schedule be subject to unlimited liability for costs incurred in responding to it. This reflects Article IX of the liability annexe. This is extending existing law to accidents where existing law already covers deliberate environmental degradation.
The noble Lord, Lord Greenway, asked about liability provisions. Paragraph 5 of the schedule ensures that no shipping operator can be held liable for the same cost twice. This means that liability cannot be sought for environmental clean-up under both the LMMC and the Antarctic Bill. If the environmental clean-up work includes vessel salvage, the operator cannot be liable twice under the salvage convention and the Antarctic Bill.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, asked about UK engagement with the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
I apologise to my noble friend. I expect that I am being a bit thick, but I still do not understand why this word “accidental” is included in the definition of what constitutes an environmental emergency. I understand the point that he makes about deliberate action which causes damage being covered by other legislation, but it is not clear to me why the definition within the Bill of an environmental emergency is qualified by this word “accidental”. There are events that could be an environmental emergency that would not arise from an accidental activity.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
We are reaching the limits of my expertise on this issue. My understanding is that deliberate environmental degradation—mining, the setting up of flights and the sort of things that the noble Lord has been talking about—would be already be covered by the Antarctic Act. The intention here is to extend liability to cover increases in tourism and shipping and the extent to which accidents, collisions, sinking and so forth happen. This is an extension. Much of what the noble Lord is concerned about is, we understand, covered by existing law. Of course, if I have not given him a full explanation I will write to him. I do not in the slightest consider him thick: I consider him, like my noble friend Lord Greaves, a thorough scrutineer of all legislation that passes through this House. I intend that as a compliment.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, talked about UK engagement with the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat. I am happy to be able to confirm that we have full and effective engagement with the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat in Buenos Aires. It has international organisation status within Argentina.
I assure the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, that Her Majesty’s Government do their best to maintain a relationship with Argentina that is effective for the Antarctic, which keeps that as separate as possible from the current and long-standing differences over the Falkland Islands. We do our best to maintain the difference as far as we can. This is, after all, an important multilateral issue in which a number of Latin American countries, most of all Chile, are involved.
The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Chesterton, asked whether the Treaty parties were also talking about future risks. I confirm that the clause that he referred to in the Bill does not limit in any sense the Secretary of State’s powers and liabilities. Of course, we are concerned and we are talking with others about future risks to the Antarctic environment. The suggestion of improving the existing secretariat website to include this information is a matter for discussion with our treaty parties, not for this Bill. We are of course ratifying a negotiated international convention. The UK will consider the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, in discussion with other treaty parties.
Finally, I can confirm to the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, that we, as with the predecessor Government, are entirely committed to vigorously defending the pristine character of this continent. We have demonstrated today that this is warmly supported across this House. We look forward to the passage and ratification of the Bill. This country is rightly proud of its Antarctic heritage and we want to continue to be proud of it.
We thank the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery, for introducing the Bill. We look forward to its speedy passage through this House and ratification. This will help us to demonstrate continued UK leadership in the Antarctic treaty system. I am therefore delighted to be able to give the Bill the Government’s wholehearted support today and I encourage all noble Lords to do likewise.
Viscount Montgomery of Alamein
My Lords, I am most grateful to everyone who has spoken on the Bill. This has been an interesting and diverse debate. All noble Lords who spoke have come from different angles, so that it has been a particularly well balanced debate, which is as it should be.
I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, for supporting it. To see him back on the Front Bench is very gratifying. He and I had many dealings when he was the Foreign Office Minister, so to see him back in action is a great pleasure.
I just want to single out and mention the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth. He recounted his amazing walk across the continent for which he raised a great deal of money for a worthwhile charity. I am even more gratified that I was a modest contributor to that cause. To hear him speak today about the experience was very interesting indeed. I will not summarise everyone else’s speeches. They were all very useful and complementary in the sense that they balanced each other out. I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time.
Presumption of Death Bill
Baroness Kramer
My Lords, I should like to open by thanking the many campaigners who have supported the causes that will see what I hope is a moment of success with this Bill: Mr Peter Lawrence, who is here today, has been a tireless campaigner; the noble Lord, Lord Boswell of Aynho, who drafted the original Private Member’s Bill that he brought before the other place some years ago and which is remarkable for its similarity to the Bill before us today—he did some extraordinary work in drafting that first Bill; John Glen, the Member of Parliament for Salisbury, who sponsored the Bill in the Commons and took it through that place successfully—he has been an important campaigner; the Justice Committee of the House of Commons, whose hearings and 12th Report of Session 2012 have been pivotal in developing the issues and convincing a wide number of political parties and the establishment to recognise that this Bill is needed and should be supported; and the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Runaway and Missing Children and Adults, chaired by Ann Coffey MP, which held hearings that again brought many of the key issues to public notice.
However, if I have to stress one group above all who have pushed forward the causes covered in the Bill, it is the charity Missing People, and again members of the staff of that charity are here today. The charity does extraordinary work with the families of both children and adults who are missing and for missing individuals themselves. The charity recognises that these provisions could make a big difference to people who suffer as family and friends go missing. I want also to thank the Ministry of Justice and the team led by Paul Hughes, all of whom have been very supportive by providing information that has enhanced our understanding of the whole process.
What does the Bill do? It applies to England and Wales similar legislation that already exists in Scotland and Northern Ireland. It creates a new court procedure and an associated process of authoritative registration. The court procedure enables a person with sufficient interest to obtain a legally binding declaration from the High Court that a person is to be deemed dead for all purposes, including the end of their marriage or civil partnership. If the Bill is passed, the High Court would make the declaration if it is satisfied that the missing person has died or has not been known to be alive for a period of at least seven years. The court also has the power to deal with the myriad consequential property-related issues that may arise as a result of the declaration. Why do we need the Bill? Around a quarter of a million people are reported missing each year. Thankfully, most come home or make contact, while a small number are sadly found dead. However, obviously this is not true for all. In 2010, the UK Missing Persons Bureau had on its records some 1,400 cases of people who have been missing for more than seven years.
The trauma for families and friends when a person goes missing is horrendous. As time passes without contact or information, some families conclude that the only possible answer is that their missing relative is “presumed dead”. After seven years they can start to take steps to resolve the legal affairs of that person, but without a body they have no death certificate, and without a death certificate a person is legally assumed to be alive. Currently, there are steps that relatives or interested persons can take. The MoJ has kindly listed the six procedures, each of which is a different legal process under which a person may be presumed dead just for the specific purposes of that procedure. You really could not invent a more bureaucratic and stressful system, one that often requires lengthy processes and extensive support from legal counsel. Both the Justice Committee and the APPG on Runaway and Missing Children and Adults, of which I am part, heard traumatic stories from families trying to find legal resolution. The emotional impact of accepting loss is hard enough without the added stress of a legal hunt-the-thimble, multiple applications, multiple different processes and multiple certificates.
The Bill resolves the problem by putting in place one procedure under which a family member or other relevant party can apply for a single presumption of death certificate which can be used for all valid purposes. The same certificate can be used to dissolve a marriage, dispose of property, close a bank account and so on. The court decision is entered into a register by the Registrar General for England and Wales. I should say that some of the existing procedures will remain on the books, as it were, so that people who want to seek presumption of death for perhaps only one narrow purpose will still have the procedures available to them. My honourable friend Lady Hamwee will explore some of those issues.
As I said earlier, similar systems have been in place in Scotland since 1977 and in Northern Ireland since 2009. Based on their experience, the number of declarations a year is expected to be between 30 and 40, so none of this is onerous for the courts. Similar legislation also exists in Australia and Canada and supports the notion that we are looking at something like 30 to 40 declarations a year. Of course, a person declared dead may suddenly reappear, and I believe this has happened once in Scotland. The Bill therefore has powers for the court to make revocations and when it provides the declaration, it can require the trustees to take out various forms of insurance, for example, to protect innocent purchasers of property or insurance companies which have paid out on presumed death.
I think that there can be no argument with what is in this Bill. Those who have read the debate in the Commons will recognise that it has very broad cross-party support and that every Member who spoke wished it speedy progress through this Parliament. But there can be an argument about what is left out of the Bill. Noble Lords will be well aware, again from evidence both to the Justice Committee and the APPG on Runaway and Missing Children and Adults, that the families and associates of missing people are often left in an intolerable limbo well before the seven-year mark is reached. Indeed, even at seven years, many families may not want to give up all hope and declare a loved one “presumed dead”. Because we recognise the plight of these families, the Justice Committee, the APPG and most of us campaigning for this Presumption of Death Bill have also been pressing for guardianship orders to be made available through the courts to protect the financial position of the missing person and his or her dependants at a much earlier stage. For example, relatives may need to access a missing person’s bank account to pay that missing person’s mortgage; or a business partner may need to sign new contracts or sell part of the business under an arrangement that would normally have required both signatures. There are many instances of this kind and they cause absolutely critical problems.
Let me quote from Peter Lawrence, whose daughter Claudia is missing, but who in his own struggles has taken on the cause of so many others in the same circumstances. He is here with us today. He has said:
“Claudia’s bank would not consider even moving any money from one account, a savings account, to her own current account to enable direct debits to be paid”.
Or indeed that, “These families”—the families of missing people—
“are plunged into emotional trauma, and they are trying to manage their practical affairs at a time when they are going through a scenario ... impossible to place yourself in”.
A number of people will have seen the quotes from Jane Dolby who has created the Fishwives Choir on the pattern of the Military Wives Choir following the death of her husband at sea. It was eight months before his body was found. During that period his wife could not get a death certificate and therefore could not access his bank account or claim benefits. She was left without an income and the Fishermen’s Mission gave her and her children emergency financial support to enable them, essentially, to survive. She has dedicated the first of the albums by the Fishwives Choir to the Fishermen’s Mission, but it illustrates the problems that so many people face.
While I regret that such orders are not included in this Bill, I recognise the complex work behind guardianship orders. The Government in their reply to the Justice Committee, which obviously raised and stressed these issues, argued that a detailed examination of the issue of guardianship orders is required and committed that,
“the Department will discuss with the Law Commission whether it would be willing to take on an investigation of this topic and make recommendations in the light of its findings. If the Law Commission is able and willing to take on this work, it will examine the issues carefully, consult widely, make recommendations and prepare such draft legislation … as may be required”.
My last information was that discussions with the Law Commission are still open and not yet concluded, and I hope that this debate will press the urgency of the issue on the Minister. In that context, I refer the Minister to the report of the Irish Law Reform Commission on exactly this subject, which was published this week, on 30 January. It is a very thorough report which has taken five years and quotes extensively from the UK experience as well as from the Justice Committee and the APPG on Runaway and Missing Children. The Irish Law Reform Commission also looked into the provisions already provided in Australia and Canada. It concluded and recommended that “an interim manager”—its name for a guardian—
“should have limited and specified powers to administer the affairs of the missing person for a period of up to 2 years, which can be extended for a further 2 years”.
We have the absolute irony that the Irish Law Reform Commission has produced its report based on a lot of the experience in the UK, and that, frankly, the UK Law Commission could largely lift all the work that it needs directly from its Irish counterpart. I hope that this will move quickly.
We all know that the best must not be the enemy of the good. All of us who have campaigned on these issues—a cross-party band—intend to keep up the pressure. I hope that this House will pass the Presumption of Death Bill in this Session. It is crucially important and is not just a first step but a significant step in and of itself. We all intend to be back in the future to legislate for guardianship orders. I beg to move.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I speak today, but not because this Bill needs more advocates. My noble friend—and friend—Lady Kramer has explained the need for this Bill very clearly. I have to apologise to her as I do not think I have prepared to cover the issues that she thought I might cover. If anything does need covering, we can talk about it outside the Chamber, although I do not think it does. We have also had an indication from the Government, and those two factors should be enough. I speak today not just because of the importance of the issue of practical legal assistance for the families of missing people. That is something which impresses itself on everyone who learns of the problems, although it has to be said that few people know of the problems unless through personal experience or personal contacts they are brought up against them.
For me, this is also a matter of local loyalty. I was a councillor in 1986 when Suzy Lamplugh went missing and among the residents of my ward were her parents, Diana and Paul Lamplugh. I was a councillor when Janet Newman and Mary Asprey set up the National Missing Persons Helpline and in the area where Missing People, the successor organisation, has its offices. I am also a member of the all-party group to which my noble friend referred and took a small part in the work which has, among other pieces of work, led to this Bill.
One of the things which impressed me during that work was the evidence of Peter Lawrence, who has already been referred to, and I hope I do not get him wrong in saying what I am going to say. Mr Lawrence is a solicitor. Solicitors—and I am one—are well used to dealing with bureaucracy in the worst sense: the tram-lined thinking of banks, insurers and so on. However, Mr Lawrence was clearly more or less defeated—I hope that is not the wrong way of putting it—in trying to deal with his daughter’s practical affairs. The evidence that we heard was about the need for guardianship, to which my noble friend has referred. That is not in the Bill, which is a pity, but like her I do not want to delay what is in the Bill.
According to the all-party group report,
“it can be difficult for families to find knowledgeable, professional advice. Missing People told the Inquiry of how it is approached by families for information on presumption of death as there is no other source of help or clear information”.
I was struck during that work by a comment from the then chief executive of Missing People. He said that,
“we have ended up being the organisation that people turn to; that doesn’t mean we are any clearer than the families we talk to”.
Along with my noble friend, I want to pay tribute to Missing People. Its work is effective, imaginative and energetic. Perhaps most importantly, it is clearly trusted by the families who are affected and by all the other organisations that work in the area or that have any connection with the issues with which we are dealing today and with other issues related to missing people.
As I have said, the issue of people who have gone missing is high-profile in my local area. Perhaps it is less so elsewhere unless there is a particular instance but, as we have heard, the numbers are staggering, which means thousands of individual anxieties, heartbreaks and—what we are dealing with here today—frustrations. It seems that the Bill will almost achieve the impossible and come close to proving a negative, certainly more so than the rebuttable common law presumption. As I read the Bill, the court may well take on more of an investigative role than we are used to our courts dealing with in England and Wales, and it is right that it will be the High Court that will deal with these applications.
