English Football: Independent Regulator

Lord Trefgarne Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The noble Lord knows Tracey Crouch, the former Sport Minister, as well as I do. She has worked extremely hard in leading the review and is the greatest evidence that it will be followed through. She will see that action is taken. We are glad to accept all 10 strategic recommendations in her report.

[Lord Trefgarne (Con)]

My Lords, will the activities of the regulator be confined to football or might other sports be included; for example, cricket?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

This regulator is solely for football.

Broadcasting White Paper

Lord Trefgarne Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

Yes, I have regular meetings with colleagues in the Department for Education and across government. I have had them in the past and have more coming up imminently. We are discussing these issues across departments so that we can make sure that everybody, whatever their age—whether they are school leavers or people who are changing career—has the opportunity to move into these exciting areas.

[Lord Trefgarne (Con)]

My Lords, is it not the case that the old-fashioned shortwave transmission systems are much more difficult to interfere with than the more modern systems? Therefore, can the BBC be persuaded to concentrate on that system when broadcasting to Ukraine and thereabouts?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

As well as availing themselves of the opportunities which the new media and new technology allow, we recognise that many people still rely on analogue radio services. That is why we have said that it would be wrong to switch those off before 2030, at the earliest. Both the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and DCMS are working with the BBC to maintain the very important work that the World Service is currently doing in Ukraine.

BBC: TV Licence Evasion

Lord Trefgarne Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

As the noble Lord, knows, very few people have been jailed—only five. We are consulting because we think that it is right to look again at whether the criminal sanction is appropriate. There are ongoing concerns that it could be seen as unfair and disproportionate, but at the risk of stating the obvious, the point of a consultation—and this is an open consultation without a recommended approach —is to get to the truth. There is enormous interest. Over 2,000 responses have been received already, and the consultation only opened at 11 am. There is a lot of public interest in this.

The noble Lord rightly probed whether this will be sufficient time. The Government may need to consult further on the detail of any potential changes before taking a decision, but not before we have found out what the public think.

[Lord Trefgarne (Con)]

My Lords, following the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, I heard recently of a case in which an unmarried mother with four children who had not paid her TV licence was sent to prison for a month. Her children had to go into care, with a cost to the public purse of many tens of thousands.

[Baroness Barran]

I am very sorry to hear of that case. As we know, women and people from black and minority ethnic communities are overly represented among those who are sanctioned for evasion. One of the things that we want to explore though this consultation is the impact of a changed approach on those groups.

Data Protection, Privacy and Electronic Communications (Amendments etc) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Lord Trefgarne Excerpts

Monday 18th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis]

That raises the issue of why that is not in any of the information before your Lordships. I was not aware of that at all. It is not flagged up in any of the documentation. Like other noble Lords, I appreciate hugely the work done by our Select Committees but the committee’s view is not always completely clear to the House when these instruments come before it, unless the committee has issued a formal report. We do not get full value from our Select Committees in the way that their work is presented. For instance, I am surprised that the chairs of these Select Committees do not comment on these instruments based on the committees’ work. I see that one of the chairs is sitting opposite; perhaps he would like to intervene.

[Lord Trefgarne (Con)]

All I can say at the moment is that the letter to which the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, referred has not gone quite yet.

[Lord Rooker]

That is because of a dispute between the two chairs. Sub-Committee B agreed in discussions last week about the terms of that letter and will meet tomorrow. I do not know what has happened today in Sub-Committee A, but Sub-Committee B made a decision, based on the statutory instruments it saw, to object to the Treasury’s objectionable policy. If Sub-Committee A does not agree, I hope that Sub-Committee B—which is dealing with half of these instruments—will send the letter on its own. Another member of Sub-Committee B is currently sitting in the Chamber.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Adonis]

Perhaps I misheard the noble Lord—we will call them distinguished lawyers.

However, there is a dispute going on between the chairs of Sub-Committee A and Sub-Committee B. I do not know how these disputes are resolved. Do they come to the House? Perhaps they should come to the House.

[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords, I can assure both noble Lords, Lord Adonis and Lord Rooker, that agreement is very close.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, I hope that it is close, because meanwhile we have another seven of these instruments to consider today and the whole of the Order Paper for Wednesday has, I think, another dozen of them. We also have hundreds more coming next week. Perhaps I may say to the noble Lord that I hope that this can be resolved extremely quickly and that we can find a satisfactory way forward, because the issue of the lack of impact assessments seems to be entirely arbitrary. We have some on the later instruments that will be introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Bates, but there are none on these. However, no formal consultation has been carried out on any of the instruments.

Armistice Day: Centenary

Lord Trefgarne Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Trefgarne (Con)]

My Lords, with your Lordships’ permission, I will speak for a few seconds only. My father was born in 1894, so he was just old enough to serve in the First World War, which he did—first in the Devonshire Yeomanry, then in the South Wales Borderers, and finally in the Royal Flying Corps. All I need to say is that he was there.