Spyware

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I have said something about the controls on our own intelligence framework. As the noble Lord will know, the UK’s use of any investigative powers—I am obviously going much wider than this Question—including equipment interference, is governed by the Investigatory Powers Act. That provides extensive and robust safeguards and oversight that is judicial, political and parliamentary.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, in the light of the targeting of human rights activists, journalists—including 200 reporters from 21 countries—and lawyers, will the Government consider raising the use of this Pegasus malware at the United Nations Human Rights Council, of which we are a member, and confronting authoritarian Governments with violations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, specifically Article 19 on the right to have unimpeded access to information and comment? Specifically, will they commit to examining the targeting of people close to Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered in October 2018 while visiting the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, where his body was dismembered, and whose wife and the Turkish prosecutor investigating his death have been targeted by this malware?

[Lord True (Con) [V]]

My Lords, again, I cannot follow a specific case, but I fully endorse the sentiment of the noble Lord’s question. I repeat that we believe that the use of cyberespionage tools against civil society and political groups, including human rights activists, is unacceptable. I can assure the House that the UK continues to champion human rights, at home and abroad, and that where we have concerns on human rights issues we do not and will not shy away from raising them.

Covid-19: Debt Collection

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 23rd July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB) [V]]

My Lords, returning to my noble friend’s Question, is the Minister aware that, last year, councils used court action 2.3 million times and bailiffs 1.4 million times to collect council tax debt? The bailiff fees added £200 million to people’s debts. Given the expiry date of 23 August, to which the noble Lord, Lord Wood, referred, will the Minister bring forward, in advance of the review, a specific examination of pre-action protocols?

[Lord True]

My Lords, again, I hear what the noble Lord says. I find myself in the position of answering on behalf of a department that manages the group in relation to government debt. Obviously I will pass on to my colleagues in MHCLG the points that he and noble Lords are making. I repeat that they had announced last year that they would update guidance to councils on collection and enforcement.

Covid-19: Infection Rate

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

I strongly agree with my noble friend and reiterate what I just said about paying tribute to all workers, and to businesses which have been patient through this difficult time and have now made arrangements to reopen—it is very good to see those businesses reopening. I am glad that, after 35 years of loyal custom, I was allowed to have a hair-cut on Saturday.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB) [V]]

My Lords, the noble Lord is well known and respected for his own respect for Parliament. Will he therefore please ask his noble friends to fully answer the topical Written Question which I tabled on 28 April, about the decision taken, when Covid restrictions were already in place in Spain, to permit on 11 March a football match between Liverpool and Atlético Madrid? Can he say what lessons we have learned about the imposition and lifting of restrictions from what then followed?

[Lord True]

My Lords, I will look into this specific matter. I am aware of the event the noble Lord refers to. He will also be aware that, at the time, the advice on large-scale events was not necessarily what it is today. I will certainly undertake to pursue the matter and will ensure that there is a response to Parliament.

HS2

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord will know that the question of allocation of resources between a range of government departments is one taken collectively by the Cabinet and announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the appropriate time. It is not for a junior Minister to comment on the allocation of public expenditure between the Ministry of Defence and a whole range of departments, including those for transport and energy. On the last part of the noble Lord’s question, I think that it is right to go ahead with this project. It is expensive, but the phase 1 funding has not increased since the spending review settlement in 2015. Phase 1 is scheduled to cost £27.18 billion in 2015 prices and we are determined to keep it within that cost estimate.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, will the noble Lord—a much-respected and much-liked former Secretary of State, as well as a junior Minister in your Lordships’ House—comment at least on the prioritisation of railway needs and demands? He will have noted, following the resignation of Sir Terry Morgan, that the Mayor of Liverpool resigned last week from the board of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership citing as his reason for doing so the lack of rail investment to service the £1 billion renaissance of Liverpool dockside. Can he say where HS3 and the proposed linkage of northern cities now stands? Should not the revitalisation of the north be a much higher priority than HS2, which by comparison will contribute far less to northern regeneration?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord makes a powerful case for more resources for transport in addition to the money that we have already committed to HS2, in both phase 1 and phase 2. He wants additional resources to improve connectivity with Liverpool. A spending review is just starting in which I am sure the Department for Transport and those departments that have an interest in the northern powerhouse will make bids. I note his strong representations that improved connectivity for Liverpool should be a high priority.

