Succession to Peerages and Baronetcies Bill [HL]

Lord Addington Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 9th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, as I follow the noble Lord, Lord Lucas—who is a friend—I am struck, first, by how dull my peerage is compared to his. It really does not have anywhere near the same entertainment value. Everything I enjoy in history, the little quirks and side-plays, is personified there. His peerage has also provided the House with someone who has been a very good parliamentarian for many years, so I thank him for his words and for his contribution so far.

I am in almost total agreement regarding the Bill. I must declare an interest, in that I have only the one child, a daughter. If you are going to make this change to make things equal, it should be the oldest child. There cannot be any real disagreement about that. If you think it is important, that is what you do.

The by-elections are always in the background: they are the elephant in the room—except that this elephant is now trumpeting quite loudly. If we had this, we might actually get, for however random the peerage is, women standing. That would slightly strengthen a very weak case for keeping this going.

I am always struck by the fact that there are not many temporary deals whose silver anniversaries can be celebrated very rapidly. Are we going for gold on this one? I am not sure, but let us remember that just in case.

The recreation of extinct peerages—fine, but I am not sure it adds very much to the strength of the nation, or anything else. However, if we are going to do this, we should follow the example of the Royal Family. The oldest child is the only way you can really make this equal going forward. It could be interpreted as an attempt at a small step forward, but it is out of date and out of time. Thirty years ago, yes; but not now.

I have another interest to declare: I looked it up and, going back six generations, the first Lord Addington had an oldest child who was a girl. So in my case, we can go back six generations of privilege. If we are going to effect the basic principle that women should have the same status as men, then it must be the oldest child. Baronetcies are possibly not as pressing, but I do not see why they should not be included. If we are going to do this, it has to be based on that principle. We have to make sure we embody it. Would it do any good? A little. Would it do any harm? None. I hope that we will bring the Bill forward in those terms.

Committee will be very interesting. I admit that I did not pick up on this on first reading the Bill, but Clause 1(4) does not stand up to the modern world. Bring the Bill forward, have a look at it and I am afraid the pen should go through quite a lot of it. The only part that has any merit is Clause 1(1).

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

It is clear that the noble Lord thinks there should be a number of revisions to this Bill, in particular the deletion of Clause 1(4). When he comes to speak at the end of this debate, could the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, tell us his position on that subsection?

[Lord Addington (LD)]

Is the noble Lord asking for my opinion? I stand by this: keep the first three subsections of Clause 1 and dump the rest.

Houses of Parliament: Co-location

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, when you have the job of summing up for your party in a debate like this, you think, “Do I have an original point?” You put one or two up there, and it is like watching ducks go down at a fairground—that has gone, that has gone, that has gone. But the basic point about this is that a bizarre statement was made out of the blue, which none of us was ready for, and all of us think is vaguely ridiculous. So we have a starting point; then we come down to the points behind it. One is the ongoing farce that is restoration and renewal.

Certain people think that, when you make a speech in the House of Commons—and remember that we are talking about the people there, the commons, housed together in one place, with royal authority—if you do not do it in Westminster, somehow, no matter what you say on what subject, it does not count. And it has to be not just in Westminster, but that bit of Westminster, which is, as the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, said, possibly the longest hundred yards in the world. That is patently absurd. If you say it in a Parliament that works together, it is still valid, but what you say on a subject must be more important.

So, does it really matter if we say it somewhere else? Not really—but then you get into the practical difficulties. As the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, pointed out, it is very difficult to travel anywhere other than London in the United Kingdom, because of the Victorian infrastructure. That is true, so we have to ask whether we can go elsewhere. I have been to Canberra, and it is a nice place. I have not been to Kigali but, as I pointed out when we discussed this before, there is a tradition of suggesting somewhere you like as a new basis for Parliament, and Kigali is a new one. I suggested Norwich because of the number of pubs there. That was inspired by the fact that Michael Gove’s comment was the sort that usually comes up halfway through the third round in a pub, that should be forgotten by the end of the fourth, and certainly not remembered the next morning. We are just putting forward a series of ideas because we are frightened of moving.

