Health: Diabetes

Lord Harrison Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Harrison]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to extend podiatry care for diabetes.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

My Lords, the NHS Operational Planning and Contracting Guidance 2017-2019 announced NHS England’s intention to launch a £40 million programme of investment to support the CCGs to improve the treatment and care of people with diabetes. This includes improving access to multidisciplinary foot care teams for people with diabetic foot disease.

[Lord Harrison (Lab)]

My Lords, given the fast-rising numbers of those with diabetes, which now absorbs over 10% of the national health budget—four out of five lower-limb amputations on a daily basis could be preventable—is it not time wisely to invest in podiatric care for diabetics in order to save not only money but the heartache from the loss involved in those lower-limb amputations?

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

The Government are absolutely committed to preventing more amputations, but we believe very strongly that money should go towards multidisciplinary teams. These have been seen to be a huge success in various initiatives taken by the likes of King’s College Hospital in Sheffield, where multidisciplinary teams were put together. It has been shown that, in Sheffield for instance, there was a 45% reduction in the number of amputees over three years, along with significant financial savings and a 90% patient satisfaction rating. This is the way to go.

Economy: Productivity

Lord Harrison Excerpts

Tuesday 12th April 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Harrison]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to improve the productivity of the United Kingdom economy in the light of the figures published by the Office for National Statistics on 7 April.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Lord Bridges of Headley) (Con)]

My Lords, productivity growth represents a serious challenge for all advanced economies, and the UK is no exception. The Government last year published our productivity plan, Fixing the Foundations. In last month’s Budget, we went further—for example, announcing additional reductions in corporation tax to incentivise investment, and giving the green light to infrastructure projects such as Crossrail 2 and High Speed 3.

[Lord Harrison (Lab)]

Indeed, my Lords. Given that productivity levels in the UK are lower than when the previous Labour Government were in office, and given that in the G7 only Japan stands worse than us, would it not be a good idea if, with some enthusiasm and gusto, the Government actually pursued their plan of fixing the foundations and building homes, rebalancing the economy and taking timely decisions about our transport infrastructure? Indeed, can they apply the enthusiasm with which they quarrel among themselves about Europe to addressing the real problems of the United Kingdom?

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

My Lords, I am bursting with enthusiasm and full of energy to get things done. I cannot claim that this Government will not encounter some of the problems that previous Governments down the ages have encountered when implementing their plans, but I refer the noble Lord to chart 2.B in the National Infrastructure Delivery Plan, published a fortnight ago, which shows that, of the 602 projects that the plan sets out and are in the pipeline, 61% are in construction, 50% will have been completed by 2020-21 and a further 49% will by that point be either under construction or part of an active programme. So we are full of enthusiasm, full of energy and we are getting going.

European Union Committee: Report on 2013-14 (EUC Report)

Lord Harrison Excerpts

Thursday 24th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harrison (Lab)]

My Lords, I speak as a second steed, with flaring nostrils, under the whip of the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, as our ringmaster for the six sub-committees reporting to him. Perhaps I may add to the praise given by the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, and say that the strategies that the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, deploys include having a large range of anecdotage from which he chooses appropriate anecdotes for the various six sub-committees to calm our nerves and to encourage us.

Perhaps I may pick up one point that the noble Lord has made, about the worth of the examinations made by the sub-committees of his European Union Select Committee. They are of a very high standard. We are regularly told that they are read throughout Europe and the United Kingdom, and I may say that they present a sharp contrast to the poor, low and risible level of examination of items important to the United Kingdom which is performed at the other end of this Palace. I say so because the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, has made reference to the tripartite meetings whereby British Members of the European Parliament meet MPs from the other end and your Lordships. It is quite clear there that the conversation is between your Lordships, who have a grasp of the important European items, and those who hold dossiers in the European Parliament—and there is a third and absent partner.

I offer an apology to the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, for the fact that, through an accident which was partly of my making, he was excluded from the debate which we held last night on the euro area financial crisis. I feel this all the more tellingly because he it was who in 2010 asked Sub-Committee A to report back to the Select Committee on “What did you do in the financial crisis?” I believe we have done well in reporting and having six-monthly looks at the developing problems, which have now, fortunately, subsided. I am extremely sorry that he was not able to attend last night and I put that on record.

