Water Companies: Financial Resilience

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

As the noble Lord quite rightly says, Ofwat has set out a record £88 billion upgrade so that we can deliver the cleaner rivers and seas, and better services for customers, that we need. It is absolutely not right that the public should pay the price for years of mismanagement in the water sector. Any water bill rises are the result of these years of failure, but it is important that we do not put too much on to vulnerable customers, so officials are exploring options for improving affordability measures in the sector.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, is Ofwat fit for purpose?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

At the moment we are working closely with the regulators, including Ofwat, to ensure that they are fit for purpose and can deliver what is needed in the sector.

Ivory Bill

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 12th September 2018 Lords Chamber

In addition to my meeting with the noble and learned Lord, I wanted to take the opportunity of hearing this debate on the amendments tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and my noble friend Lord Cormack and indeed the interventions made by other noble Lords. First, the Government understand the points that have been made by the Constitution Committee and today in the Chamber. I hope that what I am going to say will be understood, but these are the words that I should say at this point. I look forward to a continued dialogue after Committee, with the hope of finding a resolution before Report. I understand the points that have been made across the House. If noble Lords will accept this, I can assure them of the bona fides of the Government in this case, although I am also absolutely clear about the points that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, made about how good Governments change and come and go. Our bona fides is that we want to have enforcement of this legislation, so it is important that we get it right. However, for this afternoon, I hope that the reassurances I am able to give at this stage will be helpful to the noble and learned Lord so that he may feel in a position to withdraw his amendment.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, can my noble friend answer one little question? Will the Ministers be accountable to Parliament for the actions of the accredited civilian officers, perhaps in a way we find police officers are not?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

If it would be helpful, as part of BEIS, OPSS does not have a legal identity of its own, as it falls under the Secretary of State for BEIS. Perhaps that is the reason why it is not named in the Bill in its own right. I will reflect on what my noble friend said, but that is the position on the matter.

Ivory Bill

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 10th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I think that the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, is intended to cover items described in Clause 7—those that contain de minimis quantities of ivory. In his remarks, he kept talking about “ivory items”. These are actually slightly different. They are not ivory items but other sorts of items containing an element of ivory which is integral to the whole. There are many more of those than there are pure ivory items.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I have sympathy with the amendment. I have nothing further to add but the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has come up with a convincing set of arguments. I hope that the Minister will come up with some rather more powerful arguments than were contained in his letter.

[Lord De Mauley]

As noble Lords have heard, despite a ban on international trade in ivory, tens of thousands of elephants are killed each year for their tusks. It is a tragedy and every respected antique dealer would wholeheartedly agree that everything possible must be done to bear down on it. Having in an earlier phase of my life been the Minister responsible for the UK’s efforts to bear down on illegal wildlife trafficking, I now find myself as chairman of LAPADA, the art and antique dealers’ trade association and, as such, declare an interest. Although my remarks represent my own views, they are informed by what I have learned in that capacity, as well as that of a former Minister.

As with countless other businesses today, antiques are marketed and promoted online and professional antique dealers increasingly use the internet to sell antiques and works of art. Amendment 4 would be extremely unfair on some who may deal with exempt ivory. Furthermore, it is not necessary to give effect to the Bill. In addition, to underline the fact that it is unnecessary, I point out the inconsistency of exempting musical instruments from these restrictions. I take it that anyone advertising an item online who has been granted an exemption certificate, or who has registered the item under the Clause 10 provisions, would be advised to indicate the existence of the certificate or registration as part of their promotional material.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for initiating this debate on whether to ban certain types of exempted, and therefore legally saleable, ivory items through online channels. The noble Lord has read out much of my answer already but it does bear repeating. From the very outset, the Bill was drafted with online and offline sales in mind. The Bill prohibits all commercial activities in ivory, regardless of where those activities take place, subject, of course, to the exemptions in the Bill.

