Trade Union Bill
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts(8 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, we turn now to Clause 12, which would require public sector employers to log and publish how much time is spent on facility time, which allows union and safety and learning reps to do their jobs. We still maintain that Clause 12 is based on no evidence of need and no demand by public sector employers. However, we are not today contesting that clause but only new Section 172A(9) on page 9 of the Bill, which extends this reporting requirement to bodies well beyond the public sector, to include a body,
“that is not a public authority but has functions of a public nature and is funded wholly or partly from public funds”.
In Committee, we challenged what this meant, and why Ministers would want to interfere with the managerial decision-making of an independent body, especially ones funded only partially by public money. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee concluded that the measure could encompass charities, and others have mentioned arts and cultural bodies. There was general concern about ministerial diktat to private organisations, especially given that Clause 13 enables Ministers to override management’s right to manage, by capping facility time. One letter from the Minister stated that the Bill—contrary to its wording—would cover ONS-defined public bodies, which would catch housing associations and various other organisations.
Another letter said that it had,
“never been the government’s intention to capture private or voluntary sector providers of contracted out public services or charitable organisations”,
despite what the Bill says. The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, then said that they would look at the issue again. Indeed, yesterday the Minister wrote saying that the Government had revisited this and they now thought that lines 16 to 19 would mean any FOI-able body with at least 50 employees. Most noble Lords will not have a list of those bodies; mine, however, arrived this morning.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Lord Bridges of Headley) (Con)
My Lords, I begin by saying that I have read the previous debates and have met a number of your Lordships; I thank those I met for their time. I acknowledge the misgivings that have been expressed about this policy and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, for extending the hand of friendship and co-operation on this. Before I address the point on scope, I repeat a key point to your Lordships that I wish no one to forget: it is not the intention that facility time is to be banned. As has been said—I repeat again—trade union representatives provide a valuable role in many organisations and facility time will always have a role to play throughout the public sector.
On scope, we are clear in our aim to cover core public bodies—employers that the taxpayer would expect to be covered by public sector transparency regulations. To meet this aim, our approach is to include public sector bodies in the regulations only if they meet the following policy aims. First, bodies that we wish to capture are already listed in Schedule 1 to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 or the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002—I refer to both of them as FOIA. We believe that whether a body is in scope of Schedule 1 to FOIA is a good indicator of whether they are a public authority for the purpose of Clause 12. However, to include all the employers on Schedule 1 to FOIA would be too wide for our aims. I totally take the point that the noble Baroness makes about small organisations. We will filter organisations out of this list where their inclusion would not be appropriate. The regulations will place obligations only on employers with more than 49 employees and at least one trade union representative. FOIA Schedule 1 includes several bodies that do not currently meet this criterion and will thus not be obliged to follow the publication. They will, however, appear in the regulations and it will be for any such body to appropriately exclude itself if it does not meet the criteria. This is in recognition of the fact that the size of organisations and their trade union membership is likely to fluctuate over time.
Next, in the event that at some point in the future the Government were to identify a body that is not in Schedule 1 to FOIA and not capable of being added, we would seek to capture such a body, relying on the powers in Clause 12(9), only where the body has not been set up to function in a predominantly commercial, competitive, or market-facing way; has more than 49 employers and one or more trade union representative; and has functions of a public nature and is funded wholly or partly from public funds. Furthermore, if the Government wish to add new bodies that pass these tests, they propose to amend the Bill so that the powers in subsection (9) are exercisable by affirmative resolution. This House would then have the chance to scrutinise and debate any regulations that the Government bring forward to include these bodies that are not public authorities but carry out functions of a public nature.
In the light of the noble Baroness’s wish to consider the content of my letter and potentially revisit this issue at Third Reading to discuss it further, I hope that the approach set out my letter, which the Government intend to stand by, will enable us to avoid revisiting this issue in depth at Third Reading. I have already also referred to the Government’s commitment to make the extension of the list an affirmative resolution procedure before the Bill leaves this House. On this basis, I hope that the noble Baroness will feel free to withdraw her amendment this evening.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
I thank the Minister for that. I think we have made progress. The Bill will probably need to be amended to take account of the approach that the Government are now taking. On the basis of our looking forward to future discussions and returning to this, we hope very quickly, at Third Reading, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Recall of MPs Act 2015 (Recall Petition) Regulations 2016
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
As an amendment to the above motion, at end insert “but this House regrets that the Government have made the decision to legislate on restrictions of use, supply and disclosure of the marked register following a recall petition in the draft Regulations, rather than in primary legislation.”
