Bus Services: Local Government Funding

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Wednesday 13th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I assure the noble Baroness that I have regular discussions and conversations with colleagues across a vast range of areas and across different ministries. The total transport pilot fund I have highlighted again underlines the Government’s commitment to look at how funding works and how government funding is sourced and provided at a local level across a range of different departments. We are half-way through the pilot and I shall report back once we have completed it.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, do the Government agree that public services are part of our living standards and that when measuring the cost of living it is not only the retail prices index that is not moved by these affairs? People have to go to a supermarket a long way away and pay for a taxi or make some other arrangement. Is there not a case for an inquiry into how we measure the cost of living when it does not include these major elements?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

As a public servant I agree with the opening statement of the noble Lord: the public sector is an important part of this. I do not agree with the premise that an inquiry is required. When it comes to transport, we need to ensure that we have schemes in place that work for ensuring sustainable transport at a local level. That is the Government’s priority.

Economic Case for HS2 (Economic Affairs Committee Report)

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, having heard my noble friend Lord Hollick criticise the Department for Transport for not listening carefully to some of the committee’s views, I am sorry that he is not here to listen to some of the analysis of his own report from Members of this House.

We seem to be moving into a world of what is now called spatial economics when it comes to infrastructure investment. Those who say that this will definitely favour centralisation in London must think that everybody born in Manchester, like me, is stupid. The people in the north are overwhelmingly in favour of this project, and they are not all stupid. If we are to have two clusters—the new spatial economics is called cluster economics—there is the vision of a big cluster in the north and a big cluster in the south. I remind noble Lords that although London is a big place and you can take the wider number of 10 million or 15 million people, it is no bigger than the cluster in the north. You can play around with geography, but south and north are capable of forming a sort of dumbbell of two great clusters. That makes sense.

It also makes sense to accept the disappointment of the noble Lord, Lord Prescott. There was indeed a strange sequence of events whereby, having established that the northern powerhouse was the great idea, suddenly, trans-Pennine electrification was delayed. Perhaps the Minister can explain. There might be a proper argument about the link-up with the north of HS2 and the electrification of which trans-Pennine route—it may be a new project—is necessary as part of HS3, but I should like to hear the rationale set out side by side.

Many of us who were keen on the northern powerhouse when no one else was thinking about it are a bit suspicious of those who suddenly want to damn HS2 on the basis that they prefer HS3. I do not find that very convincing. There is within what I call the northern cluster, broadly defined, a huge improvement across what one might call the clusteral reality—including from Birmingham, Nottingham, Derby and Sheffield—which takes a very long time at the moment, well over halving the time into Yorkshire, Lancashire and across the top.

Apropos of what my noble friend Lord Desai said about cost-benefit analysis, there are different ways of looking at it. I did a bit of that in my first job after university. I was doing postgraduate work on transport economics at the same time as jobs for the World Bank on it. Cost-benefit analysis is very difficult. One reason is a point that the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, did not acknowledge when she said that the expenditure should be compared with current expenditure on education or whatever. No self-respecting economist would see it that way.

Let me put myself in the position of a Victorian engineer or public servant in 1850. Did we realise that we were building a railway for 200 years—not just for 1950 but for 2050 the way it is going? The west coast main line will be there for 200 years. We all know that discounted cash flow and rates of return over those periods of time are very hard to combine with what one spends on the current year’s public expenditure. However, the Victorians did not delay and leave to the next generation all those great expenditures on sewers and the rest of it. We should take a broader view when we look ahead over these vast periods. We should also take a broader view, in that connection, on how fast the trains would go. Somebody said, “Why should we go faster than everybody else?”. Well, why not? Why should we say that in 20 or 50 years we should be locked into a route that will determine the possibilities for speed, for a start, and save some money now with 300 kph instead of 400? I do not see why we should always be the back-marker.

My other major point is that the committee has not been very fair in its analysis of the train paths issue. You have to compare apples with apples here. It is not just a question of whether at some times of the day there is spare capacity. You are freeing up train paths for a number of reasons, one of which—freight—I am sure my noble friend Lord Berkeley will comment on in a second. We need more freight paths. This leads to the environmental question. I am sure that the Amersham Action Group would criticise a motorway going through Amersham even more vociferously. It should recommend that more freight be allowed paths up the country, rather than going by road. We should say that, although there is no total proof of these things, this is a project in which many of us who have a little bit of experience in these matters will put our faith—to use the words of the right reverend Prelate—and that we have crossed the Rubicon now. We should really say, “Full steam ahead”.

