(9 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberThank you. I knew that someone younger than me, with a keener brain, would remember his name. Eldon Griffiths went to live in California—yet he was supposed to be representing his constituents. That seems to me a better argument for a recall, if we are to have recalls. This has not been thought through.
As for the provisions about imprisonment, if, for example, Caroline Lucas, as a result of her recent protests against fracking, had been sent to prison, would that have been a sensible reason for a recall? She was making a legitimate protest. If she had been sent to prison, would we all really have thought that she should be made to go through this tortuous procedure? Or if some of us had been arrested when we were picketing in the miners’ strike, and had been sent to prison, would that have been a good reason? And what would have happened to the Red Clydesiders? This has not been thought through. It is a terrible piece of legislation.
My Lords, I know that the noble Lord disapproves of constant interruptions of speeches in this House but, although I congratulate him on making the Second Reading speech that he would like to have made at that stage, I do not think that he has yet mentioned any of the amendments we are supposed to be discussing.
I have been rumbled. But in fact I did start off—I have a note of it, unusually for me—by saying, “These amendments deal with the third trigger”. As I pointed out to the noble Lord earlier, he and his golden trigger gave me the opportunity to bring that up.
I am about to come to the end of my speech anyway, because if I had been able to speak at Second Reading I would have finished by saying that this is yet another piece—and probably the worst piece of all—of constitutional Cleggery. This Parliament has been bedevilled by constitutional Cleggery. Fortunately, the people of this country got rid of the alternative vote by a large majority—and, fortunately, this House and this Parliament got rid of some of Mr Clegg’s other measures. Unfortunately, I fear that we will not be able to get rid of this Bill—but the country, and Parliament, will be much poorer places because we are going to pass it into law.
(9 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare an interest as chairman of the All-Party Group on Sri Lanka.
My Lords, we commend Sri Lanka’s electoral commission for its conduct of the election and all Sri Lanka’s political parties and people for accepting the final result and committing to the peaceful transfer of power. However, we also note the view of Commonwealth observers that the election contest fell short of key benchmarks for democratic elections. We welcome President Sirisena’s early commitment to good governance and to working with all international partners. We stand ready to help the new Government implement their commitments.
Does my noble friend agree that it is greatly to be welcomed for any democracy to have an 80% turnout and, as he says, to have carried out an election so well? Is he also aware that, on the back of that election result, the new President Sirisena—supported by all the minorities, including the Tamils—has pledged to have a revitalised domestic human rights inquiry into alleged war crimes, possibly using the missing persons commission, with two highly respected Britons in Desmond de Silva and Geoffrey Nice? On top of that, he has stated clearly that there will be independence of the law and the judiciary, and media freedom. Against that background, will Her Majesty’s Government give a commitment to give forth the hand of friendship and to give this new all-party Government time to implement the pledges that they have made?
My Lords, we are entirely ready to give that commitment. The Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister have already sent messages. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, will be aware that the new Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, is known to many people within his own party, as his party is associated with the Conservatives on an international basis.
My Lords, we on this side join in the congratulations to the new President and wish him and his Government well. Will Her Majesty’s Government, when they are in discussions with the new Government of Sri Lanka, encourage them to review, seriously and as a matter of urgency, the allegations that have been made about human rights abuses over the last few years in that country? Further, would Her Majesty’s Government encourage the new Government in Sri Lanka to sign up to the initiative of the former Foreign Secretary, the right honourable William Hague, on sexual violence in conflict, something that the previous Sri Lankan Administration singularly failed to do?
My Lords, we are in a regular dialogue with the Sri Lankan Government and Administration on all these matters. Members of this House may not be aware how closely the British Government and their representatives work with our colleagues in the European Union on issues such as this—in Sri Lanka as in Georgia—to exert pressure and bring it to bear. There is of course the UN human rights investigation, which will continue. The UN Human Rights Council will discuss that at its forthcoming meeting in March.
My Lords, one of the early pronouncements made by the new President was about the establishment of an all-inclusive Government. There seems to be some reluctance on the part of the Tamil National Alliance to participate in this political process. Now that the elections are coming up in April, what efforts could we make, and what advice and assistance could we offer, so that there is proper participation by Tamil nationals, not only in Sri Lanka but among the large diaspora in this country?
My Lords, it was a very broad coalition election that elected President Sirisena, and it will be very difficult to hold all of that coalition together. I understand that the Tamil National Alliance has said that it is willing to support the Government from the outside but does not at the moment want to take ministerial posts within the Government. However, it is a temporary Government and there will probably be elections in April.
My Lords, given that Sri Lanka is the current chair of the Commonwealth, can the Minister say whether the new President is fully committed to the Commonwealth charter, which reflects all the values of the Commonwealth?
My Lords, my noble friend the Minister mentioned that President Sirisena has undertaken to conduct a domestic inquiry into the allegations of war crimes that were committed in the final stages of the conflict in 2009. Has anybody suggested to him that he should facilitate the inquiry which was launched by the United Nations Human Rights Council at a meeting last March? Will our Government encourage him to invite it to Sri Lanka and facilitate its work there?
My Lords, that has been the position of our Government for the past year. Of course, there are some sensitive issues of national sovereignty. The noble Lord may be aware that there are even some people in the United Kingdom who take objection to international organisations looking at human rights issues within this country.
Is my noble friend aware that, on that last point, both India and Australia stand foursquare with the sovereign Government of Sri Lanka; that, yes, they do need an enhanced domestic enquiry; and that perhaps they can work in tandem with Europe, but that both the former Government and the present Government have made it quite clear that they are not willing to take part with Europe?
I am well aware of the previous Government’s resistance to the UN inquiry. I hope that the new Government, as they get under way, will take a more generous approach to the UN investigations.
(9 years, 7 months ago)
Lords Chamber
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the report of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe on monitoring of trials of former officials and political figures under prosecution in Georgia following the change of government at the end of 2012.
My Lords, the Government welcome the report of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights—ODIHR—on the monitoring of trials of former officials and political figures in Georgia. Georgia has made significant progress on judicial and legal reform in the past few years, although, as is noted in the report, there are still many issues to address. Georgia should continue to implement its programme of reforms and to ensure that all prosecutions follow the rule of law and due process.
