National Security and Investment Bill

Debate between Lord Faulkner of Worcester and Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts

Report stage
Thursday 15th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, has withdrawn from the debate, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I have put my name to Amendments 11 and 12, tabled by my noble friend Lady Noakes, which concern mandatory notifications, as she made clear. However, I am equally enthusiastic about Amendment 13, tabled by my noble friend Lord Lansley—even though I have not put my name to it—which addresses voluntary issues as well.

I will add a couple of points in support of these two approaches. As my noble friend made clear on Amendments 11 and 12, the use of the phrase “practicable” or “reasonably practicable”—it is not clear why we have one in one place and one in another—has come in for some pretty widespread criticism. As we have discussed before and heard from various legal advisers, the word “possible” would be a big improvement on “practicable”.

Mandatory notifications will be at the sharp end of the Bill and can be expected in many cases to be controversial. There will be a temptation for a Secretary of State, faced with a controversial decision, to try to delay it. It is common ground that, while we need to take appropriate steps to protect our national security interests, it is also in our national economic interest to encourage as much investment as possible in the chosen 17 sectors which will collectively have a significant impact on our economic future.

With great respect, I understand what the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, is trying to say, but the reality is that this is a balance; if we are in a competitive market around the world for investment and are unable to balance it properly, people will go elsewhere. It is as simple as that. Her idea of having an open-ended arrangement for the Secretary of State to make up his or her mind is a recipe for an outflow of investment which might otherwise come here to support this country, with its worldwide reputation in tech and other sectors.

On my noble friend Lord Lansley’s amendment on voluntary notifications, we have been around this course many times before; there will be a substantial flow and the new unit at BEIS may find it difficult to cope. In Committee, we discussed a number of amendments to try to help the Government with this and focus the new regime on the really significant cases. Amendments by various Members of your Lordships’ House, including me, proposed inter alia to exclude intra-group investments, to require only one trigger event for each group of companies and to limit notifications to assets used in connection with activities carried on in the UK—in other words, to limit the extraterritoriality of this Bill’s provisions.

The Government declined to accept any of these, arguing that they needed the widest possible strategic view to prevent evasive tactics by unwelcome purchasers. I must accept the force of that argument, but it means the Government must live with the consequences of those decisions. To provide an appropriate level of certainty for investors, we simply cannot risk a situation where, if a flood of voluntary notifications occurs, the Government could decline to start the 30-day clock.

In his concluding remarks, my noble friend may refer to Amendment 27, which the Government have tabled, about the contents of the annual report. If it is accepted by the House, as I expect it will be, it will include details of the number of days taken to give a decision, or the time taken to reach a voluntary notification. I do not want to add to the points the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, made, but I have to say to my noble friend that it is really shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted to be told, a year later, that we have not been able to hit the targets or that they are being missed widely. There is nothing wrong with that, but we are trying to create a balanced regime that hits the ground running, and to learn, a year later, that “the system is overwhelmed”, which a number of us in this Chamber feel is likely to happen, is simply not an adequate answer.

National Citizen Service Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Faulkner of Worcester and Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 22nd November 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his amendment. He reminds us all of the value of heritage railways to this country and how important their upkeep is. I agree that many heritage railways are reliant on volunteers for their maintenance and operation. I also agree that volunteering for a heritage railway can provide young people with many of the skills that the NCS wishes to instil.

On the noble Lord’s concerns about the existing law, I agree that there should be no barriers to young people volunteering their time to support heritage railways. NCS participants work with the local provider delivering the programme to choose a local cause, or charity, to work with during the social action phase of the NCS. Sometimes the provider will invite local charities to present to the young people; sometimes the young people themselves have a clear idea about what they want to dedicate their efforts towards. We agree that it would be wonderful if a group of young people were to choose a local heritage railway as the focus of their efforts—either to fundraise for it or to spend time on site.