I have a small bet with a couple of people—it is actually quite a big bet if you count the number of times I have made it—that we will leave this building only when we are driven out by overflowing sewage or a fire, because somebody will always say, “No, we can’t possibly leave.” It will always be inconvenient. We have the Civil Service here and everything else. So once you have identified somewhere you can go that minimises that inconvenience, you seize on it. Then you are told that it is minorly inconvenient to a bit of government. There is an idea that it is covering up a bit of bad news or something else to discuss. I think that probably only we are really that interested; I think that is something that comes across here.

We have this odd situation where the practical work of Parliament can carry on somewhere else. It has to be close to the Civil Service in Whitehall, and because we are not going to move everybody else, we carry on there. If we move out and go somewhere else, we really should go as a block, because walking distance matters, for all the reasons that have been stated. We have all been on Zoom meetings. When Zoom meetings become real you can suddenly discuss new issues, the nuance comes out and you get what is coming out. There is nodding going on here; I will leave it at that. All the committee meetings we had on Zoom were never as quick or as efficient as when we met face to face. Zoom may be a lot better—or Teams; hey, let us not be brand specific—but it is never going to be as good. It may cover up things and be a way forward, but the final decision generally requires a degree of interaction, especially for a large group. We have to get on and do this.

If we allow ourselves to be used as a football and do not extract a price from those who are doing the kicking of that football, we will get into a ridiculous state of affairs where we get used as an excuse. It has been stated that the House of Commons and the House of Lords have a love/hate relationship: they both love themselves and hate each other. We cannot allow this to go on. The House of Lords’ function is to annoy the Executive at times. Anyone who wants to look at this function should have been on the Schools Bill. Any Whip sitting down there would have looked with a degree of dread on their faces as they saw the Benches, where I think the last three Ministers who had looked after education quietly patted their stilettos as the incumbent tried to defend Henry VIII powers. It was something for the connoisseurs.

We have a situation where the House of Lords has to be here to be effective. We have to be close enough to act, but do we have to sit in these particular Chambers? Probably not, though it would be nice to come back. Let us face it, it is a grade 1 listed building and nobody is in a busting hurry to take it on and do anything else with it. I believe all the museums in London were asked, “Hey, would you like the place?” and all said, “Thanks, no.” It is not exactly built for exhibition galleries, let us face it.

We have arguments here which are covering up the major issue, which is the fact that a few people in Parliament, predominantly in the House of Commons although they have some allies here, do not want to leave, so they say, “Let’s come up with another bizarre idea. Let’s throw it out there.” I do not know, is it a conspiracy? Has somebody bought train ticket options for the future, to make sure the entire place travels more often? Other forms of transport are available. That is the only reason I can think of for why this would work.

When the Minister replies to this debate, I hope he will make it quite clear that everybody in Whitehall knows just how happy we are with this suggestion, and how the tone in which it was done has annoyed us even more. Ultimately, are they aware that if we stick our heels in, we can just say we are not going? If that is something that is being said in the corridors of power—or, at the other end, the green corridors—then we will be okay and we will not have this ridiculous situation, because all the work that is done by the informal structures here, the all-party groups, the outreach, et cetera, will become almost impossible. We will become a little codicil in the background. Government will not have that effective check of us saying, “Wait a minute, listen”, which they need every now and again. I have just given noble Lords one example of a Bill that needed it. They have to take on board the fact that Parliament works better as a whole—or will the House of Commons fundamentally change and do all our work on legislation? I do not know. If they want to make a fundamental set of changes, why do they not make a proposal first?

Unless we get some coherent strategy on this that stops people filling out a news sheet at the drop of a hat, we are going to carry on having this debate. If the price of that is saying, “Yes, we will move”, or, “No, we won’t”—I do not think anyone is brave enough to say the second of those—we are going to carry on with this. I look forward to the Minister’s reply and I hope that we do not have to do this again.

