Hezbollah: Threat to the United Kingdom

Lord Bew Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bew (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Godson, for securing this debate. I know, as I read the wording of the debate, that when he refers accurately to the proscription of Hezbollah in its entirety since 2019, some noble Lords in this House will sigh—noble Lords whose opinions I respect—and say “Proscription? Is this all we can talk about? What use is that really?”. I am sure that is an inevitable emotion that accompanies this debate. However, we are still in a world where proscription is necessary and required, and possibly has to be extended for the reasons given by the noble Baroness, Lady Foster.

While we are in this world, let me explain that for 12 years I was the chairman of the Anglo-Israel Association. I regularly argued to my Israeli audiences that there was a requirement to support a two-state solution. I regularly said to them, “Do not be obsessed with the ideology of the other side”. Had David Trimble been so obsessed in 1998 about what the IRA was saying —every word in the green book—there would never have been a Good Friday agreement. In the aftermath of that, I was very keen to say, especially to Israeli audiences, “Don’t be obsessed about this talk of Hezbollah leading to the extinction of Israel and so on. Let’s see if we can have a dialogue; let’s see what understanding we can have”. I am well aware that there are many people who still believe in that. They look at the reference to proscription and say that it is the wrong way to go and that a free-flowing, open dialogue is the way forward, however difficult it is.

However, the truth is that since 7 October the world has changed in this respect. I can no longer make the advocacy I made for so many years as chairman of the Anglo-Israel Association. I still believe in a two-state solution—at least, I refuse to rule it out—but I can no longer say, “Forget the underlying ideology of the other side, in the way that we did”. The ideology of Hezbollah and its amazingly self-destructive decision to back Hamas following the events of 7 October show that the form of dialogue that one once advocated no longer exists. Therefore, unfortunately, we are in a world where we have to talk about proscription. That is the realpolitik at the moment.

Modern Slavery (Victim Support) Bill [HL]

Lord Bew Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 8th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bew (CB)]

My Lords, I support the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord McColl of Dulwich, which has the intention of strengthening the Modern Slavery Act 2015. I will briefly recall the struggle for that Act when I was a member of the APPG on Modern Slavery, a struggle that was led with great distinction by the noble Lord, Lord McColl, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. At the time it seemed to me that the crucial thing was to create a situation in which the police understood that this was a real problem and to get that idea across. I think that we are at the beginning of a real change and that there has been a degree of success. Noble Lords may recall that 20 years or so ago—a generation ago—domestic violence was not perceived in the way that the police now perceive it, as a serious problem, and we are trying to achieve a similar change in the police mindset.

These provisions to strengthen the 2015 Act have a particular importance because, as the noble Lord, Lord McColl, said, most of the information comes from victims. This is a difficult crime to detect, because the police normally expect certain types of fairly obvious symptoms—this bank has been robbed or this person has been punched—and in many cases in this area the symptoms are not obvious in that way. Therefore we have to encourage all the other means possible for the police to be able to gather as much information as they can.

A feature of modern slavery is that people may arrive in this country without knowing that they are going into a constrained situation and without knowing exactly what will happen to them when they arrive. The border agency might look at, say, an 18 year-old Romanian woman and think, “Perhaps there might be a problem here”. But that Romanian woman is not in a position to say, “When I get to my destination in London, I will be in a constrained, essentially enslaved situation”. This is a difficult area for the agencies of the state to get to grips with. We must therefore do whatever we can. The provisions in the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord McColl, allow us to do something that is good and helpful in that respect.

An issue mentioned by the noble Lord as well as by the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, is Northern Ireland. In this case it is a pleasure to say that the example of the Northern Ireland Assembly is exemplary and sets the standard for the rest of the UK to adhere to. I am not sure that at every moment in the last several years I have thought that I would be able to say that but, as I am able to say it, I have just said it. A lot of that is to do with the work of the noble Lord, Lord Morrow. As the noble Lord, Lord McColl, says, we cannot continue to have a situation where the standards in Scotland and Northern Ireland are higher than in the rest of the UK.

