List of Ministers’ Interests and Ministerial Code
Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts(1 year, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, for the avoidance of doubt for the Minister, the Question is in two parts, about first the ministerial register of interests, and secondly the Ministerial Code, and my question is specifically about the Ministerial Code. She will know that finally the Prime Minister has appointed an ethics adviser. Officially the adviser’s title is “the independent adviser on ministerial interests”, but I ask whether she considers the job title somewhat misleading. Only the Prime Minister can decide to initiate an investigation and only the Prime Minister has a veto as the sole arbiter of whether the code has been broken. Either the adviser has the independence that the job title implies, or at minimum should be able to investigate. In the interests of integrity and clarity, should the job title not be changed to “the Prime Minister’s adviser on ministerial interests”? It is very hard to see where the independence applies. Will the Minister tell the House whether she considers that change to be appropriate?
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville- Rolfe) (Con)
I do not think we should make the change that the noble Baroness suggests. I draw the House’s attention to the fact that the terms of reference for the role of the independent adviser were strengthened in May 2022 when the noble Lord, Lord Geidt, was in the post. The changes made expanded the powers of the independent adviser, in particular giving the office holder the ability to initiate investigations. Where the independent adviser considers that an alleged breach of the Ministerial Code warrants further investigation and that has not already been referred to him, he may initiate an investigation. Before doing so, he will consult the Prime Minister, who will normally give his consent.
I am very pleased that we now have the independent adviser and, for completeness, I should revert to one or two of the points made in response to this Question when it was asked yesterday in the other place. The list of Ministers’ interests was published by the independent adviser on Ministers’ interests on 19 April. The list is not exhaustive but is designed to be read in conjunction with the register of interests in this House, which we all complete. I am very happy to answer further questions in relation to the list of Ministers’ interests, which has now been published in relation to all 120 Ministers.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, can I therefore ask the Minister a further question in relation to the list of Ministers’ interests? Does she agree that, in the interests of accountability, it needs to be updated regularly on the same monthly basis as the register of Members’ interests rather than a couple of times a year at best, as has recently been the case? More generally, does she accept that the Civil Service provides advice to Ministers with impartiality and integrity, and to argue that this is not the case, as some Ministers and former Ministers have done in recent days, is unfair, untrue and damaging to Civil Service morale?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
The noble Lord asks why the register is not updated on a monthly basis in the same way as the register of interests that applies in our House and in the other place. It is important to understand that they are different. The list published by the independent adviser is a list: it is published every six months as the public endpoint of an ongoing process. Ministers’ interests are declared on appointment and on an ongoing basis to Permanent Secretaries, and are reviewed by the independent adviser. Any changes have to be notified in real time but, because of the nature of ministerial office, the number of new interests is normally fairly small at any point in time, so it makes sense to publish a new list every six months. There was a delay because of changes in government, which the noble Lord will be well aware of.
I started life as a civil servant and I have worked as a Minister with many brilliant civil servants, a view I know is shared by my colleagues. I believe in an independent Civil Service, and its fearless and impartial advice is vital to this country.
Baroness Donaghy (Lab)
My Lords, is it not true that the so-called independent adviser is still a creature of the Prime Minister? The Committee on Standards in Public Life made a number of recommendations to improve the situation, most of which were not adopted. Will the Government reconsider those recommendations from the committee and adopt them so that this position could be seen to be genuinely independent and not a creature of the Prime Minister?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
The Government’s work on reforms to strengthen ethics and integrity in central government is now nearing conclusion and we hope to publish our response soon. There have been a number of reports, including Upholding Standards in Public Life, the recommendations of Sir Nigel Boardman’s report on supply chain finance, and PACAC’s fourth report, so we can look forward to a response.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, we welcome the belated publication of the latest version of ministerial interests. There is a related document which we are also impatiently awaiting, which is the Cabinet Manual. The Government have promised that they will publish it within the foreseeable future, and I understand that there is already a draft in Whitehall. Can the Minister give us any indication of when that Cabinet Manual draft will be complete and will be published?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
Work is in progress and it will be published in due course.
Lord Watson of Wyre Forest (Lab)
The Tolley report into the former Deputy Prime Minister spends a lot of time listing the sources he used to define “bullying”, but concludes that his role
“is not to determine as a matter of law what ‘bullying’ means for the purpose of the Ministerial Code”.
Given that the former Deputy Prime Minister disputes that he was a bully, and that other Ministers have supported him, does the Minister think it would be wise for the Prime Minister to amend the Ministerial Code to put his definition of bullying into it, so there is no ambiguity going forward?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
Since the noble Lord mentions the former Deputy Prime Minister, I remind the House that he made an important contribution to the country, not least by his work during the pandemic. On a personal note, he supported me and indeed the Bench opposite on justice for retail workers facing harassment. He felt obliged to resign following the Tolley report, and I respect his decision. The noble Lord may have seen the letter to the former Deputy Prime Minister from the Prime Minister. It said,
“it is clear that there have been shortcomings in the historic process that have negatively affected everyone involved. We should learn from this how to better handle such matters in future”.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, the Tolley report, which looked into the matter in great detail, referred to intimidation rather than bullying as the cause of the conduct which led the former Deputy Prime Minister to resign. There is a difference between intimidation and bullying, and that should be recognised.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I do not think I have a great deal to add to the Prime Minister’s reply, other than to underline the point that has been made about how we learn to better handle such matters in future. The points that noble Lords have made are, of course, relevant to that.
Baroness Berridge (Con)
My Lords, we have a code of conduct that governs the behaviour of special advisers, the Civil Service Code and the Ministerial Code. In most other environments, those in authority in organisations have the protection of the whistleblowing Act. Has anybody considered—perhaps my noble friend could ask the independent adviser on ethics to consider it —how we are making good the gap that exists, potentially, where there are not those protections for those in office when one might need to blow the whistle?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I obviously come from a business background, where whistleblowing is a very important and helpful constraint on wrongful behaviour. I will certainly reflect on my noble friend’s point about whistleblowing in the work that we do following up on these issues.
Parliamentary Democracy in the United Kingdom
Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts(1 year, 3 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville- Rolfe) (Con)
I welcome the fact that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, has secured this important and extremely wide-ranging debate. We should spend more time debating these important issues.
I start by congratulating the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lichfield on his excellent maiden speech. Lichfield is actually one of my favourite cathedrals, so he is most welcome; may he continue to make insightful contributions to the House. I was particularly glad that he reminded us of the Christian tradition of parliamentary democracy, and of the importance of freedom to practise different faiths.
Turning to the question of the day, my assessment is that, overall, UK parliamentary democracy is in a good state. Of course, like everything else political, it—UK parliamentary democracy—is a human construct, hence failures of one sort or another occur from time to time, and some have been mentioned, but the overall verdict should be a favourable one. I do not agree with the noble Baroness; like my noble friend Lord Hannan, I feel she should be careful about trying to draw parallels with 1930s Germany.
How has the situation that we are in come about? I am tempted to speculate that there may be some intrinsic virtue in the British character but my sober conclusion is that we have benefited from the virtues of evolution as opposed to adopting the follies of revolution as is sometimes espoused elsewhere—advocates of which are not unknown even within these hallowed walls. To sum things up I would like to quote Winston Churchill, who once said that:
“democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried”.—[Official Report, Commons, 11/11/1947; col. 207.]
Given that position, the need is to protect what we have that is good, to strive to improve it where possible and to adapt to circumstances.
There are, of course, other democratic nations, some of which are, like us, parliamentary democracies, although some are not. All truly democratic nations promote the principles of free and fair elections, the rule of law, a free press and the role of civil society. Autocracies are normally opposed to all these values that we hold so dear—and what a tragic mess that can lead to, as we see in Russia today.
The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, has rightly mentioned the important role of elections in a functioning democracy, although I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, or my noble friend Lord Balfe that proportional representation would be better. Moreover, this Government were elected on a manifesto commitment to continue to support the first past the post voting system. We believe that this system is robust, secure and well understood by voters, providing strong and clear accountability.
My noble friend Lady Noakes was on great form. She was right to welcome an election that allowed us to get Brexit done—because that was the will of the people, despite strongly held views in many quarters, including in many parts of this House, on all sides. She is right to warn that the House should not become a House of opposition to an elected Government. This House is a very important part of the constitution.
My noble friend Lady Noakes also mentioned the recent repeal of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. I believe that, by returning to the status quo ante, a Prime Minister will once again be able to call an election at a time of their choosing and avoid the parliamentary gridlock that caused so much trouble during the Brexit process.
As many have said, Members of Parliament as elected representatives have a central role in our system, advocating on behalf of and representing the views of their constituents. Both Houses carefully scrutinise and hold the Government to account and, through transparent engagement with Parliament, the Government facilitate that effective and important scrutiny work.
These are rights and principles that apply to all parts of the UK, whose constituent parts are represented in our parliamentary system, which is defined by a number of important elements. Under the UK’s parliamentary system, the ability of the Government to command the confidence of the House of Commons is the fundamental principle that enables government and Parliament to operate smoothly.
Ours is a representative democracy; because all individuals within the UK are represented, they are incentivised to participate in the electoral process. Government Ministers are, of course, drawn from both Houses, as I am lucky enough to know. The majority of Ministers are drawn from the Commons and not only accountable to the nation as a whole but required to address the local concerns of individuals represented by their individual MP.
Our parliamentary democracy is effective because it is grounded in tradition while being sufficiently flexible and adaptable to the circumstances of the day. This system allows for the development of policy and the passage of legislation under the careful scrutiny of Parliament when there is a majority in favour of the Government’s programme. Our parliamentary democracy allows for a high level of accountability and transparency by various mechanisms, of which noble Lords will be well aware, and to the success of which individuals in this House certainly contribute.
Our House—the Lords—as it is now would not be invented by anyone seeking to design a constitution, and over time we are likely to see further evolution of our constitutional arrangements. Until then, we perform a useful role in providing the scrutiny and accountability I mentioned. I think particular strengths are our scrutiny of Bills and SIs, including the revision of important detailed and complex clauses, and our respective committees, because they are the most fruitful area of engagement with the media; we play a crucial role in accurately informing the press.
I have been struck also by the strength the House gets from diverse specialisms: from different walks of life, from age—young and old, from geography and the wisdom of mature politicians of different persuasions who can help Governments to learn from past mistakes. In a very useful intervention, my noble friend Lord Shinkwin highlighted the role that individuals like himself, with his background and disability, can play in the House. He demonstrates that all the time, and I thank him for his support today.
There is an eclectic mix which brings much benefit, contributing in my view to our stable constitution. However, I must stress that in doing our work it is important that we recognise the primacy of the House of Commons as the elected Chamber. I believe the dilution of this is one of the problems with Gordon Brown’s proposed reforms, which the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, touched on briefly.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, mentioned corruption in her opening remarks. I do not believe that this country is systematically corrupt, but corruption does pose a threat to all democracies, the economy and security. Corruption threatens to erode trust in our institutions, which is why the Government are taking steps all the time to address these threats. I refer her, and I think she has had a debate on this subject, to the Home Office-led anti-corruption strategy and to the Defending Democracy Taskforce, which is very important and on which I have the pleasure of sitting.
It has been a good debate and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and everyone else who has spoken. I am sorry I have not been able to refer to everybody, but we have had contributions on everything from housing to water, to the more obvious subjects. I agree with my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth—that surprised him—about the importance of trust and honesty in public life, saying what you know to be true in Parliament and elsewhere, and on the value of leadership skills, both for Ministers and for senior civil servants. As a Cabinet Office Minister and as a former director of well-managed international companies, I spend a good deal of time encouraging leadership and skills training, and trying to move things forward.
When assessing the strengths of our parliamentary democracy, one of the greatest is our ability to evolve and develop over time, to meet and resolve different challenges. This flexibility is what makes it so effective, and I was interested that the noble Baroness picked up on this point about flexibility, going forward.
To sum up, we have a vibrant parliamentary democracy; we should be proud of that but, as always, we must strive to maintain and if possible improve on the present position.
Emergency Alert System: Fujitsu
Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts(1 year, 3 months ago)
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Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)
My Lords, in begging leave to ask the Question of which I have given private notice, I refer to my entry in the register as an unpaid member of the Post Office Horizon compensation advisory board.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville- Rolfe) (Con)
Fujitsu has had a small role in the development of the UK’s emergency alert system, initially providing a subject matter expert to support early development by DCMS. Emergency alerts are a critical tool in our toolkit for warning people whose lives are at risk.
Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that Answer. I have no objection at all to the emergency alert that is to be sent to our mobile telephones on Sunday: it is good for the resilience that the House of Lords Select Committee on risk called for a year or so ago. But why was Fujitsu granted the contract? Fujitsu’s Horizon system caused the sub-postmasters of this country to be shamefully accused of things that they had not done. Some went to prison, some took their own lives and all those accused were humiliated in the eyes of their own communities. Fujitsu, which knew perfectly well what it was doing, has said not a single word of apology. This is already costing the Government hundreds of millions, potentially more. Why has Fujitsu not been taken off the government procurement list?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My noble friend and I agree that the impact of the Horizon scandal on postmasters and their families is utterly horrendous; we used to work together on this when I was on the Back Benches. That is why the Government have set up an inquiry, much encouraged by my noble friend, to get to the bottom of what went wrong and ensure that it can never happen again, as well as providing compensation for those affected.
All government contracts are awarded in line with procurement regulations and transparency guidelines, and that goes for the contract on the alerts. As noble Lords would expect, robust security measures are in place as part of the procurement process.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, for his relentless campaigning over a period of 13 years. Otherwise, the sub-postmasters would not have received any form of justice. Fujitsu’s track record is quite appalling; the noble Lord mentioned that it has never apologised. It was described as giving unsatisfactory and inaccurate evidence in the case brought by the sub-postmasters. The NHS terminated two contracts with it back in 2008-09, then Fujitsu sued the NHS for £700 million and did not settle for 10 years. On exactly what basis do the Government judge Fujitsu to be fit and proper to hold this contract?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I will make one preliminary point: Fujitsu has been fully co-operating with the postmasters inquiry. I also emphasise that there is no link between the small amount of work that Fujitsu has done for DCMS and the Cabinet Office and the work done for the Post Office.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, I am so grateful to the Minister for setting out the issue about the regulations and security. But in addition to security concerns, there are basic decency and morality concerns. How do people in this country feel about contracts being given to this company in the interim, while this inquiry is pending?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I have explained what we are doing about the inquiry. The grounds for the exclusion of bidders from public procurement procedures are set out in the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. These rules set out the circumstances in which bidders must or may be excluded from the public procurement process. We have to follow those processes. The Procurement Bill, which was brought forward by this Government and debated extensively in this House, and is now being considered elsewhere, strengthens the grounds for exclusion, but we have proceeded with this contract on alerts. I emphasise the value of these alerts in warning and informing people where we have serious problems.
Lord Pannick (CB)
Can the Minister tell the House how much Fujitsu is being paid for this contract and how many other ongoing procurement contracts there are with Fujitsu?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I do not have information on other procurement contracts but I can tell the noble Lord that, in the year that has just finished, we paid Fujitsu £1.6 million for the alerts contract. If he looks on Contracts Finder, which is one of the transparency mechanisms that we have, he will see that the range of the contract is from £1.6 million to £5 million, but at the moment we have used Fujitsu for only the £1.6 million that I have outlined.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, that is £1.6 million too much. Does my noble friend accept that when she speaks from the Dispatch Box she is, of course, speaking for the whole Government, right across the board? It is completely wrong—I would say immoral—for any department of government to pay money to a company whose actions, carelessness and downright stupidity in some respects have led to the deaths of British subjects, to the incarceration of others and to the misery of many. Were it not for my noble friend Lord Arbuthnot, the situation would be far worse.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
We have to follow due process. An inquiry is rightly taking place into the Horizon and Post Office scandal. In the meantime, it is important that procurement processes are open, that people are allowed to bid and that awards are made in accordance with the rules. I emphasise the point that I have already made: there is no link between the work that Fujitsu has done for DCMS and the Cabinet Office and the work done for the Post Office.
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of the London Resilience Forum. The emergency alert system is a really good idea. In fact, it is such a good idea that the Cabinet Office first successfully tested the use of emergency text alerts in 2013. Why has it taken a decade to hold a nationwide emergency alert system test? Can the Minister confirm how quickly the test will be evaluated and how soon the Government think this potentially life-saving system can be rolled out?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for her support. Indeed, I think this alert system appeared in the Labour Party manifesto; we have had cross-party support for it. We have set up the test in consultation with various affected parties, which obviously means that it has had to be done properly—with motoring organisations, for example, and for vulnerable groups. That has taken time. The test is now taking place on Sunday. My hope is that it will be successful. Just to reassure the noble Baroness, we had trials in East Sussex and Reading, and the feedback we had from the people involved in the test was very positive, with 88% of people wanting to keep going and encouraging the test. We need to move things forward, which is exactly what we are doing.
The Lord Bishop of Leeds
My Lords, I understand the point about following procurement procedures, but can we try a different tack? What would Fujitsu have to do to make it excludable from these procedures?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
All of this arises from the horrendous case of the Post Office, which I have studied over many years and feel equally strongly about. That process is continuing; Fujitsu is continuing to answer questions. As to putting companies on excluded lists, I have tried to explain what the arrangements are under regulations and that changes are coming forward in the Procurement Bill. Where companies co-operate and a finding has not been found against them, it is important that we treat them fairly. This is a country that believes in that.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, the Williams inquiry is still taking evidence in late winter this year, so the chances of it reporting even this time next year are probably slim. During that time, how many other contracts will Fujitsu be bidding for and winning? Surely the Minister can see that there are grounds here for suspending Fujitsu’s ability to bid on government contracts until such time as the report has had a chance to be published.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I do not have information on how many contracts Fujitsu plans to bid on, or indeed whether it will be successful in bidding for those contracts. All I can say is that we are pursuing the Post Office side of things extremely keenly, and I think we have moved from a very bad place into a better place with the plans for compensation. I note what has been said about Fujitsu, but I emphasise that the small contract we are talking about is very separate from the large and troublesome contract that we have all discussed on other occasions when we have been debating the awful circumstances of the postmasters, which, frankly, is probably the worst thing I have ever dealt with while I have been in government.
