Covid-19

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Thursday 6th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I agree with the noble Baroness’s last point but I think that she miscategorised me slightly. I did not say that antivirals were the only answer; I said that they are one part of a suite of things that we need to be doing, from ventilation through to hygiene and cleanliness. There is a whole range of things that we will need to do, but she is absolutely right: we need to understand how we can live with Covid and not continually chase our tails, because we can see the damage that it causes.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I received my two vaccines in Scotland but my booster jab in England. I have been informed by NHS England and NHS Scotland that there is still no way of having that booster jab recognised under the Scottish system. Likewise, after so many months of this pandemic, why have both Governments not worked this out together? When will this be resolved?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I completely understand the noble Lord’s frustration. My niece is at university in Cardiff and is in exactly the same position; she has had to go back to Wales over the holiday to get her jabs. I will certainly take his request to bang heads together back to the department.

Afghanistan

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, in representing a military barracks in my former constituency during the military phase of our operation in Afghanistan and personally knowing bereaved families, I admire as others do the great sacrifices our service men and women have made. But it is our duty to ask questions, however awkward, difficult or uncomfortable they may be for our country.

The Government told the International Relations and Defence Committee on page four of their response to our Select Committee report on Afghanistan that:

“UK forces lead assurance of security in the capital, Kabul, working alongside NATO Allies. This is vital for the security of the Afghan government and diplomatic presence”.


When the Taliban were making manoeuvres and it was obvious that they were approaching the capital, why were the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary absent? Did UK forces advise the Government that there was a likelihood that the capital would fall? Were contingency plans put in place for what we are now seeing happen in a chaotic manner? Why did the Government not indicate what those contingency plans may be?

The assumptions underlying the integrated review and even the defence Command Paper published on 30 July, plus the warnings from the head of MI5 and others, including Ministers, in response to our committee report, range from security from terrorism to the fact that the illicit trade in heroin from Afghanistan represents 95% of all heroin on UK streets. This will be used strategically by the Taliban and is now a direct national security threat. Will the Government now urgently update the integrated review and defence Command Paper, taking into consideration the new realities?

Regarding development and people, there were many warnings that there would be consequences of a 43% reduction in UK aid to Afghanistan for 2020-21, with further cuts being planned. Can the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, confirm that the position is the same as when he told the committee that UK support for Afghanistan was conditional on the Taliban not forming part of the Government? Is that still the position of the Government? Given the fact that half of UK aid went directly into Afghan Government funds, which are now defunct, is this aid to be new money, as the Leader of the House indicated? Is it not simply a reallocation of what had been proposed for three years of direct UK government support and has now been reallocated to the United Nations? On people, the government resettlement scheme does not permit third-country applications under law. That means that those who have fled to other countries from Afghanistan are not currently able to apply for UK resettlement. Will this now be changed by the Government in legislation?

Finally, it is no surprise to me, with the great difficulties that we have seen in Tunisia, that it was reported that the ISIS newsletter has sent out messages around that world that, for Libya, Tunisia and now Afghanistan, democracy does not work. Very simply, we must reassert that if the UK is committed to supporting open, tolerant and democratic approaches, we must publicly and openly work with our Gulf allies and the United Nations to offer as much leverage as is now possible. If there is to be dialogue and practical humanitarian support within Afghanistan, we must use all the allies, as uncomfortable as it may be for Pakistan, and ensure that we have a clear and public UK presence.

Official Development Assistance

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Campbell of Pittenweem for asking this Question and outlining it so clearly and powerfully. Many of his points were supported by those taking part in this short debate.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Greengross, referred to the relatively little-noticed but devastating submission by the World Health Organization to the IDC in the Commons, which referred to the set of 20 neglected tropical diseases which

“affect the poorest people in the poorest countries”

and which

“kill, blind, disfigure and maim, causing considerable and largely untold suffering to millions of people worldwide.”

The submission goes on to say that,

“as a consequence of the aid cuts, 20,000-30,000 individuals are likely to die, with the uncertainty in that estimate related to expected recent increases in disease incidence due to COVID-19-related programmatic delays.”

It concludes:

“the withdrawal of UK funding makes it likely that an estimated in-country inventory of”

277 million tablets

“donated by British and international pharmaceutical companies will expire and need to be incinerated”.

Can the Minister commit that no tablets meant for the poorest people in the world will be destroyed as a result of these cuts? That is my first question.

My second question relates to something that the Leader of the House was unable to provide me. Last week I asked her, as a member of the Government, to do something which members of the British Government have been doing for 25 years, which is to encourage the other richest countries in the world to meet their UN target of 0.7%. She was unable to do that, so I would like that reassurance in this debate today that it remains the position of the Government that we are encouraging all other developed countries to meet their obligations, which this Parliament enshrined in our law.

