Great Britain and Northern Ireland: Access for Goods

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, there is one way: support for the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. I trust very much that when the unfettered access provisions come back to this House, the Labour Party will support them.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD) [V]]

My Lords, we are all aware of the extensive movement of animals across the internal Irish border and across the Irish Sea, and the extensive movement also of milk and milk products. If there is to be unfettered access across the Irish Sea, do the Government envisage that there will have to be checks at what will now become the EU’s external border? What progress, in that case, has been made towards recruiting the vets and inspectors needed to enforce the checks required there?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, work is under way, as noble Lords have raised before, in seeking to recruit vets and, in other areas of this policy, customs agents. That work is ongoing. We are hopeful that we will achieve the desired end.

Home Secretary: Allegations of Bullying

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

The process is independent. The Prime Minister asked the Cabinet Office to establish the facts, in line with the Ministerial Code, and the Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests, Sir Alex Allan, has a role through providing further independent advice to the Prime Minister. So far as the process is concerned, I regret that I must repeat that I cannot comment on that while it is continuing.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Young, in response to a previous answer from the Minister, said that the code is an honour code, implying that it is up to the Minister concerned to take responsibility and to resign in the case of a serious breach. Last month, the Cabinet Secretary said to a Commons committee that the Prime Minister is the ultimate arbiter. That seems deeply inappropriate in the current conditions. Does the Minister not think that there is merit in the First Division Association proposal that an independent arbiter, with status outside government, should be the final arbiter in these cases?

EU Exit: Negotiations and the Joint Committee

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

No, my Lords, I do not accept the one-sided strictures being heard once again in this House. The Government have proposed arrangements with the European Union that have precedents in agreements that that Union has reached with other countries of the world. The Government have asked for nothing unreasonable.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the Government are set on a Canada-style agreement. Have they studied the Canadian network of agreements with the United States, its close neighbour, which cover border controls, aviation, energy, police co-operation, common standards, road haulage and even fishing in the waters along their border? That is because it is a close neighbour. Do the Government have a strategy for somehow increasing the distance between the UK and the European continent? Or do they accept that after 1 January, we will have to start to negotiate on all these other matters as well with our new neighbours?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, the United Kingdom is a sovereign nation and has relations with every other country in the world. Of course, our relationship with our European neighbours is important and we will continue to negotiate with them, whether in this process or in whatever circumstances we find in the future.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 8th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, when the Constitution Committee considered the Bill, we took the view that the removal of Parliament’s power to block Boundary Commission recommendations was constitutionally appropriate and therefore welcome. But we warned that automatic implementation of Boundary Commission recommendations would protect against undue political influence only if the commission itself is genuinely independent. This makes the selection and appointment of impartial boundary commissioners, independent of political influence, all the more important.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, has, at this stage of the Bill, moved an amendment that incorporates both his own original and entirely appropriate insistence that the Lord Chief Justice, not the Lord Chancellor, should make the appointments, and some of the other suggestions that the Constitution Committee referred to, which have been mentioned, in particular, by the noble Lord, Lord Hayward. The Minister should listen carefully to the noble Lord, who knows what he is talking about when it comes to boundary hearings. His insistence that we need to safeguard independence is entirely justified, and I hope that his disagreement with other aspects of the amendment will not deter him from continuing to support the efforts of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, to achieve the kind of independence that the noble Lord has recognised is important.

No assurances the Minister can give could possibly satisfy us that we have guarded against the danger that lurks here. That is because we are talking about any future Government, of whatever political party, who have a majority in the House of Commons, and thus the prospect of using that majority to disrupt the electoral process, or pervert it to their advantage, in ways that will always be defended on the most respectable grounds, beneath which, however, will lie political motives —motives of party advantage and protection.

What is extremely likely to happen is that, at some time in the future, a Government, recognising that they can no longer block Boundary Commission recommendations or delay them until after the next election, will say, “We’d better make sure we don’t get unwelcome recommendations that are disadvantageous to us, and which we might think are wrong in principle. We must stop that from happening by appointing to the Boundary Commission people who have got the political message—people who understand the significance of ensuring that our views remain predominant in any future Parliament.” These things happen; they are part of the reality of political life, and constitutional provisions are there to protect us from their malign influence.

Along with that, of course, goes perceived impartiality, to which the noble Lord, Lord Janvrin, referred. We are in an era when the principle of getting one’s revenge in first seems to apply in the United States. President Trump says, “If I win the election, it’s fine, but if I lose, it’s because the election has been rigged.” So he has already started his attack on the postal ballot provisions in American election procedure. That is an illustration of the fact that the impartiality of the electoral process is easily traduced or complained about, and if there are aspects of it that, on sound authority, can be shown to be at least weak in protecting impartiality, they will be criticised and exploited, and will be used as arguments to question the validity of the democratic process, at least in some individual seats, if not in the election as a whole.