I understand the noble Lord’s reasons for tabling this amendment—to seek to amend the law in this area. While it may not be appropriate to do this in this Bill, which does not identify particular areas in which the trust should or should not intervene, I commit to take away the points raised today and to engage with the noble Lord to explore the issue further. There are other things that we need to look at, such as what we mean by “young people” and making sure that it is consistent across the Bill. I hope that the noble Lord accepts my points on this and my commitment to look at the matter further, and feels able to withdraw it for the time being.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

I had not cottoned on to this issue before, but I have been listening to this debate. There is, of course, the Canal & River Trust. I am not sure whether a canal would fall within the requirements of the 1920 Act as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester]

Yes, my understanding is that canals are also regarded as industry, so they would be covered by the 1920 Act.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

That is an important area, where there is a lot of work going on. It is an important charity and it gathers together a lot of volunteers. It is working very hard with regional groups—so if this conversation goes on, could its requirements also be built into the discussion that the Minister is having with the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner?

Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Lord Faulkner of Worcester and Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts

Tuesday 12th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

My Lords, I shall also speak to Amendment 48. These two amendments concern the inland waterways of England and Wales and their position under the new planning regime. They are not concerned with the inland waterways of Scotland or Northern Ireland. I need to begin by apologising to the House for not having participated before in the consideration of the Bill. However, this issue came up only late in the day in the proceedings of this House, and long after the Bill had left the House of Commons. The noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, raised the issue in outline in Committee on Monday 4 February, reported in col. 51 of Hansard. Subsequently, the Canal & River Trust has been able to address the issue directly in the form of my two amendments. I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, for having put his name to them. I would also like to put on record my thanks to the Minister and her Bill team for having arranged a meeting in which the CRT was able to explain and discuss the concerns that these two amendments seek to address. With those preliminaries—to horse!

The development of the inland waterways provided a vital link in the progress of the Industrial Revolution in this country. For the first time in those days, before railways and before tarmacadam roads, it became possible to move large quantities of bought material long distances at reasonable cost. It was a truly epochal moment in this country’s history. It is probably not without significance that today we still refer to those who work on the roads with the slang description of “navvies”. We are, in fact, using a phrase that came down from the word “navigators”, the description given to the men who built the canals those many years ago.

This 2,000-mile network of canals—it is said that there are more miles of canal in Birmingham than in Venice—is a fantastic heritage asset. The network contains 2,756 listed structures, 130 scheduled ancient monuments and one world heritage site. After the Church of England and the National Trust, it is the largest owner of listed structures in the country. However, it is much more than just a heritage asset; it is also a huge leisure asset. Thousands of people holiday on canal boats or live on them permanently. Literally millions of our fellow citizens run or cycle along its towpaths. Further, its linear nature, stretching as it does in and through our inner cities, makes it a major environmental asset. Its embankments, culverts and reservoirs provide a habitat for a diverse range of wildlife. Of course there remains some commercial traffic.

Noble Lords will realise from my remarks that the waterways have always had to serve a diverse range of customers and purposes. For many years, the attempts by the British Waterways Board to move forward were affected by another presence: that of Her Majesty’s Treasury. The Treasury kept a beady eye on the British Waterways Board’s assets, seeking wherever possible to collect profits for the Government, or at the very least to ensure that the board was self-funding, including its pension fund liabilities, which, given its long record and historically large workforce, were substantial.

Therefore, the outlook for the waterways was at best mixed when the Government had a flash of inspiration. Beginning under the last Labour Government and completing under the present Administration, the British waterways operations were taken over by a new body: the Canal & River Trust. The heritage assets of the old British Waterways Board—its canals, its towpaths and its associated structures such as bridges and reservoirs—were put into a new charity, the Waterways Infrastructure Trust, which holds them inalienably. Like the assets of the National Trust, they can be sold only with the express permission of the Secretary of State. Any straightforward commercial assets remain outside the charity. In July last year, the holding body, the Canal & River Trust, came into being.

