House of Lords Reform

Lord Hain Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords, seven years ago, on 19 December 2017, I said in your Lordships’ House—and I apologise for quoting myself but there is a reason—that

“we all know that things cannot continue as they are. We number over 800 and rising … we have become not so much an embarrassment but, many say, a scandal. At a time of austerity, when everything else is cut, our numbers rise inexorably”.

I concluded:

“Things have reached a point where change is unavoidable. The question is therefore not whether there is change, but who makes it. Either this House takes responsibility or it will pass to the Commons and the Government. Either we reform ourselves or others will reform us”.—[Official Report, 19/12/17; cols. 1979-80.]


I mention this because we did not take responsibility. We did not do anything. Rather, the last Tory Governments did not allow us to do anything, despite—as the former Lord Speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, said very aptly earlier in the debate—universal cross-party support for the plans in the report by the noble Lord, Lord Burns, to reduce our numbers. Now we have this Bill, about which Tory Peers such as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, have pumped themselves up into an absolute fury. Yet we could have done something sensible. My noble friend Lord Grocott introduced Bills to abolish hereditary by-elections in every parliamentary Session from 2016-17, apart from the current Session and the short 2019 Session. That makes a total of five occasions. Had his Bill not been repeatedly blocked by the Conservative Government of the day, there would now be 26 fewer excepted hereditary Peers.

This Labour Government were elected with a clear manifesto commitment to introduce legislation to remove the right of the remaining hereditary Peers to sit in the Lords. The current tightly drafted Bill, now going through its remaining stages in the Commons, will end what were always transitional arrangements. The United Kingdom is one of only two countries that still have a hereditary element in their legislatures. The Bill is not about individuals or personalities but a 21st century Parliament which should not be reserving places for lawmakers just because of the families they were born into.

Many hereditary Peers—on all Benches—have made important contributions to public life, within and beyond the House. This reform is not targeted at them but rather at ending the transitional arrangements put in place after the 1999 Act and resolving a 25-year anomaly. As others have already said in this debate—rightly—should a hereditary Peer be thought fit and valued to be appointed a life Peer, as many clearly are, there is no reason to stop that happening through the existing mechanisms.

Labour’s manifesto was clear on the intention to remove the right of hereditary Peers to sit in your Lordships’ House and there should be no unnecessary delay once the legislation goes through. I trust that the Official Opposition will continue to abide by our usual conventions. I look at the Leader of the Opposition as I say that. I ask my noble friend the Leader of the House to send a letter to all Peers—or to arrange for one to be sent—reminding colleagues around the House why abiding by the historic Salisbury/Addison convention which respects government election manifesto commitments is so important. Will she look at that, please?

I am concerned that some noble Lords opposite are gearing up for a filibuster once the hereditary Peers Bill begins its passage through your Lordships’ House. Some were part of the Official Opposition in this House the last time a Labour Government ended up having to use the Parliament Act. I trust history is not going to repeat itself any time soon, certainly not during the current parliamentary Session. Given the Conservative Party’s dire defeat at the recent general election, it is weird that a number of noble Lords opposite have decided that this is the political hill they are ready to die on. This House is drinking in the last chance saloon. It is the biggest legislative Chamber in the world apart from the Chinese National People’s Congress. Is that really a benchmark to stand proudly by and fight to the end?

Gibraltar-Spain Border Checks

Lord Hain Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I think that is what the Government of Gibraltar desire, and it is certainly what the United Kingdom Government desire. I first visited Gibraltar when the border was closed. I visited on the basis that 6,000 Moroccan workers were being based in Georgian barracks. There was progress: when we entered the European Union and an agreement was made about Spain’s entry, there were absolutely no border issues. That is why we now need that agreement with the EU, so we can return to a sense of normality.

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords, I too support my noble friend the Minister in seeking an agreement, which seems near. I point out that it does not help to help to have this tub-thumping jingoism from the Conservative Front Bench, when they created this problem. There is an external European frontier between Gibraltar and the Spanish mainland as a result of Brexit, and that has to be resolved by very careful negotiation. I wish my noble friend the best.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

It will be good for the people of Gibraltar to get an agreement with the European Union, and we are determined to do that. We are very close to achieving it. I agree with the sentiments of my noble friend: jingoistic language does not help the process of negotiation. I have realised, as a trade union negotiator, that you should never push people into corners. You allow them to come to an agreement and come together. I am pretty certain that is what we will do with Gibraltar and the EU.

