Rights of the Sovereign and the Duchy of Cornwall Bill [HL]

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts

Friday 8th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, we owe my noble friend Lord Berkeley a vote of thanks for raising an issue of this nature. It has not been an easy debate for him to launch, but he has struggled on with it. As he said, he has been following these issues for some years. The note from the Library which came around earlier certainly exemplifies that, with the number of questions that he has been asking and the detail that he has been trying to dig out.

The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, obviously takes a different view and did so in his very interesting style. As somebody on these Benches said to me, it was a speech that could have been made at any time in the past 400 years. There is credit in that; it is a compliment, not necessarily an attack. He referred to yesterday’s debate on Magna Carta, which was extremely interesting because, among the issue that we talked about—how Parliament would celebrate Magna Carta in June 2015—there was a current about the constitutional issues.

There is no doubt that Magna Carta in its original form and various manifestations since then—something like 14 different charters were issued until it died out in the mid-15th century—was and is a particularly important document for the way we organise and run our society. Is it a constitutional document? Almost certainly, and two clauses in it are still extant in our laws. However, the point is that we do not really understand where our constitutional documents lie. People often ask for a written constitution. As I said yesterday, that is a mistake: most of the constitutional arrangements are written down, but the difficulty is that they are not brought together in a codified form. Even if that were to happen, as I strongly believe it should, difficulties would remain with the royal prerogative and other areas of our constitution which are not as well exposed as they could be.

That is my point about this Bill. My noble friend Lord Berkeley makes a number of specific proposals, but the general point is about trying to throw a light on activities which affect individuals up and down the country, but particularly in Cornwall. That plays to a larger concern about the extent to which those areas of our constitutional arrangements which are not as well scrutinised as they might be can sometimes affect particular aspects of the process of government in which we are all involved. It may well be that pig husbandry is not the most important issue. However, this is probably not the only Bill—there was another one—in respect of which thought was given to whether, if put forward in its present form, it might need to be changed later. My noble friend Lord Berkeley is pointing up, in this section of the Bill, the hidden areas of activity which make up the law-making and governing of our country.

Other parts of the Bill will apply in other ways to different areas. However, it seems to me and these Benches that we should not miss the chance to have a good look at some of these areas and the specifics that my noble friend has raised in his Bill. We should be concerned about whether or not this is the right way of proceeding with this sort of legislation. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, is right to say that all legislation would be better if it were subject to pre-legislative scrutiny. I wish his party could put more effort into that—I am thinking in particular of the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill, which is a classic. The noble Lord nods well, but I wish that he would join us in discussion sometimes. I look forward to seeing him on those Benches on Monday when we will talk about Part 3, which was subject to no consultation whatever before being introduced. Is this the way to govern a country? No, it is not.

We accept pre-legislative scrutiny. The Bill has not been subject to that, although it is hard to see how it could be, given that it is a Private Member’s Bill. To the extent that it could be discussed, we wish it well.

Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2013 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

65: Clause 4, page 3, line 5, leave out from “business” to end of line 6

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 65 I shall also speak to Amendments 67, 70, 71, 75, 76, 77 and 113, which are in the names of my noble friends Lady Royall and Lady Hayter. This is an extensive group of amendments but the main focus is to expand greatly the amount of information that the register holds. For example, one of the key amendments in the middle of this group concentrates on the detail of spending by lobbyists. This is important as, without these details, it is possible only to build up a very limited picture of the lobbying activity taking place because, as Unlock Democracy says in its briefing to noble Lords:

“A good faith estimate of what it being spent on lobbying would also show scale, disparities and trends in lobbying”.

