Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 (Substitution of Cut-off Date Relating to Rights of Way) (England) Regulations 2023

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2023 Lords Chamber

I can appreciate why the Government want to set a deadline: it focuses minds and should help to bring down the backlog, while at the same time hopefully providing more certainty for farmers and other landowners. So can the noble Lord, Lord Benyon, reassure this House that the exemptions to the cut-off date are fit for purpose and will cover all necessary considerations, and that, following a review, an extension for the former county boroughs could be brought in if necessary? It is critical that we do not lose public rights of way and access because of these regulations. Can the Minister guarantee that this will not be the case?

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I have tabled a parallel regret Motion but, before I get to that, I will say what a pleasure it is for those of us who have followed this through the long night—many years—to see the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, back in his place. He has been with us for many of these debates, and he and I have debated many times in the past. I know he has not been in the best of health, and I am sure I speak for the whole House when I say that we wish him back here in full health ASAP.

When I joined your Lordships’ House in 2000, one of the first Bills I was involved with was the Countryside and Rights of Way Bill, as it then was. I remember a short debate on footpaths—it was before I made my maiden speech, so I did not participate—during which the Labour Government Minister pointed out that there was a 25-year timetable during which we could finish this task. The universal reaction to this was, “Well, that’s job done, isn’t it?”. This just shows how wrong we all were then. During the intervening 20 or so years, I have had the chance to raise, and support other Members of your Lordships’ House raising, this important policy issue. So I find myself echoing the famous words attributed to a football manager: “It’s déjà vu all over again”.

We heard a magisterial speech from the noble Baroness, and I will not repeat what she said. One issue that could usefully be picked up is the work of the stakeholder working group, which was an attempt to draw together all the people who have an interest in footpaths. It was set up in 2008 and reported unanimously in 2013. On 20 January 2022, nearly two years ago, I put down a Question for my noble friend on whether the Government would set a date for the commencement of the provisions of that working group. I received the famous words that

“the Government intends to lay legislation as soon as reasonably practicable”.

That was two years ago, and it will shortly be seven or eight years since this group reported unanimously. The Government really must decide that we can use this information to try to pull together the many people who have an interest in this area.

My regret Motion is rather more specifically focused. I thank my noble friend most sincerely for his five-year extension. Of course, I am disappointed that there has been something of a U-turn in government thinking, but half a loaf is better than no bread. My Motion points out that while we have put off the potential car crash for five years, it is still unlikely, given the glacial progress we have made over the last 20-plus years, that we will solve the problem in five years from now.

Before I go any further, I need to put on record, as I have previously, that I am a member of the Ramblers and have been briefed by it, as has the noble Baroness. As a brief background to Members of your Lordships’ House who are not familiar with how bureaucratic the system is, I will give a short personal example.

My family investment company owns a trivial amount of agricultural land in Shropshire, a county that features quite high on the list in the Ramblers briefing. Our family policy is that if an adjoining field becomes available, we will make an offer for it. So it was that a couple of years ago we purchased a field with a footpath that went diagonally across it. Every year, in accordance with the regulations, after the crops had been planted we went on a quad bike with a sprayer on the back and sprayed out the two-metre wide strip, through the middle of the crops, that followed the line of the footpath. Obviously, you lose a certain amount of land from that but, equally, you are asking people to walk across a ploughed field and a sown field that is muddy, wet and so on. The corners and sides of the field have headers, two-metre strips of grass that protect the hedgerows and the wildlife in them.

It occurred to us that it might be a good idea, and better for walkers, if they could use the strips rather than the mud, so we discussed it with Shropshire Council. I have only praise for its help in the work it did with us, which was very constructive and helpful—but, my goodness, the process you have to go through. This small change affected one cottage. I spoke to the people at the cottage and together we sent in a letter from them saying that they had no objection. There was silence.

Some months went by, and we were then told by the legal department of the county council, “Sorry; it wasn’t in the right form to meet the regulations”. So back we went with another set of letters. The trouble is that this goes on and on. We started this in February this year, and we are told we are unlikely to have a determination, a final resolution, before early summer next year. That will be a year and a half just to redirect, not to remove or add to, a footpath in a way the county council thinks is beneficial for walkers.

The time and effort and diversion of precious resources to carry this out seems disproportionate. It seems to me really important that we discuss and tackle the one size fits all that we have built into the regulations. The Defra plan—here I quote from the excellent report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee—is that it will

“speed up and streamline existing bureaucratic procedures”.

That is a critical decision. It needs to be brought in, and quickly, if it is to have any measurable impact over the next five years.

At the heart of my regret Motion is concern about performance and how we instil a sense of urgency in this issue. How do interested parties monitor the progress—if any? We have this debate today and my noble friend, in winding up, will no doubt give us enthusiastic and encouraging words that we will all be pleased to hear. We will then go on our way, and the danger is that the status quo will prevail.

How might performance—actual and relative—in different local authorities be measured? How, as a result, might a certain amount of pressure be supplied to the laggards? There is a wonderful new body called Oflog—the Office for Local Government—which might have an important role to play. I shall quote a couple of lines of the Written Ministerial Statement from July, when its establishment was announced. It said:

“Oflog is a new performance body focused on local government in England. It will provide authoritative and accessible data and analysis about the performance of local government, and support its improvement … By collating, analysing, and publishing existing data about the relative performance of councils, it will help councillors and the public have the information they need to scrutinise more effectively … it will ensure council leaders can compare themselves against their peers and find examples of good practice to learn from; and it will allow central Government and their partners to identify where there might be challenges and a need to step in to give support, where appropriate”.—[Official Report, Commons, 4/7/23; cols. 35-6WS.]


It seems to me that Oflog hits all the hot buttons as far as footpaths and their preservation are concerned. If, as I fear, my noble friend the Minister is unable to say in his reply that he is already on the case and Oflog is the answer, could he give the House undertakings that he will examine the possibility of Oflog being used in this case; and that he will write to all Members of your Lordships’ House who have participated in the debate as to what progress has been made and what the results of those discussions were?

I conclude by saying, as is common ground among all of us, that the network of footpaths in England and Wales is a unique and irreplaceable resource. We surely have to use the next five years to establish an approach that will preserve it for future generations.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, for their regret Motions. My view is that the Government have got themselves in a bit of a mess with this statutory instrument, which was laid during Prorogation and has not had time to be debated in the House.

Obviously, the funding promised in the original Labour Government Act to be given to voluntary bodies has never really materialised. These reforms should have been delivered and monitored long before 2026 to inform enactment but endless delays have prevented this happening. Although most bodies welcome the extension of the proposed cut-off date, most bodies also oppose the implementation of Part II as a whole. Defra’s decision to bring into force the relevant provisions in Part II with immediate effect and without any agreed exemptions for now is not a welcome development.

