Lake District National Park Authority

Debate between Lord De Mauley and Lord Cormack

Thursday 5th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley]

As the noble Earl knows, the Government have no powers to direct national park authorities to dispose or not to dispose of a particular piece of land. Furthermore, it would not be right to intervene, because they must be allowed—and, indeed, encouraged—to take responsibility for their own affairs. To put it in context, the eight sites offered for sale total 59 hectares, equivalent to 0.6% of the Lake District National Park Authority’s land holdings.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, it is the turn of this side; I live there. Is it not shocking that parts of the national park—one of the most beautiful national parks—have to be sold off as a result of government cuts? Is there not a problem that, in a further sale of the land, the Lake District planning people might well give a more relaxed permission in order to get half the money? Is it not rather unhappy that we are doing this at all? Surely we should adamantly say that the Lake District is not for sale to the highest bidder.

[Lord De Mauley]

I agree with much of the sentiment behind the noble Lord’s point, but the national park has assured me that this is not about cuts. It routinely reviews its assets and makes disposals where appropriate so that the proceeds can be reinvested into the acquisition, improvement or maintenance of other properties. It is worth saying that between 2007 and 2010—three years during which the noble Lord’s party was in government—it made sales totalling £1.9 million. In the five years from then, sales have totalled £1.8 million.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I am sure that we all wish the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, many more happy years in one of the most glorious parts of England. However, is not what really matters here the integrity of the landscape and that there are no further incursions into its tranquillity? Can my noble friend assure us that whatever transactions take place, both the integrity of the landscape and its tranquillity will be preserved?

[Lord De Mauley]

Yes, my Lords, I absolutely agree with my noble friend. I can confirm that none of the protections afforded to the land by virtue of being in a national park is affected by a sale.

United States: Haggis Ban

Debate between Lord De Mauley and Lord Cormack

Thursday 15th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, I was going to say that it is a question of priorities, but that is an eminently sensible suggestion.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, what is served at the British embassy on Burns Night?

[Lord De Mauley]

What else, my Lords? Haggis.

Peatlands

Debate between Lord De Mauley and Lord Cormack

Wednesday 8th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley]

Yes, my Lords—and I should take this opportunity to thank the noble Lord for the work he does with the Adaptation Sub-Committee; it is extremely important to us. The peatland code, which was launched in September, provides a basis for business sponsorship of peatland restoration; that is a key plank in what we are doing. We are also undertaking a considerable amount of important and relevant research. Environmental stewardship, which I referred to in my initial Answer, has for many years benefited peatlands, but the new ELMS will be more focused on environmental outcomes and therefore will be more directly beneficial to peatland restoration. The three nature improvement areas that have peatlands are working hard on improving their habitats.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, is not the best way in which to answer the plea of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, to ensure that these unreliable, uneconomic and unsightly wind farms are not built on land anywhere?

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, of course, we have to take all factors into account in these decisions, but I shall pass on my noble friend’s comments to my colleagues at the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

EU: Regulation on Chemicals

Debate between Lord De Mauley and Lord Cormack

Wednesday 27th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley]

As my noble friend asks about gold- plating, perhaps I may say that REACH is a directly acting regulation so there is little scope for gold-plating. However, the UK approach is in fact the opposite of that; for example, our approach to enforcement is to help companies get back into compliance. My noble friend might like to know that the Environment Agency has developed helpful tools for that process. It uses its expertise to look for illegal use of restricted chemicals, and it can then focus on suspected wrongdoing with little or no burden on compliant companies.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

My Lords, there are significant consequences for small and medium-sized enterprises of incomplete registration. Can the Minister please tell us how many businesses have already been informed by the European Chemicals Agency that their registration is incomplete, and what action has he taken to ensure that businesses complete all of the agency’s registration requirements in time to avoid those significant consequences?

[Lord De Mauley]

In terms of specific numbers, no, I cannot. However, I will write to the noble Lord on his question.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I will ask the question that I tried to ask. Would not the best tool be the use of plain English which everyone can understand, whether they are in small business, medium business or any other sort of business?

[Lord De Mauley]

My noble friend, as always, speaks so much sense. I am discovering, as Defra’s science Minister, that the world of chemicals does not easily lend itself to simple language. However, I will do my best for my noble friend.

Agriculture: Common Agricultural Policy

Debate between Lord De Mauley and Lord Cormack

Tuesday 30th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, my noble friend makes an important point. We have fought hard to achieve an element of flexibility in the greening requirements. Perhaps we have not got as far as we would have liked but we are negotiating with nearly 30 other states and, of course, the Parliament.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, can we inject some intelligibility into the language with which these things are described? It really is the most awful gobbledegook. How can people outside be expected to understand about caps, pillars, greening and all this nonsense?

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, that is music to my ears.

Flooding: Defence Programme

Debate between Lord De Mauley and Lord Cormack

Thursday 1st November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, there is constant negotiation between the meteorological forecasting organisation and the Environment Agency. My noble friend is right that we need to keep our eyes on that and we are certainly doing so.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, could we take this opportunity to extend our sympathy to those who have suffered this week in the United States from the devastating floods and storms?

[Lord De Mauley]

Yes, my Lords. I entirely agree with my noble friend. I think it is worth taking stock and making the point that we are seeking to learn lessons from what is going on in New York. The Environment Agency has contacted the US authorities already with a view to drawing on lessons learnt.