London Airport: New Runway

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Lord raises a very valid point and we are looking at areas of surface transport. He will be well aware that the commission made an interim report. Various recommendations came out of that on improving certain facilities: for example, the station at Gatwick Airport is being improved. Issues were raised about road networks, which is part of our investment strategy, and regional airports such as Birmingham and Bristol are, among others, receiving support in terms of improving the surrounding road network.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

Is it not the case that the only reason the Government did not say yes to Heathrow straight away is the bombast of Boris Johnson and the difficulties of that type within the Conservative Party?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I think that it is right to say that the views of the London mayor are important views to consider. However, the report commissioned in 2012 has now reported. Any responsible Government would consider the findings of that report before coming to a final decision.

Modern Slavery Bill

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. I will say two things before I address the issues. First, my eyes are on the totality of the Bill. It is a fantastic Bill, and I warmly thank and congratulate the Minister on all the steps that have been taken throughout the process of the deliberations on it. The fact that I support these amendments does not detract from that in any way; I merely wish to make a terrific Bill even better.

Secondly, it is being said in the corridors that we are putting the Bill in danger with this amendment—much was made of that in the Commons. I have heard it said that civil servants have been saying that to some of your Lordships. I would not support an amendment if I thought that it was putting the Bill in danger. It is not doing so. There is ample time for us to discuss the amendment and for it to go back to the Commons, were it to be passed. What we are doing now feels like an anomaly only because of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, which means that we have had a sort of protracted wash-up, and we are no longer used to the ping-pongs we used to have.

The substance of the amendment seeks to defend the important win that Members from around this House secured earlier this month. As we know, many overseas domestic workers are subject to appalling working conditions, long hours and little pay, and are sometimes at risk of mental, physical and sexual abuse. They must be entitled to the most basic rights to enable them to leave their abusive employer when they feel the need to, and they should know, as a matter of precaution, that a system is in place to protect them. That is the most crucial piece of the jigsaw, which is currently missing from the Government’s amendment. Without that, there is no bargaining power between an employee and an employer.

The workers must be able to challenge maltreatment and abuse, and be able to leave and change their employer without having to take a leap of faith. To make co-operation with the authorities a condition on securing leave to remain would only drive more domestic workers underground and lock them into a cycle of abuse. What incentive would they have in coming forward? Would the authorities believe them? What if the NRM decision was not positive? The NRM does not provide them with any access to legal aid or right of appeal. Even if they got a conclusive grounds decision, who would employ them for the mere six months they would be able to remain in this country?

In the three years during which migrant domestic workers have been tied to their employers, fewer have gone to the authorities. Understandably, they are reluctant to do so because they are afraid of people in authority. Of the 214 people who Kalayaan internally identified as trafficked since April 2012, only 63 have consented to a referral to the NRM. Therefore, can we rely on the NRM to deliver accurate decisions on the fate of these workers, when only a few months ago the independent review into the effectiveness of the NRM highlighted significant areas for improvement? I have no doubt that as a consequence of the review and the Bill there will be real changes in the NRM, and I welcome that. However, change takes time, during which overseas domestic workers will continue to suffer abuse. Moreover, as Kalayaan pointed out in its briefing, if forcing domestic workers into the NRM is a way of prosecuting employers, why have none been prosecuted during the three years of the tied visa? If we put ourselves in the shoes of such a worker, would we risk our livelihood on an uncertain decision or prefer to stay abused and exploited for the sake of our family, who are dependent on us in our home country? Could the Minister compare the system for spouse visas and overseas domestic workers visas? The Government provide a route for settlement to those who suffer domestic violence while in the UK on a spouse visa in the hope that this will be an incentive to people to leave the abusive relationship, not to stay in it because of fears about their immigration status. So why do the Government seek to create a system in which ODWs are treated differently?

Statistics from Kalayaan, which has done such a fine job in campaigning on this issue, show that in 1998, when the right to change employer was introduced, the numbers of those abused went down. Similarly, in 2012, when the restrictions on freedoms were put in and the right to change employer was removed, the numbers went up. This is not a coincidence. All the evidence that we have from NGOs and from the media coverage has shown that there is a link between tied visas and abuse of overseas domestic workers. Surely we can best facilitate the end of suffering on abuse for overseas domestic workers by listening to them, the charities that work with them and the independent expert groups that have looked at the issue. All of them are unanimous that to help to prevent the abuse happening in the first place, the overseas domestic worker visa must be untied.

