Foreign and Commonwealth Office: Funding

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, we all have the greatest respect for my noble friend Lady Helic and her work on the preventing sexual violence initiative. She is quite right to draw attention to the national security strategy, but perhaps the best way of answering her is to quote my right honourable friend the Prime Minister when considering the picture of diplomacy, which cannot be neglected and will not be. He said on Monday:

“The National Security Strategy that we are publishing next week will give Britain the resources it needs to increase both its hard and soft power and build the relationships that can project and enhance our influence in the world”.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a truism that development works best in a climate of security. Do the Government recognise the interrelationship, as demonstrated by Syria, between the military budget, the foreign affairs budget and the development budget? To reduce the FCO budget, as they are doing, not only harms our development effort but leads to a substantial decline in FCO morale.

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, has mentioned the ODA budget. We have an excellent record of leveraging the ODA for the broader priorities of Her Majesty’s Government, not just the important role of poverty alleviation but the other areas to which the noble Lord has drawn attention.

Railways: Swansea to Paddington

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords—

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Richard (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Richard]

My Lords—

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

My Lords—

[Lord Richard]

The Minister said in his initial Answer that Sir Peter Hendy would look into, among other things, the “affordability” of the project. If funding is not an issue, what on earth is he going to look into?

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[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, it reminds me of aircraft carriers not having aeroplanes—

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

My Lords—

[Noble Lords]

This side!

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[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

Would the noble Lord mind sitting down, please? I think that we should hear from the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Swansea, as the Question refers to Swansea.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

My Lords, as perhaps the only Swansea resident in the House, might I say that, whatever the priorities of the Government—and we are well aware of the pressure of the 40% cut in public expenditure—for us in Swansea this is a major matter? It is part of a trio of developments, including the lagoon and the new university campus. I therefore assure the Minister that this project is not only important for Swansea and the region but will send a signal to businessmen that there is life beyond Cardiff.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

There is—I agree with the noble Lord. That is why the Prime Minister said on 24 June that he was committed to the electrification of the line to Swansea.

EU: Asylum Seekers

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a human problem. The huddled masses are desperate individuals striving to escape civil war or to improve their own lives and those of their families. Some camps in north Africa will not solve that aspiration. We should not demonise migrants as if they were like a plague of locusts seeking to reach our shores. There is limited mutual trust and co-operation in the EU as the scale of migration increases, and co-ordination is clearly necessary. The Italian Prime Minister must have told Mr Cameron that it is hardly moral for us to rescue migrants, transfer responsibility for them to Italy and then perhaps in the same breath ask for Italian help on EU reform.

The questions include: can we distinguish those fleeing civil war from those whose sole or main reason is economic? What about those fleeing the environmental pressure of desertification or tyrannical government? How do we deter people setting out in the first place and deal humanely with those within our borders, including unaccompanied minors? It is difficult enough to deal with the symptoms and more difficult to deal with the causes.

On the causes, we can consider what can we do by aid or capacity-building or even, dare I say, by providing markets in Europe for agricultural products, but a comprehensive solution can never be found, as the US has found on its border with Mexico with the aspirations of those who see the good life in el Norte. Many wealth disparities will remain. Poverty will remain. The population explosion, particularly in the Sahel, will drive more migrants, and the Syrian tragedy will be with us for some time.

So far as the symptoms are concerned, dealing with downstream symptoms is marginally less difficult. We can hit the traffickers and their networks in source and transit countries and in the EU, but the trade is lucrative and there are many vested interests in north Africa. We can identify, capture and destroy vehicles, but there are formidable legal problems, and Russia will veto any Security Council resolution. Tackling piracy in the Gulf of Aden shows the versatility of traffickers. We can seek to deter migrants and perhaps establish camps, as the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, said, but who can deliver? Libya is now in total chaos, with key parts of the coast in the hands of ISIL. Will we have to provide military personnel to guard the camps? Will permission be given?

I make my final reflection with some hesitation as it can easily be misused. There is a security dimension. At a NATO conference in Rome in April, a new concept was discussed: a new form of hybrid warfare labelled “refugee warfare”. An example is the tactic of infiltration into target cities in Iraq and Syria practised by ISIL. Nine French people have been suicide bombers in Syria and Iraq and that phenomenon could be imported, so I shall ask three questions. Is this new risk factor taken seriously by the European Union? If so, what steps is the European Union taking to co-ordinate a response? What liaison is there with NATO on the subject? We must remember that these are people in need, but we must also recognise that the endeavours of the European Union are likely to lead at best only to a partial reduction in the number of migrants.

