Burning of Peat Moorlands

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I would be very happy to commit to discussing and sharing the evidence we have with the noble Baroness, and to hear whatever ideas she has on this issue, but we are determined as a Government to achieve a solution through legislation and other means. I would be very happy to have those discussions with her at any time.

[Lord Teverson (LD) [V]]

My Lords, as the Minister will know, peatlands are one of the most important terrestrial carbon sinks that we have. Apart from burning, peat extraction is a major issue for the health of those peatlands. Will the Government, in their consideration of future peat management, also ban the use of peat for horticultural purposes and its import, as the climate change committee has recommended?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

It is an extremely important point and an issue I have followed closely for some time. The noble Lord makes a compelling case. I shall take his remarks back to the department and share them with the Secretary of State.

On a related note, the main argument of the upland partnership, which does not favour a burning ban, is that burning sequesters carbon in the form of charcoal. That is an area of disputed science and there are strong opinions on both sides, but it does not alter our opinion that burning damages the blanket bog habitat. We think that the best way to meet our nature recovery and climate targets is through healthy habitats and well-functioning ecosystems.

Biodiversity

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2020 Lords Chamber

Tabled by

[Lord Teverson]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, following the report by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, A lost decade for nature, published on 14 September, what action they are taking (1) to reverse biodiversity loss in the United Kingdom, and (2) to meet the Aichi Biodiversity Targets.

[Baroness Parminter (LD) [V]]

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Teverson, and with his permission, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.

South Sudan

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Teverson]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussions they are having at the United Nations to help to stabilise the situation in South Sudan.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Anelay of St Johns) (Con)]

My Lords, we are deeply concerned about the ongoing crisis in South Sudan. Through the UN, we continue to work with our partners to strengthen the UN Mission in South Sudan to carry out its mandate effectively, focusing in particular on the protection of civilians. In the UN Security Council, we continue to consider actions to help work towards peace, including a possible UN arms embargo or targeted sanctions against those who continue to block peace negotiations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I very much welcome the Minister’s statement. While the tragedy in Syria has been unfolding, an unsung but equal tragedy has been happening in sub-Saharan Africa. Since July, a third of a million refugees have gone to Uganda alone. Will the Minister assure the House that the Government will continue to press in the Security Council for regional stability through Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya and Sudan itself, so that the legitimate Government of South Sudan can get stability and start to move forward in this so far tragic newest state of Africa?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

I am absolutely ready to give that undertaking, and I am glad to hear the noble Lord’s support. He is right that this has been, in a sense, an almost forgotten tragedy. I am very much reminded of the report by the chair of the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan, Yasmin Sooka, when she said that,

“it is conceivable that the scale of sexual violence … already matches that of the Bosnian war—and yet we rarely hear about it”.

European Union Referendum Bill

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I sometimes wonder how we got to this situation. Some of the things that the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, said are absolutely right, about the duplicity that there has been in politics on all sides about the referendum. Having said that, as a Liberal Democrat and someone who, like most of my party, is very much in favour of Europe, wants to see the development of Europe and a successful Britain within a successful Europe, I am hugely disappointed that, during this period of focus groups in politics and trying to find out what people and electorates are thinking when manifestos are put together, Europe peaked at only number 10 or 11 rather than somewhere near the top of the list of electoral issues that people felt were important. Yet this—not health, the economy or even migration—is the area on which we have a referendum, due to a very hostile press and a strong campaign by a minority of people, particularly in the Conservative Party. So it is a strange place for a democracy to be.

Just to correct something said by the Minister, there may have been lots of referenda elsewhere in the European Union, usually around treaty changes, but none of them was an in/out referendum. On the challenge to us as Liberal Democrats made by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, it was of course only when Liberal Democrats were in government, ironically, that we legislated for the circumstances in which there would be a referendum on European issues, which effectively would have been an in/out referendum. So the party can stand fairly tall in that area.

