Grand Committee
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)
Good afternoon, my Lords. I remind your Lordships that if there is a Division in the Chamber while we are sitting, the Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division Bells are rung and resume after 10 minutes.
Infrastructure Bill [HL]
(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Tope (LD)
Before I move the amendment, I wonder whether it would be appropriate to offer congratulations, in absentia, to the Minister who I thought would be replying to me today. We congratulate her on her escape from the Infrastructure Bill, even though she will no doubt miss all its excitement. It is a particular pleasure for me to welcome, rather unexpectedly, the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, to answer here today, particularly in view of this amendment, which relates to the Greater London Authority, of which she has considerable knowledge and experience. I look forward to an even more favourable response than I was expecting.
In moving the amendment, I shall speak also to Amendment 85. They are two fairly simple and straightforward amendments that would add “or GLA”—the Greater London Authority—to this part of the Bill. I have tabled them because under the Localism Act 2011, the Homes and Communities Agency no longer has any remit in Greater London. That responsibility was devolved to the Greater London Authority and it is therefore logical that the powers going to the HCA, which will apply only to the rest of the country and not to London, should in this instance be passed to the GLA—hence my comment about the Minister who is now to reply having some knowledge and experience, not least of one of the major landowning parts of the Greater London Authority, namely Transport for London. Unless we make this amendment, there will be some vacuum in London as to what will happen. It will seem that the powers that the Bill seeks to give to the Homes and Communities Agency simply will not apply in Greater London, which makes no sense at all. Therefore, I genuinely look forward to a sympathetic response.
There is significant surplus public sector land in London, much of it indeed owned and put to good use by the GLA group. However, according to the Government in March this year, there are in London alone 75 surplus National Health Service sites, totalling 80 hectares, which could well be ready for development. I will not say that we are correcting an anomaly—no one would admit to drafting a Bill that contains an anomaly—but I hope we are filling a gap with this amendment, and that we will ensure that the GLA has the powers it needs to continue the very good work that it has done under both Administrations to make much better use of surplus publicly held land for housing. I do not need to stress again today the urgent need in London—perhaps throughout the country but nowhere more so than in London—to make the best possible use of land for additional housing.
In addition, it is the GLA that has the strategic planning role for Greater London, which fits together with this amendment. Finally, there is the issue of democratic oversight, provided by the Greater London Authority itself with its directly elected mayor and the elected London Assembly, but also by the—less well known but equally important in this context—Homes for London Board, which is a joint body with the GLA and the London boroughs and can oversee all this.
The noble Lord, Lord Best, has also put his name to my amendment. He has given me his apologies for being unable to be here today. He has recently been appointed chairman of your Lordships’ Communications Select Committee, which, unfortunately from our point of view, meets every Tuesday afternoon. He understandably feels that, as its newly elected chairman, he should be there. However, he has said to me, for the record:
“I understand the Homes and Communities Agency is not raising any objection to the idea of the GLA taking on this role for London: the HCA no longer operates within Greater London and it seems entirely sensible for the GLA to include this in their wider role—in partnership with the London Boroughs through the Homes for London Board; the housing association sector admires the leadership role which the GLA through the Deputy Mayor for Housing and Planning, Richard Blakeway, is pursuing, not least in arguing for Lifetime Homes accessibility standards, improved space standards and better performance by London’s private rented sector. I think the general view is that the GLA is a highly competent body on the housing scene and would make a success of this extra role”.
I think these amendments are necessary. They are clearly sensible and they future-proof against any further needs. I beg to move.
Lord Jenkin of Roding (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend will recollect that I raised this point at Second Reading on 18 June at col. 856. I will not repeat what I said on that occasion, or indeed on the very important points that my noble friend Lord Tope has just made.
The Minister was as good as her word and replied to the points that she did not have time for when she responded at Second Reading. She wrote to me on 1 July about the points I had raised, including this one, which she headed “Mayoral Powers”:
“Government officials and the Greater London Authority are in ongoing dialogue to agree suitable ways to transfer public sector land in London. If amendment of legislation is required, we will explore this at an appropriate opportunity in the future”.
It is a long time since I have felt that I was pushing at a door that is not only half open but almost entirely open. I hope my noble friend will be able to give us a little more information this afternoon.
The need for housing, particularly affordable housing, in London is acute. There can be very few couples —potential homeowners—under the age of 35 or thereabouts who feel that without significant parental help, or whatever else might be available, they will ever be able to buy a house. Part of the reason for that is the shortage of building land within the Greater London area and in the area immediately surrounding it. The disposal of surplus public land has become a matter of huge urgency. I believe, as my noble friend has said—and he quoted the noble Lord, Lord Best—that the Greater London Authority has this whole issue very much in mind and on its whole agenda for the development of London. The case for it to be the body to initiate, promote and encourage this is very strong indeed and I hope my noble friend the Minister will be able to give us an encouraging answer this afternoon. I support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Tope.
Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, on her extended role during the course of this Bill and indirectly congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell. The amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Tope—for the GLA to perform the role of disposal agency in London—on the face of it makes very good sense. As the noble Lords, Lord Tope and Lord Jenkin, said, the HCA’s objects simply do not run in Greater London as a result of the Localism Act 2011, and without a change you would have to retain the arrangements where transfers are made indirectly.
I took the opportunity to raise the matter with the Bill team, who have sent me a helpful note, which, if I may, I will just read from:
“I have been advised that under the Localism Act 2011, the GLA has responsibility for the HCA functions in London and the HCA does not have a remit to operate. The HCA has powers to operate in London but to do so would require delegated authority from the mayor. Under existing legislation, central Governments can transfer their land directly to the GLA; arm’s length bodies can also presently do so but would have to transfer the land to the parent department first”.
That is the inefficiency we are trying to tackle with this provision. The note goes on:
“DCLG are working with the GLA to determine what offer the GLA would be able to make to departments regarding land transfer. This will include whether statutory transfer is the most appropriate mechanism or whether an alternative approach is preferable”.
Could the noble Baroness just unpick that expression a little? Whatever arrangements are to be entered into, it does not seem to me to preclude supporting the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Tope.
We have had a helpful briefing from the Mayor of London, which raised a number of points. The point about the GLA having to hold its land in a taxable subsidiary company would appear to have been addressed by government amendments, but there was also a point about transfers of land from the GLA, a mayoral development corporation or the HCA hitherto not having been able to pass on the override of third-party easements. This means that such owner-developers could be pursued for remedies by the previous owners and beneficiaries of such rights. Given that Clause 22(10) is to operate only where land is disposed of after the provision comes into force, how does the Minister see this point being addressed?
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Kramer) (LD)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to stand here in the place of my noble friend Lady Stowell. I join the congratulations to her on her new role and apologise for the disappointment of noble Lords who were looking forward to debating these issues with her today. I will have to do for today’s purposes.
The public sector land programme aims to speed up the disposal of land and put disused land back into use for much needed homes. The current public sector land programme has identified land with capacity to deliver 100,000 new homes by March 2015. At the end of March 2014, it had released land capable of delivering more than 76,000 homes. As we move forward with the programme, we are aiming to reduce the bureaucracy involved in transferring land to the HCA and to speed up delivery of much needed homes and economic development.
The GLA has a pivotal role in delivering housing and economic growth in the capital, as my noble friend Lord Tope illustrated, and we are working with it to consider how its expertise can best be utilised in the disposal of surplus government land. In some cases, this may mean transferring sites from central government bodies to the GLA. Although the original clause, which is the one currently in the Bill, did not mention the Greater London Authority, we agree that there may be some benefit to exploring whether it should be included in the clause. There is an existing transfer process, but this might smooth the process of transferring sites from arm’s-length bodies to the GLA. There would need to be an agreement between the Government and the GLA that this is the best delivery mechanism for individual sites and the one that provides best value to the taxpayer.
One alternative, for example, would be to purchase land directly from the Government or their ALBs. All this needs further discussion and exploration with the various parties, and we need to work through whether there are stamp duty implications or other factors. Some resolution will be required before we can come to a definite decision on that process. We have been working closely with the GLA on the land disposal programme, as we will continue to do, so that we can work out how surplus public land can be better used to support housing and economic growth, alongside finding efficiency savings. We recognise what the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, said—
Lord Jenkin of Roding
I perhaps should have mentioned earlier that shortly before coming to the Committee, I had an urgent e-mail from a group with which I had been in touch about what amounts to affordable housing. It is a question of whether the houses that this group provides are liable for the local land levy. A decision was made in the group’s favour, which it sees as possibly depriving it of the opportunities to have the land. My noble friend has made the point about how the surplus land, as it were, brought into the ownership of the GLA, or whoever, will be disposed of. If my noble friend could include that in her examination of the matter that her officials will be discussing with the GLA, some of these people might have some comfort. They fear that they may not be in people’s sights of having land that ought really to be made available for affordable housing.
Baroness Kramer (LD)
The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, makes clear that there are complexities in all this. We do not have set levels of affordable housing. That has to be for the local authority. It is best placed and will undoubtedly use its planning processes, which of course apply to any development, to make the relevant determinations. He is right that there are complexities that we have to iron out and work our way through. I just want to alert the Committee and to say that we are sympathetic to the underlying direction of this amendment, but there is work to be done to know whether this is the most effective way to achieve what I think everyone here is attempting to achieve.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Will the Minister expand on what she said because I am not quite following? I can see that there may, in differing circumstances, be details to work out as to how particular parcels of land are put together and how they end up for the benefit of housing in London. But this amendment would simply include the possibility of the GLA being the beneficiary of a Secretary of State’s scheme. The Secretary of State does not have to enter into a scheme under these provisions in all circumstances. I am struggling to see why the amendment could not be accepted. It would not be mandatory. It would just be one route. If it is not picked up in this Bill, I wonder when it will be picked up by another local Bill coming down the path. I am struggling to see the logic in not making this adjustment.
Baroness Kramer
I say to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, that I will go back to the department and ask whether we can share any of that without disrupting the process of negotiation. I am sure that we would be willing to share those thoughts. This goes beyond my direct area of expertise and I would not want to mislead the noble Lord by taking him in a wrong direction. We will try to provide that clarification. The one thing that everyone here would be concerned about is making sure that it does not disrupt a negotiation process that would come to the conclusion that we are all seeking; that is, the efficient transfer of land to make sure that housing is made available at the earliest possible date.
I will be happy to work with your Lordships. The department is working with the GLA to consider whether these amendments would be beneficial or whether a somewhat different form is needed to deliver that public sector land programme in London. With that assurance, I hope that my noble friend Lord Tope will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Tope
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Jenkin and, in absentia, the noble Lord, Lord Best, on whose behalf I also spoke, and, perhaps particularly, to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for pressing the point. I have to say that long experience in your Lordships’ House has taught me that moving a simple two-word amendment is no more likely to succeed than a two-page amendment. I have much sympathy with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, that it is a simple amendment that probably could have been accepted today without in any way inhibiting or preventing the discussions, which I am very pleased to hear are going on. I had no expectation that it would be accepted.
I am very grateful for what the Minister has had to say. I wrote down the splendid phrase “may be beneficial to exploring”, and I am pleased that discussions are going on with the GLA. I have no doubt that, in one form or another, we will return to this issue in three months’ time at the next stage of the Bill. Whether it is with a simple two-word amendment or a rather more complex two-page amendment, I will wait with interest to see. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, this is a probing amendment and it has been suggested to us by the Local Government Association. The purpose of the amendments in this group is to allow one or more schemes for the transfer of designated property rights and liabilities to local authorities, as well as to the HCA. The LGA is clear that local councils share the Government’s focus on using publicly owned land to support housing development, and it suggested that councils have a programme to release, between 2015 and 2018, assets amounting to some £13.3 billion.
Apparently a number of councils have undertaken the pooling of their land assets with central government, and such activities could be facilitated if such assets could be transferred to local authorities rather than via the HCA. The LGA says that it has recently been asked by the Cabinet Office to help to transfer to local councils some 3,000 separate land and property assets held by government departments and agencies. These range in size and value and could be packaged for transfer. Would not these situations lend themselves to the types of schemes envisaged by Clause 21? Otherwise it would presumably involve the HCA as an intermediary.
There is a question of whether all local authorities would automatically be able to override relevant rights and restrictions on users and to secure these for third-party purchases. Doubtless the Minister will be able to help us on that. We may need to do more work on this before Report, but this is surely worth developing as a concept and I am interested to hear the Government’s position. I beg to move.
Lord Smith of Leigh (Lab)
My Lords, in some ways the north-west is ahead of the game in handing over land to the HCA. When the NWDA was abolished by the Government, we had quite a large landholding for that agency, and the question was: what to do with the land? Rather than try to disperse it through a large number of local authorities, it was transferred to the HCA. That worked successfully, first, because these were pretty large-scale plots of land. They were originally designed for economic development and that was the purpose to which they were put. Secondly, the HCA operates on a local basis, so we were dealing with a local branch of the HCA; we were not dealing with any central bases in London. Thirdly, the HCA worked very effectively with local authorities. Therefore, any planning problems could be rapidly dealt with, and the HCA reported back to the North West Regional Leaders Board, which is a local authority leaders board, on what was left of the portfolio.
Therefore, I think that the principle of what the Government are doing is ideal. I do not think that the LGA—I must declare an interest as a vice-president of it—wants to undermine that, but it may be a case of horses for courses. There may be parcels of land which, by their nature, are small in scale and value and which would probably be better for the local authority to work with at its local level rather than the HCA, which operates on a regional basis.
I hope that, in replying, the Minister can reflect on what my noble friend said in introducing the amendment and can see whether there is a way forward on this matter.
Lord Tope
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, said that this had been introduced as a probing amendment. I recognise that and will certainly be very interested to hear the response. I was particularly interested to hear the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Smith. I am quite prepared to accept that in this respect, at least, the north-west, or more particularly Greater Manchester, leads the way with the combined authority, which some of us think may well be part of the way forward for the rest of the country. The experience in Greater Manchester, to which the noble Lord, Lord Smith, has just referred, is certainly very interesting.
I was not terribly clear whether he was supporting the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, or supporting the probe, or saying that it is something worth exploring. It is certainly worth exploring. I hope that the Minister will agree to take it back and look not at why we do not need it or why it is not necessary, but whether and to what extent it would add to the available permissions for doing this. I think it is true that most local authorities, of whatever political persuasion and in whatever part of the country, are now keen to get on and make their contribution to meeting the severe housing need throughout the country. If an amendment or addition of this sort does anything to add to that, it must be desirable, even if it is not strictly necessary. I hope that on that basis, the Minister—although I suspect that she is not about to accept this amendment—will at least agree to take it back and give some positive consideration to how such an amendment or alteration might add one more weapon to the armoury.
Lord Jenkin of Roding
My Lords, I was relieved to hear the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, say that this was a probing amendment. It is on that basis that I hope that the Minister will at least undertake to examine the possibility. All three noble Lords who have spoken in favour of the amendment have much more recent experience than I of local government service. It is more than 50 years since I was chairman of the housing committee of a then London borough which is now part of the London Borough of Haringey. It was then called Hornsey—I should say that it ends “sey” for the benefit of Hansard, which usually spells it like the Lincolnshire town. However, I was the chairman of housing and the problem existed then. In an inner London borough, one was very much of aware of the shortage of available land. We had a substantial slum clearance programme and I was very much concerned about where we were going to put the residents while the building was going on. That was a problem and I lost my seat on the council before it was solved, but that is a different story which my noble friends in the Liberal Democrat party perhaps do not wish to hear. However, within six weeks I was the prospective parliamentary candidate for Woodford, so I did not mind very much.
There is a real problem with surplus land. For me, by far the most important objective that this clause is intended to achieve is speeding up the whole process of getting surplus public land into development. The test that I hope my noble friend’s department will be able to apply to this is: does this amendment actually promote that objective? The objective is not necessarily to allow local councils to retain land because I suspect that some of them have a good surplus of public land, which they somehow think they may want to develop in future. Such is the housing crisis in this country—as we have said, it is a crisis particularly in London but I think it is elsewhere as well—that the important thing is to get the land into use now. The test that ought to be applied is whether this amendment would help to achieve that or not.
Baroness Kramer
My Lords, that is some intimidating experience from quite a number of your Lordships, which I cannot possibly hope to match. However, your Lordships will be aware that a recently concluded strategic land and property review identified the scope to generate something like £5 billion in receipts from both land and property to support growth and drive efficiency. The Homes and Communities Agency will have an important role to play in leading this programme from next year. However, it may not always be the best or the only delivery option. The noble Lord, Lord Smith, gave us an illustration from Greater Manchester. He obviously has great expertise and played a very significant role in Greater Manchester.
As I say, local authorities also have a vital contribution to make, and in some cases this may mean transferring sites to them. I am keen that we explore the best options for delivery, taking into account local circumstances. So while our clause does not mention local authorities, to respond to my noble friend Lord Tope, there may indeed be benefits to exploring whether they should be included in the clause, which may smooth the process of transferring sites from central government’s arm’s-length bodies to local authorities, where this is the best option locally and supports the delivery of local and national priorities.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I am grateful for that response; frankly, it is more generous than I had anticipated. I accept that it is not an acceptance of the amendment, but it is an acceptance that it will be taken away and looked at seriously. The amendment was not designed in any way to diminish the role of the HCA; we see the importance of it.
I was not quite sure—perhaps this is something that could be looked at when the amendment is being otherwise addressed—of the extent to which local authorities are always able to pass on the benefit of easements that they have. Obviously, that is quite important for the development of process.
I am grateful to all noble Lords who supported the probe: my noble friend Lord Smith and the noble Lords, Lord Tope and Lord Jenkin. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, told us that he was the chair of a housing committee 50 years ago. I remember that when I was first on my council I could not get on to its housing committee as it was seen as being quite senior. Committees in those days were made up of executive members; I think I was on the council for 10 years before I was given a sniff of it. Having said that, I am grateful for the Minister’s response and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
(a) have been classified as surplus;(b) do not comprise land forming part of a common, open space or fuel or field garden allotment; and(c) do not extinguish any public rights of way.( ) “Common”, “open space” and “fuel or field garden allotment” have the same meaning as in section 19 of the Acquisition of Land Act 1981.”
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 86, 87 and 88, while my noble friend Lady Royall will address Amendment 89 in particular.
We are supportive of the thrust of the arrangements to ease complexity, bureaucracy and cost in marshalling surplus public sector assets, but we accept what the Government have asserted about land held by existing arm’s-length bodies not being capable of being transferred directly to the HCA and the fact that this could be addressed by one or more schemes to transfer property to the HCA from a specified public body. The need for this is obviously bolstered by the Government’s plans—as we have just discussed—for the HCA to be the centralised disposal agency for surplus public sector land.
In their Accelerating the Release of Public Sector Land report of October 2011, the Government estimated that 40% of land suitable for development sits with public sector—both central and local government—land banks. Our amendments are a way of seeking reassurance. Other than transfers being capable of being made directly to the HCA, it is understood that there will be no change to the type of assets otherwise to be involved and no change to the decision-making or approval process. In this regard, perhaps the Minister will just remind us what the process actually is—in particular, the process by which land is regarded as surplus.
Amendment 85B was proposed to us by the Open Spaces Society. The society is concerned that, whatever the warm words of the Government about the specific and limited application of Clauses 21 and 22, they are written in very broad terms. Under Clause 21, a “public body” means,
“a person … with functions of a public nature”.
It is true that they have to be specified in regulations but they are regulations that are currently just subject to the negative procedure. The assurance from the Minister thus far is that only surplus land can be subject to a scheme, but the term “surplus” does not appear in the clause.
Amendments 86, 87 and 88 do no more than put in the Bill what the Government have already said to be the case, and it is difficult to see why these amendments would not be accepted.
There are other matters requiring clarification. So far as the easements affecting land are concerned, perhaps the Minister will confirm that the power to override third-party rights exists with the HCA, local authorities, the GLA and the Mayoral Development Corporation. Is it correct that this power of override can be exercised after land has been sold but only by those bodies—that is, that a third-party private sector purchaser of land would not be able to initiate such overrides? Can the Minister also say a little about how the tax provisions are intended to work? Presumably they are to avoid spurious tax charges arising from the scheme transfers, given that the nature of the scheme is by way of an “internal” reorganisation of assets. However, will each of the specific public bodies be non-tax-paying entities, and what is the intent regarding assets acquired from the HCA? On what basis will someone acquire those assets?
There is a wider issue concerning where value will accrue under the transfers. Will it be in the Treasury? If the scheme means that transactions are bypassing the parent department, how is all this to work? I beg to move.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)
My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 89. I apologise for not having spoken at Second Reading but I am grateful to my noble friends Lord Adonis and Lord McKenzie of Luton for raising the issue of the public forest estate at that stage. The response given by the Minister did not assuage my fears or those of people up and down our land who are concerned about the future of this most precious of our assets.
Subsequently, the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston, who of course is now Leader of the House, replied to a Written Question that I had tabled about the future of our public forest estate. Very strangely, I read the answer to the question as a government press release in response to concerns expressed about the Infrastructure Bill, and that was before I received an Answer from the noble Baroness. I should be grateful if the Minister could explain why that was the case.
I do not wish to detain the House with too many details about the chequered history of this Government’s approach to public forests and woodlands. Following the shameful Public Bodies Act, which would have enabled their sell-off, the Government, to their great credit, established the Independent Panel on Forestry, which, under the chairmanship of Bishop James, did a splendid job. Once the report was published, the Government said that they agreed with the recommendations and would be bringing forward a Bill in due course. Very sensibly, they spoke of draft legislation that would enable pre-legislative scrutiny and have the input of the wonderful grass-roots organisations throughout the country which rightly campaign on these issues.
However, here we are, two years after the publication of the final report of the panel, and we have not seen any draft legislation. I hope that the Minister will not be reduced to saying that that was because of pressures on the parliamentary timetable because, frankly, neither I nor thousands more will believe her. While Defra’s responsibilities are great, it promises only one piece of legislation this Session, which is a draft yet to be published. It is therefore not a wonder that people are both anxious and lack trust.
The case for sustaining and expanding our public forests and woodland was superbly made by the independent panel and endorsed by the Government. The social, environmental and economic opportunities that they can deliver are myriad. In my community, the forest is so much an integral part of our life, our culture and our heritage that we are called Foresters. The catalyst for the amendment is the fact that, whatever the Government’s policy may be, the Bill is capable of having an impact on the public forest estate.
At Second Reading, the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, said that these provisions,
“will not be used by bodies such as the Forestry Commission or National Parks, contrary to some recent, wholly unfounded, speculation”.—[Official Report, 18/6/14; col. 840.]
Will the Minister explain in greater detail why it is that they will not be used by the Forestry Commission? What safeguards are in place to ensure that that does not happen?
My noble friend Lord McKenzie mentioned surplus. At Second Reading, the noble Baroness said:
“The measure that we discussed for the HCA is about transferring surplus land from government agencies. The public forest estate and our national parks are in use; they are therefore not surplus and none will therefore be transferred to the Homes and Communities Agency”.—[Official Report, 18/6/14; col. 899.]
Will the Minister help us by narrowing the definition of surplus? From the statement that I have read out, it is not at all clear what would need to happen for land to be considered surplus and then be subject to the provisions in Clause 21. It would also be useful if the Minister could say what would need to happen for land described as “in use” to cease to be thought of as in use.
My concerns extend beyond that. By virtue of the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008, the HCA, and any other person, has an existing right to undertake works on and to use land of the HCA, even if it involves interference with an easement, liberty, privilege, right or advantage annexed to land and adversely affecting other land. The Infrastructure Bill proposes to extend this power to,
“land which has been vested in or acquired by the HCA”.
The effect would seem to be that the power to override easements and so on is granted to successor owners of the HCA. It is my view and fear that freemining—ancient rights and privileges granted to Foresters by Edward I—could be caught by Clause 23 because it certainly falls within easement, liberty, privilege, right or advantage. Compensation would be payable in appropriate circumstances but this is little comfort to those who wish to protect our traditions and cultural heritage, who work the mines and want to maintain the right for future generations. I should be grateful for the noble Baroness’s view of the implications of this Bill for freemining. If the amendment were accepted and the public forests exempted from the provisions of the Bill, the threat would fall away.
We are told by the Government, in their response to Recommendation 27 of the Independent Panel on Forestry, that land transactions within the public forest estate are to be subject to the overriding principle that they would be in the further interests of the public forest estate. They said:
“We agree with the Panel that the new body should be able to buy and sell land where this serves the core purposes of the organisation and delivers public benefits. We also agree that major projects and land sales should be consulted upon, but do not want to fetter the commercial freedom of the new body by requiring it to consult on each and every proposal. One of the roles for Guardians might be to ensure that any significant projects and land transactions proposed by the management body are in line with the remit and interests of the Public Forest Estate”.
The Housing and Regeneration Act 2008, which the Bill proposes to amend, is based on fundamentally different concepts from this principle.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans
My Lords, an interest in forestry has brought me along today. I am hugely grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, for what she said; indeed, she made many of the points that I wanted to make. I will therefore say just one or two things. In starting, I have come hotfoot from the General Synod, where we had a debate last night on Magna Carta, which I had to read. I discovered that three of the clauses there are about bishops and barons bringing the Executive to account on the forests—in those days King John wanted to make them bigger so that he could take more land. I now find myself here as a Bishop among Barons and Baronesses, reflecting on that.
I have had a number of representations on this area. It is an important issue for us, for the many reasons that the noble Baroness laid out. It is akin to our green belt; we still have it but there are many incursions into it. This is about how we protect it and how we protect forestry. It is true that work was done by my colleague James Jones, the former Bishop of Liverpool, on this important area. However, we are still waiting—I have asked questions on this as well and engaged in discussions—for the Government to move and set up the new body that Owen Paterson promised us some time ago.
I am grateful for the noble Baroness’s assurances, but what is involved here is the nature of this surplus land. However, if that accords with what we have been promised, surely this is belt and braces and makes a lot of sense. In particular, I am attracted to Amendment 89, which gives the assurance that that comprises the whole, as well as any part of, the public forest estate. As stated in proposed new subsection (9), that,
“comprises all the land, property, rights and liabilities”.
That is surely in line with what we were promised and what the Government have agreed to. If that forestry body is to be set up, that is fine—this is all in agreement with that. However, in the mean time, I should certainly like to receive some assurances from the Government in line with the amendments before us.
Baroness Kramer
My Lords, first, I am sure that no discourtesy was intended to the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, over the timing of the letter that was sent. I cannot quite explain the sequence but I know that, in trying to co-ordinate the numerous questions that came to us following Second Reading, we tried to make sure that we had covered everybody’s questions and answered them fully, which may have delayed putting our responses in the post by a day or so. Therefore, I apologise if she was concerned by that.
The public sector land programme is about bringing disused land currently owned by central government back into better economic use, not about selling or building on community assets enjoyed by local communities. It is a continuation of our current programme, where we are on track to dispose of disused land with capacity for 100,000 homes. This clause is not about new policy, but merely the introduction of efficiency into the mechanism.
Surplus land can and already does transfer to the Homes and Communities Agency, but the process is more bureaucratic than is necessary. This clause is simply about increasing the rate of delivery by accelerating internal government procedures. The proposed amendments would actually slow down the process by adding further bureaucracy. For that reason, we would resist this amendment because our goal is to increase efficiency in this process, not to slow it down further.
On the issue of surplus land, it is important that land can transfer to, for example, the HCA while it is still in operational use but a decision has been clearly made that it will no longer be needed beyond a certain point. The HCA would then be able to start remediation works and marketing in parallel with the wind-down of operational activity. This minimises bureaucracy and ensures that we are making best use of our land at all times. Questions have arisen about the word “surplus”. There is not a definition in that sense because property-owning departments and arm’s-length bodies are expected to review their landholdings regularly to identify potential for rationalising their estates. When a landholding is no longer required by government, it is not just surplus to our requirements and there is no hard-and-fast definition of surplus beyond this because it varies so greatly from department to department and use to use. It is for individual departments to decide why they no longer require a piece of land.
I assure your Lordships that it is not possible for the Homes and Communities Agency to transfer land from other public bodies without the consent and co-operation of the transferring department. The transfer is direct but all statutory transfer schemes to the HCA must be signed by a Minister of the Crown or a delegated representative. Therefore, only land that the transferring public body has identified as surplus to its requirements will be transferred. This is standard government business and the noble Baroness will have been very used to this process when her party was in government. There is nothing new or different about the way in which it is being handled.
As I said, the clause is about accelerating internal government processes to transfer surplus land so that it can be disposed of more quickly and effectively for appropriate development. It does not override existing planning policy or community rights. The Government fully appreciate the importance of amenity land to both nature and our communities. Common land is central to our national heritage and we value it for agriculture, recreation, nature conservation, landscape and its historical and archaeological significance.
Public rights of way in the country are the primary means by which people access the countryside and engage in outdoor recreation, which in turn promotes improved health and well-being, as well as sustainable transport. Our amendment will not affect public rights of way. Normal planning procedures will apply to protect open spaces and other amenity land. The National Planning Policy Framework makes clear that open space should not be built on unless it is surplus to requirements, can be replaced or the benefits outweigh the loss. Planning policies should also protect and enhance public rights of way and access. Where the Homes and Communities Agency owns such land, it seeks to transfer it to the local authority or other community group to continue to manage the land for the community. It is also worth noting that the Homes and Communities Agency often facilitates the creation of new open spaces, allotments and amenity land, which over time become an important asset to the community.
I will talk more directly about the public forest estate in response to the amendments that address this and which are intended to prevent the transfer of land from the public forest estate to the Homes and Communities Agency. We made clear our policy on the public forests at Second Reading and again in the letter that we provided to the noble Baroness, Lady Royall. The forest estate is not for sale and we will not transfer the public forest estate to the Homes and Communities Agency.
The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, asked about future Governments. Future Governments have always been able to make their own decisions, and this Parliament could not prevent their doing so. We can give an absolute assurance about the position that this Government take. Were she in government, she would have to make that decision on a democratic basis for herself.
In my published response to the Parliamentary Question from the noble Baroness relating to Clause 21, I said:
“Clause 21 of the Infrastructure Bill is completely unconnected to the Government’s stated policy to establish a new public body to hold the Public Forest Estate”.—[Official Report, 30/6/14; col. WA 214.]
The Government have no intention of transferring land from the new body to the Homes and Communities Agency, as the public forest estate is currently in use and not declared surplus. As such, the powers will not be used in relation to this body and will therefore have no effect on it.
I also refer to our forestry and woodland policy statement, published in January 2013, which built on the recommendations made by the independent panel on forestry, chaired by the then Bishop of Liverpool. It confirmed that the PFE will continue to benefit from public ownership. Nothing has changed. We remain committed to this and are continuing to work closely with stakeholders.
I believe that we shall have a discussion on the group that begins with Amendment 91A which will address some of the issues of easements. Just for the purposes of the issues that were raised by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, third-party purchasers will be able to override easements in any land sold by the HCA, the GLA and the MDCs, the mayoral development corporations. That has always been clear from this legislation.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I apologise for intervening on the Minister but I wonder if we can clear that up, as it is before us. Did she say that third-party purchasers can override those easements?
Baroness Kramer
I think that a better way to express it is that where they have been overridden by the HCA, the GLA and the MDC, they are sold, as it were, with the override in place. I believe that that is correct; I will write to the noble Lord if it is not, but that is my understanding of the situation.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I am grateful; that is helpful. It is what I understood the position to be likely to be—that third party purchasers could not create those overrides.
