Military Bases: Accommodation

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness makes a good point. Particularly in single-living accommodation, this is absolutely critical. In the budget, £5.3 billion has been allocated in the next 10 years to invest in the existing single-living accommodation and acquire new accommodation. I can assure the House that the issues around female single-living accommodation are being well catered for.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, my colleague Helen Morgan in the other place put down an amendment to the Renters (Reform) Bill that would require the Government to bring military accommodation up to the decent homes standard. Will the Government bring forward such an amendment to the Renters Reform Bill, which is being discussed today?

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

My Lords, that is outside my brief, obviously, but I would say that the accommodation standards continue to improve. Our forces are paying only something like 15% of their salary for accommodation. If one thinks about that in wider market context, it is not an ungenerous situation to be in.

Ukraine

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

Friday 25th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, there is one particular lever that we especially control, and that is access to the financial and legal services of the City of London. The Government have taken steps now to begin to ban Russia from accessing those services—I hope the Minister will be able to tell us that they are going much farther than the original announcement. I also understand that actions are being taken in co-ordination with the United States and with financial centres across the EU. But perhaps the Minister could talk to us about the relationship that we have with both Singapore and Hong Kong, with their very active financial centres, and other potential locations that could provide an alternate route and tell us what progress has been made on closing down access on those markets as well.

We also control a lever—I am almost ashamed to say —and that is access to the money laundering capabilities of the City of London, widely known as the London laundromat. We are all aware that London has been washing dirty money from kleptocrats and oligarchs—with strong connections to Putin and his regime—in the hundreds of millions of pounds and, frankly, the Government have gazed on it with a fairly lax eye, promising action, but very little has actually taken place.

The Government have announced that they will freeze the assets of those on the sanctions list—and I hope that includes their networks of family and associates to whom most of the assets have been passed. Liquid assets will already have been moved out of the UK in the past few days. I regret that we were not in a position, apparently, to act earlier and more quickly to prevent the escape of those assets. But most will have disguised ownership and a complex web of shell companies. We know that over £1 billion is settled in London property alone—again, under shell company names—but there is so much more in sports clubs, communications and operating businesses. It really will be a terrible task to unravel it. I join those who take the view that, in many cases, these assets should be seized and not just frozen. I must ask the Minister: are our Crown dependencies and overseas territories adopting the same sanctions? Because if not, we do not have a loophole; we have an escape hatch.

Please can the Minister bring forward, as soon as next week, the Bill for the public register of beneficial owners of property in the UK? I think I am probably not supposed to know this, but this legislation has been drafted and ready to go for weeks. The Government have made the decision not to introduce it and to hold it back as part of a broader piece of legislation; it does not need to be—it can stand alone. It is urgent and could be tackled very rapidly. I am sure both Houses will co-operate. In looking at immediate issues, will the Government support the amendment passed by this House in the National Insurance Contributions Bill for public registers in the freeports to prevent the London laundromat being devolved out across the country? I hope that they will.

Speaking of networks—I talked about family and associates—we also have to bring to book the enablers of money laundering, including the legal firms, the accountants, the banks, the property agents and the developers. That network is laced with respectable names, and many are very well connected throughout the current political establishment. Can the Government tell me: will the new kleptocrat unit in the National Crime Agency also be tackling these enablers and tackling them vigorously? If this unit is to be more than a gimmick, it has to be properly staffed, it has to have strategy and goals, it has to have priorities, and I am told that none of these is currently in place—if I am wrong, I would appreciate the comments of the Minister. To empower this unit to go after the enablers, will the Government commit immediately to introduce “failure to prevent” legislation? We have templates from other Bills—the drafting would be a matter of hours.

I hear that the Biden Administration have engaged intently over recent weeks with US companies that will be impacted by economic sanctions, making clear their intentions and assisting in mitigation. The companies I have talked to do not report the same engagement in the UK, but perhaps my vision is too narrow. Have the UK Government been doing the same? And since I am focusing on finance, have they met with the key players in the City of London, both to use their expertise in shaping sanctions and to give them a clear view of their intentions so that they are prepared to act and to act quickly and effectively? Could the Minister perhaps tell us which players have been involved in such discussions with regard to finance—regulators, banks, insurance companies, fintechs, et cetera?