I thank the Minister for his reply, but does he not agree that what is revealed in the report is not just the occasional violation of criminal procedure but a systematic abuse of the criminal system against former officials and political figures connected with the previous Government? Will Her Majesty’s Government make it clear to the Government of Georgia that this is totally contrary to European standards and that it can only frustrate—and in the end block—their aspiration to join the European Union? Will they also further encourage the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights to pay a return visit to Georgia, perhaps in a year or 18 months’ time, to see what progress has been made?
My Lords, I am not sure that I would use the term “systematic”, but clearly there have been a large number of weaknesses. I would emphasise that, as the report says, the ODIHR was invited to visit Georgia by the Georgian Government. It has made some very robust criticisms of the failings and weaknesses of the Georgian system, but the Georgians did invite it in, they have accepted the report, and now the question is how far the reforms will be pushed through. The European association agreements have political conditions attached, and we will be watching to see how those conditions are fulfilled by the Georgian Government.
My Lords, attitudes in Russia to the new President are well known. Given that closeness, are the Government concerned that he may be seeking, in his relations with the Opposition, to follow the example of President Putin? To what extent are we using our influence in other international fora to bring these abuses before them—for example, in the Council of Europe, which is the foremost human rights organisation in Europe?
My Lords, the Venice Commission and others are also engaged in discussions with the Georgian Government about human rights and judicial rights. The ODIHR report was absolutely about prosecutions of members of the former Government and the processes by which prosecutions are carried out, court procedures and so on. We are in very active dialogue with the Georgian Government, as are other EU ambassadors—and, of course, Georgia, through its association relationship with the European Union, has a constant dialogue with that and other international organisations.
My Lords, given that this is a 116-page report, is my noble friend not right to use the term “systematic” when he describes the violations of human rights and the undermining of natural justice that is alleged within the context of the report? Will the Minister therefore look again at whether or not those violations should be classified as systematic? Will he also say whether British or EU diplomats are able to attend some of the trials of former officials to ensure that due process is conducted?
Yes, British officials are engaged in that sort of extremely active dialogue, and British officials have gone out to advise the Georgian Government. I stress the word “failings”. Georgia is a country in transition and has not yet entirely established what we regard as western European standards. I remember visiting Poland and Hungary in the mid-1990s, and they had not reached that stage yet either. We are doing all we can to make sure that Georgia follows the same path—but it is rather behind them.
My Lords, I declare an interest in this matter, as listed in the register. Georgia, a friend to us, is in a geographic region of the world steeped in cronyism, political abuse of power and clan loyalty. It has made definite steps away from that in recent years and we need to help it on that journey. The OSCE was indeed invited in, as has been referred to, and has pointed up a number of very substantial shortcomings. My question is simply this: preaching is not enough; what practical steps are we taking—using the links, for example, between the United Kingdom organisations and Georgian associations of lawyers—to help the development of the legal sector in Georgia?
My Lords, a number of Georgian Ministers and officials visited Britain in late November for a dialogue—the Wardrop dialogue—chaired by the Minister for Europe. It included the Georgian ambassador-at-large for human rights. Therefore, we and other Governments are engaged in an active dialogue and we are offering all assistance that we can provide. Unfortunately, one of the factors that one has to be aware of in Georgia is that although we are deeply uneasy about what appear to be political prosecutions of members of the former Government, these are actually quite popular within Georgia itself, as far as one can see from public opinion.
My Lords, does the Minister recognise that there is a long and bad story in Georgia, and it needs help to get out of it? The present Government were voted into office because of the revulsion of Georgians at the treatment in jail of prisoners by the previous Government, many of whose members—and it is right that we should ensure this—are now being treated properly under the rule of law. But it is a long story and the country is under considerable pressure, like some others in the former Soviet Union, and it needs our help as well as a bit of chivvying.
My Lords, we are all aware of the very delicate circumstances in which Georgia has to operate, with two regions that have broken away and are under, effectively, a close relationship with Russia. We are also aware that it is unusual in that Mr Ivanishvili, the richest man in Georgia, has close but now unofficial relationships with the current Government. Georgia is a very fragile democracy and we are doing all we can to provide help.
My Lords, can my noble friend confirm that the British Council still has a presence in Georgia? As I recollect, it was one of the first British institutions to be established after the opening up of that country. Is it still doing its valuable work?
I visited the British Council in Tbilisi two years ago. I cannot say absolutely that it is still there but I think it is. I see the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, nodding.
(9 years, 7 months ago)
Lords Chamber
That it be an instruction to the Committee of the Whole House to which the Recall of MPs Bill has been committed that they consider the Bill in the following order:
Clauses 1 to 6, Schedule 1, Clauses 7 to 10, Schedule 2, Clauses 11 to 16, Schedules 3 to 5, Clauses 17 to 20, Schedule 6, Clauses 21 to 25.
(9 years, 7 months ago)
Lords Chamber
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to suggest that the report of the Chilcot inquiry is published before the start of the pre-election purdah.
My Lords, as I said to the noble Lord in my Answer of 3 November, the inquiry is completely independent of government. It is up to Sir John Chilcot to decide when to submit the inquiry’s report to the Prime Minister. I continue to hope that its conclusions will shortly be available for all to see.
I am certainly not blaming my noble friend, and least of all Sir John Chilcot, but is not this continuing delay an utter and total disgrace after so much time has elapsed? Is my noble friend aware that more and more people think that it is some kind of attempt to prolong the agony for Mr Blair facing possible war crimes charges?
My Lords, we all regret the delay, but I wish to stress that this is not unusual for inquiries of this sort. I know that we were all looking at the al-Sweady inquiry as part of our Christmas reading. That took five years to report on two battles in one afternoon and cost £24 million. The Baha Mousa inquiry, looking into the death in UK custody of one Iraqi civilian in September 2003, took three years and cost £13.5 million. This inquiry has been looking at nine years of British policy and operations within Iraq. It is not entirely unexpected, therefore, that it has turned out to take a long time.
Does the Minister agree that my noble friend’s point is at the heart of this whole matter? This has dragged on beyond the questions of mere negligence and forgivable delay; it is becoming a scandal. This is not a matter of trivial importance; it is something to which a large number of people in this country look anxiously for the truth. Is it not time that the Government exerted themselves to make sure that that reasonable demand is met?
