Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 7th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I will make three short points, the first following on from the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu. I made the point at Second Reading: I find it really disturbing that the Minister said we must speak “with one voice internationally”. For me, that is not democracy; it smacks of totalitarianism. There is a multitude of voices in a democracy, not a single one.

Secondly, the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, finished her speech with reference to a Muslim group that called for the Bill to be thrown out, and she seemed to imply that that meant it was against the State of Israel. There are myriad groups that want the Bill thrown out. Many of us made the same point at Second Reading: we do not think this is a proper Bill, but we are working with it, and what one thinks of it says nothing about one’s attitude to Israel. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Deben, called it “improper” because it is so badly drafted.

Thirdly, and going to the substance of the amendments that we are discussing, my noble friend, in effect, held out an olive branch to the Government by taking the Bill at face value. I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Warner, said about the statements of compatibility with the European Convention on Human Rights, but let us take that at its face value. If the Government genuinely believe that the Bill is compatible with the ECHR, why should they oppose what the noble Lord, Lord Warner, and my noble friend put forward in their amendments? They would strengthen and give substance to the declarations about human rights.

I hope that when the Minister comes to respond to my noble friend, she will take his amendment in the spirit that he put it to her and be willing to discuss whether it is a way forward. Although many of us dislike the Bill completely, we could at least work on the basis of that amendment.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, it is not my usual role, but I shall be a bit more conciliatory than other speakers. Although I see the Bill as very heavy-handed, almost draconian, and it should never have been brought to your Lordships’ House, at least we have an option now. As the noble Lord, Lord Collins, pointed out, the House can work together. The Minister herself said that she values this House’s expertise. We have not noticed that over the past few years, because virtually everything we suggest gets thrown out. Amendments 19 and 48 would make the Bill less heavy-handed and would mean that public authorities could make decisions of their own when they saw illegitimate human rights abuses. I do not see why anyone would want to reject that idea.

I say to the Government: bring your own amendments if you want to, but, in essence, repeat what we are trying to say here and, perhaps, make this Bill less awful.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, I will come back to the text of the proposed amendment. I hope it is in order if I use my short intervention essentially to ask the noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury, a series of questions. Obviously, he need not reply now, but I just wish to understand how this amendment is meant to work. I will leave the broader points to one side for the moment, although I always want to ensure that the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, with whom I often disagree, remains proudly unneutered in everything he wants to say, here and elsewhere.

As I understand Amendment 19 and the proposed clause, it seeks to enable a public authority to publish policy criteria. Those policy criteria, as we see in proposed new subsection (4B), relate to

“disinvestment in cases concerning contravention of human rights”.

The public authority’s criteria have to do two things. First, as the noble Lord said, they “must be applied consistently” to all countries and, secondly, they must be consistent with the guidance published by the Secretary of State, although we are not helped at all as to what that guidance would, might or should be. So let us assume—

Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Wednesday 17th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak on Amendment 15, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hain. I take a slightly different view from what has just been said. I think the Committee owes the noble Lord, Lord Hain, some thanks; he has managed to put together what it is like in extremis—how this Bill will be dealt with when it is faced with war. Now, I cannot recall a single war in the history of our planet that did not harm the environment.

I suppose that when we put this thing together, on the facts that the noble Lord, Lord Hain, gave, we are probably going to have to think about how much of the damage was caused by the Gazans. How much of a discount should there be for the amount of damage the Gazans caused? In particular, one of Hamas’s first acts after murdering children was to cut off the electricity and the water supply, and it continued to ensure that anybody that came to try to put back the electricity or restore the water supply faced violence. The pipes that would have been used to improve sanitation and have the flow of clean water were stolen and used to fire rockets into Israel. Some 25% of those rockets fell short, killing Gazans, leaving ordnance around Gaza, particularly in the north.

