Brexit: Other Policy Areas

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Lord Young of Cookham

Tuesday 2nd July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, the Secretary of State has acknowledged that the Government do not have what they call the “bandwidth” to deal with social care alongside Brexit. The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services has described social care in England as adrift on a “sea of inertia”. Is it not time that the Government did something to put an end to this inertia? I am afraid that the Minister’s response on social care was a bit dismissive in this context.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I genuinely regret it if I sounded dismissive. I have sat through many exchanges on social care and the undertakings given to produce it by a given date. I understand the disappointment of noble Lords that that date has not been arrived at. There was an exchange with my noble friend relatively recently. I understand the urgency. We will produce the social care Green Paper as soon as we possibly can.

Legislation: Gendered Pronouns

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Lord Young of Cookham

Monday 25th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

So far as drafting legislation is concerned, I hope I can assure noble Lords that parliamentary draftsmen will use the correct grammar whenever it is possible. The main purpose of drafting legislation is that it should be clear, but I agree that, wherever practicable, we should also use conventional language as long as we do not upset people’s sensitivities.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, my former students would tell you that I care greatly about grammar, but will the Minister explain why using “they” would be a step too far?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The suggestion from my noble friend was that it should be used in all cases. I have conceded that we should use it in some cases, and I cited an example from the Terrorism Act, where we do indeed use the word they in the singular:

“It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section to prove that they had a reasonable excuse for their action”.


But to insist that it should be used in every case would be to deprive parliamentary draftsmen—parliamentary drafters—of the flexibility they need.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Lord Young of Cookham

Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 13th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I am pleased to support the amendment and to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, who, as she noted in Committee, joined the Joint Committee on Human Rights just as I left it. In Committee, I reminded noble Lords of the concerns raised across the House during the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill about the application of the Prevent duty to higher education institutions. As we have heard, the present amendment does no more than call for an independent, authoritative review of how the duty now operates in those HE institutions. This would respond to concerns raised more recently by a range of organisations, including, as my noble friend Lord Dubs said, the Home Affairs Select Committee. These concerns include: possibly discriminatory impact; the question of the adequacy or otherwise of the training given to academics; and the human rights implications, echoing earlier concerns of the JCHR.

In Committee, the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, said that,

“we welcome discussion about how to implement Prevent effectively and proportionately, but … we consider blanket opposition to the duty unhelpful”.—[Official Report, 25/1/17; col.762.]

As we have heard, the amendment no longer proposes blanket opposition. Surely, in order to have a well-informed discussion, as called for by the noble Baroness, it makes sense to have an independent review of how the policy is operating, as called for in the amendment, to inform that very discussion. I can understand why the Minister opposed the original amendment, even though I disagreed with her, but I can see no justification for opposing this much more modest, and I hope helpful, amendment as a basis for the discussion that she said the Government would like to see.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken to this amendment and for the measured way in which they have put forward the case. I hope we will all agree we cannot ignore the increasing threat to the UK from terrorism. This is currently assessed as severe, meaning an attack is highly likely. We cannot simply wait for attacks to happen. We cannot stand by and do nothing while vulnerable individuals are targeted for radicalisation and drawn into terrorism, so we must have a strong and robust strategy to prevent this.

Prevent was discussed in Committee, and I am particularly grateful for the input at that stage from the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, who recognised the importance of Prevent in higher education. The Prevent programme is designed to safeguard vulnerable individuals from all forms of radicalisation in a variety of institutions. It is an important safeguard for our domestic students but also for the thousands of international students who choose to study here each year. Setting off to university can be a big transition in the lives of many people, and it is vital that universities safeguard their students during what can sometimes be a very challenging time for vulnerable individuals. The coalition Government introduced a clear legal duty to ensure universities recognise and act on this responsibility.

Preventing people being drawn into terrorism is difficult and challenging work, but Prevent is working and making a positive difference. In 2015, more than 1,000 referrals of vulnerable individuals were made to Channel, which enabled them to access support to try to divert them away from radicalisation. The vast majority of the individuals who choose to participate in Channel leave with no further concerns about their vulnerability to being drawn into terrorism—so as I say, Prevent is working.

Of course, this amendment is aimed at reviewing the operation of Prevent in the higher education sector, but this is already happening. Following consultation with the sector, HEFCE, which I believe to be independent of government, launched its monitoring framework last year and has had 100% engagement. In its report published in January, HEFCE found that the vast majority of institutions are implementing the Prevent duty effectively.

HEFCE has seen higher education providers increasingly improve their awareness of the risks to vulnerable students, and there have been some highly encouraging examples across the sector of how they mitigate these risks in a sensible way. The HEFCE report highlights numerous cases of good practice in the sector, and the steps being taken by institutions, from our oldest institutions through to newer providers. To give just one example, HEFCE found that the University of the West of England hosted a joint consultation with its students’ union on the implementation of the Prevent duty. This included open debate between students and Prevent partners with an opportunity for all students to view and comment on draft policies and procedures. This demonstrated a real understanding of the importance of engaging and collaborating with the student body to effectively implement the duty.