I used the term “frustrations”, but there must be something much closer to panic when a family suddenly loses its main wage earner. It occurs to me that by the provisions of the Bill we may find that there is scope for the prospect of an insurance payout, to take one example, being accessed and used as security for a short-term loan. I am very aware of the different attitude of banks many years ago. On the occasion of a family bereavement, the bank manager, whose name we knew, was prepared to be imaginative, co-operative and helpful very quickly, which is what families need when income is suddenly cut off. I hope that addressing these frustrations will prompt the institutions themselves —the banks, insurers and so on—to look imaginatively at how they deal with these issues.
I warned the Minister of two questions that I would raise today. The first relates to guidance which the Government indicated, in their response to the Justice Select Committee report, would be published. At paragraph 4, the response says that the Ministry of Justice,
“accepts the Committee’s recommendation. Straightforward, short and accessible guidance on procedures available under the present law will be published on the new single government website … later this year”.
That was last year, in 2012. However, I went on to the website to see if I could find that guidance and could not do so. It may be that there is guidance elsewhere and it may be that there are other places where it will helpfully be found but I should be grateful if the Government could give me any news on that.
Secondly, has guidance been produced on the operation of the Coroners Act, as it was hoped would be published last summer? Again, I have not been able to find it, and refer to the Government’s response to the Justice Committee’s report, which says:
“The Department acknowledges the limitations identified by the Committee but considers that where section 15 of the Coroners Act 1988 (or its successor provisions under section 1 of the Coroners Act 2009 when they are brought into force) applies it can provide a useful means to deal with the affairs of the missing person. The Department is working with the Missing Persons Bureau to finalise the guidance on section 15 and hopes that it will be published this summer”.
I hope that the Minister can give your Lordships some news of that.
Finally—and I apologise for not giving the Minister warning of this, but it is a less technical question—I realised last night that it will be possible for what will be Section 15 of the Act to come into force before Section 1. What will be Section 17 includes the power to amend the period of seven years to which Section 1 refers. Can the Minister share with your Lordships the Government’s intentions or ideas about this? It may be that this is thought to be a useful backstop in case experience shows that the period should be changed, but considering the order in which things might happen prompted me to ask whether the Minister is aware of any intention to make any change quickly.
I have a fairly obvious final question. Can the Minister share with your Lordships any information about when the Bill generally will come into effect in the sense of being completely operative? We all know that there will be regulations to be dealt with—we will not see Royal Assent one day and full operation the next—but I hope that we will hear some news today of the hopes, which we all share, of seeing the provisions of this Bill in full operation very soon indeed.
Baroness Barker
My Lords, perhaps I may very briefly draw to your Lordships’ attention a bit of information about the campaign that has been run by Missing People, which has got the Bill to this point.
Missing People is a very small organisation. For the past two years it has run a missing people campaign. It has taken to doing that digitally via Twitter. In the first year of the campaign the organisation took 48 people who were missing and over 24 hours a team of people sent out Twitter messages about that person. The teams continued to work on each person for four hours. Missing People has some very well known celebrity supporters such as Victoria Beckham and Stephen Fry; they did that too.
The net effect of the campaign was that the issue was raised. It trended on Twitter and there was an awful lot of traffic to the Missing People website, and I believe it generated some income. But the really important thing is that Missing People managed to find at least six of those 48 missing people. That has set a completely new standard in charity campaigning. The way in which, with comparatively few resources, Missing People has managed to achieve not just its purpose as a charity but the legislative advances that we are going to help it with today, as well as raising awareness within the general public of these technical and difficult issues, is truly commendable. I encourage all noble Lords to go and look at the Missing People campaigns.
Lord Rosser
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, for explaining the purpose and provisions of the Bill. As she said, the number of people who are reported missing each year runs well into the hundreds of thousands. While most disappearances are resolved within a short period of time, a small but significant number are not. Eventually some families accept that their relative is missing, presumed dead.
Currently, families can expect to wait at least seven years before a court might assume a missing person to be dead, but that will not resolve all the many outstanding issues. The emotional trauma in itself can be considerable, but in England and Wales the situation is made much worse by the difficulties that are faced by families as they attempt to resolve their loved ones’ financial and legal affairs. It is difficult to register a person’s death or obtain a death certificate in the absence of a body.
Without a death certificate, families have to struggle to prove that their relative has died: for example in order to administer their estate, dissolve a marriage or claim benefits and life insurance. This obviously creates a number of problems and sometimes acute financial hardship for surviving spouses or partners. For example, the property of a missing person cannot be distributed in the way it would if death could be confirmed because there was a body.
Often separate legal processes have to be pursued to resolve different issues, which add to the frustration, bureaucracy, delay and costs. Similar issues are also faced by institutions that require legal documentation before they are able to release a missing person’s assets, and by agencies that have a part to play within the system.
As has already been said, a simplified and consolidated process is already in place in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and this Bill seeks to introduce a presumption of death procedure in England and Wales based on those in place in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Under the arrangements provided for in the Bill, families would need to go to court only once to resolve their relatives’ affairs and receive a certificate of presumed death, which would act as the equivalent of a death certificate.
As has also already been said, it is anticipated, based on experience in Scotland, that there will be some 30 to 40 declarations of presumed death a year in England and Wales. The High Court will make the declaration if it is satisfied that the missing person has died or has not been known to be alive for at least seven years.
Of course, the provisions of this Bill will not solve all the problems that families can face when a family member goes missing and remains missing, since such a person cannot be presumed to be dead until a significant period of time has elapsed. In the mean time, the financial affairs of that missing person can effectively be destroyed, if bills or insurance premiums are unpaid and goods or property are repossessed, with dependants unable to access the financial resources of the missing person to address the situation and protect themselves.
In its report, the House of Commons Justice Committee also recommended that legislation be introduced to provide for a system of guardianship orders, which would allow for the administration of the missing person’s property in his or her best interest, if he or she has not returned after a few months, as well as support for dependants. The noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, has explained the reasoning behind not including such a provision in this Bill, but it does mean that the Bill does not go far enough, despite being a good start. Perhaps the Minister could say, as he has already been asked to, whether the Government plan to bring forward legislation on this issue of guardianship.
The previous Government committed to working with the campaign group Missing People to bring forward legislation, and that organisation has welcomed this Bill. We will seek to play our part to ensure that the Bill proceeds as quickly as possible into law.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, the Presumption of Death Bill introduced by my noble friend Lady Kramer was very well supported in the other place. I pay tribute to her sterling work in this area, and that of my honourable friend John Glen, the Member for Salisbury.
The Bill is small but important and I welcome the general support across the Chamber for what it is intending to do. As many noble Lords have acknowledged, it will bring practical benefits to the people left behind when a loved one disappears and is thought to be dead, and help to resolve the uncertainty this creates for a family.
If enacted, the Bill will achieve the same result as the legislation on presumption of death that the Government promised to introduce, when legislative time permits, in their response to the report of the Justice Committee on the presumption of death in July last year, which my noble friend Lady Kramer referred to. It will therefore come as no surprise to your Lordships that the Government wholeheartedly support this Bill.
At present, the law of England and Wales provides a number of procedures that can be used by those left behind if they wish to establish that a missing person is to be deemed to be dead. The problem is that some of these procedures, as has been illustrated by several noble Lords, can be used only in certain circumstances and at times have very limited outcomes, meaning that several procedures might have to be followed in any single case. This demonstrates the challenge, as my noble friend Lady Kramer highlighted so eloquently.
One example will suffice to illustrate the problem. One of the procedures is the “leave to swear death” procedure under the non-contentious probate rules. This procedure will open the way to administering the property of the missing person as if he or she were dead. However, it will not dissolve the missing person’s marriage or civil partnership. A separate procedure must be followed for that purpose. As has been acknowledged by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, as well as by other noble Lords, creating a single, general-purpose presumption of death procedure to overcome this problem may not sound terribly significant, but it is significant because of the human cost of the present law. There are many case histories that we can cite in this respect, including those recorded by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Runaway and Missing Children and Adults and by the Justice Committee in their respective inquiries in another place.
In the interests of brevity, I shall reflect on just one case, that of Jeremy Hoyland, who went missing in a jet ski accident off Bali in October 2008. His body has never been found. Media reports make clear the practical and emotional difficulties faced by his family until a death certificate was finally obtained in only May last year. His wife, Jacqui, is reported as saying that it was the issue of the death certificate that finally enabled her to put her husband’s affairs in order and that the absence of such a certificate had led to difficulties with everyday issues such as paying a mortgage and operating bank accounts in her husband’s name.
Of course, whatever legal procedures are available—and let us park the missing persons issue for a moment—we must not forget the anguish and loneliness felt by anyone who loses a loved one and the barriers that they have to face. They are going through one of the most emotional times in their life. Let us then consider the trauma that is added by that dimension of the missing person, at a time when one needs an easy process to overcome that trauma. Never can that loss be replaced. Never, too, perhaps, can closure be achieved, but the role of the law should at least be to assist in that process.
The Presumption of Death Bill seeks to address this by creating a single procedure that will provide a legally binding statement that a missing person is to be presumed to be dead for all purposes. This will simplify and clarify the law and thereby improve the position of people who have to deal with the property and affairs of a person who has disappeared and is thought to be dead.
In brief, the Bill provides that persons with a sufficient interest can apply to the High Court for a declaration that the missing person is to be deemed to be dead for all purposes. If the court is satisfied on the evidence that the person is dead or has not been known to be alive for a period of at least seven years, it will make the declaration and send it to the Registrar-General for England and Wales, who will enter the required details in a register of presumed deaths. This register will be searchable, and certified copies of an entry in the register will be legal proof of the relevant person’s death for all purposes and against all persons.
The declaration of death will have consequences for the ownership of the missing person’s property and may have consequences for the ownership of other property. The Bill therefore gives the court power to deal with property issues at the same time as the declaration. We expect that, on average, between 30 and 40 declarations are likely to be issued in England and Wales annually.
The deemed death will therefore be for all legal purposes a real death. However, unlike a real death, a deemed death can be undone by the person presumed to be dead returning. The Bill deals with this possibility by making provision, as my noble friend Lady Kramer mentioned, for variation orders that can revoke or amend declarations of death. These revocations or amendments will be notified to the Registrar-General and the appropriate amendments made to the register. Given the rigour of the initial procedure, we expect variation orders to be rare. In Scotland, I understand that there has been only one case of a reappearance of a person presumed to be dead under the Presumption of Death (Scotland) Act 1977.
None the less, the making of a variation order could make it necessary to alter dispositions of property made as a consequence of the original declaration of presumed death. The court is therefore given wide powers to deal with these situations. These powers are not, however, absolute. The provisions of the Bill on this subject are relatively complicated, but I will mention two of the most important limits on the power of the court to undo transactions made as a consequence of the original declaration of presumed death.
First, if more than five years have passed since the making of the original declaration of death, the court can make further orders in relation to property only in exceptional circumstances. Secondly, the court’s order cannot in any event provide grounds to challenge an acquisition of a property made in good faith and for value. Of course, this means that a loss will fall on someone else, but this is inevitable where there is property to be claimed.
The remainder of the Bill is ancillary to these core provisions. I shall mention some of the more important ones. First, rules of court and registration regulations will have to be made to specify the detail of the procedures under the Bill. The detail of the rules is still to be settled, but on the basis of what is required under current procedures and under equivalent rules of court already in force in Northern Ireland it is reasonable to assume that full details of the applicant, the missing person and other persons, including insurance companies, interested in the application, as well as confirmation of the required advertisement of the application, will be required by the court.
Secondly, the court will have power to compel the provision of information where the information is necessary to dispose of the proceedings. Thirdly, although some of the existing procedures will be repealed, others will remain available. Finally, the Bill provides that certain time periods specified in the Bill, including the period of seven years that may form the basis of making a declaration of presumed death, may be altered by order made by the Secretary of State. However, I say in response to the question asked by my noble friend Lady Hamwee that there are no plans to exercise this power at present.
In short, the Bill provides a robust court-based procedure to establish that a person is to be deemed to be dead and an authoritative registration process to record the outcome in a readily accessible fashion. The absence from the law of England and Wales of such a procedure is perhaps all the more surprising given that the law of Scotland has for many years provided one, as my noble friend Lady Kramer pointed out, and that Northern Ireland followed suit in 2009 with very similar legislation. My noble friend’s Bill will therefore bring the law in England and Wales broadly into line with that in Northern Ireland and Scotland.
I thank my noble friend Lady Hamwee for giving me early notice of the questions that she was going to ask, and I hope that I have given her satisfactory answers. I always welcome her input not just on this issue but across a wide range of issues. In response to her question on published guidance, I can confirm that, as recommended by the Justice Committee, the Ministry of Justice and the Missing Persons Bureau have published guidance for police and, more importantly, the families of missing people on existing procedures for a person presumed to be dead. This guidance is available on the Missing Persons Bureau website and across government websites. I recognise that we need to ensure that relevant links appear on different websites. If we are meant to be easing a process here, we need to ensure that all relevant websites across different parts of government and interested bodies are linked up. I shall certainly follow up that issue.
My noble friend asked about general guidance on the operation of Section 15 of the coroners Act, which it was hoped would be published last summer. This forms part of the guidance to which I have already referred. The Bill was introduced in the other place by my honourable friend, the Member for Salisbury. He did this before the Government responded to the Justice Committee but after the noble Baroness introduced her own Presumption of Death and Provisions Relating to Missing Persons Bill. That Bill, which is in part very similar to the Presumption of Death Bill that is now before your Lordships, also includes provisions on the related but separate topic of the guardianship of a missing person. The Government are very grateful to my noble friend, who I know is a long-term supporter of better provision for missing persons and those left behind, for both her dedication and pragmatism and for taking up this Bill, introduced in the other place by my honourable friend, the Member for Salisbury. I appreciate, of course, that this in no way indicates a lessening of her support for legislation on guardianship.
