Civil Servants: Working from Home

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Naseby]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they have plans to review the effect on public services of civil servants working from home.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)]

My Lords, there are clear benefits from face-to-face, workplace-based collaborative working. That is why departments have issued new guidance that most civil servants should spend at least 60% of their working time in the office and our senior civil servants have been told that they need to set an example as leaders.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

I am most grateful to my noble friend for that Answer but are we not a trading nation? If we are, should we not support our industry, commerce and individual entrepreneurs? How can they possibly do what we want them to do when they—let alone the poor ordinary person who is equally affected—cannot get the support they need from His Majesty’s departments of state, whether that amounts to telephone calls unanswered, emails not returned, or meetings rescheduled? Against that background, we now know from a report published by the National Audit Office that this is costing over £5 billion a year on procurement, and on theft and fraud, again, over £5 billion a year. Will my noble friend, as a senior Minister and with her teams, meet the Civil Service to ensure that we get good, firm leadership that is aspirational and involves civil servants at all stages, and recognise that working from home is not viable?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I agree with a lot of what my noble friend says. He and I both have a background in retail and leadership is very important. That is one reason why the new Minister for the Cabinet Office, John Glen—well known to many of your Lordships—set out in a speech how the Civil Service should lead in providing public services. That included spending a minimum 60% of working time in the office, with leaders encouraging that because of the benefits it brings to the workforce.

House of Lords (Peerage Nominations) Bill [HL]

Lord Naseby Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 18th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, on Remembrance Sunday last week, I sat in the chapel at Bedford School to pay my respects to the hundreds of young men who gave their lives in two world wars. I was a proud grandfather to see my own granddaughter, as head of the Army CCF joint unit for the two Bedford schools, lay the wreath. It was not long before we sang the familiar hymn, “I Vow to Thee My Country”. It is a very moving hymn, and it was a very appropriate one then—and so it is today for Parliament. We are here to give our service and to do our duty to our country. This must not be abused by anyone, in any way.

Being nominated to the House of Lords used to be a recognition of a long and distinguished service—my emphasis is on “long”—in the House of Commons, in industry, commerce and trade unions, or in any walk of life. It is not, and should not be, bestowed lightly or just as a thank you for a couple of years’ work for any Prime Minister. It should not be bestowed at the whim of any Prime Minister, however long they may have served.

Returning to that service of dedication, the key words for me are honour, commitment and a spirit of unity. We must remember that we are a revising Chamber, drawing on decades of varying experience across all dimensions of the political make-up. We need men and women with experience of life, who are prepared to question, not afraid to challenge and always seeking to improve legislation. In my judgment, after nearly 50 years in Parliament, there is no place in a modern age for a placement due to birth, as happens with hereditary Peers. Equally, there is no point in having appointees who do not attend or take part; as far as I remember, knighthoods provide that role. I personally welcome all people from all walks of life. I have worked and lived in five countries, and that is where some of my experience has come from.

For me, we must return to the road of reform started in January 2000 when the Royal Commission on the Reform of the House of Lords recommended that the House of Lords Appointments Commission should be established on a statutory basis. I have read again the speeches from that time—I was sitting there then—and I quote briefly the pleas of Viscount Cranborne, who said that

“it is the function of Parliament to be the guardian of our liberties by holding the government continuously to account.”

He went on to say that he

“had to watch Parliament weaken progressively, so that it no longer has the strength to command the awe and respect the role demands of it.”

He said:

“We complain that the Prime Minister ignores Parliament—and indeed he does. We complain that the press ignore Parliament—and indeed they do. Although we are right to complain, they are right as well. Because of Parliament's weakened position, they can safely ignore us. We no longer have the capacity to inspire enough fear to command their attention.”—[Official Report, 30/3/1999; cols. 219-20.]


Matters have moved on, with the independent Committee on Standards in Public Life stating that HOLAC—the body we have today—is among the non-statutory regulators in government that

“have a limited or low degree of independence”

which

“falls below what is necessary to ensure effective regulation and maintain public credibility.”

The committee concluded:

“Public disquiet on the propriety of appointments to the House of Lords remains a regular feature of our politics”.


I believe that this Bill is a very good starting point. It has my wholehearted support and I shall do all I can to ensure that it goes on to the statute book.

Restoration and Renewal: Location of House of Lords Chamber

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are seeking to move parts of government out of London for precisely the kind of reasons that the noble Lord has given. However, this is a parliamentary matter. There will be debates and discussions in your Lordships’ House, and I am certain that he will put his view—and we will see whether he is able to carry your Lordships with him.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

Will the Minister make a clear recognition of what my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister said about the services? When I was Chairman of Ways and Means, an inspection was held on the key issue of the fire risk. Will the Minister look at the case history of terminal 3 at Heathrow Airport, which was renovated between the hours of 9 pm and 6 am over a period of well over a year?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, again, I am being invited to stray into questions of parliamentary management, which is not appropriate for a government Minister. However, as always, my noble friend makes a very sensible point on these matters. There are always ways of arranging necessary work.

Elections Bill

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Report stage
Wednesday 6th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I will not claim that this is the most important amendment we have discussed. We debated it quite thoroughly in Committee, so I do not want to take up the time of the House more than very briefly indeed. As I recall, when we discussed this in Committee, there were two arguments against the amendment. One argument was that we can exercise an influence on politics and therefore we should not have the right to vote in elections, and the second argument was that because Members of the House of Lords are not here for a finite period of time, it is not right if we vote, and that allows the Bishops to be the exception. I remind your Lordships that of some 140-plus countries that are members of the IPU, we are the only one that does not allow Members of the second Chamber to vote in general elections.

Of course we have an influence when we are here, but it seems to me that the argument for voting is to give us a chance to influence the Government. Quite a few of us spend our time canvassing in elections. We work pretty hard; in the last election, I canvassed, working in seven or eight constituencies all the way from Yorkshire to south London. Then I find, on the day of the election, I cannot vote. It is frustrating, but it also seems to me to be wrong in principle. The right to vote is fundamental in a democracy. Arguments against our being able to vote are, frankly, based much more on long-standing traditions than on substantive arguments and logic.