Lord Cromwell (CB)
The Minister prays in aid the process of procurement, and that is quite right; let us leave aside for a moment the moral cases that some people have made. Is it not a standard part of procurement processes to have regard to performance on previous contracts by bidders? Other contracts, for example with the NHS, have been mentioned earlier in the comments this afternoon. If that is not part of our procurement process, surely it should be. If it is part of our procurement process, what on earth must the other bidders have been like?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
The noble Lord is right that we do not always get as many bidders as I would like in procurement, and one of the things we are trying to do in the procurement area is to broaden procurement so that we get more bidders. Having said that, of course he is right that those who are looking at contracts, both within departments and across government— because we have central assistance for procurement now—look at the track record of companies, but you have to do that in a fair way.
Lord Bellingham (Con)
My Lords, I endorse what the Minister said about the emergency alert concept being excellent. The Minister will not necessarily be aware that I was one of the MPs who represented a number of the sub-postmasters, including one who was forced out of the locality in disgrace. His life, his wife’s life and his family’s life were completely destroyed and ruined, whereas he was obviously completely innocent. What really grates—I am sure the Minister understands this, but it would be good to hear her reinforce it—is: why has Fujitsu not in any way apologised?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I sympathise with the point made by my noble friend. That is for Fujitsu, of course, and the process of looking at the awful history of the postmasters is still not finished. I agree with him that it can be helpful to say sorry, but that is a matter for Fujitsu. I am sorry that we are not talking much about the alerts, on which I have every answer under the sun. I will try to move things forward more broadly and, on the postmasters, to encourage the progress of the inquiry. We are all longing for the result of that.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
My Lords, I declare my interests in the register and the fact that I have been campaigning for these emergency alerts to happen for a number of years. I think the first alerts were used in a number of countries way back in 2012. The Cabinet Office trialled them in 2013, and then nothing happened for virtually a decade. The system is proven in Australia, where a number of people were saved from dying in fires, and in India people’s lives were saved from floods and so on. This is very important, but emergency alerts require public trust in the authorities. I hope the Minister acknowledges that this small part of the contract that has gone to Fujitsu will undermine that trust. What further steps will the Government take to improve trust in the emergency alert system going forward?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I do not accept that the small addition of Fujitsu’s work in this area negates this very important piece of work, which the noble Lord was obviously involved in and agrees with. We need to get on with it. He is right that the US, Canada, the Netherlands and Japan already have such a system. We did have something of a system, as he will know, because we used texts during Covid, but we found that their coverage was not good enough. That is another reason why we have been spurred to move faster. Obviously, I am involved in this area and taking a big interest. I like to get on with things, as he knows. I very much hope that the test will work and that if we have a national crisis of the kind we very much hope not to have, these alerts will be helpful. They will also be useful locally, because the COBRA unit co-ordinating them will find them useful on occasions of local flooding and storms. At the moment, we get alerts but it is more haphazard than it needs to be.
Afghan Resettlement Update
Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)
My Lords, it might help if I reiterate one or two of the key points made by my right honourable friend the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs when he made his Statement. Perhaps I could start by saying that I agree with the noble Lord on the moral duty to look after these people who fought alongside our soldiers in Afghanistan. There is a closeness and a bond of friendship that we should never forget. That is one of the reasons why the Government are taking action, being corralled by my right honourable friend in the other place, the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs.
I am talking about measures we are taking to support these Afghan friends who have come via safe and legal routes into settled accommodation that will allow them to put down roots in communities and build the new lives that we want them to build in the UK. Since the start of Operation Pitting, the Government have welcomed over 24,500 vulnerable people to the UK from Afghanistan. Many of them, of course, put their lives at risk because they served alongside our Armed Forces. Due to the scale of the evacuation, while some of our friends were able to enter directly into settled accommodation, we warmly welcomed others into temporary hotels. This ensured that they had safe and secure accommodation when they arrived, but hotels were never designed to be a permanent solution; I think the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, acknowledged that. Dedicated teams across central and local government have—and this answers one question, I think—ensured that over 9,000 people have been supported into settled homes, and about 8,000 still remain in hotels. That has obviously prevented many of these Afghans properly integrating into communities and has cost £1 million to the taxpayer a day.
That is why we put together a new package of measures—it is a step change—to support those who have arrived, either under ARAP or under ACRS, and who remain in hotels. I remind the House that the package includes £35 million of new flexible funding to enable local authorities to address the key private rental sector affordability issues faced by the Afghan cohort. But they have the right to work, they have entitlement to benefits from day one, and—this is perhaps the most important of all—trained staff will be based in hotels and will provide support on the ground, including information on how to rent in the private sector and how to find jobs, and help with English language training.
We are also taking steps to increase the stock of housing. Across England, the local authority housing fund will be expanded by £250 million, with the majority of additional funding used to house Afghans currently in bridging accommodation and the rest used to ease existing pressures on the homeless. We continue to honour the commitments we have made to bring future arrivals to the UK via the ARAP and the ACRS. Our priority is ensuring that they can go directly into appropriate accommodation rather than costly temporary hotel accommodation.
A number of questions were asked about those still waiting in places such as Pakistan. On the figure that was given of 4,300 ARAP-eligible people still in Afghanistan, I understand from the Home Office that it is actually 650 still in Afghanistan, with the remainder of the 4,300 in third countries. We have made it absolutely clear that we will honour our commitments to bring people to the UK, but the use of hotels for lengthy periods of time is simply not sustainable or appropriate. Our priority is ensuring that they can enter suitable accommodation, which is the right thing for these families to do. Where people are waiting in those countries, there is help with accommodation and welfare support. We are working at pace to source suitable accommodation and help. In the meantime, our advice is that they should not come by illegal routes.
To pick up the point about the Afghan pilot, the Prime Minister has promised to review his plight, and on Monday he asked the Home Office to look into the situation. I reiterate that we will honour our commitments to bring people to the UK who are eligible through the ARAP route. Those who are eligible should wait in a safe third country until they are granted leave.
On the point about the Taliban and documentation, this message does not reflect departmental policy. We do not expect Afghans eligible for resettlement under the ACRS to provide every document requested. We ask only that they provide the documentation which they are able to provide.
Finally, where we can make an offer, we will. This is for those who are here in the UK. If the offer is rejected, another will not be forthcoming because we want to move from the bridging position in hotels to getting our Afghan friends into communities and into proper jobs, and their children into permanent education. The package we have put together, with the help of a whole load of different government departments, is designed to make a step change and to move things forward in a way which I think should be welcome to everybody.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
Could I address, in particular, the aspect my noble friend touched on about alternative accommodation? Is the accommodation for Afghans going to be extended to other asylum seekers and refugees rather than the use of former military accommodation? The reason I ask is that the Government abandoned the scheme that was proposed at the former RAF base in Linton-on-Ouse for the simple reason that the population of only 700 people in the village was going to be dwarfed by double that amount—1,500 male refugees—being placed there. When will the Government be in a position to give more detail? I am familiar with the site proposed in Essex, as it used to be in my European constituency, but it is a similar arrangement there. It is a small village of only 1,200 residents. Is it appropriate to put families, or maybe in the worst-case scenario only male refugees, there? When will we have more details of the arrangements?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I am sure my noble friend will correct me if I am wrong, but I think she is asking a follow-up question to the Statement made in the other place yesterday by my right honourable friend the Minister for Immigration. This is a separate issue. There was a lively debate in the other place that was extensively reported in Hansard. I refer her to the answers given by my right honourable friend Mr Jenrick.
Baroness Berridge (Con)
The Statement refers to “perfectly suitable accommodation” being available. From many Questions in your Lordships’ House, we know there is pressure on housing. Many people who are in work and trying to enter the private rented sector find that prices are enormous, while people who came to this country years ago as refugees and who have been naturalised as British citizens are still in the bidding process with local councils to get out of temporary accommodation and into proper social housing. The Minister has mentioned the private rented sector, but either there is not enough supply or landlords will not rent to people who are dependent on housing benefit, so where is this “perfectly suitable accommodation” going to be found? Could she please provide some more detail?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I shall make two points. First, I draw my noble friend’s attention to the UK-wide fund of £35 million that we are providing to local authorities and others to provide casework teams to support this move from hotels into settled accommodation. They are going to be working together with the Home Office, the DWP and local authorities. The £250 million housing fund is very flexible so it can be used, for example, if you need to knock two houses together to accommodate a family of 10, because some of the Afghan families who have come over are quite extensive.
Secondly, those caseworkers will be sitting in the hotels. As the process starts, individuals will be written to but they will also have caseworkers in the hotels to help them find accommodation. They will be liaising with local authorities and seeking out appropriate accommodation, and in many cases that will include the rented sector. The fund will also be able to help ease things, perhaps to find a deposit to help a family move into rented accommodation.
This is not easy, but we are in a difficult situation and we need to move it forward. That is why we have come forward with this very special package for this very special group under the corralling dynamism of the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs.
The Lord Bishop of Derby
My Lords, I share many of the concerns that have been expressed about the routes into this country and the nature, safety and appropriateness of the accommodation for those who make it here—those to whom, as we have already noted, we have a moral obligation to extend sanctuary and welcome in this very particular circumstance.
