Volunteering

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Wednesday 21st February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, I seem to have measured out my life in volunteering, and it is with great pleasure that I come to this debate. I thank my noble friend, who is both noble and, as it happens, my friend, for tabling it and giving us this opportunity to speak on the subject.

As I look back over a colourful life, I see the faces of the groups of people who, in such a wide spread of the activities in the voluntary sector, have brought a smile to people’s faces and hope to the lives that they live, and a sense of purpose to those helping in this way—school governors; food banks; prison visiting; chauffeurs to hospital appointments; pastoral care; good neighbourliness; homeless, especially the street homeless; hospitals and daycare centres; addiction of various kinds; HIV/AIDS; running a museum; and organising for people who would be lonely on Christmas Day an opportunity to be with others and have some fun.

I could go on: there is the Haiti Support Group and, the one of which I am proud, the Boys’ Brigade—of which I am the president, as is recorded in the register—which gives tens of thousands across all the countries of these islands meaningful endeavour and adventure and a great sense of fun and purpose.

I want also to say how proud I am that I am the father-in-law of a young woman who spent three years in Pakistan with VSO; the father of a daughter who spent three years in China and then 10 in Cambodia doing voluntary work much of the time; and the father of a son who has served much time, and indeed is still serving, as a school governor. In all those ways, I can personally testify again and again to the benefits of these activities.

I have two points to make—very quickly, because I see that my time has gone. First, I have noticed that when schemes are begun by volunteers and eventually taken over by professionals, tension emerges. Secondly, when school governors are to become directors of academies, different skills and attitudes prevail. Those are questions that need answering, and I offer them for what they are worth.

Charities, Social Enterprises and Voluntary Organisations

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord. I do not think there is any suggestion of further regulation of civil society, as such, but we expect all organisations which deal with the public to obey the law. That includes charities but also all civil society. It is one thing that can be considered in the new consultation on the civil society strategy that we are going to launch soon.

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for bringing to our attention the connection between the activities of the Charity Commission and bodies like it and recent incidents of which we are all too well aware. I have long and profound experience of Haiti and could make my question centre on that, but that is not where the Question laid before us is. Granted, in times of heightened anxiety, such as this, we are all tempted to put regulatory strangleholds on those at the top, whether an NGO, the Charity Commission or even the Government. However, is not the best way of ensuring improvement—so that these things do not happen again—to have adequate procedures as near to the place where these incidents happen as possible, and proper ways of monitoring those activities? Is that not better than finding other rules and regulations simply at the top?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, there is lot of sense in what the noble Lord said. One of the things we want to do is to strike a balance. We should remember that all these organisations do good work; that is what they are in business for. We have to be careful about things such as safeguarding. I take the noble Lord’s point about making it near the action, as it were. One thing we are doing is convening two summits, one to focus on international aid charities, which will be jointly chaired by the Secretary of State for International Development, and another, chaired by the Minister for Sport and Civil Society, to concentrate on domestic charities, to look at what we can do to strengthen the safeguarding capability and capacity of charities working across that area. The fact remains that charities and organisations like them do good work on the ground.

Gambling Act 2005 (Amendment of Schedule 6) Order 2018

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

I will ask a question that is probably very naive. I was surprised that neither football nor any kind of horseracing or any of those activities was included in the list. Is there a reason for that, or have I completely missed the point? I declare an interest as chair of the National Mental Capacity Forum. When people become hypomanic, lose capacity and go into a phase of placing large numbers of bets in a completely uncontrolled way, it is often football and horseracing where they will be placing those bets and running up debts.

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, I have given due attention to the proposals before us and can see exactly the logic that brings them to our attention. My eyebrows have been raised by certain of the details; I wish I knew how people might gamble in an inappropriate way in terms of playing darts, for example. A treble 20 is a difficult thing to be sure about under any circumstances. For all that, I can see that, if assurances have been given by the various bodies that they will come into line with the expectations under the terms of the Act, they should be added to the list.

My pulse quickened when I saw the European Rugby Cup Ltd mentioned, since the Llanelli Scarlets are leading the way for British involvement in the European cup quarter-finals. I am happy as a Welshman to just lord that over any English friends I have here in the House with me.

I have one question that perhaps the Minister can help me with. How do we get the necessary information that relates to companies registered in the Republic of Ireland? That stands out as being a little different from the others.

