Spring Statement

Lord Northbrook Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Northbrook (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Gadhia, with his great financial experience, and a lot of what I say will be in agreement with his wise words.

There is much to welcome in the Chancellor’s Spring Statement. As the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson of Earl’s Court, said, and as The Financial Times put it:

“A decade on from the financial and economic crisis, the chancellor can now say the deficit is fully under control”.


As other noble Lords have said, with the Government’s books in 2009-10 in deficit to the tune of £153 billion, amounting to 10% of national income and £1 in every four spent, public sector net borrowing is down to £22.8 billion this financial year, only just over 1% of GDP. This Chancellor deserves high praise for halving the deficit since he came to office, and this has taken place even though the annual debt interest bill is hovering around the £40 billion mark each year.

As the noble Lord, Lord Gadhia, has just said, the Chancellor has made his own luck by running a stable ship throughout the Brexit process. Detailed analysis shows that he has had some good assistance in certain areas. The noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, has already pointed out that unexpected strength in tax revenues explains a large amount of the drop in borrowing across the five years of the forecast. This financial year, according to the FT, all the gains in receipts come from higher than expected income tax and national insurance revenues, largely because the incomes of those on the highest pay are growing faster than the average. Surprisingly low inflation and lower interest rate expectations have also cut projected debt interest bills in future.

Moving on to growth forecasts, the news is not so good. As other noble Lords have pointed out, the UK economy is forecast by the OBR to grow in 2019 at its slowest pace since the post-crisis recession, cutting its outlook for growth this year to a meagre 1.2%, down from the 1.6% expansion pencilled in in last November’s predictions. In context, however, the GDP growth forecast figures are still higher than those for Germany, slightly increasing to 1.4% in 2020 and 1.6% in each of the final three years. The relatively modest recovery in GDP growth hinges on a revival in productivity and steady wage growth supporting a pick-up in consumer spending.

I will now consider employment and wage growth. Under the Conservative-led Government, more than 3.5 million net new jobs have been created. By 2023, the OBR expects to see 600,000 more new jobs. According to the Chancellor, last year 96% of them were full time, scotching the Opposition’s constant claims that they are zero-hours contracts. On wage growth, the OBR has revised upwards its forecast to 3% or higher in every year, with inflation around the target throughout the forecast period. This means real wage growth in every year of the forecast.

So the UK economy is showing surprising resilience. But this progress, and the chance to end the austerity that has sapped public services for a decade, are in jeopardy. The uncertainty over the UK’s exit from the EU must be lifted and a no-deal departure avoided. If the UK leaves the EU with an agreement, the Chancellor said the country would have real choices on how much of his notional “deal dividend” it could spend on public services or tax cuts. But, as the Chancellor said, a no-deal Brexit would deliver a significant short to medium-term reduction in the productive capacity of the British economy—so the idea that there is some simple, readily available fix that can be deployed to avoid the consequences of a no-deal Brexit is, I am afraid, just wrong.

I move on to an area where spending has been cut back too far. On this, for once I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe. According to a 2018 paper by the Institute for Government, net expenditure on police services in England and Wales had fallen by 18% in real terms from spending in 2009-10. At the end of March 2018, there were 15% fewer police officers than in 2010. There is also a reported shortage of detectives. In its 2017 evaluation of police effectiveness, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services reported a “national crisis” in the number of investigators, estimating a 17% shortfall of more than 5,000 staff.

The crisis has been brought even more into focus by the rise in knife murders in London and the increasing problems being brought about through gangs and drugs issues. If no new money is available apart from a one-off £100 million, will the Minister tell us, as a matter of priority, whether the money could be found from elsewhere? Perhaps some of our overseas aid budget—particularly that given to relatively well-off countries such as India and China—could be diverted to this much more urgent problem at home. There seems for some reason to be a stubborn resistance by the Government to spending more money in this area, which should be a key priority for the Conservative Party, as the party of law and order. This expenditure would pay for itself in the future.

I now turn to what the Spring Budget means for personal finances. I welcome the increase in the personal tax allowance to £12,500 and the rise in the higher-rate threshold to £50,000, but still believe that the top rate of income tax should be brought down to 40% to replicate the rate under the last Labour Government. Sarah Coles, a finance analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, made the following comment:

“The impact of inflation, wage rises and asset price growth means many more people will be paying more tax over time. By 2023-24, inheritance tax is expected to make an extra £1 billion a year and capital gains tax £4 billion”.


