Government Debt

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Hayward

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

This is an historic problem that we have debated many times in this House. Because we are a heavily services-oriented economy it is difficult to capture all the value. We set up the national infrastructure investment scheme with £37 billion to help us to tackle those issues.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My noble friend referred to the percentage of GDP in this country. How does that compare with France and Italy? Have we not persistently undershot the OBR forecast for what level of borrowing would be required on a month-by-month basis?

[Lord Bates]

My noble friend follows these matters very closely. We are currently under 85%, with a target to go down to 73%. France is at 98.7% and I think Italy is at 131.1%, but we still need to go further to ensure that we do not leave a legacy of debt for our children and grandchildren.

Green Finance

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Hayward

Wednesday 31st October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

Of course my noble friend has great expertise in this area—which is always code for saying, “That’s an awkward question”. He raises a pertinent point. When it comes to issues of green finance, it is important that we get the definitions right. That is why the British Standards Institute is looking to define the standard for qualifying for green finance, so that it can then be applied rigorously across the board to a range of investments and provide greater clarity and certainty for investors when making decisions.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

In relation to the Global Green Finance Index, to which the original Question referred, does my noble friend agree that when the same survey identified those finance centres that are likely to do best in the next two to three years, the three that were cited were Paris, London and Luxembourg?

[Lord Bates]

That is why we are investing as we are. We had the Green Finance Taskforce, led by Sir Roger Gifford. That led to the announcement that we are going to set up a green finance institute to further enhance our leadership role. Next year we are going to launch the green finance strategy, which again will strengthen our ambition to provide global leadership in this important and growing area.

Safeguarding in the Aid Sector

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Hayward

Tuesday 20th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

In recognising the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Collins, and the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, in relation to work that is undertaken in particularly dangerous and difficult circumstances, I was in Iraq last week, as my noble friend knows, where I met DfID, charity and voluntary workers. They are working in incredibly dangerous and difficult circumstances. It would be a disaster for the communities if the work being undertaken was deferred by even a few days or weeks. Will my noble friend therefore exhort all contributors, whether large or small, to continue to make donations to the charities to which they contribute, so that those charities can continue to make their crucial contribution to societies, whether in Iraq or around the rest of the world?

[Lord Bates]

I am very happy to give that undertaking. My noble friend is absolutely right that British people are generous to people around the world. In many ways, the great tragedy of what has happened is that the failure to act in a transparent and timely way has genuinely put lives at risk, because people might stop giving in the way that he talked about. Oxfam alone has around 10,000 people in 90 countries; it is working with DfID at present in places such as Yemen and South Sudan, delivering life-saving materials. In everything we do, we are going to ensure that our prime concern is for the people whom we are trying to help. We will not deal with contracts in a pre-emptive way until we are absolutely confident that those people who need our help, whether they are called beneficiaries or aid recipients, are our number one concern. They must be protected at all times. That is what the charities themselves should have been thinking all the way through.

Budget: Reduction of Waste

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Hayward

Tuesday 28th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

One of the most recent ideas we had on that was about plastic carrier bags; we put 5p on them two years ago. As a result, we have seen usage reduce by 83% in two years, saving 9 billion plastic bags and leading to a 40% reduction in the number of plastic bags washed up on British beaches. That is exactly the type of innovative initiative that the Treasury should be working on, in partnership with other government departments.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, following on from that comment, does my noble friend recognise that in fact large numbers of people in this country would welcome a complete ban on plastic bags throughout England? There is also a general sense that there is excess packaging on fruit and vegetables. Just as my noble friend suggested that we could start at home, large amounts of fruit and veg that are delivered to this House go from grower to wholesaler, are wrapped in plastic and then delivered for immediate consumption in the restaurants in this building. It is unnecessary.

[Lord Bates]

My noble friend is absolutely right. This matter is urgent because if you put one plastic bottle in the ground today in a landfill site, it will not be fully degraded until 2457. The legacy we are leaving to our children is extraordinary. That is part of the reason we are taking the tough action that we are—not just for this generation and this time but for future generations.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Hayward

Tuesday 26th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

I would like to pursue the matter raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, as well as touch on a broader aspect of the legislation. I am in the slightly odd position of having arrived in this place after the original debates in Committee, and I would like to make two points.

First, there is something I do not really understand—and I say this having been chief executive of the British Beer & Pub Association. Pubs were created in 1751. This legislation is all or nothing. There is no allowance for things that might be sold in either a licensed premises or a regulated premises. There are many things in British life that are sold under such circumstances and I do not understand why we have to have an all-or-nothing approach to these substances. I understand the nature of the legislation but there are chemical circumstances under which people could define things and regulate them. If we have been doing something for 260 years, I think the Home Office might catch up. It is probably not its finest hour in terms of legislative process.

