Lobbying (Transparency) Bill [HL]

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 18th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

I will be moving Amendment 16A as well.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 16A is in this group and I am sure that my noble friend Lord Brooke will speak to it.

I want to be clear on one point on Amendment 28, which we will come to in due course and is about the ability to charge. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, may not like it but I think he is absolutely right—that is the end of his political career, but all our political careers are behind us—in that the regulators of virtually every sector, other than the Charity Commission, are funded by the sectors that they regulate. We have had an unhappy position with the Charity Commission when the Government were able to cut its funding, for understandable financial reasons. However, it leaves a regulator in some jeopardy if its running costs are, as in this case, in the hands of the Government—the very people who are being lobbied while we are trying to get a register of who is lobbying them. Amendment 28 is very important and I hope very much that my noble friend Lord Brooke will find it possible to accept this one.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, I have some difficulties with this amendment. I declared at the beginning that I had no interests but I have been helped very considerably by a couple of NGOs, Spinwatch and Unlock Democracy. They have been very big parties to the preparation of the Bill and, in fairness to them, they are very unhappy indeed about any movement on my part on the charges side. They make the fundamental point of principle that it is open to anyone to lobby. It should be free, and there should not be any charge for anybody who engages in it, whether they be the highest in the land or the lowest. In particular, they are concerned that if charges are introduced charities may find it difficult, as might small businesses which might like to play a part in lobbying in one form or another and would have to register and pay, and that would be an imposition on them. They are strongly in favour of resisting any attempt to move away from what the Bill proposes, which is that the Government should bear the cost. They point out that in virtually every country in the world where there is a lobbying or transparency Act, the funding is from the Government. Scotland put a Bill through last year. It is coming into place, and the cost will be met by the Scottish Government. If we continue with charges, we will have a different approach within the UK, assuming this Bill becomes an Act.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

My Lords, I think I am probably beginning to sound a bit repetitive, I am afraid, but there we are. These amendments would largely repeat a number of sections of existing legislation. The Government believe that existing legislation is effective as it stands and does not need to be supplemented.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

This is a slight aside, but I am sorry that the Government are taking this view. We know that they do not want the Bill, but it seems a shame that they are not engaging with how to make it as good as it can be—which the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, is doing—so that, should it become an Act, it can be made to work. I am sorry that the Government are taking the view that, because they do not like the whole Bill, they will not engage on its content. That is a small comment. There seems to be a slight loss of the expertise of the Cabinet Office and the Government to make this Bill as good as possible, even if, at the end of the day, we do not manage to get it on the statute book.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

As the noble Baroness obviously realises, the Government feel that the Act we already have is the right one. Our aim was for lobbying regulation to avoid unnecessary burdens, not to establish top-to-bottom regulation of all who lobby. That is why we set up an appropriate way to ensure high levels of transparency, but only in the specific areas of the lobbying industry where that was needed, and that is the Government’s position.

Public Contracts: Conflicts of Interest

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

Obviously, these appointments are the responsibility of each department, and each department follows the Civil Service Code, which sets out the process for dealing with any possible breaches. Essentially, cases are dealt with by the department according to its own processes and can ultimately be referred to the Civil Service Commission to investigate. The propriety and ethics team can give general advice on the application of the code.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, of course data protection does not prevent the people on that conflict of interest committee being willing to have their names released, so will the Minister tell us whether they can be asked to release their names? Will she also comment on the other big conflict of interest, which is the revolving door? The committee that looks at this for ministerial and civil servant retirees has never turned down any of those appointments, many of whom then turn up on exactly these committees but technically have no conflict of interest. Will she agree to review the terms of reference of that committee?

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

I do not think that I can go further than what I said about the Data Protection Act. As far as public appointments are concerned, we need to remember that there is a Commissioner for Public Appointments. Appointments come under the remit of that commissioner and they are made using the process from the commissioner’s Code of Practice for Ministerial Appointments to Public Bodies. This is a strong code of practice and it is backed up by the regulations under the Act—the Public Contracts Regulations 2015—which set out the requirement to take,

“appropriate measures to effectively prevent, identify and remedy conflicts of interest arising in the conduct of procurement procedures so as to avoid any distortion of competition and to ensure equal treatment of all economic operators”.

