Procedure and Privileges Committee

Debate between Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Tuesday 5th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, I was hoping that there may have been reference to the really radical 2002 changes. Up until then, we sat through the night; then the Leader of the House, Lord Williams of Mostyn, set up a working group, a Leader’s Group, and I think there is a lesson to be learned from that. When we have a Leader’s Group, it invariably manages to deliver on its recommendations. Since we have moved away from a Leader leading in the old way and have started giving it down to sub-committees, there is not quite the same result coming out or the same respect. It is a great pity that the Leader of the House is not present today. She may have business, but this issue has been causing difficulties for some time and I believe it is of such merit that it requires the Leader of the House to be here.

The conduct of the Chamber is now quite different from what it was when I first came in. I come from a background of rebelliousness, noisiness and the rest of it—the trade union movement—but when I came here, I learned that there was a civility that was very important indeed and ensured that we worked in a quite different way. It is certainly a different way from the Commons. When we address our issues, it is important that we are different from the Commons all the time. If the House is not to retain that difference, it needs to be either done away with or radically changed. We should continue as we are for the moment and think through any change we make.

I do not believe we have explored all the alternatives available to us. Had we had a Leader’s Group, I think it would have approached this quite differently from how the committee has. It would not just look for a range of options to present but ask people to come in with their options. There is a case for change that takes into account what we have experienced recently: remote working. I do not like the idea of changing the start time. People working outside the building are entitled to do their business, and maybe have lunch with people, and then come in at 2.30 pm.

It is increasingly difficult to see people staying late in the evening; very few participate until we come to the votes. One way in which we can hold the Government to account is to ensure that more people vote in the later votes. We could have done that by exploring whether we should have tagged on remote participation between 8.30 pm and 10 pm, two days a week, on an experimental basis. That would have been really worth looking at—a radical change, moving with the times.

I am very much inclined towards the view of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, as noble Lords can probably gather from what I am saying, but I do not believe the issue should be totally dismissed; we should continue to look for change. That leads me to give my support to the recommendation by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, that we take a little more time over it, get the Leader of the House involved, and perhaps extend the range of people involved in the deliberations and ensure that there is a wider range of consultation than—and a different consultation from—that which we have had under the present arrangement. That also gives us a change to perhaps build on what we have, not detract.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, as the first woman to speak in this debate, I would like to say that I support the original idea from the Procedure Committee. I thank the Senior Deputy Speaker for bringing this to a vote, which I was very concerned about. This does not go far enough for me. I think we are limiting ourselves by starting so late in the day. I also apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, for attempting to reply in his place. I am really sorry about that. I will do my best not to do it again, but that is not a promise, just a hope.

Society has changed and this House is not keeping up with society. There are people here now who actually have happy home lives. We do not want to stay for social stuff. We do not want to be collegiate. We want to do the job and then go home perhaps and have a glass of wine with our partner rather than, forgive me, other noble Lords.

For me, it is a dinosaur move. Before noble Lords take offence at the idea of dinosaurs, they were an incredibly successful life system. They lasted millions of years. But, of course, they were defeated by a climate catastrophe that they did not realise was coming—just let me throw that in there.

Health and Care Bill

Debate between Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Tuesday 11th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, I generally support the direction of the Bill. I welcome it; I think a move towards less competition and more collaboration is the way forward. I support—[Interruption.]

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I am so sorry.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Debate between Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Lords Hansard - part one & Committee stage
Wednesday 27th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, I support everything that has been said so far. I will speak to Amendments 57 and 58, in which I am endeavouring to specify the broad categories of serious violence, ensuring that any violence that is serious enough to result either in injury requiring emergency hospital treatment or harm constituting grievous bodily harm would meet the threshold for serious violence.

I am grateful for the general support I have had, especially from those noble Lords with long policing experience who see merit in what I present today. It might be that, as yet, we have not quite got the wording right. It is a bit like the debate that we have been having so far. There is a case for us coming together if in fact we can convince the Minister that, in principle, there is merit in what we are arguing; we could come together later, perhaps, to get the wording right, if the Government are to be so convinced.

My amendments are not solely about knife crime, but the intention is to ensure that the broad categories of serious violence are specified so that local partnerships must address such violence in their prevention plans and take full account of the information available on serious violence, which comes up in the A&E data. That is particularly important.

When the Home Secretary introduced the assessment of the public health duty—the public health measures—on 15 July 2019, he said that collaboration to reduce serious violence was particularly important. The Government have of course moved to introduce this legislation following that.

The violence that constitutes serious violence is not specified in this Bill. Good legislation depends on such specifications and definitions. It will rightly be for the local partnerships to decide how they will reduce serious violence, but it would be neglectful if this legislation does not state what serious violence includes.

The impact assessment signed by the Home Secretary relies heavily on the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the use by local partnerships of data collected in hospital accident and emergency departments for the prevention of serious violence. This approach, known as the Cardiff model for violence prevention, has been found in rigorous evaluations to reduce violence related to hospital admissions and serious violence recorded by the police by as much as 38%.

This approach has four principal advantages in the context of the Bill. First, it specifies a broad category of serious violence: violence serious enough to result in emergency hospital treatment. Secondly, it makes sense from a public health perspective, which is missing in what is, after all, a public health duty. Thirdly, following the implementation of the emergency care data set, the Cardiff model data on violence location, weapons and assailants, for example, can be recorded and shared for violence prevention by every NHS trust with an A&E. Fourthly, these NHS data are valid and reliable measures of serious violence, which would be available for joint inspections. Most importantly, even if just 5% of partnerships achieved the Cardiff-model benefits identified in the impact assessment, total benefits are estimated to be at least £858 million over 10 years and a reduction of around 20 homicides a year.

On Monday, the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, referred to the invaluable work of Professor John Shepherd at Cardiff University. Professor Shepherd has helped greatly in the scheme that has been running in Cardiff—he certainly helped me in preparing these amendments and for speaking today. He makes the point that, if the amendments are not adopted, the Bill when enacted is most unlikely to achieve the reductions in serious violence. There is nothing specific around which to achieve that objective. Violence that results in emergency hospital treatment, and which affects all age groups and both genders, in and outside the home, would not be considered serious. The Bill when enacted would not resonate or easily be owned by the NHS and by clinical commissioning groups; they would not be obliged to commission this approach.

We therefore have to make sure that the local authorities get the data, get an outline of what needs to be done, and then get a clear instruction, from within the Bill itself, that there must be action taken and that they must not ignore what has been produced in this very valuable information.

I therefore hope that we can move forward collectively in looking at the range of amendments and see if we can produce something that actually puts specifics in the Bill, that then can be acted on lower down the line.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 58 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, but I think all of the amendments in this group are extremely worthwhile. The noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, gave a thoroughly well-argued pitch for her amendment, to which the Government have to listen. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, also argued very comprehensively for the inclusion of stalking, and I agree with that very strongly.

I wanted to sign every single amendment to this Bill, so I have ended up signing a sort of weird collection, and I apologise for that; I care about it all because I am so distressed about the Bill in general.

On Amendment 58, we need to know exactly what the Government intend with their duty to reduce serious violence. We talked earlier about intrusions, particularly relating to confidentiality, so it is quite important to have a redefined definition of serious violence. Because we have identified those intrusions, without safeguards, we must be sure that Parliament is clear and precise about the situations to which we intend this duty to apply; otherwise, we are left with a vague duty that interferes with people’s right to privacy in arbitrary and unfair ways. I very much hope that the Minister is listening and agreeing.