Charities: Banking Services

Lord Lemos Excerpts

Thursday 23rd July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forbes of Newcastle]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the challenges faced by charities in accessing ethical and appropriate banking services; and what steps they are taking to ensure that voluntary organisations can obtain reliable, affordable and compliant banking provision.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Lemos) (Lab)]

Charities make vital contributions across the country. While the provision of banking services is ultimately a commercial decision for banks, the Government believe that it is essential that charities and voluntary organisations can access suitable banking services for their needs. The Government have worked closely with UK Finance to support non-profit groups’ access to finance, developing the interactive account finder tool hosted on its website. Smaller charities may also be eligible to use the current account switch service. I should also declare my interest: I was chair of the payments board at UK Finance for several years.

[Lord Forbes of Newcastle (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his thoughtful and considered reply. Many charities face slow, complicated and burdensome processes to change registered trustees on their accounts. According to the Charity Commission, a growing number of charities, particularly but not exclusively those that are Muslim-led, are finding themselves debanked altogether. Does my noble friend the Minister accept that current money laundering rules and banks’ risk-avoidance practices are having unintended consequences for charities seeking ethical banking? Will His Majesty’s Government consider issuing clearer regulatory guidance for the banking sector to ensure that civil society organisations are treated proportionately, fairly and indiscriminately?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that easy, holiday-focused question on the last day of term. I also thank my noble friend Lord Pitt-Watson, who got to the Treasury job too late to take this Question. Mine’s a gin and tonic, David.

We recognise the concerns raised by charities about access to banking services. The UK’s anti-money laundering regime is designed to be risk-based and proportionate, and banks are expected to assess customers on that basis, rather than applying blanket approaches. We continue to engage with the banking sector, regulators and charities to understand these issues, and we will keep under review whether further guidance is needed to support fair and proportionate treatment of civil society organisations.

Just to share my empathy with my noble friend, the Charity Finance Group’s 2024 survey said that 92% of charities had experienced at least one banking difficulty in the previous two years. That number needs to come down.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, can the Minister address the issue of access for charities and others in rural areas? Two or three years ago, the Treasury issued a mandate that every resident should live within two or three miles of a bank branch. That has simply not happened. Can he address this as a matter of urgency?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I understand the point the noble Baroness is making; I live in south Devon, so I recognise the picture. We understand the importance to communities and high streets of access to banking services. The industry has committed to a rollout of 350 banking hubs by the end of this Parliament. Over 275 hubs have been announced so far, and more than 240 are already open. You can get a full list of hubs on the Cash Access UK website. If there is a particular place where there is no access to banking services, you can put in a petition, as it were, and it is obliged to look into it. This is an ongoing area of concern for the Government, and we have launched a review into access to banking services. I will happily talk more about that if noble Lords ask me.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, I faced some of the challenges raised by this Question when setting up a charity some 11 or 12 years ago. At the time, questions were asked by others in this place about the difficulties, and the answers given then were remarkably similar to the answer the Minister has just given. Nothing has improved over those 11 or 12 years, so there is clearly something wrong with the system which needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency. Can the Minister pass on to his colleague the requirement to act on this quickly?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

My Treasury officials will kill me for this answer, but I must say that I recognise the picture the noble and gallant Lord has painted. When I came to read the pack for this Question, I had a decided sense of déjà vu. I will pass that question on to my noble friend Lord Pitt-Watson and he will get straight back to the noble and gallant Lord.

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, charities are subject to accountability to a range of regulatory bodies—the Charity Commission, the Fundraising Regulator and HMRC. In view of that, does the Minister agree that it is wrong that banks can unilaterally withdraw banking services and that there is no appeal?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

As the noble Baroness knows, debanking and access to banking services is an issue way beyond charities and it is really important. The Government recognise the importance of that, and that is why they have introduced new rules to require banks to give customers 90 days’ notice before closing accounts and to provide a clear explanation. The Government’s new rules will ensure more transparent and predictable access to banking, while still recognising that it is a commercial decision for a provider as to whom they provide services. But what I would say is that banks are big and rich, most charities are small and poor, and I am on the side of the little guy.

[Lord Altrincham (Con)]

We thank the noble Lord for standing in for the Minister at the end of term; I do appreciate that. A recent Charity Commission survey found that nearly one in five charities has experienced difficulties in opening a new bank account. This has been repeatedly discussed in your Lordships’ House, including throughout the passage of the current Financial Services and Markets Bill. How will the Government ensure that regulators apply their rules in a proportionate manner, taking account of the constraints under which charities operate that need access to banking services?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

The question of regulation is really important here, so I should set out the position clearly. Charities are protected by the FCA’s consumer duty up to £1 million turnover, and if they want to seek redress from the Financial Ombudsman Service, they can do so if they have turnover of less than £6 million. I would encourage charities, if they are really unhappy with their bank, to use the UK Finance “find a bank” tool—it is not called that, but you know what I mean—and the customer account switching service. The best tonic for poor service is competition.

[Baroness Gohir (CB)]

My Lords, earlier on, the Minister said that the assessment is risk-based, but a report by the Muslim Charities Forum shows that two-thirds of Muslim charities face banking issues. Are the Government suggesting that Muslim charities pose more of a risk, and why is that?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

No, I do not think that is what we are suggesting. We are suggesting that the banks must act proportionately and in a risk-based way. I think the noble Baroness knows that there are issues, not just in the Muslim community, of which charities must be vigilant, involving financial crime, money laundering and so on. We would not want to stop banks doing that, but of course we would strongly oppose any idea that that targets any specific community.

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

Do charities that have a politically exposed person such as a Member of Parliament or, indeed, a Member of your Lordships’ House on the board as a trustee face additional complications in gaining banking services?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

That does not sound right to me. I do not know the answer to that question, but I will make sure my noble friend Lord Pitt-Watson writes to the noble Viscount.

[Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)]

My Lords, I want to take up the issue of debanking, not just in the charity sector but in independent journalism. I do not know whether the Minister knows about the Canary, an independent journalism outlet that Lloyds Bank has debanked, meaning that it did not have access to substantial amounts of money to pay staff. Does the Minister think that fair and ethical in an open society where we value a free press?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I am not familiar with that case, but if it is as the noble Lord suggests—and I have no reason to doubt that—that is a serious concern, and I am sure the FCA would want to know more about it.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, the Question is about access to ethical banking. We are frequently told during Prayers in this House about the evils of the person who lends money on usury. Can the Minister have a stab at defining ethical banking?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I could read out a very long answer I have here, but I will not. The heart of the matter in relation to ethical banking goes back to this question of risk-based assessment. I know that a number of the banks that regard themselves as operating ethically would perhaps take a slightly different view on how they manage risk, but also on how they manage compliance. We want to be clear that the security of the banking system is an absolute priority.

I am over time. I wish all noble Lords a very happy summer holiday. I am off to Cornwall, and I will see you in the traffic jam on the A30.

Domestic Travel and Holidays: Visitor Levy

Lord Lemos Excerpts

Tuesday 21st July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of introducing a visitor levy on the cost of domestic travel and holidays within the United Kingdom.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Lemos) (Lab)]

This Government believe in empowering mayors. Mayors will decide whether introducing a levy is the right choice, as is common for local leaders in countries all around the world. Mayors will need to consider the appropriate balance between supporting local economic priorities, including tourism, ensuring a levy is affordable and providing stability and certainty for business.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, the Government’s treatment of the hospitality sector over the last two years has been marked by neglect, indifference and deeply damaging policies. This summer, many families would have been looking forward to enjoying their summer holidays, but the Government have planned to introduce a tax on their holidays. This tax will disproportionately harm lower income families in Britain and the smaller hospitality businesses that provide cheaper holidays. That exposes the hollowness of the new Prime Minister’s own stated mission to bring down the cost of living. Does the Minister agree that the new Prime Minister should change course, put small businesses and British families first and abandon the family holiday tax?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

The visitor levy was announced on 25 November 2025 and a consultation on the design of the levy powers was launched in the Budget. The consultation has now closed, and the response will be published—perhaps the noble Lord will not be surprised to hear me say this—in due course. We expect that local leaders will be able to introduce the levy before the end of this Parliament. I am afraid I do not accept the wider characterisation from the noble Lord. As he knows, we have done a great deal to support the hospitality industry, including pubs and live music venues, through business rates support and through our Great British Summer Savings scheme, which is now well advanced.

