Environment Bill

Lord Smith of Finsbury Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 7th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Smith of Finsbury (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I remind the House first of my interests as declared in the register.

The Bill is broadly welcome. It says it has ambition, it aims to set its sights high, and it betokens a wish on the part of the Government to have strong environmental standards in what is, alas, a post-Brexit world—so far, so good. But it does not get everything right, and there are three things I would like to focus on.

First, it is fundamentally important that the new office for environmental protection—the OEP—is robustly independent. Many noble Lords have touched on this point. The Bill rightly makes no provision for the Government to be able to give instructions to the OEP, but they can give guidance. The problem, of course, is that guidance is pretty much the same as an instruction when it comes from the Secretary of State. When I first took on the role of chair of the Environment Agency, when Hilary Benn was Secretary of State, I remember that the agency felt not only that it had permission to speak out publicly on the state of the environment and issues affecting it but that it had a duty to do so—and we did speak out, sometimes in ways that the Government did not like. But when a new Government and Secretary of State came in in 2010, we were told that we should not speak out publicly—that we were welcome to give private advice to government but that it should remain private. The public voice was gone. The same thing must not happen to the OEP. There should be a duty on the OEP, spelled out in the Bill, to speak out publicly on issues of concern for the environment. The role of the Government should not be one of guiding or instructing but one simply of proposing. The OEP should, in other words, have its independence and voice guaranteed in the same way, for example, as the Committee on Climate Change.

The second issue I want to highlight relates to water use. In some parts of the country—Cambridgeshire is a prominent example—there is a serious danger to the levels of flow in and the survival of the wonderful chalk streams that are a unique part of the English landscape. Quite simply, we have to draw down less water. There are many answers to this hugely important problem, and in Cambridge Water, which I chair, we are exploring all of them. But one of them must lie in helping all of us to conserve more water. We waste too much. Of course, the Bill contains measures on water abstraction, but it also presents an ideal opportunity to make two important legislative changes to help water conservation: first, a mandatory water-efficiency label on water-using products in exactly the same way as energy-efficiency labelling; and secondly, a change to building regulations to promote the recycling of rainwater and improvements to water efficiency in any new home or building constructed. Both measures provide very simple ways of ensuring that we use water more wisely.

The third issue to highlight is access for the public to nature and the natural environment. Surely the past year and a half have taught us something we already knew but had too often forgotten: access to nature is essential for our well-being, our health, our ability to exercise and the welfare of our souls. One of my proudest moments as a Minister was helping to bring in the legislation that made a right to roam a reality for open country, mountain and moorland, but this need goes much further—to the fields at the edge of town, the banks of canals and rivers, the local woodlands and the green spaces that we all love. Making sure that public access to these is available should surely be part of any ambitious environmental policy, yet in the Bill at the moment the long-term environmental targets and the environmental improvement plans provide only for a permission to consider access to nature, not a requirement. This must surely change.

The Bill offers a golden opportunity to commit ourselves as a nation to the very highest values for our environment and our biodiversity. It is far too important to be a matter of party politics and I am grateful to the Minister for reaching out to many of us around the Chamber. But let us aim to be more courageous, more ambitious and more environmentally confident, for the sake of all our futures.

LGBTI Citizens Worldwide

Lord Smith of Finsbury Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Smith of Finsbury (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, and thanking him for not only raising the subject but raising it for sustained debate. The quality of the speeches that we have already heard is a real tribute to his wisdom in putting this subject in front of us.

It is now 31 years since, as a Member of the House of Commons, I came out publicly as gay. At the time, it was a somewhat lonely and difficult thing to have done. How things have changed here in the UK since then: a huge amount of legislative, attitudinal, social and governmental change. I am very proud to have been part of a Government who brought forward a very substantial amount of that change. I congratulate the current Prime Minister on his courage within his party in bringing forward the equal marriage provisions, which I was delighted to see went through this House with a bigger majority than in the other place. I also pay particular tribute to the Leader of this House for the skill with which she steered that legislation through.

Our work here in the UK is still of course not complete. There is still bullying and violence. There are attitudes that need to be challenged and places that are not safe for people who happen to be LGBT, particularly the “T” part—people who are transgender. We have still not got to where we should be even in legislative terms for those people. We also still need to make progress in Northern Ireland.

