Emergency Services: Central London
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts(9 years ago)
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Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the public worry particularly about security issues and riots? In 2011 we had riots in London, and according to the Met Police we barely managed to get by. Last week, the Home Secretary announced that police forces could soon be without their own firearms units and should instead be moving towards creating regional firearms units. Given some of the transport difficulties we have in London when getting from point A to point B, are these regional units going to be effective if we are hit by big riots or security issues?
Lord Bates
The armed side of things, a point referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, is something on which the national policing unit liaises with the various chief constables and police and crime commissioners to check that the provision is adequate. I understand that the number of trained firearms officers is something that the Metropolitan Police Commissioner is discussing specifically with the Home Office at this time, in response to the Paris attacks.
Civilian Use of Drones (EUC Report)
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
My Lords, I, too, as a member of the committee, wish to express gratitude to the people who helped. In particular, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, for her sterling and interested leadership. She was given a task to pursue which she was not initially enthusiastic about, but in the event it has turned out to be a very worthwhile exercise indeed; she thoroughly enjoyed it and we enjoyed working with her. I also thank our clerk, Alicia Cunningham, who worked extraordinarily hard for us, as well as our policy assistants and Tony Henley, who was our adviser.
In particular, I would like to express gratitude to the many organisations and individuals who came not just once before us but several times to give us their evidence and to guide us in particular directions. They were generally a very enthusiastic bunch who are keen to see drones moving forward quickly and expanding, and most of them are very much interested in light-touch regulation—they are real entrepreneurs in many respects—and it was very interesting for us to see how it worked. At the end of the day we produced a report that will be quite influential. When we turn to Europe and see that they are preparing to produce some further legislation towards the end of the year, and as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, just read out to us, what we have had to say on this will have a fair impact on Europe.
The report demonstrates the value of the House of Lords; when it turns its attention to serious business it produces a very serious and influential report which has wider implications. In addition, the issue before us proves the case for Europe and the single market. I do not know what some political parties will do when they start to see drones not just flying around within sight but flying from France to England and vice versa. This is a case where, because they can cross borders, we need to have regulation across the whole of Europe and not only there but throughout the rest of the world. While a non-appointed, not particularly accountable body is working on much of the regulation at the moment, most people have a general confidence in it. It will produce a report in due course, which will help Europe and which in turn will influence what happens at international level. The United Nations has a body that governs civil aviation, and what we are doing in Europe will be a very big factor in determining what applies throughout the rest of the world.
Our report, as others have mentioned, does not pick up on the defence side. It is quite interesting that the internet came from defence, as did drones in the main, and as we heard yesterday, drones will not be off the agenda.
The pace at which change takes place will be governed to a very fair extent by public opinion. I am not quite sure whether those in the industry felt the Prime Minister’s Statement yesterday helped the industry to move forward at a faster pace. It is appropriate that he made it, but I do not know whether it will help the civil side of it to move faster. A whole range of questions about drones will come to the fore in people’s minds. Yes, they will help the police, but what will they use them for? We could not quite get to the heart of what police forces were doing—different forces were doing different things. There is a case there for an open public debate about how drones will be used by public bodies such as the police in the future. We asked questions about the security industry in this country, which of course takes so much work that used to be done by the police. How will it use this technology, how will it be held accountable and where will the public be able to engage with it? Again, those questions still remain unanswered and need to be addressed.
I was in Richmond Park a week last Sunday, and to my surprise I found notices all over the place saying “No drones to be flown here”. I had never seen that before. I am not quite sure under what regulation that was done, but I presume that because they are the Royal Parks they can say, “Do not come on our patch”. Equally, however, there will be people in this establishment who have quite big patches, who might say, “Why shouldn’t I be able to say that nobody should be able to fly within the area above my lands?”. These are interesting points of development, and I wonder whether some changes have taken place here which now give people the right to decide that they do not want drones coming into their area.
Going back to the defence side, it is very concerning indeed to read reports that the Russians are now moving very quickly into this sphere. According to some press reports, they have now developed technology which will enable them to bring down a surveillance plane which British defence is currently working on. Whether or not the Minister can comment on that, it would be very interesting for us to find out.
I also sense that, with the change I saw in Richmond Park, a general toughening is taking place in attitudes to regulation, even within the CAA. When we saw it in the early part of the year, the CAA seemed to be fairly relaxed about trying to be hands-off and let the industry get on with it. However, I read a couple of weeks ago in the Times that it is now pressing the Department for Transport for legislation which would substantially increase the fines it will place on people if it catches them flying drones in restricted airspace or breaching the rules within high-density built-up areas. Can the Minister say whether some legislation is in prospect, with fines of £7,500?
