Gambling Act 2005

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The Government have always been clear, as I said, that we will look at the case for alternative funding mechanisms and all options remain on the table. Of course, we are taking views from industry, as we are from everybody with an interest in this area. We will take all those views into account as we prepare the White Paper.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I declare my position as a member of Peers for Gambling Reform. In Washwood Heath Road in Ward End, Birmingham, there are three bookmakers next to each other and another a few metres away. It is known to the locals as the bookie belt. We know from studies last year that bookmakers are 10 times more likely to be in the poorest areas of the country than the richest. This takes away choice in food and other essential shops. Should not the Government’s levelling-up White Paper have dealt with this issue of place-based gambling dominance?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, it is also important to remember that a great number of people gamble legally and enjoy doing so without harm. We want to strike the right balance to make sure that people can conduct this legal activity, while addressing questions of regional disparities. That is why we have put out our call for evidence. We are glad to have received so many submissions and are considering them carefully.

BBC: Government Support

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I join others in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, for securing this debate and introducing it so beautifully, even if, when I hear his mellifluous tones, I cannot help thinking we are about to venture off into the life of the astronomer Caroline Herschel or, as in a recent favourite episode of “In Our Time”, the evolution of crocodiles.

The noble Lord set out very clearly two of the gigantic threats faced by the BBC, which, although many might like to grumble about this piece of output or that, is, as an institution, a public service hugely valued by the public. Apparently, if you read the integrated review of security, defence, development and foreign policy, it is also valued by the Government for its place in international soft power, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, referred.

The first threat is the squeezing of funding. As the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, said, it seems that the Government are bent on making the BBC weaker. The second threat is what the noble Lord again so clearly explained as the “jumbo bombers coming across the Atlantic”. The great parasite Amazon, Netflix and other global monoliths are clearly something we need an institution to stand against.

The noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, outlined some of the many ways in which the BBC has been cut away at. Unlike him, I am not going to celebrate the loss of free educational resources; nor, I suggest, should the Government, given their often-avowed attachment to lifelong learning.

Like others, the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, spoke about our “broadcasting landscape”. The word “ecosystem” has also been used. The BBC is still a big part of that landscape, but is not, as some with certain ideological attachments often like to claim, a part that squeezes out the small, new and innovative. Rather, the BBC is a crucial part of nurturing talent and innovation from such sources.

The BBC is a bulwark. Think of it perhaps as a giant sequoia tree that stands against the threat of not many but a few giants; namely, a handful of multimedia tycoons and giant multinational companies—you might think of them as wildfire and raging flood, as they are certainly equally destructive. As the Media Reform Coalition, working in co-operation with the Center for Media, Data and Society, again highlights in its 2021 report on media ownership, concentration is endemic. Three firms control 90% of the national media newspaper market, up from 83% in 2019—a seven percentage point increase. Three local publishers each control one-fifth of the local press market. Facebook controls three of the top five social media services used to access online news. Two companies own 70% of the 279 local commercial radio stations—a 20% increase since 2018. That is not a healthy ecosystem. If the size of the BBC is reduced, the fat cats of the oligopoly only get fatter.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, on something: the licence fee is a poll tax and should be replaced by a hypothecated share of progressive income tax—far more progressive than it is now—with a level of funding at least restored to 2010 levels in real terms. Changing technological demands will require that.

I also agree very strongly with the noble Lord, Lord Storey, about the importance of local channels and stations at the BBC and—in another failure of regulation, of which we see so many—the total failure of regulators to ensure that what are supposed to be local commercial radio stations actually serve those audiences. I should perhaps declare that, a long time ago and in another country, I spent some time working as a producer on a local ABC radio station. That feeds my great respect for the local teams that continue to produce brilliant local content for the BBC under extremely straitened funding conditions.

I think of a young woman who covered the roles of reporter, camerawoman, soundwoman and social media outputter when she interviewed me in North Yorkshire. She was so slick, she was practically juggling the multiple digital tools of those various trades as she deployed them in the hasty 10 minutes she had with me before travelling on to her next job. We are getting very good value for money from that young woman and many like her. Communities value and rely on that output.

