Liaison Committee
Debate between Baroness Neville-Jones and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I am sure the Chairman of Committees would not wish to conclude without answering my questions on the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy.
Baroness Neville-Jones
My Lords, before the noble Lord answers the question on the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, of which I am member, I have to say that this House would benefit more from an effective foreign affairs committee than it does from what I regard as an ineffective Joint Committee on Security. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, that unless that committee can be made effective—it does require the ability to set up sub-committees in order to do its work, but I shall not labour that point at the moment—we would be better off concentrating our efforts on a committee that is supported and will work, rather than taking part in a Joint Committee which, at the moment, does not have a particularly good future.
Public Bodies Bill [HL]
Debate between Baroness Neville-Jones and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock(13 years, 8 months ago)
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Baroness Neville-Jones
I accept that this industry—I do not know what other term I can use: perhaps “this occupation”—has a wide spectrum of activities and individuals in it. I will come to that in a moment. I want to encourage your Lordships to have more confidence that those in this industry can be relied on and are willing to take further responsibility and be more accountable for their own actions in future. I understand that there is some concern that if the SIA is abolished there will be no effective regulation of the private security industry. I want to offer reassurance on that point. We are not going to do anything immediate. We have been convinced by those who have argued that that would be unwise and that it would not be sensible to do that. The regulation of the private security industry will continue in its present form. The SIA will not be abolished until the new regulatory regime has been fully established and is properly functioning.
Since the outcome of the public bodies review was announced by the Cabinet Office on 14 October, Home Office Ministers and officials have been in close contact with the SIA to discuss how to take this forward. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Equalities and Criminal Information, who is the lead Home Office Minister for the SIA, has met the SIA representatives. The Home Secretary herself has been in correspondence with the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, about the future.
Ministers have asked the SIA to work with the private security industry and key stakeholders to put together a detailed plan to achieve a phased transition to a new regulatory regime. We do not intend to do this in anything but careful detail. To inform the plan, the SIA started targeted consultations with stakeholders, including industry and law enforcement partners. The police were mentioned, and they are involved in the consultation process. A detail of the phased introduction of the new regulatory regime that will replace regulation by the SIA will be the product. The SIA started this work by hosting an initial meeting with a number of industry stakeholders on 28 October. I understand that this work is progressing well.
In the Second Reading debate on this Bill on 9 November, the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, stated that the SIA had already agreed with the industry,
“a blueprint for the next few years to move to greater industry involvement in the regulatory regime”.—[Official Report, 9/11/10; col. 133]
She also quoted from a letter that she had had from the Home Secretary in which she very kindly said that she was happy to accede to the Home Secretary’s wish to ensure that,
“any transition to a new regulatory regime is phased in smoothly and takes into account the needs of the industry as well as the priorities of the Government including the devolved Administrations”.
To confirm the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, the Home Secretary has agreed that there should be no significant change prior to the Olympic Games in 2012. That is in line with a number of measures in other areas in which we are staying any kind of change until after the Olympic Games.
My point in all this is that the SIA itself is involved in the work to move towards something that is described as self-regulation by the private security industry but which is a pretty tough form of self-regulation. I will come back to some of the details in a moment. The SIA plan was presented to Home Office Ministers earlier this month for consideration, and on 16 February there was another meeting with Lynne Featherstone to discuss the plan further. We have now considered and agreed that this will form the basis for moving forward on phased transition. I hope I am reassuring the Committee that this process is being done in careful consultation with the SIA and the industry on the basis of trying to ensure, therefore, that we come out with a regime that offers the same degree of assurance of high standards that has already been established.
As a result of the consultation, we are now in a position to give a few more details of the shape of the new regulatory regime, although the Committee will understand that as we are still in discussion—the whole point of the discussions is to get an agreed format between the parties—not all the details have been decided. So far, the agreed proposals will ensure that responsibility for the private security industry is transferred to a new body for self-regulation as soon as that is sensible after 2012—not before it is sensible and not before the Olympics in 2012. No significant change will happen before that.
Primary legislation will then be needed to set up the new regulatory body that will succeed the SIA. We will ensure that provision is included in a future Home Office Bill. Full transition to the new regime should, we hope, be completed by the end of 2013. Again, this is not a rushed process.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Would that be a new regulatory body for England or for the United Kingdom? If only for England, what will the situation be in other parts of United Kingdom?
