National Security

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for that question. I am afraid I will again answer at some length, because the subject of cyber resilience is at the heart of what he, and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Browne, asked me. The current state of UK resilience to cyberattack is an interesting subject, and we are making significant progress in bolstering the UK’s resilience. We stop hundreds of thousands of attacks up stream while bolstering preparedness and helping UK institutions and organisations better understand the nature of cyber threats, risks and vulnerabilities down stream.

Despite this, there remain serious gaps in the nation’s defences, as both noble Lords have pointed out, and the collective resilience-building effort must continue apace. Poor organisational practices, processes and systems, and a lack of awareness of risks and mitigations, all contribute to attacks getting through. Taking some practical and cost-effective steps, such as improving the use of account authentication, could have prevented a lot of damage. I could go on, but at this point I reiterate my praise for the work of the security services. I have seen some of their work in this area, and it is incredible.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Is it not a threat to national security to have a Home Secretary who uses inflammatory, racist language and dehumanises thousands of traumatised asylum seekers?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

If the noble Baroness is asking whether there was a threat to national security, I would have to say no.

Public Order Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 1st November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I felt that this debate was moving quite fast, and I realised that this was because many of us have been here before: this is actually a zombie Bill that the Government have dragged out of its grave because they do not like opposition at all. That is the real problem we are facing with the Bill. As we have heard, the powers are there already, and the Government really do not need the sort of repressive powers in the Bill that are worthy of Russia, China or Iran. Noble Lords probably know exactly what I am going to say now.

There is no doubt in my mind that we should vote against this legislation—again—to protect the right to freedom of expression, the right to freedom of assembly and the right to protest, which is what we expect in a free society. Of course protest is inherently disruptive; that is its nature. But do noble Lords know what is more disruptive? The fossil fuel companies and extractive industries that are destroying our planet, and the billionaires who are amassing huge claims over the world’s resources while everyone else worries about how to pay our energy bills this winter. Then there is the plastic and sewage choking up our rivers, coastlines and oceans. BP has made £7 billion profit in three months, yet we will pay the extra cost of coastal defences and higher food prices for the next three decades. Shell makes £9.5 billion profit in a quarter; our arable land will produce half as much value by 2100. They have billions in the bank; we have a country that swings from drought and wildfires to floods of sewage. Every dollar or pound that the oil and gas companies make equals the world becoming a worse place for generations. That is what real disruption means, and we have a Government encouraging it with tax breaks and licences for big business.

We must think ahead to the chaos that will happen when climate change disrupts the global economic system: these current disruptions will be nothing compared to that. The likes of Extinction Rebellion are polite dissenters compared to what is coming in the next few decades. The clampdown on the climate protesters of today is the foolish reaction of a Government in the pockets of the oil and gas industry. Sensible politicians would listen to Just Stop Oil, because its demand is incredibly reasonable and one that noble Lords have heard from the Greens on these Benches before: no new fossil fuel extraction. Quite honestly, it is a warning of what is to come if the Government refuse to change course.

We cannot stand idly by while this destruction and injustice takes place. No one wants to be a protester; we all have better things to do with our time—that is true for all of us. I have been to a lot of protests—I have sometimes even been to protests where I have watched the police from their side—so I have a very clear view of what protests can be. The police actually do their best, but the Government do not help them by giving us laws that are incomprehensible at times. The protesters and I are desperate: while there are more fun things that we could do, we are desperate because of an economic and political system that has proven again and again that it is detrimental to the vast population of the world and to life on earth.

Protest and non-violent direct action are essential parts of a free country, and the disruption caused is part of the pressure; it is what raises something beyond merely complaining on Twitter to having direct real-world consequences that force our leaders to pay attention. Protesters are supported by millions of people. There were several things in the Minister’s opening speech with which I disagreed very strongly, and I actually had to leave the Chamber after the opening speeches so that I did not start shouting across the Chamber. I listened in my office, because I could shout at the screen and not disrupt proceedings here. The Government are creating an attack on nature that people have seen is plain wrong, and they are angry. So please do not say that everybody is against these protests; that is absolutely not the truth.

I have been on protests where it is local people who are protesting and getting out there. One man I stood next to said, “I retired last month and I thought that I would be bird watching, but here I am, standing at the roadside and holding a banner to stop fracking at Preston New Road”. Local people do not like fracking—and they do not like HS2. Yes, there have been a few thousand people on protests, but actually there are millions of people who do not want it. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, talked about a “long and hard democratic process”, or something, but actually the Government did not listen to any of the advice that said that this was not the section to build first and that we should have built the other, northern section first. It is the Government’s fault that we are losing masses of very beautiful and precious places because of HS2. We cannot replace them; it is something much more precious than a railway line that cuts 20 minutes off the average business person’s journey.

When people locked on to trees that were due to be cut down by Sheffield Council, when they blocked roads and sat on drills to stop fracking or when they ran in front of a horserace to get women the right to vote, these were all acts of heroism. They brought about real political change in the face of obvious injustice. As the Prime Minister said only this week in response to a question from our colleague Caroline Lucas, the anti-frackers were right—and thank goodness that the Government saw sense on that. I shall give them a small round of applause for that. But while this Government dither and delay on insulating Britain and support a whole new generation of fossil fuel extraction, and while they fail to prosecute the climate criminals and ecocidal maniacs destroying our planet, they instead imprison those of us who sound the alarm and respond to mass injustice with minor inconvenience —and even those who carry a bike lock without so-called “reasonable excuse”.

A few other things were said this evening. No artwork was damaged. I cannot remember which noble Lords mentioned that—but no artworks were damaged. They had glass on them, and they were cleaned up; they were not damaged, so please do not repeat that falsehood again. And how dare this Government talk about a shortage of police time or police being used on things they should not be used on? This Government have actually cut tens of thousands of police officers. They have, so please do not argue with that; it is a clear fact. They have also cut thousands of back-office jobs, which of course hindered the police, because then they had to go into the back office and do all the paperwork. So please do not let us hear any more about, “Oh dear, police time”. If this Government had done their job, we would now have a police force that could do its job properly.