To follow up the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, since the Government say—this is a change of position, although it was not a specific government amendment—that they will look at something, they could do one of two things. They could either adjust the timetable for the whole legislation and defer it slightly or rush through a consideration of something that is likely to be driven underground in the mean time. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked whether we are going to ban and then unban. What advice will be given to the police in the mean time? Are they to disregard the sale of illegal products or are they just not to prosecute? It really does not make sense. I suggest that we either adopt a position of regulating products or defer the introduction of this legislation.

[Lord Bates]

In response, I say first to my noble friend Lord Hayward, who has been a welcome addition to this House since his arrival, that when we were considering the Bill during its earlier stages in this House, the problem we were trying to identify was that once these new psychoactive substances were named, I or someone else, such as my noble friend Lady Chisholm, would come before your Lordships’ House with secondary legislation seeking to ban a particular chemical composition. Then it would be slightly tweaked by one or two molecules and reappear the next week as something else, and all the time people would be put at risk. That was the mischief that the whole thrust of this legislation was about. In the Conservative Party manifesto at the last election, we also made it clear that we would institute a blanket ban.

Forgive me for going through the points raised almost in reverse order, but my noble friend Lord Hayward asked whether we are going to ban and then unban. That is to prejudge the outcome of the consultation and review. The review may say that it is something that should be taken off the list; it may say that it should remain on the list. That is for it to do, so we do not know what the outcome will be. As we do not know that, we cannot prejudge it by putting it into this primary legislation. But because of this legislation we have a secondary legislation option whereby, if that decision is taken as a result of the consultation, we can act quickly to address it.

Let me deal with some of the other points which were raised. First, the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked me to confirm whether various medical groups and research groups had been consulted. Yes, they have, and they have been immensely helpful. I know that many in your Lordships’ House who spoke in Committee and on Report were speaking precisely to that point about the potential danger that this posed to legitimate medical research. I think they would welcome the fact that we have made it explicit in the Bill that these exemptions are there for research.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for her advance notice of the question on charities. The charity we are talking about would of course be a registered charity, and it would have to be one concerned with the advancing of health and saving lives. One hopes that the ability of someone to set up a “charitable body” which then started dispensing might be restricted, in the same way as restricting research to that approved by an ethics committee was the correct way forward. I can confirm that the Academy of Medical Sciences and other research communities were consulted on this. Also in response to the noble Baroness, cannabis is a controlled drug so it is outside the scope of the Bill, as controlled drugs are specifically exempt. The regulations that govern research in relation to cannabis are under the Misuse of Drugs Act, which is unchanged.

I may have answered the other points that were raised —no, there was a specific one on the term “individual”. The definition of the ethics body in new paragraph 4(b) does not exclude clinical trials of cohorts of people, as it refers to “individuals”—plural—not to an individual. It is important that medical charities such as Cancer Research are able to benefit from this exemption. We do not believe that the exemption for charities risks opening any loopholes. Section 1 of the Charities Act 2011 defines a charity as,

“an institution … established for charitable purposes only”.

Section 2(1)(b) of the Act states that the charitable purposes must be in the public interest. Head shops are unlikely to be considered as acting in the public interest—on the contrary, we would argue—so could not benefit from this exemption. I hope that that has been helpful in addressing some of the points raised.

Litvinenko Inquiry

Debate between Lord Bates and Lord Hayward

Thursday 21st January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The Cyclamen co-ordination group, which works with the Border Force and the security services in tracking down this material, does a lot of work in this area. Sections of the inquiry findings point to the fact that, because polonium-210 consists of large molecules, it is extremely difficult to detect through the normal detection methods. We will have to look at that to ensure that we are better at detecting this type of material when it crosses borders or is used within the UK—or anywhere else, for that matter—in the future.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

In his comments, my noble friend emphasised that he wanted to ensure that the two perpetrators were brought to justice in this country. I heard the Russian ambassador earlier today trying to rubbish the report on the basis that it was written without having been tested in a court. Will my noble friend take this opportunity to send a further message to the Russian ambassador that we are quite willing for these two individuals to be tried in a British court of justice and, if necessary, will he give consideration to the process that was undertaken for Lockerbie to protect those individuals until that process is complete?

[Lord Bates]

I am very happy to do that. Of course, that is what we are aiming for. That is the direction and thrust of our policy. We want those two individuals to come to the UK so that they can be put on trial and all the evidence can be put to them, they can seek to defend themselves and a judgment can be made.