Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Debate between Lord Purvis of Tweed and Lord Hope of Craighead

Committee stage
Monday 12th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

As the Minister confirmed to me, by definition, the safeguards that would make Rwanda safe are not in place, because the Rwandan Government are “working towards” having them in place. Why then are we asked to determine that Rwanda is currently safe when the Minister has said it is not?

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, might I add to that question? Is the noble and learned Lord the Minister not embarrassed by the word “is” in the clause, which I will address in the next group? It is the language of that particular provision that causes embarrassment to the Government. They really need to face up to the significance of using the word “is”.

National Security Bill

Debate between Lord Purvis of Tweed and Lord Hope of Craighead

Committee stage
Wednesday 21st December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord. I share his views and those laid out so well by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, for allowing us to pose some fundamental questions, but I share the concerns of others who have spoken about whether this amendment answers them. Who are the enemy, and what is an attack? These are not easy questions to answer. I respect those who have worked in our intelligence services and have grappled with these questions over many years. Framing legislation to neatly define who our enemy is at any given time is not easy, nor is it easy to define what an attack is.

From reading the notices provided by MI5 earlier this year and the speeches made by intelligence services leaders, in many respects, it seems that we are under perpetual attack. It is hard to define in the modern sense those grey areas that the noble Lord, Lord Evans, and I discussed on Monday. What is an attack and what is preparatory to an attack? Perpetual cyberactivity can be either an end in itself or preparatory to a bigger effect. In many respects, we are in a state of war with Russia, with hybrid and economic warfare. Our sanctions are not penalties for actions; they are meant deliberately to overtly change the behaviour of a foreign power. I understand the rationale behind the amendment, but it perhaps does not address that clearly. When the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, responds to the debate, I would be grateful if he could clarify the meaning of “an attack”.

I welcome proposed new subsection (2)(e), which references acts that

“prejudice the security and defence of the United Kingdom”.

This is along the lines of what we were arguing for on Monday—trying to sharpen these areas. So we have persuaded someone on this—if not the Minister.

I think this raises another question, which was also raised on Monday. If a foreign intelligence service carries out activity which is not authorised or approved by our intelligence services, the Minister said that that was prejudicial to the safety and interests of the United Kingdom, but he did not say it was unlawful. This now raises an issue that we have to debate further in Committee. Some of the activity which could be defined as attacks or activity against the security and defence of the United Kingdom is not currently unlawful. We need to tackle that.

I close by agreeing very strongly with the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, that either in further consideration of this Bill or separately, we must look at how we interact with the issue of mercenary groups and groups that we would categorise as terrorist groups but that other countries would categorise as civil society groups or NGOs, which are fully funded and equipped by foreign states and operate in other countries, but are threats to UK nationals and UK interests. I travelled to north Iraq many times during the time when Daesh had overtaken Mosul. I saw many groups that were fully funded by Iran operating, sometimes with our compliance, sometimes with our approval and sometimes with our co-operation. At other times, they were operating absolutely against those interests, as with the interaction between some of the terrorist forces and some of the rapid deployment forces. I have seen first-hand in Sudan and elsewhere the Wagner Group, which is fully funded and equipped by Russia. How we cover mercenary and other groups that are not neatly defined within the proscriptions of terrorist legislation is something we also need to tackle. While I do not think this amendment would enable us to tackle this, it has allowed us to raise some of these fundamental questions, so I am grateful.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I hesitate to intervene in a debate after speakers who know a great deal more about this subject than I do, but I wonder why “treason” has to go into the heading of this proposed new clause. It does not add anything to the meaning of the words that are there already:

“aiding a hostile foreign power”.

The problem is, if you use the word treason you raise the temperature of the debate, for the reasons mentioned already.

If there is a gap to be filled, as the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, has suggested, I invite the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, to drop the word treason. It is unnecessary, as there is enough description in the headnote as it is. For all sorts of reasons, when you use the word treason people think of all sorts of other things. It is unnecessary to get into that debate if you can describe the offence in the remaining words as simply aiding a hostile foreign power. People may say it is treason but you should not label it as such for the purposes of the administration of justice.

Subsidy Control Bill

Debate between Lord Purvis of Tweed and Lord Hope of Craighead

Committee stage
Wednesday 2nd February 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, when the Minister comes to reply, would he explain the purpose of Clause 47(6), which requires that the direction must be published? We need to understand the purpose of that subsection before we look at Clause 47(7) which is the subject of this discussion. As I understand it, it is there in the interests of transparency and clarity. If that is the purpose, it is even more surprising that there is a power to disapply.