Meanwhile, income tax is forecast to rise by more than £50 billion and national insurance more than £35 billion. If you look at the other side of the equation, welfare spending is expected to increase by no less than 19%—nearly £42 billion—over the next five years, with the biggest factor being state pension expenditure, which is forecast to rise by 26% or £24.5 billion. There has to be a limit to tax increases: we are now as highly taxed as in the 1980s.

On offshore tax, I note that HMRC has received 5.7 million records on UK taxpayers’ offshore accounts—more than treble the records it received in 2017. I welcome the crackdown on overseas tax evasion and note the co-operation from more than 100 overseas jurisdictions. I note the decision of the OBR to categorise provisionally the increase of probate fees as a tax, which must be correct, despite what the Ministry of Justice says. What are the Minister’s views on this?

Finally, I welcome the Government’s proposed review into the contentious loan charge, highlighted by my noble and redoubtable friend Lady Noakes. I agree with my noble friend Lord Wakeham about some of the responsibility resting with taxpayers who went into these schemes. I await with interest the report that will be published on 30 March.

The Minister talked about the birds and the bees, but did not say much about the third B—Brexit. We are in a most uncertain time economically due to Brexit, but, with a difficult hand, the Chancellor has done well. The times ahead will be uncertain and the effects of no deal on the public finances could be serious. For instance, I read today that, according to Ernst & Young, financial services companies have announced plans to move £1 trillion of assets into the EU. The financial services industry accounts for roughly 12% of the UK economy and employs 2.2 million people. It estimates that it will cost the country £600 million in tax. I feel that the Prime Minister’s deal, while not being perfect, provides an adequate solution, and I would welcome it somehow getting through Parliament. The uncertainty of delay is much worse for the economy.

Economy: Budget Statement

Lord Northbrook Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Northbrook (Con)]

My Lords, in contrast to the noble Lord, Lord Hain, I believe there is much to welcome about the Chancellor’s recent Budget in the current circumstances. The Chancellor has been given an unexpected windfall by a major change in the independent Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecast in his favour. According to the Financial Times of 30 October:

“The magic ingredient enabling this … according to the Office for Budget Responsibility, was a ‘windfall’ of additional tax revenues and lower projected spending needs—now reflected in a huge change to the UK’s fiscal watchdog’s forecast”.


The expected windfall, amounting to £68 billion over five years, has come from higher tax revenues, and the OBR chairman, Robert Chote, has predicted that this will continue for the coming period.

Looking at the current economic scenario, I would like to focus on the latest quarterly GDP figures. There was good news that the economy grew by 0.6% in the three months to September, following 0.4% growth in the previous quarter, considerably higher than the recent trend. Less good news was that the economy lost momentum in August and September when growth and GDP fell to zero. By September, only construction was powering ahead. Retail sales after a strong start fell at the end of the quarter. Looking at 2018 as a whole, it seems sensible that the OBR has cut the GDP forecast from 1.5% to 1.3%, but it has raised the estimate for next year from 1.3% to 1.6%, which may be a little optimistic.

Considering overall the economy in the light of the Budget, it is hard to make any firm predictions because of the uncertainty over Brexit. Anecdotally, businesses seem to be delaying expenditure decisions, together with possible relocation of staff, until they see what Brexit deal, if any, emerges. For example, the exodus of the financial community from the City—such an important contributor to tax revenues—has yet to materialise. However, I am told that this could still happen due to the loss of passporting rights and could even be worse in the case of no deal.

No one has convinced me that life will be very easy for some parts of industry. The automotive sector, with its just-in-time manufacturing, will have major problems with customs procedure if a sensible deal is not reached.

Also, I worry about the Northern Ireland border situation. According to fullfact.org data of February this year, if we discount sales to the rest of the United Kingdom and count only exports to foreign countries, 35% of Northern Ireland’s exports go to the Irish Republic and £7 billion go to the EU, including the Republic, which represents almost 13% of our exports, according to Trading Economics. Disruption to the Irish border trade could have a significant effect on UK exports. I am also concerned about the customs situation at ports generally.