This is an important matter, and I am disappointed, because I thought the Minister had realised that something could be done about it. There is still time for a Third Reading amendment that would at least pick out some of the proposals of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas. To fail to act on that is to compromise an otherwise sensible and constitutionally appropriate change, by leaving this matter open to political pressures of a kind that cast doubt on the validity of elections.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD) [V]]

My Lords, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, has argued, the amendment reflects a constitutional principle. In an effective democracy, in which the power of the Executive is limited both by the rule of law and by the scrutiny of Parliament, regulatory authorities independent of undue executive influence play a vital role. Separation of powers between legislature, courts and Executive is central to constitutional democracy —and, as the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, said, they must be seen to be separate.

We are all painfully aware of the baleful impact of gerrymandering in American politics. The institution of independent Boundary Commissions is there to ensure that political representation in the United Kingdom does not follow any distance down that path. The change in the position of the Lord Chancellor that took place in 2005 makes it entirely appropriate, therefore, that the Lord Chief Justice should now inherit that role in England.

Our current Government have recently demonstrated worrying tendencies towards authoritarian populism. Their attacks on the Supreme Court and on judicial review have uncomfortable echoes of the approaches of the Polish and Hungarian Governments. The Electoral Commission is now under sustained attack, including from a co-chairman of the Conservative Party, for attempting to enforce the rules on campaign spending and political advertising. Calls from some Conservatives for its abolition suggest that they reject regulation of electoral campaigning as such.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lipsey (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am not going to go back over all the arguments about 7.5%, 5%, 10% and so on; they have been wonderfully rehearsed by noble Lords who are much more knowledgeable than I am. I want to take this opportunity to make a general point about the process in relation to parliamentary constituencies.

We go to great trouble, as noble Lords said earlier this afternoon, to protect the effectiveness and neutrality of the Boundary Commission. It seems to me to be in complete contradiction to that to allow the Government of the day, effectively, to decide matters that are greatly going to affect the electoral geography, such as the number of years—as we debated yesterday—for which a Boundary Commission report should apply or, in this case, the degree of variety that should be permitted in their size.

Across the Atlantic, we have a dire warning of what happens when you let politicians decide for themselves on the rules that will determine whether they are elected. The danger of appearing to be partisan when doing it our way seems to me great, and more effort should have been made by the Government and, I am sure, by others to achieve a consensus reform of parliamentary boundaries—we all agree there should be one—rather than one that can be accused of being partisan and that is, in any case, not being addressed with the seriousness that should apply.

I speak as someone who worked for the late Jim Callaghan, who was for a long time an esteemed Member of this House, as well as, briefly, an esteemed Prime Minister. In 1969, Jim Callaghan got his own party to vote down a set of recommendations from the Boundary Commissions for purely partisan reasons. Lord Callaghan, being of a different mould from many of the politicians who lead us today, had the decency in later years to admit that he had made a mistake and that he deeply regretted his actions. We are making a mistake in accepting a Bill so close to the one that was presented. It would have been very much better if there had been a process of negotiation and compromise, rather than an edict brought by a political majority. It will represent a further erosion of the esteem in which our Government and our Houses of Parliament are held.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I cannot understand why the Government continue to insist on this reduction in the variation of size between constituencies. The original justification was the Conservatives’ complaint that the width of variation created a structural imbalance in favour of Labour. Others have pointed out that this arose from differences in levels of electoral registration, in turnout and in the size of majorities. The last three elections showed that this allegedly structural bias had disappeared. It must be inertia at Conservative Party headquarters that explains why the Government are persisting with it.

As the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, said earlier, in our unwritten constitution the House of Commons is supposed to a body that represents communities throughout the United Kingdom, not just an electoral college that votes for the Prime Minister. The first-past-the-post voting system rests upon the principle that there is a close relationship between each MP and his or her constituency, which means that each MP, and each voter, needs to grasp which constituency they are in and its relatively natural boundaries. Throw that out—as the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, suggested that we have begun to do—and, as the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, argued, you have made the case for proportional representation instead. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, said that this widening of variation would be “unfair to the voter”. Let us have a wider discussion about what a fair voting system would be, if he wishes. This is nothing to with overall fairness for the voter.

This Government are chipping away, bit by bit, at many of the assumptions and conventions which constitute our constitution. Last December’s Conservative manifesto pledged to establish a commission

“to look at the broader aspects of our constitution”

before the end of this year, which is now less than three months away. Since then, we have heard nothing about this, nor does there appear to have been any consultations with other parties about the membership and working of such a commission. I do not see how a constitutional commission could possibly gain legitimacy if it emerged only from the Government, without any wider process of consultation or consent. Can the Minister tell us if the manifesto pledge has now been dropped, delayed for the indefinite future or is about to be sprung on us without prior consultation?

In the UK’s constitutional tradition, each MP represents a place, a recognisable community. To reduce the variation among constituency sizes to the narrow band which the Government propose weakens that link between MP and local community. Honest and traditional Conservatives, those who still remember and revere Edmund Burke, Benjamin Disraeli and Harold Macmillan, should join others in this House in supporting the amendment.

[Baroness Pidding (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I speak briefly against the amendments in this group.