The regulations that have already come into force extend the cut-off date by which time applications have to be made to local authorities to register historic rights of way for footpaths and bridleways from 1 January 2026 to 1 January 2031. This reverses the previously understood position that the cut-off date would be repealed altogether. After the new date, any unregistered historic rights of way in England will be extinguished unless they are subsequently found to be exempt from the cut-off date, but these measures are yet to be announced.

Defra has argued that it does not expect any significant impact on business, charities or local authorities, but there is already a considerable backlog of applications and many more cases are expected to come with the new extended cut-off date. Each case costs many thousands of pounds and, as we have heard, the process for this is extremely complicated. The new cut-off date will have considerable impacts. Among the 21 local authorities for which data is available, there are 4,000 applications for a definitive map modification, 80% of which are likely to be pre-1949 rights of way. Based on calculations, it has been estimated that these backlogs alone could take 20 years to work through.

The number of applications will continue to increase the closer we get to the final cut-off date. The additional costs on local authorities, voluntary bodies and landowners alike will be considerable—estimated to be as high as £40 million. How will the Government ensure that the additional financial burden for this extension is paid for? How will they ensure that the existing backlog of cases is dealt with and that there is sufficient capacity in the system to meet the projected future applications? What happens to any cases in the system that are not processed before the cut-off date? When will clarity be given on the grounds for the exemptions that Defra says will be put in place? Footpaths are a precious national resource; we must work to ensure that none is lost, never to be replaced.

--- Later in debate ---

We did not carry out a consultation because a five-year extension is the maximum permitted for most areas of England under the regulation-making powers, as I said. Implementing a five-year extension is a compromise between providing the certainty that the cut-off date will bring and recognising that more time is needed before the cut-off date takes effect. I believe this is a fair compromise. In my time as Minister responsible for this policy area at Defra I was assailed on both sides, by access campaigners and land management bodies. The feeling that I was in a pincer movement from both directions made me think that we were just possibly getting this right. I assure noble Lords that we intend to take forward that word “compromise”, which was mentioned a number of times and was an achievement of the stakeholder working group, which meets every month and is very important to us. On the polarities of the argument, you have an often-depicted angry farmer saying, “Get off my land”, and on the other side a rather extreme view that everyone should be able to go everywhere anytime they want. The rest of us—all of us in this House and most people in this country—sit in the middle. It is in all our interests that we see more access and more provision, and that we meaningfully tackle this problem.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

I sense that my noble friend has reached his peroration. Could we just go back to Oflog? I absolutely accept his good intentions and what he has told us, but we know that we will leave this Chamber, that things will move on and that this Office for Local Government will give those of us who are interested in this topic a chance to chase the laggards, because there will be information, if Oflog has this as part of its remit. Could my noble friend look at this and come back to those of us who have contributed to the debate with conclusions as to what he has found out?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I thank my noble friend. I noted his point about Oflog. I will write to him with a detailed reply and convey his sensible suggestion to my colleagues at Defra. I hope they will be able to take that forward because it is a good suggestion.

I am conscious of the time, but I know there is concern about resourcing. I have talked about local authorities but, on funding for voluntary bodies, we recognise and value the important work carried out by the voluntary sector over many years to identify and apply for historic rights of way to be legally recorded. We want to continue the good working, particularly at a local level, between organisations such as the Ramblers and the land managers and the local authority through local access fora to get these issues resolved in a timely way.

A concern was raised about exceptions. Regulations to except certain historic rights of way from extinguishment will be laid as soon as possible. Officials are currently working with stakeholders to complete these regulations as part of our wider package of rights of way reforms.

There was some interest in what exactly is going to be excepted. We have committed to introduce regulations that will except unrecorded historic rights of way from extinguishment in a number of different ways. This will include all rights of way subject to applications that have not been concluded before 1 January 2031, rights of way in urban areas, and those that appear on the list of streets or National Street Gazetteer that are shown as maintainable at the public expense. Where the recorded width of a historic right of way is less than the actual true width, regulations will ensure that the width necessary for the continued safe and convenient passage of users will be saved from extinguishment—a key concern of many campaign groups.

Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) (No. 7) Regulations 2022

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

Thursday 28th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I am not wishing to object to the statutory instruments. As the noble Lord knows, in the debate in Grand Committee we strongly supported the Government’s actions, and we will continue to support them speedily introducing sanctions against the Putin regime. However, the 37th report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee made a very valid point: that the Explanatory Memorandum, which we did not have available at the time of the debate, failed to set out the rationale particularly for the luxury goods chosen in the sanctions and the value threshold, and so on, which I think is £250. The committee made the point that,

“When legislation is passed through Parliament at speed,”


which is absolutely necessary in this case—

“it is particularly important that the policy choices it implements are very clearly explained.”

So I hope that, if the Minister is not able to speak on this today, he will write to all noble Lords who participated in the debate, setting out the rationale and that, in future, when these urgent SIs come before the Grand Committee, they will take cognisance of the opinions of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I was going to be very brief, and I can be even briefer, because the noble Lord, Lord Collins, has stolen most of my lines. I speak on behalf of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Because of the truncated nature of the process, we were discussing, debating and examining these regulations even as the noble Lord, Lord Collins, and my noble friend were debating them in the Moses Room. We were of course completely behind their policy purpose and support them entirely.

However, we had some serious questions about the way the regulations will operate, particularly on the selection of items—for example, why are we not banning the export of ambulances, which presumably have some military value?—and the selection of the value of £250 for items of luxury clothing, which means that you can export a suit worth £240 but not one worth £260. That took us to our question about enforcement, because, as the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, who knows much more about this than I will ever know, has said, sanctions are only effective if they are defined and enforced. They begin very clearly and then, gradually, they become less effective over time because evil-intentioned and clever people find ways around them.

We have written to my noble friend about these points—he will have received the letter this morning—and I very much hope that he will be able to reply in some detail and copy it to the noble Lord, Lord Collins, and all of those who spoke in the debate in the Moses Room.

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)]

My Lords, I acknowledge the strong support that we have received from your Lordships’ House in support of all of the sanctions that we are passing in this respect, particularly on Russia and related activities, covering both individuals and organisations. I also recognise the point raised by my noble friend Lord Collins and my noble friend, in thanking the committee on SIs for its strong support of the Government being able to move at speed.

I also fully recognise that the explicit and specific point on application and definition is very much key, and there are always loopholes—this is a serious issue. On the suit example, what if you had bought one in a sale and it was discounted by a certain amount? It could also fall within that. I have not yet seen the letter, which would have arrived this morning, but I will give a comprehensive response to my noble friend, the noble Lord and all noble Lords who have participated.

Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 26th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, I am as keen to get home as anybody, and I was looking forward to leaving, but I would not have missed this for the world. It has been the most gripping sitting that we have had.

