Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill

Debate between Lord Holmes of Richmond and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

Committee stage
Wednesday 31st January 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a real pleasure to follow the noble Baroness and agree with every word that she said. I particularly applaud the specificity around software and hardware becoming obsolete by software not being maintained by the manufacturers who, in effect, make obsolete well before its time the hardware that sits alongside that.

I rise to speak to my Amendment 201. In many ways, the only build I would put on what the noble Baroness has said is around expanding to broader sectors the whole concept of right to repair. Perhaps before my time, or perhaps not, there used to be a symbol, a mark of quality, on many products: “Made in Britain; built to last”. That can go well beyond these shores, but it is not a bad line to consider when we think about right to repair.

All that my Amendment 201 seeks is for products to have their proper, natural and appropriate life cycle. We are in the middle of an environmental emergency, with difficult macroeconomic headwinds and a cost of living crisis. Right to repair speaks to all these issues. In no sense is it the silver bullet, but it is an important part of what we can practically and effectively and should do. It is not increased, burdensome regulation; it is taking a very British approach to a particular problem and with very little difficulty solving it within this Bill.

Amendment 201 proposes changing the Consumer Rights Act 2015 by inserting a right to repair so that, before a purchase is made, information must be provided on the repairability of a good, including whether it has been produced with repairability in mind, whether there are spare parts and how to access them, and the likely cost involved. Similarly, in situations where repairs can be performed safely by the purchaser, the information required includes whether information exists on how to do so, and, if so, how the purchaser can get their hands on it. It is straightforward and it makes economic, environmental and social sense.

To echo what the noble Baroness said, it is—this is positive—a particularly British way of going about things. We can cut those piles of unnecessary electric waste, change how technology operates and have a positive impact across so many sectors of our economy, positively benefiting our society. I look forward to the Minister’s response; this would be a good amendment to accept.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Holmes; I agree with the intent if not exactly the detail of his amendment—I will come back to that. It is also a great pleasure to take part in the debate on this group of amendments, so ably introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and following the powerful arguments presented by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. As at Second Reading, much of what she said about right to repair is exactly what I would have said, so I will not say it again; I will just cross-reference her speech, as I did at Second Reading on the same subject.

I have attached my name to Amendment 109 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, as well as her Amendment 134 on greenwashing. Had there been space, I would also have attached my name to the amendments on right to repair. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and I have been having a little race in various groups.

I start with Amendment 109. It is worth reflecting for a moment on the fact that, as a country, we have legally binding climate and emissions targets. The Committee on Climate Change has been awaiting a new chair for 18 months—reports suggest that at least two Members of your Lordships’ House are in line for that and waiting to find out their fate—and its chief executive has just stood down. Despite all that, it put out a statement yesterday—handily, given the timing of today’s Committee—stressing strongly that, following COP 28,

“the obligation on every country is now to push even harder”

on climate action. It said that the UK needs

“even greater domestic climate ambition to reinforce the UK’s international standing”—

something that the Government are often concerned about. Crucially, it noted

“a significant delivery gap to the UK’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) of reducing emissions by 68% by 2030”.

The independent Committee on Climate Change is saying that we are not doing enough, what we have now is not sufficient and we are not meeting the international obligations that we have signed up to. It is in that context that we need to look at Amendment 109, which could be hugely powerful. We are talking about commercial practices failing to protect consumers in the promotion and supply of goods and services by digital means. This relates to the detailed discussion we had on the previous group of amendments about flights and package holidays and the ways in which they are promoted and people are given information about their environmental impacts.

Since our conference in Brighton last autumn, the Green Party has been calling for a ban on high-carbon advertising. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, may not entirely thank me for this, but I suggest that this amendment, in essence, implies a ban on high-carbon advertising. For the avoidance of doubt, this is a suggestion not that we should stop anyone flying or taking any action that they need to, but about whether we should allow expensive, continual bombardment—on the internet, from digital screens everywhere we go, on public transport and from every quarter—to purchase things that we might not otherwise have purchased.

Financial Services and Markets Bill

Debate between Lord Holmes of Richmond and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

Committee stage
Monday 30th January 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in the second day of Committee on this Bill. In doing so, I declare my financial services interests as set out in the register. In speaking to my Amendment 219, I give more than a nod to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, which he set out so eloquently; had I had a pen, I almost certainly would have signed it and put my name against it.

