Covid-19: International Response

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)]

My Lords, Covid-19 has now spread to every continent in the world, besides Antarctica. With the number of reported global cases rising to more than 4.7 million, including 244,000 here in the UK, almost the entirety of the world’s population will be affected in one way or another.

Out of all those at risk, some of the most vulnerable people who are suffering and losing out due to the virus are the 736 million globally deemed to live in extreme poverty, 100 million of whom are estimated to fall into extreme poverty due to healthcare costs. It is also estimated that over half of the 736 million have no access to healthcare.

For those in particular, the current healthcare crisis will be especially terrifying, as they will fear not being able to afford any treatment if infected. For this reason, it is essential that any potential vaccine for Covid-19 is made universally available. This is important, as we cannot have a situation where Covid-19 is eliminated in only the wealthier demographics, with the poorest being priced out. This is not sustainable in such an interconnected world.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, said in her introduction, we are all in this together and will only succeed together. She is right. It is therefore crucial that the UK leads by example and uses its global influence to ensure that the vaccine will be made universally available internationally, especially to the most vulnerable. It is important that the UK continues to promote its values of internationalism and ensures that our global friends uphold their collective international responsibilities during this pandemic.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Palmer of Childs Hill) (LD)]

The noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, is not here, so I will now call the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall.

Tax: Short-term Lets

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Monday 1st April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

That is a good question. Whether it is Uber or Amazon, we are genuinely wrestling with how to capture the income due here. We have made some changes to taxing digital companies but, with the spread of technology and the sharing or online economy, all Governments will have to do more in this area.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister talked about people making these declarations as part of their tax return. However, if people do not complete a self-assessment tax return while still letting property, they do not fill in such a form. That is one weakness in the Minister’s answer. The response to a freedom of information request said that HMRC’s Let Property campaign produced just a fraction of the number of disclosures that HMRC was expecting. The Government estimated that up to 1.5 million landlords had underpaid or failed to pay up to £500 million in tax in 2010. At the same time, people on low incomes cannot find a place to live.

[Lord Bates]

We have done some work on that. The tax return I referred to is SA105, which is the self-assessment tax form. The HMRC Let Property campaign, to which the noble Lord referred, has encouraged 35,000 more landlords to register and yielded an additional £150 million for the Exchequer. It is not quite the full extent, but it is a step in the right direction.

Customs Safety and Security Procedures (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The answer is 52,000. I beg to move.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

I thank the Minister for the explanation of these three statutory instruments and for the detail he provided. I trust that when he winds up he will stress that this is continuity rather than anything new. To the extent that this is continuity, I do not wish to dwell at this hour on things that are replacing what already exists, but I shall deal with some of the things that might be slightly different.

The customs safety and security procedures SI refers to exempting risks during a six-months transition period. Will the Minister tell the House whether this exemption will cause any risk? There must be a risk in giving a six-month exemption. If this were an insurance company, there would be a risk assessment for giving that six-month exemption. I am sure the Minister and his team have worked that out.

This SI also places requirements on small firms in the transitional period. I agree that there have to be requirements for small firms, but I question why businesses are included as small firms if they employ up to the rather arbitrary figure of 50 people and therefore have this exemption. Has the Minister considered how many companies employing 100 people would divide their company in two and thus be exempted? One could use any multiple of 50, but it seems to be an easy way to avoid the requirement and I wonder whether the Minister and his team have thought about that. Should this be done according to the number of people employed or the size of the enterprise? A massive enterprise with millions and millions of pounds does not have to bother because it can be classified as a small company, but if the opposite applies, you are not exempted.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bates]

That is the whole point. We are saying that, in the event of no deal, they would require that to trade. It is a very serious commitment. If they are above the relevant threshold, that will be a requirement.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill]

If there are a lot of businesses which have not registered, through negligence or misinformation, how much of a risk is that?

[Lord Bates]

Clearly, that is a risk. We have put out technical notices and engaged quite significantly with industry bodies on this. We have listened to the industry, which is one of the reasons why we have taken this approach on safety and security, with the six-month transitional period. We have tried to get the information out there as much as possible. However, we are concerned about that as an eventuality and encourage businesses to register, even at this late hour.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bates]

I am advised that the customs declarations service does have the capacity to process significantly more. I do not have a number. When I write on the other issues, I will include an update.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill]

Just to clarify once more, there has been legal advice over the years that, when something is in Hansard, it proves to be something people can rely upon. The Minister is saying that a name and address being given will suffice. As that has, presumably, now been recorded in Hansard, has the law now been clarified?