Compare the current, limited proposals in the Bill with the level of transparency in place in the United States, where it is relatively easy to find out how much is being spent, and by which companies and sectors, using publicly available information. For example, the Senate record of spending shows that Boeing spent $15,440,000 on lobbying in the US in 2012. General Electric spent $21,200,000. These are very significant sums and they are spent by in-house lobbyists. As we know, this can have a marked effect on policy and the discussions around it. For example, an IMF working paper from 2009 draws a direct link between the amounts of money spent in lobbying by financial services firms and high-risk lending practices before the financial crisis. Ameriquest Mortgage and Countrywide Financial, both of which were at the heart of the crash, spent $20.5 million and $8.7 million respectively in political donations, campaign contributions and lobbying activities from 2002 to 2006. The IMF paper concludes that,

“the prevention of future crises might require weakening political influence of the financial industry or closer monitoring of lobbying activities to understand better the incentives”.

This is still pertinent here. As recently as 2 July, the head of the Prudential Regulation Authority was reported in the FT as saying that he was going to draw up rules to prevent the banks lobbying parliamentary officials against new requirements for leverage. Under the proposals in the Bill, we will not get any of the same transparency when it comes, for example, to lobbying by the big six energy companies. It has been reported that Ministers from the Department of Energy and Climate Change have met representatives from the energy giants on 128 occasions since 2010, yet have held talks with the main groups representing energy consumers only 26 times during the same period. We need much more information about what is going on here.

Amendment 65 would exclude the option of an individual residence being listed as the address of a lobbyist. Our concern is that this seems to represent a potential loophole, which we urge the Government to reconsider. The effect of the Bill, if passed in its current form, is that the level of transparency for the register is limited to the individual name and address of a main place of business or, if there is no such place, the individual’s residence. This is surely a loophole that would bar us from knowing who the individual works for. That concern fits into the wider point raised by our Amendment 67: that an increase in transparency should allow us to see who is lobbying on behalf of a company and which members of staff are engaged in that lobbying.

There are also a number of amendments in this group in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie. We should be very grateful for the way in which he has gone through the Bill with such forensic attention to detail. His amendments have similar intentions to ours and we support them. I beg to move.

[Lord Norton of Louth (Con)]

My Lords, my Amendment 115 is in this group. From my point of view, it is the core amendment in terms of shifting the emphasis of the Bill. As I have drafted it, the clause is designed to be integrated in the Bill, but essentially it seeks to advance an alternative to what the Government propose. If the Government insist on the current provisions of the Bill then, as today has increasingly shown, it will achieve little by way of making lobbying of Government transparent; if anything, we are establishing that it may serve to obscure rather than enlighten.

As we have heard, the focus of Part 1 as it stands is on those who lobby. As I argued at Second Reading, a more comprehensive approach, achieving transparency without the need for a clunky bureaucratic framework, is to focus on those who are lobbied. That would shift the emphasis far more to the actual activity. My amendment is designed to give effect to what I argued at Second Reading.

If one placed a statutory requirement on Ministers when making statements of the sort enumerated in Clause 3 to publish at the same time details of those who lobbied them on the matter, that would ensure that the public were aware of all those who had lobbied the department. I stress the department because the amendment encompasses civil servants, special advisers and PPSs. Any representations made to anyone in the department would be shown. It would not matter who the lobbyists were: full-time independent lobbyists, in-house lobbyists, part-time lobbyists or individuals making representations on that particular issue—all would be caught. We would thus have true, comprehensive transparency. That is the key point, and it is important that we establish the principle.

I know what the Government’s response will be because the Minister kindly replied to my amendment earlier, before I had spoken to it. It is clear what the Government’s position is: “We believe in transparency as long as it’s not too much trouble”. That is essentially what was advanced. Yet we have already heard today a fair amount of material that suggests that it is doable. My noble friend Lord Tyler has made a powerful case for a database and has explained how it could be done—it is manageable. My amendment would take us somewhat further than that in terms of the amount of information that would be produced, and perhaps the time when it was produced because it would be drawn together at a particular point, but, as my noble friend has demonstrated, putting that material together is not that difficult.