I very much hope that this excellent listening and responsive Minister will, having answered the points made today, accept the amendments. In doing so, he will have made a very good Bill even better. More importantly, he will have helped and protected these most vulnerable of workers.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

I add in support of what my noble friend has said that it would be useful if the Minister could elucidate what sort of contract of employment we are normally talking about, because that would subsume many of the worries about the lack of rights that we are discussing.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I have been involved in this Bill before it even existed, because I was a member of a working party set up at the request of the Home Secretary which Frank Field chaired. Sir John Randall and I were the other two members. We started in October 2013, and it was as a result of our report in December 2013 that the first draft Bill came into existence.

There have been so many changes to the Bill that the current version is almost unrecognisable from the first draft given by the Government. As the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, said, the Government are greatly to be congratulated on listening—and not only that but on tabling a remarkable number of amendments, having listened to what we have all been saying. There are child advocates, which the noble Lord, Lord McColl, must feel is one the great triumphs of his recent time in the Lords. Then there is defence for victims and protection in court; the existence of a commissioner, even if he may not have all the powers that everybody wants him to have; and, perhaps most astonishingly of all, the supply chain. That was totally opposed at the beginning, but it now forms an integral part of the Bill. So this House and the other place should really be very proud of what we have done to make a good Bill.

Of course, the Bill is not perfect. The Minister accepts that—it is a starting point, and it could be better. But all parties support the Bill, as well as the Cross-Benchers. There are gaps, and those gaps can and should be filled under the next Government, whichever sort of Government they are, because no Government will not support the concept of the Bill when it becomes law—as I hope that it will—and I hope that they will be sympathetic to several amendments. I warn the Government that strategy and policy issues also need to be improved—but again that is for the next Government. But what is perhaps of supreme importance to your Lordships’ House as well as to the other place is to have the framework of the Bill as part of the law of England and Wales. That is absolutely crucial.

I, of course, recognise the plight of overseas domestic workers. This is something that we need to tackle and improve over a period. However, there were criticisms of the previous Government’s visa requirements. The commissioner-designate says that there were opportunities for traffickers to traffic people from one employer to another under the visa requirements that came in before this Government changed them. The Minister reminded us that James Ewins—a sensible, intelligent lawyer—is looking at how the present system of visas works and how the previous one worked, and will report on that. It seems to me very sad that we should be going in a sense to war at the last moment, the day before Parliament prorogues, on an issue which is now the subject of a review which I have no doubt will come up with excellent recommendations. As the Minister has already said, primary legislation is not required to make the changes that James Ewins may well recommend, and which the next Government may well accept; they could be done by regulation.

In addition, the Government have made strong concessions. There will be the opportunity for those deemed to be victims of slavery to stay in this country and to get another job. The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, said that that applied only for six months, but that is not what Amendment 72A says. It says,

“not … less than 6 months”.

I read that rather differently from just six months. That seems to me an important distinction that I make in disagreeing with the noble Baroness.

Why at this moment, with Prorogation of Parliament tomorrow, are we still fighting over this clause? With one day to go we are in danger of the best being the enemy of the good. That has been said before but I make no apology for saying it again. We may be fighting a Custer’s last stand if this House and the other place find themselves scrabbling around tonight and tomorrow morning, trying to get a second go on the second ping-pong. If the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, persists tomorrow, what will happen? If he is not going to persist tomorrow, will he tell us when he replies why he is persisting today? The Government have already gone a long way on this issue. When we are so close to the end of this Parliament, do we really expect them to give in to what is in a sense almost blackmail?

EU: Migration

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have made any proposal to other European Union member states, either severally or collectively, which would limit (1) the right of United Kingdom citizens to live and work in other European Union member states, or (2) the parallel right of citizens of other European Union member states to live and work in the United Kingdom.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government have regularly engaged with other member states on the issue of free movement, the Home Secretary has consistently pressed for action on abuse and the European Council has recognised that this issue needs to be tackled. The Government have also started a debate on reforming the transitional controls for new member states and will engage constructively with other member states in discussion on how best to achieve change in this area.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his reply, which means no. The reason it is no is that it has obviously dawned on the Government, belatedly, that this would require reciprocation by all the rest of the 28 member states.

I have two supplementaries. First, does the Minister agree that there is a broad balance at the moment, not by design but by the facts on the ground, between the number of Brits living over there, in the EU, and the number of Europeans coming here? Roughly 2.2 million gain a living there and there are a few more here. Secondly, is the Minister aware that it is not exceptional to have this arrangement in Britain? Does he agree that, for example, there are far more people from the rest of the EU living in Germany—not least from Greece and Romania—than are living here in Britain?

