Georgia

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Brinton]

To ask His Majesty’s Government, following the Foreign Secretary’s statement on 9 December concerning attacks on protesters and journalists by authorities in Georgia, whether they plan to sanction those involved in the elections in that country.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Collins of Highbury) (Lab)]

My Lords, in his statement on 9 December, the Foreign Secretary called for violence towards protesters and journalists in Georgia to stop. Until Georgian Dream halts its move away from European democratic norms and freedoms, the United Kingdom is suspending programme support to the Georgian Government, restricting defence co-operation and limiting engagement with representatives of Georgian Dream. It would not be appropriate to speculate about future sanctions designations, as to do so would reduce their impact.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I am grateful for the Minister’s response. Georgian Dream, the pro-Putin party of unconstitutional actions and democratic backsliding, last Saturday appointed a new President, having cancelled the people’s presidential elections. Protests continue to grow in towns and cities across Georgia, but security threats and police violence against protesters—including killings—are growing and worsening daily. Will the Government seriously consider following the examples of Estonia in sanctioning Georgia’s Prime Minister and 13 officials, and of the European Council, which yesterday agreed to suspend visas for all Georgian officials?

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I think the noble Baroness will know that I will repeat that it would not be appropriate to speculate on future sanctions designations, as to do so would reduce their impact. I repeat what my honourable friend Minister Doughty said yesterday when he

“reiterated in the clearest terms to Georgian Dream representative … that police violence and arbitrary arrests in Georgia are unacceptable”.

He said:

“The UK will consider all options to ensure those responsible are held accountable”.

Lords Spiritual (Women) Act 2015 (Extension) Bill [HL]

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 10th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I remember with real excitement Petertide in 1994, because my school friend Angela Berners-Wilson was ordained and, because of the timing of the ordination service and the fact that her name began with B, she was the first woman ordained that day and is deemed to be the first woman ordained in the Church of England.

I was equally excited the day that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester joined your Lordships’ House as the first woman diocesan bishop. Rachel Treweek started a new part of history for women in our country. However, it would be more correct to say that women spiritual returned to your Lordships’ House because, even before Magna Carta and the King’s Council, it was noted by Gurdon, in his antiquities of Parliament, that

“ladies of birth and quality sat in council with the Saxon Witas”.

In Wighfred’s great council at Becconfeld in AD 694, abbesses sat and deliberated. Five of them signed decrees of the council, along with the king, bishops and nobles.

More significantly, during the reigns of Henry III and Edward I, four abbesses were summoned to Parliament. They were from Shaftesbury, Barking, Winchester, and Wilton. Noble Lords may wonder why I go back so far in history. I grew up near Shaftesbury and my mother was involved in the archaeology at Shaftesbury Abbey around that time and we, as a family, were brought up on the story of the Abbess of Shaftesbury.

It is important to note the contribution of our women Bishops. I believe they strengthen the Spiritual Benches and your Lordships’ House through a combination of wisdom and bringing their own worldly experience to the House.

It is such a shame that the Church of England has to revisit this issue, as it was hoped back in 2015 that 10 years would be long enough to ensure that there were enough women diocesan bishops that the Lords spiritual would have some semblance of a gender balance. As somebody who had to organise gender balance among parliamentary candidates in my party, I realise that it is never an exact science. While there is welcome progress, the Lords spiritual still have the lowest proportion of females in the main groupings, at 24%.

It is a most unusual situation and arrangement to have places in a nation’s legislature determined by a process within a Church and by an external organisation, albeit one whose rules pass in this Parliament. Gender balance of the composition of the legislature is reliant on that process working, so unusual is perhaps a bit of an understatement.

My concern is that one has to reflect on whether extending the law will work or could in fact be a perverse incentive not to appoint women as diocesan bishops. Is this one of the reasons that only two of the last 11 appointments have been women? Without the extension, only men on the Lords spiritual waiting list would join the House, but even with the Bill we could end up with only men. In the next five years there are 14 retirements due, and the replacements—bar the Bishop of Peterborough, who will replace the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester—would be men. Surely that would be unfortunate, to say the least. Two of the last three vacancies have failed to appoint.

Surely this is also avoiding the well-overdue question of how many bishops, if any, should be in Parliament—a matter last considered in 1878, which is recent history for your Lordships’ House. One cannot also ignore that there are 31 Church of England bishops if one includes the retired archbishops and bishops on the Cross Benches: one of Oxford, one of London, two of Canterbury and one of York. A possible solution might be to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the 1878 Act with either a sunset clause of this Bill in 2028 or a review, which would give the Church time to sort out the process. It has 10 years under its belt; another five might help.

Also, frankly, given the aims of the current Government, it is a good point to review the composition of the Lords more generally. If His Majesty’s Government achieve their aim, the hereditary Peers will no longer be here and perhaps it will be time to move on to the next stage of reforms for your Lordships’ House.

Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 Report

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

On the first point that my noble friend raises, there is an issue about deregulation, which should always be seen in the context of what is appropriate; it is not about the numbers of regulations that we have. Most importantly, what struck me when reading this report was that, although deregulation was certainly part of the issue, honesty and dishonesty were an even greater part. Parts of the report refer to deliberately concealing from the market the true extent of the danger, systematic dishonesty, how a company embarked on a dishonest scheme to mislead its customers in the wider markets, as well as a deliberate strategy to continue selling those products in the face of a statement about the fire performance which they knew to be false. The scale and depth of the dishonesty there is extraordinary. So regulation is important, but the point about honesty, misleading information and systematic failures runs so through deeply throughout this that there are multiple threads to the failure.

On resources, the Prime Minister has made it clear that they should be made available to ensure that prosecutions can be brought, if that is the view of the police and the CPS, and that they will have the resources to do so.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, six people died in the Lakanal House fire. The coroner said in that inquest, published in 2013, that, if Lakanal House had had sprinklers, not one of those six deaths would have happened. While it is good that the Government have accepted the need to review the height of 18 metres, there has been no mention about sprinklers, not just in new buildings but in tall, older buildings. Will the Government reconsider ensuring that sprinklers are retrofitted, particularly in the most high-rise flats? Also, while the Statement recognises the need for residential personal emergency evacuation plans, can the Minister please confirm that work will be done with disabled communities before decisions are made, which did not happen with the previous Government when they created their interim versions earlier this year?

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

Yes; the noble Baroness is right that we have to engage with those who will be directly affected. Work is ongoing on that now. On the point about sprinklers, it is one of many solutions in terms of reducing the risk of damage from fire. Sometimes it can actually be quite difficult to do. All options are open in looking at how to ensure that buildings are safe.