(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Northbrook on securing the Second Reading of the Bill and on the crispness of his opening remarks, which I will try to imitate. I know that he has a great and personal interest in this issue, as have some others, including the noble Lords, Lord Hacking and Lord Addington, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, although they have been very modest about it and there is no agreement on the Bill. I am also grateful to them and all fellow noble Lords for an engaging, crisp and thoughtful debate.
As noble Lords will know, the issue of peerage reform is a complex one, with complicated adjoining issues. The debates, Motions and various Private Members’ Bills on this issue advanced in both our Houses have proposed several scales of reform and different methods for achieving it. The Government are not unsympathetic to the principle that there should be more women in your Lordships’ House. However, this Bill, on the one hand, is not a Bill for equal primogeniture and, on the other, would affect many people and families outside this House who have no role in public life. The lack of address on the primogeniture issue was highlighted by my noble friend Lord Astor and others. Given the issues at play, the Government are far from convinced that now is the time, or that this is the way, to look at this matter. The Government have considered my noble friend’s proposal carefully, but they have reservations, and I am afraid that we will not support the Bill today.
It is important to be clear about the purpose of the Bill. As the Title suggests, it is about the succession to peerages, but it is above all about the preservation of certain peerages. Its main purpose is to ensure that titles do not die out and to revive titles which have already met this fate. As noble Lords are aware, the descent of hereditary titles depends on the provisions of the creation. Most hereditary peerages and baronetcies descend down the male line, under the principle of male primogeniture, which means that the peerage can only descend through that legitimate male line. Fewer than 90 peerages can descend through the female line.
Here are some interesting statistics: excluding royal peerages, there are 24 Dukes, 34 Marquesses, 191 Earls—with four Countesses in their own right—115 Viscounts and 426 Barons, including nine Baronesses. Approximately 660 of those appear on the Roll of the Peerage and 207 on the register of hereditary Peers. There are also 1,000 or so baronets. These arrangements have been in place for hundreds of years, and many families organise their lives on the expectation that they will continue. The Government are convinced that this Bill would require significant amendment. It is imperative to ensure that any legislation in this space is carefully considered and reflective of all those affected and the many views that exist on the reform of hereditary succession. This Bill is not the correct vehicle for that.
Let us turn briefly to the Bill. Clause 3 would lead to a significant increase in the number of claims to hereditary titles and in the number of hereditary title holders. The Government believe that in the region of around 200 peerages have the potential to fall within scope. As well as automatically reviving peerages that have become extinct on or after 6 February 1952, Clause 3 would, in certain circumstances, allow a petition to be made to the King requesting the revival of a peerage—as the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, mentioned—which we as a Government have concerns about.
We have particular concerns with the retrospectivity of the clause, which was well explained by my noble friend Lady Noakes. Before a peerage can be revived, its provenance and the right of the individual in question to inherit must be proven before the peerage can be entered on the Roll of the Peerage. The Bill would therefore have considerable resource implications for the Crown Office and the College of Arms, which would inevitably take some years to work through, especially in cases where the descent of a title was in any way unclear or contested. My noble friend Lord Lucas spoke against the proposed revival of extinct titles as a matter of principle.
The proposed reform would affect not only Members of the House but the interests of other individual families. These are changes that should not be undertaken lightly without proper consideration of their effects or of any potential unfairness. That is particularly the case when many of those impacted will have no association with this House but will be directly affected by this Bill.
Turning to Clause 4, it should be noted that there are a number of hereditary peerages and baronetcies which carry estates and properties, either by virtue of the terms of the instrument creating the peerage or as a result of a trust arrangement which has been put in place to ensure that the peerage and property descend together. Clause 4(2) would appear to separate land and property rights from the title. The noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, mentioned strangeness, and I think the clause would create a strange system whereby property would continue to be inherited by the oldest male heir even if the title went to a female heir, possibly splitting titles and estates. It would be impossible to say how many titles or names would be affected by this provision, given that trust arrangements are often confidential matters.
Finally, I draw noble Lords’ attention to Clause 4(1). This provision would establish that the Bill would not affect the succession to the Crown, or any peerages or baronetcies held by His Majesty the King. However, the Bill would potentially impact on the descent of titles held by other members of the Royal Family. Very careful consideration ought to be given to how any reform might affect these titles.
In conclusion, the Government continue to listen to the concerns of interested parties to understand the consequences of changes to hereditary titles. However, the reality is that, at this time, reform is not an immediate priority, particularly on an issue more relevant to private interests than to the general public, as my noble friend Lady Noakes argued persuasively.
By making a single, rather sweeping change to the descent of all hereditary peerages and baronetcies, the Bill would potentially affect not just Members of this House but a considerable number of families in different ways, according to their own individual circumstances. It would also require significant work and amendment to avoid major unintended consequences. Therefore, I am afraid that, while the Government are grateful for the debate and to the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, we do not support the Bill today. It is a halfway house that creates more problems than it solves.
May I remind the Minister of the comment made by the Cabinet Office Minister in the House of Commons at the end of a debate on a parallel Bill that was being introduced by a Member of Parliament, Mrs Baldwin? He said that he “appreciated the position” from which she was coming. Is the Minister denying that?
This is, of course, a different Bill; today we have been addressing another Bill and we have made it clear that it is not fit for purpose. I am sure we will debate other Bills in this House in the fullness of time, and I look forward to doing that.
(6 months, 3 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberTo ask His Majesty’s Government whether they expect to receive a report from the Cabinet Secretary on the arrangements for ensuring expenditure by the devolved authorities is spent in accordance with their competences and, if so, when.
The Government agree with the House of Lords Constitution Committee that the principle of a single Civil Service across England, Scotland and Wales should be maintained. The Government are in the process of considering what further guidance may be required for civil servants working in the devolved Administrations. I anticipate that this process will be completed in the coming months.
But my Lords, it is now more than six months since Simon Case gave that commitment to the Constitution Committee. We have had fine words from the Dispatch Box—we have them again today—yet the Scottish Government have actually intensified their spending on reserved areas, with a campaign for independence, overseas embassies and a whole range of other things, as if they are deliberately defying the UK Government. When will the Government at last take their courage in their hands and take some action on the ground to back up their fine words?
I know there are strong feelings about this, and people in Scotland want both their Governments to concentrate on the issues that matter most to them: growing the economy, gripping inflation and improving public services. On the point about timing, as I said, the Government only recently, on 24 January, responded to the committee’s inquiry, reiterating the work that is under way. I am delighted that the Cabinet Secretary is back; these issues are being given active consideration.
Does my noble friend the Minister agree that, as Scotland’s educational standards decline, its NHS faces acute challenges—not least the recruitment of consultants—and ferries languish in a Scottish government shipyard, overpriced, overdue and much needed by the operators, the response of the Scottish Government, not only to spend money on completely illegitimate and incompetent objectives, as the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, said, but to make Scotland the highest-taxed part of the United Kingdom, is, in the face of these challenges, as incomprehensible as it is regrettable?
I agree with much of my noble friend’s sentiment, and that the Civil Service should not carry out political work. It has its own Civil Service Code, which replicates the Civil Service Code that is operated across the UK, and it should pursue the priority items that people care about.
My Lords, now that devolution has been restored to Northern Ireland and there have been considerable discussions around funding issues—I acknowledge the funding that has already been promised by the Prime Minister—will the Minister indicate what further discussions are taking place about a new funding model for the Northern Ireland Executive to underpin the need for improved infrastructure to deal with health waiting lists and education priorities?
I think it is right for me to say that we welcome the return of the Executive and of devolved government in Northern Ireland. Indeed, I think the Prime Minister is attending Stormont today. A substantial budget has been made available as part of that settlement, and I look forward to hearing the outcomes of that, both from the new Executive and of course from our Northern Ireland Ministers.
Does the Minister agree that if Ministers in a devolved Administration wish to embark on a course of action or incur expenditure that may well be beyond devolved competence, one might reasonably expect civil servants to seek a written ministerial direction? What information does she have about the number of written ministerial directions sought from Scottish Ministers in the last five years, and what conclusions does she draw from either their frequency or their infrequency?
The noble and learned Lord makes an interesting and important point. I understand that any directions of that kind from a Minister would have to be published, and I am not aware of any such directions having been made in relation to the issues that the noble and learned Lord describes. The Government recognise the strength of the arguments and, as I said, are in the process of considering how guidance might support civil servants working in the devolved Administrations on areas that might relate to reserved matters.
My Lords, this request to put competence at the heart of decision-making is a dangerous, underhand way of trying to prevent policies being made on impetus and conjecture, which could really change government. For example, it would have prevented a recent decision by the Secretary of State in the Ministry of Justice to describe an investigation into discrimination in the Prison Service, in which none of the complainants was interviewed and no documentation was looked at, as a very thorough, competent investigation.
I am not sure what sort of competence the noble Lord is talking about. Devolved competence is, of course, clearly set out in various bits of legislation. I note what he says about the investigation, which I was not aware of.
My Lords, does the Minister understand that in Wales the problem is the reverse? The Government sought to indulge in a power grab, particularly following Brexit, of competences that were already devolved, and in addition threatened to spend on road projects, for example, that the Welsh Government had specifically rejected. This works both ways.
