Commonwealth: Young Entrepreneurs

Debate between Lord Howell of Guildford and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Monday 24th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Lord may be surprised to know that I was not aware that this is Dominican Republic week. However, I am conscious that there are a range of Caribbean-related festivals not just in London but across Britain. Indeed, on one occasion I presented the prizes at the Miss Grenada Commonwealth competition in Huddersfield at what should have been about 10 o’clock at night but turned out to be one o’clock in the morning.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, I have to declare an interest as president of the Royal Commonwealth Society. Does my noble friend agree that what these young entrepreneurs really need is access to funds to get their businesses started? If, as in many other parts of the world, the banks will not play and are not really being as helpful as they should be, should we not also encourage the development of all kinds of alternative finance built on peer-to-peer lending and so on, as well as many other opportunities, which are enabling small businesses all over the developing world and certainly in the Caribbean to have proper access to funds for the first time?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, of course we should be doing that. Part of the problem in the Caribbean is that, apart from Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, we are talking about very small islands with very small economies, and getting major enterprises going in such areas is often a little more difficult than it is in larger countries.

EU: Balance of Competences Review

Debate between Lord Howell of Guildford and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Tuesday 5th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, it is not a question of which competences we agree. We are asking various stakeholders, and getting very large pieces of evidence from producer groups, about the current balance of competences. I think that the Scotch Whisky Association has produced the most pieces of evidence so far—clearly a stakeholder. As Ministers have said before from this Dispatch Box, the current Lisbon treaty has a lot of headroom on competences, not all of which are currently exercised by the European Union. We are asking stakeholders to say whether they are happy with the current balance, whether there are areas in which they would like the balance to be tipped back towards the national level or whether there are areas in which they would like the balance to be tipped further towards common European policies.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

Would my noble friend, who knows a lot about these things, accept that it is not just a question of looking at the balance of competences? It is also about looking at unpicking and unravelling some of the categories of competences, which are now substantially out of date, as they were invented in the last century. For instance, agriculture now embraces all aspects of climate, energy and scientific issues as well; and many aspects of social policy, which used to be centralised, are now much better handled at a very local level. Those are all areas in which it is not just a question of taking the competence as it stands but unravelling and unpicking it to see what aspects are best dealt with at a global, national or local level. Would he take that message back to his ministerial colleagues?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, one thing that has come across strongly to me from the first round—and the second round, which we are currently considering—is the dynamics of globalisation, on which the noble Lord is himself a great expert, and the extent to which the context in which we operate with our European partners in a great many sectors differs fundamentally from the context in which we joined in 1973. As I have stressed before, we are not seeking to arrive at policy recommendations in this review; we are asking for evidence of how far the current arrangements satisfy the various stakeholders and where there is room for improvement, reform or change.

Human Rights: Burma

Debate between Lord Howell of Guildford and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Thursday 18th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, noble Lords will have seen the Written Statement issued yesterday on the visit. It does not specifically mention the issue of child soldiers, but it touches on a very large number of human rights issues. I will check and get back to the noble Baroness on the specific issue of child soldiers. We are monitoring the situation; we recognise, for example, that the Kachin ceasefire has been agreed but not yet fully implemented. The President promised, when he was here, that all remaining political prisoners will be released by the end of this year, and we will of course be watching to make sure that that promise is carried out.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

There is a sort of race here. The Chinese are pouring in vast sums of money and investment into Burma, which is potentially a very rich country indeed. While we must obviously maximise our pressure, counselling and support for overcoming human rights abuses, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has specified, the right approach must be to embrace as fully as we can that country in its efforts to modernise and move away from military rule, and we should consider supporting it and working with it, perhaps in the context of a future membership of the Commonwealth.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord on managing to get the Commonwealth into this discussion. Burma is currently the poorest country in south-east Asia. If it is to pass through this transition successfully, it also needs economic assistance. My noble friend Lord Green has also been in Burma. We are engaged in the question of how far British companies, as well as British technical advice, can assist in the transformation of the Burmese economy.

