Succession to Peerages and Baronetcies Bill [HL]

Lord Lucas Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 9th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Northbrook on bringing forward this Bill. He is right to say that I am unaffected by it, as I have a Scottish title, which in connection with the previous debate, was granted by James I to his first boyfriend, who then married—fortunately. I have an English title, the barony of Lucas, which was procured by Margaret Cavendish, in honour of her brother, in favour of her niece. Margaret Cavendish was a great feminist, and has been in print with her feminist writings for 350 years—and indeed has another book out about her this year, called Pure Wit, by Francesca Peacock, which I recommend. I share the vision that she fought for—that women are equal with men in every respect—and I would very much like to see that applied to peerage inheritance.

To pick up on what my noble friends Lady Noakes and Lord Astor said, I entirely agree that the Bill should be changed so that women are properly equal to men. I do not agree that it should include the revival of extinct titles; beyond anything else, that would enable me to claim the title of Duke of Kent, which might be inconvenient for certain other people.

To answer another of the questions from my noble friend Lady Noakes, Parliament is the only way the last bit of preference for men can be changed; there is no other route available. I do not see any reason for it to be left lying around, particularly given that, as my noble friend Lord Astor said, the monarchy has made the necessary change itself. We should follow its good example.

This is a good opportunity for the Government to make the change. Every time we have tried in the past, the principal objection has been that if we have a Private Member’s Bill, they will mess around with it at the other end to try produce a much more wide-ranging change. We now know, courtesy of the Leader of the Opposition, that they would not do that. There is no such danger at the moment, so this is an opportunity to right a small but tiresome wrong and I very much hope the Government will take it.

Conversion Therapy Prohibition (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) Bill [HL]

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Friday 9th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

My Lords, before I turn to what I have prepared, I have to say that it is a real privilege to be in the Chamber today to listen to the brave speech by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, which was searing in its honesty, and, equally, to the evidence-based approach by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. I thank those who have sent me their briefings, particularly the BMA, and Professor Paul Johnson of the University of Leeds for his advice and support.

It is an honour to offer my wholehearted support to the chief aim of the Bill, which is to prohibit sexual orientation and gender identity conversion therapy. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, for her tireless work and her introduction in bringing the Bill forward.

It is LGBT History Month. In that regard, I remind all noble Lords that what we now call conversion therapy is not a new phenomenon but something that has a very long history. As the Bill makes clear, conversion therapies are practices aimed at individuals or groups which, based on assumptions about the value—I emphasise “value”—of different sexual orientations or gender identities, attempts to

“change … or … suppress a person’s … sexual orientation or gender identity”.

As I said, such practices sadly have a long history and have taken many different forms and contexts, including barbaric interventions using chemicals, electric shocks and brain surgeries. We tend to think that those dark, brutal days are long behind us. Many of the torturous practices deployed in pursuit of converting LGBT+ people are indeed historical relics, but what is not long behind us and still very much part of our society—as sadly witnessed in the Chamber this morning—is the belief fervently held by many that some sexual orientations and gender identities are less valuable and less desired than others. It is that enduring belief that underpins today’s manifestations of conversion practices.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

I will not take that intervention.

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

I say to the Government Whip that I have an advisory speaking time of five minutes. If he allows me the two minutes over that he has given to others, I will take the intervention.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I think the noble Lord makes a most serious accusation that there are people who have spoken today who do not honour LGBT people as full members of society, worthy of respect at all times. I have no evidence of that in my conversations with anybody who has spoken today or, indeed, those who are going to speak. I know that this is not a universal society but, within this House, we should be accorded the assumption that we are with the noble Lord and that his great struggles have been rewarded in people’s attitudes.

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

I note that the noble Lord is speaking after me and perhaps could have used his time to make those points.

As if the point has been made for me, there is an enduring belief that underpins today’s manifestations of conversion practices that hide out in the open and operate under the seemingly positive terms of “therapy” and “other options”, while utilising ideas of rights and freedoms to continue to harm LGBT+ people. Those operating such practices may be being emboldened in a context where there is growth in hatred against LGBT+ people.