I do not entirely agree with the noble Lord, but he may be pleased to hear that I am going to Wales to give evidence on the new border arrangements this week.
My Lords, the area in which we seem to have come unstuck, particularly over what is devolved and what are reserved powers, is the changing scene of foreign policy. Does my noble friend agree that there might be a case for revisiting the devolution legislation, in a completely changed world, to understand, for instance, the role of the various Scottish offices in other capitals? Are they concerned with trade or are they involved in foreign policy? Do major visiting officials from other countries visit Scotland as a separate entity, with separate foreign policy considerations? This is a very muddled and confused area, and it is getting more so. Does she agree that we need to clear up some of these contradictions?
I agree with my noble friend. This is a live issue, because there was the example of a meeting between the Scottish First Minister and Turkish President Erdoğan with no FCDO official present. I regret that and think it contravenes the protocols, which are designed to ensure that a Minister within the UK lands is properly informed and is making the right points on such a sensitive area—and also reports back, so that we have a joined-up understanding of foreign affairs. Foreign affairs are a UK competence.
My Lords, I return to the problems that the Scottish Government wish to be independent, pretend they are independent and then complain when they find that things they are trying to do do not conform to the devolution settlement, and that they are using UK Government premises overseas to promote their campaign for independence. Does this not have to be brought to a halt, and the division between what is devolved, what is reserved and what is shared clearly set out and enforced?
I agree that we need to consider the presence of Scottish Government offices in UK Government posts, but there is a case for having individual officials knowledgeable about Scotland engaged on issues such as fishing, where there is an important Scottish interest. I have seen that working well, so there is a balance here—but I agree with the general direction of the noble Lord’s comment.
My Lords, further to the question asked by my noble friend Lady Ritchie, we very much welcome the restoration of devolved government in Northern Ireland. But in the letter to the Prime Minister ahead of their meeting today, Northern Ireland Ministers wrote that they want
“immediate and durable changes to our funding arrangements”.
How do the Government interpret that, and what is their response?
I am sure we will get feedback on these very important discussions, and I do not want to be drawn in to making a comment today, despite the persuasion and charm of the noble Baroness.
(6 months, 3 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberTo ask His Majesty’s Government whether they have plans to review the effect on public services of civil servants working from home.
My Lords, there are clear benefits from face-to-face, workplace-based collaborative working. That is why departments have issued new guidance that most civil servants should spend at least 60% of their working time in the office and our senior civil servants have been told that they need to set an example as leaders.
I am most grateful to my noble friend for that Answer but are we not a trading nation? If we are, should we not support our industry, commerce and individual entrepreneurs? How can they possibly do what we want them to do when they—let alone the poor ordinary person who is equally affected—cannot get the support they need from His Majesty’s departments of state, whether that amounts to telephone calls unanswered, emails not returned, or meetings rescheduled? Against that background, we now know from a report published by the National Audit Office that this is costing over £5 billion a year on procurement, and on theft and fraud, again, over £5 billion a year. Will my noble friend, as a senior Minister and with her teams, meet the Civil Service to ensure that we get good, firm leadership that is aspirational and involves civil servants at all stages, and recognise that working from home is not viable?
I agree with a lot of what my noble friend says. He and I both have a background in retail and leadership is very important. That is one reason why the new Minister for the Cabinet Office, John Glen—well known to many of your Lordships—set out in a speech how the Civil Service should lead in providing public services. That included spending a minimum 60% of working time in the office, with leaders encouraging that because of the benefits it brings to the workforce.
My Lords, I declare an interest as an academic who has worked from home for at least two days of the working week throughout my career. Email and mobile phones have made it a great deal easier to do so and still be efficient. The introduction of hot-desking in Whitehall and the squeeze on places for staff to work mean that it is difficult for everyone to have a desk if they come in every day. Is that a constraint on the Civil Service bringing people back in to work?
Clearly, the Civil Service is changing to have a very good approach, which is to modernise the property that civil servants are working in. We are doing more outside London, as the noble Lord will know. That is allowing a more modern approach in the office, with more hot-desking. Some of the offices are full some of the time, but it is important that we use our property properly in the interests of value for money, while modernising it so that it is a good workplace. One of the things young people say is that they want to come to a nice place to work; my department, the Cabinet Office, is certainly a very nice place to work.
The Minister has regularly referred to time in the office and work in offices. I am especially concerned about those people employed by the Government who do not work in offices. They work to clean buildings or provide refreshment services and the like. What proportion of staff have the option of deciding which days of the week they come in and which days they do not? Is there is a correlation—there must be a rough one, but maybe she can put me wrong—so that it is basically the lower-paid workers who do not have the option of working from home? Perhaps they should be compensated in some other way.
Each department is its own employer, as the noble Lord will know, so the arrangements vary. He is right that it is different not only for the people who clean the offices but for prison officers and immigration officers. There are different demands on their time. Noble Lords should look at, in addition to our policy on working from home, our policy on flexibility, which has been enhanced by recent legislation. The Civil Service has used flexible working as a tool in attracting, recruiting and retaining talent. That would include some of the operatives whom he is talking about. In a 24/7 economy, that flexible working can be very valuable but it does not necessarily mean working from home, which is the subject of today’s Question.
The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, mentioned economic diversity, but what assessment have the Government made of the impact of this new ruling on other types of diversity in the workforce? I think particularly of those with significant disabilities. Working from home has enabled them to imagine careers they might not otherwise have had. Has this been taken into account in this new ruling?
It has, and the noble Baroness is right to mention attracting disabled persons into the workforce, which I have always thought important. We make some limited use of home-working contracts for certain roles. We promote adjustments for people with disabilities. On the Procurement Act, which I recently took through this House, the lead official had a very substantial disability; he is blind. That can go side by side with ensuring that, much of the time, those who are office-based are in the office and working with other colleagues in the Civil Service.
My Lords, my noble friend mentioned younger civil servants. Does she agree that, whether it is in the Civil Service or the private sector, the way younger workers learn and prosper is by observing their senior colleagues and having the opportunity to share ideas and thinking? Is there not an onus on senior civil servants to make the case more powerfully for working in the office?
I completely agree with my noble friend and that is part of our approach. I noticed in the press recently that the president of Adecco, an international recruitment company, said that working from home can hit creativity and empathy and was part of the problem we have with soft skills. I am very keen that we should have balance, but people should come into the office and get the sort of mentorship my noble friend has mentioned.
My Lords, it is certainly true that the Government ought to think much harder about their approach to the Civil Service. The overuse of external consultants, for example, is expensive and gradually undermining in-house expertise. The Government awarded £2.8 billion of consulting contracts in 2022 alone. Does the Minister agree that the Government should work hard to retain expertise within the service? Will she commit the Government to cutting back on their habitual overreliance on consultants?
I do not see an overreliance on consultants. While I have been a Minister—only just over one year—we have moved to replace consultants with full-time civil servants in areas such as digital, because they represent better value for money. We probably have a certain amount of alignment on that. Clearly, we need to use outside consultants for some things, not least bringing in skills on things such as AI where we do not have the Civil Service skills we need. There has to be a balance; consultants can be valuable. Where I am with the noble Baroness is that there needs to be proper value for money and proper competition and we should not overdo it.
My Lords, I declare my interests. One thing that has never been properly explained is how people working from home with access to data on their laptops et cetera protect that data when it includes private information. I hear now that the police service is working from home, which I find bizarre. Of course the police are trying to support victims, but how can you be walking around a supermarket or at home with all this data, which other people can see? How do you stop that happening? This includes banks and may include the Civil Service. It is a very important issue, which I do not hear being discussed much.
I thank the noble Lord for raising this question. Of course, he helps the Cabinet Office a lot through his role as a non-executive director. On security, obviously we had a big move because of Covid, which was favourable in terms of people having more kit at home, allowing them to pick things up. That has been established in a secure way. There are protocols for how you must use office kit; you cannot forward or print things. We are trialling work on devices that allow you to have parliamentary or government access on the same device, to make sure that security is protected. A lot of effort and expense is going into trying to keep us secure, but we need to do more because security is a big challenge.
(6 months, 3 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberTo ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the increasing levels of homelessness among former armed forces personnel; and what steps they are taking to tackle homelessness among veterans.
The Government doubt that the statistics available prove that there is an increasing level of homelessness among veterans. However, any homelessness among veterans needs to be tackled, which is why we have established a number of policies to achieve this important objective. We are committed to ensuring that no veteran is rough sleeping due to a lack of provision.
My Lords, we surely all agree, across your Lordships’ House, that the very least we owe those who have served this country in our Armed Forces is that at the end of their service they should have either affordable supported housing with wraparound support or a General Needs home. Sadly, because of the national housing crisis, that is no longer the case. Last year, in spite of the pledges made under Operation Fortitude, there was an increase in homelessness among Armed Forces veterans of 14%, with 2,110 households affected, up from 1,850 the previous year. What steps are the Government taking to join up the work done by the Ministry of Defence, DLUHC and local government to ensure that no one who has served our country ends up sleeping on the streets?
