G7

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The way I would put it is that the clear view of the G7 was that the status quo of the flow of arms and people across the border and the support being given to separatist groups is unacceptable and those things need to change. We also need a responsible response from Russia to the free trade agreement between Ukraine and the EU. Both of those things need to happen for further sanction actions to be comprehensively avoided.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Does the Prime Minister recognise that the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism in the transatlantic trade and investment partnership agreement is deeply controversial, because essentially it allows private companies to sue democratic Governments? Given that sovereignty is an issue that the Prime Minister is obviously very fond of, will he explain why he is so relaxed about the potential very serious loss of sovereignty if TTIP goes ahead?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady is right that this is a contentious and difficult issue, but I do not believe that it is one that cannot be solved through negotiation. After all, these sorts of issues come up in every bilateral trade deal. If we are going to get the full advantage of these trade deals, so that they include services and financial services as well as goods, we have to address those problems. If we made trade deals simply about reducing tariff barriers, most of that work has already been done though international agreements, so we have to do the difficult things to get the full benefit.

Debate on the Address

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 4th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Will the Prime Minister recognise that his plan to strip property owners of their right to refuse permission for fracking under their homes is hugely unpopular? It is opposed by 75% of the population. Will he tell us why he is ignoring not just the public, but the science which shows very clearly that if we are to have any hope of avoiding climate change, we must leave 80% of known fossil fuel reserves in the ground?

[The Prime Minister]

I think that we should look at the empirical evidence provided by countries around the world, including the United States, where the ability to access shale gas is making energy prices and industry competitive and is helping the economy to grow. Those who are against access to shale gas seem to be claiming that it will somehow be legal to go on to people’s property and frack against their will. That is simply not the case, as the legislation that we are setting out will make extremely clear.

I was speaking about the values that are at the heart of the Queen’s Speech, and I believe that they are what matter when it comes to turning people back on to politics and our ability to change things in a way that they will find satisfactory. One value that is important is fairness. However, fairness means not just what people get out but what they put in, so it is right for us to have a welfare system that rewards work and an immigration system that is tough, controlled, and unashamedly in our national interest. We will never have genuine equality of opportunity if we have low expectations for our children, so it is right for us to take on the dumbing down and the low standards of the past, and to ensure that we have the best schools and skills for the next generation. Those are the values at the heart of this Queen’s Speech.

Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

I do agree. What is interesting about the way in which the debate has progressed in the seven months since the House last discussed the issue is that the Commission has become much clearer in saying that the stance of its negotiating team will be not to lower consumer, environmental or labour standards. I will suggest later that that should be one of four central tests that we or anyone else should be able to level at the quality of the negotiations and the agreement struck.

My central point at this stage is to say that, for the first time—because of the level of interest and the level of mistrust in the establishment, politicians and big business—this cannot be a traditional backroom trade deal done by the elites in Brussels and Washington. Like justice, good trade policy must not only be done but must now be seen to be done. Any legitimate agreement must command the broadly based confidence that it will bring benefits to British consumers and workers, as well as to British business. It must be subject to the scrutiny of open debate; otherwise, there will be a risk that bad policy will remain unchanged and that fears will flourish unchallenged.

My argument to the Minister in particular is that those involved in securing and ratifying an agreement—Government Ministers, negotiators and elected politicians—will have to work much harder and more openly for a deal, and those of us across all parties who are for a deal will have to work much harder to provide support to enable that to happen.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for securing such an important debate. While Ministers seem keen to keep the public in the dark, the banking lobby is so happy with the financial services proposals that it has said that the text could have come straight from its own brochure. Does that ring the same alarm bells for the right hon. Gentleman as it does for me, and does he agree that the TTIP must not allow banks to undo the crucial EU agreement limiting harmful commodity speculation in particular?

[John Healey]

I had not heard that statement and I am surprised that the financial services industry has the detailed text of what is on the table, because we are not yet at that stage of the negotiations.

I want to do two things: first, I want to spell out a progressive economic case for trade and for the TTIP, and secondly, I want to set out four tests that I think a good TTIP deal and the Governments and negotiators involved must meet. On the economic case and why it is so important to the UK at present, I think that the great depression of the 1930s was the last economic crisis that was in any way comparable to what we suffered in 2008 with the global financial crisis and downturn. The policies pursued by the UK and the US back in the ’30s are, I think, widely seen to have prolonged that slump and held back any recovery. Not only were there deep cuts in public spending; there was also a sharp rise in protectionism and a decline in multilateral trade. Therefore, part of the reason why deals such as the TTIP and, indeed, the EU’s recent agreements with Canada and Korea are so important is that they avoid that default to beggar-my-neighbour economic policies and instead look to increase global trade through international co-operation. The UK has a particular need for the economic benefits and boost of trade.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Field]

Very much so. I suspect that my hon. Friend knows more about the chocolate industry than I, particularly as he is a Yorkshire MP.

The enthusiasm that I mentioned has been seen predominantly on this side of the Atlantic. The main aims of the partnership, on which formal negotiations began last July, are to increase trade and investment between the US and the EU by reducing tariffs, particularly on agricultural products; to align regulations and standards; to improve the protection for overseas investors; and to increase access to services and government procurement markets for foreign providers.

There is no doubt that the prize is enormous and that the TTIP is highly ambitious. The US is and will remain the EU’s most important trading partner, with some $2.7 billion of trade daily in goods and services.

[Caroline Lucas]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is aware that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has commissioned a cost and impact assessment on the agreement. That research states that

“an EU-US investment treaty would impose costs on the UK to the extent that it prevents the UK government from regulating in the public interest.”

Why is the hon. Gentleman so gung-ho about such an agreement when the Government’s own impact assessment states that the investor state part of it will cause problems for us?

[Mark Field]

I look forward to the Minister destroying one or two of those arguments. I suspect that the hon. Lady has provided a selective reading of the BIS impact assessment.

Much of the media coverage of the TTIP has focused on the trade of manufactured goods. Rather less attention has been given to a sphere of commerce in which the UK economy excels globally: financial and professional services. I represent the City of London, which is a hub not only for banking, but for a range of related service businesses such as accountancy, insurance, consultancy, the law and pensions management. To put into perspective the importance of those industries to the UK, in 2012 the financial and associated professional services sector employed some 7% of the UK work force, produced some 13% of total economic output, contributed £65 billion in tax and generated a trade surplus of £55 billion.

The City of London is strongly supportive of the TTIP, but has been consistent in its belief that no industry should be excluded from the partnership’s scope, including financial and professional services. There would be benefits not only through boosted trade, but through a reduction in the potential for the kind of regulatory arbitrage that currently means that differences in the implementation of financial standards are exploited, thereby putting financial stability at risk. Some of the regulatory differences are unavoidable because of the variations in EU and US market structures and cultures. Others cannot be justified on prudential grounds.

