European Union (Future Relationship) Bill

Baroness Bakewell Excerpts

3rd reading & 2nd reading & Committee negatived & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bakewell (Lab) [V]]

It gives me great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Austin, and to congratulate him on his maiden speech. I regret only that he was driven from the Labour Party by its wrangle over anti-Semitism, which was deplorable, but he is very welcome. I approve very much of what he said about his stand in defence of democracy and those who need support in our society.

I registered the fact that the noble Lord was also a shadow Culture Secretary, so I want to endorse his interest there by speaking about the damage that this agreement will do to the cultural life and artistic reputation of this country—indeed, it is already doing so. Last week, a professional trumpeter was sent an invitation to audition for the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. Yesterday, he received a letter cancelling that audition because we are no longer in the EU, so he is not able to participate in an audition. This damage is already happening. The youth orchestra of Europe no longer invites young British musicians to audition to belong to that remarkable institution. We are already losing out. In this regrettable settlement, which I disapprove of, there is still time to do something about it.

The problem with travel for performers of all kinds is that it is damaged by our leaving the EU. They will not have freedom of movement and their careers will be at risk. These people include classical musicians, jazz musicians, pop musicians, artists, actors, dancers, photographers and filmmakers. They will all suffer unless the Government institute a visa-free cultural work passport—I put this to them, and please will they do so—that avoids their having to apply for a visa to each of the 27 countries where they want to travel, tour and be distinguished. There is also the carnet which they have to have to carry their equipment with them. This will make a huge difference but without it the earning capacity of this country through its cultural life will fall. At the moment, the creative industries are worth £110 billion and the arts earn £13 billion for this country. This problem needs remedying.

I also add my voice to many of those, including my noble friend Lady Massey, who spoke so eloquently about the Erasmus scheme, which has served young people very well. We should build on it and extend it, instead of starting from scratch with a new scheme having learned nothing. We should depend on what we have learned from Erasmus and go forward to make it even better.

House of Lords: Labour Peers’ Working Group Report

Baroness Bakewell Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bakewell (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, will, I hope, be pleased to know that I have not arrived with a written speech. I am making some footnotes on what I have already heard. I congratulate my noble friend Lady Taylor of Bolton on introducing the debate. The issue goes forward; it goes on and on. My comments derive from being part of the outreach department of the House of Lords, which goes into schools and talks to intelligent, and sometimes not very intelligent, sixth formers about this House. There is mass ignorance about what we do.

When I arrive, with natural campaigning spirit they say to me right away, “Why aren’t you elected? What are you doing here? You have no right. How does it happen?”. When I explain that we do have democracy, that it is called the House of Commons, and that we are a revising Chamber, they settle their first eagerness for change—change almost for its own sake—and listen as I set out the purposes that we fulfil. The most surprising aspect to them is the nature of the Cross-Benchers. They do not realise that we are not all politicised and loyal to our particular Benches. They are very impressed by that.

However, they want to know who the Peers are, which brings me to other issues, some of which have been overlooked in this report. In doing my homework before meeting these young people, I have understood how change has come incrementally, little by little. Some change has been reluctant, some consensual and some argumentative. That is how it works in this country, which is why we have life Peers and women Peers. Change goes on. Here we are in the middle of change and there will be more. Many of the things recommended in this report could be brought about, and should be brought about, quite soon without legislation. Then we will discuss further legislation.

Who should be in the House of Lords? I am a working Peer. I believe that it is a great honour to serve here and that it is very important that Peers should be working Peers. A footnote to that is that working Peers have to give of their time. People who have some expertise and would be willing will have been at the peak of their career and moving towards the end of it. Young doctors or lawyers will not find the time to serve as working Peers. When we ask people to be working Peers, we are asking them to sacrifice or to phase down their professional working lives. That will present some problems of how we recruit.

I shall say a few words about retirement. I am a working Peer who is over 80. I say that as a preliminary to discussing the whole nature of retirement. Retirement in our country is fundamentally changing. We have an ageing population. The whole change of legislation is indicating that people will not get their pensions until they are in their late 60s but, believe you me, that will extend. People will work into their 70s. That raises the whole problem of the life trajectory which people can expect to live. People will age at different rates. They will have different degrees of expertise at different times in their lives. Again, that is a footnote. I want to register that an age number is not the sole criterion in deciding whether someone is useful to a Chamber. Indeed, the practice in many businesses now, as people approach their retirement age, is to begin to adjust their role to offer them opportunities to do less, give them specific tasks and generally ease that phase in which they begin to leave their work so that the institution does not lose their expertise and they themselves are not overtaxed. I know of noble Lords in this House who are over 80—indeed one is over 90—who give extremely good, expert advice. I turn up in the Chamber to hear them speak because I know that they are experts. Medical people and lawyers, too, have reached the peak of their professions and retain that knowledge. The whole retirement issue will again prompt discussion among us.

This is a tremendously interesting report. It is an interim report. But it lost its nerve by not mentioning the Bishops. I am one of a group of people who are not eligible to sit on the Bishops Benches at all—I refer to women. There are no women and they are not going to be elected. Will Bishops be elected? How do the Bishops get their role? The whole issue of the presence of the Bishops is extremely interesting and is bound to change. In the course of its changing, we may well hear arguments for representatives of other religions in our society also to have a place in this Chamber. We are very conscious these days—are we not?—of the mix of religion and politics. The idea that you could have token members of different religions, primarily there by virtue of their religion, is a dangerous path. Again, it is a footnote, but this is an issue that will come up and be pressed by the many religious communities. But where do you stop? There are a large number of them.

These are the footnotes that I offer to this impressive report. We will go on talking. We will probably talk by way of a commission. There is nothing wrong with talk. Plenty of us can do plenty of it, as we know.

Digital Strategy

Baroness Bakewell Excerpts

Monday 15th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am something of an expert when it comes to which parts of the Yorkshire Dales National Park one cannot get mobile access. I am conscious that there are all sorts of contradictions in wanting to develop rural broadband, with national parks resisting having mobile phone masts put up all over them.

Some weeks ago, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury announced, as part of the Investing in Britain’s Future package, that there will be an additional £250 million match-funded to extend superfast broadband to such hard-to-reach areas.

[Baroness Bakewell]

My Lords, are the Government aware that more and more councils are going online? In fact, they are offering a bribe—a reduction for people who pay their bills online—thus penalising the millions of older people who are not willing or able to go online themselves. Surely the health cost of isolating more and more older people from the free running of society and their councils is something the Government should take into account.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Government very much take that into account. Incidentally, the statistics do not show that all older people are incapable of using digital services. The assisted digital scheme is precisely a means of helping people who do not find it easy to access the internet. They are given incentives to encourage them to ask their friends and others in care homes and elsewhere to help them to access the internet. I admit that the only government service that I have yet used online is renewing my driving licence. I understand that the most complex procedure that you can currently do entirely online is the enduring power of attorney, which I suspect one needs younger people to help with.