Port Talbot Steelworks

Debate between Lord Harlech and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

Wednesday 1st May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness asked a range of questions. What came through was her passion, which I think everyone involved in this Question shares, that these jobs and the steelworks are part of the community—it is an identity, not simply a job, and we feel that deeply. I am afraid to say that the Welsh Government have not offered financial support towards this transition. However, we are doing everything we can to create new jobs for the ones that have been lost. Without our investments, there was a threat that all jobs within TATA, not just those in south Wales, could have left the UK.

The noble Baroness also asked me about virgin steel. We have heard these arguments. We are ensuring that the UK, by moving to green steel, will be less dependent on international supply chains. By moving to green steel—electric arc furnace steel—we are securing the future of UK steel capability and our economic and national security.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the events in south Wales are a real demonstration of the Government’s absolute failure to deliver a just transition for the workers of the region and indeed beyond, and nor are we seeing the growth in renewable energy we should be seeing in uses of steel. I have questions for the Minister about the supply of steel for recycling. The EU is looking to secure the supply of scrap steel by 2027. It is going to bring in rules to ensure that scrap steel is exported only to places with very high environmental standards. That contrasts with the situation here in the UK. More than 50% of our scrap steel is now exported to three countries: Turkey, Egypt and India. Pakistan is the next country on that list, and none of those places is known for the environmental standards of its steel industry. Will the Government bring in a plan for the long-term future of a steel industry using electric arc furnaces?

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, that is exactly what we are doing. I find it quite staggering that the Green Party fails to recognise that moving to electric arc furnaces will reduce carbon emissions by around 5.5 million tonnes per year—the noble Baroness shakes her head, but that is a fact. The UK produces 11 million tonnes of domestic scrap per year. Currently, demand is lower than supply, so 8 million tonnes of that scrap is exported. This gives plentiful and reliable future supply in the UK for electric arc furnace production from domestic scrap.

Cost of Living: Food Waste

Debate between Lord Harlech and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

Thursday 21st September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

Levying sounds like something for the Treasury to think about.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

For the assistance of the House, I believe the noble Baroness, Lady D'Souza, was probably talking about FairShare. I hope the Minister is aware of the letter sent this week to the CEOs of the six largest supermarkets by #getfairaboutfarming. One of the requests in that letter is relevant to this Question as it asks supermarkets to buy what they have committed to buy. Farmers suffer major economic loss and a huge amount of food is wasted because supermarkets order food and then refuse to take it and put it on the shelves, so it rots in the fields. Are the Government going to force supermarkets to get fairer with farmers and with all the benefits of cutting food waste?

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

I take the noble Baroness’s point. As I said in my declaration of interests, I come from a farming background, so I think it is essential for farmers, many of whom are, in effect, small producers, to get a fair price for what they produce.

Farming: Support

Debate between Lord Harlech and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

Wednesday 21st June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My noble friend raises a very important issue, which was also highlighted in my noble friend Lady Rock’s review about the importance of tenant farmers. I agree that they are the lifeblood of the sector. The Government have set out our next steps to support tenant farmers from day one of the agricultural transition. We have worked with tenant farmers, we have co-designed our farming schemes, and we have announced a new tenant farming forum which will improve the way we communicate with the sector and help us ensure that our schemes are as accessible as possible to tenants. We will be launching a call for evidence to examine the need for a tenant farming commissioner in England.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the Minister referred to SFI, the sustainable farming incentive scheme. A new 2023 scheme has just been announced, which includes 19 new stand-alone actions, and just four actions have been carried over. About 3,300 farmers now enrolled in SFI 2022 will be served notice to end their agreements and invited to join SFI 2023. They will get closure payments for three schemes not carried over. Does the Minister believe there is sufficient advice and support for farmers to navigate this really quite incredible level of complexity?

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, change is difficult but that does not mean that it should not be done. We want to support farmers. It is not a zero-sum game of just food security or increasing biodiversity; farmers are in a key position to do this and we want to support them as much as we can. That is why we have added six new standards to the SFI this summer, including on arable and horticultural land, grassland, hedgerows, integrated pest management and nutrient management. In addition, the SFI agreement payment will pay £20 per hectare for the first 50 hectares entered into the scheme in order to help farmers navigate the new scheme entrance process.