At Second Reading I made the case, and I will revert to it, about what Select Committees do. The Minister was saying, “When a Minister brings forward a Bill, good heavens, he might receive lots of representations. If he had to produce and publish those, my goodness, the workload would be horrendous. How could it be achievable?”. Well, what would happen if a Select Committee received lots of representation, perhaps in three figures, when it was conducting an inquiry, and then when it was doing its report actually had to list those who had made representations and then publish the evidence? Oh, my goodness—it already does. Select Committees manage that sort of exercise on very lean resources, so the Government should be able to undertake a similar exercise with the resources at their disposal. As my noble friend Lord Tyler has indicated, it is no longer a case of putting together lots of papers from different sources; much can be done electronically, such as recording meetings for the database and publishing Ministers’ diaries the day after the event, so we are already getting there. That is not the obstacle that the Minister was suggesting, so it is not really credible now to argue that it is not doable; it is.

The problem is not the practicality but the political will. If the political will were there to achieve it then it could be done, and it would achieve the Government’s stated aim in a way that Part 1 simply does not do. As it is drafted, it would not achieve a great deal at all; it would create a burden of bureaucracy that would not add much by way of transparency. If we believe in the transparency of lobbying—in other words, if we actually want to give effect to the first words of the Short Title—then this is the route to go. I look forward to the Minister’s second response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My apologies. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for making the comparison with the United States. We are, of course, concerned to avoid British politics being invaded by the scale of money there; indeed, that is partly what Part 2 responds to, as I said at Second Reading. We make comparisons with the scale of lobbying in the United States but, thankfully, that problem has not yet arisen.

I am slightly puzzled by the Opposition’s Amendment 65, which would remove the requirement for lobbyists to provide a residential address in the absence of any registered address. That seems to us to provide a basic element of information. The consequence of the amendment would be that where there is no registered business address a lobbyist would not be required to provide any contact details. The information to the public would thus be reduced, and the registrar’s ability to investigate compliance and to enforce the registration requirements would be undermined.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

It will be worth clarifying this so that we understand each other. You may forget my name, but surely you will understand what I am trying to say. This is a probing amendment, so we do not expect that the wording will necessarily be accepted. However, if it is possible for someone simply to record themselves as a lobbyist on the register and give only their private address, the information that should be available—which business they are acting for—will be missing. One would hope that they would put in their business address, but if the current phrasing is adopted that will be a loophole. We are simply asking the Minister if he will take this away.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I will certainly take it away, and I am very happy to do so.

An amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, would alter Clause 4 to require lobbyists to disclose the recipient of the payment for lobbying and the focus and subject of lobbying activity. The Opposition’s further amendments would require that lobbyists disclose the approximate value of spending on lobbying activity during a quarter. I suppose that I should welcome the pressure that is coming across the room for even greater transparency than we propose in the Bill; that is a splendid step forward. Under the previous Government there was some considerable resistance to this level of transparency.

We have been very clear that the objective of the register is limited, in our view, to the identification of the interests that are represented by consultant lobbying firms. Consultant lobbyists should therefore be required to disclose their clients. We are not yet persuaded that the burden that would be imposed on both the industry and the regulator of requiring further information—for example, spending and financial data—is justified by the limited insight it will provide. That sounds to me like something else we may discuss in the Corridors. However, we are not yet persuaded that that provides a proportionate approach to the problem identified. It is not necessary to require the disclosure of the subject or target due to the Government’s transparency regime, whereby Ministers’ and Permanent Secretaries’ meetings with external organisations are already declared.

I compliment the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, on the detail and care with which he has prepared a large number of amendments. His new clause proposed in Amendment 81 would establish a second register—the register of lobbying activities, as he has explained—which would run in parallel to the register of lobbyists. He has tabled a number of consequential amendments with that. The register would record information both from lobbyists and from public officials in receipt of lobbying communications.