The big challenge of the European Union referendum is that, once we go through the process—first of all winning it, because the consequences of not winning it, as has been said so well from the Labour Benches, will be fundamental and irreversible for Britain’s future as a unitary state and its position in the world—we need to make sure that we do not have the situation that we already seem to have in Scotland, whereby people ask for a second, third or fourth referendum. I am sure that those who lose the referendum, if it is lost—or if it is gained but the result is very uncertain, but the vote is to stay in—will still campaign for new referenda. We have to make sure that we do not become a second-class member of the European Union through our negotiations and that, if we win the referendum, there is a determination from the Prime Minister and his successors that Britain takes Europe seriously and we participate as fully as we can, even with the exclusions that we have, and take our role in Europe, in which leading it has to be part. Over the past few years, we have lost that leadership.

As the noble Lord, Lord Jay, said, we can see that in Ukraine; we have not figured at all in those negotiations. It seems a great irony to me that, particularly as soon we will be celebrating and thinking about the end of the Great War in 1918—we are halfway through that cycle at the moment—part of the reason for that war and British foreign policy for many years has been stopping continental domination by a single power. By our having shown that we have a very slight, difficult and reserved position on our role in Europe, we have handed that position to Germany and Angela Merkel. We now have a Europe that is quite unhealthy in terms of German domination. The greater irony, of course, is that this is the last thing that Angela Merkel and Germany want. It is really important for not just Europe’s position in the world but our own to make sure that through this referendum, if it is won and we stay in Europe, we fulfil our role there.

Another lesson from the coalition period was when my then colleague, the right honourable Ed Davey, led on much of the negotiations for the Paris treaty on climate change later this year. By fully engaging and leading and working closely with other major European nations, the European Union was able once again to lead in the run-up to those negotiations, and Britain was at the front in getting an EU position. So it can work.

The franchise is clearly going to be a major part of the debate in Committee and on Report. I just looked at the figures in the Scottish referendum and there was something that said that participation among 16 to 17 year-olds was not as great as among people my age—but it was 75%. To me, the interesting thing was that in the age group above that—the 18 to 24 year-olds, the ones who entered politics, if you like, at 18 and were able to vote—participation was only 54%. That shows that if you get engagement early, that is an opportunity for these people to take an interest in the political system. It is important for this referendum, particularly because these people will be affected by the decision far, far more than me and many people in this House.

I also ask the Government to reconsider the franchise for UK nationals abroad. On page 49 of the Conservative manifesto, it says:

“We will introduce votes for life, scrapping the rule that bars British citizens who have lived abroad for more than 15 years from voting”.

That was a manifesto commitment. The Government have an opportunity to do that now and I ask them to comply with the Salisbury convention and make sure that they do not vote against the manifesto of the winning party in the general election.

The only other area I want to mention, which has been highlighted already, is that we do not know what the alternatives are to being a member of the European Union. I have this wonderful device on my iPhone, as, I am sure, do many of your Lordships. It is called TomTom and I can put it up in my car and it guides me to where I am going, which is quite useful because, like many Members, I go all over the country to visit people. If I go off-course or I change course, miraculously this little computer in my iPhone redirects me down the new route to where I am going. There is certainty; I know where I am going and that I will get to my destination. That is absolutely not the case in this referendum and we must make sure that this area is discussed fully.

Finally, when Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour Party, the Prime Minister put out a tweet saying:

“The Labour Party is now a threat to our national security, our economic security and your family’s security”.

I thought that was rather pathetic and it demeaned the office of Prime Minister. The fact is, I am afraid, that Jeremy Corbyn is very unlikely to ever become Prime Minister. David Cameron is Prime Minister and the EU referendum affects all those areas of threat. As Prime Minister, David Cameron has a huge responsibility to deliver this referendum positively and I sincerely hope he will be able to do that.

