House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 9th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, on a debate such as this, the House really misses the Countess of Mar—if only she was still here. I can recall her one day bringing a delegation to a department where I was a Minister, and after she left, I told the civil servants, “One day, I will be a Back-Bencher and she is my model”. That is what I have tried to do. As the noble Earl, Lord Devon, spoke, I thought back to the one-woman awkward squad in this House—the Countess of Mar. She is much missed in a debate like this.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, if I could share my recollection of the Countess of Mar, I was Agriculture spokesman for the last Government, and she had some strong opinions. Whenever I received my brief in answer to her questions, I would sit with her and she would point out where the brief was wrong, and then I could get it right before I had to answer. That made it much easier. She was a great power.

I honour the noble Earl, Lord Devon, for bringing these amendments forward. Lord Diamond was in the lists on the Labour Benches when I first joined the House. I took my turn at it. My noble friend Lord Northbrook has done the same. We have been trying for a long time to get this dealt with, never with any success. I do not share the noble Earl’s opinion that we are the upper reaches of society. None the less, I do not think that this kind of gender discrimination should be allowed to persist anywhere. That it is a tiresome, small, insignificant but none the less continually noticed bit of gender discrimination ought to allow the Government to give the issue some time to get rid of it.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 9th July 2025 Lords Chamber

However, it is not done, because some people say the power does not really exist, that it is not clear and it has not been done for a long time, except in the case of the present Duke of Edinburgh. While it may then be legitimately argued that the power to create the type of peerage I suggest already exists, the purpose of this amendment is to put it absolutely beyond doubt and, frankly, encourage its potential use. Why should we not have life Peers who are not required to attend this House by Writ of Summons?

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

I have just a practical question, really. There is a Peer who came into this House and did not make a maiden speech for 10 years because he considered the peerage an honour. Then, one day, the Prime Minister said to that person, “By the way, with your experience, I’ve got a bit of a job I want you to do”. That Peer came in and made his maiden speech and worked inside the Government. That would not be possible with this kind of amendment.

[Lord True (Con)]

It would. If such a rare case applied, a second, life peerage under the 1958 Act could be conferred—it would be very simple.

Like much constructive reform, this may not be a great innovation. It is an extension of a principle that exists under the royal prerogative, an extension to the 1958 Act so that non-sitting life Peers may be created through a statutory process as well. This would be helpful to Prime Ministers who wish to honour distinguished men and women but not necessarily to swell the ranks of this House.

There are many Peers who currently do not have the right to sit in your Lordships’ House, and I found the arguments put against this proposition in Committee faintly risible. A clear and unequivocal reform, enabling the creation of non-sitting life Peers under the 1958 Act, would be no more or less confusing than the current position, but it would relieve us of the potential difficulties both for individual Peers and for the House, to which I have referred. It might save some future Peers, and indeed your Lordships’ House, from the unnecessary embarrassment of including people who do not want to be here or to stay here for very long. I cannot think for the life of me why any Government would wish to resist it.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 2nd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, this is the main argument that has been used consistently by people who do not want this place elected. It is based on a false premise, which is that, if both Houses are completely or largely elected, it will lead to persistent and irresolvable conflict. If the noble Lord looks at the work that the convener has instituted, which compares second chambers around the world, he will find that there are many that are wholly or partially elected, in countries that have mature democracies, in which there is not persistent stasis because they cannot agree. There may be arguments about the relative powers of the House, but I simply do not believe that having the sorts of elections that I am talking about will lead to the complexities that many noble Lords raised and that, in many cases, are raised as a basis for opposing a principle to which they object.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

Does the noble Lord accept that most of those countries, which I have looked at as well, have a written constitution? We do not. That is the thing that would make it incredibly difficult to resolve disputes between the two Houses. There has to be another formula for that.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

I am not sure the noble Lord is right about that. We do not have a written constitution now, but we have conventions that enable us to deal with difference—

--- Later in debate ---

I am not convinced that this amendment will be agreed tonight and I discourage the noble Lord, Lord Newby, from putting it to a vote. The other aspect, as I look around the House, is that many of my noble friends and many Labour Peers do not favour an elected House. The hallmark of this debate that has run for the last 100 years is that the differences exist within the parties more so than between them. The only way that there will ever be any kind of long-term, sustainable reform of this House is to do it on a cross-party basis, which is why I return to the royal commission chaired by my noble friend Lord Wakeham in 2000, which was promoted by Prime Minister Tony Blair. Even that, 25 years on, has seen no further progress whatever.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, when I am at a college in the Midlands this Friday morning with the Learn with the Lords programme, the first thing I will say is that the House of Lords is nothing more than a large sub-committee of the House of Commons with the power to ask it to think again. That being so, it does not matter how its composition is arrived at.

The legislation that would be required by the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Newby, must by definition reduce the powers of this House. It would have to remove the right to chuck out a Bill. We have the right but do not use it, for self-evident reasons, but what is to stop a troublesome elected second Chamber throwing out a Bill before it even revises it? That would be chaos. That would have to be put in the legislation before the new Chamber arrives. Would the Prime Minister down the other end appoint the leader of this new Chamber? Of course not. Self-evidently, that could not happen. So would there be Ministers in the second Chamber? There do not have to be; Ministers can be summoned by this Chamber from the other place to Select Committees and to explain Bills.

