Veterans’ Strategy Action Plan: Gambling Addiction

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Foster of Bath]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government why their Veterans’ Strategy Action Plan: 2022 to 2024, published on 19 January, makes no reference to gambling addiction.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and draw attention to my interest as the chairman of Peers for Gambling Reform.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)]

My Lords, the action plan contains over 60 commitments worth over £70 million and sets the direction for delivering for our veterans between 2022 and 2024. It does not represent the limit of the Government’s ambitions, and we continue to work across government to address issues affecting veterans. We take gambling seriously. Veterans can access a range of support, including via the 24/7 Veterans’ Gateway, and the National Gambling Helpline also gives advice to anyone affected by gambling problems in England, Scotland and Wales.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply, but, as in other countries, recent research from the Forces in Mind Trust and the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund shows that the UK’s service personnel and our veterans are more likely to experience gambling harm than the general population, and yet Operation Courage, and now the Veterans’ Strategy Action Plan, make reference to help for drugs and alcohol problems but not gambling problems. Does the Minister now accept that there is sufficient evidence to justify much greater action on this issue?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord’s work in this area. I will not allow myself to venture into personal opinions on gambling—I am answering as a Minister. We are grateful to the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund for its work and are assessing its findings and the Forces in Mind Trust report. We will take both those reports very seriously in considering our work going forward.

Financial Services Bill

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 14th April 2021 Lords Chamber

I look forward to my noble friend’s reply. I do not want to press the matter to a Division, but a lot will depend on my noble friend’s response.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I refer to my interests as set out in the register. We have heard some very powerful cases for other amendments in this group, but I will confine my remarks to supporting Amendment 27. I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate for tabling it.

As the chair of Peers for Gambling Reform and a previous member of your Lordships’ Select Committee on gambling, I have spoken to dozens of people who have been affected by problem gambling. We know that there are at least a third of a million problem gamblers in the UK—probably far more. We know that, on average, very sadly, there is one gambling-related suicide every single day. We know that for every problem gambler, six other people are adversely affected by gambling-related harm, which causes huge problems for families, individuals and society, as well as huge costs to society through lost tax receipts, welfare and benefit claims and costs to the NHS and the criminal justice system. With the growth of online gambling, unless action is taken, the problems will get even worse.

I am therefore enormously supportive of the Government’s decision to conduct a review into the Gambling Act 2005, but we should never forget that, while gambling companies have no incentive to drive customers to financial ruin, they have every incentive to keep them gambling even when problems are looming. The greater the problem, the greater the profit to the gambling company.

Taxation: Digital Publications

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Foster of Bath]

To ask Her Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to the possibility of a flexible Value Added Tax regime to allow digital publications to be zero-rated; and whether they intend to make use of this flexibility should it come into effect.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the Government keep all taxes under review, including the application of value added tax. Any decision to amend the VAT regime with regard to physical and electronic publications must be carefully assessed against policy, economic and fiscal considerations before reaching any conclusions.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

I thank the Minister for his predictable response. He will be aware that there are hundreds and thousands of blind and partially sighted people in this country who rely on audiobooks or digital books whose print size they can alter. Now that the EU has agreed that the anomaly whereby those products are charged 20% VAT and the print books that the rest of us can rely on are zero-rated can be lifted, it is clear that whether we remain in or leave the EU the discrimination against the blind and partially sighted can be removed. Will he urge the Chancellor to do so?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord makes a forceful case for equalising the VAT rate on e-publications and conventional publications. He rightly says that, on Tuesday, the EU decided that countries now have the freedom to make that equalisation, so we could now move to a zero rate instead of a standard rate on e-publications. Tuesday was apparently “eVAT Freedom Day”. I can tell him that the Professional Publishers Association is pursuing this with the Chancellor and the Treasury, and on 29 November the Financial Secretary wrote back to it saying: “The industry’s arguments and economic analysis are welcome to enable the Government to determine the benefits and risks both for digital business and high street retailers associated with extending the zero rate of VAT to e-publications”. I note the forceful arguments made by the noble Lord to support that case.

Housing and Planning Bill

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lisvane]

My Lords, as we embark on the last group in five heavy days of this Bill on Report, I am under no illusions at all about your Lordships’ wish to have a lengthy debate. However, it is perhaps appropriate that the issues raised by this last group reflect concerns raised at Second Reading, in Committee and on Report: what is good legislation and how do you go about it?

Amendment 138 is simply a paver for Amendment 140, in that it would remove the immediate commencement date from the provisions on vacant high-value housing, which Amendment 140 seeks to delay. Amendments 139, 140 and 141 in my name and that of the noble Lords, Lord Kerslake, Lord Kennedy of Southwark and Lord Foster of Bath, are sunrise amendments. They would delay the coming into force of provisions on, respectively, rents for high-income social tenants, vacant high-value housing and starter homes, until the key regulations in each case had been laid before Parliament. It is fair to say that the period of delay might be much too long in practice, but of course its purpose is demonstrative.