Party Funding Reform

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been an interesting debate on an important issue. There is a lack of trust in parties, and therefore in the political system, which is deeply unhealthy. We have a duty to work to restore confidence, and tackling political funding is a vital part of that. The Kelly Committee on Standards in Public Life emphasised not only that,

“the regulatory regime must be fair to all political parties”,

but also must be,

“widely believed to be so”.

As my noble friend Lord Whitty made clear, the then Trade Union Bill failed this test, addressing just one party’s source of funding—a view shared across your Lordships’ House. As we have heard, the House then set up a Select Committee to examine the union party funding in the context of Kelly’s view that a cross-party approach was needed. As we have heard, the Government were urged to take a wider and consensual route. Well, they did not, and the trade union aspect was the only one looked at, which has now been legislated for.

There will be an opt-in to the political levy for new members, even though these are a mere 10p per week. The Certification Officer is now consulting on how to implement this, after which there will be a year to put the new arrangements in place. That means that we now have time to rectify the imbalance of regulating Labour but not Conservative funding, and to deal with the bigger issue of companies’ and individuals’ largesse. It is urgent.

The Government are determined to remove the 15-year time limit for overseas voters, handing a vote for life to an estimated 1 million expats, who have left and not paid any taxes to this country for decades. But even more seriously, as the Minister helpfully revealed in her letter to me of 24 October—her department having refused to answer my questions for the year before that—all these extra voters will also become “permissible donors”. As she writes:

“If a British citizen is able to vote in an election for a political party, we consider that they should be able to donate to that political party”.

I cannot think what political party she had in mind.

Therefore, unless we change the law, all these extra voters, long after they have left these shores, will be able to funnel unlimited—presumably untaxed, probably unearned—amounts into the coffers of a UK political party, in a country in which they do not live, giving to a party that makes laws which do not apply to them and which takes decisions which do not affect them. Clearly, therefore, although the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, says that the Conservatives are content with existing donors, they are not—they want to add these extra expats as well. As the Mirror Online says about this today:

“Tycoons who have not lived or paid tax in the UK for decades will be able to fund political parties under new rules drawn up by the Tories … That means more foreign-based financiers will be able to push policy by pumping cash into the Conservative Party—where a £50,000 donation buys dinner with Theresa May as part of the ‘Leader’s Group’”,

as we heard today from both the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, and the noble Lord, Lord Leigh.

What does this look like to the general public? According to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, three-quarters of the public think that wealthy individuals influence government to benefit their own interests, and the noble Lord, Lord Bew, said that nine out of 10 people think that large donations are motivated by hopes of influence. We have to deal with this. We must keep it simple and clean. There must be an upper limit on the size of the donation any one person—or company, trade association or a body corporate—can give. That was once accepted by the Conservative Party. Its 2010 manifesto promised,

“an across-the-board cap on donations”,

to,

“mark the end of the big donor era”.

Notably, this was dropped from the 2015 manifesto. Perhaps the Minister can explain this regrettable omission when she comes to reply.

A cap on individual donations is urgently needed, and at a level which avoids any perception—let alone reality—of bought influence. As Kelly emphasised, only a low cap will be seen as taking,

“big money out of politics”.

He thought £10,000 was low, as the noble Lord, Lord Leigh of Hurley, clearly does. To me, £10,000 is high. It could amount to £50,000 over a parliament from one individual. That sounds like big money to me, and to voters, if not to the noble Lord, Lord Leigh. A lower cap would signify that we are changing. In addition, we should not be afraid to discuss adjustments to public funding. The free post will, over time, become less of a necessity, and could be better directed, as the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, says.

A healthy democracy requires properly run and accountable parties, able to undertake serious policy work as well as campaigns, able to train and develop its elected representatives, able to engage with the electorate, and with MPs able to serve their constituents. This is a price worth paying for a healthy, functioning democracy. If it needs more public funding, so be it. What it does not require is unlimited donations from rich individuals. This matter is urgent. I hope that the Minister will take back what she has heard to Downing Street, with the message: “Something must be done”.

Abortion (Disability Equality) Bill [HL]

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 21st October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

First, I pay a heartfelt tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, for his living testimony that disability is as much in the mind as in the body. As others have said, as we have recently witnessed at the Paralympics, many of us so-called able-bodied are indeed rather weak imitations of those either born with, or who later acquire, a physical or mental disadvantage.

