Death of Alexei Navalny

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Monday 19th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord. He has great experience and insight: indeed, he has dealt with Mr Putin directly and knows the individual concerned. On his latter point on communications—my noble friend Lord Howell also mentioned technology enablement—that has been a key feature of what we have seen in Russia directly. The fact that at this moment the death of Alexei Navalny was marked in several Russian cities demonstrably shows that, despite the coercion and suppression, people are ready and willing to come out.

We pay tribute to a number of the leaders within the opposition who have also spoken out against these events. If anything, Mr Putin should look to the example of Yulia Navalnaya and her courage and bravery, as pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Collins. On looking at the sanctions that we have currently deployed and the broader nature of what can be done, I assure noble Lords that we are very much seized of this. Hopefully, we will be returning to your Lordships’ House in the near future to outline additional measures that we are taking. On additional measures and sanctions—the noble Lord, Lord Collins, and I have talked about this extensively on every sanction—I say that these are most effective when we act with our partners. That is why, I assure noble Lords, we are working very closely with the EU, the US and Canada in this respect.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I spoke yesterday to members of our sister party Yabloko in Russia. They are very grateful for the reference to all the people who came out on the streets. It was not just a few cities. They say that it was in towns and cities across Russia. For us, that has to be an important sign that there are people who care passionately about the state of Russia. Their concern is that their voices are not being heard outside Russia at all. I always try to refer to the Kremlin rather than to Russia, because the Russian people are as appalled as we are by what has happened to Navalny. They want things to change but they do not have the power to do that.

I want to echo the points made by other noble Lords about Vladimir Kara-Murza. He was poisoned twice in 2015 and 2017. He was imprisoned in 2022. Last year, he was sentenced to a further 25 years for “treason”, the treason being membership of an opposition party and trying to use his voice. It would be helpful if the Minister could perhaps brief those who have spoken in today’s Statement debate if there is any news of contact. I know that in particular Evgenia, his wife, is very worried about what is happening. But there are many other dissidents also in prison. If the Minister could keep the House informed, that would be enormously helpful.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

Of course I give the assurance that we will keep noble Lords informed. The noble Baroness spoke about the sister party to the Liberal Democrats, Yabloko. Indeed, its leader was also giving a statement when he was taken off air. It shows the strength of the Russian people. I agree with the noble Baroness that we should talk about the Kremlin, Mr Putin and his supporters rather than the Russian people. The Russian people are being denied. As we have said repeatedly when it comes to Ukraine, our fight, our challenge, our disputes and our absolute shock over what has happened to Ukraine have been at the instigation of Mr Putin and the Kremlin, and are in no way a reflection of the Russian people.

As we have seen from the tragic death of Alexei Navalny and the continued detention of Vladimir Kara-Murza, those who speak out, who want to represent the people of Russia, are often silenced. You can do nothing but be inspired. I echo again the sentiments expressed earlier: here we are in a democracy such as the United Kingdom where we take these basic, fundamental freedoms sometimes quite lightly. But actually, we are speaking up for those Russian citizens. We are standing up for those brave souls, some of whom, like Alexei Navalny, have paid the ultimate price, with their life, to ensure that their legacy is not forgotten. The biggest tribute we can give is to continue to advocate as such.

Ukraine

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Friday 26th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for securing this important debate and for his very helpful introduction. It is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, with his interest and expertise, and, as a Kremlin watcher, his awareness of what is going on there. I particularly echo the comments of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, about the need to provide the right level of resources both to Ukraine and to our defence forces at a time when Europe, which includes the United Kingdom, is certainly on red alert.

I am vice-president of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe. President Zelensky’s party, Servant of the People, and Kira Rudik’s party, Holos, are both members of ALDE. It is a privilege to work with them on all matters European.

It is obvious that all parties in the UK Parliament are very much of the same mind as the Government about what we need to do to support Ukraine. It is good that we have supported it in the past, but we need to make sure that the level of support continues.

I want to point out something that is not often said but which we just take for granted: that the Ukrainian parliament, regardless of parties, is absolutely united in its actions—not just in its military actions but in everything that it is doing inside its country and, equally important, as ambassadors out to the rest of the world about what is happening.

My friend and colleague Kira Rudik was bombed overnight a few weeks ago. Every single window in her house was blown in, with damage everywhere. She had what she described as minor injuries but was taken to hospital. The Ukrainian people have just got used to this; it is not unlike the Blitz. When she got home from hospital the following day, she discovered that her neighbours had already put up thick plastic sheeting and removed the worst of the broken glass so that, in the midst of winter, she did not return to a house that was completely open to the elements. Emergency responders to that event were once again putting out fires and ferrying the wounded to hospital. The circumstances that they are working in are not dissimilar to those of the Blitz, and we still have people in this country who remember those days. But the Blitz did not last for two years solid; they are facing this every night in Ukraine.