Equally, anyone who breaches the ban, be it online or not, will be committing an offence and will face the same range of sanctions, including a criminal sanction of up to five years in prison and/or an unlimited fine. There are a number of further provisions included in the Bill that will assist in tackling illegal online sales. It will be an offence to facilitate breaching the ban. Therefore, this would include, for example, a UK-based online sales forum which facilitates the sale by allowing sellers to advertise their item, make contact with buyers and accept payment.

In that example, those responsible for such online sales forums, which would include corporate bodies, would be found to be in breach of the ban if they could not show that they had taken reasonable steps to prevent an illegal sale taking place. These steps would include, for example, ensuring that the item for sale is exempt and had been registered or had an accompanying exemption certificate. We therefore expect such online forums to take all actions to ensure that they and their users act in compliance with the ban, in the same way that we expect offline channels to do the same. The Bill also prohibits the deliberate misrepresentation of ivory during a sale—for example, as bovine bone. This issue was raised by the noble Lord and it is very important. Both the seller and the buyer could be committing an offence if one or both of the parties knew or suspected that it is ivory.

Noble Lords will be aware that other items subject to restrictions, such as kitchen knives, are allowed to be traded online. Indeed, I am not aware of any item that is singled out for such a ban depending not on the legality of the sale but on the channel—that is, online or offline—through which the sale is transacted. We believe it would be disproportionate to completely ban the commercial dealing in exempt ivory items online and that it would shut off a relatively transparent means of monitoring the extent to which trading is happening online. As a noble Lord mentioned earlier, there are 2 million to 3 million items containing ivory and it would be utterly wrong to ban the sale or the legal trading of those items online. Indeed, as my noble friend Lord De Mauley pointed out, the auction houses use the online environment as a very valuable way of marketing the items they have for sale.

We agree that enforcement is extremely important. We cannot have online trading in ivory if we are unable to enforce properly. Online sales are a priority for the National Wildlife Crime Unit regarding the illegal wildlife trade. There will be much more on enforcement and funding in due course. However, this issue is so important that I will recommend that we write to noble Lords on enforcement, on what we can do in the online environment and on the resources we intend to put into that enforcement.

I turn briefly to the point raised by my noble friend Lord James of Blackheath about roulette balls. I understand that he has been in touch with officials about this and that they have written to him. These balls will be caught by the ban but, as was mentioned, there are alternatives. I hope with this explanation I have reassured the noble Lord that we have considered—and, indeed, are considering—the matter of online sales and that he will therefore see fit to withdraw the amendment.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, can the Minister explain how we can take action against a forum that is based, say, in the Russian Federation? She talked a lot about the ability to prosecute people for contravening the law—the provisions of the Bill—but it is not clear how we would be able to take action against forums domiciled overseas.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

My noble friend is quite right. If a forum is domiciled overseas, it will be up to enforcement to look at those advertising their wares and those who are looking to buy those items. However, we should also consider that in due course, the items for sale online will either be registered or will have an exemption certificate. We will be able to see clearly whether those items are legitimate, and that additional level of security for buyers and sellers is the most important thing when it comes to online sales.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I will, of course, look into what my noble friend said and write a letter, which I will place in the Library.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I apologise to the Committee for not giving my counsel on this group of amendments: I am conflicted out, but it has nothing to do with ivory.

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, I have listened carefully to what my noble friend the Minister said and I shall read it in Hansard as well. I did not hear him or, indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, address, for example, the matter of the greatly respected art deco movement, which is all post-1918 and therefore not covered by the 1918 exemption, or the misleading 2016 export figures that are often trotted out. I just hope that the Government know what they are doing. I shall not press these amendments today; I reserve the right to bring them back on Report, but for now I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Ivory Bill

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Monday 10th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

We will be discussing musical instruments in the next group.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I have listened with interest to the debate. On the subject of inlays and escutcheons, what consideration has the Minister given to having a de minimis test of thickness? If the inlay or the escutcheon is less than a certain thickness, surely it has no use for recarving at a later stage. Perhaps the Minister could write to me on that point in due course.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I have listened to the debate this afternoon with great interest. I have received briefings from the World Wildlife Fund and from the Environmental Investigating Agency, the Born Free Foundation, the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation, the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Stop Ivory, Tusk Trust, the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Zoological Society of London. None of them appears to agree with the previous speakers in this debate.