Baroness Kramer
That was the issue at dispute. My understanding is that they cannot create. I am now looking for some clarification on this so that I can come back to the noble Lord with a more correct answer. I just have a note that says, “If Clause 22 goes ahead, they will”. I believe that we are going to address that under Amendment 91A, in which case I may be able to give the noble Lord a more substantive answer shortly. If not, I will ensure that he gets complete clarification on this issue.
On the tax issues that the noble Lord raised, tax provision to produce a tax-neutral result will be made in secondary legislation under new Section 53B. Again, we can provide more detail on that than I have at my fingertips at this moment.
To return to the heart of Amendments 85B, 86, 87, 88 and 89, we believe that the necessary safeguards are in place to ensure that land transfers only when agreed by the Secretary of State and when the transferring department has deemed the land to be surplus to its requirements. The clause sits within the wider planning framework, which offers sufficient safeguards to protect any open spaces or other amenity land. For that reason we will resist these amendments, and I hope that what I have said provides some assurance.
On the Edward I freemining rights, we will indeed follow up in writing. I confess that that is beyond my general knowledge of these issues, so this may be the most helpful way to provide that information to the noble Baroness, Lady Royall.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I am grateful to the Minister for that detailed response. I accept that there are some points on which we shall have some follow-up, particularly on easements. On matters of tax, the particular point I sought to probe was: at the point when the land goes from the HCA—or the GLA, if that is what it is—to a private sector developer, what is the basis on which it acquires that land? Is the developer thereby getting a tax break? Is the value of its land uplifted or is it reduced somehow? I do not expect the Minister to deal with that in detail today but I would be grateful if there could be some follow-up on it. We accept the assurance that there will be procedures in place to make sure that the owning department will have to sign off on any transfer and that it would only be surplus, as the Minister described.
Baroness Kramer
Perhaps I might make a small correction for the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, because I want to be absolutely clear on this point. It would be a Secretary of State, a Minister or somebody delegated. Because the Government act as a whole, I cannot guarantee to him that the owning department would necessarily provide that signature but I will look for clarification.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I am grateful and perhaps we could have some follow-up on that as well, if necessary. I also accept that the different approaches to when land is identified as surplus mean that it may be difficult to have an all-embracing definition in the Bill.
However, that leaves two issues around the forest estate, which my noble friend Lady Royall spoke about with a great passion, as indeed did the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans. Given the generality of the assurances that the Minister has given, is there not the possibility that we could at least have something specific in the Bill in relation to the public forest estate, as an example of where it simply will not be transferred? That would ease the genuine concerns of many who are not happy about the broadness of this clause as it is drafted. Could that, at least, not be included in the Bill? We accept that there are issues around surplus and the processes of transfer.
Baroness Kramer
I apologise for bobbing up constantly but the noble Lord will understand that I am trying to catch information as rapidly as I can to ensure that we do not leave him with an inaccurate picture. In terms of that sign-off to which I referred a few moments ago, if the land is surplus, it is the Minister for the DCLG who provides the signature in all cases. It is important that I share that, rather than leaving the noble Lord misinformed on this issue.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
We need to think about that. Is it the Minister for the DCLG in all cases, wherever the land was originally owned or used and whichever department it was?
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I am grateful for that. It is news to me but it is helpful to have it. I should like to press again on the issue of the public forest estate and why that cannot be specifically included as an exemption from the operation of these clauses. I am sure the Minister will recognise that that would ease the very real concerns that have been raised. She may say that those concerns are unnecessary, given the assurances that have been provided, but notwithstanding that, there would be clarity and certainty in the Bill. What is wrong with that?
Baroness Kramer
My Lords, I feel that at this point we have given real clarity on this issue. As I say, this mechanism simply makes more efficient a process that is currently in place. The assurances that stood yesterday and stand today are the assurances that will stand tomorrow, and it seems to us that those are clear and unequivocal. We therefore cannot see what is gained by putting this into the Bill.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, we have reached the stage where it is necessary to withdraw the amendment but I cannot believe that we will not return to this matter at a later stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
“(7A) An instrument containing (whether alone or with other provisions) regulations under section 53A(2) may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.
(7B) An instrument containing (whether alone or with other provisions) regulations under section 53B may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of the House of Commons.””
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, this is a straightforward amendment that would require the regulations specifying public bodies to be subject to the affirmative procedure. These provisions are focused on identifying which public bodies’ assets can be the subject of a scheme for transfer to the HCA. In other amendments, we have just discussed the sensitivity around these schemes, which should be clear. The affirmative procedure is still limited but it seems to us that it should apply, at the very least on the first use.
Baroness Kramer
My Lords, I gather from general conversation that there are many arm’s-length bodies—certainly several hundred of them. A process whereby adding them or subtracting them from a list would require affirmative actions in your Lordships’ House and the other place seems excessive, frankly, when the whole purpose of this is to speed up the process of land disposal and ensure that appropriate developments can happen quickly. Maximising the release of surplus public sector land is critical to support our ambition to reduce the deficit and, even more importantly, increase the number of homes being built.
We are already releasing surplus public sector land under the current public sector land programme, and have an ambition to dispose of land with the capacity to build 100,000 homes. The language in the Bill lets us do that better and faster, getting much needed land developed quickly. We already utilise the expertise of the HCA to remediate and market surplus land, and it will continue to play an important role in speeding up development. The purpose of the clause is to eliminate needless bureaucracy and get surplus developable land to the HCA quickly.
An amendment specifying that the regulations about bodies transferring land to the HCA would have to pass through the affirmative procedure would merely slow that whole process down again and defeat the whole point of what we are attempting to do. We are cutting out a middleman, and it is important to resist various attempts to slow this process back down again. Needing a debate in both Houses every time a new set of regulations was made or when names were added to a list would have the effect, frankly, of wasting parliamentary time. There is a process in place that allows for objections to be made if concerns are sparked by any particular change.
The proposed programme is not a one-time programme but a continuing one, and new sites can be identified by departments and arm’s-length bodies. The transfer could come from an arm’s-length body that currently either does not exist or is not on the list because it has not at present identified land to transfer. We really do not want to exclude land because those names are not on the list—we want to make sure that development can happen. This amendment is at odds with the aims of the Bill, and for that reason we ask that the amendment be withdrawn and that it be accepted that these regulations should remain subject to the negative procedure.
As I say, when there are genuine concerns about a body specified in the regulations, the negative resolution procedure allows a challenge to be made and a debate to take place, in either House. The regulations can be challenged and dealt with in that way. In our view, the negative procedure is proportionate and in line with our policy aim to accelerate the pace of land disposal and to remove bureaucracy. I therefore ask that this amendment be withdrawn.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I think I am convinced. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Kramer
Baroness Kramer
My Lords, maximising the release of surplus public sector land is critical to supporting the Government’s ambitions to reduce the deficit, increase the number of houses being built and help to drive economic growth.
We have introduced Clause 22 to speed up the process of land disposal and ensure that appropriate development can happen quickly. The ability to remediate and sell surplus public sector land is critical to the supply of much needed new homes. I think this is going to address the question raised a few moments ago: our clause will bring the powers of purchasers of land from the HCA, the GLA and the MDCs into line with those presently enjoyed by purchasers of land from local authorities and other public bodies involved in regeneration and development, such as urban development corporations, when overriding easements. This now picks up the issue that I stumbled upon a few minutes ago.
The ability to override easements is often necessary to the development of a site. It is in the wider public interest that we support development that brings much needed homes and jobs. We have tabled this amendment to ensure that the power can be used as intended by the Greater London Authority. The bulk of GLA land is held and managed by GLA Land and Property. We need to ensure that it is able to use the powers as intended, which is what the amendment will do. I beg to move.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I think that I am happy with this. Do I understand that it relates just to dealing with the GLA problem and its need to operate through a taxable subsidiary?
Lord Jenkin of Roding
My Lords, while my noble friend is contemplating the answer to that, she wrote to me about this in her letter of 1 July. She said:
“The intention is for the HCA to dispose of its freehold interest on the open market”.
I completely understand that. She said that,
“the HCA retains a strong policy interest in what happens on its land once it is sold to market”.
I think that that picks up the point I raised earlier about the need to ensure that the land is in fact used for purposes consistent with public policy. She continued:
“Where public land can be put to better use—say in supporting the delivery of much-needed new homes—it will transfer to the HCA. The HCA will then typically seek to set the parameters for future development on the land, by obtaining planning consent with the local authority prior to sale, and selling its land with certain conditions attached”—
that is the point that I think the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, was asking about—
“to ensure that the building carried out on its land is done so in line with public policy (say by specifying the number of affordable homes to be built)”.
That all seems extremely sensible. This is not just bringing land in and then saying that anyone can do anything they like with it. If it is public land already, the question is to get it into use for public purposes as quickly and efficiently as possible, but for purposes consistent with public policy. That seems to be quite right. Can the Minister confirm that her amendment is indeed intended to achieve that?
Baroness Kramer
My Lords, I am looking to make sure that I have some advice on this. However, it is my understanding that local authorities and other public bodies involved in regeneration development are able to sell land to purchasers with the power of overriding easements. Urban development corporations are an example of that. When that legislation was drafted, however, the GLA did not gain that power. We believe that that was by oversight, and, if I understand it correctly, this clause will now correct that.
Similar powers can be found in other legislation, as I have said. Local authorities have long had powers to override third party interests, as do housing action trusts, local highways authorities and urban development corporations. This was true even of defunct bodies such as regional development agencies, the Urban Regeneration Agency—better known as English Partnerships— and the Commission for New Towns. This is basically to correct a drafting oversight in the original GLA legislation and, as such, it is an important though fairly technical amendment.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I am grateful to the Minister for her explanation. I think that I have got it but I want to make absolutely sure. This amendment deals with the GLA situation but outside that, in the example being pursued by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, if there is a disposal to a third party by the HCA with planning permission and all the constraints presumably being in the contract, can the third party purchaser in those circumstances take the benefit of overrides that have been provided by the HCA or a local authority but not create new overrides itself? That is the particular issue that I am trying to get clarity on.
Baroness Kramer
Perhaps I might write to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, on that issue because I think that I am getting myself caught up in circles, which is not an appropriate way to give him the answers that he needs.
Lord Jenkin of Roding
I am full of admiration for the way that my noble friend is dealing with this, having had to come to terms with it at such short notice. Perhaps I could be included in the letter.
Baroness Kramer
“(8A) After subsection (4) insert—
“(5) In this section references to the Authority include a company or body through which the Authority is required by section 34A above to carry on activities where those activities are carried on for a commercial purpose.
(6) Subsection (5) does not affect the application of Parts 3 and 4 of Schedule 4 to the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008—
(a) in relation to the acquisition of land by the Authority under this Part, or(b) in relation to land in respect of which functions of the Authority relating to housing or regeneration are being or have been exercised.””
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, there will be a subsequent debate in respect of Clause 24 so I will speak generally to both clauses and pick up any further points in the subsequent debate. Clause 23 transfers responsibility for local land charges to the Land Registry, while Clause 24 confers additional powers on the Land Registry. Neither of these propositions can be divorced from the parallel proposition for a new model of a Land Registry delivery company, which is widely believed to be a step along the way to privatisation of the service.
Just yesterday the Government pulled the plug—at least for the time being and, I am bound to say, not with good grace—by recognising that they would have to give further consideration to the complexity of their proposed new business strategy, including moving complex applications online and automating processes. There were high levels of disagreement anyway with the suggestion that an arm’s-length model would enable operations to be more efficient and effective or that such models would have the right checks and balances to protect the integrity of the registry. While reaffirming that they are moving ahead with the digital transformation, the Government have stated,
“at this time, no decision has been taken to change Land Registry’s model”.
While we should not be under the misapprehension that the threat has gone away, we should recognise that the news, unnecessarily delayed as it is, will come as some relief to the staff and to those who campaigned against the folly which privatisation would represent.
Mr John Manthorpe, a former Chief Land Registrar, has stated in a letter:
“The Land Registry is a successful and highly regarded department of government with a 150 year history. It makes no call on the exchequer and has a 97% customer satisfaction rating … It conducts its business impartially and free from any conflicts of interest. It grants and guarantees title on all transactions so providing the security of tenure and conveyancing machinery on which a stable society depends and without which the property, transfer and mortgage markets could not function”.
I could rest my case for this clause and Clause 24 not remaining part of the Bill at this point. If the Government have to hold back on their proposed plans for the Land Registry because they need to revisit the model to deliver their new business strategy, it is difficult to see how it could possibly take on responsibility for local land charges and more, largely unspecified, powers relating to that. There are some 20 million local land charges registered, with 65,000 updates every month.
There are further detailed arguments that deserve to be heard. For a start, the consultation on wider powers and local land charges was flawed. It was conducted by the Land Registry itself, which clearly had an interest in the outcome. There were concerns that it was overly focused on what would add value to the Land Registry, and that it was undertaken with at least half an eye to privatisation.
The Land Registry proposal is to take over the maintenance and searches of the register of local land charges. It argues that this is necessary because of a perceived lack of consistency and standardisation in the provision of local land charges. The World Bank ease of doing business survey marked the UK down on the ease of registering a business, including the speed of registering and transferring commercial property. This was also prayed in aid of the proposal.
However, the Law Society, in its submission to the consultation, expressed the view that in recent times local authorities and other providers have been producing search results in a timelier and more consistent manner and at a predictable cost. Indeed, the impact assessment noted that there had been annual productivity gains of 2%. The Law Society expressed the view that while there is merit in seeking to create a single local land charge and CON29 service, most practitioners would not regard it as a priority for the Land Registry to address. It says:
“Having more consistent processes for discharging charges … could markedly improve and de-risk the process”.
Dealing with searches is just part of the conveyancing process. The Law Society’s conclusion is that the research conducted by the Land Registry does not demonstrate that there is a problem that needs to be resolved.
It is suggested that the speed of service conducted by local authorities is causing a problem in the conveyancing market. This is despite a recent survey indicating that the turnaround time for 96% of searches that involve only local land charges is less than 10 days, with three-quarters being returned within five days. Searches involving local land charges and CON29 have slightly less speedy performance but, as it is proposed that the latter stay with local authorities, it does not seem that overall search turnaround times will improve.
The District Councils’ Network has expressed concerns at the proposed separation of land charges to be undertaken by Land Registry from CON29 searches, which will remain the responsibility of local authorities. It considers that this fragmentation creates a risk of inconsistency, with the potential for errors and omissions. It says that insufficient weight has been given to the local knowledge that resides with local authorities, which are still generally the originators of the data. Local authorities will still incur costs in collating and supplying data, in maintaining a database and, presumably, for indemnity insurance—when there is no income stream from search fees. It also instances that many local authorities have made recent investments in digitalisation, for which no recovery is promised by the Land Registry.
As the Local Land Charges Institute points out, the original intention of the Land Registry was to take over and maintain the database for local land charges and CON29. However, having studied the proposition for over a year, it decided to abandon the idea. Therefore, as things stand, Clause 23 would mean a fragmented service, with no credible alternative being offered. The Council of Property Search Organisations—CoPSO—offers the view that the sector is currently operating well, with healthy competition. It says that the claimed postcode lottery is illusory and that there is no real problem to fix. Moreover, it suggests that the threat to local authority jobs could result in increased waiting times for searches, with consequent detriment to the housing market.
The Local Land Charges Institute argues: that the perceived problems with the land charge function has been overstated; that such problems as there are can be resolved more simply and with less cost; that the demand for the Land Registry takeover has been overstated; and that the Land Registry has failed to demonstrate a clear understanding of the processes and risks involved in the local land charge function and is proposing a worse service. It says that the Land Registry has failed to demonstrate how it will actually provide the service and that the Land Registry has proposed a number of unsatisfactory business models over the past three years and now proposes to take over only half the service, providing less information to customers than local authorities currently do, leaving local authorities to undertake the more complex work and providing a fragmented service to customers.
The LGA expresses opposition, in particular making the point that the proposals will leave councils with the expense of adjusting systems, breaking existing contracts and paying redundancy costs. It says that over the longer term the costs to councils of compiling, checking and verifying data have not been properly accounted for in the analysis.
The opposition is glaringly obvious from the Government’s own consultation: 94% of respondents do not think that the Land Registry has considered all feasible options and 95% do not support the Land Registry taking over the local land charge function from local government. It is time to think again, as even the Government have recognised on their delivery company. It is time to remove the clause from the Bill.
Lord Tope
My Lords, I confess to relative ignorance on the subject of the Land Registry, so I have been trying to understand better. Naturally, I wish to support my Government, and particularly want to support my noble friend the Minister, who has to reply to this. I have a number of concerns, some of which the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, set out very fully when making his points. Like him, I, too, have had representations from the Local Land Charges Institute and from the Law Society, which have made a number of points to which I am sure the Minister will reply.
Certain things increase my concern. First, of course, this takes functions away from local authorities and centralises them. There are two things that instinctively trigger me as a localist, and I find them difficult. I therefore need to understand better than I currently do, not just what the problem is that we are trying to fix, but what the scale of the problem is, as the Government see it, that makes it necessary to take these functions away from local authorities and centralise them. Throughout history, the experience of centralising does not necessarily automatically lead to greater efficiency, nor does it seem immediately to be in keeping with the Government’s commitment to localism.
On a similar and related point, I have seen several times the awful phrase “postcode lottery” used with reference to the current situation. I hate that phrase; if we put it rather differently, so-called postcode lotteries mean we recognise that different factors apply in different areas and that local people—local authorities, in this instance—are able to determine their priorities, their way of doing things and, for that matter, what charges they wish to set for local services. If that is called a postcode lottery then I am all in favour of it but I would prefer to call it real localism.
My next point was raised by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie. He referred to the results of the consultation, which came out significantly against the Government’s proposals. That has been dismissed as self-interest. In a sense, that is true; it is pretty obvious that the Local Land Charges Institute has an interest. You can call it a self-interest if you like, but I have to say that the responses to most consultations come from organisations or people with what could be called a self-interest. It just so happens that that self-interest means that they usually know very much more about the subject than most of us do. The fact that they have a self-interest—or, as I would put it, a greater knowledge—certainly does not mean that they are by definition wrong or that their views should be dismissed. Certainly, the context should be recognised.
Lord Jenkin of Roding
My Lords, my noble friend will remember that at Second Reading I raised rather similar anxieties that the case for this change had not been made. Since then, I have tried to dig a bit deeper to find out what lies behind it. I was intrigued by quite a long article in today’s Times, which I tend to read with my cup of tea in bed in the morning. In the business section was the headline:
“Land Registry sale put out to grass as row continues over Royal Mail”.
The article—I will not read it out in full—says that the suggestion that the Land Registry should be privatised has a long history. We have had a statement that there is no present intention to privatise the Land Registry; indeed, I have quoted it from some of the correspondence from the Minister. However, what I find particularly intriguing—and the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, may remember this—is that it has now been revealed that in answer to a Parliamentary Question in 2000, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, the then Lord Chancellor, stated that the Government were considering privatising the Land Registry. That was the previous Government, nearly 15 years ago.
The argument has rumbled on for a long time, and I wonder where it all comes from. I cannot believe that this has ever been part of a concerted government policy supported by the Treasury or by successive departments of industry. My right honourable friend Michael Fallon, who has now been promoted to the Ministry of Defence, is quoted in the article as saying recently:
“Due to the importance of the Land Registry in the effective operation of the UK property market, we’ve concluded that we need further consideration before changing Land Registry’s set-up. Thus, we haven’t made a decision on this occasion”.
That echoes what my noble friend the Minister has said on previous occasions.
The more I probe this, the more worried I become. I may be quite wrong, and perhaps the Minister will correct me, but I have formed the impression that the real driving force for the privatisation proposal and, now, for this present proposal to absorb the whole of the local Land Registry function comes from the Land Registry itself and from Mr Edward Lester, who has headed it up for some time. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that that is where this proposal has come from. I am not impressed by that. My eye was caught the other day by a Statement in the House from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, repeated in this House by my noble friend Lord Deighton, about the question of what they call,
“off-payroll contracts in the public sector following the introduction of tighter rules … when I published ‘The Review of the tax arrangements of public sector appointees’”.
Lower down, it turns out that the Land Registry has recently been in breach of that requirement, where,
“a senior Land Registry board member was engaged off-payroll for longer than six months. As a result, a fine of £1,030,176, the largest for an off-payroll breach so far, has been imposed on the Land Registry for breaking these rules”.—[Official Report, Commons, 10/7/14; cols. 23-24WS.]
That does not inspire one with confidence.
I let my noble friend Lady Stowell know that I was concerned about this. I had a very full e-mail from her this morning, while she was still in her post at DCLG and before she had become Leader of the House, in which she set out, at some length, the circumstances that underlay that decision. I would not dream of repeating it all, but the fact of the matter is that that Statement was correct: the Land Registry has been fined over £1 million for not complying with government requirements on off-payroll salaries.
When I look at the supporting documents published with the Bill, I find that they are all signed by Mr Ed Lester—they are not signed by a Minister at all. The impact statement is signed by the chief executive of the Land Registry. One has become totally accustomed to impact statements being signed by Ministers, and one wonders why this is. What is going on?
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and my noble friend Lord Tope referred to the very long Government response to the consultation. It is a substantial document. Question 7 asks:
“Do you have any comments about the reasons to change Local Land Charge services and do you see any benefits?”.
The answer was:
“The majority of respondents to this question felt that the reasons given in the consultation to change LLC services were not supported by the evidence produced and that the perceived problems with the current service had been overstated. Many felt that the consultation did not provide sufficient information of how the proposals would work in practice and that they would not produce the costs benefits or a centralised one stop shop”.
That goes to the heart of the proposal in the Bill. I repeat: there may be a case for it but it has not yet been convincingly stated, which was the point that I made to my noble friend at Second Reading.
I referred earlier to the reply dated 1 July that my noble friend sent me to a number of questions. She said:
“Government acknowledges the concerns raised in some consultation responses. It also recognises Land Registry’s experience in providing registration services and believes this ideally places it to provide the local land charges service. Land Registry will continue to carry out extensive engagement with local authorities, personal search companies and key industry stakeholders”.
The last sentence gives one some encouragement: at last, they are listening. My noble friend Lord Tope referred to the Local Land Charges Institute and its letter dated 12 June. Having said that it was not provided with any satisfactory answers, it stated that,
“the Minister has declined our invitation to meet to discuss the proposal”.
That does not inspire one with confidence. When it asked for a meeting, the Minister’s private office—of course, I do not refer to my noble friend now because she was not there—would have taken advice. The advice from Edward Lister was no doubt, “No, don’t waste your time seeing these people. This policy is going ahead and you’ve got better things to do”. As a Minister, one has seen responses of that sort. A wise Minister says, “I think we ought to see these people”. In those circumstances, I like to think that perhaps that is what I would have done as a Minister.
Since Second Reading, when I raised my anxieties about this matter, they have been increased. I am not at all sure that the Government will be justified in proceeding with this proposal now. I say with some sadness that so far they have entirely failed to convince almost all the people involved, customers and providers, of the case for this centralisation.
As for my noble friend Lord Tope, I can say a curious thing: one has occasional periods of lying awake and last night I wondered who invented the phrase “postcode lottery”. I raised this some years ago in relation to the health service when the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, was the Minister in the Lords answering for the health department. I said, “If you’re going to localise the health service, you’re going to get different services in different parts of the country. Does that qualify as a postcode lottery?”. He said that he did not much like that phrase himself. I said, “If you’re going to localise, you’ve got to recognise that there will be different local solutions to the problems”. To let the press get away with condemning that all the time as a postcode lottery makes an absolute nonsense of the process of localisation, which I have always understood that all parties are now subscribing to. I took a full part in the proceedings of the Localism Act as it went through, and we all supported the principles that were behind that. In this Bill, though, we have nothing more than a substantial centralisation, a withdrawal of functions from local authorities to the centre.
What are the two arguments being put forward? One is that this is all going to be digitised and therefore needs to be uniform, and the other is that there are different charges in different parts of the country so the charges ought to be more uniform and it would be best to do that by centralising. I do not accept either of those arguments as they have been put. I hope that the Minister is going to make a better fist of convincing the Committee that these clauses really represent such an advance in the service that will be given to customers that we ought to swallow our doubts and accept them. In the mean time, I have to say that I am not very happy about it.
Baroness Kramer
My Lords, I shall reply first to the comment from my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding that the Minister did not meet stakeholders. That was during the consultation period. I think that Ministers often make the decision that they should not distort a consultation by meeting with some particular parties and not others. Meetings have subsequently been put into the diary with both Mr Lester and BIS. As I say, this was a matter of propriety during a period of consultation, as many noble Lords will recognise was necessary.
We have a problem with the local land charge system. At present, each of the 348 local authorities in England and Wales maintains its own local register, and they are kept in a variety of formats. Some are digital but do not use the same digital systems, while many are still paper-based. The fees for searching the register vary from £3 to £96. Since the rule applying here is that the local land charge service should be provided on a cost-recovery basis over a three-year period, it is quite hard to understand why there is that discrepancy and range of difference in pricing. Some of the services respond in a day or so; some take more than 20 days. That has led to the buyer of a property or someone remortgaging a property—who is, in all honesty, probably not that conscious of who their local authority happens to be—not being able to rely on an efficient service in every part of the country. It is, in a sense, a genuine postcode lottery if you are sitting in the position of the person trying to buy a property or seeking to remortgage one. I suggest that we have a serious problem there.
To give the Committee an example, Camden Council is taking 38 days to process searches. You can imagine what that is doing in a process where house prices move while people are trying to get mortgage approvals and are often in chains of buyers. It is clearly jeopardising people’s ability to buy a house. We have had other reports—
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I apologise; did the Minister say that it was 38 days for Camden?
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Was that the local land charge search or the CON29 search?
Baroness Kramer
My understanding is that it is the local land charge search, not the CON29 search, but we have had reports of problems of varying degrees in Scunthorpe, Erewash, Exeter and Sutton. It is not confined to one particular local authority. Users of this service have said in surveys that only 24% of local land charge search results are returned within a day and only 50% within two to five days. I thought that I had some of the numerous responses from people who use the service and thought it was an incredibly good idea to start trying to centralise it and provide some degree of consistency; if I find them later, I will quote them.
I should point out that the Land Registry’s performance for a similar range of preliminary searches and copy register and copy document services is that over 95% were returned within one day. The Land Registry, in its central form, is exceedingly efficient. It has a flat fee of £3 and most queries are dealt with instantly by online access. I now have the number that I was looking for. I am told that 63% of users were supportive of trying to rationalise and centralise this system. We are living in the 21st century and people expect to be able to access information in the most efficient way, and that supports the property market. If we want to increase the availability of housing, surely that has to be a service that we look at seriously, making sure that it is as efficient as it can be.
In this day and age, it is crucial that public services are available online. The DVLA now processes driving licence applications online, and I see no one calling for us to change that to a system in which in each local community there is a separate application for a driver’s licence through the local authority. It is time for the local land charges system to be modernised and made fit for purpose in a digital era. A single digital register held by a single provider will reduce overheads and eliminate regional variations in the speed, format and costs of the local land charges service. The solution will improve turnaround times to mere minutes and improve data accessibility for the property sector. By reducing overheads, in effect we will make sure that there is a lower fee for the customer, and the standardised process means that the fee will not change based on location.
The poll that I cited a moment ago, conducted by Ipsos MORI, showed that 63% of customers found the Land Registry proposal “appealing” or “very appealing”. Customers want to benefit from a standardised service. They want faster turnaround times, reduced running costs and lower fees. These proposals will make it quicker and easier for people to buy a property, remortgage their home and even, in many cases, start up a business.
The Land Registry has a proven track record in providing digitised information to the public. I say that to provide reassurance that this is a body capable of putting together the system that we require of it. It safeguards almost 24 million registered titles, has a customer satisfaction rate of 98% and already processes around 22 million applications electronically annually. It has extensive experience of digitising registers and a central position in the conveyancing process, as the single largest source of property information. That is why it makes it right for this body to take over the local land charges service.
History shows that this kind of step change to a modern, standardised service, with the benefits that brings to the public, simply cannot happen if the service remains split between 348 local authorities. It will require a single digital register held by a single provider to get that reduction in overheads and eliminate the endless variations in the format—never mind in the costs—of the local land charges service. We of course accept that there is a role for local knowledge; that must be maintained. Therefore, local authorities will continue to be responsible for collecting and updating all the information in the register.
Your Lordships have asked whether we are removing a valuable source of revenue for local authorities by, as it were, leaving with them an element of cost. We are in detailed discussions because we are concerned that local authorities should not bear an undue burden by providing the input that only local knowledge can provide. Local authorities would be responsible for collecting and updating the information in the register, and obviously that should not be an undue burden on them. However, if they came to us and said, “But we’re losing a source of revenue”, we would point out that the rules have made it absolutely clear that this is not meant to be a revenue-raising service; it is a cost-recovery service. Therefore, the argument that there is a loss of revenue really does not hold water, as surplus revenue is not the purpose of the current pricing system.
Some noble Lords asked about CON29 searches. I can explain that the Land Registry is examining the feasibility and developing the policy of providing CON29. However, it is important to be clear that for a property transaction, customers already go to the Land Registry for searches, so providing local land charges searches through the Land Registry portal does not add another step for them. Over time, the CON29 searches may be added to those channels but our intention is to do that in a responsible way, as an incremental phased approach. The Land Registry is well placed to bring about the benefits envisaged. For a property transaction, customers already go to the Land Registry and, as I said, it has a proven track record. While local authorities are focused on a whole range of activities, property information and serving the conveyancing market is the sole purpose of the Land Registry and its specialised expertise.
The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, raised the question of whether this is a step towards privatisation. Noble Lords will be aware that a consultation on the ownership structure of the Land Registry was begun in January and completed in March, and the Government have provided their consultation and see no reason to change the current ownership arrangements. I want to be clear on that point. The process we are proposing here—to bring new efficiency into the Land Registry system—is part of moving into the efficiency of the 21st century by taking advantage of digital technology, which has not historically been available but which is available today for the benefit of the user. Noble Lords will be aware that to some degree a whole industry has grown up which negotiates the current search process for individuals who want to buy properties, because they currently find that process so cumbersome and complex. Surely transferring that to an online system, which the ordinary user can use with ease and clarity, is the direction in which we absolutely have to go.
Noble Lords made a number of comments about the off-payroll breach. Adequate response has been given to those comments in the various letters that have been provided. However, the sort of determination to go to a centralised and digitised Land Registry system is not the work of one individual or a particular chief executive of the Land Registry, but part of a much broader process of bringing real efficiency into government. The new world of digitisation offers us all kinds of opportunities. We have to use them when they are available and when we can carry them out effectively. Therefore this is not the whim or ambition of one individual but a consistent pattern that one finds throughout government to improve implementation, delivery and efficiency.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, raised the question of potential job losses at local authorities. I should point out that on average just over two people work on this at a local level, but many of them carry out other roles and will have some continuing role in providing the input data. The consequences from a job perspective therefore cannot be ruled out absolutely but are unlikely to be dramatic in the circumstances. I do not think that anybody in this Room, under any circumstances, would wish us to preserve inefficiency to protect jobs. However, in this instance, the consequences are not likely to be significant.