I should declare my interest as a vice-chair of the All-Party Fire Safety and Rescue Group. We have been working with Fire Aid, which is run by fire service officers who have run a number of aid convoys to first responders in Ukraine. It has now run out of resources. Can the Minister say what plans there are to continue that work? There was a convoy last year from the RAF fire service and some training but, as this bombing continues in communities, while the public eye is mostly on the military front line there is a real need to help the Ukrainian people manage.

Kira Rudik was in the UK this time last week asking the Government to help recover money now from the frozen funds of sanctioned people. It is good to hear that the Government are actively seeking this, so can the Minister expand slightly on what he said earlier? Is there any timescale for when Ukraine might get a response? It needs funding for the continuing war but it must also start to plan and fund rebuilding for afterwards.

I end on the Baltic states, Poland and other countries that neighbour Russia. I was in Vilnius a couple of months ago, where I noticed that Mayor Šimašius, the former liberal Mayor of Vilnius, had flashing up on the front of every bus “I love Ukraine”, alternating with its destination—a permanent reminder to the citizens of Vilnius how close they are to Putin and his front line. He also put on the city’s tallest skyscraper the phrase: “Putin, The Hague is waiting for you”. He is right. We have to constantly remind Putin that he will be held accountable not just for the invasion but for his threats to nations in addition to Ukraine. It is really important that we in this country do everything we can to stop Putin, end the war in Ukraine and stop the pressure on other European countries.

Hong Kong: Bounties for Exiled Pro-democracy Activists

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is participating remotely.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

[Inaudible.]

[The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)]

I think we will proceed otherwise.

EU: Trade in Goods (European Affairs Committee Report)

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I also start by paying tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, and thank her for her wonderful valedictory speech. I know that my father admired her greatly; he came in as a new MP in 1979, when she was beginning her ministerial career, and I continue in that admiration as well. I am fascinated by her reason for departing at this particular moment. My noble kinsman Lady Stocks, Mary Stocks, said of this House in her autobiography—they did not have valedictory speeches in those days—“I do not want this place to become my eventide home”, and I suspect that the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, would have some sympathy with that. My father and I both came from a showbusiness background, so I think the other way we would put it is to leave the stage while people are still applauding. If there is one thing that the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, should hear from across this House today, it is that we continue to applaud her for her contribution.

The report from the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and his committee is a significant contribution, providing evidence of the difficulties we have faced in trade in goods since we left the EU three years ago this week. It is a particular pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, whose attitude that we must make the best of where we are is echoed by myself and my colleagues—but with a fervent hope that we will rejoin one day. I realise that there are those for whom that would not be the desire, but I also believe that there is now evidence showing that some of the concerns we had prior to the referendum are unfortunately there. The question is whether this country will be able to deal with them, and I am perhaps less convinced than the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, that that is true. It was interesting that he quoted Guy Verhofstadt, but the actual quote is slightly longer and helps to understand why he said it. He said of the Ukraine war:

“It’s really an attempt by Putin to restore the old Soviet Union … I think without Brexit maybe there was no invasion. I don’t know, I guess that he would see a far stronger and united Europe on the other side”.


That is the issue for us: the role of Britain, and the UK. I echo his comments and those of the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, that the UK’s involvement across Europe in the context of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has started to build those ties and relationships again. That is important after Brexit.

There are three statistics that stand out to me about the UK-EU trade figures and statistics over the last couple of years. First, the UK’s exports to the EU fell by 13% in 2021. Secondly, EU-UK trade is currently 20% lower than if Brexit had not happened. Thirdly, the value of customs duties for UK businesses went up by 64% in 2021. For my brief contribution, I want to look at one area: chemicals. As at September 2022, the UK exported 2.8 billion goods from the chemical sector into the EU, and imported 4 billion—so we are already seeing a continued difference between exports and imports.

I want to focus not on customs duties and other delays and barriers, as others noble Lords have already done, but on the so-called freedoms that this Government have referred to—our ability to create our own rules and regulations and not, to quote many Ministers, blindly follow the EU. The consequences of this policy in relation to chemicals are evident, particularly in how the UK manages the retained EU law and the proposed sunset of all EU laws by the end of this year.

On 21 November, in Grand Committee, we considered the Biocidal Products (Health and Safety) (Amendment) Regulations 2022 and the changes to the certification process following our departure from the EU. It is the first time I have seen, up close, the practical problems that businesses, government and government agencies have faced with having to manage things. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee noted in advance:

“These Regulations propose to extend the transitional period by five years because HSE has been unable to process the large number of applications for re-authorisation, in particular because much of the data … is stored on databases to which Great Britain no longer has access.”


The committee was concerned about the progress that was being made by the HSE more recently.