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, I must thank the Minister, who could almost make statutory instruments sound fun. I seek, however, to move my amendment, which regrets that such an important decision on whether this is a secret vote or an open petition should be snuck away in a 174-page SI, which I think the Government hoped would be dealt with rather quickly in 10 minutes in the Moses Room, rather than, as we urged at the time, being included in the Bill. I will deal with my amendment to the Motion first and then attempt to cover all the remaining parts of the 174 pages before the moon rises.
Lord Bridges of Headley
I certainly undertake to do that and to give it some consideration. It is another very valid point.
The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, asked me to interpret Regulation 132. I will try to do so. It prevents people being paid—in other words, employed—to canvass on behalf of either side of the petition. To do so is an offence of illegal employment.
These regulations deliver on the manifesto commitments of the three major parties in the previous Parliament to introduce a system of recall. As I said in my opening remarks, I hope that they will go some way to restore the public’s faith in our elected representatives in Parliament. I commend them to the House.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, I thank my noble friends Lord Lipsey, Lady Donaghy and Lord Campbell-Savours. My noble friend Lord Lipsey said that we had known each other a long time; it is actually some 45 years since we started work together. The last point, which my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours raised, about it being illegal to canvass, is very interesting. That means that an MP’s member of staff presumably could not work on behalf of the MP. I had also read and reread that. Presumably it means that no paid official of a party will be able to do it. It would be helpful for the Minister to be absolutely clear in writing that personal staff will not be able even to go around with the MP.
I will be brief because there are only two points I want to leave with the Minister. He has not answered the point about overseas voters. The significance of that is that there is no upper limit on what can be spent on a recall petition. The MP could spend only up to £10,000, but there could be 10 or 20 accredited campaigns working for a recall. Each of those 10 or 20 campaigns could spend up to £10,000. Indeed, there could be 20 or 30 campaigns spending up to £500 without even having to say where their money comes from. There is no upper expenditure on this. If the vote is extended beyond the 15 years to people who have been out of the country, these campaigns could be funded solely from outside the country. I do not expect the Minister to answer on that now because he has obviously chosen not to, but it is something that anyone who wants to keep big money out of politics has to think about.
I also remain worried about intimidation. The Minister said that people can, of course, apply for a postal vote, but that is only if the intimidation starts before the closing day for the postal votes. It is very likely, if people queue up and look at who is going into a signing place, that it would be much closer to the closing date, by which time it would be too late to apply for a postal vote. So the question of noting who goes in remains an issue.
Above all, my noble friend Lady Donaghy has shown the greatest wisdom today in her hope that this never has to happen. That would keep all of us most content—but, as my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours said, if it happens it will be highly controversial. The way that these regulations have been written, and particularly the fact that they were not voted on either in this House or the other place, is regrettable. I thank the Minister for his time today, and my noble friends for supporting me on this Thursday afternoon. At this stage, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Charities: Government Grants
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts(8 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Bridges of Headley
Of course I agree with that, but I strongly believe that this clause does not do that. I point out that for a number of years government departments have included a provision that taxpayers’ money should not be used for political activity and this new clause simply clarifies what that means.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, on Tuesday last week we completed the Charities Bill. At 8.32 am on Saturday the Government announced this new policy. Did the Minister know about it on Tuesday when we completed it and would it not have been better to announce it then, when there could have been a debate on this important matter in Parliament, rather than issuing it by diktat?
Lord Bridges of Headley
On the first point, I assure the House that this actually goes much wider than just relating to charities. As I said, it relates to numerous other points. I would also draw your Lordships’ attention to that fact that this has existed in the DCLG and been piloted since February 2015. The DCLG has not received any complaints that it has hindered the work of those charities involved.
Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Bill [HL]
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts(8 years, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that very fast canter—it was almost a gallop. We on this side of the House continue to welcome the Bill, especially with the changes, some of which were made in your Lordships’ House and some by the Government in the Commons, most of which we applaud. The Bill strengthens the power of the Charity Commission and gives charities the power to make social investments which provide both a financial and social return. Importantly, in what we termed Olive’s law, in memory of that poppy seller, it now improves the regulation of fundraising by charities.
I want to make just three points as we bid this Bill farewell. The first is, unsurprisingly, on Commons Amendment 2, which overturns your Lordships’ vote by 257 to 174 to repeat what is, as the Minister said, current case law so that charities could not be,
“compelled to use or dispose of their assets in a way which is inconsistent with their charitable purposes”.
We feared then, and still fear now, that forcing housing associations to sell their properties to sitting tenants, where this is not allowed for in their charitable purposes, will fall foul of charity law. We will not seek to reinsert this clause today, but we tell the Government, and indeed the Charity Commission, that we will be watching to make sure that, as this part of the Housing and Planning Bill is implemented, it does not force trustees to breach either their trust deed or charity law.
