Ministerial and other Maternity Allowances Bill

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 22nd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest, although not a current one, as the prospects of my being offered ministerial office are as remote as the chances of my becoming pregnant again. However, 45 years ago, I was pregnant and in Parliament when such a thing was, frankly, considered inconceivable, to coin a phrase. My son, Ben, was born when Jim Callaghan’s Government were hanging by a thread, with no majority in the Commons, running three-line Whips on Lords’ amendments, and with no pairing, following an incident involving Michael Heseltine—now the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine—and the Mace, which older Members might recall. Given the attitudes and circumstances of 45 years ago, it is perhaps not surprising that no arrangements for maternity leave were in place, so I ended up bringing the baby into the House with me two days after leaving hospital, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, referred to.

The day after the first vote in which I participated, which the Government won by a majority of one, the front page of the Daily Express read, “Held Together by a Nappy Pin”, although I preferred the Sun’s headline, “Little Ben strikes”. I thank my lucky stars that my experience predated social media, so my hate mail was confined to those who put pen to paper and to those newspaper columnists who decided to accuse me of neglecting my child, of exhibitionism or of that terrible thing that women do—wanting to have it all.

Like all noble Lords who have spoken, I wish the Attorney-General well and applaud her decision to embark on a substantial period of full maternity leave. I welcome the provisions in this Bill to ensure that she can do so. But over the decades since 1976, many distinguished serving women Ministers and MPs have, I am happy to say, given birth. It is no longer an affront, nor a novelty, and I suspect the current doorkeepers in the House of Commons are no longer instructed by the Sergeant at Arms, as they were in 1976, as to the degree of force to be used to stop a mother bringing a baby into the Chamber.

After all those years and all that experience, I find it dispiriting that we need emergency legislation to ensure that appropriate arrangements are made to provide maternity leave for Suella Braverman. Even more worrying and depressing was to hear the contributions of MPs to the debate on the Bill in another place, their descriptions of the continuing abuse received by pregnant MPs and the many serious unresolved issues regarding cover for their constituency responsibilities. There is clearly much work still to be done.

Today, we are faced with this emergency legislation, which universally in this House is considered unsatisfactory because, by its nature, it lacks the consideration, equalities assessment in advance, and scrutiny to which it should be subjected before its presentation and during its passage through Parliament.

The fact that women parliamentarians have babies has been apparent to my certain knowledge for 45 years. The Attorney-General’s pregnancy has hardly been a state secret. We should record our concern at the lack of foresight and planning by the Government that has led to us having to deal with this Bill at breakneck speed. That haste and lack of time for consideration has meant—as the Minister accepted in his introduction—that we are in the uncomfortable position of putting on to the statute book severely limited legislation which leaves many issues unanswered and does not deal with important questions relating to paternity, shared parental and adoption leave, or the issues faced by non-ministerial parliamentarians.

I fear it also creates the impression that we can find time to legislate to address the needs of our own but not the needs of all the other pregnant women and new parents for whom current provision is far from adequate and for whom Covid has created its own problems, particularly in relation to furloughing, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hussein-Ecce, said. Only if this Bill is followed by comprehensive action in these areas will the Government have any credibility. I hope the noble Lord the Minister will be able to provide reassurance on this point when he winds up.

Finally, a word about language and the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes: I believe the drafters of this Bill have quite simply got it wrong in trying to Snopake the word “woman” from the legislative lexicon. The price of so-called gender neutrality in this Bill is an awkward and ugly distortion of the English language and an affront to common sense. Far from encouraging respect for language and the recognition of diversity, to which I am fully committed, it risks bemusing and alienating the public and damaging the very causes that passionate advocates of such language espouse. I look forward to debates in Committee on this issue but, even more importantly, I profoundly hope that this Bill can be the spur to do far better for pregnant women, new mothers and fathers, and their babies in the future.