The Government are not persuaded that a register of lobbying activities is necessary, nor do we think it necessary to require that both the maker and the recipient of a lobbying communication submit a report on that activity. The noble and learned Lord’s register would duplicate existing information—that provided in government transparency reporting—and the information requirements of the register appear to duplicate each other: both the lobbyist and the recipient of the lobbying would have to report any interaction. Even the American system does not come close to imposing such onerous requirements on industry and public officials. The administrative cost of complying with such a scheme would be high, both for industry and for public bodies. The cost of regulating it could be ever more expensive—costs which would surely fall either on the industry or the public purse.

Amendment 112, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, would provide that the subscription charge be set as a percentage of the lobbyist’s turnover. The noble Lord does not specify at what percentage the charge should be set and instead provides that the level could be set in regulations. As outlined in our impact assessment, we anticipate that the charge will be approximately £650. That figure should not prove too burdensome on any organisations that undertake professional consultant lobbying. Indeed, it compares favourably with the fee charged by the host of the industry’s voluntary register. The fee will be set to recover the full costs of the registrar’s activities—including those in relation to enforcement—and will ensure that the register is not funded by public money.

The noble Lord may be concerned that such a charge should be minimised for the smallest businesses. However, as I commented earlier, the VAT exemption is intended to exempt the smallest businesses from the requirement to register.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Let me take that away and speak to the noble and learned Lord further. I understand his concerns and I am very grateful for the detailed interest that he is taking in the Bill. We will make sure that we have adequate answers for him.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his very full coverage of the points, although it is becoming clear that he is expending considerable effort in trying to give no more commitments on any of these questions than are in his brief, except to welcome occasional points that he will take back. The noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, is right to say that it is not worth discussing the Bill if it does not deliver—either directly or through voluntary means—something more than we have at present. The wicked thought occurred to me that perhaps the amendment we ought to be tabling and debating is whether the Title of the Bill should be changed to “The Proportionate and Moderate Transparency of Lobbying Bill”.

What is going on here? Does the Minister really believe that this Bill will add very much to what we have at present? If not, why on earth are we wasting our time on it? We are discussing Part 1, but I am afraid that the same questions will come back to haunt him in Part 2. He may well be able to escape the Bench on Part 3, but they will be there in Part 3 as well. This Bill does not add very much to the effectiveness of what most people in the country, and certainly Members around this House and in another place, would like to see happen. When we were in power, we moved forward on this. We did not move very fast because it is a difficult issue, as the Minister would accept, but we would not have got into the position where the Minister is today—that is very clear.

While I thank the Minister very much for taking back my proposal that we should look again at the possible loophole in Amendment 65, I do not think that he has given clear answers to my questions on Amendments 70, 71, 75, 76 and 77 about the money. Having said that the money is important and that we do not want to go the way that the Americans and those in other territories have gone, he also said that we could not possibly put a burden on those who have to participate in the system that would cause them difficulties. However, in Parts 2 and 3, burdens are being sallied out to charities and trade unions without any shame at all, as far as I can see. Apparently, what is meat for one is not meat for the other. The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, had it right in a very brief but salient interjection. Transparency is not capable of being moderated. Something is transparent or it is not. This Bill is heading towards having no transparency at all.

Finally, we were intrigued by the announcement about the likely fee of £650, if I correctly took down the figure. Why is there no variation on that figure between small and large firms? The scale in this sector is substantial, so even if we are going to have a register, the costs of which are met by those participating, it seems absurd to charge some of the large companies the same amount as those firms with one or two persons working in them. Perhaps the noble Lord can think about that. We on this side are not at all clear why our proposals for a more expanded register that would work only if it delivered full transparency—I understand that point—will cost so much more. Perhaps the noble Lord will write to explain how his calculations arrive at figures in the millions of pounds, when the figure for the current register is so modest. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 65 withdrawn.

Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a retired member of Unite.

The briefing circulated about Part 3 says that it is simply intended to change,

“the legal requirements in relation to trade unions’ obligations to keep their list of members up to date”.

In fact, as we have already heard today, the Bill introduces additional requirements to the existing duty placed on—and long accepted by—the trade unions to maintain an accurate and up-to-date register of members. Union membership is already regulated by the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, and Section 24(1) puts a duty on unions to maintain a register of members’ names and addresses, so far as is reasonably practicable, that is accurate and up to date.

