Carers: Unpaid Leave

Baroness Watkins of Tavistock Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

Well, I suppose the answer to the noble Baroness’s question is that it depends on how much time Parliament chooses to spend on particular legislation. Obviously, we were committed to an employment Bill. The Queen’s Speech set out a packed and ambitious legislative programme, with a comprehensive set of Bills that will enable us to deliver on priorities such as growing the economy, and so on—and I am sure that noble Lords will spend a large amount of time on studying those Bills. We are committed to that legislation, as I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, and we will look for alternative vehicles and work with parliamentarians to try to deliver what is a manifesto commitment.

[Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)]

My Lords, can the Minister explain whether the Government have considered how many carers might be able to return to work if this provision were available to them, and whether secondary legislation could be used to introduce this simple measure?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My understanding is that it would need primary legislation.

Costs of Living

Baroness Watkins of Tavistock Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My noble friend makes an important point. The best thing we can do to ensure security of supply is to generate more of our supply here in the UK. For that, we need to keep producing as much oil and gas as we can from the North Sea during the transition period, and to ramp up the amount of homegrown renewables and nuclear, which we are also doing.

[Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)]

My Lords, some of the Government’s current plans to improve the situation—I recognise that that is what they are trying to do—will not necessarily benefit those who are on disability benefits. We must accept that people who cannot move easily in order to stay warm demand greater help with the resource of fuel. Will the Minister please comment on that?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The noble Baroness is referring to the warm home discount. We are increasing the amount of money generated for the warm home discount and it is going to a wider cohort of people, but we are trying to concentrate those payments on those who need them most.

Vaccine Manufacturing and Innovation Centre

Baroness Watkins of Tavistock Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

Of course the legislation applies, as it does to all transactions that have taken place in this country since 1 January, so we would bear any appropriate security considerations in mind in any potential call-in. I obviously cannot comment on any particular circumstances, as the noble Lord will understand, but we are happy for this transaction to proceed.

[Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)]

Could the noble Lord explain whether we would be able to contain vaccines in this country from the centre in the event of us needing mass inoculation again?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The centre has not been completed —it is still under construction—so it has not produced any vaccines yet. Obviously whether it does so will be a matter for its new owners. But the Government have a wide range of emergency powers that we may need to deploy in the event of any future pandemic.

Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill

Baroness Watkins of Tavistock Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th March 2022 Grand Committee

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

I regard this amendment as a complete blind. Indeed, the figures that have been quoted do not tally with the ones to which I am privy. Large nuclear power plants are the only proven technology available today to provide a continuous and reliable source of low-carbon electricity. They have never been afflicted by major unplanned outages, albeit that as nuclear power plants—

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Watkins of Tavistock) (CB)]

My Lords, there is a Division in the Chamber. The Committee will adjourn and return as soon as agreed after Members present have voted.

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[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I thank everybody who has spoken in yet another wide-ranging debate on energy policy—I definitely have all my lines ready now for the next time we have Oral Questions in the House. At the risk of agreeing with almost everybody, I just want to say that what we need in this country is a diverse mix of supply—yes, we need new nuclear; yes, we need more renewables; yes, we need interconnectors; yes, we need pump storage—which is the best way to keep bills low and supply reliable. It is absolutely not a question of renewables or nuclear; government policy is that we need both.

There is a long list of amendments in this group. They have been tabled respectively by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the noble Lords, Lord Foster, Lord Teverson, Lord Oates and Lord McNicol. We have taken them together because they are of similar intent and similar subject matter.

Let me start by replying to the noble Lord, Lord Foster, and his comments on the designation statement. He is of course right that the department is still developing the statement, given that we do not want to pre-empt any of the debates we are currently having in Parliament on this Bill; the noble Lord would be one of the first to criticise us if we decided all these things in advance. We want to listen to what parliamentarians say and gather all opinions before finalising the statement.

