Procedure and Privileges

Debate between Lord Stoneham of Droxford and Baroness Buscombe

Monday 25th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe (Con)]

My Lords, I would like to make a short point that I hope will be helpful to the House. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, referred to the question that many of us have asked over many years—I have been here nearly 24 years—which is: who is running this place? Some of that is answered to some degree in a report published on 27 January called House of Lords External Management Review. This report followed a review by individuals who are not Members of this House who spoke to Members of your Lordships’ House and others beyond.

I urge all noble Lords to read this report. It has sat on a shelf, but I think the commission has collectively chosen to cherry pick its recommendations and move ahead with them without any consultation with the House. I have felt really unhappy since I read the report. Some aspects of it are good but an awful lot of it simply does not understand this place. I love this House, but it is being diminished, without noble Lords being given the opportunity to reflect and consider.

Change is not always bad; sometimes change is good. But some of the changes proposed in this report I believe destroy what noble Lords have talked about today about this being a collegiate place. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, talked about the collective spirit. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is always upbeat about the possibilities of what this House can do and achieve. But sometimes I just do not want to be here anymore. I cannot believe that I am actually saying that in your Lordships’ House. It is a sad thing.

My noble friend the Senior Deputy Speaker, along with officials, is doing a really difficult and challenging job, particularly in this climate. Whatever the outcome of today, I beg him to consider letting us have in the very near future—but not too quickly; I want all noble Lords to have the opportunity to read and digest this report, which I believe contains recommendations that are being carried out without any reference to us—a proper debate on the report’s recommendations, so that we think about possible changes and take note of some changes that have already been made. I gather we have already employed a chief operating officer. We also need to take note that this report says that it finds the commission itself wanting in a number of ways. Why are those ways not being fixed before the commission makes decisions as a result of the report? It is all a bit back to front.

I urge noble Lords to support my suggestion that we have a debate in the near future so that we can move forward together and all continue to feel that this, as Garter said to me when I came to this House all those years ago, is our second home. I should be able to treat it as such, feel that I am part of it and that we are all working together.

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, am a member of the committee, but one of those who has thought for some while that we were rushing too quickly away from the virtual voting system, particularly when the virus is not under control. Therefore, I am pleased that people are saying today that we should continue with that system until we have a proper system to replace it. In that sense, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Taylor. When we started this debate, I thought that trying to do this before Christmas was slightly mad, in that the situation was not under control. As has happened, we have annoyed the House in doing so, as we have appeared to rush it and put in another interim system, when one thing that people do not like is a whole series of partial changes. The Senior Deputy Speaker has proposed the solution of taking this back so that we can have a fuller consultation and take our time. In the circumstances of where we are with the virus, that will be a very good thing.

Employment and Support Allowance

Debate between Lord Stoneham of Droxford and Baroness Buscombe

Thursday 18th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, first, I will respond to the noble Baroness by referencing passported benefits, which are of course the responsibility of each government department. It would be impractical for the DWP to undertake an exercise to uncover who might have been entitled to those other passported benefits. However, we are talking to other departments to make them aware of the issue. In terms of compensation, it is important to make it very clear that no one saw a cash reduction when they were transferred to ESA. This is about extra money that they might have been entitled to. Also, it is really important to explain that we are learning lessons from this. The key lesson is that it is a mistake to try to prepopulate information without being in touch with claimants. It is very important for us to make sure, when we are changing benefits or introducing new benefits, that we do so in a way that involves working with claimants so that, rather than trying to be clever with a seamless process, we actually engage. That is what we are doing now, with what will be 800 people working with claimants to get this right.

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)]

My Lords, this announcement is a stark warning that a botched transition, which very sadly took place under the coalition, can leave vulnerable people thousands of pounds out of pocket for years to come. As the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, has just said, in the move to universal credit, we must take more care. What lessons are the Government learning from this mistake for the big changes to come and what new safeguards are they putting in place? In particular, will the Government amend the proposed Universal Credit (Transitional Provisions) (Managed Migration) Amendment Regulations 2018 so that claimants are transferred automatically from legacy benefits such as income-related employment and support allowance to universal credit?

