Elections: Personation

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rennard]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the level of personation at elections in Great Britain.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the Electoral Commission publishes information on allegations of electoral fraud at elections, including those of personation. In due course the Electoral Commission will publish a report covering polls held in 2018. On 3 May this year, pilots requiring voters to present ID before voting in person were held in five local authorities. In July, the Electoral Commission and Cabinet Office published their respective evaluations of the pilots.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister declined my invitation to the Government to assess the level of personation by contacting returning officers to see how many tendered ballot papers had been issued. So I asked the Electoral Reform Society to do the job. Using freedom of information requests, it received responses from 239 returning officers, showing that in the general election last year the total number of alternative ballot papers across those 239 council areas that had to be issued when someone turned up at a polling station and found that their name had been used to claim a vote, or perhaps that their vote had been given in error and the wrong name crossed off, was a mere 49. So what justification could there be for rolling out compulsory voter ID at all polling stations?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, compulsory voter ID was recommended four years ago by the independent Electoral Commission. It has repeated that recommendation several times since. On the Electoral Commission sit representatives of all three parties, including the noble Lord’s own. I remind him that the chair of the Electoral Commission said on this subject last year:

“We have been pressing for this change”—


that is, voter ID—

“not because we believe that voting for someone else … is … a … problem now. But the opportunity for fraud of this kind is clearly there. We want to address this before it becomes a problem, and part of a wider reduction of trust in the system”.

He went on to say that to collect a parcel you have to produce ID, so it is reasonable that you should have to do so when you vote. He went on:

“Unfortunately this proposal risks becoming a political football”—


a sport unknown in your Lordships’ House.

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that there is more to this than just voter impersonation? It is about the very probity of local government. In the inquiry that I carried out for the Prime Minister, I saw many forms of personation and fraud, but it was not the other place that was the target; it was local government. It was to take three or four wards and control a council, which releases hundreds of millions of pounds in contracts and grants. People who do not care about the probity of elections do care about the probity of contracts.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, the House is grateful for my noble friend’s report, Securing the Ballot, which included some 50 recommendations, nearly all of which are being pursued by the Government, including some that go directly to the issue that he raises: namely, the probity of local government. My noble friend will know better than anyone else that, if the level of corruption in a local authority reaches an unsustainable, unacceptable level, the Government can put in commissioners—which is exactly what my noble friend did with Tower Hamlets.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, why does the Minister think that so few cases have been investigated and so few prosecutions brought? Is there some failure on the part of the authorities, or is it the case that, while we must always remain vigilant and a greater police presence at polling stations is one way to do that, this crime is committed on very few occasions?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord is quite correct to say that there are relatively few convictions. According to the Electoral Commission report for the past year there were 200 allegations of personation in the past four years. He asks the good question: why is it difficult to prosecute? If you think about it, if you go to a polling station and try to vote and you find that somebody else has already voted in your name and you are disfranchised, it is quite difficult to find out who voted in your place. That may be one reason why there are relatively few prosecutions in the case of personation. The introduction of voter ID would of course reduce the risk to a minimum.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

Is my noble friend aware that there is still one weakness on the register, namely that of students who are on the register both at their university and at home? Should this not be looked at? I talk as a former honourable Member for a university town who at the time had a majority of 142.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I remember that election well: my majority was 808. My noble friend raises the important issue of students. There were many allegations that some students at the last election voted twice. This issue was raised by Ministers with the appropriate body within the National Police Council, which is pursuing it. There is, I think, a small number of issues outstanding. In many cases, where a student voted twice, on one occasion it would have been as a proxy for another student.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)]

My Lords, is this not one of the many challenges, with associated costs, that would be very simply addressed by ID cards? That is the solution. Why did the coalition Government allow themselves to be led by the nose by the Liberal Democrats and abolish the ID cards that had already been introduced?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I think that the commitment to abolish ID cards was in my party’s manifesto in 2010, as well as in that of the Liberal Democrats. The House will know that the Government are not minded to introduce ID cards. We are making good progress in reducing electoral ballot fraud through voter ID and I think that that is a more proportionate solution than the one proposed by the noble Lord.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

Would my noble friend not agree that there is enormous support in the country for the proposition advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Reid of Cardowan? Manifestos are not infallible and have occasionally been proved to be wrong. Will my noble friend please think again?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My noble friend invites me to make comments way above my pay grade. I am a humble Lord in waiting and spokesman for the Cabinet Office and the Government have made it absolutely clear that they have no plans to introduce ID cards. I will, however, make sure that my seniors in government are aware of my noble friend’s question.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, my majority when I was first elected was just nine. Is the Minister aware that in the London Borough of Bromley this May, at least 154 could not vote as they did not have the appropriate ID when they tried to do so? Mortgage documents were acceptable as ID but rent books were not. Freedom passes were okay but student travel ID was insufficient. Does this not add up to discrimination on a gerrymandering scale?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

No. If the noble Lord looks at the evaluation carried out by the Electoral Commission, he will see that it says:

“The number of people who did not vote because they couldn’t show identification was very small”.


The vast majority who came without the right identification returned later with the correct identification. If he looks at the percentage of all voters who never returned, he will see that the percentage varied between 0.06% and 0.4%. In no way does that constitute what the noble Lord calls “gerrymandering”. Finally, the evaluation concluded that there was,

“no evidence to suggest particular demographics were more affected than others”.

So I wholly reject his assertion that gerrymandering is involved in introducing this recommendation from the Electoral Commission.

Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Ring-fenced Bodies and Core Activities) (Amendment) Order 2018

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Young of Cookham]

That the draft Order laid before the House on 25 June be approved.

Considered in Grand Committee on 18 July.

Motion agreed.

Railways: Transport for the North

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 19th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Scriven]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have any plans to grant powers to Transport for the North to manage all Northern railway infrastructure.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, Transport for the North became the first statutory subnational transport body in England on 1 April, taking on a strengthened role as a statutory partner in advising the Secretary of State on national rail investment and taking over the co-management of the Northern and TransPennine Express rail franchises. TfN can seek approval for additional powers if it can demonstrate, with consent from its members, that they can be exercised more effectively and efficiently.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

I thank the noble Lord for his Answer. Does he agree with many people in the north that with regular cancellations, two-carriage trains, dangerously busy trains at peak times, reductions in service and overall poor management and treatment of customers, the franchise given to Arriva Northern needs to be either split up or taken away altogether?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Young of Cookham]

Having sat through previous exchanges, I am well aware of the anger in the north at the disruption to services following the introduction of the new timetable. The top priority has to be the stabilisation and restoration of the services to which people are entitled. On the noble Lord’s question about the franchise, the Government have instituted a review that will be completed by the end of the month to see to what extent GTR and Northern were in breach of their contracts. A range of sanctions are available if that turns out to be the case. My initial view is that much of the problems in the north was due to Network Rail being late with infrastructure and late in delivering the timetable. We must await the outcome. So far as splitting the franchise is concerned, the franchise is due to run for some time. There is a real risk of further disruption if the franchise were to be taken back on board now and then split. The top priority is to get stability, and then to make further progress with the substantial investment that is now planned by the Government.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that although Network Rail was late with its electrification of one route, many other faults have contributed to the present problem? Some very good people in Network Rail are trying to do some enhancements on the east-west route, which should be applauded. My worry, which I put to the noble Lord, is that Transport for the North needs to decide what it wants, and its members need to decide what services they want. I have had many discussions with them and, as chairman of the Rail Freight Group, I am very concerned that they are trying to cut out rail freight going across the Pennines in order to get one or two more passenger trains. They should look at the whole thing in the round and then talk to Network Rail about what is possible and come up with a coherent plan—which they do not have at the moment.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord makes a very good point. We have a national network and it is crucial that we preserve its coherence and integrity. That is one reason why one cannot devolve entirely responsibility for infrastructure to Transport for the North—the very reason given by the noble Lord. On what TfN wants to do, it has been there for only three and a half months. Looking at its business plan, it is now in the process of starting work this financial year on the business case for further devolution. As I said in my initial reply, if it wants more powers, the Government are very happy to look at that, but having given it responsibility under the statutory instrument, it is now up to TfN to come up with a statutory plan, advise the Secretary of State and, if it wants to, bid for more powers.

