Budget Statement
Lord Bates Excerpts(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Bates (Con)
My Lords, I want to use my time in praise of a spirit of optimism. It is shown by many people, and there is an abundance of medical evidence to prove that having an optimistic outlook boosts the immune system of individuals—something that I am banking on. I declare that I am an optimist; even my blood group is B positive.
As far as we are concerned, I believe that optimism can also boost the immune system of our economy as a whole. As the Chancellor of the Exchequer said last week:
“We will get through this—together … We will rise to this challenge.” —[Official Report, Commons, 11/3/20; col. 278.]
Rising to the challenge is, indeed, the need of the hour. It reminds us that resilience in overcoming adversity begins in the mind. Whatever fate has in store for us, the impacts will be far less severe and shorter in duration if we pull together and help each other to get through it. Rising to the challenge will be easier if we maintain that optimistic spirit. In my view, one of the finest books ever written was Optimism, published in 1903. In it, optimism is described as
“the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.”
The author was a young Helen Keller, who had just become the first deafblind student to graduate from university with a degree anywhere. Any person who has ever stood for election, any athlete who has ever competed in a race or any businessperson who has ever set up a business knows the truth of her words. So where is the hope and confidence in the current situation?
Let me start with confidence. Confidence speaks of remembering where we have come from and what we have. It reminds us that we have come through many challenges far worse than this in our long and illustrious history. Had this disease struck a year ago, it would have found our nation and our Parliament divided; it would have found a hamstrung Government in the midst of an acrimonious debate about Brexit. But all that changed on 12 December 2019; whether you are happy with the outcome or not, the message of the British people was crystal clear. As a result, political leadership has been restored and the Government are able to govern.
Had this crisis struck 11 years ago, it would have found us still reeling from the aftermath of the global banking crisis. Instead, we have had almost 10 years of economic growth, bringing borrowing under control and seeing some of the highest employment levels in our history. There is no doubt that our economy is in much better shape than it was and is more capable of withstanding these shocks.
We have a National Health Service which I believe is the envy of the world. It is our front line in the fight against this virus; we could not have a better one. Added to this, the Chancellor made a pledge in the Budget Statement, saying that
“whatever extra resources our NHS needs to cope with coronavirus, it will get. Whether it is research for a vaccine, recruiting thousands of returning staff or supporting our brilliant doctors and nurses—whether it is millions of pounds or billions of pounds—whatever it needs, whatever it costs, we stand behind our NHS.”—[Official Report, Commons, 11/3/20; col. 279.]
That should give our incredible NHS staff and all of us great confidence in facing this crisis.
Next, we have produced some of the greatest scientists. In his speech, the Chancellor mentioned Newton, Hodgkin and Turing. He could have added Faraday, Fleming, Darwin, Lister, Jenner, Ross, Davy, Crick, Hawking, Goodall and many more. The UK is home to two of the top three universities in the world; one of them, Cambridge, has produced more Nobel laureates than the country of France. The steam locomotive, television, telephone, electric lightbulb, computer and world wide web were all developed by British scientists. The greatest medical breakthroughs of all time—in nursing care and hospital safety, germ theory, IVF, the smallpox vaccine, penicillin and DNA—were all developed by British scientists and clinicians. If someone is going to come up with a vaccine to protect the world from this virus or diseases like it, my money is on the solution being found here. That is why we can be confident.
What about hope? Hope is all about being positive. It reminds us that we should not let what we cannot do stop us doing what we can. Many sections of the economy will adapt to home-working, thus: raising productivity; reducing pressures on public transport systems; tackling the housing crisis by reducing the need for people to crowd into big cities, especially in London; tackling the effects of climate change by reducing the need to travel and lessening congestion on our roads; and levelling up by moving more high-paid, high-skilled jobs to the regions.
As a result of this paradigm shift, we will need to ensure that we have greater connectivity—one moment of caution. One area in the world in which we still lag behind is broadband and mobile speeds, where we rank 34th and 26th respectively. I welcome the Government’s announcement of £5 billion to get gigabyte-capable fibre-optic broadband across the country. This is certainly what we need to continue being a technology superpower, but it is far from the reality at present. In many parts of the country, even here in London, many people struggle to get download speeds of 10 megabytes per second, let alone 1,000. Speed is indeed of the essence, as the noble Lord, Lord Oates, reminded us.
The worst part of any crisis is the feeling of being battered by events and not having any control. That is far from the case. We might remember the words of the Serenity Prayer:
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”
The Chinese character for crisis is composed of two characters. The first is for danger; the second is for opportunity. We need to continue to seek and grasp the many opportunities before us. In doing so, we will find renewed optimism, hope and confidence so that, together, we can not only rise to this challenge but emerge from it stronger.
Securitisation (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019
Lord Bates Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Bates
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 23 January be approved.
Relevant document: 16th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (Sub-Committee B)
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Bates, I beg to move that the House approves the Securitisation (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019. As this instrument is grouped, I will also speak to the Transparency of Securities Financing Transactions and of Reuse (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.
As with the instrument debated earlier, these SIs are part of the programme of legislation under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act that aims to ensure that, if the UK leaves the EU without a deal or an implementation period, there continues to be a functioning legislative and regulatory regime for financial services in the UK. These SIs will fix deficiencies in EU law on securitisation and securities financing transactions to ensure that they can continue to operate effectively after the UK leaves the EU.
The Transparency of Securities Financing Transactions and of Reuse (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 concern securities financing transactions, or SFTs. Broadly speaking, SFTs are transactions where securities such as equities are used to borrow cash or vice versa. A common type of SFT is a repo, or repurchase transaction, in which one party sells an asset to another at one price and commits to repurchase the asset from the other party at a different price on a later date. SFTs were not regulated before 2015 and there were major concerns around their effects on the economy, especially given the experience during the financial crisis where repurchase transactions were associated with increases in leverage, while exacerbating boom and bust cycles in the economy. After the Financial Stability Board identified significant risks associated with these instruments, the EU securities financing transactions regulation introduced a framework under which details of SFTs must be reported to trade repositories. Trade repositories are effectively databases for reporting transactions. Under the regulation, this information must then be disclosed to investors and national regulators are required to act where they identify risky practices by firms.