Online Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Harlech and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

Committee stage
Tuesday 2nd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I thank the noble Lord for his clarification, although, speaking not as a lawyer, my understanding is that a human right is a legal right; it is a law—a most fundamental right. In addition, every country in the world has ratified this except for the United States—which is another issue. I also point out that it is particularly important that we include reference to children’s rights in this Bill, given the fact that we as a country currently treat our children very badly. There is a huge range of issues, and we should have a demonstration in this and every Bill that the rights of children are respected across all aspects of British society.

I will not get diverted into a whole range of those, but I point noble Lords to a report to the United Nations from the Equality and Human Rights Commission in February this year that highlighted a number of ways in which children’s rights are not being lived up to in the UK. The most relevant part of this letter that the EHRC sent to the UN stresses that it is crucial to preserve children’s rights to accessible information and digital connectivity. That comes from our EHRC.

I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Russell, who referred to the fact that we live in a global environment, and of course our social media and the internet is very much a global world. I urge everyone who has not done so to look at a big report done by UNICEF in 2019, Global Kids Online, which, crucially, involved a huge amount of surveys, consultation and consideration by young people. Later we will get to an amendment of mine which says that we should have the direct voice of young people overseeing the implementation of the Bill. I am talking not about the NGOs that represent them but specifically about children: we need to listen to the children and young people.

The UNICEF report said that it was quite easy to defend access to information and to reputable sources, but showed that accessing entertainment activities—some of the things that perhaps some grandparents in this Chamber might have trouble with—was associated with the positive development of digital skills. Furthermore, the report says:

“When parents restrict children’s internet use”—


of course, this could also apply to the Government restricting their internet use—

“this has a negative effect on children’s information-seeking and privacy skills”.

So, if you do not give children the chance to develop these skills to learn how to navigate the internet, and they suddenly go to it at age 18 and a whole lot of stuff is out there that they have not developed any skills to deal with, you are setting yourself up for a real problem. So UNICEF stresses the real need to have children’s access.

Interestingly, this report—which was a global report from UNICEF—said that

“fewer than one third of children had been exposed to”

something they had found uncomfortable or upsetting in the preceding year. That is on the global scale. Perhaps that is an important balance to some of the other debates we have had in your Lordships’ House on the Bill.

Other figures from this report that I think are worth noting—this is from 2019, so these figures will undoubtedly have gone up—include the finding that

“one in three children globally is … an internet user and …. one in three internet users is a child”.

We have been talking about this as though the internet is “the grown-ups’ thing”, but that is not the global reality. It was co-created, established and in some cases invented by people under the age of 18. I am afraid to say that your Lordships’ House is not particularly well equipped to deal with this, but we need to understand this as best we possibly can. I note that the report also said, looking at the sustainable development goals on quality of education, good jobs and reducing inequality, that internet access for children was crucial.

I will make one final point. I apologise; I am aware that I have been speaking for a while, but I am passionate about these issues. Children and young people have agency and the ability to act and engage in politics. In several nations on these islands, 16 and 17 year-olds have the vote. I very much hope that that will soon also be the case in England, and indeed I hope that soon children even younger than that that will have the vote. I was talking about that with a great audience of year nines at the Queen’s School in Bushey on Friday with Learn with the Lords. Those children would have a great opportunity—

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, we have a very full order of business to get through, so I encourage the noble Baroness to remain on topic.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I think that is on topic. If 16 and 17 year-olds are voting, they have a right to access internet information about voting. I suggest that that is on topic.

My final point—for the pleasure of the noble Lord—is that historically we have seen examples where blocks and filters have denied children and young people who identify as LGBTQI+ access to crucial information for them. That is an example of the risk if we do not allow them right of access. On the most basic children’s right of all, we have also seen examples of blocks and filters that have stopped access to breastfeeding information on the internet. Access is a crucial issue, and what could be a more obvious way to allow it than by writing in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child?