I raised this issue with the very helpful Minister at that time, the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, in Grand Committee, and I asked her two questions. The first was how the department and the agencies that report to her—specifically, in this case, the Health and Safety Executive—could be protected from the proposed cuts to the Civil Service and other public bodies in order to deliver the extended timescale for an agency that is clearly struggling to manage the new arrangements, where there has to be dual certification, once for the UK under our own system and again for any company exporting to the EU. I also asked her about how much this extra certification was going to cost the Health and Safety Executive, and eventually businesses, because everything is done on a cost recovery system.

The Minister’s responded, on the first issue, that there were some commitments

“to ensuring that health and safety legislation continues to be fit for purpose”,

but she could not give me any more details about the cost more generally. However, on resources specifically for the chemicals division, she told me—and I have to say I was astonished:

“The total budget for the HSE’s chemical regulation division has grown by 39%, from £22.4 million to £31.2 million between 2018-19 and 2022-23, reflecting the HSE’s need for increased resources for its post-EU exit responsibilities.”—[Official Report, 21/11/22; col. GC 239.]


That is an extreme increase in a budget, at a time when the Chancellor of the Exchequer is saying we must cut all public services.

I have three questions for the Minister. He will be relieved, I think, to know that I am not going to ask him about biocidal regulation. First, are government conducting a formal review of capacity relating to all bodies—whether government bodies or arm’s-length bodies—in charge of any retained law being changed that has already diverged, such as this particular biocidal product? We should now have some idea of what extra costs there are likely to be. Secondly, is an assessment being made for all future retained law that is going to diverge in the future and how much it will cost? Thirdly, what prospect remains for cuts to the Civil Service and the arm’s-length bodies in light of this information? It seems to me that the one message we can take from this excellent committee report is that, if this Government want to make the new arrangements work, it is clear that current arrangements are not working in the Health and Safety Executive in an absolutely vital safety area both for biocidal products in the UK and for any we may export to the EU.

I appreciate that some of that might be quite technical, and if the Minister cannot reply today, I hope he will be able to write to me. However, it raises a more general issue about whether this country is prepared to understand the realistic cost of Brexit and how doing things our own way will not be just a wonderful theory. In practice, it will cost money, which means costing our businesses money.

World AIDS Day

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

It is certainly right that, here in the UK, we have seen remarkable progress, and people in the UK can take comfort from the figures that I cited right at the beginning of this exchange. But the same is not true internationally—as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Fowler—where the numbers are really shocking, with 650,000 annual deaths. So prevention has to be, as it is with all preventable diseases, a key priority. I hope that my answer just two questions ago in relation to prevention of early deaths, particularly among women and girls, will have provided some reassurance to the noble Baroness.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I refer to the Minister’s response to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, about the availability of PrEP beyond sexual health clinics. It is really important that it is more universally available. My question is: are we helping other countries to access PrEP, particularly for the women and children in Africa whom the right reverend Prelate referred to earlier on?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The wider availability of PrEP is an issue that I know the Government are working on. I do not belong to the relevant department, so I cannot provide authoritative figures, but the case is bullet-proof and I know that that view is shared by colleagues across government. But I will have to provide, via them, a more updated response to that, I am afraid.

In terms of the international rollout and availability of PrEP, I believe that that is something the Global Fund is also doing. The Global Fund is the main vehicle that we use and is therefore the main vehicle that we support. That is why our commitment to the £1 billion is so welcome. All that work is through those multilateral institutions.

Gulf States: Human Rights Abuses

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Scriven on securing this important and timely debate and thank him for his excellent contribution, in which he laid out the issues and why it is so important for His Majesty’s Government to take clear action, both publicly and privately, with those states that are, absolutely evidentially, breaching human rights. I also thank the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy and the Lords Library for their helpful briefings.

All the previous speakers have set out the background to the six countries in the Gulf states that form that political and economic alliance and why they are important to the United Kingdom—but also why the UK has a responsibility to press these states where individual human rights are at risk or, worse, clearly and outrageously infringed. We have already heard of many cases which demonstrate that that is the case.

It is important to say right at the start that the United Kingdom—its Ministers, parliamentarians and wider public—has to constantly look at our own human rights record. There are always questions and debates in your Lordships’ House to remind us that fighting for human rights here at home must and will remain a priority, whether for asylum seekers and the past victims of the Northern Ireland Troubles or LGBTQ people facing discrimination, harassment and hate crimes. The noble Lord, Lord Cashman, was so right to talk about us holding up a mirror to ourselves—and so we should. I particularly echo his endorsement of abolishing conversion therapy, from which a young friend of mine suffered very badly some years ago and was thrown out of his church for being gay. Also, we should remember particularly the trans women and men in our community, who have become an object of absolute hate and derision—only by a minority, but it is a vocal minority. This is completely against the principles by which our society operates. Picking out people because of something about them and then deriding them or trying to remove their rights to access daily services must stop.

