National Insurance: Charity Sector

Lord Randall of Uxbridge Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

The noble Lord will be well aware of the Secretary of State for Health’s commitment to hospices, including supporting the hospice sector with a £100 million boost for adult and children’s hospices to ensure they have the best physical environment for care and £26 million to support children and young people’s hospices. I am not playing down how hard it is going to be for organisations to find the additional revenue, but not all organisations will find that their NICs bill increases.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con)]

My Lords, I refer to my entry in the register as a trustee of several charities. Can the Minister say what discussions she has had with her Secretary of State about the presumed job losses there will be in the sector and the lack of delivery caused by this increase in national insurance contributions?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I think we need not to talk ourselves into a corner on this, where we assume that things are going to be as dire as they might be. In response to the question put to my noble friend Lady Taylor, who is here today, let me say that we would not have made the choice unless we had to, but there is a need to protect small businesses and charities, which is why we have more than doubled the employment allowance to £10,500 and extended it to all eligible employers. The OBR expects about 250,000 employers to gain from the changes and a considerable number to see no change at all, so more than half of all businesses, including charities, will not see the rise that the noble Lord suggests will happen.

Climate Agenda

Lord Randall of Uxbridge Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con)]

My Lords, I start by congratulating my noble friend Lord Lilley on securing this debate. As he said, it is very useful and important that we have the debate and, because I do not want to be confrontational, I can tell him that the other day I actually agreed with him about Drax power station. We should work together to make sure that that “sustainable renewable” is exposed properly. I declare my interest as a director of Peers for the Planet and, tendentiously in this debate, as the chairman of the Human Trafficking Foundation, as my noble friend Lady May indicated.

I congratulate my noble friend Lady May on an excellent and inspirational speech. I have to warn her: she says she was told that this Chamber is different because people here speak only when they know what they are talking about. I am normally the exception to that rule, I have to say. I also have to say that this debate, in its good-natured Chamber way—as we do here, as opposed to at the other end—has been more confrontational than I have come across, I think, since I have been here. However, my noble friend was an excellent colleague. I came to the House of Commons a few months after her and left a few years before she did, but she was also my boss at No. 10 when I was the environment special adviser. As a couple of my noble friends here will not be pleased to hear, I helped to get the net-zero Act through. There were various other things that I think were a great success, including the Environment Act and what we did on plastic reduction. One of the reasons I mention waste plastic is that the important thing was to take the public with us and, by and large, we did, although Covid interrupted that a bit, with masks being thrown down and everything else.

The important thing about this debate is that I do not think I have heard anybody actually deny that there is a problem with the climate changing and the impact that that is having on the world and all the different aspects we have heard about. I think the problem is actually down to how much we want to contribute, or what not taking action will do for ourselves. A lot of these things are actually inconvenient for us, as my noble friend Lord Lilley said. Yes, it is inconvenient. I feel a little ashamed when my noble friend Lord Willetts mentions air travel, because I enjoy travelling around and I feel a bit of guilt about it.

I have seen some things happen as I have been around the world. As many noble Lords will know, I have a great interest in conservation and biodiversity around the world and I have seen the impact of climate change on biodiversity and on our natural world in stark relief. A few years ago, I was in Senegal. Our birds who come here to summer winter and feed in Senegal and the Sahel, and it is almost a desert now, so it is no wonder that they are disappearing and their numbers are going down. These are all things we have to consider.

I am talking about the impact around the world. My noble friend Lord Ahmad made reference to the small islands that are going to disappear and the things that can be done. Do we sit back in this country and say, “It is not going to affect us that much”? It is affecting us—we have seen that in the weather, the rainfall and what it is doing for farmers and everything else—but do we sit back and say, “Well, it is a bit inconvenient, but is it going to make a difference if we do something in this country?” It might not make a huge difference, except, as has been said, in giving an example to others. As we want to be good neighbours in our own homes and set a good example to others, whether it is just down our road, in our town or whatever, I think that is what we have to be doing in the world. We have to show that we can back up what we believe in.

I think we have to go out, and I encourage my noble friends who do not see eye to eye on this to have the debate, because we want to get people to understand what they are letting themselves in for. I can tell my noble friends that my children are intensely worried about what is happening, and I am worried about what world I am leaving my children. As my noble friend Lord Deben said, that is what I think. If I am going to stay on these Benches, which I aim to, it is that sort of Conservatism that I want to be part of.

House of Lords Appointments Commission

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Thursday 21st July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, disruption is in the eye of the beholder. The historical policy of the Liberal Democrats is to replace your Lordships’ House with an elected Chamber.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con)]

My Lords, if he has the figures, or if he knows, can my noble friend say how many Peers previous Prime Ministers appointed? How many Peers were appointed by Tony Blair, for example?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, it was 374.

