UK Border Agency

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Tuesday 27th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

The noble Lord has asked a specific question to which I cannot give a detailed answer, except to say that the rules governing entrance into and settlement in this country are extraordinarily complex. We had an opportunity to debate elements of them yesterday. I will investigate the matter and write to the noble Lord.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

Is it not true that one of the lessons which the Government are increasingly learning is that locating and tracing individuals is one of the biggest problems they face in modern society, especially given how people travel around the world in the way they do? Will the Government reflect on their early decision to abandon ID cards, which provided for locating and tracing, and will they not come to regret having taken the decision to abandon them?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

The direct answer to that question is no. In terms of the reference that I should make, of course it is important to be able to match identity. Recently I visited the Criminal Records Bureau in Liverpool where much of the job is about matching individuals with the police national computer. It is a similar task here, and fortunately that task is now being undertaken properly.

Public and Commercial Services Union: Strike Action

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Tuesday 24th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, if that was support for the Government’s position, it was very strange support. What we want to hear is a thorough condemnation from the party opposite of the PCS’s action, and I am not sure that I have quite heard that. The strike is due to happen tomorrow. As I said, it is opportunistic and unnecessary. Our doors are open and we continue to negotiate, as the noble Baroness knows full well. However, I want to make it clear that we will take appropriate legal action if it is possible, and that is why we are checking the legality of the strike that has been called with the support of some 12% of PCS members.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a pensioner of PCS. I do not support the strike; neither does my party. However, is the Minister aware that there is a serious problem with staffing within the border agency? Is he further aware that last week some of us met Deutsche Bahn, the railway firm, which has delayed introducing trains and competition into the Eurotunnel because of the problems over immigration and the inadequate number of staff being engaged by the Government to carry out the necessary border controls? This is losing business for the country and losing business for London, and it is time that the Government got to grips with it.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, the noble Lord’s question goes slightly beyond that on the Order Paper. As he knows full well, it is not simply the problems relating to border force but also the problems relating to the layout of St Pancras Station. Those matters can be resolved between now and 2015, which is the earliest possible date that Deutsche Bahn is likely to bring trains in there. I am grateful for the noble Lord’s condemnation of this strike.

Alcohol Strategy: Role of Drinks Industry

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, for promoting the debate this evening. I commence, too, by declaring an interest: as trustee of Action on Addiction and several other charities which are in the business of trying to help people who have suffered the consequences of alcohol abuse.

I shall not go through the usual litany of problems which arise from the continuing massive overconsumption of alcohol in this country and its widespread abuse. It is true that the level of drinking has declined marginally in recent times, but, compared to 15 or 20 years ago, it is still extraordinarily high and the price of alcohol in this country is still quite low. As the noble Baroness concedes, 1.2 million alcohol-related hospital admissions were recorded in 2010-11 alone. The level of binge-drinking among young people, particularly among 15 and 16 year-olds, is still very high compared with what we find in other European countries. My first question to the Minister is: when will the Government not only review advertising targeted particularly at the young but ask the drinks industry also to stop doing it, especially through increasing use of social media? Social media are heavily populated by the young these days and that is an area where the drinks industry feels that it can make the biggest impact. If we are truly to bring about a change in culture, it should come from the young, from targeting them positively and from not encouraging them to drink.

I congratulate the Government on the steps that they have taken to try to tackle the problem. The noble Baroness did not mention the Government’s announcement to tackle the issue of minimum pricing. I congratulate the Government on the bold steps that they have taken there. I know that they are consulting at the moment, but I hope that they will stick to their guns and not be persuaded by those who will come with counter-arguments to shift their policy.

I thank the Government for the changes which they have made to local licensing laws, on which we had some extensive debates last year. One of the factors which many of us believe lead to excessive drinking is our easy access to alcohol these days compared with 20 or 30 years ago. While the Government are working through the changes in licensing arrangements, I hope that they will continue to keep them under close review. I hope, too, that they will review the possibility of a change being made to the criteria used in granting licences locally to take into account the effects on public health of excessive drinking in particular areas and locations. They should use localism to benefit people who are suffering from some of the adverse consequences of abusive drinking in their areas.