Dormant Assets Bill [HL]

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 16th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to be able to speak in support of the amendment. As Committee was quite a long time ago, I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I repeat some arguments.

We are all committed to building back better—to coin a phrase—and the proposed community wealth fund or funds could be a valuable foundation, enabling us to tackle a range of inequalities and improve outcomes for the residents of our most disadvantaged areas. As such, they potentially have a key role to play in the levelling-up agenda, as already noted, as increasingly it is recognised that levelling up must involve not just physical but social infrastructure, as the right reverend Prelate has said. As the report from the Bennett Institute for Public Policy argues, social infrastructure brings

“economic, social and civic value”

—and, we might add, cultural value—to areas where such assets may be weak. According to the British Academy, of which I am a fellow, the pandemic has shown:

“National capacity to respond to changing circumstances and challenges requires effort to sustain a strong web of communities and community engagement at local levels.”


Community-led networks are vital for combating inequalities over the long-term and must be at the centre of plans to build back better.

Social infrastructure matters to people. There is a lot of evidence that the presence or absence of it makes a big difference to how people feel about their neighbourhoods and their satisfaction with them. In areas with strong social infrastructure—particularly places and spaces to meet, and community organisations—people feel a greater sense of community, civic pride and belonging. These areas are more neighbourly and more cohesive. They also have better health and employment outcomes.

The Minister may have seen the recent report from Onward, a right-of-centre think tank, entitled Turnaround. It draws a number of positive lessons from the Labour Government’s new deal for communities, one of which is that

“the most significant sustained improvements are those with the strongest base of civic assets and most engaged communities. This suggests that the government should pay much more attention to nurturing the social fabric of a place alongside economic interventions.”

It also emphasises the importance of

“social infrastructure within local places”.

If we are to build back better, we need to invest in social infrastructure in these deprived neighbourhoods. We need—as is the case with the proposed community wealth funds—this investment to be long-term so that it provides continuity. Crucially, as my noble friend Lord Bassam of Brighton said, we need it to be community- led, albeit with communities receiving appropriate support to build community confidence and capacity. Again, to quote the Onward report, one of the lessons from previous regeneration policies is that

“communities must have a stake in regeneration, not merely be consulted … community involvement is essential, but many are capacity constrained”.

I realise that the Government are reluctant for the Bill to be amended to specify the distribution of dormant assets—and I am supportive of the intended consultation which will be the subject of later amendments —but, as has already been explained, this is a permissive amendment. I can see no reason for the Government not to support it.

One of the reasons I am speaking in support of this amendment is because it has such widespread support, as has already been said by the right reverend Prelate. Those 450 organisations to which he referred are part of a growing alliance advocating for the fund. This includes 40 local and combined authorities, most of the major independent charitable funders and all the main civil society umbrella groups, including the NCVO.

Polling research by Local Trust—and I express my appreciation for the briefing that it provided—demonstrates that the proposal would have the support of senior leaders in the financial services industry.

The community wealth fund has also been recommended in reports from a large number of think tanks and inquiries, including Localis, the Centre for Cities, the Fabian Society, New Local, the No Place Left Behind commission and the Civil Society Futures inquiry. It has also been endorsed by the APPG for “Left Behind” Neighbourhoods, of which I am a member.

I acknowledge concerns expressed by those who use dormant asset funding for the work that they already do. However, I see no reason why they should not continue to do that work and receive funds because these are new funds and no one is arguing that the whole of them should be used for community wealth funds. Again, this is a permissive amendment, not one that requires specific action. Such a strong case has been made by so many civil society groups. There is a growing consensus that a community wealth fund, or funds, is much needed and that investment should come from dormant assets. I therefore urge the Government to listen to civil society and accept this modest amendment.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett. I think the case for this amendment has been powerfully made and I want to show the breadth of support for it.

Last night in the policing Bill we were debating how we saw a grass-roots-up initiative starting from Nottingham that saw the practice of recording misogyny as a hate crime. So many new ideas and innovations start with the local and start in local areas. Yet we live in one of the most centralised nations on this planet, certainly in Europe, with power and resources concentrated here in Westminster. This amendment very modestly puts power and resources out into places that desperately need them.