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[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a powerful debate and a difficult one to listen to for any Minister with a degree of responsibility for the situation that we find ourselves in. In response to the point made by my noble friend Lord Higgins about why the Home Office is responding to the debate, essentially three departments look after the area. Had the Question been phrased in a slightly different way so that it talked about just the crisis itself, clearly my noble friend Lady Anelay would have responded on behalf of the Foreign Office. Had it been about the situations in the countries which are driving the refugees, my noble friend Lady Verma would have responded on behalf of the Department for International Development. However, it refers to the proposals on asylum currently before the EU, which is a matter that rests with the Home Office. It is also one that the Prime Minister is taking a deep personal interest in as he prepares for the European Council next week.

I undertake to meet with my noble friends Lady Anelay and Lady Verma to share with them the contributions which have been made to this debate, so that we can discuss what more can be done and how we can best serve the House in ensuring that colleagues are kept up to date. The best thing I can probably do with my contribution now, given that time is limited, is to update the Committee on the current situation as we see it and on what is happening. As I go through, I will seek to address some of the points made by noble Lords, although obviously, I may not be able to address all of them.

The noble Lord, Lord Bach, said that when you hear your words repeated back to you, it is a real challenge to reflect on what we were saying then and what we are saying now. Clearly, the position has changed. However, the UK Government have a proud record, which we have to build upon. We have resettled more refugees since 2008 than any other EU member state other than Sweden. We contribute more in overseas aid than any of the other major economies of the EU, certainly to Syria in particular, as I will come to later. Of course, the decision that was taken last year to stop Mare Nostrum was taken by EU member states as a whole. We were not the ones pushing or calling for it—it was taken through EU Council meetings and was a unanimous decision.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, that this situation is highly complex. The noble Lord, Lord Bach, referred to it as “grave”, and they are both correct. First, we want to continue to do all that we can to save lives. Everything that Britain can do as a moral and upstanding nation to save lives, we will do, and we should be proud of what we are doing.

The Royal Navy’s flagship, HMS “Bulwark”, has directly saved over 3,000 lives since deployment in early May. It is correct that HMS “Bulwark” is being withdrawn for essential maintenance, which I understand is quite normal in a naval context. However, I reiterate what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said yesterday, as the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, did at the beginning: we will continue to play our full part in search and rescue operations. I also underscore the words of the noble Lord, Lord Judd, who talked about sensitivity. When the captain of HMS “Bulwark” was being interviewed, I thought his sensitivity, along with the compassion displayed by naval officers deployed there, was quite outstanding and in the best traditions of our country.

Three Merlin helicopters and two Border Force cutters are also contributing to our efforts, and a number of specialist police officers are at work with their EU counterparts. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, referred to some figures. The latest figures we have are from January this year. There are two crossing areas: the central Mediterranean—

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

Can the noble Lord say what will replace HMS “Bulwark”?

[Lord Bates]

It will be for the Navy to decide the precise vessel and how it will be deployed, and I understand that that decision has not yet been taken. However, the commitment Her Majesty’s Government have made will continue. The mission will continue and will not be disrupted. We will deliver on it. Announcements on that will come forward shortly.

Some 47,000 took the central Mediterranean crossing; of those, 10,000 were from Eritrea, 8,000 from sub-Saharan Africa and 5,000 from Somalia. So far this year, the eastern Mediterranean route was taken by 48,000; 27,000 of those were from Syria, 11,000 from Afghanistan and 3,000 from Pakistan.

We acknowledge that these operations only address the symptoms of a far greater problem. The causes of migration do not start on the Mediterranean; for some it begins when they are forced to leave their home countries because of war or persecution. However, others are economic migrants who have no right to evade the legitimate immigration controls of this country and of the European Union. That is why the Government have always said that the search and rescue operations must only ever be part of a much wider, comprehensive and long-term solution. In recognition of the importance and seriousness of this issue, and the need to address the causes of this extraordinary migration, the Government have been working closely with international partners, both bilaterally and through the EU.