Retail Prices Index

Debate between Lord Howell of Guildford and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, one of the best things done in this area by the previous Government was to establish the UK Statistics Authority as an independent body. The decision was criticised on all sides. Some noble Lords will remember the article in the Financial Times by Chris Giles which said that it was appalling not to have abolished the RPI and move all the way towards the CPI.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

Did the Minister notice the other day that Sir Mervyn King, the outgoing Governor of the Bank of England, said that one of the main contributors to rising RPI and therefore rising inflation was higher energy taxes? Every time the RPI goes up, it generates a gigantic increase in public expenditure through indexed provisions in the public sector. Could he possibly advise his friends to think again about some of the higher taxes that are being piled onto our energy costs in industry and in the home?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Lord is quite right to say that the extent to which tax increases are factored into the calculation of inflation is one of the problems. If you are not careful, when inflation is rising, you get into a positive feedback as mortgage interest rates rise, and that increases the measurement of inflation.

EU: Salaries

Debate between Lord Howell of Guildford and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Wednesday 6th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, it may surprise the noble Lord, but I do not have the exact figures to hand. Of course, any international parliament costs a great deal more because of the travel, dual residence and so on that are involved. Members of this House who also attend the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe or the NATO Assembly also cost rather more than the rest of us.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

Does my noble friend have any figures on the European External Action Service? Has he noticed recent criticism that it is not performing very effectively? Does he have any measure of cost versus performance for that body?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I do not have that. The European External Action Service is still very much in its early stages. It is now performing rather better than when it was originally established. Multinational operations take longer to get going than others—I am looking at various people here who have served in the European Commission—and have a level of built-in efficiency.

First World War: Centenary

Debate between Lord Howell of Guildford and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Tuesday 20th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I entirely share the noble Lord’s concerns. The Prime Minister in his speech at the Imperial War Museum to launch this said that the important elements that the Government wanted to see in this process of commemoration, which will last about five years, are remembrance, youth and education. This huge series of events in our history and in the history of a large number of other countries included an awful lot of civilian and industrial issues. It transformed the role of women. The Bradford Industrial Museum will be among those leading a recollection of what happened in the transformation of the industrial base of that northern city. So we will be commemorating a great deal which is not simply about the Armed Forces.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

What part will be played by the Commonwealth in this commemoration, since so many Commonwealth or imperial troops died in that war?

European Union (Approval of Treaty Amendment Decision) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Howell of Guildford and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Wednesday 23rd May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I am most grateful to the Minister for giving way. He said that it was the intention that the ESM should now enter into force next month. Indeed, we support the urgency of that, as I understand it. Therefore, why are we taking so long to ratify this? If we really support the initiative and recognise its urgency, why cannot we ratify it as soon as Parliament has approved this Bill?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I do not think that it has been the usual practice of this House to interrupt Ministers in the middle of their opening speeches, when they are also winding up and when the interrupter has his chance to take part in the debate afterwards. These are questions that the Minister can answer in his wind-up speech.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

As I have sought to explain, the ESM treaty is an intergovernmental affair between eurozone members, and they are going ahead with it—and they want to go ahead with it—in July. Nevertheless, the individual eurozone members have said that they would want the comfort of cover via an amendment to the European Union treaties, and we are pressing ahead with that as best we can in our own time. The two things are not ultimately dependent; it is just that the changes that we are proposing give comfort, support, reassurance and legal reassurance to the eurozone members so that they can go ahead. Therefore, those who say, “You are not doing anything to play your part in contributing to orderly developments in the eurozone”, are wrong. We are playing our part in doing so, although there are considerable benefits for the UK in making this move, which I have already outlined.