The aim of the amendments is to reverse the default setting with which we have become perhaps almost too familiar in considering the Bill: first, that a great deal—too much, in the minds of many—is left to secondary legislation; secondly, that the level of parliamentary control is too low, although I am glad to say that some welcome steps have been taken in this respect on Report; and, lastly, that too much depends on consultation that should have taken place before the Bill was ever introduced and whose outcome, even at this stage, we have to take on trust.

Over many years in this building I have become familiar—even wearily so—with the special difficulties of a first Session of a Parliament, particularly when there has been a change of Administration at the previous general election. However, I do not think that that entirely justifies the position in which we have been put. Sometimes one must accept delay in order to get things right. Getting things right means following the logical process of formulating policy, consulting upon it, finalising it and then putting it into draft legislation, with all the key areas of policy being in the Bill.

In what seems now the dim and distant past, there used to be such things as Green Papers. Not only did they allow consultation on proposals; they also allowed legislative intent to be stress-tested before proposals came formally before Parliament. I attach no blame at all to the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford, and her noble friends on the Front Bench. She has constantly sought to be helpful, as have her officials and the Housing Minister, Brandon Lewis. Like, no doubt, other noble Lords around the House, I am very grateful for that but from time to time, Ministers have reminded me of anguished travellers on a runaway train. They have been prisoners of a legislative culture in the Executive. I do not single out the present Administration in this respect; it has been going on for a long time, perhaps too long. That culture militates against real parliamentary scrutiny.

In passing, I note that Clause 189(2), which is outside the scope of these amendments but close by, is a hefty Henry VIII power of the sort against which my noble and learned friend Lord Judge warned us in his masterly King’s College lecture a fortnight ago.

The message of Amendments 139, 140 and 141 is really that, had this measure come before Parliament in the form of a draft Bill, it would have resulted in better legislation. I know well why that was not the option the Government found attractive, but I hope that this Parliament will see a dramatic increase in the number of draft Bills, and that we may hear of a reassuring number in the gracious Speech in just over three weeks’ time. I beg to move.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I shall briefly follow the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane. At Second Reading, I and many other people acknowledged that there were some very good bits in the Bill before us at that time. However, we pointed out that there were also many bits about which we had considerable concern. There are at least some areas where deliberation in your Lordships’ House has brought about improvements to those areas where we had concern. I, too, pay tribute to the Minister and her colleagues on the Front Bench for the way in which they have been willing to listen and bring forward amendments in the light of our deliberations.

However, none of that can take away from the fact that the Bill has been presented, not only in another place but more recently to your Lordships’ House, in a pretty poor state. Because I am relatively new to your Lordships’ House, I turned to my elders and betters to see what they have thought about it. As we come to the end of the deliberations on this legislation, it is worth reflecting what your Lordships’ Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has had to say about the Bill—not only when it first received it but subsequently, after various deliberations had taken place.

I note that, in its 27th report, the committee says:

“This Bill has given rise to a particularly large number of comments and recommendations … It is also disappointing that we have felt it necessary to comment adversely on aspects of the delegated powers memoranda provided by the department”.

It described those memoranda as “variable in quality” and pointed out that in relation to some parts of the Bill,

“no delegated powers memorandum was provided at all”.

When the Government responded to the committee’s initial findings, the committee then had to point out that:

“It is a matter of regret that the Government’s response to this Bill … gives us cause for continued concern in that a number of our recommendations received no comment at all”.

The committee made the point that many Members of your Lordships’ House have made many times over many weeks, when it said that,

“we would observe again that these provisions are being presented to the House before the underlying policy is sufficiently developed to afford Members a clear basis for discussing it”.

In its 28th report, the committee amplified that in saying:

“Inadequate and incomplete provisions of … primary legislation cannot be excused on the basis that consultation has not taken place or that the Government wish to retain ‘flexibility to set out differing timeframes as they apply in different contexts’”.

The committee concludes:

“The policy should have been finalised following appropriate consultation before, not after, the Bill was introduced”.

One can read so many other comments from the report:

“We draw this apparent ambiguity to the attention of the House … We draw this lack of clarity to the attention of the House … That seems to us to be a very unusual requirement, and we draw it to the attention of the House”,

and so on. It is “not persuaded”, it does not regard this as being remotely persuasive, and so the report goes on.