I believe that I have covered most of the issues that have been raised. If I have not, I will be glad to follow up and do so in writing. This clause is an important move forward that will assist people who are attempting to purchase property, to get a mortgage and to remortgage property. That group deserves to get the best service that we can provide it with. I therefore hope that your Lordships will agree that the clause should stand part of the Bill.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response. I am disappointed but not surprised by the position taken. I was not sure whether she was clear that there is going to be no change to the Land Registry’s model during the course of this Parliament. The press release that we had yesterday just says that no decision has been taken to change the Land Registry’s model; that means that it could be changed next month, the month after or indeed tomorrow. I wonder if she might just clarify that point.
Baroness Kramer
I feel very comfortable in replying that the Government’s response on this topic makes it clear that we are not going to change the Land Registry’s model at this time or—I think that I can say this with complete confidence—for the rest of this Parliament. It is not the intention of this Government to change the model.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I am grateful for that. I think that I heard the words “during this Parliament” and I understand that that is as far as the Minister can go.
This is not about preserving inefficiency; it is about working out the best way to create efficiency. The Minister talked about services remaining split as they are at the moment. That is precisely what is going to happen under these proposals; there will be a separation of the local land charges and the CON29. We have heard that a feasibility study is going to be done. We have to address the possibility of bringing in CON29 in a responsible and incremental way. When I heard the phrase “responsible and incremental”, I immediately thought of universal credit.
The reality is that the Land Registry has looked at this for three years. Its original concept was to have both bits of the service in—was it not?—but it has decided that it does not know how to deal with CON29 and, therefore, to move ahead with the other bits without knowing or indeed caring what is going to happen to the separated bit left with local authorities. That seems to be foolhardy, at the very least.
The Minister made the point that this should not be revenue-generating. I accept the point that people involved in local land registries may have other duties—they may spend time on electoral registration, for example—but that does not mean that the loss of a fee does not have a financial consequence. If you are using only one-third of a person’s time, you cannot get rid of one-third of a person, although you can cut hours down in some circumstances, so the contribution to the overhead is going to be less. There is a potential ramification there.
With regard to timing, it would be interesting to know how aware the people who buy, sell or mortgage a house are of how much of the conveyancing time is actually taken up with the search process. Certainly the Law Society’s convention is that it is just a part of the total conveyancing process, which on average takes between six and eight weeks. The Minister quoted the amount of time that Camden council takes, and I am sure that there are areas where people are outside the norm, but the Government’s own impact assessment shows the general speed with which searches are returned.
I well understand the concern and growing anxiety of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, the more that he considered this matter. He raised the issue of the £1 million fine that was imposed. I do not necessarily want to dig into that except that to say that for an organisation that is looking to digitalise, modernise and so on, it does not seem to bode well that it does not have the management systems in place to avoid these catastrophes.
It is right that the previous Government looked at the prospect of privatising the Land Registry. My noble friend Lord Wills was the Minister involved at the time; I spoke to him about it, and he said that it was knocked back pretty sharply. One of the driving forces behind that idea is that, frankly, it could be a nice little earner. Who knows what that database is worth? There are suggestions of £1 billion-plus, which, in an election year, obviously would not go amiss.
The users of the service, including the Law Society, the conveyancing firms and the search firms, are not supportive of this approach. From the Government’s press release when they moved back from changing the model, we know that they recognised that the Land Registry has embarked on the complex application of online and automated processes. It is going through that journey in respect of its existing business, without adding local land charges and the interface with around 350 authorities to it.
I accept that there should be a move towards digitisation. Many local authorities have done it and many are in the process of doing it. Some have started that process and I understand from the impact assessment that, if they have to pull the plug, there will not be any recompense for the investment that they have made in trying to do it. Can the Minister give any assurance on that? The real fear in all this is that this was considered in the context of a change of model. One of the changes would have quite readily led to privatisation. I think that there are some other background papers which clearly indicate that this was the path that some in the Land Registry were moving along. It seems to me that that has coloured the assessment of much of what has gone on.
The point made about the impact assessment and the consultation being undertaken by the Land Registry or the Chief Land Registrar is exactly right. Surely, if we are going to contemplate and revisit opportunities or proposals such as this, there should be an independent assessment on which this is based. Ultimately, whether they agree with it or not, people should have confidence that no ulterior motive was driving what was going on.
As ever, the noble Lord, Lord Tope, was trying to be helpful to his Government. I had to get my mind around the Land Registry as did the noble Lord. He made reference to 15 years but I understand that the government consultation may knock that on the head and that that will not now be a cut-off point. Some of the fears that his colleagues in local government expressed are real fears. The fear that the loss of local knowledge may be dismissed as being not important is a real issue.
I am not sure that we will have a meeting of minds this afternoon. I am sure that we will have another discussion about it at a later stage. There is a substantial head of steam opposed to these proposals, as I am sure the Minister is aware. Perhaps we could hang on to the point that the Law Society, as well as others, is saying that this is not the issue that needs to be addressed. If we are worried about conveyancing issues and the time that that takes, we should look elsewhere to the process and not be looking at this. It acknowledges that processing times have speeded up and that in recent times there has been greater standardisation of response. There has been a reduction in fees and the Government’s impact assessment has recognised the productivity gains that have been made and passed on to customers. Local land charges is not the problem that is creating concerns about conveyancing.
Baroness Kramer
Baroness Kramer
My Lords, there are two minor and technical amendments to paragraph 3 of Schedule 4. These are to ensure that following the transfer of responsibility for the local land charges system to the Land Registry, the local land charges register will include all local land charges that may be registered in the future, whether under Sections 5 or 6 of the Local Land Charges Act 1975 or other relevant legislation. I do not think that I need say a great deal in support of these amendments because the tracking-though of these documents is fairly technical and will provide a clear trail. It will obviously be necessary that legislation should ensure that all future local land charges can be included in the register. The purpose of these two amendments is simply to clarify the position under existing registration. In other words, they are to make sure that everything which needs to be on the register actually gets on to the register, so I hope that your Lordships will be able to support Amendments 92 and 93. I beg to move.
Baroness Kramer
“relevant enactment” means a provision which is made by or under an Act and which provides for the registration of a charge or other matter as a local land charge.”
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, we have had a substantive debate on the Government’s proposals for the Land Registry and local land charges being removed from the Bill. We covered much of the ground in relation to Clause 24 in that same debate. Clause 24 seeks to confer additional powers on the Land Registry. It was acknowledged in the Government’s response to the wider powers consultation that the focus was on the principles of extending the powers of the Land Registry. However, Clause 24 would appear to be more than that and if it were retained, would it not be sufficient for the Land Registry to act without any further legislative approval?
This clause substitutes for certain services,
“consultancy or advisory services about land or other property in England and Wales or elsewhere … information services about land or other property … or … services relating to documents or registers which relate to land or other property in England and Wales”.
If that were carried through, would it not be within the remit of the Land Registry to act on it without further legislative processes? I see that in the responses to the consultation, the challenge was that the consultation did not provide sufficient detail of the services that the Land Registry intends to undertake under its proposed wider powers. The Government’s response was that the part of the consultation on wider powers related to the principle of Land Registry powers being extended to enable it to provide new services. Frankly, what is in the Bill does not seem to correspond with that. What is provided for there is an expansion of the types of services that may be provided.
In any event, in the response to the delivery company consultation the Government made it clear that they consider there to be,
“benefits in creating an arm’s length service delivery company to … modernise”,
the Land Registry and,
“to support new opportunities for the business to play a wider role in the property market”.
There is clearly a linkage between the commercial model and the additional powers. However, as it is agreed that the service delivery company model needs further consideration and there is a commitment to consult again if it is taken forward, should this not apply to Clause 24 so that it can be removed from the Bill, at least for the time being, even if it has to be reinstated in due course?
Either this provision is simply widening the services that can be provided or it is dealing with the principle that is tied up with the service company delivery model which the Government have taken away to consider further. The only safe thing in those circumstances seems to be for that clause not to stand part of the Bill. If there are going to be changes to the model in due course, there will need to be further legislation in any event. If this is tied to that, it needs to be dealt with at that same time.
Baroness Kramer
My Lords, Clause 24 gives wider powers to the Land Registry to enable it to play a greater role in the property sector. The Government’s goal is to make the conveyancing process quicker, cheaper and easier to complete. As we have said before, the Land Registry is the single largest source of property information. It has a proven track record of digitisation of registers, 98% customer satisfaction and a record of reducing fees, with almost 22 million applications processed electronically last year. Most importantly, it sits at the heart of the conveyancing process.
At present, the Land Registry is limited in the services it can offer, not by what is in the public interest but by its statutory powers. This clause corrects that. Giving wider powers to the Land Registry will enable it to provide a range of property information services for businesses and citizens, helping to manage records, keep track of markets and identify business opportunities. The needs of the customers and stakeholders of the Land Registry are constantly changing, and allowing it to meet those changing needs must surely benefit both the property market and the overall economy.
The Land Registry’s ability to engage in new services is not a new concept. The Land Registration Act 2002 already enables it to provide consultancy and advisory services related to the registration of land. It is already using those powers to provide services such as international consultancy on land registration and a range of add-value services relating to land registration information. The new services would be provided on a cost-recovery basis, and the Land Registry would consider undertaking new services and activities only where that could bring savings, efficiencies and other benefits to the property market. This is part of the current move to make sure that we maximise the benefit of the information that is available within government entities in order to benefit residents and, in the case of the Land Registry, particularly those involved in property arrangements.
I also want to make it clear that this is not a necessary mechanism for the digitisation that we have been discussing or for providing services to taxpayers. The process that we have been describing—the core change here—is not dependent on any sort of commercial model, but we think it is rational to permit these additional powers. Given the breadth and depth of its expertise, the Government want to allow the Land Registry to broaden its activities to provide that kind of additional information as part of the infrastructure which others in the property market can then build on and innovate from. This is relatively straightforward and very much in keeping with the whole direction in which access to information, transparency and various kinds of support are now being provided by many parts of government. It recognises that the Land Registry is very much at the heart of conveyancing and central to the whole property industry, and that therefore it has the potential to benefit the sector by expanding the services that it offers, based on needs as they arise and as they change.
Therefore, there is no sinister motive behind this. As I said, it is very much in keeping with modern practice. It is very important that this clause stands part of the Bill so that we can gain the greatest benefits for the property market, for the economy and for the many members of our communities who use that market.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I thank the Minister for her reply but perhaps I may just be clear. Does she consider that what is set down in Clause 24 is sufficient for the Land Registry to commence some of these services, having done its internal assessment? Obviously it is not going to embark on something which it believes will make a profit. Where does that leave the comment in the Government’s response that the Land Registry,
“would consider undertaking new services and activities only where it could bring savings, efficiencies and other benefits … An assessment would be made on market need and LR would engage with stakeholders and, where appropriate, consult on any significant initiatives”?
In a sense, is the Minister saying that these provisions are subject to that response?
Baroness Kramer
Is this a question about whether we are intending to change the commercial model of the Land Registry? Clearly we are not. If that is an answer to the question asked by noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, then I can give that assurance. I think that I made it clear in describing the kinds of services that the Land Registry would seek to offer that those services would be in response to market need. Obviously that requires extensive engagement with the various stakeholders and others who would use the services. It seems to me that that is the kind of partnership relationship, as one could almost call it, that there would be. The Land Registry would therefore consult on any major change precisely because its goal is to make sure that it provides the most appropriate kind of response.
The sorts of factors that would be considered before a new service was introduced would include things such as the impact on the property market, any competition issues, and capability and capacity issues. At this point in time, it is difficult to detail those proposals because we are in a dynamic environment. Therefore, this is essentially an enabling provision but, I think, an entirely appropriate one.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I thank the Minister for that. I do not want to make a meal of this but perhaps I may ask for a final clarification. Are we saying that these services are distinct from any change in the Land Registry’s model—that there might be a change in the Land Registry’s model but these services would still go ahead on some basis or another—or that there would be no change to the model and these services might still be commenced?
Baroness Kramer
Perhaps I can be clear. The whole issue of the model, by which I assume the noble Lord means ownership, is an entirely separate question. The two are not interlinked.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I take the model to be in the sense of not only the corporate structure but the separation of the office of the chief registrar and what was termed in the consultation as a delivery company.
Lord Popat (Con)
My Lords, I think that this may be a convenient time for the Committee to adjourn.
House of Lords
Message from the Queen
The Lord Chamberlain (Earl Peel) (CB)
My Lords, I have the honour to present to your Lordships a message from Her Majesty the Queen, signed by her own hand. The message is as follows:
“I have received with great satisfaction the dutiful and loyal expression of your thanks for the Speech with which I opened the present Session of Parliament”.
Leader of the House
(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)
My Lords, before exercising the privilege of leading tributes to the noble Lord, Lord Hill of Oareford, I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston, to her new role as Leader of the House. The whole House rightly paid tribute to her for the consensual manner in which she piloted the same-sex marriage Bill through your Lordships’ House, and I am sure that she will use those skills as Leader of the House. I wonder whether her skills could also be used to offer a peacemaking role between Mr George Clooney and the Daily Mail—but I will leave that to the noble Baroness.
It will be a pleasure to work with the noble Baroness, who I am sure will secure the Government’s business in the Lords in a style that fits with its traditions and places the proper emphasis on effective scrutiny and the willingness of government to rethink from time to time. I also know that she will not forget that in the strange but wonderful position she has as Leader she wears two hats—Leader of the Conservative Benches and Leader of the whole House. The whole House will be united in its support for the noble Baroness as Leader. I trust that press reports that she will not be a full member of the Cabinet are not true.
I turn to the noble Lord, Lord Hill of Oareford. I start by thanking him personally for the warm and productive working relationship that he and I had during his time as Leader. His door has always been open, as has his mind. He has shown himself to be a consensus builder with inner steel. He was endorsed for such skills in his new commissioner role by the Prime Minister, who this morning said:
“He has proven a skilled negotiator, respected by all parties”.
Whether he can extend those skills to negotiations with Nigel Farage remains to be seen—but if anyone can, perhaps it is the noble Lord.
This might not help his credentials within his own party, but as someone who leads the Labour Benches, which believe that our present and future must lie in a reformed EU, I was relieved that we have such rational chap in Brussels, notwithstanding our differences over the EU Referendum Bill. This morning he said that one of his challenges was,
“how to strengthen public support in many countries for the European Union”.
I trust that he includes the UK in this.
While I fear that some of his colleagues in the Commons want us to leave the EU come what may, I know that the noble Lord will work with colleagues in the Commission to bring about reform. However, I offer him commiserations for having to deal with some elements of his own party who will want to breathe down his neck, harrying him towards the exit.
The noble Lord survived the experience of the Maastricht Bill in No. 10 and I have no doubt that he will survive the tensions of being a Conservative Commissioner. From these Benches, we wish him well.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness (LD)
My Lords, I associate the Liberal Democrat Benches with the very warm wishes expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon, to my noble friend Lord Hill of Oareford.
Perhaps I may paraphrase Benjamin Disraeli by saying that everyone likes flattery, and when you come to an outgoing Leader of the House, you should lay it on with a trowel. You may wonder why from these Benches I am quoting Benjamin Disraeli. The truth is that the noble Lord, Lord Hill, pointed me in the direction of this quote when I spoke to him on the phone this morning.
I actually need no prompting whatever to pay a very warm tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Hill. I valued him as a Front Bench colleague from 2010—but particularly since I was appointed Deputy Leader of your Lordships’ House in October last year, I have had a warm and constructive working relationship with him. He has been an exemplary and thoughtful Leader of your Lordships’ House, protecting the interests of the House and of individual Members in everything that he has done during his term of office. I can sincerely say that his overwhelming concern has always been to protect the good reputation of this House, and he has regularly returned to this in our many conversations together. Party politics aside, we have genuinely worked very well together and I hold him in very high regard.
I echo the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, in saying that the noble Lord had a consensual way of working in the House and a particular concern for detail that I believe will stand him in good stead in his new role in Europe. The outgoing United Kingdom Commissioner was also a Leader of your Lordships’ House. We may reflect that, to operate in a House where no one party has a majority, we must build alliances and agreements across it to get things done. I suspect that this House was therefore a very good training ground for his new position. Whatever our party-political views on Europe, we on these Benches wish him well in his new role.
I also extend a warm welcome to my noble friend Lady Stowell as Leader of the House. We worked well together this time last year on the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, said, the manner in which my noble friend conducted the Bill shows the qualities which she will have to be Leader of our House. However, I wonder whether her new elevated status will make George Clooney think again about his recent engagement—but only time will tell.
I hope that I am not betraying any confidences by saying that, when I spoke to my noble friend Lord Hill this morning, he reflected on the fact that my noble friend Lady Stowell has a bit of a baptism of fire today, with some Standing Order changes that she has to move and the House Committee at 4 pm. It was in the way that he said “the House Committee at 4 pm” that I recognised a man who was demob happy. I look forward to working constructively with my noble friend, starting at 4 pm in the House Committee.
We on these Benches look forward to working with my noble friend, and I once again to pay tribute to the valued work and service to the House of my noble friend Lord Hill of Oareford.
Lord Laming (CB)
My Lords, on behalf of my colleagues on the Cross Benches, I endorse the warm and very well deserved tributes to the noble Lord, Lord Hill, and wish him great success in his new appointment in Brussels. I and others recall well that he was a most effective and hard-working Minister, and I admired greatly his commitment to furthering the protection and well-being of vulnerable children and young people. It is a great credit to him that he quickly established himself as Leader of the House. He has fulfilled his responsibilities with great skill and care. He has commanded the respect of the House and is rightly held in very high regard.
Like others, I had heard rumours in the media about him being a possible candidate for a post in Europe. I readily admit that, rather selfishly, I hoped that that would not happen—but now that it has happened, he will be greatly missed by us all. The noble Lord can be assured that he takes with him to Brussels our grateful thanks for all that he has done during his work as Leader of the House, and also our warmest good wishes. I feel sure that we all agree that the noble Lord is a thoroughly nice colleague, who is able, conscientious, reliable and a real pleasure to work with. We wish him well.
If there is good news in losing the noble Lord, Lord Hill, it is that he has been replaced by the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston, who is greatly admired for both her professional and her personal qualities. As has already been said, her skill at handling difficult legislation has been well and truly tested in your Lordships’ House. We welcome her most warmly to her new role, we wish her great success and we all look forward to working with her.
The Lord Bishop of Carlisle
My Lords, I associate those of us on these Benches with the generous comments from around the House about the noble Lord, Lord Hill. My colleagues have been grateful for the support, the wisdom and the guidance of the noble Lord and his office for the Lords spiritual to enable our contribution to the work of the House to match the high levels of all other parts of the House. He also did a wonderful job as Education Minister and he has been a good friend to the church and to the Lords spiritual.
On these Benches he will for ever be remembered for the slight confusion in the Pass Office that his and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford’s introduction caused. The right reverend Prelate—Christopher Hill—and the noble Lord, Lord Hill, introduced on the same day, briefly shared a wife due to clerical confusion over their surname. This was thought by all to be a step too far towards liberal inclusivity, even with the news yesterday of the imminent arrival of women to the episcopate.
We also extend our warmest welcome to the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell. As we have heard, she had the imposing task in the previous Session of introducing changes to the marriage law and we were very grateful for her willingness to engage constructively with all sides of the debate. We are sure that this will continue in her new role and we greatly look forward to further engagement with her in the years to come. So we welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, and we say thank you very much to the noble Lord, Lord Hill, wishing him well in his new endeavour of representing the complex interests of the United Kingdom with our European partners in the Commission.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)
My Lords, first, I thank all noble Lords for their kind words about my predecessor and the warm welcome extended to me. I fear that I will never live down my remarks about George Clooney.
I am honoured to stand here as Leader of your Lordships’ House. That is not least because of who I succeed. My noble friend Lord Hill of Oareford is also a personal friend of more than 20 years. He and I worked together closely in the past and, as noble Lords may recall, he was one of my supporters when I joined this House. He has always been a source of support, wisdom and good humour—not just for me but for many of your Lordships. His unruffled and self-deprecating style sets him apart, as does his unfailing courtesy and generosity as a kind and straight-talking man. We will all miss him during his time at the Commission. My noble friend heads off to Brussels at an especially important time for this country, and the Prime Minister has sent a man with the country’s very best interests at heart. Undoubtedly, my noble friend will be brilliant in that job.
This House must always meet the highest standards that the people it serves rightly expect. My noble friend, although Leader of your Lordships’ House for only a relatively short time, put that right at the heart of the work he did. In his time as Leader, he proposed and supported changes to the House’s Code of Conduct to strengthen and clarify its operation, as well as new sanctions to deal with those who fall below the standards that we expect. My noble friend can be rightly proud of the way in which he has led this House with distinction. He has been a firm defender of its traditions and customs.
Like my noble friend Lord Hill, I have huge respect for this House and its work. I am very conscious of the great privilege of being Leader and I shall use all my energies to work with your Lordships to meet our responsibilities.
Northern Ireland: Illegal Petrol and Diesel
(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Mawhinney
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their estimate of the total loss to HM Treasury caused by the production and smuggling of illegal petrol and diesel in Northern Ireland.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, the latest tax gap figures published by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs estimate the market share for illicit diesel in Northern Ireland at 12% to 13%, or around £80 million, in 2011-12. Petrol fraud was estimated as negligible.
Lord Mawhinney (Con)
I thank my noble friend for that reply. Given the illegal production and smuggling of fuel in Northern Ireland for decades, given the fact that today a quarter of all fuel sold in Northern Ireland is illegal, and bearing in mind the loss to the Treasury which my noble friend just mentioned and the fact that there has not been a single conviction, is he surprised to learn that many people in Northern Ireland believe that that set of circumstances points to the fact that a deal may have been done with the smugglers, akin to that for the on-the-runs, suggesting that if they stick to smuggling no other action will be taken against them? Can my noble friend assure us that no such deal has been conducted in writing, in words, or by a nudge or wink by this Government?
Lord Newby
My Lords, I can absolutely do that. First, perhaps I may correct the noble Lord. A quarter of all diesel consumption is not illegal; 12% to 13% is illegal; the balance is made up of diesel that is bought in the Republic and brought across. I also assure the House that it is not true that there have been no convictions in this area. There were nine convictions last year, nine convictions the previous year and four convictions the year before. It is true that, unlike in the rest of the UK—or, rather, in England and Wales—there have not been custodial sentences in Northern Ireland, but legislative change last December was undertaken specifically to deal with that problem.
Lord Alderdice (LD)
My Lords, when the Independent Monitoring Commission was established by the British and Irish Governments, we sought to investigate this problem and were shocked to discover that, despite the fact that the Northern Ireland Office had been there for a very long time and was very well resourced, almost no resource was being put in by HMRC to address it. It just did not seem a priority. We worked very hard, without trying to create a problem or embarrassment for the Government. It is true that, by the time that we were finishing up, HMRC had appointed a substantial number of people to address the problem, but there is now no Independent Monitoring Commission and the Northern Ireland Office is a shadow of its former self. How can the House be assured that there will be proper monitoring and accountability to ensure that HMRC continues to do what it needs to, because that certainly was not the case in the past?
Lord Newby
My Lords, I do not know about the past, but in very recent times HMRC has had in-house resources in Northern Ireland to deal specifically with this issue. Additional funding has gone to the road fuel testing units, which are crucial. There is the introduction of a new, more effective marker just round the corner. It is worth informing the House—to demonstrate that we are being effective in this area—that a plant capable of producing more than 8 million litres of laundered fuel was recently found and dismantled in a cattle shed in Crossmaglen.
Lord Hylton (CB)
My Lords, is the Minister aware that cheaper diesel and petrol prices in the Republic have forced the closure of most filling stations in Northern Ireland in a strip 10 or 20 miles wide along the border? Will the Government therefore move to equalise fuel taxes, as is being done in the case of corporation taxes?
Lord Newby
My Lords, the setting of the duty rates for diesel and petrol are obviously done at a UK level. Although this is a problem, it is only one of the many considerations that have to be taken into account. There has been a differential in diesel pricing between the Republic and Northern Ireland for a very long time. Some people are obviously going across the border but, as I said earlier, as a proportion of the total consumption of diesel in Northern Ireland it is relatively modest.
Lord Gordon of Strathblane (Lab)
Will the Minister consider publishing all the available data on quite legitimate cross-border traffic? It might further illuminate the debate on Scottish independence, where many people feel that you can have differential rates north and south of a land border without any apparent change in consumer behaviour.
Lord Newby
My Lords, there is a lot of data published about the duty rates. Noble Lords can see those. What is extremely difficult to do is to demonstrate with any great degree of precision exactly how much of a product crosses a border without a customs post. That is obviously a challenge between the Republic and Northern Ireland, as well as more generally within the EU.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, there is also, of course, a problem of smuggling from mainland Europe into the UK. I went down to Dover a couple of years ago and was shocked to see how porous our borders are. We spoke to the customs officer there; in terms of illegal alcohol and tobacco, there just were not the staff to stop the vehicles to check them.
Lord Newby
My Lords, tobacco smuggling has been a problem for some time. The additional resources that have gone into HMRC over the course of this Parliament, which amount to about £1 billion, have among other things enabled more to be put into that area also.
Lord Browne of Belmont (DUP)
HMRC figures confirm that in 2013-14 illicit fuel was identified at some 33 filling stations. Does the Minister agree that it would be helpful if HMRC would publish the names of the filling stations concerned so that law-abiding motorists could make an informed choice not to use them?
Lord Newby
The slight danger is that others might not, of course. The HMRC is looking at this issue. There is a legal problem at the moment. The legislation would allow naming and shaming to take place only above a certain financial threshold, which would not be met by some of these petrol stations, which are typically small and independently owned. There is also a bad faith test in the legislation so there would need to be a change in it, but HMRC is looking at that issue.
Income Tax: Top Rate
(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what effect the reduction in the top rate of income tax has had on revenue received by HM Treasury.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, the forecast Exchequer revenue effect of reducing the additional rate of income tax to 45% is estimated at around £110 million per year. This is set out in table 2.2 of Budget 2013.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, I am astonished that my noble friend is not prepared to take more credit for the success of the Government’s policy. Is it not the case that the reduction in the top rate of tax from 50% to 45% has resulted in a record level of 28% of all tax revenue being paid by the top 1% of taxpayers? Is that not more than twice the level that was paid by the top 1% of taxpayers when the Labour Government under James Callaghan had a marginal tax rate of 98%? Is not the lesson that lower taxes and fairer taxes are needed in order to cut the deficit and preserve public services?
Lord Newby
My Lords, the noble Lord has a better memory than I have. I am very happy to take credit for the Government’s achievements. The proportion of income tax collected from the top 1% has gone up from about 26% to 28% during the lifetime of this Government. Certainly, income tax take from high earners is extremely resilient because they are prepared to pay it at the levels we now have.
Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, is that not a fairly small sum of money compared to what we lose every year through people who dodge and evade taxes?
Lord Newby
My Lords, it is a very considerable sum of money, but we are taking steps across a range of areas to tackle evasion and avoidance, whether by individuals or firms. There is a measure in this year’s Budget specifically designed to get tax upfront from individuals who are engaged in schemes that might subsequently be found to be avoiding tax. That will generate a considerable amount of income. A number of other measures that we have taken are bringing in hundreds of millions of pounds from people who previously were able to avoid taxes.
Lord Wrigglesworth (LD)
Does my noble friend not agree that if we want a fairer tax system, it also means that we need to ensure that the broadest backs bear the greatest burdens when we are facing difficulties?
Lord Newby
Yes, my Lords, and that is why the Government have taken a raft of measures which will ensure that those with the broadest backs pay very much more than the additional amount of income tax that they might have paid had the rate remained at 50%. For example, we have increased higher rate capital gains tax, raised the stamp duty on higher value homes and reduced the cost of pensions tax relief. These measures, taken with other measures, mean that the additional amount being paid by high earners was more than £1 billion last year and will be more than £2 billion this year and more than £4 billion next year. This is real cash coming into the Exchequer as a result of measures we have taken to hit those who otherwise were avoiding tax.
Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)
My Lords, how can the Government claim that they are being fair when they cut the top rate of tax, giving a £3 billion tax reduction for millionaires? How does the Minister think that squares with the ordinary taxpayer in the country? To say that it brings in more revenue because people who have been dodging tax altogether actually decide that they will make a contribution scarcely sounds like good government.
Lord Newby
My Lords, there is no £3 billion, as I have explained. The effect of the cut is £110 million. The other measures we have taken will bring in over a three-year period some £7 billion extra from the same people. For people on ordinary incomes, the rise in the income tax threshold means that by next year the typical basic rate taxpayer will be £805 per annum better off and 3.2 million people who were otherwise paying income tax will not be paying income tax at all.
Lord Lawson of Blaby (Con)
My Lords, it may be difficult for the party opposite and my noble friends on the Liberal Democrat Benches to understand, but taxation has one purpose, and one purpose only, which is to raise revenue. The Minister said his memory is not very good, so may I remind him that when in 1988 I reduced the top rate of income tax from 60% to 40%, it brought in much more revenue and also resulted in the wealthy paying a higher proportion of tax than ever before? Will he reconsider his previous answer?
Lord Newby
No, my Lords, it simply is not true that the sole purpose of tax is to bring in revenue. Obviously every tax does bring in revenue, but some tax is introduced in order to affect behaviour. We are about to have a plastic bag tax but I do not think that the primary purpose of that tax is to bring in money.
Lord Haskel (Lab)
My Lords, the top 1% pays more tax. Is that because their income has gone up?
Lord Newby
It is partly because their income has gone up, but proportionately it is because they are prepared to pay the tax. As noble Lords opposite know, and as the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, has just demonstrated, when you get to very high levels of tax and very wealthy people, whether they pay it or not is not simply a question of whether they get a demand from HMRC.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, will my noble friend also comment on the beneficial effect of the decline in corporation tax—a business tax—which has had the effect of bringing some of our best companies back to London?
Lord Newby
My Lords, the Government are very keen to ensure that the tax regime is internationally competitive. That is the effect of the corporation tax changes. As the noble Baroness said, it is having a number of beneficial effects.
Lord McFall of Alcluith (Lab)
My Lords, Martin Sorrell of WPP said that for large corporations, corporation tax is a voluntary activity. Is that what the Minster meant by his answer to the last question?
Lord Newby
It certainly is not. As the noble Lord knows, we have taken the lead internationally to make sure that companies—which for many years in some cases have not paid much tax—will pay a proportionate amount. We have taken the lead in the G20 and the OECD to make sure that we have different rules in place, rather than rules that were designed more than 100 years ago. We are going to see the first fruits of that in September; the long-term effect will be that some companies that have been able to avoid paying tax in the past almost altogether by deciding where they were domiciled will not be able to avoid it in future.
Cabinet Office: Efficiency and Reform Programme
(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Risby
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what savings the programme of Efficiency and Reform, run by the Efficiency and Reform Group led by the Cabinet Office, has achieved since 2010.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, for the financial year 2013-14, the Cabinet Office Efficiency and Reform Group, which was set up in June 2010, helped government departments to make savings of some £14.3 billion. This follows £10 billion savings achieved in the financial year 2012-13, £5.5 billion in the financial year 2011-12, and £3.75 billion in the financial year 2010-11. These savings are calculated against a 2009-10 baseline.
