House of Lords
Arrangement of Business
(10 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Hill of Oareford) (Con)
My Lords, the Clerk of the Parliaments has told me that the clock on which we all keep a very beady eye is not working, so he and I will do our best to operate off the screens. I hope that noble Lords will all bear with us as we go through Questions today.
United Kingdom: Exports
Lord Borwick
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the export potential of the United Kingdom service sector; and what steps they are taking to strengthen it.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Viscount Younger of Leckie) (Con)
My Lords, the UK is the second-largest exporter of services globally, with services exports valued at £193 billion in 2012, accounting for 40% of overall UK exports. The Government have identified opportunities for further growth and are taking steps to strengthen exports of the service sector through trade negotiations, UKTI business support for service exporters, and through the current industrial strategy, which incorporates 11 sector strategies, including for the highly regarded professional and business services sector.
Lord Borwick (Con)
Does the Minister agree that service export figures are understated given that they are often hidden in the figures for goods exports?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
My noble friend is right: gross export data may underestimate the role of services, omitting the linkages between services and manufacturing. Services account for around 60% of the value added in the UK’s total exports, which demonstrates their importance both as direct exports and as embedded services within manufacturing exports. It is interesting to note that Rolls-Royce now earns more from managing clients’ procurement strategies and maintaining the aerospace engines itself than it does from making them.
Lord Barnett (Lab)
Despite the good export figures, is the noble Lord aware that many serious exporters believe that the strengthening pound is the serious problem? Do the Government have any intention whatever of doing anything about that?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
The noble Lord will be aware that we are very much aware of that. Like all major developed economies, the UK does not operate an exchange-rate-targeted monetary policy regime, and has not done so since 1992. The relationship also between exchange rate movements and trade flows is somewhat ambiguous, and evidence suggests that export growth is driven more by changes in foreign demand than by price competitiveness.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
Does my noble friend appreciate that not only does the 40% figure probably largely underestimate the service content in all our manufactures, as well as the major element of equipment and knowledge expertise in all our exports, but that the vast majority of growth in that area is occurring in the huge new markets of Asia and Africa and in the English-speaking Commonwealth network? Will he ensure that his colleagues in all the departments concerned with promotion of services overseas, including the UKTI itself, work harder than ever to focus on that priority and to ensure that we succeed in those markets, where our future will be largely determined?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
My noble friend is right that, through the efforts of UKTI, our focus goes very much beyond the eurozone and the European economy. Despite the tough conditions, UK exports to emerging economies have increased in recent years. It is very pleasing to note that, since 2010, UK exports to the Far East—to China—have increased by 52%, to India by 24% and to Brazil by 37%. However, there is still much more work to do.
Lord McFall of Alcluith (Lab)
My Lords, with 70% of all Scottish exports going to the rest of the United Kingdom and 600,000 jobs in Scotland depending on the link with the rest of the UK, not least 200,000 financial services sector jobs, what are the Government doing to inform people of this successful entity and to ensure the continuation of what has been the most successful currency union in the world for 300 years?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
I acknowledge what the noble Lord says. As he will be aware, the UK’s position is that Scotland is stronger in the UK and the UK is stronger with Scotland in it. As part of the UK, Scotland has a stronger place in the world and is a major player on the international stage. As the noble Lord alluded to, the rest of the UK is the primary destination for Scottish exports, accounting for around 70% of Scottish exports, worth around £48 billion in goods and services. Scotland as an export destination accounts for approximately 10% of exports from the rest of the UK.
Baroness Wheatcroft (Con)
My Lords, the creative industry is thriving as never before. Could my noble friend say a bit about how the advertising and design consultancies in this country are exporting their services all around the world?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
Yes, indeed. Design is very much embedded in many of the manufacturing companies, and much work is being done on that. My noble friend mentioned the creative sector, and she will be aware that the sector employed nearly 1.7 million people in 2012, which represented 5.6% of the UK total. So it is a most important sector, and we continue to promote it. Part of that involves the Government setting up the Creative Industries Council.
Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)
My Lords, has the Minister had time to reflect on the impact of the Government’s immigration policies on services? This was brought to mind by a letter that I received today from one of his colleagues, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, who tells me that,
“we do recognise that these necessary visa reforms have had an impact on perceptions overseas and that we need to get better at communicating that all genuine students are welcome here and that there are opportunities for them to both study here and work after graduation”.
We certainly need to get better, because the number of overseas students taking up places in England’s universities decreased by 4,500 in one year, the first fall in 29 years.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
My focus and the Government’s focus is on promoting the UK. The professional and business services sector is the UK’s largest economic sector, contributing 12% to UK employment and 11% of gross value added. To take up the noble Lord’s point about jobs, the PBS sector employs 3.8 million people, accounting for £147 billion to the UK economy. I do not at this stage want to get into the visa aspect, but I wanted to point out the importance of the sector.
Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)
My Lords, a recent report by PWC shows a 3% growth each year over the past four years in non-financial services, and the huge potential for greater growth in jobs and exports through greater liberalisation of services trade. Could my noble friend tell us what steps the Government are taking to open up the market for services trade in the EU? Are we using the clout of the EU to open up the USA?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
My noble friend makes an important point about the value of the EU. The Government have been at the forefront of championing services liberalisation, both within the EU and internationally, particularly with the US. Negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership —or TTIP, for short—were launched under the UK presidency at the G8 Lough Erne summit in June 2013. The European Union’s negotiating mandate, as endorsed by the UK, includes objectives to liberalise transatlantic financial services. TTIP could be worth up to £10 billion to the UK economy.
Rental Properties: Smoke Alarms
Lord Hoyle
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that all rented properties are fitted with smoke alarms.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)
My Lords, we strongly encourage landlords to install smoke alarms as part of their responsibility to offer a safe and decent home to all tenants. We are currently considering, as part of a review of conditions in the rented sector, whether smoke alarms should be made compulsory. The review will conclude in the summer.
Lord Hoyle (Lab)
I thank the Minister for that reply. I am sure that, like me, she welcomes the fact that a large number of properties are fitted with smoke alarms, although that is not the case with older properties built before 1919. On the rented property side, she says that the Government are encouraging landlords to fit these alarms. What response are they getting and are they prepared to exercise the powers they could take under the Energy Act 2013 which would compel landlords to fit smoke alarms?
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
My Lords, the public are safer now than previously, given that the installation of smoke alarms in properties has increased hugely since 1988, when only 8% of homes had a smoke alarm. That figure now stands at 88% of all homes. All that said, this Government listened to the debates in your Lordships’ House and, in November last year, I announced at this Dispatch Box that our comprehensive review of safety in the rented sector would be extended to include consideration of whether to make smoke alarms mandatory. I introduced an order-making power to make them mandatory if our comprehensive review leads us to that decision, so we are conscious of this important matter.
Baroness Tonge (Ind LD)
My Lords, the Minister will be aware that many fires in rented and other properties are caused by faulty electrical wiring and faulty electrical appliances. Will she therefore ensure that, when the review is completed, landlords will be required to have an electrical safety check every five years?
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
As my noble friend acknowledges, the review includes electrical safety checks. As I said, it is comprehensive. We will reach a conclusion shortly.
Lord Harrison (Lab)
What conversations have the Government had with insurance companies, which are very much minded to reduce premiums given the extra safety and protection afforded to property by the installation of smoke alarms?
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
The review is wide-ranging. We have consulted a range of stakeholders in this matter. That will clearly include the insurance sector.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, will my noble friend accept my congratulations on the way the Government have striven to increase the supply of safe, quality rented accommodation? Does she agree that one of the ways in which we could prevent further progress would be to introduce a stupid policy such as rent control?
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
My noble friend tempts me off the topic of the Question. However, I agree with what he says on that matter.
Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)
Does the noble Baroness agree that it is unbecoming for a Minister to encourage misrepresentation of our proposals? We are arguing not for old-style rent controls for the private rented sector but for more stability and security, with three-year tenancies being the norm, and with initial rents being set on a market-value basis for the full three-year tenancy but with an upper ceiling on any increases. Given that we now have 9 million people in the private rented sector, does the Minister agree that Generation Rent would welcome the stability that our proposals would bring?
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
The Question is about smoke alarms. It is worth noting that the noble Lord did not acknowledge that this Government listened to the debates in this House and are looking into whether smoke alarms should be made mandatory, which was something that his party did not do when it was in government.
The Earl of Listowel (CB)
Will the review look at how many lives might be saved by introducing this new regulation? Will it look in particular at how many children’s lives might be saved? Are there any indicative figures of the potential benefit?
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
Accidental death by fire has reduced dramatically over the years, partly because of the introduction of smoke alarms but also because of a range of other measures, regulations and activity in this area. As I say, the review is comprehensive and we are certainly looking at how such a change would affect all those who live in the rented sector.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, will the Government use whatever opportunities they can to remind the public that wired-in smoke alarms are very much safer than those operated by batteries? A smoke alarm with a flat battery is about as much use as a chocolate teapot.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
My noble friend makes an important point because it is not just about installing these alarms; it is about making sure that they are working effectively. One of the things that the Government do is support the “Fire Kills” campaign. We do a lot of activity to ensure that people check that their alarms are working on, at the very least, the weekends when we change the clocks.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)
My Lords, does the noble Baroness have any information about the incidence of death from carbon monoxide poisoning? Do the Government have any plans to consider the introduction of carbon monoxide monitors, in the same way as they are now looking at smoke alarms?
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
I did not say so because I wanted to focus on smoke alarms, but all that I said in response to the Question from the noble Lord, Lord Hoyle, extends to carbon monoxide alarms. This review is looking into carbon monoxide alarms along with smoke alarms.
House of Lords: Questions and Correspondence
(10 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Wills
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what importance they attach to providing prompt, full and direct Answers to Questions for Written Answer and correspondence from Members of the House of Lords.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Hill of Oareford) (Con)
My Lords, the Government attach great importance to providing Members of this House with prompt and accurate replies to their Questions for Written Answer and their correspondence.
Lord Wills (Lab)
My Lords, I of course welcome the noble Lord’s response because prompt, full and direct answers to all kinds of correspondence and questions are crucial if Parliament is to do its duty in holding the Executive to account. So will he join me in deploring the systemic delays and evasions that I have encountered over the past year in trying to find out how much money the Government have allocated for the purposes of electoral registration and whether they believe that the way in which they have introduced the new system of individual registration poses any risk at all to levels of registration? Despite a whole lorry- load of Questions for Written Answer, correspondence and Oral Questions, I still am no clearer about whether the Government even know how much money they have allocated for electoral registration, let alone what the figure actually is. Will the noble Lord agree to take immediate steps to provide me with the answers that I have sought for more than a year now? In the spirit of what I take to be our freshly minted agreement on the importance of prompt, full and direct Answers, a simple yes or no will suffice.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, if I had a simple yes or no answer, it would be a lot shorter than the question, if I may say so. The substance of the policy issue is clearly for departments to determine. So far as promptness and so on is concerned, I very much agree with the noble Lord that we need to have prompt and accurate replies. One of the ways in which we can help with the promptness of correspondence is with the figures that are published every year. The next set is due shortly—I think next week—and will show the performance of individual departments: how good they are at responding within the deadlines they set. I have a particular responsibility to try to make sure that Questions for Written Answer are answered promptly and I have tightened up the way in which we are doing that. I have decided that from the next Session I will follow the practice of the other place and publish, again annually, the performance of departments on their promptness in dealing with QWAs.
Lord Jopling (Con)
My Lords, is the Leader of the House aware that, having campaigned on this issue for well over 10 years, I see a distinct improvement in the prompt answering of Questions compared with previous years, although there is still much to do in this area? Today, we have only three overdue Answers. However, there is a problem with Answers being inadequate. Perhaps I may suggest that the Leader of the House looks at a series of Answers given by departments to an identical Question from the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn. It provides a graphic illustration of inadequate Answers. For instance, the Home Office and Defra attempted to give adequate Answers but Ministers in the Department for International Development, the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Transport gave totally futile ones. This means that the Leader of the House should read the riot act to those Ministers who just put their signatures to whatever the civil servants serve up.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, one decision that I have taken recently, which I hope my noble friend and other noble Lords will support, is that a new electronic system for dealing with Questions for Written Answer is to be introduced. I have said that, so far as this House is concerned, Ministers will continue to send hard copies to Members and sign them personally. That is important because it speaks to the need for accountability of Ministers in our House. That is right and I am sure that all noble Lords here will support it.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for all that he said and I welcome the innovations. However, as many noble Lords have said, it is not just the speed but the substance of the Answers that is important. I, too, have an example in front of me: a direct Question to which I received not a direct Answer but a bland statement of policy. It is essential that we have direct Answers in order to hold the Government to account. However, as the noble Lord the Leader will know, I am concerned about the impact of long recesses on our ability to hold the Government to account, including by the tabling of Written Questions. With a 10-week Summer Recess, the tabling of Written Questions on two days is simply not adequate, and I ask the Leader what he is doing to address that issue.
Lord Hill of Oareford
The noble Baroness and I have discussed this specific point before and I know that she is concerned about it. She will know that it is something that the Procedure Committee is looking at. However, on a point of fact regarding the length of the Summer Recess and other recesses, this year the Summer Recess will, I think, be a week longer than it was last year and the same length as it was the year before, and the shorter recesses are the same length as they have been in recent years. So we need to keep that point in context. So far as holding the Government to account is concerned, I agree that that is a vital part of the work that this House does. That is why I am sure that the noble Baroness will welcome the progress that we have made with other reforms in the past year—for instance, increasing by half the number of Questions for Short Debate, which are an excellent way to have Ministers at the Dispatch Box answering on government policy.
Lord Tyler (LD)
My Lords, given that Oral Questions in this House invariably result in better and more informative ministerial Answers—that is my experience, particularly of the other place, under all Administrations —will my noble friend look again at the suggestion that we should have a longer Question Time, perhaps lasting 45 minutes with five Questions? It is very popular in your Lordships’ House, not least because the first ministerial Answer to an Oral Question is open to challenge from other parts of the House, which meets the point made by the noble Baroness.
Lord Hill of Oareford
This is a matter that the House looks at from time to time. It looked at it recently and concluded that the current arrangements are correct. I very much agree about the benefits of our Question Time. My strong feeling about it is that “short and intense” is good: we increase scrutiny by making sure that the questions and answers are short and then we can get more people in.
Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville (Con)
My Lords, is my noble friend aware of the principle by which the late George Bernard Shaw conducted his correspondence, which was that of riposte? His definition of riposte was a letter by return of post.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I cannot say that the Government will be able to manage return of post, although these days return of post is not quite as quick as it was in the days of George Bernard Shaw.
Russian Gas
Lord Higgins
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking following the recent speech by the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change advocating a policy designed to reduce European countries’ dependence on Russian gas.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Baroness Verma) (Con)
My Lords, the UK currently sources less than 1% of our gas from Russia. Although we are not dependent on Russian gas, we are working with allies on actions to improve global energy security in response to the situation in Ukraine. The European Council agreed in March that the EU should intensify its efforts to reduce its dependency on imported gas and the European Commission will present a plan for the reduction of EU energy dependency by June 2014.
Lord Higgins (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply and welcome the robust statements made by the Secretary of State. Does my noble friend agree that the events in Ukraine have exposed very clearly the dangers to which European countries are exposed as a result of the reliance on Russian gas? In the present and forthcoming negotiations, particularly at the G7, will my noble friend ensure that we press for action to countervail the present monopoly power of Russian supplies and strategically do everything we can to diversify the sources of power to European countries generally by improving terminals, pipelines, the capacity of gas-carrying ships, and so on? I appreciate the point made by my noble friend that we are less directly affected than most other countries but none the less we have a general economic and political interest in this. I hope that we will pursue these matters.
Baroness Verma
My Lords, my noble friend is right in all those points. Of course, the key to ensuring less dependency on a particular source is having greater diversity. That is what we are trying to do. We are encouraging member states to promote and explore other options for other sources. As my noble friend said, there are a number of areas we are sourcing from, which makes us less dependent on imports from other countries. We are having this discussion and my noble friend was right in saying that the Secretary of State was very firm in putting forward his points of view.
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, I very much welcome the Secretary of State’s strong statements to energy Ministers at the Rome G7. However, we had a lot of similar statements in the 2008-09 Ukraine gas crisis and very little has been done since then. Why does my noble friend think that we will be more successful in making sure that this major change in European gas supply happens this time?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely right. It is about concentrating our minds. This issue has focused everybody’s minds. He is right that we need to do much more to press our partners. The G7 energy Ministers are meeting again in June to commit to immediate actions. Among those will be emergency plans for the winter of this year and we will be looking at how we can offer assistance to those countries that want to have greater dependency on their own natural sources.
Lord Jenkin of Roding (Con)
My Lords, is not the Question of my noble friend Lord Higgins extremely timely given yesterday’s publication of a very important report by the Economic Affairs Committee? It made the point that the rapid and effective development of shale gas in this country is one of the real steps that we could take to reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian gas. Can we assume an early acceptance of the very important recommendations of this report?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely right. The report will be considered fully but we agree with my noble friend that shale gas will play a huge part if it can be explored properly and we get from it the full potential that we expect.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that one area of increasing energy security involves increased gas storage? Can she say whether the Government are giving any attention to that? Does she recognise that the United Kingdom’s position on gas storage is much weaker than the positions of most other member states, particularly Germany, and that if we are to be less open to blackmail from outside, increased gas storage will have to be part of the equation?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, I do not agree with the noble Lord. We have significant gas storage in place. Two units have recently been completed and two are in the process of being built. We have more than enough gas available to us. We should not underestimate the amount of dependency that we have on our own sources to be able to provide energy for our country.
Baroness Worthington (Lab)
My Lords, I agree with the Minister that diversity is the answer to this problem. Will she comment on what the Government are doing to encourage the greater use of renewable gas in our markets? A report in 2009 from the National Grid identified that up to half our domestic demand for gas could come from renewable sources. It is currently being used in the much less efficient generation of electricity and it should be used in the heat market.
Baroness Verma
The noble Baroness is right. We need to look at all aspects of usage of our energy supplies. But this feeds into a much wider question which will take a little longer to debate. The bigger point is that we need to ensure that we have a diverse mix of energy. That is what this Government pledge to do.
Lord Lawson of Blaby (Con)
My Lords, I welcome my noble friend Lord Jenkin’s point about the important report by this House’s Economic Affairs Committee published today on shale gas and our indigenous resources. This is a massive opportunity for this country. Does the Minister agree with the committee that unless the Government streamline the regulatory system and unless they get their act together, this massive opportunity will not be realised?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, my noble friend is right to raise the benefits of shale, but he will also be aware that we are looking at streamlining. We have streamlined the process. We are also reducing the tax on the proportion of a company's production from 62% to 30% at current rates. The Government are doing a lot to be able to ensure that those hurdles that may hinder the exploration of shale gas are removed, but we need to follow proper procedures and ensure that we also look at all the environmental impacts of shale exploration.
Business of the House
(10 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Hill of Oareford
That the Question for Short Debate in the name of Baroness Cumberlege set down for Wednesday 14 May shall be limited to one hour.
Business of the House
(10 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Hill of Oareford
That Standing Order 40 (Arrangement of the Order Paper) be dispensed with on Tuesday 13 May to allow the Church of England (Miscellaneous Provisions) Measure to be taken after the Motion standing in the name of Lord McKenzie of Luton.
High Speed Rail (London–West Midlands) Bill
(10 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Kramer
Carry-over of Bill into Session 2014–15
(1) That if a High Speed Rail (London–West Midlands) Bill is brought from the House of Commons in Session 2014–15, the Standing Orders of the House applicable to the Bill, so far as complied with or dispensed with in this Session, shall be deemed to have been complied with or (as the case may be) dispensed with in Session 2014–15.
