House of Lords: Remote Participation and Hybrid Sittings

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Thursday 20th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for his comprehensive introduction, which covered all the points that the House needs to consider.

The main point, to my mind, is that we need to get back to being a functioning House of Lords, with Members here, and to wind down the so-called special measures. We are moving dreadfully slowly. I had a talk with one of the senior officials in the Library yesterday. They said that, yes, they are definitely moving forward: they are going to be open for an extra hour a day from Monday to Thursday, starting on 20 June. They will then be open for four whole hours a day. This is a snail’s pace.

I am going to say it: I am afraid that working from home has been a great boon to many people. Many of our staff probably quite like not having to commute; they quite like having to provide their own lunch and to work at their own pace. We have got to put some effort into getting people back, and if that involves lobbying the Department of Health for vaccinations—the latest of a series of excuses that I have heard—then so be it, but we have got to get people back. Here is one good indicator: I have an office on the fifth floor of Millbank House and we share a kitchen with staff. You can tell how many are here because the fridge in the kitchen is absolutely empty; usually it is packed full of sandwiches and lunch. The staff are just not here; they have got to be got back.

I differ from my colleague the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, on one issue. The Question Time list has actually been a great move forward. For those of us who do not have a background in the other place, the bear pit of people jumping up and down at Question Time put a lot of people off. I would like whoever responds to look at having some sort of list and order for Question Time, but it should come back and we need to have this House in charge again.

I will also make a point about interventions in debate. I spoke in the Queen’s Speech debate on Monday and asked the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith:

“so all I am going to ask him to do is to say that he will pass my comments on to the Transport Minister and ask her to respond to me in writing.”—[Official Report, 17/5/21, col. 390.]

When he came to wind up, he did not mention it. Even though I had spoken to him privately and asked him to just give me that assurance, there was no assurance. Even though I was sitting here, and he was sitting just in front of me, I could not get up and intervene, even to say: “Will the Minister kindly agree to the question I put to him during my speech?” This has led to a situation in which, to my mind, Ministers frequently do not answer the questions that are put to them, because they know that there is no feedback. We do need to get back to people being accountable to this House.

The noble Lord, Lord Norton, spoke about our moral obligation to arrange our lives in order to contribute to the House. As I have said before, when I came into the House in 2013, the only question David Cameron was interested in was, “Will you attend and vote?” He forgot to ask me which way I would vote. He was very keen to say, “Richard, we really need people who will attend and vote. Will you do that?” It is important that we do organise our lives. Frankly, if people are too ill, we have sympathy for them. My good friend, the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, has just had another year’s leave of absence from the House and that is the way to deal with it. You cannot cast the House around this sort of thing.

I hope that we will get back to a functioning House. I hope that we will end our remote voting, because that is not the way to run a democratic institution. Even though I am not sure whether I support the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, I certainly support the date and the sentiment within it. I hope that we will move to get back to the House so that, when we come back in September, we are recognisably in a democratic assembly.

Tributes: Lord Fowler

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Wednesday 12th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

Can I say a word or two as a Back-Bencher, as we have had a lot of Front-Bench speech? I would like to pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, who has been eminently approachable and has made a number of innovations, which I certainly appreciate—the first being the Private Notice Question. This is a tremendous advantage, because it means that people not on the Front Bench have an opportunity to call the Government to account. This has developed tremendously well under the speakership of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, and I am sure I am not the only person to appreciate that.

The second point for which I am very grateful to him—and will be to the new Lord Speaker—is the battle for a better image. It is not our fault that some people have decided that the House of Lords is a nuisance, but let me say this: if they tried to abolish it, and had a legislature with no way of being pulled back, they would soon miss it. They would miss it very much because, as I explain to many people, the main job of the House of Lords is that is has a lot of Back-Bench Members with a huge amount of experience who, when the detail of legislation is debated on the Floor of the House, do not win votes but win arguments. They win arguments in such a way that the Minister then goes away and comes back with a better formulation of what they wish to do. In other words, the Back-Benchers do not set out to wreck the Government’s policy but to make it work. That has been helped enormously by the very positive way in which the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, has acted.

My final two points are these. First, I appreciate the Sunday emails; I hope the Lord Speaker will continue this tradition, because it keeps us in touch and means that we know what is happening. Secondly, I also appreciate the fact that, throughout his service, whenever I approached the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, his office always responded courteously and pretty fast. I have never had the feeling that Back-Benchers are second in the queue. I thank him for his courtesy in always responding to me and, I am sure, to many other Back- Benchers.