I am happy to note that the anti-doping people, UKAD, are now involved. Having met their representatives on more than one occasion, I can see how there is an overlap of interest, but also that it adds competence to the governing of these different sports and this activity.

All that having been said, I think that due process has been followed. When I was growing up, it was inconceivable that anybody would bet on any of these activities at all. Indeed, betting on horseracing was done illicitly in my youth. Round the corner we had Dai Double-Ticket, as we called him, and he ran the bets to the local bookkeeper on our behalf. We hoped that he would share the profits with us eventually. We have now come to the point where we can bet during matches and all the rest of it. It is so complicated now compared to what it was, and adequate machinery has to be put in place. The Gambling Act 2005 sought to do that and, a few years having passed, we must of course seek to update the information base upon which we operate the provisions of that Act. Apart from those little questions I have, I am happy to concur with the recommendation.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, just to follow on briefly, I am very pleased to see that, as in the Commons, there is a strong Welsh perspective being displayed on these matters today.

We all have a strong interest in sports betting integrity, and we had quite a debate on the issue during our discussion of the Data Protection Bill. I am pleased, therefore, to see the inclusion of UKAD in Part 3 of Schedule 6. In the Commons discussion of this order, there were some interesting debates about the inclusion of international bodies. Perhaps the Minister could slightly unpack the reason for those international bodies being included.

The last thing I want to say is that there is a distinction between Parts 2 and 3 of Schedule 6, and I wonder whether the Minister could explain why UKAD is included in Part 3 but not in Part 2. I know that the Explanatory Memorandum goes into that to some extent, but not entirely. UKAD is an enforcement body, and it seems slightly strange that it is not going to be on the face of the statutory instrument.

Museums and Galleries

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, in hyperactive mode, I will continue along the line of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. Everybody has mentioned money in this debate. The other thing that has come up constantly is all the exotic places where people can give personal accounts of museums that they are familiar with. We could have had a tour of scenic Britain with our eyes shut: Lincoln, Wales, York, Inverness, Yorkshire, Gateshead, Cambridge, Hull and Manchester—but, of course, no culture west of Bristol. This has borne testimony to the fact that all of us have our rootage in the cultural heritage expressed in museums and galleries.

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, not only on bringing this Question to our attention, but on his pertinacity in ensuring that the future of our heritage is constantly held under review. I have a little experience in this field. For more than 20 years I bore responsibility for the Museum of Methodism, situated at Wesley’s Chapel on the City Road here in London. Clearly this is a niche museum, although we developed it in conjunction with other religious museums, especially the museum of Judaism. The curator spares and finds time to chair the group that presents to the public the interests of the small historic houses of London. Yet, for all that it is a niche museum, it has global significance and attracts tourism by the tens of thousands for the 70 million Methodists scattered around the world. It is a place of pilgrimage, where John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, began his work. It is where he lived and died and where his last remains are buried. It is an important destination for faithful Methodists from everywhere and, since it is open at times when other museums are not, for non-Methodists too.

These responsibilities I shouldered made me more than aware of the key questions we are addressing in this debate and that are put forward in the Mendoza review. We needed to fund a major refurbishment costing millions of pounds. A small part of that came from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the rest from trusts, personal contacts, philanthropists and the international Methodist family. Equally, we sought to ensure sustainability and good leadership. We appointed a fully professional and experienced curator who was far better than we might have found in normal times, but these were not normal times. We were able to get this person simply because, due to local authority cutbacks, a brilliant man trained at the Victoria and Albert suddenly became available, made redundant from the gallery he was running. We added a training and development officer and these two professional people are aided by volunteers—as was said by the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles—who keep the place open every single day of the year, except perhaps three days around the major festivals. In addition, we have developed an ambitious outreach programme to schools and other institutions as we seek to broaden the base of those interested, bring more people in, change the exhibitions around and appeal to those interested in religious history, 18th-century history, architecture, social development, the world mission and metropolitan history.

Running a museum is more than just keeping the budget balanced. It is interesting to know that there are well over 2,000 such small museums scattered around the country. As has been said by many noble Lords, their contribution to community life, social cohesion and identity cannot be overestimated. Such museums, of course, are minuscule in comparison to the great national museums which come immediately to mind in a debate of this kind—minuscule, but no less important.

