G7 Summit
Lord Adonis Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I have in the past written Statements for Prime Ministers. The Prime Minister writes his own Statements, but if the noble Baroness reads Hansard she will find that there was a substantial discussion of these matters. As I said in my response to the very legitimate question from the noble Lord, Lord Newby, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, the importance of the green transition was reaffirmed and we are committed to increased support for renewables. As I said, the G7 ended public support for the fossil fuel energy sector in 2022 and continues to advance on that in its ambitions.
Sometimes, when I hear the noble Baroness, one forgets that we were the first major economy to legislate to end our contribution to climate change by 2050. One forgets, listening to her, that our 2030 nationally determined contribution is one of the most ambitious contributions in the world. One does not hear from her that between 1990 and 2021, we cut emissions by 48% while growing our economy by 65%. One does not hear from her that we have decarbonised faster than any other G7 country and that we have set out to be an exemplar for others. The Government’s support is accelerating the production of clean energy. In 2020 renewable electricity generation accounted for 41.4% of total electricity generation. Why does the noble Baroness, who believes so passionately in these things, not sometimes help to talk up what we are achieving, instead of constantly talking it down?
Lord Adonis (Lab)
My Lords, I reinforce the cross-party unity on the issue of Ukraine. Might this be an appropriate time to congratulate all our fellow citizens who have been giving personal support to Ukrainians by hosting them in their own homes? This is now going into a second year and is a huge commitment which the British people are making directly to Ukrainians.
However, beyond the G7, alas, support for our robust action in Ukraine is less uniform. It is very notable that among our Commonwealth partners there has been less support for Ukraine and, indeed, too much support being given to Russia, particularly in buying Russian products and Russian oil. I am thinking particularly of India and South Africa. These are very close Commonwealth partners of ours. Will the noble Lord say something about what British diplomacy is seeking to do to bring about stronger support for our action on Ukraine from South Africa and India in particular? It is a big mistake to think that the Ukrainian war is an assault on just the European order: it is an assault on the international order and it is vital that our Commonwealth allies and friends are as robust in resisting it as we are.
On the section of the Statement on trade, I support what my noble friend Lady Smith and the noble Lord, Lord Newby, said about it being deeply complacent. To take a specific example of how complacent it is, is the noble Lord aware that we have lost half of our car manufacturing capacity as a country in the last seven years? We have done that almost entirely because of a deterioration in the terms of trade with our European partners and lack of investment, including investment from Japanese car manufacturers. They may be very strong on the rhetoric of partnership, because they are very polite—the Japanese are a notably polite nation—but when it comes to actual investment, they have been cutting investment, not increasing it. Unless we can deal with this issue of rules of origin and our lack of battery manufacturing capacity, we could lose the other half of our car manufacturing capacity in the next few years too.
Leaving the complacency and self-congratulation aside, does the noble Lord support urgent trade negotiations with our European partners to get a better deal for our car manufacturers, in particular, an industrial policy that sees us starting to produce those vital components, and big new industrial sectors, notably battery manufacturing, without which we could see a really significant loss of industrial capacity in this country over the next few years?
Lord True (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for his comments. I agree that the challenge from Mr Putin is not just to Europe but to the international world order. Our expectation is that any just peace must recognise and come according to the rules of international law. The United Kingdom and others have fully accepted and understood the diplomatic challenge of making the case across the world—among our friends and sometimes people who are not so much our friends—that Putin’s illegal war must be confronted. That was reflected in the extraordinary support for the UN resolutions at the start of the conflict. Obviously, this is ongoing and is an effort that we must and will keep up. I will not comment on the specifics of what went on at the summit because I do not have full read-outs, but obviously it was important that India and Brazil were there. The Prime Minister met Prime Minister Modi in the margins of the G7 on 21 May. There were very positive reflections on the deep ties between the UK and India. Both leaders agreed to work intensely towards a UK-India free trade agreement, which is ambitious but would be mutually beneficial. We committed strongly to support India’s G20 presidency.
I am sorry that the noble Lord is less than rapturous about the inward investment to which I referred. The Covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the energy crisis shocked supply chains in the EV industry. That has been a problem for manufacturers across Europe, not just in the UK. We need a joint UK-EU solution and have already raised the matter with the European Commission, at both official and ministerial level. We are ready to work with it and industry to find a solution, and will continue to develop and invest in the UK’s world-leading automotive sector. The Government have committed a record £211 million to battery research. I acknowledge that there is ongoing work to do in the sector but we are ready and talking to our European friends on these matters, quite contrary to the noble Lord’s implication.
G20
Lord Adonis Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Lord True (Con)
My Lords, a range of questions have been raised. I begin by expressing my sincere sense of gratitude, on behalf of the Government, to both noble Lords who have spoken for the sense of solidarity they expressed, both in support of Ukraine and in the face of the quite appalling aggression by the Putin regime. I can say, as my right honourable friend the Prime Minister and Sir Keir Starmer said in the other place, that “we stand as one” on this. There has also been very powerful affirmation of that in this House, for which I am extremely grateful. I join with the noble Baroness opposite in offering particular personal condolences from this House to those Polish citizens whose loved ones were killed as a result of what happened, as well as to those who suffered in the latest atrocious bombardment by Russia of Ukraine.
It was provident that a number of important NATO elements were there at the G20, and, as the noble Baroness said, it was possible for them to gather, make an assessment and reassert the sense of NATO support for Ukraine. I share the satisfaction expressed by the noble Baroness in the calmness, good sense and measured way in which NATO responded to what was obviously a deliberate provocation. It is not the first time that Russia has done this sort of thing during an international conference.