I should say first that the level of veteran homelessness remains very low: less than 1% of households are owed a homeless duty. I agree with everything the noble Baroness has said about the importance of looking after our veterans. The increase can mainly be attributed to improved recording at local authority level. Local authorities now report on all support needs and relevant life experiences, rather than current support needs only. She rightly asks what we are doing. We have a large package of measures. There is Operation Fortitude, a hotline to support veterans into housing—the first of its kind—which has housed over 477 veterans. We have a dedicated £8 million fund, establishing 900 units of veteran supported housing. There is a whole range of help, including online help by the Veterans UK helpline, which helps to join up what we are doing. These different packages were championed by Minister Mercer, but co-ordinated very much with DLUHC and the MoD.
My Lords, everyone regrets anyone being homeless, especially veterans. As a veteran myself, I can say that. When I was the Minister responsible for veterans in the Ministry of Defence, which was immediately after the Labour Government left office, there was a lot of talk about veteran homelessness then. I went to see Veterans Aid, an excellent organisation that operates out of London. The man in charge of it, an ex-RAF wing commander, said, “Not everyone who says they’re a veteran actually is one, but they get better treatment if they are”. Does my noble friend agree that, as she has so rightly said, not everyone who says they are a veteran is one, but they get better benefits if they are?
The way I look at it, we need to help veterans. We have the veterans covenant, to say that those who serve or have served in the Armed Forces, and their families, are treated fairly. It was right that we changed the law in 2012 so that veterans with urgent housing needs are always given high priority for social housing. Of course, local authorities have to make sure that people who say they are veterans are veterans, but we must move forward and not be deterred by the odd difficultly. It is great that so few veterans are homeless; we should celebrate that.
My Lords, as the Minister pointed out, it is right we ensure that veterans are not homeless. One thing that it is important to remember is that the vast majority of veterans transition into civilian life without difficulty. However, for those who come from certain backgrounds, there must be opportunities, all the way through their serving life to talk about transitioning to civilian life and to think about future accommodation. A recent report funded by the Forces in Mind Trust put forward proposals for a road map to end veteran homelessness. Has the Minister had a chance to look at the report? Are the Government thinking about ensuring the opportunity for service personnel, while they are serving, to think about housing post-service?
I have not seen the report but I would be very interested to look at it, and I thank the noble Baroness. In my former life as a private-sector employer in the retail industry, we had many veterans working for us. As their term of duty comes to an end, service personnel must look forward and think about opportunities. The discipline that they learn in the Army, and so many skills, can bring great things to the workforce.
My Lords, homelessness among veterans is not an isolated issue; very often it is connected with other problems, such as mental health challenges. These are challenges that often present years after veterans have left service. What action are the Government taking to ensure that these various aspects of the problem are being dealt with in a holistic way and not just in stovepipes?
I certainly agree. We try to be as holistic as possible in the help we provide. On mental health in particular, we invest £17 million a year in an amazing scheme called Op Courage. We have had 30,000 referrals, which shows the scale of the issue, and we are working now with NHS England on a public awareness campaign to promote Op Courage and what we can do in places such as GP surgeries and trusts in the way that the noble and gallant Lord has suggested.
My Lords, I declare my interest as the chair of GambleAware. Veterans are 10 times more likely than non-veterans to experience gambling harms, and to gamble as a way of coping with distress. The financial consequences of gambling harms are more than likely to contribute to homelessness among veterans. Third sector organisations such as Beacon Counselling, which was commissioned by GambleAware as part of the National Gambling Support Network, do brilliant work to reduce the impact of the heightened risk to the Armed Forces community. Can the Minister tell the House how the Government intend to address the need to protect veterans from experiencing gambling harms and, to that end, how they intend to work in partnership with charities doing vital work in this area?
Veterans can access a range of support, including via the 24/7 Veterans’ Gateway, which deals with gambling, as well as housing and so on. There is also, of course, a national gambling helpline giving advice. There is dedicated support through Op Courage for mental health, which is often linked to gambling. The other things that I have mentioned can all help with this difficult issue, which obviously goes much wider than veterans.
My Lords, the data that supports the conclusion that homelessness among veterans is increasing is uniquely English data. The Scottish data, which was most recently published in August 2023 and relates to the period between 2008 and 2022, shows that the number of veterans assessed as homeless or, importantly, at risk of homelessness has halved from 1,335 to 640. Would it not, on this occasion, be an idea to find out what Scottish councils, NGOs and the Scottish Government are doing to have achieved this?
I am always glad to hear of good practice, wherever it is, but, as I tried to explain at the beginning, we have changed the way that we are counting veteran homelessness in local authorities. That does not mean that we should not do more or not learn from the devolveds when they do things better. A result that halves numbers is very good. However, as I said, there are almost no veterans rough sleeping now, due to the variety of provision that this Government have provided and the underpinning of the priority that homeless veterans get for social housing, which I think everybody supports.
My Lords, I sometimes worry that Questions such as this convey a wider impression that military service somehow leads to long-term social disadvantage. That is just not the case. A glance at the figures on the national census from England and Wales shows that, if you have not done military service, you have a 20% chance of reaching the age of 65 and only a 5.1% chance of passing the age of 80. By comparison, a military veteran has a 53% chance of reaching 65 and a 31.8% chance of passing 80—a remarkable statistic, even by the standards of this House. Does the Minister therefore not agree that, at a time of grave recruiting challenges, such irresistible evidence of the life benefits of military service should be celebrated and more widely reported?
I can agree that military service leads to many advantages, not only full-time military service but working in the reserves. We should encourage young people to look at this option.
(7 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, I will repeat the Answer to an Urgent Question in the form of a Statement:
“First, I would like to say how sorry the Government were to hear that four people sadly lost their lives due to Storm Isha, two in this country and two in Ireland. I extend my sympathy to their families and friends. At the same time, I praise our emergency and utility workers, who have worked so hard in some very difficult conditions to help the public.
Forecasters at the Met Office raised a rare whole-country weather warning for the wind over the weekend, in preparation for Storm Isha. The warning encompassed even rarer amber and red warnings for wind in the areas forecast to experience the worst of the storm. Indeed, wind gusts reached a peak of 99 mph in Northumberland and 124 mph across the Cairngorms. Although the storm had the potential to be extremely destructive, the vast majority of the transport and power infrastructure stood up well and recovered quickly, which is a credit to the resilience of our critical infra- structure and the response capabilities of our operational partners on the ground.
Storm Isha was closely followed by Storm Jocelyn, which reached a peak of 97 mph. I am informed that it was the 10th named storm to impact our country this season. Again, the impacts from Jocelyn in England were less than feared. There were operational partners working around the clock to clear any disruption on our transport and power networks.
The forecasting capabilities of our experts in the Met Office, and the accuracy and speed at which they can warn and inform the public of incoming severe weather events, no doubt saves lives and protects our homes and businesses. My officials and those across government were working hard last week, and over the weekend, to co-ordinate the extensive preparation and mitigation measures being taken across the Government. The fact that no escalation to a COBRA-level response was required for either storm is testament to our effective response structures at local and national levels. I am very grateful for the response from colleagues in the devolved Administrations and to local resilience forums around the country. Our local authority and agency partners kept public services running and reacted to any local issues that emerged.
We are adapting to weather events not previously experienced in our country, and events such as these coming with increasing frequency and severity. The UK is driving forward cross-government action to respond to climate risks and their impacts on our economy and way of life. Our third national adaptation programme, published in July last year, sets out an ambitious five-year programme of work, driven by three themes: action, information and co-ordination.
We are ensuring a more integrated approach to climate adaptation over the next five years, through stronger government engagement and co-ordinated policy-making. As part of this, we have already established the right government structures not only to monitor progress but to tackle strategic cross-cutting challenges which will drive the UK’s resilience to climate change. This is all in line with the Government’s broader strategy, as set out in the resilience framework, which committed us to strengthening the links between our understanding of the risks that the UK faces and the action we take to prevent those risks materialising. We must continue to drive forward the initiatives that help us curb the impacts of climate change and, at the same time, build systems that help us to withstand extreme events as they arise”.
My Lords, I echo the words of the Minister in saying how sorry we all were to hear of the loss of four lives as a result of Storms Isha and Jocelyn in the UK and Ireland. Our thoughts are with their families and friends. Our thanks go to the emergency and utility service workers who worked tirelessly to protect homes and lives, often in the most challenging of circumstances. The Environment Agency estimates that the number of homes at risk from flooding could double by 2050 due to the impact of climate change. The UK needs to be better prepared. Will the Minister accept that a COBRA-style flood resilience task force, as proposed on these Benches, is needed to tackle the problem?
My Lords, I very much echo what the noble Baroness said about the emergency services and all who are involved in this. Indeed, without the changes we have made and the effort they put in, these recent storms would have caused much more damage and perhaps more loss of life, so that is very good news.
The COBRA system, which the noble Baroness mentions, is of course already baked into standing cross-government flooding response mechanisms, as the last tier of escalation for the most severe flood events. These mechanisms are stood up to support the operational response at local level, which is obviously necessitated by the increasingly sophisticated weather warnings that we see coming through from the Met Office. We managed well across the country on this occasion and the COBRA unit in the Cabinet Office—the ministerial unit—was not needed. That does not mean to say that officials did not get together. They worked well across the country with local people and the devolved Administrations. In some sense, it is a success that it was unnecessary to have the full COBRA ministerial meeting on this occasion. I have referenced the future resilience work that we are doing. We have brought these much better co-ordination systems into the Cabinet Office and work very closely with Defra, which is responsible for building up long-term flood protection. We have also invested a lot of capital in recent years. There is £5.2 billion available for flood defence projects, which I think is a doubling on the previous period.
