Windrush Generation

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

As I said in my earlier answer, and as stated by the former Home Secretary following the final meeting of the Windrush working group, we are proud of what has been achieved so far but our commitment does not end here. We will continue with unwavering focus to see further improvements so that all those affected receive compensation. I hope it will reassure my noble friend to know that, in its last meeting, there were productive discussions on topics such as an update on future engagement and outreach with the Windrush community. Since February 2023, the Windrush compensation scheme engagement team has attended more than 19 events nationwide, including in the West Midlands, Bristol, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire and London. I hope that gives my noble friend some of the reassurance he seeks.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, how many have actually received compensation, how many are waiting for compensation and how many have died while waiting for it? What is the time estimate for clearing the backlog?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, as of September 2023, over £71 million has been paid across 1,932 claims. Over 75% of claims have received a final decision. As I mentioned in an earlier answer, the time to allocate a claim for substantive casework consideration has dropped from 18 months to under five months. To be clear, that five-month period includes all essential eligibility checks and a preliminary assessment to make an initial payment of £10,000 wherever possible. I will have to write to the noble Lord on his more detailed questions.

Justification Decision (Scientific Age Imaging) Regulations 2023

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord German (LD)]

The information provided by the Council of Europe, which of course does not reflect the notifications we have received from the Government, describes the legal cases which have been taken against the proposals made by some of those states and which have in fact been found to be in contravention of the very convention I am talking about.

Secondly:

“Age assessment should not take place without the child’s and their guardian’s informed consent”.


How will that consent be provided and how is it meant to be independent?

Thirdly:

“Children undergoing age assessment have a right to be informed of their rights during the procedure, the purpose, steps and duration of the procedure, and to be assisted by a legal representative and/or guardian”.


What steps are the Government taking to provide that support for these children, so we are clear about it?

In conclusion, “sub-optimal” is the word provided by our Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Everything that has been said about what we have in this House today suggests that it is below optimal.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I will discard most of my speech because all the points I was going to make have been made articulately. We will support the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, if she chooses to test the opinion of the House and I thank her for the thoroughness with which she introduced her amendment to the Motion. I agree with her that this SI is not yet ready to be put on the statute book.

The Minister set out the figures, which have been repeated a number of times as the debate has progressed. A number of questions were put to him about the issue of consent, the state of the European Convention on Human Rights, and answering the questions put by the Children’s Commissioner and other bodies which have expressed their extreme concern about the measures being put forward by the Government.

The noble Lord, Lord Murray, just intervened, giving examples of European countries which do some form of tested age assessment. However, this is of course a contested area in many European countries; we are not unique in this being a politically contested issue.

Noble Lords also made a point about the review mechanism that the Government propose to put in place so that, as this progresses—if indeed it does progress—the Government can keep an open mind about how effective it is and whether further changes in assessment methods need to be made. However, I want to conclude on a different point which no other noble Lord has made, and to talk slightly wider than the SIs themselves.

Last May, with my noble friend Lord Coaker, I visited the old RAF Manston airfield and the landing site, Western Jet Foil, in Dover harbour. I repeat my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Murray, for facilitating that visit. What became apparent to me then is that all the political debate, including today’s debate, is about the vast majority of young men who are potentially claiming to be under 18, and the impact that has on them. That is the totality of the political debate. However, there is another group of young men, which was drawn to my attention, who appear to the officials to be under 18 but are claiming to be adults. They are doing that because they want to work, either legally or illegally. Many of them will have started working in their home countries when they were 14, and they will have had a few years work under their belt and are coming here to better their prospects.

What tracking is there of those young men? I have raised this issue with the noble Lord, Lord Murray, and as far as I am aware, there is no tracking of them. Whether they are more likely to abscond once they go into the adult system or whether the Home Office tracks them at all, it is a significant, not an insignificant cohort. It was drawn to my attention when I made that visit and I will be very interested to hear the noble Lord’s answer, maybe by letter, on how those young men are tracked.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this interesting and insightful debate. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for her regret amendment, which I will obviously refute, because the introduction of scientific methods of age assessment is an innovative approach for the UK. It is entirely right that the Government take action to disincentivise individuals from deliberately misrepresenting their age in order to game the system, as well as to safeguard and promote the welfare of genuine children, who have a need to access children’s services. Scientific methods provide additional evidence and create a more consistent system, and there is nothing inhumane about those objectives. I hope that noble Lords will consider each regulation on its merits, and I will do my best to answer all the questions. If I miss any, I will endeavour to write.