The Securitisation (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 concern securitisation: the practice of pooling financial assets such as loans into financial instruments called securities, which can then be sold to investors. Securitisation allows banks to transfer some of the risk associated with the assets they hold to investors. This frees up regulatory capital to facilitate further lending. Securitisations can themselves be used to finance business activities and reduce the concentration of financial stability risks. To respond to concerns around the opaqueness and complexity of securitisation programmes, the EU adopted the securitisation regulation, which is based on international standards agreed by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. The EU securitisation regulation simplifies and consolidates a patchwork of earlier rules, and introduces the concept of a securitisation that is “simple, transparent and standardised”, also referred to as an STS securitisation, whose use is to be incentivised.
Both regulations are therefore crucial to protecting financial stability while ensuring that the benefits of these instruments to firms and the wider economy remain available. They will be transferred to the UK statute book by operation of the EU withdrawal Act on exit day, but in a no-deal scenario the UK would be outside the EEA and outside the EU’s legal, supervisory and financial regulatory framework, so this legislation would no longer be operative. These SIs make the necessary amendments to ensure that the provisions continue to work properly in a no-deal scenario.
The transparency of securities financing transactions and of reuse regulations amend, first, the treatment of EEA branches of financial services firms in the UK so that after the UK leaves the EU, EEA branches operating in the UK must report their transactions to a UK trade repository. This means that EEA branches will be treated in the same way as other third-country branches operating in the UK, which is consistent with the approach adopted under other financial services SIs laid under the EU withdrawal Act.
Secondly, this SI amends the list of entities that will have access to data on securities financing transactions reported to UK trade repositories. EU bodies are removed, making the list UK-specific, to reflect the UK’s status as a third country outside the EU in a no-deal scenario. This does not, however, preclude UK entities from co-operating with EU entities in future.
Finally, this SI transfers the European Securities and Markets Authority’s responsibilities relating to the requirements for the registration of trade repositories to the FCA, and amends these rules so they continue to work in a domestic context. This is appropriate given the FCA’s current role in supervising and regulating securities financing transactions.
It is worth mentioning that one of the main provisions of the securities financing transactions regulation cannot be domesticated at this stage, due to limitations in the powers under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act. This provision is the requirement on firms to report details of SFTs to trade repositories. Depending on the type of institution concerned, this requirement does not apply until 12 to 21 months after the publication of relevant regulatory technical standards by the EU. However, these have not yet been published and the requirement could therefore not be included in this SI, as it is not, in the wording of that Act,
“operative immediately before exit day”.
The Government have introduced separate legislation, in the form of the Financial Services (Implementation of Legislation) Bill, to enable us to make sure that this requirement applies in a domestic context in due course.
Turning to the draft Securitisation (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, this SI amends, first, the geographical scope of the EU regulation under which, currently, all parties involved in an STS transaction must be located in the EU. The SI amends this to allow UK counterparties to continue to participate in cross-border STS securitisations where some of the parties are located in third countries, expanding the current scope. This approach is appropriate because most securitisations are structured across borders, and it ensures that third countries are treated equally in the event of a no-deal scenario. For the UK securitisation markets to have maximum depth and liquidity while being subject to the same strict requirements introduced by the regulation, it was important not to constrain the UK market by requiring all parties to be located in the UK. None the less, this SI requires at least one of the parties to a securitisation to be located in the UK. The overall effect of this change in scope is to support liquidity in domestic securitisation markets, while ensuring that UK supervisors retain effective oversight of the securitisation as a whole.
Secondly, this SI introduces a transitional regime for the recognition of EU STS securitisations in the UK during a two-year period after the UK leaves the EU. This ensures that UK investors can continue to participate in the EU market for STS securitisations for that limited period. Any STS recognised by the EU during this two-year period will continue to be recognised in the UK until its maturity. This ensures that UK firms will continue to have access to a major market for STS securitisations.
The draft SI also clarifies the definition of “sponsor” in the securitisation regulation to ensure that where a sponsor wishes to delegate day-to-day portfolio management to a third party, that third party can be located anywhere in the world—not just in the EU. The regulation currently limits the location of the delegated firm to the EU. The EU Commission has acknowledged that this is an unintended consequence and is currently seeking to resolve the issue itself.
Finally, this SI transfers several functions currently carried out by the European supervisory authorities to the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority. Most importantly, the SI transfers responsibilities relating to the authorisation and supervision of trade repositories and the publication of STS notifications to the Financial Conduct Authority. This is appropriate given the FCA’s considerable experience in supervising securitisations. The Treasury has been working closely with the Prudential Regulation Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority in drafting these instruments. It has also engaged the financial services industry on these SIs, and will continue to do so going forward. On 19 December the Treasury published both instruments in draft, along with explanatory policy notes to maximise transparency to Parliament and industry; prior to publication, it also shared drafts with industry for technical analysis. The Treasury has incorporated this feedback into the final draft of the SIs.
In summary, the Government believe that the proposed legislation is necessary to ensure that the UK has workable regimes regulating securitisations and securities financing transactions, and that the legislation will continue to function appropriately if the UK leaves the EU without a deal or an implementation period. I hope that noble Lords will join me in supporting the regulations. I beg to move.
Money Market Funds (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019
Lord Bates Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Bates
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 24 January be approved.