The last thing I would say is this. During the passage of this Bill, I have asked everybody I know outside whether they know we are not allowed to vote. There is not a person I have met outside this House who is aware we are not allowed to vote. It really is a bit odd. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, for having signed the amendment as well. I urge the Government to accept it. The world will not come to an end and Boris Johnson will not resign—just do it. I beg to move.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend on the Opposition Benches. I did indeed have my own Bill: the Extension of Franchise (House of Lords) Bill. It had its First Reading on 5 July 2017, its Second Reading on 19 July 2019 and then it ran out of time. I am not going to repeat the speech I made then, but I have done a bit of research, otherwise it is all assertion.

I was born 85 years ago and, in that year, in this very Chamber, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede moved an amendment that is almost identical to the one we are debating today. He referred to the fact that in days gone by

“Peers were regarded as powerful potentates and had a number of special privileges accord to them.”

He said that if noble Lords were to do any research, they would find out that, in 1642, The Privileges of the Baronage of England declared no end of privileges. Indeed, you could have your own chaplain and, if you were married, there were special provisions for your wives and children. Since those days, there have been a few changes. Lord Ponsonby went on to point out:

“Practically all the privileges I can think of have been dropped. It now remains for the restrictions and disabilities to be dropped too. We must recognise that we live in a democratic age”—


this was in 1936—

“and just as we desire no advantages for ourselves personally or for our positions we, at the same time, do not wish that there should be any restrictions or disabilities placed upon us. I want to make it perfectly clear, my Lords, that I do not want to raise the question of the reform of the House of Lords.”—[Official Report, 12/2/1936; col. 537.]

Nor does my noble friend opposite and nor do I. It is pretty clear that almost as long ago as a century, those disabilities and interests that were once there no longer applied.

It is also true that the vast majority of us work hard for those in our constituencies when there is a general election. We live in a constituency, we look after the local people in those constituencies, and all of us are involved in all sorts of clubs and followings in our constituencies, so nobody can say that we do not take part in elections. We take part in local elections and any other elections, but for some extraordinary reason, because of this ball and chain that is left over from the 17th century, we cannot take part in general elections. Here we are now, with us in this House, prisoners and lunatics all in one bag. I do not think that is acceptable.

I conclude with these thoughts. First, we do not vote on the Budget. We do not have the power to vote on taxation. To me, that is crucial. Secondly, there have been precedents. In 1909, Irish Peers were given the right to vote. Today, the Lords spiritual have the right to vote in general elections. They sit on their Bench in your Lordships’ House and they vote. What is the difference?

People say that one Lord voting will make no difference, but have a look at the register, as I have done. I remind your Lordships that in 1997 Winchester was won by the Liberal Democrats, and by how many votes?

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

Two votes.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

Two votes. The noble Lord is quite right. I do not know whether any noble Lords from the Welsh Benches are here, but in 1974 Carmarthen was won by Labour by three votes. My dear friend Harmar Nicholls—a man who had more tight elections than anybody else—again won by three votes. If you are lucky enough to have three Lords in a constituency, that could make a huge difference. The Liberal Democrats probably would not have won Winchester if two Lords had lived there.

I repeat that this has nothing at all to do with reform of the House of Lords. It is just about individual liberty and responsibility. We all support our local communities, as I mentioned. In return, I wish to go with my wife to vote at the polling station. I do not want to stand outside while she goes in; I want to vote alongside her. I believe it is my democratic right, which I was given to implement and which I exercised from the age of 18 until 1997. It is vital, and I hope very much that other noble Lords will take us over this final fence. After all, if the Irish Peers were made an exception, why do we not join the Irish community as well?

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, I have been disfranchised twice. I was disfranchised in 1972, when I first entered the House and was disfranchised with lunatics and criminals. The second time I was disfranchised was in December last year, when I had the opportunity to come back to the House following a hereditary Peers’ by-election. Now I am no longer in the company of criminals and those in prison—I am not quite sure about lunatics—because, as I recall, when the noble and learned Lord, Lord Clarke, was Lord Chancellor, a provision from the European Court of Human Rights restored, or at least gave, the right to vote to those in prison. I think I have therefore lost the criminality side of my company, but I am not sure whether I have also lost the lunatics.

This is, as my noble friend Lord Dubs said, not the most important amendment being considered in the House, but it is an anomaly that is unjustified. In Committee, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, argued for the Government that we should not have two bites of the cherry—this is my language, rather than his—because we are directly involved in legislation; if we had the vote, we would have a different way of expressing our views. Then the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, argued that, since the House of Commons rises after a Dissolution—not after a Prorogation—the Lords are treated differently from Members of the House of Commons. The truth is that we are treated in very much the same way following a Dissolution, because once Parliament has been dissolved, we are not entitled to come back to the House until we have received a Writ of Summons and get sworn in. We are therefore not in a different position from the House of Commons. This is an anomaly and should be changed, but it is not one of the most important amendments being considered by the Minister, who is sitting back on his Bench with his arms folded, looking at me with a patient look.

Elections Bill

Lord Naseby Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, it was a real pleasure to listen to the noble Lord, Lord Moore of Etchingham. I have never met him, other than through the written word, though I have to say I must have read thousands upon thousands of those words; I felt a chemistry and was absolutely delighted when he was able to join us.

I support this Bill. I am particularly pleased that my noble friend on the Front Bench is taking it through the House, because those of us who have served on other Bills he has been in charge of know that he has patience beyond belief and a thoroughness which we all ought to recognise. The noble Baroness just said, on voting patterns, that, basically, not having won under first past the post meant that she represented a bigger proportion of the population. When I was elected with a majority of 179 in Northampton South, I believed I represented all of the people of Northampton South, not just a marginal majority, or even a majority. Perhaps she was too influenced by the green movement, and anybody else was not to be represented by her.

