Business and Planning Bill

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 20th July 2020 Lords Chamber

I strongly commend Amendment 15, which I may vote on. It was drawn up not by me but by that outstanding campaigning organisation, ASH, working with local government, and it is the right thing to do. I look forward to hearing the Government’s response.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I begin with a brief word about Labour’s Amendment 11, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox. I am disappointed that the party which—with a bit of prodding when in government—introduced the ban on smoking in pubs has in opposition retreated from that bold approach to public health issues, and cannot support Amendment 15. This disappointment is shared by many of Labour’s noble Members. Its own amendment has been trumped by the Government’s amendment, which goes further, and which I will turn to in a moment, but I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, that more action is needed to combat smoking.

The Government have adopted the “hard cop, soft cop” approach on this issue. Last week, my noble friend Lord Greenhalgh was cast as the hard cop and was obliged to read out an uncompromising speech asserting that our amendment would lead to pub closures and job losses. Why pubs that have survived all the problems that have confronted industries so far should decide to close when given the opportunity to extend their non-smoking premises to include the pavements outside was never explained. He also said that imposing a condition to prohibit outdoor smoking would not be proportionate. Yet outdoor smoking is already banned in open-air stadiums and at open-air railway stations, because they are places where people congregate and therefore there is the health risk and the annoyance of passive smoking. It would be the same with pavement smoking.

However, it would be churlish to complain too much, because in the meantime the hard cop was replaced by the soft cop, my noble friend Lord Howe, emollient and with an impeccable public health record. He has tabled an amendment which goes a long way towards what we were arguing for, and wrote a helpful letter to noble Lords today. I pay tribute to his role in listening to last week’s debate and moving government policy forward on this issue. I know that my noble friend Lord Greenhalgh, who made a personal commitment to the anti-smoking campaign in the debate last week, has also played a role.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, said, the government amendment does not go as far as I would like, but before turning to that, I will make one point about the guidance referred to in the noble Earl’s amendment. Given that many pubs have already made provision for smokers on their own premises—usually canopies with patio heaters—I hope the guidance will say that where this is the case, any extension to the pavement should be smoke-free, since there is already somewhere for the smokers to go.

The Government’s amendment does not go as far as I would like, and I will not repeat the arguments in favour of Amendment 15 so ably put by the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, and other noble Lords, last week. While none of the arguments against it have convinced me that they would be the right way forward, I recognise that given the position of the Labour Party, the cross-party alliance so skilfully constructed by the noble Baroness has gone as far as it can, and therefore I am prepared to settle for and support the government amendment. I hope that others who share my view will feel able to do the same.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, yesterday’s press release from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government stated:

“People using pubs, restaurants and cafés will soon have greater freedom to choose non-smoking outdoor areas”,


a laudable objective that is consistent with the cross-party Amendment 15, which I have signed, along with the noble Baronesses, Lady Northover and Lady Finlay of Llandaff, and the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, and which is identical to the one we debated in Committee last week. Some of your Lordships may take the view that had we not raised the issue of smoking in areas covered by pavement licences, the other amendments in this group might never have seen the light of day today. Indeed, if it had not been for the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, raising the subject at Second Reading, that would probably be the case.

As I indicated in Committee last week, our amendment enjoys strong cross-party support from the Local Government Association, which represents local councils in England and has asked the Government to make pavements smoke-free. Birmingham Labour councillor Paulette Hamilton, vice-chair of the LGA’s community well-being board, is urging your Lordships to give councils the power to extend smoke-free areas to include pavements, so that

“this alfresco summer can be enjoyed by everyone.”

She added:

“Councils have worked hard to help hospitality businesses reopen, including relaxing requirements and making changes to roads and pavements to enable pubs, cafés and bars to operate outside safely with more outdoor seating. Pavement licensing should not be a catalyst to increase smoking in public places, putting people at greater risk of ingesting second-hand smoke when they are enjoying a drink or a meal.”


This view is shared by the Conservative leader of Oxfordshire County Council, Ian Hudspeth, whom I quoted in the debate last Monday, and who has set the laudable target of a smoke-free Oxfordshire by 2025.

On 15 July, the Welsh Government committed to bringing in new laws to ban smoking in hospital grounds and schools under the Public Health (Wales) Act 2017, to

“protect the public from second-hand smoke and de-normalise smoking in the eyes of young people.”