I have a question for the Leader of the House. I cannot add anything to the substance of the debate, and I very much agree with what has been said about universal credit, but I am concerned about what the noble Baroness said about what counts as being in scope. What was said appeared to discount the significance of the Long Title; we were told that we could amend only in terms of what was already in the Bill. Potentially, that seems extremely restrictive; in future, we could be told that something is not provided for in the Bill so we cannot introduce an amendment on that subject. In her role as speaking on behalf of the House, and not as a Minister, can I ask the Leader of the House whether it is the case that nothing has been said that is intended to restrict, now or in future, what amendments can be laid, and whether the Long Title has an important role in determining the scope of a Bill?

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, it is very late and I have not participated in the Bill before, so I shall be extremely brief. My interest is not so much in the matter we are debating; I understand that people feel very strongly about it, on both sides, but I have no particular dog in that fight. My intervention comes because I am chairman of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee of your Lordships’ House. As is well known, we produce a report every week where we try to provide a commentary on the instruments that are coming up through the process so that your Lordships have some guide—some thoughts, some suggestions—about areas that might usefully be probed as we undertake our primary role, which is of scrutiny and the ability to hold the Government to account.

I have read my noble friend the Leader’s letter with great care and I recognise and accept the seriousness of the points she makes and has spoken about this evening; that we are a self-regulating House and how this amendment, if I may summarise what she is saying, is pushing the envelope too far. I introduce to the House the concept of Isaac Newton’s third law of motion: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. I think Newton’s third law of motion may explain some of the background to the issues that we are debating so strongly tonight.

The SLSC, along with many other Members of your Lordships’ House, is increasingly concerned about the use—some might say misuse or misapplication—of secondary legislation, which, as all Members of your Lordships’ House know, and the Government very conveniently find, has a very much lower level of scrutiny. So, in summary, while my noble friend may be pushing the envelope, I think the Government have been pushing the envelope in recent months and years a great deal. What do I mean? I shall give just two examples which I think are of particular relevance to our debate this evening.

Permanent changes to our laws, which probably should be introduced by primary legislation, are being rushed through in regulations, and sometimes being rushed through under the excuse that they are needed for the pandemic. Planning regulations have nothing to do with what we are discussing today but are something that may change our high streets, perhaps for ever. They have nothing to do with the pandemic, yet are now law because of regulations made under a pandemic regulation. The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, made a point about impact assessments. Regulations with sunset clauses have no impact assessments because they are going to last for less a year, and then—surprise, surprise—they are extended, they go over the year, but still no impact assessment is produced; or impact assessments are introduced long after the debate in your Lordships’ House, when regulations are in place, and are of no real value, therefore, in influencing the way the House decides.

Last week, we looked at the Motor Vehicles (Driving Licences) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2021: these concern critical issues about road safety and no impact assessment has yet been provided. If debate and scrutiny are stifled, as they are by not providing this information, the Government must expect Members of your Lordships’ House to try to find ways to get round the point, and that is what brings us to the issue we are facing tonight. The system for scrutiny has not provided a way for a proper extent of looking at and considering issues which mean so much to people on both sides of the argument that we have been discussing for the last couple of hours.

I will not go on but will conclude by saying that while of course I understand my noble friend the Leader’s concerns and worries, I say to her gently that I think there is a view in your Lordships’ House, and outside in academia, within the Hansard Society and elsewhere, that the Government, the Executive, have made a grab for power at the expense of Parliament, the legislature, and that these actions have led to the equal and opposite reaction that we are debating tonight.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, has made an important contribution in your Lordships’ House, albeit at this late hour. This is a terrifically important debate; it is about our role as a House that scrutinises and about the democratic deficit the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, referred to earlier. I begin by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, and indeed the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, for coming to the Cross-Bench Peers meeting last week and setting out the arguments about scope, but also about the Bill in general.

I think there has been, across the House, outside and inside the Chamber tonight, a really important discussion about our role as parliamentarians, and what our job is in these kinds of circumstances. Ultimately, despite my incredible affection, as she knows, for the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes—I am sorry we disagree on this occasion; I have enormous respect for her, and we have spent much of our lives in both of these Houses defending democratic values—I do not think the argument is about whether or not the amendment that has been tabled tonight is in scope. It is about the position and rights of this House to reach a decision on this issue. I agree with the noble Baroness that, looking at the Title of the Bill, she is right to come to the conclusion that she has, but taking the argument that the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, had put, that was advanced by the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, in her remarks tonight, it demonstrates that in some circumstances we can reach a different conclusion.

Those circumstances, as the Leader of the House has told us, ought to be extraordinarily rare. Therefore, I do not say that I came to a short, sharp decision on this issue. Indeed, my mind is still open and I have been listening carefully. I recognise it takes some courage to persist in the face of procedural questions of custom and practice, especially in a House such as this. The noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, has given decades of commitment, along with the noble Lord, Lord Freud, to these issues. They have done this with extraordinary conviction, knowledge, courtesy and passion.

I will say a word about precedent and this issue of scope. I have also occasionally found myself in disagreement with the clerks and have, on the whole, of course, accepted their decisions. There are three questions, though, that might tilt the balance for me, and which I think apply in this case.

The first is, of course, the position of the elected House. Until I stood down from the House of Commons, I had the privilege of serving there, following my election as long ago as 1979. Within my recollection, there were a number of occasions where, on all sides, we were relieved when Members of your Lordships’ House sent back an amendment that gave us the opportunity to think again. Indeed, as recently as in the last 12 months, your Lordships persisted with an amendment to the Trade Bill on the question of genocide. At the end of a protracted process of ping-pong, an accommodation of sorts was reached between both Houses. Several senior Conservative Members, including a former party leader, expressed their thanks to your Lordships that we had given them, in another place, a chance to think seriously about an issue that had not been debated at any stage of that Bill’s progress in the House of Commons.

Secondly, what would tip me in favour of the noble Baroness’s amendment today is the support that she has received from an illustrious former Minister who dealt with these matters: the noble Lord, Lord Freud. The noble Lord will remember that I harried him when he was a Minister on an issue that went to ping-pong. It was about mesothelioma, which for personal reasons I know he felt deeply about. He defended the Government’s position, as he was right to do. We went to ping-pong and ultimately an accommodation was reached, and it went further than that: the noble Lord then introduced an entire Bill on mesothelioma. It is part of his extraordinary legacy from his time as a Minister. He is a man I enormously admire. I note too that six former DWP Secretaries of State since 2010 have said that the £20 uplift investment should remain.

Thirdly, there is the little issue of manifestos. Commitments made in government manifestos are very much in scope when we come to consider legislation. The Government’s current policy regarding uprating is entirely at variance with that commitment. It is not a trivial issue; it is something on which our colleagues in the elected House have the right to deliberate. This amendment would give the opportunity to do that in the House of Commons.