The noble Lord, Lord Blair, is not in his place, but he said something like, “These disruptions are irritating”. I am irritated on a daily basis by some of the things said in this Chamber; that is why I went up to my office, so I did not have to hear them. I am irritated, but does that mean that I can call the police and say, “Please don’t do that”? The noble Lord, Lord Bellingham, who is not in his place—and was not on the list for this debate—managed to interrupt the Minister’s opening speech. He irritated me—and what options do I have for that irritation?

We have to vote against the Bill again and again, for as long as it takes to show this Government that it is the wrong thing to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Paddick said in November last year when broadly similar powers were introduced into the police Bill:

“With the greatest respect to the Government, this is yet another example of ‘What wizard ideas can we think up in line with the Home Secretary telling the Tory party conference she was going to get tough on protesters?’”—[Official Report, 24/11/21; col. 982.]


Here we are with a sense of déjà vu, again.

We have had a very interesting and useful debate this evening, with almost no unqualified support for the Bill. In a debate on this Bill in the other place, the Conservative MP Sir Charles Walker called the proposed serious disruption prevention orders

“absolutely appalling because there are plenty of existing laws that can be utilised to deal with people who specialise in making other people’s lives miserable.”

Sir Charles went on to read out a list of public order laws that already exist to tackle disruptive protests. This list bears repeating:

“obstructing a police officer, Police Act 1996; obstructing a highway, Highways Act 1980; obstruction of an engine, Malicious Damage Act 1861 … endangering road users, Road Traffic Act 1988; aggravated trespass, Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994; criminal damage, Criminal Damage Act 1971 … public nuisance, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022”

and

“the Public Order Act 1986 that allows police officers to ban or place conditions on protest.”—[Official Report, Commons, 18/10/22; col. 580.]

The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, sensibly suggested a degree of consolidation to provide clarity and assessment of the existing laws. That seems a wise idea.

My friend in the other place, Wendy Chamberlain MP, a former police officer, said on Report that

“the police do not need this Bill to respond when protests cross the line.”

She also noted:

“Policing by consent is one of the greatest attributes of our country, and it is something that I am passionate about. The Bill undermines that.”—[Official Report, Commons, 18/10/22; cols. 590-92.]


So when the Minister says that the Bill gives the police the tools they need, which I think he said in his opening speech, we on these Benches do not agree. We certainly do not need these broad, unclear, illiberal measures. My noble friend Lady Hamwee said how precious our freedoms are and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, said that protest is not a crime.

I am not saying that all those we have witnessed protesting in recent years, months and days are angels. Those who obstruct an ambulance or commit criminal damage do the protest cause no favours and should, if appropriate, be arrested and prosecuted. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, referred to the tomato soup on the Van Gogh painting. When I saw that, I did not know the painting was covered by glass and I do not know whether the protesters knew it was covered by glass.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

They did.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

Okay, that is fair enough, but what I did not like was the tweet from Just Stop Oil saying, in effect—I cannot remember the exact words—who cares about art when the planet is in danger? That struck a very harsh note with me; many of us do care about art. What I support are peaceful protests which avoid both violence and deliberate damage.

The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, made a powerful speech, but I am afraid it failed to convince me that the existing powers are inadequate. I normally agree to a very large degree with the noble Viscount, but not really on this occasion. As my noble friend Lord Beith said in last November’s debate on the police Bill:

“It seems to me that political considerations have taken precedence over all considerations relating to making good law and, indeed, policing protest satisfactorily and effectively.”—[Official Report, 24/11/21; col. 985.]


He wisely warned both then, and again today, against getting into trouble by trying to turn into general law attempts to deal with very specific cases. The noble Lord, Lord Frost, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, made similar warnings that next time it will be some other inventive method and we will have to legislate for that.

The noble Lord, Lord Blair of Boughton, said that climate protesters risked damaging their cause, and I have felt that on various occasions recently. Indeed, it is so but that is a public relations matter, not a criminal issue. I hope that will make some of them reflect on the value of what they are doing. If they are alienating some of their potential audience, the message is not effective.

Getting the Balance Right?, the March 2021 inspection report from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services on how effectively the police deal with protest, which has already been referred to, not least by my noble friend, wisely said that

“legislative reform will not be a panacea for the problem of disruptive protest”.

My noble friend Lord Paddick explained how HMIC had rejected many of the proposals now in the Bill. In fact, as in so much of what the Home Office supervises, the challenge is not so much new laws but sufficient, well-trained operational capacity. Perhaps that will be a theme of what was to be the dinner break business on asylum processing. HMIC also called for

“a greater understanding of human rights law among the police”.

That might have come in useful during the anti-monarchist protests in the run-up to the Queen’s funeral, when there was a heavy-handed response at times. Certainly, some were in very bad taste but whether they were a breach of the law is another matter entirely.

The HMIC report emphasises the value of working with protest organisers, commenting that most collaborate with the police to make sure that protests are safe. It notes:

“Courts have repeatedly emphasised that a degree of temporary interference with the rights of others is acceptable in order to uphold freedoms of expression and assembly”.


The police are ahead of the Government here. HMIC reported on the value of police liaison team officers in reaching agreement on an acceptable level of disruption. This should not be underrated.

In regard to the expansion of stop and search, including without suspicion, the Home Office itself acknowledges in its equality impact assessment on the Bill that the expansion of stop and search

“would risk having a negative effect on a part of the community where trust and confidence levels are relatively low.”

We know that this is talking about young people and especially young black men. That is a very serious matter if it is going to create a more negative relationship with the police.

The noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, applauded the JCHR’s suggestion that serious disruption be defined and I think the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, agreed with him. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, also wanted careful examination of the proposed reversal of the burden of proof requiring the defendant to show that they had a reasonable excuse for, for instance, locking on. This seems in strange contrast to an offence such as obstruction of the highway, where it is for the prosecution to prove that the defendant did not have lawful authority or excuse for their actions. Perhaps the Minister could explain this reversal of proof.

The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, my noble friend Lord Beith, the noble Lords, Lord Balfe and Lord Sandhurst, and others warned particularly against politicising policing through government injunctions under, I think, Clause 20. That was a particular concern that ran throughout the debate.

The Minister said in his opening remarks that serious disruption prevention orders have an appropriately high threshold. Other speakers, such as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, did not agree that the balance of probabilities was an appropriately high threshold. Some obstructive activity has to be tolerated in a free society. In its report on the Bill, the Joint Committee on Human Rights recalled:

“The European Court of Human Rights has recognised that public demonstrations ‘may cause some disruption to ordinary life’ but that ‘it is important to show a certain degree of tolerance towards peaceful gatherings if the freedom of assembly guaranteed in Article 11 of the Convention is not to be deprived of its substance.”


The Government have provided no compelling justification for the introduction of the new expansive powers in the Bill, criminalising ordinary, peaceful, if disruptive, behaviour. The JCHR also stresses—it has been another theme in this debate—that:

“The UK is rightly proud of its history of respect for political protest and is critical of other nations who fail to show the same degree of respect for the crucial importance played by protest in a democratic society. Introducing our own oppressive measures could damage the UK’s international standing and our credibility when criticising other nations for cracking down on peaceful protest.”


The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, pithily summed this up as “authoritarian creep” and the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, reminded us that sometimes protest tactics that make us uncomfortable change opinion and get the law changed. I hope the new Government will show concern about their international image and reputation and be persuaded that the Bill is unnecessary and unjustified. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans said, we need evidence of how this Bill can succeed when its predecessors have self-evidently failed if the Government want this new Bill.

Police and Crime Commissioners

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, on getting this debate. It is an interesting topic that we will keep coming back to, because we are facing legislation that will inevitably drag it to the fore.

In November 2011, the then Home Secretary Theresa May made the Policing Protocol Order, which stated:

“The establishment of PCCs has allowed the Home Office to withdraw from day-to-day policing matters, giving the police greater freedom to fight crime as they see fit, and allowing local communities to hold the police to account.”


The idea was that the public should have a direct say over policing in their area. I do not think that has happened. Although the old police authorities may not have been the ideal system, they were certainly more accessible by the average person. I was a councillor for four very long years and in my experience, people found it very easy to speak to me directly. They would stop me in the street, in the shops or in my front garden, and they were able to give me straight feedback on anything they were concerned about. When one has one person in a role of this kind, it is much harder to speak to them and to communicate. Police authorities probably worked much better and were probably more accountable.

I was on a police authority here in London for 12 years, from its start to its finish. It was a fascinating experience for somebody like me. I was possibly one of the rare types who went to protests and things like that, but not completely. We were an incredibly diverse bunch—a lot of elected people but also experts in various fields. It worked extremely well. We respected the successive police commissioners, but we also challenged them; we made them answer to us for their decisions. I think it worked extremely well.

At the moment PCCs can hire and fire police chief constables, who continue to manage things day to day. They also set the police budget and the police precept. They write the area’s policing plan and commission a range of crime-related services such as victim support. That is a very big job, and the PCCs I have spoken to need quite a lot of office help to make those things happen. Clearly, there have been many hiccups. One big problem that I have seen several times is that the chief constable resents the police and crime commissioner, and any breakdown in that relationship makes it incredibly difficult for the PCC to do their job properly.

In March this year the Home Office produced a report on a consultation it had done on giving PCCs greater powers of competence. The consultation had a staggering 84 responses—I am sure that all the groups that responded were very important—and the majority felt that PCCs should have more power. More scrutiny and accountability was also discussed. The police and crime commissioner review has considered options to strengthen the accountability and transparency of PCCs to ensure that the public can effectively hold them to account for the exercise of their functions. Given that the public find it difficult to hold them to account now, I guess that will be welcome.

Luckily, the end of the report states:

“We require primary legislation to provide PCCs with these wider powers. We will seek to implement the measures through the next appropriate legislative vehicle.”


So we lucky Peers will get the chance to debate this and suggest improvements. I rather think, given the nature of the debate today, that there might be a lot of amendments in the making.

Police and Crime Commissioners and Panels

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

It is fair to say that the role has evolved to some extent. Whether it is appropriate to have an overall review is already under discussion.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, before the Government introduced police and crime commissioners, we had police and crime panels, just as we now have to oversee the police and crime commissioners. If that system was so bad that we needed to introduce police and crime commissioners, who cost a huge amount of money and whose ability is variable, why do we now have police and crime panels to oversee them?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I made it clear that there is a transparency and accountability issue. I am grateful to my friend Katy Bourne, the Sussex police and crime commissioner. She tells me that PCCs are more visible and approachable than the police authorities that they replaced. Many hold monthly accountability meetings with their chief constable, often online, which the public can attend and contribute to.

Police National Computer

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

As I said earlier in answer to another question, it was the only viable alternative. Other companies were invited in and, for reasons most of which were around the time it would take to implement new systems, Fujitsu offered the only solution. Of course, I agree with the public perception argument; however, I do not think we had any alternative.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, given that the flaws in Horizon software by Fujitsu were the cause of an awful lot of distress and misspent money, are the Government confident that so far there have been no similar mistakes on the police national computer?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The Government are confident. There has been one incident of data loss, but it was a human error, as opposed to a software error and all that data has been recovered. So, yes, the Government are confident.