Just two years ago, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe condemned with particular force the extensive and often virulent attacks on the rights of LGBTI people, sadly singling out the United Kingdom for special mention. The parliamentary assembly recognised that there is rising hatred throughout Europe and deplored the

“stagnation and even backsliding in progress towards LGBTI equality”.

Stagnation and backsliding on prohibiting conversion therapies is unacceptable and disgraceful. The Bill reminds us of the need to tackle these practices now, as so many other countries have rightly done. I therefore support the Bill as a further step towards recognising and protecting the fundamental rights of all LGBT+ people, which are not in conflict with the rights of anyone else. LGBT+ people pose no threat to themselves or others, and trans people do not pose a threat to themselves or others. The blatant misrepresentation and dehumanisation of trans people in particular must be ended.

I end with this quote: “We need to be kind to trans people. We need to be understanding of their experiences. We need to be supportive of their choices. And we need to be clear that they are welcome in our society, just as everyone else is”. This was said by Theresa May, then Prime Minister, in 2018, addressing the Conservative Party conference. Since then, matters have got worse. In the words of Brianna Ghey’s father, “the dehumanisation must stop”. If one person suffers conversion therapy, that is one person too many. Conversion therapy must end.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, this is Second Reading: we are not time limited. I hope that noble Lords who need more than five minutes will feel free to take it.

I entirely agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, just said in quoting Theresa May. I share Room 23 with my noble friend Lord Hayward, and he has discussed with me the conversion therapy experiences of his friend, Matt Hyndman. He says of him, “I do not know how Matt is as normal as he is, given what he went through”.

My knowledge and respect of my noble friend are such that, even if I had not already been in that position, I would undoubtedly come at the Bill thinking that it was a correct and noble aim to deal with something which is clearly perceived as an evil and experienced as such by many people—I was interested to hear what the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, had to say about her experiences of it from a slightly different angle—but I have deep concerns with the Bill as drafted.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, said when she introduced it, we need a clear vision of what practices are permitted and where the line falls. She discussed this in terms of a predetermined outlook and coercion being wrong, but that is not how I read the Bill as it is; I do not see those lines in it. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said that open, questioning conversations should be permitted; I quite agree, but I do not see that in the Bill. I share the concerns of my noble friend Lord Sandhurst and the noble Lord, Lord Winston.

We need to get definitions right. Sexual orientation in English is who you are attracted to sexually. That obviously includes sexual attraction towards children and His Majesty’s Prison Service invests a lot in conversion therapy where that is concerned. The Equality Act confines sexual orientation in much more narrow terms, and we need that definition in the Bill.

We should also take the opportunity to define sex, making it clear, along with recent court decisions, that this is a matter of biology—male and female, men and women. We should define gender, so that it clearly has a different use—the social and cultural attributes generally associated with a person of a particular sex: masculine or feminine. We need to rid ourselves, particularly in the context of this Bill, of the confusion that has arisen between the use of those two terms. In particular, in this Bill we need a definition of gender identity. My noble friend has already drawn attention to the Scottish draft. We are legislating about gender identity; if we are doing so, we need a really clear definition of what it means. In ordinary usage, it appears to be a very wide concept, and I hope that proponents of the Bill will feel able to contribute to a close definition of this.

We also need protections. We have all received, I think, an email from the BMA. I think it is being hopelessly optimistic. Other jurisdictions have specific protection for therapy; it is clearly needed in the context of the Bill as it is worded at the moment. We also need protections for parents; many others have suggested that parents, in their ordinary discussions with children, should not be criminalised by this Bill. The whole process of childhood is one of maturation, ceaseless change and experimentation; children can take on really strong identities that do not persist. Most parents of teenagers are actually delighted that they do not. It is not right to not be allowed to argue, to discuss and to be broad in one’s conversations and directions to children. The Bill should not criminalise that, as I believe it does at the moment.

We need protection for religion; again, that is common in other jurisdictions. Above all, we need to make it clear that the process of affirmation is conversion therapy; taking something in a really young child and saying, “That means that you have a particular future, determined already at age four” is wrong. That is not what child development is about, and we should be extremely wary of picking a child early and freezing their development in that way, particularly when it involves chemical castration and physical mutilation. If there is one thing that this Bill, as amended, might achieve, it is making sure that that is the criminal offence, not parents seeking to help their children develop.

