EU: Reform

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the agenda for the forthcoming European Council on 22 May is tax, energy and an update on economic and monetary union. Our objective will be to secure EU support for a G8 commitment to a new global standard for tax and the multilateral automatic exchange of information on tax. We will also aim to secure agreement for a stable energy policy framework that provides growth, competitiveness and investment. The Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister have both been clear that the EU needs reform. The UK will continue to argue for reforms to ensure that the EU can better tackle the challenges it faces.

[Lord Dykes]

I thank my noble friend for that Answer. Bearing in mind the very sad humiliation and setback that the Prime Minister, absent in the USA, suffered yesterday, with a much larger vote than expected, would not the obvious solution, because of agreement by those two, therefore be to assign any negotiations to the Deputy Prime Minister and other Liberal Democrat Ministers in the Cabinet who have excellent relations with other EU member states and who would help to exorcise the Tory demons of xenophobia?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, this is a coalition Government, and we work as a coalition Government. There is substantial ground in the Government on a multilateral EU reform agenda. I spent three days in Brussels last week and was encouraged to find how much support there was for the sort of reform agenda we are talking about within other Governments and with a number of senior people in the EU institutions themselves.

[Lord Harrison]

My Lords, is it possible for the Minister to be more vague and imprecise about the exact nature of the reforms that the UK would wish to propose within the European Union?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we are, of course, following up the PM’s speech with some detailed work under way at present on precisely what our reform agenda should be. I will simply set out that it includes changes in the EU budget. We have already made some progress on that in the multiannual financial framework, but that needs to continue. There will be a stronger role for national Parliaments. The Lisbon treaty allows for that, and we are encouraging our own Parliament and others to work more closely together. An external trade agenda will include in some ways more European action; the Prime Minister, after all, pursued that very thing in his discussions with President Obama in Washington. There will be a deepening of the single market, such as digital single market services. Therefore there is a range of areas, including better regulation and cleaning out some of the dead aspects of the acquis.

[Lord Renton of Mount Harry]

My Lords, does my noble friend know yet whether other countries will make proposals for the reform of the European Union? If so, for what purpose, and what will those proposals be?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

We have already had extensive discussions, particularly with the German Government but also with a number of others. There is the potential here for a like-minded group. Of course one has to work in shifting coalitions on many of these issues. On some issues, some member Governments agree strongly with the British Government’s proposals; on others, we have others to work with. On changing the culture of the EU institutions and perhaps changing the balance of portfolios in the next Commission, et cetera, discussions are already well under way.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, perhaps I may ask the Minister a question concerning Article 50 of the European treaty. As he will know, that is the provision that deals with the renegotiation of the treaty. Will he kindly tell the House whether any member state has invoked the provisions of that article, and, if so, with what result? Furthermore, will he tell the House that the Government will publish a list of the powers that they seek to have repatriated, so that the British people will be able, in the light of reason, to determine what the issues are rather than having to fumble about in a miasma of popular clichés?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I welcome the noble Lord’s support for a reasoned debate. The question is not about unilateral repatriation but about the multilateral reform of the EU.

[Lord Barnett]

My Lords, I am not sure whether the noble Lord can speak for the Prime Minister on this occasion, but will he tell us whether the major changes that he said he was looking for will require treaty change and the agreement of all 27 member states?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Of course, many things require the agreement of nearly 28 member states—Croatia is about to join. There is a great deal that we can achieve without treaty change; the Lisbon treaty has considerable headroom in it. The question of whether we are likely to face treaty change in the next five years is much more to do with what form banking union takes—I am sure that the noble Lord read Mr Schäuble’s article in the Financial Times the other day—and with other areas of management of the eurozone.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, as a first step towards closing down the whole ill-fated project of European integration, why do Her Majesty’s Government not propose the abolition of the euro, with all its participants returning to their national currencies? Would that not start to ameliorate the suffering of the Greek, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Cypriot and—soon—French people? Would it not also give us financial and monetary clarity for the longer-term future?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am fascinated by the way in which the noble Lord approaches some very complicated international issues. I am struck by the extent to which European Union regulation and global regulation go together. While the UK is inside the EU, we are playing a major part in negotiating global regulation, for example on tax and on how the global framework for digital regulation will evolve. If we were to leave the European Union, we would lose our influence over the evolution of global regulation—unless the noble Lord is such a free trader that he believes that we should have no global regulation at all.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the success of any proposals for reform that are pursued by the Government at the European Council will be severely diminished as a consequence of last night’s vote in the House of Commons, when the majority of Conservative MPs who voted voted against Her Majesty’s Government’s Queen’s Speech?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I agree that the degree of noise in the British domestic debate damages our ability to conduct a reasoned, multilateral negotiation with our European partners. We need a reasoned debate on the advantages and costs of EU membership.

Retail Prices Index

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government why the UK Statistics Authority overruled the recommendation and decision of the Office for National Statistics, following public consultation, to keep the Retail Prices Index as an official national statistic and whether they intend to challenge its downgrading.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the board of the UK Statistics Authority accepted the recommendations of the National Statistician both to produce a new index, to be known as RPIJ, and to retain the RPI as it is currently constructed. RPIJ is constructed in a way that meets current international standards whereas RPI was judged not to meet those standards. Because of this, the designation of the RPI as a national statistic was removed by the UK Statistics Authority, following a statutory reassessment which confirmed the finding of the National Statistician’s consultation that its formulation failed to meet current international standards.

[Lord Naseby]

Is my noble friend aware that this is a UK statistic and that international standards on statistics are, frankly, a little irrelevant? After all, is it not the case that the Office for National Statistics changed its mind from the original proposition, based on strong representations from finance, commerce, industry and savers? In the light of that, will my noble friend make further suggestions to the UK Statistics Authority that it thinks again and puts that badge of quality back on the RPI?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I was not aware that either mathematics or statistics differed according to national boundaries. The only statistics course I took was in the United States. I should have thought that international standards—those of Eurostat, the International Labour Organisation and the IMF—are standards that the UK should follow without wishing to bring the defence of national sovereignty or hatred of the European Community into account.

[Lord Peston]

My Lords, does the Minister agree— I am sure he will agree as his background is similar to my own on this matter—that there is no such thing as a perfect price index—far from it? Those of us who taught the subject spent all the time explaining why there is no such thing. Is it not for the Government to explain what they want to use this particular index for? Is it to measure the inflation rate, in which case the RPI is not, in my view, the right index and the GDP deflator is, or is it to measure the cost of living? Even then, they have to answer the question: whose cost of living? Does the Minister agree with that?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I have gone back into the area of statistics and I am happy to tell the House that there is a range of different measures of inflation in Britain—the RPI, RPIJ, RPIX, which excludes mortgage costs, and the RPIY, which excludes tax changes. Then there are the CPI, CPIH, CPIY and CPICT. I hesitate to explain all these in detail to the House.

[The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds]

My Lords, what advice does the Minister have for those widespread organisations which have historically used the RPI to alter pensions and salaries? They are unclear as to which of the various measures that the Minister just mentioned they should use for those purposes.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, they should not be unclear. The decision to maintain the RPI was taken precisely to leave clarity on the various forms in which the RPI is used as a reference point. I am quite clear from what I have read that the RPI as measured has an underlying upward bias of currently about 0.9% a year above CPI. That means that the Government end up paying more for index-linked bonds and elsewhere, which, in the long run, is against the interests of taxpayers although very much in the interests of investors and pensioners.

[Lord Barnett]

My Lords, the problem is not whether the Minister agrees with my noble friend Lord Peston. Is not the real problem with all these statistics whether anyone believes any forecast of anything? Is not the problem therefore not which is used but believing them?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we could try giving up and steering in the dark if we want to, but trying to assess as well as we can what is happening in our economy and in the economies of our partners is a necessary part of the way we have to operate. We recognise that all measures will be imperfect. The decision to make changes in the RPI was taken to make it a little less imperfect than it was.

[Lord Lawson of Blaby]

My Lords, as the Minister who, a little over 30 years ago introduced RPIX, is not the most important thing to forget about all these indices and just to keep inflation really low? Then the difference between these indices is neither here nor there.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Digging into this, I am told that one of the problems is the way in which the RPI was estimated. They changed the way in which they calculated changes in the pricing of clothing, which got more and more difficult as discount stores were adopted. That is why the gap between CPI and RPI has widened in the past four or five years. That has a substantial knock-on effect for the Government, the Exchequer and for consumer prices.

[Lord McFall of Alcluith]

My Lords, in order to overcome the notion of dodgy statistics, the Minister will be aware that Parliament set up an independent body in the UK Statistics Authority which was first chaired by Sir Michael Scholar. As a result of that, he and others have resisted the massaging of statistics by politicians. Is not the UK Statistics Authority a bulwark to prevent the massaging of statistics by politicians? Therefore, we must commend the work of the UK Statistics Authority and resist any breach of it by politicians or others.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, one of the best things done in this area by the previous Government was to establish the UK Statistics Authority as an independent body. The decision was criticised on all sides. Some noble Lords will remember the article in the Financial Times by Chris Giles which said that it was appalling not to have abolished the RPI and move all the way towards the CPI.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

Did the Minister notice the other day that Sir Mervyn King, the outgoing Governor of the Bank of England, said that one of the main contributors to rising RPI and therefore rising inflation was higher energy taxes? Every time the RPI goes up, it generates a gigantic increase in public expenditure through indexed provisions in the public sector. Could he possibly advise his friends to think again about some of the higher taxes that are being piled onto our energy costs in industry and in the home?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Lord is quite right to say that the extent to which tax increases are factored into the calculation of inflation is one of the problems. If you are not careful, when inflation is rising, you get into a positive feedback as mortgage interest rates rise, and that increases the measurement of inflation.

Official Statistics Order 2013

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2013 Lords Chamber

Moved By

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That the draft orders and regulations laid before the House on 14 and 25 February be approved.

Relevant document: 21st Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, considered in Grand Committee on 19 March.

Motions agreed.

