Ukraine (Shooting Down of MH17) and Gaza

Debate between Baroness Stowell of Beeston and Lord Marlesford

Monday 21st July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

As regards what has happened over the past few days, there was a meeting last week of the European Council where it was agreed that further steps were necessary in terms of strengthening sanctions. That decision was taken before the tragic incident on Thursday. We have been talking to our European partners throughout the weekend and have had extensive discussions. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary will work very hard to ensure that there is clarity tomorrow and that further steps are taken in accordance with what I have already said we believe is necessary—to force Russia to withdraw and de-escalate.

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, on the—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Marlesford]

My Lords, on Russia, I welcome the Prime Minister’s suggestion that it is time to make our power, influence and resources felt. May I make a practical and proportionate suggestion that one measure would be to suspend all civil air flights to and from Russia? Ideally, this would cover the whole EU and the USA. Although, Mr Putin would, of course, find methods to fly people in and out of Russia, it would be at a heavy cost, both economically and in terms of Russia’s status in the world.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I take note of the proposal put forward by my noble friend. I do not believe that that is one of the specific steps that we are currently considering but I am happy to talk further to him about his idea.

Housing: Affordable Housing

Debate between Baroness Stowell of Beeston and Lord Marlesford

Thursday 12th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I can certainly tell the noble Lord that this Conservative-led coalition has built more council housing in the last year alone in London than was built in the 13 years combined of the last Labour Government.

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, what is the Government’s definition of affordable housing?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

Affordable housing is housing that attracts some financial support from both public and private sectors so that it is available at a rent below the market rate.

Businesses: Town-centre Parking

Debate between Baroness Stowell of Beeston and Lord Marlesford

Tuesday 25th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

The noble Lord is right, and I am disappointed if my response to the right reverend Prelate did not give him the right impression. Clearly, access to free parking is an important matter for people. The Government are trying to make changes in order to ensure that, in particular in small towns and those that are not thriving in the way that they deserve, we are not blocking their progress.

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the purpose of parking meters is to allocate scarce space for parking, so that if at peak times one cannot find a place, it means that the charges are too low, and, if there are a lot of empty places, it means that parking charges are too high?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

That is a rather philosophical question. The most important thing is that charges are appropriate, and the Government are trying to ensure that the charges imposed by local authorities are appropriate and are seen as fair and reasonable by the people who have to pay them.

Olympic Games: Security

Debate between Baroness Stowell of Beeston and Lord Marlesford

Thursday 12th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I am obviously interested to hear what the noble and gallant Lord says about the initial expectations of the Ministry of Defence about troop requirements for the Olympic Games. I cannot comment on them because they would have been formed during the period of office of the previous Government. I can say that, during the time the coalition has been in power, and as we have got closer to the Games, the process of reviewing and scrutinising these arrangements has been very thorough and has allowed us to take the decision that we did yesterday.

As to the noble and gallant Lord’s question about training, I can be clear that, of course, those who will be deployed will receive the necessary training to do the task that is asked of them. They will be doing a similar kind of work—venue security—that is planned for those military that are already deployed to do it. They have not been called in to do something that is in addition to the kind of work already planned. That would include search of people and vehicles, and perimeter control. As to his question about command and control, the military will have their own command and control arrangements but will work very closely with G4S staff and LOCOG venue general managers. This will have to be a properly integrated operation. By that I mean that there will not be a separate arrangement for different contributors to the security of the sites.

[Lord Marlesford]

My Lords, will the Government learn a wider lesson from this experience, which is the tremendous resource that the military offers of getting governments out of holes they are in from bad administration? The Minister may not remember, although I certainly do, the way in which the military had to sort out the shambles of the foot and mouth crisis, when there were piles of rotting corpses all over the country that were getting bigger and bigger. That was dealt with. However, will the Government realise that, particularly with the reduction of the number of people in the Armed Forces, there are very competent planners at senior level from all three forces who could be available to do a lot of these sorts of public sector jobs? To give one obvious example, the shambles of the UK Border Force could be taken over and dealt with very rapidly if they found a two or three star recently retired military officer to run it. I also think that there is a quite a lot in what the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, said. One of the things that government is very bad at doing, still, is writing waterproof contracts and monitoring them with the private sector. It is not so much the private sector being wicked; the public sector is extraordinarily bad. An obvious example of that is the failure to monitor the people who are given contracts to clean our roads or to make them do the job which they are paid for.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I certainly share my noble friend’s view of our Armed Forces. We are all in their debt for the way in which, from time to time, they step in and take control of situations. My noble friend is absolutely right to make that point and we keep that very much in mind. On this specific issue—notwithstanding the points that the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, made a few moments ago—the involvement of the military at the Olympics has always been planned for. Some contingency was built in to our expectations and we are deploying that contingency in order to ensure that we meet our security needs. However, the manner in which we have carried out our decision on this has not been in any way short of what I would have expected it to be. As to the noble Lord’s point about contracts, I will take that on board. I remind him, again, that this contract is not with the Home Office; it is with LOCOG. None the less, he makes some powerful points and I will give them consideration.