Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]

Lord Bilimoria Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 15th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bilimoria (CB) [V]]

My Lords, the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill represents an opportunity to create a more agile and jobs-focused skills system that is underpinned by local collaboration between further education, higher education and business. Strengthening collaboration with business can help us to identify and respond to skills demands through providing short courses that support employment and provide a talent pipeline for job creation.

For local skills improvement plans to be successful, they must leverage the input and strengths of businesses, along with further and higher education providers. Partnerships between colleges and universities can build clear pathways for people to learn new skills and support employers to recruit and upskill their workforce across the different stages of education and training. Local strategies should complement the work of LEPs and combined authorities in skills planning and harmonise the efforts of regional actors. A fragmented approach across different geographies risks confusing employers and leaving gaps in coverage.

The Government must go faster to support adult learning, ahead of the introduction of the lifelong loan entitlement. The CBI, of which I am president, in its Learning for Life report found that, by 2030, nine in 10 people will need to upskill or retrain in order to prevent skills gaps emerging in the UK. Covid-19 has thrown this challenge into even sharper focus, with an urgent need to respond to increasing unemployment. The introduction of a lifelong loan entitlement is a positive step to enable more adults to acquire the skills they need to flourish. However, the 2025 timeline needs to be accelerated in order to support the reskilling that our economy demands. In the interim, the Government should work with further education and higher education providers to incentivise and upskill through more flexible, modular and bite-sized courses.

To build on the Bill and deliver on the priority of boosting adult education, the national skills fund must also provide support for individuals facing the biggest barriers to learning, thus supporting those with the greatest retraining needs. This will be essential to mitigate the job displacement being caused by the pandemic and will help the UK to seize the benefits of an increasingly digital and green economy. We need a levelling-up of opportunity for people to build their skills, but that will require significant business investment. Realising the Government’s ambitions for this Bill will require fundamental levy reform. Addressing skills gaps in our economy and giving everyone access to the education and training they need will cost approximately £130 billion over the next decade. That is what the CBI has estimated. The Government must create the right incentives to unlock business investment in every town, city and region.

In its current form, the apprenticeship levy serves as a barrier to investment in skills. It is distorting investment as firms try to make training fit awkwardly into an apprenticeship. Many firms are also reticent about investing in further skills support until they have spent their full levy fund. A flexible skills and training levy could unleash business investment in both people and workplaces, and could capitalise on the increase in employer demand for the more modular, skills-based provision that the Government are proud of. Does the Minister agree with that?

The Government have also taken steps to make it easier for employers to transfer funds to SMEs in their supply chains. While levy payers are keen to help smaller firms invest in apprentices, that does not overcome the wider challenges, including those faced by SMEs. The fundamental issue is that employers are being forced to address all their training needs via the apprenticeship route, leading to most levy payers underspending their pot of funds. We have reached an impasse with the Government, with the Department for Education pointing the finger at Her Majesty’s Treasury. Will the noble Baroness the Minister clarify the situation?

The Open University has said clearly that the Bill is a key opportunity to reverse the calamitous decline in part-time students in higher education in England. I hope that the Minister will agree that it is essential that this is not missed. I was proud to be the youngest university chancellor in the country at the time, from 2005 to 2010 at the Thames Valley University, now the University of West London. I saw at first hand the amazing number of mature and part-time learners, but that has sadly declined hugely now.

Professor John Holford, who was a fellow commissioner on the Centenary Commission on Adult Education that reported in November 2019, has made some really important points. He says that a Bill which focuses on skills and productivity is important, but post-16 education is also vital for many other reasons too. For example, it can help individuals and communities who are struggling to counteract loneliness and isolation in the wake of Covid. We need to recognise the wider educational role of the further education sector.

Schools and universities celebrate learning for vocational qualifications, but they also teach philosophy, ethics, art and music, which are the tools needed for active citizens. Further education alone is denied that breadth. Educational breadth is needed so that adult education can engage with those who are most in need. Education has often not worked for them in the past. They do not see education as a route to earning more. Adult education needs to be able to offer the kind of learning that will enthuse and engage people. Does the Minister agree? Very often, this will build their confidence so that they can go on to study further for a qualification to progress towards better work, improved health and well-being, along with other outcomes that benefit themselves and their communities.

This Bill offers no new support for students studying below level 3. That pathway is vital to the post-16 educational landscape. Without adequate support in the adult education budget for lower-level qualifications, many students will not be ready and able to take up the level 3 offers that are included in the Bill. Does the Minister agree with this?

