G7

Baroness Smith of Basildon Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness the Leader for repeating the Prime Minister’s Statement. We welcome the conclusions of the summit, including the reaffirmation of the G7’s aid commitment and the commitments to fighting corruption and to fighting disease overseas. As the noble Baroness made clear, this is the second G7 summit from which, rightly, Russia has been excluded. There should be consequences for what it is doing in Ukraine. Russia should continue to be excluded until President Putin changes course, and sanctions must remain. EU sanctions will expire at the end of July. The Statement says that they should be rolled over and that the G7 stand ready to take further restrictive measures. Is the noble Baroness able to tell the House whether the Prime Minister will be arguing at the next EU Council for those sanctions to be strengthened?

At this summit, the Prime Minister acknowledged that sanctions are also having an impact on those who are opposing them, so we welcome the fact that G7 leaders agree that more must be done to support EU member states that are being particularly affected. Can the noble Baroness provide any information on what that means in practice—the practical measures that might be taken?

In the Statement, the noble Baroness referred to the fight against ISIL. We have all seen the absolute horrors of what is happening in Mosul. It is extremely worrying and indeed distressing to see ISIL’s advances in recent weeks, particularly into Ramadi. That strong and united approach to tackling ISIL therefore continues to be vital. We back the UK’s contribution to that effort, and we welcome the extra 125 military trainers being sent to Iraq at the request of the Iraqi Prime Minister. As the Statement says, the Iraqi Government must be supported in their efforts to push back ISIL’s advance and restore stability and security across the country. So is there now a further need to accelerate the recruitment, training and equipping of Iraqi forces? As the noble Baroness will recognise, an inclusive and enduring political settlement is vital. It would be helpful if she could tell the House if our Government are continuing to press the Iraqi Government to do more to reach out to Sunni tribes, and how this is being acted on. After all, those tribes are key to this.

Moving on to other issues, the summit also reached important conclusions on the global economy and on climate change. Regarding the discussions on TTIP, can the noble Baroness confirm whether the Prime Minister sought specific assurances from President Obama that our National Health Service will be protected and, if he did, what was the response?

On climate change, we welcome long-term goals but they are of value only if they are taken seriously and if they change short-term behaviour to ensure that they are actually achieved. In December, the UN climate change negotiations will take place in Paris. What is the UK doing to ensure that the EU negotiates on the more ambitious targets that we have already called for?

Obviously we welcome serious action to tackle fraud, whenever and wherever. In his Statement, the Prime Minister specifically referred to FIFA. Last week my noble friend Lord Bach, as shadow Attorney-General, raised in your Lordships’ House the question of whether there is any UK investigation into British involvement in the allegations regarding FIFA. In response, the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, said:

“The SFO has been aware of allegations relating to FIFA for some years. It is keeping the situation under review and is ready to assist”—

not to get involved or take action—

“in any way it can. We do not think there is a lack of resources”.—[Official Report, 4/6/15; col. 521.]

That was rather a strange response, but can the noble Baroness update the House on what has happened regarding that investigation—if there is one—since 4 June?

It is somewhat embarrassing, though, that yet again during important international negotiation discussions, so much of the press coverage around the G7 summit was not about the global economy, climate change or ISIL, but about the internal row in the Conservative Party over Europe. Even the Conservatives’ most loyal and supportive newspapers, and there are quite a few of them, described Mr Cameron’s attempts to have a clear line as “a shambles”. Many of us here remain unclear about the Prime Minister’s position. It would be genuinely helpful to your Lordships’ House if the noble Baroness could take the opportunity today to clarify the Government’s position. Can she tell us what the Government’s reform proposals are and what the red lines are? Can she say clearly now whether, when the Prime Minister has finished negotiating and comes back asking for a yes vote, he will insist that Ministers who do not agree with him will have to resign or be sacked?

I appreciate that the noble Baroness may personally prefer the approach of the Mayor of London, who is also the MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip and a renowned Daily Telegraph columnist—not a Minister, although he attends Cabinet. He said that Ministers should be able to vote whichever way they want. That will make for an interesting Cabinet meeting next week. If the noble Baroness could clarify the Government’s position I would be grateful, and it would be helpful.

A number of very important issues were discussed during the summit, and there were some useful and helpful responses, many of which we support. However, it is disappointing that another international summit which is vital to our national interest has ended, yet again, in the usual place, with a Conservative Prime Minister fighting his own party on Europe. In any such negotiations national interest must always come first. I look forward to the noble Baroness’s response.

