Russian Oil and Gas Imports

Lord Bassam of Brighton Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

Indeed. I agree very much with my noble friend, who makes some extremely good points. We need to bear in mind that a relatively small percentage of our supply is from Russia, of both oil and gas; it makes up less than 4%. I totally agree with him regarding nuclear. Indeed, for those noble Lords who are interested, the Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill is in Grand Committee tomorrow.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, I have heard the Minister’s response, taking on board in part the point from the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and recognise that we live in uncertain times. For clarity, can the Minister reconfirm the Government’s commitment to prioritising the development of renewables and that Ministers are looking to speed this programme up, and further commit to ensuring that the Government will renew measures to protect the poorest in our communities from the worsening impacts of rising energy prices?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I agree in large part with what the noble Lord said. Of course we need to expand our renewable capacity as quickly as possible. We already have record amounts and we need to pursue that. We are introducing contracts for difference rounds every year to maintain the ongoing flow of supply. As the noble Lord is aware, we introduced a £9.1 billion package of support for the poorest households.

Post Office: Horizon Compensation

Lord Bassam of Brighton Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I think the noble Lord is being a little unfair. He referred to a third, but it depends which of the cases he is talking about. There are a number of different aspects to this. There are those who had their convictions overturned, most of whom have already received £100,000 in interim compensation. On top of that there is the historical shortfall scheme, which is proceeding as fast as we can. The reason we set this up is to precisely avoid long delays through litigation, and obviously the process itself is managed through the Post Office and its advisers. But I will certainly take his message back. Nobody wants to see this drag on for too long.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, I would like to return to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot. It seems quite wrong that a company that knew what it was doing, knew that the kit was faulty, and knew that mistakes were being made has not been involved in this case. They should be making payments to the Government so that the Government can fully compensate all those who have being wrongfully imprisoned, charged within this scheme and have suffered years of life-destroying consequences. That company must be held responsible, and the Government should make sure that is the case.

Small Business Commissioner: Late Payments

Lord Bassam of Brighton Excerpts

Tuesday 7th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I have had this discussion with the noble Lord before. The construction industry is different; there are adjudication processes already set up for it and we are also looking at the issue of payment retention, as the noble Lord knows well. It is a complicated issue. The legislation already precludes the application to the construction industry, because there is an adjudication code process already there.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, I appreciate the Minister’s candour in this but remind him that, earlier in the year, he said:

“Late payments damage the cashflow of small businesses, which can hold back investment or job creation and, in the worst cases, lead to job losses and business closures. Action to stop the damaging practice of late payments remains a key priority for Government.”


But is it, given that it has taken the Government over a year to consider the consultation and we are yet to see any response? Will the Government now commit to providing SMEs with greater protections from insolvencies, including by giving statutory powers to the Small Business Commissioner to chase late payments? This is a very urgent issue.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

This is a priority for the Government —there are lots of priorities for the Government at the moment. The new powers that we consulted on include compelling the disclosure of information, including in relation to payment terms and practices, and imposing financial penalties or binding payment terms on businesses. These are important issues that need to be considered properly. We need to go through the consultation responses properly, and we will respond as soon as we can.

Competition Act 1998 (Coronavirus) (Public Policy Exclusions) (Revocations) Order 2021

Lord Bassam of Brighton Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, what a privilege it is to have the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, with us this evening. With COP 26 happening in Glasgow, the Minister for Energy Efficiency, Fuel Poverty and Clean Heat is among us. In fact, maybe I should apologise that we have detained him from saving the planet. I hope that he will be able to give us a brief insight into COP 26 and his role in it in his answer to the very good questions asked by noble Lords and my noble friend Lady Randerson.

What I thought was more of an irony about this order is that it mentions the Competition Act 1998 (Groceries) (Public Policy Exclusion) Order 2020, whose time has, I think, already expired. The irony is that the thing which the groceries order was set up for—Brexit and Covid—was not a problem at the time, but now we actually have a crisis. A number of the supermarket shelves are empty, we do not have HGV drivers and supply chains are failing, so maybe we should look at that. We have now allowed cabotage, and drivers’ hours have been extended. It is mentioned here that we have more of an emergency, particularly perhaps as we approach Christmas, than we would do otherwise.