Restoration and Renewal: Location of House of Lords Chamber

Lord Addington Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord is inventive in slipping the Labour windfall tax into a Question about the location of the House of Lords. For the avoidance of doubt, I do not favour that proposition. This is not an announcement; the position remains, as I have previously stated, that the decisions on how to proceed are a matter for Parliament.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, will the Minister take back to his friends in government that, if they are going to come out with rather bizarre statements like this with no notice or consultation, they should at least try to be a little more original? We have heard this all before. Dozens of us are waiting to give suggestions of our home cities, where it would be lovely to be. Might I make a recommendation for Norwich? Any city that boasts proudly that it used to have a pub for every day of the year would probably be a good environment for suggestions such as this.

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I am very fond of Norwich personally, but I would not encourage further speculation in this area. I will only say from my personal experience that I was in York last week on a ministerial visit and I did not look at any alternative site for your Lordships’ House.

Gender-balanced Parliament and Male Primogeniture

Lord Addington Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, the Government assent to the rule of law, and I believe that the law as is should be applied in this respect.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I have to declare an interest as a hereditary Peer but one who has only a daughter. I suggest that the Government will lose nothing by bringing forward something that allows this to happen. As for hereditary by-elections, given that people who were conceived after the system was instituted are now voting adults, surely it has had its day and has not worked as a stimulus to further reform.

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I think we have discussed the issue of hereditary by-elections. On the matter of succession to titles, any change would affect many families, many of whom have no claim to be Members of your Lordships’ House, and all those issues and interests would have to be considered.

Financial Services Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 14th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this group of amendments and I declare my interests as set out in the register. I will speak to a trio of amendments and I will endeavour to do it in a trice.

First, I very much support the intention behind Amendment 16. I ask my noble friend the Minister, over and above what is set out in the amendment, what reports the Government have received of bailiffs entering properties during the Covid period, both in breach of their guidance and the Covid regulations, and what action all relevant authorities will be taking in this respect.

Secondly, on Amendment 26, I very much support my noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley, who set out the arguments perfectly and succinctly. Would my noble friend the Minister agree that there is clearly a loophole, and what will the Government do effectively to close said loophole?

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, I give full-throated support to Amendment 37C, so perfectly introduced by my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham. It seems one of those amendments where, for want of a small legislative change, a huge material difference could be made to so many people’s lives. It is a funds-releasing, anxiety-relieving amendment. I ask my noble friend the Minister: if not this amendment, will the Government bring forward one of their own at Third Reading? If not this Bill, what Bill?

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, while sitting here listening to this debate, I could not help but get the feeling that there had been a drawing of lots in the Government Whips’ Office when they were preparing to take on these amendments and the noble Lord, Lord True, lost. All of the issues here are good and real issues. If these amendments were accepted and brought forward, they would probably make our lives that little bit better.

Before I bring my full attention to the amendment brought forward by the noble Lord, Lord Young, I will say that we deserve to hear at least about a plan of action to deal with all these issues. If the Minister cannot provide that now, giving some idea of when they will be considered is very important. They are real issues; please deal with them. That is what we are here for. The only justification for us being in this Chamber is to deal with them, so can we hear about that?

When the noble Lord, Lord Young, first raised the issue in his amendment, I said that he had put his finger on an absurdity. I have not changed my mind. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, basically said that the cock-up school of history is alive and functioning. The rest of us who were in Parliament at the time and involved in those Bills take our share of the blame because we did not spot it either. Can we change this?

The noble Lord, Lord Young, made about half a dozen arguments in his speech for why the amendment should be accepted or acted on. The most convincing one was that, for a comparatively modest sum of, say, £3,000, you have about four or five days-worth of paperwork. That is paperwork that you might not be very good at and which you might have to repeat, over and again, to get the money out—and usually the person doing the paperwork to get the money to support the child put that money in the bank in the first place. This is beyond belief; it is Kafkaesque. Will the Minister make sure that the people who put the money in to support a child can take it out to do so? What method are the Government taking? The law does not allow it at the moment, but we change the law all the time—we are doing it now. Please can he give us a plan of action on this?

