EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement

Baroness Kennedy of Cradley Excerpts

Friday 8th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, with the alternative being no deal this deal had to be accepted, but there are significant problems with it that need to be addressed. In the short time we have to speak I will restrict my comments to the gaps in the deal that will cause significant problems for one of Britain’s most successful exports: our world-leading music industry. I agree wholeheartedly with the comments already made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury.

The EU is the UK’s biggest overseas market for our £2.9 billion music export market. Despite this, the deal is a bad deal for our musicians and their crews to work and perform in the EU. It adds extra costs and a significant amount of bureaucracy.

I ask the noble Lord, Lord True: why did the EU reject including musicians in the agreement’s annexe on independent professionals explicitly allowed to work short term without a work permit? This omission means that UK musician seeking to work in the EU will be considered third-country nationals and will therefore need to meet the various requirements of each member state. Can you imagine the complexity of the paperwork for a touring 70-piece orchestra needing to secure a work permit for every person for every country visited on the tour? The level of additional red tape is huge, not to mention the additional costs now due through the requirement for an annual carnet, which costs hundreds of pounds for each musician travelling with an instrument or equipment.

The Government rightly committed to negotiate a reciprocal arrangement for UK musicians to tour the EU, so I ask the Minister: can this pledge still be honoured, and what steps are the Government now taking to overcome this devastating omission?

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Baroness Kennedy of Cradley Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, after two false starts and the current boundaries drawn on electoral data now 20 years old, this review is much needed. I welcome the return to 650 seats, the eight-year review and the consideration of pending local government reviews. However, on this latter point, can the Minister confirm in his response that the local boundary reviews that were delayed due to Covid-19 will be completed before the Westminster boundary review takes place?

Of the issues that I believe need to change, the first is the source data. The Bill ensures that every seat, with a few exceptions, has roughly the same numbers of voters within it so that, in the words of the Government,

“every vote counts the same”.

However, constituencies of equal size will not change some MPs being elected on fewer votes than other MPs, because turnouts always differ from seat to seat. The way to make every person count equally is to count seat boundaries not by the number of registered voters in a constituency but by the number of people. This is what most modern democracies do.

When a constituent asks a Member of Parliament for help, help is given whether or not they are registered to vote. Everyone who lives in the constituency is treated equally. Our boundary reviews should therefore treat people equally. For example, where I live, in Lewisham, the electoral roll figure in December 2019 was just over 223,000, but according to ONS figures, the population of Lewisham is over 303, 000—a difference of more than 80,000 people, and equivalent to an extra parliamentary constituency. Using population figures as the source data to draw Westminster seat boundaries, instead of the electoral roll, will mean that a heavy workload will not rest on too few shoulders and people can be represented equally. If the data source remains the electoral roll, we need to make sure that it is as complete and accurate as possible.

That leads me to my second point: the enumeration date. More than a million people registered to vote between December 2018 and December 2019. Given this huge increase, will the noble Lord expand on the reasoning behind deciding to use March 2020 as the enumeration date? Is the register at March 2020 more accurate and complete than it was in December 2019? If so, what is the difference in electoral numbers between the two dates?

Finally, the electoral quota is too narrow and hampers the commission’s ability to listen to sensible representations from the community. The commission needs flexibility to make sensible adjustments to seat boundaries to ensure that people in communities that have built up around, for example, geographic locations, transport hubs, university campuses, large factories, places of worship, community centres or housing estates are effectively represented. Effective representation should be as important to the commission as equalising seat numbers. I look forward to the noble Lord’s response on these three issues.

Intelligence and Security Committee: Russia Report

Baroness Kennedy of Cradley Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

My Lords, I am not going to comment on operational matters, but the noble Lord obviously touches on important questions, which are firmly on the agenda and in the purview of the Government.

[Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, further to the question by the noble Lord, Lord Janvrin, does the Minister agree it is time the Government stopped passing round the job of defending our democracy from Russian disinformation campaigns like a hot potato, which has clearly been happening despite the 2017 Russia strategy, and make it clear who within government has responsibility for protecting the UK from hostile interference? Furthermore, Government should insist that the social media companies agree a protocol for decisive and quick action to remove foreign political influence and fake news from their platforms.