European Union: Reform

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Thursday 6th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Lord still fails to see the benefits that we have achieved by our membership of the EU, but also the achievements that we need to have through reform to make sure that we can continue to be a successful member. That is where we want to be. We want to see the EU reformed with us as a strong member of it, and other countries recognise that it needs reform. As to leaving it—not now.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, in relation to freedom of movement negotiations, have the Government made any calculation about what effect this might have on the 2 million British citizens who live in the rest of the European Union? If they were repatriated, what would happen to social services and the National Health Service infrastructure in this country?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

That is the kind of question that members of UKIP should think about before they go campaigning.

European Union: United Kingdom MEPs

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

This matter has been reiterated on a number of occasions. In my previous job as party chairman, I had many dealings with the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists. I think that the noble Lord will have to accept that there is change across Europe and that there are many more political parties that are aligned with the view that reform is needed, and that reform goes beyond what some of the parties within the EPP think.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, coming back to my noble friend’s previous answer, is not the real issue that, while our Prime Minister is trying to negotiate critical issues for this country in the European Union, Conservative MEPs have signed up to a group with Alternative für Deutschland, which is a major irritant to Chancellor Merkel? Is that not clearly a national own goal in terms of our own interests and our present relationships?

[Baroness Warsi]

My Lords, I think I made my position clear. The Conservative Party’s position on this matter is clear. We have only one sister party in Germany and that is on the record.

China: Air Defence Identification Zone

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I am very grateful indeed to the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, for bringing this subject to the Floor of the House, because it has always been my estimation, given that the Iranian situation is perhaps moving towards a position of being resolved—or at least the heat is coming out of it—that this area of relations in the East and South China Seas is the most dangerous part of the globe in terms of its potential effects.

I wanted to engage in this debate also because when our Prime Minister recently visited China, the press coverage—it may not have been the fault of No. 10’s efforts—gave no mention of this dispute, even in the serious newspapers, and instead centred on trade. I would be interested to hear from the Minister what conversations took place during that visit in late December, or whenever it was, about the incident we are discussing. Clearly, this has the potential to be a major world problem. Not only are there disputes in the East and South China Seas but there is a territorial claim involving Arunachal Pradesh in north-east India. That, too, has been dealt with using what to us sophisticated diplomats in the western world seem to be unsophisticated changes in policy, or unexpected and sudden very fierce positions, that make everyone in the region nervous.

I used to be a director of the UK-Japan 21st Century Group, which involves a number of people in this House, as well as academics and industrialists. It is very sympathetic towards Japan which, as other Members have said, must be our strongest ally, and which is involved in our closest relationships in the Far East in all sorts of ways. However, I do not think that Japan has necessarily been completely correct in the way it has sometimes dealt with this. The purchase of the islands, which in some ways may have provoked this dispute, was perhaps not done in the best way that it could have been. There was surely going to be some sort of Chinese reaction. Japan has altered its own air defence identification zone a couple of times since it was established after the war. I do not suspect that it talked to China about that at the time.

More recently, of course, we had the visit by Prime Minister Abe to the war shrine, which everybody knew was going to be—again—provocative. Never mind what official Chinese government views are: clearly, the memory of the invasion of China by Japan in the 1930s and the 1940s is still very strongly in the minds of the Chinese people, with all the atrocities that happened at that time. There is still a great deal of understandable resentment of that period of history.

Added to that—not a tinder-box as yet, but a concern—is the very real United States pivot towards the Pacific, which affects Europe, the western hemisphere and our own defence requirements. It has resulted in changes in defence arrangements with Australia. China itself, through its own actions, is starting to see this as a move towards encirclement. This is clearly something it sees as a problem in relation to its own national security. Of course, we would look at that and say, “That is clearly provoked by a number of China’s own actions, and the ASEAN states are themselves going to be nervous and look for outside help, primarily from the United States and its strengthened relationship with the Pacific Rim because of these changes”.