The noble Lord, Lord Monks, mentioned the People’s History Museum. I had quite a discourse on that and I will abandon it because repetition is not a good thing in parliamentary debate. However, I hope that as much attention will be given to the non-elitist aspects of British social history as to the great showpiece places in the great museums we can all think of. It was astonishing to read some of the accounts in the briefing papers about the Minister’s great-aunt; a suffragist, a pacifist and, supremely, a nonconformist. I was delighted to read that: he must meet my wife, whose great-aunt was a suffragette, a nonconformist and a Pankhurst. I am indeed married to a revolutionary woman; it is in the genes. Therefore, I hope that the People’s History Museum will receive the attention it is due and be visited by the all-party group of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. The Mendoza committee did not have a chance to visit it: it needs visiting and this is a good year for it with the centenary of the Representation of the People Act being celebrated appropriately, centred in Manchester.

I noticed in the Mendoza report—the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, mentioned it—that DCMS will facilitate the development of a museums action plan with the Arts Council, HLF and so on, to deliver on these priorities this September. It is my lot in these debates to be able to anticipate the Minister’s response by saying, “We will see how we will proceed with the questions we are debating when this report comes out”. It is not the first time I have been snookered in that way, but I hope we can put pressure on those facilitating this development action plan in order that they may catch the idea that money is needed. We can get some money by making economies and by greater efficiency: that is one way of getting more out of what we have got. The noble Lord, Lord Freyberg, missed his chance to speak, but I want to say what he has revealed to me in a courteous revelation of his speech, which is that other money can be gained by taking away the charge for images and illustrations that museums impose on anything that people want to include in publications, publicity and educational materials. That has the effect of narrowing down those who might attend our museums or be aware of our collections. I commend the noble Lord for that idea for enriching the resource base of our museums.

This is where we must draw things to a conclusion. Money is and will continue to be a problem. We can hope only that the study about to be done will look squarely at it. I hope that there is more money to be squeezed out of the orange. A clear responsibility rests with the DCMS in this regard; we must hope that it comes good. With all this in mind, it seems that we must keep these matters on hold yet again, and anticipate a further discussion once the forthcoming study has been completed. We count on the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, to ensure that it happens.

UK Sport: Elite Sport Funding

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, there seems to be a theme coming through and I simply want to add my voice to the expression of it. Incidentally, with the previous speaker in mind, I say that one former Welsh rugby union referee is following another in this debate, and no doubt some quite heavy influence will be cast upon the outcome of the debate as a result. I have to say, however, that I can trump a few aces, because I in fact played with Barry John at the University of Wales—I want that on the record of course. I also played at Lampeter, where the first rugby game was ever played in Wales—it was brought there from Cambridge, shortly after it originated in Rugby. I played in the centenary game with a whole host of Welsh international stars playing against us. I went down for the 150th anniversary just last year, where I kicked off the ball—that was the limit.

It is interesting, as my life has unfolded, that the great sports that I have played—cricket, badminton, rugby and anything else that was going—have gradually become more sedentary, ending with snooker. I have even given that up, not so much because my sons began to beat me at it but because they began to pretend that I had beaten them—that is a much more serious position, I can assure noble Lords.

As far as I see and hear it, the real key to this discussion is that we have to decide at the beginning of our thinking—our conceptualisation—whether to look for a solution to the admitted need to encourage activity in this sector at the top, through pump-priming in order to set examples that others will follow and to inspire through great success, or at the bottom. The noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, talked very eloquently about that second approach; I have heard him speak on basketball twice now.

All my sporting activity was in the pre-professional days, before pay, and there was an entirely different approach to it. Burry Port, where I come from, has had no medals in anything, but the playing fields of Burry Port, like those of Eton, were full of people striving to beat local opponents. There were revenge matches with Tumble over the hill and Pembrey down the road. My brother was in at 16 playing for Pembrey youth and I played for the University of Wales later on. It was all without any money being exchanged at all. Really, it is about the balance between putting money into activities that generate success that then inspires others and looking to develop communities with these local rivalries, competitions and the spirit of fellowship—is there anything better than taking to any field of endeavour with the idea of really knocking your opponents for six, only to enjoy a pint in the pub with them afterwards as you recount tales of derring-do in days gone by? There is nothing more sensible than that as a pattern for the way you live. Here, of course, I would draw a distinction between the crowds at football and rugby. The crowds intermingle at rugby, and you make jokes at each other’s expense and that of the opponents around you, whereas in football the police help to separate them off from each other.