There are a few issues to be raised here that are not being talked about, which is why this idea is a bit more complicated than people think. I fully accept that the Chamber should be half the size of the Commons and should not have any Ministers. I have formed that view since I first came here. Noble Lords talk about the House of Commons as it is now, but I can tell them that between 1974 and 1979 we Back-Benchers had a lot more power, because the Government did not have it. The Lib-Lab pact was there. We have the problem of the current situation; we should not form ourselves on the basis that it will always be the same. There are a few more questions to be asked of the noble Lord, Lord Newby—which I do not expect him to answer—than have been asked so far today.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, is nothing if not consistent on this issue. We voted together on the seven options that your Lordships’ House was presented with in February 2003 following the royal commission. The noble Lord will recall that, in the Commons, none of the options got a majority and the whole thing failed.

If I am to be critical of what happened with the original proposals put forward by the Lord Chancellor, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, the royal commission and the various proposals put forward since, including Mr Clegg’s Bill, the proponents of an elected House—of which I am one—need to do the work on the powers and relationship. You cannot get away with simply saying, “We should have an elected House”. I absolutely agree with this, but my noble friend is right that, to make it work, you would have to constrain the current powers of the Lords to make the relationship work effectively.

You would also have to tackle secondary legislation. You could not leave an elected second Chamber with a veto power—which we have used six or seven times in our whole history—particularly if it was elected under proportional representation. Clearly, a second Chamber elected under proportional representation is bound to claim greater legitimacy in the end than the Commons; the claim would always be that we represent the voters much more accurately than a first past the post system.

The noble Lord, Lord Newby, may not realise this, but I am very sympathetic to what he seeks to do. But, for goodness’ sake, let us do the work on what the relationship between two elected Houses should be.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Brady of Altrincham, on his maiden speech. I will be very sad to lose my noble friend Lady Quin although, both as a Minister and as a private citizen, I have done my Newcastle visitor trips. I almost had a lump in my throat, as a former engineer before I came into Parliament, when I saw the first factory where a railway engine was built. It was an amazing operation.

I made my general views on reform clear in the November debate, so I will not go over those now, but the Bill is a clear manifesto commitment within the conventions. Everyone has quoted page 108 of the Labour manifesto, but I will start off with Conventions of the UK Parliament, the report of the Joint Committee of both Lords and Commons, which is still valid today. After that report was done in 2006, both Houses voted to support it. In its conclusions, in paragraph 99, it says:

“The Convention which has evolved is that: In the House of Lords: A manifesto Bill is accorded a Second Reading; A manifesto Bill is not subject to ‘wrecking amendments’ which change the Government’s … intention as proposed in the Bill”.


Any of the amendments about reforming the Lords that have been hinted at today would therefore be, in those terms, wrecking amendments because they change the Government’s proposal that was in their manifesto and its operation. My view is simple: both Houses need to agree the Bill and send it back, not get it mixed up with other matters.

This will be my negative bit for the Government, as I do not want to be a toady now that we are in government. The other bit that has been quoted a lot today, again on page 108, is the part about Labour being

“committed to replacing the House of Lords with an alternative second chamber”.

That is quite distinct from the other promise, and it cannot operate as a commitment under the conventions. The words in the manifesto are vague; they are not at all specific and therefore it cannot be covered. I say to my Front Bench that, if that commitment is based on the report of the so-called commission headed by Gordon Brown, I will vote against it. I would not give an O-level to that report and the Labour Peer on the commission voted against it. To be clear about this, I sent the establishment’s House magazine a note on it in the summer, but I was not establishment enough to get it published. That report was all about Scotland. It was not about genuine reform of a revising second Chamber, but I will not go over that anymore.

The Bill has got to go back to the Commons without any amendment. That way, we can get down to putting pressure on the Government, because I want reform. The issues raised by the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, and the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, were all positive ideas. We cannot carry on just as we are, but I have seen and heard of plans by some of my new colleagues who want to amend it to include the Bishops. That will be a big mistake. It is a fundamental change to the Bill. It would amount to a wrecking amendment, because it is not consistent with it, and it would take the Bill outside the conventions that I have just quoted. At some time in another Session—if I am still here, being over the age limit—I would vote to remove the clerics from lawmaking. I do not want more of them in here; they have a job outside, which is not making laws, although I would make an exception for the Bishop of Newcastle, who has proved to be a Bishop of substance.

G20 and COP 29 Summits

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Monday 25th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

Targets are there to be attained and reached, and every effort is being made. The difference is that 2030 is the national target; 2035 is the international agreement reached at the summits. I hope that is helpful.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

While I applaud the Government’s policy of being civilised, nice and supportive of President-elect Trump because we have to work with him, will it be made abundantly clear, without qualification, that this country will not import hormone-treated beef or chlorinated washed chicken?

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

Is that an application to be ambassador?