Climate Change

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Monday 24th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, for giving us the chance to have this debate. I very much enjoyed the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, as I did many of his father’s speeches. I look forward to plenty of future iterations.

I approach this debate in a positive frame of mind. I look at the national adaptation programme and think, “Yeah, that’s a good start”—but I shall not be short of ideas of how to do even better. I share my noble friend Lord Frost’s preference for adaptation. It is something we can do. We can get this done ourselves and look after ourselves. We do not have to fret about what the rest of the world is doing as we do with amelioration, where all our efforts would be wasted if they do not come up to scratch. With adaptation, we can absolutely look after ourselves. It ought to be the focus. I share my noble friend Lord Deben’s wish that that focus should immediately be on water. I declare an interest as a resident of the south-east. This is something we can do.

There is no UK shortage of water, but it is a big project; it is something where there needs to be a fair degree of consensus between all sides of politics on what we should do. It is something we should be actively trying to get on with, because the problems are with us now and will, we expect, get considerably worse. Of course, it might be that the Gulf Stream stops and we all get cold, but I think we should not bet on that.

There are some things we can do that we can all agree are worthwhile, whatever the circumstances. We should be putting extra money into crop genetics. We know that we will need to change the crops we grow; we know that will we need them to deal with different climate, whatever else happens. We really ought not be so dependent on varieties of grass. We are not in a resilient situation and we have the skills in this country to do a great deal better. We ought, as the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, said, to major on disease surveillance; we ought to know what is going on.

As my noble friend will discover when we get back to LURB, we ought to be doing stuff on local solar: solar on roofs, particularly industrial roofs, is just a total no-brainer. Solar and cooling go together, like love and marriage, and we are not doing enough to make that possible at the moment. The other thing we need to major on is truthfulness. I have been very impressed by noble Lords from all sides today, and much less so by the BBC in its garish reporting of dubious statistics on temperatures here and abroad.

We also ought to be looking at long-timescale things: restoration and renewal should remind us that this is committing us to defend London for one or two centuries. We ought to agree how we will do that, and where the barrier will be. What will be the technology? If we take those long-term decisions now, we shall build infrastructure that fits with the future, rather than stuff that will get washed away in the next flood.

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 15th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, this quite short group of amendments is concerned with Clause 16. It is a very worrying clause, for various reasons. My amendment seeks to tie the power of the relevant national authority to exercise the regulation-making power under this clause to the provisions of Part 3 of Schedule 4.

My Amendment 76, which we have already discussed, relates to Part 3 of Schedule 4. The point is to make sure that the regulation-making power is subject to parliamentary scrutiny. That is true not only of the UK Parliament; it applies also to the Senedd in Wales and the Northern Ireland Assembly. The Scottish decision has been that the power should remain with Ministers, and that is a matter that can be left to them.

The really important point is to make sure that the regulation power is subject to Amendment 76, which I am seeking to make on Wednesday. I do not think I need to say any more about this because the more important amendment is Clause 16 stand part. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, will make clear the position regarding the defects in the clause that gave rise to her amendment. She will do that far better than me so I shall simply leave it at that. I beg to move.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 41A in this group. We discussed this issue in Committee. I said, “If the Government want to go down the route of keeping in Clause 16(5), why don’t they promise the same about the environment?” After all, the Government made the same set of promises regarding environmental legislation—that they would not do anything to damage the protection that the current regulations offered—while here in Clause 16(5) they are saying they will not do anything to increase the regulatory burden.

The Government wisely said they did not want to put in the Bill the promise that they would not damage environmental regulation. I had rather hoped that meant they would take out Clause 16(5), because to my mind that subsection offers nothing but uncertainty. How is it to be interpreted by the courts if the Government propose to use the clause and someone challenges its use in the courts, saying, “This subsection says ‘in relation to a particular subject area’. Has that been reasonably chosen and correctly defined? What is the overall effect of the changes?”? They will have to look at every piece of legislation that has passed in relation to that particular subject area. How are they to be weighed up? There is no mechanism here providing for them to be weighed.

