Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Peter Kyle

Wednesday 21st February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

The Government’s AI White Paper says that all jurisdictions will need mandatory reporting of frontier AI. The United States has already done it. The EU has already done it. Why is the Secretary of State waiting for a Labour Government to keep this country safe?

Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Peter Kyle

Committee stage
Tuesday 19th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Peter Kyle]

I beg to move amendment 37, page 7, line 10, leave out “the Minister considers appropriate” and insert “is necessary”.

This amendment changes the threshold for giving a Minister power to make regulations under this Clause. The threshold is amended to make it objective rather than subjective.

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss:

Clause stand part.

Amendment 41, in clause 17, page 9, line 40, leave out “they consider appropriate” and insert “is necessary”.

This amendment changes the threshold for giving a Minister power to make regulations under this Clause. The threshold is amended to make it objective rather than subjective.

Clause 17 stand part.

[Peter Kyle]

Thank you Dame Eleanor; it is a privilege to serve under your chairship this afternoon.

We are now covering clauses 12 and 17, which deal with subsidies and VAT. These are complex areas of the legislation that speak to a lack of detail in the Bill and about what the Government will actually do in these areas, should the Bill proceed to statute. Clause 12 excludes article 10 and annexes 5 and 6 of the protocol. These are the EU state aid rules relating to goods and wholesale electricity trade between Northern Ireland and the EU. We can immediately see that there is an added complexity to this part of the protocol due to the fact that the electricity industry operates a single wholesale market across the whole island of Ireland. I am not aware that the Government want to try to unpick that—I do not want to give them any ideas—but it illustrates the tangled web that Ministers are creating with this Bill.

Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Peter Kyle

Committee stage
Wednesday 13th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Peter Kyle]

New Zealand has been able to negotiate quite diligently and swiftly a veterinary agreement with the European Union. Turkey has been able to agree a customs arrangement with the EU. There has been no law breaking, no storming out of negotiations; representatives sat round the table and got it done. Why does he think that this Government have failed where other Governments have succeeded?

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Before the right hon. and learned Gentleman answers the question, I must say that his rhetoric is matchless, but his arithmetic is rubbish. He has held the Committee for 10 minutes with his matchless rhetoric, and I beg him to draw to a conclusion.

Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Peter Kyle

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 7th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Peter Kyle]

I will make progress, and then I will take more interventions.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I hesitate to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but I must remind the House, lest he be tempted to take too many interventions, that we have only one hour for this—until 8.40 pm. He certainly has not taken too long so far, but I just want to protect him from the temptation.

[Peter Kyle]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker; your protection is always welcome. I try my best to defend myself and to embrace as many interventions as possible, while bearing in mind that other Members from Northern Ireland also need to speak in the debate.

Power sharing is a fundamental outcome of the peace process. The Belfast/Good Friday agreement is not an abstract. Strand 1 details the envisioned day-to-day functioning of the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive.

The support for power sharing among the public in Northern Ireland is resolute. As Professor Tonge said in an evidence session on this Bill:

“Devolved power sharing is overwhelmingly a preferred option that comes back from each of those surveys—never larger, it should be said, than in 2019, which might be seen as remarkable given the hiatus in devolution from January 2017 until just after the election in December 2019. So the public have never lost faith with devolved power sharing. They have continued to support it.”––[Official Report, Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Public Bill Committee, 29 June 2021; c. 7-8.]

People in Northern Ireland are now emerging from a profound health crisis. Constituents in all parts of the United Kingdom are facing a cost of living crisis and huge public service challenges—multiple crises. For all political leaders in Northern Ireland, these are priorities that people want to be addressed in the coming weeks, in addition to valid constitutional issues, which must be resolved, as a result of the protocol that this Government negotiated and signed.

Lords amendments 1 and 2 allow the Bill to have an immediate commencement and for its provisions to apply if it receives Royal Assent during the seven-day Executive formation period following a First Minister or Deputy First Minister resignation. The Labour party fully supports the Lords amendments, but it is disappointing that the optimism of the New Decade, New Approach deal has not been realised.