Another economic figure to be watched carefully is UK inflation. At the moment, it seems under reasonable control, but recent figures for wage rises of more than 3%—the fastest for a decade—could be a cause for concern and may necessitate interest rate rises if the trend continues.

There is much in the detail of the Budget that I welcome. I applaud particularly the raising of the level at which the 40p rate and the basic rate of tax start. I also applaud the sizeable increase in the investment allowance. The relief measures for business rates are also welcome. The increase in spending on roads of £29 billion over five years and the £420 million for pothole repairs are sensible. The extra digital services tax is overdue. Extra money for the NHS is necessary. In my view, however, there needs to be a major cross-party debate to determine spending priorities to stop it becoming a bottomless pit. The extra £1 billion for defence was also a good measure. The additional funding for universal credit was very sensible. I claim a small amount of credit as part of the team that made that case to the Chancellor recently.

However, I am concerned about other Budget measures. The increase in national insurance was not mentioned in the Budget speech; the announcements on it that were sneaked out later are unwelcome. Sadly, to correct my noble friend Lord Higgins, the new probate charge is not just a rumour. Essentially, it is a tax, but it was also not referred to in the Budget Statement. That seems an attack on Conservative supporters, as it means a charge of no less than £6,000 at the top end of the scale. That is in addition to inheritance tax. Not surprisingly, the Daily Mail vigorously attacked it, which may or may not be helpful. Delaying cutting fixed-odds betting terminals’ maximum stakes to October next year is inexcusable. It may well be overturned in the other place, which I would applaud. I am sorry that the police are not getting more resources, as major crime problems in both cities and the countryside suggest that they desperately need them. Also, the prison situation does not look good; I am not sure how to focus extra funding there. Surely some of the international aid budget could be diverted to those two areas.

I want to focus now on the tax burden. According to the FT on 29 October, tax revenues are,

“scheduled to rise from 36.6 per cent of national income in 2017-18 to 37.2 per cent by 2023-24, the highest level since 1986-87”.

I fear that I may be in the minority in continuing to suggest that, within reason, lower taxes can yield higher revenues.

Finally, I want to return to the budget deficit. Clearly, the Chancellor’s measures will put back the days when the books will be balanced. Although the Government deserve high praise for reducing public sector net borrowing from £153 billion in 2009-10—I remind the noble Lord, Lord Hain, of that—to a forecast £40 billion in 2017-18, they keep pushing back the date when the deficit will be cleared. There seems to be a general belief that the current forecast level of deficit does not matter because many other countries are in an equally bad financial state. This budget year, debt interest alone is forecast at £41 billion, and to be in the 40s for the foreseeable future. That situation is fine as long as the markets tolerate it. However, a bad Brexit deal could upset the market and international investors could require a higher return from investing in UK debt. That could cause a serious rise in the UK deficit and have a major effect on the UK economy.

Tackling Financial Exclusion (Financial Exclusion Report)

Lord Northbrook Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Northbrook (Con)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, for her excellent and skilful chairing of our committee. I also thank our clerk, Matthew Smith, and committee assistant, James Thomas, together with our policy analysts, Cathryn Auplish and Nathan Lechler, for their sterling assistance. As the committee’s report covers such a wide area, it is sensible in the time available to restrict my detailed comments to two chapters of the report that, having worked in the City, I found particularly interesting; namely those on access to financial services and financial exclusion, credit and borrowing.

Before that, I want to highlight a few successes where, following our report, the Government have taken action. The first, recommendation 1, has seen the appointment of a Minister for Pensions and Financial Inclusion, Guy Opperman, based in the DWP. Recommendation 2 has been also partly implemented,

“that the Government should set out a clear strategy for improving financial inclusion in the UK”.

I welcome the fact that the Government have committed to setting up a new financial inclusion policy forum. This will be chaired by the new Minister for Financial Inclusion and the Economic Secretary to the Treasury and include other Ministers and representatives of financial service regulators. It will meet twice a year.

Recommendation 8 has also been implemented. This recommended that,

“the Government and regulators should work together to develop an approach to promote further innovations in the provision of online and mobile banking services to older people”.

In response, the Government referred to the institution of the FCA’s weekend events, bringing financial services firms and technology firms together to work on and find innovative solutions to these problems.

Recommendation 9 has also been implemented. This recommended that,

“the Government should work with the financial services industry and the FCA to develop and introduce a wider range of ‘control options’ for those customers who may experience mental health problems”.

