Subsidy Control Bill

Debate between Lord McNicol of West Kilbride and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Committee stage
Monday 31st January 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)]

I do not think their lateness was perceived—it was real—but that is not why I rise. I go back to a point the Minister made on my noble friend Lord Chandos’s amendment. Under Clause 2 on “Subsidy”, she said that subsection (2) is not an exhaustive list. That is the subsection where my noble friend was looking to add “equity” after “grants”. It may not be an exhaustive list, but lines 23 and 24 say:

“For the purposes of this Act, the means by which financial assistance may be given include”.


If Her Majesty’s Government are not going to add anything in, can they at least clarify that the list in paragraphs (a) to (e) is not exhaustive? Am I just being a bit too pernickety?

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Not at all.

[Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)]

Thank you. If the Minister wishes to write to us, that is fine. I am sure we will come back to this.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Debate between Lord McNicol of West Kilbride and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 1st February 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

I have received two requests to speak after the Minister, from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I did not put my name down to speak to this amendment because this is not something I know much about; I was waiting for the next group. However, listening to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, say that some of these child contact centres are not accredited left me astonished. I listened to the Minister’s explanation very carefully; I thought it was utterly specious from start to finish. I take his point that he does not want to put more cost and bureaucracy on local authorities. Obviously, this Government have stripped local authorities to the bare bones, so I understand if they have no scope for doing any more work. Perhaps this is something that the Government would like to finance. Accreditation is absolutely necessary; it is a safeguarding issue. I just wonder what will convince the Minister. If a safeguarding issue happens and a child and family suffer, will that change the Government’s mind? I find it absolutely incredible. The thought that there is no central body that monitors or collects data is staggering. I urge the Minister to discuss this further with the proposer of this amendment.

Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill

Debate between Lord McNicol of West Kilbride and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 3rd December 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

I call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Judd.

We will go to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and if we can reconnect with the noble Lord, Lord Judd, we will bring him in after the noble Lord, Lord Russell. I call the Baroness, Lady Jones.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, this is an issue that I have raised several times in your Lordships’ House: the issue of child spies. We even had a debate on it about 15 or 18 months ago in Grand Committee. Everybody I have ever mentioned it to—either out in the wider world or here in your Lordships’ House—is absolutely horrified at the idea that the police or the security services use children as spies. Other noble Lords have mentioned how damaged these children probably are. The fact is that the police find them when they are committing crimes, so they catch them doing something criminal. Anecdotally, I have heard that the children are given the option of being arrested and taken away, or they can go back into the gang. I have absolutely no way of knowing whether this is true, but it sounds like blackmail to me. So in addition to the police not rescuing these children, the children are sent back into danger.

I said in my Second Reading speech that I would stop this process immediately. Luckily, the noble Lord, Lord Young, was faster in putting the amendment down, because his support is obviously going to carry a lot more weight than mine. It struck me at the time, however, that anyone can be horrified by this. You do not have to be a right-on, woke Greenie. It is horrifying to all of us.

I have put down an amendment about vulnerable people, which I consider children to be as well, and it covers anyone who is a victim of modern slavery. Quite honestly, we have heard from the Government that this whole Bill is all about protecting the country and the people of Britain; but it is not protecting some people. Some people are not getting the protection that the Government are offering to others. If we are not protecting vulnerable people or children, what do we think we are protecting: a way of life that we can be proud of? I really do not think so.

Personally, it is unforgivable seeing these children used as pawns and spies to somehow find out what we think might be useful information about criminal gangs. It is worse than state-sanctioned child abuse: it is state-sponsored child abuse, and the Government should be thoroughly ashamed of trying to put this into legislation. I would like to see the Government more inclined to taking these children out of criminality and actually saving them from the sort of life that they have been leading, rather than pushing them back into greater danger and possibly greater criminality.

I have met police whistleblowers: I think they are astonishing, because they go against their group and their friends; it is incredibly difficult. Two of the whistleblowers I have met suffer from PTSD. The PTSD is not from confessing what they did but from the work they did when they were undercover, because being undercover is highly stressful. The “undercover” I mean is not necessarily to do with drug gangs or terrorist organisations; quite often, when it comes to political groups or campaigns or NGOs, officers are sent in for years. We have heard about relationships lasting seven years, children being fathered and that sort of thing. When you are undercover that long, you do suffer trauma. It is extremely difficult to come out of that and feel normal again, because you have hidden so much of yourself and so much of your life from other people.

One of the whistleblowers I am talking about is absolutely divorced from reality; he finds it extremely difficult to feel any emotion. He told me when his father died, he could not cry, and he still has not been able to cry, some years later, because of the trauma he suffered as an undercover police officer. The other one, who I know quite well, told me he has the opposite problem: he is extremely emotional and cries very easily at all sorts of things because of the trauma he suffered as an undercover police officer. Can anyone please tell me that children are less vulnerable to that sort of trauma than adults? Of course not; children are more susceptible to that sort of trauma. I do not care how many children it is; one is too many. Those children will suffer, possibly for the rest of lives. We as a nation really should not be causing that.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

I call the next speaker, the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Hornsey.

