The Economy
Lord Judd Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Mair (CB)
My Lords, I fully support the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Bhattacharyya, a fellow engineer, relating to investment in innovation and industries.
If we want to build a stronger economy, we cannot ignore the vital role of engineering innovation and the problem of the growing engineering skills crisis. Engineering impacts all our lives in many ways. It accounts for at least 20% of gross value added for the UK economy, and some estimates are significantly higher. Manufactured goods account for 50% of UK exports. Science, engineering and technology underpin the whole economy—everything from power generation and electricity distribution to utilities, the food chain and healthcare, as well as, of course, transport and our information and communications infrastructure.
Successful engineering is underpinned by innovation. This is one of those now rather overused words and I want to be clear as to what it means. It is the process by which new ideas generate economic value in the form of new and improved products and services—so it is a crucial contributor to growth and productivity. The capability and capacity to innovate is the key to prosperity in the 21st century. Without innovation, economies and companies stagnate and become increasingly unable to cope and to compete with those that invest in and adopt new ways of doing things. To build a stronger economy, we must therefore invest in innovation to secure our future growth.
The Government have a key role to play in promoting private sector investment and encouraging innovation in priority or high-potential areas. This is the approach of many, if not all, of our competitors. Public and private research and development investment in the UK in science and technology accounts for 1.7% of GDP. This compares with Germany, which invests 3% of GDP. The UK remains 12th among the 28 member states of Europe for R&D investment. Of all the G7 countries, we have the lowest levels of government-financed investment in R&D as a percentage of GDP. This is despite many of our universities being the leaders in Europe, and indeed the world. If UK R&D investment in science and technology were increased to the level in Germany—that is, 3% of GDP—the benefits to the economy would be huge.
As mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Bhattacharyya, Innovate UK—formerly the Technology Strategy Board, established by the Government in 2007—is the UK’s innovation agency. Its aim is to fund, support and connect innovation businesses to accelerate sustainable economic growth. Innovate UK’s schemes show substantial leverage, with an average of £6 returned to the economy in gross value added for every £1 invested. The Government should continue to ensure that Innovate UK is well funded so that R&D investment and engineering innovation can flourish.
A prerequisite for engineering innovation is a skilled workforce. The UK is facing a well-documented engineering skills crisis. An ageing workforce means that hundreds of thousands of skilled technician and professional engineering roles will need to be replaced over the next 10 years. Analysis by EngineeringUK projects a shortage in the region of 70,000 advanced technicians and engineers each year for the next 10 years. So in 10 years’ time we will have a cumulative shortage of 700,000. That is seriously worrying.
To illustrate the situation, of the 600,000 pupils who pass through the education system each year, only around 30,000 progress to study A-level physics. That is a 95% fall across one single transition point.
Why is this happening? There is a range of factors: poor perceptions and lack of interest in engineering jobs; chronic shortages of specialist teachers in physics, mathematics, computing, and design and technology subjects; and low attainment and progression in STEM subjects at school—science, technology, engineering and mathematics—exacerbated at the further education and higher education stages. Not enough young people are making engineering their career choice. At university level, it is a victim of its own transferable skill, so that engineering talent is being lost to other professions, such as accountancy or management consultancy. All too often at Cambridge, very bright engineering students who are about to graduate tell me that they are going into finance and the City—great for the City; bad for engineering.
Engineering also suffers from significant under- representation of women and people from minority ethnic groups. The proportion of women engineering undergraduates at Cambridge is 25%—which is unusually high but still not high enough compared with the proportion for medicine and law—but women make up just 6% of the overall UK engineering community: a disturbingly low number.
So what should we do? There has been no shortage of attempts to attract young people into engineering, but they have been, on the whole, small-scale interventions. We need a huge gear shift in the steps we take to secure engineering talent if we are to meet the current and future needs of business and employers. There are some exciting developments. For example, there is the Engineering Talent Project, developed and run by the Royal Academy of Engineering and backed by major engineering organisations. It is designed to bring a single, co-ordinated response to the skills challenge and to communicate the breadth of opportunity inherent in a career in engineering. This is a five-year programme of awareness-raising, engagement and careers information designed to bring about informed decision-making by secondary school children as they make their subject choices at critical junctures in their school career. The aim is that engineering should no longer be the present yet invisible profession. It will have visibility. Its contribution to the built and made environment will be widely understood and it will have a clear presence within the suite of options for young people considering what they want from their working life. With sufficient weight behind it, and the voice of employers at its heart, it stands to make a real impact on the quality and quantity of young people going into technical and engineering jobs.
Government must have a critical role in such a programme. Real change will be achieved only by co-ordination between government, employers and the engineering institutions. The urge for a co-ordinated approach on engineering has been a cri de coeur from industry for some time. There is now a real opportunity for government to play a part.
Lord Judd (Lab)
The noble Lord is making a formidable case, which I think would find a great deal of support on this side of the House. But does he not agree that if all this is to be successful, in pleading with the Government to put vastly more resources into what he advocates, it is essential that they put investment on the same scale into social infrastructure to make sure that the communities in which most of the new immigrants will be living have the right kind of health services, schooling, housing and the rest? Otherwise, there will be—unfortunately and inevitably—crises and tensions.
Lord Mair
I thank the noble Lord for that point.
The Secretary of State for Transport plans to make 2018 the Year of the Engineer to excite a new generation to follow Brunel, Stevenson and Telford, along with Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Tim Berners-Lee. I urge that he work with major engineering employer organisations, the Royal Academy of Engineering and other engineering institutions to ensure that this is not a missed opportunity. The engineering skills crisis will not, of course, be solved by a loud noise over the course of a single year but by a real co-ordination of voices, messages and resources. These must highlight, rightly, the triumph of engineering in major projects such as Crossrail. But they must also point to the diversity of engineering opportunities and make it clear, relevant and, above all, exciting and attractive.
Engineering is indeed very exciting and attractive. The challenges facing our society are enormous and pressing. How and where will we provide infrastructure as resources become scarcer and energy more expensive? What will the energy mix look like in 10 years’ time? How might exciting new technologies such as tidal lagoon power and advances in battery storage influence this? What will future cities look like in the coming decades? Will car ownership disappear with the likely arrival of autonomous vehicles? The world is changing very rapidly and it is therefore vital for the economy to have a high level of UK R&D investment in science and engineering. The UK must continue to be world-leading in engineering innovation. We cannot afford to slip behind.
To conclude, our economy simply will not thrive if our industries fail to recruit the young men and women engineers who are needed for them to grow. Without them we will not innovate—and without innovation we will lose out to global competition. Government has a vital role in ensuring that this does not happen. I hope that it will take the necessary steps so that we can properly build a stronger economy.