The preparation of local skills improvement plans must involve wide consultation not just with employers but with professionals, including community adult education providers such as the institutes for adult learning, general further education colleges and local authority community adult learning representatives.

In conclusion, I am proud to be chancellor of the University of Birmingham. Earlier on, my fellow chancellor, the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, made such an important point in this debate. Far too often, people have a mindset that further education equals technical and vocational, while university education equals academic. Universities are also proud to offer vocational training and qualifications, whether that be in filmmaking or engineering.

[The Deputy Speaker (The Earl of Kinnoull) (CB)]

The noble Lord, Lord Flight, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker.

Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities

Lord Bilimoria Excerpts

Wednesday 21st April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, yes, the Government commend the ambition of this report, which is for us to use it as

“a road map for racial fairness.”

I hope noble Lords have understood that, although we are not the country we were, and we are not in a perfect place—the commission does not say that—we want to work together. We applaud all those people who have stood against the injustices that we have seen decline over the years. We recognise that anywhere racist incidents exist, we all have a responsibility. It is not just government; wherever we see such incidents—many of us will have seen them in our own lives on public transport and places such as that—we must all speak up. We all have a responsibility to get to a racially fair society.

[Lord Bilimoria (CB) [V]]

My Lords, the CBI, of which I am president, recently launched Change the Race Ratio, an initiative to promote ethnic-minority participation in business. The Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities made 24 recommendations. However, the disclosure of the ethnicity pay gap—one of the most transformative steps a company can take to address race inequality at work—was not one of them. Surely this should be a recommendation, as closing the UK’s ethnicity pay gap is about making our society fairer and more inclusive. Do the Government not agree that diverse companies perform better on every metric and that transparency should be the watch- word? While progress has been made on race inequality over the past few decades, there is still a long way to go.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, yes, diversity of governing boards and businesses is indeed a strength. We obviously agree that people should be paid in accordance with their work and that there should not be an ethnic pay gap. However, it is the mechanism by which we get there that I believe we are in disagreement on. The report states that, when companies publish ethnicity pay gaps, they should also publish action plans and diagnoses as to how they are going to close that gap.

Skills for Jobs White Paper

Lord Bilimoria Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, there is a limit to central government, which is why the key strategy here is local skills improvement panels, working closely with colleges and the devolved authorities. That is matched by the Skills and Productivity Board, which will give a national picture. In relation to the question of who these employers are, when one looks at what is happening with apprenticeships, there are trail-blazer groups of employers. This is not just picking one person. The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education oversees these trail-blazer groups. They include small and medium-sized enterprises and we are so encouraged that, as my noble friend made reference to education and training, much more is now taking place in the workplace. When one looks at apprenticeships, one sees that they have good training in the workplace as well as time out of the workplace to do that training. There are workplace placements for T-levels as well, so that those young people have a period of weeks in the workplace. So my noble friend is right that employers have a responsibility, and that is why employer-led bodies such as chambers of commerce are going to be involved with the local skills improvement plans.

[Lord Bilimoria (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I was a member of the Centenary Commission on Adult Education, which reported in November 2019. I welcome the Skills for Jobs White Paper. It confirms the importance of collaboration between businesses and colleges for improving people’s career prospects. Putting employers at the heart of new qualifications right across England will build on the success of these local partnerships. They will ensure courses remain in lock-step with industry need and give learners confidence they are gaining skills that lead to jobs. Would the Minster agree that new technologies mean that nine in 10 employees will need to learn new skills by 2030, and the Government commitment to delivering the flexible learner entitlement, boosting access to modular learning, is hugely welcome and will support more adults into training? Would the Minister agree that this should be backed up by turning the apprenticeship levy into a flexible skills levy at Budget?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

The noble Lord is correct that one of the areas where we lack productivity and we know we have a skills gap is the digital sector. That is why digital has been a focus of those eight to 12-week bootcamps that I outlined, with a fast track to an interview. So the noble Lord is entirely right in relation to that. I will take his suggestion about the levy back to the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills.

Covid-19: Educational Settings

Lord Bilimoria Excerpts

Thursday 7th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for mentioning vaccination, because I forgot to outline the position. We are following independent experts from the JCVI in distributing the vaccine first to those who are most clinically at risk of hospitalisation and death. The single biggest factor, as I am sure noble Lords are aware, is age. I understand that the Prime Minister might be talking about the progress of the vaccination at this very moment. In relation to reopening schools, the testing being rolled out and consideration of the vaccine are very much on the department’s mind. I am due to meet the Independent Schools Council later this month. From previous discussions, I know that it is closely linked to Ofqual and I am sure it will be involved in responding to the consultation on exams. We recognise the concerns and views being expressed by Members on the priority that should be given to vaccinating school staff.