The courts are going to be asked how one bit of legislation should be weighed against another with regard to the changes that it makes and the regulatory burden. How do you weigh one bit of regulatory burden against another if one bit of regulation imposes something on one group and the next regulation imposes something on another? How do you weigh those two things together? It seems to be asking the absolute impossible. It means that any bit of legislation passed under Clause 16 will be open to all sorts of challenges in the courts, and there will be no way of knowing what the outcome will be, because nothing in this subsection, or elsewhere in the clause, tells you how to parse it. So I hope the Government will see the good sense they had when they chose not to adopt my suggestion of doing this for environmental legislation and take Clause 16(5) and (6) out of the Bill.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I agree with the entirety of Amendment 41A from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, while agreeing with only half his reasoning. I entirely agree that, as we discussed at length in Committee, this is essentially impossible to calculate and creates a great deal of legal uncertainty. Where I disagree with him is that I would very much like to have seen non-regression clauses for the environment, public health, workers’ rights and a whole range of other things in the Bill.

Practically, what we are doing with the clause at the moment, if it is implemented, is creating a guaranteed regression of workers’ rights, food standards and environmental standards. If we do not have regulation of business, we will certainly see at least some cowboy businesses taking advantage of a reduction in regulation. That of course will not be in the interests of businesses that want to do the right thing on the environment, public health or workers’ rights.

I spent a great deal of time during the passage of the Environment Act and the Agriculture Act arguing for non-regression clauses. What the Government are currently giving us is a guaranteed regression clause, and that really should not be acceptable.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I am very uncertain how the wording of this amendment works. Is a regulation the whole package of regulations that is submitted to this House or each individual regulation? If a regulation makes changes so that an old provision is swept away and the new one replaces it, that sweeping away of an old provision is a diminution, but there does not appear to be a mechanism for balancing it with the better regulation that follows. If a regulation benefits one species but hurts another, how is that dealt with here? If we protect badgers more so that there are fewer hedgehogs, I do not see how the wording works. Most of all, it seems that if the Government want to keep Clause 16(5) they must want this too, so I shall support the noble Lord, Lord Krebs.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, because that is exactly the point I was going to begin on. If you are to keep Clause 16(5), you absolutely need to have this. As my noble friend Lord Fox says, the importance of this amendment is that it takes the sting out of Clause 16. If we want to protect the environment for the future, and our food standards, as was so well articulated by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, this amendment is absolutely fundamental.

I do not want to add much more to what the noble Lord said, because he introduced it so expertly, but we on these Benches would add one other reason why we support it. It is critical that the public have confidence in environmental legislation, particularly at a time like now. If they see the Government not prepared to sign up to a non-regression clause—which is, as has been said, what the Minister says they want—they will be left with questions. We need them to be reassured that our environment is in the best possible hands, and the only way the Government can prove that in the Bill is to allow this non-regression clause.

Net-zero Emissions: Behaviour Change

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I too have the happy duty of being a member of the Environment and Climate Change Committee. I congratulate both my colleague on that committee, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford, on having obtained this debate, and the chair of our committee, the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, who has been remarkably good in the face of the differing opinions of the committee in reaching what I think is an excellent report.

We as a society have committed to decarbonisation. I hope that we have also committed to allowing a lot more space in our lives for nature. In making those sorts of commitments, we need the Government’s help to see it through. In playing our part, we want to be owning that process and to have a sense of agency, knowing that what we are doing is doing good. But even in the most basic aspects of this, the Government are failing.

Most of us recycle, but do we know what happens to our recycling? In my experience, a lorry turns up and tips my recycling into the back of it; the next sound I hear is the crunching of glass being shattered and mixed in with the paper. What happens after that? Is it all shipped off to Africa? Can someone unmingle it? Is it actually a useful thing to do? No one trusts us with that information. If the Government want us to be part of what is going on, we need to know.

The Government would like us to consider a more vegetarian lifestyle. That is fine; I have been persuaded of that by my daughter and am enjoying the process, except when I go to the shop and find that oat milk is twice the price of cow’s milk. Why? Again, who can help us? The Government should be helping us. You cannot say you want a change and then find that you are asking people to consume half as much of something that should be, according to the theory of things, a great deal cheaper. What is going on? That is what I want the Government to tell us.

