Trade etc. in Dual-Use Items and Firearms etc. (Amendment) (EU Exit) (No. 2) Regulations 2019

Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Wednesday 8th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, I put on record our thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Fairhead, for her work and for the excellence of her contributions during her time as Trade Minister. We are sorry to see her go but obviously delighted to see such a wonderful substitute in her place before us, beautifully adorned as the noble Earl is with the White Rose of York. I see nothing in that; I simply make that comment in case it would not be picked up in Hansard.

In his contribution, the noble Earl made it clear that he offered his apologies on behalf of the Government for the mistakes made in the original drafting and took full responsibility for them. What we are left with is the Government taking the opportunity to pick up drafting errors drawn to the attention of your Lordships’ House by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. These have been worked into the draft before us and resolve the problem referred to by the noble Earl and the noble Lord, Lord Purvis. I have very little to add to that. We covered the original drafting in some detail but did not pick up the mistake, which is one of those things. I do not think there are any further issues to raise. The points largely concerned how this fitted into the overall scheme for the control of goods which could be used by others to whom they are sold for suppressing civil rights, et cetera, in other countries. We are clear that that is happening.

There was one thing I meant to ask at that time. I am sure the noble Earl does not want me to go on to this but I offer it to him as a question to which we may need an answer in some sense. The change on page 2 of the statutory instrument to Regulation 3(22)(h)(ii) is a substitution. The change made is,

“for ‘either non-EU Member States or Wassenaar’ substitute ‘non-Wassenaar’”.

I have got lost in the double negative there and I wonder whether the noble Earl, either when he is on his feet or in responding by letter, if he prefers, could explain to us who exactly makes up the non-Wassenaar group. If there are any issues there to which he wishes to draw attention, I should be happy to hear those but with that, I am happy to support these regulations.

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for their contributions on these regulations. I also thank them in particular for their kind words about my noble friend Lady Fairhead. I will pass on their comments and make sure she is aware of them.

The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, raised two points, one of which relates to the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Section 5 of the EU withdrawal Act specifically provides that the charter will not form part of UK law on or after exit day. However, we will continue to assess export licence applications against a robust framework, and we will not grant a licence if there is a clear risk that the items might be used for internal repression. I will look further at the question he posed on this issue and if I can add anything more to this, I will write to him. The noble Lord also mentioned the dual use co-ordination group. In particular, he said that technology moves fast and he is quite right. As far as the group is concerned, I recognise the importance of continued co-operation with the European Union. This is of course a matter for negotiation in the future relationship but we hope very much that we will maintain a close co-operation with the EU and individual member states. This would of course cover such items as the group that he mentioned.

The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, mentioned a number of double negatives and the Wassenaar arrangement. I had a look at that arrangement when I first saw the regulations, as I thought it would be a good idea to have a little knowledge about this. What I can tell him, which I know will be followed up by what I cannot, is that there are 42 countries in the Wassenaar arrangement and that many are former Comecon countries. I will have to write to him on the details relating to the double negatives and the actual meaning of where we are going on it because, as he said, it is important to get a bit of clarity on this issue.

The UK is a global champion of free trade. Now, and as we leave the EU, we will continue to play an active and supportive role in ensuring global security through strategic export controls that facilitate responsible exporting.

I have been clear on the Government’s commitment to these regulations. Let me reiterate a key point in my opening statement: we made a mistake, for which I apologised, and apologise again. We discovered it and through this regulation we will correct it before any no-deal arrangements come into service. We have a responsibility to ensure the safety and security of our people. This legislation supports that objective. I commend the Motion to the House.

Gambling: Fixed-Odds Betting Terminals

Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Thursday 1st November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for responding on behalf of his colleague in DCMS on this matter. But this is a disgraceful situation. After two years of consideration, it was finally dragged out of the Government that there should be action taken against FOBTs—and it is now going to take two years until we can implement it. This does not seem the right way to approach something which is recognised in the Statement, and by all in this House, to be a really significant problem in need of urgent remedy. We are not talking just about the personal cost to people who are involved in problem gambling—an issue that we will come to in a later debate today. It is not just because of the loss of funds that flow out of families affected by this. It is also that these machines—situated, as they are, on the high street—are a blight on many of our local communities. They cause problems simply because of their presence, and they are funded largely by the FOBT income that they get.

This is, as the Minister said, a complex issue, but it is complex in a more complicated way than he was prepared to admit—even though we have, in the Statement in the other place that was read out to us today, what effectively amounts to a campaign against problem gambling. We in this House have been arguing for this for several years. Now, at last, it is beginning to get some shape, only because they seem to be embarrassed about their inability to replace lost income in a rather confusing world which requires there to be equity in this area of support and not in other areas of our public life.

We have not ignored the issues that the noble Lord mentioned. Of course problem gambling—which we will discuss in the QSD that is about to start—is made up of very different elements of activity, including education, social organisation and the way in which it has to be treated like a drug: it is an addiction but a substanceless one. Without a much broader approach, none of this will work effectively. If we get a proper policy initiative out of this which will deal with all the aspects that I have mentioned, some good will obviously have come of it. But it is absolutely disgraceful that the Government are taking so long to implement something which clearly needs to be sorted today.

When the Government responded on the FOBTs issue, they were also asked to consider the wider question of whether they wished to look at the playing of casino-type games on machines such as FOBTs. There is evidence that that is also causing harm—but they chose not to act on it. Will the Minister confirm whether action will be taken on that, because it is a scandal waiting to happen?

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for his questions. He talked about a number of things involving problem gambling, a broader approach and other games. I will start where he ended. In so far as other games are concerned, one must remember that it is clear that gambling-related problems are related not just to one product. This was taken into account when, in May, the response to the Consultation on Proposals for Changes to Gaming Machines and Social Responsibility Measures set out a comprehensive package of measures covering changes to the stake on B2 gaming machines, online gambling, advertising and research, and education and treatment. I will write to him with more detail on that issue.

As far as the timing of regulations is concerned, we have said that we intend to lay the draft regulations for the usual process of approval as soon as possible. We would expect operators to look to bring in the changes as soon as possible as well. In the meantime, we would expect them to look at their businesses and prepare them for the introduction of the stake reduction, to mitigate any impact. As the noble Lord is aware, I have stood at this Dispatch Box on a number of occasions on this issue and I am perfectly aware of the feelings around the House.

Bilateral Trade: Sudan

Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Thursday 16th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, the noble Lord made some very interesting points. At the fourth round of the strategic dialogue in October, we discussed a range of issues including the peace process, human rights, development, migration, trade and counterterrorism. We urge the Government of Sudan to engage in the macroeconomic reforms necessary to ensure that all Sudanese citizens can benefit from the lifting of US economic sanctions.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, in response to a similar Question in January, the previous Minister mentioned that,

“current conflicts, human rights abuses and business environment remain obstacles to a sizeable increase in interest from British companies”.—[Official Report, 23/1/17; col. 423.]

The noble Earl has mentioned all those already today. Can he be a bit more specific and say what actions the Government have taken to deliver better human rights conditions, for instance, and do they include the implementation of the Ruggie principles?

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, Her Majesty’s Government are helping to consider all opportunities for trade. At every opportunity in our conversations with the Sudanese Government, human rights are brought up. One must remember that President al-Bashir is subject to an indictment from the ICC; that must not be far from our minds at any point. The noble Lord mentioned certain principles, and I will write to him on that issue.

Claims in respect of Loss or Damage arising from Competition Infringements (Competition Act 1998 and Other Enactments (Amendment)) Regulations 2017

Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Thursday 2nd March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl for introducing the substantive subject of our discussion—the regulations before us—but we have also been treated to a masterclass in other areas. The combined effect of the speeches from the noble Lords, Lord Hodgson and Lord Faulks, has been to raise what might be a very serious issue. The whole House owes them a debt of gratitude for doing so, even if they had to be inventive in trying to work out the main points they wished to make within the constraints of this instrument.

I was going to say very much the same things as the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, but in a much more workmanlike way, since I lack his legal and other experience. I sense in this the beginnings of a scandal that will affect the way statutory measures before us and others will be taken. These speeches gave us the benefit of the business perspective—it is clear that this is an ongoing issue—and the legal dimension, where the ethical issues raised will have to be addressed. The ongoing review of LASPO gives the Government an opportunity to move quickly on this. The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, said that this needs to be nipped in the bud quickly if it is not going to run out of steam, particularly in the light of the changes announced on personal injury. I back what has been said and hope the Minister will be able to respond positively.

We have no particular objections to the statutory instrument itself, which is a sensible way forward based on existing UK law. The point has been made that the model derived under the Enterprise Acts and various legislation that has gone through this House in recent years has been used to bring forward a model for the whole of Europe.

I will make three or four minor points. It was good to hear during the tail end of today’s debate on consultation that consultation does work in certain instances, and that the consultation responses—albeit mainly from the professionals, not consumers—went for a rather more gold-plated result that would simplify the work being done. There is nothing wrong in that. It is good that a loophole has been closed that could have been exploited through different jurisdictions operating in different ways in Europe and in the UK.

The Minister made a good attempt to resolve an issue that might still cause problems further down the line: the rather ill-defined difference between procedural and substantive issues. I do not expect him to deal with that today, but he might reflect on how this will play out in a letter. The Explanatory Memorandum is simply a list: it does not give a sense of how the litigants or those affected will respond in practice. I would be grateful if he explained that.

There is one other point it would be interesting to have more detail on. The approach taken to SMEs is right in principle, but it is surprising to learn that the SMEs caught up in what might be regarded as cartel issues, and which therefore might be subject to penalty, will be limited to those with a 5% share. The problem is that a 5% share of market limit, presumably on a UK basis, will not deal with what happens in the real world of SMEs’ engagement with very local areas. A small business will be small in its reach, as well as in terms of employees and turnover. Therefore, there may be local effects that would not be caught by the 5% share limit. I do not expect a response on this today, but it would be interesting to hear in due course what the Government’s response would be.

I have two final points. Any response from this side of the House to a statutory instrument from this department usually asks why common commencement dates have not been followed. The Minister knows that, because I have raised the issue with him before. An account is given of why it is not necessary to wait until 6 April on this occasion, but it does not explain why the delay occurred. I do not want an answer today, but at some point it would be interesting to know what held back this provision. As the Explanatory Memorandum anticipates, people want to use it immediately. It came into effect this time last year, but it has taken since then for the statutory instrument to come forward. That is probably to be regretted.

Finally, the debate that led to the introduction of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, was prompted by a clause in the Consumer Rights Act, with which the House engaged this time last year, relating to opt-in and opt-out arrangements. He explained that third-party litigation funding has had a chance to thrive and grow. He could have mentioned that when we discussed this, we were also interested in the possibility of an alternative dispute resolution approach to a number of the issues that were raised. If there was an ADR approach we would not be seeing so much of this going into the courts, so there would be less third-party funding. Again, I am not looking for a response to that, but it might be noted by the department.