Lord Risby (Con)
My Lords, the whole House will welcome the return to economic growth. However, given the continuing high deficit and debt, does my noble friend accept that living within our means and also controlling the cost of government remain vital objectives? Although I welcome enormously the progress that has been made so far, can my noble friend indicate any further progress on cross-departmental procurement activity and the effective involvement by SMEs in this whole process?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, that is a very broad question. Having seen this process close up, I have been struck by the extent to which Whitehall is a confederal system in which departments have to some extent resisted control from the centre. One of my favourite projects in this efficiency and reform scheme has been to centralise the collection of waste paper and build a closed loop system, from which we now save some £4 million—a small amount, but all contributing from building a much more effective system for recycling paper within Whitehall.
Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that not every saving is praiseworthy? For instance, I read in the report that £250 million has been saved on Network Rail repairs. Is it not better that we look first before some savings are made to ensure that they do not undermine the traffic and do not undermine the safety of our railways?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
Of course, as with taxation, there are a range of different objectives in what you are attempting to save. However, much of what the Efficiency and Reform Group has been doing is to apply the sort of careful consideration of how best to ensure that you make the best use of centralised and long-term contracts, as supermarkets do in their relationship with their suppliers. The creation of the Crown Commercial Service earlier this year and of the Major Projects Authority in April 2011 are very important factors in making Whitehall officials more competent and efficient in dealing with the commercial world.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
We support any work that is done to cut costs, but is the Minister not slightly ashamed when he asks civil servants almost to count the paperclips when the Government then waste £1 billion on selling Royal Mail too cheaply?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, the noble Baroness knows that floating companies and making IPOs are always very difficult matters to estimate. We can go on arguing about that particular transaction for a long time, but I am very proud of what the Efficiency and Reform Group has included. I have not yet touched on the digital transformation in which, as we all know, the move from using paper to using digital in transactions with government offers enormous potential savings.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)
The noble Lord, Lord Roberts, asked a very wise question. Is it not the case that most of the savings will be made by destructive cuts in capital expenditure rather than cuts in revenue expenditure?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
No, that is not the case. If I may carry on about the Government Digital Service, it is a wonderful example of insourcing, bringing people in from the Guardian online and various other places and saving an enormous amount of money that was previously being spent on outside consultancies with large, usually American-owned IT firms. We have managed to save a lot of money and have produced a much better result. We have also saved a great deal by focusing on redundant property. For example, different government departments had 18 different buildings in Bristol. The efficiency gains that one can make from that are very considerable.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean (Lab)
The noble Lord gave a very interesting answer to the previous question—
Lord Brabazon of Tara (Con)
If we did sell the Post Office too cheaply, surely that pales into insignificance in comparison with the sale of the gold reserves some years ago.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I do not want to be too partisan on this question. I am focusing on the efficiency gains that this Government have achieved very creditably in the past four years.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean
My Lords, perhaps I may go back to the question before last as the noble Lord gave a very interesting answer. Can he tell us how much actually has been saved by the digital insourcing that he described?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
The previous Government spent an enormous amount on outside consultants.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I am sorry, but I do not have the figures before me on that. I shall have to write to the noble Baroness later. One substantial element in these savings has been the reduction in outside consultancy and outside contracts. The Government Digital Service has saved a great deal of money. I would go further and say that, in my experience, the quality of the people who work in the Government Digital Service is absolutely outstanding.
Child Abuse
Lord Storey
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to prevent and tackle child abuse in the United Kingdom.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, child abuse is an abhorrent crime. We established the national group on sexual violence against children and vulnerable people as one of the ways in which we are working to eradicate it. Additionally, as the House was informed last week, in response to public concerns on this matter, the Government have announced an inquiry to consider whether public bodies and non-state institutions have taken seriously their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse.
Lord Storey (LD)
I am grateful for my noble friend’s reply. I want to talk about a particular education matter, so he may feel the need to write to me about it. I wrote to the Minister asking about the number of young people who are not in school—it is about 80,000. We also know that several thousand young people have gone missing from our system, as each young person should have a unique pupil number. How can we ensure the safety of those children, if we do not know where they are being taught, or if they are being taught in unregulated institutions, or wherever they are? How can we make sure that they are protected and safeguarded, as we do in schools?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My noble friend raises quite a specific issue, but, as I am sure he is aware, the Government’s strategy in Working Together to Safeguard Children provides clear statutory guidance for school staff. As he rightly pointed out, unfortunately there are children who are not within school and safeguarding their interest is also important. If I may, I will write to him specifically on that issue.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)
My Lords, I ask the Minister what he is doing about programmes to deal with children abused in their own homes. As he will know, some 46% of children and young people who are abused are abused at home and a large number are in situational abuse, where they are abused by a babysitter or someone who happens to be around. The best programmes for that are education programmes in communities, but I note that some of those have been cut recently. Does the Minister agree that we should reinstate them?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The important point here is that, as the noble Baroness points out, abuse of children can take place anywhere—in schools or in any institution in society. The Government’s programmes have certainly been focused. Indeed, the whole basis of the new body that has been set up is to ensure that no facet of society—whether religious institutions, government bodies or political parties—falls out of the net. As far as issues go at home, of course the Government are supporting such work. For example, we have appointed the first ever Chief Social Worker for Children and Families in England, Isabelle Trowler, and we are working with her to provide independent, expert advice to Ministers on social work. She will act as a figurehead for the profession and will work with local authorities, which are very much on the front line in protecting these children in homes.
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)
My Lords, the evidence now is very clear that many more children are abused within their own families—physically, sexually or both—in a way that was simply not uncovered in the past. The answer to this is really early intervention and much better support for parents on parenting. I believe that the Government need to go much further than they have proposed to do so at the moment. Does the Minister have any proposals with which he can reassure the House?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
On the issue of early intervention, I will speak both on a personal front and also, if I may, for the new Leader of the House, as both of us made our maiden speeches on that very issue. This is of concern not just to the Government but to all of us in your Lordships’ House. Through this particular inquiry and other initiatives, the Government are looking to address the issues of historical abuse and also the issues of prevention. We are investing a great deal more in education, both through our schools and through our social services systems. Of course, if there is good practice that should be shared and taken on board, I am willing to meet with the noble Baroness to discuss that further.
The Lord Bishop of Durham
My Lords, in pursuing a review into questions of institutional child abuse, are her Majesty’s Government committed to recognising that listening to the voices of survivors and victims of child abuse is vital at every stage of this inquiry; that their voices, through for example the Stop Church Child Abuse campaign, are clear that ultimately only a full public inquiry will do; and that Sir Keir Starmer would be a trusted member of the inquiry panel?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The right reverend Prelate again makes a very important point. Let me assure him that the whole intention of this inquiry is to make it open and transparent. While it has been set up on a non-statutory basis at the current time, if the chairman and the panel decide that this requires a statutory underpinning then the Government have already committed to that—indeed, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has done so. The right reverend Prelate also raises the important point about ensuring that any bodies involved in protection of children from child abuse—be that in the church or voluntary sectors or across the board—are also included in providing evidence. In terms of the specific suggestion, I shall certainly take that back.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister recognise that the importance of looking at historical abuse, although that is extremely important, should not deflect from the equal importance of dealing with recent child abuse and that which is going on across the country at this moment? It seems to me, if the Minister will agree, that there needs to be sufficient resources for the police, who at the moment are being cut down in the amount of money they have. They really need more money to cope with both kinds of abuse—those of the past and those of the present.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The noble and learned Baroness speaks with great experience and expertise on this subject. Therefore, I am sure all noble Lords will join me in expressing great sadness that she has chosen to step down from the role for which she was selected, although we all appreciate the reasons why she did so. The Government fully recognise her ability in this regard. Certainly, it was the view of my right honourable friend the Home Secretary that she should remain the chairman of this important inquiry. Turning to the substance of her remarks, I totally share the concerns she has raised. This is not just about looking backwards but is about ensuring that in the future we protect children in all facets of society. The important element is that we engage fully in this area, that no stone is left unturned historically and that no person feels that they are vulnerable to sexual abuse tomorrow. This is an abhorrent crime and the sooner we eradicate it from our society, the better. I am sure all noble Lords share that sentiment.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, I assure the noble Lord that we on this side of the House share those concerns. Noble Lords will recall that last Monday I raised our concern that there has been a 75% drop-off in the number of people added to the list of those barred from working with children and vulnerable adults. Last year, there were nearly 6,500 referrals to the Disclosure and Barring Service on the ground of suspicious behaviour, the majority of which came from local authorities, yet only 165 people were barred from working with children. Why are so few referrals being acted on? In the light of evidence that so many abusers go undetected, will the Government review and reconsider the changes made to the vetting and barring system?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The noble Baroness raises an important point about these predators—there is no better word for it—who are sometimes undetected or sometimes are detected but action on them is not followed through. When researching this Question, I was startled by some of the statistics, including that of the 16,500 children currently at high risk of child sexual exploitation. The Government intend to pursue the very points the noble Baroness has raised through the inquiry panel that has been set up to look at these elements to ensure that, as I have said, this abhorrent crime is preventing from occurring in the future.
Business of the House
(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Stowell of Beeston
That Standing Order 46 (No two stages of a Bill to be taken on one day) be dispensed with on Wednesday 16 July and Thursday 17 July in respect of proceedings on the Finance Bill, the Supply and Appropriation (Main Estimates) Bill and any Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill; and that Standing Order 40(5) (Arrangement of the Order Paper) be dispensed with on Thursday 17 July.
Public Bodies (Abolition of Food from Britain) Order 2014
(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Northover
That the draft order laid before the House on 6 May be approved.
Relevant documents: 1st Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, 1st Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. Considered in Grand Committee on 9 July.
Serious Crime Bill [HL]
(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Walmsley
“( ) for “that age” substitute “the age of 18”;( ) after “wilfully” insert “recklessly”;( ) omit “unnecessary”;”
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, I wish to speak also to Clause 62 stand part.
Amendment 40BZA would introduce to this very good clause three additional small changes to the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. These are issues that have been raised with us by various children’s organisations, including Action for Children. The first part of the amendment seeks to probe the age to which a person may have responsibility for a young person. The Act currently applies to someone over the age of 16 who also has responsibility for someone “under that age”. The first part of this amendment therefore questions whether the responsibility should be for anyone under the age of 18, rather than 16, given that we have had numerous changes in the definition of children of late, and it varies from one bit of law to another.
The second element of the amendment would add the word “recklessly” after “wilfully”. This was contained in the Private Member’s Bill of my honourable friend Mark Williams MP in another place. Action for Children has suggested that we need to insert “recklessly” alongside “wilfully”. The introduction of “recklessly” would be in line with the interpretation of the 1981 Sheppard ruling, and with the interpretation of recklessness recently defined by the House of Lords in R v G. The term “recklessly” was identified in the Sheppard ruling as preferable to “wilfully”, which is considered difficult to interpret because it is unclear whether it applies to someone’s action or failure to act, or to their failure to foresee future consequences of their action or inaction. We suggest that “recklessly” is added to clarify this.
There can be a particular problem in cases of child neglect, which typically involve the failure to provide care, food, supervision, a safe environment and so on, so we need to cover foreseeing the future consequences of actions as well as the actions themselves. Adding “recklessly” also serves to protect parents and carers where there is any doubt that their action or inaction was due to mental incapacity or excusable ignorance of parenting skills. This is because, under the recklessness test, if there is any doubt that the behaviour of parents or carers was attributable to inherent incapacity to understand or change their behaviour, they will not be prosecuted. This would therefore protect them. “Recklessly” would also confirm the exclusion from liability of, for example, carers agreeing to high-risk medical treatment where there is no better medical option for a gravely ill child.
The final element of this amendment removes “unnecessary” from the requirement that the offence causes unnecessary suffering. The view of children’s organisations is that there is no unnecessary suffering that a person may cause, and that the term is antiquated and should be updated to a modern understanding. However, as my noble friend Lady Brinton has pointed out, certain suffering may be unavoidable; for example, where a child has suffered bereavement.
Perhaps the Minister will say whether the under-16 definition meets the modern understanding of what we mean by children. Would it not be better to cover all children to the age of 18? Why do the Government feel that “wilfully” alone is a better term to use than adding “recklessly”? Will they commit to looking again at this issue in the light of the enormous support that Mark Williams’s Private Member’s Bill had in another place? Will the Minister also say whether the term “unnecessary suffering” is clear enough in a modern context? Is there not a risk that this could prevent certain abuses from being prosecuted under the offence?
I shall also say a few words about the Question that the clause stand part of the Bill. We strongly support this clause, so tabling this Question is not about whether or not it should remain in the Bill, because it is a good clause. However, we have some questions about whether the new and welcome explicit reference to psychological harm will mean that other offences involving harm will now be read as referring only to physical harm. Specifically, offences related to domestic violence could potentially be undermined.
The intention of opposing the Question that the clause stand part of the Bill is therefore to ask the Minister to make a statement from the Dispatch Box that other offences will not be undermined by this welcome change; and to ask the Government to look again at whether it would be a positive step to amend other legislation to reflect psychological harm, in the same way as we are now affecting offences against children. Will the Minister confirm that this welcome change in Clause 62 will not have an adverse impact on including psychological harm within other offences, where it is not explicitly referred to—for example, domestic violence? I beg to move.
The Lord Speaker (Baroness D’Souza)
My Lords, I should perhaps remind your Lordships that if the amendment is agreed to I cannot call Amendment 40BZC by reason of pre-emption.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
My Lords, to a considerable extent I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, but want to go rather further. I thank the Government for, and indeed welcome, Clause 62 as far as it goes. I should like to give particular thanks to the previous Minister of Justice in the other place, Damian Green MP, who has always been open to listening to Action for Children, for which I am largely speaking; I am also speaking for the NSPCC. He has been extremely helpful in giving us an opportunity to put our points of view to him. It is largely due to his diligence that the clause is in the Bill, so I thank him very much.
Clause 62, as far as it goes, is good but does not go far enough. The purpose of my Amendment 40BZB—supported particularly by Action for Children, and warmly supported by the NSPCC—is to update and bring into the 21st century Section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. I have to tell noble Lords that 1933 was the year in which I was born, and it really is about time that we had 21st-century legislation. I am a relic of that period but the law should not be. I am supported in this amendment by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, whom I thank very much.
The purpose is to identify in criminal terms serious neglect and emotional abuse. “Neglect” is in the 1933 Act but does not include the effect of neglect on children and all sorts of emotional abuse that children suffer. Neglect is the most widespread and potentially most serious of all forms of abuse because it is, in itself, largely neglected. It is not seen. There are appalling stories where the police have identified a problem and discovered that they could not take any action by, for instance, threatening the family with some sort of criminal proceedings because the abuse and neglect that they see does not include the emotional abuse of things such as frozen awareness. Some noble Lords may know what I mean by that—for example, a child aged two sitting in a corner, not moving because of the way in which they have been treated. The police, who may come into a family, see and understand this but have to go away and tell the social workers, who may or may not take family proceedings in the magistrates’ court but are not obliged to do so. The police cannot warn the family that if they do not mend their ways they may become the subject of criminal proceedings.
The purpose of this updated legislation is not to put families in the criminal court but to try to push them, by a combination of threat and cajoling, into behaviour that will save the children who are in their care. My amendment, therefore, puts in modern wording such as,
“physically or emotionally ill-treats, physically or emotionally neglects”,
and removes altogether the words “unnecessary suffering”. I totally agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, that “unnecessary” should not be there, but “suffering” is not the word we use nowadays. In the Children Acts and other adoption and child-related legislation we talk about “serious harm”, “substantial harm” or some such phrase. One should get rid of “unnecessary suffering” and get this legislation to join the rest of legislation on children by using “serious harm”. As regards the criminal side of this matter, we then need to explain what “serious harm” means. Proposed new subsection (6) in my amendment sets that out.
It is with some hesitation that I do not entirely agree with the noble Baroness on proposed new subsection (6)(b). I have to say that having battled with the Minister in the other place over inserting “recklessly” instead of “wilfully”, and being told that there was a firm view against doing that, Action for Children, the NSPCC and I, together with some MPs from the Commons, believed that we should explain what “wilfully” means. That is why we have put in,
“that a person with responsibility for a child foresaw that an act or omission regarding that child would be likely to result in harm, but nonetheless unreasonably took that risk”.
That allows the word “wilful” to remain, since the Government seem to want it, but also explains it so that everyone—particularly the police, and indeed people who ill treat their children—understand exactly what it is about.
I very much hope that the Government will now listen to what is being said in this House, although they failed to do so in the other place. I very much urge that this should be looked at again.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 40BZC, which is in my name. I, too, welcome this clause. My amendment, which is promoted by the Children’s Society, finds a different way to address the same issues we have already debated in this group. As the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said in her introduction, there are currently a number of inconsistencies in the law. My amendment finds a particular way to try to address them.
The amendment changes the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 to increase the age of a child victim of cruelty and/or neglect from under 16 to under 18. I argue that it is a simpler approach than some of the other amendments in the group. It would bring the criminal law into line with the rest of child protection legislation and would send a signal that 16 to 18 year- olds should be protected in the same way as children who are younger than 16.
The latest statistics, with which I was supplied by the Children’s Society, show that, in 2013, 14,290 children aged over 16 were children in need because of either abuse or neglect. A further 1,110 children aged over 16 were recognised as children at risk of significant harm and placed on a child protection plan. Of those, some 290 children had emotional abuse listed as the main category of their abuse.
As some members of the Committee will know, I sit in family court, youth court and adult court as a magistrate. I can clearly say that the most disturbing of those three jurisdictions is family court. You deal with some extremely vulnerable people—and some extremely vulnerable young people. It would be no surprise to anyone who works in either the youth or family jurisdiction that 16 and 17 year-olds are among the most vulnerable groups we deal with. I believe that they should be given the same protections as those aged under 16.
The Lord Bishop of Durham
I rise to support the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, on behalf of myself and my colleague, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Truro, who chairs the Children’s Society. The Serious Crime Bill rightly seeks to update the law on neglect of children. We welcome the Bill and the Government’s commitment to seeking to improve the response to victims of emotional neglect. The current law is outdated and inadequate. We also support the amendment tabled by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss.
The UK is one of the only countries in the world that fails to recognise emotional neglect as the crime it is. It is to the Government’s credit that they seek to address that through the Bill. However, I believe that the Bill should go further and increase the age a child can be defined as a victim of cruelty and neglect from under 16 to under 18, which the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, seeks to do through his amendment. By changing the law in this way we can, for the first time, offer protection to all children from cruelty and neglect.
I, too, am grateful to the Children’s Society for its briefing, and I shall offer a story that it gives of Jessica. Jessica was known to social services because of the neglect and abuse she experienced in her family. When she was 16 the relationship between her and her family deteriorated and she was forced to move out of her family home. In the next year and a half she experienced unsuccessful placements in a hostel and bed and breakfast accommodation. Experiences of neglect at home made it difficult for her to form meaningful relationships. During that time, starting with her first unsuccessful placement in a hostel, Jessica became a victim of sexual exploitation, started using drugs and developed mental health problems. Stories such as Jessica’s mean that we need to ensure that this measure applies to all children under 18.
This definition is the one enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is in the Children Act 1989, which governs what safeguarding responses children should receive if there are concerns about their well-being. The PACE codes of conduct for the police were amended last year so that all under-18s are treated as children. From a safeguarding point of view, children should be viewed as being under 18. Sixteen and 17 year-olds can be very vulnerable. The statistics mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, showed that. Yet they do not always get access to the services that younger children can receive. Professionals often see 16 and 17 year-old children as more resilient than younger children. They are often seen as more able to avoid abuse, or more grown-up and therefore more able to cope. It does not help that the criminal law aiming to deal with the perpetrators of child neglect does not cover 16 and 17 year-olds. This sends all the wrong signals that they are not as vulnerable as younger children.
The Government’s other reforms increasingly recognise that 16 and 17 year-olds are children. For example, they are not normally treated as adults under the benefits system. The position has recently been reinforced through the rules of the new universal credit system—a basic condition of entitlement for which is that the claimant is at least 18. That was debated in this House when the Welfare Reform Act 2012 went through Parliament. I would like to hear from the Minister why children aged 16 or over cannot be considered at risk of neglect and why the new law on emotional neglect should not apply to them.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)
My Lords, I shall speak very briefly as I hope that the Minister will take these amendments away and come back with a combination. I support the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and her companions in their amendment, but I am absolutely with the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, in relation to the age of these children.
Some years ago the Social Research Unit at Dartington produced a compendium of all the research about emotional abuse in children. It showed that the development of children who had been emotionally abused was more severely impeded in the long term than the development of those who had been physically abused. This is different from sexual abuse, which is another thing. Children who had experienced physical abuse were more likely to be able to survive and grow through it than those who had been emotionally abused. Those children whose parents had never made a proper emotional contact with them were unlikely to make relationships later. So, in terms of mental health and the economics of the situation, looking after these children, and doing so until they are 18, makes really good sense.
Baroness Meacher (CB)
My Lords, I rise to make two small points on Amendment 40BZB, so ably introduced by my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss. First, I congratulate the Government on clarifying in Clause 62 that psychological effects on children have equal importance to physical effects. As my noble friend has just said, it is also my professional and personal experience that psychological damage to children is often more serious than physical injury—although, of course, it depends on the severity of both. This is an important step forward, albeit not an entirely new one. I know that the legislation has always alluded to psychological or psychological-type abuse. I strongly support Amendment 40BZB and hope very much that the Government will be able to support it, or something very like it. It seems to me that the clarification is altogether helpful.
I welcome proposed subsection (6)(b), which defines the term “wilfully”, and have no worries about it. Further elaboration will no doubt come in regulations. I should be grateful if the Minister would assure the Committee that in those regulations the Government will clarify that a parent with a drug addiction will be regarded as not having the competence to foresee that an act or omission regarding a child would be likely to result in harm, but nonetheless as unreasonably taking that risk. Clearly, if a drug-dependent parent is causing physical or psychological harm to a child, the matter must be dealt with. Again, I hope that regulations will be put in place to ensure that resources for the treatment of the addiction will be put in place and that the parent will be expected to make good use of them in order to avoid continuing damage to a child.
The Earl of Listowel (CB)
My Lords, I support Amendment 40BZB in the name of my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss. I am sure that many of your Lordships are aware that very often there is a cycle of family dysfunction from one generation to the next. For instance, we know that many of the young women who come through the care system are more likely to have their children removed from them in due course.
One of the results of early neglect in childhood can be the development of a character which is very resistant to advice or intervention from others. Being rejected by one’s parents at an early age can give rise to a personality that is very wilful and resistant to others, understandably, because such people may distrust others around them. I can see this amendment being particularly helpful when one thinks of a parent who may be very wilful, who may believe absolutely, “I am not going to be told by anybody else what to do. I know how to bring up my own children”. That wilfulness may be influenced by their early experience. Dealing recently with a middle-aged man whose mother was an alcoholic and talking to the health professionals dealing with him, it was striking that no one could tell him what to do. He resisted all attempts to provide him with treatment and any advice from those around him, even the professionals.
The particular advantage of this amendment is that it may help individuals who are very resistant to taking advice from professionals. It may just be the extra incentive that will give them the chance to try something different with their children or to seek help for themselves when they are very distrustful of other people and professionals. I hope that is helpful.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)
My Lords, I very much support my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss, because her amendment absolutely stresses this emotional side that we are talking about and which has been in the background for far too long.
However, I am on my feet only because I think that the point made by my noble friend Lady Howarth is absolutely right. All these measures, and particularly the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, need to be brought in to the Bill, which should be amended. For that reason, I very much hope that the Minister will do just that.
Lord Elystan-Morgan (CB)
My Lords, at Second Reading a month ago, I committed the cardinal sin of making some very specific and detailed comments of a nature belonging more to a Committee stage than otherwise. I am not going to make up for it by making a Second Reading speech today, but I very much welcome the amendment in the name of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss.
I have little doubt that the draftsmen of Clause 1 of the 1933 Act intended that “cruelty” should relate to both physical and non-physical cruelty. However, in 1981 in the case of Sheppard, this House caused some confusion in relation to that matter by placing what might be described as a somewhat heavy gloss upon the words of statute. The combined effect of the amendment and Clause 62 is that the situation will be made abundantly clear. I very greatly welcome that.
I also take the point that in so far as defining cruelty in terms of serious harm, a very great bringing together of two concepts has been achieved; that is, the definition of “significant harm” in Section 31 of the Children Act 1989, which of course is the section that sets up the machinery for the obtaining of a care order, is now almost exactly the same—or so near as to make no difference whatever—as the definition of the criminal offence that this clause brings about.
I take wholeheartedly the point made by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, that the last thing one wants to do is to bring these civil situations into a criminal court. Sometimes that is inevitable. I also take the point that it is right that social workers and those involved in the protection of children in the civil field should, as it were, have the same hymn sheet as those who deal with those situations in the criminal field. They are two different fields, which should be mutually exclusive if humanly possible, but nevertheless it is right that the same standard should apply to both.
Baroness Walmsley
I wonder if the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, would be kind enough to address the House because I am having some difficulty in hearing what he is saying.
Lord Elystan-Morgan
Profound apologies. I was discerning perhaps a twinkle of support this side and one welcomes every little support one can get in this place. I apologise profusely to the noble Baroness.
In so far as “wilfully” is concerned, this is an extremely important development. Lawyers well appreciate that “wilful” can mean an act of deliberate commission or omission. On the other hand, intelligent lay men, be they magistrates, jurors or in any other capacity, might find it very difficult to consider that something which is pure omission can be wilful.
Then there arises the almost theological question of whether “recklessly” should be included. I think—but I might be corrected, and for this reason I shall turn to the authorities on the other side—that in so far as the statutory definition of wilful is set out here, it is in fact the classic definition adopted by this House in a case of recklessness called Caldwell in the 1980s. It was the case of a tramp, if I remember rightly, going into unoccupied premises and striking matches, who was found guilty of arson on the basis of recklessness. If am right about that, there is no dispute about the difference between recklessness and wilfulness in this connection.
I will make a general comment on Clause 62, which will not have to be repeated on clause stand part. Section 1 of the 1933 Act is 80 years old. I am one year older than the noble and learned Baroness, and therefore I was about a year old when this became law. The verbiage is much older than that. The verbiage comes from the Poor Law Amendment Act 1868, virtually all of it from Section 37.
That Act was passed in order to deal with the problem of the Peculiar People. The Peculiar People were very devout people who believed that, whenever there was illness in the family, you should not go anywhere near a doctor. You should pray to Almighty God, and accept the will of Almighty God. The consequence was that, when death occurred, and many of these people were prosecuted for manslaughter, a humane jury found them not guilty because of their utter devoutness, although, of course, it represented utter unreasonableness. It was to deal with that particular issue that Section 37 was passed.
This means that we have today still the remnant cobwebs of that Victorian verbiage. Victorian verbiage in a statute sometimes can serve us well. The Offences Against the Person Act 1861 is a classic example which will be with us for many generations, I have no doubt. However, there are cases in which one can look afresh at the whole situation and possibly create an instrument that is more consistent with the needs of the 21st century.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
My Lords, I shall be brief. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, has rightly set out in some detail a strong case for Amendment 40BZB, with which we are associated. I will not attempt to repeat the points that have already been so effectively and powerfully made. The need to recognise in the Bill that harm can be caused by emotional ill treatment and emotional neglect as well as physical ill treatment and neglect is important, as is the substitution of “serious harm”, which is consistent with other areas of criminal law, for “unnecessary suffering”, including the inference that there can be necessary suffering.
The amendment also defines “harm” and “wilfully”, with the latter definition stating that the person has to have the capacity to foresee that an act or omission would be likely to result in harm but none the less unnecessarily took that risk.
We also support the amendment moved in the name of my noble friend Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede that it should be specific that the age of children to whom a child cruelty offence applies is “under 18”.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Taylor of Holbeach) (Con)
My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lady Walmsley for moving her amendment, to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss—we are delighted to see her in her place, taking part in our debate—and to the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, for outlining their respective amendments. They have all brought extensive knowledge to this debate. We have missed my noble friend Lady Hamwee, who cannot be in her place this afternoon. I am sure the whole House wishes her well.
The amendments all relate to the scope of the offence of child cruelty in Section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. Before I address the amendments, it may assist the Committee if I explain our approach in Clause 62. I am grateful for the general welcome which the clause has received. I am grateful, too, for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. Many of those welcoming the Bill spoke in support of the amendments. That I understand, and I will try to address their concerns.
The offence in Section 1 of the 1933 Act is committed when a person over the age of 16 who has responsibility for a child under that age wilfully assaults, ill treats, neglects, abandons or exposes that child in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury to health, including any mental derangement. That is the law as it stands. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, has been among those who have argued for some time—as she has pointed out, in her discussions with my right honourable friend Damian Green in his ministerial capacity and with me— that the offence of child cruelty in the 1933 Act lacks the necessary clarity when it comes to tackling psychological suffering or injury to children.
The Earl of Listowel
I have a few words of praise for the Government. I thank the Minister for his response and for recognising the importance of what my noble friend Lady Meacher said about the need to intervene early to support families to get off alcohol and drugs. When it comes to the family courts, the Government have substantially supported the family drug and alcohol courts, which originated from district judge Nicholas Crichton in the Inner London Family Proceedings Court and ensure that such families have judicial continuity over a 12 year period and that there are good interventions to get the parents off drugs and alcohol so that they can keep their children and not have their children taken into care. It is very much to the Government’s credit that they funded and evaluated this work and now the president of the family court is looking to roll it out across the country. Many families will benefit because of the good work of the Government and this will avoid unnecessary cruelty to their children.
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, we have had a very good debate. Quite clearly there is a great deal of consensus across the House. I echo what the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, said. I hope that we can have further discussions about this between now and Report and that we come to some consensus as to what may or may not need clarifying. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham for agreeing with me that we need to level up the age at which we consider children to be vulnerable. They may be able to get married legally, but that does not mean that they are not vulnerable. There is also considerable consensus that the word “wilfully” needs clarifying and there have been various suggestions about how that should be done. The Government believe that we need Clause 62 even though the law already allows child abuse to be interpreted as psychological. In the same sort of way, although there may already be agreed definitions of “wilfully”, there may still be a need to clarify that in one way or another, based on the various amendments that we have had. I am sure we can come to some agreement about how that might be done. There has also been consensus about the need to remove the word “unnecessary” or perhaps the whole term “unnecessary suffering” and to change it in some other way.
I hope that the Minister will be able to accept that we need further discussions about this between now and Report. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Brinton
“Child cruelty: duty on police officers to liaise
(1) Where an officer is investigating a potential offence under section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 (cruelty to persons under 16), as amended by section 62 of this Act, he or she must notify the Safeguarding Children and Adults Board of the relevant local authority.
(2) A notification must include details of the child or children who are considered to be the victims of the offence.
(3) The Secretary of State may produce further guidance on the form a notification under this section may take.”
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 40BZE, which follows on from it. These amendments support much of the debate we had on the previous group but move us into the practical arena rather than the one of legislative definitions. In the past year, the NSPCC helpline dealt with 8,000 contacts about emotional neglect and abuse, and 5,500 cases were so serious that they were referred to local authorities for further action. This was a substantial increase on previous years. I am glad that the Minister recognised that clarity is required on this difficult issue of defining emotional, social, psychological or behavioural neglect.