[Lord Bilimoria (CB) [V]]

My Lords, the Statement clearly states a binding requirement for schools to provide high-quality remote education, yet just over a month ago the Chancellor said in the spending review that, instead of having 100% gigabyte digital coverage, it will now be only 85%. Does the Minister agree that it is now essential, with remote learning and digital access, to have 100%? Secondly, the Statement says:

“Regular testing will take place of staff and students in school”,


yet it implies that many schools are already testing, and we hear that in one large local authority, they have been told not to proceed with the lateral flow tests because of their inappropriateness and reliability. Could there be clear communication from the Government on the effectiveness, worth and necessity of these rapid mass tests?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, school staff did a sterling job of setting up testing facilities in secondary schools over the Christmas holidays. The testing will be used for staff, vulnerable children and children of critical care workers attending school. This is also part of looking forward to the reopening, for which this testing may be needed. We are looking at extending it to primary schools, and there are specific arrangements for specialist settings. I have outlined the arrangements we have made on mobile phone coverage for internet access. Also, if there is a particular problem for children with connectivity, at the moment schools can bring them in as a classified vulnerable child.

Covid-19: Disparate Impact

Lord Bilimoria Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, noble Lords will have heard me earlier make reference to the fact that the children of many people who have “no recourse to public funds” have been able to access free school meals. The furlough scheme and the job retention scheme are not counted as public funds, so those in the category that the noble Baroness outlines were able to access them. No one in this country is charged for testing or treatment for Covid-19, and certain services, including primary care and A&E, are free to all. It is very clear that, if there are charges to be applied, treatment that is considered by a clinician to be urgent or immediately necessary must not be delayed or withheld. We have made essential healthcare available to all people who are within the boundaries of our country.

[Lord Bilimoria (CB) [V]]

My Lords, men have a higher risk of death and account for just over 70% of Covid ICU admissions. People with obesity account for more than 30% of those in intensive care. When it comes to ethnic minorities, Dr Chaand Nagpaul, the BMA council chair said:

“As we sit amid a second wave of infections, we know that about a third of those admitted to intensive care are not white—showing no change since the first peak.”


Some 15% of the population are from an ethnic minority, so this is double the proportion. Can the Minister explain the situation? Furthermore, the IPPR’s Dr Parth Patel, a research fellow, commenting on the government report said:

“The government should be acting to address the underlying structures behind ethnic disparities … Failure to act quickly will lead to thousands of unnecessary deaths during this second wave—this is about public health as much as it’s about racial justice.”


Does the Minister agree?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, yes. As I have mentioned, one of the other factors in the disparity is that working-age men are more likely to die of Covid than working-age women. In relation to obesity, the Government published in July, I believe, the obesity strategy, and we are aware that dealing with that issue is important in terms of co-morbidities. We are working closely with PHE, the Office for National Statistics and the BMA, which gave the advice in relation to taxis and private hire vehicles which led to masks being made mandatory in those vehicles. Yes, we now know more about exposure: black and minority-ethnic people are in certain densely populated areas and multigenerational households, so we have been taking action to try to reduce the risk. We will continue to act going forward.

Public Health England Review: Covid-19 Disparities

Lord Bilimoria Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge [V]]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. Alongside this report there has been increased stakeholder engagement—particularly with the black and minority ethnic community—with faith leaders and representatives. As the Government are trying to ensure that the communication of the necessary public health information regarding hygiene and handwashing has been fully promoted within those communities, we are translating much of that advice into additional languages to ensure that that community has heard the messages it needs to hear now.

[Lord Bilimoria (CB) [V]]

My Lords, black men and women are more than four times as likely to die a coronavirus-related death than white people. It is sad that of the 29 British doctors who have died of coronavirus during the pandemic, 27 were from ethnic-minority backgrounds. Research this week has revealed that 40% of BAME doctors surveyed said that risk assessments to prevent Covid deaths recommended by the NHS nationwide five weeks earlier have still not been carried out. Can the Minister explain why? Even Dr Chaand Nagpaul, the BMA Council chair, is calling on the Government to take urgent action to protect our BAME colleagues. Yet now, where care homes are concerned, the Government have just announced a new social care task force. Can the Minister explain why there are still care homes where staff and patients have not been tested—let alone on a regular basis—as the Government assured us they would be?