We have a deficiency here. The proposal in the directive was that every sector of our economy should have adequate ADR systems in place. The Government, for their own reasons—we pressed them hard on this—have not gone down that route, so appropriate ADR solutions do not exist in all sectors. Where they exist they have been encouraged, but where they did not they have not been put in place. In retrospect, that might have been a better solution, although of course one can say that in hindsight of many things.

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate: my noble friends Lord Faulks and Lord Hodgson, and the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson. I will deal with the points he raised first—in particular, the procedural issue. I will write to him on that; likewise on the SME 5% share point.

The noble Lord is well known to me regarding commencement dates and such like, as he said, but as far as the directive being implemented later is concerned, in our consultation we proposed to follow standard practice and copy out the directive. Respondents to the consultation highlighted the risks this presented to the UK’s established case law. We listened to these concerns and changed our approach. The regulations do what they need to do to supplement the court rules and case law in order to implement the directive in full. Drafting these regulations has been complex. We wanted to get them right rather than rush them through.

I understand the concerns of my noble friends Lord Faulks and Lord Hodgson. I welcome their questions on whether the Government could have used the implementation of the directive to bring forward proposals for a regulatory framework. The damages directive does not include measures relating to third-party litigation funding. Taking any action through these regulations would be going beyond the powers we have to regulate. The Government are not persuaded that any changes to the regulation of third-party litigation funding are warranted at this time. However, the Government will keep this matter under review as the market for third-party funding develops, and are ready to investigate further should the need arise.

My noble friend Lord Hodgson mentioned that the introduction of opt-out in private actions has led to the increase in third-party litigation funding. Opt-out collective actions were introduced to encourage more consumers to seek redress. During the introduction of these actions, the Government put in place measures to deter claims at the Competition Appeal Tribunal whose aim was to make money for litigation funders.

My noble friend also mentioned that there are no safeguards in relation to third-party litigation under the CRA. The Competition Appeal Tribunal has powers to ensure that, first and foremost, consumers have access to damages awarded following opt-out competition claims. For example, under CAT controls, the assumption is that residual money that is not claimed by the consumers will be given to charity.

I thank my noble friends Lord Faulks and Lord Hodgson for raising their concerns about the impact of third-party litigation funding. The last Government accepted the recommendation of Lord Justice Jackson that a voluntary code of practice be agreed. This work was undertaken by the Civil Justice Council, and the code came into force in 2011. Although the Government have not done a formal review of the effectiveness of third-party litigation funding, they have said that they will keep this under review, as I mentioned earlier. If noble Lords have particular concerns, I urge them to set these out in writing and I will ensure that they are passed on to the Justice Minister.

The Government are committed to reviewing the operation of the regime covering private actions for competition damages by the end of March 2019. I have heard noble Lords’ concerns, but the government position is clear, and it would not have been possible to use the damages directive as a vehicle for this issue. I ask my noble friend to withdraw his amendment to the Motion.

In closing, I stress that, as I mentioned in my opening speech, the statutory instrument contributes further to the recent major reforms to consumer and competition law introduced through the Consumer Rights Act 2015. It will make it easier for consumers and businesses to bring private actions for damages where they have suffered loss as a result of breaches of the competition prohibitions set out in Chapters 1 and 2 of the Competition Act 1998 and in Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. I commend the draft statutory instrument to the House.

Sport: Corruption

Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Tuesday 29th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, the noble Lord makes a very good point about putting pressure on international bodies, and this is being carried out through the sport integrity partnership. We welcome the intention to launch the international sport integrity partnership in the margins of a meeting of the International Forum for Sport Integrity in Lausanne in early 2017. I also draw the House’s attention to the anti-corruption summit that happened in the early part of this year. The Prime Minister reaffirmed the United Kingdom’s commitment at the G20 summit earlier this year.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, sadly I have no clubs to declare an interest in—I am still an active sports player. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is conducting a cross-government review of the existing anti-doping legislative framework and assessing whether stronger criminal sanctions are required. Can the Minister confirm that if the review should make it clear that stronger criminal sanctions are needed, the Government will not hesitate to act?

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, as the noble Lord knows very well, this point was debated in Committee on a Bill before your Lordships’ House earlier this month, and I suspect there will be later opportunities on the same Bill to discuss it again. I cannot pre-empt what will be decided from the review. The Government are in the final process of the review but we must realise that criminalisation is not always a panacea for doping and that not all countries have legislation in place.

National Citizen Service Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 16th November 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, I will comment briefly on a couple of points that have been made. It is worth recording that this was another area where a lot of submissions were received by those of us involved in the Bill. I hope this is not misunderstood, but I thought there were two significant things about those submissions.

First, the NCS itself was very respectful of this point and understood the destabilisation effect that could occur if its work was somehow just inserted into other work and no account was taken of that. I know we are not supposed to refer to anybody other those present in the Room, but it is good to see the chair of the NCS present in the audience to listen to the debate in the raw.

Secondly, those who might well have had a feeling at the beginning of this process that they had done something wrong, as they were not similarly blessed with significant support from government and the offer of a charter and statutory backing, also welcomed the NCS coming in, seeing it as an addition. My noble friend Lady Royall got it right: the intention is, surely, to make sure that all boats rise in this tide. The underlying worry is that somehow that cannot happen unless we ensure, at the level of drafting, that this is part of the Bill.

My noble friend Lady Royall has been a very successful and long-standing campaigner on how volunteers are treated in our system. There is definitely a problem here. It is not just the issue of whether they should be classified as NEETs—not in employment, education or training—but also questions about how universal credit operates, how tax systems take account of time taken volunteering and whether there is going to be a read-across to students and higher or further education fees. These are all important issues and cannot be dealt with easily. They will certainly be interesting for anybody who might take this on when they have to confront the demons in the Treasury on how they are going to relinquish any control of this area. But it is time that this was reviewed, and I hope when he comes to respond that the Minister can make some comment about the timing of that proposed commission.

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their very well-reasoned arguments and their considered amendments, which I will treat in numerical order.

My noble friend Lord Lucas made the interesting point that young people who take part in the NCS should be provided with accredited online evidence of the NCS programme to help them demonstrate their impact as citizens when applying for jobs, educational courses or further volunteering.

My noble friend’s amendment takes its cue from the digital passport, an online record of young people’s learning and work experience and an accessible way for their activity to be validated and recorded. I am pleased to inform my noble friend that the NCS Trust and the Careers & Enterprise Company have launched a partnership to further develop the company’s digital passport concept. NCS teaches young people from all backgrounds the lessons they cannot learn in class, and this passport will help to ensure that their contribution is recognised by employers and universities. There is great potential for the passport to encourage NCS graduates to do even more after the programme. Given the trust’s clear commitment to the digital passport, I hope that my noble friend will feel able not to press his amendment.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Royall and Lady Scott, have similarly sought to extend the trust’s functions. Their amendment would extend its purview to all five to 25 year-olds by requiring it to ensure that it is supporting and not “undermining” other opportunities for people in that age range that contribute to the stated objectives in the first part of Clause 1.

This amendment raises an important point. The NCS Trust does—and must continue to—work in a collaborative way with other providers of youth programmes, as the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, asked. As I have said before, a strength of NCS is that it encourages young people to take up other opportunities. NCS is very deliberately a short programme, designed to complement and drive demand for other social action programmes.

However, at the same time, it is important that we are clear about what sort of organisation the trust is and will continue to be. The trust is a commissioning body for the NCS programme. Its primary functions, as laid out in both the royal charter and the Bill, are to provide, or arrange for, the delivery of NCS, and to promote it on a national level. We need it to focus on doing this well if we are to maintain the quality of the programme.

The amendment, if added to the primary functions of the trust, would change its remit significantly. It would take it beyond a pure NCS commissioning body towards something that more resembles an infrastructure organisation for the whole youth sector. This would fundamentally change the trust’s purpose. That being said, the trust would not be able to meet its primary functions without supporting and working with a wide range of organisations across the youth sector. The Government are absolutely clear on that, and we expect the trust to report back on it in due course. We can also consider further how we provide assurances that the NCS Trust will work collaboratively.

The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, also mentioned a review of the legal status of full-time volunteers. Long-term volunteering programmes provide many benefits not only to those whose lives are being helped but to those who take part in them. I confirm that the Government are committed to supporting social action, including long-term volunteering. We are looking at existing barriers to long-term volunteering and the appropriate way in which they can be addressed.

I think I have covered most of the points raised. I will of course read carefully what has been said by noble Lords and, if I can add anything, I will write to noble Lords, but I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

That was my point earlier, but I nodded—such stupidity.

We have to give some indication. It may be that there are other ways. I like the suggestion from my noble friend Lady Royall for a Select Committee, which of course we cannot order but on which we can certainly make recommendations. Something needs to be started here today by those of us who care enough about this to make it part of what we want to do with the Bill. If it flows in different ways, all the better, because we certainly are not in a good place, and we know now that is the case. I look forward to hearing what the Minister will say.

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend Lady Byford that this has been rather a wander as opposed to a highly focused debate on these amendments, but it has also been very useful. I thank noble Lords for highlighting so articulately and passionately the ongoing importance that citizenship and citizenship education must play in our country. We agree with my noble friend Lord Cormack that NCS must be, as it says in his amendment, “for all young people”, no matter what their background. As we have discussed, the functions set out in full in the royal charter attempt to capture, in the most appropriate form, what the NCS is and should always be. They include an objective to seek to expand the number of participants.

We know that volunteering can promote a sense of citizenship, and social engagement is one of the NCS programme’s core elements. The latest independent Ipsos MORI evaluation showed that NCS graduates give back to their communities an extra six hours per month. They feel more able to have an impact on the world around them and say that they are more likely to vote, so there are elements of citizenship there. But the NCS is not designed to establish a national citizenship scheme. It is not equipped or funded to do so.

The Government wish to put the NCS Trust on a stable and assured footing so that it may promote the NCS programme across the country to young people, parents, carers, schools and local authorities, to become a scheme that can deliver these outcomes, as my noble friend was intimating, for every young person on the cusp of adulthood who wants a place. Our manifesto commitment is clear on that, so I hope my noble friend Lord Cormack can be assured of the Bill’s aspiration. But as we expand the scheme to allow more young people to benefit, we must concentrate on our primary goals to maintain the success and quality we have had so far, to which my noble friend referred. He also mentioned an obligation to do NCS, but the NCS must remain voluntary to retain its ethos. It will fail if young people feel it is compulsory for them to do it.

The second amendment in this group, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, would require the trust to set out in its annual business plan the ways in which the NCS contributes to citizenship education more broadly. I fear I must repeat the point that the NCS Trust must be allowed to focus its resources and reporting on its primary functions, namely to enable participants from different backgrounds to work together in local communities to participate in projects to benefit society, and to enhance the skills of those participants. Although the links to citizenship are clear, it would not be practical for the trust to report more widely on citizenship education.