[Lord True]

My Lords, the noble Baroness raises a range of important matters, and I do not deny the importance of any of them. The Government keep all these factors in mind and are watchful. As I have said before, all our agencies are constantly assessing and seeking to deter the threats posed by hostile state activity.

Finance Bill

Baroness Kennedy of Cradley Excerpts

2nd reading & Committee negatived & 3rd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 17th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, growing up in the Midlands, and the Black Country in particular, I know how much pride there is in this country’s manufacturing tradition and its industries. The Black Country is the home of the Industrial Revolution and I am delighted that it recently received the recognition it deserves by being awarded UNESCO Global Geopark status. It is an area that makes things, where small and medium-sized enterprises and large manufacturers are working hard, creating wealth and selling their products, at home and abroad. They employ thousands of local people. This is why the Government, local government, businesses and academics come together and talk about support for the Midlands engine. This is why the Government must do more now to support manufacturing in this country.

As others have noted, our manufacturing sector faces what many employers are privately warning is a tsunami of job losses. It is tragic to read that, because of the economic shock of Covid-19, many in the manufacturing industries now expect their recovery to take 12 to 24 months. Across the West Midlands, nearly 300,000 people in manufacturing, construction and the car trade are furloughed. To put this into perspective, this is equivalent to the entire population of Dudley borough not being at work. Across the country, nearly 8,000 manufacturing jobs losses have already been announced by world-leading companies such as Rolls-Royce, McLaren, Aston Martin, Jaguar Land Rover and Arlington Automotive. The Government need to do more and act now to save our manufacturing base.

Why are the Government reluctant to consider extending the furlough scheme to different sectors of our economy that need extra support? Will they consider emergency measures to stimulate market demand, particularly in our car industry? What are the Government doing to ensure that the banks are doing their bit to help save our manufacturing sector? The need for flexible access to finance and support for firms attempting to restructure and reshape themselves to adapt to the new economic environment is vital.

For the last 300 years and more, my family has been working in iron and steel in the Midlands. Like many Black Country families, they worked hard, and now they need more action to protect their jobs and their wages if we are to save this country’s manufacturing jobs and tradition. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

Census (England and Wales) Order 2020

Baroness Kennedy of Cradley Excerpts

Tuesday 12th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Lab)]

My Lords, in the time available I will limit my contribution to two areas. First, it is right that we move the census online. However, as the Minister recognised, a digital-first census will undoubtedly raise questions about data security. I thank the noble Lord for outlining the Government’s plans, but will Parliament receive a report on the work the Government are doing to ensure that an individual’s details remain confidential and secure? In promoting the digital-first census, how will the Government build trust in data security to ensure that the 75% online return target is reached? The digital-first approach should allow a more effective system for counting and surveying Britain’s population. However, it is estimated that 10% of the UK’s adult population is digitally excluded. What lessons have been learned from the rehearsal areas on how best to engage the digitally excluded and, therefore, what are the plans to reach out to these communities to ensure that they are included in the census?

Secondly, it is disappointing to many thousands of Sikhs that the Government have decided not to include a Sikh tick box in the ethnic group question. There is a clear demand for this from a large section of the Sikh community. It is ethnic, not faith, data that public bodies use to make decisions about the provision of public services, so accurate data on the make-up of our communities is vital.

The Scottish Parliament seems to have gone some way to address this issue. Last week, it agreed to include a prompt for Sikhs and Jewish people next to the “Other ethnic group” tick box. Will the Government look at this decision, which the Scottish Parliament has made possible, and bring the census order for England and Wales in line with that of Scotland?

Voter Registration

Baroness Kennedy of Cradley Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Lords Chamber

Tabled by

[Baroness Kennedy of Cradley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to increase the number of citizens registered to vote.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lady Kennedy of Cradley, and at her request, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in her name on the Order Paper. I refer the House to my registered interests.