As the noble Lord has just said, China sees itself as having had 100 years of humiliation and, as a result of that, there are all sorts of difficult diplomatic tasks. I was privileged to chair this House’s European Union Sub-Committee on External Affairs. We visited China three and a half years ago, looking at EU-China relations. There were a couple of things that really came out to me during that visit. One was meeting a retired senior military man at one of the Beijing universities. On the whole, when you go to China, you do not meet any officials who say anything that has not been agreed beforehand, and he was extremely positive in his own regard when he stated that one of China’s aims was to see the US Sixth Fleet banished from the East China Sea. That was clearly something he was putting forward to us; it was obviously not official Chinese government policy, but a view of how he saw the future. There are, therefore, a number of issues about the future that we can be very pessimistic about.

As the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, said, I would like to hear the Minister’s views on the fairly strong statement made by Catherine Ashton—the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton of Upholland—on behalf of the EU, soon after the air defence zone was declared. Europe has in many ways a soft-power ability here; it certainly does not have a hard-power ability in respect to this region, but it does have the ability perhaps, as a non-threatening power in the world, to help China in some way through the diplomacy that is needed in this region.

Some people in Europe still see China—although I would not describe it as such—as an adolescent power in respect of being able to deal with worldwide diplomacy and as a great power; they say it still has a lot to learn. That is clearly a patronising way of putting it, but China is moving from being a defender of the developing world to being a great power again itself. It needs to make those adjustments and perhaps it needs help.

Sometimes, the situation in the Pacific is seen as equivalent to 100 years ago—1914—in Europe. Clearly, that is an exaggeration. But as the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, and others have already said, the formula is there. The circumstances are there for many mistakes to be made and for actions to happen that are not intended. I still see this as one of the challenges for the globe and a way in which Europe can involve itself over the next few years.

European Union (Referendum) Bill

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Friday 10th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, made the interesting comment that this issue is not party political. I agree that the fundamental issue is not party political, but the Bill is completely party political. It is not a government Bill, it is certainly not an opposition Bill; it is a Bill of the Conservative Party.

In the past—certainly during my membership of the Liberal Democrats—we have been accused of being the party that obsesses about Europe. We were always accused of putting Europe or discussion about internationalism first and our own nation second. As a party, we have grown up. We have gone through that adolescent stage. We are now a party of government, but a party that puts things in proportion. I regret that our coalition partners seem to have gone in the opposite direction in terms of obsession which, together with our popular press, gives a very tempting and addictive formula that means that the issue of Europe starts to dominate our politics in a negative fashion.

Some of the most interesting e-mails I get, which do not go into my junk e-mail box, come from a member of my fellow coalition party, the noble Lord, Lord Ashcroft. He does some very interesting polling, which I am sure all of us in this House read. I congratulate the noble Lord on making his information public. He wrote:

“As I found in my research … Europe is not much of a priority even for those who say they might vote”,

for us;

“the EU is just one of the (many) things they are cross about”.

He continues:

“For most voters … Europe barely registers on their list of concerns”.

Those are the poll findings of the noble Lord, Lord Ashcroft.

What are those other concerns? The economy and jobs, welfare payments, migration, which is related to Europe, the deficit and the National Health Service. As someone who believes in democracy and, in some ways, in Parliament reflecting public views, I might ask: what about all those constituencies who want important decisions, whether different decisions or to endorse decisions on those areas? I see no request for referenda in those areas. I therefore question why this issue is quite so urgent as to bring a Bill to this Parliament at this time.

I will clarify the Liberal Democrat position again. My noble friend Lord Watson of Richmond did that absolutely adequately but there seem to be some questions about it. Before I do that, let me move on to two other things. A number of proponents of the Bill have said that we should not in any way contest the sovereignty of the House of Commons. Clearly, that is a good principle. However, I remind a number of those proponents that there was a Second Reading vote in the last Session of Parliament which had a parliamentary majority of 338. That was for the House of Lords Reform Bill. Why did that not come into this House? It was because a cabal of Back-Benchers within the Conservative Party had a discussion with the Prime Minister and that Bill went no further whatever. So I question the sanctity of majorities in the other House. I believe they are important, but in that case it certainly did not happen.

