Queen’s Speech
Baroness Fookes Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Fookes (Con)
My Lords, I start with a sentence almost at the end of the gracious Speech, which states:
“Other measures will be laid before you”.
That wonderful catch-all phrase is beloved of Governments of every hue. I say to my noble friend the Minister that I hope that the Government will not be tempted down that road because it seems to me that the legislation outlined in the gracious Speech is already very heavy and, if all the measures are to be considered thoroughly, carefully and without making mistakes, that will be quite sufficient for this session. I have noticed in the past that where mistakes occur it is partly because legislation has been hurried or too much has had to be got in in too short a time. What happens is that in the next Session or the one after that, there has to be another Bill in order to put it right. I make that observation to my noble friend.
Sometimes, only half in jest, I say that if I had a vote, I would vote for a party which says firmly, “We will pass no new legislation for five years. We will get rid of outdated and useless legislation, as on a bonfire. We will consolidate the good that remains into reasonably sized Bills dealing with one main topic”. That brings me to another of my beefs; that is, the habit of Governments of all complexions to put disparate subjects into one almighty Bill. I suppose one could call it a portmanteau Bill, although, more down to earth, I prefer to call it a dog’s breakfast. I encourage my noble friend not to go down that route either in so far as it lies in his power.
Another temptation for Governments is to seek to legislate the moment a scandal arises. The cry goes up, “We must have a Bill. We must have legislation”. I urge the Government always to look to see what is already available on the statute book before going down that road. I give a little example from the Communications Committee, on which I served in the last Parliament. Noble Lords will recall that there have been some very unpleasant incidents on social media. There have been horrible expressions of hatred against others, on which I will not dwell, and even the sending of photographs of an intimate nature, which were intended for very private circulation but which, when a partnership breaks up, are circulated widely. I think that that is called revenge porn.
The committee looked at this and spoke to a special adviser who knows a great deal about the laws relating to this issue. We found that the victims, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service already had legislation in various forms on the statute book that could deal with this. I am not of course referring to the matters raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, because they are different. It is just an illustration of what can often be done with what you already have.
I turn to a part of the gracious Speech where no legislation is proposed; namely, that dealing with the environment and climate change. Other noble Lords have dealt with this at a high policy level. I will look at it in exactly the opposite direction; that is, what ordinary people can do if they are sufficiently mobilised. I am well aware that major projects to prevent flooding are beyond the reach of ordinary people. However, they can certainly do something in their own gardens in urban areas where there is a real problem with run-off because people have concreted over their front gardens to take cars. It is perfectly possible to have a car in your front garden without getting rid of the garden altogether. I do not know whether anyone saw either in person or on television an exhibit at the recent Chelsea Flower Show. A designer, who I think was an amateur, did a wonderful front garden using Welsh slate. It had little runlets of flowers on either side of and between where the wheels of the car would go. Exactly where the wheels would go had been worked out and there was earth between through which the water could drain.
The Royal Horticultural Society has been advocating something of this sort for some years now. I have been a member for more years now than I care to remember. It is doing its utmost to encourage this kind of thing. It can be done simply as well as more elaborately. It would help enormously if Ministers at Defra were to give a real boost to this suggestion.
Another issue relates to the problems faced by bees. I am not sure how many people except the agriculturalists among us know much about the severe threat to bee populations. The horror is that, if the bee population should become extinct, we would see our food crops disappear totally. It is a nightmarish scenario but I hope that it will not come to that. Certainly, we need to be worried about it. People can help immensely in their gardens by growing the right flowers to give succour to the bees over a long period of time. They can do an awful lot in that way. I am not good on figures but I know that the number of back gardens, if not front gardens, is an enormous part of our total area. This suggestion could have a major effect but it needs the contributions of individual gardeners. Since we are a nation of garden lovers, surely we can harness that. On that point, I am aware of the time and I will sit down.
Modern Slavery Bill
Baroness Fookes Excerpts(9 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Warner
I wish to say briefly that I would like to withdraw Amendment 33 but want to register the point that the track record of confiscating assets from the proceeds of crime has not been a happy one. I want to keep open, until we have seen the review, whether we come back to the issue of a legal framework being looked at again and give the Home Secretary powers to take action if things do not work out as well as they might have done. I particularly want to consider the points made about civil orders by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. There is a package of issues to which we may have to return on Report. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Crime and Courts Bill [HL]
Baroness Fookes Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
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The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Fookes)
Perhaps I may assume that the House is now ready to return to the Bill.
Amendment 11
Public and Commercial Services Union: Strike Action
Baroness Fookes Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Fookes
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what representations they have made to the Public and Commercial Services Union about the proposed strike on the day before the opening of the 2012 Olympic Games.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Henley)
My Lords, the Public and Commercial Services Union’s decision to call this strike on the eve of the Games is opportunistic and wholly unjustified. The Home Secretary has written to the PCS to express her concern and to make it clear that Her Majesty’s Government are totally opposed to the strike.