Despite the contribution that disabled people make to national life and their human right to equality of treatment, there are, sadly, still huge hurdles in the way of many of them being able to pursue a full, and indeed fulfilled, life. The House does not need me to enumerate the physical barriers, whether access to transport, buildings, facilities or the availability of aids or support required, or the social and psychological barriers—in the minds of others, of course—in terms of expectation or discrimination, to say nothing of the lack of adequate resources to meet their additional needs. Of course, all this is not helped by the Government’s welfare reforms, which I hope the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, continues to rail against within his own party. Indeed, just yesterday in the House the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, said that,

“the Government have not removed the barriers between disabled people and jobs. There is a lack of transport and an unwelcoming workplace. What disabled people need—and I hope that this will be favourable to the Minister—is that all buses should be accessible with audiovisual information and all the taxi provisions of the Equality Act should be brought into force”.

The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester, noted:

“Up to 600 disabled people a week are losing their Motability cars because of the harsh PIP reassessment test”.—[Official Report, 20/10/16; cols. 2437-38.]

Therefore there remains much to do, in virtually every avenue of life, to improve the life chances and opportunities of disabled people so that they—and we—can benefit from them achieving their full potential.

However, I have to query whether a Bill, no matter how well intentioned, which could have the effect of forcing some 200 or 300 women a year to carry to full term a much-wanted and planned child, knowing it might not even see the light of day, or live just a few hours or days or face a life of pain and illness, is the best way of moving us further along the line of promoting equality and removing disability discrimination. The BMA, as well as the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare, and the British Maternal and Fetal Medicine Society all oppose the Bill, which they describe as neither “patient nor woman-centred” and which they think is about restricting abortion care, while the Genetic Alliance stresses that,

“abortion on grounds of foetal abnormality is an important component of the options available to a woman who discovers that she has a pregnancy affected by a serious genetic condition”.

As it says, genetic conditions can often come to a couple with no advance warning. Where it is due to an autosomal recessive condition, they are likely to have discovered the risk only during the pregnancy—a shocking, disappointing, often devastating discovery, and frequently of a condition serious enough to cause stillbirth or severe, eventually lethal, neonatal illness. These are voices we should heed, as the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, said, as they come from people who, day by day, deal with the women and children who would be affected by the Bill. In addition, I am sure that they deal with situations which I am certain the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, never meant to cover but which would be caught by his Bill.

We welcome the attention the noble Lord draws through the Bill to the continuing discrimination disabled people face, but this is not the way to improve their lives.

House of Lords Bill [HL]

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 21st October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the initiative of the noble Lord, Lord Elton, in bringing the Bill forward because it deals with a topical and, I think, urgent issue on which this House must take a lead. I am also delighted that the noble Baroness the Minister and I are able at last to reflect the women in the House. If we do come to any method for reducing the numbers here, a gender allocation will be high on our list of considerations. The noble Lord, Lord True, referred to selection being done in the Bishops’ Bar. To spare their blushes, we should make it clear that it is a coffee bar that I have never seen a bishop enter.

I rarely repeat anything the SNP says—but, as it has no representatives here, I will, for once, endorse its words in the other place this week when it expressed concern about the size of the House of Lords, which,

“with more than 800 members, is considerably larger than the elected House of Commons … there is no case … for the number … to exceed the number of members of the democratically elected House”.

The SNP said that it,

“cannot condone any Government action that may increase the number of unelected members while reducing the number of elected Members of Parliament”—

as has just been referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard. It called on the Government—splitting an infinitive—

“to significantly reduce the number of unelected Lords”,

and,

“to abandon any plans to reduce the number of Members of Parliament”.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/10/16; col. 876.]

Two years ago, Labour Peers concluded that the House had to reduce its size—since when, of course, it has grown significantly. The fault, although he has not been named, lies, I am afraid, fairly and squarely with David Cameron, who, despite the 2015 manifesto promise to reduce the size of the Lords, handed out life peerages at a faster rate than any other Prime Minister since their introduction in 1958—some 260 since the 2010 election. At a cost of more than £100,000 each, that is some £30 million—and this despite his party’s repeated rhetoric that it wants to cut the cost of politics. Furthermore, as Professor Meg Russell has shown, he has appointed a greater proportion of government Peers, with fewer for the Cross Benches and the Opposition. It is time to take action.