We are not aware of any calls having been made to the Government to extend this provision. I understand that BIS, the certification officer and ACAS have all confirmed under FoI requests that they have received no representations to introduce such a measure. No one has campaigned publicly for such a change. They will not be able to in future. The proposed legislation will place on unions onerous and unjustified additional administrative burdens that often duplicate existing regulations. The legislation also appears to violate fundamental rights to privacy and freedom of association which are safeguarded by the European Convention on Human Rights.

Like many other noble Lords, we are unable to work out exactly what problem the Government are trying to remedy. Unions already have a legal duty to keep accurate membership records, and it is in their interests to do so. Not only do good membership records increase income and minimise expense, any union involved in an industrial action ballot knows that an employer is likely to legally challenge the ballot if there is a suspicion of inaccurate records. Unions also need accurate membership records in order to carry out their internal democratic processes, such as elections. Most people would probably agree that people should not have to reveal whether they are members of a political party to members of the Government. Yet this is what the Bill proposes for trade union membership.

If this Bill is passed, each large union’s assurer, the certification officer appointed by government and an investigator appointed by the certification officer will have access to private membership data. As my noble friend Lord Monks said, at a time of growing revelations about blacklisting of trade union members, obviously we need to be concerned about how this might breach members’ privacy.

The TUC believes that if this change to the law is to be made there ought to be similar specific requirements in the legislation for employers to give unions the most recent data on those employed, those on sick leave, et cetera. Unions otherwise have no way of knowing to the necessary degree of accuracy who is currently working in the firm or business. I would be interested in the Minister’s reaction to this rather ingenious suggestion for symmetry.

The basic role of trade unions is overwhelmingly supported by voters. According to a recent MORI poll, 78% of people support the statement that trade unions are essential to protect workers’ interests. However, this extra red tape can only hinder unions carrying out their proper role. The new regulations will significantly increase their workload and costs for the certification officer, but it is far from clear what benefits the increased regulation will yield for the wider public—including businesses—and how the increased cost to the taxpayer can be justified.

At Second Reading in the other place, the Leader of the House of Commons said of these clauses:

“It will require trade unions visibly to demonstrate that they know who their members are and can contact them. The principle that unions must be able to contact their members is well established in legislation”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/9/13; col. 184.]

Well, he is right; it is well established in law already. The facts bear this out. The certification officer’s annual report for 2012-13 says that 166 trade unions submitted annual returns recording a total of 7,197,415 members. The annual return has to include a copy of the auditor’s report in the accounts, allowing the certification officer to compare revenue from dues with the numbers reported, so the information is already available in the public domain for anybody to dig into. I would have thought that any reasonably independent person looking at these publicly available reports would agree that the Government already have quite extensive information-gathering powers on the finances and membership of trade unions.

The trade unions have complied with the current legislation every single year since it was introduced and the published figures are, as I said, available to the public. We must wonder whether the certification officer needs any of these powers, given the extremely low level of activity which others have reported. Indeed, people will be asking themselves whether the powers being proposed are unnecessary and disproportionate. The answer is clearly yes, so we on this side of the House are opposed to the proposals in Part 3.

In his reply, perhaps the Minister can answer some questions about the detail here. Has the certification officer asked for additional powers or approached the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to say that these powers are necessary and that he would like the Government to legislate to ensure that they are introduced? Has the department consulted the certification officer, trade unions and other relevant organisations on whether the powers are required and, if so, can he make available to us what evidence they relied on? Have the Government any proposals for regulations that will be removed to alleviate the additional burden of regulations they wish to place on trade unions? I thought that we were in favour of one in, one out. Lastly, I assume that an estimate has been made of the additional resources which will be needed by the certification officer. Can the Minister set out what the spending commitment is in this area?

