Aircraft: Laser Pointers
Lord Dubs Excerpts(9 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I acknowledge the comments that have been made to me by many noble friends—that it might have been better if all four Questions today had been about International Women’s Day.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)
The Government are urgently drawing together a plan to tackle the issues relating to the noble Lord’s Question to ensure the safety of both consumers and aircraft, including consideration of legislative options. However, people have recently been sentenced to prison terms under existing legislation for the misuse of lasers in connection with aircraft.
Lord Dubs
My Lords, can the Minister tell us what it is about these lasers that makes them a legitimate and legal item to be available for sale? Does she not agree that anything so dangerous that it could bring down an aircraft should not be available for sale and capable of entering the hands of either idiots or people with malice—that is, terrorists?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I agree with the noble Lord. There are of course many legitimate uses for laser products in the professional field—for example, in research and construction—and indeed in consumer products, but our primary concern, as I think is the noble Lord’s, is laser pointers, where we agree that the need for powerful lasers is questionable. We will take that into account in looking at legislative options.
Syria: Refugees and Counterterrorism
Lord Dubs Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, in the summer of 1939, I came to Britain by good fortune on a Kindertransport. At that time, Britain was the only country taking children who came in that way. It showed enormous generosity, which is not being equalled by what the Government have announced today. Will the Government show greater generosity, both in the number of vulnerable people this country accepts and in ensuring that those who come here are given the same welcome and wonderful opportunities that I have had?
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
Clearly, the noble Lord is a great example of this country’s generosity and of the great contribution that people who have arrived here as refugees can make to this country. I do not accept his description that the Government, in the actions that they have set out today and have taken over the past few years in Syria, are not equalling what they have done in the past. This country has given a huge amount and will continue to do so. The noble Lord is right to emphasise children in this context but it is also right for me to remind the House, and to refer to the comments I made in the Statement, that we will be led very much by advice from the UNHCR. It would argue that in many cases it is not always the right course of action to give refuge to unaccompanied children and that sometimes it is better for the children to remain in the countries in which they are being looked after, rather than being given refuge somewhere else. We will be driven by the experts in this matter.
House of Lords: Oral Questions
Lord Dubs Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, this happens not only at Question Time but when there are Statements. Does the Leader agree that the difficulty with Statements is that some Members of this House make speeches, so very few people can get in?
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
The noble Lord is right. Too often, noble Lords are moving away from the conventions and the guidance in the Companion by extending questions into statements and short speeches. I urge all noble Lords to refrain from doing so. It removes the opportunity for more people to get in.
Personal Independence Payments
Lord Dubs Excerpts(11 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con)
My Lords, personal independence payment is not an income replacement benefit; it contributes towards the extra costs associated with disability. Employment support allowance provides financial support for those who are ill or disabled and unable to work. We appreciate the difficulties associated with claims for PIP, and we are absolutely committed to reducing the backlog, and waiting times. Monthly clearances have quadrupled over the past year, and the backlog is falling. All successful new PIP claims are backdated.
Lord Dubs (Lab)
I thank the Minister for that reply, but will he nevertheless confirm that, as recently as last month, some 670,000 people had registered for PIP but 300,000 people were still waiting for their claim to be processed, some of whom had been waiting for six months or longer? The system is not fit for purpose, yet the Government are still rolling out the scheme. Is it not right for them to stop the rollout until the system is working, to assess the negative impact on hundreds and thousands of handicapped disabled people, and to make sure that it is fit for purpose before they proceed?
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I dispute those figures. The backlog stands at 107,000 at the moment, and 65,000 claims are being processed every month. Help is available in other areas—such as JSA, ESA, local authority help and NHS help—for those who are awaiting an assessment. The system is not failing; it is succeeding, and the backlog is being cleared.
EU Council
Lord Dubs Excerpts(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, I pursue the point of my noble friend Lord Tomlinson because I was a bit puzzled by the answer. To what extent has the increase in GNI been caused by estimates for drugs and prostitution? Is this the first time that we have done that, and how large were those figures? Above all, were they accurate? Are we not, in fact, making it difficult for ourselves by adding in such figures in such a way that we are then being hit on the head by Brussels?
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
The noble Lord is focusing on the wrong thing. What is vital is that we have been presented with a massive bill which is wholly unacceptable and have been given a wholly unacceptable timeframe in which to pay it.
House of Lords: Question Time
Lord Dubs Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Hill of Oareford
I hope that noble Lords who are regular attenders would agree that the way in which questions move around the House works pretty well. It is worth pointing out that over 50% of noble Lords who are the most frequent askers of questions are from the Labour Benches.
Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, surely there is one other issue: the jostling and bullying to ask a supplementary question, which is very undignified. Noble Lords who do not like that simply do not take part. People on all sides of the House feel that.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I certainly do not think that we should have jostling and bullying. Most of the time the House operates pretty well and noble Lords give way to other noble Lords and give them a chance. The House wants to hear from a wide range of people. However, I take the point. Sometimes we hear from some noble Lords more frequently than from others—they might all like to reflect on that. I had a thought that might help with that, which I would be happy to discuss with the Clerk of the Parliaments to see whether it is possible. If we could publish more frequently information on the frequency with which some Members ask questions, that might help us to draw the conclusion that we ought to share them out more widely.
House of Lords: Size
Lord Dubs Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what representations they have received about the increase in the size of the House of Lords.
Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Foulkes, and with his consent, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Hill of Oareford) (Con)
My Lords, the Government have received few representations about the size of the House. Of the ones that I have received, I would say that the majority are from those seeking to increase the size of the House by suggesting eminent candidates for membership, sometimes including themselves.
Lord Dubs
That is very good. My Lords, I do not need to remind the Leader of the House that, with the exception of the National People’s Congress of China, we are now the largest legislative Chamber in the world. Does he agree that there is virtually no support on the Benches behind him—or anywhere else in the House—for further increases in the size of this House? Is he not aware that people see this attempt to pack the House as a bit on the cynical side? However, it is not working, because the Government are still losing Divisions. What is the point?
Lord Hill of Oareford
There are a number of points. First, we need to keep refreshing the House with new and young membership. I cannot remember which noble Lord it was who the other day pointed out that sadly all of us are growing older. That is why we need to have new Members coming in.
On the point about “packing the House”—that was the phrase the noble Lord used—I repudiate the charge. In his next point, he himself gave the lie to that by citing the fact that, for some extraordinary reason, the Government continue to suffer the occasional defeat on their legislation. In terms of the numbers, it is worth reminding the House that if one draws a comparison with the numbers for each of the four main groups in 2007 when Gordon Brown became Prime Minister, there are 25 more noble Lords now than there were then. We sometimes forget that, sadly, around 100 Members have died or taken leave of absence since the most recent general election.
Patrick Finucane
Lord Dubs Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Strathclyde
I am very grateful for what the noble Baroness has said. Again it demonstrates what my noble friend Lord King said about the very real tensions that brought about what happened during that dark and miserable period in Ulster. We are all part of a process of moving on from that. Let me deal with the nub of what the noble Baroness said about other cases. If there was collusion here, what else was going on? The Government will carefully consider the conclusions of the report to assess whether it impacts on any other cases. There have been public inquiries, as the noble Baroness knows, into a number of other cases where collusion was alleged. What we have tried to do here is demonstrate that we are prepared to leave no stone unturned in examining these cases and that, where there has been wrongdoing, the Government are prepared to apologise.
Lord Strathclyde
I think what I said was that the position of the Irish Government has been well understood, and that they were in favour of a public inquiry. My right honourable friend spoke to the Taoiseach this morning. They will want to read the report as well and come to their own conclusions, but those conclusions are a matter for the Irish Government.
House of Lords: Peers
Lord Dubs Excerpts(13 years, 3 months ago)
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The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)
My Lords, the Government have no further plans for legislation to reform this House in this Parliament. As far as this Question is concerned, I encourage Peers to take voluntary retirement should they wish to cease taking part in the work of this House on a permanent basis.
Lord Dubs
Does the Leader of the House agree that this House is now far too large and that there is not a single Member of it who would be happy at further increases? What do the Government intend to do about the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Steel? I put to him one further suggestion that is a bit bolder. Why not suggest that, if anybody wishes to stay in this House, they drop their title but, if they leave the House, they can retain it?
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, it is a suggestion to add to the very many that have been proposed in recent years. As for my noble friend Lord Steel’s Bill, as the House knows, it passed through this House very easily. It is now in the House of Commons and has not yet been picked up by a Back-Bench Member. We will see what happens to it in the weeks ahead.
Draft House of Lords Reform Bill
Lord Dubs Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Dubs
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Richard and his committee on the work they have done, even if I dissent from some of their conclusions. We have already reached the point in the debate when everything has been said, but perhaps not yet by everybody.
If we had had reform in 1997 or 2001, I would have been happy to stand for election to this House. In fact, I would have preferred to be an elected Member of this House, although I think it is a privilege to be here anyway, and I appreciate it. I have always believed in an elected second Chamber. When the right reverend Prelate spoke earlier, he said that we do not have too much by way of party politics. Although the Whips may not have many sanctions, and although we have Cross-Benchers who are not subject to discipline, the fact is that we have party politics pouring out of our ears here. We get a Whip every week, we have three-line Whips and anybody who says that there are no party politics here does not understand the way this place works. Without party politics, the Government could not get their business through. So let us be clear, we are talking about a House that is political—party-political in the main—that exists to get the Government’s business through or to dissent and hold the Government in check.
