CHOGM, G7 and NATO Summits

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

What my noble friend is asking about is the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, which I mentioned in response to the noble Lord, Lord Newby, which is the G7 initiative to narrow the investment gap for sustainable, inclusive, climate-resilient and quality infrastructure in emerging markets and developing countries. We, through the G7, intend to mobilise the private sector for accelerated action and support just energy transition partnerships. As I mentioned, one has already been set up with South Africa, and we are currently working towards further partnerships with India, Indonesia, Senegal and Vietnam. It is that initiative that the G7 will be developing within that space.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, my question follows on from that, on the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment. Will the Leader of the House agree with me that it is crucial that this money avoids the errors that have happened so often in the past, where money has gone into the priorities of investors rather than the needs of the poorest in society? Will she agree that this money needs to take a rights-based, gender-sensitive approach, delivering a just transition rather than ensuring that the rich in some countries get richer and the global north benefits—particularly in ensuring that the global south does not get laid on with even further levels of debt burden when it is already carrying levels of debt that it is unable to afford?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I certainly agree with the noble Baroness that we need to make sure that this initiative delivers for the poorest countries in the world, and that we work in a collaborative and effective way. That is what is happening in the development of this partnership. As I have said, we already have the first one announced, we are working towards several more, and we will support partners in developing countries and emerging markets in a fair and sustainable way.

Sue Gray Report

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

As I have said, the Prime Minister has taken responsibility. He has apologised and committed to making changes to address many of the issues raised and, as I mentioned in response to the noble Lord, Lord Collins, a number of those have been set out in the Statement. I reiterate again that Sue Gray recognises that and has said she is pleased that progress is being made in addressing the issues. That is not to say that there is not further work to do, but action has been taken, and it has been taken speedily.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the seven Nolan principles of public office have been raised already this evening, but it is worth going through them: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty, and leadership. Would the Leader of the House claim that the Prime Minister, today and in the behaviour outlined in Sue Gray’s report, has lived up to those seven principles?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

All Ministers of the Crown are expected to maintain high standards of behaviour and to behave in a way that upholds the highest standards of propriety. The Prime Minister has accepted that his behaviour, on occasion, did not meet those standards, and for that he has wholeheartedly apologised.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I repeat again that he has taken responsibility. The Statement says that he himself has learned lessons. I have pointed out some of the practical things that have already happened on the back of the interim Sue Gray report on some of the issues she identified around leadership and other elements and structures in No. 10. That is in place. As I mentioned, there are now more ways for staff to raise concerns. There are practical things that have been done in No. 10 and the Cabinet Office to help address what has been said. He has taken and is taking steps. There may well be more to come, but tangible action has already been taken as a result of the interim Sue Gray report.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

The Prime Minister today told the other place that it was “appropriate” to hold gatherings to thank Downing Street staff for their service. I go to a tweet from Adil Ray OBE, the actor and writer, who, with understandable and rightful anger, noted that at exactly the same time you were told to

“go straight home on your own or watch on zoom when your loved ones were leaving this Earth.”

Does the Leader of the House really believe that at that point in time it was appropriate to hold those Downing Street gatherings?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

Like everyone, I feel incredibly sorry for everyone who was touched in such a horrific way by Covid. We all have immense sympathy but, as I have said and can only repeat, the Prime Minister has made a full and unreserved apology for what happened in No. 10 and taken steps to start to tackle some of the issues involved.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I would certainly thank the doctor that you saw for the incredible work and service he provided and all the hard work that people across the NHS provided. The Prime Minister and civil servants within No. 10 and the Cabinet Office, and indeed across government, were also working very hard, obviously doing completely different things but helping to ensure that we had help for the homeless, to help provide shielding packages and to ensure that the doctor you saw had the PPE that he needed. But that is absolutely not to say that the doctor you met —and I am sure many other people around the country—faced similar circumstances, and the Prime Minister has acknowledged the anger that someone like that doctor might well feel.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

To return to the previous question I put to the noble Baroness the Leader of the House, I will simplify this down. The Prime Minister said today that it was appropriate to hold these gatherings to thank Downing Street staff for their service. Does the noble Baroness the Leader agree that it was appropriate to hold those gatherings?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I have already answered that question.

Easter Recess: Government Update

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

The noble Baroness’s question involved a lot of “ifs”, and I am afraid I am not going to speculate. The police investigation is under way. What I can say on the basis of what has happened is that the Prime Minister has offered a full and unreserved apology, he has made it clear that he respects the outcome of the police investigation—as I said, that is still under way—and he has paid the fine that has been issued to him and has apologised fully.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the Leader of the House gave us the latest figures on applications and approvals for the Homes for Ukraine scheme, but I am not sure if she has seen a report from Brighton emerging today. In what is sadly an inevitable next step, a placement has broken down, the Ukrainian in question having been faced with a demand from the host to support the payment of utility bills.

Brighton council is highlighting that there is no mechanism underneath this hastily designed scheme whereby a person whose placement has broken down can be placed somewhere else. So, a Ukrainian refugee who came to this country seeking refuge was told, “Here is the scheme and here’s how it works”, and they are now being thrown into the hands of a charity. A local church is providing a home for a few days, but the problem is inevitably going to land in the council’s lap. However, it would appear that there is no provision under the scheme for a placement to be transferred or a person to be replaced. Will this be looked at and dealt with as a matter of urgency, because it is obviously likely to occur again?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness. I was not aware of the case but obviously, she has now raised it. If she would like to send me further details or contact my noble friend Lord Harrington directly, I am very happy to facilitate that or ensure that this issue is raised with him.