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her Statement. I join her and the Labour Benches in offering our condolences for all those who lost their lives, and in thanking the emergency services for everything that they do. UK winters are getting warmer and wetter; there is a lot of variation year to year, but winter rainfall has increased by 27% overall since records began in 1837. The impacts of climate change are here now. The NAO report Resilience to Flooding found that the Government do not have clearly defined targets or an effective strategy in place for making the UK resilient to extreme weather. They do not even track or evaluate spending on resilience to extreme weather. When do the Government plan to publish an extreme weather strategy, to include defined targets, risk assessments, and measures of outcomes?
I thank the noble Earl. I am glad he mentioned the NAO report, because it did welcome the work that had been done—I know this has been welcomed across the House—on setting up the Resilience Directorate and, indeed, publishing the resilience framework in 2022. Setting appropriate targets and ambitions for the level of flood resilience—in particular, for critical infrastructure because that is a key part—is part of the Government’s broader thinking on resilience standards.
There are more than 100 risk priorities in our risk register; we are working on all of these and have committed to create by 2030 common but flexible resilience standards right across critical national infrastructure, as well as across the private sector more broadly. One of the lessons of the storms we are seeing is that it is important to work with the private sector as well. One reason that people have been less affected has been the improvements that have been made in power, transport, trains and the rest—partly having early warning, partly working together, and partly having this sense of mission that we must try to respond to the warmer, wetter winters and the arrival of a certain element of Mediterranean weather in our beautiful island, as the noble Earl said.
My Lords, I am glad that the Minister mentioned the private sector, because I would like to take it to an even more granular level—the individual household sector. Has she had conversations with the insurance industry, to make it absolutely clear to home policy owners what damage is covered and how to deal with neighbourhood disputes resulting from falling trees, falling fences and similar damage, where it may not be immediately obvious whose responsibility it is?
The noble Baroness makes a very good point about insurance. We do have discussions with the insurance industry on resilience. Of course, in recent years we have developed Flood Re, which is a very important reinsurance scheme that makes flood cover more widely available to households that are particularly vulnerable to flooding so that people can get insurance. Another part of the picture is the compensation schemes that are part of the flood recovery framework. In England, for appropriate events, there was £500 per affected household and £2,500 for affected businesses provided through the local authority, and some temporary council tax and business rate relief. The arrangements in the devolved nations are a bit different and, in some cases, more generous.
I think we must look at it in the round. How can the Government help? How can they prevent this? Can they communicate much better to make sure that people are not harmed and are kept safe? Where, sadly, there is damage to property, can we make sure that the insurance system helps to minimise government expenditure, which is occasionally necessary?
My Lords, the Minister said in her opening remarks that the problems in the last few days were such that we had not seen before, but is that the case? This is the ninth season that the so-called European windstorms have been sufficiently serious for them to have names attached. On each occasion, we see apparently more serious effects in the UK than in other countries—electricity supply off for days on end, trains and other forms of transport severely disrupted. It is fair to ask why that should be. Do the Minister and her Government not believe that more resources need to be given to local authorities, and indeed to rail companies and other forms of transport, to enable them to prepare more effectively? These windstorms will not go away; they will increase in severity.
My own view on resilience is that it has to be a whole-of-society effort; I was trying to explain that point in relation to the previous question. Therefore, local authorities play an important part. Clearly, this is part of local authority funding in the broadest sense, and there has been some further assistance for local authorities, although I know that difficulties remain. We have tried very hard to focus attention on the local resilience forums; DLUHC agreed an extra £22 million three-year funding settlement for them in England. That followed a pilot, and the good news—I think it has probably been announced before—is that there will be stronger local resilience forum pilots in eight areas, going live in June. They will be in London, West Mercia, Suffolk, Gloucester, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Thames Valley and Northumbria—so this is investment in the local effort in different sorts of areas. I am a great believer in piloting because you can then share that elsewhere and make things better.
On funding, obviously we need to spend enough on flood protection and resilience, but we also need to try to do it in a better way and with the help of all parts of society. I mentioned earlier the efforts that have been made—by power companies, for example—to improve things and get electricity out much more quickly. We have had a lot of storms; the weather is perhaps getting worse, but we are trying to learn from that and to perform better in these sometimes very tragic situations.
(7 months ago)
Lords ChamberTo ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the speed and scope of the operation of the Freedom of Information scheme.
My Lords, the Government have no current plans to alter the law on freedom of information.
My Lords, there are so many problems with the system that I am now asking the Minister to commence a complete overhaul. My experience with the Department for Levelling Up is that it is not a department that levels with you. I have spent 11 months chasing a small request about the Holocaust memorial and have been met with nothing but delay and evasion. The £600 limit has stayed unchanged for years, limiting hours. There is the need for a reference by an MP. Time limits are not enforced. If you complain about delay, the department is given another 40 days to reply. There is no time limit on the allocation of investigations by the ICO; hence there is limitless hold-up in being able to refer to the tribunal. Does the Minister agree that the system is not fit for purpose and needs review?
My Lords, while I am very sympathetic to the noble Baroness’s dilemma in this issue, we have to draw a balance between the rights of individuals, the burden imposed on our public authorities and the Civil Service and, of course, the objective of improving and increasing transparency and accountability. She has had a difficult experience, first, with a complaint that turned out to be too broad and was therefore disallowed under Section 12— and the Information Commissioner upheld that—and I understand that she has now complained again and that the ICO has started its inquiry into that complaint. These are difficult issues. I would say that the number of requests received for information under freedom of information has been going up. In Q3 of 2023, there were 18,555—that is the highest ever—in spite of the progress we have made with making more information available every quarter as part of our transparency returns.
My Lords, I am not sure that I heard in the Minister’s response to the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, an answer to her Question. Have His Majesty’s Government made no assessment of the impact, the scope and the speed of this legislation?
Of course not—I am sorry if I misled the noble Baroness—as we do keep these things under review. The latest review was in 2016, when the Information Commissioner looked at whether we should change the rule, which noble Lords may be aware of, that freedom of information requests can be turned down if they equate to more than 24 hours’ work. However, civil servants are advised to narrow down requests so that they do not fall foul of that rule, and I know that they do that in the Cabinet Office. That rule was looked at by the independent Information Commissioner in 2016; there were some advantages to changing it upwards and some to changing it downwards, and the decision was taken not to make a change. However, as I was trying to explain, we take freedom of information very seriously and the number of requests that we are dealing with across the machine has increased. Obviously, individual cases can be a problem.
My Lords, I know that freedom of information is an embarrassment to government and that, when Governments get their feet well under the table, they regret it. I have just been back to the White Paper which introduced the Freedom of Information Act. It says:
“Openness is fundamental to the political health of a modern state … Unnecessary secrecy in government leads to arrogance … and defective decision-making”.
Would the Minister care to say that she strongly agrees with those principles?
I certainly agree with openness wherever we can make things open. Of course, that White Paper goes back to the Labour Government of the early 2000s, and I remember a certain Prime Minister commenting on freedom of information and the problems it had created. Of course, we need open information, but it has to be a combination of using the Act and also bringing in other measures—I mentioned the quarterly transparency returns, and there is the contracts finder and the changes we are making in the Procurement Act—and generally having an attitude of trying to be helpful and open, and not use these things as an excuse.
My Lords, in order for freedom of information to work, it is necessary for Ministers and government to keep proper minutes of meetings. We still have a United Kingdom Civil Service in this country; why are the Government not taking action when Scottish Government officials’ bedtime ritual is apparently not to have a cup of coffee or cocoa but to delete all their WhatsApp messages? Increasingly, the Scottish Government have meetings without proper minutes being kept. What has happened to the fundamental principles of the Civil Service that there should be proper records kept so that freedom of information requests can be dealt with, or if there are inquiries, the information is available to them?
I agree with my noble friend; records are important, both for the record and for the next steps agreed at meetings, which one wants to make sure are carried forward in the interests of efficiency. Obviously, the Scottish Government are a separate Government with their own rules. The Cabinet Manual, as we have discussed before in this House, is in the process of being revised, but that applies to the Civil Service across the piece. We have also introduced new guidance; it is called—a rather difficult mouthful—Using Non-corporate Communication Channels (e.g. WhatsApp, Private Email, SMS) for Government Business, for UK Government, Civil Service and Ministers. That is on GOV.UK and is absolutely designed to make sure that WhatsApps of substance in policymaking or government business are recorded for posterity.
My Lords, the Information Commissioner has found that some government departments have a consistently poor level of performance for FoI request handling. Departments find ways to avoid responding—for example by denying that information is held—and seem to have worked out that there is no meaningful penalty imposed as a consequence. Given that these departments repeatedly fail to comply with the law, do the Government intend to review the sanctions imposed for this failure?