What of the substantive argument about the universal credit £20 uplift? Sir William Beveridge, who was a Member of both Houses, said it was our duty to provide a safety net—a phrase that was used by the noble Baroness earlier on—against the “giant evils”. Today, there are cuts and sears in that safety net that we must repair.

Finally, at Second Reading, the noble Baroness set out her formidable objections to the removal of the £20 uplift, but also her serious concerns about the democratic deficit. The noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, talked about public confidence and thought that if we took this decision it might erode public confidence. I think it will have precisely the opposite effect, and this is not something I argue for lightly. I certainly think we need to give it a great deal more thought.

Environment Bill

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 6th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I spoke in favour of my noble friend Lord Randall’s similar amendment in Committee. I confess to being a little disappointed that the Minister has not brought forward an amendment to deal with this. While I think that adopting too many targets that cannot be realised is not necessarily a good thing, to adopt a target for light pollution would at least show that the Government accept that it should be included together with other types of pollution. As the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, has just pointed out, it is certainly true that it can be dealt with immediately—unlike the soil—by just switching off lights or reducing the number of lights.

There is strong evidence that light pollution has a detrimental effect on birds, bats and insects. I am certainly no lover of clothes moths, and would love to find a way of introducing light pollution to my cupboards to protect my clothes, which have been devastated during lockdown. However, the Government are committed to increasing biodiversity, which means a wide range of species, including insects. Studies from Germany are among the clearest, as my noble friend Lord Randall pointed out, in showing how serious a problem light pollution is for insects, frogs, bats, birds and hedgehogs, among other species.

As for homo sapiens, we have indeed evolved to rely on the cycle of night and day to govern our physiology. We all know how exposure to light at the wrong time affects our mental functions. Light pollution is not included within the existing priority areas in the Bill. My noble friend’s amendment would provide clarity on how the Government could reduce the impact of light pollution on nature and, especially, on people’s enjoyment of it.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I have not yet participated in the discussion of light pollution during the stages of this Bill. That is not due to idleness: it is because at the times the Committee or the House were discussing the light pollution issue, I was double-booked on the Charities Bill or the Dormant Assets Bill, in both of which I have a particular interest. That failure means that I should be very brief this afternoon, and indeed I will be. I add my support to the very important point made by my noble friend Lord Randall of Uxbridge and others, and will just make a comment about the all-pervasive nature of light pollution.

I have a house in Shropshire, on the Welsh border, well in the country, 500 feet up. If you go into my garden at night, the whole of the eastern horizon is suffused by the glow of the conurbation from Birmingham. If you swing your eyes round, you hit Kidderminster; south is Hereford; and even when you turn to the West—to Wales—there are frequent patches of light from small towns and villages. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will give due weight to the very important points made by people who are much more expert in this area than I am.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, to which I have added my name. The noble Lord set out the case for this amendment previously in Committee and has reiterated his arguments this afternoon. I agree with him and the other speakers—the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, the noble Lords, Lord Carrington and Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, and the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard. I declare my interest as a member of the APPG for Dark Skies and am lucky enough to live in a village with no street lighting. I appreciate, however, that street lighting is an issue that can divide communities. I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Devon, that light pollution is not as important as soil quality, but it nevertheless has a place in this Bill.

Street and security lighting, which are on throughout the night, can have a number of serious side effects. For plants, there is no real darkness in which to rest; nocturnal animals, birds and insects become confused, and this affects their well-being and, subsequently, their numbers. As has already been stated, moths, in particular, being attracted to light, struggle to maintain their normal life patterns. This is particularly damaging, as moths are essential pollinators, which is something we do not always recognise as happening at night. The lack of a plentiful supply of insects and moths has a knock-on effect on bats, for whom they are the main food source. Over recent years we have seen a steady decline in the number of bats. For us humans, exposure to excessive artificial light can lead to sleep deprivation, which affects our overall health and well-being, as was so eloquently demonstrated by the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge.

A number of amendments will be debated over the next two weeks that seek to address climate change and redress the loss of biodiversity and species. Light pollution is undoubtedly contributing to this loss, and adding this amendment to the Bill would contribute towards halting and redressing it. The evidence is slim that switching off streetlights late at night causes a spike in crime. Security lights, which cause the greatest distress when excessive, should be focused on the ground, not pointing upwards towards the night sky.

There is also the effect on children’s development. The wonder of the stars at night is lost to millions of children who live in urban areas, where streetlights are never switched off at night. I am lucky enough that I can frequently go out and optimistically think that I can look for a UFO. I never see one, but I nevertheless look up into the dark sky.

The satellite illumination profile of our country shown on TV news programmes clearly demonstrates the level of light pollution over the whole country. There are very few dark sky areas. The exceptions tend to be the national parks, such as Exmoor, which has declared itself a dark sky area.

Light pollution may seem like a very minor issue for some people, but for me, it is absolutely vital that each one of us should be able, if we choose, to go outside at night and enjoy the night sky and the creatures that should, by right, be able to thrive in the darkness. I fully support the noble Lord, Lord Randall, and hope that the Minister will, on this occasion, have some encouraging words for us.

Global Population Growth

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

Thursday 11th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]]

My Lords, like any normal person, I look at the situation in places such as Sierra Leone with horror. I remind the noble Lord of the answers that I have just given about the UK’s contribution to supporting quality girls’ education and its contribution to family planning for empowerment and sustainable population. We are among the world’s most generous donors across the board. While we are ramping up our support for action to tackle climate change and to try to reverse nature loss, this is not happening at the expense of the intensity of our support for the issues that the noble Lord has raised.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con) [V]]

My Lords, my noble friend said in his initial Answer that population was not an explicit theme of COP 26. Do the Government accept that the fundamental reason for global warming is human activity? More humans, wherever they appear, mean more human activity and more global warming. In the light of this, will he expand on his answer to the noble Lord, Lord Oates, by telling the House what proportion of our aid budget is targeted at educating women and helping them to control their fertility and by how much that is planned to be cut?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]]

My Lords, the education of women and girls is a personal priority of the Prime Minister. It is a top international priority in relation to our spending of overseas development assistance. I cannot give the noble Lord figures going forward, because these decisions are still being taken, but I can absolutely assure him that the education of women and girls will remain a top priority, alongside climate change and tackling nature destruction. We will continue under all and any circumstances to be among the world’s most generous supporters of the kind of initiatives that the noble Lord has just cited.

Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [HL]

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 24th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks (Con)]

My Lords, I was responsible for putting down the amendment which I think provoked this amendment to the Bill. As many noble Lords may remember, the background was anxiety expressed around the House about the fact that large parts of central London and outside London were being bought up by legal entities and companies, often with money laundered proceeds of crime and corruption—it is an increasing problem. Although the Government had committed to set up a register, they were taking some time about doing it and the attempt was to bring matters forward.