On the attacks on civilians, we know that, given the climate in the central part of that part of eastern Europe in winter, this is frankly a despicable attempt to freeze people to death and cause suffering by the weapon of cold.
On help to Ukraine, of course this Government will continue to give support, in both military and financial terms. This year we have given £2.3 billion of military support to Ukraine; we are training Ukrainian armed forces as part of our plan to train 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers every 120 days. Eight other countries have signed up to our programme, and we are providing further military aid, including another 1,000 surface-to-air missiles and more than 25,000 extreme cold winter kits for troops. That is on top of past packages.
I so much agree with what the noble Baroness and the noble Lord said about grain supplies and food security. There are ongoing discussions about the Black Sea grain initiative. The simplest way to stabilise global food and energy prices would be for Russia to end its illegal and unjustified war. The most immediate important step would be for Russia to renew the Black Sea grain initiative and stop targeting attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure. The UK and its allies are working tirelessly through diplomatic channels and help from President Erdoğan and others. We have made steps forward already this week and, as the noble Lord expressed, I hope that, as the week goes on, we will see a return towards normal operation of that agreement.
We need an end to the war, but the noble Lord is quite right that we need to tackle famine and reduce world hunger. This Government are doing a lot bilaterally in that respect—for example, in our support for Somalia. We are committed to protecting children in the countries most affected by food insecurity. I assure the noble Lord that the Government will continue to give very close attention to famine relief and support.
The noble Baroness asked about the Global Fund. It is true that she made some criticisms; on the other hand, we have confirmed that we will commit £1 billion to the Global Fund for its work over the next three years, which we believe will help save more than 1 million lives at risk from deadly diseases. We are the third-largest donor to the Global Fund; we have invested £4.4 billion to date to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria around the world. The pledge comes at a time of significant pressures on the UK’s aid budget, with domestic budgetary constraints, famine risk in the Horn of Africa, where we need support, and conflict in Ukraine.
The noble Baroness asked about China. Yes, the challenges posed by China are systemic and long term. China is a country with fundamentally different values from ours, and its leadership is intent on reshaping the international order. A precondition for any part of our relationship will obviously be our national security; we will continue to call out human rights abuses, such as the appalling issues in Xinjiang, which have often been discussed in this House. As for whether our IR refresh will designate China a threat and so on, I cannot give a timescale, for which the noble Baroness asked, on a specific China strategy. We want to continue dialogue with China, but I assure her that we have our eyes open on that point.
On India, we have achieved our ambition to conclude the majority of the talks towards an FTA by the end of October this year. As my right honourable friend the Prime Minister said in the other place earlier, there is a lot of interest in the various aspects of the deal, and the quality of deal is more important than the date when it is signed. However, negotiators continue to press ahead to secure a deal that is fair, reciprocal and will deliver for the UK economy—and, as in any reciprocal deal, also for India. The Prime Minister had a very positive meeting with Prime Minister Modi.
As far as the United States is concerned, the Prime Minister had a good meeting with President Biden. At this short notice I have not had the full debrief of what was said in their personal conversations, but there was a strong commitment to work together, both in terms of Ukraine and the relationship with China. It is true that the United States is not focused on free trade agreements generally at the moment, but we stand ready to engage with it. The US is our largest trade partner and bilateral trade with it is worth £234 billion annually.
I do not agree with Mr Eustice about the Australia trade agreement. Our landmark trade agreement with Australia will unlock £10.4 billion of additional bilateral trade, support economic growth in every part of Britain and deliver for 15,000 businesses already exporting to Australia. We will remember UK farmers in every aspect of our relationship as we go forward.
On Ukraine joining the EU single market, I cannot answer at this Dispatch Box. That remains a matter for our friends in the European Union.
Lord Adonis (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Lord did not answer my noble friend Lady Smith’s question directly as to whether a trade deal with the United States was raised in the meeting with President Biden. Will he confirm that it was not raised?
On the Ukraine issue, where we all stand in solidarity in this House, there have been two alarming developments. Was the use of Iranian drones by Russia in Ukraine raised and is there any international action that could be taken which might limit the capacity of Iran to provide assistance to Russia?
Another issue that was not raised in the Statement at all was a further strengthening of sanctions, particularly against key Russian individuals, too many of whom still appear to be—how can one put it?—disporting themselves on the international scene at the moment. Could there be a further strengthening of sanctions? Since President Putin appears to be indicating that he is intent on creating a hard winter for the people of Ukraine, maybe we should be creating a rather harder winter for those owners of Russian assets in London who have alliances with the Putin regime.
Lord True (Con)
I am sorry, but I did say to the noble Baroness that I could not give a detailed readout of what went on in the personal conversation between President Biden and the Prime Minister. I cannot give a speculative answer in this House on something so important. As soon as I get information on that point, I will of course supply it.
The noble Lord makes a very important point about Iran. Obviously, Iran is not present at the table. We continue to make very strong representations to Iran on a number of fronts—its international responsibilities, its responsibilities not to support terrorism and, indeed, terroristic violence in any place, and its atrocious abuses of human rights within Iran.
As far as sanctions on Russians are concerned, this is something that the Government constantly keep under review. We have designated more than 1,200 individuals already and over 120 entities, and frozen the assets of 19 Russian banks with assets of £940 billion since the invasion.
