House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Garnier

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I have taken a certain interest in this issue because a Peer who was extremely kind to my wife and me when we were young academics, and was himself then a senior diplomat, was the case in point.

This is something which needs sorting. It can be sorted by either a change in Standing Orders or an Order in Council. If that is not allowed, it needs legislation. We have just passed a short Bill through this House, the Church of Scotland (Lord High Commissioner) Bill, which covered one extremely small element that was forgotten or not allowed by the Church of Scotland in the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829. If we can do that, then we can add, if necessary, a short amendment to this Bill to have that effect.

As I walked through the Lobby the other day, another Peer, who happens to be a relative of the Peer in question, said to me, “This is not just a single case. Until we have agreed a retirement age, we are likely to be facing this again and again with others”. We all know that there have been cases of Peers who have continued to come here as they begin to lose their mental capacity.

I have another reason for intervening on this. I recall my mother, aged 93, trying to sign a power of attorney for me to act on her behalf. Her paralysis had reached a point where she was unable to sign and thus not able to confer the power of attorney, despite being completely in her right mind.

This can be done. We are entitled to ask the Government that, by Report, we have clear advice on whether it has to be done by legislation or can be done by an Order in Council or a change in Standing Orders. I know that there is conflicting advice on this, because I have taken some interest in the case.

I know that the Government’s preferred outcome is that there should be no amendments to this Bill. However, this is a Bill about some further reform of the Lords, and we are unlikely to see another one for some time. Therefore, this House is entitled to say, as it goes through, that we are interested in some further reforms and that some further limited reforms might appropriately be attached to this Bill. That is what we are now discussing.

I look forward to the Government making an announcement at the start of Report on what further changes in the structures, Standing Orders and procedures of this House they propose, what further consultation on legislative changes they have in mind and when they propose to complete them, so as to help the passage of this Bill through the House. I strongly support this amendment. I do not mind whether the changes are made in one form or another, but they are simple to make, and it should be done.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, as a signatory of the amendment, perhaps I may make one or two points in support of my noble friend Lord Ashton.

A lasting power of attorney gives the attorney a power to make decisions about two sets of things—health and welfare, and property and financial affairs. Under health and welfare, the attorney can deal with your daily routine—washing, dressing and eating. They can make arrangements for your medical care, for moving into a care home and for life-sustaining treatment. They can make use of that power when you are unable to make your own decisions.

A property and financial affairs lasting power of attorney can be used as soon as it is registered and with your permission. That allows the attorney to manage a bank or building society account to pay bills, to collect benefits or a pension, and, as my noble friend Lord Ashton mentioned, to sell your home. These are big decisions in both types of power of attorney. However, as he pointed out, what they cannot do is enable you to retire from this House when you have lost your faculties.

I am particularly interested in this amendment because, having been on the Conduct Committee for the last three years—I came off it in January—it appeared to me and perhaps to other members of the committee that loss of mental capacity is something that this House will have to deal with in a humane but none the less determined fashion. Had the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, been making that point about this being out of scope of this Bill in a court, I would have said it was a mere pleading point and, “Shall we just get to the substance?” The substance is that this is an issue—the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, was right to address it—that has to be dealt with, if not within this Bill then in some other way by the House, because we are facing a growing and difficult problem of people who are beginning to fail to understand that they should no longer be here. It may be cruel to expel people, but if they could make up their own mind, they would do so. We need to cater for those who have lost the ability and the capacity to make that decision.

I urge the House, if it does not accept the amendment in its current terms, to understand that this is a problem that faces us, and we must deal with it as a House.

Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Garnier

Committee stage
Thursday 20th April 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, I entirely agree with what the noble Lord has just said. Trusts are and have been frequently discussed in this Bill and its predecessors as one of the most effective ways of hiding information that ought to be made public. Clearly, some matters are properly to be kept confidential, but much of the material covered by the law of trusts ought, in the public interest, to be disclosed.