Terrorism Act 2000 (Codes of Practice for the Exercise of Stop and Search Powers) Order 2012

Debate between Lord De Mauley and Lord Cormack

Tuesday 29th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, we have no points of order in this House, but I have received advice from the Clerks that this is perhaps the right moment to raise an issue and ask if Ministers and the Procedure Committee will look at our Business, particularly on days when we are about to rise for a recess. We have four short debates today. I make no complaint about the time allocated to mine or to two of the others, but it is really a bit strange that the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury should be reduced to a contribution of one minute in a debate when there are 24 speakers and when there really are no constraints upon us. We could surely sit until 4.30 pm, 5.30 pm or 6.30 pm. We could surely have a better distribution of time between debates. I ask that my noble friends and the usual channels look at this in consultation with the Procedure Committee. It does not reflect well on this House when people with the knowledge to make the contributions which we know that they will make to this debate are reduced to one minute each.

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, perhaps I can help. I understand your Lordships’ frustration with the time limit, particularly today. I would say two things. First, a fortnight ago on 16 May, your Lordships’ House itself agreed to the one-hour time limit for each of today’s Questions for Short Debate. That limit has since been advertised on the Forthcoming Business. Secondly, the Companion makes it clear that Questions for Short Debate last for a maximum of one hour and should therefore be limited in scope.

The QSD is not the only route, of course, to the Order Paper. Balloted debates like last Thursday’s last two and a half hours, and party debates are flexible. Today is also not unprecedented: as recently as February this year, we had a QSD limited to one minute per speaker. However, I will of course take my noble friend’s point back to the usual channels.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Lord De Mauley and Lord Cormack

Wednesday 25th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken. Let me turn directly to the issues raised by noble Lords. The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, asked, under the amendment, exactly what will happen during the gateway conversation. This also addresses the point made by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie. We want parents to pause for thought when contacting us, before deciding whether to proceed with making an application to the statutory service.

We believe that the best way to achieve this is for parents to undertake a telephone call with a specially trained adviser. The only requirement on the parents contacting us before entering the statutory scheme will be to engage in this conversation and to discuss whether they have considered their alternatives. The adviser will be able to provide advice and signpost the parent to other support available, if required. Parents can then, if they wish, take time to consider the alternatives and discuss collaboration with the other parent. However, I stress that engaging in the conversation when first contacting us is the only requirement to enter the scheme. Everything else is voluntary. There is no question of us seeking to direct parents to take any specific steps. Where a parent identifies during the conversation that they need to make an application to the statutory service, the adviser will help them to do so. I hope that that addresses the point of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie.

[Lord Cormack]

Can my noble friend assure the House that the telephone will be answered by a human being and that there will be a direct line to an individual, not to an automated “press this, press that” system?

[Lord De Mauley]

I share my noble friend’s horror at being asked to “press 1” and so on for different things. I cannot absolutely guarantee that the very first answering of the call will not be that, but the key point is that it will be possible to have a conversation with a human being. That is the gateway.

My noble friend Lady Tyler has much experience in this area and I am extremely grateful for her supportive comments, particular about the additional resources.

The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, also has a lot of experience in this area. I hope that my answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, has addressed the nub of what the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, was asking. Our reforms will mean that maintenance flows more certainly and more quickly. If someone presented and told us that they had an aggressive partner, we would immediately help them to make a maintenance application.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Lord De Mauley and Lord Cormack

Thursday 14th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I add my support. Like my noble friend Lord Newton, I had many such clubs in my former constituency. I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Bilston, moved the amendment very moderately and sensibly and made a completely unanswerable case. I hope that we have a very sympathetic response from my noble friend who will be replying to this brief debate and that, at the very least, he will be able to follow the injunction of the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, and give us some encouragement, because it really is a truly worthy cause.

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, Amendment 35A would increase the number of temporary event notices that may be given in relation to single premises in any one calendar year from 12 to 15. I am well aware of the noble Lord’s tireless work for these centres of our communities and thank him for that. This proposal is very much in line with the direction in which we are travelling. We are legislating to allow for greater flexibility and a more relaxed and liberal system, particularly for small, voluntary and community groups that make use of the temporary events notices to carry out licensable activities. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bilston, and the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, for not only agreeing with us in this general direction of travel but also taking the time to discuss this with me.

Through the Bill, we are already taking substantial steps to relax some of the requirements of TENs. For example, we propose to increase the total number of days in any calendar year on which a single premises can be used to carry on licensable activities under a temporary event notice from 15 to 21 days. We are also relaxing the provisions to allow licensing authorities to accept late temporary event notices. Furthermore, we are also using the Bill to increase the maximum period for a single event that may be authorised by one temporary event notice from 96 hours or four days to 168 hours, or seven days, to help festivals and other forms of entertainment that run over several days. I hope that noble Lords will agree that these are positive moves in the same direction as their amendment.

TENs are supposed to be a light-touch measure, outside the norm of the licensing regime for one-off, exceptional or occasional events. Just to give some balance, we have also considered carefully the views of many residents who responded to our consultation and who complained about noise nuisance from temporary events. We ask noble Lords to agree with us that allowing for an average of one such event a month, or 12 a year, achieves the right balance. However, the Government are committed to reducing the overall burden of regulation across the piece and have been consulting the public on this wider work, including alcohol licensing via its red tape challenge. So for example the Government have announced that they will shortly be carrying out a public consultation, led by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, on the reform of regulated entertainment under the Licensing Act 2003. In the circumstances, I ask the noble Lord to accept that our direction of travel is very much in line with his own and to consider withdrawing his amendment.