My Lords, we all regret the amount of time that has been taken. I think in retrospect, as an outside observer, that it might have been a good thing to have recruited a larger staff at the beginning of the inquiry, because the sheer volume of the documentation that the inquiry found itself looking through was much greater than had originally been anticipated. It is, however, an independent inquiry. The Government will receive the report. The one decision that the Government will then take is when it will be published. It is up to the chairman of an independent inquiry to decide when and how it completes its report.
My Lords, in setting up the inquiry, Mr Gordon Brown made a sweeping statement that all British documents, save those involving the most sensitive national security, would be made available. Has that promise been breached, in either spirit or form? The House also needs a clear, unequivocal statement as to who is responsible for apparently kicking publication into touch until after the election. Is it former or present Prime Ministers, Cabinet Secretaries or Sir John Chilcot and his committee?
My Lords, there were two questions there. The Government made all documentation available to the committee at the outset. The further question, which has taken rather longer than anticipated, was the subsequent discussion as to how many of those documents should be published. After all, some of them are highly classified and deeply sensitive about British foreign policy and relations with other major Governments and allies. I understand that that process is also now complete. When the report comes out, it will contain more than 1 million words and will publish substantial documentation from more than 200 Cabinet meetings. That is all agreed and under way. In terms of the publication, the Prime Minister has not intervened at any point—and nor, as I understand it, did his predecessor. It is up to the inquiry and its chairman to decide when the process is complete. As we know, Maxwellisation is part of the process of completing the report. When that is complete, it will be published.
My Lords, I join those who wish for an early publication of the Chilcot report, if for no other reason than to put a stop to the conspiracy theories multiplying. The ridiculous comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, are a disgrace to this House and a disgrace to him.
My Lords, I also wish for an early publication, but we are waiting for the inquiry to submit the report to the Government. The Government have taken the decision, as my honourable friend Rob Wilson and I have both said on previous occasions, that if it is submitted after the end of February it would not be appropriate to publish it until after the election because part of the previous Government’s commitment was that there would be time allowed for substantial consultation on and debate of this enormous report when it is published.
My Lords, when the inquiry was announced, some of us took the position that it should be a two-part inquiry: one part into the conduct of the war and one part into the events that led up to the war. Would my noble friend agree that that would have been the better way to deal with it? In other words, we should have produced a report on what led up to the war itself and left in the long grass the business of the conduct of the war. In that event, we would certainly by now have had the answers and the truth that the British people seek.
My Lords, that might have been wise, but I am afraid that we are being wise a little after the event. We are well under way with this inquiry. Indeed, I hope that we are very close to the finishing line.
My Lords, will the Minister join with me in asking people to stop calling this intervention “illegal”? It has never been declared illegal by any court, national or international, and, since it was the first intervention ever to be approved by a vote in the House of Commons, it has more authority than any other intervention.
My Lords, I was not aware that I, certainly, had ever called it “illegal”.
My Lords, after all the excitement and excitable nature of yesterday’s proceedings, would not pre-election purdah be rather a good idea?
Pre-election purdah does not formally start until late March, but the Government have committed that if the report is not available for publication by the end of February, it will be held back until after the election.
(9 years, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, this has been a very impassioned debate in many ways. On the question of how many elections we should have had since the Second World War, I can remember very well the two indecisive elections of 1974, and the weakness of government which resulted from that, which led to a Labour Government first having to run to the IMF and then losing their majority and having to come to the Liberals, as we then were, for outside support. I do not in any sense go back on my support for the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. I think of the two elections in 1964 and 1966, when Labour was successful in getting a second majority, and the two attempts in 1974, when Labour was unsuccessful in getting a second majority. If there were to be a second election in 2015 if no party obtained a majority, I have no doubt that that would happen again because such a procedure is promoted to the public, so I do not resile from my support for fixed-term Parliaments.
What about the two Liberal elections in 1910? The noble Lord presumably now feels that there should have been five years between those two elections.
My Lords, I was not involved in that election; perhaps the noble Lord was. However, I have to admit to the House that early one morning, when I was half awake, my mind turned to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. I had an image of a debate in this Chamber in about 1831, in which an Earl Grocott denounced the proposals for major constitutional change as being unnecessary and disturbing the established traditions of party patronage. Perhaps the noble Lord and I might discuss off the Floor which proposals for constitutional reform over the past 150 years he might have supported at the time.
All three parties committed to a recall system in their manifestos, and this was included in the coalition’s programme for government. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, had some fun talking about parties that do not carry out all the pledges in their manifestos. All three parties were committed to this in principle in their last manifestos, which provides a certain basis for it. I remind her of something that I have said previously to other members of her party—namely, when one examines the 1997 Labour Party manifesto, the clearest pledge was to bring forward proposals for electoral reform. However, the Labour Party then entirely abandoned that pledge, as it did with a number of other things as well.
This Bill will introduce a system where MPs will be subject to a recall petition where they are found guilty of wrongdoing under a specific set of triggers, as set out in the Bill. Regulations have been mentioned. I assure noble Lords at the outset that before Committee we will put in the Libraries of both Houses an early draft of the regulations which will need to be made under the Bill, which will set out the areas that will need to be covered. The regulations will build upon the principles and precedents in electoral legislation. Noble Lords will have recognised already the extent to which the drafting of the Bill has followed as closely as possible the language in a number of previous Bills about electoral and political regulation.
Some large and detailed issues have been raised. Most of those who have spoken have said that they supported the principle of the Bill. I think I counted at least three, perhaps up to five, speakers who explicitly or implicitly opposed the principle of the Bill. Let me start with the detailed scrutiny issues that have been raised. I particularly welcome the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, who raised a number of specific questions that we must address in Committee and on Report. There is the question of whether this is a secret and open process, and how far the process is in the hands of the constituents themselves or outside, wealthy groups. There are also questions on how many signing points there may be within the constituency and who will check on permissible campaigners and permissible donors. Those are very much the sort of point on which we, as a revising House, would wish to focus in our further consideration.
Can I take it from that that the Government still have not decided whether they want an open or secret vote?