Baroness Neville-Jones
I will come to the noble Lord’s point about the relationship with the devolved Administrations. I have it in mind.
The new regime will also see a significant shift of responsibility from individual workers to businesses. That is one of the changes in structure. We believe that that will be efficient and that it will also reduce regulatory costs and burdens. Instead of every single employee having to be registered separately at a cost of something like £250 each, it will be a business paying for the registration. In getting that registration, businesses will be required to show that they meet a comprehensive set of conditions set by the new body.
The industry itself has a strong interest in ensuring that the standards it sets are maintained and that they are high. Clearly, that has to be one of the really important parts of the new regime. Businesses that fail to meet these comprehensive conditions will have their rights to trade in private security removed. There is no reason to suppose that somehow a transition to another regime will by definition, and automatically, result in a lowering of standards. On the contrary, the industry will have a strong self-interest in ensuring that the cowboys are not allowed in and are not permitted to sully the reputation of an industry that is responsible for its regulation. There is a strong incentive actually to take this regime and make it work well.
It is obviously too early to give full details on costs, but we know that instead of more than 350,000 individuals paying £245 each for licences, much of which is currently paid for by the companies that employ them, the new regime will involve fewer than 5,000 companies having to register, giving considerable saving to the industry.
One of the other things that we are doing, however, is to ensure that the impact on smaller businesses is minimised by reflecting business size in the registration fees in the new regime, so that we do not get a situation in which small companies are paying a flat fee which is the same size as very large ones. They will be gradated. There will also be a sensibly phased transition to the new regime, the details of which are still to be worked out. We do not expect all businesses to move to the regime at the same time. Some of the big boys are clearly going to be ready to move at an early stage. Some of the smaller companies will not necessarily be so ready, and they will be given time to achieve the necessary transition. The big ones that have already met the high standards of the approved contractor scheme will be able and willing to move immediately, but we will maintain mechanisms to ensure that smaller companies, which may not be in the position immediately to transition to the new regime, can continue to trade.
Baroness Neville-Jones
I understand entirely the point that the noble Lord makes. I would say two things about that. Clearly, it is desirable if the regulatory regime that operates throughout the United Kingdom makes it easy for companies to operate across all three Administrations. It does not follow from that that these regimes have to be identical. Certainly, the Home Office takes the view that if, for regional and local needs, variation is needed, we would want to accommodate that. The object is to get an effective regulatory regime that does not put obstacles in the way of companies operating across the country but permits local variation, if it is necessary.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
I know that there are other topics that we need to discuss and I apologise for intervening, but it looks as if we are moving inevitably towards a separate regime, with a Scottish and a Northern Ireland Security Industry Authority operating as the Security Industry Authority in the UK does at present and a move to a completely different regulatory regime in England. Is that not absolutely daft? It will create huge problems for the security industry. Why are we doing it? Would it not be better to accept what the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, the Security Industry Authority, all the people in the security industry and the Scottish and Northern Irish Parliaments have said, and stick to the present arrangement? Why are the Government so determined to change, when no money is going to be saved and no advantage will be given? Also, I hope that at some point the Minister will answer the question asked by my noble friend Lord Kennedy. If it is so important to keep the authority going for the Olympics, does not that undermine the whole argument for changing at all?
Baroness Neville-Jones
To take the noble Lord’s last point, I do not think that it follows that, because one decides not to make a change before a big event, there is no case for change at all. It does not follow at all. It is a sensible thing not to institute change immediately before a big event. However, it does not follow that no change is possible or desirable.
On the noble Lord’s other point, I think that he is jumping to conclusions. It is not our impression that the attitude of the Scottish Government is as negative as he fears it may be. We are in consultation and I do not think that what I said indicated that we were suddenly leaping to entirely different regimes. We are going to have consultation; we believe that it will be possible to have a national regime. We may need, and it may be fitting, to have a certain amount of local variation. However, as I say, that is an area that is still being consulted about. We will work for a sensible outcome and we want one that fits the needs of all UK Administrations.
