Conduct Committee
Baroness Manningham-Buller
That the Report from the Select Committee Review of the Code of Conduct and the Guide to the Code of Conduct (4th Report, HL Paper 66) be agreed to.
Baroness Manningham-Buller (CB)
My Lords, this report is the culmination of the Conduct Committee’s review of the Code of Conduct and the Guide to the Code of Conduct, launched last spring. We chose to embark on this review—and sometimes I wondered whether that was a wise move. We were not asked to do so by Members of the House and were not required to do so by others, but we felt that it was the right thing to do. The existing code is 15 years old, and I hope the House agrees that we have made a number of improvements to it.
I start by thanking the committee—Peers and lay members—for their work on the report and, of course, the staff of the House who gave us wonderful help. It was clear, as we began to take evidence, that many Peers had not actually read the code, and I do not altogether blame them: it was too long, a bit repetitive and parts of it were very unclear. But we have been helped by the comments and thoughts from the debate in the Moses Room in October and from extensive evidence given to us by noble Lords, in person or in writing. I am not just being polite—that has been immensely helpful to us—although, going on, I will try to be polite.
I am also grateful for the feedback that we have had since the report was published. I have spoken to many noble Lords individually and to the main parties. Of course, we are not satisfying everybody. We cannot. There is a price paid when you try to achieve compromise, but I sense, from the feedback that I have had, that there is widespread understanding of and support for the report.
At this stage, I remind noble Lords that our aim was to simplify and clarify the rules. We have tried to make them shorter, clearer and less bureaucratic. We have also sought to uphold the current code’s twin objectives. I will quote them:
“to provide guidance for members of the House of Lords on the standards of conduct expected of them”
and—this is important but has sometimes been overlooked—
“to reinforce public confidence in the way in which members of the House of Lords perform their parliamentary duties”.
These two objectives were the test for every change that we considered. We asked ourselves, “Is this helpful to Members?” Secondly, “Does it reinforce public confidence in the House?” Sometimes those questions yielded different answers, so we had to strike a balance.
I shall give the House one example: the registration of non-financial interests. Public confidence in the House requires transparency over Members’ outside financial interests; I think we are probably all agreed on that. If Members failed to disclose outside employment or other major financial interests, that would undermine public trust and confidence in the House. However, the public interest in requiring the disclosure of Members’ unpaid roles—for example, with voluntary or charitable organisations—is far less clear. Over the years, the rules governing non-financial interests have become wider and more complex, resulting in several Members falling into inadvertent breach. We want Members in this House to have a wide range of interests, so this is quite a difficult area.
We concluded that the bureaucratic burden of the rules on declaring non-financial interests was disproportionate when compared with a small potential benefit to transparency. We therefore recommended ending the requirement to register and declare non-financial interests. Members will still be able to declare them in debate, if they are relevant to the matter under discussion and if time allows, but in our view that is not an enforceable rule.
I have dwelt on that example of our thought processes to try to help the House to understand why we have made the changes that we have. We went back to first principles, restated the most important rules of conduct as clearly and as succinctly as we could—noble Lords will notice that the code and the guide are substantially shorter—while stripping away rules that we considered disproportionate. Noble Lords have had the chance to read the report and the new code and guide, so I am going to touch on only a few key points.
On enforcement, we have introduced a minor cases procedure to allow the commissioners quickly to dispose of allegations of minor technical breaches, the details of which will be published only once the case has been resolved. We have restated in the code that, in investigating alleged breaches,
“the Commissioner and the Conduct Committee must … act in accordance with the principles of natural justice and fairness”
We have made it clear, as has been the case for many years, that Members under investigation are entitled to consult friends or advisers, including legal advisers.
The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, would go further, requiring the Conduct Committee to reverse its conclusion in paragraph 38 of the report and instead proposes a wholly independent investigatory and decision-making process with no Member of this House or any Conduct Committee report. I am grateful to the noble Viscount for letting me know last year that he was going to raise this issue. But my view, and that of the committee, is that this proposal strikes at the heart of the House’s culture of self-regulation. It would take the regulation of a Member’s conduct away from that Member’s peers, entrusting it instead to a quasi-judicial process with full cross-examination by lawyers, presumably representing both sides. The process would be long and more costly, and would deter some victims, in particular of bullying and harassment and sexual misconduct, from coming forward.
Over the years, many legally eminent Members of this House, former Lord Chancellors and Supreme Court justices, have sat on the Conduct Committee and its predecessor committee, which I chaired at one stage, including two former chairs: the late Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mance. The committee that undertook the review also included three KCs, including a former law officer, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier. These committees over the years have all rejected calls for a fully adversarial system, and the House has just as consistently agreed with its committee. Of course, it remains a matter for the House, but I hope that the noble Viscount will not press his amendment to a Division.
Returning to the report, I have not got much more to say, because I know the time is tight. The committee resisted calls to extend the code further into Members’ non-parliamentary lives. We understand that, in a small handful of cases, Members’ behaviour in their private lives has hit the headlines, creating a perception that the House’s reputation has been damaged. But we need to be clear that the purpose of the code, consistent with the principles of self-regulation, is to help the House in regulating Members’ parliamentary conduct. Members are not full-time; they have jobs and lives outside the House, and we need to respect that separation.
Similarly, we have restated again the existing protections for Members’ freedom of speech. The code is clear that the constitutional principle of freedom of speech in parliamentary proceedings is a primary consideration, and the enforcement procedure underlines that policy matters or Members’ views or opinions wherever expressed, whether inside or outside the House, are not within the commissioner’s remit.
Before concluding, I turn to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom. He does not seek to reject the report in its entirety but would instruct the Conduct Committee to bring forward proposals that would
“remove the entitlement of members of either House to bring complaints of harassment against members of the House of Lords”.
The amendment would therefore exclude a relatively small group of people, Members of one or other House, from the possibility of making a complaint of alleged harassment by a Member of this House.
This strikes at the heart of the changes and improvements in the culture of Parliament that have been made since 2017, when the then Prime Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady May of Maidenhead, personally intervened to support the establishment of an independent complaints and grievance process. That led to the behaviour code agreed by both Houses, which protects everyone who works here. I remind noble Lords of the original mandate, which was for a behaviour code that applies to all persons working for or within Parliament. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, would create a situation in which Members of this House could still bring complaints of harassment against MPs, but MPs could not complain against Peers. I doubt that the Commons would stand for that. So we risk a tit for tat and a potential unravelling of the behaviour code.
Harassment in the workplace is unlawful. The offence is defined in Section 26 of the Equality Act 2010. I do not believe that a Member of this House who is subject to harassment by another Member should be deprived of the right to complain about unlawful behaviour. I shall listen to the noble Lord but if he presses his amendment to a Division, I hope the House will strongly reject it.
Finally, what will happen after today’s debate? If they are agreed, the new rules will come into effect on 5 April and new versions of the document will be available then. Members’ entries in the Register of Lords’ Interests will be automatically updated to reflect the simplification of the registration categories. No action is needed by Members on this point.
I look forward to the debate and, with that, I beg to move.
Amendment to the Motion
Viscount Hailsham
Leave out “agreed to” and insert “referred back to the Committee with an instruction that, in place of paragraph 38, the Committee bring forward proposals giving effect to the following: that the facts and the recommended sanction should be determined by an independent tribunal; that the member should at all times be entitled to legal or other representation; and that the representative should be entitled to cross-examine witnesses and make submissions.”
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, in speaking to the amendment in my name and in response to the question posed by the noble Baroness, I begin by saying that it is not my intention to divide the House.
The report before the House reaffirms the House’s commitment to the inquisitorial method of dealing with complaints and rejects the adversarial system. Its position is fully summarised in paragraphs 36 to 38 of the report, to which I shall very shortly return. I disagree with that conclusion.
The report’s conclusion is wholly inconsistent with the procedures that Parliament has, by statutory instrument, imposed on all the professions that I have ever encountered. Since 2010, I have practised exclusively as a legal assessor—that is, a legal adviser—to the panels which regulate doctors, nurses, midwives, social workers and all the professions which fall under the supervision of the Health and Care Professions Council. I have done hundreds of days of that work since 2010, all at appropriate times, duly registered.
As to purposes and consequences, there is no serious distinction to be made between the regulation of the conduct of Members of this House and the regulation of the conduct of members of those professions. All those professions are required by Parliament to use as an essential part of their regulatory procedures the adversarial system, which is rejected in the report. The decisions as to fact and sanction in those jurisdictions are all made by an independent tribunal. The respondent in all those jurisdictions is entitled to full legal representation, including the right for the representative to cross-examine and to make submissions.
The role of the regulator is a limited one. The regulator acts as an investigator into the complaint, and if the regulator concludes that there is a prima facie case, its role is to present the case before an independent tribunal, often by means of a lawyer instructed for the purpose. The regulator is not the arbiter of either of fact or sanction and, in my view, the commissioner’s role should be similar and limited.
The report suggests that the adversarial system, in particular the cross-examination of parties and witnesses,
“would result in a long-drawn out and expensive process … undermining … the principles of natural justice and fairness”.
That sounds to me awfully like an argument for putting convenience before justice. To be fair, other criticisms are made in paragraphs 36 to 38.
The problems encountered with regard to complaints and to the proceedings against Members of this House are precisely the same as those encountered in all the jurisdictions to which I have referred—indeed, in most other legal interparty proceedings.
Relevant concerns—and there are concerns—can be and are met by a number of special measures, which time prevents me articulating. In all those other jurisdictions, complaints are often made by one colleague against another or by an employee against a superior, but such problems are not a barrier to effective regulation.
There is no time in this debate to argue in detail the merits of the adversarial system, so I shall conclude with this general assertion. There must be a presumption in favour of the House following in its own procedures the procedures that Parliament has imposed on everybody else. I suggest that only the most powerful arguments should displace such a presumption, and I cannot identify those arguments. Therefore, I believe that this House should adopt the procedures that Parliament has imposed on everybody else. Although I do not intend to divide the House, I beg to move the amendment standing in my name.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, first, I congratulate the Conduct Committee on reducing the amount of the Code of Conduct by 30%. If this lesson was followed in other areas by Whitehall, we would have less legislation to worry about. Perhaps the team that has done this might offer its services to other departments.
It is also very sensible that it has been decided that the Code of Conduct should not compel people to register their interests when they are unpaid and charitable. Having said that, I sincerely hope that noble Lords will declare their interests when they are trustees of a charity, because it adds to the authority with which they speak on the subject. Although it will not be compulsory, I like to think that people will continue to do that.
My amendment is basically designed to remove harassment from the charges that can be brought by one Member of Parliament against another. The noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, has made the point that this would then mean that a Member of your Lordships’ House could sue somebody in the Commons. I hope that, if by the use of this for party-political purposes it completely discredits the code, we might actually see the other place amending its way of doing business in the same way as I rather hope we might amend our way of doing business.
The wording of my amendment is worked out to completely exclude members of staff, and it does not include sexual harassment and bullying, which is very important. The real problem is that the Oxford English Dictionary is quite clear in saying that “harassment” means “trouble by repeated attacks”, which means that there must be more than one occasion on which the particular offence is committed. The noble Baroness has made the point that much of the code is lifted from the Equality Act, but there is no mention in the Act of redefining harassment, as it is in the Code of Conduct, to being down to an isolated incident. We therefore have a tremendous problem here with the definition of “harassment” in the beginning.
The recent case, which has been alluded to, of my noble friend Lady Meyer, was by anybody’s estimation a single incident, and I do not think you can apply harassment in its understood terms to that case. On top of that, I have talked to a number of lawyers in your Lordships’ House and they think that that case would have been dismissed by a court of law as being trivial. I do not think we are in the business of treating Members of your Lordships’ House more harshly than a court of law would. I am not here to reopen the case—I am not trying to do that—but I hope we can learn a few lessons from the cases that have happened.
There is no doubt in my mind that the code of conduct, as it is now worded, is leading to miscarriages of justice. We should be very mindful of this and of the problem that, actually, there are party-political politicians in your Lordships’ House. I was recently told by a noble friend that people are now refusing to go on parliamentary trips, or indeed share a taxi, with a Member of an opposition party, in case that can be used against them. This is a problem. If the onus is put on the complainant to say that they have been upset by some remark that somebody has made, this can be exploited very much in terms of party-political advantage. I do not think that is what the code of conduct is involved in at all.
Under the code of conduct, complaints can be brought for four years to the Commissioner for Standards and, therefore, it could be possible to stack up a number of cases that then emerge just before a general election and could be used for party-political advantage. I do not think that is how the code of conduct should be abused, which is why I am putting my amendment to the House today. I hope that the noble Baroness will seriously consider the dangers of the wording of the code of conduct, as it now is, because it could be badly abused in the future.
Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, the Motion in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, has been moved, as has the amendment in the name of the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham. The noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, has spoken to his amendment. For the remainder of the debate, the advisory speaking time is four minutes, and I ask all noble Lords to adhere to that. After three minutes, they should start making their concluding remarks and, at four minutes, their time is up.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness and her committee on their work in reviewing the code of conduct and the manner in which they did it. It was a privilege to give evidence to the committee, and I was extremely impressed, though not surprised, by the care with which it approached its work.
The committee had two overlapping tasks, the first being to streamline the code and guide to make them clearer and less ambiguous. By reducing its length by 30% and simplifying the language, it has clearly achieved this. It also had to deal with several substantive issues on which there is no consensus in the House—here it was impossible for it to please everybody. For myself, I wish it had dropped the reference to “personal honour” and brought in an offence of bringing the House into disrepute. I was one of those who, to quote the report, thought that the term was
“hard to understand and archaic”.
But I was given the chance to argue that case before the committee, and I simply failed to convince it. So it was with other Peers and other topics. But the committee weighed my evidence and all the evidence it heard, and reached its own conclusions, as it was tasked by the House to do. That is why I will vote for the report and do not support the amendments today.
The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, has argued for an independent tribunal and legal representation. The report, having considered the case for an adversarial system, rejects it on the grounds that he quoted: that it
“would result in a long-drawn out and expensive process, potentially undermining rather than promoting the principles of natural justice and fairness”.
As opposed to the noble Viscount, I agree with that conclusion and so cannot support his amendment.
The noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, wishes to amend the code to prevent Members bringing complaints of harassment against other Members, for the reasons he has just enumerated. I completely disagree with him. Harassment is a serious offence, and standards of acceptable behaviour and what constitutes harassment have changed for the better, in my view, over recent years. To accept the noble Lord’s amendment would tolerate behaviour that is intolerable, and it would be an extremely retrograde step were the House to agree to it.
Neither do I recognise that there have been any miscarriages of justice in the past relating to this issue. His suggestion that the code could be abused for party-political advantage is simply implausible. If anybody were to try this, I am sure that they would be given extremely short shrift.
I urge the House to support the Motion to approve this report, reject the amendments and thank the noble Baroness for her extremely distinguished stint as chair of the committee.
Baroness Donaghy (Lab)
My Lords, I chair the Steering Group for Change, which advises and supports the House of Lords Commission and the management board on continued efforts to improve the workplace culture of the House. We create a space where Members and staff can work together in an open and collaborative way. The effectiveness of the House of Lords relies on strong working relationships between Members of the House and the administration to strengthen the House as an institution. It also has the potential to build positive public perceptions of this House.
The steering group considered the recommendations of the review. We are grateful to the chair of the Conduct Committee, the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, for attending our meeting last week, and to the Conduct Committee and its officers for the enormous amount of work carried out to produce this substantial report. We see this as a protection for Members and not a threat. It will reassure staff that everyone on the estate will be treated equally, and it will be a signal to members of the public that we have a fair, independent and robust system for dealing with conduct issues.
The right revered Prelate the Bishop of Derby, who is a member of our steering group, had originally intended to speak but cannot because of family health. She has asked me to say on her behalf:
“My own expectation that in this place of work, that having a robust code backed up by clear guidance is really important for the expression of the culture of who we want to be, expressed in the way of how we’re going to do it, and that is important for every person at every point of this organisation and it should just be a given”.
The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, to prevent Peers submitting complaints against each other would go against the grain of equal treatment for all on the Parliamentary Estate. It would drive a coach and horses through the behaviour code. Of course there are risks that a complainant might be playing politics. That is why we have independent and impartial commissioners. Members of the Conduct Committee are not naive about the political nature of our work. That is why the three main parties and the Cross Benches are represented on it.
Finally, on the amendment from the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, to introduce an adversarial system to deal with conduct issues, this has been considered many times before and rejected consistently by this House. It would put us at odds with the House of Commons, the Scottish Parliament, the Senedd and the Northern Ireland Assembly. My concern is also echoed in the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, that it would increase the length and expense of investigation. I hope very much that we will give wholehearted support to the Conduct Committee’s report and our thanks to the noble Baroness for her most distinguished chairing of this committee in the last few years.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, who is very wise, and to echo her remarks about the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, who is a glutton for punishment; she actually extended her term of office in order to deal with this issue and it is a very important issue.
I am sorry that we have only four minutes—although it is advisory—to discuss very important questions. I have a number of comments, which I hope the committee might give consideration to. First, what is the definition of a “minor case”? It is not clear from the report to what that relates. Secondly, the idea of extending the terms of appointment to six years, although not really a matter for the committee, is undesirable.
My main concern is the extension of the committee’s remit into social media. In particular, I find some comments from the report quite worrying. For example, paragraph 24 says:
“as a self-regulating chamber the House of Lords has the right to determine that egregiously offensive statements made by its members on public-facing social media may in certain circumstances fall within the scope of the Code”.
It is hard to argue with that in principle. I do not do social media, because I think that it is a revolting place and what people say about each other is not to my taste, but the idea that the committee should get involved in social media is a very big step. To be fair, the report hedges around the circumstances, but the hedging is rather vague and it needs careful consideration.
My other point is that, although it is fantastic that we no longer need to declare a non-financial interest, the report makes it quite clear that getting up and saying, “I refer to my interests in the register”, which people in this place do every day at Question Time, is a breach of the code. However, they are still required to continue to declare their financial interests. I do not think that is practical. Question Time is already difficult because some people make very long questions or give very long answers—or responses to questions, certainly. Having to declare an interest at Question Time without being able to say, “I refer to the register”—it is a waste of time anyway, because nobody has a clue what is on the register—would just extend the length of Question Time. That should be given further consideration.
Paragraph 49 relates to Members who have left the House. The suggestion is that, if a former Member were to breach the rules, it would be for the commission or the Clerk of the Parliaments to use their powers. I mean no disrespect to our distinguished clerk, but I think it should be for the commission and not for the Clerk of the Parliaments.
The noble Baroness and her committee have produced a document in which I can pick holes, but it is a great leap forward from what we had before. They took evidence—I gave evidence—and they considered it very carefully. It would be quite wrong for the House not to support this unanimously and with great gratitude to the noble Baroness and her committee for their work, which cannot have been easy.
Baroness Deech (CB)
My Lords, even to the best behaved of us, the mention of a Code of Conduct investigation sends a shiver down the spine, because there are grave consequences in the world these days related to offences that might have been settled privately and amicably years ago: there is great publicity and the damage is long lasting.
Incidentally, I was once chair of the Bar Standards Board, which investigated the behaviour of barristers. It was a complex, nuanced, layered procedure but, for those reasons, I quite agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, that regulation needs more independence than is being granted in this revised charter.
As far as substance goes, I am puzzled that bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct are regarded as so much more serious than other offences that they get separate treatment in the code and that there is no longer any limit at all on reporting sexual misconduct, even years ago. Are these offences really worse than violence, lobbying, financial misconduct and lying, especially as the latter group are more likely to affect people in the outside world?
I continue to think that the rules of natural justice are insufficiently taken account of, with reference to my time as chair of the Bar Standards Board. The general definitions of natural justice are wider than those put forward in the report and would include avoiding any perception of bias on the part of the judge, full disclosure of all the interests of the commissioners and that the person complained against should be able to challenge the evidence and have access to all the documents involved.
The case for legal representation is difficult, but today it is much stronger than it used to be. Just because the Committee for Privileges took a narrower view of the definition of natural justice some years ago, that does not mean that it was the right outcome. I do not see why we should be more hesitant in facing up to challenges of all sorts than the public are expected to be, so I suggest adding an explicit right to see all the documents and to have a lawyer speak for you at the hearings.
The problem with the system now, comparing it to natural justice, is that it is one commissioner only who decides whether or not to investigate, carries out the investigation and decides, like a judge, what the consequences and the punishment should be, and the allegation need be proved only on a balance of probabilities. It is time now to bring those procedures into line with natural justice to a greater extent.
One ambiguity needs to be clarified relating to the rule about the use of facilities, such as one’s office, primarily—whatever that amounts to—for parliamentary purposes. It is widely accepted that at home one has to use one’s own facilities, such as computing, research, book purchase and so on, for parliamentary duties, and people may be paying researchers and assistants from their personal income, because if you live out of London the daily allowance will not stretch that far. As a reciprocal measure, I would have thought it permissible to use one’s office here for office purposes, whether parliamentary or otherwise, especially if, as a non-Londoner, one has no other office facilities to hand. I hope that there is some sympathy for a broad definition of what may be allowed in one’s office on the parliamentary estate.
Lord Garnier (Con)
My Lords, I will not repeat what the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, has already said in opening this debate, nor do I have time, sadly, to comment on the two amendments moved by my noble friends Lord Hailsham and Lord Hamilton of Epsom.
That said, I doubt that the noble Baroness elbowed her way to the front of the queue to chair the Conduct Committee, but we should be grateful to her that she was persuaded to take on the job. As a member of the Conduct Committee, I saw at first hand her skills as a leader, as a negotiator, as a manager of expectations and as a catalyst for consensus. Perhaps more importantly, I saw her as someone who cares deeply about fairness and justice. This new, shorter, decluttered, comprehensible code of conduct and guide are as good as they are very largely because of the noble Baroness, but I must also expressly thank the clerks to the committee, whose advice and drafting skills were of the highest quality. This House is in their debt.
As a member of the Conduct Committee from January 2022 until January this year, I heard many anxious but also perplexing contributions to the debate, outside the committee’s formal sessions, about the rules of conduct for this House. Happily, the evidence that we received in the committee—before the general election last year, I chaired some of the evidence sessions—from the party group leaders, including my noble friend Lord Forsyth, from the then Leaders of the House and of the Opposition and from the Convenor of the Cross Benches, as well as from outside interested parties, was universally thoughtful and helpful in informing our deliberations and conclusions.
Revising the code of conduct is not a mass participation activity. Despite affecting every one of us, the revision excited relatively little interest, perhaps because very few Members of this House breach the code. Most of us do not know who the commissioners or the members of the Conduct Committee are, be they Peers or lay members. It was therefore unsurprising that, despite reminders, only a handful of your Lordships responded to the call for evidence, but we were very grateful to those who did.
In my time on the committee, we had to deal with only a small number of breaches of the code. The overwhelming majority of us in this House are polite, kind, honest and decent towards each other and to those who work with us in Parliament. The exceptions were rare, but even then we were not dealing with people who were irredeemably bad. Mistakes happen. Technical breaches of the code occur. Things are said that, on reflection or earlier in the day, would not have been said. Most who were found to have broken the code accepted that they were wrong, were contrite and apologetic. I doubt they will do it again. On those occasions where we were concerned with more serious breaches, the problems not infrequently arose from diminished capacity and the afflictions of old age rather than malice.
Furthermore, quite a few complaints made about Members of your Lordships’ House were trivial and vexatious. There was a small number of regular complainants and, if the new code is approved, we will have a better way in which to allow the commissioners to deal with those that do not affect innocent Peers or those who have committed only minor or technical infractions, which can be dealt with by correction of the register. Overall, the new shorter code is such an improvement on its predecessor that it ought not, I hope, to attract the criticism that the earlier version experienced.
I do not have time to identify the new changes, but I want finally to turn to the question of the lay membership of the Conduct Committee. There are strong views for and against their being on the committee and I will not speak to that question now, but lay members are appointed for six years, twice as long as our own three-year term limit. That needs to be changed. I found the lay members to be dedicated people who took their work seriously and responsibly, but I do not understand why their terms should be twice the length of our own.
Lord Lilley (Con)
My Lords, I, too, welcome the report, both for its brevity and for its rejection of the idea of introducing an offence of bringing the House into disrepute. But I want to raise some questions that I hope will be considered in any future review, though I do not want to go as far as directing the committee to do so in the way one of the amendments before the House proposes, even though I sympathise with some of its spirit.
I assume the original purpose of having a procedure for dealing with complaints about harassment and bullying was to protect staff, particularly staff who might face bullying by Members of this House who are in a superior position and a position, therefore, to use their influence wrongly. One would hope it would never happen, but if it does, it is right that staff should be protected. But I doubt if the aim or expectation was originally that it would be used to police verbal exchanges between noble Lords. Surely, the presumption is that we are old enough and sensible enough to deal with offensive remarks made by other colleagues without running off to teacher and saying, “Please, miss, Jimmy insulted me in the playground”. That should not be what the procedure is for.
There is a minor cases procedure, but any minor incident of harassment and/or bullying by one Member against another should not be brought. It is ridiculous that one Member should bring that sort of minor incident before this procedure. It is particularly wrong because the procedure itself can be long and damaging. You have a major punishment for a minor case, even if the outcome is effectively to exonerate the person concerned. The process can be the punishment.
I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, who I always assume is right—in most cases that has proved to be safe in the committees on which I have served with her—who said that it was unlikely that these procedures would ever be used for party-political reasons. I am afraid that that shows her good nature. In the other place—they have different rules, but their procedures are of interest—a Labour Member went through every interest held by every Conservative Member and saw whether they had been mentioned in debate where there was a possibility that there might have been a conflict of interest. Scores of people were brought before the commission. I was one, because I had not mentioned that I had an interest in a company that operated exclusively in central Asia, in a debate about domestic energy costs. I had not mentioned it because I did not think it was relevant. The commissioner said she entirely accepted that I had no conflict of interest but that I should have declared it because somebody might have thought I had a conflict of interest: unless I apologised to the House, she would take it to the full committee. I said I had no intention of apologising to the House except possibly for not realising that the commissioner could invent new rules that we had to declare interests we did not have.
This is the problem: rules constantly expand. I have to say I was entirely exonerated by the committee—it was the first time in its history that the recommendations of the commissioner were rejected. But it was brought for party-political reasons. There have been two cases recently before the House where, I understand, the person offended by an accidental insult originally graciously accepted the apology from the person who perpetrated it but then subsequently withdrew the apology and issued a complaint. The suspicion must arise that they had probably been pressed by rather more intransigently party-political colleagues to do so. We must not allow a situation to exist where party politics can be used to abuse a system that is ideally there to protect staff, not ourselves.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I offer my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, on restoring some sanity. But time is limited, so plaudits are postponed. Instead, let me raise my reservations.
I am especially disappointed at the replication of existing rules on bullying and harassment, which are unfairly lumped in with sexual misconduct. What is more, all three are singled out as especially egregious, as we have heard. We are left with definitions of bullying and harassment that are unduly subjective, explicitly based on the perception of the person experiencing the conduct. That conduct can be one unintended isolated incident that may be “hidden or insidious”. Surely, we can see the dangers of such vagueness in the potential for inciting unjust accusations. For example,
“a person may also be harassed even if they were not the intended ‘target’ of harassment”.
This perversely creates a non-victim victim and facilitates weaponising accusations in bad faith—accusations impossible to disprove.
Am I being paranoid? Sadly, many of our public institutions, from universities to the Civil Service, are littered with recent examples of individuals accused and disciplined for bullying or harassment, based on offence taken to words or opinions due to the feelings of victims. But, subsequently, it has been revealed by appeals or employment tribunals that the allegations themselves—the very disciplinary processes—were the real perpetrators of bullying and harassment. Employers have been forced to apologise and pay damages, but this redress is not open to those found guilty by this code. I am glad the committee concedes
“the significant toll that investigations can have on members”.
So often, the process is indeed the punishment, as is evidenced by the hell to which those such as fully exonerated Professor Jo Phoenix or the Buckingham University vice-chancellor James Tooley can testify.
When the committee concludes that a minor-case procedure can now be used—guess what?—bullying and harassment are excluded from the proportionate response. Why? It is implied it is related to power imbalances. Interestingly, in the definition of bullying, we are told that power can equate to coercion through fear of intimidation. Fair point. But can we acknowledge that we live in a society that valorises victimhood—a cancel culture that promiscuously demonises others by labelling them as bullies and harassers? As such, the real power can reside in the hands of would-be accusers, because even the threat of an allegation of bullying can be career or reputation destroying. It is certainly intimidating—I am not even sure about saying this here, to be honest. I am not sure that denying the accuser the right to cross-examine their accuser helps, so I do have some sympathy with the amendment from the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham.
Finally, the review deals intelligently with the distinction between parliamentary and non-parliamentary conduct and the need to ensure that expression of views and opinions falls outside the code’s remit. But there seems a fudge on social media, as we have heard. I am worried about the recommendations that text should be written that will state in terms what activity on social media may be dubbed parliamentary. What will that text say? This, combined with the way that definitions of bullying and harassment include that both can happen online via social media, means that, as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, has indicated, this could be a Trojan horse for dragging public non-parliamentary speech into scope. Can the noble Baroness offer reassurances that this is not the case? I am asking for a friend, of course.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness and her committee for all the work they did. My few remarks are based on the work I undertook in the City, where I was involved in the first introduction of statutory regulation to what had hitherto been an entirely self-regulatory system. Over 30 years, the self-regulatory system was driven out by statutory regulation, and there are some lessons and some portents of what may lie ahead for your Lordships’ House.
I want to make just two very short points. The first is—this was said by other noble Lords—that we found very early on that, as regards codes and guides, less is more. People in the City are busy making money; people in your Lordships’ House are busy holding the Government to account. They do not have the time that they should have to read codes if they are lengthy: therefore, the shorter, the better. So I express my unequivocal support to the noble Baroness for the reduction in code length and guide length that the noble Baroness and her committee have undertaken and for focusing them. But, of course, I have to say, gently, that it is still over 60 pages long.
I am afraid my second point is slightly less obliging. I have had an email exchange with the noble Baroness, so she is aware of what I am going to say. Nothing that I am saying is about her personally: she has an unenviable role, as many noble Lords have said, and she has carried it out with dignity and efficacy. Nor am I attacking the commissioner and his staff, or indeed the other members of the committee.
What I want to draw to the attention of your Lordships’ House is the direction of travel in the code we are discussing today. As I see it, the challenge is set out admirably clearly in the code in paragraphs 3 and 4, where it refers to
“upholding the Code’s twin objectives”—
I understand that—and states:
“The Code and Guide face two ways … The House is self-regulating, but it exists to serve the public”.
Immediately, one has to realise that anything facing two ways will inevitably have some tensions between the two functions. In the City, we found that maintaining a self-regulatory element within a statutory function was impossible. Statute squeezed out self-regulation. That is something that I think is slowly, imperceptibly happening in the regulatory system of your Lordships’ House.
Some Members of the House believe that that is desirable and inevitable—indeed, the amendment from the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, takes us a further step down that road. But others may think that maintaining an element of self-regulation, of practitioner input, makes our disciplinary procedures more relevant and effective; and, further, that this is particularly true of a House of Parliament, a major part of whose role and work is undertaking the delicate task of balancing and reconciling conflicts of interest.
