Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Debate between Lord Fox and Baroness Garden of Frognal

Committee stage
Thursday 9th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

My Lords, I have to inform the Committee that if Amendment 6 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment 7 by reason of pre-emption.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, I was hoping that the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, would leave me something to say, and I think there is a small window of opportunity. The Minister will be pleased to know that it is a small window, as I note he is on his seventh Haribo and may need further sustenance if we go on much longer. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, for coming and speaking to this. It is very good to have the portfolio holders to address this, and I really appreciate that.

In the to and fro on Amendment 2, we began to nail what the Government mean by “education services”. The Minister said that it is more than just up to 16 but she did not go further. We are still not clear whether it covers further education and higher education, so Amendment 7 is a useful starting point in trying to set out in some detail what education services the Government have in mind. There are others—cleaning and janitorial services, for example—that are not included in that but are crucial to the safe running of a school. Anything that the Minister can say about what the Government feel is within the scope of the Bill would be helpful.

I am going to focus on schools because that appears to be where the Government are focused at the moment, but I am happy to be guided in other directions by the Minister. As the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, said, there was strike action in schools by members of the National Education Union in February and further action is planned, apparently, with strike action from the National Association of Head Teachers taking place in Wales; in Scotland, the Educational Institute of Scotland and two other unions are also planning future walkouts. So this is a serious issue.

We should be aware that there are a number of wide potential implications when there is a teachers’ strike. There are issues around child safety, parental inconvenience and the economic aspect for parents, who may then need to arrange childcare. Of course, there are also the effects on a cohort of children who may be missing out on essential education. There are ballots going on, so this is a real issue.

In order to understand this issue—indeed, to understand it at the micro, school level—I will assume that this Bill has been passed and the Government have established a minimum service level for schools. At the heart of this is the question of how the Bill is going to operate. There are very many schools and therefore a great number of employers in the school sector. I am interested in how the Government expect to enforce a minimum service level in schools. Who will be the employer who may field a work order? Is it the head teacher? Is it the unpaid, volunteer governors? Is it the local authority? If it is the local authority, how will free schools fit into this because they do not have a local authority? Is the governing body of a free school then the accountable employer? Clearly, the Government will have thought through every detail here. I am very keen to hear the details of how the Government expect to manage minimum service level delivery at the school level.

Perhaps the Minister could then tell us how many teachers in a school will make up the minimum service level. I am not aware of any state schools that have too many teachers; indeed, most of them tell us that they have too few teachers and too few classroom assistants. So what will be a minimum service level for teaching children in our schools in the event of a strike? Will it be everything that they are doing now—in which case, as we will discuss in other areas, the strike would, in effect, be banned—or something else, such as childminding? If it is childminding, the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, has set out the requirements that already exist under the statutory duties for schools and in the Department for Education’s guidance, which require head teachers to take into account the implications for how children are looked after and safeguarded in the event of a strike.

It is good that the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, is here. I really want to hear about all of that micro detail because it is understanding the detail that will help us to see inside the Bill and bring it to life. Because it is such a skeleton Bill, it is impossible for us really to understand the cogs and wheels that will fit together and deliver a minimum service level for our schools.

Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill

Debate between Lord Fox and Baroness Garden of Frognal

Committee stage
Monday 22nd November 2021 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

I draw your Lordships’ attention to the fact that, in this group, government Amendments 44, 45, 46 and 48 do not appear as government amendments on the printed list.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the Minister’s comments. Without sounding whiny, this would have benefited from a “Dear colleagues” letter in advance. It caused me a little head scratching over the weekend when I was trying to fathom the purpose of these amendments, which the Minister has now told us. I guess it kept me busy.

We are delighted that the Government have accepted one of the two recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. I am speaking to oppose the Question that Clause 8 stand part of the Bill. As the Minister referred to, this is the other recommendation of the DPRRC. That committee was clear in its assessment of the Bill:

“Although ARIA is to be created by Act of Parliament, clause 8 allows Ministers to dissolve it by an affirmative statutory instrument. They cannot do so for another ten years and they must consult ARIA before doing so. They do not have to offer any reasons.”


The DPRRC continues:

“We object to this on principle. If Parliament creates a body, it should be for Parliament to dissolve the body. It should not be for Ministers to dissolve it by statutory instrument, even an affirmative instrument.”


The DPRRC could not be clearer. The Minister’s response to that was simply that he did not agree. We knew he would not agree, but this is a very influential committee and what it says matters.

Although I am calling for Clause 8 not to stand part of the Bill, there are parts of that clause that the Government might want to salvage. This gives the Government an opportunity to come back, perhaps with another lengthy set of amendments on Report. It is a chance for the Minister to accept the view of this influential committee, just as he has on Clause 10.