[Baroness Berridge [V]]

My Lords, the department wrote to all NHS trusts and clinical commissioning groups outlining that there should be risk assessments of their staff and that they should take into account whether they have black and minority-ethnic or other staff who were at particular risk so that additional precautions could be taken. That was included also in the NHS Employers guidance to ensure that protected characteristics were taken into account. We are aware that HR directors in various places are taking those actions and even redeploying staff. The advice and guidance have been clear that this is a factor to take into account along with other factors, as I have outlined, such as being pregnant.

International Women’s Day

Lord Bilimoria Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bilimoria (CB)]

My Lords, this is the 25th anniversary of the Beijing declaration. Right up front I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Loomba, who founded the Loomba Foundation for poor widows, initially in India and then around the world. I have been proud to be chair of the advisory council since its inception in 1997. He should also be given credit for securing UN recognition for International Widows Day on 23 June each year. This has done so much to change attitudes and raise awareness for the plight of widows around the world, including educating widows’ children. I am so looking forward to the maiden speech of my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Ranger.

I am vice-president of the CBI. Our deputy director-general, Henrietta Jowitt, recently spoke at the Women in Investment Festival and made some excellent points. Basically, she said that diverse companies are better companies. The real argument is not that women need business; business needs women. Companies with more diversity at the top, in their executive teams, actually perform better. At the CBI we hear this from our members time and again. If a business has a more diverse executive team, it is going to be 33% more profitable than other businesses. Evidence suggests that bridging the gender pay gap could boost UK GDP by about £150 billion—more jobs, more investment; a real, material improvement to people’s lives.

However, there is a lot of progress still to be made. The Minister mentioned ethnic minorities. The recent Parker review found that only 54 FTSE 250 businesses met the target of having at least one person from an ethnic minority background on their board. In 2017 more than 500 BAME executive were board-ready but that is what we have achieved. How can this be right when nearly 20% of the population of the UK is from an ethnic minority background?

The public are constantly looking to businesses to operate responsibly and sustainably. This is the agenda that our customers, suppliers and clients all expect. Companies are taking steps to close the gender pay gap. EY, the firm that I work with, has EY Reconnect, a returnship programme for people who have had a career break. There is job sharing, the use of technology and collaboration with schools. Tata Consultancy Services has a programme to inspire more women to move into the STEM sector. The CBI has published the Bridge the Gap guide, which provides practical advice on how to start conversations about race at work and increase disclosure rates to help reduce the ethnic pay gap. In 2018 the CBI’s gender pay gap stood at 12.6% mean and 19.7% median.

I am chancellor of the University of Birmingham. In the 1950s my mother studied at the University of Birmingham and every day she went to classes wearing her sari.

The Minister spoke about women outperforming men. Well, 59% of our undergraduates are female and —wait for this—88.7% of female undergraduate students were awarded 2:1s or first-class degrees compared with 83.8% male undergraduate students. Also, 54% of our staff are female. But there is the pay gap—our average hourly pay-rate for women was 19.1% lower mean or 19.6% lower median, although this has decreased. The university has institutional targets to achieve 30% female representation of professors, as well as of senior researchers, senior lecturers and readers. In 2019, 27.5% of our professors and 39.8% of our senior researchers, senior lecturers and readers were female. So, we are working and conducting research on the UN global goals, including goal 5:

“Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.”


When it comes to companies, in 2010, women made up only 12.5% of the members of corporate boards and FTSE 100 companies; this was up from 9.4% in 2004. In 2010, Dame Helena Morrissey, a university contemporary of mine from Cambridge, founded the 30% Club setting a target of 30% women on FTSE 100 boards. We have made a lot of progress on this. We then had the Davies review in 2011, which set a target of 25% female representation by 2015, and now women hold a third of board positions in the UK’s top public companies. The latest data shows that one of the two targets set by the Government’s Hampton-Alexander review has been hit: women filling 33% of board seats in the top 350 UK listed companies by the end of this year. But the review is struggling to achieve its second main aim of having 33% of women in the leadership teams of firms listed in the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250. The boardroom target has been achieved voluntarily; that is the thing—there has been no legislation on this. However, the Hampton-Alexander review highlighted a lack of female representation in senior leadership and executive roles, with women making up only 15% of FTSE 100 directors.

