Medical Innovation Bill [HL]

Lord Newby Excerpts

Friday 27th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Masham of Ilton (CB)]

My Lords, I feel that the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, has the very best intentions behind his Bill and I congratulate him on his determination.

I have been in the position a few times when people I loved were dying too early. In such situations, if there is hope with a new medicine or procedure and if the patient wants to try it, as long as it does not cause suffering I am in favour of innovation. I was inspired by a remarkable person I met, Les Halpin, who had motor neurone disease. With only one drug for that deplorable condition, he was a leader in encouraging innovation and to speed up the development of new drugs to help combat conditions such as motor neurone disease.

With the growing realisation of infections becoming resistant to drugs, research and innovation are vital. There is no doubt that when people work together across the world, improvements are made. There have been important advancements with HIV and AIDS, but there is a need for a vaccine and more innovation. With so many people breaking their backs and necks and becoming paralysed, there is a need for innovation to find a way of joining and regenerating the spinal cord. I declare an interest in this.

Legislation sometimes does not do what it is intended to do. My queries are on behalf of patients. I have been in communication with Action Against Medical Accidents—AvMA—and there are some concerns. The Bill will remove a layer of protection and redress for vulnerable patients who are harmed when their doctors act in a way which no other doctor would support. It would encourage unsafe and unaccountable practice by doctors and lead to further tragedies and scandals such as that of Dr Ian Paterson. It would affect all forms of medical treatment, not only in exceptional circumstances such as when all evidence-based treatment options have been exhausted.

The Bill’s provision may have no positive impact on innovation. It will have no effect on funding, research programmes, clinical governance or professional and medical product regulation. Properly considered, the law already protects a doctor against an allegation of negligence if he innovates responsibly. The Medical Defence Union has publicly stated:

“The Secretary of State for Health in a written statement introducing the Medical Innovation (no. 2) Bill stated that doctors wishing to depart from established procedures and carry out an innovative treatment may be fearful of doing so because of the possibility of a clinical negligence claim. We have seen no evidence to suggest that this is the case … Our advice is that there should be no consequences providing there are appropriate safeguards in place, the patient fully understands what is proposed and why the clinician believes it is in their best interests, and they give their fully informed consent … We are happy to reassure doctors that medical innovation should not leave them open to an increased threat of litigation”.

The Bill provides a defence: doctors will not be negligent in relation to any treatment currently regarded at common law as negligent if they take the decision to treat responsibly. While the purpose of the Bill—to promote responsible medical innovation—is laudable, the intentional effect is to deprive patients who are harmed by doctors of a right to redress, even when the doctor has acted in a way that no other doctor would support. It is the rationale behind the Bill that doctors who would currently be regarded as negligent should no longer be held liable.

AvMA is concerned that patients should be afforded protection against irresponsible or negligent doctors. Regrettably, the Bill does not provide adequate protection and could actually encourage unsafe practices, leading to further tragedies and scandals such as that involving Dr Ian Paterson, among others. AvMA is also concerned that patients who agree to treatment that goes beyond the bounds of what is considered acceptable by all responsible bodies of medical opinion are precisely those who require particular protection. The desperate patient who will try anything to be cured or to secure a short extension of their life may be the most vulnerable to exploitation.

Media coverage and statements by supporters of the Bill give the impression that it is designed specifically to open doors to innovative treatments for people with life-threatening conditions for which all evidence-based treatment options have been exhausted. AvMA says that this is not the case. Is it correct that the Bill would apply equally to any form of medical treatment where the doctor convinces the patient that it would be in their best interests to receive it? This could include, for example, cosmetic treatment. I am very keen that there should be a positive effect on innovation, but the safety of patients must be the priority. There should be no loopholes in this legislation to ensure that patients are not put at risk without their knowledge and consent.

I would like to end by saying how important the work of charities is in helping with medical innovation, one of them being Parkinson’s UK. The charity strongly supports more innovation and its adoption into clinical practice so that new and better treatments can be developed to help people with Parkinson’s disease. Any change to the current legislative framework must be driven by clear evidence that the prospect of legislation is currently preventing innovation by doctors. Further clarity is needed on how the Medical Innovation Bill will give priority to informed consent and peer review in order to protect patient safety. Safeguards are needed against unintended consequences such as encouraging reckless innovation and exacerbating the postcode lottery of services.

I have two questions. What evidence is there to suggest that doctors have been discouraged from using innovative treatments for conditions such as Parkinson’s due to concerns about litigation? How many clinical negligence claims in recent years have been linked to innovative medicine? Is not one of the problems the fact that innovative medicine can be very expensive and there are problems around payment? There are many complex conditions, but there should always be honesty and transparency.

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, perhaps I may remind the House of what I said at the start of the debate; namely, that it is a firm convention that the House should rise at around three o’clock on sitting Fridays.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

This is a Bill of colossal importance and to truncate speeches to six minutes, even though it is a Friday, seems to be highly undesirable. It needs to be discussed because there are many implications behind this piece of possible legislation.

