European Union (Future Relationship) Bill

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

3rd reading & 2nd reading & Committee negatived & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con) [V]]

My Lords, the deal has been struck, and I would like to concentrate on the necessity for a digitally enabled 21st-century border.

For the last decade, the UK has had a comparative advantage in many of the elements of the fourth industrial revolution, not least AI, distributed ledger technology, fintech and cyber. As a result, on 1 January this opportunity—this advantage—now becomes absolutely imperative when it comes to our border provisions. Is my noble friend the Minister aware of the proof of concept around reducing friction in international trade, which I was fortunate enough to be involved in?

I know that we have a great opportunity to deliver at Dover. An excellent, forward-thinking chief executive runs the port there. Also, as other noble Lords have mentioned, there is a key need to get this right around the UK, and that absolutely includes Gibraltar. Will my noble friend the Minister update the House on our 2025 border plans? What will happen in 2021 at scale and at speed to get us to the place where we need to be to have a digitally enabled border right around the UK? Does he agree that, if we get this right, we can enter the 21st year of the 21st century digitally enabled right around the UK, not least at Dover, and look forward with pride from the white cliffs of technology?

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th July 2020 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, I start by congratulating my noble friend the Minister on the clear and comprehensive manner in which he has introduced this important legislation. I wish him luck in steering his first Bill through your Lordships’ House, but given his experience of and in the House and his leadership in local government, its success will not be a matter of luck.

I welcome the Bill, which is certainly a great improvement and a step forward on its predecessor. Perhaps I may gently recommend to my noble friend the Minister the recent report of the Select Committee on Democracy and Digital Technologies, on which I was fortunate to serve under the excellent leadership of my friend the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam. There may be much fertile ground for my noble friend within those pages.

Like others, I associate myself with the comments of my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham. If the Boundary Commission is to do its job in the manner in which it has been charged, it does indeed need to be insulated, so terms like “reasonably practicable” are nowhere near strong enough. Does my noble friend agree that a friendly amendment to tighten those words and put a time and date in would be an excellent improvement to the Bill? He as much as any of us knows that, in political parts, spring tends to come quite late, and often only when the leaves are truly browned off.

I want also to add my support to the protections to be granted quite correctly for Ynys Môn. Does my noble friend agree that, while no man is an island, it is certainly true that some constituencies are indeed just that?

Covid-19: Debt Collection

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Thursday 23rd July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

My Lords, noting the noble Lord’s title, I congratulate him on last night’s events at Anfield—all we need now is for Notts County to get back into the league, where they belong. He asked an important question. Local authorities should be sensitive. Obviously, with Covid, the ban on enforcement visits was imposed. As the noble Lord says, that is currently due to come to an end in August, but I follow him in urging restraint on all in the current situation.

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

With his vast experience in local government, does the Minister agree that we need urgently to review the council tax administration and enforcement regulations in the light of the current difficulties? Does he further agree that, post Covid, there is a key role for financial technology—fintech—to help with debt management and enable everyone to have a much greater sense of their finances and how best to manage them?

[Lord True]

Yes, a consistent understanding of the problems of debt using such techniques is extremely important. The regulations on council tax were promulgated, I believe, back in 1992—now a sort of Neanderthal age, when I was in No. 10. The Local Government Minister has announced that MCHLG will update its guidance to councils on collection and enforcement of council tax.

Finance Bill

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

2nd reading & Committee negatived & 3rd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 17th July 2020 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady Noakes, and I agree with all her comments. I also thank my noble friend the Minister for the clear way in which he introduced the Bills. I ask him to join me in paying tribute to all our front-line workers, many of them in the financial sector, who have done so much for so many over this crisis period. Does he agree with me that we owe them all an enduring debt of gratitude?

Basic economics will always remain the same: we can either increase income or take out costs. I believe we have some significant opportunities to do both these things without having economically illiterate taxation or cutting support to people who often need it the most. I agree with many of the comments of my noble friend Lord Blencathra, the noble Lord, Lord Empey, and particularly my noble friend Lord Lamont, who as an excellent Chancellor had his term cut well before it should have been.

I will ask my noble friend the Minister about three areas: payments, central bank digital currencies—CBDCs—and sovereign wealth funds. On payments, has he had a chance to look at the excellent paper from the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures on the need to transform cross-border payments? As in domestic settings, we pay too much and it takes too long. Does he agree that the Government, as one of the biggest payers, could save multiple billions if we had a true transformation of our payments infrastructure? For example, can he say how much the DWP pays in fees and to intermediaries in making the billions of payments it makes year on year?