As she rightly says, it is a new scheme and I suspect that other issues may arise that will need to be addressed, but as soon as intelligence is gathered, we can deal with them. As I say, if she would like to send me more details, I am very happy to pass them on, or she can speak to my noble friend directly. We have in this House a Minister responsible for such things, so we will certainly take on board these issues, which, as she rightly says, need to be addressed.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

If I may I will raise another issue in this rather scattergun Statement; I believe this is within the rules. In the other place, reference was made to what the Prime Minister described as “Russia’s barbaric onslaught” on Ukraine. The Labour Member for Rhondda raised the issue of the reported involvement of mercenaries—particularly one mercenary company, Wagner—in some of the most horrific events there. He also referred to what is usually known as the United Nations Mercenary Convention, more formally known as the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries. The Prime Minister said that he would study the proposal because the UK has not signed up to this UN convention and has not been a proponent of it. Can the Leader of the House confirm that the Government are seriously looking at this, and will she ensure that we hear in this House—in some way or another—the outcome of that study?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I am sure that if the Prime Minister said he would study it, he will. What I can say is that we are continuing to gather evidence to assist ongoing investigations into crimes committed in Ukraine, such as the ICC investigation. We have led 41 states to refer atrocities to the ICC and we are providing additional funding to it. UK military and police are providing technical assistance to the investigations. The Metropolitan Police War Crimes Unit has commenced the collection of evidence, and we are working very closely with the Ukrainian Government. We have also appointed a former ICC judge, Sir Howard Morrison, as an independent adviser to the Ukrainian prosecutor-general, and we have welcomed the OSCE’s Moscow Mechanism report, which is the first independent report to identify evidence of potential Russian war crimes in Ukraine.

I reassure the noble Baroness that we are leading action in this area and we will continue to do so, because we want to ensure that all perpetrators are brought to justice for crimes that have been committed in Ukraine.

Elections Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Monday 28th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

I absolutely agree with that.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, this has been a hugely interesting and terribly important debate. I am now going to take what you might describe as the traditional Green role of going much further than anyone has gone before in seeking to deliver what the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, called for in introducing this group: free and fair elections. That is what I think we are all aiming for. Before I do that, I think perhaps I should—given the direction the debate in group one today took—declare in retrospect my position as vice-president of the LGA, and apologise for not doing that earlier.

Given the hour, I am going to restrict myself to commenting on Amendments 212A and 212B, which appear in my name. They do bear some relationship to Amendment 212DA in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, which goes in a similar direction but in a more limited way. Like many noble Lords, I am drawing particularly on the 13th report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life entitled Political Party Finance: Ending the Big Donor Culture—which is what my amendment seeks to do.

Amendment 212A amends the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act to set a donation cap of £500 from any individual donor or corporation to each party or candidate, either with a single donation or cumulatively by multiple donations through a calendar year. Clause 1(2) specifically excludes trade unions from that cap, which I think deserves some explanation. One of the Green Party’s policies for a sustainable society states:

“Donations from democratic membership organisations (such as trade unions) provide a useful method for ordinary people to pool resources in order to exert influence”.


It could be argued that there may be other organisations similar to that—I think of the RSPB, perhaps, as an example—that might choose, as a group, to give a larger donation. But the practical reality is that most of those are charities, and our charity law means that is not practically going to be an issue.

I would like to acknowledge that there is potential flaw in the way this amendment is written—and it certainly needs some more work—in that it does allow a donor to give £500 to potentially every single candidate, which would obviously come to a very large sum of money, which is not the intention of the amendment. This was done because the donation rules apply separately to parties and to individual candidates—but this is something I will work on in terms of this amendment.

With that proviso, this is an amendment that could truly revolutionise our elections. Indeed, it could go a long way to making the United Kingdom a democracy. Currently, very large donations are a major factor, perhaps a deciding factor, in our elections and other votes. The dictionary definition of an oligarchy is “a small group of people having control of a country or organisation”. I might add “party”. There is a strong case for saying that that fits the UK better than the definition of a democracy. Perhaps that has always been the case, but certainly now, since we have a situation where technology allows huge online spending to reach voters in a targeted way—far more than anyone using up their shoe leather to knock on doors and deliver leaflets possibly could.

I am not really expecting the Government to say, “Yes, we want to transform our elections and make them wonderfully democratic and set a £500 maximum donation limit in a year”. But I have a real question which I would very much appreciate an answer to from the Minister. I note that, responding to the Committee on Standards in Public Life report in 2011, the then coalition Government said:

“The amount any one individual, organisation or institution can give in political donations should be limited.”


So I ask the Minister: do the Government accept that there should be a limit, whatever that limit is, on how much one organisation or individual can give? Should it really be the case, as it is now, that there is no limit?

I note that a political party’s spending is capped at £30,000 for each constituency that it contests in a general election. So if a party stood a candidate in each of 650 UK constituencies, its maximum spend would total £19.5 million. Indeed, I am indebted to the Library for some very rapid research this afternoon. The figures have not yet been fully published, but it would appear that the Conservatives spent not very far off £16.5 million in the 2019 election and about the same in 2017, according to the published figures.

That might seem to be a kind of limit. One donor could fund an entire general election campaign. But, of course, that spending covers only the regulated period and only the regulated spending, which is far from everything that political parties spend. Funding outside election periods would, so far as I can see, be utterly unlimited.

If you think I am talking in terms of theoretical possibilities here, you might want to look across the channel to the United States of America whose political direction, for many ills, we very often follow. A useful report produced last year by Issue One, a non-partisan group that seeks to reduce the influence of money in politics, totalled some of the contributions from what it called “megadonors”—multiple Wall Street billionaires and investors, a Facebook cofounder, a shipping magnate and an heir to a family fortune dating back more than a century. If you look at those figures, you see that at the top of the list is Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, who spent $1.3 billion, which is about £1 billion. Of that, $1 billion went towards his own failed campaign for president in 2020.

This is a pattern that we are increasingly seeing around the world, where money can buy you the politics you want—or at least you can make a very effort at it. It seems that the natural conclusion is to buy yourself, or the party created or reshaped in your own image, office. In my native land, the United Australia Party has said that in the forthcoming federal election it plans to spend more than it did in 2019, when the figure topped 80 million Australian dollars, which is about £45 million. It was previously known as Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party and the Palmer United Party, and it was formed and overwhelmingly funded by the mining magnate Clive Palmer.