I would like to comment very briefly on that particular issue. As she has already enlightened the House, there have been the Irish announcements this week. We welcome those and will study them carefully. She is right that discussions are ongoing with the Law Commission. I assure her that when I knew I was speaking to this Bill and looked into it, I pressed officials in the Ministry of Justice to assist us in trying to reach the conclusion of those discussions. Although we have not yet reached a conclusion, we are close to it, and I will certainly write to her in detail about what the Government are currently aiming to do, particularly whether they plan to take forward the Law Commission’s proposals on guardianship. As the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, pointed out, as did other noble Lords, this is a key part of this issue on guardianship. The Government know this and we hope, after studying both the outcome that we have seen in Ireland and our discussions with the Law Commission, to come forward with further proposals in this regard.
My noble friend Lady Kramer also mentioned the Fishwives Choir. I have yet to hear the single, but I pay tribute to the many who lose loved ones at sea and often do not find the deceased’s body. Here again, we see an example of communities taking charge—bringing life to an issue. I am sure the whole House joins me in wishing the Fishwives Choir well, both in the release of their single—I do not know whether it will get to number one, but I am sure that noble Lords will be reaching out to download it—and, on a more serious note, in the vital issues they raise.
In conclusion, I once again pay tribute to the people involved in creating this Bill in the first instance. First—I have already said this, but I will do so again—I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Kramer for her continued dedication in this regard. I also pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Barker, who has eloquently highlighted the excellent and sterling work done by the charity Missing People. I join all noble Lords in commending its work. This charity has campaigned long and hard and knows better than most, perhaps, the problems faced on a daily basis by ordinary people coping with the disappearance of a loved one.
It would be remiss of me, which I am sure noble Lords will acknowledge, not also to pay tribute to another noble friend of mine, my noble friend Lord Boswell. In his previous incarnation as the honourable Member for Daventry, he introduced a Private Member’s Bill in terms that were similar to those of the Bill now before us. I am delighted that we have received support for this Bill from across the House. I pay tribute to my noble friend for bringing this Bill forward. Ultimately, in coming together, I am sure we all share the sentiment that we hope this will make life that much better—just slightly better, I acknowledge—for those caught up in the often tragic circumstances of unexplained disappearances. I therefore wish this Bill a speedy and successful passage through your Lordships’ House.
Baroness Kramer
My Lords, I rise to say how pleased I am with the sentiments that the Minister has just expressed. I also pay tribute to those on the opposition Benches for their support. This debate might have looked slightly unbalanced from the Back Benches, but I assure the House that there are numerous supporters of this Bill from all parties and all across the House who think that somehow 1 January was jinxed. A number of them looked at their diaries and said that no matter how much they wanted to, they could not actually come to speak.
Baroness Kramer
Sorry, 1 February. That is part of the problem right there. So 1 February is jinxed, but we have been assured that that support is strongly felt, and it is very much appreciated. I have to say to the Minister that I thought he made a very good case for guardianship orders as he talked about the plight of those who have just found that family members are missing. However, I will not press that issue; we will continue it outside this context. So I say thank you to everybody who has participated and ask the House to give this Bill a Second Reading.
Mobile Homes Bill
Lord Best
My Lords, it is a great privilege to bring this Bill before your Lordships. The Bill aims to end to some disgraceful practices which have been widespread in an industry with which few of us are familiar. If enacted, it will make a huge difference to the lives of thousands of largely forgotten people who currently live with the fear of harassment and ill-treatment at the hands of some unscrupulous bullies. Credit for this legislation goes to a number of people to whom we should all be very grateful. First, there is the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, who has campaigned tirelessly in support of those living in mobile homes or park homes for over 30 years. I hope that today represents a gratifying milestone in a long journey he has taken to achieve justice for this group.
Then there are the Members in the other place who have also fought long and hard on this issue, including Annette Brooke MP and the other members of the Mobile Homes All-Party Parliamentary Group chaired by Christopher Chope MP. I think that a special tribute is due to Grant Shapps MP who, as Housing Minister, took up the challenge presented by the problems facing mobile home owners and, following an extensive consultation process by his department, really got behind the formulation of this legislation. However, none of these efforts would have brought us to the positive position we face today were it not for Peter Aldous MP, the honourable Member for Waveney, who used his place in the ballot for Private Members’ Bills to sponsor this Bill on mobile homes. Although I was hugely impressed by the unanimity of support for this Bill across party lines, piloting a Private Member’s Bill through the other place can represent an unpredictable and hazardous task. A great many Private Members’ Bills have fallen along the way, so I congratulate Peter Aldous who, with his experience as a chartered surveyor and his local knowledge as a constituency MP, so assiduously steered this Bill to a happy conclusion in the other place.
I must make special mention of the people living in mobile homes, who themselves have fought long and hard to achieve wider recognition for the problems that they face. I am personally grateful to Brian Doick of the National Association of Park Home Residents, who has been advising fellow owners on a voluntary basis for more than three decades on these matters and who kindly showed me around a number of sites and introduced me to many other residents; he has been a stalwart in all the campaigns for changes to the law in this field. I know that many others have also done sterling work, including the Independent Park Homes Advisory Service, the Park Home Owners Justice Campaign, the National Park Home Owners Congress and other resident associations and alliances. My final congratulations and appreciation go to the hardworking civil servants in the Department for Communities and Local Government, who have accumulated considerable expertise on these matters and have done sterling work in crafting the Bill now before us.
Not all noble Lords will be familiar with the mobile homes that are the subject of this Bill. These are static, immobile homes, often called “park homes”. They are not holiday homes, but provide permanent, residential, owner-occupied accommodation, mostly for retired individuals and couples. It is estimated that there are 85,000 park homes accommodating approximately 160,000 people on 2,000 sites. Homes may be worth anything from £25,000 to, I gather, £300,000. They are grouped together on pitches on land originally made available, very often, by a farmer who retained ownership of the site and provided services—looking after paths, drains and the supply of utilities, et cetera—in return for a combined ground rent and service charge, or pitch fee. As well as this revenue, the site owner is entitled to 10% of sales proceeds whenever one of the park homes gets sold.
At best, these mobile home sites have been described as “little paradises”, often in an idyllic country setting with a friendly site owner and a strong, mutually supportive community. But over recent years many of the original site owners, or their heirs and successors, have sold up and highly undesirable purchasers have taken their place. In these cases, residents have been exposed to exploitation in a number of ways: services are not undertaken, with drains left blocked; pathways are impassable; street lighting is out of action, and so on. Meanwhile, service charges or pitch fees are inexorably increased. Exorbitant fees are added to charges for Calor Gas and other brands of LPG, for use of a gas meter or for other supplies.
Worst of all, owners who want to sell have seen the sale blocked by the site owner, who can invoke the “approval of the buyer” rule. This sale-blocking takes the form of the harassment and intimidation of park homes residents by rogue site owners, who can make tens of thousands of pounds’ profit in these circumstances. The aim of the unscrupulous site owner is to prevent the mobile home being sold to anyone other than himself. Various tactics are deployed by the site owner to acquire these properties for trivial sums, often on the pretext that the mobile home is virtually worthless because of its age and condition. The site owner then resells for an enormous profit or replaces the existing home with a smart new version, which can be installed for a fraction of the new sale price.
When prospective buyers meet the site owner as part of the process of that owner approving any new purchaser, rogue site owners block the sale by scaring potential buyers, perhaps by telling them that the home is defective and will need to be demolished or that the site is to become a Gypsy site, with animals free to roam. He may leave piles of rubbish outside the home or even parade his own criminal background, all to deter any purchaser. In other cases, the whole of a park home site is worth more for redevelopment than in its current use and the site owner has sought gradually to acquire all the mobile homes—using every conceivable ploy to persuade current occupiers to leave—so that he can sell the land with vacant possession.
The Trading Standards Institute, which gives regular reports on these nefarious activities, talks of a “large number of cases” where unscrupulous operators, in pursuit of obscene windfall profits, have exploited the piecemeal regulatory framework. The institute illustrates the problem with an example from Cornwall’s trading standards service, which has pursued operators named Small who own approximately 17 park home sites. Other site owners are even bigger businesses, controlling up to 40 sites. What was once a cottage industry now has a turnover in excess of £1 billion per annum, with legal advisors and accountants able to exploit the many loopholes in the current law.
Can this Bill end all these malpractices? Can it drive out the gangsters and the rogues from this industry and restore the reputation of the decent, law-abiding site owners who continue to provide a good service? It can indeed go a very long way to ending the current exploitation of innocent victims. Let me spell out its key provisions.
First, the Bill recognises that local authorities are the agencies best placed to insist on and enforce decent standards of behaviour and performance by site owners. Here, I declare my interest as president of the Local Government Association. The Bill gives local authorities proper incentives and powers to require good practice by the owners of sites, while protecting the rights of those owners with proper provision for appeals against local authority decisions.
Currently, local authorities have to license park home sites but in reality this has been little more than a formality and, in any case, hard-pressed local authorities have faced a heavy financial disincentive to get involved with these cases. The Bill makes licensing a meaningful arrangement, requiring standards to be met. An annual fee will be required from the site owner, which is to be set by the local authority but is likely to be on average around £1,350 per annum per site, to pay for the council’s costs of administration. There will be serious sanctions where the terms of the licence are breached. If the site owner is aggrieved by the local authority’s actions in this regard, they can take the matter to the Residential Property Tribunal, which is given new powers in the Bill. Putting local authorities centre stage and giving them the resources to do the job is likely to make a significant difference to what goes on at these sites.
Clear new procedures will govern drawing up and maintaining the site rules for each park home site and the level of, and increases to, the pitch fees for services provided by the site owner, in place of the current irregular and often informal arrangements, which are open to abuse. In the case of disputes, the site owner will be subject to appeals to the Residential Property Tribunal, which has been doing good work in this field and whose powers are extended by this Bill. Clarity, transparency and fairness will be the watchwords. Local authorities will also be able to compel site owners to carry out necessary works to fulfil the obligations covered by their licence, and to insist on immediate action by serving notices requiring compliance. If work is not undertaken, the local authority can organise it and recover the costs from the site owner.
In relation to sale blocking, the aim is to prevent the site owner disrupting the sale process. This is best achieved by removing the direct contact that currently takes place between the obstructive site owner and all prospective buyers. The Bill sets out that two months after enactment, irrespective of what is said in the existing agreement between the site owner and the resident, the position of the site owner will change dramatically. There are two aspects to this change. A distinction has to be made between the position for existing occupiers and for those who have bought from existing occupiers. For the latter, when they come to sell, the site owner will have no say at all in the process. For existing occupiers with agreements in place, the position is slightly different.
There were worries that if existing agreements were subject to too much change, objections could be made that the legislation was retrospective or that it might offend the human rights of park owners—including, of course, blameless park owners—provoking the ire of those in another place who could have impeded its passage. However, this does not mean that the Bill does nothing to overcome problems of sale blocking for existing park home owners. On the contrary, the position will change significantly after enactment of the Bill: the site owner will no longer be involved in meeting any prospective purchaser nor is the owner’s permission required to assign the agreement when the sale is about to be completed. The only information they will be entitled to receive about potential buyers is their name and, if the site has rules, certain information to be prescribed in regulations. For example, if the site is exclusively for those over pensionable age and that is clear in the site rules, it may be legitimate for the site owner to require information on the buyer’s age.
If a site owner wants, for any reason, to block a sale, he will be able to do so only by going, within 21 days, to the Residential Property Tribunal, and only on grounds prescribed in regulations by the Secretary of State. If the RPT finds the site owner guilty of deliberately and unnecessarily holding up the sale to the detriment of the homeowner, it can award compensation.
In terms of legal redress, as from February 2014 when the licensing provisions come into force, magistrates’ courts will—assuming that Section 85 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 has been brought into force—have the power to impose unlimited fines for failure to comply with licensing requirements, including failure to carry out works under a compliance notice. If the local authority does the works in default, its costs will be recoverable from the site owner and, until paid, will be a charge on the site owner’s land.
Meanwhile, a new offence is introduced by the Bill—that of knowingly making a false statement with reasonable cause to believe that this will have the effect of causing a person who is considering whether to purchase or occupy a mobile home to decide not to do so. This will also carry an unlimited fine, six months’ imprisonment or both. In other words, sale blocking could lead to fines of tens of thousands of pounds and a jail sentence. These are tough measures intended to stop and deter bad practices.
What of the omissions in the Bill? What are the additional legislative changes that have been recommended by others, for example in the excellent report of the Communities and Local Government Committee of last June and the very helpful Consumer Focus report, Living the Dream, of last October? The two areas that deserve further action are, first, the requirement for site owners to pass a fit and proper person test; and secondly, for measures to ease problems of fuel poverty and exploitation in supplying fuel on park home sites.
In relation to the opportunity to refuse a licence for an unfit operator, for example those with a criminal record and/or those who have been convicted of offences specifically relating to their position as owners or managers of a site, the Communities and Local Government Committee was clear that a fit and proper person stipulation should be introduced. The Bill gives powers to the Secretary of State to introduce by way of secondary legislation just such a requirement. Regrettably, there are ways in which devious operators can hide behind a network of companies or switch the ownership and management of parks between family members. Establishing the true position and policing it would not be a trivial matter. The Government have made clear that they will not impose a duty to instigate and enforce a requirement for the manager of a site to be a fit and proper person in the immediate future, but that this provision in the Bill will be used if it becomes clear that this is an essential ingredient in improving the industry. The expectation is that that Secretary of State, if this seems the way forward following a review in 2017, will use the new power and it is an important component of the legislation.
In relation to issues concerning energy efficiency and fuel poverty, mobile home owners are in a difficult position. The insulation and heating standards of these dwellings are low and the new Green Deal measures do not apply to park homes. Measures outside the Bill are being pursued with the Department for Energy and Climate Change but, sadly, cannot be wrapped up in this Bill. However, I know that reforms are being taken forward in other fora, not least by Peter Aldous MP in the other place.