We support the very modest Bill referred to by others, introduced by my noble friend Lord Grocott, to end hereditary by-elections. Surely it is right in itself, and a tiny step on size, but it is too modest to take us anywhere near the size of the Commons. So we need more—and parts of this Bill point the way. There must, however, be some serious debate about the actual size, the freedom of a Prime Minister to appoint at will, as has been mentioned, and the balance of composition. Freezing as of today will not attract consensus. Indeed, without clear agreement on an appropriate balance between the parties and the Cross Benches, it is unlikely that there will be consensus on a way forward.

This Government—the first Conservative one without an effective majority here—seem to dislike having their will challenged. But that is our role. Their action on numbers seeks to undermine a balanced House to which an Executive must listen. Indeed, the Conservatives became the largest party in the Lords after just three years of minority party government. Tony Blair, the Labour Prime Minister, has been referred to; it took him three successive general election victories—two of which, we must recall, were landslides with majorities of 174 and 167—before Labour became the largest party in the Lords in 2005. Yet only just over a year into the first majority Conservative Government, and with a majority of only 12 in the other place, the Tories are now 50 ahead of Labour. So how we move forward on size has to include consideration of the role of the House and whether it is right to engineer a government political majority.

The Liberal Democrats, as the noble Lord, Lord True, mentioned, are greatly overrepresented here compared with their eight Members in the Commons. It is hard to justify the continuation of this, as I fear the current Bill would allow. The issue is one of balance between the Government, the Opposition and the Cross Benches. As always, we welcome the very non-political spiritual Members. Cementing the currently engineered relative numbers between those groups might not attract the wide political support which we will need for any move forward. This will probably be the issue that most needs addressing before we look at how each political grouping should be reduced pro rata. Perhaps we might move to an all-female House and do it that way.

The hope today from this Bill is that the Government will see size as the “incremental” step referred to by the Minister on 9 September when she said that the noble Baroness, Lady Evans of Bowes Park,

“looks forward to working with Peers to support incremental reform”.—[Official Report, 9/9/16; col. 1251.]

I hope, too, that the Bill moved by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, will nudge the powers that be to ensure that, before we move out of this building, we, too, have our own restoration and renewal to make ourselves fit for purpose.

Franchise: British Citizens Abroad

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

This has nothing to do with the EU referendum. That was run under the Westminster franchise. This is a completely different set of rules, and the idea is to bring it in with primary and secondary legislation.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I have twice asked the Minister’s predecessor—or perhaps three times—whether this means that such people will then become permitted donors. This is serious: it means that non-doms, who may not have lived here for 50 years, who may not have paid income tax for 50 years and who have no real interest in this country, would be able to be permitted donors, and foreign money could pour into our political parties.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

All those things are under consideration. I think that what the noble Baroness says is unlikely to be the case, but I will get back to her to make sure that that is correct.

Lobbying (Transparency) Bill [HL]

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Friday 9th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, am delighted to welcome the Bill and do so on behalf of the Opposition. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Brooke for his careful work in the preparation as well as the presentation of the Bill. He and I have worked together to seek to reduce alcohol-related harm, and time and again, we have seen that big business with special interests has enormous influence, all of it out of sight of the public. Indeed, as my noble friend Lady Kennedy recounted, there is public scepticism about the power of corporates to influence government.

When the Government introduced the transparency of lobbying Bill, their stated aim—as the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, confessed—was to produce transparency; it was in the title of the Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Norton, said, as the Minister in the Commons said—he was then Andrew Lansley; he is now the noble Lord, Lord Lansley,

“the public should be able to see how third parties seek to influence the political system”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/9/2013; col. 169.]

That objective, via the Act’s register of lobbyists, has failed lamentably. Not only did the register omit 80% of lobbying, as we warned it would at the time, because only consultants were included and because of its limited scope, but even on its own terms it is a sad and expensive failure that has achieved nothing. In total, it has had just 1,251 hits on its website—I think that my blogs from here get more than that—at a cost of some £600,000. Contrary to what the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, says, only half of that is paid for by those on the register; the rest is paid out of public funds. With those sorts of numbers, given how often rather sad anoraks such as me together with campaigners such as Unlock Democracy and Spinwatch as well as lobbyists themselves check up on it, of the 373 hits in the past six months cited by my noble friend Lord Brooke, which amounts to some 15 people a week, five of those people are probably in the Chamber today or watching us on their screens. It is absolutely not the public.