Covid-19: May Elections

Lord Randall of Uxbridge Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I hope that it will very soon. Yes, I have felt sharp elbows at counts and hope that I have not used too many. Further guidance on this important matter will be given very shortly.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

My noble friend the Minister confirmed, I think, that attestation will not be required to access a proxy vote under the new rules. My noble friend Lord Young of Cookham asked how information on proxy voting would be disseminated. Can he say again how this will be done?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, it will be done through every mechanism and through both national and local means. Obviously, as the noble Baroness who just spoke said, local authorities bear a major burden here. We have tried to simplify the system. We recognise not only that some people will not be able to provide proof of Covid symptoms but that doing so would place unnecessary pressure on the health service, so we will not ask for attestation. However, all other security measures will remain in place to ensure electoral integrity.

Ministerial and other Maternity Allowances Bill

Lord Randall of Uxbridge Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 22nd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is a great honour to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. It is always so, but especially on this Bill. As we have heard, she has a special place in the history of mothers in Parliament and as a pioneer of what we are discussing today.

I welcome this Bill and will not detain your Lordships long. One may well argue that the measure is rather overdue, and it may come to many as a surprise that recent Governments have not acted on this issue before. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said, it is always interesting that, when Parliament has to act on things which seem to be in our own interests, we can do it in a hurry. I remember well an issue with election leaflets, when it was discovered that the then Home Secretary—Jack Straw, I think—had a whole stack of posters in his garage that were printed incorrectly. We quickly put through a Bill to make sure that those were not redundant.

I am delighted that we are moving bit by bit to aligning Parliament with current workplace practices. As we have heard, some may consider that this Bill should have a wider remit, but as it is being brought forward to address a particular case, legislative time is difficult to find. This is probably a wasted opportunity, but we are where we are, so let us go ahead with it.

One employment issue that was raised consistently by a former constituent of mine was job-sharing for MPs. While I understand some of the reasons why that may seem desirable or attractive to some—and as much as I try to think how it might work, as it does in other workplaces—I was never able to resolve the particular problem of voting being shared. That said, I am pleased that the Bill has a narrow remit and I hope that, as a result, it should have a relatively speedy passage through Parliament.

I am also aware—I could not be unaware—of the concerns we have already heard about some of the gender-neutral language in the Bill. I do not want to get into this controversial and complicated issue, nor do I think I am qualified to do so. I listened to my noble friend Lady Noakes and share some of her views on the excesses of language that we have seen recently, not least from Brighton. However, I fear that my natural inclination to avoid controversy may have deserted me. In times past, I may well have shared more of those concerns. On reflection, I have found myself to be always somewhat behind the curve and that the world has moved on, leaving me behind. Now, somewhat counter-intuitively, I do not see a problem with the language being used—language which has, after all, as we have heard, been a convention for a number of years. It is more inclusive and was originally introduced to enhance the status of women. I am satisfied that there is absolutely no intention on the Government’s part to write out the incredible role of women.

I thank my noble friend the Minister for his helpful letter to us, which I found reassuring, and for his opening comments today. I shall listen carefully to his closing remarks. All I will add is this: I find it quite common now when filling in forms and asked to put down one’s gender that there is a box marked “Prefer not to say”. I understand that some do not wish to identify their gender. Perhaps this language will help them. As I have said, I have no expertise at all in gender politics, but I am happy with the wording. However, I will listen carefully to other noble Lords who, I am sure, will put forward a contrary view—we have already heard several today. This is a good and necessary Bill and I support it fully.

EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement

Lord Randall of Uxbridge Excerpts

Friday 8th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Wharton of Yarm on his excellent maiden speech. A long and successful career here beckons, I am sure, and I remember well his Private Member’s Bill.

Like so many, not just in this country, I was relieved that at the last hour this deal was agreed. I was also delighted to hear that border fluidity between Gibraltar and Spain seems to have been resolved satisfactorily. We must also not forget our other overseas territories, whose trade and financing could be adversely affected by our leaving the European Union. Of course, there will be many loose ends to tie up, to say the least. Time precludes me from raising more than one issue, so I will cover one area I have a particular interest in. Here I draw attention to my deputy chairmanship of the Human Trafficking Foundation.

Taking control of our borders should, in theory, present us with an opportunity to better prevent serious criminals and traffickers entering the United Kingdom. However, that will require us to maintain existing links to European Union intelligence sources. I understand that we will have access to passenger name records, but that we have not been able to continue with the European Criminal Records Information System and other important databases that could be crucial in our efforts to keep out those engaged in the appalling crime of dealing with humans as a commodity. Can my noble friend confirm that it was the European Union which refused to give us third-country access to certain data?