All I will say to the Lord Speaker—I cannot work it out but I have known him now for somewhere in the region of 47 or 48 years—is that he has a lot to live up to. I am delighted to see him in his place and I have every confidence that he will live up to the reputation that has been so highly set by the noble Lord, Lord Fowler.

Covid-19: Road Map

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I am afraid I do not agree with my noble friend on his last point, but I certainly I agree with him on the importance of support for mental health, and he will know that expert participation in SAGE changes for each meeting. What I hope will reassure him is that in March, we will be publishing our cross-government action plan to prevent, mitigate and respond to the impact of Covid on mental health and well-being. We have already announced that the NHS will receive an extra £500 million to address waiting times and enhance support for mental health services. During the pandemic, we rolled out 24/7, all-age urgent mental care helplines across the country, provided more than £100 million to the voluntary sector and, recently, appointed a youth mental health ambassador to build on our support for young people. I hope this range of investment and initiatives shows the noble Lord how important we consider this issue.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

Could I point out to the Leader that my noble friend Lord Dobbs asked whether time could be made available for a debate on the matter of vaccine passports? While many of us accept that people should have the freedom not to be vaccinated, those of us who have been vaccinated believe we should have the freedom not to have to travel with people who have decided not to be vaccinated. There are some complex issues that need looking at.

I will make a second point. Everything is down to Covid these days, but there is a huge backlog in the National Health Service building up literally every day. When are we going to see a White Paper on how to deal with that?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My noble friend is right, but we should recognise that hospitals and staff have gone to extraordinary lengths to deliver non-Covid care and treatment, from online consultations to chemo buses and Covid-free surgical hubs. We have seen the benefit of these, with, for instance, almost 390,000 people being treated for cancer between March and November last year. But he is right: waiting times have increased. We have allocated £1 billion to help the NHS recover elective care backlogs. This will be enough funding to enable hospitals to carry out up to 1 million extra checks, scans and additional operations and procedures. We are well aware of the issue he raises. I thank everyone in the NHS for all the work they are doing, but we understand that more work needs to be done.

Business of the House

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Tuesday 28th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I want to ask my noble friend on the Front Bench to pay particular note to what the noble Lord, Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale, said about travel. He lives in the tropics compared to where some people in Scotland live. I remember that when I was appointed to a committee that sat on a Monday afternoon, I had to give up serving on it because I could not get down from Caithness in time. Indeed, I sat on a Back-Bench committee with the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, which looked at the whole problem of better servicing people who live far away from the Chamber and giving them a fairer opportunity to speak and participate in this House.

I thoroughly agree with what my noble friend Lord Cormack said about the Library. One cannot even use a computer in the Library at the moment; this morning, I came in to do some work and found that I was totally unable to do so.

On voting, I agree with my noble friend Lord Trefgarne. I hope that my noble friend on the Front Bench will give consideration to the idea that, in future, the only people who can vote will be those who are physically here in the Chamber.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, my first point is this: I wish we could make a clearer rule as to what the arrangements are here. I have got in thanks to the kindness of the Deputy Speaker, but I was told that we had to put our names down to ask questions. I was not clear about it; if that is the system, I think we need a note of guidance.

I agree totally with what was said by my good and noble friend Lord Cormack and the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. I agree with a lot of what other people said, but in particular with those two noble Lords.

I have two questions. First, the order will have effect from 2 September until a further order is made. Can the Chief Whip give us some indication as to when this procedure will be reviewed—in other words, when a further order might come up? Secondly, I want to put on record that one of the great difficulties I find when dealing with SIs, and with amendments to Bills, is the inability to get up when the Minister is answering and say, “I’m terribly sorry, but I don’t think you’ve understood my point”, or to intervene at the point where it is absolutely relevant. You cannot then send an email to the clerk to ask to get up afterwards. I therefore ask that this be looked at.

I will not speak again, but on the next Motion the Chief Whip is going to tell us why Topical Questions are no longer to be tabled, and I can well understand why that is. However, I ask that attention be given to the quality of Answers and to the length of time that we are kept waiting, not only for Answers to Written Questions but for answers to letters. Perhaps I can remind Ministers that a letter from a Member of this House to a Minister should not normally, as has happened to me, be replied to by a civil servant who tells me that the Minister is busy. It does not take very long to scribble a signature, and one of the few advantages we have in this House is to be able to call Ministers to account. I was even more annoyed that the answer was totally irrelevant to the letter that I had written in the first place. That did not help; had it been a relevant letter, I might have excused it, but it almost totally missed the point of the questions I had asked. I thank the House for indulging me.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, I was not quite expecting so many questions on this Motion, but I am delighted to reply. I thank noble Lords for their thanks to the staff of the House; I reiterate and endorse every word of that. A fantastic job has been done, not only by the Clerk of the Parliaments and his staff but by the Government Whips Office staff, whose workload has increased dramatically thanks to some of the issues we have talked about, first in the Virtual Proceedings and then in the hybrid House. I am not sure that all noble Lords realise quite what goes into putting the day together and getting ready the Speaker’s brief and the speaking lists and so on. I will come on to some of that later, but I appreciate and echo the words of noble Lords.

