Northern Ireland: Flight Passengers and Covid-19

Lord McNally Excerpts

Wednesday 28th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I am pleased to tell the noble Baroness that, as of 27 April, 1.2 million vaccinations have been administered in Northern Ireland, of which 919,000 were first doses and 356,000 were second doses. That is an astonishing figure. I am extremely proud of the figure and very grateful to all those concerned.

[Lord McNally (LD)]

My Lords, I am pleased that the final Question in Question Time today gives us the opportunity to say something about the importance of co-operation between the Irish Republic and the United Kingdom. It is worrying that there is this lacuna; I wonder whether the expertise of the CAA is being brought to bear on it. Are there any problems because we have not yet got digital adequacy with the EU? Is that part of the lacuna? On the broader side, this Question and the earlier Question show that there is a need for a rapid response unit to deal with the genuine problems in the relationship between the Republic and Northern Ireland, and the inevitable consequences of the Brexit decision, which was facilitated by the DUP.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I reassure the noble Lord that the issue is caused by no lack of friendship or spirit of collaboration between the two Administrations. The CAA and all the relevant authorities have a huge amount of commitment to resolving this. There are legal issues that require Acts of Parliament in Ireland and in Britain in order to resolve this; these are quite substantial legal commitments that need to be timetabled and conducted through Parliament, and that is what is holding things up. I am very grateful to all those who are trying to resolve the issue.

Body Mass Index

Lord McNally Excerpts

Thursday 22nd April 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord McNally (LD)]

My Lords, when I entered this House, 25 years ago, it was my noble friend Lord Addington’s body mass that aided the House of Lords in becoming unbeatable in the annual tug of war with the House of Commons. I am very pleased about that.

Yesterday’s Question Time in the Lords gave us a dry run for some of the issues being raised in today’s debate when the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, drew attention to a report by the World Obesity Federation linking obesity and deaths from Covid. The full range of the debate about obesity was on show, from those advocating making obesity not socially acceptable to the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, making it clear that it was not the Government’s intention to shame those who are overweight.

If obesity is the health challenge that I believe it is then we need to get the science right. We have heard from my noble friend Lord Addington and the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, reasons why we should give credence to the advice of Caroline Nokes and the Women and Equalities Committee on not using the body mass index for weight shaming and recommending that it should be scrapped. But as the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, indicated, we have also had advice from Diabetes UK, which says,

“while we acknowledge that there can be challenges in interpreting and using BMI as a measurement, the call for it to be scrapped could negatively impact on the care of those living with or at risk of diabetes.”

So the Committee will be interested to hear the Minister’s assessment of the validity of BMI in assessing weight and health risks.

I would also be interested in the Minister’s response to the challenges raised yesterday and today regarding poverty and obesity in both parents and children as well as the problems caused by the promotion, particularly to young women, of unrealistic ideals of body image, which all too often can lead to anorexia and other health harms. We must not lose sight of the fact that obesity brings with it ill health and threats to life, but countering it requires sensitivity and understanding as well as practical help based on sound science. It is a difficult path to tread. I look forward to hearing about that in the Minister’s reply.

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Self-Isolation and Linked Households) (England) Regulations 2020

Lord McNally Excerpts

Thursday 7th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally (LD) [V]]

My Lords, when the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, opened the debate, he was slightly apologetic about parliamentary scrutiny. I do not think that there can be any doubt now that, as long as the Government show courage, transparency and consistency of message, he will get massive support in his work in the fight against this virus.

I will use this short time to put my pressure behind the use of community chemists. We have had a number of vague statements by Ministers that have certainly lacked any “Action This Day”, given that the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and others have made the offer of their facilities. We have already seen and heard anecdotal evidence of how difficult it is for particularly the very elderly to be handled safely by large, often out-of-town centres. Can I have the Minister’s assurance that local pharmacies, particularly those with existing experience of dispensing flu jabs, will be brought into service immediately?

I continue to be worried because the Lord Privy Seal, in answering questions earlier, mentioned that pharmacies might be used where they had capacity to give “significant” doses of vaccine. What does “significant” mean? Another answer was that conversations would be ongoing. The message from all the Benches today, from the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Lansley, my noble friend Lady Bowles and others, is that it is really “Action This Day” on community pharmacies. It would be absolutely outrageous if that facility was not urgently used.