This has been moved forward by the FCA, which held a weekend seminar in March, in tandem with the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute, to address ways in which fintech could create tools to help people with fluctuating mental health conditions.

A major recommendation, number 19, has been implemented. As other noble Lords have said, we criticised the seven-day waiting period at the start of a universal credit claim. In the November Budget I was glad to see the Chancellor commit to removing the seven-day waiting period. However, I am disappointed that the Government have not implemented recommendation 20, which asked for,

“greater flexibility in the frequency of Universal Credit payments in England and Wales so that … payments can be made twice-monthly, as will be possible in Scotland and Northern Ireland”.

I was first made conscious of the problems with universal credit implementation, having being unaware of them when the legislation went through this House, when our committee visited Toynbee Hall in the East End of London. We met claimants who made all too clear their distress and suffering caused by the delays in payment, and it was a very moving experience.

Overall, like other noble Lords, I feel disappointed about how few of our recommendations have been accepted by the Government, particularly with regard to financial education at primary school stage, bank account charges and the Post Office, the last two of which I shall come on to.

In the rest of my speech, I will focus first on access to financial services, covered in chapter 6 of our report. A major theme of the evidence we received was that many people are financially excluded because they are unable to access the standard banking system. An alarming figure stands out that there are 1.5 million unbanked adults in the UK. A very helpful solution to this could be the basic bank account. Noble Lords may not be aware that banks are obliged to offer this to customers. It is a simplified form of current account, providing direct debit facilities, a debit card, access to cash machines and over-the-counter banking. It is impossible to go overdrawn on a basic bank account and therefore impossible to receive overdraft charges. Hence—surprise, surprise—banks do not publicise them well as they do not make as much money out of them as normal current accounts.

Opening a basic bank account can prove surprisingly difficult. Citizens Advice York highlighted,

“a number of examples which suggested that branch staff were sometimes misinterpreting rules and eligibility criteria for the accounts”.

I can back this up with an example from Hampshire, where I live, where two Hungarian employees wanted to open bank accounts. Despite the fact that they both had national insurance numbers and a P60 each for their wages with their address on it, they were turned down by my bank, Barclays, in Petersfield because they did not have a utility bill in their name for the house where they live. This was not surprising as they are living with us. Another excuse Barclays used was that they had not been living here for three years and did not have a credit history in the UK. Of course, credit history is irrelevant with a basic bank account as overdrafts are not allowed. Finally, Barclays said that because one of the couple could not speak English—the other is quite fluent—she would not be able to fill in the customer satisfaction survey. At that point they gave up with Barclays, went down the road, and finally got a basic bank account with Santander, but even that took two and a half hours to set up.

All of this does not quite square with Barclays’ evidence to the committee. It said:

“The basic bank account is a key component of financial inclusion … Ensuring that all banking participants are party to that … is important; otherwise you have people going into the branch of a bank that they think would be great for them and they are told, ‘Sorry, you’re not someone we want to bank. Can you go down the road and be supported by someone else?’ That is not a good outcome”.


As can be seen from the example I gave, identification remains a key problem. In the banks’ defence, the tension between the need to prevent money laundering and the needs of the financially excluded was highlighted repeatedly by bank witnesses. More creativity needs to be allowed with regard to identification. In paragraph 214 of our report, we say:

“The Committee welcomes and encourages the use of Universal Credit letters as identity verification for bank accounts. We are encouraged by the announcement from the Economic Secretary to the Treasury that banks are to accept these as standard procedure”.


Therefore, I fully support the committee’s recommendation 12 of an annual report, which,

“should contain updates on the rollout of electronic identification for bank accounts—particularly in regard to the success of bringing previously unbanked people into the banking system. The annual report should also provide an update on the level of acceptance by banks of Universal Credit and other non-standard but legally sufficient identity documentation”.

Another very important section of this chapter sets out a greater role for the Post Office. Our recommendation, which I believe is important, was that,

“the Government work proactively with the Post Office and banks to fund and launch an extensive public information campaign on the banking services that are available through Post Office branches. The Government—as sole shareholder in Post Office Ltd—should also ensure that the Post Office provides adequate training for staff at branches within retail outlets, so that they can carry out banking services for customers with confidence and competence”.