Business and Planning Bill

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 20th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl the Minister for bringing forward these amendments. No comment has yet been made in this discussion about Amendment 21, but I welcome the clarification that licensing is not part of the executive function of a local authority. It should be done by an independent panel within the authority.

I want also to support Amendment 4, in the name of my noble friend Lord Hain, and again pose the question again: why is this not acceptable? What this amendment and a number of others in this group are all about is effective consultation, in the instance of Amendment 4 with trade unions and the employees who are affected. It is always better when such consultation happens. It can happen at a reasonably fast pace, but at the least the exercise should be undertaken.

The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, has argued forcefully on a number of occasions for a 1.5 metre margin around pavement activities. He is quite right to do so and I trust that that will be made explicit in the government guidance. As I have wandered around my local area over the past few weeks, I have seen able the burgeoning of pavement tables and pavement activity. I welcome that because I like the idea of a much more café culture society. However, as people drink during the course of the evening, there tends to be pavement creep, and the space gets narrower. That is why the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and echoed just now by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, about the importance of enforcement are so critical. Can we be assured that local authorities will have the enforcement and regulatory officers to ensure that there is no pavement creep of the kind I have just talked about, and that the police will be there in sufficient numbers to provide back-up if required?

[Lord Balfe (Con) [V]]

My Lords, first, I thank the Minister and his fellow Ministers for the careful way in which they have looked at the points that have been made and for the concessions that they have given. Indeed, if you asked the question, “What is the role of the House of Lords?” this Bill provides a good example of it, because while it went through the Commons in a matter of an hour or so, we have given it detailed consideration and, importantly, the Ministers responsible have looked industry detail and with sympathy at the points that have been made. So I make those points first.

I want to make a couple of points, in particular about Amendment 4. Some noble Lords will remember that I was David Cameron’s envoy to the trade union movement. I know a bit about it because I have been a member since the age of 16. Now the first thing about Amendment 4 is that, of course, there are very few trade unionists in the catering industry. The second point I should like to make about it is that this is Labour virtue signalling. There are plenty of trade unionists who support the Conservative Party. Indeed, in the union of which I am president, BALPA, the majority voted Conservative at the last election. Many trade unionists vote for the SNP, Plaid Cymru, the Liberal Democrats and, in particular, for the Green Party—so what we have here is very much a bit of Labour special pleading.

On that, I am always pleased to hear Churchill being quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, and I would remind the noble Lord, Lord Monks, that I believe he was working for the TUC when it turned down the proposals of the Bullock committee to consult unions and have them on the board. So let us have a bit of remembrance. And let us also remember that Labour has decided not to support any Divisions on this Bill. So it is worth remembering when it starts asking, “Can this be done or can it not be done?” that it will not be supporting anything to the point of a Division.

I make all of those points because I would ask the Minister to acknowledge in his summing-up that co-operation is needed from all groups in society, including responsible trade unionists. I am sure that they will be happy to co-operate, whether they are trade unionists or just workers in the catering industry. I look on this amendment as a partisan one that does not add to the Bill; it is so that a group of people can go and wave at the TUC.

I note that the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, is set to follow me. I will just tell him that on one occasion when David Cameron met a leading member of the TUC General Council, he asked, “Apart from the national minimum wage, which we are not going to abolish, which piece of pro-union legislation that the Blair Government passed are you worried that we might repeal?” The answer was total silence. So let us not have too many lectures about what Labour is going to do for trade unions until some future date when it may even have done something.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I am afraid that the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, is not going to follow the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, because he has withdrawn from this group. So I now call the noble Lord, Lord Naseby.

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[Lord German (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 15, so well moved by my noble friend Lady Northover and well spoken to by others. If in recent years you have visited one of the ever-decreasing number of countries where smoking in public places is not banned, I think you will have appreciated how awful it is. The difference from the experience in our country is dramatic, particularly if you are a non-smoker. To have second-hand tobacco smoke wafting about your food and drink is both unpleasant and nauseous, and inhaling second-hand smoke injures your health.