I wonder about the way such resources as we have get channelled out. Why do we favour sports that are very low in terms of participatory potential, such as equestrian sport, when sports such as basketball—which, in terms of social cohesion, bring people together across all the divides that afflict us socially—are left out of the equation? I wish we could recalibrate the way we look at how we distribute such resources as are available. Whether it is everything as it was last year, less or whatever, how do we prioritise? The whole business of medals leaves me cold. I love having medals and cheering competitors on, but I cannot see that that must be the sole criterion when we look at a formula for distributing the cash that is available.

Tomorrow morning, I will receive a protégé of mine who got a job a couple of years ago with the Rugby Football Union. His job is to animate communities throughout north London and to interest schools that do not have a tradition of rugby, and communities that have no playing fields, in the possibilities of playing it, especially helping women to play. The Rugby Football Union no doubt gets some government money; I do not know and do not really care—it is the activity I want to exalt. It is about taking it out of a sporting base—where the newspapers are full of the rivalries, the need to win the Six Nations Championship and all the rest of it—and into the grass roots, where people play on muddy November days. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas, and I have refereed matches in Wales where you could not see the 25—when it was called the 25. The rule about kicking into touch left us totally lost: when we took our spectacles off you could not see whether the ball had bounced into touch or not.

For all of that, it seems to me that public money should be put into sporting activity for reasons that go well beyond sport, which have been mentioned in this debate: for health, community cohesion and well-being. All these things, and not just medals, must be a product or an outcome. In all those ways, I support those noble Lords who have made this point very eloquently and from very different positions in these fields of endeavour.

I finish by remembering the film “Invictus”, which showed South African rugby and Nelson Mandela and all of that. The great moment for me was when the rugby players in the South African team—all white—were taken in their bus by the captain of the team to a township. They did not know what to do or why they had been brought there, but they showed kids who kicked a bit of rag around as a football the glories of passing the ball and playing rugby. Now the South African team has black people in it, and I am sure it arose from those sorts of beginnings. Participation, revitalising communities and spreading money out with that must be the sole and overriding objective. I look forward to what the Minister is going to say about who he played rugby with in his day.

Social Media: News

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, remarked that this is not the most computer savvy institution on the face of the globe, and no one is a better illustration of the truth of her statement than me. However, with the noble Baronesses, Lady Kidron, Lady Lane-Fox and Lady Harding, my noble friend Lord Knight and others around me, I feel I can learn so much, to pick up the noble Lord, Lord McNally, at the end of his remarks, on this important subject, and ask myself how we proceed with this complicated material and the urgent need to find ways of dealing with what is clearly a priority for our society.

It is clear that online companies are coming under increasing pressure to move beyond their claim to be merely platforms for a broad and broadening range of interest groups and individuals, a catalyst for the free flow of knowledge and ideas and a factor in the democratisation of information. It is true enough that in some measure all these claims can be justified and attested. A great deal of information, an endless amount of social activity and a flood of ideas have indeed been greatly enhanced by the emergence and development of social media. We have cause to wonder at these developments. As I sit with my grandson, I see him handling things that make me wonder whether I would not have preferred to have died before he was born since the learning curve is sometimes so steep.

As many noble Lords have said, we have all become increasingly aware of the unquantifiable amount of dark, intrusive, prurient and dangerous material that flows along with the helpful and hopeful stuff. Through conversations in our social lives, we can detect rising unease among the public that is reaching a point, if it has not already reached it, of wanting to hold the great cartel of corporations who pretty much hold us globally in thrall to account. I have been delighted to hear of the work Google is now doing on tackling hard issues, such as fake news, supporting high- quality journalism, fighting extremist and controversial content, promoting child safety and educational campaigns and protecting intellectual property. Long may it continue, but I hope we will not be seduced by these siren sounds. We must go on giving intense scrutiny to this, and that note of urgency has been sounded again and again from all parts of your Lordships’ House.

There are key questions that these corporations, and we, must face. The noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, referred to them being taxed appropriately, and we must not lose sight of that, but their accountability for the material they handle and enable to pass into the public realm also needs to be faced. I believe they should be treated as publishers, perhaps bearing in mind the distinction that can be drawn between anonymous and unattributable material and that which can be attributed to authors and sources. This is a key moment in the history of the fourth industrial revolution. Just as the grim factories and satanic mills of 19th century England eventually and sometimes painstakingly had to come to terms with their responsibilities for the health and well-being of their workers, as well as for their impact on the green and pleasant land around them, so now we must press for a similar development in the realm of social media.