I am proud to chair the advisory board of the Cambridge Judge Business School. Very sadly, one of our professors, Sucheta Nadkarni, passed away in October 2019. She was a real force at the business school, and director of the Cambridge Wo+Men’s Leadership Centre. The centre has done amazing work, including on the Cambridge Rising Women Leaders Programme, which has shown that diversity in senior leadership encourages innovation, improves decision-making, reduces corporate misconduct and improves financial returns. We are witnessing great strides, although there is still so much work to do. Positive progress has been made, with the number of female executives globally set to rise by 36%. This centre has amazing courses that are oversubscribed year after year.

I am also proud to be ambassador for the British Library’s Business and IP Centre. We have seen there very clearly that the business landscape in the UK continues to be dominated by men, with only 20% of businesses nationwide owned by women and fewer than 5% by ethnic minority women. The Minister mentioned the Alison Rose Review of Female Entrepreneurship, which estimated that if women started and scaled new businesses at the same rate as men, this could add up to £250 billion to the value of the economy. We are doing our best to help all this. However, only 6.6% of women are CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and, globally, we are still battling an average 32% gender pay gap.

India, where I was born, had a woman Prime Minister in Indira Gandhi well before we had Margaret Thatcher over here. Although we have had two Chancellors of the Exchequer, one after the other, who are British Asians—my friends Sajid Javid and Rishi Sunak—India had its first female Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, last year. We are yet to have a female Chancellor of the Exchequer in this country. An American consultancy firm, Korn Ferry, found in its research a few years ago that women outperform men in 11 of 12 key emotional intelligence competencies.

Schoolchildren: Dyslexia and Neurodiverse Conditions

Lord Bilimoria Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bilimoria (CB)]

My Lords, it was very early—in kindergarten—when it was spotted that our younger son Josh might have an issue. By the age of six or seven, his prep school gave up on him, so we sent him to a specialist learning school here in London. It tried for two years but he did not improve that much. At nine, we sent him to boarding school—Bruern Abbey in Oxfordshire—a specialist school with 10 children to a class and two teachers per classroom. He improved and improved and got into one of the finest schools in the world at the age of 13. He was at the bottom of the school when he started but, last year, he finished at that school at 18 with three A*s at A-level.

There were three reasons for his improvement. First, we spotted it early. Secondly, we had access to the best possible teaching for his condition, which was dyslexia, dyspraxia and ADHD. Thirdly was his effort—you can get there. One of my team, Omaar from India, said it was spotted from the age of six that he had an issue. His parents got him tuition all through his schooling and he ended up doing a master’s at UCL. However, that is for people who can afford it.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for initiating the debate. In January 2019, 14.9% of pupils in England had a special educational need—SEN—and yet only 3.1% had an EHC plan. In its September 2019 report, the National Audit Office said that the current system of support is not “financially sustainable.” The Local Government Association has stated that the current system has reached a “tipping point” as demand for SEN services has risen much faster than funding has been made available. I have spoken to John Floyd, the headmaster of Bruern Abbey School, which now has 160 boys. He said that the law is good, but access to support is agonisingly slow and difficult. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, talked about the appeals process. John Floyd went on to stress the importance of teaching in the right way and observed that dyslexic children are not achieving their potential.

Professor Julie Allan, professor of equity and inclusion at the School of Education at the University of Birmingham, has said clearly that SEN children

“are not being supported adequately”

and has referred to

“the view expressed by parents and special needs groups that there is a ‘crisis’ in SEN provision.”

She concluded:

“This failure to provide adequate support is, in part, a consequence of the increased demand.”


The CBI, of which I am vice-president, has said that the business case for diversity and inclusion is “rock solid” and yet EY research found that 56% of global senior executives rarely or never discuss disability in their leadership agenda. As a country, we have to do a lot more.

I helped launched DARE to Think Differently with Autistica, a wonderful autism charity founded by Dame Stephanie Shirley, one of the biggest autism benefactors in the world. It points out clearly that while 16% of autistic people are in full-time employment, 77% want to be in work. We know about the famous dyslexics, the Winston Churchills, Albert Einsteins and so on. Richard Branson has said:

“I was seen as the dumbest person in school.”


He has set up a fantastic charity and pointed out that dyslexic people have a unique set of skills that are really important to business. The 2019 House of Commons Education Select Committee report, Special Educational Needs and Disabilities, states clearly:

“Special educational needs and disabilities must be seen as part of the whole approach”,


but goes on to observe that the approach of the Department for Education is

“piecemeal, creating reactive, sticking-plaster policies, when what is needed is serious effort to ensure that issues are fully grappled with, and the 2014 Act works properly, as was intended.”

The 2014 Act is a good piece of legislation. Does the Minister agree with that?

