Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Barker and Lord Adonis

Committee stage
Monday 19th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Barker) (LD)]

I have received notice from the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, who wishes to speak after the Minister.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, is the noble Baroness able to give us any information about the provision of apprenticeship options through UCAS? I appreciate that she may not have that information available, so could she write to Members of the Committee about it? There is quite an important issue about actual availability and pathways for young people going through vocational and technical education routes.

High Speed Rail (West Midlands-Crewe) Bill

Debate between Baroness Barker and Lord Adonis

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 9th November 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I agree with everything my noble friend Lord Liddle just said. As a former member of the HS2 board and as the Minister who set up HS2 Ltd, environmental concerns were absolutely at the heart of what we sought to meet. By and large, HS2 has done a good job.

The fundamental concern many noble Lords have is that this railway is being built at all. We need to be quite clear about this. The impact on ancient woodland is miniscule as regards the proportion of woodland affected. Some noble Lords would prefer that the line was not built and there was no impact; I respect that entirely. However, Parliament has given these powers and it is a project of importance. The noble Lord, Lord Randall, says it is unpopular, but that is not what the polling shows at all. It shows that HS2 as a scheme is popular with the public at large. Railways are popular, and indeed, if I may point out to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, they are particularly popular with Greens.

Unfortunately, a kind of parallel debate is taking place here. There is one between opponents of HS2 who are simply latching on to anything they can use to try to undermine the project, and the reality, which is that HS2 is doing, by and large, a good job. It could improve—of course all organisations can improve—but it is doing a good job of meeting its environmental obligations, and the requirements placed upon it by the Government are reasonable as regards no net loss.

I point out to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, that he delivered one part of his speech condemning cost overruns at HS2, which was prefaced by calling for additional costs, which would be significant. He tried to pooh-pooh them away in a kind of rhetorical way, but it would be very significant if they were imposed on HS2. He needs to work out how he reconciles the first half of his speech with the second half.

On reporting, I am in strong support of full transparency and proper accounting processes, as I have been all the way through this project. I hope that the Minister will tell us what the process for reporting is. HS2 Ltd publishes a full annual report, which gives an update of the progress on the project across a number of dimensions, and it is regularly held to account by parliamentary committees, including the Public Accounts Committee, and internally by the Government.

However, I see merit, as my noble friend Lord Liddle said, in a requirement for an ongoing process for reporting on delivery against environmental and financial objectives. Subject to what the Minister says when she tells us what the reporting processes are, might it be possible to bring together my noble friend Lord Berkeley’s Amendment 4 and my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe’s Amendment 9? The latter would require annual reporting in respect of the impact on ancient woodlands. My noble friend Lord Berkeley’s amendment would require quarterly reporting across a much wider range of impacts —not just environmental impacts, but costs of land acquisition, the progress of the project, and revenue forecasts and cost-benefit analyses. I support the broad range of issues that my noble friend Lord Berkeley wants to see reported on, but quarterly reporting is too regular. Subject to what the Minister says, if we are still not happy about the formal requirements for reporting after the Grand Committee, I wonder whether it might be possible to have annual reporting, as suggested in my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe’s Amendment 9, across a broader range of indices. My noble friend is right that annual reporting is the way most organisations report on objectives and costs.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Barker) (LD)]

I call the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham. No? Perhaps we can come back to the noble Lord. I call the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, that I am not at all impugning her integrity; I am just disagreeing with her. It is perfectly in order for us to disagree, as we do on HS2. There is no issue of integrity at stake at all. I think that in transport terms HS2 is the greenest new infrastructure project taking place in the UK today because the alternative, unless we are going to stop people travelling and hold back economic growth, is to build more motorways or have more domestic aviation, and neither of those is more desirable than HS2. That is why green parties across most of the rest of the world have supported high-speed rail. In Germany, France and Spain, green parties have been leading protagonists of high-speed rail. The problem for the noble Baroness is that she represents the past, not the future, in terms of green policy. That is not impugning her integrity; I am afraid that it is simply stating a disagreement.