These are all shifts which will tend to tighten up on the regulatory side and which will, to a degree, slow down the growth of the industry so that it does not progress quite at the pace my noble friend Lord Giddens talked about. As we have seen over the course of the past two weeks, something happens, it is immediately photographed and goes round the world, and immediately we see changes in policy taking place which three, four or five weeks ago we would never have envisaged would occur. Similarly, with drones we can see changes taking place there that could make a very significant impact on public opinion and in turn on the pace at which they will move.
Overall, we have done our best to produce helpful guidance over a very wide area. Again, I thank all those who I have worked with, and in particular the chairman for her leadership on this. We have produced an outstanding report, and looking at reports that go into Europe from the House of Lords, this one will make a change in the future—hopefully for the better, so that the industry will grow, but also so that in turn we get a proper balance with the right regulation that is needed, and that in due course we get that all around the world.
Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)
My Lords, it is important that in this Bill, it is not proposed that there should be a criminal offence of possession of psychoactive substances. In due course we shall see how that works, and it may well be that the lesson to be learned from that could have an effect on the older legislation to which the amendment refers.
As I understood the noble Lord, Paddick, he said that one of the successful police techniques is the conditional caution, which of course depends on the underlying offence—that is the power on which the conditional caution rests. It is an extremely valuable approach to this difficult problem. I agree entirely with what has been said about how difficult a problem this is. I have no doubt at all about that and I do not need to reiterate the point. The conditional caution has a degree of authority behind it to persuade the person who receives it to do what it requires him to do. That is extremely important. The difficulty I have with this amendment is that if a senior officer suggests or requires that someone should attend one of the systems as defined by the Secretary of State in a later amendment, there is not much power to ensure that that will happen.
It is a long time since I had experience as a judge in criminal cases involving drugs where possession was an issue, but I distinctly remember the sadness I felt when sentencing a lady with a young child who had been in possession of quite substantial quantities of prohibited drugs. As the sentencing judge, I had the power to invite her to subscribe to a programme as a condition of her probation, rather on the same principles as the conditional caution, except at a slightly more authoritative level. The lady was obviously very attached to her child and there was a risk that if the situation continued, she might be separated from the child by the social work authorities. I was keen, it if was possible, to help her get out of that situation. A good programme aimed at helping people out of addiction was being run in Glasgow at the time. I got her agreement to attend the programme, subject to the probation order, which, as noble Lords will know, meant that if she left the programme she had agreed to attend, there would be other possible consequences. It was to my extraordinary sadness to discover that after she had been getting on well for a few months, she suddenly left. That is one of the difficulties of a programme which has no authority to continue.
I am not good at getting into the minds of very young people, for reasons which are obvious, as the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, would attest, but there is the question of the psychology of all this. There is also the question of a level of authority, so that the treatment becomes something a person is required to undertake in order ultimately to get out of the criminal justice system. I agree that this is an important matter, and it would be good to see how the regime set out in this Bill works. It might have a good lesson for the existing legislation.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
My Lords, I apologise to the Committee: I did not speak at Second Reading, but I would like to make a brief contribution at this point and to ask a question. Following up on the issue of alternatives to formal action being taken by the police in introducing people to recovery courses, I should say that I have had a good deal of experience over many years of dealing with people with drug and alcohol addictions. There is a big question mark over whether the addictive personality ever truly recovers, in the sense that people talk about recovery, because people often switch from one addiction to another, but they reach a stage at which they can maintain their addiction and lead a good life. However, it has been my experience that, before they get to that point, no one can undertake a course or programme of any sort unless they have an inherent willingness and desire to recover. One drawback, unexplained in the amendment before us, is this: what does one do with the literally very high percentage of people who will want to opt for this course because it is the soft option, but who have no intention whatever of displaying the willingness and commitment required to achieve recovery?
Lord Cavendish of Furness (Con)
With the leave of the House, I follow the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, in apologising for not having taken part at Second Reading. I declare an interest: I am what is called a recovering alcoholic. I am not about to fall over—it is 30 years since I last had a drink—but in keeping with what the noble Lord was saying, I regard myself as possibly still being an addicted person and therefore have to conduct my life accordingly. I endorse everything that the noble Lord says: we have to learn to take responsibility for our lives.
Getting that help means confronting some extremely ugly truths about what we have done and the effect we have had on ourselves and members of our families. That is a very hard role for the state to take on, and it has always been my view that one should rather encourage the private sector. The cost to the economy of addiction —whether to alcohol or to drugs, and in my view the two are closely related—is known almost precisely. The best outcome would be if a leading firm with good social values pioneered something that the rest of the world could piggyback on. Firms have a vested interest in their employees and their employees’ families being clean and free of drugs and alcohol, and they know what the cost is. It would be of enormous benefit, which perhaps could be reflected in some tax concessions, if the private sector were encouraged to lead on this matter.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Fookes) (Con)
My Lords, I point out that if Amendment 29 is agreed, I shall not be able to call Amendment 30 by reason of pre-emption.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe
My Lords, had I spoken at Second Reading I would have supported the Government’s aims of trying to avoid the harms which arise from legal highs and to prevent them wherever possible. However, like the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, I would have gone on to ask why the Government are so inconsistent in their approach. Ethyl alcohol is a psychoactive substance. There is no question whatever about that—the Government cannot disagree. It will be very interesting to hear why they believe it should be treated differently.