At the G6 meeting on 1 and 2 June, the Home Secretary sought agreement from her European counterparts that we need to tackle the smugglers and traffickers and to address the reasons why people get on boats in the first place. I take on board the reprimand from several noble Lords that so far there seems to be little evidence that we are managing to capture the people who are desperately exploiting these people’s suffering and placing them in such dire harm.

The Home Secretary was also clear that there was an awful lot we agreed on but that the UK cannot support mandatory relocation proposals because these do not, we believe, tackle the underlying issues. We must, instead, break the link between getting on a boat and achieving residence in Europe. That link continues to play into the hands of the criminal gangs which the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, referred to, so it is vital that those not requiring protection are stopped at the EU’s external border and returned. They cannot be allowed to continue to enter illegally and then move with impunity across Europe. One area of contention here is that we would like to see that when migrants are landed in Italy they are properly registered, fingerprinted and identified so that they can be properly processed and that information can be shared across the EU. We need Governments in the region who we can work with to intercept illegal economic migrants before they reach the EU and to return them to their country of origin.

The Foreign Affairs Council will meet on Monday next week. Just this week, on Monday and Tuesday at the Justice and Home Affairs Council, the Home Secretary continued to press European partners for a sustainable response to the crisis. It was clear that longer-term efforts are essential. We need to do more to help the countries where these people come from to reduce push factors, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said. We need to build stability in the region and enable people to have creative livelihoods so they can live secure and fulfilling lives in their home countries. We must also do more at source and in transit countries to pursue the criminal gangs and shut down the trafficking networks that callously trade in human suffering. This was something that we covered in the Serious Crime Act and the Modern Slavery Act, which we passed in the last Session. Increased intelligence gathering is a critical part of what we need to do to destroy their vessels before they are used.

The noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, and the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, asked what we are doing to work with our European partners. The UK is supporting Europol’s joint operation to tackle these gangs, focusing on vessels and subsequent secondary movements. The UK is a long-term supporter of solidarity across the EU in asylum matters, but we are also clear that solidarity is best demonstrated through practical co-operation with those front-line member states whose borders and asylum systems are under pressure. As the Committee will be aware, the Prime Minister yesterday met the Prime Minister of Italy. To underline our commitment to providing real, practical support to EU countries facing real pressures, the Prime Minister has offered to deploy six British officers from the National Crime Agency to Europol’s intelligence cell which aims to disrupt trafficking.

The UK also fully supports the European Asylum Support Office in co-ordinating practical, operational co-operation to address emerging migration pressures. The EU aims to build longer-term capacity in the member states most affected. To make clear our level of commitment, in the last three years the UK has contributed more resource to EASO than any other member state, contributing more than 1,000 expert working days to missions in Greece, Italy, Bulgaria and Cyprus. My noble friend Lord Marlesford and the noble Lord, Lord Desai, talked about this being a UN problem. It is. We recognise that and are working with the UNHCR on this and are seeking to address wider concerns. The situation in Syria is particularly concerning.

The noble Lord, Lord Alton, raised the words of chastisement from Sir Peter Sutherland. Given that he is such a senior international statesman, we will look very carefully at what he said and reflect on it. The fact is that 187 refugees have been resettled in the UK under the vulnerable persons programme in just over a year, and more arrive each month. In addition, we need to remember that more than 4,200 Syrians have been granted protection in the UK under our normal asylum rules since the crisis began, and that there has been additional foreign aid.

The situation is rapidly changing and our engagement with international partners continues apace. The Foreign Secretary is expected to discuss the crisis at the Foreign Affairs Council on Monday, and the Prime Minister will continue to push hard for a sustainable solution at the European Council on 24 and 25 June. I will, of course, be glad to write to update colleagues on the latest developments. I will also, as I have said, discuss this with my colleagues.

There are no easy answers to the tragic situation in the Mediterranean, but the Government remain firm in their belief that the only sustainable response to the scale of the situation is to tackle the root causes of these dangerous journeys and the organised criminal gangs behind them. The UK contribution stands comparison, we believe, to any in the world in that regard.

Calais: Illegal Immigrants

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Thursday 27th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, these are desperate people looking for a better life, but clearly we have to maintain the integrity of our immigration policy. When people arrive, how much time is taken to sift those who have a proper claim for refugee status and those who are simply economic refugees?