Relevant document: 15th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (Sub-Committee A)
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, I will speak on behalf of my noble friend. The Treasury has been undertaking a programme of legislation to ensure that, if the UK leaves the EU without a deal or an implementation period, there continues to be a functioning legislative and regulatory regime for financial services in the UK. The Treasury is laying SIs under the EU withdrawal Act to deliver this, and a number of debates on these SIs have already been undertaken here and in another place.
This SI is part of this programme, and has been debated and approved by the other place. The SI will fix deficiencies in UK law on regulations for money market funds to ensure that they continue to operate effectively post exit. The approach taken in this legislation aligns with that of other SIs laid under the EU withdrawal Act, providing continuity by maintaining existing legislation at the point of exit, but amending where necessary to ensure that it works effectively in a no-deal context.
The European regulation on money market funds relates to their establishment, management and marketing. These funds invest in highly liquid instruments—such as Treasury bonds—and provide a short-term, stable cash management function to charities, local government, businesses and other financial institutions. They are predominately used by investors as an alternative to bank deposits. The regulations were introduced as part of the response to the 2008 global financial crash, to preserve the integrity and stability of the EU market, and to ensure that money market funds are a resilient financial instrument. This is achieved by having further rules on prudential requirements, governance and transparency for operators of money market funds.
Money market funds are structured as either an undertaking for collective investment in transferable securities or alternative investment funds. Consequently, they are required to comply with regulations that apply to UCITS or alternative investment funds. The regimes for UCITS and AIF managers have been separately amended to reflect the UK leaving the EU by the Collective Investment Schemes (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 and Alternative Investment Fund Managers (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were made on Wednesday 20 February.
First, this draft instrument removes references to the European Union which are no longer appropriate, and to EU legislation which will not form part of retained EU law. These references will be replaced, to refer to the UK and to relevant domestic and retained EU legislation. Secondly, in line with the general approach taken in other instruments, this SI will transfer functions within the remit of EU authorities to UK institutions. All functions exercised by the European Commission will be transferred to the Treasury. These relate to creating rules on standards for money market funds, such as their liquidity and quantification of credit risk.
All functions exercised by the European Securities and Markets Authority will be transferred to the FCA. The FCA will become responsible for technical standards on how funds should stress test their funds, and for two operational powers to establish a register and reporting templates for money market funds. The FCA, as the UK’s regulator for investment funds and the current national competent authority for money market funds, has extensive experience in the asset management sector and is therefore the most appropriate domestic institution to take on these functions from ESMA.
As previously stated, money market funds must be structured and regulated as UCITS or AIFs. This instrument makes provision to ensure that EU money market funds are able to use the temporary marketing permissions regime, which lasts for three years, as legislated for in the regulations for collective investment schemes and alternative investment fund managers. Following an assessment by the FCA and submitting a Written Ministerial Statement to both Houses, the Treasury will be able to extend this by a maximum of 12 months at a time. The temporary marketing permissions regime will allow for EEA money market funds which are currently marketed into the UK, and any subsequent money market fund structured as a UCITS sub-fund, to be able to continue to market into the UK as an MMF for up to three years after exit day.
This instrument amends the scope of the regulation to apply to the UK only, with the effect of only allowing the marketing of UK-authorised MMFs, or MMFs managed by UK fund managers. However, additional amendments maintain the eligibility for EEA MMFs with temporary permissions to continue to market in the UK at the end of the temporary marketing permissions regime period, if they gain the required permissions to market as a third-country fund under existing UK domestic frameworks.
Money market funds structured as UCITS will be required to gain authorisation under Section 272 of the FSMA, while for those structured as AIFs, their managers will need to notify under the national private placement regime.
The UK currently has a very small domestic market of money market funds, so these provisions address the cliff-edge risks that could arise as a consequence of defaulting to a UK-only market. This will ensure that UK investors can continue to access their investments and to have a choice of money market funds to use for cash management.
The Treasury has worked closely with the FCA in drafting this instrument. It has also engaged the financial services industry. This has included engagement with the Institutional Money Market Funds Association, which is the main industry body for money market funds. The House should be aware of remarks by its secretary-general, Jane Lowe, who stated:
“We believe the current draft SIs deal adequately with current EU legislation and consider that the dialogue between HM Treasury and industry was helpful to identify and iron out issues that arose”.
On 21 November, the Treasury published the instrument in draft along with an explanatory policy note to maximise transparency to Parliament and industry.
To summarise, the Government believe that this SI is needed both to ensure that the regulatory regime for money market funds and their operators works effectively, if the UK leaves the EU without a deal or an implementation period, and to ensure continuity for the UK investors they serve. I hope that noble Lords will join me in supporting this instrument. I beg to move.
English Premier League Football
Lord Bates Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Bates
That this House takes note of the international economic and cultural contributions of English Premier League football to the United Kingdom.
Lord Bates
My Lords, it is an immense privilege to kick off this debate on the English Premier League. In securing this debate, I am grateful still to be able to declare a Premiership interest as a supporter of Newcastle United Football Club. I have learnt to cope with the disappointment over the years, but it is the hope that I cannot quite handle.
My purpose in seeking this debate was to highlight the incredible contribution that Premier League football makes to UK plc week in, week out. It is by far the most watched league in the world: 212 countries broadcast the Premier League, compared with the 193 member states of the United Nations and the 204 countries that sent teams to the Olympic and Paralympic Games last summer. That is a real penetration rate. Some 1.46 billion people follow the Premier League around the world—70% of the total population of the televised sport market.
That market is growing fastest in a corner of the world where our economic interests are growing fastest: in Asia. Asia now accounts for 31% of the viewership of Premier League football. The Prime Minister, on a recent trade mission, mentioned the first time that he enrolled the substantial figure of the Premier League trophy as a member of his trade delegation. When he turned up to a dinner in Kuala Lumpur, he saw businessmen from all over east Asia, and he later said:
“I thought … all these people coming to have dinner with me, I must be such a big draw”.