This debate seems to go to the heart of the tension that every Government face in trying to assess their relationships with these six states and in telling individual states that the infringement of the human rights of their citizens and residents, especially state-sponsored infringements, is just not acceptable. The Minister has spoken on many occasions about different issues in different countries, and everyone in your Lordships’ House knows that he speaks with absolute good faith. Members of this House understand the tensions between the public and private debates that need to happen. In his usual helpful way, the Minister made it plain at the Dispatch Box earlier today that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office will inevitably have to have those difficult conversations in private. But we are hearing in this debate that we would like more to be said in public, which is why it has been rather disappointing that the issues relating to Qatar and its treatment of LGBTQ people and their allies, including football fans, have not been robustly responded to in public by the Foreign Secretary or the Government.

I appreciate the balance between blunt words behind the scenes, hoping to influence another state, and what can be said in public. However, in advance of the World Cup, the Government said that supporters going to it would not be bothered, but we know that that is no longer true. So will the Government follow the Minister from the Government of Germany’s example in a public statement, whether by wearing a OneLove emblem in front of or beside Qatari Ministers or by publicly saying that we value all LGBTQ people, celebrate them and believe that they should be treated the same way across the world, and supporters of LGBTQ people should not be harassed in the way that they are being harassed not just at World Cup venues but on the streets?

Will the Minister also put on the record that the Government are dismayed at FIFA’s behaviour in selecting Qatar? Everyone warned that this would not work. When Qatar broke the rules that it set with FIFA, FIFA delayed telling national teams what was and was not acceptable until it was too late for the England team and the FA to do anything. For FIFA to suddenly threaten Harry Kane, two hours before a match, with a yellow card and suspension if he wore the OneLove armband was totally inappropriate, especially as the FA had asked FIFA this exact question weeks ago. FIFA’s behaviour is disgraceful.

Sitting behind this are the very poor human rights abuses of LGBTQ people in these six Gulf states. Although prison sentences and even the death penalty for same-sex relationships—the latter under sharia law—may be a very visible breach of human rights, the problem is that this permeates every part of daily life for citizens in those states, meaning that LGBTQ people cannot live freely.

This affects women too. While there have been improvements in some of the Gulf States, notably, and most recently, women being allowed to start driving in Saudi Arabia, and, for example, higher percentages of women being allowed to work or drive, providing their family member—husband or father—gives permission, the reality is that for most women their lives are still heavily controlled. While Iran is not a Gulf state, the brave women who have been demonstrating against the morality police and the regime by cutting their hair and removing their veils in public have been curbed by an appalling response from the Iranian authorities, so it was heart-warming to see the very brave Iranian football team not sing their national anthem.

Women also face problems in the Gulf states. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch say that women still experience discrimination in marriage, family, and divorce, and it is a very particular problem in Saudi Arabia. From Bahrain, female human rights worker and defender Ebtisam al-Saegh is here today. She is known for her work in reporting and publicising human rights violations, and in May 2017 she was detained, sexually assaulted and tortured by security officers at the National Security Agency. A BBC Arabic documentary “Breaking the Silence” found that institutions in Bahrain, which received UK support through the GSF’s predecessor and continue to receive that support today, were implicated in her abuse. Can I ask the Minister if the Government will now review the doubling of the Bahrain grant under the GSF in light of that evidence?

I referred to the discrimination that women more generally face in their families. In particular, the treatment of most women is not visible to us, but one Gulf state leader, the ruler of Dubai, has shown appalling coercive control of his former wife Princess Haya, sister of the King of Jordan. She fled to the UK in 2019, fearful of her safety, and had to go to the High Court to get the campaign of fear, intimidation and harassment to stop, which included threats, surveillance, phone hacking, buying properties opposite hers and his behaviour in litigation. The High Court judge found him to have been

“abusive to a high, indeed exorbitant, degree”.

There have also been serious concerns about the wellbeing of his two daughters by another wife, the Princesses Shamsa and Latifa, who were abducted on his orders. We only know of these three appalling cases because these brave women fled, or tried to flee, and their stories were heard because they were high profile. My point is that the power of husbands and fathers in these states is not visible: women denied the chance of the education that they want, the marriage that they want, the job that they want, and the threats that can be made, and not acted on by others, in keeping them silent.

This is human rights at absolute grass-roots levels. Many forms of human rights are either being abused or are under threat: access to democracy; putting personal views on social media; criminalisation for people just being themselves, or having to spend their lives under the control of others. I want to applaud all of those, visible or invisible, for trying to uphold their own and others’ rights, and I thank particularly the witnesses here today and the organisations like Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch. I hope that the Government will take their evidence and make it plain to these six states that financial support will be under threat unless human rights improve in these six states.

Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill [HL]

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 8th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham for bringing forward this important Private Member’s Bill and for his excellent introduction to it. I add support for it from the Liberal Democrat Benches.