[Lord Tebbit (Con)]

My Lords, will my noble friend not now accept, in the midst of all this muddle of competing authorities between one person and another and one board and another, that what is desperately needed is to put the ownership of the track and of the trains in the same body, whether it is in the public or the private sector?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My noble friend makes a good point: that it is important to bring responsibility for the trains and responsibility for the track closer together. If he looks at the proposals in, for example, the north, he will see that Network Rail is now setting up a board there to work closely with the train operating companies and the passengers to integrate train and track. However, I am sure that my noble friend is not proposing major primary legislation to undo the privatisation for which I and others bear some responsibility.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister referred to east-west links across the Pennines. He might have seen the campaign launched in the north of England in February to reopen the Hellifield link, which I raised with him on a previous occasion. That link would restore passenger services on a line used every day for freight, for the first time since 1962. It would link Lancashire with Yorkshire and open up the possibilities of daily travel services to Skipton, Leeds and further north to Bradford, but also to Carlisle and Lancaster. Is that not something that could be done at relatively low cost that would make a huge difference to the connectivity of the northern areas?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am sure that the noble Lord is right, but one of the things TfN has responsibility for doing is to look at the various bids in the north and come up with a list of priorities. If, when it does that, it puts the scheme that the noble Lord referred to right at the top of its priorities, that would carry weight with the Secretary of State.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords, would it not be a better solution to have a coherent system of devolution of powers, including transport, to all the regions of England? Will the Government look at this? If they do not do it soon I can assure them that it will be brought in by a Labour Government. The way things are going, that cannot be far away.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, we have not had to wait for a Labour Government to devolve major powers to, for example, Manchester and other parts of the country. We have introduced metro mayors and combined authorities. We will continue to do that. People will not have to wait for this illusory dream that the noble Lord just referred to.

[Lord Dykes (CB)]

My Lords, following the surprisingly interesting intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, will the Minister agree that privatisation of the railways has been an unmitigated disaster and the worst example of any large country in Europe of a very badly run system? Is it not now time for radical solutions, as we warned as MPs at the time when the noble Lord was one of the Ministers in charge of railway privatisation in the Commons in the early 1990s? What we now need is root-and-branch reform, with public ownership of the railway system itself but with private investors as well.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am very glad that my franchise runs out after seven and a half minutes. I fundamentally disagree with the noble Lord. We have seen a doubling of passenger traffic on the railways. Crucially, we have created a railway operating industry, which we never had before. We had a monopoly with British Rail. If it was not any good there was nothing you could do about it. We now have competing train operating companies and we have unlocked private investment in infrastructure. I wholly reject the negative proposition that my former noble friend put forward.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

My Lords, with rail passengers’ satisfaction with their journeys falling, the Commons Public Accounts Committee describing the Department for Transport’s management of two major franchises as completely inadequate, the Department for Transport admitting its part in the current new timetable shambles as a sponsor of the Thameslink programme and a member of the Thameslink Industry Readiness Board, and with the Secretary of State’s decision that an independent inquiry into the Thameslink 2018 new timetable problems is to be conducted by the Office of Rail and Road and led by the chairman of the Office of Rail and Road, with two out of five members also being members of the board of the Office of Rail and Road, while the role of the ORR is one of the matters to be assessed, does this not show the need to get more local, regional and accountable decision-making over our fragmented railway network to mitigate the damaging effect of the involvement of the current Secretary of State?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I reject the implication from the noble Lord that somehow the ORR is not the right body to do this. It is an independent body with the detailed knowledge of the railway industry that is needed; it was not directly involved in the timetable; it is supported by a panel of, I think, five independent members; and I think they are the right people to look at the role of all those involved in the recent debacle over the timetable. It will produce an interim report in September and a final report in December and I hope that, when it comes out, the noble Lord will feel that he might review the negative criticisms he has made of the composition of the body.

Referendums: Parliamentary Democracy

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 19th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Higgins on his choice of subject, which is even more topical today than when he chose it, and on the speech he made introducing it. I also thank all noble Lords who took part. As the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, said, it has been a very high-quality debate. In the time available, which has been curtailed somewhat—I make no complaint about that—I may not be able to deal with all the points.

I congratulate my noble friend Lord Pickles. This is the second time I have admired his maiden speech; on 5 June 1992, the newly elected Member for Brentwood and Ongar addressed the other place for the first time on housing and the importance of owner-occupation. He may recall one sentence from a moving egalitarian speech:

“what is good enough for the toffs is good enough for the workers”.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/6/1992; col. 1058.]

Then he may have identified himself with the workers, but today? Who can say? He is well known to many of the cognoscenti of electoral matters for his report Securing the Ballot, which has informed many of our debates. We are delighted that we will now have his direct, earthy input.

I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, on his maiden speech; like my noble friend he has a distinguished career in public service and his contributions have already informed many of our debates. Again, as European and security issues move towards the top of the political agenda, we are delighted to have him and look forward to his future speeches.

Looking at the list of speakers yesterday evening, I noted that half are former Members of the other place, as were all three Front-Bench spokesmen. Speaking for myself, I was always worried about what my noble friend Lord Sherbourne referred to as the tension between parliamentary democracy on the one hand and government by referendums on the other—an issue that ran through our debate. It was mentioned by, among others, my noble friends Lord Higgins and Lord Cormack, the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, who mentioned plebiscitary democracy. For example, a majority of MPs could make it clear in their election addresses that they opposed capital punishment, but then be faced by a referendum that went the other way. But the only way that the law could be changed was if MPs voted to change it, setting Parliament against the people. In a sense, that is what has happened in the EU referendum, as we know that the majority of MPs voted remain but were confronted with a different verdict from their electorate—a point made by my noble friend Lord Higgins to which I will return in a moment.

Having said that, I do see a case for referendums on whether people want to remain under this Parliament’s jurisdiction, as with the referendum on whether Northern Ireland should stay in the UK or the referendum on Scottish independence, mentioned by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, and others. I believe those are in a category of their own and a valid case can be made for them under the principle of self-determination. Since 1973, 11 referendums have been held in the UK, and the majority of them have been related to the issue of devolution. As the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, said, most of those were not controversial. I also make an exception for what I call direct local democracy—local referendums on issues such as council tax increases and neighbourhood plans.

Following the series of mainly non-controversial referendums on devolution in the late 1990s, we passed the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act—PPERA—in 2000. That enshrined in law a broad framework of rules to regulate for consistency and fairness in the conduct of any referendum held as a result of an Act of Parliament, whether taking place nationwide in one or more of the UK’s constituent nations or in any region of England. Again, I shall say a little more about that in a moment.

I turn now to the EU referendum, which has been at the heart of today’s debate. There was a referendum which decided that we should stay in the EU, so arguably a referendum was needed if that was to be overridden and we were to leave. Many noble Lords have opposed the EU referendum, arguing that it undermined parliamentary democracy by asking people a binary question on a highly complex matter instead of relying on people who had the time and capacity to master the issues. The argument against referendums was well put by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark who brought the good book into play to reinforce his argument. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, referred to referendums as “risky and ill-informed”, while my noble friend Lord Norton used the word “irresponsible”, and the noble Lord, Lord Judd, made it clear that he was opposed to them. Some of the arguments risk patronising the electorate. The high turnout at the referendum did indicate a high degree of engagement and there was certainly no dearth of information for those who wanted it.

Two themes have emerged in the debate, one of which was repeated by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith: that there was a lack of clarity as to why people voted as they did. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, mentioned that. All sorts of reasons have been prayed in aid; it was a cry for help for people who felt left behind by globalisation, or it was a protest in parts of the country where people felt that their public infra- structure was under threat from immigration. A whole range of reasons was given, but there was no lack of clarity as to why people voted as they did.

The other major theme running through our debate is that if you have a referendum, you should know what you are voting for, a point made with force by the report of the UCL commission about which the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, spoke—that if you have a referendum, you should know in advance exactly what the outcome will be. As I think the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, said, in the case of UCL commission, it recommended that if that was not the case, you should have another one downstream when the result would be clear.

A number of noble Lords have argued that we should never have held the referendum. The problem with that argument is that membership of the EU has been a major political issue for 40 years and it has split our two largest parties. Prior to the 2015 general election, the only way a voter could indicate a very strong preference for leaving was by voting for the UK Independence Party—never likely to form a Government—and the only way a voter could indicate a strong preference for remaining was by voting Lib Dem. With respect to those who have spoken for that party and with whom I enjoyed working in coalition, it was never going to form a Government either. The former Prime Minister, David Cameron, took the view that the only way to resolve this long-running, contentious issue at the heart of our democracy was to grasp the nettle and hold a referendum. The noble Lord, Lord Bruce, made it clear that he thought that was a mistake and explained why. However, a general election could never give a clear verdict on this single issue, whereas a referendum does provide a clear expression of preference. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, said that we should resolve this by having another general election, but with great respect, I am not sure that another general election would resolve this particular issue.

Before the EU referendum, the Government were clear that they would respect the outcome and defer to the will of the people. The present Government have respected that view and are now committed to the UK leaving the EU. Like most noble Lords, I campaigned for remain and I was disappointed by the result. It might have been different if the EU had shown more flexibility on freedom of movement before the referendum was called, if remain had fought a better campaign, and if some politicians had not spent quite so much time and energy over the years making disobliging remarks about the EU. The result also might have been different—dare I say it?—if the Labour Party had been led by another leader.

