Rwanda Asylum Partnership

Lord Cunningham of Felling Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

As the noble Baroness is aware, the foundation for this is a memorandum of understanding that, it is strongly believed, covers the various points that she made. I cannot answer precisely who is responsible at the Rwandan end, but there are teams of Home Office personnel in place who will also monitor progress.

[Lord Cunningham of Felling (Lab)]

My Lords, when will—

[Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)]

My Lords, most of the—

[Noble Lords]

Foster!

[Lord Cunningham of Felling (Lab)]

She is just reading her question out!

[Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)]

My Lords, most of the Rwanda Cabinet were refugees and understand the difficulties that people face, particularly coming from war-torn countries. Rwanda has moved forward massively from the days when it suffered war and genocide. Does my noble friend agree that we need to kickstart this process for illegal immigrants as soon as possible as we cannot sustain the levels as they stand and be seen to support people traffickers, who continue to make money on the backs of human misery?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The most reverend Primate refers to refugees, so I will too. It is fairly self-evident what we have been doing for refugees, including BNO passport holders from Hong Kong—over 130,000 such visas have now been issued—Ukrainian refugees and Afghan refugees. I remind noble Lords that at the moment the taxpayer is spending about £2 billion a year on this problem. This is about asylum seekers arriving from safe countries, and about trying to put the criminal gangs out of business.

[Lord Cunningham of Felling (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords—

Homes for Ukraine Scheme

Lord Cunningham of Felling Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harrington of Watford (Con)]

I do not accept the statement of the noble Baroness that the system is built to fail—it is not. But there are problems with it. I would be delighted to sit down with her and discuss it. She did make one error in what she said—and perhaps she does not realise it—in that though the forms are in English, there is a drop-down section for each one translating into Ukrainian. But I would be very pleased to meet her.

[Lord Cunningham of Felling (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a simple question: how many Ukrainians have been admitted to the United Kingdom under this scheme? It is quite simple—or is the Minister telling us he does not know?

[Lord Harrington of Watford (Con)]

We will publish the answer to that question very soon, I promise.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Cunningham of Felling Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Tuesday 22nd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

I support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. It is insane that we do not have this. Food crime is complicated and difficult. Food chains are very long with no roles of responsibility. It is not like selling an egg to your next-door neighbour and then they end up sick; the egg has probably travelled 1,000 miles and nobody really gives a stuff about what happens at the other end.

There are lots of categories of food crime: illegal processing, which can mean the unapproved slaughter or ingestion of food; waste diversion, which means you send waste food back into the supply chain; adulteration, which is fake food; substitution, which is what happened in the horsemeat scandal; misrepresent-ation, which is endless and to do with marketing saying, for example, that pork has come from a happy pig when, in fact, it came from some pig reared in Poland in a miserable condition; and discount fraud. It is very common, widespread and difficult to deal with.

The fact that we bring only a tiny number of prosecutions, as the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, mentioned, is a scandal, but it is one that we can fix. The FSA has a brilliant new chair in Professor Susan Jebb, who is gagging to go and to get on top of this. It would do more than just sort out crime; it would also bring safety and responsibility. It would stop this massive dispersion of food into all different places.

The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, mentioned the horsemeat scandal of however many years ago. At that point I was working for the current Prime Minister as chair of the London Food Board. He rather jovially suggested that he and I should go up to Trafalgar Square and eat a horsemeat burger. We did not, because it probably would have got him into even more trouble than usual. However, the point is that at that moment we all saw the chains. Some of that horsemeat had passed through no fewer than 15 hands as it travelled around, each time making a little bit of money. Every moment is a moment for adulteration. I cannot understand why the Government are not happy to accept the amendment and to put it in the Bill. We would then have a much brighter future for all of us.

[Lord Cunningham of Felling (Lab)]

My Lords, I strongly support my noble friend—indeed, my very personal friend. He and I wrote the White Paper on the Food Standards Agency. It was necessary then and it was the right thing to do. The public had lost confidence in politicians of all parties and we had to create a new and independent organisation. That is what we did. Believe me, I cannot for the life of me understand why Ministers object to the proposal. It is already in legislation, so what is the problem?

The reality is that food crime is a global occupation. The European Union is concerned about it, as is the Government of Australia. In the United States of America, the Department of Justice recently fined a Brazilian company $110 million for trying to rig the beef market. For that matter, it also tried to rig the chicken market there. We need these powers to combat that level of organised and very sophisticated criminal activity in food markets. I do not know why there is any hesitation about this. If America can do it, we can. Australia is looking very closely at the activities of this same food company intervening in the Australian market. It already has two subsidiaries here in the UK. I have drawn this to the attention of the noble Lord, Lord Benyon. The reality is that, unless we strengthen the Food Standards Agency, these people will fiddle, rig, and have criminal activities in our food markets. We cannot stand by and allow that to happen. As I said at the outset, I strongly support my noble friend’s amendment. I urge noble Lords on all sides of the House to support it too.

Health: Animal Testing

Lord Cunningham of Felling Excerpts

Tuesday 4th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cunningham of Felling]

My Lords, is it not clear that if we want to maintain the very highest levels of medical and scientific research in the United Kingdom—levels which are endorsed by the World Health Organisation, among others—we must continue with properly regulated but available animal research? I compliment the noble Lord, Lord Willis, for raising this question. If the National Institute for Medical Research, Cancer Research UK and others are to maintain the very highest level of research to the benefit of everyone, not just in the United Kingdom but internationally, this work must continue.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I think that the noble Lord speaks for the entire House. I endorse what he and my noble friend Lord Willis have said, along with others. We must continue to maintain the highest standards, both in terms of the licensing we do here and in making sure that we continue with research at the level that we do.