Representation of the People (Election Expenses Exclusion) Order 2013

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That the draft order laid before the House on 30 January be approved.

Relevant document: 19th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, considered in Grand Committee on 12 March.

Motion agreed.

Official Statistics Order 2013

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Grand Committee

Moved By

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Official Statistics Order 2013.

Relevant document: 22nd Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, all Members of the Committee will be aware of the important work being done by the UK Statistics Authority. This body was created in 2008 with a statutory responsibility to,

“promote and safeguard the production and publication of official statistics”,

which includes monitoring of and reporting on official statistics.

Under the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007, statistics produced by the Office for National Statistics, government departments, the devolved Administrations and other Crown bodies are automatically deemed to be official statistics. The Act also makes provision for identifying other organisations as producers of official statistics. This is important, as it enables their work to fall within the remit of the authority and the public to have added confidence in their statistics. The purpose of this order, which is subject to affirmative resolution, is to specify these organisations.

The UK Statistics Authority has been consulted in preparing this order, in accordance with the Statistics and Registration Service Act, and is content for it to be laid. The Cabinet Office has laid this order on behalf of government departments, in preference to each department laying an order for the bodies for which it is responsible. This approach saves considerable parliamentary time.

This is the fourth use of this order-making power by a Minister of the Crown, and revokes and replaces the one that came into force on 3 December 2010. The previous order contained 57 bodies. The 2010 order was amended by Article 17 of the Education Act 2011 (Consequential Amendments to Subordinate Legislation) Order 2012. This omitted entries relating to the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency and the Training and Development Agency for Schools, which were abolished by the Education Act 2011. It will also be amended by the Financial Services Act 2012 (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Order 2013, which will come into effect on 1 April. This will reflect the change in name of the Financial Services Authority to the Financial Conduct Authority, which comes into effect on the same day.

In arriving at the current order, 21 bodies have been removed from the previous order and five new bodies have been added. Much of the reduction in the number of bodies is due to the recent reforms to public bodies. As noble Lords will recall, in 2010 the Government announced plans to reform 481 quangos to help reinvigorate the public’s trust in democracy; to ensure that the Government operate in a more efficient and businesslike way; and to radically increase the transparency and accountability of all public services. A number of these changes will come into effect on 1 April this year. It is important that these reforms extend to areas such as official statistics. Therefore, some of the changes have led to the streamlining of some statistics but those most important to public life have been preserved. The longer-than-usual hiatus between this order and the previous one has been to ensure that the new order fully captured these reforms.

In summary, this order reduces the number of bodies that are subject to the UK Statistics Authority’s oversight; those bodies listed on the order will have to work to the new code of practice for official statistics; and their statistics will have the potential to be nominated for formal assessment by the authority to be national statistics. I reassure the noble Baroness that I have discovered the difference between an official statistic and a national statistic, even though it took me some time. This House agreeing the order is a vital part of enhancing public confidence in official and national statistics, and I beg to move.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his introduction and explanation of this order. Perhaps the only point he missed was to stress the importance of always having accurate statistics, and indeed that is implicit in bringing forward the order today. It is a sign of the times that public confidence is higher and trust is greater in statistics if they are seen to be produced independent of government, and I think we should put on the record our praise of the UK Statistics Authority and of the Office for National Statistics, which is part of the executive wing, as it were, of the Statistics Authority. In many ways, the authority acts as a check and balance on some of the important areas of the economy. It is helpful that the Statistics Authority can look at statements and figures so that the policies of all political parties can be held to account. We can ask the Statistics Authority to check the accuracy of any statement that is made.

However, this is not just about the face value of statistics, but how they are used and how they can be misinterpreted either accidentally or deliberately. We have seen that recently. The Minister may be aware that the Statistics Authority had to write to MPs. Any of us can make a mistake, and in this case it was made in a Conservative Party political broadcast on 23 January. It got into a muddle between debt and deficit, and that had to be put right. My understanding is that the broadcast said that it had gone down, but information from the UK Statistics Authority showed that net public sector debt in June 2010, the end of the second quarter, was £811 billion, which represents 55.3% of gross domestic product, and that by the end of the fourth quarter 2012 it had risen to £1,011 billion. We should thank the Statistics Authority because it is able to make corrections to statements made by politicians of any party because it has the confidence of the public behind it.

I know that the noble Lord has worked through the order and looked at the different definitions. As a former Minister who was in the same position that he is in now, perhaps I should not have been puzzled by this, but I want to ask about the Statistics Board. The order refers to consultation with the board and it is referred to in the legislation, but it is actually the UK Statistics Authority and the ONS. The only reference I can find to a board is to the Board of the UK Statistics Authority, whose membership includes people from the ONS—the chief executive, the National Statistician and the Director General. I am slightly puzzled about why the order refers to the board when the entity is in fact the authority, but I hope I am correct in assuming that the board he is referring to is the board of the authority. It would be helpful if he could confirm that.

The board was consulted and I assume that the response to the changes being made was positive. It would be helpful to have the complete list in the schedule, but 21 organisations were removed. If I understood the Minister correctly, he has already answered part of my question in his opening. Part of that arises from the Public Bodies Act, about which he will understand we have mixed views, in particular with regard to the changes being made. If those organisations are no longer able to produce official statistics, does that mean that there is now a lack of available statistical information, or has the work of those 21 organisations which are no longer on the approved list been allocated to other organisations? Are we still able to get the kind of information that was being produced? Further, is the Minister able to provide a list of the 21 organisations? It would be helpful if he could write to me.

The explanatory note also said that the charities being included as producing official statistics will have no official burden placed on them. Does that imply that they have previously produced statistics of use to government and held in public regard, but that have not been regarded as official? If the Minister can say something about that, it would be helpful.

I was puzzled to find that two organisations were not on the list. As I mentioned to the Minister, later on today we will have a debate on crime statistics. It is helpful to have this debate today to help inform that debate later on. In my reading for that debate, it was clear that the UK Statistics Authority says that there are two sources of official figures for crime statistics: one is police records from individual police forces and the other is the British Crime Survey. Individual police forces are obviously not on here, I assume because they feed information to the Home Office which then issues that information. If I am wrong about that, I would be happy to be corrected. But the British Crime Survey is not here. It is interesting if the UK Statistics Authority recognises the British Crime Survey statistics as being very useful, if not “official”—because that is a legal term. If it uses those statistics, I wonder if it would be appropriate for the survey to be on the list. Why is it not?

My final point is on another organisation that I doubt has been missed: the Office for Budget Responsibility. When they came into power, the coalition Government were clear that they wanted to see independent figures and assessment of the economy, and set up the Office for Budget Responsibility in response to that. That was widely welcomed. Yet it is not included in the list. Clearly, it is highly regarded—as is what it produces. Like the UK Statistics Authority, it is a check and balance. The Prime Minister said in a speech on the economy:

“As the independent Office for Budget Responsibility has made clear, growth has been depressed by the financial crisis, by the problems in the eurozone and by a 60% rise in oil prices between”,

and he gave the dates.

“They are absolutely clear, and they are absolutely independent. They are absolutely clear that the deficit reduction plan is not responsible; in fact, quite the opposite”.

The head of the Office for Budget Responsibility then had to write to the Prime Minister to make clear that that was not the case. He said:

“I think it is important to point out that every forecast published by the OBR since the June 2010 Budget has incorporated the widely held assumption that tax increases and spending cuts reduce economic growth in the short term”.

Clearly the OBR has the authority and credibility to write to the Prime Minister when he gets something wrong in talking about statistics and the economy, but it is not listed as an official statistic-producing body. It would be useful were the Minister able to help me understand the reason for that.

Those are the only questions I have. Clearly, it is helpful to have the list and we are obviously supportive of the order. It would be helpful to have the responses to the questions I have asked.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her constructive speech. Of course, I should have said that this is very much an all-party set of issues. The last Government introducing this new system of greater independence for statistics was a very valuable contribution to more informed debate. I am in some ways a great admirer of the Daily Mail and its uses of statistics, and the wonderful way it manages to imply that statistics mean something entirely different from what most of us understand them to mean. Usually you have to read down to the tenth paragraph on the second page to discover that actually the story is not as good as it seems. In politics, we want an independent body that can point out that statistics cannot be twisted in that way. That is what this current system most attempts to do.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

Just as an aside, I owe the noble Lord an apology. In the last debate we had, I accused him of being a Guardian reader. I now appreciate that he is in fact a Daily Mail reader.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I do my best to skim through several newspapers of one sort or another.

The Explanatory Memorandum for this order lists the 21 bodies that are disappearing. I know that the noble Baroness will be deeply familiar with a number of them, such as the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency, the National College for Leadership of Schools and Children’s Services Limited, the National Patient Safety Agency, the National Policing Improvement Agency and so on. In almost all respects, the functions of those bodies have now been transferred to other executive agencies and the statistics which they were responsible for producing will thus be provided by the new agencies. However, I will check to see whether there are any holes in that and will, of course, write to the noble Baroness.

My understanding is that the Office for Budget Responsibility—again, I will check this and write to her to confirm it—rather like the National Audit Office, is an independent body and is thus responsible for its own quality assessment rather than being a government agency which has to be checked by the UK Statistics Authority. Similarly, the Bank of England’s statistics are not checked by the UK Statistics Authority because the Bank is an independent body which is responsible for its own statistics and their quality. That is my understanding on the OBR, but again I will check on that.

I will have to check which agency is now responsible for providing the crime survey. I suspect that it is under the Home Office, which will therefore be responsible for it.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for looking into this. As regards the 21 that were off the list, if he can write to me to clarify any gaps, that would be helpful.

I think the noble Lord will find that the British Crime Survey does not come from the Home Office. I drew a distinction between the police force figures, which I think may be produced by the Home Office, and the separate, more independent British Crime Survey. If the figures are used by the statistics authority, I wonder why they are not included in the list. I am very happy for the noble Lord to write to me on that.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I will check on that. It is absolutely right that we should use a case like this as a chance to check that reliable statistics on important matters are coming from agencies which we all respect.