It would be churlish on my part if I did not concede that some substantial changes have been made by the drinks industry in recent years. Drinkaware is making good headway in certain areas, but its communication with the wider public is in many respects fairly limited. The number of people who visit its website is fairly small by comparison with the millions of people communicated with, for example, by wide-scale Carlsberg adverts shown during preparations for the Olympics.

It is important that we do not disregard the position which the BMA has taken on Drinkaware and the joint initiative taken by the Government in the form of the Responsibility Deal. It felt inclined in the light of the way that conversations were going to withdraw from that. I hope that the Minister will say whether the Government are taking any steps to try to bring the medical profession back into partnership. The report produced 12 months ago by this House’s Science and Technology Select Committee on behaviour change raised very serious questions about the extent to which the Responsibility Deal could work.

I recognise that I am running out of time. I wanted to press the Minister on why there has been no movement on changing drink labelling to give coverage of the calorie levels and contents of alcoholic drinks. I have done a blog today, so if the Minister is kind enough, he can go away afterwards and read it, because the Government need to take action. Regardless of what is happening in Europe, we could move on that front. That would be a way of communicating on a mass scale with many drinkers.

Alcohol: Strategy

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I assure the right reverend Prelate that my noble friend from the Department for Education heard that. However, he is right to draw attention to the problems of underage drinking and particularly to the prevalence of underage drinkers ending up in A&E departments. In my own part of the world in west Cumberland, I have seen some very good work being done by schools in Workington, which, sadly, has the highest rate of admissions to A&E in the country. However, as a result of the work being done there, I hope that in a few years’ time we will see those rates fall, and fall considerably.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, I have a brief question. Will the Government legislate to show energy and calorie levels on the labelling on alcohol products?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, that is not part of what we are proposing at the moment but we will no doubt consider it when the legislation comes forward. I look forward to discussing the amendment that the noble Lord will put forward on that occasion.

Police: Vehicles

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

I am very grateful to my noble friend for her comments. I remind her about the announcement made about Nissan and the extra jobs that will be available there as a result of decisions that Nissan has made about further inward investment in this country.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

On the day when it has been announced that 2.7 million people in this country are unemployed, and the likelihood is that that figure will continue to rise for some time, is it not important that we take such factors into account when we address issues such as public procurement? Can one conceivably believe that the French, German or Belgian Governments would do some of the things that we do in this country?

[Lord Henley]

Yet again, the noble Lord is heading down the road of protectionism, which I do not believe is the right answer. The answer that I gave to my noble friend Lady O’Cathain about the success of Nissan addresses that point exactly. Why have we attracted so much inward investment? It is because we have the right conditions to do so. The Nissan announcement is one that even the noble Lord should welcome.

Phone Hacking

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am not sure I can assist the noble Lord on that latter point. I can say that my understanding is that it is relatively easy to hack into texts and voicemails on individuals’ mobiles but very difficult to get into live calls on a mobile, which is something that only possibly the security services and others would be able to do. These things are possible but are much harder. In the main, we are talking about hacking into texts and voicemails.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

Perhaps the noble Lord can help me in my ignorance. Can he say whether the Leveson inquiry’s terms of remit cover the subject that was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, about the concentration of media ownership? If not, can he say what the Government will do about it?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, the terms of reference for Lord Justice Leveson were set very wide indeed and it will be for Lord Justice Leveson to produce his report in due course. The timing of that report is obviously a matter for Lord Justice Leveson.

Phone Hacking

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, that is a technical problem on which I am afraid I cannot assist my noble friend. I am sure that many people throughout the country, and no doubt many Members of this House, think that they may have been hacked. If they think that they have, I suggest that they let the police know and ask them to make appropriate inquiries.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, is the noble Lord stating that the Government have no interest in what is happening with any other newspapers unless individuals produce evidence themselves?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, that is nonsense. Of course we have an interest in these matters, but at this stage it is right and proper that the Government wait until Lord Justice Leveson has reported. In the mean time, if any noble Lords or others think that they are having problems and that there has been criminality, I suggest that they get in contact with the police.

