Police Commissioners

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, the Government certainly accept their responsibilities. The right honourable Member in the other place, Nick Hurd, visited every police force in England in the run-up to this. The NPCC and the APCC called for £440 million of extra funding in 2018-19, with additional CT funding on top. They called for an extra 5,000 front-line officers for proactive policing by 2020. If all forces delivered the level of productivity benefits of mobile working of the best forces, the average officer could spend an hour a day extra on the front line. That has a potential to create the equivalent of 11,000 extra officers across England and Wales. In addition, the police have reserves of £1.6 billion to invest.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Does my noble friend agree that it would be wholly inappropriate for the discredited former chief constable of Wiltshire Police to be given another highly paid job within the police force?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I think that my noble friend answered his own question. What I will say is that, under the Policing and Crime Act of last year, retiring or moving on to another force—I am not referring specifically to the chief constable—does not absolve a police officer from being answerable.

Deceased Individuals: Allegations

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Lexden]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to review the law governing the naming of deceased individuals against whom criminal allegations have been made.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, any decision to name an individual where that is considered to be in the public interest will necessarily be specific to the circumstances of an individual case. Accordingly, the Government do not have plans to review the law in relation to this matter.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

I urge my noble friend to study a recent report by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, into the way in which a group within the Church of England investigated a single uncorroborated allegation of child sex abuse against one of the greatest of all Anglican bishops and a prominent Member of your Lordships’ House, George Bell, who died 60 years ago. While the noble Lord was precluded from reviewing the Church’s decision to condemn Bishop Bell, it is clear from his report that the case against that truly remarkable man has not been proved, to the consternation of a number of Members of this House including my noble friend Lord Cormack. I ask my noble friend to consider the recommendation from the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, that,

“alleged perpetrators, living or dead, should not be identified publicly unless or until the Core Group has (a) made adverse findings of fact, and (b) it has also been decided that making the identity public is required in the public interest”.

Should there not be a legal requirement in all cases to ensure that that is met before anyone, alive or dead, is named publicly? Does my noble friend agree that institutions of both Church and state must uphold the cardinal principle that an individual is innocent until proved guilty?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank my noble friend for that question. I am aware of the report by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and the recommendations that it makes. The report itself was commissioned by the Church of England and the recommendations within it are for the Church, so it would not be appropriate for me to comment. However, as my noble friend says, there is a presumption of anonymity. People should not be named unless there is a legal reason for doing so. Of course the principle of innocence until proven guilty is a key tenet of English law, and it is not for me to tell the Church what to do.

HIV Global Epidemic: Young People

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord and I had a very interesting afternoon yesterday when we attended the Stop AIDS conference. Some incredible presentations were given, with a lot of information. Given that HIV is such a huge health threat globally as well as in this country, it is essential that we do everything and remain open to new information when it comes. We are the second-largest contributor to the Global Fund, which is doing tremendous work in this area—£1.1 billion was announced in July. But there is more to be done. An international development committee report on this issue is currently with the Secretary of State and I will certainly feed in those views and see what more can be done.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, is it not absolutely essential that this country should use all the means at its disposal to get our Commonwealth partners, in the overwhelming majority of whose countries homosexuality is sadly still a criminal offence, to repeal their cruel and inhumane laws in accordance with the provisions of the Commonwealth charter, to which they have all signed up? Is it not impossible to organise effective health campaigns in countries where being gay is criminalised?

[Lord Bates]

My noble friend is absolutely right in this respect. You need open societies. Good health promotion initiatives can happen only in open societies where people can talk freely. You would have thought that that message would have got through. Sadly, it has not reached everyone. We need to be sensitive because, at the same time as addressing the issues with our Commonwealth partners, we also need to continue to have access and to work with them to help the people who need that help. My noble friend Lady Verma held a very useful round-table meeting at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Valletta, Malta, last year. When the Commonwealth Heads of Government come to the UK in 2018, I very much hope that we will follow up on that work.

Aid and Trade

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The noble Baroness, with her great experience, has put her finger on the point here—that it is placed in context. That is why it is very important that, in order for economic development to happen, we need to stop the conflict, we need to start getting people into school, we need to eliminate discrimination and we need to improve economic development. It is across the range, and that is what DfID’s policy tries to address.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Do the Government believe that more needs to be done to ensure that our aid actually reaches the people for whom it is intended?