In simple terms, this is very straightforward: SMEs are the backbone of the British economy. They are the largest private employers and the big companies of tomorrow yet, in this area, we are leaving them high and dry and at the will of many of the schemes that were set out so well by the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, has all those unfortunate instances tattooed and ready to come out at any moment—rightly so because they all demonstrate that, when things go wrong, they go badly wrong. All too often, it is individuals and, in this instance, SMEs that are on the wrong end of it without a right of action against the FCA. My amendment would provide that right of action for breaches of the FCA handbook; I believe that it is similar to the amendment set out by the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey.

The Government talk, rightly, about the need to grow the UK economy. That growth will come largely from SMEs. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that they deserve our support? By simply accepting either of these amendments or, indeed, tabling a government amendment on Report, they would enable commercial loans over £25,000 to be brought within the perimeter and give SMEs not only the protection but the support that they should have from the regulator—and through that, from the Government—to enable that growth, which we all need for the UK economy and society. I ask my noble friend whether she will look to engage and potentially bring a government amendment to this effect on Report.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this debate on the second day of Committee. I have to say that it has been an extraordinarily powerful debate thus far and an absolute indictment of the UK financial sector. I begin by apologising for not taking part in the first day of Committee, despite having signed a number of amendments. I am afraid I was taking part in the debate on the so-called Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill, and it is impossible to spread oneself across too many places.

The case for these amendments, in particular Amendment 40 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, to which I am pleased to attach my name, has already been powerfully made, by the noble Lord himself and by the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles of Berkhamsted, in the debate on the previous group of amendments. I will make a couple of additional points. In particular, I draw on a survey by the Federation of Small Businesses, published in December, which found that 30% of small and medium-sized enterprises thought that they had signed financial contracts that contained unfair clauses and provisions.

The survey also found that successful applications for loans and other financing for SMEs had fallen precipitously. Less than half were successful in the third quarter of 2022; before Covid, two-thirds had been successful. One of the things we are always hearing from the Government is, “Rely on the market! People can shop around and choose”. We have already heard the reality of the inequality of arms—as the lawyers would put it—between a small business and a giant financial-sector company. But there is also no opportunity: small and medium-sized enterprises have to take money from wherever they can get it, if they are lucky enough to get it at all.

What we have here is a practical reality, as the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, just set out. The financial sector is not meeting the needs of the real economy, and that issue underlies all our debates on the Bill. Is the financial sector there as a high-stakes casino in which a few people can make a lot of money and the rest of us have to pick up the pieces when it all goes wrong, or is it there to meet the needs of the real economy and give us a genuinely sustainable—in all senses of the word—society?

Although we have perhaps not needed him, it is a pity that the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, is not currently in his place, as he could also have contributed very powerfully to this debate. What we have is a litany of disaster. The FCA has a terrible track record. Your Lordships’ Committee is trying to do something to fix that, and, boy, does it need fixing.

UK Infrastructure Bank Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Holmes of Richmond and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

Report stage
Monday 4th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise to speak in particular to my Amendment 9, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for his support. I very much agree that climate change means that we cannot be building new roads, although big issues of air pollution are of course also addressed in this group.

I have to begin, since I do not get the chance to do it very often, by commending the Government on their amendment on energy efficiency. It demonstrates the sentiment of our debate in Committee—and indeed throughout the House and the country—and shows that campaigning really does work. Let us see lots more of it.

Essentially, I agree with everything the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, have said, so I will not repeat those points. However, we are increasingly hearing from the Government about the importance of biodiversity and the state of nature. Indeed, I had the pleasure recently of attending an event at the Groundswell Regenerative Agriculture Show & Conference, at which the Government and Members of this House and the other place expressed their concerns and spoke of the importance they place on restoring nature. Surely, the Infrastructure Bank should be explicitly directed to do that.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said, we are talking about sending a message to the bank and to the country about the importance of biodiversity in nature, and we can also look to the international stage. We see reports expressing grave concern about the state of the COP 15 biodiversity talks, and the entire nature community is screaming out for leadership in those talks. Clearly, as the chair of COP 26, it should be our responsibility to lead the way. As the noble Baroness said, if the Government are saying, “We already mean this anyway”, what is the harm in including such a provision in the Bill and sending that message out to the international community as well as to the country?