Case where Bill first brought from Commons in Session 2014–15
(2) That if-
(a) a High Speed Rail (London–West Midlands) Bill is brought to this House from the House of Commons in Session 2014–15, and
(b) the proceedings on the Bill in this House are not completed in Session 2014–15,
further proceedings on the Bill shall be suspended on the day on which that Session ends until the first Session of the next Parliament (“Session 2015–16”).
(3) That if, where paragraph (2) applies, a bill in the same terms as those in which the High Speed Rail (London–West Midlands) Bill stood when it was brought to this House in Session 2014–15 is brought from the House of Commons in Session 2015–16-
(a) the proceedings on the bill in Session 2015–16 shall be pro forma in regard to every stage through which the bill has passed in Session 2014–15;
(b) the Standing Orders of the House applicable to the bill, so far as complied with or dispensed with in this Session or in Session 2014–15, shall be deemed to have been complied with or (as the case may be) dispensed with in Session 2015–16; and
(c) if there is outstanding any petition deposited against the bill in accordance with an order of the House-
(i) any such petition shall be taken to be deposited against the bill in Session 2015–16 and shall stand referred to any select committee on the bill in that Session; and
(ii) any minutes of evidence taken before a select committee on the bill in Session 2014–15 shall stand referred to any select committee on the bill in Session 2015–16.
Case where Bill first brought from Commons in Session 2015–16
(4) That where paragraphs (2) and (3) do not apply but a High Speed Rail (London–West Midlands) Bill is brought from the House of Commons in Session 2015–16, the Standing Orders of the House applicable to the Bill, so far as complied with or dispensed with in this Session or in Session 2014–15, shall be deemed to have been complied with or (as the case may be) dispensed with in Session 2015–16.
Other
(5) The reference in paragraph (2) to further proceedings does not include proceedings under Standing Order 83A(8) (deposit of supplementary environmental information).
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Kramer) (LD)
My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Lord Richard (Lab)
My Lords, I want to speak before the House moves to a vote on this. The noble Baroness is moving a highly complicated Motion that deals with three potential situations—one in which a Bill comes up this Session, one in which a Bill comes up next Session and one in which a Bill comes up after the next general election. In those circumstances, I think the noble Baroness owes it to the House to explain a little further the rationale for the three propositions.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)
My Lords, I also wish to take part in a debate on this. The Clerk of the Parliaments very kindly confirmed to me in an e-mail that this is a debatable Motion and therefore, we can discuss it. We are not discussing today the merits or demerits of HS2, of which I am in favour, as it happens. But this is a procedural Motion. When I saw that the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, would be moving the Motion I wondered why. That is no disrespect to the noble Baroness who is a very good Minister, but surely this is a procedural Motion which should be dealt with if not by the Leader of the House then certainly by the Chief Whip so that we can have a proper explanation of its implications.
I take part in the Lord Speaker’s outreach programme. I go to schools and talk about what this House does—that we consider and amend legislation, hold the Government to account and debate the issues of the day. I must say that I am beginning to feel a wee bit of a fraud in terms of holding the Government to account when we have just returned from a four-week Easter Recess. Whatever the Leader of the House said earlier, it was much longer. I have never known a four-week Easter Recess, either when I was in the other House or in this House. Then, from next week, we will be off for another three weeks. That does not seem to me to be the way to do things.
Noble Lords may wonder what this has to do with a carry-over Motion. What I want to point out is that this Motion is typical of what the Government are doing in trying to sideline Parliament. Increasingly, they are treating Parliament as a rubber stamp. Noble Lords will see that the heading for this business is:
“Business expected to be brief”.
The Government want to rush it through, yet it is debatable and we can discuss it. As my noble friend Lord Richard just said, it raises issues of particular significance. All carry-over Motions are significant because legislation can be moved from one Session of Parliament to another. But having looked at previous carry-over Motions, as I understand it, this one is unique and of particular significance because it will carry a Bill over not just from one Session of Parliament to another, but from one Parliament to the next. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, who understands these issues, is nodding wisely.
I have some questions which I hope the Minister will be able to answer. I warned her yesterday that I would put these questions to her. First, why did she not feel it right to give the House an explanation at the start? Increasingly things are being moved and passed on the nod. Surely, when it is a matter of significance, the Minister should feel obliged to get up and explain why something is being done. It may be that one or two people in the usual channels understand what this is about, but with respect, every Member of the House should be made aware of what is happening.
Secondly, I hope that the Minister will explain why there is such a rush. Why do we need it now? I first saw this when I looked at the future business of the House online at the end of the Easter Recess. Many colleagues have told me that they did not see it until they arrived here on Tuesday, only two days ago. That is not enough time for Members to consider its implications properly. Why the rush? Could this not be held over? Does the Minister really need to push it through today?
The most important question of all is this: what are the implications? It is the question that was put by my noble friend Lord Richard. What kind of precedent will it set? Can this kind of procedure be used for any Bill or just for Bills dealing with infrastructure projects such as HS2?
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
I am most grateful to the noble Lord. Can he tell me whether he has asked his own Front Bench these questions? Surely his colleagues have agreed to this procedure? Why does he have so little faith in the judgment of his own colleagues?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I have great respect for the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and I am really grateful to him for that intervention—really grateful—for two reasons. The first is that I spent an hour yesterday with the Leader of the Opposition, the Chief Whip and others discussing this very issue. It was also discussed at our group meeting last night. Our Chief Whip said that he was not consulted about the tabling of this Motion. Others can confirm that he said that at our meeting. So I hope that we will get some answers to these questions.
When we discuss the future of the House of Lords—our group is considering a report on changes to the House—I hope that more and more Members will feel that we have an obligation to question and challenge some of the things that are simply put on the table for us to rubber stamp. We must show that the Executive and the Government are going to be scrutinised by Parliament. I can then go into schools as part of the Lord Speaker’s outreach programme and talk with clarity and honesty, feeling that I am absolutely right when I say that Parliament does have a real job in scrutinising the Executive.
Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)
My Lords, as my noble friend has been kind enough to mention the Opposition Front Bench, I should indicate that of course we support this Motion and regard it as a formal occasion. My noble friend will recognise that the Motion relates to a difficult and complicated Bill which is also a hybrid Bill. We have absolutely no idea of the length of time that will be taken to discuss it. If my noble friend is keen to accelerate the proceedings, perhaps he might put himself forward as a volunteer for the hybrid Bill in order to guarantee progress.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I am not volunteering for that, although I will discuss it with my noble friend later. Does he agree that what he has just said about the hybridity of the Bill should have been said by the Minister in a proper introduction?
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)
My Lords, I will intervene very briefly. I continually argued in the Commons, when I was involved in the usual channels, that we needed to find a different procedure for this sort of highly technical and potentially extremely lengthy Bill, which involves and engages a small number of Members for an inordinate amount of time. It is not quite so bad in this House, because we do not have representational responsibilities in the way that Members in the Commons do, but it is an arcane procedure. I tried to get the clerks and the legal people in the other place to think about this much more.
This is now the most significant—and will be the longest and most technical and difficult—Bill that either House will have seen for many a long year, and I wonder whether the Government have thought of any other procedures or ways of dealing with it. It puts Members in a really difficult position, too, because of interests such as whether they travel on the train and whether they have ever met the owners of the track, the trains or whatever. It is an incredibly difficult procedure to get Members involved in and it really is about time.
While I am on my feet, I am bewildered why the business of the House is not organised more effectively more regularly. When I used to have weekly meetings in the Commons with my noble friend Lord Grocott, who has just left the Chamber, he used to be absolutely clear with me about what we could and could not do so that Members knew when they would be here and when they would not. I suspect that if we as a Government had changed the Queen’s Speech at the last moment, the then Opposition would have gone berserk. We really need a bit more organisation in the way that the business of this House is conducted.
Lord Elton (Con)
This may be a matter for the Procedure Committee in the long term but we have an immediate issue. I remind the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, that the objectors to the Bill and those who have an interest do not wish to be summoned twice to repeat their evidence. There is a very pressing argument in that respect for carrying forward at this stage.
Baroness Kramer
My Lords, we are dealing with a Bill that is already in the other place. This is a standard Commons practice for hybrid Bills, because they are, as other noble Lords have said, so much longer and so much more complex than a typical public Bill. To give your Lordships reassurance that there is precedent for much of this, the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Bill was carried over two Prorogations and the Crossrail Bill was carried over two Prorogations and a Dissolution for a general election.
We face a Prorogation, which most of us expect quite shortly, so it is important, as the Bill is in the Commons, that we have a carryover in place. We also, for the first time, know when the next general election will occur because we have a fixed-term Parliament. We are in a position now to be able to do the carryover, as the Commons has done, to cover that known event at the same time. As other noble Lords have said, this is actually rather important, especially for the petitioners, because it gives them comfort and the knowledge that they will not have to resubmit the evidence that they have worked hard to pull together to present their case, as is entirely appropriate.
I hope the House will understand that this is a formal procedure; that the equivalent procedure has already passed in the Commons; and that it is particularly of assistance to people who wish to petition—I think all of us wish to give them the maximum support that we can. However, it does follow precedent, and the particular feature of a fixed-term Parliament gives us the capacity to provide additional certainty that we might not have been able to without a fixed-term Parliament. So I hope very much that the House will provide its support.
European Union: Justice and Home Affairs
(10 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Faulks
That this House takes note of the United Kingdom’s 2014 justice and home affairs opt-out decision.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Faulks) (Con)
My Lords, 2014 is a critical year for Europe. Within weeks, we will have a new European Parliament and, within months, a new EU Commission. There can be no doubt that the face of Europe is changing, just as it has changed dramatically over the past 25 years.
One of the changes we want to see is the EU becoming more flexible. The Dutch express this as: “Europe where necessary, national where possible”. This is our approach when it comes to justice and home affairs. In some cases, there are clear benefits from working at a European level. In others, it makes sense to operate at national level. Noble Lords will be aware that, under Protocol 21 to the treaties, the UK enjoys the right to choose whether to opt in to new justice and home affairs measures brought forward by the European Commission.
The previous Government made a commitment to table a report every year on the operation of the opt-in. Because of this Government’s strong commitment to parliamentary scrutiny, we have maintained that pledge. We have published reports every year since 2011 on the matter and we have also included in those reports figures on the so-called Schengen opt-out under Protocol 19 to the treaties. This provision allows the UK to decide whether to opt out of Schengen-building measures. The latest report was published on 23 January this year. Part of the Government’s scrutiny commitment is that the report will be made available for debate—which is precisely what noble Lords are invited to do today.
Noble Lords will have observed that there are two Motions on the Order Paper. This Motion relates to the UK’s 2014 decision to opt out of all police and criminal justice measures agreed before the entry into force of the Lisbon treaty. This matter will be familiar to many noble Lords, for it has been subject to much debate in this House and the other place.
On 23 January this year, my noble friend Lord Taylor, who will respond to this debate, closed what was a most impressive debate in this House on the matter. Of course, the matter was debated at length last year when this House endorsed the Government’s decision to exercise the opt-out and seek to rejoin the 35 measures set out in Command Paper 8671.
The Government have also committed to returning to Parliament for a further vote before formally seeking to rejoin any measures. That vote will be held well ahead of 1 December this year. Before that, it is appropriate that Parliament is given every opportunity to scrutinise this important issue. That is why today we are providing noble Lords with additional time to look at the matter, as the Government recently did in the other place, and there will be additional time to debate the matter later this year.
I turn first to the annual opt-in report. The bare facts are these: in the period covered by the report— 1 December 2012 to 30 November 2013—the UK opted in to 13 proposals under the JHA protocol, and decided not to opt in to a further eight. Decisions on whether to opt in to a proposal are taken on a case-by-case basis, but some basic criteria are applied. For each measure, they are: what will be the impact on our security, on our civil liberties, on the integrity of our criminal justice system or on the ability for us to control our borders? How might our system of common law, shared by only a small, select group of other member states, be affected? Over and above everything else, what is in our national interest?
The report shows that last year, for example, we opted in to a Council decision relating to an agreement between the EU and Canada on the transfer of passenger name record data. Such data, known as PNR data, have real value in the tracking down of people suspected of the most serious crimes, and are already used by the UK in our border systems programme. Indeed, the provisions outlined in the Council decision are already in place, so here was a practical agreement, in the public interest, that the UK could support and be part of.
Other examples included proposals to improve insolvency proceedings, and a welcome and important clarification to the rules governing jurisdiction—as set out in the Brussels 1 regulation—which will make way for the creation of the unified patent court in January next year.
Noble Lords will also be aware that in August last year the Commission published a proposal for a European Public Prosecutor’s Office. The coalition agreement made it clear that the Government would not take part in the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, so we did not opt in. A centralised European prosecutor with harmonised powers to initiate investigations and order investigative measures is incompatible with the division of responsibilities in the UK between law enforcement and prosecutors and the role of the independent judiciary. The idea of a single legal area is an unwelcome move towards harmonisation. That is not to say that we do not wish to co-operate at all with our European partners in ensuring the prosecution of crime and the detection of offenders.
In addition, we do not believe that the EPPO is an appropriate or proportionate response to tackling fraud against the EU’s budget. A body working at EU level would, at best, duplicate the efforts of dedicated organisations working at a national level; at worst, it could hamper efforts to prevent fraud at national level. Reflecting that view, this House and the House of Commons shared the view that this was not something that was best tackled at EU level. Both Houses issued reasoned opinions that the proposal breached the subsidiarity principle. Simply put, that is the principle that, in areas of shared competence between the EU and member states where action can be taken at member-state level, it should be so taken. EU-level action should be reserved for those areas where it can genuinely add value.
I offer the European Public Prosecutor’s Office as an example—perhaps the most high-profile one—of where the Government have taken the view that it is not in the national interest to opt in to a measure. Others are set out in the report, but I know that many noble Lords will wish to bring their considerable expertise to bear on these issues so I will not detain the House any longer on the annual opt-in report.
I shall return briefly to the 2014 decision. I first express my thanks to the EU Committee of this House for its ongoing work in scrutinising this matter. It is an issue in which I know a number of noble Lords have taken a keen interest, and the Government are grateful to them for their work in this area and for the considerable expertise that is brought to bear on the consideration of relevant issues. We are grateful not least to the noble Lords, Lord Hannay and Lord Boswell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, for their ongoing analysis of an extremely complex issue. Their committees have produced two extremely thorough and valuable reports on this subject and I want to express my thanks on behalf of the Government for their chairmanship.
I turn to the progress on negotiations to seek to rejoin measures. I pause at this stage gratefully to acknowledge that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, was good enough to provide an advance indication of the remarks that he proposes to make in this debate. I know that one area that he—and, I am sure, other Members of the House—will raise is the possibility, to put it crudely, of the Government dropping the ball during the negotiations. I will endeavour to say what I can about that in my following remarks.
The process for rejoining measures depends on whether they are classified as Schengen or non-Schengen measures. On the Schengen side, a Friends of the Presidency working group has been established in Brussels to discuss all the issues for member states, linked to the end of the five-year transitional period set out in Article 10 of Protocol 36. This working group will also allow us to discuss the Schengen measures which we are seeking to rejoin and agree the decision which will allow us to do so formally.
The House will doubtless be anxious for me to address the question of what other member states have said about our package of measures. They have been broadly supportive of the UK’s position. There are of course many technical matters that are subject to discussion. These include whether measures are now obsolete or whether, and to what extent, new measures will replace old ones. That is precisely what this working group has been set up to do. At the appropriate time, when a conclusion has been reached, we will update Parliament on these matters—but, as I am sure the House will understand, it would not be appropriate to do so now when there are still discussions to be had.
Discussions with the Commission on the non-Schengen side are also ongoing. As we are sure noble Lords will also appreciate, this is a particularly complex matter and a great many process and technical matters have to be discussed. We must be mindful that this is a negotiation and, as such, we do not wish in any way to prejudice our position in these negotiations. To do so would not be in anyone’s interest. However, I can say that these discussions have been very constructive and our aim remains to reach an in-principle deal well ahead of 1 December, and return to Parliament for a further vote before formally seeking to rejoin measures. We want to ensure that there are no operational gaps, and our European partners appreciate this. That is perhaps reflected in the fact that we exercised the opt-out in July 2013—although the deadline was May of this year—to give us enough time to undertake these negotiations.
The Government have been clear throughout this process that Parliament will be given a vote on the final list of measures that the Government apply to rejoin, and I am happy to repeat that commitment today. Scrutiny can be an iterative and long-running process, especially on a matter such as this. That is why we will debate the matter at length again later in the year and why we have committed to producing a full impact assessment on the measures we seek to rejoin in good time, before a second vote. It is important that Parliament is given the opportunity to scrutinise the matter fully. I look forward to hearing the contributions of noble Lords when we return to Parliament later in the year.
Perhaps I may return to the main business of the day, the annual opt-in report. I commend this report to the House and look forward hearing your Lordships’ views on its content.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
The Question is that this Motion be agreed to.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
My Lords, I did wish to intervene in the Minister’s speech. I hope that is in order; I was on my feet before the Question was put. The noble Lord very helpfully gave an undertaking about the provision of an impact assessment for the measures that the Government are seeking to rejoin. However, he will be aware that in discussions with Ministers, the committees of this House have made it clear on a number of occasions that it is equally important that at that point there should also be an impact assessment, which has so far not been provided, on the measures that the Government are not seeking to rejoin. I wonder whether the Minister could give us some undertaking on that aspect. It really is rather important that the impact assessments provided should not be partial and limited to the measures that the Government wish to rejoin, because there will of course be impacts from the measures that the Government do not wish to rejoin. The House will need to be aware of those before it debates and votes on the final package to rejoin.
Lord Skelmersdale (Con)
My Lords, the Question has already been put so I very much regret that, in my view at least, the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, is somewhat out of order. I therefore suggest that my noble friends on the Front Bench do not answer him now but do so at the end of the debate.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
My Lords, I am not sure that that is entirely correct. I, too, wish to put a point to the Minister about his speech.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
Perhaps I may ask the noble Lord to resume his seat. I think the point that my noble friend Lord Skelmersdale made was valid. There will be an opportunity for my noble friend Lord Taylor to respond at the end of the debate to all the questions that have been raised during it.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
I am afraid that I do not accept this. I still wish to put a very short question to the Minister. He mentioned that the European Public Prosecutor had not been agreed by the Government. Does he not agree that it shows clearly the direction in which the European Union wishes to go, to the eventual detriment of our entire criminal justice system?
Lord Swinfen (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, both noble Lords who have asked questions are speaking in this debate and will have the opportunity to ask their questions in their speeches. I do not see why they could not have been patient and waited until it was their turn to speak. That would have been far more in order.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, for tabling these two Motions for debate today. They give the House a timely and useful opportunity to debate these important issues and explore the actions which the Government have taken and their reasoning in coming to the decisions that they have, and for us to seek assurances from them that the actions they are taking are not damaging to the law enforcement agencies and the important work that they are doing to keep the citizens of this country safe, which is the first duty of any Government.
Using a provision negotiated by the previous Labour Government when signing the Lisbon treaty in 2007, the Government have decided to opt out of just over 130 justice and home affairs measures covered by the treaty. The opt-out takes effect on 1 December this year, and the Government have indicated that they want to opt back in to a number of measures before we get to that date. We on these Benches are not against the principle of opt-outs—it was the Labour Government who negotiated this provision in the treaty—but your Lordships’ House will want further assurances that the Government have a clear plan and that that they are not playing fast and loose with our national security and the fight against crime.