They are on course to bring in a smoking ban for the outdoor seating areas of restaurants and cafés, which is supported by nearly two-thirds of adults in Wales, according to a survey by ASH Wales.

My final point arises from my supplementary question to the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, earlier this afternoon. Noble Lords may recall that I asked him whether today’s proposed guidance for smoke-free areas outside pubs and restaurants would be agreed with the DHSC, published before the House rises and subject to parliamentary scrutiny. Rather to my surprise, he did not answer any of these rather important questions, and later in the session, when the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, asked them again in the same form, she did not get a reply either. What is going on? Have the Government not yet made up their mind, or does the MHCLG refuse to acknowledge that this is a public health issue, let alone that it has anything to do with the Government’s aim to make England smoke-free by 2030? I still think that our amendment is the best of the three on offer, and I will be disappointed if the House does not agree to it this afternoon.

Business and Planning Bill

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 6th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con) [V]]

My Lords, others have raised the concerns of inner-city residents about the implications of Clause 11, which will encourage drinking in the streets into the early hours, and I hope my noble friend will consider whether the safeguards mentioned in the opening speech are in fact an adequate response.

Nearly all the measures in the Bill are temporary but I want to speak about one measure which is permanent —namely, Clause 20—as did my noble friend Lord Kirkhope. I speak as a former Minister for Planning who put the Planning and Compensation Act into law in 1991. This was meant to update the 1947 Act and provide a long- lasting framework for a modern planning system. I have lost count of the number of planning Acts since then with the same objective, and my successors seem to have fared no better, so we all hope that the proposed planning Bill trailed by my noble friend will finally take the trick.

Clause 20 implements one of the recommendations of the independent review of planning appeal inquiries, the Rosewell report. Of the 22 recommendations made last year, 16 had been implemented by March this year. It would be helpful to hear, perhaps in Committee, of the progress with the remaining six. The appeals system is one of the main blockages in the planning system and I welcome measures to speed it up and provide more homes. The main cause of appeals is the absence of adopted local plans decades after the system was introduced, and perhaps my noble friend can explain what action is being taken to get these up and running so fewer appeals are needed to fill the vacuum.

I have some specific questions for my noble friend on Clause 20. One category of decision is appeals in relation to an application to modify or discharge affordable housing requirements under Section 106BC of the 1990 Act. Affordable housing and planning appeals are a sensitive subject at the moment, so can my noble friend confirm that this proposed reform will not make it easier for developers to duck their responsibility for providing affordable homes through the “viability test”, as has been happening, mentioned by my noble friend Lord Kirkhope? Indeed, we should be making it tougher. In passing, I endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Best, said about planning and implementing Sir Oliver Letwin’s recommendations.

The Minister said that the clause would allow the Planning Inspectorate to use more than one type of procedure as part of the same appeal—part local inquiry, part written recommendations. I understand that this hybrid system, which on the face of it sounds more complicated, was tested last year, and my noble friend outlined some of the results, but can he say whether there have been any cost implications for any of the parties involved, particularly local authorities, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson?

Finally, is the Secretary of State going to give guidance to the inspectorate about how the flexibility in the clause is to be used, or will the position remain as it is; namely, entirely down to the discretion of the inspectorate? Can he say when the measures in the Bill will come into effect? In the meantime, is progress being made with more virtual enquiries to avoid a pandemic backlog?

Perhaps in Committee we can have more detail of what is proposed, as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, but in the meantime, on the basis that the intention of the clause is to speed up the provision of more homes and to “build, build, build”, I welcome it.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 13th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my former boss my noble friend Lord Taylor, who in previous Parliaments generously allowed extra time for discussion on such a Bill. I believe I am the only noble Lord, apart from the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, who has sat through every single minute of previous discussions of his Bills in the past four and a half years. This was not a voluntary decision; I did so in my capacity as government spokesman on the Bill, a job discharged today by my noble friend Lord Howe, clutching a folder that bears my fingerprints. But I am now liberated to express my own view, rather than the Government’s—and when I did that, I confess to stretching to its limits collective ministerial responsibility by toning down some of the passages hostile to the Bill in my brief.