After all, the purpose of the direction is to inform somebody. Who is it who is to be informed? It is not subject to parliamentary procedure, but it is there for a purpose. We need to know from the Minister expressly what that purpose is, so that we understand the significance of Clause 47(7).

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Fox and will add a couple of points. First, on the streamlined schemes, there is the potential for them to be very major and, in effect, a policy driver in themselves. But if they are laid and are not in an order, which we would have the ability to scrutinise, they will not necessarily come with an equalities or impact assessment. It will be a fundamental weakness if they are simply laid. It goes against the grain of what we have been trying to argue, which is for good-quality proposals that come with equalities assessments. It will bypass that and that is a retrograde step.

On the ability to amend without there also being scrutiny, I point out, having checked on legislation.gov.uk, that there are 15 references to deposit-takers in other legislation and 34 references to insurers. What the Government propose is simply to amend primary legislation and a suite of other measures. The area of confusion for me is that there is also legislation that relates to Scottish insurance, which could be changed by a Secretary of State without there being proper scrutiny of that either.

My final point relates to the element of secrecy in Clause 47(7). The Government seem to be proposing that we go back to a situation of hue and cry, in which measures by the Treasury that could be supporting individual businesses will never be reported. We will know only if there are whistleblowers, if people are raising concerns and they have that knowledge. We saw to our cost with the Libor-fixing situation what can happen when there is a lack of transparency and reporting. It is simply not good enough. When I was a member of the Finance Committee of the Scottish Parliament, we had mechanisms for our committee to meet in private when Finance Ministers were able to say, either on the grounds of national security or during the economic crash, that there were reasons why information would not be made public at that point. We were briefed and there would, subsequently, be a report that Parliament could have. There are other mechanisms for secrecy than this approach.

Finally, I have been a Member of two Parliaments for 18 years now. I never thought I would read a parliamentary committee highlighting this statement:

“In other words, because the Government might be defeated if the direction could be voted upon, there should be no parliamentary procedure and no vote.”


This provision should not progress. It is as simple as that.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Lord Purvis of Tweed and Lord Hope of Craighead

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 28th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I support Amendment 7 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and Amendment 21 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay.

I shall start with Amendment 7. First of all, I entirely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, that importing and exporting goods is part of the commercial life of this country. That applies across all parts of the United Kingdom, and one can well understand the point that she makes about the importance for the devolved Administrations of maintaining that system with as little interference as possible. However, the point to which Amendment 7 draws attention is a matter of real concern to the devolved Administrations. As she explained, its effect appears to be to deny them any involvement in decisions on the importation of goods from overseas, to which they might wish to take objection. Various horror stories are of course passed around as one discusses this issue, but I am not concentrating on them so much as I am on the simple lack of ability to contribute to a discussion as to whether or not these goods should be imported.

If one was talking about legislation, I suppose one would say the Sewel principle would apply and consultation would take place, but there appears to be nothing that allows for that. The effect of the way the provision is worded is that something that comes in can take the benefit of the principles and pass without any kind of control to the devolved Administrations, without their having any say. That is of real concern. This is a probing amendment, but it requires some explanation of what place, if any, the devolved Administrations have in trying to resist the importation into, and transmission across borders within, the UK of goods to which, for one reason or another, they might wish to take exception.

That covers Amendment 7. As for Amendment 21, I was attracted by what the noble Lord, Lord German, said about the dual carriageway—the parallel lines—for a particular reason, which I have not mentioned before but must be emphasised. The common frameworks are living arrangements. There is no point at which one can strictly say that a framework has come to an end, although I confess that my own amendment suggests that it could happen. These frameworks are open to subsequent discussion and revisiting as things change. For example, much of the UK emissions trading system is based on EU law and treaty arrangements that could change. If that happened, the framework would be revisited, and, no doubt, different policy decisions may need to be taken. The same is true of the hazardous substances framework.

One has to bear in mind these are two living instruments working side by side: the UK internal market and the common frameworks system. The fact that, as the Bill has it at the moment, there is no means by which they can communicate with each other, is a matter of real concern, because it affects the whole structure of how these things co-operate and will co-operate in the future, in ways we cannot yet predict. That underlines the importance of trying to find a solution to the point I drew attention to on Monday of making some arrangement whereby the decisions taken, based on common framework decisions, to legislate in the devolved Administrations are protected against the effect of the market principles, particularly the non-discrimination principle, which has very broad reach indeed.

The great value of the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, is that it has drawn attention once again to that very real problem. It requires some response from the Minister so that we can have some idea of how he thinks these two parallel carriageways, stretching out into the future, will ever meet and co-operate with one another.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble and learned Lord and to agree with the thrust of his argument, which he made very well. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, made the valid point that the purpose of our internal UK economy is to have as few barriers as possible while recognising that we are an entity of four nations with distinct areas that can make their own policies. That is not new. The Agriculture Act 1970 had different applications within the Scottish, English and Welsh agricultural sectors. So many of the areas we are talking about within these groups predate the European Union, so the principle that we have had a different approach in many of the component nations is valid.

The Government, however, have introduced this new concept, which means, for example, that the UK’s biggest food and drink export, whisky, could now be open to a great problem because a decision made by one country, Scotland, could act against the interests of farmers in England who provide products to serve that. It is the barley question, which the Minister has referred to and on which I have asked questions before. As the noble Lord, Lord True, indicated, in summing up the debate on the previous group on Monday and correcting the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, that is an area that will be covered by a legislative framework.

Agriculture Bill

Debate between Lord Purvis of Tweed and Lord Hope of Craighead

Committee stage & Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 23rd July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord and to agree with his remarks, and to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes. I support the need for consultation, for the good reasons outlined at the very beginning of today’s proceedings by my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, who is also taking part in this group.

Can the Minister clarify the status of the legislative consent Motion from the Scottish Parliament with regard to this part of the Bill? If he can give information about that, I would be grateful. Formal consultations are vital in this part of the Bill, given that the regulations made under this clause could have significant impacts on the design and implementation of support schemes in Wales and Scotland. What is the policy framework for the limits on the regulations?

The Government have said that the regulations are concerned with maintaining WTO compliance under the agriculture agreement; however, they can also allow for regulations made by a Minister serving in a capacity as an English Minister, but impacting Scottish and Welsh schemes for the benefit of English farmers. Given the need for a resolution of disputes between the appropriate authorities regarding the classification of domestic support, with the Secretary of State in effect acting as a final arbiter, clarification from the Minister on this point will be important.

As well as proposing individual limits on the amount of domestic support that may be given in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, the Government will set the effective aggregate ceiling, which is more in line with the relevant national budget, to meet the AMS ceiling under the agriculture agreement.

I understand that the EU has successfully transformed its agricultural support under the CAP from the amber box to the green box under the agreement. It has been argued that this change has not been challenged by other WTO members to date because of the scale of the EU. We may not necessarily have that in future as a stand- alone, individual country, so what is the Government’s policy intent? How will we engage in negotiations with other countries, which may take a different view from the one they took with regard to classification and interpretation while we were a member of the EU?

Given that this could be very relevant in our trade negotiations, can the Minister confirm that these regulations will not be used as part of any trade deal with the US? Given that the US has a more relaxed interpretation of the schemes under the WTO box classifications, there is not a level playing field between the UK and the US. That provides the US with a competitive advantage. We operate a number of quality schemes that it does not, but the US insists that the WTO agreement is the ceiling; we do not. Under its recent agreement with China on poultry, for example, neither country will go beyond what the WTO has agreed. We do not take that position. Will the Government allay some concerns and state that we would not reduce any of the support schemes with regard to the viability, standards and quality of our markets—not necessarily changing primary legislation but the support schemes that ensure our market is of the highest standard? I would like reassurances from the Minister in that regard.

The Minister is a sincere man. We have had these discussions during the Trade Bill and no doubt we will in September. He has said there will be no changes to primary legislation. When I asked the Trade Minister recently whether any trade agreements going forward—not continuity agreements but new trade agreements—will not change any of the support schemes or statutory instruments regarding standards, he could not give that assurance. I would be grateful if the Minister could allay my concerns and state that these regulations will not be used to make a meaningful change to any of the existing standards and qualities that the Americans might see as uncompetitive.