While it will take an international decision, are the UK Government totally committed to closing Russia out of SWIFT—the international money transfer system? That is probably the most effective tool of all to show Russia its pariah status. But our companies in our country will need mitigation to cope with the consequences of that, and is that planned?

UK firms will be hit by the effect of sanctions, some devastatingly. The UK population, especially the poorest, will be hit by a spiralling cost of living. Will the Government have a rescue fund, and other mitigations, for SMEs that are hurt, and also will they look at the damage to the UK population and now increase universal credit and cancel the rise of the national insurance contributions uplift?

Brexit: Financial Services Sector

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie]

My noble friend articulates more succinctly and cogently than I can exactly what the sensitivity of these negotiations is. These sensitivities are well understood on the part of the Government; I just wish they were better understood elsewhere.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, I spent the morning working with a large number of people in the financial services sector. Does the Minister understand how outraged many people are who have held back on their contingency planning in the expectation that there was to be clarification through this paper, and the number of people who practically pinioned me to the wall to pass her the message that this confirms to them that the Government are so internally riven that they do not have a negotiating position on this key area, and they are on their own?

[Baroness Goldie]

The noble Baroness seems to imply that the Government are operating in some kind of vacuum. They are not for two reasons, as was made very clear in December when we moved on to phase 2, the critical component of the negotiations when the very issues that so concern the noble Baroness will be the subject of discussion. It is not as though there is no engagement with the financial services industry; there is very close engagement. As my noble friend Lord Lamont made clear, this is a sensitive time in the discussions. It would be completely inappropriate to show hands and declare positions. The financial services industry is aware of what the Government seek in terms of their objectives. We take comfort from the position of London in the global financial world. The Z/Yen consultancy declared in September that London is the leading financial centre, ahead of New York which is second, Hong Kong, third and Singapore, fourth. Yes, we know what people in the financial services industry feel. Yes, we are cognisant of that and, yes, we are doing everything we can to robustly represent the best interests of the financial services industry.

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

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

Well, it is an important point to factor in because the creation of and rises in the national living wage will affect not just those on tax credits, but many millions of others paid above that level, in the so-called ripple effect that has been widely discussed.

[Baroness Kramer]

My Lords, for clarification, will the Minister focus on the two out of 10 whom he says are losers and tell us how many people those are? How many children are in those families and what is their loss likely to be? We are talking about something close on 1 million people, largely families with children. I think that he will be able to confirm that they are in the lowest deciles of the population in terms of poverty.

[Earl Howe]

Let me address that. It has been said by some noble Lords, and the noble Baroness’s question implies it, that the brunt of these savings will be borne by those on tax credits who are relatively worse off. That is not the case. The 10% of tax credit claimants on the highest incomes—incidentally, those on £42,000 on average—contribute nearly four times as much to the savings that we are proposing as the poorest claimants. That is an important point to factor in. The problem with talking about those at the lower end of the scale is that everyone’s circumstances are different. Some people have children and some do not. Some have a disability and some do not. Some work shorter hours, some work longer hours. It is very difficult to particularise.

I can say that the cut in public spending that we propose through this regulation is one that will take us back not to some far-distant point in the past, but to the levels of spending seen in 2007-08 before the financial crash. I am talking of course about the spending position in its totality. One cannot particularise, as I said, to an individual case because people’s circumstances will be different.

RAF Northolt: Commercial Flights

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, the impact on the local population needs to be considered before any changes are made, and I do not underestimate their concern about the adverse impact of any potential increase in the number of civil movements above the 7,000 per year limit. Commitments have been made previously to consult prior to any increase above the current ceiling, and I am happy to repeat the commitment to consult appropriately now.

[Baroness Kramer]

My Lords, first, on behalf of these Benches I join in the tributes to those who have fallen and to the wounded. On the Question, does the Minister agree that where high-speed rail networks have been developed domestically in countries across the globe, domestic air travel has shrunk or even collapsed? Therefore, there has to be another and better route to a future for Northolt. The focus should be on high-speed rail, not expanding domestic aviation.

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend. A national high-speed rail network would provide an attractive alternative to domestic aviation in both its initial and subsequent phases and would therefore reduce the pressure on Heathrow. Around 7 per cent of Heathrow passengers travel on domestic routes which could be served by high-speed rail, and 8 per cent are short-haul passengers.