I look around the Chamber and I think that we who were elected are in a minority, which says something, just by way of an observation. I say to my noble friend on the Front Bench, though, that I think the size of the Bill might have been helped had there been pre-legislative scrutiny, even possibly some kind of Speaker’s conference. Nevertheless, we have a large Bill and a lot of work ahead of us. I just want to highlight a couple of issues that I think are relevant. The report published by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, on regulating election finance, was an important one. I know Her Majesty’s Government have responded to a number of the points made, but I suspect that more will come up in Committee and I think it deserves some real in-depth response.

There have been one or two comments about young people not registering. I happen to have two granddaughters, aged 17 and 16—thank goodness, otherwise I would not be the least bit competent in terms of modern technology. I mix with their friends, and they are all on the ball. Okay, they are middle-class; nevertheless, I believe that with modern technology, the online and the Twitters and all the rest of it, young people today, at every level of society, will take an interest—much more than we perhaps did as young people ourselves.

I also draw attention to the evidence given to my noble friend from the RNIB, about the difficulty in voting for some people, particularly the blind. Again, there have been major developments in terms of communication for the blind and the deaf, and I hope we can look at those sympathetically and not leave it totally to the discretion of the returning officer.

On photo ID, I do not have the problems that others seem to have. My noble friend Lord Leicester covered this in great depth this evening. I did have the experience of fighting a by-election in Islington North. I cannot remember whether it was the Times or the Daily Telegraph that observed how it appeared that in one particular community a large number of people—estimated at a dozen—were represented by one particular person who delivered the vote with the voting cards. At any rate, that issue has been dealt with, so we do not have this problem today.

I will raise one other issue that has not been raised by anybody else. As I have just mentioned, I was elected in February 1974 with a majority of 179 votes. I actually lost by nearly 200 on the first vote. I had a tip-off from the deputy returning officer saying, “Break the bundles”. In those days, we voted with elastic bands around 25 votes—four 25s are 100—and a sticker on the top, “Lab”, “Lib” or “Con”. So I duly told my agent, “We need to break the bundles”. Lo and behold, I actually won by about four or five votes the next time. Understandably, my opponent, the Labour candidate, said he wanted a recount—and I ended up with 179. I do think that we need to look at the security or accuracy of voting, so that we do not have to have all these recounts. It must be possible to achieve that in today’s world.

Finally, I return to the fact that, on 19 February 2019, I had a very important Bill—the Extension of Franchise (House of Lords) Bill—which I was pleased to present to this House. It had a Second Reading but ran out of time. That was an important Bill because we are the only upper House, of nearly 200 in the world, where none of us may vote in a general election. The reason given, since 1699, is that we control finance here—but we do not. We do not vote on financial matters; those days have gone. It is high time to address this. With the help of my friend opposite, the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, as well as the noble Lord, Lord Dubs—both of whom have had similar Bills— I hope we can produce a suitable amendment to this particular Bill.

Financial Services Act 2021 (Prudential Regulation of Credit Institutions and Investment Firms) (Consequential Amendments and Miscellaneous Provisions) Regulations 2021

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2021 Grand Committee

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office and the Treasury (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)]

My Lords, the Financial Services Act 2021 (Prudential Regulation of Credit Institutions and Investment Firms) (Consequential Amendments and Miscellaneous Provisions) Regulations 2021 among other things support the implementation of the remaining Basel III standards and the investment firms prudential regime, the IFPR.

As I am sure noble Lords will recall, the Government legislated, through the Financial Services Act 2021, to enable the Prudential Regulation Authority to update the UK’s capital requirements regime to implement the remaining Basel accords. These standards were developed following the 2008 financial crisis, which highlighted major deficiencies in international financial regulation.

Now that the UK has left the EU, we must implement many of these standards domestically for the first time. Parliament has approved the implementation of these standards by expert independent regulators, alongside an overarching accountability framework. In September, this House approved the Capital Requirements Regulation (Amendment) Regulations 2021, made under the Financial Services Act, which revoked the provisions in the UK capital requirements regulation, or UK CRR, necessary for the PRA to make these updates. The Financial Services Act 2021 also enabled the Financial Conduct Authority to introduce the investment firms prudential regime, or IFPR, which is the UK’s new tailored prudential regime for FCA investment firms. This regime carves FCA investment firms out of the UK CRR. The combination of these two prudential packages requires consequential changes to the statute book. This instrument ensures that these changes mesh appropriately and provide a complete, functioning legal regime for firms.

I now turn to the instrument in detail, first in respect to changes that implement the Basel standards. Many of the measures contained in this instrument update references in existing legislation to the UK CRR, so that they now relate to the new rules made by the PRA, known as the CRR rules. In addition, this instrument revokes the reporting and disclosure requirements for the leverage ratio. I remind noble Lords that the leverage ratio is a capital backstop that prevents banks from becoming excessively leveraged. I reassure noble Lords that the PRA was already able to set leverage-based capital requirements through PRA rules. The UK leverage ratio framework has been, and continues to be, set by the Financial Policy Committee, which has indeed reviewed it in its entirety recently.

This instrument also removes a legacy equivalence determination on Article 132 that was tied to an equivalence regime that was revoked as part of the Capital Requirements Regulation (Amendment) Regulations 2021 earlier this year. This is therefore a tidying up. This instrument ensures that firms do not have to reapply for permissions where the relevant article of the UK CRR is revoked and replaced with PRA rules.