As was demonstrated so painfully in 2008, we tend to get regulatory co-operation only in times of severe crisis, when deals are brokered at the eleventh hour to avoid market fracture. If financial services were within the TTIP’s scope, I believe that we could design a stable, long-term framework for the discussion and co-ordination of regulatory issues long before we hit the next crisis point. The other great prize is that we could create a larger, more efficient market place for EU and US financial institutions, thereby solidifying their leading role in global financial regulation—a market that will get much bigger in Asia as the emerging economies of China, India and the like strengthen.

It is for those reasons that the EU has been lobbying hard for such services to be included in the TTIP negotiations. However, there is still stiff opposition from the US Treasury, which suggests that the TTIP is primarily a trade pact, not a forum for regulatory co-operation. The fear seems to be that the US might lose its sovereignty over regulation. It must be made clear that that is not what the EU proposes. Nobody wants to undermine existing regulations, even the Dodd-Frank Act. Co-ordination is quite different from capitulation. We need sustained, high-level political engagement to bring financial services within the TTIP’s remit.

I am concerned that there is insufficient public awareness of the TTIP, including what is at stake, what the challenges and benefits are—I accept what the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) says—and what the potential benefits are. Quite understandably, given the systematic undermining of the world’s political and economic elite in recent years, which has been referred to, there is a wave of distrust at the tenor of the negotiations that are under way. There is a common perception that side deals are being brokered to benefit global corporations, posing a risk to national sovereignty that might see our independent courts being made subservient to outside arbitration. It would be helpful if the Minister clarified his position on those arguments this afternoon. I encourage the Government to run an even more visible campaign on the TTIP that allows us all to have an open, honest discussion about its potential benefits and drawbacks.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jonathan Edwards]

I am grateful for that intervention and I will go on to agree with some of the points the hon. Gentleman has just raised.

We in Plaid Cymru support the principle of affording exporters in Wales the opportunity to further their trade with the USA. It is the largest destination for Welsh exports outside the EU and involves 23.7% of all trade, which naturally leads to the question of whether there is actually a problem to solve with the proposed trade deal. Certainly, we would support any deal that was of mutual benefit and in the Welsh national interest, and we would want guarantees that SMEs are genuinely afforded entry into the market with the chance to create more jobs and grow the economy. For example, exports from local farmers in Carmarthenshire could benefit from a favourable deal. Indeed, the Farmers Union of Wales is very encouraged by the TTIP.

However, Plaid Cymru would be opposed to any deal that ended up favouring big corporations and allowed the further hollowing out of industrial sectors of the Welsh economy. We also have grave concerns about the proposed EU-US trade deal as it currently stands with regard to investor state dispute settlement—I will talk a little more about that later in my remarks.

Much needs to be done to increase transparency in these negotiations. I am an avid follower of the Twitter account launched by the EU negotiating team, but much greater effort needs to be made by the EU and member states to explain and inform people about the TTIP. Economists at the Munich-based Ifo Institute found that a trade deal would lead to a 13.4% increase in US income per head in real terms over the long term, but an average rise of only 5% among the EU 27, now 28—we in Wales welcome our friends in Croatia to the EU table.

The figures assume that the US and EU agree on a deal that would lower transatlantic tariffs, and harmonise and ease regulations in many sectors that are often referred to as non-tariff barriers to trade. Trust in any trading partner is essential. That is why last year I read with great concern the revelations that the National Security Agency surveillance programmes had been spying on Governments in Europe, with the help of intelligence services in the UK. The spying revelations had the potential to derail the proposed deal, given the understandable outrage in some European capitals. I am amazed that there has not been more public outrage here, given the level of intrusion into private lives. I imagine that had any other foreign Government pursued such blanket intrusion, the UK Government would have armed the nukes. Their deafening silence about the NSA revelations indicates a worrying collusion aimed at sidestepping UK civil liberty protections. That is why it is incredibly important that, at every stage of the negotiations on any deal, there is full transparency and accountability, and that all groups are allowed input. This is a matter for all EU nations and regions, not just the leaders of a few select large and economically powerful states within it.

EU Trade Ministers agreed on a mandate for the European Commission to conduct negotiations with the USA on the TTIP. A lack of transparency in future negotiations is a major cause for concern, yet EU Governments insist on keeping the mandate confidential. The trumped-up excuse—that it is necessary for negotiations —does not stand up to analysis, as it will be available for the US to access. The mandate on the terms of any deal should be freely debated in the European Parliament and in European Parliaments, and not arrogantly assumed by the European Commission and state Governments.

The French Government have apparently secured the exclusion of culture and audiovisual services from the mandate. There are still many risks that deserve the same attention. There are serious concerns that negotiations could lead to investor claims that threaten core EU standards and rules on the protection of public services— such as the NHS, which was raised earlier—intellectual property, food safety, GMO crops, and health and environmental standards.

[Caroline Lucas]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very powerful case. Does he agree that it is not enough simply to plead for special exemptions to one or two sectors, such as the NHS? Corporations should not be given new rights to sue the Government for legislating in the public interest, whatever the sector. That bit of the TTIP should simply be taken out.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I fully concur with the views of my hon. Friend. I will go on to talk on that specific issue in the remaining parts of my speech.

Concerns over data protection have been completely overshadowed by the US Prism spying programme. The US is much better organised in economic and industrial policy and will have no qualms about defending its narrow interests, making the need for transparency in the negotiations imperative. Most worrying about the TTIP as it stands are the proposals for investor-state dispute settlement. This would weigh law in favour of big business, allowing them to sue Governments that attempt to defend their citizens. Secretive panels of corporate lawyers could circumvent legal protections and override the will of Parliaments.

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2014 Commons Chamber

The Prime Minister was asked—

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 12 February.

[The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)]

This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.

[Caroline Lucas]

Our hearts go out to everyone whose lives are being devastated by the current floods. I am sure we all welcome the Prime Minister’s promise yesterday that he will do everything he can both with the relief effort and in building a more resilient country into the future. Does he therefore agree that it would be both complacent and ignorant to flout the warnings of the Met Office and his own advisers, who warn that climate change will lead to even more such events in the future? Can he confirm for the House and for everyone in my Brighton constituency that doing everything he can will include not only reversing cuts to the Environment Agency budget and giving proper funding for flood prevention but, crucially, removing anyone from the Cabinet—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

We are grateful; that is enough. [Interruption.]