Gaza Crisis

Lord Hain Excerpts

Monday 14th October 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Hain]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of whether current negotiations will end the Gaza crisis.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Collins of Highbury) (Lab)]

My Lords, resolving this conflict has been this Government’s priority since day one. It is now in PM Netanyahu’s and Hamas leader Sinwar’s hands to accept the deal on the table and agree urgently to a ceasefire in the long-term interests of Israelis and Palestinians. We are working alongside allies and partners to push for an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages, the upholding of international law, the protection of civilians—including the rapid increase of aid into Gaza—and a pathway to a two-state solution.

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend the Minister, but does he also agree that this terrible crisis will not be resolved militarily? Netanyahu will not succeed in destroying Hamas as he has promised, not even by destroying Gaza, nor will he destroy Hezbollah, not even by damaging and destabilising Lebanon, and neither they nor Iran will succeed in destroying Israel. Unless Israel is to remain for ever under a state of permanent warfare siege, it is vital there is a negotiated settlement to end the horror. My fear is that that will not happen until this conflict escalates—as recent events seemingly make inevitable —to an all-out regional, maybe even global, war.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, we condemn Iran’s attacks against Israel and recognise Israel’s right to defend itself against Iranian aggression. At this moment, when tensions are at their peak, we call on Iran to step back from the brink. A regional war is in absolutely no one’s interest. We are deeply concerned about the escalation of conflict in the region that threatens to destroy many innocent lives. That is why we are working tirelessly with partners, including allies in the region, to establish immediate ceasefires, both in Gaza and along the blue line. In Gaza, a ceasefire must be the first step on the path to long-term peace and stability, with a two-state solution—a safe and secure Israel alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state—at its heart.

Northern Ireland Protocol

Lord Hain Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Noble Lords]

Hain!

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Noble Lords]

Hain!

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, it is in the nature of any agreement, particularly one that is ultimately successful, that there must be some element of compromise. However, I will not add further to what I have said, which was the right position. We wish to see restitution of the institutions but that must come, like everything else, from and for the people of Northern Ireland.

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the Prime Minister on achieving an agreement which frankly has far surpassed all expectations. Can the Minister comment on those rather intemperate instant reactions that we have seen from some in his own party, and indeed from Northern Ireland, which are almost saying that Northern Ireland should not remain within the single market? The logic of that would be that the external customs frontier of the European Union would be across the island of Ireland and would be a hard border. They should come clean on that if that is what they really mean.

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I always think it is good to reflect before speaking; being at this Dispatch Box does not always give you that opportunity, but I agree with what the noble Lord said. It is also the case, and again I repeat myself, that trade between the north and south is important to business and to the life of the island. The best thing for the people of Northern Ireland and the whole of the United Kingdom is prosperity, which is assisted by free and wide trade. I hope that this agreement contributes to both north-south and east-west trade.

Replacement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer

Lord Hain Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I believe that we have such a Government.

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords, was not the Chancellor’s Statement yesterday just a bonfire of Truss economic insanities?

Afghanistan

Lord Hain Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hain (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I endorse especially the points so ably made by my noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon. I was a junior Foreign Office Minister, first covering Afghanistan from July 1999 until January 2001, and then, from June 2001, was Europe Minister during 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan to eradicate al-Qaeda’s base. I am therefore implicated in what Tom Tugendhat, Conservative MP and chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, described as Britain’s

“biggest foreign policy disaster since Suez”,

questioning what on earth so many British soldiers, coalition forces and Afghans bravely fought for—and sacrificed their lives for.

We must now find ways to incentivise the Taliban—and, yes, that includes engaging with them alongside regional powers like China and Iran—so that they are discouraged from returning to their bad old ways, including their oppression of women and girls. A United Nations panel reports that the Taliban have kept up a close relationship with al-Qaeda, permitting them to conduct training and deploy fighters alongside its forces. Something similar may be true of ISIS.

But experience from Northern Ireland—hard learnt at bloody cost to life and limb—shows that you will fail if you treat groups like the Taliban as pariahs. As Tony Blair’s chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, explains in his excellent book Talking to Terrorists, you have to negotiate with them, offering economic incentives and tough deterrents to respect international norms and human rights. The costly nation-building, democracy-building strategy of the West over these past 20 years has failed abysmally. A fundamental mistake of US-UK policy from the outset was not accommodating the Pashtun, the biggest group in Afghanistan, from where Taliban power comes. Instead of cultivating only Afghan forces and individuals amenable to the United States from 2001, instead of occupying a country that has always rejected foreign invaders—from Britain in the 1830s to the Soviets in the 1980s—surely after 9/11 the West should have negotiated a deal to remove al-Qaeda with the Taliban and other Afghani leaders.