In 240 seconds, I cannot possibly hope to explain how one might reset the dial, but, if I had one sentence only, it would be that we may have forgotten the importance of the presumption of innocence—a point made by my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier. The code, as the law, is the protector of the reputation of the House and has to be obeyed. The guide, as the protector of Members of your Lordships’ House, needs to carry with it that presumption of innocence. Without it, Members of your Lordships’ House end up with the worst of all worlds: a system in which the inevitably somewhat fuzzy nature of the guide is investigated and enforced as if it were on a statutory basis, which is not a helpful way to proceed.
Let me end as I began. I am not attacking anybody; I am drawing attention to the direction of travel, which I think has its downsides. If my noble friend Lord Hamilton were to decide to divide the House, I would be inclined to support him.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I, too, welcome the report and support its recommendations. The commissioners as well as the committee are doing a good job, and in particular the chair, the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, has been exceptional and will be a very hard act to follow.
That brings me to one of the recommendations on the rotation of Members. I believe that the automatic rotation of Members on all committees on a three-year basis is generally unhelpful to Members but a gift to the establishment. However, on the Conduct Committee in particular, it is especially damaging to the work of the committee, as outlined in the report, and I hope that the Procedure and Privileges Committee will accept the recommendation that it should be rescinded.
I also strongly support the committee’s view that it would not be appropriate to widen the application of the code beyond our parliamentary activities. In particular, it rejects the suggestion that it should be extended generally to posts on social media. I welcome this, as I know that there have been mischievous complaints against me and others by SNP activists, who I have designated as “cybernats”, because they disagree with my point of view. The irony is that my posts have all avoided any personal comments, whereas the responses have been full of abuse and have not dealt with the issues raised. So I hope that the committee will be careful in relation to any exceptions—and on this occasion I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and indeed with the noble Baroness, Lady Fox. Now there is an unusual occasion. In fact, I might be the friend that the noble Baroness was speaking about right at the end there.
All through the code and report, there is the correct presumption that our membership here is a part-time activity, regrettably. The House is not a Second Chamber with properly resourced full-time Members able to deal effectively with all the legislation and hold the Government to account, as is the case in Canada, France and many other places, where the senates do that. But that is an issue for another day. However, the nature of this House makes it strange that we have a code covering Members’ staff when there is no specific provision in the House for us to employ anyone. Although some of us do use our part-time allowance to do so, it is not easily done.
Lastly, I express my support for the committee’s recommendations on keeping the inquisitorial system. The introduction of an adversarial system would not only deter victims from making legitimate complaints but significantly lengthen the process, turning it into another gold mine for the lawyers. Indeed, I wondered whether the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, should have declared his interest when he moved his amendment. Incidentally, I was also wondering whether some of the Members who spoke in Monday’s debate on hereditary Peers were in breach of paragraph 14(b) of the code by not declaring their interest in doing so—but no doubt that can be looked at.
I conclude—well within the time, to please my Chief Whip, who I always try to please—by restating my support for the committee’s recommendations and hoping that they will be agreed unanimously.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I start by pointing out that both Chief Whips have disappeared, which may be a reflection on this part of the speakers’ list, of course. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, for the report and for the courtesy that she showed me when we met to discuss certain issues. Anything that I say is certainly not a criticism of her.
The redraft and shortening is overall a very good thing. The trouble with current documents is that they get longer and longer and more and more difficult—so I do welcome that. I also support the points made by the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, because these reports get published and then go immediately on the internet, and this is how people are then defined. One noble Lord who was sanctioned said to me that, when he went for an interview, he was confronted with the fact that he had supposedly breached the rules of conduct—well, not “supposedly”, because the Conduct Committee had found that he had breached the rules of conduct. So it is not a short-lived thing. The point that the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, makes is a very sound one, backed up by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech.
I also think my noble friend Lord Hamilton’s point is sound. I was appalled at the report on my noble friend Lady Meyer, where it seemed that a playground scrap had been elevated into a great controversy. It struck me that it was way beyond where the rules should have been applied. I wonder how many members of the staff of the House of Lords have been suspended for offences against their code and how many of them have been suspended without any pay, because that is what suspension does here.
I turn to the point about the House being in disrepute. Like the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, I have also been on the receiving end of this. There is a regular little group of people out in the community, many of them with surnames that to me look very Ukrainian, who regularly protest when I speak about Russia. On occasion, they have even written to the leader of my group asking that I be thrown out. To the credit of the leader of my group, he refused to do so, particularly when I pointed out that, if he did do so, that would be greeted with great joy in Moscow.
The whole role of the committee needs reviewing. I would like to see an independent Members’ services committee that has this as part of its remit. The more that we build up committees that have nothing better to do than employ four experts on six-year contracts to look at the detail of Members’ behaviour, it is just not worth it.
What we should do is make much greater use of mediation. The report on my noble friend Lady Meyer need never have been written; the thing could have been solved by a process of mediation. We also need to open the hearings. I can see the danger of having them on the Floor of the House and the danger of having journalists there, but why should Members of the House not be entitled to attend hearings affecting their own colleagues? That seems quite reasonable to me, particularly if you have a confidentiality clause. So I would like the new committee to look at the impossible task of abolishing itself and the not-too impossible task of looking to use more mediation and other skills to solve problems.
Lord Skidelsky (CB)
My Lords, like other noble Lords, I commend the efforts of the noble Baroness and her committee to shorten and simplify the code and guide. That they have not altogether freed themselves from the bureaucracy involved in all this is more a sign of the times than of any lack of effort on their part.
I welcome the obligation to register non-financial interests and reduce registrable interests from 10 to seven, but I still struggle to understand the purpose of the register. This is a fundamental point. What is a relevant financial interest? The only guidance that we are given is what a reasonable person might find relevant, but that is very vague. For example, in what way might a reasonable member of the public think that my own occasional income from writing or lecturing might constitute a financial motive strong enough to influence my parliamentary activities—except, of course, for the better? Would the noble Baroness and the Conduct Committee consider transferring occasional income from category 1 to miscellaneous financial interest in category 7?
The Conduct Committee has taken on board criticisms of the Privileges Committee’s Standing Order 68, dated 2019, mandating that reports and sanctions from the Conduct Committee be decided without debate in this House. The Conduct Committee’s report says that it has considered whether to limit that prohibition to cases arising from bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct, and that is a step forward.
Allowing the House to question the judgment of the Conduct Committee in a particular case puts teeth into the otherwise empty declaration that the decision of whether to impose sanctions rests with this House. Unless a particular thing can be properly debated, that statement is empty or wafer thin. Will the noble Baroness tell us whether the committee is, in fact, asking the Procedure and Privileges Committee to scrap the prohibition on debating its reports in this House?
Thirdly, contrary to what noble Lords may believe, the Commissioner for Standards is not limited to investigating complaints. We have complaints, complaints, complaints, but it can investigate disclosures. That is wrong. An anonymous disclosure may trigger a process that ends in a sanction without any complaint having been made to the Commissioner for Standards. The investigatory procedure should be triggered exclusively by a complaint.
Fourthly, the report acknowledges but does not resolve the potential contradiction between the requirement for Members to act on their sense of personal honour and the reputational damage rule—a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Newby. Behaviour that Members consider honourable may breach the sense and culture of the House. I repeat my complaint of October that the appeal to personal honour does no work in the code at all. A Member is required to follow the code irrespective of whether they think it is honourable for them to do so. If the committee wants to preserve the personal honour requirement, it must give up telling Lords what their personal honour should tell them to do.
Finally and fifthly, the report states:
“Whether conduct constitutes bullying will depend on both the perception of the person experiencing the conduct and whether it is reasonable”.
This is an incredibly slippery slope. If personal offence is inserted into the equation, it will inevitably crowd out the test of reasonable behaviour—we had an example of that recently. On this I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton.
Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I welcome this shortened version of the code, particularly the replacement of the original appendix B, which had ridiculous definitions that made it seem as if we were all living in some kind of red-light district. Can the noble Baroness clarify whether the commissioner will still be able to refer to appendix B if needed and, if so, why?
On bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct, I immediately want to separate staff from Members, because none of us wants ever to allow someone in a position of power to be able to get away with that kind of behaviour towards people who are employed here and do such a good job. But surely any kind of harassment, bullying or sexual harassment in this place can be dealt with by the Member who is the target of such behaviour. Are any of us not capable of calling out someone who behaves like that?
I am obviously from an older generation used to dealing with overt, unwelcome advances simply by telling the person where to go. Do Members of this House really need all this bureaucracy to deal with other Members’ bad behaviour? None of us here is a shrinking violet, frightened by their own shadow—but I appreciate that times have changed. If these clauses are to stay, I ask why it states that a person may be harassed even if, as the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, said, they were not the intended target of the harassment. What exactly does this mean? If someone is harassing me and I tell them where to go, the person sitting beside me can say that they felt harassed. This is getting ridiculous.
I welcome what seems to be a strong commitment to freedom of speech, but then, as others have said, paragraph 24 says that
“egregiously offensive statements made by its members on public-facing social media may in certain circumstances fall within the scope of the Code”.
Who is going to decide that they are offensive? I fear that this could be mission creep—a slippery slope to perhaps even beginning to police what is said in the Chamber.
The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has a habit of making disparaging remarks about those with whom he disagrees; sometimes he even mistakes brass for silver. But I do not want him to be stopped from doing that, because I would much prefer his Peers—rather than some commissioner—to judge whether his remarks tell us more about him. This is what we should have.
I want to stress this point on lay members, because it has not been mentioned by anyone. It says, in paragraph 26, that they
“bring a different perspective to the deliberations of the Conduct Committee, drawing on experiences derived outside the House”.
But it seems that all the lay members come from the same kind of human resources background. Some of them have made their living out of HR, and their everyday language can be alien to the experiences of many Members of the House. We are not a multinational business listed on the stock exchange, and human resources in this place cannot be seen in the same way.
Can the noble Baroness explain how these independents are selected and if there is an opportunity for men or women from a non-academic or non-university background, who perhaps worked in manual jobs, to be appointed? We might get some more common sense. Is there any reason why we cannot know how much the independents and the facilitators of the behavioural code seminars are paid? Incidentally, I am not sure that the seminars serve any valuable function.
I hope that we continue to review this code to ensure that we do not have huge numbers of vexatious complaints. We surely must avoid creating in this House an atmosphere of mistrust and the undermining of free speech.
Lord Shinkwin (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, and the committee for the review of the code and the guide. I want to pick up on an issue that the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, touched on when she referred to how being notified of a Conduct Committee investigation sends shivers down the spine of a Member. I refer, of course, to an issue that affects many of us at some point in our lives, our mental health, and how it is addressed in the review. It is touched on obliquely, in both paragraph 58 of Annexe 3 to the review relating to the “Enforcement Procedure (General)” and paragraph 54 of Annexe 4 relating to the “Enforcement Procedure” specifically for bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct. Both state:
“Members can contact the Parliamentary Health and Wellbeing Service for advice, guidance and support with mental and physical health”.
Is that really adequate or appropriate when a Member is perhaps experiencing a mental health crisis at the prospect of their reputation being effectively trashed in the media or, indeed, as a result of that having happened—in either case, by virtue of their high public profile as a Member of your Lordships’ House, and thus being seen as fair game? I suspect that having to contact another body related to Parliament as a conduit to advice, guidance and support is the last thing that some Members would want or feel able to do when, for example, mulling over whether they have the mental resilience to make an appeal against the commissioner’s findings. This is important because a failure to do so can count against them and imply an admission of guilt.
I therefore wonder if thought can be given to establishing a source of support that is completely independent of Parliament from the outset and sensitive to the stress of public office holders with a high public profile, such as Members of your Lordships’ House. I make that suggestion not to imply that any of us are more important but because that high public profile increases our vulnerability to mental health challenges.
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)
My Lords, I give heartfelt thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, and her committee. I am really pleased that the code has been revised in this way; it is in such good plain English and is more concise. I am grateful for her introductory speech explaining some of the tensions in reaching the conclusions. The code is a really important tool in protecting staff, Peers and the reputation of the House of Lords.
To fulfil these functions, we need to know when behaviour does not comply with the code, which is why I was so disappointed, but perhaps not surprised, by the Motion from the Conservative Peer the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton. It suggests that if we suffer or our colleagues suffer something that involves harassment, we should just keep quiet. That smacks, to me—and his noble friend Lord Lilley did talk about the schoolyard—of the worst aspects of English public school life. I had hoped that that was now a thing of the past in schools, but in the mind of the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, not grassing on one’s fellows is more important than ensuring that intimidating behaviour is stopped.
Cruel or bad behaviour thrives in a culture of secrecy, and we should have none of it in this House. The code rightly lays down the need for transparency and due process, and I welcome that. I also welcome the presence of lay members of the Conduct Committee bringing their outside perspective to the House. Training is important, because times and social mores change, and Members do need to keep up. If we demonstrate that we have failed, like any decent workplace, we should offer training.
I wish, though, that the code should replace the wording in the first rule, “personal honour”. My noble friend Lord Newby mentioned this, too. I understand from paragraphs 56 to 60 of the review that this was an on-balance decision, but I feel the code would be less subjective for each Peer and stronger if it used “integrity” in paragraph 10(b), which is then further defined in paragraph 12(b).
We as a House have our work cut out to restore public confidence. In particular, I agree with the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, when she talked about financial impropriety being equally as important as our own behaviour, because that is the issue that the public outside are more concerned about.
I probably cannot talk about one of the ongoing investigations into a serious, possibly criminal, issue, but I am sure noble Lords know to what I am referring. The general point I make about this is that, when there appears to have been a breach of the code, a Member should not be able to avoid the processes of the code by quickly taking a leave of absence. Leaves of absence are for illness and caring for loved ones in extremis, not for avoidance of sanctions. There is a lot more that I might say about lobbying and profiting from being a Member of the House by being offered directorships et cetera that would not happen if one was still Mr Bloggs rather than Lord Bloggs. Of course, if we had proper reform and an elected House, that would deal with much of the issue.
I hope the committee will take on the very complicated issue and address some of these matters of financial impropriety and all the nuances around the financial implications that we have not had time to touch on today. In the meantime, this revised code is very helpful, and I hope that all Members will do their utmost to see that it is acted on.
Lord Swire (Con)
My Lords, with your Lordships’ indulgence, I shall raise a narrow point in the gap, one that I have already raised privately with the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, on whose report I congratulate her, as I congratulate others who worked on it.
I made this point to the committee in written evidence, but I do not think it has been addressed. It falls under the category of natural justice and fairness and, in the interests of transparency, comes from first-hand experience as this is something that happened to me, virtually as soon as I came into this House. In fact, one colleague was amazed that it had taken me so long to be reported, whereas another was rather amazed that I had been reported so early on.
It was a vexatious complaint. I will name names, because this complainant, Dr Alex May, complains almost exclusively about Conservative Peers in this place. He made a complaint that I had failed to register an interest. I was able to provide clear and unambiguous written evidence that I had followed the register of Lords’ interests, with email evidence to support that. However, it was deemed of sufficient importance to escalate it to the Conduct Committee. The complaint was, perhaps inevitably, subsequently completely dismissed, and it was found that I had no case to answer.
My point is about the natural justice of that process. It is my contention that, to avoid vexatious complaints, when complaints are handled by the appropriate powers that be, they should be handled in privacy. It should not be announced at the outset that X is being investigated, because inherent in that is a presumption of guilt. Where is the presumption of innocence? By all means, investigate me, investigate all of us—that is only right and proper—but only when natural justice has taken place and the committee has found the person in question to be guilty should the announcement be made that X has been investigated and found guilty. If the individual is not found guilty because it is judged that there was no complaint initially to be addressed, there is no need to mention it at all.
In the cause of natural justice and the presumption of innocence, I ask the noble Baroness if she will look again at having these investigations in private until an announcement is made, if the individual concerned is judged to have fallen foul of any of the existing rules.
Baroness Manningham-Buller (CB)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for all those comments. I will try and answer them all and, if I fail, that will not be deliberate. I am grateful for the kind personal comments; I am bathing in the plaudits from various sides of the House, and I appreciate that. However, this is also very much a matter for the distinguished members of the committee.
I am going to start with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, then I shall try to pick up on any that have not been covered, on topics such as social media, as we go through. I am grateful to noble Lords for taking these issues seriously and for the range and extent of their comments.
The concern of the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, that complaints of harassment by Members of either House may be politically motivated and used to embarrass opponents is a view shared by the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, and others. I assure the House that the members of the Conduct Committee are fully alive to the possibility of politically motivated complaints, as are the commissioners. We understand that we work in a political environment, and we have robust processes for identifying and rejecting frivolous or vexatious complaints.
I shall come to the issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Swire, later on, but in truth I suggest that the risk he identifies is more imaginary than substantial. Paragraph 27 of the enforcement process says:
“No information will be made public unless or until a report is published”,
even if the commissioner launches an investigation. It is a confidential process, and if the complainant were to breach that confidentiality, they would, as paragraph 62 states, be committing
“a contempt of the House”.
When the commissioner’s report is ultimately published, it will either uphold or dismiss the complaint. If the complaint has been dismissed, the commissioner may withhold the name of the Member concerned or even decide not to publish a report at all. That has happened in the last year—not in the cases that have been mentioned today, though for obvious reasons I cannot go into detail—so I would argue that the scope to cause malicious political mischief is, in practice, very small. There is only political damage if the complaint is upheld and the Member is in fact guilty of harassment.
I would remind people—this goes to the point of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox—that, in the definitions of “harassment”, we are following Section 26 of the Equality Act, which defines it as “unwanted conduct” that has the “purpose or effect”, so it can be unintentional, of “violating” a person’s “dignity” or
“creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment”
for them. Whether Members of the House like that or not, it is the law.
I suggest that all the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, would achieve would be to prevent genuine victims of such harassment from complaining— and, let me be clear, there are victims. Even though allegations by Members of either House against noble Lords are extremely rare, there have been some cases where serious misconduct has occurred. In some cases, the details are not in the public domain because the complainants wished to remain anonymous, but I assure the House that there have been serious cases involving noble Lords.
To go back to my opening remarks on the Behaviour Code, the principles of respect and courtesy are there for the entire parliamentary community. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, and the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, that they are not there just for the staff, although that is an important component. They are there for the whole parliamentary community. If we start having carve-outs for particular groups, we risk unravelling the entire behaviour code. I hope that, if the noble Lord presses his amendment, the House will reject it.
The noble Viscount has clearly stated his case—indeed, he talked to me about it beforehand—and has been consistent in so doing. He has been supported by others, in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Deech. Nobody can doubt his honest advocacy of a wholly independent process with a strong legal flavour. In the end, it is up to the House to decide. It is not, in the end, up to the Conduct Committee. The Conduct Committee’s view is clear. What he suggests is very different from Commons procedures, for example, where you have three layers. First, the commissioners decide whether it looks as though the code has been broken. Secondly, there is the Standards Committee and, thirdly, the independent expert panel with no Members of the House of Commons on it. We could go that way, or we could go the way suggested by the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham. My view is that the existing system is fair and provides natural justice, and I dispute that it has been otherwise. But, again, whether the noble Viscount wishes to withdraw his amendment is up to him.
I will try to read my scribbles on what other things were said, and I will try to answer them correctly. I hope I have answered the points made by the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, and the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom. I of course contest his view that there has been a serious miscarriage of justice. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, raised a number of questions in his four minutes. I will start with one on social media, which was also picked up by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, and others. What we think we are trying to achieve here—what we think we have done—is just to say what the existing arrangements are. I do not want to get into particular cases, but I will mention the case of the noble Lord, Lord Ranger, which some noble Lords may remember. He carried on a parliamentary discussion on social media with somebody he had met on the Parliamentary Estate. In the view of the committee, this was parliamentary activity in an unusual situation. In most cases—in the vast majority of complaints that we get concerning social media—the comments by the Peer concerned could not by any definition be said to be part of parliamentary activity.
Then we have to go on and ask whether this is freedom of speech—whether it is about having an honest and robust opinion, having the ability to offend or insult, or whatever. Unless it is covered by the definitions of harassment and it is parliamentary, the code will not engage. So I suggest that all that we have actually done is put into the code the current practice. We have not been on mission creep in this or any other part of the code—I know that a number of Peers were concerned that we might have been.
For minor cases, I do not have a definition, but the idea is that we try wherever possible to keep out of the whole process as many as possible—that is partly for purposes of the noble Lord, Lord Swire. That is something that I have also corresponded with the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, about.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
On the points that the noble Baroness made about social media, can we take it that what she has told the House on record will be used by the commissioner and the committee going forward? The clarification that she has provided is fundamentally important.
Baroness Manningham-Buller (CB)
Yes. I like short answers.
On declaration of interests, at the end of the day, failure to declare a financial interest in a debate is a matter for the committee. It seems to us that the Privileges Committee and the processes of the House need to decide whether noble Lords do that at Question Time or more broadly—but we all think that “I refer to the register of interests” is a meaningless phrase, because nobody is going to look it up and it does not really help. But that is for others.
I would like to contradict the view of the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, that the committee, and all our procedures, regard bullying, sexual misconduct and harassment as more important than serious financial misconduct. There is not a competition here; there are different sorts of breaches of the code, and some of the most egregious that this House sees are financial ones. I would like to confirm that, and I hope she will accept it—it is not a competition between the two of them.
On the use of offices, of course we all deal with emails and work in our offices. To go back to my earlier point, many Members of this House have other jobs; they have other responsibilities and things that they do. What we cannot allow is for the office to become used almost exclusively for other business—to be the route of a charity being based there, for example. So there is a distinction, but I assure noble Lords that the committee is not going to be concerned about people using their offices to catch up with work in other areas.
Baroness Deech (CB)
I am grateful for that, but I am slightly worried about who is checking our offices and emails. I am of course referring not to Hancock-type activity in the offices but to the general running of one’s business, where there is a blur between private and parliamentary.
Baroness Manningham-Buller (CB)
Did I understand the noble Baroness to say that people were checking her emails?
Baroness Deech (CB)
I do not understand how one would investigate or where a complaint would come from in relation to being told that one was using one’s office for the wrong sort of activity. How would anybody know?
Baroness Manningham-Buller (CB)
Well, we have had complaints in this area before, which we have acted on, from information from people involved.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, that the behaviour code was meant to cover everybody. I hope that I have answered the question on politics. The rules do not constantly expand; actually, they have retreated on this one. By removing non-financial aspects, we have reduced them.
I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, that I have written down “fudge”, and I cannot remember why. It was her word, not mine, so perhaps the noble Baroness could remind me what the question was.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
That was specifically on social media. The noble Baroness was not clear, but she has since clarified.
Baroness Manningham-Buller (CB)
I hope the noble Baroness is content with what I have now said.
Lord Hodgson, with whom I have had a helpful correspondence, talked about the direction of travel moving towards the noble Viscount’s possibility. He also mentioned the tension between facing two ways. That is absolutely recognised, as I said in my opening speech, and we have tried to bridge that gap.
I am grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, on social media. The view of the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, that we have just dealt with a playground scrap is certainly not my view, and I also see problems with open hearings—particularly if, at the end of the day, the person concerned is found to have been innocent, as working on the presumption of innocence is very important. Equally, I also agree that where mediation can be achieved, it is infinitely preferable. However, I will not recommend to my successor, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, that he seeks to abolish himself—but again, that is a matter for the House.
The noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, raised a point which other Peers had not mentioned about Standing Order 68. All the committee is saying is that, should the House, and should the usual channels and the Privileges Committee, decide that this was no longer tenable, complaints under the behaviour code would still need not to be debated, but complaints of, say, financial impropriety could be, if the House wanted to go down that route. But I say to the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, that the committee is not asking for that; the committee is just raising it as something, following the Lord Lester case, that the House might want to consider.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, was concerned about appendix B—as were many of the rest of your Lordships—which has all the definitions of sexual harassment, and so on. Those definitions stand as part of the behaviour code. They are not a matter for this House to change, and the commissioner will refer to them when making investigations under those headings. I have read out the bit from the Equality Act to try to reassure her there, and I have commented on social media.
Recruitment of independent members of the committee is entirely open, and the sort of person the noble Baroness describes, who she would regard as having more common sense than an HR person, can easily apply if they wish to do so. But at this stage, I would really like to say, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, said, that the external members of the committee offer real help and value to us in our deliberations. I think that we should be extremely grateful to them, and I regard that as important.
The noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, makes an important point. I acknowledge that going through this process is distressing and concerning for even the most robust of us. Therefore, as regards giving support, we have specified in the new code that people can bring friends; they should be supported throughout. They could bring one Peer—not a great gang of them—or one or a few colleagues. But we recognise that where possible, we have to be compassionate, and want to be, to people who find themselves in this position, certainly until they are found against.
I hope I have answered the intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Swire, on whether we can look at ensuring that the damage done by being investigated is not made public. The commissioner goes through a preliminary assessment then has to decide whether there is enough evidence that there may be a case to answer, and at that stage, things begin to become more public.
I hope I have covered all noble Lords’ comments, but I thank your Lordships very much for the useful—
Lord Garnier (Con)
Before the noble Baroness sits down, perhaps she could confirm that the committee is very much boxed in by the rules that it is provided with? If, for example, a commissioner makes a finding both as to fact and as to sanction, and that set of findings is not appealed, the committee has no remit to reinvestigate. Therefore, it ought to be more widely understood that the committee’s ambit of power is relatively restricted in relation to that sort of case.
Baroness Manningham-Buller (CB)
I would certainly be happy to confirm that. Of course, if people appeal, and many do, the committee engages fully in the angles of that appeal and whether in fact they wish fully to endorse the commissioner’s findings. Again, it is a bit different in the Commons, but if the House wants to change that, it would need to consider it in the whole issue of process. But I thank the noble and learned Lord for that intervention.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, the debate has been a very full one, and the points have been articulated in respect of the amendment I have moved. I understand fully that the sense of the House is not at the moment in favour of the point that I have moved, and I do not want to trouble your Lordships any further. That being so, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom
At end insert, “and instructs the Conduct Committee to recommend changes to the new Code of Conduct and associated documents to remove the entitlement of members of either House to bring complaints of harassment against members of the House of Lords.”
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I do not think the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, would expect me to agree with her about the political nature of recent cases. But let us face it: they could be interpreted as political, and therefore it is very difficult to forecast that other politically motivated measures will not brought before her committee in the future. I think that even she might acknowledge that.
I can see your Lordships sitting here, thinking, “We’ve got a Conduct Committee that clears up disagreeable things—it’s never going to affect me as an individual. Let them get on with it and do the job they’ve been doing so far”. I would hesitate before I made that assumption, because there should be a note of caution.
The bar is very low to bring complaints against fellow Members, particularly in your Lordships’ House, and there are politically motivated people in this House. It is very easy to bring a complaint against somebody, because the onus is on the complainant, and the complainant’s view of whether they have been persecuted has to be taken up by the committee. When you end up in front of the Commissioner for Standards, he assumes that you are guilty, rather than innocent, because the complainant has brought the case to you. That is one of the problems that we are dealing with.
My advice to your Lordships, if this ever happens to you, is that the key thing is who you get to advise you. You have to have somebody you totally trust. I would be a little wary of hiring any old lawyer, because lawyers deal with the law of the land, and the powers of the Conduct Committee are much greater. Therefore, you want somebody who has a deep understanding of the Code of Conduct. This is one of the lessons we have learnt from people who have suffered and have had their reputation shredded by the findings of this committee in the past.
I end by paraphrasing John Donne: “Ask not for whom the bell tolls”. Your Lordships know how it ends.
International Women’s Day
Baroness Nye
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to mark International Women’s Day on 8 March.
Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Blake of Leeds) (Lab)
On International Women’s Day, and in fact on every day of the year, this Government are accelerating action under our Plan for Change to put more money in the pockets of working women and create more opportunity in the workplace and to ensure that women are safe on our streets and in their communities. We will be calling on employers to take action to help tackle the barriers that still prevent too many women from succeeding in the workplace. All government departments have a key role to play in delivering our key mission for equality.
Baroness Nye (Lab)
I thank my noble friend for that Answer. The House will know that it is now 50 years since the Equal Pay Act was implemented, but recent figures from the PwC index of OECD countries show that the UK has the lowest ranking for a decade and on that trend it will take another 50 years to achieve equality. Does the Minister agree that one of the most important ways to promote economic growth is to accelerate action to close the gender pay gap?
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
I thank my noble friend for all the work that she has done in this area over many years. This Government are committed to strengthening equal pay and ending pay discrimination. We will make the right to equal pay effective by putting in place measures to ensure that outsourcing of services can no longer be used by employers to avoid paying equal pay, and we will implement a regulatory and enforcement unit for equal pay. My noble friend is right about the importance of closing the gender pay gap, which is why, as part of the Employment Rights Bill, we are taking the first steps towards requiring large employers to produce action plans covering steps they are taking on the gender pay gap and menopause support.
Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)
My Lords, I declare that I am the co-chair of the APPG on Global Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights. Women and girls are all too often at the front line of conflict and humanitarian crisis, and approximately 800 women die every day of preventable causes relating to pregnancy and childbirth. In Afghanistan, a woman dies every two hours due to sexual violence and attacks and the restricting of access to sexual and reproductive healthcare. With the proposed reduction in these vital services due to the proposed ODA cuts, will the Government emphasise their commitment to prioritising and ring-fencing these programmes for women and girls as a hallmark of commemorating this International Women’s Day.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness for her question. She raises an incredibly important area. As the House knows, we have already debated and discussed—and I am sure we will come back again on—that decision; it is unfortunate in the international circumstances that we now face. With particular reference to the point she makes, I want to reassure her that we will still take part in international conferences such as the Commission on the Status of Women, which is taking place very soon. My noble friend Lord Collins will be going to represent us and Minister Malhotra as well. We commit to discussing these issues as we go forward, deciding how the cut is going to be implemented.
Baroness Sugg (Con)
My Lords, the Minister refers to the Commission on the Status of Women, and it is great to hear that there will be representation from Ministers there. Can I ask the noble Baroness what the aims and objectives are for the Government for that meeting? It comes at a time when we are seeing a deeply concerning rollback of women’s rights around the world.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness for her question. Of course, the normal issues will be covered by my noble friend Lord Collins in this House and by Minister Malhotra in the other House. One of the important aspects of the commission is that, as well as the high-level ministerial input, there will be a large civil society presence, which I believe is the way forward, demonstrating just how gender equality fits into the UK’s modernised approach to development, broadening partnerships with the global South to counter the rollback of rights, as she quite rightly highlights, and building the effectiveness of international delivery on the Government’s mission. Ensuring a gender lens will be crucial to our leadership in this space, and the commission will give us the opportunity to meet with other participants and discuss how we move forward in this very difficult global time.
Baroness Prosser (Lab)
My Lords, I will bring the Question back to its original point about equal pay. Under the last Labour Government, we had a very successful co-operative association with employers across many sectors, where it was agreed—and, indeed, it happened—that many women were reskilled and upskilled to bring them into a position of being able to earn more money and go up the ladder. Have the Government got any plans to take positive action in that way? Without positive action, nothing is going to happen.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
My noble friend raises a very important point. I do not have the exact details in front of me on the issue she raised and where it is going to go next. I know that she will be critical as we take the Employment Rights Bill forward, and she will make sure that the concerns she has are absolutely front and centre of the work that we do.