My question relates to those who do manage to get here and who are settled. Regarding the provision of care offered to those households, I am sure the Minister will agree that the integration into local communities of Afghans who make it here is key to their flourishing and to our benefiting from the extraordinary richness they can offer us. We particularly need to ensure that the women of those households can be locally integrated. Will the Minister therefore assure the House that specific and targeted funding is being made available to Afghan women in their households in order to ensure that they are able safely and appropriately to access the support and resources being made available, such as support for English as a second language, access to education and training and access to health and mental health care for them and their children?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I thank the right reverend Prelate for her comments, which I very much agree with on the whole. The work we are doing with the Afghans, and will be doing through these case workers, does indeed focus on exactly the sorts of things she was highlighting: on training, healthcare and helping them learn English, which is incredibly important for successful long-term settlement in this country, both for the individuals and their children as they grow up in English schools. She makes a good point about women, and I am sure they will be treated very much better here than, sadly, the women left in Afghanistan are being treated.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, I hope the Minister will forgive me; I had not intended to speak. I want to raise an issue on behalf of my noble friend Lord Coaker on the Front Bench, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith. The Statement yesterday says:
“All the numbers are publicly available. We reckon that about 4,300 entitled personnel remain in Afghanistan and want to get over here”.—[Official Report, Commons, 28/3/23; col. 844.]
Yet the Minister said that the number was around 600. It is very difficult for Opposition Members to respond to a Statement if we get given different figures on the day, so could the Minister clarify whether the figure in Hansard is correct?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I think the easiest thing is for me to take the point away. There is a lot of scope for confusion between the different schemes and the asylum numbers. We are certainly trying to give noble Lords the right numbers. I have a table which I can probably share; it is all quite complicated. I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for intervening and seeking clarification. I think what I said was right, but of course I will look into it. I apologise for trying to repeat the points that were made in the Statement. I do not find it entirely satisfactory that we do not repeat the Statement a couple of days later, because some of the points that were made are agreed on across the House. We all want to go off on our Easter break, but we are debating important points. I will clarify the figures, and I thank the noble Baroness for raising the question.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)
My Lords, I wonder if I could follow up on that, and indeed on the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, in his opening comments. When the dust settles and we have gone through and fulfilled our moral duty, what is the Home Office’s estimate of the number of people who will be here? I am not asking for a single figure, but the Home Office must have a range, probably in the Minister’s briefing documents, and if not there then certainly somewhere in the Home Office. When she comes to reply to the noble Baroness whose name—I am sorry—I have completely forgotten, could she also provide the range that the Home Office anticipates, after all these schemes and all our moral duty has played out?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My noble friend Lord Hodgson and I always agree on the need for numbers—and numbers of the right kind, relating to the right dates. I do have numbers for ARAP and ACRS, but I think he might be asking a broader question, so I suggest that I share the numbers I have, answer the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, and write to noble Lords. This evening we are talking about Afghanistan, and I am not clear whether the noble Lord is also interested in numbers from elsewhere.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)
I am interested in the overall number from Afghanistan. What is estimated? I understand that it is not going to be a point figure; it is going to be a range. Someone in the Home Office must have said, “We must anticipate from x to y”. What are the x and y figures? As part of clarifying the debate that has been going on, with all sorts of numbers being bandied around, it would be helpful for the House to have that number when my noble friend comes to write to all who participated in the debate today.
Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)
My Lords, I note from the Statement that half of the people who need to move out of hotels are children, and a proportion of them will be in school. If they are given three months’ notice at the end of April, I have worked out that that would take them to the end of term. Can priority be given to ensuring that children who are in school are rehoused before the beginning of the next term and are found suitable schools to go to? That is really imperative for the integration of the younger people who have come.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for raising the point about education, because it is very important. It is one of the reasons that we have chosen April as the date, because that helps with coming to the end of the school year. My understanding is that the responsibility for providing school places rests with the receiving local authority, which has a legal obligation to allocate a school place to a child in its catchment area within 20 school days to minimise any potential disruption. The hotel closures will be staggered, region by region, so that we can help support families.
We need to get on with this step change. A hotel is not a home and we need to find homes for these people. We need to get their children into schools and we all need to welcome them into our communities, so that the Afghans who helped us in that terribly difficult time have a happy and well looked-after future in our country.
House of Lords: Regional Representativeness
Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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Lord Grocott
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the regional representativeness of the membership of the House of Lords; and how any such assessment is used when considering nominations for new peers.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville- Rolfe) (Con)
Appointments to the House of Lords are a matter for the Prime Minister, who will take a range of factors into consideration when making recommendations to the sovereign, including any advice from the House of Lords Appointments Commission. Political peerages for other parties are a matter for the leaders of those parties. The Government’s aspiration is that all parts of the UK should feel connected to government, politics and politicians.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
My Lords, I am not sure that they are succeeding in that respect. Can the Minister confirm that the south-east region, outside London, has 100 Peers, which is 20% of the membership of this House? That is more than the east Midlands, the West Midlands, Wales, the north-west and the north-east combined. I would like to see a bit of levelling up. Does the Minister agree that, at the very least, before any new list of Peers is finalised in Downing Street, the House of Lords Appointments Commission should be consulted on how it will affect the present indefensible regional inequalities?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I agree with the noble Lord that levelling up is important, and this Government have many policies pursuing just that. He talks about representation. For me, the House of Commons is about ensuring that every part of the United Kingdom is properly represented in Parliament. There are also devolved Parliaments. By contrast, the House of Lords does not represent particular territories or constituencies; with the help of vetting by HOLAC, it draws on an array of expertise and talent right across the board and from many different sectors of society.
The Earl of Devon (CB)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, for asking this important Question. Does the Minister agree that having a non-partisan champion for each county, with both residence and long-term community relations in such counties, offers considerable benefits—not least over 800 years of precedence? I note my interest as the Earl of Devon.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
Devon is a wonderful county—I always go there on holiday—and it is very nice to have the noble Earl, Lord Devon, talking it up in our House. The House of Lords has a very important job to do in scrutiny, debate and manning and womaning committees to undertake our painstaking work. That means that the House needs to be drawn from experts across many sectors, whether it is administration, lawyers, bishops, business and services or the third sector.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, the Bishops do have territorial responsibilities, of course. While I have every sympathy with the thrust of the point from the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, we must bear in mind that a lot of Members of your Lordships’ House have come from different parts of the country but have settled in London—
Lord Cormack (Con)
There is nothing shameful about that. It does not cut off their territorial links, any more than it would if the noble Earl, Lord Devon, decided to live in London.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I could not agree more on this occasion with my noble friend, who does such a good job in the part of the country from where he came—and, of course, in supporting Lincoln Cathedral.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Baroness talks about geographical representation, but what is the Prime Minister doing to ensure that this House better represents modern Britain? It is not just about where people come from; it is also about the colour of their skin and their religion. There are different factors that should be taken into account to ensure the broad representation that the noble Baroness is talking about. What is the Prime Minister doing to ensure that this range of factors is properly represented in this House?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
There are indeed different sources from which representation of this House can be drawn. That includes, of course, former politicians— I draw your Lordships’ attention to the diversity of the current Cabinet. I also ask noble Lords to look around them. I am glad to be one of many women who serve on the Front Bench in this House.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, I declare an interest as someone whose registered address is in London but whose allotment is in Saltaire. Pending the introduction of at least an elected element—directly or indirectly—in this House, would the Minister agree that some of the most effective and useful Members are those who have formerly been the leaders of councils all over the United Kingdom, and that greater attention to nominating Members of this House who had local government experience would be a good thing?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I entirely agree with the noble Lord about the importance of the representation —if that is the right word—of people with a background in local government, such as my noble friend the Leader of the House, who has had a distinguished career in local government. Indeed, one thing I have tried to do in this House, across parties, is to promote the importance of local government, because there are many local services that matter so much to people right across the country.
Baroness D'Souza (CB)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, has more or less asked my question, so I am just going to add a little codicil, which is that we should think of including those people who have been elected from the education trade unions and vocational, scientific and other bodies to make for a more representative democracy.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
We have to come back to the point that the recommendations made to the sovereign on appointments are made by the Prime Minister of the day. That has been conventional right across the party divide. Clearly, the Prime Minister of the day will take into account the talents, diversity and skills of many different people.
Lord Bellingham (Con)
Surely one of the best ways to ensure regional representation is to keep the 92 hereditaries, who come from every single part of the kingdom: that well-known Lib Dem from the far north of Scotland, through Northern Ireland, Wales, East Anglia and Cornwall. That is surely an argument for why they should be maintained.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My noble friend introduces a new argument into this much-debated subject, which is normally, as today, led by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. Hereditary Peers continue to be elected by the different party groups and indeed by the Cross Benches. Changes to that, as we know, would have significant constitutional implications, and as yet there is no consensus on change.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
Greens are very good at geographical representation, and when we have 13% in the polls—as apparently we do this week —perhaps we ought to have more representation here in your Lordships’ House. Obviously, if there were more Greens, your Lordships would hear less from the two Greens that you have already. Is that not a win-win?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I have to say that I often agree with the noble Baroness opposite, and I agree with her that less is often more. I am very glad that we have two members of the Green Party in this House, because diversity of thought as well as of other aspects is very important to intelligent debate and scrutiny of legislation, in committees and on SIs, and to everything else that we do painstakingly every day.