[Lord Hope of Craighead [V]]

My Lords, I support Amendment 264, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock. By a curious chance, I spoke to Amendment 267, a mirror image of this one, shortly before midnight on Tuesday evening. I do not need to repeat what I said then, because I am sure that the Minister knows very well the points that I wanted to make. The amendment moved this evening is almost exactly the same, except that in my case, instead of using the phrase, “the relevant stakeholders”, I set out who the relevant stakeholders were. For the reasons I mentioned at about this time two days ago, I absolutely support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Lord Purvis of Tweed and Lord Hope of Craighead

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, it was fairly dispiriting to come back into the Chamber and to see our archaic language—which, as a Member of this House compared with being a Member of the Scottish Parliament, it has taken me a while to adjust to—on the annunciator. It announced that the House was “Adjourned during pleasure”, and it was dispiriting when the “pleasure” ended and the Scotland Bill was brought back to us. When I first saw that announcement on joining this House, I asked the Clerk of the Parliaments was it was. He asked me, “Didn’t you have any pleasure in the Scottish Parliament?”. I replied, “No, not very much at all”.

It was a pleasure to hear the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes. His persuasive skills are renowned but I am afraid that I am not persuaded by the case that he made. When I was a constituency Member of the Scottish Parliament, I considered it to be absolutely my duty to be as effective in that role as anyone else, but I was also aware of the pressures on constituency and regional Members of the Scottish Parliament. At one time, I was a member of three parliamentary committees: two were legislative and one—the Finance Committee—was both a scrutiny and a legislative committee. There was most certainly a strain on the number of Members.

It is worth reflecting that it was not designed to be like that. When the Parliament was established and the consultative steering group looked at the fundamental principles of how the Scottish Parliament should operate, it was designed to be a very different type of institution from the one here. There was going to be much stronger pre-legislative scrutiny and that element has been successful. This Parliament has learnt from that approach to pre-legislative scrutiny, with draft Bills now becoming the norm.

The committees in the Scottish Parliament, because of its nature, are both legislative and scrutiny committees. They were designed to be the strength of the Parliament. In a previous element, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said that the Scottish Parliament sits for only one and a half days. When I was a Member of that Parliament, that was a frustrating misconception reinforced by some of the press, which I felt had an agenda against the Parliament. There were plenary sessions but, unlike in this place, the committees in the Scottish Parliament had precedence. They met on Tuesday mornings, Tuesday afternoons and Wednesday mornings because of their distinct role.

The feeling was that the convenors of committees were going to be equal to Ministers and that their parliamentary strength was going to be in balancing the Executive’s authority. There was to be a shadow civic Parliament, with a much stronger civic input into the way that the Parliament operated. It is disappointing—there is a mea culpa from my party, which was part of the Administration early on, but it has most certainly been accelerated since 2007—that the Scottish Parliament has become remarkably like the Westminster Parliament. It has an absolutely dominant Executive and the committees have gradually become weaker. Their convenors are not even elected by the whole Parliament—an innovation of the House of Commons. The procedures of the Parliament have become weak in relation to power over the Executive when it comes to money. If there is anything that the Scottish Parliament can learn from our experience now, it is that Parliaments that reduce the ability to hold government to account for the money that it spends on behalf of the people are weakened Parliaments.

Ultimately, that has meant that there have been some examples where there has been less scrutiny than I, as a former Member of the Parliament, would have liked—whether that is on police reform, where mine was the only party to vote against what has happened because there was a large majority and the Executive were able to take it through; criminal justice reform; two areas that are currently being challenged by Brussels, on the Scottish Futures Trust and the delivery of infrastructure; minimum unit pricing, which has been challenged; or the quality. Fundamentally, these are my observations as a former Member who loves that institution, wishes it well and was a very proud Member of it.

However, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth: it is not for this place to tell that institution what to do. If this place is to have a role—I know that members of the major party in Scotland will never accept that, and I understand the reasons for it—it is sometimes for former Members of the institutions with deep respect say to that institution that it is worth it considering its own procedures. I live in the area that I used to represent as a Member of the Scottish Parliament, and so I maintain a vested interest in that Parliament working well.

There is a case for some form of much heightened, strengthened pre-legislative scrutiny. Sir David Edward, whose qualifications I do not need to rehearse, argued in a very good lecture for a council of state, using the existing organisations that we currently have set up in Scotland—for example, the ombudsman—to be a much stronger check on the proposals being put forward. Corroboration is one area where there should have been stronger pre-legislative scrutiny.

Equally, I believe that there will increasingly be an argument for some form of check before the final stages of Scottish Parliament legislation. If there is a reformed House of Lords, it could be that we have a mandate from the Scottish people directly, or indirectly through the Scottish Parliament for senators in this place, and may well have some joint capacity with both the UK and Scottish Parliaments—I will not need to address the next amendment, which deals with the working relationships, because this is my point. Noble Lords may not be entirely surprised to hear me say that, ultimately, that should be one area that we consider in a constitutional convention: to look at the proper functioning and continued strengthening of how the Scottish Parliament operates and the areas where this institution should rightly have a relationship with it. Ultimately, we should seek a better, stronger Scottish Parliament, able to do its job.

