Command Paper Safeguarding the Union

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, if there is any malign influence in the elections in this country or its politics from a hostile state, or any other country that seeks to undermine our democracy, we will of course do whatever is necessary to protect our democracy, which we regard as having the utmost integrity.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, is the Minister able to tell the House when we might hear a few details about what the reset of relations with the EU might actually mean?

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, there is some indication of that already by the engagement between Ministers and the EU. We are obviously engaging Northern Ireland on that, given its importance to Northern Ireland. As that proceeds further, we will give updates as and when we can.

The Importance of the Relationship Between the United Kingdom and India

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, on securing this debate. I speak as a former member of the UK-India round table, where I sat alongside the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria. I think that we like to believe that the round table acted very effectively in bringing the two countries together. One thing that we helped to secure for India was the equivalent of Teach First, which continues to do a great job there. It is really the issue of culture and education that I want to dwell on today.

While I was involved with the round table, what we saw was the effectiveness of the British Council in particular. It worked very hard with the UK-India Education and Research Initiative and achieved a great deal on the education front generally, all over that country. Like every other aspect of the British Council, it has had to be cut back, and I understand the funding difficulties. If the Minister were able to give any reassurance that there will be no further cuts to the British Council, particularly in India, it would be good news for all of us here this afternoon.

We have heard a lot about the new initiatives to continue increasing trade with India and to bring more students to this country. I would like to look at it from a slightly different point of view, in the very limited time that we have. Like the noble Lord, Lord Leong, I would like to see more people from this country going to India. UK universities have 90 establishments in the world top 1,000, but India now has 41, and many of those are way ahead of the lower tiers in this country. What a fantastic educational experience it would be for our students to go to India—and how much better their student debt might look at the end of that experience.

The other issue that I would like to look at is medicine. We have the new agreement over skills and training in medicine, particularly in nursing, but, again, India is a real pioneer in some important aspects of medicine. For instance, it now has joint replacements down to a fine art. It may be very boring for some surgeons, but they are specialists in hip and knee replacements. India is already the seventh most popular destination for well-being and health tourism; its income in 2022 from health tourism was estimated at $7.4 billion, and it is predicted to reach £42 billion by 2032.

Would it be such a step of the imagination, with the current waiting lists in this country, to think not just about bringing Indian doctors and nurses—and certainly some of their techniques—to this country, but about getting those waiting lists down by being innovative and sending some people who would like to make the trip to India? Waiting three years for a hip replacement is a very uncomfortable experience, but that is what some people have to undergo now. If they went to India, they could enjoy good weather, perhaps, and would come back healthier. The Department for Health and Social Care really needs to be thinking imaginatively if we are to make any progress through those waiting lists.

Democracy Denied (DPRRC Report)

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, in 2020 Dr Andrew Corbett from the defence studies department of King’s College London wrote:

“Coups happen in other countries—they are not something the public would ever expect in Britain.”


However, having listed some of the actions of Boris Johnson’s Government, he asked whether what he saw as an undermining of democracy amounted to “a very British coup”. While the Johnson Government’s apparent contempt for Parliament was signified most notably—but by no means solely—by the attempt to prorogue it, the rot set in much earlier. The two reports we are considering throw a light on the extent to which Parliament has been gradually undermined for years. Ernest Hemingway wrote that there were two ways of going bankrupt, “Gradually and then suddenly”. The same might be said of losing British democracy.

The titles of these two reports really say it all: Government by Diktat: A Call to Return Power to Parliament and Democracy Denied? The Urgent Need to Rebalance Power between Parliament and the Executive. I am very grateful for all the hard work that has gone into producing these reports, and to the two chairmen for their eloquent speeches today. They detailed the failings of delegated legislation to adhere to the principles of parliamentary democracy. This situation has not come about by accident. A determined Executive do not welcome scrutiny—even less so if it leads to opposition.

The noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, was first to remind us of the 2015 battle over tax credits. The noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, said that this was completely a failure of the Government’s making, through their trying to legislate on such a massive issue. Cutting vital tax credits to those who really need them should never have been attempted by statutory instrument. Nevertheless, the lesson that came through very clearly was that the Government did not wish to be asked to think again—and again. Threats to this House were hardly even veiled: if we were to continue to misbehave, we might have a very dicey future.

The noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, explained that, while these reports go a long way in detailing what is wrong, the problem is much deeper. The threat to parliamentary democracy goes way beyond what is happening in our secondary legislation. The scale of the legislation coming through at the moment makes scrutiny impossible. The noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin, explained that the demands of Brexit—whether one wanted Brexit or not—bring a huge legislative burden that is leading to things being rushed through. There is the scale of the Bills we are being presented with, as the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, said, which are half-baked—that is being quite kind. Then there is the weight of them; the Financial Services and Markets Bill runs to 346 pages. The levelling-up Bill runs to 408. It is what many would think of as something of a Christmas tree. It is a planning Bill with other little bits attached. Some of the little bits are quite interesting; it came as a surprise to me that some elected leaders of areas in this country could be known as governors in future. There are also other surprises in there, but very few seem to relate to levelling up—that will come later, much of it in guidance and secondary legislation.

One of the things that came through most strongly in these reports was the use of disguised legislation. To call anything mandatory guidance is, of course, as the reports point out, a complete nonsense. But “have regard to” is a very dangerous term. In particular, we saw in the Elections Bill the fact that the Electoral Commission must have regard to a statement coming from the Government setting out their strategic and policy priorities relating to elections. Now, that sounds—certainly to me—like interference with the Electoral Commission. This House was certainly concerned, but the Commons did not share our concern and so this chilling guidance is now in the Act. It will undoubtedly influence the way that the Electoral Commission, supposedly an independent body, behaves in future.

The report of the Delegated Powers Committee points out, quite rightly, that an instruction to have regard carries the implication that the guidance will be adhered to. So I ask the Leader of the House how he might respond should the Prime Minister ask him to have regard to the Prime Minister’s views on a particular issue: might we expect it to colour his thinking at all?

The democratic deficit that we now perceive may explain why, according to a report from the ONS last year, only 35% of people trust the Government of this country—one of the lowest ratings in the OECD. These reports propose some remedies which might go some way to addressing that democratic deficit. They deserve a better response than they have received from the Government, and so I think we should pay great attention to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, and maybe be a little braver in future in making our views known.

Economic Update

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, Labour’s spending commitments are about as opaque as the Government’s current ones but at least we are going to publish ours shortly. We all wait to hear what the Labour Party might say. It will face the same constraints on tax and spending as this Government. It has committed to massive excess expenditure but we have seen few revenue-raising proposals. Indeed, the windfall tax would be a one-off and would raise significantly less than Labour suggests. In conclusion, if this does not take away from people’s problems and fears—people are worried about mortgages, interest rates and inflation—let me say that the current central bank interest rate is lower than it was in 11 of the 13 years of the Labour Government after 1997, when average rates approached 5%.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, referred to the global trends that are causing such mayhem in various countries, including our own. However, those trends were in evidence more than three weeks ago. Can the Minister tell us what the then Chancellor had in his so-called mini-Budget that was not agreed—indeed, encouraged—by the then Prime Minister?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I am not answering for my right honourable friend the former Chancellor of the Exchequer. I am stating to the House that, given the circumstances we are in and the position I have outlined, the Government, with the intention of ensuring the UK’s economic stability in response to events, have published a way forward. We have published proposals on the fiscal side and will shortly publish proposals on the spending side.

Easter Recess: Government Update

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

They are certainly not being ignored. My understanding is that they can access the schemes, but I will have to write to the noble Baroness because this has been largely focused on Ukraine. I think an answer was given, but I do not have the words to hand and do not want to mislead her. However, I am very happy to put on record what was said in response to that in the Commons.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, the Prime Minister has apologised for the fact that he was fined. However, he still seems to be of the view that an event that took place in the Cabinet Office before an important meeting could not have been a breach of the rules. You would have thought the cake and the presence of his partner might have given the game away, but he maintains that he could not believe it could be a breach of the rules.