The greatest wickedness, of course, is the selling off of the family silver, forcing councils to sell off their best council houses to fund £100,000 subsidies, not to housing associations but to the lucky few tenants who, within a few years, will be able to sell off that house and pocket the £100,000. We have yet to understand which part of charity law, or indeed general fairness, this meets.
Secondly, I turn to the Charity Commission’s regulation of charities and the increased powers in the Bill. Given that the lobbying Act restricts what charities can do in the way of campaigning and that, as we learned last week, the Department for Education is to stop “civil society”—usually charities—intervening on issues such as fair admissions, we see such restrictions on charities challenging government as part of a piece, alongside other attempts to curtail any opposition, whether from this House, through freedom of information or from other political parties.
The Government rejected our amendments to add the Charity Commission’s own guidelines to the Bill on charities having the right to campaign, thus leaving discretion on this with the Charity Commission. We will therefore look to the Charity Commission, in exercising its new powers, to enhance charities’ abilities to achieve their charitable objectives in the best way possible. We urge the commission to pay rather more attention to poor practice—for example with Kids Company, where it failed to grasp the extent of the financial mismanagement—rather than seeking to crack down on the legitimate activities of charities.
Thirdly, I turn to the Government’s amendment on fundraising, which we warmly endorse and which arose partly from our amendments in this House. I know the Minister had much sympathy with the approach then and tabled some of his own amendments on Report, which we were happy to support. We withdrew ours when the Government set up the Etherington inquiry. Even better, Sir Stuart and his three wise Peers reported in record time, and the Government adopted all their recommendations. Not stopping even to draw breath, they then appointed the noble Lord, Lord Grade, to chair a reinforced fundraising regulator.
Last week, as the Minister said, the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, in its report, The 2015 Charity Fundraising Controversy, reiterated that this really is,
“the last chance for self-regulation”.
It commented:
“It would be a sad and inexcusable failure of charities to govern their own behaviour, should statutory regulation became necessary”.
We concur with that judgment as clearly as the Government. We also congratulate the Government on meanwhile tabling Amendment 6 in the Commons, which backs the new regulator and, vitally, includes that backstop reserve power for the Charity Commission should self-regulation fail. I congratulate both the Minister and his colleague in the Commons, Rob Wilson, on their fast footwork and firmness of purpose on this.
Finally, I thank the Minister, his Bill team and the Charity Commission for their help and hard work throughout this process. I add my thanks to those of the Minister to my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley and the noble Lords, Lord Leigh of Hurley and Lord Wallace of Saltaire, who sat on the Etherington committee. I also thank my noble friend Lord Watson for his input, and our legislative office colleague, Molly Critchley, for steering us calmly and expertly through the process.
Lord Grade of Yarmouth (Con)
My Lords, I thank both Front Benches for the warmth of their greeting to me as the chairman-designate of this new fundraising regulator. I hope that the depth, sincerity and warmth of their kind remarks bear no relation to the level of lethal poison in the chalice that I have inherited. I join the thanks expressed to the noble Lords, Lord Leigh and Lord Wallace, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, for the incredible work that they put into the Etherington review, which has been so unanimously welcomed.
It might help the House if I gave a short update on where we have got to in the fast-track creation of the new regulator. The show is on the road: the chief executive has been appointed and began work on 4 January. Within four weeks, we now have an office, generously provided by the Charities Aid Foundation, and six staff. Appointments to the board will be announced in the next few weeks, and we will also need to put in place a standards committee and, to hear and resolve complaints, an adjudication committee.
I do not think I underestimate the task ahead if we are to deliver on our intention to be fully operational in the early summer, but we are on track at the moment. At the point of handover from the Fundraising Standards Board, we will take ownership of the code of guidance from the Institute of Fundraising, and the rule book on street and door-to-door collections from the Public Fundraising Association. We are working very closely with both organisations, and I welcome their endorsement of the new regulatory arrangements. At handover, the arrangements for registration—obviously, we want as many charities as possible to sign up to the fundraising regulator, although that will not stop us from investigating those which may not sign up—and for levy payments by the larger fundraising charities will need to be in place.
Our proposals for the fundraising preference service will also be ready. The working group developing those proposals, serviced by the NCVO on our behalf, is already well under way. Let me emphasise that until the point of handover, the 2,000 member charities of the Fundraising Standards Board will need to continue to support that organisation, financially and otherwise, while it retains responsibility for fundraising regulation, until we are absolutely ready to go. We and the Fundraising Standards Board are committed to a seamless transition, which is essential if the purposes of the Bill are to be realised, and we want to inherit its experience and learn from what has worked well.
There is general acceptance, however, that the Fundraising Standards Board was somewhat under -resourced. We will have the levy resources necessary to do the job. We will be independent, with ownership of the code of guidance, and we will not hesitate to apply sanctions where appropriate. We will liaise closely with the Charity Commission, taking full account of its revised fundraising guidance for trustees and, if all else fails, referring to it contentious cases that may breach the guidance.