I turn to the changes in relation to the implementation of IFPR. Some of these changes are straightforward—for example, removing now defunct terminology due to changes stemming from IFPR. Two others are more substantive. First, this instrument extends the Securitisation Regulation’s due diligence requirements to all FCA investment firms. This ensures that all FCA investment firms buying securitisations must conduct due diligence, thereby helping to safeguard the integrity of the UK securitisation market. The second removes FCA investment firms from the UK resolution regime. This reflects the Government’s view that the FCA’s existing toolkit, along with the measures the FCA will implement in future through IFPR and the investment bank special administration regime, are more appropriate ways of managing such firms’ failure. FCA investment firms currently use existing rules and go into insolvency proceedings anyway, rather than going into resolution. Therefore, keeping them within the resolution regime only serves to create administrative cost for these firms for no benefit.

This instrument contains a savings provision and a transitional provision for the IFPR. It enables the FCA to continue to modify, revoke or amend IFPR-relevant technical standards. It provides for transitional provisions that support the functioning of the UK securitisation market by extending the existing risk retention requirements for one year to allow time for firms to transition their approach. The risk retention requirement ensures that firms retain an economic interest in a portion of the risk that is being sold on to investors.

Finally, this instrument addresses a small number of deficiencies arising from the withdrawal of the UK from the EU which have been identified during the process of making these Basel and IFPR amendments.

In conclusion, the Treasury has worked closely with the Bank of England, the PRA, FCA, industry and, in relation to the resolution change, the Banking Liaison Panel in the drafting of this instrument.

I hope that noble Lords have found my explanation helpful. In short, this instrument plays an important functional part in preparing UK legislation for the important Basel III implementation and IFPR packages. I would like to inform noble Lords that a correction slip has been issued in relation to a typographical error in this draft instrument. There is an incorrect cross-reference in the title of Regulation 38. The operative provisions in that regulation are correct. As a result, the error has no legal effect, and noble Lords can be assured that this change is minor. I beg to move.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I declare a possible interest as a trustee of the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund. I want to put this on the record, as we are getting wide briefings at the moment. I also have some experience of the friendly society movement as a former chairman of the Tunbridge Wells Equitable Friendly Society and two Invesco investment trusts.

I particularly draw attention to paragraph 7.8 of the Explanatory Memorandum, which is key. It says that

“the framework in its current form does not appropriately cater for the differences between credit institutions and investment firms and can be disproportionate”

and “burdensome”, et cetera. That seems crucial. It then goes on to mention the consultation that has been carried out. When my noble friend winds up, could he make it clear whether all parts of Part 9C rules have been produced and circulated to the interested parties, or not? Certainly, implementation on 1 January 2022 does not fill me with enthusiasm. It is after Christmas and less than a month away, so I hope he will say that they have been produced, and when.

I am sure that my noble friend and all noble Lords would feel that there are some deficiencies in UK-retained law. I seek reassurance that we are confident that those deficiencies have been removed.

The other dimension I raise relates to paragraph 12.3. It will not surprise my noble friends that, once again, I feel very strongly about impact assessments and statements from Her Majesty’s Treasury that it considers that the net impact will be less than £5 million and very limited. Paragraph 14.1 says that

“the number of small businesses in scope is low.”

They may be small businesses, but they are important businesses to whoever is running them—and we are talking about financial firms.

It is always helpful to have a review of any legislation, particularly legislation relating to our coming out of the EU. That may not be proportionate in the judgment of the Treasury, but I do not know how many firms we are talking about. If my noble friend has that information, that will be helpful. I suppose that if we are talking of only three or four, that may be right, but I do not believe that that is the number—from my experience in the City, from some of the presentations we have recently had and, indeed, from some of the publicity about what is happening in the financial sector at the moment.

Is my noble friend absolutely confident that those firms do not want the SI reviewed after a period? If they all say no—that they do not want a review and are comfortable—fine, but my judgment is that, in life, it is helpful to have a review at some point.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, obviously I will not oppose this statutory instrument, but it raises a number of issues which need to be explored, and I shall look forward to the Minister’s response to our concerns. We raised these concerns during the passage of the Financial Services Act 2021, but they have not been alleviated.

The Act and this SI transfer significant power to set the UK rules on Basel III standards to the financial regulators accompanied by minimal parliamentary oversight. It is a crucial process and has a fundamental impact on financial stability, as it sets the capital and risk management requirements for banks and other financial institutions. The PRA and the FCA are expected to consult on their decisions, and parliamentarians can contribute to those consultations, but as no more than ordinary consultees, despite their responsibilities to the public, and can at best hope for a few comments on their points as part of the general response.

Committees of Parliament can question the PRA and FCA and undertake reports but, in practice, on only a handful of issues each year, so they are likely to be visited exceedingly rarely and probably only at a time of crisis, which is rather too late. Even the SIs offer no meaningful accountability, because they cannot be amended. This SI, with the powers it gives the regulators, will mean that the issues of Basel III, so crucial to our financial structure, will probably never again come before either this House or the other place, except through that committee arrangement, which is, as I said, pretty minimal. Perhaps the Minister will confirm that.

When we were members of the EU—I know mentioning that is not popular with the Government—basic Basel standards were implemented through EU law, where the process was open and accountable and as different as day from night from our current circumstance. Before the EU Commission proposed draft legislation, it held many conferences and public meetings involving parliamentarians; parliamentarians were engaged in briefings, expert evidence sessions and discussions with a wide range of relevant regulators and supervisory authorities; and the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee would be involved in scrutinising the main directive and regulations by way of co-decision. With Brexit, the power has transferred from the EU, but the Government have chosen to do it in a way that essentially removes any meaningful democratic accountability. I should like to hear for the record why the Minister has chosen such a route.

Budget Statement

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I place on record my thanks to the Chancellor, the Ministers and staff in Her Majesty’s Treasury. Quite frankly, the response that they gave to our population was proactive and sensitive and showed an understanding that I did not expect to see, so I thank the Treasury. I also thank the volunteers in the health service. I had a jab on Saturday, and the number of volunteers who are helping our people is amazing.