Victims of Crime and Anti-social Behaviour, Etc (Rights, Entitlements and Related Matters)

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Peter Kyle

1st reading & 1st reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 9th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about the duties and responsibilities of the Victims’ Commissioner and about the Victims’ Code; to make provision about the rights of victims of persistent anti-social behaviour; to require local police forces to prepare victims’ services plans and take steps in connection with victim representative bodies; to establish a duty to report suspected child exploitation by those working in regulated activities; to establish a right of appeal by victims against a decision to cease a criminal investigation; to make provision for reviews of open or reopened homicide cases; to make provision about court procedures relating to vulnerable victims and witnesses; and for connected purposes.

There is agreement across the House that victims of crime should be more empowered and better supported. Indeed, I should recognise that the current Justice Secretary has promised to deliver a Bill of his own. So did his predecessor, and so too did his predecessor’s predecessor. They were promises to Parliament, but promises were also made to the public. The last three Tory manifestos pledged a law for victims. The challenge we face is not getting Government to admit that there is a problem; it is getting them to do something about it.

This is a deadly serious issue with deadly serious consequences for delay. In the time that has passed since the Tories first promised a victims Bill, there have been 1 million sexual offences and 350,000 rapes. Because of the broken promises of this Government, none of those victims of terrible crime benefited from the statutory rights that they have been promised. We know a Bill is on Government’s to-do list, but it is not on their priority list. It is for Labour, which is why we have produced the Bill before us.

The Bill’s origins lie in work undertaken by Claire Waxman, the victims’ commissioner for London, and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer). Their pioneering legislative work for victims is reflected in today’s Bill.



Confidence in our system of justice is at an all-time low for victims. Trial failures due to victim issues are at an all-time high, trebling since 2015. Victims are increasingly dropping out of criminal proceedings. When they look to the future, they see no justice in sight and no hope of closure, so they give up. To these victims, failed by Government, no justice is better than the agony of false hope. Just as bad is the fact that too many victims say that their experience of the criminal justice system was even more traumatising than the crime itself—surely the most damming indictment imaginable of current policy.

Victims have had codified rights since 2003, which have been reviewed, updated and extended several times, including during the current Session. Government have committed to putting those rights on to a statutory footing. The Labour party agrees that that is important, and clause 6 of part 3 of the Bill does that. But the Bill goes much further, because victims need more than rights: they need the tools to uphold them.

I have never met anybody working in any part of the criminal justice system who does not care about victims. From first responders to High Court judges, people have empathy for victims of crime—they care—but individual empathy all too often fails to translate into organisational recognition of victim needs. People are not the problem; the system is, and perverse incentives run through it like letters in a stick of rock.

By giving powers that matter to victims, modernising our justice system to reflect the value and needs of victims and inserting consequence for failure into the system, this Bill makes victims unignorable. Right now, under this Government, victims and their needs are routinely ignored. A code of rights exists, but what happens if it is ignored? Nothing. If we did what the Government aspire to do, which is to simply put the code into statute, what will happen if the code is ignored? Still, nothing. Laws only matter if there is a consequence for breaking them, and the same must be true for a victims law.

That is why clause 5 of part 3 of the Bill will create a register, held by the Victims’ Commissioner, on to which all individuals named as responsible for a breach of the victims code must be placed. Any part of the criminal justice system seeking to make an appointment in the top decile of salaries must consult the register to see whether any applicants have previously failed to uphold victims’ rights. We do not bar recruitment, but doubtless it will be taken into account. The message is clear: for the first time, there will be consequences for those who ignore victims. For the first time, failing victims will have a career-limiting impact.

For rights to have meaning, people need to know that they exist. Today, all too often, that simply is not the case. Some 80% of people who suffer crime make their way through the criminal justice system totally unaware that there is a code of rights. There is no fixed point in time when a victim is informed of their rights—there should be, but when? Alleged perpetrators are read their essential rights at the point of arrest, but the victim is not informed of their rights at the point of becoming a victim. That imbalance needs addressing. The Bill introduces a requirement that victims must be informed of their essential rights at the “earliest possible opportunity”. The clear expectation of the Bill is that the moment of first response is usually the appropriate time to inform victims that they have the right to information and support and a comprehensive set of legally enforceable rights to support them as victims. Those who think that this is too soon must answer the following question: if the moment of becoming a victim is not the right time for someone to discover that they have legally enforceable rights—that they have power—then when is? After a week, a month or, as it is now for most victims, never?