At the moment, as I was saying, we do not have plans to change the Freedom of Information Act. However, we have worked hard to clear the backlog that was created on freedom of information as a result of the pandemic. Some departments have done better than others. We have worked very closely with the Information Commissioner on just that. As I have explained, the casework continues over time. The Cabinet Office gives advice centrally; we try to delegate these things to the appropriate responsible department, but we do encourage good practice and compliance with the complexities of the Freedom of Information Act and its different sections.
My Lords, has there been any estimate as to how much money the Freedom of Information Act costs the Government, at a time when there are scarce resources to spend on services on the front line? Is there a figure for what the total cost to government of this particular piece of legislation is?
It is a good question. I do not have a figure; I have explained that freedom of information is a duty across nearly 100,000 public authorities, because we are not only talking about central government today but schools, the NHS, local authorities and even some publicly owned organisations, so individual costs will be borne by individual departments. In the Cabinet Office, there is also a dedicated unit, because we are responsible overall for the Act, which is why I am answering Questions. But a lot of freedom of information requests are actually dealt with by civil servants as part of their day-to-day job, because they have to comment on where there are policy issues or advice to Ministers that it would be difficult to make available. Obviously, as the Minister, I try to encourage them to make things available wherever possible under the Act.
My Lords, I was pleased to hear the Minister say that she supported freedom of information. Will she continue to shout that loud and clear? I was the author of the original White Paper, and we made the point that unless our constituents and electors have knowledge, there cannot be democracy. I hope she will make that point loud and clear.
I support the noble Lord. I think this was probably his approach when he conceived the legislation, which is not entirely easy because of the burdens. You have to have a balance between letting sunlight in wherever we can by making things available—not using them as an excuse for cover-ups; we have perhaps had too many of those historically—and keeping secret private advice to Ministers so that they can take decisions in an objective fashion, consider options that are not always welcome and come to the right conclusions. I think that is very important, and I speak as someone who, strangely, has been both a civil servant and a Minister.
(8 months, 1 week ago)
Lords ChamberTo ask His Majesty’s Government why the status of the Minister for disabled people was downgraded from that of Minister of State to that of Parliamentary Under Secretary of State.
All Ministers speak with the authority of the Government, and it is for the Prime Minister to decide how responsibility is allocated. The role of Minister for Disabled People has been undertaken at both Minister of State and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State level in the past. The new Minister has been at the Department for Work and Pensions since 2019 and has the ability to get things done and extensive experience of the issues that disabled people face.
My Lords, disabled people are horrified by the Prime Minister’s decision. DWP estimates that 16 million people have a disability— that is one in four—and they face multiple barriers in their lives beyond DWP. It is harder to get a job— 29 percentage points less—their financial position is much worse, they have to spend much more on energy, and other barriers remain for health, education and transport. The former role of the Minister of State for Disabled People could focus on influencing change but the new PUS is covering a large portfolio including housing benefit, the military covenant and youth. Why have this Government once again downgraded support for disabled people?
I do not see it as a downgrade at all. The previous Minister was also the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work. To the extent that portfolios are changed, when Ministers are experienced—I know this myself—you can sometimes improve how the work is done through these other areas. There is a big example here in the back to work package announced in the Autumn Statement. We really need that multibillion-pound package pushed through with vigour and energy, which I am sure the new Minister for the Disabled will deliver.
My Lords, not only have the Government downgraded the role of Minister for Disabled People but a recent report of the Women and Equalities Committee concluded that:
“The National Disability Strategy does not resemble a strategy”,
and that engagement with disabled people in its formulation was poor to say the least. What steps are the Government taking to try to restore—or perhaps I should say build—the confidence of disabled people and the organisations that represent them?
The Government are doing just that. The noble Baroness will know that the national disability strategy promised in the 2019 manifesto was held up in the courts. That is now behind us because the courts found in favour of the Government. We are also developing a disability action plan for the next 12 months. These are immediate actions to help people. The consultation on the action plan closed in October, and we will carry that forward very soon.
My Lords, when the definitive Disability Discrimination Act 1995 was passed, not only was there a senior Minister of State in charge but the then Prime Minister, John Major, took a direct personal interest in that matter. Does the present Prime Minister take any personal interest?
The present Prime Minister does take an interest. I re-emphasise that the Budget had a major package for the disabled. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions represents the disabled at Cabinet. Even more importantly, we all have a duty in relation to the disabled. I work to try to get the disabled into public appointments; we debated One Login in the Moses Room and talked about its accessibility. The whole point about the strategy is that it is cross-cutting, and it helps us to move forward and help the disabled into life, because they can make such a great contribution.
My Lords, so important is the title “Minister for Disabled People” that I managed to persuade Mrs Thatcher, when she was Prime Minister, to change the name to that from its original name, Minister for the Disabled, because disabled people do not like being called “the disabled”. At first the Prime Minister objected, saying, “They’ll want to change all the notepaper”. I said, “Yes, they will, but make them use up all the old notepaper first”. Using this economic principle, could we not find some way of doing what the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, suggested and restoring the name, even though the pay may not be restored to what it should be?
Mims Davies is the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, but I do not think we should spend all our time focusing on titles. I do not want to tread on my noble friend Lord Younger’s toes but, having studied this subject in preparation, I was trying to talk a little about what we will actually do for the disabled. Of course we need to respect them and talk about them in an appropriate way but, as noble Lords will know, it is important to have action and get things done.
My Lords, words matter, but action matters even more. Are my back-of-an-envelope sums right—is Mims Davies now the 13th Minister for Disabled People since the Government came to power in 2010? If so, does the Minister think that all this moving around is damaging things? For example, it is introducing massive delays to the Access to Work scheme, which left one autistic woman waiting 13 months to get a job. We need some action now, do we not?
The noble Baroness may be right: perhaps Ministers do move around more than is ideal on occasions. I was delighted to discover that I was not moving in the last reshuffle and can continue. The key thing is to focus on the work in hand, and I believe Mims Davies will do that, with support from across the Cabinet.
My Lords, was not one of the greatest Ministers for the Disabled the late Alf Morris, and was he not a Parliamentary Under-Secretary?
I thank my noble friend. I also mention my noble friend Lord Hague, who in the 1990s took through Parliament some ground-breaking legislation on the disabled that has changed the infrastructure of the UK. Those of us who were in business found it quite challenging at the time—I see noble Lords around the House nodding—but it has had a beneficial effect across the UK economy.
My Lords, even with a Minister of State in place, we have repeatedly seen regulations and legislation over recent years ignore the needs and concerns of disabled people. You can point to Covid regulations, the aborted social care cap and, most recently, the Online Safety Act, which was silent on the needs of adults with learning disabilities. Given that, how will this Government take a more holistic look at legislation and ensure that the varied needs of the varied communities of people with disabilities are addressed in regulations and legislation going forward?
I mentioned the convening work done across departments, which is important in relation to legislation, as the noble Baroness says. Obviously, the Covid inquiry is looking at what happened during Covid, and these are the sorts of issues that I hope it will tackle. On individual Bills, I know from those I have done that we often debate disability—perhaps sometimes in response to amendments from the noble Baroness and others. That is very useful because it gives departments an opportunity to explain what they are doing. We have duties to the disabled and other groups, and we need to make sure that we take them seriously.
My Lords, given the cross-cutting work that the Minister has described and feels so confident about, can she tell the House when the Government are next due to report to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities? What are the challenges from the last reporting cycle that the Government will be keen to address in that report?
This not being my area, I am not able to answer the question fully, but officials are due to represent the UK and attend the meeting of the UN in March to discuss these issues. I am certainly happy to take away any particular concerns that the noble Baroness would like me to pass on.
My Lords, many people, including everybody in this and the other House, want to help disabled people. We have talked in this House about their having work. Does the Minister agree that hundreds of thousands of small companies would be prepared, if approached, to give disabled people what they would really like: the opportunity to work—if they can—and be part of society in the normal way?
That is a great point, and noble Lords will know that I am very concerned about small businesses and how we can help them. This point needs to be taken into account in the work we are doing, following the Autumn Statement, to help millions more disabled people into work. I came from Tesco, and we employed a lot of disabled people who made a very valuable contribution to the business over many years. Some noble Lords will have met the leading official on the Procurement Act in the Cabinet Office, who was a blind senior civil servant. It just goes to show what a contribution they can make in both small and big business.
(8 months, 1 week ago)
Lords ChamberThat the draft Regulations laid before the House on 9 November be approved.
Relevant document: 3rd Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Considered in Grand Committee on 18 December.
(8 months, 1 week ago)
Lords ChamberWith the agreement of the House, I will repeat a Statement made yesterday in the other place by the Minister for the Cabinet Office, John Glen:
“With permission, I would like to make a Statement on the Government’s response to the Infected Blood Inquiry. I made clear my intention to do so at Cabinet Office questions on 23 November, and the Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice, my right honourable friend the Member for Charnwood, reiterated this on the Floor of the House on 4 December.
First, and most importantly, the suffering of the victims must be recognised. The distress and trauma that each individual has faced as a result of this tragedy is unimaginable, and the Government understand that no measures can fully compensate for the losses and hardships that they have suffered. The priority here must be to ensure that victims get the justice they deserve.
