Bain & Company: Public Sector Contracts

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

I note what the noble Viscount says, but the Cabinet Office review into this specific company will conclude within weeks. We will have discussions on this in the Procurement Bill, and your Lordships will be able to explore these matters at greater length then. Obviously, I am concerned by any suggestion of corruption and misconduct, and we are widening in the Bill the scope of misconduct which can lead to exclusion.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister sought in part to assure us, saying that Bain & Company—I think I quote him properly—are not doing any substantial business with the Government. What does “substantial” mean in those circumstances, and were any of these insubstantial contracts agreed after the judicial inquiry in South Africa reported?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I am advised that there is not a current contract with central government. If I am incorrect, I will correct that. I am aware of one live contract that Bain has with an NHS trust, which has a contract value of approximately £2 million.

Ministerial Code

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

The noble Lord started off with “scandal” and retreated to “apparent contradiction”. I would advise him and others to refer both to the statement put out by my noble friend Lord Goldsmith and the official statements put out by No. 10 Downing Street and the Defence Secretary at the Foreign Affairs Select Committee yesterday.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, once again we are being treated to Ministers in studios and in the House not facing up to the fact that the evidence is out there. These emails are there for people to see. I have not heard one Minister deny that the Nowzad animals were helped out of Afghanistan by the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, and the Prime Minister—and possibly also by the intervention of his wife—or say that these emails are not correct. So the evidence is there. Over and above that, my noble friend Lord Foulkes, who cannot be with us today, was on LBC last night with Dominic Dyer, who explained at length how it happened, because he was involved in identifying the Prime Minister, his wife and the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, as helping them to get the animals out of Afghanistan. He is upset because they will not take credit for it; that is what is upsetting him. So when will we get to the point where Ministers here or in television studios will live in the same world as the rest of us, when all the evidence proves the contrary of what they are saying?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I fear I say too often in this House that allegations do not constitute proof. I remind noble Lords that whatever the context of this particular circumstance, a truly outstanding operation was conducted to remove people from Afghanistan safely. I repeat that statements have been made by the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, No. 10 Downing Street and the Defence Secretary which repudiate the allegations being made.

Veterans’ Strategy Action Plan: Gambling Addiction

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

I agree profoundly with what my noble friend said, and he is right that the significant majority of veterans go on to live happy and healthy lives when they move out of the Armed Forces, and make as great a contribution to our society when they are not serving as when they did. That does not absolve the Government of the duty to stand by those who need additional support.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, the RAF Benevolent Fund research, to which the noble Lord, Lord Foster, refers, merely corroborates the Army’s own assessment that military veterans are eight times more likely to have gambling problems than the rest of the country’s population. Should the Government ask themselves not what do we do for the people whose distress has caused them to fall into this difficulty, but why there is such a prevalence of those who give their military service to this country developing this distressing condition?

[Lord True (Con)]

I do not detract from the significance of what the noble Lord said, with his very great experience. The reality is that this Government take seriously the gambling concerns and problems in all sectors of society, and are committed to tackling gambling-related harms. As he will know, the Ministry of Defence is continuing to develop welfare support policies for supporting personnel, including those with gambling problems, and the MoD restricts the ability of service personnel to access online gambling sites.

Downing Street Parties: Police Investigation

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, we hear the voice of those who do not want to work together or move forward. I agree with what my noble friend said. I do believe, also, that there is a great principle, in public life and private life, that no one is guilty by accusation. We should let the reports be concluded.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I infer from the noble Lord’s statement that we can expect publication of only the findings of Sue Gray’s report and not the whole report. Am I right?

Secondly, does this sequence of events not raise serious questions about the nature of policing these lockdown regulations? It is almost impossible not to conclude that the police went from saying, “We are not investigating anything because we have no evidence”, to Sue Gray interviewing police officers and finding that they had evidence all along, and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, having seen them, saying, “I either discipline the police officers or I investigate the crimes”?

