EU: Balance of Competences Review

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, it is very good to hear a number of complimentary remarks at the outset of this debate. However, it sounded rather as if I was about to retire from the House and everything else as well. I do not intend to retire yet, thank you. Perhaps, like others, I hope to do so when I reach my 80th birthday—that is a hint to various other people who are not here.

This was a coalition exercise. It was agreed in the coalition agreement, and it was no secret that the two parties disagreed and had different approaches to Europe. This was set up as a means to find some common ground in the detailed evidence as to what stakeholders thought. We agreed that we would not produce policy recommendations at the end, because that would have been difficult—the two parties have widely differing approaches, or at least we do from the right wing of the Conservative Party. We therefore set out to provide an evidence basis for a more informed debate on the European Union. In that respect I think that we have been successful. I pay tribute to my Conservative colleagues in this exercise—David Lidington, who chaired the ministerial Star Chamber throughout, and Mark Hoban and then Mark Harper, who also took part. I thank the good-quality teams from the Foreign Office and the Cabinet Office who supported us throughout.

I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, that we did not leave publication until the last minute. The reports came out in four groups at six-monthly intervals, so this has been a two-year process. We are grateful that the weight of evidence has grown as we have gone on. Interest among stakeholders has therefore been sustained throughout that two-year period. There were some 2,300 submissions, and we held a whole range of meetings and seminars—across the United Kingdom, in Brussels and elsewhere—with substantial participation from the Community institutions, and other member states and governments.

Sadly, we heard rather little from the Eurosceptic side. I must, as I always do, pay a real compliment to the quality of the evidence produced by Open Europe throughout the whole process. The TaxPayers’ Alliance loyally put in a large amount of evidence, which was not, I think, always as expert as it hoped it would be. I said to one of my Conservative colleagues at one stage, “Why do we not have more evidence from the committed Eurosceptic side?”, to which he replied, “For heaven’s sake, William, these people are not really interested in evidence. It’s belief; it’s faith; it’s prejudice”.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My noble friend will, of course, be aware that the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, was meant to speak in this debate, but then decided he was not going to. I made the effort to go through almost all the reports, including the parts on those people’s pet subjects—agriculture, the budget, fisheries and so on. Does my noble friend agree that they did not contribute a shred of evidence on the issues that they continue to go on about in this House and outside?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That is exactly the point. We have heard the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, being, it seems to me, cavalier with the evidence on many occasions in this House in recent years. I am sorry that he is not here, but I am not entirely surprised that he is not prepared to stand up and argue the evidence carefully with others when a lot of careful evidence is in place.

Following the slightly partisan speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, I can tell her that one of my roles as this process went on was to keep the Labour leadership informed of what we were doing and encourage them to engage. I have to say that most of my interlocutors in the Labour Party were hiding in the long grass themselves. I welcome the Labour Party’s final commitment to the importance of staying in the European Union. It has been a certain time coming over the past three years, but it is very good that the Labour position is now clear. We look forward to the Labour Party spelling out its approach in rather more detail.

This exercise provides the basis for a reform agenda. We have the contributions of a wide range of businesses and business organisations, academics and various other bodies. It was interesting to me that the most negative evidence from business came from small business associations few of whose members export—those who therefore, obviously, have the least interest in the European single market. Some seem to have the impression that if we got rid of European regulation we would have no regulation at all, without understanding that we would then need to have national regulation, or to accept other international frameworks for regulation.

We have all learned a great deal from this process. Of the consistent themes that have come out of it, the first was the idea that although we talk about completing the single market, we shall never do that, because the single market changes as we go along. We did not have to worry about a digital single market 20 years ago, whereas now it is one of the central issues with which we are concerned. As new technologies and new services develop, clearly we must continue to move on.

Secondly, the European Union is not just the international body to which we belong and do not want to belong to, it is embedded in an intricate network of international organisations such as the OECD, the Bank for International Settlements and the World Health Organization, of which the European Union is almost a regional organisation. If Britain were to leave the European Union, that network of international organisations would still constrain us. Globalisation means that Britain has to pool a great deal of its sovereignty, and the European Union provides a very good way of sharing that within a relatively transparent and friendly network.

We also discovered—this was a common theme across many of the reports—that the Commission has often been much too enthusiastic in proposing legislation without being sufficiently concerned about its impact, implementation or enforcement. I am happy to say that that is beginning to change. I hope that we have contributed to that. Impact assessments are the flavour of the year in Brussels, both in the European Parliament and the Commission, and Frans Timmermans and others are very clear that the Commission should be careful about the weight of the new proposals it puts through.

Another common theme concerned the tendency of the Court of Justice of the European Union to support integrationist cases and to pay insufficient attention to subsidiarity and proportionality. I think that is also changing, although I may say that, of the 32 reports, the report on subsidiarity and proportionality is, I suspect, the most widely read in other countries as this is a key topic which many of us do not fully understand the European Union has to take fully on board.

The reports stand by themselves. We did not intend to have policy conclusions; they are to be dug out to inform the debate and to make sure that those who deny the situation as we have found it are properly corrected in debate. We found that the review feeds into the domestic debate, but it is bounded by time. In two or three years’ time, attitudes will be different because the policy priorities will be different. Therefore, I am not sure that we necessarily want to embed all this in stone. However, we hope that it provides a basis for what may or may not be a referendum debate in 2017.

One report—the fisheries report—provided an alternative model that might be used on competence, involving European regulation or less European regulation. Perhaps we might have tried that out in one or two other reports, but the evidence that came in did not support it.

I think that the least anticipated outcome of the review was the rising level of interest and engagement across other member states. It has been very impressive. For example, I am told that the French department of transport is now using the transport report and that it is one of the things new recruits read. There are a whole set of discussions. On various occasions I was detailed to phone Ministers in other Governments and was happily surprised to discover that senior Ministers in other Governments had at least read the summaries of the reports. There have been contributions from a number of other Governments. The French parliament’s Senate committee is now conducting its own review. I could go on at length about how many other Governments have drawn lessons from what they see as a particularly valuable and detailed review of the current state of competences, which feeds into the British Government’s reform agenda.

I stress that the reform agenda is a continuing process. Reform is not something that you start and then finish. As we have operated over the last three years, the fisheries regime has been changed quite substantially. The budget has continued to change in emphasis, with more going to scientific research and less going to agriculture. We are in no doubt that we will continue to press that reform agenda.

The Foreign Secretary has so far visited 24 of the other 27 capitals and he is discussing the UK’s reform ideas and finding a lot of like-minded Governments who have similar approaches to strengthening the role of national Parliaments, making sure that new regulations are entirely justified and investigating the subsidiarity and proportionality issues. They ask: do we need to do this at the European level or can we leave sufficient flexibility at the national level? This has fed into the British debate, the wider European debate and the Commission’s agenda in terms of the need for better consultation, more attention to impact assessment and all of that area.

I am clear that this has been an extremely valuable exercise. I will say in passing to the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, that the relationship between the European Union and the Council of Europe is a matter for another time. The Council of Europe, which includes Russia, is not at the moment in the easiest state to deal with peacekeeping issues and other such matters. The EU itself, for security reasons, is becoming even more valuable for the UK than before.

What we have done, over the last year and more, as these reports have been absorbed in other national capitals, is to make progress on our continuing reform agenda. We look forward to doing that, whoever becomes the next Government—whichever parties form the next Government. I have said to some of my Conservative friends that I expect we might have to be a caretaker Government for some time in May, while the Conservatives and the SNP negotiate.

There is a basis here for an intelligent discussion. We have made an impression, not only on the debate here, on the readiness of Whitehall and on the willingness and expertise of the various business associations that have fed in, but we have also affected the debate in Brussels and around the European Union. That seems to me to be a great success and worth doing in itself. I am very glad that the European Affairs Committee will take this on from here.

House adjourned at 9.12 pm.

Soft Power and the UK’s Influence (Select Committee Report)

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, this has been a very wide-ranging debate on a wide-ranging report. It is clearly going to be impossible for me to respond to all the points made, so I had better start by saying that I will do my best to write on some of the points that I am unable to cover. I loved the backwards compliment which the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, gave to the whole exercise when he said that, in the end, it was “quite an enjoyable experience”. I used to be a university teacher and recognise that students often say things like that.

There has been a lot of comment and study on the concept of soft power. Several noble Lords mentioned the excellent British Academy report, The Art of Attraction. There was also a British Council report, and we have talked about the relationship between soft power and hard power, with smart power coming in between. However, we have not talked very much about economic power. In our current relationship with Russia, economic power, in terms of the imposition of sanctions, and the attempt to produce smart sanctions that affect those who you are targeting in particular, is very much part of the mix that we are proposing. The problem with economic sanctions is that, like soft power, they are slow power and do not work immediately. With hard power, you can have an air strike or whatever; soft power takes years to build up and years to have effect. You have to invest in it and cannot be too deliberate about it, which is part of the problem but also the beauty of it. Much soft power grows over time, and only partly as a result of government action. As the British Academy report says, it is about reputation, trust and prestige. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, called part of this “moral authority”. That is perhaps a difficult thing for government to set out and build—it has to grow from a whole range of different aspects.

The importance of the rule of law and Britain’s reputation as a country in which we have a sound legal system is something which has taken a very long time to build up. As noble Lords have said, the Commonwealth in particular, with its shared tradition of common law, is part of that reputation, which has expanded. Culture, the quality of education, literature, music and theatre—the whole creative industry, which the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, talked about—take generations to grow. Sport has been mentioned, as have other institutions, the openness of society and the image of London as one of the world’s most international global cities. Civil society as such, our traditions of diversity and tolerance, and our history and our culture, are what we see as Britain’s soft power.

However, we have to be conscious that our power of attraction in a partly illiberal world has competitors. We even see some disillusioned and disadvantaged British citizens attracted by the image of radical Islam and going out to join ISIS. We see the Russian Government using the Orthodox tradition as a way of trying to grow soft power across eastern and south-eastern Europe. I stress that soft power has to be partly non-governmental: it depends on civil society. States in which government funds everything do not have soft power. One of the reasons why Britain and the United States continue to have great prestige and international reach—much of which is seen as an enormous threat by states such as China and Russia, and sometimes Saudi Arabia—is that we have all these autonomous and semi-autonomous institutions.

The noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, spoke of our universities and schools in her wonderful maiden speech. As she spoke, I was sitting thinking about a Singaporean student I had who always stood to attention when he came in. I tried to persuade him that he should disagree with me and that that was the way to succeed, but it was a very difficult concept to get across. I am very conscious, having taught politics and international relations, that one’s students go on to do all sorts of interesting things around the world. I established my credibility as a new Minister in 2010 partly because a bunch of us went across to Brussels and, as the President of the Commission summed up our discussions over lunch, he said, “As Professor Wallace has said—I know you think of him as someone else, but I still think of him as Professor Wallace”. It did my reputation in government quite a lot of good. However, of course, these things are not all a one-way trade. I also remember going to Damascus some years ago with several of our colleagues and watching while President Assad was given a St Thomas’ tie to remind him of his time as a medical student in this country—it does not always bring that emotional tie which holds us all together.

The noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, also talked about research networks, scientific research and, of course, the whole question of life sciences and health. I will return to that and merely say in passing that we saw the impact of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine on global health in the Ebola campaign to a quite remarkable degree.

Our non-governmental organisations, which the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, talked about, are extremely important. They are partly supported by government but are also, very importantly, independent of government. Governments quite often get very irritated by them, but they give additional reach to the reputation of Britain and to British values. Then there are our think tanks. I used to work for a think tank and when I first went there I was appalled that the British Government gave us virtually no money and we were operating in an international world in which our French, Dutch, German, Italian and other counterparts were mostly or entirely funded by their Governments. However, as I got used to it, I recognised that we were meaner, hungrier and more up to the mark because we had to go out there and persuade people that they should fund what we were doing. After a month attached to a German think tank entirely funded by the German state, I came back very happy that we were not too dependent on state funds.

I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, that our museums and creative industries are not entirely funded by the state. There is a great battle as to how much they should be. Part of the reason why London has five world-class orchestras, four world-class music schools and a wonderful theatre infrastructure is that they are not entirely controlled by DCMS. They fight very hard, and politics in an open society is a fight for limited government funding. We have heard from a range of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, who would like us to fund a renewed Trident and a larger defence budget at the same time as we fund all those extra things. Actually, we cannot do all those things; we do what we can.

In his report, the noble Lord, Lord Howell, mentioned the British Museum as an asset and that the sending of the Cyrus cylinder to Tehran was a great example of cultural diplomacy and soft power. I understand that the Foreign Office was opposed to that when Neil MacGregor wanted to do it. It is a good thing that the British Museum had a degree of autonomy and sent it. I know that next year, the British Council will put a lot of effort into the Shakespeare anniversary, but I also note that the Globe Theatre is already engaged in a major project to produce Shakespeare in a range of different languages—again, the Government are supporting it, but others are also acting on their own. The noble Lord asked for more deliberate co-ordination of British soft power, but part of the reputation and value of British soft power is that it is not entirely co-ordinated. It grows, it competes with the Government, it often disagrees with whichever Government are there at the time and is not too state directed.