The Bill does not end all the deficiencies in the current arrangements for protecting and supporting park home owners, but it goes a very long way. It is a tribute to all those who have devoted endless days, weeks or even years to combating unscrupulous site owners who, until now, have been able to get away with atrocious behaviour. The Bill is a very fine example of the way in which Parliament can seek to right a wrong, end an injustice and secure a better life for many thousands of households. I strongly commend it to your Lordships. I beg to move.
Lord Cormack
My Lords, I follow the noble Lord, Lord Best, with great pleasure. I endorse all that he said. We are very much in his debt for piloting this Bill through your Lordships’ House. I have had a very long association with mobile homes. I shall say in parenthesis that my only criticism of the Bill is its title. I wish it were the Park Homes Bill.
I have a long association with park homes. At one stage, I was told that there were more sites in my constituency of South Staffordshire than in any other constituency in the country. I had many long and agreeable conversations with my friend the noble Lord, Lord Graham, when we used to meet to talk about the plight of the home owners. This is the thing that we have to underline in this debate time and time again: we are talking about home owners, people who have invested, sometimes their pension lump sum, sometimes the product of a lifetime of saving, in a modest home in the country. Some of these homes are quite palatial, but most are modest, scrupulously clean and very well looked after. Their owners take great pride in them. There were no communities in South Staffordshire that were truer communities than the park home sites. In some of them residents and owners spent hours every week making sure that not just their own gardens were tidy, precise and attractive but that the whole site was beautifully kept.
For the first 30 years of my 40-year membership of the other place, I had very few complaints from owners of park homes about the activities of site owners. Then in the last decade of my membership of the other place, I had a very great number of complaints about two or three unscrupulous owners in particular, whose practices not only verged on, but sometimes became, criminal. The noble Lord, Lord Best, spoke of intimidation. Intimidation can take many forms. The knock on the door in the night was not unknown, with no one there when the door was opened. Dogs, rather fierce ones, prowling around were not unknown. The blocking of sales, which the noble Lord, Lord Best, referred to, was quite frequent, an appalling exploitation of the provision by which the park home owner is able to veto the prospective purchaser. There were so many other things. The noble Lord, Lord Best, talked of drainage not being repaired and of excessive fees being charged for fuel. I know of one site called Silver Poplars. Many of the trees around it were, not surprisingly, poplars. In the course of one particularly disturbing weekend, most of them were chopped down. The anguish and distress caused to the home owners at the despoliation of their very attractive rural environment was palpable.
These are people who, for the most part, want nothing more than to live a tranquil life in a place of quiet and tranquil beauty without being interfered with by anyone. The way in which some of these owners behaved was such that it became absolutely necessary for important legislation to be produced. Of course, the noble Lord, Lord Graham, and I go back a long way. We remember the noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater, introducing the first Bill many decades ago. It was the beginning of the recognition of the need for some form of regulation, but the problems that we talk about today did not exist then and the provisions of that Bill are not adequate to deal with them. We now need an Act that can be enforced and can make these people—and let us stress that they are still a minority of site owners—realise that what they are doing will land them in very deep trouble indeed.
I know that in South Staffordshire there are still many owners. Indeed, the council owns a very good site called Hinksford. There are many sites where the owners live in the most amicable relations with the home owners—that is good and as it should be. But these few people have given such extraordinary anguish to so many home owners that they have to be dealt with. I am delighted to know that my noble friend Lady Hanham, who will be replying to this debate, has already indicated her sympathy for what we seek to do.
Of course, as the noble Lord, Lord Best, indicated in his closing remarks, there are still problems that will have to be solved in future. The Bill is not the answer to every conceivable problem. There will be some unscrupulous people who will seek loopholes in this legislation, and may be successful in so doing—if they are, we will have to deal with them. It is not right that a particular group of home owners in our country should be treated as badly as Rachman treated his tenants all those decades ago. These are the Rachmans of the mobile home world; they do not deserve a place in any civilised society—they deserve to be hounded out of what they are doing, to be fined unlimited sums and to be put in jail for the way in which they disturb, despoil and ruin the lives and environment of so many decent, ordinary people, who want nothing more than to live in peace with their neighbours.
As your Lordships will have gathered, I am a passionate supporter of this Bill. I hope that we can reach the stage where we talk more of park homes and less of mobile homes. In his opening words, the noble Lord, Lord Best, indicated that they are static—they are not the sort of homes that are dragged around the country—and are not to be confused with those taken from site to site. They are permanent dwellings, owned by those who live in them, who deserve all the rights and protection that the owner of a long lease deserves and, for the most part, enjoys. I hope that this day marks the beginning of a new chapter for those living in those homes and that the Bill speedily goes on to the statute books—and that there will be no delay about its enforcement, or complications arising therefrom. The noble Lord, Lord Best, talked about April next year. I hope that in the next decade what park home owners like dear Mr Joyce in my former constituency—
Lord Cormack
Yes, Ron Joyce, known to the noble Lord, Lord Graham. I hope that what they have struggled for comes to pass. I was particularly proud and pleased when they formed one of the first park homes associations and I became their patron. It was an office that I was delighted and honoured to hold, because they were good people who deserved the support of those of us responsible for these things. Any society that is to call itself civilised must have regard for those who are most vulnerable and least able to create their own form of protection. In this Bill, we have gone a long way to doing that for them. I pay tribute to Peter Aldous for all that he did in the House of Commons and all the Members there, on both sides of the House, who gave it support, and all colleagues in your Lordships' House who are here today to see the Bill go on to its next stage in its progress towards its statute books. The noble Lord, Lord Best, has performed a signal service for us all, and we are grateful to him.
Lord Whitty
My Lords, I join the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Best, on presenting the Bill in this House in a very clear and cogent way. I also congratulate Peter Aldous and all those, such as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, himself and, above all, the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, who have pursued this cause for many years.
The Bill will give park home owners—the 160,000 people who live in park homes—greater benefits and security. We have to remember that most of these home owners are elderly. The majority are over 60 and probably about 25% are over 75. I remind your Lordships that this is roughly the same demographic as the membership of the House of Lords. Therefore, we should particularly empathise with them. In the nature of things, they are in a difficult balance of power situation with the site owner and site manager, particularly on an individual basis, and are open to potential exploitation and abuse. As the noble Lord, Lord Cormack said, it is wrong that the law treats these people so much less favourably than other home owners and leaseholders. This Bill goes some way to rectify that.
We need to recognise that there are hundreds of good, effective, decent site owners and site managers around the country, but we also have to recognise that there is a minority of unscrupulous site owners. People such as the noble Lords, Lord Cormack and Lord Graham, who have been involved in this matter for some time, say that that minority is increasing and has recently increased significantly. The organisations involved in this area even give them the acronym USOs to try to define them.
There have been several reports on this issue. The report of the CLG Select Committee in another place has been cited, as has the TSI report. My interest in this matter was brought about by the reports produced by Consumer Focus, with which I was formerly connected, and Consumer Focus Wales. Incidentally, a parallel Bill is going through the Welsh Assembly. Those reports drew attention to the situation in which these home owners find themselves, which comprises a background of a mishmash of legislative and regulatory measures and differing and often inconsistent application and enforcement by different local authorities. The report that applies to England identifies how widespread these difficulties are and states that roughly 25% of all park home owners had experienced severe problems in relation to resale and an even higher proportion had concerns about safety, maintenance, security and the way in which they were treated by site owners.
I give just one example of the way in which site owners can hugely exploit park home owners and their beneficiaries when a sale occurs. A park home owner in east Sussex used his life savings to buy his home for £72,000. He then spent the rest of his savings on improving that home. When he died only four years later, he left his home to his two daughters, who wished to sell it. However, before they put it up for sale, the site owner approached them and said that he would take it away for them for £1,000. Less resilient inheritors might not have understood the position and gone along with that. However, the man’s daughters put the home on the market, initially for £60,000, as the market had obviously gone down in the interim, and were prepared to sell for £50,000. But even at that point when they had a buyer, the site owner stepped in, spoke directly to the buyer, told him that the recently renovated home was subject to dilapidation and was waterlogged, which was untrue, and that he would be foolish to pursue the sale. He clearly did that to a number of potential buyers but eventually one came forward and the home was sold several months later for £37,000, of which the site owner received 10%. Therefore, the home was sold for significantly less than half the purchase price that had been paid four years previously. That is a typical case, but there are worse examples where sales do not go ahead at all and where the site owner effectively obtains the home for a mere pittance for his own use and onward sale.
Some of these abuses, as the noble Lord, Lord Best, spelt out, will be dealt with by the Bill. Clauses 1 to 4 will improve the licensing system. It is important that local authorities take this seriously, as the noble Lord, Lord Best, said. Clause 10 will deal with a site owner’s ability to control and intimidate and Clause 12 will deal with harassment. Other clauses are equally important, such as Clause 9, which deals with site rules. The ability of local authorities to intervene and require a site to be improved is also important.
However, probably the most important clause—and one which could probably do with improvement, although we may not be able to do so within the timetable of this House—is Clause 8, which deals with the requirement to be a fit and proper person. The fact that this is going to have to be turned into reality by secondary legislation—and not immediate secondary legislation either—is a bit of a weakness in the Bill. Will there be an opportunity at some point for the Secretary of State to exclude the quasi-criminal elements that the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, described, and to improve the general standard of people who take on the ownership and management of sites? That will involve a test of competence as well as of criminality.
As I said, there are areas of the Bill which could be improved. I hope that the Minister will be able to say that her department will come forward with secondary legislation to turn those improvements into reality as soon as possible, as opposed to the timetable that has previously been indicated. There are other improvements that we could argue for. We could probably have done more about improving the RTP procedures, which many homeowners have found rather difficult. The noble Lord, Lord Best, also referred to the on-sale of water, gas and electricity, where there have been fairly horrendous stories, including in relation to LPG, and the applicability of energy-efficiency measures to mobile homes. However, we cannot have everything in a Private Member’s Bill and there may be other means of delivering some of those things.
For the moment, this is a good day. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, and all who have worked to get us this far, and I hope that the Government and the House will give the Bill good speed.
Baroness Scott of Needham Market
My Lords, I join in the thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Best, for taking this Bill through the House. His expertise in housing matters and his diligence will be put to good use in this regard. I also pay tribute to Peter Aldous, the MP for Waveney—which for the uninitiated is in my home county of Suffolk—both for choosing this topic for his Private Member’s Bill and for the skill with which he steered it though the Commons. I am particularly pleased to see the noble Lord, Lord Graham, in his place today. He has fought very hard for this over many years and must be delighted to see that we are finally making some progress.
During the debate that I secured in the Moses Room on this topic last summer, it became apparent that the Government intended to support the Bill, and I know that the Minister will deal with it in her customary efficient and sympathetic way. Many changes were introduced in the Commons—many by the Government—and they are most welcome, but I think that it has resulted in a little confusion about exactly what the Bill does and when the various provisions will come into force. Some of those have been clarified very well by the noble Lord, Lord Best, today but there are still a few areas of confusion to which I shall allude. If the Minister does not have time in her summing up today, perhaps she could write to explain exactly when some of the provisions will come in.
It is more than 20 years since I first became a councillor, and my experience was very similar to that of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. There were a few problems initially and then the situation got worse and worse. By the time I finished, problems on park home sites were very common, and they have been quite well rehearsed: poor site management, breach of licence conditions, misuse of the tariffs for charging electricity and gas, breaches of fire safety regulations and general quality-of-life matters. The council did what it could, but it lacked the statutory framework that it needed to deal with many of these issues.
The power that the Bill gives to local authorities to tackle some of these abuses is most welcome. I understand that some park home owners regret that that is not a duty on local authorities but I agree with the Government’s more localist approach that we should be looking at powers and not duties. However, it means that it is essential that the Government work with local authorities on best practice with park home owners to ensure that they are fully aware of the new rights that they have under this Bill.
I particularly welcome the power given to local authorities to carry out work where site owners fail to do so and then recharge them for it. This will concentrate the minds of site owners wonderfully on the need to get the job done. I hope that this provision can be brought in without delay and I ask the Minister to clarify the timing. There has been some debate about which provisions might be caught by the Government’s moratorium on new regulation. I accept that to an extent red tape is in the eye of the beholder, but in this case it is not red tape; this is fundamental to the quality of life of the several hundred thousand residents of park homes. I also think it is important when considering all this to look at the potential for a bonanza of bad behaviour, which might carry on if there is a delay in bringing in the new provisions. I fear that some of the bad owners will make hay while the sun continues to shine.
What has shocked me and many of my colleagues is how criminality has crept into the park homes sector. It has been able to thrive due to a combination of an inadequate legal framework and a very poor understanding of what is going on. The way in which intimidation has been used to prevent sales, for example, is absolutely scandalous. I am delighted that, at long last, we are tackling the legal framework and that police forces have become much more aware of how this intimidation can work and what they can do about it.
When we debated the matter in the Moses Room last year, the Government said that they thought that the right of veto of sales by site owners would have to remain because of the Human Rights Act, so I was delighted to hear the noble Lord, Lord Best, explain what is clearly a compromise but one in which at least existing park home owners have far more rights than they previously had, and in which they are not likely to be subject to challenge under the Human Rights Act. That is very important.
I have one question with regard to the information that has to be sent under the new regime to the park home owners. I think the noble Lord, Lord Best, said it would include their name and issues around their compliance with the site regulations, around age and so on. When we look at the regulations for this, I would be very keen to ensure that the information that has to be given cannot lead to their being readily identified by the site home owner because we know that some of them will use intimidation, including knocking on their doors, if they are easily identified. So I hope we can think about that.