Immigration

Baroness Smith of Basildon Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My noble friend may have been talking about the accession of Poland. A very large number of Poles came to this country. I was talking about Romania and Bulgaria, where we expect that the numbers will not be so large.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister said in his Answer that it was too early to make an assessment of the numbers. However, some of the language from the Government has been quite alarmist rhetoric. Would it not be better to look at measures to stop any workers being exploited, such as stronger and better enforcement of the national minimum wage, and also to tackle those loopholes that allow agency workers, often from overseas, to be employed at much lower rates than home-grown employees?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness. One thing that we have done is to increase very significantly the fixed penalty for employers for not paying the minimum wage. We also need to look at a number of instances where immigrant labour is being abused—for instance, agricultural workers from eastern Europe. The noble Baroness is right; we need to keep a grip on this.

Energy: Tariffs

Baroness Smith of Basildon Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what estimate they have made of the costs they will incur by appealing the court rulings on solar panel tariff payments.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Lord Marland)]

My Lords, we estimate that the Government have incurred costs of approximately £66,400 to date. This includes the cost of the recent Appeal Court hearing. However, if the Supreme Court agrees to hear our case, we will incur more costs.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, I am slightly thrown by that Answer from the Minister, because exactly the same Answer was given a week ago to my right honourable friend Caroline Flint in the other place. At that stage, the Government did not know that they had lost the appeal. They have now lost the appeal and have to pay the costs of the other side as well, and have incurred additional costs at the Supreme Court. My Question asked,

“what estimate they have made of the costs they will incur by appealing the court rulings”.

I think they will be significantly higher than the figure of £66,000 or so which the Minister has just given me.

Even at this late stage, does the Minister really think that it is good use of government money to keep chasing this merry-go-round of court decisions that the Government are losing? Would it not be better to sit down with the industry and negotiate a way forward? Everyone accepts that there need to be some cuts, everyone accepts that there need to be changes, but should we not try to do this in a way that does not cost jobs and that protects the industry?

[Lord Marland]

My Lords, I must admit that I was hoping that the noble Baroness would say well done on incurring only £66,400 of costs. It is a curious old world when we save the consumer £1.5 billion at a cost of £66,400 and are told that we should declare to the nearest penny. Let us look at what we are taking to court. This is one of the most ridiculous schemes that have ever been dreamt up. It is already going to cost the consumer £7 billion for £400 million of net present value.

Nuclear Reactors

Baroness Smith of Basildon Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what research they have undertaken into, and what assessment they have made of, the use of thorium in nuclear reactors.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Lord Marland)]

My Lords, the Government are in the process of assessing the benefits of next-generation reactor technologies, including thorium, for the longer term, and the Secretary of State has asked the National Nuclear Laboratory to prepare a report. A previous NNL assessment of a number of claims made by proponents of thorium fuel concluded that while the theoretical science is reasonably sound, the risks and resources involved in achieving commercial deployment are significant.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his response. It is helpful, and I certainly welcome the fact that the Government are taking this more seriously. He will understand that despite greater acceptance of nuclear power there remain concerns about nuclear waste, both because of its potential military or terrorist use and because of the costs and difficulties of long-term storage—as he and I have discussed on many occasions—as it cannot be disposed of. Liquid fluoride thorium reactors generate no high-level waste material, and can reduce existing stockpiles of waste. Given that, while I welcome the Government’s assessment and the expected report, is there more that the Government can do to test the technology? Also, on a wider basis, have the Minister and his department given any thought to whether this is a technology for nuclear power that could be safely developed in all parts of the world?

[Lord Marland]

I am grateful for the noble Baroness’s question. The reality is that we have waste, so it will not improve the situation with regard to nuclear waste. This Government are very concentrated at the moment on recovering from 25 years of no nuclear activity with what we have. We have to concentrate on the reactors that are available, which we have had approval for, in order to get our next-generation nuclear power off the ground. We know fully that thorium reactors will take 10 to 15 years to develop. There is a high cost in that development and, at the moment, I would not put it as a priority unless the research report that comes out at the end of this summer advises us otherwise.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Baroness Smith of Basildon Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, this has been an extremely interesting debate. We can tell the degree of interest by the number of noble Lords who wish to speak. I am sorry that the government Benches have been so sparse all evening. I do not want to repeat the points made by many other noble Lords, other than to say that I have similar concerns about the Bill. It seems to be being rushed through and pulled out with indecent haste. I take on board the comment made by my noble friend Lady Liddell about the Bill being a missed opportunity.

The Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, with his perhaps usual modesty may have overstated it when he said that his plans for change were the greatest constitutional reform since the Reform Act 1832, which we should recognise had deficiencies in itself. But it remains that this legislation is highly significant. It is extremely important for the future of and the legitimacy of our democracy.

I want to address two issues. The first is the constituency boundary changes and the abolition of public inquiries as outlined in Clause 10. While it may be initially superficially popular, I have not been convinced by the arguments put forward of the need to reduce the number of Members of Parliament in the House of Commons. If we are to reduce the number of MPs in the House of Commons, should there not first be an examination of why it is considered to be the right course of action and, if so, what would be the appropriate number of MPs? Nowhere have I heard a coherent case being made, other than the Deputy Prime Minister’s assertion that the Government need to reduce costs and that this will save around £12 million a year. I do not think that factored into that are the additional costs of the greater workload for MPs with larger constituencies. But it has to be said that that reason alone is insufficient. It is also an argument that is difficult to sustain when the Government are also seeking to increase the number of paid professional politicians in the second Chamber, the costs of which we do not know yet. There may be a great deal of good arguments, but the case has not yet been made.

The number chosen seems random, as we have heard from other noble Lords. When the Leader of the House was asked about this earlier, he should have been embarrassed to admit, although he seemed quite gleeful about it, that 600 was “a nice round figure”. I assumed that he was making that comment in jest, but nothing else came forward. There was no other explanation of why 600 was a good figure. I have too much respect for him to believe that he thinks that 600 is “a nice round figure” and should be used. But he did not even try to give an explanation of why 600 MPs is the right number.

As a former Member of Parliament for 13 years, I represented my home constituency. The relationship between the constituency and its Member of Parliament is important and precious. It possibly is more so today because the workload of MPs is increasing, particularly in constituency work. I could never support any form of electoral reform or change which would reduce that relationship between an MP and his or her constituency.

The proposals before us today have the potential to change every constituency in the country—bar two, bizarrely—and we have to recognise the enormous upheaval that will bring. The boundary commissioners will have the duty to define the new boundaries of the 600 constituencies. Every election sees reviews. At the last election, my own constituency of Basildon suffered significant changes; indeed that constituency no longer exists in that there is no longer a seat named Basildon. Sometimes we get electoral changes we like from the boundary commissioners, and sometimes changes that we do not like, but that is not the issue. The system in place allows representations to be made and in some cases inquiries to be held. It confers legitimacy on the system. The Government say that public inquiries do not add much to the process and they will not be missed. They also argue that there will be few changes and most of them will be minor. That entirely misses the point.

In the last boundary review, the majority of constituencies remained unchanged, but significant changes in all areas and most likely to most seats will be made in this review. There could be changes in areas that have not seen any alterations for generations. We are setting a hard task for the boundary commissioners. The Bill also seeks to change the ground rules by which the commissioners will operate. For the first time, changes will go across constituency boundaries and, depending on the recommendations, we do not yet know how they will affect local government or the conduct of and arrangements for elections. The boundary commissioners are already tasked with seeking to maintain recognised communities, but this is now subordinate to ensuring that the electorate is no more than 5 per cent more or less than the new electoral quota, along with a limit on geographical size. So, for the first time, arithmetic—the physical size of a constituency and the number of electors—will be the dominant features. Those criteria undermine the conviction that constituencies should take into account communities and their histories. Given that this is to be overridden by the numbers game, it will be all the harder for the commissioners to draw up meaningful constituencies that residents can identify with. Furthermore, it must all be completed in time for the next election, so it will be a mammoth task.

It is interesting to note the views of the boundary commissioners themselves. I was struck by the comments of Robin Gray, a former boundary commissioner, in evidence to the Select Committee of the other place. He made the point that having the review system and the opportunity to hold public inquiries enhanced the legitimacy of the changes. He also said that even when representations were minor, that reassured the commissioners that they had got right the changes made. He made it clear that even when, as we have heard, the political parties played the major and sometimes the only role,

“they do actually provide some assurance for the public that the issues have been looked at, debated and an independent, barrister, solicitor, whatever, has come to a view about that”.

That is not to say that it is not possible to improve the system, but it is wrong to abolish the principle.