With the interim compensation payments issued last October, the Government recognised the immediate and urgent needs of those most severely impacted. This was the start of the process, not the end. The Government have accepted the moral case for compensation, and I am fully committed to ensuring that we bring this matter to its long-awaited conclusion.
In April 2023, the Government welcomed the publication of the Infected Blood Inquiry’s second interim report, which set out a detailed framework for compensation for both those infected and those affected by infected blood, and it is a significant step towards the culmination of the inquiry’s deeply important work.
The inquiry has taken a wide-ranging and innovative approach to compensation, and I was pleased to see that the Government’s commissioning of Sir Robert Francis KC’s compensation study assisted in the inquiry’s work. It is now a year on from the Government’s acceptance of the moral case for compensation, and I understand the calls for urgency. I know that, from many of those infected and affected, there is anger and frustration with the Government’s response so far.
The inquiry’s recommendations are not without complexity, and it would be inappropriate for the Government to prejudge the findings of the final report. For these reasons, the Government are not yet in a position to share any final decisions on compensation. However, Members on both sides of the House have made it clear that we must do right by the victims, and the Government recognise this. I am personally committed to making sure that we do that.
I also give enormous credit to the right honourable Member for Kingston upon Hull North on her continuing hard work to advocate for the victims of the infected blood scandal. The Government recognise the strength of feeling across the House on this matter and the importance of what the amendment seeks to achieve.
The Government are working through the implications of the amendment. Cabinet Office officials worked hard under my predecessor, my right honourable friend the Member for Horsham, to develop this policy and we are reviewing this work in the light of the amendment made two weeks ago today.
I am also pleased to provide the House with an update on the wider progress we have made in this area, and on the steps we are taking to address the concerns of this House. First, I announce that the Department of Health and Social Care will fully implement a bespoke psychological service for people infected and affected by infected blood products, delivered by NHS England. Our intention is for this service to go live in early summer 2024. We recognise the harrowing impacts of the infected blood scandal and the psychological impact this has had on many infected and affected individuals. This announcement is an important step for victims in England. The service will provide tailored support to meet the unique needs of infected and affected individuals.
The Government are also urgently appointing clinical, legal and social care experts to advise the Cabinet Office on detailed technical considerations early in the new year, which will ensure that the Government have the relevant expertise to make informed choices in responding to the inquiry’s recommendations on compensation.
Finally, I reiterate the commitment that the Government will seek to provide an update to Parliament on next steps through an Oral Statement within 25 sitting days of the inquiry’s final report being published. As my predecessor made clear both to this House and to the inquiry, there are a number of technical issues that must be considered as they will have a significant impact on public finances. It is important that any decisions on compensation funding are taken carefully, and the House should expect the Government to work through the associated costs to the public sector while, at all times, considering the needs of the community and the far-reaching impact that this scandal has had on their lives.
The victims of the infected blood scandal deserve justice and recognition. Their voice must be heard, and it is our duty to honour not only those still living and campaigning but those who have passed without recognition. This is my highest priority, and I will continue to progress this work with all the urgency it deserves. I commend this Statement to the House”.
My Lords, I would like to pick up from where the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, left off. We need to occasionally remind ourselves of the history of this. I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement and thank the various campaign groups that continue to persevere for justice and compensation and to ensure that we are kept informed about the current situation.
I particularly thank Colette Wintle and Carol Grayson for their briefing and their amazing campaigning over the years. They reminded us that the history of this started in 1991 with the HIV litigation, when the Conservative Government blocked compensation. In 2003, the Skipton Fund was set up, but that was blocked by the Labour Government. In 2009 and 2010 there were other incidents that were also blocked by that Government. In 2012, the coalition Government also blocked compensation, delaying things for a further decade. This year, given that Sir Brian Langstaff’s second interim report made it absolutely clear that compensation should be set up and run from now, it is extraordinary to have a three-page Statement, in which the first page says all the right things but the second and third pages then put it into the long grass.
It is good news about Clause 40 in the Victims and Prisoners Bill. It had its Second Reading in your Lordships’ House yesterday and, had we heard the details of the Statement before that, some of us might have changed our speeches. It is almost as if Ministers have not yet seen Sir Brian Langstaff’s recommendation on 5 April. To remind your Lordships’ House, he said:
“I recommend that a compensation scheme should be set up now and it should begin work this year”.
The Statement says that the Government will work through everything before starting the scheme. Can the Minister say on what grounds they are going specifically against Sir Brian’s recommendation that the scheme should start immediately? Time is not on the side of the victims or their families.
From these Benches, we too welcome the proposals for a bespoke psychological service for people infected by and affected by the infected blood products. But can I ask the Minister if there is new funding for this? There has to be funding outside the existing mental health budgets, which are severely under strain. If there is not, it will just put further pressure on an overwhelmed service and lead to further distress for people who believe that it will be available to help them when it is not. Even worse, others who have been waiting years for urgent mental health services will find that they cannot get them.
It is important because, as the Factor 8 scandal campaign has said, in a recent case of a young man whose father, mother and sister all died of AIDS when he was three years old, he has received nothing. He gets no ongoing support and struggles deeply with his mental health. Factor 8 says that it is “unimaginable” that his case is not
“described as ‘one of those most severely impacted’”.
There is also reference to setting up a group of experts. Who is appointing these experts? It would be normal for the chair of the compensation panel to choose their experts. There would usually be two panels —one would be medical advisers and one would be legal advisers. There is, of course, the important element of making sure that there is the voice of the people affected. Can the Minister say whether this is being done by the Government in advance of the panel being set up?
It would really good if we could have some speeding up of this process. There is no time, as everyone has said—but we have been saying this for close to 30 years, and it needs to be actioned now.
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her comments about cross-party support because, after all, this dreadful scandal dates back, I think, 40 years and has involved many different Governments. She is also right that we have to recognise what has gone before us and do the right thing. It has been an awful scandal and, even more, it has left a stigma—particularly in the days before HIV and AIDS were properly understood—on all those involved. She is right to say that the amendment to the victims Bill has helped to focus minds on this issue.
Obviously, the Government recognise the strength of feeling across the House and the importance of what this amendment seeks to achieve. We are working through the implications as drafted and considering the question of primary legislation and, having this amendment, what is the right vehicle.
As I said, the inquiry’s final report is expected in March 2024. There was, I suppose, a small ray of light in the last day or two, as the inquiry said it would announce the date of its report on 17 January. The Government have already made it clear that, within 25 sitting days following the publication of that report, we will provide a full response to Parliament with an Oral Statement on the next steps. That gives us a better timetable than we have had before. I understand, of course, the points made about speed, and I look forward to being able to fill in on them.
I reiterate the news about the bespoke psychological service for people infected and affected by infected blood products and the appointment—I hope, imminently —of clinical leader and social care experts. The role of social care experts will be to advise on technical issues that require a high level of relevant knowledge in order to make informed choices in responding to the inquiry’s eventual recommendations on compensation—things such as tariff schedules. These experts will be independent and will be appointed solely to advise on technical issues. Our feeling is that it is right to get on and make those appointments: the Minister for the Cabinet Office was very clear about that. That probably means that it is not possible to do the chair and the experts at the same time. He made it clear that that process was ongoing, would be communicated early in the new year and that he was working, as it were, right over Christmas on this important issue.
In relation to the psychological support service in England, I understand the concerns that the service cannot go live until early summer 2024. The reason for that is that we need time to recruit suitably experienced and qualified staff and for all the necessary arrangements to be made for them to start seeing patients. What is good about the scheme is that access is anticipated to be primarily by people referring themselves. There may be onward referrals from GPs and hospitals, but people will not be reliant on that.
The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, was right to run through the history of this again and remind us of that and of individual cases. I am the process of reading Caroline Wheeler’s book on this blood scandal in preparation for today and have been shocked by the individual cases. I commend that, and think it has been influential in this whole matter. We have made a Statement because we promised to do one before Christmas and, as I have said, the Minister for the Cabinet Office is working relentlessly on moving these schemes forward so that we are in the best possible stage of readiness for the final report when it emerges.
My Lords, as a former Member of Parliament, and like many other former MPs in this House, I had constituents affected by this awful condition. I will ask my noble friend a point of clarification. In the original Statement, the Government welcomed
“the publication of the infected blood inquiry’s second interim report, which set out a detailed framework for compensation for both those infected and those affected by infected blood”.
However, on certain occasions in the Minister’s responses in the other place, he referred only to those who were infected by this blood. For absolute clarity, is it the Government’s intention to compensate those both affected and infected?
I thank my noble friend Lord Lancaster for his comments. Of course, many people who had constituencies had similar experiences to him, including Mr Glen himself. The interim compensation scheme that we set in train last October paid out £400 million in interim compensation to a combination of infected people and their bereaved partners if they were registered on the scheme. That gives some understanding of the way we look at this—or at least how we did then —but, obviously, the report is much more wide ranging. We were able to deliver payments quickly then because of the clear parameters of eligibility. As my noble friend suggests, the final report will no doubt be much broader, which is one of the reasons why we have to do so much more work on the complexities involved.
