National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill

Lord Howard of Lympne Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 25th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendments in this group, which seek to mitigate the effect that the measures in this Bill will have on charities that provide social care. Particular attention needs to be paid to those that provide services in areas where the primary responsibility lies on the public sector. I understand that about one-third of social care staff in Scotland are employed by the voluntary sector. The support that they provide is an essential part of the system of social care in Scotland as a whole, and without their support the public services as currently funded would be quite unable to meet what the public need demands of them.

To put a little colour on what I have just been saying, I will return very briefly to an example I gave to the Grand Committee—that of the Cyrenians, a charity that addresses the causes and consequences of homelessness in the south-east of Scotland. It sees homelessness as something which is always about much more than a lack of housing; it cannot be solved simply by building more houses, nor can it be solved by the public sector alone. What the Cyrenians do is help people to avoid becoming homeless in the first place. It provides a range of services, such as mediation and support to families that are at risk of breakdown—which leads in due course to homelessness of one partner or the other.

The Cyrenians charity also provides services to ensure that people coming out of hospital are not discharged into homelessness. It runs a residential community which provides accommodation for people with acute psychiatric and mental health problems who have been discharged from a hospital where they have been receiving treatment. These are people who can be discharged only because that support is available.

All in all, the Cyrenians run over 60 services with a staff of over 200. It estimates that the increase to national insurance contributions provided for in the Bill will cost it about £170,000 a year. This is a significant burden on its finances which, for various reasons, are already being stretched very thin. I am told that it cannot benefit from any increase in the employment allowance. The Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but the charity believes that it is not eligible, as its class 1 national insurance liabilities were more than £100,000 in the last year. The public sector exemption is not available either.

The result is that the charity will no longer be able to provide the training and development that its staff need. That will lead, inevitably, to an erosion in the extent and quality of the service that it offers. Those who will suffer will be those most in need of protection: those who are at risk of, or who are already suffering from, homelessness, for whom the public services cannot provide.

Another Scottish charity that works in the area of social care is Ark Housing Association. It is a larger organisation which is in a similar position to that of the Cyrenians in that it seeks to provide services across a large area of Scotland. In its case, these services are offered to vulnerable adults, such as those with a learning disability and other complex needs. As matters stand, that charity too is not eligible for any support from the Government, as it has a turnover of about £24 million per year and employs over 700 people. It estimates that the effect of the Bill on its operations will be, in its own words, “devastating”.

As matters stand, the charges that it faces to do its work barely break even, year after year. It estimates that its national insurance increases will amount to a further £600,000 per year. This means that it will not be able to survive without damaging cuts to its services to reduce costs, and even these may not be enough for it to survive. As in the case of the Cyrenians, the people most affected are the thousands of vulnerable people for whom the social care that Ark provides is a vital lifeline, and who have nowhere else to go.

It is not an exaggeration to say that, as the Bill stands, social care and support providers in the third sector in Scotland will face a situation of crisis that the public services simply cannot cope with. Something has to give, and the responsibility for this lies with the Government. I hope that the Minister will feel able to assure the House that he recognises that something needs to be done to minimise the impact of these increases on this sector. For the time being, however, I will support the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, if she decides to press her amendment.

[Lord Howard of Lympne (Con)]

My Lords, I am afraid that I too was unable to be present at the earlier stages of the Bill, but I rise to support this amendment—in particular, the provisions relating to hospices. These would have the same effect as later amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe, to which I have also put my name. I draw attention to my entry in the register as vice-president and past chairman of Hospice UK.

The added burden that the increased contributions will place on the hospice sector are considerable. The extra cost has been estimated at no less than £34 million a year. St Christopher’s Hospice in south London has said that it will face increased costs of around £450,000 a year—equivalent to the cost of nine specialist nurses. Dorothy House hospice in Wiltshire estimates additional costs of £422,000 a year. The Kirkwood Hospice has had to put 33 roles at risk of redundancy, citing the increased national insurance costs as one of the drivers. Nottinghamshire Hospice is also proposing redundancies, again citing these extra costs as one of the factors.