Having answered those questions, I thank the noble Baroness for her comments and very much hope that the Committee will be willing to accept the Motion.

Motion agreed.

Electoral Registration (Disclosure of Electoral Registers) Regulations 2013

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Grand Committee

Moved By

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Electoral Registration (Disclosure of Electoral Registers) Regulations 2013.

Relevant document: 21st Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, in moving the Electoral Registration (Disclosure of Electoral Registers) Regulations 2013, I wish to speak also to the Electoral Registration (Postponement of 2013 Annual Canvass) Order 2013. The Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013 received Royal Assent on 31 January. It marks the first legislative step towards fulfilment of the coalition Government’s commitment to speed up the implementation of individual electoral registration (IER) so that it takes place in 2014-15, a commitment reaffirmed recently in the Government’s mid-term review.

The principle of IER has won cross-party support. Indeed, the change to individual registration was introduced into the Political Parties and Elections Act 2009 in your Lordships’ House with cross-party support. In passing the ERA Act earlier this year, Parliament showed its intention to see the implementation done using a different plan and a different timetable. The transition to IER will begin in the summer of 2014 and the Government are planning that it will end with the publication of the first IER-only register in December 2015. I know that this is familiar to all those present as we spent a great deal of time debating all these issues. The legislation was altered in your Lordships’ House so that the end may come in either 2015 or 2016, with an order laid by the Secretary of State of the day required to conclude transition. I reaffirm the Government’s commitment to concluding the transition in 2015 in accordance with the implementation plan already published.

The two statutory instruments before the Committee today are key components of the transition to IER in preparing for the confirmation data-matching process. It is one of the important changes from the transition envisaged by the PPE Act 2009.

In their official response to pre-legislative scrutiny on IER, the Government announced that part of the transition would be a data-matching stage whereby all electoral registers in Britain would be matched against trusted public datasets. Where a positive match is made between an entry on the register and information in the dataset, that person may be “confirmed” as having an IER entry on the register because the electoral registration officer can have confidence that they exist and reside at that address. These people will not have to supply their personal identifiers—their national insurance number and date of birth—unless they move house and apply to register at their new address.

Preliminary findings from pilots of this data-matching system have been published on the gov.uk website, and suggest that approximately 70% of existing electors will be confirmed on the register through data-matching. This is slightly higher than the results of previous pilots, with results suggesting that we can be confident in the accuracy of the matching, both of which auger well for the success of data-matching in the transition to IER. Both instruments being considered today support that data-matching element of the transition in very important and practical ways.

Regulation 2 of the draft Electoral Registration (Disclosure of Electoral Registers) Regulations 2013, if approved, will allow EROs, working with the Government, to carry out a dry run of confirmation data-matching, so that we can be even more confident that the new system will work when it goes live in the summer of 2014. The regulations would enable the Lord President of the Council to require electoral registration officers to disclose the information on their electoral registers to him through a conduit specified in writing for the purposes set out in paragraph 1A of Schedule 2 to the Representation of the People Act 1983.

The conduit will be the IER digital service, which is currently being developed and will be able to carry out the secure transfers of data required for IER, including the confirmation data match. The service is not identified specifically in the regulations in order to allow for flexibility to handle risks around this data transfer, whereby any problem that arose in using the digital service could be dealt with by using a different conduit for data transfer without the need for changes to the regulations. The Information Commissioner’s Office has advised us that this is the best way to legislate for this kind of digital data-transfer system.

Regulation 2 also provides for the sharing of the information on the registers with the Department for Work and Pensions, where it may be compared against certain data held there and matched against the names, addresses and dates of birth. Date of birth is included because this is held by EROs in relation to attainers—those under 18 who will become electors during the life of the current register.

The personal identifiers that will be used as part of the verification process for IER—the national insurance number and date of birth—will not be disclosed under these regulations because they do not appear on the electoral register, with the exception of attainers’ dates of birth. This is also true of the full confirmation process in 2014, meaning that considerably fewer items of sensitive personal information will be transferred through the IER digital service and matched with DWP data than would be the case if confirmation data-matching was not being used as part of the transition to IER. Once the information has been matched at DWP, a match result will be sent back to the ERO. In the full confirmation process in 2014, this result will assist the ERO in deciding whether the person can be confirmed on the register, or if they should be invited to make an IER application.

In the dry run later this year, however, there will be no contact with electors. Instead, the EROs will have an indication of what their overall match rate for their local authority area will be in 2014, and therefore the extent to which they are likely to need to invite and process IER applications. They may also find that certain areas in their zone have lower match rates than elsewhere. In this case, they may, for example, feel that they can focus resources in areas with low match scores during the canvass period to ensure that the information on the register for those areas is up to date for the 2014 confirmation data match.

In order that this dry run and the 2014 confirmation data match can take place, these regulations would also allow local authorities to build up their IT resources and connect to the secure IER digital service in order that they can disclose their registers in the format and through the conduit specified by the Lord President, as they will be required to do Regulation 2(3). By setting up this IT infrastructure and having a dry run of the process this year, we can be confident that all the component parts are in place and all EROs are securely connected to it before the transition to IER and the full confirmation data-match in summer 2014.

Under the Electoral Registration Data Schemes (No. 2) Order 2012, this connectivity is already being set up in 22 local authorities in which pilots are being conducted. That work, under that order, will cease at the end of 31 March this year, though, and these regulations will enable it to continue in those authorities and to be rolled out to the rest of Great Britain. It is vital that this work is continued uninterrupted in the pilot areas and begins as soon as possible elsewhere, with these regulations in force from 1 April 2013.

Having described the context for the draft regulations at length, I now turn to the draft Electoral Registration (Postponement of 2013 Annual Canvass) Order 2013. The postponement of the annual canvass was also outlined in the Government’s response to pre-legislative scrutiny in February 2012. The purpose is to ensure that confirmation data-matching in summer 2014 is done using registers that are as complete and accurate as possible. We know that the completeness and accuracy of registers deteriorates over time at a rate of around 1% per month, so reducing the gap between the compilation of the register and the point at which the data are matched should improve match rates.

We announced that the canvass due to take place in autumn 2013 would be postponed so that the revised register would be published in early 2014, rather than December 2013. The draft order sets out the specific dates for the canvass and the publication, with canvass activity beginning from 1 October 2013 and the revised register being published on 17 February 2014 in England and on 10 March 2014 in Scotland and Wales. These publication dates represent the best balance between the benefits of delaying the canvass to improve the match scores and the need for electoral administrators and political parties to have the revised register published prior to local elections and European Parliamentary elections, due to take place in 2014.

The different dates for England and for Scotland and Wales reflect this point. As there are local elections due to take place in England on 1 May, the register will be published earlier there, whereas there are no such elections in Scotland and Wales so the register can be published later, as long as they are available in time to prepare for the European Parliament elections.

It is worth noting that, while 1 October is given as the date from which canvass activity may begin, this does not mean that registration officers must begin on that date. Indeed, many may feel that a shorter period, beginning in late October or early November would be more suitable for their district. By setting 1 October as the date after which canvass activity may take place, we are allowing EROs to be flexible in planning for their district. The October to February and March time frame is akin to the longest period in which we are aware of EROs carrying out canvass activity at present, from July to late November.

As set out in the Explanatory Memoranda for these instruments, formal consultation has been conducted with the Electoral Commission on both instruments, and with the Information Commissioner’s Office on the regulations. This is in addition to informal and ongoing consultation on these instruments and other delegated legislation with these organisations, as well as with the Association of Electoral Administrators, the Scottish Assessors’ Association, and the major political parties and other stakeholders.

These two statutory instruments, if approved, will play an integral part in preparing for the transition to individual electoral registration in 2014. Between them, they would set up the IT infrastructure for confirmation data-matching in summer 2014, enable a dry run of the process to be conducted in advance, and ensure that the registers used for the 2014 data-match are as complete and accurate as possible.

We have been through much of this in previous debates and, while passing, working through the ERA Act. I hope that Members of the Committee will recognise that the Government are continuing to work as well as possible, and as actively as possible, to make sure that we end up with as complete and as accurate an individual electoral register as possible, as we move through this transition.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I have to say that if the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has really been worn down by all these debates on IER, he is showing no sign of it whatever.

I thank the Minister for introducing these measures. I turn first to the disclosure regulations. The Committee will recall that we welcomed all the efforts made to locate and contact eligible voters absent from the register, and to confirm those already on the household list. We therefore fully support this dry run, which will assist EROs to compare their data against datasets kept by DWP and to test the confirmation exercises.

Noble Lords will not be surprised that I have a number of questions. I had hoped that if the exercise had revealed the names and addresses of people not on the current list, the ERO would then be able to write and invite them to register. The Minister said that there would be no contact, but I do not know whether that means that even if an ERO finds from DWP material someone who is not on the register, the ERO will be unable to approach that person. Perhaps the Minister can clarify that.

We know that the Minister in another place confirmed the Government’s confidence that everything, including the resources, is sufficiently in place for this work to happen within the required timescale. Perhaps he can repeat that assurance for the benefit of the Committee, together with any comfort that he has received from the Electoral Commission.

The other issue that I had intended to raise was that mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler—to ask Minister to confirm that the Electoral Commission will be required to evaluate these pilots and therefore to report back to the House.

Will the Minister also confirm that the regulations will give the necessary authority for all the relevant parties to release the data necessary for this work? Perhaps he can also assure the Committee that all the relevant parties involved will be clear about their duties and responsibilities under the Data Protection Act before any data-sharing begins. Perhaps he can set out what safeguards are in place to protect individuals’ data security. We noted in previous discussions on individual registration that some people, including those in your Lordships’ House, tend to register their vote at one address but use another address for correspondence. That will clearly be a major issue when using the DWP material. Perhaps the Minister can outline how this is to be dealt with in the pilots.