Similarly, we are told that we should not travel so much by air, but the cost of a lot of the flights we might take is a third or a quarter of that of the journey by train. Are we being given the honest figures? The answer is no, we are not. We are just told the fuel consumption, not the total cost of the two systems. It is not explained to us why air travel is so much cheaper. Usually, things are cheaper because they have a lower impact on the environment and use fewer resources. Again, the Government owe us some detail.

Similarly—this will come up in our next inquiry—Nesta has shown in a recent report that heat pumps are substantially more expensive to run than gas central heating. Just comparing the fuel consumed by one against the fuel consumed by the other does not give us the total systems impact of changing from one to another. If the Government want us to have agency to be part of the national narrative in making changes that decarbonise the economy, they must share with us the information that allows us to understand and have a grip on the decisions they are asking us to take.

I am sorry that the Government decided not to publish help for people on how to use less fuel and live in a house with the thermostat turned down. I think we need honest, truthful, open information. It helps us sort the myths from reality. I—along with many other noble Lords, I suspect—spent a great deal of my youth in the company of my noble friend Lord Frost’s cousin Jack. We know that, apart from the displeasure of chilblains, it is possible to live without central heating, but none of us wishes to. We are all delighted that we have it, but when we started out with central heating the British kept their thermostats at 15 degrees. It was only the Americans who pushed it above 20, but now people seem to consider that 24 is normal. We need help to get back and reset society, and to think whether we need to have such an impact on the environment or whether we can moderate what we are doing.

House of Lords Appointments Commission

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, we should put the Appointments Commission on a statutory basis. Yes, it is a piecemeal change, but evolution not revolution is the Conservative way, and it is the way we should handle things when we change the constitution. We should ask the Appointments Commission to make sure all appointees are committed to and are capable of working in this place. We should ask the Appointments Commission, in respect of its own appointments, to ensure diversity both of roots and of thought, and to act in an advisory capacity to political parties in that regard. It should also be commenting on the percentage make-up of the House and its size.

It should operate under a mandate from Parliament. I thoroughly agree with what my noble friend Lord Hannan just said: that it should not be an oligarchy but a creature of Parliament. It needs to have that accountability. I am unimpressed by what the Appointments Commission has achieved to date in terms of working pattern and diversity. If we give a body the powers contemplated by my noble friend Lord Norton, we must be able to hold it to account.

Gender-balanced Parliament and Male Primogeniture

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Lucas]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Prime Minister’s statement on 20 November 2020 supporting a 50:50 gender-balanced Parliament, what plans they have to amend male primogeniture.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)]

My Lords, as the Prime Minister has made clear, we want to see more women in Parliament. That is a much wider issue than male primogeniture, but reform of the succession to hereditary peerages and baronetcies raises a variety of complex issues, and therefore any changes need careful consideration and wider engagement.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am very grateful for my noble friend’s reply. Does he agree that small, symbolic issues matter in our gradual progress towards female equality? The monarchy having shown the way in the matter of the inheritance of titles, will Her Majesty’s Government take whatever opportunity next presents itself to engage in the detailed consideration to which my noble friend refers?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, many proposals have been put forward, and many have failed to find support. I know that my noble friend put forward a Private Member’s Bill in 2013 for a voluntary approach, but the issues are, as I say, complex.

Financial Services Bill

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 14th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby (Con) [V]]

My Lords, Amendment 37C is an issue of fundamental importance to young people who are disabled and have taken up child trust funds. The amendment before us is key. We had a thorough and competent speech from my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, but I have just listened to another speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, and we have to find common ground between the two.

I declare a past interest as, when I joined the Commons in February 1974, I took an interest in the friendly society movement, which I continued until I left in 1997. I was then asked to become chairman, which I was from 1998 to 2005, of the Tunbridge Wells Equitable Friendly Society. That interest was declared at that point. In the days of the child trust fund, the Tunbridge Wells Equitable Friendly Society traded under the brand of the Children’s Mutual. It is my recollection that the Children’s Mutual was a brand leader, and we put a huge amount of effort into it. We liaised with the authorities involved at the time—not just the Government of the day but others. I am saddened and disappointed that, somehow or other, this issue got through the net. Unfortunately, the coalition Government tragically decided—George Osborne was one of the key players, of course—to wind it up. That was a great error, in my judgment.