A list of consultant lobbyists is doing nothing for transparency, although its scope was always so tiny that it was never going to achieve very much. As others have said, the vast majority of lobbying is done not by a handful of consultant public affairs companies but direct from company to government via their professional in-house public affairs or parliamentary affairs teams. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, said that we know who is lobbying—Heathrow is lobbying. We know that because it has put up big adverts between where you leave the Tube and come into this House. However, that is not how most of it is done. The public do not know what the trade associations are doing. One amendment we moved which was not accepted was to include trade associations, which do so much of this lobbying but completely unknown to the public.

Since the noble Lord, Lord Beith, raised the point, let us look at the defence industry, which directly hires former MoD civil servants or ex-Ministers. They do not need to go to some consultancy to have the ear of government; they pick up their phone and speak direct. We know that well from the quote that my noble friend Lord Howarth gave of David Cameron’s description of it—and I could not put it better myself.

What is more, contrary to what the Minister said in our debate yesterday, it is not the case that the Government’s own register shows on whose behalf a consultant firm is lobbying a Minister. It requires it only to list its clients; it does not show when a meeting takes place on behalf of which of those clients nor, importantly, on what subject that meeting is taking place. That is the statutory register. However, there is no possible reason why ministerial diaries could not show those details, and that would not even require the kind of legislation that the poor then Andrew Lansley had to spend a lot of time dealing with. If only the diaries were timely, searchable and comprehensive, that would reveal more than the current register does. At present, it is simply no good relying on ministerial diaries.

Despite what the Minister’s predecessor, the noble Lord, Lord Bridges of Headley, wrote to me on 27 May, that delays in publishing had now been overcome and that they are,

“in open, searchable CSV”—

whatever that means—

“formats,

the meetings logs are all published in different places. To assess meetings data, the public have to search department by department. It is time consuming and does seem to be a determined barrier to transparency. If they really believed in openness, why on earth have the Government not brought all the meetings data together into a single, searchable database on GOV.UK?

Furthermore, if a minister meets a company in a so-called private capacity, without civil servants, that does not even get listed. Even if a meeting is listed, it gives little away, as the noble Lord, Lord Beith, said. Of 79 meetings with lobbyists attended by MoD Ministers, 44 were described as, “discuss defence issues”, or “defence issues”, and 11 as “company site visits”. As the noble Lord alluded to, the Department for Transport similarly had dozens of meetings labelled “rail discussion” or “aviation discussion”. I would have been surprised if they had been discussing the latest Paralympic results. Over at the Department of Health, of 27 meetings with Jeremy Hunt, one-quarter were “catch-up discussions”. There was no disclosure of the policy area, along the lines suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Norton.

There are major shortfalls in the 2014 Act, all of which we pointed out during its passage through this House. It ignores in-house professional lobbyists. That is not someone from a garage, who is not paid to be a lobbyist, ringing up a department: let us put things like that to one side. It ignores lobbying of senior civil servants. An amendment we put down on that was rejected. It ignores lobbying of all politicians other than Ministers, including the chairs of select committees, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Bew. It ignores the lobbying of SPADs. Despite the amendment proposed in this House to include that power, it has not been introduced. I am, therefore, very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and welcome his question on that. It ignores soft lobbying of Ministers, out of sight of their civil servants. This has to change, for the sake of our democracy. As has been stressed, this has never been more urgent than now, with the seismic Brexit decisions about to be taken, as mentioned by my noble friends Lord Brooke and Lord Howarth.

Today, the Government should heed the wise words of the noble Lord, Lord Bew, that this question cannot be left where it is. As the noble Lord, Lord Norton, said, finding fault with this Bill and doing nothing else is not acceptable. The Bill will achieve real openness, for the public, for taxpayers and for all of us to see. We wish it well and hope that the Government will really listen to the comments that have been made: the present situation is just not good enough.