My Lords, unavoidably, as the noble Baroness has said, this has to be partly a public process. One goes to vote. Incidentally, the fact that this is a more public process does not mean the end of the secret ballot because the ballots when one is electing someone remain entirely secret. Access to the register of people who take part by post is a matter that we need to explore further. There are perhaps mechanisms to write into the regulations that will restrict access to the register for those who do not want their names to be entirely public. However, that is something that we need to explore because there are important principles here. Some noble Lords might wish to argue that signing a petition should be a public declaration because that is part of the transparency of objecting to one’s current representative. We will explore that further.
The question of the number of facilities in a constituency has also been raised—the Brecon and Radnor question, as we will have to refer to it. Again, we will come to that as we go through Committee and Report. The Government have consulted electoral administrators and returning officers, and their representative bodies—the Association of Electoral Administrators and SOLACE—throughout the Bill’s development, and we welcome their responses. They agree with the policy intention of the campaign regulation provisions in the Bill that petitions should be events with a local feel, without a need for a statutory register of campaigners. The question of how we deal with separate campaigns, and how, in particular, we interpret the existing rules on those who are acting in concert, is a matter that we will want to test and make sure that we get right in Committee and on Report. We appreciate that there are important questions at stake and we are all concerned to limit the influence of money in this process, as in others. Much of the debate so far has brought back the painful memory of the transparency of lobbying Bill, in which some of us took part this time last year.
The question of who is responsible for regulating the campaign has also been raised. We will, again, explore that further. Enforcement of the rules will be the responsibility of the police and the courts. Transparency is intended to be the basis of the campaign. Responsibility for the administration and conduct of the recall petition falls to the petition officer, whose role in the recall petition process will be analogous to that of a returning officer in an election in ensuring that relevant information is open to public scrutiny. The Electoral Commission will be responsible for oversight of the rules in the way in which it already takes that part.
The question that the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, raised about the numbers of groups spending £10,000 is a matter that, as I say, we will need to look at to make sure that the regulations cover that. The noble Baroness raised the question of whether those spending less than £500 would remain entirely unregulated. Non-accredited campaigners spending small sums will of course have to include their imprint in everything that they publish. That comes within the normal rules. Those who spend less than £500 will also be subject to the “acting in concert” provisions that cover existing elections.
On double signing, the intention is to ensure that the maximum number of people have the opportunity to sign, but the normal checks will be in place to ensure that each person signs only once and that the petition clerk at the signing place will mark the register to check whether the person is eligible to be issued with the signing sheet.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, also raised the question of whether the petition process places a heavy burden on local authorities. I stress that the Government see this process as a reserve power. This also partly responds to the suggestion that there should be a sunset clause; the noble Lord, Lord Soley, suggested a period of five years. We see this not as a mechanism that would need to be used often—five years is, therefore, far too short—but as a necessary reserve power for the public and Parliament to have, because it has become a necessary element in re-establishing a degree of confidence in our parliamentary democracy.
We all accept that the vast majority of people involved in politics are entirely honourable. Indeed, I think that many of us who have read about British politics in the 1920s, 1930s and 1950s would accept that the degree of misconduct is much less now than took place then. I can think of several Prime Ministers who would not have survived current scrutiny of their personal or financial affairs but who nevertheless had good careers in the first half of the century. Nevertheless, we recognise that there are always some bad apples in every single basket and that some measures to make sure that where misconduct takes place there is a degree of comeback. That is what this Bill is about.
The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, asked about the wording of the petition signing sheet. It has been developed in consultation with the Electoral Commission to ensure that it is balanced and fits in with the commission’s guidance for referendum questions. We are confident that the wording we have devised through discussions with the commission gives petitioners the information they need, including making the important addition that if an MP loses their seat as a result of a petition there is nothing to stop them standing as a candidate in the subsequent by-election.
The noble Lord said that the petition wording had been developed in consultation with the Electoral Commission. Has the question actually been tested? That was the point I raised.
Officials are now arranging the use and testing of the wording of the petition and are in contact with the commission about the form that that testing will take. We can discuss that further—if necessary, off the Floor.
I would say simply that under this Bill, if a recall petition is successful, the sitting MP will be entitled to stand again in the by-election; so the Woolas incident could not happen under this Bill. I hope that that is entirely clear.
My point is that we now have two different systems—the system in the Bill and the system in the electoral court that caused Phil Woolas to lose his seat and not be allowed to stand again. That seems to be an anomaly. Surely we should encompass the electoral court within the ambit of the Bill, so that a future Phil Woolas could stand again or there could be a recall procedure.
I think I hear the noble Lord considering an amendment in Committee on that question. Again, we are open to consideration on all of this.
The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, tells us that he will reintroduce into our Chamber a revised form of the amendment introduced by my honourable friends David Heath and Julian Huppert. I look forward to that with interest. I have already discussed this with him, although I have to say that, at the moment, neither I nor the Bill team is persuaded that it is a workable additional trigger in its current form.
The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, asked about the technical amendments that the Government are introducing and whether that changes the 10-day trigger. The answer is no, they do not change the 10-day trigger. These are purely technical amendments to ensure that the amendments put in in the Commons fit with the language of the Bill. If he wishes to raise the 10-day question in Committee, that is a matter for him.
In the light of a number of contributions today referring to the difficulties that will arise in the Standards Committee, will Ministers now consult, both privately with members of the committee and with the leadership of other political parties in the Commons, to see whether there may be a need to rethink the position that has been taken on this?
My Lords, I will consider that but I am not going to give any commitment on the Floor. Indeed, the noble Lord spent a good deal of time talking about the operations of the Standards Committee. I recognise that that is a particular concern to him, although it is not in the middle of the consideration of the Bill.
The wider issue, which a number of noble Lords mentioned—I recognise that 10 of the 17 speakers in this debate are former Members of the other House—is public trust in the Commons and in democracy as such. As we consider the Bill, we have to be careful not to propose that we should engage in saving the Commons from itself, which was the echo I got from some of the contributions—to supply the courage, which MPs have failed to show, to resist the popular mood was the underlying argument of one or two contributions, I think. Yes, popular attitudes to politics at present are dangerously negative. Yes, it would be wonderful if they were different, but we cannot change the public. I am afraid that Parliament has to adapt to the public while we provide—and we all need to provide—the political persuasion and political leadership to begin to change the level of public disillusionment. However, we cannot entirely stand up against it and dismiss it.