I would be very interested in anyone’s answer to the question of why people should be able to buy the politics they want and why people can make serious efforts to buy control of the whole country. That is what is happening and we have nothing in our law to stop it. A lot of our discussion in this group has focused on foreign money in politics and we have heard many powerful accounts of why that should be so. For example, the wife of President Putin’s former deputy Finance Minister, a British citizen acting legally, has donated almost £2 million to the Conservative Party since 2012, making her the largest female donor in history, but if we focus on foreign donors, that only partially addresses this issue.

Why should anybody, whatever their residence, status or citizenship history, be able to buy our politics? If they are a businessperson or an inheritor of family wealth, surely they are likely to influence politics in the direction of maintaining that wealth. Why should they be able to do that? I am sure there is many a nurse tonight, struggling hard to do his best for his patients in the NHS, who would love to influence our politics to improve its resourcing. A farmer might have very strong thoughts about the direction of UK trade policy and its impact on food, health and environmental standards. A family carer, struggling along on an allowance of £87 a week, might have strong views on the adequacy of that. Why should their voice be any less than anyone else’s?

I was discussing this amendment with a Member of your Lordships’ House who I will not identify, because it was a private conversation. They exclaimed in a tone that I think could best be described as horror, “But we couldn’t run an election on that!”—noble Lords might guess that they were not from the Green Party. I invite your Lordships’ House to consider a different kind of election, one based on passion, ideas, commitment and genuine engagement with the public, rather than a continual bombardment of slogans—which would probably consist of three words—endlessly, from every media source, as a replacement for actual politics and policies.

I understand that there are some ways of reaching voters that quite reasonably cost money, such as leaflet or video production, so I agree that Amendment 212A implies state funding for political parties. We collectively get the politics that we fund. If we all paid for politics, it would be our politics—what a refreshing idea. I think we will get to those points in the ninth group, with the very interesting amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, so I will leave my comments on that till then.

Amendment 212B is rather more technical. There will be people in your Lordships’ House who know a great deal more about this than I do, and I would be very interested in any comments. This amendment would revive Section 68 of PPERA, requiring declaration of multiple small donations by an individual which total £5,000 or more in any year. The figure of £5,000 is what was used in Section 68 of PPERA originally. I have tabled this amendment because, when I had some experts look at the donation rules for Amendment 212A, we realised that Section 68 of PPERA had been repealed, but neither our team, nor the House of Lords Library, could find any justification recorded for the repeal. It does not seem to have been discussed in any parliamentary debates.

It ought to be revived because of the online nature of many political donations now. It is possible and easy to make many small donations that could total a very large figure. This perhaps sounds theoretical, but a person could donate £1 billion by making 1 billion donations of £1. None of those donations would have to be declared to the Electoral Commission and none of the verification that is done with larger donations would have to be made. That is obviously wrong. Questions have been asked about recent election donations. I will not go into those, but I have identified a clear risk here. Indeed, both of my amendments identify very clear risks that have to be addressed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Howe (Con)]

I do not contradict the noble Lord in any respect as to what he said about trade unions. I say again that I cast no aspersions on trade unions or their practices at all. I am simply saying that it seems unfair and undemocratic to have this distinction made in the way the noble Baroness seeks to do in her amendment.

Fundraising is a legitimate part of the democratic process. There is no cap on political donations because parties, candidates and other types of campaigner have strict limits on what they can spend on regulated campaign activities during elections.

The other amendment in the noble Baroness’s name—

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

Before the Minister goes on to the next amendment, I asked whether he agreed that there should be any limit. If we imagine an election campaign, one party’s spending limit is about £20 million. Does the Minister think it appropriate that one person can donate £20 million for an entire election campaign? What does he think that would do to our democracy?

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, there are two issues there: one is the question that the noble Baroness seems to be asking, which is whether there should be a limit on donations, and the other is whether there should be a limit on spending. There is a limit on spending in general elections, as she well knows. If she is asking whether I think there should be a cap on donations, I have to say that I do not.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

Sorry, perhaps I was not clear. To put it another way, should there be a maximum percentage that one person can donate to one party’s campaign? If a campaign is funded to the maximum spending limit by one person, it is one person’s campaign. Does the Minister think that would be appropriate?

[Earl Howe (Con)]

That is a highly hypothetical question. I would be happy to give it consideration. For the moment I have to say that the answer is no, but I will reflect on it.

The other amendment in the noble Baroness’s name, Amendment 212B, seeks to place new obligations on donors to report donations to the Electoral Commission where the aggregate total for the year is over £5,000. Yes, there should be transparency around any significant amount of money funding parties and election campaigns, but that does not mean putting the burden on donors. It is for political parties and candidates—the recipients of the donations, who are familiar with the rules—to keep accounting records and report donations over the relevant thresholds to the Electoral Commission. Placing any unnecessarily bureaucratic responsibility on donors such as individual citizens could lead to a chilling effect and discourage people from making donations.

Amendment 212DA, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, seeks to cap donations to political parties at £10,000 per calendar year. Perhaps inadvertently, it would require that every penny in a collection box be recorded and attributed to someone, effectively spelling an end to small donations. Even more significantly, the Government cannot, on principle, support caps on donations as this would only lead to taxpayers footing the bill for the inevitable funding shortfall. There is absolutely no public support for expanding the level of public funding already available to political parties. Public funds should be focused on delivering world-class public services and levelling up communities across our country.

The noble Lord asked about the recommendations in the report from the Committee on Standards in Public Life. The Government responded to the report published by the CSPL on regulating election finance in September last year. The Elections Bill already contains measures that closely link to recommendations made in that report, such as the new requirement on political parties to declare their assets and liabilities over £500 on registration, and a restriction of third- party campaigning to UK-based or otherwise eligible campaigners. However, as the Government response stated, the recommendations in the report deserve full consideration, and more work must be done to consider the implications and practicalities, which, I hope the noble Lord will acknowledge, are very considerable.