When one considers the differing approaches the Government take to alcohol these days, one sees the great sledge-hammer—that is the best way to describe it—that has been brought in to deal with an issue that, although worrying, is a nut compared with the boulder that is alcohol and the problems it creates for our society. The noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, just described those problems, so I will not repeat them. The Government should think long and hard about moving, fairly quickly, on some of their policies on alcohol if they want to carry the confidence of this House in trying to make changes of this nature. They have a responsibility deal whereby, in partnership with the drinks industry, they seek to reduce the volume of alcohol consumed in this country. They have targets, yet the Chancellor stands up in March and announces a freeze in duty on wine, beer and cider and a reduction in some other areas, including a 2% reduction in the duty on spirits.
The Government will not use pricing as a mechanism to try to discourage drinking, and the drinks industry sees that such pricing effectively discourages people from buying its products, so it lobbies the Government to reduce duties, which the Government, in turn, do. On the one hand we have the responsibility deal, with its targets that seek to reduce the consumption of alcohol, while on the other hand we have the statement made by the Chancellor. As the Government documents produced after the Budget prove, he will in fact increase the volume of alcohol that is sold, which, in turn, will increase the harms that arise for people who abuse it. So, a conflict does arise. I want to persuade the Minister to think ahead about what might be happening with alcohol and alcohol-related substances, and about whether there is a case for making a change to the schedule.
As long ago as last summer, I wrote to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, about a powdered white alcohol called Palcohol which is being marketed in the United States. Powdered alcohol has been around in Europe for quite some time. It was produced in Germany and then in Holland about seven or eight years ago but was not marketed. It is now being produced and marketed in the States. I wrote to the noble Earl to find out what the Government were doing in their conversations with the drinks industry at the responsibility deal level. The reply was:
“The Department has not discussed the import, production and sale in the United Kingdom of Palcahol and its European equivalents with partners in the Responsibility Deal”.
I also wrote to the noble Lord in the Home Office to ask,
“what assessment they have made of the decision of five states in the United States to ban the sale of Palcahol”.
He replied:
“The Government is aware of powdered alcohol from media reports and the banning of the product in five states of the United States of America. The Government is not aware of powdered alcohol being marketed or made available to buy in England and Wales”.—[Official Report, 6/1/15; col. WA 107.]
I followed that up with another Question:
“To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the status under the Licensing Act 2003 or the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 of imports from the United States or Europe of alcohol powders”.
The noble Lord, Lord Bates, told me:
“Although the Act refers to liquids and this product is sold in solid form, it is intended to be drunk as a liquid”.
I tell the Minister that he is not quite up to date with what people are doing with this powdered drink. They are not simply taking it as a liquid; it can be snorted. Admittedly it is an uncomfortable experience, I understand, but it can be snorted. More particularly, it can be baked into cakes or go into confectionary and a whole range of products that people are now contemplating using it in. The noble Lord went on to say:
“The Government is not aware of powdered alcohol being marketed or made available to buy in England and Wales, although we are aware of its sale in other countries. In the event that there is a proposal to market powdered alcohol in England and Wales, the Home Office will make a formal assessment of its legal position”.—[Official Report, 7/1/15; col. WA 223.]
I would argue that this is the day when the Government can start to look at the legal position of Palcohol and at whether they are prepared to see it come into the country. If so, how are they going to handle it? It will shortly be available on the internet and imported through the internet, because that is how it will be marketed. It is already spreading on a wide scale within the US and, as night follows day, it will come to the UK.
Therefore, I suggest that the Government go back to the Answers that they sent me. I suggest that they look at what is happening in the United States at the moment, the problems that are arising there and the reasons why some of the states have banned it. If they are not prepared to accept in totality the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, which I support—although I suspect that the Government will not—I also suggest that they look at whether they are at least prepared to consider whether this is a borderline area in which they should take some action, which they could do under this legislation. If they are sensible, they will look to the future, lay the ground, put this substance into the schedule and ban it, in the same way as they are banning legal highs. I hope that they are prepared to consider that.
Lord Blencathra
My Lords, I could never hope to give my noble friend an intellectual answer as to why all alcohol is exempted, but perhaps I can try to give him a legal one and a practical political one.