Does the Leader of the House agree with me that if the party had been in the private flat at No. 10, such ambiguity would not be possible? A party in the flat at No. 10, if it had been attended by the Prime Minister, would be—even in his view—a clear breach of the rules and if that were the case, and was found to be the case, we would not need to wait for the result of the Sue Gray report or the committee’s investigation: it would, inevitably, be a case for resignation.

Elections Bill

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Monday 28th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, on an extremely full exposition of his amendments, which makes me almost superfluous but I will add something anyway. The Minister is leaving, but I just say to him that the Government appear to want to get this excruciatingly poor Bill through before Prorogation. If they are going to do that, will they please accept some of the more sensible amendments so that the Bill contains some useful stuff that we can all use as politicians to make the whole process much fairer? The growing complexity of digital marketing makes online campaigning a major battleground for political dirty tricks; we all want to avoid that.

In 2019, political parties used data from Experian Marketing Services and Facebook to target specific campaign messages to individual voters. They also used Facebook services that allow advertisers to find customers similar to an existing group of customers. This allows targeting by age, location, interests, likes and a whole host of other personal data. The big risk of this, of course, is that political parties can promise anything to all people in a way that they could not before. We have politicians lying to our faces—the Prime Minister stands up and lies at the Dispatch Box. We all see him doing it; some of care and a lot of us do not. We can see it; it is happening. Now, however, there is an industry that would allow politicians to target their distortions of the truth on specific groups of people. The same candidate could target Brexit supporters with a pro-Brexit message, remain supporters with an anti-Brexit message and everyone else with a message saying that Brexit is a waste of time and we should all be getting on with more important things.

The threat to the integrity of our democracy is obvious; this is something we really do have to tackle. We need to move on with the times and be a bit more modern about accepting that we have a problem. There is a real risk that whichever party uses dodgy digital marketing in the most egregious and misleading ways will be most likely to win an election. We are at risk of a digital arms race in which truth and integrity are impediments to getting elected. I urge the Government to pick up at least some of these amendments, which would make our whole political system much clearer, cleaner and fairer.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, I support these amendments, so comprehensively introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, in particular Amendment 194B. It is clearly right that overseas actors should be specifically banned from interfering in our political process and publishing propaganda online. It is relatively easy for them to do that.

Clause 39 imposes a duty on those publishing election-related material to make clear the source of that material. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has made clear that this is a loophole big enough for most people to get through; it is simply not enough. It would be naive in the extreme to assume that those who wish to influence our elections are not wily enough to circumvent these sorts of stipulations, and neither are they likely to be put off doing so by the fact that they would be breaking British law, as Amendment 194B would insist.

The bots that churned out online propaganda ahead of the referendum amounted to interference in our electoral process on an industrial scale. We cannot say categorically whether they affected the result, but we know they tried. Yet the Government have neither investigated what happened nor done anything that we can see to prevent such online terrorism. As the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, put it, “So far, so vague”.

As others have mentioned, the Russia report from the Intelligence and Security Committee was highly critical of the Government’s failure to examine what had happened and to take action, yet the Government continue to resist anything tangible. That is why a cross-party group of MPs and Peers, of which I am one, has filed a legal action to try to force our Government to investigate and protect the integrity of our electoral system. That action has today been filed with the European Court of Justice. It will, of course, take a while before it produces anything, and I hope that in the meantime the Government take action that would render such legal action—to prompt them into doing what they should do—unnecessary.

Does the Minister believe that Clause 39, even with this amendment, will prevent malign interference in the UK’s electoral process? Does he really believe that what is being done quietly is having any effect at all? Does he not think that the time has come, if the Government are taking real action, for us to be told about it and for the need for it to be enshrined in law?