[Lord Forbes of Newcastle (Lab)]

My Lords, I am a former chair of Core Cities UK, the group of the 10 largest cities outside of London. Core Cities campaigned long and hard for the power to introduce a discretionary visitor levy to fund the additional costs of tourism-related expenditure, maintaining historic sites, promoting marketing campaigns, and the cost of major events—which in my time as leader of Newcastle City Council the hospitality sector told me was the single biggest thing that brought additional business in through their doors—ultimately reducing the burden on council tax payers of the overall visitor economy. Can my noble friend the Minister indicate whether His Majesty’s Government have plans to press ahead with this financial flexibility for areas in England that wish to introduce it?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

As I have said, the discretion will be with local mayors, and I pay tribute to the campaign of my noble friend and others. Perhaps I can quote one regional mayor:

“I am proud that nearly two million people from all over the world choose to visit Greater Manchester every year. The money they spend contributes about £9 billion annually to our economy”—

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I am doing my job—

“supporting over 100,000 jobs. The levy will allow us to invest in the infrastructure these visitors need”.

I agree with this comment by my right honourable friend. If mayors choose to introduce this levy, it will help investment in the tourist economy.

[Lord Londesborough (CB)]

My Lords, when it comes to visitor levies, surely one size does not fit all. Applying them to small, family-run operators in our struggling coastal towns will inflict further damage on already weak competitor positions. Where is the evidence that applying Manchesterism to places such as Blackpool, Skegness and, indeed, Burnham-on-Sea will not damage growth in these postcodes and drive visitor numbers down?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

That is precisely why we are leaving it to local mayors to decide. Of course we will not impose a levy from the centre. I have already said that the consultation has been completed, and we will announce the response in due course. Of course we are not going to impose the same thing everywhere.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, we support devolving more economic power to local areas, but any visitor tax must come alongside vital relief for a sector that is already struggling under the Government’s NIC hikes, which happened not so very long ago. So, will the Government enact an emergency 5p cut on VAT on hospitality, accommodation and entertainment until April 2027 to provide some ongoing relief? Will they also give us a cast-iron guarantee that a tourist tax will not be an excuse to further cut already insufficient local government funding?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

The Government have taken a number of fair and necessary decisions on tax, welfare and spending to fix the public the finances. In honour of my noble friend Lord Livermore, I should of course mention the £22 billion black hole.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I am sorry—I am on spirited form today. [Interruption.] This is a very serious matter.

One of those decisions was to make changes to employer national insurance contributions, and the Government have protected, as the noble Baroness knows, the smallest businesses from these changes by more than doubling the employment allowance, which allows eligible employers to reduce their employer NIC bills by up to £10,500 per year. As the noble Baroness knows, our commitment to supporting greater fiscal devolution to local authorities has been redoubled.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I noticed very carefully the Minister’s well-crafted job application. I hope the Prime Minister notices it as well and that the Minister is successful. He has done it with a smile on his face and with the right attitude, so I wish him good luck. I noticed that, in his Answer, he referred to mayors three times. Can he confirm that the only places in the country that will face this family holiday tax will be those where there is a directly elected mayor—and nowhere else?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his kind remarks. I do not normally apply for jobs, but there we are. On the central point about mayors, it is our intention to announce the results of the consultation, and as he knows, there are a lot of details to be worked out, but those plans relate to places where they are.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, I warmly welcome this devolution of power. In declaring my interest as chair of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, I ask my noble friend if he shares my concern about the impact of disinformation, especially from the United States of America, on reduced visitor figures to London this year. Will he also join me in welcoming the campaign of my newly ennobled friend the Mayor of London to showcase our wonderful city and tackle this online disinformation?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

Yes, I do share my noble friend’s concern about misinformation and disinformation, not just in this regard but in many other regards. As noble Lords with whom I have discussed the elections Bill will know, I am particularly concerned about foreign interference in various matters in our lives here, including elections.

London is of course a wonderful and safe city. The Government have an ambitious target of 50 million in-bound visits a year by 2030, and I pay tribute to the work my noble friend is doing to promote those activities. London is a wonderful place—do not let anyone tell you otherwise.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, a visitor levy is a poor prospect, damaging the hospitality sector and its employees, and is no doubt a contributor to today’s ONS unemployment figure of 14.8% for 18 to 24 year-olds. The Prime Minister has made an array of promises: a cut in VAT on electricity, lifting the personal tax allowance, ending rough sleeping, a huge council house programme and relocation packages to get civil servants to move north—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

No cheering. Can the Minister explain how all these new commitments will be paid for, and whether Parliament will be given the chance to probe the many questions that will arise in the coming days and weeks?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for setting out the Government’s plan so clearly, and in doing so enjoying so much support from behind me. This visitor levy is really important; it exists in every G7 country. I am sorry—I do not want to be completely flippant because this is really important. Of course, we expect local authorities, mayors, to take proper decisions about how to fund these things, and to grow their economy.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, we see from the polls that have been done that the use of a visitor levy for the support of museums, theatres and other tourist attractions would be popular, not least because most visitors to our cities, whether domestic or international, come for the arts and culture. I hear what the Minister says about decision-making, but does he appreciate the helpful circularity, in that support for our culture in this way would further stimulate hospitality, including the hotel and restaurant trades?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I absolutely agree with that, and I should declare my interest as a former chair of English Heritage, so I have first-hand experience of these matters. The costs of visitor attractions are what economists call externalities, and this visitor levy will help redress them.

Foreign Interference in UK Politics

Lord Lemos Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pack (LD)]

My Lords, I will resist the temptation to ask the Minister to remind us what consultation the previous Conservative Government carried out with either his party or mine over, for example, changing the electoral system for elections of mayors or expense limits for general elections.

Instead, to go to the heart of the matter, these Benches very much share the concerns set out in the Rycroft review about the risk of foreign money influencing, or even corrupting, our politics. We therefore broadly welcome the Government’s commitment to implementing the report. However, I have some concerns about the intended speed of implementation, some of the loopholes that will remain, and one particular issue that is not mentioned in the Government’s response, which I suspect the Minister can successfully predict.

I turn first to the intended pace of implementation. On recommendation 4, regarding non-party campaigners and related issues, the Government have said they will

“commit to consultation and further work”.

They are not even committing to action on that one. On recommendation 14, on internet advertising, the Government have promised “proposals in due course”. On recommendation 16, on think tanks and associated issues, the Government’s commitment is that they will

“consider opportunities for further work”.

I fear that you can almost hear the wheels of Whitehall grinding to a halt as you consider that phrase. I hope the Minister can set out clear timelines for the Government’s intended progress on those recommendations, which are, after all, on substantive major issues such as the role of online advertising.

On loopholes, I have raised before the question of the Government’s apparent inconsistent approach to politics and the media. They appear to be sticking to a significant control test for companies that permits greater foreign ownership of a company that donates to our politics than is permitted for a company that owns one of our newspapers. It remains unclear to me why the Government think that a lower level of protection against foreign interference in our politics than in our media is appropriate. I hope the Minister might be able to clarify that.