Most alcohol policy in the United Kingdom is now controlled by the EU and we have a few little bits left. I refer the Committee to the last report conducted by EU Sub-Committee F on the EU alcohol strategy. It was an eye-opener for all of us. Given the parts of alcohol policy we control, if we were to be completely consistent, there would probably be an increase in the price of Scotch whisky. However, that cannot be done for a variety of reasons—not least, it would probably feed into nationalism. With regard to the other parts of the policy, cider is desperately underpriced. No Government have felt it appropriate—no doubt for political reasons—to increase the price and disadvantage manufacturers in the West Country. It may be that with only one Member left in the West Country—I am not meaning to be snide here—a future Labour Government may, in due course, feel it more politically acceptable to put up the price of cider.
The parts that are controlled by the EU mean that, for example, we see on wine and spirit bottles in this country how many units of alcohol are in a glass and how many are in the bottle. That is a purely voluntary system because we are not allowed, under EU rules, to make it compulsory. We also discovered on the committee that some young people—mainly women, although men as well—may be on some form of crash diet and think they can avoid fatty food and sugars and just drink white wine instead. We are not allowed to put the calorific value of a glass of wine on the bottle, except by some voluntary means.
In Scotland, they are trying to conduct an excellent experiment on unit pricing. There may be considerable merit in unit pricing and I think that the Government in England are watching carefully to see how they get on. But of course they have been taken to the European Court, where it may be regarded as a constraint on trade —so Scotland may be prohibited from using unit pricing under EU rules. I could go on, but I will not, because I do not want to be seen to be too mischievous on this. However, there are a lot of other aspects of alcohol policy that we are no longer completely in charge of.
The other, more serious point is that all of us on EU Sub-Committee F, including my colleagues, noble Lords and Baronesses who are much more experienced than I, began the report a year ago thinking that alcohol abuse was out of control in this country, that everyone was drinking more and that we had a terrible problem. We were very surprised to discover that alcohol use is declining, particularly among young people. We cannot have an EU alcohol strategy because every country has a completely different problem. They all have problems with binge drinking, but different age groups are bingeing on different kinds of alcohol. What we discovered is that a small minority are drinking more to excess. I think that I am right in saying that alcohol deaths through cirrhosis of the liver have increased, but it is a smaller minority drinking extraordinary amounts—one or two bottles of vodka or scotch a day, so long as they can afford it. But overall, alcohol reduction policies are working.
In conclusion, I say to my noble friend that if he wants to really have more control over alcohol policy and be able to implement his amendment, he will need to vote no in the referendum when it comes.
Lord Bates
That is true. I see my officials in the box becoming terribly nervous, as I am jousting way out of my depth here and I should just stick to the script. The point which I was trying to make was that we are dealing in this Bill with a new menace, where there are no controls. People of any age can go into a head shop and procure products which are designated as plant food or as not fit for human consumption. There is no supervision of their manufacture; nobody is required to produce an ID card; and they are unregulated. We have explored different ways of dealing with them and have come down on the side of a blanket ban. I will leave it to the Committee to deduce whether, if alcohol were to be introduced into society today, we would take a different approach. That might be as close as I can possibly get to addressing that.
Let me put on the record some remarks about the Government’s position on alcohol. Alcohol-related harm is estimated to cost society more than £21 billion a year. This figure includes the £11 billion cost of alcohol-related crime and £3.5 billion in costs to the NHS. The harm caused to health is clear. Alcohol misuse is one of the three biggest lifestyle risk factors for disease and death after smoking and obesity. In 2013, more than 6,500 deaths in England were due directly to alcohol consumption. There has also been a steady increase in the number of adults accessing specialist alcohol treatment services, from just over 100,000 people in 2008-09 to nearly 115,000 people in 2013-14.
Alcohol is also a key driver of crime. In particular, it is strongly associated with violent crime. In 53% of violent incidents, victims perceive offenders to be under the influence of alcohol. This is clearly unacceptable.
We can all agree that alcohol, when consumed excessively, is a dangerous substance, which is why the sale of alcohol is tightly controlled under existing legislation. However, when used responsibly, alcohol plays an important social part in our communities. More than £10 billion is raised each year in alcohol duty and more than £38 billion worth of alcoholic beverages were sold in the UK in 2011. Almost 2 million jobs in the UK are said to be linked to the alcohol industry in some way.
The Government’s alcohol strategy, launched in 2012, promoted targeted action to reduce crime and health problems caused by alcohol without disproportionately affecting responsible drinkers. Local communities, agencies and businesses are best placed to identify and deal with alcohol-related problems in their area. The Home Office has worked with 20 local alcohol action areas to tackle the harms caused by excessive alcohol consumption. These areas worked on initiatives to strengthen local partnerships and share innovative ideas that work. Some of the areas which looked at ways to reduce alcohol-related health harms also explored the evidence and local processes that would be required to introduce a health-related licensing objective to address alcohol-related health harms caused by high density of premises. The project ended in March, and Home Office officials are collating the learning from the work that took place in each of the areas with a view to sharing it more widely in due course.