House of Lords Reform

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, to seriously take note of Lords reform, we really need to be aware of our role and function. It is not to be the Executive’s little helpers but to hold them to account. As such, it is Commons reform that we need to look at. Having been there for 27 years, I am entitled to be a critical supporter. I was sent here not to undermine the elected House but to help with scrutiny and revision.

Our big mistake in 1997 was effectively to guillotine every Bill in the Commons. Okay, we called it timetabling, but it has exactly the same effect. Bills arrive here in the Lords not properly scrutinised by the elected House. I once suggested that all the Bills that arrive here should come with a Speaker’s certificate, pointing out what parts of the Bill had not been scrutinised, but I was told this was not practical when it was looked at. But it remains the case that we have to clean up the Commons’ failure to do its job properly, and it annoys those down there, who are ignorant about our function.

I always start sessions of the Peers in Schools programme—now Learn with the Lords—as I will do again in a couple of weeks, by saying that the Lords is, in effect, a large sub-committee of the Commons, with the role of asking it to think again. The elected House always has the last word, but we are the thinking Chamber, which thinks for itself rather than being told by the business managers what to think. We ask the Commons to think again and maybe again.

I think the Learn with the Lords programme needs to be extended from schools and colleges to Whitehall and the Commons. We need to confront the sheer ignorance—which I shared until I came here—in Whitehall and the Commons about our role and function. The obsession is always with composition and numbers. They are important but not the key event. I will never forget the day when, as a Minister, I went with my noble friend Lord Grocott, who was then the Government Chief Whip, to a senior Cabinet committee in charge of legislation. We were there merely to explain the rules and conventions here in the Lords. The chair of the committee wagged his finger at us and said, “You’ve gone native, you two”, based on his ignorance of what we were trying to explain. So far, that ex-Cabinet Minister has not arrived in your Lordships’ House. Ministers need the odd session, particularly if they have been only a Minister on the bridge, rather than, as I was, a Minister of State, always in the engine room. Those Cabinet Ministers who have never done any other jobs have not got a clue, and need to be better informed.

I am coming to the end now. We are not a threat, but we are here to stop the executive takeover of Parliament. Having served for nearly three years on the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, I know that the move continues bit by bit as the Executive take more power from Parliament for Ministers at the expense of scrutiny. There is no question but that—people on all sides have seen it—and it continues today. It has continued since the general election; that committee broke a precedent recently and summoned Ministers about an appalling Bill taking powers from Parliament. In my three years it never felt the need to summon Ministers, but it has since the last election.

Yes, we need to reduce our numbers, but kicking out the superactive noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and keeping the once-a-year Russian is not the sensible way to do it. I wait for a big defence of that from the Prime Minister. We should revisit the Commons and Lords Joint Committee on conventions of the UK Parliament. It was chaired by my noble friend Lord Cunningham, and its report was published in November 2006. After it was published, it was agreed by both Houses. If you are going to argue about changes in the conventions, both Houses have ownership. There should be a specific form of agreement. What better time to revisit it?

Human Rights Violations: Consular Assistance

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Rooker]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they have any plans to create a legal right for British nationals to access consular assistance in cases of human rights violations.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Collins of Highbury) (Lab)]

My Lords, our consular operation offers British nationals a 24/7, 365 days a year service. We welcome feedback to help improve our support to British nationals, including from those who use our services and other stakeholders. The Government are examining options on strengthening support for British nationals abroad, including a right to assistance in cases of human rights violations, as set out in our manifesto.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

In the meantime, will the Government issue a warning to academics and curious tourists not to visit Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong and China as these are locking people up and denying them consular access. Is the Minister aware that Australia, the United States and Ireland— I repeat, Ireland—have secured the release of citizens from the Chinese Communist Party prisons by taking a tough line on trade? Yet our Foreign Secretary went off to China with no trade demands—and not even having met Jimmy Lai’s legal team here in the UK—and came back empty-handed. Jimmy Lai, a British citizen, has been locked in solitary for four years and denied medical treatment. Why can the UK not take the same tough line as Ireland?

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend, but I think he knows very well just how seriously we take Jimmy Lai’s imprisonment. He will recall my questions to the previous Government on this. He will recall my statements on this, where we have taken a very strong position. Let me reassure my noble friend: the idea that the Foreign Secretary goes to China and does not raise these issues is ridiculous. I assure him that the Foreign Secretary said in his response to the Oral Question on Monday that it was because he had been out of the country visiting a wide range of countries he had not at that stage been able to meet the family of Jimmy Lai. But Catherine West has and will continue to do so and the Foreign Secretary said he would do so. I reassure my noble friend that we take this very seriously and will raise it at all levels.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 18th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Swinburne (Con)]

My Lords, I beg to move government Amendment 264 and will speak to Amendments 265 and 266, which the Government have tabled. They respond to the concerns raised about Clauses 223 and 224, which provide powers to replace the Health and Safety Executive as the building safety regulator.

When the Government made the decision to locate the building safety regulator in the Health and Safety Executive in the aftermath of the Grenfell tragedy, this was rightly because of its outstanding reputation in ensuring rigorous safety standards. We continue to work closely with the Health and Safety Executive, and I take this opportunity to thank HSE colleagues for what they have already done to bring this regime to life.