Deregulation Bill

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I beg to move,

That this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Deregulation Bill because, whilst acknowledging that removing unnecessary burdens on small businesses is welcome, the Bill fails to recognise the social, economic and environmental benefits of effective regulation and contains a number of extremely damaging proposals including: the watering down of safety protections for employees that will leave workers at greater risk of injury, ill-health and abuse; the erosion of protection of journalistic sources and against police seizure of journalistic material, which threatens the basis of the free press; and the imposition of a growth duty on non-economic regulators such as Natural England and the Health and Safety Executive, which is irresponsible and risks undermining their core roles; further considers that this Bill is another illustration of a Government which is embarking on a deregulatory path without due consideration of warnings, including from businesses, that effective regulation is essential to create jobs and innovation and that ripping up vital green legislation risks locking the UK into polluting industrial processes for decades to come, jeopardising future competitiveness, damaging the UK’s attractiveness for green investment, and undermining new industries; and further believes that this Bill represents a race to the bottom and an obsession with GDP growth at any cost which is not in the public interest.

I tabled this reasoned amendment because I believe that the Bill should not be given a Second Reading. I listened to the Minister characterising those of us who have signed the amendment as somehow being of the far left. If that is the case, that category would have to include groups such as the UK Green Building Council, the Aldersgate Group and many other business groups right across the spectrum that have deep concerns about the Bill’s direction of travel.

I did not table this reasoned amendment without giving consideration to those parts of the Bill that are welcome and uncontroversial. Certainly, some parts of the Bill are completely fine. For example, it is cold homes week and many MPs and charities are working hard to highlight fuel poverty in cold homes. Scarves are a symbol of the campaign and people have been knitting away in the past few weeks to draw attention to the need to tackle fuel poverty. I am sure that nobody would object to the clauses in the Bill that would remove restrictions on the selling of knitting yarn. They will allow small and large businesses engaged in the selling of yarn better to meet their customers’ needs. Other provisions are similarly sensible, such as those that would facilitate the recording of public rights of way, and I give them my full support. Removing genuinely defunct legislation from the statute book also makes sense.

My worry is that the basis of the Bill is incredibly simplistic and crude: in the Government’s mind more regulation is bad and less regulation is good, without ever questioning the kind of regulation. Is it smart regulation? What is the purpose of the regulation? Will it actually generate more development? Will it incentivise industry? Will it provide industry with the level playing ground it often asks for? Instead of this nuanced approach, we have a complete knee-jerk reaction that says, “Regulation is bad, deregulation is good” and proceeds in a simple way.

I will make comments on three areas of the Bill. First, I want to cover some specific provisions—I will outline just a few. Secondly, I want to talk about the fundamentally flawed premise on which the Bill is based: it fails to recognise that some regulation can be good for business and job creation, as well as for consumers. Thirdly, I will say a few words about the new growth duty on non-economic regulators, which I fear will interfere with, and impinge on, their ability independently to carry out crucial roles, including: the Care Quality Commission protecting public health; Natural England protecting our environment; the Health and Safety Executive protecting employees and others from harm at work; or the Equality and Human Rights Commission challenging discrimination and protecting human rights. This growth duty is just the latest manifestation of an obsession with short-term GDP growth at any cost, and that is simply not in the public interest.

First, I will focus on just a few of the harmful provisions that I think Ministers are trying to ram through in the name of deregulation. The Bill narrows the application of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, following the 2011 Löfstedt review. The Bill effectively exempts self-employed people from health and safety law where their activities do not put another person at risk. On the surface, one could ask what could be wrong with that. The problem is that the changes in the Bill are completely unnecessary, because the only time the 1974 Act can be used is when a person does put another person at risk. No self-employed person has ever been prosecuted or threatened with prosecution for risking just their own health. Right now, the law is straightforward and it works. The Bill will create not only confusion, but complacency.

Let us not forget that the fatality, injury and ill-health rate for the self-employed is already much higher than that for other sectors. Some of the more dangerous industries, such as agriculture and construction, have a high proportion of self-employed people working in them. There is an obvious risk that people who control the workplace where self-employed people work may think, wrongly, that they do not need to be as concerned about fulfilling their duty of care to the self-employed. The TUC has made this point clear, as have the majority of respondents to the HSE consultation, who rejected the very option we now have put before us. The health and safety professional body, the Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, warns:

“This is a very short-sighted and misleading move, it won’t actually help anyone; it won’t support business; but it will cause general confusion.”

As well as health and safety protections, it is also reasonable to ensure that employees do not face discrimination in the workplace, yet the Government are trying to take a massive backward step in the fight against discrimination, too, by removing the powers of employment tribunals to issue wider recommendations on gender, race or other forms of discrimination in the workplace.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

As the hon. Lady will be aware, employment tribunals made these recommendations only 19 times in 2012, and in fact employers often welcome them because they help to resolve many underlying issues that often lead to discrimination claims being made in the first place.

[Caroline Lucas]

That is a clear example of where the status quo is not causing a problem. The Government are looking for problems to solve where there are no problems, and instead are creating a whole lot more.

Affordable housing could be another casualty of this obsession with deregulation. Reducing the eligibility period for the right to buy could seriously undermine housing associations’ ability to provide affordable housing and make it more, not less, difficult for housing associations to do business, contrary to the Government’s own apparent aims. It would be interesting to hear what assessment the Minister has made of the impact on the Government’s ambition to deliver 165,000 affordable homes over the Parliament. Why did they not consult housing associations on the impact of the measure before bringing it forward?

On the environment, in May 2010 in the coalition agreement, the Government committed to encouraging community-owned renewable energy schemes, and that is being delivered with the launch of the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s community energy strategy. However, the reduction of energy and climate change duties, set out in clause 28, appears specifically to contradict that commitment and undermine the recent statements supporting community energy made by Ministers.

On public participation in decision making, the Bill weakens the Government’s overall consultation duties by removing specified statutory duties to consult. The majority of the consultation requirements to be removed by the Bill relate to the environment and greatly reduce the participation rights of affected people, including regulators such as Natural England. Consultation is a core element of democratic government and serves as one of the main ways the Government can be held to account for their actions. It also contributes to increasing public trust in government and is essential for developing policy and legislation, because it provides access to wider sources of information, opinions, and potential issues and solutions. The Government risk undermining their legitimacy and triggering a public outcry by removing statutory consultation requirements. The statement in schedule 15 that the Government consider these statutory requirements to consult as unnecessary is neither satisfactory nor sufficient to justify that removal.