However, the picture here has transformed beyond recognition. Around the world, as we have already heard in this debate, it is very different, particularly in Africa and Asia. There are 78 jurisdictions where homosexuality is still criminalised. Some have the death penalty. It is not only the laws, the imprisonment and the death penalty that cause the problem. It is the violence, antagonism, prejudice and harassment that those laws give license to, among the thugs and the crowds who will then take their lead from the laws, the politicians and the Governments, and perpetrate savagery against people who have committed only a crime of loving someone of the same sex.

As many noble Lords indicated, there is a particular problem with the Commonwealth. As both the noble Lords, Lord Scriven and Lord Fowler, mentioned, 40 of its 53 countries discriminate in legislation against homosexuality. As the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, alluded to, in a peculiar kind of way we are responsible for that. These are frequently relics of colonial laws that were imposed by Britain. There is an ultimate perversity in all this because many Commonwealth countries claim that homosexuality and liberal attitudes to it are a colonial imposition on them, whereas in fact it is the laws discriminating against homosexuality that are the colonial imposition. We have something of a special responsibility to make our voice heard around the world on this issue. As the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, said, in November we have the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Malta. There will be an ideal opportunity to start to discuss, raise and persuade on this issue.

In some places, things are getting worse rather than better. There are two examples. In the Gambia, on 9 October last year—less than a year ago—President Yahya Jammeh signed his assent to the Criminal Code (Amendment) Act 2014, which introduces the new offence described as “aggravated homosexuality”. That attracts a life sentence, raised from a previous sentence of 14 years. “Aggravated homosexuality” applies among other things to what are described as “serial offenders”—if you have sex more than once—and an offender who is a person living with HIV or AIDS. I am afraid that President Jammeh went even further in a speech marking the 49th anniversary of Gambia’s independence. He said:

“We will fight these vermins called homosexuals or gays the same way we are fighting malaria-causing mosquitoes, if not more aggressively”.

The other place where things are getting worse is Nigeria. In 2013, it introduced the Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act. It actually goes much further than the title suggests. The Act not only prohibits marriage, it outlaws the registration of gay clubs, societies and organisations and their sustenance, processions and meetings. It outlaws the public showing of same-sex amorous relationships, directly or indirectly, and it prohibits same-sex couples from living together. These are frightening pieces of legislation.

Although in some places such as Gambia and Nigeria things are getting worse, there are small signs that in one or two places things may be making some progress. The high courts of Botswana and Kenya, for example, have recently made decisions to allow LGBT organisations to exist, to recruit and to campaign. This is perhaps a sign that somehow pressure, advocacy and persuasion from the rest of the world can help to begin to change things in some of these oppressive jurisdictions, and that is something that we here in this country must absolutely try to help with.

The Foreign Office and DfID ought to have LGBT rights around the world at the heart of their human rights programmes, and I would certainly echo the call made by the noble Lord, Lord Collins, that this should be made a Foreign Office priority. However—and this is a very important however—it must not be done in a preachy, finger-wagging way, and still less should it be done in a threatening way. As the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, mentioned, LGBT activists in countries affected by this have pleaded with us not to use aid as a bargaining tool to try to force change, because it would produce completely the contrary effect from what we might be trying to achieve. It has to be a process of painstaking discussion and persuasion. It is not going to be easy or quick, but in my view it has to be done.

We can take heart, I think, from the example of President Obama in his rather courageous speech in Kenya where he did not preach at the audience; rather, he drew analogies between the position of LGBT citizens in Kenya and the position of black people in the United States, their need for emancipation and the importance of ensuring that that emancipation happened. Above all, apart from just talk, discussion and the use of diplomacy, we can support the incredible courage of LGBT activists and campaigners in countries where criminalisation exists. That is because being open, making the arguments and facing down threats, and in some cases being beaten up, will eventually help to change minds in those countries. The work of organisations such as Kaleidoscope and the Human Dignity Trust to try and help those activists make their case has to be applauded and supported.

As President Obama recognised, this is ultimately about emancipation. It is about the fundamentals of freedom and democracy. I remember that when Section 28 was going through the House of Commons, the argument made by its supporters was that it reflected the needs and wishes of the majority, and therefore in a democracy that was what had to happen. Long ago I was taught that democracy is actually much more about protecting the rights of minorities than about reflecting the will of the majority. It is also about recognising, protecting and celebrating difference, because it is difference that makes a society richer, fuller and freer. We in this country must do everything we can to support and protect it around the world.

EU: UK Membership

Lord Smith of Finsbury Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Smith of Finsbury (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, as one of the other seven “Smiths” in your Lordships’ House, I join in the warm congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, on her fine maiden speech. It was deeply felt and knowledgeable, and I hope that we will hear much more from her in the House over the coming weeks and months.

