Scotland Bill

Debate between Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope and Lord Hope of Craighead

Monday 29th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (LD)]

My Lords, I have three amendments in my name in this group. I am pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy. Social security is a very important subject and Part 3 is a very important part of the Bill.

I can dispose of my amendments briefly. At one point during Committee, I considered running a series of amendments that would have sought to take on employability. That is an important part within social protection but separate from social security. I welcome the fact that Clause 29 devolves a certain amount of power in terms of the Work Programme and related contractor-driven service provisions north of the border to Scotland. That is entirely sensible.

My original idea, which I think there is still a case for, is that employability as a subject could have been taken much further than the Smith commission suggested. I have for some time come to the conclusion that the whole of Jobcentre Plus services could be more efficiently and better served from a Scottish base run by the Scottish Government through the Scottish skills department, in a way that could improve on what we have at the moment. I decided against doing that because it was not in the Smith commission. There is a stateable case for doing it but I do not think that this Bill is the right way.

Instead, I decided to try to encourage Ministers to look more flexibly at the powers within Clause 29. Amendment 58 looks at some of the restrictions in claiming reserve benefits. Amendment 59 would try to give more flexibility and power to the Scottish devolved powers in Clause 29 to make them easier to tailor to individual Scottish circumstances.

I should declare an interest. Colleagues probably know that I am a non-executive, non-remunerated director of the Wise Group in Glasgow. I have been in that position for a while. As a result of that experience, I am pretty persuaded that the Scottish conditions, the shorter lines of communications and the set-up north of the border are of a different order to what happens throughout the rest of the United Kingdom and could be better developed in a way that would provide a better service if a maximum amount of flexibility was given. The providers who run the programmes already have a lot of discretion about the services that they deploy. It is all done on the basis of payment by results and the outcomes are all very carefully monitored, so I do not think that we would be giving very much away by encouraging the Clause 29 powers to be developed in as flexible a way as possible.

I suspect that the Minister will be advised that Amendments 58 and 59 would run counter to some of the legislative provisions that set up the Work Programme. I am prepared to accept that, if that is the case, but I think there is at least a series of questions to be asked about what are very important programmes delivering services to low-income households and jobseekers in Scotland in a way that I think could be improved. In parenthesis, I think that worklessness will be less of a problem in Scotland in the future and that low-income working households will have difficulties with poverty which will need to be addressed in a different way, because work incentives are not just about getting people into work but about getting them to progress through work. That is important, too. If the Minister does not mind, it is worth spending just a moment trying to give me a rationale on why we should not increase the flexibility available to work providers north of the border once Clause 29 powers are delivered to Scotland.

I do not think there are as many lawyers present in the House now as there were earlier this evening; otherwise, I might be tempted to press Amendment 60 to a Division because any self-respecting lawyer who looked at the complexity that now exists within this Bill compared with the parent Act of 1998—we are dealing with exceptions, reservations and exempted, as well as accepted, powers—would consider that a consolidation measure was easily justified. I hope that the Minister will note that I have made it easy for him in the amendment by saying that I would settle even for a draft, because trying to do what that amendment seeks to do in six months would be quite a tall order. However, it is a serious point. It would be of considerable assistance to all of us to have such a measure as this body of law develops. I hope rather than fear that it will develop; that is, I am fearful of that from a complexity point of view but hope for it from a political point of view.

On the previous group of amendments, the Minister rightly said that it was important to try to keep the template of the various sister Acts in some kind of cohesive shape. But in order to do that and to assist that process, a draft consolidation measure would be much appreciated by everybody in future. As I say, if there were enough lawyers in the House, I might even think about pressing this to a Division. I make the point facetiously but I hope that the Minister takes it seriously and gives us some comfort that he will go back to the department and explain how difficult it is for us—never mind members of the public—to understand the complexities of the interrelationships of the Acts that flow as a sequence from the parent 1998 Scotland Act.