Citizenship education is mandatory in state-maintained schools, as part of the national curriculum. The citizenship curriculum aims to equip young people with knowledge, skills and understanding to prepare them to play a full and active part in modern Britain. The NCS is part of the citizenship landscape of this country, as are many organisations working with young people and helping them to become more resilient and informed members of society, but asking the trust to report on work wider than its core mission risks distracting it from delivering a quality programme. I hope that noble Lords can take assurance that the NCS complements an ongoing commitment to the importance of citizenship education in schools.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bird, for making the point that the NCS has the potential to encourage democratic engagement and participation among young people. We are in full agreement. The draft charter requires that the trust must have regard to,

“encouraging participants to take an interest in debate on matters of local or national political interest, and promoting their understanding of how to participate in national and local elections”.

This will ensure that the NCS Trust keeps these considerations at the front of its mind whenever it makes decisions about how to deliver its core mission. In short, the aim here was to capture, as concisely as possible, the very point the noble Lord makes. The NCS Trust is working jointly with the democratic engagement team in the Cabinet Office to explore the possibilities for the NCS to contribute to this agenda. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Bird, not to press his amendment.

Without making any commitment, I should say that my noble friend the Minister is only too happy to hold meetings with as many Peers as he can. I have always wanted to say that. None the less my noble friend Lord Ashton of Hyde is happy to meet noble Lords before the next stage of the Bill. I also make a commitment to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, that we will write to her on the issue that she raised.

Brexit: Tourism and Hospitality Industries

Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Monday 18th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, my noble friend draws attention to museums and galleries. I understand that a museum review will be taking place, but Her Majesty’s Government have been looking at this very carefully. We have the Tourism Industry Council, the interministerial group on tourism, the £40 million Discover England fund and grant-in-aid budgets for VisitBritain and VisitEngland will be stable until 2020.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Earl on his recent promotion and at the same time express regret that we will not be crossing swords across the Dispatch Box in future. In answer to the first Question, the noble Earl said that he expected there to be a bit of a challenge for the tourism industry. Can we be a little more precise about that? Since 2015, there has been a reduction of 35% in tourists coming to London and a reduction of 14% for the UK as a whole. This is a lot more than a challenge. What does he have to say about that?

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for his kind words. He should know that we have nearly 4 million visits per annum from North America and 26.5 million visits a year from Europe, which produce an enormous amount of income for this country. The weaker pound this year will also help. That makes us a more attractive place to visit from Europe and North America. This is an opportunity to grab, and to showcase ourselves to both overseas and domestic markets.

Government Archives

Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Wednesday 8th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Bew, knows of my interest in matters relating to Ireland. There is a great paucity of records available in Dublin, to be perfectly honest. I will pass the noble Lord’s query back to the department but, as he knows, the archive that we have at Kew goes back to 937 AD. There is an enormous number of records there.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, the material we have been talking about up to now is almost entirely paper-based, but since 2008 most communications in Whitehall have been on email, policy papers have been generated electronically and announcements have been made through social media—believe it or not. The Minister will be aware of the excellent report produced by Sir Alex Allan in 2015 on digital records in Whitehall. Can he explain how far we have got in implementing that, and in particular the very important proposal Sir Alex makes for the emails of designated Ministers and senior officials to be automatically preserved? Is this happening?

[The Earl of Courtown]

I do not know the answer to the last part of the noble Lord’s question but I am aware of the review carried out by Sir Alex Allan in 2015. The National Archives have built the infrastructure to take in and present digital records, and have completed several successful pilots. I recommend looking at their website and Discovery, which is the National Archives’ online catalogue.

Sport: Anti-doping

Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Monday 23rd May 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, my noble friend makes a very good point. Those who cheat do not deserve the medals that they have been awarded. As my noble friend will be aware, once cheats have been uncovered, Olympic Agenda 2020 allows those who were behind them in the race or in the swimming pool to receive those medals. As far as criminalisation is concerned, the review is continuing and we will report on it. We are also taking into account the review into what happened concerning the Sunday Times and UKAD. We will make sure that we make the right decision on criminalisation.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, the news from the anti-corruption summit is welcome but the timescales seem to be rather long. We are talking about getting a report agreed and in some sense implemented not until about 2018, whereas, as we have just heard, the problem is happening now. One concrete matter that we have raised before in this House—I did not get a very strong response from the Minister; he promised to write to me but I have not had a letter—is that we need to separate out the testing from the governing bodies that are responsible for it. At the moment, testing is done within the sport; it needs to be taken outside. Can he comment on that?

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, I apologise that the noble Lord has not received that letter. The fact is that UKAD carries out the testing and is separate from the national sporting bodies. The noble Lord will be aware of the high regard in which UKAD is held throughout the world—it is used as a model in many other countries. As he will also know, at present UKAD is helping Russia to sort out its testing processes.

Sport: Governance Standards

Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Tuesday 3rd May 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown]

My noble friend Lady Heyhoe Flint makes important points. Testing has to keep up with the activity of cheats in sport. Testing will be down to UKAD working in conjunction with the sporting bodies.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, may I come back to the question just asked, because is that not the root of the problem? We are absolutely clear that the casualties here are clean sportspeople, but the only people who can investigate the problem are funded by the sports governing bodies, which have a responsibility for rooting out the malfeasance in the first place. The Minister must come up with a better answer than that.

[The Earl of Courtown]

I am not 100% sure where the noble Lord is going, but the testing is carried out by UKAD, which has one of the best names in international sport. I know there have been questions as far as the Sunday Times is concerned, but we will have to wait for the review put forward by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. UKAD has a very good name and performs a very good job but as far as testing is concerned, it also has to keep up with the different drugs these cheats take.

Limited Liability Partnerships, Partnerships and Groups (Accounts and Audit) Regulations 2016

Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Wednesday 27th April 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

I looked around in hope, but unfortunately not many people seem to want to respond to the interesting introduction we have had from the Minister. I do not intend to detain him long, but I want to raise one broadly philosophical point and a number of detailed questions to which I fully expect the best response will be a letter at some later stage. They are probably more detailed than is appropriate for this sitting today.

My philosophical point is really aimed at the statement with which the Minister ended, which, in a sense, was trying to assert that a benefit would flow to the business community by there being a more parallel arrangement for the ways in which the accounts are organised for LLPs and for the limited company sector, from where we are more used to seeing accounts. I want to probe a little at that, because it seems to me that we are coming from two different places. A limited company, in its broadest sense, is basically a mechanism under which those who carry out business are protected from, on the one hand, their owners—those who bring up the share capital—and, on the other hand, their creditors. In other words, they are detached from the actual process of the business by the fact of having limited liability.

That in a sense means that the full weight of the pressure that can apply in a commercial environment—whether they are trading well or badly, are seeking to expand, trying to borrow money, and everything else—is wholly dependent on that vehicle which is a limited company. It is therefore right that the standards set for that, where we have got to so far in company law, should have a very detailed focus on the way in which the accounts are generated and for the subsequent registration of those with Companies House and the availability of those through other means.

Partnerships are different. People work together in a partnership to provide a better or greater service; it is not set up as a business with the aim or purpose of shielding the individuals involved from the pressure of creditors or investors. Indeed, most partnerships with an LLP in its midst are not in any sense related to shareholders. There is no investment from outside and therefore no reporting requirement for those who have put money into the company, as it were. We can immediately begin to see where I am coming from here. There are different audiences for these different operations, so I am not quite sure why the Government are trying to bring them together. If they are trying to bring them together, what will the values be? I shall come back to that in a minute.

In my understanding, an LLP arrangement for partnerships—this is described in the papers we have received on the instrument—was largely brought about because of concerns about very large partnerships having to find individual partners and the possibility that other members of the partnership, presumably for whom the state has no interest because they are people who have willingly joined up to trade together for some purpose, which is very often but not necessarily always for business services, could expose themselves to a greater risk because of the size of the partnership. It could be so great that they cannot sensibly moderate the risk when other partners are taking decisions of which they have no knowledge. Clever people thought that to park the risk of that in an LLP, joined into the partnership, would be a way of expanding the ability of law, accountancy and similar firms to go forward in a way that would limit the responsibility to an internal pressure, not an external pressure. The difference is again there. We are talking about limited liability partnerships worrying about their own internal people—the people they are supposed to be working with— so that is not the same as a limited company, which might be concerned about an aggressive creditor or a problem with a shareholder who might wish to either acquire the ownership of the capital, liquidate the company or whatever. I just pose the question: I am not quite sure where we are here and why this is necessary.

The public accountabilities are obviously very different. A limited company is registered through the stock exchanges and there is responsibility for transparency and knowledge in that sense. We are also talking about the role of the state in terms of making sure the accounts are required, in what form and how they are to be publicly displayed. It is not that the two things should be different, but there may be reasons why they could be different because of the previous history that I mentioned. Also, as we discussed in Committee not so very long ago—and, indeed, in the House more generally on various Bills that have come forward in the last three or four years—the insolvency regimes are completely different. It is not at all clear why you would want to seek similarity across these two different species of commercial animal, but I wonder why, for a particular set of reasons that the noble Earl adequately explained, we may be moving into a situation that is not necessarily right for where we are.

That is my philosophical point. I do not expect a full and frank disclosure at this point; I am putting a marker down for what I think was started this time last year when we talked on another statutory instrument to do with insolvency, where we drew attention to various points. The noble Earl may have been part of that. This is stage two of that debate, and is not necessarily contributing to this measure.

The points I want to make are largely on the Explanatory Memorandum. As I have begun to do so in recent years—because they have improved—I congratulate the department on a good Explanatory Memorandum and I hope that the good wishes can be passed back to those who have been slaving away on it. They seem to have covered the ground very well. This is a very rare occasion where we have had some serious possible alternatives as to how the regulatory impulse could be put into practice—normally, we get a straw person and the answer that the Government always wanted, whereas this time we have some serious possibilities within which options are done. It may not be quite worth the candle—I am not saying that it will—because a lot of these are relatively small changes when it comes down to the costing that one has to do for this, but nevertheless it was good to see that the work had been done. It was a solid analysis on which we can pin our thinking.

Turning to my detailed questions, on the first page of the Explanatory Memorandum, at paragraph 3.2, I was completely thrown by the reference to the “free issue procedure”, which I took to various experts around your Lordships’ House and to the clerks, none of whom had the faintest idea what we were talking about. Again, I do not wish for an answer today, but as I understand it—if I am wrong, I hope that the Minister will correct me—charging £10 for something that will apply to only a very limited number of people seemed rather strange. The idea that you would further compound that calumny by not giving it free to those who had been affected adversely by the previous mistakes seemed a little harsh, but I will not press the point. A little more knowledge about the “free issue procedure” might have been given. It would have saved me a day of tramping around the corridors trying to work out what it was—it means “free”; in other words, the department did not publish the regulations free of charge to those who might want them. This might be helpful to read in Hansard later.

At paragraph 4.3, at the bottom of the second page and going on to the third, the assertion is made—and it may be right—that the bringing together of the two types of accounting arrangements will,

“avoid unnecessary complexity for those preparing and using accounts”,

which include,

“groups which include LLPs and companies within their structures”.