I will try to abbreviate some of the things I have said. One of the important items was the financial transaction tax. We thoroughly examined and re-examined the threat to this country, and particularly to the City of London, which we have highlighted in terms of that tax. It could be really quite an unfortunate tax that works adversely in the European Union and to the detriment of financial services in this country. I recently met with the Prime Minister of Slovenia and the central bank governor of Slovenia, who was in Parliament this Monday, to ask them why Slovenia has withdrawn from being one of the 11 countries going forward with the financial transaction tax. That takes it down to 10; getting near to the nine where enhanced co-operation can be permitted to proceed. I will not say any more on the FTT, which has had much interest in this House.

Regarding ‘Genuine Economic and Monetary Union’ and the Implications for the UK, we heard evidence between May and November 2013 from a wide range of witnesses across the EU. We collected valuable evidence on visits to Brussels, Berlin and Frankfurt—where we visited the European Central Bank and the Bundesbank. Our report was published in 2014 and found that genuine economic and monetary union was highly contentious yet banking union was vital to tackling the effects of the financial crisis. However, what had been agreed at that time was insufficient to break the vicious cycle linking banking and sovereign debt. We also noted the strong case for some fiscal transfers and debt mutualisation, but concluded that the proposals for an integrated budgetary and economic policy faced widespread political opposition. Although the full vision remains a distant prospect, the eurozone is on the road towards greater integration already. The implications for the United Kingdom are immense. A strong and prosperous eurozone is in the interests of all EU members, as is a strong and engaged United Kingdom.

After the report was published, the co-legislators reached agreement on the next leg of banking union—the single resolution mechanism. In correspondence with the Minister, the sub-committee noted that the deal went some way towards addressing the concerns it had set out in its report, including the shorter mutualisation period for the single resolution fund and a somewhat more streamlined decision-making process. However, the sub-committee warned that the resolution process remained complex and there was a risk that funding, at €55 billion, would be inadequate to deal with the scale of bank failures witnessed in recent years. This report was debated in the House on 2 July, and I was gratified that Members of the House from beyond the sub-committee, including the noble Lords, Lord Lamont and Lord Jay of Ewelme, participated.

As I have mentioned, our summary of the euro area crisis has been developed over the years. We heard most recently from the former Prime Minister of Italy, Mario Monti, Erkki Liikanen, not only a former Commissioner himself but now governor of the Bank of Finland, Sir Jon Cunliffe, our man in Brussels who is now the deputy governor for financial stability at the Bank of England, and Gerard Lyons who is the City’s—Boris Johnson’s—economic expert. The sub-committee found that there were indeed welcome signs that the crisis had eased, but it would nevertheless be unwise to conclude that the storm has entirely passed. As I have said, we had a debate on it last night and colleagues will be interested to consult that.

There were other significant pieces of work, including on shadow banking. The sub-committee undertook detailed scrutiny of the Commission’s documents, which I will not list here. We heard further evidence from the European Commission—we previously heard from an absolutely outstanding Spanish lady who was a veritable expert on budgetary matters—and from the CBI on the proposals. We sent an extensive letter to the Government in April, asking for their views on defining shadow banking, the size of the shadow banking sector, the benefits and risks of shadow banking and the global regulatory response. It is something to which we will have to return.

Towards the end of the 2013-14 Session, the sub-committee commenced its examination of the European Commission’s proposals for banking structural reform, contained in the regulation on structural measures improving the resilience of EU credit institutions. The sub-committee heard evidence during April and May from the European Commission and senior banking sector representatives. It continues to scrutinise these important proposals in the new Session, and has exchanged correspondence with Ministers on issues such as the ban on proprietary trading, the structural separation of banks, and the impact on the UK and the derogation provision.

We have also been dealing with the 2015 draft budget and the draft amending budget for 2014. Again, a huge backlog of outstanding payments to member states has accumulated: €23 billion which the Commission is required to pay, including €1.3 billion relating to the UK. The front-loading or prioritisation of payments for certain EU programmes leading to undue pressure in later years has been another of our concerns, as has the use of an emergency pot of funds called the contingency margin to make ends meet in the mean time. Again, we will have to return to this.

Finally, we have embarked upon a new inquiry into the EU financial regulatory framework. The majority of the reforms having been introduced within the EU, it is an apposite time to step back and assess the strengths and weaknesses of the new regulatory frameworks that have been introduced since the outbreak of the financial crisis. The inquiry will seek to identify any overlaps, contradictions, inconsistencies and gaps in the regulatory landscape. It will also focus particularly on the implications of the regulatory agenda for the United Kingdom, and the extent to which its interests have been impinged upon or enhanced. The sub-committee began its evidence programme on 22 July, earlier this week, when Sharon Bowles, the outstanding former MEP and chair of the European Parliament’s ECON committee came before us and gave us a flying start to what will prove to be an interesting inquiry, with which we hope to leave a message in the bottle for a future committee to take up the work after the general election.