Often, we are talking about places that no longer have a place to meet—even the pubs have closed in many of the poorest communities that I see. Lots of housing has recently been built without any public meeting places and places for people to gather at all. What we are talking about here is giving power to local communities that are really struggling, to let them decide for themselves what they need to do. I think we could see some truly wonderful innovations starting from the community wealth fund that then could spread far more widely. Perhaps appropriately for a Green, let us think about throwing out some seeds and seeing some wonderful plants flourishing, flowering and growing.

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, when I initially heard about community wealth funds, I was rather sceptical, and I perhaps remain on the more sceptical end of the spectrum in your Lordships’ House. But during discussions on the Bill, I have become less sceptical about the idea, as the noble Lords, Lord Bassam of Brighton and Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, have talked to me, along with the groups mentioned by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ely.

Two things in particular have caused me to think again. The first is the experience of the pandemic and how everybody’s sense of locality and place has changed. I happen to live in south London, and one of the many things that got me through the toughest of times was discovering local parks that I had never come across before. Watching other people having to live their lives in a much more geographically restricted scope has made a new sense of place. I now understand —in a way that I perhaps did not before—that being able to appreciate and develop your community space will be a very important part of people’s physical, economic and mental well-being in future.

The second reason why I have changed my mind is this. The noble Baroness gave a long list of community initiatives that have flowed out over the past 30 years, many of them from the National Lottery, the new deal for communities and so on. Pretty much all of them were the release of resources into a community, with varying degrees of restriction on how they could be spent—but they were resources to be spent in poor communities.

This is about something different. It is about an investment fund that has to generate wealth within those communities. To do that, the people who will be managing it locally will have to learn and display economic development skills themselves. That is a different proposal from the ones before. The noble Baroness is right that, as we move through a huge period of economic change—green development and the green economy—if we get away from the old idea of development solely in buildings and talk about investment in economic skills and new jobs, managed in a much more local way, that has the potential to be different.

The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, was absolutely right: we had to grab a passing Bill and shove something on to it. But the very purpose of this Bill is to take assets that are lying dormant and put them into communities where people are financially excluded, do not have business skills or need some help with the generation of wealth and well-being. This is about doing that with people in their community, not yet another building. So I have changed my mind and think this is something different, and therefore I now think it is worthy of support.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, this amendment was triggered by remarks made in Committee by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, who was the very capable Minister then who was replaced by another very capable Minister. She was very open in response to a question that had been asked quite innocently. We wanted to put in an amendment in Committee a requirement to confirm that the dormant asset money would flow to charities or recognised and formalised social enterprises.

In her response, the noble Baroness said no, that the Government wanted to make sure that the money was also available to mission-focused for-profit companies. There was general shock around the Committee, as everyone talked about the Dormant Assets Bill as providing money to charity and social enterprises, and it sent me away to Google. Perhaps others in your Lordships’ House were far less naive than I, but there is a massive business growing in the social impact arena these days, which has become very attractive to the private sector.

To give your Lordships an idea of who is coming to play in this particular arena, I will refer to one of endless websites that contain copies of similar discussions: “Mainstream venture capital … funds”—we are talking about VC funds—

“are beginning to look for a new kind of unicorn—companies that will not only provide huge financial returns”—

we are talking here about 12% returns for modest venture capital, perhaps with earlier-stage money 20% returns—

“but also create huge social impact.”

It notes London and San Francisco as two of the leading hubs for these kinds of investments.

I have no argument with a venture capitalist who puts money into social good. That is absolutely fine as far as I am concerned. But I am very concerned if that entity is seeking grants from the dormant asset fund and turning that around to enhance the returns to its investor, who is expecting a return around the 12% to 20% mark. I can see why it is extremely attractive to the for-profit company; after all, it is very hard in most circumstances for social impact to generate returns of that extraordinary size. But if there is a very significant grant coming from the dormant asset fund, one can achieve those kinds of benchmarks easily. I do not think that is the purpose that was embedded in the original Bill or the purpose which most of us who are associated with this have in mind.