The noble Lord, Lord Young, said that he did not expect to vote on this. The ball is of course firmly in his court on this one, but, dependent on what the Minister says, I hope the noble Lord will decide whether that is the correct approach here. I know it will annoy the Whips if we have a vote on this, but if the Minister cannot give him something that is at least in some way positive, I will certainly herd my colleagues through to support it.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 37C in this group. I declare that I chair the National Mental Capacity Forum. I hold the noble Lords, Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Blunkett, in the highest esteem, and I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Young, for the time he spent talking through my reservations about this amendment as drafted.

The discussions relating to child trust funds have come about through the best of motives: trying to ensure that money can be accessed easily when a fund matures if the person for whom the fund was established lacks the mental capacity to access it and manage their money. Around 55,000 funds matured monthly since last September. To date, about 7,000 of these are held by young adults aged 18 who lack mental capacity. Some 80% of these funds are for amounts of under £2,000. The Court of Protection processes may seem daunting to many parents and so, in trying to resolve this, a process has been developed by some but not all providers.

As the noble Lord, Lord Young, said, the amendment is modelled on the 1997 Law Commission report that was behind the original Mental Incapacity Bill—a Bill which did not proceed. That report suggested a small payment scheme, which was not progressed because there were concerns that it could be stretched more widely to cover other financial products and that it would not respect the requirement that there should be proper judicial authority to act on behalf of another person in handling their affairs if they have not been able to designate that authority themselves.

Following the important work of noble Lords on child trust funds, the Court of Protection has been looking at its rules processes and is due to meet shortly, on 20 April, to explore ways to simplify the application forms. It is important to note that the application fee has already been waived and that any form marked for urgent business goes before the urgent business judge on the same day. There is no need for a solicitor to be involved, and there have been seven applicants to date whose applications have gone through successfully without using a solicitor, so there is no need for any costs for the applicant, nor should there be delays. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, will assist Mikey’s parents to apply under the urgent provision, as it should be processed very rapidly as he is terminally ill.

However, there is a fundamental principle here. One person cannot access another adult’s money or possessions without their permission, or, if the person lacks capacity, can access funds only with legal authority. Although this money is called a child trust fund it is not accessible to the person until they turn 18—in other words, when they become in law an adult. That means that we are talking about somebody else accessing an adult’s money. The role of the Court of Protection is to ensure that the money accessed is limited to this fund and possibly other clearly identified funds that are the property of the 18 year-old, and to guard against misappropriation of the money.

Let us take the case of a child who has been hit by a car and sustained catastrophic head injuries. On turning 18, the trust fund money is there and there may also be a settlement for very large sums in compensation to provide for their future care. I do not see how this amendment, as drafted, would prevent larger sums than the trust fund being drawn in, and therefore how it could prevent larger sums of money being misappropriated and used by others for purposes other than the care of the person. The amendment would not restrict who can apply for this money as it does not specify that only parents or responsible carers can apply under the proposed scheme. Could cousins, siblings or others who pretend to have the person’s interests at heart access money?

Another difficulty is what happens if the person later regains some capacity. Take, for example, a person with a catastrophic head injury acquired at the age of 16 and who, with rehabilitation, may have regained enough mental capacity by the time they are 20 or 21 to be able to be involved in their own financial decisions, particularly over smaller sums of money.

Sadly, these instances that we have heard about and that have received press coverage should never have happened in the first place. In my role as chair of the National Mental Capacity Forum I have been working to raise issues around transition, highlighting the need for planning to happen when a young person is in their mid-teens, so that when they have reached the legal age of majority at 18, everything is in place to allow future decision-making to happen, with the oversight of the Court of Protection through a court-appointed deputy.

This amendment would affect Scotland and Northern Ireland, as well as England and Wales. Therefore, I wonder what discussions have happened with the devolved Governments over this amendment. Across the UK, young people, on turning 18, rightfully have access to their trust fund, currently under judicial oversight it they lack capacity.

Budget Statement

Lord Addington Excerpts

Friday 12th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I do not think I have ever been in a debate when I have been speaker number 99 and there have been five maiden speakers before me, which probably says something about today. I will restrict myself to a few remarks on something that is not in this but should be: a strategy for sport. The Government have, through necessity, dealt with the sporting sector over the last year, making sure that it still exists. There is more emphasis there today: maybe a local sports club can be taken over; possibly there is some money, if you can get by, if your elbows are sharp enough, if the local pub does not take it off you first. However, we lack a coherent approach here.