It looks to me as if we could be going through a process that will deliver very little benefit for a lot of work and expense and, in the end, not much to show for it. I see that in the debate in the other place on 7 April the Conservative Member for North East Somerset, Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg, told the House that we have opted out of 98 things that do not matter and that some of the 35 things that we are opting back in to matter enormously. He would call that a repatriation of powers but that is a terminological exactitude. We on these Benches believe in retaining our co-operation with Europe on policing and criminal justice. The Government should have secured guarantees of agreed opt-ins on these important crime-fighting measures before exercising the opt-out—that would have been a sensible precautionary measure.
We must not forget that there are thousands of organised crime groups in the EU involved in drugs, human trafficking, online child exploitation and theft. Cross-border crime is a reality and we need 21st-century tools to meet this challenge. I had the privilege of visiting the police unit in London that deals with card fraud and it was clear that: the criminals use every modern technique to steal people’s money; it is cross-border, it does not stop at Dover; to catch the perpetrators who are stealing money from our citizens, costing the banks and other financial institutions millions of pounds and bringing misery to people, you have to have all the tools in the box to fight these criminals; and to achieve that, working across borders and co-operating with our partners is essential.
It would be helpful if the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, gave his reaction to the comments by the British head of Europol, Mr Rob Wainwright, who expressed his concern that the new arrangements would not be in force in time, and that without sufficient transitional arrangements there would be a gap in the UK’s capability to carry out its work against international organised crime and terrorism. That must not be allowed to happen. There are also suggestions that we need to get our re-opting-in list agreed by June 2014 in order to complete the process by the December deadline, and that we are struggling to achieve that. Will the Minister also comment on that in his reply?
I am pleased that the Government have decided to opt in to the European arrest warrant. The UK has deported more than 4,000 people under this scheme to face justice, and more than 600 have been returned to the UK to face justice here. There are numerous examples of such cases, including that of David Heiss, who murdered British student Matthew Pyke in September 2008. He was arrested in Germany a month after the offence and brought back to the UK a month later. Before the European arrest warrant, Germany did not surrender its nationals; in fact, there was a constitutional bar against doing so. Without the European arrest warrant, it is possible that this murderer would not have faced justice in a British court.
We on these Benches have no issue with the Government ensuring that these matters are proportionate —no one wants to see trivial matters clogging up the courts, wasting time and costing money needlessly. However, I do take issue with losing an important tool in the box that helps in our fight against crime. Will the Minister give the House an explicit assurance that the European arrest warrant will be in use on 1 December 2014? If he cannot, I think that it will represent a serious failure on the part of the Government.
I am pleased that the Government have indicated that they are opting back in to five of the six mutual recognition agreements. It is right that in areas where financial penalties of more than €70 are imposed, for things such as road traffic offences, people should be pursued to pay the fines. I think that it will have an effect on the individuals who commit an offence if they realise that they will be forced to pay up.
The previous convictions framework decision requires courts to take account of a defendant’s previous convictions in any other member state to the same extent as previous national convictions are taken into account. It is welcome that the Government are opting back in to this measure as well. It is important for the courts to have all the tools available in the fight against crime.
As for the prisoner transfer framework decision, which provides for the transfer of foreign nationals who are EU nationals to serve their sentence in their home country provided that they have more than six months to serve, it is good that the Government are also opting back in to this measure. However, I am not sure that we have had either the speed or the numbers of prisoners transferred back to their home country that many of us would like to see. The cost of keeping someone in prison is about £40,000 a year. I recall that when he came into office the Prime Minister made much of what he was going to do about foreign criminals in UK jails. Four years later, I am not convinced that we have seen the follow-through that the rhetoric implied. Perhaps the Minister can shed some light on that in his response.
We welcome the Government’s decision to opt back in to the judgments in absentia framework decision and the European supervision order. The first contains important protections for defendants and the second provides that non-custodial pre-trial supervision may happen on a voluntary basis in the defendant’s home member state.
The probation measures framework decision is the one measure that the Government are not opting back in to. It would be helpful if the Minister could go into some detail about why that is the case. The Government have indicated that it might be a possibility at a later date.
Most of the areas where the Government have decided not to opt back in are of a minor or trivial nature. In some cases, the Government intend to follow the provision and claim that we have sufficient powers on the statue book to deal adequately with any matters that may arise. Will the Minister focus some of his time in this debate on the issues of currency counterfeiting, fraud and the counterfeiting of non-cash means of payment? What will the Government do to ensure that we remain ahead of the game? Criminals who operate in this area can be highly skilled and ingenious in the methods they employ to steal from people and organisations. We on these Benches welcome the decision to rejoin the data protection framework decision and the data protection secretariat. These measures protect and balance the rights of data subjects with the need to protect the public.
In conclusion, we are, as I said, not against the principle of opt-outs, but we do have concerns about how this set of opt-outs has been handled. Concerns have been expressed about the adequacy of planning for the opt-ins and, in particular, about the provision of transitional measures in the event that agreements are not reached in time.
The Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the Justice Secretary have made much of the actions being taken. However, what do those actions amount to when they are put under the microscope? This is an expensive and lengthy exercise that does not really deliver very much. One is left wondering what the real motivation behind all this is. Perhaps the Minister can comment on the difficulties that his own party is facing with an increasingly dwindling membership who are more and more anti-European. Was this really just an attempt to placate them? If it was, it has been found out. There has been no repatriation of power. Instead, the UK is opting in to a variety of measures because that is the right thing to do. A number of the noble Lords who will speak in the debate today have a wealth of experience. I am looking forward to their contributions.
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, my contribution to this debate will be more generic. Perhaps I ought to warn the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, that I will probably be quite brief and he will have plenty of time to put his questions.
This has come about through the Lisbon treaty and the changes that took place there. I, for one, really welcome what the Lisbon treaty did in two areas of this subject. First, we got rid of the pillar system of the European Union, which someone like me who understands Europe to a reasonable degree found totally complicated. We started to make Europe more understandable to the political elite in individual member states; I doubt that it has got down to citizens yet, but at least it has simplified that process. Secondly, it meant that, by getting rid of the justice and home affairs pillars, those areas came into normal legislative procedure, which meant that we have at least an increased level of transparency of legislation and discussion in the European Parliament—the Council of Ministers was not exactly great at transparency. Clearly there are arguments in the opposite direction about national vetoes, but that move in transparency and public understanding of how the EU works, and simplification rather than complication, was extremely good.
Of course, we are already generally opted out of Schengen, although we opt in to certain of its provisions. It seems slightly ironic that while our tourist and business sectors are getting het up about the Chinese being able to visit us, we have independently gone down the road of effectively starting to recognise Schengen visas, with some additional help. That is positive and important for the UK economy, but there are some moves in the opposite direction. Of course, we are not part of the eurozone, either. Other states opt out of various areas as well. The Irish Republic has opted out of some of these areas or has the ability to opt in. Denmark has opted out of the common defence and security policy.
My general point is that when we talk about British membership of the European Union, there is a great barrier to our taking the leading role that we normally do in most areas, particularly in justice and home affairs, when we seem semi-detached from a lot of what the European Union is doing. I therefore generally regret that we go through these procedures of opting out and opting in, marginalising ourselves to some degree—although all British Governments have managed to keep their profile high and be persuasive within European Councils. However, this whole area of opting in and out is not good for the general national interest. I regret that as we start, in certain parts of the House at least, to talk about amending treaties and perhaps becoming an even more marginal member of the European Union, when we should be taking and keeping our rightful place as a leader of change and in the work with our European partners to be a leader within the European Union.
I particularly want to make a couple of points on how important justice and home affairs are. Certain parts of the other place are quite vociferously against the European arrest warrant. I agree absolutely with the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, that we need to make sure that there is no gap there. Clearly, that would be a charter for criminals and more than a slap in the face for victims. It is one of the most important areas as regards citizens’ involvement and benefit from the European Union and being assured that victims of crime are able to bring the perpetrators of those crimes to justice across borders within the European Union. That is absolutely fundamental to community interest.
All the way through the Government have said, “We will decide each of these issues on national interest”, and I never see that questioned. Clearly, none of us can disagree with that, but I will be very interested to hear from the Minister how we define national interest in those areas. Does it refer to the national interest of our criminals, our victims, or more relevantly, old people or young people, the business community, consumers, rural or urban areas? The term “national interest” can be used very easily as a way of explaining why we do or do not do things as regards opt-ins, opt-outs and other areas of EU policy. That route is too easy and is too much of a cliché in the way it is used. We have a very diverse community in the United Kingdom, and what is good for one part is not necessarily good for another. I will be interested to hear the Minister’s reflections on that area.
However, the most important thing is that these discussions are concluded quickly and effectively. We are where we are, but the United Kingdom needs to remain a committed, leading and important member and a great benefit to the European Union and the broader European community as a result of our commitment to making Europe work.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
My Lords, I regret to have triggered a minor kerfuffle of a procedural kind. I merely observe that I was on my feet before the Motion was moved and I expressed no criticism whatever of either the Minister or the noble Lord on the Woolsack for not having seen me as I speak from a rather dark and distant corner of your Lordships’ House. I do not accept that I expressed a lack of patience as the Minister quite explicitly referred to impact assessments only for the measures we are opting back in to and not those that we are not opting back in to. That was a precise point—he will not speak again in this debate—which I thought it was reasonable to put to him. I have so much patience that I did not intervene further in the kerfuffle and I am very happy to wait for the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, to answer that question as I shall be putting it again now. But I do not think it was either out of order or a matter of lack of patience.
The debate today, which was introduced very carefully, clearly and helpfully by the Minister is, as he explained, a double-header. It deals, first, with the 2014 block opt-out, including the Government’s decision in the national interest to seek to rejoin 35 of the measures so covered, and secondly, with the Government’s report on these routine individual opt-in and opt-out decisions in the 2012-13 period. Both parts of the debate fall within the scope of two sub-committees of the EU Committee—that chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, and that which I have the honour to chair. I will begin with some remarks on the block opt-out, which is, as has been recognised by all speakers up to now, far and away the more significant of the two topics we are dealing with.
I will not weary the House with a lengthy recapitulation of our committees’ views on the block opt-out; all that was comprehensively debated last July and again on 23 January of this year. Suffice it to say that we remain unconvinced of the Government’s case for triggering the block opt-out in the first place; that we support the Government’s bid to rejoin the 35 measures they identified in Command Paper 8671; and that we hope that they will negotiate with the Commission with flexibility on the issue of coherence and will consider rejoining a modest additional number of measures identified in our report of last October.
The count down to the deadline of 1 December when, in the absence of any positive decisions over rejoining, the UK will have excluded itself from all those pre-Lisbon measures, is now well under way. To judge by the Minister’s report, there has not been a huge amount of progress registered on the bid to rejoin 35 of those measures. Although I respect his feeling that he cannot be more precise at this stage, I thought that the report that he gave the House was helpful, within those limits. Can he confirm that the Government’s target and wish is to reach political agreement with the Commission and the Council by the time of the European Council meeting in June and then to put to Parliament a package for a second vote before the Summer Recess, if that were to prove possible? If so, can he assure the House that adequate advance notice will be given and that the necessary impact assessments will be provided ahead of that vote, both on the impact of the measures we will be rejoining and those we will not? That is the point I made in my earlier intervention.
Can the Minister also say what contingency plans the Government have for the eventuality of full agreement not having been reached with the Commission and the other member states by the 1 December deadline and, in particular, what transitional arrangements, such as are provided for in the treaty, could be envisaged? These things cannot be improvised at the last moment, and particularly tricky issues could arise involving individuals in respect of the European arrest warrant. That point was made very cogently by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. Does the Minister agree that the worst possible outcome would be if a legal vacuum were to be created with respect to the 35 measures which the Government consider, and which this House endorsed, as being in our national interest to rejoin?
On the Government’s report on the 2012-13 individual opt-ins and opt-outs, the situation is far from satisfactory. For one thing, the Government have so far declined to opt in to a number of measures which our committee concluded it was in the UK’s interest to opt in to from the outset. In particular, we regret the decision not to opt in at the outset to the negotiations on the new Europol proposals. Can the Minister confirm that the Government’s objective remains a post-adoption opt-in to that measure? As the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, the practice of negotiating from the outside and rejoining as a post-adoption opt-in decision seems to be spreading. Our concern in the committee that I chair is that this approach reduces our negotiating leverage and risks final outcomes which would not be in this country’s interest. In that respect, can the Minister say whether, now that the proceeds of crime directive, which your Lordships’ House would have wished to opt in to from the outset but the Government decided not to do so, has been agreed through co-decision and is on the statute book, it is the Government’s intention to go for a post-adoption opt-in to that measure? It would surely be quite aberrant if the UK was to exclude itself from a piece of legislation for which we have been pressing for many years and which is essential if we are to pursue effectively those criminals who have managed to transfer the proceeds of their crimes to other member states?
We regret, too, that the Government chose not to opt in to the readmission agreements with Cape Verde and Armenia. We believe the case for doing so, and thus for demonstrating a less than semi-detached attitude to those agreements, is unconvincing. Can the Minister confirm that the Government intend to opt in to the recently concluded readmission agreement with Turkey, on which we are awaiting notification within the normal time limits of that measure?
Worrying evidence has come to light that the Government are not adept, to put it mildly, at applying the simplest arithmetical aspects of the opt-in/opt-out system. Recently, I understand, it came to light that the Government had failed to opt in before the deadline had expired to a JHA provision of the association agreement with Kosovo, so we apparently are not party to that agreement, even though we were among its leading protagonists. What is being done to remedy that? Also, quite recently, the Government’s decision to opt in to the member state initiative concerning the move of the seat of CEPOL from Bramshill in this country to Budapest was taken only on the last possible day available, and Parliament was notified of the opt-in only the day after the last day had elapsed. I suggest that that rather drove a coach and horses though the Ashton/Lidington commitments in respect of that piece of legislation.
In that instance, our committee agreed with the substance of the Government’s decision to opt in but the point I am making concerns parliamentary procedure and the way that solemn commitments have been entered in to and are not being applied very correctly. The last time we debated one of these annual reports on 3 July 2013, also in the wake of an unfortunate procedural failure in applying those commitments, the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, who is replying to this debate, said that it would not happen again. Well, it has done. Can the Minister say what is being done to apply these procedures in a more rigorous and timely fashion?
I am sorry to be rather critical, but it is not acceptable for the Government to fail, either by omission or commission, to stick to commitments entered in to as part of the process of ratifying the Lisbon treaty. If this debate has done nothing else, it will have demonstrated the need for these annual reports, for which I am grateful to the Government for supplying, and the need, too, for the House to debate them. I am grateful for the opportunity to do that today.
Lord Boswell of Aynho
My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to participate briefly in the debate in my capacity as the chairman of the European Union Select Committee of this House. It is a privilege for me to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hannay of Chiswick, and thank him for his continuing expertise and the input he has made to the work of the European Union Select Committee, specifically in his chairing of its home affairs sub-committee. However, that expression of thanks and praise is tinged with a degree of sadness as the time has come for him to step down from both committees. We shall miss him hugely, as will the House. This work necessitates not only massive and in-depth expertise across the whole range of matters European but a readiness to be tireless and, if I may say so, appropriately tiresome, in holding the Government to account in what they do, and is an example to us all of the kind of work that this House does very well.
Also on the positive side, I commend the Minister—the noble Lord, Lord Faulks—for delivering on the Government’s commitment to debate on request an annual report on Protocols 19 and 21. It is entirely sensible that we should roll this in with the separate debate on the continuing saga of the Protocol 36 negotiations. I feel that this is a little bit like a piece of classical music with two themes inextricably intertwined in this debate. I fear that my remarks will tend to flit from one to t’other.
I also find myself in an interesting and rather European position, as it were, as the centre of the troika between the previous speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, who will speak after me, as they chair the two relevant sub-committees of our European Union Select Committee, and I find myself in the middle. I would not for a moment claim that I have or wish to replicate their expertise because they express remarkably intense and effective scrutiny. One has offered and one will, I am sure, offer the technical assessments of their respective committees. They will highlight, for example, not just the historical record of the Protocol 36 saga, as I have called it, but the difficulties with post-adoption negotiations—for example, in relation to Europol and Eurojust, the EPPO and other matters that may arise down the track.
If we look at what happens in Europe, it is interesting and appropriate to record—the Minister has acknowledged this—that Her Majesty’s Government consistently opt into a majority of new proposals roughly in the proportion of 2:1, as working rule. It is fair to assume that neither myself in a personal capacity nor my committee generally would dissent from participation in those proposals. However one defines—if one can find a working definition to meet the wishes of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson—what is or is not the national interest, we are at least pleased that the Government are proceeding on that basis.
We will continue to assess any new proposals and policy matters that arise in the area of security, freedom and justice on their own merits and in relation to the national interest. We can hardly ask the Government to do otherwise. We would ask them to commit themselves to continuing to take into account the views of our committee wherever possible. It happens—it is an unexpressed factor in this debate—that we have developed over the course of the past 12 months, in the light of the Protocol 36 issue, a habit of consultation with Ministers and the troika, if I may call it that for shorthand, in relation to the handling of these issues. We are getting a better understanding but, frankly, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, revealed, the old Adam comes out from time to time and we cannot say that the work has been concluded yet, because things go wrong.
In that light, looking at the historical record, I have no wish to rake over the coals but I should like the two Ministers to consider saying a little more on the record about why the Government did not consult thoroughly and properly with the European Union Committee of this House, as had been agreed in relation to Protocol 36 issues, on the decision on the block opt-out. We had, in effect, a last-minute presentation of a fait accompli, which was not the right way to do this business.
As the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, has explained to the House, there will be continuing doubts in my committee as to the precise range of measures to be opted back in to. However, if we take the 35 measures in which the Government have indicated an interest, we can at least say that it is broadly the view of my colleagues that those measures are in the national interest. As we are actually doing them, it is sensible that we continue to do them and, as a number of noble Lords have said, particularly in relation to criminal justice, do them without any discontinuity as we reach the deadline.
It is fair to report to the House that there is a continuing contradiction—or I could call it a difference of emphasis—in the Government’s position on some of these issues. On the one hand, they express a continuing reluctance, as it were on principle, to consider as being appropriate our accession to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice on particular issues—their bias is against it. At the same time, on the majority of measures for very good reasons, including the national interest, the Government opt into justice and home affairs policies related to it. That, of course, immediately represents acceptance of the court’s jurisdiction in relation to those matters.
As regards future negotiations, Ministers are well aware, perhaps painfully aware, that a number of ongoing and very technical dossiers are to be negotiated, with a view to opting in, following adoption of the measures. The Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, may wish to respond later a little more on the Government’s thoughts on how successful the negotiations are likely to be. It would useful if he could inform us.
In relation to the block opt-out, nobody here is asking for a detailed account of any negotiation or indeed of the negotiating position, because that would be an entirely unreasonable position for us to take, including the disclosure of the stance of other members of the Council. However, I put it to the House that there must be some middle-way solution between complete transparency of action and—what we are sometimes faced with—either a last-minute announcement or the emphatic silence that greets us when an update on progress is requested by members of the committee.
That is a challenge for the House, for Ministers and for us as a committee. However, if some reasonable information can be shared—the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, who has already spoken to us has indicated some of it—and the Government can level with Members of this House and of the other place and with the general public at large, that may be positive for the process because it may encourage a measure of participation in, understanding of and interest in the matters being negotiated. Having said that, as has already been indicated, those matters are, frankly, desperately technical. Even getting them understood around Parliament would be a start but it would not be a finish. However, the more that can be done, the better.
We as a committee are not going to seek a running commentary on negotiations. The Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, wrote to us in January and we have allowed a certain franchise before we have come back to him. We do not want a running commentary but it would be helpful to have information as and when it is available and appropriate to let us share it.