The alcohol industry has an important part to play, too. The Government challenged the industry to take action as part of the public health responsibility deal. The industry has taken a number of positive steps, such as reducing the number of alcoholic units sold and putting more information on labels—though not as much as my noble friend Lord Blencathra would ask us to, probably for the reasons that he alluded to. In addition, the Government have asked Dame Sally Davies, the Chief Medical Officer, to oversee a review of the alcohol guidelines to ensure that they are founded on the best science and help people at all stages of life to make informed choices about their drinking. The review is under way and we expect consultation on new guidelines to take place from the autumn.
There have also been government-led initiatives on alcohol and drug prevention in schools. In March 2013, the Department for Education launched a new drug and alcohol information and advice service for schools, providing information and resources on what works and assisting local areas to choose interventions which are right for their circumstances. The Personal, Social, Health & Economic Education Association has produced a revised programme of study based on the needs of today’s pupils and schools which includes alcohol and drug education. In February 2015, Public Health England launched the Rise Above website, helping to empower young people to make positive choices about issues that have a profound impact on their health. In its first two months, the site received more than 250,000 visits.
Since the alcohol strategy was launched, there has been a reduction in the level of alcohol-related violence. Consistent with trends in overall violent crime, there has been a 34% fall in the number of violent incidents perceived as alcohol related since 2004-05. There have also been reductions in the level of binge drinking and in the number of 11 to 15 year-olds drinking alcohol. The Government have sent a strong message that selling alcohol to children is unacceptable, and there is now an unlimited fine for persistently selling alcohol to children.
Looking ahead, this Government are committed to building on the successes of the alcohol strategy to tackle alcohol as a driver of crime and to supporting people to stay healthy. When misused, alcohol is undoubtedly a harmful substance, and it is right that its availability is properly regulated and that we tackle the health and crime-related issues that arise when people drink to excess. But for most of the population, alcohol is not a dangerous psychoactive substance which should be subject to the blanket ban provided for in the Bill. I hope that, having prompted this timely debate, my noble friend will be content to keep alcohol as an exempted substance for the purpose of the Bill and consider withdrawing his amendment.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe
I would be grateful if the Minister will respond to the points that I made about Palcohol, which is quite different from what we have been debating today.
Lord Bates
The noble Lord is right. We will go back and look again at those Written Answers. We are alert to the risk of powdered alcohol and are actively looking at how best to meet this challenge. However, we are not persuaded by this amendment. We are alert to the problem and are looking at it. I will be happy to meet with the noble Lord, together with officials, if he has new evidence to share with us about how the problem of powdered alcohol is being tackled in other countries and if and how it is being used in this country.
Airports: London
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
My Lords, would the noble Lord answer the question that was posed by my Front Bench?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
One part of the question was about the new Government, which is a Conservative one—and we will act in accordance with the commission’s report. It is somewhat incredible for noble Lords opposite to suggest that after the Government have commissioned an independent report, which is due imminently, we should not actually wait for its recommendations. We will not have to wait long.
Queen’s Speech
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Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
My Lords, I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and several others who have spoken that it is a great disappointment that there is not something in the Loyal Address about care and health. It is one of the electorate’s highest priorities and there is still much work to be done on it. In his opening remarks, the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, recognised that and nodded in that direction by explaining how much good work the Government have been doing, particularly in relation to Public Health England. I regret that the noble Lord is not in his place to hear it but perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, will draw the following to his attention:
“Alcohol misuse is the third highest preventable cause of ill health and death after tobacco and high blood pressure. Consumption has doubled in the last 50 years and the costs to the individuals concerned, to their families, to the NHS and more widely are huge. Preventing and reducing these harms requires action by individuals themselves and at national and local levels to implement those policies and interventions that the evidence tells us will have the greatest impact, for example, nationally on minimum unit pricing, and for local government, incorporating health into their judgments on alcohol licensing decisions”.
Those are not my words but those of Mr Duncan Selbie, the Government’s chief executive officer for Public Health England, to whom the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, referred. They were in a message that he issued as recently as Friday, 23 May 2014.
Mr Selbie was formerly the chief medical officer for Brighton and Hove, a city much plagued at weekends by drunkenness. Its major hospital’s A&E department can be inundated and sometimes almost overwhelmed from Thursdays to Sundays by people suffering from alcohol or substance misuse. Therefore, he knows from personal experience what he is talking about. Regrettably the Government have, to all intents and purposes, ditched a meaningful and effective policy on minimum unit pricing for alcohol. That was the major plank in their former alcohol strategy, and no matter what they may argue, the opportunity to do this has now gone, and that is to be regretted.