All the concrete that was there to build roads, hotels and social facilities was stolen by Hamas to build the tunnels. The tunnels in themselves were a great environmental risk, because they were not built to building regulations. They were quite close to the surface; they were beneath and beside houses; they affected the foundations, which meant that any disturbance, whether it be earthquakes or the dropping of bombs, made those houses so much more unsafe and susceptible to collapse.

There is the use of flying incendiary bombs, released by supporters of Hamas across into Israel, designed to burn crops. Burning crops causes all kinds of problems. It seems illogical that Hamas should have done that, but it did it in order to make life difficult for Gazans. That is why it is sitting on so much of the food supply; that is why there are lorries waiting to deliver aid into Gaza, but Hamas will not allow it.

I take exception to the quote relating to the Red Cross; if the Red Cross can go in to make that kind of assessment, it should be able to see the hostages. The Red Cross has made no attempt to meet with the hostages.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

What has this got to do with the boycotts Bill?

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

All I was doing was speaking to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Hain, about which he was immensely eloquent. He mentioned all the things I am mentioning now. The noble Baroness should perhaps pay a little more attention when the noble Lord, Lord Hain, speaks.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Don’t be rude!

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

I apologise for being rude. I was merely trying to give the noble Baroness some advice on when it is sensible to interrupt and when it is best to keep your peace.

Finally, it seems sensible that not every public body will have somebody with the eloquence of the noble Lord, Lord Hain, on it to give this kind of advice. It seems very sensible that—

Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 17th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords, my Amendment 15 seeks to answer the question: what would happen if a public authority imposed a boycott campaign which related to Israel and arose as a result of environmental misconduct in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, illegal under international law?

Under the Bill’s Schedule, the Clause 1 prohibition on the consideration of moral or political disapproval is lifted, so far as that

“consideration … relates to environmental misconduct”.

This includes, according to the Schedule,

“consideration related to the possibility of environmental misconduct having taken place or taking place in the future”,

while the definition of environmental misconduct here

“means conduct that … amounts to an offence, whether under the law of a part of the United Kingdom or any other country or territory, and … caused, or had the potential to cause, significant harm to the environment, including the life and health of plants and animals”.

Surely such accusations of environmental misconduct should also apply to the State of Israel. There is credible evidence that Israel has engaged in such misconduct, particularly through the actions of the Israel Defense Forces, in its occupation and military actions.

In its military action in Gaza, there are serious questions to be raised about environmental misconduct. Dr Saeed Bagheri, scholar of international law at the University of Reading, stated of Israel in January this year that there may

“be evidence to suggest that they have acted contrary to the International Committee of the Red Cross … position that the prohibition on inflicting widespread, long-term and severe harm to the natural environment is a rule of customary international law”.

He added:

“The actions by the Israeli Defence Force in Gaza have left chemicals from white phosphorus weapons that could linger in the environment for years. This can have a long term impact on the soil, affecting the growth of crops, and in Gaza agriculture takes up about a quarter of land. For individual farmers and their communities, this pollution and its long-term impacts could be devastating”.


However, such questions far pre-date the current horror in Gaza. The Institute for Middle East Understanding has set out a long list of allegations of environmental misconduct. In its actions in the Occupied Territories, long-standing allegations against Israel have been made about the deliberate destruction of olive trees and olive orchards; at least 2.5 million trees have been destroyed since 1967, yet Palestinians depend on these trees as a primary source of food and income. The destruction of natural wildlife since October has been stark: a recent estimate states that around 4,300 acres of trees and plant life have been cleared around the Gaza Strip by Israeli forces, not to mention the complete devastation of the natural and built environment within the Gaza Strip.

What of Israel siphoning off water supplies from the Occupied Territories? This has caused a permanent drop in the West Bank’s water table and distorted water flows, damaging agriculture and increasing flood and drought vulnerability. In February this year, the IDF itself confirmed that it is dumping seawater into tunnels and waterways below Gaza, an act which the director-general of the Geneva Water Hub described as polluting and contaminating, and poisoning Gaza’s aquifer.