These are just some of the examples of the devastating effect that these measures will have on hospice care. This is all so short-sighted. We all know that one of the major challenges facing the NHS is bed-blocking. As I have told your Lordships before, hospices can make a huge contribution to overcoming this challenge by looking after patients in the community, either in hospices or looked after by hospices at home. To make that contribution, hospices need more resources, not fewer, so this change will add to the challenges facing the NHS, not only directly in respect of its own employees but indirectly by diminishing the capacity of hospices to help.

The Minister will no doubt refer to the Government’s recent announcement that £100 million would be made available to hospices, and that is indeed welcome. But that money is for capital projects. Not a penny of it is available to defray the extra costs of the increase in national insurance contributions, which we are debating today, so it will have little or no effect on the crisis in hospice care that I have described.

I urge the Government to think long and hard about this amendment and to come up with a constructive solution.

[Lord Eatwell (Lab)]

My Lords, I find some difficulty in addressing this group of amendments, specifically because these amendments are but a part of 38—out of the total of 44—amendments in the Marshalled List that are essentially all the same. The 38 amendments all propose exemptions to the changes proposed in the Bill, or variations in the various thresholds at which employers’ national insurance is charged. All the amendments have the same internal logic: they are designed to reduce revenue. All 38 are the same; they vary only in the individuals, firms or groups that are to be exempted. The House will, of course, deem many of the individuals and groups not just worthy but really deserving of support.

I wish to address the 38 amendments collectively because they are the same. The Liberal Democrat Benches, notably with amendments associated with the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, seek to exempt providers of care homes or domiciliary care, primary care providers, dentists, pharmacists, charitable providers of healthcare, hospice care, carers and part-time workers. She adds providers of education or childcare to children under five years of age, universities, providers of further or higher education, registered charities, housing associations, small or micro businesses, town councils, parish councils and businesses in the hospitality sector.

Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill

Lord Howard of Lympne Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 9th February 2022 Lords Chamber

In any case, in an unwritten constitution, of which I am so fond, you simply cannot pretend to cross the t’s and dot the i’s right the way through. I am trying to be helpful to the Government. There is a simple solution to this messy Bill, which is ugly in terms of the detail but not, as I said, on the fundamental principle. If you require a simple majority, you do away with the Dissolution principles, a politicised monarch and the interference of the judiciary. That is game, set, match and tournament.

[Lord Howard of Lympne (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise that I was not present during the Committee stage. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, knows that I have great respect for him. We enjoyed working together in opposition to the Government’s Internal Market Bill. He was courteous enough to ask me my opinion of his amendment before he put it down. I told him that I would be unable to support it. The reason is the answer to the question that he posed during his remarks, to which my noble friend Lord Lansley purported, but failed, to give an answer, which is: what happens if there is, as there could be—and no one in your Lordships’ House can suggest that there could never be—a revival of the circumstances in the House of Commons between 2017 and 2019? The position was that the Government could not properly govern because they did not have a majority for many of the things that they wanted to do. The House of Commons did not want them to govern and so was content with that stalemate position and that hobbled Government, which did no good whatever to Parliament or the country.

I do not understand why this is referred to as a messy Bill. It is a perfectly straightforward Bill, which seeks to restore the position as it was before the Fixed- term Parliaments Act. The Act was necessary for the course of the coalition Government, but it should never have been made permanent. I very much regret that I did not vote for an amendment in your Lordships’ House that would have made it temporary.

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)]

Would the noble Lord acknowledge, as my noble friend has proved, that, in the circumstances about which he is talking, the Government had a majority for an election? Therefore, this amendment would not have created the difficulties that he is suggesting.