Railways: Transport for the North

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 19th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My noble friend makes a good point: that it is important to bring responsibility for the trains and responsibility for the track closer together. If he looks at the proposals in, for example, the north, he will see that Network Rail is now setting up a board there to work closely with the train operating companies and the passengers to integrate train and track. However, I am sure that my noble friend is not proposing major primary legislation to undo the privatisation for which I and others bear some responsibility.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister referred to east-west links across the Pennines. He might have seen the campaign launched in the north of England in February to reopen the Hellifield link, which I raised with him on a previous occasion. That link would restore passenger services on a line used every day for freight, for the first time since 1962. It would link Lancashire with Yorkshire and open up the possibilities of daily travel services to Skipton, Leeds and further north to Bradford, but also to Carlisle and Lancaster. Is that not something that could be done at relatively low cost that would make a huge difference to the connectivity of the northern areas?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am sure that the noble Lord is right, but one of the things TfN has responsibility for doing is to look at the various bids in the north and come up with a list of priorities. If, when it does that, it puts the scheme that the noble Lord referred to right at the top of its priorities, that would carry weight with the Secretary of State.

Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (Functions and Amendment) Order 2017

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

Well, let us see if we have less trouble over this one.

The draft orders, if approved and made, will confer important new powers on the mayors and the combined authorities for the Liverpool City Region and the Tees Valley. The Government have of course already made significant progress in delivering their manifesto commitment to devolve far-reaching powers and budgets to large cities in England which choose to have directly elected mayors. In this House, we have now debated and approved a number of orders devolving powers to places including Greater Manchester, the West of England and more recently Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. We have also considered and approved an order enabling the Tees Valley mayor to take steps necessary to establish a mayoral development corporation; that is to be complemented by the order we are considering on Tees Valley today. We are grateful to the House for the attention it has given to these matters. Following our last debates, my colleague the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, has written to noble Lords, as he undertook to do. I hope that we are now drawing to the end of this first devolution journey, with possibly just a few more orders after those we are considering today.

The draft Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (Functions and Amendment) Order 2017 brings to life the devolution deal which the Government agreed with the Liverpool City Region constituent councils in November 2015. We are taking that deal forward with the combined authority and its six constituent councils: Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, St Helens, Sefton and Wirral. The deal agreed between the Government and the Liverpool City Region means that the area will receive: a devolved transport budget and transport powers to help provide a more modern, better-connected network; new planning and housing powers to manage planning across the region; and control over an investment fund of £30 million a year for 30 years.

Noble Lords will want to know that the basis of the draft order is the governance review and scheme prepared by the combined authority and the six constituent councils of the Liverpool City Region in accordance with the requirement in the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009. The combined authority and the six constituent councils published that scheme in June 2016 and, as provided for by the 2009 Act, consulted on the proposals in the scheme. That was a public consultation entirely undertaken by the authorities concerned. They decided the approach, which was a matter for them. The consultation ran for six weeks and was undertaken through a variety of methods and media, including engagement with regional and local media, web content, social media, workshops with elected members, targeted letters to key stakeholders, as well as material available in libraries and local council town halls. As statute requires, the combined authority provided the Secretary of State with a summary of the responses to the consultation. Before laying the draft order before Parliament, the Secretary of State considered the statutory requirements in the 2009 Act, and considers that they have been met in relation to proposals to confer functions on the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority.

In short, having regard to the summary of consultation responses, which had been submitted to him, the Secretary of State concluded that no further consultation was needed. He considered that conferring the functions on the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority would be likely to lead to an improvement in the exercise of the statutory functions across the Liverpool City Region. In this consideration, he has had regard to the impact on local government and communities. Most significantly, the combined authority and six constituent councils have consented to the making of the order—that is, the democratically elected representatives of the area have agreed to the making of the order, if Parliament approves.

As required by the 2016 Act, we have in parallel with the draft order laid a report before Parliament which sets out the details of the public authority functions that we are conferring on the Liverpool City Region through the order. Noble Lords may recall that the requirement for this report was one of the additions that this House made to the 2016 Act during its passage. If approved by Parliament, the draft order will come into effect the day after it is made, except for the functions which are to be exercised by the mayor. The mayoral provisions will take effect on 8 May this year when the first mayor takes office.