In concluding my remarks, I once again endorse the need for a sensible dialogue to take place as a matter of routine between government and the European Scrutiny Committee. I often say—and I am anxious that we should not compromise the position—that we are scrutineers, not the Executive: we do not join in the Government’s decisions. However, the habit of collaboration and co-operation is to be encouraged and, if it is sensibly and sensitively handled, it will be of mutual benefit.
Baroness Corston (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, has, in his normal comprehensive and concise fashion, already addressed all relevant matters arising out of the work of our two sub-committees relating to the 2014 block opt-out decision. He is right: the block opt-out was comprehensively debated by this House in July last year and January this year, and I do not wish to detain your Lordships any longer on that matter.
However, I want to take this opportunity to reiterate that the Justice, Institutions and Consumer Protection Sub-Committee of the European Union Committee, which I chair, remains unconvinced by the Government’s argument for triggering the block opt-out. I also wish to endorse the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, that we support the Government in their bid to rejoin the 35 measures that they identified in Command Paper 8671. We also hope that the Government will stay true to their promise to negotiate with the Commission on the issue of coherence in good faith and with flexibility.
On the subject of coherence, my committee recently considered a Commission report that looked at the state of implementation by the member states of three key justice and home affairs framework decisions, which introduce mutual recognition into aspects of pre-trial and post-sentence detention. Our two Protocol 36 reports addressed all three framework decisions. The Commission’s report also argues that, alongside the European arrest warrant, all three framework decisions constitute a coherent package of legislation. The Government do not agree. I hope that this example does not indicate how difficult these negotiations will prove. However, we await with anticipation the Government’s response to our letter dated 6 May.
I turn now to the Government’s report detailing the individual opt-ins for 2012-13. Most of the legislative proposals scrutinised by Sub-Committee E are subject to the UK’s opt-in protocol. There is not the time or, I suspect, the will for me to mention each and every opt-in decision that we have considered this year. Rather, I shall focus on a small number of high-profile or significant proposals that raise specific issues that I wish to share with the House today.
As to my committee’s scrutiny of the opt-in, I put on record that we remain committed to considering the merits of individual opt-ins as part of the scrutiny work that we undertake on behalf of the House. To that end, during the year my sub-committee has engaged the Government in a line of correspondence, seeking to shed some light on the wider ramifications of their approach to these matters. In particular, we have endeavoured to ascertain what impact government opt-in decisions have on the UK’s influence and position in the subsequent negotiations in the Council. The catalyst for our correspondence with the Government was the debate on 4 November last of our report on the opt-in to the Eurojust regulation. I will return to the detail of that specific opt-in in a moment.
My correspondence with the Government on the wider ramifications of the UK’s opt-in has moved between three government departments—the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice. I see the Minister nodding his head. I am told that our most recent letter on this matter, dated 6 February this year, is currently with the Ministry of Justice. We initially expected a reply by 21 February. An extension was granted by sub-committee officials but not to this date and we have not yet received a response. Is the Minister able to offer the House an indication of when we can expect a response? If not, can he promise to pursue the matter with the Ministry of Justice?
I turn now to those individual matters of particular interest highlighted by the Government’s report that fell to my sub-committee and merit specific attention in today’s debate. The first concerns the directive on the protection of the euro and other currencies against counterfeiting. While in the end we agreed with the Government’s decision not to opt in to these negotiations at the outset, this was an occasion when the Government’s Explanatory Memorandum did not address the opt-in at all. The Government have committed to supporting parliamentary scrutiny of opt-in decisions, and as part of their commitment they have promised to provide information on the factors affecting the opt-in decision where the Government are in a position to do so, although they did not do so on this occasion. If the sub-committees of the European Union Committee are to be able to fulfil effectively the role entrusted to them by the House, at the least we would expect the Explanatory Memorandum to any prospective legislation subject to the opt-in to address: first, the policy implications of the proposal; secondly, a preliminary assessment of the prospects of negotiating away the concerns identified; and thirdly, some indication as to whether the relevant UK authorities will be hampered by the UK’s non-participation. This did not happen in this case and we expect it to happen in the future.
The next legislative proposals of interest concern the interrelated regulations reforming Eurojust and creating the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, or EPPO. Both these proposals were brought forward together in July last year and both are subject to the UK’s opt-in protocol. However, as the Minister acknowledged in his opening remarks, the coalition agreement ruled out the UK’s participation in EPPO—a position all but enshrined by the European Union Act 2011—so the question of the UK opting in to EPPO did not even arise. The window within which the sub-committees are afforded time to consider individual opt-in decisions is small and on this occasion it was complicated by the Summer Recess. Nevertheless, against a very challenging timetable my sub-committee produced two reports into these matters.
The first report, on EPPO, recommended that the House should issue a reasoned opinion challenging the proposal by way of subsidiarity—a recommendation that I am pleased to say was endorsed by the House on 28 October last. The second report dealt with the application of the opt-in to the Eurojust proposal, and we urged the Government to opt into the regulation. It was published on the same day as the House debated the EPPO report. While the Eurojust report acknowledged the validity of the Government’s concerns with the proposal, we urged the Government to opt into the negotiations from the outset because, in our view, opting in represented the most effective way for the UK to continue its important membership of Eurojust while securing a text that best served the UK’s interests.
Unfortunately, at the subsequent debate on 4 November, despite clear support from all sides of the House, I was forced to withdraw the Motion approving the report in the face of opposition from both Front Benches. Nevertheless, my committee remains of the view that our report advocated the right approach to the opt-in in this case; and we fear that, in deciding not to opt into the regulation reforming Eurojust, the Government have taken the first step towards the door marked exit. Will the Minister tell the House how the negotiations on the Eurojust proposal are progressing and whether they are progressing to the UK’s advantage?
I also wish to address my comments in relation to the impact of opt-outs. I spoke to the predecessors of both Ministers on the Front Bench some time ago about the fact that there were impact assessments of the opt-ins but no impact of the effect on the United Kingdom of the measures that we were opting out from.
As I said, there is not time to go into the detailed discussions between the sub-committee that I chair and the Government on the merits or otherwise of each individual application of the opt-in. While my comments during this debate appear to focus on the negative aspects of my sub-committee’s relationship with the Government when we scrutinise the opt-in, I must add that, in the vast majority of the decisions of relevance to the opt-in, the Government and the Justice, Institutions and Consumer Protection Sub-Committee are in agreement.
Lord Dykes (LD)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the chairman of Sub-Committee E, of which I am a member, and thank her for her work and leadership of that committee. I very much agree with the individual points that she made in the latter part of her remarks.
It is also appropriate to echo the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, as chairman of the European Union Committee, and express our thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, as chairman of Sub-Committee F, for the work that he has done with the members of that sub-committee in dealing with the origins of this matter and the apparent muddle that has unfortunately arisen over time, which needs clarification from the Government on a continuing basis. Many more questions will come up later on. With extraordinary forensic ability, the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, has led the way in how to be a deep, delving chairman of a scrutiny sub-committee. That is to the benefit of this House and the country.
In fact, we are rightly proud in this House of the elements of our scrutiny system, particularly on European matters, which are in many ways deeper for obvious technical and operational reasons. I make no criticism of our Commons colleagues, but theirs is a different kind of exercise, which is more or less like sifting through a large catalogue of different measures as quickly as possible and trying to get agreement in a hurry. We sometimes have more time to consider, but on this occasion the timetables are determining the discipline needed by the Government to respond in good time to make sure that we get this right. There are still considerable doubts about the whole origins of this policy formation and the policy stance taken by the coalition Government on these complicated and complex issues. This needs to be clarified in the future very much on a basis that will reassure Members of all parts of this House and Members of Parliament in general that the Government are going to be on the right track.
The origin of these proposals in the previous Administration was something of a failsafe or reserve position—that is how I saw it, although perhaps I misinterpreted it—to reassure colleagues in this House and particularly in the Commons that mistakes would not be made in terms of the disappearance of the third pillar and our ability to reach proper decisions on complicated legal and judicial matters that would be made, in the oft-quoted phrase, in the national interest. If only, as my noble friend Lord Teverson said, we could work out what that phrase actually means. The definition of the policy framework put in place by the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, on behalf of the previous Government when they were going through the procedures for the enactment of the Lisbon treaty legislation was that it was something which would not be used all that frequently. It would be a reserve position, like some aspects of the European Union Act 2011. Some colleagues, including myself, were not very enthusiastic about that legislation; none the less, it set out a reserve position to be used occasionally, not frequently.
I suppose that the political pressure coming from the Eurosceptic portion of the main party in the coalition when the contents were being developed—important policy items that were driven by the Commission’s proposals and the responses from the Council of Ministers—meant that inevitably it looked as though an extra Eurosceptic atmospheric element was being implanted into some of those areas which really would not serve the nation properly. We had proof of that in the responses made by the technical practitioners and officers in the judiciary and the police forces of this country, who, with only one or two minor exceptions, disagreed with the Government on their original proposals. That was the telling reality which the European Union Committee and its sub-committees had to face.
I do not want to go on for too long, so I shall conclude my remarks with some general points that illustrate the background to this matter. The muddle continues, which means that at the end of this debate the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, who is an extremely popular Minister, will have to give some searching answers in order to reassure the House that this is moving along on the right lines. Some of us want to increase the number of opt-ins. I believe I am right in saying that many of us feel that some of the original decisions were hasty and foolhardy, having been made without proper consideration—two prime examples are the European arrest warrant and Eurojust.
It all comes back to the background to this. Many of us wish to see our continuing membership of the European Union armed, as we are now, with the Lisbon treaty, which is an exceptionally satisfactory treaty. Noble Lords will recall that we as the Liberal Democrat party in opposition, alongside the Conservative Party, did not wish to propose any amendments to the legislation that was to back up the content of the Lisbon treaty. That, I think, was the right position to take. It underscored the general feeling among most Members of this House, including the Cross-Benchers, that our commitment to membership of the European Union and our commitment to the future development of the European Court of Justice need not cause the anxieties that some Ministers in the bigger party of the coalition still feel about these European matters.
There is no fundamental attack on our sovereignty because no one is quite clear about the definition of “sovereignty”, let alone “national interest”—a term for which it is very difficult to give a satisfactory definition. I bet that it will not be given during this debate. “Sovereignty” is even more difficult. The definition given by some Eurosceptic MPs in the Conservative Party in the House of Commons and UKIP is probably for the kind of sovereignty that last existed in this country in 1912, before the First World War. Apart from perhaps the exception of countries in the world with very large populations such as India, the United States, Brazil, China and Indonesia—a very interesting developing country—there is no real intrinsic definition of what sovereignty means. The idea therefore that we are damaging our national interest or losing sovereignty by agreeing with judicial, police and anti-crime measures—which should just be common sense—and by working together with other colleagues is really of no interest whatever. This country already has more derogations, opt-outs, exceptions, exclusions and objections regarding individual policy areas of the developing European Union than any other single country. I notice that the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, did not—quite rightly—mention any of the member states that support our position apart from, once, Holland. Of course, as the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, said, in the context of the negotiations, it would not be right to reveal those as negotiations proceed.
None the less, there are statements by Ministers in other member states’ Governments about these matters. I live in France as well and occasionally have a chance to look at the press there and in other countries such as Germany to see what they say. I think I am right in saying, without being foolhardy, that, of the 28 member states, no other one really supports our position on these matters at all. There may be individual items where there would be hesitation. I think the EPPO, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, is a very good example: it is probably premature and needs further thought and so on, and there is a logical reserve there about subsidiarity. That is perfectly respectable—most legislation in this country is still national rather than European. The latter is the minority. The layer of legislation, rules and disciplines for us in the treaties and European law obliges us to be a hard-working member of a united European collective of sovereign member states, agreeing by treaties between each other to do things together. That of course does not reduce individual national sovereignty but increases it automatically, while also increasing the collective sovereignty of the whole European Union.
In thanking Ministers for their responses, including the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, for his upcoming response to the debate today, I say to the Conservative part of the Government that it needs more self-confidence in the UK as a European member state, rather than the hesitations, withdrawals and drawing back, which seem to be so old-fashioned and immature. That is unusual for a country which has a remarkable history of a self- standing and self-confident parliamentary democracy.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
My Lords, it is of course a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, who expresses with such purity his enthusiasm for the European dream, which is, of course, also shared by so many of your Lordships, blissfully unaware that the dream has turned into a nightmare for millions of people in this country and elsewhere in Europe.
As to the Motions before us, it appears that the corrupt octopus in Brussels is putting a tentacle round yet more of our sovereignty and, once again, the Government are a willing accomplice. It is small wonder that the British people are getting angrier by the day and more disdainful of us, their political and bureaucratic class. The Prime Minister, addressing the Conservative Party conference on 4 November 2009, said:
“The third area where we will negotiate for a return of powers is criminal justice. We must be sure that the measures included in the Lisbon Treaty will not bring creeping control over our criminal justice system by EU judges. We will want to prevent EU judges gaining steadily greater control over our criminal justice system by negotiating an arrangement which would protect it. That will mean limiting the European Court of Justice’s jurisdiction over criminal law to its pre-Lisbon level, and ensuring that only British authorities can initiate criminal investigations in Britain”.
He continued with really quite a good bit:
“I recognise, of course, that taking back power in these areas, or negotiating arrangements that suit the UK, is not something we can do unilaterally. It means changing the rules of an institution of which we are a member—changing rules that Britain has signed up to. If we want to make changes, we will need to do that through negotiation with our European partners, and we will need the agreement of all twenty seven member states”.
I trust your Lordships will agree that that is a pretty clear commitment to the return of powers to this country from Brussels in our criminal justice system and, indeed, as we know from the Prime Minister, elsewhere.
However, Mr Cameron spoke with slippery inaccuracy, to put it politely, when he said that of course he would have to gain the consent of all 27 other member states in order to achieve his aim. He may have thought, as a committed Europhile, that he was giving himself an escape route from his promise, in which he clearly did not believe. The point is, of course, that by 4 November 2009 the Lisbon treaty was already law, complete with its block opt-out for the UK from all 135 criminal justice measures. When he made that speech he was simply not telling the truth—or let me be generous and put it down to ignorance—because we did not, and do not, need the consent of any other member state to escape from any or every one of these wretched measures.
In fact, we have now opted out of all of them. All we need to do is to leave it at that, but no—in direct contradiction to Mr Cameron’s promise, his Government are proposing to opt back in to the most pernicious of them, including the infamous European arrest warrant. I do not really want to descend into its sordid detail, or indeed that of Eurojust, or the freezing of evidence and confiscation orders. The wider point is that all these areas have been under the sole control of Parliament for centuries and the Government intend to put them within the jurisdiction of that engine of European integration, the Luxembourg court of so-called justice.
The Government and those who support that transfer do not seem to understand that it is simply not acceptable to the British people for them to be liable to be extradited, to stand trial in an inferior foreign jurisdiction, at the request of an inferior foreign investigator—perhaps for a crime that is not even a crime in this country, such as xenophobia—and left to rot for months in a foreign jail before being tried without a jury.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
Perhaps the noble Lord could spend just a little time on the sordid detail of the European arrest warrant. Does he object to us being able to get criminals back from Spain, France, Germany or Italy in order that we can try them and, if necessary, convict them for crimes of a very serious nature? Does he regard as sordid detail the fact that we are able to return nationals of other member states rapidly to their countries, where they have committed or are indicted for crimes, at a time when they are in this country and possibly at risk of committing more crimes?
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
My Lords, all that can be done as it was done for a very long time, by intergovernmental collaboration. I object to the fact that any one of our citizens should be treated as Andrew Symeou was treated. I do not think that the convenient price that the noble Lord advances for this awful piece of legislation is worth the candle, nor do many British people—actually, most British people.
As I was saying, it is not good enough to say that this is convenient for our police and bureaucracy, which is what the noble Lord was indicating. It is not good enough to say that crime crosses borders, and that all these often corrupt jurisdictions have signed up to the European Charter of Fundamental Rights so they must be as fair as our own. None of these excuses washes with real people in this country. Just one Andrew Symeou case is too many, and there have been others.
Nor is it an excuse for Mr Cameron and the Conservative Party to say that one of the last areas of our national sovereignty is being tossed to the octopus because they are in coalition with the Liberal Democrats, who love this sort of thing—hence, their present standing in the opinion polls. The coalition agreement pledged to,
“ensure that there is no further transfer of sovereignty or powers over the course of the next Parliament”.
Then we had the Queen’s Speech on 25 May 2010, which reaffirmed that legislation would be introduced,
“to ensure that in future this Parliament and the British people have their say on any proposed transfer of powers to the European Union”.
We then had the European Union Act on 19 July 2011. Your Lordships will forgive me, but I have still not understood why these proposed opt-ins do not trigger the national referendum required by that Act. We still have the power to opt out of all these measures, and indeed have done so, so why is opting back in not a transfer of sovereignty?
Perhaps I may ask the Minister another question. If a national referendum was held on whether we should opt in to these measures, how does he think the vote would go? Does the answer, that the British public would reject it in large measure, not show why the Government are practising this dishonest sophistry to deny our people that vote, which they have indeed promised, however they try to wriggle out of it?
My third question—I think for the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, who is to answer in this debate—is the one that I attempted to put before his noble friend Lord Faulks finished his introduction, and I apologise if I was not in order in doing so. The noble Lord, Lord Faulks, said that the Government had nobly refused to join the EU’s proposal for a European public prosecutor because it is inimical to our tried and tested legal system of police, prosecutor, court and jury, each with their separate function. My question is whether the EU’s proposal of its foreign system does not show where the EU intends eventually to go. By agreeing to the 35 measures, are the Government not giving in to yet more EU salami-slicing, in its well known fashion, along the way to its final goal? Even the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, in his peroration, said that a European public prosecutor was perhaps a little premature—quite so: it is premature indeed.
I thought of not speaking in this debate because this sort of behaviour by the Government and the Labour Party can do nothing but increase the support for my party, the UK Independence Party—UKIP is the only vehicle that our people can use to free them from the failed and ruinous experiment of European integration—but, on reflection, I decided to do so because I know that what I have to say today will not have the slightest effect on the Government, just as it has not for the past 22 years, so I thought that I might as well at least put the feelings of real people on the record in your Lordships’ House.
The Government and Labour are toying with the liberty of the individual—with the liberty of our citizens, than which they hold few greater responsibilities. Our people do not like this; they do not like the European Union, and will eventually demand to leave the whole ill fated venture.
Lord Bowness (Con)
My Lords, I shall not seek to deal with all the points that have been raised by my former noble friend Lord Pearson of Rannoch. Suffice it to say that I am not surprised that he did not want to go into details, because most of the propaganda that comes from his party is pretty light on detail and pretty light on telling people how things actually are.
I am sorry to say that I approach the subject of the opt-out, to which I wish to speak, with a feeling of apprehension, if not depression. It is now more than 12 months since I was a member of the sub-committee of the European Union Select Committee dealing with the law, now chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, so I am perhaps not as up to date with all the detail as the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. However, I am bound to observe that the first report of your Lordships’ House was published in April 2013 and debated in July 2013, after a late government response and the issue of what was a truly dreadful Explanatory Memorandum. The report and the debate, in April and July respectively, emphasised the need to ensure that, since 35 out of the 130-odd measures were, in the Government’s own words, in the national interest and we wished to rejoin them, we did not find ourselves in a place at the time of the opt-out where we had not secured our re-entry to those 35 measures.
A year after the original report and nearly 10 months after the debate, with great respect to my noble friend on the Front Bench, I do not feel much wiser as to where we are. However, one thing I know is that the impact assessments in respect of those measures that we wish to rejoin—never mind the impact assessments, if at all, of those that we do not intend to rejoin—are still awaited. In that dreadful Explanatory Memorandum, there was a reference to an impact assessment, which I will read:
“At his appearance before the European Scrutiny Committee on 28 November”—
that has to have been in 2012—
“James Brokenshire gave an undertaking that the Government will provide an Impact Assessment on the final package of measures that the Government wishes to rejoin, should the Government decide to exercise the opt-out”.