It is perfectly reasonable for people to propose a sunrise clause as a way of simply putting off legislation with which they disagree, and we on these Benches disagree with bits of this legislation. However, the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, has made a much more fundamental point about why there should be a sunrise clause, which is simply that the work has not yet been done. Until the work has been done and draft regulations are put before the House and we have an opportunity to know that that consultation has taken place and to understand what the Government mean by some of the definitions we have not yet heard, it seems perfectly reasonable to propose, as the noble Lord and others have done, that we have a sunrise clause to put off the introduction of this legislation until the Government have done the work that they should have done before presenting the Bill to this House.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham (Lab)]

My Lords, I also support these amendments. I hope that the House will forgive me if I say that I have been in this House for 25 years and handled a number of Bills on both sides of the Benches, both for the Government and the Opposition. There are often cases where, as with the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act, there was a real need for something that was essentially broad brush to get resolutions coming from below, and we accepted that.

However, leaving that aside, in process terms—I am not talking about content, and it is absolutely not the fault of the Minister and her colleagues on the Front Bench—this is the worst Bill I have come across in my fields in 25 years. That is because we have not had pre-legislative scrutiny or proper legislative scrutiny and, because the consultation exercises which should have been completed before the Bill started will not be completed until after the Bill has finished, we will not get post-legislative scrutiny. What does it mean to talk about this House of Lords being a place of scrutiny when we cannot scrutinise because so much of what we need to know will not only not be in primary legislation, but will also not be in statutory instruments which we will see draft copies of before the Bill is complete? Why is that? They are dependent on consultation exercises, which were only started in some cases half way through not the proceedings down the other end but the proceedings in this House. This is disgraceful. It is a shabby way to treat Parliament and all those affected by the Bill—and hundreds of thousands of council tenants will be affected by it, as well as many people who will seek to buy starter homes, and they still do not know the small print of how it will be. It is a shabby way to treat the public.

It is fairly obvious that the Bill was introduced a year too early. It should have been pulled fairly early by the current equivalent of LegCo. Ministers should have been sent away and told to come back to both Houses when the Bill’s policy intent was clear, so that stuff that is of major policy import, not matters of detail, is not carried by SIs—which we are told we cannot amend but only discuss; we might just as well go home and not bother for that purpose—instead of being in the Bill, where we can amend it, dispute and argue with the House of Commons and, ultimately, of course, accept that it has the final say. That has been denied to us.

We are moving on to Third Reading, and I cannot recall being so unhappy about the handling of the process of a Bill, and, as I said, I have been involved with quite a number of Bills. I am not talking about the Minister, who has been as accommodating, helpful and generous with her time as possible. We have failed to scrutinise the Bill. We have allowed ourselves to be committed to a process which we should have rejected as inadequate, because the Bill was not ready for parliamentary scrutiny. We have all allowed ourselves to collude in that failure of scrutiny, and I have to say that I am ashamed of it.

Housing and Planning Bill

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, so often during our deliberations on the Bill we have been hampered by a lack of information. We have not seen the draft regulations—we have discussed that many times. We have not even seen the result of the consultation that is currently taking place. Of course, we should remember that that consultation is not due to finish until 15 April and the responses are going to be analysed over the summer, so we will have finished all our deliberations on the Bill long before those responses have even been analysed.

Furthermore, we have not seen the Government’s response to the excellent report by the DPRRC. I remind noble Lords that last night the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford, said:

“I also confirm to noble Lords that I will be responding to the DPRRC report tomorrow, as well as giving my intentions for Report”.—[Official Report, 22/3/16; col. 2276.]

I have been checking on an hourly basis, with all relevant bodies, including the Committee Office, whether they have received that response. I say to the Minister that I am certain that even though that has not yet been made public she will have a copy of it, and I hope that when she replies to this debate she will furnish the House with details of the Government’s intentions in relation to this part of the Bill and their responses to the committee’s recommendations and concerns, of which there are a large number.

Those concerns are in addition to those raised by my noble friend Lord Greaves and the noble Lord, Lord Beecham—concerns that I share. They add to what the committee says. It talks about the Bill being drafted very widely, in terms of the powers conferred on the Secretary of State, and goes on, in paragraph 38, to say:

“These are important provisions which, in effect, empower the Secretary of State to require local authorities chosen by him to privatise the processing of planning applications for a trial period. The impact on local authorities and their staff, and on those submitting planning applications, could be considerable”.

Yet we have no details to enable us to work out in detail what that impact would be.

The committee goes on to say:

“It is striking that the clauses contain no requirement on the Secretary of State either to consult before making pilot regulations, or to publish a report on the outcome of pilot schemes”.

This is a point raised, quite rightly, by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, and is covered by an amendment from my noble friend, which comes later.