Although I voted to remain, I respect the result of the referendum and I agree with my noble friend Lord Higgins: it is now for Parliament to proceed and deliver the results in the way it thinks best. To that extent, Parliament remains supreme. As a number of noble Lords have pointed out, referendums are not legally binding, so to that extent they cannot undermine parliamentary sovereignty. However, as my noble friend Lord Norton and others have said, while referendums may not be legally binding, they are politically binding with a cost involved in ignoring the outcome.

Confidence in the EU referendum outcome has recently been affected by allegations of electoral malpractice and foreign influence, and charges of criminal activities due to campaign overspends—a point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, and the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. That rules have been breached is rightly a cause for concern but that does not mean that the rules were flawed. Of course, we should look again at the penalties, as said by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. It is also my view that neither the breaches nor the alleged interference on social media could account for the majority of 1.3 million; I notice that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, disagrees but I cannot substantiate my view by science. Although he quoted yesterday’s Times, it also came to the conclusion that the outcome would have been the same.

Where do we go from here? Previous Governments have chosen to bring forward stand-alone legislation for each referendum, which provides this House and the other place with the opportunity to amend legislation to include some of the suggestions that we have heard during the debate, such as thresholds for turnout and majorities if so desired. At the moment, the Government have no plans to depart from this approach, which has been the approach of previous Governments.

Many noble Lords put the debate in the broader context of how we engage with the public. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, mentioned other means of communicating the growth of social media. He also drew attention to what I call the changes in the terms of the trade of politics—declining party membership, the rise in populism and the growth of social media—which form the background to any review that we might undertake of the legislation. On that point, a number of noble Lords suggested that we needed to revisit the legislation in the light of the experience of recent referendums, the growth of social media and some of the evidence referred to by noble Lords. I have a lot of sympathy for that view but, at the risk of repeating what I said earlier this week, we need a bit of time to absorb the important report of the Independent Commission on Referendums, launched on 11 July, to which a number of noble Lords referred. I was very impressed by the point made by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, on how two referendums in the same part of the United Kingdom can have different outcomes depending on the context in which they take place.

We need to have a good look at the commission’s recommendations, many of which are aimed at the Government. We should await the DCMS report on fake news to understand the impact of social media on elections; it has taken evidence from some of the key players in the referendum. We need the Intelligence and Security Committee’s report on the influence of Russia on the recent referendum and general election. We need the result of the Information Commissioner’s inquiry into breaches of data protection laws by Cambridge Analytica and Facebook, together with any outstanding Electoral Commission reports. When we have those important documents, it will make sense to stand back and take on board all their points—and those made in today’s debate—to see how the legislation can be strengthened and updated. Many helpful suggestions have been made today.

In the meantime, the Government will continue to work with the Electoral Commission and other stakeholders to protect the integrity, security and effectiveness of referendums and elections. In response to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, the Government will do what they can to build a consensus on any changes to the legislation that are needed. I thank all noble Lords for their collective eloquence and wisdom.

Electoral Commission

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I would like to repeat an Answer to an Urgent Question given in the other place earlier today. The Answer is as follows:

“I am proud to say that the UK has a clear and robust electoral system, and we should all be proud of the democracy in which we live and work. I would like to place on record my thanks to all those involved in the electoral community who work hard at every poll to deliver it within the law, such that we can be proud of our democracy.

The Electoral Commission is the independent body that oversees the conduct of elections and referendums and regulates political finance. The commission reports regularly on the running of elections and referendums, and conducts thorough investigations into allegations that rules have been breached.

Electoral law exists to ensure fair campaigning, and the Electoral Commission has determined that those rules have been broken. Both Vote Leave and BeLeave have been fined and referred to the police. It would not be appropriate for the Government to comment on ongoing police investigations.

That electoral rules have been breached is rightly a cause for concern, but that does not mean that the rules themselves were flawed. The Government will continue to work closely with the Electoral Commission, along with many other stakeholders in the electoral system, to protect the integrity, security and effectiveness of referendums and elections.

Let me make it clear for the record that we will continue to implement the referendum’s result and to make a success of it”.

My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, on 28 June and on previous occasions in this House, the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, agreed with me that our legislation on elections and referendums was not fit for purpose. But today the Minister has repeated the Answer given in the other place by the Minister for the Constitution. In the fourth paragraph, he said:

“That electoral rules have been breached is rightly a cause for concern, but that does not mean that the rules themselves were flawed”.


Are the Minister and I correct—and I think we are—or is his honourable friend the Member for Norwich North in the other place correct? We cannot both be.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

On several occasions, I have repeated a statement that my party made just over a year ago:

“There is a broad consensus that election law is fragmented, confused and unclear, with two different sets of legislation and poor guidance from the Electoral Commission”.—[Official Report, 7/6/18; col. 1403.]


As the noble Lord knows, a number of inquiries are under way that I do think we need to wait for before we decide how best to legislate. I am aware of the strong views of the Electoral Commission that the current level of sanctions is too low.

There are the DCMS inquiry into fake news, which we need to wait for, and the Intelligence and Security Committee’s inquiry into the activity of the Russians in the referendum and recent elections. There are ongoing investigations by the Electoral Commission into the referendum, and a court case is still pending. We have just had a very interesting report on referendums from UCL. I am not in favour of delay, but it makes sense to have the reports of the various inquiries that I have just referred to before we decide how best to proceed. I make it clear that the Government take extremely seriously what has been reported in the investigation out today.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, I attended the exchanges earlier in the other place. Can I express the hope that our Minister will be rather more forthcoming than his colleague there? She kept referring to rules having been breached. These are not the rules of a game; this is the law of the land. This was a case of knowingly breaking the law—hence the reference to the police. Did the Minister note that no fewer than five very senior Conservative MPs urged the Government to recognise the implications for the integrity of the outcome of the 2016 referendum? If this was an election result, it could have caused that result to be declared invalid. Given the possibility—or perhaps now even the likelihood as the days go by—of a People’s Vote poll to make a choice about the outcome of the Brexit negotiations, do the Government accept the extreme urgency of the need for the reforms to which he has just referred? How and when do the Government propose to introduce legislation? If he is going to tell us again that there is some difficulty about that because of Brexit legislation, perhaps I may invite him to undertake an examination of my Private Member’s Bill to see if that would offer an opportunity.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his repeated offer to use his Private Member’s Bill as a vehicle for necessary legislation, and I look forward to debating the remaining stages of his Bill in due course. I, too, followed the exchanges in the other place and I am grateful that I am answering questions here and not elsewhere. On the question of legislation, as I have said, we are currently considering whether the Electoral Commission should have more powers; we know that the commission wants the maximum fine to be increased from £20,000 to a higher level.

On the question of the referendum, I can only repeat what my honourable friend said in the other place, which is that the Government believe that the outcome of the referendum should be respected. Were there to be any more referendums, each one would require specific legislation, and there would be an opportunity to amend the legislation. I think that I am right in saying that the legislation for the EU referendum was amended in the light of a report from the Constitution Committee in your Lordships’ House, which recommended that the law be tightened on acting in concert. On the question of more general legislation, as I have said, I am not seeking to delay, but some key issues are under investigation by committees of this House and of another place. It makes sense to await the outcome of those before we decide how best to legislate.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords, on all these reports, we now have the report of the Electoral Commission, which found that the Leave campaign broke the law; we have very strong evidence of Russian involvement; and there are reports of other investigations which have been carried out into the veracity of the referendum. Yet the Minister says that the Government are still willing to accept the result. What would it take for the Government to think again and recognise that this was a flawed referendum?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The Government do not believe that the referendum was flawed and I cannot envisage the circumstances in which they would come to a different view. On the exchanges in the other place, I did not hear a unanimous request to rerun the referendum: rather, the discussion focused on whether the laws we have at the moment should be tightened and changed were we to have any more referendums.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend and his counterpart on the Opposition Benches were talking about reform of the electoral law. What the Minister said in the Commons in the quotation that I heard just now was that the mere fact that a regulation has been breached does not show that the regulation is flawed. Those two sentences stand together perfectly well.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am grateful to my noble and learned friend. As my honourable friend in the other place said, that electoral rules have been breached is rightly a cause for concern, but that does not mean that the rules themselves are flawed.

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, when the mayor of Tower Hamlets was elected because regulations had been breached, it was necessary to rerun the election. Can we be told the substantial difference between a case like that and the case we are talking about now?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The question of elections of MPs or mayors has been raised before. The commission does not have the power to disqualify MPs if they are found to have overspent in an election campaign, and I imagine that the same would be true of mayors. However—and I think this answers the noble Lord’s question—the commission can refer cases to the police or the relevant public prosecutor and generally do so if cases involve an element of deliberate dishonesty. That is the distinction.