Similarly, under the Health and Social Care Act 2012, much decision-making on health has been devolved to local authorities. The Government have so far rejected all attempts to permit local government to incorporate a health factor into its judgments on alcohol licensing decisions—something which, again, Public Health England advocates strongly.
The Government could have looked at this again if they had tabled legislation in the Queen’s Speech based on the Local Government Association’s January report entitled Open for Business: Rewiring Licensing, but they did not. Instead, we see that they are moving precisely in the opposite direction with the Deregulation Bill, which is soon to come to this House from the Commons. On the last day of business there, the Government introduced late amendments to that Bill which, to quote the Liberal Democrat Minister responsible, is a,
“new light-touch authorisation to reduce burdens on ancillary sellers of alcohol”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/5/14; cols. 786.]
While that comes under the guise of helping local groups such as the Women’s Institute to sell alcohol, it is to be extended to small businesses that want to sell, as he puts it,
“small amounts of alcohol … as part of a wider service”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/5/14; cols. 777.]
What is a small business in that context? What is a small amount of alcohol? Just where is liberalisation in this area going to lead? Is there really a need for it? Do hairdressers desperately need to start selling alcohol to their clients? A whole range of other operations will be named as places where alcohol will possibly be on sale in the future. Who wants this, unless it is your major interest to sell more alcohol and to make it easier to access it? I urge the Government to think again while they are still dealing with the Bill in the Commons and before it comes here. If it does come here, I urge colleagues to oppose it strongly.
Is it healthy and right that Sainsbury’s—one of our more responsible supermarkets—now sells lemonade and dandelion and burdock with alcohol in it? As I have been told by that supermarket, it is authorised by the Portman Group, the drinks industry representative body and the principal partner of the Government in their so-called “responsibility deal”, on which my noble friend Lord Rooker spoke passionately earlier. As the Government seem to have such faith in this body, can the Minister say whether discussions have opened up within it to control and regulate alcohol in powder form now that its partners in that deal have devised a means whereby the drinks industry can produce such a form of alcohol?
Identity Cards
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Lord Taylor of Holbeach
I think the noble Lord weakens his argument by that last phrase. It would cost the Government money. It could not be set up in a way whereby the issuing of such cards could be done outside the authority of the state. Given that the authority of the state requires the Government to police the issuing of these cards, then—voluntary or not—there would be an expense to the Exchequer.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
Does the Minister not agree that it is ludicrous to believe that the people who create difficulties with security, problems with immigration, difficulties with claiming benefits in certain areas, and who abuse the NHS and claim benefits from it when they should not are the kind of people who—on a voluntary basis—are going to take out an identity card? As the Government present different pieces of legislation to us where they are trying to track people, does the Minister not see increasingly that they made a major mistake in abolishing the previous Government’s policy of introducing a compulsory card? Does he not see that in due course they will have to return to this and will have to do it? Would he not reflect on the silliness of the position they now find themselves in?
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
I do not consider that the Government’s position is silly. The noble Lord himself says that the problem with the voluntary scheme is that people would not take it up if they had something to hide. That is quite clear. All I can say to him is that I am quite content with the Government’s position and content to defend it at this Dispatch Box, because it has saved the Government and the country as a whole a considerable amount of money for what would have been very dubious benefits.
Licensing Act 2003
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Lord Taylor of Holbeach
No, that calculation has not been made, but I can give my noble friend the figure for the cost to the health service: £7.3 billion for alcohol-related incidents.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
My Lords, I acknowledge that the Government have made some changes. However, is the noble Lord content that the rebalancing has moved sufficiently? Many people believe that it has not. During the debates in the Commons on the Bill to which he has just referred, there have been attempts to extend the way in which licensing authorities can take into account public health issues. Given the Government’s commitment to devolution on public health issues, why will they not move on this front, in the way that the Scottish Government are now moving?
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
The noble Lord has taken a great interest in this subject. I have always valued his contributions and look forward to his contribution to the debates we are likely to have on this Bill. I am sure that these arguments will be presented when we have the opportunity. Meanwhile, I am grateful for his acknowledgment of the progress that the Government have made in this difficult area.