Lord Singh of Wimbledon (CB)
My Lords, religion still plays an important part in many lives. Religious texts written centuries ago often denigrate women. Most people learn to skip over those bits, but the extremists latch on to them. Is it not time to ask religious leaders to interpret those texts in the context of today’s times for guidance to their followers? That is the only forward, to get away from the kind of situation we find in Afghanistan.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
The noble Lord raises an important point, though I am not sure I am fully qualified to answer the points he raises. However, I am always intrigued by translations of religious texts and how certain aspects have been accepted. There is a lot more debate to be had on this. I am proud particularly of the city where I come from, where our religious leaders work tirelessly together to come forward with common understanding and means to move forward and to achieve equality for all.
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that my noble friends Lady Owen of Alderley Edge and Lady Bertin have been leading the way with their campaigns and reports on deepfake images and pornography? Will the noble Baroness—and, indeed, the whole House—join me in congratulating them on their important work, and will she advise us when the Government will respond to the review of pornography?
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness for that timely question. We are struggling to see each other over the Dispatch Boxes—we have some equality issues that we need to address. But seriously, this has been such an important piece of work, and I absolutely commend all of those who have put so much time and energy in. The independent review is a very wide-ranging piece of work and we are looking forward to a Written Ministerial Statement. There will be a joint letter going out, and I honestly believe there needs to be a significant amount of time for assessing how we take this crucial piece of work forward.
Baroness D'Souza (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that one way to change the attitude towards girls and women would be to educate boys? That would be particularly important in a country such as Afghanistan, where girls are forbidden to have an education, at least at secondary school level. Educating boys, which might be permissible, could help to change their attitude towards their future partners and wives.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
The noble Baroness raises a point very dear to my heart. We have to think really seriously about how we take this work forward. She raises it in an international context, obviously, but one of the most empowering pieces of work that I have been involved in is about involving young men, when their partner becomes pregnant, for example, to help them understand the stresses and difficulties that they will both face as they go forward. There is so much scope in this area. We need to do more in our schools, and we are committed to taking this forward.
Equality Act 2010: Diversity of Political Candidates
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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Baroness Gale
To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to implement section 106 of the Equality Act 2010 to require information to be published on the diversity of political candidates.
The Minister of State, Office for Equality and Opportunity (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)
My Lords, the Government are committed to commencing the Equality Act 2010’s provision requiring registered political parties to publish anonymised data relating to the diversity of their candidate selections. We are currently exploring when and how to commence that provision under Section 106. Implementing this policy would, through increased transparency, demonstrate tangible progress towards better representation among candidates of the population they seek to serve, and thereby increase the involvement of all groups across the democratic process.
Baroness Gale (Lab)
I thank my noble friend for her reply. I am quite encouraged by what she had to say, but does she agree that having a diversity of candidates means that the elected representatives will look like the people they represent, which will give more authority to our elected institutions, because people will be able to relate to them much better? Can she say when this provision will be implemented? We have been waiting 15 years for it now; that is quite some time. Those who are now shadow Ministers in the party opposite will know that I asked them this question numerous times. I am hoping that I will not have to do the same now to my noble friend.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My Lords, I have enormous respect for my noble friend and the leadership role that she has played in political parties—and, of course, in ensuring diversity. I too hope that she will not need to ask this Government as many times as she had to ask the previous Government, because we have made clear our commitment to implementing Section 106. We need to work through how we are going to do that and who will be included. I think it is right that something as important as this is done properly. I look forward to her challenge and her support as we take that forward.
Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)
My Lords, we need to understand the picture fully, and while I am sure we are all gratified by the number of women Members of Parliament we have now, the story on other protected characteristics, including disability, race, and sexual orientation, is not so rosy. In answer to a very similar question in January, Anneliese Dodds responded by saying that the Government were looking at when they might be able to introduce this data, much as the Minister has done today. If the Minister cannot tell us today when this will be, can she reassure the House on what approximate date we will be able to introduce this legislation by?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Baroness has found an interesting way to ask the same question again. I will try to find an interesting way to give the same answer. I recognise her point that Section 106 requires us, in commencing it, to think carefully—actually, exactly—about which protected characteristics will be included in the regulations. It is important that we give that sufficient thought, alongside political parties, of course, about how we will implement that.
There is nothing to stop political parties at this point, for transparency, publishing information about their own candidates. But, of course, the reasoning behind this piece of legislation is to ensure we get consistency; in doing that, we challenge ourselves as politicians, we challenge our parties, and we show to the country that those people who represent them reflect those whom they are speaking on behalf of.
Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)
My Lords, before International Women’s Day this weekend, it is important that we reflect on this issue. I ask the Minister whether there is a need to engage with political parties right across the United Kingdom to enable them to empower women to look at politics as an honourable profession. We know that there are many perceived barriers—and actual barriers, let us be honest about that—that they see when they look at political life. Is there some work that the Government can do with political parties across the UK, whether that is through the Electoral Commission or directly, to try to assist with that?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Baroness makes a very important point. Some of that, of course, is the responsibility of political parties themselves, but particularly in areas where she and I have previously shared views and work—such as the abuse and intimidation that impact all elected politicians but disproportionately impact women—there is work that the Government can do, building on work done outside this place on this issue; for example, by the Jo Cox commission. The Government are working with the Electoral Commission to take this forward in terms of practical actions that will help overcome some of these barriers, which, as the noble Baroness says, might put people off coming into democratically elected life, and, in doing that, make us all poorer.
Baroness O’Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)
How long does my noble friend the Minister think it will take before we achieve 50:50 representation of men and women in the House of Lords?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My noble friend the Leader assures me that the Front Bench on this side is pretty good. I am afraid it is not within my power, but I see in the other place that considerable progress has been made since 1997, when I was elected, which was equally a big jump in women’s representation. Then, however, it was just over 18% women—it now stands at 40%, which is the sort of progress that we would all like to see.
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
Does the Minister agree that the Conservative Party has led the way on diversity when it comes to our party leaders? I know we have had a few. We have had our first Asian leader, when Labour has had none, and our first black leader, when Labour has had none—all, I add, chosen on merit.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Baroness is right that there has been an enormous diversity of leaders of the Conservative Party—some of it good, some of it less good. Given the noble Baroness’s understandable wish to talk about the diversity of leaders, I find it slightly more difficult to understand why the party opposite, during its 14 years in government, was not as keen to enable that, through Section 106 of the Equality Act, to be something that all political parties should do and why it is not willing therefore to say more about its candidates and their diversity. What we know is that, when it comes to real progress in broader representation, the fact that there are now more Labour women in the House of Commons than Conservative MPs in total tells us something about which party has made the most progress on gender.
The Earl of Devon (CB)
My Lords, given the Government’s enthusiasm for gender equality in these matters, why will they not legislate for female succession to hereditary peerages?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I think my noble friend the Leader of the House has considerable sympathy but also a lot of experience in the complexities of this type of legislation. I think, on the basis of her wisdom, I will leave it to her to respond to that particular issue.
Baroness Smith of Llanfaes (PC)
Ahead of the Senedd elections next year, my party Plaid Cymru has decided to reserve the first position on the internal selection process for half of the constituencies for women. Will the Minister share some more ideas for what other parties could do to ensure that we have a gender-equal Parliament in Wales and here in Westminster?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
Our colleague Jane Hutt has written to the Secretary of State to talk about the action being taken in advance of the Senedd elections next year. I am sure that Labour and other parties will want to ensure a representative Senedd. I suspect that the ability to take the action the noble Baroness outlined was dependent on the previous Labour Government putting into law the ability to take that sort of positive action. It is because of that that we have seen the progress we have up to this point. Better representation in our politics does not happen by accident; it happens by people being willing to take action and be transparent. That is what parties which are serious about it support.
Erasmus Programme
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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Baroness Wilcox of Newport
To ask His Majesty’s Government, following the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the Erasmus programme, what steps they are taking to ensure that youth work and adult education organisations can access international exchange opportunities.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)
We could have done with a bit of diversity in those answering Questions today.
My Lords, the Turing scheme provides funding for adults at further or higher education institutions to do international study and work placements. It also provides funding for staff accompanying school trips. DfE offers several exchange opportunities, including UK-German Connection and language assistance programmes. Additionally, DCMS will be publishing a new national youth strategy in the summer, which will rebuild a thriving and sustainable youth sector.
Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)
I thank my noble friend the Minister for that reply, but has her department looked at what the Welsh Government are doing in this area? The scheme known as Taith, which means journey, has developed into a programme which, for many, works better than Erasmus. There is engagement in Taith from schools, youth organisations, adult ed and FE colleges. Those who have never previously considered international exchange as an option are applying for Taith funding, providing more opportunities for those with the least access and the greatest barriers. Would the Minister agree to look at this excellent scheme?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
Yes, I would agree. I acknowledge my noble friend’s recognition and explanation of the Taith programme. My department and I hold regular discussions with Welsh Government colleagues about a range of policy issues, and this is a good example of our ability to learn from each other. I also note her important point about how Taith—and now, the Government’s Turing scheme—provides additional support to participants from disadvantaged backgrounds so that they can participate in international placements. We have made considerable progress in the Turing scheme in doing that.
Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)
My Lords, we had a long debate in the House recently on the question of restoring a youth mobility scheme with our European partners. Is it not now surely time for us to proceed with that, given that it has no negative impacts on the freedom of movement issue or indeed on our Immigration Rules? Young people all across Europe want to be able to meet and work together in the interests of future democracy and peace.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
This Government are very keen to ensure that we reset our relationships with the EU, but that, of course, happens across a whole range of areas. The last time I responded to questions on this issue, I said that it feels appropriate to me to carry out that negotiation across the whole range of issues, and to do so in detail and in breadth, as my right honourable friend Nick Thomas-Symonds is doing.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, part of the reason why UK students took less advantage of the Erasmus scheme was our language skills capability, and because it was limited to Europe. The Turing scheme, which 42,000 students have taken advantage of so far—21,000 from disadvantaged backgrounds—is global. Does the Minister agree that our Turing scheme is working extremely well, and we should give it time to settle down?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Lord makes an important point about the Turing scheme: that, unlike Erasmus, it extends beyond the European Union. In fact, some of the most popular destinations have been outside the EU. If we truly want people to have a global opportunity, that is an important element of it.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)
My Lords, the Erasmus+ programme is often talked about as the higher education part—I declare an interest, being on an advisory board for a Czech university programme—but it also allows for vocational education and training opportunities for between two weeks and 12 months. Given that the Minister will not undertake to do anything unilaterally, may I suggest that she takes back to Minister Nick Thomas-Symonds the idea of looking at ways of re-engaging, not just for those in higher education but those in further education and vocational education and training? They stand to gain a huge amount.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Baroness makes a very important point. We of course work hard to ensure that international students can come here and contribute to and benefit from UK higher education. When I talk to international counterparts, they talk about the enormous value of our skills and vocational training and the need to ensure shared learning and opportunities. In anything that happens in the future, we should make sure that this is seen as something not only for higher education but for further education and technical and skills education.
The Lord Bishop of Norwich
My Lords, universities in the Cathedrals Group—the 14 higher education institutions founded by the churches—have a higher proportion of students who progress to university when they are older, and/or who are the first in their family to progress to university. How will His Majesty’s Government ensure that all students who wish to, and particularly those experiencing socioeconomic disadvantage, are able to access the life-changing opportunities afforded by studying abroad, given the loss to students of Erasmus funding?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The right reverend Prelate makes an important point about this being an opportunity that people need to have at all stages of their life. I think I am right to say that Turing does enable older students to benefit from it, and, as I have already emphasised, it has certainly focused on ensuring that people who come from more disadvantaged backgrounds have the opportunity to experience travelling, visiting and learning overseas in a way they otherwise would not have been able to do.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, at the risk of injuring my noble friend twice in a row, may I pick up on the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Patel? Can the Minister update the House on which countries are most popular among students undertaking the Turing scheme, and how does the percentage of disadvantaged students engaging with the scheme compare with that for its predecessor, the Erasmus scheme?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
Yes, the noble Baroness can encourage me to do that, and I hope I will be able to do so. I think I am right in saying that five out of 10 of the most popular Turing scheme countries are outside the EU. As we have previously discussed, that is important. In 2024-25, 53% of people who are expected to take part in the scheme are from disadvantaged backgrounds. I think that all who have contributed so far have recognised that, whatever scheme we have, the focus we put on that opportunity is really important.
Lord Wigley (PC)
My Lords, I warmly endorse the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, and I accept the comments of the noble Lord on the benefits of the Turing scheme. Does the Minister accept that the status of associated third countries, enjoyed by countries such as Norway, Serbia and Turkey, is not incompatible with these other schemes? Might there be a way of bringing them together?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I am not wholly clear which other schemes the noble Lord is talking about, but I am happy to follow that up with him. If he is saying that we need to ensure that any scheme we support is as broad as possible in the opportunities it makes available to young people and older people, and if he is suggesting that we also need to consider bilateral youth mobility schemes—which we do have—with countries such as India, Canada, Australia, Iceland and Andorra, that is a useful contribution and certainly something we should do.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, the noble Lord was making the point that the Erasmus scheme takes in large numbers of countries that are not in the European Union, so there is no need to conduct this discussion as a competition between Turing and Erasmus. The best thing for the Government to do, surely, is to try to get the best elements of both schemes in one that we can now support in the future.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I do not think that I have conducted it as a competition between the two. It is not that difficult for this House to work out, had things gone differently in 2016, what situation I would rather be in. But we are in the position we are in at this point, and we have made it clear that we do not plan to re-enter the Erasmus scheme or to reintroduce free movement. However, what we have heard today is a general consensus that future schemes, whatever auspices they come under, that enable people to experience studying, working and living in other countries are important. We should do all we can to encourage particularly those who would not otherwise have these opportunities to be supported by whatever schemes we develop.
Telegraph Newspapers
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they plan to intervene to force a sale of Telegraph newspapers, in accordance with Chapter 3A of Part 3 of the Enterprise Act 2002, to prevent the ownership, control, or influence of a foreign power.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Twycross) (Lab)
The public interest intervention notice on the Telegraph sale that was issued by the previous Government is still in place. This means that the Culture Secretary has to make decisions on this in a quasi-judicial capacity, and it would therefore be inappropriate for me to comment on specifics. The Telegraph has a long and proud tradition as a valued national newspaper, and the Government are committed to seeing that continue and the newspaper thrive.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)
My Lords, it is a year since this House voted to put beyond doubt the possibility of a foreign Government or power owning a British newspaper, yet ownership of the Telegraph remains unresolved. The newspaper continues to function, and all credit to those involved, but the situation is unsustainable because the business needs the freedom to move on. I hear what the Minister says, but after all this time, when there is no sign of a deal, can she tell us how long the Government intend to wait before using their powers to intervene and force a sale, however regrettable such an intervention would be? When will the Government bring forward the secondary legislation to provide a capped exemption for indirectly controlled foreign state investment funds, which is important to the sustainability of all parts of the news industry?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I hear the frustration from the noble Baroness. I know she has been campaigning on this for some time. The Government have not issued a foreign state influence notice because RedBird IMI has signalled its intention to sell in compliance with the new law prohibiting foreign state ownership of newspapers, so the Government are allowing it to conduct the sale.
On the SI to which the noble Baroness referred, there has been a general election in the interim since the legislation was passed by the previous Government. Ministers recognise the high importance of foreign states not being allowed to influence the policy of UK newspapers, but there should be a balance to encourage investment into the press sector. Therefore, we are carefully considering a response to the consultation. We hope to publish a response very soon and lay the SI shortly after that.
Lord Moore of Etchingham (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I declare an interest as an employee of the Telegraph Media Group. I am grateful for what the Minister says about the sense of urgency, but it has not been apparent so far, and this has gone on for a long time. Newspapers live by deadlines, not such a familiar phenomenon in the quasi-judicial capacity, and we really do need the deadline to be met. This affects the newspaper most importantly, but does the Minister agree that it also makes it quite difficult for potential buyers and the seller, because they do not understand the terms on which they are doing it? The delay is fundamental to the whole problem.
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I am not sure that the company selling the Telegraph is unclear about the rules under which it is operating. We are allowing the company RedBird IMI to conduct the sale. DCMS meets regularly with representatives from the parties and is monitoring the situation closely, but it is the clear intention of the parties to sell as soon as possible.
Baroness Winterton of Doncaster (Lab)
My Lords, there is clearly a focus on national newspapers, but many people rely on local trusted media sources for their news—I think of the Doncaster Free Press, but I am sure all Members of your Lordships’ House will know their own local media source. They have faced considerable pressures in recent years. Can my noble friend the Minister outline what the Government are doing to support local media outlets?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
My noble friend makes a really important point, particularly in this age when so many people find it difficult to know which media source to trust. A lot of people get their trusted news from local media sources, so sustainability of local journalism is an area of particular concern for this Government. We are developing a local media strategy in recognition of the importance of this vital sector, reflecting the contributions and perspectives of local media that help to foster a self-confident nation in which everyone feels that their contribution and area of the country are part of an inclusive national story.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, will the Minister give us an idea—or at least an understanding of the Government’s intent—on whether we are going to ban for ever foreign ownership, or just state foreign ownership, of any of our broadsheet papers? If they cease to exist, where do we go from there?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
The noble Lord portrays a very bleak future in which we do not have the national newspapers of which so many of us are proud and about which noble Lords from across the House clearly feel very passionate. The SI mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, relates to an SI that has exceptions to the regime, around foreign investment, but does not go as far as allowing foreign state ownership or influence on the policy of UK newspapers.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, has the Prime Minister had any discussions with the Government of the UAE about this matter since he took office, for instance during his visit to the Emirates in December?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
The noble Lord is right that the Prime Minister visited the UAE in December. I am not clear whether this issue was raised, but I am clear that we will continue to do whatever we can to reinforce the UK-UAE relationship more generally. Separate to that, we are taking forward the legislation that he led on when the party opposite was in government, which I hope to bring before the House in the near future.
Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)
My Lords, when we were in opposition, we were very concerned about the ownership of national titles and newspapers, and we made that very clear. But another issue on which I would like to get the Minister’s view is journalists’ safety. There are continuing and widespread threats to journalists online and also physical threats, which were apparent in last year’s riots. Does my noble friend the Minister share my concerns—and those of other noble Lords, I am sure—about the safety of journalists? What more can we as a Government do to make sure that this part of the freedom of the press is fully protected?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
My noble friend makes a really valid point. Yesterday we spoke about Gaza and the horrendous number of journalists and media workers who have died in the course of that conflict. My noble friend referred to the riots in the wake of the attack in Southport. Even in this country, the harassment of journalists reporting generally, but specifically reporting on those public order events, is completely unacceptable and incompatible with a healthy and functioning democracy. We need a situation in which journalists can operate without fear of abuse, threats or intimidation. The Government are committed to defending the role of a free media and the safety of journalists, and we continue to work on these important issues, including by delivering our national action plan for the safety of journalists, working with criminal justice, civil society and media partners.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, given that the Secretary of State is acting in a quasi-judicial capacity, which I quite understand, will the Minister or one of her colleagues perhaps endeavour to send a quasi-judicial message to the Secretary of State that she needs to get on with this and might want to involve the Competition and Markets Authority in bringing it to a conclusion?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
The noble Lord has clearly been engaged in this issue for some time. One of the really valuable things that we have in your Lordships’ House is this Question Time, and I have no doubt that the very fact that I have been answering questions on this point today will raise it up the agenda. Be in no doubt that this is on the mind of the Secretary of State. She is not delaying, but it is really important that these complex issues are dealt with effectively, and I am confident that in the near future I will be able to report back to your Lordships’ House and hopefully bring forward some SIs.
Business of the House
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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Baroness Smith of Basildon
That Standing Order 44 (No two stages of a Bill to be taken on one day) be dispensed with on 19 March to allow the Finance Bill to be taken through its remaining stages that day.
Business of the House
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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Baroness Smith of Basildon
That in the event that the Church of Scotland (Lord High Commissioner) Bill has been brought from the Commons, Standing Order 44 (No two stages of a Bill to be taken on one day) be dispensed with on 24 March to enable the Bill to be taken through its remaining stages that day and that, in accordance with Standing Order 47 (Amendments on Third Reading), amendments shall not be moved on Third Reading.
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Smith of Basildon) (Lab)
My Lords, it might be helpful if I say a few words about this Motion. It refers to a fast-tracked Bill, so I want to set out the arrangements for the Bill that have been agreed in the usual channels previously. The Bill has just had its First Reading, as noble Lords will have heard. Its Second Reading will be on 19 March, and all other Lords stages on 24 March. Given the short gap between Second Reading and the remaining stages, noble Lords will be able to table amendments for Committee from today after the Bill has been read for the first time and printed. The deadline for the first Marshalled List will be the usual time of 4 pm on Thursday 20 March. If amendments are tabled, they will be debated in Committee. If further stages and tabling arrangements are needed, they will be announced by the Chief Whip in the usual way on 24 March.
Universal Credit (Standard Allowance Entitlement of Care Leavers) Bill [HL]
The Lord Bishop of Manchester
My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. Unless, therefore, any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the order of commitment be discharged.
Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2025
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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Baroness Sherlock
That the draft Orders and Regulations laid before the House on 9, 15 and 16 January be approved.
Considered in Grand Committee on 25 February and 3 March.
Non-Domestic Rating (Levy and Safety Net) (Amendment) Regulations 2025
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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Baroness Taylor of Stevenage
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 6 February be approved.
Considered in Grand Committee on 3 March.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)
My Lords, with the leave of the House and on behalf of my noble friend Lord Khan, I beg to move the Motion standing in his name on the Order Paper.
Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) (Amendment and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2025
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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Baroness Taylor of Stevenage
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 13 January be approved.
Relevant document: 15th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Considered in Grand Committee on 3 March.
Child Benefit and Guardian’s Allowance Up-rating Order 2025
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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Lord Livermore
That the draft Order and Regulations laid before the House on 15 January be approved.
Considered in Grand Committee on 3 March.
Gaza
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Lords ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Callanan (Con)
My Lords, we need to acknowledge that the ceasefire is entirely contingent on the safe return of the remaining hostages. The Minister in the other place rightly referred to the British citizen Emily Damari and others. Emily has now shared the sad details of her dreadful ordeal in captivity at the hands of Hamas. I am sure that the whole House will join me in wishing her well and sending our deepest condolences to the families of those hostages who sadly died while in Hamas captivity.
I have two questions for the Minister. First, what conversations has he or the Government had with US and Israeli allies on helping to ensure that phase 2 of the ceasefire comes into effect? Secondly, can he give us an update on British aid in Gaza? Is it reaching its intended target, and will it be affected by the 0.2% of GNI reduction in ODA announced by the Government last week?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Collins of Highbury) (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for his questions. On the next stages of the process, we welcome the efforts by Arab leaders to put forward a plan for the next phase and the recovery and reconstruction in Gaza. The UK stands ready to work with partners to develop these ideas and to support all parties to get behind a single, viable plan for Gaza that meets the needs and aspirations of the civilian population and ensures a peaceful political framework for a negotiated two-state solution. As I have said to the House before, we are very clear that Hamas cannot govern Gaza and that any plan must ensure Israeli security and should support the unity of the West Bank and Gaza under the PA’s mandate.
On humanitarian aid, I reassure the noble Lord that we have committed a further £17 million, as the previous Minister for Development announced. We have also announced £129 million for the OPTs so far for this financial year, including £41 million for UNRWA. As the Prime Minister said in his Statement, we are absolutely committed to ensuring continued support for the Palestinian authorities.
The halt on goods and supplies entering Gaza is a serious matter, and Israel risks breaching its obligations under international humanitarian law. Today, we have issued with France and Germany a statement in which we express deep concern at Israel’s halt on aid to Gaza and urge it to lift all restrictions. It is vital that the ceasefire is sustained, all hostages are released, and aid is resumed.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, I have read the E3 statement, and I agree with every word of it. These Benches support the Government’s statement, including the fact that the withholding of aid access to the people who need it most is contrary to international humanitarian law, and I am grateful that the Government have been clear on that. Given that the United States and the Israeli Governments have rejected the Arab plan, which was agreed yesterday, the UK Government may be in a position where they will have to choose whether to support the Trump proposals or the Arab proposals. In that regard, perhaps I may ask a specific question.
The UK has been the lead country in supporting the training, professionalisation and funding for the Palestinian Authority police force. Any police force in the new arrangements for Gaza will be of fundamental importance. Can the Minister reassure me that our support will continue for the professionalisation and training of a civilian police force? It would probably be one of the strongest ways to prevent gangsterism and Hamas regaining footage in that area.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
The noble Lord is absolutely right. We will continue to support the Palestinian Authority, not only with the training that he mentioned but in other ways, to enable it to take part positively in that plan. We have insisted that any dialogue should include Palestinians, and we will certainly continue with that. The Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister have obviously been in dialogue with all partners on this, and we will continue to work with Israel, the Palestinian Authority, the US and regional partners to build a consensus on the governance of post-conflict Gaza and the security framework that supports the conditions for a permanent and sustainable peace.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)
My Lords, as part of that building of a sustainable peace, can the Minister indicate what further action will be taken with international partners if there are further flagrant abuses in respect of blocking aid to the people of Gaza?
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
We made our position very clear to the Israeli authorities about their actions risking breaching their obligations under international humanitarian law. We have, however, gone further, as the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, has said. We issued a statement this afternoon, together with France and Germany—again, our strong allies in this—making it clear that blocking aid is unacceptable and should be stopped. We are monitoring the situation; we know that a substantial amount of aid is trying to get in, and we will continue to pressure the Israelis to remove that block.
Lord Robathan (Con)
My Lords, would it be possible for the Minister to explain whether there is any inter-relationship between the American plan—with the rather unusual large, golden statue of Mr Trump—and the Egyptian and Arab plan, because those two might, funnily enough, work a little bit together?
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
Obviously, the situation is incredibly complex, but if there is one thing that I think will be key to finding a solution, it is the normalisation of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. That is key, and there must be a Palestinian component in that. We will press to achieve that, and we will work alongside US President Trump and his team in the coming weeks to bring it about. Our long-standing position has been that we will recognise a Palestinian state at the time that is most conducive to that peace process, but we are certain that if we can ensure that that normalisation between the Saudis and Israel takes place, we can progress rapidly.
Lord Pannick (CB)
My Lords, will the Palestinian component, as the Minister describes it, exclude Hamas?
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
I think the noble Lord knows that I have made it clear, as I said in response to the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, that we are working with the Palestinian Authority; we are supporting the Palestinian Authority, and there is no place for Hamas in the governance of Gaza.
Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)
My Lords, since the outset of this horrendous conflict, Israel has provided 25,000 trucks and 57,000 tonnes of aid that have gone into Gaza. It is quite clear that Hamas continues to renege on the agreement that it has made so far, which leaves phase 2 in an extremely difficult situation. There are 47 organisations that provide aid to Gaza—not only UNRWA—so can the Minister please respond to the question from my noble friend on the Front Bench as to what oversight is provided to ensure that the £41 million of British taxpayers’ money is going to the correct people?
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
I have assured the House all the way through that our purpose is to ensure that we get aid to those who need it. We have had undertakings from UNRWA about the accusations of Hamas involvement in its work. We supported the Colonna recommendations, and we have even financially supported that. There is no doubt that UNRWA remains key in terms of delivery, but that is not the sole purpose. We are working with all agencies and all allies to ensure that aid gets through to the people who need it most. It is a very complex and difficult situation, and that is why we are working incredibly hard with all allies to make sure that the peace process, the ceasefire and the agreement that was reached continue. I am not going to use the term “phases”; at the end of the day, we want a sustainable peace, security for Israel and a home for the Palestinians.
Lord Bellingham (Con)
My Lords, further to the question asked by my noble friend Lord Robathan, it is obviously good news that this Arab group has supported Egypt’s proposals for the $53 billion reconstruction. I notice that they ask specifically for EU and UK contributions to that fund for reconstruction. Can the Minister comment on whether that will be forthcoming and HMG’s view on it?
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
One thing we are absolutely clear about is that there should be international co-operation to ensure the full restoration of Gaza. That means, primarily, the leading regional players playing their part. We will work with all our allies to support that. I will not predict what that might mean in financial terms, but at this stage, it is about working hard politically.
Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [HL]
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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16:12 - Division on Amendment 21 - Ayes: 167 / Noes: 228 - Amendment 21 disagreed.
16:28 - Division on Amendment 26 - Ayes: 86 / Noes: 159 - Amendment 26 disagreed.
17:34 - Division on Amendment 38ZA (to Amendment 38) - Ayes: 174 / Noes: 207 - Amendment 38ZA (to Amendment 38) disagreed.
18:21 - Division on Amendment 48 - Ayes: 146 / Noes: 189 - Amendment 48 disagreed.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, this amendment, which is in my name, seeks to leave out Clause 2(2)(k), concerning authorised representatives. The introduction of an authorised representative is a critical concept, but this provision remains too vague and ill defined in the Bill. For businesses, this lack of clarity leads to uncertainty, especially when it comes to the exact role and responsibilities of an authorised representative. Businesses require certainty when it comes to compliance, and this uncertainty may hinder their ability to plan, operate or expand. By removing paragraph (k), we would eliminate potential confusion and ensure that businesses do not face unnecessary administrative burdens or legal risks.
Amendment 22 addresses the issue that these powers could allow Ministers to align UK law with EU regulations entirely or, conversely, to diverge from them in significant ways. Whether Ministers choose to follow EU rules or set our own course, these substantial decisions could have far-reaching implications for the future of UK businesses and consumers. What is particularly troubling, however, is that these decisions could be made through delegating legislation, which , as the DPRRC has stated, would be subject to only a relatively low level of parliamentary scrutiny.
We rehearsed these arguments in previous debates and I will not rehash them at length now. My noble friend Lord Frost addressed this point on the first day of Report and the risk of dynamic alignment with the EU through this Bill, which the Minister stated was not possible. However, he did not explain why, so I beg to move Amendment 15.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, as we have heard, the amendments in this group from the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, would remove specific provisions from Clause 2, including a paragraph on authorised representatives; a subsection defining who product regulations apply to, which I do not think the noble Lord mentioned; and a subsection on environmental considerations before introducing regulations. We strongly oppose these changes, particularly as we emphasised in Committee the importance of environmental considerations for products. I remind the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, that since the DPRRC’s report, the Government took on board Amendment 9 on the previous day on Report and undertook to issue statements, which have a statutory consultation process, before such regulations are laid. The idea that there is no accountability has been somewhat set aside so, with those provisions, we do not feel it is conducive to support these amendments.
The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Hunt of Kings Heath) (Lab)
My Lords, I am very grateful to both noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, was pushing for greater clarification, but accepting Amendments 15 and 16 would significantly impact our ability to update regulations protecting consumers from product-related risks. They would remove the parts of the clause that make it clear that we can introduce regulations on the range of different actors involved in supplying a product. Those actors may change from time to time and the whole construct of the Bill is to give us flexibility to reflect on changes that occur. Product regulations will have no impact unless they apply to the range of actors involved in producing, importing and marketing a product to consumers.
I will say again that, because of the extent of the existing product regulations, the breadth of Clause 2 is necessary to ensure that all matters involved in ensuring product safety can be covered adequately, now and in the future. On the noble Lord’s point about certainty for business, the flexibility that the Bill allows us is that we can respond to events as they happen. The obverse of that is further primary legislation would be required, which would introduce more uncertainty for business than the approach that we are taking.
