Queen’s Speech

Lord Bishop of Portsmouth Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth]

My Lords, the Prime Minister has spoken of the awful events of recent weeks as signs of a society not at ease with itself. Yet amidst the tragedy and the pain, we see hope and the victory of hope. We have seen a remarkable depth of love and shared resolve, especially between faiths. We have been deeply moved by how people have responded to evil with generosity, openness and humility. I was struck by the force and feeling with which the Prime Minister used that last word in the debate in the other place on the gracious Speech. Humility is not a term frequently associated with politicians by the public. True, circumstances have left the Government with little choice but to take the humbler part, but that is no reason for cynicism. A practical consequence is that we face the prospect of a two-year Session in which these discussions will take place. There are good reasons to deprecate departing from the annual cycle, but my hope is that it will also mean proper debate, detailed scrutiny and looking at issues from all sides and angles. If that is what humility looks like, in my view it is a price well worth paying.

Yet I have no sense that we will have a minute to spare. Brexit takes the lion’s share of the programme—an event one commentator described as the Heffalump of the programme. I fear they are mistaken. From my studies of The House at Pooh Corner, I am reminded that the Heffalump is an imaginary creature who inhabits the dreams of Pooh and Piglet. Brexit is all too real and, for some, a nightmare rather than a dream. The terrible irony is that most of the legislation we will consider is designed to enable us to do outside the EU what we do within it. We are transferring power and an existing body of law from one institution to another. We find ourselves a little like Alice, told by the Red Queen that,

“it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”.

Well, we might have to run even faster than twice as fast, especially if tonight we are to rise at the expected time.

The Prime Minister also commented on how the Brexit vote showed that,

“our country often does not work the way it should for millions of ordinary families. This Queen’s Speech begins to change that, by putting fairness at the heart of our agenda”.—[Official Report, Commons, 21/6/17; col. 57.]

On that admirable sentiment I must own to doubts—doubts that the measures we will consider answer such a clarion call; doubts not necessarily in terms of intent, but in the modesty of ambition, which matched the modesty of the trappings for this State Opening.

The programme certainly contains measures—worthy, admirable measures—which will do good, but how much will they transform or even just improve the lot of the people of a city such as Portsmouth or the challenged rural and coastal areas of the Isle of Wight, whom I serve? The measures on domestic violence, debt advice and insurance fraud are cases in point. They are good measures that will make a difference but they are discrete, aimed at a single issue. Similarly, on capping energy bills, it is good to see action being taken, and I welcome the focus on the most vulnerable customers, but what we have before us does not accord with the robust line taken until very recently.

Doubts are alarming things for the clergy, perhaps all the more so for a Lord spiritual. So it is my most earnest hope that the Minister tonight and the Government over the next two years will assuage my own doubts, and that we will indeed see this legislative programme, this Parliament and this country working with humility for millions of ordinary people up and down the land.

Solar Panels: Business Rate Exemption

Lord Bishop of Portsmouth Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

I do not think that there are business rates on domestic solar panels—that falls under my right honourable friend Sajid Javid’s department. Businesses have been caught because the rateable values reflect the value of the business property, and there have been changes to the regime that have led to the situation that I have described to the noble Baroness. We are looking at that, but rates reflect, in the long term, the value of property. However, I can see that there is an issue in relation to solar panels.

[The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth]

My Lords, may I press the Minister a little further on the impact—perhaps, I am hoping, the unintended impact—of this decision on some small schools? Is it really intended that small schools should pay business rates, often after significant community fundraising to install solar panels to increase awareness among children and young people of climate-change issues?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

We are looking at this, and, in particular, this change to microgeneration, which has had these anomalous effects. In the past, schools have been totally exempt; now, as I have said, the rate system is coming in and biting in a way that perhaps was not intended in the first place. We are looking seriously at the impacts against this background of some doing better out of the system than others. We look forward to making some progress in this area.