First, to those who criticise the Government for not being more supportive of the Bill, I refer to Hansard of 30 November 2007. The House was then considering a Bill introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, which, among other measures, was to abolish the hereditary by-elections. The then Government set out their objections to that proposal and, referring to the pledge given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, that the hereditary Peers should remain until the second stage of reform the then Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, said:

“I do not believe it can be argued that the Bill could be considered to meet the terms of that pledge.”—[Official Report, 30/11/07; col. 1479.]


It would be tactless for me to say that the Government Chief Whip at that time, who would have had a decisive say on the Government’s attitude to the Bill, was none other than the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. Having just wound him up, I support his Bill but the decision is a balanced one. It is unsurprising that Conservative Peers attach more weight to the pledge given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, than Labour Peers. It was a commitment sought by our former leader, Viscount Cranborne, and reluctantly conceded via the Weatherill amendment by the then Labour Government. It actually means more to us than it did to them and we have more to lose.

Secondly, by-elections in my party are unlike by-elections in the other parties, particularly the Lib Dems, which the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, likes to use to reinforce his case. The recent Lib Dem by-election was indeed something straight from “Iolanthe” but in my party’s case the by-elections are serious, with many strong candidates. Those who win tend to do more heavy lifting in your Lordships’ House than the life Peers—a point made by my noble friend Lord Taylor. As with the original 92, these are noble Lords who want to be here to work and they have to convince an electorate that they will do so.

However, I find the reasons the other way more compelling. The Irvine pledge was meant to be a short-term fix before the second stage of Lords reform. I remember being reassured, when I was shadow leader in the other place, that the first round of elections for a reformed second Chamber would take place by 2001. What was meant to be a short-term fix has become a long-term anomaly. The position is also clearly discriminatory against women and has no place in a modern legislature. Finally, I believe the House does itself no favours by using ingenious methods to obstruct the clear will of the majority. I was frankly embarrassed at having to listen to some of the arguments adduced by my noble friends and, in fairness to them, I suspect that they were embarrassed as well. We should have no more delaying tactics this time; the Bill has been examined ad nauseam. This is an incremental reform, like other Private Members’ Bills, which does not preclude other reforms should the time come for them. I support the Bill, and we should get on with it.

Pension Schemes Bill [HL]

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 2nd March 2020 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Young of Cookham]

38: Clause 118, page 105, line 7, at end insert “or any person named as a beneficiary under that individual’s pension scheme”

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 38 in my name endeavours to fulfil the objectives of the pensions dashboard by ensuring people have access to all their pension entitlements. At the moment, they will be able to access entitlements under schemes only in their own name; they will not be able to access information about entitlements they may have because their husband, wife or partner has named them as a beneficiary under another scheme. More and more couples are both at work, and most pension schemes enable a beneficiary to provide for a surviving spouse. My amendment would enable a named beneficiary to access a dashboard where they had an interest. Without that information, that beneficiary will not know whether they have made adequate provision for their old age, which is a primary objective of the dashboard.

There may be other ways of achieving this objective. When a policy is taken out, beneficiaries could be sent a copy; I do not think this happens at the moment. They could be sent an annual statement, as the main policyholder is, or the main policyholder could be given the option of ticking a box so that beneficiaries can access the relevant dashboard with their consent. The point made in the amendment is a simple one: if the dashboard is to give people a complete picture so they can make informed judgments, they need to have access to this relevant information.

Amendment 43, supported by my noble friend Lord Flight, and Amendment 44 have a similar objective in enabling someone to see whether they have made enough provision for their old age by including relevant assets that can provide a pension income on the dashboard. The helpful policy brief says on page 45:

“Putting individuals in control of their data, dashboards should support engagement in pensions and planning for retirement.”


Planning for retirement involves more than pensions. Each Sunday, the Money section of the Sunday Times has a “Fame and Fortune” feature, in which there is a standard question:

“What’s better for retirement—property or pension?”


Yesterday, the Olympic medallist Sharron Davies said “Property.” The question makes the point that, for many people, there is a choice of how to provide for retirement. This amendment is a permissive one, which would enable a pension provider with a dashboard to include information on the equity locked up in someone’s home.

For millions of people, the equity in their home is worth more than their pension pot. Increasingly, that equity can be and is unlocked to provide an income stream in retirement. According to the ONS, we have £14.6 trillion in wealth—perhaps a little less following the slump on the stock exchanges last week—within which private pension wealth makes up 42% of national wealth, while net property wealth is not far behind at 35%. Arguably, equity release should play a higher role in proactive financial planning. Potentially, it is a valuable source of supplementary retirement income, particularly for pensioners on low incomes in homes that they own.