On the Budget, I pick out the global investment fund, which my noble friend just mentioned. It seems a very significant way forward. I will just cover exports and the NHS. First, on exports, I am a marketing man by profession and spent nearly 17 years working overseas and in the UK on exports, mainly focused on south Asia. The Financial Times of a couple of days ago had a headline:

“Sluggish exports: the ‘worrying trend’”,


which is quite right; that is one of the key issues that we face.

We now also know, on the ground—my noble friend Lord Londesborough has given considerable detail on this—about the problems of the supply chains and so on. I got a letter yesterday from the Department for Transport, and I just pick out that, on HGV drivers, it says we used to have a scheme for professional and career development loans, which was closed in 2019—understandably at that point. I suggested in a Written Question that it should be reopened, and am told that there are no plans to do so and that it is the responsibility of the employers to get on and do it. That is not the way forward to co-operate and get things moving in this country.

What can we do to improve the marketing? I personally believe that, as a Minister, Liz Truss went a long way to help and I hope that some of the energetic work that she has done filters through. But the Foreign Office is still not, in my judgment, oriented enough to exporting. I believe that the number 2 in every high commission and embassy should be in charge of export and business development. The ECGD is there—it should help and it wants to help. Look at what is happening in the port at Felixstowe; why have we not got that sorted out?

We used to use the BBC external services for promotion, and we have plans for a royal yacht. Why do we not revamp the Queen’s Award for Industry towards exports, or possibly resurrect the British Export Council? Perhaps we should use more collective market research, which we used to use a lot, but do not seem to use very much at the moment. Although I understand about air passenger duty, we also have to be very careful to look after our international airports, which are fundamental to our development as a world economy. There is a lot to be done in the world of exporting, and much of it is to do with marketing.

I turn to the National Health Service, which is the biggest employer in the UK, indeed in Europe. It now takes 8.4% of our GDP. I come from a doctor household: my wife started a practice in Biggleswade and built it up to be the biggest practice in that part of England. My son, also a GP, is now a deputy coroner. I myself studied and worked on the PAC for 12 years.

Just look at the PAC’s recent Test and Trace Update: Twenty-Third Report of Session 2021-22. It says that test and trace

“has not achieved its main objective to help break chains of COVID-19 transmission and enable people to return”

to work. I will pick out one particular paragraph:

“NHST&T’s continued over-reliance on consultants is likely to cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds … Despite NHST&T committing to reduce the number of consultants it employed, the number”


went up between April and December. The pay is

“£1,100 per day but some are paid more.”

Finally, it makes the point:

“Over a third of the 523 recruitment campaigns run by NHST&T up to the end of May 2021 failed to appoint anyone.”


That is not a happy scene.

I would also look at medical schools. I have consistently raised questions about numbers in our medical schools, because I have in-depth knowledge about this. I started way back on 11 October 2011, and more recently I raised a Question in 2016, five years ago. Our dear friend, the noble Lord, Lord Prior of Brampton, who was in the Department of Health at that point, said we would

“fund up to 1,500 additional medical school places”.

In my supplementary, I pointed out:

“In the last three years, we have lost 3,500 medical students, but the problem goes deeper … Today”—


that was 2016; it has worsened since then—

“56% of the intake of medical students is female. Furthermore, 70% of female GPs today work part-time, and a recent survey by the King’s Fund says that 90% of all medical students in training want to work part-time. Given that it costs £200,000 to train anybody … surely the time has come to consider a … full-time commitment of at least four years after qualification, similar to what they do in Singapore”.—[Official Report, 26/10/16; col. 197.]

The Minister said that they would study this and see whether they could produce a scheme whereby all medical students would have to be committed to four years after qualification.

Nothing has happened. Frankly, it is not good enough. It is a huge problem. The Great British public cannot get to a GP today. I feel particularly strongly about it. We need to get a grip on central expenditure, review the number of medical schools urgently and ensure that there is a contract for every single medical student such that, when they qualify, they either pay back the money if they are not going to work or sign on for four years, as they have to do for Her Majesty’s Armed Forces.

Health and Social Care Levy Bill

Lord Naseby Excerpts

2nd reading & Order of Commitment discharged & 3rd reading
Monday 11th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, it is clear that there is an understanding across the House that there is a crisis in social care. We all know that. We all campaigned in recent elections and we know that it is a real crisis. However, it does not help to come up with all sorts of wizard new taxes, as the noble Lord did just now. If I may say so to the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, who I respect as an economist from the college next door to mine, he can analyse and criticise, but equally it behoves the spokesman from the Opposition Benches to put forward the alternative. The noble Lord knows that there is a crisis but there was not a word from him about what the answer is to meet it. It was, of course, a Labour Government who put up national insurance in 2003 for matters they considered at that point to be absolutely vital. I have been a leader of a local authority and I understand social care. My view is that, at a time of real emergency in social care, which this is, we have to find something simple that can be done quickly. That is why I support the Bill.

My noble friend Lord Forsyth, in what I thought was a really good speech, made it clear that there is a crisis. The question to my noble friend on the Front Bench is, if I read this Bill correctly, that it is the Treasury that will determine the share of the extra money that will go to social care. I find that profoundly unsatisfactory. If social care is the one key element of the problem, which we all recognise it is, surely Her Majesty’s Government should decide, whatever money is raised—it will be a huge sum once it is up and running—that social care will get a ring-fenced proportion of that budget that shall not be leached away to something else in the National Health Service. That is fundamental.

I declare an interest: I am married, for 61 years now, to somebody who trained as a medical student across the road when I was courting her. She became a doctor. She did her house jobs in Calcutta. She set up her practice in Biggleswade when somebody died. She ran the biggest practice in that part of Bedfordshire, had three children and was a wife to a politician. She worked full-time. I have a son who is not dissimilar: he is a doctor and now a deputy coroner.