I am glad that my noble friend was able to give reassurance to the House that the register would be coming forward and that a Bill would be drafted, and indeed went further by promising that there would be regular reporting about progress. That, as I understand it, is the purport of proposed new subsection (3).

I am sorry that I have banged on about this issue for some time—throughout the passage of Criminal Finances Act, through Questions and through the course of this Bill—but I remain unrepentant. I was particularly reassured about this when I attended a lecture given by the distinguished author and journalist Misha Glenny on Monday. He has spent 10 years or so studying international crime and money laundering and is the author of the book McMafia, which is now the basis of a successful television series. He outlined for the audience the scale of money laundering throughout the world, principally following the collapse of communism, and how it has spread to all sorts of jurisdictions, the United Kingdom being one in principle. He showed the audience a map of central London showing the extent to which prime London property is now owned by kleptocrats: let us not beat about the bush—that is the position. He said, however, that worldwide there is a feeling that we should be fighting back against this appalling scourge of money laundering. He identified the most effective way this country could do this as being to set up a register to make sure that nobody could hide behind the cloak of anonymity and thus be able to launder the proceeds of crime through central London property. This is why this remains an important procedure.

I am very glad that the Government are committed to doing what they said they will do. I will be keeping the Government up to the mark, as I am sure other noble Lords will. My noble friend Lord Hodgson has one query about the amendment. Subject, of course, to the clarification that my noble friend Lord Naseby seeks, I join others in thanking the Minister and his Bill team for their co-operation on this issue and on all issues. My real sense in dealing with the Bill is that it is not a party political exercise at all; there is a real cross-party endeavour to make sure that this is as effective as possible.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I have put my name to various amendments on this issue, going back to the Criminal Finances Act last April, and I add my thanks to my noble friend for having listened so intently and for having tabled Amendment 3, which we are debating this afternoon. As I prepared for this discussion in Committee, I raised a couple of points with his office. As ever, he and his office were punctilious in responding, but some clarification might be helpful for those of us who are not as accustomed and learned in the law as others are.

The first issue concerns commencement. Originally, reading this through, it appeared to fall under a clause where the commencement was set by the Secretary of State and that was the trigger for the 12-month clock. I was concerned that we might have a delay in the Secretary of State triggering this clause: it was not in Clause 54. The commencement of each clause is set down, but the commencement might be delayed. The Minister’s office pointed out that Amendment 5 triggers the clock on Royal Assent. It would be helpful if he could make that clear. It would also be helpful if he could say when he expects Royal Assent to take place, although I quite understand that he cannot give a commitment. If Royal Assent is delayed, let us say through the summer, it might be nearly two years before we get the first report: if commencement were to start in August or September, it would be September 2019 before we get news of any progress whatever. So it would be helpful to the House if my noble friend, either now or by writing to those of us who have been involved in the proceedings on this Bill, will say how and when he expects the clock to start ticking.

My second point concerns an omission in the words of Amendment 3, which we are debating. When my noble friend Lord Faulks and I tabled Amendment 75 —and earlier amendments—it did not cover just a register of companies and other legal entities registered outside the UK that own or buy UK property but also covered those which,

“bid for UK government contracts”.

Those words do not appear in the amendment before us today. My noble friend’s officials have drawn my attention to, and indeed he has mentioned, the Written Ministerial Statement, tabled today, that commits the Government to dealing with a public register of beneficial owners of non-UK entities that own or buy UK property or which participate in UK government procurement. So, that is covered in the statement, but it is disappointing that we do not have it in the Bill, which is where we started and what we hoped for when we set out on this long and rather stony road.

Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [HL]

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

Wednesday 17th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I had the privilege of speaking in Committee, when I declared my interests as a vice-chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Cayman Islands, and the fact that I have family working in the Cayman Islands.

I reflected on what the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, said in Committee, particularly the examples she gave of developing countries being fleeced by the operations of the overseas territories—my words, not hers. I did a bit of research and asked the Cayman Islands for information on the type of operations conducted there. I give a case history that I think your Lordships will find interesting. Money does not stay in the Cayman Islands but flows through them to support growth in onshore jurisdictions, including in developing countries. An example of this is the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, which invested more than $400 million through Cayman-based investment vehicles in 2015 alone. The money supported critical development projects in more than 24 developing countries. That is not just a one-off example; there are many others in what I call the leading overseas territories. I will not repeat what the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, said; I am grateful to him for the research that he has done.

I point out that the Cayman Islands had a new constitution in 2009, which was approved at Lancaster House and contained measures on the rule of law and human rights that meet the most stringent international and European standards. Included in their Bill of Rights is the right to privacy and strong laws on data protection.

It has already been made clear that most countries are not adopting public registers. Certainly, for the overseas territories in the Caribbean, the rival centres are the United States, Hong Kong and Singapore. They have all looked at public registers but not one has agreed to it. So if we force the overseas territories to have public registers, the effect will be that business will move away—there will be none of the sort of business that I have just cited, which is increasingly the nature of the business done in the overseas territories. Furthermore, the information Her Majesty’s Government get on money laundering or anything else they require would certainly be weakened greatly because the activities that people are interested in would not be available. My noble friend Lord Flight mentioned the situation in the EU, which takes the view that it would disproportionately infringe on human rights. I do not need to expand on that.

I will finish on a key constitutional point—perhaps, as someone who took the Maastricht treaty through, I had to learn something about constitutional law. I re-emphasise that the overseas territories are self-governing territories, and legislating for them is constitutionally questionable. It is true that Orders in Council have been used to impose legislation on the overseas territories, but only for constitutional or human rights issues. The need to consider the overseas territories’ interests was confirmed by the House of Lords in 2008. To use an Order in Council for financial regulation when the overseas territories have already adopted international standards while the UK has not would expose the UK to legal challenge as potentially irrational and therefore could be overturned on judicial review. It would also be provocative, as my noble friend has indicated, to Scotland and the other devolved Administrations in the United Kingdom. I for one will certainly, with a clear conscience, vote totally against this amendment.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I see the beguiling simplicity of the noble Baroness’s amendment, and after the powerful speech she made in moving it and the graphic examples she gave, I find myself carried along on an emotional tide. But the House needs to be aware of some of the unintended consequences that may flow from this if we are inclined to accept it.

The amendment refers to the Companies House regulatory scheme as being the standard to which we should aspire. Companies House is a recipient of information; its interrogation is pretty limited. Noble Lords may be inclined to look in detail at the amendment and say, “Yes, but this is a higher standard because we are dealing with the section on persons with significant control”. As is shown in the register of your Lordships’ House, I am a person with significant control of a company, and I have never been asked anything at all about my entry. I hope—I intend—that it is accurate, but nobody at Companies House has ever approached me to say, “Is this correct?”; it is just accepted. There is therefore a danger that the seductive idea of a public register means that it is somehow better verified than the situation we now have. That is my first concern about the amendment.