In this regard, as with many others, good site owners can welcome this, as can the residents because it is important that there are some controls on those who are able to move in. I share the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, about the delays on the introduction of a fit and proper person test. It has always seemed bizarre to me that we set standards in all sorts of areas, but not for park home owners. I am very concerned that, given the track record of many of them, there will be another three years before these things can be considered. Although I accept that devolution means a thousand flowers can bloom, it would be very odd if a site owner was barred under the provisions made recently by the Welsh Assembly as not being fit and proper, but was allowed to run a site on the other side of the border.
Given the age profile of the owners of park homes, and the nature of the homes themselves, energy use is a major problem. I understand that the rules of the Green Deal preclude grants to park homes. I wonder whether the Minister would undertake to hold discussions with colleagues in DECC to find a way to remedy this, so that those who are in greatest need can benefit from the scheme? Furthermore, can she say whether the current framework for resale of electricity and bottled gas is fit for purpose?
The Bill marks a major breakthrough. It is not just about the legal framework. It is also about there finally being recognition of the serious problems in this sector. Governments of all colours have been in denial for too long. I ask the Minister to work with colleagues in the Ministry of Justice to ensure that the tribunals are sufficiently resourced, particularly in the early years when they will have a high case load and will still be building up a framework of knowledge.
We need to encourage park homes owners to use all the powers that they now have to fight the rogue element where they find it, and urge the statutory bodies to listen to them and support them. There have been some very brave individuals who have stood up for the rights of park homes owners, even in the face of serious intimidation. One such was Bob Holland from Needham Market, who founded the National Park Home Congress which had such a successful conference last year. Sadly, Bob died not long ago, but I like to think that he would be pleased with the changes that this Bill would bring in.
We need a major communication programme with people living in park homes so that they are fully aware of their rights, and we need to work with organisations such as the citizens advice bureaux, as they are often the first port of call. I hope the Minister will also work closely with the Local Government Association in the context of its new powers and because councillors will often be the first port of call when problems occur, as I was. It is important that they communicate changes to the residents.
Good site owners have nothing to fear from this Bill, but 160,000 park home residents will be able to sleep more soundly in their beds at night. I wish the Bill all speed through this House.
Lord Graham of Edmonton
My Lords, it is a joy and a pleasure to take part in this debate; I am delighted. We must of course remember that almost everything that could be said has been said, but not by everybody. I have some evidence to produce, which may be new but I do not think so.
I want to thank a great many people who have brought us to this position. To me, the hero is Mr Grant Shapps. Over a period of 30 years, since I served on a committee in 1983 and took an interest in this matter, both Houses of Parliament, the police, local authorities and councillors have all had some responsibility for the issue, yet we are still in this position now. Perhaps there have been some false dawns, but I sense from the action of Mr Grant Shapps that this will not be one. Incidentally, I say to all his civil servants, who know more than any of us about the background to the Bill, and who are listening not many miles away, that I appreciate their frustration at the previous inability to get to this point.
Brian Doick, who has been mentioned, Alan Savory who has not been mentioned, Colin Packman and Ron Joyce represent the residents’ associations. The great thing for me over the past two years is that more organisations have found their way to them, principally Sonia McColl, who started the justice campaign and got to the stage where she had a petition signed by 10,000 people. She had a meeting in one of the rooms upstairs with more than 200 people, a petition to No. 10 and a comment from the Prime Minister on the matter. She has done a marvellous job and I thank her.
I also thank Tony Turner, who has represented park home owners in Cornwall and that part of the world. Of course, reference was made to Bob Holland and his organisation. The Civil Service must recognise, and Ministers do, that there is a growing band of people who are now more aware than ever of the situation. How we are going to deal with the situation is dealt with in the Bill.
There are people who ought to have done more in the past. I mentioned local authorities, Whitehall, Parliament and the police. It is from their hands that our solution will come—but only if they work together. I will read the comments made by Inspector Colquhoun. He was on the spot when two villains launched a campaign to capture all the homes on their site. He set about a gang that tried to burn down two of the homes. Fortunately, a neighbour was quick enough to get on the phone. Inspector Colquhoun was in charge. At the end of the day, seven gang members were sentenced to 64 years in prison. The great thing was that under the Proceeds of Crime Act, the criminals’ means were examined. They were millionaires, but they had made their millions on the backs of poor, innocent people. They were fined.
I said before and I will say it now: there is only one way to deal with people who have contempt for the law, and that is through their pockets. They have millions of pounds, and assets to protect, but they do not care tuppence. Inspector Colquhoun said:
“Park home crime can be an extremely serious form of criminality which may lead to the ruination of its victims, while enriching its perpetrators in sums of hundreds of thousands if not millions of pounds. It is a form of criminality which is underreported, and where victims do seek police involvement, the service has frequently fallen short in terms of offering inappropriate advice”.
That is an admission. All of us, including Parliament, must be honest with ourselves in saying that in the order of priority on dealing with problems—goodness knows there are lots—this is far down the list. The Minister has always shown an understanding of the problem. Now she has a chance to make a name for herself. She can be the Minister in this House who ensures that we get this through successfully.
Very often people talk about the validity of what has been said. I will pray in aid correspondence sent to me by Sonia McColl and her campaign. It makes very heavy reading. When the Bill went through the other place, she received a letter that said:
“It’s brilliant news that the park home bill has now moved onto the next stage. We really hope it goes through now … because it will go a long way in preventing sale blocking. We know from bitter experience that being stopped from selling something that is yours by the site owner and those who work for them is absolutely soul destroying”.
That came from a couple who live in Derbyshire. Another letter stated:
“It is good to know that at last we the park home owners are getting some recognition in our fight for justice and to be able to live normally as any other person who owns property without hassle, harassment or bully-boy tactics”.
When I thought about what I was going to say, I suddenly realised that this was my day in court. People sometimes say, “I want my day in court, to stand up and say what I want to say”. Modestly, I say that I am standing up in this court, speaking on behalf of all those people. To everyone else who has spoken in this debate, I say that it is not partisan. It will not give us a halo, but we are speaking on behalf of a great many people in that way.
There is another person from Warwickshire—and another site, the Longcast Mobile Home Park, Welford on Avon, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire—who says:
“There are still a minority of older homes that have not yet been ‘acquired’ by the site owner, ours being one of them. Our House is 30 years old and we have put a lot of time and money and energy into it to make it a wonderful place to live. Our only concern is that on this site not one of the older houses has been allowed to be sold on to a private buyer. The Site owner has always managed to get them and pay as little as possible for them, selling them on to traders to move off and then putting a massive new one on”.
We have experience and evidence of these matters, and I have evidence that I am willing to give to other people.
One thing I want to say is that, besides the movement on these parks and the militancy of the parks, we also have to recognise that, whereas at one time we talked about a park home owner, now we must speak in terms of a park home owner who has a number of sites.
There has been a marvellous development in Cornwall. Cornwall Council has produced a pamphlet that it will send to everybody who lives in a park home on a site. One of the problems—and I speak kindly to the Minister and to those who serve her—is that it is all very well saying that you can get the information by fax or online in one way or another, but many of these people have only a telephone and not all of them have even that. Many of them, but not all, are mobile. Many have the ability to get information but not all do.
I pay tribute to Cornwall Council. It has produced this pamphlet which sets out what you can do. Not only that, it is especially aimed at park home owners. It is going to make sure that every park home in Cornwall gets one. That costs money and takes time and has to be prioritised; but if Cornwall can do it, so can other counties. I lay down that challenge. Perhaps Cornwall has a lot of park homes. That is where Tony Turner operates from. He has done a marvellous job in not being bullied by the despicable people who manage his home. He is doing a marvellous job in that respect.
This is a new dawn. I believe that the Minister and her civil servants will relish this. We have moved from being defensive in trying to justify the present position into a situation we are on the offensive. Those people who are unscrupulous should use this debate as a warning. They are on trial. They have been tried in a court of justice many times. This is now the court of Parliament. If they cannot see the militancy there is about this, they are not the people that I think they are.
There are people who are unscrupulous. They have lots of money, lots of barristers and lots of recourse. They have done this. One of the aspects of the Bill, as noble Lords know, is to talk in terms of increasing the powers of local authorities up to level 5. Level 5 fines are £5,000. We have already had it explained that that will be transformed within 12 months: it will be moved up from £5,000 to an unlimited sum. I look forward to the day when the first £50,000 fine is levied. It will not make much difference to the people I am talking about, but it will be a warning. I also look forward to the day when there are no fines of that kind because they will have acted as a deterrent.
Park home site owners may not have a gold mine, but they have a rich cow that can be milked many times. They have decent people living in their parks who at one time were happy, but now they are unhappy. Our job as parliamentarians is to ask the Government to speed up the Bill in any way they can so that it can be put into practice. There are blemishes, of course. It is intriguing that site owners do not take account of the views of their residents. There are some parks—I have their names—where despite the fact that they qualify, the site owner simply ignores that; he just “takes notice” of something. The Minister should know that many site owners ignore moves made by her department to make sure that they act properly. Today we have an opportunity of speeding this Bill through, and it certainly has my very warm welcome.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, like all other noble Lords who have spoken, I start by offering my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Best, on taking on the responsibility for bringing this Bill before your Lordships’ House and add our thanks to the many people he listed who have helped to bring the Bill this far, including Peter Aldous MP. Like all noble Lords, I want to pay my own tribute to my noble friend Lord Graham of Edmonton for his tireless campaigning on this issue over 30 years. We have just heard his passion for and deep understanding of these issues. If for my noble friend it is a day of joy and pleasure, I can say that that is thoroughly deserved. He is not alone. We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, about the important role that he has played, and it is right to acknowledge the role that has been played by Mr Grant Shapps, at least in this respect, on the legislation.
It will come as no surprise to noble Lords that we support the Bill. We said so in the other place and, of course, in the debate in the Moses Room initiated by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, just a few months ago. We support the Bill in the knowledge of the excellent report of the CLG Select Committee and the recent report by Consumer Focus, to which my noble friend Lord Whitty referred.
For some time the park home sector has been polluted by serious abuses, the victims of which are mostly elderly people. They are people who looked forward to a peaceful and secure retirement, often in rural areas that are referred to as “little paradises”, and as part of true communities, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said. However, we should recognise that for some it is not necessarily a lifestyle choice, but their only affordable route to a home in or near a place that they know and love. Like others, we recognise that not all site owners are unscrupulous. Many have well run sites and act responsibly.
I do not propose to speak at length about the abuses that we know need to be tackled because they have been more than adequately covered by all the other speakers. We have a common understanding of the problems, including uncontrolled levels of service charges, particularly for utilities, restrictions on the sale of homes and the intimidation that accompanies that in the form of sale blocking. We heard some grim examples of how that intimidation is inflicted. There are examples of failure to undertake the proper maintenance of sites and inadequate licensing processes. As the noble Lord, Lord Best, explained in his opening remarks, the Bill will do much to improve the detail of the position. We share the desire to see the fit and proper person test to be introduced as soon as possible. No doubt the Minister will update us on this in responding to the debate.
We wish the Bill speedy progress on to the statute book. However, we know that, whatever the law, some site owners will not rush to adhere to it. We have heard about the increasing criminality in the sector. It is therefore important to pick up a point made by my noble friend Lord Graham about the need for wide publicity to be given to the Bill, or the Act when it becomes one, so that park home owners are made fully aware of their new rights and opportunities and their access to justice, which has hitherto been denied.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Hanham)
My Lords, I follow other noble Lords in congratulating and thanking the noble Lord, Lord Best, for introducing this Bill into this House and my honourable friend Peter Aldous, MP for Waveney, for all that he has done to promote and take it through Parliament. I also thank noble Lords who have mentioned my right honourable friend Grant Shapps, who finally grasped the nettle of this. It is something, as other noble Lords have said, that has been bobbling around for far too long. I remember well the very first debate I was ever asked to do from the Front Bench in this House, which was to answer, on behalf of the Opposition, the noble Lord, Lord Graham, and discuss mobile homes. It took us back a bit but we did it. Ever since, I have admired enormously the expertise and the absolute, sheer determination of the noble Lord, Lord Graham, to see that something was done about this absolutely dreadful situation, which has put so many people into such jeopardy. There have also been others, including the notable campaigners who have not given up all the way through. At last Parliament is able to take a role and try to bring an end to some of these real travesties.
If enacted, this Bill will afford much better protection to park home owners, and it is good to see it so warmly supported by all sides of the House. As other noble Lords have said, it affects only a relatively small number of homes in England. However, we heard that the Welsh Assembly is also taking this seriously, so it will affect England and Wales. It is hugely important to the people who live in these homes. I believe there are around 85,000 park homes, on 2,000 sites. The sector represents less than 8.5% of the housing stock in England, but just because this part of housing is tiny, it does not mean that we should not address the injustice that is rife and of which we have heard various examples today. That is why this Government fully back this Bill. The Prime Minister said in the other place on 16 January, in relation to park home owners, that it is,
“important … that we get the balance of law right”.—[Official Report, Commons, 16/1/13; col. 869.]
This Bill is important in ensuring that that objective is achieved.
The Bill builds on the thorough and searching inquiry into the industry and its practices, which the Communities and Local Government Select Committee held last spring, and takes forward a number of the recommendations that the Committee made. We want to create a level playing field where the good site operator—and we know there are good site operators—does not face unfair competition from unscrupulous ones who ignore their obligations and the rights of others. We want to see the park home sector put on a sustainable footing for the future, where those who run a decent and honest business can flourish and which has no place for the unscrupulous and criminal. Above all, we want homeowners to be confident that their homes are safe and, perhaps most importantly, that their rights are respected. The Bill aims to achieve these objectives by introducing measures targeted at those who ignore their obligations and exploit their residents, while placing minimal burdens on those businesses which manage their sites well and respect their residents’ rights.
The noble Lord, Lord Best, has given a very clear exposition of what the Bill says. It focuses on four key areas: reforms to the antiquated licensing regime that applies to park home sites; removing the ability for unscrupulous operators to block lawful sales by residents of their homes; preventing owners from imposing unreasonable site rules for their own benefit; and ensuring that increases in pitch fees are transparent to prevent residents being overcharged. These issues were particularly identified in the department’s consultation paper.
The licensing reforms will mean that for the first time local authorities in England will be able to recover costs incurred in licensing directly from the site owner through fees and costs in recovery enforcement action. These functions will no longer have to be subsidised by the local taxpayer. Authorities will also be able to serve notices requiring works on sites to be carried out, and the courts will be able to impose large fines on site operators who do not comply. I note that the noble Lord, Lord Graham, was very modest in wanting to achieve £50,000.
The changes to selling a home will remove altogether the need to seek approval of a purchaser by the site owner. This is one of the most important provisions. This new system will apply to all new agreements and from the second assignment of existing agreements. On the first assignment of existing agreements, site owners will retain a role but the circumstances in which approval can be withheld will be specified to those relating to the site rules. In particular, it will be for the site owner to establish at the residential property tribunal that a purchaser does not meet the relevant site rules. In both circumstances, however, there will no longer be a requirement that a prospective purchaser needs to contact or meet the site owner or that the site owner has to agree to the assignment of the agreement when the buyer and seller, as it were, exchange contracts.
The Bill also includes a provision that would permit the Government to introduce the “fit and proper person” test through secondary legislation in the future. I hear what noble Lords say about the importance of this aspect. It was a recommendation of the Select Committee and I will say a few words about why the Government have accepted this recommendation. It is not the Government’s intention to impose an industry-wide fit and proper requirement at present. New burdens on business are always a last resort, but we must also ensure that the conditions in this sector improve. That is why the Bill focuses on making it unprofitable for unscrupulous operators to exploit residents, but we accept the risk that some of the worst operators will persist and that it may be necessary to use these powers to directly remove them from the industry.
Therefore, we will be reviewing the situation after a suitable period—I hope that would be shorter rather than longer—to see how behaviour in the industry has changed. If unscrupulous practices persist, we may have to consider introducing the fit and proper test as well. It will be in our back pocket should it be needed, although that may not be likely if this Bill achieves its purpose of hitting the unscrupulous and criminal operators in their pockets.
I acknowledge that the Bill does not include everything that the Government consulted on. The policy reasons are explained in the published response paper, which is available on the department’s website. In some cases, we have concluded that legislative change is not the best solution. It is also a matter of size and what can be achieved in a Private Member’s Bill. This Bill runs to 15 clauses, which is quite unusual for a Private Member’s Bill, and some of those clauses are very long. It would have been impossible to include everything on which we consulted if the Bill was to have any chance of completing all its stages and receiving Royal Assent, which the Government are anxious to see.
From what we have heard today, I anticipate that noble Lords will want to discuss and debate further details in Committee, but I earnestly hope that any amendments are not pressed to a vote or supported.
Baroness Hanham
Amendments will cause delay and very likely result in the Bill not completing its passage before the end of the Session. That would mean that it could not be enacted, which would be a huge blow to many thousands of people whose rights and health and safety would be better protected by its measures.
The noble Lord, Lord Best, and others spoke about problems relating to re-sale of liquid petroleum gas, re-sale of electricity, fuel poverty and the Green Deal. The Government are aware of these problems and take them very seriously. The application of the Green Deal to park homes was raised with the Prime Minister by Annette Brooke in the other place. He undertook to look into the matter, which demonstrates how seriously we take this issue.
My officials are working with those in the Department of Energy and Climate Change and other authorities with policy responsibility in these areas to see what can be done to improve the situation for park home residents. I am not sure that the noble Lord, Lord Best, will agree with me that this Bill is not the right vehicle for addressing these issues, but some of the issues require not more legislation but better education and more enforcement action. Those that need legislation should not be addressed on the back of a Private Member’s Bill, with the effect of reducing the likelihood of it clearing its stages.
The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, asked me when the provisions would come into force. The provisions relating to sale blocking, pitch fees, site rules and harassment will come in two months after Royal Assent—so that is pretty quick. Licensing will come in in February 2014 and other provisions by order of the Secretary of State, but, as I have indicated, we will keep a close eye on those to see whether they are necessary.
We have in this Bill a comprehensive set of reforms to key areas which will have the greatest impact and lasting effect. As we have all said, the reforms are well overdue and desperately needed. That is why, in commending the Bill to the House, I say again to those who have campaigned so long and so hard that we are very grateful for and acknowledge their determination. We wish this Bill a safe passage through its remaining stages so that it can come into force, by the latest, in the summer.
Lord Best
My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords on all sides of the House who have spoken in support of the Bill. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, not only for his practical examples that bring to life these issues but for the passion with which he delivered his words. I am grateful, too, to the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, who raised the question of “fit and proper person” and pointed out that the Welsh Assembly is looking at these matters even as we speak and might go further than has been possible in this case. The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, also raised that issue.
I support the Government in putting this matter not on the back burner but on the edge of the back burner, ready to be brought forward if needed. It is quite an undertaking for government to require local authorities to ensure that people are fit and proper persons when we know that some of these devious individuals are able to swap the ownership of their sites. We know that some of them have companies—more than one—registered in the Cayman Islands. These are not entirely unsophisticated operators. Keeping tabs on everything that is happening and enforcing a duty to ensure that only fit and proper persons should operate on these sites is a big step, but one that the Government are prepared to take if it proves necessary in due course.
I was very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, for the various points that she made, bringing to the debate her experience as a local councillor, which was an important extra dimension for us. I hope that she was satisfied with the timetable that the Minister indicated. It was an amendment in the House of Commons that brought forward the timetable for implementation of the first chunks of the legislation—I shall not say breakneck speed—to two months after Royal Assent. The civil servants will be kept busy getting that to happen.
We then heard from the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, who made a wonderful speech. I know that we all feel a deep sense of gratitude to him for putting so much time and effort over so many years into making things happen today. He was described to me by one park owner as “diamond”. “Dogged” is another word that I would have added to that list. I thank him so very much for all the work he has done over so many years on behalf of park home owners.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for the support of the opposition Benches, which was incredibly important for seeing this through. There is more work to be done in explaining to everybody what the position will now be, including park home owners, the legal profession, citizens advice bureaux, police forces, trading standards officers and site owners themselves, who will need to know where they stand in the future. I am confident that the excellent team at the Department for Communities and Local Government will get on with this and do it very well.
I am very grateful for the personal support of the Minister and the Government as a whole. Her support is important: she was able to remind us today—if we had not spotted it earlier—that the Prime Minister is now taking an interest in ensuring that some aspects of this are now taken forward. There will be other reforms relating to the Green Deal and energy saving which will also be important and can be taken up in other fora. There is work to be done to ensure that the Bill, when enacted, has the impact it should, but the stage is now set for a new era for park home owners. I am grateful for all the support from your Lordships in taking this Bill forward to its next and final stages in this enormously worthwhile exercise. I ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.
Marine Navigation (No. 2) Bill
(11 years, 10 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Wilcox
That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.
Amendment to the Motion
Lord Berkeley
Leave out from “House” to end and insert “declines to consider the bill in committee until Her Majesty's Government have laid before both Houses of Parliament a report on the compatibility of the provisions of the bill (and in particular the provisions of Clause 2 and proposals to allow junior ratings to hold pilotage exemption certificates) with the International Maritime Organization’s International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers.”
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, in moving this amendment to the Motion, I would like to refer the House to its wording at the bottom of grouping sheet, which has somehow been printed at the bottom of all the amendments to the Bill. This is what I am speaking to now. It is unusual to put down an amendment to a Motion such as this, but we are in slightly unusual times—as we come up to the end of the Session—because we had two days’ notice of the Committee stage today. I had a useful meeting with the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, and her officials on Monday, where I said it was particularly important that we should see a reply to the letter which we had all been sent from Brian Simpson MEP, chairman of the Transport Committee in the European Parliament, to the Secretary of State for Transport. I said that I needed to see that reply before we discussed it in Committee. Once I knew what the date was, I put the amendment down on Wednesday night and, miraculously, the letter appeared on Thursday morning. That was good news, but it gave us just 24 hours to consider it. As it did not answer the main question that Mr Simpson had asked, I felt it was reasonable to ask for a week’s delay to the Committee, which is what my amendment is about.
As I said, the letter did not answer the concerns that Mr Simpson raised concerning the qualification of the pilots, an issue I have discussed before. I declare an interest as chairman of the UK Maritime Pilots Association, as well as being a harbour commissioner in the port of Fowey in Cornwall. It appears from Mr Simpson’s letter to the Secretary of State, from which I will read a short bit, that it causes him and his committee in the European Parliament some concern, since,
“this clause would appear to be in contravention of the STCW regulations of the IMO which have now been enacted into EU law”.
I will show in a minute that I think those regulations are already in EU law. It seems very odd that in this Bill we have a definition of the management, qualifications and experience required for a PEC holder when there is already one in EU law, which I believe has already been transposed into UK law. I am not very sure, because I have not had time to check it, but since it started about 10 years ago I think it has.
There is also a new directive coming out. Very quickly, this refers to the standards of training, certification and watchkeeping for seafarers from 1978, which were amended on 3 August 2010 by the IMO. They cover the management and operational levels and define those two levels, while giving:
“Mandatory minimum requirements for certification of officers in charge of a navigational watch on ships of 500 gross tonnage or more”,
and the minimum knowledge. I could read the whole thing out but I am sure that noble Lords will be pleased to hear that I will not. The important thing is that this defines, under Section A-II/2, the qualifications, competence and experience that masters and first mates have to have; those have to be applied to PEC holders.
It is pretty extraordinary that we were not told about this at a previous stage of this Bill because it directly relates to the debate that we had at Second Reading, and which they had at many stages in the House of Commons, about the qualifications for pilotage. For the record, the latest reference for this is in European directive 2012/35, which was completed on 21 November last year and will be presumably be brought in by regulation within two years. However, it is already there from the last version; this was the Manila version.
It is rather sad that the Minister, Stephen Hammond, did not in his reply mention that or answer any of the questions. He ended up by saying on page two of his letter that it is for,
“the Master or First Mate”,
to decide whether a PEC holder is qualified. That seems a quite extraordinary misinterpretation of the rules. It is not up to the master to change the requirements for training or seniority of a person to allow him to become a PEC holder, because the convention we are talking about lists three specific cases in which penalties are to be applied. If the master is found to have allowed unduly qualified persons not holding the right certification, et cetera, to perform a function, he is liable to be fined, as is the company. Of course, the person concerned may also get fined.
I will be very interested to hear the Minister’s response as there seems to be a serious conflict on the management, levels and skills required for a PEC holder between the legislation that came from the IMO, through Europe, to here and what is in the Bill. Can the Minister say whether this conflict was known about? I presume that it was and I am sorry that noble Lords were not told about it earlier. I suggest that the Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, bring forward a suitable amendment on Report, if it can be done, to link the existing regulations in the directive with the relevant parts of Clause 2 because there will otherwise be court actions coming out of people’s ears. When people find out that they have two regulations, and that one works for them and the other does not, they will all be going to court—and the ports, the pilots and everyone else will be the losers. It is very important that this matter is resolved and I beg to move.
Lord Eames
My Lords, in supporting the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, I declare an interest as a member of the Royal Yachting Association. I cannot imagine a greater recipe for the lawyers of our knowledge than the conflict that the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has exposed before us today. The question of qualifications, training and their wedding with experience is a very sensitive area in the maritime world. We are not dealing simply with a technical matter. We are dealing with one of the most sensitive issues, which concerns people who are transported, people within the marine industry and people with an interest in our ports. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has put his finger on one of the most sensitive issues—this is not a technical attempt to restrain the legislation or prove difficult about it—which has to be given the closest possible attention because there is a conflict in places between these two edicts. The conflict, in my experience, will lead to an open charter for many months and years to come unless we are satisfied as a House that every possible examination has taken place of the difficulties between these two approaches.
I am also convinced that where there is any question of conflict, not only does it raise issues of a purely legal nature, but it puts into contempt the sort of respect that people ought to have of the whole industry. For that reason, I too will be very interested in what the Minister says about what examination has been made of this conflict. Has it been given the attention that it deserves?
I also regret the way in which the legislation has been produced today, on a Friday, with so little notice to many of us who come a great distance to attend the House. At this early stage, I ask that very serious consideration be given to the Bill by the Minister, for whom I have the highest regard and who has always been most helpful when I have raised issues with him. However, in this instance I believe that the full import of what the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, says has yet to be realised by the Government.
Lord Chidgey
My Lords, noble Lords will remember that at Second Reading we had a mutual admiration for the ancient mariners of Watchet. We all seemed to know Watchet very well, to my great surprise. I mention it in the context of this Committee stage because noble Lords will acknowledge the goings-on in Watchet in the past week. There was almost a terrible tragedy when an infant in his pushchair was swept into the harbour in high winds. He was rescued—and the point is about the definition of people’s roles—by one 63 year-old George Reeder, who jumped into what was probably 30 feet of water to rescue the child. He was variously described as a port master, a dock master, a marine dock master and a harbour master. Each of those titles carries a certain responsibility and weight in maritime law. If we cannot get that straight, just imagine what will happen if we do not get this straight.
Lord MacKenzie of Culkein
My Lords, I do not want to get into European law, but we are talking about definitions. The noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, has referred to them. The amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Berkeley refers to,
“proposals to allow junior ratings to hold pilotage exemption certificates”.
There is nothing in the Bill that suggests that junior ratings should hold a PEC. It refers to deck officers, not junior ratings.
I failed the Board of Trade eyesight test to go to sea as a deck officer cadet, so I have lost out on some of the expertise, but my father was a Merchant Navy officer, I have two relatives who are master mariners, masters of Northern Lighthouse Board vessels, and a stepson who is a senior officer in the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, and I think that they would all say to me that a rating on a ship is a support worker. He may be an able seaman, an ordinary seaman, perhaps a carpenter, or a coxswain, but not a deck officer. A deck officer is someone who will have passed the examinations for STCW—Standards for Training, Certification and Watchkeeping—on board a vessel.