My Lords, I welcome the Statement repeated by the Minister and pay tribute to the campaigners who have campaigned for nearly four decades. There is an urgency to this issue: as we heard, there is a death every four days, and the families and the victims need an explanation. Can the Minister explain why it has taken Governments so long to accept the moral case for compensation?
That is a question for many previous Governments. I can speculate, as can the noble Lord, but this Government have accepted the moral case. That has implications, and we have made interim payments. This is not a difficult matter; I always go back to the need to give the victims the justice they deserve and our intention to do that.
The Government’s Statement on their response to the Infected Blood Inquiry is a deep disappointment—that is an understatement. The Commons Minister said, and our Minister repeated it—I in no way criticise our Minister for this; I respect her greatly—that the
“distress and trauma that each individual has faced as a result of this tragedy is unimaginable”.
Yet the Minister went on to do absolutely nothing about it, other than establish a psychological service 40 years on. In my view, all this does is recognise the extraordinary depth of the damage done to these people—nothing more.
The Government have had the full and final recommendations on compensation and redress from the inquiry since April 2023, when it said that the compensation scheme should be set up and work should begin in 2023—of course, the Government ignored this. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, mentioned the Government appointing legal and clinical experts to advise them further on the operation of the compensation scheme, when the inquiry made it very clear that the chair of the arm’s-length body should make those appointments.
As president of the Haemophilia Society, I remind the House of the sheer numbers of people affected in this appalling way by those administrative errors. Over 5,000 people with haemophilia and other bleeding disorders were treated with contaminated blood products brought over from the United States that were taken from prisoners, drug addicts and others. This is a shocking history, and it is surely time that all those directly or indirectly affected should be compensated fully and immediately.
I am sorry for the disappointment that the noble Baroness found it necessary to express. I cannot help sharing it, to some extent. I thank her for reminding us of the numbers involved, which may be even more than she talked about. We do not exactly know, which is one of reasons why we are not in a position to do the necessary moving forward.
I reiterate the point made on previous occasions when we have discussed this: the lack of a timetable is very worrying to us all. As I explained, we will have a firm date for the final report very shortly, by 17 January. We expect the report in March, and within 25 sitting days we will provide a proper response to Parliament, with an Oral Statement on next steps. We have to move forward, as well as being disappointed and complaining about the slowness of this. This is a major scandal and we are, as a Government, trying to move forward and sort it out.
My Lords, as a former Health Minister who was called to give evidence at the inquiry, I know how thoroughly Sir Brian Langstaff conducted it. That is why it has gone on for so long— I think over a year longer than originally intended. I therefore welcome the steps the Government outlined in the Statement and the action they propose to take immediately. However, as has already been said on all sides, it is not only the tragedy of the case but the length of time which makes a final settlement so urgent.
Most of the supplementary questions I planned to ask have already been asked, about interim payments and the composition of the new clinical, legal and social care expert committee, which is to advise the Cabinet Office. I understand that similar supplies of infected blood went to other countries in Europe and around the world. How have they dealt with it, and to what extent have we been guided by their examples?
I thank my noble friend Lady Hooper for her question. In another life, she and I worked together on food safety and health issues. I know how much she knows about these issues, and there are many difficulties and tragedies in these areas.
I will write to my noble friend with an answer on the international practice. I am reading the Caroline Wheeler book, which talks about some of this. We may not have done as well as we could have done, and we need to learn from that for the future. The noble Baroness is right to ask about what they did. I know that some countries had similar problems but others did not. We should learn from that for the future.
(8 months, 1 week ago)
Grand CommitteeThat the Grand Committee do consider the Trade Union (Deduction of Union Subscriptions from Wages in the Public Sector) Regulations 2023.
Relevant document: 3rd Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
My Lords, the regulations are known as the check-off regulations and stem from Section 15 of the Trade Union Act 2016. This is the last secondary legislation to be brought into force as part of that Act; each aimed at modernising industrial relations in the UK. I am pleased to take this final piece of legislation through, as I had the honour of taking the Act through the House some years ago.
The regulations define a relevant public sector employer for the purposes of Section 15 of the Trade Union Act. That provision requires relevant public sector employers, which allow employees to pay union subscriptions directly through payroll, to charge trade unions a cost substantially equivalent to the cost that they incur for providing the service. In addition, public sector employers must be satisfied that there is an alternative way of union members paying their subscriptions aside from check-off, such as through direct debit.
Should employers not be able to secure payment substantially equivalent to the costs of providing check-off, or should there not be an alternative payment available to employees, employers must cease to provide check-off. The Government believe that this will ensure that check-off services are provided by public sector employers only where there is no cost burden to the taxpayer and to guarantee members have choices about subscription payment methods.
The regulations will not come into force until a reasonable transition period has taken place to allow everyone adequate time to make arrangements to comply with the regulations. To this end, they will come into force on 9 May 2024, six months after laying. This is a generous transition period, considering that the regulations were previously due to be laid in 2017. Therefore, employers have had a significant awareness of the impending changes.
The Government have also provided to the House the Explanatory Memorandum and a full impact assessment, and we will publish guidance on GOV.UK to be issued to public sector employers to help them to familiarise themselves and comply with the regulations.
I will remind noble Lords why the Act’s reforms to check-off in the public sector are significant. The Government are committed to the responsible and transparent use of taxpayers’ money and so believe that the administration of payment of union subscriptions for public sector workers should not be carried out at the expense of the taxpayer.
During the passage of the Trade Union Act 2016, the House debated the original drafting of Section 15 at length. It suggested that check-off services should not be provided by public sector organisations on behalf of their unions, owing to the cost burden on the taxpayer. However, through the legislative scrutiny and amendments made in this House, Section 15 of the Act was revised to no longer require public sector employers to remove check-off services, but rather that the costs associated with doing so should be recharged to trade unions and alternative options should be available to trade union members. The Government were grateful for the scrutiny of the House in refining the provision and continue to believe that this strikes a fair and appropriate balance between providing value for money and fostering good and modern industrial relations in the UK.
The regulations will apply across the public sector to those bodies listed in the Schedule. There was significant engagement in this House on the organisations in scope, resulting in the Government considering the ONS definition of “public authority” too broad. As a result, the Government decided to use the list of bodies from the Freedom of Information Act and its Scottish equivalent as the starting point to define the scope of the regulations, making it clear that the intention was to include only organisations that are funded wholly or mainly from public funds.
Of that list, the Government have removed organisations that do not routinely employ staff, are an advisory body or expert panel, are funded by a levy on a finite or discrete group, or are predominantly commercially focused, to ensure that the scope is proportionate to the aims of the regulations.
The Cabinet Office has also engaged each Secretary of State on the proposed scope, seeking their confirmation that the regulations capture all bodies necessary to deliver the policy aim. In addition, a two-week consultation was undertaken with the Scottish Government to ensure that Scottish bodies were appropriately captured.
The check-off regulations will deliver benefits to the taxpayer. The impact assessment has identified that the intervention will equate to a present benefit saving of approximately £1.5 million per year and just over £12 million over the next 10 years. These benefits arise as the regulations seek to alleviate the burden for public sector employers that offer check-off services but do not yet charge trade unions for the cost of administering them.
I wish to be clear that the regulations we are considering stem from the Trade Union Act 2016, which was introduced, as noble Lords will remember, as a 2015 manifesto commitment. Despite delays owing to other government priorities relevant to the UK’s exit from the European Union and the coronavirus pandemic, this has been a long-term ambition of the Government in our aim to modernise industrial relations in the UK.
The purpose of these regulations is to deliver value for money for the taxpayer and choice for individuals in a balanced way that reflects the discussion in this Committee. They do just that, and I beg to move.
My Lords, I have seen many Chekhov plays; this is not half as enjoyable an “Enterprise”.
This SI comes here under an Act of 1992, as amended in 2016. The House of Commons briefing on it reminds me that the Conservatives tried it on in 2014 but were blocked by the Liberal Democrats in the coalition. So they brought it back later and it is to come into force in May, a maximum of six months before the next election in the dying days of this dying Government.
The instrument is extraordinary in the sense that it goes through a list of more than 200 bodies, some of which are in any sense autonomous public bodies. I used to work for several universities and I note that they are caught up in the scheme—but, then, so are the Crofting Commission, the Highlands and Islands Enterprise, the Gaelic Media Service, Historic Environment Scotland and even the Scottish Road Works Commissioner. I assume that this must all be compatible with the conventions of the devolution settlement. I note also that, in terms of local government in England, Together for Children—it is based in Sunderland—Slough Children First and the Sandwell Children’s Trust are brought under this umbrella as well. The total amount of public money that this careful enumeration of all these subordinate bodies will save is estimated to be £1.5 million a year.
As I read this SI over the weekend, I thought of the principles that are at stake here: limited government; government that should be as local as possible in order to be as close to the people as possible; and that government should have respect for the importance of autonomous institutions in civil society. These are principles that Liberals and Conservatives used to share, when Harold Macmillan was Prime Minister and Conservatives still read Edmund Burke rather than Ayn Rand and Friedrich von Hayek. This statutory instrument is illiberal and unconservative. Such a degree of detailed centralisation and interference in civil society used to be called socialism. Edmund Burke used to talk about the importance of local communities, little platoons and self-government. This instrument is much more in the style of authoritarian populism, like those right-wing Republicans in the United States who believe that the free market is all that matters rather than a free society.
