Policing and Crime Bill

Debate between Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe and Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 7th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

I thank the noble Baroness for that question. Home Office officials have discussed powdered alcohol with the Department of Health and Public Health England and are very much keeping it under review. They may well have to do things at a later date but, for now, they are just keeping a watchful eye on it.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for her support and expertise, and to my noble friend Lord Kennedy for weighing in from my Front Bench with support for the amendment. As noble Lords might expect, I am disappointed with the Minister’s response. The Government have consulted —they consulted the drinks industry—but if they had consulted over a wider area, and particularly the committee to which the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, referred, I think they might have got an entirely different view in reaching their judgment on this classification.

I know quite a lot about the four objectives that govern the Licensing Act and, quite frankly, they are totally inappropriate in trying to deal with this. They were drawn up in the context of liquid alcohol, and there was a list of all the forms in which it is produced, but this is quite different. This is a move in an entirely different direction. I feel that, rather than take a serious look at this, the Government are simply applying the existing legislation as best they can, but they will not be able to implement it.

I will take the Minister’s arguments away, have a look at them and decide whether to come back again at Third Reading. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Lobbying (Transparency) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe and Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen

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

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, I start by declaring no interest—although if this was carried some years ago I would have been caught by it. I am grateful for the comments of the noble Lord. As he is aware, we are very short on time today and I intend to be as speedy as possible in addressing what he has put before us. I also intend to be as co-operative and helpful as I can be, and I even hope to persuade him not just to move amendments to make the Bill better, as he sees it, but possibly to see some merit in giving it further support. I invite him to think about that. I accept the amendment.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

My Lords, as has been noted, this amendment would reflect the normal practice that Ministers rather than Secretaries of State are referred to in legislation. While this change might be welcome for the sake of consistency, it does not change our overall position. We believe that the existing legislation as it stands is effective and we do not think that it needs to be supplemented.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, as the noble Lord described, a variety of codes are on offer at present from different organisations. It seems to us that this causes confusion and leads to a lack of clarity, so there is a strong case for the type of standard code that operates in other places. But in the light of the issues that we have on timetabling and to move the business forward, we have reflected seriously on this and have looked at the group of amendments closely. On balance, we have decided to make a major concession and agree that a code of practice should not be included in the Bill this time round. I am therefore prepared to accept the amendment.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

My Lords, the Government believe that the self-regulatory codes administered by the lobbying industry work well, and the 2014 Act on transparency of lobbying aims to complement rather than replace the existing non-statutory codes. It is not necessary to regulate through a statutory code of conduct as the existing systems are working well. In that regard, the amendments in this group that remove the requirement for a statutory code of conduct would be welcome. However, they do not change our overall position: we cannot support the Bill as we believe that existing legislation achieves what it set out to do and that further regulation is not necessary.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his comments. Again, they are acceptable. I will also move Amendment 31 in this group, which makes a minor amendment to take into account that this would extend the scope from the present arrangements to cover in-house lobbyists too, if it becomes law. It is an appropriate technical amendment to make.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

My Lords, the amendment would reproduce wording that is identical to Schedule 1 of the Transparency of Lobbying Act 2014. The schedule sets out the role and functions of the registrar. We believe that the 2014 Act effectively fulfils the purpose for which it was passed and that it does not need to be changed or amended.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, again I express my gratitude for the explanations the noble Lord has given for these amendments. I hope he will not be surprised to hear that I am going to accept most of them. In Amendment 4, “controlling” is perfectly acceptable. I shall leave Amendment 5 to one side for a moment. Amendment 6 is, I believe, from and identical to the previous legislation, which is already in force, and I am happy to accept it. I am prepared to accept Amendment 7. The wording of Amendment 8 is better than the original, so that is accepted too. The noble Lord might not be surprised, given my background, that the bit about trade unions appears in there. I do not have quite the same close links with the media, but I do my best there, where I can, and we are prepared to accept the amendment.

The one area I am not happy about is Amendment 5, which would delete “or position”. Again, I go back to my past experience. I was in the trade union movement for most of my life but also spent some time in business —I swapped sides, almost, so to speak. I was involved with people who were coming up with ideas about how they could make public service operations more effective. They would devise ideas and I would be part of that. We put the ideas in a bag and went to, for example, Australia and sought to persuade the Government that they could do a particular piece of public policy work better if only they would adopt what we had in mind. The Australian Government had no policy on that issue but we were able to persuade them that they should do it that way. Of course, we then bid for the business. We then took our portmanteau and went to Hong Kong and all round the world, persuading different Governments, in the UK as well. Often the Government were not running public services as efficiently as they could have been, and we came along with ideas on how they might change things.