As we await the findings of the Grenfell inquiry, the Government recognise that we must provide a stronger, wider stewardship role to ensure that we regulate effectively across the whole built environment, with consideration and management of sustainability and quality sitting alongside the safety of buildings. The Government believe that these powers are a key part of ensuring that oversight of the built environment is delivered appropriately.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, who has tabled Amendments 265A, 267 and 268, and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee for its scrutiny of the Bill. In response to the concerns raised by the committee and in earlier debate, the Government are making a number of changes to improve these measures.

Amendment 264 restricts the powers in Clauses 223 and 224, so that they can be used only to transfer existing functions of the Health and Safety Executive in its role of building safety regulator, and specifically cannot be used to create additional functions or to amend the building safety functions as defined in the Building Safety Act 2022. I hope that this principle of the preservation of existing powers provides the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, with reassurance on the intentions of the Government.

Amendment 265 limits the provision that can be amended, repealed or revoked by regulations under this clause to provision made by or under listed Acts, namely: the Building Safety Act 2022, the Building Act 1984, the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004.

Amendment 266 removes the ability to extend the sunsetting of the power to create a new regulator. These measures do not affect the timeline for the regulator’s important work. We expect the regime to be fully operational by April 2024, and are determined not to impact on that programme. Finally, I remind noble Lords that the powers in Clause 223 are all affirmative and so any future use will be subject to the consideration of Parliament. I beg to move.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to address the amendments in my name, Amendments 264A and 264B. These amendments raise an aspect of electricity supply which involves potentially dangerous network faults. I first declare an interest as probably the most out-of-date chartered engineer in Parliament, having been here full-time for 49 years, and a fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology. I still pay my subs after more than 60 years, and skim the technical journals.

In April, I read in Engineering & Technology about concerns relating to the risks of neutral current diversion, known as NCD. The author was investigative journalist, Conor McGlone, who wrote of experts expressing concerns of the real risk of deadly gas explosions and fires in the UK due to a common fault on the electrical system. They claim that the fault is neither acknowledged by distribution network operators or the Health and Safety Executive. In short, and keeping off the detailed techy stuff, a neutral current diversion can occur when the combined protective earthing and neutral conductor fails. The current is then diverted by making a circuit via exposed metal workings on buildings including gas, water and oil pipes. In other words, electricity can flow through gas meters in these circumstances.

NCDs are causing gas explosions. Gas meters are not designed to carry electricity and, if a current is diverted, creating heat due to the high resistance, an explosion can follow. The fault is such that, when changing gas meters, engineers attach jump leads between pipes because neutral current diversions are so prevalent and sparks can be created. After an explosion, of which there have been more in recent years, we are simply told: “possible gas leak”. In fact, a house in the Kingstanding part of my former constituency disappeared in such an explosion last year.

One example given by Conor McGlone was when Gordon Mackenzie, formerly of SP Energy Networks, became aware of a resident’s coat falling on a gas meter and catching fire. He detected a 35-amp current flowing through the metallic gas service pipe entering the property, affecting 72 houses. There was nothing whatever to indicate a problem: no flickering lights, nothing.

Neutral current diversions are not routinely considered after an explosion. Having read this, I therefore tabled some Written Questions, answered by the noble Viscount, Lord Younger of Leckie, on 2 May. I was informed that

“no additional action is required by the regulator”—

the Health and Safety Executive—

“to manage this risk of neutral current diversion at the present time”.

In other words: “We’ll keep it under review”.

Now these can cause fires in ordinary domestic appliances due to the high resistance. Voltage surges occurred in properties without a gas supply. As a result of the Hansard reports of the Written Answers, I was contacted about the wider problem of safety checks and weaknesses in electrical regulation. I am informed that the charity Electrical Safety First and certification giant Bureau Veritas have both expressed more concern than the Health and Safety Executive, whose approach has been described as

“nothing to see, move on”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, if nobody is getting up, I will just let the Minister and my Front Bench know that I agree with the content of all three speeches I have just listened to. My message to the Front Bench is that things have to be done differently. The noble Lord, Lord Mawson, did not just invent this system; it has virtually been his life’s work and it has been a success. It is not like the good old days and the bad old days; we have to learn lessons and do things differently. The present arrangements have not worked.

In the last Labour Government we made mistakes, but we are in a different world now, by and large. There is going to be a general election, when there may or may not be a change of Government, but there ought to be a change in policy about the way that these issues are dealt with. They cannot all be one size fits all, which is the apparent view of the present Government, whether of the public or the private sector. Partnership, good leadership and a willingness to share responsibilities is the only way to success.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, and his fellow signatories to the amendments in this group. As we have heard, they refer to very important issues relating to how such a complex and far-reaching Bill should be implemented.

