Integrated Review
Debate between Baroness Northover and Baroness Evans of Bowes Park(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
As I said, the review makes quite clear that we are committed to spending 0.7% of GNI on ODA as soon as the economic situation allows, and we believe that we are acting compatibly with the International Development Act. We believe that this review will once again put us at the forefront of global leadership in a whole array of areas. We will look forward to working with partners in Europe, around the globe and, obviously, in the Indo-Pacific region, which we have also pointed out, in order to advance open and fair democracies and societies.
Baroness Northover (LD) [V]
My Lords, the review puts science and technology front and centre. How does the noble Baroness square that with Universities UK stating today that the Government have failed to provide more than £1 billion for its membership of the Horizon programme? The UK’s national research funding agency—UKRI—is being forced to make cuts of £125 million because of ODA cuts. Is she aware that it was ODA money that helped to fund the Oxford Jenner Institute vaccine work?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
We certainly have an incredibly strong record on science and technology. We are ranked fourth in the Global Innovation Index, and we will invest £14.6 billion in R&D across government in 2021-22. We have reached agreement to take part in Horizon Europe, which is an excellent outcome. We are currently working through the details of the costs and where they fall, but we have always been clear that Horizon funding complements domestic programmes and have made a public commitment that there will be no loss of investment in R&D in the UK on leaving the EU.
Integrated Review
Debate between Baroness Northover and Baroness Evans of Bowes Park(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
I welcome the noble Lord’s welcoming of this announcement. He has been a vocal and consistent strong voice for the Navy within this House, and I am glad that he is pleased. He is right that the carrier strike group 21 is an ambitious global deployment. From 2023, it will be permanently available to be routinely deployed globally, and, in fact, HMS “Queen Elizabeth” will lead a British and allied task group on our most ambitious deployment for two decades, encompassing the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean and east Asia. We are currently finalising our plans for the deployment with regional partners.
Baroness Northover (LD)
My Lords, pandemic was on the 2015 review risk register. Does the noble Baroness recognise that failing to address that has resulted in costs to the economy which are multiples of this defence uplift? What is the point of an integrated review, dismantling DfID even before the review began and this announcement before it concludes if we do not know what challenges the Government think we face and how we might tackle them with our allies? Does she think that global Britain is enhanced or undermined by cutting the development budget?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
As I said, we have already worked through the main findings within government to inform this announcement and they are the first conclusions of the integrated review. The Government are working to ensure that we have an integrated strategy. As I have said to a number of noble Lords, that will be published in its entirety in the new year.
Intelligence and Security Committee
Debate between Baroness Northover and Baroness Evans of Bowes Park(3 years, 9 months ago)
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The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)
My Lords, I beg to move the fourth Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Baroness Northover (LD)
The Intelligence and Security Committee is not a usual Select Committee governed by parliamentary rules. It has a wide-ranging role in overseeing MI5, MI6, GCHQ, Defence Intelligence, Joint Intelligence, the National Security Secretariat and the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism. It is supposed to be less partisan and more independently minded even than Select Committees. Yet the accusation is that not only have the Government packed it with willing supporters with no expertise in this area but that the Prime Minister has also made it clear that he wishes Chris Grayling to chair it. As Dominic Grieve, former chair of the committee and former Attorney-General, put it:
“The whole point about this committee is it is non-partisan.”
He made it clear that the Prime Minister should not
“be seeking to tell the committee who should be the chair.”
If Mr Grayling turns out to be the chair, the Government’s protestations that they played no part will ring hollow.
The SNP’s Ian Blackford stated:
“The likely nomination of Chris Grayling as chair—who has a distinct record in government as a jack of all trades and master of none—will deliver a blow to the effectiveness of the committee’s work.”
This committee usually has two members from the House of Lords. Why have the Government not nominated someone from their Benches? The Guardian reports:
“Normally the Tories would have nominated a peer as a member, but the concern was that any nominee might be less likely to support”
Chris Grayling. Even the Telegraph reports:
“Two senior Conservative MPs told The Telegraph that the fact a new committee has not been formed since December’s general election was a result of ‘the complete control freakery of the Cummings group within No 10 … They want total control of key appointments so they can appoint their own people.’”
Mr Grayling, whom the Guardian gently describes as “accident-prone”, has no previous experience in this area. Yet, as the Independent puts it, while we face
“a bewildering and frightening range of external and internal threats from rogue states, hostile powers such as China and Russia, and terrorists … the committee is about to be headed by someone thought of as a Downing Street stooge who is out of his depth.”
In that context, I welcome the nomination of the noble Lord, Lord West, by the Labour Party. He is supremely qualified for the position. If we are all allowed to nominate the chair, I propose that it is the noble Lord, Lord West.
Meanwhile, we have not yet seen the report on Russian influence on our politics. The previous chair and committee signed it off for publication almost a year ago. It must be published immediately so that it can be scrutinised before the Summer Recess, and not in a redacted and altered state. The delay in the release of the MPs’ report examining Russian influence on British politics is “not normal”, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the former Foreign Secretary and former chair, insisted. He also declared:
“It is an absurd position that No. 10 Downing Street have put themselves in.”
I therefore look forward to the noble Baroness’s response.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
First, I thank my noble friend Lord Lothian and the noble Lord, Lord Janvrin, for their long-standing and excellent service on the committee.
In answer to the noble Baroness’s series of questions, the size of the committee and the process for nominating its members are clearly set out in Section 1 of the Justice and Security Act 2013. Both Houses agreed to the process in that Act, which is, as she rightly said, consciously different from that of appointing a conventional Select Committee. The nine members of the ISC have been proposed by the Prime Minister following consultation with the leader of the Opposition, and it is not unprecedented for this House to provide only one member of the committee. In the 2005 to 2010 Parliament, this House provided only one member. On this occasion, the Prime Minister has decided to nominate five Conservative MPs. As the noble Baroness will also be aware, selection of the chair is a matter for the committee itself.
Finally, the noble Baroness asked about the Russia report. The report is the property of the independent ISC and, as such, it is not for the Government to publish it but for the committee to lay its report before Parliament —and the sooner we get this Motion agreed, the sooner the committee will be able to get on with that work.
House of Lords: Allowances
Debate between Baroness Northover and Baroness Evans of Bowes Park(3 years, 12 months ago)
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Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
Yes, I am very happy to say so. One of the only other items on an agenda largely about coronavirus, in Cabinet and elsewhere, is that of parliamentary business. I am therefore able to give regular updates on the work of the Lords. I have been discussing with my Commons colleagues the work they are doing and how we can roll that out, and I am of course raising House of Lords’ issues on a regular basis within government; that is my job and that is what I do.
Baroness Northover
Will the noble Baroness show the leadership that one would expect of the Leader of the House and halve her salary also?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
I am not going to make a commitment to do that now, but I will certainly reflect on it.