We also know that Israel discharges 52 million cubic yards of untreated sewage and other hazardous materials each year into the West Bank. The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories reported:

“Israel’s environmental policy in the West Bank—including situating polluting waste treatment facilities there—is part and parcel of the policy of dispossession and annexation it has practiced in the West Bank for the past fifty years.”


In the West Bank, and in contravention of the Geneva convention, Israel has appropriated most water sources for itself and restricts Palestinian access to them. Of course, this is not Israeli state or Israel Defense Forces activity alone; the administration of this occupation relies on a vast number of agencies and companies. Is it not reasonable for any public authority doing due diligence on environmental matters to prefer to disengage with any companies or agencies which are involved in such acts?

Many of these instances could feasibly fall foul of international law, such as Rome statute prohibitions on inflicting damage to the natural environment, Hague regulations provisions on natural resource use, and customary international humanitarian law principles on hostilities to the natural environment, to name a few. But the matter goes beyond the practical application of these examples raised. The question is also: can we exempt Israel and the Occupied Territories from the Schedule’s considerations without denying the very real possibility, now or in the future, of Israeli state or corporate environmental misconduct?

Israel’s human destruction of Gaza is being compounded by an environmental crisis. In Rafah, large family groups have been living cramped together with no running water or fuel, while surrounded by running sewage and waste piling up. Like the rest of Gaza’s residents, the air they breathe is heavy with pollutants and the water carries disease. Beyond the city streets lie ruined orchards and olive groves, and farmland destroyed by bombs and bulldozers. Forensic Architecture, a London-based research group, has shown how family farms close to Gaza’s border with Israel, cultivated for generations, have been destroyed, their orchards uprooted and replaced by military roads. Israel has suggested it could make this sort of thing permanent to create buffer zones along the border, where a lot of Palestinian farms are sited.

An analysis of satellite imagery, reported by the Guardian newspaper recently, showed the destruction of nearly half of Gaza’s tree cover and farmland—mainly because of the military onslaught by the Israel Defense Forces but also because, starved of fuel, desperate Gaza residents have cut down trees to burn for cooking or heating. Not only have olive groves and farms been reduced to rubble but soil and groundwater have been contaminated by munitions and toxins. The sea is full of sewage and waste. The air is polluted by smoke and particulates. The impact on Gaza’s ecosystems and biodiversity is colossal, leading to calls for it to be recognised as ecocide and investigated as a possible war crime.

United Nations environmental experts report massive amounts of debris and hazardous material in Gaza, with harmful substances such as asbestos, heavy metals, fire contaminants, unexploded ordnance and hazardous chemicals. When Israel cut off fuel to Gaza after the 7 October terrorist pogrom, power cuts meant that wastewater could not be pumped to treatment plants, leading to 100,000 cubic metres of sewage a day spewing into the sea. The sheer scale and long-term impact of all this environmental destruction has led to calls for it to be investigated as a potential war crime, and to be classed as ecocide, which covers damage done to the environment by deliberate or negligent actions.

Under the Rome statute, which governs the International Criminal Court, it is a war crime to intentionally launch an excessive attack knowing that it will cause widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment. The Geneva conventions require that warring parties do not use methods of warfare that cause

“widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment”.

Forensic Architecture argues that:

“The destruction of agricultural land and infrastructure in Gaza is a deliberate act of ecocide”.


I put Amendment 15 to your Lordships’ Committee with the intention of asking: how should a public authority act if it wishes to disengage with a company or enterprise which may be involved in acts such as these, which could amount to environmental misconduct under UK or international law, if that company is Israeli or if it engages in alleged misconduct overseen by the State of Israel?

The Bill is clear that the Schedule considerations override Clause 1 prohibitions on boycotts. However, it is not clear whether the Schedule also applies to Clause 3, which likewise overrules Clause 1. This could present a glaring contradiction in the current formulation of this Bill, and one which I very much hope the Government and the Minister will respond to. It needs to be resolved through this amendment. I hope the Minister will come back on Report having accepted the amendment to deal with this matter.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendments 32A and 32B. Amendment 32A would expand the environmental grounds on which a public body is allowed to make certain economic decisions. Amendment 32B would extend the definition of environmental misconduct to include damage, regardless of whether it is legal or illegal, and to include species, habitats and the natural world.