Given what I have just said about where these organisations come from, I was rather surprised to discover that there were a number of organisations that had both LLPs and ordinary companies in their structure. Could we have the figures on that at some point? We are talking about a relatively small number of companies anyway, so the number of groups that include both LLPs and companies must be very small indeed. It would be interesting to know what that figure is.

The Explanatory Memorandum is quite good on the broader picture, in telling us that there are approximately 58,000 LLPs in the UK, but it is not very good on the detail. Again, could we have a bit more clarity about that at some point? I got a bit confused reading paragraphs 7.4 to 7.7 about how many were being involved. Changes of organisations will happen as a result of the changes of the size groupings, but the Explanatory Memorandum does not explain what those boundaries are. Could that be explained? There are medium-sized and large LLPs, and there are groups that include both companies and LLPs. How many are there, roughly, in each group? It would be helpful to get a rough idea. I understand that the vast majority of them are small, but what does “small” mean in those circumstances?

Since the noble Earl mentioned it, can we also have a definition of “micro” in this sense? Micro seems a little odd for an organisational structure which was supposed to reflect the difficulties of large partnerships operating where individual partners would not necessarily be known by other partners. To have a micropartnership which is specially protected because of the new regulations does not seem right, because surely the whole point about a micropartnership is that partners know each other very well because they are micro. A little more detail on that would be helpful. We are talking about 5% or 6% of the total being involved in these changes. Since this is a deregulatory measure, I am in no sense trying to oppose it, but we should know what we are talking about. Although they are not major changes, they will make an impact on certain people.

My third point is about the consultation. I understand the difficulty, as this is a technical area and these are quite technical points. There may not have been a huge appetite, especially at £10 a pop, to get involved in this. However, it should be on the record that none of the 13 responses that were received to this consultation was from an LLP. The consultation responses were from accountancy representative bodies and other bodies related to them. Will the Minister reflect on that when he has time and let me know whether he feels that all that could be done was done to make sure? Were all 58,000 LLPs written to, although I suspect that would be otiose? A little bit more flesh about why the response was so bad would be helpful.

That leads on to a related point, which is that if that is the sort of response we are getting on this, I hope there were other ways in which information was passed through—including, perhaps, responses to the BIS Twitter account, which I notice gets its first mention in a public space. If the department is going to go back and consult on the way in which these changes are going to operate, it may have to do a bit more work to reach out and be convincing about whether this has eased the burden on business. In no sense am I saying that the accountancy representative bodies are not representative of accountancy bodies, but that seems a rather small group on which to pin rather a large change. I leave that point.

Finally, I turn to a familiar topic. Why is the change—admittedly, not a major one and not affecting many people—not being brought in on one of the common commencement dates? I am sure the Minister will be able to jump up and give an immediate response to this. These regulations are being brought in,

“on the seventh day after the day on which they are made”.

We are in April. If they had been brought back three or four weeks ago, they could have been brought in on 6 April like all the others that are supposed to be brought in, or they could wait until October. I know these regulations are important, but I do not think they are that important. I am sure the Minister will understand that I am not going to ask him under what conditions he sought regulatory approval from the appropriate committees for this change to be made, because that would be ridiculous, but I again point out that the whole purpose of common commencement dates, which the Minister’s colleagues in the department have often echoed as being important, is that they should be common dates that we all accept to bring in new regulations. We have failed again.

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for his contribution. Having worked for the Minister on previous occasions in the Committee, I remember and understand his concern over common commencement dates. I understand that the professional bodies were exceedingly keen that the regulations came in as soon as possible. If there is anything more on common commencement dates that concerns the noble Lord, I have made a note of it, and if there is any more information, I will write, as on any other points he raised.

The noble Lord raised a number of issues, and I will respond as well as I can to most of them, but some I will write to the noble Lord about. The purpose of the accounts for LLPs and companies remains. Prior to the 2015 regulations amending company frameworks, the two systems were aligned. These regulations reinstate that position. The fundamental differences relevant to each business structure remain. The reports and accounts of both structures are reporting to the business owners.

Regional Museums

Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Monday 25th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the closures of regional museums, particularly in the North of England, and the impact of those closures on the United Kingdom’s creative industry and on the educational services provided to local schools and colleges.

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords, decisions on changes to regional museum service provision are for those who run them, including local authorities. However, we fully appreciate that regional museums are important for both local communities and local economies. This information is not collated centrally, but we have asked the Arts Council to provide what information it currently has available on museum closures and will consider the challenges facing regional and local museums more fully in the museums review announced in The Culture White Paper.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, in this 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare, it is surely fitting that DCMS graced the recent White Paper, to which the noble Lord referred, with a quotation from “Love’s Labour’s Lost”—an obscure one, but it is there. It raised two questions in my mind. Which Shakespearean character does the Minister most remind you of? Was it when he was a bit younger shaking his mane of golden locks around as the Fair Youth of the early sonnets, or is it today’s more busy activity as Ariel or Puck to successive Ministers? Why do the Government in the White Paper persist in praising local museums and galleries for the contribution they can make to economic growth, education and well-being, as Mr Greg Clark MP says in the paper, when the reality is £1 billion-worth of cuts and regional museum closures—up to 45 so far?

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, knows his Shakespeare perhaps a little better than I do, and I would not like to put myself forward as any of the characters he mentioned. He has drawn attention to The Culture White Paper, which is of course very important. It sets out our intention to increase participation in culture, particularly by children and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. As far as regional museums are concerned, we will be looking at the review of the sector and considering the role of the Government, the Arts Council and the Heritage Lottery Fund, as well as directly funded museums.

I should add at this stage a response to the noble Lord’s reference to a number of cuts. We urge caution when referencing data which some people have used from the Museums Association’s closure map. Many of the closures cited are no longer accurate; some museums have reopened or relocated while others have simply never closed. DCMS officials are engaged with the Museums Association and are keen to ensure that the resource is as accurate as possible.

EU Withdrawal: Tourism and Hospitality Industries

Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Monday 18th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, I respect my noble friend enormously—in fact, I served in his department when I first joined the Front Bench many years ago—but as regards tourism to this country, being part of the European Union certainly makes it easier for people to come and visit here.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, this must be the first time since I joined your Lordships’ House that we have not used a question about tourism to talk about British Summer Time, which I am not going to do. I was pleased to hear the noble Earl make a positive statement about the upcoming European referendum, and long may he continue to do so. But when he thinks about it, can he also think about the issues that currently affect tourism, including the difficulty that many people have in getting tourist visas, as that would make a huge difference?

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, the noble Lord is quite correct, and Her Majesty’s Government are looking at ways of making tourist visas easier to obtain. As a result of our recent visit to China, visas obtained there will make it easier to visit the United Kingdom.

Companies: Remuneration

Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Wednesday 23rd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown]

We all remember what happened at the general election in May. I, by the way, was in Kuala Lumpur at the time. I will not bore noble Lords with what I was doing there, but I do, of course, agree with my noble friend.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

Let us get back to the Question. This raises important issues about transparency and equity. In 1980, to back up what my noble friend was saying, the median pay of directors of FTSE companies was £63,000 and the ratio to the average wage was 11:1. In 2013 that ratio had risen to 130:1 and median board pay is now £513,000. You have tried transparency, it does not work. What plans have the Government really got to regulate those who abuse their position by taking excessive pay and whose warped judgments prioritise short-term gains instead of long-term growth?

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, regulation of pay throughout the banking sector, the high pay and the differences between all these subjects—I am sorry, I have lost track. Basically, it is important that there is equality in pay, and regulation of various sectors is so important in this area. I will write to the noble Lord. I apologise for that answer.

Companies (Address of Registered Office) Regulations 2016

Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Monday 14th March 2016 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords, I shall also speak to the draft Register of Companies and Applications for Striking Off (Amendment) Regulations 2016. The aim of both sets of regulations is to provide new procedures to protect innocent parties where information on the public register about a company’s registered office address, or about the appointment of a director of a company, is inaccurate.

First, I shall deal with the regulations about registered office addresses. The Companies Act 2006 requires every company to have a registered office to which all communications and notices may be addressed. The registered office acts as the company’s address for service. It is not necessary for the company actually to carry on business from the registered office; it can use the address of a third party, such as a firm of solicitors, as its registered office.

The Registrar of Companies receives complaints that some companies use as their registered office the address of another business or private individual which they are not authorised to use. If someone finds that their address is being misused in this way, the impact can be significant and distressing. In the worst cases, bailiffs could be sent to the address in the false belief that it is linked to the company.

The Companies Act 2006 allows the Registrar of Companies to remove factually inaccurate, invalid or ineffective material from the public register, either through an administrative process or by order of the court. However, there is a slight oddity in the Companies Act provisions on registered office addresses. What makes an address a company’s registered office address is the fact that it is recorded on the public register as such. As a result, it cannot be removed under the existing provisions. A new mechanism is needed to stop a company from continuing to use an address where it is not authorised to do so. This is what the regulations do.

Under the new system, a person will be able to apply to the registrar for the company’s registered office address to be changed on the grounds that the company is not authorised to use it. The registrar will send a notice to the company directing it to either change its registered office address or provide evidence that it is authorised to use the address. Where the registrar is satisfied that the company is not authorised to use the address, the registrar will change the registered office to a temporary default address. The intention is for the registrar to operate an address at Companies House for this purpose.

I turn now to the regulations on director appointments. Companies must inform the registrar when a director is appointed or removed or when a director’s details change. At present, a person appearing on the public register as a director of a company can apply to have their name taken off on the grounds that they did not agree to the appointment. However, the company can stop an application merely by objecting, without having to provide any evidence to support its objection. The regulations change this by requiring the company to provide evidence that the person consented to become a director. If the company supplies this information, the person’s name will stay on the public register; if the company does not, the person’s name will be removed from the public register.

These regulations share the same aim of providing a more effective way of correcting information on the public register. They will enable the registrar to quickly change addresses to protect innocent third parties and make it easier to resolve cases where people have been appointed as directors without their agreement. I commend both sets of regulations to the Committee.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl for his introduction. These are not contentious issues and I do not intend to hold up the debate for long, particularly as we are ready to go on to the next debate, my noble friend Lady Sherlock having arrived—she was worried that we would finish even before she could arrive.

My general point is that these seem to fall into the category of sledge-hammer and nut issues. I am a little more concerned about the address of registered office regulations than about the striking-off regulations, but it is true that, in both cases, the regulations have been brought forward because there is a defect in the original legislation and it is right and proper that at the appropriate time these are corrected—I am singing the same tune as the noble Earl did in his introduction. My points are therefore rather lightweight, but they are made for the purposes of scrutiny.

First, on a factual point, in both sets of regulations it is clear that a review will be required not only before December 2020 but every five years thereafter. However, it does not say that in the Explanatory Memorandum, although it does say it in the regulations and, in one case, in the Explanatory Note. When these things are brought before the Committee, it would be helpful if such things were all along the same lines. I assume that the substantive position in the regulations is correct and that these provisions will be subject to periodic review. Having said that, these changes are so trivial that, given their nature, I wonder whether it was necessary to make them in quite such a gold-plated way. The statement is fairly clear that not only is there to be a review within five years and every five years thereafter, but that there is also provision for a review should there be any unexpected responses to the regulations, so the Government are well covered on this. I certainly would not be shouting from the rooftops were this to be watered down a little, but it may be too late for that.