In terms of amendments to the Bill, I, too, agree that until this House is abolished or changed—I would certainly welcome a change—it needs to carry out its responsibilities. We are always reminded of the Dangerous Dogs Act and the bad legislation that has been passed, although maybe some Members of the other place would see it more as the dangerous frogs Act in this case, given the difficulties that we have with some of our European partners.

What is the Liberal Democrat position? First, I make it absolutely clear that our manifesto in 2010 said:

“Liberal Democrats … remain committed to an in/out referendum the next time a British government signs up for fundamental change in the relationship between the UK and the EU”.

We pretty well have that now in legislation, having worked with our coalition colleagues to deliver it through this House. We were successful as a coalition in passing that legislation. We as a party have always said that it needs to be about not just that treaty but an “in or out” question. I suspect that my coalition colleagues would agree with that as well. We are united; so I question the need for the Bill.

We also agree that Europe requires change and reform, whether on budget expenditure, the ridiculous situation of having two parliamentary seats, the common agricultural policy or employment issues. There is also the obtaining of all those worldwide free trade agreements, such as the one with North America. That started with Canada and we wish now to conclude it with the United States. All those are important but we need to negotiate with our 27 other partners. We saw under the fiscal pact back in December 2011 what happens when you tell your partners that you will do something different—they will go off and get on with it themselves, except maybe for the Czech Republic on that occasion. We were then isolated and that is not the way to approach these matters. I suggest that there is also a golden rule in negotiation: that you do not insult the citizens of the nations that you are trying to negotiate with, because internal conversations and debates within the United Kingdom are looked upon carefully in other member states.

The key issue at the moment is that, yes, we will at some point have to have a referendum about the EU. That is a Liberal Democrat policy and I believe in it strongly. We need to lance that boil. We also need a negotiation which is led through real leadership to show that we are a European nation that can meet the expectations of our partners, let alone our own. So we should show real leadership, obtain a real negotiation and a real improvement for all of Europe. Rather than having a referendum now, we can achieve one then. I am sure that it will be positive, but I am also willing to take the risk that it might be negative.

Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Wednesday 26th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I briefly declare an interest as a director of three SMEs.

Every week when I come to this House and join your Lordships, I leave home and come to a different atmosphere, but until last year I had never been tempted to go speed-dating to fill up my time. However, last year I was, and I took a trip down the M4 to a speed-dating service in Bristol, organised by UKTI, as a member of one of the companies that I am associated with. I went to a hotel where there were some 40 advisors from different nations, right across the globe. I spoke to people from Austria, the Netherlands, Ethiopia and Argentina. There was a fantastic variety; some of them were Brits who were based in embassies, but many were foreign nationals based in our embassies—and it was really exciting. The noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, has mentioned some of these occasions. We spoke to around 10 of these advisors; it was very well organised, and we have followed some of those up. I will come back to that later.

I congratulate UKTI on that experience. The great thing about the Passport to Export programme was that it had a good balance to it, and it gave you opportunities as you went through it—not completely at the taxpayer’s expense. You had to contribute to it yourself, so you took some responsibility for the outcomes. You met other people in different sectors who had gone through those experiences before, so you learnt and found out about the export business. Information barriers and risks were explained and taken away, so you had a much better ease into that market. This is all essential for smaller companies and organisations.