Lord Sahota (Lab)
My Lords, now that Britain is a truly diverse and multifaith society, do the Government have any plan to appoint scholars or preachers of other faiths in the House of Lords as they do the Bishops?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
We have an established Church, and that is reflected in our Bench of Bishops, who contribute such good challenge to the Government of the day. I have explained the process of putting forward Members of the House of Lords by the main parties and others, and one thing they take into account is religions. Personally, I feel that it is very important to hear from different religions across the country.
Security of Government Devices
Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, as a long-standing deputy chair of the all-party China group, I welcomed the proportionate approach taken in the Government’s statements in the integrated review refresh about relations with China. In the face of the current human rights position in Xinjiang and the situation in Hong Kong, however, this should not change any time soon.
On these Benches, we are in strong agreement with those who consider that the Government could and should have been a great deal more strategic about relationships with sensitive Chinese suppliers—whether internet or data based, hardware or software related—in the run-up to this Statement. This is a one-off Statement about TikTok, a social media company. It would be good to see the assessment and the evidence of potential cybersecurity issues which the Government have not yet—as far as I know—produced.
However, when it comes to makers of surveillance cameras, as the noble Lord, Lord Collins, said, the Government appear far more reluctant to act. The Surveillance Camera Commissioner, Professor Fraser Sampson, has been very clear in his warnings, in particular about Hikvision and Dahua cameras, which, as far as we know, are used extensively in Xinjiang for surveillance purposes and pose security risks here, even when live facial recognition is not enabled.
Just last week, we saw Tesco lead the way in the private sector and order the removal of these cameras from its stores. The Government have simply ceased to install them. Why are they not directing their removal, particularly in police forces? Have they mapped exactly where on the government estate and in other spaces these cameras remain?
Regarding TikTok, why act so late when the EU and US, as the noble Lord, Lord Collins, mentioned, acted earlier? Presumably they have the same security information. When did the evidence emerge that has led to this ban? Will the Government publish the review by cybersecurity experts which assesses the risks posed by these third-party apps on government devices?
As the noble Lord, Lord Collins, also mentioned, why are private devices used by government Ministers not covered? I note that Oliver Dowden repeated that position last week. After all, we know there has been extensive use of private devices by Ministers, particularly —dare I say—among former Health Ministers. What assessment of this aspect has been made? Which government departments and public bodies are actually covered? What is the process for drawing up the promised approved list of apps? What criteria will be used?
As many said in the Commons, this looks like whack-a-mole; the Statement is no substitute for a coherent cross-government strategy. Why do the Government not now move, for instance, to include the capture of biometric data in the definition of “critical national infrastructure”? Questions have been raised recently about Chinese cellular internet of things modules—CIMs—which are imbedded in many devices. What is the Government’s approach to this? Are they even aware of what CIMs are?
Finally, if the Government are concerned about information being harvested by social media and other apps, why is the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill, now before the Commons, widening the circumstances in which research data can be used for commercial purposes? Is this not a typical example of this Government’s incoherence and lack of co-ordination on issues such as this?
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)
My Lords, I welcome the welcome for the Statement made by my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster last week. By way of background, I should explain that the Government commissioned a review by our cybersecurity experts of the risks posed by third-party applications, including TikTok. As a result, the review concluded that we needed further security measures to protect the data.
There is obviously a limit to what I can say due to the sensitive nature of the Government’s work, but we are taking what we believe is proportionate, considered action to strengthen the security of government devices, and we are doing that in two ways. First, as is already the case in many departments—and that includes my own, the Cabinet Office—all government departments will now move to a system where only the third-party mobile apps available on their devices are those which have been pre-approved for inclusion on a departmental “allow list”.
Secondly, as a precautionary measure, all government departments are now required to take action to prohibit TikTok on their devices with immediate effect. It is a prudent, proportionate step, and more broadly, we are absolutely committed to bolstering national security, of which this is an example. As I explained to the House about 10 days ago, new guidance on the use of non-corporate communications will be issued very shortly and will bear on some of the questions that have been raised.
I was asked about TikTok on Ministers’ personal devices. The Secretary for State for Energy Security and Net Zero, who has been quoted, supports our policy and has been very clear that he has never used TikTok on his government devices. On personal devices, it is more of a personal choice. As I have explained before, all Ministers are carefully trained in security when they are appointed, and they have a briefing from time to time to keep that up to date.
To answer the question about exemptions, the business justification for having TikTok on government phones is to my mind very limited, but there are a small number of cases where it is necessary. Examples would include security and law enforcement. I know that some of my colleagues who are involved in security may need to use TikTok to make observations. Marketing would be another area—I think that the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Grant Shapps, comes into that category. We need to have common sense and proportionality. Departments will be able to make exemptions on a case-by-case basis through a departmental approval process, but with ministerial clearance as appropriate and risk mitigation in place.
Regarding Chinese security cameras, we have acted— we have discussed this in this House many times. We are also strengthening the powers in our Procurement Bill, and suppliers will be considered for addition to the debarment list on the basis of a rigorous and fair policy. This policy is under development, so it is too early to say, but regarding the action we have taken, we are now working with departments to make sure that Hikvision cameras are phased out.
The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, talked on a more strategic level about China, about which we need to be sober and realistic. Obviously, we do not dispute the importance of China, but it has become more authoritarian at home and more assertive overseas, which is of concern to the UK—our policies need to reflect that. In the integrated review refresh, which was published last week and is well worth a read—the noble Lord referenced it—the Prime Minister set out clearly the overall direction across government for a consistent, coherent and robust approach to China, rooted in the UK’s national interest and aligned with our allies. A proper, and properly resourced, approach to security is an important part of that.
I repeat that the Prime Minister set up a new department, and the Budget included a substantial pledge—£3.5 billion by 2030—to support the Government’s ambitions to make the UK a scientific and technology superpower. This is one of the Prime Minister’s five priorities. So we should take the steps we need to take for security, but we also need to be careful to encourage the positives of new technology, whether that is AI, quantum technologies or engineering biology. We seek an important balance here.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, given the Minister’s previous professional connections with Tesco, she will have noticed that, last weekend, it announced that it will remove Hikvision cameras from its supermarkets—many of us applaud that decision. The Minister will also recall that, when the Procurement Bill left this place, it included an all-party amendment on Hikvision and surveillance cameras. Why did the Government then remove that amendment in Committee in another place? Will they support Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former leader of the Conservative Party, in his attempts, and those of others from across the political divide in the House of Commons, to reinstate that amendment on Report? If not, does that not make everything that has been said to us in the House today contradictory?
I also ask the Minister to look at the evidence of Professor Fraser Sampson, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, which he gave to the Joint Committee on Human Rights at the beginning of this month. In answer to a question I asked, he said directly that, because of the facial recognition techniques that can be used, not just by these cameras but by many other pieces of technology, this poses a risk to personal privacy and is therefore liable to be in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. Will the Minister please look at what was said to the Joint Committee?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, as a former executive of Tesco, obviously I was extremely interested to see this at the top of my in-tray, where other things it does often appear. On Chinese cameras, I have not seen the evidence to which the noble Lord refers, but I would be very interested to see it. But I assure him that discussions on the Procurement Bill continue in the other place, and my noble friend the Paymaster-General has been in discussions with Sir Iain Duncan Smith on this and other issues. Of course, the Procurement Bill will come back to this House in due course, and I look forward to engaging further with the noble Lord.
Lord Watson of Wyre Forest (Lab)
My Lords, I understand the Minister’s argument for proportionality with regard to this Statement. Does she have any advice for her non-ministerial colleagues in Parliament—those who sit on defence and intelligence committees—on how they should use their personal devices with TikTok?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I need to tread carefully here because, of course, security in Parliament is independent of government. So this is a matter for the parliamentary authorities. I understand the drift of the noble Lord’s question, and he can see what steps the Government have taken in relation to government devices. I am not sure I am allowed to put apps on my parliamentary device without the permission of the IT department. We stand ready to assist the parliamentary authorities if they would like us to share information on this important matter.
Lord Walney (CB)
Further to that question, does the Minister accept that it is difficult for parliamentarians, and that it is a potentially unsatisfactory situation, if the message is essentially that it is our personal choice, but we are not—probably for very good reasons—privy to the sensitive security advice on which the Government have made their assessment? So will they encourage Parliament and the parliamentary authorities to allow a collective position to be reached on this?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I can certainly pass the concerns that have been expressed back to the security authorities in Parliament. I add that we have a Defending Democracy Taskforce, headed up by Tom Tugendhat, and the parliamentary authorities are involved in that because of the importance of sharing information, including sensitive security information, which it may not be possible to make public.