That is one of the reasons why I feel a bit depressed, because still there is no sign of that impact assessment as more and more months go by. Soon we will be in the summer and there will be a new Commission, and probably too soon it will be 1 December, so I am concerned as to what progress is being made.
I understand that my noble friends on the Front Bench cannot give details of the negotiations. However, perhaps it is worth noting what my right honourable friend the Home Secretary said in the other place on 7 April in reply to Mr Keith Vaz. This was confirmed in a Written Answer given to my noble friend Lord Inglewood earlier this week. She said:
“Detailed and constructive discussions are taking place with the European Commission and other member states”,
and that the Government are keen to avoid the possibility of an operational gap,
“that will ensue if we have not settled the matter before 1 December, when … the UK’s opt-out takes full effect. Our aim is therefore to reach an ‘in principle’ deal well ahead of that date”.
What do we mean by “well ahead” of that date? In that debate in the other place, Mr Keith Vaz also put this question to the Home Secretary:
“Has she seen reference made to a note by the Greek presidency that was published by Statewatch—it was leaked; it was not published by the presidency—that the United Kingdom needs to have its re-opting list agreed by June 2014; in other words, before the parliamentary recess? Has she seen that note and is that the case? Do we have to get all our priorities ready by then?”—[Official Report, Commons, 7/4/14; col. 27.]
No definitive response was given to that question.
Later in the debate, my right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor talked about the second Motion to be put to Parliament. He said:
“We will come back to the House at the conclusion of the negotiations with the Commission and the Council to offer the House the further opportunity to endorse or reject what we are doing. If this House rejects what we are doing, clearly it will not be possible for us to return to the Commission and simply override the view of this House”.—[Official Report, Commons, 7/4/14; col. 90.]
When it is asked whether the Motion would be amendable, the question of the details of the Motion is deferred to a later date. Faced with the summer, the new Commission and the date of 1 December, I fear for the progress and the time that this whole exercise is taking.
I will admit that I have always considered the whole exercise to be expensive, time-consuming and, in terms of our relations with our EU partners, relatively pointless, since the Government’s own Explanatory Memorandum did not identify any one of these 130-odd measures as being detrimental to the national interest. I also note that my party, which I support in the vast majority of instances, says that its priorities for Europe include fighting to make our,
“police forces and justice systems able to protect British citizens, unencumbered by unnecessary interference from the European institutions, including the European Court of Human Rights”—
which of course is nothing to do with the EU in this conversation—and is seemingly ignoring all the evidence that has been given by police and legal sources supporting many of these measures. I wonder whether we are indulging in some kind of ritual dance involving opting out and then opting back in so that at some time in the future we can negotiate to come out again. I hope that my noble friend will understand my concerns, my apprehension and my depression, and why I am probably very confused.
Lord Judd (Lab)
My Lords, I am very glad to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bowness. I think that a tribute is due to him for the very important part that he has played in the issues before us during his time as chairman of one of the relevant committees. The reason why I am glad to follow him is that over the years I have come to respect him very deeply for his intellectual integrity, his powers of penetrating logic and analysis and his courage in saying what he believes is right when it is not always very convenient or perhaps enjoyable to find himself doing so among colleagues who have totally different approaches. A tribute is due to him not only for his work in the committee but for the standards that he brings to our activities in the Lords, which I believe the Lords should be all about.
I am glad that the noble Lord made a passing reference to the European Court of Human Rights because in all the popular debate that goes on, in which our ill informed media play too distracting a part, too often the perception is that the ECHR is central to the European Union, but of course it is not. Indeed, many distinguished statesmanlike Conservatives, not least Churchill, played a key part in all that led up to the establishment of the ECHR. From my standpoint as someone who believes passionately in justice and indeed human rights across the board, it is far stronger to have a court that operates internationally on universal principles than to drift into a world of relativity in which some people feel that certain human rights are appropriate in one situation but not in another. Human rights are absolute. That is why the European court is so important.
I have thanked the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, for his remarks; I also join in thanking those who are leading us in these deliberations at present. The chairman of the European Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, plays a critically important part. Not only does he play it well but he is very helpful and wise in his relationships with the sub-committees that work with him.
I am also glad to see my noble friend Lady Corston—my old friend and colleague—in her role. I had the challenge and enjoyment of working under her chairmanship when she was a very distinguished chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights and I know just what she brings in her ability as a chair and in her disciplined approach to what is before the committee. I know well that we are fortunate to have her there.
We are going to miss the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, in our deliberations. However, if I know anything about him—and I claim to know quite a bit about him because a long time ago, when I was Minister of State in the Foreign Office, he was a young official working to me and I was always on my toes when he came into the room, and I have not changed since—I know that he is very able, extremely experienced and very incisive in his advice and chairmanship. It has been very challenging and intellectually a very good experience to work under his chairmanship in one of the sub-committees. However, if I know anything about him, we are not going to lose him from these deliberations. I cannot imagine the issues of Europe being before the House without the noble Lord having a good deal to say about how we should approach them and what we should do. I hope that that will continue long into the future.
There are only two or three points that I want briefly to make. On procedure, I should like to underline what some noble Lords have already said. The Government have repeatedly underlined how they value the Select Committees and the work that they do. If they do, they should at all times be striving in every possible way to put the committees in a position to do their job as effectively as possible. There has been too much tardiness in making available to the sub-committees the information that we need to do our job properly if we are to meet our responsibilities in reporting to and leading discussion in the House. I hope that the Ministers currently in place will look at this record and see how, across departments, they can put this right. The delays have sometimes been quite inexcusable and could too easily be interpreted as sabotage as key information, for example, has become available on the same day as a debate is taking place in this House. That is just not acceptable.
I turn now to the key issues. I was very glad to hear the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Dykes. I so often find myself in a very great amount of agreement with what he says. If we look at the issues of security, crime and drugs, and of liberty and freedom, we can see that they transcend all national barriers. Crime and terrorism are international in character. It is therefore obvious to me that one needs effective international collaboration to deal with them. It is not a matter of always neurotically asking, “Wait a minute—how does this affect the efficiency or effectiveness of our own institutions?”; it is a matter of asking how we, with our experience and expertise, can continue to strengthen international collaboration and effectiveness and play a full and unchallenged part as part of the international team which is trying to get things right and make them as strong as they possibly can be in their operation. In this realm, too often, the arrangements are only as strong as the weakest link. We should concentrate on the weakest link and ask how we can help it to perform better. If we are to play that part, it is not a matter of rhetoric and hectoring; it is a matter of being part of the team that is tackling the task. People should see us as a constructive, positive member of the team, trying to build things as best as they can be.
Dare I say that we in this House sometimes still delude ourselves into thinking that there is this international respect for Britain in Europe and elsewhere? I encounter quite different attitudes towards Britain—that we have become an irritant, that we do not commit ourselves fully and deeply enough to the international collaboration which is necessary. We make concessions in that direction. We grudgingly say, “Well, a bit of practical co-operation here might help”. A feeling of belonging and engaging is conspicuous by its absence. We have got to get that right. That is why I have nothing but contempt for the UK Independence Party, which seems to want to betray the British people by thinking that their security, safety and liberties can best be protected on a purely insular basis. This is palpable nonsense. We will secure the well-being of the British people by being international players and having strong international institutions in which we can play our part. That is my first point.
My next point is to express the hope that those who consider these reports will not just read their conclusions but read the evidence. The evidence is extraordinary. When we were considering these issues the overwhelming majority of witnesses told us without qualification that they simply did not understand the exercise in which we were involved. These experts, officials and people with key security responsibilities and the rest, deeply involved in looking to the well-being of the British people, have found these international arrangements increasingly helpful. They want them to be strengthened. They do not see how our negative attitudes and impressions will help in taking that cause forward.
The argument is there in detail, from witness after witness, and I hope that people will read it. The overwhelming majority of those who are engaged and have been delegated the responsibility of looking to our well-being are absolutely certain of the importance of the provisions. Of course there are things which are out of date. Of course there are things which are inadequate. However, I ask noble Lords whether we are going to get that right simply by withdrawing or by being strong members of a team who recognise as a team that these things are wrong and must be addressed and try collectively to get them right?
I am glad that these reports are before the House. I find it immensely rewarding to serve on the committee. I believe deeply that the Government have no greater responsibility than ensuring the well-being, protection and fulfilment of the human rights of their people. I am absolutely certain that we will not get that right until we are players second to none in building an international culture in this respect.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, I have always said that you cannot play the ball if you take your bat home. If you walk out of a negotiation, you should do it only if you have planned to do so, and if you have a strategy for getting back in. Early in my professional career, I knew a solicitor who mistakenly walked out of a meeting in his own room; there is no way back from that.
My default position is clear: stay in the game and stay in the room, and do not be overconfident—or, indeed, arrogant—about being invited back. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and others, put all that far more diplomatically than I just did.
I may be blissfully blinkered, but I recognise the dangers in being too simplistic about all this. I recognise the importance of careful scrutiny, as did my noble friend Lord Faulks. He recognises that the Executive can benefit from that. The points which have been made about the impact assessments are not rhetorical, but points of real substance. Until I listened to this debate, and in particular to what the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, had to say, the importance of an impact assessment of what you are not doing—of what you are opting out of as well as opting in to—had not occurred to me.
Therefore, although my first reaction to the very scathing joint report of the three Commons Select Committees was to wonder whether they were too close to a whinge to be useful, they were not wrong. Process, as well as substance, is important. So, too, is the procedure for the eventual vote, which it appears will be a vote in the singular. The Home Secretary has made it clear that we will be presented with a package. All noble Lords will be acutely aware of the tensions and constraints of being faced with a single decision; we face it every day with secondary legislation, which is unamendable.
It is trite but true that in such an internationally connected world, the bad guys are among those who are internationally connected; the noble Lord, Lord Judd, put that very clearly. Many Europhobes seem to distinguish between the states in the European Union and their roles within the EU, and as holiday destinations. I am sure that many who have very determined anti-EU views would be apoplectic if they were described as being soft on crime. However, if one thinks about the measures which we are being asked to consider, the resistance to many of those measures in the area of justice and home affairs is tantamount to that. I agree very much with my noble friend Lord Teverson that it would be very helpful, essential even, to disaggregate the term “national interest”. It is a matter of identifying the priorities and explaining what you mean by it. Some aspects of national interest are in conflict with one another, so one has to be clear about which ones take priority.
I do not pretend that opting in to everything is any sort of panacea. The Minister mentioned the Passenger Name Record data agreement and the Council decision on that. The annual report confirms:
“The UK has recognised first-hand the benefits of PNR through its own border systems”.
Just after reading that I read a piece by Simon Calder in the Independent about the recent problems with the IT systems at our borders, when,
“the passport readers and ‘e-gates’ stopped working. Manual processing led to ‘longer queues for some passengers’ according to the Immigration and Security Minister … that translated as ‘mayhem’”.
The Minister, he goes on to say, said:
“‘Security must remain our priority at all times’”.
Of course; but we have a very respected journalist saying:
“What the minister actually meant was: the illusion of security must be maintained at all costs”.
He went on to describe the problems around that, saying:
“The authorities want to keep bad people out. Yet the UK’s frontiers … are leaky. So officials plod dutifully through the procedure of manually entering the passport details of returning holidaymakers who they know pose no threat and are merely tired, grumpy and keen to get home”.
I mention that because it seemed to me to point to the experience of some of our systems as experienced by our citizens on a day-to-day basis, and their perception of how we go about some of these things.
I wanted to mention two other matters; so much else has been covered. The first is the probation order. Our EU Committee, in its inquiry on the 2014 opt-out decision, referred to this, reiterating the view that the,
“measure has potential to provide benefits for the management of offenders on a cross-border basis and that nothing is being gained by not implementing its provisions”.
The Government’s response was to support the principle but to be concerned about practical operability and the possibility of different practices among member states, with there being,
“no clear understanding as to how this measure will work in practice and thus very little evidence on which to judge its effectiveness”.
The Government’s response to the EU Committee was to say that these issues are,
“unlikely to be resolved during our negotiations with the Commission”.
I latched on to a comment by the Justice Secretary in a debate in the House of Commons, when he said:
“At the moment we believe the measure is flawed and we have therefore decided it cannot be in the list of things to opt back in to”.—[Official Report, Commons, 7/4/14; col. 92.]
I cling on to the phrase “at the moment”, in the hope that the moment will come, because it would be a great pity if those with suspended sentences, who are doing community service or are on probation, cannot fulfil their sentences back in the UK rather than where they have been sentenced. This would be so much in line with our own rehabilitation agenda. In recent weeks we have often discussed such matters as prisoners in this country being released into the areas where they will be at home with their families, and the importance of settling back with family and a job, without delay. I hope that the Government can keep working at this to overcome the difficulties that have been identified.
We have also not opted into the directive on children suspected or accused in criminal proceedings. I mention that as well because the points that I am going to list will resonate with Members of your Lordships’ House. We spend a lot of time, rightly, on considering children within the justice system. The directive covers matters such as a mandatory right to access to a lawyer and not being able to waive the right, as well as a right by children to an individual assessment to identify the child’s specific needs for protection, education, training and reintegration into society. Then there is the questioning of children being recorded. The directive says that,
“all measures alternative to deprivation of liberty should be taken by the competent authorities whenever this is in the best interests of the child”.
It says:
“In proceedings involving children, the urgency principle should be applied to provide a rapid response and protect the best interests of the child”.
I understand that there may be questions over how these things are applied, but the principles are ones that we would all agree with.
I have said that I am concerned about the style of negotiation and how we will be left with a series of bilaterals, which of course always depend on the other party agreeing to play. The short point is we cannot assume that those negotiations will succeed in our terms. This is all work in progress. I do not suppose that my noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach will respond to the encomium of the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, with anything other than due thanks.
Like the noble Lords, Lord Teverson and Lord Boswell, I think that comprehensibility and transparency are important because you are not really transparent unless most people understand what you are doing and saying. All this is central to this area of work. It is important that, in dealing with these issues, Parliament and the Government are not just accountable but manage to deal with them in a way which is reasonably accessible and understandable—to Parliament, as a start, as the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, said. I do not want to continue to share the analysis and the gloom of the noble Lords, Lord Bowness and Lord Judd.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, I concur with the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, in welcoming this “double header” debate. It would have been nonsensical to have a debate on the fourth annual report and not look at it in the wider context of the government proposals we have already debated on the opt-out/opt-in in relation to crime and justice issues. However, I share with other noble Lords a sense of déjà vu in relation to the debate.
The noble Baroness, Lady Corston, was more generous in her comments and rightly referred to the comprehensive discussions that we have had. We were right to have those. We have had several debates, Statements and Questions on opting into EU justice and home affairs measures and on the Government’s proposals to opt out of all the EU measures on tackling crime, but then, as we have heard, seeking to opt back into some of them—around 35.
The noble Lords, Lord Judd and Lord Kennedy, said extremely appropriately that these issues strike at the very heart of what we value about our society because, as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said, the Government’s first duty is to the safety and security of its citizens. The noble Lord, Lord Faulks, said that this is a complex issue. It is quite technical but it is also in this sense a very simple and straightforward issue: will the Government’s proposed opt-out make our citizens safer and more secure? Will it ensure that we can better and more effectively tackle crime? The comments of the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, about the law enforcement agencies’ concerns in this area contrast sharply with the rhetoric we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Pearson.
We have to recognise that modern crime respects no borders, whether it be drug trafficking, people trafficking, money-laundering, kidnap, abduction, cybercrime, paedophilia and, of course, terrorism and threats to national security. These crimes are all the more dangerous and more complex because they transcend borders and the fight against them has also to cross borders. The Government have to be honest and admit that, despite the political rhetoric, they also accept that principle. The fourth annual report on the application of Protocols 19 and 21 regarding opt-outs and opt-ins reinforces how integrated and connected the fight against crime is, and has to be.
At the same time as the Government are boasting about how many measures they are opting out of, this report highlights those that the Government have opted into. The noble Lord, Lord Faulks, said that of 21 proposals eight were rejected and the opt-in was not taken up, but 13 were accepted and opted into. Why is that? It is because in these cases the Government look into, and make an assessment of, the content of the proposal, as the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, confirmed. They consider the advantages and disadvantages and the benefits to the UK. Those are the right questions that should be asked in every single case. In three cases those issues were debated in your Lordships’ House in very useful debates. The Government put their case and we had the benefit of reports from our own EU committee. I well recall that in the case of the EPPO debate, the Government received broad support for their position. However, this fourth annual report has to be taken in the context of the wider debate on the Government’s proposals for opting out of all EU justice and home affairs measures—around 130—and then trying to opt back into 35, although that figure may change.
It has been disappointing that the public debate about these 130 measures has been of a different tone and character to the debate that we have had on the fourth report. To many of us, it seems that the public debate on these issues seeks to obscure rather than present the facts. Too often—we heard a taste of it today—the debate on anything European becomes one of those in which those with very strong views try to persuade everyone else that they should share those views. It has been interesting for those of us who have been speaking to people during the run-up to the European elections that many people readily admit to being totally confused by the political rhetoric that they hear on TV and on their doorsteps—the conflicting figures and facts that they are given. My impression is that what people really want are hard facts, accurate information and the space to be allowed to make up their own minds on the issues. In contrast, the debates in your Lordships’ House have been rooted in those facts and information, and could have been of enormous benefit to the Government in their examination of the issues. The reports of our EU Committee on the implications of the opt-out and opt back in again have been forensic, detailed and extremely valuable to our debates here and for wider consideration.
The noble Lord, Lord Pearson, made an unsurprising speech. I welcome him to today’s debate because he failed to take part in any of our other debates on these issues. I recommend those reports to him.
My noble friend Lady Corston illustrated the commitment of our EU Committee and the sub-committees to the effectiveness of their scrutiny role. I was concerned at the point she raised about the lack of co-operation from the Government, and I hope that the Minister can respond to and address those relevant concerns.
I hope that our debates have had an impact on the Government. The initial government statements and comments about the opt-out were not about the value of individual measures. They said that this was going to be a historic transfer of powers. The UK was going to be liberated from the shackles of EU regulation and bureaucracy. That is not quite right, is it? When a serious look is taken at the individual measures and at what really matters—the interests of UK citizens—the response becomes very different.
We have had so many debates that I am slightly losing track of how many we have had, but I have been asking similar questions and have failed to get clear, concise answers from the Dispatch Box from various Ministers. Today I shall try again. Today is slightly different because I can ask as well as answer the questions. The relevant question that has echoed throughout our debate relates to the impact assessment of the measures that the Government seek permanently to opt out of. I have asked these questions again and again. How many of the measures that the Government want to permanently opt out of are relevant to the UK and currently being used? Eventually we received some clarity. We now know that the Government want permanently to opt out of measures to tackle racism and homophobia; but we have domestic legislation that deals with that issue. We are not going to seek to opt back into a directory on international crime; but, again, it has not been published for the past two years. Much of this is a sleight of hand.
Looking at the various documents that we have had for some time, my understanding is that the measures that the Government are seeking permanently to opt out of are basically harmless and irrelevant. Some are out of date and no longer relevant. Some we have never used and do not have to use. Others are agreements to co-operate, and the Government intend that to continue. Some relate to minimum standards that we have already met or exceeded. There is a temporary system for dealing with counterfeit documents that has already been replaced. A bundle of measures applying to Portugal, Spain and Croatia do not even apply to the UK. We have not yet been told if any of the measures that the Government are seeking permanently to opt out of are harmful to the UK. That is why I endorse the calls made today for a proper impact assessment of not just those measures that the Government seek to opt back into but those that they seek permanently to opt out of. It seems to me that the Government are prepared to risk those measures that they even consider essential by being strong and bold in jettisoning the totally irrelevant.