House of Lords Act 1999 (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Friday 9th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a fascinating and educative debate for me, having heard from at least two of the people who contributed to that early 1999 agreement which we are debating. It is a great pleasure to congratulate my noble friend Lord Grocott on his Bill, and particularly on his introduction of it. On behalf of the Opposition, I give it the very warmest of welcomes. There are a thousand reasons for supporting it, not least the 1,000 sons of earlier honoured men who have in the past taken their seats here, not because of their own attributes, but because of those of their forebears. Today, there are none such in that the hereditaries now here, although they do indeed have to have honoured forebears, had also to be elected, or selected, by their peers in order to take or retain their seats.

Despite the fact that hereditaries are now elected, I am certain that in the 21st century there can be few who think that in future our legislators should be chosen by virtue of the deeds of their grandfathers—sometimes their great-grandfathers or great-great-grandfathers—rather than for what they themselves bring to the House. As has been said, the overwhelming majority of today’s hereditaries have shown their value to the House, and many would be here anyway as life Peers, given their accomplishments, so the time has come, not to say farewell to any of them, but simply to say that when they leave us, due to retirement or a higher calling, they should not be replaced.

The question asked was interesting because they would not necessarily—or at least it would be very unlikely—be replaced by their own son but by the son of another hereditary Peer. There would be a by-election and it would be someone else’s son who would select them, even though their son would be eligible to be put into the mix.

A number of speakers have said that we are too big and that our size must be reduced. Sadly, that plea fell on the very deaf ears of the former Prime Minister but as the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, and my noble friend Lord Anderson reminded us, that plea has now been repeated by the Lord Speaker, who referred to the shame of the unelected House being larger than the democratically elected one. We see that trend is continuing as the Government seem intent on further reducing the size of the other House while increasing the size of this one. That has led to Charles Walker, the chair of the Procedure Committee in the other place, saying that the planned reduction of 50 MPs is unjustified,

“while the Lords continues to gorge itself on new arrivals”.—[Official Report, Commons, 8/9/16; col. 502.]

That view was echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Robathan. Of course, it is not we who are gorging ourselves; someone else is feeding the beak.

As my noble friend Lord Anderson and, in another way, my noble friend Lady Smith said, a seat in this noble House is a job, not an honour. We should do everything possible to make that clear to the Prime Minister as well as to the public. Surely as part of that call for a reduction in size, we should do something about this ourselves by taking this very modest measure to very slightly and slowly reduce our numbers.

Peers on this side of the House and other noble Lords who have spoken today would prefer greater changes discussed via a constitutional convention rather than by piecemeal measures, but the Government have obviously turned their face from this approach, so we believe the current Bill is appropriate. It is a tidy and measured reasonable step. As the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said, it is incremental, and my noble friend Lord Haskel said that it is a small step to help this House more fully reflect today’s politics and today’s population.

We have heard different views. Some people say that incremental change is the way that this country works best, but others say that incremental change is the last thing we want. I guess I am with the conservatives. I like those small incremental stages, so I will take this Bill.

As my noble friend Lord Anderson said, we will, I assume, be moving to the QEII Centre. Surely we should not be asking the taxpayer to fund the move of more than 800 of us to that new venue. This is surely the time for us to take this small step.

I shall speak briefly on two further things. The first is the conversation—if I may put it that way—that took place between the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, about the role of this House as an independent voice against the Government. It is for that reason that I—and I think I am probably standing to the side of the Front Bench—do not support an elected House. My reason for supporting an appointed House is the one the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, enunciated, although, as I think I heard from behind me, I think that all life Peers take that responsibility very seriously. It is not just the hereditaries.

As the first woman in today’s debate, I shall make a little plea about women because it is not, on the whole, us who appear this way. The Minister has far more noble blood in her veins than I have, but I am certain that she is delighted that she is here because of her own abilities rather than because of anything else, and that is the way I hope anyone should take their seat here.

We wish this Bill well. We hope very much that the Government are not going to have a knee-jerk reaction and say, “It’s not the time. We’ve got Brexit and other things. It’s just not a priority”. If they say that, change will never happen, so I urge them to think very carefully and give time to allow this Bill to proceed.

[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords, before the noble Baroness sits down, will she confirm that the Labour Party no longer honours the undertaking given in 1999?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

The Labour Party is very much in support of this Bill.

Civil Society and Lobbying

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2016 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

That this House takes note of the role that charities, trade unions and civil society groupings play in a democracy, including the provision of advice and information to government, and of the case for regulating lobbying activities, including those undertaken by business and private interests.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I notice that after this debate there will be a “Statement on grammer schools”—spelt with an “er”. Oh, it has been changed to an “ar”—congratulations. I wondered whether it referred to “crammer” schools.