Corruption in the United Kingdom

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2022 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the effects of corruption in the United Kingdom.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords very much for coming today. It has been incredibly difficult for me to finalise what to say this afternoon, simply because I wanted to mention a current fiasco—a current example of corruption—and there were so many popping up that I had to keep delaying what I was putting into my speech. I decided to go with the Kwasi Kwarteng issue, because I thought that was a rather nice one.

For me, the point is that political corruption is absolutely endemic in our country, and we really ought to be ashamed of that. It is embedded in our system. We often fail to recognise it simply because we do not know about it, because it is covered up. It does a huge amount of damage. It damages our social fabric and individuals who engage in it. It is not all about personal greed—it is sometimes about corporate greed—but it is about greed, and it contributes to the growing gap between rich and poor. It also stops us dealing with major issues such as poverty and our climate emergency.

In 10 minutes I do not have enough time to deal with all forms of corruption, as noble Lords can imagine. For example, I cannot deal with corruption in the police, in prisons, in local government, associated with our borders, in the construction sector or even among Lords appointments, which of course would be a rich source of stories about corruption. I will deal with four types of corruption, and there is some overlap: political access, corporate lobbying, party donations, and procurement and privatisation.

First and foremost, and most obvious, is political access. In his previous job, our Chancellor held undisclosed meetings with—I could list them all—the chief executive of Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil producer; the chief executive of SABIC, the world’s fourth-largest petrochemical company; and the chair of Alfanar, an industrial conglomerate. Obviously, meetings with these people are absolutely fine and could easily be part of his job, but they are meant to be logged by civil servants. A government spokesperson said there had been an “administrative oversight”. It leads to the question: how many administrative oversights of this kind never come to light? Kwarteng was flown around the kingdom by various helicopters and jets, which apparently provided the opportunity for the oil company to lobby the Minister then responsible for the UK’s energy policy on opportunities for the company. Other points of discussion on the flights were redacted, so we do not know what they talked about. Although it is perfectly okay to take lifts, he really should not have taken them from private companies.

Then we have people such as Owen Paterson working for Randox as a second job and David Cameron using his inside track to lobby for Greensill. Money buys access to, for example, the personal phone numbers of civil servants, Ministers and officials. A recent Public Accounts Committee report said that it could not be sure that all the Randox contracts, which were worth £777 million, were “awarded properly” and that there was obvious potential for conflicts of interest. On Greensill, the Treasury Committee accepted that

“Mr Cameron did not break the rules governing lobbying by former Ministers, but that reflects on the insufficient strength of the rules”.

So we cannot hold people to account.

The public view becomes that there is one rule for people like us and another for them. Of course, it is not only things such as partygate, which showed a clear division on what people were allowed to do—it is also clear from the way in which the Government tried to change the rules to get Owen Paterson off the hook. This is systemic corruption, not isolated, individual corruption. We should all be very concerned. These examples are the tip of the iceberg—the individual cases that we get to hear about because of media activity.

My second issue is corporate lobbying, and its influence over policy. Uber spent £75 million a year on public relations and lobbying to successfully swing policies in its favour. Companies spend that kind of money only because they think that it will guarantee them a profitable return. Many second jobs that MPs have are actually a form of corporate lobbying, a value-for-money addition to the company’s PR budget that buys them the access they need. For example, Nadhim Zahawi allegedly earned £1.3 million from his second job at Gulf Keystone Petroleum. Again, this is not illegal—he can do that—but it is a much bigger and more damaging influence on our politics and policies than parliamentarians want to admit.

As well as individual companies lobbying, there is a network of right-wing think tanks that refuse to declare their corporate donors but launch policy reports on issues that directly benefit those donors. The media should be demanding transparency, and so should Parliament, when we see those policy institutes give us opinions disguised as evidence. Sometimes their members are even promoted to jobs in government. To quote George Monbiot in 2011, “Downing Street and government in the last decade has been completely captured by this network.” He is referring to the right-wing think tanks.

The third form of corruption, party donations, is more direct and visible, because big donations to political parties have to be declared. We can strongly suspect that the reason why we are still building houses and new developments without solar panels, without the best energy conservation standards available and without charging points or heat pumps is that property tycoons account for around one-fifth of donations to the Conservative Party. The reason why people are buying new homes and are energy bill payers rather than net contributors to the grid is because developers paid a toll of £891,000 to the Conservative Party in the first quarter of 2021 alone. The reason we are struggling to get a common-sense measure such as charging points for electric vehicles as standard on new buildings is that developers do not like it, and they pay good money to ensure that the Conservative Party listens to them more than it listens to climate scientists.

Is it not strange that oil and gas companies are getting new licences in the North Sea despite the climate emergency, or that they are getting £150 billion of taxpayers’ money which they have not done anything extra to earn, or that taxpayers are carrying the burden of that £150 billion for the next 20 years, instead of a windfall tax? Systemic political corruption has real-world consequences and real victims, so it is important to put this on the record now so that the next generation understands how Parliament did relatively little while the world started to heat up and burn in our climate emergency.

The fourth category of corruption, and perhaps the largest in terms of profitability, is the British system of procurement and privatisation. It has become a visible form of corruption due to the excesses of the Covid crisis. The system for preventing conflicts of interest failed, with firms referred to the Government’s VIP lane, a dedicated mailbox for parliamentarians and officials, where they were 10 times more likely to win contracts. Twenty-five of the 50 companies in this VIP lane supplied PPE worth £1 billion that was not fit for purpose, amounting to 59% of all money awarded to VIP-lane companies for PPE. The Covid purchasing fast track was open to abuse, and that is what the Government encouraged in the middle of a pandemic.