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord may not have been present for a rather fascinating debate on Pepper v Hart, which took place on another Bill recently—the Trade Bill, I think—and my noble friend Lady Fairhead is here. I and the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, are not going to rehearse that argument again, but a degree of clarity came through that. I do not wish to make light of a very serious point which the noble Lord is raising, that this is impacting on real businesses, real lives and real trading opportunities. What I am trying to do is give as much information as I can from the Dispatch Box in a fast-moving situation, and provide more information in writing. I hope that the noble Lord will accept that in good spirit.

The noble Lord raised the point about £10,000. I share his surprise. Like him, I am not used to carrying anywhere near that sum across borders. The Financial Action Task Force, an international government body, has identified this as a key risk. This requirement of declaration is set by each of the members; the EU sets the limit at €10,000; the USA sets it at $10,000. The Government chose their own limit, using a memorable round number. They did not want to use another state’s currency or alter the figure to reflect changes in the exchange rate.

The noble Lord also asked about existing risk profiles. In a no-deal scenario, we will continue to use the current risk profiles, updating them as needed.

The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, asked if we had asked the EU for a transitional period. After the UK’s exit from the UK, we will seek to negotiate a safety and security agreement with the EU, so that safety and security declarations are not required on imports between EU countries and the UK.

The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, asked for the Government’s estimate of when all businesses would have an EORI number. We are committed to making it easier for businesses to be ready. Information is clearly laid out on GOV.UK. I have said all that.

VAT: Evasion

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for pointing out what is in the new Finance Act—namely, the aim to catch non-EU businesses selling goods in the UK and avoiding VAT. However, the application of the scheme is set to widen post Tory Brexit as the EU/non-EU distinction will no longer apply. What additional resources will be allocated to this issue, given that at the same time resources will be needed to implement Making Tax Digital in April 2019, and the new customs declaration service?

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord is absolutely right to say that there is a big change from traditional sorts of trading to online trading. It is therefore essential that HMRC tracks that in moving towards making tax digital. That is what we are trying to do. We are also saying that fulfilment houses, which are a device used to store goods for onward selling in the UK, will need to register from April next year. Perhaps most relevant to the point that he raises, we are also looking at the idea of having split taxation so that, rather than going through the declaration element, the minute that a transaction is triggered online, the tax immediately goes to the Exchequer. That seems a more sensible way forward. We consulted on that and will come forward with our proposals on it very shortly.

Animal Welfare: Methods of Slaughter

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

My Lords, I do not disagree with the labelling of meat. Jews do it already for the kosher food trade. There are a number of legal but unpleasant methods of mechanical stunning and, if meat is to be labelled, it should all be labelled alongside that produced from humane religious slaughter. These methods include shooting, mostly of hunting and game birds; a captive bolt gun to the skull for cows and sheep; chickens shackled by their ankles and dipped in a water bath that has an electric current running through it; herding pigs into a room and gassing them; and trapping and clubbing, which are mostly used in hunting.

It is important to be honest about the incidents of mis-stunning that are recorded. The European Food Safety Authority’s report, Welfare Aspects of Animal Stunning and Killing Methods, found that the failure rate for penetrating captive bolt stunning in the non-kosher slaughter of cattle may be as high as 6.6%—the noble Lord, Lord Winston, says it is 8%—and that, for non-penetrating captive bolt stunning and electric stunning, it can rise to as high as 31%. The percentages of mis-stuns far exceed the total quantity of animals slaughtered for the Jewish community. Every year, millions of animals across Europe are mis-stunned and left in great distress. I say: label all this meat, and that would deal with the problem raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker.

Two million cattle, 8 million pigs and 9 million sheep and lambs are slaughtered every year. Of those, the Jewish community slaughters only 90,000 red-meat animals. If you round that to the nearest percentage point, it is 0%. Similarly, every year 750 million birds are slaughtered, of which the Jewish community slaughters maybe half a million—a fraction of a fraction of 1%.

A new European Commission report published on 19 December 2013 on the various stunning methods for poultry concludes that, although there are serious animal welfare concerns about the water-bath stunning of poultry, more humane methods are not “economically viable”.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill]

My Lords, we have heard excellent speeches today, covering so many areas not included in the gracious Speech. I will focus most of my remarks on the defence reform Bill, which is mentioned in the gracious Speech.

