Honours System

Debate between Lord Faulkner of Worcester and Lord Young of Cookham

Tuesday 26th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I take seriously the point made by the right reverend Prelate. People do give reasons for turning down honours; those reasons are not made public. In the letter which my right honourable friend the Prime Minister wrote to my noble friend last year, when this issue was raised, she said that it was “rare” for an honour to be turned down for this reason. But we will try to dig further, in the light of the comments of the right reverend Prelate, and see to what extent this is a real disincentive.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

My Lords, the New Year Honours List of 1969 contained a life peerage for Sir Learie Constantine, who took his seat in this House 50 years ago today. On the House of Lords website, there is a very fetching photograph of the bust of Lord Constantine, with the Lord Speaker and the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin. Lord Constantine’s bust, borrowed from the National Portrait Gallery, is in the Royal Gallery from today. Will the Minister encourage all Members of your Lordships’ House to attend the event on 1 May, when this iconic figure will be celebrated in a seminar and lecture in the Robing Room? There, Members can pay their own tribute to the first Afro-Caribbean Member of your Lordships’ House.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I entirely endorse what the noble Lord has said. As he was speaking, I could see noble Lords writing in their diaries the date he referred to.

Capita

Debate between Lord Faulkner of Worcester and Lord Young of Cookham

Tuesday 24th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The Government will hold Capita, and indeed other suppliers, to the terms of their contract and take appropriate steps if those terms are ever broken.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

My Lords, would it be helpful if the House were reminded of what the Companion says about procedure on Urgent Questions? They are treated as Private Notice Questions, which in turn are treated as similar to normal Oral Questions. In particular, the answers and supplementary questions on a Private Notice Question must be brief to allow as many people as possible to come in.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

If that was a rebuke to me, I am glad. I plead guilty, and I am sure that will have been noted. I will be as quick as I can with the responses to the following Urgent Question.

Immigration Statistics

Debate between Lord Faulkner of Worcester and Lord Young of Cookham

Monday 12th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I agree that the public should have confidence in the statistics produced by the ONS, particularly on migration. These are an important input to policies on housing, health, education and other public services. The ONS will use powers in the Digital Economy Act, which has recently passed into legislation, to access data from other government departments. This will complement the information it already has from the IPS. By accessing not only exit data from the Home Office but information from HMRC, from the DfE on school rolls and from GPs on GP lists, it will be able to strengthen and enrich—the word it has used—the statistics on migration, and in turn this will enhance confidence. The Government do not make forecasts on migration but the ONS produces what it calls estimates.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

Is there any serious member of Her Majesty’s Government—with the possible exception of the Prime Minister—who does not believe that overseas students should not be included in immigration statistics? Is it not time that this change was made and a message of hope given to our universities?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord will recall that this issue was debated extensively by your Lordships when the then Higher Education and Research Bill went through this House. When the Bill left this House an amendment was carried to delete overseas students from the migration figures. When that legislation hit the statute book, that bit was omitted. In the meantime, the ONS will continue to follow the UN standard, which is to count anyone who is here for more than a year as a long-term migrant. That practice is followed by the USA, New Zealand, Canada and Australia. There is an impact on services if people stay here for longer than a year, and the ONS, which is independent, has decided to continue to use the United Nations definition.