[Lord Strasburger (LD)]

My Lords, the Vote Leave whistleblower, Shamir Sanni, is adamant that the cheating and overspending was common knowledge in Vote Leave—everyone knew. Let us look at the rogues gallery of people inside Vote Leave who must have known about the £500,000 deliberate overspend. Some of those on the committee were Steve Baker, Iain Duncan Smith, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth—who is not in his place—Liam Fox, Chris Grayling, the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, who is also not in his place, Dominic Raab, Michael Gove and Boris Johnson. Does the Minister agree that the country is owed an apology from all those people for the dishonesty that took place on their watch and that those still in office should step down until the police investigation is complete?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I refer the noble Lord to paragraph 1.13 of the Electoral Commission’s report:

“No other person was under investigation by the Commission”.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

Does the Minister think that there is the slightest chance of the BBC giving a fair and balanced report of the Electoral Commission’s report?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I have not had time to listen to the BBC and its report on the Electoral Commission. As the noble Lord knows better than anyone else, if he believes that the BBC has been guilty of any bias, there are procedures for making the relevant complaint.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

Does the Minister accept that, in extremis, there can be circumstances in which the behaviour of a party in a referendum can distort the outcome of that referendum? In those circumstances, what redress is there?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I refer the noble Lord to the reports of the Electoral Commission and UCL, which came out yesterday. They both say that they do not believe that the irregularities we have referred to would necessarily have affected the outcome of the referendum.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

In looking forward to changes in legislation, would my noble friend give serious consideration to real-time reporting of expenses? Nowadays, we face fast-moving election programmes and campaigns. In this case and in others, it appears that the legislation has not kept up with the processes that can be adopted and followed.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

That is a helpful suggestion. We should consult with the political parties to see how practical it is, but that suggestion was made in the exchanges in the other place. It is well worth looking at that to see in advance whether anyone is heading for an overspend.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, if the referendum was not fundamentally flawed, why are the Government so reluctant to concede that there is now a very strong case for a judicial and public inquiry into the conduct of the 2016 referendum?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

It makes sense to complete the inquiries that are on the way. Other investigations into the referendum are still being conducted by the Electoral Commission. A court case on the issues we are talking about is pending. It would not be helpful to try to launch a public inquiry against that background.

Economy: Personal Savings

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by joining others in thanking my noble friend Lord Leigh for securing this debate and for his speech in support of the Motion. I was particularly struck by the point that he made about the potential of modern technology to help saving—the ability to put small sums of money in a pot and to let it grow—and I will say a little more later on about the role of fintech in this important area.

I thank all noble Lords who have taken part, not least my noble friend Lord Lilley. This is the second time I have had the good fortune to listen to a maiden speech from my noble friend. I was on the Front Bench in another place on 24 November 1983, when the new Member for St Albans spoke. It was an outstanding speech at the beginning of a long and successful career. Back then, he spoke of the imperatives of containing public expenditure, and in particular our contribution to the European budget, but went on to reassure the House that he had always been a passionate supporter of our membership of what was then the European Community. In the intervening 35 years, he played a leading role in the Thatcher and Major Governments, as well as being shadow Chancellor in Opposition. As other noble Lords said, we look forward to him sharing with the House his experience in a wide range of government departments. I noted with interest the six principles he enunciated which should guide policy on saving. I will make a quick comment on his suggestion that there is a bewildering array of tax reliefs. The Conservative Party believes in choice and flexibility for savers. That is why several different ISA types are available, depending on an individual’s age, risk appetite and savings goals. Having listened to two of his maiden speeches, I wonder where we will both be for his third.

The Government recognise the significant role that savings play in enabling individuals and families to achieve their aspirations. Savings bolster household wealth and support the economy by stimulating “sustainable” growth—a word used by my noble friend Lord Leigh—and innovation. Household saving tends to be lower when household wealth is high and unemployment is low. Household financial net wealth as a proportion of income is close to its record high, while the unemployment rate is at its lowest since 1975. The thrust of our policy has been not just to reinforce a savings culture in those who have always saved but to promote that culture in those who need it most and those who have traditionally not made it a priority—namely, those on low incomes and the young, as mentioned by many noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Palmer.

I note the important use of the word “fairer” in my noble friend’s Motion—a point that was emphasised by the noble Lord, Lord Davies. We have indeed sought to help people at all income levels. This is easier to achieve if more people are taking more pay home. Because of increases to the personal allowance, a typical basic rate taxpayer will pay £1,075 less income tax in 2018-19 than in 2010-11, allowing more headroom for saving. Again, this point was made by my noble friend Lord Leigh.

However, we have to do much more, particularly with the groups I mentioned earlier—those on low incomes. The Money Advice Service in 2016 told us that four in 10 working people across the UK lack a savings buffer, with less than £100 in savings available to them at any one time—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Palmer. One-quarter of households have total financial assets that are less than £1,100; and almost 26% of working adults have no savings. This evidence speaks to a demonstrable lack of a financial safety net for many in our society, leaving households in a state of financial uncertainty—a point well made by my noble friend Lady Altmann. With that uncertainty comes vulnerability to unexpected bills or income shocks and, as many noble Lords said, exposure to loans at high rates of interest.

The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, made a useful distinction, reinforced by my noble friend Lady Altmann, between money put aside for retirement—long-term savings—and money available for emergencies. That is a useful distinction that we have to bear in mind.

The reforms introduced by this Government are a critical step in tackling the barriers to savings and ensuring that the right incentives are in place for savers so that they can build up a necessary buffer, either by saving through NS&I with total security or with other investments where we have taken steps to minimise the risk of misselling or fraud. The noble Lord, Lord Davies —who is never churlish—was good enough to compliment the Government on some of the initiatives they have taken in order to achieve this mutually acceptable goal of helping those on low incomes.

A key initiative, which was referred to many times during the debate, was the introduction of a Help to Save scheme in 2018 for working people on low incomes, who will be able to save up to £50 a month and benefit from a 50% government bonus. This recognises the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, and others that tax relief is of no use if people’s incomes are below their personal allowance—hence the substitution of tax relief with a government bonus.

Help to Save will support working families on low incomes to build up their rainy-day savings buffer. The scheme will be open to adults in receipt of working tax credit or universal credit with minimum household earnings equivalent to 16 hours a week at the national living wage. We estimate that 3.5 million people will be eligible and anticipate a take-up of 10% in the first year.

Turning to young people—again mentioned by many noble Lords—we recognise the challenges they face in becoming home owners. That is why we launched the help to buy ISA in December 2015. This helps first-time buyers save up a deposit for their first home, with a 25% bonus on up to £12,000 of savings. To the end of December 2017, over 170,000 bonuses, worth £132 million, have been paid, which supported over 125,000 property completions.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester made a broader point about housing. Over £40 billion is being invested in housing and we are taking initiatives on rented housing—for example, promoting three-year tenancies. A number of noble Lords mentioned the use of pension funds. Some pension funds are now investing in rented housing, an area in which traditionally they have not invested, and that is helping to increase the supply of housing.

We created a new lifetime ISA from April 2017 that enables younger people to save up to £4,000 a year, tax free, with a 25% government bonus. My noble friend Lady Altmann repeated today the reservations that I am sure she has made on earlier occasions about the lifetime ISA. It has now completed its first full year of operation and initial reports to HMRC show that for the 2017-18 tax year, approximately £130 million has been paid to 14 LISA managers in respect of over 170,000 investors. This encourages the next generation, to whom my noble friend Lord Leigh referred, to get into the habit of saving and helps them to simultaneously save for both a first house and later life with the same product.

A number of suggestions were made during the debate—including from my noble friend Lady Altmann—that there should be a social care ISA. As she knows, there will be a Green Paper on social care in the autumn. As to the suggestion from my noble friend Lord Northbrook that, were there to be any further reductions in tax relief on pensions—I have no idea whether there will be—any savings from that reduction should be put into a special pot for social care, I am sure that the authors of the social care Green Paper will bear that in mind.

My noble friend Lord Northbrook made a number of suggestions for simplifying and rationalising the ISA family. He referred to the Help to Buy ISA which, as previously announced, is due to close to new entrants in November 2019. However, the lifetime ISA offers similar support for those who are looking to buy their first home.

As to those who are even younger—a point raised by my noble friend Lord Suri and others—the Government also believe that financial education is key in helping people increase their financial capability and build up their financial resilience, an expression used by my noble friend Lady Altmann. It is particularly important that children and young adults receive financial education to help them shape their financial habits later in life. This is why financial education was introduced to the national curriculum in England in 2014 as part of the curriculum for citizenship education for 11 to 16 year-olds.

Moving on to advice, I pay tribute to the work carried out by my noble friend Lady Altmann at the DWP to promote both auto-enrolment and the Single Financial Guidance Body. Further work to improve financial capability for the population as a whole is currently undertaken by the Money Advice Service, which delivers our financial capability strategy. However, as my noble friend mentioned, the functions of MAS—including its work on financial capability—will soon be merged into the new Single Financial Guidance Body, which will simplify the existing public financial guidance landscape and make it easier for people to get help with money matters. The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, asked what its objectives will be. It will work with the charitable organisations mentioned by the right reverend Prelate.