Autumn Statement
Lord Judd Excerpts(8 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Judd (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, for having introduced this debate with what was, I thought, a very interesting speech. I would like to quote another important member of the Conservative Party, if indeed he has been reported accurately:
“Even if councils stopped filling in potholes, maintaining parks, closed all children’s centres, libraries, museums, leisure centres and turned off every street light they will not have saved enough money to plug the financial black hole they face by 2020. These local services which people cherish will have to be drastically scaled back or lost altogether as councils are increasingly forced to do more with less and protect life and death services, such as caring for the elderly and protecting children, already buckling under growing demand”.
Those are cautionary words indeed. We must note that he refers to the need to “protect” life and death services. Any age in which thoughts of wanting to enhance the services that are available to the elderly in their declining years seems to have been forgotten altogether.
I have said this before in debate and feel it very strongly: what has gone fundamentally wrong in our society—this is not a party-political point; it goes right across the parties—is that we have moved into an age in which the economy and society have become separated. I am convinced that if we are to have a strong, healthy Britain for the future, we have to get back to the concept that we are not just producing statistics on the economy but have to produce evidence of what is really happening in society in terms of its improvement and progress.
I had nine years as president of YMCA England. I was immensely interested by the housing programme for the young and vulnerable. Tremendous work was done. It was not just managing houses; everybody involved in that programme knew that they were dealing with people. And the people whom they were dealing with, by definition almost, needed care, attention, love and appropriate support and services. What is happening to all that under this fascination with the economy alone?
We see every day on our television the evidence of the anxiety and distress among our elderly friends, who find themselves uncertain as to where they are really going to finish their lives in old age. Is that really what we have achieved in 2015? Where is this social progress? I am not ashamed to say that I think that we should sometimes learn from our past. Although it may have had faults, we should revisit the concept of the department of economic affairs. The Treasury in that model has the discipline, but there would be another department which brought together all elements of society in trying to work to an agreed strategy, and to have a common aim and common objective towards which they were all contributing—trade unions, too. I commend to all parties a re-look at a department of economic affairs.
Infrastructure Bill [HL]
Lord Judd Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Lord Judd (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for introducing the amendment. I do not need to tell the House that I am a passionate defender of the areas of outstanding natural beauty and the national parks. We have to be vigilant all the time on that. There is no room for complacency because the pressures against what we believe in are always there and we have to beware of erosion. The point she has made about a wider application of those principles is very important.
As I listened to the previous debate, I felt my blood pressure rising because it is a travesty to suggest that environmentalists are against economic progress. Of course we are in favour of economic progress. We want to see it effective and driving as hard as it can. But we are equally determined, as custodians and trustees of all that we have inherited in terms of the environment, scenic beauty, biodiversity and the rest, to keep those issues as equally important. Therefore, it is a matter of rational, strategic decision-making about how you have clear areas for driving ahead, so that people are not worried about constraints of one kind or another but know that they have got green lights going all the way, and areas where we are saying, “Yes, but there are other considerations to be taken into account and if we want a Britain worth living in and if we want our children and grandchildren to inherit a country worth living in, these other issues are crucial”.
When I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Deben, in the previous debate, my feeling was that, yes, I do believe that the market has a key part to play in our economic affairs, of course it has. I happen to believe, rather traditionally—and I am not ashamed of that—in a mixed economy. But having said that, I believe in a managed market and I will take the opportunity to say why. The trouble is that the market operates from a short-term time perspective and these other issues of the environment, scenic beauty and the inheritance by our children of a country worth living in do not have the same immediacy in play in the market as other factors of a more essential economic character. Therefore, one must make sure that those points are on the table, being seen to be taken seriously and being given the muscle to be taken seriously. From that standpoint, I am very glad indeed that the noble Baroness has raised the point that what we want to apply to parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty should not be exclusively limited to them.
Lord Jenkin of Roding
My Lords, neither the noble Baroness who has moved this amendment nor the noble Lord, Lord Judd, appears to have recognised that what we are talking about in Clause 32 is developing land 300 metres below the surface. Looking at the list of the various sites in the noble Baroness’s amendment, I cannot of think of one of them which could remotely be affected by horizontal drilling 300 metres below the surface. I am surprised that neither the noble Baroness nor the noble Lord seems to have acknowledged this. We are not talking about actually drilling down in a special area of conservation or a site of special scientific interest which implies development on the surface. We are talking here about horizontal drilling 300 metres below the surface and I just cannot understand how either the noble Baroness or the noble Lord can think that this could affect these important sites. Perhaps I have missed something.
The Earl of Caithness
My Lords, I rise to oppose these amendments. I understand the principle behind them but, as my noble friend Lord Jenkin has reminded us, we are talking about something that is going to happen well below the surface. Having taken that into account, and while I agree with him that the amendment is in the wrong place, I also think that the principle of the amendment is quite important. However, what the noble Baroness has totally failed to do, and what the noble Lord, Lord Judd, has failed to do, is to explain why the present system of controls is not adequate.
I do not class myself as an environmentalist; I class myself much more as a countryman. I have a much broader range of interest than an environmentalist would have. The house that I used to own very recently up in Caithness was right beside an SSSI, and on that SSSI there wintered whooper swans and lots of geese and ducks. Around us there are now eight wind turbine farms. This is a huge area—an important one for nature—but the argument was looked at for every single one of those turbines. More recently, a planning application was made for four wind turbines to be sited much closer to the SSSI. My house was perhaps one of the nearest that was going to be affected by that and I lodged my objection on the grounds of nature and what effect the four wind turbines—which are considerably bigger than anything we are talking about in the fracking process and would be at a higher level for much longer—might have on the flight path of geese and swans.
The planning process worked perfectly and the decision was turned down. It has gone to appeal and I do not yet know what the result of that is, but my point is that the existing procedures are there now to protect such sites as these. I used the existing procedures and the planners looked at the existing procedures and agreed with all of us that had objected to these four wind turbines. I believe that what we have got in place is sufficient and we do not need any more.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con)
My Lords, I am looking at the Companion in terms of rules of debate on Report. We are getting quite close to contravening them and I would just like to say to noble Lords that we should be cautious of that.
Lord Judd
Before the noble Lord sits down, would he not agree that, whatever the value of the regulations and the means of implementing them that exist at the moment, it would be of considerable assistance to industry and those behind this important and vital initiative for the British economy to see clearly on the face of Bills such as this the areas on which they can and cannot concentrate their attention?