As I said in my remarks on group 2, this Bill is about balance and fairness. It seeks to redress the inequality of constituencies. Fundamentally, the purpose of boundary reviews is to ensure that constituency boundaries are of equal size and based on updated figures. In reviewing constituency boundaries, I believe that a tolerance range of 10% strikes the right balance, allowing the Boundary Commissions to propose constituencies 5% larger or smaller than the quota. Any larger figure would simply mean that constituencies continue not to be properly equalised, perpetuating unfairness. I make these comments notwithstanding the exceptions made for protected constituencies, and with the addition of Ynys Môn.

In Committee and again today, some noble Lords have expressed a shared concern about the need for communities to be kept together within single constituencies, about particular geographies being respected, and, therefore, about greater flexibility being required in the redrawing of boundaries. This understandable sentiment has been balanced with the importance of ensuring that every elector’s vote carries the same weight; that every person has the same call on their local MP. The tolerance of 10% strikes the right balance, ensuring an approach that allows appropriate flexibility for the Boundary Commissions to consider important local factors such as geographical features and community ties, without introducing significant variability. Any greater tolerance for disparity between constituencies is totally inequitable. I ask noble Lords to consider that the elected Chamber—those Members of Parliament who are directly affected by any boundary changes—has agreed that the variance in seats of 10%, plus or minus 5%, strikes the right balance. I urge noble Lords not to support these amendments.

EU Exit: End of Transition Period

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 24th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the opportunity to question the Statement, despite it dealing with only one, albeit a visible, part of the preparations needed for 1 January: the physical movement of goods. On finances, accounting, the mutual recognition of qualifications, equivalence, citizens’ rights, consumer protection and pet passports, there is nothing. I was asked recently about what would happen to a UK national working and living abroad who, for example, retires back to the UK in 10 years’ time, after the cut-off for the temporary measures, with his or her EU spouse and children. Will that family be able to return with the British national? The fact that these questions are still being asked is testimony to the amount of uncertainty remaining.

The Statement is very UK-focused, with no mention of the challenges to the Crown dependencies, nor indeed to Gibraltar, which has had to issue a technical notice warning that while EU goods will hopefully still be imported with the same processes, anything from Britain will have to be checked into the EU through a border post and checked back out again. While I welcome the chance to ask about the challenges our exporters, importers, ports and customs face, we should not pretend that this covers everything, nor that everything is done and dusted.

From the Statement, we have learned of the risk of 7,000 lorries in Kent. In order to help visualise this, my honourable friend Kevin Brennan helpfully pictured it as a single line from Dover to Westminster. Clearly, the Government do not want them all in Kent, so they are introducing a “Kent access permit”, which I guess is today’s equivalent of a “Passport to Pimlico”—presumably with Michael Gove as today’s Stanley Holloway. It is unclear how these access permits will be policed, because there can hardly be a “ring of steel” around the county. Can the Minister therefore tell the House how many roads go into Kent, how many police will be needed to carry out the checks and where he envisages finding the extra police, as I presume that others will not have the authority to halt or turn back an otherwise legal lorry? Can he also outline how these measures will prioritise perishable goods and key degradable items such as radioisotopes and medical products, and just-in-time supply chains?

Given that much of the documentation required will be electronic, it could easily continue within lorries en route, so it may not be complete when they enter Kent but would be finalised by Dover. How is that going to be policed? Once in Kent, the lorries may still have to go to the yet-to-be-built lorry parks the Government are planning in 29 local authority areas, without bothering to consult residents. What are the costs of the lorry parks and their staffing? Are those included in the costs noted for “the border” because they will be inland?

Mr Gove has said that

“we have invested in the sites in Ebbsfleet and North Weald, Ashford, Warrington and the west midlands … we are working with the Welsh Assembly Government to invest in a facility near Holyhead in Anglesey.”—[Official Report, Commons, 23/9/20; col. 969.]

When will these sites be ready and what are the costs?

It is no good telling business to act now without information or systems in place. They are pleading for the details to which they need to work. The Statement says:

“Every business trading with Europe will need to … familiarise itself with the new customs procedures”.


Quite so, but they do not know what those new procedures are. The food and drink industry would love to be ready for Brexit but there is no guidance about what labels businesses will need to use to sell their goods legally into the EU and Northern Ireland next year. As I mentioned in Grand Committee yesterday, this applies particularly to the organic sector.

The Government need to explain why on earth all the essential prerequisites for a smooth transition are not already here. The Statement talks of £700 million for infrastructure and new technology, 1,000 extra staff, £80 million to help businesses, plus a new information campaign; all on top of what has already been spent—more than £4 billion, according to the NAO—including on staff, external advice and advertising. In addition, we still have the cost of Mr Grayling’s non-existent ferries and other no-deal preparations. The Minister may not have the answer today but will he write to me with the full, total costs of government expenditure needed for the change to our trading arrangements?

The Government also acknowledge that there will be some £7 billion worth of additional bureaucracy for businesses. Can the Minister also write with the full cost to the Government and to business of all the changes that will be needed? It would also be interesting to see alongside those costs an estimate of how many years before those “great prizes” and export opportunities mentioned in the Statement pay off all the investment of the change before we are able to reap the real benefit.