My second, slightly more substantial, point applies to both sets of regulations, but primarily to the registered office address regulations. The regulations seem to give the registrar a quasi-judicial authority. In a sense, this is entirely in line with the broad approach that is taken to the Registrar of Companies, because there are points on which the registrar must make a determination. However, I worry slightly about the extent to which these are going to be treated as judicial events when and if there are complaints about them, as opposed to their being done administratively with any subsequent actions to be taken up through the courts. Just before I came in, I was looking at the Explanatory Memorandum for the registered office regulations, in which there are some references. For example, regulation 9 provides:

“For the purposes of determining the application, the registrar may … refer the application, or any question relating to the application, for determination by the court”.

However, the regulation does not explain which court and under what basis.

If one were to take rather a cynical view, one could see this undermining the whole basis of the costings. If you are talking about bringing in expensive lawyers and fancy courts at a high level, then costs will be a lot more than the very small sum of £180,000 that is currently estimated. I assume that is not the case and I am not asking for a detailed response at this stage, but perhaps in a moment of greater leisure the noble Earl could write to me or put the position on the record and in the Library. Is this an issue related to the interpretation of statute, or are these matters of fact that need to be determined by the court, or is it because we are concerned generally that the registrar should not become too judicial so, where the decision is tricky, it goes to the courts? These are matters of judgment and there may not be a specific line on them, but the regulations are a little vague. I can imagine myself in a company position not being quite clear where I might end up and therefore being a little confused about it. I should like a little more clarity.

This question may not be particularly well dealt with in the response because—it does not need to be said again—we are talking about a very small sample of companies likely to be affected. This will not have a major impact on the way in which the economy operates, but there is a default position that this is largely a nuisance issue where people discover that the house which they have just bought, or the rooms which they occupy, have an office with a registered address there, so they get flooded with letters and, if things go really badly, bailiffs will be forcing their way into their accommodation. I suspect that it is a rather rare occurrence and do not imagine that it is what we are talking about. However, the impact assessment says that this facility might be of value in cases of fraud. I could see no figures given in the impact assessment on whether we are talking about substantial numbers of companies here, which are in fact required to be affected because they are engaging in fraudulent activity. If we are talking about a significant number of fraudulent companies, then clearly that is slightly different from the irritation of having your previously private address taken over by another company. Again, I am not looking for a full response today. I just wondered whether the fraud element which creeps into the impact assessment but is not mentioned in the Explanatory Memorandum is a significant issue. If it is, perhaps the Minister could write to me at some point to explain that.

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for his contribution.

On the issue of companies referring applications to the courts, I can say that in the vast majority of cases the registrar will be able to make a decision quickly and easily. The regulations allow the registrar to rely on certain evidence without further inquiries about the address that the company is authorised to use as its registered address—for example, evidence that the company has a property interest at that address. However, there may be exceptional cases—for example, those which are particularly complex—where the court is better placed to make a decision. I note carefully what the noble Lord said about the other use of courts and where that use can go, but in those circumstances where the courts are better placed to make a decision, the registrar should be able to refer the dispute to the court to determine the matter. The aim is that it will be concerned solely with issues of fact.

The noble Lord also referred to the instances of this raised in the consultation. The consultation involved a relatively small number of people, but I think that about 80% to 85% of the people who responded—it was in the region of 120 to 130 people on both regulations—thought that these provisions would be of use, because they would prevent people using their home address for nefarious deeds.

The noble Lord also asked a number of other points, and I will ensure that I write to him with a little more detail than I can give now.

These regulations will provide a more effective way of correcting information on the public register. I therefore commend both sets of regulations to the Committee.

Sport: Doping and Illegal Gambling

Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Wednesday 24th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, the noble Lord makes a very good point, but, through the different sport groups’ respective international federations, our national governing bodies of sport are required to be compliant with the World Anti-Doping Code. In addition, UK Anti-Doping is responsible for ensuring that all the UK governing bodies are compliant with the code and Her Majesty’s Government’s national anti-doping policy.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, cheating, by whatever means, has no place in sport, partly because the casualties are mainly the clean sportsmen and sportswomen. Cheating is inimical to the very essence of sport and its philosophy of team spirit, honesty and loyalty. However, cheating is not illegal in the UK. Why is this the case? Last year the Government said that they would consider and review the situation. What is the current position?

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, the noble Lord refers to criminalisation of doping in sport. As he mentioned, a review has been in progress and it has just been finally put together. One must also remember, however, that criminalisation of doping is not a panacea that will suddenly make all doping disappear. The noble Lord will no doubt be aware that France, for example, where criminalisation does take place, is on the watch list of countries that have had problems in the past.

Tourism

Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Monday 8th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, the noble Earl makes a good point. In 2007 there were 510 information centres; there are now 390. But it is important to note that each location and destination has different views as to what its funding and operational focus should be. One should not ignore the effects of the internet and the information available there for people who want to visit certain areas. Over the weekend I inquired locally where I am in the Cotswolds, which is a big destination area. More than 1 million hits go to our local website from people looking for what they can do in the area.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

I am very surprised to hear that the Minister can get on to the website, given where he lives. In the current edition of The House Magazine, the Secretary of State explains that another major issue clogging up his in-tray is the Government’s aim of providing superfast broadband. He goes on to confess that providing a service which is fast becoming as essential as electricity is easier said than done. Last month, 52 chambers of commerce representing 750,000 companies said that companies’ performance is being “severely affected” by poor broadband. Many of these companies work in the tourism sector. Other than wringing their hands, what are the Government doing to remedy this sorry state of affairs?

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, the noble Lord referred to where I live and my broadband speed. He will no doubt be very glad to hear that, for 18 months now, we have had fast broadband in Gloucestershire. I will not tell noble Lords what the mobile signal is like, but the broadband is quite excellent. We have been working at a number of different areas. In my area, Fastershire has been providing much improved broadband in the three counties surrounding Gloucestershire. The noble Lord is quite right that there is still much to do.

Creative Industries

Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Monday 8th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, I do not agree with the noble Lord that we are losing out on creative arts, but I can tell him about examples of our funding, such as creative content tax relief. The noble Lord is no doubt aware of that. BIS, DCMS and UKTI offer access to finance, skills and export funding programmes. Then there is funding via arm’s-length bodies and other organisations, such as the British Film Institute, Arts Council England and Innovate UK.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, the Enterprise Bill introduces an apprenticeship levy and the Government have said that they recognise the need to discuss with the creative industries how to increase their apprenticeship levels without destroying the four voluntary levies currently run very successfully by Creative Skillset. What progress is being made on these discussions? Will the Minister reassure the industry that it is the Government’s intention to ensure that the apprenticeship levy is aligned with the current voluntary levies so as to protect the skills investment fund?

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, asked about the apprenticeship levy in relation to this department. The levy will put apprenticeship funding in the hands of employers, encouraging them to invest in their apprentices and take on more. It will be collected by HMRC at a rate of 0.5% of an employer’s pay bill via monthly pay. In addition, the noble Lord mentioned the SIF, which is another way in which we have been developing training throughout the United Kingdom.

Commercial Debt: Late Payments

Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Tuesday 2nd February 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, as far as the public sector prompt payment measures are concerned—to pay 80% of undisputed invoices within five days and all within 30 days—my department, BIS, exceeded this target and paid 99.5% of its invoices on time in 2014-15.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, we all applaud that. The Groceries Code Adjudicator’s report definitively establishes that Tesco has been in breach of all 10 of the undertakings required of members of the Prompt Payment Code. The Enterprise Bill is still in the other place, so would it not be sensible for the Government to bring forward an amendment to that Bill that would make a statutory Prompt Payment Code, backed by significant penalties for those who are unable to meet it?

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, as the noble Lord is aware, because he took a leading role on the Enterprise Bill in your Lordships’ House, the Groceries Code Adjudicator does have weapons and is able to fine companies up to 1% of turnover, which is a considerable amount of money. The Government welcome the findings of the first investigation by the GCA. The report highlights that we still have some way to go to create a responsible payment culture in the UK. The Government remain committed to tackling the poor payment practices that hinder our small businesses.

Land Registry

Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Tuesday 2nd February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, if the Land Registry is purchased, I assume that the Government will put in place measures to prevent a new commercial owner exploiting access to the register for commercial gain. If so, will that not reduce the price?

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, obviously, as the consultation has not taken place and we do not actually know how the sale will be established, we cannot even talk about the price. But the noble Lord makes a point about exploitation, and he is quite right that those aspects must be guarded.

Legislative Reform (Exempt Lotteries) Order 2016

Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Monday 18th January 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Earl for his easily absorbed comments on the reasons for doing the LRO in this way. It was good to capture it in the way he did. I agree with the noble Lord who has just spoken that the benefits of using the LRO system also have spin-offs in terms of the clarity of the documentation, which again I commend to your Lordships. It is very good to have it. Of course, the Keeling schedule is a delight. Oh, for Keeling schedules for everything we did!

I have only a couple of questions about the wording of the document, which I am sure will not take the noble Earl long to respond to. The Explanatory Note says, with reference to Article 3:

“A work lottery or a residents’ lottery is now exempt in two circumstances, where the lottery … is promoted wholly for a purpose other than that of private gain”—

that is clear. Then there is a double negative which caught me up and perhaps the Minister could read into the record what it is meant to mean. It says that a lottery is now exempt if it,

“is not organised in such a way as to ensure that no profits are made”.

Is that the same as saying, “is organised in such a way as to ensure that it is not profit-making”? One gets caught by these things sometimes and I just wanted to be clear. I would be grateful if, once he has had the advice, he could clarify this.

The Explanatory Note makes a possibly interesting point about Article 4, which is that,

“the maximum imprisonment for an offence committed under section 261(1)(ba) is six months”,

but then goes on to say:

“When section 281(5) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 comes into force, this will increase to 51 weeks”.

Whatever happened to inflation? I know this is not the Minister’s department but does he have any idea when we are likely to see that change? Clearly, a change from 26 weeks to 51 weeks is quite a big one and, even then, given that this was 2003, perhaps it ought to be higher than that, given the way in which people are behaving. But I do not really want to hold up the Committee with that light-hearted point.

The noble Earl will recall that he responded to a debate in the Chamber about the National Lottery just before Christmas. A number of points were made in that debate, most importantly about the balance to be struck in public policy between the National Lottery, which is of course a monopoly aimed at making the maximum amount of funds available from the gambling intentions of the public to good causes as defined in the legislation, and the impact that is being made on the National Lottery, it is alleged, by a number of society lotteries that are now growing up across the country. The debate, which attracted contributions from all round the House, was broadly characterised by saying that there were growing but not yet serious concerns that the so-called society lotteries—there is one called the Health Lottery; and there is one that is a postcode lottery, which is organised in a slightly different way—are trying to wear the clothes of a national lottery because obviously it serves their purposes better if they can be seen to be competing with the National Lottery.