The Etherington review, the Fundraising Standards Board’s excellent but deeply worrying report on the sad, sad case of Olive Cooke and the recent report from the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee in the other House have all demonstrated serious shortcomings in the fundraising practices of many larger fundraising charities. That is why this Bill is such an important and timely contribution. The public’s very negative view of this was confirmed last week in the YouGov poll published by the Information Commissioner’s Office.
The British public are as generous as anybody on this earth when it comes to putting their hands in their pockets to help those in need. However, charities cannot take that generosity for granted. There have been serious breaches in terms of the ethical way in which fundraising practices have begun to grow up in this country. We must take steps, which this Bill provides with the creation of this fundraising regulator, to make sure that that generosity is not taken for granted. The fundraising regulator now has a responsibility to the general public and, for the future of charities, to donors and potential donors, not least when they are vulnerable, to ensure that they are protected from undue pressure and unacceptable fundraising practices. That protection will be our first priority and these amendments and the Bill will, we hope, go a long way to ensuring that the public are protected and their generosity not taken for granted.
Constitutional Convention Bill [HL]
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts(8 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, first, I concur with and emphasise the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, about the need for this convention. I will not go through that—others made the point much more strongly than I could. I just want to make sure that that is clearly on record.
On the second issue, electoral reform, I think my noble friend Lord Grocott misunderstood whom he was addressing. He obviously thought he was addressing the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, but he will recall that there was another “Lord Wallace” in the Government before the election, and that he was in favour of this House moving to reflect the votes at the last general election—at which the Liberal Democrats got some 8%. Obviously, the fact that my noble friend thinks that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, has moved is simply because it is a quite different Lord Wallace.
The only other issue is a serious one, touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, about the one bit of electoral reform that I hope will be considered very considerably: the votes of 16 and 17 year-olds. It seems the Government will play games over whether it is a financial measure, but if this House cannot, along with 16 and 17 year-olds who put their opinions forward, take a view on that, then I want—
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
Surely the noble Baroness would accept that this matter was decided by the clerk in the other place and not by the Government.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
Indeed, but I understand that the Government were very happy to overturn the votes of this House, which decided that 16 and 17 year-olds should be able to vote in the referendum. There are bits of the electoral system that are worth looking at, if only because the Government seem unable to hear either the will of this House or the views of 16 and 17 year-olds.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Lord Bridges of Headley) (Con)
My Lords, I will make just a few, short points. First, I again congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, on this Bill. I always find it interesting to discuss these points. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Steel, for being here and heed what he and the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said. I will not repeat all the points I made at Second Reading. All I will say, briefly, is that this very short interchange shows that we will probably need a convention about the convention because it is so clear that we cannot quite agree on any of the terms. My noble friend Lord Forsyth called it ambitious. I think that is mandarin-speak for “virtually impossible to agree” on all these points. He said he was looking for the kitchen sink. We have the kitchen sink and, in the next debate, I think we are about to discuss the wiring and plumbing.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard
Americans are always very surprised that we get by without a written constitution. That we could create a Supreme Court and lose the Law Lords from this House without any sort of supermajority or national consultation, merely by votes of these two Houses, baffled them. I have always been against a written constitution and feel that the arguments against it grow with devolution.
The difficulty posed by a written constitution, once you have got one, is that of amending it when new circumstances arise. If we had a written constitution in this country now, with devolution where it now is, we would be like the United States in 1787: we would be obliged to make sure that there was at least a majority of the constituent parts of the kingdom in favour of the change. If the majority was a simple majority, with three to one in favour, we would have a recipe for difficulty in the future. If it was four to zero, we would have a recipe for deadlock in the future. Although I have been inveighing against the Government for being a little over-flexible in their approach to constitutional change, flexibility is a good thing and I am therefore against the amendment.
I served the convention in an official capacity and three Members of this House were genuine members of that convention. They would all have believed that the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, is correct and that we should have a convention on this, so having me working for them did not turn them absolutely off the idea of a convention. The worst mistake we made—I can say that I argued against it—was what we called our product, which was a draft treaty between individual nation states and began with listing the signatories to the treaty, such as the King of the Belgians and so on. On the title page, we wrote that it was a “Draft Treaty establishing a constitution for Europe”. That was a great mistake, because it was not; it was a treaty. The idea of a written constitution for Europe was offensive to quite a few people. It was a terrible mistake. Flexibility is, on the whole, a good thing—though it can be carried too far, as recent events in this country have shown. Therefore, I speak against this amendment.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, I am not absolutely certain that the Labour Party has a position on this. However, as it has never called for a written constitution, I am going to take it that the Labour Party is against a written constitution—or at least, I am. As I said at Second Reading, I had a lovely cartoon from the New Yorker showing bewigged, 18th-century gents writing the American constitution and then putting at the end, “And no one will ever alter this”.