Many pension providers also provide equity release: for example, Aviva, Liverpool Victoria, Scottish Widows and Legal & General. It would make sense for them to be able to include illustrations about equity release alongside the pensions dashboard. Equity release is regulated by the FCA and can be sold only through a financial adviser. It is now one of the most highly regulated financial service products in the UK. In many ways, the decision whether, when and how to access equity release is not unlike the decision to access a pension pot. Independent advice is necessary, taking all considerations into account. I repeat what I said at Second Reading: I do not want to do anything to slow down the introduction of the dashboard, but I want to ensure that, when it is up and running, it can be used by those providing it to give customers a comprehensive view of assets and options, rather than a partial one.

I turn finally to Amendment 45, which deals with the verification process before one is allowed to access the dashboard. This is the weakest link in the chain. The ABI website—incidentally, it still proclaims that the Government’s objective

“is for the service to be available to consumers by 2019”—

says this about verification:

“The process to confirm the identity of users is based on the gov.uk/verify system which has already proved to be a secure portal for people accessing personal information.”


That could be an understatement. So secure is the portal that, as I will come on to in a moment, 56% of those who try to verify that they are who they are fail to do so and hence would be unable to use the dashboard.

There are risks in building the dashboard on the shaky foundations of Verify—one of the Government’s least successful IT initiatives—from which it is hastily disengaging, leaving its future in doubt. The NAO described Verify in March last year as

“intended to be a flagship digital programme to provide identity verification services for the whole of government ... In its 2016 business case, GDS identified the following key targets and expectations for the platform: 25 million people would use Verify by 2020, and 46 government services would be accessible through Verify by March 2018.”

As of 13 February, 22 government services use Verify—fewer than half the number expected by March 2018—and only 5.8 million people have signed up. There is a verification success rate of 44%, against an initial target of 90%. I failed twice to verify who I was.

In July 2018, the Infrastructure and Projects Authority recommended that Verify be closed as quickly as practicable. In a recent report, the NAO concluded:

“Even in the context of GDS’s redefined objectives for the programme, it is difficult to conclude that successive decisions to continue with Verify have been sufficiently justified.”


The Institute for Government’s Whitehall Monitor recently commented that the scheme continued to be “mired in issues”, had fallen short of targets and had

“failed to build its intended user base and it is not delivering the efficiencies that the government sought.”

In October 2018, the Cabinet Office announced that the Government would stop funding the scheme in March 2020. Against the background of the unpromising progress of the scheme, the then Minister for Implementation stated, in words that could have been crafted by the scriptwriter of “Yes Minister”, that it was

“now sufficiently mature to move to the next phase of its development.”—[Official Report, Commons, 9/10/18; col. 3WS.]

The intention is that the private sector will take over responsibility for the scheme, despite the NAO finding that the Government have failed to make the scheme self-funding and the Government failing to convince their own departments to use the scheme. What will the private sector do with the scheme? With no government support, the providers of the service may have to increase the charges to government departments, which the NAO warns may make it unaffordable for them to use. Of the 22 that use it, half have alternative means of accessing the services provided.

This is what the whole dashboard depends on. Will the private sector continue with it? If so, will it be free for consumers, as at the moment? What happens if there is no Verify process? On charges, the policy brief says on page 51:

“Government is clear that accessing basic information via pensions dashboards must be free at the point of use for consumers.”


I ask this in passing: where in the Bill is that commitment legislated for, and what is the point of making it free to access the dashboard if the verification process has a charge? I appreciate that my noble friend the Minister is dependent on the Cabinet Office for support on this issue, as that is where responsibility for Verify rests, but she has an obligation to satisfy the pension industry and pensioners that the system proposed in the Bill is fit for purpose.

Finally, at the moment, many pension providers have websites that customers can access and where they can get information about their individual pension pot. They can not only access that information but top up their pot, withdraw sums and switch investments. But under the Government’s proposals, if that pension provider then provides a dashboard, existing customers will not be able to access it using their usual log-on procedure; they will have to go down the Verify route first. Perhaps the Minister can confirm that that is indeed the case.