I welcome the fact that the Joint Committee report supported elections. That is the fundamental point about what it did. Of course, the Bill has many flaws, and I want to deal with them in a moment or two. Clause 2 is one of them. I have also read the alternative report with interest; I spent much of yesterday doing that. While I agree with parts of it, there is a fundamental point that is inimical to the thrust of policy. It says:
“We believe there is an unbridgeable gap between an elected House of Lords and the primacy of the House of Commons”.
I contest that absolutely. I do not think there is an unbridgeable gap; I think that gap can be managed and dealt with.
Public opinion is not terribly interested in this debate, except for a small element of the public and the media who will think that we are doing ourselves and the country a disservice if we do not move forward towards reform. However, I have talked at public meetings—mainly Labour Party and Fabian meetings—all over the country over the years, and with one exception they all supported an elected House. I will be honest and admit that I went to speak to some students in Cambridge. I took a straw poll before I started and about 60 per cent wanted an appointed House. By the time I had finished, 90 per cent wanted an appointed House. Well, I did my best. However, the rest of the meetings and indeed most of the people I speak to all think it absurd that we do not have an elected House.
The key issues are clearly accountability, elections and the primacy of the Commons. Yes, I support elections, at least partly because of accountability. Of course, as the alternative report says—and the Joint Committee report disagrees—anybody elected will have to do some constituency casework. I do not see how one can apply to be selected in a local constituency and say, “I am not going to do any work for local voters”. It is untenable; it just cannot be done. None of us would be selected if we applied on that basis. Of course there has to be casework, and I am pleased that the alternative report actually says that. It says:
“Elections are, in themselves, principal methods of accountability. A candidate stands for election, and if elected, is held accountable for the platform and proposals on which they stood”.
I campaigned very hard for the Labour Party in the last elections and I was happy to support the manifesto on which I was door-knocking for Labour candidates, including our commitment to an elected second Chamber.
I am not happy about being elected once for 15 years. It seems to undermine the basic principle of accountability. Accountability is not just how one gets there in the first place; it is also being accountable for the decisions one makes, the votes one casts and the positions one takes. Quite frankly, I sometimes say to my friends and others, “I vote on issues that affect your lives and the lives of other people, yet I am not answerable to anybody”. If anybody asks me why I voted in a particular way, I do not have to justify myself; I can just say, “Because I am here”. Of course, I do not take that attitude, but that is the position we are in.
A point that has not been made so far is that having a basis in a constituency makes a politician a different sort of person. Elected politicians get their sustenance, at least in part, from engaging with their constituency, maybe doing casework, dealing with their local parties and all the other organisations that lobby an elected politician. It seems to me that being under that sort of pressure makes one a different sort of person. Quite a few Members of this House have been elected and they understand that; others have not and make a fist of it. But some do not, and I think it is an important point.
I remember that there was a by-election in south London while the House was sitting and I spent the day tramping the streets knocking on doors. I got an earful on housing, transport, social security, planning, education, the NHS, et cetera. Unless we as individuals go out and canvass in elections, we do not get that earful from voters, and there is nothing healthier in a democracy than hearing what voters have to say—even if they are saying to us, “We will vote you out if we do not like it”.
Of course I believe, as everybody else does, in the primacy of the Commons. Individually elected Members of the second Chamber would be able to assert themselves a bit more. If I were elected, I certainly would have more confidence to go to the Labour Party conference and say my piece; because I am not elected, I feel constrained from doing so.
I worry about the idea of a constitutional convention, unless there is a time limit of about a year. I fear it is a recipe for long delays and there are other ways of achieving such ends—but the point has been made already. One of the strengths of the Joint Committee’s report is the idea of a concordat between the two Houses. Work on that could start quickly. I very much welcome the detailed suggestions in the report on the idea of a concordat as regards the conventions.
I also am advised by people who know more about this than I do that the Parliament Act could be strengthened to deal with secondary legislation. It could work whether legislation starts in this House or in the Commons and would enable the Commons to retain its primacy.
Finally, reference has been made to Erskine May but, for all its strengths as a document and a tome on parliamentary procedure, it is not a constitutional document. It is a treatise on law, privileges, proceedings and usage of Parliament. That is made very clear in the alternative report. Ultimately, I hope that reform will not be based on the views of this House. I hope that it will come from where it should start, the Commons, and that, if the Commons makes that decision, we will give it our support.