I turn to the second measure, on the postponement of the 2013 household canvass, which is now to be published in England in February 2014, and in March in Scotland and Wales. The Minister will recall my sadly unsuccessful attempt to remove from the then ERA Bill the ability of the Secretary of State to abolish the canvass. That is an indication of how important we see this tool in seeking out and registering all citizens with an entitlement to vote. Clearly, this will be even more important in the move to IER, which will fully replace the household register only in 2016. I ask the Minister to confirm that he is confident that the Government’s plans will ensure that by 2016 we will have a better register than we have at present, and that the Government remain clear that there will be no dropping of the household register before 2016.

We are very content that the Government push ahead with locating non-registered but eligible electors, so that by 2016 we have the maximum possible number of individually registered electors by a variety of means and no one is inadvertently denied their vote in 2016. But we seek assurance that any such work is not with the idea of bringing forward sole reliance on the individual rather than household-registered electorate. In the mean time, however, while we remain with household lists, as the Minister has said that registers decline in accuracy by about 1% a month, we are content with the canvass taking place slightly later—provided that the information is then made available to political parties as soon as possible thereafter, so that their work on the lists can begin, as he mentioned. This is key. The Committee knows that much of the business of alerting voters to the fact that they are or are not on the electoral roll is done by political parties, as the voting cards tend to go out only a short time before an election. It will be more and more important, with the gradual shift to IER, for parties to have early and easy access to the new registers so that they can undertake their canvass work and so that anyone left off can be identified in time to rectify that absence. We also need, as early as possible after the delayed canvass, publication, perhaps monthly, of a rolling register, showing IER flags.

We know that the ERA allows for transfer to IER to be completed by the end of December 2016, which is a sensible date. The Committee will understand that we remain a little nervous. The Act retains a power to hurry it through earlier than that, but we hope that the Government are not trying to do that, given the risk of losing eligible voters. We would also query—and this was another point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler—whether there is a satisfactory way in which to judge whether the 2016 date is appropriate to complete the transition. We would like to know what criteria would be applied and what would be the role of the Electoral Commission in such a process. Under the Labour Government’s legislation on IER, the Electoral Commission had a pivotal role in deciding whether progress had been sufficient to create safe conditions for the final move to be made. This Government removed that role, but surely the commission must have a duty to press the “Go” button, if that decision is to clearly non-political and based on solid data.

Perhaps I could use this opportunity to ask the Minister two questions.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Two more?

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

Yes, but I once asked the noble Lord 16.

First, are the Government committed to the December 2016 timetable? Secondly, will they await a commission pronouncement on whether the conditions are right before making the final transition to IER? We assume that a core criterion for assessing those conditions is whether, as the Minister says, the electoral register is at least as accurate as the current register, but we need that to be judged by an independent body, which surely can only be the Electoral Commission.

Finally, we return to the point of which we were reminded by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, that the Electoral Commission remains concerned about an October rather than November start date. I noticed that, in introducing this, the Minister seemed to say that a later date might be more suitable. Perhaps he could clarify whether that reflects discussions with the Electoral Commission.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I thank the noble Lord and the noble Baroness for their contributions. I should say to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, that this may not be the last SI on this subject and it is important, since this is such a key element, that we make sure that we have all-party confidence in the process as we go through. We are dealing with data-sharing in some sensitive areas, so we need to make sure that everyone is carried along.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, some of the questions raised are familiar to us from previous debates and will no doubt be repeated in further debates. Let me summarise: of course we want to ensure that, as we go through this important transition, we carry all parties and stakeholders with us, that confidentiality of data in terms of data-sharing is maintained, and that the Electoral Commission is fully engaged throughout the process.

On the flexibility of electoral registration officers in deciding on the canvass, as I said in my speech, some will decide not to start until November. I am tempted to say to those who live in the lush south, such as my noble friend Lord Tyler, that “it’s grim up north”. Canvassing in north Yorkshire in January and February is not always easy. My mother-in-law, when she lived in Upper Wharfedale, was usually snowed in for at least six weeks during that period. It will differ from area to area and this is why we are allowing EROs a certain amount of flexibility.

I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, that this is a dry run. It is not intended to involve contact with electors. It is a confirmation test of how far we can get matching data with the DWP database and others so that we have a better indication of the scale of the remaining chunk of the electorate who need to be visited or contacted one way or another. That is the whole purpose of this activity. I repeat the assurance that we are on track. We are confident that we will be able to carry through this process by our preferred date of December 2015 rather than delaying until 2016. However, as the noble Baroness is well aware, we will be monitoring this as we carry it through. If we discover that there are delays along the way, there is the potential in the Act for that delay.

I have confidence in the Government’s digital service in terms of data sharing. I have spoken to staff in that service on a number of occasions and am very impressed by what they are doing. There are some larger questions here about data privacy, data sharing and data use. The Cabinet Office is in the process of setting up a briefing for Peers on the digital revolution. One of the issues that we will cover for that will be precisely data privacy and data protection. I hope that we will get a good audience for that because there are some much broader issues here than simply this Act which I think it will be useful to explore.

I was asked whether the new register will be better than the present one. Given everything I have seen about the long-term deterioration of the current register’s accuracy, I say cautiously that our aim is that the new register will be at least as good as the one we have now, and we will end the long-term process of deterioration from which the register has been suffering. The Government are thus confident that we will come through this process with as accurate and complete a register as possible.

The suggestion of flagging the status of the register on a monthly update is one that we will take away and consider further. On the question of annual canvasses, I reassure the noble Baroness that we have no plans to abolish the annual register to identify potentially eligible electors and invite them to register. However, as we have discussed on previous occasions, the process of doing the annual canvass is becoming more difficult over a long-term period. It is also getting more difficult to recruit people to do the annual canvass. That is something we need to bear in mind as part of a much longer-term transition of how we manage a process which was, after all, set up in the early 20th century and may not be entirely suited to the sort of built environment which we have in many areas of Britain. The resources are in place. The Government are committed to concluding the transition by the end of 2015, if all is in place. That will, of course, be subject to everyone with a stake in the process having confidence that this has been completed, certainly including the Electoral Commission, which has been closely involved so far and will rightly continue to monitor and comment as we carry through the process. I hope that I have answered all the questions. I will write to those who have contributed if there are any further questions that I have not answered. I commend the regulations.

Motion agreed.

Electoral Registration (Postponement of 2013 Annual Canvass) Order 2013

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Grand Committee

Moved By

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Electoral Registration (Postponement of 2013 Annual Canvass) Order 2013.

Relevant document: 21st Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.

Motion agreed.

Representation of the People (Election Expenses Exclusion) Order 2013

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2013 Grand Committee

Moved By

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Representation of the People (Election Expenses Exclusion) Order 2013.

Relevant documents: 19th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Representation of the People Act 1983 lists a number of exclusions from election expenses, which this order seeks to amend. The order adds a further exclusion whereby payments made to disabled candidates from the Access to Elected Office for Disabled People Fund are also exempted. This means that recipients of the new fund will not be penalised for accepting grants that are intended to increase their electoral participation. Fund payments will not therefore be considered for the purposes of candidates’ spending limits.

There are more than 11 million people with a limiting long-term illness, impairment or disability in Great Britain, and they are substantially underrepresented in Parliament and other elected bodies. The Government strongly believe that elected bodies should be more representative of the people they serve.

To address this, the Access to Elected Office Strategy was launched in July last year to provide disabled people with training, paid parliamentary internships and grants through the Access to Elected Office for Disabled People Fund. The fund was established because one of the principal reasons disabled people are underrepresented in elected bodies is the fact that they face additional costs when standing for elected office—for instance, extra transport costs or the hire of sign language interpreters. These additional costs create an extra barrier to elected office for disabled people—one that other, non-disabled, candidates do not face. The fund therefore seeks to help disabled candidates to overcome these financial hurdles by covering the cost of their disability-related items or services, whatever they may be.

The fund provides grants to all disabled candidates, whether they are independent or represent political parties, provided that they are standing at UK parliamentary, English local authority, Greater London Authority, English mayoral or police and crime commissioner elections or by-elections. By offering specific disability-related financial assistance, the fund will place disabled candidates on an equal footing with the other candidates.

Unfortunately, under current electoral rules, grant payments awarded by the fund will count towards candidates’ election spending limits. This is not an issue for parliamentary, Greater London Authority or police and crime commissioner elections, where disability-related costs are likely to be treated as personal expenses and are therefore exempt under Section 76(5) of the Representation of the People Act 1983—a provision that I am sure Members of the Committee know off by heart—but for local authority and English mayoral elections, the rules place disabled candidates who are awarded funding from the Government in the extraordinary position of being penalised for accepting it. Of course, in local authority elections, the overall limit for spending is much lower and there is therefore potentially a much higher barrier. This is because any fund spending will reduce the amount that disabled candidates can spend on the usual election expenses, while unfunded candidates will have the entire election expenses limit at their disposal.

The situation is further affected by the fact that there are a number of high-cost needs for which many disabled candidates will seek funding, such as British sign language interpreters who can cost as much as £350 a day. In some circumstances, the fund could entirely consume a disabled candidate’s election expenses limit, which is on average just £1,000 for local authority elections. This order therefore seeks to remove these unintended effects of the fund by excluding grants provided by the Access to Elected Office for Disabled People Fund from candidate spending limits. Using an existing order-making power contained within Schedule 4A to the Representation of the People Act 1983 to amend the Act itself, a new tightly drawn exception to the definition of election expenses is thus being created. This exception will provide that any item or service financed by the fund would not amount to an election expense, and would not therefore count towards a candidate’s spending limit.

A three-part test must be met in order for the exemption the order provides to apply. First, a candidate must have incurred spending specifically in order to remove or mitigate barriers to seeking elected office—barriers which must be associated with his or her disability. Secondly, that spending must also have been incurred through the means of a grant awarded under the fund’s terms and conditions. Lastly, the spending must then be defrayed or reimbursed by the fund. The fund is intended to cover all the additional costs that disabled candidates face as a result of their disability. That can therefore include extra costs that arise from campaigning activity. For example, campaigning leaflets would not normally be considered for funding, but where a blind candidate might require Braille leaflets for proof-reading purposes, the extra cost of producing those leaflets in Braille will be met by the fund.