I welcome the Bill as it addresses the fundamental areas of defence that have needed urgent attention for some time. Although the detail is needed, at least it sends the signal that the coalition Government are serious about improving procurement. I trust that no noble Lord in this Chamber is calling for the status quo to be maintained where defence procurement is concerned, but that does not mean that we can leap straight into any particularly new model without careful scrutiny of the proposals, as the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, said so eloquently. One lesson from my experience of outsourcing is that a service that is badly run in-house is unlikely to be transformed overnight simply by letting a contract with the private sector for that service. My noble friend Lord Lee has set out many questions about the GOCO alternative and I am sure, in due course, that the Minister will reply to that book of questions, which were, I believe, asked from such a very positive stance that they need to be answered.

The Royal United Services Institute has rejected the GOCO idea as “undemocratic” and said it would put the power in the hands of defence contractors, on the basis that the MoD is not good at negotiating contracts with the private sector. The main question is whether the MoD should negotiate contracts with the private sector to negotiate on its behalf. I do not agree with the rejection of the proposals, but I have some questions. How will the contractors’ fees or commission be calculated? Would it be possible to keep some procurement in-house if the purchases were non-contentious, such as buying off the shelf? Why pay commission if it is so easy to purchase? Can the Minister make clear that the contractor will not itself be a defence contractor in any way? What safeguards will there be to avert conflicts of interest? How would a contractor be picked? Sadly, in this global world, many firms have connections which would make that conflict of interest quite difficult to avoid.

A newspaper has reported that Defence Equipment and Support consists of 16,000 civil servants. A couple of noble Lords have said that today. If this is true, a light-hearted observation at this time of night might be: how many members of MoD staff does it take to change a light-bulb? Sixteen thousand is a lot of people. My noble friend Lord Lee asked if this meant that we could not put our house in order. I am afraid that we do seem to be unable to put our house in order. If we were able to reduce this 16,000 down to, say, 1,000 to deal with the intelligent customer function, as is proposed, that model needs be looked at very carefully. There is also a MoD warehouse full of equipment and parts. What is the value of this stock, and should moves be made to sell off the items so as to realise the cash and save costs on the warehousing?

This debate has covered a number of subjects, including the Middle East. I do not want to dwell on it but will make one or two points on the Israel-Palestinian impasse. My noble friend Lord Alderdice very clearly put the case for a regional solution using the Arab peace process. That is certainly a way forward. But my point, which I have often made in this Chamber, is that peace is not possible, a Palestinian state is not possible and a secure Israel is not possible unless both parties come bilaterally to the negotiating table without any preconditions. If that happens, there may possibly be a state of Palestine and a more secure State of Israel, but if it does not, I guarantee that there will be no peace.

My noble friend Lord Ashdown made a very potent case about the treatment of the Afghan interpreters. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will take that forward in his answer. My noble friend Lord Ashdown also talked about whether we should lift the Syrian arms embargo, as did the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs. I agree with them that we should not supply more arms to Syria.

The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, made an explosive intervention about Trident, which I heartily endorse, and I hope that my right honourable friend in the other place who is dealing with the review of whether there should be a like-for-like replacement for Trident will take those remarks, which were so well put, very much to heart.

My noble friend Lord Chidgey put a very potent case for food security, particularly in Africa, and other noble Lords have said the same. I hope that my noble friend the Minister can address that in his reply.

My noble friend Lord Sharkey and others talked about the 0.7% aid target, and a comment was just made about the fact that there was no need for legislation. We must all take pride that we have got to the 0.7% without any legislation, but I confirm to noble Lords that the Liberal Democrats are committed to putting this into law.

We hear discussion of the Ministry of Defence becoming a more intelligent consumer, but we must hear in concrete terms how this transformation is to take place. It has been promised many times over by different Administrations. Overall, I think many in your Lordships’ House believe that a deep change in MoD culture is needed, particularly in procurement, but we will need to be persuaded—and I hope we will be—that the GOCO proposals really are the answer to our procurement problems. We have heard today from sceptics about GOCO but I wonder what their solution would be. I am convinced that real change is needed and I hope that when my noble friend the Minister replies the fears expressed today can be addressed.