Alcohol: Minimum Pricing
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts(11 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe
To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they will publish their response to their consultation on the introduction of a minimum unit price for alcohol.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Taylor of Holbeach)
My Lords, the public consultation on the Government’s alcohol strategy closed on 6 February. We will publish our response in due course.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe
I am grateful for small mercies. Will the Minister confirm that the principal problem leading to more than 10 million people drinking excessively is the easy availability of cheap alcohol? Will he also confirm that that is still the central plank of the Government’s policy in their alcohol strategy? Secondly, when are we likely to start to see some progress on this issue, and will the Government please embrace it with the kind of enthusiasm which the previous Labour Government did when they were tackling the difficult issue of the tobacco industry and smoking? Until we take on the drink industry and some of the vested interests we will not start to see the problem resolved in the way that we need it, given the issues that arise for the health service from excessive drinking.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
The noble Lord rightly focuses on the elements of the Government’s alcohol strategy that were put out to consultation. I have explained that a response to that consultation will be delivered in due course. Availability is one of many factors but to suggest that this Government have not been tackling the problem underestimates what has been achieved. The late-night levy has been introduced. The early morning alcohol restriction order, which was created under the previous Government but not commenced, has been commenced by us and we have sought to rebalance the licensing arrangements so that the ability of individuals in the vicinity to object to licences is now greatly strengthened. I totally accept what the noble Lord has said and indeed the Government’s strategy will demonstrate that.
Queen’s Speech
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe
My Lords, I intend to speak on two home affairs issues, one of which, immigration, is in the Queen’s Speech. To my surprise, I will be speaking in a not dissimilar fashion to the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, because I want to say something about the efficiency and effectiveness of the government machine that we have in place relating to immigration.
My second topic relates to something which, to my great regret, is not in the gracious Speech—the Government’s failure to implement the major plank of their alcohol strategy. I have said previously that, in relation to both health and crime, I endorse the Government’s efforts to try to take action over the problems that come from alcohol and, to a degree, drugs. I have supported what the Government have been trying to do and, in particular, was originally greatly heartened by what our Prime Minister said in his foreword to the strategy. After listing in the document a number of problems that arise from alcohol, he went on to say that there will be,
“a real effort to get to grips with the root cause of the problem. And that means coming down hard on cheap alcohol. When beer is cheaper than water, it’s just too easy for people to get drunk on cheap alcohol at home before they even set foot in the pub. So we are going to introduce a new minimum unit price. For the first time it will be illegal for shops to sell alcohol for less than this set price per unit. We are consulting on the actual price, but if it is 40p that could mean 50,000 fewer crimes each year and 900 fewer alcohol-related deaths a year by the end of the decade”.
He continued:
“Of course, I know the proposals in this strategy won’t be universally popular. But the responsibility of being in government”—
as the noble Lord, Lord McNally, reminded us this morning—
“isn’t always about doing the popular thing. It’s about doing the right thing”.
It is about taking the difficult decisions. The Prime Minister said that,
“Binge drinking is a serious problem”—
an issue which we shall address to a degree, no doubt, when we come to deal with the proposed legislation. He then said:
“And I make no excuses for clamping down on it”.
Since the document was produced the Government have been out to consultation and there has been a substantial accumulation of further evidence, both from the UK and from overseas, that indicates that minimum unit pricing would have a very substantial effect on the culture relating to drinking, to crime and, in particular, to health.
Unfortunately, we have not moved a great deal further. I was not sure whether I should speak today as, a bit like the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, I was not sure whether this topic pops up under the Home Office or the health brief. Alcohol has a significant cost impact within the NHS: it is a major factor in high blood pressure, cardiac problems, liver disease and cancer. Although it has not yet been properly acknowledged, alcohol is also a big factor in obesity and diabetes. If the Government take no action on minimum pricing and are not prepared to tackle the root problem, this failure to move will significantly undermine efforts to take a strategic approach to confronting increasing levels of obesity and type 2 diabetes, two major problems which are facing the country.
When it emerged that the Government were likely to execute an about-turn on the issue the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, kindly answered a Private Notice Question on it. He said that a decision had not yet been taken and that we should not believe everything that we read in the press or hear on the BBC. He said that the Government were reviewing the position and that the results of the consultation were “very finely balanced”—I think that those were the precise words—in deciding whether to move forward with legislation. He was also concerned about the possibility that the legal challenges raised in Scotland about the Scottish Government’s attempts to introduce minimum pricing there could have a knock-on effect here. As I understand it, the Scottish Government have so far been successful in seeing off those challenges. The noble Lord will no doubt correct me if I have got it wrong but I understand that the firm, decisive leadership in Scotland is such that they will stick with the plan and fight all the way through, even if that means going to Europe. I gather that the drinks industry is likely to take challenges to Europe, if needs be, to try to resist this change. They are going for a 50p per pint unit minimum rather than 40p.