Of course, we have been concerned above all with government resources and government investment—in the BBC, in the British Council, in scholarships, in the aid programme, in the quality of diplomacy and resources of the Foreign Office and in defence engagement. However, I shall say just a little about one of the underlying issues in the report, which states in its summary that,

“the British need to feel confident in knowing who we are and what our role is in a transformed and turbulent world … There needs to be a long-term strategic narrative about the international role of the UK, promulgated from the centre of Government”.

That is about national self-confidence. We all need to be aware just how contested that is at present. We have a very confused attitude to British identity, Scottish identity, and our relationship with our neighbours across the channel and elsewhere. We should all remember —I have certainly been hearing this while canvassing in recent weekends—that those who most dislike our European neighbours are not those who wish to engage more with the Chinese and the Indians. They want the whole world to go away, sadly.

We see the diversity of our society—above all, London—as a major soft power asset, but outside London, as an excellent Chatham House report on British attitudes to the world suggests, an awful lot of the public, sadly, see the diversity of London as a threat and something which they would very much like to reduce. As we have heard throughout this debate, we see the BBC as one of Britain’s most precious global assets but, day by day, the Murdoch press, which sees it as a bitter competitor, and the Daily Mail, which sees it as a left-wing threat to Britain, do their best to suggest that the BBC is not the asset which the noble Lord, Lord Birt, and others, say that it is.

I should perhaps touch on Britain’s European commitments, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, suggested that there was a gap there. It is quite clear from the Prime Minister’s recent remarks and speeches throughout his time in office that he sees Britain’s future within a reformed European Union. We should all pay credit to the Prime Minister for how much effort he has put in to building and maintaining a closer relationship with Germany. The Foreign Secretary has just completed his visit to the 24th of the other 27 EU capitals since he took office, discussing our relations with them on a bilateral basis, and our reform agenda, so we are very much engaged and committed. Our European commitment is seen as the foundation for our global role.

Something that came forcefully to me when performing the balance of competences exercise within the EU was that the EU itself is a major international network intertwined with other global and regional networks. As I see from papers within the Foreign Office, British posts abroad work with their European partners, and DfID workers work with other European aid programmes together across the world.

We are talking about the various things that the Government do. Perhaps I may rapidly flag up some which have not been mentioned in the debate. Several noble Lords are members of the advisory board for the commemoration of World War I—a real exercise in soft power, as we saw last August with the Commonwealth commemoration in Glasgow at the end of the Commonwealth Games and the British-German commemoration in St Symphorien. That combined history, domestic education for the younger generation, reconciliation with former enemies and good will for former and current partners and allies.

The Commonwealth is of course very much a part of the projection of soft power and of its assets. As the noble Lords, Lord Janvrin, and Lord Luce, said, it is not just government to government, it is the non-governmental links—in particular, the legal links, as was suggested—which help to hold it all together, as well as the diasporas. I have been associated with Francis Maude’s open government initiative around the world, which has attracted a great deal of respect from Governments trying to come to terms with the digital revolution. I have noticed the role of the Department for Energy and Climate Change, with UK officials and scientists building a reputation as a country that is seriously engaged in persuading others of the case to deal with climate change.

The noble Lord, Lord Addington, and others, talked about the role of the Government and others in sport and the enormous work that we have put in and which British posts are still putting in to promote the Paralympics around the world—which, as the noble Lord rightly said, also helps to change attitudes towards the disabled. The GREAT campaign has also been a major achievement and a great way to pull together in other countries the different aspects of government investment in soft power. Last week’s GREAT Festival of Creativity in Shanghai was opened by the Duke of Cambridge and celebrated the UK-China year of cultural exchange, for example.

Health was mentioned, particularly by the noble Lords, Lord Crisp and Lord Kakkar. Again, from what I see in government, I am well aware of the extent to which health networks and discussion with the Chinese, the Gulf states, Turkey and others about health programmes are very much part of the projection of Britain’s reputation abroad.

I think that it is the British Council and the BBC which are most important to people here. The FCO continues to fund the British Council at the rate of £162 million per year to support its global reach and impact—rightly, that is not all of the British Council budget, but it is part of it. As the triennial review stated:

“In a globalised, competitive world the UK needs a first class cultural diplomacy capability to further our national interests worldwide”.

The British Council is the main UK official body for that.

The noble Baroness, Lady Suttee, asked about Young Arab Voices. It is a jointly funded exercise with the Open Society Foundations and the Anna Lindh Foundation in which we are continuing to invest to help young people across north Africa to think much more openly about the world in which they live after the Arab spring.

The question of government scholarships was raised. The Government have tripled the funding for Chevening scholarships in developing countries between 2010 and 2015-16. That is complemented by Commonwealth scholarships—which, I must say to the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson, are under review, but which will be continued.

The question of languages was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, and others. The Government are tackling this issue but we have gone an awful long way back in the last 20 years and it will take some time to pull us back together. The Foreign Office language centre is training people from other departments. We do not yet have a full record of who speaks what within Whitehall. When I was on the Civil Service Board, I spent some time trying to pull that together and I recall a fascinating conversation in which I was asked by an FCO official, “Do you know of anyone in the Civil Service who speaks Hausa?”. I did not, but we eventually found one in DWP. All those languages are there because we have a diverse community within Britain.

There are some severe problems of language in the question of the recruitment of Brits to international institutions, including the European Union. One of the reasons why it is so difficult to get British nationals into the European Union is that nationals from other countries almost all use English as their foreign language when they apply to the European Union. We, of course, cannot, and one is not allowed to use Polish or other second languages, so we have a severe problem there. The redevelopment of the European fast stream has helped in this regard but we all recognise that there is a long way to go.

Regarding the BBC World Service, we will of course be opening a discussion with the BBC on the future review. We recognise that the BBC itself is being transformed by the new media but the relationship with the FCO remains strong. The BBC and the FCO meet annually at Foreign Secretary, chairman and director level, and more regularly at lower levels. The question of languages is a matter for the BBC to raise with and put a case to the Foreign Office, and then for the Foreign Office to respond. I recognise the passion with which the BBC and its world services are defended here. I merely say that I trust that that passion will be conveyed as regularly as possible to all those who edit right-wing newspapers.

Visa policies have also been touched on. I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, that the Government intend that exit checks will be in place by the end of April 2015. We recognise that there are tremendous problems in striking the right balance with visas for students and non-students alike. I have to tell your Lordships that, on the doorstep, that is one of the most controversial issues in British politics at present.

The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, mentioned women and girls. I say with great compliments to William Hague and the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, who was his special adviser, that the British Government have put a huge amount into raising the rights of women and girls around the world. DfID and the Foreign Office continue to do so.

I am conscious that the time is now short and that I cannot cover all the other issues raised. I say merely that soft power grows out of both government and civil society. States in which Governments control most social and cultural institutions have little soft power. Government must nevertheless invest in the elements which constitute soft power, in partnership with others. It is part of the strength of Britain and the United States that we have private foundations which help to fund these things and do not have to rely so much on government. This Government—and, we hope, their successor—will continue to invest.

Scotland Act 1998 (Modification of Schedule 5) Order 2015

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2015 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

That the draft Orders laid before the House on 14 and 29 January be approved.

Relevant documents: 20th and 22nd Reports from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. Considered in Grand Committee on 4 March.

Motions agreed.

Israel and Palestine

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Luce]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the current proposals for a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, we are extremely tight on time. In view of the great interest in this debate, I ask all noble Lords to watch the clock and ideally to come in just below two minutes rather than above.

[Lord Luce (CB)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for replying to this debate, and to all noble Lords, who will no doubt make distinctive contributions despite the time constraint.

A few months after I was born in 1936, a royal commission on Palestine set up by the Government concluded:

“An irrepressible conflict has arisen between two national communities within the narrow bounds of one small country.”

Some 78 years later, following interminable cycles of war, occupation and violence, the Israelis and Palestinians are still locked in a desperate and dangerous impasse out of which they seem unable to escape.

All this is against an even more ominous background where much of the Middle East has sunk into a dark age of wars of religion and ethnic conflict. In these circumstances, the most dangerous thing of all would be to continue with the status quo and to assume that there is no hope of progress on Palestine. On both sides, the insecurity, fear, frustration and anger can be a recipe only for an endless cycle of violence—a time bomb that threatens continually the peace and security of the Middle East and of the international community.

This area is and will remain vital to Britain’s security and economic well-being. Both are at great risk without a solution to the Palestinian problem. Beyond that, Britain, responsible for the Balfour Declaration, still has a moral obligation to play an active role in seeking a just settlement. Today we have a State of Israel—though it is not yet secure—while Palestinians have been driven out of much of the land of Palestine. Many now live as refugees elsewhere in the West Bank, surrounded by Jewish settlements, or in the most desperate conditions in Gaza—all this despite a British Government mandate as long ago as 1920 to guide Palestine to independence.

Since then, on the Palestinian side, there have been repeated failures of leadership, internal divisions, missed opportunities and appalling acts of terrorism. As to Israel, I draw a sharp distinction between the Jewish people and the policy of certain Israeli leaders and extreme religious groups. I condemn utterly the re- emergence of anti-Semitism in Europe and elsewhere. The Holocaust was an unimaginable crime against humanity. The Jews deserve and need a secure home in Israel for those who want to live there. They have created a remarkable nation in a short time. But I have to say in no uncertain terms that Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem, which amount to more than 500,000 people, have emerged as the gravest impediment to a peaceful settlement. They also contravene the Geneva Convention and conflict with Article 2 of the UN charter, which prohibits the acquisition of territory by the use of force. As the late Mr Sharon once said:

“It is impossible to have a Jewish democratic state and at the same time control to all of Eretz Israel. If we insist on fulfilling the dream in its entirety, we are liable to lose it all”.

It is worth reminding our Israeli friends that we in Britain have extensive experience of occupying other people’s territories on different continents, of taking other people’s land and of discriminating between religious communities in Northern Ireland. We know from experience that this can be the recipe for anger, despair and violence. It is striking that so many Israeli intelligence, armed forces and security leaders have said in recent times that war will not solve the problem, and that occupation of the West Bank and, in effect, Gaza undermines Israel. But the determination of some Israeli politicians, egged on by extreme religious groups intent on the occupation of Judea and Samaria, to go on ignoring this advice can only inflame the problem and provide a powerful argument for Islamist recruiters. The international community has been regularly supine in confronting the issue of settlements, partly perhaps from a reluctance to counter Israel’s democratically elected politicians, however extreme their views.

Against this background, the prospects for a two-state solution are receding. Secretary of State Kerry’s sterling efforts have produced regrettably few results, perhaps because he addressed only part of the problem. But the international community cannot give up. Credible polls show that the majority of both Israelis and Palestinians still want a two-state solution. The only alternatives are the status quo or a binational state of some kind. Both are a dead end. The status quo means drift, more settlements, Gaza imprisoned and isolated with more extremism, and Israel retreating to another Masada fortress. Growing international support for recognition of Palestine as a state and as a member of UN bodies and of the ICC will be complemented by growing international isolation of Israel as a pariah state, with the prospect of intensified sanctions, particularly on those in Israel who do business with the settlements. There is no secure future in the status quo for Israelis or Palestinians.

As to the binational state or one-state solution, Kerry’s withdrawn public reference to apartheid was in fact right. The population trends show that there are at present 6 million Israeli Jews, with a similar and rapidly growing population of Palestinians living in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. If this is to be a Jewish nation, it would, in all likelihood, lead to an apartheid nation of Bantustans, where democracy would be undermined by the treatment of Palestinians as second-class citizens. Israel would be at serious risk of no longer providing a permanent home for the Jews, but of destroying itself through civil strife and international condemnation.

However, time and events are rapidly eroding the prospect of a two-state solution and it is imperative that international efforts should not lose momentum. As Israelis go to the polls, the international community, not least the European Union, needs to get the message across that, given leadership and determination, Israelis and Palestinians can still reach a two-state solution and that the dangers for all parties in the alternatives still outweigh the challenges of reaching a peace settlement.

The elements are well known, as has been restated so many times since Resolution 242 nearly 50 years ago. The Israelis for their part must show readiness to end their occupation of the West Bank and the imprisonment of Gaza and to remove settlements in return for firm security guarantees. The biggest problem on both sides remains lack of political leadership and trust. The international community has to do yet more to find ways to encourage a climate for renewed discussion. That includes an unequivocal stand on the issue of settlements and the condemnation of all violence.

At the same time, the Palestinians must be brought to demonstrate their unified determination to construct a viable state: a state which links Gaza and the West Bank, both of which must be the focus of negotiations. Jordan and Egypt in particular should be invited to contribute to this process. It requires imagination and fresh thinking. Any political agreement must be supported by the equivalent of an economic Marshall Plan to rescue Gaza and to rejuvenate the Palestinian economy.

Against this background, I now believe that if we are to remain a serious international player, HMG must give impetus to the peace process by recognising a Palestinian state without delay. Two factors persuade me of this. Negotiations will have a better chance if some equivalence of status is created between the two parties, and the Palestinians need such a spur to work hard to construct a viable state. It is worth noting that Israel was not a fully viable state when the British Government recognised her in 1948—and nor today do we recognise some of her borders or Jerusalem as her capital. On Palestinian recognition, we are lagging behind not only opinion in Europe but that in Israel itself, where there are open calls and petitions from senior and credible figures for Israeli recognition of Palestine on the basis that Israel’s safety and security depend on the two states existing side by side.

The inclination by Israeli and Palestinian leaders to wait for something to happen must be replaced by a will to succeed in reaching a comprehensive settlement. That will must be supported rigorously and robustly by Britain, the EU and the wider international community. I look forward to hearing from the Minister the position that HMG take on this vital issue.

Regulatory Agencies: Monitoring

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Smith of Clifton]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Neville-Rolfe on 26 January (HL4107), how the activities of regulatory agencies are monitored to ensure their effectiveness in the scrutiny of the economic and public sectors they supervise.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the monitoring arrangements for each regulator depend on how each has been established by statute, such as the different degrees of independence granted by Parliament to each regulator and different sources of funding. Some regulators are non-ministerial departments and are monitored and managed by their sponsoring ministerial department; others are non-departmental public bodies, which are subject to triennial reviews.

[Lord Smith of Clifton (LD)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that rather confused Answer as to the situation. During this Parliament there have been many complaints about regulators, including those dealing with care quality and police complaints. Who will guard the guardians? Would my noble friend agree with me that there should be an overarching regulator to look at Ofcom, Ofsted, Ofwat, Ofgem and the like? It might be called the “Effectiveness Office”, otherwise known as “Eff Off” for short.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That was a good joke, my Lords, but this is a highly complex area in which quite naturally Parliament wishes some regulatory bodies to have a good deal of independence from the Government. There has been much discussion in this Chamber recently about the Equality and Human Rights Commission and how that should be maintained at considerable distance from the Government. On the other hand, the Care Quality Commission, for example, rightly is regarded as something which needs to be close to ministerial responsibility and on which Ministers are expected to answer to Parliament.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, I take the point that one does not wish to suggest that each regulatory body should be second-guessed day to day by any parliamentary process, but would it not be useful from time to time, given that many of these regulatory bodies are governed by secondary instruments covered by our committee structure here, to see what is happening at the interface, for example, with energy and transport? There are so many bodies where the interface is confusing. Consumers do not know where to go and are maybe pushed from one thing to another. Occasionally, some process should be found to review the accountability to the government department and, hence, to Parliament.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, these reviews do take place. The Environment Agency and Natural England were jointly subject to a triennial review, precisely to look at the degree of overlap. The noble Lord may recall that the Public Bodies Act examined the need for a number of statutorily established bodies that were set up a very long time ago and that the Deregulation Bill also touches on issues like this—125 triennial reviews of non-departmental public bodies have already taken place. I was interviewed for the triennial review into the Civil Service Commission, for example, which I think will recommend an expansion of the responsibilities of that body. A good deal of toing and froing is under way. Parliamentary committees and the National Audit Office also monitor the management of these bodies.

[Lord Spicer (Con)]

My Lords, is there not a danger of a parallel government arising of unelected regulators working with enormous powers over the heights of the economy and working in concert?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the idea that these are massively powerful bodies operating outside parliamentary control is an immense exaggeration. If you look at recent appearances by the heads of some of these commissions and authorities before parliamentary Select Committees, you will recognise that Parliament certainly monitors what goes on very actively.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Government consider supporting my Private Member’s Bill to set up a regulatory body to supervise the conduct of political polling, including by multimillionaires?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I cannot begin to think who the noble Lord might be referring to, but I look forward with interest to him showing me his Bill.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

Is the Minister aware that all 10 legal regulators, which operate underneath the Legal Services Board, agree that the board and the statute that put it into place are not working well and need radical reform? Can he say whether, if he is in government after May, a new Government will find time to reform it, which is what the regulators all want?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I will certainly take that back if I am in government after May. I hope I shall not still be the oldest member of the Government.

Deregulation Bill

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales to acquaint the House that they, having been informed of the purport of the Deregulation Bill, have consented to place their interests, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.

Clause 1: Health and safety at work: general duty of self-employed persons

Amendment 1

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

1: Clause 1, page 1, line 10, at end insert—
“( ) After subsection (2) insert—
“(2A) A description of undertaking included in regulations under subsection (2) may be framed by reference to—
(a) the type of activities carried out by the undertaking, where those activities are carried out or any other feature of the undertaking;(b) whether persons who may be affected by the conduct of the undertaking, other than the self-employed person (or his employees), may thereby be exposed to risks to their health or safety.””

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, Section 3(2) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 imposes a general duty on all self-employed persons to protect themselves and others from risks to their health and safety, regardless of the type of activity they are undertaking. Clause 1 limits the scope of Section 3(2) so that only those self-employed people who conduct an,

“undertaking of a prescribed description”,

will continue to have a duty under this provision.

A public consultation was conducted by the Health and Safety Executive during July and August 2014. A common concern was that regulations which prescribed only self-employed persons who conducted specified high-risk activities would not be fit for purpose. One of the key concerns expressed by respondents to the consultation was that this would lead to some self-employed persons who pose a risk to the health and safety of others falling exempt from the law. Following the commitment I provided to the House on Report, the Government have now given careful further consideration to the consultation responses and Amendment 1 addresses these concerns.

The amendment sets out the ways in which undertakings may be described in regulations made under Section 3(2) of the 1974 Act to retain duties on self-employed persons. New subsection (2A)(a) covers descriptions based on the type of activities carried out by the undertaking. These descriptions could include a reference to the economic activities that the undertaking engages in, work activities involving a specific hazard, work activities conducted in a specific capacity, or a combination of these things. New subsection (2A)(b) ensures that the regulations could also include a general description covering any undertaking the conduct of which may expose others to risks to their health and safety.

This amendment will therefore enable the Secretary of State to make regulations which not only retain Section 3(2) duties on all self-employed persons who conduct specified high-risk work activities but also retain duties on those self-employed persons who may expose others to risks to their health and safety. This, it is considered, more closely aligns with Professor Ragnar Löfstedt’s recommendation in respect of this provision. Regulations made under this clause will continue to be subject to the affirmative procedure. They will therefore be scrutinised by Parliament at the time of laying to ensure they are fit for purpose before the regulations are brought into force.

The Government acknowledge that assistance will need to be provided to the self-employed to assist with their understanding of this legislative amendment and to limit the possibility of incorrectly assessing whether their work activities may expose other persons to risks to their health and safety. Further to aid this amendment, the HSE will therefore produce guidance targeted at self-employed persons and others to address these issues. It will also signpost them to existing guidance which explains in practical terms what self-employed persons need to do to comply with the relevant law.

Amendment 2 seeks to make it mandatory for the regulations to prescribe all self-employed persons who may pose a risk to the health and safety of others, thereby ensuring that they do not fall exempt from the law. I can provide the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, with the assurance now that the Government intend to produce a set of regulations that will retain a duty on all self-employed persons who may pose a risk to the health and safety of others under Section 3(2) of the Act. I understand what the noble Lord wants to achieve with his amendment. However, in the light of the assurances I have now provided, and given the safeguards in place for the regulations to be scrutinised further by Parliament before they are brought into force, I hope the noble Lord will not seek to change what the Government have brought forward. I think the differences between us have narrowed considerably although I realise that some very small differences remain about the assessment of potential risk.

Amendment 3 seeks to impose various conditions on the making of regulations before undertakings can be prescribed for the purposes of retaining duties on the self-employed under Section 3(2) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. This amendment requires an independent review to be conducted and considered by both Houses before the regulations can be brought into force.

I hope I can provide some assurances also to demonstrate that this amendment is not necessary. In Committee, the Government amended Clause 1 so that regulations made under the power it creates are subject to the affirmative resolution procedure before they come into force. This provides Parliament with an adequate opportunity to scrutinise and debate the regulations to ensure that they are fit for purpose. The conditions that the noble Lord seeks to impose on the regulations can already be considered by the Houses as part of the affirmative resolution procedure if, indeed, Parliament considers these factors to be relevant. Additionally, the proposed prescribing regulations will contain a commitment for their review and for a report to be published after five years of making these regulations. The report will seek to assess the extent to which the objectives intended to be achieved by the proposed policy have been met.

Given the safeguards already in place, and the consultations undertaken by the HSE, the Government do not consider that a further independent review of the regulations would be of any benefit. Furthermore, the Government have now changed the policy to ensure that all self-employed people who expose others to risks to their health or safety will remain subject to the law. This, I think, is also what the noble Lord seeks to achieve. We have considerably narrowed the differences in the course of our consultations. I thank the noble Lord and other opposition Peers for the conversations we have had with officials in the intervals between the various stages of this Bill. I hope we have provided sufficient assurance. I beg to move that Amendment 1 is made and urge the noble Lord not to press Amendments 2 and 3.

Amendment 2 (to Amendment 1)

Moved by

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his constructive comments, and I recognise that the timing creates some difficulties. I have consulted on whether draft regulations can be finalised, approved and laid before the general election, but I have to say that with the best will in the world that will not, at this stage, be possible. I cannot give the noble Lord a guarantee on the structure, nature and composition of the next Government—I am not sure that any of us can at present. That, of course, has to remain a matter of good will and of the commitment of those who have been involved from all sides in these consultations.

The duties and the question of the employees of the self-employed are covered by the general duty that the self-employed have to consider the interests of others and the risks involved. That seems to me to be fully covered here. We have moved as far as we can and the draft guidance was intended to provide an indication of where this coalition Government would be moving and where we would trust any successor Government to continue in assessing this very delicate balance between where Professor Löfstedt started, which was with the sense that we should try,

“to exempt from health and safety law those self employed people whose work activities pose no potential risk of harm to others”,

and, as he also said in his original review, to,

“help reduce the perception that health and safety law is inappropriately applied”.

That is what we on both sides are attempting to do. I felt that the Government had now moved sufficiently far to assure the Opposition that we were very much pursuing this role and that our proposals would bring Britain into line with other European countries and remove health and safety burdens from the self-employed in low-risk occupations. I hope that that does provide sufficient assurance, but I will see how far we have been able to do so.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his response, and I entirely accept his assurance about what he sees as the way forward in circumstances where he and his colleagues were in a position to determine that. It is a great pity that the Government have come a significant way on this but we are just a smidgeon away from locking it down and making it mandatory. I really do not see the problem with doing that. If the Government are happy to provide for that in the draft regulations and happy to take those factors into account as part of their amendment, simply always making it mandatory to feature that provision in regulations seems to me to be quite a small additional step and one that could make a real difference. It is a pity that having come so far the Government cannot just close that gap.

Incidentally, in terms of the employees of self-employed people, I understand that Section 2 of the 1974 Act creates a general duty on all employers, whether they are employees, self-employed, or whatever their status is, so I am not quite sure why they are being excluded here when these arrangements are considered. Perhaps we might reflect on that. This is difficult, because I would like to test the opinion of the House, but I think that the Minister has done his utmost to provide reassurance on the record. That is where we are, and it is probably the best way to leave it today. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

21: Clause 83, page 71, line 1, at end insert—
“( ) In section 43 (remand centres and young offender institutions), as it has effect on and after the day on which section 38 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 comes into force, in the Table in subsection (4)—
(a) in the entry for “Young offender institutions”, in the second column, for “Sections 28 and 37(2)” substitute “Section 28”;(b) in the entry for “Secure training centres or secure colleges”, in the second column, for “, 28 and 37(2)” substitute “and 28”.”

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords this group of amendments makes minor and technical changes that clarify and improve the drafting of the Bill. Amendments 21 and 22 relate to Clause 83 which will remove the requirement that prison closures are made by order. It does this, in part, by amending Section 43 of the Prison Act 1952. The Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015, which received Royal Assent on 12 February, at Section 38 substitutes Section 43 of the Prison Act with a new Section 43 which permits the Secretary of State to make provision for the detention of young persons in young offender institutions, secure training centres and, additionally, secure colleges. These minor amendments provide for the removal of the requirement that prison closures are made by order both in respect of Section 43 as it is now, and in its revised form once the provisions in Section 38 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 are commenced.

Amendment 27 relates to Clause 88, which will remove the current requirement that providers carrying out children’s social care functions on behalf of local authorities should register with Ofsted. In consequence of the removal of that registration requirement, subsection (2) provides for various references to providers of social work services in the Care Standards Act 2000 and in the Children and Young Persons Act 2008 to be omitted. This amendment would provide for the omission of a further reference in Section 30A(6)(f) of the Care Standards Act 2000 which had previously been overlooked.

Schedule 13, Part 3, will repeal Part 11 of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 and allow joint waste authorities to be established by secondary legislation. The schedule outlines a number of consequential amendments needed to be made in other legislation as a result of these changes. Amendments 37 to 40 are merely further consequential amendments that take account of legislative changes made since the Bill was introduced, including removing references to the joint waste authorities in other legislation.