The amendment is not an attempt to exclude all for-profit companies, because I understand that there are some areas where they have been very useful, for example in teaching financial literacy. It is to make sure that they are not plucking extraordinary returns as a consequence of grants from the dormant assets fund. Charities and social enterprises seeking funds and grant money may indeed find that they have some excess over the particular project that they have been working with, but their whole constitutional structure requires them to make sure that money flows back into good causes. I do not want this to turn into an opportunity for that money to flow back to large-scale investors.

As we all know, the oversight process in the Dormant Assets Bill—we will talk about this on the very last amendment—is very weak, because in the original concept the end users were going to be charities and social enterprises that were under constraint and governance of various different kinds. Therefore, an additional level of scrutiny was not a matter of significant concern. With this big expansion, and with the purposes to which the fund can be applied being essentially in the gift of the Secretary of State, this becomes a major concern.

We are all concerned about money being spent inappropriately. Nothing would be more damning to this whole process than a major scandal in which we suddenly have a newspaper describing circumstances in which money from the dormant assets fund has gone to an investor seeking very large returns. This could compromise not just that particular project but the whole programme. Frankly, I do not think that is a principle that should be allowed to proceed in this Bill, which is why I have moved this amendment.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to commend the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, on her alertness in uncovering this issue, and to make a very simple comparison with something that has occupied a great deal of time in your Lordships’ House lately: the water companies, and what we have seen happen with them, with, very often, hedge fund owners involved, massive profits being taken out and massive loads of debt. This is a terribly important amendment. I regret not attaching my name to it. I certainly would have done had I been alerted to it earlier. This is terribly important, and I encourage the noble Baroness to keep pushing.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not have a great deal to add. The argument of the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, is very sound and was well made and well researched. We had an interesting debate on this topic in Grand Committee, and I am grateful to our colleagues on the Liberal Democrat Benches for allowing us to return to it through this reformulated amendment.

During the previous debate, examples were raised of organisations that are not social enterprises or charities, but which nevertheless deliver public good through the use of dormant assets funding. This new amendment captures that reality, while introducing the safeguard that these funds, which are finite and will be highly sought after, are not used to enhance investors’ returns, where that may be a concern.

I do not really understand why the Government should not write this kind of safeguard into the Bill. Failing that, will the Minister put something on the record that will provide us with some comfort? We need that reassurance, protection and level of accountability.

Gambling-related Harms

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I join others in welcoming the Minister to his new role and thanking the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans for securing this important debate.

I joined your Lordships’ House after speaking at a medical conference. I mentioned to a senior doctor there where I was heading next. He said, “I bet to myself that whenever I switch on the television I will see a gambling advert.” He was not just making a joke but expressing concerns about the public health aspect of the gambling industry, particularly gambling advertising, which so many noble Lords have already mentioned.

I was talking at the conference about the pharmaceutical industry, quoting a former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine who described it as being like an 800-pound gorilla in its political impact. That might be quite a good metaphor for the lobbying power of the gambling industry too. If we set the two against each other, it might be quite close and we would probably see quite a bit of betting on the result.

The noble Lord, Lord Smith, said that the industry is becoming a little more responsible. “Little” seems the right word when you look at the list of annual donations to GambleAware, the industry-funded addiction charity, published in April 2021. There are a number of remarkably small donations from very large groups. To pick out one, the Philippines-based W88, a shirt sponsor for a major football team, which is operating through the controversial white-label system, donated £250. That sum was succeeded by quite a large list of donations from local hospices and Red Cross groups, which had done things such as hold cake stalls to raise money to help problem gamblers. Yet here was a very large company from the industry putting in £250.

Slightly to my surprise, I find myself agreeing with what the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, said about advertising. I direct Members of your Lordships’ House to an article by the Hampshire cricketer Chris Wood just published in the Times. He has spoken with great bravery about his problem with gambling addiction, identifying that he has lost around £200,000. Gambling has massive impacts on poorer communities, but it is a problem right through all areas of our society. Chris Wood explicitly identifies advertising, particularly during football games, as something he found very hard to fight against.