The second relates to a point made by other noble Lords. If you raise the standards or increase exposure and transparency in one area, you merely drive business to another corner of the world. My noble friend Lord Naseby referred to Singapore and Hong Kong but there are other places a great deal less attractive to which business might be driven. As I understand it, each of the overseas territories has already established a proper register of beneficial owners of companies which can be interrogated at all times by our law enforcement agencies. My noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley referred to the fact that the efficacy of that regime is to be tested in a review which will be put before Parliament in the next couple of years. Really, the question at issue is whether there should be public access to that register. Those are the words that make the difference, but in my view in the present situation that will have little practical effect. At present, our law enforcers can interrogate the register. If the public are also able to access it, the result might be that it will drive people to areas of the world where we cannot have even a vestigial chance of enforcing the proper levels of law.

Like my noble friend Lord Flight, I absolutely understand the purpose behind the noble Baroness’s amendment, but in my view the best should not be the enemy of the good.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, I am not wholly persuaded by the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, although I am entirely persuaded by her argument that we have to address the grotesque abuses which, for example, came to light in the Panama papers and which involve, among other things, use of the secrecy of jurisdictions and the weakness of law enforcement.

We have to remind ourselves that the primary purpose of the work begun under the UK coalition Government in this area was that law enforcement and tax authorities should be able to gain access to reliable registers in real time. That objective is increasingly being satisfied in relation to the Crown dependencies, which are not the subject of this amendment, and in a number of the overseas territories. That is the primary objective. A strong case can be made for having public, open registers but it has to be recognised that that policy is not accepted in a great many substantial jurisdictions and that business will flow to some of those jurisdictions, including perfectly legitimate business that has nothing to do with the nefarious objectives described by the noble Baroness.

The only way to make a reality of open registers is through some form of international agreement, which would of course also change the constitutional position in relation to the overseas territories because the UK has responsibility for their external relations. However, from a practical point of view, the campaign for greater transparency seems to need to concentrate on securing some kind of international agreement which will drag all but the few most disreputable jurisdictions into agreement.

As it stands, the amendment risks undermining a process which seeks rather more to respect the constitutional development of our overseas territories. Unlike France and indeed even the Netherlands, the United Kingdom does not treat overseas territories as part of the home country—it does not treat them like local authorities in our country. Occasionally, overseas territories have asked to be treated in that way and have been vigorously denied that alternative. We seek to carry out constitutional and democratic development in overseas territories and to encourage a high degree of legislative autonomy that retains certain responsibilities, particularly for compliance with international agreements. I think that I prefer that model. If we can better achieve the objectives which the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, has rightly set out without reverting to a more colonial model of dealing with overseas territories, that will be a preferable route.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Faulks (Con)]

My Lords, in May 2016 at the international anti-corruption summit, the Government committed to create a new register showing the beneficial owners of overseas companies that own, or want to buy, property in the United Kingdom. This was to encourage transparency and was intended to play a significant role in combating corruption and money laundering. Many noble Lords feel a sense of dismay, as I do, that large parts of central London and other parts of the country are dark at night, with property wholly unoccupied or occupied for brief periods only. Who owns these properties? We simply do not know, there being no obligation to identify beneficial ownership of foreign companies which own property yet no restriction on foreign ownership.

We may not know, but we have strong suspicions. Transparency International says that £4 billion-worth of property in London is bought with suspicious wealth. Edward Lucas, a Times journalist with considerable knowledge of this subject, has written that,

“colossal sums of money, stolen from the Russian people”,

have flowed,

into the City of London and into the luxury end of the property market”.

All this at a time when young people struggle to get on to the property ladder and to live anywhere remotely near their place of work.

During the passage of the Criminal Finances Bill, I put down an amendment in similar terms to the one now before your Lordships’ House. That was in April 2017, and I could not follow through because of the wash-up. I was, however, given reassurance by my noble friend Lady Williams that the matter was in hand and would be taken forward,

“as soon as parliamentary time allows”.—[Official Report, 25/4/17; col. 1334.]

In July 2017, I asked an Oral Question about progress with the register. I was reassured this time by my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham—few are more reassuring than he is—that:

“Good progress is being made”,


and that the Government were,

“determined to honour the commitment to introduce such a register”.—[Official Report, 10/7/17; col. 1081.]

Then I put down an amendment to this Bill, as it was plainly in scope. When my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts moved the amendment in my absence, he also was reassured, this time by my noble friend Lord Bates, who did not commit the Government to any timetable but did say that the Government would publish the response to calls for evidence,

“early in the New Year”. —[Official Report, 6/12/17; col. 1085.]

The responses have been in since March 2017.

I thank my noble friend Lord Hodgson for his support in this matter and the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, and the noble Lord, Lord Collins, who have also put their names to this amendment. I also thank my noble friend Lord Freeman for his support and the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, who is sadly not in his place, but who left the House spellbound with his description of a kleptocracy tour around central London. I also pay tribute to the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, who has shown characteristic willingness to meet us, and to the Bill team and others across government who have endeavoured to explain how complex this all is.

However, the time has come not for reassuring words but for action. Something more substantial is needed. It is a supreme irony that this country’s adherence to the rule of law encourages criminals and fraudsters to invest here, when in their own countries there may be little or no respect for the rule of law. Are we to stand idly by and to act in effect like a handler of stolen goods? My amendment would allow the Government 12 months from the passing of the Act to set up the register. Given that the Bill has not yet even started in the Commons, there is some time to go before the clock starts ticking. I believe this House is very concerned about this issue. I beg to move.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

My Lords, my name is on this amendment, and I rise with a sense of what I can only describe as weary resignation to speak in support of it once again. My feelings can probably best be summarised by that oft-quoted remark from a famous football manager—I forget which one—that, “I have a sense of déjà vu all over again”. We have been round this topic many times, both on this Bill and, as my noble friend said, during the proceedings of the Criminal Finances Bill in the spring of last year. My noble friend Lord Faulks has laid out the case with his well-known surgical precision, so I am forced to remember that other famous saying, this time about your Lordships’ House: “Everything that can be said on this topic has been said, but not everybody has yet said it”. Brevity is the order of the day, so I will just set out five quick facts.

