Horizon 2020

Lord Watts Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. We have been very clear thus far that we wish to participate going forward. The nature of the association agreement will be subject to those ongoing negotiations, but for scientists on both sides of the channel and of the Irish Sea, our collaboration is as vital now as it has ever been.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, Britain pays about 11% into this programme but it gets a lot more out. How much extra benefit is derived from the extra resources that we get from Europe?

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

The noble Lord is right. The fund is based on excellence. British scientists are excellent and we therefore get significant benefit from the programme. We collaborate at the highest possible level and are able to deliver science at the highest possible level, and that is therefore a benefit to our university system and more broadly. It is very difficult to quantify but I do not think that there is a single scientist in our universities who would not applaud and recognise that.

Gift Vouchers

Lord Watts Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

I do indeed offer sympathy to the noble Lord for his heartfelt pain in this regard. He is correct: certain voucher providers will, through inactivity, seek to deduct money from the value. There is a recognition that a card can be part of the bottom line of a company only once it has been redeemed or the expiry date has passed, so there is a logic there. However, the very act of penalising somebody for not using their card sounds both pernicious and unpleasant.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, why should there be any limit whatever on a voucher? After someone has passed their money over to a shopkeeper and the shopkeeper has given them a receipt for goods to buy at a later date, why should they not be able to use it whenever they want?

Fire Safety: Lakanal House Fire

Lord Watts Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his suggestion. It is right that these issues should be looked at by the independent advisory committee that is being set up by the Secretary of State. It will come up with urgent actions that need to be taken and will decide which first actions are appropriate. I will take away the noble Lord’s suggestion; it is something that no doubt the committee will wish to ponder on. However, this episode has thrown up a whole range of actions to be taken not only in relation to the cladding but much more widely, as we have seen in evidence from around the country.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, does this not demonstrate that we should not allow the industry to set safety standards, which is what has happened in this case? Do we not need to have a stronger public sector that can actually set these standards on our behalf?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, it is not true to say that safety standards are set by the industry. They are set by the Government in consultation with the industry and the public sector. We take advice from many sources and we will do so again through the public inquiry that is now being set up. It is important that we do not prejudge this and that the public inquiry acts in a judicial way. It will be judge-led and will look at all the evidence before we come up with conclusions. That is the purpose of the inquiry.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Watts Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, I raise an issue faced by many councils around the country. They have faced massive cuts in their expenditure over the last few years. They have been forced to privatise services, been stripped of powers and in some cases been forced to cut services altogether. Those services that are left have been cut to the bone.

How did we get to such a state in our local government? Before I arrived in the other place I was leader of my local authority. When I first became a councillor 40 years ago, my authority could set its own council tax and decide the level of services it wanted to provide. It could also decide whether it wanted to provide those services directly or contract them out. Voters could then decide whether the services they received were the services they wanted and whether they were cost-effective.

But then it all changed. The Conservative Government of the day decided that public was bad and private was good. No real assessment was ever done to see whether this was true. The policy was driven by dogma rather than any sort of research. To make things worse, the Government moved away from a needs-based funding system to a political system based on the whim of the Minister. The new funding system moved funding from some of the poorer areas to the richer areas. That can be seen today, when some local authorities face bankruptcy while others are awash with cash. We have been talking about Westminster Council and Kensington and Chelsea. They have loads of money, while other local authorities have none and face bankruptcy.

When I was a council leader, I asked my finance staff to do an assessment of what it would mean if we had the same level of grant as Westminster. I was amazed to find out, when my officers told me, that we would have to levy no council tax whatsoever. We would be able to improve council services and send all our residents on a Spanish holiday at the end of the year. That shows noble Lords the level of fix that went in at the time. That system is still in place. Our funding system is corrupt. Our council services are less accountable and less transparent than they were. Our services are far more expensive than they need to be.

How can we rebuild our council services and support for our public sector workers in local government? Our funding system should be set by an independent academic body. It should move back to a needs-based system. We should stop the enforced privatisation of our council services. We should once again give our councillors direct, democratic control over the services. Unless we do so, we shall face a growing divide between rich and poorer areas. Some councils will not even be able to provide basic services in the future. Our councils will continue to be more expensive than they need to be. They will be less accountable, less transparent and less democratic than they are at present.

I hope the Prime Minister will not just say but do the right thing and make our country less divided than it is now. Had I had the time to make the point, I could address the same issues on health, police and fire funding, and for many other services. We need to have a fundamental review of the way we fund public services in the UK. Quite frankly, it is a terrible indictment that the richest areas are getting the most and the poorest areas are getting the least.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Watts Excerpts

Wednesday 24th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is tempting me into commenting on what Lord Leveson might or might not recommend in his report, but having set up the inquiry on an all-party basis, it is important that we allow him to produce his report. What I would say is that I think one can obsess too much about how exactly such things are done, when what matters most of all is whether we have a regulatory system in which the public have confidence that, if mistakes are made, there are proper corrections; that if newspapers do the wrong thing, they can be fined; and that when things go wrong, there is proper investigation. That seems to me to be the most important question for us all: are we going to put in place a system in which we have confidence and the public will support, but in which we are seen to have a free, independent and very vigorous press?

[Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)]

Is the Prime Minister aware that young people’s unemployment in my constituency has gone up by 1,000%? What is he going to do about this scandal?

[The Prime Minister]

What we are doing is putting in place, through the Work programme and the Youth Contract, the biggest ever scheme to help people to get back into work. We have seen success in recent weeks and months, with more people in work than at any time in our history and recent figures showing a decline in the claimant count, a decline in unemployment and a decline in youth unemployment. There is far more to do, but we are at least heading in the right direction.