Environment and Wildlife (Miscellaneous Amendments etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Debate between Lord McNicol of West Kilbride and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]]

It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Randall. I want to echo his comments about the Minister, because I do understand that he cares deeply about these issues. Equally, legislation can always be improved, and I hope that he listens hard to noble Lords in this debate so that things can be improved. The noble Lord, Lord Randall, also covered some of the territory that I wanted to cover. However, I will carry on.

The noble Lord mentioned the loss of collaboration mechanisms with other scientific bodies. ClientEarth posed some questions to Defra, some of whose replies were a little glib. So I will ask two, three or four questions about that. I am curious about whether the scientific authorities—the Joint Nature Conservation Committee for fauna and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew—will have an expanded role or some extra funding. Clearly, if they are on their own or they have to set up new networks, they will need a little more money. I hope that the Government are thinking about that.

Secondly, on the enforcement group, Defra talks about the National Wildlife Crime Unit and Border Force—the Minister mentioned that Border Force had some extra officers. The position of the National Wildlife Crime Unit, which is essentially within the police, is a bit more nebulous in that, in 2016, it was given four-year funding, securing what Defra called its long-term future—I think that most of us would not think that four years was long term. That obviously runs out this year, so can the Minister tell me whether it has had extra funding and how much that funding was? When I was a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority in London, I was well aware that the Wildlife Crime Unit did the most incredible work. It was not valued, particularly by senior officers, despite the fact that it was often a very good news story for the Met police. It was constantly under threat of being removed or suffering a loss of security and funding. So can the Minister reassure me on all these questions but also that the National Wildlife Crime Unit has enough long-term funding to do the job properly?

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

After the next speaker, the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, I shall call the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Debate between Lord McNicol of West Kilbride and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 14th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNicol of West Kilbride]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 8 and 9 in my name and Amendment 10 in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayter. These are relatively short amendments, but they cover a very important issue.

The settled status scheme does not currently provide a right of appeal, causing unnecessary confusion and frustration for applicants who do not receive the decision they were expecting, and in many cases were entitled to. Under the current scheme, if somebody’s application is unsuccessful, they may be able to apply for an administrative review at a cost of £80. The administrative review process applies for people whose applications were refused on eligibility grounds, or where they applied for full settled status but were awarded only pre-settled status. As we have recently heard, the percentages of those awarded pre-settled status is anywhere between 40% and 47%.

While the Bill’s current provisions allow for regulations to be made providing for appeals, this does not amount to a legal obligation, and neither does it guarantee equal treatment in all cases. There is a clear need for a formal appeals process, as we can see from the Government’s wish through making provision in the Bill to deal with this under regulation. A statutory right of appeal should be set out in primary legislation. These are important rights that should not be played with at the whim of individuals.

There have been several cases where EU residents have submitted documentation demonstrating residency for a period of more than five years, yet they have been granted only pre-settled status. The Home Office claims that the scheme is a success because only a small number of people have had their application rejected—we have heard that the number is five—largely due to the criminality of the individuals. As you would expect, we support those rejections. However, the figures discount those who may have wrongly received pre-settled status. My understanding is that the most recent statistics show that the figure for those being granted pre-settled status is, as was touched on earlier, as high as 40%. But this is a temporary form of leave lasting up to five years; it is not indefinite leave to remain. A number of NGOs have expressed concern that outstanding administrative reviews at the end of the implementation period could leave individuals in difficult and possibly hostile situations. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 4, to which I have attached my name, as well as Amendment 8 and others in this group. As currently drafted, the Bill does not match the Government’s previous assurances that EU citizens’ rights will be protected. It is impossible to deny that massive errors occur in the UK immigration system. People are wrongly deported, sometimes in tragic circumstances leading even to death. While many of these tragedies occur whether or not there has been an appeals process, it is certain that many more injustices will happen if an appeals process is not available. For that reason, the Bill must set out a clear right to an appeals process. It is not good enough to leave it to Ministers to decide on an appeals process in the future, because the Bill does not give a date by which an appeals process should be brought into force. This means that Ministers might never create an appeals system at all.

Also, no principles are set out, or basic rights which must be protected, or rules which must be obeyed. I do not want a situation where government inaction, for whatever reason, leads to injustice or, worse, citizens’ rights becoming another bargaining chip in the next stage of Brexit negotiations. I say this as someone who voted for Brexit—but I did not vote to be nasty or to make people feel vulnerable and at risk of being deported, and I did not vote to ruin people’s lives.

Surely the Minister understands that the Government are creating a quite complex new immigration status for EU nationals and that it is almost certain that administrative errors will happen, so a clear appeals process must be set out in this important legislation. I therefore make a plea to the Minister to take the amendment away and discuss it with his officials. We need something like this in the Bill so that errors can be put right and so that our EU friends and neighbours know that justice will be done.