Lord Jenkin of Roding
My Lords, when I saw the noble Lord’s amendment, my immediate reaction was to say, as he has done, “Look at what’s happened in other industries, notably the nuclear industry, and then look at what has been happening recently in relation to offshore oil and the measures that are now being taken there”. That led me to approach the trade association that covers the fracking industry, which was extremely helpful. My noble friend’s department has produced a very long paper of financial guidance on the whole question of petroleum licensing. At this hour of the night, when there is further business to come, I will not go into that in great detail, but the fact is that, having read that and the paper that has been produced by the trade association, UKOOG, I am satisfied that the difficulties that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, has raised are in fact being addressed very positively. It is not only the question of whether the company that will get a licence will have the resources to carry out the work and continue to operate any shale gas well that it constructs. The papers address very specifically the questions that the noble Lord has made most of—the decommissioning of plant and financial liability if things go wrong. The existing regime provides for the remediation of environmental damage and contaminated land, and that includes water. If we take all the regulations together, if a company causes damage, harm or pollution to the environment, it can be required under the regimes in force to remediate the effects and prevent further damage, which is the same approach as applies to other industries.
Furthermore, the Government appear to have very clear powers: they can require financial evidence that there are resources available to pay for that. UKOOG has relieved my anxieties in that regard. Unlike the earlier industries to which the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, referred, the approach to this industry, which is still at a very early stage of its development, as he rightly said, has been extremely responsible. I shall be very interested to hear from my noble friend what those measures are. I am satisfied, but I will listen to my noble friend’s reply.
Lord Judd
My Lords, I have been glad to put my name to this amendment, which is very wise and prudent. It has been suggested in recent years that the interpretation of welfare capitalism has changed. The original concept was that capitalism had a social responsibility that it should discharge for the well-being of society as a whole. It seems that quite a lot of people have come to believe that perhaps welfare capitalism is about ensuring that while wealth generation and profit is privatised, risk is nationalised and is the responsibility of the taxpayer. The point in the amendment that is particularly important in this context is what happens in the case of insolvency, when all the best predictions can be blown away in the wind in the chaos that follows.
If a scheme is put forward and is being properly costed, the cost of dealing with potential damage, closure or the consequences of that is an essential element in the calculations. We are concentrating today on this new and exciting aspect of shale development but we are beginning to see infrastructure across the country in connection with power generation and its distribution that is no longer required. We need to be very careful that we are ensuring that any adverse results of that are not left just for the taxpayer to settle, but that they are the responsibility of the people who, while they are operating, are receiving the profits that come from that.
Baroness Worthington
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for tabling his amendment and for continuing the discussion that we started in Committee. I am sympathetic to the intention behind these amendments and am particularly interested in the aspect of liability arising from orphaned sites. We are talking about a potential new industry that will see a large number of distributed sites developed. We may well see smaller companies that perhaps do not have the assets or deep pockets of more traditional extractive companies, and there would be considerable potential for orphaned sites. I am very interested to hear from the Minister how we would address any liability arising from such orphaned sites.
I think my noble friend Lord Whitty said that he is seeking for the Government to demonstrate foresight. It strikes me that the Government are demonstrating foresight in some respects of fracking, in imagining the future benefits and future economic wealth that will come. Over the weekend, we even heard comments about the imagined spending of all this great tax revenue. We shall debate that aspect shortly. That foresight is possible, but perhaps we should apply it in the slightly more realistic context of learning from previous experiences of extractive industries in trying to plan for what happens if everything does not go according to plan. I would have thought that companies would be able to take out insurance against some of these liabilities. Again, I would be interested to hear from the Minister about what type of insurance she might expect companies to undertake and what liabilities would be insured. We are entering uncharted territory in the types of company, the types of project and their distribution across the country. It is right that we should proceed with caution.
There is a lot of merit in the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Whitty. He started by saying that he was trying to help out the Government. A number of us have tried to help out the Government during tonight’s debate. However, I suspect that the Government are not listening and do not want to be helped out, but there we are. I look forward to the comments from the Minister in response to this amendment.
Lord Judd
I am sure that my noble friend shares my gratitude for the full way in which the Minister is replying. However, there is just one point she made which intrigues me. She said that the regulator has powers that he can use in these contexts. However, if the taxpayer is faced with the possibility of having to foot the bill, why is it not compulsory to require that these things are covered?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, I hoped that I had reassured noble Lords that we do not wish to see the taxpayer foot the bill or any bill, and that there will be processes in place to ensure that that is the case. Having gone through the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and his concerns, I hope that he will see fit to withdraw it.
Queen’s Speech
Lord Judd Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Judd (Lab)
My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames. He has served his people of Northern Ireland with commitment, distinction and courage over many years, and what he said tonight is no exception. We all need to listen carefully.
Like others, I welcome the Minister’s reference to the summit taking place in London today, and I very much endorse the gladness of my own noble friend Lady Morgan about it. In the long run, our leadership on this issue will depend on the effectiveness with which we handle these issues internally in our own lives and in the areas of the world for which we are responsible. We cannot separate the rhetoric from the performance. Our credibility stands on our own performance, and that applies equally when the Government speak so powerfully—as they have today and as they do repeatedly, with our present Foreign Secretary—about the importance of human rights.
I take second place to nobody in stressing the importance of human rights but, again, the world looks at us and makes a distinction between the rhetoric and the reality. That is why we have to be absolutely committed in all we do—whatever the provocations, however severe or acute they are—to the application of human rights in our affairs and in the affairs for which we are responsible. This is not a burden, as those who drew up the universal declaration in the aftermath of the Second World War understood. Human rights are the cornerstone—the foundation—of security and peace in the world. It is not an oversimplification to say that where there is an absence of human rights, there will always be a danger of alienation, extremism, terror and the rest. Where a very widely operational atmosphere of human rights is applied and fulfilled, there will be very little room for the extremists to recruit.
We live in the midst of a paradox, which this debate has underlined very strongly. On the one hand, we live in a time when the reality of global interdependence has never been more evident. It is true in economic affairs; it is true in trade affairs; it is certainly true in the issues of global warming and climate change; it is true in health; it is true of almost every major issue with which government is confronted. It is difficult to think of any of the issues facing our children and grandchildren that will be resolved within the context of the nation state alone. All will require international co-operation.
Yet we see this new unpleasant reality of political alienation. We cannot bury this and pretend it does not exist. It is there. It is not simply those who vote for less pleasant, extreme parties; it is the very large number of people who do not vote at all and who could become their prey. For that reason, we must recognise that, in the age of globalisation, people feel threatened and insignificant and that they have no strategic influence on their lives. We must understand that if we are to build peace and security, it is essential to recognise the importance of identity, not to deny it—and that involves cultural identity, not just political identity—and then to have the courage and imagination of leadership to enable people to see that in the confidence of their identity they must move forward to co-operation. We must all move forward to co-operation because of what I said in my opening remarks: all the issues that face us necessitate effective international co-operative approaches.