I am delighted to open this debate, during which I predict we will hear amazing stories of the brilliant work done by charities, large and small, local and national, which form part of the rich tapestry of civic life. Britain is well known for the Olympics, the Paralympics, warm beer, cricket, football, weather and the Royal Family, but also for our charities and a major political party having been created by voluntary organisations—that is, the trade unions—which represented manual workers at a time when they had no voice in Parliament. Indeed, well before the unions established the Labour Party, they were lobbying on behalf of their members, their families and their communities.

Likewise, charities have transformed society, often driven by extraordinary individuals such as Lord Rix, whose death we recorded so sadly on Monday, who not only ensured that support was available to families but also campaigned on their behalf. He was a shining example of where not only the individual’s own experience but organisations representing such groups give voice to their beneficiaries.

However, despite the role that charities played in providing education, health, pensions and insurance—before the state took responsibility—and despite the testimony of your Lordships about the current work of charities, the Government have sought to clip the wings of charities, and of government-funded independent organisations such as universities, by restricting their ability to share their expertise with decision-makers, be that Government or Parliament. They similarly set out to curtail trade unions by undermining their funding.

What is extraordinary is that, even as they sought to hamper charities’ efforts on behalf of clients, the Government did nothing to increase transparency or lobbying by big business. Neither commercial interests nor the media are constrained in their attempts to influence government, while charities experience a “chilling” effect on their duty to speak on behalf of beneficiaries, as I am sure we will shortly hear from the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries.

I am not against legitimate lobbying by industry. Businesses need to thrive and they are helped in that by having understanding of legislative, trade and financial frameworks. However, that lobbying should be open, transparent and regulated, particularly where it may be about international interests gaining secret access to government. However, despite David Cameron’s warning that lobbying was the next scandal waiting to happen, his Government’s so-called register of lobbyists actually omits lobbying by in-house public affairs departments and it ignores lobbying of senior civil servants, Peers, MPs and even chairs of Select Committees completely. We will return to this tomorrow when we debate the lobbying Bill of my noble friend Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe.

The issue today is how to promote, encourage and enhance the ability of those without access to power, influence or big money to get their voice heard in our democracy. The Government do not seem to share that objective. Their lobbying and transparency Act left the private sector well alone, even as it tied up charities in red tape and served to chill their work. This was quite unnecessary, given that the combined third sector campaign spend in 2015, at below £2 million, was under 5% of the parties’ spend and probably less than the cost of recording and regulating it.

We will also hear shortly from the noble lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, whose own review of that Act concluded it did not have the right balance with regard to charities’ activities and had produced a “chilling effect” on these. As if the Act had not clipped charities’ wings enough, the Charity Commission then warned them off from becoming involved in the EU referendum. Even that was capped when the Cabinet Office proposed that any independent organisation in receipt of public money should not use it to inform or advise Government or, indeed, even the European Union. No academic would be able to give evidence to a Select Committee. No safety charity would be able to work for better EU regulations. No adoption and fostering charity would be able to advise the Government on better legislation or policy to achieve the Government’s own aim of speeding up such processes.

As the animal welfare charities wrote to us,

“We are closest to the issues. Every day, we see the impact of a lack of education and of the mistreatment of animals. It is essential for the quality of public policy that, as the experts in our field, we can shine a spotlight on emerging issues that have not yet been picked up by policy makers. Evidence based on the frontline experience of charities such as ours is an absolutely indispensable part of effective policy development”.

Historic England, the National Trust, Coram, which helps vulnerable children, Save the Children, which works in conflict zones, and charities demining in former war zones or preventing HIV/AIDS all have expert advice to proffer but are threatened with silence by the Government. Sensibly, that particular nonsense has been set aside, but it is against a background of pressure on any charity with public funding to hold its tongue, even when it seeks to further its objective and help beneficiaries.

Civil Exchange, in its review of the voluntary sector in 2016, felt forced to title its report Independence in Question after detailing numerous attacks on the ability of independent organisations to speak out on behalf of beneficiaries—not only the no-advocacy clauses in grant agreements but a flagrant disregard of the compact agreement signed with the voluntary sector, which promised to respect and uphold the independence of civil society organisations to deliver their missions, including their right to campaign regardless of any financial relationship. When the Refugee Council faced a no-advocacy clause in contracts, its CEO protested that it was,

“axiomatic … that any independent service provider should be free to speak out, without fear or favour”.

