UK Water Companies: Chinese Financial Influence

Lord Fox Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, the National Security and Investment Act 2021 allows the Government to scrutinise and intervene on certain acquisitions made by companies, including businesses which and investors who could harm our national security. The Act covers 17 sensitive areas in the economy, but although there was much discussion when the Bill was before your Lordships’ House about including critical infrastructure, it was not included in those 17 areas. I thank the noble Lord for bringing this issue up. With what we know today, is it not time to add services such as water to the list so that the Act can be used in full to scrutinise who controls our critical water supply?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

As I just mentioned, the water sector is in the National Security and Investment Act. That is mainly because of the essential services that it provides for public health and the economy. There are 17 existing sectors in that mandatory notification scheme, including civil nuclear, energy and transport. We are assessing whether proposed acquisitions pose a national security risk. However, the noble Lord makes an important point, so I am happy that we consider the water industry when we review the terms of that Act.

British Farming: Competitiveness

Lord Fox Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, in relation to the latest free trade deal with India, there is every reason to believe that Indian dairy products will be allowed into the UK market without reciprocal rights for British dairy farmers to export their products to India. How can such a deal be done when we are trying to support British farmers?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

On the India deal, we maintained tariffs on several products, including pork, chicken and eggs. That was because we had concerns about animal welfare standards and the potential impact on British farmers. That is what we will do and the position we will take when looking at trade deals with any country.

Biodiversity Net Gain

Lord Fox Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right—corridors for wildlife are incredibly important. Many developments have to give due regard to removing hedgerows, for example, in order that they do not stop routes for wildlife such as dormice. It is extremely important and, on all developments, Defra is working with MHCLG to ensure that the environment is taken into full consideration.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

The Minister has spoken about biodiversity and infrastructure projects. How about marine biodiversity? Can the Minister set out the Government’s position on enhancing the regaining of marine biodiversity?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I am sure the noble Lord is aware that restoring marine biodiversity is very complicated. In many ways, it is more complex than restoring biodiversity on land; it is a very challenging subject. Clearly, we need to look at the marine conservation zones to see what they can do, and to work internationally on this because it is a broad international area. The Government are reviewing this at the moment.

Water Companies: Failure

Lord Fox Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)]

The noble Baroness raises a very serious point, despite all the laughter. One recent example of contaminated water has been extremely challenging, but the water company has responded pretty well. The Defra team went down there, and we have been in constant contact with South West Water. As noble Lords might expect, we have launched an investigation into the cause, and I hope that we will have the answers soon.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister cited a number of figures, but one he did not cite is that, since privatisation, the shareholders of 10 water companies have withdrawn £85 billion that could and should have been invested in the water industry. Whatever happens, can he undertake that those shareholders will not benefit further from the catastrophe happening to our waterways across the country?

Chemicals Strategy

Lord Fox Excerpts

Tuesday 30th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)]

This is a complex area. I entirely agree with the noble Baroness’s thoughts and will take them back to the department to see whether we can get that included if it is not already there.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister characterised the delay with the strategy as a short delay. Let us talk about another delay—the delay in publishing the 2023-24 UK REACH work programme. The Minister is relatively new and will not be aware of the saga of his department’s regulating and authorising the use of chemicals. The Minister sitting beside him, the noble Lord, Lord Benyon, has suffered it rather more. That annual work programme was published 10 months late. This is a vital document for the chemical industries to work out what they need to do to meet safety and regulatory concerns. Will the Minister promise that the 2024-25 report, which is due in the summer, will be published on time?

[Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)]

Again, the noble Lord raises a very good point. This is serious stuff which needs to be adhered to in great detail, so I will take his comments back and ensure that we strive much harder this year to get that report out on time.

Food Import Requirements

Lord Fox Excerpts

Wednesday 14th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Douglas-Miller (Con)]

I hope I can clarify that for the noble Baroness. If you are commercially importing goods into the UK, you are following a system where you fill out an electronic form and that form identifies whether you are in the high, medium or low-risk category and whether you are going to be selected for a check at Sevington. When you arrive at the Port of Dover in your lorry, you will be notified that you have been selected for a check, and that information goes from the Port of Dover to Sevington. Sevington is then expecting to see the delivery arrive there shortly thereafter. That is entirely different from a white van arriving with illegally imported products—let us just call it pork—from eastern Poland. That is checked by Border Force at the port of Dover. So you have Border Force and you have border control posts, and they perform different functions.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, can the Minister confirm whether the necessary professionals are still being recruited in order to provide this service? What percentage of capacity will be available on day one? Will it be 100%, 50% or what?