Afghanistan
Lord Adonis Excerpts(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Adonis (Lab) [V]
My Lords, the immediate emergency facing the Government and the House is the refugee crisis. I would like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, if he could reply to three specific questions at the end of the debate.
The first is on the issue of just 5,000 Afghan refugees being admitted this year. He will have heard across the House acute concern at that level of admissions and that it should be significantly higher. Is it the case that 3,000 of those are already accounted for by translators and immediate staff working for the British embassy and British forces in Afghanistan? If so, that figure of 5,000 will be grossly inadequate.
Secondly, the number of 20,000 appears to have been plucked out of the air. The Government have given a commitment in respect of Hong Kong Chinese residents who are affected by persecution in Hong Kong, which amounts to many hundreds of thousands who would have the right to come to this country. Why has a similar commitment not been given in respect of Afghanistan? Will the Government keep an open mind about increasing that 20,000 figure if, as is likely, the number applying with very good reason for refugee status increases?
Thirdly, much mention has been made of staff working directly for British forces and the British embassy in Afghanistan, but there is also a big issue in respect of staff working for NGOs. Will refugee status and priority be given to staff working for NGOs? In an email I received this morning, the leader of an NGO set out the issue in stark terms, saying that
“the UK employed thousands of Afghans to work on their projects in Afghanistan—mainly on improving people’s lives through strengthening government systems or delivering basic services. These people in many cases now have specific threats to their life. I’ve heard of members of our staff who have been hunted down by the Talibs and had to flee with their families to hide in basements, just because they were our office manager or trained people on tax procedures. Unfortunately, the UK, although it is relocating its embassy staff and translators, is providing no means to evacuate or relocate those staff who worked on their projects and are at risk of death or harm. This stands in stark contrast to the US, who are relocating even the cleaners of some US media organisations.”
My noble friend Lady Ramsay of Cartvale mentioned BBC staff, but I think this issue goes much more widely to include all staff employed by or helping UK-based NGOs. The House would appreciate a response to that issue when the Minister replies.
Procedure and Privileges
Lord Adonis Excerpts(3 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Adonis
At end insert “but that this House believes it should sit from 1pm on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays.”
Lord Adonis (Lab)
My Lords, I first thank the noble Baroness for her introduction. She quite rightly paid tribute to the staff of the House, and we all pay tribute to them too, but it is fitting that we also pay tribute to the Leader of the House herself for the way she has guided us through these very turbulent times over the last 15 months. She has proved very sensitive to the feelings of the House, and we are very grateful to her. Thanks should also be extended to my noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon, who has done an excellent job as leader of my party, the noble Lord, Lord Newby, on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, in respect of the Cross-Benchers. The House has shown itself in a very commendable light in the way it has adapted to this great public health emergency we have had to deal with.
The Leader said that we are seeking to keep some of the changes we have adopted over the last year that we generally agree are worthwhile. I suggest to your Lordships that one of the changes we should consider keeping is meeting earlier. My proposition this afternoon is that, just as we have been meeting earlier on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays throughout the pandemic, we should continue to meet earlier on the basis that we also adjourn earlier and have a new equilibrium of meeting earlier and adjourning earlier.
There are two reasons why this is particularly important, which are partly to do with when we do our business but also how we do it. In terms of when we do our business, it is only because of custom and practice from time immemorial that the House started its business mid-afternoon—and indeed, going back 50 years or so, in the late afternoon. Almost every other parliamentary assembly in the world has started meeting earlier in the day as it has adapted to modern conditions. The House of Commons now meets earlier than us on every day of the week.
The arguments for meeting later are now superseded. It used to be said that we had to juggle the demands of holding other full-time jobs with membership of the House. I am very sympathetic to noble Lords who work in banks, in the City, as lawyers and in other professions that carry on until the late afternoon, but the biggest second job that almost all of us have is as members of families—as parents and carers who need to be available in the evenings, which, by definition, you cannot be if the House is sitting in the evenings.
Of course, no set of arrangements suits everybody. I am fully aware that meeting earlier and adjourning earlier would inconvenience some Members. But from the many conversations I have had on this issue over the last few days, and over many months while we have been meeting in this way, I think the generality of your Lordships think that meeting at 1 pm—which, after all, is the middle of the day, so we are not exactly taking over the whole working day—and adjourning at 7 pm or 8 pm, as a normal practice, is a great improvement on the conditions in which we have worked, which have simply been inherited from time immemorial.
I am aware this poses a particular issue in respect of Monday for noble Lords who come from the north of Scotland, which has been put to me. If this amendment is passed today, I would recommend that the Procedure Committee look at whether the precise arrangements for Monday should be further reviewed. Maybe 2 pm on a Monday, rather than 1 pm, would be better for noble Lords coming substantial distances.
As for how we do our business, though, which is as important as when we do it, it seems absolutely imperative that we look at meeting earlier. The practical effect of beginning our proceedings in the middle of the afternoon, as all noble Lords who have conducted the business of the House know, is that we essentially have two House of Lords sittings. We have a Sitting where there is a full House, which is roughly from 2 pm or 3 pm to about 7 pm, then we have a residual House from 7 pm, made up of only those die-hard Members actually conducting the business in the Chamber, and it goes through to the end at 10 pm.
