Environment Bill

Debate between Lord Duncan of Springbank and Lord Hope of Craighead

Report stage
Wednesday 8th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Duncan of Springbank (Con)]

My Lords, I am not a natural rebel but I stand in rebellion today. I am troubled by what I see before me. It is always difficult to follow the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, because he has nailed all the key elements. I seek not to repeat but rather to associate myself with what he has said.

I will draw attention to only one aspect. The Explanatory Notes, which, very helpfully, were sent out earlier today, drew attention to one aspect: that the smooth functioning of the planning system depends on investors and developers having confidence that, past a certain point, permission will be upheld. I cannot help but think that we are looking at the smooth functioning of the planning system rather than of the environment, and that would cause me some unease.

For that reason, I am afraid that I must support the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, and will continue to do so until we can achieve a change, which I believe is both necessary and proper.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I spoke in support of the amendment in Committee, and I think it is right that I comment on the slightly changed amendment before us. I support it entirely and there are elements in it I would have thought the Government would welcome, particularly proposed new subsection 8A(b), where the court has to have regard to

“the likelihood that the grant of a remedy would cause”,

among other things,

“any detriment to good administration.”

This is a very carefully drafted amendment. It has all the elements one would expect to find in a Bill dealing with the subject we are concerned with. It is also looking at the interests of justice, which any court would want to do in any case. I support the amendment.

Victims and Witnesses (Scotland) Act 2014 (Consequential Modification) Order 2019

Debate between Lord Duncan of Springbank and Lord Hope of Craighead

Wednesday 26th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office and Scotland Office (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

My Lords, this order is necessitated by the Victims and Witnesses (Scotland) Act 2014. Through this Act, the Scottish Government sought to improve the information and support available to victims and witnesses, and to put them at the heart of the justice system in Scotland. The Act also created a new victim surcharge fund, which will use the money raised from this surcharge to provide support to victims of crime.

The order will amend the Criminal Justice Act 1991, which gives the Secretary of State the power to introduce a process whereby courts can apply for a deduction from an offender’s benefits to pay for a fine or compensation order.

This process has been in place for the victim surcharge in England and Wales since 2007. However, social security is for the most part reserved and, therefore, the Scottish Government are unable to apply the power to the new Scottish victim surcharge. This order, if approved, will allow Scottish courts to apply to the Secretary of State for a deduction to be made from an offender’s benefits.

This order demonstrates that the UK Government remain committed to strengthening the devolution settlement and shows Scotland’s two Governments working together. I commend the order to the House and beg to move.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, looking at the matter from the point of view of a sheriff sitting in a court in Scotland, I think that the order is much to be welcomed. The fact is that people move about, and some offenders coming to Scotland from England or Wales disappear back to England or Wales after they have been sentenced. It is necessary that this measure be passed so that the order that the sheriff would like to make can be properly put into effect.

Scotland Act 1998 (Transfer of Functions to the Scottish Ministers etc.) Order 2019

Debate between Lord Duncan of Springbank and Lord Hope of Craighead

Wednesday 10th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office and Scotland Office (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

My Lords, it is necessary to bring forward this order to confirm the regulation-making powers of the Scottish Ministers under Section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972. This order is made under Sections 30 and 63 of the Scotland Act 1998 and seeks to confirm the powers of the Scottish Ministers regarding environmental impact assessments on certain public and private projects—I shall call these EIAs. These assessments are carried out in relation to renewable electricity generating stations located in the Scottish part of the renewable energy zone under regulations that implement an EIA directive.

The UK Government and the Scottish Government have agreed to take this order forward following an initial request from the Scottish Government. The order specifies functions which are to be treated as exercisable in or as regards Scotland and transfers these functions to the Scottish Ministers. While the generation, transmission, distribution and supply of electricity are reserved matters, since 1999 functions relating to electricity have been transferred to the Scottish Ministers. This order provides confirmation that the Scottish Ministers have EIA regulatory functions in respect of the Scottish part of the renewable energy zone, thus confirming that the UK meets its obligations to transpose the 2014 EIA directive.

The Government have worked closely with the Scottish Government at ministerial and official level to ensure that the order confirms the current legal position of the Scottish Ministers. On that basis, I beg to move.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I do not think that anyone could possibly object to this order or indeed the order which the Minister will bring before us as the final business today. However, I should like to pay tribute to the procedures which have brought it before the House.

Some 21 years ago, I was dealing with the Committee and Report stages of the 1998 Scotland Bill in this Chamber. It was a very carefully drafted statute, and it is of great interest to me to see the way in which the various provisions in the latter part of that Act and in the schedules are brought together, both in this order and in the one that follows it, to allow necessary little corrective steps to be taken without any delay or disruption to the devolution system which was laid down.

We are told in the head note to this order that it is to be approved by the Scottish Parliament as well as by each House of the United Kingdom Parliament, and that is as it should be. However, it is worth paying tribute to the draftsmen of the 1998 Act that the procedures are available both for a draft statutory instrument as well as for an order to be laid under the other provisions which are referred to in the regulatory reform order that we will consider later. These are working out to the good of the system.