On the circular economy amendment, in Committee I tabled an amendment calling for a reduction in resource use. In the interests of efficiency and time—and given that I was not getting many positive signals from the Government—I did not table it this time, but I think the Government will come back to this issue so that we can make at least some progress on it. Explicit support for a circular economy, which is a necessary but not a sufficient condition, given that we continue to treat the planet as a mine and a dumping ground, is essential in order to see some progress. We will certainly see the other place pushing on the question of resource use.

My Amendment 9 is a modest amendment, and it is perhaps worth making clear what I mean by it. I am very happy if the Government want to look at using different terminology, but I point out that what I mean by “roads” is major stretches of roadway. I do not mean tracks up to new onshore windfarms, government enthusiasm for which we are finally seeing signs of in the media, which is greatly encouraging. If the Government wish to find another form of wording, I point out that, clearly, what I am referring to is major road infrastructure. As the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, the climate emergency does not allow that. This issue crosses over with the clean air amendments in this group, and the issues of disadvantage that we are going to discuss in the next one. Broadly speaking, air quality is worst in the poorest, most disadvantaged areas of the country. New roads are the last thing those areas need, as they would make the air quality even worse.

To say that the Infrastructure Bank is not for roads but for mass transport should be considered uncontroversial. It is not my intention to put the amendment to a vote, but this is a debate that will continue in the other place. I commend all these amendments to your Lordships’ House.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 7 and 10 in my name, but before I do I join others in congratulating my noble friend the Minister on tabling the government amendment on energy efficiency. It speaks to an amendment that I and others tabled in Committee, and it is certainly welcome that it will now, rightly, be included in the Bill.

Amendment 7 would insert just three words: “nature-based solutions”. There is a lot in the Bill about climate and carbon, but the reality is, as noble Lords are well aware, whatever we do and must do on that front, we will still be left with a pressing, urgent need for nature-based solutions. As other noble Lords have mentioned, we have “roads” in the Bill. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, has just pointed out, I do not think anybody would necessarily be against roads as a secondary, tertiary or lower-level aspect of an infrastructure project—to get to the shoreline for offshore wind, to give another example. However, that is at best a tertiary part of the bank’s investment, or of that particular infrastructure project, yet it is in the Bill. If “roads” can be there, surely “nature-based solutions” has at least an equal place in the Bill. Would my noble friend consider including “nature-based solutions” and, in exchange, taking “roads” out of the Bill? That would be a thoroughly good thing.

Finally, in similar terms, my Amendment 10 would insert “clean air”—perhaps one of the most significant, precious and essential parts of our infrastructure. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that it would not be difficult or controversial, and that it would be a thoroughly good thing, to have “clean air” on the face of our infrastructure bank Bill?

UK Infrastructure Bank Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Holmes of Richmond and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Tuesday 14th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 10 I am rather aware from the Minister’s response to the previous group that this may have been grouped differently in her list compared to mine. I am just going to proceed anyway and if she says “I refer you to my previous answer” at the end, I will understand.

Amendment 10 refers to reducing “to sustainable levels” the UK’s

“use of natural resources and emissions of non-greenhouse pollutants”

and to securing “the interests of future generations.” To address the second part first, I am sure many noble Lords will recognise the language there, which is very much inspired by the Private Member’s Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Bird, about protecting the well-being of future generations—and indeed by the progress made in Wales, with its future generations Act. It is perhaps another way of getting towards first do no harm, as we discussed in the previous group of amendments. But more than that, it is making a larger claim: we know that the natural world in the UK is in a parlous state with air pollution, water pollution, et cetera. It is saying that if we are looking after the well-being of future generations, the bank should be investing to improve the state of things, not just to make sure that they do not get any worse.

The first part of this amendment addresses something that your Lordships’ House and the Government really need to get more focused on, which is planetary limits. In the previous group, we started to talk about how we need to add attention to biodiversity, the state of nature and nature-based solutions, tying together those planetary limits which the world is crossing over. Actually, academics are telling us that we have now broken five of the nine planetary boundaries. Three of those are climate, biodiversity and land system change, which we have already covered to some degree, but we have also come to the other two broken planetary limits. These are biogeochemical flows and what is generally known as pollution from novel entities—in general terminology, we might talk there about chemicals. About 350,000 of these are used in the world, which includes pesticides, antibiotics, plastics, industrial chemicals in mining and pharmaceuticals.