Financial Services Bill

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 28th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interest as co-chair of Peers for the Planet. My contribution today will focus on what is not in the Bill —namely, any reference to climate change considerations in relation to financial services and their regulation. First, I have a couple of more general points, and of course a welcome for the impressive and engaging maiden speech by the noble Lord, Lord Hammond of Runnymede.

I was very sympathetic to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, and others on the need for improving the arrangements for parliamentary scrutiny set out in the Bill. I shall be very interested to follow the arguments and discussions on competitiveness, particularly in the light of a powerful speech that I heard last week from David Miliband when he spoke about the sharp dividing line between cultures of accountability and cultures of impunity that apply not only to political systems but, as we have painfully learned, to financial systems as well.

I turn to my main point—a point that I was pleased was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Reid of Cardowan—which is the absence of any reference within the provisions of the Bill to climate change risk and the UK’s net-zero commitments. That the financial sector will be crucial for unlocking the private investment necessary for both green recovery and long-term economic security was made very clear by the Government in their 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution. Alok Sharma, then the BEIS Secretary of State, pledged:

“We will harness the international reputation of the UK’s world leading financial sector to encourage private investment into supporting innovation and manage climate financial risk.”


The Chancellor of the Exchequer wrote in his 9 November Statement of

“putting the full weight of private sector innovation, expertise and capital behind the critical global effort to tackle climate change and protect the environment.”

This strong rhetoric from the Government reflects what is happening in the financial sector in the UK and across the world. Only this week we have seen Black Rock adopt a climate alignment metric for its funds while many other financial institutions, from pension funds to banks, are announcing their commitments to net zero. However, to deliver systemic change at the speed required, we need increased action. Fine words and long-term aspirations will not be sufficient to tackle the scale of the challenge, and the Government need to take a lead in creating the environment and regulatory framework to encourage rapid progress.

The mismatch between rhetoric and activity can be seen across the sector. Lending to fossil fuels from 35 of the biggest banks continued to rise, up from $700 billion in 2018 to $736 billion in 2019. UK banks are currently the worst in Europe for high carbon lending. While the total value of assets held by financial institutions in the UK is around £20 billion, estimates put the value of global funds managed with explicit ESG criteria as, at most, 0.4%.

The Bill needs to reflect the urgency of the task and set the direction of travel through the future regulatory framework for financial services. We have to create a framework that supports our climate goals and explicitly provides for climate risk to be assessed and factored into decisions. The wider consultation on the future framework to which the Minister and others have referred provides no justification for neglecting the opportunity to put the appropriate markers and measures down in the Bill when the Government’s green finance policy and ambition has been so clearly set out already.

We need a concerted and urgent focus on actively aligning investment with the objectives of the Paris Agreement, so it is extremely concerning that the Bill does not even include the first step of addressing climate risks by ensuring that they are taken into account by the regulator when discharging its duties in making new regulations. I look forward to working with other noble Lords on amendments that would rectify these omissions and send a clear signal of a direction of travel to the sector and regulators.

In the year that the UK hosts COP 26, we must be meticulous in ensuring that we lead by example in every aspect of government policy. Mark Carney, the Prime Minister’s financial adviser at COP 26, wrote in November:

“The objective for the private finance work for COP26 is simple: ensure that every professional financial decision takes climate change into account.”


We must ensure that the Bill underpins that objective.

House of Lords: Size

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend raises implicitly the question of whether some Peers who are not legislators might be appointed. This idea has been put forward at various times historically. Currently, the position is that they are.

[Baroness Hayman (CB) [V]]

My Lords, when we last debated this issue on 5 January, the Minister said that neither the present nor the previous Prime Minister had assented to any limit on numbers, but the previous Prime Minister did agree to exercise restraint in appointments to the House in response to the Lord Speaker’s letter following the Burns report as part of an overall acceptance of the need to reduce numbers. Is that no longer the Government’s policy?

