Gatwick Airport

Earl of Sandwich Excerpts

Thursday 20th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, as I said, the police are working on this at the moment. They are doing all they can to search for the operators and resolve the situation safely. I fear that I do not have details for the noble Lord on specific rehearsals for this but I will look into that and write to him.

[The Earl of Sandwich (CB)]

My Lords, I declare a personal interest: my daughter is stuck in Berlin Airport at this moment, like many thousands. I do not think that the Minister has replied to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, who asked a very specific question about the equipment which can disable these drones and bring them back to where they came from. These have been tested at Gatwick. Has she not got any information on the results of those tests?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, technology is rapidly advancing in this area. That is absolutely something that we are looking at. As I said, part of the consultation we did earlier this year was on counterdrone technology and we will be announcing our next steps on that very soon.

Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill [HL]

Earl of Sandwich Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

My Lords, I apologise that I was unable to contribute to the Second Reading debate on this important piece of legislation as I was unavailable on that date. I have paid considerable attention to this for one very good reason: for 14 years or thereabouts, I represented the greatest concentration of dairy farmers in any constituency in Scotland. For all that time, I watched them battle, with great frustration and an unequal contracting position, as their livelihoods were strained. I have significant sympathy with the objectives of the Bill and, indeed, of the groceries code.

I hope that this amendment will not detain the Committee for very long; it is not my intention for that to happen, but we all know what happens to the best-laid plans of mice and men. In responding to the Second Reading debate, the Minister said:

“The Bill is one of the pilot plain English Bills that are intended to be easier for everyone to understand”.—[Official Report, 22/5/12; col. 761.]

As a fan of plain English, I believe that to a degree that objective has been achieved in this Bill. Noble Lords will be relieved to know that it is not my intention in the course of the Bill’s consideration to go through every individual part of it in order to see whether they meet the test.

The Bill begins with a statement which, in my view, is a challenge to the objective of plain English. This is an opportunity for the Committee to explore the thinking behind some of the decisions that have been made in the way in which the Bill has been drafted. It cannot be the case in the future that plain English Bills will be presented to Parliament and that no consideration will be given to the way in which they are drafted.

In 1998, famously, the late Donald Dewar began the Second Reading debate of the Scotland Bill by saying that,

“there shall be a Scottish Parliament”. —[Official Report, Commons, 12/1/98; col. 25.]

In this case, the Government have chosen, in similar circumstances, to say:

“There is to be a Groceries Code Adjudicator”.

The purpose of the amendment is merely to explore the thinking behind the construction of the verb that is deployed here. Candidly, I know many people who speak plain English—some plainer than others. I know of nobody who uses this construction in ordinary conversation. I know many people who say, “There will be a bus along in a minute” but very few who say, “There is to be a bus along in a minute”. If we are to meet the objective of plain English—language which is understandable and not unnecessarily legalistic—it has to meet at least two objectives. It has to relate to the plain language that speakers speak and not be unnecessarily grandiose. Secondly, it needs to meet the test of consistency. As a lawyer, I can see that at some time in the future, there will be some money to be made for lawyers in saying that there is a difference between the words that have been deployed at the beginning of this particular Bill and the words that have been deployed at the beginning of others. There was a reason behind this. Let us explore that reason.

There is seriousness to this point. It would be helpful to know why the Government chose this particular construction. It may have been presented by a draftsman and accepted by the Executive. I understand that, and I have been in that position, but why is this construction preferable to, “There will be a Groceries Code Adjudicator”, or indeed, “There shall be a Groceries Code Adjudicator”?

[The Earl of Sandwich]

I hope the Minister and also the noble Lord, Lord Browne, will forgive my intervention in the early part of the Bill.

