Shawcross Report: Compensation for Victims

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Monday 8th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB) [V]]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that, very often, when Governments—I put it in the plural because it is not just this Government—sit on reports, that has a disproportionate effect on the febrile imagination of people looking on, because they assume that something is being hidden? Even more important in this case are the victims. We have heard of their pain and suffering, and it is quite possible that some of those victims will die before they get compensation. Is that an aspect of the speed of this that worries the Minister, and how is he going to address it?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, as ever, I note the concerns that noble Lords are expressing on this important and sensitive matter. Again, I assure the noble Lord that we are looking at this with the victims fully in mind and at the heart and centre of our approach.

Pesticides (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I am very glad to see that we are embracing many of the EU standards, particularly about pollutants, on which I agree with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, that we shared prior to departure and which improve environmental standards. I approach this subject as one who would dearly love to see zero use of chemicals; spraying is expensive and not pleasant. However, I must declare that I have a farm. It is one where we are gradually moving to fewer and fewer chemicals, but it is a struggle. I shall point out as examples some of the concerns that have been relayed to me in my many miles of tramping the fields and hills. I hope this view from the ground, as it were, might be helpful to the Minister.

I suppose that, as with everything with life, we have to try to find a degree of balance between conservation and feeding ourselves, and indeed those in the rest of the world who are less fortunate than us. The banning of neonicotinoids is an interesting example that has garnered a lot of press. From my research and that of the Rothamsted Research centre, I would say that the science is still incomplete, in that there are so many variations of chemical compounds needing further research.

One concern here is that farmers—by the way, I am not one who has oil-seed rape—have no other way for dealing with cabbage stem flea beetle, and that they might therefore now spray non-systemic chemicals that are even more injurious to insects and wildlife. The other alternative is, of course, not to grow oil-seed rape at all; indeed, as the Minister will know, there has been a widespread reduction by hundreds and thousands of acres, leading, ironically, to some beekeepers now lamenting the loss of pollen and pollination. It is enormously hard to get this right.

Ideally, we should be able to financially encourage farmers to transition gradually to organic farming, because for those with limited acres it is just not possible to compete with smaller yields; large farms are rather more able to spread their cropping. Stewardship schemes are a great help. I would like to see these grow still further in the light of these EU exit amendment regulations so that we need fewer and fewer chemicals, but can still continue to grow the food that we and the rest of the world need.

Terrestrial and Freshwater Protected Sites

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord for returning once again to the question of polluted Welsh water running into English rivers. The farming rules for water in England have no counterpart in Wales. In his Written Answer to my Question on 27 October, the noble Lord said that his department had not been in touch with Wales and he cited devolution as the reason. I put it to him, respectfully, that we should cut through bureaucracy in the cause of common sense.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]]

The noble Lord makes an extremely good point. I am afraid I am not in a position to update him on the letter I provided most recently. However, I will take his message back to the department with a view to making progress and, as he said, cutting through the red tape and bureaucracy.

Belarus: Presidential Elections

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Friday 25th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for her question. On her second question, we are currently reviewing the position of the special envoy on media freedom. In the meantime, of course, the UK remains fully committed to supporting media freedom and standing up for the rights of journalists. On her first question, as I said, we are currently considering how best to support all members of society protesting in Belarus at the moment. I agree with her that we need to make sure that we continue to see free arts and culture, which is such an important part of society.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I commend the Government and the Foreign Secretary for finally further embracing the principles of the Magnitsky Act, and I support using them to the letter in the case of Belarus. These personal sanctions are surprisingly effective—witness the fury that they engender in Russia—and are really one of the few weapons we have when tyrannical regimes use nefarious means to gain and consolidate power. I would urge an even greater use of them. Having said that, I believe passionately in keeping open cultural corridors as a means of dialogue, and this is where the BBC World Service plays a vital role. However, I concede that a dreadful situation such as that in Belarus overwhelms and transcends soft politics, which is why we need to use hard means such as Magnitsky.

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his support. The Magnitsky regime, as he will know, is relatively new. As I said, we are looking at what more we can do to strengthen it, and there will be further developments on that in due course. I also agree with the noble Lord on the importance of keeping up cultural relationships with countries all around the world, and we will continue to support the BBC World Service and other cultural organisations.