I want to bring to the attention of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, something that has come up not only during the discussion with Sharon Bowles on Tuesday but also today. One question we asked of Sharon Bowles was what relationships we have with the pivotal euro group—the 18 member states that are members of the euro and meet together to discuss matters that are relevant to the euro in particular. It has been the hallmark of my committee that we have asked each Economic Secretary and Financial Secretary whether they engage with the euro group and we have been told repeatedly, “No, other than that we meet them in the corridor”. The reason why I bring that up is that Sharon Bowles gave evidence to the effect that the United Kingdom was offered a place to attend in a privileged position in the euro group, which was of course at one time the backyard of the incoming Commission President, Jean-Claude Juncker. I seek to find whether that is the case.

When I attended a session this morning in the City, I was told that not only had this been done historically but it was offered to our own Chancellor of the Exchequer to be able to sit in—or for his representative to sit in—with the other 18 members of the euro group. Is that true, and is there evidence that we have had that offer and declined that offer? If it is the case that the United Kingdom, especially given its expertise in financial and regulatory matters, has spurned the opportunity to sit there next to the 18 members of the euro group as they construct and deal with the development of the regulatory framework, that would be such a huge dereliction of duty that I thought it appropriate to bring it to the attention of the House in this afternoon’s debate. We need that clarified, and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, will pursue the matter and give us an answer that satisfies our repeated call for us to stay outside the euro—as we will for some time—but, for the purposes of the financial and economic structures being built in Europe now, to remain close and interested and integrated into that process for the benefit of the United Kingdom and the broader Europe.

Census 2021

Lord Harrison Excerpts

Wednesday 16th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we are well aware of the relevance to the social science community of government data in all their forms. The administrative data, some of which are not yet available, are also of considerable importance to social scientists of all sorts. I know that consultations are well under way, including with the British Academy, and I am sure that they will be taken fully into account.

[Lord Harrison (Lab)]

My Lords, the previous census recorded the increase in the number of us who profess no religion. Will the Minister ensure that that question is re-examined as there was a lot of controversy about it last time?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there is a great deal of discussion about how many questions to put on the census on each occasion because the more questions you put on, the less likely it is that everyone will fill them in completely. That discussion is well under way, but we do not have to decide that until we are a good deal closer to the next census.

European Union Committee: 2012-13 (EUC Report)

Lord Harrison Excerpts

Tuesday 30th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harrison]

My Lords, I, too, pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Boswell of Aynho, for his excellent stewardship of the Select Committee, and for his encouragement for us to think outside the box sometimes, in ensuring that our work is mirrored in the work of the House as a whole. I say to both our Front Benches—I give an example of the Tyrie commission on banking that was recently published—that we are going to see the advent of the Liikanen proposals that will come before us from the European Union, and are not always sure that things done on the European scene in the single market are matched in the way that they should be by the work in this House. I hope that we in the Select Committee can promote that process even more urgently.

Some of the important elements of the Economic and Financial Affairs Sub-Committee of the European Union Committee that I chair include the European banking union, on which we published a major report in December 2012, led by the President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy in his four presidents’ report, backed up by the European Commission’s blueprint.

Suggestions were for a proposed three-pillared approach; that is, a single supervisory framework, a single resolution mechanism which was recently published, and a single deposit insurance mechanism. However, the last of those three was quickly dropped under German pressure and progress on the second, as I have said, has been recently published. As such, the proposals initially were set out only in relation to the first pillar, the single supervisory framework. The committee’s report reflected on those proposals as well as on the further steps towards banking union that were required. We undertook a very deep inquiry which included evidence from the President of the Council, Herman Van Rompuy; the Commissioner for Internal Market and Services, Michel Barnier; the vice-president of the European Central Bank, Vitor Constâncio; and the chairman of the European Banking Authority, Andrea Enria. I should also say that when we were in Brussels we took advice on the European Banking Union from Sir John Cunliffe. He, of course, has now been nominated as the new Deputy Governor of the Bank of England.

The committee found that a European banking union was urgently required to restore credibility to the euro area banking system and to break the vicious circle between banks and sovereigns. Although the UK has stated that it would not participate, the consequences for this country could be enormous. The committee warned of the significant risk that the UK could be marginalised as banking union participants moved towards ever-closer integration. This, in turn, threatened to fracture the single market as the authority of EU’s 27 bodies, such as the European Banking Authority, came under threat. The committee warned that the Government’s assurances about the impact on the City may prove to be misplaced. It called for the Government to ensure that London’s pre-eminence as a financial market was not imperilled and that the integrity of the single market was retained. UK isolation in such debates would be disastrous.