Finally, I know that noble Lords are concerned about the interplay between Prevent and freedom of speech, something the higher education sector rightly holds dear, and which we touched on in an earlier debate. Prevent does not stop lawful debate. In higher education, providers that are subject to the freedom of speech duty are required to have particular regard to this duty when carrying out their Prevent duty. This was explicitly written into the Prevent legislation to underline its importance as a central value of both our higher education system and indeed of our society. HEFCE’s monitoring shows that higher education providers are balancing the need to protect their students and their obligations under Prevent while ensuring that freedom of speech on campus is not undermined.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and those who have taken part in this short debate that the Government are grateful for the opportunity to discuss this vital duty that stops vulnerable individuals being drawn into terrorism. Prevent is being implemented effectively and pragmatically in the higher education sector and we want to maintain this momentum. We know it is both effective and pragmatic from the monitoring that HEFCE does. Against that background, I hope the noble Lord might feel able to withdraw Amendment 154.

Pensions: Tax Relief

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Lord Young of Cookham

Tuesday 6th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The ISA is indeed an acceptable vehicle for savings. It does not have the advantage of the pensions regime, whereby your own contribution is topped up by that of your employer; to that extent, pensions may be a better vehicle for some people than the ISA. Also with pensions, as my noble friend has just said, you get the tax relief up-front, which you do not get with the ISA. The important thing is that there should be a variety of savings vehicles with different advantages and different flexibilities, and people should make an informed decision about which is the right one for them.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, surely the overwhelming case for a flat-rate approach is a distributional one. Pension tax relief disproportionately benefits the better-off in our society. At a time when the Government are cutting financial support for poorer people and saying, “We have no other choice because we have to save money”, surely they should be looking at this again.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The Government have consistently reduced the cost of tax relief on pensions by introducing the lifetime allowance, which has now been reduced to £1 million, and the annual allowance, which has been reduced to £40,000. This year we made further savings of up to £4 billion over the lifetime of this Parliament by saying that for those who earn over £150,000 the £40,000 relief is tapered. So we have made substantial savings in the cost of pensions tax relief.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Lord Young of Cookham

Monday 29th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps I may respond briefly to the points that we have heard in the last three speeches, which I listened to with great interest and respect. The points fall into two categories: one is on the substantive issues about the benefit changes; the other is the argument about the procedural changes mentioned in the amendment.

On the substantive changes about whether ESA claimants in the WRAG should have their benefits realigned with those on JSA, with comparable changes to those on universal credit, the reality is that these changes have been debated extensively by both Houses. They were debated most recently last Tuesday in the other place, where after a three-hour debate the House of Commons insisted with a majority of 27—above the Government’s national majority—that the changes which we made should be resisted. The time has come to recognise, as I think the noble Baroness has just indicated, that we should respect the view of the Commons on this.

The noble Lord, Lord Low, said that the Government lost the argument but won the vote. Whether one has won the argument is a subjective decision and I happen to take a different view. Whether one won the vote is not a subjective decision, and that is the basis on which we should proceed. I hope that those who have expressed anxieties have been reassured by what my noble friend Lord Freud said in introducing this debate. There is the increase of £15 million for the flexible support fund, aimed at those with limited capabilities for work and enabling them to attend job interviews and training courses. I hope that that reassurance and the extra resources will allay some of the concerns that have been expressed.

Amendments 8B and 9B seem, briefly, to be going in exactly the opposite direction to that in which the House wanted to go in the context of the debate on my noble friend Lord Strathclyde’s report where, by and large, we wanted more done in primary legislation and less in statutory instruments. In that debate, I urged the Government to set the tone for constructive discussion by not using SIs where primary legislation is more appropriate. These amendments go in precisely the opposite direction to what I think the majority of the House wanted by putting the substantive change not in the primary legislation but in the statutory instrument. That would deny the opportunity for a conversation, which the House has always preferred, because the SI would not allow that. In effect, the amendment would give the House of Lords a veto over this part of the legislation, which the House of Commons has approved, and we would be back in the same territory as we were last October. I, for one, do not want to be back in that debate again and I hope, for those reasons, that the amendment will be resisted.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I strongly support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston. He has made a strong case today, as he and other colleagues have made consistently, yet the Government continue simply to repeat that the original clauses will improve work incentives and somehow provide more support for disabled people moving into work, without any convincing evidence. Indeed, in the Commons the Minister fell back on the assertion that the Government strongly believe that this is the right thing to do. However, she did not even convince all her own Back-Benchers. As the noble Lord, Lord Low, said, a number of them had grave reservations about steaming ahead without the kind of evidence that is being sought, never mind the reservations and concerns of the wider constituency of disabled people and disability organisations.

However, the main point I want to make is the one that I and the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson and Lady Thomas of Winchester, made on Report, which was brought to our attention by Sue Royston. Because the limited capacity for work element acts, in effect, as a gateway to the extra £30 in universal credit to cover the additional cost for disabled people in work, abolition means significant future losses for the very group the Government say they want to support. When the three of us made the point on Report, the Minister did not provide any substantive response. I did not receive the letter until just now, so it is possible that I have not read it properly. I have a horrible feeling that it might be languishing in my junk email folder, because a number of previous letters from the Minister finally turned up in that folder—I do not know what my email knows.