It is not appropriate to simply denounce or demonise the digital media. There are much more epistemological and historical things at stake which make this an opportune moment for social media to come to a rotting carcass and make the most of it. Indeed, fake news is invading our intellectual landscape like Japanese knotweed, yet it would be wrong to identify social media as being entirely to blame for what one writer describes as,

“the crash in the value of truth … comparable to the collapse of a currency or a stock”.

That assertion was made by the respected journalist Matthew d’Ancona in his recent book Post-Truth, which ended up in my Christmas stocking this year. To take a word from the remarks of my noble friend Lord Puttnam, trustworthiness—trust and truth—has collapsed but this has been going on for a long time, the pace accelerating since the financial crash of 2008.

“There are no facts, only interpretations”,


said Friedrich Nietzsche. The Manic Street Preachers, a group from my native land, released an album that said, “This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours”. There is an individualisation of statements of truth, the disappearance of a meta-narrative and the evolution of a world in which we make our own truths and set our own standards. When I was studying theology 50 years ago, there was situation ethics—the ability to reach ethical conclusions according to your own lights and experience, not by subscribing to something that was generally approved. It is against those general factors that we must look at what is happening in the realm of social media and digital materials that we are talking about today.

There are worries. We need only flag up the dark area that emerges from the freedoms that we are now given. Terrorists, paedophiles and money launderers have all profited from them. The current television series “McMafia” is a perfect illustration of how wrong things can go, in the words again of Matthew d’Ancona, like,

“a runaway train, crashing through privacy, democratic norms and financial regulation”.

If there is any truth in this line that what we are looking at specifically in the realm of social media needs to be mapped against a more general philosophical and moral situation that is historical and has been developing for a long time, we need to look very carefully—I like the word “nuance”, which the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, used. If there is any truth in this argument, we must all do something about it. It is not just the Government of course; everybody interested has a job to do in cleaning this whole situation up.

Two very current issues add urgency to the consideration of these matters. It was good to hear the noble Lord, Lord Bew, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester refer to the Committee for Standards in Public Life and its recent report. It is vital, as the committee put it, to convene a constructive and solutions-focused dialogue between the social media companies and the political parties. Other noble Lords have referred to this too. It seems that Twitter and Facebook have both confirmed their readiness to participate in such a dialogue; others have yet to come on board. We must hope that they will join the debate soon, and that there will be a fruitful and beneficial outcome to their discussions.

I finish with the issue of press freedom, which was debated with such passion yesterday. I was just a bystander listening to the entire debate, but there is something immensely sad about hearing two opposing cases being put with equal conviction—two admirable cases but each made, I kept feeling, from within locked rooms.

So much has happened in the world of communication since the publication of the Leveson report in November 2012, nowhere more so than in the area we are discussing. Then, the focus of the inquiry was mainly on newspapers and related outlets. Since then, the expansion of digital media has been truly exponential. Alongside these developments, we must hope to create an ethical framework that allows us to distinguish relative positions of rightness and wrongness and appropriate behaviour.

I wonder whether the Government would seriously consider creating a new category of services and make the digital companies responsible for the content that passes their way, to bring into being a code of practice for social media companies and underpin it in statute. I wonder whether there could not be brought into being an independent regulator with the power to oversee the system, investigate breaches and ultimately sanction non-compliant platforms, and whether there should not be a statutorily backed levy on social media companies to fund internet safety education. None of those recommendations is mine; they are made by Sky and already submitted for inclusion in the Government’s Green Paper on internet safety. Let us hope we are moving in the right direction.

We are very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for starting this very rich debate. It is certainly not finished today.

BBC: Unfair Pay

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for repeating that Answer to an Urgent Question given in another place. I must say, as I take part in this exercise for the first time, that I had expected in an Urgent Question to hear a note of urgency. While I sense a little self-congratulation about measures that have been brought in and reforms that have been introduced, as regards the BBC I do not sense that deep desire to achieve objectives that are in line with public expectations at large, deeply held and urgently sought. Of course, the measures that are mentioned must continue, but 2020 seems a long way away. We understand that the BBC must look after its own internal affairs, but can the Government assure us that, with some urgency, all appropriate measures will be applied to encourage, goad and pressurise it to come forward with a solution to these questions, so that the beacon referred to can serve as a benchmark against which to measure progress in other sectors of our public life?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I stress that the Government absolutely support urgent action on this. Of course, it was this Government who brought in the requirement for the BBC to publish salaries over £150,000, which is one of the reasons why we are talking about this issue today. The Statement makes it quite clear that the Government expect the BBC to act in accordance with what we have expected it to do as regards the gender pay gap. We understand that when you have a deep-seated and probably long-established problem, it takes some time to deal with and it is a difficult management issue. But let us be under no illusions—the Government expect the director-general and the new unitary board to deal with that. They are the people who have responsibility for that. We are pleased that the EHRC will look at this. For individuals, it has been illegal to pay people unequally because of their gender for over 40 years, and we expect all companies—not only the BBC but especially the BBC, which is a public institution —to obey the law.