That must also be true in our institutions, certainly as we talk of the reform of the European Union. We have to go back to first principles and recognise that there was a very real debate at the beginning about the virtues of confederalism and federalism. Perhaps what we have learnt in history is that there is a great deal to be said for the confederal approach, whereby you build within the institutions of the European Union the shared commitment and the co-operation necessary to deliver effective policies—not to impose authoritatively and administratively a whole range of policies without those having been debated among the countries and therefore becoming seen as real issues among the people of the individual countries.
It is also perhaps true that we should look at the issues of federation in the context of our own society. I will make only this point about the Scottish issue. I am a half-Scot so I am very much exposed to the debates within my own family. I am very proud of my Scottish blood. If we get a no vote in the referendum, let us not be fooled into thinking that the issue will go away. It will not go away. I do not want to be dispiriting but there is always a danger of that debate turning nasty. In that context, we have to start talking much more imaginatively about different structures for the United Kingdom. We should have done it long ago. I think that we will have a strong future as the United Kingdom if we have a federal United Kingdom in the long run because that is the logic of everything we are trying to do by fiddling here and there—more economic powers for Scotland here, more powers for Wales there. The logic is to get on with building a strong federation in which each part of our United Kingdom can co-operate freely in the common interest.
Euro Area Crisis: EUC Report
Lord Judd Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Judd
My Lords, I join those who have thanked the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, and his committee and congratulated them on having had the courage to put their heads above the parapet and produce this report in the midst of all the challenges that face us. I also take the opportunity of joining others, including my noble friend Lady Crawley, in putting on record my admiration for the service given to this House by the noble Lord, Lord Roper, as Deputy Chairman of Committees. I have known him for 59 years and there has been a consistent theme from which he has never deviated in his life: a commitment to making a success of international institutions, which he sees as indispensable to the future of humanity. That conviction of his has enabled him to be such an effective operator.
It was interesting to contrast two trenchant speeches, that of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and that of my noble friend Lady Crawley. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, finished by expressing her admiration for the Government and the Prime Minister for having made it absolutely clear that, whatever happens, the British national interest will be central to their considerations. The problem about that thesis is, as my noble friend pointed out, that we live in a totally interdependent world. It is a false analysis to suppose that you can look to the national interest without looking to the international interest, because our long-term well-being, survival and prosperity depend on the stability and well-being of the international community of which we are inseparably a part. That in an immediate sense starts in the European Community, of which we are in so many ways very much a part.
The difficulty is that we face a challenge. The challenge is not just all the financial nightmares with which we have been dealing; it is the dilemma with which people feel confronted. On the one hand, they are utterly dependent on effective solutions in an international context; but, on the other, they find globalisation and regionalisation quite threatening, because a large number of them feel that they are losing their sense of identity and purposeful significance. That was true of what we saw in the Arab spring. The Arab spring was not just about economic and social injustice; it was people asserting that they mattered and wanting that to be recognised. As we have the institutions today, they do not feel that. They see them as remote and impersonal; they see them as the preoccupation of a political elite of which they would regard us a part. That is the point that I make to my noble friend—my good friend—Lady Crawley.
Although of course we could argue that this is the very time not to start a major agonising debate, we can equally argue that it would be sheer obstinacy of the worst kind to pretend that there is not that crisis, to pretend that people are not disillusioned, that there is not a crisis of confidence among them, and that they are not feeling alienated—let us be prepared to use that word—from the processes in which we all participate. I do not separate myself from that. As someone who was fashioned and grew up during the Second World War, I put my commitment to the European project second to no one, but we have to face up to the seriousness of the human challenge, not just the economic challenge, that confronts us.
In a reflective moment, if we are looking for strong international regional institutions, confederalism may well produce them more successfully than federalism. People want to feel that they belong to something with which they can identify. The challenge is to enable people to see that that is not enough. We must reintroduce the whole concept of international co-operation, emphasise it and start giving it muscle.
As we look, more immediately, at the euro issue, there are those who say, “Of course we could not find a solution for our economic affairs in Europe while we had a euro without the fiscal discipline that should go with it”. It is about not simply fiscal disciplines but a cohesive social and economic agreed agenda; I do not see how we can have sustainable stability without one. When I was a Minister of State at the end of the Callaghan Government, we used to consider agonising issues. In my view, it is wrong to suggest that the urgency of the economic crisis means that economic and social priorities must wait. It is in times of economic stringency and hardship that economic and social priorities become more important than ever. If the remedies are to work, they must be in a context in which people feel confident that there is a prevailing ethos of social justice.
I find it very interesting that if you look at either end of the spectrum you get the same conclusion. Adam Smith did not write first, as a young academic, about liberal economics; he wrote first about ethics. He was a highly ethical man. He approached his economic theory in the context of a strong ethical commitment. The late Lord Soper, when the Berlin Wall collapsed, made the profound observation that it is not a matter of socialism having been tried and failed; it is a matter of socialism having demanded an ethic of which humankind has so far proved itself incapable.
Therefore, whether you are looking at it from a capitalist perspective or a more socialist perspective, the indispensability of the ethical priority cannot be overemphasised. We have to reassert in Europe, and in this country, the overriding importance of ethical discipline, not just fiscal discipline. If not, either system is doomed—I put it as strongly as that. What we have is a system in which greed has got out of control and in which, as has been often said of late, risk has been socialised and wealth and profit have been privatised. That is a recipe for tension and instability in society. It is the key issue that has to be tackled.
This is also a moment to pause and consider the issue of democracy itself and how it can work, which of course brings me back—I must be honest about it—to my own political orientation and attitudes. I have never understood how you can have a democracy if you have not got the accountability of economic power. What we are seeing is that we simply have not had the effective accountability of economic power where it matters. The noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, whom I have been fortunate to know as a friend as well, because we came into this House on the same day, was very right to remind us of what happened in Germany in the 1930s: of how the forces of Hitler and fascism gained momentum and what the social realities were around that.
I am sorry if I have said this before in this House—well, I am not sorry, but I recognise that I have said it before—but this is a juncture where I wish that we had more expression of some solidarity with the Greek people, because it was certainly not them who caused the crisis in which they find themselves. The noble Lord was right to say that the Greeks must make the decisions for themselves. We cannot make them for them and it is absolute madness to start lecturing them on their responsibilities. They have suffered enough. They have to weigh it up for themselves and see how they want the issue tackled. That of course has profound implications for us but we brought that on our own head.
It is absolutely clear in the midst of all this that the problem with the principle of unbridled market philosophy is that it emphasises the short term and squeezes out the longer-term perspective. One only has to think of the environmental issues as a good practical example of that. That is why we have to have balance and why an ideology of either left or right is not in itself enough. We have to have more pragmatism and more balance in the way we handle the issue.