It is quite positive that this Bill at least recognises that public authorities should be able to consider environmental issues when deciding whether to spend taxpayers’ money on goods and services purchased from outside the UK, or when deciding how to invest the pensions of public sector workers and retirees. However, this environmental carve-out is far too narrow. I do not understand how public authorities can be forced to ignore environmental destruction as long as that destruction is not a criminal offence. I have worked closely with Friends of the Earth on these amendments, and they were also tabled in the Commons by my honourable friend Caroline Lucas.

We are all deeply concerned about this fundamentally flawed Bill and the impact it will have on public bodies’ legitimate procurement or investment decisions about companies or products that are destroying the natural environment, including pollution overseas and climate breakdown. All public bodies must be free to avoid investment in fossil fuels, which are contributing to climate breakdown.

This Bill sets out an uneven treatment between local or UK-based businesses and foreign enterprises, particularly where they are owned or controlled by a foreign state. A local council will remain entitled to refuse to purchase timber from a business that is clear-cutting the local woodland, but if it is in a foreign country linked to a foreign Government then the council will be prohibited from even considering the impact of clear-cutting woodlands and rainforests around the world. These types of considerations—so-called ESG criteria—are now quite routine, even mundane, among both the public and private sector. Public authorities should be entitled to consider the same types of environmental issues that they would consider if interacting with a UK-based business. There is no justification for it to be any other way, other than a totally misguided belief that the nature, land, air and water in the United Kingdom is inherently more valuable or deserving of protection than that outside the United Kingdom. That sounds slightly colonial to me.

Why have the Government chosen to draft this so tightly, so that the only environmental considerations are whether or not the environmental damage constitutes a criminal offence? I hope the Minister can see the glaring flaws in this approach and the obvious harms it will lead to. I ask noble Lords across the Committee, including the Minister, to work with us on this issue so that we can bring something that we can all support to Report. Environmental crime must not be set as a bar beyond which anything goes in public procurement and the investment of public pensions.

House resumed.

Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 20th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I think I am going to sound a little feeble after the passion of the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson. I apologise for sneaking into the gap, but I suddenly realised that there is something that I wanted to say and it is about local democracy.

The Bill threatens to remove the right of councils and councillors to do their best for their residents. I was a councillor on Southwark Council for four long, hard years. I am aware that councillors represent their residents and answer to their voters in a way that most MPs just cannot, because councillors are there on the ground—they are there shopping, gardening or socialising. People come up to them all the time and tell them about their fears and concerns, and what they want them to do. The Bill would limit councils’ actions to do their best for their residents.

I will give the example of South African apartheid. I lived in Lesotho for six years. It is a tiny kingdom completely surrounded by South Africa. The residents of Lesotho, the Basotho, saw apartheid up close, even though they were not involved. At times, the white residents experienced the other side of apartheid because, if you were in a long queue at the post office, the window would, amazingly, close just as you arrived. In a tiny way, it made me understand what it is like to be excluded and unseen.

If I had come back to the UK then and become a councillor, with all my anger and fury about apartheid and how it penalised people for nothing other than the colour of their skin, I would have done my best to prevent any council support for the South African Government in what we bought or supported. I am fairly sure that the residents of Southwark would have supported my actions. That would be illegal under this Bill. This is another bad Bill from a bad Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

We will move on. I was just going to say that it was amazing that the change happened in South Africa. I remember visiting it in the 1990s, after the change.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I am sorry to intervene, but we cannot let that go. If that was in the Minister’s notes, they are absolutely wrong. I am afraid I think an apology is necessary.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I said what I said with due advice and knowledge. I take the points that have been made.

Climate Change

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Monday 24th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, on his incisive opening to this debate, and for getting it in the first place. It is fantastic to have the noble Earl, Lord Russell, here, as yet another person who cares about planet and people—it is absolutely amazing.