The Minister may correct me but my understanding is that the Government are seeking to opt back in to 35 measures, and that number is likely to increase when the European Commission adds any necessary partner measures. Where measures are important—where they make a difference to people’s lives—we are going to seek to opt back in. I may be wrong and we are opting out of something hugely significant. If so, what is it? However, we are opting out of all measures without any guarantee of being able to opt back in, even to those that the Government admit they need. It is a gamble but I am prepared to accept that, following negotiations, there will be a process of some kind for opting back in.
The point made by my noble friend Lord Kennedy is very important. We are not clear about whether there will be any gap in application or implementation between opting out and opting back in. This is not a historical moment for the anti-EU members of the Government but it is an illustration of the weakness of a Government who feel that they have to pander to anti-EU rhetoric.
I want to be clear on two points. One is the principle of the opt-out. We negotiated it but we were also clear that we would not exercise the opt-out without guarantees regarding an opt-in, particularly regarding the European arrest warrant. I am fully aware of the concerns and issues regarding the arrest warrant and I welcome any improvements and positive changes to it. However, let us really understand why it is so very important that we retain that mechanism for police co-operation and intelligence-sharing across borders, and that we do whatever we can to ensure that those who are guilty of some of the most appalling and truly shocking crimes, such as abduction, rape, people trafficking and drug trafficking, can be caught and brought to justice.
There are numerous examples of the value of the European arrest warrant and I shared some of them with your Lordships in previous debates. It would have benefited greatly from the UK Government implementing the European supervision order to prevent British citizens being held in poor conditions in some foreign prisons while awaiting trial. No doubt other improvements could be made. However, I disagree most profoundly with the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, about the benefits of the arrest warrant. He said that he speaks for real people when he opposes the EAW. Perhaps I may quote from a real person. Beatrice Jones was the mother of Moira Jones, who was assaulted, abducted, savagely raped and murdered by an EU national. Beatrice Jones said:
“He fled the country but because of the dedication and determination of Strathclyde police along with the cooperation of Slovakian police, he was arrested and extradited back to this country ... EU police cooperation is essential for the safety of all”.
That comes from a family who directly benefited from the arrest warrant, and justice was brought because of the EAW.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
My Lords, the noble Baroness tells us a heart-rending story but why could this criminal not have been returned to this country under normal extradition arrangements? Why do we need to give up our sovereignty in order to expedite this sort of thing? Why do we have to tolerate an Andrew Symeou case or any case involving a British citizen in order to achieve the result that the noble Baroness has just referred to?
Baroness Smith of Basildon
My Lords, changes could well be made, and I have already indicated one: this Government should have accepted the European supervision order. However, we are not ceding any sovereignty whatever by being able to go to another country to return criminals to the UK to face justice or by extraditing criminals to other countries to face justice there. That is not giving up sovereignty; it is bringing justice to those who deserve it. I am not prepared to say to a mother whose daughter has been murdered or raped that we will not continue with the European arrest warrant, which ensures that we are able to extradite criminals quickly. The noble Lord may be slightly older than me but I remember the days of the Costa del Crime, when this country struggled to extradite back to the UK criminals who had committed crimes and fled the country.
Real people want that protection and I welcome the fact that the Government have now made a U-turn and accepted that we need the European arrest warrant. However, we need assurances that they are not going to put public safety at risk through there being a gap between the opt-out and opting back in. The European arrest warrant is a legal framework and transition measures will have to be legally robust to ensure the satisfaction of the courts in dealing with extradition. Those arrangements have now expired so we need to ensure that there is no gap.
In conclusion, I am concerned about the whole process. Our EU Committee remains unconvinced by the Government’s arguments on the opt-out. Perhaps the most damning and worrying comments I have read in the whole of these debates are in paragraph 19 of the committee’s follow-up report, when it refers to the,
“lack of analytical rigour and clarity regarding evidence drawn upon”,
by the Government. That should give us all cause for concern.
Three Select Committees in the other place— the European scrutiny, home affairs and justice committees—have raised their concerns about the process in an unprecedented joint report. That echoes some of the questions that have been raised today. The Government need to respond to three key questions. Do they really need the re-opting list ready by June or next December? Is it on schedule to be ready? What arrangements have been made if agreement is not reached by that deadline? What are the transitional arrangements? It would be a tragedy for this country and for justice if the real things that matter to people in this country, such as the ability to tackle crime across borders, were sacrificed because of political rhetoric and campaigning against Europe.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
It would be highly dangerous and I hope that the Government can say today that they are not prepared to put British citizens in that danger.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Taylor of Holbeach) (Con)
My Lords, I am delighted to reply to this debate. I enjoy always talking about this issue as we hear good speeches from all sides of the House and there is plenty to debate, of course.
Before addressing the particular points made in the debate, I join my noble friend Lord Faulks in expressing my gratitude for the work done by this House and by those responsible in the European committees in scrutinising this area of our activity. These are important matters that we are debating today. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to what has been an engaging and constructive discussion.
The Government are fully committed to engaging with Parliament on European Union issues and I greatly appreciate the opportunity to do so. The debate has focused on two separate but equally important matters: the fourth annual opt-in report on post-Lisbon police and criminal justice measures and the UK’s 2014 opt-out of all pre-Lisbon police and criminal justice measures. Both matters raise important questions about the protection of human rights and the ability of our law enforcement agencies to work with their EU counterparts to keep British citizens safe.
If I may, I will address, first, the matter of the UK’s opt-in to post-Lisbon police and criminal justice measures. I hope that it will help my noble friend Lord Bowness in his confusion if I say that we in Parliament have endorsed the coalition’s approach to this issue. As my noble friend Lord Faulks set out earlier, the Government have been clear that they will take opt-in decisions on a case-by-case basis. We consider factors such as the impact of the measures on our security, civil liberties, the integrity of our criminal justice and common law systems and on the control of immigration. At the heart of it all is a commitment to focus on the national interest. My noble friends Lord Teverson and Lord Dykes asked me whether I could define it. It is like one of those things that you meet upon the road. The best essay I can present is that I hope I will recognise it when I see it. As such, we will opt in only when we believe it is in the UK’s interest to do so.
The noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, has a different view. I believe that his absolute approach is not in the national interest. But the fact that he is wrong—or I believe him to be wrong—does not mean that we do not enjoy his contributions to our debates. The question that he raised on the referendum issue actually occurred in a previous debate and I gave a clear answer then:
“The European Union Act sets clear criteria for when a referendum would be necessary. These are set out in Section 6 of the Act. This decision is not one of the areas where a referendum is required. Changes to the Treaty on European Union, the TEU, or the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, the TFEU, or a decision made under Article 48(6) of the TEU potentially attract a referendum under the European Union Act 2011. The 2014 decision is not a treaty change, nor a decision under Article 48(6) of the TEU. Instead, it is something that flows from the existing treaty and, as such, it is not subject to a referendum. I hope that that categorical assurance reassures the House”.—[Official Report, 23/7/13; col. 1281.]
It clearly does not reassure the noble Lord.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
The noble Lord is wriggling. The noble Lord is practising almost dishonest sophistry.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
Almost. We have been promised a referendum again and again in the examples that I gave—first of all by his leader, Mr Cameron, before he became Prime Minister, in the Queen’s Speech in July 2010 and then in the Referendum Act 2011. Everyone understands that to mean that if there is a transfer of sovereignty to the European Union, we would get a referendum. It is not good enough to go into the intricacies. None of those statements said, “This requires treaty change”, or anything of that kind. It is quite simple. Everyone understands that if we give powers back to Brussels, we get a referendum.
While the Minister is at it, will he answer one of my other questions? If there were to be a referendum on these opt-ins, particularly on the European arrest warrant, which way does he think people would vote?
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
I always have difficulty in trying to persuade the noble Lord on this issue because he clearly has a very different opinion. I would just say that the opt-out position was exactly that. We were already involved. The treaty decisions had been taken in that respect. I am perfectly accurate in the answer that I gave him. If the noble Lord wants a referendum he should vote for the Conservative Party at the next election because we have offered a referendum in the case of a successful outcome for the Conservative Party at that time.
The noble Lord also asked about the European public prosecutor and used that as a sign of the future direction of the EU. I must say to the noble Lord that the UK negotiated an opt-in to ensure that where a proposal is not in the UK’s national interest, we do not take part. The ability of Parliaments to issue reasoned opinions on subsidiarity issues related to Commission proposals is a further check on the Commission’s bringing forward proposals outside the intent of those treaties. I hope that the noble Lord will consider what I have said and see exactly how the Government are approaching this issue.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, for providing us with a draft of what he was going to say because that enabled us to focus on those particular interests. I will attempt to respond to them. He asked, first, whether the Government will opt in to the Europol regulation post adoption. The Government did not opt in to the Europol regulation initially due to concerns about the obligation to provide data, even where it may conflict with national security. I think I have made that clear before. As the regulation makes subject to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice member states’ reasons for not undertaking an investigation requested by Europol, this creates a risk that the Court could dictate national law enforcement priorities. The Government have committed to opting in post adoption if these concerns are mitigated. That is our intention, and I explained it when we debated this issue previously.
Secondly, the noble Lord asked whether it is the Government’s intention to opt in to the proceeds of crime directive post adoption. We did not opt in to this measure as we had concerns that the directive would interfere with the workings of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, thus reducing our ability at home to tackle serious and organised crime. As noble Lords will know, under the Proceeds of Crime Act it is possible to seize assets illegally obtained where no conviction has been secured. That is not possible under the directive, and we feel that that is a deficiency in its case. This Government would want the UK and other international partners to utilise the most effective legal powers to disrupt individuals who seek to hide the proceeds of crime across borders both in the EU and beyond. We will be considering whether to opt in to the measure now that it has been adopted, including considering the opinion of the EU Committee in this regard.
In relation to readmission agreements, participation in these agreements is considered on a case-by-case basis according to the priority attached to the country concerned in the area of immigration returns and the existing bilateral relationship with that country. Should the UK choose not to participate in an agreement and circumstances change, the UK can seek to participate in it post adoption. With respect to Turkey, the UK opted in to the conclusion of the readmission agreement between the EU and Turkey in June 2012. I understand that Turkey is currently passing the agreement through its Parliament and we expect the Turkish authorities formally to adopt it this year.
The noble Lord also raised concerns in relation to the Kosovo association agreement and the European police college proposal. The unfortunate instance of missing the opt-in deadline occurred in the case of the Kosovo framework agreement on Union programmes, not the stabilisation and association agreement with Kosovo. The regrettable combination of circumstances that lead to this oversight has been addressed, but lessons have been learnt for subsequent framework agreements of a similar nature and the opt-in has and will be asserted in those cases.
In relation to the CEPOL proposal, the Government informed the presidency of our opt-in decision on the deadline itself, which was 13 March. Paragraph 10 of the Code of Practice on Scrutiny of opt-in and Schengen opt-out Decisions commits the Government to notifying the parliamentary scrutiny committees of an opt-in decision as soon as we have informed the presidency, but not to doing so earlier. Although I believe that we have therefore complied with our notification commitments, I wish to emphasise that we would usually seek to provide the committees with an indication of our opt-in position and regret that the internal processes did not allow that to happen on this occasion. I should like also to reiterate at this stage the Government’s commitment to ensuring that the EU Committee in this place has the appropriate time to provide an opinion on the UK’s opt-in decisions. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, is right. I recognise that the Government do not always meet this commitment and I think noble Lords will know that it is my intention for us to achieve a better performance in this area. As my noble friend Lord Boswell observed, it is not always easy to spot justice and home affairs content, particularly when the general focus of a measure is not JHA-related. However, we are raising awareness across government at official level. There have been senior-level discussions, new guidance is being circulated and we will be rolling out more bespoke training in the next few months. We hope that this will improve areas where this circumstance has arisen in the past.
I now return to the matter of the UK’s opt-out of pre-Lisbon police and criminal justice measures. First, I join my noble friend Lord Faulks in thanking the noble Lords, Lord Boswell and Lord Hannay, and the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, for their chairmanship of the EU Select Committee and the two sub-committees they represent here today. The committee’s two reports represent an extremely thorough analysis of complex issues and the Government are greatly appreciative of its efforts. I thank all committee members for their work in that respect.
Scrutiny can be an iterative and long-running process. The Government have already taken a number of steps to ensure that Parliament’s views on this matter are heard and understood. However, before I turn to the points on the 2014 measures raised during the debate, I would like to reiterate the Government’s commitment to continuing parliamentary scrutiny of this matter. As my noble friend Lady Hamwee said, we will hold another vote later in the year on the final package of measures that we will apply to rejoin. We will publish impact assessments on each of these measures in good time for that vote. For noble Lords who have expressed concerns about the quality of the impact assessments and Explanatory Memoranda, they are objective judgments and are drawn up in line with government guidelines on those matters. I am very happy to commit myself to replying to that debate when it happens later in the year.
I will respond to some of the points that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, made in his excellent speech. He set out a number of important points that have helped guide this debate and I am happy to respond to each one. The noble Lord asked about timings on this matter. We are aiming to reach an in-principle deal with the Commission and other member states as soon as possible. Other states support this aim; they are with us on this strategy and are keen to resolve the issue in a timely and orderly fashion.
The noble Lord, Lord Boswell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, both asked about my assessment of progress. My noble friend Lord Faulks and I will update the House and its committees when we can. I am by nature an optimist—as I think most noble Lords will know—and the House might therefore expect me to say that we are satisfied with the general progress of the negotiations. I am happy to reiterate the Government’s commitment to hold a second vote before seeking to rejoin measures. We certainly hope to hold the vote ahead of the House rising for the Summer Recess, but we are not in a position to confirm that. However, I can confirm that we will hold the vote well ahead of 1 December.
The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, asked about the timescales for providing impact assessments on the measures that we are seeking to rejoin and those that we are not. I think we know that there is a difference of view in this area because the Government remain committed to providing an impact assessment on the final package of measures that we are seeking to rejoin, and this will be provided in good time ahead of the second vote.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, for his patience in waiting for this matter to be answered, but the Government do not intend to provide impact assessments on the measures they are not seeking to rejoin. This is because the starting point for any analysis is that the opt-out has been exercised, and not seeking to rejoin a measure will not have a direct impact on the UK. I expect that the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, will actually agree with me on that point. Noble Lords will be aware that the original decision was accompanied by a White Paper covering all the issues that were raised by the opt-out.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
The legislative history of this matter is very tangled. Perhaps the noble Lord will reflect on the following. When his colleague, James Brokenshire, gave evidence, I think at the end of 2012, he committed to producing an impact assessment. That commitment was not limited to the measures that the Government were going to rejoin, for a very simple reason: Parliament had not at that stage endorsed the decision to opt out at all. The commitment that was given in 2012 by James Brokenshire was to provide an impact assessment for all 133 pre-Lisbon measures. That commitment has not been fulfilled.
That is water under the bridge. The decision has been taken to trigger the block opt-out, but I think that legislative history demonstrates why the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, and I, and many others, are saying that there must be a set of impact assessments on both the measures we are going to rejoin and those we are not going to rejoin. That was the commitment given by the Minister. If one stops to think about it, I am afraid the argument that the noble Lord has just advanced—that somehow or other something we are not going to rejoin cannot have an impact here—is pretty bizarre. Of course it has an impact: it has an impact on us that we are not rejoining.
That impact could be neutral, positive or negative, but it is an impact. I am sure that hard-working Home Office and Ministry of Justice officials are reluctant to add some 85 measures on which they have to produce impact assessments, but that is not a good enough reason. I hope that the noble Lord will perhaps not give a final reaction to that now but will reflect further on the desirability, if the proceedings are to be brought to a successful conclusion—as I personally and many others hope they will be—that before we do that we have impact assessments that cover the whole waterfront.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
The noble Lord has made a strong point, as he always does, but I have given the answer of where we are on that issue and I do not intend to go into it in any more detail now.
The noble Lord asked about contingency arrangements. That issue is important because our aim is to conduct the negotiations as soon as possible to ensure that there is political and legal certainty for all involved. It is not the intention to have an operational gap between the date on which the opt-out will take effect and the point at which the UK rejoins measures. We place great importance on this issue and believe that it is in everybody’s interest to eliminate any risk of an operational gap. It is clear from the negotiations that member states and the Commission are also keen to avoid such a gap—and I say to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, that this includes the operation of the European arrest warrant. It is in everybody’s interests to make this work, and I think that the whole House would agree with that.
The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, asked about prisoner transfers. We are seeing more returns under this measure; the numbers remain relatively low, however. On returns of foreign national offenders from outside the EU, the UK has reached voluntary prisoner transfer agreements with more than 100 countries outside Europe.
The noble Baroness, Lady Corston, asked about the delay in responding to her letter asking about the right of access to a lawyer directive, which is the MoJ’s responsibility. We are still considering whether to opt in post adoption and have nothing more substantive to say on that at the moment. The noble Baroness asked about Eurojust opt-in negotiations. She will know that negotiations on this proposal are ongoing. The major issues for member states are those that I have just noted.
She asked also about the marginalisation of the UK in Europe due to opt-in/opt-out. That is not our experience. Member states welcome the UK’s involvement in the JHA measures, especially in areas where we are seen to have specific expertise—as we often have in JHA matters. The UK continues to exert influence over negotiations and maintains a seat at the negotiating table even when we are not opting in.
In concluding today’s debate, I thank all those who have spoken; it has been very worth while. I echo the words of my noble friend Lord Judd in paying a compliment to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
The point is made. Unfortunately, I do consider the noble Lord to be a friend, but I apologise for the slip of the tongue. I was going to talk about another person whom I consider a friend, and somebody whom this House greatly respects: the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. His contribution today was typical of his holding Governments to account. That is what we are here for, and it is right that he does that. I am sorry that this will be his last intervention in the particular role that he has in EU Sub-Committee F, but I am sure that it will not be his last involvement in debate. We look forward to these debates in future and I thank all noble Lords for their involvement today.
European Union: Justice and Home Affairs
(10 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Faulks
That this House takes note of the report to Parliament on the application of Protocols 19 and 21 to the Treaty on the European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union in relation to European Union justice and home affairs matters. (Cm 8772).
Draft National Policy Statement for National Networks
(10 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Berkeley
To resolve that this House considers that the Proposed National Policy Statement for National Networks is not fit for purpose because it makes use of the Department for Transport’s forecasts for road traffic growth to establish the need for nationally significant road projects, whereas those forecasts are likely to prove unreliable as travel behaviour changes over the next twenty years in the light of environmental and technological advancements; and because it fails to recognise the need for an integrated approach to planning national and local transport networks, and in particular the role that new railway developments can play in supporting economic growth.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, this is a slightly odd way of starting a debate, when the national policy statement is after all a government document and when the Minister has not had a chance to explain to the House what it is about—after which I could have said what I like and do not like about it. However, I have had many discussions with the clerks on this issue and am told that is this is a slightly new procedure coming out of the Planning Act 2008 and the Localism Act 2011, which requires both Houses to consider the national policy statement, so there we are.
I shall not go into great detail on what it contains as I am sure that the Minister will do that, to the extent that she wants to and thinks that the House needs her to. I am also not going to divide the House, which apparently I could, as I do not see any point. My understanding is that the Secretary of State has to lay the NPSs to both departments and they get debated in both Houses. The Secretary of State then considers representations. As noble Lords probably know, the House of Commons Transport Committee reported yesterday on this, so presumably it will be debating it some time in the future. Then the Secretary of State will look at all the comments and lay a revised version before both Houses, although I think only the House of Commons is required to approve it. If the Minister thinks I have that wrong, I hope that she will correct me.