Most damningly of all, the committee then goes on to describe the powers given to the Secretary of State as “almost unfettered discretion”, on an issue about which we have no details with which we can work out what should be done. Not surprisingly, therefore, the committee goes through a long series of recommendations —changes to the legislation that it would like. There is a requirement to set out the intended purpose of the pilot regulations on the face of the Bill; to specify that the affirmative procedure should apply to every exercise of the powers conferred by the clauses; to require the Secretary of State to consult local authorities and other interested parties before making regulations; and to provide on the face of the Bill for the maximum duration of pilot regulations. The committee’s report goes on to say:

“We also consider it inappropriate for the Bill to confer these highly significant powers on the Secretary of State without also requiring him to prepare and lay before Parliament a report on the outcome and effectiveness of each pilot scheme”.

My point, in going into some detail about that, is that we know that the Minister will have with her now a response to each of those points. It is incumbent on her to share those responses with the House before we finish our deliberations on these clauses in Committee. However, we also need from the Minister some clarity on other issues—for example, the pilots themselves—because we have at last been furnished with a timetable for the various bits of secondary legislation that will come before us. I am grateful to the ministerial team and their staff for providing us with that, but it is not a great deal of help when every single page that we have been given has a heading that helpfully says:

“Timings are indicative and may change as policy develops”.

I remind the House what it says in the limited information with which we have been provided in relation to the section headed “Processing of planning applications by alternative providers”:

“How many SIs are currently planned? One. What procedure? Negative”,

which I hope will change to affirmative. It then asks:

“What will they deal with?”,

and says that:

“The regulations will cover … the scope of the pilots”.

Later on, it talks about “pilot areas” and so it goes on, with reference to pilots in the plural. Indeed, we know that in the memo to the DPRRC the memorandum said:

“It is likely that different procedures may be trialled in different pilots, to see what works best”.

It is quite clear that the intention is to have a number of pilots, yet when I look at the question:

“What are the key timings?”,

it tells me that is not going to be a long time. It says that the consultation,

“closes on 15 April and the responses will be analysed over the summer, and the pilot scheme designed as a result”.

Here the word is singular: there will be one type of pilot rather than multiple pilots, so confusion begins to set in as well.

There are then confusions in relation to other aspects of the legislation. We had a discussion at a late hour last night, instituted by the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, with her excellent amendment at midnight on the issue of planning fees. What we learned during that deliberation was that the vast majority of councils lose a great deal of money from the planning process. The average recovery is about 50%. We know that London boroughs, for instance, are losing somewhere in the region of £40 million each year on the operation of their planning departments. We also discovered that the increase which the Government are considering is to be no more than inflation since 2012 and that some councils deemed to be underperforming will get less than that. From the current plans, we therefore know that local authority planning bodies will continue to lose a great deal of money from this process.

The question then has to be asked: if in some places we are going to privatise the process and bring other bodies in, how are those bodies going to come in knowing that if they have the government-prescribed fee scheme they will lose a great deal of money? It is simply not going to happen, so what is in the Government’s mind in relation to the setting of fees? I have done a detailed analysis of all the documents to try to help me work out what the fees should be. I looked, for example, at the technical consultation document with this very intriguing headline, which suggests that we will get a good detailed answer:

“Question 8.2: How should fee setting in competition test areas operate?”.

But it reads:

“In competition test areas, applicants would select who they want to process their planning application and pass it direct to the provider with the appropriate fee”.

That is all it says about the fee structure within the technical consultation document. The Explanatory Notes are equally helpful, telling us that:

“Clause 147 provides that regulations may set out how fees will be set, published and charged”.

But since we do not have any of the details because we do not even have draft regulations, we are in a great deal of difficulty.

The Government are going to find themselves in real difficulty if they allow full cost recovery and a profit for some people who come in, compared to local councils, which will charge only 50% of that price. That is hardly a good way of testing the so-called competitive market. It fails to take account of the many difficulties that different local authorities will face. We will have an opportunity to discuss this in a bit more detail in deliberations on some of the other elements of this legislation.

I want to end with one other area of confusion. It is pretty clear from all the documentation I read that the Secretary of State is going to decide which local authorities’ planning departments will have competition forced on them. I have looked very closely at the Government’s consultation document and I wish to read to the Minister what it says in chapter 8, paragraph 8.1:

“Nor is this about preventing local authorities from processing planning applications or”—

and these are the words from the Government’s own document—

“forcing them to outsource their processing function”.

Can the Minister tell us whether this is about forcing some councils to do this, or not? You cannot have a situation where the Government go out to consult on something and tell the people whom they are consulting one thing, when the reality of what they are planning is totally different.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I will take that back and write to the noble Lord. I will respond on one other general point before moving on to the amendments. My noble friend Lord True asked about the moral hazard involved in selecting who processes planning applications. We are not selecting who processes a particular application: it is the applicant who chooses. There will be an approved list of providers that the applicant can go to, but they will choose their provider.

We welcome the scrutiny that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has brought to these clauses, which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Foster. A response will be published by the end of today, but as noble Lords know, we are not quite sure when that will be.

