Buildings: Energy Performance

Debate between Lord Dubs and Lord Henley

Tuesday 11th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I accept the importance of buildings in achieving our carbon reduction targets. But I remind the noble Lord, as I have previously, that since 1990 we have reduced our emissions by some 43%; that is the fastest decarbonisation of any G20 country, which is something we can be proud of. As the noble Lord correctly states, it is important that we do this particularly for buildings. The clean growth strategy set out our aspirations for as many homes as possible to be upgraded to an energy performance certificate of band C by 2035, and we will continue to pursue that.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

Is the Minister aware that at night many office blocks have the lights blazing all the time? I was in Canary Wharf recently and all the lights were on late at night. Could the Government not take some action on that immediately?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, one would hope that the owners of those buildings would have the incentive of the cost of lighting those buildings. But the noble Lord ought to be aware that light does not necessarily always consume that much energy, particularly if the owners have switched to LED lights and other forms of lighting that can reduce their carbon footprint. What the noble Lord sees is not necessarily what is happening in terms of energy consumption.

Smart Meters

Debate between Lord Dubs and Lord Henley

Tuesday 20th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

SMETS meters will allow the consumers greater benefits in that it will be easier for them to switch supplier and to monitor their use. Therefore it will be easier for them to cut their consumption of electricity and we will see a reduction in energy use, with benefits to the consumer in the cost, and benefits to the country in lower carbon use. As I said, there will be a net benefit overall after that cost of some £5.7 billion.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister confirm that many if not all of the smart meters currently offered are such that they cannot work if the consumer switches from one supplier to another? That is a pretty good reason for not having a smart meter. I wonder whether the people organising Brexit are also organising the smart meters.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, the companies have been installing the SMETS 1 meters and we are now moving on to SMETS 2. Changes happen when one moves from a SMETS 1 to a SMETS 2 but the same benefits will still be available when consumers switch supplier in due course, and they will be able to benefit from those. There will be a slight delay in that but by 2020, all those who switch will find that they have the same benefits on SMETS 1 as they have on SMETS 2.

Chilcot Committee: Intercept Evidence

Debate between Lord Dubs and Lord Henley

Tuesday 24th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I may depress the noble and learned Lord a little when I tell him that it has actually been longer than four and a half years. I gather that seven previous attempts going back to 1993 have been made to try to resolve this issue, which gives some indication of the difficulty of dealing with it. We have made a coalition commitment that the Government will seek,

“to find a practical way to allow the use of intercept evidence in court”.

However, we must focus on the benefits, costs and risks of so doing, and that is why we want to get it right. As regards the legal advice, I can only say to the noble and learned Lord that it would not generally be appropriate to put into the public domain independent legal advice that had been offered by counsel.

[Lord Dubs]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that if the risks associated with making intercept evidence available in court could be made acceptable to the Government, surely the benefits of using such evidence in court would be enormous? We would bring to justice people who at the moment cannot be brought to justice. It would be a much better way of running these things than having control orders, TPIMs and what have you.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I think I can agree entirely with the noble Lord, but we have to accept that there are risks and that we have to find a balance between the risks and the benefits. That is what we are trying to do. As the noble Lord will appreciate, for a whole series of Governments going back to 1993, this is quite a difficult matter to resolve.

European Court of Justice: Jurisdiction

Debate between Lord Dubs and Lord Henley

Wednesday 20th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, again I totally agree with my noble friend on that matter. But it means that we have to make very difficult decisions at the time about what is precisely in the United Kingdom’s national interest. We will not make a decision on all 133 measures before that. There might be individual measures, as my noble friend will be aware, on which we might have to make a decision before then. But as a totality we will leave this to 2014.

[Lord Dubs]

Will the Minister confirm that the Government have no intention of opting out of the European arrest warrant, which, for all its faults, is still the best way to ensure that criminals—some of whom commit very serious offences, including terrorism —are brought to justice in this country?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, the European arrest warrant was one of those matters agreed to before 2009. Therefore, it is covered by what we are discussing today. As I have said, we will make our decision at the appropriate time in 2014. It might be that we feel that in the national interest we do want to opt out of it; it might be that we do not. But I think that we will leave that to another day.

Immigration: Controls at Airports

Debate between Lord Dubs and Lord Henley

Wednesday 16th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of immigration controls at British airports.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Henley)]

My Lords, the Government have announced several measures on these issues. National resources are being used flexibly to provide up to 80 additional staff at Heathrow every day. Mobile teams are deployable to assist with surges in passenger numbers and the skills and experience of staff are being maximised. Additionally, a border force is working with the airport operators and airlines to ensure that they receive accurate and timely information to enable resources to be deployed effectively.