Baroness Fookes
Is it correct that only 21% of the union members balloted actually voted at all and that only a very small majority of those who did vote voted in favour? In those circumstances, and given that lukewarm support, is there any responsible person in this country who supports this squalid little exercise that threatens the good name of this country?
Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill
Baroness Fookes Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
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The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes)
I should point out that if this amendment were to be agreed I could not then call Amendments 16 to 19 by reason of pre-emption.
Lord Harris of Haringey
My Lords, the Committee owes an enormous debt of gratitude to the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, for tabling this series of amendments that seek to put some flesh on the bones of the amendments that we considered last week. This is a useful attempt to help the Government in their response to the difficulty in which they find themselves with the original legislation.
Amendment 15A sets out how a police commission might work and what its functions might be, and in doing so it addresses many, although not all, of the original objectives of the Government’s proposals. It also addresses many concerns expressed in the Committee and at Second Reading about the issues around the Bill. It sets out a clear framework of accountability, making clear how the mechanism will work and to whom chief officers of police are accountable. Given that concerns have been expressed about the visibility of existing police authorities, the concept of a police commission may well be seen as a much more visible entity and one that will have some of the benefits that the Government are trying to achieve. The clarity in the amendment about what the commission will do is extremely important, but it is also valuable in that it addresses some of the concerns that Members of this House have been exercised about as we have debated this matter in the past few weeks.
My concern, which I have expressed on a number of occasions, was where the visible answerability of chief officers of police was to be located. Where would the public see that the police service in their area would be held to account? Clearly, that mechanism will provide that opportunity in what will no doubt be public gatherings of the commission, which will no doubt attract considerable public attention because of the very high profile associated with this work. The example that I cited in our discussions last week was of a location in which the acting commissioner of the Metropolitan Police was able to apologise to the public, and in particular to someone’s family, when the police had failed in investigating a crime. It would also provide a forum for those who were deeply concerned about other incidents that occurred in a police area. All that would be located in meetings of the commission. That is a very important principle—where the visible answerability will be whereby the public can see that the police service in their area is being held to account.
The other issue very helpfully addressed in this amendment is the question of public engagement. While I am sure that the Government’s original proposal envisaged that policing and crime commissions would engage with the public, a single individual covering a large local area was always seen as a tall order. Many noble Lords expressed that in debate. This group of amendments provides us with a structure whereby that public engagement would take place. Setting a framework for that is also extremely helpful in enabling us to see how these arrangements might work, who would be responsible and who would be entitled to be part of that engagement process. No doubt in some parts of the country the police commissions would take a very broad view of this and might want to include other categories of people with whom they would engage as part of this process. However, this sets a minimum standard and is one that the commission itself would be expected to meet.
I am conscious that the Government are determined to have these functions carried out by a single individual—a single, directly elected individual. I also recognise and am very conscious that a number of Members of the House expressed real reservations about the amount of power that that placed in the hands of a single individual. This mechanism, while clearly creating the police commissioner as the most important part of this structure, also makes it clear that that person does not act on their own but has to act in concert with other members of the commission who are appointed as part of the panel process that this amendment envisages. It would therefore not be a single individual who, because of their mandate and feeling of power, might be tempted to go off in capricious directions but an individual working with colleagues as part of a commission. That addresses one of the concerns that have been expressed.
Clearly, the structure envisaged in this amendment is that the person who acts as commissioner is appointed by the other panel members of the commission. They would appoint one of their number to be the commissioner, which is of course entirely contrary to the Government’s intention that that person should be directly elected. I certainly said in earlier speeches that, when I was a police authority chair, I would have welcomed the additional authority of being personally elected to fulfil that role. Obviously, if we are in what will no doubt be an iterative process between the Houses, it will be possible for the Government to insert some mechanism of direct election into this. However, what we have before us was the will of this Chamber when it met in Committee last week. That does not necessarily preclude further discussions as we go down the road.
The concerns about direct election are ones that the Government clearly need to consider. I have reservations about some of the wilder fantasies that people might have about what direct election would bring, because I believe the electorate would take these elections extremely seriously. As they would be for large areas, I suspect that the political parties would invest considerable energy in making sure that their choice of candidate was not part of any lunatic fringe. The fundamental point is that this process would temper the concerns that there might be about direct election, were that to be reinserted into the Bill, because that person would be acting as part of a commission and with other commission members.
This amendment is helpful to your Lordships and sets out a framework with which the Government can work. I feel very sorry for the Minister, who is new to this role and is being confronted with a Bill that is perhaps no longer quite as coherent—if that is the right word—as it once was. I am conscious of that and of the demands that it is now placing on Home Office civil servants. It is therefore incumbent on the Committee to offer the Home Office a structure with which it can work, that will deal with many of the concerns that your Lordships have expressed and that will enable us to have a constructive debate as we go through the rest of the Bill.
Identity Documents Bill
Baroness Fookes Excerpts(14 years ago)
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The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes)
My Lords, if there is a Division in the Chamber, the Grand Committee will immediately adjourn, and resume after 10 minutes. Further, at a convenient moment after 4.15 pm, the Committee will adjourn to hear the Statement. It will resume five minutes after the Statement has been concluded.