[Lord Bates]

Yes, and that is why we have initiated the multilateral and bilateral reviews and announced the review of engagement with civil society organisations. Notwithstanding the fact that we have reached 0.7%, it is important to ensure that every penny that is spent on that actually goes towards the aim for which it was given by the British taxpayer—namely, to eradicate extreme poverty in this world.

Sudan

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Monday 29th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, the noble Baroness knows that these are very difficult situations and we have to be mindful of the language used if we are to continue to have dialogue with the Government of Sudan. They are of course horrific atrocities and we as the UK Government take our role very seriously in raising those horrific atrocities. At the same time, we are working both with the Sudanese Government and others to ensure that we are able to access those who need our assistance the most. They tend to be the ones who are hardest to reach.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Further to the last question, are there any signs of progress in this most unfortunate country for which Britain, in condominium with Egypt, once had responsibility?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, my noble friend is right in raising that. It is a very difficult situation. Sudan is one of the world’s most underdeveloped countries and has suffered from cycles of conflict over many years. A devastating impact of that falls directly on the lives of ordinary people. Our aid, and the UK Government’s assistance, is therefore not just to channel money but to try to work with others for a long-lasting peace settlement. This will be done through the UN and African Union agencies.

Women and Girls: HIV

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, the noble Lord and I enjoyed a very good session earlier today at which we listened to very eloquent testimonials from three young people who are not only living and dealing with HIV infection themselves but doing the broader work they are trying to deliver for others. It is important that, through the work I do with my department, DfID, and the FCO, we collectively ensure that we are engaged with all organisations across the civil society base and Government to Government.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

The new UN sustainable development goals set a target of eliminating the AIDS pandemic by 2030. How is DfID planning to achieve that target?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, my noble friend is right: we want to see the pandemic eliminated by 2030. We know that we are a long way from achieving that but we have to do so. When I answered an earlier question, I alluded to the need to focus very much on low-income, high-burden countries that are unable to self-finance. We have to make treatment accessible to the very people who need it and who do not always know the best route to it. We are working with our partners globally, through all the various institutions, to try to eliminate HIV infections by 2030.

Sustainable Development Goals: HIV

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

I need to reassure noble Lords that there is no withdrawal of budget support. However, we do need to ensure that the support we are giving is to those people who are in most need and are unable to self-finance. The low-income, high-burden countries need our support the most but we continue to work in middle-income countries. So there is no withdrawal—just smarter, more focused delivery of services.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Is not the criminalisation of homosexuality simply incompatible with the Commonwealth charter, which all its members have signed up to?

[Baroness Verma]

My noble friend is of course right: universal rights must apply to all people. That is one of the key messages we must keep reinforcing, whether at Commonwealth level or outside the Commonwealth.

AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, in political affairs there are always a number of things that cannot be repeated too often. As regards global health issues, it is impossible to overemphasise either the importance of the work done by my noble friend Lord Fowler over the past 30 years or the value of the leadership that he has provided and continues to provide to politicians across party dividing lines who have committed themselves to doing all they can to support those on the front line—the doctors, scientists, academic authorities, health workers and volunteers—leading a battle against three diseases, malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS, that wreak such havoc in large parts of the world today. Some of us taking part in the debate had the great good fortune to hear a few days ago from a number of experts who have dedicated themselves selflessly to releasing as many as they can from suffering and achieving immensely impressive results, particularly in Africa.

However, there are those who succumb to the illusion that the battle is far advanced and final success is in sight. My noble friend Lord Fowler is tireless in pointing out how much remains to be done. He has made that clear again today, as he did in his recent influential—and, I am sure, best-selling—book, in which he stressed the essential uncomfortable truth that we all need to bear constantly in mind. This is how he put it:

“The central problem that the world faces with HIV and AIDS today is this: it is the millions of people infected with HIV who, in spite of the medical advances and all the money poured in, remain untreated”.

There are millions of people united with us in the brotherhood of man who desperately need the treatment to hold their HIV in check but who are denied it.

That fundamental point was underlined in the authoritative report published on World AIDS Day last week by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on HIV and AIDS, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Cashman. How welcome he is in this debate and the others that will follow. The all-party parliamentary group calculates that less than two-thirds of adults with HIV and three-quarters of the children living with it today are not receiving the treatment they require. Immense progress has been made, not least through the Global Fund, to which I, like other noble Lords, pay tribute, in extending access to the treatment that contains and controls HIV, and yet so much more remains to be done. The all-party report last week estimated that 55 million people will need HIV treatment by 2030.