We have always agreed on the need for guard rails in the Bill. Amendment 22, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, would remove one of the existing guard rails: the requirement at Clause 2(8) that the Government must have regard to the “social, environmental and economic” impact of making regulations which recognise provisions of EU law. We oppose removing this requirement. We are already amending the Bill to put more guard rails in place, including at Clause 2(3)(h) on the duties that can be imposed on particular actors. We are increasing scrutiny through the affirmative procedure whenever regulations seek to place requirements on new categories of actors in the supply chain for the first time. The affirmative resolution procedure will also apply product requirements are imposed for the first time on online marketplaces. We have also published a code of conduct that will set out the statutory and non-statutory controls in place to ensure that regulations made under this legislation are proportionate and evidence-based.
I take this opportunity to update noble Lords on inclusive by design, on which we had a very good discussion on our previous day on Report last week. We thank the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, for the constructive discussions that we have had, alongside the noble Lord, Lord Fox, who elegantly invited himself to the meeting. In Committee, and on Report last week, we discussed the existing inclusive design standard produced by the British Standards Institution. However, as I said last week, having a voluntary standard is one thing; ensuring that producers and manufacturers take account of it is another.
This gets to the heart of product safety. Our existing law sets a baseline safety requirement for products according to their reasonably foreseeable use. If products would be unsafe in their design when they are used by particular communities, those products are self-evidently not compliant with the aims of the product safety regime. As we look to use the powers in the Bill to update our product regulation framework, there is more that we can do to consider how regulations can best ensure safety for all users. Following discussions with the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, we have therefore agreed that we will update the code of conduct on product safety to highlight the importance of inclusive by design. We will also ensure that the code reflects, when the Government consider product regulations, the role that regulations can take in ensuring safety for all people.
I hope that this assures noble Lords, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, that we take very seriously the points that he and other noble Lords raised on the impact that the regulations have on UK businesses. This is not an effort to put a load of additional regulatory burdens on to businesses. We seek to protect consumers from product risks and ensure that the right actors are covered by regulations. When change occurs, issues need to be discussed and considered, and action needs to be taken we will have through this Bill—and Act, I hope—the flexibility to deal with them.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I thank the Minister very much indeed for his remarks. It was remiss of me earlier to not acknowledge again the fact that the Government have gone a long way to addressing what I was going to call the various complaints by the DPRRC, but that might be slightly overstating the case.
I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Fox, that consultation is, by definition, as I said earlier, a relatively low level of not necessarily parliamentary scrutiny, and the DPRRC was still not happy with the levels of scrutiny. But that is an argument we have already had and it has been dealt with in a reasonable way.
I appreciate the points that the Minister made, especially about responding to events as they happen. I am grateful that he has spent time with my noble friend Lord Holmes; that offers me a level of reassurance that the Government are listening on this and are aware of all the concerns that have been laid before them by the DPRRC and others. For that reason, I am content to withdraw my amendment.
The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)
My Lords, if Amendment 16 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment 17 for reasons of pre-emption.
Lord Leong
“(ca) a person who installs a product in the United Kingdom;”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment clarifies that product requirements may be imposed on installers of products.
The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)
My Lords, if Amendment 18 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 19, 21, 22, 24, 32, 56 and 59 for reasons of pre-emption.
Baroness Lawlor
“(7A) Any regulations under subsection (7) which specify a relevant foreign law must specify that the foreign law referred to is that which is in application on a particular date, which must be specified.”Member's explanatory statement
This prevents the Bill enabling ambulatory references or dynamic alignment to relevant foreign laws, but only to laws as they stand on a particular and defined date.
Lord Leong
“(9) In this section, a reference to “intangible” components includes software.” Member's explanatory statement
This amendment clarifies that intangible components of products include software.
“Period product safety: regulations and requirements(1) Within one year of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must, by regulations under section 1, make provision to reduce risks as defined in section 1(4) presented by period products, including those for single use and for re-use.(2) For the purposes of this section, period products consist of items intended to collect menstrual blood.(3) Within one year of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must also make provision about period products requirements by regulations under section 2.(4) Regulations in accordance with subsection (3) must set out product requirements for the production, use, marking, marketing, testing, approval and provision of information (including information about risk) of period products.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment intends to bring in regulation of period products, given the human and environmental health risks they represent.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I want to put on the record my thanks to the Minister and his team for taking extensive time to speak with me about the safety of period products. I thank the noble Lord for acknowledging, from the Dispatch Box and in meetings, that there is a need for action in this area. But the reality is that, if we leave this to the general, broader consideration of product safety, this will take a considerable period of time, when there are people today—and right now—walking into shops and buying products that will do them, and the environment, harm. This amendment, which we debated a week ago, says that there will be government action within one year. In the interests of public safety and environmental safety, I ask to test the opinion of the House.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom
“(3) The Secretary of State must lay before both Houses of Parliament a comprehensive framework outlining the conditions and procedures for the use of emergency powers under this section.(4) Product regulations providing for emergency disapplication or modification may not be made until this framework has been laid before Parliament and approved by a resolution of both Houses.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment requires the Secretary of State to present a framework to Parliament defining the use of emergency powers.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, once again I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Government for their response in Committee, and for confirming that the Office for Product Safety and Standards will be publishing a framework outlining the conditions and procedures for using emergency powers under Clause 4.
However, we feel that it is vital that such a framework is discussed in Parliament. The use of emergency powers must be subject to scrutiny, transparency and democratic accountability. Parliament must have the opportunity to assess the scope, necessity and potential consequences of these powers before they are enacted, otherwise we will risk allowing significant regulatory changes to be made without sufficient oversight, which again potentially impacts business, consumers and public confidence in the regulatory system.
Just like the rest of the clauses in this Bill, there is a level of vagueness in Clause 4. Once again, as the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has stated, that represents an unacceptable shift in power to the Executive. Emergency powers should not be granted on broad and undefined terms without proper safeguards and clear limitations.
I am also revisiting Amendment 30, which seeks to limit emergency modifications to an initial period of three months. Not only do we need a clear understanding of what may or could constitute an emergency but, even though we acknowledge that emergencies can be by their very nature unpredictable, there is undeniable value in debating this in Parliament. We saw this during Covid-19, where initial emergency measures had to be quickly defined but, over time, continued justification and scrutiny became essential. Three months is more than enough time to assess an emergency, determine whether modifications are still needed, and, if so, bring forward a proper review process with stakeholder consultation. Furthermore, Clause 4 States:
“The disapplication or modification may be made subject to conditions”.
That raises the question: what conditions?
I urge the Government to accept these amendments to enhance transparency, ensure accountability and reaffirm the role of Parliament in overseeing emergency decision-making. I beg to move.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, I support Amendments 29 and 30, in the name of my noble friend Lord Sharpe of Epsom. I think these amendments are very helpful to the Government.
I put on record that I believe that both Ministers have engaged. Whatever you say about them—we do not necessarily agree all the time—they engage with the argument, and they respond properly and respectfully. That speaks well of them, their Front Bench and their party on this Bill, even though we may disagree.
I support this amendment because it speaks to a need for flexibility. We know that there will be occasions where there are emergencies which we cannot foresee in any reasonable timescale. My noble friend referenced Covid, which is the most obvious example of recent years.
One of the other issues running through this Bill has been business certainty—businesses having the opportunity to understand the legislation and take measures necessary to ameliorate any impact of it on their businesses. These two very sensible amendments would do that, because they would give business a proper framework and reference point for the sort of emergency secondary legislation that may occur as a result of unforeseen circumstances. They address the imperative—this has been a major theme of this Bill, given the reservations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee—for proper scrutiny and oversight because we have so many enabling powers, and give flexibility.
The amendments are not prescriptive. Seeking a proper outline of conditions and procedures for the use of emergency powers does not directly enforce a fear upon Ministers. It does not direct Ministers, and it does not fetter their discretion in acting appropriately in the national interest in the case of emergencies. It nevertheless is a way for Parliament to have an understanding of the actions the Government are taking. As your Lordships’ House knows, we are looking at rationale and definition in Amendment 29, and clarity and certainty in Amendment 30.
My final point is that this will, no doubt, be litigated in the future, as all legislation is. The more certainty and clarity that we put in the Bill, the less chance there is for vexatious litigation arising from any use or discharge of those regulatory powers in unforeseen emergencies.
For those reasons, and because I know the Government are committed to having a proper debate and discussion on the regulations that they intend to use, particularly in emergency circumstances, Ministers should look favourably on these two amendments. They are seeking to be helpful. I do not think, as I have said before, they fundamentally alter the raison d'être of the Bill. I am pleased to support my noble friend’s Amendments 29 and 30.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, as we have heard, the amendments in this group concern the use of emergency powers under the legislation. Amendment 29 would require the Secretary of State to present a framework to Parliament outlining their use, and Amendment 30 would limit the use of emergency modifications to three months and would require a review of any extension to those modifications.
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Leong) (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, for returning to these amendments on Report. I also place on the record my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, for his kind words about me and my colleague.
As discussed in Committee, this is an important debate on how emergency powers are used and scrutinised to ensure appropriate parliamentary oversight, while maintaining the ability to respond quickly in emergency situations. Clause 4 provides the Government with the ability to modify or disapply product regulations in an emergency to ensure the supply of critical products. This could include streamlining conformity assessments or temporarily adjusting certain regulatory requirements to allow essential products to reach the market more quickly, while ensuring public safety remains paramount.
This clause is not about removing oversight but ensuring that, in genuinely urgent situations, we can act swiftly to prevent product shortages, while making sure that parliamentary scrutiny remains central to this approach. Peers will also be aware that Clause 4 is subject to the affirmative procedure, meaning that any regulations made under this power must be laid before Parliament and approved before coming into force. This ensures that both Houses have full oversight and provides for full scrutiny of emergency measures.
Amendment 29, which we discussed in Committee, seeks to require the Government to lay a comprehensive framework before Parliament outlining how Clause 4 powers will be used. As I stated in Committee, the Government are already committed to developing a clear framework on how this policy will operate in practice, in consultation with stakeholders. Indeed, as noble Lords will know, the Government have published a code of conduct on product safety that sets out how our product regulation system currently works, and to support the use of the powers under the Bill.
The code sets out the Government’s proposals on how we expect the emergency powers to work. To summarise a few key points, first, a derogation would be made available only if there were a serious risk of harm to people, businesses or the environment, and would be in compliance with the UK’s international obligations. Secondly, it would be granted only for products deemed critical for an emergency response, where demand exceeds supply. Thirdly, in times of emergency, the Government may temporarily reduce or modify requirements for the product to meet essential health and safety requirements for use in certain settings, provided the market surveillance authority is satisfied with the product’s safety and traceability.
The code of conduct, alongside the Government’s planned framework document, provides just the sort of structure the noble Lord appears to be seeking. In addition, the Government will commit to notifying Members when the framework document is available and place a copy in the Libraries of both Houses. Given these points, and coupled with use of the affirmative procedure, we believe the existing oversight mechanisms are sufficient without the need formally to lay the framework document before Parliament.
Amendment 30 proposes a fixed three-month sunset period, including a review prior to extension; this too was debated at length in Committee. As I set out then, while we understand the importance of ensuring that emergency measures do not remain in place indefinitely, a strict three-month limit is not appropriate for all emergencies. The nature and duration of emergencies can vary significantly: some may require short-term interventions while others may necessitate longer regulatory adjustments. As a result, we believe that the right approach is to tailor the use of time limits to the unique circumstances of the emergency, within the associated secondary legislation. We believe that this approach, supplemented by the use of the affirmative procedure, provides proportionate safeguards and ensures the right level of parliamentary oversight.
It is also important to emphasise that product regulations will form only one part of a broader national emergency response. Clause 4 is not a general power for deregulation, but an exceptional provision strictly limited to emergency situations. These measures will always be taken with appropriate safeguards in place, including time limits where appropriate, ensuring that derogation does not compromise public safety or consumer protections. For these reasons, I must resist these amendments once again and I humbly ask the noble Lord not to press them.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, once again I thank the noble Lord for his very detailed response. I also thank the other two noble Lords who spoke in this brief debate, particularly my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough. The points he made—that these amendments still afford the Government plenty of flexibility, and of course the litigation point—were extremely good ones and I urge the Government to consider them in future deliberations on these amendments and the subject under discussion. Of course, I understand where the noble Lord is coming from, and I am reassured. On Amendment 29, I accept that the clear framework is going to be fairly and comprehensive, and I appreciate the offer of making sure that it is available for other noble Lords to study. We will of course study it in some detail, but I accept the point he was making, and I think he has given me sufficient reassurance.
On the three-month limit, I of course accept that the nature and duration of an emergency may vary. I still do not, if I am honest, see how that precludes explanation and parliamentary scrutiny, but because I am reassured by the noble Lord’s other remarks and his overall willingness to engage on this subject and others, I am more than happy to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Hope of Craighead
“Product regulations: devolved administrations(1) Product regulations under section 1 may not be made unless and until the Secretary of State has consulted the devolved administrations as to their impact and effect on the marketing and use of products in the areas within the United Kingdom over which they have legislative competence. (2) The Secretary of State may by regulations exclude the application of this Act to products to be marketed or used in areas within the United Kingdom over which the devolved administrations have legislative competence to enable effect to be given to an agreement that forms part of a common framework agreement.(3) A “common framework agreement” is a consensus between a Minister of the Crown and one or more devolved administrations as to how devolved or transferred matters previously governed by EU law are to be regulated.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that devolved administrations are consulted before regulations are made under this Part of the Act, and that common framework agreements receive the same protection to enable them to receive effect as they have under section 10 of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble and learned lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, and the noble Lord, Lord Fox, for adding their names to this amendment, which is in my name. The amendment seeks to insert into Part 1 a new clause, which has two objectives. The first is to ensure that, before any regulations are made under this part, the devolved Administrations are consulted on the impact and effect of the marketing and use of products in the areas over which they have legislative competence. The second is to prevent agreements that have been made under the common framework system being nullified by any of these regulations.
As far as the first objective is concerned, this Bill extends to England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Product and consumer safety standards are reserved matters in relation to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. That has been acknowledged by the Government, as noted in paragraph 10 of the Explanatory Notes. While the Bill makes provision as to what is to happen in each of the jurisdictions within the United Kingdom, it does not contain any provisions which require the consent of—or at least consultation with—the devolved Administrations before the wide-ranging powers to make regulations under Clauses 1 and 4 are exercised.
The problem which comes up time and again as Bills pass through this House is that the Sewel convention does not extend to delegated legislation, so it cannot be said that UK Ministers are required by convention to seek the consent of the devolved Administrations before exercising these powers. That is why the Constitution Committee, which always keeps a close eye on these matters, has recommended on numerous occasions that engagement with the devolved Administrations should be a formal requirement.
As far as this Bill is concerned, there is at least a risk that, unless something is said about it in the Bill, product regulations made under Clause 1 will engage matters which are not reserved to the UK Ministers in ways that would impinge significantly on devolved competence, without the devolved Administrations being involved at all. That is why, in paragraph 34 of its report on the Bill, the Constitution Committee suggested that clarification is needed from the Government
“as to the processes of consultation and consent it intends to apply”
if the powers in the Bill are used
“to make regulations in areas of devolved competence”.
I suggest that my amendment offers a sensible solution to a point that is of very real concern to the devolved Administrations. It does not require their consent. There is no need to go that far, because “close and timely” consultation—to use the Constitution Committee’s own phrase—would be enough to sort out things in a way that satisfies both sides. Consultation, not consent, is what this proposed new clause would require.
I am very grateful to the Minister and the Bill team for the way in which they engaged with me when we discussed this issue a few days ago. I hope very much that he will feel able to assure me that the Government will take this point seriously, and that they will bring forward an amendment that deals with it in their own words in due course. I look forward to his reply, but I would also welcome any guidance he can give as to the extent of the legislative process with both Wales and Scotland—that would be very helpful.
The second objective relates to the common frameworks. They were created to ensure that a common approach was taken so that some measure of consistency was achieved across policy areas returned from the EU which intersect with devolved competence. Their engagement with devolved competence matters, because one of the features of the way these matters were handled within the EU was that it enabled a devolved Administration to diverge from other parts of the United Kingdom as to how matters that were within its devolved competence should be dealt with. The way the system works is that there is a process of consultation that enables a proposal for divergence to be discussed to enable its effect—if any—on the other parts of the United Kingdom to be identified and assessed. It is only if and when agreement has been reached that it would not disadvantage the other parts of the UK that the proposal can proceed to enactment.
That system was already up and running when what became the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 was introduced. The market access principles which that Act contains are designed to ensure that there is a single market across all parts of the UK. Central to its provisions is the principle that whatever is done by way of marketing or the use of products that is compatible with the legislative framework in one part of the UK can be done everywhere else, irrespective of what the legislative framework elsewhere may provide. A provision which is now Section 10 of the Act was inserted into the Bill to enable the Secretary of State by regulations to exclude the application of those principles to enable effect to be given to a common framework agreement.
Subsections (2) and (3) of my proposed new clause are designed to give a common framework agreement the same protection against what product regulations under this Bill may provide for. Without that protection, agreements of that kind run the risk of being rendered unenforceable. As with Section 10 of the internal market Act, I am proposing that whether or not to exercise the power should be at the discretion of the Secretary of State. It is a very light touch to what could be a very real problem.
I appreciate that the system that this Bill seeks to introduce is not the same as that provided for by the internal market Act. It may also be said that the common frameworks are now so well established that they do not need this protection, but we must remember that this is a system that looks to the future as well as the present, as indeed this Bill does too. So we have to allow for what frameworks may do in the future in a way that we cannot foresee. I hope that the Government will feel able to provide the same protection here as was agreed to in the case of the internal market Act by the previous Government. I beg to move.
Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)
I do not wish to add to the profoundly detailed and clear analysis that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, has given about the purpose of this proposed new clause; there are just three short points I wish to make.
First, we must look at the context in which this amendment has been put forward. The history of the creation of the internal market was not an altogether happy one, if I might put it mildly. The vision—and it was vision—particularly of the original part of the Conservative Government, to try to create common frameworks which would enable us to work as a co-operative union, has not been properly realised. The machinery to make devolution and the union work has really not been implemented. Finally on this, although this is not, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, has explained, the subject of the Sewel convention, let us hope that the spirit of the Sewel convention can be resurrected, both as regards what it should apply to—primary legislation—as well as delegated and secondary legislation.
Secondly, I thank the Government for the very fine words they have spoken in relation to making devolution work, and for the discussions they have obviously been having—with what degree of success one cannot tell from what is available—with the devolved Governments.
Thirdly, however, words are not enough. Men are judged by deeds, and I hope that this Government will show, in the amendments they intend to bring forward, that they really mean what they say about the union and devolution. One cannot underestimate the importance of action by deeds.
We are only just over a year away from important elections in both Scotland and Northern Ireland, and we must be clear when those countries go into those elections that the union is seen to be strong, and that devolution is seen to work. Both are vital for our future. That is what makes what might seem at first sight a technical amendment one of such importance.
Lord Wigley (PC)
My Lords, I intervene very briefly on this—as noble Lords would perhaps expect on a matter relating to devolution—in support of the amendment moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and supported by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas.
The points that have been made are very relevant. Although it is in a minority of products within the whole economy that there may be derogations, changes or fine tuning needed to the circumstances in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, in those areas—which include food, cultural and literary products—there is a range of products for which the linguistic dimension has in the past raised questions, when all this came under Brussels, as to what names were or were not acceptable on products in Wales.
There is a sensitivity to this. I have no doubt that the issues can be overcome if there is a mechanism for consultation, but if there is a danger of ignoring the possibility of things going wrong then things will go wrong. Now is the time to address these questions, and I am very grateful that this amendment has been put forward.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, I was nearly subject to a flashback, when the when the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, mentioned the internal market Act, to the memory of the long hours, deep into the night, spent debating the shortcomings and problems that Act could create—as, to some extent, it has. We are indebted to the noble and learned Lords, Lord Hope and Lord Thomas, that the framework arrangement was brought into that Act to avoid the clashes that were almost certainly going to occur under its original drafting. We owe them a great debt, and on that basis we should listen when they talk to us on these matters. That is why I was happy to sign the amendment.
Happily, I do not have to add much to this, except that it is necessary. This consultation will happen one way or another. The Minister will know that I specifically asked him when we debated Amendment 9 to confirm from the Dispatch Box that the devolved authorities would be part of the consultation process as set out in the Secretary of State’s statement that will arise from this Bill. I hope that the spirit of this amendment can be in that consultation process and in that statement, so that the devolved authorities know that they will get access, which is very important for all the reasons that have been explained by the noble Lord and the noble and learned Lords.
I have one final point on the Government’s attempt, which I think is sincere, to bring the nations of this country back together again. This is really important for lots of reasons, but it also calls into question how the common frameworks will be used in the future. I do not expect the Minister to answer now but he should set out, in either a letter or a meeting, how those common frameworks will develop. Some people may already know but I am certainly not aware of that. As we know, the future is changing and lots of things are happening. How will the common frameworks and central government’s liaison with the DAs adapt to deal with the changing trading environment? With those provisos, I am happy to support the amendment.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I will be very brief. I could not agree more forcefully with the summation of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd. It was very well put indeed. In general, I also find that improving on the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, is nigh on impossible, so at this point I will confine myself to saying that I agree. On this occasion, I also join the noble Lord, Lord Fox, in his remarks on the consultation; I hope it achieves the things that he has set out. I have nothing else to add, but I look forward to the Minister’s remarks.
Lord Leong (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lords, Lord Hope and Lord Thomas, and the noble Lord, Lord Fox, for Amendment 31, which concerns consultation with the devolved Governments, and common frameworks. I know I speak for the whole House when I say that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, brings to the fore his knowledge and passion on the subject of devolution and illustrates the very best aspects of the scrutiny function of this House. I certainly valued his insight when we met to discuss his amendment on 30 January.
As mentioned at that meeting, and before I address the substance of Amendment 31, I reiterate that the Government are committed to working collaboratively with devolved Governments. I have met with my ministerial colleagues in all three devolved Governments and my officials are continuing to have discussions at official level with their counterparts. Those discussions have been extremely constructive, and I thank the Ministers and officials from the devolved Governments for the constructive and positive way they have engaged with the Government on this important piece of legislation.
Noble Lords will appreciate that the Bill deals with complex areas of product regulation. Consequently, the Government are not in a position to bring forward devolution amendments at this time, while discussions are ongoing. This is not unprecedented or novel. Indeed, many devolution amendments are brought forward in the second House, and the Government expect that this will be the case with this legislation.
This amendment would ensure that the devolved Governments are consulted on matters in devolved competence under the Bill and that the Secretary of State has the power to exclude the application of this requirement for matters covered by a common framework where a relevant agreement is reached. I reassure the House that the UK Government will continue to ensure that the devolved Governments are properly consulted when discussing product matters that are devolved or that impact within devolved areas. For example, in Committee, we set out some of the ways we engage with devolved Governments already, including the goods regulation group, run by the Department for Business and Trade, which met recently on 9 January, when this Bill was discussed.
Amendment 31 also touches on common frameworks. It is unlikely that products affected by regulations made under the Bill would fall under any extant common framework. That is because of the tight scope of the common frameworks. Therefore, the specific subject matters currently covered by common frameworks are unlikely to intersect with the subject matter of this Bill. However, the UK Government are actively considering their broader approach to common frameworks and will keep this under review. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, so eloquently set out in Committee, the purpose of common frameworks is to facilitate a joint approach with devolved Governments where policy is GB-wide.
I reassure all noble Lords that working closely with the devolved Governments is a priority and will take place on regulations made under the Bill, whether the products in question fall under a common framework or not. Consequently, while ministerial and official-level discussions are ongoing, I ask that the House does not pre-empt the outcome of those discussions by agreeing this amendment. I remain confident that, through our continued positive engagement with devolved Governments, we can reach a mutually beneficial solution, and I am happy to keep the House abreast of developments. In that light, I respectfully ask the noble and learned Lord to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who took part in this short debate, and especially to the Minister for his very helpful reply.
On the first part of my amendment, which concerns consultation with the devolved Administrations, I absolutely accept this Government’s commitment to close co-operation. I am sure that those in the devolved Administrations are equally grateful for the way in which this Government are engaging with them, which is a considerable improvement from what it was not so long ago. However, one must remember that Governments change, and undertakings that are genuinely given on behalf of this Government by the Minister may not last for ever. That is why the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, emphasised that putting something into the legislation is so important. I am sure that that matter will require careful consideration in the other House, when the Bill goes there. On that basis, I am happy to accept the assurances the Minister has given me.
On the common frameworks, I was encouraged to learn in our discussion that they are now being overseen by the Cabinet, which was not the case at an earlier stage. The fact they are being overseen there is itself an assurance that the matter is being properly looked after. I hope that the Government will keep an open mind as they more carefully think through this. They must bear in mind the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Fox, that we are looking into the future as well as at the position now; that is an important factor. With grateful thanks to the Minister, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom
“(3A) The Secretary of State may not use any powers under this Act to remove or disapply the use of the pint as a unit of measurement for alcoholic beverages sold or marketed in the United Kingdom.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that the pint remains an accepted unit of measurement for alcoholic beverages.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 38 standing in my name. As I stated in Committee, a pint of beer is not a bloodless, intangible item: it is a tangible institution. It is linked to our history and to a part of our heritage. The pint is a well-established unit of measurement in the UK that is recognised and understood by consumers and businesses alike. Removing or disapplying the use of the pint for alcoholic beverages would create unnecessary confusion, disrupt long-standing practices and sever a cultural and historical connection that has endured for centuries.
While we debate this issue of tradition and measurement, we must not lose sight of the real and immediate crisis facing pubs, brewers and the wider hospitality industry. The Budget announced by the Government has inflicted more damage on an industry that was already under enormous pressure. The UK’s core hospitality trade bodies—UKHospitality, the British Beer and Pub Association, the British Institute of Innkeeping, and Hospitality Ulster—have issued a stark warning. Pubs, brewers and hospitality venues will be forced to make painful decisions to weather these new costs, which will have a damaging impact on businesses, jobs and communities.
However, something else deserves mention here. Just recently, there was significant concern over how the forthcoming Employment Rights Bill could force pub landlords to monitor patrons’ conversations to avoid any potential harassment of staff. In effect, landlords might be asked to become the banter police, forced to scrutinise and restrict what customers say to avoid liability. After all of that, therefore, protecting the British pint is the very least the Government should do. I urge the Government to accept this amendment and protect the pint, and, more importantly, to ensure that our pubs and breweries remain places where our history, culture and heritage continue to flourish without unnecessary interference. I beg to move.
Amendment 38ZA (to Amendment 38)
Lord Sharpe of Epsom
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, this amendment is not just about protecting the pint in the Bill; it would also ensure that the pint remains protected in law. That is why this amendment is rooted in primary legislation—the Weights and Measures Act 1985—rather than being limited to the scope of the Bill. By embedding these protections in the broader legislative framework, we ensure that the pint remains a legally defined unit of measurement, safeguarded from regulatory drift, ministerial discretion or future legislative changes that could weaken its status.
I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Fox, for introducing his own amendment, for two reasons. First, it got me thinking about the broad, and therefore possibly flawed, drafting of my own Amendment 38; secondly, the noble Lord’s amendment is also flawed. It addresses the marketing of the pint, which is important, but it does not mirror the wording of the Weights and Measures Act 1985. If sales are banned, marketing is redundant. A mere definition of the pint within this Bill does not ensure that the existing legally binding protections remain intact.
That is where my amendment is different: we are closing any potential gaps, removing any possible loop- holes and ensuring that the pint remains fully protected in trade, measurement and law, and, most importantly, that there can be no future confusion with regard to existing legislation.
In the other House, Daisy Cooper said that the pint is well and truly safe,
“so this scaremongering is just total nonsense.”—”.—[Official Report, Commons, 26/2/25; col. 814.]
If that were true, why the change in Liberal Democrat hearts? Why introduce their own amendment on this matter? It seems that now, they recognise that explicit legal protection is necessary.
I understand that the Government were sympathetic to the purpose of my Amendment 38 but were concerned about the drafting and various technical details, so I hope this manuscript amendment addresses those concerns in full and will ensure that the pint remains Britain’s favourite. I hope the Government will now accept the amendment, and I look forward to their support, as well as that of the noble Lord, Lord Fox, and the Liberal Democrats.
“Fancy a pint?” remains one of the most pleasing questions in the English language. Let us make sure it stays that way. I beg to move.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, when I saw the manuscript amendment some time mid-morning, I was disappointed. I thought we were not going to get a reprise of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, which very few of your Lordships will have appreciated, because it was in Grand Committee, but I am relieved that he was able to give another rendition of it before speaking to the amendment. I understand he may take it on tour to provincial theatres—if he can get the backing.
The noble Lord having tabled this amendment, we then find a manuscript amendment, on which I have to say I congratulate the noble Lord. I have not participated in a manuscript amendment process before, so it was quite good to see it in action. As he noted, last week the Opposition chose to use some of their time in the Commons to debate the noble Lord’s then amendment. He mentioned the speech of my colleague, Daisy Cooper. I commend it to your Lordships, because it was both engaging and very thorough, setting out all the things the Conservative Government did to make the job of a publican much, much harder.
On a serious note, I join the noble Lord in saying, “Minister, please don’t repeat those errors. Many of Britain’s pubs are teetering on the brink; please don’t be the Government who make the final push.” But that is a debate for another day and another Bill, which we will see soon. The issue described by this amendment is not that fatal push for those publicans. For some inexplicable reason, the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, chose to split his amendment from my Amendments 38A and 38B. I will be giving the speech I would have given, had they been in the same group, but I assure your Lordships that I will not then repeat that speech when we get to the next group.
I do not believe that the Minister or his Government have ever had any intention of banning the pint glass, and I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, does not believe that either. However, what we are talking about now is some form of reassurance. So while my honourable friend Daisy Cooper talked about this being unnecessary, she and I agree that this is an opportunity for the Government to reassure people that they have no intention of doing it, and that, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, mentioned in a different context, a future Government would not have that option either.
I ask myself, if the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, is so passionate about the pint, why does he not also care about the pinta? The iconic pint milk bottle is so redolent of the UK, and it deserves the same reassuring protection as the pint glass. I have to say that my father milked cows: milk flows through my veins. So I tabled Amendment 38A, which ensures that both the pint and the pinta enjoy the reassurance of this Bill. It was the tabling of this new amendment, Amendment 38A, that caused the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, to remember that, as well as bars, there are doorsteps. Perhaps the two should not be mixed—certainly not sequentially.
It caused him to realise that he was in danger of proposing an amendment that forgets the milkmen and women on their pre-dawn delivery rounds in so many of our streets—the whir of the float, the clink of the crates. A manuscript amendment was tabled this morning. I did not know that manuscript amendments could be used to completely change an amendment; I thought they were for spelling errors and suchlike. If my mother were still alive, she would have deemed it too clever by half. Sadly, she is not.
The purpose of this debate is to assure the public of the continuation of the use of this iconic imperial measure for the purposes we have discussed. I am not entirely sure that the manuscript amendment, Amendment 38ZA, buttons things down in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, asserts, but I do know that Amendment 38A does this, in plain sight and with no cross-referencing.
I think that the Minister and I see eye to eye on this. That is why I am hopeful that he will indicate support for my Amendments 38A and 38B, and that the Government will accept both. It is clear that, in the event of that acceptance, the hastily amended effort from the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, would be unnecessary. Amendment 38A covers both alcohol and milk. By persuading the Government to accept it, we will have ensured clear and overt reassurance of the preservation of the pint and the pinta. This assurance, and the knowledge that this measure will endure and not be reversed by a Commons majority, are important. We will not support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, safe in the knowledge that we have rewritten the Bill effectively and avoided any reverse or any ping-pong.