However, as the noble Earl will recall, the point about this is that the society lotteries have different rules applying to them in terms of where their proceeds may go—and I am not saying in any sense that they do not support good causes, but they are different from those specified in the National Lottery—yet they are benefiting from being seen as a sort of national lottery, to which perhaps those rules should apply. Secondly, the cost framework for the society lotteries is different from that of the National Lottery, which is specified in regulation and limits the extent to which the company operating the National Lottery on behalf of the good causes can charge costs and expenses, which of course does not apply to the society lotteries.

This is familiar territory for the noble Earl. I am sure he is well briefed to respond to it. His response to the comments from around the House in the previous debate was that there was to be a review, which would deal with a number of these points, building on some work done, I think, three years ago now, which seemed to suggest that the National Lottery was not being affected by society lotteries. The volume of responses that I have received—and I think other noble Lords have had the same correspondence since that debate—prompts me to ask whether or not there is any progress on the review of the National Lottery versus the society lotteries and, if there is any news on that, when we might expect to see some output from that review. These things are part of this overall package.

Having said that, we have no specific objection to what has been proposed. I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, that this brings a number of people who are probably operating outside the law back into the law but does so in a way that I think will benefit good causes, and we have no objection to that.

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for their contributions to this short debate. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for his support of the order and his comments on the success of the Red Tape Challenge. He made a number of comments, in particular about what happened in the Chamber last week. Of course, he would not expect me to comment on that. One should also look at the responses given to the consultation by the various stakeholders, which answer one of the points that the noble Lord made. The Lotteries Council, Cancer Research UK, the British Red Cross, Sue Ryder and Marie Curie cancer care all consider that this will help to increase the amount of money raised for these very important and valuable charities.

The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, mentioned a number of matters and I will do my best to answer them all. As ever, if I do not answer them in enough detail I will write to him. He started by talking about a review of the performance of this order. We will take the noble Lord’s words into account and speak to the Gambling Commission on this issue. The noble Lord also mentioned the House of Commons Select Committee report on society lotteries, published in March 2015. He basically asked if the Government will adopt the recommendations set out in that report. The department is taking action on this. The committee said that the Government should seek advice from the Gambling Commission in relation to those recommendations. We have done so and await that advice. Any proposals will need to receive the approval of Ministers, which will happen in due course.

[The Earl of Courtown]

It is probably best if I write to the noble Lord and give him the exact details of what is planned. Obviously, as I said from this position, there are some points that we will take back to the Gambling Commission. Once I have checked with the department, I will write to the noble Lord with exact details of any review. I will ensure that the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, is also included in that.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, I think we are slightly mixing up two issues here. The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, was about this order and the effect it will have on those small lotteries and events run for residents. The question was whether there would be a review of that and I think the Minister will write to him about it. My point was about society lotteries and I did not refer to the House of Commons Select Committee. I could have done but chose not to because I wished to let the Minister know that the outcome of the debate we had in the House just before Christmas was a number of letters, including ones from those responsible for operating society lotteries. I wondered whether there was any progress there. I think the Minister was in the process of explaining that that is also being progressed.

[Lord Clement-Jones]

My Lords, that is precisely why I asked the question: there seems to have been a conflation of the two points.

Flooding: Tourist Attractions

Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, a number of activities and institutions in that area have been affected by the flooding, as has been said. The issue is of prime importance, and I can tell my noble friend that the Government are taking this extremely seriously. As I have said, we are urgently having talks with the insurance industry so that things can go forward.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

The noble Earl is good to remind us of the extent of the flooding and the damage that has been done, but we must be very grateful that, due to the heroic efforts of the workers in the Jorvik centre, we are going to retain the ability to see the last remaining Viking sock in the museum premises. However, the question is really about what will happen in the interim, because we are talking about closures of up to a year while the works are being done. What steps will the department take to try to ensure that the artefacts that have been put in storage are available for education and other purposes?

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, I cannot give exact details on the situation in the Jorvik centre at present. I will write to the noble Lord and place a copy in the Library regarding the exact position, particularly in relation to the Viking sock, which is of course of national importance.

Exclusivity Terms in Zero Hours Contracts (Redress) Regulations 2015

Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Monday 7th December 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for introducing these regulations. He was not, I think, involved in the previous Government’s detailed work on the Bill from which these regulations stem. In that sense perhaps he could be forgiven for not really getting to the heart of the issue before us. While I reluctantly agree that these regulations are a step in the right direction, I hope to persuade him that they are nothing like what was intended when the matter was debated in the Bill to which he referred. The Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act should have outlawed people being discriminated against for having more than one zero-hours contract. Instead, it offers a false choice for those who are affected to seek redress—at their cost, let us be clear—through the employment tribunal system.

The key issue I would like the Minister to focus on is that these regulations do not in fact ban exclusivity clauses. They will exist after these regulations go through and I would be grateful if the Minister would confirm that. Individuals will not have many rights in terms of how they get redress against that, as I will explain. As I said, the regulations represent a small step in the right direction but they will not provide zero-hours workers with effective protection. The Government’s proposals really fail to address the main abuses expressed by those who have studied this issue—and, indeed, the points that were raised when the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill was discussed. They are little more than window dressing. The Minister said that the abuse of zero-hours contract workers seeking a second job was wrong but he has not taken the opportunity to outlaw it.

There are a number of points worth making. The regulations use a much narrower definition of zero-hours workers than is allowed for in the Act. I would be grateful if the Minister will confirm that the Act would permit the Government to extend the ban to individuals who are employed in freelance arrangements, for instance, but are economically dependent on a limited number of employers. The Government have decided not to act to protect this group—perhaps the Minister will explain why.

In March 2015, the coalition Government indicated that they were minded to extend the ban on exclusivity clauses to all workers, not just those on zero-hours contracts, who earn less than £20 an hour. The aim expressed then was to ensure that those employed in more insecure and lower-paid forms of work could not be forced to remain available for one employer but could seek employment from a range of employers. This is a very good idea and we welcomed it at the time. The Government seem to have backtracked on that approach. Will the Minister explain the thinking behind that decision?

The Government claim that providing a right for zero-hours contract workers to go to an employment tribunal and, after the next regulations come forward, a chance to go into conciliation services using a fast-track system, will actively deter employers from using exclusivity clauses. I think the Minister said that it would make employers “think twice” before acting. That seems a very weak form of protection. They should not be thinking about this at all. The idea that they should think twice about it is rather risible.

We are talking here about very poorly paid employees—who often are not paid at all because they do not get called in for work—and about those employed on zero-hours contracts in any way having to pay up to £1,200 for any claim for unfair dismissal. As well as being low-paid and not being offered the right possibility of a range of work, they will have to pay £1,200 upfront in order to take this forward. Obviously, if they want to do a detriment claim it is £390, but I think even that would be difficult.

The MoJ statistics reveal that only around two-fifths of individuals who have applied for a remission in employment tribunals have been successful. This low success rate is well understood to be due to the fact that remission claims have to be based on household income rather than the income of the individual concerned. The individual has a choice to make if he or she has a partner who is working because the cut-off point at which they will be able to do a remission may well have been breached by the partner’s earnings, and the cost of going themselves is £1,200. It is a rock and a hard place.

Finally on this catalogue of defects in the process, the regulations make it clear that any compensation awards will actually be very limited because they have to be linked to losses or expenses which the individual incurred as a result of the employer’s actions. A zero-hours contract worker is going to find it rather difficult to prove that they incurred any loss. Individuals such as hotel and bar staff, many of whom make up this group, are often working on a series of zero-hours contracts with different employers. Under these contracts, they have no legal rights to ongoing employment so it is very difficult for them to prove that if they had not remained available to work for employer A they would have been guaranteed a certain amount of pay from employer B. This test will also trip up a number of people.

A lot of rethinking is required in this area if we are going to make this stack up in any sense to the issues that were raised by the Minister. He thought that these regulations have resolved matters but I think they are actually making things worse. What is needed is a new think about redress in matters of this nature. What we really need is legislation that includes those on zero-hours contracts, as well as other people in casual employment, to make sure that they have the basic employment rights—including, for example, redundancy pay, the right to request flexible hours, and the right to return to work following maternity or paternity leave—which are often not available in these areas because of a misunderstanding of the law, although technically employees are entitled to them. That could be rolled back into an overarching arrangement around issues to do with exclusivity terms. As I said, these regulations are a step in the right direction but it is really a very small step.

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for even reluctantly agreeing that this is a step in the right direction. He made a number of points, which I will deal with. If I do not deal with them, I will of course write to him. We agree that these regulations are a welcome step for those on zero-hours contracts. We must, however, send a message to the minority of employers who may attempt to ignore the exclusivity ban. As such, it is important that the Government create this additional layer of protection for individuals.

The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, suggested that exclusivity still exists. No, an individual cannot be prevented from looking for work elsewhere and should simply ignore the exclusivity terms made by the employer. The individual has no obligation to inform the employer. We understand that employers could potentially offer no further work as a result of finding out that the individual has worked elsewhere, and that is why it is important that these redress regulations create a route of redress for individuals who suffer a detriment in such a case.

The noble Lord also asked why we have backtracked on the income threshold. This Government’s first priority was to introduce the ban on exclusivity clauses in zero-hours contracts. As I said earlier, we did this on 26 May this year. Our next priority was to introduce a route of redress to ensure that individuals on zero-hours contracts with exclusivity clauses were protected from employers who dismissed them or subjected them to unfair treatment if they sought work elsewhere. We are introducing that route of redress now.

Legislative Reform (Further Renewal of Radio Licences) Order 2015

Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Monday 7th December 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the quick transition from department to department, the fluency with which he adopts his new brief and the quality of his representation which I have much enjoyed.

However—there is always a however—the reason for this legislative reform order, which is an interesting choice of vehicle for the process, although I do not disagree with it, is because the previous coalition Government and this Government are shooting themselves in the foot on this matter. There would not be a problem if the Government would face up to the fact that what is required is an early and specific date for digital switchover. That would drive the responsibilities of commercial and public service broadcasting and would build on the very successful change that has already happened in the automotive industry from FM and analogue radio to digital radio. The huge majority of new cars sold in this country now have digital radio.

It is all there for the taking. Covered in glory, crowned in his new raiment and wearing the arm of the digital reformer that at heart he surely is, the noble Earl could rise from his seat and proclaim to the world that at last there was a decision from a department not known for giving many decisions— or if it does, they are not very good ones—and we could all get back to normality. Is it not true that the emperor has no clothes and that this is a stop-gap measure? Choosing to extend radio licences in the commercial sector for five years—we are talking about three national radio stations and more than 60 local radio stations, which is a fair whack of the radio stations in this country—is simply going to repeat the uncertainty and chaos that has bedevilled us over the past five years and we will have to be back here in five years’ time extending this yet again. Who knows what we will do the next time? Will we be standing here suggesting that we just give them a permanent licence to print money, a permanent licence for radio broadcasting in order to continue to serve, I suppose faithfully, the 80% of people who say they are satisfied with what they have? I do not know, but the Government are making a mess of this and they ought to ’fess up and set a date, even at this late stage, which will give everybody a chance to work together to make it the success that the television changeover was.