[Lord Howard of Lympne]

The noble Baroness and her friends cannot possibly give an assurance that a circumstance will not arise not precisely the same as that which occurred between 2017 and 2019 but in which a simple majority could not be obtained for an election, because a majority of the House of Commons was content to stymie and hobble the Government and keep them in place in that paralysed state, which was what we saw in that unhappy time.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)]

The noble Lord seems to be missing the fundamental fact that the problems to which he referred took place under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, which required a two-thirds majority. This Bill gets rid of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. The circumstances that occurred in 2017-19, as the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, pointed out, cannot recur in absence of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act.

[Lord Howard of Lympne (Con)]

With respect to the noble Lord—he knows I have great respect for him—I do not think that he was listening to what I have just said in answer to his noble friend. All this Bill does is to replace the bar of the two-thirds majority which the Fixed-term Parliaments Act provided with a slightly lower bar, but there is still a bar and it is perfectly conceivable that we could have a House of Commons in which the Government did not have a majority.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I am listening to the noble Lord with care and I think that there is a fundamental flaw in his argument. On that basis, does he not accept that a simple majority is used for every piece of legislation in the House of Commons? Why should calling a general election be any different? A simple majority is a sensible bar and a sensible test of whether the country should have an election.

[Lord Howard of Lympne (Con)]

The answer to the noble Baroness is this: if legislation is put before the House of Commons and it fails because there is no simple majority for it, there is a simple answer—the legislation fails. You do not have a situation that could go on for years in which a Government remain in office in a state of paralysis because that is what a majority of the House of Commons wants. That is the mischief that would arise in relation to this Bill.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

But why should a Prime Minister who cannot get a majority of the House of Commons for an election be entitled to a Dissolution?

[Lord Howard of Lympne (Con)]

Because our Government need decision. If you have a situation in which you have paralysis in the House of Commons, it is in the national interest that this should be resolved. The way in which it has traditionally been resolved and would now be resolved again if this Bill were passed would be by the Prime Minister asking Her Majesty, the monarch, to exercise the prerogative to provide a general election, which would resolve that paralysis.

I will say one more thing on Clause 3, because I do not want to trouble your Lordships again. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said that the ouster clause was completely unnecessary because no court would ever challenge the decision of a majority of the House of Commons. Had the noble Lord been present on Monday, he would have heard your Lordships’ House debate a number of occasions in which the courts had challenged legislation passed by a majority of the House of Commons. I am afraid that the noble Lord’s reliance on the reticence of the courts in these matters is considerably misplaced, particularly having regard to their decision on Prorogation. For that reason, Clause 3 is absolutely essential.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

We are talking about a resolution of the House of Commons. Can he give any circumstance —we are not talking about legislation; we are talking about resolution—where a resolution of the Commons was overturned by the courts or was even regarded as being justiciable by the courts?

[Lord Howard of Lympne (Con)]

The noble Lord talks about a resolution, but what he previously said was that the courts could not be imagined challenging any decision that obtained a majority in the House of Commons. It was to that observation that I replied. There are many examples and I refer him to the Hansard of Monday’s debate.

[Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support my noble friend’s amendment, but with reservations. My reservation is that which has been put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Howard. It is not inconceivable that a Government could be hamstrung by failing to get a majority in the House of Commons and could not get their programme through. I believe that there should be restraints on the improper use of the power to dissolve. We are all agreed that it should not be the sovereign and there are dangers in it being a resolution of the House of Commons. That is why I will argue for the removal of Clause 3 so that in the last resort there can be resort to the courts.

European Union (Future Relationship) Bill

Lord Howard of Lympne 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 Howard of Lympne (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I begin by paying tribute to my noble friend Lord Cavendish of Furness, not only for his excellent valedictory speech, but for his decades of service to your Lordships’ House. He will be sorely missed. I also welcome the noble Lord, Lord Austin, and congratulate him on his maiden speech and his fight against anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.

I welcome this historic agreement and the Bill before your Lordships’ House. The agreement is a considerable achievement, for which the Prime Minister and my noble friend Lord Frost deserve great credit.