The Government are proposing—in a broad sense, this is a welcome step in the right direction—introducing a new threshold of £2,230, above which pre-campaign donations to individual candidates would need to be declared. That sounds a reasonable threshold, until one remembers that British-wide political parties will typically stand 633 candidates across the country, or, if not contesting the Speaker’s seat, 632 candidates. Therefore, 632 lots of some £2,000 gets you to nearly £1.5 million-worth of donations that could be made legally, legitimately and in secret, unless the Government also propose to go a little further and introduce aggregation requirements around those donations to individual candidates. I hope the Minister can tell us what is intended on that front.

Indeed, the Government Statement is rather silent on whether similar protection will be extended to, for example, elections for the Mayor of Greater Manchester or the Mayor of London. Those, among other elected posts at other levels of election, have important power, and, although we have not yet had a track record of having to worry about foreign money in such elections, it would seem to me prudent to extend such protections.

Finally, I turn to the consolidation of election law and the dangers, costs and complexity that arise from the messy and fragile state of election law, In the past, I have used the parallel of a teenager with a messy bedroom—the Government never quite decide that now is the time to start cleaning up that bedroom The Rycroft review said:

“I urge Government to consider”


action in this area. Because that was a boxed-out urging of the Government to consider, rather than a formal recommendation, the Government’s response so far has been silent on that particular part of the Rycroft review. I hope the Minister, having been urged by Rycroft to consider this issue, can tell us what consideration the Government have come to.

To push on one specific example, consolidation does not have to a be a big project, put off for ever only to be done in one big bang. It is possible to pick off little individual issues. For example, it is possible to look at redundant legislation on the statute book, the repeal of which would have no or only minimal knock-on consequences. It is a bit like picking up the dirty crisp packet from the middle of the floor—we are not going to tidy the whole bedroom but can at least pick up some of the easy bits. I have one specific question. The Parliamentary Elections Act 1695 seems to me to be the perfect crisp packet—an easy thing that could be picked off and repealed under the Representation of the People Bill. I hope the Minister can tell us that that is going to be added to the Government’s plans.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Lemos) (Lab)]

My Lords, I will come to that question at the end, if I may.

The Secretary of State commissioned Philip Rycroft to conduct an independent review of risks posed by foreign financial influence in UK politics. In March, we welcomed Mr Rycroft’s comprehensive assessment and announced immediate plans to accept two recommendations responding to urgent risks. A week ago, in your Lordships’ House, I said that the Government would publish their response very soon, and I am delighted to say I was right. They have now published their full response and, as noble Lords know, the Government have accepted all of Mr Rycroft’s recommendations. I will come to the specific points that the noble Lord, Lord Pack, made in a moment. I welcome the support—I would not say it is qualified support—from all the Benches opposite for Rycroft and our acceptance of the recommendations.

In response to Mr Rycroft’s recommendations, we will strengthen our political finance rules through amendments to the Representation of the People Bill. I should note, because this is an important point that the noble Baroness made, that the Minister will be writing to political parties to set out these measures in much more detail, and that letter will be publicly available on GOV.UK. I will come to the question of discussions and engagement in a moment.

We will introduce an annual £100,000 cap on donations and regulated transactions from overseas electors. It is materially more complex to trace the true source of political donations made by voters living overseas, and this creates a clear avenue for the channelling of illicit funds. There is a simple principle at stake here, which I think we all share: we want the people who make donations to political parties to have a genuine stake in the life of the UK. That is the principle we are seeking to achieve. A cap recognises legitimate participation while ending the risk of unlimited overseas money entering our politics. The noble Baroness referred to those risks, and the Government are very alive to them.

Recognising that risk continues when British citizens return to the UK, and therefore we are introducing a minimum residency period. The risk is very clear. An overseas elector returning to the UK must be here for a full calendar year before that cap is lifted, to prevent circumvention of the regime. Once the measures come into force, that minimum residency period will apply retrospectively, from the date of our original announcement on 25 March. I note the comments that the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, made about retrospection, but the Government’s view is that there are clear risks and we should address them in the way that we have.

We will apply the same cap and the minimum residency period to anyone who moves to the UK after the date of the Statement and was not previously an overseas elector, to ensure these individuals cannot circumvent the rules before commencement. That is the risk. A modified cap will apply retrospectively and an annual cap of £100,000 per recipient will apply to donations they make between today and the date of the commencement of the measures, including any regulated transactions they enter into from today. On commencement, the cap and the minimum residency period will apply in the same way as for those who were formerly overseas electors.

As we previously announced, we will introduce a moratorium on all political donations of any amount made via cryptocurrency. The arrangements around crypto are simply too opaque.

Building on previous announcements, and in response to the review, we will go further to strengthen our political finance safeguards. We will amend the corporate donation test, so that it is based on post-tax profits rather than revenue, measured over five years to prevent double counting. We will introduce a new donor declaration to be made by anyone donating above a specified threshold. We will engage with the Electoral Commission and political parties as we develop the declaration, including an appropriate threshold. We are introducing a raft of transparency measures.

We will also strengthen rules and transparency on donations to candidates. Candidates will have to declare that donations to fund campaigning—as the noble Lord, Lord Pack, said—made prior to formally becoming a candidate are from permissible sources. Donations in that period above £2,230 will need to be cleared. The noble Lord, Lord Pack, asked me about aggregation. We have no plans to legislate on aggregation at the moment.

We recognise how vital it is for the health of our democracy that we have a regulator that is fearlessly independent and, to the noble Baroness’s point, properly resourced to do the job that we are asking it to do. That is why, to ensure its independence, we are also repealing the Government’s powers to designate a strategy and policy statement for the Electoral Commission. Beyond political finance, we will take steps in the Representation of the People Bill and more broadly to implement these important reforms.

If I do not manage to cover everything in the time I have left, I will come back to noble Lords. On consultation, I do not have anything to add. The noble Lord, Lord Pack, gave a very adequate response on the history, so I shall not go over that again. I do, however, accept the noble Baroness’s point that we are trustees, not proprietors, of the political finance system. I take that very seriously. I take very seriously the risks of tit for tat—I said this in the debate last week—and the risk that future Governments might get into a prisoner’s dilemma.

I do not, however, accept that these reforms are partisan, hyper-partisan or otherwise. I agree with the noble Baroness that that is not a scenario we want to see. The Parliamentary Parties Panel of the Electoral Commission has continued discussions between parties. I assure the noble Baroness that I will, as this legislation proceeds—I will be taking it through your Lordships’ House—engage in a lot of detail with anyone who is keen enough to talk to me. The noble Lord, Lord Hayward, has already had the pleasure of my company on these matters; I bow to his superior knowledge. I can see him waiting to rise to his feet. On the resources of the Electoral Commission, I take the point that the noble Baroness made.

On a point from the noble Lord, Lord Pack, I take very seriously the question of online adverts and, indeed, misinformation online generally. I see the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, nodding. I do not think any of us feel we have cracked it, to be blunt, and this is an area that we will have to continue to think about in relation to political representation, online advertising and so on. We will all be here on this subject for some years to come.

On foreign ownership of the media, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Pack, will forgive me if I do not get drawn into that, but I take the point he made. I have already discussed our plans on aggregation.

On consolidation, I think I did answer this last week, but I am very happy to repeat my answer, which is that the Government want to fulfil the commitments they made in their manifesto. I was going to say “as a first step”, but I had better not say that because it might get me into a whole lot of trouble. That is our priority, and noble Lords can understand why. I understand the arguments, and the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, made the same arguments to me yesterday about consolidation.

On the 1695 Act, I will have to come back to the noble Lord. I commend the Statement, despite that absence in my knowledge, to your Lordships.