[Lord Bates]

If they are stopped at the French border, that is an issue for the French. If they arrive in the UK, they have the opportunity to apply for asylum. The asylum regime is there and advice is available to them. I must say that in a lot of these cases—this backs up the claim made by the noble Lord—they actually want to be put back in France so that they can try again, because they want to get into this country to work illegally.

Mediterranean: Refugees and Migrants

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Wednesday 5th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

There is a two-pronged approach to this. First, there is Operation Triton, which the Italians started on 1 November; it is different but will tackle a lot of that. Secondly, there is the work that we are doing with our EU partners under the Rabat process and the Khartoum process, trying to tackle and head off the migration in the first place.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, it is surely immoral not to rescue those in peril of drowning if we have the capability to do so. Yet at the same time we need a coherent and ordered immigration policy, and cannot offer an open door to anyone who reaches our shores. Has an effort been made to tackle this matter at source by reaching deals with the riparian countries on the south of the Mediterranean, to pay them to destroy the ships and prosecute the traffickers? At least then we can try to deal with this matter at source.

[Lord Bates]

I agree with the noble Lord that it would indeed be immoral and, of course, not to help someone in distress would be in contravention of our obligations under the UN convention on safety of life at sea. The Khartoum and Rabat processes, to which I referred, and the EU mobility partnerships that we have with Tunisia and Morocco, are trying to tackle exactly the issue that he raises.

Alexander Litvinenko

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Monday 24th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

The noble Lord is quite right. The judgment was a firm one. None the less, the decision to order an inquiry requires proper consideration. There is no deadline for this consideration but, clearly, the Home Secretary will seek to come to a conclusion as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the arrest of those whom we wish to see tried for this offence remains our priority.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that there was in the past at least a scintilla of plausibility in the argument that, on prudential grounds, it was not worth provoking the Russian Federation because we needed to work with it in other areas, such as Syria and Iran, but that after Russia’s blatant invasion of Crimea, all that has gone and justice should now be done?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

Yes, but, as I have pointed out, justice requires that those whom we wish to see put on trial in this country for this crime are brought to justice, and that requires the Russians to honour their agreement to extradite according to our request. I could not agree more with the noble Lord that our relationship with Russia has deteriorated as a result of the recent attempted annexation of Crimea. We are clearly not happy with that situation either, so it is yet another breakdown in our relationship with Russia.

EU: Police and Criminal Justice Measures

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

My Lords, as a member of the Joint Committee I was surprised that neither in the Statement to Parliament on 9 July nor in the Command Paper of the same date did the Government bother to refer to, let alone commend, our work. However, as if attempting to remedy this slight, the Home and Justice Secretaries, in an undated letter sent about 19 July, went perhaps over the top in glowing superlatives relating to our report. Yet, at the same time, they compounded their cavalier attitude to the committee by informing us when we should conclude our next inquiry on the subject without consulting us in advance.

The point of criticism of the Government’s process has already been well made, so I turn to substance. I pose this simple question: how would a judge conclude if the evidence that we had received were placed before him or her? Surely that judge would find the one-sided comparative weight of the witnesses before us absolutely compelling and overwhelming.

Supporting the Government were Mr Dominic Raab, both in his own right and again as the drafter of the Open Europe submission. Then, of course, there was the United Kingdom Independence Party. The committee staff managed to locate Mr Martin Howe, a senior lawyer but also a Conservative activist, having sought nomination on several occasions.

However, critical of the Government’s position were all the professional bodies, all the enforcement agencies and the prosecutorial bodies. Our committee report was endorsed by the Law Society of England and Wales, the Bar Council, the Faculty of Advocates and the Scottish Government. Our one witness from the Republic of Ireland was, frankly, baffled by the Government's stance. In short, the weight of critical evidence was overwhelming and our judge would surely have been driven to the same conclusion as that which the committee reached unanimously—namely, that the Government had not made a convincing case for exercising the opt-out and that to do so would have significant negative repercussions for the national interests of our country. Nevertheless, the Government have ploughed on regardless and claim to have acted in the national interest.

The noble Lord, Lord McNally, was moved to write in the Liberal Democrat Voice that “we”—the Liberal Democrats—

“have fought hard to keep the public safe, in the face of a Euroscepticism which would put public safety at risk in the pursuit of its anti-European agenda”.

That is hardly a flattering description of his Conservative colleagues in the coalition. In the same article, he proudly claimed that the deal with those Conservative Eurosceptics illustrated the influence of Liberal Democrats on the Government. The truth, of course, is that the Liberal Democrats could have blocked the opt-out entirely had they so wished, but chose not to do so.

Again, having reviewed all the evidence, our learned judge would have noticed the leitmotif of suspicion, almost obsessive in its intensity, of the Government's attitude to the Court of Justice of the European Union. That is particularly puzzling in the light of the fact that the Government have over recent years opted into a number of measures subject to the court and must therefore have no objection in principle to subjecting themselves to the court's jurisdiction—paragraph 104 of the report. It is puzzling also because the court already has jurisdiction over pre-Lisbon EU civil asylum and immigration matters, surely central to national sovereignty. Paragraph 96 of our report pointed out that there are very positive aspects regarding preliminary references to the court. In paragraph 89, the committee, having examined all the evidence—as no doubt would our judge—dismissed the bogeyman of excessive activism:

“we can discern no convincing evidence that the CJEU has been either judicially activist or that its rulings set out to undermine the autonomy of Member States’ criminal justice systems”.

Our judge would probably consider the question of costs not to be within his remit, but there are threefold elements of costs: potential financial costs of seeking to opt back in; the general uncertainties and potential hiatus in the transition period; and, of course, the potential loss of influence in Brussels by the signal which the Government have so clearly given. Who can forget the position of the then Conservative Government from 1993 to 1997, when we lost much influence by the turmoil in the Conservative Party at the time?

All that turmoil for what? Again in the words of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, in the same article:

“The measures which are being dropped on the other hand are, by and large, those which are now redundant, those which have been superseded by newer instruments, those which have already been incorporated into UK law, and those which have very little operational use for the UK. So we’re keeping the wheat and losing the chaff”.

Similarly, the Economist of 15 July headed its article,

“Britain wants opt-outs from EU rules, as long as they don't much matter”.

Of course the Government have made some positive suggestions, for example by remedying deficiencies in the European arrest warrant, but not by diktat. The normal European method is by consensus, by forming alliances, and by working with our European partners consensually. Again, the Economist stated:

“Mrs May’s statement was designed to please Eurosceptic Tories. Instead they denounced it”.

That is, all this trouble is a political decision not a legal decision, one designed to please what one senior German parliamentarian called the Tea Party tendency within the Conservative Party.

I have one warning for the Home Secretary—I end on this. Her Tory colleagues will not be satisfied by her gesture. Like the keeper in the zoo's penguin house, she may regularly be inclined to throw fish to them, but they will swallow them down and ask for more. She should be warned: they will indeed ask for more.

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[Lord Blackwell]

The noble Lord might like to note that the phrase is in the summary at the front. I will explain why I, for one, think that that is a totally incorrect conclusion. There is a strong reason for opting out of all these measures. Maybe there are reasons for opting back in to some of them, but there is a strong reason for starting with the presumption that we should opt out. The mistake that the committee, and I am afraid maybe the Government, made was to look at each of these measures pragmatically, on the marginal basis of whether there was some value in each particular measure. That ignores the fact that every one of these measures has a price, which is the transfer of some sovereignty from the UK Parliament and the UK courts.

There is a bigger issue, which the committee totally failed to address, although I am sure that the evidence was presented. Where measures are transferred to European legislation and European courts, where is the democratic accountability for those laws and judgments that govern the freedom and justice of UK citizens?

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

Would the noble Lord not agree that a measure such as the European arrest warrant is not a transfer of sovereignty but a measure of co-operation?

Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I listened carefully to the eloquent case made by my noble friend Lord Lexden, but I want to speak briefly as a former Member of the House of Commons and one who was devoted to his Cornish constituents.

One of the benefits of the single-Member constituency system that we have is that it provides a very special local link between each area and one Member of Parliament. I have heard the noble Lord, Lord Lorton of Louth, speak eloquently in support of that principle, so I am surprised to see him endorse this amendment in its current form. It is true that the countries in the European Union that my noble friend Lord Lexden cited all have different electoral systems; they do not have the same direct link with the individual constituency as we have. I want to put the debate about overseas electors in that context.

If an MP’s primary role is to represent his or her area, and the constituents within it at that time, how does that square with a proposal which would see him or her representing people who live perhaps thousands of miles away in a very different economic and social context? And should we really equate in value the vote of someone who has departed—some would say deserted—this country for 15 years or more in favour of the Spanish sunshine with that of a British soldier currently serving his country in Afghanistan? That would be the effect of the amendment.