I thank the Library for its helpful briefing and the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the London School of Economics for its report on the fertility effects of the two-child limit on universal credit, while the noble Lord, Lord Desai, has just given us a useful reminder of the history of benefits, including far too many anomalies in universal credit.

As other noble Lords have pointed out, this is a very short Bill with a clearly defined aim to remove the two-child limit, which was brought in in the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, said, it was pernicious. It was legally challenged almost as soon as it was introduced in 2017. In 2021, the Supreme Court decided that the two-child limit does not breach human rights law, but it considered that Articles 8 and 14 of the ECHR applied in the following ways. It said that, as more women than men are responsible for bringing up children, the two-child limit has a greater impact on women than men and arguably “indirectly discriminates against women”. It also said that it arguably

“discriminates against children living in households containing more than two children, by comparison with children living in households containing one or two children”.

But the Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion at the LSE gives more worrying evidence about the effect of the two-child limit, which I suspect was not fully understood when the Government changed the law in 2016. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham said, the Government were clear that there were two objectives when this was introduced. The first was fiscal prudence and the second was stated in a 2015 DWP impact assessment:

“In practice people may respond to the incentives that this policy provides and may have fewer children. There is no evidence currently available on the strength of these effects although the Institute for Fiscal Studies found a relationship between support for children in the benefit system and childbearing.”


However, the more recent case research suggests that the probability of having a third or subsequent child declined by 0.36 percentage points after the reform. It goes on to say:

“This is a much smaller effect than one would expect given existing evidence on welfare and fertility … qualitative research by our sister project, Benefit Changes and Larger Families, suggests that lack of information about the policy may be a factor. Approximately half of participants affected by the two-child limit did not know about the policy before having their affected child … If families don’t know about the policy prior to pregnancy, fertility effects are unlikely.”


This is the problem. It is perhaps not surprising that prospective parents are not familiar with the detail of the rules relating to universal credit until they affect them. Frankly, many recipients of benefits find the complex rules hard to understand at the best of times.

Current levels of child poverty should also force us to rethink this policy. Much has changed in the six years since the introduction of the two-child limit. The IFS found that inflation for those on low incomes is three percentage points above the national average. If the national average is currently just under 10%, the poorest in our society are facing around a 13% increase. The current cost of living increases in energy, food and many other items mean that families reliant on universal credit are finding life not just difficult but impossible.

Action for Children reports that, even before the pandemic, 4.3 million children were living in poverty in the UK, up by 200,000 from the previous year and by half a million over the past five years. That is 31% of children. In London, the figure is 38% and, in Newcastle upon Tyne, child poverty rose from 28.4% to 41.2% over those five years.

Can the Minister explain why the two-child limit for universal credit should continue, given that the original IFS research, quoted in the government impact assessment, has not been borne out in practice, and given that child poverty has increased substantially, even before the very large increase in living costs this year? From the Liberal Democrat Benches, we strongly support the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham’s Bill, because all the evidence shows that the reasons behind the Government introducing the two-child limit have not worked and that, instead, child poverty has increased substantially.

Social Security (Special Rules for End of Life) Bill [HL]

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

3rd reading
Wednesday 22nd June 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is taking part remotely, and I invite the noble Baroness to speak.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Janke cannot be in her place today, so I am delighted to thank, on behalf of the Liberal Democrat Benches, the Minister for her remarks and all Peers who have taken part during passage of this Bill. I also want to thank the Minister’s officials, who have been very helpful. It was encouraging that the Bill is supported cross-party. It may be a short Bill, but we believe that its effects will be transformative to those individuals, and their families, who have to face a terminal illness and the financial shocks that go with it as they live the last few months of their lives.

We, too, decided not to table amendments, though we would have liked to, because we felt it was important that this Bill proceeded quickly. Prior to the Second Reading, we had discussions with Marie Curie and other organisations about whether the Government should review the impact of the legislation after a year and make an assessment as to whether the provisions of the Act have had a significant impact on reducing levels of poverty for individuals with a life expectancy of less than 12 months.

We draw the same parallel as the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, that in Scotland they deleted any reference to timeframes. I think this would help to give us a comparator once the Bill has been enacted and put into practice in England for a year.

I want to pick up also the point that the noble Baroness made about time for the processing of claims. I made this point at Second Reading, and I hope that for everyone it will be as speedy as possible. I was reassured the Minister said that moving it to 12 months would not slow the process down, but we remain concerned that for some people it is still not as fast as it should be, given the straits that they find themselves in.

At the Second Reading I raised the current anomalies in the rules for the benefits of severely disabled children aged under three, compared to those over three. The Minister kindly agreed to arrange a meeting with the relevant Minister for myself and Together for Short Lives. Unfortunately, I have been offered a policy officer to answer my questions by email, which, while being very kind—and I appreciate the offer—is not quite what the Minister said. As I said at Second Reading, this is a policy decision to treat seriously ill small children differently to their older peers, so please can I repeat my request for a meeting with the relevant Minister?