It would be an immense tragedy if this country, which has made such a marked contribution to the progress so far, should falter now. However, without adequate funding our contribution is bound to falter, and the inimitably long period of experiment and trial needed to find an HIV vaccine will be extended further. That, I think, is the main cross-party message that this important debate seeks to deliver. Surely we cannot allow the defeat of pandemics that condemn millions to misery to be set back and weakened because of short-term factors in Britain connected with the coming general election. Rather, the main parties must stand firmly together, explaining, as my noble friend Lord Fowler constantly does, why the skills of our doctors and the breakthroughs achieved by our research scientists must continue to be placed at the service of mankind as a whole. We belong at the centre of the Global Fund, this remarkable international partnership that brings together Governments and the private sector.

The all-party report is entitled Access Denied. In her speech in response to it on World AIDS Day, my noble friend Lady Northover, who understands these issues so fully, referred to the need to address the numerous barriers that limit access to medicines. One of the most formidable of these barriers is the criminalisation of homosexuality in so many countries. In nearly 80 countries—too many of them members of the Commonwealth—it is a crime to be gay. In circumstances of such grotesque discrimination, gay people with HIV are not going to draw attention to themselves by seeking treatment, assuming that it is available. We have referred to this intolerable barrier to treatment—indeed, to simple human equality and dignity—often in our debates on global health and Commonwealth affairs in recent years. Like my noble friend Lord Fowler and the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, I believe that we should emphasise this again and again. The statistics are stark. In Caribbean countries where homosexuality is not against the law, of every 15 men who have sex with other men, one is infected with HIV. In Caribbean countries where it is a crime to be gay, the rate of infection is one in four.

It is, of course, the Commonwealth countries that are most prominent in our minds. They are closest to us, united by ties of kinship, friendship and history. The Commonwealth’s collective institutions produced clear evidence in 2011 that where homosexuality has been decriminalised, HIV infection had failed. To the infinite sadness of us all, that has not led to widespread reform, even though the criminalisation of homosexuality is plainly incompatible with the Commonwealth’s new charter, to which all its members nominally subscribe. Some Commonwealth countries glory in oppressing gay people, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, in relation to Uganda. As for the Commonwealth as a whole, does it want to be seen as upholding or blatantly ignoring fundamental human rights? It cannot dodge that question.

Tuberculosis

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Collins, and to thank him for introducing this debate with great authority and conviction. I shall confine my remarks to tuberculosis.

Historians such as me are under no illusions about the dreadful threat that tuberculosis presents to mankind. Large numbers of people in our country have in the past fallen victim to it. In the 19th century, it was responsible for one in every four deaths in Britain. Our culture has been deeply marked by it. Harrowing accounts of the suffering that it inflicted can be found widely in English literature. It is a significant theme in opera, too, although often in unduly romanticised form.

In human affairs, final victories are hard to achieve over determined enemies of well-being. For a time, we came to believe that Britain had conquered tuberculosis and made it a spectre that belonged firmly in the past, but we now confront this terrible menace once again. Some 9,000 new cases are being diagnosed year by year. The threat to our country’s well-being is heightened by growing resistance to the drugs that are used to treat it. Medical advance is urgently needed to bring new, effective drugs into the service of mankind that can overcome the severe problems created by increasing resistance to the drugs that are currently being prescribed. These drugs were, in most cases, developed decades ago. I understand that only one new drug has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration in the last 50 years.

In Britain, we face a return of an old enemy. The world faces a pandemic. What is happening here surely sharpens our consciousness of the extent of the global threat and of our duty to do all that we can to tackle it, drawing on the highly developed skills and expertise that we possess and pressing for the medical advances on which so much depends. Across the globe, nearly 9 million new cases of tuberculosis occur each year. Well over 1 million people die of tuberculosis annually, part of the estimated 13.7 million who are victims of poverty-related and neglected diseases, to which the noble Lord, Lord Collins, referred. That is why the debate that he has initiated is to be welcomed so greatly. Once again, this afternoon, the noble Lord has demonstrated the deep concern and commitment that he consistently brings to global health issues. I much enjoy working with him on the cross-party basis that is so necessary in this area of policy, which includes combating the prejudice—particularly prejudice against gay people—that sets back progress in too many countries of the world.