I therefore conclude simply that what depresses me most about our predicament is that we are mesmerised by an almost neurotic search for some kind of structural, technical solution. If I have come to a conclusion about life, it is that no structure ever achieved anything of itself. Structures are inanimate; it is the objective against which the use of the structure must be judged that matters. It is the quality and values of the people operating the structures that matter. We have to regain a sense of vision, meaning: what kind of Europe do we want and need in the midst of this overriding reality of interdependence? How are we going to turn what is a massive crisis into an opportunity by asking the profound questions? I hope that my noble friend will forgive me for putting it as bluntly as this but, yes, I am asking profound questions. Where and why has it all gone wrong? Now what has to be done not just to patch it up but to find lasting solutions for the future?
Sunday Trading (London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games) Bill [HL]
Lord Judd Excerpts(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Trumpington
My Lords, having lived with Sunday trading for as long as the Bills have existed, it is with very deep regret that I cannot be present this afternoon due to the short notice with which this Bill is intended to be read, combined with the fact that I cannot put off the arrangements I have made for this afternoon. I apologise.
I support everything the Minister has said about this sensible and compassionate little Bill, whose provisions last only for a limited time. There is no question of them being enlarged for the future. Last Sunday at my garden centre, the workers were all laughing at this House for making a fuss about such a very short Bill, under which I hope that most employers, if not all, will treat their employees with respect and in agreement.
Lord Judd
My Lords, on an amendment of this kind it is very tempting to be drawn into a Second Reading contribution. Of course, that must be avoided, although I think the Minister pushed things a little far with his introductory statement reminding us what the Bill was all about.
Some of us cannot countenance this amendment because, whatever it may do to modify the original suggestions, it does not meet the fundamental objections that we are putting forward. The first fundamental objection is that there is an extraordinary paradox that when we are celebrating athletic achievement in the context of recreation, we are deliberately taking a step to encourage people to forego their recreation in order that others may be able to shop—not actually to watch the Games or cheer the Games on but to shop. The burden is clearly being put on the workers.
We know from the research that has been done that barely more than one worker in 10 is in favour of such a proposition. The overriding majority have severe misgivings, and in the real world in which they live—not the theoretical world of policy-making in Whitehall or here—they know the pressures that will be put upon them to comply with the proposal. That is one concern.
My other concern is that we have reached a settlement—or I thought we had reached a settlement, but of course that goes for a lot of social legislation which I thought was a wonderful achievement in the history of Britain, much of it done with bipartisan support to create the sort of Britain in which many of us wanted to live, but apparently there are no lines drawn under any of that; everything is open for destruction. Leaving that wider, very disturbing reality of the political age in which we are living on one side—if one can—and looking specifically at this, the settlement is that shop workers have the arrangements that are now in place. Those arrangements are being suspended.
I cannot for the life of me see how we can say, in terms of elementary justice, that it is the responsibility of the worker to seek to opt out of those arrangements. Surely if the existing arrangements are wantonly being put aside for a time, there should be an opportunity for the worker to opt in to the possibility of this. The onus is completely on the wrong foot.
Perhaps I might make just one other point. At Second Reading and today, the Minister has made this reference to the number of people who are not covered by the shop workers’ legislation. Of course, that is the reality, but we must recognise that that does not make their position right and the position of the shop workers questionable. It is a shortcoming in the rest of society. The ideal is what shop workers enjoy but because of the way we, as a society, have become dependent on the way in which we are organised, unfortunately, that is not extended to everyone. Very real arrangements are in place to ensure that where the rights enjoyed by shop workers are not available elsewhere, arrangements are made to ensure that those people can have adequate compensation for not having the privilege that shop workers have.
Sunday Trading (London Olympic and Paralympic Games) Bill [HL]
Lord Judd Excerpts(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Judd
My Lords, it is always a privilege, and indeed a joy, to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, who on issues of this kind sets a very high example in terms of the wisdom that he brings to bear on the issues before us.
The noble and learned Lord referred to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Newby, in which he drew attention to the letter from USDAW and the statistics it contains. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, was right to do that, because whatever we say and whatever our position, the burden of what we are proposing falls on the shop workers. It seems absolutely extraordinary to move into it for a temporary period—which accepts that it is something we would not normally want to do—without taking the views of the people who it is most going to affect fully into account.
I will not repeat them, but one of the statistics that impressed me greatly was that only 11 per cent—just over one in 10—of shop workers believes that they want to work in this situation. It seems rather difficult to accept that we go ahead with this when almost 90 per cent of shop workers say they do not want to do it and when it has all been apparently agreed that this is something we do not want permanently. We need to take this issue far more seriously than we apparently are. There have been consultations, but this was an effort to talk to the workers themselves and ask them what their views were.
I hope the Minister will forgive my drawing attention to the way he presented the case, but I am always intrigued in situations like these by the fact that people will have the right to opt out. But why on earth should the emphasis be that way? If you are going to have it, surely it should be about who wants to opt in, because we are intervening in what should be the normal arrangement of our affairs and expecting the shop workers to go along with us. I find it rather high-handed to say, “Well of course the person has the right to opt out”. Then there is the whole issue of the reality as distinct from the theory. I suggest there is not one of us who, in our heart of hearts, does not realise that in an awful lot of situations there will be all sorts of pressures one way or another for workers to comply when this provision has been introduced.
All this bears far more careful consideration. The Minister also referred to the irrefutable fact, which we should remember, that the provisions we have to protect workers’ rights in this context do not apply to everybody. They do not apply to an awful lot of people, as the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, said. However, because something we believe to be right in one context does not apply to a lot of other people, that does not make the thing we believe to be right for the particular people we are concerned with wrong. It suggests quite the reverse—that perhaps the same provisions should be more widely available.
I am not a Sabbatarian but I do happen to believe that one of the crises in our society and its whole culture is a creeping and suffocating blandness in which everything becomes the same. Whatever the accident in history, in which of course religious conviction has played a big part, the concept that there are some days that are different from other days in all sorts of intangible ways helps to lighten the load of inevitability and monotony that seems so much to diminish quality of life for people. That is why we have been at great pains in our society—but I do not think that it all came from benevolence; a lot of it came through hard, determined and courageous struggle by workers and their leaders—so that, when there is no Sunday provision, there is a recognition that people are entitled to a day off every week. Of course, what is being proposed here is that people may well be, as I understand it, although not necessarily automatically, expected to work in addition to the normal working week on a Sunday. I find that really rather a strange paradox.
As the right reverend Prelate put it so well, the whole Olympic ideal is about taking us out of ourselves and seeing bigger things than just the mundane, monotonous practicalities of life. It is about seeing spirit and adventure and people being able to join in and that imagination that goes with the whole culture of the Olympic ideal. To say that for all sorts of immediate pressing commercial reasons a particular section of people are to have less freedom than they would otherwise normally have is a very strange paradox.