The reason for this amendment adding an objective to the bank, so that it starts to address these issues and reduces the harm done by these chemicals is that we—globally and in the UK—are very much exceeding our share of the limits of these things. This amendment is thus supposed to address both biogeochemical flows and the novel chemicals.

Coming briefly to the biogeochemical flows, the rates of nitrate and phosphate use in the UK are both well above the global average and, according to a global footprint report, we must

“Reduce nitrogen and phosphorus use by at least 80%”

—yes, I did say 80. If we are to have a bank that is investing in the kind of economy we have to live within in future, given the planetary limits, it needs to be thinking about not just climate and nature but the damage being done. Here we get to our farming systems, which is why my previous amendment referred to infrastructure that deals with food production. This is overwhelmingly related to that when we come to phosphorus and nitrogen—although sewage plants have their place. We have to look at this as a whole and see that the bank is essentially investing, for shorthand, in a sustainable economy.

The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, had in the previous group an amendment on the circular economy. That is a necessary and essential step forward but it is not a sufficient step, because we have to make sure not only that we are not treating the planet as a dumping ground—mining materials out of the earth and just dumping them—but that we stop mining those materials, or at least vastly reduce the amount we are mining. That is what my first amendment seeks to achieve. If anyone wants to know where my research, particularly around novel entities, comes from, it is from the Stockholm Resilience Centre, published earlier this year in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

I will address one other point, which very much goes back—as I think we will do several times in this group—to our debates on the Environment Act: reducing resource use. I refer noble Lords to a report that the WWF put out when we were debating the then Environment Bill on the UK’s overseas land-use footprint. That showed that

“between 2016 and 2018, an average annual area of 21.3 million hectares … was required to supply the UK’s demand for the seven commodities”.

When thinking about what the bank is investing in, we cannot be putting further pressure on other parts of the world through that. This is an attempt to bring in a systems-thinking approach.

I come now to the other amendments in my name in this group, which noble Lords may be pleased to hear are both simpler and shorter. The first is Amendment 18. When we look at the way this Bill is written, it is quite surprising that on infrastructure it says

“roads or other forms of transport”.

This seems a rather odd way round for a Bill that is supposed to be addressing the climate emergency. My amendment seeks to take out the word “roads”. I do not believe that the UK Infrastructure Bank should be investing in any new roads. We know that new roads generate more traffic. For the foreseeable future, on the crucial point of keeping the rise in world temperature below 1.5 degrees, roads and traffic are going to generate significant amounts of greenhouse gases, not to mention all the other impacts such as air and noise pollution. If this investment is going into disadvantaged areas, the last thing they need is more air and noise pollution. Electric vehicles also produce air pollution, with a large amount of the pollution they produce being particulate matter pollution from tyres and brakes. Building new roads in disadvantaged areas makes no environmental, social, economic or well-being sense. I have simply sought to take out the word “roads” and insert “mass” transport. That is obviously what the bank should be investing in, for both environmental and social reasons.

My final point is on my Amendment 25, on something that a number of noble Lords raised at Second Reading. The activities of the bank cover a large number of utilities, obviously including electricity and water, et cetera. The Bill talks about “services” but it is not clear whether “services” includes demand reduction and efficiency. The cleanest, greenest energy we can possibly have is the energy we do not need to use. The UK Infrastructure Bank surely has to be investing in reducing the demand for electricity, heating and water use—in these islands water stress is becoming an increasing issue with the reality of climate change and the adaptation issues we were discussing earlier. The Minister may say that the Bill already covers these demand reduction issues, but I feel that it should say explicitly that the bank should be investing in demand reduction of that which it is investing in the generation of. I beg to move.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

I am pleased to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and speak to the amendments in my name in this group. My amendments, grouped under two headings, “environmental restoration” and “human enablement and empowerment”, start with Amendment 13. I think we should have in the Bill that the bank should be prohibited from investing in any projects that are not inclusive by design. What does “inclusive by design” mean? It is simply this: that all users are enabled in whatever that system, infrastructure or structure itself actually is.