And, yes, the story might have been different if the US and UK focus on Afghanistan after 2002-03 had not been diverted by the calamitous invasion of Iraq. We all share the shame, both the Labour Government in which I was proud to serve and, since 2010 the Conservatives—including Liberal Democrats when in coalition—in our betrayal of the millions of Afghans. It is no good just finger jabbing at Biden or Bush, at Johnson or Blair; there must instead be a proper reckoning by this Parliament and by Congress about the real lessons of our common culpability in this utter catastrophe.

House of Lords: Remote Participation and Hybrid Sittings

Lord Hain Excerpts

Thursday 20th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords, I could not help but be very moved by that speech, as I think we probably all were.

I am a member of the House’s Covid-19 Committee, and on 21 April we published our first report, Beyond Digital: Planning for a Hybrid World. It shows that the pandemic massively accelerated a trend towards simultaneous actual and virtual, physical and online, living. The future of our society will be hybrid for working, shopping, learning, caring, receiving health advice, and social and family interaction—almost every part of our lives. We as a House have prefigured this new future over the past year with our own hybrid proceedings. We have been able to participate, to speak, to amend, to scrutinise, to revise, and to vote remarkably successfully, our staff performing amazingly.

According to figures from the Library, the average number of Members voting per Division, which had been pretty constant over the three preceding parliamentary Sessions 2015–16 to 2017–19 at 360, rose to 496 after the introduction of remote voting—a leap of nearly 40%. Surely it is healthy to have greater democratic involvement in amending and improving legislation, which, after all, along with scrutiny is our main function as a Chamber.

I desperately hope that we can return to what people call “normal” as much as anybody else does. The chemistry of debate, the palpable groans and “Hear, hears” greeting speeches bad or good, intervening, especially to hold Ministers to account, the informal face-to-face part of politics—all these are vital ingredients of a lively parliamentary democracy, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, so eloquently explained. Our legislative Chambers are nothing like as potent in the rather antiseptic culture of remote participation.

I will give an example. When I moved a manuscript amendment prior to the Dissolution of the House in 2019 to force the Government to complete the remaining stages of the Historical Institutional Abuse (Northern Ireland) Bill, the Government Whips resisted, initially with the help of our Whips. But the feeling of the packed House was absolutely unanimous. That amendment was carried without Division and the legislation completed its course. That would not have happened in a virtual or a hybrid House.

But is that at all possible in the foreseeable future, with new Covid variants and the pandemic spreading in other parts of the world such as India and directly impacting on us in Britain? Is it not the case that there will be no return to what we once knew as “normal”? The future is likely to be one of more or less effectively managing the Covid pandemic and whatever other pandemics or mutations follow it, because scientists warn that there will be more and different ones. In retrospect, maybe HIV/AIDS, SARS and Ebola were all dress rehearsals for a new and immensely more difficult future interaction with nature. If that is the case, then surely the future of parliamentary democracies, and therefore this House, will be hybrid—not necessarily everything we do all the time, but certainly part of what we do some of the time, and conceivably bits of what we do all of the time?

The first thing we need to do is to maintain and upgrade the technological, skills and physical infrastructure of the hybrid House. It would be unwise to dismantle it when the future is so uncertain, especially since many staff, who are generally younger, have not yet been vaccinated and may come a far second with booster jabs in future. Surely staff safety is imperative.

Secondly, we should maintain remote voting on our smartphones. Especially given the age profile of Members, is it really prudent to squeeze into poorly ventilated voting Lobbies? The noble Earl, Lord Howe, seemed to think that it was an offence that we were voting more often; I think that it is a sign of democracy.

Thirdly, we should enable the option of remote speaking for those who find it easier or safer, not least to avoid cramming into London underground trains or buses, but perhaps with new limits, particularly on Member numbers speaking to amendments, where debates have been far too long and Members have spoken to multiple amendments—sometimes consecutively—far too often. Debates have lasted long into the night, which they never would have done with the same frequency in the physical past.

Fourthly, we should keep the current 10-Member lists for Questions, which are an improvement on bobbing up and down, which favours muscular, loud males.

Fifthly, we should encourage committees to meet virtually, as has occurred very successfully when taking online evidence from all over the country and even the world.

The future is hybrid, and the question is how best to adapt our procedures to that, while retaining the essence of the physical parliamentary cut and thrust important to all democracies.