Lord Scriven (LD)
My Lords, I want to go back to the Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner, who through freedom of information requests has found out that 18 police forces across the country use external cameras that have equipment that have serious security and ethical concerns. He says that the use of such equipment by police forces needs to be seriously questioned. What action will the Government now take on a systemic approach across government to deal with those ethical and security issues, rather than just a pick-and-mix approach?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
We have security and resilience frameworks which try to do just that, but obviously the police are independent, so the noble Lord’s question about the police goes beyond the areas in which I am expert today.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
My Lords, I have been listening carefully to the Minister’s responses to the questions, and I am still not sure that I understand the logic for not including Ministers’ private phones in the ban, particularly as some of the security information will be common; for example, the location of the Minister concerned, and so on. If the argument is that the bit we are really worried about is that, if the security breach were on an official phone, it would include access to ministerial emails on government business, then the Minister really should have answered my noble friend’s question about whether the use of private phones for government business will be addressed in the review of the Ministerial Code. Can she do so now?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I do not have anything to say specifically on the review of the Ministerial Code; it is of course kept under review, and we now have a new ethics adviser. These sorts of matters are certainly being considered in the context of the new guidance on the use of non-corporate forms of communication, and I look forward to making a public statement on that in the not too distant future.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, the Minister said in reply to a question from my noble friend on the Front Bench that Ministers are given security advice. But that is useful only if they take notice of the advice they are given. How can we believe that they do that, when Boris Johnson, when he was Foreign Secretary, went to parties in Italy as a guest of Alexander Lebedev, and then later on promoted Alexander Lebedev’s son, Evgeny—the noble Lord, Lord Lebedev—to the House of Lords, against the advice of the security services? Surely that gives some evidence that he may well have been compromised.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I always resist commenting on individual cases. Of course, that comment does not necessarily take account of the steps we have made on briefing Ministers, including new Ministers, on security matters. The evolution of social media has been beneficial in many ways; I am sure that noble Lords use it for non-security matters, and we believe that that is perfectly all right on people’s private phones as a complement to the use of government phones for government business. We are very clear that, where people use private phones for government business because they cannot do anything else, it is important that substantive government exchanges are passed on to the private office or elsewhere, so that they are added to the public record. You have to have a balance in this system; we have to have rules which make sense and respect security but are also workable.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, I apologise for not being here at the beginning of the Statement; I was caught up with the Intelligence and Security Committee, where, of course, we have to hand our mobile phones in because we all know how dangerous mobiles are. I know from my past experience in this arena that, despite many lessons to people, people up to the level of Prime Minister make major errors in using private phones for material that they should not. Does the Minister not agree that we have to look at private phones as well as government phones to ensure that we have the right security that we ought to have? Whenever you speak on a mobile phone, you can guarantee that someone is trying to listen to it.
WhatsApp: Ministerial Communications
Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the extent of the use of WhatsApp for ministerial communications.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville- Rolfe) (Con)
Ministers use a variety of channels of communication. This may include non-corporate communication channels as well as conversations in person and telephone calls, as has long been the case. Arrangements and guidance are in place for the management of such communications to ensure that official records are kept where it is considered necessary for good governance, but it remains the case that official decisions are made and recorded through proper processes, including ministerial boxes and Cabinet committees.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I am really grateful to the Minister for her very helpful reply. However, is there any evidence that Ministers are using WhatsApp for government business on their personal phones rather than their work phones? Also, are they using the so-called “disappearing messages” that are removed after a set period, and, if so, is that consistent with government rules about record keeping? If the Minister is not able to deal with all those points today, could she write to me?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
Of course. As I have said, if communications are substantive in nature, they need to be captured on government systems. But there is no requirement to retain every single communication, and that would include social media. As to disappearing WhatsApps, we will be producing new guidance shortly on the use of WhatsApp and other forms of communication, and that will include advice on the use of the facility for disappearing. As I have said, formal decisions must be recorded, but existing policy requires ephemeral and trivial information to be deleted.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, could the use of these disappearing WhatsApps be an explanation for the complete absence of policies on the part of the Opposition?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I note what my noble friend says and I refer to my previous answer about disappearing WhatsApps. Of course, parliamentarians and indeed Ministers get advice on security and on the use of social media, which I am sure the noble Lords opposite concur with.
Lord Scriven (LD)
My Lords, I note what the Minister says about guidance, but there is a difference between guidance and rules. The Hancock WhatsApp saga has highlighted that no standardised and formal rules exist across government on the handing over of government business app messages on a private phone when individuals leave their post. When and how will the Government close this serious loophole?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
As I have explained, we do have guidance and we are in the process of developing revised guidance on the use of non-corporate communication channels, which we will be publishing in due course. There is a general understanding of the nature and extent of the use of WhatsApp for ministerial correspondence. As regards Mr Hancock, we have of course established a Covid inquiry to look into these things and it would be wrong of me to be making piecemeal comments on his use of WhatsApp.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, many of us recall the TV series and the films “Mission: Impossible”, where a confidential message from the Government would self-destruct in about 30 seconds. I think some Ministers probably did not realise that was fiction and not what happens in real life. We understand the difference between personal messages between Ministers and civil servants and those that relate to government decision-making, which, in normal circumstances, would be minuted. From the Answer she gave to the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, I think she has confirmed that there is currently no official guidance on the use of the disappearing message facility for WhatsApp. Can she confirm whether it is true that, at present, there is no guidance or advice on this? If that is the case—she said that they were going to be working on this—when guidance has been set up and published, could she confirm that it will be in the public domain so that it can be easily understood by all?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
We have obviously been looking at the guidance to bring it up to date with modern methods, to which the noble Baroness refers, and are in the process of finalising that. To the extent that matters relate to security, we have to be careful about what we publish, but I will bear in mind the request from the noble Baroness as to what we should say about disappearing WhatsApps and their use. However, I refer back to the advantages of using disappearing WhatsApps as well as the disadvantages.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, would we not have been spared a great deal of tedium had WhatsApping and twittering and tweeting been made automatic breaches of the Ministerial Code?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I feel that that is completely impractical. We live in a modern world, where people use WhatsApp, private mail and SMS. What we need to do is have sensible rules and training for Ministers and parliamentarians to teach them what they can do and what is risky. I personally had an excellent briefing on my first day as a Minister at the Cabinet Office. I was given my own devices and was told about the risks of social media in a way that I found encouraged me to conform very closely.
Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)
My Lords, is it appropriate for a Minister to hand a cache of WhatsApp messages—government messages—to a journalist for personal gain?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I will not be drawn on the individual case, but I will point to what the Government are doing and also refer the noble Lord, who is a friend, to the Covid inquiry. My understanding is that Mr Hancock has said that he will ensure that all appropriate material is given to the inquiry, and I understand that the Department of Health and Social Care is ensuring just that.
Lord Allan of Hallam (LD)
I understand that staff in departments such as the DWP and HMRC already have guidance that tells them very clearly that they should not use their personal phones for business purposes. This creates a very clear separation between personal and public correspondence. Can the Minister confirm whether the advice she was given included clear strictures on using personal devices for public purposes and, if not, why not?
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, in April last year, when the Government saw off at first instance a judicial review about the use of WhatsApp in government, a Cabinet Office spokesperson said publicly:
“We have been clear from the outset that there are appropriate arrangements and guidance in place for the management of electronic communications within Government”.
Those are the exact words the Minister has used at the Dispatch Box. The Cabinet Office position clearly was that these applied to WhatsApp messages. So, in a generality, do these procedures and arrangements allow former Ministers to take these records home? Do they allow them to alienate them to a third party, such as a journalist or ghost writer? If they do not, why do they not? Will the Government to publish the guidance?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I do not entirely understand the question, but what I can say is that the High Court dismissed challenges to the Government’s policy and practice with regard to non-corporate communication channels, which allows us to move ahead with the new guidance that I mentioned, and there are clear rules, of which we have already had evidence, on what we are supposed to be doing in the meantime.
Lord Bellingham (Con)
My Lords, is it not worth remembering that the journalist in question signed an NDA but then betrayed a confidence and handed the documents over—or perhaps sold them—to the Telegraph? Is there a data-protection aspect to this?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My noble friend refers to a private arrangement between two parties, which I certainly would not want to comment on. Clearly, we in this country have some of the best data-protection law in the world, and data protection and the work of the Information Commissioner—I remember originally being responsible for this—is an important part of this whole policy area, although it is perhaps not directly relevant to the particular Question asked today.
Lord Watson of Wyre Forest (Lab)
Ministers expect civil servants to give impartial and candid advice, and, in return, there should be a reasonable expectation of privacy. This has clearly not happened in the Hancock case. What emergency measures is the Minister taking to protect the integrity of the Civil Service? Civil servants do not have a choice when a Minister asks them a question in a WhatsApp message, and they need protection.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
As I explained, we have rules about how this is managed. Civil servants and Ministers have government devices that they can use to ask questions on. The Civil Service Code underpins the way the Civil Service operates, and impartiality is of course one of its fundamental principles; it is often quoted by civil servants in their day-to-day work and they feel very proud of it.
Civil Service Impartiality
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Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
We have had a lot of heckling—I think we are getting a bit bad-tempered in the Chamber these days. I am happy to repeat what I said, in case anyone missed it.