On Amendment 17, the size of the miniature should be defined in the Bill. Otherwise, arguments will arise as to exactly how big a miniature can be. It is important to have this defined in the Bill and not left to some arbitrary decision.

With reference to Amendments 18 and 19, many of the artefacts listed by the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, are simply not in the same class as musical instruments, to which we will return in a later group. Musical instruments are used on a regular basis and are the tools of a musician’s trade and are not an item of antique beauty. They may be that as well, but their main purpose is as a tool of a musician’s trade.

I am disappointed that a university student should accept their fees being paid for by their grandparents selling an antique item which could have been decorated by the body of a dead elephant. I doubt whether many of their fellow students would find this acceptable. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, believes that we live in a civilised society. It is still a civilised society that allows 50 elephants a day to be killed for their ivory. Whatever the percentage of ivory is set at, it will need to be examined and verified. I could not support, and nobody on these Benches could support, a 20% limit and certainly not a 50% limit.

--- Later in debate ---

The purpose of my amendment is simply to bring this issue once again to the attention of the Government, with the hope that, between now and Report, a way of addressing the pipers’ concerns, and safeguarding our precious and unique regional heritage, is found. I hope that the Minister and my noble friends will respond sympathetically.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Cormack is an extremely experienced parliamentarian, but his arguments would be a little more convincing if he avoided describing my noble friend the Minister’s response as obdurate.

One of the complaints that we hear about the House of Lords is that we are far too London-centric. I hope that the Minister will pay attention to the suggestions of the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, about the Northumbrian pipes. Perhaps there is something that the Minister could do—some special arrangement. I hope that my noble friend will think about that.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, and I thank her for bringing this amendment forward. Throughout most of my adult life I have had much pleasure from hearing the Northumbrian pipes. They are a sweet sounding, relatively quiet instrument—often played indoors—and were the musical instrument of many shepherds and farmworkers in the area that I used to represent. Subsequent generations of pipers have often come from other walks of life—teachers who have been in a variety of professions—but the core of people on whom the musical repertoire of the pipes has depended, and whose tunes are recorded, came from the farming life of Northumberland.

I want the Minister to understand how important this is to us and how strongly we are pleading for him to do something about what is now seen as a threat, particularly to the new pipers—young people and, sometimes, those in retirement—who have to acquire an instrument. We are talking about an instrument of which there are not large numbers. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley of Knighton, mentioned how many thousands of violin and cello bows there are in this country. The sets of Northumbrian pipes are numbered in hundreds—not thousands—and it is quite hard to acquire a set now that there are so few remaining craftsmen who make these instruments. Most of the people who are involved in this activity are not wealthy and if the supply is artificially restricted by the exclusion of so many instruments which were made before 1975 and have ivory content, it would be a very serious threat.

I confess that I have difficulty understanding how the 20% exemption could be applied in the area of Northumbrian pipes, although the Minister gave me a moment of hope when he referred to integral voids, such as the area of an interior of a drawer in a chest of drawers. My mind immediately went to the bag in which the air is pumped in from the bellows, which the piper operates with his or her arm. The bellows could at least be inflated when the judgment is made as to what the integral void is and whether it passes the 20% exemption. Describing that illustrates how worrying it would be if we have to depend on such a concept in order to get a reasonable exemption, which I am sure most people, looking at it rationally, would realise was necessary and was not a coach and horses.

What worries me is that there has been a lot of engagement and discussion with various trades and activities about this Bill. Not all of it has led to the outcomes that some would have desired, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, has pointed out. I am not convinced that there has been enough engagement yet with Northumbrian pipers and those who are concerned for their welfare. I want the Minister to give us some assurance that he will try to ensure that that engagement takes place and that, by the time we reach Report, there is some way of dealing with this problem. I know that there is pressure not to amend this Bill so that it sails back to the House of Commons, but we are a revising Chamber and it is our job to discover if there are areas where the Bill does not meet the practical requirements of our society. If it is necessary to make a small amendment to the Bill better to meet the needs of Northumbrian pipers, the Minister must be ready to make that amendment, unless he finds a non-statutory way of achieving it. I have not yet seen that, so I think we will need an amendment at a later stage and I hope the Minister will apply himself to the task of finding a solution.