Does my noble friend the Minister agree that the current consultation undertaken by the Bank of England in relation to CBDCs is an excellent piece of work and could have truly transformational benefits for the UK?

Similarly, will my noble friend comment on the work undertaken to look at the potential for a sovereign wealth fund in the UK? We have needed one for decades; I believe we need it now more than ever. Is he satisfied with the level of fintech involvement in all the current government programmes? Could the Government do more to introduce more small and medium-sized enterprises into assisting businesses and individuals who need it most? Does he agree that if we truly deploy all the elements of the fourth industrial revolution—robotics, AI, distributed ledger technology and quantum—we could truly transform the payments infrastructure, take cost out and get income in? That would benefit state and citizen alike.

Covid-19: Public Wealth Investment Fund

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton [V]]

Infrastructure is a vital part of rebuilding from this crisis. I am unsure at this stage whether it will be done through the mechanism of a sovereign wealth fund. At the moment, we have the opportunity as a national Government to borrow cheaply, which, if invested well in infrastructure, could be a simpler approach than a sovereign wealth fund.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con) [V]]

My Lords, we have a tremendous challenge but a real opportunity for an economic bounce out of Covid. It needs a whole-government, whole-economy approach. Will my noble friend salute the consultation currently being undertaken by the Bank of England around a central bank digital currency, and note the positive impact that this potentially could have for the whole of the country and the economy?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton [V]]

I certainly agree with the noble Lord that it is an extremely important consultation. As he implies, any serious crisis such as this gives the country a chance to look beyond the normal way of dealing with problems. I am very hopeful that initiatives such as he has mentioned will be much more evident over the next few months.

Boards of Public Bodies: Representation

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Holmes of Richmond]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to ensure that boards of public bodies are fully representative of, and reflect, the society they are set up to serve.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a privilege and a pleasure to have secured this debate on how public bodies can more represent and reflect the societies they were set up to serve. I thank all noble Lords who have signed up to speak. Perhaps there is a fair degree of knowledge in this House of public bodies and public appointments. Part of the reason for securing this debate is that there is, I suspect, probably less knowledge out there in the country of public bodies and what they do. I will set out the ground as it currently is, run through some of the review I did for Government last year and then set out some recommendations for my noble friend the Minister to consider. I know that they have been under consideration in the Cabinet Office since I published the report in December.

Perhaps a useful start point is to consider what a public appointment is. It is a question that I asked some 17 years ago when somebody suggested that I apply for such a role. In those intervening 17 years, I have been fortunate enough to serve on public bodies on equalities and sport, looking at such issues as access to transport, funding for our Olympic and Paralympic athletes through to 2012 and beyond, bringing major sporting events to the United Kingdom and looking at diversity in UK television. That is just me—a microcosm of what public bodies do. Pick almost any area of society and there is likely to be a public body doing important work there: horticulture, defence, health, culture, media, sport, to name just a few. They are arm’s-length bodies doing incredibly significant work, but how many people in the country know about them, know what they do and, crucially, know how they could potentially play a part and be a member of the board of one of these organisations? Yet, there are 6,000 public appointees in the United Kingdom, with well over 500 public bodies responsible for over £200 billion of public spending. That is a quite significant governance role.

Perhaps the most important point in recent history for diversity and inclusion was in 2017, when my honourable friend Chris Skidmore published the diversity action plan. This was the first time we got to see the data. What was going on with these boards? Who were the people serving on them? What was their gender, ethnicity or disability? It was a key point to really drive home the sense that diversity is not about a leg up or an unfair hand, but about enabling boards to make better decisions to benefit from that diversity, not just of protected characteristics but of creativity that comes from it.

Probably the most important statistic that came out was an ambition for 50% of public appointees to be female and 14% to come from BAME backgrounds. No other targets were set. So how have public bodies performed in the intervening years? There is a tremendously positive story on gender, which demonstrates how change is possible and how we do not have to just accept that it is too difficult and that things cannot be other than what they are. In 2017-18, 47.7% of appointments went to females and in the preceding year it was 45.5%, whereas only four years previously the figure was 40%—a significant change not just by chance but because of real commitment from departments and Ministers engaging across women’s networks and society to see what would make a difference and connect gender to potential public appointments. When we consider the stats, the target of 50% by 2022 looks pretty achievable.