Looking at what is happening around Europe, Sweden is proposing restrictions on gambling parallel to its tight restrictions on alcohol advertising. Portugal has just brought in a ban on advertising on TV and radio between 7 am and 10.30 pm. Being new, the Minister may not yet have acquired the yellow sticky note that I am sure is on all Ministers’ computer terminals which says, “Must say ‘world-leading’ in every sentence”. If he has, I strongly suggest that he does not use that phrase here, as we are definitely trailing on the global scale of controls on this out-of-control industry.

It is interesting that so many nations are tying together alcohol and gambling advertising, because this review demonstrates that alcohol consumption is strongly associated with gambling. The noble Lord, Lord Robathan, talked about leaving it to individual responsibility, but that is obviously a problem when you combine gambling opportunities with alcohol.

I want to build on the comments of the noble Lords, Lord Foster of Bath and Lord Sikka, who talked about the impacts on children and young people. The review tells us that the rates for gambling, which is often technically illegal, are higher than those for using e-cigarettes, smoking tobacco cigarettes or taking illegal drugs. In some cases, we have very tight legal restrictions on those three activities, which are harmful to young people, so surely our controls on gambling, particularly as it affects young people, should be on a similar scale.

Talking about young people, I raise the issue of loot boxes. We have talked about this quite a bit in your Lordships’ House, but we have failed to see any government action. I looked at some figures on the FIFA Ultimate Team games. Research has shown a robustly verified link between loot boxes and problem gambling. A UK consumer survey which looked at the players of this game suggests that 31% of 13 to 15 year- olds had played the title. This really is a public health issue, particularly for children and young people.

Finally, I mention a comment made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans about how this ties in with the levelling-up agenda. There are reasons why problem gambling and poorer areas are associated. Many people in our society cannot see a way forward for themselves financially. They are trapped in low-wage jobs or on zero-hours contracts. They look for hope—a tiny spark to suggest that things might get better. They know that the odds are terrible but cannot see anything better. We need many more changes to address the issues which sit behind those covered in this debate.

Artists and Musicians: Working in Europe

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

We are keen and our aim is to make touring completely accessible once more to all artists who wish to tour. Our belief is that the best way to do that is through bilateral agreements with individual member states, which is what we are doing.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I follow on from the questions of the noble Lord, Lord German, and the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty. The noble Lord, Lord German, asked about talks and negotiations. I am not going to draw a line between them but will pick up on the point about cabotage. Are any active talks or negotiations—however they are described—going on, on either a bilateral or an EU-wide basis, to deal with the issue of cabotage?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Baroness will be aware that during our negotiations with the EU we pressed for a special derogation from the cabotage restrictions. We are working closely on the issue with the Department for Transport, which recently issued a call for evidence. We are working with the department and the sector to resolve the issue.

Telecommunications (Security) Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 29th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I should perhaps declare my position as the co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong. I will begin with a short list of things to agree with. I very much agree with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Fox—not currently in his place—and particularly his remarks about privacy. I associate myself very much with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool. When we are talking about trade and commerce, we have to think about the human rights aspects as well. That and the environment, as in the Environment Bill, all interlinks together. The targeting of the Uighurs—the situation in what the locals called Altishahr—is a situation of genocide, and we simply cannot stand by.

To finish the tick list of issues that were covered in the other place and that a number of noble Lords have also covered, once again we find ourselves, as we do on pretty much every Bill, saying that there is not adequate scrutiny of the Secretary of State’s powers. Whether Ofcom will have the resources to complete the role foreseen for it in the Bill is a very familiar story. We also do not have sufficient consultation with devolved Governments written into the Bill.

However, I want to start today’s remarks with a bit of a longue durée perspective, an overview, because we are once again in the context of privatisation. We are talking about what used to a public service run for public good—our telecoms network—which was, for ideological reasons, handed over to the private sector through a privatisation that has been allowed to become a wild west. Now we are trying—to coin a phrase—to take back control of that wild west. It is increasingly clear, and the Government are acknowledging this by actions if not words, that telecoms are now an essential service or a utility just as much as water or energy supplies are, and that we need to think about these issues for a larger future and about running them for public good, not private profit.