This brings me back to why this Bill is important. It represents Parliament giving a simple yes or no to amending part of the TFEU that does not actually apply to the UK at all. However, as I have made clear, by giving approval to this decision the UK avoids liability for future eurozone bailouts under the EU budget and gives the eurozone the legal clarity—this may reinforce the point I have just made—that it wants to back the European stability mechanism. We also uphold the commitment made by both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor to help the eurozone to get itself out of a crisis. Whichever way the situation goes, that must be to the advantage of us all.

If we were to refuse to agree the decision, the impact on our trading partners in the eurozone would not be positive, to put it mildly. We are under no illusion that the ESM alone will resolve the eurozone crisis, but, as the Prime Minister said last week, an effective firewall is part of the solution. It is safe to assume that markets would not view favourably any uncertainty about the eurozone’s ability to establish a permanent support mechanism. That is just what would arise if we failed to ratify this decision.

As the Prime Minister, my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary and the Chancellor have repeatedly made clear, a stable Europe is directly in the UK’s interests. That must be so. We rely on the eurozone states for over 40% of our trade. London is Europe’s international financial centre. Stable progress in the eurozone states is vital to stable progress in the United Kingdom.

Therefore, agreeing to this treaty amendment is in our best interests. As I have said, it means that the UK will not be exposed to any future programmes of financial assistance for the eurozone through the EU budget, specifically the European financial stability mechanism—that will be closed—and it helps our neighbours in the eurozone in their search for financial stability in the currency area. Your Lordships have already agreed that the Prime Minister could sign this treaty amendment, as he has done. I hope that we can now take the necessary steps to allow us to ratify it. I beg to move.

International Renewable Energy Agency (Legal Capacities) Order 2011

Debate between Lord Howell of Guildford and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Wednesday 7th September 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the International Renewable Energy Agency (Legal Capacities) Order 2011.

Relevant document: 23rd Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I beg to move that draft Order in Council be approved together with an Explanatory Memorandum, as required for all affirmative statutory instruments. This Order in Council confers, in the UK, the legal capacities of a body corporate on the International Renewable Energy Agency, IRENA. It is a new international organisation that will work to increase the deployment of renewable energy technologies globally. It has been established by a treaty, the IRENA statute. This Order in Council was approved by the House of Commons Committee on 14 July 2011 this year.

The UK signed the IRENA statute in 2009. The Government believe that the UK should now ratify the statute. To that end, a copy of the statute was laid before Parliament on 7 June, together with an Explanatory Memorandum, in accordance with the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010. The statute requires that all members of IRENA should confer legal capacity on IRENA in their territories. We therefore need to make this order to enable the UK to ratify the IRENA statute and become a full member of the organisation.

Let me explain the background to IRENA in a little more detail. This was a German initiative. The statute was agreed in Bonn in January 2009 and subsequently signed by the UK on 26 June 2009. The treaty entered into force in July 2010, after the deposit of the 25th instrument of ratification in Bonn. The statute establishes an international renewable energy agency to promote the widespread use and increased adoption of renewable energy technologies. The principal effect of the order is to enable the UK to become a full member of the agency.

So far, IRENA has 149 signatories. To date, 82 of these signatories have ratified the statute, including the United States, Japan, 18 EU member states, the European Union itself and 49 developing countries. With such a wide membership, IRENA will be the first truly global organisation devoted solely to renewable energy technologies. This is a young organisation, with its first assembly taking place in April this year. However, it has high ambition and is seeking to become an international centre of excellence for renewable energy technologies, with a specific focus on the developing world. IRENA will be able to bring together renewable energy experts from across the world to develop best-practice technical and policy examples. It will also be able to produce objective reports on the renewable energy market to help inform regional development across the world.

Renewable energy needs to play a key role in meeting global energy demand. Deployment has been increasing rapidly in recent years. Of the approximate 300 gigawatts of new electricity-generating capacity added globally during 2008-09, 140 gigawatts, nearly half, came from renewables. Global co-operation, through an organisation like IRENA, will be essential to ensuring that renewable energy deployment continues to increase.