Covid-19: Response

Lord McNally Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell]

The noble Baroness asks a good question. One thing that changed was that there was a large amount of representation from those being shielded that the mental health consequences of their isolation were having a profound effect. There were very touching and moving stories, and the scientific analysis of that was extremely persuasive. We have sought to be flexible, but the advice remains very clear: those who are clinically vulnerable have to take extremely good care of themselves. Even though the prevalence is lower, they have to be aware of the consequences of this awful disease.

[Lord McNally (LD)]

My Lords, earlier today, a former Prime Minister, Mrs May, intervened at Prime Minister’s Questions to ask about the security of data, including medical data, if there was a no-deal Brexit. The Prime Minister’s reply was the usual “It’ll be all right on the night”. Does the Minister agree that it would be an enormous betrayal if proper systems were not put in place well before the deadline for any departure? The medical and other data that we receive from Europe are an integral part of fighting this disease and should not be put at risk for ideological reasons.

[Lord Bethell]

I completely agree with the noble Lord. The Prime Minister said that it was down to the negotiating table to sort out this important matter. I will leave it to the negotiators.

Queen’s Speech

Lord McNally Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally (LD)]

My Lords, the great Freddie Trueman once played in a match against Oxford University. The young student coming out to face him was immaculate in his whites and absolutely perfect in his approach to the delivery to come. Trueman bowled and hit the middle stump; the wicket went clattering down. The young man adjusted his cap, walked past Trueman and said: “A damn fine ball, Trueman”. “Aye; it was wasted on thee”, said Freddie. I feel a bit like that speaking today, because this gracious Speech is a sham. The Times gave it away the day after the Speech, with its headline:

“Queen’s Speech sets out PM’s election manifesto”.


We are playing charades while the real battle takes place down the Corridor in another place. Even this afternoon, the Prime Minister, acting like Violet Elizabeth Bott, is threatening to pull the Brexit Bill if he does not get his way. The Government’s media claque grows ever more hysterical as Parliament resists being bounced into agreeing to a Brexit which is light years away from what was put to the country in 2016. I understand the desire of the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, to get on with things, but this decision will have an adverse impact on the prosperity and well-being of the people of this country for decades to come. It has been presented to the country with all the integrity of a second-hand car salesman trying to flog a car with a dodgy milometer and no logbook. To make the first priority of the Government, in the first line of the gracious Speech,

“to secure the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union on 31 October”,

is no way to deal with the deep divisions Brexit has caused. On these Benches we will continue to argue for a people’s vote, with a clear choice between the Johnson deal and remain.

Noble Lords’ contributions today have been of high quality, exposing the gaps in this election manifesto in disguise. I will refer to one or two of these. The online harms Bill was not directly mentioned in the gracious Speech, but a parallel statement assured us that a draft Bill will be published shortly and be subject to pre-legislative scrutiny, which I welcome. In the meantime, I urge the Government to reconsider their decision not to provide immediate protection for children from online pornography. I was astounded to see in last Sunday’s Observer an article quite out of the blue and with no explanation, with the headline:

“Farewell the ‘porn block’—a PR exercise and lousy policy”.


That did no justice to the work that has been done by my noble friends Lady Benjamin and Lord Clement-Jones, the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and others. It is a strange article for the Observer. There has also been an ambiguous attitude on the Labour Benches. I look forward to a clear statement of Labour’s policy on protecting children from porn. There is a real risk that we will talk for years while the danger is immediate. I urge this House to do what we can while we can, then get on with the pre-legislative scrutiny.

The gracious Speech, because it is designed to give some red meat to the Tory law and order campaign, has lots of promises of tougher and longer sentences in the fight against crime. But there is no mention of the strategy espoused by Michael Gove when he received the report on prison education by Dame Sally Coates in 2016, and endorsed by David Gauke less than a year ago, which determined to,

“put offenders on a path to employment as soon as they set foot in prison”.

The approach mirrors the attempt by my successor as chairman of the Youth Justice Board, Charlie Taylor, to run an education-led facility for young offenders. I make this reference because I believe that within our education policy rest a lot of the solutions to the problems facing the criminal justice system.

