Single-Use Plastics

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes an important point. Single-use plastics that are necessary within the context of delivery of health services are well known and, clearly, they would not be caught up in the measures that the Government are introducing. Beyond those specific items, the same rules would apply in relation to the NHS. I welcome our gradual abandonment of the use of disposable face masks for even the most ludicrous events. The numbers of face masks abandoned around the world defy belief and have come to dwarf some of the plastic pollution caused by things such as stirrers, straws and balloons that we are all obsessed by. I warmly welcome the world gradually dropping the theatrics in relation to those masks.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, building on the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, about the powers under the Environment Act, the Secretary of State, George Eustice, has said,

“it’s time we left our throwaway culture behind”.

With that in mind and, noting that the Refill Coalition is bringing in plans to replace plastic—or indeed any—containers for washing-up liquid, laundry liquid, shampoo, hand wash, pasta, rice, cereal, seeds, grains, nuts and dried fruits, will the Government consult on every one of those kinds of packaging, or will they simply tell industry and retailers that this has to end by a certain, reasonable date in line with the UN Environment Programme proposals, so that they can have the certainty to plan for that future?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The problem with government is that, sometimes, you cannot just undermine a sector in a way that has a dramatic impact on its business model without offering the necessary respect that comes with a consultation and having thought through the policy properly. Simply banning these items, which, of course, is where I want to end up, would have a massive impact on a number of different businesses. It is right that the Government should tread carefully when it comes to making decisions which impact so directly people’s business models.

Ireland: Russian Naval Military Exercises

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, in response to questions from my honourable friend Caroline Lucas in the other place, the Prime Minister said yesterday that he was not aware of any Russian interference in UK elections. Today he said that he was not aware of any successful Russian interference in UK elections. I am sure that the Minister is aware of the Intelligence and Security Committee’s report on Russia, which said simply that there has been no investigation, so we have no idea whether this has happened. Is it not time, in the current geopolitical climate, to launch that investigation, particularly given the fact that we have elections coming up in the UK in a few months’ time?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, I start by referring the noble Baroness to the answer given by the Prime Minister today. However, I would just caution her: it seems that this question and indeed this issue became a bit of a bogeyman during the Brexit debate, when all kinds of allegations were made around Russian money, none of which, as far as I am aware, has been substantiated. Our Prime Minister and this Government have done most of the running in terms of corralling our allies to take the position that we have now taken in response to the threat posed by Russia. I do not think that there is any doubt internationally that the Prime Minister has led this international coalition-building exercise.

Oil Tanker “FSO Safer”

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Monday 7th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness referred to many of the disastrous impacts that will happen if this oil leaks, spills or causes an explosion. I am sure the Minister is aware that the Red Sea is a crucial coral reef area. Indeed, with the warming climate and seas, it is a real area of refuge where, it is hoped, coral reefs could survive even if they die out in other areas. Is the Minister confident that enough is being done to contain the damage? It does not necessarily require Houthi agreement for containment mechanisms to be put in place in the region. More than that, we have heard lots of discussion about “polluter pays”. What contribution are oil companies making to the mitigation effort?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I will give the noble Baroness an example. There was a false alarm, if she remembers, a little over month ago, on 27 December, of a spill from the pipeline connected to “Safer”. The reaction to that—thankfully, false—alarm demonstrated how quickly the international regional community could respond if that were to occur. Due to our close co-ordination with, and support for, our allies, we were quickly able to confirm that there was no leak. I stress that, no matter how good the contingency plan, the disaster would be very real irrespective. Therefore, the priority has to be to try to stop it from happening.

Autocrats, Kleptocrats and Populists

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, began this debate by saying that he hoped that it would not become party political. I would agree with him, in that although the geography of this place divides us into two sides, there are more than two sides in British politics. I will say that this problem is much broader than one side of government, although I very much agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, just said: things have got much worse in the past decade.

None the less, we have spoken a great deal about golden visas, and I would point out that they were introduced in 2008. There was what is known as the blind faith period, when checks on applicants and the source of their wealth were done neither by the banks nor by the British Government, and more than 3,000 people came in that period between 2008 and 2015. We have to say that responsibility for that sits on both sides, if we divide the House that way in your Lordships’ House. This is not a two-party issue but a systems issue; we have a broken system here and around the world.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Browne, for introducing this debate so powerfully and for giving us the chance for such an interesting discussion. In his introduction, he focused on the financial sector, a haven for dirty money where reputations are laundered and political donations accepted. I am really pleased to see the turnout today, and I contrast it to the kind of turnout that we saw in debates during the passage of the Financial Services Act, when frequently we were debating controls on the financial sector, controlling legislation, and we were lucky if half the number of people who are in this Room today were involved in those debates. I note that at Second Reading of that Act, the noble Lord, Lord Agnew of Oulton, said:

“We need to show to the rest of the world that this will be a soundly regulated environment.”—[Official Report, 28/1/2021; col. 1877.]