So, we have the odd situation where a purely passive site such as the dashboard, which can provide only information and is not interactive—Amendment 39 secures that—has a different and higher standard of security than the pension provider’s site, which is interactive. I do not understand why a pension provider that has satisfied itself about the bona fides of a customer to the extent that it will respond and pay drawdown cannot allow access to a dashboard on its site, which is purely passive, without obliging the customer to go through a cumbersome verification process. Perhaps that could be looked at as well. I beg to move.

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 43 and 44 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Young. He made the point that equity release is a growing source of income for people later in life. I would say it more strongly than that: I can imagine it being the biggest source of income for such people in 20 years’ time. I understand that the financial advisers who advise otherwise on pension fund matters are not qualified to advise generally on equity release. That has been substantially cleaned up, as it were, over the past 10 years so it is not a problem, but if the dashboard cannot include equity release, it does not meet its objective of setting out what people have to live on in older age. We do not want to delay wider progress but if equity release is not included quite speedily in the dashboard, it will not do its job.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Flight]

My Lords, is there not the point that, with people having on average 11 different jobs during their career and potentially 11 different pension pots, particularly those they were part of when they were younger, many of them have no information at all about it. They do not even know who the manager or the provider is. Already, the amount of unclaimed financial assets in this country is colossal. Without what is happening under this legislation, the problem will get worse, and we urgently need to sort out the ownership of lesser pension schemes, going back a long time.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, this has been a long debate, and I do not propose to lengthen it much more. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part, in particular my noble friend Lord Howe, who gave a very full response to the many issues raised. I was particularly encouraged by what he said a few moments ago—that the debate we had last Wednesday, and the view of the Committee that it would be best if the MaPS scheme was up and running before the other ones, had made some impact. I noted that he said that he hoped to come back to us with more news on that in the future.

I will say just a word on Amendment 39, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Drake. I read page 56 of the policy brief, which says:

“Dashboards will present simple information, without the ability to carry out transactions.”


As I understand it from what my noble friend said, that has been qualified and, subject to all the reservations and safeguards that he mentioned, it may be that under this existing legislation, transactions could be provided—I think that is where we ended up. In that case, the wording in the policy brief, if it is by any chance ever reprinted, might be qualified. At the moment it is quite stark:

“Dashboards will present simple information, without the ability to carry out transactions.”


I am being given a look; I am not quite clear what it means, but I will move on.

I was grateful to my noble friend Lord Flight for the support he gave to my amendment on equity release. However, I take the overall view that, while it makes sense at some point to have the opportunity to take a picture of all the assets available that can form a pension income stream, perhaps using the pensions board to do it up front is not the right place. I was reassured by what my noble friend Lord Howe said—that in future, we could consider some embellishments to the scheme, but the top priority was to move ahead as currently planned.

I am afraid that my concerns have not been satisfied at all on Verify. I was grateful to my noble friend for the assurances, first, that there would be no charge for accessing any pensions dashboard; and, secondly, that there would not be a charge for accessing the verification process. The Government have spent hundreds of millions of pounds and many years developing Verify, so I was slightly surprised when he said that the identification process for the pensions dashboard may not be Verify. If it will not be Verify, what will it be? There is no other game in town at the moment. As of yesterday, the Government lost all leverage over Verify by stopping any funding, so its development is now entirely in the hands of the providers. Given that the providers have now heard that Verify may not be the scheme for the pensions dashboard, that may weaken even further their incentive to develop it. What is the business model for Verify if you cannot charge the people who are having themselves verified?

There is therefore still a huge question mark over how we will get access to the pensions dashboard if there is some doubt, as I explained a few moments ago, about Verify, and no clarity at all about what this alternative system might be, which is not Verify and which will unlock the key to the dashboard. Having said that, I do not want to sound at all mealy-mouthed to my noble friend, who did a heroic job dealing with all the other amendments, but I still have some lingering doubts on that one. However, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 38.

Amendment 38 withdrawn.

Constitution, Democracy and Rights Commission

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

The noble Baroness makes some extremely good points. Constitutional structures matter, but I suggest that what matters equally is for British and Northern Irish citizens to have a sense of belonging to this country, not a sense of alienation, and a necessary underpinning of that is public engagement and a listening, responsive Government. A number of things are in train at the moment that are designed to achieve those ends, not least the UK prosperity fund, which is designed to reach out to deprivation and inequality wherever it exists and bind the country together in the process.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, it is clear from the replies that my noble friend has been able to give that work on the commission is still at its formative stage, so I repeat my request for an early debate in order for your Lordships to influence its development. Is it not the case that the biggest challenge facing the UK at the moment is the threat to the union? Should that not be an early priority for the commission?