The draft order gives effect to many of the proposals in the combined authority’s June 2016 scheme, which reflects the agreed devolution deal. If approved and made, it will confer the following powers and functions on the combined authority to be exercised by the mayor: a duty to prepare a Liverpool City Region Combined Authority spatial development strategy, enabling an integrated approach to spatial planning; powers on land acquisition, disposal and housing, including a compulsory purchase power—the same powers as the Homes and Communities Agency and councils; power to call in planning applications of potential strategic importance; power to designate mayoral development areas, leading to the creation of mayoral development corporations; powers to work with the combined authority to draw up a local transport plan, leading to a joined-up approach to transport across the area, recognising that efficient transport is fundamental to securing economic, social and environmental objectives; and powers to enter into agreements with constituent authorities, to establish and manage a key route network of strategic roads in the combined authority’s area. In addition to their existing transport and economic development powers, the combined authority will exercise powers and functions of: having the final say on the mayor’s spatial development strategy and local transport plan; promoting road safety; and regulation of traffic.

These new powers will enable the Liverpool City Region to take a strategic approach to driving development and regeneration and stimulating economic growth, supporting effective use of the £900 million devolved budget. The draft order also provides for the necessary constitutional and funding arrangements to support the mayor and the combined authority.

I now turn to the draft Tees Valley Combined Authority (Functions and Amendment) Order 2017. This draft order will be another important step to bring to life the devolution deal that the Government agreed with the Tees Valley in October 2015. The deal agreed means that the area will receive: a devolved transport budget and transport powers to help provide a more modern, better-connected network; control over an investment fund of £15 million a year for 30 years; and new housing and regeneration powers for growth across the region. Noble Lords will recall that the implementation of the Tees Valley devolution deal agreed between local leaders and the Government has already seen three orders made in relation to the Tees Valley. The most recent of these was about devolving powers for a mayoral development corporation. We brought this last order forward in advance of today’s order, as the area is eager to establish a mayoral development corporation in South Tees on which an 11-week consultation had already been undertaken.

This draft order has been prepared on the same basis as I have described for the Liverpool City Region order. If approved and made, the order will come into effect on 8 May when the first Tees Valley mayor takes office, with the exception of the provision relating to the establishment of an independent remuneration panel, which will come into force on the day after the order is made to enable the combined authority to make any necessary arrangements.

Let me turn briefly to the detail. The draft order will confer the following powers, to be exercised by the mayor, on the combined authority: powers to pay grants to the five constituent councils of the Tees Valley Combined Authority, with the condition that the mayor has regard to the desirability of ensuring that the councils have sufficient funds effectively to discharge their highways functions; and powers to produce a local transport plan for the area. The draft order also provides that the functional power of competence, already exercisable by the combined authority, is also exercisable by the mayor. Finally, the draft order confers various powers on the combined authority: powers to provide local passenger transport services—these powers were already delegated to the combined authority by the Tees Valley Combined Authority Order 2016; the duty to review housing need in the area; and funding and constitutional provisions to support the powers and functions conferred, including the establishment of an independent remuneration panel to recommend the allowances of the mayor.

In conclusion, the two draft orders devolve new, far-ranging powers to the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and to the Tees Valley Combined Authority, giving effect to the bespoke devolution deal of each area, putting decision-making into the hands of local people, and helping the two areas fulfil their long-term economic and social ambitions. The draft orders are significant milestones contributing to greater prosperity in the Liverpool City Region and the Tees Valley and paving the way for a more balanced and successful economy and improving housing supply across the country. I commend the two draft orders to the House.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I shall be brief. I enthusiastically support the remarks that the noble Lord, Lord Young, has just made, notwithstanding the minor caveat that I entered the Chamber as he was replying to the previous order and note the unnecessary duplication and replication which can cause confusion. I encourage him, and the Government generally, to stay in touch with the local authorities that will be affected by the implementation of these orders to see in what ways they impact on them and whether there can be further streamlining and clarification.

