Armed Forces Commissioner Bill
Baroness Kramer Excerpts(2 weeks, 1 day ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Carberry of Muswell Hill (Lab)
My Lords, I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, on her tenacious championing of the interests of Armed Forces personnel. I know that that commitment long predates my arrival in this House, so I step with some trepidation on to the noble Baroness’s territory. But, together with my noble friend Lord Beamish, I hope she can explain and help us to understand better what the proposal in the two amendments adds to the powers that the Bill already gives to the new commissioner.
I have been trying to approach this question from the point of view of the ordinary member of the Armed Forces who, as it is, is faced with different channels to take concerns through. When the Armed Forces commissioner is in place, there will be yet another channel, and it is unclear to me, if I were put in that position, when I would consider myself to be someone who was availing themselves of the existing channels and when I might consider myself to be a whistleblower, and what the difference would be.
I confess that I am not totally clear about the array of routes that someone in that situation might be able to take, and I wonder how the average member of Armed Forces personnel already navigates their way through the possible routes. As I understand it, the existing channels—forgive me if I have got this wrong—include the Ministry of Defence complaints procedure, a facility whereby people can report serious matters confidentially and, in some cases, anonymously; so that is similar to being a whistleblower. Another route appears to be the MoD’s serious concerns reporting facility: another confidential mechanism for raising serious concerns, which can be done online, on the phone or through an app. There also appear to be internal MoD policies that are already committed to protecting whistleblowers from retaliation or other detriments. The support available to people includes nominated officers outside the chain of command and a confidential hotline team.
On top of that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, referred to in her introduction, there is the reformed complaints system, which will introduce a new specialist tri-service team for taking the most serious complaints—which will include bullying, discrimination and harassment —outside the single service chain of command. As I understand it, that has been welcomed by the family of Gunner Jaysley Beck, who always remains in our thoughts when we are discussing these matters. A spokesman for the family said that those running the new system need to be truly independent, properly trained and committed to real accountability and transparency. I suggest that those are all our aspirations for the new Armed Forces commissioner.
On top of the channels that I have already mentioned will be added the Armed Forces commissioner. Will the noble Baroness take the opportunity to explain to us again, so that we better understand it, what adding a whistleblowing facility to what already exists would achieve? I also invite my noble friend the Minister to give us further assurance that anyone who in future has recourse to the services of the Armed Forces commissioner will be able to do so anonymously, in the same way that anyone designated as a whistleblower under any other system would be able to do. If the Minister could give us that reassurance, that might go a long way towards meeting the concerns the noble Baroness outlined in moving the amendment.
Baroness Kramer (LD)
My Lords, I apologise for not taking part in the Bill earlier. As the House will know, this is not my usual territory, but I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, and my noble friend Lady Smith of Newnham for drawing my attention to the whistleblowing issue in it. I very much support the amendments in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, and the noble Earl, Lord Minto, which would add a whistleblowing function to the Bill and to the role of the commissioner.
Amendment 3 seeks to make it clear that someone who speaks out on the issues covered in the Bill—essentially, welfare issues—can take their concerns directly to the commissioner regardless of the service they are attached to, and will have the status of a whistleblower, with the respect and protections that come with that role, as established under our current whistleblowing law, the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998, which include confidentiality. The commissioner will then be empowered to investigate again if the issues meet the criteria set out in the Bill—and investigation, as any survey of whistleblowers will tell you, is more important to those who speak out than even protection.
There is a distinction between someone who makes a complaint and someone who chooses to blow the whistle. A complainant is looking for very specific redress and quite rightly—there is nothing wrong with that; it is entirely appropriate—but a whistleblower, as we know from whistleblowers generally, is someone who has realised, recognised or seen the potential for something going seriously wrong. They are not looking for personal redress; they are raising the issue in order to achieve investigation. The commissioner can then make that decision, but that is a very different process and a very different aspect from making a complaint about an experience that you or a family member directly had. You may end up complaining and whistleblowing, but whistleblowing has to be recognised as a tool which directs investigators.
I spent part of this morning with the director of the Serious Fraud Office, who underscored the fact to an all-party parliamentary group that when you are an investigator, knowing where to investigate requires a flow of information. He said that the biggest help Parliament could give the Serious Fraud Office would be to empower whistleblowers, because that is where he finds the information and the direction that guide the investigation he needs to do. It seems to me that that applies just as much in the armed services—even if it is under the limited welfare umbrella—as it does anywhere else.