I want to say a couple of things about the Isles of Scilly—not the Scilly Isles, as they are very different places, one fictional and one real. First, I want to thank the Government for the £48 million that has been attributed through the levelling-up fund, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, to sorting out the next generation of vessels and the port structures that support them for travel between Penzance, which I visited over the weekend, and the Isles of Scilly—and between those islands as well. That very important commitment allows a change from the current “Scillonian” and freight vessel, which are well out of date and will cause problems into the future. I do not dispute in any way the questioning of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. He knows far more about ferry configurations than I would, but we should note specifically and positively the Budget Statement in that area.

I am also a supporter of competition, in principle, because it is important whether you do it through procurement of a contract to run a service—perhaps on a TfL basis—or in the form it takes on the Isle of Wight, which perhaps does not work exactly correctly, where there is competition between operators. That is important, but what we have with Scilly is always the cost and uncertainty of the connection. We always looked at Scotland as having a far better approach to remote communities off our islands, while in England we find, off Cornwall, that the Scillies are discriminated against.

I looked up the cost of flying by helicopter, which is a form of competition. For those who wish to visit—and I hope you do—the price for a single adult to fly to Tresco or St Mary’s is £129 one-way. If you are lucky enough to be an infant aged between two and 11, it is only £108. That gives an indication of the cost of that second-rate transit for members of the British Isles community. They are second in a league to our friends north of the border.

I reiterate that I wish the Minister every success at COP 26. I am sure he will be there in his energy roles. This conference is the most important we have had on the planet, and I give all good wishes to the Government, and Alok Sharma, in achieving success at it. I also thank the Government for the recognition of the Scillies issue in the Budget.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I thank my noble friend Lord Berkeley for securing today’s debate via his Motion of Regret, which clearly comes from a good place—designed, as it is, to protect consumers from high prices and to keep ferry routes accessible to all. The debate has generated more heat than I expected, but it is important because in our communities at the periphery, there is a strong sense that they suffer from high prices, are forgotten because they are at the end of the line, and get left out in government considerations. I join my noble friend Lord Berkeley, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, in thanking the Government on behalf of the Isles of Scilly for their £48 million contribution to improving the quality of the sea services to those islands, because what is there at the moment is clearly not fit for purpose and needs to be improved. It is a lifeline service and helps the tourist economy of those islands.

As we heard, in March 2020, the Government announced that ferry services to and from the Isle of Wight were at significant risk of disruption due to the pandemic, so they introduced regulations which allowed the two ferry operators to share information and staff to ensure that ferries continued to run regularly across the Solent. That was for all the reasons and purposes that noble Lords have outlined: for economic, health, education and welfare reasons.

Now, of course, the Government have decided that the Covid pandemic is at an end and seem to think it is the right time to end the suspension of competition law, believing it is no longer needed. I do not know that the pandemic is at an end: the figures tell us otherwise. People are getting Covid at the rate of about 40,000 a day, and about 1,000 people a week are dying from it, so I am not sure that we are at the end of it. People are still very cautious in their travel plans for that very reason. The absence of people travelling means that those services could be under threat in future. I do not buy the line that there is no more threat of severe disruption to the Isle of Wight ferry crossing services.

Can the Minister explain how the Government reached the conclusion that now is the right time to end the Covid provisions? Although I am not a local of the Isle of Wight, it is a place that I have visited on many occasions. I think the first time I went there was in 1970, to a pop festival. Back in those days, Sealink, a nationalised industry, ran the service. It was a very good and very cheap service, actually, by the standards of the time. As a Brightonian, I am familiar with the ferry service: it goes from just down the road in Newhaven, along the coast from the Isle of Wight. It strikes me that ferry prices there are quite expensive. Ironically, my wife recently used the service and complained to me about it. I can understand how local people who have to make multiple journeys for work, health, education and other purposes see their ferry ticket prices adding up and becoming a serious expense and, by default, an inhibition on business on the island. I must acknowledge that there is genuine concern from some that there is insufficient competition.

I think that my noble friend Lord Berkeley said that there were two monopolies, and I think that is probably a fair description of how it works, and that that has undoubtedly resulted in high fares. I suspect that the companies see those two services, in particular, as providing a regular flow of income that they can pretty much rely on. Does the Minister think that fares are too high? Clearly, local people do. That is reflected in the attitude of the local MP and local councillors. Are there too many barriers to entry to new ferry companies, I wonder?