It is 45 years since, while I was a student in Liverpool, I was elected to represent an inner-city neighbourhood—a slum clearance area—in the Low Hill ward in the heart of Liverpool. I served that ward on both the city council and on the Merseyside County Council that was created by the then Government, and then abolished by the following Government. During those years, I saw more changes than I cared to see in many respects. I served as deputy leader of the city council and as its housing chairman and had to deal with compulsory purchase orders, which were often imposed centrally with very little say locally on what their impact would be on the neighbourhoods they affected. Therefore, I particularly welcome what the noble Lord said about the devolution of compulsory powers to the city region and the opportunities for development corporations. The great success story on Merseyside, following the riots in Toxteth in 1981, was the creation of the Merseyside Development Corporation. The noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, has recently received some criticism in your Lordships’ House but he deserves great tribute for the work that he did during that period and the achievements that were made. The extraordinary regeneration and renewal of the city of Liverpool had its seeds in the work that he did. In my view the orders that have been laid before your Lordships’ House today with the agreement of the local authorities on Merseyside pave the way for the continued renewal and success story that Liverpool now is. Therefore, I very much welcome what the noble Lord said and commend the orders to your Lordships’ House.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I shall be short. My noble friend’s explanation of the advantages that these measures will confer on Liverpool contains some very important lessons for central government. He talked about spatial planning which will bring together the whole range of interests in Liverpool. Would it not be a good idea if we introduced that nationally? We do not have spatial planning nationally; we have a ludicrous position in which planning lies with the department for local government. That is not a proper place for it given that local government makes appeals to the Minister for Local Government, which itself is wrong. All the other interests lie with other departments and we suffer from not having a department of land use.

We now have a Government who are busy giving local authorities powers to structure themselves in precisely the way we fail to structure ourselves centrally. The Government will look increasingly peculiar if their central structure is so far out of line with these new structures. However, the Government are not imposing them as they are welcomed by these larger, more powerful local authorities. We have looked afresh at how best to run local government in Liverpool and the Tees Valley and have come to the conclusion that it is better to do it this way. Although my noble friend may well argue that there is something unique about local government which means that it is, of its nature, to be organised differently, I suspect that the truth is that, looking at government, this is where you want to be.

I am reminded of the ability of Americans to ask other people to run their democracies in a way that they do not run their own. For example, they make sure that you do not have gerrymandering of boundaries, that you do not have Christmas tree Bills and that you restrict the amount of money that you spend. That is what the Americans do to other people but they do not learn to do it themselves. I do not want our Government to behave in that way. I hope that we too will learn from what we have seen from our reorganisation of local government—that some very serious reorganisations are necessary at the centre to enable us to look after our land and to have a proper policy of spatial planning, with the special word “joined-up”, which I heard several times from my noble friend.

Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield Combined Authority (Election of Mayor) (Amendment) Order 2017

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I would put a different question to my noble friend. Given that we are going to have combined authorities—and I think that there is agreement that that is a good idea—is it better to have one elected mayor as the accountable person or what we used to have with the old metropolitan areas, where there was much less accountability than you would have with an elected mayor? As we have seen in London, an elected mayor increases accountability over and above the other alternatives that you could have in those areas.

I turn to the other specific questions that have been raised, as we are obviously not going to get agreement on that one. The noble Lord, Lord Scriven, will understand that, although I do not want to get involved in a dispute between two local authorities—it is always regrettable when there is such a dispute, as it costs taxpayers money—I hope that what we have seen in this case is a one-off, and we do not have similar problems in future. In its judgment, the court did not quash the consultation, and what is needed now is an additional consultation on Bassetlaw and Chesterfield becoming part of the area of the Sheffield City Region Combined Authority. The noble Lord asked a number of questions. It is really for local people to come to a judgment on who has let their electorate down and who has not, rather than for Ministers to pontificate from the Dispatch Box. Local leaders are accountable to local people through the ballot box and, ultimately, it will be for their electorate to judge them.

The question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and other noble Lords—and I am grateful for what he said—was whether Sheffield City Region will still get its funding up front despite this hiccup in the process. The answer is yes. The combined authority is already in existence, and gain share funding, which is the name I understand has now been given to this pot of money, of £30 million a year can be paid to the combined authority once the consultation has been undertaken and it is clear that the councils are committed to the deal and an assurance framework agreed with government is in place. That can take place before the postponed elections of the mayor.

I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, was suggesting that Derbyshire County Council should have a veto on whether Chesterfield should join. I am glad that she shakes her head, because I do not think that it would be right for a county council to prevent a constituent district from joining a combined authority if that is what was wanted.