The distaste about stepping back more than a decade is not just because we have made the change in this country; it is because it is very much an experience to which we do not want to return. With so many of us now being non-smokers and having had the smoke-free experience for so long, we take it for granted that tobacco smoke will not be around our food and families as we eat.

I am pleased that the Government have gone some way to recognise that in their amendments, but I do not think that they have gone far enough. The arrangements for this Bill are partial and temporary, and for England only. Noble Lords will be aware that the ban on smoking in public places began earlier in Wales than in England. I am pleased that Wales was a pathfinder then, and it now looks like it will be so again. The Labour Health Minister in Wales has just announced that he will bring forward legislation to prohibit smoking in the spaces outside pubs and restaurants and that the ban will be permanent. I hope that his party colleagues in your Lordships’ House are listening to that.

Of course, that legislation is moving with the non-smoking times. As more and more people give up tobacco smoking and public health improves, so the introduction of smoke-free areas around places such as those proposed by the Labour Minister, along with children’s play areas and the precincts of schools and hospitals, is a logical step. As the smoking minority of our population has got smaller, smokers have become more and more used to moving away from others in public places, and this amendment proposes a logical next step. There is no evidence that it will diminish the number of people who go to pubs and restaurants. In fact, the opposite might occur and people might be encouraged to attend because they know that smoke will not be wafting around them.

I have one question for the Government on their proposal. Your Lordships are of course familiar with our own arrangements for separating smokers and non-smokers on the Lords Terrace: a physical barrier is in place between the two areas. Can the Minister explain whether the legislation proposed by the Government requires a physical barrier to be put in place between the two sectors? Will it be a solid barrier through which smoke cannot pass and, if so, at what height? Smoke drifts and floats about, and without clear barriers it would pass between the tables of smokers and non-smokers alike. Without making it clear that that issue will be dealt with, this problem will not be eradicated. So it is obvious to me that Amendment 15 is the way to go in order to get clarity on this issue.

[Lord Balfe [V]]

My Lords, I am surprised that we are even having this debate. Pubs are closing every week. No one seems to realise that one reason for that is that they are in many ways not very pleasant places to be in. I can say without any doubt whatever that my wife and I would not go near a pub that permitted smoking. It is as simple as that. If you want to get rid of your middle-class clientele and close your restaurants, start allowing smoking. It is not just acceptable in a place where you go to dine.

The government amendments include a “smoke-free seating condition” so that any premises that provide outdoor seating for smoking will also

“make reasonable provision for seating where smoking is not permitted.”

We have been down this route before. I have flown around the world for 50 years. We used to have smoking and non-smoking sections on aeroplanes and it did not work. That is why planes are all non-smoking today. We used to have ashtrays in hotel rooms and there was an overhang of smoke if a smoker had been in there. Then hotels started to introduce smoke-free floors and found that they were so popular that they started to ban smoking, before it was banned anyway because it had started a lot of fires. Hospitals used to have seating areas where patients could go outside for a smoke. That was stopped because it was recognised that the ambient smoky atmosphere was bad for the people who did not smoke.

I hear time and again that this is a temporary provision, just like income tax, that will be brought in and disappear after a year. I do not believe that. I think that some of these provisions will be permanent. The noble Lord, Lord German, mentioned Wales. There will be a tendency to say, “This system works. We’ll carry on with it for another year and maybe another year after that”. So I really do not see it as working. I welcome where the Government have got to, but I do not think that they have gone far enough. I am pretty neutral on the thing because I will not in any case go near a pub or restaurant that has smoking, but I urge the Government to go some way further, to grasp this particular bull by the horns and say, “We’re not having smoking in places that serve drink or food”.

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[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara [V]]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 19, I will also speak to my other amendments in this group. Since there is much agreement, and also duplication, I will try to be brief.

These amendments are drafted pursuant to the 17th DPRRC report. I thank the committee for its hard work on this Bill, and on the emergency Bills on which it has had to work in recent weeks. The timescales are very difficult, and the pressure to deliver is also very high, but it has been able to do that with considerable skill, and we are very grateful.