The head of Nia, a charity working to counter violence against women, said:

“Increasingly, state funding is driving us into a narrow service delivery role … required to act as an arm of the state rather than as an independent NGO”.

Indeed, some charities fear that mission is following money, rather than the other way round, while the Government dictated that housing associations sell off some of their properties, regardless of the long-term needs and underlying missions of those charities.

The value of trade unions from the 19th century was not just in representing workers vis-à-vis employers but in speaking up for workers and their families within the political sphere, leading to the factory Acts, the ending of child labour, free school meals, compulsory education, old-age pensions and unadulterated food and drink. So it is with charities. They do not simply relieve poverty, important though that is; they seek to prevent it and to give voice to the voiceless—be those children here or abroad, in war zones or in famine areas—drawing on their experience to relieve the causes of poverty or distress.

My noble friend Lord Judd, who is recovering from surgery so cannot be with us today, has run or been involved in a host of charities. That led him to become totally convinced of the role that civil society can, and indeed must, play in a healthy democracy. That was demonstrated to him particularly during the bitter conflicts of Chechnya and the north Caucasus, when he saw the Russians harassing and curbing the activities of NGOs. There is, says my noble friend, an overwhelming responsibility for NGOs to be able to speak out with the “authority of engagement”. I could not put it better.

We need the voice of charities and of their knowledge but also the voice of their beneficiaries. I hope the Government will take this need seriously. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I thank the Minister and all the speakers. I obviously regret that the response to the report from the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, was not forthcoming. I look forward to hearing the outcome of the meeting and I hope that it might be transmitted to the whole of your Lordships’ House.

I also regret that the Government are only pausing the anti-advocacy clause. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Black, who said that charities provide care and voice. That has been the overwhelming view of those who have spoken today. The front-line experience—that day-to-day contact that charities have—is essential to feed back into the legislative process, adding a voice that would not otherwise be heard. My noble friend Lord Chandos may be right when he says that the Government seem to want a silent society. It is no good saying that charities can find other funds for their policy and advocacy work. As my noble friend Lord Griffiths said, that is fine if you are running a charity looking after children, or indeed animals. It is very easy to raise money then. However, it is much more difficult if you are doing it for unpopular causes. Those of us involved in those areas are highly dependent on public funds and there is not necessarily other money available to look after those broader interests.

I should have declared my interest as a charity trustee and, indeed, as a proud member of the National Trust. If every organisation were as popular as that, we should all be very grateful. We have heard today about the extraordinary work being done by NOAH, Unionlearn, St John Ambulance, the Cat Protection League, Quick Reads, Carers and all sorts of organised charities, the stress on their potential for innovation and about the fruits of their experience that otherwise are not discovered. Therefore, I hope that the Minister’s final words about listening and taking back our comments to whichever department they concern will happen. I think that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby said that these charities are a precious part of our democratic ecology. To continue their work they need a relationship with the Government which is not where it is at the moment. At present, they feel that the Government want to tie them up in anti-advocacy clauses and prevent them lobbying. That surely is not good for any of us.

On behalf of the whole House, I add my thanks to my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley, the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, and the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, who have taken on particular roles. We look forward to the future work of the Select Committee. Charities are much loved by this House. We hope that we can trust the Government to be a great help rather than a hindrance to them.

Motion agreed.

Civil Service Fast Stream

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

My noble friend makes an extremely good point. Apprenticeships will be key. The high-level apprenticeship talent programme aims to bring in 750 people this year, and around 18% of highers come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. I will write to her specifically on the point about the fast stream.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

Will the Minister ensure that the Cabinet Office team being put together under Oliver Robbins in the new European Union unit will be gender-balanced and representative of all our nations and regions, as well as of the population, to ensure that the interests of the whole country are central to the preparation for the Brexit negotiations?

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

The noble Baroness makes a good point. As the head of the Civil Service has pointed out, we are determined to make sure that we get the brightest and best to negotiate and advise on an outcome that represents the views of our entire society. I am unable to go beyond that at this precise juncture.