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend’s request for a debate has been duly noted by the usual channels. With regard to the union, I could not agree with him more. In so much of what the Government plan to do, they are working to strengthen the union by ensuring that the institutions and the power of the UK are used in a way that benefits people in every part of our country. I am thinking here of not just the shared prosperity fund that I mentioned a moment ago but the review of intergovernmental relations in the UK and the Dunlop review into the union.

Constitution, Democracy and Rights Commission: Civil Society

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I will make sure that the noble Lord’s point is duly noted.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

As my noble friend is aware, this commission generated some excitement in your Lordships’ House when we debated it last Wednesday. If, as my noble friend said, this project is still in its formative stage, can we at least have a debate in your Lordships’ House before it is set up so that your Lordships might influence its constitution and remit, and, I hope, make sure that it is a great success?

Special Adviser Appointments

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd October 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Young of Cookham]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the correct procedures were followed in the dismissal of Sonia Khan as a special adviser.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, the Government do not comment on personnel matters regarding individuals. Special advisers are temporary civil servants appointed in accordance with Part 1 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010. They are bound by the Code of Conduct for Special Advisers and the terms of the Model Contract for Special Advisers, which sets out how special advisers are appointed and leave their role.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

Noble Lords will recall that on 29 August Sonia Khan was summarily dismissed by Mr Cummings and shown to the front door of No. 10 by an armed officer. Paragraph 3.3 of the Ministerial Code, which was updated on 23 August this year, says:

“The responsibility for the management and conduct of special advisers, including discipline, rests with the Minister who made the appointment”.


The Chancellor knew nothing of this, so under what authority did Mr Cummings—a man who was summoned to give evidence to a Select Committee in another place, told the chairman to “get lost” and was then found to be in contempt of Parliament—dismiss Sonia Khan? Finally, on treatment of special advisers, was it appropriate for Mr Cummings to say to his fellow special advisers:

“If you don’t like how I run things, there’s the door”?


If he continues to act in this arrogant manner, should that invitation not be extended to Mr Cummings?

Use of Language to Create a Safe Environment

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 26th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

Yes, I fully agree with everything that the noble Baroness has said. Again, I think that we can cite a good example from our own House on this very set of issues. Earlier this year, the Government published their response to the report by the Committee on Standards in Public Life—so ably chaired at that time by the noble Lord, Lord Bew, and now by the noble Lord, Lord Evans—and have undertaken to take a number of steps arising from its recommendations. These include issuing a public consultation, Protecting the Debate: Intimidation, Influence, and Information; consulting on our Internet Safety Strategy Green Paper—we will publish a DCMS-Home Office White Paper shortly; writing to local authority chief executives to raise awareness about the sensitive interest provisions in the Localism Act 2011; and a lot more. It is important that those strands of work are kept to the fore, particularly if we are to face a general election in the next few weeks or months.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, as a recent refugee from the other place I was dismayed by the tone of last night’s exchanges. I will, however, make a slightly different point from that of my noble friend. The Prime Minister says that he wants a deal. I hope that he gets one, but to do so he will need to get legislation through both Houses and the support of all sides in both Houses. In addition to my noble friend’s arguments about respect, would it not be politic to tone down the invective in order to build the consensus that the Prime Minister will need to bring this Brexit saga to a satisfactory conclusion?

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend makes, as ever, a very powerful point. However, much of the debate of recent hours has conflated two issues which it is important to distinguish between: strongly felt political opinions on the one hand, and unacceptable, abhorrent acts of abuse, hatred, intimidation and violence on the other. We should keep those two things absolutely distinct in our minds.

Business of the House

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 4th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, before we move on to the next amendment, I gently remind your Lordships of the guidance in the Companion that speakers are expected to keep to within 15 minutes.

Amendment to the Motion

Moved by

Pensions: Tax Relief

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goddard of Stockport]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what current plans they are considering with regard to pensions tax relief; and whether they are planning to introduce a pensions ISA.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the Government held a consultation on pensions tax relief last year. Responses to the consultation showed that there was no clear consensus for reform. That lack of consensus, combined with the ongoing rollout of automatic enrolment, led the Government to conclude that it was not the right time for fundamental reform. As with all aspects of the tax system, tax relief for pensions is kept under review.