The DPRRC recommendations set up, in essence, a dialogue between the Government and the committee. However, in a spirit of co-operation and because of the short timescales of the emergency legislation, we often put down the recommendations of the committee as amendments as a way of encouraging the Government to act. In Committee, we had a series of notifications that the Government were preparing to accept the DPRRC recommendations. However, on this occasion, it also produced an interesting outcome. For your Lordships’ information, the wording of our amendments has been strongly influenced by the helpful advice we received from the Public Bill Office, although they are our responsibility and tabled in my name. But it is interesting that on several occasions, recommendations made by the DPRRC in the report have resulted in different wordings in the amendments that have been tabled by the Government and by ourselves. When the noble Earl comes to reply, he may be able to shed light on the Government's thinking and explain some of the differences in approach, and I think that would be helpful. Amendment 78 in the name of the noble Earl says:

“If the Secretary of State considers it reasonable to do so to mitigate an effect of coronavirus.”


But our version in Amendment 79, which we hope will achieve the same result, says

“but regulations may only be made under this subsection where the Secretary of State considers it necessary or appropriate for a purpose linked to the coronavirus pandemic.”

I am not saying that we have a monopoly on the correct drafting, but I think it interesting that we have come to different conclusions about what might be considered the same issue.

I am left with a slight concern that we may have exposed a gap in our procedures that is exacerbated by the nature of these pieces of legislation. I hope that in calmer times, the DPRRC and the House might find an opportunity to reflect on this, and that our other committees, such as the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and the Constitution Committee, might do likewise.

When he comes to respond, it would be for the benefit of the House if the noble Earl highlighted any areas where the Government have decided not to follow the advice of the DPRRC, in whole or in part. I beg to move.

[Lord Balfe [V]]

I only really need to say one thing. I am concerned that some of these clauses might turn into permanent legislation—I am aware that there is a tendency for what is temporary to become permanent. Can I have the Minister’s assurance that it is not intended to extend any of these clauses beyond what is absolutely necessary to deal with this emergency?

[Lord Blunkett (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I share the fear expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, and by many others during the brief passage of this urgent legislation. We must be mindful that it is on the whole about temporary and not permanent measures, and that we have clearly identified where the temporary should apply. I will not overegg the difference between Amendments 78 and 79, which has been rightly highlighted by my noble friend Lord Stevenson, especially as the Government Chief Whip has reminded us to confine ourselves to getting this Bill through to Royal Assent without keeping people up until midnight. Enough has been said.

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[Lord Mann (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I thank the Government for the way in which they have listened on the amendments that have been tabled, particularly in relation to late licensing and the problem that occurs in many communities of police forces being overstretched by over-late licensing for tiny numbers. That seems to be a bit of a tradition going back three or four Governments. It was not just the disruption to local residents that was a problem, it was the huge distortion—in areas such as the one I live in—in how the police budget was used.

I recall an example where a late licence was given to one premises until 5 am. Tiny numbers would be drinking there but the danger of some form of anti-social behaviour between, say, the hours of 1 and 5 am was disproportionately high. Therefore, police rosters for an entire area had to be altered. It took a good two years of argument and pressing to begin to work that backwards. The consequential impact on other policing, when police numbers were very low, was great. I commend the Government on their approach and commend noble Lords who have proposed amendments that would have a similar impact on timing. The foreseeable consequence in relation to police resources, particularly in smaller communities, is huge. That displacement at the moment would be critical.

On the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, I propose to the Minister that the question of miners’ welfares always needs to be borne in mind. Whenever there is licensing, I always think miners’ welfares are a good litmus test of whether the law is any good. The miners’ welfares that I know very well are in a range of locations. Some have licences that fall comfortably within the concept of gardens and that kind of space. Some have at great expense designed spaces to capitalise on that. Others do not have that opportunity but have a similar kind of clientele—a highly responsible clientele who have been better in the responsibleness of their behaviour over the last three or four months and are able to drink sensibly and rationally.

What the Government propose seems far more sensible than the amendment. If there were to be an amendment, the one proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, seems the more rational option. It seems to me that, for some businesses that are on the cusp at the moment, simply restricting in would have unforeseen consequences for their business planning. I encourage those miners’ welfares to survive by providing an additional service. Despite the fact that I had great fears about potential late-night drinking, I have no fears about that in communities such as the one I live in. I think the Government have listened and commend their approach on this. I would be interested to hear the debate on what the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, has to say. He seems to have struck a middle ground but does not appear to be pushing his amendment to a vote.

[Lord Balfe [V]]

I have one question for the Minister and one point to make. In the city I live in, there are a number of licensed premises near the centre of town for which the local authority has made the licence to sell alcohol cease at 10 pm. Will that still be permissible under the provisions here? I confess that I cannot work it out. It did it to stop people coming out of local pubs and doing what is known as preloading—in other words, getting alcohol from nearby off-licence premises and either trying to take it back into the pub or drinking outside the pub. Will licences earlier than 11 pm still be able to be imposed?