There was much discussion earlier about the wasteful and partial way in which the levelling-up fund was implemented so that, instead of making a real contribution to levelling up, it became a beauty contest of who could spend the most on consultants to put their bids together. There is no better example of the rationale for close and careful consideration of how the Bill will work in practice. I hope the Government will pay close attention to the wording of these carefully considered amendments, to how they will ensure cross-departmental working—which is not a feature of this Government nor of past Governments—and to the committed devolution of powers and funding, which will be necessary to deliver any meaningful levelling up. But I fear that this might have to wait for the Labour Party’s “take back control” Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

I want to put on record that I support the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, on this issue. The Government have to give an explanation. The experts say it is impossible to decarbonise our electricity supply by 2035. Labour has planned to do it by 2030, but if it is impossible to do it by 2035 then it is certainly impossible to do it by 2030. One has only to look at recent papers—for example, the one by Professor Dieter Helm, an expert. It lists completely all the points that we are going to miss.

One of the missing ingredients is of course onshore wind. I have seen these huge onshore wind farms under construction in Shetland. It is true that they took rather longer in terms of planning applications that I thought they would—instead of eight years, I thought they would be pretty quick. The biggest problem will be that they are so big that the grid does not have the wires to get the power to the mainland. That is crazy.

Then there is the matter of alternative jobs. I find the windmills magnificent, whether they are in the Lake District, Cornwall or anywhere else—they are not an eyesore—but where are they made? We are losing out on manufacturing. We are importing far too much because we do not have an energy plan. We have 20 bits of energy, but that is not an energy plan. Without one, we are going to be importing and importing, and we are going to lose the jobs that the green policies should give to our people.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, we strongly support the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, in this amendment. It is important that we continue to discuss where our energy comes from, what kind of energy we want and how it is going to help us meet our net zero and low-carbon targets. Onshore wind has to be an important part of that. She is completely right to draw attention to the problems we have been facing in recent years in getting onshore wind built. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, talked about the issues of the results of round 5 recently. That puts a sharp focus on some of the issues we have had around wind farm development, whether offshore or onshore.

Elections Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Monday 28th March 2022 Lords Chamber

As I said, I do not suggest that these amendments in their present form cover all aspects of the issue, but when my noble friend comes to reply I would be grateful if he could tell the Committee whether this is an area of policy that could usefully be explored further with a view to stopping the sort of impropriety that I think we all agree disfigures our national scene.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, I will say a few words about Amendment 212G, which is in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell. It concerns risk assessment and due diligence policies, controls and procedures by political parties. This would be a major change for political parties, and is very strongly suggested by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, particularly in chapter 4 of its report published in July last year. This contains several recommendations and is a very powerful case for anti-money laundering style checks. Like others, it specifically cites the Intelligence and Security Committee’s Russia report at paragraph 4.24. I shall give some examples later.

Dirty money in UK political finance leaves parties exposed to malign influence, fosters dependence on the proceeds of crime and other dubious sources as a source of party finance, and, as my noble friend said, risks undermining the integrity of the electoral system. Under PPERA 2000, political parties are not required to run anti-money laundering checks on donors. There is no indication that UK political parties do robust checks on the source of donations, nor that parties ever reject donations after such checks have been made. I would very much welcome being contradicted on this.

As the UK’s anti-money laundering framework has progressively tightened over the last decade—I applaud the Government for the changes they have made—the checks that political parties should undertake have stayed largely unchanged since 2001. Examples from the media suggest that if parties check the source of donations at all they are woefully inadequate and fail to prevent the flow of tainted money into UK politics, with damaging effects on the health of our democracy.

The Electoral Commission, which the Government clearly do not like, has argued since 2018 that risk management principles from anti-money laundering checks by business could apply to election finance. This would greatly increase transparency for voters. The Committee on Standards in Public Life has also recommended that.

As I was listening to a CD in the car the other week, the present system reminded me of the song “Money, Money, Money”. I will misquote Tim Rice’s lyrics from “Evita”; I have changed only one word, and I will not try to sing it: “When the money keeps rolling in, you don’t keep books. You can tell you’ve done well by the happy, grateful looks. Accountants only slow things down, figures get in the way”. That is the reality of our political parties at present: they do not do the checks.

So how does this amendment address the problem? It would update PPERA to require political parties to develop and publish a reasonable and proportionate risk-based policy for identifying the true source of donations above the figure of £7,500. Parties would need to have reasonable and proportionate risk assessment and due diligence controls and procedures in respect of those policies; the framework of the policies could be set out in statutory instruments.

For any donation or aggregated amount within a year exceeding that figure, parties would need to

“undertake enhanced risk assessment and due diligence checks”

to identify

“the donor’s principal place of business if different from its registered office … the nature of the donor’s business … the people with significant control of the donor’s business, and … the names of the donor’s directors or senior persons responsible for its operations.”

Donors giving more than £7,500 would need to give a written declaration as to whether their business is in a high-risk sector—these are listed in proposed new Section 54C(13) of PPERA—and whether they have been

“under formal investigation by a regulator or law enforcement body for, or convicted of,”

a range of offences; these offences broadly reflect the mandatory grounds of exclusion in the Public Contracts Regulations. Further, a political party would need to

“include a statement of risk management in its annual accounts that identifies how risks relating to the true source of funds have been managed.”

All major UK political parties have accepted potentially suspect donations, including from individuals and companies that have later been found to be involved in economic crimes.