[Lord Dubs]

My Lords, it does not seem to be working. At 10.30 pm one evening last week in Terminal 1, five immigration officers were dealing with British and EU people and two were dealing with people with other passports. The e-passport system was not working. Although it may have taken under half an hour for people like me to get through, the foreigners with other passports looked like they were waiting for hours and hours. Does the Minister agree that this is simply not acceptable and is a consequence of the Government’s cutbacks in staff?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I totally reject what the noble Lord says about cutbacks in staff affecting what is happening. It is not a question of numbers. The important thing is to make sure that we get the right people in the right places at the right time. Rostering, therefore, is done in line with the schedules as they vary between summer and winter. We then adjust them accordingly in line with information we receive, say, from BAA or the airlines about flight delays, weather and so on. We have also brought in this mobile force which we can move around a certain amount to make sure that the right people are there at the right time to deal with the numbers. Obviously, it will always be difficult but we want to continue to improve things and I believe that we are making progress. Perhaps I may remind the noble Lord that at the Home Affairs Select Committee meeting only yesterday, Andrew Lord, director of operations at British Airways, made it clear that it had seen great improvements in recent weeks.

Abu Qatada

Debate between Lord Dubs and Lord Henley

Tuesday 7th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs]

My Lords, is this not perhaps the most obvious example we have ever had of the fact that the use of intercept evidence in limited cases would enable an individual to be brought to trial in this country, found guilty and imprisoned without all the problems of the European Court of Human Rights apparently causing us difficulties? If the Government would only allow intercept evidence to be used in limited instances, we might be a lot further forward than we are now.

[Lord Henley]

Intercept evidence is a matter that we have debated in this House and in another place on a number of occasions. I have debated it from the opposite side of this House in a previous role as a justice spokesman, just as I have as a Minister on this side. It is a very difficult issue. The special committee of privy counsellors should continue to examine it and report to Ministers in due course. Being frank and honest with the noble Lord, I have changed my mind more than once on this issue. It is an issue on which it is very easy to flip-flop between the two sides. The advantages at times seem overwhelming, but one then discovers that the risks to one’s intelligence and the sourcing of evidence can be even greater. It is a difficult question and not one that I would want to answer in detail when repeating a Statement of this sort.

Police: Stop and Account

Debate between Lord Dubs and Lord Henley

Thursday 20th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, the first point to make is that both stop and search and stop and account are vital tools for the police in deterring crime and combating anti-social behaviour. It is also vital that they must be used as sensitively as possible, as the noble Lord implies in his question. With regards to monitoring, it is vital to get this right. That is why I am very keen to stress the balance between accountability and bureaucracy, given the potential savings to the police in not having to record stop and account and in allowing them to carry on their activities properly without excessive bureaucracy. The police will still record stop and search, but recording stop and account is a matter for local decision-making, and that is why the Met, for example, will continue to record stop and account.

[Lord Dubs]

My Lords, if the Minister looks at his notes, he will see that stop and search and the issue of ethnic monitoring goes back to at least 1981 following the Brixton riots. Does the Minister have any figures to show the proportion of young black people stopped and searched compared to white people, and if he has not got the figures, will he look them up? I suggest the ratio is between 6:1 and 8:1.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, the noble Lord is right to say that this goes back to 1981, but the recording of stop and account came after the Stephen Lawrence inquiry. This Question is directly related to the fact that we will no longer make it compulsory to record stop and account, which I have explained. I do not have at my fingertips the figures that the noble Lord seeks, but I shall write to the noble Lord and make sure that he has them.

Japan: Whaling

Debate between Lord Dubs and Lord Henley

Wednesday 2nd February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am not aware, and that is why the words I used in my original Answer were “so-called scientific whaling”.

[Lord Dubs]

My Lords, in advance of the meeting of the International Whaling Commission in July, are the Government exerting maximum pressure on all countries that are reasonably sympathetic to us—for example, Norway—that still practise whaling? Would it not be right to press very hard before the meeting in July rather than leaving it until July to exercise our influence?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, the noble Lord makes a very good point, and we will continue to exert pressure on all the relevant states. He is right to draw attention to Norway, which is one of the countries that continues to practise whaling. We will continue to do so before the IWC and at the IWC itself.