Some noble Lords raised the issue of wheel clamping. I should mention it briefly. As was rightly mentioned, the Government are taking measures to regulate this area, which include the abolition of the right to clamp and tow away on private land. This legislation will be put into effect through the Protection of Freedoms Bill. The ban will end the abuse by devious firms and their employees who prey on motorists with signage, excessive fees and unscrupulous towing. That regime is going to come to an end, which obviously means that the power does not need to be included in the new regulatory regime.
The noble Baroness asked whether we were also going to cover parking tickets. That is not an SIA issue. It is regulated by the Department for Transport and the DVLA, so it lies outside the scope of this piece of legislation.
The SIA had already proposed the move to a more self-regulatory model before the Government took this issue on. It is in the spirit of building on that that we want to proceed. If the amendment were accepted, it would create an administrative anomaly that would deliver, in our view, no benefits to the public, even after the SIA had successfully implemented its plans to transition to the new regulatory regime. We are endeavouring to work in close co-operation with the existing authority on a transition to a regime that we hope the authority itself will feel fulfils the job, so I hope that, on that basis, the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
Immigration: High Court Ruling
Debate between Baroness Neville-Jones and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Neville-Jones
The Government must clearly put themselves in the position of being in conformity with the law.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
What discussion have the Government had with the Government of Scotland in relation to this?
Baroness Neville-Jones
My Lords, I cannot answer that question immediately, but I believe that immigration is a federal matter.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
The Government of Scotland have expressed a view to the Government of the United Kingdom concerning this. It is a matter on which they have expressed a different view from that of the Government of the United Kingdom. Have the Government of the United Kingdom not had some discussions with them in relation to it?
Immigration: Detention of Children
Debate between Baroness Neville-Jones and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they have made regarding the ending of the detention of children of failed asylum seekers.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Neville-Jones)
My Lords, there has been progress in the pilot studies that the Government have been conducting. We remain determined to end the detention of children for immigration purposes and intend to make a Statement on the subject before the Christmas Recess. As the House will be aware, the number of children in detention for immigration purposes has fallen dramatically—and is now very low—and takes place only for very short periods. There are no children in detention at present.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Is the Minister aware that the Government kept their promise to end the detention of children in Dungavel in Scotland by shipping them hundreds of miles away to detention in Yarl’s Wood? The Observer reported on Sunday that the replacement for Yarl’s Wood is no better than Yarl’s Wood. How will the Government end what Nick Clegg described as a moral outrage or will this be another pledge he wishes he had not made?
Baroness Neville-Jones
My Lords, the Observer is inaccurate. It is not the case that the accommodation that will be provided will be “no better than Yarl’s Wood”. The picture painted of the current Yarl’s Wood was inaccurate. The Labour Benches opposite will know something about the changes that they made. The accommodation will not be like Yarl’s Wood and will not contain any means of detention.
Drugs: Classification
Debate between Baroness Neville-Jones and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock(14 years ago)
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Baroness Neville-Jones
As the noble Earl may know, the Government are introducing policies that will prevent the sale of alcohol below cost, and will toughen the penalties for those who engage and persist in selling alcohol to underage consumers.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
What discussions is the Minister having with her counterparts in Scotland on all these matters to ensure some degree of compatibility, if not consistency?
Baroness Neville-Jones
I am afraid that I am not informed about discussions with the Government in Scotland, but I shall inform myself and I shall write to the noble Lord.
Freedoms and Civil Liberties
Debate between Baroness Neville-Jones and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock(14 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Neville-Jones
My Lords, we are straying far from the Question. However, that is being worked on at the moment in conjunction with the strategic defence and security review. We will certainly produce both papers in the autumn.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Is the Minister aware that vulnerable and elderly people in towns and cities throughout the United Kingdom feel much safer where there is an effective system of closed circuit television? Will she give an assurance that the coalition Government will maintain all the existing systems and, indeed, expand them?
Baroness Neville-Jones
My Lords, it is clear that CCTV, if properly used, is valued by the general public as a way of increasing their sense of security and providing evidence—provided it is working—should an incident take place. Equally, it is strictly in the interests of proportionality, and to retain public confidence, that it is properly regulated. It is the regulation of CCTV on which we shall focus.