Having said that, I enjoyed the document that was provided, and I thank the officials for it. It is one of the best I have seen in terms of explaining what the issue is and of setting out the context in which the decision has been reached. I do not agree with a lot of things said in it, but that does not take away my admiration of the way in which it attempts to be as transparent as possible. I recognise that and I am glad it is being minuted. Too often these things are just passed over.

I have five issues that I want to log at this stage. Our feeling on this side of the Committee is that this is the wrong way to go. We should set a date for digital switchover, stick to it and put all our effort into making that a success. If we are not going to do so, the proposal made is probably the least worst of the options presented.

First, will the noble Earl be a little more transparent than he has been about what will happen if there is no switchover by 2021? The order is effectively a five-year pause in a process that has an ineluctability about it. Will he give us any idea about what he thinks will happen in 2021? A lot of the evidence from the consultation meetings reflected on the fact that the worst thing for those involved in this area is uncertainty. While they will get certainty now as a result of the order, it will be for only a limited term. Many will have to think very hard about their business plans and whether they will extend beyond 2021.

Secondly, I am not at all clear that the explanatory document is right in suggesting that the issues that have swayed thinking on this were based on the possibility that, by advertising these licences now, there would be a churn, fuelled mainly by competition, that could be a stipulation on the product that comes out of the radio system as a whole. Those are my words, not exactly how it is put in the document. The Government—and the Opposition, too—believe that competition is a great spur to creativity. If we are interested in a broader and more successful creative economy, surely the right thing to do is to seek all the opportunities we have for competition, not to avoid them. Here we have an option where, although it would have been extra work for Ofcom—poor Ofcom—it could, in a reasonably short period of time, have advertised and received submissions from those who currently have licences and those who want them, in order to try to redraw the map of radio as we currently have it.

The document reflects a failure of the process. It says:

“Whilst there is little to no quantitative evidence on how many, and which, new entrants, might bid for any re-advertised licences, research by Value Partners demonstrated anecdotally that, should these licences be re-advertised, there would be some interest in them from new entrants particularly for the national and large city licenses”.

So we have some evidence that there would be interest in the larger franchises—even in some of the local ones. That would have provided some change. The document goes on to explain that that might have been about 10%. A 10% increase in competitiveness and creativity is not to be sneered at. If we had that in other industries we would be quite pleased with it. However, the document—signed off by Ministers—says:

“We do not believe that the hypothetical benefit to listeners and industry of a small number of new services outweighs the cost to the wider industry and to listeners of a wholesale re-advertisement process. We therefore consider that, taken as a whole, the provision in the draft Order strikes a fair balance between the public interest and the interest of any person who might be adversely affected by it”.

Not to readvertise is quite a big decision. I hope the noble Earl will not take it wrong when I say that this bit is a bit thin. We could have had more evidence. He could have sent this document back to officials and said, “I think if I’m going to stand up here and try to defend this against the fearsome Lord Stevenson, I need better evidence than just simply saying ‘anecdotally’ and ‘on balance’”.

I mentioned my concerns that some of this decision has been driven by worries that Ofcom might be troubled by having to do all this work. Ofcom is, of course, a body that covers most of its costs by recouping them from those concerned. Therefore, it is not a cost issue, but a volume or process issue. That is really in the hands of government. Again, it is infelicitous to blame Ofcom, which might be too busy to do this, for a decision that is being taken for different reasons. I would be interested to hear the noble Earl’s responses on that.

If we are not minded to support competition and creativity, we are worried about poor little Ofcom and we are not concerned about having to do this again in five years’ time, what are the other issues? There are two things I want to mention. The first relates to the paper provided in support of the LRO, which goes through the things that Ministers must decide. One of the things that Ministers must decide, as I am sure the Minister is aware, is whether or not the provision is of constitutional significance. The Government cannot be serious about this, surely. We are talking here about a range of diverse views and opinions; the ability of people up and down the country to receive news, comment and opinion; and the freedom of the press, independence and plurality. For the document to say the provision is not of constitutional significance does not bear scrutiny. I really think that is something that the Government should think very hard about. If they do not have that view about commercial radio on a national basis, why are they bothering? They may as well just give operators’ licences in perpetuity because it is obviously not important enough for them to be concerned about. I disagree. I think this is really important, and as part of our understanding of how the constitutional process works we need the contribution of a free and independent press, including radio and television, and a plurality of voices in order to make good decisions about that.

My final point is about the consultation process. There are many good things about the document but the best thing is the fact that at last we see some of the notes from the various meetings that have been held. Reading these through, there is just a slight feeling that we were talking to the establishment rather than the wider context. I did not see much there from people who might have been considered to be applicants for radio licences. Obviously, we might not know who they are but looking at the lists of people who were invited to these consultation meetings in Edinburgh and London, they were largely the establishment of radio. Again, looking at the written responses, we did not get much of a range of the general public. There were one or two freelance media consultants, I note, but not very much from the wider public. The Minister praised Radiocentre for supporting this proposal. Actually, it did not support the proposal in its evidence; it supported option 3, not option 2. It subsequently said that it supports option 2 and wishes it to go through—it would, wouldn’t it? It is involved in part of this process.

But enough from me—we are faced with a fait accompli in this matter because without a digital switchover date there is not much we can do about it. But I hope these points might be considered.

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for his comments. Although he had concerns, I think he was generally supportive of the move. I do not want to put words in his mouth.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

I said that we are facing a fait accompli, which is certainly not the same thing as being supportive.

Restaurants: Service Charge

Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Monday 30th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, as the noble Lord knows only too well, if one has a pleasing experience at any restaurant, whether in your Lordships’ House or elsewhere, it is only fair to tip at the right time.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, the issue is really one of fairness in overall pay rather than just in tipping. Can the Minister explain how to protect the requirement that everyone in the country benefits from a living wage without dilution from other factors, in particular tipping?

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, sticking initially to the national minimum wage, when the Labour Government brought in the voluntary code of practice in 2008-09, they made it clear that tips and gratuities should not be used to uprate wages to meet the national minimum wage. The living wage will be coming in this year and will help many of the lower paid.

Advertising Standards Authority

Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Thursday 29th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, for securing this debate and for the contributions of all noble Lords. The impact of advertising and its regulation are clearly issues that attract strong interest and feeling from many in the House.

I will look at some background to the industry, as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, did. The UK’s advertising industry plays a key role in our economy and is a world leader. The sector was worth £10.2 billion in 2013—the second-highest contributor to our economy of any creative industry sector—and has grown by 67% since 2010. The core advertising and marketing sector employed 167,000 people in 2014, and nearly half a million if you include those employed in advertising and marketing jobs in the wider economy.

As well as being important in its own right, advertising plays a crucial role in helping secure the UK’s economic recovery. Without advertising, brands cannot make their mark on the marketplace and consumers cannot make informed purchasing decisions. Advertising helps to stimulate competition, innovation and expansion. Internationally, the UK’s advertising industry has a tremendously strong reputation—a disproportionately large number of global iconic advertising and marketing campaigns has involved UK creative talent, either in ad agencies themselves or in supporting sectors, for example film, music and graphic design. We have the most awarded ad agencies in the world as a proportion of GDP, exporting £2 billion a year in agency services, and London is an undisputed international advertising hub.

Nobody is arguing that this industry should not be regulated. The question is what form of regulation would be most appropriate and effective.

As a matter of principle, this Government prefer effective self-regulation over statutory regulation. We support the system of co-regulation and self-regulation for broadcast and non-broadcast advertising enforced by the Advertising Standards Authority. We believe that this regulatory system has worked well for both customers and advertisers, and we support the previous Government’s assessment, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, in the 2013 policy paper Connectivity, Content and Consumers: Britain’s Digital Platform for Growth, that it is an exemplar of successful self-regulation.

The ASA provides an easy one-stop shop for both public and advertisers, and allows for flexibility to take on additional responsibilities, such as online advertising, relatively speedily in the light of technological changes compared with a statutory regulatory regime. The system is free to the taxpayer and is a cost-effective way to resolve grievances. It allows for harmonious decision-making for cross-media adjudication decisions and promotes corporate social responsibility by ensuring that industry has a strong stake in maintaining an effective, robust system to ensure a high level of consumer trust in its products.

A very good example of what self-regulation can do that the Government cannot is Clearcast. This is a commercial service which checks whether broadcasting ads are in breach of the BCAP Code before they are aired. It is used by Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky, to name but a few. Some commercial broadcasters have made it mandatory for ads to undergo a Clearcast check—something that would be regarded as censorship if it came from the Government.

The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, mentioned the independence from industry of the ASA. As the noble Lord, Lord Smith, mentioned, the ASA council is the independent jury that decides whether ads have breached the advertising codes. The ASA chair is appointed by the chair of ASBOF for a renewable four-year term, but the post holder must be independent of the advertising and media industries. Two-thirds of council members on each panel are independent of the advertising and media industries, and members are appointed through an open recruitment process, with all positions advertised. Following a review of the appointments process, the chairman will in future appoint an independent person to participate in the recruitment of all council members.

The noble Baroness drew a comparison with the press regulator, which was also mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson. The Government want the press to comply with the reforms recommended by Leveson and enshrined in the royal charter, and want to see a self-regulatory regime that is tough, independent, fully subscribed and commands confidence. The noble Baroness also mentioned ads likely to cause extreme offence. The ASA has a number of options enabling it to act quickly where there is risk of great harm or offence. In extreme cases, it has the power to order advertisers to remove ads from publication immediately on receipt of complaint and before investigation. Where it may not be necessary to use that extreme sanction, but where there is a need to rule quickly, the ASA’s procedures allow for timescales to be shortened according to need. The noble Baroness also mentioned various examples, including those of pornographic pictures. She questioned the decisions of the independent self-regulator. It is not for the Government to comment on decisions taken.

The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, raised the subject of funding. The ASA is funded by levies on advertising spend, but this is collected at arm’s length by both the Advertising Standards Board of Finance and the Broadcast Advertising Standards Board of Finance. This maintains the system of independence, ensuring that decisions are not influenced by those who may or may not be funding the system, while ensuring proper funding.

The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, also mentioned the EU directive. The EU directive concerns misleading and comparative advertising. In the United Kingdom, this EU law is implemented through business and consumer protection regulations, enforced by trading standards. The CAP and BCAP codes administered by the ASA reflect the regulations as far as they apply to advertising covered by the codes, and the ASA has an agreement with trading standards that it will in most circumstances act in the first instance in alleged cases of misleading advertising. Judicial reviews of ASA rulings have repeatedly endorsed the ASA’s authority and processes in the area of misleading advertising.

