Honours System

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I agree with my noble friend that we should do more to ensure that those from ethnic minority communities who have made a significant contribution to society should see their achievements get public recognition, and we should remove any obstacles in that path. In 2016, 6% of the New Year Honours went to those from black and ethnic minority communities. In the New Year Honours this year it was 12%, and we are averaging around 10%, but none the less more can be done. There are relatively few refusals of honours; the latest figure I have seen is around 2%. The reasons for refusal are not given, but I understand that it is very rare for a refusal to be on the grounds that my noble friend suggested. On her final point, that would require a new order of chivalry. The structure of the honours system is a matter for the monarch; this is well above my pay grade and, indeed, my rank.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, given that there are good grounds for renaming the Order of the British Empire now that we no longer have a British Empire, does the Minister accept that the range of acceptable titles is presumably rather large, since two of our most distinguished orders of chivalry are named after the garter and the bath?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I understand that the order cannot be renamed. The statute makes it quite clear that it must be known by that name and no other, so we would have to close it and start another. In response to the general issue that has been raised, it is noteworthy that 10 Commonwealth countries, many of them in the Caribbean, continue to nominate people for Orders of the British Empire and other ranks, so I am not sure that the reservations expressed by my noble friend are necessarily widely shared.

Devolved Administrations

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I recognise the particular role my noble friend has when it comes to statutory instruments, and I can give him that assurance.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister has already been asked about what has happened to the English regions. Now that we have a rather privileged relationship for the three national assemblies, is devolution to the English regions stuck? In Yorkshire we have made very detailed proposals for a One Yorkshire scheme. The Minister for the Northern Powerhouse suggested that we had to accept four city regions for Yorkshire or nothing, in spite of the fact that there is no city in one of those four proposed regions.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

Devolution is England is not stuck. I spend many hours in the Moses Room dealing with statutory instruments, either setting up combined authorities, where local authorities wish to combine, or local mayors, who will shortly be elected, so we are making good progress in devolving power from Westminster to the local authorities.

Interserve

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what changes they are considering to the outsourcing of public services as a result of Interserve entering into administration.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, nothing in Interserve’s refinancing will affect the delivery of public services. No staff have lost jobs and no pensions have been affected. The company has executed a contingency plan it had prudently developed in case the shareholders rejected the proposed refinancing deal. However, we have already announced changes to how we outsource; these are captured in the Outsourcing Playbook, which outlines a range of measures designed to ensure that outsourcing projects succeed.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

I am glad the Government are investing in playbooks—I am not sure what sort of play is intended. It seems to be time for an overall review. Can the Minister confirm that of the 29 strategic suppliers the Government list for outsourcing, five have now run into severe financial difficulties, and that in several cases, as with Interserve, US hedge funds shorting the shares have contributed to that, putting British public services in peril? Can he confirm also that Interserve was a general supplier of probation services, the updating of sewers, waste management, bus station refurbishment, hospital cleaning and security, motorway repairs and the like, and that the record therefore—as with probation services, of which it was the largest supplier—suggests that its expertise is relatively limited?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

On the first point raised by the noble Lord, it is important to understand that what happened to Interserve was totally different from what happened to Carillion, for example. Carillion went bust. Pensioners took a hit. Creditors took a hit. People lost their jobs and there was discontinuity in services. None of that happened with Interserve. It was done with the approval of the pension trustees and the lenders, who wrote off the debt and put £100 million in. There was no discontinuity in services and nobody lost their job. That is important to understand.

The noble Lord asked whether we would have a general review. I announced that we have learned from past lessons; the document to which I just referred has 11 key policy areas in which we can come to better decisions and create a healthier outsourcing market.

The noble Lord is right that Interserve has a general portfolio—it protects the pandas in Edinburgh Zoo. The issue of probation services goes far wider than Interserve, as the noble Lord will know; the MoJ has announced a review of community rehabilitation services, with a view to improving outcomes and better integrating public sector, private sector and third sector providers.

Digital Mapping: Restrictions

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I hope it enabled the noble Lord to reach his destination. The geophysical data available helps people in their everyday lives. Noble Lords waiting for a 159 bus can use their iPhones to see when that bus will be coming. Noble Lords who might have forgotten where they parked their car can use their mobile phones to identify it. Noble Lords who go jogging in the morning can see whether they are going faster or slower than other noble Lords on the same circuit. One has to recognise that there are real advantages from having this geophysical data. I would not be concerned if everybody knew the colour of my front door.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, during the Second World War—a period in which many members of the Conservative Party still appear to live—a suspicious foreigner taking pictures of houses would have been stopped by some doughty Britain such as Mark Francois and challenged in case he was a German. There were, and surely still are, some security questions to answer. Is it not proper for the Government to promise us a review of this? In the meantime, could the Minister tell us whether British map readers, satellite users and so on can discover as much detail about houses and critical national infrastructure in Russia and China as they now can about us?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

On the first question raised by the noble Lord, I refer back to my original Answer. I said that part of this is about considering both risks and opportunities for current arrangements for access to mapping data. In this country, because of the excellence of Ordnance Survey, there are relatively few commercial marketing organisations doing this work. Most of them build on the data from Ordnance Survey and add value to it. What knowledge we have of critical installations in Russia is a matter for the MoD, rather than a humble Minister in the Cabinet Office. But in the light of the views expressed on both sides I will go back and double-check the information that I have been given.