I want to reflect in the short time allowed on the vital importance of our membership of the European Union to our environmental protection, stewardship and improvement. Some two and a half months ago I stepped down as chairman of the Environment Agency here in England. It is responsible for overseeing much of the framework of environmental standards and protection that we have. Overwhelmingly, that framework rests on a series of European directives that drive better performance, endeavour to keep standards high, and have largely been responsible for the improvements we have seen in our environment here in the United Kingdom over recent years. Quite frankly, we would be lost without them. It would be little short of an environmental catastrophe if, heaven forbid, we were to leave the European Union.

Of course, not all European directives are perfect. Would I have drawn up the rules governing nitrate-vulnerable zones in precisely the way that has happened if I had been seeking a truly common-sense approach to a worthwhile purpose? Of course not. There is certainly scope for improvement—but, taken as a whole, the range of environmental directives in place are powerful tools to enable real benefits to be achieved for people. Safeguarding the environment is, after all, every bit as much about people as it is about birds and insects and fish. It is about the air we breathe, the land we live on and the water we depend on for life.

I will take just three examples: first, the industrial emissions directive. It is no accident that over the last 20 years sulphur dioxide emissions in this country have fallen by 70%. Nitrogen oxide emissions are down by nearly 40%. Even particulates, where we have made less progress, are down by 15%. These are real benefits and real improvements that have been brought about by sensible regulation that has driven better technology.

Secondly, the transfrontier shipment of waste directive has made it far more difficult for us to dump our waste, especially our electrical and electronic waste, on the developing world, where all too often in the past it fuelled crime, poverty, exploitation and injury. These are sensible rules applied across Europe and they matter globally because it is Europe that has put them in place.

Thirdly, the bathing water directives. Thirty years ago we were labelled as the dirty man of Europe. Beach after beach on many of the most popular parts of our coast were failing European standards because of raw sewage being discharged on frequent occasions. The directives have driven change. They have forced clean-up and have now delivered the cleanest beaches and bathing water we have had in decades. As a result, they have helped both public health and the tourism industry. So when people rail against interference from Europe, this—I would remind them—is interference that we have signed up to; it is interference that we have helped to put in place; and, in the case of this range of environmental directives, these are bits of interference from which we have substantially benefited.

Surely it makes sense to tackle these issues on an international, continent-wide basis. After all, the environment knows no national boundaries. Pollution of the air and water does not stop at the frontier. These are continent-wide issues and they require continent-wide responses. Thank goodness we have the structures in place and our membership of the European Union in place to enable that to happen.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, for the benefit of the House I remind noble Lords that we have a lot of speakers and that when the clock is at five that is time up. Even if all noble Lords from now on were to speak for just half a minute beyond five minutes, that would mean not only that my noble friend would not have her full time to respond to the debate, but the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, would have no time to respond, either.

Government Departments: Soft Power

Lord Smith of Finsbury Excerpts

Thursday 28th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Smith of Finsbury]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, although I have to observe that I will be intrigued to see what Hansard makes of the musical interlude in the middle of his speech.

I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, on initiating this debate and I thank her for it. It gives us a welcome opportunity to highlight the underemphasised, underappreciated but hugely important role that soft power plays around the world. By “soft power”, I mean what can be achieved for the improvement of international relationships and for the standing and reputation of this country through culture and the arts and through sport, learning, discourse, the exchange of ideas and thought, and creativity. Of course, it will not solve all our problems and sometimes hard power will be needed. Sometimes hard power is resorted to too readily, as was the case eight years ago in Iraq. However, soft power has much to offer in helping to shape the framework of relationships and, ultimately, in making hard power less necessary.

I want to recall three moments over the past three decades that I believe illustrate that rather well. The first was in 1983. I had just been elected as a Member of Parliament in the other House and, with my other newly elected colleague, Clare Short, I visited Turkey on behalf of a number of Turkish humanitarian organisations based in this country. Turkey at that time was under military government. Military trials were taking place and the principal purpose of our visit was to observe those trials. I also had the chilling experience of talking to people who explained in graphic detail how they had been tortured and to newspaper editors who spoke of how they feared the censor’s pen with every page that they produced.