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Lord Fox Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 8th March 2023 Lords Chamber

My final question to my noble friend the Minister on this is: why should these powers that apply, under the Bill as currently drafted, to the Minister of the Crown not also be extended to Scottish and Welsh Ministers, and indeed devolved Ministers in the Northern Ireland Assembly where that is the case? I am struggling to understand why this power has been reserved exclusively in Clause 19 to a Minister of the Crown. Again, this goes to arguments that have been rehearsed on other groups, including very eloquently by the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, about why the Minister of the Crown is put on a pedestal over and above Ministers of the devolved Administrations. I believe it is a hostage to fortune that the Government do not have regard to the fact that these powers should be exercised equally by Ministers of those devolved Administrations. With those few remarks, I beg to move.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, we are indebted to the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, for again bringing forward some detail and being a conduit for the important work that the Law Society of Scotland provides to a number of different Bill Committees on which I have found myself. I am not going to speak to the clause stand part debate or her first amendment, but I shall speak briefly on Amendment 134. She herself linked it to the first group that we spoke about today. In the words read out by the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, in response to that group, I failed to recognise the description of the relationship that currently exists between the Government in Westminster and the devolved authorities when discussing this Bill. A picture appeared to be painted of some quite progressive and happy discussions, which is not my impression of what is actually going on. The noble Baroness’s Amendment 134 is another way of trying to link back to the devolved authorities. It is clear at the moment that the devolved authorities are very sore about how they are being treated by the Bill, so any measures that reach back to them are important. That is why we on these Benches particularly support Amendment 134.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

My Lords, I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Fox, said about the helpfulness of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, in tabling these amendments. It is curious that, in this clause, changes in technology and developments in scientific understanding are allowed to be taken account of but other factors are not. I would have thought, given the Windsor Framework, that we ought to be taking account of developments in the economies of our trading partners and their regulatory developments, because under that framework they are going to have an impact on what we are able to do in the UK and our approach to regulation and divergence. That is becoming increasingly clear, which is why we are seeing questions such as that asked by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, of the noble Lord, Lord Caine, yesterday at Oral Questions. We do not yet have a sense that the Government are on top of this. It is as if they have done this Bill and then done something somewhere else, and no one has asked about how those two things will overlap.

When I first saw this clause, I thought, “This is a real problem because Ministers are going to get too much power to do things without accountability, rather like the discussions we have had before”, but actually even more questions are raised about the privileging of technology and scientific understanding ahead of anything else. It would be good to understand where that has come from and what Ministers had in mind when they included it in the Bill. Might they come to regret not making clear that this is not an exhaustive list, or something like that, as they have in other clauses? We are not clear what is meant by the phrase

“considers appropriate to take account of”,

so perhaps some examples might be in order.

Farming: New Entrants

Lord Fox Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right that affordable rural housing is key to ensuring that we have a vibrant agricultural industry. That is why in 2018 the Government launched the revised National Planning Policy Framework. The rural housing chapter gives strong support to rural exception sites and includes new policies to support the building of homes in isolated locations where that supports, for instance, farm succession. In addition, the Government have amended the permitted development rights to support rural housing and agricultural productivity by enabling up to five new homes to be created from existing agricultural buildings, an increase from a maximum of three.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, more than 50 years ago, my mum and dad got their first foot in farming through the tenancy of a county council holding. A survey by Who Owns Britain? shows that up to 2017, the acreage of county farms halved. Only yesterday, Staffordshire had eight farms for sale. The Minister has said warm things about county farms, and we welcome that, but unless the Government put up money now, that haemorrhaging of county farms will continue. What are the Government going to do now in order to encourage councils to do what they want them to do?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con)]

My Lords, we are working on a co-design with councils, landowners and others so that the new entrant scheme works precisely with county farms and local authorities. That is because, as I have said, we want that to be retained. This work is under way and will be co-designed in 2021, and we hope to roll out the programme in 2022. Not only are there county farms, but a third of the land in this country is tenanted and there are obviously opportunities in the tenant farming sector as well.

Brexit: Environmental Regulation

Lord Fox Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

Why are noble Lords so negative about this great country?

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, I can perhaps give you an idea of why we might be negative. Those of us who worked on the Trade Bill very much addressed the issues that the noble Lord, Lord Deben, just spoke of, on enshrining in law the security of regulation going forward. That Bill was scrapped. Does the Minister understand why some people might be somewhat sceptical when they hear the things they are hearing now, given the evidence of that Bill being scrapped?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, the truth is that the Bill was not scrapped; with the passage of time and where we are—having a general election—we will have to start again with the Environment Bill, too. The noble Lord is pushing the language a bit. On the Trade Bill, I think I said that we will reflect on what your Lordships said on those matters. What happened in this House was very important. I have put it on the record once and will do so again: your Lordships were extremely helpful and constructive in considering those matters.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Fox Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, I join in the congratulations on the speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol—a city from where my father’s family emanated—and I look forward to the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, later on.