We know how the noble Lord thought that went along.

The noble Lord, Lord Howell, talked about two economic systems lined up against each other. Of course, the world has only one economic system now: capitalism. I am not a Marxist—I do not believe that the superstructure is determined by the base, and that is very clear in that we have a base of capitalism and the structure around the world that we have now. If we look at that not philosophically but practically, the Russian model was developed on the basis of advice from US and UK advisers—the kleptocratic model. The Chinese adopted the capitalist market system underneath their own political frame. So where we are today is not a degradation but a continuation. The incredibly powerful speech of the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, spelled that out so beautifully.

Power and resources have, from the colonial period through the post-colonial period to today, been held in the hands of the few to the impoverishment of the many. We have treated nature as a mine and a dumping ground. Today, to bring it up to the current day, not all the superyachts being built and sailed around the world are sailed by kleptocrats and autocrats; quite a lot of them are people who are residents of our own countries.

My next point is on the question of them and us. The authoritarian tendencies that we see in other parts of the world are to be found right here at home as well. What are typically described as liberal democracies are neither liberal nor democracies. If we look at the treatment of minoritised communities and indeed of women by our police forces, and at the treatment of desperate refugees by the Home Office hostile environment, that cannot be described as anything but authoritarian. To quote the late feminist social theorist bell hooks, we live in a “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.” This is a system that benefits the few and represses the many.

The noble Lord, Lord Howell, said that systems are not delivering and perhaps we should look to Asia and other places. I suggest that we should instead look to the ignored people in our own societies, who are repressed, oppressed and dispossessed in our own societies but who are building up from the grassroots alternatives and different ways of doing things. If we look at the global frame of freedom and liberty, where do the ideas come from? If we go back to the human rights framework, that was very much driven by campaigning from civil society that forced the introduction of those things that built up towards the UN and the human rights framework. More recently, looking at Magnitsky-style sanctions, where did they come from? They come from civil rights campaigning that was then implemented by government.

In conclusion, we are responsible for the state of the world today. To prevent a world dominated by autocrats, kleptocrats and populists, here and abroad, do not look outside—look inside.

Nuclear Weapons

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Wednesday 12th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, on the point raised by the noble Lords, Lord Hannay and Lord West, I agree that we must continue to engage. As the Minister for the United Nations, I recognise that where we have issues of disagreement with other nuclear states, including Russia, it is vital that we continue to engage, and we are doing just that. While they are specific not to the nuclear issue but to the wider security situation in Europe and Ukraine, we are today holding meetings through our NATO partners. My colleague, Minister Cleverly, is present. He will meet, among others, the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister to discuss security issues.

On the noble Lord’s first point, that nuclear weapons have ensured that we have kept peace in Europe, and on his second, that we have the best forces, my answer to him is yes and yes.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the P5 statement that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought is of course hugely welcome, but it did not repeat a phrase used in earlier, similar statements that reaffirmed denuclearisation as an “unequivocal undertaking”. Does the Minister agree that that is the case?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, what I can say to the noble Baroness—and as the noble Lord, Lord West, has pointed out—is that the primary aim of nuclear weapons being in the armoury of any country, including our own, is to be a deterrent. We have achieved that objective, but we must work together as P5 members to ensure the key elements: that for those countries that have nuclear weapons we look towards disarmament and that for those countries that do not have nuclear weapons we look at non-proliferation.

DWP: Support for Larger Families

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

My noble friend again makes a very good point. We understand that where children grow up with parents and healthy support, they do much better and they thrive. But the Government firmly believe that, where possible, it is in the best interests of children to be in working households, and the benefit cap provides a clear incentive to work. Household earnings of only £617 a month provide an exemption from the cap, and exemptions apply for the most vulnerable claimants who are receiving disability benefits or are entitled to carer benefits.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

Following on from the Minister’s answer to the noble Lord, Lord Bird, in which she talked preventing problems, is she aware of the report in Community Care last week on research by academics from Huddersfield and Liverpool which found that, between 2015 and 2020, benefit cuts meant that 10,000 more children had been taken into care and an additional 22,000 children were placed on child protection plans? This disproportionately affected poorer boroughs. In light of levelling up and the desire for prevention, will the Minister look at this report, and are the Government counting the actual cost of these policies in terms of children in care?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I will certainly look at the report if the noble Baroness will send it to me. We have a grave sense of concern about children going into care and child protection, and I can assure her that we are looking at early intervention. I am very happy to speak to the noble Baroness outside the Chamber.