[Lord Foster of Bath]

I am sorry but the Minister specifically said yesterday that it would be before the House rises. That is for the Minister to sort out, but can she give us an assurance on this? The assurance that her colleague gave us was that, before we leave this Chamber, we would have a copy of it in our hands so that, should we wish to, we can refer to it in any subsequent amendment.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I will come back to that in a second but, as I say, we will be publishing the response by the end of today. We therefore believe that Amendment 102CLA, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, is premature.

I thank the noble Lord for Amendments 102CL and 102DB about consent. An effective test of competition is likely to be achieved with a set of pilots which reflect the different types, sizes and geographic locations of local authorities. To answer the question of the noble Lord, Lord Foster, there will be a number of pilots, not just one. Local authorities have consistently told us that a fair test of competition must include weaker authorities at the lower end of the performance spectrum—pilots cannot just include top-performing, progressive authorities. However, they are concerned that weaker authorities are unlikely to volunteer to be in pilot areas. Therefore, we need powers which give us the necessary flexibility to select an appropriate mix of pilot areas and to be able to respond to the sector’s concern if necessary.

I do not see how compelling a local authority to be a designated provider would work in practice. How would we actually force a local authority, against its will, to compete for work in another patch and to do that work to a high standard? We do not therefore intend to compel any local planning authority to be a designated provider.

I turn now to Amendment 102D. We have been very clear that during any competition pilots we bring forward under Clause 145, the responsibility to determine planning applications will remain with the local planning authority in the pilot area. I will put this as clearly as I can: only the local authority can decide on an application. Clause 145 will give the Secretary of State the power, by regulations, to introduce pilot schemes for competition in the processing of applications for planning permission. Subsection (1) allows the regulations to make provision for a planning application to be “processed” by a “designated person”, and subsection (6) says that “processing” the application means any action “other than determining it”.

Amendments 102CM, 102DA, 102FA and 102FB, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, would remove intended safeguards. For example, Clause 145(3), which would be removed by Amendment 102CM, leaves room for the Government to exclude from the pilots certain types of application where local government and others can make a compelling case that they are so significant or sensitive that they should continue to be handled by the relevant local planning authority. Clause 146(1)(a), which would be removed by Amendment 102FA, enables us to specify circumstances where it is inappropriate for a designated person to process an application, for instance because of a conflict of interest. The removal of text that would result from Amendment 102FB would leave us unable to specify the circumstances in which a planning authority should take over an application from a designated person. They could either potentially take them all over without limit, or none, and we believe removing the safeguard is impractical and unworkable.

Amendment 102DAA was tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy and Lord Beecham. Enabling the private sector to compete with local planning authorities is likely to drive greater reform than if we leave things solely to authorities, as the noble Lords would wish. We are proposing pilots to test the benefits of introducing competition in planning application processing.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

My apologies. However, my argument stands. We want to encourage the private sector to be involved as well, but I apologise for that misreading of the noble Lord’s amendment.

Amendment 102EA would extend the definition of “planning application” to include permission in principle and technical details consent. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for his amendment. We intend to give it some further thought.

We intend to design the pilot schemes collaboratively with local government, professional bodies and the private sector. We are already consulting on how they might operate. Furthermore, an extensive dialogue with key partners is under way and in the last six weeks we have met with more than 80 local authorities through a range of events. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, raised a number of technical points. Obviously, these are issues that will be addressed through the pilot schemes.

The noble Lord, Lord Foster, asked about the draft regulations. As I hope I made clear, we are engaging extensively with the sector and consultations are currently out for consideration. As I said, we have already spoken to more than 80 local authorities. I would be happy to write to him to provide an initial summary of the issues raised so far during our engagement with the sector.

[Lord Foster of Bath]

I apologise, but will the Minister answer my other question about the technical consultation? It may have been a drafting error by the Government, but paragraph 8.1 specifically says:

“Nor is this about preventing local authorities from processing planning applications or forcing them to outsource their processing function”.

If that is correct, the first amendment in the group, which would mean that local authorities would have choice in the matter, is presumably accepted by the Government. Alternatively, this is an error and the Government have gone out to consult on a document that contains a fundamental error about the purpose of this section of the Bill.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I said earlier that we do not intend to force local authorities to outsource their functions. I will have to read further what the noble Lord said and respond in writing.

[Lord Foster of Bath]

My Lords—

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I have given the noble Lord the answer that I can. I am sorry that he is unhappy with it. I will go back and have a look to see whether I can provide him with any other information.

The noble Lord will also not be happy with my response to his question on the DPRRC report. I am afraid that it depends on what time the House rises as to whether noble Lords get it before we rise, but they will get it today. On that basis, I ask noble Lords not to press their amendments.