One of the people whom we succeeded in visiting was Bulent Ecevit, who had been Prime Minister of Turkey some years previously. At the time, he was under house arrest; he was to continue to be under house arrest for another three or four years. He said to us, “My lifeline is the BBC World Service. It is the way in which I know what is happening, not just in the world but in my country”. Four years later, Bulent Ecevit was released from house arrest and went on to become Prime Minister of Turkey again. The information that that lifeline had provided him with through that period was crucial in helping to shape the policies that he subsequently put in place.

Sixteen years, later, in 1999, when I was Secretary of State for Culture, I went on an official visit to China. The principal purpose of the visit was to support the tour of the Royal Ballet to Beijing. It is a great pleasure to be speaking in the same debate as my noble friend Lord Hall of Birkenhead, whose brilliant leadership of the Royal Ballet and the Royal Opera House over recent years has been outstanding.

The Royal Ballet’s visit to Beijing was remarkable. It received standing ovations every night. It was packed out. By the time of the final performance at the end of the week, the President, Jiang Zemin, had decided that, having heard so much about it, he wanted to come to the ballet. By that time, I think that I was in Kunming. I had to get back straightaway to Beijing so that I could be there to welcome him to the ballet. Not only did Jiang Zemin arrive, but so did the Deputy Prime Minister, 10 Ministers and deputy Ministers and a collection of members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. In all, there were about 50 official guests, all sitting in a row, all leaping to their feet several times during the evening to applaud what was going on on the stage. In the interval, Darcey Bussell came backstage, and the President immediately fell in love with her.

During that interval discussion, I mentioned that over the previous week I had been trying with no success to persuade a number of different ministries and organisations to agree exchanges of television programmes between our two countries. The President looked around at the army of officials who were sitting against the wall and said, “That would be a very good idea”, and they immediately wrote it down in their notebooks. At the end of the evening, the ambassador, who was with me, turned to me and said, “This is the most impressive show of engagement with our country that we have ever seen from the Chinese Government. It has been the most remarkable event”.

Two days later, NATO bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Thousands of protesters surrounded the British embassy in Beijing for the following week. The Ministry of Culture in Beijing phoned DCMS two days into those demonstrations to say, “Things are not terribly good between our two countries at the moment, but we just wanted to say how much we had appreciated the visit of the Secretary of State and the Royal Ballet. For us, culture is different”. Of course, within a year, relations between Britain and China had been substantially repaired.

The third incident that I want to mention took place just a couple of months ago. On behalf of the British Council I went to Slovakia to lead a series of discussions about support for the creative industries in that country. Not only did we have extremely good discussions about the importance of the creative industries and how they can be nurtured and supported, but with us was someone from the Ministry of Culture in Estonia, who said that over the past two or three years his country had been following a programme that the British Council had helped to put together of mapping, support, education and investment in the creative industries. He said how successful the programme had been.

From these various experiences I draw just two or three lessons. The first is the enormous importance of a number of key institutions. Noble Lords from all sides of the House have already spoken of these. They include the BBC World Service. It is remarkable that voices from all parts of the House have said to the Government that they really do have to think again about the cuts in funding that are now being experienced by the BBC World Service. The BBC World Service is far too precious and we should not lose what we have in that remarkable institution. These key institutions include the British Council and major arts organisations; all are facing financial stringency. They also include the best and finest of our universities. The decision of the Government to place a cap on the number of foreign students who can come to study at our universities is simply crazy. It sits alongside the even crazier decision to abandon all funding for arts and humanities teaching at our universities. The importance of nurturing and sustaining these institutions is something that we need to put at the forefront of our policy-making.

Secondly, the Motion before us specifically highlights the need to co-ordinate better between departments—the DCMS, the Foreign Office, UK Trade & Investment, BIS and the Department for Education. There needs to be much more joint working to ensure that we can make the best of the great strengths that we have in this country. There also needs to be joint working between the institutions themselves, by getting the BBC World Service, the British Council and the universities to work more closely and effectively together.

Thirdly, we need to reassert at the heart of government how crucial all this is. It is not just about co-ordination; it is also about leadership and making sure that someone at the heart of government at a senior level is leading the way in ensuring that all this happens. As a country, we are rightly ready to step up to the plate, to do what it takes and to pay what is needed when hard power is necessary. We should do the same, feel the same and act the same when it comes to soft power, too.

Legislative Reform (Civil Partnership) Order 2011

Lord Smith of Finsbury Excerpts

Monday 7th February 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, this order was laid before the House on 25 October last year under negative resolution procedures with an Explanatory Memorandum as required for all statutory instruments. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, under the chair of the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester, considered this draft reform on 10 November 2010 and concluded that the proposal met the tests set out for LROs in the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006, that it was appropriate to proceed as an LRO and that the negative procedure was appropriate in this case.