Business and Planning Bill

Lord Hain Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 20th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak in this debate. In doing so, I thank the Minister and officials from the department for their positive and extensive engagement before and after Committee on these amendments and others. In deference to and out of respect for the Chief Whip, I will try to set the pace for the length of speeches going forward. I thank the Minister and officials for listening to and hearing many of the arguments that I and other noble Lords made, which are reflected in the government amendments on national conditions and the significant changes to the draft guidance that have been made.

This is in no sense a work of perfection but it is a huge step forward from where we were before Committee stage. I do not intend to speak to any of my amendments in this group. Safe to say, while there is still work to do on the guidance, which I am happy to participate in, the amendments that the Government have brought forward and the spirit in which they have done so have been more than helpful. Without in any sense wishing to curtail debate or seeking to guide the Government, I wonder whether, at some stage in the debate on this first group, it would be worth the Minister speaking in broad terms about the changes that have been made. This may also help there to be swifter debate on a number of the amendments that I and other noble Lords have brought forward. I beg to move.

[Lord Hain (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Holmes. I will speak to Amendment 4, which is in my name and those of my noble friends Lord Hendy, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick and Lord Monks. It is an extremely modest amendment. It simply ensures that employees, trade unions and businesses are consulted and involved before a local authority determines a pavement licence application under Clause 3.

The coronavirus crisis has obliged the Government to set aside years of doubt about the value of consulting either the CBI, which they are sure is a hotbed of remoaners, or the TUC, which they viewed as the awkward squad. Since March, Ministers have consulted both sides of industry about how to keep firms afloat, how to keep workers and customers safe and how to stop supply chains seizing up.

Consultation has now moved on to lifting the lockdown safely and encouraging a confident and safe return to work. Those consultations have proved productive and surprisingly valuable. They have brought to the fore our shared interest in promoting the common good. Robust discussions have generated mutual respect. The Prime Minister’s “New Deal for Britain” speech even borrowed the phrase “build back better” from a TUC policy paper. We all seek inspiration wherever we can find it.

Business leaders accept that the trade union response has shattered the myth that the TUC spells trouble and some of my trade union colleagues have conceded that not all bosses are Neanderthals. Consultation and co-operation have necessarily become the name of the game in this crisis. Last month, the CBI elected a new president, the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, and appointed a new director-general, Tony Danker, to take office in November. Britain’s three biggest unions—Unite, UNISON and the GMB—are currently electing new general secretaries. A change of guard is a good time for a fresh approach.

Amendment 4 urges the Government to grasp the opportunity to establish a new framework for co-operation at work—one that makes consultation between business and unions the norm and gives workers a voice inside their workplaces and a say in their own futures. Unions have already demonstrated in practical ways their value in helping employers to get through this crisis. I mentioned some of these in Committee, as did my noble friends Lord Hendy and Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick. Unions have helped and have come out the other side better placed to thrive, as have employers.

The Communication Workers Union, for which I used to work, has agreed with the Royal Mail Group a four-step process to help employees who have been categorised as extremely clinically vulnerable or as a carer of someone in that category to return to duty. In May, the Food and Drink Federation, the GMB, Unite, USDAW and the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union highlighted how partnership between food and drink manufacturers, trade unions and employers has enhanced both the safety of workers and the effective running of workplaces. Ian Wright, chief executive of the Food and Drink Federation, said:

“Partnership between employers and unions has been crucial to continuing production over the last eight weeks.”


Britain’s biggest union, UNISON, has given fresh guidance to its workplace health and safety representatives on how to carry out inspections and investigate potential new hazards, such as Covid-19. It is also talking to employers to ensure that employees with underlying health conditions can work from home or, if that is not possible, are redeployed to roles where they are less at risk. Unite persuaded Rowan Foods to backdate sick pay to 1 June 2020 after a Covid-19 outbreak among the company’s workforce for any employees who tested positive and were isolating. It also negotiated an agreement with the 2 Sisters Food Group that all of the staff employed at its Llangefni site would be paid in full for the two-week isolation period imposed following the Covid-19 outbreak.

The GMB, Royal College of Nursing, UNISON and Four Seasons Health Care have agreed full sick pay for 15,000 care workers for any coronavirus-related absence. The long-standing partnership agreement between Tesco and USDAW is the biggest such deal in the private sector, covering some 160,000 staff. Tesco has agreed with USDAW that employees will receive contractual pay if they are following government guidelines to stay off work.