Schedule 19 makes significant amendment to the Poisons Act 1972. In particular, it creates new offences. Amendment 43 corrects the form of words for the maximum fine that can be applied to offences in the new Section 8 of the Poisons Act 1972 inserted by paragraph 10. In subsection (1)(b)(ii), the reference to,

“level 5 on the standard scale”,

should instead be a reference to “the statutory maximum”. This brings the penalty in line with the usual practice for financial penalties for more serious offences.

Amendments 29, 30, 44 and 45 change the extent of two provisions in Schedule 21. The provisions relate to the repeal of the Mining Industry Act 1920, the Fisheries Act 1891, which I think was probably before all Members of this House were taking part in its business, and the British Fishing Boats Act 1983. The changes are required due to timing and resource problems with getting a legislative consent Motion in place in Scotland during the passage of this Bill. I beg to move.

Amendment 21 agreed.

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

22: Clause 83, page 71, line 2, at beginning insert “Until section 38 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 comes into force,”

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Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

23: After Clause 84, insert the following new Clause—
“CLC practitioner services bodies
(1) Section 32 of the Administration of Justice Act 1985 (provision of conveyancing services by recognised bodies) is amended as follows.
(2) In the heading, after “conveyancing” insert “or other”.
(3) In subsection (1)—
(a) in paragraph (a), after “bodies” insert “or CLC practitioner services bodies”;(b) in paragraph (b), for “such bodies” substitute “conveyancing services bodies”;(c) in paragraph (b), for the words from “undertake” to the end substitute “undertake—(i) the provision of conveyancing services,(ii) the exercise of a right of audience,(iii) the conduct of litigation,(iv) probate activities,(v) the administration of oaths, or(vi) the provision of relevant legal services not covered by sub-paragraphs (i) to (v);”;(d) after paragraph (b) insert—“(bza) prescribing the circumstances in which CLC practitioner services bodies may be recognised by the Council as being suitable bodies to undertake—(i) the exercise of a right of audience,(ii) the conduct of litigation,(iii) probate activities,(iv) the administration of oaths, or(v) the provision of relevant legal services not covered by sub-paragraphs (i) to (iv);”;(e) in paragraph (ba), for the words from “bodies” to the end substitute “bodies to carry on—(i) the exercise of a right of audience,(ii) the conduct of litigation,(iii) reserved instrument activities, where the recognised body is a conveyancing services body, (iv) probate activities, or(v) the administration of oaths;”; (f) in paragraph (c), after “requirements” insert “, including requirements about the carrying on of activities which are not reserved legal activities,”.(4) In subsection (3)(e), after “those bodies” insert “(including information about disciplinary measures taken)”.
(5) In subsection (3C), after paragraph (a) insert—
“(aa) conditions restricting the kinds of CLC practitioner services that may be provided by the body;”.(6) For subsection (8) substitute—
“(8) In this section—
“administration of oaths” has the same meaning as in the Legal Services Act 2007 (see section 12 of, and Schedule 2 to, that Act);“CLC practitioner services” has the meaning given by section 32B;“CLC practitioner services body” has the meaning given by section 32B;“conduct of litigation” has the same meaning as in the Legal Services Act 2007 (see section 12 of, and Schedule 2 to, that Act);“conveyancing services body” has the meaning given by section 32A;“probate activities” has the same meaning as in the Legal Services Act 2007 (see section 12 of, and Schedule 2 to, that Act);“relevant legal services”—(a) in relation to a conveyancing services body, has the meaning given by section 32A; and(b) in relation to a CLC practitioner services body, has the meaning given by section 32B;“reserved instrument activities” has the same meaning as in the Legal Services Act 2007 (see section 12 of, and Schedule 2 to, that Act);“right of audience” has the same meaning as in the Legal Services Act 2007 (see section 12 of, and Schedule 2 to, that Act).”(7) After subsection (8) insert—
“(8A) Nothing in this section affects section 13 of the Legal Services Act 2007 (entitlement to carry on a reserved legal activity).”
(8) After section 32A (definition of “conveyancing services body”) insert—
“32B CLC practitioner services bodies
(1) For the purposes of section 32 a “CLC practitioner services body” means a body (corporate or unincorporate) in respect of which—
(a) the management and control condition,(b) the services condition, and(c) the authorised person condition,are satisfied.(2) The management and control condition is satisfied in the case of a partnership if at least one of the partners is a licensed conveyancer or a licensed CLC practitioner.
(3) The management and control condition is satisfied in the case of an unincorporated body (other than a partnership), or a body corporate which is managed by its members, if at least one of those members is a licensed conveyancer or a licensed CLC practitioner.
(4) The management and control condition is satisfied in the case of any other body corporate if at least one director of the body is a licensed conveyancer or a licensed CLC practitioner.
(5) The services condition is satisfied in respect of a body if—
(a) the body is carrying on a business consisting of the provision of—(i) CLC practitioner services; or (ii) CLC practitioner services and other relevant legal services; and (b) the body does not provide conveyancing services.(6) The authorised person condition is satisfied if the licensed conveyancer or licensed CLC practitioner by reference to whom the management and control condition is satisfied, or one of the persons by reference to whom that condition is satisfied, is an authorised person in relation to any reserved legal activity involved in the CLC practitioner services that are provided by the body.
(7) For the purposes of this section—
(a) a reference to CLC practitioner services is a reference to services involving the carrying on of such of the following as are reserved legal activities in relation to which the Council is designated as an approved regulator—(i) the exercise of a right of audience;(ii) the conduct of litigation;(iii) probate activities;(iv) the administration of oaths;(b) a reference to designation as an approved regulator is a reference to designation as an approved regulator—(i) by Part 1 of Schedule 4 to the Legal Services Act 2007, or(ii) under Part 2 of Schedule 4 to that Act;(c) a person has an interest in a body if the person has an interest in the body within the meaning of Part 5 of the Legal Services Act 2007 (see sections 72 and 109 of that Act).(8) In this section—
“administration of oaths” has the same meaning as in the Legal Services Act 2007 (see section 12 of, and Schedule 2 to, that Act);“authorised person” means an authorised person in relation to an activity which is a reserved legal activity (within the meaning of the Legal Services Act 2007);“conduct of litigation” has the same meaning as in the Legal Services Act 2007 (see section 12 of, and Schedule 2 to, that Act);“probate activities” has the same meaning as in the Legal Services Act 2007 (see section 12 of, and Schedule 2 to, that Act);“relevant legal services”, in relation to a body, means—(a) CLC practitioner services, and(b) where authorised persons are managers or employees of, or have an interest in, the body, services such as are provided by individuals practising as such authorised persons (whether or not those services involve the carrying on of reserved legal activities), except for conveyancing services;“reserved legal activity” has the same meaning as in the Legal Services Act 2007 (see section 12 of, and Schedule 2 to, that Act);“right of audience” has the same meaning as in the Legal Services Act 2007 (see section 12 of, and Schedule 2 to, that Act).””

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, these new clauses fulfil the commitment made by the Government on Report on 5 February in response to a series of amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter.

Provisions in the Administration of Justice Act 1985 and the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 place a restriction on the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, which effectively means that it can authorise a body or person only if that body or person is licensed to provide conveyancing services. This is a restriction that none of the other legal services approved regulators has. The purpose of the amendments is to remove this restriction. This is being done by amending Section 32 of the Administration of Justice Act 1985 and Section 53 of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990.

The amendments also include amendments to Section 32 of the Administration of Justice Act 1985 to cover the full range of reserved legal activities for which the council is an approved regulator or for which the council may in the future be an approved regulator, if it were to be further designated. Any such further designation would require a recommendation of the Legal Services Board and an order under the Legal Services Act 2007. I remark in passing that I think that when my noble friend Lord Smith of Clifton asked his Question this afternoon, I do not think he had in mind the idea of private but approved regulators as part of his universe of regulating agencies.

The proposed second new schedule in these amendments will make amendments to the Administration of Justice Act 1985, which will enable the council to carry out its role as an approved regulator and licensing authority more effectively and efficiently. For example, amendments are made to change the venue for appeals from the High Court to the First-tier Tribunal. I beg to move.

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Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

24: After Clause 84, insert the following new Clause—
“Licensed CLC practitioners
(1) Section 53 of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 (the Council for Licensed Conveyancers: authorisation of individuals to carry on reserved legal activities) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (2), omit “only if the person is a licensed conveyancer”.
(3) In subsection (3)—
(a) for “a licensed conveyancer” substitute “a person”;(b) for “the licensed conveyancer” substitute “the person in respect of that activity”.(4) In subsection (4), for “Any such” substitute “If the person granted a licence under this section is a licensed conveyancer, the”.
(5) After subsection (4) insert—
“(4A) If the person granted a licence under this section is not a licensed conveyancer, the licence may be granted as a separate licence or as part of a composite licence comprising that and any other licence under this section which the Council may grant to the person.
(4B) A licence under this section granted to a person who is not a licensed conveyancer ceases to have effect if the person becomes a licensed conveyancer.”
(6) In subsection (9)—
(a) in the opening words, after “respect to” insert “persons who apply for, or hold, an advocacy, litigation or probate licence and”;(b) in paragraph (c), for “licensed conveyancer” substitute “person”;(c) after paragraph (d) insert—“(da) any case of an individual who describes himself or herself, or holds himself or herself out, as a licensed CLC practitioner without holding a licence in force under this section;”;(d) in the words following paragraph (f), after “respect to” insert “persons who apply for, or hold, a licence under Part 2 of the Act of 1985 and”.(7) After subsection (9) insert—
“(9A) The modifications mentioned in subsection (9) may differ depending on whether the person applying for, or holding, an advocacy, litigation or probate licence is or is not a licensed conveyancer.
(9B) Subsection (9) does not apply to section 34 of the Act of 1985 (modification of existing enactments relating to conveyancing etc).”
(8) After subsection (10) insert—
“(11) In this section—
“advocacy licence” means a licence issued under this section by which the Council authorises the person concerned to exercise a right of audience;“CLC practitioner services” has the same meaning as in section 32B of the Act of 1985;“licensed CLC practitioner” means a person, other than a licensed conveyancer, who holds a licence under this section;“litigation licence” means a licence issued under this section by which the Council authorises the person concerned to carry on activities which constitute the conduct of litigation;“the practice of a licensed CLC practitioner” means the provision by a person, as the holder of a licence under this section, of CLC practitioner services in accordance with the licence; and“probate licence” means a licence issued under this section by which the Council authorises the person concerned to carry on activities that constitute probate activities.” (9) In the italic heading preceding section 53, after “conveyancers” insert “and licensed CLC practitioners”.”

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Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

27: Clause 88, page 73, line 27, at end insert—
“section 30A(6)(f);”

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, on Report I committed to giving further consideration to whether the Professional Standards Authority, the PSA, and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, the HFEA, should be within the scope of the growth duty—that is, whether they should be required, in the exercise of their regulatory functions, to have regard to the desirability of promoting economic growth.

Since Report, officials from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills have met with the Department of Health and the PSA to explore whether the functions carried out by the PSA meet the definition of “regulatory function” at Clause 106 of the Deregulation Bill. Officials have also considered the nature of the PSA’s regulatory role as oversight body for the nine statutory regulators of health and social care professionals.

Following those discussions, the Government have concluded that, while the PSA exercises functions that fall within the definition of “regulatory function” as per the Deregulation Bill, its specific role means that the PSA’s regulatory functions are far removed from individual businesses. The PSA would have limited economic impact on business even if it were to apply the growth duty. In the course of taking this Bill through the House and on a number of other occasions, I have learnt to respect the immense diversity of regulatory functions and regulatory bodies, and that is one of the things that the very helpful and positive speech of the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, took us a little further into. Anything that attempts to apply an overview to the vast mass of regulatory bodies is likely to be wrong. The Government therefore do not currently propose to bring the PSA in scope of the duty but will review this decision in the future should the PSA’s regulatory role change.

Moving on to the HFEA, I start by saying that the Government understand that there are aspects of the HFEA’s role that are ethically sensitive and unique, as we have recently debated in this House. Therefore, perhaps I may offer a number of preliminary reassurances and commitments to noble Lords, which I hope will reassure the Opposition Front Bench. I should say that we had an extremely positive and constructive discussion with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and others earlier in the week.

The growth duty is not a duty that would require the HFEA to drive the growth of one of the industries that it regulates—for example, the fertility sector—and it is not a duty to achieve or pursue economic growth at the expense of patient protections, such as those involved in the sensitive sectors regulated by the HFEA, as the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, has already set out.

I take this opportunity to repeat once again that the growth duty will not impede the independence of regulators and will give them discretion in how to apply the duty. It is certainly not the Government’s intention that the growth duty should weaken the HFEA’s regulatory role. I also assure noble Lords—especially the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, who is not here at the moment but has had helpful meetings with a number of Ministers to discuss this policy—that the duty is about reducing, for example, the regulatory burden of bureaucracy on business. It is not a duty that loosens or undermines important duties of protection. Statutory duties concerning the protection of vulnerable women and men in seeking help in this sector remain of fundamental importance.

The duty requires regulators to have a regard to the desirability of promoting economic growth among those they regulate when they carry out regulatory processes and make regulatory decisions—for example, writing guidance, planning or changing intervention strategies, designing or revising processes, and carrying out inspections of those who are regulated.

The Government commit to continuing to work with regulators, including the HFEA, to ensure that the statutory guidance is fit for purpose, robust and principles-based to assist them in avoiding the risks of challenge. We are all aware of the problem of judicial review and that the HFEA has already been subject to a number of challenges via judicial review. We will therefore make particular efforts to ensure that the guidance is as clear as possible. It will be clear that regulators can have regard to the growth duty, balance it against their other statutory duties and decide not to afford any weight to growth where it is not appropriate or relevant.

I can also give noble Lords the commitment to publish a revised version of the guidance on GOV.UK before or at the time the guidance is laid in draft before Parliament. I should point out that the Government commit also to lay the draft guidance and the draft order, listing the functions to which the duty will apply, before Parliament at the same time for informed debate. Both these, as noble Lords are aware, will be subject to the affirmative resolution in both Houses. There will be continuing engagement with stakeholders to help regulators consider how the duty can be applied, which we hope will help regulators to decide what weight, if any, they should apportion to the growth duty when considering it alongside their protection duties.

Since the Report stage debate, BIS officials have met with the HFEA and the Department of Health to discuss how the growth duty might apply to their specific regulatory role. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Howe for his commitment that the two departments should continue working together and with the HFEA to address any concerns on specific issues as we move forward. I know that some strong concerns were raised on Report about the HFEA’s role in regulating some of the extremely high fees being charged by some fertility clinics. The noble Lord, Lord Winston, talked of a lady, approaching her forties, who went to a clinic in London and was quoted the extremely large sum of £11,000 for three months of fertility treatment.

Having explored the powers that the HFEA has as a non-economic regulator, we found that it has no power to regulate the prices charged in IVF clinics. I understand that the HFEA does want to do more. It has recently decided to provide patients with a feedback mechanism on its website where patients can say whether the costs they actually paid were as originally advertised. I know from discussions with the HFEA that it recognises that costs are a key concern for many patients. However, at present it can only act within its powers. I want to assure the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Winston, and noble Lords here today, that the Government will work with the Department of Health to explore further the matters raised.

As I said, officials from BIS and the Department of Health have met with the HFEA to consider its statutory regulatory functions which are taken from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Acts 1990 and 2008, and other legislation. It is the Government’s view that the HFEA could have regard to growth when exercising these regulatory functions in a way that would not weaken its regulatory role. It could apply to the HFEA in its general course of operation, such as licensing, inspections or the information that centres are required to provide for them. For example, in the HFEA’s overall licensing and inspection of clinics, if it decided to implement a new licensing process, the growth duty requires a consideration of the importance of exercising such regulatory functions in a way which ensures that regulatory action is taken only when it is needed and that any action taken is proportionate. This would encourage the HFEA to consider the impact that this change may have on those it regulates.

The HFEA, as an expert in its respective and expanding field, will decide what weight, if any, to afford growth as part of its decision-making process in each case. In some circumstances it may be appropriate that the HFEA, in making a particular decision, has regard to growth, but makes a reasonable decision not to give it any weight in its decision-making. For example, while exercising its licensing and inspection functions the HFEA may find that a clinic’s ability to provide a safe service was in question. The clinic may have breached the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, its licence conditions or the HFEA’s code of practice to the extent that it is at risk of the suspension of its licence or even having its licence revoked. In this circumstance, where patient safety is clearly an issue, the HFEA may, in considering the facts before it and weighing up its various statutory duties, make a reasonable decision not to apportion any weight to growth in considering whether to continue to license or close the clinic.

It may also be helpful to draw on an example from the pharmaceutical sector to further illustrate the type of mischief that the growth duty seeks to resolve. A pharmaceutical business used an alcohol spray product in bottles which had certification to say it was safe to use for three months. However, the inspector told the business that once opened, it must throw out bottles after 24 hours. Despite the business pointing out the certificate and the three-month agreed safe lifespan, the inspector refused to read the material and imposed the requirement that the company throw out the spray every 24 hours. This clearly placed an unnecessary financial burden on the business, due to the cost of the product. It could no longer afford to use the product or manufacture a particular pharmaceutical product. The growth duty would have required the inspector to have regard to the economic impact of its decision on the business. It would also have ensured that regulatory action was taken only when needed and that the action taken was proportionate. In neither of those cases would the issue of safety have been jeopardised in any way.

The Government are committed to creating a positive business environment right across the economy and applying a growth duty to regulators across a broad range of sectors that will contribute to this. It is, thus, the Government’s view that the HFEA should continue to be included within the scope of the growth duty. I hope that I have clarified the scope and intent of the duty and provided the necessary reassurances on this front.

Finally, in addition to excluding the PSA and the HFEA from the scope of the growth duty, the amendment seeks to give the Secretary of State the power to list by order,

“any persons exercising a regulatory function with respect to health and care service”,

and in that order to exclude them from the scope of the growth duty.

The Department of Health feels that excluding health regulators from the growth duty would be at odds with other departments and inconsistent with the Government’s intent. I hope that I have provided the assurances that the Opposition and others were looking for in this complex area, and I hope that that will enable the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

I thank the Minister for a very thoughtful response, and for all the work and meetings that have clearly taken place. I particularly welcome the fact, if I have his words right, that the Government do not propose to bring the PSA into scope.

Turning to the HFEA, funnily enough I agree with virtually everything that the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, says, except that I do not agree that it is against the amendment in front of us. I think that he is arguing for better regulation and for not putting unnecessary burdens on those being regulated, be they hospitals or laboratories. All the talk about better regulation, not having undue costs and not throwing away bottles after 24 hours is, to me, better regulation and not the same as the growth duty. I think that we are not very far away from that.

I welcome very much the recognition by the Minister that the HFEA is not an economic regulator, his words that it will not be required to drive or pursue economic growth, his willingness to continue this discussion and to use new guidance to try to help avoid the risk of challenge, and his words that the HFEA will decide for itself not to afford that duty in certain cases. We are probably fairly close on this, and the discussions and the new guidance will be helpful. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

29: Clause 109, page 84, line 28, leave out “Paragraph 39 of Schedule 21 extends” and insert “Paragraphs 4, 31(b) and (c), 32(2), 32(4) so far as relating to paragraphs 9 and 68 of Schedule 13 to the Merchant Shipping Act 1995, 32(5) and (6) and 39 of Schedule 21 extend”

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

31: Clause 110, page 85, line 3, leave out paragraph (c)

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

37: Schedule 13, page 183, line 41, leave out “subsections (2) and (3)” and insert “subsection (2)”

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

41: After Schedule 18, insert the following new Schedule—
“CLC practitioner services: consequential amendmentsAdministration of Justice Act 1985 (c. 61)1 The Administration of Justice Act 1985 is amended as follows.
2 (1) In section 16 (conditional licences), subsection (1) is amended as follows.
(2) For paragraph (b) substitute—
“(b) when conditions under this section have been imposed on a licence under this Part previously issued to him;(ba) when conditions under paragraph 5 of Schedule 8 to the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 have been imposed on a licence under section 53 of that Act previously issued to him;”.(3) In paragraph (c), after “Part” insert “or a licence in force under section 53 of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990”.
(4) In paragraph (ca), after “24A” insert “(including that section as applied by section 53 of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990)”.
(5) In paragraph (d), after “26” insert “(including that section as applied by section 53 of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990)”.
(6) In paragraph (ea), after “22” insert “(including that section as applied by section 53 of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990)”.
3 (1) Section 26 (proceedings in disciplinary cases) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (2)—
(a) in paragraph (a), after “licence” insert “under this Part”;(b) in paragraph (b), for “a licence under this Part” substitute “any relevant licence”;(c) in paragraph (c), after “licence” insert “under this Part”. (3) After subsection (8) insert—
“(9) In this section “relevant licence” means—
(a) a licence under this Part, or(b) a licence under section 53 of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990.”4 (1) Section 28 (revocation of licence on grounds of fraud or error) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (1)—
(a) after “a licence” insert “under this Part”;(b) for “the licence” substitute “all of the relevant licences held by that person”.(3) For subsection (2) substitute—
“(2) Where a person has had any relevant licence which was held by him revoked because of fraud on that person’s part, the person may not be issued with a licence under this Part except on the advice of the Committee given to the Council as the result of an application made by the person to the Committee.”
(4) In subsection (3), for “a licence under this Part” substitute “any relevant licence”.
(5) After subsection (6) insert—
“(7) In this section “relevant licence” has the meaning given by section 26.”
5 (1) Section 33A (administration of oaths by licensed conveyancers) is amended as follows.
(2) In the heading, after “conveyancers” insert “or licensed CLC practitioners”.
(3) In the section, after “conveyancers” insert “or licensed CLC practitioners”.
6 (1) Section 34 (modification of existing enactments relating to conveyancing etc) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (2), after “a recognised body” insert “which is a conveyancing services body”.
(3) In subsection (2), after “conveyancer or” (in the second place it occurs) insert “such a”.
(4) In subsection (3), after “body” insert “which is a conveyancing services body”.
(5) After subsection (3) insert—
“(4) In this section “conveyancing services body” has the meaning given by section 32A.”
7 In section 39 (interpretation of Part 2), in subsection (1), at the appropriate place insert—
““licensed CLC practitioner” means a person, other than a licensed conveyancer, who holds a licence under section 53 of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990;”.8 In Schedule 3 (the Council for Licensed Conveyancers: supplementary provisions), in paragraph 2 (constitution of the Council), in sub-paragraph (1)(a)—
(a) omit the “or” at the end of sub-paragraph (i);(b) after sub-paragraph (i) insert—“(ia) licensed CLC practitioners; or”.9 (1) Schedule 6 (bodies recognised under section 32: supplementary provisions) is amended as follows.
(2) In paragraph 3 (preliminary investigation by the Investigating Committee etc)—
(a) omit the “or” at the end of sub-paragraph (1)(a)(ii);(b) after sub-paragraph (1)(aa) insert—“(aaa) it is alleged that a manager or employee of a recognised body who is not a licensed CLC practitioner has failed to comply with any rules applicable to him by virtue of section 32; or”.(3) In paragraph 3A (orders made by the Investigating Committee), in sub-paragraph (1)(b)—
(a) after “3(1)(aa)” insert “or (aaa)”;(b) for “that paragraph” substitute “paragraph 3(1)(aa) or (aaa) (as the case may be)”. (4) In paragraph 4 (orders made by the Discipline and Appeals Committee), in sub-paragraph (2A)—
(a) after “3(1)(aa)” insert “or (aaa)”;(b) for “sub-paragraph (ii) of that paragraph” substitute “paragraph 3(1)(aa) or (aaa) (as the case may be)”.(5) In paragraph 14 (examination of files), in sub-paragraph (1), after “(aa)” insert “, (aaa)”.
Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 (c. 41)10 The Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 is amended as follows.
11 In section 75 (judges etc barred from legal practice), in paragraph (c), for “or licensed conveyancer” substitute “, licensed conveyancer or licensed CLC practitioner”.
12 In section 119 (interpretation), in subsection (1), at the appropriate place insert—
““licensed CLC practitioner” has the meaning given in section 53;”.13 (1) Schedule 8 (licensed conveyancers) is amended as follows.
(2) In the heading, after “conveyancers” insert “and licensed CLC practitioners”.
(3) In paragraph 1 (general)—
(a) for the definition of “advocacy licence” substitute—““advocacy licence”, “litigation licence” and “probate licence” have the meaning given by section 53;”;(b) omit the definitions of—(i) “litigation licence”, and(ii) “probate licence”.(4) In paragraph 4 (issue of licences), in sub-paragraph (3), for the words from “with respect” to “as they” substitute “with respect to—
(a) any application under paragraph 3 for an advocacy licence and any advocacy licence in force under section 53;(b) any application under paragraph 3 for a litigation licence and any litigation licence in force under section 53; and(c) any application under paragraph 3 for a probate licence and any probate licence in force under section 53 (as the case may be),as they”.(5) In paragraph 5 (conditional licences)—
(a) for sub-paragraph (1)(b) substitute—“(b) when conditions under this paragraph have been imposed on an advocacy, litigation or probate licence previously issued to him;(ba) when conditions under section 16 of the Act of 1985 have been imposed on a licence under Part 2 of the Act of 1985 previously issued to him;”;(b) in sub-paragraph (1)(c), for “a licence of that kind” substitute “an advocacy, litigation or probate licence or a licence under Part 2 of the Act of 1985”;(c) in sub-paragraph (1)(d)—(i) after “1985” insert “(including section 24A(1) as applied by section 53)”;(ii) after “that Act” insert “(including section 26(1) as applied by section 53)”;(d) in sub-paragraph (6), omit the “or” after paragraph (a);(e) in sub-paragraph (6)(b), at the beginning insert “in the case of an applicant who is a licensed conveyancer,”;(f) after sub-paragraph (6)(b) insert “; or(c) for requiring the applicant to take any specified steps that will, in the opinion of the Council, be conducive to his carrying on an efficient practice as a licensed CLC practitioner,”;(g) in sub-paragraph (6), after “paragraph (b)” insert “or (c)”.(6) After paragraph 6 insert—
“Register of licensed CLC practitioners6A (1) The Council must establish and maintain, in such form as the Council may determine, a register containing the names and places of business of all persons who for the time being hold an advocacy, litigation or probate licence and are not licensed conveyancers.
(2) The Council may make rules specifying the further information, including information about disciplinary measures taken, to be recorded in the register in relation to a person.
(3) The Council must cause the appropriate entries and deletions to be made in the register on the issue and termination of advocacy, litigation and probate licences; and where any licence held by a person is for the time being suspended by virtue of any provision of Part 2 of the Act of 1985 as applied by this Act the Council must cause that fact to be noted in the register against that person’s name.
(4) Any change in a licensed CLC practitioner’s place or places of business must be notified by that person to the Council within the period of fourteen days beginning with the date on which the change takes effect.
(5) The Council must provide facilities for making the information contained in the entries in the register available for inspection in visible and legible form by any person during office hours and without payment.
(6) A certificate signed by an officer of the Council appointed for the purpose and stating—
(a) that any person does or does not, or did or did not at any time, hold an advocacy, litigation or probate licence, or(b) that any licence held by any person is or was at any time either free of conditions or subject to any particular conditions,is, unless the contrary is proved, evidence of the facts stated in the certificate; and a certificate purporting to be so signed is to be taken to have been so signed unless the contrary is proved.”(7) For paragraph 8 and the cross-heading preceding it substitute—
“Effect of suspension or revocation8 Where a relevant licence ceases to be in force because of—
(a) a direction under section 24(5) of the Act of 1985, or(b) an order under section 26(2)(a) or (c) of the Act of 1985,any other relevant licence in force with respect to that person at the time shall cease to have effect to the same extent as the licence in question.”(8) Omit paragraph 9 (removal of disqualification from holding an advocacy, litigation or probate licence).
(9) Omit paragraph 10 (revocation on grounds of error or fraud).
(10) In paragraph 21 (power to examine files)—
(a) in sub-paragraph (1)(a), after “conveyancer” insert “or licensed CLC practitioner”;(b) in sub-paragraph (1), for “the licensed conveyancer” (in both places where it occurs) substitute “the person complained of”.(11) In paragraph 22 (interest on clients’ money), after “conveyancer” insert “or licensed CLC practitioner”.
Legal Services Act 2007 (c. 29)14 The Legal Services Act 2007 is amended as follows.
15 (1) Section 104 (prevention of regulatory conflict: accounts rules) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (2), after “conveyancer” insert “or licensed CLC practitioner”.
(3) After subsection (2) insert—
“(3) In this section “licensed CLC practitioner” means a person, other than a licensed conveyancer, who holds a licence under section 53 of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990.”
16 (1) In Schedule 5 (authorised persons), paragraph 11 (rights during transitional period: licensed conveyancers) is amended as follows.
(2) After sub-paragraph (1) insert—
“(1A) During the transitional period every individual, not being a licensed conveyancer, who holds a licence under section 53 of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 is deemed to be authorised by the Council to administer oaths.”(3) In sub-paragraph (2), after “(1)” insert “or (1A)”.
(4) In sub-paragraph (3), in the opening words—
(a) after “and every” insert “conveyancing services”;(b) after “provide conveyancing” insert “or other”.(5) After sub-paragraph (3) insert—
“(3A) During that period, every CLC practitioner services body recognised under section 32 of the Administration of Justice Act 1985 is deemed to be authorised by the Council to administer oaths.”(6) In sub-paragraph (4), after “(3)” insert “or (3A)”.
(7) For sub-paragraph (5) substitute—
“(5) In this paragraph—“CLC practitioner services body” has the meaning given by section 32B of the Administration of Justice Act 1985;“conveyancing partnership” means a partnership at least some of the members of which are licensed conveyancers, but does not include a CLC practitioner services body;“conveyancing services body” has the meaning given by section 32A of the Administration of Justice 1985.”(8) In sub-paragraph (6), after “licence” insert “or a licence under section 53 of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990”.
17 In Schedule 24 (index of defined expressions), at the appropriate places insert—