I can assure the noble Lord—I think this applies to everyone—that it is not about doubting the courage of MPs, but about wondering whether they have thought through the consequences of exceptional cases, which will occur. Just as there was an outburst against expenses issues in this House and the other, when you get someone, whether they are imprisoned or something else, who is sentenced for something that the public feel positively about and want that person to remain an MP—as has happened on a number of occasions in history—you might get the exact reverse feeling. That process has not been thought through. It is not about courage.
My Lords, I take that point.
The noble Lord, Lord Grocott—the Earl of Grocott, as I shall always think of him now—and the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, both said that we should leave this—
Perhaps I can nip this in the bud. If the noble Lord insists on referring to me as Earl Grocott, could he at least acknowledge that, contrary to his party and its supporters, when the views of Earl Grocott respecting the voting system were put to the Great British public, they supported the noble Earl by a majority of 2:1, rather than the Liberal Democrats?
I thank the noble Lord.
The noble Lords, Lord Grocott and Lord Hughes, said that we should leave this to political parties. Part of our problem in current-day British politics is that the golden age, when political parties were mass parties and mass movements, has gone. When I first stood for Parliament the membership of my political party—the third political party, the Liberals—was larger than the membership of any of the three parties today. The Conservative Party had more than 1 million members; the Labour Party was a mass movement, with large trade unions and very large constituency membership. We all know that that is, sadly, not the case now.
We fail to engage the public. That is partly because there has been social transformation, and communications transformation, as the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, said. Globalisation has affected the way that the public look at politicians. We have lost that age. It is not only in Britain: we see it in the United States, Germany, France and elsewhere. In an age of instant communication—I think the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, referred to the “online mob”, by which I think he means 38 Degrees; I am sure that 38 Degrees will quote him on that tomorrow, as it is likely to do—we have a problem that the public are irreverent about all elites, not just politicians, and see a Westminster bubble as much as they see a Brussels bubble. We need to do a whole host of things together, across the parties, to begin to re-establish public trust in our institutions. I think, very strongly, that decentralisation, devolution and the revival of local democracy is a very important part of that. However, I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Norton, that political leadership and political persuasion is something we have failed to make towards a disillusioned electorate. Perhaps a little less partisan sniping as we go towards the general election and more common defence of reasoned debate is something that we all need to reflect on.
The noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, talked about a slippery slope, but there are other slippery slopes. The slippery slope towards mass popular disengagement in politics is also one that we are on.
We have put forward the Bill believing not that it is the golden trigger that will somehow revive public trust alone, but that it is one element among many that we need to begin to re-establish public trust in democratic politics and in Westminster. I look forward to Committee, when we will discuss some of the detailed issues that have rightly been raised.
(9 years, 8 months ago)
Lords Chamber
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the report prepared by the United States Congress on CIA involvement in torture.
My Lords, the Senate committee’s account of the treatment of some detainees by the CIA is troubling. After 9/11, things happened that were clearly wrong. In Britain, we have made clear our determination to address allegations of UK complicity in the alleged mistreatment of detainees by others overseas. Her Majesty’s Government stand firmly against torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment.
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply. Will our Government undertake an independent, judge-led inquiry to examine possible British complicity in the programme of torture, secret detention and rendition? Will our Government also provide all suitable help and assistance to UK citizens and residents who have been detained to enable them to seek justice and remedies? I point out that Shaker Aamer is still in detention and needs help to be released. He has apparently been very badly treated.
My Lords, the Government set up the Gibson inquiry in July 2010. It was asked to produce an interim report when police investigations into a number of potential criminal charges were instituted in 2012. The Gibson committee’s interim report raised 27 questions for further investigation. They have been taken up by the Intelligence and Security Committee, which has now been working for a year with some additional staff on that inquiry. When that inquiry is complete, it will be for the next Government to decide whether a further judicial inquiry is necessary. On the question of Shaker Aamer, the Government are engaged at the highest levels for his release as a matter of urgency.
My Lords, I already said that the Intelligence and Security Committee has taken on additional staff to cope with this inquiry. I recognise that there are some considerations as to how open the report of the Intelligence and Security Committee will be. We have to wait to see how much it will be able to publish. I think we all recognise that this is all an extremely delicate area in terms of how much one can publish. I wish I could give an assurance that the next Government, whoever they may be, will do their utmost to ensure that as much as possible is published.
Does not my noble friend accept that, however delicate these matters are, there is widespread concern that this Government should show themselves utterly open on these issues? It is therefore very important that the answers to questions such as this are rather clearer, so that people can see exactly what we are doing to ensure that the reputation of this country should no longer be besmirched by such allegations.
My Lords, I entirely accept that. We are talking about allegations of behaviour undertaken between 2001 and 2005, in most instances. The Government are doing their utmost to ensure that they are fully investigated.
My Lords, does the Minister agree that reacting to terrorism by brutally torturing suspects can induce revenge terrorism in a never-ending cycle? Will he condemn torture in those terms?
My Lords, the Geneva Convention condemns torture; that is very clearly set out in the Geneva Convention. We certainly condemn torture, and we will watch with interest the response of public opinion in the United States to the Senate committee’s report, including that within the Senate, where there are very divided opinions.
My Lords, does this difficult question not take us back to the problem that stands at the heart of the operation of the Intelligence and Security Committee? A witness before that committee who does not tell the truth cannot be held in contempt of Parliament because that committee, while it is described as a committee of Parliament, is not a full Select Committee and does not enjoy parliamentary privileges.
My Lords, I take the noble Lord’s point and I encourage him to read the short 500-page executive summary of the US Senate committee’s report which has, from the summary of the summary that I have read, some rather shocking things in it. We very much hope that British officials were in no way associated with some of those actions.
How can my noble friend promise to address the claims of British complicity in acts of torture when those allegations have been redacted from the report, presumably at the request of the British Government themselves?
My Lords, the Government are clear that the question of the presence or participation of British officials in some of the acts that are alleged is one of the things that must be investigated.