[Lord Bates]

First, my initial Answer was yes not no. It was that we have been engaging with Europe. The European Commission has endorsed this approach. The noble Lord referred to Germany. The German Government are passing legislation through the Bundestag to restrict the benefits of those who come to Germany when they are not genuinely seeking work. It was tested in the European Court of Justice. These are exactly the types of reforms and reviews which we have been pushing, from our side, and which are getting greater support across the other member states of the European Union.

Immigration Bill

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Monday 17th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, in this debate there seem to be two conflicting policy desiderata in play. Judging by the very powerful speeches that have been made, lateral thinking seems to be required. The two pieces of policy analysis, pro and against, seem to be mutually exclusive, but I would hope that before the Bill is enacted some thought could be given to some sort of halfway house. That might seem to be a rather facile thing to say. However, there seems to be too much polarisation in the way in which this is being argued. Obviously, I cannot anticipate what the Minister will say in his response, but at the moment this seems to be a case of two ships passing in the night. On a point of such sensitivity, I hope that this does not continue quite in that form.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, as has been said, this issue has been with us for a long time. I still find it hard to understand why we persist in saying to people, “You will be destitute because we want to make your life uncomfortable in the hope that you’ll go away”. I cannot think of any other reason why we have this policy. Surely it is humiliating to people who have skills and could contribute to our society for us to say to them, “No, you may not do that”. If any of us were in that position, what would we do? Would we be destitute or would we work illegally? I suspect that we would work illegally, and there are of course jobs like that to be found.

I do not recommend that people work illegally but I do recommend that people should not be put in the position where they have very little choice. This is a very unhappy situation for people. There would be no cost to public funds; indeed, if people had a job, that would benefit public funds because they would pay national insurance and income tax. No Chancellor of the Exchequer needs to be frightened of this. This is a point of simple humanity. For heaven’s sake, let us change the present policy.

Immigration Bill

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Monday 3rd March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart (LD)]

My Lords, I wish to support the arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, by recalling two anecdotes. He very forcefully and persuasively deployed the arguments about students from abroad, external to the European Union, coming to this country. One anecdote is about when I visited Tanzania with the late George Thomson and met Julius Nyerere. He had studied in a university in Britain and had translated Shakespeare’s plays into Swahili. The ties with Tanzania were greatly fostered by that personal encounter at a particularly difficult time when we faced apartheid in South Africa.

The second anecdote relates to a visit I paid to Hong Kong some years later when I met the director of development and housing, who had also been to a British university. When I inquired about who were the construction engineers developing various important developments in Hong Kong, virtually every single one of them was British. I think that reflects the truth of the general principle that we should encourage people from overseas to come to this country as students not only because of the money they pump into our education system, but also because of the long-standing ties that they foster when they go back to their own countries.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the first amendment in this group, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, for the following reasons. Each Bill introduced into Parliament has an impact assessment. I have considered the methodology of the impact assessment for this Bill. It refers to costs and benefits, but I think there is a fallacy built into the methodology. The section on employment and monetised benefits states:

“There may be additional employment opportunities for UK residents”.

This must be based on an extraordinarily narrow focus, even if it is not economic sense, to say that employment opportunities will be opened up for UK residents. It sounds like a bit of UKIP propaganda to me; I cannot see how the rationale for it works.

Why is this important? It is important because it is a long way from the sort of impact assessment to which the noble Lord, Lord Hannay and others, including the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, have alluded. If, for example, we were to see a catastrophic fall in the subcontinent, are we seriously suggesting that the impact assessment on UK plc national income over the next generation would be zero? Of course it would not be zero; it would be negative. It is unacceptable that the impact assessment can be framed as narrowly as this.

In this regard, I ask the Minister to do two things. One is to revisit the impact assessment and to at least have a go at the wider context. The analogy that crosses my mind is that 10 or 15 years ago we could have said that we did not need to spend any money on Heathrow Airport because aeroplanes could land there and if there were a few more in the next year that would be fine, failing to see that our market share in Europe, compared with Charles de Gaulle, Frankfurt and Schiphol, would now be in a state of crisis, unable to serve all the places in China, for example, that can be served by these other airports.

