High Speed Rail (London–West Midlands) Bill

Debate between Lord Young of Norwood Green and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 12th January 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

My Lords, I do not know where to start on the amendment after that omnibus. However, first, in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Pidding, I do not think that having another independent adjudicator as well as the complaints commissioner is a good idea. It will confuse the situation. I agree with her on the substance of the point: a complaints commissioner should be appointed, as one will be, and that individual should have teeth. However, we really need to correct the notion that there is a “get out of jail free” card simply because we occasionally see a reference to doing everything practically possible in relation to the environment and that there are no requirements on HS2’s contractors to take care of the environment. Hundreds and hundreds of assurances have been given and they really have to be adhered to. I have said that many times to petitioners. We had petitioners from Camden who said, “Oh, there are a few assurances”. There were 100 assurances given to Camden Council and I pleaded with them to look at what is already available. We went over the environmental concerns meticulously. There is not an animal or insect that we have not considered, from hedgehogs to crested newts and barn owls or whatever, and rightly so. We paid them a lot of attention.

It is unfortunate that my noble friend Lord Stevenson of Balmacara was not here on Tuesday because we had the same allegation from the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, that we did not debate this. We did: it did not matter whether they were additional provisions, we debated them at length many times. As for the costing, we did not take the word of the contractors or the promoters. We looked carefully, by an independent assessment, to see whether that could justify their view of extending the tunnel. Do not forget that this tunnel has been significantly extended, as a result of the debate in the Commons, and at significant expense. My noble friend shakes his head; I do not know why. It is not enough because we know what the objective is. He wants to tunnel right the way through it but did not achieve that objective. As for the idea that my noble friend somehow could not make his case, I find that hard to understand. He had plenty of opportunity.

On the idea that we in the Select Committee would somehow pay more attention to the barristers, believe me: we were bored out of our skulls by barristers on many occasions and often paid more attention to people who represented their case effectively, whether they were from the parish council or just individuals. The main thing they had to do was to focus on what they wanted the Select Committee to do, and when they did we supported them. In many cases, that was on compensation as well. It really is wrong to tell this Committee that somehow we did not have an opportunity to look at these issues. We did, again and again. In fact, it is probably lucky that I was not chairing it because I would have been more ruthless. We allowed lots and lots of people to present their case, including in locus standi hearings. We made sure that whether it was on environment or noise, or whatever it was, we gave people the opportunity to make their case—not just once but on many occasions.

It should not be suggested to this Committee that individual petitioners somehow had not had an opportunity to present their case or were browbeaten by the barristers. Of course it was a robust environment; I do not deny that but we took account of it and listened carefully. My noble friend shrugs his shoulders; I do not know whether that means that he disputes the integrity of the committee or our attempts to give a fair hearing to petitioners. I do not know why he does that.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

I made it perfectly clear that I was in no sense criticising the committee. Obviously, I have let the noble Lord speak, but I was trying to say that there was a gap in the ability of those who wished to make points broader than their private interests, the cause of which obviously did not lie with the committee. I am not blaming the committee, which did exceptional work, and was fantastic. I felt—the noble Lord, Lord Young, can read the transcript; he was there—that I could not say the things I wanted to say. Indeed, the chairman stopped me and said, kindly, that he was taking account of my experience and presence in the House, and would listen to me, but that he wanted me to stop. I cut out two pages of what I was going to say. I am not saying that it was good or bad—it just happened. I am trying to get behind that to say that the committee’s process did not engage sufficiently with the issues that could have been considered. I am trying to play back to the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidding, as I think that that will continue, and in the future an independent adjudicator would be a good thing.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

I am afraid that we will have to agree to disagree, because they did have the opportunity to make wider points on many issues. On the fact that my noble friend was stopped from speaking, I cannot remember precisely why, but it may well be that we had heard those points on many occasions and reiteration did not necessarily produce a better impact for the committee. However, again, I refute the idea that my noble friend is promoting: that this was an unfair environment in which petitioners were not able to address the wider case. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Walker, was meticulous in allowing people to develop the whole case even though we had heard the same issue on many occasions, whether it was the requirement for extra tunnelling or a whole range of issues. Inevitably, if you look at the geography of the petitioners, we heard the same case again and again.

I am not saying that the Select Committee procedure was perfect but I refute that petitioners did not have the opportunity to make their case and address the wider issues. They did. We heard them and wherever we could, if anything, we leaned towards the petitioners. We knew that if people had taken the time and trouble to come to Westminster to make their case, they were entitled to a fair hearing. In fact, the pressure was more on the promoters to prove that the petitioners were wrong than the other way round.

Enterprise Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Young of Norwood Green and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Monday 2nd November 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

I rise to support the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp. She has quoted two contracts. I had a personal involvement with both, ensuring that there were targets and that we met them. They were both very good, but one of the last points that the noble Baroness made was that Crossrail ensured that not only the main company but its supply chain, which was distributed throughout the country, had an apprenticeship target. I would like to see a “must” rather than a “may”, but if the Government said that they accept the amendment, that would be a step forward and an important signal. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, we have three amendments in this group. The first follows up what the Minister said in response to the earlier debate. Apprentices are in jobs, and if they are in jobs, they should be paid as if they are in jobs, and if they are making a contribution, that would be a good thing to do, so our suggestion is that that should be paid the living wage. I would be interested to hear the argument against that. It has to be not only a training but a way of living. Anybody who does an apprenticeship will get the training, we hope, that will get them into remunerative employment. We heard the figures about how much it will benefit them over their lifetime, but they have to start somewhere. Starting below the current living wage will not be a great advertisement for these areas.

Intellectual Property Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Young of Norwood Green and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

I thank the Minister for his contribution and my noble friend Lord Howarth for making additional points in relation to the proposal in the amendment. Behind this short debate lurks the proposal later in the Bill to have an annual report to Parliament on IP work, and it is helpful that the Minister finished on that point. To anticipate that debate, we will be arguing that to draw the report in the rather narrow terms currently specified in the Bill may be too tight, so perhaps we can come back to this issue when we get to that clause because the recent exchange gave us examples of that. It would be helpful to have a better understanding of how engagement with the wider group involved in the creative industries and in design, in particular, is going. Simply reporting on the economy and growth will not get across that engagement in sufficient detail, so this may be something to which we will return.

This matter also raises whether, as was argued during our discussions on the ERR Bill, having an IP Minister is sufficient in relation to intellectual property work and the support of the creative industries more generally or whether something more grandiose than even a noble Viscount, such as a tsar, will be required. I can see the noble Viscount reaching out across Whitehall and drawing things together much in the style of the films of Eisenstein.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

“Ivan the Terrible”.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

I was not going to mention Ivan the Terrible in particular, but there are other tsars of recent memory who would have been as effective, without necessarily all the killing, in getting people to understand what is important about intellectual property and in thrilling them with the opportunities that I am sure will flow from the Hague agreement.

The idea that somehow the IPO, however many thousands of Twitter followers it has, can do this with 140 characters per tweet does not fill me with enthusiasm. This needs engagement on a much greater scale, as has been mentioned. We will return to this issue, so I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.