Public Disorder

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Thursday 11th August 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I certainly join my hon. Friend in praising Staffordshire police, who provided assistance to the west midlands. Once again, this demonstrates that small forces can not only do a good job in their local communities, but help out others when they are in need.

[Mr Don Foster (Bath) (LD)]

Looking to the future, I note that far too many of the people—young and old alike—who were involved in violent and criminal behaviour appear to come from the relatively small number of totally dysfunctional families in this country. Does the Prime Minister agree that work to turn such families around is somewhat piecemeal, involving far too many agencies, too many targets and too much paperwork? Will the Government find ways of targeting resources more effectively?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about that. We plan to spend additional money on the 20,000 most troubled families in the country, with more early intervention and much better co-ordination. So often with those families, we find that they have contact after contact with the authorities, but that it is contact with them rather than work to change behaviour and address problems. The problem is manageable. I know that there are 20,000 such families, and there might even be 100,000, but it is still a manageable number which we can deal with during this Parliament.

Public Confidence in the Media and Police

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Don Foster (Bath) (LD)]

I have great respect for the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman), but I regret his speech today. It was in marked contrast to the tone throughout the debate, which was rightly set by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in their opening remarks. They made it clear that both major parties have made huge mistakes in their dealings with the media over the past 20 years. The right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton seemed to want to suggest that it was entirely one-sided, but I could refer to a long list, from Tony Blair’s flight to see Rupert Murdoch on Hayman Island in 1995 to Sarah Brown planning a party for Rebekah Wade. Surely the right hon. Gentleman accepts that today we have heard both major political parties saying they have made mistakes and that they are willing to work together to sort out the mess.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Foster]

I will in a minute.

We join both major political parties in saying that it is vital to acknowledge that there are some very good police officers and journalists, sadly including many who have lost their jobs because of what happened at News International.

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

I agree entirely with the right hon. Gentleman that there are wonderful police officers—as there are in my constituency—and outstanding journalists, who have played an important part in this episode. I said to the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) that if Tony Blair had misbehaved, and that includes the visit to Australia, I disapproved. However, the current Government have had a greater cosiness with one newspaper empire than any other Government I have known.

[Mr Foster]

I regret allowing the right hon. Gentleman to intervene because, yet again, he is trying to engage in the party political knockabout for which the public will not forgive us. They want us to get on and sort out the mess. They want the police inquiry to get under way and be done properly this time around. They want the judge-led inquiry that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has set up to do its work as quickly as possible.

Yesterday we saw the excellent work of both Select Committees in their investigations. Sadly, we learned relatively little from the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. We got the welcome, but well-rehearsed contrition. We found that The Sun cannot tell the difference between a custard pie and a paper plate full of foam. We discovered that, bizarrely, Glenn Mulcaire’s legal fees continued to be paid. Thank goodness it has been announced that, as of today, those fees are no longer being paid. Above all, we discovered that there should be genuine concern about the corporate governance of News Corporation. We need to address that concern and its implications for us.

The Prime Minister rightly said that we must consider competition legislation—we certainly must. He also rightly said that we must consider plurality. I say to my right hon. Friend that we must consider not only when the test is applied—the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport has already committed the Government to doing that—but what the plurality rules cover. I think that all hon. Members recognise that we currently base the definition on news and current affairs. Yet surely all hon. Members also acknowledge that a powerful drama can transform how we view our world and each other, and that a powerful comedy can have the same effect. When we consider plurality, we need to widen the remit of what is covered so that it is not confined to news and current affairs.

[Damian Collins]

The right hon. Gentleman may have been coming to the point that I am about to make, in which case, I apologise, but does he also agree that strong media companies have the budgets to invest in new creative content and talent, which are important to the entire industry?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Foster]

My hon. Friend is right, but the other point that I want to make is that we need to reconsider the fit and proper persons test. If we have real concerns about corporate governance, we should be able to test whether a corporation—an owning organisation—is fit and proper to own, for example, BSkyB or parts of it. I think that we should consider whether News Corporation is fit and proper to own not only more shares in BSkyB, but its existing 39% of shares.

I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is here because I have some concerns about one aspect of his announcement today. He announced the possibility—depending on certain circumstances—of extending the judge-led inquiry’s remit to cover other forms of broadcasting and social media. Before the debate, my concern about that was relatively simple. The issues are so complicated that extending the remit would lengthen the time of the inquiry for such a long period that we would not get on and tackle matters. We should consider some of the concerns that people have raised separately, as part of developing the communications Bill in the next 18 months or so.

What really worried me today, however, was the fact that it became increasingly clear from some of the comments made by colleagues on the coalition side of the House that there was another motive, potentially, for what was to be added to the remit. Some of the remarks attacking the BBC and its independence and its high-quality work make me wonder whether some people on the coalition Benches are seeking to—wrongly, in my view—clip the wings of the BBC. I hope that is not the case.