I can give a quick example, of where so-called shared space has been laid out across the country, with local authorities using public money to take areas—be that a local piece of public realm, a high street or whatever—which previously were independently accessible by all members of the community. When so-called shared space is put in, kerbs, crossings, road markings and barriers are taken out, and it becomes a free-for-all whereby toddlers and tankers, buses and blind people are somehow able to coexist because of this misguided concept. Public money is being used to take spaces that were previously accessible and make them effectively inaccessible. It is being used effectively to plan out of their local public realm more than one-third of the community. It is critical that in the Bill there is a clear statement of intent that anything that the bank invests in is inclusive by design.

Amendment 19 highlights the critical importance of energy efficiency and security. Much has already been said on energy efficiency, so I shall focus on energy security. There could hardly be a more significant time to make the point of the UK’s need to have greater energy security, and for that to be dramatically enhanced through understanding what it means to have a more local and more environmentally sound supply.

On Amendment 21, there could barely be a more significant piece of infrastructure than clean air. Air in so many parts of this city and other cities across the United Kingdom is actually killing our citizens. If the bank’s objectives are so clearly set as economic, with a capital “E”, clean air fits clearly within that. If we want our citizens, at whatever age or whatever stage they are at, to be fit, happy, healthy and able to develop and deploy all their talents, what they breathe could barely be more significant.

Amendment 22 looks at the UK cash infrastructure. I believe that, for reasons of financial inclusion and resilience, this again should be designated as infrastructure for the purposes of the bank—and perhaps even one stage above that, and designated as critical national infrastructure. For all the arguments around financial inclusion that we ran through in the Financial Services Act 2021—I intend to return to them when the financial services and markets Bill comes to your Lordships’ House—but also for the times in which we live, we need to have resilience in our financial systems. Cash would currently seem to be incredibly significant in providing that resilience, if and when things happen to the digital platforms and systems at local and national level.

Financial Services Bill

Debate between Lord Holmes of Richmond and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

Committee stage
Wednesday 10th March 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendments 108, 109 and 110 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Hodgson Ashley Abbotts and Lord Knight of Weymouth. I broadly agree with everything they said.

The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, in his introduction, referred to the level of dissatisfaction in our society: the threats from poverty, inequality and insecurity. I would say that these amendments are digging here into some of the depth of the problems that I referred to in my speech on a previous group and seek to provide some remedies. As he was speaking, I thought of meeting an USDAW representative in Sheffield referring to one of her members who had just come to her to seek a voucher for a food bank. The member was not, as you would expect as an USDAW member, unemployed; in fact, that member had seven jobs, but they were all zero-hours contract jobs and that particular week they had not delivered enough money for that person to feed themselves and their family.

However, it is important that we do not just focus—the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, did not—on those who are in desperate poverty and inequality, as awful as that is. As he was speaking, I could not help but think of what the late, great David Graeber called—here I may be about to use what is unparliamentary language here, but it is a direct quote—“bullshit jobs”. The noble Lord referred to people’s desire to get meaning, to feel that what they are doing, how they are using their time and talents, is worthwhile and contributing to society. Indeed, a failure to acknowledge and understand that—a focus purely on the pounds, shillings and pence—is at the root of a lot of our problems: the financialisation, to which the noble Lord, Lord Knight, referred, of our entire economy—not just the financial parts but the real economy, the care economy, the public service economy.

The noble Lord, Lord Knight, referred to managing things in a different way. I point again to New Zealand’s living standards framework, that guides its Treasury—based on a system not that dissimilar to our own—where they judge the quality of work, people’s security, the quality of the environment and the economy all together and seek to manage them to a stable, secure, decent whole.

These are important amendments and crucial principles, so I wanted to speak briefly in favour of them.

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

My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak to this group of amendments. In doing so, I declare my interests as set out in the register. I shall speak particularly to Amendment 122. It is evident that employee share ownership is a positive force within our economy, and speaks so much to the current Covid environment and what kind of economic sector, work and business basis we can have to our economy as we built out of Covid.

It is no surprise that Sir Nicholas Goodisson, after taking the London Stock Exchange through the big bang and seeing some of the early privatisations, then moved on to a role heading up the Wider Share Ownership Council. He saw the benefits and the positive impact that it had for people to have a stake in something, and there could be no better example of that than employees having a stake—a share—in the company for which they work on a daily basis.

I believe we will see more innovative models of employee ownership coming through. The EOT, for example, is still very much in its embryonic phase but it is a very positive concept and construct. There will be further developments in this area and I believe Amendment 122 sets out the case very well that when employees have a share, a stake and a say in the business for which they work, it benefits all concerned.