I am on the House of Lords committee currently looking at this, and we were recently given evidence by the Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand, who is also the Finance Minister. He said that to do this, you need to drive it from the centre of government; you need somebody who takes an interest in it. The reason it is so important, to go back to what we have been talking about solidly for more than a year, is that it helps with such things as health. We know that the people who have been the biggest victims are those who are most unhealthy—the most overweight and the most inactive. That is something we have to start to address. Also, clubs, activities and social interaction are among the best things to help with mental health problems, something building up that we have not even seen the edge of yet. Please, can we look at this coherent sector, because the sporting community, particularly amateur sport, achieves most of what the Government are aiming for in social policy, in health and in education? Surely, it deserves some coherent strategy and support.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, when it comes to being in this House in 2011, when reforming electoral boundaries came up, a cold shiver runs down your spine. It was one of the messier periods I have seen in my 30-plus years here, and it is something we should try to get away from. For an analysis of it, I would take my noble friend Lord Oates’ description of what happened. You can stick bits around the outside of it, but I think he caught the spirit of it.

When we look at the Bill itself, the biggest hole is the automatic registration of voters. Until we get that, we have the problem of how many registered voters there should be. That is one of the major problems if you are going for this form of democratic representation; it is quite clearly a hole. There are lots of things we can do to improve this, but it is certainly a major hole.

When it comes to the other comments about what a constituency should look like, we all know that the constituency we happen to have an interest in should stay still. If we take it that that will be the default position of everybody else, the percentage variation will become important, as will what its variables are. Are they county lines or rivers? The Tamar has been mentioned.

If we are to go through this, can we have a better understanding of where the variations, be they of 5% or 10%, kick in? A better understanding of this—at least with local government lines we know what we are dealing with—will mean that we actually know what the arguments are about.

This has generally been a messy process that has left scars on everybody involved in it. Eight-year reviews are good; 10-year ones would be better. I look forward to what is coming in the Bill with a sort of masochistic pleasure running down me.

Finance Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

2nd reading & Committee negatived & 3rd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 17th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, when I see the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, something in my memory tells me we should be talking about education after all these years.

The Finance Bill is the backdrop to a disaster, not one which the Government made but one which they must handle. I would like to concentrate on the charitable sector, which has had only one or two mentions so far. At the start of this process, a couple of months ago, I was lucky enough to lead a debate about the problems of the charity sector. The Government have given hundreds of millions of pounds to back it up; that is great. However, the sector looks like it has lost billions.

Why does this matter? Quite simply, there is virtually no section of our society which does not use charities to fulfil its ends. Charities are involved in education, recreation, healthcare support, housing—you name it, charities are there. They have lost their main income streams—those fun things which you do together. The sponsored walk is out; the charity dinner, where everybody drinks slightly too much and makes pledges, is gone; the high-street shop, which has filled a vacuum, is gone or has a very low uptake. The pressure is there.

Some charities, such as the British Dyslexia Foundation—I here remind the House of my interest as its president—are providing training. There is a big surge with children at home, as parents want to know what to do with a dyslexic child. One feels that, to go back to the old ground of the noble Lord, teachers should have been doing this beforehand, but never mind. All this training is fine, but you still need other activities to back it up, and not all charities can do it. Those sections of our society dependent on social activities to generate their income to deliver social goods are vulnerable.

There has not been enough attention paid to these groups at the moment. They overlap with other things, like furlough for staff—we have had a great deal of people asking why you cannot volunteer when you have been furloughed. There must be another look at how we can get this sector to work as the economy starts to emerge from lockdown. Some of the primary fundraising activities will be among the last things we can return to.

We must have another look here or the state must take over these duties, and I do not think that it has a great appetite for that. A little bit of pump-priming, thought and help is required here, or huge sections of our social support structure and things which make life bearable will be threatened.