G7 and NATO Summits

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

At the NATO summit, leaders did indeed recommit to NATO’s defence investment pledge target of investing 2% of GDP in defence—10 allies meet that target now, and 20 are on track to meet it by 2024. Since 2014, defence investment by non-US allies has increased for seven consecutive years, with a real increase of 4.1% in 2021. So there is still work to do, but we are getting there.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

Unlike the UK-hosted Gleneagles summit, which had the communiqué reference to the 0.7% target and the UK encouraging all other G8 members to meet it, and unlike the Lough Erne summit, where the Prime Minister’s official documentation and public statements encouraged other G8 members to meet the 0.7% target, this year there was no mention of any Minister encouraging any G7 country to meet that target. Will the Leader, as a member of the Cabinet, take the opportunity now, at the Dispatch Box, to encourage her G7 counterparts to meet the 0.7% UN target?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I am certainly happy to reiterate at the Dispatch Box that the UK is a world-leading aid donor. We have the third-largest budget in the G7 and will spend at least £10 billion in aid this year. We remain one of the highest contributors to overseas development in the G7, as a share of GNI and pound for pound.

Integrated Review

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Wednesday 17th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

As I am sure the noble Lord knows, we already have a significant presence in the Indo-Pacific and we will invest more deeply in our relationships with key partners, which includes seeking ASEAN dialogue partner status and, as I mentioned, applying to join the CPTPP. But I reassure him that this is not at the expense of our close relationship with our European allies, which remains critical. One example of further engagement with the Indo-Pacific region is that, later this year, HMS “Queen Elizabeth” will lead a British and allied task group on our most ambitious deployment for two decades, which will visit the Mediterranean, Middle East and Indo-Pacific.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, Section 2(4) of the International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Act 2015 states that the Government

“must … describe any steps that the Secretary of State has taken to ensure that the 0.7% target will be met”

in any subsequent year, if it was met in the previous year. The noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, told me that

“we are looking at legislation to ensure that we fulfil those obligations to Parliament.”—[Official Report, 2/12/20; col. 755.]

There has been no legislation, so does that mean that the Government are legally committed to meeting 0.7% in 2022, as the Secretary of State has indicated?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

As I have said, and am sure the noble Lord knows, the document makes clear that we intend to return to 0.7% spending. We are acting compatibly with the Act, which explicitly envisages circumstances where the target might not be met. As I said in my first answers, we will set out more details on next steps in due course.

Business of the House

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Wednesday 30th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

I call the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter—oh, I call the noble Lord, Lord Purvis.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

I thank the noble Baroness for allowing me to raise a question, if I may, of the Chief Whip. I have sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and his comments about precedent. This is the second Bill in a row which this House has considered under the fast-track procedure. There was the Bill immediately before the Christmas break—a trade Bill, which I covered—which had all its stages taken in one day because the Government knew they did not have the correct procedures in place for tomorrow. Therefore, I think there is a degree of sympathy.

The question I wish to ask is linked with the necessity now for detailed scrutiny after we come back in January, as my noble friend Lord Stoneham indicated. In the drop-in call yesterday, the noble Lord, Lord True, contradicted the Explanatory Notes of the Bill today. The Explanatory Notes state, in paragraph 99, that the Government believe:

“The Bill is not suitable for post legislative scrutiny as it implements an international treaty.”


The noble Lord, Lord True, reassured my noble friend Lord Fox, who asked the question, that there will be opportunities for scrutiny. So can the Chief Whip outline that there will be sufficient debating time and government time in January for us to debate the component parts of the Bill? Will the Government facilitate committees of this House to scrutinise the various components?

Linked with that, Liz Truss and the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, have said repeatedly that every trade treaty will come with an independently verified economic impact assessment. The noble Lord, Lord True, told me in letter on 19 May that the Government would capture the widest possible range of analysis, from economists and academics to businesses and civil society groups, to, as he put it, represent all parts of the United Kingdom. He said: “We will continue to keep Parliament informed with appropriate analysis”. Will the Chief Whip outline when we can expect to see the impact assessment that will be so vital to understand—as the noble Lord, Lord True, said—the various impacts that will be felt across the different parts of the economy?

Business of the House

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I deplore the Statement just made by the Leader of the House. It is deplorable that in the middle of a national crisis the Government are proposing that Parliament should abdicate for a month. We should, day by day, be debating the situation, holding Ministers to account, reporting back to them the tribulations that millions of our fellow citizens are undergoing in this great crisis, and ensuring that the Government are held to account for their actions to deal with it.

In our debate earlier, we heard that there is still no package for the millions of self-employed people in this country who are facing potential destitution because their incomes have disintegrated. We are told that the Chancellor might make a Statement tomorrow, but not in Parliament because Parliament will not meet, and that it will not be possible to put questions to him or his representative in this House. When the noble Earl, the deputy leader of the House, appeared before us earlier, he said that we could make representations by other means. The whole way in which Parliament makes representations is by meeting.

This is a truly deplorable Statement. It is also out of line with how Parliament has handled previous crises. My noble friend Lord Harris said that the Prime Minister is fond of making comparisons with the Second World War. In 1940, Parliament met almost every week. There was no period of more than 18 days in which Parliament did not meet. It is true that coronavirus is contagious, which is why it is right that we look at modernising our working practices, including video conferencing, but it is perfectly possibly for us to meet. No one can suggest that if it was possible for Parliament to meet weekly in 1940, it is not possible for us to meet weekly in 2020. Let us hope that the Government agree to a recall, so that we can debate the conditions which the country will go through in the next few weeks.