The issues raised by the noble Earl are serious but largely technical. They are not technical for the people involved, of course, who have an absolute right to fair and timely compensation, but they are technical in terms of the operational rules and they are very detailed. All I want to say is that all Members of the Grand Committee, whether they are for or against HS2, want to see fairness applied. We look to the Minister for her reply to the specific points that the noble Earl has raised. A lot of them are very technical so it may be that she does that in writing—she is nodding; the letter that follows may be a long one.

One of the great virtues of the House of Lords is that we have Members such as the noble Earl who have a high degree of expertise in these areas. That is a very great and positive thing about this House. With a very open mind, we want to take account of both what the noble Earl has said and what the Minister says in reply before deciding what to do on Report. However, I stress that being in favour of HS2 does not mean that one is in any way stinting with regard to the obligations of fairness and natural justice that the Government owe to the citizens of this country. I undertake personally to take a keen interest in what the Minister says in response to the noble Earl’s points, and I would be happy to be party to any meeting.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Barker) (LD)]

I call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham.

Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Baroness Barker and Lord Adonis

Wednesday 9th January 2019 Grand Committee

[Baroness Barker]

My Lords, like the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, I shall confine my remarks primarily to the regulations we are currently discussing. With respect to the general debate that we have had, I will say simply that it is common with statutory instruments that there is a great deal of consultation beforehand with relevant bodies, and that is simply not the case on these. That in turn often leads to a determination of whether or not a statutory instrument is in fact controversial and where it ends up being discussed in your Lordships’ House. Some of the earlier discussion about those statutory instruments that will be put into Grand Committee as opposed to being considered on the Floor of the House might therefore have to be reconsidered, given the deluge of statutory instruments that is clearly coming our way.

Because of that, I have some questions for the Minister. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, I was unclear about what happens regarding the six-month transition period. I understand that the statutory instrument comes into force if there is no agreement. Is it therefore right to assume that there is then a six-month transitional arrangement that will automatically be overtaken, and that at the end of that six months there will be a completely new set of regulations for this important area of work? It is an important area of work, in which we have led the way in the world. The consequences, not least for the research capacity in this country, are extensive.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, I could not determine whether the Minister’s statements were statements of aspiration or fact. It seemed to me that she was trying to convince us that there would continue to be equivalent recognition between ourselves and the EU—but on what basis, if we are not just no longer subject to the same agreements but no longer taking part in the development of policy and science that underlines the developing law in this area?

I have one other question on this SI. The Minister said that legislation governing reproductive cells is a reserved, UK-wide matter, but there are cells that are not reproductive but that are created for the purposes of research into human fertilisation and embryology. Is that a reserved matter or a devolved matter? If it is the latter, what discussions have been had with the devolved Administrations? In Scotland we have world-leading academic and research bodies. In conclusion, and this applies to the whole area of research, I have to say: what a waste of time, money and effort, and what damage we are doing to our world-leading research centres in this country.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, I will make some points about the validity of our consideration of this statutory instrument. Like the nine others we are going to consider, it relates to no-deal planning. In respect of the remarks made by the Deputy Chairman of Committees, this is highly relevant to this regulation and all the others because we would not be debating this regulation and all the arrangements that the Minister explained, including very complex new relationships that are going to be necessary with our European partners, if it were not for the fact that the Government are putting in place no-deal planning for what might happen if we crash out of the European Union on 29 March without a treaty.

But there is a big question mark about the validity of that no-deal planning, for two reasons. First, the supposition of all parliamentarians when we served the notice under Article 50 was that there would be a deal. The whole purpose of Article 50 is to set in train negotiations for an exit treaty. The House of Commons has never voted—until yesterday, and I will come to this in a moment because it has a big bearing on our consideration of these statutory instruments—on a proposition that the United Kingdom should leave the European Union with no deal; nor have your Lordships. It is my contention that the whole consideration of these statutory instruments is invalid because it does not follow a clear instruction from the House or any legislative basis for the implementation of no-deal arrangements.