The other element of the problem lies principally with our general practice today. It is a shambles. Just to take my particular practice where I am a patient—which I obviously know in some depth—there are six doctors, one full-time and five part-time, four of which are ladies and one a gentleman. You cannot run any medical practice anywhere in the world—and I have worked in India, Canada and Sri Lanka—on the basis of part-time medical practitioners. The system does not work that way: people do not get ill on a part-time basis; people get ill and want attention. It has been made worse—and I can understand why, as my noble friend Lord Bethell set out. With the challenges they faced in the pandemic we had to have the triage. That I accept. It worked to a degree, but that is gone now. It did not work for the elderly or the infirm and it does not work for them now. The general practice in this country has got to the stage where it is no longer fit for purpose.

I do not know for how many years there have been no home visits, but it must be at least a decade. That is social care as much as anything because a home visit from a general practitioner helps prevent someone going into more extensive social care. There are no home visits even now: even people who have come out of hospital having had terrible Covid have no visit from the general practitioner to check whether they are recovering properly. I know that because actually—and I do not want to get too emotional about it—my wife nearly did not come back. There was no visit.

What, therefore, are the answers? I will suggest a few simple ones because this is not a broad debate on healthcare, but it is so important that it must get a little bit on the record. We need more doctors, which means more students going into medical college, and it has to comprise roughly 50% men and 50% women. If we look at the countries that are successful in retaining doctors, we should look at the case history of Singapore. If you are a medical trainee in Singapore, you are required to work for five years in the national health service there or pay back the cost. That is not new to this country: my elder son happened to be sponsored by the Army. He had to sign on for five years as a medical doctor in Her Majesty’s forces, or else pay back the grant. I think we should have a long, hard look at that.

We now have a situation where, while pre-pandemic, 80% of consultations were in the surgery, today that figure is, sadly, 58%. That does not work. We now have the Royal College of General Practitioners stating that the model of the full-time GP is probably something that we will never see again. That is absolute utter rubbish; I find it totally unacceptable and if he feels that way, I suggest that it is time he stood down and let somebody else lead the general practitioners of this country back to full-time practices.

Financial Services Bill

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 14th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I will speak briefly on government Amendment 14 and say a few words in support of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, because of his ongoing campaigns and successes in making us think harder about financial inclusion and the use that could and should be made of fintech, in reaching out to those who are not provided for by the financial system. Government Amendment 14 has our support because, as seems obvious from the Woolard review and other comments, there is an issue around this new-technology approach to purchasing.

Buy now, pay later has all the ring of a scam around it although, having talked to some providers and looked at their business plans in more detail, it seems to be a well worked-through and carefully crafted approach to the process of trying to buy goods, mainly. It may also apply to other services. Those on reasonable budgets who are unable to pay, with confidence, the amount for the goods that they are purchasing get the benefit of the opportunity to spread the payment over more than one month—the majority are for three months—largely at the expense of the retailer. The amounts are small and the sanctions applied by the providers are severe: you get dropped if you miss a payment or two.

There does not seem to be a sense of some of the fringe approaches that were available in other schemes that the House has looked at and which we have read about in the papers. In a sense, this may not be quite the scam and worry that we thought it was when the Woolard review came out, but the Government are right to ensure that the regulatory book is in order and that there is an opportunity to keep a close watch on this, and to act, as and when required.

Therefore, although it is unusual for the Opposition to offer powers to the Government in this way, we are reassured by the way that they have approached this, having brought us into the discussion and debate. We are aware that any regulations brought forward will, in practice, be under the affirmative basis and therefore open to scrutiny within your Lordships’ House and elsewhere in Parliament. We support this approach, even though to do so is slightly unusual. We think that doing it this way is a good move by the Government and hope that it will not be necessary, in the sense of some of the scare stories that we have read about. But if it is, at least the powers are banked.

[Lord Naseby (Con) [V]]

This is an important Bill and I record my formal thanks to my noble friends on the Front Bench for the way that they listened to the earlier debates. Here, we have evidence in this first set of amendments, certainly Amendment 14, that not only have they listened but we are getting a positive response.

Amendment 14 is good and I support it. I am delighted to hear that we will have a consultation with stakeholders. I wonder whether Her Majesty’s Government could produce a list of those whom they think they are going to consult, because a number of us know a fair amount about the fringes of the financial world and there may be a section missing.

On buy now, pay later, I remember that when I started buying things that I could not afford there was a technique called hire purchase. That was very similar and there were all sorts of arguments when I got into politics, while HP was still active, on the nuances of the HP world. The same applies now, so I say well done on Amendment 14. I look forward to seeing the consultation and hope to take part myself. As someone who has sat in the chair, I will welcome enormously having an affirmative resolution when it comes back. I also ask my noble friend the Minister to make sure that the Financial Ombudsman Service and claims management companies fall within the circumference of this consultation, because they are important to this large market. It is buy now, pay later, in a sense, but not the modern version; it was historically called home-collected credit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, and her—as always—expert contribution, which has made me think again about that amendment. I put my name down for this group chiefly to speak to Amendment 27, in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, also signed by the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, and me. The reasons for this amendment have been broadly canvassed, notably by the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, well known for Peers for Gambling Reform, which I was recently pleased to join. I do not feel that I need to make this case again, but there is a useful reflection to make—drawing also on what the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, just said, and sharing the frustration of the noble Lord, Lord Addington—about how, in this group of apparently disparate amendments, we see a real problem in the nature of our lawmaking in the difficulty of making progress. What we have here, as we had earlier with the sharia-compliant student loan, are apparently small, easily fixed issues, on which some very expert, knowledgeable, extremely capable people have spent years working, without progress being made. This particularly applies to Amendment 16 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. Something clearly needs to be tackled and dealt with, and it looks simple; we need to see regulation, oversight and protection, but it is not happening.