In conclusion, controls on electoral funding and transparency of electoral funding are a key cornerstone of the UK’s electoral system and contribute to a healthy democracy. UK electoral law sets out a stringent regime of donations controls to ensure that only those with a legitimate interest in UK elections can make political donations and that political donations are transparent. The Government absolutely recognise the risk posed by those who wish to evade the rules on donations. That is why there are existing provisions which explicitly prohibit money being funnelled through permissible donors by impermissible donors, and why it is an offence for donors and campaigners to purposefully evade the rules.

It is right that voters and organisations with a legitimate interest in UK elections be able to donate to political parties, candidates and campaigns. Our democracy is strengthened by people donating to campaigns that they believe in. I am, of course, aware that stories about political donations are never far from the newspapers, but rather than being indicative of a broken system, I firmly believe that this is a sign of the system working. The checks that parties and other campaigners are required to carry out and the reports published by the Electoral Commission allow the press and the public to scrutinise political donations. It is very important to balance the need for parties and other campaigners to generate funds against the cost of actually carrying out checks on donations to ensure they come from permissible sources. The current rules are proportionate and achieve that balance. I hope that, on that basis, noble Lords will feel able not to move their amendments when they are reached, and that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, feels able to withdraw her amendment.

Elections Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Monday 28th March 2022 Lords Chamber

I have two final points to make. First, as I said, I can see the arguments for widening the franchise in cases of reciprocal rights being given by another country. That is an argument to which we shall come in more detail in Amendment 154 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, in support of which I expect to speak. Finally, some noble Lord—probably the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, or the noble Lord, Lord Grocott—will say that my remarks run completely counter to the provisions of Clause 12 extending the right of British citizens anywhere in the world indefinitely to vote in UK elections. Such an accusation would be correct. I think the Government have misjudged this issue, to put it no higher, and that our manifesto commitment was a plain mistake. For someone to be able to emigrate to Australia or retire to Jamaica and have continued participation in UK elections over tens of years seems plain wrong, as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said. What can a person know about life in Britain after an absence of 20 or more years? Why should they have an equal say to a person who has lived here and contributed to the life of this country throughout that period? However, the fact that this is an ill-advised policy does not mean that we should add another ill-advised policy to it, and I am afraid that I regard the policy proposed in Amendment 152 as just that.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I offer Green support for the general trend of these amendments. I also join the rest of the House in wishing the noble Lord, Lord True, a quick recovery. I very much agree with the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, and disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson. If someone is here contributing to society and is a part of this community—maybe that is only for 20 or 30 years and maybe they will eventually go back to the country they came from, to care for their elderly parents or another reason—they should have a say. They have chosen to make this their home and we should recognise that with the vote.

It is really interesting if we look at the overall context of the Bill—and I very much agree with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, about the general sense of confusion and the lack of a real sense of clear direction—that where there is a sense of direction, it is utterly the wrong direction. As we were talking about with voter ID and offering a positive alternative of automatic voter registration, we have seen a trend over centuries for more and more people to have the right to vote. Yet, what we have done right now with the Brexit situation and with the rules as they currently are with the Bill without these amendments is that fewer and fewer people are having the right to have a say. That is a diminution of what democracy we actually have.

I very much agree with the comment from the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, that if you are able to vote, you should be able to stand. There is a really interesting case study related to that of the kind of tangles that electoral law can get itself into. Between 1918 and 1928, there were certain groups of women who could stand but not vote. The Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918—with 27 words, it is the shortest law on the statute book—created a rather strange tangle where women were able to stand, and indeed some women did stand, when they could not vote for themselves. That really is an illustration of how you can get yourself into a mess when things are not properly thought through.

I have some very specific questions. I am aware that the Minister has kind of been landed with this, so I entirely understand if he might wish to write to me later. One of the things that perhaps many of us in your Lordships’ House do not think about very much is that there is another reason to be on the electoral roll beyond voting: being on the electoral roll is good for your credit rating and improves your access to credit. I will confess, it is something I have used many times on the doorstep to encourage people to go on the electoral roll. One of the things we will do with this current change is to make access to credit more difficult for some people, such as EU citizens who do not qualify for the vote. As we are seeing with all these complications, I wonder whether the Government have really looked at this situation and considered whether it is appropriate to allow that to continue when we are randomly taking that right away from people.

We have already heard very clearly laid out from a range of noble Lords, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, all the complicating factors about whether you are allowed to be on the electoral roll or not. Are the Government confident that they have given full and clear instructions to all the local authorities in the land to ensure that they are able to implement this effectively? Are people on the roll rightly when they should be? With local elections coming up, I am sure all of us, except perhaps the Cross-Benchers, know people who are out now knocking on doors and talking to voters and potential voters. Is there a place where the Government have set this all out very clearly so political campaigners out encouraging people to get involved can find out who is eligible to vote and who is not? That would be a very useful practical resource to have.

This is something that has just occurred to me as we have been going through the debate: I imagine that to vote when you do not have the right to vote is an offence. Are the Government going to provide directions to acknowledge that some people, with the best will in the world and no ill intention, will end up voting in this coming and future elections when they do not have the right? I think people in that situation should be protected, given the complexities that we have all just heard outlined.

I will briefly make two other specific points. On an earlier group, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, I think, noted how Scotland has given refugees the right to vote. Given the situation that we see in a world with more and more refugees, and as we will, I hope, welcome more refugees here, I wonder whether the Government have considered that.

I declare my position as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong. Of course, BNO passport holders have the right to vote, but their children will not—so it could literally be that someone who was born in Hong Kong on a certain day has the right to vote, but a person born there one day later does not. So have the Government considered the situation of the children of BNO passport holders who have come here with their parents now? The Government have said that they are looking to allow, from September, the children of BNO passport holders to come on their own—so might that not be another group to consider?

Since I have just introduced several other layers of complexity, is not the obvious situation to base this right to vote on residence? If people have made themselves part of the community and contributed to it, that should be the basis of the right to vote.

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendment 156 in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Suttie and Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick. I too extend my best wishes to the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord True, for a speedy recovery.