The question of accuracy has come up. Determining the age of a young person is an inherently difficult task. The Home Office is aware that there is no current single age-assessment method, scientific or not, that can determine an individual’s age with precision. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord German, there is a risk of harm to both the age-disputed individual and to the public interest through misclassifying children as adults, or adults as children, which the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, referred to—I will come back to this. That is why the UK Government are taking steps to improve the robustness of the age-assessment process. Scientific age assessment will be completed alongside the current Merton-compliant age assessment, and the age-assessment process will remain a holistic assessment. The well-being of the individual will continue to be at the forefront. I am happy to say categorically to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, that scientific methods will not replace, but will be used alongside, Merton. The noble Lord, Lord Winston, asked me how accurate these methods are. For X-rays, I do not know—I will find out—but for teeth X-rays it is two years either side. I will come back to this in more detail in a second.

On international comparators, to which my noble friend referred, the Home Office believes that the negative credibility inference in respect of someone’s claimed age is necessary, logical and proportionate where a person refuses to undergo a scientific age assessment without good reason. It is important to note that negative consequences, such as automatic assumptions, are applied with variations by a number of ECHR signatories, including the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The UK is an outlier as one of the very few European countries that do not currently employ scientific methods such as X-rays as part of age assessments.

On our plans for operationalisation, the Home Office wants to specify these methods as soon as possible to pave the way for the introduction of scientific age assessments. The increasing number of age-disputed young people presents safeguarding challenges and puts additional pressure on children’s services, which should be accessed only by genuine children. This is a new and complex process that the Government need to get right. The full plans for integrating scientific age assessments into the existing processes will be set out in good time, and full guidance and assessments will be provided. For now, the Home Office has welcomed the report from the Age Estimation Science Advisory Committee and is making clear steps to proceed with the recommendations and consider others.

Consent was raised by a number of noble Lords, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Lister, the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London. To address the concerns regarding consent, I assure all that no X-ray or MRI image can or will be taken without informed consent from the individual. The Home Office will ensure that the individual has capacity, fully understands the process and is communicated to in a child-friendly and clear way. Interpreters will be available to assist with understanding information, and documents will be translated into a language the individual understands. If the individual refuses to consent to a scientific age assessment, they will continue to proceed with the current Merton-compliant age assessment. Those who are clearly children will be identified as part of the initial age assessment and not included in the cohort for an age assessment.

It is the Home Office’s policy to refer individuals for an age assessment only when there is some doubt about their age—specifically, where that individual’s physical appearance and demeanour do not very strongly suggest that they are significantly over 18. This threshold is set purposefully high to ensure that individuals can be given the benefit of the doubt. As a result, only those whose ages are in genuine doubt would be referred for this scientific age assessment.

Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 20th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I think the whole House will be grateful for the noble Baroness’s intervention speaking in the gap. I thank the Minister for facilitating the briefings which we have had and will have in the coming days on the Bill.

The Bill makes changes to the 2016 Act, as we have heard. The 2016 Act provides a framework for the use of investigatory powers by the security and intelligence agencies, law enforcement and other public authorities. They include the power to obtain and retain communications. It also created the post of Investigatory Powers Commissioner and includes a number of safeguards for the use of such investigatory powers, including a two-stage procedure for obtaining authorisations. Many of the powers in the 2016 Act were pre-existing, as we have heard, and already being used by intelligence and law enforcement agencies. The Government stated that one of the intentions behind introducing the 2016 Act was to bring together and build on the statutory powers already available. The Government explained that the Act was also required to replace emergency legislation passed in 2014, the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act, which was subject to a sunset clause.

I agreed with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, about the desirability of developing some sort of living instrument and a consolidation Bill to try to bring these pieces of legislation together.

The Bill before us proposes changes which include the creation of a new condition for the use of internet connection records to aid target detection, introducing a less stringent regulatory regime for the retention and examination of bulk personal datasets where individuals have little or no expectation of privacy, and a new notification requirement that can be issued to selected telecommunications operators, requiring them to inform the Government of proposed changes to their products and services that could negatively impact the current ability of agencies to lawfully access data.