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Wilson of Sedgefield) (Lab)]

My Lords, before we move on to Back-Bench questions, I remind the House that the next 20 minutes are reserved for questions from Back-Benchers only. I know that the whole House would appreciate these rules being adhered to in order to ensure that as many noble Lords as possible get a suitable opportunity to ask questions to the Minister—that means questions, not speeches or statements.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, referred to me. In opening, I echo what the noble Lord, Lord Pack, said. I am pleased to see the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, in his seat, since I notified him that I intended to quote him. On 15 July 2022, he said:

“I hope that, when we get a new Prime Minister”—

how perceptive—

“they will look at the whole issue of our electoral law, which desperately needs some revamping”.—[Official Report, 15/7/22; col. 1709.]

I now move on to the question of implementing changes in this particular field. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, has already made comments about this. I know that the Minister is an old Alleynian—a product of Dulwich College. There is another product of Dulwich College who may have a certain influence on the changes that are necessary in this field. It is because of the events that we are witnessing and the investigations that are being undertaken by the Ethics and Integrity Commission that I ask the Government: please, can we not force through amendments to the Bill now, when we may be in the position in the imminent future of having yet more changes necessary to the legislation?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I am indeed a product of Dulwich College, which only goes to show that it is not the school’s fault. I am sorry to say that I am older than Nigel Farage, and I am tempted to make jokes about bins and recycling—but I will not, because the Chief Whip will tell me off. On the substantive point, we understand that there is a lot going on. These are not matters for me; they are matters for the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and the Electoral Commission. We hear what the noble Lord says about the need not to keep double-dipping on this, so we will watch the situation carefully, but I should not comment on individual cases, as I know he understands.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the Government’s acceptance of the recommendations of the Rycroft report. The Statement says:

“We will also strengthen our response to the wider influencing environment”.


Recommendation 16 specifically talks about think tanks. The other night, in a committee room upstairs, I listened to a number of experts on foreign interference talking about foreign Governments funnelling money through think tanks in Britain to influence our political debates, including not only the Russian Government but the last Hungarian Government. I therefore urge the Government to consider including those forms of indirect political influence to shape the political debate—the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, may add that PR firms are also engaged in this—as part of what we need to control, and to insist on transparency, at the very least, in where the money is coming from. I suggest that we should have a Defending Democracy Taskforce that reports to Parliament about what it is defending and what the threats are, so as to inform and alert us all to where we are.

I was the leader on our Benches for the 2022 Bill. I have been trying to recall the consultations that the then Conservative Government had with other parties. I must have forgotten that they took place. I was unaware that there was any form of constitutional convention. I will welcome the paper from the Conservative Benches about the constitutional convention: when it was shaped and how the Conservative Government previously used it in consultation with other papers. Perhaps, at that point, we may be able to discuss this new constitutional convention further.

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I do not have anything to add on the noble Lord’s final point, other than that it sounds a bit like the Schleswig-Holstein question to me.

On the question about think tanks and so on, I have already said how the principle behind the Bill is that we are seeking to prevent foreign interference in our democracy. As we go through the process with the Bill in Committee and on Report, we will discuss the issues that the noble Lord raises. At the moment we are focused on political parties, as I have said, but we recognise the wider landscape he draws, and we will cleave to the principle I have set out.

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

I welcome the Government’s commitment to give the Electoral Commission more investigatory powers, including the power to require information from third parties, as the Rycroft review recommended. The devil will be in the detail on that. Other regulators have extensive powers to require information from third parties, to search premises, to require third parties to attend for interviews, and so on, which are enforceable by criminal penalties. What powers are envisaged to be given to the Electoral Commission to require information from third parties and how will they be enforced?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

The noble Lord raises a very important point in relation to information sharing. To address the asymmetry identified in the Rycroft review of the information-sharing provisions in the Bill, we will amend the Bill to establish a broad reciprocal statutory gateway for information sharing. Importantly, we will also extend the commission’s power to require disclosure of information outside of a formal investigation, enabling a more proportionate and effective approach to enforcement.

On criminal liabilities, one of the things that we want to achieve in the Bill is for these matters to be dealt with, as far as possible, by the Electoral Commission, as there are other pressures in relation to police time, and so on. We are decriminalising some minor offences in the Bill, as I think the noble Lord knows, but we do not want to reduce the liability in relation to serious matters.

[Lord Shamash (Lab)]

My Lords, I have just returned from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly, where I spent the last five days on behalf of the House. One of the issues that came up was that what is happening here is not unique to us. A number of countries across Europe—not least Armenia, Hungary recently, and Moldova—are suffering the same issue of money coming in, possibly from Moscow and elsewhere. A considerable amount of time and effort is being spent by people on thinking of ways to tighten up the rules and make things more effective.

Enforcement has been touched upon. I may have mentioned this last week when it came up, but things have changed since then. Suppose that Count Binface was the recipient of several hundred thousand pounds from some foreign donation and was to win that by-election in Clacton. Many might like to see him win, but that is another matter for another time and another place. What would be the ability to enforce against him? He would be the successful Member of Parliament. Does the Representation of the People Bill, as drafted, have the teeth to remove that Member of Parliament? The Recall of MPs Act 2015 does not properly cover this. Can the Minister give some advice or think carefully about how we are going to deal with this problem? Maybe he could write to me or meet me for a discussion.

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I already have a date to meet the noble Lord, Lord Shamash, so we can certainly pick this up then. These potential breaches and allegations are matters for the Electoral Commission. It is our job to empower it to deal with them. I am sure that we will debate the issues he raises at some length in Committee when the Bill comes before the House.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Pack, is too nice to have gone through everything that the Tories did without involving us, but one of the things they did was to bring in the requirement for ID for people casting a vote. However, those people living abroad, although they extended the vote to them, do not have to produce their ID; they vote by post. I am sorry to bring this to my noble friend again but, more importantly, although I approve what Rycroft did in bringing in a cap, it is £100,000 per year per person. A couple living abroad who may not have lived here for 40 years can do £1 million between them over a Parliament. My noble friend cannot say that he agrees with me, but can he at least say that he is sympathetic, hears what I say and that it will be taken into account in future discussions?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

My noble friend Lady Hayter will have to read my body language, I am afraid. I will not be drawn. Her arithmetic is correct. If those patterns emerge, I go back to the principle that we want to stop foreign interference in our politics. If we see these rules being manipulated, as she suggests might be the case, we will respond to that. On voter ID, as she knows, the Bill does contain some provisions to make it easier for people. We will come back to those in Committee, I am sure.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

On procedure, I suspect that on the Opposition Front Bench the lady doth protest too much, judging by what I hear about the precedents. It is rather a good thing that there is a vehicle, in the Representation of the People Bill, ready for the addition of the amendments that the Government are making, picking up from the Rycroft report. I thought that the report was very good and that the Government’s answers were generally good.

My concern is over penalties. There is a risk, given the very large amounts of money that are flying about and the penalties being exiguous, of them simply being seen as a cost of business. I am rather sorry that on the recommendation that sentencing should be reviewed, the response is:

“Significant changes to criminal thresholds and sentencing length require a longer process of analysis and consultation than is possible to deliver in the timeframes of the RoPB”.


I am not sure why that should be so. Is the Minister sure that it is not possible to tighten up penalties in this Bill?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I am starting to feel the need to defend the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, but will not fall into that temptation. On enforcement, one point that I should perhaps have made and will make now is that we are increasing the fining powers of the Electoral Commission. I know that is not quite the point that the noble Lord is making but it is precisely for the point that he makes. The current cap on fines from the Electoral Commission is £20,000, which could be seen as the cost of business for people and businesses richer than I am. We are raising that to £500,000.