Finance Bill

Debate between Lord Harlech and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

2nd reading & 3rd reading & Committee negatived
Tuesday 20th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for the intervention. I will have to go back and check Hansard. I heard him raise pensions in general but also public sector pensions, but if I am wrong, I apologise, and I stand to be corrected.

All noble Lords raised the issue of the personal tax thresholds. Our mantra throughout this process has been to make sure that those with the broadest shoulders carry the most weight, which is the fairest approach to take. The changes to personal tax ensure that, although we are asking everyone to contribute a little more towards sustainable public finances, we do so in a fair way, with the better off shouldering a greater burden.

We have tried to balance the needs of the country as a whole with the need to protect the most vulnerable. However, as I mentioned, we must continue to improve the health of our public finances, which is why the personal allowance has been frozen. The changes for most will remain small, with the average taxpayer paying only an additional £38 in income tax and NICs by 2028, and the personal allowance will still be £2,150 higher in April 2028 than it would have been if it had been uprated by inflation since 2010.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, raised the issue of a wealth tax. The Government’s priority is restoring stability, but we will try to do this in a fair and compassionate way which protects the most vulnerable and ensures that those on higher incomes pay a fair share. The Autumn Statement reduces the additional rate threshold, which will raise revenue from the top 2% of taxpayers. The income tax and gains tax systems are also being reformed to reduce the generosity of certain allowances, which will bring the treatment of investment income and capital gains closer in line with employment income.

This year, the Government raised the threshold at which workers start paying national insurance contributions to £12,570 and have reversed the health and social care levy. This comes on top of the energy price guarantee to support households with their energy bills over the winter, and a further £37 billion of support for the cost of living.

The noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, raised council tax. The Government expect that local authorities will exercise restraint in setting council tax, balancing the extra income for local services against the tax burden on residents for the cost of living pressures. Local authorities have the flexibility to design their own working-age local council tax support schemes to protect their most vulnerable residents. The UK does not have a single wealth tax but has several taxes on assets and wealth. As set out by the Wealth Tax Commission report in December 2000, the UK’s taxes on wealth are on a par with those of other G7 countries.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I should perhaps declare my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. The Minister said that he expects councils to exercise restraint with regard to council tax rises. However, the Government’s own forecasts, based on the provisional local government finance settlement released this week, indicate that they are expecting all councils to raise their rates by the maximum allowed. Those two realities do not seem to add up.

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

I will have to disagree with the noble Baroness. I did not say that councils were not going to increase council tax rates but that we expect them to show restraint.

The issue of public sector pay was raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Kramer, and the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe. The Government have accepted the recommendations of the independent pay review bodies for the NHS, teachers, police and the Armed Forces for 2022-23. This delivered the highest uplifts in nearly 20 years, with most awards targeted towards the lower paid. Pay awards for 2023-24 will be determined by the normal pay-setting process, and the Government will be seeking recommendations from pay review bodies where applicable. It is important that public sector employers can recruit, retain and motivate qualified people, and this is a key consideration for pay review bodies when they make their recommendations to government. Pay awards this year must also strike a careful balance between recognising the vital importance of public sector workers while delivering value for the taxpayer and being careful not to drive prices even higher in future through contributing to a wage-price spiral.

On the energy profits levy, which was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle and Lady Kramer, the Bill is part of our plan to deal with the international pressures caused by the challenges of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, inflation and the hangover from the pandemic. The changes to the energy profits levy will make sure that the oil and gas companies that have been gifted extraordinary profits pay their fair share of tax. Combined with the electricity generator levy, these taxes will raise £55 billion over the next six years from companies that could not have expected such enormous profits. The investment allowance remains at its current value to allow companies to claim around £91 of tax relief for every £100 of investment.

I recognise that the Opposition disagree with this step, but it is our firm belief that businesses must be able to invest. The weaponisation of energy by Putin has made it abundantly clear that we must ensure our energy security over the coming years. This is how we will do it. Again, I remind noble Lords that our changes mean that the headline rate of tax for companies in this sector will increase to 75%—triple what other companies will pay when the corporation tax rate increases to 25%.