Ivory Bill

Earl Attlee Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 17th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I support the Bill for all the reasons that the Minister has skilfully put to the House, and I agree with everything that he said. So far as I am concerned, elephants win over business and wealth. As for the timing of the Bill, I too hope that we can get the Bill passed before the IWT conference in the autumn while at the same time giving the Bill the scrutiny that it deserves. My position on my own ivory is exactly the same as that of the Minister.

The noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, was the first speaker to make the very good point about online sales. As I read the Bill, a person who offers ivory online is caught by Clause 1. Can my noble friend the Minister confirm that the operator of an online platform is also caught by Clause 12, which prohibits the facilitation of the sale? The difficulty is that an online offer for sale can claim that the article is certified and exempted and therefore not caught by Clause 1, and the online platform operator can therefore claim that Clause 12 does not apply either. In Committee, the Minister will have to convince us that there is no loophole with online sales.

I will seek to tread cautiously, but I detect some vested interests at play. Of course it is vital that we look at this legislation with great care. It is interesting to note that when I recently opposed provisions in a government Bill that would ban the sale of certain deactivated firearms, I had almost no support from my Back-Bench colleagues apart from, ironically, my noble friend Lord Crathorne. However, that Act—as it is now—significantly reduced the value of many people’s collections of deactivated firearms, as they could not be sold. In some cases, the loss was in excess of £1 million. Indeed, I was slightly affected to the extent of about £100. Fortunately, due to the good sense of the Home Office Ministers and officials involved, your Lordships’ House passed amendments which, in time, should solve the problem.

In this debate, we now have several experienced Members of your Lordships’ House quite properly expressing concerns about the loss of value to collectors and individuals. I have to say that in many cases the answer surely is to give the items away, not sell them. There is no need to discard the items, although I recently did so for a very small item. I hesitate to say this, but could this difference in interest be something to do with the relevant socioeconomic groups of those who collect deactivated firearms and those who collect antiques and ivory?

I have some concerns about the detail of the Bill. The first concerns inheritance tax. I declare an interest, as my family is winding up my late mother’s estate, but the effect of the Bill is at the bottom end of negligible so far as it concerns IHT—I know IHT affects only certain socioeconomic groups. Does the Minister agree with my noble friend Lord Carrington that the correct probate value now for an item of ivory caught by the Bill is zero because it will not be possible to sell it in the future?

It must also surely be possible that IHT has recently been paid on a genuine ivory antique that the family concerned would never want to sell. However, with the passing of this Bill, even if they were in severe financial distress, they could still not sell the item. It would be purely an ornament and not an asset, but nevertheless IHT had recently been paid on it. Is the Minister sure that this is a fair situation?

In principle, I have never been happy about civil penalties, except for matters such as motoring offences. Civil penalties are provided for in the Bill, and I share the concerns of my noble friend Lord De Mauley. The overall aim of the Bill is to reduce the international value of ivory in order to reduce the poaching of elephants. Once the Bill is passed, in reality no respectable person or business will sell ivory, and the desired effect will be achieved.

As I see it, three things can go wrong in terms of compliance. Perhaps two individuals might make a very small sale of ivory between themselves. If caught, a caution would be appropriate, or it could be dealt with summarily in the magistrates’ court by means of a modest fine. If an individual is contemplating making a higher value sale then the magistrates’ court, I suggest, is a good deterrent. In the case of a business illegally trading in ivory, that might be a matter for indictment that attracts unlimited fines, as noble Lords will be aware. Therefore, it is not clear to me why we need a civil penalties regime, and I fear the scenario outlined by my noble friend Lord De Mauley. I hope that my noble friend the Minister can either explain that this evening or perhaps write to me.

In conclusion, I support the Bill and will do so during future stages, while helpfully ensuring that the Bill does what it says on the tin.