Lord Leong (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, for tabling Amendment 38—and manuscript Amendment 38ZA, tabled this morning—and for reminding the House of the importance of the pint measure for certain alcoholic beverages. Although the noble Lord degrouped Amendment 38, the Government’s view is that this amendment and the two similar amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Fox, should be debated together. I will therefore make my substantive contribution on the entire subject now.
I reiterate that the Government have absolutely no plans to change the rules around the use of the pint measurement. With the weather finally improving, it is very much my hope that pubs up and down the country will be full of customers enjoying pints of refreshing beer or cider. While it remains our view that an amendment to the Bill is not strictly necessary, because of the advocacy of the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, the Government have reflected and agree that a provision in this area would offer reassurance to this important sector.
I am grateful to the noble Lord for bringing this amendment back and recognise his efforts to improve on it through today’s manuscript amendment. However, doing so at such a late stage is not the way to develop effective legislation, particularly in a complex area such as metrology. We have always been clear that we are committed to the continued use of the British pint and that regulations made using powers in this Bill would continue to preserve it.
Although the noble Lord’s amendments are well intentioned, they are lacking in a few key areas. First, the effect of the amendment is not sufficient in scope to truly protect the pint. It is focused on preventing powers under the Bill being used to amend the Weights and Measures Act 1985 to remove the pint as a measurement, but it does not prevent the powers in the Bill being used more generally to make that change. While the Government are clear that there will be no change to the measurement of a pint, to truly protect it, the Government believe that a more expansive view should be taken, as in the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Fox.
On the difference in terminology, with the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, referring to sale and marketing but the noble Lord, Lord Fox, mentioning marketing alone, the Government’s view is that Amendment 38 would in practice have a narrow application and therefore be less helpful in achieving the very aim of the noble Lord by safeguarding the pint.
The noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, is right that his amendment is consistent with the language used in the Weights and Measures Act 1985. However, the Bill makes a number of changes to that legislation, which I will come to shortly, and uses the term “marketing” throughout. It is a defined term that means making available on the market, which is more expansive than sale or trade, and may include, for example, making available without charge.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate both noble Lords on what were semantic masterpieces. The simple fact is that the amendment I have tabled transposes the language of the Weights and Measures Act 1985 in a very similar way to that of the noble Lord, Lord Fox. It does include the pint of milk. By the way, when the noble Lord said that milk runs through his veins, I am pretty sure I heard somebody behind me saying that it is certainly not blood.
This is a complex area, and I do not believe that these amendments are sufficient to save the pint. The simple fact of the matter is that sales and marketing are not the same thing. They may often appear in the same job title; that does not give them equal weight, or indeed equal measure. I am not satisfied with the answer. I would like to test the opinion of the House.
Lord Fox
“(3A) The Secretary of State may not make regulations under this section to prevent or restrict the use of the pint in the marketing of—(a) draught beer or cider, or(b) milk in returnable containers.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would clarify that regulations under Clause 5 could not prevent or restrict the use of the pint in the marketing of draught beer or cider or milk in returnable containers.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, as noted, I have already spoken to this amendment. I thank the Minister for indicating that the Government will support it and Amendment 38B. It is on the latter that I shall say a few words. If Amendment 38A is there to reassure, Amendment 38B is there to define. There have been a number of statutory instruments that define the units we use. For the avoidance of doubt, Amendment 38B defines the volume of a pint in primary law as 0.56826125 cubic decimetres. For those of your Lordships querying the definition of a decimetre, I recommend the statutory instrument brought to your Lordships’ House during Covid in 2020. I believe that the then Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, and I were among the only Peers physically in Parliament when he brought to Grand Committee his amendment to the Weights and Measures Act 1985. That enshrined an accurate definition of both the metre and the kilogram in law. For metrology fans, it is a debate that I thoroughly recommend. That said, I beg to move Amendment 38A.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
Obviously, we do not have a huge amount to say at this precise moment, but I point out for the record that manuscript Amendment 38ZA included reference to Part IV of Schedule 1 to the Weights and Measures Act 1985, which also specifies 0.56826125 cubic decimetres. Once again, I commend the noble Lord, Lord Fox, on his masterclass in semantics. Had he accepted mine, this amendment would have been entirely unnecessary. With that, I have nothing left to say.
Lord Leong (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Fox, for his amendments on preserving the pint in relation both to draft beer and cider and to milk in returnable containers. As I outlined on the last group, the Government propose to accept these amendments. They will bring greater clarity and certainty to protect the use of the pint, delivering the intent of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Fox, for bringing these alternative amendments forward. I hope that the House will accept Amendments 38A and 38B. Having these workable provisions in the Bill will send an important message that the pint is here to stay. I look forward to raising a pint with both the noble Lords, Lord Sharpe and Lord Fox, in due course. Cheers.
“a“pint” is equal to 0.56826125 cubic decimetres;”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would provide a definition of a pint.
Lord Leong
“Application to existing product and metrology provision(1) The power to make product regulations includes power to make— (a) in connection with existing product requirements, any provision described in section 2(4), (6) or (7) that could be made if the existing product requirements were product requirements in product regulations;(b) in connection with existing product provision, any provision described in sections 3, 4, 7 and 8 that could be made if the existing product provision were provision in product regulations.(2) The power to make metrology regulations includes power to make, in connection with existing metrology provision, any provision described in sections 6 to 8 that could be made if the existing metrology provision were provision in metrology regulations.(3) In this section—“existing metrology provision” means provision in—(a) subordinate legislation made before the passing of this Act, or(b) assimilated direct legislation,as amended from time to time, that could be made under section 5;“existing product provision” means provision in—(a) subordinate legislation made before the passing of this Act, or(b) assimilated direct legislation,as amended from time to time, that could be made under section 1;“existing product requirements” means requirements contained in existing product provision that could be product requirements in product regulations;“subordinate legislation” has the same meaning as in the Interpretation Act 1978 (see section 21 of that Act).”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment enables the Secretary of State to use the powers in clauses 1 and 5 to amend or supplement provision in existing legislation about products and metrology, where that provision could have been made under the powers in the Bill.
Baroness Lawlor
“Report: scientific evidence(1) When making regulations under this Act, the Secretary of State must publish a report indicating whether the regulation is supported by any scientific evidence.(2) The Secretary of State must lay the report published under subsection (1) before both Houses of Parliament.”
Baroness Lawlor (Con)
My Lords, in moving my Amendment 43A, I of course support the amendments from my noble friends Lord Sharpe and Lord Frost in this group, to one of which I have added my name. My amendment would require the Government to place before Parliament a report on whether scientific—which includes technical—evidence supports a regulation covered by the Bill, because assessment of risk and for safety should be based on objective evidence, technical and scientific.
The regulations for sanitary and phytosanitary, SPS, explicitly mention scientific evidence, whereas reference to science is not typically found in regulations on technical barriers to trade, or in the chapters in FTAs. They are often implied by wording: for example, a requirement that regulations on risk are based on documented and objective evidence. For international trade agreements, such evidence is assumed. Either our goods conform with internationally agreed standards or, if they derogate, they should draw on scientific and technical evidence to show that they conform to an agreed standard. There are good reasons for this.
Such objective evidence and assessment is not only needed to assess risk objectively but is implied in the WTO framework, on which many trade agreements are based. They have to be WTO-compliant. The WTO’s own Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade, TBT, requires that, where appropriate, parties
“specify technical regulations based on product requirements in terms of performance rather than design or descriptive characteristics”,
one aim being to ensure that regulations, standards, testing and certification procedures followed by WTO members do not create “unnecessary obstacles” to trade. That is certainly one of this country’s enduring free trade objects.
My amendment would promote a number of benefits and aims. It would help to focus attention on real risk, on the basis of provable evidence and that alone. It would make for transparency: those who produce, market or buy a product could know where they stand and trust the measures assessing risk. It would avoid saddling producers and consumers with costs for unnecessary, overburdensome obligations that result from the political attempt to tie the UK to unproven regulations, which may flout WTO international trade law, to protect their own products against competition from another trading partner.
In products, the contents of which may include some agricultural content, it will help the UK to keep its eye on the evidence and purpose. I commend my noble friend Lord Sharpe’s amendment, which would specifically require that a statement on the need and purpose for such regulations be made. I have already mentioned one example in Committee, which is the difference between UK REACH and EU REACH regulations. The stated purpose is vital to the difference in how one is more burdensome than the other.
My amendment would also reflect the way the UK has moved to make the most of international trade opportunities in our trade treaties, with, for example, the CPTPP. The UK can help shape these, as a leader of the oldest rules-based international trade order, while trading globally as one of the world’s oldest and most successful free-trade economies. Above all, it would avoid obliging businesses to follow the EU’s code-based precautionary principle. That may be unrelated to evidence and often driven by officials, while being costly to producers and raising prices sky-high for consumers, making some countries uncompetitive in world markets and the product not safer but, in many instances, less safe. I therefore beg to move.
Lord Frost (Con)
My Lords, Amendment 56 stands in my name. As it is, I guess, the last time that I will speak on this Bill, perhaps I may use the opportunity to join others in saying thank you to the Ministers for the willingness they have shown to meet us and to show flexibility on parts of the Bill, even if that flexibility has possibly been more evident on its more marginal and peripheral aspects than on the core provisions, which matter so much to us. I thank them anyway for it.
One of those core provisions, which we have debated at length, is of course Clause 2(7), which creates the power to align UK legislation with EU law. My Amendment 56 would ensure that the affirmative parliamentary procedure applied to such secondary legislation under that provision. This is important, as the procedure of legislating by cross-reference to the laws of another entity is certainly, to borrow terminology from another sphere, novel and contentious. Therefore, if it happens—I am sure it is going to happen and probably quite a lot, I fear—it really ought to do so only consciously and according to a procedure that gives both of this Parliament’s Houses the maximum powers to be aware that it is happening and to influence it to the maximum possible. Of course, that is what the affirmative procedure is about. I hope that, even at this late stage, the Ministers might look favourably on this amendment in the interests of respecting the rights and powers of this Parliament.
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, if I may briefly intervene in this group, we had a substantive debate on Monday, in which I participated, where we looked at the recommendations from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. As we noted, it welcomed some of the amendments, which we technically have not reached but which were debated then. They are Amendments 44 to 46, which have largely removed the Henry VIII powers. To that extent, therefore, I note that although my noble friend may come on to speak about Amendment 48, in practice that amendment is designed to prevent the use of Henry VIII powers. However, the Government have tabled amendments that have largely removed that risk.
I very much support Amendment 56 in the names of my noble friends Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Lord Frost. In so far as the Government have not done what the Delegated Powers Committee looked for, which was for all these regulation-making powers to be subject to the affirmative procedure, it seems that we should focus our attention on where there is still the most important deficiency. It also seems that, precisely for the reasons that my noble friend Lord Frost gave, which I will not repeat, at its most extreme, the power in Clause 2(7) would literally be if the Government brought forward a regulation saying that all the product requirements in this country would be met in so far as they corresponded to the General Product Safety Regulation issued by the European Union, which, of course, came out in December 2024. They could easily come forward with such a regulation. That would be sweeping in its effect, and it would be on a negative basis.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, I rise to support my noble friend Lord Frost, and I will speak very briefly. I am concerned about the Government’s likely resistance to this amendment being moved, because this goes to the very heart of what the Bill is about: proper parliamentary scrutiny and oversight.
We have had many debates about the Delegated Legislation Committee and its significant reservations about the enabling powers and Henry VIII powers which will potentially be discharged by Ministers. The kernel of the debate is: why should we of necessity default to just one regulatory regime? People like the noble Lord, Lord Fox, will say that it is our closest economic partner and, of course, it is absolutely logical.
I hesitate, because I know I will be accused of relitigating the Brexit battles, from which I have many scars on my back. However, the fact of the matter, is that, rightly or wrongly, we no longer have direct input into the design and execution of those regulations. So to put in primary legislation, with the background of the Delegated Legislation Committee expressing those significant reservations, a sub-clause which defaults to the position that any regulation, because it comes from the EU, is of necessity the right regulation for our country—in the context, as we have previously debated in Committee and on Report, of an expanding global economy where we will be trading with many different countries and different regulatory regimes outside the European Union—seems to me to be a mistake. On that basis, it is eminently reasonable and sensible for Parliament to have the opportunity to look in detail at these regulations via the affirmative procedure.
For that reason—I know the hour is late and there is other pressing business in the House—I ask Ministers to at least look at supporting this very important amendment on Third Reading. On that basis, I am delighted to support the amendment of my noble friend Lord Frost.
Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)
My Lords, to echo what my noble friend Lord Lansley has just said, we are reflecting at the moment on how this country is governed and the extent to which the Executive can be held to account.
In many ways we take pride in our committees. I know from what he has said in the past about government legislation that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, has many times criticised what we describe as skeleton Bills. In effect, the Government are saying, “Please allow us to do whatever we eventually decide we would like to do, but give us that power now and we will then do it by secondary legislation”. Speaking as the immediate past Chair of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, I always worked very closely with my colleagues in the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. Although my noble friend Lord Lansley said a few moments ago that the Government had introduced a number of amendments, they came back before the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which said, “That’s not enough”. So, in a way, we are now deciding whether or not the Government are right to ignore the unanimous report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee.
I turn to Amendments 48, 57 and 58 standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Sharpe. I commend my noble friend Lady Lawlor, and my noble friends Lord Frost, Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Lord Lansley, for all that they have said. But, to summarise, this is our last real opportunity to deal with what is in effect a skeleton Bill that allows an unacceptable transfer of power from an elected legislature to the Executive.
We welcome the amendments the Government have put forward, but let me quote from paragraph 8 of the unanimous report of 20 February from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, from which I have quoted before. Having considered all the issues, it said,
“these are limited changes that do not address the fundamental concern we have about the skeletal nature of this Bill”.
There is of course provision for consultation, which is warmly to be welcomed, but the committee said,
“consultation is not a substitute for Parliamentary scrutiny”.
Surely, we as a House must agree with that.
It is not enough simply to engage stakeholders behind closed doors while sidelining proper legislative oversight. The Bill in its current form creates a dangerous precedent. This Parliament is asked to cede control over critical regulatory decisions in favour of unchecked Executive power. That is surely not how this democracy should function. If the Government are serious about ensuring transparency, accountability and proper legislative oversight, they must surely go beyond mere consultation and commit to meaningful parliamentary scrutiny at every stage of the regulatory process.
In a moment we will hear from the noble Lord, Lord Leong. Will he allow me to quote him? In Committee on 20 November, he said this:
“Some regulations will relate to very minor technical changes, so it really would be taking up too much parliamentary time for that, whereas other regulations may need a full scrutiny, and we will have avenues for that”.—[Official Report, 20/11/24; col. 39.]
What I ask is—and I hope the Minister will reply in a moment—what are those avenues exactly? The Government are yet to provide any clarity at all on how they will distinguish between so-called minor technical changes and more significant regulatory shifts. They have yet to explain why the negative procedure will apply to all subsequent provisions. If some regulations will require full scrutiny, as the Minister acknowledged, why do his Government, in this Bill, predetermine that every future provision beyond the first use of the power will require the negative procedure?
The Government cannot state for a fact that all future provisions will be technical. Markets change, technology advances and legal interpretations, as all lawyers in this House know only too well, will shift. This is precisely why proper parliamentary scrutiny must remain in place for all product and metrology regulations, as recommended by a committee of this House. If the Government concede that some regulations may need full scrutiny then it follows that the affirmative procedure should apply in all cases. Anything less simply hands Ministers a blank cheque to determine the level of scrutiny after the fact, with Parliament left powerless to insist on proper oversight.
I said that I would refer to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, because I remember what he said. I looked it up when I heard he was going to be here. He said about the Medicines and Medical Devices Bill, admittedly in 2021:
“We are increasingly seeing the use of skeleton Bills and Henry VIII clauses. We really must come to a point where we say to the Government”—
I would add any subsequent Governments—
“that we will not put up with this any longer”.—[Official Report, 12/1/21; col. 657.]
As he reflects on his words, I hope he will offer some wise advice to his good colleague.
I urge the Government to reconsider their position and accept the DPRRC’s recommendation that powers should be constrained so that product regulations and metrology regulations are, in all cases, subject to affirmative procedure scrutiny. Surely that is the very least that is required to ensure proper democratic accountability.
Lord Leong (Lab)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken. I will speak to the government amendment and respond to the debate. I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the development of the government amendment for raising in Committee the important matter of ensuring that there is appropriate parliamentary scrutiny of regulations made under the Bill.
I will touch first on the affirmative procedure. In the light of concerns from Peers, the DPRRC and the House of Lords Constitution Committee, Amendment 55 increases the number of provisions that will be subject to the affirmative procedure to include certain types of new or novel provisions. These provisions are product regulations made in relation to online marketplaces and where requirements are imposed for the first time on any new category of actors in the market. The amendment will ensure that appropriate parliamentary scrutiny is applied to new regulatory approaches for online marketplaces, and for regulations that place duties and product requirements on new supply chain actors for the first time, while maintaining the flexibility to make timely, uncontentious technical updates to existing regulations.
However, the Government accept that making regulations for new or novel matters makes the higher level of parliamentary scrutiny more appropriate. Therefore, when product regulations made under the Bill seek to impose a requirement on a new type of supply chain actor that is not otherwise listed in Clause 2(3), the affirmative procedure will apply the first time such requirements are laid.
I turn to Amendments 48, 56, 57 and 58. I thank all noble Lords for their concerns regarding the affirmative procedure. On Amendment 48, we discussed the importance of consultation last week, particularly in relation to the Government’s statutory consultation amendment. I do not really want to repeat these arguments, apart from saying that regulations brought forward under this Bill will have been informed by consultation with key stakeholders. Specifically, on Amendment 43A, our recently published code of conduct sets out that regulations under this Bill will be subject to assessment and engagement with an appropriate range of stakeholders, including scientific evidence where appropriate.
Lord Lansley (Con)
I am not sure that the noble Lord has explained why the regulations that allow UK product requirements to be set by reference to European Union law are uncontentious and highly technical. They seem to me to be neither of those things.
Lord Leong (Lab)
My Lords, like I say, I really do not want to repeat what we debated last week, but the whole purpose of where we are today is to give us the freedom either to diverge from or to mirror any regulation, particularly product regulation, as most of it comes from the European Union. Either we follow it, or we do not—that is the freedom that we have.
As I said, I am aware that we have Third Reading still to come but, as we approach the end of Report, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. It will probably come as no surprise that, for the reasons that I outlined earlier, I ask for the amendment to be withdrawn.
Lord Leong
“(1) In the Consumer Protection Act 1987 omit Parts 2 and 4.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment repeals Parts 2 and 4 of the Consumer Protection Act 1987.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment omits the provision that allows consequential amendments of section 77 of and Schedule 5 to the Consumer Rights Act 2015.
“(3) In the Weights and Measures Act 1985 omit sections 1, 8(1)(a) and 25 and Schedule 1.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment repeals specified provisions of the Weights and Measures Act 1985.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on the amendments to repeal certain provisions on the face of the Bill.
Lord Hunt of Wirral
“(5) Regulations made under this section that amend or replace primary legislation must be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.(6) Before making any regulations under this section, the Secretary of State must—(a) conduct a consultation for a period of no less than six weeks;(b) publish a statement outlining the purpose and necessity of the proposed regulations, the expected impact on businesses, consumers, and enforcement bodies, and the outcome of the consultation.(7) Within six months of any regulations made under this section which amend or repeal primary legislation, the Secretary of State must publish a review of the effect of that regulation and lay it before Parliament.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment requires that any regulations made under Clause 9 that amend or replace primary legislation be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.
Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)
My Lords, I do not think that there is any need to detain the House very much longer, except to say one thing. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, was shouting from a sedentary position when I quoted him earlier. I just remind him that he said the only answer is the super-affirmative procedure. Does he remember that? That is what he advocated. All I am asking for this House to agree is that the affirmative procedure is the right approach. I do so, finally, by quoting a committee that I thought we all respected. The Delegated Powers Committee has looked at all the government amendments and, in a unanimous report, agreed by all the parties on the committee, concluded this:
“We would add that, even if the House were to agree to those delegations of power, in our view those powers should be constrained so that product regulations and metrology regulations are in all cases subject to affirmative procedure scrutiny”.
That is why I beg to move Amendment 48 and wish to test the opinion of the House.
Lord Leong
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment includes a feature of a service in the definition of “online marketplace”.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment includes a service on part of a website in the definition of “online marketplace”.
““product requirements” has the meaning given in section 2(1);”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment applies the definition of “product requirements” to the whole Bill and is consequential on the new clause amendment in my name after Clause 8.
Lord Leong
“(za) the first provision described insection 2(2)(d)contained in product regulations;(zb) the first provision described insection 2(3)(d)contained in product regulations;(zc) provision described insection 2(3)(h)that imposes the first product requirements on the category of person specified in that provision;”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment applies the affirmative resolution procedure to additional provisions.
Lord Leong
“(6) Before making regulations under this Act, the Secretary of State must consult such persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to consult such persons as they consider appropriate before making regulations under this Act.
“(6) Subsections (2) to (6) do not apply to regulations under section 13.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on the amendment to allow new subsections of clause 9 to be brought into force by regulations.
Lord Leong
“(A1) Section 9(1) and (3) comes into force on such day as the Secretary of State may by regulations appoint, and the Secretary of State may appoint different days for different purposes.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment amends the commencement clause to provide for new subsections (1) and (3) of section 9 to be brought into force by regulations made by the Secretary of State.
Lord Leong
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment amends the commencement clause to provide for new subsections (1) and (3) of section 9 to be brought into force by regulations made by the Secretary of State.
Lord Leong
“7 Aircraft and components of aircraft.This paragraph does not include—(a) unmanned aircraft designed or intended (whether or not exclusively) for use in play by children under 14 years old, and(b) radio equipment which is a component of unmanned aircraft.In this paragraph—(a) “aircraft” and “unmanned aircraft” have the meanings given by Article 3 of Regulation (EU) No 2018/1139 of the European Parliament and of the Council on common rules in the field of civil aviation and establishing a European Union Aviation Safety Agency;(b) “radio equipment” has the meaning given by regulation 2 of the Radio Equipment Regulations 2017 (S.I. 2017/1206).7A Products used or specifically designed for the purpose of operating or controlling aircraft, training persons in the operation or control of aircraft or ensuring the safe operation or control of aircraft.This paragraph does not include radio equipment used or specifically designed for the purpose of operating or controlling unmanned aircraft, training persons in the operation or control of unmanned aircraft or ensuring the safe operation or control of unmanned aircraft.In this paragraph “aircraft”, “unmanned aircraft” and “radio equipment” have the same meanings as in paragraph 7.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would add certain products used or specifically designed for the purpose of operating or controlling aircraft, training persons in the operation or control of aircraft or ensuring the safe operation or control of aircraft into the Schedule of excluded products.
Armed Forces Commissioner Bill
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Lords ChamberRead Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Coaker) (Lab)
My Lords, I start by declaring an interest, namely that my son-in-law is an active reservist in the British Army.
It is an honour to move the Second Reading of a Bill that received cross-party parliamentary support in the other place. Noble Lords will know that the first duty of any Government is to keep our nation safe. That is why last week the Prime Minister announced an increase in defence spending to 2.5% of GDP in 2027, ahead of a further anticipated rise to 3% in the next Parliament. It is also why the Prime Minister has shown determined leadership in the search for an end to Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, because Ukraine’s front line in the defence of its sovereignty is also the front line of our security.
I thank noble Lords for their many words of support at this challenging time for our nation and allies as we seek the best way forward. The unity of purpose rings out from this Chamber. At the heart of our diplomatic efforts to end the conflict are the men and women of our Armed Forces—the dedicated professionals who would provide the boots on the ground, and aircraft overhead, to support any such peace deal—behind whom are thousands of supportive families, whose own sacrifices underpin military service.
Like many noble Lords, I have had the privilege of meeting serving personnel, both at home and overseas, from visiting troops on NATO’s front line in Poland to those dismantling IEDs to counter the Boko Haram threat in Nigeria and those on training exercises in Bosnia, as well as visiting the carrier the “Prince of Wales” and many other visits, including to our magnificent training establishments, most recently RAF Cranwell. On all sides of the House, we thank those men and women for such service and for working tirelessly to keep us safe.
As the Prime Minister reminded us today so movingly:
“Tomorrow marks 13 years since six young British soldiers were on patrol in Afghanistan when their vehicle was struck by an explosive, tragically killing them all. Sergeant Nigel Coupe was 33, Corporal Jake Hartley was 20, Private Anthony Frampton was 20, Private Daniel Wade was 20, Private Daniel Wilford was 21, and Private Christopher Kershaw was just 19, a teenager. Tomorrow also marks the 18th anniversary of the death of Benjamin Reddy, a 22 year-old serving with 42 Commando Royal Marines, who was killed in Helmand Province in 2007. These men fought and died for their country—our country. Across the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, 642 individuals died fighting for Britain alongside our allies. Many more were wounded. We will never forget their bravery and their sacrifice. I know that the whole House will join with me in remembering them and all those who serve our country”.
As a number of your Lordships will know at first hand, serving in our Armed Forces is both challenging and rewarding for our serving personnel and their families. It provides immense pride, satisfaction and career prospects, and the chance to see the world. However, there are also undoubtedly challenges to service life. The recent harrowing inquiry into the death of Gunner Beck in 2021 highlighted a tragedy that should never have happened. Our thoughts remain with Gunner Beck’s loved ones at this difficult time. The Army has accepted the failings identified by the service inquiry and responded to the recommendations to improve service life across its culture, policies and practices. We have made it clear that there is no place for any abuse or unacceptable behaviours within the military. There have been other such awful reports, with consequent recommendations and actions. The Government are determined to do all we can to make defence a safe and welcoming career for all.
The Government also acknowledge the current crisis in recruitment, retention and morale in our Armed Forces, at a time of increasing global instability and heightened tensions. Only 40% of our forces personnel report being satisfied with service life and 62% report the impact on families and on personal life as the leading factor influencing their decision to leave. That is why the Government are determined to renew the nation’s contract with those who serve, and why it matters that this Bill represents the first time that the families of service personnel will have a mechanism by which they can raise issues about how their life as a relative of a member of the Armed Forces impacts their welfare.
Looking at the continuous attitude surveys, we see that this is where the crisis we face in recruitment and retention is. It is for this reason that we have chosen not to include veterans within the scope of the commissioner. Veterans face a very different set of issues and require specific support, whereas the commissioner is being established to have a laser-sharp focus on the welfare of serving personnel and their families.
The Bill before the House marks a major shift in the approach to our serving personnel. It establishes, for the first time, a genuinely independent champion to hear first-hand from our Armed Forces, including our Reserve Forces, and their families. Through the commissioner’s investigative powers and their ability to report to Parliament, they will shine a light on the welfare issues that most impact our service personnel and their families and, crucially, what the MoD needs to do to address these. As is right in a democracy, elected Ministers ultimately must make the decisions, but the commissioner will make it harder for them to claim ignorance and avoid scrutiny. The commissioner will be a strong independent voice, holding both this and future Governments to account and, we believe, driving meaningful change across defence.
The Bill was inspired by the long-established and successful German parliamentary commissioner for the armed forces, who has been championing and providing a voice to Germany’s armed forces for almost 70 years. I pay tribute to her as a brilliant example of how to champion armed forces personnel through her work, including investigations, defence site visits and her reports and recommendations laid before the German Bundestag. Our proposed Armed Forces commissioner, like the German commissioner, will have the power to consider the full breadth of general welfare issues that may impact service life.
I know from my discussions with several noble Lords that there is an appetite to understand the types of issues that the commissioner may investigate. The definition in the Bill of “general service welfare matters” is deliberately broad, to allow the commissioner to gather evidence and make an independent decision on the issues that are most important to our service personnel and their families. By way of illustrative examples, we anticipate that general welfare matters should include issues such as service accommodation, mental health, education, unacceptable behaviour, provision of services, and the adequacy of personal kit. Conversely, issues such as the overall defence budget or strategic operational and commercial decisions would not be considered to fall within the commissioner’s remit. I also reassure noble Lords that our Reserve Forces will have the same access as our Regular Forces to the commissioner and will be able to raise any welfare issues connected to service life, both at home and when deployed.
As several noble Lords noted when we met last week, the Bill also contains some exclusions which prevent the commissioner investigating certain matters. As well as a power for the Secretary of State to limit investigations on the basis of national security and personal safety, it is also important that the commissioner does not cut across ongoing processes connected to specific cases, such as criminal proceedings and service inquiries, so as not to influence or undermine the outcome. Naturally, individual cases or inquiry topics can be indicative of wider problems the commissioner may wish to look into for thematic reports. For example, the commissioner would need to avoid investigating a specific case of sexual harassment while criminal investigations or a service inquiry were ongoing. However, that would not preclude them from investigating wider patterns of inappropriate sexual behaviour across the service.
The Bill also provides the commissioner with powers to access personnel information and defence sites, reaching thousands of our Armed Forces wherever they are serving. This will allow them to hear directly from service personnel and family members. To facilitate their investigations, they will have the power to demand access to information and service premises and, in the UK, to make visits unannounced, ensuring that the commissioner gains first-hand insight into the realities of service life.
We have given careful consideration to how the commissioner’s role will interact with the often very sensitive issues defence covers. National security is of paramount importance, and we have endeavoured to take a balanced approach. I refer to the ability of the Secretary of State to restrict the commissioner’s access to sites when there is a valid national security or safety reason, and their ability to redact reports on national security grounds. Our officials continue to work closely with partners across government to ensure that the commissioner’s ability to access sites without notice is appropriately balanced with security considerations.
The Bill provides for the commissioner to absorb the existing powers of the Service Complaints Ombudsman for the Armed Forces, safeguarding the established independent oversight of the service complaints system. I take this opportunity to thank Mariette Hughes, the Service Complaints Ombudsman for the Armed Forces, for the outstanding work she and her team have done to increase the efficiency and strengthen the independence, impartiality and integrity of the service complaints system.
In Committee in the other place, Mariette Hughes explained that her remit is too narrow and does not allow her to explore the root causes behind the complaints she oversees. The new powers of the commissioner will do just that, situating the Service Complaints Ombudsman system in a wider landscape of service welfare, and providing that coherent, independent view of those issues facing our serving personnel and their families. An implementation team has been established to ensure a smooth transition of any live complaints from the existing ombudsman to the commissioner’s office and to enable an effective set-up of the office and a full public appointments process.
The Bill also provides the commissioner with powers to report to Parliament. These reports will shine a light on issues facing personnel and their families and make recommendations to Parliament. They will be able to take on individual concerns from service personnel and their families, and build on these to launch wide-ranging thematic investigations.
While we do not wish to be too prescriptive, we anticipate that the commissioner will produce two different types of report. The first, an annual report, will cover the breadth of the commissioner’s functions. This would include the efficiency, effectiveness and fairness of the service complaints system, the commissioner’s functions exercised in that year, and any further matters that the commissioner deems appropriate. The second will be in-depth reports, including recommendations, following the commissioner’s investigations into thematic general service welfare matters. These reports must be laid before Parliament by the Secretary of State within 30 sitting days of receiving them.
Ensuring that this post is truly independent is of the utmost importance, not only to build the trust and confidence of the Armed Forces but ultimately to guarantee its success. As such, there are several safeguards in place within the Bill.