I will focus particularly on Clause 1 of the Bill, which amends Section 105 of the Communications Act. The focus here is on compromising security. The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, and the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, among others, talked about the idea of security being comprehensive. Indeed, new subsection (2)(a) says that a security compromise is

“anything that compromises the availability, performance or functionality of the network or service”.

To think about what might compromise our services, I invite noble Lords to look across at America right at this moment: there is a massive, record heat wave. To cite one set of figures, the city of Portland has had three days in which it has broken record temperatures—not by points of degrees but by degrees. Today, the top temperature in Portland is 46.6 degrees Celsius. For those who prefer a more old-fashioned system, like the Americans, that is 116 degrees Fahrenheit. The infrastructure is melting in a very literal sense. You have what are being described as non-linear and threshold effects, where systems go utterly, totally and completely down because they just cannot cope with the environmental conditions.

Looking back to new Clause 1(2)(a) on compromising

“the availability, performance or functionality of the network”,

I agree with Boris Johnson, who said as he was chairing the UN Security Council earlier this year that climate change is a threat to our security. It seems to me very clear that the Bill should tackle these kinds of issues. I ask the Minister: do the Government regard it in this way? If they do not, what other steps are the Government taking to tackle these issues?

I stress that I have seen this first hand, not just in distant structures. I happened to be in Lancaster a few days after it was affected by very serious floods—well, the flooding was not that serious; what was really serious was that it took out the city’s electricity supplies for about two and a half days. When I saw the people about a week or so later, the city was shocked about all the effects that no one had really thought of. Nearly all the student accommodation had electric security doors; with no electricity you have a massive access problem. In a flood, you normally put people into emergency accommodation in hotels, but with electronic key cards there is no access to hotel rooms without electricity. Of course, the cash machines went down, and the pumps did not work at petrol stations.

I come to a broader question about security and telecoms, and indeed our whole increasingly digitalised world. I think we are all agreed that this is a fairly small and modest Bill, but we also know that the Government are planning what is being described as an internet of things Bill; I believe it is called the product security and telecoms infrastructure Bill. These are big, existential issues about our security, our survival and the ability of our basic systems to function—to provide people with food, water and the essentials they need. I think this is an ideal time to ask the Government whether they have really considered how much IT, telecoms and digital integration we actually need. I refer here to the words of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup; he said we cannot assume that any attack will fail. The kind of breakdowns I am talking about are not necessarily an attack in those terms, but they can be absolutely disastrous, as Lancaster illustrated.

Yesterday, in debating the Environment Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, talking about damage to the environment, said that the first question we should ask is: do we actually need the thing we are building that is destroying the environment? We really have to ask about the digitisation of our society, the incorporation of everything linked together through 5G. Do we actually need these linkages, and what vulnerabilities are they creating? That is the main point I want to make, but I shall pick up a couple of other small points.

I forget which noble Lord said that what we have now is a situation of market failure. The Government are saying explicitly, associated with the Bill, that they have a diversification strategy to see that we have more different producers and suppliers. Are the Government looking at direct research funding—direct support for that kind of diversification? Market failure has got us into the situation where there is very little diversity, and relying on the market to fix that is, I suggest, very difficult and will not necessarily be successful. I point out that if we go back to the origins of all the things that got us to this point today, it was government funding that created the TCP/IP protocol and that funded the people whose research created the world wide web. We really have to think about ensuring that we put government funds into things if we really believe that they are needed.

That is pretty well all I wanted to say, but I have one final thought, coming back to the issue of resilience. We are in a situation now of huge supply problems. We are talking about not allowing certain supplies into the country, but we have a global chip shortage. I am relying on anecdote here, but I have a friend who is a manager in a fairly large public service and who simply is not able to upgrade the wi-fi because it is impossible to get the technology, to buy the bits of kit needed to do that, because of the chip shortage. Going beyond anecdote, there was a report in the Financial Times quoting the major infrastructure manufacturing company, Flex, which says that this chip shortage is likely to continue for another year. We are stuck in a situation where we have very fragile, just-in-time, complex supply chains, we are saying there are companies we cannot use any more, and we are in a situation where resilience needs to be thought about a great deal more.