I draw your Lordships’ attention to the conclusion in the recent report by the Human Trafficking Foundation that

“the only way to tackle transnational modern slavery effectively is to do so in two ways: … effective border control and identification processes—that means exit checks, better databases, and better checks at countries of origin in issuing visas—alongside … safe, legal and fair routes into the UK, promoting good business practice and in all situations prioritising the safety of those who might be trafficked.”

We must ensure that we do whatever we can to continue that international co-operation in the coming months and years. We cannot rest on our laurels. There is still much work to do.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Randall of Uxbridge Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 8th September 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)]

My Lords, I am tempted to say: “Follow that!” The noble Lord has given us something that is not just elegant and eloquent but very firmly researched. To avoid the risk of being accused of being repetitive or even repetitious, I propose to adopt the contribution not only of the noble Lord, Lord Young, but that of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, both of which point very firmly in favour of this amendment.

I took some time—but not as much as the noble Lord, Lord Young—to look at the dictionary and examine what the word “practicable” is said to mean. There are a series of alternatives: realistic, feasible, possible. The point about them, however, and the point about practicable, is that these are all subjective. The consequence, as was hinted at just a moment ago by the noble Lord, Lord Young, is that there is a discretion which is virtually unfettered. The potential problem for Governments, of course, would be that a failure would be subject to the possibility of judicial review. Very few Governments would want to be put to the embarrassment of being taken to the High Court to explain their failure to do something which, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, has just pointed out, is routinely a matter of administration.

The point is this: the amendment does not destroy that discretion but limits it so that Governments cannot use it for their own interests. We have had several examples of that, both at Second Reading and again today. It cannot possibly be wrong to allow the Government discretion but to ensure that they do not abuse it.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am speaking to Amendments 7 and 9, to which I have added my name, along with those of three of the most noble of colleagues from the other place, for whom I have the deepest respect. What has already been said, particularly by my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, says it all.

My noble friend Lord Cormack spoke about the Executive and I think he is right to have a cynical view of Executives of all political colours. As was said in a previous debate, the governing party should always remember that the electoral cycle will go round and it will be on the receiving end of some of these measures and they may not seem like such a good idea. I cannot see a good reason for not accepting these amendments, to be perfectly honest, as my noble friend Lord Young has eloquently expressed. It would be very wise for the Government to have a little think about this and insert a time limit. It might not be 12 weeks—although 12 weeks seems like an excellent idea—but, to make sure that they do not look like they have given in, they could make it 13 weeks, and then it would be a government victory. That is the way I see these things evolve.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, it is a delight to follow my noble friend Lord Randall, who was a superb Deputy Chief Whip when I had the privilege to be Chief Whip of the Conservative Party. We are both supporting the excellent arguments made by my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, who, among his many jobs, was Chief Whip of the Conservative Party at least once. I say to the Minister that if he has three colleagues who have served at senior rank in the Conservative Whips’ Office, our point of view, as we are unanimous in this, should not be dismissed too lightly.

Since I am speaking from the cheap seats at the far end of the call centre, let me make the cheap political point first. The Conservative Party, of which I am a proud member, has absolutely clean hands on Boundary Commission reports. I want to keep it that way and I want the perception to be that way. The only parties that have mucked around with those reports were Labour, when Jim Callaghan ditched the boundary commission proposals in 1969, and the disgraceful ploy by the Lib Dems to kick into touch the 2011 review. They are responsible for our boundaries being eight years out of date. Those are the political points. The Conservative Party has never done that and I do not want it ever to do that and I do not want there to be the slightest ability for it to be perceived to be able to do that.

That is why it is terribly important that, in a Bill that has got everything else right—reducing the number of seats and cutting out the possibility of Parliament interfering and kicking Boundary Commission reviews into touch—we have an amendment that says it must be delivered within three months. I do not need to go through any of the excellent details that my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham delivered—in any case, I do not have that ability—but a couple of other points struck me as crucial. One is that everyone else in this process has to perform within strict time limits, but not the Government. The Government should also be held to a strict time limit, and three months is right. Six weeks is too little.

This has nothing to do with the Delegated Powers Committee, which I have the privilege to chair. We did not comment on this Bill because there was nothing relevant to us, but time after time in the Delegated Powers Committee we see skeleton Bills coming along with all the details to be filled in later by complicated regulations. Yesterday, I participated in the Chamber on the immigration Bill. The opposition spokesman criticised the Government, understandably, for bringing in a regulation which would run to dozens of pages on highly complex new Immigration Rules, which would be made under the “made affirmative” procedure and take effect immediately.