[Lord True (Con)]

No, my Lords, nothing may be inferred of that kind. I refer the House to the very clear statements made by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner this morning, in her own words, where she set out the position. I do not think it is for me, as a Minister of the Crown, to add to or substitute the words of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner.

Downing Street Event

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, the Statement read:

“I apologise again unreservedly for the upset that these allegations have caused.”

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, no one who has read this email is in any doubt that there was a party. That means that millions of people in this country who have had the advantage of being able to read it know that it was an invitation to a party. They know that it emanated from the Prime Minister’s private office; we know that it was written in the first person plural, because it started with the word “we”; and they know what “we” refers to when an email comes out of the Prime Minister’s Office. They believe the evidence that has been swirling around—albeit that it is hearsay—that people have said that they were there and that the Prime Minister and his then partner, now wife, were there too. Why have we been treated twice now to the Prime Minister coming to the Dispatch Boxes in Parliament and telling people that they should suspend their belief until some apparently independent inquiry tells them what they already know? Why do we not just live in the real world, own up to it, and then we can move on and get on with helping to run the country?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I believe it is a wise course in human events and in life generally to act on the basis of full facts. I have assured the House that the investigation is being conducted swiftly. It will establish the facts, and if wrongdoing is established, there will be requisite disciplinary action. However, I agree with what Sir Keir said, that the investigation should be allowed to run its course.

Net-zero Emissions Target

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Monday 11th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sure the Minister will agree that the Government need to take a joined-up approach to decarbonising the economy. Surely it is inefficient and wasteful to public funds to stimulate decarbonisation with some funds, while stimulating the creation of greenhouse gas emissions with others. When will we see subsidies for fossil fuels wound down?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

My Lords, as I mentioned in an earlier answer, we need to do this transition in an orderly way. We need to ensure that our net-zero energy generation is sustainable. We are moving very quickly. We have seen, for example, the cost of offshore wind drop dramatically over the last five years, from over £100 per kilowatt hour to around £45, but we need to keep moving that along before we remove any more support to the traditional sources of energy.

Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill [HL]

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 25th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Bird, and I welcome this Bill. In his Second Reading speech on the first version of this Bill, the noble Lord shared that, after 25 years of helping the homeless, he realised that instead he should have been preventing people becoming homeless in the first place.

When I was the MP for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, I met DCS John Carnochan of Strathclyde Police. Then the head of the Strathclyde murder unit, which had a phenomenally high clear-up rate for homicides, John often lectured worldwide on how that was achieved. One day, at a crime symposium, the thought struck him that instead of taking pride in the clear-up rate, he would rather have shared pride in prevention. From that thought came the violence reduction unit, which adopted a health approach to offending and significantly reduced violence and gang-related behaviour in Strathclyde and then in Scotland—a well-being model now adopted by the Mayor of London and promoted extensively elsewhere by this Government.

There are many examples of policies that have avoided the challenge of long-term change for self-inflicted chronic problems because their implications will make parts of our electorate uncomfortable, if not downright antagonistic. On that theme, I had intended to devote my limited time to the self-inflicted problem of gambling harm, but instead I will highlight why this Bill is particularly welcome at this time and is an opportunity that we should embrace.

Over the past 16 months, the fragility of our society and our economy has been laid bare. The scale of inequality has been exposed; we have been brought to an acute, overdue point of inflection in how we reflect on racism; the health crisis has spawned further inequalities, and undoubtedly the relaxation of restrictions may create even more inequalities. The extent of abusive power in our society, particularly the exposure of the vulnerable, mostly women and children, to it, has become more apparent. It is no coincidence that this has happened when so many of us have been locked down together—in too many cases women with their abusers, and children online, in what can be the most abusive environment you could imagine. We need a focus on well-being as a starting point for building back better and there is no question but that the future must be driven by it.