To conclude, this Bill illustrates the need for some profound thinking for where we are going as a society. Can the Minister reflect on the words that he used himself? He was talking about an unrivalled commercial opportunity, or words to that effect. There is a lot of anxiety among a lot of people about the commercialisation of sport and what it is doing to undermine the integrity, the character and the spirit of what sport should be about. To say crudely that here is an unrivalled opportunity to maximise our commercial opportunities on the backs of the athletes is quite a significant thing to be saying about the vision, imagination and self-confidence in idealistic terms of our society. It disturbs me—and it also disturbs me that we are saying that we must not miss an opportunity like this to demonstrate that Britain is alive and well for business. Of course, I want the world to know that we are alive and well for business, but I also want people to get a feel of what our society is like and the values that we take as important. If we send a signal to the world that we are prepared, on an issue such as this, to override something that is normally important, what is that signal to the world about our values and self-confidence as a nation? It is a pretty pathetic message to send out to the world. For all those reasons, what worries me is that it is a short-sighted, mean and oppressive piece of legislation that is unnecessary—because we do not pretend to argue, and I hope that we mean it, that it is something that we want permanently to happen in our society. It is quite unnecessary and I really cannot see why the House is being troubled with it among all the more important things that there are for us to be doing at this time.
Comprehensive Spending Review
Lord Judd Excerpts(14 years ago)
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Lord Judd
My Lords, we certainly faced a very severe global financial challenge. Corrective action at national and international levels was essential. There can be no argument about that, but, as this debate is well illustrating, the issue is about what action and what timetable.
Adam Smith was a highly ethical man. His first writing was about ethics. He approached economics with ethical commitment as a given. The roots of this crisis lie in an ethical vacuum into which greed relentlessly moved. The heaviest burden of the measures proposed for recovery compounds the lack of principle. It falls on the less affluent and particularly harshly on the poor, on people who struggle to live at a lower or lowest level of society. Those are the innocents who had absolutely nothing to do with generating the crisis, save that they were too often wickedly seduced into grotesque personal debt.
The bankers and self-indulgent rich who live at the top of the pile appear to be escaping with very little real hurt. We live in an age in which wealth and profits are privatised, but in which risk is socialised. This makes a total nonsense of market theory. The self-correcting disciplines are absent. The innocent are crushed and punished to pay for the transgressions of the gamblers.
The Prime Minister likes to talk of broken society and of family, but it is the Government’s response to the crisis which is smashing society and crushing families. The greatly respected Institute for Fiscal Studies has underlined that the poorest are to be hardest hit, with families as the biggest losers. All this is compounded by insensitivity and remoteness from the harsh realities of struggle, of the pressures and acute stress that affect life for millions of ordinary people. Listen to Grant Shapps, the Housing Minister, as reported in yesterday’s Observer. This is what he said:
“I don’t deny some people may well need to move. Not tens of thousands. The impact assessment says that there are about 17,000 people in London whom the cap would affect”.
Seventeen thousand people would be stressed beyond endurance on what matters most for their security and any chance of a constructive life—a home. That is something that all of us, not least those in the Cabinet, take for granted.
The Government have also launched an attack on universalism in benefits. Universalism is about inclusiveness and social cohesion in a healthy community, where people are not stigmatised and institutionally patronised. It is about all belonging with the same rights as citizens. Of course this must mean a convincing system of progressive direct taxation, with all of us paying according to our ability to ensure a society worth living in. For too long, the concept and values of service have been, in effect, denigrated. Service is not seen as being for clever people. Money is their game. But the quality of mutual service is essential for an integrated society. Do any of us really want to be reliant on health provision driven by markets, as distinct from vocational commitment and a culture of service and care? Do any of us really want our children to be at schools and universities driven by markets, not by dedicated teachers and professors in a culture of unyielding commitment to learning and the generation of enlightened self-confident citizens? Are we really happy at the thought of older years dominated by anxiety and the ruthlessness of market forces, as distinct from a national culture of concern and national care?
The Prime Minister talks of big society, but that was exactly the vision of the so-called welfare state—the dignity of secure citizenship as against the insecurity of a rat race for survival, with volunteers scurrying about to put patches on the wounds. Why have we allowed the word “welfare” to become associated with failure? Welfare is about well-being for us all. No; Galbraith was right when he described the stark grimness of private affluence and public squalor. For social justice, progressive taxation, not cuts, is the route which clearly should be taken.
Save the Children, with all its experience and integrity, is convinced that the eradication of child poverty can be achieved only if the income of the poorest households is increased. Save the Children argues that boosting family incomes is the most effective way to improve children’s health, educational attainment and life chances. Its impressive analysis indicates that the comprehensive spending review measures will hurt families experiencing in-work and out-of-work poverty and are likely to reduce the incomes of families with children living on incomes below the 60 per cent median. I fervently hope that the Minister has had time to study the detailed policy brief prepared by Save the Children. Has he? Have the Government? If not, can the Minister give a firm undertaking to do so and put the considered response to that brief in the Library?
It is very welcome that the Government are standing by their pledge of 0.7 per cent of gross national product for overseas development assistance. This is for the most disadvantaged people of the world, although, as a former director of Oxfam, I would be happier if the pledge were to be fulfilled in the context of a demonstrably greater commitment to a fairer society within the UK itself. Within that pledge there are points still to be clarified. Will all the DfID staff cuts to be imposed affect the effectiveness of front-line staff? How will that effectiveness be guaranteed? How will the Government ensure that there are adequate essential human resources to support front-line workers with the policy analysis, research and international advocacy which are indispensible to the quality of aid spending and the best possible use of taxpayers’ money? If the increase to 0.7 per cent by 2013 is to be back-loaded, as seems to be the intention, there will be a steep increase—perhaps as much as 33 per cent—in spending in 2013, rather than straight-line increases from 2010. This will surely require careful scrutiny. How will this scrutiny be provided?
Andrew Mitchell has indicated that the spike in spending in 2013 will be facilitated in part by delaying the UK’s contribution to the 16th replenishment of the World Bank’s International Development Association. As the United Kingdom is the largest donor to IDA this could mean that the World Bank is unable to maintain current levels of disbursement to low-income countries for the first two years of the next IDA round. What reassurances can the Minister give us on the implications of this and how they are being met? The Government have committed themselves to spend 30 per cent of aid, both bilateral and multilateral, on fragile states by 2014. Some of that reprioritisation will presumably take place in the next two years. This coupled with the IDA payment delay could mean that more stable, but nevertheless poor, nations could lose out as the aid budget does not increase and spending priorities are put elsewhere. Again, can the Minister reassure us on this point?