Let me briefly mention some comments that have been made about the need for what the Prime Minister called independent regulation. The whole House would accept that the Press Complaints Commission has been a failure. Many examples of its failure have been cited. The fact that the Richard Desmond newspapers—the Express and the Star—can simply walk away of their own volition is a pretty good reason for saying that it has failed. The fact that it cannot conduct investigations is another, as is the fact that it cannot fine.

Today we have heard some very helpful lists of ideas of how we can move forward. I particularly welcome the speeches by the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) and the Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. It is crucial that the new, independent body that replaces the PCC has the ability to carry out investigations, and that it has a much more powerful system of redress, including requiring the payment of fines, but I would warn the House about the way in which “independence” can be interpreted by some people.

I recently looked back at the MacTaggart lecture given by James Murdoch, who only yesterday appeared before the Select Committee to give evidence. The House might be interested to hear a small extract from what he said in that lecture:

“Yes, the free press is fairly near the knuckle on occasion—it is noisy, disrespectful, raucous and quite capable of affronting people—it is frequently the despair of judges and it gets up the noses of politicians on a regular basis. But it is driven by the daily demand and choices of millions of people. It has had the profits to enable it to be fearless and independent.”

He goes on:

“The only reliable, durable, and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit.”

I fundamentally disagree with him, and I would urge people who are looking at how we progress, for example, our creative industries, not to believe that the removal of all regulation will enable the right sort of growth—the growth that we want. It is crucial that we have, for all parts of the creative industries, including and in particular the press, appropriate regulations. That is why the Prime Minister is absolutely right to talk about regulation—yes, by an independent body, but that regulation is needed.

We have spent a lot of time discussing the way forward in terms of regulations and new structures, but it is crucial to remember that we are at present gravely concerned about the illegal activity that has taken place, and that is why it is crucial that everyone be required to contribute fully and provide full evidence to the investigation. Let us hope it is a better investigation than the one by the police last time around.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

Phone Hacking

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The point I would make is that in government you are not just making speeches; you have got to make decisions and you have got to get it right. You have got to make sure the terms of reference are right, make sure the inquiry is right, find the judge, appoint the panel, work out how to be transparent and how to amend the ministerial code. It is not just about saying things; it is about doing things. Of course it takes time to get these things right when this enormous firestorm is going on, but I think that we have taken some major steps forward that will make a big difference. On the “fit and proper” test, that is a matter for Ofcom. We must not get into a situation where the Prime Minister or the Leader of the Opposition is pointing a finger and making a particular point about a particular person—that is Ofcom’s role. As for the other question, I think that I answered it in full.

[Mr Don Foster (Bath) (LD)]

On that very point, does the Prime Minister agree that if there are any legal restrictions preventing the regulators from judging now on the fitness of News Corporation as an organisation—not the individuals—to own existing shares in BSkyB, those regulations should be swept away immediately?

[The Prime Minister]

As I said earlier, we are looking at that specific issue. We have asked Ofcom and the Competition Commission to look at it, and we are going to hear what they have to say.

Debate on the Address

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Tuesday 25th May 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Don Foster (Bath) (LD)]

I am delighted to follow the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley), who, as we all know, has served the House with great accomplishment and, as we have just heard, with great wit. Apart from today, that was perhaps best displayed in 1990, when he was the Trade and Industry Secretary. A survey found that just 2% of the British public knew who he was. To his great credit, he pointed out that that was a higher proportion than the percentage of the general public with whom he was familiar.

It is an honour and a privilege, both for my Bath constituents and for me, to second the Loyal Address, particularly because I am the first MP from Bath to do so since records began. Of course, over the years, many Liberals have had that honour, but most recently back in 1939, when Captain Frank Medlicott, in full military uniform, noted that

“the humble taxpayer is doing his part, and the resignation with which the recent Budget was received makes one feel that the popularity of the Chancellor increases with every shilling that he puts on the Income Tax.”—[Official Report, 28 November 1939; Vol. 355, c. 14.]

I hope that the Chancellor and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws), are not seeking such cheap popularity. Even now, perhaps, they should be considering the issue of envelopes to be left to successors. This is a story that has been in our newspapers recently, but it merits repeating. It is claimed that civil servants advise Chancellors to prepare not one, but three, envelopes for successors. The first, to be opened during a crisis, contains a note saying, “Blame your predecessor.” The second, to be opened in a severe crisis, has a note reading, “Blame the statistics.” The third, for use in a catastrophe, reads simply, “Write three notes.”

