Extremism Definition and Community Engagement

Lord Walney Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Walney (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome this new definition, in particular its focus on protecting our parliamentary democracy. I was pleased to be consulted on it in my role as the Government’s independent adviser on political violence and disruption. It was helpful to hear the Minister set out the process for ensuring that organisations deemed to be extreme and included on the list which emerges have sufficient chance to engage and put their case.

It is worth reminding the House that it was a Labour Communities Secretary who made the decision on non-engagement with the Muslim Council of Britain in 2009, which has stayed in place for much of the previous 14 to 15 years, on the basis that the then deputy general secretary of that organisation endorsed a call by Hamas for attacks on foreign troops, including British troops, so this has not come out of the blue. Nevertheless, the process of who ends up on the list is really important. Does the Minister have an update on how long the Government anticipate that process taking before a list can be published?

[Baroness Swinburne (Con)]

We are just finalising the criteria regarding how this will be measured, what the metrics are, and how the evidence will be compiled and then decided. As and when that happens, we would expect to complete this within weeks and certainly as quickly as we possibly can.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)]

I just think it is important that the record is straight; I was very taken with what the noble Lord, Lord Mann, said about the length of time. An organisation that in the past had somebody associated with it, who is no longer there, continues to be smeared. I mention this because the noble Lord, Lord Walney, mentioned a name—

[Lord Walney (CB)]

I do not think I smeared them.

[Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)]

The noble Lord did mention a name—

[Lord Walney (CB)]

No, I did not, and I did not smear anyone. I ask the noble Baroness to please be careful with the language she uses.

[Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)]

I am on my feet speaking; I would like to finish, if the noble Lord does not mind. An organisation is smeared if it is continually associated with somebody who has not been involved for over a decade. It is really important we have that distinction. I urge the Minister to look into that closely. That is being said; it was said here about somebody who was involved, who supported Hamas 10 years ago, and it is not fair to continue that in the present day, to keep that on the record.

Levelling Up

Lord Walney Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his warm welcome to this role. I reassure him that the department is absolutely committed to simplifying our funding approach when it comes to levelling up and local authorities. I reassure noble Lords that the funding simplification doctrine will be implemented from 1 January next year. Its aim is to embed our commitment to simplifying the funding landscape by ensuring that government departments consider the principles of funding simplification when designing new funding for local authorities. To the noble Baroness’s point, the idea is that it extends beyond the reach of my department alone. The doctrine will cover all new funds that are made available exclusively to local authorities by central government, but it excludes funding within the local government finance settlement and services mandated by statute. That gives a better idea of the shape of that approach.

However, it is right that where there are specific problems that may need to be addressed with specific parameters, the concept of a new fund is not entirely ruled out from that approach. The pathfinders, which are important in allowing us to make sure we learn as we go and then apply the approach more generally, are looking at what flexibilities can be applied across those different funding streams, and at putting local authorities in the driving seat in identifying where their priorities are and using the funding made available from central government more flexibly.

[Lord Walney (CB)]

I refer your Lordships to my entry in the register as director for the Purpose Business Coalition’s levelling-up goals. Are the Government still committed to the 12 medium-term missions set out in the levelling up White Paper of February last year? If so, what is being done across Whitehall to drive those missions? Will there be the annual update on them that was promised in that White Paper?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I assure the noble Lord that we are absolutely still committed to those 12 missions. There is a huge amount in today’s Autumn Statement that shows our commitment to delivering some of them—for example, through the allocation of further money to levelling-up partnerships and investment zones and pursuing greater devolution. We are taking other measures—for example, legislating to create a smoke-free generation that will help deliver the health and life expectancy-related missions—so there is work across government that will continue to deliver on those 12 missions.

Voter ID

Lord Walney Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right: those measures were brought in in Northern Ireland by the Labour Government in 2003. They have been highly successful, and, in fact, the people of Northern Ireland have a higher rate of satisfaction with their electoral system than we do in England.

[Lord Walney (CB)]

My Lords, are the Government alive to the prospect that they have set the bar too high for forms of photo ID for younger people in particular? The chance that someone would be so keen to vote fraudulently that they would make a fraudulent Oyster ID card as an 18-plus as a way to gain access to a polling station is vanishingly small. In that review, will they be alive to widening out the forms of photo ID for younger people?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

Yes, obviously, but it is interesting that, when the research was done on the number of people in this country who had photo ID, it was higher for younger people. It was 98% for the whole of the country, but 99% for young people between 18 and 25. But, yes, we will look at that. I know that the Oyster card has been an issue, but there is a real reason. Oyster cards for younger people have a different process which is not as secure as that for older people’s Oyster cards.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Walney Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 17th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Walney (CB)]

I know that your Lordships will be uplifted to know that that was not in fact the valedictory contribution from the noble Baroness, Lady Harris—as was so cruelly suggested by the Minister at the outset.