He then realised that in fact they all just wanted to be photographed with the Premier League trophy. It is an immense draw and an immense asset for British business and diplomacy.
If we are in a global race—and we are—the Premier League represents a massive home advantage for British business and diplomacy: it is our Stretford End and our Kop. It is not surprising that the Premier League is at the heart of the GREAT campaign to sell British goods, services and culture around the world. When last year Monocle Magazine carried out its global survey of national soft power capital, the UK was ranked at number one. The Premier League was the driving force behind that extraordinary performance. When Populus carried out an international survey asking respondents to rank what made them view Britain more favourably, the Premier League out-polled popular music, the BBC and even—dare I say in the week of a royal birth?—the monarchy. Showing no hard feelings, Her Majesty awarded to the Premier League the Queen’s award for enterprise in international trade.
When the 22 first division clubs met on the morning of 27 May 1992 to resign en masse from the Football League, thus breaking with 104 years of tradition, not even they could have anticipated the global phenomenon that the Premier League has become. In its first season, it earned £46 million. Last year, it earned £1.28 billion and generated a further £3 billion for clubs through television rights. That is more than double the income of the Spanish and Italian leagues combined.
Part of what makes us British is that we sneer slightly at commercial success, believing that culture cannot really be culture if it is also popular. We slightly look down our noses at players with few or no qualifications earning £100,000 per week. However, the salaries simply reflect the success of the business in which they deploy their sublime skills. In that they are no different from those in any other enterprise, such as investment bankers or hedge fund supremos, except for the level of joy which they give to the public as they ply their trade. Furthermore, Premier League clubs also paid in excess of £1 billion in tax to the Exchequer last year.
With wealth comes responsibility, of course, and support for organisations such as the Football Foundation are a vital way of growing the game for the future. It would be good to see how more of that wealth at the top could trickle down to the grass roots and help new talent to grow.
People around the world do not just watch Premiership football, they also come to see it. VisitBritain announced in October 2012 that 900,000 football tourists came to the UK in 2012, contributing £706 million to the national economy. This compares favourably to the 590,000 people who turned up for the Olympics and Paralympics.
It is not just the staggering commercial success and sheer entertainment value through which the Premier League makes its contribution to the reputation of the UK around the world. It is also through its international engagement. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bach, chairman of the British Council All-Party Parliamentary Group, for pointing out to me the British Council and Premier League’s partnership through Premier Skills, which has helped 2,300 coaches and 400,000 young people in 20 countries around the world, including Afghanistan. It is no coincidence that the British Council has paired up with the Premier League—they both recognise that the Premier League’s global audience is earned because it is globally accessible. Clubs are owned by Russians, Chinese, Americans, Indians and Arabs, with managers from 11 nations and players from 65 nations, and they are all watched in 212 nations.
For those of us of an internationalist persuasion nothing warms our soul quite like the sight of sportsmen of many different nations and cultures playing on the same level playing field, under the same rules, demonstrating the same purpose and commitment, working together as a team in pursuit of common goals. We have Argentinean and English, Greek and Turk, Iranian and American, Ukrainian and Russian, Serb and Croat, Japanese and Korean, who all play in the league, for the same teams, demonstrating the unifying nature of sport and confirming—whatever the politicians or clerics might tell us—that we are all human first. It is the ultimate meritocracy as it matters not a jot whether you are rich or poor, educated or uneducated, gay or straight; it does not matter how you look—as Wayne Rooney can tell us—but only how you play and what results you deliver.
The league is also becoming more religiously diverse. We are all familiar with the crucifix-kissing and heavenward-pointing finger of Christian players’ goal celebrations, but more than 40 Muslim players now play in the league, and when Demba Ba struck a thunderous volley for Newcastle against Manchester United, I almost converted on the spot. Seriously, however, that is why it is vital that that the Premier League is ruthless in ensuring that racism and all other forms of prejudice are trumped by respect for all those on the field and off, for that is the Premier League brand. All are welcome, worthy of respect and are subject to the same rules.
The Premier League is a great success story of which we can all be proud. It can be an immensely powerful resource for British business and diplomacy around the world, not just because of the game itself but because of what it says about how we believe the game should be played.
I am very grateful to so many noble Lords for registering to speak in this debate and I look forward to their contributions—and, in the spirit of the game, I will forgo my extra time and pass it on. I beg to move.
Lord Bates
My Lords, I think that the Standing Order and the clock permit for a few minutes of post-match analysis of this debate. I thank all noble Lords who have taken part. I particularly thank my noble friend Lady Garden of Frognal for the very comprehensive way in which she summed up the debate, responding to the points raised.
As I sat and listened to the debate, I felt that if Alan Hansen were here, he would say, “The thing about that debate is that there was quality everywhere you looked on the pitch”. There was immense, rich experience coming through: the noble Lord, Lord Pendry, with the Football Foundation; the noble Lord, Lord Birt, with broadcasting; the noble Lord, Lord Ouseley, with the Kick It Out campaign; the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, with the National Football Museum; the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie; and my noble friend Lord Taylor of Warwick, who is still playing. I felt that it was an excellent debate from that point of view, and it brought out into the open passionate football fans from all different corners, from Southampton to Forfar Athletic, the team of my noble friend Lord Lyell, to recognise the national game.
The noble Lord, Lord Watson, gave us a little tutoring on how the Scots are worried about the performance of England at a national level. I believe that we should take that advice with a little caution. Some of us were watching last month when the English national team gave a fantastic performance in the Maracana in Rio against Brazil to draw 2-2. The truth will be found out next month when Scotland comes down to Wembley for the 150th anniversary game.
Several noble Lords referenced community value and community ownership of our clubs and what this evokes within each of us. I was drifting away on the melodic tones of the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, when he talked about “wor Jackie” and the Newgate Street Co-op—I was dragged back to my roots also.