The number of families seeking help has surged by 11%. The National Audit Office has said that children with special needs are being marginalised. The rise in the number of special needs pupils forces them to travel out of area to school, while, as the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said, schools are failing to diagnose 80% of dyslexic pupils. That is shocking. The British Dyslexia Association has said that diagnosis and support for such children is the worst it has seen since government funding started in the 1980s. According to the Department for Education, out of 8.7 million schoolchildren in England, it is estimated that 870,000 have dyslexia, but fewer than 150,000 have been diagnosed.

Every school needs to employ specialist teachers because the human cost of dyslexia in terms of the emotional and psychological impact on poorly supported dyslexic children is high. A report by the all-party parliamentary group for dyslexia, supported by the British Dyslexia Association, has said clearly that 95% of parents feel that they lack the knowledge and skills to deal with this situation. Some 70% of parents feel that schools do not support their dyslexic children. The association has recommended specialist support in each school; training for classroom teachers; adequate pastoral, academic and mental health provision; adequate, accessible information for parents; and that schools should invest in training and resourcing so that they meet the standards and ensure coherent national frameworks.

As Helen Boden, CEO of the British Dyslexia Association, has said:

“The human cost of dyslexia is too high, and we need to change that.”

Trade Bill

Lord Bilimoria Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 13th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I have not participated on this subject before, but I listened to the persuasive explanation by the noble Lord, Lord Fox. I note the phrase “mobility framework”, which sounds incredibly friendly. But I will urge my noble friend to reject this amendment. This is not because I want to build a wall or because I think perceptions of immigration have been wholly erroneous—although he quite rightly drew the House’s attention to that. The noble Baroness, Lady Bull, said that we need to talk about facts. I will share a couple of facts, which will take only a minute. The population of the United Kingdom is going up by 1,200 a day: that is, 400 from natural increase, 600 from immigration from outside the EU and 200 from immigration within the EU. So we are putting a small town or large village on the map of the UK every week. The ONS projections are that the country’s population will go up by 7 million to 9 million between now and 2040. Manchester currently has 2.5 million people living in it—so we will have to find homes for three cities the size of Manchester.

The UK will by that stage have overtaken Germany as the most populous country in Europe and England will have overtaken the Netherlands as the most densely populated. That is against the background of a new industrial revolution that it is believed will cause 7.5 million jobs to be either lost or radically altered. I quite understand the wishes of the noble Lord, Lord Fox, and the other movers of the amendment, but this had to be looked at in the round of our demographic future. It is not about whether you arrived here recently, or about your colour, your race or your creed. It is about what will enable our society to operate cohesively and well as we see that scale of arrivals, and that scale of change to the way we live and work.

[Lord Bilimoria (CB)]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord. How can his argument work when, at the moment, we have unemployment at almost 4% and we need the 3.5 million people from the European Union who are over here now? Given an immigration White Paper that says a minimum salary has to be £30,000, and the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, and the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, how will we manage with a slow-growing economy of just over 1% per year, let alone if it should grow faster? We will have an acute labour shortage.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

I think the noble Lord is completely wrong. I have explained that it looks as though we will lose 7.5 million jobs because of the fourth industrial revolution; that is the first thing. Secondly, there is drastic underemployment among people aged over 50 who, when they try to get a job, cannot do so. It is seen that they have only a few years left to work and so are not reliable; youth is what people look for. There are plenty of available older people, but jobs will disappear. That is why I could not support this amendment unless we had done a lot more work on what the mobility framework advocated by the noble Lord, Lord Fox, really meant.

Trade Bill

Lord Bilimoria Excerpts

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 6th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering]

My Lords, as I mentioned earlier, since Committee the Government have published the very helpful Implications for Business and Trade of a No Deal Exit on 29 March 2019. Paragraphs 39 and 40 set out the importance of the services sector, which overall accounts for 80% of the UK’s GDP. The last available figures—from 2016—show that the legal services sector generates £31.5 billion in UK revenue. The UK has signed an agreement with Switzerland, and this is an example of a rolled-over agreement that will potentially bring direct benefits to UK lawyers. The Government say at paragraph 40 of their paper that in a no-deal scenario,

“the EU has said that UK nationals would be treated in the same way as third country nationals with regards to recognition of their professional qualifications. This would mean the loss of the automatic right to provide short term ‘fly in fly out’ services, as the type of work lawyers can do in each individual member state may vary, and the loss of rights of audience in EU courts. UK lawyers and businesses would be responsible for ensuring they can operate in each Member State they want to work in”.