I do not support my noble friend on this amendment. However, had he used the word “concordat”—something to get the relationship between the two Houses agreed, which in some sense goes to what the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said earlier about function; that we should agree what the role of the two Houses are—I would have thought that this was a brilliant amendment. The idea of us having that serious conversation is one that I absolutely support. There are really big questions about that. It is not just about whether we get to vote on statutory instruments. It is about the relative roles in that and how often it is used. Particularly when we think of our size, if we become smaller and still have no retirement age, we will have an increasingly older and smaller group of people doing that diligent work on statutory instruments. Those are important discussions. I like one part of the amendment, which is to give some serious thought as to the function of both Houses. But please, while we may not be bewigged we should not be setting in stone the way in which we work in the short term.
Lord Bridges of Headley
My Lords, I do not think it will surprise noble Lords to hear, at 12.50 pm on a grey Friday, that the Government do not support a written constitution. I agree much more with the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. He spoke very eloquently about the need for flexibility. Of course, as noble Lords will know, this country did once try a written constitution—in 1653, if memory serves me right. It lasted for about four years with the Instrument of Government. It was not a particularly happy time in our nation’s history and we have survived quite well without one for getting on for 400 years. As the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, says, we have flexibility borne out of various parts of our legislative past—the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Act of Settlement and the Great Reform Act. Parliament has been adding to that canon, and advancing and evolving the constitution for centuries. That is a fundamental part of our polity.
On the specific clause, as my noble friend Lord Forsyth made clear, this is adding even more to the work of the superhuman convention, manned by the world’s constitutional experts, who will be working frantically to get it all done. I would just point out that were this Bill to be passed, there is no detail on the scope or content of the written constitution. As this short debate has highlighted, we are not entirely clear what would be included and what would not—maybe the entire process of the convention itself. Furthermore, it is not entirely clear that the Secretary of State would be able to make any further provision or provide any guidance on this constitution when it was presented, which was a point made so eloquently by my noble friend earlier. The convention would have superhuman powers not only in the sense of its ability to come up with solutions, but in the effect that it would have. Therefore, I fear that the amendment would not enhance the Bill but make it even less feasible.
House of Commons: Ministers
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts(8 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Bridges of Headley
My Lords, the noble Lord, as usual, makes an interesting point. I am sure it is one that he will wish to continue to make in future.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, is the real issue not that the Government do not like to be challenged, whether in your Lordships’ House, by Back-Benchers in the Commons or by the Opposition? How otherwise can the Minister explain that while the Chancellor apparently employs 10 political advisers at taxpayers’ expense, and the cost of special advisers to Conservative Ministers rose by £2.5 million over the past five years, the Government are cutting the Short money which helps the Opposition hold the Government to account?
Lord Bridges of Headley
Of course I understand the interest that the noble Baroness has in this issue, and she is quite entitled to ask this question. Taxpayer-funded Short money has risen year on year from £6 million in 2010-11 to £9 million in 2015-16. That is a 48% rise. Subject to confirmation by Parliament, the Government propose to reduce Short money allocations by 19%. This will save in the region of £10 million. Under these proposals, state funding to opposition parties will be greater than the special adviser pay bill.
Government Digital Service
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, yesterday we gave a Second Reading to the Enterprise Bill to help businesses, big and small. However, we know that on average businesses are losing 33 working days a year because of outdated government online services. This is where they need help. Can the Minister therefore tell the House whether the Cabinet Office is one of those departments refusing the cuts that other bits of the Government are trying to make to it, and what guarantees business can have that there will be no cuts to the Government Digital Service?
Lord Bridges of Headley
My Lords, I may have been in this House a very short time but I think your Lordships would agree that it is probably more than my life is worth to start predicting the outcome of the spending review. However, I am delighted to use this opportunity, given that the noble Baroness has asked me this question, to remind the House and indeed the Treasury, should it be listening, that during the last Parliament £1.7 billion was saved thanks to digital transformation and the Government Digital Service cost £58 million. This is therefore a very good return on investment. Obviously, discussions continue, but I entirely share the noble Baroness’s view that we need to do more to support businesses.
Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Bill [HL]
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts(8 years, 7 months ago)
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“Conduct of charities: regulation of fundraising
(1) All charities raising funds of over £1 million per year must be members of the Fundraising Standards Board and abide by the Code of Fundraising Practice.
(2) In section 64A of the Charities Act 1992, as inserted by section 69 of the Charities Act 2006 (reserve power to control fund-raising by charitable institutions)—
(a) in the title omit “Reserve”;(b) in subsection (1) for “may” substitute “must”.”