[Baroness Buscombe]

First, I want to make it clear that we are constantly looking at how we can make our procedures more robust. In fact, our Permanent Secretary is in discussion with the Public Accounts Committee about how we can do this. The key lesson that we have very much taken on board in developing our processes and our thoughts on managed migration is—as I have just said, and I will repeat it—that it is important that we engage properly with the claimants and that we do not have a system that is entirely automatic without the opportunity to understand up-to-date data, information and circumstances with regard to each and every claimant. That is to ensure that claimants do not lose out on benefits to which they are entitled, unlike the legacy benefits, which about 700,000 people are not receiving. That is about £2.4 billion because there is not sufficient contact.

Local Welfare Assistance

Debate between Lord Stoneham of Droxford and Baroness Buscombe

Monday 11th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe]

No, my Lords. The Government believe that councils are best placed to decide how to support local welfare needs. Local authorities in England will receive more than £200 billion to deliver those and other community services between this year and 2019-20, and will have the certainty to plan ahead through our four-year funding settlement.

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)]

According to the report from the Centre for Responsible Credit, in one year, my own city of Portsmouth has reduced the amount it spends on welfare assistance from £700,000 to £30,000. Do the Government intend to review the impact of these sorts of changes? If not, why not?

[Baroness Buscombe]

It is important that I stress again that, under the national system, there are strong safeguards in place. We expect local authorities to concentrate the funding on those facing the greatest difficulty in managing their income and to enable a more flexible response to an unavoidable need, perhaps through a mix of cash or goods and aligning with the wider range of local support that local authorities’ devolved administrations already offer. In short, the funding is to allow them to give flexible help to those in genuine need.

Benefit Rate Freeze

Debate between Lord Stoneham of Droxford and Baroness Buscombe

Monday 30th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, as I have said to noble Lords opposite, we do care, but we are absolutely clear that work is the best way to get children, in particular, out of poverty. That is why we want to incentivise work, which is the best route, but we need to focus on making sure that people see their wages rise and take home more of their pay packet once they are in work. Our reforms include increasing the national living wage for workers aged 25 and over, cutting income tax for over 30 million people and extending free childcare for working parents.

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)]

My Lords, the Government never anticipated that inflation would be double what it was when they originally introduced this freeze on working-age benefits. If they are prepared to look again at public sector pay, why will they not look at working-age benefits?

[Baroness Buscombe]

I think I said that we are already spending over £95 billion on benefits for people of working age, but we have to ensure that that is fair also to the taxpayer and that it encourages people into work. Before we brought in the Welfare Reform and Work Act, the inflation rate, for example, for most working-age out-of-work benefits, such as jobseeker’s allowance, went up by 21% between 2008 and 2015, while earnings rose by 12%. We want to incentivise work, which we know is the best route out of poverty.

Pension Protection Fund and Pensions Regulator

Debate between Lord Stoneham of Droxford and Baroness Buscombe

Thursday 13th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe]

I entirely accept what my noble friend has proposed; I am very much hoping that this will be part of the many issues covered in the White Paper.

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)]

Surprisingly, the section of the Conservative manifesto on protecting private pensions did not mention George Osborne’s policy of enabling people to cash in their pensions, which was introduced without very much consultation. Today’s FT says that this change is not,

“a palpable fiasco, but the early signs do not look promising”.

So what are the Government doing to protect people from being duped—or was this simply a short-term measure to raise tax revenue?

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I too read the article in the Financial Times this morning. The truth is that these pension freedoms are proving very popular. However, they raise important issues around the operation of the market and how we support consumers, so we will be working with the Financial Conduct Authority on the next steps to address this issue.