One of the things that horrified me most as I read the Explanatory Memorandum and the impact assessment were the 40 or 50 references to the TaxPayers’ Alliance as a prime source of evidence for the arguments made. I am sure that the Minister is familiar with the TaxPayers’ Alliance. It was founded by Matthew Elliott after a period in Washington attached to Americans for Tax Reform; that was founded by Grover Norquist, who once famously said:
“I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub”—
tax cuts at all costs and to hell with the public sector.
The undue influence of American Republicans on the Conservative Party, the flow of funds to right-wing think tanks, in particular those based in 55 Tufton Street such as the TaxPayers’ Alliance, and the links with hard-right think tanks here are part of what seems to many of us to be going wrong with the Conservative Party. I rather suspect that the Minister, whom I offer the compliment of thinking of as a one-nation Conservative, probably quietly shares a view.
The impact assessment does say that the savings to His Majesty’s Government will be at £1.5 million a year, and it estimates the cost to the trade unions at about £13 million a year, thus enforcing significant increases in membership fees. It also says:
“Costs to public sector employers may include some loss of goodwill with employees and trade unions”.
Well, that is much less important, is it not? It seems to me that that matters. After all, the Government’s relationship with civil servants and public sector workers has deteriorated steadily over recent years. We have seen that in the recent strikes and in the loss of a number of first-class civil servants; I know that some of those with whom I most enjoyed working when I was in Government have now left or taken leave. That raises problems about the quality of how we are governed.
The impact assessment also says:
“The policy will engender taxpayer faith that the Government is spending their money responsibly”.
Well, taxpayers’ faith in the Government spending their money responsibly is currently having to cope with the Government’s failures to deal with the Covid effort and to enquire into that, and with the revelation yesterday that the noble Baroness, Lady Mone, admits to having made £60 million in profit from Covid contracts, rather larger than the £1.5 million we have spent here. I suggest this will not engender much additional taxpayer faith.
The Minister herself said that the Government are committed to the transparency of public expenditure. I hope that is true, and that we will see, as we go further into the question of how much government waste there was on Covid contracts, that the Government are actually committed to transparency rather than to a continuing cover-up.
The Minister will note that there have been changes in the nature of trade unions over the last 40 years. There are fewer manual workers and more professionals—public service professionals above all. The majority of trade union members now have degrees. They are civil servants, doctors, nurses, researchers and teachers. They used to be part of the core vote of the Conservative Party, and I suggest to the Minister that they are an important part of that vote, which the Conservatives have lost and will not regain unless they alter their attitude to the public sector.
The bias against public service and the public sector as such, which we have seen on the right wing of the Conservative Party, is one of the most unattractive dimensions of this dying Government, holding down their salaries and wages while allowing private sector pay to soar. Ministerial treatment of civil servants as if they were servants, and the well-evidenced examples of bullying of civil servants by Ministers, have been a problem in which civil servants need unions to defend them and look after their interests. The public sector does need unions to protect them and good civil servants are vital to the quality of British government.
I find very little to like in this SI; if Labour had wished to move a regret Motion, the Liberal Democrats would certainly have supported it. The only good thing to be said for it is that it will take effect only in the last months of this Government, and I suspect that any Government that come in afterwards will quietly stop its implementation.
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, and the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman of Darlington, for their contributions to the debate and the good questions that they have asked. I should perhaps start with the noble Lord’s description of the wide-ranging nature of the list. I agree that it is wide-ranging, and that is necessary. However, I am sorry that in a sense he criticised the impact assessment. I was pleased that there was an impact assessment. He and I and other Members of the House have been proponents of the use of impact assessments because they allow the sort of questions that we are asking today, and they are not always used. Obviously, I point out in relation to the costs of check-off that direct debit is an alternative.
The noble Lord asked a number of technical questions on the estimates, as did the noble Baroness. The easiest thing for me to do is to look at them in Hansard and write to them in answer, but I will make two points. First, I understand that the guidance should be online from tomorrow. I am sorry that it is not available today. The normal course of events—the Commons starting on this first and then us getting it—has perhaps meant that we have not had the benefit of the guidance, but I will write and send the link to it because that would be helpful. I also agree with him about the changing nature of trade union membership. He will remember very well that I worked at Tesco, a trade-unionised company, and spent a lot of time working with the union in growing the company. Personally, I work very well with civil servants and their unions. We need to minimise costs, however, which is one reason behind the changes that we are discussing today.
Perhaps I should pick up the noble Baroness’s point about consultation. As she said, the regulations stem from the 2016 Act, which was consulted on as a whole. During the debates on the then Bill, the current policy position on the check-off regulations was set out, which was to charge trade unions a reasonable cost and to ensure that there was access to an alternative method of paying union subscriptions. That was an agreed compromise instead of requiring public sector employers to remove check-off altogether. It is important to repeat that background.
The Government have upheld the commitments that they made to engage, rather than consult, with affected bodies. That has included four consultations with government departments and the Scottish Government on the schedule of scope. The Cabinet Office has also engaged trade unions’ workforce policy leads and some employers on the impact assessment and for views on the guidance. There is no single source of information of cost of check-off to the taxpayer. That is one reason why the TaxPayers’ Alliance report was used, but we have supplemented it with more recent data from the BEIS management and well-being practices survey. We also conducted consultation with employers in each of the public sector workforces, including the NHS, local government, police forces, maintained schools and academies and the Civil Service. I acknowledge that a lot of this is anecdotal, but it has provided some more recent data as a comparison and means of testing the assumptions made in the two reports. However, as I promised, I will look at the points that the noble Lord made.
Just to add, the disgust with which we saw the depth of dependence on the TaxPayers’ Alliance relates to the position of this body, which received an E—the bottom range—from Who Funds You? for the opaqueness of its funding. It is clear that some of its funding comes from very right-wing bodies in the United States; it has held public, open conferences with, I believe, the Heritage Foundation. It seems deeply improper for the Government to depend so heavily on such a very partisan think tank. The Tufton Street group in particular is doing its best to pull the Conservative Party very much to the right, against its former traditional conservatism.
I cannot just accept that, I have to say; I believe that views from all different directions can be valuable in debate, and that includes the TaxPayers’ Alliance. I explained why it had done some work in this area. It was used in these estimates—entirely transparently—and we have also taken data from other sources. I nevertheless thank the noble Lord for his comments.
The point is that the TaxPayers’ Alliance is a campaigning organisation. Our concern is not that it is included at all; the Minister is quite right in what she said about a range of sources and perspectives. But given that there is a lack of data, which the Minister has acknowledged, it seems a little odd that it is relied upon quite as much as it is. You do not need to make any assertions about some of the estimates that the TaxPayers’ Alliance is making to pursue the policy. It seems a bit strange that it is included.
My attention was drawn to this by what is on page 23 of the impact assessment. There is a little table that lists probable estimates of savings to the public sector. It just seems strange that—to take the Civil Service, as the first example—the high estimate of savings is £149,000, the low estimate is £1,500, and the most probable estimate is £11,500. Then, however, there are local authorities, for example, with a high estimate of £161,500, a low estimate of £91,000 and a most probable estimate of £161,500. It just is not clear how some of these figures have been reached. Are the Government treating the TaxPayers’ Alliance evidence with equal weight to a survey conducted by the LGA, for example? That would seem a strange thing to do without further inquiry or more critical analysis. Maybe this is a point to make to officials behind the Minister rather than the Minister herself, but it is not really what we would expect in this kind of document.
I commend officials for producing a detailed impact assessment and I will not renege on that. I also think that the TaxPayers’ Alliance is a perfectly respectable source. Obviously, every think tank has different people working for it; some people are excellent at estimates and some are not. I have already said to the noble Baroness that I will go away and look in a little more detail at the estimates. This impact assessment was not written by me personally, of course, but I will take it away and have a look. I commend the use of different sources of data and data standards. The noble Baroness probably knows that that is what I would want, but I will of course take a look.
Perhaps I can move on and just try to answer one or two of the questions about devolution. Matters of industrial relations are clearly reserved and there is no obligation for the UK Government to consult with the devolved Administrations. However, the Scottish Government were consulted on the scope of the regulations to ensure that they capture all public bodies that are wholly or mainly funded by the taxpayer. Wales is not in scope as a result of the Trade Union (Wales) Act 2017. The Government will take action to bring Wales into scope at the earliest possible opportunity.
I should mention that the TUC has been engaging with us on, and had input into, the guidance. I noticed its flash new logo on its writing paper. This also included engagement with employers in the public sector, so I hope that that provides some reassurance.
In conclusion, I am confident that the regulations provide a fair and appropriate intervention and capture an appropriate scope to meet the policy aim. They allow check-off to continue, as was agreed during the passage of the Trade Union Act 2016. They represent a reasonable direction of travel and continue to support productive industrial relations in the UK—which, Members may recall, was my experience during my past career at Tesco. To return to the point that the noble Lord made, of course the trade unions have a role to play in our society, so I am delighted to have this opportunity to be at the Dispatch Box today to put to bed the last of the regulations relating to that Act. I hope that colleagues will join me in agreeing the regulations, which I commend to the Committee.