The second point is that the banning of glasses is really quite important. Anyone who has been to the accident and emergency department of Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge will know that scarcely a Saturday night goes by without some sort of incident that has involved alcohol and broken glass—a bottle, a mug or a glass. I am concerned about this and would like the Government to rehearse why they feel they cannot agree to what seems to be a quite reasonable amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Paddick.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering]

My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend the Minister for accommodating the concerns expressed, both at Second Reading and especially in Committee, with regard to the noise and nuisance associated with late-night drinking. I welcome the fact that the cut-off will be fixed at 11 pm. This allows bars and restaurants to adapt to these new temporary measures, given the challenge they face and the loss of trade they have suffered, but also recognises the rights of residents, who obviously want to have a good night’s rest and peace and quiet after 11 pm.

I have one question for my noble friend about Amendment 40 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. I have some sympathy with what he is proposing, but currently if you walk home on a sunny evening you see the general spillover on to the pavement of regular bars. I assume these are glasses carried out from the bar on to the pavement, so I am not quite sure why we will have two rules—one that will apply to this temporary piece of legislation, while the permanent situation will carry on as normal. Perhaps we should look at what other countries do and learn from them. I have great difficulty in seeing how this would apply in practice.

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[Baroness Kramer [V]]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly to government Amendment 54 to say thank you. The Government have made the amendment that was required by the mayoral development corporations and Transport for London to be able to hold virtual decision-making meetings and meetings which the public can attend. They have done what was needed, and I and many others are grateful.

It would be helpful if the Government could confirm that the relevant clause will come into effect on Royal Assent and no later than Royal Assent. This is also a request to the Government to amend the relevant flexibility regulations—SI 2020/392—as soon as possible after Royal Assent, and then bring those regulations into effect as soon as is practical, perhaps in less than the normal 21-day period, because that will ensure that the most use can be made of the new method of working that has been approved by this amendment. Again, my thanks.

[Lord Balfe [V]]

This legislation, which we are almost at the end of, is caused by the Covid crisis. It is, in many ways, a panic Bill, since we are trying to write things we may or may not succeed in.

I make two points. First, please let us not throw away environmental gains which mean a lot to communities, and particularly to residents. Many of them have fought for years to get decent standards for starting and ending developments and ending working days. Secondly, please keep it temporary: make sure that the provisions that we are told will lapse will do so in due course. I support what my noble friend Lord Lansley is doing, but I hope the criticisms aimed at local authorities for their slowness, often wrongly, are also taken on board by developers, who are sitting on massive land banks and need to get on with things. They did not need this legislation; they had been able to build hundreds of thousands of houses, but have not managed it, so let us keep a sense of perspective, and not throw the proverbial baby out with the legislative bathwater.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, has withdrawn from the list, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Shipley.

Business and Planning Bill

Lord Balfe Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 6th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I begin by saying how strongly I support my noble friend Lord Cormack. Until we get back to a proper House, we are not going to be able to do a proper job. I want to speak about Part 1 of the Bill. It takes me back almost 20 years to the Bill introduced by Tessa Jowell and Tony Blair, who were going to build a café economy. Unfortunately, their idea of a café economy was based on having a kir royale in the south of France, whereas the reality was drunkenness in provincial towns in Britain. My wife spent four years as a local councillor trying to undo a lot of the damage of that Bill.

I am not sure whether or not I welcome the Bill, frankly. It assumes that people will go back in great numbers to restaurants. I do not think that is going to be the case; I think the drift back to restaurants will be quite gradual. I live in Cambridge; last Saturday the lockdown ended and I walked into the city, where there was no evidence that social distancing was being respected. The pubs were not absolutely crowded and there was no violence, but there was certainly no over- crowding in them either. They were pleasantly full—with people, as I say, ignoring social distancing. In short, I do not think that people will go back.

I would like to see—and I endorse what my noble friend Lord Blencathra, the noble Lord, Lord Low, and others have said about—rules on pavements. Wheelchairs and buggies must be able to get past without impediment. It should not be the case that people have to carefully move aside. That is point one. I would like that to be a part of all the applications.

I also endorse what the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, said. I think there should be a premium on there normally not being smoking outdoors, rather than the other way around. Otherwise, you will be saying to all the people who do not smoke, “If you choose to sit outside, you will be in a smoking zone.” I do not think they should be; it should be the other way around.