	“CLC practitioner services body	paragraph 11 of Schedule 5”;
	“conveyancing services body	paragraph 11 of Schedule 5”;
	“licensed CLC practitioner	section 104(3)”.”

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

43: Schedule 19, page 216, line 14, leave out “level 5 on the standard scale” and insert “the statutory maximum”

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

44: Schedule 21, page 234, line 18, leave out from “1983,” to end of line 20

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That the Bill do now pass.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I use this opportunity for a brief moment to pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Stevenson, who, from our side, has guided and marshalled our many Front Bench colleagues, including my noble friends Lady Thornton, Lord Tunnicliffe and Lord McKenzie, through what has been called a “Christmas tree Bill”. Of course, we do not think it is quite such a Bill because it is not full of goodies, but I thank my noble friend Lord Stevenson and, I have to say, our brilliant legislative adviser, Muna Abbas; this was her first such Bill. We think that it has ended up a little better than it arrived.

I thank the Minister and his sometimes expanding, sometimes reducing ministerial team. I also thank the other members of the Bill team who have helped negotiate, redraft, debate and discuss throughout the process, including the setting up of a large number of bilateral meetings, some of which have dealt with some very complex issues. They now deserve a very good holiday, so I suggest that before too long we have a general election so that they may have one.

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)]

My Lords, on behalf of these Benches, I thank my noble friend Lord Wallace for seeing us through this Bill. When we started, we thought that this would be a complete nightmare, but his skill, perseverance and patience have helped that not to be so. I thank also the opposition Benches for their part in seeing this legislation through, and our colleagues in our own office, Giles Derrington and Elizabeth Plummer, who supported us through the business of this Bill.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, this is almost the end of the Gardiner-Wallace double act for this Parliament. The kinder definition of this Bill is “a portmanteau Bill”, I think. I am particularly grateful to the Bill teams for the way in which they have coped with what has unavoidably been a matter of negotiation across Whitehall, dealing with different Whitehall departments, in pursuit of what the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, would like to call better regulation rather than deregulation.

When I look across the currently empty Benches, I am always conscious that there are those who believe that the only regulations imposed on Britain are imposed by Brussels. Many of our discussions here have been about the necessity of regulation for many different parts of the British economy, British society and British science, and we are going to continue, for the rest of our careers in this Chamber, to discuss many of these issues about risk, regulation, the market and how one balances all those very difficult issues.

There are many others whom one could thank. I almost feel that I should thank the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, for agreeing that, having chaired the pre-legislative scrutiny, he would not take further part in this Bill because he felt that he had had enough. He is far too sharp otherwise to have missed a number of things that we have been struggling with. It has been a very large Bill. We have managed to repeal or amend a number of early 19th-century Acts and statutory instruments, and we have now come to the end. I am extremely grateful to all those who have co-operated in this, including the Opposition Front Bench and their researchers, as well as our magnificent Bill team.

Bill passed and returned to the Commons with amendments.

Electoral Registration

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to identify areas with underperforming electoral registration officers, and to issue directions to ensure the maximum possible number of eligible electors are registered.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the performance of electoral registration officers is monitored and reported on by the independent Electoral Commission. The commission’s most recent assessment, in June 2014, showed that the large majority of EROs are performing well against the performance standards set. Where problems are found, the Cabinet Office and the Electoral Commission work closely with the EROs to ensure that they are implementing their public engagement and implementation plans for the transition to individual electoral registration.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, did my noble friend see that, yesterday, the chair of the Electoral Commission reported to the Select Committee in the other place that 2 million applications to register have been received since 1 December? The position is improving. But I hope he agrees that the situation is very mixed locally. Given those circumstances, are the Government looking at the proposal from the Electoral Commission that it should be in a better position to monitor and instruct electoral registration officers locally? The commission recommended:

“Should any ERO decide not to undertake such activity, the Commission will make a recommendation to the Secretary of State to issue a direction to require them to do so”.

Is it not time for the Government to respond to that recommendation? Indeed, is it not time to name and shame those local authorities and those EROs who are simply not doing their job?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the evidence that a large number of EROs are not doing their job is not there. Five of the six EROs who were rated last year as not having achieved their performance standards were in Devon and Somerset, rather to my surprise, and not in Labour-held areas—in Devon and Somerset, it tends to be either Liberal Democrat or Conservative seats. The question of training is one that we are well aware of. The Electoral Commission works with the Association of Electoral Administrators and others to ensure that EROs are well trained and do their job as well as they can.

[Lord Maxton (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the best way of ensuring that we have full registration is a compulsory ID card with a biological identifier, which would then allow all people to be registered from the word go and to then vote electronically as well with that card? That would ensure the fullest participation in registration and in the election.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I agree with the noble Lord that there are some very large questions about how much data the Government already have about people who are or are not registered and how much they are allowed by current law to pull those data together. I very much hope that, in the new Parliament, we shall debate actively what changes in the law we need for that. Moves towards compulsory registration and the sort of unique individual identifier that he suggests—a lighter form of ID card—may be coming, but that is something that we all need to discuss very carefully.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)]

Are the instruction and the training given to EROs of the more modern and imaginative type, as we have seen in relation to certain youth organisations in recent months?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I have to say from having met a number of EROs during the past three years that they are a subculture of their own. I think that some of them would jib a little at the thought that they were entirely modern. They are committed to their task, which they find increasingly difficult. Gated communities and rapid turnover of people in rented housing make their lives more difficult. The refusal of people to answer letters when they are canvassed and the difficulty of canvassing on a house-to-house basis are all problems that they face, but all the evidence that I have is that most EROs are doing their job extremely well.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as the chair of the All-Party Group on Voter Registration. What is so frustrating about the Minister’s responses to these questions is that he repeatedly gives the impression that it is all fine and that there is nothing to worry about. When will the Minister and the Government accept that we have a crisis with people dropping off the register? Just over a week ago, the Electoral Commission reported that 1 million people had gone missing from the register up to 1 December last year. The closing date for registration is 20 April. The Government have about six weeks to do considerably more than they are doing at present. They have the power; they need to get working on it straightaway.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The Government are not complacent: we do not have a crisis. The figures for last December show that, under the transition, we are roughly at the level that we were at three years ago. That is not good enough—there were already 7.5 million people missing three years ago. We are continuing to work, and everyone here should be continuing to work, to encourage people to register. I saw in this morning’s Daily Mirror that it is running its own its own campaign with a bus, the cast of “The Only Way is Essex” and various others to encourage particularly vulnerable groups to come on board. We all have to work on that, and I am still confident that many of the missing young people will actually use their mobile phones to register online in the last two or three weeks before the deadline.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, whatever the case may be against compulsory voting—and frankly, I am moving in that way myself—what is the case against compulsory registration?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we are asking some large questions about the relationship between the citizen and the state. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, might stand shoulder to shoulder with the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, on a number of these issues.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

In one of the Minister’s earlier answers—I think it was in answer to his noble friend—he used the phrase “much to my surprise”. Will he tell us what evidence he has that caused him to have such a surprise?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I apologise if there was a slip of the tongue. We are, of course, very concerned that this process should go through successfully, and we have been working very hard to make it go through successfully. I pay tribute to all those involved in National Voter Registration Day, which led to nearly half a million registrations coming in in one week. We all have to work extremely hard. I suppose that the origin of my surprise is that I meet—as I am sure we all meet—a great deal of voter disengagement and unwillingness to engage with politics. Those are the people who do not register to vote. We have to get out there and persuade them to vote. I trust that all parties, and all of us as campaigners—those Peers who go into schools and into universities—are getting this message across all the time.

Tehran: British Embassy

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they intend that the chargé d’affaires to Iran should be operating from a reopened British embassy in Tehran.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the Government remain committed to reopening the British embassy in Tehran once we have resolved the outstanding steps required to bring the embassy back to a functional level and conclude the arrangements for re-establishing a visa service in Tehran. We are in ongoing discussion with the Iranian Government to identify solutions for both sides.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that somewhat opaque reply. Do the Government agree that the case for establishing, on a continuing basis, a voice and a presence in Tehran is more compelling than it has ever been in the light of the ongoing negotiations on nuclear matters, whichever way they come out? Either they will be successful, in which case they will probably lead to a loosening of sanctions and considerable commercial opportunities for British businesses, with which they will need help, or Tehran will become the centre of one of the most dangerous world situations. We surely need to be there, raising our voice and reporting about what is going on.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I entirely agree that Iran is an important country and an important player in the broader politics of the Middle East. However, the British embassy in Tehran was trashed extensively in 2011, much of the equipment was destroyed and a number of local employees were mistreated. There are a number of issues to get around before we go back there. Meanwhile, chargés d’affaires from both sides are spending extended periods visiting each other’s country, so we are already engaged in a dialogue, as far as we can.