More specifically, the UK is a signatory to the Aarhus convention, which binds the UK to provide the public with, among other things, a right to participate in decision making in any proposed activity that might have a significant effect on the environment and/or during the preparation of plans and programmes relating to the environment. The removal of the requirement to consult on the exercise of various powers relating to the environment directly conflicts with the requirements of the Aarhus convention, which stems from principle 10 of the Rio declaration, which opens with the declaration:

“Environmental issues are best handled with participation of all concerned citizens, at the relevant level.”

The Government should justify the removal of each of the consultation requirements and confirm how the UK’s public participation obligation, pursuant to the convention, will be discharged.

We have already heard quite a bit about clause 47. I was going to say that hidden in the Bill was a provision seeking to repeal some of the journalistic protections in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 that currently ensure proper and fair judicial scrutiny before police applications to obtain journalistic material are granted. I am grateful for the fact that the Minister is attempting to reassure his own Back Benchers on this issue, but it worries me that only at the last moment, when the Bill has got to this stage, is he proposing further consultation on this important part of the Bill. That strikes me as odd, as many organisations have been extremely vocal in raising this issue over several months. The Newspaper Society, The Guardian and many others have warned about the impact of closed material proceedings and so on.

I am grateful that, at the last minute, the Government are looking again at this matter and saying they will consult again, but that raises questions about how many other parts of the Bill will have unintended consequences.

[Mr Letwin]

The hon. Lady is making a serious speech; I hope I can correct just one misapprehension on her part. Although it is perfectly true that the Newspaper Society and others raised this issue, from memory it was on Wednesday or Thursday last week. They had not done so when the Joint Committee was scrutinising the Bill, nor did they do so when the Bill left the Joint Committee and we responded to it; they did so only last Wednesday or Thursday. That is why I have said that some further consultation would make sense, in case anyone else out there has views who has not come forward during the whole six months or so of exposure of the draft.

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the Minister for that clarification. That is not as I understood it, but I am pleased to be corrected if that is the case. Certainly the lobby that I have been aware of—which is perhaps looking at broader issues than the question we are currently discussing—has been going on for a long time, but I thank the Minister for his clarification.

My second main objection to the Bill is that, in a sense, it just feels like the latest manifestation of a Government embarking on an evidence-free deregulatory path without due consideration of warnings, including from business. Those warnings say that effective regulation is essential to create jobs and innovation, and that ripping up vital green legislation risks locking the UK into polluting industrial processes for decades to come, jeopardising future competitiveness, damaging the UK’s attractiveness for green investment and undermining new industries. Let us take, for example, the UK Green Building Council, which works daily with more than 400 companies and organisations, from the largest to the smallest, across the built environment industry. In response to the Prime Minister’s comment last week about deregulation, Paul King, its chief executive, said:

“The Prime Minister’s boasts of ‘slashing 80,000 pages’ of environmental guidance is utterly reprehensible. It is the same poisonous political rhetoric from Number 10, devaluing environmental regulation in a slash and burn manner. These words are not only damaging and irresponsible, but misrepresent the wishes of so many modern businesses, both large and small.”

[Andrew Bridgen]

Apart from that one, rather spurious example, can the hon. Lady give the names of other business organisations that are demanding more regulation in the UK?

[Caroline Lucas]

I certainly can. I could talk about the Aldersgate Group as one or the Prince of Wales business trust as another. There are plenty of business organisations out there that make it clear that appropriate regulation is helpful to them. What they want is clarity, which is the very opposite of what they have had from this Government, under whom rules have been changed almost overnight. I am thinking, for example, of the feed-in tariff change, when suddenly the rules were changed retrospectively, more or less overnight, causing huge confusion and complication for many companies.

What those companies want is a level playing field, and clarity and certainty into the future. They are happy to have clear, sensible regulation that applies to all; what they do not want is a Government who simply come out with more and more rhetoric and introduce rules retrospectively or at the last moment. Many businesses in my constituency are tearing their hair out about not being able to plan for the future, because they do not know what the Government’s latest response will be to the UK Independence party or whoever else they are trying to close off.

[Andrew Bridgen]

I ran a business for 22 years, and what small businesses knew under the last Labour Government was that, on average, every working day we would get six more regulations affecting our businesses. Does the hon. Lady think that was very welcome?

[Caroline Lucas]

I am not a spokesperson for the Labour party, but if the hon. Gentleman wants to ask that question of those on the Labour Front Bench, he is very welcome to do so. What I am talking about is my knowledge of small businesses, with which I spend a lot of time in my constituency. What they would love to see is a reduction in VAT or an extension of the threshold, so that more small businesses are caught by the business rate relief. There are all kinds of things that they would like to see, but they are not necessarily telling me about a huge burden of regulation of the kind that the Government think they are trying to solve.

An example of the positive role of regulation is the 2016 zero-carbon target. This set a destination in advance and precipitated a huge amount of innovation from businesses figuring out how to get there—new jobs, new industries and new export markets for UK businesses. Customers are increasingly interested in energy efficiency, and a new home will probably save them £800 on their annual energy bills. Builders have responded to a clear stepwise trajectory towards zero-carbon homes, with uplifts in regulations in 2006 and 2010, and again this year, en route to 2016, from when all new homes are meant to be zero-carbon. The costs of building low-carbon, efficient homes have tumbled—by half in the last two years alone, according to forthcoming research. That example highlights the fact that Government regulation, not deregulation, can be incredibly successful in driving innovation, keeping energy bills down, creating jobs and cutting carbon emissions.

Environmental regulation to manage building in flood-prone areas will protect people from the nightmares that we have witnessed on our TV screens, if not in our own living rooms, over recent weeks. There are plenty of examples of disastrous deregulation, too. The US car industry lobbied and funded both Democrats and Republicans to reduce regulation. The result was that it drove itself to bankruptcy, because it was out-competed by overseas manufacturers that developed more efficient cars to meet tougher regulations elsewhere.

The Government seem to be ignoring business representatives speaking out in favour of strong regulation. I have mentioned the Aldersgate Group a couple of times. In 2011, it warned that the drive to cut regulations on business could threaten the economic recovery. In a report launched here in the House of Commons, it stated that Government initiatives such as the red tape challenge that threaten “to rip up” vital green legislation would lock in polluting industrial processes for decades to come, jeopardise future competitiveness, and damage the UK’s attractiveness to green investors. It questioned whether measures such as one in, one out rule made sense, and would address pressing environmental challenges such as climate change. That is just one example of a market failure that requires more, not less, regulation to safeguard the environment and drive development in new industries.

The Aldersgate Group also highlighted the negative impact of putting sensible environmental regulations at risk with a consequent loss of business confidence. Peter Young, the group’s chairman, said:

“It is a myth that all businesses want less regulation. Effective green laws create a level playing field which drives efficiency, early action and the innovation in UK companies that will be the engine for future growth and jobs.

A crude deregulation drive risks damaging competitiveness and severely threatens the Prime Minister’s commitment to a green industrial revolution. The regulatory framework should encourage a rapid shift to a sustainable economy rather than being held back by vested interests or the lowest common denominator.

The Government’s ‘war on red tape' must not become a crusade that threatens regulatory outcomes such as protecting the environment. Even the threat of deregulation on the Climate Change Act and renewable energy support is massively eroding investment and making growth more difficult.”

There you have it, Madam Deputy Speaker. That is not just the Green party speaking; some of the captains of some of the biggest industries in the country are saying, very clearly, that the idea that all businesses hate all regulation is a myth and a travesty.

[Richard Fuller]

What does the hon. Lady think is the impact of deregulation on the interests of small business, as opposed to large business? She has talked about large businesses, but does she not think that deregulation particularly helps small businesses?

[Caroline Lucas]

I certainly think that some deregulation can help small businesses, and I also think that small businesses find it harder to deal with. What I object to is the fact that we are talking in vast generalisations. Let us instead talk about specific regulations. By and large—apart from, for instance, the clause about knitting yarn—the Bill contains none of the measures that small businesses in my constituency are crying out for. As I have said, what they would love to see are changes in the whole economic environment, such as the introduction of a higher threshold before business rate relief comes in. That would make a huge difference to them.

Let me now say something about the growth duty. I fear that it will interfere with, and impinge on, the ability of organisations to play crucial roles. The idea that growth must come before everything is a mantra and an ideological obsession, and it seems to me that an obsession with short-term GDP growth at any cost is simply not in the public interest. The Government’s justification for the growth duty has been inconsistent and incoherent. Regulators are already subject to a statutory duty to regulate proportionately, to be transparent and accountable, and to target activities only when that is necessary. That legislation is already there.

Ministers give assurances that the independence and effectiveness of organisations in carrying out their duties will not be undermined. A Government consultation paper states:

“Supporting growth and stripping back burdens are not sufficiently prioritised.”

However, it also states that

“the regulators would need to be able to demonstrate that they have considered the economic impact of their actions when making decisions”,

and that

“the duty is intended to be complementary to, and not override… existing duties.”

I do not understand why the new growth duty is necessary. As the consultation paper makes clear, regulations already exist, and we already know that the bodies concerned must take into account the impact of their proposals on the wider economy.

It seems to me that what we have here is yet another knee-jerk reaction. Growth must come before everything else—protecting workers’ rights, public health, equality, fair treatment, and the environment—and that, in my view, is a very negative approach.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister without Portfolio (Mr Kenneth Clarke)]

A small and select group of specialist people have taken part in this debate, but it has been a very worthwhile one and while it has got very heated and agitated at times, I keep being reminded of how closely we have all been forced together, and the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) therefore finished on a very welcome note. The fact is that, so far as I noticed in every contribution from the moment the debate started, we all rather accept the need for deregulation. Everybody agreed on the other hand that there is a case for sensible regulation in the modern world. Indeed, it is highly desirable, but it is essential from time to time for Governments and Parliament to ensure that what is being done is proportionate, sensible, justifiable and does not impose unnecessary burdens on individuals and branches of government, and on business and small business in particular. We have gone round and round in circles and some Members have got wildly excited about particular regulations, but the fact is we come back to agreement on that point, and I get the impression that no one is going to press any objection this evening to the vote.

[Caroline Lucas]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Mr Clarke]

The amendment is of course on the Order Paper, so I give way to the hon. Lady.

[Caroline Lucas]

I have been advised that it will be helpful to the House to let the right hon. and learned Gentleman know that I do not intend to press the amendment tonight.

[Mr Clarke]

I am very grateful to hear it because by its very nature a deregulatory Bill gives rise to many points that can be raised in Committee.

The hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) raised a lot of detailed points, and said that they should be considered in Committee. He has already served on the pre-legislative scrutiny Committee. It is inevitable, when the British cover such a wide variety of things in regulation, that we sometimes have to have an item-by-item vote.

I take it from the tone of the debate today that the general direction of policy set out by the Government has fairly widespread approval. I have endured the experience of opposition, albeit briefly, in my time, and I occasionally had the burden of being sent along to a debate of this kind and trying to find something to argue about. I think that that was the problem facing the two very able Front-Bench speakers representing the Opposition today.

A strange argument broke out at one point today about whether what we were doing was totally insubstantial, worthless and of no point to the outside world, or whether it was completely horrendous and, as the Green amendment, which is no longer being pressed, says,

“ripping up vital green legislation”.

It was suggested that our blood should run cold at the idea of what we were doing to everyone from those climbing mountains to those running small businesses.

The claim was also made that the last Government had somehow achieved £3 billion of savings through their strident deregulatory measures. I am not here to debate the record of the last Government, but that is quite the most startling exposition of what they achieved that I have ever heard. I do not recommend that any Labour spokesman should try to persuade an audience of any of the small businessmen I have ever met that that was what they were doing.

The Bill represents the most determined effort of any Government I have known to pursue the deregulatory aims to which most Governments have paid lip service for the past 20 years. We were all into deregulation in the early 1990s; then the Labour Government talked about “better regulation”. I believe that this Government can claim that the substance of what we are producing greatly exceeds anything that has been done before.

Some of the figures that have been quoted about the impact of the Bill disguise the fact that it is only one part of the red tape challenge that is being led by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Government Policy. The Bill runs alongside and is part of that challenge, and it contains the elements that require primary legislation. My right hon. Friend has mentioned the 3,000 regulations that need to be repealed or improved.

The Bill has to be big enough and long enough to deal with so many detailed areas, and it will supplement and add to that to produce a deregulatory effect for businesses—particularly small businesses—as well as individual citizens, local authorities and branches of government, all of which have better things to do than to waste money on statutory duties the reason for which no one knows, or to produce reports that nobody reads or to have obligations for things that nobody is asking them to give advice on. For example, school governors have to publish advice on discipline. Our reforms will not undermine school discipline; my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education has talked about the need for school discipline. Most governors do not even know they are under such an obligation, but unfortunately some do produce a statement of policy, which is not required. That regulation will now be repealed.

The key part of the Bill is the one that relates to business. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) on this. I think we will need a Bill of this kind every 10 years or so. In modern times, as a result of single-issue lobby groups and newspaper campaigns, Government Departments engage in ever-more legislative and regulatory activity, sometimes for the sake of being seen to be doing something or, in the case of the lobby groups, being seen to be demanding something new. That has an adverse effect not only on the statute book and the regulatory publications but on the administration of good government and the running of any successful business. The Bill is therefore a welcome, and drastic, attempt to change the culture and go back in the direction of common sense and proper regulation that involves a true public interest and to ensure that environmental standards and the safety of workers are maintained.

