Elections and Referenda: Protection Against Corruption
Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Howarth of Newport
The Earl of Courtown
I think I made it quite clear where the Defending Democracy programme is moving towards. It is protecting and securing our UK democratic processes. That is my top line on this issue and the most important thing—to protect our democratic processes.
Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)
My Lords, is not the very nature of this corruption that tech businesses operating anonymously and with no legal limits on what they are able to spend are gathering personal data with the intention not just of predicting the emotions and behaviour of individuals but of influencing them? At the same time, people are unaware of what is being done to them. Is this not a violation of personal freedom? Do the Government intend to legislate to curb these abuses or do they just see electoral advantage in allowing them to continue?
The Earl of Courtown
The noble Lord mentioned data and how it is being utilised. I watched “The Great Hack” last night and recommend it to noble Lords—it is an interesting film. This is why it is so important that we work closely with the Information Commissioner, as we did during the Data Protection Bill and in the wake of the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica controversy, to make sure that she had the powers she needed to investigate complex data breaches in our increasingly digital economy and society. The important thing is transparency. When these imprints and ads come up on various sites, we have to know where they come from. The other day, for example, I was looking at a site and up came an add relating to a hoover. I was trying to buy a hoover the other day and looking for it online. That was not important, but the important thing here is that, if we have political ads coming up on our screen, we know where they come from and they are transparent.
Lisbon: Lapa Palace
Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Howarth of Newport
The Earl of Courtown
My Lords, the tiles have been documented at pages 75 to 78 of Appendix B of The Residence of the British Ambassador at Lisbon by TA Bull, published by the British Historical Society of Portugal in 1995, plus there is a selection of photographs by former Ambassador Stephen Wall. I can tell my noble friend that in December 2014 the British ambassador visited the property and was able to view the tiles, which she found to be in good repair and condition.
Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)
My Lords, the Treasury, which has an institutional blind spot about the value of soft power and culture, has for decades been bullying the Foreign Office to get rid of its fine buildings around the world. Can we have an assurance that the Chancellor will not, in his obsessive and indiscriminate cheese-paring, flog off our embassy in Paris, the residence in Vienna and indeed the Government Art Collection?
The Earl of Courtown
My Lords, as the noble Lord is no doubt aware, there are 38 designated residences that require the permission of my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary before they can possibly be sold. The Lapa Palace was the last one to be sold. Two others are under consideration—Geneva and Cape Town, the latter because it is occupied for only two months of the year and Geneva because it is not best positioned.