If we are not going to find new radical ways of thinking that will transform our country and give it resilience now then perhaps we never will. Surely we need to embrace the ambition of becoming a robust well-being society, a country that generates strong economic sustainability with the creation of quality jobs, and with a focus on biodiversity and climate change, fair work, diversity, and a long-term commitment to equality. The noble Lord offers us a helpful template, and we have, in Wales and New Zealand, an ongoing study from which to learn. On the previous Bill, the Minister predictably recognised the implicit value of what the legislation offers but graciously, on behalf of the Government, declined to take advantage of it. In anticipating that he will do the same today, I respectfully ask him to please point us to the alternative that is on offer.

Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Thursday 29th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Con)]

We are obviously very much at the preliminary stages of the dispute settlement process to which my noble friend refers. I hope that, on reflection, the EU will agree with us that the unilateral measures that we took in March, which are the subject of this dispute, are legal, proportionate and do not require further action. If it does not, as I recall, the withdrawal agreement offers two routes for dispute settlement—normal international arbitration, or that with a role for the EU institutions—so we wait to see how and on what basis this case is taken forward.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, Northern Ireland was promised the best of both worlds, but trade with the rest of the United Kingdom has reduced, not increased. Loyalists and unionists sense that they have no effective voice and that Whitehall was not honest about the consequences of Brexit. Government at the highest level must take responsibility; it must allow local politics to regain the initiative, rebuild trust with Dublin and breathe life into the British-Irish intergovernmental process. Experience shows that this requires the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State to engage directly with local parties and the broader community, listening as well as being listened to, not intermittently but continuously. Is this part of the plan to deal with this problem?

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, as I have noted, the situation in Northern Ireland has complex roots and it is important that all those engaging and dealing with it do so with the intention of supporting the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is of course engaging with all parties in the current situation and will continue to do so.

SolarWinds Cyberattack

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise; I found it quite hard to catch every part of the noble Baroness’s question. I hope this is not an inadequate answer, but I am unable to comment on operational detail at this stage. However, as I have assured the House, the NCSC is working to mitigate all potential risks, and this work is ongoing.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, SolarWinds highlights concerns about the growing privatisation of cybersecurity attacks through a new generation of private companies, described in a recent Microsoft blog as

“akin to 21st-century mercenaries”

who offer

“the option for nation-states to either build or buy the tools needed for sophisticated cyberattacks.”

Already the US is battling one such company in their courts. Can we be assured that the Government’s review will consider whether our cyber capability and regulatory infrastructure is fit for purpose in the face of this emerging threat?

[Lord True (Con)]

I agree with the noble Lord on the importance of sustaining and improving that capability. The Government are certainly giving attention to that—seeking to promote cyber skills and to encourage a sustainable pipeline of homegrown cybersecurity talent, and protecting our critical infrastructure. That is a key part of the strategy going forward. The noble Lord is quite right that, currently, the demand for cybersecurity skills outstrips supply. We must mend that issue.

Summit of Democratic Governments

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Monday 30th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, the UK has worked closely with international partners throughout the pandemic, from the development of vaccines to supporting vulnerable countries, and we will continue to do so. As I have outlined, the UK is preparing an ambitious and—we hope—unifying G7 agenda which will promote international leadership and collaboration as we recover from Covid-19. The UK also co-sponsored the resolution adopted by the World Health Assembly in May, which included agreement for an independent review.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the D10, like President-elect Biden’s proposed summit for democracy, will be an assembly of countries with diverse regimes. This century the US has twice elected a President who lost the popular vote; Narendra Modi’s India is turning its Muslim minority into second-class citizens; the EU includes Hungary, led by Viktor Orbán, who is creating an illiberal democracy; and we have a Government legislating deliberately to break international law and proposing to stop citizens going to court to enforce their rights against their Government. Exactly what model for democracy are we holding up to the rest of the world in this proposal?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I need make no apology for the United Kingdom’s record of parliamentary democracy over generations.