At that time, I was also a member of a Local Enterprise Partnership in the south-west. Some research done on behalf of LEPs more broadly was very factual and pointed; in reality, the factors which determined whether an SME was a good exporter were whether it invested sufficiently in research and development, and whether its products and staff were knowledge-led. It helped if it was in a cluster of businesses in the area that thought in a similar way, and whether that cluster had connections to other growth areas in the globe. However, the key factor as to whether you were going to be good at exporting was, I regret to say, size. The larger you are, the more you are able to commit resources and be able to negotiate barriers to moving out into export markets. That is one of the things that, in terms of my work with the Local Enterprise Partnership, made me think about SMEs.

I am going to commit complete heresy in this forum. In some ways, SMEs have acquired a sainthood in British politics and beyond over the last 15 years. They are an incredibly important part of our economy, but most of them are risk-averse, lifestyle businesses; they deal only with local, not even national markets. I would accuse the so-called entrepreneurs—although we used to call them “capitalist pigs” when we were students in the 1970s—of not actually playing the role which their staff, their colleagues and employees deserve, which is to grow those businesses. There are huge numbers of exceptions in Cornwall, where I come from, and the noble Lord, Lord Cope, mentioned some fantastic examples of successful businesses that export and work worldwide, through the internet or whatever. I would disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, when he said that we should concern ourselves with those businesses that cannot get their heads around IT. If they cannot do that, they should either not be in business or should be written off as potential exporters. Let us concentrate on those entrepreneurs who really want to move forward, take sensible risks and give their employees the opportunity to develop their careers.

I come to the message that I want to put over this evening. We talk a lot about corporate business, which I was privileged to be a part of in the early part of my career, and SMEs, but we forget the mid-sized businesses and some of the medium-sized businesses at the top end of this category. Companies that have a turnover of £10 million to £100 million and have 50 to 500 staff account for only 1% of UK businesses but they have 20% of business turnover and 16% of employees. This says something about their efficiency and how they work. I congratulate the CBI, for which this is not natural territory in our minds, for bringing out a report called Future Champions around this area. Was this a clever invention? No. If we look to Germany or even to France, we see that this sector of business is the engine of their economies. The Mittelstand—and it sounds as if the committee went and saw some of this—is the engine of the German economy and is excellent at exporting. Those businesses tend to use local supply but export globally; they think globally, but act locally. They tend to have quality products, niche markets and highly skilled employees, which gives them a higher earning capacity. They tend to be more in the manufacturing area, which causes rebalancing. Most importantly, for people like me who come from the regions, they are far more geographically dispersed than large businesses and, perhaps, some small businesses as well. They also tend to allow their staff to have real career progression within the organisation. If things are difficult, they tend to have deeper pockets and financial substance.

France and Germany have learnt the importance of that sector in driving their economies forward, yet we hear almost nothing about it in the UK. The noble Lord, Lord Haskel, is absolutely right about KfW, the big bank which helps promote these, SMEs and green technology. I welcome the attempts of BIS to start that sort of process here as well. I ask the Government not to forget the middle-sized business community in the UK, which could be an excellent area of growth and export. SMEs are vital. The good news is that the company I went speed-dating with in Bristol will, next week, be recruiting its first person to concentrate on exports. I am pleased to say that she is a Spanish-speaking Brit, and that the company will be looking not just within the European mainland but to South America. Do not forget the middle-sized companies and let us make sure that we help the SMEs which want to move forward and take their staff with them, but let us leave the lifestyle ones to get on with life.

G8 Meeting

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I very much welcome the Government’s decision to concentrate on west Africa. It is an area where drug and human trafficking are a great problem. What do the Government intend to do in terms of stabilising democracy in some of these nations, for instance in Mali, Niger and Guinea-Bissau, to stop the problems escalating in future?

[Baroness Warsi]

The recent tragic events earlier this year in Algeria and Mali showed that different nations have different expertise that they can bring to the table. It is obvious that wherever there are ungoverned spaces, that is where the threat of extremism starts to rise. We have seen that in Mali. The discussions at this G8 will be about how we can harness that expertise from different nations and bring it together to be able to come forward with solutions for these areas which are proving to be extremely challenging.