I want to allude to one difficulty. Two nights ago, the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, will have heard, as I did, a former Secretary of State, the noble Lord, Lord Hain, talk about the difficult situation that we are entering into post Brexit regarding the border. The noble Lord said that he feared a great increase in trafficking. I hope that that does not happen. I was glad to read in the Irish Times today perhaps the first report that I have seen that there is some optimism that we may be able to put together a civilised understanding with the EU about the border. The truth is that over the last few years the number of reports saying that people are smuggled over the border and that Belfast is a hub for trafficking people into the rest of the UK has dropped off considerably. That is in part because of the work of the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, and in part because the Police Service of Northern Ireland has been ahead of the curve in many respects in its work in this area. All I am saying is that we need to keep an eye on this. I hope that in the end the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Hain, are not justified, but we need to keep an eye on that aspect of this problem.

Police: Report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life

Lord Bew Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Bew (CB)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, for initiating this debate and, even more than that, for the work he carried out which first drew my attention to the key issues of leadership in modern policing. Some three years ago the noble Earl initiated a major debate on police statistics. That was before it became pretty fashionable or commonplace to read newspaper headlines saying that police statistics are maybe not cast in gold and that there might be some problems with them. Long before that, the noble Earl led the way in this Room, basing himself in part of course on the work of Dr Patrick—as he would say himself. That gained my interest.

I agree completely with the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, that the Committee on Standards in Public Life had been in existence for too long without looking at policing, given our remit. My first intention was to look at the statistics. I discussed this with the chairman of PASC and he became very interested, too. In the end, PASC reported in the autumn of 2013 on policing statistics, and the first document from the committee under my chairmanship was a submission to that report. The PASC report ends by saying to us, “Again, would you look at questions of leadership and policing?”. That is what we have tried to do.

It almost pains me to say something so simple about the debate around PCCs but I have one strong idea in mind: even in our best quality newspapers, there has not been a serious discussion about how this major experiment, whether you like it or not, is working out. Either X was wonderful and transformed the sensitivity of the police to crimes against women in their area, or X was a total idiot. That is all you get in one headline after another, with no systematic attempt to look at what this means. PCCs were a major attempt to place the local principle at the heart of our policing and a major transformation, so our idea above all else was to try to produce a balanced and sober report.

I accept the point of the noble Lord, Lord Blair, from a position that I well understand, that there is an essential lacuna—from his point of view, a lack of sharpness—in the report. I also accept the point of view from the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman. However, our approach was to try and raise the quality of the debate. One reason I am so happy about the debate today is that the Committee on Standards in Public Life has a new practice in that we do not just produce a report. We come back at the end of a public debate, as we did on our most recent report last summer, and produce a follow-up. Many things have been said today from all parts of the Room that are of great seriousness and will be reflected in the follow-up report.

While we found a great deal that was positive—greater innovation, visibility, and focus on community engagement and victim support—we also found clear evidence of standards risks in the new experiment: confusion over roles; insufficient challenge and scrutiny; and insufficient redress where PCCs fell below the behaviour expected of them by the public. I am anxious to hear the Minister’s views on the particular recommendations our committee made.

We recommended a national minimum code of conduct for PCCs. That is an essential component in ensuring clarity as to the standards of conduct and behaviour expected from PCCs, and to give the public—to whom they are accountable—a common yardstick to judge acceptable conduct. We also suggested a review of the current powers, and that the Home Secretary should urgently review whether there are sufficient powers available to take action against a PCC where conduct falls below the standards expected of public officer-holders. In our view, those standards are always defined by the known principles of public life.

The committee considers the introduction of a power of recall a matter for Parliament, but believes that should this power be introduced for PCCs, commonality relating to the thresholds and triggers to initiate recall is required. In other words, we accept that this is a complicated message. As far as I understand some of the public remarks from the Home Secretary, she acknowledges that if you have recall for MPs, there is an analogy that there should be recall for PCCs. We understand that argument, but we want to ensure that it is done with precision and fairness.