Secondly, I ask the Minister to do a survey, and to put it in the Library, of the situation in other EU countries. We are talking about a distinct group, non-EU students coming into the EU, and although we control our own borders, at least to some extent—obviously not with the EU—we are not covered by a common external immigration policy. I am not suggesting that we should be. I am suggesting that we do a benchmark study. Australia, the United States and possibly Canada are the only countries that have been mentioned so far: the “white Commonwealth”, as it was once called. However, it is important to know what the practice is on this question of students in the other EU countries. Do they have to deal with the fearful rigmarole that we are confronted with here? Is the damage to Britain’s reputation part of the cost-benefit analysis? Of course it is not. I have great sympathy for the civil servants trying to do these cost-benefit analyses in so many fields nowadays. With HS2, can you actually look at the cluster effect on Manchester and Leeds and so on in the north of England? Possibly not, because it is very hard to do. It is very hard to quantify the cost benefits for that, and civil servants would get no extra brownie points for introducing, alongside key monetised benefits, things where it is difficult to monetise their value.

In conclusion, will the Minister agree with me, and with the spirit of what has been said by many noble Lords, that one cannot look at an impact assessment in the narrow terms on this rather thin piece of paper that I have here, which it is probably obligatory on Whitehall to use? Will he agree to look into the two matters that I have specifically asked about? This involves our world market share in so many areas, and that concerns the future of our country. Some might say that this is missing the point and that the point is to reduce the number of overseas students. I ask the Minister if it is outrageous to suggest that the policy is to reduce the number of overseas students, the rationale being that statistically they pose more potential danger to the country. We must spell this out. Before Report, there is scope for these matters to be teased out a lot more than they have been so far.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, disappointingly the figures for India have gone down and there may be some historical background to that. The figures have gone down from 39,000 to 22,000 over these three years. They also decreased in the United States from 103,000 to 96,000 and in Australia from 21,000 to 12,000. It is interesting that there were decreases in the UK, Australia and the United States, which suggests that there may have been other factors. As my noble friend Lord Taylor said, there had been a big increase at an earlier stage in students coming from India, but I will certainly look for more detail on that.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

Does this not demonstrate the value of having some independent statistics on what you might call world market share? The figures for India, the United States, et cetera, have just demonstrated that you have to compare apples with apples on this and we are not necessarily doing that at the moment. It would be very useful, to inform the debate, if we had more data instead of anecdotal evidence on these matters.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

The noble Lord is suggesting that these figures are anecdotal, but in respect of the countries I have just mentioned—the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom—they are genuine figures, as far as I am aware. There is no way that they are anecdotal. Those for the United Kingdom were produced by the Office for National Statistics.

EU: Free Movement of Labour

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I have not noted that particular report. I am concerned that we are experiencing a pull factor in this country, and that is something that we need to address if we are going to get a proper balance between migrants who are coming here to support the British economy and those who, through other purposes, are seeking to abuse our systems.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister recommend that all colleagues study reports on the nature of multinational corporations in this context? Is he aware that many executives and other workers in many industries, including the motor car industry, are moving all the time from, say, a job in Frankfurt to a job in Limoges or wherever? We need Ministers’ assistance to improve the public’s perception of this issue as the tabloids are not going to do it.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I agree with the noble Lord that many of the people coming here are essential to the British economy. That is why the Government facilitate their presence here, to support economic activity in the country. As I say, we welcome the brightest and the best.

Visas

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. He has a strong focus on this issue. Indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, is presenting a report, which we will be debating shortly, on the whole question of family visas. We need to make sure that we have a proper balance between safeguarding our own position and our commitments within the wider communities here in the United Kingdom and, at the same time, facilitating visits to this country.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

My Lords, one of the concrete points made by the Chinese authorities in this article to which reference has been made is that a decreasing proportion of Chinese visitors to Europe—the European Union, broadly—are coming to this country, because they can get a Schengen visa for all of the continent, in effect, and the extra hassle of getting a visa for Britain deters people from adding Britain to the European tour, as it were. Will the Minister carry out a study as to whether our documentation could not be nearer in line with what is done for the Schengen countries without our sovereignty being impugned so that, as a result, a bigger proportion of the Chinese would be able to come to this country?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I think the noble Lord is very perceptive in anticipating future debates on this subject. This is clearly one of the difficulties that we have in not being party to the Schengen agreement. Given that the House, I am sure, would not welcome our incorporation into the Schengen agreement, we are seeking to discuss with others, including the Schengen countries, ways in which we can maximise the opportunities for visitors to come to this country.

Police: Strike Action

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Thursday 18th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

My Lords—

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)]

I think we should hear from my noble friend Lady Doocey. The Labour Benches have had two.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

My Lords—

[Noble Lords]

Order!