I have a small technical question for the Minister, which he may wish to return to next week or in writing. I live on the edge of a cumulative impact zone. We have a huge number of licensed premises and we also have a number of charity shops. Will the licensed premises —the cafés, restaurants and shops—be able to do a deal with the charity shop next door to extend over their pavement space? I can think of at least three charity shops on the main street near us that are next door to licensed premises. We need to be clear about that.

Secondly, I would like to see a deal with pubs on residential streets. Two of the streets running parallel to the road I live on have a pub on them. There are already problems with people spilling on to the pavements; what is going to be done about that?

Thirdly, I think that the whole legislation is in favour of the restaurants and the licensed premises. Local people need far more say, far more information and far greater opportunities to protest. I want to see what the powers will be, first, of the police to object and, secondly, of people to object. How are hearings going to be held? I fear that we are rushing to judgment, we are rushing into a new system, and we are going to legislate in haste and repent at leisure.

Covid-19 Update

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As I said, we are working extremely closely with the performing arts sector because we are well aware of the issues it faces. The noble Lord will know that we have set up the Cultural Renewal Taskforce, an entertainments and events working group, with extensive membership from across the artistic and creative sectors, to work with us to make sure that we can reopen these venues when it is safe to do so. As I mentioned, a further round table is being held next week to discuss guidance and innovative ideas on how we may permit live performances again. I mentioned in response to an earlier question that the sector has been helped financially in a number of ways, including the £160 million Arts Council England emergency funding. The Secretary of State is continuing discussions with the sector and I am sure they are discussing these very issues.

[Lord Balfe (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I have two points. Incidents in Gütersloh, China and various other places have demonstrated that the virus can spread in meat markets and open markets. Have the Government initiated any scientific investigation of the need for extra measures around abattoirs?

My second question regards local lockdowns. I am still not clear who decides to impose a lockdown. Who is the responsible officer who can say, “Right, this is an outbreak, we need a lockdown”, and then call people together? Crucially, there has to be one person who can make the decision. Who is it?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As I have said, each local area has a local action committee, which will be working with a number of different organisations. That is where decisions will be made at a local level. If, for instance, in Weston-super-Mare, the issue was around a specific hospital, the hospital would close. To a degree, it will also depend on exactly where the outbreak has happened. Central and local information will be used so that we can act very quickly. The NHS Test and Trace system and the joint biosecurity centre will play an important role in helping feed through data on local outbreaks.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Lord Balfe Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 13th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to speak after my noble friend Lord Young, because I thought I might be the only person on these Benches who supports what the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, had to say. Listening to much of this debate, one would imagine that he was proposing revolution. He is actually proposing something that was described to me by a leading Labour Member of the other place as “a bit mild; if we win the election, we’ll have them all out by Christmas”. What is being proposed will take about 40 years to achieve. I am simply surprised. I say to my noble friend Lord Mancroft that I am probably the last person he would wish to see here: I am a former Member of the European Parliament; I spent 40 years in Brussels; I still have kind things to say about and great admiration for David Cameron; and, just in case I needed finally sinking, I served on the Greater London Council—though not under the leadership of Mr Livingstone, I should say.

Let us move on: this House has always been subject to piecemeal reform. The 1911 Act begins by saying that it is pending a final review of the House. If we look at the antics that went on under David Lloyd George, there were then changes that restrained somewhat the power of Prime Ministers to sell places in this Chamber. If we look at the Macmillan reforms of the late-1950s and the Blair reforms, they could be said to be part of a pattern: a gradual evolution—very much a British thing. If we look at the period since 1999, I would counsel that the idea of an elected Chamber has in fact fallen in estimation. I have been to a lot of schools—I was part of the schools programme—and there was very little support for an elected Chamber when it was explained that it would mean another set of elections, the Members would all need salaries and staff and, instead of having one MP, you would have two people floating round your area. Where I live, the city of Cambridge, bigger constituencies would mean one Labour Member and one Conservative Member, so all you would end up with is fighting. On top of that, the people who elected you would expect you to be much more partisan than we have to be. I am delighted to hear support for an elected Chamber, but I am not sure it is completely thought through.

I see the proposals put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, as very much incremental. They would take years to come to fruition. I accept that one advantage of by-elections for hereditary Peers is that we tend to get the cream of the crop; we get the best of the hereditary Peers in here. But many of them would qualify anyway for appointment by a Prime Minister. No one is saying that a hereditary Peer cannot then be appointed at a future time. I hope that we can move forward and pass this Bill. If we cannot pass a Bill like this, let us forget the words about being a “self-regulating House”. We are more like the Polish Sejm of the early 18th century, where anyone could object to legislation and nothing happened at all. If we want to move forward, we have to take a progressive and intelligent view of the need to reform this House.