Then we had the point which was reinforced by my noble friend Lord Cormack about whether a mayor could represent such a diverse area. I was around when the Greater London Council was started, which included bits of Middlesex and Surrey. London is very diverse, yet we have a Mayor of London. So I am not sure that I would buy the argument that it is impossible for a mayor to represent an area that has a diversity in it.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

Just before the Minister leaves that point, I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, was making the point that as we go forward it will be important to keep under review how the provision actually works out in practice. I fully support the order being laid before your Lordships’ House, and the next one, which deals with Liverpool and the Merseyside area, where there is agreement that we should have a combined mayor. But will the Minister have a dialogue in future with local councils about replication, whereby you can end up as Liverpool will with a mayor for the greater region, an elected mayor in the city and a lord mayor as well? That will cause confusion.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

There may be confusion, but this is what local people will have decided through their local councils. That is the system of running the area that they have chosen to have.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, asked about turnout. If one looks at the turnout for directly elected mayors, one can see that it has been roughly in line with local elections so far. I hope that she takes some encouragement from that.

Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, said that there was a patchwork. I explained at the beginning that this is basically a bottom-up approach—the Government responding to areas that want to go down this particular road. It is inevitable from that approach that there will be a patchwork. The alternative, which I am sure the noble Lord would not advocate, is for the Government to insist on this regime for the whole country. We do not want to go down that route at all—but that is why there is a patchwork.

In conclusion, this is an important order, which will allow us to progress the devolution for the Sheffield City Region, and once again I commend it to the House.

Northern England: Opportunity and Productivity

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, along with 1 million private sector businesses, some 15 million people call the north of England their home. Compare those 15 million with the populations of sovereign countries: 11 million in Belgium, 5 million in Denmark or the 6 million combined population of the three Baltic countries. However, as we have heard, despite its significant population, and in the absence of devolution, the north does not punch its weight and many, especially those living in deindustrialised rustbelt towns, feel both disaffected and alienated.

Since 1855, when Elizabeth Gaskell published her famous social novel, North and South, the phrase has pointed to disparity, but in our own time austerity cuts have accentuated poverty, exclusion, educational failure, crime and lower life expectancy. It is a fact that a baby girl born in Manchester can expect to live for 15 fewer years in good health than a baby girl born in the London borough of Richmond. Consider that Londoners currently benefit at the rate of more than £65 per head from investment in cultural infrastructure, compared with less than £5 per head for the populations based outside the capital. Or take employment. UK employment rates are at an historic high: almost 2.4 million jobs were created between 2006 and 2015, but during the same period, across the north of England just 360,000 jobs were created. For too many workers in the north, wages have failed to increase in line with the national average.

Remedies might include the creation of a northern wealth fund, using new money saved or generated in the north for the north; a pan-northern digital platform; more innovative regeneration; and housing policies determined in the north, where Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Liverpool and Sheffield will face a shortage of 86,000 homes by 2030.

For me, two leading priorities are transport infrastructure, which has been referred to, and education. I should like to hear from the Government what progress is being made not only on the direct high-speed east to west line but on reopening and renewing local lines and dealing with gridlocked roads feeding our northern motorways. Last Sunday, it was reported that two more of the most senior managers of HS2—which is now said to cost some £56 billion—have quit their jobs. Andrew Tyrie MP, chairman of the Commons Treasury Select Committee, questioning its credibility, has said that it risks being “scarcely worth the candle”. It is an argument I set out in this House in October 2015. Compare that £56 billion, which the noble Lord, Lord Beith, mentioned, with infrastructure investment in the north.

Turning to education, my other priority, I am the first from either side of my family to have had the opportunity of higher education, in Liverpool, and I draw the House’s attention to my registered interests. Sadly, significant numbers of bright young people in cities such as Liverpool still do not get the same opportunity that I, and others who were beneficiaries of the post-war education legislation, had. We urgently need to improve life outcomes for children and young people in the north. Sir Michael Wilshaw, the head of Ofsted, said that the northern powerhouse will “splutter and die” if more is not done to improve performance in the region’s schools. He points out that four in 10 secondary schools in Liverpool are rated as inadequate, and that the number of teenagers gaining good grades is falling. He also said that “politicians need to act” and that,

“We cannot fight for social mobility with political immobility”.

A northern teaching premium to help schools struggling to recruit the highest-calibre teachers, and perhaps a “teach later” programme, might help.