We come to the current position, and I am pleased to hear the industry’s concerns, but I am disappointed that there has been no mention of the Association of Friendly Societies. I am sure that the majority of child trust funds were sold by the friendly societies, and I would advise those involved to make sure that the Association of Friendly Societies is involved now. On my own initiative, I will contact the Tunbridge Wells Equitable Friendly Society to suggest that it helps and is involved.

I am not sure why we have the same problem with junior ISAs. I declare an interest here, because I contribute to the junior ISAs of my four grandchildren, who are eligible. I am disappointed, although I was not involved in the legislation on junior ISAs in depth, that the same problem appears. I do not want to add to the concerns of my noble friend on the Front Bench, but, until recently, a large number of grandparents had been buying National Savings certificates, and I wonder whether the same problem is lying there and has not been raised by anybody else.

This is a serious problem. I have faith in my noble friend on the Front Bench, and I hope that he and those involved will look at it seriously. If there is anything that I can do to help resolve this issue, I will do my best to, because it is important.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 16 and I thoroughly support its intent. I have been chair of the Enforcement Law Reform Group for more years than I care to remember, and for all that time I have been aware that every side of the industry wants statutory regulation. It is not a suitable case for voluntary regulation. You need the powers that go with being set up by statute to deal with all the difficulties and conflicts that are inherent in the business of getting money out of people who do not want to give it to you.

I fully understand the Government’s caution about the drafting of the amendment, but I very much hope that everyone involved in it will hold their feet to the fire to get a suitable alternative through as soon as possible. I have one piece of advice for the Government on the amendment as drafted. It is important that whatever we create can bite on creditors. A lot of the problems in this industry have their roots in the delinquency and bad behaviour of creditors and in the disorganisation of the systems that they operate. The privilege of being able to use a bailiff should be granted only to creditors who are well set up, who have done their preparatory work, who know who is vulnerable, who have found out the right addresses, who have properly offered payment holidays or plans before involving the very expensive, onerous and sometimes distressing option of a bailiff.

When we come to have this in statute, we need some way in which a local authority, for instance, which is trying to recover debt due on council tax must demonstrate that it has done what it should in order to be allowed to use the bailiff system. There may be some other way of doing it—but not to have that connection through to creditors and think that you can regulate just by putting pressure on bailiffs would be a considerable mistake and would, in the end, result in the system not working.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, I think my noble friend Lord Addington put his finger exactly on the problem here. These are a series of amendments, all of them good and strong, that tackle really significant issues that seem to affect a particular selection of our population who find themselves constantly recognised but pushed into the long grass, so that we do not get regulation of the underlying problem. I hope that today we can collectively as a House ginger up the Government to say that this really must be dealt with—not just given to working groups or consulted on yet again but put on a track to get resolution quickly.

On Amendment 16 in Grand Committee we discussed bailiffs and the need to improve their behaviour and get it within the right statutory context, so I will not add more, other than to say that with Covid and the consequences for so many people who will find themselves out of work or in debt, this becomes more urgent than ever. The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, should know that, if she finds an appropriate vehicle, we would be very willing to support on this. It must be dealt with. It would be lovely if it were in the form of a government amendment, but somebody will have to move on this very quickly or a lot of people will be paying a sad price.

On Amendment 26, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, sometimes a personal experience leads to identifying a real problem, and he has put his finger on another problem. If I were a regulator, I must say that anyone who could get my attention and show me that we are getting abuse and misbehaviour within the financial services sector ought to be welcomed. If the definition of eligible customers makes it difficult or impossible to use as broadly as it should be, a look at that definition is urgent. If I were the ombudsman or the FCA, I would certainly want to know that someone was out there attempting to scam the public. I can assure the Government that the scammers know all the loopholes and weaknesses in the definitions, so plugging them as rapidly as possible makes obvious sense.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bryan of Partick (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is a great honour to participate in this group of amendments, and particularly to support the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, who has worked tirelessly to support mortgage prisoners. I feel I am in a similar place to my noble friend Lord Griffiths of Burry Port when he spoke in Committee. I will speak as someone inexperienced in high finance but who understands the importance of having a home—not as a financial asset or investment, but as somewhere safe and secure to live. To make this most basic need a pawn in the machinations of greed-driven financial transactions, as demonstrated by the financial crash of 2008, is an absolutely unacceptable face of capitalism.