This is a reason why the Government are now burning £4 billion of unusable PPE supplied by donors and friends of the regime and bought with taxpayers’ money. This corruption was hidden behind a wall of lawyers, who worked on behalf of the Government to hide the most basic information about who benefited from the contracts and who they spoke to in order to get them. This is collusion or corruption and points to systemic corruption.

Of course, we are not immune here in your Lordships’ House. In June, it emerged that one Conversative Peer accepted £3,000 a month from a private firm to open doors with No. 10 and Ministers. Now I like open doors. I nudge a few doors open myself to help people. But I do not take money for it. I do it for people who cannot afford to pay for it, and I make sure that they get their voices heard. It is not a democracy if you have to pay for access. It is more like a Putin-style oligarchy run for and by the rich and corporations.

I think I am running out of time, which is absolutely infuriating because I have another two or three pages. Of course, I could spend all day here listing the problems and the corruption. We need this Government gone. I am not so naive as to think that that will be the solution to everything, because of course it will not. What we need is strong, decent rules and for people to understand that they are going to get caught.

Slavery and Human Trafficking (Definition of Victim) Regulations 2022

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to support the regret amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, has tabled. He has powerfully laid out the arguments why the amendment is needed, for reasons of substance but also of procedure. I raise my concerns that the draft regulations narrow the definition of a victim; depart from international standards; provide insufficient distinction between adults and children; and could lead to many victims being excluded from identification and, therefore, from support and assistance. I join the noble Lord in urging the Minister to redraft the regulations and properly consult the anti-trafficking sector to ensure that redrafted definitions of “victim” are workable and consistent, in line with international law and informed by the lived experience of survivors and those who assist them.

I declare my non-financial interest as a trustee of the Arise Foundation, a charity that works with people who are victims of human trafficking or modern-day slavery. As the Minister knows, it is a matter that is particularly close to my heart. I am therefore saddened not to be able to support the draft regulations as written, and saddened that we have to have a regret amendment at all. Of course, it is of the utmost importance that victims of modern slavery are properly identified and supported, so in one respect I can warmly welcome the intent outlined by the Minister that lies behind these regulations, in so far as they determine who will be considered a victim of modern slavery for the purposes of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and Sections 48 to 53 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, which I and many Members of your Lordships’ House who are present this evening, not least my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss, the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and others who participated in those proceedings, will recall.

I shall identify reservations that I hope the Minister will listen to carefully and address when she comes to reply at the conclusion of today’s debate. I start by underlining the way in which the procedure has been used to bring these regulations forward. I do not think that the Minister can have seen the joint briefing by the Anti Trafficking and Labour Exploitation Unit, ECPAT UK, Focus on Labour Exploitation, the Helen Bamber Foundation, Hope for Justice, to which the noble Lord referred, and others, which has been circulated to Members of your Lordships’ House—otherwise she would not have said to us that there had been an adequate consultation process. They have also written to the Home Affairs Select Committee of another place to express their concerns, along with more than 30 other organisations and experts—so, clearly, there is dissatisfaction right across the sector.

How can there have been a proper consultation, and how is it possible to say to your Lordships that there was one? Anti-trafficking organisations tell me that they did not see, and did not have the opportunity to give feedback on, the definition and wording before they were published. Can we be told why not? Under the old courtesies that used to be followed that, before legislation or orders were brought before Parliament, the leading organisations in the field would be invited in to meet Ministers and civil servants to discuss these things. It is not good enough simply to say that there was a broad consultation about modern-day slavery and that people could have replied. Those definitions should have been before them, and they should have been invited in specifically.

As those organisations and I argue, it is deeply disappointing and troubling that the regulations as drafted seem to curtail the capacity for victims to be identified, and ultimately to get access to support. That is because the regulations narrow the definition of “victim” and therefore reduce the scope for victims to be identified. It is the view of the anti-slavery organisations, in contrast with the Minister, that the definitions are not, as she told your Lordships’ House, in alignment with international law—such as ECAT, the European convention against trafficking, and the Palermo protocol. In this context, I put it to the Minister, as I and other noble Lords, including her noble friend Lord Horam, did during discussions on what became the Nationality and Borders Act, that matters such as these require broad and considered consultation. Legal definition of a victim is clearly a matter of huge importance, and it is surprising at the very least that formal consultation has not taken place, particularly within the anti-trafficking sector and other relevant stakeholders with first-hand experience of supporting victims of human trafficking or modern slavery. Surely, it would not have been too onerous, and nor would it have precipitated a lengthy delay, to do so.

The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, also referred to our Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which has reviewed these regulations and has highlighted the potential for them not to achieve their objectives. That surely will be of concern to the noble Baroness, I would hope, and to her officials. This and the uncertainty as to whether the definitions of the draft regulations in fact meet the UK’s international obligations under Article 4 of ECAT, which I have referred to, are serious matters, and I hope that the Minister can shed light on both these points in her response to the debate.

To summarise, I strongly urge the Minister to listen carefully and to reflect on the concerns raised by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, today and consider withdrawing this version of the regulations. We all want to see victims properly identified and subsequently supported and given the tools necessary to stand the best chance of recovery. These regulations do not do that. They raise the threshold for identification, they set a definition of exploitation that is too narrow, they are not in alignment with international law, they do not distinguish between adult and child victims, they do not include criminal exploitation, they do not feature practices similar to slavery, they overemphasise arranging or facilitating travel and they are completely defective on the means of eliminating trafficking. I hope the noble Baroness will think again.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I support the regret amendment and I wish we could use something stronger. It has been a long slog since December 2019 with all the legislation that has come through and this little painful reminder of the Nationality and Borders Bill is part of the problem that we have had to face. A lot of this legislation is cruel and uses new definitions for things that we thought were settled some time ago.

These regulations seem to be deliberately drafted to disregard the international norms around slavery and trafficking; they create special UK definitions that limit government assistance to a narrow category of survivors. Regulation 2(2)(a) has already been mentioned. It specifies that when determining whether somebody has been enslaved you have to consider

“any of the person’s personal circumstances … that significantly impair the person’s ability”.

This is victim blaming, pure and simple. The Government are proposing that normal people who can “protect themselves” from being subjected to slavery are unlikely to be genuine victims of enslavement. I do not understand why any Government would do this to people who have been trafficked.

In my view, the Government do not want to help enslaved people; they simply want to label these people as illegal immigrants or economic migrants and deport them as fast as possible. It is a cruel piece of legislation, giving effect to a cruel policy.

The lack of consultation is quite appalling and I echo all the requests for the Minister to explain that. If there had been consultation, I think this would be a very different set of regulations. I think the problem here is that the Government do not actually intend to support all victims of slavery and human trafficking and I think that diminishes us as a nation.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I am not at all sure that I am allowed to speak, and I seek the approval of the House. The reason that I arrived late was that I was having an MRI scan for a bad back. Am I too late to speak?

Immigration (Restrictions on Employment and Residential Accommodation) (Prescribed Requirements and Codes of Practice) and Licensing Act 2003 (Personal and Premises Licences) (Forms), etc., Regulations 2022

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2022 Lords Chamber

It is time—well past time—that our country’s Government stopped acting with such callous disregard for the welfare of those who have chosen to make their home among us. It is time for them to act and reverse this policy.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

As noble Lords have said, we have discussed this sort of thing several times before; I will be quite brief. When faced with this sort of legislation, of which I do not have first-hand experience, I tend to read the briefings we get from NGOs very well, get ideas from other places and even check Green Party policy. This time, I read the briefings and I just thought, “Why? Why are you doing this to some of the most vulnerable people, who are migrants displaced from their countries by war, famine, environmental conditions and all sorts of reasons?” They come to this country in search of some sort of safety and well-being. Why can the Government not design an accessible, inclusive system?

It is not as though there are no ideas. We hear quite a lot from individuals in the Cabinet saying, “This is a good idea because nobody else has any ideas.” Actually, we do have ideas in this House and quite often the Government completely ignore us. I will mention a number of organisations whose briefings were very good: the Anti Trafficking and Labour Exploitation Unit, City Hearts, the Snowdrop Project, Hongkongers in Britain, the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants and the3million; they give a voice to EU citizens in the UK. I come back to the question of why? Why have a system that is so difficult and will create even more pressure and distress for people who may already be distressed? I just do not understand.

The Government have talked about e-visas as though they were something wonderful—modern, streamlined and so on. They are clearly not. They do not work particularly well, they are difficult to access and they create more pressure. If the Government tried to do this to British citizens, or, let us say, Tory MPs—actually, not Tory MPs as they would probably get their staff to do it, but British citizens anyway—there would be a public outcry. People would not like this. We all like to have a document. I always carry my Covid vaccination certificate in my purse. It is a tiny little card but I carry it as a useful reminder for myself and because I could perhaps use it another time. Everybody likes some sort of paper copy.

Not only is this not appropriate for secondary legislation—particularly in view of the resistance there has been in your Lordships’ House already—but it is not a good piece of legislation. Again and again, we see poorly thought-through, poorly drafted legislation, and this is another example. Please—we need an inclusive, accessible system. The noble Earl mentioned using a QR code, for example; there are better ways of doing this. I find this hard; I have a lot of friends on opposite Benches and I believe them to be good people but, again and again, we see legislation like this going through and you cannot help feeling that it is a spiteful and cruel way to treat people.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I thank the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, for initiating this debate on a system that has, of course, already come into operation. I look forward to hearing my noble friend the Minister’s explanation of these measures and their desirability. However, I have had a very helpful and reassuring briefing from her officials, for which I thank her.

I am sorry that there is no impact assessment. Large numbers of organisations and individuals are potentially involved—businesses, landlords and others. The Explanatory Memorandum suggests that there may even be savings in costs for them. Frankly, it would be worth detailing this for review, if there is a good story to tell. Perhaps I could make a wider point. We now have human rights and climate change statements on Bills and equality assessments on everything, but we have forgotten the importance of cost-benefit and impact assessment, which can be vital to productivity and growth. Perhaps the department could consider its approach for the future and talk to Mr Rees-Mogg as part of his quest for efficiency and opportunity and fight against bureaucracy, which often needlessly costs money.

In the absence of such an analysis, could my noble friend outline the response of businesses to these various measures, from employers generally and from landlords? Will a largely digital system be manageable by small businesses, especially if there are IT problems of the kind that some previous speakers have described? I believe that there is a new telephone helpline, and it would be good to know how it is coping and to hear about reactions to the move to digital. Finally, I understand that new codes of practice have been devised for employers and others, which I have not been able to find, and I would very much appreciate a summary of what they are trying to do, and a link.

I look forward to the Minister’s comments, and very much hope to be able to support her in the Lobbies.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I really have heard everything now: a former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, calling for an uprising. I am right beside him.

The general trajectory of modern history has been away from oppression and towards human rights. It has been a pathway of liberalisation, more fairness, more opportunity and more freedoms—as well as less state power, greater checks and balances, and more accountability. However, this Government are obsessed with rowing back on that progress. We have a Cabinet and a Prime Minister who want more authoritarianism; they are trying to transform the whole state apparatus to hold them in power indefinitely. The Bill of Rights pushes on with the Government’s repressive agenda. It is perhaps the first Bill of Rights in world history to curtail individuals’ rights and allow the state to interfere with people in ways which are presently unlawful. Yet the first paragraph of the Queen’s Speech says that the

“Government will play a leading role in defending democracy and freedom across the world”,—[Official Report, 10/5/22; col. 2.]

apart from here in the UK, it seems.