Where, then, is the problem? As we are all aware, water is heavy stuff, so developments close to, alongside or over the canals carry risks. Embankments slip, bridge foundations move and tunnels crack. To date, the waterways’ position has been protected by the British Waterways Board’s status as a statutory body. This gave it access to the special parliamentary procedure of the Planning Act 1947. In the last resort, if an arrangement could not be reached with the developer in question, the board could invoke the SPP procedure, akin to a Private Bill. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, has taken part in one of these and can talk far more knowledgably about it than I can. In all the 60 years since 1947, the British Waterways Board never used the SPP procedures, but it was a very useful backstop to ensure that this great national asset was not chipped away at by a series of individual local decisions.

The House will be aware that the statutory bodies protection under the SPP is to disappear under the provisions of this Bill. Further, of course, the new Canal & River Trust is no longer a statutory body, so it is now more vulnerable to attacks on its network. Strangely, while the Government have seen fit to reduce the planning protection for statutory boards and public open spaces, they have continued to provide a special position for the National Trust as laid out in paragraph 96 of the Explanatory Notes to the Bill.

There must be a very strong argument that, given the nature of its operations, the Canal & River Trust can properly be described as a waterways national trust. Indeed, the Waterways Infrastructure Trust was created on terms that explicitly replicate the terms on which the National Trust holds land. It should therefore surely be given the same planning permission as the National Trust: no more, no less. That is what Amendments 47 and 48 aim to achieve.

I end with a few final points. Compared with the National Trust, a higher proportion of the Canal & River Trust assets are in urban areas. The waterways, after all, were built to link our industrial centres. They are linear. Both these factors combine to make them particularly vulnerable to development. Secondly, curiously the National Trust already owns one canal, the Wey and Godalming Navigations. This particular canal will continue to have special protection. Why should the rest of the network not be similarly protected? Thirdly, if my noble friend’s Bill team is encouraging her to resist this amendment on the grounds of creating a precedent, she should not worry. Google away as much as you like: there is no body of similar scale and status to the Canal & River Trust to pop up and say, “What about us?”.

Finally, local interest in canals is intense. Indeed, in the bad old days, most of the work of restoring and maintaining canals was done by volunteers at weekends and the holidays. For those who have an interest in this, there is a great BBC2 documentary on the work that was carried out at that time. The Canal & River Trust is building on this enthusiasm with the establishment of nine local partnerships. This is localism in action. We should protect and encourage it wherever we can.

To conclude, these amendments do not—I repeat not—seek special new privileges for the Canal & River Trust; they merely maintain the existing protections given to the British Waterways Board as a statutory body. These historic assets, which now also provide so many leisure facilities, deserve no less. I beg to move.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson. There is not a single word in his speech with which I disagree, and I will do my best to be very brief at this late hour. I will try not to repeat any of the points that he has made. He is generous enough to say that I was able to raise the issue of the Canal & River Trust in Committee, and I got a very encouraging answer from the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad. He said in his response to me:

“There is a special status attached to the National Trust because of the extent of the land it owns. Therefore, it occupies a special position, including its benefit in relation to SPP. That said, I hear what the noble Lord has said and it would be useful to arrange to sit down with him and the Canal & River Trust to establish exactly what the issues are and discuss the matter further”.— [Official Report, 4/2/13; col.51.]

The Minister very kindly honoured that commitment. The noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, was the government lead at the meeting on the 5 March. I think that all of us at that meeting came away encouraged that the Government were listening to the points that had been made not just in Committee but with great force by the representatives of the Canal & River Trust, and indeed by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson. I am therefore a little disappointed that there is not a government amendment alongside that of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, on the Marshalled List this evening. Maybe he is going to say that our amendment is of such perfect quality that there is no need for it to be amended and that they will therefore accept it, but it will be matter of very great regret indeed if the Government are not able to accede to the basic principle that the Canal & River Trust’s heritage assets are entitled to the same protection as the National Trust’s. The argument is unanswerable. It will be a matter of great disappointment if the Minister is not able to give that to us. If so, perhaps at a time when the House has more Members in it, we will have to come back to the amendment on Third Reading. As I say, I hope that he can help us, and I look forward to what he has to say.