Local Government (Exclusion of Non-commercial Considerations) (England) Order 2022

Debate between Lord Beith and Lord Greenhalgh

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Beith) (LD)]

Has the Minister sat down?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

The Minister’s getting up, but the Minister’s getting confused. I am sorry; I meant “the noble Lord, Lord Khan”. I have been confused by people writing the wrong name. I am just reading from the top of the page—my apologies.

Here is the piece of paper. Going on to the next point, I say that we do not know about the impact on employment, and the impact on business is dependent on whether the country or territory of origin of supplies or location of business activities is Russia or Belarus and whether the relevant authority has decided to terminate contracts. Therefore it is not easy to estimate the impact on employment. But, again, this is a permissive power, and local government will ultimately make the decision in the interest of local services and value for money.

I will answer the noble Lord, Lord Khan, about what local authorities should do when these regulations come into effect. The Government will make sure that we provide guidance to local authorities as and when this order comes into force. There has been considerable engagement, and a need has been identified to do this and to bring forward the secondary legislation. These councils have been writing to the Secretary of State since the invasion of Ukraine, setting out the need for the Local Government Act 1988 restrictions in this area to be lifted, to allow local authorities to act. This statutory instrument will allow them to do this, so there has been considerable engagement, as noble Lords can see, and I hope your Lordships will support me in supporting the order.

Elections: Multiple Voting

Debate between Lord Beith and Lord Greenhalgh

Tuesday 14th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, it is very important to mark the Grenfell tragedy in which 72 lives were lost—the largest loss of life in a residential fire since the Second World War. As the noble Lord knows, with his background in local government, we have a system of electoral registration officers—EROs—who know their patch very well, and they go out and do great work in terms of expanding voter registration. This is very much a locally led matter; we have not looked to centralise the electoral registration process.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, neither an identity card nor any other form of identification takes away the problem that there is no data collected on the extent of multiple registration. In the absence of such data, it cannot be monitored. Moreover, the figures given for whether there was a high or a low poll do not make any sense at all, because in a constituency with a large number of people who are registered elsewhere, it would be quite impossible to gain the 80% or 85% poll that I had when I was first elected to Parliament.

North of England: Investment

Debate between Lord Beith and Lord Greenhalgh

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, we recognise the importance of direct government investment, but we must also ensure that the £4 billion of the levelling-up fund leverages in private sector investment. It is those two working in harness that provides the solution.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

Attracting private investment to the north requires a functioning transport system. Why are Ministers declining to listen to the Northern Powerhouse Rail business case for substantial investment across the north before they produce their own integrated transport plan? What hope is there of the level of improvement to the transport system—for example, the east coast main line, which requires expanded capacity both south and north of Newcastle essential to expanding the passenger and freight capacity of that line?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I recognise the importance of transport in driving progress and investment in the north of England. That is why there has been £13 billion of investment—the largest of any Government in history—between 2015-16 and 2020-21, and there is now also a five-year intra-city transport settlement to ensure the north gets the transport infrastructure it needs.