In the interstices of what has been a rather hectic day for me, I was looking at the Law Society briefing for the National Security and Investment Bill, which is coming tomorrow. The Law Society does not have any party-political issues to raise on that, but it has looked at the Bill and has seen that we are creating huge problems. Somehow, our legislative process is not identifying issues. With commendable frankness, the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, earlier identified his role on the issue that arises in Amendment 37C. Somehow, things are not coming together and delivering us workable laws. We need to think, as a House and as a society, about how we can end up getting more workable laws. I suggest that we need more co-operation, listening and input at the early stages, rather than a sudden decision by the Government to do something, which then results in a Bill.

We are not sure that there will be any votes on any of these amendments, but we clearly need action and I commend to your Lordships’ House the need for action on all of these, particularly Amendment 27, to protect vulnerable people.

[Lord Naseby (Con) [V]]

My Lords, Amendment 37C is an issue of fundamental importance to young people who are disabled and have taken up child trust funds. The amendment before us is key. We had a thorough and competent speech from my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, but I have just listened to another speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, and we have to find common ground between the two.

I declare a past interest as, when I joined the Commons in February 1974, I took an interest in the friendly society movement, which I continued until I left in 1997. I was then asked to become chairman, which I was from 1998 to 2005, of the Tunbridge Wells Equitable Friendly Society. That interest was declared at that point. In the days of the child trust fund, the Tunbridge Wells Equitable Friendly Society traded under the brand of the Children’s Mutual. It is my recollection that the Children’s Mutual was a brand leader, and we put a huge amount of effort into it. We liaised with the authorities involved at the time—not just the Government of the day but others. I am saddened and disappointed that, somehow or other, this issue got through the net. Unfortunately, the coalition Government tragically decided—George Osborne was one of the key players, of course—to wind it up. That was a great error, in my judgment.

We come to the current position, and I am pleased to hear the industry’s concerns, but I am disappointed that there has been no mention of the Association of Friendly Societies. I am sure that the majority of child trust funds were sold by the friendly societies, and I would advise those involved to make sure that the Association of Friendly Societies is involved now. On my own initiative, I will contact the Tunbridge Wells Equitable Friendly Society to suggest that it helps and is involved.

I am not sure why we have the same problem with junior ISAs. I declare an interest here, because I contribute to the junior ISAs of my four grandchildren, who are eligible. I am disappointed, although I was not involved in the legislation on junior ISAs in depth, that the same problem appears. I do not want to add to the concerns of my noble friend on the Front Bench, but, until recently, a large number of grandparents had been buying National Savings certificates, and I wonder whether the same problem is lying there and has not been raised by anybody else.

This is a serious problem. I have faith in my noble friend on the Front Bench, and I hope that he and those involved will look at it seriously. If there is anything that I can do to help resolve this issue, I will do my best to, because it is important.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 16 and I thoroughly support its intent. I have been chair of the Enforcement Law Reform Group for more years than I care to remember, and for all that time I have been aware that every side of the industry wants statutory regulation. It is not a suitable case for voluntary regulation. You need the powers that go with being set up by statute to deal with all the difficulties and conflicts that are inherent in the business of getting money out of people who do not want to give it to you.

I fully understand the Government’s caution about the drafting of the amendment, but I very much hope that everyone involved in it will hold their feet to the fire to get a suitable alternative through as soon as possible. I have one piece of advice for the Government on the amendment as drafted. It is important that whatever we create can bite on creditors. A lot of the problems in this industry have their roots in the delinquency and bad behaviour of creditors and in the disorganisation of the systems that they operate. The privilege of being able to use a bailiff should be granted only to creditors who are well set up, who have done their preparatory work, who know who is vulnerable, who have found out the right addresses, who have properly offered payment holidays or plans before involving the very expensive, onerous and sometimes distressing option of a bailiff.

When we come to have this in statute, we need some way in which a local authority, for instance, which is trying to recover debt due on council tax must demonstrate that it has done what it should in order to be allowed to use the bailiff system. There may be some other way of doing it—but not to have that connection through to creditors and think that you can regulate just by putting pressure on bailiffs would be a considerable mistake and would, in the end, result in the system not working.

--- Later in debate ---

That is what the amendments set out to do for the PRA and the FCA. I strongly support them, especially Amendment 20, and I look forward to the Minister’s response, especially with regard to Amendment 20.

[Lord Naseby (Con) [V]]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, for raising these issues. All three of the amendments that she has tabled are important. They are to do with the FCA and PRA regulators, and I agree with them. However, I am particularly concerned about the FCA and its linkage to the Financial Ombudsman Service, the FOS, and how that is reported to Parliament. There seems to me a particular concern in this area.

I will take just one key case history. The leading company in the home-collected credit market has been around for 150 years. It has basically produced a credit product of choice for working-class communities for all that time. It is small-scale. It is now suffering from regulatory indifference. There is a model here for home-collected credit that works. It is flexible and forgiving and is the right design for consumers on a low income. The FCA has traditionally supported it and given it a tick all along the line. To put what has happened bluntly, the Financial Ombudsman Service has ignored the understanding of this market, which is part of the consumer credit loan market, and lumped it all together.

The net result is that the FOS is basically taking a summary judgment approach to complaints involving all HCC firms. It is therefore faced with a huge volume of complaints manufactured by the claims management companies. To get round this huge volume, instead of playing its statutory role and looking at each claim on its merits, it is taking a short cut. It is saying, “Okay, we’ll look at 25 properly; anything above that, we won’t”—and so it goes on. That is quite wrong—so wrong that there must be some parliamentary means of ensuring that the FCA carries out its role in relation to what the FOS should be doing, in the knowledge, of course, that the FOS is an independent body. So there is a lack of linkage somewhere in this, which should be another area for parliamentary scrutiny.

That was only a shorthand case history, but it demonstrates that what is behind the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, has great value. I shall think very seriously about supporting them, depending on what my noble friend on the Front Bench chooses to say in his closing words.

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I am happy to speak briefly to the amendments moved by my noble friend Lady Bowles. I am grateful to her and to my noble friend Lord Sharkey for their expertise both in drafting the amendments and in explaining in detail why it is important for the Government to consider the points behind them.