It is not without precedent that a senior civil servant is offered a political role on leaving the Civil Service, but Sue Gray is certainly the first to be attacked in this way. She has had such a distinguished career, and I am appalled that some now impugn her integrity for the time that she served successive Governments. Surely we should welcome that the leader of His Majesty’s Official Opposition, in preparing for government, wants to employ someone with such impeccable credentials and integrity—or perhaps those kicking up a fuss just fear the appointment.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville- Rolfe) (Con)
I will set out the facts from a slightly different perspective. Sue Gray, formerly Second Permanent Secretary at DLUHC and at the Cabinet Office, resigned from the Civil Service on Thursday. This resignation was accepted with immediate effect. Because it was unique—and I would say unprecedented—for a serving Permanent Secretary to resign to seek to take up a very senior position, that of Chief of Staff working for the leader of the Opposition, we are looking into the circumstances leading up to her resignation. However, it is incumbent on the office of the leader of the Opposition to be much more forthcoming about the details of what discussions were involved and the timing of those discussions so that we are able to complete our fact-finding exercise.
Ministers must be able to speak to their officials from a position of absolute trust. It is the responsibility of everyone in this House to preserve and support the impartiality of the Civil Service, and this step does the opposite.
Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)
My Lords, the Minister sometimes refers to the fact that at one time she used to work for me when she was a professional civil servant in the Cabinet Office. Does she agree that the appointment of Sue Gray to give professional assistance to the Opposition in preparing for the possibility of government throws no more doubt on the impartiality of the Civil Service than the noble Baroness’s very welcome presence on the Conservative Front Bench?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I do not like to comment on individual cases.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
But, in my own case, I left to go to Tesco, where I served for 15 years. I then took a different path. I served as a civil servant with due impartiality and indeed confidentiality of everything that I did and learned there, and that will be a requirement for Ms Gray.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, I declare an interest as the husband of a former civil servant and the father of a civil servant. To repeat what William Wragg, the chairman of PACAC, said in the debate yesterday in the Commons:
“It is important to ask”
the Minister
“whether he shares my concern that it is wrong to impugn an entire civil service for political bias, and that it is important that he asserts that from the Dispatch Box”.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/3/23; col. 26]
Is that not the most important thing for a Minister to do? As for the current concern, this was a leak by Sky News. I would have thought that we were all interested in ensuring that, if there is a change of Government after the next election, it is competently prepared and served. After the relative chaos we have had over the past five years, of too many Ministers moving too quickly, with some members of the Government deeply suspicious of the Civil Service all the way through, should we not welcome this achievement?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
It is for the Civil Service of the day to prepare for Governments, as I remember doing in 1997, with three lots of policies. It is very important that ACOBA looks at this appointment. The business appointment rules govern the process by which civil servants take up new employment—it is part of their contract. As my right honourable friend the Paymaster-General said in the other place, there are various sets of rules and guidance designed to make sure that impartiality is observed in the Civil Service, particularly with the movement of senior Ministers or civil servants into other jobs.
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, it important to see impartiality in our Civil Service, which is judged throughout the world as the finest—arguably until Thursday—but precedents are just as important. The noble Baroness opposite said that one precedent was my noble friend Lord Frost. He was a special adviser—a political post—for five years and was also in the House of Lords before he took up a post as a Minister, so that is not a precedent. Last Thursday, a Second Permanent Secretary who was at the heart of this Government and of policy, and who advised government officials, turned over and took a political post without any break in contract. For me, that is completely different. Does my noble friend, who has Civil Service experience, agree that this move is simply without precedent?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I agree that it is both unusual and without precedent, and I agree that Ministers must be able to speak to their officials from a position of trust. As the Cabinet Office Minister, I have worked closely with Ms Gray two or three times a week. My noble friend is right and asks a legitimate question.
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)
Does the Minister accept that people like me worked with Sue Gray in government, and that she knew a lot about our Government, but that did not stop her acting impartially when the election brought in a different Government? The Minister cannot continue to imply that, because people are prepared to work for the leader of the Opposition, they suddenly lose their integrity and are unable to act impartially. Will she now admit to the number of people who have left the Civil Service because their impartiality has been impugned, and particularly how a past Prime Minister behaved towards them and the House of Commons in particular?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
That is a completely different scenario. Ms Gray will work for the leader of the Opposition, which is a political post that she is moving straight into from the very top of Whitehall. That is why we have rules and guidance. I am surprised by the response from the party opposite: I would have thought that it would want to get on and explain what she talked about with the leader of the Opposition and what else she was doing at the same time. This seems to me to be quite different from some of the other cases that have been mentioned.
Lord Macpherson of Earl’s Court (CB)
My Lords, like my noble friend Lord Butler, I remember a number of examples of people moving from the Civil Service to political positions, in particular my old friend, the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon. He was a very successful director-general at the Treasury, who moved to become Gordon Brown’s ambassador to the City; he then resigned and turned up the next day as an adviser to George Osborne. Surely the issue is about the ACOBA rules, which are all too often not observed by members of the Government. Does the Minister agree that, so long as Ms Gray follows the recommendations for an adequate cooling-off period, which I would assume would be somewhere between three and six months, she is pursuing the right and honourable course?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
Ms Gray does indeed need to apply to ACOBA, which she has not yet done. Her post is a very senior post of a political kind, and I am sure that ACOBA will look extremely carefully at the move and lay down appropriate rules and guidance for her departure from the Civil Service.
Emergency Planning
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The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)
The Civil Contingencies Act sets out the framework for emergency planning in the UK, which the Government have a legal obligation to review every five years. The most recent review was published in March 2022, which concluded that the Act continues to achieve its stated objectives, but it also set out recommendations to strengthen the system and its planning. The resilience framework published in December sets out the Government’s wider approach to strengthening our resilience to all risks.
Lord Mann (Non-Afl)
Considering the crisis in local government finance and the ongoing spectre of ambulances queuing at hospitals, how many emergency planning bodies have raised major concerns about our resilience in the event of a major disaster?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
As the noble Lord suggests, we have a well-developed system of local resilience through the 38 local resilience forums. I have received no reports myself of particular concerns they have raised on this matter. It is more a matter for DLUHC than for the Cabinet Office, but I will look into it and get back to the noble Lord.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, what lessons have the Government learned from the failure to anticipate a major pandemic of the sort we have now faced with Covid? Have the Government initiated any new proposals for contingency planning ahead of major predictable crises of that sort?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
The Government had the advantage—or disadvantage—of the lessons from Covid, when they were conducting the review I mentioned. Since then, they have published the UK Government Resilience Framework, which shows a lot of frameworks. A completely independent review is also going on, the Covid inquiry, which I am sure will teach us more lessons on what to do in serious emergencies in the future.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
My Lords, I refer to my interests in the register. Can the Minister tell us the Government’s assessment of the efficacy of the Serco contract delivering the Emergency Planning College? Can she comment on the future of the Emergency Planning College, given the suggestions that the site is likely to be sold?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
This is not a contract that I have had anything to do with. The noble Lord always asks very good questions on contingency planning. I will look into it and get back to him.
Lord Stirrup (CB)
My Lords, the response to any serious emergency hinges a very great deal upon the emergency services. What impact does the Minister think the incorporation of Chinese technology and components into police force equipment is likely to have on our own resilience?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
The noble and gallant Lord will be aware that we made a Statement before Christmas about the use of Chinese technology in cameras and so on. Obviously, we are putting a lot more resources into security. This is one of the issues that is under careful consideration, and it has of course been discussed during the passage of the Procurement Bill in recent times. I draw noble Lords’ attention to the steps that we have already taken and the way we keep a careful eye on these matters.
Lord Cormack (Con)
Does my noble friend agree that what is needed is not “careful consideration” but real action?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I have already described some of the real action that we have taken. I also draw my noble friend’s attention to some of the provisions in Schedules 6 and 7 to the Procurement Bill that is now going through the other House, the debates that we have had here, the debates we will no doubt have again and the careful steps that we are taking in relation to these important issues.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, the ongoing emergency of sewage despoliation and the death of our rivers and coastlines is something the Government do not seem to be acting on at all. Last year, on 8 September, the then Secretary of State for the Environment—I cannot even remember which one it was—told water companies to produce a plan within 14 days. It is 165 days later and there is no plan. I gather water companies have been told again. When are the Government going to deal with this ongoing emergency?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I share the noble Baroness’s concern about our rivers and, of course, we worked together to amend the Environment Bill on this issue. Now, she is rightly asking about the follow-up. This is not a matter for me but for Defra. However, I can assure her that our national security risk assessment looks at these issues and makes sure that, going forward, plans are right and proper.