In the chapter on financial exclusion, credit and borrowing, four parts of the sector were considered by our inquiry: unarranged current account overdrafts; high-cost short-term credit, which includes payday loans and short-term high street loans; home credit, which involves providing relatively small short-term loans to consumers on lower-than-average incomes; and, finally, rent to own, where a company sells consumer goods and provides the credit products that enable people to buy them.

First, on unarranged overdrafts, we recommended that,

“regulations to limit and manage the negative impact of unarranged overdraft charges should be introduced. The potential for such regulations should be assessed as part of the ongoing FCA review into high-cost credit”.

The Government’s response—to refer the matter to the FCA—is only partially satisfactory. Action needs to be taken now. A bank charge of £30 a time for going into overdraft is far too high, as for someone on the minimum wage it takes four hours to earn back the money.

The next two parts, we broadly concluded, have been more successfully controlled through recent FCA regulation. It is the final part, the rent-to-buy sector, where further controls are necessary. As other noble Lords have said, the store chain BrightHouse is one of the major culprits in this regard. According to a Guardian article of August 2017, it was charging customers up to £1,560 for a washing machine when exactly the same model could be bought elsewhere for £599. BrightHouse is the dominant player in the sector, together with PerfectHome and the online retailer, Buy As You View. Our recommendation 16 states:

“We recommend that the Government provide all necessary assistance, includinglegislation where needed, to further combat financial exclusion caused or exacerbated by high-cost credit … Regulations should be put in place in other parts of the high-cost credit sector, particularly the rent-to-own sector”.


I am sure this recommendation helped encourage the FCA when in October this year it ordered BrightHouse to repay nearly £15 million to 249,000 customers, stating that it had not behaved as a responsible lender. This is after Buy As You View went into liquidation in September, after repaying nearly £1 million to 59,000 customers who had been unfairly treated. Recent results from PerfectHome show the company making a major loss. Clearly, the sector is not having things its own way so much any more, but regulation is still needed.

Overall, I am pleased that the Government have accepted some of our recommendations—but not enough. Their response to our report, considering it came out in March, has been far too slow. We need to keep pressure up on the FCA in particular to provide further active responses to our report.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Northbrook Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Northbrook]

My Lords, I want to focus on three separate areas in my speech today to show how Her Majesty’s Government are pursuing sensible policies in two of them but are severely lacking in initiative on the third.

The first is Hong Kong, which I visited as a member of the All-Party Parliamentary China Group delegation in February, under the able leadership of my noble friend Lord Wei. Every aspect of our visit was excellently planned, from the detailed FCO briefing before we left to the full programme while we were there. Further credit is due to the Hong Kong Government and the consul-general there, Caroline Wilson, for their superb organisation and interest in hearing our feedback. The British Chamber of Commerce executive director, Christopher Hammerbeck, was a credit to the organisation, and our trade envoy, the noble Lord, Lord Marland, was most helpful.

What we learnt overall was totally contrary to my expectations. I had believed that the dead hand of communism would have stifled enterprise and initiative. After a week, I realised that the opposite is true. The Chinese have skilfully allowed, under the principle of “one country, two systems”, the entrepreneurial spirit to continue. Business is not weighed down by unnecessary regulation, tax rates are low and government finances are in good shape, while the focus of the economy has moved away from manufacturing and is now service based.

The UK is making an excellent effort to increase trade. Exports of goods were up by 21% in 2011. Noting the strength of our trade with China, I support the Prime Minister in not needing to apologise for meeting the Dalai Lama. He should note that every US president has met the Tibetan spiritual leader, and this has not affected the USA’s exports to China as a whole, which are up 20% in dollar terms from 2010 to 2012.

The one area that seemed to cause concern to Hong Kong businessmen, as expressed at a fascinating meeting with the Vision 2047 Foundation, was that UK politicians’ visits to China were too often only to sign deals. The feeling was that not enough regular contact was being made outside these events. When I reported this back to the consul-general, her excellent suggestion was that I should express concern to BIS and the FCO, so this is what I am doing.