Beyond that, I welcome the order and I am glad that the Minister has been able to introduce it so briefly.

Northern Ireland: Supreme Court Ruling

Debate between Lord Duncan of Springbank and Lord Hope of Craighead

Thursday 7th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

I thank the noble Baroness. Abortion has been a devolved matter in Northern Ireland since long before the Executive. It is clear that the view across the communities in Northern Ireland when last tested in Stormont did not reach the position that she outlined. It is therefore important that we make progress in this matter on the basis of consent—that there is recognition within the communities of exactly what is going on. The idea that we would seek to act precipitately in this matter has wider constitutional implications. We need to spend a little more time considering the judgment, none the less recognising that elements within it need to be taken on board. I do not believe that a referendum is the way forward in this matter, particularly in the absence of the Stormont Executive and Assembly, but progress will need to be made. It is a question of how we do so.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness said, the judgment gives the appearance of being a non-judgment, but that is for a technical reason which is easily cured. There is no shortage of effective persons who could bring proceedings and, if they did, due to the way that judicial precedent works, the result would be perfectly obvious. Will the Government bear in mind very carefully the fact that the judgment is just a hair’s breadth away from a declaration of incompatibility at the instance of an effective person?

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

The simple answer to the noble and learned Lord is yes.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Duncan of Springbank and Lord Hope of Craighead

Committee: 10th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 26th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

Yes, that is the intention. We will move forward with this through primary legislation in each of the common framework areas. On that basis, I hope that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Hope of Craighead]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate and to the Minister for his few words in his response. Of course, legislation may contain enabling powers but we do not know yet what the legislation he is promising will look like. If it is simply a Bill with a lot of Henry VIII powers in the area concerned, it will not advance the argument at all.

I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, for enlarging on the points he made last week. I am glad that my amendment has given him the opportunity to emphasise again the points he has made and his valuable contribution to our debate. He said that if his approach is correct then my amendment ceases to have any purpose. Of course, he is right, because my amendment does not look at primary legislation; it looks at the procedure that would be followed if the mechanism to be used is to be by delegated legislation, in which case we are talking about the consent not of the legislatures but of the Administrations—that is, of Ministers. At the moment, we have in the amendment that was before us last week—the amended form of Clause 11—a promise of consultation. Many noble Lords who have spoken in support of my amendment have emphasised the importance of consent, which is the crucial matter. As the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, said after his careful analysis of what we are really talking about: consent is fundamental. That is the background to what I am submitting.

There are one or two scattered points which I might mention. On the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, was absolutely right. Proposed subsection (2) of my amendment is based on an agreement reached in October last year at the Joint Ministerial Committee on EU Negotiations. The wording is exactly as it was framed in the agreements, and that is the point from which we are moving forward. One could debate the language, but I think that the time for doing so has passed.

I thought that the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, about the attitude of the sheep farmers was very helpful, and we have heard similar remarks about the position as regards fishing. I do not think that the position of the hill farmer in Scotland is very different from that which was described by the noble Lord. However, there could well be differences in the way that sheep are managed in England and the way that they are bred and moved south in Scotland and east in Wales—they are moved across the United Kingdom before being exported somewhere else. I can see, therefore, that there could be detailed disputes about what the Welsh, Scots and English would want in framing a UK-wide market for the handling of sheep stock. To attempt to create uniformity in areas as sensitive as this may be a mistake, and it may be that that is where the sticking points are in the discussions. I hope very much that one can get to the point where these matters can be agreed without resorting to dispute resolution.

As the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, also pointed out, in a few years’ time, when we move beyond the Clause 11 procedure and the time limit has disappeared, we do not want to have to start these arguments all over again. We want to resolve this at the beginning in the creation of the market.

It is difficult to take the point further because we do not really know the detail of the disagreements before us. However, I suggest to the Minister that it would be a great help if, before Report, a letter could be passed to those who have taken part in the debate explaining the procedure that the Government intend to use in the creation of these frameworks. I would be very pleased if they were to adopt what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, has suggested, and it would be very helpful to know that that is what they propose before we start looking at this again on Report. If they do not propose to do that, we need to know what the alternative is and how consent is to be built into it. In the light of the very helpful response from the Minister, and of what I have said so far, I will leave the matter there for the time being. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Duncan of Springbank and Lord Hope of Craighead

Committee: 8th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 19th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

No, for one very simple reason. As the noble Lord knows, we cannot impose on the devolved Administrations by this mechanism. I am afraid that that is a simple statement of where the law and the devolution settlement rest.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, there is another way of approaching this, and that is to ask whether the provision in the treaty on which my noble friend Lord Warner has based his amendment is part of retained EU law. If it is, then it has a place in the statute and will be applied by the courts if necessary. Is the noble Lord able to answer that? Is it part of retained EU law?

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

In this instance, it is not part of EU retained law, but that is not the point. We are saying that the powers that already rest in the Secretary of State’s hands are equal to the powers that would come through this amendment.