Police Federation

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Thursday 15th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Browning]

I can tell my noble friend that public service pension schemes are consulting formally on the proposal, for example, to increase employee contribution rates. The consultation for the police pension scheme is happening within the Police Negotiating Board. The Home Secretary wrote to the Police Negotiating Board on 29 July and has asked for views on its proposal by the end of September.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

In the light of the response that the noble Baroness gave to my noble friend Lord Richard, will she copy the letter that she is sending to him to the rest of the House? That is precisely what the Question is about.

[Baroness Browning]

When I reply to the noble Lord, Lord Richard, I would be very happy to place a copy in the Library of the House.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, I am very pleased to add my support to the excellent response that the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, has prepared to the points that arose in Committee. I was one of those who met Professor Keith Humphreys, who is the senior adviser to President Obama on drug and alcohol abuse, who gave us a very helpful presentation indeed on what they are doing in the States. They have made very good progress and are intending to roll out the programme over a much wider front, given the success that they have encountered.

On the point of different cultures, the one thing that those involved in drink and drug issues know is that they are widespread throughout countries in varying degrees. Some places have bigger problems than others, but those who have problems with drink and drugs have a common problem of approach. It behoves us that wherever we see people trying a new approach, if it is producing success and the kind of results that we have heard that this scheme is running, we should spend some time looking to see whether it can be applied in our home country.

The Americans are very progressive in many areas. They try schemes; yes, some of them fail, but they abandon those and move on. The problem I find from my experience of dealing with these issues in this country is that when we get an idea, we believe that it is going to work and research it very well indeed. We then start pouring a lot of money into it, which continues to go in regardless of what is happening with the scheme, yet we continue defending the status quo when others come to suggest trying to look for something a little different.

I hope that the Government will be prepared to think again on this and to be bold. The major issues which were troubling them have, I think, been answered by the noble Baroness in her response but I would underline the two points that I made previously. First, this will not work on a voluntary basis. It will work successfully on that basis in one or two areas, but then you will find that the probation officers move on and the police change. A different culture then occurs in the area where it has been successful, so it is not maintained and it disappears. This is all that we find happens when it is run purely voluntarily on an experimental basis. It needs instead to be in the Bill and to be a compulsory operation—again, on an experimental basis.

Secondly, there is a concern expressed that we might end up with more people going into jail at the end of the day. Well, some of those people will be going to jail in any event and will be costing the taxpayer an awful lot of money in the first instance. If this alternative runs, there is a chance that there will be significantly less cost to the taxpayer and to the public at large. I suggest to the Minister one way around this difficulty. Civil servants hate sunset clauses because they are seen as a mark of failure. We should be much more flexible in our approach to sunset clauses. If they are right that this will end up with more people going to jail—I do not believe that it will, and I think that most people around the House who attended these briefings do not think that—why do the Government not consider making these amendments subject to a sunset clause and bring that back at Third Reading? We can then find a way forward which would answer that problem.

I am sorry to think that my Front Bench is not going to give its full support to this venture. The Labour Party ought to be backing this. From a number of standpoints, it is a very helpful development indeed and even though our Front Bench may not be exalting my colleagues to join us in the Division Lobbies, I personally appeal very strongly indeed to the people on the Labour Benches to vote for this amendment, if we are pushed to a vote. However, I hope that is avoided and that we get a more positive response from the Minister than we have had before.

[Lord Imbert]

My Lords, I must declare an interest before I begin in that 50 years ago, when on night duty as a new constable on the streets of London, I found that the following morning, for weeks on end, one was standing in court with a defendant who was accused of a crime that turned out to be alcohol-related. As the Committee would expect, I have conferred with my former colleagues and, yesterday morning, I spoke to the territorial operations department of the Metropolitan Police to seek its view on this amendment. It is supportive, with one caveat: that this must be a magistrate’s decision. Police must not be expected to say, “This individual committed the crime because they were drunk”. That must be a decision of the magistrate but, with that one caveat, I know that my former colleagues support this amendment as indeed do I.