I want to make a slightly more general point, since we are close to the Title of the Bill. There is something missing in the early part of the Bill: that is, the link with the original Groceries Supply Code of Practice. I know that this will come up again, but I want to raise it right at the beginning. The Competition Commission uses the important phrase about stopping,

“the transfer of excessive risks and unexpected costs”,

by retailers on suppliers, and encouraging compliance. To make that point, I have put down an amendment to Clause 15. I apologise that I missed putting an amendment down to the Long Title. I hope the Minister will find a few minutes, or a few sentences, to answer that point somewhere in the course of the debate.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Baroness Wilcox)]

My Lords, we are off to a marvellous start. This is a great level to start at—whether we are doing something in plain English or not. I was in on the beginning of the Plain English Campaign, as, I think, was the Office of Fair Trading and the noble Lord, Lord Borrie. I was rather hoping we would get a crystal award for how we have written this Bill in plain English, but I can see I am going to have to work very hard during this Committee stage to reassure everyone that we are trying to be as clear as possible.

I fully appreciate the sentiment behind this amendment. The Government have committed to writing the Bill in plain English, and we strive to apply this principle to all communication as the Bill goes forward. However, in this case the amendment would change the meaning of the clause. “There will be” is a prediction, whereas “There is to be” indicates that the Bill establishes the Groceries Code Adjudicator. I hope that that clarifies the point for the noble Lord.

I will answer the second question when we come to the appropriate amendment, if that is okay. I thank the noble Earl for giving me notice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I wish to state clearly that I do not agree with the arguments of my noble friend Lord Howard of Rising. If there had been a robbery, would we ever argue that a witness to that robbery could not give evidence to the police and that the only people who could do so would be either the robber or the victim? We have to open this out so that the general principles on which we base so many issues of this nature in society apply, so that other people are allowed to make complaints. I give one example: there are plenty of organisations in civic society that might wish to make a complaint on behalf of a supplier in this case. I remind noble Lords that other aspects of the Bill ensure that it is not in your interest to make vexatious complaints. The adjudicator can, at his or her discretion, apply costs against those who do so. I am absolutely sure that a supplier who sought an advantage against another supplier in the way that has been suggested would be the subject of that kind of cost.

[The Earl of Sandwich]

The noble Baroness, Lady Byford, and others said exactly what I would have. I am an NFU member. I know how much the Government have steered a course in this to accept third parties. I do not know what the noble Lord, Lord Howard, meant by “all and sundry” but it is a rather sinister phrase. It presumably means mischief and none of us wants that. I hope that the Government keep the wording as it stands.

[Lord Grantchester]

Picking up on quite wide-ranging amendments, I think that on this side we are content that included in the drafting of the clause is the fact that third parties can be party to the complainant. That is perhaps the easiest way to put it. Yet we appreciate what has been said and would like the Minister to underline and put on the record that that is indeed the case. On this side, we think that third parties will act as a responsible check and balance to the process in that they will pick up widespread experience of the supply chain, including from other suppliers who may come forward with information. I am sure that they will act as a steadying hand on any vexatious claims that individual suppliers might feel they have under their own individual circumstances. I will also reply to the noble Lord, Lord Howard. Of course, on this side we are very concerned that fair and best practice should be everyday experience for all businesses, whether they supply supermarkets or not.

People Trafficking

Earl of Sandwich Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Sandwich]

My Lords, for nine years I was a council member of Anti-Slavery International. I heard of many cases of slavery in north Africa but there are now cases in the UK and the rest of Europe that show the depths to which our own criminal gangs can sink. We have heard already that British victims have recently been trafficked in Europe by rogue gangs that force them to work for long hours in filthy conditions for little or no payment.

Some 10 or 12 years ago, the Home Office showed that at an absolute minimum there were hundreds of children and women being trafficked; now we are talking of at least tens of thousands. The Government have changed their mind and opted into the new EU trafficking directive, but we have only a year in which to comply. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has just said, the Children’s Society says that child protection is being sacrificed to immigration rules. Will the Minister assure me that the legal framework will be revised for trafficked children to conform to international standards and that these children are not going to be treated as immigrants?

There is no single monitoring body in the UK tasked to look at the scale, nature and trends of human trafficking. I suggest, with Anti-Slavery International and others, including my noble friends, that an independent watchdog responsible to Parliament would be best placed to research and document that abuse. The Government may say that the National Crime Agency will have a key role in building on the existing arrangements once it is established next year, but without an independent monitoring system we cannot be sure how effective and co-ordinated its work will be.