The use of renewable energy has great potential to tackle climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that between 2010 and 2050, renewables can make CO₂ savings of between 15 per cent and 37 per cent against the world economic outlook 2009 reference scenario. There is also a role for renewables in increasing global and domestic energy security. The greater the deployment of renewable technologies internationally, the less pressure there will be on traditional energy sources such as oil and gas.

The deployment of renewable energy technologies can also support greater energy access, particularly in rural communities. IRENA will mean that the UK and others will have a framework within which to share technical and policy expertise with those most in need of securing innovative energy solutions.

The UK has a strong reputation internationally in the deployment of clean energy technologies. We are world leaders when it comes to offshore wind and have just introduced the world’s first financial incentive for increasing levels of renewable heat. In the future, renewable energy will play an increasingly important role in the UK’s energy mix. The renewable energy road map, published in July, sets out the Government’s vision for meeting our domestic renewable energy target for 2020. Increasing our domestic renewables capacity will mean that we can decrease our reliance on fossil fuels. Greater deployment of renewables globally will also mean that costs for these technologies will fall, making fulfilment of our domestic renewable energy ambitions more cost-effective. We want to remain at the forefront of this growing industry and ensure that UK interests are represented in what will be such a landmark global organisation.

The UK Government have made a commitment to push for greater efforts to tackle climate change internationally and to deliver investment to increase deployment of renewable energy technologies. We will thus be acting in accordance with this commitment by becoming full members of an organisation whose activities will help to make this happen. This is an important order, which reflects cross-party commitment to reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. I therefore commend it to the Committee and hope that it will receive the Committee’s full support.

Legislative Reform (Civil Partnership) Order 2011

Debate between Lord Howell of Guildford and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Monday 7th February 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Legislative Reform (Civil Partnership) Order 2011.

Relevant documents: 4th Report from the Regulatory Reform Committee.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, this order was laid before the House on 25 October last year under negative resolution procedures with an Explanatory Memorandum as required for all statutory instruments. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, under the chair of the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester, considered this draft reform on 10 November 2010 and concluded that the proposal met the tests set out for LROs in the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006, that it was appropriate to proceed as an LRO and that the negative procedure was appropriate in this case.

However, when the Regulatory Reform Committee in the other House considered the draft on 9 November 2010, it concluded that, although the draft order is uncontroversial—all statutory preconditions and tests have been met—and would not prejudice any existing protection, the proposals contained in the LRO were more than a de minimis change in the law, so the order should be raised to the affirmative resolution procedure.

Section 210(1)(b) of the Civil Partnership Act 2004, in specifically designating that the registration officer must be a UK-based diplomatic officer, does not allow for flexibility in those consular sections within an overseas British post where there are no longer any UK-based diplomatic officers and where civil partnership registration is a service that can be provided. The FCO has been going through a programme of localisation, including regrading of staff. Where there has previously been a consular officer who is a member of Her Majesty’s Diplomatic Service, in some posts there are now only locally engaged staff, and for consular customers resident in such consular districts, we can no longer undertake civil partnership registrations as often as we did previously.

The change in the order will allow locally engaged non-diplomatic consular officers, at any post that is affected by the localisation programme, to be nominated to undertake the registration of civil partnerships and civil partnership ceremonies. The amendment will not affect other aspects of civil partnership registration overseas, which can be undertaken only if local authorities do not object. This will also address two current disparities. First, staff of equal seniority have different powers. Depending on the local circumstances, a consul or vice-consul may be a Diplomatic Service officer or a local member of staff. For example, the vice-consul in Tokyo can undertake this work while the vice consul in Sydney cannot just because one is a member of the Diplomatic Service and the other is a member of the local staff. Secondly, Parliament empowers local members of staff to conduct marriages but, at present, does not empower local staff to conduct civil partnerships.

I am satisfied that the order is compatible with the rights contained in the European Convention on Human Rights. This order is important but, I trust, non-controversial. I hope that it will receive the full support of the Committee.