Freedom of Information

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

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.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

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?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

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.

Elections Bill

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Wednesday 23rd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, as it is to add my name to this amendment also in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Woolley of Woodford, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Warsi. I do not need to repeat the compelling points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, but I will just say this. We all know that to have the option of voting is a fundamental right, just as to pay tax when it is owed is a fundamental duty. The Government worked very hard, as they should, at ensuring that when people reach the age of 18, they are automatically registered for tax purposes. I really believe in taxation, obviously. They are right to do it, and it ought to be increasingly easy to do that in our automated world. If the Government can do that, why on earth would they not do the equivalent thing when people reach whatever the age of majority is—we argued about that—to ensure that people are registered.

We have had the arguments about voter ID, which is ID when you turn up and choose to vote. No doubt, we will come back to those, but this is an earlier step. If the Government are really serious, as they tell us they are, about not disfranchising people and making sure they have this possibility of exercising their right, why would they not at least ensure they are automatically registered, with all the information and all the tools available to the state? If I may say so to the Minister: if the Government would listen on this issue and be prepared to have discussions, it might go some way to ameliorating concerns about potential voter suppression in relation to ID when people to turn up to vote at the polling station.

This is an infinitely sensible proposal, infinitely possible to achieve. A quarter of the way into the 21st century, with all the wit and wisdom we have at our disposal, and all the resources the Government have, if we are really serious about ensuring people are not disfranchised, they should be automatically registered when they reach voting age.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, the exacerbation of the political exclusion of poorer and marginalised communities—Gypsies, Travellers and Roma in particular —consequent on this Bill was thoroughly aired in Committee on 17 March, when, I regret, I was unable to attend, and on Second Reading. I read Hansard carefully, and I will not rehearse the powerful arguments made by my noble friends Lady Hayman of Ullock and Lady Lister and the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, and acknowledged by the Minister responding—the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook.

I would just add, in support of Amendments 141 and 144B, that only this week, colleagues from Friends, Families and Travellers—I declare an interest as president and my other related posts shown in the register—and the Roma Support Group made the points at a meeting with DLUHC that people from their communities already have difficulty in meeting the identification requirements for exercising their right to vote and would feel even more left out of the system under the Bill’s proposals. The fact that postal voters would be exempt compounded their sense of injustice.

As I understand it, the Government do not actually know the relative proportion of minority ethnic turnout to vote. Nor did their voter ID pilots establish this basic national social evidence. In my opinion, the Government would be well advised to consider positively the assistance offered by these amendments in making sure that no one is left out.

As the Bill stands, Gypsies, Travellers and Roma, and other marginalised citizens, are in effect discriminated against, when they should be enabled to join the mainstream. The proposals deter rather than enfranchise people. They subvert democracy. These amendments would help right that wrong. I urge the Government to adopt them.

Constitution, Democracy and Rights Commission

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Whitaker]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what will be (1) the terms of reference, and (2) the appointment process, for the constitution, democracy and rights commission.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)]

My Lords, the commission will examine the broader aspects of the constitution in depth and develop proposals to restore trust in our institutions and in how our democracy operates. Careful consideration of the scope of the commission is required, and further announcements will be made in due course.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab) [V]]

Events have moved on since this commission was first announced. How will its remit and membership take account of the rights of black and minority ethnic marginalised and poor people, as well as the citizen’s right to a clean and sustainable environment?

[Lord True]

My Lords, the commission was promised in the Conservative manifesto last December. Since then, we have had the Covid crisis. As I said, further announcements about the commission will be made in due course, but I have no doubt that it will be able to take into account all events anterior to its creation.

Covid-19: Economy

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I have three questions for the Minister about the measures we need to adopt. They go beyond the consequences of Covid-19 to use the opportunities it offers. First and most importantly, how will Her Majesty’s Government direct their economic advisers to address the climate emergency? How will they get to the position that all economic analysts model and forecast through the prism of mitigation of or adaptation to climate change? How can we bring in externalities from outside?

Secondly, how will economic analysis be framed to prioritise well-being? I follow the authors of The Spirit Level in asking economists to pay more attention to non-monetary elements of inequality, such as health, social problems and access to amenities, in the economy. They demonstrate that equality is conducive to a thriving economy. To those who say that some public goods cannot be priced and are outside the province of economics—literally invaluable—I point out that there have been ways of considering how we should compute values outside the cash economy at least since Mandeville’s The Fable of the Bees in 1723.