Dormant Assets Bill [HL]

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 26th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to join many others in welcoming a fellow former newspaper editor to your Lordships’ House. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Fleet, will be a great addition to our ranks and I particularly welcome her comments about encouraging the creative industries and, I hope, creative education. I hope that she has considerable influence on the government Front Bench of both your Lordships’ House and the other place. She arrives on the day that we heard the dreadful news that the University of Sheffield plans to close its world-leading, world-renowned archaeology department. I hope that she also picks up advocacy of archaeology as a subject that explores and helps us to understand the creativity of the past, which can inform our lives in the present.

We have had an interesting and wide-ranging debate, but I have to pick up a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Bates, and echo his praise for the volunteers who contribute so much to so many of our communities. However, I am afraid that I do not share his confidence in the capacity of volunteers to pick up more and more responsibilities, when we have an increasing pension age and the pressures of low wages, high rents, long working hours and reduced government services, which leave many with increased care responsibilities within their families and among their friends. From libraries to lunch clubs, volunteers have been asked to do more and more.

I find myself today in the unusual situation of welcoming a government Bill and entirely agreeing with the Minister’s introduction. Proposed here we have a sensible use for money parked in obscure places doing nothing. We are talking about potentially a further £880 million for social and environmental initiatives. We are building on an existing scheme that has provided more than £745 million for charities and social enterprises in the past decade. That is £75 million a year. It sounds nice when you say it like that, but I would like to put that figure in the context of the financial sector, of which we are drawing on a very small part here.

The amount of money lost in corporate tax revenue because of money placed in tax havens is estimated to be between $500 billion and $600 billion a year. It is estimated that lost tax revenues from high net worth individuals are about $200 billion a year around the globe. The Minister spoke about money languishing and sitting around doing nothing. That is what that money is doing in tax havens—not being used to fund the real economy or to circulate in the kind of communities we are looking to enrich. For full clarity, those figures come from a September 2019 article called “Tackling Tax Havens” by Nicholas Shaxson in Finance & Development, a journal published by the IMF. What we are talking about here is not so much peanuts as the crumbs of peanuts. The warmth with which this Bill has been greeted in your Lordships’ House is a measure of the public hunger even for crumbs.

Looking at the detail of the Bill, I will focus particularly on Clause 29, as does the briefing that I am sure many noble Lords received from the National Council for Voluntary Organisations. As many noble Lords have said—I cannot list them all, but they include the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, and the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts—it focuses on the way in which we are once again in the Henry VIII territory of Governments being able simply to readjust the direction and change what is happening with very little reference to any kind of democratic structure.

Clause 29 contains a legal duty to consult. I suggest—and I would very much like to talk to other noble Lords who might like to join me in this—that there should be a legal duty to see this money directed towards the most disadvantaged areas of the country, as measured by objective, agreed and academically accepted means and criteria, not something dreamed up by the Government. This is one of the ways in which the European Union was always much more democratic than the UK, in that money explicitly allocated to disadvantaged communities actually had to go to disadvantaged communities, using objective and agreed criteria.

The noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, said one campaign group had expressed concern that there was a danger of this becoming a slush fund. I can only agree with that campaign group and thank the noble Lord for highlighting this, because it reflects the concerns in many quarters. What we have seen with other funds originated by the Government are essentially pork barrels dropped by helicopter into chosen places.

The noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, focused on the idea of a community wealth fund. She explored that at considerable length, so I will not go to the length I was planning to. I note that 400 community groups have backed that idea. As the noble Baroness stressed, what is really crucial is local decision-making and how these funds are allocated and used. We have the most centralised polity in western Europe. Far too much power and resources are concentrated here in Westminster. We need to transfer the power, resources and decision-making out into communities.