On the point about criminal sanctions, we are in active discussions with the Ministry of Justice. As the noble Lord rightly acknowledged, we want to do what we can and not go at the pace of the slowest recommendation. We will come back to that point because the recommendation from Philip Rycroft gives us a very clear direction of travel.

[Baroness Berger (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome this very important review and that the Government are accepting all the recommendations. I am most concerned about the area pertaining to recommendation 13, on what is happening online in the social media space. The recommendation is that combating “hostile state online interference” requires

“clear lead accountability at ministerial and senior official level … with resources commensurate to the challenge”.

Since this review was undertaken, an important report came out in the last month from the Social Market Foundation. It found that around by-elections and elections online, we are seeing 26 times more misinformation and disinformation on social media. That review looked specifically at what was happening on Facebook. In that context, I urge the Government to press the National Crime Agency to undertake a full investigation into who is funding British content creators who are posting daily toxic content that is deliberately anti-democratic, divisive and highly damaging to our politics.

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that question and I pay tribute to her long-standing work in this area. It is important that I set this out carefully, so I hope she will forgive me if I read out the precise answer. The Online Safety Act framework requires in-scope services to tackle illegal content where it amounts to a criminal offence. In an election context, for example, this includes incitement to violence, undue influence, foreign interference, false communications and false statements about a candidate’s character. Those are important powers, but we recognise—as I have already said on the question on adverts that the noble Lord, Lord Pack, raised—that today’s technological and online environment shifts and develops rapidly. That is why we are working with colleagues across government—I am very actively engaged in this myself, including with Ministers in DSIT and the Home Office—to continue to take steps to address these challenges. Your Lordships do not need me to tell them that we need to keep a close eye on this space.

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I will take the Minister back to his answer to the noble Lord, Lord Haywood, who asked about the Minister’s fellow Old Alleynian, the coming by-election and the legal processes, and said that maybe we should hold off on the legislation until we have seen that process play out. I think I understood the Minister to say that he understood the argument and to “watch this space”, or words to that effect. Is it really proper for us to pass legislation against, or at least inspired by, a specific individual? Is not the worst kind of law that which is designed to frustrate a political opponent? Should we not be very careful, in this House particularly, of that kind of talk and legislation when the party in question, Reform UK bizarrely, despite its share of the vote at the last election, lacks any representation in this Chamber?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I never say “watch this space”—it is not my style—but the serious point that the noble Lord makes is absolutely right. Of course we should not allow individual cases of that sort. This is a properly regulated space. We are strengthening that regulation. Many of these matters, particularly in relation to the other place, are for the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and the authorities in the other place. I would not seek to interfere with that in any way, but we will all read the papers, I am sure.

[Lord Redwood (Con)]

What are the Minister’s thoughts on the past intervention of President Obama in the British referendum, which rather backfired, and what would he think if leading Republican politicians today, for example, get energetically behind Rupert Lowe’s party?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I do not feel qualified to comment on the behaviour or attitudes of the leaders of the Republicans or other right-wing parties in the US.

Edinburgh Anti-Muslim Attacks

Lord Lemos Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Forsyth of Drumlean)]

My Lords, before inviting the Minister to respond to the noble Baroness’s topical Question, which is about the attack on Muslims in Edinburgh last week, I remind the House that no reference should be made to the criminal case currently before the courts in relation to the individual charged with the attack. Noble Lords are free to discuss the general issue, but the specific case remains sub judice.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Lemos) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government are deeply concerned by the attacks in Edinburgh. Our thoughts and prayers are with those injured and the wider community, as well as the families of the injured. Investigations are live but I can confirm that a suspect has been arrested and charged. On behalf of the Government, I thank the police and the emergency services for their response. We are continuing close engagement with the Scottish Government on this concerning incident, and we are working with police partners and communities to tackle anti-Muslim hostility, support victims and strengthen cohesion.

[Baroness Gohir (CB)]

Muslims are terrified and do not feel safe. When will the Government update the hate crime strategy? It expired in 2020. When will the Government strengthen hate crime legislation? Loopholes in the law are being exploited by hate preachers. For example, stirring of religious hatred has to meet a much higher threshold compared to stirring of racial hatred for it to be a criminal offence. For people who follow any faith, their safety matters too.

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I agree with the noble Baroness that people of any faith, and indeed of no faith, should feel safe, and we are taking sustained action to keep Muslims safe, to support victims and to challenge religious hatred. This includes strengthening protective security, with a record £40 million in funding for protective security measures, as set out in our strategy Protecting What Matters. We have adopted a clear definition of anti-Muslim hostility in order to consider some of the issues the noble Baroness raises, and we will appoint a special representative on anti-Muslim hostility. We have committed a £4 million fund to tackling anti-Muslim hostility as a first step.

[Baroness Warsi (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, when the public discourse is deliberately poisoned, it is inevitable that we see the kind of hatred we tragically saw play out on the streets of Edinburgh. Is the Minister familiar with the now extensive academic and investigative reports from the United States—and indeed here in the United Kingdom—that have tracked states, foreign funders and wealthy domestic individuals who fund and support a network of groups, individuals, think tanks and media outlets to instigate and spread anti-Muslim tropes, racism and division? What are the Government’s plans to tackle this in light of their announced aim to reduce malign funding and foreign influence in our politics and public life?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that question, and I pay tribute to her long history of distinguished contributions on these issues. I am on day eight of my post as Faith Minister, so I am not familiar with all the academic research she cites, but I would be very happy to receive it from the noble Baroness and view it. On the substantive point she raises, as she knows, we have commissioned the Rycroft review and we will be legislating on political donations. But I take very seriously exactly the point she is making about not just anti-Muslim hostility but religious hatred generally: that there are external actors which are seeking to disrupt our politics and disturb our communities.

[Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)]

My Lords, the shocking attack on Muslims in Edinburgh is the latest among the many and increasing attacks we have seen. This is not happening in a vacuum, as noble Lords have set out; the increasing anti-Muslim rhetoric and Islamophobia are becoming more and more normalised. It was very disappointing that after the latest attack last week, there was no statement, no COBRA meeting and very little from the media, at a time when British Muslims are feeling increasingly fearful for and worried about their safety. Does the Minister accept that what we need now is strong leadership to tackle this, not platitudes or a tweet?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

There has been a statement from both the Prime Minister and the First Minister of Scotland, and I do not accept the characterisation that there is in any sense a lack of response to this. We understand that this problem of anti-Muslim hostility is getting worse. We take it seriously, and when incidents such as these occur, we will want to see the full force of the law used, and we will demonstrate the sort of leadership the noble Baroness is seeking. I do not quite recognise the picture she paints.

[Baroness O'Neill of Bexley (Con)]

I welcome the noble Lord to his place; I think it is his first time at the Dispatch Box, so welcome. We also associate ourselves with his comments about the Edinburgh incident.

The overwhelming majority of people in this country reject hatred and violence. However, recent years have seen increasing tensions between communities and the growth of extremist narratives from different quarters. What assessment have the Government made of these trends, and what action are they taking to strengthen social cohesion and mutual respect across society?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for those kind words; it is a pleasure to do business with her again. We have set out in our Protecting What Matters strategy clear actions towards more confident, cohesive and resilient communities. We want to protect the UK’s social fabric and strengthen pride, belonging and cohesion. We cannot make people love each other, but it is the Government’s job to help, enable and support people living in communities where people do trust each other. Specifically on extremism, we intend to publish an annual report on the state of extremism as part of Protecting What Matters.