I was going to say something about the contributions of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, to the review of this legislation. My understanding is that all the noble Lord’s recommendations have been accepted by the Government, and I too express the Opposition Front Bench’s gratitude for the work he has done on this.

The Bill is a relatively short Bill of six parts, 31 clauses, and two schedules. I was going to step through its various elements, but I will not do that because it has been adequately covered by speakers earlier in this debate.

Like other noble Lords, I have received emails from industry and advocacy groups raising concerns about the Bill. On 7 November, a Financial Times piece reported that firms, including Apple and Meta, have signalled that they may withdraw from the UK market if they can no longer offer end-to-end encryption to their customers. I will quote from the concluding paragraph of a letter I received from Apple:

“The Home Office’s proposals to expand the IPA’s extraterritorial reach and to grant itself the power to pre-clear and block emerging security technologies constitute a serious and direct threat to data security and information privacy. To ensure that individuals have the tools to respond to the ever-increasing threats to information security, the Home Office’s proposal should be rejected”.


The piece, which I am sure we all received, then went on to explain their concerns about providing what they refer to as a back door into end-to-end encryption, and how that undermines the firms’ business model and the security of many other groups operating elsewhere in the world. It is right that we take the points raised by these commercial providers seriously, and maybe we will address them as the Bill progresses.

Similarly, online privacy advocacy groups such as Open Rights Group and Big Brother Watch have expressed their concerns, and we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, today. It is worth saying that I agreed with every word of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, when he said that he and I live in a different country from that spoken about by the noble Lord and the noble Baroness. We need to consider the concerns being addressed in the Bill, but also the wider context that other countries and other very large companies have access to bulk datasets—maybe not our bulk datasets—and are using that data in ways that we need to understand and pre-empt, if they are working against our national interest.

I conclude by talking about my own experience as an engineer, which is relevant to the debate we have just had. It used to be my working life to deal with very large datasets, make predictions based on them, and inform management about those predictions. One of my experiences was that it is very easy to mislead oneself because one is analysing large amounts of data. One needs to be realistic and at the same time see the possibilities of these extremely large datasets. It is a huge challenge. Huge amounts of data are used just to process them, and the maths and the imagination behind it is developing as we speak. The Bill in front of us now is a relatively modest step in the road, and we need to keep reviewing the processes available to us and reviewing the legislation to try to underpin them.

Certificate of Sponsorship: Foreign Health and Care Workers

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

The Home Office is aware that abuses exist. I reassure the noble Lord that the sponsor licence system places clear and binding requirements and obligations on employers looking to recruit. The Department of Health and Social Care has published guidance on applying for jobs from abroad, as part of a wider effort to address its concerns about exploitive recruitment and employment practices. That guidance helps prospective overseas candidates to make informed decisions when seeking health or social care jobs in the United Kingdom, including information on how to avoid exploitation and where to report concerns.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister has acknowledged that abuses exist in this sector. In a previous answer, he seemed sympathetic to a social care workforce plan and to agree that there should be some sort of fair pay agreement. What is his ministry doing to implement these things? Is he consulting his colleagues in the health and social care sectors to bring the workforce plan into being?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

There is no workforce plan in process. As I say, the communication between the Home Office and the Department of Health and Social Care and other relevant government departments is a close one. The function that the Home Office can perform is to set the minimum floor for the sum that these workers must be paid, which, as I said earlier, is £20,960, reflecting an hourly salary of more than the living wage. That is an important mechanism to achieve the objective that the noble Lord outlined.

Metropolitan Police: Operational Independence

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Thursday 9th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, the Home Secretary’s article in today’s Times newspaper brands the Metropolitan Police as biased over pro-Palestinian protests, and she reportedly refused to tone down her article at the request of the Prime Minister’s office. It is extremely unusual for the Prime Minister’s official spokesman to say that the article was not cleared by their office and air their dirty washing in public. Does the Minister believe that the Metropolitan Police is biased? Does he believe that the Home Secretary’s article breaks the policing protocol? Does it constitute improper political interference? Does the Minister agree with me that the police must be given proper support to facilitate remembrance events, to continue to provide protection and reassurance to communities facing the threats of hate and extremism, and to maintain order at peaceful protests? Stoking division and undermining the police will not achieve these ends.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord has raised operational independence—in effect, therefore, the policing protocol—and I shall go into that in some detail. The police are operationally independent, but the concept of operational independence is not defined by statute. However, it remains a fundamental principle of British policing. The Policing Protocol Order 2023 sets out how the various actors in the system—the Home Secretary, PCCs, mayors with PCC functions and chief constables—should exercise their roles and responsibilities. It seeks to clarify the operational independence of chief constables, noting that operational decisions on the deployment of police officers are matters for chief constables. The order also makes it clear that:

“The Home Secretary is ultimately accountable to Parliament and charged with ensuring the maintenance of the King’s Peace within all force areas, safeguarding the public and protecting our national borders and security”.