If it is possible for the Government in that instance—they are doing it on dozens of occasions—to invent, almost overnight, highly complex regulations, it is a piece of cake for them to pass a simple regulation that, as my noble friend pointed out, on the last occasion consisted of no more than 27 lines. It would be simple for them to produce an Order in Council implementing someone else’s report. The Government have no work to do: it has already been done by the Electoral Commission. All they have to do is make a simple order in Parliament and bring it into force within three months.

My noble friends Lord Randall and Lord Young of Cookham have made impeccable arguments for implementing the Boundary Commission reports within that three-month timescale. I conclude by repeating my opening remarks: the Conservative Party has had an impeccable record on this and the Bill is excellent in every detail, except for this one lacuna. I say to my noble friend the Minister: let us plug that lacuna and remove any possible suspicion that a Conservative Government could muck around with Boundary Commission reports and delay them.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Randall of Uxbridge Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on introducing the Bill so ably. I should correct the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall. I understand that Nissan is not closing its plant in Sunderland. Perhaps my noble friend can verify that when he winds up.

I welcome the Bill, for a variety of reasons. Those of us who served in the other place will recognise that constituency boundaries are always a subject of great interest. I agree that the previous proposals to reduce the number of constituencies were well intentioned, but rather misguided. Those of us who have been MPs in recent years can attest to the fact that a combination of factors, not least huge technical changes, have resulted in a vastly increased workload. There is also a great expectation about what services MPs should now be able to provide. When I first entered Parliament in 1997, I did not have an email and the new wonders of the modern mobile phone were virtually unheard of.

I am afraid that I take issue with the rather throwaway comments of my noble friend Lord Mancroft. He does Members of the other place a disservice to imply, however light-heartedly, that they are frolicking on the beach now that the Commons is in recess. My experience is that the hard work of MPs and their hard-working staff does not cease just because the House of Commons is not sitting.

I was extremely lucky in that I represented a constituency that I had always lived and worked in. My house was virtually in the centre of the constituency, but as various boundary reviews have taken place I have found myself slipping towards the borders. However, for the vast majority of the electorate, boundaries are relatively unimportant. All they ask for is to have a readily available representative who they can contact and who will deal with their concerns as speedily as possible. If we increase the number of constituents, that service might inevitably suffer.

Another unintended consequence is that it might increase the possibility that constituencies will cover more local authorities and attendant public authorities. I always counted myself extremely lucky that, with a geographically small constituency, I did not have to deal with the myriad organisations that other less fortunate MPs have to deal with. In this, I agree entirely with the sentiments of my noble friend Lord Trenchard.

I agree with the Government that this change will provide certainty that the recommendations of the independent and impartial Boundary Commissions will be implemented without political interference, or interference from either government or Parliament. This is absolutely the way it should be conducted. I also welcome the provisions that deal with how Boundary Commission reports are implemented. However, I add my support to the comments of my noble friends Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Cormack, and of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, about tightening up the wording about laying Orders in Council, which currently states “as soon as possible”.

Time limitations mean that I will not speak about other measures in the Bill. Suffice it to say that I thoroughly support them and I look forward to its eventual arrival on the statute book. I wish it well.

Unemployment

Lord Randall of Uxbridge Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the projected level of unemployment over the next 12 months.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office and the Treasury (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con) [V]]

My Lords, we must accept that the coronavirus will have a very significant adverse impact on our economy. The Office for Budget Responsibility reference scenario assumes that the unemployment rate will rise to 10% in the second quarter of 2020. However, the Government have announced unprecedented support for public services, workers and business to help mitigate the impact of the current economic emergency. As the OBR said,

“the cost of inaction would ultimately have been … higher.”

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

I thank my noble friend for his Answer. Sadly, we will hear of many redundancies in the coming weeks and months. Can I ask Her Majesty’s Government to be bold in initiating a range of green infrastructure projects that will provide much-needed jobs as well as improving the nation’s quality of life?

Covid-19: Self-employed

Lord Randall of Uxbridge Excerpts

Thursday 23rd April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con)]

Is my noble friend the Minister able to give any clarity on the timescale of the rolling out and when the funds will be available, particularly for the self-employed? He may well be aware that there are numerous scams targeting the self-employed and a great deal of uncertainty among them.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I am very much aware of the urgency and speed with which these things need to be dealt. From midnight on 20 April, 185,000 businesses have claimed under the coronavirus job retention scheme to protect 1.3 million jobs, which totalled £1.5 billion. On the small business grant funding, as of 20 April around £6 billion had been paid out in grants, which is about half the total funding. Some 490,000 businesses have benefited—so the money is going out. I completely accept that it could go out quicker, but the rate of escalation is increasing.