Again on the population as a whole, from April 2016 the personal savings allowance—which has not been mentioned in the debate but is important—and ISAs have meant that over 95% of people have no tax to pay on their savings income, and we have given people more freedom of choice when deciding where to save tax-free. ISAs are more generous than ever before, as my noble friend Lord Northbrook mentioned, and we made the largest ever increase to the ISA limit, from £15,240 to £20,000, in April 2017. They remain an incredibly popular product, with around half of UK households having one. Of the 21.6 million individuals who benefited from holding an ISA in 2014-15, over half had incomes of under £20,000.

At the other end of the age spectrum, the Government have made security in retirement a central part of their reforms since 2010. The introduction of auto-enrolment has reversed the previous decade-long decline in workplace pension saving. It has changed the culture of saving, making workplace pension saving the norm for a new generation. Over 9.7 million people have been automatically enrolled since 2012.

My noble friend Lord Leigh mentioned advances in technology, which he is right to point out are being used to make it easier for some people to save. The fintech sector has the capacity to deliver huge benefits across society. It is a fantastic example of how competition can be a force for good. The Government’s new fintech sector strategy, published on 22 March, explains how we intend to ensure not only that the UK remains the best place in the world for fintech, but that these opportunities are realised in full.

It is hoped that these measures will stimulate a robust savings culture in this country and contribute to overall household wealth. Indeed, we have witnessed the financial position of households improve significantly since the financial crisis. Household net financial worth as a share of income is close to record highs, and debt-to-income is significantly below pre-crisis levels. Debt interest payments to income are also at a record low.

Perhaps I may turn to some of the issues raised; I apologise in advance for not answering them all. My noble friend Lord Leigh asked about SIPPs. The HMRC framework for permitted investments for SIPPs does not dictate what can be placed in a pension; rather, it sets out what types of investments attract tax relief. The effect of this, as he said, is that many more types of investments can now be placed into pension schemes as SIPPs. The FCA has rules in place which oblige SIPP operators to assess if there are problems with an investment or an introducer. As a result of these rules, SIPP operators are required to take appropriate action, including stopping certain investments. They must also take reasonable steps to ensure that a proposed underlying investment for a SIPP is a genuine asset and not part of a fraud or scam. However, perhaps I can take up my noble friend’s generous offer to write to him about that in more detail.

A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, and my noble friend Lady Altmann, asked about pensions cold calling. As they both know, amendments were made to the Financial Guidance and Claims Bill as it passed through this House a year ago. We will be launching a consultation on the draft regulations shortly and we intend to lay the regulations before Parliament in the autumn. The Economic Secretary to the Treasury will also publish a statement shortly providing a progress update and outlining a timetable for delivering the ban. The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, asked if I would introduce a 4% NS&I bond. That is slightly beyond my capacity at the Dispatch Box, but we note his request. NS&I’s operating framework supports a fair and competitive savings market by ensuring that the products it offers balance the interests of savers on the one hand and taxpayers on the other, while also looking at the market as a whole.

The right reverend Prelate raised the role of credit unions and mentioned the important work the Church has done in promoting savings and helping people who are vulnerable. I am well aware of the Churches’ Mutual Credit Union, a mutual society formed in collaboration between the Church of England, the Church of Scotland, the Methodist Church of Great Britain, the Church in Wales and the Scottish Episcopal Church—a broad church if ever there was one. The Government remain committed to supporting credit unions, which provide vital services to financially underserved communities.

My noble friend Lady Altmann raised an issue which I know she has talked about before: pensions tax relief and low-income workers, and the fact that the tax relief does not filter through to those below a certain threshold. We are well aware of this issue, and in December the DWP published its review of automatic enrolment and committed to exploring the difference in treatment that she referred to, making the most of new opportunities while at the same time balancing simplicity, fairness and practicality. We will engage with stakeholders to see if we can resolve that problem.

A number of noble Lords mentioned that it is difficult to promote saving when interest rates are so low. It is a valid point but the other side of the coin is that low interest rates have helped households and businesses through difficult economic times, and while it may not have been in the interests of pensioners, many pensioners have children and grandchildren who will have benefited from low mortgage rates, and they have an interest in businesses doing well. Low interest rates have certainly helped businesses. As I say, there is the other side of the coin as regards low interest rates.

My noble friend Lord Suri asked about progress in making available bank accounts for those who currently do not have them. The Treasury’s 2017 publication shows that in total, there are nearly 8 million basic bank accounts open in the UK, while just over 900,000 new accounts were opened between July 2016 and June 2017.

I am conscious that I have not gone through all the issues that were raised and I will write in response to the outstanding ones. To conclude, the Government recognise the importance of savings and we have taken action to support savers at all income levels and at all stages of life through a range of aims such as saving for a rainy day, for retirement or towards home ownership. We have made significant changes over recent years, including introducing the personal savings allowance. This means that over 95% of people have no tax to pay on their savings income, all of which contributes to the building of an economy that is fit for the future, and a stronger, fairer place for our people to thrive. We take to heart all the suggestions that have been made during the debate, and once again I thank noble Lords for their contributions.

New Towns Act 1981 (Local Authority Oversight) Regulations 2018

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2018 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Young of Cookham]

That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 4 June be approved.

Relevant document: 33rd Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, these regulations are made under powers in Section 16 of the Neighbourhood Planning Act 2017. That section originates in an amendment to the legislation tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Goss Moor, supported by the noble Lord, Lord Best, and others but also with the Government’s support. I know that both he and a number of other noble Lords who spoke in favour of the amendment when it was introduced are well placed to explain the purpose and merits of these regulations. I shall accordingly be brief in my opening remarks.

Section 16 of the Neighbourhood Planning Act enables, in principle, the creation of new town development corporations which are accountable to an oversight authority composed of the local authority or authorities covering the area designated for the new town, rather than to the Secretary of State. These regulations make the detailed changes to the New Towns Act 1981 to make that work in practice.

This will be the second time I have had the pleasure of amending the New Towns Act 1981, having done so in 1982, after it was introduced, while working as a junior Minister in the then DoE. Building on the success of the first-generation new towns, we consider that new town development corporations may be, where there are complex delivery and co-ordination challenges, the right vehicle for driving forward high-quality new communities at scale. With a statutory objective to secure the laying out and development of new towns, and with their own suite of powers, they should have the focus and heft to get things done.

In line with our locally led approach to new garden cities, towns and villages, we think it is right to provide the option for new town development corporations to be overseen not by the Secretary of State but by the local authorities covering the area for the new town. That, in essence, is what these regulations do, although, as their length testifies, it is in practice a little more technically complex than simply replacing the words “Secretary of State” with the words “local authority or local authorities”.

We have also, to the extent that the scope of the regulation-making power allows, sought to reinforce key themes which we think should underpin delivery by locally led new town development corporations. We have emphasised, through provisions in the regulations, the central importance of quality, community participation, long-term stewardship and legacy planning. We want to ensure that locally led new town development corporations deliver exceptional new places.

Clearly, where local authorities are accountable for new town development corporations, they must be able to exercise proper oversight, but we want to ensure that the development corporation is able to act and think independently, drawing in private sector expertise and investment in effective partnerships to get things done. Therefore, the regulations require that, for example, a majority of the board of the development corporation, including the chair and the deputy chair, are independent members with relevant skills and experience.

The new town development corporations will not have plan-making functions, as this power will rest with the oversight authority. However, we would encourage consideration being given to the use of local development orders where appropriate as a means of securing high-quality development at pace and strengthening the planning certainty of new town projects.

These regulations are an important localising measure and, given that context, a number of respondents to the consultation on the draft regulations expressed unease that HM Treasury consent was required for borrowing in excess of £100 million by the new town development corporations. We have listened to those concerns, including from Members of your Lordships’ House, and have amended the requirement in the regulations for HM Treasury consent for borrowing. Instead, we will establish the broad financial parameters for development corporations, including levels of borrowing, on a case-by-case basis prior to the establishment of each locally led new town development corporation.

Finally, I emphasise that these regulations do not in themselves create any locally led new town development corporations. Where a local authority or authorities—which will always initiate the process—wish a locally led new town development corporation to be established, subject to our being satisfied by the proposal and subject to consultation, further regulations will be laid before Parliament for debate.

These regulations are part of a process but they are an important stage. They mean that we can create locally led new town development corporations where local authorities want them and their proposals are robust. It is my hope that, in turn, those development corporations will lead the delivery of a new wave of garden cities and towns that will stand out as exceptional places for generations to come, building on the success of those built in the post-war years. I beg to move.

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (LD)]

My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my interests in the register. This is an area I work broadly in—much of it is unpaid but some of it is paid. I was also the original mover of this amendment, and I did so with not only the Government’s support but support from across the House. As the Minister said, this measure is not to establish specific new town corporations but to allow that where they are established—and I hope they will be established—they will be locally led. This is an extraordinarily important moment in the delivery of the homes this country needs and of the services and infrastructure to support vibrant communities. I believe that that is what the new garden village and town programme is capable of doing.