I wish to put on record that it is a dereliction of our public responsibilities for us not to meet for the next 28 days when the Government, by the consent of all of us, are imposing in effect a state of emergency on the entire country.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I endorse the comments of my noble friend Lord Oates, with two supplementary points, the first of which the Leader may think has a degree of self-pleading because I live in Scotland.

If this House is to function properly, there must be not only active Members who can physically participate, but Members from all four nations of the union. As with many people who have to work across the union, there will be Members of Parliament, in this place and in the other place, who by necessity have to travel across the United Kingdom to carry out the democratic functions, and rightly so, but it is harder for them. I hope that the Government will consider not excluding Members who cannot physically be here of cannot be here by virtue of geography. Thankfully I do not fall into the category of being over 70. Nevertheless, the point about geography is important.

Secondly, on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, the Government will inevitably table a great many statutory instruments during this period, which we will have to consider after the piece. That is not desirable. It may be necessary in some regards, but it is not desirable. Will the Government be much more flexible over access to Ministers and in the provision of written material to Front-Benchers through the usual channels, so that lines are communication are much freer than they normally are? I know that Ministers in this House are frequently available and receptive but there is an extra burden on the Government at this time because, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and other noble Lords have said, governing an emergency by executive authority alone is not the British way. If we are to carry on, we will do so through our democratic institutions.

Finally, on technology, I hope that the Government will speak to the other democratic institutions, not only here, with the House of Commons and our Parliamentary Digital Service, but to local authorities and our cities, which are undergoing similar challenges, the European Parliament, which has instituted new regulations for voting electronically, and others, so that democratic institutions across the United Kingdom can carry on functioning as best as they can.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I endorse the remarks of the noble Lords, Lord Adonis and Lord Oates. As I referred to in an earlier debate, the coronavirus has existed as an organism—as a species—for three months. When we talk about coming back in about a month’s time, we are talking about 25% of the entire existence of this virus. Of course, it will be the worst 25%. We face massive challenges. We have essentially thrown out the rulebook in many areas in the past couple of days. It is extremely disappointing —an understatement—that we will not be here to ask questions to address this directly. I understand the remarks about access for Front-Benchers but those of us with smaller representation also have important questions to ask.

Global Britain

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I fear that I do not have that information to hand but I am very happy to go back to the department and check on the timings. I would also say that that we are considering the best way to implement the protocol and will be discussing this with the EU in a Joint Committee and specialised committees created under the withdrawal agreement. I will go back and check and if I can provide some further information to the noble Baroness, I will do so.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, that protocol highlights 371 laws and regulations that will not apply to Great Britain but will automatically apply in perpetuity to Northern Ireland. Their origin will be from the European Union. In October I asked the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, what representation UK citizens and businesses will have over rules set by a foreign entity in a trade agreement that they will have to comply with. He replied:

“Of course they will not have direct representation”.—[Official Report, 19/10/19; col. 361.]


What is the position of the Leader of the House on UK businesses and citizens who will have to comply with European Union rules over which they will have no representation? If that is the case, all the language about “one United Kingdom family” and the “whole UK family—fully and complete” will have to be scratched. It is either Great Britain and Northern Ireland or Northern Ireland alone under these EU rules.

Brexit: Trade

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Mobarik]

Yes.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

Has the Minister seen the website of the Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website, which states:

“What does Brexit actually mean? … Leaving the EU will take the UK years. How many is unclear”?

If noble Lords will forgive me, I will read from the website a little further:

“The UK will need to complete Article 50 exit negotiations with the EU, and determine its domestic trade and regulatory settings before it is able to negotiate FTAs with third countries, such as Australia”.

Does the Minister agree? The Australian Government also say—

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Purvis of Tweed]

The Australian Government also say:

“The Government is seeking clarity from the UK Government on its expected approach to EU departure”.

Are the UK Government providing that clarity to the Australian Government and, when they do so, will they provide it to this Parliament, too?

[Baroness Mobarik]

I am sorry, but I only half-heard that question, first, because of the enthusiasm of my noble friends behind me but also because of the length of the question or questions. Perhaps the noble Lord would pick out one question and then I will answer.

Syria: Foreign Affairs Committee Report

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

Clearly, there are always lessons to be learned from history. However, what I have outlined today is a clear and comprehensive strategy and approach that the Government want to pursue to ultimately defeat ISIL and bring stability to the region, for all the reasons that I have already outlined.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I make one final further attempt for a greater degree of clarification in response to the noble Lord’s question about any potential use of British military forces, their targeting and the rules of engagement that they may well operate under. Can the Leader of the House be quite clear on whether they will rule out British military forces being used to target Assad-regime assets?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

Our plan is to target ISIL. This is a strategy to target ISIL and that is what we are going to do. This is not about military action against Assad; it is about military action against ISIL. ISIL is our target and that is who we are going to go after.