I concede that it is now the very short term with the elections coming up in 2016, but an idea the committee is keen on is the circulation of an ethical checklist to all declared candidates for a PCC post, with a request from the committee for each candidate to publish their responses. We will encourage relevant local media outlets, whether print, broadcast or social, to seek out and publicise their candidates’ responses. For us, accountability should not simply be an issue at four- yearly election intervals. We need greater scrutiny and transparency of PCC’s decisions between elections. The public must be able to make fair and balanced assessments of this very important new experiment.

There is one other thing that we did not see, apart from the points so cogently made this afternoon. We did not expect the number of resignations by PCCs. As a practical matter, I am not now saying that there is a solution to this. I simply acknowledge that it is something that we did not expect at all from our visits—and we talked to lots of PCCs around the country. It is not something that can be solved by the application of the Nolan principles, but it is a matter of significance.

Police and Crime Commissioners

Lord Bew Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Bew (CB)]

My Lords—

Police and Crime Commissioners

Lord Bew Excerpts

Wednesday 29th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

I thought that when the noble Lord began by speaking about seven or so police and crime commissioners, he was referring to the number of former Labour MPs and Ministers who are now holding those important positions in this country. The reality is that of course they are accountable to the police and crime panels, but ultimately they are accountable to the people who elected them.

[Lord Bew (CB)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that the Committee on Standards in Public Life recently announced an inquiry on local policing accountability, leadership and ethics, which is reviewing how ethical standards are being addressed within the current structures for police accountability, including police and crime commissioners? I declare an interest as chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life.

[Lord Bates]

I was aware that that process is under way and I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Bew, as chairman of that committee. In the context of this, I encourage all Members of your Lordships’ House, particularly those with policing experience, to feed in their views to the Committee on Standards in Public Life so that it can look thoroughly at this issue.

Police: Public Trust

Lord Bew Excerpts

Thursday 28th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bew (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for securing this extremely timely debate. I want to focus my remarks on one element—the element of trust—although there are two elements in the Motion, as the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, said. I want to talk a little about some of the recent polling in this area. I do so with some trepidation because I am well aware of the wise words of my noble friend Lady O’Neill on the subject of opinion polls and trust, and on how much of the evidence needs to be treated with scepticism. I absolutely agree with her. Her Reith lectures on the subject of trust were published in 2002 by Cambridge University Press in a book entitled A Question of Trust. The noble Baroness has demonstrated the ways in which moral philosophy can inform our public debate in a most important and essential way.

In talking about some of the issues concerning policing and trust, I want to make only a very limited point—one which I think is sustainable—about transitions in public mood. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, that we need to be careful about these matters as the public mood can be enormously fickle. I draw attention particularly to the Survey of Public Attitudes Towards Conduct in Public Life, which was published in September 2013 by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, often known as the Nolan committee, of which I am the recently appointed chairman. The survey looks at public perceptions of trust in public officeholders, including the police and politicians. There is a general trend in the survey, and in surveys of this type across Europe. Our survey is entirely compatible with the data from the European Social Survey 2002-10. Our survey states that the European survey,

“also indicates that ‘representative institutions’, such as national parliaments, political parties and politicians, tend to be trusted less than ‘implementing institutions’, such as the police or national legal systems in many other European countries”.

We are not alone in this. We are typical. In our survey, judges score particularly highly as to the amount of trust the public is prepared to bestow upon them. The police come next with a level of public acceptance of almost 70%. This is a summary of the results from 2004 to 2012. Cabinet Ministers lurk at around 25% to 26%. Until recently, in our country in this type of polling the police have been running at more than twice the levels of respect or trustworthiness of Cabinet Ministers.

