Palace of Westminster: Restoration and Renewal

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Howarth of Newport

Monday 3rd December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, ownership and responsibility for Richmond House has now been transferred to the other place, where it forms part of its northern estate strategy. The other place is now looking at how Richmond House might be reconfigured to meet its needs. Any changes will require planning permission and listed building consent, and the other place is working very closely with Historic England in view of the importance of the building, which my noble friend has rightly pointed out.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

Does the Minister recall that when Richmond House was built 30 years ago, it was greatly admired; and as the noble Baroness has just said, it is only three years ago that it was listed grade 2*? The Minister talked delicately about reconfiguring, but would it not be an awful waste effectively to destroy the greater part of it to accommodate a temporary decant? Will he give the House an assurance that a full feasibility study of all other options will be carried out, including the suggestion that a temporary House of Commons Chamber be erected in the atrium of Portcullis House put forward by its architect, Sir Michael Hopkins?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

That suggestion by Sir Michael Hopkins was looked at by the Joint Committee and discounted for the reasons it has set out. As I said in response to my noble friend, the responsibility for Richmond House now rests with the other place because it is the legal owner. It will take on board the heritage issues which have just been mentioned. The building was, of course, substantially reconfigured in the 1980s before it became the headquarters for the Department of Health.

Elections: Electoral Commission Recommendations

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Howarth of Newport

Thursday 28th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord raises a serious issue. I do not know whether he has had the time to read the Electoral Commission’s report on digital campaigning, subtitled Increasing Transparency for Voters, but it makes recommendations on the specific areas he raised. There are a series of recommendations about foreign involvement in the democratic process and recommendations about transparency on where money has come from, with particular injunctions on the social media to make it clear, when they put advertisements on their sites, who has paid for them. This is an important issue and to some extent it is embraced in the report I just referred to.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, have the Government considered what additional resources and capacities the Electoral Commission may need if it is to address effectively the difficult and complex question of abuses of digital campaigning?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The Electoral Commission is not funded by the Government. As the noble Lord may know from his experience in another place, there is an Electoral Commission committee that sits under the Speaker. That committee in the other place is responsible for fixing the budget for the Electoral Commission. I am not aware that there has been a recent dispute between the Electoral Commission and the Speaker’s committee about resources, so as far as I am aware the Electoral Commission has the resources it believes it needs to do its job.

Elections: Personal Data

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Howarth of Newport

Wednesday 18th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I begin by endorsing what the noble Lord has just said and deploring any language that incites racial hatred or, indeed, any other form of hatred in this country. He will know that the Information Commissioner is investigating exactly this issue of whether information has been improperly used to seek to influence the outcome of an election or a referendum. I made it clear in response to the noble Lord that we are in active dialogue with the Information Commissioner. We have already accepted some amendments to the Data Protection Bill which is currently in another place. We are prepared to do so again if it is necessary to deal with any inadequacies in the legislation.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that this is a global problem that cannot be resolved on a one-country basis? If the Electoral Commission is to have additional powers, which I am sure it is going to need, how are the Government going to approach the broader issue and try to reach international agreement to tackle this extremely grave issue? There really is a threat to our democracy, I believe.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

Of course, we can have our own rules governing how elections are conducted in this country, and any outside organisation would have to comply with the law here. However, to respond to the good point that the noble Lord makes, we are actively engaged with the commission on its public consultation on the back of its recommendation for measures to effectively tackle illegal content online that it published in March this year. We are going to play a full and active part in shaping the ongoing commission work that follows publication of the voluntary guidance. I return to what I said right at the beginning: regardless of what is happening in the rest of the world, we can have a robust electoral system in this country, not least because we have manual counting and, on the whole, manual voting, which are less vulnerable to corruption.

Cannabis

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Howarth of Newport

Monday 12th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister encourage his ministerial colleagues in the Home Office to review the present policy of the department in relation to patients who have been prescribed dronabinol, the active ingredient in various pharmaceutical cannabinoid preparations, which requires that they travel abroad to obtain it, even though dronabinol is in Schedule 2 and is internationally recognised as having medicinal value? Why do the Government not allow these patients, who if they do not have their cannabis-based medication suffer chronic and severe pain, to collect their prescription from a local pharmacy instead of forcing them to make this exhausting and costly journey every three months?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am very happy to respond to the noble Lord’s opening question, namely to pass his request on. We are guided in this country by the MHRA, the authority that advises government on whether medicines should have a licence.