One of the problems raised when the noble Lord spoke to us in reply to the PNQ has therefore been answered, to a degree, but we are still left with the Government’s failure to come forward and say where they stand on the consultation. I would be grateful if the Minister would advise the House on where they are at and why it is taking so long when there is so much evidence showing that the change is required. Who has sought to change the course of events when the Prime Minister was, as I have quoted, so firmly in favour of moving in this direction? I even hear stories that if it does not happen, it may appear in the next Tory party manifesto. I do not know what will happen with the Liberal Democrats but I presume that they are similarly committed to it. I urge my own party, as I have done in some of our private meetings, to get a very clear line on where we stand on this so that in the interests of the nation and its people, we might get a uniform approach, even though we may offend a number of people such as those in the drinks industry. So I hope that even though it is not closed down yet the Minister will be able to give me some heartening words this afternoon when he responds. He always smiles when he is at his best, but I want to hear that the firm decision will have been taken and that, if not this time round, when we come to the Queen’s Speech next year we shall have it clearly laid down for legislation; otherwise, it will be a great missed opportunity.
When I watch television these days and see Mr Farage for ever in front of us, my fear is that not only is he influencing the Government and the country on the course of events on Europe but, as he quaffs his pint in the bar and smokes his cigarettes and talks about a party that will be willing to let people smoke in pubs, that he is influencing indirectly where the Government stand on some of these issues. Again, I hope that I have got that wrong and we will not run away from similar commitments that have been given on cigarettes and advertising.
I will now move on to the immigration issue. Again—I feel almost like a Cross-Bencher today—I speak not just to the coalition Government on this but my own party. Having listened to Vince Cable on the radio trying to explain how some of the upcoming proposals to try to tighten up on immigration issues are going to work, it is clear that if we do not watch out we are going to have some very speedy public policies produced which have not been thought through properly.
Interestingly, just to stay on top, this week I read The Coalition: Together in the National Interest, the mid-term review. Coming back to one of my favourite topics where we made a mistake, I believe that as time goes by the coalition will be seen to have made a major error in abandoning ID cards. The review says:
“We have scrapped ID cards and the National Identity Register and scaled back the vetting and barring regime”.
As we heard this week, the Government have done an about-turn and are reversing their views on the vetting and barring regime, which they need in a whole range of areas to try to establish what is happening with immigration. Similarly, if the Government are wise—although I suspect that pride will prevent them from doing so—they ought to go back and reflect on where they stand on ID cards.
A major error has been made there. When we see the number of databases that are being created in different government departments, they are all about the self-same thing: fundamentally, many of the problems with crime and so on relate back to the identity of the individual and where he or she lives. The only way that that would be answered and worked through properly would be by having an ID card with a link to residence. I urge the Government to think again about that, instead of spending all the money that it seems they are going to spend with all this paraphernalia of new checks of one sort or another that will be introduced on the NHS, on GPs and so on. The basic answer to all of this would have been to come together with an identity card, as the previous Labour Government were planning and working through. Indeed, it was a former Conservative Government who first thought of this idea, going back to 1996, I think.
Having abandoned our identity card policy after we had been thrown out of office in 2010, which I believe we did in a hurry and without serious analysis of what is likely to happen with technology in the future and the problems that we face, I urge my own party at least to change its mind on that and go back and tell the public that it supports the introduction of an identity card, which will help us in so many different areas. Not only will it help the party—if it does it—it will be appealing to the vast majority of people in the country, who are in favour of identity cards. They see no problem with them at all. They see them as being useful in many respects, for authentication and ease of transactions. They have nothing in principle against them and it was a minority that was opposing them at the time. My party should change its mind and move in favour of ID cards and see where UKIP stands on that as well, because we are probably the only party that would be in favour of it. We would be bang in line with the wishes of 70% to 80% of the public and we would be moving to a system that was efficient and effective in technological terms, and doing away with some of the problems that previous speakers have identified with the border agency.
This issue runs across many parts of the Civil Service. When we think that we are now going to chip 6 million dogs, we are going to have a database to run that; it beggars belief that we are going to do that because the people causing the problem in the main will not chip their dogs and even if they have chips in their dogs we will not be able to trace them to prosecute them. These are all crazy things that we start off without thinking them through. So I urge the Minister and the Government to think again on this. More importantly, I urge my side, too, to change its policy.
Immigration: Home Office Meetings
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Taylor of Holbeach
As we know, there is a huge number of legacy cases. This was referred to in the Question we tackled last week. It is a matter of concern that these legacy cases were not cleared up promptly; they are being cleared up now and are being tackled so that those students who have been discovered to be here improperly are being sought and obliged to leave.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe
Do the legacy cases not cover other people as well as students? Is the fundamental problem not the one which the Minister spoke about last week: the inadequacy of our ability to search and locate these individuals to try to get them out of the country? Is it not true that the department is currently cutting the number of staff it engages by around 5,000, yet claims that it is going to be able to perform better? Will the Minister please tell the House how it will do that?
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
Identification of people who have overstayed is a clear technical problem which requires the application of all the resources of the UKBA. The UKBA is confident that it can achieve this and has given assurances that it will do so.