I ask the indulgence of the House for a moment as I give some perspective on this. It was Harold Macmillan in the 1950s, in the middle of the baby boom and during the period of post-war reconstruction, who committed to deliver 300,000 homes—the same number that we need to deliver today. Having delivered only half of that for a couple of decades, we have become short of millions of homes. Many of us experienced that shortage through our constituents in the other place, across all incomes and backgrounds and in many parts of the country. I suspect that many in this House have realised that suddenly, their children or grandchildren are unable to afford a home. Those who do not already own a home or have big capital have increasingly found themselves unable to do it.

In the post-war period, as we introduced planning controls, we sought to create three ways to deliver the homes that were needed. One was through the regeneration of the great cities and towns, which had been emptied out post industrialisation and by the Luftwaffe, and which needed a certain amount of emptying out to deal with the slums. Therefore, we needed to rebuild. The second focus was on some growth around historic towns and cities. There was an awareness, however, that that aroused a lot of opposition from the people who lived there and could have detrimental impacts on the quality of historic communities and the services provided within them. The third leg to deliver those 300,000 homes a year—which were delivered by the Government at the time—was through new communities: new towns that built on the pre-war ideas of Ebenezer Howard and others. Those new towns delivered 2.8 million homes and we would not have delivered the homes that people needed in this country without them. They were extraordinarily successful.

Of course, the new towns were designed in an era when we used a particular approach. Material shortages affected the quality of some of the build; the car was seen as a solution and not necessarily a problem; and it was an era of big government, when not just homes and people but businesses, such as steel works and car factories, were moved in the direction of central government. The nature of their design is often criticised, but those new towns successfully provided fantastic homes for many people. Some of the more successful new towns are no longer even thought of as new towns and have just become places where people live.

New towns were, however, no more than products of their era, and it was an era in which central government took the decisions. Naturally, therefore, the New Towns Act gave powers to the Secretary of State effectively to control the corporations delivering homes for local people in a way that simply does not apply now. The amendments that these regulations will put into effect bring the process up to date with the modern era of localism and a belief in communities themselves taking decisions, owning and controlling the assets, and ensuring that they provide exactly the legacy of great places that the Minister referred to. They will have the opportunity in capturing land value to invest in place and community, to create 21st-century towns and villages fit for the needs of those growing up now in a generation that is so badly short of homes. One of those needs is for the people and the communities around them to have that control, not the Secretary of State.

These regulations should not only be uncontroversial to this House but welcomed by it as a step in delivering the quality new homes and, more importantly, the new communities that people need in the 21st century, in which they can afford to live and thrive. It is also a step into the 21st century in terms of localism and local accountability. It is, as I said, an historic moment when we finally return to a place where we deliver homes of the quality that people expect and deserve, with all the facilities that they need to live and thrive.

I look forward to these regulations being used in cases where the best way to deliver the new supplement is through a new town corporation. As the Government have indicated, that would usually be for a larger scale supplement because it is doubtful that such a corporation would need to be established for a smaller one—although it might be established for a multiple of new supplements. The key is flexibility and that it is brought forward by local communities to meet their needs. I look forward to that happening. However, it will be only a part of a range of opportunities because many will be brought forward without the need for new town corporations.

Let us be clear: the very fact that landowners and investors know that this opportunity is there will probably encourage them to raise their game in the quality of what is delivered, because they know that otherwise, these powers will enable communities to step in and deliver what needs to be delivered themselves.

I welcome the regulations. I am obliged to the Ministers and their officials who have collaborated and spoken openly to me about this process. On the one key change that was made from the draft regulations, £100 million is a lot of money but, within the context of creating a new supplement, it is barely a start. For the Government to have required these corporations to keep coming back to the Treasury to ask for money to do what needed to be done when the principle was accepted seemed a nonsense, and I am glad that Ministers have responded to the concern that was widely articulated on that front.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I am happy to support the regulations before the House and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Goss Moor, on securing this change to the legislation when the Bill was going through the House. I am very happy that we will provide local authorities with the option of being able to lead on new town developments. That is a good thing and, as other noble Lords said, will allow a level of independence so that they can go forward. Given that, I am happy to support the regulations as they are.

I was pleased that the Government listened to the responses to the consultation on the financial limits; that is very good news. However, the report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee talks about the length of the consultation. I have mentioned a number of times the question of consultations from the department. This appears to be truncated down to four weeks, whereas ideally it should be six weeks and perhaps even longer. There is also a general point to be made about the consultation itself, in that, whether it produces negative or positive responses, the level of those responses is actually very low. The Government should look at ways of trying to get more people to engage with what they are doing.

I agree strongly with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Goss Moor, about the construction of new towns and bringing the process up to date. Indeed, it is a good intention on the part of the Government to deliver on this. A number of noble Lords observed that new homes must be of sufficient quality, which is extremely important. They must be properly energy efficient, built using the best techniques and set within the right infrastructure. In that way we will have homes in new towns and elsewhere that will be there for many years. If we do not get this right, we will simply create housing problems for future generations. I am conscious that in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, while Governments of all persuasions built a lot of housing, in the end a good deal of it turned out to be of very poor quality. For all the promises, those houses failed the families who had to live in them. Of course, some of the properties are still here today. So it is important that, whatever is built, be it in new towns or elsewhere, quality should underpin it. Hopefully, having a local element in new towns, with local people being fully involved, will help with that. Again, I am happy to support the regulations.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate, in particular the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Goss Moor, for his continuing support and for putting these proposals into an historical context. As the Minister responsible for new towns in the 1980s, I found it rather nostalgic to be taken through the history of the new towns. As he and other noble Lords said, the climate has changed since then. There is more of an appetite for local engagement, and indeed, as the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said, we now have the proven competence of local authorities to undertake major developments.

The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, said that the introduction of the regulations was a necessary and important step in helping to increase the country’s housing supply. Indeed, I think that there is general agreement on all sides of the House that localising new town development corporation powers will provide local authorities with a new and powerful vehicle for driving forward high-quality new communities at scale. I endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy said about quality. That is why we have written that into the regulations. The Government want the initiative to be a success and we recognise that the change that we have made, with the slightly lighter touch of the Treasury, makes it a more appetising proposition for local authorities.

I shall pick up some of the points that were made. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, asked about the relationship between the oversight authority and the new town development corporation. Prior to agreeing to the establishment of a locally led development corporation, we would expect to see a proposal for governance arrangements that provided appropriate oversight of and independence for the new town development corporation.

On the membership of the development corporation, we want it to have operational independence to get on with the job, but we have required that the board should have a majority of independent members. In response to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, the appointment of the chair, the deputy chair and the independent board members should be through an open, transparent and publicly advertised process in line with the broader principles for local authority appointments. There has already been some indication of an appetite for these new regulations. The four local authorities that lead the North Essex Garden Communities project have expressed an interest in setting up a locally led new town development corporation.

The regulations provide a vital lever for delivering the transformational housing growth that we need while ensuring that surrounding existing communities will also benefit from well-planned infrastructure and community amenities. I beg to move.

Motion agreed.

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority (Business Rate Supplements Functions) Order 2018

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2018 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Young of Cookham]

That the draft Orders laid before the House on 4 and 7 June be approved.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the draft orders, if approved and made, will confer the power to raise a business rate supplement on to the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, Liverpool City Region, West of England, and West Midlands combined authorities, to be exercised by their respective mayors.

The order for the West Midlands Combined Authority will implement a commitment, made in the second devolution deal that the Government agreed with the West Midlands Combined Authority and announced at the Autumn Budget, that we would,

“subject to the agreement of Parliament, provide for the Mayor of the West Midlands Combined Authority to have the power to introduce a business rate supplement, which would be subject to a ballot of affected businesses”.

It also amends the list of roads comprising that combined authority’s key route network. Mayors of combined authorities are responsible for driving economic growth and regeneration in their areas.

We recognise that, to succeed, mayors need the right resources to enable investment in economic growth priorities. That is why we have agreed ambitious long-term investment funds with mayoral combined authorities amounting to £20 million a year to Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, £30 million a year to Liverpool City Region and to the West of England, and £36.5 million a year to the West Midlands, and empowered them to direct funding in their areas, including skills and employment, housing and transport. This was further enhanced by the announcement at Budget 2017 of an ambitious £1.7 billion transforming cities fund for essential investment in improving transport within cities, with £74 million going to Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, £80 million to the West of England, £134 million to Liverpool City Region, and £250 million to the West Midlands. We have also launched a mayoral capacity fund of £2 million over two years for each of these combined authorities to help to ensure that these institutions have the right skills to deliver on what matters in their areas.

We are now going further by enabling mayors to raise a business rate supplement of up to 2p in the pound to promote real, long-lasting economic growth in their areas, such as through transport and digital connectivity.