One of the problems with coming further down the speakers’ lists in these debates is that I get distracted by all the people who come before me. For example, the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, mentioned Glastonbury —I was there, so I can talk to him more about the waste and the rubbish. The noble Lord, Lord Frost, made all the denialist tropes. If he would like more debate, I can recommend some leading climate scientists who can explain the situation to him, instead of him reading right-wing conspiracy theories, as those are quite damaging.

I am not going to ask the Minister any questions because I do not think he will answer them to my satisfaction, even marginally. The Government are so awful on the issue of climate change, on both mitigation and adaptation; they are absolutely incompetent. I can see that the Minister is not hanging his head in shame, but he really ought to.

As we have heard from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, things are going to get tough. It is saying that, as we go towards 2 degrees of warming, there will be impacts on things such as food. With a rise of up to 2 degrees, people and Governments can adapt to a great extent by changing what we grow, where we grow it and when we harvest it. However, those are no longer once-in-a-generation changes; they are changes that will happen at least every decade, and possibly every few years, as the climate shifts further away from what we have known. 

The IPCC also found that, once we go beyond 2 degrees, the damage to world food production will be absolutely devastating, no matter how much we try to adapt. That will of course mean the migration of millions of people, as they try to find food and homes. Millions of people will die—I hate to be depressing about this but I cannot see any way round it. The human world will become smaller, as ecosystems that support life simply collapse. We have to take responsibility for our failure to mitigate the impacts of climate change. We are very slow to adapt. Beyond 2 degrees, we get into an era where millions of species will die—plants, creatures and fungi. We will die with them—the bees go and they take us with them.

One vast area that the Government are not doing enough about is the ocean. As the oceans warm, all sorts of things are changing. We can see that they are changing already, but we do not know how far they will go. Adaptation is all very well if you know what is going to happen, but with the ocean we do not have the scientific data to tell us. Changes in ecosystems barely register with us as crucial when they could be really worrying.

In the meantime, Oceana, an organisation that campaigns to achieve measurable outcomes that will protect and restore our ocean, says we must end new offshore oil and gas drilling and accelerate a just transition to renewable energy; ban bottom trawling in offshore marine protected areas and within three nautical miles of the coast; and end overfishing by committing to catch quotas in line with scientific advice. That all sounds like really good advice for the Government to take.

Finally, if the Government do only one thing, they really have to just stop oil.

Parliamentary Democracy in the United Kingdom

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the strength of parliamentary democracy in the United Kingdom.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I am delighted to see so many noble Lords keen to talk about parliamentary democracy; it is absolutely wonderful. I hope I will not shock them too much when I say that we do not really have democracy in this country any more. I extend a welcome to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lichfield, who I think I met in a former existence. It is good to see him here. I hope he will have more than two minutes to make his maiden speech.

I am going to argue that we have a failing democracy. It is exemplified by an Executive who are taking on the powers of Parliament to make, delete and even change laws. It is a power grab that will undoubtedly backfire when Labour comes into government. At the moment, we are seeing a Bill go through—the strikes Bill, which we will debate on Report tomorrow—that is hyper-skeletal and gives sweeping powers to the Minister. I find that quite shocking. In 1929, Lord Hewart, the Lord Chief Justice, warned of the Executive taking on oppressive power through the use of delegated legislation

“to subordinate Parliament, to evade the Courts, and to render the will, or the caprice, of the Executive unfettered and supreme”.

A few years later, we saw what that led to in 1930s Germany as a party gained power in an election and then destroyed all the democratic and social institutions that held it in check. We saw a ruling party—a populist party—stir up hatred of foreigners and minorities in a cynical but successful attempt to gain and keep power by fomenting divisions. A security expert recently highlighted the blacklisting from government events by the Leader of the House, Jacob Rees-Mogg MP, of any experts on any subject if they are critical of the Government. This country has proud, wonderful traditions of freedom and fairness but I am afraid that, as he so often is, Gary Lineker is right: we are on a downward track.