River Pollution

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]]

AMR is one of the greatest health threats that we face, and there is an increasing focus globally on the environment as a potential reservoir and conduit for it. We are conducting research into the extent of human and animal exposure to AMR from the environment and the risks that it poses. We are funding research at the University of Newcastle, for instance, and working with academics at other universities, including Exeter. We are looking at the impacts of the overuse of antibiotics on industrial farms as well—a problem, I should say, that the industry itself has made a real effort to address. We have a five-year UK national action plan and we will take whatever additional action is necessary.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I contribute from the Welsh Marches in Powys, which contain the headwaters of the Wye and the Severn. Our rivers are seriously at risk from an absolutely vast increase of intensive poultry units, in Powys in particular but also in Herefordshire in Shropshire. These leech phosphates and nitrogen into our rivers. May I respectfully suggest that the Government urgently look at this dangerous cross-border issue?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]]

The noble Lord is right: poor practice by farmers leads to run-off fertiliser, slurry, pesticides and various other chemicals, which are extremely damaging to river ecosystems. But even well-managed farms can have impacts on the environment. The catchment-sensitive farming and countryside stewardship schemes inform and incentivise farmers to manage their land in a better way—for example, creating buffer strips between fields and water courses, planting crops that preserve soil health and improving slurry storage, while the new Environmental Land Management Scheme set out in the Agriculture Bill will be a critically important part of a transition to more environmentally sensitive agriculture.

Aid Spending

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord that it should not be put at risk. It is not at risk. I point to the comments from No. 10, from the Foreign Secretary today and, indeed, from the Prime Minister when he made his announcement to Parliament on the merger. We should be incredibly proud of the changes that 0.7% has made and continues to make in people’s lives around the world, from girls’ education to eradicating wild polio in Africa. We continue to be proud of that and to be absolutely committed to carrying on the good work of 0.7% in the new FCDO.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB) (V)]

My Lords, nothing, I suspect, could prick our collective conscience a moment more than the terrible suffering in Yemen. Can the Minister tell me how we are managing to extend some sort of help to the agencies working in that area?

Fly-tipping

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park [V]]

We expect local authorities to investigate fly-tipping incidents on private land, prosecute the fly-tippers wherever they can and recover clearance costs wherever possible. On conviction, a costs order can be made by the court so that a landowner’s costs can be recovered from the perpetrator. Making landowners responsible for clearing fly-tipped waste ensures that there is no perverse incentive to dump waste and encourages them to take measures to prevent dumping on their land.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB) [V]]

My Lords, are the penalties balanced correctly? On average, somebody is fined £450 for transgressing, but on average it costs the landowner some £800 to get rid of rubbish. Should we not have more council dumps? Would this not alleviate the problem in the first place?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park [V]]

The noble Lord makes a good point. However, the Government are very much taking action and, I believe, are on the front foot. The resource and waste strategy commitments include a whole raft of measures to make it easier for waste to be used as a resource and harder for it to drop out of the system illegally. The Environment Bill has several measures to help tackle waste crime generally and to ensure that waste criminals are held to account. We will deliver on our manifesto commitment to continue working with magistrates, the Sentencing Council and the Judicial Office to deliver tougher punishments for people who engage in fly-tipping. In addition, local authorities have enhanced powers to tackle fly-tipping, including powers to search and seize the vehicles of suspected fly-tippers, and fixed-penalty notices—as the noble Lord said—of up to £400.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Desai (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great honour to follow the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig. I shall not speak on what he spoke about, because I have no expertise there.

I will speak about what is likely to happen in the next three or four days with Brexit. I have said before that, while I voted remain in the referendum, I believe that, if there was a majority vote for leaving, we should leave. The first time I spoke on this issue, on the Monday after the referendum, I gave the example of the feminist movement, which has said, “No means no. What part of the word ‘no’ do you not understand?” Well, what part of the word “leave” do people not understand? Leave means leave.

It is up to Parliament to have worked out the precise legislative details and negotiations of that task. As I have also said before in your Lordships’ House, the deal that Theresa May negotiated was a very good deal—or at least there was no better deal available in town. Parliament should have approved it, rather than rejecting it somewhat perversely several times. However, we are where we are.

I might be completely wrong—and I see that the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, is in his place, so I speak with some trepidation—but I believe that Boris Johnson has introduced a certain logical distinction to the Northern Ireland problem, and it is worth thinking about. That logical distinction is between the common market and the customs union. It is an attempt to say that Northern Ireland will follow common market rules, but the problem is about the customs union and maintaining the free border. Obviously, we do not know precisely what deal is being negotiated right now, but I guess that what is being said now is that, so far as the customs union problem is concerned, legally and formally Northern Ireland would remain part of the UK customs union and therefore would leave the EU customs union. Be that as it may, however, Northern Ireland could be made a free economic zone and, with mutual agreement, could be allowed to deviate from the written rules.