Refugees: Mass Displacement

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 6th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for securing this debate and so powerfully introducing it by setting out the human reality of displacement, particularly for children. We have already had a very rich and informed, if distressing, debate.

I particularly commend the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Hayward. I regret the fact that I cannot boycott Coca-Cola myself, because I never drink the vile stuff, although I have once or twice used it as a cleaning fluid. Its impact on grime certainly raises questions about its impact on the people who ingest it—but I promise him that I will not use it in the next two months.



Some 16 years ago, in 2005, the world’s nations collectively signed up to a responsibility to protect the world’s people from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. There are three pillars in that: each state should protect its own people, other states should provide international assistance and capacity building to ensure that other states can protect, and there should be a timely and decisive collective response when states fail.

As this debate and the UNHCR have made clear, war crimes and genocide are having a big impact on the displacement of people. If we are looking at the root causes of mass displacement, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, set us to do, there is a patently obvious missing pillar in that responsibility to protect agreement. You might call it a Hippocratic pillar: do not create and continue the conditions that allow genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity to flourish. We really need to think about the world that we have created and been such a powerful force in. One in 95 people in the world is displaced. We should look at that figure with horror.

So I want to be practical. I have three suggestions for the Minister that might live up to the UK’s Hippocratic responsibility not to do harm. First, end our arms sales; stop pumping out arms into a world already awash with them. We are the second largest arms exporter in the world. Between 2011 and 2020, the majority of UK defence exports—60%—went to the Middle East. That is a cause of the great issue that we are discussing now.

Secondly, we need to stop buying goods from around the world. We have already talked quite a bit about goods from Xinjiang, where a people subject to genocide are also subject to forced labour, producing IT goods and medical supplies that we consume and use. But of course it is much broader than that. In south-east Asia, palm oil is a major driver of deforestation, environmental destruction and the consequent impact on states and their ability to protect their people.

Thirdly, and most obviously and importantly, we need to rein in our companies, particularly miners but also bankers, consultants and lawyers, who profit from corruption in the global south that causes the breakdown of countries. We are the problem here; we are causing many of these problems.

If noble Lords do not want to accept the moral argument for change, I put to them the self-interest argument: the wealth that we have extracted cannot protect us in this unstable and unequal world, where so many people are forced to be on the move.

Uighurs in Xinjiang

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, presenting specific lists is always a challenge, though I hear what my noble friend has said. Certainly, the announcement of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for International Trade reflects our continued concern in looking at this very carefully and systematically. Equally, I feel that companies, as I just said to my noble friend Lord Hayward, need to reflect on their actions and the business they are conducting.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, given the importance that the FCDO has attached, for example in the Trade Bill debates, to securing unrestricted access to Xinjiang for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, what steps has it taken to support her in seeking that access? What progress has been made since this was last discussed in Parliament, which I believe was in March?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, we championed that proposal and suggestion; it was in my meeting with Michelle Bachelet that we proposed that directly to her. We have been very supportive. She has been challenged by the Covid crisis, which has prevented her travelling. I know that she has agreed in principle and we will continue to make the case, as we have since March, that the first step—I know the noble Lord, Lord Collins, is seized of this—must be for Michelle Bachelet, in her capacity as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, to be given rights of access to Xinjiang.

International Development Strategy

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, for securing this debate. I start from the point made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans: that no one is safe until everyone is safe, as has been so acutely brought home by Covid. To be more specific, current science suggests that the omicron variant probably arose in someone who was immunocompromised and untreated for HIV. That demonstrates how the world’s healthcare systems are crucial to the health of us all.

Even more broadly, no one is secure—we cannot be secure—until everyone in the world is. Our failed foreign policies, our role as one of the chief arms peddlers in the world and our refusal to accept the rightful desire of self-determination from peoples around the world has put the world, and us, in the position it is in today. I particularly commend the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Sikka. We have to stop being the world’s chief enabler of corruption. This is a neocolonial continuation of the colonial exploitation that made so much of the world so poor.

I will address the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Desai, suggesting that it is not up to us to cure poverty. First of all, it is up to us to stop causing poverty through the actions of our institutions and our companies. It is surely up to us to repair some of the damage we have done and continue to do, both through overseas development assistance and through reparations. It is obvious that the need for the strategy we are all anxiously awaiting and previewing today is more acute in these times of straitened ODA budgets. It is estimated that this year, we are down to about £11 billion, from nearly £15 billion the year before.