[Lord True (Con)]

What I said, which I repeat, is that the previous Prime Minister did not accept the committee’s recommendation to commit to a specific cap on numbers, and that remains the position. My right honourable friend Mr Johnson has only recently become Prime Minister. I suggest that we judge him at the end of his term rather than at this time, when, frankly, the Conservative Party has been underrepresented in your Lordships’ House.

G7 Summit

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for her important question. The Prime Minister has agreed to convene a gender equality advisory council that will report to the G7 leaders and drive an ambitious agenda to ensure that the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on women is recognised and the importance of gender equality is at the heart of an inclusive recovery. I thank my noble friend for her work and leadership in this area. The council will be part of her legacy.

[Baroness Hayman (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interests and very much endorse the Minister’s reply to his noble friend Lady Sugg and his comments about her. I also welcome his response to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, with which I totally agree. I welcome the emphasis that the Government are putting on beating the pandemic and future pandemic planning. However, does the Minister accept that we must recognise the importance of continuing support for ongoing global health programmes—such as that on malaria, where the UK has been a world leader—not only because they save the lives of hundreds of thousands of children every year but because they provide vital health infrastructure for the fight against future diseases?

[Lord True (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness with her great experience for her kind comments. I can assure her that the United Kingdom remains committed to the research and development needed to fight all pandemics worldwide. One of the highest moments of my lifetime was the eradication of smallpox, and I am certain that the eradication of these great diseases, one of which the noble Baroness referred to, will remain an objective for all of us.

House of Lords Appointments Commission

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Tuesday 5th January 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Hayman]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to put (1) the remit, and (2) the independence, of the House of Lords Appointments Commission on a statutory footing.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)]

My Lords, the House of Lords Appointments Commission is an independent, advisory, non-departmental public body. The Government have no plans to change the role and remit of the organisation.

[Baroness Hayman (CB) [V]]

Does the Minister not recognise the deep and widespread concern that has been expressed about the Prime Minister’s approach to appointments to this already overpopulated House? He has now become the first Prime Minister ever to overturn the explicit advice of the Appointments Commission in relation to the propriety of an appointment. This is not an ad hominem issue; it is an issue of real principle. Will the Minister now accept that we need to rebuild public confidence in the process of appointments to this House by creating a commission whose remit and independence is protected by statute?

[Lord True (Con)]

No, my Lords. The Government have no plans to change the position. The organisation’s legal status would not affect its remit. The House of Lords needs refreshing and the Prime Minister, like other Prime Ministers, is entitled to do that.

Spending Review 2020

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hayman (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I will speak briefly on issues relating to climate, and I declare my interests as set out in the register, but first I will record my profound disquiet about the decision to reduce our spending on overseas development assistance. This is short-sighted in the national interest, as well as damaging to some of the poorest in the world.

I welcome the commitment in the spending review:

“Our capital plans will invest in the greener future we promised, delivering the Prime Minister’s 10-point plan for climate change.”—[Official Report, Commons, 25/11/20; col. 831.]


Equally positive are other measures such as the proposed national infrastructure bank, the potential net- zero duty for regulators, and the revising of the Green Book to take account of our climate change obligations.

However, there is a widespread understanding that, in themselves, the measures currently in place and planned by the UK are not sufficient to meet our climate change commitments. There is a large gap between aspirations and solid progress on the ground. For example, the IPPR’s recent estimates suggest that only 12% of the year-on-year spending needed to achieve net zero has been committed by the Treasury. So there is an urgent need for what has been announced to be supported by clear policy direction and by detailed sector-by-sector road maps, in addition to mechanisms that will help bring investments and new players into low-carbon markets, and by long-term funding commitments.

When the Minister replies to this debate, I hope that he will be able to assure us that, in the year leading up to our hosting of COP 26, the net-zero review will reflect the forthcoming advice of the Climate Change Committee, and that we will see a fully costed road map, including the investment commitment and the sector policies that will ensure we achieve our net-zero target by 2050.