Early Parliamentary General Election Bill

Lord Balfe Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, five minutes is not a long time to speak, so I will not give a long history lesson, but I must observe that the history of winter elections is not very bright. The last one fought in December was fought by Stanley Baldwin, who lost. The last election fought on the question of who governs Britain was fought by Edward Heath and the answer was, “Well, we’re not sure, but definitely not you”. So the precedents are not that good. Even in 1910, the January and December elections produced stalemate; they did not move anything forward. None the less, I live in hope that this election will get it done, because we need to break the logjam.

In the referendum three-and-a-half years ago, it was argued that people did not know what they were voting for. That could be right: a lot was said and a lot passed under the bridge, but this time, no one can say that. Although I strongly believe in remain, I think the fact that Boris Johnson has made his position very clear is a good thing, because it means that when the result comes in, if he has won, he has a clear mandate for Brexit. I will not be arguing any longer for a referendum; I will say, he has put the matter to the people and he has won a majority for what he wanted to do. I call on all my colleagues to respect that. Similarly, if we get what I am going to call a coalition Government, they must be committed, in some way or another, to a confirmatory referendum. There has been a little too much point-scoring between the Lib Dems, the Labour Party and the SNP. They have to reach a common position, and part of that common position has to be what they will put back to the people and how long before it is done.

As many noble Lords will know, I have a dual role, doing some jobs in Brussels. The frustration there is about the inability of the political class in Britain to decide what it wants. If a coalition Government went back and said, “Look, we’re going to have a referendum”, it would have to be a referendum that led not to months of wrangling but to a clear decision. Either we are staying on the terms we had before, or we are leaving on the basis negotiated. We cannot carry on and on with this division.

I make one reflection. We hear a lot about stable government. For a long time, I have advocated proportional representation. I was always told that it would end stable government. My answer has always been that if you had PR, you would not have Jeremy Corbyn leading the Labour Party and you might have a different leader of the Conservative Party. Yes, we would have to put up with the equivalent of Die Linke, the left in Germany, and the equivalent of the AfD. I remind your Lordships that the Norwegian first party and the Finnish now party, as right-wing parties, have played a more constructive role in government than they would have done as outliers within the main parties. I put it to your Lordships that part of the solution might still lie in a reformed electoral system.

Finally, picking up on something that my good friend, my noble friend Lord Cormack said—I first knew him when I was dealing with the trade unions—I deeply regret the treatment of, in particular, Ken Clarke, with whom I worked closely when the Conservatives were in opposition; even more so David Lidington, who became a personal friend and was, to my mind, probably our best Minister for Europe, widely respected and liked there and able to put an often difficult case across without alienating people; and finally, Patrick McLoughlin, one of the few working men who got on to the Conservative Front Bench and who played a distinctive role in keeping the party’s feet on the ground. They have been treated disgracefully, and it does our party no credit not to readmit them and put them up for membership of this House, which they have all justly earned through their service.

European Council

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Monday 23rd October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I wish to refer to two points in the Statement. The first relates to Operation Sophia. I was on the committee of this House that produced the report Operation Sophia: A Failed Mission. We looked closely at it, and I know the EU has looked very closely at our conclusions. When we leave foreign policy co-operation, that will no longer be possible for us to write.

Secondly, I draw attention to the item on Turkey. Traditionally we have been very realistic about Turkey. A number of European partners have been much tougher than us and, in many ways, much less wise. If our moderating voice is missing from the Council, surely that—our foreign policy co-operation—is yet another way in which our departure will weaken not only Europe but Britain’s ability to have our voice listened to with respect and acted upon.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

We have certainly condemned recent developments in Turkey, and obviously there was the discussion in the EU Council. We will continue to have our voice heard even when we leave the EU because we are a key part of other international bodies that are concerned with this area. On the noble Lord’s first point, it is important to recognise that since June, migration flows across the Aegean are significantly down, thanks to considerable efforts on all sides, and there were fewer than 6,000 arrivals to Italy in September. Obviously, we have seen some appalling things happening in that area, but international action—with us involved in the EU, but there is also the great work the Royal Navy is doing there—is making a difference. It is critical that we stop people-smuggling and stop advantage being taken of these very vulnerable people, to try to ensure that we can improve their situation and lives.