First, given this country’s long-standing respect for property rights, stretching back now over 300 years, the UK is a particularly attractive place in which to invest in property assets. Secondly, this country has an extensive and well-resourced financial services sector, in which large transactions can be, if not hidden, at least made to not appear unduly large. Thirdly, a substantial number of investors from all corners of the globe have invested in property in both London and our other leading cities. Fourthly, a number of overseas investors have chosen to make their investments in UK property through a company, so enabling them to conceal their identity. Fifthly, recognising the potentially malign confluence of the above in 2016—two years ago, as my noble friend has mentioned—the Government committed to the creation of a register enabling the identification of the beneficial owners of those overseas companies that had investments in UK property. Those are five facts on which I believe there is general agreement, but still nothing has happened. In another phrase, there has been lots of jaw-jaw but so far no war-war. There have been extensive consultations and discussions of technical difficulties but no clearly timetabled way forward.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

Tuesday 10th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, one of the glories of these four days of debate on the Queen’s Speech is the wide-ranging nature of contributions from all sides of the House. I want to pick up one point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, and supported by the noble Baronesses, Lady Drake and Lady Hollis, and the noble Lords, Lord Monks and Lord Morris: the question of zero-hours contracts. This is not a defence of zero-hours contracts. I think there are things that need to be done to make them better, but many noble Lords would be astonished by how popular they are. I was for a number of years until a couple of months ago a director of a major brewery and pub company—we had 2,500 pubs—and the demand for zero-hours contracts from students and men and women who wanted to be able to work evenings and weekends when they wanted to was very considerable. It would be a shame if we shut off that opportunity for people to better themselves economically by overregulating the sector. That would be a grave error and I hope that the Government will not allow the regulatory burden to become too great.

For my part, I want to congratulate the Government on the progress they have made. Unsurprisingly, the record has a blemish or two, but overwhelmingly the story has been one of steady progress in the face of a range of extremely intractable problems inherited in May 2010. My noble friend Lord Stoneham of Droxford made an excellent series of comments about that in his remarks earlier. Now in this final year we are going to continue that programme with hard graft. I would like to pick out two Bills that we are going to be looking at: the protection of charities Bill and the social action, responsibility and heroism Bill—the SARAH Bill. I have to say that I think the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, was less than generous in saying that the Government were not interested in the charities sector.

Noble Lords will know that I have done quite a lot of work for the Government on the charities and voluntary sector, and I have prepared a couple of reports. I share the view that charitable or voluntary effort is a very important part of the glue that underpins the cohesion of our society. The first of those reports, Unshackling Good Neighbours, revealed that many people are put off volunteering, whether as a trustee or as a worker, by the perceived potential threat of legal action. This has been the result of some very well publicised legal judgments that appear entirely counterintuitive and some well publicised cases that in the event turn out to be myths. Whatever the reason, I am delighted that the Government have decided to put in statute that people have a responsibility for their own safety and that, so long as people seeking to help them behave responsibly, they will not be held liable by the courts if something goes wrong. I fear that this will not please the lawyers, who will argue that the case law and the precedents already established are entirely adequate. Further, lawyers find it extraordinarily difficult to accept that judges ever give counterintuitive judgments. But public perception on this issue is different, and in this case public perception is the critical factor. I hope that the Government will stick to their guns.

The second report I undertook was a review of the Charities Act. The charities sector does tremendous work but it has come in for a lot of criticism in recent years—the Cup Trust, executive salaries, aid going to fund extremism and so forth—so it is more important than ever that public trust and confidence in this sector are maintained. This requires vigorous action by the Charity Commission and, of course, appropriate action by the trustees of individual charities. My research found that the Charity Commission is underpowered in that regard, so I hope that the Bill will plug the gaps. I think that it is due here in the autumn. Once it is in place, I very much hope that the Charity Commission will not hesitate to use it in a proactive as well as a reactive way.

For the remaining few minutes of my remarks, I want to refer to an issue that I have raised several times in the past: that is, the future demographic shape of this country. Today, we are debating business, employment, pensions, welfare, agriculture and the environment. The policies in every one of these departments will be radically affected by the future absolute levels of population in this country. As is always the case, I need to start by making two things clear. This is not a debate about immigration or about the racial make-up of our country; I am not interested in those. My interest is in how future levels of population will affect every member of our settled population. Indeed, some strongly argue that it is the more recently arrived who will be the most affected. I continue to raise this because, of all the challenges that Governments face, demography has the longest lead times. A nudge on the demographic tiller has no immediate impact at all. Its effects are felt in 10, 20 or even 50 years. That is why it is so important that all Governments look to the future and decide what, if any, steps are necessary today.

The basic facts are these. The population of the United Kingdom increases every day by 1,150 people. That means that we are putting onto the map of Britain a large village or a small town every week for 52 weeks a year. Currently, 60% of those people are what is called the natural increase—the excess of births over deaths—and 40% from immigration. Should we mind that increase? Well, it is certainly going to have an extraordinarily dramatic impact on our country. We have heard a lot of speeches from noble Lords talking about housing. Currently, 2.4 people live in every dwelling. I think it will be accepted around the House that it is our duty as a civilised society to house our fellow citizens properly. If we assume that the ratio persists—it has been falling gradually over the years—we need 480 houses every day. We need some immediately to deal with adult immigrants and some over a slightly longer period to look after children as they mature. Noble Lords can do the mathematics: 480 houses every day means 20 houses every hour, a house every three minutes, night and day. That is going to make an impact.

In fairness to other Members of your Lordships’ House waiting to speak, today is not the occasion to address the other complex aspects of the subject, such as the relative population densities—England has now overtaken the Netherlands as the most densely populated country in Europe—or the relative economic advantage of immigration. It seems likely that the richer you are, the more immigration benefits you; the poorer you are, the more immigration is to your disadvantage. It is, however, worth asking one final question: where might this all end? The Government Actuary’s Department and the Office for National Statistics suggest that by mid-century—40 years from now—our population will be just below 80 million, that is, about a third higher than it is today. The bulk of that increase is likely to come in London and the south-east. Using the yardstick of housebuilding that I used before, we shall need to provide another 3.6 million homes.

To conclude, I think that this is a fantastic country to live in. That is why people want to come to live here. They have the chance to learn English—the world’s lingua franca, especially in the world of technology. Of course, they come to take advantage of the economic opportunities that exist here. However, I think that they also come because of what the Greeks would call our demos: that extraordinary mixture of the rule of law, the absence of corruption, the ability to speak your mind, the ability to follow your faith, the extraordinary breadth and depth of our country’s environment and cultural heritage and, last but not least, the prevailing atmosphere of tolerance and good humour. At heart, what has given this country its social cohesion is a sense of fairness. The Government and all parties need to reflect on whether the demographic challenges, which are coming as surely as night follows day, will put at risk that sense of fairness, and so partially undermine what has made our country such a distinctive and attractive place to live.

United Kingdom: Future Demographic Trends

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2013 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact on the United Kingdom of future demographic trends.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on taking two debates on the trot and, through her, I thank her officials very much for having taken the trouble to ring me to ask what issues I wanted to raise with her today.