On the Government’s highly welcome commitment to conflict resolution and security sector reform—here I should declare an interest as a trustee of Saferworld—does the Minister agree that addressing root causes of conflict and security in fragile states is about more than spending money on security interventions, that promoting lasting and sustainable security necessitates a holistic approach to security and development and not siloing them off as separate issues; in other words, that development needs security and security needs development? Is it not vital that any security interventions HMG do support must have practical concern and support for poor marginalised and vulnerable populations at their heart?
Climate change is having a devastating impact in poor countries, keeping vast numbers of people trapped in poverty. It is imperative to move towards a global low-carbon economy. At more than 552 million tonnes, the UK’s CO2 emissions are the seventh largest globally—more than those of the 112 lowest-emitting countries put together. We have an inescapable responsibility. In doing what we should be doing to fulfil that responsibility, can the Minister assure us that raiding the aid budget will not be the easy option, depriving as this would the poorest? Will the Government press for raising climate finance by alternative measures such as aviation and shipping fuel taxes or a tax on international financial facilities?
As the Government squeeze, if not in part throttle, the BBC, how will they make certain that where the BBC is most needed—in its overseas reach, keeping hope and values alive among tyranny and oppression—it will remain fully committed and effective? And where, in places such as Russia, the BBC can help to keep the struggle for accountable democratic government alive, will the Government make certain that there will be no further cuts? Do the Government agree that it is not just a matter of size of audience—a market matter—but a matter of qualitative significance, where this is crucially required? How will the Government use their influence to ensure that the expertise, analysis and in-depth knowledge, which have won the overseas service its outstanding reputation, are not dumbed-down and diluted as overseas news services are combined with mainstream BBC news services?
There has been a severe global financial crisis—of course there has been—from which we have not been immune. This has been aggravated by the greed and irresponsibility of the banks and others. The tragedy is that we do not seem to have learnt—we are drifting back already to the old ways. The gamblers and opportunists are there again. Just as the Government have rejected an imaginative Keynesian approach, so they have failed so far to call the financial system to account. As they increasingly put the burden of the inevitable consequences on the less rich and the poor, they rub salt in the wounds by talk of our all being in it together—of volunteers being mobilised to tend the casualties and victims. One day, the sooner the better, we shall have to rediscover national solidarity and start building a real sense of just community.
Terrorist Asset-Freezing etc. Bill [HL]
Lord Judd Excerpts(14 years ago)
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Lord Judd
I listened very carefully to what my noble friend said in his forthright argument. I have always thought that if anyone was the epitome of someone who lives in the real world, it is my noble friend. What is important about the amendment of the noble and learned Lord is that, with all his vast legal experience, he is reminding us of certain basic principles which we seek to defend in our antiterrorism legislation—the character of our society.
I am troubled in what I have seen as a drift over the years by what has happened to the principle of the presumption of innocence. I am not a lawyer, and it takes a certain amount of intellectual courage, if I may put it that way, to rise in a debate such as this when the lawyers are all speaking with so much authority and learning. However, as an ordinary citizen, the principle of the presumption of innocence is very precious, and we need to be certain that, in the terribly difficult task with which we are confronted in preventing terrorism, we do not throw the baby away with the bathwater. The noble and learned Lord’s amendment is not necessarily the best way to pursue the matter, but I seek some very convincing reassurances from the Minister when he comes to reply.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern
My Lords, I am prompted to rise by the noble Lord, Lord Judd. The principle to which he refers is displaced only by a conviction. Therefore, the amendment does not particularly invoke that principle. I would be interested to hear the basis on which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, thinks that a person should be charged with an offence under this provision. Of course, I understand the point made from the opposition Front Bench. It may be sufficient if there are assets in the jurisdiction, even if the person who owns or controls the assets is not himself or herself in the jurisdiction. Having listened carefully to my noble and learned friend Lord Lloyd of Berwick, I am left with the question of the basis on which, or the extent to which, one must know what has happened in order to charge someone with an offence under these provisions.
“( ) A person may not be appointed under subsection (1) unless—
(a) the Secretary of State lays a report before both Houses of Parliament which recommends the person and sets out the process by which he was chosen,(b) a Minister of the Crown tables a motion in both Houses to approve the report laid under this subsection, and appoint the person, and(c) such a motion is agreed by a resolution of both Houses of Parliament.”
Lord Judd
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 23B, 23C, 23D, 23E and 23F. This afternoon, there have been references to the Joint Committee on Human Rights and in its report, which was published last week, it dealt with the issue covered by this amendment. In welcoming, as I do, the moves which the Government have made to try to strengthen the human rights aspects of this proposed legislation, the committee has firmly stuck to its view that the propositions which I am putting forward are the right course to take.
I take this opportunity to pay a very warm tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, for the role which he has fulfilled as reviewer of other aspects of terrorism legislation and its implementation. He has set extremely challenging and high standards, which we should all applaud. I have not agreed with his conclusions all the time, but no one can question the commitment and expertise which he has brought to the task. He has certainly proved himself capable of making very rugged and outspoken statements when he believes that the time has come for him to do so. It is good that there is provision for a reviewer. I am really glad that the Government have made that provision in legislation.
We all know that in this extremely difficult and challenging issue of terrorism, the extremists and the terrorists operate best when there is a considerable constituency of ambivalence about what they are doing. I very much doubt whether anyone in this House would not take the most firm and uncompromising stand against what they are doing. We are clear in our own minds. However, we have to recognise that if people suffer injustice, if people are alienated, if the extremists can get to work on what they can portray as an absence of absolute transparency in all that is being done, that plays into the hands of the terrorists and their chiefs. Therefore, as in other issues we have been debating today, it is not just a matter of what is right, but of what is necessary if we are to be effective in our campaign against terrorism. We simply have to take the issue of hearts and minds seriously. That is why transparency is so crucial. What therefore is proposed in these amendments is that, following the Government’s good sense in making provision for a reviewer, the reviewer should be able to be seen, and should be seen, to be independent in all that is undertaken.
I have genuinely commended the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for his work in adjacent contexts. I hope he will not mind my saying that I think it has been done despite the arrangements that have been made to support him and within which he has operated, not because of them. I believe that his position would have been even stronger if he had been able to be seen as totally independent in all his support and operational arrangements. That is what the amendment proposes. I hope that the Government will accept that its intention is to help them to make a success of their provision.