As a member of the EU Financial Affairs Sub-Committee and, until last month, of the EU Services Sub-Committee, for the last four years, I have been involved with scrutinising the financial services sector. Nobody should doubt the importance of this sector to the UK economy; it is worth reminding people of that, even though this is a technical amendment. I will not rehearse the statistics on the share of the economy, jobs, tax revenues, the balance of payments and so on. Apart from that, it is also the lubricant of the whole economy, and when it goes wrong, a few people make a fortune but most people suffer—some severely.

The regulation of the sector has been subject to the scrutiny of this House and, importantly, as has already been mentioned, the resources of the European Parliament, with British MEPs taking the lead in many instances. My noble friend Lady Bowles was one of the most distinguished of them in that department. Yet the financial crash was the consequence of light-touch regulation and there are concerns that this Bill may be creating a framework for similar mistakes. Certainly, without effective accountability to Parliament there is a danger that regulators might—intentionally, but more likely otherwise—allow financial services to be regulated in ways that could put individuals’ pensions and savings at risk and prejudice the viability of businesses, especially SMEs.

Outside the European Union, it is more important than ever that financial services regulation is effectively scrutinised. Without the resources of the European Parliament, we need a dedicated committee, with the necessary resources and expert support, to ensure that regulation is understood and fit for purpose. We all know that the Government want flexibility in the post-Brexit age in order to compete globally. Of course, that is not wrong in principle, and the sector repeatedly argues that its ability to do so will depend on transparent and effective regulation, because that is what gives confidence to the users of financial services. Get it wrong and, as we stand alone, it could have disastrous consequences.

I also support the argument that requiring financial regulators to engage with Parliament as part of the process of implementing regulation is not obstructive. It actually serves the regulators’ and the Government’s interests much better, because it ensures a better understanding of their purpose and helps highlight whether or not there may be consequences which had not been thought through and which could have negative implications for the sector.

By positive contrast, if the Government, regulators and Parliament can work together as partners, we can consolidate and enhance our world lead. We have been one of the most important financial sectors in the world and we all want that to remain the case, but we have created a challenging and difficult circumstance for ourselves. If we get this wrong, we could suffer a great deal. We need to get it right and it is important that the Government acknowledge that these amendments are designed to support the regulators and the Government in ensuring that our financial sector still has the confidence of the world market it seeks to serve, and is not subject to a closed, unconsulted, unscrutinised form of regulation that, without intention—or maybe with intention, if some Ministers wish to push it—could compromise the integrity of the sector. That will serve nobody’s interests, and I hope the Government recognise that.

Representation of the People (Proxy Vote Applications) (Coronavirus) Regulations 2021

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Naseby (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am pleased that the title contains “draft”, because I have some thoughts that I hope my noble friend the Minister might take on board. I am not clear why we need an expiry date of 28 February 2022. Surely we do not know whether isolation will continue for some unknown period. There is talk of a third wave and another lockdown and so on, so I do not know why this cannot be left open-ended. Then, when it is clear that we are through the coronavirus pandemic, we can by all means determine to remove this facility altogether.

Self-isolation is only for 10 to 14 days, depending on the circumstances. That is a pretty short timeframe, really. I have fought local elections, general elections and other elections, and part of me wonders whether there is not a degree of overkill.

After paragraph (3A), there are four categories to be inserted. I have no problems with new sub-paragraphs (a) or (b), but what is said in new sub-paragraph (c) is true for almost everyone, so in a sense it depreciates the currency. I have a question mark over new sub-paragraph (d), because there is a danger of its being made too easy to get a vote. This could be open to abuse.

In elections I have taken part in, I have known there to be personation. Indeed, there was an article about it in the Times or the Telegraph after the 1966 general election, in which I was the Conservative candidate in Islington North. I fully admit that I had no hope of winning in Islington North, which is now Jeremy Corbyn’s seat, but as a keen young candidate I made sure that we had tellers on the doors, and we watched carefully what was happening. Afterwards I was in the pub talking with my key workers, and two of them said, “You know, we’re quite sure we saw that chap come at 7.30 and the same chap appeared again at 9 o’clock.” I said, “That’s funny you say that, because I felt the same.” I thought no more of it other than that, as people who know that part of London will know, there is an extensive Irish community there with large families. The long and the short of it was that some journalist from either the Times or the Telegraph was watching carefully, and along appears an editorial saying that there were clearly personations, where people had left the voting card in a house or residence where there were multiple voters, and a chap had taken a card not just for himself but for several other people in that house who were registered to vote.

On general elections, there is still some personation. I have seen it in a couple of seats and indeed—dare I mention it?—I have been on a number of overseas monitoring roles, and there is certainly less personation in general elections that I have watched in Sri Lanka than in parts of the UK. I am not at all sure what the principles are. People who are ill get a postal vote and it is done with great rigour, as my noble friend mentioned. It is done properly and carefully. Proxy votes, on the other hand, are a little more open to creative illegality. This SI talks about “long-term proxy arrangements”. Why should there ever be a long-term proxy arrangement when you can get a postal vote? There is a real danger here with a low turnout or tight majority.

My first general election majority was 179. I lost on the first count, then crept in with about two or three votes on the second count, and ended up with 179 on the third count. At my second election in October 1974, I crept in with 141. In local elections, as we all know, there are some very low turnouts and very tight majorities. Single figures are quite common; majorities of 20 to 25 are very common. If, as a result of this proposal, you have people applying for proxy votes, there is no doubt that it will dramatically improve the turnout. There will probably be people who were not going to vote in the first place, but because they know they can get a proxy vote they will turn out.

I am a bit fearful about what is proposed here. This needs to be watched carefully and, frankly, I am not in favour of it at all. Maybe I am in a minority. However, as someone who has experienced elections in some depth—I note that the Liberal spokesman has also witnessed a fair number of local elections—I wonder whether this is a step too far.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Caine) (Con)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Rennard.