I once conducted the Committee stage of a Bill from where the noble Baroness sits with four Members of the House for three hours while we got to the end of a Bill. This is perfectly common after your Lordships come into the House after dinner. This suits the Government very well indeed. I see a Chief Whip on one side and a former Chief Whip on the other. There is nothing that suits the Government better than that the business of the House should be conducted with nobody present. This limits the opportunities for debate and intervention and, in particular, it removes the potential for votes. Everyone knows that in the normal course of events, with normal voting, you cannot have votes after 7.30 pm because you simply cannot conduct a House. You have only a narrow window, which will become narrower, because we have just agreed to extend Question Time, and we now have Private Notice Questions almost as a matter of course. There will be only a very narrow window, of about two and a half hours in most sittings, when it is practically possible to conduct votes in the House.
Walter Bagehot, in his famous book on the English constitution from 150 years ago, said:
“An assembly—a revising assembly especially—which does not assemble … is defective in a main political ingredient.”
A fundamental problem with the House of Lords, if we revert to our previous arrangements, is that for about half our sittings, we essentially do not assemble. Only a tiny subset of your Lordships assembles. It is not possible for most Members, because of their other responsibilities, to take part in these sittings in the late evening—or it is not their desire to do so, and it is not possible to have votes. Whereas, if we conduct our business like every other institution in the country does, in prime time, then from 1 pm until 7 pm or 8 pm, almost all Members will be available. We will be far more inclusive in our conduct of the business, and it will be possible to conduct votes throughout that period. For those Members of the House who are not in the Government, which includes the generality of Members on both sides, our conduct of business would be improved.
Just one final remark: we are a self-regulating assembly. When we set up the office of the Lord Speaker, which was very controversial at the time, I remember the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, who I am delighted to see is speaking later, told us frequently through many hours of debates that the Government’s proposal should not be accepted, in respect of the abolition of the office of Lord Chancellor and the creation of the Lord Speaker, because we are self-regulating and should make these decisions ourselves. We are a self-regulating House, but that does mean that we should regulate ourselves. We should not shy away from making these decisions about the conduct of our own business. Meeting earlier and adjourning earlier is an idea whose time has come. I beg to move.
Lord Adonis (Lab)
My Lords, there is a great deal of support in the House for the idea of meeting and adjourning earlier, so I am going to press this amendment. I urge colleagues who support that principle, even if they have somewhat refined ways of doing it, to vote for this, because it is a complete delusion to think that an alternative proposal will come forward any time soon. Perfect moments for reform of the House of Lords come forward about once a century so, if noble Lords pass this opportunity by, it may be that their grandchildren have an opportunity to vote on a new proposal. If a noble Lord is a hereditary Peer and the hereditary Peer by-elections continue, they may even be able to participate in that decision, but the likelihood is that none of us will be able to.
Nothing was further from my thoughts than that I would be denying the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, his lunch. I will take an opportunity after the debate to introduce the noble Lord to the concept of the sandwich. It has a long aristocratic pedigree; it was invented 300 years ago by an Earl. It is not quite as old as Lincoln Cathedral—about a third as old, by my calculations. It enables one to reconcile lunch with fulfilling one’s duties in the House in the early afternoon.
Business of the House
Lord Adonis Excerpts(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Adonis
Leave out from “Commons” to the end, and insert “Standing Order 46 (No two stages of a Bill to be taken on one day) be dispensed with to allow the Bill to be taken through all its stages today.”
Lord Adonis
At end insert “but that this House regrets the gross abuse of the Parliamentary process and lack of any opportunity for effective scrutiny that has been necessitated by the failure of Her Majesty’s Government (1) to enable Parliament to meet in a more timely manner, and (2) to make other provisions for the rights of Parliament to be upheld.”
Lord Adonis (Lab)
My Lords, I say first, I think on behalf of the whole House, how grateful we are to the staff of the House for the exemplary arrangements that they have made for our meeting today in the most exceptional circumstances. I also thank the Chief Whip for the courtesy that he has shown to me and to the House, as always. I pay tribute to those in the usual channels who have done the best that they can to make—let us be frank about it—the best of a bad job today. However, we should be aware of the enormity of the step that we are taking today, which is why I make no apology for moving this amendment.
What we are essentially doing is giving the Government power, in one of the most important matters that will face us in this generation, to legislate by decree. There will be no Committee on this Bill, no Report and no ability to move amendments on Third Reading. We will have just one debate, then a guillotine, then a vote, and then all 80 pages, 40 clauses and five schedules of this Bill, which is of enormous importance to the whole future of the United Kingdom, will become law immediately, with Royal Assent signified before the end of the Sitting. If this were an act of God, or some emergency for which we had to provide immediately—such as, for example, the pandemic—one might understand the need for legislative arrangements of this kind, although I note that when we passed the Coronavirus Act, which gave huge sweeping powers to Her Majesty’s Government, we gave it significantly more scrutiny in the most difficult of circumstances, including the need for Members to participate in unusual ways, than we are giving this Bill today.
It is not only that this is an act of the Government, not an act of God. Even given the fact that they reached an agreement only on Christmas Eve, it was still possible for there to be significantly more scrutiny of this Bill than we are giving it today. The Government could have called Parliament back on Monday. We could have had three days of debate on the Bill, which would have enabled normal Committee and Report stages to take place. Recognising, after discussions with noble Lords, that, given the constraints we are under—as I say, they are imposed on us by the Government, but we are under them none the less—we cannot have a normal Committee, I am not moving my first amendment, but I think that it is important for your Lordships to put on record that we deplore these arrangements and we do not regard them as in any way acceptable.