--- Later in debate ---

The Government are fully committed to finding new ways to tackle the offending caused by excess drinking and ensuring that it is dealt with effectively. Although I recognise that my noble friend and the Deputy Mayor of London seek to achieve that by the amendments before us today, I am keen that we test that proposition using existing powers available to the police and the CPS. That will provide us with a helpful means of testing and developing the principles of the approach and monitoring its impact, effectiveness and potential risks before proceeding with legislative changes. To do that, we would like to identify two or three suitable areas where there is a problem with high-volume, less serious alcohol offending. That is the type of offending that blights many town centres, as has been mentioned in the debate. That is a pragmatic way forward that allows us to put into practice the principles of the noble Baroness’s amendment and begin to test the effect of a sobriety scheme to tackle alcohol-related offending.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

Are the Government contemplating putting into legislation the package that the noble Baroness is talking about, or will it be run on a voluntary basis? If it is the latter, why is it not attached to what is before us now?

[Baroness Browning]

The sobriety scheme based on conditional cautions has all the legislative power that it needs now. I do not need to put it into this statute; there is sufficient statute to run it now. If we were to move on later to something as described by the noble Baroness, we would, as I indicated, need to pick up the results of those pilots in future legislation.

If we take forward these pilots on the basis that I have outlined to the House, it will allow us to test locally some of the more challenging elements of such a scheme, including its funding, proportionality, enforcement and impact on reoffending. Although I recognise the problem that the amendments seek to tackle and am sympathetic to their objectives, I hope that the noble Baroness will understand why I am unable to support their adoption. However, I give my full support to testing the principles of the scheme that she proposes and hope to begin a number of pilot schemes before too long.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones]

My Lords, I can be brief in speaking to Amendment 241C. I very much commend Clause 125, which sets in place a review of the effect of the amendments to the licensing scheme. It is common ground between us, whatever side we may be on, that the proposed amendments are highly significant. The Bill provides for a review to take place after five years. In view of the significance of these amendments, Amendment 241C is designed to make that review occur every two, not five, years. That would be much more appropriate, given the significance of the changes that will have been made by the Bill.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

I support the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville. There is a range of issues here that cannot wait five years to be reviewed. The amendment proposing a review after two years would be far more acceptable. I also want to draw the attention of Ministers to reports produced by this House way back in 2002, when the European Union Select Committee reviewed drinking and driving legislation and compared it with that of other European countries. The report pressed the case for the limit to be reduced to 50 milligrammes. The puritan Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe chaired that committee, so I recall it very well indeed. We must keep raising these issues, although time may pass by without speedy implementation.

It was interesting that when I was pulling out my papers on this issue, I came across a press cutting with the headline:

“MPs and peers cast eye on Lords reform”.

The article continued:

“A committee on Lords reform is today expected to seek to allay fears that the issue has been kicked into the long grass by agreeing a timetable to put forward proposals by October”.

That article was dated 9 July, 2002.

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, given that Clause 125 is totally composed of reviews, I wanted to add a word on the review of ministerial guidance. I do that absolutely in the spirit of Amendment 241C, spoken to by my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones, in terms of acceleration.

Much of the way in which the Licensing Act 2003 has been interpreted has been by virtue of ministerial guidance required under Section 182 of that Act. While the currently proposed legislative changes to that Act have been widely welcomed, they will take time to bed down. If the ministerial guidance were immediately to be reviewed and rewritten—it was last reviewed in November 2010; it has been a running process since 2003—subject to public consultation, many of the concerns addressed in the coalition Government’s consultation could be dealt with by providing more balanced guidance to licensing authorities to support them in getting to grips as soon as possible with the adverse effects of licensing.

In terms of involving the community, there should be an explicit statement in the guidance that local people and their representatives have an important locus in formulating policies, and that the invitation to consult on local licensing policy should ideally be simple and jargon-free, backed up by something like a crystal mark. However, the best way to involve the community more is to improve public awareness of licence applications. The Government could help by revising the currently very prescriptive rules for advertising applications that often do not work. I give an example that was, I think, mentioned in our previous debates. There are fewer and fewer local newspapers, and the advertisements in them are usually in tiny print on inside pages. The responsibility for advertising the applications should be passed to licensing authorities that can decide the most effective way to advertise applications, including circulating notices by post, on the basis of full recovery from the applicant of their reasonable costs.

What I am about to say may go beyond the scope of this clause, but it would help greatly if local councils, in response to representations from the public and responsible authorities, were to be allowed to introduce policies controlling the cumulative impact of licensed premises—such a provision was precluded from the 2003 Act—whereby the licensing authority can prevent a build-up of problems, rather than waiting until they have occurred.