In 2020, it will be 15 years since I retired from the other place—in that respect, I sort of left North Cornwall then. It is surely beyond the limit of what is reasonable to ask my excellent successor in North Cornwall to represent after 2020 people who left that constituency as long ago as I did.

I accept, as my noble friend said, that there is some validity in the notional principle here about taxation without representation. In that connection, perhaps we should look at the system used for French national elections, to which reference was made, where representatives of a number of special “overseas” constituencies are elected in national elections by French voters who live abroad but who still somehow have a stake in French society. If more than 76,000 electors registered for such a constituency, it would justify under the previous legislation that we passed in your Lordships’ House having that separate constituency, but we are not in that position. However, that would be much less arbitrary than marrying people in perpetuity to an area with which they have had no direct connection for more than 15 years.

It has been asked whether there should be taxation without representation. Well, perhaps we should also think about representation without taxation. Why should someone who has lived on the Costa del Sol for the past 15 years still vote by post in local elections and therefore influence the local level of council tax in Cornwall for residents of Coads Green or Crantock in my former constituency?

Those of my overseas friends who have urged this change may come to regret raising this issue; they should be careful what they wish for. If all those overseas who have retained the right to vote in the United Kingdom in recent years now find themselves having to pay council tax, higher VAT or fuel tax, or even additional taxes imposed by the devolved Assemblies, the proposers of these amendments may not be as popular as they apparently are with overseas voters at the moment.

Meanwhile, I am particularly alarmed by the proposal under Amendment 54 in the name of my noble friend Lord Lexden for overseas citizens to be able to vote online. While that same convenience is not afforded to our own fellow citizens in this country at the moment, it would seem extraordinary to extend it to those people. As we know from previous experiments, there are real problems about that proposal anyway, quite apart from its unfairness, because it could raise a major risk of fraud.

For those practical reasons, we on these Benches ask my noble friend the Leader of the House and other Ministers to take the problem of taxation without representation seriously, of course, but also to find a solution which is less invidious and which properly recognises that our current system of single-Member constituencies makes it extremely unfair to introduce this particular proposal in this form.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

My Lords, as one would expect, the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, made a cogent and well researched point in favour of effectively extending the timeframe not only beyond 15 years but perhaps indefinitely, so long as one can still claim British citizenship. Therein lie various practical problems, which I will come to in a moment.

My noble friend Lord Lipsey said that of the 5.6 million overseas voters only 23,000 currently take advantage of that, which suggests that the demand is not very great. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, made the point about the key principle in our country of representing a constituency and those who live within it. We await with interest the result of the determination of the European Court of Human Rights, but I recall discussing this problem with a representative from the country in the European Union which is probably the closest to us—that is, the Republic of Ireland. A friend who was a Senator from Ireland said, “Well, think of all the Irish people who are overseas, the Irish diaspora. If we were to give a vote to them all, there would probably be a Sinn Fein Government in Ireland”. That is the point he was making.

Clearly the intention is obvious—to extend the vote to as many overseas British citizens as possible. I shall be brief because there is an important debate to follow, but there are clearly technical problems and grounds of principle that make one feel very cautious about this proposal. The potential numbers have been mentioned, particularly as more people travel and work overseas. There may be British citizens in Australia, Pakistan, Canada, Bangladesh and of course in all the European Union countries. There is a great range of countries and it will be very difficult to check adequately the bona fides of those who claim citizenship and claim to be eligible to vote. How do we prevent fraud? Those problems will be formidable and there will be also be a great problem in checking whether people are still alive after their last declaration.

On the grounds of principle, I recall the debate in the other place in 1985 when there was a package of proposals. I concede that the length of time is arbitrary but there was a consensus result at that time. Now of course the numbers are very much greater and we have, as has been cited, the reverse of the Boston Tea Party—that is, representation without taxation. We cannot extend that totally because many of the British citizens living overseas will be eligible for British pensions and therefore they have some stake in this country. Perhaps it would be better to say “representation without a substantial stake in this country”? Everyone who is resident in the UK has that substantial stake and those who live for perhaps a very extended period overseas increasingly lose sight of this country and lose sight of any stake they may have in it. Therefore, their stakeholding in this country becomes less and less serious. I will not go any further save to say that in my judgment there are considerable technical problems in the proposal and there are also major obstacles of principle.