The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, mentioned consistency, which was also of concern to the noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, appeared to say that he felt that there was consistency in the decisions of the ASA.

The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, also talked about consumer satisfaction. The ASA carries out a customer satisfaction survey. Latest data show customer satisfaction with complaint-handling at over 70%, despite the ASA upholding only a minority of complaints received. That figure compares very favourably with other government and industry regulators’ handling of complaints.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

I was not exactly commenting on that, although others did and it is useful to have that figure repeated. I said that the matters that cause the most difficulty for the ASA are taste and decency, and to some extent those that are political. That requires there to be good and enduring relationships with consumer engagement, which I do not see but may be there. It was that point I was probing.

[The Earl of Courtown]

I am glad that the noble Lord was able to clarify that. As with any regulatory regime, there is always room for improvement, and the ASA would welcome suggestions on how its procedures might be improved. I will also ensure that I bring the department’s attention to this debate and all that was said by noble Lords. Nevertheless, the Government believe that overall the ASA is an effective regulator.

English Apprenticeships (Consequential Amendments to Primary Legislation) Order 2015

Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord who has just spoken paid tribute to my noble friend Lord Young’s continuing interest in and support for the apprenticeship movement. His words carry much weight in these areas. I have only four small questions for the noble Earl in what I take to be more of an amuse bouche than a first course, because we will be returning to these matters in the Enterprise Bill next Wednesday—if we make a little more progress than we did yesterday.

The first question is on almost the same point that has just been raised, which is that in this statutory instrument we are closer to finding an approved English apprenticeship only to see it removed and replaced by the statutory English apprenticeship in the Enterprise Bill, although obviously the dates will vary. When he comes to respond, perhaps the noble Earl could give us a sense of how this is going to segue from one to the other and what changes there will be in practice in terms of what the Bill says and what is currently meant by this statutory instrument. I suspect that that is a slightly longer piece than will be possible in this discussion, so I am happy for him to write to me.

My second point is that in paragraph 10 of the Explanatory Memorandum on the impact, the statement is made that:

“A separate full regulatory impact assessment has not been prepared for this consequential instrument because no impact on the private, public or voluntary sectors is foreseen separate to that already covered by the substantive provisions in the Act”.

That is fine, but unfortunately I am not very good at keeping my files and I could not find the impact assessment for the original Act, and clearly there is a hint here that there were some costs as a result of this change. Perhaps the noble Earl could dig it out—I see a little bit of panic behind him, so perhaps it will take a few days. However, if at some point I could have some indication of what the costs would be, I would be grateful for that.

My third question reinforces the point about quality that was made by my noble friend Lord Young. The Ofsted report on apprenticeships is extremely damning in many ways. It would be interesting to hear the reflections of the noble Earl on what lies behind the points made by my noble friend, which is that we can change the title all we want, but if we do not raise standards or change the nature of what is happening, we will be in trouble. I would like some assurances that the simple change in nomenclature, which is what appears to be happening here, is in fact covered by more action on the part of his department in terms of trying to ensure that standards in apprenticeship training rise and will indeed, it is hoped, eventually get to the point where we are talking about parity of esteem between the academic and the non-academic or vocational routes so that we can in truth have a fully integrated system of further education, complementing those who choose the academic route, but also open to those who wish to switch between the two strains.

The final point is my familiar trope on implementation dates. I appreciate that we are talking about a minor change that is consequent on a piece of legislation which is soon to be overtaken, but the Government have signed up to common commencement dates for the implementation of activities that will put a burden on business. This statutory instrument appears to come in 21 days after the order is made, which presumably will be tomorrow or the day after, and therefore will come in in late October, which is not one of the two commencement dates, which are, as I am sure the noble Earl will be aware, 1 October and 6 April. Why was this not brought forward only a matter of days to 1 October? Given its simplicity and apparently innocuousness in terms of changing things, why on earth did the department not get its act together for 1 October? Given that it is inconsequential and will shortly be overtaken by another Act, why did the noble Earl not wait until 6 April?

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this short debate.

I should probably refer at first to the mention by the noble Lord, Lord Young, of the Ofsted report. This does apply, as the noble Lord is aware, to old frameworks. We are addressing these issues now as part of the reform programme in the Enterprise Bill, among other legislation. The Ofsted report criticises the quality of the existing provisions, and not those that have been designed and put in place by employers through our reforms. We are committed to creating the 3 million apprenticeships by the end of the Parliament, but this will not be at the expense of quality.

We are ensuring that each apprenticeship is a paid job with substantial and sustained on and off-the-job training, lasting a minimum of 12 months. As we have said before, we will legislate to provide protection for the term “apprenticeship”. Under the new trailblazers scheme, employers are designing new, high-quality apprenticeships that address the specific skills requirements of their sectors. We are putting purchasing power in the hands of businesses and allowing employers to choose from which provider they buy training.

The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, mentioned statutory apprenticeships. What he said is not the case. Statutory apprenticeships include the existing apprenticeship programmes, which are included in the standards and frameworks. The noble Lord also asked about costs. These are consequential amendments and so no costs are associated.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, that is an immensely cheering thought, but it is not what I said. I said that the impact assessment has not been provided for this statutory instrument because it has been said that the calculations were done in respect of the original Bill. Since I have lost my impact statement for the original Bill, I would be grateful if the noble Earl could confirm what those costs were, so that I am reassured on that point.

[The Earl of Courtown]

If that is not available by the end of this debate, I will write to the noble Lord.

There was also concern over the quality of apprenticeships, raised by the noble Lord, Lord Young. We are improving quality. This is central to our reforms. Employers are developing new standards to ensure that apprenticeships meet the skills needed by their sectors. The published trailblazer quality statement sets out a range of measures to retain and improve quality, including the requirement for all apprenticeships to last at least 12 months. The new standards will replace existing complex frameworks, with short, simple, accessible standards written by employers in a language they understand. Quality and safety, the two underlying points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Young, must be at the front of these reforms.

My noble friend Lord Hodgson asked whether the order had any effect on the Enterprise Bill going through the House. It does not.

I welcome this debate on the issues that have been raised and I thank noble Lords for their contributions.

[The Earl of Courtown]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Young, for that point. Yes, this matter will be looked at very carefully before the next stage of the Enterprise Bill, and I shall discuss it with the Minister taking it through this House.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

I do not think that the Minister has responded to me about the commencement dates issue. If he cannot do so today, can he please confirm it in writing to me?

[The Earl of Courtown]

I shall write. I commend the order to the Committee.

National Minimum Wage

Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Monday 19th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, we are continuing to look at all matters that affect small and medium-sized enterprises. As I understand the current situation, national insurance contributions are being cut for those that employ four people or fewer.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

Will the Minister join me in condemning the actions of the employer of 14 cleaners working at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, who appear to be facing disciplinary action because they had the temerity to write a letter of congratulation to the Foreign Secretary on his reappointment and mention in it their rates of pay?

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, a good lesson to learn is always to check the newspapers before you come to the Dispatch Box. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is in the process of vacating the Old Admiralty Building, which has reduced the number of cleaning staff required. The department has not taken any disciplinary measures against any cleaning staff. Our contractor Interserve has assured us that no one has been made redundant as a result of a letter asking for an increase in pay. From April 2016, all Interserve staff will benefit from the new mandatory national living wage.

Lisbon: Lapa Palace

Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Monday 20th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown]

As ever, the noble Lord, Lord Wright of Richmond, informs the House with his great knowledge.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

In the year in which we are celebrating our great victory at Waterloo, my attention has been drawn to the fact that we also have a responsibility to ensure that the extraordinary campaign waged by Lord Wellington in Portugal in the preceding years to that also should be celebrated. Yet when I visited Portugal only a couple of years ago I discovered that all the work that has been done there and all the activities in support of commemorating our great joint venture to defeat the French is actually being funded by the EU and small countries outside the normal range. I wonder whether Her Majesty’s Government might consider putting more money into celebrating these great victories.

[The Earl of Courtown]

Last week there was an event in the Royal Gallery in your Lordships’ House concerning the Waterloo victory and at which the present Duke of Wellington was present. However, I take note of what the noble Lord said.

Football: Women’s World Cup

Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Wednesday 8th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown]

Yes, I would.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that one of the key ways of celebrating success would be to see greater participation by women in all sports? Assuming he does, what are the Government going to do to address the problem that only about 31% of women regularly participate in sport, whereas the figure for men is 41%, and the proportion of women taking part in sport once a week has fallen year on year since 2011-12, with 275,000 fewer women participating?

[The Earl of Courtown]

I am afraid I did not hear the first part of the noble Lord’s question, but I think it was basically about falling participation in sport in general.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

It was about the differential between men and women and what the Government are doing to increase the number of women.

[The Earl of Courtown]

There are many role models who women taking part in sport can look up to. In this House there are the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson and Lady Heyhoe Flint. We have to encourage as many women as possible to take part in sport. We have a number of great events coming up over the next few months, such as the Ashes for the women’s team and the netball world cup. Rowing, too, is a great success story: 26% of people rowing are women, and the biggest increase in the number of people taking part in rowing has been in women.

Concessionary Television Licences

Debate between Earl of Courtown and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Monday 6th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, five years ago a private deal was done over the funding of the BBC. The licence fee was frozen. The BBC took over funding of the World Service, BBC Monitoring and S4C, and picked up other costs. Together that amounted to a 16% cut in the budget. Here we are again: another back-room deal pre-empting the open consultative process that we have been promised on the BBC charter. However, what is different this time is that the Government are blatantly requiring the BBC to take on responsibility for a matter of social policy that is nothing to do with its main charter responsibilities. Surely if the Government want to maintain free TV for over-75s, as they said in their manifesto, they should fund it. Are we to believe that the Budget later this week will ask the bus companies to assume responsibilities for free bus passes for pensioners? If not, are we not entitled to see this agreement for what it is—a politically inspired attack on the BBC, ahead of and ring-fenced from the charter review process?

Where is the BBC expected to find this money—from the World Service or from S4C, or by cutting channels or reducing programme quality? The Chancellor in his interview mentioned the BBC website. If the Government have views about the social policies the BBC should be pursuing, perhaps they also have views about content. Can the Minister tell us what is now expected of the BBC, since the relationship no longer seems to be at arm’s length? Finally, when this matter was raised in 2010, the then trust threatened to resign if the Government went ahead with their proposal. This time, we are told that the BBC Trust has agreed with the proposal. Does that not raise questions about the trust itself and its capacity to safeguard the vital charter responsibilities of the BBC now and in the future?

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, the noble Lord made a number of points but he specifically asked about the input on charter renewal discussions. There are 18 months until the current charter expires, and the Government are committed to a thorough and open process where all aspects of the BBC will be up for discussion. That debate with the public and with the BBC will continue as planned, and an announcement on how charter review will be run will be made in due course. The noble Lord mentioned Channel 4. There are no current plans to privatise Channel 4. He mentioned S4C. The Government are committed to the provision of minority language broadcasting. This settlement for the BBC will mean it has to make some choices about how the licence fee funds are spent.