The Minister will point to the fact that this statutory instrument is affirmative, but he will do so knowing that this is a poor alternative. The dissolution of ARIA will throw up issues—not the sort of issues faced by the organisation that the Minister chose to use as an example of one which a statutory instrument has been used to dissolve in the past. For example, when and if ARIA comes to be dissolved, the fate of assets will be crucial. By then, the taxpayer will probably have poured billions of pounds into creating those assets. Parliament needs a say on how they will be allocated in future yet, as we know, statutory instruments are unamendable—take it or leave it. As I have often rehearsed on other Bills, your Lordships’ House virtually always takes them, sometimes with a touch of regret, but takes them none the less. Primary legislation, however, is amendable. It gives Parliament a role in deciding the fate of the organisation and these assets, which, I remind the Government, the taxpayers have created through their investment. That is just one of the recommendations of the DPRRC. It should be honoured. I beg to move.

Professional Qualifications Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Fox and Baroness Garden of Frognal

Committee stage
Monday 14th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow my near namesake, the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and endorse his words. This group contains a number of different amendments. I will focus on Amendment 43 in my name, but that does not indicate that I do not support elements of the others.

I have done what the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, advises against, which is to table an amendment to one element of this clause in order to speak to a larger confusion that I have. This is a probing amendment, but the real point is: what is this centre for and why will it operate as it does? We have established a few facts at Second Reading and through previous amendments, so we know that the Government foresee one overarching centre rather than four national ones, and to do this, the Minister has painted a picture of two people and a website—a landing page. Forgive me, but this is a website requiring 48 lines of primary legislation, so it must have some importance in the mind of the Government to go to this much trouble when it replaces what was a sentence in an EU directive, which is the previous assistance centre. So much for red tape. We have 48 lines of primary legislation to establish a website run by two people.

My amendment leaves out Clause 7(4), which deals with disclosing information. Clearly, it reinforces that certain information cannot be disclosed, but to whom will this information be disclosed? It paints a picture of the collection and dispersing of individuals’ data, so what is the point? Why is it there? What data is it—whose stuff? I do not understand what it is for. I understood that it was to point people in certain directions. This is saying that it is a requirement to disperse data, but what data, and to whom? That is the central reason why I have put my name to this amendment. Of course, if it is collecting important data, it would be nice to know that it is doing so properly, so the terms of this subsection are of course correct, but we need to know why this centre is being set up as it is and what on earth it is for.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I have two very small amendments in this group, both taking us back to my unfavourite word, “substantially”. When we were discussing this last week, my main objection was that “substantially” always implies that something is missing. Last week it was applied to standards, and my argument then was that you cannot water down standards so should not use “substantially”. With these two amendments, my argument is that the word is completely unnecessary. In “substantially corresponds to”, “substantially” is a modifier and “corresponds to” is a modifier; you do not need them both, so I simply put this forward to ask if we can please neaten up the Bill by two words and take out “substantially” in both contexts.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Lord Fox and Baroness Garden of Frognal

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 18th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

I am sorry. I call the noble Lord, Lord Fox.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise for creating such a fuss, and I thank the Whip for intervening on my behalf.

The Minister has made a lot of the need to future-proof this Bill. Indeed, part of the justification of the last debate was around future-proofing. My noble friend Lady Suttie made a very clear case on where future digressions in conditions between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom could create issues. Does the Minister not admit that this is a problem and concede that Amendment 24 is a way round that problem becoming difficult in future?

Trade Bill

Debate between Lord Fox and Baroness Garden of Frognal

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 29th September 2020 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

My Lords, I have received a request to speak after the Minister from the noble Lord, Lord Fox.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, I am sitting here looking at the small surface wipes, which profess to kill 99.9% of all viruses. In his speech, the Minister used broadly the same terms twice, and substantially the same terms once, when describing the follow-on GPA agreement. That is equivalent to the 0.1%, which is important these days. Could the Minister tell us what is not the same, because “broadly” and “substantially” is not “identical”? Therefore, there is a difference. In what areas are we seeing variation?

Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill

Debate between Lord Fox and Baroness Garden of Frognal

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 16th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fox]

My Lords, we have heard descriptions of a series of power imbalances. There are two large, powerful entities on the scene; one is covered by this Bill and the other is not. One is the banks and financial institutions, and the other is of course HMRC, which is covered in the Finance Bill but not in this. My noble friend Lord Palmer referred to that as the elephant in the room. Those two wield the power, and then we hear the tale of small creditors, small businesses, pensioners and workers eking out a return.

In proposing this Bill, the Government have destabilised what had been a static relationship. Things are moving, and we need to understand in detail how the Government see all this movement shaking out. The Bill, letters and now assurances from the Minister have moved everything around. It is still not clear to me—perhaps it is clear to others—where the power has moved in the end. At the moment, it still looks as if the financial institutions will get increased power as a result of this Bill and HMRC will get increased power as a result of the Finance Bill. If that is not the case, I am happy to be surprised by the Government.

I will say just one other thing. I welcome the suggestion from the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, to perhaps look at different levels of pension fund debt below that of the Section 75 debt. That could be one way of alleviating some of the concerns. I hope the Minister is able to catch up on what the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, had to say just now, because there was some wise suggestion there.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

I call the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara. Is he there? No? I call the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist.