Domestic Abuse Bill

Debate between Baroness Garden of Frognal and Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 27th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am very grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate, particularly in following the noble Baroness, Lady Fox. Before I speak, I apologise to the Hansard writers; I was asked for my notes in advance and said “Well, here’s the notes, but there’s no guarantee that I will stick to them”. That is certainly the case, in the light of two developments.

First, there was the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox. I agree with everything she said about the need for care and caution in dealing with data and algorithms, and the way things are going in the future. I have no problem whatever with that. However, I will speak positively in support of Amendments 23 and 28. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on his great opening speech, and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, who also spoke on those two amendments.

Secondly, I have had my feet and legs cut from under me, to a degree, by the great response that the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, gave on the group starting with Amendment 21, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. She referred to pressure from me, along with the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, for a review of how tagging might be employed. We had a meeting 10 days or so ago, at which I raised that issue. I said that I was not happy about the view expressed on alcohol by the Minister responsible for safeguarding, Victoria Atkins, at that meeting but, in fairness to her, she has responded very positively to the views we expressed about the potential need to use tagging in the area of domestic abuse. I hope that, in the context of our later debate on stalking, the Government will look at the use of tagging in a positive way—applying, of course, care and caution.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for the work that she has done on tagging. She worked with the previous Mayor of London, whom I congratulate on a day when he is getting a kicking; the current Prime Minister was wise enough to see that there was a growth in abuse linked to alcohol, not a lessening, and that one way to slow it down might be to tag people who were drinking excessively. They were likely then to be sentenced and sent down; instead, they were tagged. I have met a lot of people in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings who have been tagged. They would rather have the tag than be sent to jail, given the stigma that goes with jail compared to being tagged, which is then forgotten about. I believe this can be applied equally in dealing with individual perpetrators. I have worked for perpetrators and tried to defend their interests as best I could, to get them on the right track. As the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, has recognised, tagging can be done very usefully; in turn, I think it can be used for stalking.

I am grateful to the LSE and, in particular, Manchester University for the work that they are doing. I believe we are opening up an entirely new area in which we need to do ever more work, not less. We are short of resources. I am grateful to the Royal College of Psychiatrists for the assistance that it gives me but we are extraordinarily short of psychiatrists. We need to spend time with individuals. We have to look for technology developments that enable us to gather the data which helps with identification, and to find positive ways in which algorithms can assist people. Why should algorithms be used solely for the benefit of profits for the gambling industry and so on? Why can they not be turned the other way, so that public services can use them beneficially to identify the facts about individuals and bring those facts to their attention, and then offer support and assistance to move in a different direction?

That is the message which I give to the noble Baroness, Lady Fox. We do not look back and worry all the time. Yes, we have cares and concerns, but we look to see what form of opportunities are opening up through AI and other technologies. Tagging is an old-fashioned technology; I was going to speak about that but I could spend some time on AI as well, which I will not. However, there is much opportunity here for us. In particular, we need to look at the segregated way in which our police forces operate. That approach has been worth while and beneficial, but it has had its day. Now, technology encompasses the whole world, not just Europe, and we need to see how we, in turn, can come together and work for positive outcomes.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, has withdrawn so I now call the noble Lord, Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale.

Air Quality: London

Debate between Baroness Garden of Frognal and Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe

Tuesday 24th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My noble friend is right: there is work to be done on road design, road junctions, local planning and the design of buildings, all of which can have an impact on air pollution. Certainly traffic calming measures sometimes cause pollution to rise, but that is part of the constant review to find different ways of cleaning the air.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, given that the mayor is now worried about air pollution in London, has the Minister had any conversations with him about whether his decision not to proceed with introducing congestion charging in west London has helped to improve the health of people in London or make it worse?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I have not had a conversation with the mayor. That answers the first of the noble Lord’s questions. Congestion charging has had some effect, but not a great deal, on air pollution. We use a combination of factors such as encouraging people to use bicycles, to walk or to drive vehicles which do not use the worst kinds of fuels—all play a part. We need to use a combination of factors.

Gambling Commission: Health Lottery

Debate between Baroness Garden of Frognal and Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe

Monday 28th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My noble friend makes a very valid point that, so far, the legality has been in the matter of the fact of the law. However, as I have mentioned, there will be ongoing monitoring and, as he so rightly says, all these things can be changed if it turns out that the spirit of the law is not being respected.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, are the Government content with the system that they have in place for monitoring the operations of the Gambling Commission and, if not, what can they do about it? Are they content that Mr Desmond is a fit and proper person, given what was said at the Leveson inquiry last week and the failure of his organisations to associate themselves with the independent press commission, and that this is the way forward given some of the issues which now surround the operation of this lottery?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, as I say, it is for the Gambling Commission to look at this. We recognise all the issues around Mr Desmond and his other organisations, but those are not perhaps directly relevant to this. One thing that the Government have done is to merge the Gambling Commission and the National Lottery Commission, which we expect will make regulation easier and create cost savings but also help to produce a more robust form of monitoring.

Sport: Rugby League World Cup 2013

Debate between Baroness Garden of Frognal and Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

I thank my noble friend for that—in rather more robust language than I would have used. Indeed, Rugby League has a tremendous lot to commend it as a sport. It would be ideal if it could penetrate the south of the country as much as the north. It is a parallel sport, if you like, to Rugby Union, and both codes of the sport should be equally supported and have equal merit.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

Would the Minister confirm—I welcome this—that £25 million of underwriting is going into Rugby Union but that for Rugby League the amount is only £625,000, which is substantially less than the amount of money that it sought from the RDAs to put in its bid for the 2013 Rugby League World Cup? Will she say why there is such a wide variation? She used the phrase “parity of treatment”. Will she define what the parity of treatment is because, prima facie, it does not look like fair treatment, especially given that the £25 million underwriting for Rugby Union has not changed, yet that for Rugby League has?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

The noble Lord will be aware that the systems for putting in bids for Rugby Union and Rugby League are different and the government response is in proportion to the requirements for both those bids.