This amendment is specifically to do with Northern Ireland, and its basis rests on an interpretation of Article 2 of the Northern Ireland protocol to the withdrawal agreement. The ability to stand for election and vote of EU citizens who were resident at the end of the transition period—or the implementation period, as it was called—on 31 December 2020 is clearly preserved. There is no argument about that; it is set out and is the legal position. So we are talking here about EU citizens who arrived in the UK—or Northern Ireland—after that. I understand that this is a probing amendment, but it is worth pointing out that EU citizens who have arrived since 1 January 2021 will move to a position whereby voting and candidacy rights are granted where there is an agreement with the European Union member state that they came from—they are preserved on a bilateral basis. That is the normal accepted position.

There has been a reliance on an interpretation of Article 2 of the protocol, and a lot of claims are made, appealing to not just the letter but the spirit of the Northern Ireland protocol, with all sorts of extravagant positions that would otherwise not be deemed to be rational or even democratic. People talk about taxation with no representation, and laws are now made over vast swathes of the economy of Northern Ireland, despite no Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, for which elections will take place on 5 May, or of this or the other House being able to have any say or vote on them. People are running for election to the Assembly in Northern Ireland to make laws for Northern Ireland, yet, in vast swathes of the economy, they have no powers whatever—those laws are imposed on them by the European Union on a dynamic basis, in over 300 areas of law. In a modern 21st-century democracy, that raises severe problems about the democratic deficit.

I return to this particular amendment. Article 2 of the protocol confers no right on Northern Ireland citizens to have voting rights in an EU member state in which they choose to reside. Therefore, it would seem bizarre to argue that it confers rights on EU citizens to vote in Northern Ireland district elections—that seems totally incongruous and spurious, and it is a wrong-headed argument. For that reason, I would obviously oppose that amendment if it is pressed.

Health and Care Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Lords Hansard _ Part 1 & Report stage
Wednesday 16th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Vinson (Con)]

My Lords, there is a sheer impracticality to this suggestion. Whatever the need to get people to drink less, there is the actual practicality of getting millions of bottles of wine shipped from all over the world pre-packaged with this label stuck on them, quite apart from the number of drinks, as has been mentioned, served in carafes or over the counter freely. This is not the way to tackle the problem. It goes to the heart of people’s freedom of choice. They may be overdoing it, but labelling like this is expensive, impractical and it does not work.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I feel I have to respond immediately to that. I intended to speak anyway, having attached my name to an amendment on alcohol advertising in Committee. I would have attached my name to this amendment both in Committee and on Report, had there been space.

The noble Lord, Lord Vinson, talked about freedom of choice. I do not know how many people know that a bottle of wine can contain anywhere between zero and 59 grams of free sugar per bottle. Surely the public do not have the freedom of choice to decide which wine they consume and which level of sugar they consume.

The noble Lord made a point about the difficulty of labelling. Bottles of wine are shipped to many different countries with labels in different languages. We have computers these days which can cope with these things quite simply and easily. It is clearly not beyond the wit of producers to achieve this.

The Government often like to talk about being world-leading. I point them to an editorial in the Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology titled Shining a light on international alcohol industry lobbying, showing just how powerful this incredibly wealthy industry is in influencing and damaging public health messages around the world. Would the Government not like to be world-leading in standing up against this industry lobbying, in the interests of public health?

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, at the risk of being boring, I am one of those people who has been asking for this for the last 20 years. I started off asking for the number of units of alcohol in a bottle of wine. Every manufacturer of these alcoholic drinks knows exactly what goes into them. On the issue of labelling products from abroad, there are a lot of foodstuffs that come from abroad and they have to abide by British rules on labelling, so why not wine and spirits? It is time we did this. It is terribly important for public health, and I hope the Minister will say yes.

Health and Care Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Report stage
Monday 7th March 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle]

145: Clause 156, page 126, line 37, at end insert—
“(c) after subsection (2) insert—“(3) No financial assistance provided under this section may be used for the purposes of—(a) repaying debt incurred outside of the business's normal day-to-day operations;(b) paying interest on debt incurred outside of the business's normal day-to-day operations;(c) making distributions to shareholders.””Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that financial assistance given by the Secretary of State is not distributed to shareholders or used to repay debt obligations incurred as “financial engineering” or leveraging.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 145, which appears in my name, I will also speak to Amendments 146 and 147. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, who has swung behind these amendments since Committee, and I also very much thank the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, for her support for Amendment 147.

As we discussed at some length in Committee, all of these amendments address predatory finance in the care sector. We keep seeing more and more reports, whether from “Panorama”, Tortoise Media or the Financial Times, that there is a huge unfolding scandal in this area.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, has brought us back to issues that we debated in Committee and I understand her concern about propriety in the deployment of public funds. I have no problem with the idea that Ministers and public servants should do all they can to ensure that public money is used effectively for the greater good. That is what they are obliged to do anyway. However, I do not feel that this duty is best served by accepting the amendment, even though it has been newly worded.

In my answer in Committee, I described how during the pandemic we learned about the importance of speed and flexibility in the way that we respond to a crisis. I suggest that this amendment would impede the Government’s ability to provide emergency support to critical providers. That does not mean handing out money willy-nilly. Any use of the power will be subject to the usual scrutiny and safeguards around the use of public funds, as set out in Treasury guidance on Managing Public Money and Accounting Officer Assessments.

There is a fundamental problem with the proposition that the noble Baroness has advanced. The amendment refers to “day-to-day operations” but there is no single accepted definition of that term. Any company could find itself excluded from receiving critical funding depending on how its accounts and finances are structured. For example, there are potential scenarios where the Government could ask providers to carry out activities at pace which may involve them in creating unavoidable debts, for which they would need reimbursement. In that situation there would be nothing improper in any government funding being used to repay that debt, but even if there were no such debts involved, the problem remains that any private company would be prevented paying dividends, as it would be logically impossible to disassociate the long-term effects of the assistance from the ability of the company to pay such dividends. I understand the concerns of the noble Baroness about unscrupulous people and fraud, but the amendment as worded is not well conceived.