The story is perhaps a little more complicated with BAME, with the number last year falling to 8.4% from 9.1% the year before, with fewer BAME candidates and applications coming through to shortlisting. If the Government were to achieve the 14% target by 2022, it seems that there are many learnings to apply from the approach taken with gender to BAME groups.

My interest in diversity and inclusion has been since I began, really, which is why, when I was asked last year by the Minister for Implementation at the Cabinet Office, Oliver Dowden, to conduct a review into opening up public appointments for disabled people, not only was I delighted but I realised that this was an opportunity not just to see how we could potentially increase the number of disabled people on public bodies but actually to make recommendations that would benefit all people. I wanted the review to be absolutely rooted in the golden thread of talent. We are talking not about giving somebody a guaranteed interview as a favour, or having a more open or accessible application process, because that will give someone an unfair advantage. It might be the difference between enabling somebody to apply in any event.

I bracketed the work into four areas, which I will go through briefly: data and transparency, attracting talent, applications and interviews, and beyond. Data is obviously essential to this, and a key point is to consider whether we should have a central application portal, so that we can take a real grip on the data. We found patchy data that was different across departments and being collected in different ways, with different uses of the monitoring form—a form that definitely needs changes for consistent and inclusive language. I thank the Business Disability Forum for all the work that it did on that.

When we went to Scotland, where they have a central application portal—admittedly on a smaller number of public appointments—we found that they knew the disability status of 96% of their applicants. Currently, we know the status of only 65%, which is a huge difference. Coming back to those targets—50% on gender and 14% BAME—currently only 3% of people on the boards of public bodies are disabled, as far as we know. So data is absolutely critical, not only to ask the questions at application but to have an annual review, because obviously people’s circumstances change.

In terms of attracting talent, role models are incredibly important. When we launched the review in December, we had three excellent examples of disabled people doing great work on very diverse public boards. We advised the Government to have a mentoring scheme, having seen the difference that can make in other areas of diversity, and also, critically, to look at people who may be near misses at each beat of the application and interview on-boarding journey, to keep them in the loop and see how they can be assisted to the next potential application.

We looked at multipliers, conduits and connectors. Which outlets should we be looking at to raise the awareness of these opportunities? We looked at a huge use of social media, connecting with people in different ways, rather than the more traditional approaches to advertising public appointments. Also, critically, we need to look at executive search and its important role, and the need for guidance along Business Disability Forum lines, to ensure that it plays such a positive role for people who may seek to be involved in these roles.

When it comes to applications, perhaps the most important point is to consider disability confidence. There is such a range of views on this. Probably; as one person said, it is not great but it is better than what we had before. Having a sense of all public bodies being disability confident—as indeed their parent departments are—makes such a difference and shows that some thought has gone into how we enable disabled people to come on board and be part of this.

Finally, on interviews, if we want different results we need to look at different approaches—and maybe not just with the panel but with shadowing and mock boards, to put real innovation into that approach. Ultimately, it is about change. If we want different results, if we want public bodies to fully represent and reflect the society that they were set up to serve, we need to look at doing things differently. The gender case shows that it is entirely possible. I look forward to boards that fully represent and reflect the society they were set up to serve. I look forward to the contributions of noble Lords this afternoon, and to the Minister’s comments.

Public Appointments: Diversity

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Holmes of Richmond]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to increase diversity in public appointments.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are committed to improving diversity in public appointments. We have made good progress. New appointments of women, candidates from BAME backgrounds and those with a declared disability have all increased since 2013-14, but there is more to do. We aim to publish around the end of June a refreshed public appointments diversity action plan alongside a response to my noble friend’s excellent review into opening up public appointments to disabled people.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for everything that is happening in the Cabinet Office. What is happening across Whitehall and in all government departments, which obviously have to play a role in this incredibly important issue?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My noble friend is quite right. Although the Cabinet Office has overall responsibility for this topic, the actual appointments are made by individual government departments. One reason that we have taken a little longer to publish the document to which I have just referred is that we are anxious to get buy-in from all government departments to hit the ambitions that we are about to set out. I know from experience that Ministers in individual departments take public appointments very seriously. They are accountable for them, there is a Commissioner for Public Appointments to make sure the code is observed, and I know that Permanent Secretaries also take seriously the process of sifting applications before they go to Ministers. I will draw my noble friend’s remarks to the attention of relevant Permanent Secretaries and Ministers.