Future of Financial Services

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interest as co-chair of Peers for the Planet. I very much welcome the emphasis in the Statement on green recovery and the ambition to lead the world in green finance. I have a couple of questions on TCFD and the decision to mandate climate disclosures. Could the Government not be a little bit more ambitious on the 2025 deadline, given the number of companies that are already taking on these responsibilities and have acted on disclosure? In the run-up to COP 26, will the Government take this as an exemplar and persuade other countries to act in a similar fashion so that we can have an even playing field across countries?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

The noble Baroness asks important questions. I certainly take on board her desire to try to accelerate the mandatory implementation date. I will feed that back to the Chancellor and see if it can be done. It is always a matter of balance between doing these things too quickly and being slow-footed. The TCFD is a key component of our international efforts at the G7, which we are hosting, the G20, COP 26, which the noble Baroness mentioned, and the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action. Making this announcement will mean that we can set this as an example for other countries to emulate and harmonise approaches on disclosure.

House of Lords: Number of Members

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

No, my Lords. The cardinal facts of this House—which is unique, and that is one of its splendours—are that it is unelected, its Members sit for life and it cannot be dissolved. In those circumstances, the question of a cap raises profound constitutional questions, which, as the previous Prime Minister said, deserve reflection.

[Baroness Hayman (CB) [V]]

My Lords, when numbers in your Lordships’ House go up, public respect for the House goes down. The Minister said that the previous Prime Minister did not endorse a cap on the size of the House, and that is quite correct, but she did commit to restraint in appointments. Given how seriously the House takes the issue of reducing numbers, can the Minister tell me what conversations the noble Baroness the Leader of the House—the whole House—has had with colleagues in the House, with the leaders and the Convenor, and with her right honourable friend the Prime Minister, about this issue? If he does not have that information to hand, perhaps he could write to me.

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, as that question is about the Leader of the House, I think that she would have to address it herself. So far as the numbers are concerned, I dispute that there is any correlation between the size of the House and the respect in which it is held. I remember the very great respect in which the House was held before 1999.

Income Equality and Sustainability

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Wednesday 6th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, this crisis has made us reflect on what matters to us and on who matters to us—the people we love and cannot be with, but also the strangers on whose courage, compassion and service we as a country have depended literally for our survival. We frequently express our gratitude to these people in words. After this, we need to express it in deeds, in reality, in changes and in a fairer system of income and taxation. However, we also owe it to the generations that come after us to be fairer. When we rebuild our economy, we need to do so in a way that is sustainable. We need to look at a greener future, with an economy that does not pollute or endanger the future of the world in the same way.

Today, the Committee on Climate Change has written to the Prime Minister setting out six key principles for rebuilding an economy that is stronger, cleaner and more resilient for the future—not a hair-shirt economy but one from which we can benefit as a community. Will the Minister assure me today that those recommendations will be taken very seriously?

House of Lords: Membership

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Tuesday 5th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

My Lords, I certainly agree with the point on scrutiny. The Government have made it very clear that they do not consider piecemeal reform of this House to be sensible. However, I repeat that there is no substance in this story. I am not sure whether it was a case of the ill informed meeting the inventive or perhaps one or the other, but I repeat that it is not government policy.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, reducing the size of the House is obviously not a priority for the moment but it is something that we need to do. Will the Minister confirm that the Government will consider putting a cap on the size of the House, allowing its numbers to be reduced along the lines of the Burns report? However, as other noble Lords have said, the priority now is surely to enhance and increase both the scale and the effectiveness of the scrutiny that we as a House can bring to the conduct of the Government during the current crisis. Are there plans to expand the role and function of the House from their limited forms at the moment?

[Lord True]

My Lords, I welcome scrutiny and think that it is vital for a democracy. Obviously, the arrangements made by the authorities of the House are beyond my remit; I am here to answer for the Government. The Government do not currently intend to put a cap on the size of the House; indeed, their position is that from time to time the House will need refreshing. That has always been the position; it has never been a static House.