The order is also drafted with a sunset clause so that it exactly aligns with the short and temporary operating period of the fund. The fund has been set up as a pilot exercise only until June 2014, so its effectiveness can be assessed before the Government take a view on whether to introduce it on a permanent basis. If the resolution is passed, the Representation of the People (Election Expenses Exclusion) Order will be made to ensure that it comes into force by 26 March, the start of the regulated period for the next local authority elections. I hope noble Lords agree that the fund provides essential support to disabled people seeking to participate in elections and democratic processes, and that this order helps very considerably to enable that. I beg to move.

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, as we have heard, the additional costs faced by disabled people in contesting elections—for example, the cost of sign language interpreters—can make running for elected office prohibitively expensive for them. Therefore, the Government’s decision to implement the recommendations of the Speaker’s Conference on parliamentary representation through the setting up of the access to elected office fund is very welcome and much to be commended. This will go a long way to removing the financial barriers and ensuring that aspiring disabled candidates who have higher costs are not penalised, and should improve access to elected office for disabled people. Avoiding spending limits deterring disabled people applying for support from the fund would, as we have heard, require a change in the law to establish an exemption as to how the candidate’s expenses related to disability are treated. Therefore, I support the draft order which seeks to amend current election limit rules which pose problems for the operation of the fund.

It is important that we pass this order before the start of the regulated period for the forthcoming local elections in May this year. Given the breadth of the extra costs which could be faced by prospective disabled candidates, the fund does not provide an exhaustive list of expenses that would be covered and provides only an indication of the most common expenses that are likely to occur and would be eligible for funding. In fact, it would not be possible to provide an exhaustive list.

The Electoral Commission has, however, voiced concerns that the exemption which the order creates to the current limits on candidates’ spending is not sufficiently clearly defined. Following further discussion with the Government and the fund, it proposes the following actions to make the risks associated with this order manageable for the 2013 local elections. First, it proposes that the fund should ensure that all candidates accessing funding are referred to the Electoral Commission for individual advice on how their funding will be treated under the spending rules; and secondly, it proposes that the fund and the Government should set out a clear policy to clarify the operation and scope of the fund to reduce the uncertainty around interpretation of the order.

Scope, which has done a lot of work on the accessibility of elections for disabled people, believes that the exemption needs to be broad enough to allow for any potential expense that occurs because of an individual’s disability. It takes the view that the proposed drafting, which states that in order to benefit from an exemption, the expenditure must be designed to remove or mitigate barriers to seeking elected office, should be sufficiently mindful of this to achieve the desired purpose. In view of the high level of scrutiny that takes place around election expenses, the proposed exemption would need to be applied carefully and transparently to militate against the prospect of a subsequent legal challenge; for example, if another candidate made an allegation of overspending. Such allegations would be extremely detrimental to the future of the fund and would risk undermining the progress being made in improving access to elected office for disabled people. Accordingly, Scope has recognised that mechanisms need to be put in place to ensure transparency about how the exemption is operated in order to maintain trust that the fund is not being misused for political gain. It therefore supports the Electoral Commission’s suggestion of providing advice to disabled people to disclose expenses paid for by the fund on a voluntary basis on their spending return.

With these safeguards, which have been suggested by the Electoral Commission, I think that the risks can be sufficiently managed for the local elections that are to take place in a couple of months’ time. Work will continue after those elections to make sure that the exemption is working satisfactorily, and there is a sunset clause, as the Minister explained. With those safeguards, I support the order and urge the Committee to agree to it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, in responding to points from the noble Lord, Lord Low, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, we hope that they are very successful in selecting their candidates. Noble Lords will not be surprised, however, if I do not necessarily wish them success in being elected. But it is a challenge to my party to make sure that we can similarly find some candidates. It will also come as no surprise to the Committee that we broadly and warmly welcome this draft order which, as the Minister says, will enable disabled candidates to apply for and use the fund specifically created to encourage them to be candidates by excluding those moneys from the schedule of election expenses. It is clearly a shame that it was not thought of when the fund was established, but we are pleased, as the noble Lord, Lord Low, said, that it will be done by 26 March, in time for this year’s election. Unsurprisingly, the charities representing people with disabilities, most notably Scope, are also supportive of the thrust of the measure.

The Minister will have read the discussions of the House of Commons committee on this. Perhaps it is a bit late to regret, along with it, that the fund does not cover parish council elections. Indeed, for many people, that is their first attempt at the ballot box, and it might have encouraged more disabled people to make that same first attempt. However, this is a pilot, and we hope that if it is successful it will be rolled out in a comprehensive way.

My questions, therefore, are not about what might have been but about this specific order, which allows the fund expenditure to be excluded. Will the Minister confirm that anything that the fund agrees to finance will then automatically be covered by the exclusion? In other words, there will be no additional formality to be gone through? We do not want the fund saying that it is covered and then being told afterwards that it is not. There needs to be just one lot of decision-takers, and I assume that it will be the fund decision-takers. It would be useful to have that confirmed.

What is being done to promote awareness of the fund? In preparation for today, I did the usual thing and tried to find out about it. I found it impossible to locate the fund through the Electoral Commission’s less-than-helpful website. Google was rather more helpful and got me on to the relevant site. Given that the Electoral Commission wants to be involved in this, I would have thought that it would do more to make knowledge of the fund better known, rather than simply being able to find out about this specific order, which is not of interest to disabled people once it is done.

Information on the fund itself was not brilliant. I could not get hold of the application form from the website although it has now been sent to me. It also was not clear how quickly a decision would be made, which I should have thought was also quite important for candidates to decide whether to go ahead. They need to know that before they start spending too much of their own money. Although we are keen for the Electoral Commission to be involved in encouraging and helping disabled people to be candidates, we hope that it will smarten up its own access via the web in time to do this.

We very much support the exclusion of fund expenditure but rather like the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, we wonder whether this leaves a transparency gap. It would be useful to know what disclosure of such funds and their use will be made. Mention was made of a voluntary system, and I wonder whether that is sufficient or whether the fund should itself be transparent. It would be useful to know the Government’s thinking on that. Finally, can the Government assure us that if this pilot proves a success, it will be rolled out fully and with money following intent? As we know, the groups who will benefit from this are highly underrepresented at the moment. Indeed, I cannot believe that this Government would have so undermined the lives of so many disabled people as they have done both under the Welfare Reform Act and now the Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill had we had more people as MPs, or indeed Peers, but especially MPs, from those particularly affected groups. We very much want this fund to be a success and we hope that its administrators, the Electoral Commission and the Government will play a very full part in helping disabled people to find out about the fund and then stand for and be elected to public office. I am sorry, but I hope that they will all be Labour if they get elected.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I thank those who have spoken for their general welcome for this order. I stress that this is a pilot and an experiment in some ways. I also stress that it is absolutely an all-party initiative. We very much hope, as the noble Baroness has suggested, that all parties will want to take this up and make use of it, and that part of the way in which information will spread out is that all parties will wish to inform their local associations to look more actively for potential candidates for whom this would make the crucial difference.

In the disability world, the communications strategy is already a good deal better known than in the general outside world. I had not heard of it until a few weeks ago but I am told that the Government have a comprehensive communications strategy in place. There have been a number of news stories in the press, and in tweets, blogs and the like, targeted very much at the disability community. This will continue as the pilot rolls on.

As for the question of what happens in August 2014, this is a pilot over which we will want to consult as we go along, as well as seeing how many people come forward. Once the SI ends, we will ensure that there is a smooth transition to the new regime, if by then a decision is made that the fund is seen as worthwhile and is to be extended. So far there have been about 30 applications for the fund, and the average per application is between £4,000 and £6,000. We are not talking about enormous amounts. Noble Lords will recall that there is a £20,000 maximum per application under the fund at the moment. However, we hope that this will be shown to make a crucial difference in making it easier for people with different disabilities to put themselves forward for election.

In the pilot we decided not to include parish councils. A great many parish councils do not have elections. At my party’s spring conference, I talked to a local activist from West Yorkshire. He told me how deeply unpopular he has made himself with a number of other politicians in his ward, because he keeps insisting that there should be elections for the parish council. Others think that elections are an unnecessary expense and that co-option is much to be preferred, this being a predominantly Conservative parish council. Perhaps one of the questions that we will investigate and discuss further, and come to a different decision on as we move forwards from the pilot, is whether we include parish council elections, in which many people first cut their electoral teeth, as the noble Baroness rightly says.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, asks whether it will be retrospective. The answer is that it will not, but those who have already approached the fund for support for this coming May’s elections will be able to roll their applications in and it will not go back further than that.

[Baroness Brinton]

I thank the Minister for giving way. I am concerned that some people who have applied to the fund for grants have not yet stood for office but clearly intend to be candidates. I would not want them to be compromised in that position because they had had an early grant. It would be useful if some reassurance could be sought to protect them.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I will need to investigate exactly what the position is there and will write to the noble Baroness. I understand that those who are not yet in the election campaign for this May but who have had grants already to help them in their campaigning will come under this order once it has been passed. I will check whether that counts as a degree of retrospection and return to her.

I have already answered the question about whether the Government will ensure that there is no gap on the expiry of the pilot. My very clear understanding is that any spending covered by the fund will automatically be under scrutiny. That is the purpose of the order. Certainly, my reading of it suggests that that is absolutely one on one and that no difference is allowed in that regard. I was asked how quickly decisions will be made. They will be made as quickly as possible. Our concern in all this is to make a significant difference to the decisions that disabled people may make on whether they can manage to stand for election, and to encourage others to work with them by recognising that they have the ability to cope with all the strains of elections.

The noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston, asked me how clear the policy was. As he will know, the fund administrator, Convey, will manage this on behalf of the Government and it will clearly set out on the fund website its policy approach to funding decisions, explaining the principles used to assess an applicant’s disability needs. This will also be reflected in the guidance document and updated, if necessary, on a quarterly basis. For fund applications over a certain limit, an advisory council will offer more expert advice. Convey has agreed drafting with the Electoral Commission and will introduce these proposed changes on the fund website before this SI comes into force.

On the question of spending returns and transparency, Convey has agreed to amend the fund’s guidance to encourage successful applicants voluntarily to disclose any fund awards on their election spending returns at all elections. A suitable form of wording to this effect has been agreed with the commission, so we are working very closely with the Electoral Commission on all this. Every effort is being made to take decisions as quickly as we can. We want to make sure, as far as possible, that this pilot is seen to be a success, that it does make a significant difference, and that after we have seen the impact on this year’s elections and the impact it may have on the selection of parliamentary candidates for the next set of elections, we will be able to agree that the pilot fund should be converted into a longer-term fund, perhaps with a number of tweaks and amendments, which we hope all parties and all those interested in democratic politics with diverse representation will wish to accept. I commend the order.

Motion agreed.

Government’s New Approach to Consultation: “Work in Progress” (SLSC Report)

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am tempted to speak at double speed in the hope that we may finish before we have the next Division. This is for me also the second debate in two weeks on machinery issues, as it were—how we go about things. I started on both thinking, “This is very dry”, but I think that this shows the House of Lords very much at its best—looking at, in the previous instance, how we handle secondary legislation and, in this instance, how we handle consultations.

I intend to answer this not by defending the current Government, because I am aware that these are structural problems of government and of the way in which the Executive deal with the legislature and vice versa. I am conscious, as I think back, that I first used to worry about Henry VIII clauses when I was in opposition many years ago. In reading back to the 2007-08 consultations, I come across phrases like “consultation fatigue” and “the struggles of the Better Regulation Executive”. Indeed, I have a dim memory that my wife was on the Better Regulation Advisory Council at the time, and would come home very frustrated with some of the problems that it was facing about all the different contradictions in attempting to improve regulation and consult with the widest number of parties but nevertheless to reach an end to it.

The noble Lord, Lord Hart, rightly said that speed is not the universal hallmark of good government, but of course delay over extended periods is not the universal hallmark of good government either. If one looks back at some of the other areas in which successive Governments consulted most—airports policy in south-east England, for example—one could not say that one ever cut short consultation on that process. Over the past 30 years, the occasional decision by a Government, whichever Government it was, to override one or two of those consulted parties might have been a good idea. Consultation does not necessarily lead to consensus. I have been involved in consultations over House of Lords reform over the past 20 years, and we have not quite reached consensus on it yet through each successive process of consultation.

One of the starting points for the current Government on consultation is to say to departments, “The earlier that consultation is engaged in, the better”. A process in which you more or less decide what it is you want to do and then, when you have decided, you carry out a 12-week consultation process in which you ask everyone what they think about what you have decided is actually a very bad thing. It would be much better and more constructive—this is part of what the Cabinet Office has been saying to departments—to engage with your stakeholders as early as possible, before things have hardened into a consensus within Whitehall, so that you learn where the obstacles are likely to be and you can actually have a worthwhile exchange of views. That of course means that the Government are likely to consult first with the visible stakeholders and that there is always the problem of those who might be excluded or those who want to be involved. A later-stage consultation in which you allow others who you might not have thought of in the first instance to come in nevertheless is there to be added at the later point. Late consultation risks being a formal allowance for objections to be made; the earlier it is, therefore, the better.

My noble friend Lady Hamwee rightly talked about the burden of consultation on both sides. That came back in some of the evidence submitted to the committee —the number of occasions on which the Government are asking for consultations.

Looking back into some of this, I was struck when I came across the phrase, “the consultation and engagement community”; the professionals who were out there doing their best to catch each consultation as it came through. I am conscious of how far this industry—in a sense, this community—has grown. Coming back on the train—

[The Deputy Speaker (Viscount Simon)]

My Lords, a Division has been called in the House. We will adjourn until 6.56 pm.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I was saying when we broke that much of this is about the tension between the Opposition and the Government, legislature and Executive, and that we have a range of long-running problems in how government consults.

I will try to answer the four questions that the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, has raised as a focus for dealing with this extremely broad subject. After all, when one talks about consultation, one is covering a very wide range of subjects. What you need to do when consulting about, for example, the patterns of dog ownership and how to address identification of dogs—on which, on a digital consultation, some 27,000 individual replies came in very rapidly—is very different from when you are discussing an issue on land planning, the school curriculum or even perhaps on caravan sites. We have to have different sorts of consultation patterns to some extent for different sorts of issues.

The problem that the Government are seeking to resolve is how to make consultation more effective as government becomes more digital—the digital revolution provides a great many opportunities for us—and as the Civil Service gets leaner and therefore, unavoidably, slightly meaner. We note that a number of people have remarked that government has not been good at responding to consultations. Certainly that is part of what the review will need to take into account: how do we ensure that if you are consulting—and the formal consultation processes, which often come very late in a policy-making process, are the ones which really matter here—government is able to take the consultations into account and to provide a timely response?

On the “digital by default” issue, the Government are moving to a single gov.uk website. One of the things I am most excited about within government is the whole government digital proposal; how far we are beginning to transform the way in which government relates to the citizen as we go through the next digital revolution.

When I first began to be involved in this, I did not believe the DWP statistics about how many benefit claimants were interacting with government digitally. It is of the order of 25% and is expected to go up to about 70% within the next six to seven years. I found this very difficult to believe, but I now understand that we are all beginning to move along the digital corridor much more rapidly than we expected. People who do not see themselves as computer-enabled nevertheless have complex mobile phones through which they are beginning to interact with government. Part of what we hope we are able to do as we make government more open, and make access for the individual and for particular groups more available, is to make the process of consultation easier. There will be a single website, which will list all available consultations. This comes out of the whole governmental “digital by default” proposals.

The question of what is meant by “engagement” takes us into a broad set of issues, in which my noble friend Lord Goodlad raised the question of what we meant by “government by consent” in a modern democracy. I am conscious that part of the problem of how consultations are organised is that consultation now means dealing with a wide range of lobbies and interested groups, which perform the function that 30 to 40 years ago was often performed by political parties, which sorted out the range of political priorities and began to crunch through how you reconciled different priorities. Now that political parties are very much weaker and smaller, we have masses of single-issue groups, volunteer organisations, advocacy bodies, lobbies, interests and protest groups. Travelling back on the train from my party’s spring conference yesterday, I found myself sitting opposite a leading member of a major advocacy group who said that his biggest problem was “all the lobbies”, by which he meant the interested groups with which he competes and for which he wants to see, as do others, a statutory register of lobbyists, which will control their interactions with the Government. We all understand now that the battle over consultation and access to government, which will come up in a further discussion when the Government produce proposals for a statutory register of lobbyists, would take us yet again into this question of transparency, access, government response and so forth.

The noble Lord, Lord Scott, talked about the need for the Government to communicate with the “right people”, but consultation probably also has to be communication with the wrong people as well as the right people. At least, one has to be prepared to listen to the wrong people from time to time, although of course we recognise that communication and consultation early in the process has to start with the most logical stakeholders. However, we do not have to communicate only with them. We have to be careful not to communicate simply with the loudest people, or the best organised or funded.

The Government are therefore committed to open policy-making, as far as possible. The consultation principles say:

“Increasing the level of transparency improves the quality of policy making by bringing to bear expertise and alternative perspectives”.

How we manage that will also depend on how far the groups with which we are dealing are prepared to engage in a much more active consultation process from the beginning through to the end.

On hard-to-reach groups, when we are dealing with major aspects of aviation policy there are a few vulnerable groups about which one has to worry. Clearly, if you are dealing with disability policy, a Government have to make particular arrangements. Similarly, if you are dealing with caravan sites, there are different vulnerable groups and you have to make a particular effort. The Government are well aware of that. It will also come into the review.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, remarked critically on the Prime Minister’s comments that, if there is no need for a consultation, we should not have one. Oliver Letwin, in his evidence to your Lordships’ committee, talked a good deal about the principle of proportionality: some very minor and technical changes, such as a change in the name of an authority, do not need lengthy, expensive consultation. However, there are other areas with widespread consultation.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, talked about small organisations struggling to respond quickly, especially NGOs and local authorities. I emphasise that the consultation principles explicitly protect the compact with the voluntary sector, and we are well aware that the voluntary sector is one of those that are most actively concerned to be included in the consultation process. I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, that the evidence presented to the committee will be taken into account in the review that the Government are about to undertake.

I say to my noble friend Lady Hamwee that the membership of the external advisory panel is currently being finalised, and will most likely include a representative from the National Audit Office. We will also take into account the committee’s recommendation that members should be drawn from the charity sector, from industry and from academia to represent a wide range of interests. As members of the committee will know, the review will begin after Easter and the panel will be announced then.

We take all the points made about avoiding holiday periods and the Christmas period into account. I am sure that the gamekeeper turned poacher that we have with us is well aware of occasions in the past when civil servants, and possibly even Ministers, have wished to use those sorts of expedients as ways of minimising the reality of consultation while going through the motions. Again, I suspect that that is a universal and secular habit of all forms of government, and it is part of what good legislatures should always be on the lookout for.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

I am sorry to interrupt. The Minister has made a great effort to answer the many questions that have been raised but, just before he sits down, there is one that I asked him a couple of times: what is the problem that the Government are seeking to address by changing from the 2008 principles to the ones that they brought forward in July?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I was saying that as we move towards greater interaction between government and citizen through digital means, the characteristics of consultation will change. I was also remarking that Governments have not been good enough—departments have not been good enough—at consulting with stakeholders at an early enough stage in the process. A formal consultation after you have taken the principal decision is itself sometimes bound to lead to disappointment for those who come in. We are trying to move towards a more flexible and faster system of consultation where appropriate. I hope that that provides an answer.