Financial Guidance and Claims Bill [HL]

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 13th September 2017 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Holmes of Richmond]

70: After Clause 16, insert the following new Clause—
“Regulatory principles to be applied in respect of claims management services
(1) In relation to the regulation of claims management services, the FCA must act according to the principles that—(a) where appropriate, authorised persons should act honestly, fairly and professionally in accordance with the best interests of consumers who are their clients; and(b) where appropriate, authorised persons should manage conflicts of interest fairly, both between themselves and their clients, and between clients.(2) In this section, “authorised person” has the same meaning as in the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, and “authorised persons” shall be construed accordingly.”

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, I am pleased to bring forward this amendment, and in doing so I express thanks to all the organisations that have offered me advice and guidance on preparing it. Perhaps, in the light of the Bill we are discussing, I should not have used either term, advice or guidance, but just thanked them for the briefing in the spirit in which it was offered. Not least among those organisations was Macmillan Cancer Support, which demonstrates brilliantly how a charity can operate in 21st-century Britain not only by offering superb palliative care, nursing services and the like, as we would expect, but by fundamentally understanding just how important financial services are and how people are affected when they get a cancer diagnosis.

I am pleased to speak to Amendment 70 not least because we have gone over the ground of the SFGB at Second Reading—which takes me back to a previous life, when SFGB stood for the Swimming Federation of Great Britain. Bearing in mind my previous life, it seems only appropriate that I should dive straight in.

The purpose of Amendment 70 is to create a duty of care on claims management services to act for all customers, not least those who find themselves in a vulnerable situation. My desire in Committee was to bring forward an amendment that would impose a duty of care across the whole financial services sector but, sadly, that was deemed to be outside the scope of the Bill, so this amendment is far more limited and relates just to claims management services. However, I hope that, within that, noble Lords can see the potential and the need for wider application and an amendment at a future date that will address duty of care across the whole financial services sector, not least when we look at where financial services came from.

At one stage there was truly a sense of a relationship between customer and provider. In many ways we need to get back to that, not least because there is so much that financial institutions can do to assist people. Indeed, many financial institutions and claims management services may well do things to assist people, particularly when they find themselves in a vulnerable situation—not least if they have had that most awful news of a cancer diagnosis. But when we look at the evidence, only one in nine people who receive a cancer diagnosis reveals it to whichever financial institution they are dealing with. The reasons for that are pretty clear. But if that were not enough evidence, survey data illustrate that of the small number who did declare to their financial provider, 23% said that they had a wholly unsatisfactory experience. We can deduce from that that there is a really low level of declaration but, even within that small number, almost one-quarter have a negative experience after declaring.

I believe that Amendment 70 will go some way, in the specific claims management arena, to demonstrating the need for such an amendment and the benefit it can have on claims management services. There is a lot more for the Financial Conduct Authority to consider in terms of this duty and, indeed, the general duty of care. We know that the FCA is considering putting out a consultation paper on a duty of care across financial services, but we also know that it has stated that there will be no change at least until 2019. Consultation could last until 2019, then there would be a proposal, then pre-legislative scrutiny and then the process of implementation. I think we can all agree that there has been more than enough delay already in making sure that vulnerable consumers get the level of service that they should expect to receive from claims management services and the entire financial services industry.

I ask the Minister to support Amendment 70. Will he also say something about the Government’s view on placing a general duty of care on the FCA across the whole financial services sector? This would bring benefits not only to consumers but to financial institutions and the nation. Amendment 70 and a general duty would both in their own way clearly help to deliver a financial services sector and a nation that work for everybody. I beg to move.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 70 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes. As he indicated, what we really need is a wider power, but it is outside the scope of this Bill. I want to challenge that, at least for the moment. I refer to Clause 2(3), which makes it clear that:

“The single financial guidance body may do anything that is incidental or conducive to the exercise of its functions”.


This is an attempt to build on the powers that that subsection suggests.