There is no mention in the gracious Speech of the need to extend the powers of the Freedom of Information Act to cover private companies carrying out outsourced public functions, as recommended by the Information Commissioner. Likewise, the gracious Speech is silent on the ongoing failure of the Conservative Party to carry out the recommendations of the Leveson inquiry into our press. The recent treatment of Ben Stokes, Gareth Thomas and the Duchess of Sussex is clear evidence that the press is still up to its bad old ways.

Finally, and returning in a way to education and to the theme that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, mentioned, we have to set in train the education and training to allow all our citizens, but particularly our young people, to be able to handle new technologies and new ways of receiving and giving information. I very much welcome the announcement today of the House’s Democracy and Digital Technologies Select Committee, under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, but here again there is a real, live and present danger to our democracy. What worries me about the point the noble Lord, Lord Howell, made is that although we may say that small is beautiful, the power is still in the hands of the big corporations and they are misusing that power.

Mesothelioma (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Lord McNally Excerpts

Friday 20th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally (LD)]

My Lords, I think that all speakers have paid tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Alton; I will take a slightly different tack. I know exactly when I first met the noble Lord: it was as we queued to take the oath in the other place for the start of the 1979 Parliament. Instead of heaping more praise on him, let me give a Gypsy’s warning to the Minister: the noble Lord may look like a superannuated choirboy, but he has the tenacity of a seasoned political streetfighter.

My noble friend Lord Avebury referred to Nancy Tait, who campaigned for more than 30 years on behalf of asbestos victims after the death of her husband, Bill. In her obituary in the Guardian, she was described as having “genteel bloody-mindedness”. I give the Minister fair warning that there could be no better description of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, when he adopts and champions a cause. If the Minister has a reply that offers sympathetic words but no action, I recommend a rapid rewrite.

I mentioned Nancy Tait and her long fight for justice for victims of asbestos, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Wills, has just reminded us, the truth is that neither big business nor successive Governments have a good record in response to public, and particularly worker, exposure to toxic products and substances. The historic London match girls’ strike of 1888 was in part about the dangers of working with phosphorus, which caused severe health conditions such as “phossy jaw”. In the USA in 1917, there was the case of the “radium girls”, who took the United States Radium Corporation to court because their job had been to paint radium on to the watch dials of luminous watches. Fifty years later, Erin Brockovich campaigned against water contamination caused by Pacific Oil & Gas. In this country, we had the long battle of our coal miners for compensation, and an equally long battle to get the tobacco industry to accept culpability for the health damage done by its products.

All those campaigns have one thing in common: we are dealing with everyday products—a match, a wristwatch, the water we drink, the coal we burn, the cigarette we smoke, the place where we work, our classroom or a government office. Each time, there is a denial of culpability by companies and slowness of action by government. It has often taken action by a small group or even an individual to change the law.

Asbestos is slightly different, although I remember in my childhood thinking of it as having super qualities, not least for its fire resistance—I was probably playing with lead soldiers at the time. My interest in this matter, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, hinted, is that my sister Betty died of mesothelioma in her 70s. Betty was 14 years older than me and had none of the advantages that I had, either of being the baby of the family or of being a beneficiary of the Education Act 1944. She left school at 14 and went to work in the local ICI works, helping to spin asbestos into synthetic fabric for fireproofing. Thirty years later, after raising her family, she went to work at the Ministry of Pensions in Norcross near Blackpool as an office cleaner. She worked in the asbestos-riddled prefabs that were put up just after the war to house the department and was working there when they were demolished. She mentioned at the time that she thought it was rather strange that those who were doing the demolition were wearing protective clothing but that the office cleaners were not.

At the time of Betty’s death, to gain compensation you had to prove where you had been contaminated, who had done it, et cetera, and of course there was no possibility of such proof. Quite frankly, with Betty gone, the family was not looking for compensation. It was a relief to see that kind of dilemma solved by the 2014 Act. Much progress has been made in recent years across the board, in this country and abroad, with countries and Governments accepting responsibility and providing compensation for industrial and workplace illness. However, as we have heard today, there are still in waiting more victims of mesothelioma and more need for compensation. This Bill is a suitable tailpiece that should probably have been in the original Bill.

The noble Lord, Lord Ribeiro, quoted Churchill—I think that he slightly misquoted him; I think that Churchill said, “action this day”. I always treat the noble Lord with great respect, since he rescued me when I collapsed at that Dispatch Box about four years ago, and now refer to him as my personal physician.