Mayors are working with partners across their areas to provide a louder voice, strong co-ordination and clear accountability for local people. Such mayors are ideally placed to provide a strategic overview of the local infrastructure requirements and work closely with businesses on developing proposals that will benefit both business and the broader community. The business rate supplement could raise £15 million a year in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, £16 million in the West of England, £17 million in Liverpool City Region and £35 million in the West Midlands to drive jobs, growth and productivity across the region.

Each mayor, combined authority and all constituent councils affected by these orders have consented to their making. The mayor will, rightly, need to put forward a convincing vision and use their visibility and position to build consensus with local businesses—culminating in a successful ballot of rate-paying businesses—before being able to deploy this power. Regardless of the outcome, the mayor must cover the cost of consultation and ballot. County councils, unitary district councils and the Greater London Authority already have the power to levy a supplement on business rates. These orders will extend that power to the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, Liverpool City Region, West of England and West Midlands combined authorities, in each case to be exercised by the mayor. The business rate supplement will have the same purpose and be subject to the same safeguards, as with other levying authorities.

The supplement has a clear purpose: to raise funds for a project, or projects, that will promote economic development in the area. Money raised from the supplement must go towards projects that would not otherwise have gone ahead. This is about creating additional value. The funds cannot be put towards the authority’s day-to-day costs or for services it has existing obligations to provide. Before levying any supplement, the mayor is required to consult on and publish a prospectus setting out the benefits of the proposed project the supplement would fund. It is crucial that there is a clear vision for what the supplement will help to deliver, and that affected businesses are fully engaged in the process. The proposed supplement is then subject to a ballot of those businesses that would be affected. It must be approved by a majority of affected individual business rate payers who vote, and the aggregate rateable value of those businesses in favour who vote must exceed those against. The supplement, or supplements aggregated, cannot exceed 2p in the pound of rateable value.

The legislation protects smaller businesses. The supplement may be levied only on business properties with a rateable value of £50,000 or more. That level means that between 85% and 90% of business properties in these combined authority areas will not be required to pay the supplement. In addition, the mayor may increase but cannot reduce this threshold, and can apply any other reliefs as they may set out in the prospectus. The mayor will not use these powers lightly or indiscriminately, but where they can make a compelling case to the business community, demonstrating common cause and mutually desirable outcomes, this can open a valuable source of funds for mayoral projects. The Government seek to confer this power on to mayors who have asked for it. Before laying the draft order before the House, we obtained the consent of each mayor, combined authority and their constituent local authorities.

The West Midlands Combined Authority Order also provides the opportunity to make some necessary amendments to the key route network in the West Midlands, the map of roads of strategic importance which the combined authority has responsibility for. The key route network is crucial to serving the strategic demands of the area for the movement of people, goods and services—with large traffic volumes—and providing connections to the national strategic road network.

The West Midlands Mayor, with the assistance of the combined authority, exercises concurrently with councils in the area highway and traffic functions in relation to agreements with strategic highway companies, road traffic reduction, permit schemes and highway bridge or transport works. These minor amendments would ensure that the definition in legislation properly describes all roads that are part of the strategic network of key local roads.

We seek parliamentary approval to make these orders, drafts of which we are considering today, to help boost local growth in the areas of the combined authorities while ensuring that affected businesses have the opportunity to approve any supplement in a ballot.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I also draw the attention of the House to the fact that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I am generally happy to support the orders before the House, but there is a point to be made about business rates. I accept that this is a supplement and in that sense it could be subject to a referendum, a plan and stuff, but there is the point about business rates in general and what business has to pay in an area. We have many questions here about the cost to business of further taxation. In the West Midlands, for example, if a further £35 million is raised, what does that do to the economy? Is that the best use of that money?

That then comes back to the whole issue of combined authorities. Where they are established, the funding provided by government is relatively small. I am sure the noble Lord will not agree, but I have made the point before to his noble friend Lord Bourne that we have this rather confusing patchwork of local government emerging in England. We need a clear structure that we will get to. I am all in favour of devolution, but I would like to understand what the plan is. Certain places will potentially have four, five or maybe six authorities, whereas in another place there will be just one. That does not seem to be very good government at all. I am all in favour of devolution, but I am not convinced that the combined authority model is the best way forward.

I am happy to support the orders, as I said. I welcome the fact that the supplementary rates will have to be subject to a ballot. That is good news, but generally there is the whole issue of business rates and the effect on businesses, particularly on the high street.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Lords for their support for the measures before the House. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, that the average increase, if we go ahead with 2p in the pound, is 4% on the business rate bill, but I would like to write to the noble Lord—a generous suggestion that he made—setting out what the highest amount might be in the highest rateable-value property in a particular area.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for his broad support. I know that he finds these differing structures untidy and has complained about them before, but the Government are responding to what local people want, which varies in different parts of the country so different patterns emerge. I am not sure that I can take the debate any further today. Doubtless, when we have future debates on combined authorities, I will make the same point. In the meantime, I commend the orders.

Motions agreed.

Terrorism: Emergency Communications

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Harris, for the Question that he has asked about improved communications in the event of a terrorist incident or major emergency and for focusing, as he did at the beginning of his remarks, on the progress on public-alerting technology. I also commend his wide-ranging review of London’s preparedness for a major terrorist incident to the House, which a number of noble Lords referred to and which I read with great interest when he asked an Oral Question a few weeks ago. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part. This has been an astonishingly well-informed debate, with expertise from a wide variety of interests focused on it.

I understand the real anxiety that we should get decisions right. Major decisions are confronting us and it is crucial that we take on board some of the questions and concerns raised in this wide-ranging debate. I want to focus on communications—I am conscious that I will not be able to answer all the questions—and particularly on the subject of mobile alerting, championed by the noble Lord. When he asked me about this on 16 April, some noble Lords were concerned about the speed of progress being made. I am now able to report that we are making headway on the very topic of using mobile phones for alerting citizens to a major incident.

Doing nothing regarding an alerting system is not an option. It is absolutely right that the Government should take every step possible to reduce harm to citizens when faced with emergencies, such as the terrorist incidents that recently afflicted major cities in the UK. But the evidence linking use of an alerting scheme for emergencies to the actual saving of lives needs further work, especially given the nature of risks in the UK. To move matters forward, the Cabinet Office recently commissioned work to provide an insight as to what is happening elsewhere in the world, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and to gain a wider appreciation of the technical issues behind a scheme. It is right to do this exploratory work to help understand how we get the best value out of the system. The matter is currently under active consideration by Ministers.

These days, a very large proportion of society—some three-quarters—owns a mobile phone and it seems appropriate to use phones as a vehicle for sending alerts to citizens. However, their wide appeal hides complexity in using them in an alerting scheme. It seems prudent to explore the situations where a scheme would stand the best chance of successfully reducing harm, which is where the police have a major role to play, especially in fast-moving terrorist incidents. There are already a number of schemes in the UK and internationally with very different objectives, delivered in different ways at different costs.

The sort of scheme that the Government have in mind should build upon arrangements already in place, such as the very successful flood warning scheme run by the Environment Agency. To have additional value and reach the maximum number of potentially affected people, our desirable characteristic for a scheme is one which addresses emergencies in general and is of national stature since emergencies do not respect administrative boundaries, as demonstrated in recent years. Importantly, we believe such a scheme should not involve citizens having to take any action to receive a message, such as having to install an app on to their smartphone. As such, we envisage it to be rather like a reverse 999 scheme. By using such a scheme only for real emergencies, thereby keeping the threshold for use high, a scheme will hopefully attract the same level of importance within society as calling 999 or 112. We also see any scheme as being as inclusive as possible by delivering messages to as many citizens as we can reach and to mobile devices that are not necessarily of the latest technology.

A number of noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Arbuthnot and the noble Lord, Lord Rees, focused on how crucial it is to get the message right. That point was also made by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. The noble Lord, Lord Rees, helpfully suggested some guidelines for the sorts of messages that go through. Traditionally, alerting schemes address slow-burn incidents such as flooding. In these, the hazard is understood, the location is increasingly known and the evolution of the situation is by and large readily comprehensible. In comparison, fast-moving terrorist incidents probably require a different response. The response could be both temporal and geographic, with a timely low-content alert in the immediate vicinity of the incident and different content sent more widely to advise people entering the affected area on foot or in vehicles both public and private. As a consequence, in-depth work needs to be undertaken at both a policy level in the Home Office—to answer some of the questions about where responsibility initially lies—and operationally with the police to see how an alerting scheme fits with existing response arrangements for major incidents, as described by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick.

Most of the schemes around the world tend to broadcast messages to phones that are in the vicinity of a mobile phone mast—a scheme aptly called cell broadcast. There is an alternative that looked very attractive in the trials that the Cabinet Office reported on in 2014 where text messages are sent to phones in a specified area, much like cell broadcast, but since the phones are uniquely identified they can receive subsequent messages even if they leave the area of danger. That arrangement could have been useful in Salisbury, for example, where a nerve agent was used in an attempt to murder the Skripals and people in the area at the time needed to be contacted later.