I want be fair and clear on this; I will give one example from the Labour Party. However, as the party in government since 2010—although it constantly forgets this—the Conservative Party has accepted the majority of such donations in recent years. Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has increased scrutiny on the large sums that the Conservative Party has received from donors with links to the Russian state. I will deal not just with links to the Russian state but with those who have been involved in criminal activity and economic crime, and I will use media and official sources to do so.

My noble friend referred to the £1.9 million from Lubov Chernukhin so I will not go into detail on that, but my source for the following example is the Guardian. Between May 2018 and May 2021, the Conservative Party accepted £366,765 from Aquind. It was first reported in January 2021 that Aquind’s major shareholder, Viktor Fedotov—a Russian-born oil tycoon—was alleged to have been involved in a major fraud in Russia during the 2000s involving the siphoning of funds from the Russian state pipeline monopoly Transneft.

My source for this example is the Financial Times. Between September 2018 and January 2021, the Conservative Party accepted £484,570 from Mohammed Amersi; he figures in a lot of examples but this one is worth going over, even though my noble friend alluded to it. In 2006—well before that time—a Swiss tribunal found that Amersi was closely involved in a business deal involving one of Russia’s largest telecommunications companies, which was later revealed to have been controlled via Cyprus by Leonid Reiman, then Vladimir Putin’s telecoms Minister. Reports in the press claim that Amersi acted as an adviser for a Swedish telecoms company on a transaction that was later accepted by the company as a bribe to the first daughter of Uzbekistan’s ruler, Islam Karimov. Despite the existence of an internal Conservative Party memo circulating in late 2020 warning of Amersi’s business dealings circulating, the party accepted an additional £50,000 in January 2021. Naturally, Mr Amersi has denied any wrongdoing.

My sources for this example are the Daily Mail, the Financial Times, the Independent and the Guardian. The Conservative Party accepted £202,540 from New Century Media Ltd, which represents

“an extensive list of state-connected Russian clients.”

Whichever way you check, it is basically a Russian front organisation. These clients include the Firtash Foundation, which is run by Dmitri Firtash,

“a Ukrainian gas and chemicals oligarch wanted by the US for bribery”.

He still is wanted; I think he is locked away in Austria. Of course, as I said in a recent speech, Ministers at the Ministry of Defence did business with him regarding the selling of a property to him while he hides from the United States.

New Century Media’s £900,000 a year contract with Firtash includes reputational management, personal introductions to individuals within politics, and support for his passport application. The firm has other notable—or should we say, in its terms, successful—dealings, introducing figures close to the Putin regime to Conservative politicians via donations. This included the introduction of Russian MP Vasily Shestakov and billionaire oligarch Andrei Klyamko, both close friends of Putin, to then Prime Minister David Cameron at a donors’ ball in 2014. New Century’s owner had already arranged for Shestakov to meet Prime Minister Cameron at the previous year’s ball in 2013. New Century also arranged for Sergey Nalobin, a senior diplomat at the Russian embassy, to meet Prime Minister Cameron at a Tory donor dinner in 2012. Nalobin, the son of a senior FSB spy, was expelled from the UK by the Home Office in 2015.

These Russian meetings with Cameron when he was Prime Minister take on a really new shape after the astonishing letter in the Financial Times last Wednesday, 23 March, from Carl Scott, a retired air commodore. He was the UK defence attaché in Moscow between 2011 and 2016, sending back regular reports, pointing out Putin’s long march to war in report after report to the Government. At exactly the same time, Cameron was Prime Minister and being nobbled and cossetted by these Russian interests.

The Independent noted in 2014 that:

“Unlike the vast majority of lobbying firms, New Century fails to provide details of its clients to the industry’s voluntary register of interests.”


While New Century Media did subsequently register with the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists in November 2019, it has still never declared a single client.

As I was preparing to speak when I thought this might come up last Thursday, I was casting around with respect to my own party. All I had to do was open the Times last Wednesday, 23 March, to see pages 20 and 21 devoted to the “king of bling”, one Peter Virdee. The opening paragraph stated that:

“One of Europe’s most wanted men was welcomed as a donor by the Conservatives and Labour despite being under investigation for bribery and fraud.”


Even after his arrest by the NCA, both parties continued to take his money. It does appear from the figures given in the Times that he favoured Labour somewhat less than the Conservatives, but we still took the money. He lied about his membership of charity trusts, the ENO and NSPCC. It is not a good story for Labour, and even less so for the Conservatives.

There are other dubious donations from sources not connected necessarily to the Russian state. I will just give one, because of time: £726,300 from Javad Marandi, an Iranian businessman with close links to the kleptocratic Azeri regime. Marandi’s business relationship with individuals reportedly connected to the Azerbaijani laundromat was first identified in 2017, after which the Conservative Party accepted the majority of his total donations of £520,000. The source there was the Guardian and the OCCRP, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.