The fact is that the prevention of debt is even more important than helping people once they fall into debt. In terms of preventing debts arising, the duty of care is particularly important to people with serious health conditions and disabilities, for whom financial problems can quickly become overwhelming, as the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, has indicated. I want to concentrate on the particular plight of sick and disabled people. For example, 400,000 people in the UK with cancer struggle to pay their household bills because of their diagnosis. Banks and building societies have a vital role to play in helping such people; it makes a huge difference if a bank or building society offers flexibility in mortgage and other payments or interest freezes on credit cards and other loans. Although the Bill highlights the importance of early help, there is a growing consensus that greater leadership is needed from the Government to make it clear that providing this support to vulnerable customers must be a priority for financial institutions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, this amendment, tabled by my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond and the noble Baronesses, Lady Meacher and Lady Greengross, seeks to include in the Bill a set of regulatory principles to be applied by the FCA in respect of claims management services. It has reopened one of the discussions which have run through the debates on the Bill about the interface between the SFGB and the FCA and the overall responsibilities of the FCA so far as the consumer is concerned.

I am grateful to my noble friend for the way he proposed his amendment, which would require that authorised persons act and manage conflicts of interests honestly, fairly and professionally. I do not think that anybody who has spoken in this debate—I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part—would disagree that these are worthy principles for the FCA to adhere to. I am sure that my noble friend is aware that the FCA already applies these principles in the way it regulates the conduct of business.

The FCA will give careful consideration to the appropriate design of the precise rules that apply to claims management services and how they fit together as an overall regime. Noble Lords may have looked up the FCA’s principles for businesses. They already include the requirements to act with integrity, to,

“pay due regard to the interests of its customers and treat them fairly”,

and to,

“manage conflicts of interests fairly”.

There is a degree of overlap between those and the principles set out in my noble friend’s proposed new clause. If one drills down and looks at the conduct of business rules, they say:

“A firm must act honestly, fairly and professionally in accordance with the best interests of its client”.


Those three adverbs are exactly the same as the ones in my noble friend’s proposed new clause.

When designing new rules for claims management companies, the FCA must take into account its statutory operational objectives, including its objective of securing an appropriate degree of protection for consumers. The FCA will consult publicly on the proposed rules for claims management companies. Here, I may get into trouble with air traffic control. I am not quite sure whether there was an implication that it was going to wait until after we had left the EU before consulting publicly on the rules for claims management companies. As far as I am concerned, there is no need to wait at all: it should get on with it—“Lights touchpaper and retires”.

I therefore hope that I have allayed concerns that there will be an unreasonable delay. The FCA will consult, and when it does, I am sure that it will take on board the points made in this debate. I noticed that the words “duty of care” do not appear in the proposed new clause, but I hope they can be embraced in some of the principles that we have been discussing.

We have every expectation that the FCA will create appropriate rules for claims management companies that will extend existing principles in FCA rules regarding integrity and the interests of customers to claims management companies. I touched on those principles a moment ago. Therefore, our debate this afternoon is not so much about the destination—on which we agree—but about the vehicle. The Government’s view is that there is an existing framework for the FCA to set out its principles—I referred to that. As there is an existing framework for conveying its objectives and its principles for businesses, the regulatory principles do not need to be enshrined in the Bill, which is what my noble friend suggested. The Government are sympathetic —they always are—but this is not a necessary way forward. For that reason, I hope that I can persuade my noble friend to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond]

I thank my noble friend for that response. It would certainly be a courageous Back-Bencher who sought to push an amendment this afternoon when his Whip is on the Front Bench. But I thank all noble Lords who participated in the debate.

I am grateful to the Minister for taking us through some of the rules set out in the handbook. Indeed, much in there is worthy of note. I wish to put on the record in Hansard that I believe that the FCA does an extraordinary job in a number of ways, not least—departing slightly from this issue—in its regulation of fintech, which leads globally in London and the UK and is always worth a mention in your Lordships’ House.

Having said that, despite what was read from the handbook, it is pretty clear that there is a need to consider a duty of care. On the specific issue of claims management services, which we are discussing this afternoon, and indeed in general terms, I am grateful to my noble friend for, as he put it, lighting the blue touch paper. I hope that it does indeed burn bright and that there is action on a consultation on these points by the FCA sooner rather than later, in 2019.

The Minister says that it is not about the destination; we are merely discussing the vehicle. It seems clear that from his point of view, the vehicle would be an aeroplane. However, we are probably not just talking about the vehicle but discussing the timetable and having a timely duty of care in respect of claims management services and generally across all financial services. It would be excellent for the FCA to have that additional remit, which would sit alongside all its other services.