[Lord Sahota (Lab)]

My Lords, the Edinburgh incident happened last week. In Belfast the week before that, people were driven out of their homes because they were immigrants. A couple of weeks ago, a Sikh was attacked in the West Midlands; and a couple of months ago, two female Sikhs were raped in their homes—and so on and so forth. People seem to be scapegoating migrants for all their troubles. If they cannot get a house, they blame the migrants; if they cannot get a job, they blame the migrants; if they cannot get a doctor’s appointment, they blame migrants—even though the doctor is a migrant. Is it not about time that the Government did something to really protect migrants, especially the Sikhs, who have been attacked in the West Midlands?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that question. The really important point is that most of the incidents he mentions are crimes, and we want to see the full force of the law used against those crimes. They are not about breakdowns of trust; they are not about attitudes to immigrants; they are crimes, and we want to see the law used to deal with that. If the law needs strengthening, we will strengthen it, as we have on crime and policing. It would be invidious of me to pick on the experiences of individual religious or racial communities—I realise those often converge. However, our first duty as the Government is to enforce the law, and we will.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

My Lords, I am sure the whole House will agree that any violent attack against a specific community is utterly reprehensible. We have stood here too frequently in the last couple of years evaluating the aftermath of antisemitic attacks and attacks against Jewish people—violent terrorist attacks against a much tinier minority. Does the noble Lord agree that, given the plethora of anti-religious, terrorist and other criminal laws we have on the statute books, any further attempts to develop new policies and laws to deal with specific religions goes against the grain of our equality, and we should be even-handed and treat all religious discrimination fairly without two-tier perceptions of justice?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I absolutely do agree with that, and I do not think there is any question in my or the Government’s mind: we do not want two-tier protection for any individual community. On the noble Baroness’s question about antisemitism, my first visit in this job as Faith Minister was to the Heaton Park Synagogue in Manchester, and last week I also visited Manchester’s British Muslim Heritage Centre. I can tell the House that on both occasions, people were robust and trenchant in their views on the Government and what we are doing, but they were pleased to see me and pleased to see us taking action.

Local Councillors: Recruitment, Retention and Well-being

Lord Lemos Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Udny-Lister (Con)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Forbes, for initiating this important debate. Abuse of local councillors is not new; I am afraid it goes back a long time. I was a local councillor for over 25 years—I chaired various committees and was leader of the council for 19 years—so I will talk about a few personal examples. From the moment there was a change of control, there were demonstrations at the town hall. People ran a gauntlet of abuse and threats, and many council meetings were disrupted by order papers flying through the air from the public gallery, which was usually subdued only when demonstrators were removed by the police. For a long period, the police kept crash barriers at the town hall, as they were there so much.

For individual councillors, demonstrations outside their homes and threats through the letterbox were common. At that time I had small children, and I had to contend with being burned in effigy outside my home on many occasions. Of course, I was not there—I was at the town hall—so it was my young children and my wife who had to suffer it. One particular demonstration comes to mind: when it was finished and they had taken their photographs—this shows my influence—the people in the wheelchairs were all able to get up and push their wheelchairs away. Obviously, I had some effect: the power of a councillor.

I am using my own examples, but even today much of this is organised by people in mainstream political parties, so I slightly feel that we are also reaping a bit of what our own political parties have sowed in the past. Now it is so much worse with social media, because they do not even have to show a bit of courage by showing up outside your house and shouting at you; now they can just do it online under a fictitious name and you will never know who they are.

Public anger over policies is often driven by government policies coming down to councils to implement. For most people, the layers of government are totally opaque. Making hard decisions goes with the job of being a councillor—except, of course, when councils do not do that and we have poor councils as a result. We have all seen the result of those poor councils that do not make decisions. The police and judiciary must take seriously the threats, they must take action and they must penalise as necessary. It is not, and never can be, normal politics to abuse someone. This has to be treated with seriousness and there has to be a price for that kind of behaviour.

Finally, much of this will be much better with local government reform, greater fiscal freedoms and real transparent powers, which I believe would create clarity. If, at the same time, we get robust action by the law, this problem will decline. It will also decline because people will start to believe that councils are actually a little more relevant.

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Lemos) (Lab)]

I remind noble Lords of the advisory speaking time limit. If speakers run over, that will simply reduce the amount of time the Minister has to respond, because this is a time-limited debate. I would be grateful if speakers could stick to three minutes.

Social Housing Bill [HL]

Lord Lemos Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 1st June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

Well, my Lords, that has started the debate on this important Bill in a rather polarised way. I have to say that I was a bit disappointed in the response from the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, who used some of the rhetoric of pointing fingers of blame at minorities, when we should be talking about people in need of decent housing. I hope that we can do the reverse and think about people who need social housing rather than who they might be.

I have both a practical and a direct interest in this Bill, as a councillor serving on Kirklees council, dare I say? I concur with much of what the Minister said in her introduction to this Second Reading; I too spent all my childhood benefiting from the dignity, stability and quality of a council home.

Liberal Democrats largely welcome this Bill. It is an important step in the right direction. That is not to give it a complete stamp of approval but rather to acknowledge that fundamental reform of the provision of housing—at social rents, I emphasise—is long overdue. The provision of good-quality housing at a rent that is affordable—not affordable rents—is a basic human right that has been sorely neglected over the past 40 years. There is a direct link between quality of housing, educational outcomes and long-term health needs. It is in the interests of society as well as of individual families to provide good-quality housing that is available at a cost that everyone can afford.

The Liberal Democrats’ solution is the building of 150,000 homes for social rent every year to meet the needs of the 1.34 million households in England on local housing registers. That is likely to equate to over 4 million adults and children hoping and wishing to be allocated a property at a social rent.

The Government’s estimate is that, for larger family homes of four bedrooms, the wait to be rehoused can be as much as 18 years and that 28% of new lets are for families who are statutorily homeless. In my council, there are 19,000 households on the housing register and the number of new lets each year is around 1,700. Some 2.4 million council houses have been sold under right to buy. In Kirklees, there were 46,000 council houses in 1980; now, there are fewer than 22,000, with 19,000 households on the housing register. That alone puts into stark relief the acute problem of social housing provision. The fundamental failure of right to buy was that it was never accompanied by a right to build using the income from sales. The result is the scandalous lack of genuinely affordable housing for so many families.

The Bill begins to address the lack of supply of social housing. First, it introduces a 35-year exemption for new builds, which provides certainty that a council investing in building new homes is financially sustainable, as the capital borrowed to build can be paid back from rental income over that period. Increasing the qualifying period for the right to buy to 10 years will further protect the much-reduced stock that remains. Those are positive changes in our view, but what the Bill fails to do is substantially increase the supply of social housing.

The Government will point to the £39 billion allocated for the construction of houses in the social rent and mixed tenure sector. However, the aim is for just 180,000 new homes for social rent in a decade, when the need is so great. Measured against the scale of the challenge, that is a paltry response. Increasing the supply of housing at social rents benefits families who are in receipt of housing benefit. Their low income can then be spent on essentials for their family. The lack of social housing has resulted in many families entering the private rented sector, where rents are not equivalent to housing benefit. For example, in my own town a two-bedroom back-to-back house for rent in a Victorian terrace will cost around £750 a month—I know noble Lords who live in London think that that is peanuts, but where I live it is a lot of money—whereas the local housing allowance for claimants for a two-bed property is under £650 a month. There is a gap of £100 a month for a family claiming benefits, which makes a huge impact on their being able to afford basics.

There is also an impact on the cost to government, which the Minister pointed to. This year, spending on support for housing will reach £37 billion. The provision of housing at a social rent would reduce that revenue demand on government. It makes good sense to invest in more provision of social housing.

The other good thing in the Bill is the indefinite right of first refusal to purchase a former council house, in Clause 6, which provides a new route to increasing the supply of social housing. An additional benefit of this clause will be to provide greater stability in some council housing estates where private landlords have taken over houses that were formerly for social rent, having been bought under the right to buy and then sold on to private landlords. Often, these private landlords are distant—with some living in South Africa, in my experience—and in these situations do not provide the same support and management as that provided by council housing providers and registered social landlords.