[Baroness Manzoor (LD)]

My Lords, the UK Home Secretary is quite right to place an emphasis on visa overstayers being returned to their respective countries and, of course, embassies play a vital role in that. Can my noble friend say what the UK Government are doing to ensure that the Iranian embassy here can be fully opened so that it can help and support the Iranian visa overstayers to return to Iran?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the problems of overstayers are not on the British side. It is much more a matter of the Iranian Government’s willingness to accept people back, in particular if they are being expelled from Britain and have overstayed their formal status here. There is a trade-off between opening a visa service in Tehran and the issue of overstayers in Britain. That is one of the issues that, unfortunately, has not yet been resolved.

[Lord Kinnock (Lab)]

My Lords, in the improved relationship that would be signified by the reopening of the embassy in Tehran, will the Government give emphasis to efforts to re-establish the British Council operations in Iran, which were flourishing and of massive use both to the relationships between our countries and to Iranians? That could signify a really important step forward in the building of constructive relationships.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

As the noble Lord probably knows, discussions are already under way about the possibility of reopening the British Council operation in Tehran. I declare an interest in that my wife is an officer of the British Academy and the British Institute of Persian Studies also had to close. We have to recognise that there are some delicate issues at stake. There is the protection of British nationals when they are there and there is the problem with the human rights situation in Iran which we should not ignore.

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean (Lab)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord has raised the question of human rights in Iran, will he undertake that the Government, if they do reopen the embassy, will start a discussion again on human rights in Iran and, very particularly, the hanging of underage young people?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am happy, on behalf of the Government, to give that complete assurance. The treatment of journalists, the number of executions and the treatment of women are all very substantial issues on which we will wish to maintain an active dialogue with the Iranian authorities.

[Baroness Afshar (CB)]

My Lords, are the Government aware that the best way of maintaining that dialogue and controlling some of the abuses in Iran is by having a presence and by having students from Iran coming here and students from here going there? It is only through interactive relations that it will be possible to intervene from the inside in the terrible politics of Iran. Standing on the outside will not help.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Government are very well aware of that and we are anxious to reopen the embassy. However, we need some reassurances on the return of equipment to re-equip the embassy, the safety of employees and a number of other issues before we can finish the negotiations.

[Baroness Morgan of Ely (Lab)]

My Lords, Labour welcomes the appointment of the chargé d’affaires for Iran as a step towards the re-establishment of full diplomatic relations with the country. Can the Minister elaborate on what assurances the Iranian Government have given to the UK Government for the protection of British diplomatic staff and their ability to carry out work without hindrance if and when the embassy is opened?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Baroness will know that the Iranian Government are not simply a monolith. We negotiate on nuclear matters as well as on reopening the embassy with the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. There are other elements in the current Iranian regime which are not as easy to negotiate with or to gain assurances from as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

Following the question of the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, will the Minister also talk to the Iranian Government about the treatment of children?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

We will certainly talk about the treatment of children and also about the treatment of religious minorities. We are all aware of the treatment of the Bahai, in particular, in Iran who have suffered very grievously because the Iranian Government recognise only Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism as religions alongside Islam. Other sects are considered heretical and some Christians are also persecuted within Iran.

Defence: Strategic Defence and Security Review

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what, if any, preparatory work has been, or is being, undertaken in advance of the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review; and whether any such work will be made available, subject to not compromising national security, prior to the general election.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, preparatory analytical work is under way to refresh the risk-based assessment approach taken in 2010. As the review will formally begin after the next election, no decision on its final scope or approach has yet been made. The Government have no plans to make any preliminary work available prior to the general election.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that response. In the light of that response, is it this Government’s intention that there should be a real opportunity, including sufficient time, for an open discussion about our defence and security strategy prior to the 2015 SDSR being finalised? The previous Government produced a Green Paper on defence and security before the last election. From what the Minister has just said, there appears to be no comparable document forthcoming from this Government in respect of the 2015 SDSR. Why is that, particularly when future defence and security strategy is one area where Governments normally seek to achieve some degree of consensus?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I agree that debate and search for consensus are important, particularly as we now face a remarkably diverse selection of security threats. The 2009 Green Paper was indeed about defence and not about security in the broader sense. I remind noble Lords that, in the national security strategy 2010, only two of the eight tier-one and tier-two threats identified were directly military; the others included pandemics, climate change, cyberattacks, organised crime on a transnational basis, terrorism and surges of migration.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

My Lords, given that the French Government invited the former UK National Security Adviser—now the British ambassador in Paris—to take part in their recent defence review, could my noble friend the Minister say whether the Government intend to invite an appropriate official from France to participate in next year’s strategic defence and security review?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the House of Commons Defence Committee raised that question in its report last year. The Government’s response said that,

“we have already had preliminary discussions in particular with the US and France following our engagement in the French Livre Blanc and US Quadrennial Defense Review processes”.

This question is out there, but to be decided by whichever Government emerges after the next election.

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

My Lords, each night some 500 veterans sleep on the streets of London and towns and cities across Britain. I mean in no way to diminish the importance of the strategic defence review, but can the Minister indicate when the Government will honour the spirit of the Armed Forces covenant and face up to this crisis? Our defence depends on the commitment of the men and women of our Armed Forces and we owe them a duty of care when they have left the services.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I of course acknowledge the importance of the noble Lord’s point, but I merely stress that I am answering for the Cabinet Office and the Government as a whole. We are talking about a security and defence review that involves the majority of departments in Whitehall feeding into an overall view of threats to our domestic and international security.

[Lord Soley (Lab)]

The world is a much more dangerous place than it was in 2009, when that report was well received. Now there is a danger of conflict between European Union states and Russia, and there is a profoundly dangerous conflict in the Middle East as well. Surely there is a case for a debate, as my noble friend on the Front Bench suggested. We really cannot carry on as if there were not a problem emerging in the world that makes the world a much more dangerous place than it was five or six years ago.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the 2010 SDSR was undertaken at speed, in the context of a very wide gap between defence spending commitments and the Treasury’s ability to fund them. We may hope that after the next election we shall have a little more time—perhaps a matter of six to nine months—before the conclusion of the SDSR. I remind noble Lords that in 1997-98 Labour’s defence review took well over a year. That will allow more time for the sort of debate about our role in the world, the threats we face and how much we devote to meeting these different threats than we had in 2010.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister is deluding himself there, because the driver will be the CSR, which will have to gallop down the track very fast. I was disappointed with the Minister’s response to my noble friend on the Front Bench, in terms of the ability to go out and talk to various other people. Does he not believe that we need something like the National Security Forum, and an ability to talk to academe and experts on military affairs, so as to get an input from all parties, moving very fast? The CSR will hit us and we will have to make decisions about spending that will have a huge impact on the military.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the process of consultation and debate with outside bodies is well under way. The noble Lord makes his points about involving those parties, and I myself have been to see some of them. I was at the Royal United Services Institute and at Chatham House discussing precisely those broad issues behind the SDSR, so the process of consultation with outside experts is under way. I wish we had seen more, for example, about Labour’s approach to defence and security, which might have fed into a more public debate before the election.

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville (Con)]

My Lords, as the SDSR of 1998 sought to reduce the Reserve Forces, and the coalition’s recent SDSR moved in the opposite direction, if my noble friend is still serving in a coalition Government in the next Parliament, in which direction does he think it is likely to go?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, as the noble Lord has remarked, we are in a much more acute security situation, not only in eastern Europe but in north Africa and across the Middle East, than we were five years ago. One of the questions that whichever Government emerges after the next election will have to consider is what spending priorities are, and how far we need to raise the issue of security within that. I again stress that an SDSR is not just about military spending: there are a wide range of other security threats—some very long term—which that includes.

Recall of MPs Bill

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

The answer is yes. If the MP’s own colleagues—I do not want to use the word “peers”, as it is a bit confusing—believe that the issue is serious enough for a suspension of at least 10 days, they would do so, although I find it hard to believe that they would so for a mistake. That is what this Bill is all about. The trigger may be 10 days or my noble friend may be right and perhaps it should be 12 days or nine days—I do not know exactly because it is a judgment call—but this Bill is about saying that, where their fellow Members of Parliament consider that the issue is serious enough, that is the trigger for a recall.

It is also important that the figure is not so low that we undermine in any way either the sort of normal protest that could happen in the House of Commons or the mistake—although I doubt that it would apply for a mistake—or misdemeanour that so offends other MPs that they take the MP to the Standards Committee. The essence of the Bill is that a recall will be triggered when the suspension is for a certain length of time.

There is another, separate point. Whether the threshold is five, 10, 15 or indeed 40 days, there will always be the difficulty—as happens when magistrates hear cases—where the knowledge that the decision can trigger a by-election will add an extra dimension to the judgments that are taken. That applies both to magistrates in a court case, if it is about whether there should be a sentence of imprisonment rather than a fine, and to those dealing with these situations. That is tough. Decision-making is tough. I recognise that, but I do not think that the number of days minimises that effect.

We will deal later with a very helpful amendment from my noble friend about the Standards Committee, which I hope will address some of the challenges that will be before members of the Standards Committee. On this amendment, the decision has been taken by the other place and I think it is right. I hope that my noble friend will withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the commitment and care with which the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, has pursued this issue. The Government have of course therefore actively considered it over some period of time.

I have to say that I do not recognise what the noble Lord described as the widespread anger in the Commons over all this. I have just been checking with my noble friend Lord Gardiner and thinking that through. During the period when the Bill has been going through its Lords stages, I have met members of my own party in the Commons and my noble friend Lord Gardiner has met members of his own party there. We have met people from the Labour Party, our opposite numbers and the Bill managers within the Commons on a number of occasions. It is remarkable to me that what the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, has heard has not managed to reach our ears. It has been relatively public knowledge that we were indeed managing the Bill through this House.

The suggestion that the House of Commons voted on a substantial change to the Bill without understanding what it was doing seems to be stretching matters a little. It may be that this was a catastrophic mistake of the Labour Party in the Commons, as the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, said. I recognise the strength of feeling among a number of Labour Peers within this House that it was a catastrophic mistake by their own party. All I can say is that this has not reached the Government’s ears. We have not had protests, or suggestions that we need to save the Commons from itself in the way proposed.

The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, talked about eroding the sovereignty of Parliament and how we have again to protect that dimension. However, all those of us who have been out campaigning in recent weeks know that what those of us who are attached to the traditions of the British constitution think of as the sovereignty of Parliament is thought by too many of those on whose doors we knock as the Westminster bubble. We have great difficulty in persuading them that it is worth voting at all. They think that all politicians are in here for themselves. This is part of why the recall Bill has gone through a series of consultations over the last three years and is now going, not hastily, through both Houses.

We have considered at length this question of the proper period of suspension which should trigger recall in this House and in other discussions outside the House. We do not see a strong case for reversing the decision which the House of Commons took on an amendment from the Labour Opposition and, having considered it, we are therefore not willing to accept the noble Lord’s amendment.

The decision of the other place was clearly based on the precedent of past suspensions for misconduct recommended by the Standards Committee. The Standards Committee has in the past recommended 10-day suspensions for receiving payment to ask questions in the House, misuse of access to the House and breaching the Code of Conduct—cases which should undoubtedly be considered as serious wrongdoing. We are not considering cases of innocence or unproven allegation.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I am listening carefully to my noble friend’s argument, but surely the Government considered these matters very carefully when they came forward in the first place with their proposal for 20 days. Can he explain to the House why the Government thought that 20 days was appropriate, with all the knowledge about previous penalties imposed by the Standards Committee?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The noble Lord knows very well that the choice of the exact number of days is a matter for judgment. We recognise that the House of Commons took a judgment on that and we are accepting that judgment.

The question of the role and composition of the Standards Committee is also tied up in this. Looking at the next group of amendments, we will continue discussing the important question of the Standards Committee, on which I recognise that a number of members of this House have served. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, for his considerable efforts, which I respect, but I nevertheless ask him to withdraw his amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, this has been an interesting debate—and not simply because it is an easier one to respond to. As I said when we discussed this subject in Committee, or possibly on Report, we strongly support having more lay members on the Standards Committee. We believe that it is crucial for that body to have the confidence of the public, so opening up its work to people who are not MPs is an excellent step towards gaining that confidence. In other areas of life—in the medical profession, the legal profession and other professions—outside independent members are now the norm in any disciplinary process. That gives confidence to patients and clients that someone other than the cohort of those whose behaviour is being judged is involved in the decisions. Indeed, I think I am right in saying that in most of those other professions there is now a lay chair of the relevant disciplinary body.

As my honourable friend on the Front Bench in the other place said, we want to see a,

“radical overhaul of the Committee. That would include the removal of the Government’s majority and an increase in the role and authority of its lay members. We propose that at least half the Committee should be lay members and that the Chair of the Committee should not be a Member of Parliament”.—[Official Report, Commons, 27/10/14; col. 69.]