I will make just a couple of brief points. As a fellow-member of the Olympic and Paralympic Legacy Committee I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, for raising the evidence given by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, to that committee. We were all quite shocked to hear her observations about how inaccessible many Premier League football grounds are. I encourage the Government Front Bench to consider dispatching the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, to each of the Premier League football grounds to carry out an audit; if that would not sort them out, I do not know what would.
Some unbelievers crept in for the debate, perhaps ahead of the debate that will follow on atheism; the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, embarked on a heresy, but made a very valuable contribution to the debate, as did my noble friend Lord Addington. I will make a brief point about the number of players, which is that yes, 30% of the players who play in the Premier League are from England and eligible to play for the English national team. However, that does not reflect the true picture. If you take into account the Scottish, Northern Irish and Welsh players, we move up to 40%. If we followed the example of rugby and the British Lions and had a team of that nature, we would be on par with what is happening in Germany. Perhaps we ought to look at that. Why do the national teams not succeed? That is another debate, and I do not want to embark on it. It is probably because we over-obsess about past glory in 1966 rather than future glory, and perhaps also because for some of the players the greatest pinnacle of success is winning the Champions League medal rather than a World Cup medal. Again, we shall see.
I will make one factual correction for the record. Noble Lords will not be surprised, from my stature, to learn that I will not be running 500 miles for Save the Children’s work in Syria, starting in London on Saturday and finishing in Enniskillen on 9 September, but will be walking it—and at a measured pace. However, that pace will be sprightly during the first half of the walk because I have to get to Manchester for 17 August, when Newcastle plays Manchester City in the opening game of the season. How I perform thereafter will very much depend on that game. This is a good-news story for Britain.
Georgia
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I note some of the unspoken sentiments behind the noble Lord’s question. As he knows well, the process of admission to the European Union is long and arduous. Georgia is at a very early stage in that process. Georgia’s administrative capability and economic changes and the judicial, rule of law issues that it will have to go through mean that any approach to the European Union will be relatively long, but that is also true for some of the western Balkan countries.
Lord Bates
My Lords, given that the eyes of the world will be on Sochi next February for the Winter Olympic Games and that Sochi is less than 100 miles from the Georgian border, will my noble friend urge the UK mission to the UN to encourage Georgian and Russian reconciliation when the Olympic Truce is presented to the United Nations General Assembly in October? Given that the Russians invaded Georgia in violation of the Beijing Olympic Truce, this might be a timely point for reconciliation.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I congratulate the noble Lord on the faithfulness with which he wishes to ensure that we think about the Olympic Truce. We are very conscious that the Sochi Winter Olympics are taking place extremely close to the border with Abkhazia and that that may potentially raise some security issues. There is instability in the north Caucasus as well as in the south Caucasus and we have, of course, spoken to the Russians about that.
G8 Summit
Lord Bates Excerpts(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Bates
My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. He and I, along with my noble friend Lord McColl, took part in a wonderful debate last Tuesday, initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Empey, on overseas aid. We were on the same side in expressing our pride and delight at what was being done and at how this Government, in very difficult times, were making the care of the poorest in our world an absolute priority. We can take pride in that.
We have already seen the number of under-fives dying from preventable diseases fall quite dramatically over the past 15 years, from an average of 12 million per year to just over 6 million now. Last weekend, the Nutrition for Growth summit, which came out of the Olympic hunger summit and which the Prime Minister has followed along with his responsibilities on the UN high-level panel on finding successors to the millennium development goals, agreed yet more funds that can be directed to that task. That funding should ensure that a further 1.7 million children under five will be saved as a result of these initiatives by 2020. That is profound. I cannot think of anything else that could come out of the summit that could possibly match it. I take pride in our Government’s role. I was struck by Bill Gates’s declaration when he said that the leadership in this area by the Government and the Prime Minister,
“will be a source of British influence around the globe for years to come”.
That is something we can take immense pride in.
I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Trimble for securing this debate. I was delighted with his introduction and his invitation to visit County Fermanagh. With a following wind, I might reach County Fermanagh on 9 September having walked from London to Dublin—with a little help from the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company between Heysham and Douglas in the Isle of Man and then on to Dublin—to raise funds for Save the Children in connection with this initiative. It is what goes down in government circles as an aspiration. One need only look at my physique to realise that perhaps it is a triumph of hope over experience. None the less, I have always been an optimist; in fact my blood group is B-positive. I look forward to seeing County Fermanagh for many reasons this year.
I want to follow on from my noble friend Lord Howell’s fascinating speech on the global scene to make some structural points about the G8 and to seek some comments from the Minister, who I know is academically and politically well informed in these areas. Any gathering that seeks to achieve anything needs all those present to be capable of acting on what comes out of it. I want to test that a little further. Does the G8 as presently configured meet the global challenge? The group originated in 1975 at Rambouillet when it was convened by President Giscard d’Estaing to bring together the world’s most powerful industrial nations and market economies. It really followed the collapse of the Bretton Woods agreement, which had modified international exchange rates until then and a successor body was needed to bring the industrialised nations together to iron out global economic problems.
When it was initially convened, it was the G5, and then Canada was added the next year. Following the break-up of the Soviet Union, Russia became a member. Then the G8 was extended to the G9, with the EU being given observer status. I want to test whether we need to look at this again. What was right in 1975 does not necessarily reflect the world in 2013. Of the current top 10 economies in the world, China, Brazil and India are not present at the top table, although I accept my noble friend Lord Howell’s point that in a network world such terms are not entirely accurate. Is it right that the EU should have an additional voice at the G8 when it already has four very powerful voices in Germany, France, the UK and Italy, and yet the powerhouse of Asia has only one representative at the table, Japan?