Turning to Amendments 146 and 147, again, nobody can be comfortable with the idea of rogue investors or unscrupulous care providers. However, I made clear in Committee that the Government are committed to ensuring that we have a sustainable care market. We have already set out a number of planned actions, most notably in the People at the Heart of Care: Adult Social Care Reform White Paper, to achieve this objective. Noble Lords are aware that the adult social care sector is complex, as it contains both the public and the private sector. One thing that the two sectors have in common is the need to maintain not only quality of care but financial stability. To ensure that these businesses provide the care that they are required to, local government and regulators, such as the Care Quality Commission, monitor, regulate and support the sector.

As I mentioned in Committee, the CQC has market oversight responsibility, and in discharging those responsibilities, it performs comprehensive financial sustainability analysis for each provider in the scheme, including some private equity ownership structures. Debt leverage and capital structure are important components of this work, but consideration is also given to current and future trading trajectories, cash headroom and market positioning.

We also have in place the CQC-operated market oversight scheme, which monitors the financial health of the largest and most difficult-to-replace providers in the adult social care sector, ensuring that people’s care is not interrupted due to provider failure, which must be a proper concern. Since its establishment in 2015, there have been no major business failures of care providers that have resulted in the cessation of care.

We have always been clear that fraud is unacceptable. We are acting against those abusing the system; 150,000 ineligible claims have been blocked on the Covid-19 schemes, and £500 million was recovered last year. The HMRC tax protection task force is expected to recover an additional £1 billion of taxpayers’ money. Therefore, even if cash is diverted fraudulently, there is still the ability of the authorities to recover such cash.

I assure the noble Baroness that the Government will continue to keep the measures which I have outlined under review but, at present, we do not believe that the proposed and very prescriptive amendments are either proportionate or necessary. I hope she feels that she can come back to this matter at a future date. With that, I am clear that these amendments should not be accepted.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, and the Minister for his typically comprehensive response. It is interesting that the Minister very much focused on the issue of fraud and fraudulent transactions. I go back to the words of the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, who referred to what is happening as “legalised theft”. None of these amendments seeks to deal with things that are illegal; they seek to deal with things that are now an established part of our financialised, privatised system, which has all this simply built in.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, particularly, who provided a pre-answer in advance of the Minister’s response to Amendment 145, by saying that it was very difficult to separate out day-to-day operations and debts versus financialised debts. In demonstrating what the Charity Commission has done, the noble Baroness showed an effective example of how that can be done and different kinds of debt can be identified. The Minister said that you might need to create some special new financial structure to deal with an emergency situation. I think we know the practical reality of the financial-type structures that we are talking about, and that they are not created under those sorts of situations; they are created in a way to hide where the money is going—to ship the money offshore. That is not something that you would do in a situation where you are simply trying to rescue something.

The point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, about the inherent instability really brings home the point that what we are talking here, with regard to care homes, is people’s homes. I am glad to see that the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, is in his place, because in another discussion I raised with him the fact that people who are forcibly moved when homes are closed can actually die as a result of it happening. I hope he has made himself more aware of that situation and the risk it presents to people’s lives.

The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, focused on some of the difficulties that the National Audit Office has had in scrutinising this whole situation. She highlighted the facts that I was talking about—how, when the National Audit Office is able to scrutinise situations, all we get is complaint. The noble Baroness highlighted how it is not even able to conduct scrutiny in this sector because of the kind of financialised structures that we have.

I am pleased that the Minister finished by noting that I am likely to come back—he perhaps even invited me to come back on these issues. It is something that I certainly intend to do. These are very complex areas, as I acknowledge, and this is an attempt to take on some extremely well-funded organisations and professional groups. Just to conclude, it is interesting that the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, as I did, contrasted the Russian kleptocrats we will talk about on Wednesday versus what we are talking about here. Of course, it is possible that they are not two groups and there might be some overlap. I invite any investigative journalists listening to have a look at whether we might be able to see an overlap there.

At the moment, it is my intention to withdraw the amendment, but I do not regard this issue as in any way dealt with or finalised. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 145 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I wish to briefly reinforce a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, backed up by the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, about how so much food is advertised as being healthy when it is clearly nothing of the sort. I want to pick up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. I will not advertise any further a particular brand of allegedly healthy food for athletes, but these foods are presented as though they are consumed by people who have just done extraordinary physical efforts—as exemplified in your Lordships’ House by the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, who, I can attest, I saw at the APPG for Running, looking like he was appropriately involved in the acts that he was supporting. However, more than half the calories consumed in the UK are in ultra-processed foods. That figure rises to 65% for children and teenagers. We need action urgently. This is a health crisis; it is an epidemic.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, the hour is late and I shall be brief. The findings of the systematic review of the subject need to be taken into consideration. Screening of over 3,000 papers resulted in careful analysis of 254—quite a large number for a systemic review. Going through this, there are overall benefits. The benefits outweigh any documented harms, and I welcome the clause.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I am also aware of the hour, and offer Green support for the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. We are talking here about a cost-benefit analysis. Some of the costs on which I would focus, and their impacts, go beyond the narrowly medical impacts of the people who consume the water. The question I raised in Committee was whether people today actually consume tap water, and whether they will continue to do so. I made the point that 90% of people drank tap water in 1978, but that figure had fallen to 73% by 1998. I do not believe that there have been detailed national figures since then.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, for writing to me in response to that debate and providing a set of figures which the Government had researched. I will note two of the figures which the Minister cited in that letter. One was a 2010 Ipsos MORI survey in the West Midlands showing that two-thirds of surveyed people supported water fluoridation if it was going to improve dental health. That, of course, shows that a third of people are not supporting it. This is the group about which I am concerned—a group which I have encountered many times and in many parts of the country. I do not agree with all their concerns, but that is a fact.

I noted that the Minister also cited a north-east survey from 2021 where 60% of people backed water fluoridation. As the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, said, we are talking about people not having a choice about consuming that water, unless they choose to buy bottled water. Anyone going to a supermarket in Sheffield, particularly in its poorer areas, will see people buying bottled water in very large quantities. One of my concerns, and where I hope the cost-benefit analysis would come in, is looking at the sociological issues. The Government should be doing a great deal more to promote the consumption of tap water and to discourage the use of bottled water. However, as the Bill currently stands, it risks pointing us in the opposite direction.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, talked in Committee about how Liverpool City Council had very successfully engaged in a targeted programme to address the most vulnerable communities and ensure that dental health was improved. It demonstrably was improved.