However, such activities should be in the open. The public should be aware that efforts are being made to change not just the policy but the Government’s mind. We have a good example of that at the moment with Brexit. Technically, we have no real policy on Brexit, so far as I can understand—or that we have been able to elicit from the Government—but we know that positions have been reached and that people are lobbying. Technically, if you believe in transparency, that should be in the public domain. This is what the amendment would remove and it would limit the area in which it would take place. I hope I might persuade him that he should withdraw the amendment and reflect on it.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

My Lords, in some cases, such as Amendment 5, what is proposed seems to be a logical amendment to the original Bill. However, in others, such as Amendments 6 and 7, the wording is identical to that used in the 2014 Act. As those proposals already exist in statute, they would unnecessarily duplicate existing legislation. Overall, the Government believe that the definitions in existing legislation are effective and fulfil the regulatory aims the Government believe are necessary. As such, the definitions of “lobbying” and “lobbyists” do not need to be changed, as proposed in the original Bill or this group of amendments.

[Lord Lansley]

I am grateful for those responses. As my noble friend on the Front Bench will understand, my purpose here is to try to see how these elements of the existing legislation should be incorporated into a Bill that would otherwise repeal the whole Part 1 of the original Act. They would be lost and I think they would need to be reincorporated before the Bill could properly make progress.

I am very grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, on Amendment 4. On Amendment 5, I do not necessarily agree with the points he made but I do not think we should detain the Committee now. We can come back to it if we have the opportunity on Report. I am certainly willing to reconsider. For the moment, I do not plan to move Amendment 5.

I am grateful for what I think was the noble Lord’s acceptance of the other amendments, with the exception of Amendment 9, on the trade unions. I am not sure whether he was willing to let go—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, as your Lordships probably recognise, I am in a little difficulty here, particularly with my noble friend, with whom I have worked very closely on this. I hear the explanation which has been given and see a chink of light on the degree of elbow room which already exists. I am particularly anxious that we try to proceed with the Bill and hope that the Minister may be persuaded that there are elements in here which the Government should be concerned about. I am particularly pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has, I think, accepted an extension of the requirement to register and to open it to in-house lobbyists as well as the professional lobbyists.

I am keen that the Bill moves forward. I can understand the Minister’s difficulty, but she could redeem herself if she could see a way to arrange a meeting with the responsible Minister for us to talk about the fundamentals in the Bill. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, might wish to join that meeting, along with at least two noble Lords who I know are very keen indeed to see this Bill, which is well supported across the House, move forward. If the Minister is not giving much today, perhaps she might be willing to try to facilitate that for us in the future. On that basis, I am prepared to accept the amendments.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

I will quickly say that of course I would be more than happy to facilitate a meeting. I always think that meetings are an enormous help in this House, and I will make sure that the office goes ahead and organises that meeting.

Community Pharmacy

Debate between Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe and Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen

Monday 17th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

My noble friend is absolutely right. As I mentioned earlier, that is the point of the pharmacy access scheme, which is intended in particular to ensure that the right number of rural pharmacies are available in those areas.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

I know that my local chemist is very upset about what may happen to him. He talks about areas where money is wasted by the NHS and where efficiencies could be effected. Has the Minister had discussions with the representatives of pharmacists who have opposed this proposal, to see whether they can come up with ideas on how efficiencies can be achieved?

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

Certainly everybody was consulted during the process and that is why we were very disappointed with the attitude that has been taken. We took particular care to endeavour to work collaboratively and we listened to their suggestions and proposals over quite a long period.

I have just been passed something by my inspiration, who is not far from my left-hand side. As I am on my feet, I hope that noble Lords will not mind if I answer the question put by my noble friend Lord Lansley. Roughly 50% of local areas currently commission community pharmacies to provide minor-ailment services. As the Minister announced last week, we are committed to increasing the coverage to all areas by April 2018. This shows how valuable a resource pharmacies are for patient care.

Public Institutions

Debate between Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe and Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen

Thursday 30th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

I am not keeping a straight face. I am smiling—but I always smile.

The confidence with which our public institutions are held is the foundation that allows our great democracy to function. While government may have significant legal power to impose its will, it operates effectively with the people it serves with the consent borne of confidence and trust.

There are of course many examples of countries around the world where confidence in public institutions has been fatally eroded, often because of corruption or mismanagement, and where the ability to govern effectively is destroyed, hampering economic development and destroying prosperity. Confidence in public institutions is then precious, and the Government are committed to continually deepening openness and transparency to support it.

The noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, talked about this. I suggest that transparency and openness are different but connected parts of how modern government and institutions should function. Transparency, where the workings of institutions can be seen and understood, underpins openness, where government and institutions work with and alongside the people they serve to deliver the best possible services and outcomes. However, I agree that transparency should be used as a tool, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, said, and we have to be careful to use it with other things as well.

The UK should, rightly, be proud of its status as a global leader on both transparency and openness. The Government continue to push at the boundaries of the information they publish and they strive to ensure that citizens can fully participate in making the decisions that affect them. For example, the UK leads the world in the release of open data and has recently been ranked number one in the World Wide Web Foundation’s Open Data Barometer for the third year running.

Open data—the release in a structured format of key government data licensed in such a way as to allow anyone to use them—allows the public meaningful, open access to important data about how our public institutions function. These data on how public money is spent and on how well key parts of government are performing, as well as, importantly, data of high value held by government about things such as the transport network, create significantly greater opportunities for government to be held to account and, crucially, allow others outside government to come forward to build new data-driven products and services using previously hidden government data. One example of that is the tool Citymapper, a smartphone application developed in the UK that takes into account a wealth of open transport data to help you get from A to B in the fastest possible time.

The economic benefits of transparency are clear but perhaps it is harder to measure the impact of greater transparency and openness on public confidence in institutions. What seems indisputable is that trust in public institutions is growing. Research by Edelman as part of its annual Trust Barometer shows that since 2012 trust in government has risen. More strikingly, research by Ipsos MORI shows that civil servants in particular have seen a large increase in trust since 1983: only 25% said they trusted civil servants to tell the truth in 1983 compared with 55% now.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

Are these the polling companies that forecast the outcome of the last general election and the result of the referendum?

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

Is the noble Lord casting aspersions on what I say? As my noble friend Lord Norton mentioned, sadly, in the same research it is revealed that politicians are still among the least trusted groups in the UK.

It is clear, then, that there is much more to do—more data and information to open up and publish and more opportunities for citizens to become involved in developing the policies that affect them. As the Minister for the Cabinet Office recently stated:

“We want to build a Britain where the citizen is an editor as well as a reader”.

Only through increasing openness and transparency can that be made a reality.

One mechanism by which government is approaching this task is the OGP—the Open Government Partnership. This is a very exciting initiative. The OGP was formed in 2011 by the UK and seven other countries to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption and harness new technologies to strengthen governance. It has now grown to the extent that it has been taken up by 69 countries. It exists to ensure that each participating Government work closely with citizens to develop open-government reforms that matter to them.

In May, the Government launched their third Open Government National Action Plan. Among other things, it made ambitious commitments to tackle corruption, including establishing a public register of company-beneficial ownership information for foreign companies which already own or buy property in the UK or which bid on UK central government contracts. As part of this plan, the Government also committed to implement the Open Contracting Data Standard for the Crown Commercial Service, becoming the first G7 country to apply this new type of data release about public procurement to its central purchasing authority. In addition, this new standard for transparency will be applied to HS2.

When implemented, these commitments will provide unprecedented transparency about the real owners of the companies buying property in the UK and bidding on public contracts, as well as detailed, structured and more usable information about how government buys goods and services.

It is such transparency that can provide the hard data to reinforce confidence in our institutions. It is for this reason that the Government have placed significant emphasis on the better use of their own data so that the public can be confident we are doing all that we can to ensure we deliver better public services. The Government’s digital services data programme has been created to address this challenge and ensure that through the more effective use of data, the Government can make better operational, policy and economic decisions.

Significant work is required to deliver on that promise, and in practical terms this means that we need to do the following things. First, we must ensure that all parts of government are equipped to make better use of data, having the technology and skills to use new and innovative data science techniques. Secondly, we must ensure that the infrastructure of data in government—how they are stored, found and accessed—is up to date and that the policy and governance around how data are created, used and released is fit for purpose, allowing us to maximise the benefits of increased data use in government and the wider economy, while ensuring that is done in a safe and ethical way.

These measures, taken together with a continuous drive to release more information on open data, are vital tools to reinforce and grow confidence in government. We are delivering the most transparent, effective and open government ever. Through initiatives like the Open Government Partnership and the work of the digital services data programme, along with countless other parts of government all pushing in the same direction, we will continue to improve supporting ever more people to hold government to account.

There is no doubt that these are big issues and that we are working with powerful tools. However, used properly, data can build a better, more efficient government that more effectively meets the needs of those it serves, and so deliver institutions fit for the 21st century.

I know that there are some questions I have not answered, including that from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, on charities. I am afraid I will have to get back to her on that as I do not have enough information to give a full answer. I thank all noble Lords for taking part and, if there is anything else that I have not covered that noble Lords have mentioned, I will of course write to them in the near future.