Should the G8 fit more closely with the permanent members of the Security Council? Again, they were relevant in 1946, but with the absence of Brazil, Germany, Japan and India, the composition is limited when agreements are reached that require political and sometimes military action. In short, it seems entirely right that the most powerful political and economic countries in the world should have a special relationship. The helpful briefing document prepared for this debate contains the original 1975 Rambouillet summit declaration, which says:
“In these three days we held a searching and productive exchange … on the world economic situation, on economic problems common to our countries, on their human, social and political implications, and on plans for resolving them … The growth and stability of our economies will help the entire industrial world and developing countries to prosper”.
That makes a clear link between economic growth, the major economic powers and responsibility to the poorest in our world.
It was also refreshing to read the remarks made by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister on 21 November 2012, when he set out what he wanted for the G8. He said that he wanted to,
“go back to those first principles … No mile long motorcades. And no armies of officials telling each other what each of their leaders thinks—or should think. Instead we will build on the approach taken by President Obama at Camp David this year: one table and one conversation”.
That is a very noble thing, which improves the chances of success. Those chances would be improved still further if the G8 included around the table those countries that are absent simply because at the point of formation they were not the economic powers that they now are.
In fact, there is a strong case that the permanent 10 members of the UN Security Council and the economic members of the G10 should be the same. If you ranked countries by economic power, we would have the US, China, Japan, Germany, France, UK, Brazil, Russia, Italy and India. If those countries were connected and represented around the table, the chances of solving some of our intractable international problems would be greatly increased.
Electoral Registration and Administration Bill
Lord Bates Excerpts(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Campbell-Savours
My Lords, I intervene only briefly to ask a question, because the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, quite rightly drew the House’s attention to the sensitivity in very marginal seats to votes coming in from abroad. I want to know what happens in conditions of fraud. We have an individual registration system and the suggestion is that we should extend the right to vote to those who have been overseas for more than 15 years. What happens if a fraud takes place? Where are those involved to be prosecuted? Can they be prosecuted? Are they to be extradited? Does this not raise all kinds of problems in terms of prosecution? Perhaps the Minister can give the answer.
Lord Bates
I am toying with supporting my noble friend’s amendment but I just wish to seek clarification on a couple of things. The areas that I find totally persuasive are those raised by my noble friend in moving the amendment and those referred to by my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth, particularly when he talked about soft power. That soft power extends in a network world increasingly to include economic power. These people are overseas on business—they are economically active. There is a global network of 4.4 million or more people who can speak up for and promote Britain, as well as provide information on and connections to the commercial arms of the respective embassies and consulates overseas.
My only difficulty is this. My noble friend Lord Lexden pointed out that currently 4.4 million people are of voting age but only 23,500 or thereabouts are registered to vote, although I do not know what proportion actually voted at the last election. First, does my noble friend agree that it would be useful for the Electoral Commission to undertake extensive research into the reasons why people do not register overseas for this right to vote, which is extremely important to them? Secondly—perhaps this is better addressed to my noble friend on the Front Bench—does he agree that the time has come for the Government to appoint someone to champion the voice of overseas residents who have the vote here? In that regard, I cannot think of a better person to head that up than my noble friend Lord Lexden.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard
I support the amendment. I got a very dusty answer in Committee, and I do not really agree with most of the arguments against the amendment. If you start from first principles and the idea of the greatest happiness for the greatest number, in my view this does no harm. Moreover, it is only an enabling measure; it does not change anything. It creates a power to change things, which, to me, makes it seem rather modest. Having a single constituency or two constituencies for expatriates is an extremely good idea in my view, but I suspect that it might be found to be not relevant to this Bill, which would be shocking.
I feel that I have not yet heard a compelling argument against this power. I am encouraged that it is supported not only by the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, but by the noble Lord, Lord Norton, who is a great expert in these matters.
On the question of electoral fraud, where it would be prosecuted and how the miscreant would be brought to justice, I agree that that might be quite difficult to do if we were rash enough to opt out from justice and home affairs and the European arrest warrant.
Sri Lanka
Lord Bates Excerpts(11 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Bates
My Lords, I, too, pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Naseby for securing this important debate. My interest is around the issue of conflict. I have never visited Sri Lanka and were it not for the opportunity provided by this debate and the outstanding brief prepared by the House of Lords Library for it, I would have known a great deal less about the tragedy that has hit that country.
However, I have followed and witnessed what has happened in a number of areas of the world which have been recovering from conflict and the hallmarks of that difficult path are all too evident in what is happening in Sri Lanka at present. The question is: what are the solutions?
We have learnt lessons from other areas—I am thinking in particular of our own issues in the Balkans and in Northern Ireland—and we know how difficult it is. In debates on foreign affairs in this House there is sometimes a level of arrogance where we pretend that we have got it all sorted and that we can lecture the rest of the world on how to get it right. However, the fact that a country like ours—with our wealth and our history of parliamentary democracy and justice—is still wrestling to achieve a settlement and peace in Northern Ireland should make us tread carefully and humbly into other people’s conflicts.
The first thing we learn from these kinds of conflicts is that, in the long term, violence never succeeds. The second thing we learn is that freezing-out never works: people need thawing out in conflict situations. In that sense, peace needs to be given a chance to take hold. In this circumstance, the conflict went on for 26 years and the peace treaty was signed two or three years ago. I guarantee as a fact that the people of Sri Lanka will still be wrestling with this issue in not five years’ time but in 50 or 100 years’ time. We know from our own experience that that is the kind of timescale that people need. History and the facts presented show that what we have now is a moment of opportunity for the international community to involve the parties to the conflict because, inevitably, they must be the parties to the peace.
I refer briefly to the report of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission. I have read the entire report and it seems to me that the Sri Lankan Government are self-critical, which is an encouraging sign. I am disappointed that all other parties did not take part in it because ultimately, somewhere along the line, there will have to be another try at this and outside bodies will have to give their advice. I know that the Indian Government are trying to help. Potentially, South Africa would be much better placed to offer insight and help to people in this process.