The Minister said, “Oh well, any local authority can do the same thing.” I point out to him that local authorities’ budgets are enormously overstretched—something we have addressed in the social care elements of the Bill in particular. Would the Government consider perhaps taking the money that might be spent on fluoridation and giving it to local authorities for targeted campaigns to reach the children who need it most?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, for moving this amendment. I feel that we have discussed these issues at considerable length at previous stages of the Bill, so I do not wish to go over old ground, other than to say that the Royal Society for Public Health, the British Dental Association, the Chief Medical Officer and many others are very much in favour of greater fluoridisation because, on balance, there is strong scientific evidence that it is an effective public health intervention. In other words, it is the single most effective way to reduce oral health inequalities and tooth decay rates, especially among children, and it is, as your Lordships’ House knows, recommended by the World Health Organization. On all these positive points, I am very much inclined to agree, and do not feel that the amendment before your Lordships’ House would be helpful to support that intervention.

Ukraine

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 24th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

Yes. In the Statement, it was quite clear that the sanctions will also be applied to Belarus for its role.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, in responding to the Front-Bench questions, the noble Baroness the Leader of the House said the international community must speak as one. That is identifying it, I think rightly, as a world crisis, not just a European one, as it has sometimes been painted. I note the very powerful contribution from Kenya’s ambassador to the United Nations reflecting on his own country’s experience that the recovery from the “embers of dead empires” must be completed without creating new forms of oppression and domination. Will the UK go to the United Nations General Assembly to seek collective action under the uniting for peace procedure created by Resolution 377A, given that it is obvious that action by the Security Council would be blocked by Russia?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

The noble Baroness will be delighted to know that my noble friend hotfooted it back from the UN this morning and will no doubt be able to give more information on that in the debate tomorrow.

Health and Care Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 4th February 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

237: Clause 141, page 119, line 17, at end insert—
“(c) after subsection (2) insert—“(3) No financial assistance provided under this section may be used for the purposes of—(a) repaying debt;(b) paying interest on debt;(c) making distributions to shareholders.””Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that financial assistance given by the Secretary of State is not distributed to shareholders or used to repay debt obligations.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I will also speak to Amendments 238 and 239 in my name. Predatory and rent-seeking financial practices by investment firms and hedge funds, which are often based in tax havens and have extremely complex ownership structures, have placed unmanageable financial and human costs on the UK care sector. I first learned about this issue in 2016 from the brilliant Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change, which was then based in Manchester but is sadly no longer extant. Since then, the issue has become a staple on the pages of the Financial Times. If any noble Lord does not know about this issue, I urge them to look up “UK social care” on ft.com. They will see there a long string of stories from a publication that does not generally represent my side of politics saying how much of a problem this is.

I also note that, last week, the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, not currently in his place, initiated an Oral Question that highlighted some of the worst abuses in financialised care homes, from HC-One siphoning off 20% of its revenues to offshore affiliates through intra-group transactions to—as was highlighted by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, who may raise this again later—the industry average of 16% of the money going not to care but to the financial sector. The crisis is here and was further highlighted by the recent “Panorama” report.

What is lacking, however, and I have been looking for them since 2016, is solutions. How do we change this situation? It is worth pointing out that this is not how things have always been. Back in the 1980s, the NHS was generally known as a world leader for geriatric care, as it was then known, picking up half of the care sector for older people. In 1982, there were only 44,000 private care home beds. By 1994, there were 164,000. The number of charity, non-profit, local authority beds plummeted and the private sector came in or displaced the public.

The amendments to the Health and Care Bill that I am presenting today rely on the work of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Limits to Growth. Its excellent report covers these issues in much more detail than I have time to do today and I urge noble Lords to look at it. The group worked on and produced these amendments.

Amendment 237 takes what I think could be a deeply dangerous element of the Government’s Bill, which has received little attention thus far. It is the provision allowing for government support of private care facilities. This is not possible now. Amendment 237 would add the provision that these funds cannot be used to make payments on debt obligations for for-profit bodies or in distributions to shareholders—huge payouts that were highlighted in last week’s debate.

However, that takes us further, and it is interesting that the government amendment—I suspect unintentionally—actually gives us a way forward to start to unwind the privatisation, as there is a potential problem. We have already seen two major private care home crashes: Southern Cross in 2011 and Four Seasons Health Care in 2019. When—I will not say if—more crash, how do we start to move towards worker co-operatives, social enterprises, local authority homes and charity-run homes? How do we ensure that people can stay in those homes safely and be cared for, and not see the money siphoned off into offshore tax havens? We can use Clause 141 with this amendment for potentially very positive, even revolutionary, purposes.

Amendment 238 picks up a point that I often make that a foundation for tackling our out-of-control financial sector and ensuring that fair taxes are paid by companies is country-by-country reporting. The amendment requires any related companies within the same corporate group that are registered offshore to be under the same financial reporting and publication requirements as those bodies registered in the UK. That means that expenditure on dividends, directors’ fees, interest payment and similar would have to be fully and transparently declared. I have to ask the Minister: what does he have against transparency in the financial sector? What could the Government possibly have against seeing exactly where the money goes—whether it is the money of older, vulnerable people in our society or the state money that is supporting them? That is all that this amendment does; it demands that transparency.

These two amendments are not a total solution—I do not have a panacea for the situation—but they are a start, and that is why they combine with the third amendment in this group, Amendment 239, which calls for a review. It is a very simple, obvious amendment of a type often seen in your Lordships’ House. I note that I am joining the former Conservative Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who also recently called for a review of the funding. We see some unusual alliances in this House; this is an unusual alliance between the two Houses.

As we all know and has just been highlighted, the many hours of this debate have focused on what a mess the care sector is. These are the most vulnerable members in our society, and a significant part of that mess is because money is being siphoned away from their care. We can use the Bill, with these three modest amendments, to start to turn around that situation. I beg to move.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is taking part remotely. I invite her to speak.

