Tata Steel

Debate between Baroness Neville-Rolfe and Lord Cormack

Thursday 16th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

Decisions on company ownership are of course commercial matters for the companies concerned. As a businessperson, I know that important rules on consultation exist in this country. I emphasise again that, at this stage, we are not talking about closures or job losses but about discussions about a possible change of ownership. As I have said, the workers and the unions that represent them have an important part to play in industry, its success and our recovery from the difficulties of the recession.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend understand that Lincolnshire is not a highly industrialised county and that the impact of closure, if it came to that, on Scunthorpe would be significant? Will she please assure me that every possible advice and assistance will be given to all those involved, who will necessarily be fearing for their livelihoods? The impact of a closure on the whole county would be very significant, were it to come to pass.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

I thank my noble friend for making that point. Of course, if there are job losses and adjustments to be made, we will all share the concerns of the local communities concerned.

Since this Government took office, the claimant count has fallen by 27%. In Scunthorpe, the long-term count has fallen by 22% in just the past year, so there are signs that the economy is recovering. However, I emphasise the point that I have been making all along: we are not talking about closures; we are talking about a possible change of ownership and we will actively engage on that. Fortunately, because of the changes that have been made in recent years, the steel industry is stronger and more competitive. We need to press forward to ensure that that continues.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Neville-Rolfe and Lord Cormack

Monday 7th April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I had not intended to speak but I was concerned to hear about some of the disturbing individual cases of bad practice described by noble Lords.

Surely the prime public policy need is better enforcement by the police, supported by social services, of anti-child-trafficking laws and penalties to prevent these awful things happening. Does an adequate framework for such enforcement exist? This issue is highly relevant to Amendment 55A.

The issues would be better discussed and tackled separately in legislation that can look at both issues—perhaps in the draft modern slavery Bill. We should also take time to properly review the proposed provisions. I noted the well informed comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, about the role of volunteers and the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, about costs. For these reasons we should not burden the Immigration Bill with this complex new issue but seek to find a way forward to consider it.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, we have clearly got to find a way forward. As my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe has just briefly and succinctly said, the question is whether it fits better into this Bill or into the anti-slavery Bill.

There is no more despicable thing than to exploit a child. One’s mind goes back to when I had the great good fortune in 1982 to be commissioned to write a short life of William Wilberforce to commemorate the 150th anniversary of his death and the 150th anniversary of the abolition of slavery throughout the British dominions in 1983. In researching that book I became totally convinced that William Wilberforce was indeed the greatest Back-Bencher in our history. He was a man who never held office of any sort and yet campaigned brilliantly and persistently over decades, first, to achieve the abolition of the slave trade in 1807 and then, over a quarter of a century later, the abolition of slavery itself. He heard the news of the passing of that Bill as he lay dying in his home.

That of course did not end the sort of social evils against which he had campaigned, and we all remember Fagin, the fictional character of Dickens, and how Mr Brownlow came to the rescue of Oliver Twist. We also remember the writings of Henry Mayhew in the articles under the heading, “London Labour and the London Poor”. I often think that we could do with a Mayhew and a Dickens today to point the moral and adorn the tale, as it were, by graphically describing the sort of evils to which my noble friend Lord McColl, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon, have referred during the debate.