Notwithstanding the important national security and safety measures I have already covered, the new powers in the Bill have been created to ensure that the commissioner can work and conduct these inquiries separately from government. These include measures giving them discretion over the matters they investigate; their ability to access information and enter defence sites, without notice in some circumstances; an obligation on the Secretary of State to co-operate with the commissioner; and the ability to report their findings to Parliament. Any redactions to reports will be limited to issues infringing on national security and personal safety. This takes us back to the purpose of the Bill: to establish a powerful independent voice to hold this Government and any future Governments to account, to ensure we can effect real change for our serving personnel and to fix the recruitment and retention crisis facing us today.
The Government are taking this landmark step of establishing a truly independent Armed Forces commissioner precisely because we must renew the nation’s contract with those who serve. The Armed Forces commissioner is a major step in commencing that important work. We owe our serving personnel and their families a commissioner with a single mission: to improve service life.
I look forward to what I know will be a rigorous and constructive debate in Committee and on Report, which many in both Houses and outside will follow. I am also particularly looking forward to the maiden speech of my noble friend Lady Carberry. I am very grateful to noble Lords across the House for their ongoing support and interest in the Bill. I beg to move.
Baroness Goldie (Con)
My Lords, I first place on record my admiration for and appreciation of our Armed Forces personnel. They are great. They make incredible sacrifices to keep us safe, as the Minister so eloquently and poignantly described, as do their families, and they deserve our unqualified gratitude and support.
His Majesty’s Opposition will adopt the same approach to the Bill as our colleagues in the other place. We want to be a critical friend. The Bill is well intended; we respect that it is a government manifesto commitment, and we shall support it. But for the sake of our Armed Forces, we owe it to them to ensure that the new position created by the Bill—an Armed Forces commissioner—does what it says on the tin, and that everyone is quite clear what the tin looks like. Our scrutiny will be diligent but, I hope, constructive. We have to be sure that the abolition of one structure and the creation of another creates neither gaps nor unintended consequences. I thank the Minister for his customary courtesy in engaging with me and my noble friend Lord Minto on the Bill.
I will start with a couple of process observations. Clauses 1 and 2 establish the job spec of the Armed Forces commissioner. As the Minister articulated, these are important functions: the general welfare of service personnel and their family members, and improving the public’s understanding of the welfare issues faced by service personnel and their families. Clause 1 also contains a wide suite of extensive powers. Clause 2 abolishes the role of the previous Service Complaints Ombudsman, so the new Armed Forces commissioner is taking on a very big job.
There needs to be greater parliamentary scrutiny of the initial appointment of the commissioner. Interestingly, the German model on which this is based is a parliamentary model, and that has not been totally replicated by the provisions of the Bill. I am not quite sure why that is, but perhaps the Minister can offer clarification in his wind-up.
As the Minister said, the commissioner is very free standing and deliberately independent, as far as possible, of the Ministry of Defence. For these reasons, the Defence Select Committee in the other place should offer an advisory opinion to the Secretary of State for Defence on the suitability of the candidate prior to any formal appointment.
The Bill makes explicitly clear that the individual will be neither from the Armed Forces nor a civil servant, so two obvious areas of expertise are excluded. That is fine in principle, but there needs to be total transparency about the chosen candidate, their qualifications to do the job, their relevant experience and of course their security suitability. Similarly, the commissioner’s accountability to Parliament needs to be more explicit, but that is something we can explore further as the Bill proceeds.
One broad but important issue that I have identified as emerging from the Bill, which I have shared with the Minister, is quite simply the proper balance of power between the Secretary of State for Defence and the commissioner. While the commissioner must be independent, the MoD is one of the most sensitive departments in government, and proper and responsible regard must be had to the delicate security issues surrounding defence premises, widely defined under the Bill. These could include nuclear facilities, Porton Down or premises that are the subject of operational activity.
I should like to see the commissioner’s deference to the Secretary of State on issues of security and safety more fully spelled out. There is recognition of this but, for example, if I understand the Bill correctly, if the commissioner proposes to exercise these powerful provisions for entry to premises, notice must be given to the Secretary of State within a period determined by the commissioner, and if the premises are in the United Kingdom, the commissioner is not required to give any notice at all if the commissioner considers that it would defeat the object of exercising the power. While the Bill quite rightly says that the Secretary of State can prevent or restrict the exercise of that power on grounds of national security or safety, that is a little challenging when they may not have received any notice from the commissioner that entry to premises is happening.
Would it not be more sensible to turn this around and to require the commissioner to give a minimum notice period of seven days to the Secretary of State of intended access to premises, unless the commissioner considers that there are extraordinary issues of potential loss of evidence or usage of currently unsafe premises, when the notice requirement would be suspended? In the latter case, the commissioner should be required to give the Secretary of State an explanation in writing for proceeding without notice. The advantage of that approach is that it would minimise compromise of national security and safety and avoid potential direct confrontation between the commissioner and the chain of command. The Secretary of State would at least have knowledge of any intended access.
The Bill will achieve an amalgam of what the Service Complaints Ombudsman used to do. I too pay tribute to Mariette Hughes and thank her for her unstinting hard work. That is a big block of work that will now land with the new commissioner, in addition to the new duties of general service welfare, as previously described.
There needs to be a clear separation of what the Armed Forces commissioner is reporting on in his annual report. There are two separate sets of distinct responsibilities here; we need to achieve clarity as to how they are being addressed under the new arrangements. That leads on to a question about resource. I am sure the Minister will be able to reassure the House that proper thought has given regard to that. However, from looking at the ombudsman’s annual report for 2023, we see that the current workload is hefty. We are talking about a significant volume of work falling on this new commissioner.
I will move on to the issue of drafting. I am smiling as I see former chair of the Constitution Committee, the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, is in her place. I became aware under her wise stewardship, as a member of that committee, just how important the drafting of legislation is, and how we should not inhibit those who have a responsibility—such as the noble Baroness’s former committee—from pointing out where they think there are issues.
This legislation achieves effect by changing another Act. That means it is quite difficult to get the whole picture from looking at the Bill; you have to do a bit of detective work behind the scenes. We have to live with that and I realise why that has been adopted as a modus operandi, but there is reliance on secondary legislation. I have shared with the Minister that that is quite extensive. As he is aware, there are various provisions in the Bill that provide for subordinate legislation, such as new Section 365AA(2)(b) and (5), and new Section 340IA(4)(e) and (8).
I hope the Minister, with his Bill team, can look at this and seriously consider whether we can put more information in the Bill. For example, the functions of the commissioner are the functions, so why can we not just define them and leave it at that? The Bill seeks to specify what the Armed Forces commissioner cannot investigate. Fine; if that is it, that is it. Equally, the Bill seeks to specify “family members”. Surely the Bill can be much clearer about who they are. I would have thought immediate family members within the circle—perhaps those residing with Armed Forces personnel—would likely be included, and I do not think it is meant to be a wider family connection, but I would not have thought it was beyond the skill of drafting to try to be more explicit about that.
The noble Lord is well placed to set a good example in drafting. He is a model Minister in every respect, and I know he will not disappoint me on this front either. I look forward to hearing his thoughts on whether we can make a better fist of trying to make the Bill a little more explicit.
In conclusion, we cannot anticipate what issues of general welfare may arise that the commissioner will feel obliged to investigate, but the tragic case of Jaysley Beck, to which the Minister referred, and her death, so recently reported on by the coroner, was deeply troubling. Our thoughts and sympathies are with her family. I am aware that far-reaching changes have been made in the MoD since Jaysley’s death in December 2021. The chain of command no longer investigates complaints, there is zero tolerance of unacceptable sexual behaviours —an instructor found to have engaged in such behaviour will be immediately dismissed—and where criminal activity has taken place there is now the Defence Serious Crime Unit and a victim support unit. However, Jaysley’s case demonstrated that she did not feel able to complain in the first place through fear of what that would mean for her career.
No matter how effective other processes and procedures are, the only way to address that fundamental fear is to have some type of anonymous whistleblower system. If the Minister is sympathetic to that, that function could sit well in the new Armed Forces commissioner’s office. I do not know whether we need statute law to establish it; it may be within the executive authority of the Secretary of State for Defence to do it now. I offer the proposal as a serious suggestion, and I welcome the Minister’s comments in his winding-up speech. Like him, I also look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Carberry. Finally, I look forward to the debate on this Bill. These Benches wish it well, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Lord Stirrup (CB)
My Lords, I say at the outset that I support this Bill and that I am very grateful to the Minister for the consultations that he has already held regarding the background to and purpose of the legislation. At this point, I have just a few concerns on which I should welcome his further clarification.
The first concern is with regard to an issue which he himself has raised: the extent to which the Bill’s proposals will lead to real change for our Armed Forces. Take accommodation as an example. I should be very surprised if a commissioner did not see the need to look into this aspect of service life. Numerous attitude surveys have made clear over a number of years how the poor standard of housing, particularly for single people, has affected morale and, in turn, retention. I have seen for myself some of the failings in this area and the desperate measures to which some local commanders have been driven.
Having said as much, it is patently clear that we do not need an Armed Forces commissioner to tell us about the problem. But despite us being all too aware of the issue, the problem remains. It is, of course, essentially a matter of funding. If a future commissioner were to produce a report on this matter and it had as little effect on the ground as we have seen so far, people might begin to wonder what the point was. If this legislation is to be successful, it is essential that the circle be closed—that identification leads to rectification. I know the Minister shares this view, but I wonder how the MoD intends to give effect to his good intentions. Perhaps he can enlighten us—if not today then as the Bill continues its passage through the House.
The second point is the method by which people will engage with the commissioner. We have had a Service Complaints Ombudsman for some time, but one of the key drivers of the Bill has been the ombudsman’s criticism of the complaints procedure. This is part substance and part perception. I do not believe that the chain of command is quite as protectionist as some claim. I accept that there might be a closing of the ranks in a few cases, but commanders are in general anxious to ensure the welfare of their people. There is, however, a sense that those same commanders sometimes act as judges in their own causes. This gives rise to a perception of unfairness, and it can make subordinates feel that complaining will damage their career prospects, as the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, observed.
These are good reasons for introducing a system that has a much greater degree of independence, but people will need to be convinced that the degree of independence is sufficient to protect them from what they might see as the risks of complaining. I know that some have suggested that the commissioner’s independence would be compromised from the outset, since he or she would be appointed by, dismissible by and report to the Secretary of State. I do not share that view, but I should be grateful if the Minister could say what thought is being given to the way complainants will gain entry to the system. In the other place, the Minister responding for the Government said that it would be for the commissioner to decide how people access them. That seems rather vague. Surely some consideration has been given to an issue that will be central to the success of the proposed arrangements.
My final point is on the potentially vexed issue of access. As we have heard, the Bill gives the commissioner power to view premises, observe activities, inspect and copy documents, inspect equipment, take measurements and photographs, and so on. These are very wide-ranging powers. The Bill goes on to say that, in exercising them, the commissioner should give notice to the Secretary of State, but only within such a period as the commissioner deems reasonable and not if they consider that the giving of such notice would defeat the purpose of the investigation. As the Minister noted, the Bill does indeed say:
“The Secretary of State may prevent or restrict the Commissioner’s exercise”
of their powers
“in the interests of national security”,
but the Secretary of State will not always have the necessary details—not in time, at any rate—to exercise such a veto effectively. Within the military, many premises and documents are, and much equipment is, highly classified, and access to them is very limited, even among currently serving personnel. It is inconceivable that a commissioner should be able to override such restrictions.
When I was a station commander, a very long time ago, the Secretary of State would not have had a clue which parts of my command were sensitive and which were not. What would have happened had a commissioner descended on me at short notice and then demanded access to such an area? As proposed, I would have had no power to deny them. I realise that this will not be an issue in very many cases—including the example of accommodation that I cited earlier—but thematic issues may well be raised to the commissioner that concern working environments, and here security may well become a serious concern.
I understand the need to prevent people using security as a shield against investigation. On the other hand, security is one of the fundamental principles of war, and we neglect it at our peril. Some might argue that we could leave this up to the good sense of the commissioner. I do not suggest for one moment that the commissioner would lack good sense, but I simply cannot accept that such an issue can be left to chance. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, that the Bill itself needs to address this more effectively.
Let me stress that I make these comments with the intent of improving, rather than undermining, the very welcome Bill, which has my strong support, and I know that the Minister will view them in that light. I look forward to working with him on these issues as the legislation goes forward.
The Lord Bishop of Norwich
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his introduction. I saw it as a very positive step that the Labour Party pledged in its 2024 general election manifesto to establish an independent Armed Forces commissioner to improve service life.
I declare an interest as the father of a soldier. While my own son is enjoying his Army career and gaining much from it, previous speeches in your Lordships’ House and in the other place have cited record lows in morale and a crisis in recruitment and retention as driving this need for a strong, independent voice to represent the needs of service personnel and their families. So I see it as a very positive step forward that the Bill will enable any personnel or their families to raise a service welfare matter with the proposed commissioner, wherever in the world that matter may have taken place.
Service personnel and their families give much to this nation, as has already been said in your Lordships’ House. Much of that is unseen and can impact on extended family members, who often give unstinting support to loved ones during deployments and at other times. Personnel and their families never know what is around the corner or what might be expected of them, as we know all too well at present.
One restriction of the present system with the independent Service Complaints Ombudsman is that families of personnel are currently unable to submit a complaint. I am therefore pleased to see, in the Explanatory Notes, that His Majesty’s Government are speaking of the commissioner as a new, direct and independent contact point for serving personnel and their families, all outside the chain of command, to raise issues that impact them. The new commissioner, rightly, needs to champion our Armed Forces and, for the first time, to be a champion for Armed Forces families.
I am interested to discover how the role of the commissioner will be different from that of the Service Complaints Ombudsman as far as families are concerned, especially where there may well be a culture of not wishing to report or to raise concerns as it might impact negatively on a career, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup.
What will be key is that the Bill results in a culture change, whereby reporting or raising concerns becomes recognised as a positive and constructive step, essential to the continuous improvement of the service and the continuous improvement of the welfare and well-being of personnel. As the Royal British Legion has said:
“Absolute clarity is required from the outset of this new role, so that the remit is fully understood by Armed Forces personnel and their families, and expectations are set at the correct level”.
I welcome that the Minister has already spoken about independence, and I very much align with the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, on that independent role. I will also be looking, in the person specification for this new role, for someone who has good experience and is well-qualified in handling disputes and working around mediation. The commissioner must be resourced sufficiently to be reactive and responsive. The commissioner also needs to work with compassion; it is from compassion that things will change on the ground. That will involve the commissioner working alongside a number of others, including not only those within the chain of command but welfare groups and chaplains.
I will offer a brief comment on the invaluable work of Armed Forces chaplains, who are embedded with their flock on deployment and often live alongside them, perhaps with their families on the naval base, at the Army camp or at the Air Force station. A week last Monday, I had the immense privilege of spending the third anniversary of the terrible invasion of Ukraine with the chaplain of the Irish Guards, alongside Australian and Ukrainian chaplains, for a service with a significant number of Ukrainians, who were training in deepest Norfolk on a five-week course to prepare them to go back to Ukraine. It was one of the most poignant and moving services that I have attended: Ukrainians and their allies together remembering the immense sacrifices that have already been made.
This is the bread-and-butter stuff of Armed Forces chaplains. They accompany an officer who has bad news for a family. They listen to a young recruit working out if this career is for them. They quietly let the commanding officer know that the person she is about to see has something going on in their private life. They sit consoling personnel who have just lost a comrade and need to go back on patrol. They anoint the injured and pray for the dead. They ensure that families have someone to turn to when the clay beneath their feet begins to wobble. On this Ash Wednesday, Christian chaplains will be marking the beginning of Lent. I hope that the Minister agrees with me that the work of chaplains, of all faiths, is a crucial investment in the well-being of His Majesty’s Armed Forces and their families.
I have three questions. First, how does he expect the proposed commissioner to work with chaplains as part of their brief? Secondly, how does he expect the proposed commissioner to align their work with the UK Armed Forces Families Strategy 2022 to 2032? Finally, as the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, said, the Bill does not give an exact definition of family members, so what does the Minister think about that? For example, might it be appropriate to include the bereaved siblings of service members? Overall, though, I support and thank the Minister for bringing forward the Bill.
Baroness Carberry of Muswell Hill (Lab) (Maiden Speech)
My Lords, it is the honour of my life to be standing here this evening, and I still cannot believe that I am here. Speaking for the first time in your Lordships’ House is nerve-racking, but it has been made less so by the warm welcome and advice I have received from noble Lords and Baronesses across the House—I thank them all. I thank your Lordships for all the kindness and patience shown to me. I am particularly grateful for the generosity and support I have received from my supporters, my noble friends Lady Prosser and Lord Monks, and my mentor, my noble friend Lady Drake.
I also congratulate my noble friend Lord Barber on his excellent maiden speech last week, and thank him for his friendship and encouragement over many years. On the subject of thanks, I hope the staff of this House know that their fame goes before them. Their professionalism, helpfulness and sheer niceness are legendary, and my experience of them has exceeded all expectations. I thank all of them. It would be quite wrong to single out any individual, but my four year-old grandson would not forgive me if I did not mention “the nice man with the big golden necklace” who gave him a private tour of the Robing Room on the day of my introduction.
I am very grateful to be able to speak in this debate this evening. My father was a soldier. In his late teens, he was rescued by the British Army from a future with very limited opportunities in Dublin. He left school at 14, started out as an Army cook and ended up with the offer of a commission. His experience gave him a lifelong love for, and gratitude to, this country, sentiments he passed on to his six children, along with regular reminders to stay true to our roots, always work hard, respect the flag—and drink Guinness. Other drinks are available, but your Lordships, I hope, get the general idea.
My Army parents would have warmly welcomed this new Armed Forces commissioner, and so do I. I was a military child in another era. I lived with the rewards and drawbacks of life in a service family, but it is not so different today. Armed services families deal with unique stresses: postings, deployments, separations, and disrupted children’s education. I myself went to 10 schools. In some ways, it is worse now: at least we did not have to put up with substandard housing. This Bill will give personnel and their families a powerful champion who can respond to concerns, investigate systemic problems and make recommendations that will lead to action.
I spent my working life in the trade union movement. I saw the unsung, day-to-day co-operation between union officers and employers to make workplaces fairer and more productive. This unglamourous work improves working conditions, heads off problems, solves problems as they arise and gives union members independent representation. These advantages are not open to Armed Forces personnel. That is why I am so keen to see serving men and women have an independent authority with real power who can look after their interests and speak up for them.
My noble friend the Minister talked about the crisis in morale, recruitment and retention. It is indeed alarming that only four in 10 regular personnel are satisfied with their service life. In most years over the last quarter of a century, more people left than joined the regular forces. As my noble friend has reminded us, the main reason people leave the forces is the impact on family and personal life. The commissioner’s work can help make service life more attractive, but the commissioner alone cannot carry the full weight of personnel challenges. For example, I would suggest that we do not need any more reports or inquiries telling us that servicewomen are not getting the basic protections they deserve—to put it mildly. I welcome the Minister’s remarks about this in his introduction, and the comments on the same subject from the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie.
Our forces are under-capacity. Our country is vulnerable, and we cannot feel confident about our ability to respond effectively to threats. Modernisation and technology can mitigate reduced personnel numbers, but not entirely. These are matters for the strategic defence review and the Government’s broader defence strategy.
Seventy-seven years ago, the great trade union leader, wartime Minister and post-war Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, said this in the other place: “We must build up our own strength and our own Armed Forces so that we can play our full part in the defence of democracy.” Who would argue with that today? Bevin was speaking during the early Cold War, when western allies were establishing the architecture of international law and the world order that today looks increasingly fragile. I commend our Government’s response to rapidly increasing global uncertainty. The Armed Forces commissioner is one part of that response.
In any debate about our Armed Forces, I readily defer to the expertise and experience of noble Lords and Baronesses, and of noble and gallant Lords across this House who have served in the forces. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to them and thank them for their service to our country.
It has been a privilege to speak in this debate, and I look forward to many more opportunities to work with noble Lords and Baronesses from all Benches on many matters, and to contribute widely to the work of your Lordships’ House.
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, it is such a great honour and privilege to follow my noble friend Lady Carberry of Muswell Hill and to be the first person in this Chamber to compliment her on her excellent maiden speech, which displayed such knowledge, based, as we know, on personal experience. As she herself has just told the House, she has had a long career in the trade union movement. She first became a teacher and was active in the NUT, and then she joined the TUC education department in 1978. Some 10 years later, she was appointed the first head of its equal rights department. In 2003, she was appointed to the post of assistant general secretary of the TUC and stayed in the TUC until she formally retired 10 years ago.
In her time as assistant general secretary, she served with distinction under the general secretaryships of my noble friend Lord Barber, who is, I am glad to say, in his place, and my noble friend Lady O’Grady. Of course, she served in the TUC at the same time as my noble friend Lord Monks. She was too modest in her speech to tell the House about the range of other appointments she has held. She was a member of the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Equal Opportunities Commission. She is a commissioner on the Low Pay Commission, a board member of Transport for London, a trustee of the People’s History Museum, a director of Trade Union Fund Managers, an alternate member of the Takeover Panel and an honorary fellow of St Hugh’s College Oxford.
My noble friend Lady Carberry has long been a model for, and advocate of, positive trade unionism that adds value to the person, the organisation and the country. She has, over the years, earned respect across the trade union movement, with employers and with Ministers of whatever kind, Labour and Conservative. She is a great believer in partnership and, I am sure, she will bring those values to bear to the business of this House for many years to come.
I am speaking in support of the Bill, but I do so with some trepidation. I am conscious of the fact that many of those taking part in the debate have had enormous experience of the Armed Forces, including those who served in office, whereas I myself have had none. It is true that my dad was an RAF pilot; he got his wings just before the war ended. His older brother, my uncle Michael, was a fighter pilot who was killed just after D-Day. His father, my grandfather—the original Viscount Stansgate—served in the Second World War as an air commodore and saw active service in his 60s. Before that, he served in the First World War, before the RAF was even founded, flying missions in various theatres. By comparison, I come to this subject completely afresh, although I hope to make a brief and worthwhile contribution.
Before I come to the Bill, I must declare an interest. My noble friend the Minister, in introducing his speech, declared an interest, and I have an interest to declare that I would not have been able to declare even one week ago. I hope the House will understand when I say how happy I am that the interest I have to declare is that, on Saturday—four days ago—my daughter Emily announced her engagement to Group Captain James Doyle, who is a serving officer in the Royal Air Force. As the House will understand, I suddenly find myself with a real interest in this Bill, and I see it in a new light.
My noble friend has set out the nature of the Bill and some of the reasons for it. All Members will have been aware over the years of incidents and situations that have occurred in the Armed Forces that have given rise to grave concern and which have needed to be investigated. The proposed commissioner for the Armed Forces and their families is important, because it will provide an independent and impartial advocate to address concerns for their well-being, to ensure accountability and to improve the overall well-being of service members and their loved ones. I have compiled a list of seven reasons why I think the role is crucial.
First, it will help protect rights and well-being. Service members and their families, as others here know better than I, may face challenges related to pay, housing—mentioned by the noble and gallant Lord already—healthcare, mental health support or unfair treatment. Secondly, I hope it will provide confidential and impartial support, because it is possible that many military personnel fear retaliation for speaking up. The new, direct ways of contacting the commissioner will, I hope, provide a safe, confidential way to report grievances without fear of negative consequences. Thirdly, it should ensure fair treatment, because the commissioner will now have a statutory authority, under the Bill, to investigate cases of discrimination, harassment or mistreatment.
Fourthly, it will bridge the gap between the military and their families. Families of service members, as we have heard from the noble Baroness in her maiden speech, face unique challenges, such as frequent relocations and deployments, and that alone can be very disruptive. Fifthly, it will hold the leadership accountable. The commissioner will help ensure that military institutions uphold high standards of ethics, fairness and accountability.
Sixthly—I think this is a key component of the Bill—it is surely the case that, when service members and their families have access to and confidence in a fair resolution of their concerns, it reduces stress, increases morale, and leads to a more effective and committed military force, making it more likely to ensure that we retain the service personnel that we need and in which we have invested so much in training. Finally, it will enhance public trust in the military. I hope that it will reassure both the military community and the general public that their concerns are taken seriously and addressed properly.
Until I prepared for this debate, I had not fully realised the extent to which morale in the Armed Forces has declined and remained low. I am grateful for the House of Lords Library briefing, which Members will have seen. It draws explicit attention to the fact that
“concerns have been raised about various aspects of service life, including morale, pay and living conditions as well as the impact of cultural and behavioural issues”.
Of course, this is a manifesto Bill, and it is good to see that it has a degree of cross-party support. It passed through the other place in a bipartisan spirit, and I hope the same will be true today. It is not always the case with manifesto Bills, as we saw in this House but two days ago.
In the time I have left, I want to raise a number of questions that I think need to be addressed. Although my noble friend may say that some of them can be safely left to the secondary legislation, I hope he will be able to shed some light on some of them.
First, I understand that the commissioner will not be a serving member of the Armed Forces, and that is sensible, but would it not be an advantage if she or he has had military experience? Will the commissioner have available to her or him an advisory board of people with military experience, and preferably of a younger generation, who might be more in tune with the purpose and spirit of the Bill? I have heard it said that the military covenant is not worth the paper it is written on without the resources to make it a reality. Can my noble friend the Minister reassure the House that, were the allocated resources to run out, there is a government commitment to increase the commissioner’s budget in the light of proven need?
Next, what exactly will the definition of families be? Apart from those who are married—or, if I may say so, engaged—to serving Armed Forces personnel, will that include those in civil partnerships? Will it include, for example, for those who are unmarried or in informal relationships, the next of kin? Will it include parents? How will all the service personnel and their families be made aware of the new system, wherever they live in the world? Will families be able to contact the commissioner on behalf not only of a serving member of the Armed Forces but themselves? If so, that seems to me to be the biggest development that the Bill will bring about. Will the commissioner be able to consider complaints that have already been referred to the superseded ombudsman system? I think my noble friend indicated that that is probably the case.
The more I think about this Bill and the ideas and good intentions that lie behind it, the more I think that the key question is whether it will work and whether the moral compass of the Armed Forces will benefit by this change. Will the commissioner be able to convey the necessary authority to do the job? How is Parliament going to be able to know and ensure that progress is made? Does my noble friend agree that, if recruitment and retention rates can be shown to have improved, this might be a sign of success? Will the new system be embedded in the training of recruits, so that it is hardwired into the system, because it is also about building new levels of trust and, I suppose, esprit de corps?
My time is nearly up, so I will have to end here by saying this. I am not the only Member who is aware of the fact that this Bill has been brought in at a time when our Armed Forces are facing challenges that have not been faced for some time, and they will be deployed in areas and in ways that we have not seen for decades. I have always found the phrase “put in harm’s way” a rather quaint euphemism, but it is true that there is an awful lot of harm out there now. I very much hope that this Bill, if it achieves anything, can develop our Armed Forces as the effective military force that the country requires, and that we can play a part in improving morale and making our Armed Forces fit for the dangerous future that lies ahead.
Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate. I offer my congratulations to Emily and James, and I look forward very much to the engagement party next month—it will be fun. Equally, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Carberry of Muswell Hill, on her excellent maiden speech. I have to say that I was given exactly the same advice about drinking Guinness when I joined the Army—other drinks are available, and we will hear from the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, in due course.
I start by declaring my interest as a humble reservist and head of the Army Reserve—I have been a proud reservist now for some 37 years now. Indeed, my early career was under the then Group Captain Stirrup at RAF Marham, filling holes in his runways. He is not here to hear that, but I certainly remember him, though he will not remember me.
I shall make three brief points, which I will expand on later. The first is that while the service complaints system has had a troubled birth, it has evolved into a pretty good system. As we lift and shift it into this new Bill, I hope that we resist tinkering with it and, perhaps, moving two steps backwards. Let us be very careful about that.
Secondly, I really welcome the aspects relating to the family. I am a firm believer that we recruit the soldier but we retain the family. I am slightly concerned that we raise expectations as to what the commissioner will be able to deliver. I do not want to overpromise and then underdeliver; at the end of the day, it is about money, and I fear not that we may lead people down the garden path but that, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, says, we do not have the money to correct the problems.
My third point is simply around a technical amendment when it comes to the application of the Bill to Gibraltar, or not. We have made that mistake in the past with a previous Armed Forces Bill, and if I have time I will expand on that.
What has not been described fully is that, while the ombudsman has an important role in the service complaints system, the majority of the work is done by the single services themselves—and an awful lot of work goes on. There are hundreds of complaints each year, and that takes an awful lot of staff time. I will speak predominantly about the Army, because it is the service I know, and it has had to recruit 22 extra posts in recent years just to deal with this work, and very few cases actually get to the ombudsman. I worked closely with one of the earlier ombudsmen, Nicola Williams, when I was Veterans Minister, and I know that we have made progress. However, we judge the success of the system through three tests: is it efficient, is it effective, and is it fair?
The Army has done a lot of work in the last two years. Is it efficient? On the target of 90% of service complaints being dealt with within 24 weeks, for years we were stagnating at around 44%. When the next results come out, we will be up to 70%, so progress is being made. However, I emphasise how much work this takes to deliver. Is it effective? Well, how do you judge effectiveness? While 45% of career management complaints have been upheld, 40% of bullying, harassment and discrimination complaints have been upheld— I will come back to that—and 54% of pay and pension complaints have been upheld. They are being upheld, so it looks like the system is becoming more effective.
I want to highlight the case of Major Milroy, an Army reservist who won an employment tribunal over differential pay compared with his regular counterparts and not being able to access a pension until 2015 when the rules changed in 2005. My concern is not the case itself, because the MoD is seeking to repeal it, but that over 200 reservists felt obliged to make a service complaint on the back of that because they were concerned that if they did not, they would be timed out. It goes to the heart of sometimes poor communication from the Ministry of Defence about what is required and what is not.
Finally, is the process fair? The number of appeals is down, which implies that there is greater fairness, but we still have concerns over bullying, harassment and discrimination. Data suggests that a higher proportion of complaints come from minority groups and women. Following the Wigston review in 2019, with 36 recommendations and, as the Minister highlighted, the tragic case of Gunner Beck in 2021, with the coroner’s report just two weeks ago, clearly much more work needs to be done.
One of the concerns, as the HCDC report in 2021 on women in the forces said, is a lack of trust in the process—89% of women did not feel that they could make a service complaint, because it would not be taken seriously. I am pleased that some progress has been made. This is a significant change. Now, complaints within the Army do not go through the chain of command and the commanding officer—often, people did not want to complain to their commanding officer—and 80% of them go to the Army service complaints secretariat. That is a much better process, where people do not feel constrained by their chain of command. However, as ever, there is an unintended consequence—speedy resolution is now not as easy as it was, and in some cases that is exactly what people want. Also, the number of complaints is up, but partly because we have the My Complaint app and better publicity. That complaints are going up is not necessarily because the situation is worse but because people understand the system and are using it, so that is probably a good thing.
I am running out of time. Like the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, I want to say a word about accommodation. We know that accommodation is poor. We are prioritising service accommodation over training estate or the Army Reserve, but I worry that we will now have lots of complaints about accommodation which we already know about. Unless we are prepared to commit the money to sort it out, we will be raising expectations. It may be a radical thought, but the Bill’s provisions are due to come in in 2026 and the increase in defence spending in 2027. I do wonder whether we should delay for a year to make sure that we can meet expectations.
Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Carberry, on her maiden speech and look forward to her being involved, perhaps even in this topic as it goes through Committee.
I welcome the Bill, as I think everyone here does, and that the Minister gave a clear outline of all its details. We could not have a better Minister taking this through the House today. What I like about it is that, crucially, it is on a statutory basis. That is key to making it clear to service men and women that they will have someone there with real authority to initiate investigations into general service welfare matters. That will be crucial in raising morale. As we have all said, and the Government have admitted, our Armed Forces are badly demoralised. The right person in that job could really make a difference. I hope that the right person will be appointed to it.
I appreciate that the Bill went through the House of Commons unamended, with cross-party support, and it will of course do so here. However, we might want to look at some amendments, but all will be in the context of making the Bill better and stronger. It is a particularly important time to be debating this Bill given the pledge that the Prime Minister has made to send our troops to Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire and agreement as a peacekeeping force.
Many in the military have followed in the footsteps of their fathers and grandfathers, and mothers these days too. My concern is that the younger generation will not be so willing to join up when they see how their older relatives and retired military have been treated. That is why the link that the new commissioner has with veterans commissioners is crucial. It is vital that the job of veterans commissioner is also put on a statutory basis. In Northern Ireland, we lost an excellent veterans commissioner, Danny Kinahan, recently, because he found the lack of independence in his role not just frustrating but preventing help and support being given to veterans. The role is part-time, for two days a week, though Mr Kinahan spent far more time than that on the job. However, because of how the Office of the Northern Ireland Veterans Commissioner is set up, it is not on a statutory footing and the commissioner does not have the independence to do the job without constant interference from the Northern Ireland Office. The two staff members report to the Northern Ireland Office, and not to the commissioner, which puts the staff in a difficult situation—wanting to co-operate with the commissioner, wanting to help to do something for veterans, but the Northern Ireland Office for other reasons wanting to stop it. The structural limitations imposed by the NIO have transformed the role of the commissioner into a figurehead.
I know that the Minister understands Northern Ireland very well and knows that a very large number of veterans live there. Despite the Belfast agreement and the changes that have come about, many of them still live in fear. We also should remember the various soldiers who have been killed at different times. Around 1,441 British military personnel died during the deployment in Northern Ireland. In one year alone, 1972, 130 British soldiers died. We must never forget their sacrifice to keep people safe in Northern Ireland.
The previous Government abolished the veterans’ support office, which helped to co-ordinate all the veteran support services in Northern Ireland, so I am afraid that a lot of veterans in Northern Ireland do not trust the MoD, having experienced decades of neglect and inertia in the provision of help. An independent body is essential, as the veterans welfare service and the Office for Veterans’ Affairs are now run by the MoD and are not independent.
Then we have section 75 of the Belfast agreement, which means that no one can be picked out above or before anyone else, so Northern Ireland veterans cannot be identified and are then, in effect, discriminated against compared with their former colleagues living in GB. A way has to be found of working around section 75 so that veterans can be identified, understood and supported properly.
I could talk quite a lot, but I will not, about the delays and problems within our health service in Northern Ireland, which affect veterans in acute need of physical and mental health support even more. Some of them have had to wait up to eight years for operations or critical care. I do not think that, across GB, their colleagues as veterans have to wait so long.
An inability to understand the difficulties arising from veterans in Northern Ireland not having suitable care means that we must look at this. Unless we have a veterans commissioner who can stand up with power and authority, we will never change that. Although this is going slightly wider than the details of this Bill, at Second Reading we can go wider, and this must be looked into.
Because the Government are going to repeal the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act, we are moving back into a phase where we will see many more veterans, from incidents 30, 40 or 50 years ago, dragged through our courts. We saw the Clonoe decision recently—33 years on, some soldiers are likely, if the judge gets what he wants, to be prosecuted for something that they did on a dark night under huge pressure, doing what I think they were absolutely right to do, which was to shoot four people who had been out deliberately trying to kill civilians and police officers.
Those kinds of issues are why veterans are incensed about the recent legal judgment. They are incensed— I have to say it again—about the possible compensation payments to Gerry Adams. I hope the Minister will do his bit from the MoD side to ensure that that will never happen.
My message is this. While much in the Bill is good, please do not forget that, in looking at how we treat our military today, if we do not remember the service and dedication of those veterans who are now, in many cases, seemingly being abandoned, we will not get young people who feel that going into the armed services is worthwhile.
Baroness O'Loan (CB)
My Lords, there can be no doubt that this is a very necessary measure. The Service Complaints Ombudsman, which has limited powers, has called for an effective and independent process, as have others.
The level of morale goes to the heart of the success of all the activities of the Armed Forces. There has tended to be a tradition of families joining up: my uncles, my brother and, more recently, two of my nephews served in the Army. There has also been a tradition of friends encouraging one another to embrace a career in the services. However, that becomes to some degree dependent on the overall quality of the experience of the Armed Forces by those serving today.
The noble Baroness, Lady Carberry, in her excellent maiden speech, focused on the low morale levels among those serving today. We know that morale has decreased for a third year in a row, with low morale reported as running at 58%, up from 42% in 2021.
On general welfare issues—I thank the Library for its help in this matter—we know that housing, maintenance, catering et cetera have levels of satisfaction lower than 30%. That would not be accepted in the private sector and it should not be accepted for those who serve in our Armed Forces.
Regrettably, we have to place those statistics within the wider context of satisfaction with processes dealing with conduct complaints and the appalling reality of some of the reports of criminality, particularly physical and sexual abuse. The suicides, departures from service, and the traumatised and ruined lives which are the product of bullying and harassment of all kinds, are all part of this picture. As the Government have observed, there is a very clear correlation between these matters and difficulties in recruiting and retaining personnel.
The functions of this commission are limited. The general function of promoting the welfare of persons subject to service law and improving the public’s understanding of these matters could result in an enhanced experience for serving personnel. Thematic examination of matter such as the incidence of violence and harassment, the circumstances that enable such behaviour, the adequacy of the protections currently provided, the nature of equipment provided to officers and the suitability of housing can be very helpful.
As Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, we agreed a process by which, if an officer received three complaints, this was treated as a management issue in addition to dealing with the complaints. Such management intervention can result in the identification of groups of officers who serving singly do not get into trouble, but who serving in a particular group fall into behaviour that is totally unacceptable. It can also identify health issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, alcohol and substance abuse, which can result in behaviour that would not normally occur.
One thematic report on the use of force by the police in Northern Ireland resulted in a dramatic decrease in the incidence of force used. Among the contributing causal factors were inappropriate and unavailable equipment, and lack of management. The results, when the recommendations were implemented, were a dramatic decrease in the number of incidents of use of force, a decrease in the number of claims made against the police for assaults, a decrease in the number of claims made by officers for injuries on duty and a decrease in the level of sickness among officers. Thematic research can undoubtedly be very valuable in identifying issues which materially affect welfare.
I endorse the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, in relation to the requirement in subsection (3) of the new Section 340IB inserted by Clause 4 to notify the Secretary of State in advance of any occasion on which the commissioner proposes to enter Armed Force premises, subject to the limitations. Perception is enormously important, and I hope that the Minister will find a better way to take care of national security and protection of life issues in the Bill.
The exclusion of particular service complaints matters that were or are the subject of service inquiry, criminal investigation et cetera, very clearly limits the functions of the commissioner. The creation of this office may generate an expectation that the commissioner will be enabled to deal with individual service complaints. However, the commissioner will be at the periphery of the proceedings, able to adjudicate on whether a service complaint should have been admitted and to review a decision by the Defence Council that an appeal cannot be proceeded for various reasons. Once a matter has been determined by the Defence Council or its appointed panel, the commissioner will have only ombudsman powers to review the process by which the complaint was determined in terms of delay and maladministration and the ability to refer a matter back for further consideration. No further powers are accorded on the commissioner in the Bill than those held by the ombudsman.
The role will be particularly challenging given the complexity of the delivery of Armed Forces activities across the world. Flexibility and creativity in delivering and devising systems and protocols for the operation of the office will be absolutely necessary, as will the co-operation of those in command with whom the commissioner engages in the exercise of his or her functions. There is a vast range of issues, as noble Lords have said.
The limitations on the powers of the commissioner must be spelled out, or rejected attempts to raise issues with the new commissioner will be damaging to the reputation which the commission will have to build. There should be no space for assumptions about the ability of the commissioner to understand the realities of life in the armed services or for preconceptions that the commissioner will be naive or lack understanding of service law. There should be no hostility, and no unwritten policy to wine, dine and welcome the commissioner but give them little more, but rather genuine acceptance that the new system will operate for the benefit of all, and hence for the benefit of the Armed Forces and the security of the country.
The greatest tool for generating trust by the new commissioner will be the communications that are enabled. It will be difficult, and the commissioner will need adequate resourcing to be able to meet face-to-face with personnel, to explain what they can do and the limits. The processes must be publicised and limited, so that officers and members of the Armed Forces can examine the integrity and effectiveness of the new system and decide whether they will use it or, in the most difficult of circumstances, walk away from the service altogether. Above all, if the Government really want to make this work, it will be necessary to enhance the powers of the Armed Forces commissioner.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, I support the Bill. It is legislation for which the Government have a direct mandate, meeting their manifesto commitment to introduce an independent Armed Forces commissioner to improve the well-being and conditions of service for those who serve in our Armed Forces, for whom I have the greatest respect.
I join the congratulations for the noble Baroness, Lady Carberry of Muswell Hill, on her excellent, well-informed and therefore wholly relevant speech. The noble Baroness delivered it in a strong voice, with just the right amount of self-deprecation, and delivered some humorous remarks very well, entertaining your Lordships too. The highest praise that I can give her is that, in seven minutes before your Lordships’ House, she has already established that she has the ear of everyone and that we are all waiting to hear her next and many more contributions. It was an excellent maiden speech.
I also thank my noble friend the Minister of State for the clarity of his opening speech. It was clear to us all when he was on the Front Bench in opposition that he would make an excellent Minister, and he has made an excellent Minister. He is well respected in all parts of your Lordships’ House, and part of the reason for that is his characteristic openness and willingness to consult all who have a contribution to make to the work of your Lordships’ House, and I thank him for that on behalf of those who have experienced it already in relation to this legislation.
I believe that this legislation does what it claims: to reform the existing system, the failures of which have been manifest for several years, by replacing it with something more proactive and able to take the initiative in tackling systemic injustices. This is about not merely improving welfare, critical though that is, but arresting the dissatisfaction that has contributed to a recruitment crisis in our services. Given today’s geopolitical context and the breadth of expertise and experience represented in today’s proceedings, your Lordships’ House needs no reminder from me about the importance of reversing the decline in the number and overall resilience of our Armed Forces. I believe that this legislation will, if properly implemented, make a real contribution to effecting a cultural change that will do exactly that.
Introducing this Bill in the other place, my right honourable friend the Defence Secretary, in words echoed by my noble friend the Minister today, acknowledged the important precedent of the German armed forces commissioner in shaping this legislation and shared his hope that, as in Germany, a wide-ranging debate on the UK Armed Forces commissioner’s annual report would become
“a regular part of the parliamentary calendar each ... year”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/11/24; col. 75.]
In preparing for today’s debate, I had occasion to examine both the remit of the German armed forces commissioner and her most recent annual reports. The latter are wide-ranging, searching and forensic, touching on matters including personnel retention and shortfalls, inadequacies in matériel and issues relating to procurement as well as issues more explicitly related to welfare, discrimination, equity and justice. I would be interested to know whether my noble friend the Minister anticipates that the reports of the UK Armed Forces commissioner will be of similar scope. After all, if the commissioner believes that, for instance, personnel shortfalls or ineffective procurement processes have impinged upon the general welfare of service personnel, would this be a matter that would properly lie within the commissioner’s jurisdiction? The German commissioner’s annual reports suggest it would be, but it would be helpful to know whether this is also something Ministers believe should lie within the remit of her UK equivalent.
As a corollary to that question, it may also be useful if my noble friend the Minister could share any thoughts or discussions he may have had relating to the profile of the candidate the Government have in mind for this post once the legislation receives Royal Assent. Schedule 1 dictates that the commissioner must not be a member of the Armed Forces or a civil servant, but, in forming an idea of the scope of the commissioner’s duties, any further clarity as to the professional experience Ministers believe necessary adequately to perform the functions of this role would be helpful.
As we have heard, subsections (2) and (3) of the new section inserted by Clause 1 abolish the Service Complaints Ombudsman and replace it with the new Armed Forces commissioner. I do not propose to enumerate any of the terrible cases relating to service welfare we have seen emerge in recent years, but it is clear that the existing system has proved inadequate, to say the least, and that a more proactive and independent system is necessary. The principal issue with the Service Complaints Ombudsman has been that, in common with all ombudsmen, it has been able only to identify procedural issues, and then only reactively, rather than engage specific injustices and remedy them. Indeed, successive Service Complaints Ombudsmen have identified their inability to initiate investigations as an impediment to the successful exercise of their office.
I have now lost the order of my speech. I think I will probably have to conclude with this remark. Few things can be more important than improving the welfare—ah, I have found the page. On that point, I welcome the broadened powers conferred upon the Armed Forces commissioner to investigate specific concerns and wider thematic issues.
I turn now to a question that the Minister raised, which was developed succinctly by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup. This is the real question, one that in a conversation that I had that the noble and gallant Lord was involved in was described as the “so what” question. It is: what follows from that investigation? When the commissioner identifies an injustice, what process is then set in train that remedies it? I ask this question in a supportive spirit because I know that the Government understand that a more effective diagnostic exercise is not all that is required and that for the welfare and contentment of our service personnel to be improved they must feel that the commissioner has the power not merely to investigate their welfare but to contribute to its improvement.
My stumbles mean that I am out of time. I will sit down.
Baroness Newlove (Con)
My Lords, I am pleased to contribute to the Second Reading of the Armed Forces Commissioner Bill. Like many people, I do not have a military background, but I wish to declare that I am an honorary colonel of the Merseyside Army Cadets. I am really proud to be their champion. The young girls feel like family. That is why I wanted to take part. Also, as Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales, the similarity of the role is why I want to speak today.
In fact, when I came back as Victims’ Commissioner in October 2023, I was delighted to see that as Victims’ Commissioner I was welcomed to the Ministry of Defence, a superb building I had never been in, so I look forward to attending the service committee board. I first met Judge Large via Teams. He was also delighted to welcome me back because he knows that I come from the human aspect of individuals and how they feel. In fact, after our last meeting, I can declare that I am going to visit a court martial to witness what goes on there, I am going to Catterick and to the Army Foundation College in Harrogate, and I am also going to see victims’ homes and victims’ support workers. I think it is very important, especially at this time, when the Ministry of Justice is looking at the criminal justice system, to put the systems together.
This is a timely and necessary step in ensuring that the welfare of our service personnel and their families is at the heart of defence policy. The establishment of the Armed Forces commissioner will provide a powerful, independent voice for those who serve and the families who support them. I know that by putting their voices at the heart of this role, there is nothing more rewarding for those seeking help and guidance about kit, food, education, homes and support for spouses in the workplace. I know we will see them feeling heard at last by having this commissioner.
Expectations have been discussed about the new commissioner’s role, so I appreciate that they will be high, but if the commissioner is like me, they will like a good challenge, and I have pushed many doors. When I started as Victims’ Commissioner, it was done on the back of a cigarette packet. Now I have more staff, but not enough. Now I have more funding, but not enough, and there are still doors to be pushed. So I say that, whoever that candidate is, they will be a strong advocate, they will be capable of challenging the system and they will earn the trust and support of the Armed Forces. What criteria will the Government use to appoint the commissioner? How will the role differ from, as we have heard from previous speakers, that of the existing Service Complaints Ombudsman?
For me, families play a crucial role in our Armed Forces. Indeed, they are the backbone of military communities and help those who are in need. They are central to this Bill. That is in Clause 4. Like many speakers in this debate, I would like a better definition of “family member” because I have the same arguments about who is involved within the criminal justice system. In fact, my late husband was the victim, and I am his family, so I get the connection and how we need to get this better. I ask my friend the Minister—I call him my friend because, as everybody says, he is really good across the House; I know there is etiquette, but there you go—whether he can give me a clearer definition of who will be included under the Bill. In particular, bereaved families go to my heart because when asking them to actually cope the mechanism that is in place has to be really strong for them, and so it deserves strong advocacy from the commissioner.
The commissioner must also be accessible. I am probably twittering because I have been up since 5.30 am doing media on my latest report on court backlogs, so I am boring myself with my own voice at the moment; I do apologise. It is really important that people can have accessibility. I am just a bit concerned, if it is only digital, about how that will encourage people to come forward. Also, there are those deployed abroad or those who have literacy challenges. We all go to digital, but we all want to throw the computer or phone out of the window when it does not work. How will the Government ensure that all personnel can engage with the commissioner’s office? Communication is really poor for victims of the criminal justice system and I know it creates a barrier. It is an unnecessary barrier for the families to feel, yet again, that they are blocked.
A lot of measures will be put in place. I heard other speakers go on about independence. Again, I can say that the Victims’ Commissioner is independent. Believe you me, when anybody announces me as the Government’s Victims’ Commissioner, I stand up there and say that I am certainly not. Independence is important, but it depends on how you interpret that word. That will come down to the advocate that the commissioner will be, given that the Secretary of State will appoint, fund and may dismiss the commissioner. If we can get the strength in that commissioner then we can absolutely look at the finer detail.
On resources—I love this one—commissioner’s proposed budget is £4.5 million to £5.5 million annually. I know that this is based on the German armed forces commissioner, who has 60 parliamentary staff. I know the Minister cannot say exactly but I would like to know how much resource the Armed Forces commissioner will have in place. If that person needs more staff, will the Government give them the resources? I have been there. It is a really good debate to have.
The most important thing to say is that I am really concerned about the culture of our Armed Forces, especially the messaging that we are seeing. I also send my respect to the family of Jaysley Beck—a really beautiful soul, taken unnecessarily so early in life. I want to see what support the commissioner can give to help the personnel feel that they can seek help. This is an area where everybody is resilient and tough, and is trained to know better, but we need to look at what resilience means. It is a virtue that enables people to move through hardship towards better outcomes. Sadly, no one escapes pain, fear and suffering. Nevertheless, from pain you can have wisdom, from pain and fear you can get courage, and from suffering you can gain strength. I only know that as I stand here today. More importantly, we need to break down these barriers. I wish this role every success and look forward to having more clarification as the Bill progresses.
Lord Browne of Belmont (DUP)
My Lords, I welcome the Armed Forces Commissioner Bill. We all owe a great debt to the brave men and women who have served and continue to serve us so valiantly in our Armed Forces, at home and in combat abroad. In my part of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland, we will never forget their efforts and, in many cases, their sacrifice during the height of the Troubles. It is a historical fact that, were it not for the Armed Forces and security personnel, there would never have been a peace process in Northern Ireland and we would not have the relative peace that we enjoy today.
For that reason, I welcome the Bill put forward by His Majesty’s Government to give greater support to service personnel and their families. It is important to state that there should be no impediment that would block the personnel from being treated fairly and equitably in all parts of the United Kingdom and abroad. It is right and just that the proposed legislation will treat Northern Ireland service personnel in exactly the same way as in other parts of the United Kingdom.
We have heard tonight that morale has been falling for far too long, as recent satisfaction polls clearly show. We have heard that, due to poor work/life balance, unsuitable housing, harassment and bullying, it is proving difficult to recruit and retain personnel. I therefore welcome the appointment of a truly independent commissioner who will not be drawn from the ranks of the military or Civil Service and, being statutory, will be able to ensure that the rights of all service personnel will be totally upheld.
I am glad to see that families are at the heart of the Bill, as it is often the spouses who provide the much-needed support at home. They often have to make sacrifices to keep their families together. It is thus important that the families have the same access to make complaints. Can the Minister confirm that bereaved relatives will also be granted the same access?
It is also pleasing to note that reservists will have the same rights under this Bill. The reserve programme in Northern Ireland is immensely popular, with twice as many people per head of population volunteering for the Reserve Forces as in other parts of the United Kingdom. I declare that I have a family member who currently serves in the Reserve Forces.
I hope that the proposed budget of around £5 million will prove adequate to allow the implementation of the important safeguards enshrined in this Bill. As time proceeds and personnel become more familiar with the scheme, it will be necessary for that budget to be increased.
I would not wish to complete my speech without referring to the rights of those who have bravely served our country and are now veterans. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, pointed out, at present there is no provision in the Bill which would grant the veterans’ commissioners similar statutory powers to the Armed Forces commissioner. Will the Minister agree that veterans deserve similar protection to that granted to serving members of the forces?
Finally, I will raise another important issue relating to veterans’ rights in Northern Ireland. In Great Britain, all the local authorities have quite rightly signed up to the Armed Forces covenant, which protects veterans’ rights relating to the provision of public and commercial services. Unfortunately and disappointingly, in Northern Ireland only five of the 11 local councils have chosen fully to adopt the covenant. It was extremely disappointing that in February’s meeting of Belfast City Council the Armed Forces covenant was rejected because of a nationalist bloc. Surely, as the Northern Ireland Veterans Commissioner, Mr David Johnstone, stated, the covenant is not about advantage, it is simply to prevent disadvantage.
I welcome the Bill as I am sure it will ensure that the rights of serving personnel and veterans throughout this country and abroad will be fully protected.
Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke (Lab)
I also take this opportunity to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Carberry. That was a truly impressive speech. It brings something to this House to have someone from a family that is so closely associated with the military because it allows us to understand some of the pressures that they are under—not least that she went to 10 schools. I went to two and still objected to having to move to the other one. I refer to my entry in the register of interests. I was chair of Annington Homes until its sale to the MoD in January; I currently chair the successor business.
About two years ago, I attended a meeting arranged by the then shadow Secretary of State for Defence, who is now the Secretary of State of Defence, at which the German armed forces commissioner was present. I was very impressed. We could see that there was a commitment not just to the military personnel but to their families, who make huge sacrifices on our behalf. There was a recognition that the families, the mental health of the defence forces and the appointment of an independent champion for serving personnel and their families was a huge step forward. The noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, explained that fully in her very good speech.
In some of the interaction I have had with the MoD over the years it was very difficult to articulate the need to look after families, especially if the forces person was deployed abroad. There were often many quirks in the set-up, particularly around housing, that defied common sense.
When the Married Quarters Estate was sold in 1996, the MoD retained the maintenance of the homes for some purpose I have never really found out. Overall, the state of maintenance is deplorable. I have seen houses with kitchens that were fitted 50 years ago and some poor souls still trying to use them. If I ever come across Michael Portillo, I will ask him why he did not give the responsibility for maintenance to Annington or some other organisation. Then I will ask him where I should go on my holidays. From day one it has always intrigued me. The homes were an Annington asset and, as such, the commercial imperative would be to keep them in good condition.
One day, I saw at first hand the problems caused by a lack of maintenance. A young mother stopped me as I wandered round a site on my own, taking pictures of houses. She came out and said, “Are you something to do with the houses?” I said, “Well, sort of”. She said, “I have been trying to get somebody to come and look at the bedroom of my 18 month-old child because there is black mould on the walls”. Her husband had had to raise the issue with his commanding officer. A month had passed and nothing had happened. That can cause the death of a child because it is extremely dangerous. That is engraved on my memory. She wanted me to come and see the room. I could not bear to see it because I knew that what she was saying was true. If there was someone else outside the command structure who could expose the danger that family was in, it would have been very useful. As I heard the German commissioner speak, that family was in my mind.
I was born and brought up in a council house. I went on to represent the constituency it was in some years later. It was about 80% social housing. That social housing was well maintained and mostly very attractive. Why could the military bases not be like that? Was it money or organisation? Years later I became a diplomat in Australia, where I saw military houses regularly. They were very attractive and beautifully maintained. In Australia, they revere their military personnel. As we look at the troubled state of the world, will that help us look after the military personnel even better? I think the Armed Forces commissioner could bring about a fundamental shift in the care of the military and their families.
There is another issue. Together with the noble Lords, Lord Forsyth and Lord Bruce, I was appointed by the Secretary of State for Defence, Dr Liam Fox, to the Mull of Kintyre Review, under the chairmanship of the Scottish judge, Lord Philip. All three of us were privy counsellors. The helicopter crash on the Mull, on 2 June 1994, was the worst loss of life for the RAF in peacetime. A Chinook helicopter had been refurbished and reconfigured and delivered to the RAF base two days beforehand, on 31 May 1994. No voice recorder or accident data recorder had been fitted. There was anxiety among the aircraft’s pilots and ground crew about familiarity with the reconfigured helicopter before the accident happened. The pilots lost their lives that day and 25 major security staff from Northern Ireland also lost their lives.
Long story short, the pilots were blamed. Air marshals claimed that the pilots were “negligent to a gross degree”, based on no evidence whatever. A fatal accident inquiry was held in Paisley, with 38 civilian and military witnesses. The sheriff concluded that he could not determine the cause of the accident but could not agree with the determination of gross negligence by the military personnel. Later, we were told that the air marshals downgraded the evidence from the air accident team. In that context, I thought of the Armed Forced commissioner. It is vital that, when something as awful as that happens, there is independent and impartial oversight of the MoD. The nature of the person appointed will be very significant. Rigorous, strong and able to see the impact of decisions on the welfare of all MoD personnel and someone with the gumption to fight their corner—that is what the new commissioner can do, and I applaud it.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, for his introduction to the Bill. I offer further broad Green support for the general direction of the Bill and the creation of an Armed Forces commissioner.
Since I have a large range of portfolios to cover, I will draw a couple of parallels with other areas, where we have seen similar positions created or proposed. It is worth looking at the parallels for those comparisons. The first of these was just a few days ago, in Committee on the Mental Health Bill, when an amendment was tabled—and will return on Report—to create a mental health commissioner; that is, a champion for some of the most vulnerable people in our society. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, shares what is being said here with his health colleagues.
In that debate, I drew a parallel with an already existing position, which has been highly successful—the Patient Safety Commissioner—which was fought for and won by Baroness Cumberlege, who has now retired from your Lordships’ House, sadly. The Patient Safety Commissioner has been really important as a champion for vulnerable people. As the powerful maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Carberry, outlined, all military personnel are vulnerable, being in the chain of the command and denied those union rights that we guarantee—one way or another—to most other workers. All military personnel are vulnerable.
When we think about who the commissioner is, we need to focus on the fact that some members of our Armed Forces are more vulnerable than others, particularly by reason of age or gender. A number of noble Lords, including the Minister, have focused on the tragic case of Gunner Jaysley-Louise Beck. I point the Minister to something I said in the Moses Room in the Armed Forces (Court Martial) (Amendment No. 2) Rules debate. I had just been at a meeting where a representative of female personnel serving in the military said that where they are at now is going back to the attitudes of 2015, particularly in the treatment of female victims of abusers. I contrast that with the Army’s statement after the inquest into the tragic death of Gunner Jaysley-Louise Beck, which said that there had been
“significant changes in the Army, including the introduction of clear and unequivocal policies to state that there will be zero tolerance to unacceptable sexual behaviours”.
I welcome that statement from the Army, but it does not reflect what I have heard from serving personnel and people who speak to and represent them now.
At this point, I feel that I have to agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, about the importance of independent oversight of this appointment. I am not sure whether the Select Committee is the right procedure, but we definitely need that because this person will have such an important role. The noble Baroness commented about an anonymous whistleblower scheme, which we should also potentially look into because we know that sexual predators are often serial abusers and serial predators. It may be that their first, second or third victim does not feel, for whatever reason, that they can come forward. People may witness disturbing behaviour and it might be difficult to know whether to report that. An anonymous whistleblower scheme would potentially help some very vulnerable people in our military.
It probably will not surprise the Minister that the second group of vulnerable people I am going to focus on are the young people, particularly the under-18s, in our military. The Minister knows well my views on this, but the public may not have as much awareness as they need to of the fact that, for example, in 2021-22—to pick one year—23% of British recruits signed up before their 18th birthday. It was 30% if you take just the Army. Think about who the commissioner is going to have to serve; they will have to serve a significant number of children. That will have to be thought about when we consider who that commissioner is.
It is also worth focusing on the fact that the UK military focuses its recruitment on areas of socioeconomic deprivation, and those recruited as minors are disproportionately enlisted from those deprived areas. I point to some really interesting and disturbing work done by Jonathan Parry from LSE and Christina Easton from Warwick University, looking at some of the issues that arise from socioeconomic disadvantage. It can have negative effects on decision-making and inform a mental bandwidth tax, which affects cognition and control. Perhaps we should think clearly about the ability to access a post such as a commissioner. Socioeconomic deprivation is associated with educational and informational disadvantage. Three-quarters of junior recruits assessed in 2015 had a reading age of 11 or below, with some having a reading age of five. We need a commissioner who is able to help people in that situation.
I want to make one final, broader reflection. Many speakers have referred to the state of geopolitics. We have of course seen a great deal of talk about increasing the size of the military, and ensuring that we have a strong commissioner is relevant for this. The people talking about increasing the size of the military really need to look at the demographics, because they will see that by 2040 the population of 18 year-olds will be 10% smaller than it is now. Some figures on health published in the International Journal of Epidemiology showed that 25% of children born in England in 2003-04 had a chronic health condition by the time they reached the age of 16. It is crucial that we are able to look after the vulnerable people in our military, so we need the right person as a commissioner.
Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, I support the Bill. The reason that I am standing here talking is partly thanks to the Minister. The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, was the person who suggested that I should immediately go and take part in the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme when I sent him an email about it. For the last two years, I have had the privilege of graduating in the Army scheme and then the Navy scheme. Just over a year ago, I was with the Royal Marines in the Arctic, which is extremely relevant and useful training for the temperature in the Chamber this evening.
The second reason is because of the late and much-lamented Baroness Massey of Darwen. The Minister may remember, because he was speaking for the Opposition, a Bill when we talked about the Army Foundation College in Harrogate. I suspect that is what the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, was referring to. The Army Foundation College is a good example of an issue that is systemic and thematic; some of the recent cases, over the last 10 years, are pretty harrowing. They have continued for a long time and will continue into the future until and unless someone such as the new Armed Forces commissioner grabs hold of it and does something about it.
The German model that we are following is a good one, but it has been around for a long time. For reasons that I think we can all understand, it was set up in 1959 in the wake of the devastation created by the German armed forces and the need to completely rebuild them from the bottom up. By contrast, today we are talking about the third iteration of us trying to find something similar to what the Germans have. We started this only in 2008, so we are rather late to the party. I think we are playing catch-up. The evidence is in the key recommendations of the German armed forces commissioner in her last report. The areas that she focused on were personnel shortages and operational readiness; ageing equipment; recruitment and retention; bureaucratic challenges; and mental health and welfare.
Those areas are an interesting contrast with the last report of our current commissioner, because the German ones were to some extent looking at the problems of today, but in looking at issues such as personnel shortages, operational readiness and ageing equipment, they were actually looking to the future. Look, by contrast, at what the last commissioner here said in 2022: it was about the system. It was about efficiency and fairness, resolution time, system improvements and performance metrics. Lastly, it was about bullying, harassment and discrimination.
A lot of the effort of the current commissioner has been simply to get the system working because it is not working. The Germans have a system—as one might expect—that does work, but they have about 70 years on us in terms of getting it going. We need to effect change quickly.
In visiting the Army and the Navy in the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme, one is very impressed, and almost overwhelmed, by the range of regimental silver, flags, plaques and paintings. I have never had so many photos taken of me in my life. There is an understandable fierce pride in the past, but I sometimes wonder whether the pride in the past and the retelling of the great stories of the past in some ways stop us thinking as much as we should about the future. That is a cultural issue which the Armed Forces need to deal with.
I have a series of questions for the Minister which I do not expect him to be able to answer, brilliant though he is. First, because we are in catch-up mode—other noble Lords referred to this—will the funding and the staffing be adequate for the scale of the task, given how much the current commissioner is focusing on getting the system working, let alone dealing with the complaints coming in? The Germans have 60 staff, the current commissioner here has 26. We may initially, for a two- or three-year period, need significantly more than that simply to get traction and to get the basics right.
Leadership is key. I know the commissioner cannot be a regular, a reserve or a civil servant. If you look at the example of the German commissioner, she is a lawyer, and she was for 11 years a Bundestag deputy—a very senior one. When she was appointed, immediately after she stepped down from being a deputy, elected by a large majority of the Bundestag, she was able to hit the ground running. She has strong relationships and knowledge within the parliament, which have been enormously helpful. I hope that will be taken into account when thought is given to the type of person we are looking for: we need somebody who really knows what they are doing.
The Armed Forces, like many an institution with more history than is good for it, can be quite defensive culturally—for completely understandable reasons. Might it be possible, or even necessary, for the commissioner to have ex-members of the Armed Forces as his or her staff, or even that one could appoint people on secondment into the office, denoting that you are high potential, that you are going places, and that spending a period in the commissioner’s office is a big plus and is an important part of your development?
Next, given the issues around bullying, harassment, discrimination, violence against women and girls, and mental health, it is unreasonable to expect that the commissioner will have the right level of expertise and experience to deal with these issues in-house. We mentioned this and discussed this in the very helpful briefing the Minister gave last week. I appeal to the Ministry of Defence to think about the commissioner developing relationships with a variety of organisations that have this expertise, so that they can access it very quickly as and when they need it, rather than thinking when something comes up, “Oh, where do I go for help?”
Lastly, on the issue of entry to premises, it is crystal clear that the German armed forces commissioner has carte blanche to go wherever in the world she wishes with no advance notice whatever being given to the armed forces; such is the level of trust, that works. Could we not do the same here?
Lord Hay of Ballyore (DUP)
My Lords, the Armed Forces do a remarkable job keeping the people of this United Kingdom safe and secure in an ever-changing and increasingly dangerous world. We owe them a great debt of gratitude for their courage and their devotion to duty. The sacrifices of our Armed Forces at home and abroad must never be forgotten.
I congratulate the Minister on the way he has presented the Bill to the House. I hope that this legislation will improve the lives of our Armed Forces personnel. I hope the Armed Forces commissioner will be an important advocate for service personnel and their families. Regrettably, too often, promises made have not matched the reality experienced by our service communities. Many service personnel and their families have felt forgotten and very much neglected.
The Bill’s main provisions will be to establish an independent Armed Forces commissioner with wide-ranging powers to carry out their role independently from government. I welcome that the Armed Forces commissioner will be on a statutory basis reporting directly to Parliament.
I want to touch on an issue that was briefly touched on by the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, and the noble Lord, Lord Browne. Across the United Kingdom, there are around 2.5 million veterans. It is vital that they are not simply left behind. Our veterans should enjoy our strongest possible support, as should serving members of our Armed Forces. I ask the Minister: if we are making provisions on a statutory basis for serving members of the Armed Forces, why are we not making the same statutory provisions for veterans’ commissioners across this United Kingdom, giving them the power to carry out their role independently from government?
We are to have a commissioner on a statutory basis for serving members of the Armed Forces, so why can it not be the same for veterans? If that happened, it would be a huge step forward for the Government in how they value our veterans community; it would give them the equality of treatment they very much deserve. Without the bravery and long-lasting commitment of our security personnel, the reign of terror in Northern Ireland would have led to the deaths of many more innocent victims. In Northern Ireland we possibly have more veterans than in any other part of this United Kingdom, with many thousands who served in the Armed Forces.
I welcome the recent appointment of the new Northern Ireland Veterans Commissioner, David Johnstone, and I wish him well in his new role. He is also somebody who has served in the Armed Forces with distinction. This is a part-time appointment, for two days a week with staff from the Northern Ireland Office. It is not possible for the Northern Ireland Veterans Commissioner, on a part-time basis, to be responsible for looking after the interests of the thousands of veterans in Northern Ireland. If the Government are serious about looking after our veterans community, surely this should be a fully funded post with a full-time appointment, given the needs of our veterans in Northern Ireland.
The Bill will give independence to the Armed Forces commissioner, which I believe is vital. There is a case to be made for the veterans commissioner to have the same independence from government. I can speak only for Northern Ireland. For example, the staff of the Northern Ireland Veterans Commissioner are appointed by the Northern Ireland Office, as is the commissioner. The Northern Ireland Veterans Commissioner needs the same independence in challenging and holding the Government to account without fear of oversight from the Northern Ireland Office.
If it is right to have a commissioner on a statutory basis for serving personnel, why can the same case not be made by government for veterans? The creation of an Armed Forces commissioner is certainly a positive step forward for the Government, but surely they should do the same for our veterans. All forces personnel and veterans across these islands should be able to avail equally of the same quality of service. We must work together to provide the services and protections that our Armed Forces and services personnel need, now and in the future.
I repeat that it is not possible for our veterans commissioner to service all the needs of our veterans in Northern Ireland, and to do the job that he needs to do. He needs independence from government, especially from the Northern Ireland Office, to do what he needs to do.
Lord Beamish (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome the Bill and add my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Carberry, on her maiden speech. I look forward to many more contributions.
I have been involved in welfare and redress for Armed Forces personnel for over 20 years. I was a member of the House of Commons Defence Committee and a Minister in the Ministry of Defence. I think I have also sat on every single Armed Forces Bill over the last 20 years. It is worth reading the conclusion from a House of Commons Defence Committee report, Duty of Care, from 2005. The 20th anniversary of it was Monday this week. It says:
“We … recommend that an independent military complaints commission be established. It would have the authority and capability to make recommendations which would be binding on the Armed Forces. It would also have a research capacity that would enable it to examine trends that it had identified … It would be for the commission itself to decide whether to undertake an investigation, but we would expect it to take into account the seriousness of the allegation. The commission should have the authority to consider past cases … The primary goal of the commission would be to resolve complaints made to it. If the commission decided to pursue a complaint, it would have the right of access to all documentation, and to Service personnel, in order to enable it to establish whether the correct procedures had been followed and whether there were matters that required criminal investigation … The commission should be required to make an annual report to Parliament … We recommend that the commission be established in such a way as to assure both complainants and the public of its independence from the Armed Forces. We believe that the commission would help MoD identify lessons that need to be learned. We also believe that a truly independent scrutiny mechanism would contribute to bolstering public confidence in the Services”.
One could argue that it has taken us only 20 years to get to that point. In its response to that report, the Government noted that recommendation. They were forced to bring in the independent complaints commissioner following the Blake report into the Deepcut incidents in 2006. It was quite clear from very early on that Susan Atkins, the first commissioner, did not have the powers or abilities to make real change. Then, under the 2015 Act—I think the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, might have been involved in that—we got the Armed Forces ombudsman, which did have powers to investigate but, again, did not have the real power to make the real change that was needed.
It is worth looking at another House of Commons Select Committee report from 2019—one that I was not involved in—entitled Fairness Without Fear: The Work of the Service Complaints Ombudsman. It gives a litany of failures for that organisation, not because of a lack of dedication on the part of the staff but because of cuts in staff, the negative attitude that still existed towards the institution and the delay in implementing recommendations. That has been quite clear as, over the past few years, the slow drum beat of scandals has not really gone down. We had the issues around the Wigston report, which was referred to earlier. In 2019 we had another excellent report—I served on that committee—on women in the Armed Forces. The way in which women were still being treated was absolutely appalling. We have had the issue around the Red Arrows, and we have had women being abused in the Submarine Service—it has been constant. Have we failed over the past 20 years? Yes, we have.
This is possibly an opportunity to change that, but I think we are hanging a lot on this Bill. We might think that, somehow, by changing the name and changing it slightly, things will improve—I am not sure that they will. I think the Minister should take on board some changes. For example, I am concerned about the length of the commissioner’s term. The Bill says that he or she will be there for five years, and the term could be extended for possibly another two years. I want to probe why that has come about. I know that one of the past ombudsmen made a suggestion about the length of the term, but if you are to have somebody build up the knowledge, this is important.
Another thing is the independence of the commissioner, because they will have to rely on finance from the MoD. I would like a mechanism set up whereby this body is not under the remit of the MoD if it is to be completely independent. Time and again, we have seen organisations having to fight for resources—we heard that about the Victims’ Commissioner, for example. There are models we could set up whereby it falls outside the MoD and the budget is not in danger of being raided.
We also need a mechanism by which the recommendations are implemented. As the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, said, it is great to identify them, but these reports need to lead to reaction.
I warn my noble friend that I am minded to put down some amendments that I think are needed to strengthen the Bill. The intentions are good but, if we are to emulate the German model, which I have studied previously, I am not sure that just changing the title and changing what we have will actually do that. I welcome the Bill, but there is a lot more work to be done on it yet.
Lord Colgrain (Con)
My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Carberry, on her excellent maiden speech. We are obviously very fortunate to have her in your Lordships’ House. I shall not detain noble Lords very long in this refrigerator of a Chamber.
I thank the Minister for his excellent introductory remarks and for the briefing he undertook last week at the MoD. At that briefing, I asked him a question regarding reservists and the extent to which, and when, reservists will fall within the commissioner’s new remit. I tried to make the point that the moment of deployment for reservists is not as clear cut as it is for regulars, given their particular domestic circumstances and their relationships with their employers. The definition of their deployment date cannot always be readily ascertained. Thus, their particular general service welfare matters and, subsequently, service law may need to be viewed from a slightly different perspective.
I was delighted to hear that the Minister’s son-in-law is a reservist; he indicated last week that, as a result, he had an inkling as to the point I was trying to make. I had the impression that, as a consequence, he might have said something in the introduction to this debate that would clarify the situation regarding reservists: he did indeed use an all-encompassing expression which included the word “reservists”, but really no more than that. I may have got this wrong but as I looked through the Bill I could find neither reference to the point I was making nor even the word “reservist”.
I hesitate to talk too much about reserves, given that in front of me is my noble friend Lord Lancaster, who knows much more about reserves than I ever will, but he, unbeknownst to me, encapsulated part of the worry I have by referencing both a pensions issue and a pay issue in the past. I find myself thinking that there may be an overview problem associated with the Bill and reservists in particular. I wonder whether there is a means whereby the Minister might agree to get together with me, my noble friend Lord Lancaster and anybody else who has a particular reservist interest to see whether we can do the equivalent of stress-testing certain circumstances whereby reservists might find themselves having the Bill applied to them slightly differently from regulars, and see whether that might be a worthwhile starting point.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)
My Lords, it has been a long and interesting debate. This is the only contribution from the Liberal Democrat Benches, so I crave your Lordships’ indulgence if I appear to go back to the start of the debate to express these Benches’ support for, thanks to and tribute to His Majesty’s Armed Forces. As a country, we owe the Armed Forces a considerable debt of gratitude; that is something that we do not say sufficiently often, including to the public. It is very important that this debate is happening now, in the context of the geopolitical challenges that we face on a daily basis.
The Bill may play a small part in thinking about the welfare of and recruitment and retention in the Armed Forces. The noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, is right that we need to be very clear that we should not put too much emphasis on one Bill to rectify many of the issues associated with the Armed Forces, but this manifesto commitment from the Government is a welcome one and the Liberal Democrats, in the other place and here, welcome the Bill and wish it well. We inevitably have some questions and will raise some issues this evening and table some amendments in Committee.
The Bill is obviously intended to promote the welfare of service personnel and their family members, which is very welcome. That is important, and clearly goes beyond the scope of the current ombudsman, as the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, talked about. How much further does it go from the existing role? In theory, it would appear to be helpful by going beyond service complaints to a wider remit for service personnel and their families to bring cases. However, like other noble Lords, I will press the Minister on how the Government envisage defining a family, because it can be understood in a variety of ways. In particular, there are questions about kinship carers and the families of deceased members. Here, there is a slight gap in the legislation as it is currently proposed. The Minister was very clear that it is about current service personnel, but if somebody has been killed in action, would their relevant family members be able to have recourse to the Armed Forces commissioner under the envisaged proposals or would there be a separate arrangement for them? It would be helpful to understand that a little bit more.
Like other noble Lords, I will raise the question of commissioner’s independence, but also the independence of the appointments process. How do His Majesty’s Government envisage engaging in the recruitment of the commissioner? Will it be an open call? I assume they are not going to recruit Capita to engage in the recruitment of the commissioner, but how else might they do it? Was the noble Lord, Lord Russell, thinking, since the German commissioner is a former MP, that perhaps a former Member of your Lordships’ House might be able to put themselves forward to be a commissioner, if the hereditary Peers Bill passes unamended?
It would be helpful to understand this. The legislation says that the commissioner will not be a civil servant or current service personnel, but it does not say that it cannot be a retired civil servant or former service personnel. The Minister is nodding. If the commissioner is a retired general, say, what provisions can be put in place to ensure that serving personnel would not feel inhibited about bringing cases? The noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, talked about having provisions for whistleblowing. If the independent commissioner had a services background they would inevitably have connections to the services. In many ways that would be very useful as they would understand the cases that are brought to them, but a very junior member of the Armed Forces might feel inhibited about bringing a case. It is important to understand how independent the commissioner will be.
That also relates to the commissioner’s budget. The figure of £4.5 million to £5 million has been talked about. How fixed is that figure? How great is the commissioner’s scope to put forward proposals to say, “This isn’t going to enough for the role that I have been asked to undertake”?
There is also a question of scope. The noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, talked about two very different types of cases: the very broad issue of accommodation—I will come back to that in a moment—and the very specific case of the RAF fatalities. Would something like that be within the commissioner’s scope, or would they not be able to look at it because, presumably, there would be formal inquiry? It would be useful to know how far there will be clear lines of demarcation between legal investigations and what the commissioner might do.
Finally, on Armed Forces accommodation, if we are concerned about the welfare of our Armed Forces and retention, then, as the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, said, retention is about families. Having brought the homes back into public ownership, will His Majesty’s Government invest in ensuring that the homes and their maintenance are fit for purpose, so that one key aspect of welfare will not take up the majority of the commissioner’s time? It is surely important that the Government make it clear that they are going to deal with the accommodation issue. While we are about it, might the Government think about committing to the decent homes standard for Armed Forces accommodation? If it is right for renters in civilian life, we should surely demand at least as much for our Armed Forces personnel and their families.
Finally, is there any scope for looking at frivolous and vexatious cases? Clearly, we want the commissioner to be able to look at important, relevant cases, but just occasionally, cases might be put forward that are frivolous and vexatious. Will there be some screening process to make sure that the commissioner is able to focus on meaningful cases and not get caught up with anything that might be unnecessarily bureaucratic?
We wish this Bill well. We will perhaps bring forward a few amendments in Committee, but we look forward to the Minister’s response.
The Earl of Courtown (Con)
My Lords, I begin by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Carberry of Muswell Hill, on her excellent maiden speech, particularly her relevance to the subject and her background as coming from an Army family.
I also reiterate the statement from my noble friend Lady Goldie that we on these Benches will approach the Bill as critical friends. We have heard many excellent speeches from around the House, and I am sure that the Minister, as is his custom, will pay particular attention to the concerns that have been expressed—which are guarded concerns, because, in general, the whole House supports the Bill.
All noble Lords wish to see the highest standards of welfare for our Armed Forces personnel. We owe them a constant debt of gratitude, and the least that we as parliamentarians can do is to ensure that they are treated with the respect they deserve. As has been noted by many noble Lords, including by my noble friend Lady Newlove, morale in the Armed Forces is not where we would like it to be. More must be done to make certain that their legitimate concerns are effectively addressed.
If implemented correctly, the new commissioner should pave the way for greater oversight and transparency. However, as we have heard, success depends on the detail. My noble friend Lady Goldie has eloquently and clearly set out the Opposition’s position on the Bill. I will not dwell on the points that she has made, so as not to detain the House much longer, but there are three issues I would like to focus on.
The commissioner, as noble Lords have highlighted, will need independence, resources and power. As was mentioned by the Minister in his opening remarks, independence from the Ministry of Defence is crucial. Effective oversight of the service complaints system and service welfare matters occurs only if there is no intervention from vested interests. However, this does not mean that the commissioner should be entirely independent from Parliament. Just as the commissioner will hold the Ministry of Defence and the Armed Forces to account, Parliament must be able to hold the commissioner to account. As drafted, there is no scope for this in the Bill. It is an important omission given that, as other noble Lords have said, the policy is founded on the example of the German Parliamentary Commissioner for the Armed Forces. Despite this, the commissioner we are presented with in the Bill is noticeably different from the German commissioner.
The German parliamentary commissioner is elected by the Bundestag, and nominations are made by the defence committee and parliamentary groups. The candidate who receives the majority of the votes cast is then duly elected and appointed by the president of the Bundestag. The remit of the German commissioner is established in Article 45b of Germany’s Basic Law, which states:
“A Parliamentary Commissioner for the Armed Forces shall be appointed to safeguard basic rights and”—
as an auxiliary organ to the Bundestag—
“to assist … in exercising parliamentary control”.
To do that, the commissioner may take action based on their own initiative and discretion, or at the direction of the Bundestag or the defence committee.
The German parliamentary commissioner is therefore entirely independent of the armed forces but also ensures that the German parliament exercises a high degree of oversight, guaranteeing the accountability of the armed forces. The German model has a greater degree of parliamentary involvement than the model presented in the Bill. It would not be unique to make this commissioner closer to Parliament. There is precedent in the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. I therefore ask the Minister why the Government have taken that decision and what the reasons are for not including a stronger role for Parliament.
My second point is on resource. We know that the commissioner will cost more than the current ombudsman. The Explanatory Notes mention an estimated cost of between £4.5 million and £5.5 million—compared to the current cost of approximately £1.8 million. Will that extra cost be funded by the Ministry of Defence, or will it come from a separate pot of funding? I can see that the Minister has noted my question and will deal with it in due course.
Thirdly, there are a number of vagueries in the Bill. Proposed new section 340IA states the commissioner will investigate “general service welfare matters”, but what that includes is not overly clear. If, when the Minister rises for his closing remarks, he could offer greater clarity on the type of issues that could be investigated, that could be of benefit to the whole House. As other noble Lords on all sides of the House have mentioned, it is also unclear what is meant by “relevant family members”. We know this will be left to secondary legislation. During the passage of the Bill in the other place, the Minister for the Armed Forces said:
“The Bill does not give an exact definition of family members; that will be included in secondary legislation that will be published between the House of Commons and House of Lords stages”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/11/24; col. 116.]
I am happy to be corrected by the Minister, but it does not appear that this draft definition has yet been published by the Ministry of Defence. Can the Minister tell the House when this draft might appear? As we enter Committee, it would be useful to have some indication from the Government of their intentions.
By addressing the issues that have been raised by noble Lords today, one hopes that implementation will be efficient and effective. As the Bill progresses, the Opposition will continue in the constructive manner that has been outlined today. We will not shy away from challenging the Government when necessary, as is the duty of the Opposition, and we will push for clarifications and changes that we believe are needed to ensure that our forces receive the treatment they deserve. Their sacrifices are an example to us all and we owe them nothing less than our best.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
My Lords, I thank everyone for their contributions, for the general welcome and support from across the Chamber for the Bill’s intention of establishing the Armed Forces commissioner, and for the very constructive comments, and indeed challenge, to the Government on how we might improve the way in which the commissioner will work. On behalf of the Government, I am very grateful for that. However, it would be remiss of me not to start by congratulating my noble friend Lady Carberry on her outstanding maiden speech. I hope that she will be able to show a recording of it to her four year-old grandson; I suspect that he is probably in bed by now—who knows?—but it was great.
I also say to my noble friend, without trying to upset her, that her father—who was a soldier, as she referred to—would be immensely proud to see his daughter in the Chamber here and to hear her give a speech like that. She said that he was an inspiration to her, and my noble friend was an inspiration to all of us in the Chamber who listened to her story. We look forward to her contributions in the future.
There are politicians who straddle party politics, and Ernie Bevin is one we all look to. My noble friend was quite right to remind us of the pivotal role he played, obviously as a Labour politician but also as a politician who straddled the party-political divide, and all of us who take a particular interest in national security and foreign policy matters look to him for inspiration. She was right to remind us of that. We are very grateful for her contribution and look forward to many more in the future.
Before turning to the individual contributions, I will address the most fundamental question in all of this. There are debates about what this and that should mean, but I will first pick out a point made by at least four noble Lords. The noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, and my noble friends Lord Browne and Lord Beamish, among others, asked: what difference will this make? That is the fundamental question. As many noble Lords have pointed out, there has been report after report into some of these matters, including sexism and racism.
The noble Earl, Lord Courtown, asked: what sorts of things will the commissioner look at? Included will be sexism, racism, misogyny, bullying and all the inappropriate behaviours that we could all list. My noble friend Lord Beamish pointed out that there have been many reports on these matters; the phrase he used was the “drumbeat” of reports that have taken place. There is not a single Member in this Chamber who does not abhor the things that we have read about.
The question is: how will the commissioner make a difference and bring about the change that we all want? That goes to the heart of the matter. As we develop the Bill, there will be arguments and debates about what this and that mean and about what should happen here and there, but the fundamental question, all the time, is: what difference will it make? As many have pointed out, I believe that placing something on a statutory basis, with an independent person choosing which reports they can undertake—with the status of the UK Parliament giving the individual that responsibility —offers us the best chance of ensuring that we can move forward with this. I believe that we can do that.
A number of noble Lords raised the issue of independence. It is our intention for the commissioner to be stand-alone. That is why it is separated from the military; the commissioner cannot be a serving military person or a civil servant. We intend to create a separation of power and responsibility to try to ensure that we can deliver the objectives that we all want.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, very much for her remarks. The Defence Select Committee will be able to offer an opinion and can look at the individual, but it will not be able to say that this cannot happen or to block the decision in any way. The Defence Select Committee of our Parliament saying what it thinks about an individual will carry influence and weight in determining what should or should not happen. That is the correct way forward; it will allow the Ministry of Defence and the Secretary of State to take a view on that before making a decision.
The noble Baroness will note that we are ensuring that the successful candidate, whoever it is, will have to undertake developed vetting. She asked whether that would be the case: it will be the case, which is important.
A number of noble Lords raised national security. That is not determined in the Bill, but the Secretary of State will have the power, through secondary legislation, to make a list, if they should want to, of sites that they think the commissioner should be excluded from because of national security considerations. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, asked who would decide this. That would be based on advice from the military to the Secretary of State about which sites would perhaps be inappropriate, for national security reasons, for the commissioner to visit. There is an attempt, through secondary legislation, to give the Secretary of State the opportunity to protect national security sites from the commissioner, as indeed should be the case.
A number of noble Lords asked about family members. That will be in draft legislation and will be published before Committee. I shall try to ensure—because the boot has been on the other foot for me—that “before Committee” does not mean that, if the Committee starts at 2 pm, everybody gets the draft at one minute to two. I shall try to ensure that people get it with enough time to be able to look at it and assess it before the debates have happened.
The noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, asked about the difference in Germany—and the noble Earl actually answered her question. The difference is that the German commissioner sits in the Bundestag. You could argue that taking the position out of that actually increases the independence and separation from the Government. You could look at it the other way and say that, if it is included in the Bundestag, that ensures that Parliament has more of a say. I would argue that, by taking it out of it, you increase the independence of the particular person who has that authority. That is the choice that you have to make.
A huge number of questions came up in the debate, some of which will have to be discussed in Committee. To confirm, the commissioner cannot make unannounced visits outside of the UK; they can make visits, but they cannot make any unannounced visits to sites outside of the UK.
The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, talked about the ability to take general thematic issues into account. That is the main difference. The existing Service Complaints Ombudsman has made the point that she has felt constrained by the fact that she could look at individual complaints but the ability to take a more general, thematic approach has been denied to her. She felt that that has been a very real problem.
I go back to the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie—just to show that I do listen, though this is more for Committee. She raised the issue of secondary legislation and referred to particular sections—I will read this to make sure that it is accurate. I can confirm to her that new Sections 365AA(2)(b) and 365AA(5) do not provide for support in secondary legislation. New Section 365AA2(b) does not create a power to set out further functions of the commissioner in subordinate legislation—that is, it is not a delegated power. It is wording that ensures that the commissioner’s functions are those that are set out in the Bill and could also include other functions conferred by other legislation, were that legislation to be in place. There are a couple of other examples of that which I will give to the noble Baroness in Committee, but I did not want her to think that I was ignoring her important question about secondary legislation.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, raised the whole issue of cultural change and confidence, and building confidence in the new person is absolutely fundamental. The right reverend Prelate mentioned the role of forces chaplains, and I think we would all pay tribute to the work of forces chaplains; we know how important they are. Of course, we would expect the commissioner to work with forces chaplains in the development of their work but also in understanding the general service welfare issues. Forces chaplains will be an important source of evidence for that.
I congratulate the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, on the engagement of his daughter to a group captain. He again raised the important point about confidence that the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, raised. There will be a comprehensive communications programme. He mentioned the importance of making sure that everybody was aware of the work of the commissioner. That is really important, and there will be significant work to ensure that that is taken forward. He asked about the authority of the commissioner. I go back to the point that I do not believe you can give much more authority to somebody than the British Parliament statutorily empowering an individual to take on such a role; I think that is really important.
A number of noble Lords mentioned resources. The current resource for the Service Complaints Ombudsman is £1.8 million, so this is potentially almost a tripling of the resources available to the new commissioner—a significant increase.
I again thank the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, for the work he does with the reserves, and I am very happy to meet him.
Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)
I just want to add a bit of clarity to our conversation about regulars, veterans and reserves, and what we imagine reserves to be. As Major-General Lancaster, I am head of the part-time volunteer reserve and subject to military law when wearing a uniform. Where we get confused is with veterans. When a regular leaves service, they do not become a veteran; they join the regular reserve, have a reserve liability and can be called back—indeed, we need them to put divisions in the field—and subsequently join the recall reserve and still have a potential liability. We call that the strategic reserve, and I think the Bill covers that. What it does not cover and make clear is when a member of the strategic reserve could make a claim. Is it at any time or when they are subject to military law? That is what needs to be clarified.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
As I understand it, it is when somebody is subject to service law. I think the way forward with this, without getting into detail, is that the noble Lord, Lord Colgrain, mentioned the possibility of a meeting. Let us set up a meeting between us to go through some of this in detail prior to Committee, where we can take some of it forward. As I say, my understanding is that whether they are regulars or reserves, it is within scope if that individual is subject to service law. Let us take some of this forward in due course. I just say politely that the Bill does not mention the word regulars either, but they are included. Rather than talk about regulars or reserves, we went to individuals “subject to service law” as an all-encompassing phrase to help us. Let us take this meeting forward.
In answer to one specific question from the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster—let me read it out so I do not get it wrong—the Ministry of Defence does not agree with the judgment of the employment tribunal in the matter of Milroy, and an appeal has been lodged with the Employment Appeal Tribunal. I hope that is helpful to the noble Lord. He may have known that, but I did not. I hope it is helpful to him that it is on the record.
There are ongoing discussions regarding Gibraltar. When I was in the noble Baroness’s place, I always used to ask why Gibraltar was not within the scope of Bills. It is the normal legislative process, but discussions then take place with the Chief Minister in Gibraltar to see how we apply the appropriate legislation there, should they wish it.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, for her remarks about the establishment of a commissioner. Her remarks about what we do with respect to the younger generation are important. She will know that veterans are not within the Bill’s scope. None the less, like the noble Lords, Lord Browne of Belmont and Lord Hay, she made important points about veterans. They have been put on the record. I will ensure that the points that she and the noble Lords made are sent on to the Northern Ireland Office so that it is are aware of them. That does not answer the specifics, and I am not pretending otherwise, but I have taken her points seriously and will ensure that they are passed on to the Northern Ireland Office.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, for her comments and the points that she made on the importance of the thematic reporting that is available to the commissioner. That is the whole point of it. Again, the commissioner’s ability to present their report to Parliament and for it to be discussed is particularly important.
I thank my noble friend Lord Browne of Ladyton for his comments; I am glad that he has recovered. He mentioned the need for a wide-ranging debate on the annual report. The importance of the candidate is crucial, and it will require a strong, determined individual. He is right to have pointed that out. I thank him for his support and his remarks.
The noble Lord, Lord Browne of Belmont, raised the importance of families, which we all recognise. He is quite right to have pointed out that families will, for the first time, be given the ability to make a complaint to the commission and for that to be taken forward. I confirm that bereaved families are included in the scope of the Bill. That is really important. It was made clear in the Commons. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, also raised that point.
I thank my noble friend Lady Liddell for her contribution and for highlighting the crucial importance of the person who is appointed. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, also raised this point and the need for cultural change, which is at the heart of everything. There will be continuing debates but, as I have said to her in other debates, if the commissioner sees individual incidents and individual complaints as being indicative of a more general welfare problem then they can use them as individual examples to generate their desire, intention or decision to investigate something more generally.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Russell, for reminding me of the Armed Forces scheme and of our time together on that. He was right to raise those questions. Of course we need someone with experience. I think I am right in saying—if I am wrong I will correct this in Committee—that although the commissioner and the deputy commissioners cannot be current serving military or civil servants, there is nothing to prevent the people they decide to recruit having had that experience. It may be that someone who was serving but is now retired could be recruited. If I am wrong I will correct that.
Developing relationships with other organisations is, as the noble Lord mentioned, absolutely fundamental. Again, you would expect that as good practice.
We will debate in Committee the ability to enter premises and when that is appropriate and when it is not. We are trying to strike a balance between national security, the ability of the commissioner to go somewhere unannounced when they think that would be advantageous, and being fair to the operational activity in the base.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hay, for his contribution and the points he made. My noble friend Lord Beamish’s massive experience is welcome and we will discuss his points further. We regard five years as an appropriate term of office, but I look forward to discussing that in more detail. The most important point he made, as I said, was about the slow drumbeat of reports. We have to get over that—that we just have report after report.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, for her contribution. We will define “a family” in regulations before Committee. Of course, accommodation is something that can and will be looked at. As I said to the noble Lord, Lord Colgrain, we will take up the issue of reserves.
I think I have covered most of the points. I know I have not covered every single point. I thank the noble Earl for the points he made. The money does come from the MoD; it is MoD-funded. I have covered the points raised on general welfare matters.
In conclusion, we have had a really important discussion. I do not want whoever is in this position—whichever Government are in power—in five years’ time to have us discussing once again the establishment of some other structure, process or procedure to deal with the issues that confront us. It is unacceptable to continue to read about some of these things. We have to find a way of changing this and of making a difference. That is what the vast majority of those in the Armed Forces and those who run them want to achieve. We have to find a way to deal with this and for this Parliament to find a structure that really deals with it, so that we do not have further reports. With that, I beg to move.
Lord Coaker
That the bill be committed to a Grand Committee, and that it be an instruction to the Grand Committee that they consider the bill in the following order:
Clause 1, Schedule 1, Clauses 2 to 5, Schedule 2, Clauses 6 to 8, Title.