Rural Payments Agency: Basic Payment Scheme

Debate between Lord Davies of Stamford and Baroness Garden of Frognal

Tuesday 24th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

I hear what the noble Earl says. The paper exercise is designed for people who are unable to access a computer. Any data that are already on the computer have been saved. The RPA has written to all those who may have broadband problems, if that is an issue. The data should not need to be re-entered if it is already on the system.

[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a recipient of payments under the basic payment scheme since, I think, its origin. I commend the Government and the European Commission on having responded to the great difficulties that many people have had in re-registering this year. I spent two and a half hours over the weekend trying to register myself online and was entirely thwarted because you have to start off by verifying your identity. Although I tried two channels—the Experian and the Post Office channels that were available—both resisted steadfastly the notion of my existence. I felt like saying, “Cogito ergo sum”. I think it is a good idea when public administration responds to technical difficulties like this that have been experienced by many members of the public. I hope that, going forward, the Government continue to be sympathetic in this way to the problems of farmers, who are great experts in farming but not often in IT. Will the Minister explain whether it is the intention of Her Majesty’s Government to accept the offer of the European Commission to delay the final payment until 15 June? We have been told that that was suggested by the Commission but that it is up to member states to decide whether to take it up.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

I am sorry that the noble Lord has had such problems proving his identity. On the difficulty of registration, more than 80% of farm businesses have successfully managed to do it, but, of course, one needs to concentrate on those who have not. The Government are considering extension of the deadline to 15 June, and it will be a matter of seeing how we progress with the online registrations as they go.

Defence Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Davies of Stamford and Baroness Garden of Frognal

Tuesday 11th February 2014 Grand Committee

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I have considerable sympathy for the spirit of the amendments spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. There was a deal of concern expressed at Second Reading over the impact on civilian employment of the additional levels of readiness and the additional time involved in the new recruit programme. Trying to safeguard both sides was discussed then.

I picked up a leaflet at the MoD a few days ago which under “The Employer Proposition” states:

“We will develop an open and predictable relationship by: ensuring that reservists notify employers of their reserve status”,

with a rider that it is “subject to security considerations”. That part of the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, is already being dealt with. Another paragraph of the leaflet states:

“We will introduce a new National Relationship Management scheme to establish strategic personnel relationships with major employer organisations, relevant trade bodies and the largest employers”.

It is essential for the success of this scheme that the Government have an ongoing dialogue with employers to make quite sure that their concerns are met, as well as making sure that the rights of reservists in connection with their employment are met. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us that the concerns which the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has raised are already being dealt with and considered, and that safeguards have been put in place by the Government.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

My noble friend’s amendment is testimony to what I spoke about earlier—the complete commitment on this side of the Committee to try to ensure that we successfully recruit and train the projected number of reservists. It would be intolerable if people who had signed up to fight for their country were subject in some way to discrimination in the employment and labour markets. Discrimination because of their sex, colour and so on is now regarded as utterly intolerable. My noble friend’s amendment is therefore absolutely appropriate.

I should make one final point. I think that I am right—the Minister will know the details—in saying that similar protections are available to members of the National Guard in the United States. We all know that the National Guard is extremely successful at recruiting and that it has enormous public support, including among employers, so I do not see any difficulty of the kind suggested by the noble Baroness whereby employers might reasonably resent such a provision. We all know that the National Guard in the United States plays a key role in the defence capability of that nation and is regularly deployed on operations. We should be encouraged by the experience of the United States to pursue the line adopted in my noble friend’s amendment.

Mali

Debate between Lord Davies of Stamford and Baroness Garden of Frognal

Tuesday 29th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

Our troops will largely be working with the Anglophone nations there: Nigeria, which is taking the lead, Gambia, Sierra Leone and Ghana. Their training will be in such areas as economics, the law of armed conflict, human rights and good governance. That is the sort of range of aspects where our troops are very well equipped to play a training role, but there is no suggestion from this initial engagement that they will go further than that. We certainly do not wish them to be involved in a combat role.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

My Lords, I congratulate the Government on having taken the right decision. There are always, of course, unpredictabilities and uncertainties in an operation of this kind, but we have the same interest as every other member of the EU in the stability of north and west Africa and in preventing any al-Qaeda-linked regime from turning any country there into a base for terrorist operations to be subsequently directed at us. Does the Minister agree with me that it is very important in these cases that there should be the maximum degree of cohesion and co-operation between the AU and the EU and that developments in that respect have been quite encouraging so far but need to be sustained?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

The noble Lord is absolutely right that this action is in support of stability in that part of the world. It is a well-leveraged contribution in support of the French activity and the French are taking the lead on this. Co-operation between the EU and the African countries is ongoing because there is a mutual interest in ensuring that this situation is contained and stability is restored.

Leveson Inquiry

Debate between Lord Davies of Stamford and Baroness Garden of Frognal

Wednesday 25th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

The noble Lord asked a number of questions. I was in the Chamber during Prime Minister’s Questions and while the Secretary of State was making his Statement. On his point about the Secretary of State being accountable to the House, I say that my right honourable friend was doing just that in coming to the House to take questions in great detail for well over an hour from Members of the House. I hope that he proved himself accountable to the House on that front.

The noble Lord asked about the role of spads and whether they have a code of conduct. My understanding is that they do. They perform an incredibly useful function, as successive Governments have discovered—but obviously, if something has gone wrong, that needs to be looked into on an individual basis. He also mentioned some of the evidence that we saw in the media today. We need to be somewhat cautious about taking at face value all the reports that appear in the media. This is the very aspect that we are discussing today, and it might be wiser in some respects to wait until the evidence has been fully investigated so that we know which parts of the reports of the media are true and which are somewhat creative.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

For the avoidance of doubt, will the noble Baroness confirm to the House that what the Government are asking us and the country to believe is that a special adviser, whose office was no doubt next door to that of the Secretary of State, who saw him several times a day, who worked in close collaboration with him and had been appointed by him as a person of trust, without any instruction from the Secretary of State, without any encouragement, without any connivance, took it upon himself to become deeply complicit with one particular party to a highly controversial decision that the Secretary of State was going to have to make, got into the business of leaking documents, talking about tactics and substance, exchanging views, and never thought to tell his Secretary of State what was going on, to check with him that he was happy with that or to report to him on any of the content of those exchanges? Is that actually the story that the Government is inviting the House and the country to believe?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

Once again, the noble Lord is fielding reports from the media that have not necessarily been substantiated, and it would be wise to wait to see which of them are true. All I can say on the question of Adam Smith’s role is to refer to his letter of resignation in which he states that,

“the content and extent of my contact was done without authorisation from the Secretary of State”.