My Lords, does the Minister agree that at the moment we have the worst of both worlds? The interim report of the Gibson committee was published, which listed a number of questions that were taken by the media as being findings and therefore we do not know what the truth is. I do not say this because I want to see anything hidden—quite the opposite, as I was one of those who called for that inquiry. However, at the moment we have the problem that things are believed to be true about the British security services, maybe about British people involved in political life, but because we have not got to the bottom of them and have not got a report, they are being condemned without it being properly investigated and heard. I am hopeful that the noble Lord will do what he has said, which is to make sure that the ISC, or whoever it is going to be, reports as soon as possible and we actually know what the truth is in the interests of everybody.
My Lords, we are all entirely clear that we need to get to the bottom of this and to spell out the involvement of British officials, in so far as it took place, as publicly as possible. I stress that will be a matter for the next Government. It is not therefore a partisan issue. We are all concerned about the reputation of Her Majesty’s Government.
(9 years, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, this has been a rich debate which has ranged widely from the lack of a European demos to the future of Britain’s role in the European Union, to the popular disenchantment with the European institutions across much of the EU to the role of COSAC. Having read the report and having listened to the first two or three speeches, I must say that I was beginning to think that COSAC had improved enormously since I was last a member. Then I heard the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, almost say that it might take another generation before COSAC becomes an effective body. I remember eating very well when I went to COSAC and some of the discussions were useful. However, all that was a long time ago, and I am sure that it has improved a great deal.
The British Government do accept that the European Parliament, the British Parliament and other national parliaments have complementary roles. We absolutely insist as part of our proposal for European reform that national parliaments need to be more actively engaged and that relying on the European institutions alone to provide legitimacy is no longer acceptable, possible or publicly achievable. We all know about the negative image of the European Union—the image that UKIP puts out that the EU is attempting to accumulate more and more powers in Brussels and has to be resisted so that power is pulled back. I am old enough to remember the old idea when I first went to meetings in Brussels and elsewhere when we were discussing joining the EU that it was there to replace national Governments. National Governments represented the old way and national parliaments were part of that. Jean Monnet, who hated the French National Assembly and was never himself a parliamentarian, believed that technocracy was much better and more efficient than democracy. There were those like Altiero Spinelli who had a passionate belief that the European demos was there, somehow, to be discovered, if only one worked hard enough for it.
We have discovered in the generations since then that it was not really there, that all politics remains local, and that the problems we are now facing are that while politics remains local, economics, finance and markets have become international and often global, security has become international and often global, and the gap is one that we are all struggling to fill. We also had a number of discussions about rivalry between the European Parliament and national parliaments, with the European Parliament sometimes claiming greater legitimacy because it represented the European demos. I recall one Member of the British Parliament attending the convention when the European Convention met and feeling from the start that she was being patronised by Members of the European Parliament. She became and she remains a rather sceptical Labour MP.
There is something of a Brussels bubble. We understand that Brussels does need a culture change, and I listened with interest to the optimism expressed about the new Commission, perhaps about the new European Parliament, and abort some of the new Commission officials. Again, I mark that we do not send enough British officials to the Commission for a whole range of reasons. I am glad that my own Government have reinstituted the European fast stream and are working to try to get more British officials to go through the concours and to come in as seconded national experts at all levels because that is part of the way we can change the culture of Brussels.
The Minister is making an extremely interesting point about the gap between the demos and the economics, as he put it. Is not the reason for that gap, which will always exist, that the Parliament will permanently be constrained by two things? The first is the European Court and the second is the treaty, which was the subject of a little discussion between me and the noble Lord, Lord Boswell.
With respect to the noble Lord, Lord Spicer, I was making a slightly different point, which is about the global market and global manufacturing. The fact that, for example, when the French sell an Airbus a third of the value added to that Airbus comes from British manufacturers, and that every time the Germans sell a Mercedes, it contains a large number of British components, means that markets have gone beyond the nation state but legitimacy has not. That is a fundamental, structural problem of the world in which we now live. I will not touch on the migration dimensions of that, but the security dimensions are also extremely difficult. That leaves us with a set of dilemmas which are not solvable and which we have to cope with.
A number of noble Lords made the point about the resources and time required. Resources are needed for scrutiny, as the report suggests. If we are setting up for national parliaments to be more closely in touch with each other, that requires a good deal of travel and time. One noble Lord remarked—it may have been the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood—that, in some ways, a European Parliament that was drawn directly from national parliaments was more appropriate. However, it did not work before 1979, partly because national parliamentarians are elected to serve constituents in their national parliament and the more time we expect them to spend elsewhere, the less time they will have to do their primary job. So there is a set of real problems there.
I noticed, as a member of the Government talking to newly elected MPs—there was a very large turnover in the British Parliament last time—that a great many newly elected MPs coming from outside politics had very little idea of the complexities of international negotiations in which we are engaged with other European parliaments, or of the contacts one needs to have with members of other national parliaments or, indeed, members of the same political family as yours in other Governments. They have learnt, but it takes time. After all, more and more of our parliamentary candidates, I saw in one newspaper at the weekend, are now being drawn from people who have established roots within their local constituency. They are not elected to Parliament because of their international experience and they are unlikely to get re-elected if they spend too much time travelling around Europe and beyond. That is one of the obstacles with which we have to deal.
The new Commission has signalled that it is open to a much more positive dialogue with national Governments. New President Juncker has stated this on a number of occasions; Vice-President Timmermans, as has been remarked, has made it very clear that this is one of his priorities. As a Minister in the Dutch Government beforehand, he was already heavily committed. Closer co-operation among national parliaments was mentioned by many noble Lords. The offices which we now have in Brussels are to be strengthened. It is a very good way of using Brussels as a means of communication that enables you to find out earlier what is going on, examine proposals at an earlier stage and talk among national parliaments about how one might use yellow cards—lowering the threshold. The green card question is a very interesting one which the Government will wish to consider. We are not yet committed. We note the proposal that the coverage of these mechanisms should be extended to cover proportionality as well.
The noble Lord, Lord Bowness, talked about first reading deals. One of the problems that the Government have in responding to that is the sheer complexity of a multilateral negotiating process, with co-decision with the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council of Ministers coming in. The points at which national parliaments insert themselves into that process and how national parliaments keep up with that process is, again, part of the problem with which we all have to deal. Over the past year, as I have struggled with the EU balance of competencies exercise—a fascinating exercise—I have changed my mind on whether it would be useful for this Chamber also to examine other international organisations through which the British Government work. Time and time again in the EU balance of competencies exercise we have had evidence which has said, “We work through the EU on this, and we also work with OECD or the World Health Organization”. Indeed, the EU operates in some respects as a regional member of the World Health Organization in specific areas. Explaining that to the national public, as far as we can, and examining how effective those other international organisations are—most of them are a great deal less effective than the European Union—is perhaps also something which this Government might be able to achieve.