I have a specific question for the Minister. The Statement says that our new trade deals will

“help developing nations to grow faster”

and provide “lower prices for consumers”. Can he explain how that will happen and why only now it becomes possible? We would love to see both outcomes—developing nations growing faster and lower prices for consumers—but I fear that it might simply mean less being done, lower standards and less protection for the environment. To reassure me that that is not the case, perhaps the Minister could explain how that is achievable in a less harmful way. If he has time, he might like to put on record the Government’s response to the latest LSE/UK in a Changing Europe view, published today, that the economic cost of no-deal could be two or three times as bad as the impact of Covid.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I am not sure whether to sympathise with the Minister for having to defend a Statement with which he cannot entirely agree, to admire his loyalty in following each step the Government take towards a harder break with the EU than was ever hinted at by the Vote Leave campaign in the referendum, or to be appalled by his willingness to swallow the shifty rationalisations of the Johnson-Cummings-Gove cabal.

Yesterday in Grand Committee, the noble Lord, Lord True, attacked the European Union for challenging

“the United Kingdom’s well-established position on state aid”.—[Official Report, 23/9/20; col. GC 506.]

True or false? I asked two friends in the City if they knew what the Government’s established policy on state aid was and they burst out laughing at the idea that there is any clear policy. The interview that Lynton Crosby gave the Financial Times on Monday helped me to understand the Government’s current position. He said that

“in negotiations like this you need a little bit of crazy to keep your opponents guessing”.

I thought, “Ah, this is the art of the deal. The Donald Trump approach to negotiation—monster your opponents, talk tough, insist that they act reasonably, and either they will compromise further than they intended to or you can walk away and blame them for the failure. It is the Johnson-Trump playbook.” If the Statement is an attempt to bluff the EU into believing that we are well prepared for a no-deal outcome, it is clearly a failure. It shows that we are woefully unprepared and is an attempt to shift the blame onto business and potentially on to the French and Belgian Governments.

It has been clear to almost everyone concerned with the UK’s external trade since Theresa May’s Government decided to leave the single market that the channel ports would pose problems, except that Dominic Raab did not realise that and Boris Johnson did not bother to think about it. It was also clear that it would take well over a year to create the new infrastructure needed and to recruit and train the additional staff. Yet, here we are, 100 days short of 2021, and the Statement deplores a “lack of business preparedness”. The rest of us deplore the lack of government preparedness. The same mixture of incompetence, ideology and negligence that has marked the Government’s approach to Covid-19 marks their approach to the channel ports.

The same sweeping aside of inconvenient facts marks Ministers’ handling of the Irish border. The British Academy held its first seminar on the problem of the Irish border if the UK were to leave the EU in March 2016, attended by officials, among others. Yet the Prime Minister now claims that in October 2019, three years later, he still did not understand the complexity of the issue. The Statement refers to hundreds more Border Force staff “being recruited now”. Why were they not recruited months ago? How many of the additional Border Force and customs personnel required will be fully trained and in post by 1 January, and how many are still being recruited or trained?

The Statement refers to new technology being important. Is this now being fully tested and will it be in working order on 1 January? The Statement refers to “queues” and “associated disruption and delay” in Dover, at least for the first six months. What arrangements have been made to ensure that fresh food, vegetables and fish are not delayed beyond the point where they are spoiled, which would lead to shortages in British supermarkets? Can the Minister explain what is meant by the warning that

“if our neighbours decline to be pragmatic”

we will face the worst circumstances? Do we demand that the French and Belgians decline to enforce their own border checks because we are not ready to enforce our own? Is this the Trump-Johnson playbook again: “We are unreasonable but will pin the blame for chaos on you, unless you help get us out of the mess”?

The noble Lord, Lord True, will now defend Michael Gove’s extraordinary Statement with his weasel words about an “exit on Australian terms” and his fantasies about how a “truly sovereign state” may behave. I hope that there will come a point where the noble Lord will consider that his self-respect as a Conservative requires him not to follow Johnson and Cummings’s efforts further down the road to alternative reality and fake facts, be true to his best instincts instead and follow the principled example of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen.

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

My Lords, there were a number of observations there, some of which could be characterised as a little wide of the Statement and perhaps a little behind the game—the game being that the British people have decided to leave the European Union. We are leaving the single market and the customs union and are preparing for that. Frankly, continually railing about this situation—as the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, did with some colourful language in parts of his intervention—does not help us address some of the specific issues in this Statement. For the avoidance of doubt, I am very content with the direction of travel of the United Kingdom and this Government. Unfortunately, I cannot ease the angst of the Liberal Democrat party in that respect, but I note it. Since the noble Lord offered sympathy to me, I reciprocate.

So far as the specific questions I was asked are concerned, I hope I have made a note of most of them. If I have not, I will follow them up. The overall stance of both interventions was, “Why haven’t we done more sooner? Why are there still some uncertainties?” Obviously, there are still some uncertainties; that is the nature of a broad negotiation. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, went wide of the specifics in the Statement, as she fairly acknowledged, but much of the central, core stuff that this Statement is concerned with flows from the fact—which is not affected by whether we get a free trade agreement—that we are leaving the customs union and have to address that situation. We have already adjusted our own phasing of border controls up until July 2021 specifically to help. I note what was said about our friends and counterparties in other member states. Obviously, their policy decisions are for them, but we hope to have fruitful and helpful exchanges with them up to and through this process’s conclusion.