I note that the noble Lord, Lord Ashton, said that this Motion and our arrangements today should not be regarded as a precedent, but they will be regarded as a precedent. Let us be clear: precedents are things that have happened before—that is the meaning of the word “precedent”. We cannot do something and then argue that it is not a precedent for the future; it is a precedent. I can tell the noble Lord, because I have sat on that Bench too, that Ministers in future will be salivating at the powers that your Lordships will give the Government today over the most important piece of legislation that this Parliament will enact. They will cite it as a precedent for similar arrangements, which are without precedent before today.
There is no precedent at all—I have consulted the clerks, who are learned in these matters—in, so far as we can tell, the 800-year history of the House of Lords, and certainly not its modern history, for both suspending the need to have gaps between consideration of Bills in Committee and on Report and suspending Committee and Report entirely, which removes the power to move amendments. There is no precedent for this on a piece of major contested legislation. Your Lordships have done that historically only ever for emergency legislation that has the agreement of the opposition parties—notably terrorism legislation, where there is an obvious and sometimes compellingly urgent need to do so. In the history of this House, a piece of legislation like this has never been considered in the way that we are considering it today.
The issues that we are talking about are not small. Those of your Lordships who listened to the opening speeches in the House of Commons today will have seen the gravity of the issues that are being considered. If I may put in a plug for my leader, my right honourable friend the leader of the Opposition made a forensic speech, which went through in detail all the big issues in this agreement which must be debated and tested and which are at the moment unclear—the Erasmus programme, workers’ rights, the ability of artists and professionals to travel across the continent, what will happen to financial services, which are outside this treaty, business services and the nature of the security partnership. Noble Lords need only read the headings of each of the 40 clauses in the Bill, which relate to matters as big as any that your Lordships have ever debated and legislated for, to see the importance of the issues at stake. What is happening today is not just, as the noble Lord, Lord Ashton, said, not in keeping with our usual practices—I must say that that is the understatement of the parliamentary year; it is the noble Lord’s job to try to keep our proceedings as low key as possible—but something that the House should regard as totally unacceptable.
We are where we are. Today is the 30th and the Bill must become law, so I do not propose that we reimpose Committee stage, but it is important that we put on record that these arrangements are unacceptable. They will be regarded as a precedent in future. They treat the general public, who are looking at our proceedings and expecting us to legislate with scrutiny, with contempt. That is why it is right that we put on record that we deplore these arrangements. With that in mind, I beg to move as an addition to the Chief Whip’s Motion that
“this House regrets the gross abuse of the Parliamentary process and lack of any opportunity for effective scrutiny that has been necessitated by the failure of Her Majesty’s Government … to enable Parliament to meet in a more timely manner, and … to make other provisions for the rights of Parliament to be upheld.”
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)
My Lords, the original Question was that the first Motion in the name of the Lord Privy Seal be agreed to, since when a second amendment has been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, as set out on the Order Paper. The Question before the House is that the second amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, be agreed to. I have received no notification, but I suspect the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, would like to speak.
Lord Adonis (Lab)
I congratulate the noble Lord on his sense of humour. However, I add that if his idea of fun is meeting here on 30 December, I am the Fat Controller.
I thank the noble Lords, Lord Purvis and Lord Stoneham, and my noble friend Lady Hayter for their contributions. I defer to no one more than my noble friend Lady Hayter on the importance of scrutiny. She has probably contributed more hours to the scrutiny of European legislation than almost all other parliamentarians put together, except for one or two Ministers. However, it is right to observe and it is important for people to understand that what is at stake in the Bill is not simply the taking of a treaty and the putting of it into law, as she said, but all the follow-on requirements, including the requirements for parliamentary scrutiny.
The Bill was published only yesterday afternoon so I have had only one opportunity to read it, but I have counted eight separate Henry VIII provisions in it which give the Government sweeping powers to legislate by decree over and above the Bill itself. For example, Clause 29 says:
“Existing domestic law has effect on and after the relevant day with such modifications as are required for the purposes of implementing in that law the Trade and Cooperation Agreement or the Security of Classified Information Agreement”.
When you read the schedules, it is clear that the Government have a hugely exceptional power to modify legislation in order to bring it—in their own judgment, with no parliamentary procedure at all—into conformity with their own view of the treaty. I am absolutely sure that if we had had a Committee stage we would have been after those provisions with a vengeance, and my noble friend Lady Hayter would have led the charge.
I am not moving the first amendment so a large number of the remarks that were made do not apply. We will not have Committee and I am not proposing that. On the precedent, it is true that other Bills have been enacted in one day. I was careful to say “a Bill of this contested magnitude”, and no Bill has conferred on Her Majesty’s Government and on the state powers and changes of policy of this magnitude which we have agreed in this accelerated way. Therefore, I wish to turn the Chief Whip’s argument on him. He said to us that this is not a precedent. It is literally a precedent, because it will precede anything that comes hereafter. But if it is not a precedent, I can see no reason why my second amendment, which deplores the process but allows it to continue, should not be agreed to. On the contrary, I suggest to your Lordships that it is all the more important that we enact this amendment, which deplores the absence of parliamentary scrutiny and our usual practices in considering the Bill, for the very reason that if we are on the record deploring it, it is all the less likely thereafter that it will be regarded as a precedent.
These issues are hugely important for the whole way in which we conduct our parliamentary affairs and it is right that noble Lords should be on the record as to whether or not they think these arrangements are satisfactory. I therefore wish to test the opinion of the House.
Business of the House
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Lord Adonis (Lab)
My Lords, following on from my noble friend, can the Chief Whip tell us precisely how many noble Lords will be able to take part physically in the Grand Committee proceedings?