Communications Act 2003 and the Digital Economy Act 2017 (Consequential Amendments to Primary Legislation) Regulations 2017

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister has reminded us of our happy days during the passage of the Digital Economy Bill—now the Digital Economy Act. Of course, we all like to be reminded of our days in the salt mines. These regulations are straightforward and we welcome them. I certainly do not intend to raise again any issues relating to the Electronic Communications Code. Certainly, I would not want to provoke another speech from the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester; that would be very unwise.

However, I will make a couple of comments relating to the implementation of the code. As I understand it, Ofcom is issuing a code of practice on top of that. There is some concern that although the direction of travel of the ECC was very clear, the code of practice is in a sense bringing back a slight bias in favour of the landowners. That is a concern of some commentators. One says:

“While the consultation around the code of practice is to be welcomed, if implemented in its current form, the code of practice is in danger of swinging the pendulum back too far in favour of landowners who will be able to challenge operators at every stage”.


I know that the Government were very keen to get the balance right. It will be interesting to hear what the Minister has to say about that.

The Minister may want to write to me about this, but this is a useful opportunity to ask about the direction of government policy in terms of EU regulatory reforms—if we can bear it. It looks like there are plans from Brussels for a new Electronic Communications Code which includes e-privacy regulation. Obviously, before we exit—if we exit—it will continue to be important to keep the digital single market and the single telecoms market in place. The question arises: will there be time? Will the new Electronic Communications Code, however it is brought in—whether by directive or regulation, I am not quite sure—happen? Will it fall outside? Will it be after 29 March? Will it fall during a transition period? I suspect there are many in the telecoms field and the general area of technology infrastructure who will be extremely interested in the answer to that.

Those are the two areas on which I would very much like to have an answer from the Minister, either now or at some stage in the future.

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not have very much to add. The allusion to happy days in the past, which I missed, unfortunately—

[Lord Clement-Jones]

Fortunately.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port]

From the noble Lord’s tone of voice, I honestly thought that it was a sunnier experience than that. Between that and a hypothetical happy future, when other things may or may not happen, I will stick to what is in front of us.

It all seems logical to me. I guess the simplicity of the proposals led to this being referred to me, with my simple mind. I understand perfectly that with the developments in electronic communications we have to have methods appropriate for handling the expansions of systems across the land. I note that the speed and effectiveness of dispute resolution becomes a possible consequence of decisions taken. The balance to which the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, referred is indeed mentioned in these documents and is being sought. I am in no position to judge whether the view expressed that suggested movement back towards landowners is true, but I am sure the Minister will answer that question.

There is a consultation. I note that there is to be no impact assessment because there is no impact, it seems. It is nice to have read that at least six times in these papers. I commend all those who have gone through all the legislation, both past legislation in general and localised legislation from across the land. It is a job for somebody and I pay tribute to the nameless people who have done this trawl. It even goes into the county of my birth—Dyfed in south Wales—where I was rather disturbed to find that “statutory undertakers” are now to be called “operators”. In my life’s work as a Methodist minister, I had rather a lot to do with statutory undertakers and I am sorry that they have been defined out of existence.

There is a logic running through this. It is simplicity itself. It tidies up what is in front of us. I have no hesitation in supporting these measures.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, I am grateful for both noble Lords’ comments. On the question from the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, on the code of practice, it is not yet published. Extensive consultation was carried out. It is a bit difficult to speculate on its content, but it is important to remember that the code of practice is not binding and cannot change the balance that the law delivers. We spent some time considering that balance. It is certainly true that one of the points of the code was that it should enable operators to do things that were taking too long. There is certainly no intention to change that balance. We absolutely understand the need for operators to access land more easily and more speedily, but preferably on a consensual basis. That was the whole object. These regulations are to do with the occasions, which we hope will not be very often, where agreement cannot be reached, so we can go to a tribunal that has expert surveyors and people like that on it, rather than the county court, which is not expert. I say to the noble Lord that we have no intention and there was no desire to change the balance between landowners and operators. We will have to see what the code of practice says. It is not binding, but if need be we can talk to him when it comes out. We expect to commence the code in December. Ofcom has assured us that the code will come out before it comes into force.