It has been reported that an island-based consortium may well be working up a plan to run a community vehicle ferry service and has asked the local council for its help. Are the Government planning any additional support for such a move? Do they see that it has a role in stimulating some genuine local competition? If they do, I suspect there will be quite a lot of takers for that service, given the high cost of the service as it currently is.

So are the Government planning to ensure that there is real competition? Do they accept that services are expensive? What comfort can be offered to the community of the Isle of Wight in ensuring that ferry services can be provided in future at a reasonable price?

Private Equity Takeovers

Lord Bassam of Brighton Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

As the noble Lord is aware, there are a multiplicity of different international standards, but we are of course introducing the transparency requirements on climate disclosures, as he knows. We have the audit reform proposals, which will extend the reporting requirements to many large private companies as well. We will publish our response to that consultation shortly.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, according to the financial market data company Refinitiv, private equity firms have made over 345 bids for British companies this year—the highest number since records began back in 1984. We need to ensure that new owners act responsibly, so does the Minister have confidence that the regulatory bodies have sufficient oversight and powers to intervene when private equity owners of British companies fail that duty? How can we build national economic resilience at home to promote global Britain abroad if companies are being bought up so easily and cheaply?

UK Property Ownership: Overseas Jurisdictions

Lord Bassam of Brighton Excerpts

Wednesday 13th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

If the noble Baroness means shell companies in British Overseas Territories and others, they are also convinced of the need for transparency and we continue to press them to provide full ownership and transparency details on these companies.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, it is hard to take seriously the Government’s claim that they aim to lead the global fight against illicit finance, or the register that the Minister has referred to. The Government claim they have impressive controls, but it is now three years since their consultation ended on the draft registration of overseas entities Bill, so can the Minister tell the House what plans they have to tackle our high-risk score, stop money laundering and protect the UK against terrorist financing?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

As I said, the Financial Action Task Force that we established got the best rating of any country assessed so far in the round of evaluations in countering money laundering. We are opposed to it and we will do all we can to fight it, as noble Lords will want us to do. We intend to legislate on the registration of beneficial ownership and will do so as soon as parliamentary time allows.

Status of Workers Bill [HL]

Lord Bassam of Brighton Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 10th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise from the Labour Benches to support this excellent Bill from my noble friend Lord Hendy and to congratulate him, as all others in the House have, on his excellent and forensic introduction of it. It is, as one noble Lord described it, a very elegant solution. I say to the one dissenter in the House this morning, the noble Lord from the Conservative Benches, that he should probably have a discussion with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, having heard what he said to us about the state of the law in its current form.

It is unacceptable that millions of workers face insecure employment with low pay, few rights and few protections. The fact that this particularly affects key workers, whose efforts have got the country through the pandemic, is even more distressing. As we have heard today, around 3.6 million workers are in insecure labour. Employers are increasingly scheduling and cancelling shifts at short notice, and 84% of zero-hours contract workers are offered work at less than a day’s notice. Some 15.6% of caring and service workers are insecurely employed, and disabled workers, women and black and minority ethnic workers are all more likely to be in insecure labour too.

How can it be right that so many people face such insecurity? How can it be right that, as we have heard today, so many workers in the UK live in poverty and on poverty wages propped up by universal credit? How can it be right that this situation exists? How can the Government claim to be at the helm of a functioning economy when the existence of food banks has, sadly, become the norm throughout the UK? This insecurity is bad for working people, damaging for the economy and, as we have seen through the pandemic, devastating for public health.

This insecurity stems directly from the statute book. Even the Government recognise this, or seemed to, and had promised to bring forward an employment Bill, but that promise, like many others, has been broken with the legislation seemingly dropped from the Queen’s Speech earlier this year. Perhaps the Minister can explain whether that Bill will ever see the light of day, let alone be introduced to Parliament.

Turning to my noble friend Lord Hendy’s elegant solution, his Bill seeks to fix flaws in our current law where separate employment statuses exist, such as employee, limb (b) workers and the bogus self-employed. Each of the three existing categories has separate accompanying protections with qualifying periods for rights such as statutory maternity, adoption, paternity and shared parental leave. There have been many cases where employers actively exploited the separate categories by falsely putting workers in a category with fewer rights.

For example, concerns have been raised for many years about the extent of bogus or false self-employment in the gig economy where individuals are registered as self-employed although they should qualify for employee or worker status. As we have heard today, this was seen in Uber v Aslam, where Uber drivers argued that they were workers while Uber maintained that they were self-employed contractors. This unfairness must end and all workers must receive the proper rights and protections.

Therefore, we on these Benches support this legislation to create a single status of worker. It would replace existing employment categories and remove qualifying periods for basic rights and protections to give workers day-one rights in the job. This would ensure that all workers receive rights and protections, including statutory sick pay, national minimum wage entitlement, holiday pay, paid parental leave and protection against unfair dismissal. It is important to stress that those who are genuinely self-employed would retain their status as being self-employed.

Does the Minister agree that this would be a positive step forward, or does he believe that, as he recently said, a three-tiered employment status structure provides the right balance for the UK labour market? If it is the latter, can he explain what he means by the right balance? I think the House deserves to hear an answer to that. It is a question that many have asked.

We need to tackle working arrangements that leave millions without a regular wage, key rights and important protections. Workers should and must receive them from day one of their employment, and that is what a Labour Government would do and what this Bill seeks to do. Can the Minister really be on the side of the worker if he opposes this legislation?

It is clear that we need to go much further than this Private Member’s Bill. That is why we are calling for additional rights and protections for the genuinely self-employed, including statutory sick pay, the right to flexible working for all workers as a default, the right to switch off from work outside working hours and new rights to protect workers from remote surveillance. Do the Minister and the Government support those proposals? Does the Minister now see the need for a full and broad-based employment Bill to be introduced as soon as possible? Does he see protections for workers as part of the levelling up agenda? The noble Lord, Lord Holmes, and many other noble Lords today clearly do.

We need a new deal for working people, and my noble friend Lord Hendy’s proposals in this Bill should be front and centre. I hope that the Minister and the Government agree. We will be listening very closely to his reply.

Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 (Coronavirus) (Extension of the Relevant Period) (No. 2) Regulations 2021

Lord Bassam of Brighton Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, we are back again debating measures to extend the restrictions on the use of statutory demands and winding-up petitions. I think this is the third time we have debated them, and every time we welcome, as we would from our Benches, the Government extending the safety net for businesses in distress because of the pandemic.

Just as we supported the emergency legislation last year, we welcome any measures to support the businesses that closed to keep us safe. As the Minister knows well by now, we argued then that the protections in the Act should be extended over a long period. As the Government extend them again, we reiterate the point, as we have before, that these short extensions cause real uncertainty and worry for businesses in the run-up to each expiry date, concerned as those businesses are with the cliff edge.

As the economy opens and restrictions end, it is right that these measures are kept under review, but we must also remember how many people are still affected by insolvency. The Government’s recent statistics, from July 2021, showed that there were 1,094 registered insolvencies. This was 13% higher than the number registered in the same month in 2020. Does the Minister expect this yearly increase to continue for the rest of 2021? Before he gets into the stream of consciousness response which the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, so eagerly anticipated, perhaps he could answer a few other questions as well.

Will this be the last extension of these measures, or will we be back in a couple of weeks, or a month or so, since the current extension is only to the end of September? What has changed since the last SI is that some support was not extended beyond the end of June. This includes the small supplier exemptions from the termination clause provisions and the suspension of viability for wrongful trading provisions. The Government have said that these measures were allowed to lapse to enable a gradual return of the insolvency framework to its normal operation. Can the Minister explain how this decision was made? What evidence was it based on? What impact has it had on businesses since June?

As we return fresh from recess, can we hear from the Minister about any new plans the Government have for wider reform of our insolvency laws, including providing some greater protection and support for key industries and their key workers? As Covid support continues to be pulled away, we must ensure that we do not see a whole wave of insolvencies during the latter end of this year, provoking rises in unemployment and making businesses less certain of the environment in which they will work. We need to get the right support to thrive in the post-pandemic period, whenever we feel that comes.

Having listened to noble Lords around the Committee, I think we are all in need of some reassurance. Some colleagues here want to see market forces let rip, but I do not think that doing so is necessarily the best option here, although of course we all want to return to normal. I look forward to the noble Lord’s reassurances and some answers to those key questions, as well as to those raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

First, I thank all noble Lords for their interesting and, as always, valuable contributions to this debate.