These are just a few examples. There are more I am not going to use, and other Members of the Committee will have their own. It is a simple process: political parties and other voluntary organisations—I fully accept that they are voluntary, but they are not charities—are more regulated now than they used to be, and it is just as well. Given the importance of the money, I cannot see any reason why the approach of anti-money laundering regulations that the Government have used over the last decade for other companies cannot be used for political parties. I would be interested in due course to know the views of the Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Howe (Con)]

I will come to the subject of caps on donations in a moment.

On Amendment 212E, the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, recently tabled a Question for Written Answer about the uncommenced provision in the 2009 Act. This provision, Section 10, refers to residence and domicile for income tax purposes as a criterion for permissible political donations. Although a response was issued to him by my noble friend Lord Greenhalgh on 14 March, I hope that it will be helpful if I repeat it briefly for the benefit of the Committee.

The Government have no current plans to bring into force the uncommenced provision, Section 10 of the Political Parties and Elections Act 2009, regarding donations from non-resident donors. There is a very good reason for this: the provision is not workable given that an individual’s tax status is subject to confidentiality. It may therefore be difficult or even impossible for the Electoral Commission, political parties and other campaigners to accurately determine whether a donor meets the test set out in Section 10.

Furthermore, as a matter of principle, taxation is not connected to enfranchisement in the UK. If a British citizen is able to vote in an election for a political party, they should be able to donate to that political party subject to the requirements for transparency on donations. There is clear precedent here. Full-time students are legally exempt from paying council tax but still have the right to vote. Likewise, those who do not pay income tax rightly remain entitled to vote. For these reasons, the Government cannot support these amendments.

The other key theme that this debate has focused on is that of donations made by companies or other entities such as unincorporated associations. I will address Amendments 197, 198, 200, 210, 212 and 212G in the remarks that follow. As I have said before, only those with a legitimate interest in UK elections can make political donations, such as UK-registered companies which are carrying out business in the UK, trade unions and other UK-based entities. There is only a very limited exception to this, whereby, as I indicated earlier, for political parties registered in Northern Ireland permissible donors are a wider category.

The law is already clear that, if a company wants to donate to a party or fund a campaign, it must be a permissible donor. The recipient of a donation is responsible for checking that the donor is eligible; that is to say that it is registered in the UK and carrying out business in the UK. The recipient must also report the relevant donations to the Electoral Commission quarterly, and weekly during election periods. To ensure transparency about party funding, donation reports are published by the Electoral Commission on its online database.

Unincorporated associations are permissible donors only where they carry on business or other activities wholly or mainly in the United Kingdom and where their main office is in the UK. Further to this, any unincorporated associations making political contributions of more than £25,000 in a calendar year must notify the Electoral Commission and are subsequently subject to various reporting requirements relating to their own funding. Members’ associations, many of which are unincorporated associations, are separately regulated as regulated donees and must report on donations and loans that they receive.

Amendment 197 would introduce a new obligation on unincorporated associations to take all reasonable steps to check whether donations they receive intended for political purposes come from a permissible donor. At first glance, “all reasonable steps” appears perfectly reasonable. However, this would represent a significant change for unincorporated associations which, as I outlined previously, are already subject to significant reporting requirements. It singles them out from other types of donors and puts them instead closer to the level of political parties in their due diligence obligations. This could mean many voluntary groups and local sports clubs and societies all facing a significant extra due diligence cost simply because they fall into an unlucky category. That does not strike me as fair, and I would be concerned about the possible chilling effect on democratic participation of those groups.

Amendment 198 is an attempt to restrict donations from organisations. As drafted, it would exclude UK-based companies with fewer than five employees from making donations. Furthermore, it is unclear how one would determine who has “significant control” of an unincorporated association, as their governance structures are not regulated in the same way as other legal entities. Although I am sure this was not the intention, it demonstrates quite well the risk of serious unintended consequences if amendments which place restrictions on who can participate in our democracy are made with haste and without consultation. Furthermore, Amendment 198 would make it an offence for an ineligible company to even offer a donation, regardless of whether it is accepted and regardless of whether it was aware the donation it was offering is impermissible. This is unnecessary.

Donations from impermissible donors are already illegal, and it is the political parties and campaign groups receiving the money, the ones which better know and understand this area of law, which are accountable and responsible for checking, returning and reporting impermissible donations. In addition—this point has been highlighted previously—it is an offence for a donor knowingly to facilitate the making of an impermissible donation.

I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Hodgson for his Amendment 210, which would prohibit donations from individuals or companies that hold public contracts with a value equal to or exceeding £100,000. The complexities of procurement frameworks are slightly beyond the scope of this debate, but let me say that, while well-intentioned, it is not clear how this amendment would operate in practice. Seemingly, there is no limitation on a person making a donation to a party prior to entering into a contract with a public body, and it is unclear whether the prohibition extends beyond the lifetime of the contract and, if so, for how long. It is important to note that the existing legislation already provides for publication of donations to political parties, regulated donees and recognised third-party campaigners, therefore enabling any discerning citizen and our free press to scrutinise any large donations.

I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, for his Amendment 212. As he explained, the intention of this amendment is to prevent shell companies being used to make large donations. Similar concerns on source of donations underpin Amendment 200 and the substantial Amendment 212G from the noble Lords, Lord Rooker and Lord Butler, which would introduce requirements for registered parties to carry out risk assessments and due diligence checks on donations.