Domestic Infrastructure: Chinese Ownership

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, we welcome Chinese inward investment into the civil nuclear projects in the UK, as the noble Lord mentions, subject to our robust legal, regulatory and national security requirements. We have the most robust and stringent requirements. My advice is that the project at Hinkley so far meets all the necessary requirements that the noble Lord referred to.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, are we working on our own in responding to the Chinese threat, or are we working with others? Would it not be sensible not only to work with our other Five Eyes colleagues but also to work with our European partners? If we have to find and develop alternative technology for some of these critical projects, clearly it might be much more sensible to work closely with other friendly governments.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

Of course we should work closely with our allies, but it is just worth pointing out that some of our allies have a different legal framework. Australia, for example, has a law saying that telecom operators cannot procure equipment from a company that has extraterritorial jurisdiction. That rules out Chinese companies and many others. We do not have quite that same approach, but, of course, we learn from experience, from Australia, New Zealand, the United States and our other allies.

Brexit: Stability of the Union

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I shall focus on the English question and emphasise that England’s place within the union is also in flux and confusion. One Brexit-supporting placard outside Parliament on Tuesday read, “Save England’s Constitution” —but you cannot save something that does not exist.

After the confused debate on an English Parliament and English votes for English laws, it remains doubtful that England as such is an appropriate framework for devolution in a looser UK. In a blog for the Constitution Unit in December 2018, Sir John Curtice stated that opinion polls show,

“little evidence that there is a growing sense of English identity south of the border”.

The EU referendum highlighted the political and social divisions within England, and we all know that regional equalities between English regions are the widest in any European country. Flows of EU funds to universities, companies and other bodies in the poorer regions partly help to redress this imbalance, but there is no guarantee that they will continue after Brexit.

Unlike the Barnett formula, there is no political framework for fiscal redistribution within England. The bias in infrastructure spending towards the south has become a highly visible issue across the north of England in recent years. Disillusion with the northern powerhouse—now an empty slogan—is widespread.

The Government’s approach to devolution within England is top-down, based on city regions and elected mayors. For the north of England, they are becoming steadily more confused. Last weekend, the Minister for the Northern Powerhouse proposed the establishment of a “Department for the North”, with its own Secretary of State to sit alongside those for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—a major administrative change, if not a constitutional one. Can the Minister tell us whether this reflects the Government’s current position and when they will provide more detail on this interesting idea? Meanwhile, devolution for Yorkshire is stalled, with the same Minister insisting that Yorkshire has to have four city regions, while the overwhelming majority of Yorkshire local authorities, across all parties, support a “One Yorkshire” approach. Can the Minister tell us when we may expect a coherent government response to this proposal?

The Prime Minister repeatedly claims that the Conservatives are “the party of union”. It is much more the party of England, and predominantly of southern England at that. Senior Conservative Ministers overwhelmingly represent Home Counties constituencies. One of the major flaws in our first past the post voting system is that it exaggerates the regional differences between our major parties, with Labour representing the north and the industrial Midlands of England, together with Scotland and Wales, and the Conservatives the comfortable and wealthy south.

Other speakers will, rightly, point out how far devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has altered old assumptions about the British constitution. Reductions in the powers of English local authorities in recent decades and cuts in central support for their funding, which are still continuing, have left England the most centralised state in the democratic world. The shrinkage of local democratic government has contributed to popular disillusionment with politics as such, and the psychological distance from England’s west and north to London has fuelled discontent further. Of course, it is not easy to agree on a map for devolution to English regions across the Midlands and the south—but, with London as a city now an outpost of devolution in an otherwise centralised England, we have to address the issue.

Devolution within England, as well as to our other three nations, should also feed into constitutional reform at Westminster. I have been one of a long succession of Ministers who have tried to promote reform of the Lords, and I still bear the scars of that experience. A stronger second Chamber, more effectively checking executive power, would appropriately be constituted on the basis of regional representation, whether directly or indirectly elected, as the coalition Government proposed. However, both Conservative and Labour Front Benches continue to oppose a stronger second Chamber for fear that it would limit the power of a Government—executive sovereignty, of course—with a majority in the Commons to push through their legislation unamended.

Brexit will shake the union of the United Kingdom, but it will also worsen the growing divide between the richest and poorest regions of England. That divide, and the disillusion it has bred, must be addressed through constitutional change, as well as through economic redistribution.