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

I thank the Minister for that Answer, but does he agree with me that pensions are very complicated? One way to resolve that problem could be with flat-rate tax relief for all, the two-for-one model. Some 80% of employers think it could encourage employees to save and invest more. It would work across defined pension contributions and would also be sustainable, giving both short-term and long-term benefits to the Treasury, compared with the costs that fluctuate now.

I have to say that pensions are a bit like the House of Lords: when you are young you do not understand them and do not want to get involved, and when you do get involved they are very complicated, but roll on 40 years and you are glad you have a pension, you are glad you invested it and you hope it will look after you through your remaining years—a bit like my noble friends in this House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Young of Cookham]

On which we had a very good debate yesterday. At the beginning of the noble Lord’s question, he suggested an alternative form of tax relief and incentives for pensions. That was part of the consultation that we engaged in last year. As I explained, there was no clear consensus in favour of the scheme that the noble Lord has proposed, which is why we decided for the time being to stay with the current quite popular system, where you get tax relief up-front and there is a tax-free lump sum at the end. I agree that pensions can be complex. That is why in 2019 we are going to introduce the pensions dashboard, which will enable people to see in one place all the pensions that they may have accumulated throughout their life, and they can take informed decisions about what they need to do for the future.

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, does the Minister not agree that the ISA as it stands is an attractive vehicle for people to save for their old age anyway? A mixture of a pension, where tax relief is up-front but you pay tax on income, with an ISA, where there is no tax relief up-front but you get tax-free income when you retire, is a perfectly reasonable proposition. Why do we want to clutter it up with some other form of ISA?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The ISA is indeed an acceptable vehicle for savings. It does not have the advantage of the pensions regime, whereby your own contribution is topped up by that of your employer; to that extent, pensions may be a better vehicle for some people than the ISA. Also with pensions, as my noble friend has just said, you get the tax relief up-front, which you do not get with the ISA. The important thing is that there should be a variety of savings vehicles with different advantages and different flexibilities, and people should make an informed decision about which is the right one for them.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, surely the overwhelming case for a flat-rate approach is a distributional one. Pension tax relief disproportionately benefits the better-off in our society. At a time when the Government are cutting financial support for poorer people and saying, “We have no other choice because we have to save money”, surely they should be looking at this again.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The Government have consistently reduced the cost of tax relief on pensions by introducing the lifetime allowance, which has now been reduced to £1 million, and the annual allowance, which has been reduced to £40,000. This year we made further savings of up to £4 billion over the lifetime of this Parliament by saying that for those who earn over £150,000 the £40,000 relief is tapered. So we have made substantial savings in the cost of pensions tax relief.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend not agree that the whole point of pensions investment is that it should be stable and not subject to sudden changes? Have the Government not interfered enough with the pensions regime? Do we not need a period of stability?

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[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am grateful to my noble friend for endorsing the decision I announced at the beginning of this exchange that, in view of the absence of a consensus for an alternative, we wanted to stay with the regime that we have at the moment, which as my noble friend has said, has many advantages.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords—

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[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville]

My Lords, the current system benefits the wealthiest in our society. However, if tax relief were changed to match funding with thresholds aimed at lower savers and, for example, the first £500 was matched by the Government pound for pound, thereafter gradually tapering down, this would demonstrate the benefits of savings as it supports those on lower incomes getting the most. Does the Minister agree that reform to match funding, rather than tax relief, would give a greater incentive to save?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I give the noble Baroness the same response that I gave to her noble friend at the beginning of this exchange. We looked at alternatives to the current regime a year ago and because there was no consensus we decided to stay where we are. In view of the complexities of rolling out auto-enrolment, we decided that this was not the right time for fundamental reform.

[Lord Brookman]

As someone who worked in manufacturing in the steel industry, and would have had a pension, had I not left to become a full-time official of the union—I got a better one—I remember gatecrashing the pensions management committee, on which we had representatives. I shall come to my question in a second. This is a true story. The character running the pension scheme asked, “What are you doing here? You have representatives”. I said that I wanted to know what was going on. He said, “Everything is going on. Your members are paying in; we match it. They retire at 65, or 60 if they have enough years’ service, and they die seven years later”. Does anybody agree with that?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I very much hope that whatever the noble Lord’s history of employment, he is in receipt of a generous pension.