We believe in the right of working people to organise and to stand up to unfair treatment in the workplace. Free trade unions are part of a vibrant democratic society and the partisan use of the law in an attempt to disrupt their efficient administration is as wrong as it is unwelcome. This is a bad Bill. At Second Reading in the other place, the shadow Leader of the House of Commons said:

“It is a Bill that the Government should be ashamed of. It is incompetent. It is rushed. It has been developed in a high-level meeting between the Prime Minister and his deputy, but with no other consultation”,

in crucial areas.

“It is a sop to vested interests, an illiberal attack on democratic debate and involvement, and a cheap, partisan and cynical misuse of the legislative process for the Government’s own ends”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/9/13; col. 199.]

The Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister forget that the people they attack are the people who deliver the mail, serve in the shops, teach our children, care for the sick, look after the elderly, clean our streets, assemble our cars and build our bridges. They deserve better than to be subjected to yet another piece of the Tory ideological jigsaw.

English Premier League Football

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bates, on securing this debate, which I hope has lived up to his expectations. Certainly we have had fantastic contributions from all round the Chamber. Any debate which attracts my noble friend Lord Graham to speak must be judged a success.

The Premier League is the football world’s leading revenue-generating club competition, with revenues last year of more than €2.9 billion. The nearest rival was the Bundesliga, with nearly €1.9 billion. It is a very successful economic entity. VisitBritain says that more than 900,000 football-watching visitors spent nearly £700 million attending games, so it attracts a wide amount of inward investment as well. It is an economic success and one that can be built on and developed. The Premier League can genuinely argue that it provides huge social, economic and cultural benefits to the UK and, as we have heard, it is a major soft-power element. The noble Lord, Lord Bates, mentioned the link with the British Council, and with football being a global operation this will be increasingly important as we go forward. There is much to celebrate but, as we have heard, there are a number of concerns. They are about long-term financial sustainability, the effectiveness of diversity policies, the way in which the Premier League deals with its supporters, whether sufficient money is reinvested in grass-roots football, how talent is developed and how communities which support clubs are to be supported as they go forward.

As my noble friend Lord Faulkner said, the success of the Premier League comes with some downsides: for young talent, for the other leagues engaged in the game and, of course, for the national team. Then there is the matter of the DCMS Select Committee report on governance and related matters in July 2011 and the Government’s response, which was presented to Parliament as long ago as October 2011. As has been said, it is not for the Government to run football or indeed any other sport. Sports are best governed by modern, transparent, accountable and representative national governing bodies able to act decisively in the long-term interests of the sport. That is not what we have here. As my noble friend Lord Faulkner pointed out, the Government are on record as saying that the DCMS Select Committee’s report,

“lays out in stark detail the way in which the existing structures, governance arrangements and relationships have failed to keep pace with the challenges and expectations surrounding the modern game”.

I hope the Minister will be able to enlighten us as to what is going on in this area.

We have a number of concerns about the way in which the current arrangements are set up. It must be important to ensure the long-term sustainability of the Premier League and, if that is to be the case, debt has to be brought under control. Financial fair play, which was referred to by a number of noble Lords, provides an opportunity for clubs to bring their spending under control. However, as it strictly applies only to clubs involved in European competitions, we will need to see continuing monitoring to ensure that loopholes are not being abused.

It is astonishing that Premier League net debt last year was £2.4 billion; £1.4 billion of this came from interest-free soft loans from owners. The huge level of spending in the top tier also puts pressure on the lower leagues to keep up. The Championship has a net debt of some £0.9 billion. That is worrying as the lower professional leagues have higher wage-to-revenue ratios than the Premier League and do not have the same level of income from broadcasting.

Several noble Lords raised the issue of wages. If wages are to continue to spiral out of control, particularly with increased TV rights money becoming available, the Premier League is surely in danger of perpetuating a culture of greed. The wage-to-revenue ratio in the Premier League was 70% last year. Of the big five leagues—England, Germany, Spain, France and Italy—only Italy has a higher ratio than this; the Bundesliga has the lowest ratio of 51%.