As has been mentioned, there are in waiting many thousands more victims. We have been given by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, a simple and effective way of funding. He has also done something that is equally important, which is to remind us that culpability and responsibility lie not just with the private sector but with government. There is both a moral and a legal responsibility on the part of government to address some of the problems that have been mentioned in relation to public servants. I am pleased to give my support to the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, this has been at times a deeply moving debate, with some very stirring personal stories being told to your Lordships’ House. It has also been thoughtful, amazingly well informed and, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, said earlier, powerful at times in the way that we have addressed this deeply troubling issue. Some of the contributions, such as that of the noble Lord, Lord Winston, have been slightly above my pay grade, but I shall read them afterwards with great interest, as I know will many people, particularly in the asbestos victim support groups, the British Lung Foundation and others who campaign up and down the country on these issues.

I assure the Minister, who has given us what could be a small opening of the door on this question—I will come back to that later—that I brought no knuckle-dusters and I have no knives. Despite the curtain-raiser that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, gave us earlier, the reality is that when he was Minister at the Ministry of Justice he was incredibly helpful on this question when the LASPO legislation was before us. I still bear some of the scars from that period. Yes, I will persist in presenting this, though not just by myself; there are many people, as the noble Lord knows, not the least of whom was the late Member of Parliament, Paul Goggins, who took up this cause so strongly in the other place. As a curtain-raiser to assure the Minister that the issue is not going to go away, I can tell the House that Paul Goggins’s successor in the other place, Mike Kane MP, will be introducing a comparable Bill in the House of Commons in January.

This issue will not go away, and Members of both Houses want progress to be made. It may be that the formula in this particular Bill or the way we have expressed it is not exactly what needs to be done and there may be other ways of doing it, but it is important that something is done about it. That formidable alliance brought a defeat for the Government during the proceedings of LASPO. It was ping-ponged up and down the corridors, and was a very good example of how by concentrating on an issue which had not even been debated at earlier stages in the Commons, your Lordships were able to bring about change. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, said that perhaps the missing tail-piece in the legislation was a commitment to funding. Perhaps, therefore, we are right to keep returning to that issue until something is done about it.

The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, was very much the godfather of the compensation arrangements that were introduced in the Mesothelioma Act. He reminded us that we are not seeking research whatever the quality, and that we need to make this a priority area.

The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has been raising this issue for more than 40 years. I always like to think of him as the inspiration for some of the things I try to do in politics. Being just a chip off his block is sufficient. He reminded us that there has been woefully inadequate funding, no continuity, and only a fraction of the necessary resources.

My noble friend Lady Finlay, one of five medics of a very distinguished nature who have contributed to our debate today, said that this is an epidemic that is looming—not a historic disease—and, as many noble Lords have said, it has worldwide implications. She reminded us of the risks to our children, a point returned to by the Minister in his reply to the debate.

The noble Lord, Lord Winston, told us the story of Herbie, whom he had filmed during his death from mesothelioma, which drew to the public’s attention more about this often unknown and unfamiliar disease. Even the name is difficult for people to get around their tongue, let alone to understand its nature. To shine a light on these things, as we have done in your Lordships’ House today or through the media, is always an important thing to do.

The noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, said that this is a particularly nasty disease which we understand so little about. He reminded us of the crossover between this and so many other diseases and of the importance of personalised, precision medicine. He also reminded us of what happened during the debate on the Mesothelioma Act on the issue of precedent.

I want to say a word about precedent and levies, because the Minister himself touched on this. I refer to the HGV Road User Levy Act, the Gambling Act levy, the fossil fuel levy, the Gas Levy Act 1981, and the levy on the pig industry to eradicate Aujeszky’s disease. Under Section 24 of the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act the levy board has a power to place a charge on all bookmakers involved in horserace betting, and Parliament requires a levy to be spent for the purpose of improving the breed of horses. If levies are good enough for dealing with horse breeding or pig disease or indeed in this legislation itself—it is hypothecated legislation and that is the whole point: there is a levy, which the noble Lord referred to, which is to raise money to deal with compensation—we can refer to plenty of precedents if we want to follow this path.

The noble Lord, Lord Ribeiro, reminded us of the story of Steve McQueen, which helped to give this whole issue some public profile, but he also said that it should not just fall to two insurance companies to have to deal with this—a point which has been reiterated throughout the debate. He said that the levy could be the missing piece of the puzzle and that only research can answer the questions in that puzzle.