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, we come to the Third Reading of the charities Bill. I will also speak effectively to Amendment 2, which is clearly related to Amendment 1. Amendment 1 stands in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Watson, and it deals with an issue which is as yet unresolved—namely, the appropriate way of regulating fundraising by charities from individual donors.
By way of background, although chugging and cold calling have long been issues of frequent complaint, it was the very sad case of the death of Olive Cooke, herself a lifelong donor and a volunteer poppy seller, which brought to light the unacceptable behaviour of a number of the big fundraising charities and the inadequacy of the current scheme of self-regulation. Although it was we who first raised the issue here, since then there has been widespread acceptance by the Government, the charities and even the so-called regulatory bodies—the code-setting institute and the Fundraising Standards Board—as well as by the Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, which is carrying out its own inquiry, that the self-regulatory system failed. It failed to maintain appropriate standards, it let down donors and let down the wider public—which brings us to today.
When similar, indeed identical, amendments were tabled on Report, following discussion in Committee, the Government accepted the need for change and tabled amendments of their own. However, at that time, they were not fully convinced of our two proposals—first, that membership of the current voluntary membership body, the FRSB, and adherence to the appropriate code should be mandatory; and, secondly, that the Charity Commission’s reserve powers on fundraising should be activated.
However, given that the Government accepted that we had not reached a final position on this and that further amendments might be required, the Government asked Sir Stuart Etherington, chief executive of the NCVO, to chair a group, which includes the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire. I believe that Salts Mills in Saltaire was the venue for some of the wonderful photography in the BBC’s “An Inspector Calls”, broadcast last night. The committee also comprises the noble Lord, Lord Leigh of Hurley, and my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley, and was set up to consider whether further change might be needed and to report back to the Government. Regrettably, we find ourselves in the slightly odd position of having Third Reading this afternoon, just days before that committee is to report. This is, therefore, very much work in progress, and we will be sending the Bill to the other place a bit unfinished.
I know that the Minister is not behind this timetabling. I think, like me, that he would like to have this issue properly debated and decided upon here, because I know that he is genuine in wanting a robust system in place. If I was suspicious—and I never am—I would think that the Government were wanting to seize the initiative themselves, make a good announcement from the platform at the Tory party conference and take the credit. If so, I will cheer them on, given that we are not seeking change in order to get the credit but to make sure that we have the right solution.
However, it is clear that we do not yet know the best way forward, although I think that everyone accepts, including the big charities and the new chair of the Fundraising Standards Board, who appeared before Bernard Jenkin’s committee, that membership of the board must become compulsory and that the board, which should be independent of the charities it regulates, must in some way have more power than naming and shaming, which is open to it now. There is also general agreement that the weak and unsatisfactory fundraisers’ code must be beefed up. Furthermore, it seems obvious that such powers are bound to entail some role for the Charity Commission, either via a portal, whereby the standards board can report misbehaviour to the commission for subsequent investigation and statutory action, or via such a board being commissioned, licensed or authorised by the Charity Commission, such that there is a degree of statutory oversight to ensure independence and the board would have to satisfy the commission that the code and its procedures were robust and fit for purpose, and will work independently of its regulated community.
There is no doubt that the key players accept the thrust of this, although we regret that some of the charities and perhaps the Institute of Fundraising itself have not quite accepted the independence that a new system requires. Their letter to the Sunday Times was outwith any discussion with the Charity Commission or ourselves, which suggests that they want to hold on to a self-regulatory model, which has failed the public.
We are not wedded to any particular model, provided that it is independent and effective in order to enable complaints to be heard, and drives up standards. We are clear that such changes need to happen. We are happy to await the recommendation of the Etherington committee, albeit we wish that the timetable was different. The amendment therefore is to make it clear that the Bill as its stands, and as it will go to the Commons, is not yet adequate. The amendment is to allow the House also to hear from the Government how far their thinking has progressed over the summer. I beg to move.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, I should admit that I spent the weekend in Yorkshire, where, to my surprise, my neighbours do not hate people outside Yorkshire and nor do they in fact hate each other. We had a very pleasant weekend. I should also admit that, some months ago, I enjoyed watching the filming of that part of “An Inspector Calls” in our very beautiful village.
We are concerned here with the future of charities. I have found it very constructive to be involved in the thorough Committee and Report stages that we have had on this important Bill. I think we all recognise that as government spending shrinks in the next three or four years, charities will have to play a more important part in looking after a range of good causes and disadvantaged people across our country. That means that the importance we attach to the regulation of charities—the subject of this amendment—is something that requires continuing attention. It also requires active support for philanthropy, and I trust that the Government will pay active attention to encouraging visible philanthropy. I was glad to see the Financial Times highlighting this last week.