As the noble Lord, Lord Birt, reminded us in a very powerful speech, British football owes much of its success to the fans and the local communities that support the clubs. Therefore, it is only fair that any increase in income for the Premier League ought to result in increases in funding for those who play—about 7 million people—at grass-roots level. Does the Minister agree that the Premier League should, at the very least, give 5% of its income from broadcasting rights to grass-roots sport, as it has committed to do, and ensure that there are mechanisms in place to make sure that is delivered?

Supporters are the basis under which all football and indeed, all sports operate. Clubs must be willing to engage with supporters’ groups, particularly around issues such as ticket prices. In our 2010 manifesto we committed to making it easier for fans’ groups to gain stakes in clubs. As my noble friend Lord Hunt pointed out, Supporters Direct is a really important organisation in this area and its financing needs to be sorted out. As we have heard, there are interesting and important plans for greater involvement of fans in football clubs and I would be grateful if the Minister could say what the Government are planning in this area.

On diversity, the noble Lord, Lord Bates, praised the diversity policies of the Premier League and there have been some notable successes but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and the noble Lords, Lord Ouseley and Lord Taylor, pointed out, much has been achieved but much more needs to be and could be done in areas such as harassment, bigotry and homophobia and in ensuring diversity in all levels of the game, particularly in coaching, the backroom and boardroom. In that respect, I felt that the points made in relation to the women’s game were very important and I hope that these will also be picked up. My noble friend Lord Faulkner drew attention to the unacceptable position of disabled supporters at many clubs, something which clearly needs attention.

To return to my opening point, I believe that the Select Committee report, as has been said, was a very good one in the range of issues it raised. It is interesting that when the Government responded in October 2011, they believed that there were three immediate priorities:

“the creation of a modern, accountable and representative FA Board”;

agreement to implement a licensing framework to be administered by the FA; and agreements to change the decision-making structures within the FA, particularly,

“in relation to the Council”.

The government report goes on:

“We expect the football authorities to work together to agree proposals, including plans for implementation, by 29 February 2012”.

That deadline has of course passed. What is the timetable now?

Finally, the Government say that they are,

“fully committed to ensuring that the changes put forward by the football authorities make a lasting and substantive difference. If that does not happen the Government will introduce a legal requirement”,

on the FA,

“to implement the appropriate governance clauses by the swiftest possible means … the Government will seek to secure, using all available channels, appropriate legislation as soon as Parliamentary time allows”.

Time has moved on. If that is not the current plan, what is plan B?

Profumo Inquiry

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I do not wish to take a decision on that, either.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, we are in an era where freedom of information and changes to the way in which information circulates mean that many decisions need serious review. Can the Minister confirm that this is a one-off situation? Or is he articulating a new policy whereby inquiries of the type led by Lord Denning will give rise to the curious situation of papers not being held in the Public Record Office in the way that all other papers are held?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I can give an assurance that this was a very exceptional circumstance. Officials have looked back at the archive on a number of occasions and have assured others, including myself, that there are still some sensational personal items in here which would be embarrassing if released. Therefore this is very much an exceptional case. The promises given by Lord Denning to those he interviewed were also rather exceptional. Therefore the line which the Government are in effect taking is correct; that is, to not decide at present either to destroy or to release the papers but to review the situation from time to time in the light of how many of those who gave evidence are still with us.

Digital Strategy

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts

Monday 15th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, that is precisely what the assisted digital and digital inclusion schemes are intended to deal with. They encourage people to learn how to use the internet themselves and, where they find it difficult to do so, to assist them and advise them on how to gain the access they need.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

In the last quarterly report of the GDS, the figure of 20% of the population needing some sort of assistance is quoted. I make that about 10 million people. Will the Minister comment on the fact that in the recent report on the rural broadband programme, the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee said that only 9 of 44 locally managed programmes are expected to meet the 90% superfast broadband coverage target? The programme now will not be delivered until March 2017—nearly two years late. What is plan B?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, things are actually changing very rapidly. I am fed up in Saltaire with the number of letters Virgin has put through my door telling me that it has now wired the entire village. The speed at which superfast broadband is being expanded is very rapid. This is not a matter simply for the Government. One of the things that worries me about the current statistics of where the Government need to catch up is that 60% of the population have shopped online and continue to shop online but less than 30% have accessed government services online. That is where we hope to catch up.