That aside, from these Benches we welcome this short but vital Bill and look forward in hope that it will ease some of the financial difficulties faced by terminally ill people and their families.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Sherlock and Lady Brinton, for their supportive comments, and may I say that we are doing everything we can to get this through the other place in time? Everybody is on red alert to do so.

I would particularly like to address the points made by both noble Baronesses, Lady Sherlock and Lady Brinton. The noble Baroness Sherlock is interested in the department’s approach to evaluating the changes being proposed in this Bill and whether this will also cover a comparison with the approach taken by the Scottish Government. I can confirm that we will continue to monitor our own approach and watch with interest the different approach taken by the Scottish Government as it is fully rolled out.

We will also continue to conduct audits of medical evidence provided to us in support of claims made under the fast-track special rule process and to monitor feedback that claimants provide to the DWP through our existing communication channels. The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, also expressed interest in the metrics that would be used to judge the success of the new approach for claims made under the special rules for end of life. The department considers the time taken for these claimants to receive the financial support that they are eligible for as a measure of the policy’s success. I am extremely pleased that the department has a strong record of processing claims made under the special rules in a matter of a few days on average. We also had a constructive relationship with end-of- life charities and will continue to work with them to ensure that the policy intent behind the Bill is being met.

On the noble Baroness’s question about people dying while waiting for the outcome of a claim under normal rules, we want to do all we can to ensure that people get the support they are entitled to while living with a long-term disability or health condition. It is obviously incredibly sad when someone passes away while waiting for the outcome of a PIP claim. The cause of death for PIP claimants is not collated centrally by the department. However, there is no evidence to suggest that someone’s reason for claiming PIP was the cause of their death, and it would be misleading to suggest otherwise.

Finally, the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, is interested in whether we will check that claimants find the process easy to manage. I assure all noble Lords that the department is engaging with stakeholders, and clinicians involved in supporting people to claim under the special rules, to ensure that they understand and can navigate the process. We will continue to do so. The department is also looking at making process improvements for the end-to-end customer journey for claims made under the special rules and will use the direct experience of claimants to inform that work as it progresses.

Regarding the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, I did agree to a meeting. I am not quite sure what has happened, but I will go back and advise people that we will meet. It will get me into trouble but I will do it. I have held two all-Peers briefings on this Bill. As always, my door is open. Going forward, the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, who is sponsoring this Bill in the other place, will be happy to reach out on any outstanding questions that noble Lords may have.

Social Security (Special Rules for End of Life) Bill [HL]

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 24th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, this short Bill is very welcome. I propose to make a contribution only to ask a couple of questions about it and to raise one other issue.

From working with people with serious life-limiting illnesses and the charities that support them over recent years, I have heard them express real frustration with the inability to access benefits and support that they are entitled to as they face the end of their days. I look forward to the contribution from the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, because I know that other doctors have said how difficult it is to estimate the six-month period correctly, and that by that stage the individuals have often had to give up work, frequently at short notice. Their family members have found that their lives are impacted too, because many now act as carers for their loved one, which also impacts on their own jobs and any other roles they may have.

It is reassuring that the period for special rules will now be extended to 12 months, and I hope that doctors will find estimating that period easier. I ask the Minister a practical question: how will doctors in both primary and secondary care, who are obviously key to this, hear about these changes?

I will also ask the Minister about how the special rules process is managed. The Government’s information page on these rules does not explain for the ordinary member of the public how applications are processed and how long they take under the current rules. I am grateful to the Minister for her explanation in her introductory speech that these applications are expedited, but I have also picked up that there is some concern that extending it to a 12-month period might slow down the decision-making time in the DWP. Can the Minister assure your Lordships’ House that this will not be the case? What will the target be for approval of these special end-of-life benefits applications, once the doctor’s letter and forms have been received?

I also want to look at the special rules for end of life as they affect children and young people. Far too often we associate the end of life only with adults. I am grateful to Together for Short Lives for its briefing and for the honour of supporting and working with it over recent years. Children’s palliative care, or the slightly different needs of these families facing the end of life of their child, is too often forgotten. Many seriously ill children and young people who need palliative care also need access to disability living allowance, or PIP for those aged over 16.

It is well evidenced that the families of those facing the end of their lives have increased costs compared with other families. Nearly two-thirds of families with severely disabled children say that they have had to give up work to look after their child, and on average they have lost £21,270 from their annual family income. I hope that the new 12-month special rules mean that these families with a child who has a very life-limiting illness will get access to DLA and to PIP.

I also hope that there might be the possibility of giving seriously ill babies and small children access to the DLA mobility component. It appears that there is an anomaly for those aged under three. The children we are talking about often have to use ventilators and other heavy kit, often with the need for other monitors, oxygen supply, spare tubes and tracheotomy emergency bag. These parents rarely get through a night without alarms going off.