The noble Lord, Lord Judd, remarked that perhaps it would be easier if we explicitly had a confederal Europe rather than a federal Europe. I thought the chapter in this report on economic governance was particularly interesting and difficult because the contradictions of where we have got to with international markets come in because you need some power to decide as soon as you have an integrated single market, let alone a common currency, and when you face a global economic crisis, the legitimacy to decide above the level of the nation state is not there. So we are again stuck with the problem that it is not possible to reconcile the principles of democratic accountability and legitimacy and the need to take these decisions among a range of different actors.
Is it not highly relevant here to recognise that in what the Minister is saying about what has happened to international finance, the real discussions that influence policy are going on in the G7 and places such as that? In this sense, it gives us room to reconsider the structures that built up before this was of such manifest significance.
My Lords, I suspect that any incoming British Prime Minister does not begin to understand just how much of his time he will now have to spend out of the country dealing with other Governments and so on. One of my very small roles within government has been trying to say, “No, the Deputy Prime Minister cannot go to that international conference, in spite of the fact that he speaks the language”, or whatever it may be. The pressure on Ministers to travel, particularly those in the British Government who have much more pressure to spend time being accountable in Parliament and to parliamentary committees than many of our counterparts, is among the real strains that I see our senior Ministers facing.
On consulting the public, I shall briefly remark on the balance of competences exercise. The final report will be published this Thursday. The two-year exercise has consulted British stakeholders on the single market and a range of other areas. We have had more than 2,000 pieces of evidence from a very wide range of organisations—economic think tanks and others—and have attracted contributions and evidence from more than two-thirds of the other member states.
One of the most pleasing aspects of it has been to hear people in other Governments saying, “This is a very useful exercise. We should do something like it ourselves”. People within the French Government, the Dutch Government, the Finnish Government and others have said the same. One of the small achievements of this coalition Government has been to consult widely on how far the current arrangements under the Lisbon treaty suit British business, British interests, British trade unions and others. I cherish the evidence from easyJet, which began, “If it were not for the European single market, easyJet would not exist”.
The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, touched on the exchange of information between national parliaments and Brussels. I welcome her as someone who has made the transition from being a witness before committees of the House of Lords to being a Member of the House of Lords—a route that I remember transiting myself rather too long ago.
The question of how far we co-operate with other national parliaments raises some difficulties. There are other national parliaments with which we are in very close touch. There are others which do not have quite the same style or tradition. Two years ago I had lunch with the chair of the European affairs committee of a particular national parliament, who did not seem to have the sense that he should ever criticise his own Government or should disagree with their approach to Brussels. It was a rather surreal experience.
Some, however, are very active. I note, incidentally, from the table in Appendix 6 of the report that second chambers in several countries are much more active than first chambers. We are not the only ones who are able, because of our second-chamber status, to do what we can.
The European Union is, of course, a political system. How it works depends on how actively different institutions engage with it. We wish, as far as possible, to encourage other European parliaments to engage with us. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, asked about the government response and how this fits in with the Government’s reform agenda. I remind him that the Foreign Secretary, my right honourable friend Philip Hammond, is engaged in active conversations with other national Governments. He has so far visited 11 national capitals. The feedback he has been getting demonstrates very clearly that there is an achievable, broad-based reform agenda shared by many other Governments which does not require treaty change.
Indeed, other Governments are vigorously saying, “We can do this without treaty change”. It is achievable within the headroom provided by the Lisbon treaty, and it covers a stronger role for national parliaments, effective regulation, the budget, completion of the single market in areas such as services in which the obstacles come from Germany rather than from Britain and others, the digital single market and so on. We have an active reform agenda that we are pursuing.
Time is short, and I am sure that noble Lords would like their dinner before everything closes. I think that one has to stress the obstacles, such as travel requirements, yet again. The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, suggested that one could spend more time visiting others. I am sure that the Daily Mail would take very careful note of the sort of hotels in which Members stayed. Again, all of these things require time and effort. If you do one thing, you cannot do another. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, suggested that we need to get ordinary people involved, not always members of the elite. Unfortunately, politicians by definition are part of the elite. We are not ordinary people, otherwise we would now be at home watching television or doing something else. Part of the underlying problem of democracy that we now have is that it is easy to decry those engaged in national, let alone international, politics as part of an elite.
I am very grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I find what he says, as ever, very powerful, but I will give a practical illustration. When under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, we were doing a report on drugs in the European context, the noble Lord was at pains to make sure that we were hearing from people working with drug addicts on the front line. That is what I am talking about. It seemed to me that the remarks I was making were being addressed to us in the committees as distinct from the Government.
My Lord, I understand that, and I take that as read. Time is very short. I will therefore turn to government engagement with our Parliament and our committees which the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, mentioned in his opening. He made a number of strong remarks about the Home Office in particular and also about the Cabinet Office, which I will take back and to which we will respond in time.
I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Davies, that Ministers are delegates, as I think he said at one point. We all understand that we ask our Ministers to engage in a series of complicated negotiations. The importance there is to have a constant dialogue with Parliament and with parliamentary committees as to how far we can go.
This has been an extremely valuable debate. We all understand how vital is the question of restoring a sense of the electorate’s own membership of the European Union, and how difficult that is—as well as how much we hope that what we do in this Chamber and what is done in the other place and other national parliaments can help to rebuild a sense of legitimacy and accountability for the very necessary tasks that we ask the European Union to fulfil.
(9 years, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, on behalf of the Opposition, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, that this is timely and long overdue. We support all three amendments. How good it is to know that something survives from the 2012 House of Lords Reform Bill and goes forward in this Bill. We support it.
My Lords, the important thing is to get all stages of the Bill through the House in good order. We entirely accept that the Bill is about Lords’ conduct and therefore their reputation. As such, it is a useful addition to the procedures available to the House, although—to repeat what has been said—we all hope that the powers will rarely, if ever, be needed.