It is encouraging that today there has been backing from all sides of the House on the need to move forward in this respect. The Government may say that the Bill is not the appropriate place to make such a change—although I note the astute amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and others—but whether that is the case or not, we are sending an important message that all the political parties are determined to see the Standards Committee work effectively, fairly and transparently, and in a way that gives voters confidence in its work.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, for his references back to the historical developments. My brief says that there is a record of lay members serving on a Commons committee as far back as 1836, and that it was in 1876 that Erskine May laid down that while it was perfectly acceptable for lay members to serve on Commons committees it was not acceptable, within the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty, for them to vote on such committees. I understand that that is the position that we still hold. There have been lay members of Commons committees in the past and there are now three on the Standards Committee, whose recent report suggests that the number should increase to seven.

The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, and the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, have taken us back to Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights and a range of other things. I should say to the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, that I am currently reading Professor David Carpenter’s very helpful, and massive, book on Magna Carta, and I am becoming a little more doubtful about the beauty of Magna Carta, fully put, than I was. Its treatment of women and Jews, for example, is not exactly in line with modern habits—just as, if one reads the Bill of Rights carefully, as I have also done, one learns that its assumptions about Roman Catholics are not ones that would meet with automatic approval in the 21st century.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

Oh!

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Yes, we will make exceptions in some cases—particularly for the sons of Church of England clergymen.

Standards have developed and moved, and we are discussing how we would advise the House of Commons and how the Government should respond to the House of Commons on its proposals to move the Standards Committee further. The recent report calls for an increase in the number of lay members—we have had three lay members since 2013—and in their representation as a proportion of the committee. The Government already have a high regard for the lay members of the Standards Committee and appreciate the very important role they play in the work of the committee. The three lay members who currently serve have clearly made a valuable contribution and add an important level of independence to the process.

The Standards Committee report has only very recently been published and the Government have not found time to agree a formal response—the matter is, after all, in principle for the Commons itself. If I may say as clearly as I can, the Government can see no reason at all why there should not be an increase in the number of lay members of the committee, as proposed in the Standards Committee’s report. The disciplinary procedures of the House of Commons are, in principle, a matter for that House as a whole. It is for the Government to facilitate a debate in which the report of the Standards Committee can be considered in detail and consequent changes agreed.

I would urge this House to ponder carefully any course of action that might be interpreted as pressuring, influencing or leaning on the other place to make such a significant change to its disciplinary procedure. After all, we come up against issues of parliamentary sovereignty and parliamentary privilege.

[Lord Tyler]

I am grateful to my noble friend and recognise that he is in a difficult position for the reasons he has just enunciated. We do not want to look as if we are telling the House of Commons when it should take its business, but can he at least, say, on behalf of the Government, that it would be the hope and intention of the business managers for the extremely important report from the Standards Committee to be addressed and, I hope, action taken before the Dissolution of this Parliament later this month? May I appeal to the Minister to ignore the pleas from the ultra-conservative tendency in this House, represented by the noble Lords, Lord Howarth and Lord Cormack, who I think have not read the report of the Standards Committee which addresses very carefully the issues of parliamentary sovereignty and parliamentary privilege?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I also give way to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Can I clarify the position and go back to what I was asking? What is the Government’s position on voting in that committee in the event that it were to proceed to implement the increased lay membership, to which the Minister referred?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am trying to be as helpful as I can on a very recently published Standards Committee report. I remind the House of some of the history. When the Kelly report from the Committee on Standards in Public Life in 2009 recommended that there should be lay members on the Standards Committee, the recommendation was accepted in principle and referred to the Procedure Committee. That committee, in line with parliamentary precedent, reported that, while there was a long history of non-voting lay committee members, there was also a long-established precedent that only Members of the House could vote. The Government do not see any reason why we should override that long-standing precedent.

To add a further dimension on the complexity of the constitutional issues with which we are dealing, the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege in June 2013 advised very clearly against legislating on the lay membership of the committee. To do so would risk bringing the operation of parliamentary privilege, as it currently applies to the standards and other committees, into question. The membership and operation of the Standards Committee is a matter for the House of Commons and the provisions in the Bill have been designed in such a way as to fit in with its disciplinary arrangements, however they are constituted. The second recall trigger would work in exactly the same way whether there were three, seven, 10 or 15 lay members on the Standards Committee, so it would not be justified to stop the second trigger from operating unless the number of lay members was increased.

The Standards Committee report also specifically says:

“The Committee has said that it will work to implement whatever Parliament decides on recall”.

Whether or not the other place decides to act on the Standards Committee’s recommendations—and, as I have said, the Government certainly see no reason why it should not in respect of the lay members of that committee—the committee’s essential role in holding MPs to account for their conduct will remain unchanged.

The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, asked me to guarantee in the remaining short weeks of this Parliament that the Commons will reach that decision before Parliament is dissolved. I am unable, standing here, to give any such absolute guarantee, but I will certainly take that back to my colleagues in the other place and make the point.

Having given as warm assurances as I can to this House, I hope that enables the two noble Lords to withdraw their amendments.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, I am indebted to the Minister because he has made the position clear. We now know that the Government do not support the Standards Committee’s lay membership being given the right to vote, which brings me right back to my Amendment 6 which I moved on Report, which I now believe is a real option. I was also against the lay membership being given the right to vote informal proceedings, which was what I was trying to flush out, because it makes my amendment more sensible.

All I would like from the Minister is an assurance that the debate that took place on Report, and if I might modestly say in particular the proposal in my amendment, will be considered by the appropriate authorities. I would ask those who are charged with reading these matters in the other place, as invariably they do when we deal in this place with House of Commons business, to read the debate and consider that amendment. I think that my proposal was a very reasonable way to proceed. It would ensure that the lay membership really felt they were making a contribution and it would not take us down road concerning the issue of parliamentary privilege, which my noble friend Lord Howarth of Newport was essentially alluding to. On that basis I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

6: Schedule 5, page 56, line 41, at beginning insert “(1)”

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, since this is the last group in this debate, I thank those who have taken part for the constructive role that they have played in the very thorough scrutiny that this Bill has had. I was a little upset when the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, suggested that we had done our business hastily. I think that we have done our business—from Second Reading, through Committee to Report, and now to Third Reading—in the appropriate way in which this House behaves. We have met with those who have expressed their greatest concerns on the Bill, and, as the names on the amendment to which I am now speaking show, we have done our best to reach a consensus with the Opposition where they have made reasonable points, which the Government feel should be taken into account.

I am also very grateful that we have had such an extraordinarily good and efficient Bill team for this Bill. Over the last four and three-quarter years, I have met rather more Bill teams than I would like to have done, and on one or two occasions I have realised what you suffer if a Bill team does not do what you need for a Monday afternoon Committee stage—on one particular occasion, the legal adviser had missed the ferry back that morning from the Isle of Wight and we arrived without the full pack that we needed. I am confident in saying that this is one of the best Bill teams that I have had.

Government Amendments 6, 7 and 8 require the petition officer to deliver all recall petition returns to the Electoral Commission as soon as reasonably practicable after the documents have been received. These support the more substantive government Amendment 10, which will require the Electoral Commission to prepare and publish a report after every recall petition. These amendments build on those first tabled by the Opposition on Report, and I welcome their support for our amendments today. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for their constructive engagement on this issue.

In drafting the Bill, the Government have been keen to ensure that we create a regulatory environment that is consistent with existing electoral law. However, we recognise that recall petitions are a new style of electoral event for which there is no one-size-fits-all set of rules that can be applied. That said, we have drawn heavily, as far as we can, on underlying principles from wider electoral law—notably, encouraging participation through proportionate regulation and preventing undue influence by wealthy groups and individuals.

The Government have been grateful to noble Lords for their contributions throughout the passage of the Bill in terms of how the campaign should be regulated. The Government have also been consistent in our view that the spending and donation rules that we have put in place are appropriate to the nature of a recall petition and are fair and workable in practice. We appreciate the desire to ensure that the process is properly assessed in what we hope will be the very rare event of a recall petition taking place.

The Bill as introduced to this House provides for the Electoral Commission to report on the conduct of a recall petition, including how the spending and donation rules work, at its own initiative. Noble Lords have expressed a desire to see a formalisation of this process, requiring the Electoral Commission to report after every recall petition. These amendments will provide for this. Amendment 9 corrects a minor and technical issue with the drafting of Schedule 5 to the Bill. I beg to move.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Hayter of Kentish Town and I have also put our names to the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, on the role of the Electoral Commission. As the Minister has described, the amendments have the effect of requiring the Electoral Commission to take a greater role in the scrutiny of recall proceedings, which is to be welcomed. As a general principle, the Electoral Commission needs to move on from its present position of offering advice and guidance to more specific areas that it is responsible for, and to be held account properly by Parliament for its work in those areas. That is my position, although it is a matter for another day.

The specific amendments address the points that I have argued were lacking throughout the Bill. I am grateful to the Minister for mirroring the amendments that we on these Benches put forward in previous stages of the Bill. The first set of amendments to Schedule 5 ensures that all returns by campaigners are subject to checks by the Electoral Commission and delete the phrase “on request”, thereby requiring the petition officer to deliver a copy of all the recall petition returns when they have been received. We strongly disputed the Electoral Commission’s view that these would be little local events with a local feel. I took the view that that was a silly claim by the commission; we all know that these will be national events attracting enormous media attention. The commission is best equipped to look at the work being done with returns, as it has both the resources and the expertise at its disposal. I did not accept the commission’s note on this when it said that it may need additional resources to make this work. We all hope that these provisions will be enacted very rarely, and I am very confident, as a former commissioner, that this extra work can be done from existing resources.

We believe that these amendments are particularly important, given that the Government have not accepted our concerns about the potential loopholes that have been left open with regards to donations and expenditure received by both accredited and non-accredited campaigners. This at least goes some way towards ensuring that the financial circumstances of campaigns are subject to some level of scrutiny. Although we are disappointed that the Government have failed to address what we from these Benches regard as the inherent unfairness in the equality of arms of accredited campaigners, as well as the lack of safeguards on permissible donors, we are at least glad that we have managed to persuade Ministers that it is paramount that donation returns are checked.

It is hoped that this will go some way to providing confidence in the financial aspects of recall campaign procedures, which we on this side of the House believe could be open to abuse. The Government’s other amendment to Schedule 5 is a technical amendment, which clarifies the Bill, and we support it. The amendments to Schedule 6 require the Electoral Commission to produce a report on the recall petition proceedings once they have been completed. As I said previously, given that this is an entirely new facet of campaigning, I believe that an independent assessment of the process would be greatly welcomed, not only by constituents but by those affected or involved in the process, and by everyone else involved.

In conclusion, the amendments made in your Lordships’ House have been small but significant in making it more workable for all involved. Perhaps the most important inclusion in the forthcoming regulations will be the requirement on the petition notification card to inform electors of the fact that they are signing what could become a public petition. Given that the Government rejected our judgment that this was de facto a public petition, this is at least something to address the issue of secrecy and the availability of the marked register, the details of which still have to be worked out.

Regrettably, little attention has been given to such practicalities or even the principles of the recall process, which explains why so much has been left to regulations —fairly inexcusable, given that the Government have had an entire Parliament to draft a 25-clause Bill. Despite this, the help that we received from the noble Lords, Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Gardiner of Kimble, was much appreciated, and we welcomed it very much. They were willing to meet us to discuss the detail and the principle, so I record my thanks and those of my colleagues on these Benches for their hard work. Also, I join them in supporting and thanking the Bill team for their hard work; they have been courteous and helpful throughout the process.

I thank my noble friend Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town. We were friends for many years before we came into the House—we came in on the same list nearly five years ago. It is always a pleasure to work with her. Her leadership and hard work on this are much appreciated by everyone involved. I thank my colleague Helen Williams from the opposition office for her contribution; though it was behind the scenes, it was very much appreciated by me and my colleagues here. I also thank noble Lords on all sides of the House for their work. We have done our job as a revising Chamber, and I am grateful to everyone involved.

We have all expressed the wish that the Bill will never need to be used. However, it is right that it should be as fit as possible in case it is. The Minister knows that we remain concerned about the possible intrusion of big money into the consideration of whether an MP should continue in Parliament. I hope that he is right and we are wrong in worrying about this. That apart, we have made the Bill a bit better than when it arrived in your Lordships’ House. I hope that it can now be moved on so it is an Act of Parliament very soon.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, perhaps I should add that it has been interesting that, in the best traditions of this House, the Divisions on the Bill have not been one party group against another but have often been within and across political party groups. That is how it should often be in this Chamber: it is part of a healthy debate.

I have been sitting here today wondering whether the colour of the coat of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, was intended to be a heavy hint at her preferred post-election coalition, but perhaps we can continue that discussion outside the Chamber. I conclude by thanking everyone for the lengthy amount of time that we have spent on the Bill. I commend the amendment.

Amendment 6 agreed.

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

7: Schedule 5, page 56, line 41, leave out “, on request,”

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

9*: Schedule 5, page 58, line 5, leave out “1” and insert “2”

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

10: Schedule 6, page 58, line 32, leave out “may” and insert “must”