Media: News Corporation

Debate between Lord Stoneham of Droxford and Baroness Buscombe

Friday 15th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford]

My Lords, I have to declare an interest as a former group production director and personnel director for News International eight years ago, and a beneficiary of the News International pension scheme. As someone who spent his life in newspapers, I am saddened by the developments of the past few weeks and the impact on the reputations of all those who work in the newspaper sector. The only encouraging factor which should not be forgotten is that it was the determination and diligence of other parts of the press that brought this abuse of media power into the public domain.

The News International I worked for was a brilliantly successful operation, producing 5 million newspapers a night. It had transformed the technology and the restrictive practices of the past. All four of its titles had been revamped into vibrant titles. Journalists went to work for News International because the company valued and resourced them. BSkyB has been a brilliantly innovative business and the group employed some of the best in the sector. It was led by the media genius of his age.

What has gone wrong and what can we learn from it? The key is that one of the paradoxes of market capitalism is that success can breed arrogance and complacency. Rupert Murdoch was too brilliant an entrepreneur to allow complacency, but he bred an arrogance culture which has now undermined his company’s reputation. Too much market power was connived at and ignored by the political establishment of this country. That fed the arrogance of people who thought they were untouchable. It led to overdominant power, where pricing policy, promotional spend and cross-subsidisation of titles all hinted at anti-competitive activity, which was suspected but was never exposed. It meant that established politicians cowered rather than face up to them; it has clearly made some of their staff think they are above the law; and it seduced and compromised the police. Arrogance has grown as they became more dominant and became less subtle.

One of the signs of the changing judgment in the company was the ill-judged decision by the Sun to ditch Gordon Brown’s Labour Government in the middle of the Labour Party conference in 2009, just as it had abandoned John Major ahead of the 1997 general election. It was arrogant; it was ill judged; it was an incitement to the understandable ill will and resentment which has boiled over in the past couple of weeks.

What do we need to do? First, we have to grapple and challenge ownership and size in the media sector. It is the key issue now. The current mood in the country is very much like that in post-war France after the fall of the Vichy regime, when nobody would admit to being a supporter of Marshal Pétain.

Last December, the Business Secretary, whom I am sad that the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, did not mention in her roll of honour, almost alone questioned the dominance of the Murdoch empire. He was prepared to ask whether it is right to accept that 40 per cent of the market is too much for Tesco but not to apply the same principle to News International. News International has become almost too dominant in newspapers. Until a few days ago, we were prepared as a country to complement that press dominance with a similar dominance in broadcasting, where Sky last year spent 50 per cent more on television than the BBC. The figures are stunning: £6 billion against £4 billion.

It is clear that corporate governance is not working in the press media. Did anyone in News International evaluate the damage done to its journalistic brand by compromising journalistic integrity and engaging in criminal behaviour? It is clear they did not. It has compounded that by condoning a seeming cover-up at a senior level. I hope that the recent appointment of a former Labour Home Secretary, David Blunkett, as adviser on corporate social responsibility will not prove too burdensome for him.

This matter is not confined to News International. Other media groups are noticeable by their silence. Why are they not declaring that none of their journalists phone-hacked, bribed policemen or illegally processed personal data? The silence suggests that they know they cannot or they fear the worst.

I was interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Grade, said. There are others, however, calling for the abolition of the Press Complaints Commission. It needs a thorough revamp; it needs to be strengthened; it needs greater independence, proper investigation powers and the ability to enforce corrections and sanctions. If this model can be applied to broadcasters, why cannot it be applied to the press?

It was clearly not in the public interest that Vince Cable was silenced on media issues by the Daily Telegraph in December last year. The PCC declared that the Telegraph conducted “unacceptable subterfuge”. Did Vince Cable get a fulsome public apology from the Telegraph? Did the journalist get disciplined rather than promoted? I simply do not know—and that is why the current system does not have public credibility.

[Baroness Buscombe]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for allowing me to intervene. In declaring my interest as chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, I can confirm that the Daily Telegraph had to publish a full, half-page apology.

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, we have had many problems with the speakers’ list today. I suggest that after the debate would be a better time to answer such questions. The noble Lord should continue.