We heard from a number of noble Lords about Europe. During the passage of the defence reform Bill, I hope that we will value the pooling of resources within the European Union. European Union countries spend about €200 billion on defence. In these financially pressurised times, there are strong arguments for looking for opportunities for joint procurement. The recent paper Europe’s Strategic Cacophony says:

“Europe’s defence ambitions are crippled by the lack of a common strategic outlook”.

There are so many ways in which we must progress the reform of procurement and I hope that we will do that with the defence reform Bill when it comes from the other place.

Global Hunger

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

The noble Baroness is right to highlight again the importance of good nutrition and the problems of stunting and malnutrition. The G8 is an opportunity to focus on these issues, but this needs to be taken throughout the year. I am glad, therefore, to be able to reiterate the United Kingdom’s commitment, throughout the year and right on through, to this very important challenge.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill]

My Lords, around a fifth of farmland in Senegal and Sierra Leone, nearly a third in Liberia and about a half in Cambodia have been acquired by companies. Does my noble friend agree that it is vital that we ensure that the growing phenomenon of large-scale land deals is not undermining food production in these and other countries? In this context, can she say what provision the Government have made as a first step actively to champion and push the UN voluntary guidelines on land tenure?

[Baroness Northover]

We are very supportive of moves in this regard on voluntary guidelines on the management of land and other natural resources. It is extremely important that there is transparency here, that the governance of land tenure is addressed, and that when countries consider the position on tenure in their countries they consider food security, the impact on the environment and consultation with those involved. We are very actively pushing that forward.

Middle East: Water

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Alderdice for putting down this subject for debate in your Lordships’ House. I also thank him for inviting me to a seminar earlier this year where I heard detailed speeches about the report to which he refers. It made me thirst to find out more about water. We must remember, as he has said, that there are other examples such as the European Coal and Steel Community, which was a six-nation international organisation. That brought people together in what were difficult times. Whatever one’s views on the European Union—this week there have been a lot of views on the European Union—it must be said that linking economies together has resulted in western European peace for over 60 years.

So can the same be achieved by a regional sharing of water? I believe it can. The problem is that there is not enough natural water to go round. Water or lack of it could be tomorrow’s conflict in many arid regions—Turkey/Syria, Turkey/Iran and Egypt/Sudan to name several. The region described as the “southern circle” in the tome to which my noble friend Lord Alderdice refers shows how co-operation in this field can be made even without formal peace and has been shown for decades between Israel and Jordan. I take a certain amount of pessimism from his comment about people not being able to sit down, but Israel and Jordan have been sitting down quietly on this issue. I believe the way forward is shown by water technology in Israel, as he referred to. Israel is a leading producer of alternative, marginal water—essentially, desalination and waste-water treatment. This will in the next 10 years make up 50 per cent of Israel’s total water supply. Ninety-two per cent of Israel’s waste water was treated and about 75 per cent of that is used in agriculture. Other technologies include three large desalination plants. Within 10 years 23 per cent of potable water in Israel will be from desalination. Of course, the water of choice is freshwater and recharge from rainfall.

In the Palestinian territories in the West Bank, waste-water treatment is sadly poor and there is no production of desalinated water. They have obviously had other problems which have been given priority. There are some desalination plants in Gaza but there is a great need for more. With Gaza’s geographical position on the coast, there is a huge potential for more desalination. As the Arab spring, referred to by my noble friend Lord Alderdice, moves into the autumn, it is bound to struggle. When economies suffer terribly and agriculture is sadly devastated because of water shortage and desertification, co-operation needs to be built as soon as possible. Know-how on water treatment, sophisticated desert agriculture and the fight against desertification exists in the region in centres of excellence. I hope the EU, including the UK, will push forward with cross-border co-operation in these areas without waiting for slow political processes or listening to extremists in any country who flourish when conditions deteriorate. Co-operation in these areas is vital and might create better grounds and confidence that will accelerate political solutions.

I welcome The Blue Peace report on which this debate is based. There is, however, a view in the region that existing co-operation on water resources in what is called the southern circle in the book—that is, Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian territories—is already more advanced than the proposals in the report. Things move fairly quickly but there is always room for improvement. As an example of this, an expert on regional water co-operation at the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs was this week in Oman at the biannual meeting of the organisation for regional co-operation in water, the Middle East Desalination Research Center. The organisation is located in Muscat in Oman, and its members are, amazingly, Oman, Qatar, USA, the Netherlands, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority.