Alongside these statistics, new evidence shows that child protection professionals do not have a clear sense of the law in relation to neglect and that the law is sometimes not being applied consistently. My concern in these amendments is to ensure that there are mechanisms in place for the moment a potential offence of child cruelty has been reported, whether to police or local authorities. In essence, there must be a case conference with all the relevant stakeholders from all the different departments and, crucially, the child concerned should have access to child and adolescent mental health services. The reason for this is that two years ago the NSPCC carried out an online survey which showed that only 7% of social work professionals believed that timely action was taken in response to neglect and only 4% thought that it was likely or very likely that timely action would be taken to respond to emotional abuse. That 4% is a shocking statistic and exactly why we are having this debate about being more specific in the legislation on this. That contrasts with 75% of respondents to the survey who said that they were very confident that timely action would be taken in response to physical and sexual abuse.
That is the point of these amendments, which may or may not be appropriate in this legislation, as I mentioned in my Second Reading speech. I would be very grateful to hear from the Minister that there is some cross-departmental discussion about how we ensure that this is framed in guidance to social workers, health professionals—whether doctors, school nurses or district nurses—and anybody else involved in a child’s life, such as at sports clubs and certainly including teachers in schools. We need to make sure that the victims of this are as well covered as the offence and the offender.
That brings me to my final point. This will be effective only if professionals in this area have adequate training to recognise and understand the very particular problems of emotional and psychological abuse. I am reminded of a debate we had during the passage of the Children and Families Bill when my noble friend Lady Walmsley and I tabled some amendments about exorcism and the emotional trauma that some children face, particularly when exorcism is carried out with them present. The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, said at the time that we did not need a specific law on this, and she was absolutely right because there is some legislation within the current framework—the problem was that it was not being carried out by the professionals. That is why these amendments have been proposed. I will not repeat the points that were made in the previous group, but this supports all those made by noble friends and other colleagues. I beg to move.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, I briefly want to support—and not support—the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. I support her obvious wish that proper liaison between authorities should take place in terms of safeguarding. All of the codes and practices are already there, but what is not there is the available time. It is not that social workers are not trained, although they could do with more training—certainly around the issues of satanic and witchcraft abuse, although that concerns a tiny proportion of the cases. However, on the matter of broader emotional abuse, social workers are pretty keyed in to what is needed. The problem is that they know that they do not have the time to go in and do the work that is necessary to help families, and they have no wish in these circumstances to end up removing families through the courts.
The real answer—and I speak as a vice-president of the Local Government Association—is to look at how local authorities are using their resources and whether enough of those resources are going towards safeguarding children and their general protection and prevention from abuse. We need to look at whether we are asking the professions—social workers in particular, but also the police—to carry out a totally impossible task. If you are working day to day intervening in cases, you have very little time left to liaise with your colleagues. As a professional who has undertaken this work over many years, I know just how much time it takes to ring round, organise conferences, ensure that the appropriate information is available to everyone and pull all of that together.
So the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is absolutely right. We need to make sure that the safeguarding co-ordination works well. We need to make sure that the local authority designated officers, to whom these situations have to be reported, have enough time to think through what the action should be, and are able to take it.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I welcome this amendment. I would just like to highlight to your Lordships concerns about the availability of child and adolescent mental health services. In recent information, the mental health charity for young people Young Minds has drawn attention to the fact that,
“34 out of 51 … local authorities in England have reduced their CAMHS budget since 2010. Derby City Council reported a cut in its spending by 41% since 2010. … Overall, local authorities in London have cut their CAMHS budgets by 5% since 2010. 8 out of 12 councils … have reduced their CAMHS budgets”.
So there is a real concern that, although the principle is absolutely right here, the CAMHS services, which are so vital, have unfortunately often been cut. I was very pleased to meet, with members of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children, the honourable Mr Lamb MP, who is the Minister responsible for this area. It was very encouraging that he was aware that a lot of work needed to be done in this particular area. In addition, the Select Committee on Education in the other place is producing a report on child and adolescent mental health services, which I am sure many of us will look forward to—I believe it will be produced in October.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, I am sorry that other commitments prevented me from speaking at Second Reading on this important Bill, but I have followed its passage closely and I am very grateful to my noble friend the Minister for the briefings that he has given, which I have attended. I want to make one point on the new duty proposed by my noble friend Lady Brinton, and the same point applies—so I shall not repeat the point a second time—to the detailed proposal for mandatory reporting, which may be made by my noble friend Lady Walmsley. I am reassured that my noble friend Lady Brinton was suggesting that, to some extent, her amendment had an exploratory nature.
The point that I wanted to make is an appeal for balance and care on the new regulatory requirements that we put in this Bill. Obviously, I share the horror at recent cases of abuse and concern about inadequate enforcement in the past, which has led to many of the problems that have come to haunt us. However, I fear the imposition of bureaucratic new duties and associated offences on liaison or reporting—that outcome can often be achieved by a good service and by common sense. This Bill brings in a number of new measures, which are good, but we should not be labouring it with extra measures, which could have the perverse effect of preventing a focus on the vital areas needed. We need to ensure that the offences in the Bill are properly enforced in a focused way by those concerned. I would have a concern if we sought to write these amendments into the Bill. We should ask ourselves, as the Minister hinted that he would during his summer of reflection, exactly what is needed and what would be best, given the inevitably limited resources that you have in these very important areas.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Brinton for bringing this important matter before the Committee. We all recognise that every child should be protected from sexual and other forms of abuse and neglect, and this Government are absolutely committed to doing everything that we can to ensure that they have the full protection they deserve. In recent years—I scarcely need to say this to noble Lords—we have seen appalling cases of organised and persistent child sex abuse. This includes abuse by celebrities as well as the systematic abuse of vulnerable girls in Rochdale, Oxford and other towns and cities. Some of these cases have exposed failures by public bodies to take their duty of care seriously, and some have shown that the organisations responsible for protecting children from abuse, including the police, social services and schools, have failed to work together properly.
That is why, in April 2013, the coalition Government established the national group on sexual violence against children and vulnerable people, which is led by the Minister for Crime Prevention, my right honourable friend Norman Baker. This cross-government group was established to learn the lessons from some of the cases that I have mentioned and the resulting reviews and inquiries. As a result of its work, we now have better guidance for the police and prosecutors and better identification of children at risk of exploitation through the use of local multiagency safeguarding hubs.
I assure my noble friend Lady Brinton and other Members of the Committee that we are aware that there is more to be done. Significantly, as I informed the House on Monday last week, the Government are establishing an independent inquiry panel of experts in the law and child protection to consider whether public bodies and other non-state institutions have taken seriously their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse. It will begin its work as soon as possible after the appointment of all the members of the panel. I hope to be able to report back to the House with details of those members and the terms of reference for the inquiry panel very soon.
Meanwhile, the work of the national group continues apace. As part of this work, the group has considered the issue of mandatory reporting and whether there is a need for some form of more targeted statutory reporting regime to deliver better protection for children and vulnerable adults. However, the picture here is, by definition, a very complex one. Some evidence suggests that, in the USA, Australia and Canada, mandatory reporting legislation has been accompanied by significant increases in the number of referrals of suspected child abuse and neglect made to the authorities, a large percentage of which in the end were not substantiated. As the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth of Breckland, pointed out, there is a risk that child protection services can be diverted from the task of increasing the safety of our most vulnerable children to evidence gathering and investigation of cases that are eventually unsubstantiated and which often lead to significant disruption of family life. Those words from the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, are important to bear in mind.
Having said that, there is an emerging consensus that action must be taken to address the clear failures in public protection in the past. Indeed, noble Lords may have seen remarks just last week by Peter Wanless, chief executive of the NSPCC—an organisation which has the protection of children at its heart—which supported the introduction of a criminal offence making covering up and hiding child abuse within institutions illegal. Those and other views are an important contribution to the debate, and I would like to assure the Committee that this issue is being actively and carefully considered. The primary concern from all involved is the uncertainty about the number of reports that would result and, if there were large numbers, how those reports would be triaged to ensure that the most serious cases were identified. It is hugely important that, if we are to propose changes of this kind, we make absolutely sure that we get it right.
It is against this background that I now turn to the detail of Amendments 40BZD and 40BZE. Those would place a requirement on police, when investigating a child cruelty offence under Section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933, to inform the local safeguarding children and adults board of the investigation. Subsequently, the local authority would be placed under a duty to liaise with relevant officials, such as those at the child’s school, social services or the police. My noble friend seems to be addressing concerns that relevant children’s services are not sufficiently joined up in their response to child safeguarding. That concern has of course been borne out by several recent serious case reviews. I concur absolutely with the intention behind these amendments. As I have indicated, the Government are already committed to considering these issues. However, as I have also said, there is no easy solution. While we accept that this is a pressing issue, such consideration will necessarily take some time. In advocating a change in the law, Peter Wanless has acknowledged the need for further discussions as to the form of any new reporting duty and to whom it should apply.
It is right that the Government take the time to consider this important issue fully, in the light of all the evidence and having considered the views of the many experts and stakeholders, who rightly hold strong views. My noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe and the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth of Breckland, pointed out that there are other factors that have to be borne in mind. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, pointed out that the issue is far from simple and there are also funding questions to be considered. I say to noble Lords that their views will be very welcome in this context. I know that a number of Members of this House have already been involved in this important debate. I encourage others to be involved in providing us with views and information on which we can base a decision that achieves the objective of safeguarding children.
The Government recognise concerns about our current safeguarding system and understand the public’s anxiety about the reporting of child abuse. They are taking this issue very seriously and want to make sure that any action they take achieves the desired outcome of improving safeguarding for all our children and vulnerable adults. Given the complexities involved, it is right that we look carefully at this matter. The new independent inquiry panel is also relevant here. For these reasons, I cannot offer my noble friend an assurance that the Government will legislate in line with her specific proposals. I can, however, give an assurance that the Government take this issue very seriously and, should there be a need for further legislative change and action, we will bring forward measures to deliver this as soon as possible.
My noble friend highlighted the need for all involved in child protection to work together more effectively. I cannot agree more. All the evidence suggests that the best protection and results happen when agencies work together and when not just a single agency considers the protective needs of the child. That is why the Government have undertaken significant work to improve our understanding of the different multiagency models in place to support information sharing around safeguarding responses for vulnerable people.
I hope that my noble friend will be reassured by this. There is already guidance requiring social workers to convene a strategy discussion—the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, will know all about this—with all relevant professionals who are known to the child and the family if they suspect a child may be suffering significant harm. Our guidance is also clear that support should be given to a child as soon as need is identified. Early help services can be delivered by teachers, youth workers and health workers to support children. It is important to bear in mind that that work can be invaluable in dealing with these matters promptly. In the light of what I have said about what the Government are doing and the invitation to noble Lords to be involved in that process, I ask my noble friend to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Brinton
My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, that time pressure, particularly on social workers, is a key and fundamental problem. It is one of those adages that Governments always produce legislation for statutory work but often, certainly in the current climate, do not fund the support required to deliver that effectively. I am sure that training is vital. However, I am mindful of the NSPCC survey of social work professionals. If only 7% believe that timely action is being taken in cases of emotional abuse, partly because of training and partly because of identification, there is an issue. Guidance may well be available, but there are still concerns.
I am very grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for raising the issue of child and adolescent mental health services. I hope that it may be possible for the Minister and those of us who are interested in this issue to meet Norman Lamb to talk about the pressure on child and adolescent mental health services, particularly for this group of children who may not automatically be referred to those services. We are told that in some areas there is an 18-month waiting list for a child to be referred. For a child who is being emotionally abused, that is far too long.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
I will do my utmost to try to arrange for noble Lords who have spoken—and, indeed, others who may be interested in this subject—to meet Norman Lamb and, indeed, Norman Baker, who, as noble Lords know, also has responsibilities in this area.
Baroness Brinton
I am very grateful to my noble friend the Minister for saying that.
I thank my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe for her contribution, with which I agreed. I was a county councillor for some years and I have concerns about the Minister’s comment regarding the priorities of triage when big issues are involved. In Cambridgeshire, we had a case where a family had two adopted children and anyone would have thought they were absolutely the apple of their parents’ eye. They were doted on completely. If they had been triaged, people would have said there was no reason at all to look any further. Yet these children were being quite severely emotionally abused. They had to be removed from their family and placed with foster parents. The foster parents’ reports about their next year with the children, as they unscrambled what had gone on, shows we have to understand that sometimes triage, which can be obvious in an accident and emergency sense, may be much more complex when looking at issues of emotional needs.
Regardless of that, I am grateful to the Minister and look forward to hearing more about the report back on the members of the inquiry panel and its remit. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Baroness Walmsley
“Mandatory reporting of abuse in relation to regulated activities
(1) Subject to subsection (4), providers of regulated activities involving children or vulnerable adults, and persons whose services are used by such providers being persons who stand in a position of personal trust towards such children or vulnerable adults, who have reasonable grounds for knowing or suspecting the commission of the abuse of children or vulnerable adults in their care whether such commission of abuse shall have taken place or be alleged to have or be suspected of having taken place in the setting of the regulated activity or elsewhere, have a duty to inform the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) or children’s services or such other single point of contact with the local authority as such authority may designate for the purpose of reporting it or any such matter, allegation or suspicion as soon as is practicable after it comes to their knowledge or attention.
(2) Failure to fulfil the duty set out in subsection (1) before the expiry of the period of 10 days of the matter or allegation or suspicion first coming to the knowledge or attention of the provider or of any person whose services are used by the provider as defined in subsection (1) is an offence.
(3) It shall be a defence to show that the LADO or children’s services or that such other single point of contact with the local authority as such authority may designate for the purpose of reporting was or were informed by any other party during the 10 days referred to in subsection (2) or had been so informed before then.
(4) A Secretary of State having responsibility for the welfare, safety and protection of children and of vulnerable adults may in exceptional cases by a letter or other instrument under his hand rescind or temporarily suspend the duty referred to in subsection (1) in the case of any specified child or children or of any specified vulnerable adult or adults concerning whom it appears to him that the welfare, safety or the protection of such child or children or of such vulnerable adult or adults would be prejudiced or compromised by the fulfilment of the duty referred to in subsection (1) and may where it appears to him that the welfare, safety and protection of children is furthered thereby exempt any specified entity or organisation and the members thereof that works with children generally in furtherance of their welfare and safety and protection or any specified medical officer from compliance with the duty referred to in subsection (1) provided always that no allegation is made against such entity or organisation or member thereof or against such medical officer.
(5) It shall be a defence for any person to show that a Secretary of State having responsibility for the welfare, safety and protection of children and of vulnerable adults has issued a letter or other instrument under his hand rescinding or temporarily suspending the duty referred to in subsection (1) in the case of any specified child or children or of any specified vulnerable adult or adults and it shall be a defence for any person employed by or operating as an entity or organisation that works with children or for any medical officer to show that a Secretary of State having responsibility for the welfare, safety and protection of children and of vulnerable adults has by such letter or instrument under his hand whether temporarily or permanently exempted it and its members or any medical officer from compliance with the duty referred to in subsection (1).
(6) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable—
(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or to a fine, or both;(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years or to a fine, or both.(7) In this section “regulated activity” has the same meaning as in Schedule 4 to the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006.”
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, this amendment is exactly the same as Amendment 40C; it has just been put in a different position. I am most grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham for adding his name to it. Abuse of the most vulnerable people in our society is wicked and a great deal more widespread than most of us think. There are those who use power, strength and blackmail to subject those who cannot fight back to the most horrible abuse. It is done behind closed doors and certainly that is where a lot of it stays. However, there is hope because there are signs, if only we would look for them. We need not only to see them but to act upon them as well. We need to give the abused people opportunities to confide in a trusted adult, in the secure knowledge that that person will do something to make it stop. That is why we need a new duty to report abuse.
Of course, I know that legislation is not a silver bullet, but it can help and it has done so in other countries. In addition, I agree with those who say that we need more training, awareness raising and the protection of the law for those who expose the horror. Amendment 40BZEA covers not just children but vulnerable adults as well, although for simplicity my remarks will mainly refer to children. However, the vast majority of what I say also applies to elderly and disabled people, and those with serious mental disabilities too—all groups that have suffered far too much abuse in recent years by unscrupulous people.
We heard on the BBC only this morning about cases of abuse of people with mental disabilities where nobody said a word. My intention is not to criminalise people—though there must be penalties if this measure is to be effective—but to empower those who know that something is wrong and to protect them as well as the children. The current system is not working. The recent report about Jimmy Savile’s activities made that very clear. There needs to be an increase in the detection rate of child abuse in the UK, which is estimated to be only 5% of the actual amount, according to the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s report in 2010, How Fair is Britain?
I shall explain what my amendment does. Proposed new subsection (1) puts a duty on individuals standing in a position of personal trust towards children or vulnerable adults and who work in “regulated activity”, as defined in Schedule 4 of the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006. The duty is to report abuse that is known about and where they have reasonable grounds for knowing or suspecting abuse. If the abuse is adult on child, or on a vulnerable adult, it should be reported to the local authority designated officer. If it is child on child—and there is a great deal of that—they should report it to the local children’s services. If the local authority has chosen to have a single point of contact, the report should be to there.
Proposed new subsections (2) and (3) say that the report must be made within 10 days of the knowledge or suspicion, unless the abuse has already been reported by someone else.
Proposed new subsection (4) allows the Secretary of State to exempt certain groups from this duty, in the interests of ensuring that children and vulnerable adults can feel comfortable disclosing the abuse—for example, to their doctor or a confidential helpline such as ChildLine. There will be a term of imprisonment or a fine for failure in this duty.
Proposed new subsection (7) refers to Schedule 4 to the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 for the list of institutions that are covered by the amendment. It includes all forms of teaching or training of children, care or supervision, treatment and therapy et cetera—and a similar group in relation to vulnerable adults. In other words, it relates mainly to the people who would normally need a CRB check in order to do their job; it does not include family members.
This is a measure whose time has come and I encourage the Government to grasp the moment. In a recent independent survey, 96% of the public thought that we already had such a law. Although the public would strongly support it, we do not have one at the moment. We have a whole range of regulations, professional duties et cetera—none of which have been effective in situations in which adults were worried about being the whistleblower, about reputational damage to their institution, or that they may have got the wrong end of the stick. This measure would protect and empower those people, and protect children.
It is not for teachers, nurses and care workers to decide whether there is a case to go to the police. It is not their job. It is the job of the experienced officer within the local authority—as opposed to triage, which the Minister has just mentioned—to investigate and then report to the police when they believe that there may be a case to answer, or to take some other action.
There are other parts of the world where there is a duty in law to report, such as Australia, every state of which has some version of this duty and some sort of penalty. It has been very effective in exposing that which was previously hidden. It has been shown that there is a high rate of substantiation of the allegations, contrary to what the Minister has just said. In the case of reports by teachers, 70% led to police action prior to the new law; and the percentage after the new law came in was 69%, which was very close. The percentage would have been higher if it had included situations in which the children needed help but the police were not involved. Only 2% of reports were found to be malicious. These figures came from Professor Ben Matthews, a highly regarded researcher on these issues; and I am happy to supply them to the Minister. I heard Ben Matthews say on the BBC a few months ago, around the time of the famous “Panorama” programme:
“Mandated reporting in some form is an essential part of an effective child protection system”.
Someone I know used to work as a child safeguarding officer in Australia and was familiar with the effective working of the measure. She also told me that that Australia has a programme in schools called, “No, Go, Tell”. It is pretty obvious what that means. When she came to work in this country, she was amazed that we do not have something similar here. That makes the case for good-quality PSHE in all schools in which children are taught what not to tolerate in terms of invasion of their personal space, and what to do to keep themselves safe.
What have others said about my proposal? Last week, as we heard, the NSPCC made a major and welcome shift in its policy on this matter, but it does not go far enough. It has proposed what I have called “safeguarding lite”. The idea is to have a duty on closed institutions such as boarding schools and children’s homes not to cover up known child abuse. By the way, it is not clear who within those institutions would have that duty. There are several things wrong with that. First, it ignores the majority of children. There are 8 million children in education in this country, and less than 1 million of them are in boarding schools and children’s homes.
Secondly, by covering only “known” child abuse, the onus is put on the head teacher or care home manager to decide whether abuse is known or not. That is not their job; it is the job of local authority designated officer, who has the training and experience to know whether to report to the police or take some other action. That is what those officers have been trained to do. Thirdly, the policy is confused. Think about this: a head teacher in a boarding school has a duty to report a case, but the following term, if he takes over a maintained primary school, his duty is only under some regulation, with no legal penalty for ignoring it.
Think about a girl who would have this protection in a boarding school, but if she goes to a church youth club in the holidays she has no protection. Think of a boy who has protection in a care home, but has none when he goes to the local sports club. This matter is the responsibility of all of us, but in particular it should be the duty of all those who work with children in a position of trust. It should go with the job, along with the duty to get a CRB check.
The Local Government Association has briefed us all and asked us to look at how the duty would operate in reality. I know there are those who are concerned that the system would be swamped with cases if my amendment became law. I say two things in answer to that. First, if that is the case it means that there is an enormous amount of child abuse out there going undetected and untreated. That causes mental health and relationship problems throughout the lives of those abused, and allows perpetrators to get away with it and abuse other children. It also costs the public purse a lot of money in the long term.
Secondly, the experience in Australia was that, yes, the number of concerns reported increased, but they were investigated and considered by the right people. There was a very high level of substantiation and only a tiny amount of malicious reporting, which I believe is a fair price to pay. Anyway, such cases are looked into by experienced people who recognise malice when they see it.
I expect that noble Lords will recall the case of baby Peter and the fact that there was an increase in the number of children taken into care after it became public. That has settled down to some extent now, but it means not that too many children are taken into care now, but that too few were before, possibly because of resources. We must ensure that the system has sufficient resources and is robust enough to weed out cases that do not warrant action. In any case, the vast majority of child abuse would not entail the child being taken into care if she was not already.
The Local Government Association talks about us all having a moral responsibility to report abuse. Of course we do, but we have had that for years and it has not worked. What we need is not the confused and complicated system proposed by the NSPCC, but a very simple amendment to the law. The people on whom the duty in my amendment would fall are already defined in law: there is already a definition of,
“reasonable grounds for knowing or suspecting”.
We need training in recognising the early signs of abuse and neglect for all those who work with children and vulnerable adults, and we need guidance on how to report it. We need everyone to make it their business to protect children and vulnerable adults as a public duty, but we need to strengthen the law to help those who know something to have the courage to do something. I beg to move.
The Lord Bishop of Durham
My Lords, I support the amendment. I begin by pointing out that, had I been in this House two years ago, I would not have supported it. It is my experience of listening to and hearing stories, not just from within the church sector but from many sectors, that has led me to be convinced that this is a move we need to make.
Currently, under the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006, a form of mandatory reporting already exists; that is to say, a duty to refer arises in certain situations connected with regulated activity. Admittedly, that is just for vetting purposes, but what the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, effectively proposes is an extension to this. It will mean that those who work with children or vulnerable adults in regulated activity and have reasonable grounds for suspecting or knowing that abuse of these vulnerable groups has taken place are under a duty to report this to the local authority. I wholeheartedly support this principle, and I welcome the suggested amendment. Indeed, every person who works with children or vulnerable adults, which includes teachers, doctors, nurses, youth workers and volunteers, has a responsibility for keeping them safe. No one individual could possibly have a complete picture of a vulnerable person’s situation. All professionals who come into contact with those vulnerable groups have,
“a role to play in identifying concerns, sharing information and taking prompt action together”.
That is from Working Together to Safeguard Children.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, I feel some trepidation in challenging some of the issues about mandatory reporting, although I think that we need to find different language. I do not think there is any difference between me and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and the right reverend Prelate in what we want to find at the end of the day. However, I want to caution them and the Government to ensure that they look at this in great depth—I know that they are doing so in other places—and that there are no unintended consequences from the action that is taken.
I do not have a prepared speech, but I would like to make three points. Of course, it is wrong for anyone in a position of authority or in a church or neighbourhood community to turn a blind eye to known abuse. If abuse is clearly there, then that must be reported. If we have to have a law that says that there are circumstances in which people abused their position and did not come forward, the Government should look at that.
In the work that I am doing, the helpline for the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, in the Stop it Now! programme, has hundreds of people telephoning who are not sure about what they are seeing. I have talked to social workers who have great professional expertise about their not being certain what they are seeing. It is quite clear that we need to continue the professional development of staff in local authorities who work with the police, and also the community programmes which I have mentioned earlier, where children’s services, parents and schools have all been involved in the local community in developing understanding of these issues and therefore are clearer about what action they may or may not take.
I do not have a speech because I spent the morning chairing a conference that included people from Australia and the chair of an international protection of children organisation, looking at eradicating child sexual abuse. There were a lot of experts there. The message that they asked me to bring was that we should not simply bring in this sort of reporting without looking carefully at it. The statistics across the world vary according to whom you listen to. I ask the Minister to talk to some of the people I know as well as to those whom the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, knows, because they have different views. Presumably, the Government have it within their powers to get the information pretty clearly from Governments in other parts of the world. I am not making any judgment about the outcome, except to say that people tell me that it has really interfered with good preventive work, because resources have been diverted into investigating hundreds of cases that turned out not to be prosecutable.
I understand why there is a wish, particularly in the church, to get this sort of prosecution. I say to the right reverend Prelate that I have probably talked to more victims than most in my 50 years, many of them children; I know the victims’ groups and I know the pain that they have experienced. But it is crucial that we base whatever we do in the future on what is happening now, and that we prevent children being abused in the present, and learn from those people in the future. They have a lot to offer but sometimes it can be clouded by pain, which I understand.
What we want to do, particularly in churches and similar organisations, is to develop a culture of openness. We know of a recent investigation into a particular area in the Church of England where misogyny was rife and women’s views—never mind children’s—were not tolerated. I am a member of the Church of England, so I say this in all good heart but that is one institution that really has to look at it itself—as I know it is doing because the right reverend Prelate is the chair of the committee looking at the issues within the church. There are other organisations that need to look at their culture because we are not going to change these issues by the law, although I think in some areas it will help. We need to get a cultural change in organisations and our nation.
The NSPCC has got itself in a bit of a twist, I think. Talking to some of the staff today, there is a very mixed view because they had always been against mandatory reporting—I think that is a very funny term. They run two helplines. They know the implications of blanket mandatory reporting. I have to say that I did not understand proposed new subsections (4) and (5) of the amendment. It just shows how complex this issue is because we are talking about people going for exemptions. I tend to think that you need an opt-in rather than opt-out situation here, and we need to be precise about those people who might come to be prosecuted if reporting is mandatory rather than having to exempt those people who are trying to be helpful.
I am usually briefer than this but your Lordships can see that I feel as passionately as most—
Baroness Walmsley
Perhaps I might provide some clarification. When giving the Secretary of State the opportunity to exempt certain groups, I very specifically had in mind exactly those groups that the noble Baroness is worried about. Childline and Stop it Now! need to be exempted because they will have disclosures made to them and we cannot expect them to go to every local authority-designated officer throughout the country. Children need to be able to disclose to them but when they encourage the child to disclose also to a trusted adult, as they often do, the child needs to know that that trusted adult will do something about it and report it to the right people. I hope that clarification helps.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
I thank the noble Baroness but I think she knows that I know that pretty well. My point is that we need to be more precise the other way round and be clearer about those people who will be prosecuted rather than those who will be exempted. That is the way that I would rather see it because otherwise you are going to catch all sorts of groups. There are groups in the Catholic Church that listen. Without doubt, the helpline should be seeing a child through a referral. If they are going to have a referral, that helpline really should ensure—I know that the NSPCC does this with Childline—that at the end of the day someone takes action at that point.
The Lucy Faithfull helpline for Stop it Now! is more difficult because that is where men are coming forward about thoughts that they have had that they do not understand. I am very fearful that many of those men will not come forward if they think there is a likelihood that they are going to be reported even before they have committed an offence. Some people who have committed offences will come forward to us and we will help them to go to the next stage.
There could be a range of unintended consequences. However, I say what I said at the beginning, which is I think that we are all on the same page. What is important is that time is spent—not a lot of time; I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, is impatient—ensuring that we have it right in detail and that we listen to all the parties who have got evidence, because there is a lot of evidence. There is also new evidence about what works and it is not always the old patterns of intervention that work. The Government might do well to listen to some of the people I listened to this morning.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, the proposal to have mandatory reporting has many attractions. I think, however, that even with the exceptions that the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, has suggested, it may be too simplistic. There are already many organisations involved with children that have the obligation to report. For instance, the safeguarding of the Church of England requires people to report. The safeguarding of the Roman Catholic Church certainly does. I was vice-chairman of the Cumberlege Commission, in which we advised the then Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster how the clergy and members of the diocese of the Roman Catholic Church of England should be reporting, among other things. Our report was approved by the Vatican.
Obviously, there are the police, social services, the health services and so on. As the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, said—and I endorse her words of wisdom—we need to look at this with a great deal of care because it is the issue of culture as much as the issue of prosecuting for failure to report which lies behind the problems we have. I hope the Minister will go away taking with him not only the understandable suggestions of the right reverend Prelate and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, but also the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, as to what really needs to be looked at. I hope he will take all that away before coming to a decision on whether there should be mandatory reporting. I strongly support the caution that the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, has put forward.
Lord Rosser
I will raise one question, to which I hope the Minister will be able to respond. The right reverend Prelate has referred to the indication given in the Commons last week by the Prime Minister that the Government were looking at whether we should change the law so that there will be a requirement to report abuse and it will be a criminal offence not to report it. Can the Minister be more specific than he appeared to be on the last group of amendments about the timescale within which the Government expect these deliberations to be concluded?
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
My Lords, this has been a very high-value debate whose contributions inform the Government. I will try to make sure that all colleagues in government with an interest in this matter are sent a copy of our debate.
I cannot give the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, any details of the timescale. If, in the course of time, I have more information, I will try to tell him in good time, but at the moment I cannot. In a way, this debate needs to be taken in conjunction with the one we had on my noble friend Lady Brinton’s debate; it covers very similar territory but it goes just that little bit further. I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Walmsley for tabling this amendment to enable us to look at this particular aspect.
There is a significant difference between the amendments. Amendment 40BZEA would place a duty on those working in regulated sectors who are in a position of trust in relation to children or vulnerable people to report suspicions of abuse to the appropriate local authority within 10 days. Breach of that duty would be a criminal offence punishable by up to three years in prison. This would mean essentially that anyone who works with children or vulnerable adults would commit a criminal offence if they did not report suspected abuse of any kind.
I hope that I can provide some reassurance to my noble friend Lady Walmsley and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham about the current process of referrals to social services. The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, referred to this. It is important to recognise that existing statutory guidance is already crystal clear that professionals should refer immediately to social care when they are concerned about a child or vulnerable adult. Many thousands of referrals are made to children’s social care each year. In the year ending March 2013, there were 593,500 referrals—that is nearly 600,000. I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Walmsley for offering to provide me with figures that she has available, but I think that we need to bear that figure in mind and appreciate the scale of the situation that we are seeking to engage in.
The most important thing is that people understand how to spot abuse and neglect and the impact that it has on children and vulnerable adults. While we are continuing to review the evidence for the specific case of reporting in regulated settings, we are also continuing to take action to improve the knowledge and skills of professionals working with children and other vulnerable people.