The committee also expressed regret that the three-pillared approach was so quickly undermined under political pressure. However, it welcomed the single supervisory mechanism proposals as a significant first step. It agreed that the ECB should take on supervisory responsibility over euro area banks but warned that the concentration of so much power in one institution meant that powerful safeguards needed to be put in place, and that there should be no conflict between the European Central Bank’s supervisory and separate monetary policy tasks. Indeed, the ECB should be accountable to the European Parliament and to national Parliaments in the exercise of its supervisory powers, and there should be equality in the decision-making process within the ECB between the euro area and the non-euro area participants and the role of the European Banking Authority in representing the 27 member states must not be undermined. It now represents the 28 member states.

The committee has not rested on its laurels since publication of the report. It has engaged in several rounds of correspondence with the Financial Secretary to the Treasury as a deal on the single supervisory mechanism emerged, which, in spite of some of our concerns about the bail-in deal, is in itself an undoubted achievement. We have given particular consideration to changes to the voting arrangements in the EBA and the so-called non-discrimination clause, which the Minister argued would be a significant achievement and safeguards against any restriction of the UK’s role as a financial centre of the single market. However, we were concerned that such safeguards were not as watertight as thought. There will be a review of voting arrangements if and when there are four or fewer non-participating member states. As recent developments with Latvia remind us, all but two member states are under a legal obligation to join the single currency.

We examined banking union in the context of the Commission’s broader proposals to strengthen fiscal, economic and political union in our new inquiry into genuine economic and monetary union and its implications for the United Kingdom. One notable recent development is the publication of the Commission’s proposal for the second pillar of banking union, the single resolution mechanism. We will continue taking evidence on these important subjects. We have meetings lined up with the Commission’s Vice-President, Olli Rehn, who recently said that that vicious circle between the banks and sovereigns was to be diluted rather than broken. We shall quiz him on that. In Frankfurt, we shall meet Dr Constâncio who we have interviewed previously on these important issues.

The committee published an important report on markets in financial instruments regulations and directives, MiFID II: Getting it Right for the City and the EU Financial Services Industry. We highlighted the threat to the City of London by trying to block off third countries coming into the single market of 28 members; the dangers of the pre-trade transparency that was originally there which threatened to undermine proper competition within these trading instruments; and the algorithmic or high-frequency trading, an issue to which we will have to return under a different title.

We also highlighted the financial transaction tax. At the end of the 2011-12 Session, we published our report, Towards a Financial Transaction Tax?. The committee’s report was highly critical of the Commission’s proposal for an FTT. We argued that it would not fulfil any of the Commission’s five stated objectives and that there was a significant risk that financial institutions would relocate to avoid the tax. The UK had made clear that it would not participate. Yet we warned that an FTT would nevertheless have a significant effect on the United Kingdom, not least because of the obligation placed on UK authorities to collect the tax under EU mutual assistance agreements or under the provisions of joint and several liability.

Follow-up work to that report has consumed much of the committee’s attention during the 2012-13 Session and at the start of the current Session. We criticised the Government and the City for what seemed to us to be an entirely complacent attitude, assuming that such a flawed proposal could never survive, but this seriously underestimated the political will behind the proposal in Brussels. While the Commission’s original proposal was ditched in late 2012, 11 member states, led by Germany and France, announced their intention to implement the FTT under the enhanced co-operation procedure, whereby a smaller number of member states may pursue a proposal, so long as the rights of non-participating member states are not infringed. When the new proposals were published, they included a new provision, the so-called “issuance principle”, whereby financial institutions located outside the European Union would also be obliged to pay the financial transaction tax if they traded securities originally issued within the EU; for example, a trade in Volkswagen shares between London and New York would be caught. This raised concerns about the potential extraterritoriality of the tax and added to the committee’s concerns about the potential deleterious effect on the United Kingdom.

In light of this, we undertook a follow-up piece of work early this year when we urged the Government to consider a legal challenge against the proposal. This finally did the trick and awoke the Treasury from its slumber. Sure enough, the United Kingdom has since launched a legal challenge. Indeed, the Minister has acknowledged,

“that the grounds on which the Government has challenged the authorising decision are all points on which your Committee has previously flagged concerns”.