I refer particularly to page 382, paragraph 9.255, of the report which contains a series of interesting recommendations. I say again that this conflict is no different from any other: we are very familiar with it; we know what needs to happen; we know that it is a long-term process; and we know that we have a moment of opportunity before us which we should seize. However, one hallmark of this Government, of which I am most proud, is the way in which they have been working at conflict prevention rather than intervention, and the Conflict Pool is an essential part of that.
There is one part of the report where it seems to me that we could make a big difference. The report identifies that a lot of work needs to be done in the area of peace education. It talks about a trilingual policy and the need to ensure a much broader ethnic mix of student populations, with a choice of courses offered in all three languages. The commission is also of the view that sport builds up interpersonal contacts among people of different communities, which is essential for the process of reconciliation. Perhaps I may refer the Minister, who I know will take these matters seriously, to that particular section. I know that there has already been a tremendous amount of work on clearing landmines—my noble friends have referred to it—but in the specific area of peace education and bringing international students together, I wonder whether the sporting legacy of the Olympics and the legacy of the Olympic Truce are things that we might be able to seize and build upon.
If all the countries simply look at ways in which they can offer practical help and provide support for all the different parties in working through this tremendous difficulty, I think that there will be a chance of long-term stability. The prize for that will come through economic growth. The worst catastrophe that comes from all conflict is that it impoverishes people not only morally but financially. We see from the briefing note that the cost of the war in Sri Lanka over 26 years ran to some $200 billion, which is five times its annual output. It is an enormous cost. Therefore, it is very encouraging that since the conflict has ended there has been significant progress and growth. The proportion of people living below the national poverty line has declined from 26.1% at the height of the conflict to 8.9%. With annualised growth in the region of 6%, 7% or 8%, getting into tourism, getting the economy going and giving people jobs and hope, as well as a future, and allowing them to move forward are things that we ought to be encouraging. Anything that Her Majesty’s Government can do to support and encourage the Sri Lankan Government in that way would seem wise.
Electoral Registration and Administration Bill
Lord Bates Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Bates
My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Empey, who has great experience in this whole area, having seen it work successfully in Northern Ireland in nine elections, I think he said. That should give us some confidence that we are on the right lines. We are all taking about how we can reduce the likelihood or the perception of fraud while increasing the level of participation in the democratic process. That is the circle we are trying to square. It may not be possible, but this is an unfolding process.
I was slightly disappointed to hear the tone of the noble Lord, Lord Wills, in his lengthy remarks on this subject because I feel that we are continuing something that was begun under the previous Government in the Political Parties and Elections Act, which they brought forward. With a little bit of encouragement from the opposition parties, they came forward with the idea of having individual electoral registration. That was seen as being absolutely right and proper. We are debating the timeframe over which that is introduced, but the actual idea is beyond dispute. On that point mention was made by Mr Harper in the debate in the other place on the report by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe when describing the voting system in the United Kingdom. He said that.
“the weakest link of the electoral process [is] due to the absence of safeguards against fictitious registrations”.—[Official Report, 23/05/12; col. 1177.]
In many ways, that backs up the fact that there is a problem that we need to address. Again I was slightly disappointed by the tone in the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Wills, because I felt that the Government have brought this forward in a responsible way. They had evidence-based analysis undertaken by the Electoral Commission on which to draw conclusions. They subjected the Bill to pre-legislative scrutiny, for which we in this House are always arguing. Indeed, there had been an excellent report by the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform, chaired by Mr Graham Allen, which came forward with a number of suggestions, but did not entirely endorse the approach.
At Second Reading in the other place, Mr Mark Harper made quite a lengthy speech in his opening remarks. One of the reasons for that was that he announced four or five substantial changes to the Bill to take account of the concerns that were being made. There is much to be welcomed in the Bill as it stands. Some people will be surprised that these things do not happen already. The idea that we are going to do data matching between different government departments to check that the data held are the same—that is, that the data held at the DWP are the same as that held at the DVLA—would be greeted by most people with, “We kind of thought you probably would be doing that already”. The fact that it was not and that it now is has to be welcomed.
I think that the provision could go a lot further. We live in a world where we are used to having to produce utility bills and driving licences as proof of ID for the most menial of purchases in stores. However, having left your electoral registration card at home, you can wander into a polling booth to cast a vote in a general election and just point to your name on the electoral register, be given a ballot paper and be able to go into a booth to fill it in and cast a vote. People might find that rather strange, but perhaps that debate is for another time. We certainly want to reduce fraud.
Again I refer to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Wills. It is not easy, but you cannot argue that not taking action over suspected fraud is justified because you believe that action might result in a decrease in the number of people registering. A decrease in the number would not necessarily be a bad thing if the wrong people were on the list in the first place. In 2001, the Electoral Commission estimated that the number of eligible people missing from the register was 3 million, and in 2010 that figure had risen to around 6 million. There is therefore a problem to be addressed.
I defer to my noble friend Lord Baker of Dorking on virtually all matters, but as regards lengthening the election campaign period, I would be happy to see it increased to 25 days simply because I think that allows a longer period. Fixed-term Parliaments will also strengthen the ability to increase awareness. I think that 25 days is the same length of time that was given to local elections. We are simply coming into line and into the 21st century, so I am quite comfortable about that.
It would be good if in the wind-up speech the Minister could comment briefly on civil penalties and say whether there will be nationally set rates or whether there will be some local discretion along the lines of parking fines. If it is to be a national thing, the idea that there will be some locally set rate as to what that penalty should be would seem a little odd. The reason we want to do this is because it is relevant not just for voting in the elections, but for jury service. There are substantial penalties for not turning up for jury service and there are substantial penalties if you do not complete your self-assessment tax return, so the fact that there should not be any penalties for not registering to vote seems to me to be an argument which, let us say, is not the strongest.