Like other noble Lords, I am sure, I received a number of briefings from major institutions in the UK making entirely well-founded special pleadings. The noble Lords, Lord McConnell and Lord Oates, referred to the Mines Advisory Group and the fact that there has been a 75% cut in funding in that area, which is unconscionable. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists—picking up on points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, on the slashing of funding for sexual and reproductive health—says that at least 5% of the budget should go to mother and baby health. Save the Children points out that our bilateral aid to Africa is at a 15-year low in real terms, and likely to fall below that of most of the G7. It asks —I would be interested in the Minister’s comments on this—that poverty reduction be the chief aim of the strategy. Sightsavers makes a really important point about the need for disability-inclusive development.

In introducing all this, the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, said that it was not about the budget but about how we use it. I am afraid this must be about the budget, because we cannot meet even our most urgent, crucial priorities in the current framework. I believe the Minister would love to go back to the department and say, “More money for ODA”, but I realise the barrier he faces. I have a different proposal for him to take back that is not just about more money. It does not come from me but from more than 50 Nobel laureates, who this week signed an open letter calling for a “peace dividend” campaign—for all countries to cut their military spending by just 2% a year for the next five years and put half the money into a UN fund to combat pandemics, the climate crisis and extreme poverty. To name a couple of the UK signatories, there is Sir Roger Penrose—UK mathematician, philosopher of science and physics laureate—and the biologist and Cambridge University professor Sir Venki Ramakrishnan. The Dalai Lama is also a signatory.

The proposers say that this fund could amount to $1 trillion by 2030. To look at the numbers in this, UK defence spending is currently about £50 billion—given that figure, the NHS, which gets about £200 billion, is remarkably good value for money. Taking 2% from UK defence spending—£1 billion a year—would not be utterly transformative but it would go a long way, particularly in the priority areas that NGOs have been making such powerful representations to us about. It would mean a 10% increase in the budget. Green Party policy, I must say, is to have 1% of GDP—about £20 billion—for the official development assistance budget, which would meet most of the most urgent priorities.

I finish by stressing that all this is a relative drop in the ocean compared to the damage we continue to do every day. We must really look at our place in the world; we often hear that the Government wish to be world leading. Here is a very practical example, which I hope the Minister will at least take back and ask for a discussion about, of how we could be truly world leading in stepping up to the peace dividend. Perhaps this is outside the Minister’s hands, but every government Minister could ask themselves over this festive season what they could do to make the world a better place and make everybody in the UK securer and safer in 2022.

FCDO Staffing

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, as the FCDO Minister responsible for operations, I can say that we are currently going through our planning both for the next spending review and, as the noble Lord is aware, for the workforce, specifically to ensure that the very priorities he listed are fully resourced. The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, talks of greater transparency, as did the noble Lord, Lord Collins. We will certainly provide more details as these plans are finalised.

The noble Lord also mentioned morale. I can perhaps talk with some insight and experience, and I have read the report to which the noble Lord refers, but the fact is that we have some of the best diplomats in the world and incredible development professionals. In preparing for this Question, I asked quite specifically about the level of staff turnover, through the merger, the reductions and the difficult challenges we have had in respect of ODA and, recently, Afghanistan. I can share with noble Lords that, at this time, there is nothing different from the standard level of turnover we have seen over many years, both in the FCO and DfID. That means we are retaining our professionals not just in the Diplomatic Service but in the development sphere.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, my question follows neatly from the response that the Minister just gave, because I note that a freedom of information request, sent by Devex, revealed that 212 former DfID employees have left the department. The response given to Devex at the time was that this was a normal level of turnover, but that is heading towards 10% of centrally employed staff who were formerly with DfID. DfID was very well known for its expertise in global public health, sexual and reproductive rights, and water and sanitation issues. That seems a large loss of people. Will the new, merged department be able to attract the same kind of people with the same levels of expertise, given that it does not have the same focus?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, on the final point of focus, of course when you have two separate departments, they run two separate mission statements in terms of key priorities. However, through the merger that created the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office the element of development has remained a key priority of the department’s focus. The noble Baroness rightly points out the importance not just of retaining staff but of attracting new staff. I have been looking specifically at the figures for senior management and others. We want to attract the best and brightest into the FCDO, but equally we want to retain the expertise.

I have looked very closely at the issue of development and our development professionals. Even in the challenges that we have had through the ODA reduction, we have sought to retain that professionalism in terms of both programmes and people. As we return to 0.7%, which we intend to do, we need not just the expertise to ramp up the programme but the people to be able to deliver it.