I was asked about Gibraltar. I assure the noble Baroness that the Foreign Office is working closely with Gibraltar and that its interests will very much be taken into account in the transition process. Next Monday there is a meeting of the withdrawal agreement joint committee, which will deal with a number of aspects.

Comment was made about the reports in newspapers about what was called the Kent access pass. It was said in newspapers that this was a border in Kent. The noble Baroness asked how this would operate. It is an approach related to road use, and it is not intended that every vehicle will be stopped. As the noble Baroness says, that would be difficult to do. The reality is that disruption will occur if vehicles without the right documentation arrive at the point of departure. The Government’s whole strategy—our conversations with the road haulage industry, the publicity campaigns we have been running and the process of “Check an HGV” and smart freight—is designed to make sure that the maximum number of haulage vehicles will have the appropriate documentation. If they enter Kent and do not have that documentation, it will be possible for that to be picked up by ANPR and other resources.

The concentration will be on the M2 and M20. The Kent Resilience Forum is looking at all aspects of movement in Kent, but it is a roads-based approach intended to reinforce the advice with an element of deterrent. The cost of the port and inland infra- structure is up to £470 million; some of that is in place. Conversations are ongoing with local authorities and local Members of Parliament about the specifics. Some of this has already been put in the public domain; more will come into the public domain shortly.

On standards, there is not a direct correlation between price and standards. Some very high-quality goods can be cheaper. One of the purposes of free trade deals, which the Statement quite rightly says will help many countries around the world, is that—this is in the history of free trade deals—they tend to lower prices. That is to the benefit of the underprivileged as well as the privileged.

Border Force recruitment is going on. I do not have the exact figures, but £10 million has been put aside to recruit around 500 more Border Force personnel and training is in progress. I will pick up the other points in the two statements after I sit down, when I see Hansard. There are various estimates of elements of the cost. I will try to help as far as I can.

This is a practical programme. There are many thousands of excellent civil servants working on it, and the Government have great confidence that Britain will be ready and able to trade from the end of the year.

EU: Future Relationship

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

My Lords, the Committee will now resume. I call the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I hope you can hear me. Good.

In his opening speech, the Minister talked about the Government’s well-established position on state aid. I am puzzled by that and I hope that he can explain. My understanding is that the European Union rules to which we now object were largely drafted by British Ministers and officials under Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Government and that the Government’s current position on state aid has changed radically since last December, largely under the influence of the Prime Minister’s special adviser Dominic Cummings, but is not yet entirely clear. Perhaps he can explain.

We are now approaching the end of the transition period. That means, as the City of London briefing spells out, that we have to focus on what it describes as

“the necessities of the UK’s future trading relationship with the EU”—

and not just the trading relationship. Britain cannot escape its geography, for all the nonsense put out by Brexit Central and others after the referendum about the irrelevance of geography to Britain’s future. The number of British citizens who travel abroad for holidays, study, or work to the European continent dwarfs the number who travel to Australia, New Zealand and the western Pacific. The City memorandum points out that 75% of the data flows across the UK’s borders are with European countries. Cross-border crime is predominantly a matter affecting neighbouring countries. Britain’s security, society and economy will all continue to be profoundly affected by the ease or difficulty of interaction with our neighbours across the channel.

The maintenance of close relationships requires a legal framework that is treaty based, as again the City memorandum stresses. Treaties limit national sovereignty: they build relationships of “shared sovereignty”, as Sir Geoffrey Howe—that great and true Conservative—used to argue. The closer the levels of interchange, the denser the network of legal agreements that is needed to ease cross-border working. British Border Force personnel work in France under a bilateral agreement. British police exchange data on criminals with their counterparts in the Netherlands and Spain within a legal framework that safeguards confidentiality. British researchers collaborate with respected counterparts in Germany, Sweden and Finland. British holidaymakers have benefited for the past 40 years from access to a European health card in case of illness—a mutually advantageous arrangement, from which a large number of Conservative voters have benefited over the years and which the Government are now, sadly, determined to abandon.

To manage this future relationship, from 1 January 2021 —three months from now—we need a legal agreement: a partnership, spelled out in treaty form. One of the most dishonest statements that the Government keep making to the public is that we can opt for an “Australia-type agreement” with the EU, when no such agreement exists. A no-deal future relationship threatens damage not only to our economy but also to our security and to the openness of our society.

Successive British Governments, from James Callaghan and Margaret Thatcher onwards, have negotiated agreements with our neighbours to manage the rising intensity of interactions between us—within the framework of the European Union. Our current Prime Minister signed up to a declaration 11 months ago on our future partnership, which envisaged a network of agreements to manage our unavoidably shared interests. Since then, however, he has retreated, under pressure from the ultras in his party and those now in the Cabinet who were previously in the Referendum Party or UKIP. The noble Lord, Lord Frost, has spelled out a doctrine of sovereignty that would suit North Korea but makes no sense for a democratic country with an open economy.

Worst of all, the level of hostility expressed by Ministers, Conservative MPs and the right-wing media towards the Governments of France, Germany and the other members of the EU has risen alarmingly. The City of London briefing that we have all received expresses

“growing concerns that acrimony between the UK and EU may result in a failure to reach an agreement … a no deal outcome would be likely to engender ill will on both sides and damage the future UK-EU relationship.”

Even if the Government reach a last-minute deal, the image of a Government who distrust their neighbours and break international treaties when they feel like it will damage Britain’s ability to sort out the unavoidable problems that will follow from our more distant relationship. The Prime Minister talks about a global Britain and an independent foreign policy, but the failure to maintain close co-operation with our European partners in international organisations and negotiations across the world would leave us dependent on the limited good will of whoever comes out of the contested American presidential election and our distant friends in New Zealand and Australia.

Before the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, repeats yet again her accusation that any criticism of the Government’s stance flows only from remoaners who never wanted to leave, I stress again that we are now debating the future, not the past. We are debating the framework within which our holidaymakers will travel next summer, the difficulties that British banks will encounter if agreements on data flows and financial flows have not been reached, and the obstacles that British police and intelligence will face if there is no clear legal structure within which to maintain the co-operation that they have built within Europol.

The noble Lord, Lord True, is a real Conservative, not one of those who have entered the party from more right-wing groupings as more moderate Conservatives have left or been expelled. I hope and trust that if the Prime Minister deliberately crashes the final stages of the negotiations and leaves without a deal, the noble Lord will follow other colleagues and resign. The national interest requires a deal, and the Government will betray the national interest if they fail to agree one.

Brexit: Civil Service Code

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, the situation should not arise because, as the noble Baroness has said, the new Cabinet Secretary has confirmed that he is content for civil servants to work on the Bill and to support Ministers in their duties as it passes through the House. Civil servants are not being asked to act in a way that conflicts with the Civil Service Code. That is the position.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the Civil Service Code states very clearly, regarding integrity:

“You must … comply with the law”.


The Government’s legal position states that parliamentary sovereignty can override international agreements, but not domestic law. The withdrawal agreement was passed by both Houses of Parliament and thus became—less than nine months ago—part of our domestic law. If the Cabinet Secretary is now telling civil servants that they can disregard this part of the Civil Service Code, is it not appropriate that the Minister for the Civil Service should make a Statement to Parliament, given that the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act makes it clear that the Minister for the Civil Service is responsible to Parliament for the Civil Service Code?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, as I have said, the Cabinet Secretary has made the position clear. All civil servants are of course expected to carry out their role with dedication and commitment to the Civil Service and its core values of integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality, which are, as the noble Lord has said, set out in legislation. In my experience, every civil servant rises to that high level required. The Cabinet Secretary has said that he is content for civil servants to work on this Bill.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 15th September 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Lipsey (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a pretty odd grouping, is it not? You have one amendment on the links between constituencies, one on Devon and Cornwall, and one on Wales. It would have been even worse if I had not insisted on degrouping my amendment on Brecon and Radnor, for which the Committee will pay a price when I introduce it in a few minutes’ time. The grouping is so wide and disparate that I do not have a great deal to add, so I will not.

First, I totally agree with the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Foulkes about local ties, which seem wholly to have been ignored by the Government in drafting the Bill, and which I will come back to in the Brecon and Radnor context.

Secondly, I totally agree with my noble friend Lord Hain about the underrepresentation of Wales—the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and a few other noble Lords came in behind him. I will say only that even the 15% variant would not deal with the Brecon and Radnor problem; it deals with certain problems but not with that.

Finally, on the epoch-shaking issue of Devon and Cornwall, I am in no doubt about the passions that this stirs in that part of the country, but I know nothing about it or those passions, and therefore I will remain silent.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I hesitate to intervene on Welsh and Scottish matters, in particular on the complications of the geography of Wales, beyond saying that of course all the regions of this country have large and disparate constituencies. One of my strongest memories of the early days of the coalition Government was of standing in William Hague’s office in the Foreign Office, discussing with him where exactly it was as you moved from Richmond up Swaledale that you lost mobile phone coverage, and seeing the horrified expression on the face of his private secretary as he realised that the Secretary of State would be unattainable in large areas of his extremely large and remote constituency. Yorkshire also has large constituencies.

On the question of the union as a whole, I will say only that we should all be very worried about its future. I have close relatives who live and work in Edinburgh, and each time I talk to them, I get increasingly concerned about the future of the union. The image they have of a competent Government, who also value international ties, as opposed to the incompetent and English nationalist Government in London, gives me no guarantee that if there were another independence referendum, they would not vote to support independence. We also know the games that are being played over the future of Northern Ireland. I leave it for the Minister to reflect that we have a Government who are playing fast and loose with the union even as the Prime Minister insists that he is doing his utmost to defend it, and we need to be extremely cautious about that.

I most want to focus on Amendment 18, which talks about the importance of retaining local ties. I remind the Minister that the Conservative manifesto last December made no reference to a 5% variation as the limit, but said:

“We will continue to support the First Past the Post system … as it allows voters to kick out politicians who don’t deliver, both locally and nationally.”


That is the way one can defend the first past the post system—it is about having a recognisable community which each MP represents and in which the voters are aware of the link between the constituency and the MP. When I first started out in politics, I remember many Conservative MPs who would say, “I represent all the voters in my constituency, not just the ones who voted for me”. That was the old approach to this. The noble Lord, Lord Hain, has already said that the important thing is whether you can identify with the constituency you live in. I remember in the 2010 election standing in the middle of the marketplace in Huddersfield, canvassing for the Liberal Democrats, and every other voter who came up to me on market day said, “I live in so and so—can you tell me which constituency I am in?” We are only half way towards the problem that most voters do not know what constituency they live in. If we move boundaries more and more frequently, and more and more without reference to the idea of local community, we are moving away from the principle of the first past the post system.

I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord True, knows Edmund Burke off by heart, and his references to the importance of localism—of the “little platoons” in which people live. We are in danger of losing that connection. As we lose it, we weaken the connection between the voter and their elected representatives, and we therefore weaken trust in democracy as the idea of politics becomes one of a distant game in Westminster not connected with the voter on the ground.

I fear that the devolution White Paper, when it is published next month, may make that worse. We already have in cities such as Leeds and Bradford local wards which are 12,000 to 15,000 voters per ward. That means of course that in Leeds there are only four wards per constituency, which is one of the reasons why the question of dividing wards up as you adjust the numbers for the Leeds constituency comes up so frequently. Many of these wards used to be entire urban district councils. The gap between the most local elected representative and the voter has already been severely damaged, and I fear that next month’s devolution White Paper will have little to do with devolution but much more to do with weakening local government further. I appeal to the Minister, whose distinguished record in local government I am well aware of, and as someone who cares about local government, to bear in mind how important it is to restore trust in democracy among our voters by recognising that democracy starts at the local level and requires a link between voters, their local community and democracy as such through their elected representatives.

Given that, Amendment 18 is important. We should not lose sight of this. We do not wish to follow the United States down the road where each district is redrawn after almost every election according to partisan forms. Under a Conservative Government we follow American politics far too often in far too many ways. We need politics to regain its sense of the local, the national and the regional. That is why I strongly support this amendment.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 8th September 2020 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

I call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Liddle. No? I call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the case for extending voting to 16 year-olds is getting stronger year by year. We already have the problem that our generation—the elderly Members of the House of Lords and others who can vote only in local elections—now have a rather disproportionate impact on the way Governments operate and choose financial priorities, because the old vote in larger numbers. There is a case, therefore, for increasing the weight of the young, and a very strong case for combating the disillusion and disengagement from British politics that younger generations now have by encouraging them while still at school to see themselves as citizens taking part in the electoral process.

The issue we have is how far we think it possible or even likely that, within the next eight to 10 years, this may be carried into law. There may well be a change of Government at the 2024 election. If we have already reconstructed the boundaries, we need at least to have a look at what such a change would do.

I add in passing that, if we still have a Conservative Government, and if the Conservatives hold to their previous commitment to expand the allowance for overseas voters to vote beyond a 15-year period after they have left the UK, that would also distort the figures considerably. Do the Government have any plans to extend voting for overseas voters, or have they conducted on that issue yet another of Boris Johnson’s U-turns, having discovered that Britons who live abroad are often rather internationally minded and therefore are not certain to vote for this rather narrowly nationalist-minded Government?

The Government want to draw the net very tightly about the balance between voters in different constituencies. Here are two matters—the extension of the vote to 16 year-olds and, potentially, the extension of the allowance for voting to overseas voters—which could blow that balance out of the water. It makes a great deal of sense to at least assess what the impact would be as a result of that change. I hope that the Minister will either answer my question on whether the Government have any plans to extend overseas voting rights or at least write to me on that matter.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town [V]]

I thank all noble Lords who have supported the amendment. I will simply make two points. First, as my noble friend Lady Gale said, Scottish and Welsh 16 and 17 year-olds have, or will have, the vote, but do not appear in the numbers on which their constituency boundary is drawn. That does not make sense. We just want it examined. Secondly, I give a gentle warning to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, and, indeed, her Government. After the summer we have just had, with the disruption to the education and futures of 16 and 17 year-olds, her staunch refusal to consider or even discuss the issue, indeed, not even to allow the Boundary Commission to look at any impact, will not go down well with the exact voters who will be 18 at the next election. They will have heard her words today, but I do not think they will be impressed.

I personally regret her response—it feels short-sighted and over dismissive of the ask. It would not undermine the independence of the Boundary Commission. It would enable it to report on an important issue of franchise. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire [V]]

My Lords, the Minister quoted the manifesto commitment not to lower the voting age. I have just checked the Conservative manifesto and it has the parallel commitment:

“We will make it easier for British expats to vote in Parliamentary elections, and get rid of the arbitrary 15-year limit on their voting rights.”


I want to press the Minister on whether the Government actually plan to implement that manifesto promise within the lifetime of the coming review. If they propose to carry this manifesto commitment through, they should at least allow for this, given that they do not actually know how many of the 5 million British expats might now register. It could blow the entire exercise well out of the water.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook]

I thank the noble Lord. I am sorry if I did not answer his question. I did not believe it was in the scope of this amendment. I do not have the answer, but I will make sure that he has a written response.

--- Later in debate ---

All in all, while I want to see improving levels of registration—and I recognise the achievements in places such as Australia and Canada—we must acknowledge the challenges associated with that. As far as I am concerned, elections are voluntary and registration should therefore be voluntary.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I declare an interest as the Lords Minister in the coalition who had to carry through the change in patterns of electoral registration. I still carry some of the scars from the speeches made by the noble Lords, Lord Wills and Lord Campbell-Savours, and others during those debates. That was when I became well aware of our antiquated system of electoral registration, which we inherited from the days when only heads of households voted. I was also conscious that changing to individual registration was like the 1999 House of Lords report: a halfway house that was not going to take us all the way.

During our discussions within the Cabinet Office I also became interested, for the first time, in digital transformation in government. It was clear that if we were to make much fuller electoral registration our aim, we would have to employ data sharing and data transfer. I remember my shock when we approached the Ministry of Transport on whether we could share at least the outlines of addresses and names in the driving licence scheme. The DVLA and Ministry of Transport’s first response was to say no. I understand that we now compare the names and addresses of people with national insurance numbers on the DWP database with electoral registrations. That is a step forward. We all know that moving toward data sharing within government is a complicated and sensitive area where we must take great care.

I remark to the noble Lord, Lord True, and the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, that responsibility for this matter has just moved back from DCMS to the Cabinet Office. They will therefore answer to us when the Government, if they hold to their promises, publish the digital strategy White Paper which they have promised before the end of this year.

I remind the Minister that the Conservative manifesto refers to voting as an expression of someone’s “full citizenship rights”. If it is a mark of one’s full citizenship rights, we should do our utmost to ensure that all citizens are on the register. We have this problem in Britain that many people do not want the state to know who and where they are. Thus, the concept of citizenship is itself in some ways contested. We need to move towards automaticity, if I may use that term. We will move slowly towards it, rather than relying on underfunded and overworked electoral registration officers at the local level to fill this 6 million to 9 million gap.

The noble Lord, Lord True, was unhappy that I hinted at Second Reading that some Conservatives are as concerned to exclude some people from the register as to include everyone in voting. If that is the case, let us do whatever we can to include everybody. That means moving towards use of comparative databases to ensure that everyone is on the register. Rightly, the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, raised the question that some people do not want everyone to know where they live. That raises large issues of transparency versus privacy, which we will again want to debate.

We also understand the questions of publicly-owned digital identity. That is another sensitive area, on which the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, takes a strongly held view. I take a middle view, and there are others who believe that privacy overrides the right of the state to know who and where we are, or the right of the citizen to have access to all the public data the state holds on them. This is an area that we should look to move further forward on. That means we have to move towards automatic voter registration, including for retainers. I therefore support the amendments.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, has withdrawn his name from the speakers’ list, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Tyler.

Representation of the People (Electoral Registers Publication Date) Regulations 2020

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 3rd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD) [V]]

My Lords, it matters enormously to English democracy to get the 2021 local elections right, after cancelling the local elections this year. Delaying the date for completing and publishing the electoral registers from December to February 2021 is therefore entirely justifiable. I therefore support this statutory instrument, but I have a number of questions for the Minister on how electoral registration will be improved further.

I note the references in the guidance notes for electoral registration officers to local and national data matching with other local authority datasets and the DWP dataset on national insurance. How does this evolution of data matching fit in with the ambitious proposals that we have just heard about to establish online identity verification throughout the UK, a project that we know is close to Dominic Cummings’ heart? Does the Cabinet Office intend to integrate data matching for electoral registers with identity verification for other purposes beyond the DWP? Will it report to Parliament on how this will be carried forward, and what safeguards against errors will be built in? We know from the controversies over AI that errors can easily be built into such activities.

The more suspicious among us sometimes suspect that Conservatives are more concerned to keep doubtful names off the register than to make sure that every citizen is registered. All democrats ought to be worried that our electoral registers remain incomplete, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, just pointed out, and that citizens at the margin, in poverty or out of work are most likely to be left off. The references to data matching that I read in the guidance implied that it would be used to remove names from the register, but not to add any of those missing. Are the Government considering moving, in good time, towards automatic voter registration for all citizens, which the move to digital government, at both national and local level, should make possible? If not, will the Minister commit to raising this issue within government as one that the digital enthusiasts around Mr Cummings should include in their plans?

I welcome the debate on this SI in the Chamber. The House must anticipate a flood of SIs this autumn, as the Government struggle to catch up with the legislation needed to complete our break from the European Union. Will the Minister and the Government Front Bench also note that Members will expect to be able to scrutinise and approve these SIs, not to face ministerial attempts to cram them through in large batches. The Brexit campaign promised to restore parliamentary sovereignty. Our current Prime Minister wants instead to restore executive prerogatives. We will resist his efforts.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Bates) (Con)]

The noble Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, is not here. I call the next speaker.