Next week, Israel is planning to hold a course on desalination in Israel for Palestinians and Jordanians. Next week, too, the biannual meeting of another regional organisation for co-operation on water, EXACT, will take place in Jerusalem. At the same time, a new trilateral project between Israel, Jordan and the Palestinians, managed and sponsored by the USA and Norway, will be launched to deal with monitoring polluted ground water.

There is already impressive dialogue and co-operation on water issues between Israel and its neighbours in the region. This far exceeds regional co-operation in other areas and, amazingly, has managed to survive the problems that have beset the peace process.

Regional co-operation and dialogue on water issues began as long ago as 1992 as one of the five working groups established at the Madrid summit in 1991. The five areas covered were, as your Lordships will remember, water, environment, refugees, regional economic development and security. Water is the only main activity that has survived from the five groups and it remains active. Matters have moved on from the position in the Blue Peace paper.

The idea proposed in the Blue Peace paper to import water from Turkey is currently off the table for Israel as well for the Palestinian Authority, first of all for economic reasons. Even if Israel were to change its mind, it would need the water only for the next two years before it completed its national desalination project in 2013-14. The Palestinians do not have the facilities to absorb and distribute this water, even if Turkey were to provide it for free, although that may be a pessimistic viewpoint.

The paper suggests that the RSDSC—the Red Sea-Dead Sea Canal—is a long-term project, but the feasibility study is, I am pleased to say, in its final stage. By way of a subproject of the Red Sea-Dead Sea Canal, the general intention of the three beneficiaries, Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinians, is to build a desalination plant in Aqaba to create additional water for all three parties in the short term.

Co-operation on water between Israel and Jordan has improved in the past two years. During that period, because of the drought in the region and common work on the feasibility study for the Red Sea-Dead Sea Canal, new ideas were exchanged and things have moved forward, and there is an element of optimism. With the Palestinians, relations are more complex—perhaps I should not go into them in detail.

Israel implements its commitments on water provision. However, it is true that not everything goes smoothly and none of the Governments in the area is perfect. But generally, if one takes into account the multilateral regional co-operation, it can be said that the water situation is in some ways the opposite of the political situation in the region.

Water co-operation can help to build confidence between rival parties. No doubt this can be a good model for other areas of co-operation, but it cannot be a substitute for other tracks of the peace process.

We have a conundrum: can water bring peace, or does peace bring water? I am not sure, but what I am sure of is that I compliment my noble friend Lord Alderdice on bringing this debate to the House, on the expert way in which he has presented the paper, and on the background briefing that he has given to people such as me to make us more enthusiastic about water as a means to peace.

Middle East Peace Process

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Wednesday 4th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill]

My Lords, I think it is worth restating that, quite rightly, the coalition Government’s, and I hope most people’s, policy is for a two-state solution. To carry this forward, all sides have to put the past behind them, however unpleasant—and much of it is unpleasant—and concentrate: first, on understanding that Israel's natural priority is its own security; secondly, on ensuring that Israel understands that settlements, other than the large towns grouped near the 1967 border, will eventually need to go, just as Israel moved all its settlements out of Gaza; and, thirdly—these all go together—understanding that Hamas needs to accept, albeit reluctantly, the state of Israel permanently and that no longer will rockets pour down on Israeli towns such as Ashkelon and Sderot.

Progress has been made between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. However, the Fatah-Hamas agreement does raise real difficulties and challenges. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, referred to this, and I shall give greater detail. Ismail Haniya, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, said about Osama bin Laden:

“We condemn the assassination and the killing of an Arab holy warrior”.

The Times, which is not noted as a pro-Israel newspaper, carried an interesting editorial on 29 April. It stated:

“Hamas … promotes its own concept of peace, founded on the Islamic concept of hudna, or an extended ceasefire. Yet it seeks an Islamic state from the Jordan to the Mediterranean, promulgates The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, launches rocket attacks against Israeli civilians, and has received money and arms from Iran”.

So my question to the Minister is: how does this affect the securing of an eventual settlement that, as the Times put it,

“respects Israel's security needs and creates a viable, pacific Palestinian state”?

I firmly believe that this is the way to create a stable Palestine alongside a secure state of Israel. Both sides have to sit down at the negotiation table, put the past behind them and look towards the future. This Question is about the “assessment … of progress”. That is the future.