In a previous debate, the Minister, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, said that a ministerially led strategy on consultation was unnecessary, yet the Prime Minister wants us to draw inspiration from President Roosevelt’s New Deal, a federal government-led strategy that promised what Roosevelt called relief, recovery and reform. Roosevelt delivered a much more ambitious programme of employee consultation and investment in jobs than the Prime Minister has in mind; sadly, this Bill reflects a lack of ambition in that respect.

I wish to press the noble Earl to explain what exactly is wrong with this amendment and what is wrong with all the trade union agreements I have cited, which make everyone—workers, managers and the public—safer in the coronavirus crisis. Why do the Government not accept that employee consultation on navigating our way through this complex and dangerous pandemic should be the norm, to be officially and statutorily promoted?

This is an extremely modest, reasonable, common-sense amendment. It does not prescribe or constrict employers in any precise method of consultation. It simply states that they should implement it in a way that they feel is appropriate. I cannot for the life of me understand why the noble Earl, who is usually very responsive to constructive points, has not contacted me or my noble friends to indicate in advance his acceptance or, alternatively, to explain that he has tabled a government amendment to achieve exactly the same result in a different way.

[Lord Blencathra (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interests as on the register. Forgive me if I do not wax as lyrical as the noble Lord, Lord Hain, about the behaviour of the trade unions—especially the teachers’ unions, which have behaved atrociously. My remarks will also be considerably shorter.

First, wearing my hat as chair of the Delegated Powers Committee, I give a warm welcome to Amendments 16 and 87, giving effect to our recommendations that the guidance be converted into SIs. I mention them now so I will not speak on them when they are reached.

While I support what my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond said and while I think that my Amendment 10, setting out a simple minimum requirement of 1,500 millimetres on the face of the Bill, is better than what the government amendment says, nevertheless, the Government have moved considerably on this measure and I am content to accept that, one way or another, there will be sufficient consideration given to the needs of disabled people when setting out tables and chairs on the pavement. My noble friend the Deputy Leader has written to us, saying that

“guidance will make clear that in most circumstances, 1,500 millimetres clear space should be regarded as the minimum acceptable distance between the obstacle and the edge of the footway.”

The word of my noble friend the Deputy Leader is good enough for me. I have looked at the wording that he circulated in paragraph 4.1 of the guidance, which says the same thing. Accordingly, I will not move my amendment.

I also suggest that if the usual channels have an urgent discussion on this, the suggestion of my noble friend Lord Holmes for the Minister to speak early and set out the changes the Government propose would be helpful. Often, when a Minister speaks early, it antagonises the House, but this may be one of those occasions when it helps the House.

Finally, let me say that if, when I am out and about, I find that the gap is not wide enough between the tables, I shall simply bulldoze through them in my armour- plated wheelchair.

Business and Planning Bill

Lord Hain Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 6th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hain (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, although the Bill provides a welcome range of measures to help businesses post Covid-19, it also represents a missed opportunity. For example, there is no acknowledgment of the call by the trade union Unite for the Government to involve the country’s 100,000 trade union health and safety representatives to help with test, track and trace, and with finding safer ways of working, to deal with the ongoing risks from Covid-19. The crisis is also an opportunity to make workplaces more productive, by encouraging closer co-operation at work and challenging both sides of industry to boost productivity by working in partnership. For example, in May, the Food and Drink Federation and the GMB, Unite, USDAW and the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union highlighted how partnership between food and drink manufacturers, trade unions and employees has enhanced both the safety of workers and the effective running of workplaces.

The Government should encourage employers and unions to explore new ways of working together and embracing radical change. The Covid-19 crisis has shown that very many established ways of working are outdated. Many are inflexible; they hinder, rather than help, firms’ efforts to match their product or service to customers’ requirements; they undermine, rather than underpin, employers’ efforts to keep up with the competition; and they often alienate, rather than motivate, employees by treating them unfairly or locking them in to unrewarding routine tasks. By working together, unions and employers can deliver dramatic improvements in performance, boosting productivity and profitability, lifting living standards and enhancing job prospects. Instead of routine, robust co-operation between employers and unions, of the kind practised in Germany, Britain has low employee motivation, lagging productivity, lost competitiveness, jobs in jeopardy, shocking skills gaps, grossly unequal rewards and grotesque discrimination at work.