Postal voting is a very interesting area. I totally support the idea that we should move from a 20% sample testing to a 100% test against verification. But that will result in a sizeable increase. If the figures produced by the Library in a very helpful guide or companion to this debate are correct, they would suggest that of a 20% sample about 150,000 ballot papers were rejected. If one extrapolates that—it could be wrong—and if you go to a 100% test. you might get 750,000 cases where the signatures do not match or where the dates are not connected. If national insurance numbers and identifiers within that are required, the potential for that number to increase goes up significantly. People will be advised after the election that they did not qualify. It will be a useful, if bureaucratic, process, but it would be an awful lot more helpful if somebody could tell them before that happened. The figure for postal ballots at the previous election was 7 million, and there were 150,000 spoilt ballots. The overall total was about 3.8%. It would be helpful if in winding up the Minister would comment on whether that level of spoilt ballot papers in postal votes is higher than normal for votes cast in the polling both. That would be interesting to know.
I have two ideas to increase the number of people on the register. One has already been referred to, so I shall not spend a great deal of time on it, other than to say that the fact that we have only about 25,000 or 30,000 overseas voters on the register is a real weakness of our current system. It would be great to see that figure of 4.5 million increased to 5 million. My son is at university overseas, and I know that registering from overseas is a very bureaucratic process. You have to go back to the place where you lived, track down the electoral register and work from there. I do not see why we do not have an office for overseas voters where people could register online to claim their vote. If people think that that might be a horrific prospect, I find it strange that we are able to fill in our tax returns, which is pretty confidential, online through the Government Gateway and, I think, make some benefits claims. Why should people not be able to make greater use of registering online, particularly as this Bill extends that?
My final comment relates to how we extend participation, particularly among the young. We all recognise that that is a problem. A provision in the Bill talks about the Electoral Commission undertaking a publicity and awareness campaign. Even the idea of a publicity and awareness campaign and the Electoral Commission coming together is causing most people to drift off to sleep. The idea that it is going to excite young people seems pretty unlikely. I urge my noble friend on the Front Bench, who I know is deeply sympathetic on all these matters, to look at innovative ways to increase the number of young people voting and perhaps to look at other countries, for example, the US, to see how they have tried to do that. I viewed a message online that was headed by Tom Cruise and included various major stars and celebrities such as Angelina Jolie and Justin Timberlake. All these widely known names were used to get the message across.
We could use social networking sites to promote awareness of voting and the importance of voting. I think the Minister knows where I am going with this because we have had conversations before about “The X Factor”. I think it is an interesting concept, not least because Simon Cowell, with his commercial and artistic genius, managed to generate 15 million votes in the final programme of the last series. That was more than the turnout in the local or European elections. It might just be that, in the process of consulting people about how to increase participation among young people, you could do worse than consult Simon Cowell to see whether he can put a bit of X factor into our voting system.
House of Lords (Cessation of Membership) Bill [HL]
Lord Bates Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Bates
My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord on bringing forward this Bill, and I want to support it. It is in the nature of these things that the legislation is seeking to tidy up some anomalies. My only concern is to ensure that we are not laying down future anomalies that successive Parliaments will have to deal with. My noble friend Lord Fowler has highlighted one that relates to the definition of non-attendance. The notion that someone might attend once during a Session and therefore be deemed to have reached the threshold might need to be looked at a little more carefully, lest we find that the 72 Members who were quoted as not having attended during the last Session may have been substantially reduced in number because they came in once in order to keep their membership alive, as it were.
The proposal on retirement is long overdue: people ought not only to be able to leave the House through retirement but to seek election to another place. The Inter-Parliamentary Union database indicated that, as of 28 May 2012 in a survey of 190 countries, the UK is the only country where Members of the second Chamber are disqualified from voting in elections to the lower Chamber. As my noble friend Lord Norton has pointed out, since the 1999 Act there has been a break in the link so that hereditary Peers who no longer sit in this House are now able to vote and, one presumes, to stand for election to the other place as well.
There are other anomalies that relate to the role of the Lords Spiritual because they are not Peers of the Realm, a point already made by the right reverend Prelate in his contribution—
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
What the noble Lord said just a few moments ago has already happened. My good friend Viscount Thurso, who is still a hereditary Peer, is now the Member of Parliament for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross. I think he owns most of it as well.
Noble Lords
Lord Bates
I am grateful to the noble Lord for that clarification. However, I shall return to the point about the Lords Spiritual. They are not deemed to be Peers of the Realm and, as a consequence, have the right to vote in general elections, although by convention they do not exercise the right. However, there have been certain instances such as in 1983 when the then Archbishop of Canterbury indicated that he had exercised his right to vote. I mention this simply because, as we are given these opportunities to clear up certain anomalies, it would be a sensible thing to do.
There is an opportunity in the other place for people to leave the House of Commons by assuming the office of the Chiltern Hundreds. Doing so disqualifies them from membership of that House and thus frees them up. It is like a Trivial Pursuit question: which office has been held by the noble Lords, Lord Bannside and Lord Mandelson, Boris Johnson and Gerry Adams? The answer is, of course, the office of the Chiltern Hundreds, followed by stewardship of the Manor of Northstead, although I am sure it would be a mercy if they did not all assume those offices at the same time. The point is that there is a mechanism for people to leave the other place, but there is no equivalent for Members to leave this House. It is therefore absolutely right that there should be one.
We have mentioned the anomaly of hereditary Peers, but another one relates to service in the European Parliament. By virtue of the law when it was changed in 2008, the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, from the Liberal Democrat Benches, is no longer allowed to sit or vote in this Chamber while she serves in the European Parliament. There are mechanisms that disqualify certain people and extend certain rights to others. Given that, during the progress of this Bill we ought to look at ways of tidying up these anomalies while we wait for the greater reforms to come. However, in a broad sense I strongly support the Bill as a step in the right direction.