I have to ask this because I do not understand it at all: why the haste? This issue is huge and significant, and it deserves to be given the opportunity to be undertaken properly. For all the talk we hear from the Government about the big society, about engaging the public and about the public having their say, this Bill does exactly the opposite. Reducing the number of Members of Parliament takes democracy just that little bit further away from the public, and the Bill then denies the public the right to be heard at an independent public inquiry. So although the Government talk about giving power back to the people, on a fundamental issue that strikes at the heart of our democracy—that of redrawing the entire constituency map of the country—the public are to be denied even the opportunity of a public inquiry.

It does not matter if people choose not to avail themselves of that right, but it does matter if they are not given the opportunity to do so. If they have concerns later and there is no legitimate route to address them, that undermines the legitimacy of the entire process. This legislation will mean that the legal process does not even allow for the legitimacy of the proposed changes to be tested in a public inquiry. That is fundamentally unfair to the commissioners themselves, who will see their work and their efforts undermined by a lack of belief in their independence through no fault of their own. It could also mean legal challenges against the proposals.

My final point concerns the implications for the Executive in reducing the number of Members of Parliament. It seems illogical, if the size of the House of Commons is reduced, not to reduce the number of Ministers. The Minister, Mark Harper, when asked about this by the Commons Select Committee, said that to reduce the number of Ministers in the Commons would increase the number of Ministers in the Lords. Some of us may not think that that is a terribly bad thing, but did he not understand what the committee was saying to him? In his article yesterday in the Observer, Professor King raised his concerns that, if the Bill was to go through, Ministers would be selected from a smaller gene pool of MPs. To reduce the number of MPs but maintain the number of Ministers would significantly rebalance the role of government and the Executive, which goes against everything the Government have said about enhancing parliamentary democracy. It will shift the balance of power further towards the Government and erode accountability.

Your Lordships’ Committee on the Constitution raised concerns on both of these issues. It felt that a proper assessment had not taken place and that,

“it is an unsatisfactory basis on which to embark on fundamental reform of the register”.

I endorse those comments. Once again, the Government have got it wrong in their haste to make changes without thinking about the implications or effectively marshalling decent arguments.

Coalition Policies

Baroness Smith of Basildon Excerpts

Monday 8th November 2010 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many responses they have had to their consultation on The Coalition: Our Programme for Government; and how many of those solely endorsed coalition policies.

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)]

My Lords, no fewer than 9,500 comments were received in response to the publication of The Coalition: Our Programme for Government. Departmental responses are still available to view online and I have asked for a copy to be laid in the Library. An exercise to count the number of comments which solely endorsed coalition policies could be carried out, but only at disproportionate cost.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, I suggest that it would not take too long. Is the Minister aware that 9,500 people made comments, gave suggestions and put forward ideas, yet not one government policy was changed or even tweaked as a result? The responses are not on the websites—they have been taken offline—so we will be pleased to see them in the Library. Does the noble Lord accept that this was a disappointing PR exercise? Does he think that it should be done again? If so, will he assure this House that it will be a case of the Government not just noting the responses but actually listening to what people have to say?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I cannot agree with the noble Baroness even though she puts it most charmingly. It was a useful exercise and we learnt a lot from it. Each department has given its thoughts and ideas on what has been said; those are available on departmental websites. But they have not gone back to each response, partly because, although it was a commentable document, it was not part of a consultative exercise. We learnt a lot and I am sure that in due course we will repeat it.

Climate Change: IPCC Leadership

Baroness Smith of Basildon Excerpts

Monday 25th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marland]

I have known Christopher Booker for a long time, but I am afraid that I do not agree with a lot of things he has to say. Doubtless, the noble Lord agrees with every word—it is probably a biblical thing.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, while clearly lessons are to be learnt from any errors in the assessment report, that does not alter the fact that there is overwhelming scientific evidence of significant man-made climate change and action must be taken. Does the Minister agree with the professor of physics and oceanography, Stefan Rahmstorf, that one of the great strengths of the IPCC is that it tends to be conservative and cautious and does not overstate any climate change risk? Indeed, it has since been proved by the July 2001 study that projections in temperature and sea level have risen higher than the top of the range predicted by the IPCC.

[Lord Marland]

I thank the noble Baroness for pointing that out. Again, the role that the Labour Government played in sorting out the problems that the IPCC had got into is to be commended. I totally endorse what the noble Baroness said.