In particular, I welcome the provisions in the agreement for the resolution of disputes through arbitration. This is how disputes between civilised nations should be resolved. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, in his diatribe earlier, and the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, who has just spoken, implied that the European Union has a unilateral right to impose tariffs on exports from the United Kingdom, in the event of regulatory divergence. That is what the European Union wanted, but not what it got. Its right is qualified, reciprocal and subject to arbitration, which is an eminently sensible way to resolve disputes of this kind.

There are those—alas, many noble Lords who have spoken in this debate—who seem determined to construct a narrative of failure. But we will fail only if we succumb to that melancholy litany. We succeed if we instead focus on the undoubted and considerable potential for success that lies before us. I offer your Lordships one fact and one forecast. The fact comes from CB Insights, which recently reported that there are more unicorns—that is private companies valued at more than £1 billion—in the UK than in France, Germany, Italy and Spain put together. The forecast comes from the Centre for Economics and Business Research, which has an enviable record of accuracy. It forecasts that the UK economy will not only be one of the better performers in Europe over the next few years, but, by 2035, be 23% larger than that of France.

The key to the agreement and Bill is that, as an independent sovereign state, we are now free to set our own course to make the most of these great opportunities. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, that we can look forward to the future in a spirit of optimistic anticipation. I look forward to supporting the Government in the vote later.

Syria and the Use of Chemical Weapons

Lord Howard of Lympne Excerpts

Thursday 29th August 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howard of Lympne]

My Lords, the use of chemical weapons has been illegal for almost a century. Their use was banned by the Geneva protocol, which was agreed by the international community in 1925. That ban was agreed because, as we have seen in the past week, the use of these weapons has particularly dreadful and horrible consequences. It is a ban that should be respected, observed and enforced. That is why President Obama was right, in his much criticised speech of several weeks ago, to declare that the use of chemical weapons would constitute a “red line”. That red line has been crossed.

Therefore, the questions that have to be answered are these. Should the use of chemical weapons in breach of that ban go unmarked? Should no action be taken to enforce the ban? Should those who use them be able to cock a snook at the rest of the world and continue to use them with impunity? I believe that the answer to all those questions is no. As the noble Baroness the Leader of the Opposition said, there is a strong moral case for enforcing the ban against the use of these dreadful weapons.

It is precisely this kind of situation that has given rise to the evolving doctrine in international law of the responsibility to protect. To suggest that in order to achieve a badge of legality any response to the use of chemical weapons must have the support of the Security Council of the United Nations is to confuse law with the kind of realpolitik that determines the way in which countries vote in relation to decisions of this kind. No one believes that all the permanent members of the Security Council will reach their decision on the basis of a dispassionate and objective assessment of the evidence on the use of chemical weapons in Syria last week. That is what you would need if you wanted to see the Security Council as an indispensable part of a legal process. It is manifestly not what we have.

Of course, I understand that in the light of what happened in 2003 there is a good deal of scepticism about the intelligence the Government have produced. Indeed, I warned in the aftermath of the Iraq war, not least in the debate on the report of the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, that the way in which the intelligence was misrepresented then would make it more difficult for Governments to take action in the future. However, as the noble Baroness the Leader of the Opposition has said this afternoon, we should not allow ourselves to be paralysed by Iraq. We must not allow ourselves to be paralysed now by what happened then.

My noble friend the Leader of the House has set out the further diplomatic steps which the Government intend to take, but there will come a time when decisions have to be taken, the material information that we need is available and the time for asking questions is over. I understand why the Prime Minister, in his desire to act on the basis of consensus, agreed to postpone the decision-taking moment in the other place, but for the Labour Party, having asked for and been granted that delay, to threaten to vote against the Government's Motion this evening is, I am afraid, a descent into party politics of the worst kind.

We are in danger of allowing the United States and France to act as the conscience of the world while the United Kingdom stands on the sidelines wringing its hands. That would be an unbearable humiliation for a country with a history such as ours. I hope that we can avoid that fate, and I commend the Government's position to your Lordships.