There are other important changes in the Bill—for instance, on responding to domestic violence, as well as the proposal to streamline housing consents. There is therefore much to support. However, the gaping hole in the Bill is a more ambitious plan to meet the need for genuinely affordable housing at a social rent—not affordable housing, which is very different and often not affordable. Doing so would transform the immediate lives and future prospects of so many of our fellow citizens. Against the magnitude of the need, the Bill provides important first steps but falls mightily short of the real challenge, which is a greater supply of social housing.

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Lemos) (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt but, as we embark on the Back-Bench speeches, I invite noble Lords to note the advisory speaking time of seven minutes. If we can stick to that, all speakers will get a fair crack of the whip, especially the later ones, and we can achieve a reasonable finish time. I would be grateful for your Lordships’ co-operation.

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[Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my registered interests in property and as a past chair of three housing associations. I am fully supportive of this Bill. It is very rare that you find a Bill that you are so enthusiastic about, but I am because it supports my current thinking.

I certainly appreciated the intellectual arguments from the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, that the right to buy is not itself responsible for the diminution of our public housing stock; I accept that. But the fact is that it has led to a huge decline in public housing stock as politicians did not use the money that should have been used, and now we see the big social need for more social and public housing. It has also had unintended consequences. I think the noble Lord, Lord Young, did hint at those. There is a housing estate in Winchester, in Hampshire, where I live, which is now dominated by student rented accommodation, because 40% of the stock is now back in the private rented sector. That actually makes it more difficult to keep the appearance and the pride of the estate as they should be. So, it has had unintended consequences.

I also support the extra protection for victims of abuse in this Bill; that is long overdue.

One has to see this Bill in the context of the Government’s Delivering a Decade of Renewal for Social and Affordable Housing document. The first thing that is of benefit in that is the recognition that it is a 10-year plan. Five-year plans barely get off the ground before the five years are over. I think that is important, although it puts into question whether the Government are going to achieve 1.5 million homes in five years—I do not believe they will. A 10-year plan is much more sensible. Secondly, securing a firm, stable rental income increase policy to encourage investment is very important. I supported the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, on that. It provides the opportunity for alternative capital sources. Thirdly, the Government’s boost to housing numbers is not enough yet but, given the financial constraints, it is a start. The other important thing in the Government’s policy is the recognition that, to get housing numbers up, you need a big contribution from the public sector and from housing associations.

In the limited time I have, I want to concentrate on three issues, which I think are important in social housing and what is needed now in the social housing sector. The first thing is to recognise that the housing market is in the doldrums, and the Government’s policy depends on half the social houses coming through the work of developers. But there is the current state of the market; in London in the last financial year, only 6,325 homes were completed. They need over 80,000. Everywhere there are unviable housing schemes because of the big increase in housing costs, the uncertainty in the market and the dominance of the six major developers, whose business models still depend on house prices rising. It is not surprising the housing market is in the doldrums.

Are the Government looking at a contingency plan if the doldrums continue? Will they be prepared to step in and buy houses from the private sector if any of the private sector builders go into administration? Would they be prepared to accelerate investment? This does not necessarily mean the total spending over 10 years but, to get the housing market moving, they may need to accelerate the investment in social housing in the short term.

I share the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Best, who cautioned against concentrating solely on new build; improving stock is just as important. We have to remember that the tenants are actually helping to fund investment in the associations and through the council housing revenue accounts through their rents. They need to see some benefit in the stock they are living in, and we need to make sure that resources are going into this. What plans do the Government have for keeping housing providers up to the mark in improving their stock?

One final issue I would like to comment on, which is a concern to me, is the well-being of tenants and the sense of pride of community. Anyone who has been canvassing in social housing stock in recent years knows that they are also part of the alienated electorate. That is the strongest feeling you get when you go around social housing. Why is that? It is not surprising that a lot of these people are struggling to make ends meet. They are the most vulnerable in the jobs market and they are cynical of the management they experience. I have spent time in housing associations countering the view “It’s good enough for them”; it is not. They have to have the best quality of repair work and the best environment on their estates, which private estates could look up to. They also need some help and service: encouragement, through housing associations, with job training and training on IT and the use of facilities. That would actually help their housing management as well.

There is a danger in our social housing that alienation leads to non-participation and to people wanting to vote Reform. Regeneration is absolutely critical in some of these estates. So investment in improving estates must be made to show that the housing managers care. This can be done through improving landscaping, sorting out parking and reinstating support services, all of which we have accepted in the private sector but are not in public housing.

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

Can I invite the noble Lord to finish?

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)]

I am just finishing. What plans will the Government bring forward to improve sink estates generally and restore the confidence, commitment and involvement of social tenants?

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[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Sahota, and to hear his contribution on the housing problems in his area.

I endorse our Front Bench particularly and the opening speech we heard on some of the problems with this Bill. In passing, I will take up my noble friend’s reference to veterans and the importance of helping them. Some time ago at King’s Cross station, I was sitting on a bench waiting for my train. A man came up and sat beside me, and we got chatting. He was a veteran. He had served in the Royal Marines for more than 11 years, including in Afghanistan, and had been shot in the back. He lived in social housing with his daughter. Shortly afterwards, before we spoke, his daughter had been killed in a taxi accident; the driver was found guilty of reckless driving and sent to prison. The man lost not only his daughter but his home and never knew where he was going to spend the night, at which station, but I have not seen him since at King’s Cross. I feel that this is a very important priority and should be given the same protection in law as the other categories that this Bill addresses.

One of the central premises of the Bill is that there should be more state housing and that the more social housing there is, the better. This is to be promoted by restricting the right to buy and putting more obstacles in the way of tenants trying to buy their own homes. These obstacles include increasing the number of years, as we have heard, from three to 10 and making it expensive, as we have also heard, for tenants to buy by amending the percentage discounts, so cutting the value of the tenant’s stake in the home they may have lived in over decades. They include reducing the stock of right to buy homes as a proportion of overall council housing; for instance, no newly built homes will be available to buy for the first 35 years, so you may, if you are a tenant there, in your working life, never be able to aspire to buy that home if you settle in that area. Another obstacle is creating delay and uncertainty for applicants by increasing the time landlords can take to respond to them, both on eligibility—from four to eight weeks or from eight to 12, depending on the sort of tenancy they have—and on giving information on the price and details: from eight to 12 weeks for freehold or from 12 to 16 for leasehold. In the light of these changes, can the Minister please let us know whether the Government consider that the increase we have seen in right to buy sales will continue or decline as a result of this measure, and what the estimated figures are over the first five years after the Bill becomes law?

The Bill will have further damaging effects. First, in terms of cost, it will increase the stock of housing owned, managed and run by local councils or those registered by them, thus augmenting the power of the state over men, women and their families and augmenting the costs for taxpayers. The DWP estimates that this year, the housing bill will be almost £39 billion, a rise of £913 million on last year—the highest, in today’s prices, since 1970, measured on similar data. By contrast, the taxpayer receives a significant, as things stand, return from social housing sales receipts. We have heard from my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham what is done with these housing receipts, which can alleviate the tax burden on taxpayers, who might have to meet other needs, or perhaps they might even help to lower taxes. In the financial year ending March 2025 alone, local authorities received £798 million from a reported 7,494 eligible sales, an increase of 7% compared to 2023-24. I ask the Minister, on a per annum basis for the first five years of the operation of this Bill, in respect of the decline in sales and the maintenance and overheads that must now be borne by councils and taxpayers, what is the estimated additional cost?