Initiating a debate on population is to enter a minefield which all too easily deteriorates into an unattractive combination of finger-wagging preaching on the one hand and the denial of any challenges on the other. However, opinion research indicates that demographic trends are of great concern to the citizens of this country and, indeed, to the citizens of the world.

Perhaps I should begin by saying what this debate is not about. It is not a debate about immigration under another name; it is not a debate about relative population sizes and whether there are more white people or black people; it is not about the relative sizes of faiths and whether there are more Christians, Jews or Muslims; it is not about the relative sizes of social classes and whether there are more rich people or poor people; and, finally, it is not about preaching or personal example, because I need to put on record straight away that I have four children. It is about the staggering absolute increase in the world and UK population hour by hour and what that may mean for us, for our children and for our grandchildren. It is the elephant in the room of all our efforts, first, to relieve abject poverty; secondly, to offer people a decent standard of living; thirdly, to provide everybody with a reasonable chance of self-realisation and fulfilling their talents, dreams and aspirations; and, lastly, but not least, to avoid a possible final degradation of our world.

Today, in the more reflective atmosphere of your Lordships’ House, I hope we can discuss the extent of those demographic challenges and what if anything can be done about them. It has proved to be an issue that has been hard to raise in the past, in part because it is an extremely sensitive and personal matter, in part because past political efforts have exploded in the face of individuals—Keith Joseph’s political career was effectively ended by a single speech in Birmingham—and in part because of certain false alarms, such as that of Thomas Malthus and, more recently, Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 book, The Population Bomb.

What is the position now? The annual growth in the world’s population is about 1.1% per annum. That may seem a pretty small percentage, but in absolute terms it means that the world population is increasing by more than 70 million a year. That is more than 200,000 every day of the year. In the hour and a half that this debate is supposed to last, the world’s population will have increased by 13,000 people. “But”, I hear people ask, “is this rate not projected to slow down?”. Yes, it is a bit. Median projections suggest that by 2050 the world’s population will be increasing by only 40 million per annum, or 7,000 more people during a debate of this length.

Whatever the increase, whether it is 70 million or 40 million, I invite the House to consider what that will mean for the need for housing, health, education, employment and resource use. Either way, the world’s population is projected to increase from 7 billion today to 9.2 billion in 2050. Thomas Malthus was worried about food shortage. He overlooked an equally important precious resource: water. The UN’s best estimates are that the planet can provide water for a maximum of 9.5 billion people so, by 2050, we shall be at that limit. That figure is based on the assumption that the people are where the water is—probably a false assumption. We need to remember that all projections about population have an error range; 9.2 billion is the median. The top of the range is 11 billion. What about water then?

After that litany of despair, what can be done? First, we must avoid seeing it as someone else’s problem. Desperate people do desperate things. We may think that times are tough here in the United Kingdom at present, but for a starving man with a starving family in an unstable country, this is El Dorado, and desperate people will find ways to get here. Efforts to provide a degree of stability and prosperity—a prosperity modest by our standards—are critical. I hope that the Government’s overseas aid budget will continue to target those failed or failing states. The single most important step to help slow the population explosion is to ensure that every woman has control over her own fertility. For a whole host of personal reasons, most women seek to limit the number of children they have. It would be helpful if, when my noble friend replies, she can reaffirm the UK’s commitment to provide contraceptive advice and guidance and tell the House what progress has been made and what the targets are for the next few years.

That brings me to a difficult issue, about which I have given my noble friend’s office advance warning. After this debate appeared on the Order Paper, I was made aware of a group of Catholics calling themselves Catholics for Choice—I am not a Catholic, by the way—who wanted to raise the position of the Vatican at the United Nations. In short, they ask, “Is it a religion or is it a state?” They point out that no other religion has a comparable position in world affairs, and if it is a state, the briefing they have sent me points out that it is an unusual one. It has only 594 residents, all of whom are citizens of other countries. Of those 594, only 100 are women and it is estimated that there are no more than 10 children in residence at any given time.

The briefing that the group sent me went on to outline how the Vatican switches between these roles. Thus, at last week’s Women’s Conference at the UN in New York, the Catholic Church claimed observer status because it was a religion but reserved the right to participate in UN discussions because it was a state under the title of the Holy See. Given the Catholic Church’s deep-seated hostility to giving women control over their fertility, this issue is not going to go away, and I look forward to hearing the Government’s views on it.

In the rest of my remarks, I want to turn to the no less challenging position of the United Kingdom. The population of the UK is now over 63 million people. The 2011 census revealed that in the 10-year period 2001-11, the population of England and Wales increased by 3.7 million people, an increase of 7.1%, which is the fastest rate of growth since the first census in 1801. The ONS mid-range projections suggest that the UK’s population will continue to increase and will reach 70 million by 2027—another 7 million people. What do 7 million people look like? The city of Manchester has 500,000 people in it, so think of 14 Manchesters. If you want to take the larger Manchester conurbation, including Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan, which together have a population of more than 2 million, then think of three of these. Maybe we are going to have to build three Greater Manchesters by 2027.

There is a further complication. It is not just that England is already the sixth most densely populated country in the world—after Bangladesh, Taiwan, South Korea, Lebanon and Rwanda—but that the population is not spread evenly across the country. The bulk of the population increase will surely take place in the south-east, where we will probably have to build two out of those three Greater Manchesters

What is to be done? “Stop immigration” is a popular cry. That would make some difference but perhaps not as much as one might think. The Migration Observatory at Oxford University has pointed out that with 100,000 migrants per annum—the Government’s target—the population would reach 70 million in 2035, but with zero migration it would be 66 million—a difference of 4 million. On the other hand, those who say, “Unless we have more young people we cannot afford to look after our existing old people”, have forgotten the implications of compound interest. We would be engaging in, to quote Sir David Attenborough, a gigantic population Ponzi scheme. We have to recognise that at some point we have to achieve a stable, balanced population of this country. There will be considerable strains during the transition phase, but at some point someone somewhere must be brave enough to state this fact and to withstand the misinterpretation, misconstruction, misreporting and misquotation that will surely follow. To inform the general public in a balanced, unsensational way, we need an authoritative body to undertake the necessary research and writing. Population affects every government department—think of the impact of building three Greater Manchesters on every aspect of government—yet population is the responsibility of none. A useful first step in analysing this exceptionally complex problem could be to create a new Minister, or add to the duties of an existing interdepartmental one, to take responsibility for this issue.

To conclude, whatever one’s views of this issue, surely we must all agree with Sir John Sulston, who is leading a study of global population for the Royal Society, when he said that the target should not be to cram as many people as possible on to the planet. He went on to say:

“We have to look at what will allow humankind to flourish. We want to aim for a high quality of life and not just to scrape along”.

Future generations deserve no less.