The National Security Bill will grant unspecified new powers to the security services. This decades-long slippery slope continues: it is always more powers and less scrutiny; more spying and less privacy. The giant of the security state is never satisfied with its amassed power, so who knows what will be in that Bill, which we will be expected to pass this time.

The Public Order Bill brings back legislative proposals that were flatly rejected by your Lordships’ House in the last Session. The Government say that this legislation is urgent in response to new tactics used by activists, but this is clearly untrue. The suffragettes and suffragists used methods such as locking on, even in this very Parliament building. Under this Bill, they would be criminalised and labelled as serious criminals, yet in the end they were proved to have been right to protest. Their actions were not popular at the time, but they eventually won the right to vote.

You can complain about Extinction Rebellion but, as a result of its actions, Parliament passed a declaration that we are living in a climate emergency—I must remind the Government that they passed this. Local campaigners blocking roads and equipment stopped the fracking industry bypassing local democracy and being imposed on residents by a top-down Government. In the last few days, a protester at a rally was not arrested there but later at her home by the police. The police explained that they did not want to arrest anyone at the rally, so they arrested her later. The Government want to stop any protest that might get noticed and be effective. They want to clamp down on peaceful, non-violent protest that people use to get attention. This is the crucial point: protesters are people. They are people who work, pay taxes, study or collect the pensions they have earned; people who see something wrong and want it to stop; people possibly like your Lordships, but definitely like me. I hope that, once again, we will reject this legislation. I honestly think that it will encourage protesters to be even more creative.

All this legislation is moving us in the wrong direction. We should be granting people more human rights, not fewer. This Government are absolutely incapable of making positive change; everything is regressive. At a time when more of us are sinking into poverty, the Government are not doing their job to promote the well-being of all. As Peter Walker from the Guardian pointed out, we have 38 government Bills, none of which helps reduce energy bills or deals with the climate emergency with a national programme of insulating homes. Instead, the only mention of insulating Britain is talking about locking up the campaigners who wanted action. On Twitter, an account called “The Secret Barrister” said:

“The criminal justice system has never been in more chaos. This government has defunded every element—from police to CPS to legal aid to courts to probation to prisons. There has never been a better time to be a criminal than under this Prime Minister and this Home Secretary.”


It looks as if we are set for the busiest 12 months of scrutiny in the nine years I have spent in your Lordships’ House. I hope that, together, we can do exactly what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, suggested: try to insist to the Government that what they are doing is not legal. I have tabled a regret Motion. I wanted to table a Motion that repealed all of last Session’s legislation, but apparently I was not allowed to do that, so I have tabled a regret Motion which is a series of complaints. It is a puny Motion, but it will come up at the end. I would like the Government to understand that, although I perhaps use more invective and rhetoric than other noble Lords, there are a lot of people—perhaps in this House, but definitely outside it—who would agree with me and would like the Government to be in more of a listening mode.

--- Later in debate ---

Tabled by

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

At end to insert “but regret the failure of Her Majesty’s Government to provide for a constitutional convention to create a 21st century democracy where every vote counts; instead seeking to further concentrate power in the executive by weakening judicial oversight of government decisions and undermining the right to peaceful protest; and further regrets Her Majesty’s Government’s failure to provide safe and legal routes for people to claim asylum in the United Kingdom”.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Very grumpily, not moved.

Debate adjourned until Monday 16 May.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 26th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, I shall add a little balance to this debate by speaking on behalf of the Government on this particular Bill. I speak in particular to Amendment C1 from the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, Amendment B1 from the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and Amendment H1 from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. I say straightaway that I have great sympathy for the point of view they put forward in those three amendments. In particular, it is almost certainly the case that there are not enough legal routes for genuine refugees to this country. I recognise what the Minister said about the extent to which we have already accommodated refugees and the figures she quoted, but I still think that we do not have enough legal routes for the generality of refugees, leaving aside those from Hong Kong, the Afghans and Syrians and so forth.

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, made the point very well on the previous group of amendments that if we compare the number of asylum seekers to the number of economic migrants—the number of work visas, for example—that is the real problem: in numbers. It is numbers I am concerned about principally and not the number of asylum seekers, which is comparatively small. I would trade a reduction in the number of economic migrants—people taking work visas, particularly the golden visas we have heard about more recently as a result of the Ukraine war—for an increase in the number of legal routes for genuine asylum seekers. That would be a very sensible thing to do. Not only that but it would be humane. I would do it on the simple humanitarian grounds that some people need legal routes more than purely economic migrants.

But the problem with that argument is that it only goes so far. First, there is the capacity to absorb new immigrants, given where we are with a large number of work visas, family visas and undergraduate visas each year and, on top of that, the Ukrainians, those from Hong Kong and the rest, and particularly as most immigrants go into the poorer areas of our country. If you read about or experience, as I have done as a former Member of Parliament, the effect on housing, schooling and GPs in the poorer areas of this country of a rapidly increasing number of immigrants over quite a short period, you can see the anger and despair of ordinary British people dealing with this situation. You cannot leave that out of account, particularly when one of the Government’s major objectives is the levelling-up agenda, which is precisely to help those areas most affected by the number of immigrants coming into the country, whether those are the large number of economic migrants or the smaller number of genuine refugees.

Finally on this point, however many legal routes we may have, we will not stop the traffickers in human beings just by having more legal routes. We have to tackle the problem directly. While there is a way of getting to this country by paying somebody £2,000 or £3,000 to come across the channel, people will take that opportunity. That is the difficulty. While I respect the views of the Opposition and the independents that we need more legal routes, that will not solve the problem of the traffickers across the channel. That is why we have this Bill; we need to tackle that problem directly.