The region’s 23 universities, six of which rank in the top 20 for research excellence nationally, should be empowered to become the drivers for transforming our region’s schools. The wonderful university of Liverpool John Moores, with its 21,000 students and 2,500 staff, has generated an estimated 2,493 jobs in industries across the north-west of England. By spending £186 million per year, it significantly contributes to the region’s economic and civic life. Manchester University has its own venture capital fund and has attracted £300 million of private funding to university spin-outs—crucial in creating jobs and leading-edge technology. The excellent annual Educate North & UK Leadership Awards and their conference celebrate these achievements. The whole sector is desperate not to see that success compromised by Brexit or by the Government’s higher education legislation. The Government must listen carefully to concerns that a dead hand is being placed on those crucial institutions.

I welcome today’s debate and am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, for giving us parliamentary time to discuss these important questions.

Parliament and Central Government: Relocation

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

The second part of the noble Lord’s question was about the northern powerhouse. The northern powerhouse is absolutely going ahead and is very important to this Government, but it is about private sector growth, not public sector growth.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, although the people of Dunsop Bridge, which is at the geographical centre of the country in Lancashire, might be perturbed to find that the capital would be moved to that part of the country, nevertheless is the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, not making a good point? Does the Minister not agree with the maxim of Benjamin Disraeli that centralisation is the death blow of democracy, and that in the rust-belt towns and cities of the north of England, where there is considerable disaffection, it is crucial to ensure more subsidiarity, not least to the elected mayors and councils?

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

That is why we have taken great care to make sure that the Civil Service is placed in various hubs all round this country, including the north. It is also why in central London we have moved from having 181 offices in 2010 to only 54 now, which has contributed £2.8 billion in workforce savings. We are supporting departments in moving to smarter working and encouraging them to have regional hubs outside central London.

Abortion (Disability Equality) Bill [HL]

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 21st October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I support the Abortion (Disability Equality) Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, and congratulate him on bringing this timely piece of legislation to your Lordships’ House and on the eloquent way in which he introduced it. It is hard to overstate my admiration for his courage, his compassion and his integrity.

I hope noble Lords will forgive me for saying so, but I cannot help thinking that if the noble Lord’s Bill had set out to facilitate the assisted suicide of disabled people, it would have been on every national news bulletin. But because it seeks to end the taking of the life of a viable disabled baby, it is being treated very differently. That unwillingness to treat ethical issues with equal respect and impartiality is a disturbing sign of the times—but not as disturbing as the issues of equality, discrimination and the very right to life itself raised by the noble Lord’s important Bill

As the noble Lord observed, our legislation currently affords unborn disabled babies significantly less protection than that which is afforded those who are able bodied. Paradoxically, we will campaign and raise our voices for wheelchair ramps to be placed on public buildings but fail to uphold the innate right to life itself of the disabled person who uses that wheelchair.

Although the able bodied may be aborted up to 24 weeks, those who are disabled may be aborted up to birth. This inevitably implies that these unborn disabled babies are, as the noble Lord said, significantly less valuable than those who are able bodied. What message does this convey about the human dignity and the value —or, rather, the lack of value—of disability in society generally? As the law stands, it is a legal arrangement that invites and encourages discrimination—which is why, in 1990, I spoke and voted against it in another place when this provision was made.

At the time, I was given significant support by a woman called Ellen Wilkie, who had Duchenne muscular dystrophy. In her short 31 years, Ellen gained an honours degree in classics from Bristol University and was a published poet, worker, author, actress, radio and television presenter, journalist and musician. Her parents had been encouraged to abort her but had refused. I particularly commend her autobiography, A Pocketful of Dynamite, to anyone who contests her assertion that, “No one can say what a disabled person will be capable of”.

The arguments that Ellen Wilkie put at that time were set aside by Members of another place, and that legislation was incorporated into statute. It has had a very negative effect on the attitudes that people have. It is a throwback to a time when society had remarkably different attitudes to the inclusion and contribution of people with disabilities. We have moved on as a society and it is time that the law moved on, too. The Disability Rights Commission—now the Equality and Human Rights Commission—has, rightly, argued that this provision,

“is offensive to many people; it reinforces negative stereotypes of disability and … is incompatible with valuing disability and non-disability equally”.

As the We’re All Equal campaign has pointed out, statute insists that we must not discriminate against people with disabilities, but the 1990 provision runs contrary to both the spirit and the letter of the law.