I therefore say with the greatest of respect to my noble friend Lord Berkeley that the amendment is defective in talking about junior ratings when the Bill has nothing to say about junior ratings. We are talking about giving deck officers the possibility of having a pilotage exemption certificate. The PEC will be given only by a competent harbour authority, and I cannot imagine any competent harbour authority giving a pilotage exemption certificate to anyone who is not properly qualified, because the risks of doing that would be immense: blockage of a channel or harbour or a ship running aground. The risk to that harbour authority would be pretty immense, and I cannot see for the life of me any of these harbour authorities giving a PEC to someone who is not properly qualified and examined with a STCW. I hope that my noble friend Lord Berkeley will not press his amendment, because it is quite clearly defective in its wording.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the Motion moved by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, invites the Government to take a particular action before the House goes into Committee. It may be unusual, but it is order. I must confess that I am surprised by the move by the noble Lord to delay debating the Bill today. It was, after all, his express wish at Second Reading, only a fortnight ago, that the Bill reach the statute book. He said:
“I wish the Bill well. I hope that we can get it to Royal Assent without too many delays”.—[Official Report, 18/1/2013; col. 911.]
I have no problem with the noble Lord wanting to debate the Bill properly, but he knows that any amendment is fatal to nearly all Private Members’ Bills. He must be aware that if the Bill is to achieve Royal Assent as he desires, it is necessary for this House to debate it today. A week’s delay is not available. I, too, hope that the Bill will achieve Royal Assent—it contains measures that our valuable maritime industry has been seeking for many years—but if it does not, I would rather that it fell as a result of the clear will of this House rather than of a move to delay discussion.
The noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, asked me about legal advice. I assure the House that my department has plenty of lawyers who delight in constraining me in what I can say to your Lordships. Noble Lords will know that it is a long-standing convention that Ministers do not release legal advice. Furthermore, the noble Lord has indicated his concerns about the legality and desirability of Clause 2. I understand that he is very content with the other clauses. That being the case, it might have been more appropriate to table an amendment to provide that Clause 2 can be commenced only after the report that he desires has been published. I have certainly tabled many such amendments in my time.
Having said that, I understand the noble Lord’s desire to ensure that the Bill does not conflict with international agreements that this country has entered into freely. I am happy to give the assurance today that nothing in the Bill conflicts with the Standards for Training, Certification and Watchkeeping, the STCW. I am not convinced that a report stating the same would have any more effect than me, as a Minister of the Crown, doing so at the Dispatch Box.
A ship must comply with the applicable requirements of the code; there is no doubt about that. On some ships, the crew structure will permit another deck officer to act as pilot, using their pilotage exemption certificate, while remaining fully compliant with the code. The noble Lord refers to junior ratings being allowed to hold pilotage exemption certificates if this Bill passes. I do not think it right that I should pre-empt discussion on Clause 2, which I hope that we can have today, but I will say now that this clause does not propose such a thing. I may be able to satisfy the noble and reverend Lord, Lord Eames, at this point. A junior rating is not a deck officer, though a rating might,
“also help deck officers with navigational and watch duties, and anchor the ship when coming into port”,
to quote the National Careers Service.
What we envisage, and what I believe that the industry understands by the term “deck officer” is much more substantial. A deck officer capable of satisfying the pilotage exemption certificate requirements will have had several years of experience at sea and have responsibility for navigation of the ship, which is somewhat more advanced than a junior rating.
I hope, therefore, that the noble Lord will be willing to withdraw his amendment and enable us to move on and use the time that we have for important Committee debates which we need to have before the House can be sure that the legislation is sound.
Lord Berkeley
I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I tabled the amendment on Wednesday evening because I still had not received a copy of the letter from Stephen Hammond MP, which I felt that we needed. The letter arrived 12 hours later, perhaps because I tabled the amendment—I do not know. I could have said that we should delay discussion from Clause 2, but I took advice from the Clerks and this is the amendment that I tabled.
Some noble Lords have probably strayed into discussions on the clause stand part debate. The issue over which I raised this was that of the two potentially different definitions of who can have a PEC. The Minister did not answer, so I suppose that we can all expect lots of court appearances, as the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, suggested. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, I do not intend to repeat what I said at Second Reading, or what I said on my earlier amendment, as we have had a good debate on the issue in Clause 2. My concern remains only with the inclusion in the clause of the phrase “deck officer” without a definition of the qualifications and experience of a deck officer and a recognition of the importance of being high up in the management tree of the ship.
My noble friend mentioned junior ratings. With his knowledge and experience, I am sure that he has a good point but I feel that nowadays, and in line with the EU regulations that we talked about earlier, it is important to have a definition of who can and cannot be given a PEC as a deck officer. It is very easy to say that a competent harbour authority will not give someone a PEC unless he is qualified, but it is like so many of these things—on a good day, when everything is going well, it will work out all right, but, sadly, we have all had experience of when things do not go quite right and sometimes a harbour authority is less competent than it might be. Where two ports are sited reasonably close together and are competing for trade, there must be a temptation for one of them to offer a PEC to somebody on a particular shipping line if that will attract the ship into that port and bring in probably much needed revenue. I would like to try to persuade the Minister to be as generous as he can in giving a tighter definition to the meaning of “deck officer” as applied in this Bill. If it can be related to the IMO deck officer that we discussed earlier, that would tie everything together and would probably also reduce the number of future court cases, which we all wish to avoid.
I could go on for a lot longer. I do not want to delay things too much and I still want to see this Bill pass. However, it would be very helpful if the Minister could give an assurance on that issue and then we can move on. My other concerns about the Bill are very small compared with that one.
Lord Rosser
I repeat what we said at Second Reading. We support the Bill and want it to succeed, not least because many of its provisions were contained in a draft Bill that we produced when we were in government. However, I am not sure that the Government are being as helpful as they might be as regards some of the detail. Clearly, the most contentious issue is that of the exemption certificate. My noble friend Lord Berkeley referred to the definition of “deck officer”.
I am grateful to the Minister for sending me a reply to a number of questions that I asked at Second Reading. I was given the letter—dated yesterday—only this morning. I have had a look at it although, obviously, not as long a look as I might have wished. However, I am genuinely grateful to the Minister for the reply and for responding to the points that I made in our previous debate. The Minister has given a definition of “deck officer” in that letter and said that it enjoys the dictionary definition of,
“an officer in charge of the above-deck workings and manoeuvres at sea of a ship or boat”.
However, I do not think that that definition covers the issue of the minimum level of experience for,
“an officer in charge of the above-deck workings and manoeuvres at sea of a ship or boat”,
particularly as regards the pilotage operation. This comes back to the issue raised by my noble friend Lord Berkeley on the standard of experience that is to be required. It would be extremely helpful if the Minister, when he responds, could give an assurance on that point.
I also asked about the role of the competent harbour authorities. The Minister said in his reply:
“It is a matter for Competent Harbour Authorities to decide who has the skill, experience and local knowledge sufficient to be capable of piloting the ship, and for shipping operators to develop and implement a Safety Management System to provide clarity on the roles and responsibilities of the bridge team when a Pilotage Exemption Certificate holder is acting as a pilot”.
Saying that it is a matter for the competent harbour authorities to decide who has the skill, experience and local knowledge does not address in particularly clear terms how much training it would take to obtain a pilotage exemption certificate in a place such as Liverpool.
The Earl of Caithness
My Lords, I did not take part in the earlier debate, because quite clearly it was of a species known as the “Berkeley herring”, which is a close relative of its cousin, the red. I wanted to get on and talk about the Bill.
Let me first chide the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, again—I do so with the best of intentions—for his discourtesy to the House in having every single amendment starred. We had Second Reading two weeks ago. It was not beyond the bounds of possibility to have the amendments so that we could consider them before coming in on a Friday and finding them there on the Marshalled List.
On the noble Lord’s request for a definition, he mentioned that there would be different harbour authorities, that there might even be competing ports and a commercial benefit for one port. He forgot to mention, of course, that there would be pilotage error as well, sadly. We cannot get rid of human error. That is one of those things; we saw it with the “Sea Empress”. The only way of having totally safe waters is to ban every single vessel from them, which of course is a totally impractical way of proceeding. Human error will always be a factor, both on land and particularly at sea. I know that full well from my experiences as a Shipping Minister.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, came up with a definition. It was given to him by the Minister. It happened to be the definition that I quoted at Second Reading. As a result of quoting it at Second Reading, a circular letter was produced by the pilots condemning me for quoting it. I suppose it is not entirely appropriate that any Member of this House should quote a Secretary of State or a Minister from another place. It did not add to the pilots’ arguments one bit. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, was very brave to quote it. Doubtless he will also get a letter condemning him for doing so.
I suggest that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, looks again at the Explanatory Notes. The definition is helped by the words there, which I also quoted at col. 915 on 18 January. The key words are:
“capable of piloting one or more specified ships”.
I know that the Government will have taken full legal advice; no Minister would dare go to that Dispatch Box without having done so. The wording in the Bill is safe. It will work. I commend the Bill as it stands, and do not support the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley.
Lord Greenway
My Lords, I follow the same line as the noble Earl. In the previous debate, a noble Lord referred to the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, as a “diamond” and “dogged”. Well, the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, is certainly dogged. If he is as good as his word and lets this Bill go through, I might even describe him as a diamond.
We have been talking semantics here about “deck officer”. “Deck officer” is a term that has been used for many years, as the noble Lord, Lord MacKenzie, said. Everybody at sea knows what a deck officer is.
My worry is about the future. I attended the City of London maritime dinner last night, where the lord mayor and the noble Lord, Lord Green, the Trade Minister, made excellent speeches about the great importance of our maritime business right across the board, from shipping to insurance to arbitration to lawyers, and in maintaining the City of London as the world centre for these operations.
On the issue of pilotage exemption certificates, a real problem is looming, certainly in the ferry industry. The demographic graph shows that a lot of the officers are within five years of retirement. Where are the younger officers going to come from? The Bill would enable young and upcoming officers to advance up the tree perhaps rather more quickly by gaining pilotage exemption certificates. It will not happen across the board. There will be a few here and a few there; it will not be widespread. They are our seed corn for manning our ships in future. More importantly, we hope that some of these people will in time become pilots, so it will benefit the pilotage business in the longer term. That is a very important point to make.
Lord Berkeley
I hear what the noble Lord says and generally support it, but I have not quoted many letters from pilots, although we have heard a lot of them today. One touched on this subject. A number of British shipping companies, including some ferry companies, are taking on and training young people. However, once the trainees have got to a certain stage and the government grant that goes with them is finished, they find that they cannot get a job because on the whole the shipping lines try to recruit young, cheaper officers from abroad. Does the noble Lord have a solution to that?
Lord Greenway
My answer to that would be that young, well trained British officers are highly thought of elsewhere in the world, so jobs are available for them.
PEC examinations can be seen by both individuals and their employing companies as an important rung in the advancement of their professional careers. They involve commitment and academic effort. Those sitting the exams need both professional experience and proven competence in ship-handling. They must also be highly motivated. Therefore, I think that a lot of these concerns have been overstated. To me, there is no doubt that the extension of PEC eligibility will be of benefit to UK seafarers.
Finally, I will say that if the Bill passes, a lot of these concerns can be dealt with by the steering group of the Port Marine Safety Code. That would involve the UK Chamber of Shipping, the various ports groups and the pilots’ association. They can sit down and work out the details of how this change is to be implemented.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, eloquently set out the concerns that he and maritime pilots have about Clause 2 when he gave notice of his intention to oppose the question that the clause should stand part. I understand perfectly the desire to ensure that marine safety is promoted and that nothing is done to undermine it. I believe that this desire is felt all around the Committee and across the maritime industry. Therefore, I will try as hard as I can to meet noble Lords’ concerns.
The sole purpose of Clause 2 is to remove the limitation in the Pilotage Act 1987 that restricts the issuing of pilotage exemption certificates to the master or first mate of a ship, and instead to allow any deck officer to apply for a certificate. It does not grant one; it merely allows a deck officer to apply to the competent harbour authority for a PEC. It changes none of the other provisions in the Act relating to the demands made on an applicant for a certificate: namely, that the applicant must be a bona fide deck officer of a ship. The clause does not open up the possibility of unauthorised pilotage services being established. I know that that is a concern of pilots and of the noble Lord.
The applicant must be a genuine member of the crew of the ship named on his PEC. No doubt if the pilots in a harbour knew something was going wrong in this regard, they would take it up with the competent harbour authority. If the authority did not listen, they could take it up with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. If the agency did not listen, they could take it up with the noble Lords, Lord Berkeley or Lord Rosser, with me or with the shipping Minister. There are plenty of routes for aggrieved people to take up this problem.
Furthermore, under the Bill, the competent harbour authority could immediately revoke the PEC if it becomes aware of any problems. The competent harbour authority must be satisfied that the applicant has the skill, experience and local knowledge sufficient for them to be capable of piloting the ship named on the certificate. The PEC applies only to one ship and one harbour. To my mind, this is the crucial safeguard that restricts the issuing of a certificate only to those mariners competent to use one. It is much more relevant than a job title in determining whether someone can safely navigate in specific waters.
The certificate applies to a specific harbour or part of a harbour as appropriate. If anyone seeks to be certified elsewhere, they must demonstrate their skill, experience and local knowledge for those waters to the appropriate competent harbour authority. The competent harbour authority may decide, in the interests of safety, to satisfy itself that the applicant has a sufficient knowledge of the English language. The competent harbour authority decides the method by which it will satisfy itself of an applicant's qualifications, which may be through examination or by reference to other requirements. The certificate remains in force for no longer than one year and it can be renewed only if the competent harbour authority remains satisfied about the foregoing points.
I mention that to demonstrate that the clause in no way reduces the standards of competency required of PEC holders. Stephen Bracewell, the chief executive of Harwich Haven Authority, made this point succinctly to the Transport Select Committee on 17 December 2012, saying that the Bill would do,
“nothing more than add a few people to the list of people who can knock on the door and ask to start the process of being assessed and examined”.