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest as London’s Deputy Mayor for Fire and Resilience and chair of the London Resilience Forum. The focus on skills in the recently published resilience framework on training and exercising is welcome, but it is vital that this provides the skills needed and it is properly resourced. Can the Minister provide further detail on how her plans for the proposed UK resilience academy are progressing and how this will contribute to both prevention and preparedness? Also, have the Government ear-marked funding for a major exercise along the lines of Exercise Unified Response that took place seven years ago? This would provide responders from across all sectors represented on local resilience forums the opportunity to gain valuable skills in advance of needing them.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I agree on the importance of the local resilience and the testing and trialling that the noble Baroness talks about. On actual funding, I will come back to her, but the new approach that has been taken in the resilience reform and in the UK Resilience Forum meeting, that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster presided over himself recently, is on the importance of emergency preparedness. The focus on skills is also a focus in cabinet committee work on these issues. So I hope I have given her some assurance that this is work we are pushing ahead with
Baroness Berridge (Con)
My Lords, recently in your Lordships’ House we have had cause to talk about the strategic risk, in various departments, of certain building materials—particularly of certain concrete in schools but which also potentially affects our hospitals. Is that something that is caught by this resilience framework: a risk such as that, which could materialise, that covers more than one government department? If it is not within the framework, is the Minister’s department co-ordinating what the response would have to be across government if that failure of building material unfortunately materialises?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
We certainly have a co-ordination role, especially where risks affect more than one department. The work that we have done on the national security risk assessment outlines, each time that it is done, the biggest risks that we see. Having dealt a lot with buildings, I can understand exactly what my noble friend’s concern might be, particularly in relation to schools. We are looking at the risk assessment at the moment, and we will be publishing a new national risk register this year. I will take away the point about schools that she has so helpfully raised today.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that we should be more proactive in terms of the advice given to households for when there is a major crisis or emergency? We used to very clearly tell households about having batteries, torches, water purifiers and a wind-up radio and the frequencies to listen in on when these emergencies happened. We now have a website, but people are not told. Does the Minister believe that we should actually tell people what it would be useful to have? They do not have to have it but, my goodness me, if anything goes wrong, it is very useful to have those things.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
DLUHC is working with the local resilience forums to work out what we should be doing in the light of the latest developments. I agree that the focus on the website is not always great, particularly when websites go down during emergencies, which has been my own experience. I have dealt locally with people who deal with emergencies, notably on Covid. The voluntary effort that comes forth when emergencies take place and all the good things that are done are really impressive. We have to learn from that and put that into the system, as it were, for the future. I take the point about making sure that people know, by leaflets and so on as well as by websites, what they need to do in the case of an emergency.
Lord Kamall (Con)
The noble Lord opposite talked about the website for resilience. For the benefit of noble Lords who are not yet aware of this website, can my noble friend the Minister share the URL for that website so that we can evangelise about it on her behalf?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I will certainly take forward my noble friend’s idea. I have also been impressed by the system that the mobile phone operators have that you can ring if your electricity goes down. These things exist, but the point—as expressed so powerfully on the other Benches—is that we need to make sure that people know what to do when flooding comes or there are other local difficulties. That is why we have put in a new head of resilience within the Cabinet Office and have published the risk framework. We are open to new ideas, both on substance and on communication, as I hope that I have shown.
Civil Service: Digital Skills
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Lord Clement-Jones
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they intend to take in response to the Global Government Forum report UK civil service digital skills, published on 29 November 2022.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)
My Lords, the Government are already taking action to build digital skills at scale and have a clear road map, set out in the Transforming for a Digital Future strategy, which we published in June 2022. The road map has set a target to upskill at least 90% of senior civil servants in digital and data by 2025 and to strengthen the attraction and retention of digital talent by bolstering the Government’s recruitment brand and pay offer for specialist skills.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, the Government claim that their 2022-25 digital and data road map will usher in a
“new era of digital transformation”
for public service improvement, yet Civil Service skills are clearly inadequate to deliver it. As the NAO has pointed out, there has been
“a consistent pattern of underperformance”
in public services for many years. What will be different this time? Is not the road map another example of this Government’s wishful thinking?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
It is important to have an ambition and a road map if you are going to move things forward. We have a Prime Minister who regards the digital and data area as very important. We have set out our digital future strategy, which includes, on the point that the noble Lord is concerned about, that 90% of senior civil servants will be upskilled in digital and data through that programme. Digital professionals will also have top-up training every year. We are moving to recruit a lot more civil servants in the digital and data area; we have 4,000 vacancies, which is too many, but we are doing everything that we can to attract more people. This includes a capability-based pay scheme and much more focus on the regions, where we believe that we can get more digital talent out of the universities, often working away from London in centres such as Cardiff and Darlington.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, to pick up that last point, the Government’s own digital tsar—the head of digital services—does not underestimate the difficulty of attracting those professional staff because of the salary issue. Does the Minister think that this road map will properly address that? Is it not about time we spent less on consultants, who we are paying millions for, and more on the wages of our digital experts in the Civil Service?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I believe that is actually the direction of travel. We are bringing in more of a capability-based pay scheme, which will allow us to track and keep these people who are in hot demand in a competitive market—as I know only too well. The Civil Service jobs are very interesting; if we could sort out a route for people to come in and work on digital data, and perhaps even go out again, and so improve our skills and work on these important projects, that would make a huge difference. The establishment of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology—DSIT—is going to make a difference as well, in setting the tone and encouraging people to come and work on the very real data and skills challenges that we now have in the Civil Service.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for the Question about skills but values are just as important as skills in the digital space. Could the Minister tell your Lordships’ House what the Government intend by way of promoting fundamental rights and freedoms in that space—whether it is the right not to be degraded, the right to personal digital privacy, the right not to be discriminated against or, crucially, the right to decisions on things that matter being made by a human being and not an algorithm?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
The noble Baroness raises important points, and these are going to be debated a lot in the Online Safety Bill. In the Civil Service, we have a clear set of values—public service values. The Central Digital and Data Office is set up to look at how best to transform public services, but in a way that is appropriately balanced between using things such as AI and making sure that people’s rights and responsibilities are protected. We have the Data Protection Act and the Information Commissioner’s Office to help us in that process.
Lord Boswell of Aynho (Non-Afl)
My Lords, having been at one stage a civil servant colleague of the current Minister, and declaring my interest as someone who went on to become a Minister and who has a daughter who has taken the same path from one to the other, I ask if we could have a gentle assurance that the Minister will use her best endeavours to ensure that these healthy disciplines are extended to Members of His Majesty’s Government as well. If they understand what civil servants are talking about, they can challenge it and produce a better overall conclusion.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
It is a pleasure to see the noble Lord in his place; I congratulate him on his return and on his daughter’s eminence. The answer is that of course Ministers need to be educated in digital and data matters as well. We are doing our own small part in the Cabinet Office by ensuring that the induction that Ministers are given on security, for example, has a suitable data element. There is the broader point of what data can bring to growth and science. I earlier referenced the new department, DSIT, which is symptomatic of the change that we are trying to make in government to think more of AI, the cloud and data. To go back to the noble Baroness’s point, we are also trying to make sure that we are thinking about people and values at the same time.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, the British Government are lagging behind several of their European counterparts in digital transformation. Can the Minister say what she regards as the other obstacles, apart from lack of skills? Are there still legal obstacles, in that the way data is handled by different departments is different under existing Acts, or are there other obstacles that we need to tackle in order to catch up with the Baltic states and others that have gone a great deal further in moving towards efficient digital government?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I used to sit on the Competitiveness Council in Brussels, in the days when we were in the EU, and learned a lot from the Estonians—but of course they have a much smaller country and they were able to start everything digitally. I think people have admired us for the step we took, now 10 years ago, with GOV.UK, hosting all government paperwork and data. That now has 99% recognition across the UK, which I find very surprising. To answer the question, there are of course difficulties. Digital skills, which is the subject of this Question, is probably the biggest difficulty, but data sharing is also very important. We are finding this with all the various data initiatives we are doing—for example, I am working on borders—where being able to share data between companies, or to share individuals’ data between departments, is extremely important. We are gradually making sure that we are getting the right powers to do that in different areas as Bills come before your Lordships’ House.
Lord Mann (Non-Afl)
My Lords, what targets have been set to upskill Peers of the realm?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I think that is a matter for the House authorities, but I will happily pursue it for the noble Lord.
Lord Kamall (Con)
My noble friend the Minister is absolutely right to say that countries such as Estonia and Latvia were able to leap-frog—they did not have the encumbrance of legacy technologies. Can she tell us the thinking around how legacy technology—not only the technology itself but the processes around that technology—can often hold back progress?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I can tell my noble friend a lot about what we did at Tesco on this matter. We had a spaghetti junction of old technology and what we did—I am sure noble Lords will be interested in this—was bring in systems that were compatible with one another. We gradually got rid of the spaghetti junction of technology and moved to new technology across the board. It is about those sorts of principles. Alex Burghart, the very energetic Minister concerned, heads at ministerial level the Central Digital and Data Office. It is these sorts of issues that we are looking at, so as to make sure that the transformation to digital that we need is efficient, smooth and speedy, and does not cause lots of legacy problems. I think we all know of experiences in different government departments where these already exist.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, just to balance the argument on efficient digital government, we need to be quite careful, do we not, that we do not all end up, in communicating with officialdom, talking to artificial intelligence systems or to robots?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I share my noble friend’s concern. I will say that artificial intelligence and robotics are actually improving efficiency in some of the services that one uses, such as banking, so that we move through the telephone options and find a person, but they are absolutely no substitute, to my mind, for having proper customer care where that is needed. There is sometimes a risk that we can get exclusion and other problems if we go too far over the top. That is why I emphasised the importance of this new department and the ability it will have to devote more attention to these sorts of incredibly important issues. AI can be a plus but it can also be a risk. We really need to look internationally and do everything that we can.