Thirdly, how will the Government ensure that citizens are party to economic environmental decisions? In this connection, will the Government now join the 88 nations which have ratified the Aarhus convention, which our former membership of the EU entitles us to do? We have experienced a high degree of public mistrust in political action. We need to repair this democratic deficit.

How should economic approaches adapt to the new world we shall find ourselves in so that we can use the opportunity to make it better?

Census (England and Wales) Order 2020

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Tuesday 12th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I have just two questions for the Minister. They are in the context that our Gypsy, Traveller and Roma communities are acknowledged, not least by the Government, to be the most disadvantaged in educational, health, socioeconomic and accommodation outcomes. To address the problems of minority-ethnic groups, it goes without saying—but I am going to say it—that we first need accurate and meaningful data.

I declare my interest as a holder of various unremunerated posts in service of the Gypsy, Traveller and Roma communities. In the order, the success of our efforts to include the Roma people is demonstrated, and I thank the census team for that. However, the order still runs Gypsies and Irish Travellers into one category. There are significant differences between these two communities in terms of all the outcomes I have referred to, so can the Minister tell me that the two categories will be split as soon as practicable, as reason and fact demand?

Secondly, what are the arrangements to visit Gypsy and Traveller sites? Public service representatives have often neglected to call at sites even when their help has been urgently needed, and I seek reassurance that census workers will speak with the travelling communities to arrange productive visits and allay any anxiety so as to obtain the data we need.

Census 2021

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Wednesday 16th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Government are of course keen to encourage people to respond online. The paper-based census takes a great deal of time to analyse and transpose. It was some 16 months from the last census in 2011 until the first data became publicly available. If more people do it online, that could all be done a great deal more quickly but in 2021, although we already understand that 80% of households now use the internet daily, there will of course be support from the usual recruited field force to assist those who do not use online materials.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, following the very pertinent question from the noble Lord opposite, can the Minister give the House an assurance that the new category—that is to say, since 2011—of Gypsies and Travellers will not be lost in any new system, because it has already yielded invaluable factored information about the disadvantage experienced by these communities?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I think that all Members will recall that we use a field force to go and find the people who are the most difficult to get hold of and those in whom we are most interested. The Office for National Statistics estimates that the last census was some 94% complete. We suspect and fear that the 6% we missed were strongly represented among the most vulnerable elements of the population.

Ethnic Minorities: Ministers’ Statements

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, last week we commemorated the Holocaust, which encompassed the genocide of about one-quarter of the Roma people of Europe, whose violent persecution still continues. Should not our political leadership be more mindful of where prejudice and bigotry lead?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we remember the Holocaust and that, I hope, although the Jews were the primary target of the Holocaust a great many others also died: nearly 2 million Poles, perhaps 200,000 Sinti Roma, gays, people with Asiatic features and others. The West German Government recognised the Roma dimension of the genocide in 1982; I understand that in 2012 a memorial to the Roma and Sinti who died in the genocide was unveiled in Berlin.

Government: Commercial Lobbying of Ministers

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Minister about whose conduct that inquiry was held has now resigned. The Government will look again at the report and see whether there are matters that need further investigation. Perhaps I may remind the noble Lord that when a statutory register of lobbyists was proposed by the Public Affairs Select Committee in 2009, the previous Government declined to accept that report and said that they preferred a voluntary register. However, to their credit, the Labour Government in their manifesto for the last election supported a statutory register.

[Baroness Whitaker]

When the Minister responds to the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, about the senior corporate chairmen’s group, will he include information about what representations it made to the Prime Minister about the corruption Bill?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

As regards the Bribery Bill, we will do our best to provide whatever information is available. I say to noble Lords that lobbying is a huge industry. My notes say that professional lobbying is a £2 billion industry that has a huge presence in Parliament. The Hansard Society estimates that some MPs are approached by lobbyists more than 100 times per week. I suspect that Members of this House may feel that non-commercial lobbies, too, are sometimes fairly pressing. We have had a large number of messages and letters in the past week, not only on the NHS—some of them might be considered self-interested—but on Amendment 80 to the Education Bill.