As I indicated in my response to the previous group of amendments, the Government fully understand the public’s anxiety about the potential underreporting of abuse, particularly sexual abuse. I can wholeheartedly support my noble friend’s objective with this amendment; we all want to see improved safeguarding for all children and vulnerable adults. As I have said, we are actively considering the case for a mandatory reporting duty, but the issues are complex, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth of Breckland, pointed out. As the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said, we need to consider what form such a duty might take, to whom it would apply and in what circumstances, and what the sanction for failure to comply should be. This amendment offers one approach, but we have just debated an alternative, more focused proposal, and the NSPCC has suggested a third model. Other organisations working to safeguard children and vulnerable adults will have ideas of their own as to how a mandatory reporting regime should be structured, as will other noble Lords. I have sought to encourage noble Lords to make sure that those conducting such investigations are aware of their views.
I can only again seek to reassure my noble friend and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham that we are actively examining the options and treating the matter with the urgency that it deserves. While I cannot undertake to bring forward government amendments on this issue on Report, I certainly expect that, by then, I will have more to say on where we have reached in our consideration of this important matter. Having put the issue firmly on the table as my noble friend has done, I hope that she will now be content to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, I thank all those who have taken part in this debate. I thank the Minister for his reply and the right reverend Prelate for his support.
There has been some discussion about terminology. Noble Lords might have detected that I did not use the phrase “mandatory reporting” in my introduction because I know that it causes some people some difficulty. I have also avoided using the word “professionals” in my amendment. We may not want to call a school secretary or a dinner lady a professional, yet they would need to have a CRB check to work in a school and they are specified in Schedule 4 to the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006, which is in my amendment. When my noble friend asks to whom the duty should apply, my reply is that it is those people. So it is already in law.
I agree that the issues are complex and that we should approach the whole thing with a great deal of caution. I agree that there are different systems across the world and we need to find out which system suits this country best. I also agree that we need a culture change; I am pretty sure that I said so. We need training not just for the professionals but for the children so that they understand how to protect themselves. We probably need more resources as well because, as I said, there is an awful lot of undetected child abuse out there which has never been treated, and it never goes away. There is no such thing as historic child abuse; it is always current in the lives of the victims, who never lose it.
With that, I have done my very best to persuade all noble Lords. I will have to leave it at that for the moment, but I suspect that I may come back to it at the next stage of the Bill. We shall see. I shall watch with great interest what happens with the terms of reference of the new inquiry committee, the personnel and how they go about their job. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Dholakia
“(a) to prove that D’s reason for being in possession of the item was necessary for a purpose related to the prevention or detection of crime”
Lord Dholakia (LD)
My Lords, Amendment 40BZF is grouped with Amendments 40BB and 40BC. The amendments are in the name of my noble friend Lady Hamwee who unfortunately is not well and cannot be here. I step into her shoes in order to put forward the views she would want to express if she were here. Amendment 40BZF relates to possession of paedophile manuals and seeks to explore the defences that may be available. At the moment the Bill allows a defence where the person has a legitimate reason for possessing a paedophile manual. The amendment changes this to allow possession only where it is necessary for the prevention or detection of crime. We question whether there are ever any other circumstances in which possession would be legitimate. For example, is research included? Is the defence currently included in the Bill too wide? Could it give rise to a defence where the intent of the person was to use a paedophile manual to aid them in committing or facilitating further offences?
Amendment 40BB relates to a domestic service provider. Again, the issue here is straightforward. The amendment probes paragraph 2 of Schedule 3 relating to paedophile manuals. This paragraph applies the rules on paedophile manuals to service providers elsewhere in the European Economic Area,
“as well as to a person, of any description”.
The amendment probes what is meant by,
“a person, of any description”.
Is this too wide to offer sufficient clarity to those who may be caught by this offence?
Amendment 40BC relates simply to a drafting point. Again, the forensic ability of my noble friend Lady Hamwee has picked up this point. The current drafting of paragraph 5(3)(c) of Schedule 3 requires that a service provider promptly removes information on a paedophile manual. Sub-paragraph (4) then states that this applies only in certain circumstances. Why not simply have sub-paragraph (4) state what will happen in the event it applies rather than referring back to sub-paragraph (3)(c)? I am sorry about all this confusion. Legal people may have a better ability to interpret this. I am sure my noble friend the Minister will forgive me for raising this very important point. I beg to move.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
I begin by wishing my noble friend Lady Hamwee a speedy recovery. It seems a little odd not to have her here when she has been omnipresent in our debates on the Bill.
Before I speak to the amendments, it may assist the Committee if I provide some background to Clause 63. The clause creates a new offence of the possession of paedophile manuals—that is, any item that contains advice or guidance about abusing children sexually. The Government have been made aware of a potential gap in the law which allows the possession of written material that contains practical advice on how to commit a sexual offence against a child. Such material is commonly referred to by investigators as “paedophile manuals”.
The material that we are targeting is deeply disturbing and has clearly been designed to facilitate sexual offending against children. Possession of some of that material, where illustrated with indecent images, is likely already to be a criminal offence under the law that deals with such images. However, the possession of purely written material would not fall under the current criminal law.
We are therefore creating a new offence to target possession of that potentially dangerous material. The offence will carry a maximum sentence of three years’ imprisonment. We have also included defences to the possession of that material that mirror those already available to individuals charged with similar possession offences; for example, the possession of indecent photographs of children under the Criminal Justice Act 1988 or extreme pornographic material under the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. The defences include a legitimate reason for being in possession of material. That will cover those who can demonstrate that their legitimate business means that they have a reason for possessing this material. Such groups may include law enforcement agencies, the Internet Watch Foundation and others. It will also cover those people working for software companies who may come into contact with such material during the course of developing filter systems, for example.
Amendment 40BZF would replace the legitimate reason defence with a narrower one which will offer protection only to those who are preventing or detecting crime. We believe that there is no need to narrow the defence in that way. As I explained, the legitimate reason defence already covers those in detection and law enforcement, but it also provides protection to others with a genuine reason for possession of this material. Our legitimate reason defence mirrors a long-established defence in this sensitive area of the law: one that is well known to the police, prosecutors and the courts and that has worked well. We can therefore find no reason to narrow the protection that that defence will provide. Any defences need to be tailored to the circumstances of a particular offence. The offences in Clauses 41 and 63 are clearly very different. We are satisfied that the narrower defence in Clause 41 is appropriate given the nature of the participation offence.
My noble friend has indicated that Amendments 40BB and 40BC are probing amendments to test aspects of the drafting of Schedule 3. That schedule ensures that the provisions which make illegal the possession of paedophile manuals are consistent with the UK’s obligations under the e-commerce directive, adopted in 2000. The provisions in Schedule 3 are nothing new and mirror those already in place for other similar offences—for example, the possession of prohibited images of children offence in Section 62 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 and the related provisions in Schedule 13 to that Act.
Amendment 40BB would amend paragraph 2 of the schedule. The first half of paragraph 2(1) of Schedule 3 states that the possession offence applies to a domestic service provider who is in possession of a prohibited item in an EEA state other than the United Kingdom. The words in brackets in the second half of that sub-paragraph reiterate that the offence also applies to,
“a person, of any description”,
who possesses such material in England, Wales or Northern Ireland. The qualifying words “of any description” are designed to make clear that, in those circumstances, the offence applies to all persons: that is, not just domestic service providers. The words are not intended to imply, as was, I think, my noble friend’s concern, that the person can be a legal or corporate person, as well as a natural person. As my noble friend will be aware, by virtue of the Interpretation Act 1978, the word “person” is taken to have that meaning in legislation anyway.
Amendment 40BC is intended to clarify the application of paragraph 5(4) of the schedule. Paragraph 5 provides an exception from liability for a service provider who possesses the prohibited material while storing the information in certain circumstances. Sub-paragraphs (2) and (3) set out the two conditions that must be satisfied for the exclusion to apply. Sub-paragraph (3)(c) provides that where the service provider has actual knowledge of certain facts, it will be excluded from criminal liability only if, in addition, it promptly removes the prohibited material or disables access to it. Sub-paragraph (4) sets out the facts that give rise to that additional obligation.
The effect of the amendment would be to remove the availability of the exception in paragraph 5 altogether, where the service provider obtains actual knowledge of the facts set out in sub-paragraph (4). The Government’s intention, as required by the e-commerce directive, is that a service provider should not be criminally liable in those circumstances as long as the information is promptly removed or access to it is disabled.
I recognise that these issues are not straightforward and that my noble friend Lord Dholakia will wish to study my response in Hansard. If, having done so, he or my noble friend Lady Hamwee requires further explanation, I will be happy to provide it. However, for now, I trust that he will be content to withdraw the amendment that he moved on behalf of my noble friend Lady Hamwee.
Lord Dholakia
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for the explanation that she has offered. I will certainly make sure that my noble friend Lady Hamwee receives a copy of Hansard. Whether she is cheered by it, we will soon find out at the Report stage. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Meacher
“Offence of encouraging or assisting the promotion of the practice of female genital mutilation
(1) The Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 is amended as follows.
(2) After section 2 (offence of assisting a girl to mutilate her own genitalia), insert—
“2A Offence of encouraging or assisting the promotion of the practice of female genital mutilation
A person is guilty of an offence if he encourages or assists in the promotion of the practice of female genital mutilation.”(3) In section 5 (penalties for offences)—
(a) after “under” insert “sections 2 and 3 of”,(b) at the end insert— “(2) A person guilty of an offence under section 2A is liable—
(a) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding seven years or a fine (or both),(b) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum (or both).””
Baroness Meacher
The amendment is intended to ensure that anyone encouraging or assisting in the promotion of the practice of female genital mutilation will face an investigation and, if found guilty, a conviction. We propose that the penalty for those offences should be severe: a maximum prison sentence of up to seven years for a conviction on indictment.
Local councils have a role in tackling the issue as a result of their duties to safeguard children and they are well placed to work with the relevant communities in their area where FGM is practised in order to reduce the number of women and girls at risk of that mutilation. It is appalling to contemplate that 20,000 girls and women in this country are currently at risk of being subjected to FGM. Professionals and third-sector experts believe that the practice will be eradicated only through a change in custom and culture in the communities where it happens. We will not do it through individual charges.
We can be encouraged that there are many members of communities with a history of practising FGM who are now willing to make the case against it. However, we also know that there are community and faith leaders who promote and encourage the practice of FGM. This amendment would make it absolutely clear that authorities can, and indeed must, step in to prevent the community and faith leaders perpetuating this practice. The approach of these faith leaders is likely to be through generating pressure on families who might otherwise turn away from FGM for their daughters.
Currently, anyone inciting the carrying out of FGM can be prosecuted for incitement, regardless of whether the underlying substantive offence is committed or attempted, under Sections 44 to 46 of the Serious Crime Act 2007. I understand that the CPS believes that there is no need to create a new offence on the basis that legislation already exists to criminalise incitement. However, the purpose of this amendment is to clarify the law to make it clear that even indirect promotion of FGM by community and religious leaders could be dealt with under the law. It is not difficult to imagine how religious leaders might stop short of incitement but nevertheless through general persuasion and comments as leaders of these communities might indeed lead families to be fearful if they do not comply with the religious standards of their history.
It is relevant to note that the Local Government Association strongly believes that there is a case for this amendment and for bringing the offence of promoting or encouraging FGM into the 2003 Act so that it sits alongside the offence of practising FGM itself. This would help law enforcement officers and legal practitioners with no prior experience of FGM to locate the offence. It is no good if some offence is there if the key people are not aware of it. We know that the Modern Slavery Bill has the similar aim of consolidating and clarifying the relevant legislation. I think it is a very good example to follow.
I hope very much that the Government will agree that this is such an important and yet difficult area of law that our amendment is justified. I beg to move.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, I had intended to put my name to this amendment, but I am afraid I was rather busy last week and did not in fact remember to do so. I strongly support the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher.
Perhaps noble Lords will permit me to tell a short story. Yesterday evening I was one of eight judges for the “Speak Out” competition for 15 year-olds across the whole of London and Essex. We had 15 brilliant 15 year-olds, and each had to speak between one and three minutes on the subject of their choice. One girl of 15 stood up and talked about female genital mutilation. It was an absolutely brilliant speech. Unfortunately, she did not win, but it was absolutely breathtaking that a 15 year-old could be telling us what we should be doing about it. She was utterly shocked that we were not effective in stopping this happening—this absolutely abhorrent crime, which is hitting so many young girls nowadays in this country because they are being taken to other countries, or even it is being done here.
Anything—absolutely anything—that can encourage the public who are part of this system, or who know about this system, to be reminded that it is a crime should be taken forward. Anyone who might be involved in this in any way, perhaps as a member of a family where one member may be considering taking the girl to Sudan or to South Sudan or wherever else it may be, should now say, “Just be very careful, as this is something that is not acceptable in this country, either for those living here or those coming in or out”.
I do hope that the Minister will see that this has all sorts of values. That is to say that it has the value of actually dealing with the offence of encouraging or assisting the promotion of this abhorrent practice and, secondly, it would send out a powerful message that those who are around those who do it are possibly in danger of criminal offences themselves. I really hope the Government will pick this one up.
Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)
My Lords, the Minister will know that I have spoken on this subject several times in the House and asked Questions on it.
Female genital mutilation is one of the most shocking things that is happening in our society. I would very much like to endorse the words of my noble friends and anything that brings home to the general public the seriousness of this offence. At this very moment, in our country young girls are having their genitals mutilated. It is the most appalling thought. Anything that can be done to strengthen the law; anything that can make people realise how very seriously the Government take this issue, which I know they do; anything that can be done should be done.
Baroness Bakewell (Lab)
My Lords, I would like to add my support for this amendment and perhaps add a story of my own. This is not a new issue. As long ago as the 1990s, I made a television programme exposing the practice of female genital mutilation, which went out in prime time on BBC television’s first channel, BBC1. It was quite explicit and voiced the alarm of Somali women themselves, who explained to me that the perpetuation of this practice resided with the grandmothers in their community who felt that what was good enough for them should be imposed on their children. It was the mothers who remembered their own experience who were eager to have that change for their children. It has not yet happened. Getting this accepted is a disgraceful slow process.
The explanation lies in the fact that, in the 1990s, we were very aware of multiculturalism and the need to respect other cultures. It beggars belief now, but at the time we felt that, if that was their culture and their tradition, then so be it; we felt that we were not in a position to feel superior. We have come a long way, but we have not come far enough. It is time to press forward with this and not to go on talking about it.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
I briefly add my voice to this. Again, if I had not had quite such a troubled week, I might have added my name to this amendment.
A couple of years ago I went, on behalf of the Lord Speaker, to a conference about this. In my lifetime, I have seen a great deal in terms of abuse, but seeing a film of this actually happening shook me to my core. We did not just hear the screams, but we actually saw the action that was happening to this young woman. When we talk about female genital mutilation, it gets a little sanitised at times. It is utterly appalling pain. Some young women in foreign countries die because of the follow-up, and certainly we know young women in this country are traumatised. I, too, hope that the Government will take this away.
Lord Rosser
My Lords, the purpose of our Amendment 40CA in this group is to provide anonymity for victims of female genital mutilation by providing for any offences under Sections 1 to 4 of the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 to come within the terms of Section 2 of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992, which for example provides anonymity for rape victims and victims of various other sexual offences to encourage more to come forward.
We recognise that protecting young girls and women from FGM requires action beyond legislation to tackle the social norms in which it operates, and implement a preventative approach. However, if progress is to be made in addressing and preventing what has already been described in this debate as the abhorrent practice of female genital mutilation, then cases will have to be successfully prosecuted through the courts. That means people who are victims of this practice being willing to come forward and give evidence. As we know, this is not some small, minority offence. It has been estimated that more than 20,000 girls under 15 are at high risk of female genital mutilation in England and Wales each year, with the risk being highest for primary school girls.
The Director of Public Prosecutions, who will surely know better than anyone the difficulties in persuading victims to come forward and give evidence in court, has called for victims to be given the right to anonymity to make it easier to bring charges against alleged perpetrators. She was quoted as saying recently:
“It is a very difficult injury to talk about. It is an abuse of their body and it is not a part of the body that people want to talk about in public”.
The Home Affairs Select Committee has also identified that a key difficulty in securing prosecutions is the ability to gather sufficient evidence and has said that,
“if victims had the protection of press and broadcast anonymity, this might encourage more to come forward. … we recommend the Government bring forward proposals to extend the right to anonymity under the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992 to include victims of FGM”.
Our view is similar. Anonymity is granted to victims of rape, among other offences, because of the sensitivity and stigma attached to such an offence, and the sensitivity and stigma that surround female genital mutilation must be at least as intense. Victims should be protected in the way called for in our amendment. If anonymity would encourage more victims to come forward, it must surely be overwhelmingly in the public interest to go down this road, particularly taking into account the lack of prosecutions to date. Where cases of female genital mutilation go to court, victims should also be entitled to the same support and special measures to which other vulnerable victims are entitled. I sincerely hope that the Minister will be able to give a positive response.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful for the expert way in which the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, introduced his amendment. I have no greater arguments than the ones he adduced. I strongly support him and urge the Minister to consider his suggestion very carefully. I have one final thought: what would the view of noble Lords be if we were talking not about FGM but MGM?
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, it would not be in order for me to say anything about the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, as I was not in my place when it was moved. I support the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, in his attempt to get anonymity for the victims of FGM, and I hope the Government will consider it. Indeed, I think there may be a case for going a little further than that, because it could be that there are women within communities who know what is happening who might be more encouraged to come forward and say so if it were guaranteed that they would have anonymity. It is something that needs looking at.
Baroness Meacher
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, introduced his amendment extremely effectively and has said all that needs to be said, but I would hate the Minister to think that there was no support for it. Therefore, I simply say that we need these charges to be investigated and pursued, and if victims are not given anonymity, it seems an impossible task. I hope that the Minister will be able to support the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, as well as my amendment.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
I also support the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. I meant to say so earlier, but forgot.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I commend noble Lords who spoke to the amendments in this group, which show how seriously this House takes the practice of female genital mutilation. These amendments seek, in their different ways, to further our common objective of ending the abhorrent practice of female genital mutilation.
In moving Amendment 40BA, the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, is, as she explained, seeking to give effect to a recommendation made by the Local Government Association. The association recommended that a specific offence of “inciting and condoning” the practice of female genital mutilation would make it easier to bring cases against those who advocate it, whether they reside in or are visiting the UK. As I hope Clause 64 demonstrates, the Government are open to identifying ways in which the law might be strengthened to help put an end to female genital mutilation and better to protect victims. We are already considering recommendations made by the Director of Public Prosecutions, one of which we will debate shortly, and we are looking carefully at the recent recommendations made by the Home Affairs Select Committee, to which the noble Lord referred. In this instance, however, I hope to persuade the noble Baroness that her proposed amendment is unnecessary as the behaviour that it seeks to criminalise is already covered and can more effectively be punished by existing provisions of the law.
The common-law offence of inciting the commission of another offence was abolished by Section 59 of the Serious Crime Act 2007 with effect from 1 October 2008, and replaced by the provisions in Part 2 of that Act, which I will refer to as the 2007 Act. They are as follows: intentionally encouraging or assisting an offence; encouraging or assisting an offence believing it will be committed; and encouraging or assisting offences believing one or more will be committed. To be convicted of encouraging or assisting an offence, it is not necessary for the anticipated principle offence to take place. In addition to these legislative provisions, if an FGM offence is actually carried out then anyone who aided, abetted, counselled or procured the offence would be liable as an accessory.
We believe that the existing law is sufficient to cover those who encourage or assist the practice of female genital mutilation and those who take part in an offence in a secondary way, whatever their reason for doing so. The offences in Part 2 of the 2007 Act also have extraterritorial application: they can cover those who encourage or assist, wholly or partly from this country, offences of female genital mutilation that they know or believe will be committed abroad.
Baroness Meacher
I am sorry to interrupt the Minister but I wonder whether I have understood this correctly. My understanding is that the current law talks about aiding a particular offence of FGM. What we are concerned about is the general promotion by community leaders and faith leaders of this practice. I am not sure whether this is the case, but my feeling is that perhaps the current law does not fully and effectively cover that point.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I think I will get on to that further on. As the noble Baroness said, we need to go beyond the law and think about other aspects of how we stop this happening in our communities. I hope I will answer her question, but if I do not I am sure she will stand up again.
This possibly comes on to it: a person convicted of encouraging, assisting, aiding or abetting an offence is liable to any penalty for which he would be liable on conviction of the principle offence. So a person convicted of encouraging, assisting, aiding or abetting an offence of female genital mutilation would be liable, on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for up to 14 years. Amendment 40BA, which provides a maximum penalty of seven years’ imprisonment for encouraging or assisting the promotion of the practice of female genital mutilation, would therefore have the effect of reducing by half the maximum penalty currently available for such behaviour.
The noble Baroness is, of course, right that the long-term and systematic eradication of FGM in the UK will require practising communities to abandon the practice themselves. While the criminal law can play a part in this, the recent Home Affairs Select Committee report quite properly also pointed to the need for more effective engagement with communities to persuade them to abandon the practice. To this end, the Government are spending £100,000 on the FGM community engagement initiative. Charities were invited to bid for up to £10,000 to carry out community work to raise awareness of FGM among women who have already been affected by FGM and young girls at risk, as well as men. We are now funding 12 organisations to deliver community engagement activity, and we will continue to work with civil society organisations to examine how we can support and facilitate their engagement with communities in the UK. It is noteworthy that in its report the Home Affairs Select Committee made no recommendation in favour of a new offence of promoting or encouraging FGM.
I now turn to Amendment 40CA. As the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has explained, this amendment would extend to the victims of FGM the same anonymity that already applies to the alleged victims of many sexual offences.
Baroness Meacher
Well, the Minister did say that I could stand up again if she did not answer my point. I was listening very carefully to her words, and they still related to a specific offence of FGM, whereas this amendment is about its general promotion—for example, in a faith leader’s sermon—which is a different thing. I only ask the Minister if she could take this back and consider it. I have said enough, and I do not want to interfere with her answer to noble Lords.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I shall certainly go back and think about what the noble Baroness has said. There is no provision in law for condoning something, and that is what she is suggesting. Perhaps I could clarify it with her further. I apologise if I have not quite answered her question.
Can we now move on to Amendment 40CA from the noble Lord, Lord Rosser? He talked about the same anonymity being applied to victims of FGM that already applies to victims of other sexual offences. This follows a recommendation by the Director of Public Prosecutions. FGM is an offence of a particularly personal and sensitive nature, and the DPP believes that it is important that its victims should know that their identity will be protected if a prosecution takes place. The DPP has argued: that this protection needs to be guaranteed, rather than discretionary; that it should apply from the outset, when an allegation is first made, rather than from the point of charge; and that it should last indefinitely. The director believes that such anonymity would go far to encourage the further reporting of this offence.
These are powerful arguments, and we are considering them carefully. In doing so, we will also take account of the fact that, in its recent report on FGM, the Home Affairs Select Committee endorsed the DPP’s proposal. There are some questions that we need to resolve, but I assure your Lordships that the Government see the force of the argument, and I am confident that they shall shortly be in a position to announce their conclusions.
Going back to the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, I have just been given an additional note. I will read it out: “Where the general encouragement of FGM related to a specific act, constituting an offence would depend on the circumstances of the case, but we believe such conduct could be covered”. If that still does not answer her question I am happy to write to her. But on the basis of everything I have said, and in the knowledge that we can and should return to this issue on Report, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, will be content at this stage not to press their amendments.
Baroness Meacher
I thank the Minister for her careful response. I hope that the Minister will agree with me that she has not really answered the point. I am grateful, therefore, that she will take this back, and hope that we can perhaps have discussions with Ministers and officials to sort it out. On that basis I withdraw my amendment.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
“Offence of abduction of child by other person
In the Child Abduction Act 1984, in section 2(1) (offence of abduction of child by other person), for “sixteen” substitute “eighteen”.”
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, we move to a different subject, that of child abduction. There are two separate amendments. The first one, Amendment 40CB, deals with an anomaly—that there are two separate Acts, which deal differently with children or young people. If the child is in care, and the care order goes beyond the age of 16, under Section 49 of the Children Act 1989 the offence of abduction runs to the age of 18. But under the Child Abduction Act 1984, which incorporates the Hague convention of 1980, the age goes to 16. There is therefore an anomaly. The point of the amendment is simply to have parity, and the parity should go up rather than go down.
The second amendment, Amendment 40CC, will take a little longer to explain. It deals with what is called a “child abduction warning order”. This was once called a “harbouring order”. It has been a very useful, but inadequate, tool of the police. In particular, where they have seen a teenager being groomed, they have gone to the man concerned, and they have explained to him that he must obey an order not to have anything to do with the girl. However, if he breaks that order, they have absolutely no powers at all. Consequently the police are very anxious that their useful order to try and interrupt a grooming process for young girls, in particular, should in fact have a statutory backing. The next stage is an arrest under either Section 49 of the Children Act 1989 or Section 2 of the Child Abduction Act 1984.
However, there is a gap between the police telling someone, “Lay off this girl, you’re grooming her and you mustn’t do it”, and the point at which the girl has either been detained or taken, when it is quite simply too late. What is therefore needed is the police power—which they use—but put on to a basis that they can then enforce. If the man concerned does not desist from his grooming of the girl, he can then be dealt with under a statutory order. One of the problems about the words in the two Acts of “detained” or “taken” is that quite often it is a psychological or emotional relationship between the girl, who is often much younger, and the man, which is not capable of being treated as coming within either of the two relevant sections. Therefore the warning order could do a lot of good, and it would be useful. I hope the Government will take this away and look at it. It is definitely what the police want, it would give a real bit of power to them and it would fill a serious gap in the possibility of young people being abducted, particularly by older men. I beg to move.
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, I support both these amendments. I recently sat as a member of a Back-Bench inquiry into the legislation used to tackle sexual exploitation, which was supported very ably by Barnardo’s. We took oral evidence from a number of police forces. There was unanimous support for putting these child abduction notices on a statutory footing, which formed part of our recommendations. At present they form no more than an administrative procedure for the police—useful, I am told, for collecting evidence for the future, scaring perpetrators and letting them know that the police are watching them but, in and of themselves, pretty toothless.
Of course, there is existing legislation for child abduction offences. Sometimes, perpetrators who breach warning notices are prosecuted under this other legislation. But the current legislation is often not useful for cases of grooming, because it requires that the adult has taken or detained the child, implying physical control or restraint. We know that psychological and emotional manipulation are the main tools used by perpetrators to control and groom vulnerable children. The Crown Prosecution Service is therefore not always able to take prosecutions forward, due to the child seeming willingly to remain with the offender, when the offender makes no act physically to detain the child. Creating an offence of breaching a notice would address this issue and allow the police to intervene earlier, rather than having to wait for a more serious offence to occur when, of course, what we want is for them to be able to intervene early.
While the police find child abduction warning notices a valuable tool, their lack of a statutory basis leads to an unfortunate consequence. Police told the inquiry about occasions when they issued notices as a deterrent but were then unable to act once they were breached. If they are to have any power in these situations, all concerned need to know that the police will and can act when their instructions are clearly ignored. Instead, the current situation erodes victims’ confidence in the ability of the police to protect them— and they have told us that. Of course, perpetrators’ fear of consequences will diminish when they see police unable to act. So we need to put this on a statutory basis.
In relation to bringing the age into parity between children in and out of care, the point was made by the children who spoke to us that children’s vulnerability is not determined by their membership of a particular group or their legal status. There are many profoundly vulnerable children who are not in the care system and who need the protection of the law. We heard from some of those girls and boys. Indeed, there are many more victims of sexual exploitation who are not in care and have not been in care than there are within it. During the course of the inquiry, we met some children who have been through some appalling things who had never been in care. While it is too late for them, we need to make sure that other profoundly vulnerable young people who happen to be living with their parents have the same protection as those under the state’s care.
The Government have shown real engagement with the inquiry’s findings so far, and I am delighted that they have adopted one of the inquiry’s recommendations by tabling an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill on the topic of grooming. It is clear that these amendments on abduction would be another strong step towards giving the police the tools that they need to prevent some truly vile behaviour.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, I was recently approached by a very senior ex-policeman with whom I had worked in the past, who was trying to help a number of children’s homes and hostels in the north of England. He found that there were men who came to the hostel and took older girls out, and the hostel was totally unable to do anything about it. They could simply go and fetch the girls back, but the girls were so emotionally engaged, as the noble and learned Baroness and the noble Baroness said, that they went out again. What the hostel desperately needed was the capacity to take stronger action against the men, and I believe that that is what would happen were we to accept the essence of these amendments.
Lord Rosser
My Lords, we are associated with these amendments and support them. I do not intend to go through the points already so eloquently made by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, except simply to repeat that the current system of non-statutory notices does not encourage confidence in the system from victims and their families in the ability of the police to protect them when the provisions are breached. The notice leads to no action being taken unless the thresholds of an abduction threat have been met, which is not always the case. As has been said, the threshold means that the adult must have taken or detained the child.
Creating an offence of breach of a proposed child abduction warning order is likely to strengthen victims’ confidence in seeking help and protection, since it will lead to action being taken against the perpetrator if they breach the order. Once again, I hope that the Minister will be able to give a positive response.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
Again, this has been an interesting debate, and I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in it. Child exploitation is an abhorrent crime and we are determined to tackle it in whatever form it takes. The findings of a recent parliamentary inquiry, of which noble Lords will be aware, chaired by Sarah Champion MP and supported by Barnardo’s, have been very helpful in contributing to the ongoing work being done by the Government to tackle child sexual exploitation. The recommendations of that inquiry will be crucial in helping to inform our policy and improve our understanding of this form of offending and, indeed, what more we should be doing about it. Specifically, the inquiry received significant evidence relating to child abduction warning notices and, as a result, this issue featured prominently in their report and is now the subject of these two amendments.
It might help if I updated noble Lords on government thinking in this area as at present. This Government have already taken clear action to tackle child sexual exploitation. As the Committee will recall, as part of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, we are introducing a number of new police powers. First, we are providing for more effective civil prevention orders, namely the new sexual harm prevention order and the sexual risk order. Secondly, new powers will allow the police to require hotels and similar establishments to provide information about guests whom they believe may be involved in sexual exploitation. Thirdly, we are bringing in strengthened powers for police to close premises associated with child sexual exploitation, a provision championed by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, who cannot be in her place today but for whose support on this matter I am very grateful.
With regard to child abduction warning notices, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, for articulating the case for putting these notices on a statutory footing. The Government note that proposals to strengthen the impact of these orders have the support of the police, legal experts, representatives of local agencies, young people who have been affected by sexual exploitation, children’s charities and others. As part of the work of the National Group on Sexual Violence against Children and Vulnerable People, my ministerial colleagues have given assurances that the Home Office would look at the effectiveness of the existing child abduction warning notices and, in liaison with police colleagues, examine how best this tool can be used in future. In doing so, we will consider carefully the operational benefits of putting these notices on a statutory footing and how such a statutory scheme might operate. We are currently consulting carefully with policing colleagues to seek their views on the potential use of a statutory notice and whether, in their view, further changes are required to better protect children.
Amendment 40CC is an important contribution to this debate. The existing non-statutory child abduction warning notices are issued by the police. That is entirely appropriate where breach of a notice is not, of itself, a criminal offence. But it would be an unusual step for the police themselves to impose what amounts to a restraint order or injunction, breach of which is a criminal offence. If we made it statutory, we would have to consider that. Compare, for example, restraint orders under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 which are granted by the courts. Other civil preventive orders, such as serious crime prevention orders and gang injunctions which are dealt with elsewhere in this Bill, are also subject to judicial oversight. We would need to see how that played in with the current arrangements of non-statutory warning notices.