Having been involved in the committee to which the noble Baroness referred, which will present its report to the Government shortly, I am slightly more sceptical about standards across the whole universe of charities than I was before. Clearly, there is need for tighter and more visible regulation. A number of charitable trustees have not understood how active and responsible their role should be, and these matters need to be addressed.
There is a continuing role for this House in providing oversight to the charitable sector. Perhaps we should consider, in future years, whether a sessional committee of this House might look at some aspects of the charitable sector. As we saw in Committee and on Report, there is some very valuable expertise in this House.
I think that all of us here accept that charities are not comparable to commercial enterprises, as I and others have heard it suggested on one or two occasions. Charities have a privileged status both in legal and taxation terms. The standards of behaviour that we rightly expect of them reflect that privileged status. These high standards should apply to the whole diverse field of charities: to the development charities, as well as to private schools; to libertarian think tanks, as well as to medical charities. We are entitled to expect that their trustees enforce that.
As a backstop, we need to consider what level of regulation is enforced and implemented and how that regulation is organised. We will indeed be reporting on that. I have some sympathy with the noble Baroness when she says that the role of the Charity Commission also needs to be re-examined as a backstop to whatever formal regulation the sector itself provides.
Having said that, I trust that when our report is presented there will be an opportunity to debate it, and certainly, when the Bill comes back from the Commons, there will be another opportunity to make sure that we have moved matters forward. I merely emphasise again that the charity sector is extremely important to our society and to aspects of our economy. It deserves, therefore, to be fully regulated and as transparent as possible.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, that turned out to be a more educative and perhaps more interesting debate than I had hoped. I join the Minister in thanking everyone who has contributed. I apologise to the House that I forgot at the beginning to declare that I, too, am a trustee of a couple of charitable trusts.
I start with the same emphasis made by the noble Lord, Lord Low, my noble friend Lady Young and others on not tarring all charities with the same brush, and on the incredible importance of charitable work. I think that I have spent more of my professional life running charities than anything else, so I am absolutely aware of that. I will make a couple of comments because the follow-on is that, when I was able to raise funds, it was very much because of the public’s good will and trust, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Leigh of Hurley. They trusted not only that we would use their money effectively but that we had the expertise and specialism to look after the sort of clients that we had. We, as the charitable sector, must never lose that.
My noble friend Lady Pitkeathley said that she thought that charities’ thinking had changed over the summer, and if ever your Lordships’ House helped in that, it should take some credit for it. I am perhaps not thinking that they have all got there completely. The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, said that she wanted the Etherington report to be hard-hitting. I do not really know the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, so well but I know the other two Peers and I certainly know Sir Stuart, and I think that I could trust those four not to pull their punches.
I hope that what the Government said is not pre-empting that by appearing to rule out any statutory response. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, used the word “backstop”, which is close to what I was suggesting. My judgment is that a pure self-regulating system will no longer be acceptable. I absolutely concur with my noble friend Lady Young that the letters FRSB should not be used: it will not be a fundraising standards board, whatever it is. I also doubt whether it will continue as voluntary. When he gave evidence in front of Bernard Jenkin, its new chair, Andrew Hind, seemed to rule out the possibility of it remaining completely voluntary. If we can find something that is a backstop rather than a red-tape regulation, that may be the right way forward. As I said in introducing the amendment, it was to give us the opportunity for this debate; we have an open mind on what is the correct way forward.
I make only one other point, which the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, mentioned, which concerns the role of trustees. The Independent Schools Council seems to have grasped it. I hope that the trustees—if they are called that—of the various schools take that message on board as well and look proactively at what might be done with the state system. When I met the Charity Commission recently, it said that in its research it was going to ask to what extent fee-paying schools ask the local community, “What would be best for you?”, so that it is not just paternalistic giving but real response to needs.
Having said that, before I beg leave to withdraw the amendment and we send this slightly unfinished Bill down the corridor, I take this opportunity to thank the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, who as everyone said, has really played a blinder over all this. It has been a real pleasure to work with him on the Bill. We must also thank the Minister at the other end, who has also met us and been very responsive. I also thank the Bill team, who, as ever, we have worked rather hard, and my noble friend Lord Watson, who joined me on the Front Bench for the first time, I think, and has done an awful lot of the heavy lifting on the Bill. With those thanks, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Succession to Peerages Bill [HL]
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Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, for bringing this issue to the House, if only to tease out the Government’s and, indeed, the Opposition’s, view on the issue.