I will concede that the current whistleblowing law which frames whistleblower protections, the Public Interest Disclosure Act, is deficient and many of us are seeking to upgrade or replace it. But it is all we have today and at the very least, its protections should extend to the armed services. The Government have responded that they can simply put the protections into their policy document. Why does anybody think a policy document is legal protection? The Government also suggested, as the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, mentioned, that they could introduce an anonymity clause for the reports the commissioners publish, but I cannot see that anything in this amendment rules that out.
I could suggest further changes within the scope of the Bill to enable a whistleblowing process for the Armed Forces, but I think we have something very powerful in front of us today. The Bill creates something really exceptional and valuable—a truly independent commissioner whose future career does not depend on any of the armed services or on the Civil Service. He or she in that role has the potential to be a real game-changer when it comes to speaking out.
Again, if what we had in place was perfectly adequate, would we have had that report today from BBC Wiltshire of three more members of the armed services coming forward with the most extraordinary and shocking experiences? We have to recognise that what we have in place is not achieving what we want it to. That is why this amendment and the change it proposes is so important.
As we get legislative improvements—in this area and in other areas—for whistleblowing, protections will be more effective. We will avoid not just the scandals we have seen within the services but those in other areas—for example, the Post Office. We have a real chance, then, that wrongdoing can be tackled. If we want to enhance the morale of the armed services, show people that they are genuinely valued and encourage recruitment into the services, we can make it clear that there is a simple channel to a trusted individual—someone people can go to with a whistleblowing issue, not necessarily a personal complaint. There are few things that would do more to encourage people to hold our services in the very high regard that service members deserve than to provide someone with investigatory powers who is aware of the situation and has the detail and background to allow an investigation.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
There is not. My noble friend is quite right to point that out.
The term whistleblower is not a universally recognised term in law. That may be irrelevant to us in considering the debate, but it is of relevance to us as a legislature. There is some limited precedence for its use, there is no single meaning, and it requires additional context to explain what the term means in each case. The amendment seeks to define the term in reference to certain people and topics, but it would not create any additional protections for those people, because, as I have said, the commissioner can already investigate everything that the amendment lists—as my noble friend Lord Beamish has pointed this out—whether it involves a whistleblowing-type situation to expose a general service issue or a personal issue that somebody wants to raise individually. The commissioner can already investigate any general service welfare matters that they choose. Anyone can raise such an issue with the commissioner, including the class of person defined in the amendments.
Once established, the Armed Forces commissioner and their office will automatically be bound by data protection legislation. This means that, for all individuals who contact the commissioner, the information and details they provide will be subject to stringent protections under the existing legislation. That includes the principle of protecting the integrity and confidentiality of their personal data.
None the less, as noble Lords know, to try to address the continuing concerns, the Government considered what more they might do. In considering this amendment, noble Lords should remember that the holy grail of all this is anonymity. People will not have trust and confidence in a system if they do not believe that, if they wish it, there is anonymity; they will be frightened of the consequences, whether of whistleblowing or of raising an issue on a personal level.
We are looking at this and, in addition to the substantial protections afforded by data protection legislation, we undertake to bring forward an amendment at Third Reading that would go further in respect of reports prepared by the commissioner to preserve the anonymity of individuals who make complaints. This will prevent a complainant’s details coming into the hands of the Secretary of State or the general public without the consent of the complainant, but it will not interfere with the commissioner’s ability to use the information in connection with an investigation. In other words, the Government have conceded that anonymity is an issue and commit to bringing forward an amendment at Third Reading that will put that in the Bill, to ensure that anonymity is protected in legislation.
I say again, because it is so important, that trust and confidence are everything. Who will come forward—whatever the legislation says—without trust and confidence in that system? At the heart of that is anonymity. That is the legislative proposal that we are seeking to bring forward at Third Reading, should we be in a position procedurally to do so.
There is a further issue that is not legislative— I think the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, raised it. The Government commit to update our current “raising a concern” policy, which includes replicating the protections available to civilians under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998. This update will outline the role of the commissioner and ensure that similar protections for people under this policy are applied to disclosures made to the commissioner. This will include provisions relating to anonymity and confidentiality, ensuring that anyone who raises a genuine concern in line with the policy will be protected from unfair or negative treatment due to raising the concern.
Baroness Kramer (LD)
I ask the Minister for clarification. All those things will be in a policy document, as I understand it. Can he explain to me the legal standing of a policy document? That would be so helpful.
Military Bases: Accommodation
Baroness Kramer Excerpts(1 year ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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(3 years, 2 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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(7 years, 3 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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(9 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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(14 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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.