UK Infrastructure Bank Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 2
Tuesday 14th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 52, which is essentially to do with accountability and enforceability. One can only make accountable and enforceable something that is clear. I think the statute is elegantly drafted: it is very short, the phrases are chosen with particular objectivity and it reads extremely well.

Moreover, the regulation power is not that extensive and that is to be commended. There is no guidance, which is better still, but an extraordinary feature of this legislative process, to which the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, referred, is the framework document. I tried to look at what the articles of association say, but all that is registered at Companies House is the present status of the bank as a private company. The statute makes provision for the articles of association to say things, and I hope there will at least be a copy of the draft available, but the statute is remarkable in that, as has appeared from the eloquent answers the Minister has given this afternoon, the framework is critical, but is not even referred to in the Bill. That may be a first. It is an extremely important piece of the legislation that is not even referred to in the legislation.

In addition, it is a memorandum of understanding, as I picked up; “memorandum of understanding” is a phrase often used when one does not quite know whether it is legally enforceable or not. On this occasion, the Minister has made it clear that it is in part legally enforceable and in part not. It is profoundly unsatisfactory that the obligations and duties are not set out in an instrument that, first, is brought up to date—as we shall discover later, bits of it are contradictory to the provisions of the Bill—secondly, that we have not seen a draft of and, thirdly, really needs revising. I hate to say this to the hard-pressed civil servants, no doubt reduced in number, who will have to revise this, but it has to be revised. I believe the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, is right: we need to put a provision in the Bill dealing with the framework, because it is integral. It is far more important than the articles of association.

First, we have to get the Bill in a better legal shape, so that all the documents that are necessary for the proper constitution of what is a public bank are properly in the public domain and subject to parliamentary control. Secondly, it is important that there is proper accountability, for both the performance of the bank and the discharge of its duties, and the statute is so elegant in setting out what those duties are.

As the framework document recognises, there is a tension between the various duties the bank has to carry out and the enforcement options, which need to be made very clear. First, the Treasury has a critical role, as the Minister acknowledged at Second Reading. Secondly, there is the question of Parliament. At the moment, there is no proper parliamentary accountability if the base documents that control the bank are not subject to some form of legislative incorporation and scrutiny by this House. Thirdly, there is the position of the courts. From what the Minister said on the previous group, it is clear that, if the bank is not discharging its duties and the Treasury does not tell the bank to do something about it, it becomes enforceable, at the instance of interested parties, in the courts.

The first fundamental area to get right is the legal structure, and it is not right. The second is to make certain we have got the enforcement structure right. We are talking about large sums of public money. More importantly, we are talking about doing something to deal with two of the great crises of the time: climate and environmental change, and trying to bring about better equality between the various parts of our nation.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 68, which appears in my name. We have already had an interesting debate essentially about the operational independence of the bank. Looking around the Chamber, I think there are two noble Lords here who were also in the Schools Bill which we are taking in parallel with this Bill. I was rather struck by the similarity between the two Bills in that a great deal of debate on that Bill focused on what would happen if these powers were given to a Government and then a Government of a hue you did not like came in and exercised them. When I was thinking about that, I was thinking: what if we had a Green Government? Would I want operational independence for the UK Infrastructure Bank? If your Lordships’ House manages to get the objectives right as well as the composition of the board, which we will get to later, I believe we should have operational independence for the UK Infrastructure Bank because democratic control is the issue. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, said, this is a public bank, so any steps being taken by the Government in directing it should be subject to full parliamentary scrutiny of a broader and more detailed kind than that which the Minister referred to earlier.

That brings me to my Amendment 68. In responding to some of the earlier debate, the Minister in a way made a point for me because, as the first amendment in this group states, this bank has a double bottom line. Its responsibilities include social justice and the climate emergency. Indeed, under a Green Government I might like to rename it the “Just Transition Bank” because that is essentially what it is setting out to try to do.

The Treasury is the ministry in control of this bank. What does it know about climate, nature, poverty, inequality or regional disparities? The very nature of the Treasury is that it is focused on money and what is called the economy—that mysterious thing outside human existence. What does it know about farming or health, despite the fact that it has a dictatorship over the actions of all the departments that cover them?

My original plan, which I alluded to at Second Reading, was to take the bank out of the Treasury’s hands entirely and put it in the hands of the departments that know about the things that it is supposed to be trying to do. However, the Public Bill Office—and I thank it for its patience and assistance on this—told me that that was, technically, practically impossible. The phrase “A Green Government wouldn’t start here” crossed my lips, but the Public Bill Office came up with Amendment 68, which would ensure that the Treasury fully consults the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change—I admit to something of a Freudian slip and apologise to your Lordship for the error in this amendment, because proposed new paragraph (b) should, of course, refer to the Secretary of State for BEIS, although whether we should have a department entirely dedicated to tackling the climate emergency is a question to raise on another day—and the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.

Armed Forces Bill

Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd

Report stage
Tuesday 23rd November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)]

There is one brief reason that I would add to what has been so eloquently said by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris, and the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford. We have always tried, and marked the seriousness of, crimes set out in the amendment by trial by jury. Magna Carta conferred on defendants the right to trial by jury. Today, we take account of the interests of the victim of such crimes and they have confidence only in trial by jury, particularly as so many of these cases turn on credibility. On that, the judgment of ordinary men and women, drawn from a jury, is the only way to achieve justice. For those three reasons, we should not deprive people of trial by jury in these cases.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly, having attached my name to Amendment 2 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford. I did that because, as we came to the deadline, I noticed that there was a space, and I really felt that, given the level of support that the issue covered by this amendment achieved at Second Reading, it deserved the broadest cross-party and non-party support possible.

I will also reflect on what I said in Committee on this amendment. Much of our leadership on this has come from Members from legal backgrounds, who focused on the rights of the defendant. I understand that, but I also note that I am the only female Peer who has attached my name to the amendment. There is very much a gender aspect to this. Women currently make up 10% of our full-time military—about 15,000 in number. They are still a significant minority right across the forces.

As the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, just alluded to, we have a military culture stretching back many centuries that was, for most of that time, entirely male dominated. Offences such as domestic violence, child abuse, rape and sexual assault are disproportionately committed against women. Last night in this very Chamber on the policing Bill we were discussing how difficult it is to get our civilian justice arrangements to cater adequately for these offences. How much more difficult is it in the military context, with the culture we just heard outlined?

I commend the amendment to the House and, looking back to the Second Reading debate, note the breadth of support it achieved.