Queen’s Speech

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I declare three interests, as a trustee of the Disasters Emergency Committee, chair of Malaria No More UK and co-chair of the cross-party group Peers for the Planet.

Two important international meetings will take place this year. The first is the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Kigali in June. Alongside CHOGM, there will be a summit on malaria and neglected tropical diseases to assess progress and stimulate action on the objective, set in 2018, to halve malaria in the Commonwealth by 2023. Achievement of that target would make a critical contribution to the bold ambition, laid out in last year’s Lancet commission report, to eliminate malaria entirely by 2050.

So I welcome the Minister’s words about the Government’s commitment to malaria. I hope that his noble friend can confirm, in winding up, that the UK will maintain its current level of investment in malaria at least until 2023 and use its final months as Chair-in-Office of the Commonwealth to persuade other countries to intensify their own efforts. I hope, too, that she will take on board the wise words of my noble friend Lord Jay of Ewelme, and others, about the importance of maintaining a strong and independent Department for International Development.

The meetings of CHOGM in Kigali and COP26 in Glasgow are far apart geographically, but the links between global health, international development and climate change are close and compelling. The WHO has warned of the risk of a 15% increase in malaria cases over 20 years because of climate change. Some of the poorest countries of the world are already experiencing the effects of droughts, floods and threat to the very existence of small island states. Extreme weather events affect rich and poor alike, as the fires in the United States and Australia demonstrate all too clearly.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford eloquently expressed the potentially catastrophic environmental, economic and social effects of the current trajectory, so I welcomed the obviously heartfelt commitment of the Minister in his speech today and Her Majesty’s Government’s commitment to the UK achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050. As I said, that is also the target date for the eradication of malaria.

I would love to see both things achieved. I will be 100 in 2050, so if we could speed up the timetable a little, I would be very much in favour of that. But I have to accept that achieving net zero in the UK, even by 2050, will be both complicated and challenging. It will require action not just by government, local and national, but by businesses and academics, citizens and communities, individuals and investors, and even rock bands when they go on tour. This House will have a very important part to play in scrutinising and strengthening relevant legislation and policies.

It will also require political leadership to unite the country in a common cause, and that is the polar opposite of the political climate we have experienced over the last five years. When asked to do their bit, many query why they should even bother when what we as a country can achieve in emission reductions shrinks into insignificance when compared to huge emitters such as China and India and the obduracy of leaders such as Presidents Trump and Bolsonaro.

My response is this: that this country’s contribution will be measured not only in the quantity but in the quality of our response, the quality of our imagination and innovation—from power generation to food production, to the harnessing of pension funds to support a new green economy—and the ability, the quality, of our leadership to provide tools that can be adapted and scaled up by others across the world. In this context, I very much welcome the initiatives by the Prince of Wales and Prince William to stimulate and reward such innovation.

There are reasons for optimism as well as fear about the future, but that optimism will be justified only if we recognise the urgency and scale of the challenge and embrace the need for comprehensive, coherent and collective action.

Tax Credits (Income Thresholds and Determination of Rates) (Amendment) Regulations 2015

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, we have been going at this now for well over two and a half hours. Strong points have been made on each side of the argument and many points have been made in speeches that have been not only lengthy but weighty. I find it difficult to conceive that any more arguments can be deployed on either side. I submit that we need to make up our minds on the basis of what we have heard and that it is time to come to a conclusion.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I accept what the noble Lord, Lord Low, says but I want to make one or two points that have perhaps not been made before and, if the House will indulge me, I would be grateful for the opportunity so to do.

I shall not go over the case against the regulations in their current form. That has been argued powerfully tonight from all Benches, and I think that we could pass almost nem con that we feel there is a need for reconsideration. The issue before us is whether it is constitutionally appropriate for the House of Lords to use its most potent and well-known weapon—the weapon of delay—in respect of these regulations.

Very powerful speeches were made from the Bishops’ Benches. I am delighted that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester is here for today’s debate. I should warn her—or console her—that it is not always like this. However, I hope that those Benches and others will consider that it might be appropriate for the House to use its powers of delay tonight. I favour the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, because it gives us an alternative to a fatal amendment on a matter which is, I agree, of high political import. It gives us the opportunity to delay the regulations and to ask the Commons—and, through it, the Government—to think again.

In introducing the debate, the noble Baroness the Leader of the House said that she had seen the Chancellor of the Exchequer today. I think that the words used were that he would “listen very carefully” to what was said in the House today. I accept that. However, having had the privilege of being a Member of both Houses, I think he will listen even more carefully to what is said in the House of Commons on Thursday, and I would like him to have the opportunity to do that.

Delaying an SI rather than killing it is innovative, and I have asked myself over time whether it is something we should therefore abjure. My answer is no. If we have the power to kill a statutory instrument and send it back to base, surely we have the power to delay it and wait for reconsideration.

I absolutely accept that this matter has been discussed in another place three times. Does it need further consideration? I think the evidence is that it does. Every time we discuss an amendment to a Bill that has gone through the House of Commons, it has probably been voted on three times: at Second Reading, in Committee and on Report. That does not inhibit us from saying first time round, “Please will you look again?”.

Therefore, for me, the only question that remains is that of financial privilege. I hesitate to cross swords with either the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, or my noble friend Lord Butler, but the situation is not as clear-cut as they have set out. If this were a Finance Bill we would have no part in it, and if it were a taxation SI we would have no part in it. In fact, it would never come here: it would go through only the House of Commons. But it is not. This is an SI under “ordinary legislation”—under a welfare Bill. Under that legislation, this House considers amendments and sends them to the House of Commons. The House of Commons can then do what it likes with them: it can accept them; it can offer a compromise; it can reject them; or it can invoke financial privilege. However, that is after this House has asked it to think again. That is a better analogy than the analogy of a Finance Bill. This statutory instrument comes under welfare legislation, not a Finance Bill.

[Lord Butler of Brockwell]

Surely there is an analogy with Finance Bills. They come to your Lordships’ House but we pass them without amendment because that is the constitutional convention, and that is similar to what we are being asked to do on this statutory instrument.

[Baroness Hayman]

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Butler, that the financial convention has not stayed absolutely the same for 300 years. The convention was that this House did nothing about the Finance Bill or, indeed, other economic measures. In 2000, we set up an Economic Affairs Committee. The House of Commons went into free-fall about encroachment on financial privilege. In fact, we were told that Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister at the time—I see the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, nodding—was incandescent at the idea that there should be a sub-committee looking at the Finance Bill. However, those things happened and the world did not collapse. Financial privilege and the right of the Commons to have the final say was not impeded.

To my mind, this is a matter of very high and clear-cut politics, and of highly nuanced constitutional significance. Overall, I believe that the most important power of this House, while leaving the last word to the other place, is to ask it to think again, and I urge the House to use that power this evening.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, this has been a quite extraordinary debate. It is unusual for your Lordships’ House to find itself at the centre of such a ferocious policy and constitutional debate as it does today. It is also extraordinary and unusual that, on a matter that affects the Department for Work and Pensions and the Treasury, we have no Treasury or DWP Minister addressing your Lordships’ House today. I can understand why: the Government feel more comfortable talking about constitutional issues in this regard than they do about the impact of this policy. We all understand that. Again, it was extraordinary that the noble Baroness the Leader of the House supported an amendment to her policy by supporting the right reverend Prelate’s amendment. So there have been some quite extraordinary scenes and what we are seeing today is unprecedented. It is good to see the noble Earl, Lord Howe—