[Lord Mann (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I would have rather welcomed being targeted by a foreign Government in the various elections I stood in. It would have been relatively straightforward to have turned that around—I would have used more traditional methods of communication—and exposed it. But I am not quite sure how we would be able to take North Korea, Mr Putin or whoever through the courts in this country for any remedy or preventive action. Donations, of course, are an entirely separate issue, but these amendments are on electronic communications.

I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and I will respectfully give a different point of view on his Amendment 180A, which is very well intentioned but rather misses the point about transparency and where the digital age is going. The concept of putting in an imprint to demonstrate who has put a particular advert or piece of propaganda out there is very valid.

It is quite feasible that I will not be standing at the time of the next general election, unless some odd mayoralty is formed that I suddenly decide I should run for. I have had my day fighting elections. But if I was, I would think about how I could harness the latest technology so that people’s clothes would carry my name and slogan. Particularly at football matches, you regularly see straplines that change every few seconds; I would have them at strategic locations, firing out different messages. If others were doing so at prime locations and I had sufficiently robust funds to allow me to join in with using those advertising methodologies, I would certainly look to do that.

When it comes to proper transparency, it seems to me that the concept of, say, an agent having to have everything declared precisely on a website is far more useful for the efficacy of elections than anything that would anticipate that, for example, the latest high-tech jumper I am wearing, advertising a candidate, could somehow be spotted to have on it something that could then be used to hold me to account. It seems to me that some of the tried and tested methods could be more useful for the intention—here I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones—of ensuring that there is maximum transparency and legality in elections. I would be interested in the Minister’s views on whether this section of the Bill is sufficiently future-proofed for where technology will be next week, never mind next year.

Sue Gray Report

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

At all times, the Prime Minister has set out his understanding of events. He has taken full responsibility and apologised. He wants to make changes to address these issues and will work tirelessly to regain people’s trust.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, the Sue Gray report, even in its redacted form, is very critical of what went on at No. 10. The Leader has repeatedly said that Boris Johnson accepts full responsibility for what took place. We are now led to believe that several heads will roll as a result, but not, it seems, that of the Prime Minister. I wonder whether the Leader could say whether that seems right.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

As I have said, the Prime Minister has taken full responsibility and is working to address these issues. I cannot comment on an ongoing police investigation and am not going to prejudge its findings.

Coronavirus Grants: Fraud

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

Not that I am aware of.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, as we seek to claw back money misspent over Covid, can the Minister tell us whether those who benefited from fast-track VIP PPE contracts and delivered unfit goods will be paying back the money?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

On PPE, we acknowledge the severity of these claims, and the DHSC takes its responsibilities around due diligence extremely seriously. Of course, this goes back a bit further. As the DHSC has recently set out, all offers that come to the mailbox are triaged by an official from the high-priority appraisals team to be processed and responded to.

Health and Social Care

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

As I have said, there will be consultation on the detail of the local authority elements and further White Papers on integration. This is a long-running and complex programme, and we will continue to talk to people and consult as we continue developing it.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, asked why income from pensions and buy-to-let property was not covered by these proposals. I wonder whether the Leader can answer that.

Covid-19 Update

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Thursday 13th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, the inquiry is welcome, but we may be faced with another Covid crisis or similar long before it can deliver its learnings. For instance, the Prime Minister’s Statement refers to a high likelihood of a surge this winter. We need to know which restrictions are necessary to curb infections and which are not. I declare an interest as chairman of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions. Our members had to watch as non-essential shops were allowed to open but galleries and museums were prevented from doing so, even though social distancing is much easier to organise in those establishments. Could the noble Baroness the Leader of the House agree to publish the advice which led the Government to determine that visitor attractions should not be allowed to open while gyms, hairdressers and department stores could?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

We have obviously been very clear about the tests we have put forward to be able to move forward with the road map. We have taken a whole range of advice from scientists, businesses and across government in order to come up with the road map, and we have published a lot of evidence to back up why we have taken our decisions.