This is where the problem is: it is difficult to legally nail down all the details of what is and what is not allowed. In this, I follow what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, said: if there were an agreement in principle before 31 October that some sort of free economic zone would be admitted by both sides, the details could be worked out during the transition period. I am not a lawyer and I have not negotiated, but, if there is trust and good will on both sides, we have 18 or 21 months to work out the legal details of what rules will and will not apply and whether inspection will be necessary. If there is trust, one could say that there could be minimal inspection on this matter and so we can press on.

The second problem relates to consent—a more difficult problem than the customs union. The problem of consent has been deeply embedded in the politics of Northern Ireland for the last 100 years, through mutual mistrust on the two sides as to which side will vote. There, I believe that the proposal for a decision every four years—although I do not know whether that is still being proposed—is too fragile. If I had the choice, I would say that at the end of the transition period—something like December 2021—there should be a referendum in Northern Ireland on whether Northern Ireland should stay in the free economic zone or whatever the arrangement is. Each of the two sides—Protestants and Catholics—should have a separate majority for approval, so neither side would have a lock on the decision, which would stand only if there were a majority in both communities. If that form of consent were adopted, it would be a good arrangement that would be likely to endure.

These are all speculations and we do not know what will happen, but if the Government were to bring such a proposal by 19 October, I dare say that I would rather have it adopted by Parliament than kicked into the long grass. The difficulty with kicking something into the long grass, according to the Benn Act, would be that it would not be the last time that it was kicked into the long grass.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

Some while back, the noble Lord made a very fine speech about trade and setting up new trade arrangements. As a complete innocent in all this, I was very interested. Does he still have the concerns that he expressed about the amount of time it takes to set up new trade deals?

[Lord Desai]

Yes. I believe that people are mistaken if they promise or think that setting up a free trade agreement is an absolutely simple act: you pick up the phone and call somebody and say, “Hey, let’s have a free trade agreement”. Free trade treaties actually take five years to negotiate—and they should take that long because there are very serious issues at stake. Our negotiations with the European Union might take slightly less time than that, but with America, or even with the Commonwealth, it will take a long time. Nobody should assume that the Commonwealth is panting at the other end for our attention. I have good reason to believe, having talked to people in India, that they are more interested in the EU than they are in the UK, because they know which market is bigger. They are not stupid. As someone said, they do not really have as benign an opinion of the Empire as we have—cricket or no cricket. We should not believe our own fake news.

I am sorry that that was such a long answer. But, as the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, said—and I said before him—once the uncertainty of Brexit is over and people know the nature of the beast, the British economy is so resilient and innovative that it will recover, perhaps within six or eight quarters, and resume its prosperous path.

International Development Committee: Burma Visas

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I agree with the noble Lord that we need specifics. I can assure him that those are the blunt messages we are delivering. The most recent thing we are pushing, and we hope will be achieved, is the renewal of the EU arms embargo in March 2018. When my right honourable friend Mark Field attended the EU Council he secured a strong conclusion on Burma, including targeted measures on specific military figures within the Burmese military Government.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister mentioned the Foreign Secretary talking to Aung San Suu Kyi. Was there any response? Some of us in this country who saluted the way she championed human rights are confused by her—to put it kindly—seeming helplessness in this crisis.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I agree with the noble Lord. I express the sentiments that my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary expressed: there is need for a real recognition. While he raised that matter in no uncertain, blunt terms, there is undoubtedly still a real denial from the civilian authorities. And yes, regrettably, for a lady who championed human rights, we now see the worst kind of abuse of human rights in the very country she now administers.

Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [HL]

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Wednesday 17th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lennie]

My Lords, I support what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, have said. I am not going to comment on whether Messrs Corbyn and McDonnell would be safe hands to put these powers in; noble Lords can make their own minds up about that. In the light of what the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has said, any Minister should be very wary of using these powers. We support the amendment.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, perhaps someone who is not well versed in the law could make an observation. I support my noble and learned friend Lord Judge and would say simply that the strength and logic of what we have heard from many noble Lords in this debate is absolutely compelling. Furthermore, the supremacy of Parliament surely rests in taking notice of his remarks along with those of my noble friend Lord Pannick and the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham. It is imperative that we move through legislation on a primary course rather than a secondary one.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. Let me say at the outset that between Committee and Report we have considered many matters raised by noble Lords. I listened very carefully to the points made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and others, although I felt at one point, after hearing the contributions of my noble friend Lord Hailsham and the noble Lord, Lord McNally, that I should be handing over the Bill file to my noble friend Lord Young. I notice that he has escaped before I could avail myself of that opportunity.