State Pension Underpayments and Arrears for Women

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Monday 21st February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

The department is considering the content of the report, including the recommendations. As is the case for reports such as this, the Government will provide their response to the House in due course through the publication of a formal Treasury minute. Until then, it is not appropriate for me to comment any further on the report, but I am prepared to make a commitment that, when such a decision is made and the response is ready, I will make sure that all noble Lords are appraised of it.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, one of the points made in this very critical report last month by the Public Accounts Committee was that the DWP lacked any plan to contact the next of kin of deceased pensioners who were shamefully short-changed. Can the Minister tell me what is happening on that score? On the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, will the Government ensure that any sum ever paid—we live in hope—is not taken into account for, for instance, inheritance tax purposes?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

My understanding of the situation is that, where people have died, a payment will be made to their estate to make up for the underpayment. I cannot tell the noble Baroness when that will happen, but the department will be communicating with and contacting the various people. I have already given an answer in relation to the underpayment and the impact on other benefits and costs.

Ministers: Overseas Travel

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

I repeat, just in case noble Lords opposite did not hear, that I agree with my noble friend, who, thanks to her own experience in the European Parliament, has great insight into the value and importance of diplomacy at the highest level. This is a serious business. There are many noble Lords across your Lordships’ House who fully understand and comprehend the importance of ministerial travel, particularly, when it comes to senior members of the Government such as the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, the importance of both security and confidentiality in the meetings they conduct.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

When so many people are having to resort to food banks and are terrified about the rise in the cost of living, did the Foreign Secretary not display a rather Marie Antoinette “let them eat cake” attitude?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I know and work with the Foreign Secretary and frankly, that is not a suitable remark to make about the most senior diplomat in our country. She makes very considered decisions. We are going to have a Statement on Ukraine shortly: let us just reflect on that. There are many issues of international diplomatic importance—[Interruption.] The noble Baroness has asked me a question; she should do me the courtesy, at least, of listening to the response, even if she does not agree with it.

Belarus: Roman Protasevich

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Tuesday 25th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]]

My Lords, clearly, I cannot speculate publicly on future sanctions. We want to see a reformed Belarus that has a good relationship with Russia and other European partners. We recognise the likely role that Russia has played up to now in relation to Belarus and we have consistently impressed on Russia that violence, harassment and arbitrary detention has to stop. There must be a transparent and peaceful process to allow Belarusians to determine their own future.

[Baroness Ludford (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I was delighted to hear the Minister’s response about working with the EU as well as other allies. There has been some rather silly press coverage along the lines of: “The UK got there first.” The Minister, yesterday morning, namechecked NATO but could not bring herself to mention the EU. This seems an excellent opportunity for a reset to make co-operation with Brussels on foreign and security policy the norm. Will this opportunity be taken?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]]

My Lords, on areas of mutual interest, there is no question that the UK should and will continue to work with all its allies, including, of course, the European Union. As I mentioned earlier, we transferred into UK law 95 designations from the EU. So, we start from the same place.

Clergy: EU Visas and Residence Permits

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Tuesday 13th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

I agree with my noble friend Lord Cormack, and indeed with my noble friend Lord Hague. That is why we work very constructively, including on citizens’ rights, with the European Union. The Specialised Committee on Citizens’ Rights oversees the implementation and application of citizens’ rights; this is part of, and central to, the withdrawal agreement.

[Baroness Ludford (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the loss of free movement has harmed the lives and livelihoods of so many. Given that families and the ability to work have been severely impacted by the pandemic, are the Government considering alleviating one aspect of the childcare crisis—namely, the loss of au pairs—by providing a usable, dedicated visa route, so that this cultural exchange programme, which also assists families, can continue?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness will be aware that, as part of the trade and co-operation agreement, we have agreed various protocols. There is not a specific resolution for each and every profession but, as I said in response to an earlier question, we are looking at this very constructively with our European Union friends to ensure that we can unlock any issues or particular challenges for workers, as the noble Baroness has suggested.

EU Ambassador to the UK: Diplomatic Status

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Ludford]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to grant full diplomatic status under the Vienna Convention to the European Union’s ambassador to the United Kingdom.

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)]

My Lords, we continue to engage with the European Union on the long-term arrangements for the EU delegation to the UK. I do not wish to pre-empt the outcome of those discussions. I assure noble Lords that we are committed to ensuring that the EU delegation, the head of delegation and staff have the privileges and immunities they need to function effectively. We want a relationship with the EU based on friendly co-operation. The EU delegation has an important role to play in this.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, this is about whether the Government are treating the new EU partnership with the seriousness it deserves, or whether they are squandering good will—indeed, being “petty”, in the words of the Conservative chair of the Defence Select Committee—at the expense of the UK’s real interests. Not only will the UK be negotiating for years to come to fill the gaps in the TCA, but any easing of the burden of Brexit red tape will require EU co-operation. Can the Minister therefore assure me that the Government are not acting in a misguided belief that they are acquiring leverage, since this will not work, and that they will grant ambassador status?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, on the noble Baroness’s last point, as I indicated in my Answer, we are in discussions with the EU. I share her view: as my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has said, we want to be the best ally and the best partner to the European Union. I assure her that those discussions are being engaged in equally forcefully on our side to ensure that the outcome is optimum for both sides.

Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I suppose that I should declare an interest as having had a 20-year career in the City of London. I assure noble Lords that the City of London plays an important part in Britain globally, but the noble Lord is right to raise concerns about money being laundered through bank accounts. As my right honourable friend said, I assure him that part of the real sanctions that will be imposed are the asset freezes on those who commit these human rights abuses.

[Baroness Ludford (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I join those highlighting the close link between those who abuse human rights and those who are corrupt, so I was interested when the Foreign Secretary mentioned that the Government were considering how a corruption regime could be added to the armoury of legal weapons that we have. But one key tool, long promised, is to remove the ability to own property and businesses in this country through firms registered in secretive tax havens. Do the Government still intend to require public registers of beneficial ownership in British Overseas Territories only in 2023, as Vince Cable was told last year? Why is there such a lax timetable and will a draft order still be ready this December, as required under the 2018 sanctions Act?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, the noble Baroness raises the issue of beneficial and public registers in our overseas territories. As I have said previously, we have made commitments to ensure that our overseas territories comply. The reason for the 2023 date was to allow sufficient time for such public registers to be initiated, because it adds a requirement on every single overseas territory, some of which do not have the technical ability to do so. However, I pay tribute to some of our OTs, which have already co-operated fully with tax authorities and legal authorities through the effective operation of the exchange of notes.

Hong Kong National Security Legislation

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, there were several proposals there. Specifically on Taiwan, our position has not changed. We believe that the autonomy Taiwan enjoys needs to be protected, but equally it is for those on both sides of the Taiwan Strait to reach an agreement. On the noble Lord’s wider issues, we recognise, as I said at the start, that China has an important role to play on the world stage. Now is the time for China to show that it wishes to do so, but we will always make the case on human rights internally in China as well as standing up for those in Hong Kong.

[Baroness Ludford (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I too want to ask about Taiwan. It is anticipated that many Hong Kong residents, including those with BNO status, might wish to go to Taiwan. What further support and indeed recognition are the Government contemplating offering to the state and Government of Taiwan, whether to support them specifically in accommodating Hong Kong residents or more generally?

British Citizens: Working Abroad

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I assure the noble Earl that of course we are working in a very pragmatic fashion with our EU partners. The political declaration, as I have already said, includes a commitment to conclude ambitious arrangements for services and investment that go beyond WTO commitments, build on recent EU free trade agreements and provide new arrangements on key service sectors, including financial services. The noble Earl will also be pleased to know that we have agreed to negotiate visa-free travel for short-term visits and arrangements for the temporary entry and stay of citizens for business purposes in key areas. This will also allow businesses to move their employees and to provide services. We are also considering conditions for entry and stay for purposes including research, study, training and youth exchanges.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister talked about British citizens continuing to live their lives “broadly” as they do now, a word which could carry quite a lot of weight. Can he tell us whether the Government are addressing the issue of British residents who reside in one EU country but have been working across borders in several countries? Of course, free movement rights give them that flexibility. One thinks of translators, interpreters, the musicians that the noble Earl mentioned and those in many other professions. Are the Government addressing the challenge they face in continuing to practise their profession without having to get work permits for every country in which they might be called upon to work at short notice?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, the noble Baroness will know that we have agreed to protect the rights of EU citizens in the UK and we are working with our EU partners to assure UK nationals’ rights in the EU under the withdrawal agreement. Details along the lines of what the noble Baroness suggested are of course very much in the mix in the discussions we are having with the European Union. Issues of residence, the rights of workers and the issues she raised in the music industry, where people are often self-employed, are very much part of the discussions we will continue to have and will be among the details that emerge from the political declaration, as has already been stated.

Anti-Semitism

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Thursday 20th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate strongly the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, not only on securing this debate but on an excellent speech. Like her, I am not Jewish, but I am very sensitive to anti-Semitism not only as the oldest hate, but also as a bellwether for other types of hate. I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel and a supporter of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Jews.

The fact that this debate is more necessary than ever in my lifetime shows how anti-Semitism is becoming pervasive, as was brought out in the report last year by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, which was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge. The report found that negative stereotypes are being reproduced and ingrained and that this pervasive anti-Semitism is undermining Jews’ feelings of safety and security throughout Europe, such that they and their family and friends cannot live lives free of worry. I am deeply ashamed that this is happening to my fellow citizens. I do not want to live in a society in which they are afraid and subject to prejudice, discrimination and hate.