However, when the Regulatory Reform Committee in the other House considered the draft on 9 November 2010, it concluded that, although the draft order is uncontroversial—all statutory preconditions and tests have been met—and would not prejudice any existing protection, the proposals contained in the LRO were more than a de minimis change in the law, so the order should be raised to the affirmative resolution procedure.

Section 210(1)(b) of the Civil Partnership Act 2004, in specifically designating that the registration officer must be a UK-based diplomatic officer, does not allow for flexibility in those consular sections within an overseas British post where there are no longer any UK-based diplomatic officers and where civil partnership registration is a service that can be provided. The FCO has been going through a programme of localisation, including regrading of staff. Where there has previously been a consular officer who is a member of Her Majesty’s Diplomatic Service, in some posts there are now only locally engaged staff, and for consular customers resident in such consular districts, we can no longer undertake civil partnership registrations as often as we did previously.

The change in the order will allow locally engaged non-diplomatic consular officers, at any post that is affected by the localisation programme, to be nominated to undertake the registration of civil partnerships and civil partnership ceremonies. The amendment will not affect other aspects of civil partnership registration overseas, which can be undertaken only if local authorities do not object. This will also address two current disparities. First, staff of equal seniority have different powers. Depending on the local circumstances, a consul or vice-consul may be a Diplomatic Service officer or a local member of staff. For example, the vice-consul in Tokyo can undertake this work while the vice consul in Sydney cannot just because one is a member of the Diplomatic Service and the other is a member of the local staff. Secondly, Parliament empowers local members of staff to conduct marriages but, at present, does not empower local staff to conduct civil partnerships.

I am satisfied that the order is compatible with the rights contained in the European Convention on Human Rights. This order is important but, I trust, non-controversial. I hope that it will receive the full support of the Committee.

[Lord Smith of Finsbury]

My Lords, I want to contribute briefly to the discussion on this proposed order because I think I am right in saying that I am the first Member of your Lordships' House to enter into a civil partnership, as I did nearly 5 years ago. I regard it as one of the most progressive and forward-looking steps that we, in this country, have taken over the course of the past decade or so.

The order is wholly welcome. It makes a relatively minor and sensible change in enabling the performance of a civil partnership ceremony to take place where consular staff are locally drawn, rather than originally based here in the UK. This will enable more civil partnerships to take place. It is therefore a very good thing.

However, the debate enables us to reflect on the interesting table attached to the order and its Explanatory Notes that set out the status regarding civil partnerships in a whole range of different countries across the world. There are of course some countries where homophobia is not only rife but encouraged at the moment. We have only to think of some of the very distressing occurrences in Uganda recently to know that that is the case. Sadly, I suspect that it will be many years before we are able to see civil partnerships performed for British nationals in Uganda.

There are many countries across the world, some of which are full members of the European Union, where British nationals resident in that country would not be permitted to perform a civil partnership ceremony under the auspices of the British consul. I hope that the Government will continue to make representations to those Governments where we might have a degree of influence, either through common membership of the European Union or from old Commonwealth ties, to ensure that a more progressive and liberal approach to the possibility of civil partnerships is gradually taken in some of these countries. It would be very interesting to hear from the Minister exactly what steps are being taken in that respect.

Having said that, I believe that this order is entirely welcome. I fully support it. It is a sensible measure and I am very pleased that the Government are bringing it forward.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, I, too, am very happy to see this order. Perhaps I may say that this is the most sympathetic, human and humane Explanatory Memorandum to any parliamentary document that I have ever seen. I was very impressed at the account of what some individuals did to assist the situation using free time in their diaries. I suspect that the high commissioner who was so helpful in Brisbane is well known to Members of this House. I would have expected no less of her, but it was nice to read about it.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Smith, I, too, am concerned about the wider issue. I appreciate that the Minister is not in a position to do more than make sympathetic noises to these representations. Nevertheless, it is right that we should do so. I was almost as much as anything dismayed at the list of countries in the table which did not reply, but which it was believed would object. That says a great deal.

I hope and would encourage the Government to work as far as they can at the recognition of civil partnerships in those countries. The UK recognises a number of overseas same-sex partnership schemes across and beyond Europe, but this is not widely reciprocated. This order is extremely welcome.