Environment Bill

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Lord Duncan of Springbank

Committee stage
Wednesday 30th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

I have received no requests to speak after the Minister, so I move to the mover, the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to all those who have spoken in the debate, so movingly in the case of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. I welcome the opportunity to have pressed my noble friend in this regard.

I will revert back to practitioners at the Bar Council to ask whether they are completely satisfied with this. From their briefing, my understanding is that there are already similar exclusions in the Aarhus convention. I congratulate my noble friend on his pronunciation. I am extremely impressed and I think we will be speaking Danish together before we even know it. There are similar exclusions to our own freedom of information as exist under the Aarhus convention.

The subsection (2)(a) to which my noble friend referred is a blanket exclusion about which I have some fear. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, highlighted that we need to be very clear about what is being excluded. If it is information that could make a life or death change to someone like the parent of Ella, it is very important that we are cognisant of that and try to work within the law as much as possible.

I support both my noble friend Lord Caithness and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch. I am grateful for her support for the sentiments behind this amendment. When my noble friend Lady Bloomfield and I joined, which was the same year, it was around the time that the procedures here changed. I welcome the fact that in Committee we can have much more probing and lengthier debates, but there was possibly some merit, on a case-by-case basis, to disposing of some of those amendments that could possibly be accepted by the Government or easily disposed of either way, rather than storing up problems when the Government have given us such a tight deadline, as they have. If we can work together and find a middle way on this, that would be very helpful indeed.

With those remarks and the fact that I will go back and take further advice from the Bar Council, I am delighted to have had the debate but beg leave to withdraw the amendment at this stage.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Lord Duncan of Springbank

Consideration of Commons amendments & Ping Pong (Hansard) & Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 21st October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am tempted to support this amendment, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Oates, as we both approach the anniversary of our entry into this House, five years ago. I urge my noble friend the Minister to keep an open mind on this amendment and to agree to it.

As I reminded my noble friend, in 2014-15, the Government—at that time, it was the Defra department —tried to introduce a digital-only farm payments scheme. It was scrapped because it simply could not be delivered and the department reverted to paper-only applications. I remind the House that many of the applicants will live in rural areas—they will not all live in inner-city areas and major towns—where broadband is woeful. Many existing not-spots do not have the capability to carry this scheme. The Government acknowledged this recently and are backing down from their commitment to universal coverage by 2025, so they recognise the limitations of their digital by default-only policy.

I remind the House that on 16 October, the National Audit Office reported that broadband users in rural areas are being left behind in major network upgrades. The Home Office should recognise that there is not universal coverage of the broadband and internet technology that will be required to deliver the digital service by default. While I have the greatest regard for both my noble friends Lady Neville-Rolfe and the Minister, we have to accept that some 5% of people are living in the hardest-to-reach areas. In my view, this digital-by-default policy is being driven by an unelected adviser whose respect for the rules and the law is less than exemplary, and I think that he should join the real world with regard to some of the policies being brought forward.

The other difficulty I have with this policy is a very real one. I remind the House that my mother became a naturalised Brit, having come over to Britain from Denmark via Germany in 1948. What grieves me most about the policy that we will end up with without the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Oates, is that most of the applicants do not have English as their first language; it is not their mother tongue. In the words of my noble friend Lord Cormack, why are we seeking to discriminate against people in this way? I therefore urge my noble friend to show the big heart and affection that she has for these people and make sure either that we adopt the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Oates, in lieu of his earlier amendment for the reasons he has given, or that the Government should come forward with an amendment of their own. Digital by default in these circumstances is not going to work.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

I know that almost everyone in the Chamber has spoken to the Motion, but I have to ask whether anyone else wishes to contribute at this point. Silence being the case, I shall move on to the next speaker, the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher.

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (No. 3) Regulations 2020

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Lord Duncan of Springbank

Thursday 3rd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I have a brief question to put to my noble friend the Minister regarding the consultation on local lockdowns: how, in future, can we strive to avoid the tension that appears to have arisen in local cases, particularly in the north-west? I urge the Government, in the next campaign that I gather will be announced about face-based test and trace, to look to ensure, if possible, that young people are targeted in any campaign that we have.

In terms of the potential flu epidemic that might coincide with a national spike in Covid, can my noble friend assure the House today that his department has had contact with doctors and pharmacists to ensure that not just the over-65s will have sufficient access to vaccines and that, with the new demand, over-50s will also be able to be vaccinated and that there will be sufficient availability for both categories? My understanding is that flu vaccines are ordered months, if not a year, in advance and there may not be sufficient to cover both categories.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

The noble Baroness has quite a fetching scarf. The next speaker is the noble Lord, Lord Bhatia.

Fracking

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Pickering and Lord Duncan of Springbank

Thursday 9th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

The answer to that question is yes. Many years ago when I was a geologist I found myself digging out fossil insects in central Colorado. That was designated a strategic naval reserve, because it was oil shale and in a crisis it could be removed for the US Navy. It is vital.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend and the Government on introducing this moratorium. It is great news for North Yorkshire, particularly where fracking was going to be considered in a national park, which I believe is totally inappropriate. Will the Government look at energy from waste and the work going on at the Allerton Park facility? This is generating huge amounts of electricity from household and other waste, but it is going into the national grid. To make energy from waste more palatable for local communities, will the Government allow the electricity that is being generated to go to houses that lie closest to Allerton Park itself?

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

To answer to the first part of my noble friend’s question, waste will become an important generator of electricity and we need to recognise its value. We need to consider how district heating may be based upon such approaches, which may indeed benefit those in the proximate area—the local community—and we will give further consideration to that.