The local elections are important for local democracy but, this time round, they are absolutely vital for our national democracy as well. They give electors a chance to warn a corrupt, far-right Government that they have gone too far; their undemocratic will asserting itself is a disaster for Britain. That same Government are using voter ID to suppress the vote, with older people like us able to use our railcard as ID but not younger people. If there is chaos at the local elections, with thousands of voters turned away or long queues putting others off of voting, that will make many question the validity of the results.

Such voter suppression is common in America; it is definitely an import from there. It is used regularly to gerrymander results by those in power who want to stay in power for ever. If there is chaos, delays or dips in turnout at these local elections, the Government will have two choices. They can be honourable and abandon voter ID before the general election, or they can risk destroying what is left of our democratic system. I should say that I will not let the Labour Party off the hook when it becomes the Government, either.

We need proportional representation. We need an elected second Chamber and we need to stop money controlling government policy. The Australians realised that, to save their democracy, they needed an anti-corruption commission; we should do exactly the same. The PPE fast-track contracts? Investigate. The millions of pounds in donations from the fossil fuel industry? Investigate. The ministerial meetings with United States healthcare providers? Investigate. I have not got time to list all the scandals, dodgy deals and Tufton Street connections that would be the bread and butter of any corruption commission. It would take years to go through all of them—I hope that, ultimately, the offenders will go to prison—but it might make MPs think more about their constituents and less about their bank accounts.

Proportional representation could be the foundation of a renewed democracy. It is what the public support in opinion polls and it is what the Labour membership supports at its conference. Please do not talk about first past the post leading to strong and stable government. That is absolute nonsense—we have had three Prime Ministers in the past three years. The problem is that we have had 13 years of the same party in government, which has created a climate where corruption and sleaze are rife. There is no stability or strength when a ruling party with a massive majority has a permanent crisis of allegations involving bullying, sex scandals, cash for questions, PPE contracts and the drawn-out saga of partygate. We now have high interest rates, high food prices and high energy prices. The only thing that is not going up is wages.

I agree with my Labour colleagues that any democracy that works will punish such failure and result in a change of government at the next election, but I would also argue that no healthy democracy would have allowed this messy mix of incompetence and far-right ideology to have dragged us into such an economic and moral sewer. No healthy democracy would allow privatised water companies to give shareholders £52 billion over recent decades while allowing sewage to be pumped into our rivers and coastal waters on an industrial scale; of course, only this afternoon, the other place again voted to allow this to continue. No healthy democracy would allow billions in fraud to be written off with a shrug of the shoulders, which is basically what has happened here. No healthy democracy would allow 13 years of food banks and child poverty to become normal, while the number of billionaires has more than trebled.

A change of party in a failing democracy will not do what we hope it will do. I do not want ever to live through another period of double austerity, social division and environmental damage. I do not for one moment claim that proportional representation is the solution to all our problems, but it might at least allow solutions to emerge.

Finally, I want to run through what I see as the real problems with our democracy at the moment. A democracy is failing when those who support the opposition are discouraged from voting; when protests that are noisy and get noticed get banned; when strikes are also banned; when police spies have legal immunity when infiltrating campaign groups; when the people who oversee the running of elections lose their independence; when international law and treaty commitments are disregarded; when human rights protections and the courts’ ability to question the Executive’s decisions are diluted; when lawyers and judges are declared the enemy within; when corruption is rife and legitimised; when there is one rule for those partying at the top and another rule for us at the bottom; when money buys access, which gets you the contracts, licences and regulations you desire; and when the national broadcaster is run by friends of the ruling party and the independent media is mostly owned by foreign billionaires. This is not a democracy. This is not a country we can be proud of any more. Our traditions have been scrapped, and this Government are responsible for that. I would argue that, at the moment, the strength of parliamentary democracy in the UK is absolutely zero.

