King’s Speech

Lord Stewart of Dirleton Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)]

My Lords, I renew my welcome to the noble Lord on the Front Bench. As has been recognised by noble Lords across the House and by the right reverend Prelate who commented earlier, he will bring to our deliberations great experience in a number of important areas, including the rehabilitation of prisoners and the training and employment of disadvantaged people, in relation to which he was honoured by the award of the OBE. He is distinguished also in the field of business. We have heard of his work with the Prison Reform Trust, and I understand that he has also distinguished himself in the field of academia, acting as Keele University chancellor. He referred to that in replying to the Statement repeat, and noble Lords across the House—beginning with my noble friend Lord Clarke of Nottingham—went on to speak very warmly of him. We welcome the noble Lord among us.

As the noble Lord said, his work in the field of rehabilitation of offenders builds on the work carried out by the Timpson family, including his father and others. I congratulate him on recognising the importance of families, which over generations provide a focus for endeavours in useful public service and public life—as the selfless service embodied in generations of our hereditary Peers amply demonstrates. I look forward to meeting the noble Lord properly and personally, but I know his brother, with whom I served for a time as a law officer in the previous Administration. We have two parliamentary brothers then, one Labour, one Conservative—a useful reminder to all of us that there are men and women of good will to be found inhabiting every shade of political opinion, and that no one party can command a monopoly of either skill or compassion. Indeed, no merely human body can claim to be an unchallengeable source of wisdom—not even the Cross-Benchers of this noble House, however much some of them sometimes contrive to give that impression.

I am sure that the noble Lord’s relations with his brother demonstrate that love transcends political differences. In that regard, they may resemble my relationship with my own brother. We get on famously, in a spirit of brotherly love, in spite of the fact that I am a carnivorous Tory and he is a vegan Marxist. I say of him, “Robin has some extreme ideas but basically he is a Conservative”. He says of me, “Keith has some extreme ideas but fundamentally he is a Marxist”.

A King’s Speech must necessarily be delivered in general terms and it would be wrong to demand that the noble Lord addresses specific matters in specific detail, but he touched on a number of points which I will do no more than touch on equally lightly in return. The establishment of a new border security command delivering enhanced counterterror powers to tackle organised immigration crime is, on a view, a laudable objective. However, as was pointed out several times during debates in this place on Rwanda legislation, Labour’s position was to call loudly, theatrically and repeatedly for steps the Government were already taking to combat organised criminal gangs and ensure co-operation with our continental neighbours.

The Government, in opposition, stopped short of taking the step that we identified as necessary, drawing on an analogy with the highly successful scheme in operation between Australia and Nauru, to genuinely challenge the criminal gangs. By contrast, that has been ditched. Creating a border security command sounds very much like deploying purposeful, urgent-sounding language to foster the illusion of activity. It sounds like a piece of subterfuge to disguise how out of touch and out of step Labour is with the country and its mood in relation to this vital matter. Instead, a treaty entered into with a sovereign, friendly country has been cast to one side without ceremony. We wait to see what the new border security command will accomplish in the face of that.

The noble Lord touched on the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill. These measures will seek to improve the safety and security of public venues to keep the British public safe from terrorism. The noble Lord, necessarily I think, referred to the Manchester Arena atrocity in that regard. I pledge on behalf of His Majesty’s loyal Opposition that we will work constructively where we can with the Government. We will do precisely what His Majesty’s Government did when they were in opposition; they subjected our proposals to scrutiny and test, and we will do the same. The House would expect no less of us.

I look forward to working with the noble Lord to make sure that the measures he describes do not impose unduly onerous duties on smaller businesses. In particular—I appreciate the noble Lord was careful to set this out but, as always, the devil is in the detail —we must be careful to make sure that it is not only smaller businesses that are excluded, which cannot afford the expenditure of time, money and expertise to conform to regulation which may not be effective in a way that it might be for larger companies, but also the voluntary sector, which is the very backbone of public civic life in our country. If anything prevents one person offering to take a hand in running a church hall or a village hall, to keep alive community life as best they can, that will be a step too far. We look forward to testing these proposals and making sure that they are not unduly burdensome on those who can least of all afford it.

We also look forward to discovering whether, in the wake of the Manchester Arena atrocity, we will have legislation to address other important matters that emerged from it. These include, for example, the response of the emergency services to the first 999 calls and the concern that the venue’s security staff had quite reasonable concerns about the behaviour of the man responsible which they were frightened to air lest they be accused of racism. We will work with His Majesty’s Government to address such a culture and make sure that people draw attention to emergencies in life in the way that they should.

His Majesty’s gracious Speech set out laudable objectives: strengthening community policing, working to address antisocial behaviour, increasing support for victims, control of our streets and tackling minor levels of crime. We look forward to bringing the necessary scrutiny to these proposals. In relation to the offence of assault on a shopworker, which the Minister mentioned specifically, while we recognise the importance of people being able to go to and carry out work protected from harm and in the knowledge that the courts and police will step forward to protect them, is it an appropriate use of legislative time to set out a specific offence of this nature? In the past, it has always been dealt with by the court’s sentencing considerations and by prosecutors’ decisions as to the level of court in which to indite particular cases. I stress that these are matter of details and I look forward to discussing them with the noble Lord.

The gracious Speech also said, somewhat starkly, that His Majesty’s Government will bring forward plans to halve violence against women. Again, this is a laudable aim but such a stark statement is essentially meaningless. We have to caution against the Government speaking as though they really believed that it is possible to accomplish such a pledge, given that it is a hugely complex area involving social, criminological and legal consideration, and suggesting that such a thing could be accomplished by legislative fiat, having set it out in the course of a single sentence.

I listened with interest to the noble Lord’s points about arbitration. Again, we look forward to working closely with His Majesty’s Government on that important matter.

Finally, going back to the concluding days of the previous Parliament, I think I will speak on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, in expressing my regret that the King’s Speech did not specifically feature the litigation funding Bill, which was in Committee when the procedural wash-up began and we moved and expedited only certain Bills. That important measure, which enjoyed cross-party support among all Benches, fell to the floor.

At the risk of repeating myself, I issue a warm welcome to a Minister who, it seems to everyone who contributed to the discussion on the Statement repeat, is extremely well placed to inform our counsels on the important matters for which he now has responsibility.