It is worth reiterating that, since the emergence of Covid-19, businesses have received billions in loans, tax deferrals, business rate relief and grants to support them and, vitally, to help them to preserve jobs. The Government’s road map for the staged lifting of restrictions has in my view been a success in protecting the UK from the spread of Covid-19 while the vaccine programme was rolled out, and we can all begin slowly to return to normality.

However, we must recognise that many businesses and others have suffered from the impact of the pandemic for over a year now, and in many cases it will take time to return to full pre-Covid financial health. The Government will continue to do what it takes to support businesses through this period of economic recovery.

The points raised have highlighted the importance of the measure being extended by these regulations and the necessity of extending it once more so that businesses can continue to benefit from it. These regulations will provide the much-needed continued support for businesses to concentrate their best efforts on continuing to trade, preserve jobs and build the foundations for our economic recovery. I sincerely hope that companies and their creditors will come together in good faith to maintain their future trading relationships and secure the benefits for both themselves and the economy as a whole.

I will answer some of the points that were quite fairly put to me in the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Sikka, and my noble friend Lord Leigh asked a very pertinent and relevant question about what will happen when these measures come to an end in a little over three weeks’ time. The Government recognise that there is potential for what I think both noble Lords referred to as a cliff-edge scenario involving the accumulation of unpaid debts becoming due when these restrictions and government fiscal support expire. I can tell noble Lords that work is ongoing with businesses and key stakeholders to develop solutions to enable a viable exit from these measures. All options are being considered, and I hope to make an announcement on this very shortly.

The noble Lord, Lord Sikka, asked what the Government are doing to support creditors who are unable to recover their debts and who are putting their own businesses at risk. To reiterate, this is a temporary measure that is intended to help struggling businesses during the continuation of the pandemic. It does not, as I said initially, permanently prevent the possibility of a creditor serving a statutory demand and/or presenting a winding-up petition. When the legislation expires, a creditor will be able to pursue their debt. We expect this to encourage businesses to continue, wherever possible, to meet their ongoing liabilities as far as they are able to do so.

There is a range of other legal options available to creditors seeking to recover debts which are unaffected by the changes being made here. If is, for example, possible to bring a civil claim to recover a debt. Also, where a company’s inability to pay is not related to Covid-19, it will still be possible to present a petition for winding it up, notwithstanding the points correctly raised by my noble friend Lord Hodgson. There is evidence to suggest that winding-up petitions are still being presented in appropriate cases.

Deep Seabed Mining

Lord Bassam of Brighton Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I know that the noble Baroness is a big supporter of our net-zero policy, but many of the critical minerals found on the deep seabed are important and often irreplaceable in electric vehicle batteries, offshore wind turbines and other technologies. But of course we need to pursue alternative research and development, and find alternative battery technology, and, as the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, said, reuse and recycling will also be very important.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

In the light of what the Minister just said, what metrics will the Government use to balance the need to reduce carbon emissions by encouraging the use of sustainable energy sources for the development of electric batteries against the potential for ecological damage caused by the extraction of seabed minerals used in battery production?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

It is important to say that there are no mining projects ongoing at the moment; there is a discussion about possible mining projects in future. Our position is that we need to ensure that, before any projects take place, strong environmental regulations and controls are put in place, and we are playing a critical role in helping to ensure that.

Human Rights Due Diligence

Lord Bassam of Brighton Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My noble friend makes a very good point. The UK is working closely with the International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change and the UNFCCC Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform to champion engagement and participation by indigenous groups in COP 26.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab) [V]]

A recent G7 communiqué said that the G7 was

“concerned by the use of all forms of forced labour in global supply chains”,

and G7 Ministers have been tasked

“to identify areas for strengthened cooperation and collective efforts towards eradicating the use of all forms of forced labour in global supply chains”.

Can the Minister clearly outline how this engagement will work ahead of the G7 ministerial meeting in October, and what do the Government want to achieve through this process?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The UK was the first state to produce a national action plan to respond to the guiding principles. We have continued to develop our approach, particularly with the Modern Slavery Act. We are working across the UK Government on this, and involving the devolved Governments in proper enforcement of the provisions.