--- Later in debate ---

I am afraid I cannot provide the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, with any comfort on these amendments. However, I hope I have been of some help to her and the Committee in explaining the Government’s position and what we are doing to address some of the important priorities associated with the adult social care agenda.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his courteous and comprehensive response, which was very useful. I very much thank all noble Lords who took part in this debate, which was a powerful exploration of the issues.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, talked about assets being milked. If we think about what we are actually talking about here—some of our most vulnerable citizens—and what is happening to them, that is a really crucial point. The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, talked about a stunning figure: £40,000 of debt per bed. If you think of that physically, visually, that is just unsustainable—a word the Minister himself used.

I particularly thank the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann; I hope the Government will listen to their noble friend. She made a comparison with the insurance sector and stressed that this is about people’s most basic security. These care homes—people’s homes—being ladened with debt in the circumstances we are talking about is supremely insecure.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, for raising the plight of workers. These are people who, both through the pandemic and just in their everyday lives, have gone above and beyond the call of duty to care for people. They do really difficult jobs paid at the absolute base level.

I actually take some comfort from the Minister’s response. I take his point about how Amendment 237 is worded on debt. It is meant to address the kind of debt held in hedge funds, not debt to the local linen washing service or something, and I will think about how that might be addressed in different terms.

I pick up what the Minister said about dividends. I suggest that, should a care home chain be rescued by the Government in a state of great financial crisis, it should pay that rescue money back before it pays out any dividends. The Minister talked about the use of public funds, and I could almost feel the House restraining itself, since we are in constructive Committee form, from giving any reaction at that point. If the Government wish to avoid future scandals, the transparency offered by these amendments or something like them would be an ideal way for them to do that.

We were discussing yesterday in Grand Committee the Registration of Overseas Entities Bill—how long it has taken, how much we have been waiting for it and how crucial it is. This is picking one sector, producing a trial run to see how it works and taking it forward immediately in an emergency situation where we cannot wait many years for change.

This has been a very useful debate. I note the expressions of support from all sides of the House, and I reserve the right to take this issue forward on Report. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 237 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

I will be very brief. I declare my chairmanship of the Communications and Digital Committee. A lot of powerful speeches have been made all around the House today and clearly, we are all united in our care and concern for the issue of child obesity. The complexity of what is proposed in this legislation has been illustrated to such an extent that there is a case for delaying implementing these measures so that it is got right.

But the main reason for my decision to speak in this debate is the issue of fairness, equal treatment and the difference in the way these regulations apply to broadcasters and to the online platforms. The noble Viscount, Lord Colville, and my noble friend Lord Black of Brentwood have already spoken in some detail about the inequality of treatment between broadcasters and news publishers, and the online platforms.

I spell out clearly that what we are talking about here is that responsibility for the control and compliance of advertising that appears on television or radio rests with broadcasters, which can be sanctioned severely with huge fines by regulators if they allow anything that is non-compliant to air. But responsibility does not rest with the online platforms, which take far more in profit from the advertising they publish on their sites than any broadcaster is able to. They are equally able to control what appears on their platforms, as the noble Viscount powerfully described. Could my noble friend the Minister therefore explain why the Government are not ensuring parity between broadcasters and the likes of Google and Facebook at the point of legislation, to ensure parity in the way this will be applied?

Also under the heading of fairness, I say that, in the case of the small manufacturers of the products affected by the advertising ban, I support the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, which ensures that the definition of “SME” in the Bill does not provide a loophole exempting large international manufacturers from these advertising restrictions just because they have a small workforce in this country.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I feel the need to balance the sides of this debate. I attached my name to Amendment 244 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. I associate myself with everything said by her and the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, in particular, as well as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, who gave powerful and well-evidenced presentations of why we need to see action here. Given the time and the fact that I have a train to catch, I will be brief.

The noble Lords, Lord Black and Lord Moylan, talked about freedom of speech—the freedom of the advertisers to push on to children whatever they want to push. I put against that the freedom to flourish and live a healthy life with a decent lifespan. The figures quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, illustrated that that is not being achieved and there is a deep inequality in our society.

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, talked about how difficult it would be to measure or separate out the impact of these measures. We are in a hugely obesogenic environment. We have this huge problem with obesity not because human nature has suddenly changed and people have lost self-control, but because they are bombarded and barraged from all sides with ultra-processed pap, which we should stop all advertising of. I do not think that “High in fat, sugar and salt” goes far enough. There is evidence that under-11s—primary school kids—cannot distinguish between adverts and editorial content, so we have to protect them.

Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Black, asked about the international comparisons. Perhaps one of the most obvious ones is Norway, which brought in a ban somewhat similar to this in 2012. It has struggled for the reasons outlined by many noble Lords. Indeed, a study was produced by Oslo Metropolitan University last year, using the categorisation of the WHO European Office for Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases. Eight out of 10 adverts that young people in Norway were seeing online were for unhealthy food. That is a problem, but it is an argument not for doing nothing but for tackling the whole obesogenic environment that our young people are growing up in, with demonstrable effects. Norway, which has taken similar action to that which we are talking about today, as have Spain, Portugal, Slovenia, Latvia and Lithuania—that is just a shortlist—has half the level of childhood obesity that we do, and it regards it as a serious problem.

Ukraine

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Wednesday 26th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, in responding to the Front-Benchers, the noble Baroness the Leader of the House said, regarding dirty money, “I accept there is more to do”. She may be aware of the report yesterday from the Center for American Progress, a think tank known for being close to the Biden Administration, suggesting what to do if Russia invades. In its recommendations, it mentions, at paragraph 1.2, the formation of a

“U.S.-U.K. counter-kleptocracy working group.”

It explains this by saying that the US should propose the working group

“in part to prod stronger action from the U.K. government.”

Will the UK Government be waiting for that prod, or will they take stronger action immediately, not in the long-term future?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

In answer to questions at the beginning, I set out a whole range of things that we have done, and are doing, to tackle money-laundering and economic crime. We will continue with that work.