Successive Governments in this country deserve the credit that they have been given for the major contributions that they have made to the global campaign to tackle poverty-related and neglected diseases. The significance of our country’s role was underlined in the impressive and authoritative report Dying for a Cure: Research and Development for Global Health, published in July by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Global Tuberculosis. The report shows that Britain is the world’s second-largest provider of funds for global health research—only the United Sates provides more. The report sums up our record as follows:

“From policies, to levels of funding, to coordination and cooperation, the UK is at the forefront of R&D for global health”.

It is not the least of this Government’s achievements to have kept our country at the forefront of this vital work. The report acknowledges that what the Government have done, and are continuing to do, could have huge implications for global health.

The reason why Britain’s official contribution under successive Governments has been so important, and will remain crucial, has been emphasised by the noble Lord, Lord Collins. Although they often demonstrate deep concern for public welfare, pharmaceutical companies are not charitable undertakings. They invest in developing products where there is a potential for significant financial return, in order to pay for development costs and make a profit. Diseases such as tuberculosis mainly affect poor people, so there is little financial incentive to encourage pharmaceutical investment in research and development, to repeat the point made so effectively by the noble Lord.

It is widely agreed that in this overwhelmingly important sphere of global health the market has failed. The all-party group’s report in July was emphatic. It stated:

“The failure of commercially driven R&D for these diseases is a problem that affects us all”.

Public spending in Britain can help to overcome that failure. The report continues:

“From government departments to academic institutions, we support, fund and conduct outstanding research. Every penny of public funding should be spent as effectively and efficiently as possible. As a nation we excel at research and development, we should do more of it and we should share our expertise with our colleagues and neighbours”.

Against this background, the group recommends that the Department for International Development’s budget should be rebalanced to a certain extent, in order to enhance R&D capacity further in future.

There are many areas of global health in which decisive progress is needed, as the noble Lord, Lord Collins, has made clear. As regards tuberculosis, the search for new and more effective drugs is the highest priority in order to shorten basic treatment and to deal with the bacteria that to an increasing extent are resistant to existing drugs. To that end, DfID should surely consider investing more in drug developers such as the TB Alliance, which are not seeking a financial return. Would there not also be merit in considering a prize fund to encourage TB research and development, along the lines of the Longitude Prize, designed to stimulate diagnostics for microbial resistance?

At the recent global consultation on research for TB elimination conference in Stockholm, a Swedish spokesman said:

“There has been a 45% reduction in TB mortality since 2,000. A great achievement, but not enough. Investments in research and innovations now are crucial to reach the global targets”.

Here in Britain we look to our Government to continue and, if possible, to enhance the contribution that has brought them much well deserved praise. The world will not eliminate tuberculosis until an effective vaccine has been found.

Independent Schools

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Lexden]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of independent schools on the British economy, in the light of the report The impact of independent schools on the British economy, published by the Independent Schools Council in April.

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, we have made no specific assessment of the contribution that independent schools make to the United Kingdom economy, although we welcome its reported significant size. The Government’s policy is to focus their energies and resources on raising standards for pupils in state-funded schools. We welcome in particular the contribution that private schools make to the state-funded school system, in support for academies and free schools and in partnerships with state schools.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, I am sure that my noble friend has read this report with great care, even if no assessment has been formed. Would she agree that, at nearly £10 billion, the total amount provided by independent schools to our national economy is extremely impressive, exceeding that of the BBC? Would she also agree that the largest section of this report sets out the wide range of schemes being undertaken by independent schools in partnership with their local communities and state schools, a partnership that is growing in extent all the time? Would she agree, finally, that this report gives the lie to those who maintain that there is some form of Berlin Wall separating the independent and state sectors?

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, I have read this report with enormous interest, and my noble friend is right to point out the contribution of independent schools to the UK economy. At £9.5 billion, it is very substantial. As we know, many of these schools are outstanding, but I also know that my noble friend is passionate about social mobility through education and therefore the role that the independent sector can play in that. It is good to see in this report that more than 80% of the Independent Schools Council member schools are involved in partnerships with state schools, seeking to improve standards and outcomes for all pupils.