It is also becoming clear that participating member states are growing increasingly nervous about the impact of the financial transaction tax. Informed observers have predicted that, given the political capital invested in the project, an FTT will survive in some form, but that it will be significantly watered down, possibly to mirror UK stamp duty. We wait to see and, of course, the committee will continue to keep a close eye on developments.

Finally, the euro area crisis: amid these complex legislative proposals the committee has also sought to remain informed on the political and economic context in which the eurozone and the European Union as a whole operates. During the 2012-13 Session we continued with our twice-yearly updates on the eurozone crisis. In January and February 2013, we held a seminar on the effects of the austerity agenda on the EU, which was attended by academics, campaigners, think tanks and a number of EU member state ambassadors.

At that time, EU leaders were suggesting that the worst of the crisis was over. In that context, we warned that the biggest enemy in the worst of the crisis was to suggest that the worst of the crisis was over. Complacency is a danger that we must guard against, especially as it can affect the United Kingdom and the integrity of the single market. Your Lordships will be pleased to hear that the committee has not let up on its examination of these issues. Even this morning I have hot-footed it straight from a meeting of Sub-Committee A, where we agreed our latest letter on the crisis, in which we set out our views that the EU tendency to muddle through the crisis may not be enough.

I conclude with this: as others have expressed, we, too, have been disappointed by our relationship with the Treasury and, in particular, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Mr Greg Clark. We have been disappointed both by the tardiness of receiving explanatory memoranda and the lack of quality that we should expect from the Government. When he was before us last week, we were so angry with these failures that I threatened from the chair the meeting’s conclusion that we would bind up all his explanatory memoranda in a leather-bound document to be presented to him when he left so he could take them away on his summer holidays and read some of the poor quality explanatory memoranda that we received from Government. Whether he is keen to have that happen, I do not know.

Finally, perhaps I may say that it is a joy to have chaired the committee. I am particularly pleased that Stuart Stoner and Rose Crabtree have been working so hard—as all the members of the sub-committees have expressed. We really are blessed with the very best of help from the young men and women who attend to us.

EU: Reform

Lord Harrison Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, this is a coalition Government, and we work as a coalition Government. There is substantial ground in the Government on a multilateral EU reform agenda. I spent three days in Brussels last week and was encouraged to find how much support there was for the sort of reform agenda we are talking about within other Governments and with a number of senior people in the EU institutions themselves.

[Lord Harrison]

My Lords, is it possible for the Minister to be more vague and imprecise about the exact nature of the reforms that the UK would wish to propose within the European Union?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we are, of course, following up the PM’s speech with some detailed work under way at present on precisely what our reform agenda should be. I will simply set out that it includes changes in the EU budget. We have already made some progress on that in the multiannual financial framework, but that needs to continue. There will be a stronger role for national Parliaments. The Lisbon treaty allows for that, and we are encouraging our own Parliament and others to work more closely together. An external trade agenda will include in some ways more European action; the Prime Minister, after all, pursued that very thing in his discussions with President Obama in Washington. There will be a deepening of the single market, such as digital single market services. Therefore there is a range of areas, including better regulation and cleaning out some of the dead aspects of the acquis.

Small Businesses

Lord Harrison Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Harrison]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what role they forecast small businesses will play in the Big Society.

[Baroness Warsi]

My Lords, small businesses are the cornerstone of our economy and have a vital role to play in growing the big society. Businesses already make a significant contribution in supporting local voluntary and community organisations by sharing assets and expertise, philanthropic donations and exchange of staff. In December of last year, we launched Every Business Commits, asking businesses to do their part in growing the economy as well as in helping to tackle social problems and building stronger communities.

[Lord Harrison]

Given the Government’s failure to define the big society and, indeed, the role of small businesses within it, especially in helping to strengthen local communities, will the Minister look again at the regional growth fund, whose administrative possibilities—the £1 million threshold that it applies and the early closure date—mean that there has been a restriction on small businesses? Also, given the Government’s failure in their tepid approach to getting the banks to help out small businesses, will she take up the idea proposed by the chairman of the London Stock Exchange to encourage blue chip companies to contribute to funding small businesses, especially those that are regional and have an innovative flair to them?

[Baroness Warsi]

My Lords, the big society is defined by many in this House as being what most of them have done for most of their lives. It is a volunteering, social action, philanthropic approach to life, but it is also about the opening up of public services to local control and devolution of power. The regional growth fund is a discretionary fund to stimulate economic growth and employment and will operate over a period of three years. In particular, it will help those areas and communities that currently depend on the public sector to make the transition to sustainable, private sector-led growth and prosperity. Small and medium-sized enterprises have a vital role to play in that.