Interserve: Provision of Public Services

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord is quite right. On 19 November, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster made a speech to the BSA outlining new arrangements. The noble Lord referred to some of them; we prefer to call them resolution plans rather than living wills. We have recently announced plans for all suppliers to draw up resolution plans in the unlikely event of a business failure, to ensure continuity of services and, where necessary, to enable another provider or the Government themselves to step in. Interserve has volunteered to lead the way as one of the first suppliers to design one of these resolution plans.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, in view of the substantial difficulties that major outsourcers are now going through, do the Government have a view on the minimum number of major outsourcing companies they need to maintain a competitive market for government outsourcing of public services?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord raises a good point. We want to promote a healthy and diverse marketplace for public services so that not only the Government but local authorities and, indeed, the private sector can access these companies. For that to happen, we need to ensure that the existing ones have a robust financial regime. We are also trying to break down some of the very large contracts into smaller items so that smaller suppliers, who cannot bid for the major contracts, can bid for contracts that have been disaggregated. I hope this in turn will help to build up the marketplace that both he and I want.

Palace of Westminster: Restoration and Renewal

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

That suggestion by Sir Michael Hopkins was looked at by the Joint Committee and discounted for the reasons it has set out. As I said in response to my noble friend, the responsibility for Richmond House now rests with the other place because it is the legal owner. It will take on board the heritage issues which have just been mentioned. The building was, of course, substantially reconfigured in the 1980s before it became the headquarters for the Department of Health.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, do the Government have a plan for the development of Whitehall? In the past 25 years, three government blocks in and around Whitehall have been transferred to private ownership and converted into hotels. I wonder if they intend to move that further along Whitehall and take more departments out towards Marsham Street and Horseferry Road, or whether they think that the historic context of Whitehall departments grouped together is something that we ought to attach importance to at a point when the Department of Health has just had to move further away.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The decision to transfer Admiralty Arch on a 99-year lease was one taken by the coalition Government. I think it was the right thing to do because that building was no longer required by the Government. It was costing nearly £1 million a year to maintain, and it needed substantial renovation. It has now been tastefully renovated in the private sector according to the original designs by Sir Aston Webb. Moreover, the Government still retain the freehold. That was a sensible decision which was taken by the coalition Government. More broadly, the number of civil servants is reducing. There are still 78,000 civil servants in London but many thousands will be relocated outside London as part of our industrial strategy. Those who remain will require some 20 buildings instead of the 65 that we have at the moment. But the core Whitehall estate will be sensitively managed with advice from the Government Historic Estates Unit. And as the noble Lord said, some government departments are already doubling up. The Treasury, DCMS and HMRC are co-located, as are the Home Office and MHCLG.

Church of England: Disestablishment

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 28th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I wholeheartedly endorse what the right reverend Prelate has said. The bishops seek to heal religious conflict and promote religious tolerance and inclusiveness. He quite rightly points out that on some of the major occasions in the country’s history—coronations, state occasions, other anniversaries and Remembrance Day—it is the Church that has a leading role. It would be sad if that link between Church and state was weakened, and it is not something the other faiths have asked for.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I remind the Minister that William Gladstone’s Liberal Party had a programme of constitutional reform that included the disestablishment of the Church in Ireland, Wales and England, an elected second Chamber, the separation of the House of Lords’ judicial function into a Supreme Court, universal suffrage with a fair and open voting system and, for some, abolition of the monarchy. Not all of that programme of constitutional reform has yet been agreed, and I know there are many in this House who are opposed to a number of aspects of it. Meanwhile, can we not be grateful that our national Church—part of that continuing anomaly—does so much work to hold together local communities, in particular working with other faiths, including the new faiths within Britain, and to hold our national community together?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I agree with the noble Lord. Who we are as a country is defined by our Church and our state and the relationship that has been developing over 400 years between them. The Government value that relationship; we think it adds value to both sides and is welcomed by the country. We have no plans to destabilise that relationship.

Verify: Digital Identity System

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

Verify was started under the coalition Government—I think Nick Clegg was in charge of the Cabinet Office when it started—but there is a difference between providing a secure online identity, which Verify does, and an ID card which you have to carry with you. The key difference between Verify and an ID card system is that Verify is voluntary and the ID card was to be compulsory.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I declare an interest, having worked in government with Nick Clegg on precisely that. I was very impressed by the Government Digital Service and frustrated by the extent to which departments across Whitehall resisted its moves to modernise government handling of data and abandon the separate legal frameworks under which departments manage and keep data. There was much discussion in the coalition Government about introducing a new Bill to update those rules to cope with rapidly moving technology. It has not yet appeared. Do the Government still have plans to do so?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord knows much more about this than I do. It is the case that HMRC has its own service, the Government Gateway. Since it developed that service, Verify has come along. Obviously one would like to migrate from Government Gateway to Verify and encourage other departments so to do. I am not wholly convinced that we need legislation to do that—I will go back to my department in the light of what the noble Lord said—but we need to win the hearts and minds of government departments and persuade them to make more services available on Verify. That impetus is, I hope, gathering momentum.