It is obvious that the Bill will not affect the size of the House one way or the other, yet, of course, that is the big issue that concerns probably all noble Lords, as evidenced by the debate that will take place here on Tuesday. The increase in the size of your Lordships’ House to 826 gives great urgency to reducing the number of Members rather than suggesting ways of bringing in a new category of Peer. Indeed, as we know, the Prime Minister has already appointed in five years more than double the number of Peers that Labour did in 11 years, creating new Peers at a faster rate than any other Prime Minister since life peerages began. Therefore, it seems to me that the priority for the House is to look at size rather than this issue. That is partly for the sake of this House and how it works but also, I have to say, because of the anachronism of appointing Peers here not by virtue of their own experience and attributes but those of their fathers, grandfathers or even great-uncles. Therefore, ending the hereditary by-elections as any of the 92 places fall vacant should surely be a better way forward. The calls I have heard today for maintaining the status of titled families are ones I did not believe I would hear in the 21st century. But more than that, as has been said, the flaw of the Bill is that it stands feminism on its head. For the very pragmatic reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, gave, it does not get rid of primogeniture for hereditary titles but says only that, where there is no man, a woman will do.
Your Lordships will have noted that there is only one other woman speaking today, which I think says something about how our sisters in the rest of the House feel about this issue. Perhaps they are not present because they also regard this Bill as deeply anti-feminist. It is saying, “Let us have some more women in this House”, of which I approve, “not for what they have to offer, their experience, knowledge, ability, insights, professionalism or anything like that but because some male forebear either fought, bought—
The Earl of Clancarty
I accept entirely that hereditary peerages will be removed from this House. Sooner or later that will happen. However, this Bill has nothing to do with hereditary peerages in this House, as the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, said.
Lord Winston (Lab)
I am very grateful to my noble friend for allowing me to say a word. I want to be a loyal member of a paid-up Labour Party. I suspect, although I do not know, that there are quite a few disloyal members. However, I do not understand the argument here. Surely we are not talking about membership of the House of Lords or the size of the House; this is a different issue. We have to accept that we have to address that issue in a logical and rational fashion. I understand that on the whole my party is not particularly favourably disposed to the hereditary peerage for whatever reason. However, that is not really what we are discussing here, is it?
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
What we are discussing is whether as a House we want to continue with titles and the privilege and status—I think respectability has been mentioned—and whether that is a priority. Surely, if we are to do anything, the priority is to do something about the peerages in this House. That is something my party would like to do by removing by-elections for hereditary Members.
We want women, whether in this House or with the other titles they may earn, to get them by their own ability. The examples are the women who serve in this House. They may get damehoods before they get here. We would not want those to be inherited, I assume, because the awarding of a title is about what they have done for themselves. The point I am trying to make—perhaps ineffectively—is that surely the priority is for more women, whether in this House or with other titles such as dame, to receive them by virtue of what they have done for themselves. The examples I want to give are the people who have got peerages here on their own abilities rather than the abilities of some male forebear.
The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, was a dame before she came here. She did not get that because her father was a great athlete. She got it because she had won 16 Paralympic medals, 30 world titles and the London Marathon six times; she chairs the Women’s Sports and Fitness Foundation; and she was BBC Wales Sports Personality of the Year. The noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, is an actress and television presenter, and chancellor of the University of Exeter. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, is past president of the Royal Society of Medicine and a consultant professor of palliative medicine. These are women who have gained their titles—which happened to bring them here; some of them had damehoods before—because of what they did. Those are the examples I want to give.
There are, of course, people such as the noble Baroness, Lady Harding of Winscombe, the chief executive of TalkTalk and named as one of the 10 most influential women. She happens to be the daughter and granddaughter of Peers, but has her title because of what she has done in her own right.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
Could I just finish with this example? I am arguing that the Bill seems to be based on the continued assumption that women should not gain a title—recognition—because of what they have done but because of what a father, grandfather or great-uncle did. I give way to the noble Baroness.
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)
I am sorry, my Lords, I think in this debate you cannot give way—you just have to keep going.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
I am delighted to get that bit of advice. The assumption behind this—that because there are titled families the best way to deal with that is to pass the title, where there is not a man, to a woman—is, in the 21st century, the wrong assumption. As a feminist and on behalf of the other women here who have great experience in the trade union movement, for example, and who have won their spurs by their own efforts, I say that that is the way we should recognise women, not because of what their male forebears have done. If a woman wants a title, I say, “Do the same as anyone else. Go out and earn your spurs. Work in civil society, trade unions, business, academia, medicine or law”. That, surely, is the way to be recognised and to be valued in society. In the 21st century, that is the feminist way forward—not to inherit a title because of a male forebear.
Kids Company
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Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, I hope that the Government will also learn some lessons. The responsibility for the grants that the Government give is with the Government. We understand that the Ministers overruled the advice that they had from civil servants and continued to give grants. We suggest that the National Audit Office should do a wider review. We should look not just at the official receiver and the Charity Commission but at the role of government Ministers.