My family had to live this life for three years. One of my twin granddaughters had a ventilator and heart monitor until she was three. Only family members trained by the wonderful Evelina London Children’s Hospital were allowed to babysit or stay overnight with her. I have to tell your Lordships, the alarms went off most nights. It was an exhausting privilege to be able to help, but I also know from my son and daughter-in-law that getting anywhere with that equipment was close to impossible, let alone going on holiday. Our granddaughter was fortunate in that she grew out of her problems, but sadly many children do not, and parents know that they face a very different type of parenthood that is invisible to far too many people.

The problem is that, although DLA is available to all families who incur extra costs as a result of meeting the additional care or mobility needs of a disabled child, only children over the age of three can receive the higher-rate mobility component of DLA. The Social Security Advisory Committee published a report in November 2020 and recommended that the DWP consider extending the higher-rate DLA mobility component to these children under the age of three.

These families are also grateful for the Family Fund mobility support scheme but the criteria for children under three is different from those over three, in that one parent must be able to drive. The DLA mobility component award to children over the age of three does not depend on a family’s ability to drive. These families often have to rely on taxis; they cannot take these children on buses or trains, partly because of the kit and partly because the children are very vulnerable.

I appreciate that the Minister may say that this is out of scope of the Bill, but I would be grateful if she would agree to a meeting with myself and Together for Short Lives to see if there can be a change for this very small group of disabled and severely ill children aged under three.

Returning to the Bill, I look forward to hearing contributions from other Members of your Lordships’ House, and to the Minister’s response.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and as a vice-chair on the All-Party Group on Adult Social Care. I start by echoing the Minister’s tribute to Her Majesty the Queen and will add how good it was to see her using her Oyster card today on the new Elizabeth line.

A Queen’s Speech is obviously about legislation, the economy and finances, and the priorities of a Government. But it is also an indicator of the attitude and approach of a Government to how they are going to govern. The last five years have meant that they have had to face some extreme challenges; some of this Government’s own making—Brexit—and some external ones—Covid and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—to which our Government have had to respond. The cost of living crisis, energy costs, food costs: millions of people are struggling to pay their bills, and with inflation currently at 7%, a 30-year high, this is likely to increase. Public services become even more critical when individuals and families are struggling, and they, too, are finding it difficult.

The Minister referred to the managed migration to universal credit, which has caused real problems for claimants. The Government’s own documents say that of the 2.6 million households still on legacy benefits,

“we estimate around 1.4 million (55%) would have a higher entitlement on UC, 300,000 would see no change and approximately 900,000 households (35%) would have a lower entitlement.”

But the poorest in our society already face impossible pressures on their costs, and for nearly 1 million households to face a lower entitlement because of a migration to a new benefit is a disgrace.

The Government say they understand the problem, but unfortunately there is no real offer of help for the people who are already having to choose between heating and eating, and who are not in a position to take on extra work, as one MP suggested yesterday, or to cook better. Instead, this Government will raise an additional £13.8 billion through personal taxes this year. That is why from the Liberal Democrat Benches we say that VAT should be reduced immediately, saving the average family £600 a year, and there should be an emergency Budget: these families need action right now.

The Social Security (Special Rules for End of Life) Bill, extending the period of terminal illness from six to 12 months to be eligible for special provisions, is also very welcome, but I hope that Ministers will also guarantee a speedy decision within a few days of notification, rather than using the extra time to delay implementation.

I am looking forward to my noble friend Lord Storey’s contribution on the Schools Bill, but I want to make a brief point on Part 3, to do with the register of children out of school. While it is absolutely vital that there is a record of where school-age children are, the Secretary of State announcing the naming and shaming of children not in school and their parents, as well as increasing the criminal penalties for parents, is very worrying, including for those parents who wish to home school.

Criminalising parents and naming and shaming children is completely inappropriate when a child, for example, has been so severely bullied that they are traumatised and waiting for a CAMHS appointment to start therapy, which currently can take 18 months to two years. It is also completely inappropriate that children who are immunocompromised, for example on chemotherapy, are currently forced to go into school without special measures and ventilation, even though their consultants say that these children cannot live with Covid. Parents of some of these children are currently being taken to court and fined.

Any register must record why a child is absent, and specialist advice, such as that of a hospital consultant, should be followed. This means alternative provision online may be needed and should be both provided and fully funded. Covid has also laid bare the inadequacies of too many school buildings, whether in terms of ventilation, appropriate space to learn in, or safety features, so we need an urgent investment in our school estate.

I have talked already about the increase in living costs, but many disabled people need much more heating than most families, and there are some who need to run life-saving equipment, such as ventilators and heart monitors, overnight. I have had family experience of this with my granddaughter. People in this particular group are very easy to help, because they are registered with their local energy supplier for emergency help in the event of a sustained power cut—so why cannot these disabled people be given grants to cover the extra costs that they face through no fault of their own?