Instead of world-class standards of product quality and customer service, British businesses too often settle for second best. With a few notable exceptions, we have seen our market share drop and jobs disappear. The Prime Minister was right to cite Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal as an example to follow, but he omitted to mention that the New Deal also radically reformed industrial relations in the United States, bringing in the National Labor Relations Board to even up the balance of power between bosses and workers and encourage union recognition. That did not create fair pay overnight, but it took a big step in the right direction. The Business Secretary and Treasury Ministers have held a productive series of sector-by-sector meetings with trade union and business leaders. The next step should be government backing to bring both sides of industry together in sectoral bargaining, to put a floor under pay and conditions of employment, raise and protect standards, and stop responsible employers being undercut by irresponsible rivals and workers being exploited unfairly.

Winston Churchill once said, “Never let a crisis go to waste, but turn it into an opportunity”—a chance to do things that might never have seemed possible before.

Coronavirus Bill

Lord Hain Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 25th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I rise to support Amendments 1 and 2. I am pleased to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Hussein-Ece, and I echo her words. I am the mother of a 40 year-old autistic and disabled son, although he does not use any services. I have been inundated by charities telling me that they are very concerned, especially charities which are serving the needs of ethnic minority disabled and elderly people who do not necessarily feel that they have the voice that others have in connecting with local and national organisations. So I welcome the idea suggested by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, of an independent body and a voice. I echo that very much.

My second and final point is with regard to the concern expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, about the role of local authorities. Yesterday, I passionately and enthusiastically overran the guide time, for which I apologise to the House once again, because I had been inundated by groups saying that they were deeply concerned about burial issues. I noted that the Minister said that it would be up to the local authority. I am already deeply concerned that local authorities are incredibly burdened so, unless they are mandated to do so, they will not seek to talk to a wider range of groups. Yet again yesterday I was contacted in the evening by a number of organisations that say they are willing to work with the Government and local authorities to ensure the provision of extra burial places and storage facilities if the Government are looking for them.

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords, I strongly support Amendment 1, which was moved by my noble friend Lady Thornton, and I hope that the Government will accept it. It is essential to have such a monitoring body covering local authority care and support. If we were in any doubt, surely the searing speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, yesterday should have convinced us. Is the Minister aware that organisations caring for the vulnerable and disabled are being hit by the triple whammy of increased operational costs, loss of income from increased vacancies and staff shortages exacerbated by the crisis and a lack of personal protection equipment?

In addition, for those in the third sector, fundraising has collapsed. Will the Minister ensure that all care organisations involved are contacted urgently and directly to offer practical government help? In care homes in lockdown across the country, staff are worried stiff. We certainly do not want to see scenes such as the one in Spain where a care home was discovered abandoned with all the residents dead. I should add that my wife is a trustee of the Leonard Cheshire Disability charity, which has many care homes across the country.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, yesterday I had the privilege of being able to speak, so I will be brief. I support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lady Thornton and the words of the noble Lord, Lord Scriven. Normally, he and I would be knocking bells out of each other but, on this occasion, we happen to be in total agreement.

I want to reinforce the point that in times of trauma, as we are at the moment, civil society is always critical to survival. That is true in war zones and it will be true in the weeks ahead. I have registered interests in a number of voluntary and charitable organisations, including the RNIB and the Alzheimer’s Society. I want to stress the importance of monitoring. That is not in the sense of a suspicion that the Government will somehow abuse these powers deliberately but because the prioritisation that underpins this power of suspension of normal rights understandably presumes that it will not be possible to carry out the norms of support available.

We learned today that a staggering 250,000 people have already indicated that they are prepared to volunteer. I recently stood down as a board member of the National Citizen Service, among other voluntary commitments. Picking up on the point made by my noble friend Lord Hain, it would be useful if we were able to reinforce very quickly the fact that those organisations in civil society—this is true at the local level as well—are picking up this cudgel and are able, not necessarily to fill the vacuum but to reach out, particularly to the 1.5 million people who have been asked to isolate themselves completely for 12 weeks. I hope we will be able to revisit that when things are clearer in three or four weeks’ time.

I very rarely speak about this, but I want to put on record what it must be like for someone without sight in a high-rise flat. They cannot even look out of the window to see the sun and the birds or make any contact. That is prison. Being able to reach out, even with local government’s lack of capacity, through the voluntary sector and volunteers to make contact, provide support and ensure that, where someone has a crisis, their rights are being upheld, will be vital. I believe that the Minister gets all this. From everything I have seen and understood in a metaphorical sense, he and the team around him are tremendously hard-working and appreciate these issues, working as they are in incredibly difficult circumstances. Given that, I hope that there can be a positive response because, frankly, if we cannot mobilise in this way as well as monitor the rights of those who yesterday the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, spelled out in a way that I could never manage, we will have let down those who need us most at this critical time.