I want also to raise an issue on procedure. We all understand the need for accommodation to be made in respect of hybrid proceedings and, for as long as there are safety considerations, that will need to continue. However, there is a fundamental contradiction between the first and the second line in the Motion before the House. The first line states:
“The procedure shall follow, so far as practical, procedure in Grand Committee”.
However, the second line states that
“no member may participate unless they have signed up to the Speakers’ List”.
It is stark staring obvious that Members do not need to have signed up to the speakers’ list in order to participate in person. That is not true in the Chamber, nor is it true in Grand Committee. This is a particular issue in respect of Committee stages, which of course is what the Grand Committee largely exists for, although some other debates can take place, because of the give and take in Committee. At the moment, we now have the utter absurdity that in order to intervene after the Minister, if you are in the Chamber, you need to email the clerk who will email the Lord Chairman sitting on the Woolsack, who will then call you. If, as I found once, you do not get your email in fast enough, you cannot be called after the Minister even though you are actually in the Chamber and you can catch the eye of the Lord Chairman. This is palpably absurd. The reason for it is the levelling-down mentality that nothing that cannot be done in the virtual House should be done in the physical House.
We are all trying to make the best of these procedures and I even had some sympathy for that concept when only a handful of Members were participating in the Chamber and it might have been thought unfair that noble Lords who were taking part virtually would not have the same opportunities as those who were present in the House. However, now that we are encouraging Members to come back to the House where they can and we will have Members physically present in the Grand Committee, it seems utterly absurd and contrary to good practice to deprive noble Lords of their rights in the Chamber and in Grand Committee because of the understandable need to bring other noble Lords in remotely.
The Chief Whip cannot change procedures in response to this debate, but I do not think that the arrangements that have been proposed are either correct or sustainable. It is regrettable that they have been replicated in the arrangements being made for the Grand Committee proceedings from September, so I hope that the noble Lord may be able to give us an undertaking that this issue will be considered further—perhaps even before the beginning of September.
On that note, I wish him a happy holiday. I say to him and to the staff of the Clerk of the Parliaments that we are all enormously appreciative of the work that they have done to make the House operate as well as it has over recent months. It is the aim of us all to make it work better and not to take away in any way from the phenomenal contribution that those who have enabled us to continue working during this time of crisis as we have.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, I entirely endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, just said about my noble friend the Chief Whip and others in the usual channels and elsewhere who have enabled us to function through some extraordinarily difficult times.
However, having said that, I believe that we have to move on. We have to try to get back to as near to normality as possible, as soon as possible. That means encouraging noble Lords in all parts of the House to regard it as the normal thing to be here and the exceptional thing to participate virtually. I must confess that I had never used a computer before. I was determined that I was not going to be excluded from your Lordships’ House, so I made what my noble friend the Chief Whip would probably say were far too many interventions via virtual participation. But I hate it. It is a horrible thing talking into a screen, not being able to see your colleagues and not being able to sense the reaction of the House. We must get back to that and to a self-regulating House as soon as possible.
With these lists, all spontaneity has gone. The Government cannot be held adequately to account because the Minister, whoever he or she may be, can get away with whatever he or she wants. There is not the opportunity to question them save in the very artificial form to which the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, referred in respect of Committee, when you have to send an email and get another email back and then you can ask a question. Some noble Lords, particularly those participating virtually, have abused that system by making a speech that they should have made on the amendment concerned or even at Second Reading. I am glad to see noble Lords on the other side of the House assenting to some of these points, because they are important.
I know that there is a fundamental problem about numbers, which will perhaps remain for a very long time. I therefore put to the House what I have put privately to the Clerk of Parliaments and others: we should give serious consideration to moving the Chamber to the Royal Gallery. In 1983, that happened. The late Manny Shinwell, who had just celebrated his 100th birthday, was nearly killed by a bit of timber falling from the ceiling. Thank God it was not the end of an illustrious career, but, because of that, this Chamber had to be vacated for restoration and, for a time, noble Lords met in the Royal Gallery. As a Member of the other place for nearly 20 years by then, I found this very interesting and in sharp contrast to the war years, when of course—I remembered it because my noble friend Lord Trefgarne was here in 1947 for the first time —the Lords met in the Robing Room. That would be completely impossible, but it would be possible to have more people, physically distanced, in the Royal Gallery. I know that there are problems, but they have been overcome in the past and they should be overcome now. We could have noble Lords sitting on individual seats, or the Benches could be put in and augmented. It could be tiered, as it is for the State Opening of Parliament every year. It is a serious suggestion that I commend to your Lordships for serious consideration.
One or two other things would help edge us back towards normality. We are brilliantly served by our staff in this House, but I find it very sad to go into the Library and find not a single clerk on duty. Surely there could be a rota system—again, I am glad to see noble Lords assenting—because that Library is of fundamental importance to every Member of your Lordships’ House, and there should be clerks on duty so that Members can consult them. I hope that that can be the case, whether we are serving in Grand Committee or on the Floor of the House, when we come back in September.
I have another suggestion which may not command such universal assent. We are brilliantly served by the Clerk of the Parliaments and all the clerks, but, in edging towards normality, although none of them could ever be accused of being anything other than impeccably dressed, it would be nice to see them properly dressed when we come back in September. Again, it would make the place a little more normal and a little more like the House of Lords that we know and most of us love.
I am grateful to my noble friend for introducing this Motion. I wish him success. I wish him a restful and happy summer—no one deserves it more—but when we come back, let there be more of us and let us be functioning in a more normal way.
Business and Planning Bill
Lord Adonis ExcerptsMonday 20th July 2020
(4 years, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Neville-Rolfe [V]
My Lords, it is good to follow the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, and to hear of the progress that has been made with so many people giving up smoking during lockdown. I rise, however, simply to lend my voice to those who applaud the care being taken in this difficult area by my noble friend the Deputy Leader. I could not support Amendment 15—or the introduction, in emergency legislation, of what amounts to a new smoking ban. This would be a real slap in the face to the hospitality sector, which is already on its knees. The measure could also displace customers into other trading areas, blocking access and achieving the near opposite of what is desired. The government amendment, which I support, requires proper provision for non-smoking seating. This will allow customers to sit outside whether they want to smoke or not and aid the observance of social distancing. We should not delay the Bill by trying to work the issue further. The government compromise should be agreed to forthwith.
Lord Adonis (Lab) [V]
My Lords, leaving aside what colleagues have said about their support or non-support for particular amendments, the right policy here is very clear. In fact, it has been supported by 15 of the 17 noble Lords who have spoken before me in the debate.
That policy is this: licensed outdoor premises, where they replace indoor premises where smoking is currently not allowed, should not be licensed for smoking. As the noble Lord, Lord Lansley—a former Health Secretary—said, anything less than this is a retrograde step. This is emphatically not a new smoking ban, as the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, just suggested. It is the replacement of indoor premises by outdoor premises, and those indoor premises do not currently allow smoking.
I applaud everyone who has helped get us to the halfway stage: my noble friends on the Front Bench who have done an excellent job in negotiations with the Government; the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, who first raised this matter at Second Reading; and the noble Earl, Lord Howe, whom we hold in very high regard, and whom I know has worked hard to get to a compromise position.
The compromise is a compromise. The House needs to address this question: on an issue as fundamental as this, to the public health of England and to people’s ability to enjoy and access licensed premises, should we settle for a compromise or should we move to the right policy which—as I have said—almost everyone who has spoken in this debate supports? This policy would simply replace the existing prohibition on smoking indoors in licensed premises with a prohibition on smoking outdoors, in respect of those licenses. Contrary to what the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, said, this would not affect existing outdoor smoking facilities.
I have listened carefully to this debate, and to representations which have been made to some of us outside of it. I cannot see a single good argument for not agreeing with this amendment. I applaud the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, on bringing it forward and pushing it so strongly. Without people like her, we never make progress on these fundamental issues of public health and civil liberties. I will simply end with the great injunction of David Lloyd George: “When traversing a chasm, it is advisable to do so in one leap”.
Lord Sheikh [V]
My Lords, we need the hospitality sector to be active and to start doing business, both for its benefit and for the good of the country and members of the public. People have been frustrated over the last few months due to the lockdown. Some of them suffer from anxiety problems, and it is important for them to go out and mingle with their friends and relatives. Therefore, we must cater for people who smoke, as well as those who do not, when they go out.
We must bear in mind that over 85% of the British population are non-smokers, and they are concerned about being subjected to passive smoking when they go to a pub, restaurant or café. We all appreciate that if any person smokes it causes harm, not only to himself but to others around him who inhale second-hand smoke.
Persons who have been confined indoors over the last few months are now able to go out, and they feel happier when they are sitting in the open, rather than inside the premises. I was recently at a private club, where nearly all the customers were sitting outside on the terrace. In fact, the group next to me were smoking, but there was adequate distance between the two tables and I was happy with the situation.
In Committee, I supported an amendment disallowing smoking outside the relevant premises. In fact, the Government are unwilling to ban smoking altogether, and I support Amendments 13 and 14 as I feel it is an adequate compromise. These amendments will allow both smokers and non-smokers to go out with some degree of safety, as there will be areas for both groups.
I follow the logic of the Government, as they do not wish to ban smoking outside generally. By banning smoking outside a restaurant, pub or café, it could be deemed that we are banning smoking altogether. I feel that the Government have listened and introduced Amendments 13 and 14. Having said this, I hope that we will achieve a smoke-free England by 2030.
With regard to the situation at present, there needs to be appropriate distance between smokers and non-smokers, which will prevent the danger of passive smoking affecting non-smokers. In addition to supporting Amendments 13 and 14, I am happy to support Amendment 25, as we ought to clearly define what smoking is all about and avoid ambiguity.
Business and Planning Bill
Lord Adonis ExcerptsMonday 6th July 2020
(4 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Adonis (Lab)
My Lords, this is my first opportunity in the House to welcome the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, and I do so very warmly. He comes to us with a wealth of experience from local government, which is in short supply, and he is therefore very well placed to serve.
I support strongly most of what is in the Bill, subject only to the concerns that have rightly been raised about anti-social behaviour, where it looks as if the Government might need to give more reserved powers to local authorities. The problem is not what is in the Bill. I would like, in the short time I have, to raise three issues with the Minister about early action needed in this crisis in respect of matters not in the Bill.
The first is schools. Amazingly, we are opening pubs nationwide before we open schools. The headline in today’s Evening Standard says it all:
“We are leaving a generation of children behind”.
The key requirement now is to ensure that all schools are open for all pupils in September and, where head teachers and governing bodies wish it, they should also have the power to be open for a week or two before the start of term, particularly for years 11 and 13, where pupils face public examinations and may have missed much, if not all, of this term. Legislation giving head teachers and governors the explicit power to open early before September and to require pupil attendance would, I believe, be highly appropriate in the crisis.