Therefore, I am not persuaded by the solution that the noble Lord has brought forward, but I hope, with the deepest of respect to the institution that I love, that it takes it very seriously, especially in the context of the successful passage of this Bill, in which the Scottish Government’s powers over budget and taxation will be greatly enhanced.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I do not want to take up any more time on this issue. However, I remind the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, that when I followed the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, at Second Reading I asked him a question. The question was whether, having regard to what we see in the Bill, he felt that the Scottish Parliament was able to cope with the additional powers that we are passing to it. Of course it is a matter for that Parliament to work its own procedures; I absolutely understand that. However, we do have an interest, since we are devolving these additional powers. It would be very unfortunate if the Parliament as presently constructed, and designed for a totally different situation, was so overloaded that it could not fulfil its function.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Debate between Lord Purvis of Tweed and Lord Hope of Craighead

Monday 21st July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, if I may, I will add a few words in support of the points made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, and my noble friend Lord Blair, based on my experience as the senior judge in Scotland, the Lord Justice General. When I held that office, which I held for seven years, there was an upsurge, as happens from time to time, in the carrying of knives, particularly by young people. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, has told us, there are cases where people who carry knives use them in an impulsive reaction to something said or done, resulting in horrific injuries. I spent four years as a prosecutor dealing with these cases.

Sitting as Lord Justice General, one of my responsibilities was to preside over the appeal court dealing with appeals against sentence in cases that had come up through the courts—sometimes through the sheriff court or sometimes through the High Court—where people had been sentenced for carrying knives. We thought that part of our duty in disposing of those appeals was to send out a message, because of the deterrent effect that we hoped that it would have. It was very much about deterrence; sometimes one added much more colourful wording to strengthen the deterrence. We might be quite lenient in the decision, but we would couch it in words that were designed to have an effect and draw the media’s attention, in the hope that they would report what we said and carry the message that the carrying of knives would be likely to lead to a custodial sentence.

Indeed, I remember going on television at the request of the police, who were concerned about the issue, using my authority as Lord Justice General to make that very point. I said that those who went out into the street carrying knives ran the risk that they might be prosecuted and that there was a risk that they might find themselves subjected to a custodial sentence. Of course, I was not cutting across the independence of the judiciary or the discretion that we all exercise; our concern was to get the message across. There is a force in doing that in statute, provided that it is appropriately worded.

I have looked at the wording of this particular clause, which contains fairly strong language, pointing in the direction of judicial discretion. As the noble Lord, Lord Marks, has said, I am concerned about bringing into consideration the first offence, which could be extremely important. But one must not underestimate the power of the deterrent effect coming through the message from a measure of this kind. I was not sure that, as judges sitting in the appeal court, by saying the things that we so often did, we were really getting the message across, which was why I was prepared to make a statement about it on television. I was not sure whether that in itself got the message across, either. But putting across the message and deterring people from getting involved in these things, with dreadful consequences for them and their victims, is immensely important. There is great force in the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Blair, to that effect.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

I intervene on the noble and learned Lord with a degree of trepidation. He rightly gives the experience of Scotland from a most senior position. While this was not at the same time, I served on the Justice Committee in the Scottish Parliament, which took a conscious decision to reject the course being taken with this amendment. Instead, we took the approach of putting more resources into the violence reduction unit in the former Strathclyde police force, and working with those charities for gangs. We found that to be the most effective way in which to communicate the message, rather than an approach of amending legislation, which we were informed by all of those experienced on the ground in those communities would not be the most effective way. I may agree with the noble and learned Lord, but we come to a different conclusion. Would he reflect on that before he concludes his remarks?

[Lord Hope of Craighead]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for raising that point. Of course, one supports everything that could be done by people on the ground, and there are all sorts of things that could be done. I was trying to get across the fact that I was approached by the police to use my authority, as the senior judge in Scotland, to make the announcement that I did on television in the terms in which I made it.

There is a choice as to whether one trusts the energy and resources of those on the ground to carry the message across, coupled with such statements as the judiciary can make, or whether one has to resort to statute. The point that I am making is that deterrence is crucial in this field and that the more one can deter the carrying of knives and thereby the incidents that follow from the carrying of knives, the better.