I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister but I will certainly look at what we can potentially bring back on Report. However, for the time being—certainly as he was formerly a Chief Whip in the other place and, even more significantly, as he is my Whip in this place—I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 70 withdrawn.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 13th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, I feel compelled to respond to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Smith. I am a long-standing governor at the LSE, where I am now an emeritus governor. Recently, we have been rated second in the world as the most prestigious centre of higher education learning in the social sciences, and as the highest rated such place within the United Kingdom. I do not go much on league tables myself but I cannot help being proud of that statistic. The evidence speaks for itself. A very high proportion of our student community comes from overseas. Of course, it is a case not just of the atmosphere of a centre but of the quality of the education which benefits from the input of people with different insights from different parts of the world.

I fervently believe that a centre of higher education worthy of its name should be part of the international community and should recognise that Britain is inseparable from the rest of the world and cannot operate in higher learning without an international community and, indeed, international staff. They are a very important part of the LSE as well. What worries me is that it does not take very long for an impression to grow. We are hearing too much anecdotal evidence that people elsewhere in the world are beginning to wonder whether the UK is the place they want to come and pursue their studies. Indeed, one hears of academics who question whether they want to go on developing their careers in the United Kingdom because they are not certain that it is the sort of place in which they want to live and bring up their families. We have a huge challenge here and we have a great opportunity this evening to put it right.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to support Amendment 150 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and, in doing so, declare my interest as set out in the register. When, many years ago, I went from a Midlands comprehensive school to Cambridge University, in many ways I felt that I was a foreign student. That aside, there is no social, economic, political, moral or legal reason not to support this amendment.

I wish to add the following comments to those made by noble Lords, with which I wholeheartedly agree. “You want our trade, you don’t want our children”, said the Prime Minister of India, Mr Modi. If that is the impression being received in India and other nations around the world, how can we possibly expect to attract the brightest and the best to come to study in the United Kingdom? That is what we need and want. Our doors and our arms should be wide open to the brightest and the best to come to study here because there is no downside to that. International students come, pay and study. If they stay, they work and contribute. If they go home, they are the best advocates for soft power. The GREAT campaign is indeed, as its name suggests, great, but it is as nothing compared with the advocacy of international students who have had that experience in the UK. British higher education is the most gleaming jewel in our soft power crown.

There is absolutely no reason not to support Amendment 150. I urge every noble Lord to do so because it is in the interest of international students and of the United Kingdom. We would want this at the best of times, but given what is ahead of us, we should not just want this, we absolutely need it. We should absolutely pass this amendment this evening.

Child Sexual Abuse: Football Clubs

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for securing this debate and the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, for introducing it. In those thanks, I express incredible sadness at the reason why we have to have this debate. We have only one national sport in Great Britain and, for better or worse, at the moment that is football. The headlines in recent weeks have not been made by the top goal-scorer, promotion, or the relegation positions of particular clubs; it has been a far darker side of not just football or sport generally but society. Those statistics run like this: more than 1,700 calls so far have been made to the NSPCC helpline; 21 police forces are investigating, to date, 83 suspects, involving 98 clubs, at every level of football in every region of the United Kingdom. We have to ensure that every allegation is thoroughly and fully investigated. Everything must be out in the open, with no cover-ups and no smoothing away, no hush-ups this time around. Does the Minister believe that the Football Association and other football bodies have the competency to conduct an independent and thorough inquiry and fulfil their responsibilities in this respect?

That was then—what about now? I have serious concerns as to whether football is in shape, not just to investigate these horrific historic events but to deal with the potential abuse taking place today. Is the governance in place? What about values and culture? When you consider the rather pick-and-mix approach that football has taken to inclusion, equality and stadia, never mind this most fundamental issue of safety, does it have the right structures, attitude, approach and culture that we need from a modern organisation in sport today?

As other noble Lords have said, this obviously goes wider than the sport of football. Does my noble friend the Minister believe that all sports have the right governance, culture, systems and approaches in place to ensure not just that all historical events are fully and thoroughly investigated but that nobody today should have to suffer or experience the events that have come out over recent weeks—events that have shown the darker side not just of sport but of our society, which none of us can allow to continue for want of good governance and for want of the right culture?

Sport, the media, the health service—we are talking about society. The only way that we can ensure that people have a positive experience in sport—the fun, the enjoyment, the excitement, the reason why we all love sport—is if that is built on the bedrock of safety for all concerned. This has to be the first principle and the starting point. We can only reform this issue across society if every element plays its part, starting with sport. Does my noble friend believe that football is competent to investigate the historical cases and competent to go forward and ensure an exciting, fun experience for all who seek to enjoy it?