In my final short section, I feel like I probably need to declare my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. In her introduction, the Minister said that they were making sure that this could not be used as a substitute for central government funding. I would like to see that as a theory, but I would say that there is absolutely no alternative but that this money will be used in that way, given the level of austerity over the past decade. From 2010 to 2020, we have seen a reduction in funding to local government of £16 billion. I contrast that with the kind of total figures that we are talking about through this Bill. Local councils have lost 60p in the pound of money from Westminster to spend on local services.

What we are seeking to do with the money from these funds is to put a plaster on a gaping wound of deprivation and destruction of community services. None the less, this is a small positive. But if we really want to tackle the issues that affect so many communities on these islands and really want to spread prosperity around our land, what we actually need to do, to circle back to where I started, is to ensure that rich individuals and multinational companies pay their taxes. That requires a Government who want to make rich individuals and multinational companies pay their taxes.

British Library Board (Power to Borrow) Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 19th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, this week I had great pleasure in joining Mary Robinson, chair of The Elders, and Nick Merriman of the Horniman Museum, at an event with the UK Committee of the International Council of Museums. Our focus was on museums and libraries as thought leaders in the battle against climate change. Dr Merriman made the point that while they are often thought of as custodians of the past, in fact their key place in our society is as inspirations for the future. As someone who, I should perhaps declare, holds a reader’s ticket for the British Library, I have always found it to be that.

Six years ago, I took part in an event inspired by the artist Monica Ross, a recitation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the British Library foyer— a very public exhibition of the importance of rights that, even then, were obviously under threat. It was a case of looking backwards to past success and forwards to the need to defend it. In 2008, the library held an exhibition entitled Taking Liberties: The Struggle for Britain’s Freedoms and Rights. That was the first public place where I encountered the argument that I have used very regularly since: that universal basic income, guaranteeing the dignity of the right to the essentials of life without the need to rely on charity, was a logical place for human rights doctrine to reach.

That the British Library is a crucial international resource for the nation is a statement of the obvious. It must be properly funded by the nation to ensure that it can keep up its comprehensive collecting remit and an ability to share the riches thus collected. I hope that is an uncontroversial statement, although in the age of continuing privatisation it needs to be said. An idea that was one day radical and way out there, contained only perhaps in a flimsy short-run magazine deposited in the stacks, may one day be a crucial seed that germinates to solve a problem and enrich the national fabric.

The British Library must not be treated as a business, forced to turn, as have our universities, into a competing commercial business taking financial risks. I have to say that talk of commercial projects, as we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, makes me nervous. As we all know, business models have an unfortunate tendency to collapse, and we need to make sure that the library, one of our national foundations, is in no danger of that. With considerable caution, acknowledging the view taken by the library board, I support the Bill. However, your Lordships’ House, all of us as library readers, and the whole nation, need to keep an extremely close eye on the future funding from the centre of our government to the British Library—that other centre of our national life.

Covid-19: Performing Arts Freelance Workers

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her kind wishes. In relation to her question, she is right that the work of freelancers is totally tied up with the ability of cultural institutions to begin to perform again, something that we are all very much looking forward to. The Treasury is looking at phase 4 of the Self-employment Income Support Scheme and will be announcing the terms of that in the Budget early next month. In the meantime, we have held back £400 million from the Culture Recovery Fund as a contingency to make sure that we are able to support organisations and the freelancers they employ, so that we can begin to enjoy our performing arts again when it is safe to do so.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, what has the regional distribution of money paid out from the Culture Recovery Fund been? How much has been in London and the south-east and how much in the rest of the country?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I start by wishing the noble Baroness a happy birthday as well, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, if she is listening—it is a busy day. I will have to write to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, with the exact distribution in England. In the devolved Administrations, £33 million has been given to Northern Ireland, £97 million to Scotland and £59 million to Wales.

Gambling and Lotteries

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Fookes) (Con)]

I next call the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Hindhead. He is not present, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I am sure the Minister is aware that Google this morning announced a new feature to allow users to block gambling and alcohol adverts. Given that this would allow potentially vulnerable people to protect themselves—reference has been made to the urgency of this with the online harms Bill coming—would the Government consider making it mandatory for companies to provide that feature on websites?