The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah), echoed by the hon. Member for Hartlepool, got on to matters that were of concern to her. Although such things can be discussed in Committee, I have to say that an attempt was being made to make a difference of principle that was not there. For example, we had the issue of employment rights and of the tribunals dealing with claims by employees against their employer. Let me make it absolutely clear that the Bill is not remotely trying to roll back the law on unfair dismissal or to reduce the protections against discrimination in the work place.

The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) tried to identify the party political origin of every measure in the Bill. As it happens, it was a Conservative Government who set up employment tribunals, introduced employment rights and started the whole process that we now have. The intention was to provide a sensible, accessible and low cost way of resolving disputes and awarding compensation where some breach of employment rights had taken place. Over the years, the system has become legalistic. It has become almost habitual for anybody who loses their job to bring a claim, because there is very little risk to them and a great deal of encouragement to have a go. None of that is being tackled too directly by the Bill.

Addressing the power and cost of tribunals is much overdue. The principal fundamentals of employment rights are utterly beyond dispute nowadays. For the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central to claim that this Bill is a serious threat to the real principles underlying employment rights and achieves no important benefits shows that she has not met enough employers. When we talk to small employers about the problems of running a competitive business, most will rapidly start raising the problem and cost of claims before employment tribunals. The changes we propose could be criticised for being too modest, but they are certainly heading in the right direction. They should not invite a knee-jerk reaction from the Labour party, or anybody else, that nothing should be done to deregulate in that area and to remove unnecessary cost.

Similarly, on health and safety, absolutely nobody is suggesting, in this Bill or anywhere else, that we lower standards in this country when it comes to protecting the health and safety of the work force, or anybody else. We are not short of regulation in that area. Most of it will remain intact, but what is proposed here seems to be perfectly sensible. The biggest single change is to take away the burdens of health and safety legislation from self-employed people who are not in an occupation that can pose a threat to other people, as will be specified. It is absurd. Let us take a self-employed person, not one of those self-employed contractors in the business of the hon. Member for Bassetlaw, but someone writing a novel in his cottage in the countryside in Dorset. He is a self-employed person. Is Labour going to argue passionately in Committee that he should be subject to health and safety at work legislation, which he is at the moment? Of course he is not likely to be sued unless he throws a book at somebody in a moment of bad temper, but even that is probably not a breach of the health and safety at work legislation. He is subject to inspection. He may have to pay regard to the guidance. I have taken an extreme example of what should be a harmless occupation—if he is a reasonable novelist.

There is a range of other self-employed people who may have to take professional advice on what impact the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 has on their particular activities. We are proposing to clarify that health and safety legislation applies to those people who are engaged in activities that could pose a risk to people other than themselves. Clarity will come when we produce information—as soon as we can in the course of the Committee, as my right hon. Friend the Minister for Government Policy has said—on the specified sectors of the economy and specified occupations. A statutory burden will be lifted from a wide range of self-employed people who have been covered by it by accident.

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Last but not least, Caroline Lucas.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

In the light of the Prime Minister’s welcome recognition at last week’s PMQs that Brighton is indeed a superb and sunny place, will he come and visit the Brighton Energy Co-operative in my constituency, which demonstrates the real potential of community renewables, particularly solar power? Will he also acknowledge that if the Government’s new community energy strategy were to include the provision for energy providers to sell directly to consumers, it would have far more potential? Will he pursue that strategy instead of his evidence-free fantasies about fracking?

[The Prime Minister]

I am sure that I will be in Brighton before long, and I look forward to hearing the renewable energy story there. I would say that we need both of those things. We have now set out the strike prices and brought in the Energy Act, so that we can be a real magnet for investment in renewable energy, but I also think that we should take advantage of shale gas, because it provides an opportunity to have clean gas, helping to keep our energy bills down. I would say to those in the green movement who oppose shale gas simply because it includes carbon that that is a deeply misguided approach. We want to have affordable energy as well as green energy. That should be our goal.

Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Allen]

It is not for me to network within the coalition Government, but I advise the Deputy Leader of the House to make an appointment with the hon. Lady so she can tell him clearly and forthrightly how lobbying has influenced things in her constituency. Currently, such lobbying is not covered in the Bill, which is supposed to be about lobbying. The Bill is not about one or two problem people such as Ministers, permanent secretaries or people in the lobbying industry. Hon. Members and the public have been waiting for the Bill, and it is a big disappointment. It does not cover many of the problems the hon. Lady describes.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful case. He is describing how the public regard both hon. Members’ treatment of the Bill and the Bill itself. Does he agree that it is a mockery that we will probably not even reach, much less debate, amendments tabled for debate later this evening? What confidence can the public have that hon. Members are taking lobbying seriously when, not only does the process undermine us, but the Bill manages to be weaker than the current provisions? Are we not sending ourselves up? It is contemptuous of the public and of ourselves.

[Mr Allen]

It beggars belief that we have three days to talk about a lobbying Bill and some of the key issues highlighted by the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee will not be paid the due respect of having an airing in a Committee of the whole House. I agree with the hon. Lady that people outside will say, “What are they playing at? They promised us a Bill, and now they are playing parliamentary games so that we do not have the time to debate very important matters, such as the role of MPs, the definition of lobbyists, whether there should be better scrutiny of expenses paid by charities, and the definition of political activities.” I will not make that worse by going on for too much longer.

--- Later in debate ---

[Thomas Docherty]

I must say that I think the PRU needs to get a better briefing sorted out, because I am not sure what genuine concerns the hon. Gentleman refers to. Perhaps his inbox is different from mine, but in the three and a bit years that I have been in Parliament not a single constituent has contacted me to say, “I’m really concerned that the permanent secretary at the Government Department, when sitting in a room, does not know who the person sitting opposite him is and who his clients are.” Actually, given his constituency, I suspect that his inbox is very different from mine.

[Caroline Lucas]

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that it would also be a scandal if people got the impression, no doubt completely erroneously, that he was speaking at such length so that we do not reach later amendments on the amendment paper? I am sure that is not the case, but we have to give the Bill an awful lot of scrutiny tonight, so I gently say to him that it would be enormously helpful if he would bear that in mind when making his comments.