I fully agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, on the important point they made about the 2001 refugee convention. I do not want this Government to step outside that in any way. It would be a tragedy if that happened. It should not be allowed to happen; I believe that it will not happen. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said that there had been no really serious arguments from the Government against his position on this issue, but he must have heard the arguments from the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson of Tredegar, earlier in this Bill’s passage. At some length and across several columns of Hansard, he set out in detail exactly what the Government’s position was. Surely the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, must agree that the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, was very persuasive. He may not agree with him, but he was certainly persuasive in his full and detailed account of the Government’s position and why what they are doing remains within the refugee convention. That is the first point.

Secondly, lawyers such as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, are arguing this in theory and in absentia, being in the Chamber as we are. However, it has already happened in Australia, which has for many years had an offshoring policy agreed between all the parties. In the early stages of that process, its Government had to argue precisely what our Government are arguing now: that what they were doing by way of offshoring was within the 1951 convention and did not abrogate or step outside it in any way. There were court cases in Australia on precisely this point. The Australian Government won them all, because they showed clearly that they were not stepping outside the 1951 convention. So there is that evidence from another country which has done precisely what our present Government are doing.

In addition, the Australian Government did a sensible thing. Throughout the long development of their offshoring policy—it took two or three years; this is not something that will be resolved here overnight, perhaps not even in a year or two—they made a point of having a dialogue with the UNHCR, which is the guardian of the refugee convention. At every stage, they took the trouble to talk to not only the UNHCR’s headquarters in Geneva but to its local regional representatives and to allow them to inspect exactly what was happening in the offshoring areas and in Australia itself. This kept the UNHCR on board, if you like, so that it had no reasonable reason to disagree with what the Australian Government were doing. I hope that our Government will do exactly the same thing, because it is sensible to do so. We want the UNHCR to have an understanding that what our Government are doing is sensible and appropriate. We do not want to be excessively controversial.

There is a more general point about this Bill, which I have mentioned before. It is an enabling Bill. It simply sets the scene and gives the Government the power to do something. It is not the final policy. We are way off a final policy. For a start, we must have a sensible arrangement with France to deal with all this. I am sure that that will be a necessary part of any government policy. Having a sensible arrangement with France may be rather easier now that we know who its president is, but it will not be enough for Boris Johnson to say, “Donnez-moi un break, Emmanuel”. He will have to have a much more rounded policy, which may take several years given all the other issues we have with France on shipping, the Northern Ireland protocol and all the rest of it. It will take a long time to sort that out; it is far from finished.

Equally, on offshoring, although I hear what my noble friend the Minister said about what information is available, I still feel extremely vague about what is happening. I have no idea whether it will work. I have many questions about how this is going to be pursued. It may be a disaster for all I know. I think that a great deal will depend on how exactly it is executed. Again, the Australians, who did this, always say to me that it takes great effort to get these sorts of policies going because they are international policies involving other Governments and you have to get that all right.

So what we are saying here is that this is an enabling Bill. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, to think back to his period as a distinguished diplomat. He might well be saying to the Government, in these circumstances, “Keep the Bill as broad as possible. Give yourselves as much room to manoeuvre as possible, because you simply do not know what will come up in the course of these negotiations with France, Rwanda or whoever”. You have to allow for that and, if you find yourselves in a situation in which you would like to pursue a course of action but cannot, because the Bill simply does not allow for that and we do not have the legislation in place, it would be a disaster for the Government.

In that respect, we should consider that the Government do not have a final policy. We have an enabling Bill. Is it right for the Lords to prevent the Commons from even trying to have this policy, which may or may not eventually work? We should remember that, in the most recent votes on this, there was a majority of 70 or 80 in the Commons—more or less the government majority, without any dissent—on every single resolution put to it, against us and in favour of their arrangements. I cannot quote the present Attorney-General, but I can quote a recent one, Sir Robert Buckland. He is not necessarily any friend of the Government, as we know, because of the history there. He was the Attorney-General and is now the MP for South Swindon. He said that he worked with Priti Patel on the Bill and that

“it is in direct fulfilment of our manifesto commitment. There is no doubt in my mind about its importance and about the need for it to be passed.”—[Official Report, Commons, 22/3/22; col. 212.]

That was the view of a recent Attorney-General, Sir Robert Buckland, who is no one’s idea of a raving right-wing Tory.

Finally in all this, I think the Government should try to get as much consensus as possible, because I suspect this will be with us for several years—perhaps even over more than one Government, as it was in Australia. They should establish a forum for debate, where critics of the Government can talk and explain their worries and concerns. Maybe churchmen should be in it, and maybe the Refugee Council. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, is a trustee of the Refugee Council, so maybe he should be on this forum. Something like that would be a means of discussion whereby we do not just talk at each other across the Chamber and in the newspapers, but talk seriously about this very important problem, which any Government of whatever description would have to resolve—namely, these illegal boat trips across the channel.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I will be very brief after that monologue, which I found extremely boring. Forgive me if I am being rude; I do not know whether I am trespassing on any rules. But, really, if the noble Lord is coming to the Chamber, perhaps he could bring a speech and not choose to deliver some sort of long ramble, when we are quite short of time.

I am going to talk about Motion F1. I have listened to the Government and the Minister talking today about Rwanda and, quite honestly, I think their representation of Rwanda is extremely flawed. I draw the House’s attention to one report from Amnesty International, in 2021, last year, which produced a review on Rwanda that said that there were huge human rights concerns. For example, abortion remains illegal in most circumstances. The Government interfere in the right to fair trial, including torturing the accused, denying access to legal counsel and confiscating legally privileged material. They arrest journalists and opposition politicians, and there are deaths in custody.

What is happening? The Government talk all the time about stopping these trafficking gangs, but our Government are becoming a trafficking gang. They are going to take people abroad and leave them there. They are taking them to a country that has human rights abuses. This is inhumane and cruel, and I will be voting for every single amendment today, because the Government have overreached and are making themselves an embarrassment for us in the world.