Every Government since 1979 have encouraged people to see home ownership as a sign of virtue. When the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, was Secretary of State for the Environment, he said:

“Home ownership stimulates the attitudes of independence and self-reliance that are the bedrock of a free society.”


But for many people, the period of their mortgage is a rollercoaster ride of anxiety, always dependent on matters far outside their control. The day the mortgage is paid off must rank among the best days of people’s lives. Many mortgage prisoners fear they will never see that day.

The FCA reported in July 2020 that around a quarter of a million people have their mortgages held by inactive firms. The majority of these people were up to date with their payments and, in any other circumstances, would have been able to adjust their mortgages and repayment patterns to suit their individual needs. No one would choose to remain on the SVR for years on end, so to compare their entrapment on that rate to those who may be on it temporarily, while they seek an alternative, is disingenuous. These people have been denied that opportunity, not through any decision they made or any fault on their part, but because of the way the Government chose to sell off mortgage loan books. It was not just people’s mortgages that changed hands, it was people’s lives—they were being bought and sold.

This Bill was viewed with real optimism among some mortgage prisoners. They thought amendments relating to SVR would help transform their lives, but how often have they been here before? Last year, there was hope that the FCA’s more lenient affordability checks would help some escape, but very few succeeded. For many more, their lives were made even more difficult by the impact of Covid-19. The report from the LSE in November 2020 makes the point that the FCA has now reached the limit of its powers. This means that only the Government can help to free mortgage prisoners. Instead, while Parliament was considering amendments aimed at protecting mortgage prisoners, the auctions continued. All the warm words and expressions of concern from Ministers meant nothing. The Treasury’s sole concern was that these people must deliver value for money for the Government.

These amendments are considered and cautious. Their implementation would not undermine capitalism or fundamentally damage the whole system of mortgage delivery, but would give some safeguards to a specific group of mortgage prisoners who have struggled for more than 10 years as victims of the failure of the very system the Government are defending. If it is not to be these amendments, what help will the Minister offer? Unless there is a clear alternative, I hope we will be given the opportunity to vote on at least one of them. I would be very pleased to give my support.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is clearly acknowledged that there is a problem. It is evident to me that this is exactly the sort of problem that the Government ought to sort out because, as my noble friend Lady Noakes said, we have no business landing this on the lending community. It is our responsibility. The Bill is an opportunity to make sure that something is done, and I very much hope that we take it.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, I think the case has been extremely well made. I usually really respect the opinions that the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, puts forward, but it seems to me that she completely fails to understand the circumstances that led these people into being mortgage prisoners. They took out loans under credit checks and it was entirely appropriate, but the banks from whom they borrowed the money crashed in the 2008 financial crisis, largely through poor regulation, which lies at the Government’s door, not the door of those who took out mortgages. People with absolutely identical credit profiles who took out their mortgages with a bank which did not crash have had many opportunities to refinance, which is normal in the life of the mortgage. A standard, typical bank knows that it will vary the characteristics of its mortgage over the life if that option is sought by the mortgagee.

The group of people who took out their mortgages with banks that crashed in many cases found that those mortgages were stripped out as part of the asset rescue process that the Government went through, and the Government then sold those mortgages to completely inappropriate buyers under inappropriate terms in order to get the maximum return. I understand their motivation—maximum return for taxpayers—but they removed all of the normal relationships and embedded rights in those relationships that a mortgagee has when they take out a mortgage with a viable financial institution.

The noble Baroness treats many of those mortgage prisoners as people who are now of poor credit. These are people who have aged—we all do that. The mortgage that we take out at the age of 30 is not the same one that we would be able to take out at the age of 55, because we have got older and our career profile is different. Some of them have become ill, and therefore had reduced earning capacity. Any standard bank dealing with a mortgagee in those circumstances makes adjustments. Mortgage prisoners are not able to seek such adjustments and they have been left in dire circumstances.