Before coming on to the individual amendments, let me remind the Committee of the commitment we made in the 2020 energy White Paper to bring at least one large-scale nuclear project to a final investment decision by the end of this Parliament, subject to value for money and all the relevant approvals. I thank my noble friend Lord Howell and the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, for their thoughtful contributions setting out all the considerations that we need to take into account when making decisions about the value for money of new nuclear projects.

The Bill has been introduced with this objective in mind. It seeks to introduce a funding model that can lower the cost of finance for the large-scale nuclear that most of us agree we need; help to invigorate the UK nuclear industry; encourage, ideally, investment from British institutional investors and pension funds; and support our desire—shared by everyone, I think—for a decarbonised, resilient energy system.

Amendments 7 and 8 seek to clarify the types of company that may benefit from the nuclear RAB model. Amendment 7 would severely inhibit our ability to achieve the objectives I have just set out by restricting those able to benefit from the RAB model to not for profit, co-operatives, community-interested companies or companies wholly owned by a UK public authority. I understand the political intent of the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, but I point her to the brilliant examples of energy companies that have been set up by a multiplicity of local authorities across the country in recent years. Without exception, every one of them has gone bankrupt, with considerable costs to local taxpayers. These things are not as easy to do in the public sector as the noble Baroness might imagine. If it was so easy and simple, all those companies would be prospering and returning funds to the taxpayer. In fact, a number of—mainly Labour—local authorities have lost millions of pounds for local taxpayers in attempting to do things better than the market. Public is not always good.

With regards to Amendment 8, I am pleased to confirm that Clause 14 already provides that “a company” means a company that is registered under the Companies Act 2006 in England and Wales or Scotland. The amendment is therefore unnecessary.

On Amendment 23, I can confirm to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, that, irrelevant of ownership, if a designated nuclear company ceases to meet the designation conditions set out in the Bill, the Secretary of State has the power to revoke its designation. Provision is already made for this in Clause 5(1); for that reason, the noble Baroness’s amendment is unnecessary.

Amendments 6, 10 and 29 seek to tackle scenarios whereby a nuclear station may not be built or suffer from cost overruns, or there are issues with its generation output. Those things can happen in the real world but all these scenarios are fairly unlikely to occur. The approvals process for nuclear projects, of which designation for the purposes of the RAB model will form a part, is designed precisely to ensure that the Secretary of State must be sufficiently confident that the proposed project would be able to complete construction. In due course, we will publish a statement to provide details of exactly how the Secretary of State expects to determine whether the designation criteria have been met.

Once construction is under way, we will want to make sure that the project company is incentivised to manage its costs and schedule. It will be overseen by Ofgem as the independent regulator. However, in the unlikely and remote circumstance that a project looks as though it may exceed the cap on construction costs set out in its modified licence, it is important that there is a mechanism in place to allow additional capital to be raised to ensure completion of the project. The aims of that, of course, are to ensure that consumers can continue to benefit from their investment and to minimise the risk of sunk costs.

With regard to Amendment 6 and the first part of Amendment 16, I assure the Committee that the RAB model will be designed to ensure that the appropriate incentives are placed on the company to maximise plant availability. Nuclear reactors have an extremely good record of availability and delivery but we want to make sure that that is maintained. On broader generation capacity security, I draw the Committee’s attention to the Great Britain security and quality of supply standard and the Great Britain capacity market. Both these essential tools ensure that security of supply is met in GB and that we have resilience in the day-to-day operation of the GB electricity system should generation outages occur.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Watkins of Tavistock) (CB)]

There is a Division in the House. The Committee will adjourn and resume as soon as agreed after the Members present have voted.

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[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I am enormously grateful for the opportunity to listen to so many noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. It has been a masterclass in what we mean by value for money. I am enormously grateful; I have learned a great deal about whether or not we should be just using commercial accounting or incorporating opportunity costs. Should we define opportunity costs in the way that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and others have defined them? It has been incredibly illuminating.

My amendment was very simple indeed. The Government said they were going to do an assessment; all I wanted them to do was publish it. I am enormously grateful that I got the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, for that. Sadly, despite all the Minister subsequently said, we have not yet heard whether the value for money assessment is or is not going to be published—and, if it is, when that would be.

We then come to the interesting issue of the amendments surrounding the designation process. I am enormously grateful to the noble Lord the Minister, who enables me to sit down while we vote again.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Watkins of Tavistock) (CB)]

There is a Division in the House. The Committee will adjourn and return as soon as agreed after Members present have voted.

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[Lord Oates (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak in particular to my Amendment 5, but I support all the amendments in this group aimed at greater transparency and accountability, particularly those in the name of my noble friend Lord Foster of Bath. I will speak briefly, as we have already discussed many of the issues on which Amendment 5 touches. As we heard previously, Clause 2(3)(b) of the Bill requires that the Secretary of State

“is of the opinion that designating the nuclear company in relation to the project is likely to result in value for money.”

The opinion of the Secretary of State is, no doubt, valuable, but what would be even more valuable for Parliament and the public is to understand what that opinion is based on, in order to be reassured that it is not simply an assertion of policy preference.

We spoke in Group 3 about the vast, full-life costs of nuclear generation when decommissioning is taken into account. The public would want to know that these costs are fully taken into account in the calculations of the Secretary of State when arriving at his opinion. In addition, it would be important to understand how the possibility of significant cost and time overruns would be factored in as well.

Amendment 5 seeks to address these issues by requiring the Secretary of State to publish a report setting out the reasons for their value-for-money opinion. Such a report would, hopefully, give Parliament and the public reassurance that these matters have been properly considered before a decision is taken to impose further costs on energy bills. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Watkins of Tavistock) (CB)]

Before I formally call this amendment, I need to inform the Committee that there is a mistake on the Marshalled List. Amendment 11 should begin:

“Page 2, line 14, at end insert—”.


In relation to Amendment 5, the amendment proposed is:

“Page 2, line 14, at end insert”


the words on the Marshalled List—and Amendment 11 would come at the end of that.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I rise very briefly. In the last group, I mentioned some of the countermeasures to the variability of renewables, including interconnectors, energy efficiency, demand-side management and many more. But I also mentioned battery storage and I should have declared an interest: I was not expecting to get on to battery storage, but I am a director of a company involved in the development of battery storage. I apologise to the Committee that I did not raise that interest during the debate.

Subsidy Control Bill

Baroness Watkins of Tavistock Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 7th February 2022 Grand Committee

Relevant document: 17th Report from the Delegated Powers Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Watkins of Tavistock) (CB)]

My Lords, Members are encouraged to leave some distance between themselves and others and to wear a face covering when not speaking. If there is a Division in the Chamber while we are sitting, the Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division Bells are rung and resume after 10 minutes. For the Committee’s information, we have no Members taking part remotely today.

Clause 33: Duty to include information in the subsidy database

Amendment 38

Moved by

Professional Qualifications Bill [HL]

Baroness Watkins of Tavistock Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 25th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. I declare my interests as a registered nurse and the work outlined in the register that refers to my use of that qualification.

As the Minister explained, the Bill will create a new framework for the recognition of professional qualifications gained overseas and steps to reform regulatory practice in the UK. I acknowledge that the current system for professional regulation, derived from membership of the EU, requires revision and I support the concept that it is necessary to create a new framework that will apply globally, while also recognising many of the challenges that other noble Lords have outlined in relation to successfully achieving the outcome the Bill outlines. Government would be provided with a set of powers that enable agreements with regulators to recognise professional qualifications and to maintain an assessment centre, with which regulatory bodies must co-operate to provide advice and guidance to the public on standards for any profession. UK regulators would also be required to provide overseas regulators with reciprocal information regarding UK-qualified registrants, and to provide information on entry, exit and practice requirements for the professions they regulate, particularly, as other noble Lords have referred to, academic qualifications. Where devolved Administrations within the UK have separate regulators, reciprocal information will need to be supplied between the four countries.

There are 160 professions and more than 50 regulatory bodies that would be covered by the Bill. I intend to use nursing as an optic to illustrate the need to amend the Bill to ensure that public safety and fair terms of employment are maintained when the Bill is enacted.

The Bill is part of the Government’s plans to ensure that lack of information is not a barrier to entering and practising professions, of which nursing and midwifery are examples. However, just knowing what is expected and conducting a digital application against the published criteria for registration is not enough. To maintain public safety and deliver individualised, compassionate care, it is necessary to demonstrate practical competence in nursing skills and a full comprehension of the English language, including technical terms and mathematical concepts; for example, to estimate and safely deliver oral and injectable medication.

At the very minimum, the Bill needs to make explicit provision that regulators may put in place processes to measure competence to determine knowledge and skills over and above the stated qualification as an additional step to gain UK registration. It is perfectly reasonable to suggest that such an approach will be required reciprocally by most countries. It certainly will be in the United States, Australia and New Zealand. Can the Minister assure the House that the Government will support any such amendments so that the Bill safeguards patient protection and that only professionals who are safe and fit to practise are able to join UK health professional registers, including those for nursing and midwifery?

Finally, we know that there are many professions in the UK in which we have acute and long-term skills shortages, particularly in nursing. Clause 2(1) and (2) make provision for an “appropriate national authority” to speed up recognition of overseas qualification recognition where skills shortages occur—or at least this is my understanding; perhaps the Minister can clarify the situation. The Bill contains nine delegated powers and is being presented to the House prior to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee of this House making a full assessment of its effects. Can the Minister confirm that time will be made for all relevant committees of this House to review the Bill before enactment to ensure that public safety is protected?

Globally, there is a severe shortage of nurses, which has been exacerbated by the pandemic. The UK needs to educate and retain UK-qualified nurses through excellent training at degree level and good terms of employment. To deliver health and social care the UK must not return to an overreliance on recruiting overseas nurses but welcome those who wish to come and register in the UK and enable our own nurses to have reciprocal opportunities to work in other countries. I remain very uncomfortable that we are recruiting nurses from India with the state of the pandemic there at the moment.

The recruitment of nurses and other health professionals from lower- and middle-income countries, where terms of employment are often poor, must not result in artificially low terms of employment for UK health professionals. Can the Minister assure the House that this is not a hidden intention within the Bill and that ongoing monitoring of terms of employment will be conducted by the Government to ensure that the Bill does not have that unintended consequence?

National Security and Investment Bill

Baroness Watkins of Tavistock Excerpts

Report stage
Thursday 15th April 2021 Lords Chamber

I take the example of where a person acquires preferred shares which provide the ability to prevent a resolution of that class of shares in order to protect their investment or minority rights and does not provide the ability to vote on all or substantially all matters at a general meeting. This would not constitute an acquisition of control within the meaning of Clause 8(6), as subsection (7) sets out that a reference to voting rights is to the rights conferred on shareholders in respect of their shares to vote at a general meeting of the entity on all or substantially all matters. I emphasise to my noble friend that limited veto rights are unlikely—in our view—to meet that threshold so their acquisition would not be notifiable or, indeed, a trigger event at all. I hope that reassures my noble friend and that this amendment can therefore be withdrawn.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Watkins of Tavistock) (CB)]

I have received a request to ask a short question for elucidation from the noble Lord, Lord Leigh of Hurley.

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

I suppose I should say that modesty had forbidden me from putting my name down for this group. I wanted to have a point clarified and to thank the Government for listening to the Back-Benchers. I think it was fairly random that I took the 15% point: I cannot remember how it was allocated. I thank the Minister for listening to the many people who made representations.

In respect of the point from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, about the fourth case—Clause 8(8)—we debated this and I think I raised the question at the time as to what influencing the policy of the entity means. To return the compliment to the Government, I agree with them in this instance because if we had Clause 8(8), I can see a lot of discussion and debate as to the meaning of enabling a person to materially influence “the policy”. We discussed the meaning of this at length. I return the compliment and agree with my noble friend the Minister.

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[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Watkins of Tavistock) (CB)]

We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 6. Anyone wishing to press this, or anything else in this group, to a Division, must make that clear in debate.

Amendment 6

Moved by

Trade Bill

Baroness Watkins of Tavistock Excerpts

Report stage & Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 6th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Watkins of Tavistock) (CB)]

We now come to the group consisting of Amendment 24. I remind noble Lords that Members other than the mover and the Minister may speak only once and that short questions of elucidation are discouraged. Anyone wishing to press this amendment to a Division must make that clear in the debate.

Amendment 24

Moved by

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I hope that my remarks have provided some solace to my noble friend. The Government recognise that international trade disputes serve different functions and can have wide-ranging impacts. Naturally—I absolutely take this point—some of these impacts will be of interest to Parliament. In recognition of this, the Government will address, I hope as part of the way forward that the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, was seeking, important considerations around trade disputes within a report that the Department for International Trade will lay before Parliament. On this basis, I hope that my noble friend will be content to withdraw this amendment.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Watkins of Tavistock) (CB)]

I have received a request to ask a short question from the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed. I call the noble Lord to ask a short question of elucidation.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise for detaining the House; I know the hour is late. I am grateful to the Minister for outlining those examples. He gave the impression that Parliament should not necessarily have the ability to approve any of these measures, but that this should be Government to Government, prerogative to prerogative. However, the legislation provides for parliamentary approval if it is through a negative procedure. So Parliament could still annul this, which would bring about all the issues he warns against. He seems to be making the case that Parliament should not even have the ability to annul some of these measures. If Parliament ultimately has the ability to approve or not to approve, we are in a different realm. I hope that, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, indicated, the Government could at least reflect on this debate and the points that have been made on the benefit of having a wider degree of scrutiny, or at least public debate, of some of these aspects.

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Amendments 43 to 45 not moved.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Watkins of Tavistock) (CB)]

We now come to the group consisting of Amendment 46. I remind noble Lords that Members other than the mover and the Minister may speak only once. Short questions of elucidation are discouraged. Anyone wishing to press this amendment to a Division must make that clear in debate.

Schedule 2: Regulations under Part 1

Amendment 46

Moved by

Covid-19: Impact of No-deal Brexit on Vaccine Supplies

Baroness Watkins of Tavistock Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I welcome my noble friend to these Benches. He has acknowledged expertise in this area and, of course, he is quite right: commercial options will be used first, second and third, and the military only as a very last resort.

[Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)]

My Lords, first, I congratulate the Government on procuring the vaccines so urgently needed. Each box contains 96 vials; each vial, five doses: a box is enough to vaccinate 480 people. The value is considerable and illicit drug dealers and criminals have never been more motivated to intercept or steal legal drugs, as the potential profit is far larger, at the moment, than those from heroin and cocaine. For this reason, I welcome the fact that we may have to use the military to ensure that vaccines are delivered safely in this transition period. Can the Minister assure the House that plans are sufficiently robust, in terms of security, to prevent theft?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

As I said in my previous answer, the use of the military is very much a last resort. I am sure that the noble Baroness will understand that I cannot share details of security arrangements, but I can assure her that we have worked very closely with vaccine suppliers and others to ensure that shipments are properly protected and looked after.

Comprehensive Economic Partnership (EUC Report)

Baroness Watkins of Tavistock Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2020 Grand Committee

Motion agreed.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Watkins of Tavistock) (CB)]

That completes the business before the Grand Committee this afternoon. I remind Members to sanitise their desks and chairs before leaving the room.

Committee adjourned at 5.35 pm.