Secondly—this is a very serious problem, and we have heard about it today from noble Lords— the Bill will undermine the incentive for working people to be independent and support themselves and their family, preventing dependency on benefits not only during working life but well into old age and retirement. As we have heard, already in 2026, across England, Wales and Scotland, almost 6 million people—a record 5.95 million people—will receive housing support from the taxpayer this year. That is 1.2 million more than in 2019-20. In Cambridge, where I live, around 65% of tenants receive some form of benefit, with 55% on maximum housing benefit or universal credit.

Thirdly, the Bill will undermine overall economic growth and increase overall the ever-growing burden of taxation. This is an attack on property rights by taxing the earnings of working men and women to subsidise the unproductive public sector and a benefits culture. I therefore do not share the Government’s enthusiasm for increasing the size and power of the state over people’s lives, turning individual men and women into supplicants dependent on the state, potentially for the rest of their lives, without the incentive—

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I must ask the noble Baroness to draw her remarks to a close.

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

—to earn enough to pay a market rent and take responsibility for themselves and their families. State housing, subsidised by the taxpayer and owned and managed by the state, is not home ownership. It is state dependency.

Anti-Muslim Hostility: Non-statutory Definition

Lord Lemos Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Lemos) (Lab)]

We will hear from the Conservative Benches.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, to build on the Question from the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, of course the Minister will be aware that the previous Government back in 2016—I know because I was instrumental in that—brought in the specific crime of anti-Muslim hatred, but the approach they took was one of inclusivity; that is, it was not just for one faith but for ensuring that all religious hate crime could be reported. Indeed, the statistics we have now reflect that. I respect very much Dominic Grieve, who I worked with very closely. How will this definition fit in specifically? The second element is on education and ensuring that hate crimes are reported and accurately recorded.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Lord Lemos Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 5th March 2026 Grand Committee

Amendment 243 withdrawn.

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Lemos) (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt but I am conscious of the time; a number of us on all sides of this Committee will have a hard stop at 6 pm. We all want to use our best endeavours to complete these last two groups by 6 pm, I think, but we will stop then. I say this just so that noble Lords know that our intention is to try to finish this stage tonight; I know that the Minister and others will take that into account.

Clause 74 agreed.

Unauthorised Entry to Football Matches Bill

Lord Lemos Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 24th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Lemos) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all the noble Lords who have spoken today in what has been a very important and interesting debate. I am particularly grateful to my noble friend Lord Brennan of Canton for his work in sponsoring the Bill not just in your Lordships’ House but, as he noted, in the other place. I admire his determination and resolution to get the job done.

The Bill, as all noble Lords have noted, addresses a clear and pressing issue: the growing problem of unauthorised access to football matches, particularly at high-profile fixtures. It proposes a new football specific offence of unauthorised entry to designate matches to address this, capturing a broad range of behaviours from tailgating and forced entry to the use of forged documents and impersonation of matchday staff. I want to emphasise how important, as other noble Lords have acknowledged, this new offence of unauthorised entry is.

My noble friend Lord Mann and the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, have referred to ingenious measures used in the past for entering football grounds. My noble friend Lord Mann said that, once he had his school dinners, he could not he could not be lifted over the turnstiles anymore. We have breakfast clubs now, so it will be even more difficult.

Crucially, this measure enables courts to impose football banning orders on convictions for the offences, which is very important. These are civil orders that provide a strong deterrent and are a vital tool to prevent repeat offending and protect public safety. A number of noble Lords asked what grounds we have for believing that these measures will be effective. I reassure your Lordships’ House that the evidence shows that football banning orders of the sort we are discussing are highly effective in transforming behaviour. The large majority of individuals whose orders have expired are assessed by police as no longer posing any significant threat of football-related violence or disorder. We know these orders are effective in deterring banned fans from attempting to enter stadiums, have strong rehabilitative impact and are regarded as a serious consequence by those considering unlawful behaviour. A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and my noble friend Lord Shamash, stressed the importance of enforcement, and of course I agree. But they will know that enforcement is a matter for local police forces on these matters.

On the question of the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, about resources being available, the Home Office remains committed to exploring ways to support policing in recovering a greater share of special police services costs. This is an important issue and requires careful consideration. To better understand the options and potential impact of any changes, we are conducting further engagement and analysis over the coming months and are grateful for policing’s continued engagement on this. So this matter is under very active consideration.

The Bill responds directly, as noble Lords have noted, to the recommendations of the independent review of the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, into the serious disorder at the Euro 2020 final. I am sure that noble Lords recall those events vividly and therefore understand the importance of these measures. Thousands of ticketless individuals gained access to Wembley Stadium, many through mass forced entry or tailgating, and this problem is reoccurring. We saw further evidence of this at the 2024 UEFA Champions League final, again at Wembley, where groups of ticketless fans made repeated attempts to breach security. Similar behaviour is also seen at Premier League matches, particularly where away allocations are limited. This is a wider pattern, not a one-off event, and therefore we must address it. Such behaviour is not only selfish and dishonest but dangerous. It places enormous strain on stadium security, creates serious risks to public safety and undermines the experience of law-abiding fans, and it can be very expensive for clubs. This measure will help with that too.

The Government are clear that this cannot be allowed to continue, which is why we are actively supporting this Bill. Forced entry, tailgating and so-called jibbing are not victimless acts. Those involved are often aggressive, violent or threatening, and their actions can lead to overcrowding, blocked emergency exits and frightening conditions for innocent fans. In some cases, individuals have even attempted to bribe stewards or turnstile operators to gain access. This will also be captured by the new offence. The offence will additionally apply to those who knowingly attempt to use a ticket, whether physical or digital, that has already been used. This is not about criminalising honest mistakes or punishing fans who have been misled. The Bill includes important safeguards to ensure that individuals with lawful authority, such as emergency workers or stadium staff, are not caught by the offence when going about their business. It will also not apply to those who unwittingly purchase counterfeit tickets in good faith or breach the terms and conditions of a legitimate ticket.

I will clarify a couple of other matters that noble Lords raised. Although this Bill does not directly cover those who facilitate unauthorised entry, this conduct would be covered under the Fraud Act 2006 or the Theft Act 1968, depending on the facts of the case. I note, for my noble friend Lord Mann, that political agitators or anyone else entering the pitch without authorisation is committing an offence under Section 4 of the Football (Offences) Act 1991.

This is a proportionate, targeted and necessary measure. It reflects the unique public order challenges associated with football, which are not seen to the same extent in other sports or events. It is also consistent with the broader framework of the Football (Offences) Act.

As this was raised by noble friend Lord Mann, I reaffirm comments made in the other place about the Maccabi Tel Aviv game. As I think everyone knows from statements made in the other place, the Government fought hard to ensure that tickets would be made available for this game. However, Maccabi Tel Aviv ultimately took the difficult decision to reject the allocation, stating that it could not guarantee the safety of its supporters for the entire journey to the UK. Following the decision by Birmingham City Council last week, the Government worked closely with West Midlands Police and Birmingham City Council to support them to consider all the options available and to tell us what resources would be needed to manage the risks. The Culture Secretary, the Home Secretary and the Community Secretary were all involved in these extensive discussions and, although the ultimate decision regarding the admittance of away fans is for the local authority to make, we were clear that resources should not be the determining factor in deciding whether to admit Maccabi Tel Aviv fans. We are disappointed that the allocation will not be taken up.

This Bill enjoyed cross-party support throughout its passage through the other place, and rightly so. It has been welcomed by both the Football Association and the police as a timely and effective response to a growing problem. This is a fan-friendly measure that protects the vast majority of decent supporters from the actions of a disruptive minority. It will help to ensure that football remains a safe and welcoming environment for all and such an important part of our national life. Therefore, I reiterate the Government’s support for this measure and thank my noble friend for this important debate, which I am sure will be continued as the Bill makes progress.