EU Referendum: Conduct

Debate between Lord Pearson of Rannoch and Lord Young of Cookham

Monday 22nd October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I think it is a malign slur on the police to imply that they would defer to political pressure in that way. It is indeed the case that the responsible person for Vote Leave has been referred to the police, as has Mr Grimes, in relation to false declarations of campaign spending. A number of pro-remain organisations were also fined by the EC for breaking referendum law, including the Liberal Democrats.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)]

My Lords, will the noble Lord agree that the most irregular aspect of the EU referendum was the £9.5 million the Government spent on a deceitful little brochure which went through every letterbox in the land in an attempt to mislead the British people into voting to stay in the EU?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The Government followed the precedent of earlier referendums, including those from the 1970s and 1990s, in distributing a leaflet setting out the Government’s view.

Legislation: Gendered Pronouns

Debate between Lord Pearson of Rannoch and Lord Young of Cookham

Monday 25th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My noble friend highlights the tension between etymological orthodoxy on the one hand and political correctness on the other. I was brought up to believe that “they” was a nominative plural pronoun and “he” or “she” was the singular. But that was a long time ago; popular usage has moved on, and so have the grammar guides. Indeed, the singular “they” is now used in legislation. It was used in the Terrorism Act. But, to go as far as my noble friend has suggested and use “they” in all circumstances would, I think, be a step too far. In many cases, the use of “a person” would do just as well.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)]

My Lords, while we are talking of nomenclature, is there anything the Government can do to discourage the growing and irritating replacement of the relative pronoun “which” by the demonstrative adjective “that”? How can we get back to using “which” when we mean it without having so many “thats” all over the place?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

So far as drafting legislation is concerned, I hope I can assure noble Lords that parliamentary draftsmen will use the correct grammar whenever it is possible. The main purpose of drafting legislation is that it should be clear, but I agree that, wherever practicable, we should also use conventional language as long as we do not upset people’s sensitivities.

Vote Leave Campaign

Debate between Lord Pearson of Rannoch and Lord Young of Cookham

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I think it is worth quoting what the Electoral Commission said in its report on the referendum:

“The evidence outlined in this report confirms that, through careful management of the potential risks associated with the timing and profile of the poll, we saw a referendum that was delivered without any major issues and the announcement of a clear, timely final result”.


We will never know if the law was broken and whether it made any difference. My personal view is that it was unlikely, and there are better explanations as to why people voted as they did, rather than that they were targeted by an algorithm.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)]

My Lords, can the Electoral Commission take into account the £9 million spent by the Government on the pamphlet which went to every household in the land urging our people to vote to remain in the European Union? Surely that was in effect part of the referendum campaign, was it not?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The Government followed the precedent of previous national referendum campaigns in 1975 and also the campaign on Scottish independence. The Government published a leaflet in accordance with precedents setting out the Government’s view. There was nothing irregular or improper about that at all.

Child Sexual Exploitation: Grooming Gangs

Debate between Lord Pearson of Rannoch and Lord Young of Cookham

Tuesday 13th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the national scale of the “grooming gang scandal”, including sexual exploitation of non-Muslim children by Muslim men, as emerged recently in Rotherham, Rochdale, Oxford and elsewhere; and what steps they are taking to enable the prosecution of those in the police and local authorities who have failed to prevent it.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the government-funded Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse is working to build a more informed picture of the scale of these crimes, and preventing them is a priority for the Government. The Independent Office for Police Conduct is currently conducting investigations into 33 police officers of varying ranks for potential criminal offences and breaches of the standards of professional behaviour, linked to the Rotherham case.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)]

My Lords, I fear that reply is shamefully inadequate, because these girls are usually raped several times a day. If we accept the views of our lead police officer for child protection, of Rotherham’s MP and of the recent Jay and Quilliam reports, we are looking at millions of rapes of white and Sikh girls by Muslim men, only 222 of whom have been convicted since 2005. Will the Government ask our Muslim leaders whether the perpetrators can claim that their behaviour is sanctioned in the Koran, and to issue a fatwa against it? Secondly, will the Government encourage a national debate about the various interpretations of Islam? Can we talk about Islam without being accused of hate crime?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, child sexual exploitation is a vile crime and it is not exclusive to any one community, culture, race or religion. Political or cultural sensitivities should not get in the way of tracking down offenders and preventing future abuse. I say to noble Lords that we should be careful about our language in this matter, not least because I am about to repeat a Statement on inflammatory letters inciting a “punish a Muslim” day on 3 April. We need to be careful about how we approach this.

There is nothing in the Koran that encourages the sort of activity the noble Lord has referred to. In any case, the Koran would be trumped by the law of the land. Islam, like all world religions, does not support, advocate or condone child sexual exploitation. Indeed, respect for women is inherent in its faith. As my noble friend Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon has just told me, one of Islam’s phrases is, “Paradise lies at the feet of the mother”.

As for encouraging a debate on Islam, the Government are supporting an initiative by British-based Islamic leaders of all denominations to dispel the poisonous interpretations of Islam peddled by al-Qaeda and Daesh. We are taking a number of other initiatives to minimise the exposure of children to sexual abuse from whatever source.

Electoral Fraud

Debate between Lord Pearson of Rannoch and Lord Young of Cookham

Wednesday 29th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that our first past the post system in local and national elections ensures that their results are democratically fraudulent?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

We do not have first past the post in many local elections. If the noble Lord is familiar with the election of the Mayor of London, for example, he will recognise that there are alternative systems—and likewise for some of the other elections. As for moving away from first past the post, it has been discussed several times, certainly down the other end. Indeed, I think that we had a referendum on the matter, and the country decided that it wanted to remain with first past the post.

Electoral Fraud

Debate between Lord Pearson of Rannoch and Lord Young of Cookham

Thursday 26th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

Sir Eric makes recommendations about postal votes, one of which is that political activists should no longer harvest postal votes. That practice is discouraged by the Electoral Commission in its code of conduct, but this is only a voluntary rather than a statutory prohibition. We will carefully consider how to deliver the ban on specified persons handling postal ballot papers, including enforcement and the creation of a new offence. As I said, we want to do all we can to increase public confidence in the voting system.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)]

My Lords, did not the Pickles report find that election fraud had been particularly evident in our Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities, where cases have been ignored because of,

“over-sensitivities about ethnicity and religion”?

What can the Government do to stop that in future?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The Electoral Commission has identified 18 areas where there is a higher risk of electoral fraud, and Sir Eric has recommended that there should be a pilot in 2018 whereby ID must be produced to reduce incidents of impersonation. The Government are currently consulting on which local authority areas should take part in those pilots in 2018, and of course some of those local authorities at risk will be invited to participate.