Leveson Report

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts

Monday 1st July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Government are well aware of the strength of feeling on all sides. Some elements of the agreement of 18 March have now been implemented, as the noble Lord will know, including within the Crime and Courts Bill and the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill. The noble Lord will also know that on 13 April the Press Standards Board of Finance petitioned the Privy Council with its own draft royal charter, which is now being considered. When it has been considered, the conclusions will be published, and the question of the submission of the Government’s own royal charter will come up again.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, the Minister will be aware that there is a meeting of the Privy Council on 10 July. On 18 March, as has just been said, Parliament agreed to send the royal charter to the Privy Council in time for the May meeting. Could the Minister confirm that Parliament’s Leveson-compliant royal charter will be submitted to the Privy Council for approval on 10 July?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, my briefing says that it is not appropriate for the Privy Council to consider more than one royal charter at a time on the same issue. The noble Lord may consider that the Press Standards Board of Finance has therefore been extremely clever in what it has done and may draw his conclusions from that—and that accounts for some of the delay.

Historical Manuscripts Commission

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts

Tuesday 29th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, I add my thanks to those expressed for the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for introducing this debate. I join him in suggesting that the memory of the late Lord Bingham should be invoked in our discussions. I met Lord Bingham once on another matter, but at the end of that conversation we spoke a little about archives and it was noticeable how he suddenly became incredibly animated—not that the earlier discussion was not interesting, but it seemed to me that archives were his passion and interest at that time.

I declare an interest as a trustee of a recently formed trust that holds an archive of personal and political papers that will be a mixture of both private papers and papers of relevance to the nation.

The key issue appears to be whether the merger of the Historical Manuscripts Commission into the National Archives will allow the specificity that is necessary for those classes of manuscripts to be retained. It is important that we recognise, as many noble Lords have said, that there has now been some change in the previous arrangements in that there is now more visibility. We shall see whether that is sufficient, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, put it; whether the commission can now have the sort of resources or the focus that it used to have—albeit accepting the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and the noble Lord, Lord Bew, that within TNA the whole resource is greater than it would have been had it been independent; and whether there will be more expertise and possibly more modern approaches to the work that it is doing.

I have two very small points. We want to hear from the Minister whether the undertakings that were obtained by my noble friend Lord Wills towards the end of his time as Minister, when he was trying to resolve the issue, are being taken forward. Some clarity on that would be useful. The noble Lord suggested that the target for the level of activity in the merged institution should be at least as high as it was prior to the merger. That would be a test that we could usefully use to judge whether it has been successful.

I will make two small points. The noble Lords, Lord Rodgers, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Bew, mentioned the ability of ministerial papers to influence official histories, and the need for the Government to commit to maintaining a programme of publishing them. I would certainly welcome this, because the papers are important.

Manuscripts and archives, as we discussed, suggest vellum and an earlier age in which artefacts were stored—as we can see close by in the rolls that look so impressive. However, we should consider the electronic age. The archive with which I am involved has the majority of its records in electronic format. It has proved very difficult to obtain a consistent picture of issues that one wants to look at in the archive because at least 50% of the material is still on paper and the balance is electronic.

There has been no merging of diary records with paper and other records, and it is therefore very hard, because of these mixed modes, to get a picture of events and activities that happened. When one adds to that the fact that government is increasingly involved in leading debate and activity by putting forward things on the web—whether in social media or formally through websites—one can see the difficulty that we face. It is important for the Government to have a view on this, and it would be helpful if the Minister could respond to a few of the points.