However, looking at more recent polling there is evidence of a worrying change. For example, in a recent YouGov poll, respondents who trust senior police officers have decreased from 72% in 2003 to 49% in 2012, and a quarter of those surveyed by ComRes in 2013 said that the plebgate affair has made them less likely to trust the police. These very high-level indicators do not characterise the surveys carried out by the Nolan committee. Let me give a health warning: I take seriously everything that the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, says about such surveys. However, for what it is worth it does seem possible that, over the past year, a change in the public mood from that high level of acceptance of the police is occurring.

Noble Lords will remember the debate in this House in the early part of this year in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, with a technical title about looking at police performance management statistics. This most interesting debate, in the Moses Room, looked at gaming in the police service and the gaming of statistics. The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, has played a major role in drawing attention to these interesting questions. As an academic, I think it only fair to add that gaming, as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, said, is not confined to the police service, and can also be found, as we both agree, in universities. That debate, although it was an important and serious, attracted little attention. Since then the momentum around this question has been transformed. The Public Administration Select Committee has announced that it is going to hold an inquiry into the management and accuracy of police statistics. It is a major consideration in terms of the public trust. Earlier this month my own committee, the Committee on Standards in Public Life, made a submission on this question to the Public Administration Select Committee, and in the middle of last week the Times front page led with serious questions about how accurate our police statistics have been and about the pressures that existed in the past which have perhaps ensured they are not as accurate as we would hope they would be. So there has been a dramatic change in that one specific area in just a few months.

Taking a more positive view, one interesting thing in the last few weeks is the publication by the College of Policing of its Draft Code of Ethics. I welcome this with all my heart, as I welcome the fact that the Nolan principles, particularly those of honesty, accountability, integrity and leadership, have been put at its heart. In principle, this document from the College of Policing is a good thing. I want to add a few caveats and concerns about the current draft. One is that in the earlier code of conduct for the Police Service of Northern Ireland from 2008, there is a clearer relationship between not living up to the code of conduct and possible issues of misconduct. It is much clearer in the PSNI document than in the College of Policing document. The great danger is that the College of Policing statement of principles just becomes abstract and out there and is not fully operationalised in the conduct of police officers.

There is considerable evidence of good faith and seriousness in the production of the document and greater clarification could make it even better. Another area where one needs greater clarity is on declaring business interests. That needs to be clearer than it currently is in the document.

I hope that the College of Policing document is an indication of a growing understanding among senior police officers in our country and those concerned with the matter that we are at a difficult moment which requires some redress and serious thinking.

Global Migration and Mobility (EUC Report)

Lord Bew Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bew]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Hannay for securing this important debate. If he will forgive me, I, like other noble Lords, will concentrate on one facet of the GAMM report: the section that deals with international students and net migration targets, covered by paragraphs 181 to 188 of the report. I am absolutely in agreement with the broad spirit of these paragraphs. It is vital that our universities should retain their open stance and international aspect, and that they remain competitive and attractive on a world scale.

When I was a student in Cambridge in 1968, the most influential essay among left-wing students was an article in the New Left Review by Perry Anderson called Components of the National Culture. The article demonstrated magnificently that a high percentage of the leading figures responsible for the crucial high-water marks and components of our culture, to whom we owe an enormous debt, were penniless migrants from Europe during a very troubled century. That essay was recently reprinted in a book called English Questions. It is a reminder that what we often think of as an English question is constructed from much more complex and heterogeneous roots.

I absolutely stand by the broad spirit of the GAAM report. It is not just a matter of soft power. Higher education contributed £8 billion to the UK economy in 2009. Paragraph 231 of the report suggests, in effect, that students should be excluded from the Government’s net migration targets. To no one’s great surprise, the reply of the Minister, Mark Harper, to my noble friend Lord Boswell, chair of the EU Committee, was less than enthusiastic. He concluded:

“The net migration statistics are produced by the Independent Office for National Statistics, and they have historically included students. The UK will continue to comply with the international definition of net migration, which covers all those coming for more than 12 months”—

including students—

“regardless of any intention to leave”.

I think that the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, used the word “dodgy” to describe the Government’s reply. Indeed, there is a certain evasiveness about it. Technically, it is a perfectly logical reply, which faces up to one of the great objections of the university sector—that we do know that the vast majority of people who come to this country to study courses leave once they have completed those courses. As I say, technically, there is nothing wrong with the reply, but I fully accept that it is slightly evasive. It is abstracted from what we all know to be the tensions in British politics around these questions of immigration, particularly this year.

There is another aspect of this issue that we in the university sector have to take into account. The media exposure to bogus colleges has been a crucial development in the past couple of years, whereby one saw basically a vast network of Potemkin villages revealed to the dismay, I think, of the British public. Even the university sector itself has not been immune to practices which appear to be not particularly impressive. I remind your Lordships of the Daily Telegraph sting in Peking about a year ago, which seemed to show that one of our most respected business schools was offering in China diluted qualifications for entry. All these things have an impact. Within the university sector people will say, “Actually, if you look at the qualifications of people coming in, they are on average higher than those of more locally based candidates”. One could say that the Chinese sting is unrepresentative, but I speak in your Lordships’ House on a day when we await the “Panorama” coverage of a sting of Members of this House. Once these things come out in this way, it is not enough to say, “We all know that this is unrepresentative and not typical”. The truth of the matter is that a public interest is established to which we have to respond more decisively than by saying that these stings are unrepresentative and give an unfair picture of the overall pattern in this area.

Although I think that the Government’s response is evasive in a sense, there are reasons why any Government would have concerns in this area. Those of us who like to speak in this House and argue on behalf of the university sector have to take those reasons into account. However, in paragraph 188, the GAMM report goes on to say something else of considerable importance. It says:

“If the Government genuinely favour an increase in bona fide students from outside the EU they should make this clearer”.

I could not agree more. In this respect, I am slightly more confident than the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, was about the Prime Minister’s remarks in India when he addressed this question very directly. A lot of the statistics in this area are a little unclear. The exact extent to which students are discouraged by the fact that they are included in net migration figures is not clear. There seems to be a slight falling off of enthusiasm to come to the United Kingdom, but it is pretty small. What is not in doubt is the very significant drop of 24% in the number of those coming from India. This was pointed out by the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, and the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. That is the one figure which is not in dispute. There are reasons for it but it is a serious drop and something which has to be addressed. It is a very regrettable phenomenon. That is why it was important that the Prime Minister made it clear in India that genuine prospective international students are welcome and that there is no cap on numbers. He also made the very important point that there are opportunities to work for a period during and after study and that the UK wants and values international students. It was very important that he spoke in that way in India.

The truth is that the vast majority of students from outside this country will make their decisions not on the basis of whether students are included in the government target but on the quality of the course. All the evidence shows that. This country is second in the world in terms of its attractiveness to international students. There is no reason to believe that that will be challenged but we have to be vigilant. That is why I was particularly disturbed by the example of the Brazilian students mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, towards the end of his speech. That was a disturbing case that did not indicate the open attitude that we should have to able and well qualified students.

I return to GAMM report, which states:

“If the Government genuinely favour an increase in bona fide students from outside the EU they should make this clearer and ensure that all policy instruments support this objective”.

I ask the Minister to give the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, and myself a little comfort on this matter.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Bew Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bew]

My Lords, yesterday the noble Lord, Lord Lang of Monkton, in his witty and elegant speech, moved the Motion for an humble Address to Her Majesty. His tone was, for the most part, light and genial. He did, however, refer to one passage in the gracious Speech. He noted the words:

“My Ministers will … work in co-operation with the devolved Administrations”,

and added, rather dryly, that,

“co-operation is a two-way street”.—[Official Report, 8/5/13; col. 7.]

I take this observation as my starting point.

In March this year, the McKay commission report, or more properly the report of the Commission on the Consequences of Devolution for the House of Commons, was published. The Government had asked the McKay commission in effect to deal with or attempt to solve the vexed West Lothian question posed famously by Tam Dalyell, the MP for West Lothian, in the devolution debates of the 1970s. Tam Dalyell pointed out that, post-devolution, MPs from outside England could help to determine laws that apply in England, while MPs from England would have no reciprocal influence on laws outside England in the policy fields for which the devolved Administrations would now be responsible. Sir William McKay was a distinguished Clerk of the House of Commons from 1998 to 2002, and his commissioners are a most distinguished group. Their answer is an interesting one.

The thrust of the McKay commission report is a suggestion that whenever measures separately affect England, or England and Wales, the voice of England is heard before the final word is spoken by the House as a whole. As Professor Yvonne Galligan, one of the commission’s members, expressed it on “The Thoughtful Scholar” blog, the essence is that,

“we want all MPs to retain the right of final say, while allowing for the voice of England to be heard”.

I am not sure that the West Lothian question is not fundamentally insoluble. As the McKay commission report quite rightly points out, the question predates Scottish issues. It was in fact initially an Irish issue: these questions were discussed between Parnell and Gladstone in the 1880s. They could not resolve the difficulty, the reason lying fundamentally in the fact that they could not define what a purely English question was. I am not sure whether this problem does not still lurk behind what is, in so many respects, a very impressive and interesting report.

However, the report at least signals quite clearly the existence of something: the growing element of an English question in our polity. It is quite disturbing, as your Lordships will see if they look at the commission’s tables of English public opinion, that there is a growing impatience with, for example, the level of public expenditure in the devolved Administrations. This is a matter which those of us who live in areas governed by those devolved Administrations, as I do, have to take into consideration. Those Administrations also have to consider a sentiment of growing edginess in English public opinion—perhaps not an explosive edginess, but an edginess that is certainly growing—about what appears to be a double weighting of the political class of Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales: the sense that, in principle, that political class has its own bailiwick, which cannot be interfered with, but that it can also play a decisive role in the affairs of England. In such a context, it is important not to add any new cause for exacerbation between the devolved Assemblies and the Westminster Parliament. As the noble Lord, Lord Lang, said yesterday, co-operation is a two-way street.

It is precisely for that reason that I have been disturbed by the Northern Ireland Assembly’s decision, as it seems, not to apply but to reject the recent Defamation Bill, which was passed by Parliament. There are very important reasons to be disturbed by this development. Perhaps selfishly, as an academic, I would stress that one of the core elements of that Bill is the attempt to expand the academic freedom of discussion and to protect those who write for peer-reviewed journals. It is very important for university culture throughout the United Kingdom generally that such a protection should be there, for both scientists and those who work in the humanities. It is important for those who work in universities in Northern Ireland, as I in fact do, that such a protection is there for them as well. In the struggle to have good universities, which is fundamental to the economic success of a region such as Northern Ireland, it sends out a bad signal if the local Assembly displays itself as fundamentally indifferent to the tone or substance of academic freedom as an issue.

More profound than that, of course, is the issue on which there has been much recent comment in the press: that Belfast would now become the new libel capital of the United Kingdom, London having lost its previously perceived role as libel capital of the world as a result of the changes in the law. If this were to happen and Belfast became, as the dark joke now has it, a town called Sue, it will place enormous, and I suspect in some way unfair, burdens on the local judiciary. It would send out a signal that again would be disturbing. One of our media lawyers in Belfast, Mr Paul McDonnell, unselfishly made the point that while it would increase his income enormously if this gap and the status quo remained, as envisaged by the Assembly, he would simply regard it none the less as morally unacceptable. He went on to say that,

“investigations in the public interest which concern well-funded entities will effectively be subject to censorship by the back door”.

Censorship by the back door is something which I do not think a devolved Assembly wants to get into or to sanction in any way.

I understand from newspaper reports that the Members of Parliament from Northern Ireland are uneasy about the McKay commission report. I can understand why they might feel that way. MPs from the devolved regions will be very nervous about anything that hints at all at creating a second-class status of MP. It is a very sensitive question within the United Kingdom, even though the report itself has tried to deal with it as subtly as it conceives to be possible. However, I quite understand why the Northern Irish MPs are, according to newspaper reports, uneasy and unsympathetic. As the Troubles have receded as a kind of natural focus of obsession for our MPs, the range of interventions made by Members of Parliament from Northern Ireland across the board on different policy aspects in Westminster life has been one of the most refreshing aspects of the work of this Parliament. I understand their unease but, as the noble Lord, Lord Lang, said, co-operation is a two-way street.

It might well be in the interests, at certain points, of the Scottish National Party or Alex Salmond to do things that exacerbate or irritate opinion in the rest of the United Kingdom, but it cannot be in the interests of those who represent Northern Ireland, or the great majority of them at the Westminster Parliament or the majority parties in the Northern Ireland Assembly, similarly to exacerbate opinion in Westminster.

Minority Ethnic and Religious Communities: Cultural and Economic Contribution

Lord Bew Excerpts

Thursday 24th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bew]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Bilimoria for securing this debate and for the fine speech with which he opened it. I declare an interest as the chairman of both the British-Irish Association and the Anglo-Israel Association. I will speak briefly under both headings.

It is easy to make a case for the Irish contribution to the cultural and economic life of the United Kingdom, particularly in this Chamber, where two of the great Paintings, Daniel Maclise’s “Spirit of Justice” and “Spirit of Chivalry”, look down upon us. Of course, the two great Paintings in the Royal Gallery are also the work of Daniel Maclise from Country Cork.

It is well known in this House that no medium-sized city in Europe has produced as many Nobel prize-winners in literature as Dublin. These things are widely understood. Perhaps less widely understood is the role of Ireland now in the economic life of the United Kingdom. We now have significant Irish employers such as Glen Dimplex, Kerrygold and Greencore, which all play a significant role in the employment opportunities of this island. When the two economies are so deeply intertwined at this moment of peril, it is worth stressing the positive contribution that Irish employers make to the United Kingdom.

I turn briefly to the Jewish community, which owes so much to King Cyrus, who was mentioned in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria. It is appropriate to turn to that community. Ever since Perry Anderson published his famous article Components of the National Culture 40 years ago, there has been widespread understanding of the incredibly important influence of the Jewish community on the intellectual, artistic and scientific life of this country. The role of the Jewish community is widely understood. I refer briefly to a historic figure, Sir Montague Burton, who endowed so many chairs in my own field of study as an act of generosity.

I lead on to say that it is tremendously important to understand the scale of the philanthropic activities of the Jewish community today, particularly in the treatment of degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. The role of the Jewish community in raising money for research in this area is absolutely remarkable, and in a debate of this sort it is worth drawing attention to such a development.

I conclude by referring briefly to one of the United Kingdom’s oldest Muslim communities, the Ahmadiyya, and to something that many in your Lordships’ House will have noticed in recent days—the remarkable, huge sponsored charity walk that the Ahmadiyya held in celebration of the Diamond Jubilee. It is a remarkable indication, yet again, of this country’s ability to inspire that sense of citizenship and generosity, which we are so fortunate to experience.

Protection of Freedoms Bill

Lord Bew Excerpts

Wednesday 15th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, this country desperately depends on the quality of research in universities. Our future depends on its quality in economic but also in social terms. I am concerned about the chilling effect of the present situation. Young researchers beginning to flex their muscles in applying their originality of thought and their intellectual excellence feel that they have to be very careful about how they do that, lest something is taken out of context and used by people for purposes which have nothing to do with objectively trying to assist good research.

I have seen a circular used in a university sent from people in the administrative department not only to younger members of staff but quite widely to staff reminding them of the hazards of the Freedom of Information Act and the need for them to take great care in the way they approach their contribution to research. That made a huge impact on me when I saw it. I thought it was the beginning of the end. It had a cooling effect, a chilling effect. What should have gone out, if anything, was a robust letter saying, “We are determined as a university to support our researchers in every way possible, whatever the implications under the Freedom of Information Act”. I am fully in favour of the principles of the Freedom of Information Act, but to pretend that there is not a tension here, with dire consequences if it is not properly handled, is stupid. It would be wise of the Government to listen carefully to what was said in moving the amendment and to take seriously the experience and concern of Universities UK.