I am very pleased to be able to discuss this NPS today. I generally support and very much welcome it, as it has been a long time coming. I do not want to delay it but I have a few concerns. My first is to do with rail freight, so I declare an interest as chairman of the Rail Freight Group. The NPS is particularly important when one is seeking planning consent for rail developments—these rail freight interchanges. Interchanges for freight are rather like stations for passengers; if there are no stations, you will not get any passengers on the trains, so you need these interchanges. Some of them are big and are used, effectively, by all the big retailers. They cost a lot of money and getting planning permission to go ahead is sometimes contentious. However, they are essential to growth. If one looks at the Network Rail freight market study there has been growth of 75% in this traffic between 2004 and 2011, and there is a further likelihood of doubling the traffic in 20 years, so these things are needed.
The key, of course, is that this draft NPS should set out a clear case on a national basis. It would be helpful if there could be a bit more granularity in it, so that the inspectors can satisfy themselves of the need for a particular case. I should like to see a few comparatively small changes in the final draft. They include: reinstating part of the text from section 4.2 of the current interchange policy guidance, which provides greater qualitative descriptions of the different levels of needs across the regions; clarifying that there needs to be a network of such facilities across the UK and an expectation of having more than one in one location; and linking the NPS more closely to Network Rail’s freight market study and any successor document.
That leads me on to the biggest issue, which is to do with forecasting. I shall come to the linking of forecasting between road and rail traffic. However, the department’s road forecasts have been much criticised over the years as a basis for predicting and providing. They are seen as inaccurate, often through overestimating road traffic growth over the past 20 years. I think that the national road traffic forecasts from 1989 for last year showed that there would be a 37% growth in traffic, when actually it has been 13%. There are many other things that I find wrong with this part of the document. It is a question of what the key drivers of potential traffic growth are. It has been said that population growth has not been uniformly distributed in recent years and that this has contributed to the observed drop in traffic versus forecasts, because apparently more growth occurs in urban areas with lower levels of car use. However, this has been going on for 20 years.
Is economic growth assumed to be closely linked to traffic? I do not believe it is. There is a clear decoupling in a lot of evidence, even from before the recession. Then there is the fall in the cost of driving, which is used as an argument for the growth in traffic. However, there are some highly uncertain assumptions to do with low-emission vehicles and the price of oil. These are very vulnerable to change and have contributed to the great difference in growth that I have just cited.
The other issue is the need to consider other modes compared with road—rail, cycling and walking—and to get some relationship between these and the policies of this Government or the next, such as encouraging cycling. Do the forecasts take into account health issues such as air pollution? I think that the European Commission has again started infraction proceedings against the British Government in respect of the air pollution in London and, as we all know, there is a big issue about the need to reduce emissions, particularly from diesel motors. There is the issue of the modal shift of passenger and freight from road to rail or cycling.
Are the values of time correct? I have been looking at the pedestrian crossing issue. When pedestrians press the button to get a green light to cross the road, there is usually a 10-second or 20-second delay. Why should they have to wait when the cars do not? That is a small detail but it all adds up to a disproportionate priority given to cars. There is a similar issue regarding cycling.
Noble Lords may know that a company called DHL, one of the biggest logistics companies here and worldwide, is now looking urgently at the issue of city-centre deliveries. It reckons that its white vans will not be able to cope with everyone ordering things on the internet and having them delivered to their offices because they go home so late, or whatever. DHL has come up with many solutions, including a bicycle that has a motorised trailer; the trailer pushes the bike along and stops it when it wants to put the brake on. These are creative ideas and I am not sure that they are all taken into account.
Have the corridors been looked at? We have the classic case of the west coast main line corridor with the M1, the M6 and HS2, but were the railway and road forecasts considered as one? I do not think they were.
I also hope that the other policy consideration concerns short journeys. Do we really need to drive children half a mile to school, or go shopping over the same distance, if we can walk or even cycle? It has to be safe and convenient, but we are miles behind many other European cities in this area. Again, I am not sure that that is taken into account in the forecasts.
The Transport Committee supported much of what I have said in its report yesterday. I shall not repeat it all now but it is worth reading because the committee took a lot of evidence from, I think, about 400 people. Both the committee and the CPRE felt very strongly about the need to consider the impact of low carbon, which I just mentioned, on the demand for growth in road traffic, rather than building ourselves out of a recession. It states:
“The Government is seeking to accommodate increasing demand for roads by building more infrastructure rather than seeking to manage demand”.
It is interesting how many people are now talking about the need to manage demand. Whether that is taken into account in the forecast, I do not have a clue, but it should be because if we do not do so then we will be in big trouble. The committee also repeats its recommendations in the Better Roads report, which also came out yesterday, that the department should seek to integrate planning for passenger and freight transport by route or region, rather than doing each one individually.
Finally, the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport’s interesting new document, Vision 2035, also refers to the need for demand management. It states:
“The logistics and transport sectors should take the lead in promoting a reduction in both freight and passenger traffic by supporting alternatives to travel, reduced commuting distances and shorter, more localised supply chains”.
That goes a long way beyond the forecasting, but it is part of the forecast and it should be reflected in the NPSs.
I very much welcome this NPS. It has been a long time coming, as I have said, but it will be very helpful. There are many challenges and concerns, which I hope the Government will address. We talked about forecasting, modelling, cross-modal issues and a degree of localism linking national policies and local policies. There needs to be more consideration of climate change, but I hope the Government will eventually get away from “predict and provide” in the forecasts.
Ministers may say that the forecasts are only advisory. That is true, but some Ministers—I do not include the present Minister or any of her colleagues in this criticism—often use them to support ministerial wishes and to object to other proposals. They are used as a useful basis for advising Ministers, and I hope that they can be improved to achieve that in a more equitable way. I beg to move.
Lord Bradshaw (LD)
My Lords, while we are debating the improvements to the national networks, I first ask whether we are really certain that we are maintaining properly the roads we already have. By maintaining, I mean structural maintenance on the secondary network and something rather better than the routine filing and refilling of potholes, which is now the case. This may appear a trivial problem, but in fact a lot of money is now being spent in this way, and I doubt whether much of it is being used wisely. Will the Minister give us an assurance that this problem is recognised and explain what is being done to stop the decline in the structural condition of our secondary roads and the declining safety standards on other roads because many of these potholes are uncomfortable for car owners but lethal to motorcyclists and cyclists?
The next issue I wish to address is the appraisal methodology for investment in the new and upgraded national networks. I believe that far too much weight is given to small savings of time, which the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, mentioned. Small savings of time are unpredictable. They are therefore of less value and achieve great importance in the appraisals only by adding vast numbers of small savings of time together. You end up with a big number, but it does not mean that the people who are experiencing it are actually benefiting.
The pressing problems which face the country are those posed by climate change, air quality and sustainability. I would like to be assured that these important features are given proper weight because they are serious. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, mentioned air quality in London, but there are a lot more British cities which are suffering from harmful levels of pollution.
The noble Lord, Lord Berkley, has already said that there is considerable doubt about the quality of the Government’s forecasts of road traffic growth. I submit that there should be much more emphasis on the regeneration effects of improving infrastructure, access to jobs, the creation of jobs, access between housing and employment—always considering safety and the environment. We need a more holistic approach to appraisal and the HS2 taskforce and those involved in Crossrail have already drawn the department’s attention to the fact that there are many benefits which are not being captured by the appraisal systems which are currently in force.
A whole industry has developed in applying cost-benefit techniques using these small values of time. These, of course, are underpinned in the Treasury Green Book, and a suite of programmes known collectively as WebTAG by the Department for Transport. Can the Minister tell the House whether the present appraisal methodology is being reviewed? Is this review quite independent of those people intimately involved in the current system? While it is claimed that the present system is “internationally recognised”—whatever that means—there are plenty of examples where strategic national interests seem to be more important in other countries.
The use of stated preference techniques to put a money value on the time savings is, at best, controversial as, of course, no money changes hands. The stated preference techniques derive from employing consultants to go around asking people in the street how they would rate saving two minutes or 30 seconds on their journey. People give actually rather exaggerated answers to these sorts of questions because there is no transition taking place. It is all very well to ask people, “Would you like these goodies?”, but when you come down to hard cash, they might be a little bit more interested.
Speaking as an economist rather than as a politician, there is only one way to evaluate the time savings experienced by actual road users and that is through a system of road pricing. This need not involve added expense for the average road user as the charges could be set on a cost-neutral basis. However, it would be a useful tool for dealing with peak and off-peak travel. It need not affect rural or remote areas, but would almost certainly reduce traffic volumes at very busy times on roads such as the M25. It simply will not do for those who are against road pricing to say that the technology is not available. It is available and it is used in many other countries. I know that such of the industry as is in this country feels that it is being denied the opportunity of demonstrating how effective the system would be.
It also seems odd that variable ticket pricing is used by the railways, buses and airlines, charging different prices so that they spread the load; paragraph 2.32 of the consultation document refers to this. In fact, my secretary upstairs rejoiced yesterday that she had been able to get a Megabus ticket all the way from Hull to London for £1. It is not thanks to Brian Souter’s generosity that she got that ticket, but because in most of the transport industry there is tremendous interest in market pricing. The only honest way to deal with this is to start a system of road pricing here.
There are two ways of dealing with increased traffic volumes. We can either build more infrastructure or use intelligent ways of managing demand. I very much take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. Very short journeys such as driving the children to school or going to the shops are the ones that cause congestion in cities and towns. If people choose to drive in the peak hour, they should pay more money than people who stagger their journeys. I do not understand the Government’s political cowardice and why this scheme is not put forward.
Nobody can deny that some road schemes urgently require attention. I am not saying that no road scheme can be good; some roads need to be dealt with very urgently. I will give as an example the A1, which runs through Northumberland. That has been the object of constant pressure from my honourable friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed for the whole of his parliamentary career. I checked this morning, and nothing has happened. Sometimes I wonder whether it is because that road is in the north of England and well away from London that it gets no proper consideration. Again, the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, drew attention to the grave dangers of slipping back into the discredited predict-and-provide policies, while nothing is done about managing and spreading demand. The crucial issue of air quality is devalued in this document as it stands, because apparently it fails to be taken into account in the planning application system that is outlined there.
To brush the issue of air quality or any environmental issue aside so that we can get on and build more roads is the negation of proper policy formation. There are also many areas where the air quality is appalling. I will take Bath as an example. The geography of that city is not conducive to having winds blowing around the place. The air quality around Bath does huge damage to people’s health and to the buildings of that world heritage city. Any scheme to improve road circulation by linking up the A46 and the A36 on some sort of eastern bypass for Bath will deliver huge benefits to the people who live in that city as regards congestion and pollution. Those things should be properly taken into account in the way appraisals are done.
Of course, when investment in roads is considered, the various transport alternatives to road-building, such as increased use of trains and buses, should be carefully evaluated. That point is brought out strongly in the 6,000 or so responses that were sent by bodies to the consultation. Can the Minister assure the House that those 6,000 representations will be considered and not brushed away as if they are trivia that can be forgotten?
The east-west links on the railway should be given attention, in such cases as the projection of the Javelin service from Kent past St Pancras to Milton Keynes and beyond; the electrification of the Gospel Oak to Barking railway line; the reinstatement of the railway from Oxford to Bedford and Cambridge; and the completion of the electrified link between Harwich and Felixstowe to the east and west coast main lines. I still hope that the Minister will have something to say fairly soon on the evidence that I have submitted to her on the Lincoln to Nottingham line. Then of course there is the substantial upgrading of the various trans-Pennine links. It is time that we really thought about the fact that not everything goes to London. There are lots of cross-flows, which are not catered for by railways. I pay tribute to some of the things that this Government have done, but there is a lot more to do.
As there is now available a bi-modal diesel and electric heavy freight locomotive, which can work on and off the electrified network, there is an urgent need, first, to do more work on the electrified network and to encourage the rail freight industry to invest in those locomotives very quickly, because they represent an alternative to the very heavy lorries that spill out over the country from our ports. This weekend, on a visit to a local historic site, I was again conscious of a continued noise from the nearby motorway; it did not stop—it just went on, and it was quite loud. While we are very critical of noise from railways and aircraft, in both those modes operators are acutely aware of the need to reduce noise. In fact, I read in the paper this morning that Network Rail is in touch with Japanese consultants to help them reduce noise. Can the Minister tell the House what is currently being done to reduce the noise from road traffic, which affects far more people, and whether road noise is taken into account in any appraisals, which obviously means attention to road surfaces and tyres? In making appraisals, is it made clear that a choice can be made between cheaper road surfaces, such as concrete, and quiet surfaces, such as whisper asphalt? That may seem like a detail, but lots of people live alongside motorways, and this is a constant bone of contention. The difference between concrete and whisper asphalt is enormous, as we found on the A34 when I was in the county council in Oxford.
Has my noble friend also given consideration to the situation whereby the public sector invests in new infrastructure yet the benefits are realised by the private sector in the value of property? How is that sort of economic value taken into consideration in assessing schemes? It is clearly of some economic value to somebody. I am aware of no methods whereby the public sector can get hold of any money unless there is a voluntary contribution or, occasionally, a supplementary rate is levied on the beneficiaries.
In the section about sustainable transport, in paragraphs 3.13 and 3.14, buses are not mentioned but are obviously the major contributor. But the Minister knows full well that there is much disquiet in the bus industry, especially over the level of support given for the reimbursement of concessionary fares. This may upset a lot of people like me, but the bus services that are being withdrawn are used by people to access work and hospitals. These are ordinary people who are prepared to pay their fares, but they are not enough to keep the bus service running. Can the Minister say whether some work is going on somewhere to judge the fairness of this, otherwise I am sure that it will be proceeded against in the courts and will end up in Brussels, unless by then the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, has got his way and we are not affiliated anymore?
The issue of road safety must not be forgotten. Neither should we console ourselves by pointing out that we have a better road safety record than many other countries, as I have often heard. No other transport operator would dare to be as complacent as the road sector given that lots of people are killed and seriously injured each year due to poor road safety. Improving national infrastructure should not depend on whether a number of people derive a small benefit. It should take into account, but not as a sideline, impacts on the environment, public health and the strategic path that this Government are following.
Lord Marlesford (Con)
My Lords, I wish to say a few words in the gap. I declare my interests as in the register.
Frankly, I thought this was a rather unimpressive document. I learnt the little bit I know about transport at the feet of the great Ernest Marples, who was arguably one of the greatest Ministers of Transport this country has ever had. I emphasise that I absolutely agree that we need a strategic road network, as that is the way to protect nationally designated landscapes. Having a proper strategic road network protects sensitive rural and urban areas from vehicles that would otherwise try to use them because there is nowhere else to go.
It is extraordinary that my county of Suffolk does not have a place in the strategy at all. Indeed, if the Minister opens her copy of the report at page 84, she will see that, in order to fit the map of England on to the page, the whole of the coastal area of Suffolk has been cut off. That is the most sensitive area of Suffolk. There can be no bigger indicator of Whitehall indifference to those of us who live in East Anglia than that.
The previous Government detrunked the A12 north of Ipswich and therefore, theoretically, it is not part of a strategic network. That was a great mistake because the A12 from the M25 to Lowestoft should be part of England’s strategic network. The proposal to construct the Sizewell C nuclear power station is particularly important in this regard and I wish to raise a very serious question on that with the Minister. The French company EDF—the designated builder—published an outline of a short new road that would slash through the attractive Suffolk village of Farnham, and proposed a huge lorry park south of Wickham Market because the current road cannot take its lorries. These ideas are quite unacceptable to local people.
I should emphasise that I am the president of the Suffolk Preservation Society, as recorded in the register, which is why I care so much about Suffolk. Plans were drawn up for a four-village bypass in 1996—the four villages being Marlesford, where I live and farm, Little Glemham, Stratford St Andrew and Farnham. They were endorsed by the inspector after a full public inquiry. This bypass is urgently needed, quite apart from the needs of Sizewell C. It should be part of the upgrading of the A12 and be brought into the strategic road network.
EDF is now having pre-application discussions with officers of the Suffolk Coastal District Council, as it is entitled to do, but has said that the details of its plan are commercially confidential. That really is nonsense. The elected councillors are being kept in the dark with regard to what is being proposed. That is the antithesis of democracy and not what councils are about. Officers who work for councils work for councillors; they are not there to make decisions. It is councillors who matter. I must not speak for much longer as I am making my speech in the gap, but EDF must not be allowed to publish its formal application and claim that it has already consulted the planning authority and obtained agreement to what it proposes. I hope that the Minister will reassure me that the concerns of Suffolk will be taken fully into account and that the Government will put Suffolk back on the map.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, for pointing out that the Department for Transport has wiped out Lowestoft. Looking at the map, I think that that extends also to part of Norfolk as Great Yarmouth seems to have suffered the same fate. I hope the department will realise that those two places still exist and manage to produce another map.
I welcome this opportunity to discuss both the draft national policy statement for national networks and the concerns raised by my noble friend Lord Berkeley, including those related to the accuracy of the traffic forecasts and the assumptions behind them. I do not know whether the fact that we are speaking in a not-exactly-packed Chamber reflects a lack of interest in this issue or simply the fact that this is the last business on a Thursday with always the prospect beforehand that that could have meant being here until 7 pm.
As well as the draft national policy statement, it has also been helpful to see the House of Commons Transport Committee report on it, which was published yesterday. The draft statement published by the Department for Transport consultation sets out the policy against which the Secretary of State will make decisions on applications for development consent for nationally significant infrastructure projects on the strategic road and rail network. It is the second such policy statement, the first having covered ports, and covers England only.
The Planning Act 2008 gives Select Committees a formal role in the process by which national policy statements are agreed, because recommendations by a Select Committee must be addressed by the Secretary of State before the national policy statement comes into force. The Select Committee can also request a debate on the document before it receives final parliamentary approval. The Transport Select Committee has apparently indicated that it intends to do just that.
The Select Committee has made a number of detailed recommendations that it says are aimed at making the document clearer and more useful. Presumably, the Minister will say that the Secretary of State will consider those recommendations. The draft policy statement states that our road and rail networks are already under considerable pressure and indicates that, on the road network, it is estimated that around 16% of all travel time in 2010 was spent delayed in traffic. Road traffic is forecast to increase by 30% by 2030 and by more than 40% by 2040; and without action, congestion and crowding will constrain the economy and reduce quality of life. The factors leading to the forecast increase are stated to be increased growth, a rising population—up by 11 million between 2010 and 2035—and a fall in the cost of fuel.
The draft statement states that, without action, the proportion of travel time spent delayed in traffic is forecast to increase from 16% to 24% by 2040, amounting to a 150% increase in the number of working days lost to congestion each year from 40 million to 100 million. Can the Minister tell us—if not in her response today then perhaps in a letter—how those calculations have been made and the assumptions behind them? They are not immediately obvious.
The strategic road network to which the draft policy statement relates includes only trunk roads and motorways in England where the Secretary of State is the traffic authority. The development of local roads will be nationally significant infrastructure projects only if an order has been made under Section 35 of the Planning Act 2008 designating such a development as a nationally significant infrastructure project. Does that mean that the Secretary of State would seek to use this national policy statement as the primary basis for making decisions on development consent applications for nationally significant infrastructure projects on the strategic road network without regard to the impact on local roads or the plans of the traffic authority for those local roads when, particularly in urban areas, the traffic and transport authority may well be pursuing measures to manage demand rather than pursuing the apparent aims of this draft policy statement, which some have suggested, including in this debate, is rather closer to the “predict and provide” policy for roads that was abandoned in the 1990s? I hope the Minister will be able to respond to that point in a few minutes.