[Thomas Docherty]

I can honestly confirm that I am a parliamentary bore and that I am speaking at this great length because I can bore on the subject, and I think that Members on both sides of the Committee would agree that I am demonstrating that with some aplomb. The hon. Lady makes a serious point about the lack of time that the Government have made available. I deeply regret that the Bill has not gone upstairs, where you would have ably chaired the proceedings, Sir Roger—you would have kept us all in order, as you do so well as Chairman of the Panel of Chairs—and that all we have is four and a half hours—

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas]

rose—

[The Temporary Chair (Sir Roger Gale)]

Order. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) will be aware that we are pressed for time and that the mover of the amendment must have the opportunity to respond. I am sure that she will bear that in mind.

[Caroline Lucas]

I associate myself with the comments of the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) about the way in which the debate has been organised and the high number of amendments that will not be scrutinised at all. Ironically, the Prime Minister brought forward the Bill saying that he wanted to avoid the next scandal. I am sure I am not alone in thinking that the way in which we are being forced to handle this debate is in itself a scandal.

I will speak briefly to amendment 152, the purpose of which is to bring depth to the Bill by focusing on financial disclosure. I believe that there should be a requirement to disclose a good-faith estimate of how much money has been spent on lobbying activity. The Minister said that the purpose of the Bill was to shine the light of transparency on lobbying. To my mind, we would be doing only half the job if we did not ensure that we had an idea of what was being spent on lobbying. I will try again to persuade her that requiring information on how much money is spent on lobbying on a quarterly basis would be proportionate and not burdensome.

The money being spent is the clearest indication of how committed an industry or organisation is to influencing a particular issue. It is also a clear indicator that Government decision making on an issue must be carefully scrutinised. Money also reveals the scale, disparities and trends in lobbying, and financial disclosure of the amount spent on lobbying would help us assess the spending gap between business and civil society groups, for example, or multinationals and non-profit organisations lobbying for Government contracts. Such a requirement need not be a bureaucratic burden. Work by Unlock Democracy on a mock filing showed that it would take about 20 minutes to prepare. That already happens in the US, and I have heard no good argument for it not to happen here. As a result, in the US it is much easier to see what is going on.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Allen]

The way we have dealt with the Bill has meant that much of today’s debate has been esoteric and about us, Parliament, and a tight group of lobbyists. Tomorrow, we will be debating a matter of great concern to charities and voluntary sector organisations, hundreds of which have spoken to Members from both sides of the House. Will the hon. Lady join me in hoping that the discussion tomorrow, particularly on key clause 27, is conducted in an open and honest way so that a decision can be made that links this House back to the broader civic society—or big society—tomorrow? That will be an important debate.

[Caroline Lucas]

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that after the mess of today, tomorrow is an opportunity to demonstrate that the House is able to debate the matter seriously, honestly, and in a way we can be proud of, rather than feeling—as I certainly do tonight—rather ashamed of the way the debate has taken place this evening.

Let me conclude simply by saying that the Government’s proposal of a mere list of consultant lobbyists and their clients does not go far enough. The point I have made in amendment 152 is that we need to know how much money is being spent. If the US can do it, surely the UK can. That would tell us a lot more about lobbying trends in this country.

Syria and the Use of Chemical Weapons

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Thursday 29th August 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)]

I beg to move,

That this House:

Deplores the use of chemical weapons in Syria on 21 August 2013 by the Assad regime, which caused hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries of Syrian civilians;

Recalls the importance of upholding the worldwide prohibition on the use of chemical weapons under international law;

Agrees that a strong humanitarian response is required from the international community and that this may, if necessary, require military action that is legal, proportionate and focused on saving lives by preventing and deterring further use of Syria’s chemical weapons;

Notes the failure of the United Nations Security Council over the last two years to take united action in response to the Syrian crisis;

Notes that the use of chemical weapons is a war crime under customary law and a crime against humanity, and that the principle of humanitarian intervention provides a sound legal basis for taking action;

Notes the wide international support for such a response, including the statement from the Arab League on 27 August which calls on the international community, represented in the United Nations Security Council, to “overcome internal disagreements and take action against those who committed this crime, for which the Syrian regime is responsible”;

Believes, in spite of the difficulties at the United Nations, that a United Nations process must be followed as far as possible to ensure the maximum legitimacy for any such action;

Therefore welcomes the work of the United Nations investigating team currently in Damascus, and, whilst noting that the team’s mandate is to confirm whether chemical weapons were used and not to apportion blame, agrees that the United Nations Secretary General should ensure a briefing to the United Nations Security Council immediately upon the completion of the team’s initial mission;

Believes that the United Nations Security Council must have the opportunity immediately to consider that briefing and that every effort should be made to secure a Security Council Resolution backing military action before any such action is taken, and notes that before any direct British involvement in such action a further vote of the House of Commons will take place; and

Notes that this Resolution relates solely to efforts to alleviate humanitarian suffering by deterring use of chemical weapons and does not sanction any action in Syria with wider objectives.

May I thank you, Mr Speaker, for agreeing to our request to recall the House of Commons for this important debate?

The question before the House today is how to respond to one of the most abhorrent uses of chemical weapons in a century, which has slaughtered innocent men, women and children in Syria. It is not about taking sides in the Syrian conflict, it is not about invading, it is not about regime change, and it is not even about working more closely with the opposition; it is about the large-scale use of chemical weapons and our response to a war crime—nothing else.

Let me set out what the House has in front of it today in respect of how we reached our conclusions. We have a summary of the Government’s legal position, which makes it explicit that military action would have a clear legal basis.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Will the Prime Minister give way on that point?

[The Prime Minister]

In a moment.

We have the key independent judgments of the Joint Intelligence Committee, which make clear its view of what happened and who is responsible. We have a motion from the Government that sets out a careful path of steps that would need to be taken before Britain could participate in any direct military action. Those include the weapons inspectors reporting, further action at the United Nations and another vote in this House of Commons. The motion also makes it clear that even if all those steps were taken, anything that we did would have to be

“legal, proportionate and focused on…preventing and deterring further use of Syria’s chemical weapons”.

[Caroline Lucas]

I am very grateful to the Prime Minister for giving way. Will he tell the House why he has refused to publish the Attorney-General’s full advice? Why has he instead published just a one-and-a-half-side summary of it, especially when so many legal experts are saying that without explicit UN Security Council reinforcement, military action simply would not be legal under international law?

[The Prime Minister]

There had been a long-standing convention, backed by Attorney-Generals of all parties and all Governments, not to publish any legal advice at all. This Government changed that. With the Libya conflict, we published a summary of the legal advice. On this issue, we have published a very clear summary of the legal advice and I urge all right hon. and hon. Members to read it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Later this evening, the House will divide over whether in principle this country should undertake military action in Syria. We will perhaps do justice to the suffering of the Syrian people if we first determine where, as a Parliament, we are at one.