Let me say also that I find it offensive when noble Lords opposite sit and chat while I am speaking; it is unnecessary for them to giggle from the Back Benches when they disagree with me. Be brave: stand up and say something in the debate.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, may I politely remind the House that the speaking limit for this debate is two minutes? We have one hour and we must accommodate both the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lichfield’s maiden speech and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, afterwards. I ask speakers to adhere to two minutes, please.

House of Lords: Regional Representativeness

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sahota (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Lord True) (Con)]

My Lords, there is plenty of time; I think we can hear from the noble Baroness from the Greens, and then from the Labour Party.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Greens are very good at geographical representation, and when we have 13% in the polls—as apparently we do this week —perhaps we ought to have more representation here in your Lordships’ House. Obviously, if there were more Greens, your Lordships would hear less from the two Greens that you have already. Is that not a win-win?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I have to say that I often agree with the noble Baroness opposite, and I agree with her that less is often more. I am very glad that we have two members of the Green Party in this House, because diversity of thought as well as of other aspects is very important to intelligent debate and scrutiny of legislation, in committees and on SIs, and to everything else that we do painstakingly every day.

Emergency Planning

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I have already described some of the real action that we have taken. I also draw my noble friend’s attention to some of the provisions in Schedules 6 and 7 to the Procurement Bill that is now going through the other House, the debates that we have had here, the debates we will no doubt have again and the careful steps that we are taking in relation to these important issues.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, the ongoing emergency of sewage despoliation and the death of our rivers and coastlines is something the Government do not seem to be acting on at all. Last year, on 8 September, the then Secretary of State for the Environment—I cannot even remember which one it was—told water companies to produce a plan within 14 days. It is 165 days later and there is no plan. I gather water companies have been told again. When are the Government going to deal with this ongoing emergency?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I share the noble Baroness’s concern about our rivers and, of course, we worked together to amend the Environment Bill on this issue. Now, she is rightly asking about the follow-up. This is not a matter for me but for Defra. However, I can assure her that our national security risk assessment looks at these issues and makes sure that, going forward, plans are right and proper.

Public Duty Costs Allowance

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I assure the noble Lord that the Government keep these matters under review and that the level of the limit is reviewed by the Prime Minister, at the start of a Parliament and annually. However, as I said, we have no plans to revise the limit at this time.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I deeply regret that there has not been a Green Prime Minister at whom the Minister can take pot-shots. It is ludicrous and inappropriate, if the Conservative Party is going to change its Prime Minister every seven weeks, to give them that sort of allowance. What about having a limit on the amount of time that they have served as Prime Minister; for example, two and a half years?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

It is very much my hope that the current Prime Minister serves for a long time and that this problem passes.

Ministers: Government Business

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what further steps they will take to ensure that ministers do not use private (1) mobile telephones, and (2) email accounts, for conducting government business.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville- Rolfe) (Con)]

The Government have robust systems in place to protect against cyber threats and we are vigilant in ensuring that these are up to date and meet the challenges of the modern world. Just yesterday, the Security Minister announced that he was establishing a new task force from across departments, the security and intelligence agencies, the private sector and civil society to meet these big challenges. All new Ministers receive a general security briefing in their first weeks in government. The National Cyber Security Centre and government security officials then regularly provide Ministers with specific advice on protecting personal data and managing online profiles, as well as on best-practice guidance.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

But the system is not robust, as the Minister claims. The previous Prime Minister had her phone hacked. The Home Secretary leaked classified information and, during the early days of Covid, Johnson, the Prime Minister, used a phone that then was lost with all messages unobtainable. At this rate, we are going to have to ask the Russian secret services for all the details about where and when ministerial decisions were made. [Laughter.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I am not laughing.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

Good. The Government take matters of security very seriously. Of course, I am not going to comment on individual cases—that would not be appropriate—but I draw attention to the fact that the Home Secretary has provided a very detailed account, step by step, in a very full letter to the Home Affairs Select Committee and, of course, she apologised for her error and resigned. The Prime Minister has now appointed her to do a very important job.