The noble Lord, Lord Wills, described this as a terrible and remorseless disease and reminded us of the moral duty of the insurance industry, a point returned to by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, in his contribution. The noble Lord, Lord Wills, said that there is a clear ethical, humanitarian and financial imperative, and talked about the contrast between the £3 million for research and the £68 billion a year paid out by the industry.

The noble Lord, Lord Freyberg, and other noble Lords, have referred to their own personal stories, which I found deeply moving. They were a reminder to us all that this disease is not just confined to those who worked in heavy industries in the past. I felt challenged by what he had to say, particularly about the “toxic and ultimately futile” therapies which are currently available. Surely we can do better than that. The noble Lord, Lord Giddens, told us to raise our game and raise our sights. I am always excited when I talk to the noble Lord about the huge possibilities from supercomputers, from the collection of data and the worldwide networking that we can be involved in. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said that I had shown “youthful enthusiasm” in bringing forward this measure.

[Lord McNally]

Only in the Lords—

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

It is only in the House of Lords that you could possibly be accused of youthful enthusiasm. I think it was Robert Kennedy who said that youth is not a time of life, it is a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination. Your Lordships all have plenty of that, to a very high degree, although the noble Lord, Lord McNally, reminded me that we first met in 1979 as we took the oath. We were both a lot younger then. We have sung in the same choir on many occasions over the years and I was very pleased that we were doing so again.

The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said that we have a moral duty to future generations. This point was reiterated by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, who referred to what happened to his father and the implications for those who continue to work on our ships, in the Merchant Navy or Royal Navy, today. My noble friend Lady Murphy told us about the 2.8 month survival rate and how nothing had improved from the time that her late father died, leaving a widow of 37 years. I will take that story away and remember it. The contrast with dementia research, to which she and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, referred, is incredibly important.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, talked about the case for legislation as a backstop, and I agree that one does not want to resort to it as the first thing. This was the missing tail-piece when we had the chance to legislate, but the only way that parliamentarians can keep issues of this kind before the public, and the Government, is by issuing Bills of this sort. He said that the House is looking for something more. The Minister said that there may be a shortfall within the existing levy and, if so, it might be something we could use towards the research that is so desperately needed. I would be very happy to participate in talks with the noble Lord, and the noble Lord, Lord Freud, and I am sure other noble Lords who have been following this would want to be invited too.

There was argument about the figures. I quote from the British Lung Foundation:

“Contrary to some claims made previously in the House, the quality of research applications has been very high—indeed the number of applications funded by the British Lung Foundation would have been a third higher, had more funding been available. Although previous BLF and insurer research has made some progress and is a cause for celebration, it is frustrating to think how much further along we’d be towards new, effective treatments had mesothelioma research funding been on a par with funding for other cancers. It is sobering to consider how many lives that might already have cost”.

I also asked about the possibility of overestimates, a point referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Winston. On the contribution being made at the moment by the MRC, the BLF says:

“We believe this is a significant overestimate. Figures provided to us by the National Cancer Research Institute … this year state that spending by all NCRI partners—which includes both the NIHR and MRC, as well as other major funders of cancer research—totalled just £820,000 over the same period”.

There is dispute but these figures have been given by the British Lung Foundation, which is at the very centre of these arguments and follows the issues day by day.

I hope the Minister will clarify those questions as we proceed. He has also promised to return to the issues of veterans, which was raised today, and schools. My noble friend Lady Finlay raised the issue of Wales and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, pressed the Minister further for information about that. We look forward to the correspondence which will precede the debate in another place in January. I know that our colleagues there will read the speeches that have been made today with a great deal of interest. I am deeply indebted to all those who have participated and I ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.

Health: Obesity

Lord McNally Excerpts

Monday 12th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jolly]

My Lords—

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

I suggest that we hear from the noble Lord, Lord McColl.

[Lord McColl of Dulwich]

I congratulate the Government on rejecting the misleading advice of that quango, NICE, which misled politicians by denying that the answer to the obesity epidemic was to eat less. What plans are there to prevent NICE making such serious mistakes in the future?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords—

[Lord McNally]

I suggest we hear from the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, I, too, have an interest to declare; I think it is fairly obvious if you look at me. That is why I want to ask a serious question of the Minister. Will he say to medical practitioners and others that it does not help to be critical and condemnatory of those of us who are obese? It is important to give information and encouragement. Otherwise, there can be complications and people can end up with depression and other illnesses, so it is very important to give encouragement. I am glad to say that that is why I have been able to lose more than a stone in the past month.

Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Lord McNally Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord McNally]

44: Schedule 5, page 18, line 8, at end insert—
“Advisory Council on Public Records.”

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, the three amendments in this group are in the name of my noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach. The reason that I am moving them is twofold. First, I am the Minister responsible for the National Archives; secondly, I am badly in need of a victory today.

The amendments moving the Advisory Council on Public Records, the Public Record Office and the Keeper of the Public Records to Schedule 5 constitute a straightforward and, I hope, uncontroversial legal tidying-up exercise—although I worry that the noble Lord, Lord Warner, is still in his place. They have been agreed with and led by the current chief executive of the National Archives, who is also the Keeper of the Public Records. I reassure noble Lords that no functions currently performed by the National Archives or any of its component parts will be negatively affected. There is no impact on staff and no financial implications.

The rationale for the reforms is to place the National Archives, its chief executive and its advisory bodies on a statutory footing, enabling the Government legally to complete the changes that began with its establishment as an administrative entity in 2003. That involves transferring the statutory duties of some of the National Archives’ component parts using Schedule 5, which grants powers to modify or transfer functions to reflect existing administrative arrangements. For example, the role of the Advisory Council on Public Records is to advise the Lord Chancellor on matters concerning public records and archives. Following the merger of the Public Record Office and the Historical Manuscripts Commission in 2003, their respective Advisory Councils on Public Records and Historical Manuscripts also came together to form the Advisory Council on National Records and Archives.

The separate legal functions of the Advisory Councils on Public Records and Archives have for the past seven years been administered by the Advisory Council on National Records and Archives. The chairman of the Advisory Council on Public Records, the Master of the Rolls, assumed the chairmanship of the new body upon its creation and continues to do so.

The council will therefore be included in Schedule 5 to enable it to be renamed the Advisory Council on National Records and Archives, assuming the functions of the existing, non-statutory, Advisory Council on National Records and Archives and the Advisory Council on Historical Manuscripts. This change will therefore formalise the current arrangements to form a single body, providing greater clarity and efficiency, with one body doing the work of three.

In the case of the Keeper of Public Records, the Lord Chancellor appoints the keeper to take charge, care for and preserve public records under his direction. The chief executive of the National Archives holds the statutory office of keeper, as well as the office of Historical Manuscripts Commissioner. By moving the keeper to Schedule 5 to the Bill, the Government will be able to consolidate these roles—and those of the Queen’s Printer of Acts of Parliament and Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office—into one statutory office, the Keeper of the National Archives. This reform will clarify lines of accountability for the National Archives’ various functions by putting in statute the responsibilities of a new keeper. The changes will not affect the way that functions are carried out, and there are no financial implications. It is important to emphasise again that these reforms have been agreed with, and led by, the current Keeper of Public Records.

The Public Record Office was created by the Public Record Office Act 1838 as the national archive for public records. In 2003, the Public Record Office merged with the Historical Manuscripts Commission to form an administrative entity, the National Archives. In 2006, the Office of Public Sector Information and HM Stationery Office were also merged with the National Archives. All four bodies continue to exercise their legal functions, but within a single administrative body— the National Archives—under a single chief executive. The Public Record Office is therefore a statutory component of the National Archives.

The Government are committed to preserving the legal functions performed by the Public Record Office, and it will therefore be moved to Schedule 5, allowing the National Archives to absorb its functions and those carried out by other, non-statutory component parts of the organisation. Clause 7(3) will permit any necessary changes to the Public Record Office’s constitutional arrangements, in particular its renaming as the National Archives, and the expansion of its funding to cover its new functions. This will put the organisation on a clear legal footing, provide clarity to the public and finalise the merger process begun under the previous Administration.

These amendments will enable the Government to place the National Archives, its chief executive and one of its advisory councils on a much clearer statutory basis, strengthening—not weakening—the ability of these bodies to perform functions which the Government believe to be of immense cultural value. I hope, on that basis, that noble Lords will feel able to support these amendments.

Amendment 44 agreed.