We do not know the timings for the European ECC. If it is acceptable to the Committee I will look at some of the questions the noble Lord asked and do some research into them. We might not know the answers. I do not have them to hand, but if we do know I will come back to the noble Lord.

I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, was able to come in at the end of this long process. He had one of the more happy experiences. I am very grateful to him. With that, I beg to move.

Online Gambling

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, the weight of opinion from all round the Chamber has fallen equally in one direction—the Minister’s head. I look forward to his handling of the responses. The contributions have been the best possible vindication of the initiative of the noble Lord, Lord Browne, in bringing this matter to our attention. We do not have to say thank you; the gratitude has been expressed in the way that people have rallied round him and supported the cause. That makes it incumbent on us to do something with the unanimity expressed. I hope that a moral force will have been let loose that will yield its own results in due course.

The noble Lord, Lord Browne, and some other noble Lord, who have contributed to this important debate are veterans in a cause which is too often laughed off by people who consider those who raise these concerns to be cranks, do-gooders or zealots. In case noble Lords think that I am exaggerating, I should tell them that after my contribution to the previous debate on gambling, which was only three or four weeks ago, I had some such comments from other Members of the House. Therefore, I hope that they read the record of this debate and realise that I am in such good and worthy company that I can be spared any of those epithets.

In the New Testament there is a story about a woman who goes on knocking at the door of a judge in her demand for justice until, finally, though grudgingly, worn out by her persistence, he lets her in and hears her case. Taking that as our example, it would be apposite to think of these proceedings therefore as the parable of the importunate noble Lord, Lord Browne. I hope that the knocking on the door that he continues to do will yield its results and allow us to consider these matters that affect the moral fibre of the country in which we live.

It is only a short time since we debated fixed-odds betting terminals. Most speakers in that debate were mystified by the news that the Government were about to conduct a consultation to reach a decision about the amount of money that could be staked on those machines. We felt that any number of consultations had taken place in the fairly recent past and failed to understand the particular nature of this one. The problem is so urgent that one consultation after another hardly seems the best methodology. A figure between £2 and £50 has been mentioned more than once, and those who mentioned it expressed the hope that £2 would be nearer the point at which judgment sits than the £50 at the other end of the spectrum. I begin my remarks by asking the Minister and the Government whether any progress is being made with this consultation and whether any clarity is beginning to emerge, and when they feel they will be able to announce the outcomes of the consultation as well as the level set for those stakes.

That is the past, but I begin there for a reason. In March 2014, the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Belmont, was persuaded to withdraw his amendment to the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Bill with an assurance that the Government would bring forward non-statutory proposals for a multi-operator self-exclusion scheme. We have heard about that from various noble Lords this afternoon. An undertaking was given that it would appear before the end of this year, although that was presented as an ultimate delay. Yet those goalposts too have now been shifted again and the summer of next year is now being spoken of. Can the Minister throw some light on this? If it is true, can he tell us whether we can have greater confidence in the latest projected date than in previous ones, and why exactly it is taking so long? Can the proposal be put on a statutory basis when it eventually comes our way?

The online self-exclusion proposal is not by any means a solution to the problem facing us, and we should not kid ourselves that it is. At the very least, we should find a way to enable someone who wishes to end their online gambling to have a one-stop route to cutting out all online sites, whether they are operating under a Gambling Commission licence or not. Some 200 such sites are quoted as having a licence, and an innumerable swarm lie beyond that. Various noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Foster, have asked precisely for that. Even if we get that assurance or that provision, of course it is nothing like enough. I have worked in the field of addiction long enough to know that the hardest thing of all for an addict of any kind is to be sufficiently self-motivated to take such an action in the first place. The very nature of addictive behaviour is the erosion of self-determination, where one’s will is dulled and overwhelmed by habit and where realism gives way to fantasy. It is a big ask to expect such people to opt for even a well-constructed self-exclusion scheme. It is like asking an alcoholic to give up drinking or asking someone suffering from depression to pull their socks up. The work I did for 17 years with the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, in establishing Addiction Today set its sights on the 12-step method—which again, is reviled by some but a proven rescue line for others—because it is a social remedy: an attempt with others to solve a problem. I am personally committed to that method myself.