More generally, disabled children cannot access the healthcare and other services that they have a right to. Forty-three per cent of families with disabled children have waited more than a year to get respite care, and more than four in 10 disabled children have waited more than a year for an operation.

The lack of funding available in local councils means that more parents of disabled children have had to take their local authority to tribunal to get the support they are entitled to. Lest you do not believe me, in 96% of hearings, the tribunal supports the parents. These children deserve that support, and frankly our local authorities deserve the funding that they need to deliver it.

Disabled people still face problems with transport and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Borwick, who in his speech last week reminded us that when the Disability Discrimination Bill of 1995 was in Committee, the Minister said that

“taxis newly licensed must, as a condition of licence, be accessible to all disabled people, including those who use wheelchairs.”—[Official Report, 15/6/1995; col. 2035.]

In addition to that, we heard only two days ago of BBC correspondent Frank Gardner being stuck yet again on a plane because Heathrow’s disabled service had failed. There are many other problems. Nearly three decades after the Disability Discrimination Bill was passed, our taxi service can still opt out of carrying wheelchair users, and people can still just sit and wait on aeroplanes.

I turn now to working disabled people. NHS England has just reported that, even in the NHS, disabled staff are nearly twice as likely to face formal capability questions about whether they can do their job properly. NHS England is now asking trusts to look at whether they are doing that unfairly.

From these Benches, we have concerns about the Bill of Rights. We believe that it will further take away the rights of those with protected characteristics, including disabled people, who can currently rely on the positive obligations placed on public authorities by the European Convention on Human Rights. The Bill of Rights will cut those positive obligations and severely weaken people’s ability to access their rights under the convention.

Banning conversion therapy is absolutely the right thing to do. However, it is not right to exclude trans and non-binary people from the ban, thereby allowing conversion abuse to continue to take place against two groups of people with protected characteristics.

I am pleased that the mental health reform Bill is coming into the process this year. It is a very important Bill and the Minister was right to say that. People definitely need a stronger say in their treatment. However, the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Local Government Association and many other stakeholders make the vital point that mental health reform must also include fully resourced funding for mental health services on the front line, training mental health professionals, workforce planning and community services. It is also vital that those with learning disabilities are not kept in secure accommodation. This is a scandal of which we should all be ashamed and which I hope will be ended by the Bill.

Mental health is part of a wider health crisis. This is undoubtedly partly as a result of Covid, but many of the current problems are long-standing and point to a lack of investment over the last 10 years and an unwillingness in Ministers to tackle them honestly. The NHS is undoubtedly in crisis and doing the best that it can, as it always does, while its staff is exhausted, understaffed and demoralised. The most visible points are the ambulance crisis leading to an A&E crisis, the lack of clinical staff and the cuts in capital spend, resulting in too many NHS trusts delivering services in poor buildings.

Today, a paramedic noted that her first patient of the day in her ambulance was now in a queue at the local A&E department. She commented that if today was like her last shift, she would spend the entire shift with this one patient in this one car park. This is not a one-off; it is happening all over the country every day. A&E departments are stuck because beds cannot be freed up, since patients cannot be sent from other wards into residential or nursing care—or even to their own homes—if there are no carers to look after them. The social care sector continues to see staff leaving for better paid jobs, including in the NHS, without being in a position to charge more for their services. Instead of real help, Ministers and the press continue to attack the NHS and the care sector. They attack the NHS for having too many managers, but the NHS’s 2% compares well to the German and French healthcare systems, which have more than double that figure.

From these Benches, we hoped to see more about tackling the inequalities in our health system. Whether they are based on deprivation, ethnicity or disability, we need to address the social determinants of health. Instead of cutting public health budgets, as happened to the UKHSA last month, we should be investing in food reformulation, tobacco bans and social prescribing. Until this happens, the focus will be on those already ill, rather than preventing them becoming ill.

Above all, everyone involved in the health and social care sector is looking to the Government to plan and invest in the workforce. The NHS staff survey published as recently as March found that 52% of staff said that they cannot do their jobs properly because of staff shortages. Vacancies across the NHS are now back to their pre-pandemic levels, with over 110,000 full-time-equivalent empty posts. Some 48% of advertised consultant posts are unfilled; this needs to be addressed urgently.

Finally, I ask the Minister why unpaid carers’ leave is once again not in the Queen’s Speech, despite it being a Conservative Party manifesto commitment. Over half of working carers say that they needed unpaid carers’ leave to help them juggle work and care. Despite commitments to help carers at the end of the passage of the Health and Care Bill, the Government have once again let carers down. Ministers talk of levelling up, but I fear that the Government are not listening to the evidence of how the current cost-of-living crisis and the cuts to our public services are affecting the most vulnerable in our country.