A number of noble Lords mentioned the tragedy at Grenfell, where a facility of this kind could have meant that people in the tower could get information on their mobile phones that could not otherwise be communicated. That is a compelling case for making faster progress. These schemes all involve having a message involuntarily pushed to a mobile phone in a specified area. By keeping the threshold for use of a scheme high—for real emergencies where lives are at risk—we hope that recipients would not see it as intrusive and that the benefits would outweigh concerns over privacy.

A real challenge for all alerting schemes in terrorist incidents is that the protagonists will also receive the messages. Getting the content of the message right is absolutely crucial so it does not play into the hands of those who seek to cause harm. As a consequence, there is work to be done to shape the content of the message—that has been a theme coming out of this debate—so that it stands the best chance of getting the behavioural response sought, while not risking the recipient’s safety. That is a difficult call to make since bland messages would be rather like a news service, and we have plenty of those on social media.

The introduction of a scheme is not without considerable cost, but there may be an opportunity to contain the cost to the public purse. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is transposing Article 102a of the European Electronic Communications Code into law before we leave the European Union. The code makes provision for reverse 112, which is an alerting scheme by a different name. As part of the transposition, consideration can be given to whether the costs should lie with those who own and operate our mobile phone systems in much the same way as occurs for 999.

On mobile alerting, I can tell noble Lords that the Government take it seriously and are adopting a considered approach to explore how a scheme may be introduced that reduces harm to citizens alongside wider work to keep people safe in emergencies.

I shall try to answer some of the questions raised during the debate. I am conscious that I may not be able to do justice to all of them. One of the themes introduced by my noble friend Lord Arbuthnot and developed by other noble Lords was about the resilience of the electricity system. The national grid is extremely resilient to mass failure and has not completely failed since it was wired up from the regional companies in the 1930s. Plans are in place to restore the grid in the event of a catastrophic failure—the so-called black start arrangements. I accept my noble friend’s invitation to write to him in more detail about that. We are currently reviewing the preparedness for a major power outage, and I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, is actively involved in those discussions.

There was concern about the replacement of Airwave with ESN. It is designed to be as resilient as Airwave on coverage and hazards such as power outages. Priority will be provided for the emergency services. They will have pre-emption and, if circumstances demand, they can kick off members of the public, but it is being designed to have adequate capacity in the event of emergencies, and 4G has been substantially rolled out in recent years.

On putting all our eggs in one basket, I understand the point being made, but Airwave is no different from ESN in that both are stand-alone networks. ESN is leading technology, although I understand that South Korea is ahead of us. Airwave was a pioneer. It was the first system of its type and will remain in place until ESN is proven. ESN handsets are currently available and have been demonstrated since the spring. Capacity on 4G is very much greater than it was on the 2G system in use during the 7/7 incident, and it is very different from 2G from a technical perspective.

I was struck by the point made by the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, about the media. It was a subject that I had not thought about before: the way an incident is reported can give assistance to terrorists. I take very much to heart the point he made that the media should be responsible in how they report the discovery of certain incidents. There is a lot to be gained from the experience in Northern Ireland when, as he said, a police officer in plain clothes would miraculously come across a cache of weapons, thereby not revealing the real source of that information.

We must continue to learn lessons from the emergency services about the recent Manchester Arena attack. The noble Viscount made the point that we should learn lessons, and we are looking at lessons across all the incidents that took place in 2017 and this year. The Kerslake review was broadly positive about the emergency services’ response and preparations, although there are lessons to be learned, and some noble Lords touched on some of them. We have improved interoperability during major incidents through the joint emergency services interoperability principles— JESIP—and we will continue to improve it. More than 12,000 emergency service commanders and control room managers have already been trained, alongside their peers.

I see that the clock is ticking and I am conscious that I have not done justice to the very important speech of the noble Lord, Lord Rees. On Vodafone and the issue of enhancement of helpline services, the Home Office immediately acted on the problems with this service during the Manchester Arena attack, and has firm assurances and confirmation that robust arrangements are in place to prevent it happening again. It is an important service to ensure that the concerned public can contact the police.

As I said, I will write to noble Lords and thank them again for a very interesting and well-informed debate, which I know the Government will take seriously as they take the decisions referred to during this discussion.

House adjourned at 7.38 pm.

European Union Referendum

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Wednesday 4th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strasburger]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of whether the referendum on leaving the European Union was conducted fairly and free of foreign interference.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the Electoral Commission is the independent regulatory body responsible for ensuring that the EU referendum was conducted fairly, effectively and in accordance with the law. The Government have not seen evidence of successful interference in the EU referendum by any foreign Government. We remain vigilant against attempts to erode trust in our democratic processes and institutions and will defend the UK from all forms of malign foreign state interference.

[Lord Strasburger (LD)]

My Lords, how timely it was for Vote Leave to choose this morning to leak the Electoral Commission report that finds it guilty of four offences, including serious overspending and illegal co-ordination. There are other investigations under way into the various leave campaigns by the National Crime Agency and the DCMS Select Committee, which has mountains of evidence about foreign funding, fraud, destruction of evidence and collusion with a hostile Government, namely Russia. Can the Minister tell the House who in the Government is joining the dots and looking at the wider picture to ensure that future referendums and elections take place on a level playing field and are free from foreign interference?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord referred at the beginning of his question to the draft report that was circulated to a number of individuals who I understand are named in it in order to allow them time to consider it and make representations. The Electoral Commission will consider representations it has received and will publish a thorough and detailed closing report in order to provide a balanced account. The noble Lord also referred to various other inquiries, including the DCMS Committee inquiry into fake news. I think it makes sense to await the outcome of those inquiries and of the continuing investigations by the EC into the referendum that he referred to. As for joining the dots, that is a good question because a large number of government departments are involved in this key issue. I think that the Cabinet Office has a role to play in bringing all the relevant agencies together.

[Lord Lawson of Blaby (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend is always the most fair-minded of Ministers in this House. As far as foreign interference in the referendum campaign is concerned, will he join with me in deploring the interference by the then President of the United States, Mr Obama, on the anti-Brexit side?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

Despite the very flattering introduction to my noble friend’s question, he has raised something that is not at all on my radar. I am very reluctant to get involved in diplomatic or Foreign Office relationships. Perhaps I can write to him once I have taken advice from someone who is better informed than I am on this.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords, given what we have just heard about the draft report from the Electoral Commission and what the Minister heard yesterday from my noble friend Lord Rooker and myself on the Bloomberg report, how can the result of that referendum still be considered valid?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I think there were many reasons why people voted as they did in the referendum. There was worry that globalisation had passed a number of communities by. There was concern about immigration and the perceived threat to independence and sovereignty. There were homegrown reasons why people voted as they did, wholly independent of the sort of influences that the noble Lord referred to. If one looks at the potential involvement of Russia, the number of tweets involved in no way accounted for the 1.3 million people who voted for leave rather than remain. My noble friend Lord Ashton responded to the debate last night excellently.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, would the Minister accept that, when he stood for 10 or 11 elections and won them in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, had he been found to have overspent to any material extent, his seat would been forfeited and he himself or someone else would have had to refight that election? Does that principle apply to referenda?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I believe that we should respect the result of the referendum. A number of inquiries are going on into the referendum, which have been referred to. The Electoral Commission is looking into a number of allegations. It makes sense to await the outcome to see whether those allegations are upheld, but I have seen nothing that would account for the very substantial difference in the numbers who voted leave rather than remain.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, the case for Brexit once rested on promises of sunlit uplands. Those have long vanished. The only thing Brexiteers now cling to is the will of the people, but that cannot be measured by a cheating referendum, dodgy money and manipulation under Putin’s guiding hand. When will the Government accept that the will of the people must be properly and fairly measured now by a people’s vote on the actual Brexit deal?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

Noble Lords had an opportunity to debate and vote on that in the recent EU withdrawal Bill. The notion of a second referendum was not one that found favour in either House. On the rest of the noble Baroness’s question, since the referendum, Parliament has voted to trigger Article 50 and we have passed the EU withdrawal Bill. That gives us a democratic mandate.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I know the noble Lord agrees that our laws on elections and referendums are not fit for purpose. Will he give an assurance to the House that the Government will act when all these inquiries and investigations are over?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

Yes. On one of the many occasions that we have debated this, I think I quoted a comment made by my party before the last election about the fitness for purpose of the current legislation. It makes sense to await the outcome of the court case, the EC inquiries into the referendum and the elections, and other inquiries. Then we can stand back and look at how the electoral law can best be brought up to date so that we have a digital framework for a digital age.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister go back to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, and tell us, if he knows, whether the law that applies to election results applies also to referendum results?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My understanding is that there have been occasions where people have overspent. It has not been the case that they have then been disqualified and there has been a by-election. It depends very much on the circumstances—whether there is deliberate dishonesty. On some occasions, returns have revealed overspending but that has not resulted in the disqualification of the Member concerned.