We are told—we have heard the figure many times—that there are 430,000 problem gamblers, with five times that figure at risk of falling into the same category. Their habits are difficult to detect. Many of them are children. The noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, made her passionate case for children. The plea is made to protect children from being groomed—why do we not use that word?—for the gambling industry with games that feature the likes of Peter Pan and Sherlock Holmes, which have also been referred to.

The Minister is only too aware of recent debates on how best to protect children from the dangers of the internet. The Data Protection Bill is going through this House at this very moment and these matters are being discussed in great depth. I know that the Minister will certainly be smacking his lips at the prospect of debating the amendment to that Bill in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Kidron and Lady Harding, on the question of child-friendly design in the use of the internet—a concept that started to emerge in services where kids spent a considerable amount of time on social media and there was concern that they would be exposed. Initially, that concern was primarily about grooming for sexual exploitation, but it became more about exposure to all kinds of harms and criminality. Can we promise ourselves to look at proposals to protect children in the area of gambling by looking to the provisions that we seek to make to protect children from the harm imposed on them by the internet in more general terms? The wisdom there might be helpful here. We could also look at the proposals relating to age verification—that, too, has been mentioned in this debate—with a view to bringing them into play to help us deal with children at risk from gambling.

It is a fact universally acknowledged that, by its very nature, gambling will produce victims. Experts differ on the numbers but, as already mentioned, we are speaking here of hundreds of thousands. Eventually, treatment regimes will be needed to help with their mental and physical health—that is, they will be a charge on our health and social care services. In acknowledging this, will the Government consider imposing a levy on the gambling industry to meet these costs—a proposal made by many in this debate? The 0.1% contribution from the gambling industry’s £13.8 billion is derisory. A statutory levy—I was intrigued to hear about the horses and greyhounds—could produce much more money for GambleAware and related bodies to do their work and even generate finance that could be hypothecated, perhaps as a direct contribution to NHS budgets. Do the Government agree with reasoning of this kind, and would they be led to consider such a levy? If not, why not?

I could go on—there is much to say. Noble Lords have raised a number of points. They have made us all aware that, far from being cranks, do-gooders or zealots, they care deeply about the well-being of our citizens and the communities they live in. I look forward to hearing a recognition of this concern and a serious engagement with the issues raised in this most welcome debate when the Minister makes his reply.

Data Protection Bill [HL]

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 22nd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I entirely support my noble friend’s amendment. We have got ourselves into a complete mess in this country on insurance, and motor insurance is a pretty good example. Premiums in this country are about double what they should be. They are the highest in Europe, above even Italy, because of a level of fraud that we encourage by our legislation and by the lack of action from successive Governments to do anything about it. We can see the size of the problem that this clause will generate, if unamended, by what has happened in motor insurance. It leaves an open door to an enormous number of claims management companies, of which 500 or so were seriously active the last time I looked. It is a really big, profitable industry, and it will push into a hole like this with no difficulty at all.

We took a bit of action a while ago on whiplash injuries. Fine, whiplash injuries are down, but rocketing upwards now is, “Oh, I had this crash and now I get a buzzing in my ears”. It is wonderful—a disease which has suddenly appeared from nowhere because the claims management companies need an opportunity to push in here. We must realise what is happening. I hope we will get around to dealing with the general problem at some stage, but to open another door to these people is just foolish.

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his eloquent disquisition, which made me much more aware of the issues than I was before. I have no problem in aligning myself with the two points of view that have just been expressed. I had come to the conclusion partly myself, but to be told that the wording is not in the equivalent article in the European GDPR just adds to my simple conclusion that the words “other adverse effects” add precisely nothing but open a potential cave of dark possibilities. The rain of the noble Lord’s eloquence has found a crack in my roof, and I am very happy to align myself with his remarks.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I also share the concerns expressed by my noble friend Lord Hunt, based on my experience, both in government and in a number of different businesses. We have the experience not only of the motor sector, which has been talked about, but obviously of PPI, where there was compensation that needed to be paid, but the whole business took years and generated not only claims management companies but also nuisance calls and lots of other harms. This is an area that one has to be very careful about, and I support looking at the drafting carefully to see what can be done, and at my noble friend’s idea of trying to estimate the economic impact—the costs—in terms of those affected. That would help one to come to a sensible conclusion on what is appropriate in this important Bill.