A powerful code of rights needs a powerful commissioner to hold the system to account. In Dame Vera Baird we have a fearless commissioner, and the Bill seeks to boost further the commissioner’s power and authority. The Labour party does not fear statutory bodies with independence; we believe that they strengthen our democracy. That is why the Bill shifts reporting from Ministers to Parliament, gives the Justice Committee the power of veto over future commissioner appointments and grants extended freedoms to investigate the criminal justice system to ensure code compliance.

The Bill also gives power directly to victims. For them, things will be different. No longer will they need an MP to authorise a victim’s complaint to the parliamentary ombudsman, an inexcusable barrier that partly explains why fewer than 20 victims have lodged complaints over the past three years. That is an insulting number, given the scale of code violations. Persistent victims of antisocial behaviour will for the first time be embraced by the code, which will empower people to stand up against those who play havoc with the civility everyone has the right to expect from their neighbours and from within their community.

Right now, only a minority of victims understand their rights and only a fraction will ever exert them. The system ignores infraction, so over time it has become normalised. With this Bill we modernise our system of justice to take into account the rights and the need of victims. Not only will the measures in this Bill lessen the impact of crime on victims, but they will help improve the quality of justice itself, by delivering victims in their role as witnesses into courtrooms empowered with knowledge, rights and support. It is not radical—we do not tear down old liberties—but it marks the only significant step forward for almost two decades. We insert career-limiting consequences into a system that currently ignores victims with impunity. We empower victims with the knowledge of their rights from the moment they become victims. We make it easier for those rights to be understood and asserted, and more straightforward to appeal should the need arise. We give victims an enforcer with teeth in the shape of a commissioner with the independence, power, and resources to hold our criminal justice system to account on a victim’s behalf. And we provide a criminal justice system that better reflects the aspirations of our society for a justice system that offers dignity and support to those who suffer at the hands of criminals and not one that, as is too often the case today, prolongs the agony.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,

That Peter Kyle, Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner, Mr David Lammy, Nick Thomas-Symonds, Rachel Reeves, Valerie Vaz, Mr Nicholas Brown, Jess Phillips, Holly Lynch, Wes Streeting and Yvette Cooper present the Bill.

Peter Kyle accordingly presented the Bill.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed (Bill 256).

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I will now briefly suspend the House in order that the Chamber can be prepared for the next item of business.

Official Development Assistance

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Peter Kyle

Thursday 26th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

If, during a global pandemic, the Government do not accept that solving problems abroad before they reach our shores is worth doing, this is an argument we are never going to win. There has been a year-on-year reduction in deaths from terrorism and extremism from countries where we have been investing huge amounts of development resources. Now that we are withdrawing that resource, the opposite will happen. This is also an economic argument, because where we have to use the military to respond to extremism, civil strife and the breakdown of law and order, we put British armed forces—our service people—in danger, we spend an absolute fortune and Britain ends up paying a very high price for our credibility. Does the Foreign Secretary not accept that when we withdraw international development aid and resource, we will end up paying far, far more by using the military in the long term? This is an economic and a military argument.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Before the Foreign Secretary answers that question, I must point out to the House that when a Minister makes a statement, the idea is that people ask short questions. They are not meant to be making speeches. A question is one phrase with a question mark at the end. It does not require lots of statistics, a huge preamble or lots of rhetoric. We are only a quarter of the way through the list of people who have asked to speak in this statement, but we have used up three quarters of the hour allocated to it. That simply is not fair to the other people who have yet to ask their questions, so I beg for short questions—and if the questions are short, it will be easier for the Foreign Secretary to give shorter answers.

Virtual Participation in Debate

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Peter Kyle

Tuesday 24th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was about to finish. I ask hon. Members to read the amendment carefully. It simply says,

“with a public health reason”,

which is a wide definition.

[Peter Kyle]

My right hon. Friend talks about public health. GPs are quite busy at the moment because we are in the middle of a pandemic. Does she think that GPs have more important things to do right now than certify that MPs are okay—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman has not been here for the whole debate. We are not having any more long interventions. A lot of people wish to speak and we are addressing a specific motion, not GPs in general.

Proceedings during the Pandemic

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Peter Kyle

Tuesday 2nd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Peter Kyle]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Before the hon. Gentleman makes another intervention, I should say that most people will not get to speak if there are lots of interventions. I will, however, allow him to make this one.

[Peter Kyle]

I am grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker, and this will be the last time. When the right hon. Gentleman introduced the motion that delivered the virtual Parliament—the hybrid Parliament—did he know then how long the coronavirus crisis would last?