Other issues that we need to consider are the test for the grant of an order, the prohibitions or restrictions that may be attached to an order and the penalty for breach. I note, too, that the amendment requires a child to have been found two or more times in the company of the person to be made the subject of an order. Elsewhere, the inquiry proposed amending the grooming offence in Section 15 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 to remove the requirement for a second contact with the child. The Government have now tabled an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill to that end, as my noble friend Lady Walmsley said. We need to consider whether the approach taken in child abduction warning notices should mirror that in the amended grooming offence.
Amendment 40CB seeks to raise the age threshold from 16 to 18 years for the child abduction offence in Section 2 of the Child Abduction Act 1984, bringing it into line with the summary offence in Section 49 of the Children Act 1989 of abducting a child in care. Children in care are particularly vulnerable and that is why the Children Act 1989 makes it an offence to take any child who is in care, including a 16 or 17 year-old, away from the person responsible for them without lawful authority or reasonable excuse. However, while we recognise the arguments made for consistency, there are contrary arguments and difficult issues raised. Young people aged 16 and 17 can live independently of their parents and, in many respects, are able to make their own decisions about how they live their life, including their sexual relationships. It is in recognition of this that the Child Abduction Act 1984 applies only where the child is under 16 and the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction ceases to operate when the child reaches the age of 16 years.
However, we are committed to examining the case for placing child abduction warning notices on a statutory footing. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has made a reasoned case for doing so and it deserves serious consideration. All speakers tended to favour the idea that statutory footing for the child abduction warning notices should be considered. While Report stage is some three months off, I cannot say to noble Lords that we will have completed our review by that point. I can undertake to update the House on progress and, of course, noble Lords are free to bring back the amendment, or a variation of it, at the next stage. I hope that I will be able to update noble Lords on how the Government have progressed arguments. Clearly, the debate we have had today will be helpful.
I cannot say the same in connection with Amendment 40CB. That amendment would have significant wider implications and for the reasons I have given I am not persuaded of the case for that particular change. However, given what I have said, I hope that the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, in proposing the amendment at the beginning of this debate, will feel free to withdraw the amendments tabled in her name and that I will have the opportunity when we return to this subject of updating noble Lords accordingly.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, first, I thank everyone who has spoken in this short debate. It has been extremely helpful. Perhaps I might ask the Minister whether he thinks my contribution on warning notices was as helpful as that of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser—because it was actually my amendment. Not to worry, but I could not resist saying that.
Secondly, on the warning notice, I am well aware that it would be extremely unlikely that the police would have the power to issue a criminal notice of that sort—although in other circumstances, of course, they issue cautions, which have a very significant effect without ever going through a court. However, if an offender does not accept a police notice and continues to groom, I could see the advantages of a very speedy application to the magistrates’ court. That seems to me to be the answer to that particular problem. The magistrates could then issue the appropriate order, which the offender would have to comply with. That might be the right way round—I did not go in to all that.
As for the age of 18, having spent many years on the Hague Convention, I am well aware that on international abductions the age of 16 applies right across the world. Nearly 200 countries have signed up to that, including of course ourselves. However, this is abduction of a rather different sort, within the United Kingdom. It is just as dangerous and just as worrying as international abduction. We only have to look at the press reports of the cases in Rotherham and Rochdale, without going into Luton or Oxford or other places where there was grooming of girls, to know that a considerable number of those girls were not in care. Some of the girls and some of the parents were seeking help; and some of the girls probably were over 16. Therefore the vulnerability of the young is not limited to those within the care system.
I can see very well that it would be quite wrong to change the 1984 Act to include international abduction. However, I ask the Minister to reflect on whether that would not meet some of the really shocking issues that have occurred across not only the north of England but the Midlands and, relatively, the south of England. The vulnerable children there may need help beyond the age of 16. It is not beyond the wit of parliamentary draftsmen to put in an amendment to the 1984 Act dealing with grooming in England and Wales that may lead to abduction and not going across the international child abduction arrangements, which of course we follow in exactly the same way as every other country. Having made those points, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Rosser
My Lords, Section 5 of the Terrorism Act 2006 makes it an offence to engage in any conduct in preparation for giving effect to an intention to commit or assist another to commit one or more acts of terrorism. It also makes it an offence under Section 6 to provide or receive training for terrorism. The Act also provides for extraterritorial jurisdiction so that an offence may be tried in this country in respect of acts committed abroad. However, this is limited or non-existent in respect of the Section 5 and Section 6 offences to which I have referred.
Clause 65 would provide for extraterritorial jurisdiction for the Section 5 offence and extend the existing extraterritorial jurisdiction for the Section 6 offence. Such extraterritorial jurisdiction is considered appropriate for Section 5 and Section 6 offences because the places where training or preparation for terrorism are taking place are increasingly likely to be located abroad and will enable prosecutions in this country of people preparing or training more generally for terrorism who have, in the current circumstances, travelled from the UK to fight in Syria, where various groups are involved in the conflict.
We do not oppose this clause being in the Bill but have some points to raise about what the impact of the provision is expected to be—hence this debate on whether the clause should stand part of the Bill. I appreciate that the Minister may not be in a position to be too specific in his response, but can he give some examples of the kind of prosecutions which it will be possible to pursue under Clause 65 which it has not been possible until now to pursue under the existing legislation, and which would have been pursued had Clause 65 been effective? If prosecutions have already taken place for the offence of preparing for terrorist activities, what does Clause 65 add in reality to the legislative armoury? Has there been consultation with the Director of Public Prosecutions on the need for Clause 65? If a loophole in the current legislation has been identified which constitutes a potential threat to our security, does the Director of Public Prosecutions believe that the provisions of Clause 65 constitute the best way of addressing that loophole?
As I understand it, prosecutions under Clause 65 would need to be in open court and any evidence brought would have to be evidence acceptable in open court and disclosable in open court. If I am right in saying that, presumably intercept evidence and the evidence of informers, for example, will not be usable. In respect of people coming back from Syria, how is it envisaged that it will in practical terms be possible to gather evidence for a prosecution which relates to what the individual has done in Syria that can be pursued in open court? If the evidence to pursue a prosecution under Clause 65 cannot be used in open court, will a terrorism prevention and investigation measures order be sought, which would enable, for example, intercept evidence and the evidence of informers to be used, albeit it would be to obtain the appropriate order rather than to seek a conviction? Or are the Government claiming that Clause 65 will remove the need for TPIMs in a situation where no one on a TPIM has ever been prosecuted and when, in his last report, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation said that TPIMs continued to be needed?
I hope that the Minister will be able to address these points in his reply. Bearing in mind that Clause 65 relates to an extension of extraterritorial jurisdiction to enable offences to be tried in this country in respect of acts committed abroad under Sections 5 and 6 of the Terrorism Act 2006, it is not clear what the actual impact of Clause 65 will be as much of the evidence that becomes available is, if I have understood the situation correctly, unlikely to be able to be presented in open court and could be used only in seeking a TPIM order.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, for affording the Committee an opportunity to debate this issue. I am sure that the noble Lord and, for that matter, the Committee as a whole will be in no doubt about the significant threat posed by foreign fighters, particularly in relation to Syria, and the importance the Government place on protecting the public from those who may seek to harm the UK or UK interests.
The nature of the threat from terrorism has evolved since the passing of the Terrorism Act 2006. Many of the threats we face today have significant overseas connections and the places where UK-linked individuals, and those seeking to harm UK interests, may now be training, or otherwise preparing for terrorism, are increasingly likely to be located abroad. Syria, in particular, has become the number one destination for jihadists in the world today, posing a threat to the region and beyond. However, the issue of individuals from the UK seeking to engage in combat and conflicts abroad is not new, nor is it specific to Syria. As my noble friend Lady Warsi, who is sitting next to me preparing to respond to the debate following this Committee stage, will be aware, the recent events in Iraq further demonstrate the fluidity of movement of foreign fighters and we are concerned that groups such as the al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant—or ISIL, as it is known—are now able to operate in the large areas of ungoverned space that have been created by the conflict. ISIL’s advances in Iraq in particular demonstrate the serious threat that that group poses to both countries, so it is right that we respond to this threat.
In support of wider government efforts to ensure that the full range of operational responses under the Contest strategy are being applied to counter this threat, Clause 65 amends Section 17 of the Terrorism Act 2006. This extends fully the jurisdiction of the UK courts over the offence of preparation of terrorist acts under Section 5 and the offence of training for terrorism under Section 6 of that Act so that preparation and training that take place abroad can be prosecuted. This measure will enable prosecution, on their return to the UK, of individuals who have travelled overseas to prepare or train for terrorism as though their actions had taken place in this country. Any prosecution under this measure will require the express consent of the Attorney-General, in addition to satisfying the Crown Prosecution Service that there is sufficient evidence and that prosecution is in the public interest. Our priority is to dissuade people from travelling to participate in conflicts abroad in the first place, but it is vital that our legislation is as robust as it can be against those who may seek to harm the UK in particular, and leaves no doubt in the minds of individuals engaging in preparatory acts of terrorism, or training for terrorism overseas, of the action we are prepared to take to protect the public.
The noble Lord asked whether it would enable us to prosecute cases which were not prosecutable at present. Recent cases show that these offences can be operationally useful. Mashudur Choudhury was recently convicted under Section 5 of preparing for terrorism in the UK. If, for example, he had undertaken these preparations outside the UK, he could not have been prosecuted. This measure seeks to address this anomaly.
How will this measure have an impact on foreign fighters? We assess that by extending UK territorial jurisdiction for this offence and bringing evidence of activities overseas within its scope, we will potentially strengthen the evidential case that can be made and enhance the prospects of a successful prosecution in some cases. In cases where there is only evidence of activity abroad, it will enable a prosecution to be brought where it is not currently possible.
The noble Lord asked whether we had consulted the Director of Public Prosecutions. We have worked closely with law enforcement partners, including the Crown Prosecution Service, in developing this measure. They fully support it and have suggested that this will be operationally useful. As for the question about gathering evidence and how law enforcement agencies will obtain the evidence required for a prosecution, particularly as it involves evidence gathering abroad, law enforcement agencies are accustomed to working with the relevant authorities in other countries for the purpose of gathering evidence for prosecutions. We fully expect that this established arrangement will continue to be employed for future prosecutions.
We recognise that any evidence gathering which involves other countries is inherently more challenging than if it were confined to the UK, but this does not mean that prosecution is impossible. That is the purpose of introducing these measures in Clause 65. These changes will ensure that UK linked individuals and those who seek to harm UK interests and travel overseas to prepare or train for terrorism can be prosecuted as if their actions had taken place in the UK and that they are not beyond the reach of the law. It is essential that our law enforcement partners are equipped with the right powers to counter the threat posed by foreign fighters who travel overseas to undertake terrorist activities and may go on to carry out terrorist attacks.
I hope that with those explanations the noble Lord will be prepared to accept that Clause 65 should form part of the Bill.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, Amendment 40D to Clause 67 responds to a recommendation by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in its report on the Bill. The committee has pointed out that any regulations made under Clause 67(2) amending, repealing or revoking any provision of primary legislation would be subject to the affirmative procedure, but that the negative procedure would apply to any regulations otherwise modifying primary legislation. The Government accept the committee’s argument that a non-textual modification of primary legislation is capable of making changes which are no less significant than textual amendments and that, accordingly, the affirmative procedure should also apply in such cases. Amendment 40D therefore amends Clause 67(5) to this end. I am grateful to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee for highlighting this issue. Amendments 42A and 44 make a technical adjustment to the commencement power in Clause 70. I beg to move.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
“25A In section 99 of that Act (postponement), after paragraph (c) of subsection (11) insert—
“(d) made a restitution order;(e) ordered the accused under section 253F(2) of the Procedure Act to pay a victim surcharge.”25B (1) Section 100 of that Act (effect of postponement) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (3)—
(a) at the end of paragraph (b) omit “or”;(b) after paragraph (c) insert—“(d) make a restitution order, or(e) order the accused under section 253F(2) of the Procedure Act to pay a victim surcharge.”(3) In subsection (4)—
(a) at the end of paragraph (b) omit “or”;(b) after paragraph (c) insert—“(d) making a restitution order, or(e) ordering the accused under section 253F(2) of the Procedure Act to pay a victim surcharge.”25C (1) Section 104 of that Act (no order made: reconsideration of case) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (7), after paragraph (d) insert—
“(e) any restitution order which has been made against the accused in respect of the offence (or any of the offences) concerned;“(f) any order under section 253F(2) of the Procedure Act requiring the accused to pay a victim surcharge in respect of the offence (or any of the offences) concerned.”(3) After subsection (8) insert—
“(8A) If a restitution order or an order under section 253F(2) of the Procedure Act has been made against the accused in respect of the offence or offences concerned, section 97A(2) and (4) does not apply.”
25D (1) Section 105 of that Act (no order made: reconsideration of benefit) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (10), after paragraph (d) insert—
“(e) any restitution order which has been made against the accused in respect of the offence (or any of the offences) concerned;“(f) any order under section 253F(2) of the Procedure Act requiring the accused to pay a victim surcharge in respect of the offence (or any of the offences) concerned.”(3) After subsection (11) insert—
“(11A) If a restitution order or an order under section 253F(2) of the Procedure Act has been made against the accused in respect of the offence or offences concerned, section 97A(2) and (4) does not apply.”
25E (1) Section 106 of that Act (order made: reconsideration of benefit) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (8), after paragraph (c) insert—
“(d) any restitution order which has been made against the accused in respect of the offence (or any of the offences) concerned;“(e) any order under section 253F(2) of the Procedure Act requiring the accused to pay a victim surcharge in respect of the offence (or any of the offences) concerned.” (3) In subsection (9)—
(a) for “the court must not” substitute “the court—(a) must not”;(b) at the end insert—“(b) must not have regard to an order falling within subsection (8)(d) or (e) if a court has made a direction under section 97A(2) or (4).”25F In section 118 of that Act (application of provisions about fine enforcement), in subsection (2) omit paragraph (k).
25G In section 131 of that Act (sums received by clerk of court)—
(a) in subsection (6), after “97(6)” insert “or 97A(4)”;(b) after that subsection insert—“(6A) If a direction was made under section 97A(2) or (4) for an amount payable under a restitution order or a victim surcharge under section 253F(2) of the Procedure Act to be paid out of sums recovered under the confiscation order, the clerk of court must next apply the sums in payment of that amount.”25H In section 153 of that Act (satisfaction of confiscation orders), in subsection (1) omit paragraph (b).”
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
Cyprus
(10 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Northbrook
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of a successful conclusion to current negotiations on the future of Cyprus on the people of Cyprus and on regional stability.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, this now being last business, it may stretch to 90 minutes rather than 60. The timings for the opening and closing speakers will remain the same, but those in between may luxuriate in up to eight minutes, if they wish.
Lord Northbrook (Con)
My Lords, I am very pleased to debate the impact of resolving the Cyprus issue on the Floor of the House, which to me shows its increasing importance as a key issue in the eastern Mediterranean. Some speakers may well feel that I am putting the cart before the horse by discussing the impact of a settlement before one has been achieved. When I tabled this QSD, prospects looked rather brighter than they do at present, but I am an eternal optimist. By focusing on the impact from an international as well as a Cypriot viewpoint, I hope to add an extra dimension to the argument, and encourage the two sides to look at these broader issues, rather than narrow tribal rivalries.
The island has been divided for 40 years. In those 40 years talks on reunification have been an enduring feature of political life, without any success. The Annan plan of 2004 was the last and most comprehensive proposal for a settlement. It was overwhelmingly accepted by the Turkish Cypriots and comprehensively rejected by the Greek Cypriots. The reasons for rejection have been carefully analysed in the aftermath. Essentially, the Greek Cypriot political elite and people saw no benefit to them in the proposals, so they voted against.
We are now in the middle of a renewed negotiation. Many see this as the best hope for reunification. Where the negotiations seem to be different this time from the Annan plan, is that they are by Cypriots, for Cypriots—although as I will discuss later, they seem to have the same fault of failing to involve the wider Cypriot public. It is clear that both sides must see the benefit to them of any proposal for reunification—or, as the Turkish Cypriot chief negotiator Dr Kudret Ozersay puts it, they at least see the real harm to their interests that rejection would bring.
So what are these benefits? First, I suggest they are for the people of Cyprus themselves to be able to be one country again and extend their influence in the Mediterranean and on the world stage. Next, they are economic. Meltdown in the Greek Cypriot banking sector would surely have been less severe if Turkish financial know-how had been available to regulate it. UK companies could expand their links with the whole island. Cyprus, as a member of the Commonwealth, could look to the rich Commonwealth countries for investment. Elsewhere, the reunified island would be able to expand its trading links with the EU and Turkey.
Regional stability would be improved. Turkey is a member of NATO but not the EU. Greek Cyprus is not a member of NATO. A reunified island would see Cyprus join NATO, and thus counteract the influence of Russia, which has not only bailed out the Greek Cypriot banks but is now able to use the airbase near Paphos and Limassol for its naval vessels. It is also signing agreements with Israel.
This could partly explain the visit to Cyprus this year by the Vice-President of the USA, Joe Biden—the first such visit for 50 years. The USA is concerned about increasing Russian influence in the eastern Mediterranean. Another reason for his visit was surely the interest in an alternative source of energy supply for the West. The Aphrodite field off the south-east of Cyprus is a useful gas find, but unless it is combined with the neighbouring Leviathan and Tamar Israeli fields it will not produce sufficient gas to justify an LNG plant on the island. If such an arrangement can be agreed, the gas could be piped to Turkey, thus bypassing Russian sources of supply and giving Cyprus much cheaper energy on the way.
The whole exercise would be possible only with a reunified island, and the benefits will not be felt for several years. Can I ask the Minister whether the UK Government support the equal distribution of the natural resources found around the island between the two communities? Do they support the constructive proposal previously made by the Turkish Cypriot side in 2011-12 which includes the establishment of an ad hoc committee to deal with issues regarding natural resources?
Another natural resource that the whole of Cyprus could benefit from after a successful peace process would be water. An ambitious plan is in train to link Turkey with the TRNC, which would help eliminate chronic water shortages. This water supply could then be extended to the south, and thus the whole of Cyprus would benefit. The supply of water to the south could be the quid pro quo for the south agreeing to allow gas to be transported through to the north and thus on to Turkey.
The next area to benefit would be tourism. The stark reality of the current situation was demonstrated to me during my visit to the TRNC last July. Seeing Varosha, which was a prime tourist resort before partition, completely shut off was extraordinary and of benefit to no one. The inconvenience of having to fly to Turkey first if you want to visit the north must put off a lot of visitors.
In the remaining part of my comments, I wish to address the latest attempt to get a solution. In February 2014, the leaders of the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities issued a joint declaration. On the surface this looked promising, with the Greek Cypriot President Anastasiades being a “yes” voter in the 2004 referendum. Clause 1 of the declaration states that the current situation is unacceptable and its prolongation will have negative consequences for the Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. Clause 2 states that,
“the leaders will aim to reach a settlement as soon as possible and hold … simultaneous referenda thereafter”.
However, progress since then has been very slow as the leaders have met only five times since February, and I cannot see what real progress has been achieved. What do the UK Government intend to do to encourage the Greek Cypriot side to accept the previously reached convergences so that the negotiations can move forward at a more reasonable pace? What is being done to speed up the process of appointing a new UN special adviser to the Secretary-General on Cyprus, which may also bring a new sense of urgency to the talks?
One of the key factors over the years in preventing a settlement has been the failure of the traditional top-down approach of the talks. According to a paper from Alexandros Lordos, research director for Cyprus 2015, one of the key arguments for the failure is that the Cypriot public are not involved in the peace process. Lordos states that there had been an opportunity to add public opinion analysis to the Annan negotiating process. Specifically, Professor Colin Irwin from Ireland was asked in 1998 if he could assist with such a programme. In that year he made a presentation of his Northern Ireland work to the Greek-Turkish forum in Istanbul and explained how it was used to build a consensus around the Belfast agreement. The forum subsequently decided that it would like to undertake a similar programme of research in Cyprus. Although the Greek Cypriot negotiators wanted to go ahead with a poll, the Turkish Cypriot Government did not. In the end, no polls were undertaken and without the benefits of an effective programme of public diplomacy both the negotiations and the subsequent referendum failed.
Lordos analyses how a public diplomacy approach would work in practice. First, the UN would step right back and be responsible for providing facilitation rather than drafting services, while groups of Cypriots would be responsible for drafting the peace plan. Secondly, the process would be overseen, supervised and guided by leaders of the two communities—but without being limited, as at present, to the leaders of the two communities. Thirdly, groups of experts would play a role, including civic society. However, an equally important part would be played by groups of society representatives —women, trade unions, commerce boards and refugees, for instance—who would add a human face and human perspective to the process.
Fourthly, the negotiating teams would have at their disposal reliable public opinion information on a regular basis. This would provide feedback on the public acceptability of the various alternative solutions that the negotiators would be considering. Fifthly, external actors such as Greece and Turkey would not have direct access to the drafting process, while other non-invasive and respectful ways should be found for their constructive input to be considered.
Lordos also suggests that the Cyprus problem can be divided into segments or sub-problems, and that, if each of these sub-problems can be solved to the satisfaction of both communities, the final settlement plan, derived by putting together the solutions to the sub-problems, will also be satisfactory to both communities. The areas he believes should be six: security, property, residence rights, settlers, power sharing and legal status.
In conclusion, I commend the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for being very active, especially in inviting the Turkish Cypriot leader and his negotiator to London—the first time that Turkish Cypriots have been invited to London. None of this, sadly, means that negotiations will be easy or successful to achieve the hoped-for impact that I outlined earlier, and the Lordos proposals have great appeal to me if current talks fail.
Lord Harrison (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, not only on securing this important debate but on so expertly introducing it. I look forward to other expert speakers, most notably the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, with all his expertise. I, too, am encouraged—in fact I have written, “Hope springs eternal”—by the fact that Anastasiades and Dr Eroglu are now in conversation. I look forward to hearing from the Minister on any reports she has had.
As we near the 10th anniversary of the Annan plan vote, I declare—because I am a passionate pro-European—my sorrow that the European Union made such a major blunder in allowing in the island of Cyprus without ensuring that both north and south were reconciled. I, too, remember visiting in 1968 Varosha, when it was then a thriving tourist town, and the friendship I received then—as I received the friendship of British troops over on the other side of the island at Troodos. I have been three times to Northern Cyprus, funded by the TRNC, and, as the chair of the EU Committee’s Economic and Financial Affairs Sub-Committee of your Lordships’ House, I recently went to the Greek side under the Cypriot presidency. I must recall that this was a huge missed opportunity. The presidency of the European Union is a great honour given to member states, and there should have been more work and collusion with both sides of the island. A further missed opportunity was the European elections, and I regret that that was the case.
The United Kingdom holds a special role with respect to the Cyprus situation, about which I should like to hear more from the Minister. I represented the House in Athens recently at a COSAC meeting. Our Turkish colleagues were there and invited to comment, along with the 28 other member states. Why is provision not made for our Turkish Cypriot community from the north of the island?
Can the Minister inform us of the latest situation concerning universities? There has been a recent example of a British university in, I think, east London that has failed to work with a university in Nicosia. However, those of us who have been to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus have not only celebrated the high level of expertise that the six universities have there, but recognised them to be part of its export industry, as they have so many students from far and wide. What opportunities can we develop in the United Kingdom to advance this process? Would the Minister also respond to the disgraceful state of affairs of the exclusion of Turkish Northern Cyprus, by the Council of Europe, from the Bologna process and the Erasmus programme, each of which encourage the swapping of students to benefit Europe as a whole? It is rank discrimination; why is it still the case?
The noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, mentioned the difficulty of direct flights. Tourism is an important industry in both the south and the north. Is there no resolution, which I know the former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw made every effort to try to solve, to the absurdity of having to send people to Turkey before they go on to the delights of Northern Cyprus and take the opportunities that are there? Tourism is a key industry; we should help to improve it.
Can I also ask the Minister what is being done to provide better access to the single market? On my most recent visit to the TRNC, in talks with the Board of Trade and the business community, it was made plain to us that access to the single market was made that much more difficult because everything had to be funnelled through Turkey, adding to transportation costs and so on. Could the Minister also detail the financial help that the United Kingdom gives—and gave at the time of the EU crisis? Would she also detail the European Union and the Commission’s work in trying to help and prepare the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus for what we hope will be true accession to the European Union in due course? If she does not have the details to hand, I would be very happy to be written to.
Given the economic crisis, can the Minister give us some analysis of the state of Cypriot banks? As she will know, they will shortly come under the stress test of the European Central Bank and the acid quality test done by the ECB and the European Banking Authority. Can she hazard a guess as to whether any of the banks that sustained such difficulty will continue to be a worry, as they were when the crisis was at its height?
We have heard mention of oil and gas. Perhaps the Minister will elaborate on that, but my intelligence is that those reserves are perhaps less than was thought to be the case. Can she clarify that?
Regarding the United Kingdom, what are we going to do with the British bases? Will they form part of any settlement? Secondly, given the very strong communities in north London, what can be done in our own country to encourage better understanding of the problems on both sides?
I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Hussein-Ece, who will speak shortly. Her ideas, which I hope will be pursued by the Government, concern building up civil society from the bottom upwards.
The noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, also pointed to the concern about water and the environment. These are important issues that should be shared by both communities. The United Kingdom should get stuck in to ensure that we promote opportunities to find a fair settlement for all concerned on the island of Cyprus.
Lord Sharkey (LD)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Harrison. Like him, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Northbrook on securing the debate and on his wide-ranging opening speech. It was so wide-ranging that I will not take advantage of the extra time available. I declare an interest as chair of the All-Party Group for the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
As both previous speakers have said, negotiations for reunification have been going on for more than 40 years. For many of those years nothing much seemed to happen. When it did happen, as with the Annan plan, it did not work. The latest round of negotiations is probably the best chance—perhaps the last chance—of any kind of success. The hydrocarbon discoveries, the financial crash of 2007-08 and the dramatic increase in unrest in the eastern Mediterranean are all new factors pointing towards the desirability of a settlement. However, as usual, there are conflicting views about the progress being made in the negotiations.
In particular, many commentators point out the need for a UN special representative to replace Alexander Downer. I understand that the former UN Under-Secretary-General Lynn Pascoe is the person favoured by Ban Ki-moon. Mr Pascoe was previously US ambassador to Malaysia and to Indonesia; he was the US special negotiator for Nagorno-Karabakh and served five years in the UN Department of Political Affairs, where he was actively involved in the Cyprus problem. Yet I understand that his appointment is meeting resistance from the Greek Cypriots. Can the Minister bring us up to date on this issue when she replies?
It seems the case that heavyweight input is needed pretty quickly. The Turkish Cypriot negotiator, Dr Kudret Özersay, submitted a five-step roadmap for future negotiations to the leaders meeting of 7 July. This meeting was supposed to make progress on confidence-building measures, but it did not. At a negotiators meeting two days later, it was agreed to try again at a meeting taking place tomorrow and again at the next leaders’ meeting, which takes place this coming Friday. It is possible to be pessimistic about all this, but I think it is better read as grounds for cautious—perhaps very cautious—optimism. For example, it seems clear that both sides understand the need for urgent progress. It would help if Mr Pascoe, or some other UN nominee, could take a role in all of this as soon as possible.
The need for urgent settlement arises from several factors. At the moment there is a window of political stability on the island, which will last only until the end of the next round of major elections, which are not very far away. There is also the growing complexity surrounding hydrocarbon exploitation. Amos Hochstein, of the US State Department, said last week that these newly discovered energy resources have changed the rules of the game in the region. That is undoubtedly the case. For example, the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation is now in talks to buy 30% to 40% of the Aphrodite gas field in Cyprus’s block 12.
A further factor driving the need for an urgent solution is, of course, the increasingly chaotic, unstable and violent situation in the eastern Mediterranean as a whole. The benefits of a successful reunion have already been rehearsed to some extent by previous speakers and outside the Chamber. Reunification brings the prospect of very significant economic growth. The UN estimates an additional three percentage points to GDP as a result of reunification. There are then the proceeds of the offshore hydrocarbons, which are likely to be significant if reunification takes place, and are quite likely to be zero if it does not. Then there is inward investment, or the prospect of inward investment. The north of the island has been deprived of capital for 40 years, and it is still cut off from the international banking system. Development of the north and reconnection of the north to the world outside will bring increased prosperity to all parts of the island.
Finally, there is the question of stability, which is a necessary precondition for investment—naturally—but is also a vital requirement in such an unstable region. Stability is in the direct interest not only of the Cypriot peoples but of NATO, the region and the West. I know that Her Majesty’s Government have been very active in support of negotiations for reunification, and I congratulate the FCO on that. The UK has a moral and a legal obligation to help, and I am very glad that it is helping. However, our help will be needed for many years after reunification and I shall be very glad to hear the noble Baroness commit to that when she speaks.
Lord Maginnis of Drumglass (Ind UU)
My Lords, I am grateful, of course, to the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, and to others who have spoken constructively about the problems facing Cyprus. I am also reminded that when I spoke in a previous debate on Iran when the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, was responding—I think it was in February—she flattered me with the words:
“I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed with such authority to today’s debate, especially … the robust alternative critique presented by the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis”. —[Official Report, 27/2/14; col. 1070.]
With that expectation, if I may, I shall present a somewhat different objective view of the Cyprus situation. In doing so, I will be critical of the role that for more than 50 years the United Kingdom has played in terms of assisting in a solution. It is important to know what really happened in Cyprus. It is time to stop rewriting history. There is an obvious gap, not just in this Government’s knowledge but in the previous Government’s knowledge. How many know that EOKA-B sought to expunge every Turkish Cypriot from the island between Christmas 1963 and 1974? I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us explicitly the significance of the Akritas and Ifestos plans—the blueprint for ethnic cleansing even before we used that term.
Let me outline when the invasion of Cyprus began. It was not 20 July when the Turkish military, in order to protect Turkish Cypriots, intervened in the island. The noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, with some force, picked 15 July, since it was on that date exactly 40 years ago when the Cyprus National Guard and EOKA-B, led by the Greek junta, launched a coup and overthrew the democratically elected President, Archbishop Makarios, with the goal of Enosis—annexing Cyprus into Greece. Although the Turkish Cypriots are blamed for the events of 1974, I remind the House that Rauf Denktas, my late dear friend the Turkish Cypriot leader, said:
“Our duty in this situation, which we believe is a matter between Greek Cypriots, is to protect our international security, to take defensive measures and not to interfere in any way in inter-Greek Cypriot events”.
Four days later on 19 July, while addressing the UN Security Council, Archbishop Makarios accused Greece of having invaded Cyprus:
“The coup of the Greek junta is an invasion, and from its consequences the whole people of Cyprus suffers, both Greeks and Turks”.
Nothing has changed over the years regarding that common suffering. Is it not time for our Government to nail the big fat Greek Cypriot lie once and for all on this 40th anniversary of the Greek invasion and coup to overthrow President Makarios? I could go through many instances of the difficulties that all the people of Cyprus suffered during that period.
We hear about all the people who were killed when Turkey, as a guarantor power did what we, as a guarantor power, should have done—intervened to try to stop wholesale slaughter. We hear about that, but have many of us heard that, in the five days between 15 July when the Greeks invaded and when the Turkish military intervened, more than 3,000 Greek Cypriot supporters of Makarios and the communist party AKEL were killed in an orgy of Greek-on-Greek bloodletting? At the same time Sampson gave the notorious Akritas plan full rein to exterminate Turkish Cypriots “once and for all”.