There are no plans to change the policing protocol; that is incredibly clear. I of course agree with the noble Lord that protecting our communities and keeping them safe should be the primary responsibility of the police, and it is incumbent on all of us to give them the support they need. However, we must also acknowledge that operational independence does not provide a blanket exemption from criticism about broader policing issues.

Pakistan: Evacuation of Afghans

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Thursday 9th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, in response to the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, the UK rightfully offered resettlement to those who had shown support and loyalty to British aims. For many who have made it here—some have come in small boats—this means being put into hotels and potentially facing homelessness. Reportedly, others who have been granted resettlement in Britain are stuck in Pakistan, facing deportation back into the hands of the Taliban. I have a number of questions for the Minister. Why have there been such delays in settling people under the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme? Has he confirmed whether any of those about to be expelled from Pakistan to Afghanistan are eligible for the ACRS? What assurances has he received from the Pakistani Government that those eligible for the ACRS will be allowed to remain in Pakistan until chartered flights can be completed? Finally, what measures is he taking to ensure that our asylum backlog is cleared and that suitable accommodation is secured for those applicants?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)]

The noble Lord is right: the Government have reacted decisively and swiftly to relocate people to safety in the United Kingdom following the collapse of Afghanistan the year before last. The Government remain committed to relocating eligible Afghans and their families under the ARAP scheme and the ACRS—we continue to honour this promise. The Government’s policy was to ensure that eligible Afghan families had secured accommodation in the UK before travel was facilitated for their relocation but, as a result of changing conditions on the ground, we are changing that policy. The Ministry of Defence has worked hard to stand up a total of over 700 service family accommodations for mixed purposes, or transitory and settled accommodation. I pay tribute to my friend in the other place, the Minister for Armed Forces, for his work on this. Our new plans will see approximately 2,800 ARAP-entitled personnel move from Pakistan to the UK by the end of December 2023.

The answer to the question on deportations is: not as far as we are aware. On conversations with the authorities in Pakistan, the British high commission is obviously monitoring the situation closely and is in frequent contact with the Pakistani authorities to ensure that no eligible ARAP or ACRS individuals are negatively affected while they await relocation to the UK—we are seeking assurances to that effect. On 27 October, the Foreign Secretary received assurances from Foreign Minister Jilani that they would be safe.

The noble Lord asked about the backlog. We referred to this in the humble Address debate yesterday to some extent. I will not go over old ground but, as he knows, we have increased the recruitment of decision-makers and committed to dealing with the backlog by the end of the year.

Sir Edward Heath: Operation Conifer

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

As I have said repeatedly, I of course understand my noble friend’s concerns. But the fact is that the Government are of the opinion that the original investigation has been scrutinised to a very high degree and that no further government action is therefore necessary.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government have made it clear that they do not propose to have an investigation into the allegations against the former Prime Minister. However, there is a wider question which remains, which is how the wider system allowed Mike Veale to continue within policing and the wider policing family, despite two separate sets of allegations against him. There are also questions about the accountability of our PCCs and how they dealt with that particular situation. Does the Minister think there is a case for looking at the way disciplinary actions are expedited and sometimes abused, to maintain the public’s faith in the police force and the PCCs?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I would say to the noble Lord that of course we have arrived at a situation where Mr Veale has been held to account, so the public should therefore have faith. It perhaps took too long, but he was appropriately investigated along the way. In November 2017, the PCC in Wiltshire referred two matters concerning Mr Veale to the Independent Office for Police Conduct. The investigation related partly to an allegation that a mobile belonging to Wiltshire police was deliberately damaged. He was subject to a management action plan—that was felt to be appropriate after the investigation by the various authorities. So I think it is unfair to say that nothing happened to Mr Veale, but perhaps it did take too long to reach a conclusion. As noble Lords might appreciate, I would certainly agree with that.