Therefore, perhaps I may briefly cover the points. First, we think it would be sensible that the reviewer reports to Parliament. Secondly, Parliament should certainly approve the arrangements for the appointment of the reviewer and indeed the appointment of the reviewer himself. Thirdly, the secretariat—the people who work with the reviewer—should be independent of government. There is room for doubt to be exploited if people can say, “But, look, the reviewer is utterly dependent on the implementing department for support in executing his task”. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, has not fallen into the trap but we might not always have him, and therefore what is put into the Bill needs to provide for all circumstances. Finally, it is sensible that the appointment is for a finite period so that there can be no question of people saying that it has become part of the ongoing furniture and is no longer bringing a freshness and acute objectivity to the task.
I believe that the task of reviewer for the effectiveness of our campaign against terrorism is crucial. If we are going to have a reviewer, the logic is to ensure that he cannot be portrayed by anyone as anything but demonstrably independent of government machinery. I beg to move.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, it has been an interesting discussion. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Judd, for recognising that the Government have put in this independent review process. We have modelled the provisions for the independent reviewer on those in the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, which we believe provide an effective model for the statutory, independent asset-freezing reviewer. The tributes that have been paid to the work that my noble friend Lord Carlile of Berriew has done, and to which I add my own, are the strongest possible endorsement of the framework we have used and on which we have modelled the provisions in the Bill.
Amendment 23A requires the independent reviewer to be approved by Parliament. We have heard very clearly from my noble friend Lord Carlile that independence is not to do with the detail of the appointment process, but the state of mind and the way in which the reviewer goes about his or her business. Of course, the independence of the reviewer is absolutely essential as part of the safeguards and will be a principal objective of the appointment that is made. But that does not mean that we believe it is necessary for Parliament to approve the independent reviewer. That would be a significant departure from standard practice in these matters. The appointment of a reviewer by government reflects a longstanding principle of ministerial responsibility about appointments. It is something for which Ministers are directly accountable to Parliament and to the public. Parliament will of course be able to scrutinise the work of the reviewer and hold him or her to account through existing mechanisms; for example, through parliamentary committee scrutiny.
Amendment 23B requires the reviewer to have a secretariat that is independent from government to assist him in the task. For reasons, including those given by my noble friend Lord Carlile of Berriew, we do not consider this to be a necessary provision. The independent reviewer will be provided with a secretariat and administrative support in this case, as necessary, by the Treasury. As my noble friend has explained, in practice these matters are not easy. He has set out a model that suited his way of working. It combines, under exactly the same provisions as we are proposing in this legislation, his operating partly in his own offices and partly, for matters of security and confidentiality, within, in his case, the Home Office. That does not appear to have impacted adversely in any way on his ability to carry out the role. Indeed, he has explained why in aspects of it it has been necessary to have the provision of a secretariat of civil servants, whose work he has warmly commended. We do not see why this should be any different for the independent reviewer of the asset-freezing regime.
To make the obvious point, creating a new and independent secretariat would mean a significant and ongoing cost. It is important, especially at the present time and in the present financial climate, that the best value for money is achieved, consistent with all the other objectives that we need to meet. We believe that the Treasury can provide the necessary secretariat without affecting the independence of the review or creating further significant costs.
Amendments 23C, 23D and 23E would replace the independent reviewer’s obligation to report to the Treasury with an obligation to report to Parliament. The annual reports and other ad hoc reports from my noble friend Lord Carlile of Berriew have always been provided, as he has eloquently explained, in the first instance to the Home Office to check factual accuracy, and to check that they do not inadvertently include any classified material and cannot be published. Similarly, asset freezing also deals with highly sensitive and classified material. We therefore believe that a similar process is appropriate.
Given that the independent reviewer will have access to all relevant papers and evidence, including highly classified intelligence reports, and on occasion material that is being considered as part of a separate criminal prosecution, it is only sensible to ensure that published reports do not include classified or sub judice material. Parliament could certainly not undertake such a check. But I can assure noble Lords that the Government will not seek to influence in any way the outcome of these reports. The reports will be provided to Parliament as quickly as possible and will be made available to the public.
Finally, Amendment 23F states that the appointment of the independent reviewer will be for five years and that it will not be renewable. We do not believe that it is necessary to have a statutory limit on the length of time that a reviewer should remain in post. There may be valid reasons why a reviewer should leave at an earlier stage. Equally, there also may be valid reasons why a reviewer should stay in post for longer, such as the expertise that a reviewer builds up over time of the legislation that is being reviewed, which may be invaluable to the review process.
The Government consider it essential that the report is impartial and transparent. As I said in Committee, the independent reviewer will be free to review any aspect of the asset-freezing regime. I would therefore hope that the noble Lord will be prepared not to press his amendments.
Lord Judd
I thank the noble Lord for that full reply and appreciate the tone in which it was given. I also thank everyone who participated in this debate and, if I may, I have a special word for the noble Lord, Lord Lester, who supported the amendment. I say that because it is fascinating to watch even one of my oldest friends—we were at the same school—grappling with the realities of his intellectual and legal convictions, and the cause of coalition politics. I understand his predicament and think that he spoke as positively as he could. Obviously I am glad that my noble friend Lord Davies commended the amendment. It is always nice to feel that one’s Front Bench is behind an amendment of this kind.
I have also a warm word of thanks for the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for sharing so much of his experience and insight. We are fortunate to have someone of his calibre doing the job. But that is the point: he emphasised that it is the rugged independence of the reviewer that matters. We are making provision in this legislation for a future in which we do not know who the reviewers will be. They may not all be as robust and at times combative as the noble Lord has proved himself to be. The advantage of what we are proposing is that there will be a system that gives resources to and backs the reviewer in order to enable him or her to play the part as fully as they should.
The noble Lord and others spoke about costs, and of course one recognises that there may be costs involved. We are talking about justice in the face of the most terrible and sinister provocation, and of preserving the essence of what makes our system of justice, of governance and of democracy worth defending. If we really believe in these things, there will be a price. But we cannot simply trim still further because by doing so we give a victory to the extremists. What I have always been determined to see in our approach to these matters is that we do not inadvertently give the extremists a victory—a score. That is why it is so important that we demonstrate to the world and to others that we are proud of our system of justice and our freedoms. We know that in the context of terrorism it is necessary to introduce special measures, but in doing so, we must be determined to ensure that all can see that we will keep the diminution of our systems of justice as we understand them to an absolute minimum, and that what is being done can be justified. That is crucial and therefore the importance of the independence of the reviewer cannot be overstated. It is vital. In that sense, what the amendment proposes is a system that will enhance and demonstrate that independence.
This is a vital issue. I do not want to see the processes of rationalisation beginning to erode it all over again. That is how we slip and how, inadvertently and step by step, incrementally we give the terrorists and the extremists a victory. By doing so, the society we will end up with will not be the society we are trying to protect. From that standpoint, and because it is such an important issue of principle, I wish to test the view of the House.