The second area I wish to discuss is Taiwan. I declare an interest as a member of the British-Taiwanese All-Party Parliamentary Group, having made visits to Taiwan under its auspices in 2011 and 2012. The country is fascinating as it has made great strides to a two party democratic system. President Ma, who was elected for a second term last year as KMT president, has taken the pragmatic and sensible view that it is better to improve relations with the mainland, which had fallen into a parlous state, through increasing trade links and travel between Taiwan and the mainland. Noble Lords may not know that 1 million out of a population of 23 million work on the mainland. Since 2008, the number of weekly flights between Taiwan and the mainland has increased from zero to 616. There have been 18 cross-strait agreements with the mainland. As a result, the Taiwanese economy showed excellent growth overall during his first term although, like many other countries, it has suffered more in 2011 and 2012.

Although we do not have an ambassador in Taiwan, I was very impressed on both visits with the very good work that our British trade and cultural representative, David Campbell, who has just retired, has done there. He had an excellent finger on the pulse of the political scene, business and cultural opportunities. In 2012, the UK was Taiwan’s second largest trading partner in Europe. An EU-Taiwan economic co-operation agreement would further strengthen the relationship. Can the Government help progress this?

As stated, the Government are in general pursuing the correct policies with regard to Hong Kong and Taiwan. I wish I could say the same about our relationship with Cyprus. I declare an interest as a member of the all-party Northern Cyprus group. The current dispute between Turkish and Greek Cypriots is now more than 40 years old. Over those 40 years, there have been many serious attempts by people of good will from both sides of the island and from outside organisations to bring about a resolution. All those attempts failed and all had one very significant fact in common: as noble Lords might expect, they all used the political machinery of the island as the primary, if not the sole, mechanism for negotiation. Perhaps repeated failure of essentially the same process, albeit with different actors, should come as no surprise. However, at some stage, those involved have to address the obvious question of whether it really makes sense to do the same thing over and over again and expect something different to happen. The two communities seem to be resigned to the status quo. Research conducted last July shows that over 70% of both communities now feel that they should assert their own rights, even if it means that members of the other community would be adversely affected. The same survey revealed that only 14% of Turkish Cypriots and 39% of Greek Cypriots would prefer a feasible solution now to an optimal solution sometime in the future.

This is all regrettable but does it really matter? The two sides are de facto separate states. I believe that it is very important to the people of Cyprus, the people of the eastern Mediterranean and to Britain. The eastern Mediterranean is now more troubled and unstable than at any time in the past decade. We have a civil war in Syria, enormous tension between Iran and Israel and unresolved situations in Libya and Egypt. Now, in addition, there are the problems raised by the huge gas finds in Cypriot territorial waters. Exactly who that gas belongs to and in what quantities, how to develop the fields and how to transport the gas are all questions which, if unresolved, are highly likely to add severely to the political tensions. They may also stop the gas fields being developed at all in the foreseeable future.

Last September, Alexander Downer, the UN envoy who has struggled for many years to achieve a settlement, said that the Greek and Turkish sides now had a strong economic reason to agree to a reunification that would reduce the sovereign risk of investing in Cyprus, clear up the problems of investing in property, grow GDP and offer the capacity to service and pay off debt. The British Foreign Secretary made a similar comment when he said last autumn that,

“we have supported the rights of Cyprus to develop resources, but I hope that doing so can somehow be an incentive for a settlement to the problem, rather than a disincentive”.

How the banking crisis among the Greek Cypriot banks will affect the issue is still a matter for conjecture. However, if you are to compare the state of the Turkish economy, which is booming, and the Greek economy, which is in a state of collapse, a neutral observer would say that more Turkish input to the Cyprus economy would be hugely beneficial.

The UN Secretary-General’s report of March last year stated,

“Civil society also has a crucial role to play in building public confidence in the process. Unfortunately, civil society organizations, and women’s groups in particular, remain outside the framework of the negotiations. I therefore call on the sides”—

and indeed the FCO—

“to step up their engagement with civil society and women’s groups, with a view to building public confidence in the benefits of a settlement”.

This view has been repeated by James Ker-Lindsey of the LSE, and was hinted at by the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee in its report of March of last year. This opinion was strongly expressed by myself and many others in the Moses Room debate on Cyprus on 23 October. However, the Government have not seen fit to take this idea seriously. A Written Answer to my noble friend Lord Sharkey last June was vague and woolly. The noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, in her wind-up speech to last October’s debate was little better in addressing the issue, and I ask the Minister whether a firmer commitment can be made to work to a settlement by this route. Only such a new approach has a chance of solving the deadlock.