The question of what happens in another place will, of course, have to be discussed. I have assurances that the Leader will be discussing that matter with others but, meanwhile, we welcome the clarity of these amendments. The Bill is now in good order and we should accept this as the Report stage.
My Lords, I am extremely grateful to everyone who has spoken for their support for the amendments, which I believe have now struck the right balance, particularly on the issue of retrospectivity. I am very grateful to the Minister. He said that the important thing is to get the Bill through this House. That is an important thing. I think that the most important thing is now to get the Bill through another House. I know that the Government have made very clear that they will not stand in the way of the Bill. I hope that in willing the ends they may be able to move towards willing the means as well. I know that there has been real good faith from the Government Front Bench on this issue. I hope that we will see the fruits of that in the new year and that this small but important measure will become law before the general election.
(9 years, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, this report is a serious contribution to an important and wide-ranging debate, which recognises the multiple factors behind demand for emergency food assistance. As a country, we have enough food to go round. We agree that it is wrong that anyone should go hungry at the same time as surplus food is going to waste. There is a moral argument, as well as a sustainability one, to ensure that we make the best use of our resources.
I thank the Minister for his reply. I pay tribute to my colleague, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Truro, for co-chairing the inquiry. When the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury launched the report, he said that a party -political approach will not solve a problem such as this because of its complexity. I wonder whether the Minister would agree with that sentiment and whether, therefore, a genuine cross-party approach can be adopted to implementing the recommendations of the report. In particular, will the Government liaise and work closely with voluntary agencies, with the food banks and with industry to address the pressing problem of food waste and redistribution, whereby millions of tonnes of perfectly good food are going to waste at great cost, at a time when hundreds of thousands of people are still hungry?
My Lords, the Government are very happy to do that. After all, the whole food bank movement is a major civil society initiative. I entirely agree with the right reverend Prelate that this is a long-term problem and that we should not approach it in a partisan manner. Perhaps I might quote from the report:
“How a society protects the poorest from what appears to be a fundamental change in the way economies of the Western world are operating – which results in cuts in their living standards”—
that is, those of the poor—
“faster than other groups – calls for developing a political agenda which can only be delivered over decades”.
My Lords, will the Minister accept that the number of families using food banks rose considerably during the recent half-term? What does he think is the reason for that?
My Lords, I have been told by a friend who is involved in the food bank movement that demand for food banks has dipped when schools go back. The Government take some comfort from the fact that the expansion of free school meals in primary schools is clearly, therefore, a help in this regard, whatever the Daily Mail may have said in attacking the whole initiative.
My Lords, noble Lords may be aware that I have been a member of this inquiry, which over the past few months has travelled from Birkenhead and South Shields to Cornwall and Salisbury to take evidence, as well as indeed taking evidence from a large number of witnesses and organisations in London, many of whom do outstanding work in their local communities. I would like to take this opportunity to say how much I regret the wording of my remarks at the launch on Monday, not least because they have overshadowed the 76 other recommendations in the report. I ask my noble friend to urge Ministers in the eight different departments responsible to read the report and its recommendations with great care.
My Lords, I pay tribute to the enormous amount of work that the noble Baroness, together with others, has put into this inquiry. I know that she has been committed to these issues for some years. Perhaps I might draw particular attention to the chapter on resilience in this report, which talks about the problems of families who do not have the skills or confidence to cook. I note that the Trussell Trust has been providing courses on cooking for some of those in order to help with diet, so that they eat well and spend less.
My Lords, noble Lords will be aware that the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, and I have taken part for four years now in the Live Below the Line extreme poverty initiative every spring, and I welcome very much her statement here today and the way that it was received in the House. I also chair the Cash for Kids charity in the west of Scotland and have done for three years. This year, we experienced a 12% increase in the number of families and children applying for Christmas grants for food vouchers, cash or gifts to ensure that they have some pleasure on Christmas Day. It seems to me that, regardless of what debates take place in 2015 on welfare benefits, the economy or other issues, it would be an absolute tragedy if that figure were to be increasing again this time next year. Therefore, I hope that the Government will indeed take this report and our discussions with NGOs and charities throughout the land on board, to ensure that the Government, the public sector and the third sector can work together to serve those families who are still going to be in need, regardless of the initiatives that we take on welfare benefits or other aspects of the economy in the immediate future.
I thank the noble Lord for that. The report is also addressed to the utility companies and to problems such as having mobile phones on “pay as you go” tariffs meaning that you pay more. The poor pay more due to a whole range of structural reasons and the report therefore identifies a large number of targets to be addressed. It talks about debt, addiction, utility pricing, low pay, housing costs and mental health. The problem of low pay and the minimum wage, and how we increase pay, turn around troubled families and rebuild local social networks, are all part of the issues we need to address.
My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Food and Health Group, and I must say that we have had so much evidence over the years on why the national diet is inadequate, with malnourished people, obese people and so on. The noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin of Kennington, correctly identified that responsibility for food in the national diet is spread across eight government departments. Does my noble friend agree that the time has come for a national food strategy?
We do not need just a national food strategy. The Government are well aware of the complexities of this, which is why I am answering this Question on behalf of the Cabinet Office. This is a large, long-term problem. I was struck to read in the report that there are 1,000 food banks in Germany and 2,000 in France. It is not just a British problem.
My Lords, now that the report has identified a gap, particularly in relation to children when they are not in school, can the noble Lord, with that knowledge, assure us that the Government will address the issue with urgency?
My Lords, that takes a great deal of consideration and the Government certainly will do so. The report recommends that free school meals should be provided in the holiday period. That involves a lot of implications and cost, which the Government of course will have to consider.
My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that many of these people are living in multioccupancy buildings, with either shared cooking facilities or none, and have extreme difficulty in providing proper square meals for their families? Can that be taken into account when people are criticising them for not being able to support themselves?
My Lords, I agree with that. Another of the recommendations in this excellent report, which I encourage noble Lords to read in full, is that landlords should be expected to supply basic cooking facilities and equipment. There was also some good material on encouraging people to grow their own food. I have had some association with the charity in Shipley that deals with people who have mental health problems, runs a series of allotments and indeed encourages people to grow their own food and then cook it themselves. There is a whole range of issues that we need to address, some of which the Government can address but quite a lot of which civil society is at least as well equipped as government in addressing.