I happily support the amendment that my noble friend Lord Agnew moved a moment ago. Like him, I want to know whether the Government’s Amendment 76H renders his amendment redundant. I do not think it does, because it seems to me that there is a difference between the publication of information about trustees, which is what my noble friend talks about, and the registration of information about trusts in the Government’s proposed new clause. We can register as much as we like, but if you cannot open the box and see what is inside and has been registered, it is a pretty futile exercise. Public opinion, public policy and an assessment of the public interest suggest to me—for the reasons already given by the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, and my noble friend Lord Faulks—that the Government, if they want to maintain the difference between registration and publication, are behind the curve.

We learned a lot in my noble friend’s committee in 2019 about the huge amounts of real estate, particularly within London and a couple of its boroughs, which are owned by people, companies and trusts of which we know nothing. Many of these houses and properties were unoccupied; they were merely the physical dumping grounds for money. Obviously, they had to be paid for.

The committee on which the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, and I served was not able to discover, but sought to encourage the then Government to expose, the route by which criminal funds were laundered into London by money launderers. Any number of blocks of flats and very expensive houses, all year round, 24 hours a day, never have a single light on. You can go down smart squares in Kensington or Westminster and see places that look utterly unoccupied—because they are. They are dumps for dosh. We need to make sure that this new law is effective at exposing and, if not exposing, inhibiting before it gets here, the translation of laundered money from dodgy jurisdictions into ours. It is as simple as that. I hope the Minister is able to persuade the Committee that my noble friend’s amendment is redundant, because the Government’s amendment comprehensively and effectively does what we would like.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

I will just add to this. As it happens, the other week my wife and I were going around the Nine Elms development, Battersea Power Station, et cetera, with an eye to when we downsize. We were told that, until then, over 40% of the apartments had been sold to people living abroad. That partly explained why it was so very quiet there; not many people were present in the complex. That raises all sorts of large questions about housing practices in London, which we need not touch on at the moment.

I want to pick up on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, about how one establishes the ultimate beneficiary when one company is owned by another company, which is owned by a trust in another jurisdiction. That is part of what my amendment was trying to get at, as a key element before one can even begin to enforce is accurate information from regulators in other jurisdictions and territories, and how we do our best to ensure that the information we are receiving is accurate. That requires active diplomacy and co-operation between the financial parts of different Governments. We are looking for some assurance from the Minister that that is part of what is intended when the Bill becomes an Act and that we will know which parts of Whitehall will be pursuing it.

On the first day in Committee, there were some references to the role of HMRC. We have been told that Companies House will not be concerned with regulation or enforcement, but we need to know a little more about which parts of our government machine will take the lead on ensuring that we begin to unpick the cascade of trusts and companies referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, and will tell us who, in effect, the beneficial owners are.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

If I may respond to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, since I have been involved in discussion on this on a number of previous Bills, we are normally assured by the Government as a Bill goes past that there are ongoing consultations with the CDs and the OTs, and that they have been assured that the key proposals will be incorporated into their domestic law within a limited period. As I said, there have been a number of occasions when that has not happened in some territories. It has often been the weakest territories concerned and, after all, this Government have spent a good deal of money on taking over the government of the Turks and Caicos—having to intervene where things have failed. This is rather like saying, “On most occasions, we do not expect most banks or overseas territories to be involved in any form of corruption, but sometimes some will be tempted”. Some may be overcome and that is what we are trying to guard against.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

The noble Lord is right, and it has not been an easy history, but these small jurisdictions have a choice. I am well aware of the criminal cases currently going on in the Turks and Caicos, and the need for direct rule there. But I have seen too many occasions—not a vast number, but too many none the less—when these small jurisdictions are prepared to be seduced by China rather than maintain their relationship with the United Kingdom. We need to be careful that we do not force these smaller jurisdictions into the arms of the Chinese, when it would be much better for their well-being and ours if we were to maintain them within our own family. I will leave it there.