I have no doubt that we are all united in complete condemnation of the deplorable chemical attacks on civilians in Damascus. The gut-wrenching images of those attacks are etched on all our minds as we sit here tonight. All of us seek an outcome that will bring peace and stability to the region. That much we can agree. It is also the case that this motion is less damaging than the one we were originally led to believe we would be debating. That is a tribute to the fact that Back-Bench and Opposition MPs can make a difference. To that extent, this is a good day for Parliament and for public pressure. It is clear to me that those things have helped to force the Government to think twice about their way forward on Syria.

I welcome the fact that this motion recognises that to have proceeded with a military attack as the UN weapons inspectors were still visiting the sites of the alleged chemical weapons assault would have been preposterous. It beggared belief that, once again, we could have been about to embark on military engagement, without apparently having learned any of the lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan. By seeking to pre-empt the outcome of the inspectors’ work, we would also have increased the likelihood that further requests for access by weapons inspectors would be denied; they would be regarded simply as a ploy for subsequent military action, regardless of the findings. As Hans Blix pointed out earlier this week:

“If the aim is to stop the breach of international law and to keep the lid on others with chemical weapons, military action without first waiting for the UN inspector report is not the way to go about it.”

Although I am pleased that the Government’s motion now accepts that we must wait for the inspectors’ reports, I am deeply concerned at their cavalier treatment of international law and I completely reject their drive towards military action. On the legal question, both the US and our Government are indicating that they are prepared to act against Syria without a UN mandate. For all that the Government’s motion talks of making “every effort” to ensure a Security Council resolution, the bottom line appears to be that they are happy to proceed without one.

We are told that intervention could be legally justified without a Security Council resolution under the UN’s responsibility to protect, but the 2005 UN world summit outcome document, in which the Heads of State unanimously approved the new international norm of the responsibility to protect, subsequently approved by UN Security Council resolution 1674, states clearly that it is still subject to UN Security Council agreement. Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who co-chaired a working group on the responsibility to protect, again stressed that it is to be implemented in accordance with the UN charter. That means that the central decision-making authority is the UN Security Council. The conclusion from all this is clearly, if inconveniently for the Government, that military action against a sovereign state, other than in self-defence, without the authority of the Security Council cannot be justified under the responsibility to protect. On that issue the Labour amendment is also, unfortunately, very weak; it regards international law as an inconvenience. That makes it all the more important that our deliberations today are informed by all the relevant information and based on sound legal grounding.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Does the hon. Lady agree that the Government’s position would be far stronger if instead of coming here proposing military action, they had come here to tell us that they were having serious discussions with the new Government in Iran and a new round of talks with Russia, and that they were trying to build a consensus in the region to bring about what must happen at some point—a political solution to this crisis?

[Caroline Lucas]

I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman. As he rightly highlights, we have an opportunity now with the new regime in Iran and we should be responding to a more moderate leader there, yet by going ahead and giving a signal that military action is the direction in which we are heading, we absolutely undermine the authority of that new leader in Iran.

I was making the case that we should have seen the Attorney-General’s full legal opinion and that this one-and-a-half-side summary is simply unacceptable. While I am on the subject of further pieces of information that could have usefully informed this debate, I wish to refer hon. Members again to the Chilcot report—that missing report which has gone absent without leave. It is unacceptable that, yet again, many people are talking about the importance of the legacy of Iraq and we do not have that document, which would have given us the lessons to be learnt.

[Martin Horwood]

The hon. Lady seems to be making a reasonably powerful case against any use of military force whatsoever. Faced with one motion that does not rule it in and a Labour motion that does not rule it out, is not the logic for all those who have spoken against military action today, including those on the Labour Benches, to vote against them both?

[Caroline Lucas]

The hon. Gentleman’s point is, unfortunately, a very strong one—[Interruption.] He knows what I mean.

I remain to be convinced that a military attack would deter, rather than escalate, conflict in the region, which is why I agree with what the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) just said. I have yet to hear what the strategy would be for Syria and the wider region in the event of an attack. I listened carefully to the Deputy Prime Minister on the radio this morning. It was put to him that Assad could well retaliate against an attack, but when he was asked what we would do in the face of such an escalation, answer came there none. I remain concerned as well about the impact of flouting international law. To intervene without the due resolution would send a message to everyone else that international law can be ignored when it is inconvenient.

As the law of the jungle takes hold, it will be increasingly difficult to condemn similar actions by others. I am increasingly convinced, therefore, that only a political and diplomatic solution will solve the war raging in Syria and by extension hold its spread beyond the region. That is why I will not support the Government’s motion and why I tabled my own amendment setting out that the case for military action had not been made. I am sorry that we will not have an opportunity to put that amendment to the vote, because it would have addressed the issue raised by the hon. Member for Cheltenham. Had it been accepted, we would have had a genuine choice tonight.

We need to strain every sinew to get all relevant parties around the table for peace talks. On so many levels, as others have said, this is a proxy war, which is why we need China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and many others involved as well. We also absolutely need to redouble our efforts to support refugees. We are hearing from many of the development agencies, including Oxfam, that the situation facing those refugees, both in Syria and the wider region, is appalling. More than 8 million people are now in desperate need of supplies. That is why people who say, “If we don’t have military action, it is equivalent to doing nothing”, are so misguided. There is much we can do on refugees and a political solution.

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 9th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

Nobody is immune from the law, and if a police officer acting undercover breaks the criminal law of this country, they make themselves liable to prosecution.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

There seems to be complete chaos in understanding what the police are, and are not, allowed to do when undercover. Given that a number of legal cases have been dropped or put at risk because of the involvement of undercover police officers, is it not high time there was a proper judge-led public inquiry so we get to the bottom of this and make sure we know what the rules are in the future and what the judgments are for the past?

[The Attorney-General]

I certainly acknowledge that the hon. Lady is right, and the consequence of the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station case was that a review was carried out by Sir Christopher Rose, and the CPS took the issues in that very seriously, but any question of a wider inquiry or review does not lie within the remit of my Department.

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I do not think the Secretary of State had any choice but to re-begin the whole process of looking at Safe and Sustainable in children’s hospitals, including Southampton, which is twinned with the hospital that serves my constituency, so I quite understand people’s frustration about the time that this is taking, but most important of all is to make sure we get the decision right.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The Government’s own research shows that there is a link between the portrayal of women as sex objects in the media and greater acceptance of sexual harassment and violence against women. That being the case, will the Prime Minister join me in trying to get our own House in order and calling on the parliamentary authorities to stop The Sun being available on the parliamentary estate until page 3 is scrapped, and will he have a word with his friend Rupert Murdoch about it while he is at it?