Firearms Bill

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

3rd reading
Monday 18th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Colgrain (Con)]

My Lords, if your Lordships should pass the Bill today, it will not go back to the Commons but will go straight to His Majesty the King for Royal Assent.

I will be most brief in summarising its contents. It is in two parts. The first will require any person who operates a miniature rifle range to have been granted a firearms certificate by the police—that is not the situation hitherto. It will also restrict the gauge of rifle used to .22 rimfire. The second relates to the composition of ammunition. A round of ammunition comprises four constituent parts, only two of which are governed by current legislation, so the Bill will regulate for the two which are currently omitted. That means that the police will be better able to prosecute cases where criminals are manufacturing ammunition where intent is shown.

I am very grateful to the Government, my noble friend the Minister and all noble Lords from all parties who have, to date, provided cross-party support for the Bill. I especially thank Shaun Bailey MP, who introduced the Bill in the other place, and all those who have been involved in bringing the Bill through the parliamentary process to this point.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Colgrain, on piloting the Bill through this House.

In the House of Commons, the Labour Party moved three amendments, and at the time the Minister said that, given the narrow scope of the Bill, it was not the right place to move them. Nevertheless, I will repeat the three points raised. The first amendment was that social media should be taken into account when considering whether to issue a firearms licence. The second was that family members of a certificate holder who is an operator of a firearms range or shooting gallery should be issued certificates only after they are interviewed as part of a household application process. The third was that any regulations relating to fees or licensing under Section 11 of the Act relating to miniature rifle ranges must require payment equal to the expected cost of issuing the licence. I understand the answer given in the other place to those three amendments, but I ask that the department keeps these issues in mind as the Bill turns to an Act and when any subsequent amendments are considered in the future.

Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Bill

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

3rd reading
Monday 18th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, I assure noble Lords that the shortness of my remarks now does not reflect the importance of the Bill: this is an important, focused Bill and a valuable contribution to the fight against this blight on our society. The genesis of the Bill was a consultation announced to this House by my noble friend the Chief Whip in her previous incarnation. My right honourable friend Greg Clark MP discussed the Bill with me before he introduced it into and steered it through the other place. I am grateful to him and to my noble friend the Minister and his department, both in the other place and here. This Bill has had absolute cross-party support, and therefore I am also grateful to the Opposition Front Bench and other Front Benches. I have received support from all parts of the House and I thank the Clerk of the Parliaments and his staff.

I have benefited, as I am sure other noble Lords have, from reading material sent to me by a number of campaigning groups in this area, but what really brought home the importance of the Bill to me was an email I got out of the blue over the summer from someone I will just call Lauren. When I spoke to her, at some length, she explained to me the appalling behaviour to which she had been repeatedly subjected in a park in the part of the country in which she lives. I hope that the Bill will help her and others in her position.

It will not have escaped noble Lords that although this Bill, with the title it has, applies to men and women, women are overwhelmingly the subjects of this appalling behaviour. This Bill has been taken through both Houses by men. There is nothing wrong with that. I suggest that it is absolutely right, because violence against women and girls is not a matter only for women and girls, but for all of us.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I wholeheartedly endorse the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, has summarised the Bill which he has piloted through this House and congratulate him on it. He was right to remind us that its genesis was with the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, in her previous incarnation and in an earlier Bill. Nevertheless, there has been cross-party support for it, which I am happy to reiterate.

It is worth reminding ourselves that 71% of women of all ages in the UK have experienced some form of sexual harassment in public. That rises to 86% of all 18 to 24 year-old young women. I have one question which I hope the Minister can comment on when summing up the Government’s position. How will the impact of this Bill be monitored going forward? It is a very specific and quite controversial Bill, even though it has had cross-party support; the Government should see the monitoring of its impact as a proper part of its enactment, so that we can measure its benefit.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)]

My Lords, this Bill reminds us of the very real damage caused by public sexual harassment, a terrible crime that is far too widespread. The Bill’s cross-Chamber and cross-party support has been a real indication of our shared determination to make our streets safer for everyone.