I ask that point in the context that this policy statement gives no details of the extent or location of nationally significant projects on the strategic road network but clearly indicates that new and additional roads are anticipated, as well as increases in the capacity of existing trunk roads and motorways. As the Transport Select Committee put it, the Government are seeking to accommodate increasing demand for roads by building more infrastructure rather than seeking to manage demand. Perhaps the Minister can say something about the projected extent and mileage of new trunk roads and motorways against which we should be considering the content, significance and impact of this draft national policy statement and its traffic forecasts.
As I understand it, one of the key purposes of having the draft national policy statement is to speed up the decision-making process that we often go through before major projects can proceed. However, the concern that has been expressed in a number of circles is that this national policy statement in relation to roads is also about laying down criteria, or lack of specific criteria, which would make it considerably more unlikely than is the case at the moment that any scheme, or part of any scheme, could be rejected since the key overriding, all-important factor appears to be the need to provide the increases in road capacity to meet the Government’s forecast of the increase in road traffic. The draft policy statement states:
“In their current state, without development, the national networks will act as a constraint to sustainable economic growth, quality of life and wider environmental objectives. The Government has therefore concluded that there is a compelling need for development of the national networks. The Examining Authority and the Secretary of State should therefore start its assessment of applications for infrastructure covered by this NPS on that basis”.
I should like the Minister to look at nationally significant infrastructure projects on the strategic road network over, say, the past 15 years and say which were changed, rejected or not proceeded with in the first place under the criteria then applicable but which the department now feels would have been given clearance under the criteria laid down in this draft national policy statement, to which I have just referred. Perhaps the Minister could give some examples of the kinds of schemes that would not be acceptable when they have to be judged against the statement in this draft NPS, which I quoted a few moments ago, that:
“In their current state, without development, the national networks will act as a constraint to sustainable economic growth, quality of life and wider environmental objectives”.
What protection, for example, will there be for our national parks? What scope or requirement will there be to consider and assess other options or proposals rather than those being put forward, and what weight will be given to the considerations mentioned by my noble friend Lord Berkeley and the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw? On that score, I certainly share the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, about the impact of road noise on those living in the surrounding areas.
On the railways, the draft statement forecasts welcome continuing growth in railway passenger and freight traffic, although it does not cover the biggest project of all—namely, HS2, for which there is a separate Bill. However, it says:
“High speed rail would offer the opportunity for a shift to rail from air and road, by delivering improved connectivity between major conurbations and economic centres through improved journey times”.
Few would disagree with that, but it would be helpful if the Minister could say how the current lack of any proposed link between HS2 and HS1 is in line with the Government’s stated objective, to which I have just referred.
There is a need to ensure that rail investment is not confined to London and the south-east. Improved rail links help to stimulate growth and are a factor taken into account by businesses in deciding where to locate, relocate or expand, and that applies equally outside London and the south-east.
The draft statement refers to relatively modest rail infrastructure interventions being able to deliver significant capacity benefits but—unless I am mistaken, and I may be—it does not appear to make a reference to the reopening of stations despite saying in paragraph 2.25 that,
“the railway must offer a safe and reliable route to work, facilitate increases in both business and leisure travel, support regional and local public transport to connect communities with public services, with workplaces and with each other”.
There is, for example, a campaign by residents of Saltford, in Somerset, to reopen their railway station on the line between Bath and Bristol, a campaign which our local party and its candidate are supporting. Perhaps the Minister could say what assistance this draft policy statement will be to them in pursuing their campaign to improve accessibility for local people and help to take cars off the road.
The draft statement, as my noble friend Lord Berkeley said, refers in some detail to strategic rail freight interchanges and projected increases in rail freight, which I am sure we all welcome. However, although I am not sure that I am right, I think that the first mention of the word “bus” does not appear until page 25 of the draft statement, despite the fact that the report deals with roads. The statement rightly refers to rail freight interchanges but says nothing in the context of investment in roads, the national coach network, bus services, bus lanes, rail/bus interchanges and the role of the bus network in taking traffic off our roads. What is the Government’s position on bus and coach travel in the context of this or any other likely draft national policy statements?
I appreciate that this is a draft document and that the Government will give consideration to the recommendations of the Transport Select Committee—which appears to have been somewhat less than enthusiastic about the Government’s approach. It is less than enthusiastic not least because, in its view, the statement should specify more types of needed transport schemes—such as enhancements to the rail network to promote east-west connectivity, better road and rail connections to ports and airports and to parts of the country not well served by those networks, and schemes to promote regional economic development. The committee also called on the Department for Transport to address criticisms of its road demand forecasts more explicitly. This debate offers the Minister the opportunity to do just that in the light of the arguments made by my noble friend Lord Berkeley. I hope that she will take the opportunity.
A number of concerns and questions have been raised this afternoon about the draft statement, matters such as the basis on which projects will be assessed and the criteria that will or will not be given significant weight when the assessment is made. I hope that the Minister will respond to all those points either today or subsequently in writing. I am sure she will agree that those points all deserve a full response.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Kramer) (LD)
My Lords, I very much welcome this debate on the Government’s draft national policy statement for national networks—the NPS. This House has a really important role in scrutinising the draft NPS. This debate will help the Government to prepare their final version so I am very appreciative of the comments that have been made today. If noble Lords wish in the future to feed in further comments, I will be glad to take those on board.
I thank the noble Lords, Lord Berkeley and Lord Bradshaw, for giving me a little heads-up in advance of some of the issues that concern them. I hope that that will help with my response today but I am aware that we have covered a very wide range of issues. If I inadvertently miss certain issues, I will be glad to follow up afterwards. I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, for the truncated map. We got it right on the rail freight map which manages to fit neatly into the page. We will get it corrected. It was not intentional but I fear merely a matter of pressing a button at the wrong moment. In terms of the issues around Sizewell C I do not have those details with me today, so I will have to respond to him separately, if I may.
The NPS is a specific document with a specific purpose. It is a technical planning policy statement that will comprise the decision-making framework for nationally significant road, rail and strategic rail freight interchange projects. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, made the point that it is crucial that rail freight interchange is included on that list. He asked for greater granularity in the report and I will pass that back in terms of consultation. I suspect that on this issue he knows granularity more than anyone else in this House, but I will take it back and try to get him a more detailed response.
The draft NPS requires a consideration of whether a scheme strikes the right balance between national need and local needs and priorities. I say that to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, who raised the issue of how the national and local impact on each other. The document is quite explicit in requiring that balance to be struck. If the adverse impacts are greater than the benefits, or if a development fails certain planning tests, then development consent must be refused. In considering applications for development consent for nationally significant road and rail schemes, the decision-maker will need to take account of the full range of environmental, social and economic impacts.
As the noble Lord will know, the key reason for having the NPS as directed within the Planning Act 2008 was to remove protracted debate around issues of national policy from public inquiries, not to eliminate a proper review of schemes. I will come to this point later when I talk about environmental issues, but I advise anyone who has a moment to look at Section 5 of the draft policy statement, which has detailed sections on environmental issues which noble Lords may find helpful regarding some of the questions that they have raised.
There is a strong case for development of road and rail networks. The NPS identifies a compelling need to drive economic growth, improve quality of life and deliver better environmental performance. The national road and rail networks that connect our cities, regions and international gateways play a significant part in supporting economic growth and productivity as well as facilitating passenger business and leisure journeys across the country.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked why we do not specifically mention buses, coaches or stations. This is a document that operates at the higher levels, so we talk about roads but we do not talk about cars either. We are talking about the planning infrastructure. When it comes to stations, which he specifically mentioned, he will know that we have had an aggressive programme of reopening, improving and adding accessibility to stations, which is long-needed. I am very pleased that we have significant investment in that area and will continue it.
Our national networks are already under considerable pressure and that pressure is expected to increase further, as the long-term drivers of demand to travel, which are GDP and population, are forecast to increase substantially over the coming years. All of us recognise that without action, congestion and crowding will constrain the economy and reduce quality of life.
Some noble Lords talked about percentage increases. To give one example, on the road network in 2010—I think that we can say it will be worse now—it is estimated that 16% of all travel time was spent delayed in traffic. In London, on the rail network, some services are 7% over capacity. Those are the kinds of numbers that we simply cannot continue to live with.
We all recognise that development of the national networks can unlock regional economic growth and regeneration, particularly in the most disadvantaged areas. Broader economic, safety and accessibility goals generate requirements for development because it is the way that we can fix safety issues, improve the environment and enhance accessibility for pedestrians and cyclists.
The noble Lords, Lord Berkeley, Lord Bradshaw and Lord Rosser, raised concerns about traffic forecasts and the broader appraisal process. It is true that we have well established forecasting and appraisal frameworks that have been subjected to internal and external review over many years, and we continuously update them. It is true that over recent years we have overstated traffic forecasts while in previous years we might have understated them, but it is not a problem of the model; rather, the problem is the inputs into the model. The key drivers that are the inputs into the model—population, GDP and oil prices—we all called wrongly some years ago. If you were to put in the correct drivers, the model would give you traffic forecasts that are within 1.3% of observed traffic. So the model itself, for the narrow task for which it is designed, is a reasonably good one, but of course the inputs have to be right. For that reason we now present a range of forecasts and scenarios. But even when we take the lowest forecast using scenarios that take the most conservative possible views on the various drivers, we can still see very significant pressure on the rail and road networks in the form of increased congestion and crowding. It is crucial to understand that the NPS does not mean that national traffic forecasts are simply used to justify individual developments. Each individual scheme needs to use local models to understand local impacts and will be subject to a full transport business case.
Quite a number of comments were made on traffic forecasts, benefit-cost ratios and those kinds of formulas. I should like to make two comments on them. The first picks up on the issue raised by my noble friend Lord Bradshaw of small time savings being a distortion. There are occasions when small time savings can be extremely useful. For example, a tiny time saving at Reading station may not be of particular value to an individual in a way they can name, but it will give an excellent proxy for whether there is enough platform capacity and whether people can move around the station appropriately without overcrowding and congestion occurring. Small time savings can be very useful measures, but I agree that they have to be used under appropriate circumstances. However, it is important that we dethrone, if that is the word, the use of things like benefit-cost ratios and traffic forecasts. They are not litmus tests that say “go” or “no go” on projects; rather, they are one of the tools that have to be used along with other work, analysis and judgment to decide whether a project is appropriate.
As a politician perhaps I am sometimes guilty of using such measures as a proxy for a more complex explanation—the media certainly do so—and I think we need to make sure that we move away from that. I come from a finance background where this kind of analysis is useful, but it is a tool and its limitations have to be understood. There will be no formula we can devise that does not have limitations. All kinds of appraisals come in to the broader decision, including the impact on regeneration and economic growth, which is now highlighted in a way that it never was historically. When talking about the specifics of these appraisal tools, which was the subject of a lot of the conversation today, we are in the process of engaging with an independent review. In October 2013 we committed to undertake a comprehensive survey of the latest theoretical and empirical evidence for the potential growth impacts of nationally significant infrastructure and programmes of expenditure. This work is under way and is being led by Professor Tony Venables at Oxford University, who may be known to some noble Lords. The department will consider whether any further external scrutiny is needed, so we are conscious of the issue.
The NPS supports a significant and balanced package of improvements across the road and rail networks including—this is set out clearly in the document—improvements in safety, resilience, maintenance and environmental performance, and stresses access for cyclists and pedestrians. Noble Lords will know that many of the programmes we have had in the department, especially the local sustainable transport fund, have been key to supporting local communities and improving cycling and pedestrian facilities, and have had a big impact. It has to be recognised that improvements to the road and rail networks supported by the NPS are accompanied by policies to support sustainable transport.
Some stakeholders have criticised our roads policy as being “predict and provide”—I think the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, was one of those who said this—or an excuse for large-scale—
Lord Rosser
I did not actually say it myself but said it was how it was being described by some, including in the debate today. I think that was fair comment. I did not actually make the statement myself.
Baroness Kramer
I stand corrected. It was a fair comment, and was certainly mentioned today, so I will just take it up. I apologise for misattributing the statement. I assure the House that it is not the case. Government policy on roads is not that outdated approach of predicting and providing for all future traffic growth, irrespective of cost and environmental and social impacts. It is about sensible and sustainable development where there is a strong justification based on the transport business case. Again, that is not just about numbers; it needs judgment as well.
Development of the strategic road network is primarily about upgrading the existing network. Almost 40% of the investment designated for this Parliament and the next is for maintenance. Over 80% of the schemes in the current programme are smart motorways. I hope that gives some clearer understanding.
It is very clear in the NPS that road improvements must be delivered in an environmentally sensitive way and must look to improve environmental performance wherever possible. Much environmental good can be done as part of an investment programme. I will talk a little more about noise in a moment but it is an opportunity for introducing noise-reducing surfaces and sustainable drainage, for eliminating bottlenecks in the system which push up emissions and for ameliorating the worsening air quality that comes of course with congestion.
At the same time as we are in the process of doing that, the Government are committed to decarbonising our roads. Over the past four years and the coming four years, an investment of £1 billion in ultra low-emission vehicles and new fuel efficiency regulation means that we expect to see greenhouse gas emissions from motoring dropping by about 20% in 2030 from present-day levels.
My noble friend Lord Bradshaw raised the issue of noise, to which I said I would return. The NPS is very clear that, for new schemes, scheme promoters must undertake works to mitigate the impacts, for example through low-noise surfacing, noise barriers and earthworks. Low-noise surfacing is now used as a matter of course in all new schemes. Over the next Parliament, as I said, maintenance of the strategic network will lead to about 80% of the network being resurfaced with low-noise surfacing.
Air quality is another issue that was singled out. It is a problem that we cannot tackle with a single measure—it needs a fairly coherent approach. First, I would say that we have seen very significant improvements in road quality, largely because of cleaner cars and cleaner fuels. That has been important. Reducing congestion is an important way to improve air quality. Everyone in the House will be conscious of the exceptional levels of investment that are now going into the railway network, both to upgrade the existing system and to develop the new spine of a high-speed system. Again, because of modal shift, that is a very important way of tackling the air-quality problem. We are obviously putting in very significant funds: we announced just about a week ago the next £500 million for investments related to ultra low-emission vehicles. We are tackling that across a wide range. It is a very difficult issue to deal with in a national-level statement but your Lordships can see from the work that the Government are doing that we are applying a lot of attention to this and that we take the issue exceedingly seriously.
My noble friend Lord Bradshaw raised the issue of maintenance. I assure the House that we are investing very heavily in maintenance, resilience and pothole repairs, both on the strategic road network and on the local road network. As I said, almost 40% of the investment in our strategic roads in this and the next Parliament is for maintenance. For local roads, we are providing councils in England with more than £3.5 billion between 2011 and 2015 to maintain their roads. We are committed to providing just less than £6 billion between 2015 and 2021. Immediately following the flooding crisis, we released £183 million in funds to local councils to deal with the impact that would have had in terms of local road damage.
In addition, in the March 2014 Budget the Government announced a £200 million pothole fund for the 2014-15 financial year, £168 million of which is being made available for councils in England. I say that because obviously the NPS covers just England. That is enough to fix more than 3 million potholes. We have made it really clear that we do not expect this to be a “patch and mend” approach. We have given a very clear message to local authorities that they should also be undertaking planned preventive maintenance, and that when they repair a pothole they should ensure that it is right first time in order not to have to do a call-back, because that is very far from cost-effective, as well as being highly problematic for motorists.
The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, is concerned that not enough is being done to support modal shift to rail freight. The Government strongly support that modal shift, which is why—in addition to the capacity-enhancement projects that are being supported through the rail investment strategy, which are primarily targeted at improving passenger service but will benefit freight as well—we have also, since 2007, allocated more than £500 million specifically for the development of a strategic rail freight network. The allocation of that money is determined by the rail freight industry so that we can be sure that it is addressing priorities.
Of course, electrification of the network can make a very significant difference. I know to my regret that between 1997 and 2010 we electrified only nine miles of railway. We now have a massive electrification programme under way. That is absolutely crucial but it takes time because we are playing catch-up. I think most of us would say that we wished we were not starting from here.
The incorporation of the SRFIs in this national networks NPS really should strengthen developers’ confidence by confirming parliamentary approval for the policy. I hope that we will see that. However, in relation to modal shift, I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, that we are not considering road pricing. That is not on the agenda. I am sorry, I meant my noble friend Lord Bradshaw. I am getting names wrong today; that one was completely unintentional. That is not a project that we are looking at. While I am discussing things that we are not looking at, we are not re-looking at concessionary fares. The protection of concessionary fares for older people is in statute and there is no wish whatever to revisit that.
Lord Bradshaw
I was not suggesting that the concessionary fare scheme should be abolished. The important thing is to ensure that the people who provide the bus services are adequately rewarded. There is scope here for considerable investigation; otherwise, this will be fought out in the courts at great expense and great delay.
Baroness Kramer
That probably has scope for a debate on another day, rather than within the context of the NPS. I do not mean to be cruel. I think it is an important issue but not for today. I wanted to leave no doubt that we are not re-examining concessionary fares.
There has been a lot of discussion of an integrated approach, which is very important and an area where we have to improve and build because historically—not just in transport—a lot of what we do has tended to be looked at in silos. There is a big cultural shift taking place. This document is only part of the range of documents that form our thinking around transport. We have strategic economic plans coming in from the LEPs now, as well as rail and road utilisation strategies, which feed in to the rail investment strategy and the forthcoming road investment strategy. Those give us some real opportunities to start looking at integration. I forget which noble Lord talked about HS2 but that is driving a lot of this rethinking, as we recognise that HS2 creates, particularly in the Midlands and in the north, an opportunity to establish connectivity. That needs be thought of alongside HS2 and not as some entirely separate process. In dealing with strategic economic plans, we recognise the link between infrastructure and economic growth. There are real changes going forward there. East-west links are an inherent part of that—that issue was raised by a number of noble Lords—and I consider it to be crucial.
I have only moments left, so let me finish by saying that the department received more than 5,800 responses to its consultation. Around 5,500 of those were responses to campaigns run by the Campaign to Protect Rural England and the Campaign for Better Transport. I give an assurance that we will look at all the responses, as well as at the feedback that comes from the Transport Select Committee—a crucial document—and from this debate today. We intend to finalise the NPS later this year, in the autumn.
I thank everybody who has participated and ask the House to welcome at least the draft of this document, recognising that there will be a great deal more to add before it becomes final.
Lord Rosser
Before the Minister sits down, may I ask her whether she will look at the contributions that have been made and the questions and points that have been raised? I did not expect to receive answers to all the points that I raised today, but I would be grateful if she would indicate that she will look at what has been said and, where questions and points have been raised that she has not had the time to respond to, that a response will be given in writing.
Baroness Kramer
I shall be absolutely delighted to do so. I thought that I had made that clear as I opened, but let me repeat it as I close.
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this short debate. There was a remarkable unanimity among most of us, including the Minister, on many issues, which is good. Just for the record, I should say that I support demand management. I understand where the Minister is coming from and that is fine.
Perhaps I may respond briefly to the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, on the Sizewell issue. It is nice to know that Sizewell C will not be built in the middle of the sea. About a year ago, I met the rail freight industry people, EDF and Suffolk Council and said that if the railway was dualled beyond Woodbridge and the link extended into Sizewell, they could run a passenger service for workers to commute from other parts of Suffolk and Essex, as well as take in a lot of freight by rail. I am disappointed that this is not going anywhere, but it is a microcosm of what we have been talking about today: the cross-modal appraisals may not be working out properly. I am happy to talk to the noble Lord later if he would like to.
I definitely support the NPS and hope that the Minister, as she said, will take into account what has been said today. For very good reasons, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.