I too played bingo with the speeches, and the words “fiscal responsibility” were also included in my game. However, I sign up to the definition given by the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, of “fiscal incontinence” to define what we have been seeing over the last year or so. If you do not want to listen to us, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has been very clear in its own analysis. The Government have of course broken their 2% rule, and, in the institute’s words,

“there … isn’t space … for … permanent giveaways”.

It dubs the spending round as on a par with Labour’s 2017 manifesto plans—which of course Mrs May called the “magic money tree” manifesto. So “fiscal responsibility” would not be a way of describing the Government’s performance. In addition, looking at the Budget ahead, the time that the Government have given the Office for Budget Responsibility to produce its analysis of the economy is very sharp, to say the least, when it does not yet know the Brexit environment for which it has to make that announcement. Again, that is hardly a prudent move.

The shadow of Brexit hangs over this debate and most others. Many people acknowledge that the economy and business need some sense of certainty, but the idea that whatever Boris brings back and is voted on will deliver certainty is of course foolish. Again, the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, encapsulated that when he talked of “interminable trade negotiations”. There will be years, if not decades, of upset and lack of stability for our business communities. My noble friend Lady Kramer set out the challenges facing the manufacturing sector in this economy, and its desire for regulatory consistency and the need to avoid regulatory divergence. She also set out the pressures on the service sector, which is the larger part of our economy.

It is clear that no sensible commentator predicts that UK services will benefit from losing their current level of access to the European Union. Yet this minority Conservative Government march on. As the noble Lord, Lord Hain, set out, this Government’s ambition is to compete with the EU, and they will compete on the grounds of lower regulatory standards—a point also made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. We saw good evidence of that when the Government dropped the international Trade Bill, which your Lordships worked long and hard on, which set out those standards. That Trade Bill was agreed in your Lordships’ House and then parked for months. Perhaps the Minister can tell us how the new trade Bill that appears in this Queen’s Speech will differ from the one that we worked so hard on in your Lordships’ House.

It is useful to look at a Queen’s Speech—even one that will not pass into legislation—because it indicates a direction of travel and the way a Government think. Nothing sums that up better than the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill, which would repeal EU free movement laws. It is wrong on many grounds, but it is disastrous for the economy and for British science. Plans to abolish the cap on numbers under tier 1 exceptional talent visas are wholly insufficient, and the Bill also fails to take into account the contribution made to the British economy by people who fall below the tier 1 threshold.

The points system disregards the need for vital but lower-paid workers in our economy—look at agriculture, the care professions and the hospitality industry—and it does not stop there. Her Majesty’s Government, and the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, make much of plans to deliver full-fibre Britain. To do this, BT says that it needs an extra 35,000 people. Where do the Government think these people will come from? Where is this infrastructure, if it were ever to emerge? Who will build this? The Liberal Democrats would guarantee the rights of EU citizens in the UK now, and we would continue to welcome new entrants. They are a vital part of our economy.

The Minister talked about work being “fairer for all”. For that to be true, we need a thriving economy that provides opportunities for people in every economy, which will require a major rebalancing of our currently unequal regional economies. To do this, we need to convert the industrial strategy into a much more overt regional prosperity strategy. We need ambitious goals on which to focus, and for that we should change the Industrial Strategy grand challenges. I suggest: delivering carbon neutrality; creating a transport revolution; ushering in an era of zero-carbon housing and commercial buildings; and developing world leadership in health and well-being innovation.

Three key enablers will help us to meet these challenges. First, we must embrace the digital revolution, but in a way that is inclusive and a force for good, delivering well-paid jobs. Secondly, we need to create a national skills strategy with Cabinet-level accountability across government, which will have to deliver a skilled workforce—not just a future workforce, but the present workforce upskilled through lifelong learning accounts. There must be a major expansion of all apprenticeships, including higher-quality ones.

The third point is the science budget. I think all parties agree on an increase in the science budget. To address that, we need the finance, and the Liberal Democrats will expand the British Business Bank to perform a central role in the economy. We have to ensure that small, medium and entrepreneurial businesses have access to capital. This is not happening at the moment, and it is pulling back the supply side of our economy.

The business elements of this Queen’s Speech fail on two counts. First, they are clearly not part of a sensible, deliverable legislative programme. Secondly, they fail as an election manifesto. This is not intended to draw the nation together. This Speech reveals the narrow, divisive plans the Government have for this country. By promising things they know they cannot deliver, the Tories are playing a dangerous game. By pointing the blame at others, the Tories are creating an environment of aggression and fear. By cynically playing on these fears, the Tories are dividing and hoping to rule people in this country. I have more faith in the robustness of our democracy and the spirit of the British people. They will see through this cynicism.