However, as I have already outlined, there are strict rules requiring companies making donations to be incorporated and carrying out business in the UK. Existing rules also prohibit circumventing the rules through proxy donors. That is on top of a legal requirement for political parties and other recipients to conduct permissibility checks and report to the Electoral Commission.

The principle of strengthening the system to provide greater levels of assurance on the sources of donations to ensure they are permissible and legitimate is important. We take seriously the risk of donors seeking to evade the rules. Indeed, the Government recently set out their final position on the reforms to the corporate registration framework, ahead of introducing legislation, in the Corporate Transparency and Register Reform White Paper.

The introduction of mandatory identity verification for those incorporating and filing with Companies House will be essential for making information on the companies register more reliable. It will mean that those with the intention of fraudulently misusing the UK corporate registration framework will have their activities traced and challenged. For example, all directors of UK limited companies will be required to verify their identity in order to be registered, and overseas companies will be required to verify the identity of all their directors. This, in combination with a new power for the Companies House registrar to proactively pass on relevant information to law enforcement and other public and regulatory bodies, including the Electoral Commission, will help ensure that any company making political donations is properly trading in the United Kingdom.

However, we do not want to impose disproportionate legal obligations that hinder the ability of parties and other campaigners to generate funds against the cost of carrying out checks on donations to ensure that they come from permissible sources. To do so would risk it not being cost effective for parties to accept smaller donations and therefore exclude some people from being able to participate in our democracy in this way. The current rules are proportionate and achieve this balance.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

I am listening carefully to the Minister. Going back, say, a decade before the Government started to tighten up the anti-money laundering rules, companies, accountants, company secretaries and company lawyers all said, “Our professional obligations and institutions require us to do all these checks.” But they were not doing them, hence the Government had to bring in some anti-money laundering rules. Why are political parties any different?

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, I hope I have already explained how the Government intend to legislate in the future to create greater transparency of companies. As I said at the beginning, all we can do is keep the rules under review. I am suggesting that in this particular area, the balance is about right.

Elections Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Monday 28th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Redesdale (LD)]

My Lords, I also apologise for not speaking on Second Reading; I was unable to. I was not planning on speaking in this debate, but the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, raised the point of some of us being here permanently. I have been here a mere 30 years, but I cannot actually see the fact that I have been here 30 years as a legislator making that much difference to the country. I would love to say that being a Back-Bench Liberal Democrat is the bedrock of our whole system, but I cannot really put that forward. When I came here, it was the mantra that only Lords, lunatics and criminals could not vote, but that is no longer the case—though it depends on what bracket you put us in.

I have one question for the Minister. I am standing as a candidate in the local election, and my wife is standing as the agent for the Liberal Democrats in Islington. The complexity of the forms you have to fill in, with the understanding of the minutiae and detail, is incredibly difficult. What is the cost to the country of us being taken off the electoral register? Everybody has to be trained; it has to go through the whole system; it has to be part of the process. The cost is not insignificant for 800 people to be treated in a different category. Of course, it goes into a number of different areas. If the Minister could give us an indication of just how much our privilege of being taken off the register, so we can carry on with this view that we are a permanent part of the process, would cost, and whether that is worth it, I would be very interested.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, I have a question—and I did not come in to speak either. Since I have been a Member of this House, which is 20 years, there is at least one Member—I think only one—who was here when I arrived, subsequently got elected to the other place and is now back here. Yes, he is here today. At the time that he left this place and got elected to the other place, was he able to vote in the election he stood in? I am not sure what his status would have been.

[Viscount Thurso (LD)]

Yes, I was allowed to vote.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

Well, that is the answer to my question.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, we talk about piecemeal reform, and changes to this House have not necessarily been a result of legislative change or even reform. I have mentioned in previous debates the excellent book by Antonia Fraser about the debate on the Great Reform Act 1832. What I found most fascinating was that most Members of the House of Commons were sons of aristocrats and were put there by their fathers to have proper training to come into the House of Lords. Of course that was in the days when the powers of this House were great, as noble Lords have mentioned.

What recently shocked me even more—and I have cited this too—were the diaries of “Chips” Channon, who, when he was writing pre-war, leading up to the 1938 Munich debacle, mentioned that most of his friends in the House of Commons were sons of aristocrats who eventually ended up in this House. I hope things have changed. Constitutionally, things have radically changed, quite rightly, in the powers of this House, which can no longer challenge the democratic mandate of the House of Commons. The question is not simply about whether we are here for life or not; it is about what we do here. Even where we have particular circumstances of power, I am one of those people who would not use it to challenge the democratically elected House of Commons.

My noble friend made a very powerful case, and the point that struck me was that not many people in the public out there are aware that we have not got the vote. I remember campaigning in the 2017 election and a young, radical activist stopped me and asked if I had voted yet. When I explained I could not vote for Jeremy Corbyn, she nearly issued an internal disciplinary notice. Once I had explained, I was eventually forgiven. But I think it is a point worth making that most people assume that everyone in this country has a free and fair democratic right to vote, and it just seems ridiculous that we do not.