He rejected the idea that a harbour authority would lessen the standards by which they assess and examine people stating:
“We are not going to do it”.
Having outlined what this clause does not change, I turn to what it would do. The clause would permit a competent harbour authority to award a PEC to any deck officer who meets the criteria that I have outlined. The desire for making this change comes from the shipping industry, which has identified a number of potential benefits to several factors, including roll-on roll-off passenger ferries, small domestic ferries and aggregate dredgers.
The clause would permit increased flexibility for shipping companies in the rostering of deck officers, especially in the event of disruption and staff sickness, which currently can be problematic. The additional flexibility would also assist when supplementary or release sailings are chartered, increasing the call on deck officers. Though a comparatively small sector, the change would allow improved flexibility for vessels such as dredgers to operate in piloted waters for extended periods and mitigate the risk of fatigue for certificate holders on these ships.
The industry also wants to respond to demographic trends affecting certificated deck officers, which is a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Greenway. A large proportion of officers are approaching retirement within the next five years and the industry needs to train younger officers to be capable of fulfilling senior roles in the near future. Although it varies between competent harbour authorities, qualification for a PEC may require around 10 to 18 berthing operations to be conducted under the supervision of a pilot. This could reasonably form part of the training for deck officers who have reached a suitable stage in their career development, but who are not yet employed as a master or first mate.
On the terminology of a deck officer, I want to be clear: we are not talking about junior ratings. We are talking about those officers who have navigational responsibilities. It usually takes between three and four years to qualify as a junior deck officer, so potential applicants will have experience at sea. Even then, it is most likely that only the more senior deck officers will be able to demonstrate the skills, experience and local knowledge required by a competent harbour authority.
The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, suggested that there should be a stricter definition of eligibility tied to definitions in the international standard of training, certification and watchkeeping code. However, mariners on domestic routes do not need to seek certification on this code. Such an approach would be unduly restrictive and certainly tighter than current arrangements. The national association for ports and shipping has agreed that it is preferable to use the definition of “deck officer” in this clause and provide guidance to the competent harbour authorities on the attributes and skills that might be sought in the Port Marine Safety Code’s guide to good practice. The guide already recommends that a competent harbour authority should seek a certificate of competence from applicants. The Port Marine Safety Code steering group, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, composed of representatives from industry, trade unions, the pilots’ associations, the Government and other maritime experts, has agreed to establish a subgroup to consider and recommend any enhancements required for the guide. This will enable competent harbour authorities to have access to the best advice about the qualifications that could be expected of a successful applicant.
The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, talked about the unwelcome aspects of competition. This is always a concern, but the noble Lord will know perfectly well that it arises in many areas of commercial activity. However, I would also be very surprised indeed if the regular pilots did not report any concerns regarding the inappropriate grant of a PEC to the MCA, as I have already said.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, sounded as if he is supporting the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, in his amendment. I would remind the noble Lord that this Bill has been in gestation for many years, as he well knows. The provisions in Clause 2 were clear Labour government policy, and no doubt responsible and experienced Labour Ministers were satisfied about its legality. Indeed, Jim Fitzpatrick MP said in the other place that the Opposition would look foolish if they opposed the Bill and that,
“it would be churlish of us not to support it. It contains many positive elements”.—[Official Report, Commons, Marine Navigation (No. 2) Bill Committee, 7/11/12; col. 4.]
However, I fully accept that noble Lords opposite are testing the policy and making sure that we have got it right. I am sorry that the letter to the noble Lord did take rather a long time to arrive, but there were quite a few questions to answer.
I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, who said that the regulations should not be unduly onerous. It is important to remember that a PEC can be limited to a specific ship and a specific harbour, or even a specific portion of a harbour. The noble Lord asked about training and talked about the Port of Liverpool. The Committee will understand that the Port of Liverpool is a very complicated port with all sorts of difficulties. It is not surprising, therefore, that the training requirements to be a pilot for the Port of Liverpool are extensive. However, smaller ports will need less training. It is for the competent harbour authorities to determine what is required, as they do now. There is no change in the training requirements, only a proposal to change the eligibility, and training for a PEC will be similar to that for a pilot.
The noble Lord asked about the number of PEC holders that can be on a ship, which is a good point. He suggested that there could be numerous PEC holders on a ship, but that they would not have sufficient experience. It is not clear to me why a shipping company would want to incur the cost of PEC training and go to the effort of training officers if there was insufficient opportunity for them to exercise the certificate. Furthermore, if the competent harbour authorities believe that a PEC holder was a bit rusty and did not have enough experience, they may pay greater attention to the reassessment process. There will always be the alternative for a master to take on board a maritime pilot if circumstances mean that none of the PEC holders on the ship are available to pilot it because of hours worked or if the structure of the crew does not permit it. If a suitably qualified person is available, there is no justifiable reason to prevent them from holding a PEC and piloting the ship simply because they do not have the right job title.
Baroness Wilcox
My Lords, I concur with the excellent points made by my noble friend. The clause will not reduce the standards required by the competent harbour authorities of applicants for a pilotage exemption certificate. It simply states that deck officers and members of the crew with navigation responsibilities can hold a certificate if—and only if—they meet those standards.
I met the chairman of the Maritime Pilots’ Association, in the company of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and he assured me that he would work with the Port Marine Safety Code steering group to provide the best advice for competent harbour authorities on the qualifications that they should expect. I welcome that, as I hope that the House will, coming from such an authoritative group with such a fine history. I welcome that support from the UK Maritime Pilots’ Association and I support this clause standing part of the Bill.
Lord Berkeley
I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this short debate and to the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, for the very full answers that he gave. Many of them were very helpful, but one thing that was conspicuously missing was that although there was a lot of talk about training, there was not so much about management responsibility. The key to a successful outcome is to ensure that PEC holders have experience of being in a senior management position on a ship.
As an example, many times in the course of this debate and others we have talked about a famous dredging company in the Thames Estuary. I will quote briefly from a letter that I, and perhaps others, have received from a pilot about this. He says that he knows the company and its working pattern well. He writes:
“The Master likes to do dredging at sea and the Chief Officer normally does discharge of aggregate”
—on the quay. He continues:
“They want the Junior Officer to pilot and navigate in between. I asked one of the Captains of this company why the Junior Officer couldn’t do the discharge or the dredging at sea. Both operations he would be qualified for. The answer was because he/she is not trusted in those roles”.
This is from the captain of one of the ships. If he is not trusted to do the discharge at a quay, or to dredge in the sea, it is a bit odd to think that he ought to be capable of having a pilotage exemption certificate to be able to pilot the ship up and around the Thames. We all remember what happened when the “Bowbelle” and the “Marchioness” had a collision.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, if the officer was not trustworthy, the competent harbour authority would not grant him a PEC.
Lord Berkeley
Let us hope so. If it was the Port of London Authority, I am sure that that would be the case. I have more doubts about other authorities. There is also the question of ensuring that we do not confuse junior officers with junior ratings, as there were one or two comments about that.
However, we have had a good debate. I would have liked the Minister to have given a definition on the record that the deck officer should be a person who is,
“engaged on board at Management level holding an STCW A-11/2 Certificate of Competency”,
or other appropriate qualification, which would have covered the inland waterways issue. But he will not give that, and at this time of day it is not really appropriate to seek the opinion of the House, because we would never get home tonight. So I leave it at that.
Lord Eames
“(8) An order designating a harbour authority shall not be made unless the Welsh Ministers, the Secretary of State or the Scottish Ministers, as the case may be, are satisfied that the harbour authority has in place appropriate procedures for resolving any disputes that may arise in relation to a proposed harbour direction.”
Lord Eames
My Lords, I have tabled this amendment to reflect the concerns that were expressed in the debate in another place on this aspect of the Bill. I again refer to my indication of interest as a member of the RYA.
As articulated in the debate in the other place, under Clause 5 of the Bill an unelected “designated harbour authority” would have greater power to create new criminal offences than a democratically elected local authority. Secondly, harbour authorities are generally not well placed or adequately resourced to create new criminal offences, and the proposed power to create new criminal offences contains none of the supervisory safeguards usually imposed in relation to lawmaking bodies in a democratic society.
It is a key principle of the Government’s localism policy that power should be placed back in the hands of individuals, communities and councils, and where such power is to be exercised by local institutions such institutions should be subject to the democratic checks and balances enabled by full transparency. However, many harbour authorities are not democratically accountable and are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000. It would run counter to basic democratic principles and the Government’s own localism policy to grant an unelected designated harbour authority lawmaking powers that are not subject to democratic checks and balances and full transparency.
Shortly after tabling this amendment, I learnt of the discussions that took place no later than yesterday on the whole question of a code of conduct on harbour directions. That discussion was greatly welcomed by those who were telling me of their concerns, and the RYA would like it placed on the record that it felt this had moved the whole problem a long way. On behalf of the RYA, I pay a very warm tribute to the two Ministers involved for the way in which they facilitated that development in the past 48 hours.
However, in moving this amendment, I still have to ask certain questions regarding the code of conduct. First, are the Government prepared to implement this code of conduct and to make provision for it in ways that can be seen, heard and recognised across the marine industry as constituting acceptance by the Government? Those who attended the discussions to which I have referred welcomed the attendance of representatives of the department, but they seek an assurance on the record—and what I do with my amendment will be dependent on the answers that the Minister may be able to give me—that the Government are concerned to implement the code of conduct to which I have referred.
Secondly, if the code of conduct is in existence and there is general agreement on how it should be implemented, which is the reason for my first question to the Minister on whether that assurance can be given, what consequences does he envisage there being for any denial of that code of conduct, disobedience to it or even neglect of what it says? Does he see this as something that in the sense of what I referred to earlier might open the door to vast legal consequences? Will this code of conduct that was produced yesterday be sufficiently strong in the eyes of the Government to be implemented in terms that the courts can recognise and accept? In my experience of public life, I have often seen codes of conduct produced, not least on how we operate our work as this House, but it is one thing to have a code of conduct that people can feel warm about but quite another if that code of conduct is not given the wings of legal backing.
If I can be reassured on these points, I will be happy to withdraw this amendment, which is really a probing amendment to give the Minister the opportunity to assure the House, for the record, that the code of conduct points the way forward. I beg to move.
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, I congratulate the noble and right reverend Lord on moving the amendment. It is a very useful probe; I shall probably have some more probes later. I have a copy of the code of conduct, which, as he said, was agreed yesterday lunchtime. That probably shows, but at least I understand that it has been agreed. It is unclear to me who makes the order designating a harbour authority as having the powers for general direction. Is it the Department for Transport? From reading the code of conduct, it seems to me as if the harbour authority makes its own designation, which I am sure is not right. It does not sound right anyway. I believe that the designation is under Section 40 of the Harbours Act, but what criteria will the Department for Transport, which I presume it will be, look at when deciding whether an applicant is a fit and proper organisation for having harbour direction powers?
The purpose of the code of conduct and probably of Clause 5 is to enable harbours to be able to make directions without having to wait sometimes several years for the Department for Transport to approve them. I hope that the department, if it is to be the approving body under the new arrangements, will be a lot quicker than that. How long will it be and, as the noble and right reverend Lord asked, what enforcement will there be if things go wrong? I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, for explaining the reason behind this amendment. I was terrified that he would not move his amendment because he observed that there was good news. When a similar amendment was debated in another place, the Shipping Minister was able to announce an initial agreement between port operators and users to develop a code of conduct on harbour directions. The intention was that this would provide a mechanism for resolving disputes. The Shipping Minister said:
“It is my expectation and the expectation of the Department for Transport that, when applying for a designation, a harbour authority would sign up to the code of practice”.—[Official Report, Commons, 30/11/2012; col. 542.]
I am happy to say that since then, there have been very productive meetings between the Royal Yachting Association, the British Ports Association and the UK Major Ports Group, chaired by the UK Chamber of Shipping, to develop that code. At their meeting yesterday, agreement was reached on the terms of that code and I have personally laid a copy in the Library of the House. I was not prepared to fall into the trap of some noble Lord going into the Library and not finding the code of practice.
As expected, the code describes the establishment of a National Directions Panel to maintain the code, produce a set of model harbour directions that designated harbours can adopt as appropriate for their local circumstances, and consider how the power of the harbour directions is being used. The code also sets out how harbour directions should be consulted on with harbour users and how disputes can be resolved. The focus of the code is on resolution locally by the port and its users, but with the possibility of referral to an independent arbiter if agreement cannot be reached.
I believe that this is an excellent example of the benefits of non-statutory arrangements complementing legislation. I think that this is the right approach as we seek to reduce bureaucratic and inflexible central regulation and open up local decision-making. We do not want to gold-plate legislation, especially as there are already a number of safeguards in the Bill aimed at ensuring that the power of harbour directions is used responsibly.
In answer to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, I repeat the Shipping Minister’s assurance that the Government would expect any harbour authority applying for designation to have agreed to the code of conduct. I do not anticipate that the code of conduct would be ignored in future years; furthermore, the designation order would be kept under review and a harbour authority could be de-designated if that were warranted.
The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, asked whether the harbour authority would have to be a fit and proper person. The noble Lord will know that Ministers always take into consideration whether a person is a fit and proper person. Having said that, I hope that the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Eames
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his sympathetic response; I feel that we have the assurances that I sought on the record. I therefore beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Popat
My Lords, the Companion tells us, at paragraph 301:
“The House usually sits for public business on Mondays and Tuesdays at 2.30 p.m., on Wednesdays at 3 p.m. and on Thursdays at 11 a.m. The House also sits on Fridays at 10 a.m. when pressure of business makes it necessary. It is a firm convention that the House normally rises by about 10 p.m. on Mondays to Wednesdays, by about 7 p.m. on Thursdays, and by about 3 p.m. on Fridays”.
It is my duty as a Whip today to move that the House do now resume.
House resumed.
House adjourned at 3.04 pm.