[Lord Deben]

My Lords, I intervene having heard the three previous speeches. First, to listen to a strong advocate of almost any electoral system except the first-past-the-post, single constituency arrangement, fight for this proposal was a surprise, particularly as the noble Lord will go on to support a misuse of the electoral system to ensure that we have an unfair electoral system for even longer. That is a peculiar case to put forward.

Then we heard the internationalist party explain how people who lived abroad might not understand what was happening in Britain. Sometimes I think that a number of people living abroad understand rather more clearly what is happening in Britain than some of those here who do not appear to follow the newspapers or the media very closely.

Then we heard the definition of how people voted. I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, that those of us who have been elected to the Houses of Parliament know that the reasons why people in this country vote and the logic on which they make their decisions, people who have never travelled abroad, certainly would not meet the conditions which he put forward as reasonable conditions for anyone who is voting.

Then there was the argument that because we might find that people who are at the moment, in their view, penalised because pensions for which they have paid out of taxation and national insurance are, because of their particular place of residence, refused, that they might vote in a different way than that which the Government might like, that evidently is a reason to deny them the vote. That is the argument of totalitarian regimes down history. That is why people did not want the extension of the franchise in Britain. People said, “My goodness, if those who are at the moment misused are given the vote, they might object to that”. I find that an odd argument to come from any part of the House, but to hear it from the party opposite, which is about to say that some voters in this country are to have a bigger vote and more say for a longer time than would otherwise have been the case, seems to me to be an affront.

Although I have no particular view on this—I think that roughly speaking, what we have is perfectly reasonable—I hope that this House will take seriously the fact that we have now heard three speeches designed to say that people should not vote if by their voting they might do something which was inconvenient for noble Lords on either side and should therefore be refused the vote. That is precisely the debate that noble Lords are about to have, which is to say that because a particular reform proposed in this House today would give people a fairer vote but thereby might give a different result, we should not change the voting system to accommodate them. That is an attitude to democracy about which we should be ashamed. Our decision should be on what is fair, what is equal and what is reasonable. I happen to think that the present rules about 15 years more or less meet that, but the three speeches that we have heard show that some people are prepared to use the system to get a particular result rather than seeking to have a system in which the result is the decision of the public.

Police and Crime Commissioners: Elections

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Thursday 11th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I am grateful to my noble friend for giving that advice to some Members on the Benches opposite who appear to have rather negative views on these elections. The candidates for these elections are first class; there will be a good choice before the electorate. The role that police and crime commissioners will play is important to bring transparency to the police in this country. That is why the Government have made changes to the law to bring about this arrangement.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

The noble Lord may be reluctant to give a figure but does he at least agree that there is a correlation between the turnout and legitimacy, credibility and respect?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

That has not been the pattern of elections in the past. Many noble Lords will have participated in elections where turnout has been quite low. I do not believe that that will be the case in these elections. It is interesting that the electorate as a whole are not particularly aware of the role of police authorities and their relationship with police forces. This is a new opportunity to make people aware that there will be direct links between their wishes and the way in which the police force operates in their area. I think that people will take advantage of that.

European Court of Justice: Jurisdiction

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Wednesday 20th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, the precise words that the noble Lord used about the Government conducting further consultations—I could go on—are in front of me in my brief. I agree with them and that is what we committed ourselves to in January 2011. How we conduct those arrangements will be a matter for discussions in the appropriate place at the appropriate time between the European Scrutiny Committees and the Commons and Lords Home Affairs and Justice Select Committees. We need to discuss these things with a number of different committees. I make it clear to the House and the noble Lord today how seriously we take this and why we think it vital that we eventually have that debate and vote in both Houses.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

My Lords, when the Government come to make this important decision, will they recognise that ordinary British citizens are less inclined to be concerned about abstract notions of sovereignty than about the ways in which they will be protected when they are in other European countries? There are very cogent arguments in favour of European harmonisation in these areas.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, there are arguments and ordinary citizens would accept some of them. However, ordinary citizens would also accept that some things are better looked after by our own Parliament back in the United Kingdom. That is why we will make the appropriate decision at the appropriate time, after we have listened to both Houses and voted on the matter.