The fault lay with the Government when they sold mortgages under inappropriate terms to inappropriate buyers to manage them. It treated them as though they were abstract assets, rather than a special category which has a lot of convention embedded in it, in order to maximise their sale. I very much hope that the Government will realise that they have a responsibility. They took those additional revenues, they took the benefit of selling off those mortgages under terms and conditions that they should never have permitted, and they now need to offset that by stepping forward and making sure that those mortgage prisoners can have the same access to flexibility that would have been theirs had they taken that loan out with a financial institution that did not collapse in 2007-08.

UK-EU Trade

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, the question of the economic benefits or disbenefits of our relationship with the European Union has been extensively debated over the last few years. There have been many publications on the subject, including from this Government. The economic situation last year, the impact of the pandemic and the huge uncertainties made it very difficult to conduct an analysis. We of course continue to keep this question under very close review.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, there are clearly problems with companies not being used to the new procedures. I know from experience how helpful BEIS and HMRC can be to a European company that has made a pig’s ear of its paperwork. Are their European equivalents being similarly helpful to British companies which have not got the procedures right?

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, it is true that there have been some problems and some overzealous enforcement in isolated cases, which have been well publicised. However, I take this opportunity to say that generally the European authorities have been very supportive and pragmatic in the way they have dealt with issues at the border, and we welcome that fact. Operational co-operation with member states, in particular our closest neighbours, has been excellent.

Financial Services Bill

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard
Wednesday 3rd March 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, my amendments in this group are all a result of my chairmanship of the Enforcement Law Review Group. They reflect the concerns of members of that group—it has representatives from all sides of the debt management business, from creditors to debtors and others—about the breathing space regulations. I would be quite content if my noble friend wrote to me or discussed these matters afterwards, but I am grateful for the opportunity that the Bill affords to pick them up before the arrangements themselves go live.

Amendment 56 asks whether the 60 days of the breathing space moratorium can be extended. There is concern, particularly from the debt management side, that the whole business of processing a benefit claim can run beyond 60 days and make it necessary that the period should be longer. They want to see either that there is flexibility or that there will be some way of managing situations where a longer period is needed.

Similarly, Amendment 57 looks at the need to report in the middle of the 60 days and, if there has been no change, to ask whether the requirement of the report might be omitted.

Amendment 58 looks at situations where the debts owed include those where it would be really difficult to inform the creditor of what was going on, in terms of obtaining a breathing space, because the creditor is in a position to upset the debtor’s life substantially. Examples might be having children in a nursery, a car in to be repaired or a landlord who is in a position to evict the debtor from their house. It would allow debt management agencies the flexibility to manage a debtor’s life in a way, at the same time as they are helping them with their debts, and not push them into trouble because they have involved more commercial creditors in a breathing space scheme.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

I call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am still going—I have a number of other amendments. Is the Committee not hearing me?

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

Please continue—sorry. It was a pregnant pause.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

Amendment 62 looks at joint debt situations, for instance between a wealthy husband and an impoverished wife where it is the wife who has the breathing space moratorium. Under those circumstances, it is not obvious that the wealthy husband should have the benefit. The amendment therefore asks whether, under some circumstances, the moratorium should not apply to all parties to a debt.

Amendments 63 and 64 are really just opportunities to ask the Government whether this scheme is ready to go. A lot of pressure has been placed on the Insolvency Service and the courts in the course of Covid. Are we actually in a position to launch a working system? If not, should there not be some arrangement to allow delay to ensure that, when the launch comes, it is successful?

Amendment 65 looks at situations where a debtor gets the benefit of a breathing space but then just does nothing and does not engage with the breathing space process in any way. It asks: should there not, under those circumstances, be some incentive—something that the debtor loses by not engaging with the process?

Amendment 66 looks at the situation of a creditor that has taken its debt to the point of commencing legal action and then faces a breathing space process. That is fine, but should not the position that the creditor has got into be finalised so that things can be picked up again afterwards if they need to be, rather than having to be started again at considerable expense to the creditor? Should not the system recognise—[Inaudible.]

I appreciate that these are complicated and detailed amendments. As I said, I would entirely accept written correspondence, and I shall be grateful for anything the Minister says today. However, they reflect an industry that is looking to make a success of both sides of the breathing space initiative but is concerned that some details are not provided for in the regulations as they exist at the moment.

Now I have finished.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

Thank you for the clarification. I call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker.