Integrated Review

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Wednesday 17th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

As I am sure the noble Lord knows, we already have a significant presence in the Indo-Pacific and we will invest more deeply in our relationships with key partners, which includes seeking ASEAN dialogue partner status and, as I mentioned, applying to join the CPTPP. But I reassure him that this is not at the expense of our close relationship with our European allies, which remains critical. One example of further engagement with the Indo-Pacific region is that, later this year, HMS “Queen Elizabeth” will lead a British and allied task group on our most ambitious deployment for two decades, which will visit the Mediterranean, Middle East and Indo-Pacific.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, Section 2(4) of the International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Act 2015 states that the Government

“must … describe any steps that the Secretary of State has taken to ensure that the 0.7% target will be met”

in any subsequent year, if it was met in the previous year. The noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, told me that

“we are looking at legislation to ensure that we fulfil those obligations to Parliament.”—[Official Report, 2/12/20; col. 755.]

There has been no legislation, so does that mean that the Government are legally committed to meeting 0.7% in 2022, as the Secretary of State has indicated?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

As I have said, and am sure the noble Lord knows, the document makes clear that we intend to return to 0.7% spending. We are acting compatibly with the Act, which explicitly envisages circumstances where the target might not be met. As I said in my first answers, we will set out more details on next steps in due course.

Business of the House

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Wednesday 30th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

I call the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter—oh, I call the noble Lord, Lord Purvis.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

I thank the noble Baroness for allowing me to raise a question, if I may, of the Chief Whip. I have sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and his comments about precedent. This is the second Bill in a row which this House has considered under the fast-track procedure. There was the Bill immediately before the Christmas break—a trade Bill, which I covered—which had all its stages taken in one day because the Government knew they did not have the correct procedures in place for tomorrow. Therefore, I think there is a degree of sympathy.

The question I wish to ask is linked with the necessity now for detailed scrutiny after we come back in January, as my noble friend Lord Stoneham indicated. In the drop-in call yesterday, the noble Lord, Lord True, contradicted the Explanatory Notes of the Bill today. The Explanatory Notes state, in paragraph 99, that the Government believe:

“The Bill is not suitable for post legislative scrutiny as it implements an international treaty.”


The noble Lord, Lord True, reassured my noble friend Lord Fox, who asked the question, that there will be opportunities for scrutiny. So can the Chief Whip outline that there will be sufficient debating time and government time in January for us to debate the component parts of the Bill? Will the Government facilitate committees of this House to scrutinise the various components?

Linked with that, Liz Truss and the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, have said repeatedly that every trade treaty will come with an independently verified economic impact assessment. The noble Lord, Lord True, told me in letter on 19 May that the Government would capture the widest possible range of analysis, from economists and academics to businesses and civil society groups, to, as he put it, represent all parts of the United Kingdom. He said: “We will continue to keep Parliament informed with appropriate analysis”. Will the Chief Whip outline when we can expect to see the impact assessment that will be so vital to understand—as the noble Lord, Lord True, said—the various impacts that will be felt across the different parts of the economy?

Business of the House

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I deplore the Statement just made by the Leader of the House. It is deplorable that in the middle of a national crisis the Government are proposing that Parliament should abdicate for a month. We should, day by day, be debating the situation, holding Ministers to account, reporting back to them the tribulations that millions of our fellow citizens are undergoing in this great crisis, and ensuring that the Government are held to account for their actions to deal with it.

In our debate earlier, we heard that there is still no package for the millions of self-employed people in this country who are facing potential destitution because their incomes have disintegrated. We are told that the Chancellor might make a Statement tomorrow, but not in Parliament because Parliament will not meet, and that it will not be possible to put questions to him or his representative in this House. When the noble Earl, the deputy leader of the House, appeared before us earlier, he said that we could make representations by other means. The whole way in which Parliament makes representations is by meeting.

This is a truly deplorable Statement. It is also out of line with how Parliament has handled previous crises. My noble friend Lord Harris said that the Prime Minister is fond of making comparisons with the Second World War. In 1940, Parliament met almost every week. There was no period of more than 18 days in which Parliament did not meet. It is true that coronavirus is contagious, which is why it is right that we look at modernising our working practices, including video conferencing, but it is perfectly possibly for us to meet. No one can suggest that if it was possible for Parliament to meet weekly in 1940, it is not possible for us to meet weekly in 2020. Let us hope that the Government agree to a recall, so that we can debate the conditions which the country will go through in the next few weeks.

I wish to put on record that it is a dereliction of our public responsibilities for us not to meet for the next 28 days when the Government, by the consent of all of us, are imposing in effect a state of emergency on the entire country.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I endorse the comments of my noble friend Lord Oates, with two supplementary points, the first of which the Leader may think has a degree of self-pleading because I live in Scotland.

If this House is to function properly, there must be not only active Members who can physically participate, but Members from all four nations of the union. As with many people who have to work across the union, there will be Members of Parliament, in this place and in the other place, who by necessity have to travel across the United Kingdom to carry out the democratic functions, and rightly so, but it is harder for them. I hope that the Government will consider not excluding Members who cannot physically be here of cannot be here by virtue of geography. Thankfully I do not fall into the category of being over 70. Nevertheless, the point about geography is important.

Secondly, on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, the Government will inevitably table a great many statutory instruments during this period, which we will have to consider after the piece. That is not desirable. It may be necessary in some regards, but it is not desirable. Will the Government be much more flexible over access to Ministers and in the provision of written material to Front-Benchers through the usual channels, so that lines are communication are much freer than they normally are? I know that Ministers in this House are frequently available and receptive but there is an extra burden on the Government at this time because, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and other noble Lords have said, governing an emergency by executive authority alone is not the British way. If we are to carry on, we will do so through our democratic institutions.

Finally, on technology, I hope that the Government will speak to the other democratic institutions, not only here, with the House of Commons and our Parliamentary Digital Service, but to local authorities and our cities, which are undergoing similar challenges, the European Parliament, which has instituted new regulations for voting electronically, and others, so that democratic institutions across the United Kingdom can carry on functioning as best as they can.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I endorse the remarks of the noble Lords, Lord Adonis and Lord Oates. As I referred to in an earlier debate, the coronavirus has existed as an organism—as a species—for three months. When we talk about coming back in about a month’s time, we are talking about 25% of the entire existence of this virus. Of course, it will be the worst 25%. We face massive challenges. We have essentially thrown out the rulebook in many areas in the past couple of days. It is extremely disappointing —an understatement—that we will not be here to ask questions to address this directly. I understand the remarks about access for Front-Benchers but those of us with smaller representation also have important questions to ask.

Global Britain

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I fear that I do not have that information to hand but I am very happy to go back to the department and check on the timings. I would also say that that we are considering the best way to implement the protocol and will be discussing this with the EU in a Joint Committee and specialised committees created under the withdrawal agreement. I will go back and check and if I can provide some further information to the noble Baroness, I will do so.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, that protocol highlights 371 laws and regulations that will not apply to Great Britain but will automatically apply in perpetuity to Northern Ireland. Their origin will be from the European Union. In October I asked the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, what representation UK citizens and businesses will have over rules set by a foreign entity in a trade agreement that they will have to comply with. He replied:

“Of course they will not have direct representation”.—[Official Report, 19/10/19; col. 361.]


What is the position of the Leader of the House on UK businesses and citizens who will have to comply with European Union rules over which they will have no representation? If that is the case, all the language about “one United Kingdom family” and the “whole UK family—fully and complete” will have to be scratched. It is either Great Britain and Northern Ireland or Northern Ireland alone under these EU rules.