I have a couple of questions for the Minister, my noble friend Lord Bates, whom I am delighted to welcome. What provision has been set out in the rolled over agreement with Switzerland, particularly regarding the insurance and banking sectors, for rights of audience, rights to establish and rights to continue to provide legal services in Switzerland for this purpose? I would be very grateful if my noble friend would take the opportunity to update the House on the provision that the Government are making, in a potential no-deal scenario, to ensure continued rights of audience, continued rights to “fly in, fly out” services, continued rights to establish themselves and continued rights to provide services in the interim between no deal and a future deal being signed. When the regulations went through this House, it was pointed out by my noble and learned friend Lord Keen that EU lawyers would have the right to enjoy those privileges in the UK. It would complete the circle if my noble friend could update the House with an assurance that mutual recognition is being sought with other member states and in the agreement signed with Switzerland.

[Lord Bilimoria (CB)]

I emphasise how important this issue is. From my experience, the UK has arguably the finest legal services in the world. As the founding chair of the UK India Business Council, I am aware that foreign lawyers are not allowed to practise in India. That makes it very difficult for our lawyers to provide advice not just to British companies in India but to Indian companies, and that is a huge loss for India and our British legal services. The ability of our lawyers to practise abroad is crucial. The EU is another area where we have taken mutual recognition for granted. All sorts of situations could arise in a no-deal scenario—situations involving not just advice to companies but disputes. What about consumer rights, for example? British consumers will no longer be able to sue in relation to a European product here in the UK. It will have to be done in the country of origin in the EU and, if our lawyers cannot help out, that will be to the detriment of our consumers. Therefore, this is a very important point that cannot be taken for granted and should be included.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady McIntosh for presenting this amendment and for giving us the opportunity to put on the record further remarks on where we are with regard to legal services. As she reminded us, legal services contribute around £25 billion to the UK economy, with a trade surplus of around £4 billion. They directly employ well over 300,000 people in the UK, two-thirds of whom are outside London. The UK is a world leader in the provision of legal services, as the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, also pointed out, and English law has a reputation for excellence across the world. We are determined to continue to build on this success.

We acknowledge that leaving the single market might have implications for market access and that some UK and EU service suppliers will not enjoy the same rights as they do today. That point was made by my noble friend Lady McIntosh when referring to Implications for Business and Trade of a No Deal Exit on 29 March 2019, published by the Government on 26 February—specifically paragraph 40, which sets out a case study on legal services. In a sense, that underscores that the Government see this as a key priority in the future economic framework negotiations.

That is why, in the political declaration on the future relationship between the EU and the UK, there will be comprehensive arrangements on the trade in services, covering a wide range of sectors, including legal services. The political declaration includes a commitment to conclude arrangements for services and investment that go well beyond WTO commitments and build on recent EU free trade agreements, as well as a commitment to make appropriate arrangements for professional qualifications.

The Government want to secure positive outcomes for the professional business services sector, including legal services. However, as my noble friend will be aware, our future trade relationship with the EU is subject to negotiation with the EU. A trade deal must be negotiated before its terms can be set out in law. I am aware that this is perhaps a probing amendment that seeks to get some points on the record, but clearly the Government’s view is that what my noble friend proposes is not the correct vehicle.

I am aware that in previous debates on this Bill and on some no-deal secondary legislation my noble friend has raised concerns about the impact of a no-deal outcome for lawyers. We do not want a no-deal scenario but, as a responsible Government, we have to prepare for it.

The no-deal SI relating to the practising rights of European lawyers in England and Wales and Northern Ireland, which this House debated in January, and was made on 13 February, provides transitional arrangements for EU-EFTA lawyers. The purpose of this no-deal SI is to clarify the position of EU qualified lawyers who are practising in England, Wales and Northern Ireland immediately before exit day, so that they can be secure in the knowledge of what their position will be in the event that we exit without a withdrawal agreement.

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[Lord Monks (Lab)]

My Lords, the House has carried an amendment such as this before and has done so overwhelmingly. It crops up in the context of this Trade Bill and will do so again whatever the Government do. If they achieve their withdrawal agreement, the direction of travel of what happens next will have to take account of the Norway-plus option. If they fall flat on their face next week, we will see that the options which the country needs to consider urgently are likely to include this one.

It is the only option that combines reconciling the referendum result with single market membership and the customs union arrangement as well. I know that time is tight, but I ask the House to keep this option in mind; the fact that it is being treated briefly tonight does not mean that it will not be very important in the future. I hope people will reflect on the points made by my noble friend in moving this amendment.

[Lord Bilimoria]

My Lords, to follow what the noble Lord, Lord Monks, said, I was one of the noble Lords who led on the amendment—along with the noble Lord, Lord Alli, and others—suggesting that the EEA was the least worst option. That amendment to the withdrawal Bill was passed overwhelmingly. That decision, therefore, has been made by this House; it was overturned by the other place, but it could quite probably—as the noble Lord, Lord Monks, has said—come up again as the least worst option.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, although the key point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Monks, that this might seem a little out of keeping with the rest of today’s discussions, points were made here that will be resonant as we move on with the Bill. I commend them to the House.

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[Lord Lansley]

I thoroughly agree with my noble friend Lord Hailsham in his argument. I will add one thing. The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association just a few weeks ago brought together people from across the Commonwealth to discuss a number of issues. The meeting I attended was a discussion on the ratification of treaties. It was clear that Australia and New Zealand—which of course have a long continuing history of negotiating their own trade agreements—still use the prerogative power as the basis on which the Executive enter into a trade agreement, but they do it in the context of continuing scrutiny, oversight and an approval process following implementation of legislation.

What I read in the White Paper last week went a long way towards replicating that in a very satisfactory way—that is, we would do those things in a similar way to Australia and New Zealand such as the outline approach being presented, reports on rounds and negotiations being reported back to Parliament and of course an approval process. It is perfectly reasonable to wait on the two Houses of Parliament to tell the Government what they think should be the committee processes by which these are considered. Australia, for example, has a joint standing committee on treaties, which looks at the way treaties are ratified. I do not think it is the case that mandates are being taken all over the world; some of the countries that have the greatest constitutional consistency with us do not have a mandate. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, was right about scrutiny and oversight, but he elided them with the necessity for Parliament to issue a mandate. Under our constitutional processes we should not be issuing a mandate, and the proposed new clause falls on that count.

[Lord Bilimoria]

My Lords, at the heart of this is Parliament taking control. What has been a problem for the past two and two-third years is that the Executive have continually tried to bypass and bully Parliament, whether with Article 50 or the statutory instruments that are going through now. This is really frightening. I am sorry to say to the noble Lords, Lord Lansley and Lord Hannay, and the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, but there is a big difference between Australia and New Zealand, and, for example, the United States of America. Not only does that country undertake a meaningful public consultation before negotiating, but it releases all the negotiating text to a large representative panel and subjects the deals to an affirmative vote by Congress, which is also entitled to amend deals unless it waives its right. That is Parliament having a say. That is transparency. The European Union, with its mostly mixed agreements, needs ratification by member states. It is crucial that we accept these amendments, to make sure, in the words of the Brexiteers, that we take back control.

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[Baroness Fairhead]

My Lords, the chosen words of the Government are “outline approach”. On the noble Lord’s point, the ability to have objectives in that outline approach and the ability for both Houses to debate and scrutinise those objectives is the key part of what we are discussing here. I agree with my noble friends Lord Hailsham and Lord Lansley, who talked about the critical issue here, which is consideration and discussion. That is absolutely what this Command Paper proposes—in the initial stage of the outline approach, to particularly scrutinise those objectives.

[Lord Bilimoria]

The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said very clearly that the power of having Parliament behind the Government enhances our negotiating position with the mandate that that gives. The exact example is: why have we been outgunned by the EU in the negotiations over the past two and two-thirds years? It is because it has had a clear mandate from 27 countries, whereas we have a divided country and a divided Parliament. That does not give a clear mandate whatsoever, which is all the more reason we need the amendment.

[Baroness Fairhead]

My Lords, I do not want to go into the world of semantics, but the preferred term is “outline approach”. The objectives will be the objectives set, which will be scrutinised in the way in which we are proposing in both Houses. I agree totally with the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, that you want the ability to go back and say, “I do not think that will get through my executive board” or whoever because we want a clear set of objectives. This is what we intend to have, and an ability to say, “I do not think that will rub”. I also note that the International Trade Committee in the other place did not call for the power to approve the mandate.

We recognise the legitimate desire of this House to ensure that Parliament is able to shape our approach to negotiations. That is why we are committed to publishing the approach to negotiations. It will include those objectives. We will ensure that Parliament can scrutinise these. My noble friend Lord Tugendhat asked whether it is sufficient. We are trying to ensure enhanced scrutiny, so that is exactly what the Command Paper proposes. As I said, we expect that this would usually be through a general debate in each House.