Having posed that question, I want to move to our behaviour in Cyprus in terms of our 371 soldiers who died during the emergency, and the 58 policemen—British, Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot—who all died in the service of the Crown. Why is it that 50 years on, in 2009, when a few of us sought to erect a memorial to our troops, we did not have any support from government? In those days we did not bring our bodies home, so we sought to erect a monument in Wayne’s Keep, where most of our soldiers are buried. That was refused by the Greek Cypriots. I was part of a small group of half a dozen who managed to raise more than £200,000 and we erected a monument to those 371 soldiers. This year we are extending that monument to include the 58 policemen.
Despite all the sweet words that we may talk in this House and in the other place about regard for our troops, we do not have the guts to stand up to the Greek Cypriots and say, “We will honour our dead. We have respect for our dead”. How can we, with so little self-respect, ever hope to play a positive role in bringing some sort of settlement? I put my cards on the table. I do not think that it is reintegration; I think it is federation. How can we play our role in that when we, over the period of 50 years, have failed our own people? How can we support the Turkish Cypriot minority? How can we conciliate between it and the Greek Cypriot majority? I do not believe we have given ourselves the status to do so, and I hope that the noble Baroness will be able to reassure me this evening.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, for securing this very valuable debate. I make my own declaration of interest, as a member of the All-Party Group for the TRNC and as a fairly regular visitor to the TRNC over the past 30 years. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, for his speech, which makes mine seem not quite as controversial as I thought it might be, having heard the earlier contributions.
The first contact I had with the TRNC was with Rauf Denktas, who has already been mentioned—someone who, it behoves us to remember, began his life in the service of the British Crown and who, for all his life, looked to the British Crown to behave a little better than I think it ever really did. The fact of the matter is that the Annan plan, which has often been mentioned, was rejected to an extent because of the European Union. Once the European Union had given way to what was effectively the blackmail of the Greek Government, who said they would sink enlargement if Cyprus was not allowed in, anything that the EU said about only allowing in a united island became null. At that point, the leaders of the Greek community knew that it was very safe to vote no, and of course they immediately went out to encourage the vote against the Annan plan.
I was in Cyprus at the time of the referendum and it was very easy, and I am afraid rather sad, to see what was going on. For the Turkish side of the island, there was a positive gain; for the Greek side, there was no loss. There was nothing to be lost from rejecting the plan. I remember comparing it at the time to an Irish referendum: it is always safe to vote no, because you might get something more. Incidentally, I mean an Irish EU referendum—and a Republic of Ireland EU referendum, just to qualify that. I see the noble Lord, Lord Kilclooney, looking at me quizzically there.
The EU then became damaged goods. I am afraid that, when you look at the possibility of a settlement in Cyprus, the EU is not seen as an honest broker by the Turkish side of the island, probably with extremely good reason. The United States, until recently, has been a very disinterested player on the scene. I welcome the visit of the US Vice-President, because unless the US gets itself involved, there will not be a settlement. The reality of a settlement is an objective called money, which we often overlook. Unless there is a substantial input of aid from the EU and the US to sort out the problems, particularly of property compensation and the land issues, there will not be a settlement. The refugees, I believe, can be dealt with by saying, “This is the Turkish side of the island, and whoever lives there is who they choose”, but there is a need to sort out the other issues, particularly the European Court of Human Rights judgments—many of them are, frankly, completely perverse but, none the less, they stand there and they have to be unravelled as part of this settlement.
My belief is that we need to ramp up the pressure on Cyprus. One thing the Cypriot Government have known is that the TRNC goes unrecognised. There is no reason why it should not be recognised. If there is going to be no real attempt to build a settlement, then these people in this half of the island have a right to international recognition and what goes with it. There is no reason at all why, if intransigence follows intransigence, we should not say that, in the interests of a level playing field, we will recognise the rights of both sides. There is no reason why we should not say: if the Turkish Cypriots are part of the EU, as Greek Cyprus would say, where are the Turkish representatives in the European Parliament? Where are the nominees from the Turkish community for posts within the EU? Where is the consultation with the Turkish community on engagement with the EU? We have more to do with the Welsh Parliament than the Greek Cypriot Administration do in consulting the Turks, who, they say, are part of the EU.
We need to look at something much more positive from the United Kingdom than a selection of warm words which can easily be forgotten. We have been putting warm words forward for year after year for 40 years. I echo what the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, said: when the Turkish troops went to Cyprus in 1974, they went to rescue the Turkish community. They were not an invading force; they were a protecting force. Any solution to the problem has to recognise the fact that the Turkish community feels deeply insecure. If the Greek part of the island is happy to say that they have only benevolent intentions, then I put it to them that it is quite reasonable to negotiate a Turkish base in north Cyprus with a time-limited guarantee—say, of 20 years.
I recall a Turkish general saying to me that they could do without the Turkish base there because they would be able to get troops across from Turkey into northern Cyprus while the EU Council of Foreign Ministers was still arguing about which city to meet in. Admittedly, that was a rather cynical view, but one has to realise that Cyprus is much closer to Turkey than to Greece. One also has to realise that it has a long Turkish tradition. It is not a Greek island; anyone who has been round it, who has seen the mosques and the Turkish settlement, will realise that those are as much a legitimate part of a Turkish island as of a Greek island.
I hope that we move forward. I recall for the Minister’s edification the words that she used in the previous debate:
“it is difficult to see how we could realise the full potential of energy from the eastern Mediterranean without a Cyprus settlement”.—[Official Report, 17/6/14; col. GC 76.]
In closing, I would say that the need for energy has now come right up the agenda. I hope that we will be able to use our diplomatic weight, but also use a bit of oomph and power, to get a settlement moving this time. Thank you.
Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Northbrook on securing this debate and on his very thoughtful and thorough introduction. In fact, he said some of the things I might have wanted to say.
As has been said, today is the 15 July, the 40th anniversary of the coup instigated by the Greek junta, when Nicos Sampson deposed the elected President, Archbishop Makarios. This date is etched on the memory of Cypriots and Cypriot history. All of us who are connected to Cyprus and are old enough remember with horror the events of that period. We feel the repercussions to this day, as the UN is currently engaged in yet another attempt at a peace deal in the long history of negotiations.
Of course, as the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, reminded us quite forcefully, the problems did not start in 1974. Although many Cypriots want a peace deal and to be able to live their lives with dignity, hope, security and equality—for all communities—there are still terrific challenges and obstacles to overcome, the greatest being apathy and the lack of belief that it will ever happen.
There have been some encouraging signs, as we have heard from other noble Lords. I was in Cyprus the day after the United States Vice-President Joe Biden visited just a few months ago. His visit served a purpose in raising the profile of the situation in Cyprus to the international community, and led many to believe that there was about to be a breakthrough. However, things have gone rather quiet again recently. Perhaps my noble friend will bring us up to date on whether Her Majesty’s Government are hopeful that we will hear any positive news in the coming weeks and months. As my noble friend Lord Northbrook asked earlier, what has happened to the appointment of the UN special adviser? Surely this indicates a lack of will to appoint somebody in this very important role.
We need to learn lessons from the failure of the Annan plan, 10 years on. Both communities felt excluded from the peace plan that was put before them in a referendum. If there is to be a referendum—I hope there will be—can we ensure that this time the communities and civil society are much more engaged, rather than shut out as when the two leaders were shut in a room and came to an agreement without consulting civil society?
I was in Cyprus when the European elections took place in May and I was extremely concerned that thousands of Turkish Cypriots who had registered to vote and had crossed to the south were prevented from exercising their right to vote. For the first time, steps were taken to allow Turkish Cypriots living in the north of the island to cross the Green Line and vote at special election centres. However, just 3% of Turkish Cypriots voted. Many felt as a result that Turkish Cypriot participation in the EU elections was at best tokenism, as it transpired that there was little intention to share the electoral list in advance with Turkish Cypriot candidates who went across and stood for the European Parliament. The TRNC leadership took the position that Turkish Cypriots should boycott the elections—which I and many others did not feel was helpful at the time—but in the end they were able to say that they had been proved right, which hardly helps to build confidence.
Confidence-building, mainly by the UK and the EU, has long been neglected. But I was encouraged, as others have been, that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office recently invited the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot chief negotiators to meet Ministers here. But more needs to be done. The north is in urgent need of investment to improve its infrastructure. It really is a poor relation, stranded outside the EU. We need to reassure people there that the United Kingdom, as a guarantor country, has their interests at heart.
One area that I believe has been much neglected, which the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, mentioned—I thank him for his very kind and generous words—is education. The north has an extremely buoyant, growing and successful university sector, with nine excellent universities, such as the Near East University, which has 22,000 students; almost 25% of those are international students from the Middle East, Africa and around the world. The standards in those universities are excellent. Students who have moved on to other countries, including the United Kingdom—to study for PhDs, for example—confirm that they have encountered few problems in their transition. The universities have become the leading sector of the north Cyprus economy. I ask my noble friend, as did the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, whether Her Majesty’s Government will consider actively working to build consensus and relationships between universities across the island and in the UK, and support the efforts of those universities to allow recognition of the work they are doing rather than leaving them in limbo? This would be a welcome and bold confidence-building measure. Surely education crosses all divides.
I was recently privileged to become the patron of a new and exciting initiative on Cyprus, the first ever Golden Island International Film Festival, which is hoping to bring the film industry and production to the island, to benefit all on the island—to encourage people to invest there economically and culturally and to bring recognition of what Cyprus has to offer. Those are the sorts of initiatives that civil society is working hard on despite 40 years of embargoes. There is so much going on on the ground below the level that politicians usually give much attention to. But this demonstrates just how much there is a will among the people of Cyprus and the large Cypriot diaspora in this country to keep things moving there to make the best of a very bad situation.
As I said earlier, there are no magic solutions and I am not going to repeat and rehearse the arguments that we have already heard. On the anniversary there was, as ever, a big demonstration in Trafalgar Square by Greek Cypriots in the UK asking for the withdrawal of Turkish troops. There have been other moves for Varosha outside Famagusta to be handed over as a confidence-building measure. All these issues must be dealt with in a comprehensive peace settlement. We also hear how many Turkish settlers have arrived on the island over the years. But with the lack of any comprehensive peace deal, in reality the north of Cyprus is more and more reliant on Turkey. There are no magic solutions for a peace deal that no one has yet though of. All the options have been discussed and debated for decades. What is really needed is the will to achieve a lasting peace for all Cypriots.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, being the final Back-Bench speaker in a debate, it is always a little tempting to refer to those who have preceded you. I will try to resist that temptation other than to say to my noble friend Lord Maginnis, whose views I do not entirely share, that as I listened to him launch into his narrative, I closed my eyes and I thought I was back in Rauf Denktas’s office, the former district commissioner’s office in Nicosia, where if you could hear anything above the budgerigars that used to tweet around that office, he would give you that narrative. The only two differences are that his version lasted for 40 minutes—
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
—and that he never laid any claim to objectivity.
It is normally sensible not to speak in debates on Cyprus when there is nothing new to say and it is certainly wise not to count the chickens of a Cyprus settlement before they are hatched. After all, no one has yet lost money betting against a Cyprus settlement. Neither of those considerations seems to apply to this debate, initiated in such a welcome and timely manner by the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook. What leads me to this relatively positive view is the emergence of a number of new factors, many of which have been mentioned already, affecting what is after all one of the longest lasting and most debilitating international disputes.
The first of those factors is the presence as leader of the Greek Cypriot community and President of Cyprus of Nicos Anastasiades, a man with a proven track record of supporting the compromises needed to achieve a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation, and someone who campaigned in favour of acceptance of the Annan plan, even when such support was likely to be damaging to his own political prospects. Since becoming President and despite the distractions of the economic crisis, which nearly overwhelmed Cyprus last year, he has worked steadily to get the settlement negotiations back on track.
Secondly, there is a fundamental shift in the underlying economic arguments in favour of a settlement. In the period from 1996 to 2003, when I was involved in the settlement process, those economic arguments were either ignored or traduced. The Greek Cypriot economy was riding high in the run-up to EU accession. The Turkish Cypriot economy lagged far behind and was stagnant. It was argued, mendaciously, that a settlement would load a huge, fat fiscal burden on to the Greek Cypriot economy. That gap has now narrowed, and the potential advantages for the recovery of the Greek Cypriot economy of a settlement and of free access to the massive Turkish market are more evident and can no longer be discounted.
Thirdly, the discovery of substantial gas deposits in the waters around Cyprus has introduced a new and positive element to the equation. No doubt, I suspect, those energy resources could be developed and commercialised in an autarchic manner by the Greek Cypriots. That remains to be proven, but I think it is unwise to assume that it could not be done. There can surely be little doubt, however, that the benefits to the peoples of Cyprus will be far greater if that development and commercialisation could take place in the framework of a reunited island and with the willing co-operation of Turkey.
Fourthly, there is almost certainly going to be the emergence of Mr Erdogan as the next president of Turkey. That looks more and more like a matter of when and not if. Mr Erdogan did much in the period from 2002 to 2004 to reverse the traditional Turkish policy of supporting Rauf Denktas in blocking a settlement in Cyprus. If he comes to office with a clear, democratic mandate next month, it will surely be fitting and would be advantageous to Turkey—a Turkey which has argued that it needs to have zero problems with its neighbours—if he could use that mandate in support of a negotiated settlement to the Cyprus problem.
Do these four new factors mean that all is set fair for a Cyprus settlement? Of course not. This is, after all, the Cyprus problem, which has defied all attempts at a settlement for 50 years, and where the stars favouring a settlement never seem to be in conjunction. There is, however, enough here, I would suggest, to justify a renewed major effort by the parties in Cyprus, supported by the international community, to reach a settlement. It would be good to hear from the Minister what contribution Britain, which has so many close links with Cyprus and with both its communities, intends to make in support of a search for a negotiated solution.
I will conclude with a few remarks about public opinion and the involvement of Cypriots in a settlement. I have great admiration for Alexandros Lordos, whom the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, mentioned. He has worked tirelessly to try to erode the barriers between the two communities, and the work he does in testing opinion is extremely valuable. The real obstacle, however, is that the leaders of both sides in Cyprus are not preparing and will not for the moment prepare their communities for a settlement which needs to be based on compromise. That was what went on in 2003 and 2004. On the Greek Cypriot side in particular, there had been no preparation of public opinion at all. Public opinion had been fed for the past 35 years on an unadulterated diet of Greek Cypriot maximalist claims. Not surprisingly, it proved impossible to turn them round on a sixpence when the Annan plan was produced. It will be the same again if the leaders cannot bring themselves to prepare their communities for the sort of compromises that will need to be made. I do hope that that process can get under way. Perhaps the noble Baroness could talk a little bit about that too.
Lord Wood of Anfield (Lab)
My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, for this debate. For 40 years we have seen moments of opportunity come and go but very little progress towards a settlement in Cyprus. Now, as many speakers have said, we have a moment of opportunity that we have not had since the Annan plan of 2004—the noble Baroness, Lady Hussein-Ece, referred to that—and possibly a moment we have not had since 1974.
The people of Cyprus deserve a settlement to bring stability, peace, settlement of long-standing grievances and issues, and the possibility of prosperity. The failure to achieve a settlement in Cyprus, however, also undermines the search for security in a crucial region that is a hinge between Europe and the Middle East. Instability in Cyprus continues to affect the function of the European Union and the ability of the European Union to co-operate effectively with NATO.
For our part, as many speakers have said, the UK has a special responsibility to be a supportive force for resolution because of our colonial past, because of our pivotal roles in the European Union and NATO, and because we are a guarantor power. This year it seems we have a moment for very cautious optimism but, as always, we need optimism grounded in realism.
I will make a few remarks about the principles of our party’s approach to achieving a settlement in Cyprus, to assess the progress in the process that began with the February declaration and to look at the wider issues that any successful process needs to address.
I will start by setting out our party’s approach. We are committed to a just and lasting settlement for the whole of Cyprus. That settlement has to be based on a bi-communal, bi-zonal federation. We strongly believe that, to use the formulation of the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, a settlement has to be negotiated by Cypriots, for Cypriots and under the auspices of the UN. Only then will it be acceptable and provide for a just and sustainable solution.
While we do not support recognition for the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Turkish Cypriots have interests, aspirations and a burning desire for peace that are as valid as those of Greek Cypriots. Cyprus’s population is about 800,000, of whom 80% are Greek Cypriots and about 11% Turkish Cypriots, but, despite this numerical asymmetry, any just settlement must be based on the principle of equality of treatment of the two communities.
While peace has to be negotiated by Cypriots themselves, we believe that the UK has a privileged role. We are the main export market for Cyprus, and Cyprus punches above its weight as a destination for UK exports. As the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, has reminded us, our historical role has been, to put it mildly, a chequered one. Britain took administrative control of Cyprus after the Congress of Berlin in 1878—a Disraeli special—and declared Cyprus a British colony in 1915. Under the terms of the 1960 treaty, we remain one of three guarantor powers.
Of course we have another role, as about 3% of the island of Cyprus is comprised of UK sovereign bases. In government, we proposed that about half the land in bases in Cyprus would be made available to a united island once a resolution was found. Will the Minister tell us the coalition Government’s position on that proposition now that negotiations have begun again?
Recent developments have given us some cause for hope, particularly the joint declaration process that started in February. The declaration signed by representatives of both communities marked the most significant breakthrough that we have had for at least 10 years. There are encouraging signs in the declaration of principles that can form the basis of a lasting settlement. The declaration confirms the unacceptability of the status quo. It commits to the integrity and identity of both Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities. It affirms respect for democratic principles, human rights and fundamental freedom. It states that,
“any settlement will be based on a bi-communal, bi-zonal federation with political equality”,
to form a single, sovereign Cyprus inside the European Union. It envisages a federal constitution,
“composed of two constituent states of equal status”,
legitimised by separate and simultaneous referenda.
These are all encouraging shared commitments. It is further encouragement that, although progress has been slow, there have been further meetings, most recently at the beginning of last week. The meeting seems to have made some limited progress—I am being more optimistic than my noble friend—on mutual confidence-building, and ended with a five-step road map being submitted to the Greek Cypriots by the Turkish Cypriot leadership and an agreement to meet again later this month.
I want to ask the Minister about reports that the Turkish Cypriot side has suggested a meeting with the guarantor powers, including the UK, at some point this year after discussions have begun on the highly vexed issue of territory on the island. Are the Government involved in discussions on participating in such a summit? What is the Government’s response to the Turkish Cypriot leader Eroglu’s proposal that the referenda take place before the year’s end?
The progress in negotiations is welcome to all of us, but we know that agreement has proved elusive in the past for good reasons. There are significant areas of disagreement and difficulty—issues that have sabotaged previous plans for the past 40 years.
First, there is the bundle of issues around territory, property and displaced persons. The legacy of both the violence of the early 1960s and the Turkish military intervention in 1974 is a complex set of issues around the need for land swaps, restitution of property, the status of areas such as Morphou and Famagusta, and church property on the island. It is estimated that around 200,000 Greek Cypriots were forced to leave their land in Northern Cyprus after 1974, and the issue of repatriation of new Turkish settlers on the island was a key factor in the unravelling of the Perez de Cuellar plan in the mid-1980s. These issues are the most sensitive of all and demand more than any other—
Lord Maginnis of Drumglass
I apologise for interrupting, but I did not pick up what the noble Lord said. Did he say that Greek Cypriots had to abandon their territory and did he fail to mention the fact that Turkish Cypriots—for example, on the site of the present airport in the south—had to abandon theirs? Did he overlook that point?
Lord Wood of Anfield
No, absolutely not. The noble Lord is absolutely right: Cypriots of both communities have had to leave land. Working out a final agreement on settlement and property restitution affects both communities. These issues demand more than any other a spirit of pragmatism, compromise and trust between the representatives of the two communities.
Secondly, there are the issues around the Cypriot economy and trade with the European Union and the neighbourhood. On the Greek side of the island, Cyprus has seriously suffered from the fallout of the financial crash and a bailout—or rather a bail-in, to be more accurate—of Cypriot banks which imposed a levy on depositors, in banks that were supposedly covered by a deposit insurance scheme. It was a move which in my view the EU would not have countenanced for the larger members of the EU but which was seen as okay for smaller ones.
Meanwhile, Turkish Cyprus continues to have no direct trade relations with the European Union. Ten years ago, the EU proposed giving more than €260 million to the Turkish Cypriots for infrastructure spending and to open up trade with them, but, sadly, very little progress has been made on this front in the past decade. I would like the Minister’s view on whether there is any prospect with the advent of a new Commission and a newly elected European Parliament for any limited progress in the next few months in that area.
Lastly, there is the question of constitutional arrangements. Prior to 1974, Cyprus had a constitution that one expert called,
“unique in its tortuous complexity”.
Of course, any constitutional arrangement that provides rights of self-government for two communities, as well as rules for decision-making at the federal level, is bound to be complex, but so-called consociational arrangements for countries with a history of conflict between two or more communities can take root and endure. I appreciate that these solutions take time, but can the Minister tell us whether any thinking is going on in the Government about offering assistance in the form of constitutional expertise to the communities?
There is a line in the February declaration that reads that,
“nothing is agreed until everything is agreed”.
It is a simple maxim, but a crucial one. If 2014 is, as the communities’ leaders seem to want it to be, the year in which a successful negotiation is concluded, they have to provide a credible and legitimate way through on all these issues and not just on some.
It is said of Aphrodite, who was born in Cyprus, that because of her beauty, other gods feared their rivalry over her would interrupt the peace among them. Surely it is time for us all to combine our efforts to ensure that peace and stability in Cyprus are interrupted no longer.
The Senior Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Warsi) (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Northbrook for calling this debate and for having it in the main Chamber. I thank other noble Lords for their valuable and eloquent contributions. I know that several noble Lords maintain close contacts with a range of Cypriot and Turkish interlocutors, and I commend their continued support for efforts to unify Cyprus. The interventions today have shown the full extent of the UK’s strategic interest in a comprehensive settlement in Cyprus. The Cypriots would be the main beneficiaries of a solution, for which they have waited too long, but, as noble Lords have pointed out, it is also right to be aware of the advantages for the wider region. I welcome the recognition given by many noble Lords to the intense efforts of this Government in support of the current round of talks. We will continue to support the UN and the leaders of both communities in these negotiations.
As part of our diplomatic efforts, my right honourable friend the Minister for Europe invited the two chief negotiators to London in June. They both showed determination and seriousness to negotiate a solution. It is not unusual at this stage of any peace talks for there to be disagreements on the process and on the substance. The two communities—and, just as importantly, Turkey—are showing the right level of ambition to reach a settlement. No one should underestimate the scale of the potential challenges ahead, but there has been no better time in recent years to achieve a lasting solution.
I am aware that today is the 40th anniversary of the coup. The difficult events of the summer of 1974 continue to cast a long shadow over Cyprus. This is a moment also to remember all those Cypriots who have been victims of violence since independence. At the time, British military intervention was seen as contradicting the long-standing UK policy of pursuing a peaceful settlement of the dispute by means of negotiations between the parties under the aegis of the UN. This Government’s focus is on supporting the reunification of Cyprus. If noble Lords want to examine the UK’s policy at the time, I refer them to the report of the House of Commons Select Committee on Cyprus which was published in 1976. In response to my noble friend Lord Balfe, I can confirm that the Government’s position has not changed and we do not recognise the so-called Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
I understand that members of each community and noble Lords in this House tend to interpret past events in different ways, and indeed the exact population percentages are contested even today. I note the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis. I hope that he takes my comment about a previous speech of his being a “robust alternative critique” in a positive manner. I of course pay tribute to those British personnel who lost their lives during that emergency period, and the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, referred to that. Given the long history of the negotiations, there is much valuable previous work to draw on, and we are encouraging both sides to establish areas of agreement on the unresolved core issues as soon as possible.
A number of noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Northbrook, asked about the UN special adviser. We have discussed this matter with the UN and with the parties and of course support an early appointment. The previous special adviser, Alexander Downer, who was referred to in this debate, has made great efforts during the past six years to help the parties reach a solution. A new special adviser could help the parties achieve what they say they want, but the process, as a number of noble Lords have said, must be led by the Cypriots, who will need full ownership of any solution. I hope that my noble friend Lord Sharkey will understand if I am not drawn on names at this stage.
The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, and my noble friend Lady Hussein-Ece spoke about the current state of play. Noble Lords will be aware that talks resumed on 11 February. The leaders have since then met five times and we welcome their commitment to reach a solution. Both sides now have a much better sense of each other’s positions and concerns, and they have begun seeking the common ground in a number of areas. We hope to see further progress from September, when we expect a new UN special adviser to be in place. We would also consider what further political support the Security Council could give to the process, including during the United Nations General Assembly week.
Leaders in both communities also need to prepare the public for a settlement. My noble friend Lady Hussein-Ece spoke about the civil society being engaged. I fully agree with her recommendations. As negotiations make progress, greater civil society involvement is highly desirable. This Government have given practical support to increasing civil society participation in the process. Just yesterday, business leaders from both sides reached an agreement on mobile phone roaming across the whole of Cyprus. As the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, a better understanding of the benefits of a solution can only help ordinary Cypriots to make an informed decision in the referenda to come. I pay tribute to the work of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, who for many years has given huge service and commitment to this cause.
Her Majesty’s Government have also co-funded, with the United Nations, an initiative to promote the involvement of civic and business leaders in the talks. We also maintain good relations with a wide spectrum of Cypriot society and with the diaspora in London. Faith groups, too, have given their backing to the current talks and our High Commissioner in Cyprus attended the landmark Good Friday church service in Famagusta. In May, my right honourable friend the Minister for Europe and the Archbishop of Cyprus met in London and agreed the importance of interfaith dialogue in support of the talks. For the first time since 1963, Muslim prayers were recently held in a historic mosque in Nicosia.
In response to the noble Lord, Lord Wood, I can confirm that the UK has maintained the offer to cede nearly half the sovereign base area territories in the event of a comprehensive settlement in Cyprus.
The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and others have rightly spoken of the economic benefits of a settlement. A united Cyprus would benefit from a larger and more efficient economy and an improved investment climate.
Lord Kilclooney (CB)
When the Minister says we are prepared to cede our sovereign territories to Cyprus, to which part of Cyprus does she mean? To the Greek Cypriot part if there is a settlement, to the Turkish Cypriot part if there is a settlement, or to both parts?
Baroness Warsi
We hope that the settlement will ensure that there is a united Cyprus.
A united Cyprus would benefit from a larger and more efficient economy, an improved investment climate and improved trading relations with Turkey and the wider Middle East. A solution would also allow Cyprus fully to exploit its natural resources. I welcome the increased attention being paid to the economic dimension. More than a year after the bailout agreement, the Cypriot economy is doing better than expected, but there are challenges ahead. We are providing technical assistance in the area of public sector reform to support Cyprus’s efforts to implement the troika memorandum, which sets out the framework for troika support to the Cypriot economy. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, will see that as part of the UK’s support for public sector reform.
The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, also raised the issue of direct flights. This would, of course, help. The UK Court of Appeal has confirmed that direct flights from the UK to the northern part of Cyprus would breach our obligations under international law. The court found that it was for the Republic of Cyprus to determine which airports are open to international traffic, and as a result no airlines are licensed to operate flights from the UK direct to the north of Cyprus. The UK supports the European Commission’s proposal for a direct trade regulation to enhance the Turkish Cypriot community’s access to EU markets. Disagreements over the legal basis mean that this has not yet been agreed. A comprehensive settlement to the Cyprus problem would mean that such measures would not be required, since the whole island would enjoy the benefits of EU membership.
The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, asked about UK support at the time of the financial crisis. For a settlement to work, the Turkish Cypriot constituent state will need to be ready to function as part of a united Cyprus within the EU. Since 2004, the UK and the EU have funded a range of projects, including during the period of the financial crisis, supporting modernisation of the public administration, which we think is necessary in order to be ready for a settlement. Now that talks have resumed and are making progress, it may be time to look again at what more the EU could do so that a settlement is viable.
My noble friend Lord Balfe spoke about Turkish Cypriot isolation. The UK remains committed to supporting the economic development of the Turkish Cypriot community and bringing Turkish Cypriots closer to Europe. They are, after all, EU citizens. The status quo is, of course, difficult for all Cypriots, and the Turkish Cypriots in particular feel the effects of Cyprus’s division.
Lord Maginnis of Drumglass
I interrupt only briefly. Is there not a contradiction in what the Minister has just said? The Turkish Cypriots are members of the European Community, but we do not recognise them and we will not recognise them. To put it simply, we do not give any place to self-determination.
Baroness Warsi
Of course, it is because there is a dispute that we are in the state that we are. It may not be the answer that the noble Lord wishes to hear, but unfortunately, that is the current state of play.
The noble Lord, Lord Wood, asked about an international conference. The UK stands ready to participate in such a conference once the parties have reached a greater level of convergence on the core issues of the settlement process. He also asked about the constitutional reform process. Again, we stand ready to respond to a request from either of the parties for technical advice on constitutional issues or to do anything to support the settlement process.
A number of noble Lords, including my noble friends Lord Northbrook, Lord Balfe and Lady Hussein-Ece asked about Cyprus’s exploitation of its natural resources. We accept the Republic of Cyprus’s sovereign right to exploit its natural resources and it remains our position that such resources should be exploited for the benefit of all the communities in Cyprus. Estimates of the scale of the natural resources vary, though the potential is clearly significant. We are aware of the Turkish Cypriot proposals on hydrocarbons and it is for the leaders of the two communities to work together on any proposals to share the revenue from Cyprus’s exclusive economic zone. We would welcome any agreement which the two communities can reach on this.
The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, asked about universities, including the Bologna process in higher education. We would support further measures to address Turkish Cypriot isolation. The British Council already helps Turkish Cypriot students access educational opportunities across Europe. However, once again the status of the north, as the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, has just mentioned, poses constraints on what we and the EU institutions can do.
Reunification is not only about economics. A settlement would make a substantial contribution to the security and prosperity of the region, unlock Turkey’s EU accession process and enable full co-operation between the EU and NATO. That is all the more important given the new challenges that a number of noble Lords referred to in the European neighbourhood, as we have seen in Ukraine. Turkey is Europe’s emerging power and Cyprus is the EU’s easternmost member. Both share a sometimes difficult region. A unified Cyprus could well become a role model of intercommunity harmony—one of peace and prosperity founded on deepening relationships with its neighbours.
We of course followed closely the Turkish Cypriots’ recent experience of the European parliamentary elections in Cyprus—something that my noble friend Lady Hussein-Ece referred to. My officials in Nicosia have spoken to Turkish Cypriot politicians, Republic of Cyprus officials and the European Commission. We do not believe that the difficulties encountered on the day were due to deliberate obstruction by the Republic of Cyprus authorities, but that does not, of course, lessen the frustration and sense of discrimination felt by many Turkish Cypriots who believe that they were eligible for the first time to vote in these elections.
In conclusion, this debate has underlined the warmth of the ties between the UK and Cyprus, and that this Government firmly believe that a solution that meets the fundamental concerns of both communities is available. The benefits of a solution, whether political, economic, social or in terms of security, are clear. The parties have stated their willingness to reach a deal, and Cypriots of both communities want to live and prosper together in peace. This Government will continue to encourage them in that noble and achievable ambition. Once again, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving us the opportunity to discuss these important issues.