The review panel that will now be meeting will take fully into account everything that the committee has said and the evidence submitted to it. The panel will be reporting by the summer, and I expect and hope that, as a good legislative committee, this committee will then return to the subject and look at how satisfied it is by the review panel’s conclusions.

Commonwealth and Commonwealth Charter

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2013 Lords Chamber

Moved By

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That this House takes note of developments in the Commonwealth and the Commonwealth Charter.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, this is a timely debate ahead of Commonwealth Week, which starts on Monday and provides a platform for countries around the world to join together in celebration of the links that they share as members of the Commonwealth. As my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs recently affirmed in his response to the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee report on the role and future of the Commonwealth, the Government are committed to strengthening our engagement with, and our role within, the Commonwealth. A strong Commonwealth is important to the national interests of all its member states. It can help us to promote democratic values, good governance and prosperity. This is no longer the British Commonwealth but a network of like-minded nations with shared history, values and interests within which the UK plays an active and leading role.

One of the greatest challenges we face is ensuring that the Commonwealth keeps pace with today’s changing world. Much work has already been done to respond to this challenge and the UK has been active in this. Our Commonwealth policy over the past two years has focused on modernising and improving the organisation’s internal institutions and strengthening respect for its values. We are pleased that modernisation discussions that started before the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth in 2011 reached a conclusion last year, and that the heads have endorsed a number of reforms including the new Commonwealth charter. That we were able to agree so many of these reforms is a testament to the work of my right honourable friend the Minister of State for the Commonwealth and my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford, whose speech will follow mine. In some ways, this debate is a celebration of my noble friend’s two and a half years in the FCO as Commonwealth Minister, to which I pay tribute.

I hope that all noble Lords will join me in welcoming the adoption of the Commonwealth charter, which we see as one of the most important outcomes from the Commonwealth modernisation process. The charter conveys clearly the values that the Commonwealth stands for, bringing together commitments set out in previous declarations and affirmations. Next week, the charter will be presented to Her Majesty the Queen as head of the Commonwealth and launched across the Commonwealth.

For the first time in its 64-year history, the Commonwealth now has a single document setting out the core values and aspirations of its members, and it is all the more significant because it has come at a time when human rights and democratic values are demanded more vocally than ever by citizens across the world. It is now important that we work collectively to raise the charter’s profile, both within the UK and throughout the Commonwealth, to embed it within the Commonwealth’s architecture and ensure that all its members uphold those values. We support the Commonwealth Secretary-General’s call for members to launch the charter nationally during next week’s Commonwealth Week. We are delighted that debates are taking place in both Houses and we are in touch with Commonwealth, civil society and youth organisations to promote the charter in the UK.

We recognise, too, that there need to be mechanisms in place to ensure that all Commonwealth countries support the values that they have agreed to in the charter. We strongly supported the reform of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, adopted in Perth, giving the group more teeth to respond to violations of Commonwealth values. Through its timely and robust response to the political crisis in the Maldives last year, the group demonstrated that it could work in new ways and make a positive contribution to international reconciliation efforts. We would like to see the group demonstrate that it can play a valuable and effective role in addressing a range of situations of concern.

Our work on the modernisation agenda has helped to focus the Commonwealth on the importance of democracy and respect for core values. This creates the conditions in which businesses can flourish by giving them confidence to invest in trade. That in turn creates more jobs and drives greater prosperity. This is what the Prime Minister has called the “golden thread”: the link between the rule of law, effective but limited government, strong civil institutions, well protected property rights, open markets and successful and sustainable economic development. The Commonwealth Week theme this year, “Opportunity through Enterprise”, is particularly relevant for encouraging innovation at this time of global economic challenge.

Commonwealth members share principles of democracy, the rule of law and good governance, and we have similar legal systems. These provide solid foundations for doing business and a platform for trade, investment, development and, all pulled together, prosperity. Some studies have estimated this Commonwealth effect of a shared legal and regulatory market framework to be between 20% and 50% in trade advantage. As it should, the UK out-trades its European comparators—Germany, Italy and France—in trade with Commonwealth countries.

The Commonwealth network has influence in nearly every international country grouping, making it a key vehicle for promoting regional trade integration. India, South Africa, Canada, Australia and the UK make up a quarter of the G20, the world’s premier global economic forum at present. The Commonwealth exports over £3 trillion of goods and services a year, so the potential for all of us is great; but for trade with Commonwealth countries truly to flourish the Commonwealth needs to encourage conditions that will allow it to do so. One example is to remove barriers to trade, such as unnecessary red tape and, sadly too often, corruption.

Trade is not the only way to increase prosperity. The Department for International Development’s Bilateral Aid Review in 2011 confirmed that many Commonwealth states still need international aid and support. DfID has increased the proportion of bilateral programme expenditure to Commonwealth countries. Total DfID bilateral spend in them is projected to be £1.8 billion in 2012-13. Countries also benefit from regional funding.

We are working, too, to increase the Commonwealth’s engagement with Britain’s overseas territories that share many of the challenges facing the small Commonwealth members. The British Government are the largest financial contributor to Commonwealth institutions. Our contributions amount to approximately £40 million annually, about a third of the institution’s costs. Of this, DfID provides around £34 million to support the Commonwealth’s development work. We are investing in the Commonwealth, not simply declaring our commitment. From 2011 to 2015, DfID will also provide £87 million for Commonwealth scholarships for developing countries. The FCO provides support for Chevening scholarships to around 700 students a year for over 116 countries, including many Commonwealth ones.

DfID’s Multilateral Aid Review in 2011 concluded that one of the Commonwealth’s key strengths is its unique network of networks, as my noble friend Lord Howell has often told us. It saw that the Commonwealth’s secretariat has a key platform for partnerships, and as a leading voice on global issues and a niche development assistance provider. To continue to add value when there are many larger and often better resourced development providers, the Secretariat needs to improve its efficiency and effectiveness and to carve out a niche role for itself. The secretariat’s strategic plan, another product of the modernisation agenda, must play a vital role to make this a reality. Swift and unequivocal agreement on, and implementation of, a realistic and more targeted plan is key to guaranteeing continued donor funding for its programmes.

This year offers many opportunities to drive forward work on the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth Youth Ministers Meeting in Papua New Guinea in April will give young people an opportunity to express their views on current issues and discuss the post-2015 millennium development goals agenda, an area of work in which my right honourable friend the Prime Minister is strongly engaged in his role as co-chair of the High Level Panel. Sri Lanka will host the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in November. No decisions have yet been made about UK attendance at this event. Ahead of that meeting we will of course talk to Sri Lanka, as we would to any host, about demonstrating its commitment to upholding Commonwealth values of good governance and respect for human rights.

I am sure that all in this House look forward to the UK hosting the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014. The games are important, not least because they are as much about promoting Commonwealth values, a key element of the Commonwealth brand, as they are about building prosperity, celebrating sport and deepening links between young people and the Commonwealth nations.

Next year we will also begin to commemorate the centenary of the Great War—the First World War, as we now call it—in which the then British Empire called on the resources of all its dominions and colonies. There were 1.5 million Indians in the world’s largest volunteer army, hundreds of thousands of Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders as well as others from South Africa, the West Indies, and east and west Africa. The shared commemoration of common experience —some of it heroic, some of it bitter and ill planned—will also remind us of our common heritage.

This Government came into office with the determination to reinvigorate the Commonwealth and Britain’s relationship with the Commonwealth and its member states. It is our firm belief that we should capitalise on all the networks and relationships at our disposal in order to promote our prosperity, stability and security and to contribute to a more prosperous and stable global order. We have seen notable progress and, through the modernisation discussions, a clearer vision of where the Commonwealth’s real advantages lie. The Commonwealth charter is a strong statement of the organisation’s values and we should collectively look to raise its profile, but we recognise that the Commonwealth’s future credibility is linked to its ability to uphold and protect these values as set out in the charter. We remain committed to ensuring that the Commonwealth and its members live up to these values. If we continue to push forward the reform process, I am confident that we can sustain the Commonwealth as an invaluable global network. The interest in joining the Commonwealth that a number of prospective members are evincing is an indication of the continued vitality of the institution. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, this has been a very valuable debate. We covered only a little bit of the Commonwealth, which is a highly diverse, very complicated network. In reading up for this, I become conscious that the value the Commonwealth provides is often extremely different for different members. The smaller states in the Commonwealth find it a huge extension to their global engagement and an opportunity for them to express their strong concerns. For example, in developing a Commonwealth perspective on climate change, the small island states of the Pacific had a major role in explaining to their neighbours and Commonwealth partners just how vital the issue of climate change was for their future viability.

I was struck by the interpretation of the Commonwealth from the noble Lord, Lord Luce, so I will start with that. The Commonwealth is not like the EU or NATO. It is a very different organisation of networks, links, soft power as opposed to hard power, aspirations rather than obligations. That makes it very difficult to assess and to judge and very easy to get deeply frustrated with the moderate lack of progress. It is a loose and diverse association that has to be judged by criteria different from those we currently use to assess the EU, the transatlantic relationship or NATO. I say, as someone who occasionally reads the Europhobe blogosphere, that the Commonwealth is not an alternative to the EU and NATO. It is a very helpful complement to it, which the British Government and other members of the Commonwealth should do their utmost to develop to the full.

Some states fall some way short of the values that we have now agreed in the Commonwealth charter. A few sometimes fall a long way short and, as noble Lords will be well aware, every now and again a Commonwealth member falls so far short that its membership is suspended for a period. That is the way the Commonwealth works, but it works by consensus, not by qualified majority voting. Organisations that work by consensus move unavoidably and necessarily slowly. That can give rise to the more critical perspective presented by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, but we have different sorts of frustrations with the European Union and other tighter organisations than we do with the Commonwealth. We must make the best of what the Commonwealth is and not get too frustrated that it is not something else.

As noble Lords have suggested, there are several dimensions of the Commonwealth relationship. Shared values, shared heritage and shared approach to the rule of law are crucial and it is a major step forward that we have managed to agree the Commonwealth Charter. Alongside good governance, the rule of law and human rights, there is a commitment to development and assistance for sustainable development in particular that has taken us into the area of climate change in which, as a network that crosses regions and the developed and developing world, the Commonwealth has a very useful role to play.

The Commonwealth has brought us all sort of human links between Britain and other Commonwealth countries. I spent a day canvassing in Southwark at the last election and was amazed by how many different Commonwealth countries I discussed with people I met on the doorstep. We have human links like dual citizenship and intermarriage and there is also increasingly a two-way link. Tata owns major British companies; we invest in India, the Indians invest in us. That is something else that we should exploit. This leads on to economic and commercial ties that we should be developing as much as we can. It is a concern that only 10% of Britain’s exports currently go to the Commonwealth. It ought to be a great deal more. It is excellent that they are increasing, but that is not to say that we should be reducing the quantity of exports that go to the European Union; we should be exploiting Commonwealth markets as much as we can.

Then there is the global intergovernmental network, which brings together diverse states to discuss problems of common interest such as financial regulation, tax avoidance and tax havens, which again gives us the opportunity to talk to other important states. In recent years, the Commonwealth has necessarily been discussing renewal and modernisation. We have now agreed a limited reform agenda. The Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group has been strengthened and Her Majesty’s Government are committed to ensuring that the reforms agreed by Commonwealth heads of government are now implemented. We will monitor this closely, assess the impact of the adopted reforms and keep both Houses updated.

A key part of the reform agenda will be ensuring that the Commonwealth Secretariat sharpens its focus. The secretariat’s new strategic plan is important to refocus Commonwealth programmes on the areas where it can add more value than other organisations. I note with interest the suggestion of the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, that we should be thinking about regional hubs for the secretariat in the future. That is probably something that needs to come from regional groups within the Commonwealth, but Her Majesty’s Government would welcome such a development if viable proposals were put forward.

A number of noble Lords have spoken on the Commonwealth Charter, the aspirations that it spells out and by how far a number of Commonwealth countries fall short of those aspirations. The noble Lord, Lord Black, spoke about problems of press freedom in a number of Commonwealth states, which are very much a matter of concern; the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, spoke about religious freedom and freedom of minorities; and a number of noble Lords spoke about the persecution of homosexuals, the death penalty and so on. I can assure noble Lords that Her Majesty’s Government do raise those issues bilaterally and multilaterally within the Commonwealth. As I read diplomatic telegrams within the Foreign Office, I frequently see reports that Ministers have vigorously addressed these questions when talking to other members of the Commonwealth. We of course hope that other Commonwealth Governments do the same, and we work with them as much as we can.

It is one of the tragedies of where we are in the world that when we talk about the protection of religious minorities, we have to admit that part of the surge of persecution of homosexuals in Africa at the present moment is being driven by competition among Pentecostal churches in some African countries, as well as by competition between Muslim and Christian churches on the great boundary between Islam and the world. However, Her Majesty’s Government indeed raise these issues and work very hard to counter pressures in the opposite direction.

The noble Lord, Lord Luce, asked what was being done to strengthen the Commonwealth Foundation. DfID gives about £1 million a year to the foundation, which promotes democracy, good governance and sustainable development by strengthening links and dialogue between civil society organisations. The foundation has just agreed a new strategic plan that provides clear lines for its future action within civil society. We see the foundation’s role at the People’s Forum taking place in parallel with CHOGM as a useful and important supplementary role. The Foreign Secretary made a keynote speech in support of civil society at the People’s Forum at CHOGM in 2011.

Noble Lords also mentioned the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust, an independent trust to which a number of Commonwealth Governments have so far pledged support. Its intention is to promote additional Commonwealth scholarships, not just between Britain and other Commonwealth countries but—I am glad to say that this is beginning to develop—between different Commonwealth countries, not always including Britain. The Indian Government have, I am told, begun to develop in their own direction Commonwealth scholarships for students from other Commonwealth countries. That is how the Commonwealth should operate as a network.

The Diamond Jubilee Trust will run for five years, fundraising until October 2013, then distributing the funds and supporting the implementation of programmes for a further four years. It will focus on tackling avoidable blindness and youth leadership. It is now working out the detailed design of its programmes in both areas and aims to work with a broad coalition of partners.

The most difficult area that has been raised is the forthcoming CHOGM in Colombo. The Government of Sri Lanka face considerable challenges and Her Majesty’s Government continue to raise questions about how well they are doing in post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation. My honourable friend Alistair Burt was in Colombo some weeks ago and, as well as the capital, he also visited Tamil majority areas in the north of the country, to see what was happening on the ground. Some progress has been made, for example on economic development, demining and the rehabilitation of child soldiers.

On the other hand, we are distressed by the arrest of the chief justice and what that means for the rule of law within the country. We are clear that more needs to be done, such as on the demilitarisation of the north, political settlement and accountability, and we continue to consider our position on what sort of representation we will provide for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting when it takes place.

A number of other countries were mentioned. The Gambia also concerns us to a considerable extent. I note that the Gambian Government have accused not Britain but the European Union of neocolonialism. There are severe problems in terms of how far one can bring pressure to bear on small countries. Apart from the United Kingdom Government and the European Union collectively, few other countries appear to be actively concerned about what is now happening.

There were a number of questions about election monitoring. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, that we are not aware of a request from the Government of Pakistan for the Commonwealth to monitor elections there. The Commonwealth responds to invitations to monitor, it does not invite itself and there has to be an invitation from the Government concerned. I entirely agree that these are key elections and we would very much like to see a Commonwealth monitoring mission. I am sure that everyone is aware that there is a Commonwealth electoral monitoring mission now in Kenya that is doing its best to monitor the elections there. In 2012, the Commonwealth observed elections in Papua New Guinea, Sierra Leone, Lesotho and Ghana, so this is an active element in what the Commonwealth does.

My noble friend Lord Hussain raised the question of Kashmir. We all recognise the importance of finding a solution to the situation there. It is the key to reconciliation between India and Pakistan and is also an issue on the streets of a number of cities in Britain. We welcome the renewed engagement between India and Pakistan, but recognise that the reconciliation has to be led by those two countries above all. We are willing to provide all necessary resources to assist that process.

We are also concerned with what is happening in the Maldives. My extremely hard-working honourable friend Alistair Burt has just returned from the Maldives where he spoke to the President, opposition leaders and others and is best to assess the current situation. Both the Commonwealth Secretary-General and its special envoy, Sir Don McKinnon, have spoken of the importance of free, fair and inclusive elections in the Maldives, but the situation is still developing. We welcome the engagement of the Indian Government, but we are not entirely sure what the outcome will be.

The noble Lord, Lord Empey, spoke passionately and pleasingly about relations between Ireland and the Commonwealth, with perhaps the prospect of Ireland joining. Her Majesty’s Government would of course welcome such a prospect, but the initial request would appropriately come from Dublin and would be made to the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Commonwealth as a whole, not to the United Kingdom. After all, Ireland has a very strong record in international peacekeeping since the Second World War, and a long tradition of development assistance to Africa, so it has many of the links that one would wish to see, and it self-evidently meets all the criteria for Commonwealth membership.

When Ireland joined the European Union, Garret FitzGerald said to me that joining the European Union was like gaining an additional dimension to Irish independence because it began to have a whole new set of international relationships. I suspect that if Ireland were to join the Commonwealth, it would extend this network even further. I hope that noble Lords have noted the innovation of a small joint UK-Irish military training team in Mali, which is another small but significant step: British and Irish military personnel working together in a peacekeeping and post-conflict reconstruction operation.

I rather hoped that the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, was going to ask about the Sandwich Islands. He asked about South Sudan. I do not think one can talk about an undue delay to South Sudan’s application. There has to be a consensus among the 54 member states. South Sudan is a very new and still slightly fragile state. I have friends and relatives who are working there and I am aware of just how difficult they are finding it to reconstruct a governmental apparatus after the end of the conflict. There are major efforts by Her Majesty’s Government and by agencies of other Commonwealth Governments, including South Sudan’s southern neighbours, to assist.

I have touched a little on trade and prosperity. We are committed to strengthening trade links with partners across the world, including those in the Commonwealth. The enormously useful and important delegation that the Prime Minister has just taken to India is part of that process. We see this Commonwealth Week’s theme of “Opportunity through Enterprise” as part of that process in which we build on our existing economic links with the Commonwealth. Commonwealth countries can also make excellent springboards into Asia and Africa. For example, Singapore, Brunei and Malaysia link the Commonwealth to ASEAN—the Association of South-East Asian Nations—and Canada, of course, represents an important gateway to North America for many countries.

The Government are focused on building stronger links within the Commonwealth and strengthening the Commonwealth as a network of networks. We are taking a number of practical steps to strengthen our engagement in the Commonwealth, including strengthening our diplomatic network. We opened a new deputy high commission in Hyderabad in India last year; another will follow in Chandigarh. We are strengthening our commercial capacity in countries such as Canada, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Papua New Guinea and Guyana. Here in London we have increased the number of staff working on the Commonwealth.

Our renewed focus has also involved a change in approach and in the way we work by seeking to make the most of our Commonwealth contacts. In the past 12 months FCO Ministers have visited around 20 Commonwealth countries. This has left us in a strong position to build on the progress we have already made on our Commonwealth agenda.

I am conscious that a number of noble Lords have mentioned the visa issue. We all recognise how delicate and difficult this issue is at present. I will take that away and feed it in to our continuing conversations.

This has been an invaluable debate. If I go on for more than another minute, I shall lose the rest of my voice, so let me sum up by saying that I thank the noble Lord, Lord Howell, again, for all the efforts he put in to raising the visibility of the Commonwealth as an issue in British foreign policy. I know that there are many in this House who have spent a good deal of their time and careers working on the Commonwealth connection. I hope that there will be many more and that the Commonwealth, with the efforts that we and many other Commonwealth countries will make, will remain a vital, vibrant and values-based international network.

Motion agreed.