I declare my registered interest as the chair of the Purpose Business Coalition, which has developed 14 levelling-up goals which bear a striking—some might say suspicious—resemblance to the 12 missions referenced in the Bill. As noble Lords would expect, I really welcome the fact that they are included in this legislation, but, unlike some of the contributors, my instinct is to think that the balance between accountability, scrutiny and levels of flexibility is probably about right.

Let us look at some of the missions. They are not arbitrary; some are very specific. For example, the skills mission seeks to enable 200,000 more people by 2030 successfully to complete

“skills training annually, driven by 80,000 more people completing courses in the lowest skilled areas.”

That is the kind of level of detail that an incoming future Government—and even the Minister today—might want the flexibility to reassess after a year or so, so I hope that noble Lords, particularly those on the Opposition Front Bench, will carefully reflect on the amendments they want to bring in this area.

Of course, the wider and more important point is that no legal commitment will deliver the outcomes in the missions, in and of themselves, no matter how tightly the legislation is drafted. The commitment to eradicate child poverty, put into law by the Child Poverty Act 2010, was insufficient to deliver that goal; and making net zero legally binding will prove insufficient unless the Government of the day make a conscious, concerted and sustained commitment to underpin the legal requirements with a sustained programme of action. As legislators, we naturally tend to believe that passing legislation, in and of itself, will drive change. It may be helpful, and it is often necessary, but it is often insufficient to do that.

What my noble friend Lord Stevens and others said about the levelling up White Paper was absolutely right: it is an excellent analysis of the framework of geographical inequality and, broadly, the levers to fix it. When it was published in February last year, it was obvious that the levers required to deliver the missions of change were not yet there, but it felt like a commitment to focus the wider lever of machinery of government on those commitments could be real and genuine. Nearly 12 months on, I do not think that even the Government’s most ardent advocates would candidly say that they are sufficiently focused to corral the different levers at their disposal to reverse the decades-long increase in inequality between regions—not just levelling up between north and south, important though that is, but, as several noble Lords have mentioned today, inequality within regions. An example is the difference between the productivity levels in Manchester, which has done an extraordinary job in bringing its productivity level up to the national average—the only area outside London and the south-east to do so—and the productivity levels in the areas of Cumbria that the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, talked about and that I and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, had the privilege of representing in the other place. It is a really stark difference.

Increasing empowerment and spreading the powers of devolution more widely outside the city regions are welcome measures, but they will be insufficient in and of themselves unless there is a much greater government focus on understanding that the issue is not just the powers but the lack of capacity that has developed over decades. That will not be reversed simply by handing over powers and letting government get on with it and compete with the big cities. We saw that level of commitment in the White Paper, but it does not seem to be there at present, and I hope that the Government will reflect on that.

Rail Services: Cumbria

Lord Walney Excerpts

Wednesday 20th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Ind)]

I congratulate you, Dame Cheryl, on your elevation. I thank the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) for his generosity in allowing me a couple of minutes to speak. I congratulate him on securing the debate and on the key role he clearly played in getting a rail service running on the Lakes line.

I will add a couple of remarks about the Furness line and the Cumbria coast line, which are integral parts of the package. I agree with all the calls the hon. Gentleman made. Surely, there is a case that Northern has broken the terms of its contract across its network, particularly in Cumbria, so there must be a case for stepping in in the way that he described.

The Minister must be aware that the Cumbria coast line’s passenger numbers have shown a frightening drop-off since Northern came in. At a time when we are building a world-class civil nuclear corridor, that is clearly not in the country’s interest. On the Furness line, there has been a 500% increase in cancellations since Northern took over the franchise. The recent upsurge in trains running has been made possible, as the company admits, only because the Lakes line has not been running so drivers have been available. In rectifying the problems on the Lakes line, I make a plea to the Minister not to rob Peter to pay Paul. The Furness line and the Cumbria coast line are absolutely vital.

Surely, it is time to admit that the move by the Government and the company to impose driver-only operated trains and to ban vital and popular guards from trains was wrong. The Government can make things better for passengers who are suffering yet more strike action because of that wrong-headed move.