[Lord Bew]

My Lords, I support Amendments 55A and 56. I must confess the interest of being a working professor in one of our universities. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Henley, who has spent much time with those of us who have been concerned about these matters. I am very grateful to him for that.

The Government’s view is that the exemptions already present mean that many of the fears held in this Chamber are unjustified. I want to make one brutal, simple and crude point, which partly picks up on the points already made by the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin. We must think about multinational concerns and how the country is viewed from outside. For example, let us take the case of our libel law. Our senior judiciary genuinely believes that it is wrong to believe that London is the libel capital of the universe. Genuinely, it says, “If you look more closely at the facts of the case, it is not quite so”. Perhaps that is right; perhaps it is wrong. The world has made up its mind that London is the libel capital of the universe. That clearly affects the way that the world behaves. It may be unfair, but the world has made up its mind. Similarly, in this case, it is not worth taking the risk of the world making up its mind that there might be this or that exemption in existing law but somehow universities in the United Kingdom are not as secure places to invest in research as universities in France or the Republic of Ireland—or even in Scotland—where there are higher barriers. I wish to underline that brutal point about international perception.

Unfortunately, my noble friend Lady O'Neill has had to go. I want to make one point which I know was on her mind in moving her amendment. Her concern relates to public authorities—here, meaning universities and other publicly funded institutes—being required to release research data sets on which they hold copyright in a reusable form without any conditions on their subsequent dissemination. A research data set that is released without conditions on its further use is, in effect, made available to the entire world and so will be fully available in jurisdictions where respect for intellectual property is poor and remedies for its violation are non-existent. In other words, we are talking about something entirely different from the case involving Cambridge, King’s College London and Professor Crick, which we talked about earlier. It is an entirely different utilisation of another person’s data set.

I was discussing this with a distinguished researcher at our university at the weekend. She said to me, “Actually, I’m sitting on a very sophisticated data set and it is just about possible that I am not asking the right questions of it. There might be somebody in another United Kingdom university who would ask different questions and could do something with it. It is just about possible that that might be so”. However, the danger—and it is the concern that the amendment of my noble friend Lady O’Neill addresses—is: if we do not control the reusable aspects of such an exchange, we will leave ourselves open in a way which is not sensible from a national point of view. I am sure it is the view of my noble friend Lady O’Neill that we cannot ignore the reality that science is both international and competitive and that sophisticated science is now done in some places where there is scant respect for intellectual property. An unreciprocated requirement for United Kingdom university researchers to provide any data sets that they create and hold without any conditions on their republication or dissemination will damage the competitive position of UK researchers and so of UK science.

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

My Lords, I have spoken before in favour of Amendment 56 and shall not repeat the arguments which illustrate how much work goes into cleaning up the raw data necessary to form data sets to develop meaningful analysis and the problems that can arise from forced distribution before those data have been properly presented and analysed.

I should like to reinforce the arguments made around the Chamber about what a disincentive to young researchers it is if they feel that all their work can be poached and used by somebody else. As the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, mentioned, it is also open to foreign researchers to poach and make use of those data, pre-empting the results. Similarly, it can be a disincentive to commercial collaboration, although, as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, suggested in relation to her amendment, one way to prevent the data being poached is to collaborate with a commercial partner. However, at a time when Her Majesty’s Government are trying to encourage collaboration between commercial partners and universities, it seems very unfortunate to encourage the use of freedom of information in this way.

What I cannot understand is the Government’s opposition to the amendment. Effectively, this scheme has been piloted in Scotland and has been found to be very satisfactory. It is very unusual for us to have legislation that has been piloted in this way. Given that it has proved so satisfactory, I cannot understand why the Government are so resistant to accepting it.