[Lord Hope of Craighead]

My Lords, I support what the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, has said. Even with the advantage of the websites, it is very difficult to get an accurate and up-to-date version of amended legislation. If you go to the official website, you usually find that mention is made of amendments which have not yet been incorporated into the legislation as shown on the website. That time lag makes it very difficult for ordinary people to see exactly what the content of the legislation is. I think I am right in saying that when the Law Commissions were set up they had a function to keep an eye on the need for consolidation. If the Minister is not inclined to accept the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, perhaps he might, through his offices, encourage the Scottish Law Commission to get to work on consolidating these measures in a way that would be useful for anybody working in the Scottish Parliament or who was trying to understand what the current legislation really is.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope and Lord Hope of Craighead

Tuesday 14th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, is right to avoid the use of the word “novel” or “new”. The problem is that what may be new or novel today may not be so next year. What we are seeking to do in this legislation is to create a series of criminal offences, and the prosecutor will need to be very precise in leading evidence to satisfy the requirements of the definition. A solution along the lines suggested by the noble Baroness, supported by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, avoids that word, which lacks the precision that is needed. Of course, the word new or novel is widely used in common parlance, but that is not really the test that should be applied for legislation such as this. I am therefore sure that the noble Baroness was right to find some other form of wording, and the one she has suggested avoids that difficulty.

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (LD)]

My Lords, I want to make two quick points as a codicil to this important group of amendments. I strongly support the attempt of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, to insert the word “synthetic”. As a former pharmacy graduate—non-practising—who studied such things, to me, the word “synthetic” makes perfect sense in this context, and it would make the Bill a lot clearer. I also support the amendments in this group that would reintroduce the concept of harm, which the 1971 legislation introduced in a way that has stood the test of time. Indeed, I am behind the thrust of all these amendments.

My noble friend Lady Hamwee referred to the Committee stage of this Bill, which the ministerial team dealt with in an exemplary way; it listened very carefully and did the best it could. But any Member of this House who has had the advantage, as some of us have, of reading the recent letter from Professor Les Iversen and the Home Secretary’s response of a few days later, will be left, as I certainly am, with a real concern about the difference in tone between the two approaches taken. I and many others expressed the concern in Committee that the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs was being written out of the script. I use that harsh language deliberately, although I am not blaming the Minister.

On the second page of his letter, Professor Iversen says:

“The ACMD … wishes to present its concerns that the Bill, as drafted, may not achieve its aims”,

which is a pretty fundamental thing to say,

“and may produce serious unintended consequences”.

The heading of the subsequent paragraph states:

“The omission of the word ‘novel’ has widened the scope of the Bill”,

which all of us on my side of the argument were arguing against with the Government Front Bench. The heading of the next paragraph states:

“The psychoactivity of a substance cannot be unequivocally proven”.

Again, with my academic background, I support that view, which is the one taken in Committee. The heading of the next paragraph states:

“The Bill uncouples the concept of harm from control of supply, importation and production”,

which is the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and others were making.

What relationship do the Government really have with the ACMD, given that they seem to be so far apart? We had a manifesto commitment which talked in yellow journalese about,

“a blanket ban on all new psychoactive substances, protecting young people from exposure to so-called ‘legal highs’”.

That is the kind of language we would see in manifestos, and a few short weeks or months afterwards we get this Bill, which seems a long way away from Professor Iversen and his colleagues. That is a concern to me. I do not blame the Minister, by the way, but that is a concern that this House is right to reflect on Report. Admittedly, there are proceedings in the House of Commons and I am sure that the Minister’s approach in Committee—the way that he was prepared to pick up points and reflect on them—will continue. I have been in this business a long while and I can see a long distance between these two bits of correspondence. The Minister has some work to do to persuade this House on Report that that gap is not dangerous and that people may not get hurt unless this is sorted out before the final passage and Royal Assent of this Bill.