The same survey found that anti-Semitism is not only pervasive but has also become normalised. The report states,

“people face so much antisemitic abuse that some of the incidents they experience appear trivial to them”.

That is totally shocking. One clue to this sense of normalisation is that the range of perpetrators is wide, spanning the entire social and political spectrum. Like the noble Baroness, I was truly outraged not only that the Malaysian Prime Minister made the remarks he made at the meeting in Cambridge, but that they were apparently followed by a round of laughter. I find that incredible.

I talked earlier of stereotypes. A poll by the news organisation CNN last September showed that three in 10 adults said that Jewish people have too much influence in finance and business; one in five said they have too much influence on the media; and three in 10 said that Jewish people use the Holocaust to advance their own position.

Some of your Lordships, like me, will have heard Allan Little’s recent series for BBC Radio 4 called “A History of Hate”, covering events in Rwanda, Bosnia, apartheid South Africa and other places. His first programme was about pogroms in Russia a century ago. Anti-Semitism originated as traditional religious prejudice, but it transformed into what a historian called “modern anti-Semitism”: visions of Jews conspiring to take over all the main institutions of the state, encapsulated in the fake news Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Interestingly, Professor Deborah Lipstadt saw the origins of that Jewish lobby stereotype in ancient times, in perceptions of a small group of Jewish money changers persuading the mighty Roman Empire to kill Christ because he threatened their lucrative business in the temple. These prejudices are very ancient.

This is, of course, a debate on anti-Semitism, but people who hate on the basis of faith often hate on the basis of other features—other faiths, race and gender. I know that we are all conscious of that fact. I do not have time to talk about Islamophobia, but I think it noteworthy that the candidates for the Conservative leadership have pledged to look at Islamophobia in their own party. As the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, said, we need a step change in education. That is the top priority.

Palestinian Territories

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Thursday 7th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Steel for initiating this debate. As a staunch friend of Israel, and vice president of Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel, I am adamant that Israel’s long-term security depends on achieving a just settlement with the Palestinians. Israel cannot be a healthy democracy when it lives alongside poverty, misery and despair and occupies the territory of a resentful people. A colonial occupation morally demeans Israel as well as harming Palestinians, so Israel needs a Palestinian state—but preferably as a result of a political negotiation.

While I have no problem in principle with unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state, I never get an answer when I ask how that helps to catalyse the final-status talks. No answer has come so far today, either. I found the creative ideas of the noble Lord, Lord Polak, very interesting and I will perhaps find out more about them from him afterwards. I am very clear about my own strong criticisms of the Israeli Government, whose political feelings are rather far from my own. These have been enumerated: the “Greater Israel” concept, which is total anathema to me; illegal settlements; disproportionate lethal force without independent investigations; the encouragement of the US embassy move to Jerusalem; withholding revenue from the Palestinian Authority; administrative detention, including of children—all these I deplore.

However, Israel has a right—as does Palestine—to live in security, and to have its existence recognised, including by its neighbours, as a homeland for the Jewish people and those of predominantly Jewish identity; these are terms I much prefer to “Jewish state”. I agree completely with my noble friend Lord Palmer and with much of what has been said by other noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Anderson and Lord Turnberg, about the responsibilities and failings of the Palestinian leadership as well as those of Israel—not least, the glorification of violence and antisemitism. Many years ago, I went to a Palestinian refugee camp on the West Bank—to a hospital; the walls were covered with pictures of AK47s, which I found completely wrong.

In the context of Palestinian responsibility, it is very unhelpful that the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories is mandated to look at violations committed only by Israel, not by the PA, Fatah, or Hamas, some of which have been well documented by bodies like Human Rights Watch. The UN special co-ordinator for the Middle East peace process is, in my opinion, more balanced. He documents that, between 28 and 30 May, over 200 projectiles, rockets and mortar shells were fired from Gaza towards Israel. Most were intercepted but 77 were hits and, as other noble Lords have mentioned, one was on a kindergarten yard. Mr Mladenov called such acts “completely unacceptable”. He also pointed out that rockets fired from Gaza had damaged electricity installations on the Israeli side, resulting in a reduction of over 30% in the only electricity supply to Gaza, which is somewhat of an own goal.

This is not the fault of Israel; neither was the destruction of the infrastructure that the Israelis left behind in Gaza when they pulled out. The special rapporteur is obliged, alongside condemnation of Israel, to point out that punitive measures imposed on the authorities in Gaza by the Palestinian Authority continue to impact negatively on the human rights and humanitarian situation of Gaza’s residents—so there is more balance here. Therefore, although I very much agree with the weight of responsibility on Israel, I believe this is also shared by the Palestinian Authority, Fatah and Hamas.