The net effect of the noble Lord’s Bill would be that the 24-week time limit would apply to all babies, regardless of disability—it has no effect on other grounds detailed in the 1967 Abortion Act. It is hardly a secret that I oppose not just the time limits in our current legislation but the provisions that have led to 8 million nascent lives being prematurely ended in the United Kingdom. But this Bill is not about that; it is solely about a eugenic law that flies in the face of our usual protestations and tips the balance in favour of equality and against discrimination.

That the noble Lord’s Bill is desperately needed may be graphically seen in the abortion statistics provided by the department, which the noble Lord referred to. He specifically referred to the situation of people with Down’s syndrome. We live in a country where around 90% of all Down’s syndrome babies are routinely aborted. I know that I am not alone in having been deeply affected by Sally Phillips’s recent documentary, “A World Without Downs Syndrome?”, and the subsequent debate which the programme inspired. Rosa Monckton, mother of Domenica, born with Down’s, remarked that,

“Sally is entirely right about the relentless pressure to persuade mothers to ‘give up and start again’. I hate to think of what our family would have missed if we had gone down that path”.

What does it say about us and our society when amniocentesis and other tests are used as part of search and destroy mission with barely a murmur of dissent? Sally Phillips brilliantly highlighted the appalling pressure put upon mothers who receive a pre-natal diagnosis to abort their babies, but it also revealed from her own experience that living with Down’s is not a death sentence or incompatible with life. Paradoxically, in seeking to eradicate these wonderful individuals from the human race, it suggests that it is we who have the problem, not them. What does it say to the survivors—those who have been inconsiderate enough to avoid the perfection test and have somehow managed to slip through the net?

The noble Lord’s Bill challenges these negative stereotypes, but it also challenges casual attitudes to the law and to the requirement to keep scrupulous records. In 2014, a Department of Health review found evidence that there is significant underreporting of the number of abortions for some foetal disabilities. I hope that when the noble Baroness comes to reply to the debate, she will say what is going to be done to rectify this. I also have another question, arising from the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin. Although we were warned about it in the debates in 1990, not least by Professor John Finnis, who was rubbished at the time and accused of scaremongering, very few people realised that the provision would lead to abortion on babies with, as the noble Lord said, rectifiable disabilities such as cleft palate and hare-lip. What does the Minister have to say about that?

The shocking discrimination that we are witnessing through both what our law says and what it facilitates has devastating practical implications. I will conclude my remarks by returning to the pressures exerted on parents. The United Kingdom’s initial report on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities said:

“Concerns were expressed around the approach to abortion in the UK, where disabled people have suggested a bias towards termination of pregnancies if a child is likely to be disabled”.

This view was backed up by evidence submitted to the 2013 independent parliamentary inquiry, which heard from a number of parents who said that, when it became apparent that their baby was disabled, their doctors expected them to abort. Among a number of contributions that I read, one parent said that her doctor became,

“short-tempered and abrupt with me because he clearly didn’t agree with my decision”.

Another said she felt pressured into an abortion and reported that her doctor,

“threatened that all medical help would be denied”.

The inquiry also heard from parents with disabled children. A representative of the British Academy of Childhood Disability said:

“Parents I have spoken to have said that Doctors treating their children with Down’s Syndrome for example (for heart and other conditions post natal) criticised them for not having abortions, saying their children will not have a good life”.

A parent, meanwhile, said:

“Parents who learn of their baby’s disability after birth are sometimes told that it’s too bad they didn’t find out earlier so they could have ‘taken care of it’”.

Another parent said:

“I have heard views expressed that suggest my child is seen as a drain on resources. A common view is that it was not fair on my other child to bring a disabled child into the world”.

When she comes to reply, I hope that the Minister will reflect for a little while on the department’s attitude to some of the alternatives to this that are available. I have read about and seen some of the extraordinary in utero operations that can take place now on disabilities such as spina bifida, and I have also read the work of Professor KJS Anand, one of the world’s leading experts on foetal pain, whose says that,

“it seems prudent to avoid pain during gestation”,

because of the danger that the unborn child will experience pain. Noble Lords should recall that babies have been born and lived from 23 weeks’ gestation, and this provision permits the ending of a life right up to and even during birth. What pain must it experience in this life-ending procedure?

All of this is very sad, so I am extraordinarily grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, for bringing forward his important equalities Bill. It is specific in its intention and specifically targeted at the issue of discrimination and inequality. I urge your Lordships’ House to give it your support at Second Reading today.