Secondly, there is public transport. It is still the case, as I know from using the Jubilee line every morning, that virtually no one is on public transport at the moment. I can assure the House that at 7.30 am this morning at Baker Street, coming into Westminster, I was the only person on the platform and there was only one other person in my carriage. To make public transport safe and to make it appear to be safe, particularly in London and in cities with major commuter flows, we need to go beyond the current mask provisions to introduce staggered working and trading times for the start and end of the working day and give Transport for London and other public authorities the power to enforce them so that people can be reassured that social distancing can be maintained. The problem at the moment is not that there are too many people on public transport but that most people who need to use it will not go near it because they have a perception that it is unsafe. Until we can break that, we will not be able to get back into a virtuous circle.
Thirdly, we need to give a big boost to walking and cycling to work. There are a lot of non-legislative ways that this can be promoted. I set out a dozen measures in an article about this in the Evening Standard last Thursday. I shall highlight two changes where legislation could be helpful: first, to give local authorities the ability to revoke on-street parking on major roads to convert the space into cycle routes and, secondly, to provide that reasonable walking, cycling and running time to work can, for an initial trial period, be counted as part of the working day to encourage people to use these means of getting to work. To do that in the private sector would require legislation, but the Government and, in particular, the NHS could lead by example as employers without legislation by simply saying that they would allow reasonable time for walking, cycling and running to work to be counted as part of the working day, which could be a huge incentive for people to use these means of getting to work. When the Minister replies to the thousands of speakers in this debate, will he say whether he will consider this?
Business of the House
Lord Adonis Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)
My Lords, the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill is an important part of the legislative response to Covid-19. Following discussions through the usual channels, it has been agreed that the Bill will have its Second Reading debate next Tuesday. Noble Lords have until 6 pm tomorrow to sign up to speak. The Bill will then be in Committee on Tuesday 16 June, and on Tuesday 23 June its Report and Third Reading will be taken. Further details will of course be published, but noble Lords will be able to table amendments in the usual way for these stages. This Motion will allow Report and Third Reading to be taken on the same day. I beg to move.
Lord Adonis (Lab)
My Lords, can I confirm that the Second Reading will be taken in the Chamber?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
The Second Reading will be a hybrid proceeding—in the Chamber and virtually —as all proceedings will be from Monday.
Business of the House
Lord Adonis Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, I also thank the Leader of the House for moving the Motion. There are lots of details in it, but I want to make just four general points. First, I join other noble Lords who have spoken in thanking the staff for their work in getting us to this position. Change in your Lordships’ House is not readily embraced as a matter of principle, but over the last couple of months the degree of change has been phenomenal. That has been possible only because a large number of staff have worked extraordinarily hard, not least during the recesses, and I pay tribute to them for that.
I also thank them for their customary good humour in dealing with the frustrations that Members have sometimes felt about the way things have worked, which have sometimes boiled over on to them. It has been very much welcomed by me and everyone else. It has been a stressful time for a lot of people, not least for Members who are at home with the peculiar stresses of not being able to go out and desperately keen to play their normal role in your Lordships’ House.
This brings me to my second point. Having got this hybrid system up and running—which I am sure will be done smoothly—I hope that we retain it until all noble Lords who wish to attend can attend and are no longer subject to advice that, for health reasons, they should remain at home. Obviously, given the age profile of your Lordships’ House, there are more people in that category here than in another place, but it should be a matter of principle that all noble Lords who wish to participate can participate, and that we have a system that enables them to do so, even if, in some cases, they cannot be here for a considerable number of months.
Thirdly, the rules that we are agreeing today are extremely tight and prescriptive. That is inevitable, because we need a system that we can make work from next week. However, I suspect that as we use it—just as has happened a bit with Oral Questions—we can ease some of these restrictions so that we can get back to a position where debate in your Lordships’ House takes place in a relatively flexible manner. The obvious thing about this is the circumstances in which people can make interventions. Obviously, it is not going to be possible to have the normal interventions when you have tens of people watching distantly, but I hope that we can begin to move, in the light of experience, towards a slightly less rigid approach, because that is the essence of debate, and until we do, we will still be suffering some constraints.
Finally, the one outstanding issue which must be resolved is that of allowances, which I realise is an extremely vexed question. The only point I wish to make is that it is unacceptable to me that we should have a system which leads to a position whereby only those with resources, those who are retired and those who live in London can regularly come to your Lordships’ House. I think that this is common ground, but getting back to a system in which people are paid an allowance that allows everybody to participate fully is a top priority. We have agreed in the commission to come forward with revised proposals on allowances. We are beginning those discussions and have said that we will do so by the end of the month. Given that Members are already asking on what basis they will come if they are travelling several hundred miles, I hope that we can get a resolution to that question well before the end of the month, so that we can give a degree of certainty to Peers on what basis they can participate. Having said that, I repeat that I support these proposals, and I thank the staff and all those involved in getting us to this position so speedily.
Lord Adonis (Lab)
My Lords, I will make three preliminary remarks before coming to the Motion itself.
First, I echo what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, the Leader of the House, and my noble friend Lady Hayter, in respect of the staff of the House, who have done a magnificent job. Also, I know that he does not like this, but I want to mention the Clerk of the Parliaments, who has presided over a really impressive operation. His letter to noble Lords, which he has been sending out—we are now on the third edition—is very welcome. It is important when we are going through fundamental changes like this that we keep an information flow, and his regular updates have helped noble Lords understand what is going on, and have made it easier for them to have input, in terms of improvements.