I mentioned my constituents early on because I am enormously grateful to them for electing me for the fifth time, and with an increased majority. I particularly want to thank them for totally ignoring the national Liberal Democrat election slogan. It urged them to vote for change, and I am pleased that they did not. Change was very much in the air during the election, and I feared that even in Bath voters would take to heart the adage that politicians, like babies’ nappies, should be changed regularly, and for exactly the same reason. However, Bath voters bucked the trend, as they often do. They are special people, and they and I live in a special place. It is the only constituency that is, in its entirety, a world heritage site. As we develop a modern, 21st century economy, we have much that will help us. Bath boasts great sporting facilities and great sporting success. We have exceptional cultural festivals, two excellent universities, award-winning restaurants, the amazing Theatre Royal, and the groundbreaking children’s theatre, the Egg. Alongside the famous Roman baths, we now have a modern spa complex. Although we still have areas of deprivation and an urgent need for more affordable housing—issues that I hope the new Government will address—Bath is a great place to live.

We have generally had good relationships with monarchs—Queen Elizabeth I, for example, saw the potential of Bath and granted us a royal charter—but that has not always been the case. During an official visit to my constituency, the young Princess Victoria took offence at an overheard comment about the thickness of her ankles. She shunned Bath for the duration of her reign, and whenever she passed through the city on a train, she would draw the curtain of her window in disgust.

The right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden has pointed out that it is customary for the task of seconding the Loyal Address to be offered to a young rising star. Clearly, I do not fit the bill, at least on the age basis, but despite that I still have hope on the other front, I am pleased to be sitting on the Government Benches. However, it is ironic that I started my parliamentary career by unseating a Tory and now sit with them. That Liberal Democrat victory in 1992 deprived the Conservative party of its chairman, and I can truly say that it deprived the House of an outstanding parliamentarian. It is some small relief that my dastardly act led to Chris Patten going on to serve this country with great distinction in a number of important roles. But, while that chairman left the House, there are many former ones on the Conservative Benches, showing the rapid turnover that goes with the job.

Similar rapid changes have taken place in the leadership of my party. I began in the House with Paddy Ashdown as leader, and a few years ago he sent me a complementary copy of the first volume of his diaries. I was disappointed that inside the front cover there was no affectionate comment, so I did what we all do: I turned to the index. Against my name, he had written, “Knew you’d look here first. Thanks and best wishes, Paddy.” He was a leader of whom it was said, “People would follow him just out of curiosity to see where he would lead.” He got up in the early hours of the morning—at roughly the same time that the next leader would go to bed. There followed such a gentleman that I would never speculate about his bedtime arrangements, and then an interim leader who began as “Dr” and soon, without even bothering with the normal dying requirement, became a saint.

Our latest leader has become Deputy Prime Minister. Parliamentary party meetings are now easier than ever before: all we have to say is, “I agree with Nick.” But the House should be under no illusion: my Liberal Democrat colleagues and Conservative colleagues have had to make difficult decisions in forging the coalition and in agreeing the wording of the Queen’s Speech, and of course it has not been easy. Those who question the wisdom of what we have done should be under no illusion about the scale of the problems and the urgent need for reform that this country faces. Both the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister have had the courage to meet the toughest challenges of a generation by putting aside party differences for the sake of our country. In considering how that has been achieved, it is useful to recall the words of Humphry Berkeley, who said, “It is a bizarre fact that the Conservative party can be directed along a sensible left-wing path only by a leader with impeccable aristocratic connections.”

Already, many of the Liberal Democrat policies for which I have campaigned form part of the Queen’s Speech and the coalition agreement. Issues that I care about are to be enacted: fairer taxes and a greener, more sustainable economy; extra investment in schools and a better deal for pensioners; less intrusion into our private lives and a reformed political system. My constituents understand that compromises have had to be made, and I welcome the overall radical and reforming package and hope that they do.

I hope also that we can have more confidence in the outcome than a Russian politician had of changes in his country, when he said, “Yesterday we stood on the edge of the abyss, but today we have taken a great leap forward.” As for Liberal Democrats, it is truly a vindication of all those years spent developing and costing our policies. Dictionary writers will have to go back to the drawing board. No longer can the definition of “futility” be listed as, “Serving on the Lib Dem policy working group.”

I am happy to support the new deal. I hope that we will also work to change the way in which we do business. I congratulate all those who have been elected to serve in this House for the first time, but they will learn that on occasions we and those in what we quaintly call “another place” live in a strange world. That is perhaps best exemplified by the title of a debate in the Lords just six years ago, which read: “Commons reason for disagreeing to a certain Lords amendment in lieu of a Lords amendment to a certain Commons amendment in lieu of a Commons amendment to a Lords amendment.” Many things must change, and I am confident that they will.

One of my predecessors as MP for Bath, William Pitt the Elder, said in 1761 of Bath that it was

“justly famed for its integrity, independence and zeal for the public good.”

I hope that that is also how this coalition Government are remembered, so I am honoured on behalf of Bath to support them and to commend the Gracious Speech to the House.