I put on record my congratulations to all those involved in the passage of this Bill. First, it is fitting that we pay tribute to its sponsors: Greg Clark MP in the other place for bringing the Bill forward and so ably championing the experience of his constituents on the issue and my noble friend Lord Wolfson of Tredegar in this Chamber for picking up the baton to see it through to Royal Assent. I also recognise my ministerial colleagues—in particular my noble friend Lord Evans for his work in responding to the Bill on behalf of the Government—and the officials who supported them in doing so. My thanks also go to all other Members of both Houses who have provided careful scrutiny of the Bill and spoken so thoughtfully and respectfully on this sensitive topic. In doing so, they have not only worked together to make it stronger but played a key part in helping to raise awareness of public sexual harassment.

As with any new criminal justice legislation, an implementation period will be necessary to ensure that all processes, systems and guidance are updated. That includes drawing up the necessary statutory guidance. We therefore cannot give a timescale now for when we expect the offence to be implemented, but we will ensure that the legislation comes into force as quickly as reasonably possible. I think that goes some way to answering the question of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, on how it will be monitored. The guidance needs to be carefully drawn up first, and then I am sure we will return to the subject.

I end on the most important thank you of them all: to those who relentlessly campaigned for this change. The Bill is a testament to the hard work and passion of the organisations and many individuals who bravely shared their experiences. I join my noble friend Lord Wolfson in saying to them that their efforts have made a real difference in the pursuit of making our streets safer for women and girls.

Climate Change: Migration

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, for his excellent and comprehensive introduction to the debate. The problems that have been outlined are of such an overwhelming scale that it is difficult to comprehend effective action. We have heard what action has been taken by the British Government, and the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, spoke specifically and eloquently about cuts in government budgets. Nevertheless, the overwhelming scale of the problems we have heard about is very difficult to comprehend.

It is my understanding, having read the Library’s report and other reports, that a clear and direct link has not been established between climate change and migration, yet the UNHCR estimates the number of people who are forcibly displaced by severe weather-related hazards each year. The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, cited the figure of 32 million people displaced last year, which is a UNHCR figure. There is a consensus among international climate authorities that climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of such weather events. However, there is not a consensus on what the future flows of migration due to climate change will look like—although various figures on that were cited in today’s debate. The World Bank figure cited by a number of noble Lords was that as many as 200 million people could move within their own countries due to slow onset climate change by 2050.

Many international conferences and meetings have focused on migration and climate, all of which have emphasised the need for international co-operation that recognises obligations under international law—that is the only way to address these massive problems. The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, and others have said that this is perhaps the greatest and most challenging issue of our time. There is a real passion among many people to try to address the problems.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester mentioned air conditioning, which reminded me of an experience I had some 30 years ago at an oil and gas development conference where we were addressed by the Turkish Oil Minister. He said that that was the first year that Turkish people were spending more money on air conditioning than on heating their homes. It was a turning point in Turkey, but I suspect that many other countries have had that flipping in the use of their energy and an overall massive increase in their energy over the last few decades. Who are we to say that they should not turn on the air conditioning units? Nevertheless, we need to find better ways of people being able to live in the climate as it changes.

The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, mentioned wildfires in the States. I have just returned from Seattle and Portland in the northern States, and I was also in Canada. In Seattle and Portland, I could smell the smoke from Canada, and they gave routine predictions on the smoke every day. There were also a number of evacuations in Canada while I was there.

Canada is a very wealthy country, and this was handled. Thousands of people were evacuated from their homes, but it was almost routine—these things are happening every year. While there is nothing new in wildfires, the scale and consistency of them is a cause for concern. Nevertheless, I make the point that in a mature, wealthy country such as Canada, they were able to handle these wildfire situations and were of course trying to mitigate against them as far as possible. I was there nearly a month, and while I was there, there were no reports of any deaths as a result of the wildfires in Canada.

To return to the politics a bit more, as the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, said, we have debated migration issues in this Chamber at length, and a number of speeches on previous legislation have talked about the impact of climate change on migration, and we have heard about the Government’s cuts in this respect. I really want to hear from the Minister today something about the Government’s aspiration for taking a leading role in the world, for people to look to Britain to try to address the profound issues which we are facing. We on this side always say we can do this only with a proper international, ongoing source of co-operation. Just pulling up the drawbridge is not going to be the solution to these problems. Can the Minister give us some hope that the current Government aspire to international co-operation to try to deal with these profound issues?