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I am not in any sense trying to curtail the debate. I am reminding noble Lords of the conventions of the House. My experience of listening to debates is that those in which the speeches last for six minutes can be among the best we have.

Arrangement of Business

Lord Newby Excerpts

Friday 27th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, it is a firm convention that the House rises by about 3 pm on sitting Fridays. If Back-Bench contributions are kept to around six minutes on all three Second Readings, the House should be able to rise shortly after 3 pm.

Pensions

Lord Newby Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they propose to announce details of plans to guarantee all retirees face-to-face pensions guidance from April 2015.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, the Government recently consulted on how best to deliver the guidance guarantee through their post-Budget consultation, Freedom and Choice in Pensions. They are now processing the responses and aim to respond before the Summer Recess of Parliament.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply, but I am not reassured. We have a clear case here of a policy being announced and the Government now trying to work out when, how and whether it can be implemented. The Budget Statement was very clear: the guarantee was for “free, impartial, face-to-face” guidance, not the opportunity to attend a mass meeting or have some group therapy. I took the guarantee of face-to-face provision to be an opportunity for those who want or need it to interact individually and directly with another human being. Is that still the policy?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, that is the policy. The FCA is working closely with the Pensions Regulator and the DWP to co-ordinate standards to deliver it. In developing the guidance, it is working with consumer groups, the Pensions Advisory Service, the Money Advice Service and Citizens Advice to build on existing good practice. I think that it is fair to say that not everybody will want personal, face-to-face guidance, but to the extent that they do, it will be available.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, for these reforms and freedoms to work, the Government must try to remove some of the mythical mist which surrounds pensions. As the FCA draws up options for the guidance which is to be given, what reassurance has my noble friend had from the pensions and insurance industries that they will support and drive forward these reforms so that the consumer, the owner of the pension pot, is in the driving seat?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, the Association of British Insurers has produced a detailed response to the consultation that we are undertaking. Within that, it has underlined its commitment to help customers understand their options and enable them to make good decisions. I think that for many people, when the word “pension” is mentioned, a mist descends; so demystifying pensions is a big challenge already. That is why we are devoting £20 million over the next couple of years to getting the new guidance system up and running.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, the mist may not be entirely accidental. I remind the House of my interest as the independent director of the Financial Ombudsman Service. The Telegraph reported on 13 June that officials are getting ready to tell more than 1 million people in their late 50s and early 60s that they will not get the full amount of the single new “flat-rate” state pension. The Pensions Minister, Steve Webb, told the Telegraph:

“I think I may have been guilty of oversimplifying the new flat rate state pension ... But as soon as you caveat this type of thing people switch off”.

Will we have the opportunity to scrutinise the communication plan for this scheme to make sure that more mist does not descend in future?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, the provisions relating to the guidance will be in the pension scheme Bill when it comes before your Lordships’ House. I am sure that there will be plenty of opportunity to debate those provisions at great length, to which we on this side look forward.

[Lord Higgins (Con)]

My Lords, is face-to-face guidance the same thing as individual guidance?

[Lord Newby]

The answer is that it may be or it may not be, depending on what people want to do. One can envisage there being cases at workplace level, where there is a workplace scheme, where it is sensible to start off, for example, by having a collective session followed up by individual guidance. The key thing which we want to underline is that individual guidance will be available. As I said earlier, however, not everybody will want to receive it in the same way.

[Lord McFall of Alcluith (Lab)]

My Lords, the Budget Red Book indicates a bonanza for the Treasury in the next few years as a result of this annuities treatment. This policy could have echoes of the pensions mis-selling scandal of the 1980s, which cost £12 billion. If the Government are not clear and unambiguous that this means individual advice, people will be left on their own and be mesmerised. It is a good thing for the Government, but a bad thing for individuals. The Government need to act very quickly on this.

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, the Government are acting quickly on it, and we absolutely agree that this must be seen as a good thing for individuals. This scheme is not being introduced to make a short-term improvement in government finances. I remind noble Lords that a number of countries—for example, Australia, Denmark and the US—already have the kind of provision that we are proposing. The FT recently reported that, when the leading finance and pensions expert was asked about this, he said:

“There’s nothing to suggest that Poms are any more stupid than Australians”.

I agree with him.

Children and Vulnerable Adults: Abuse

Lord Newby Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley]

To move that this House takes note of the measures being taken by Her Majesty’s Government to prevent and address the abuse of children and vulnerable adults.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, I remind those speaking in the next debate that it is time limited. When the clock reaches seven minutes, noble Lords should finish their speech, as they will have spoken for their allotted time. If a noble Lord is happy to take an intervention, I am afraid that the time taken up will have to come out of their allocation.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to lead this very topical debate today and look forward to hearing what all noble Lords have to say about this important matter.

I believe that this is basically a humane country, and public tolerance of any kind of abuse of vulnerable people has diminished enormously over the past few decades. But I am afraid that we have a problem and it could be growing. Today, we have heard evidence in the Lampard report of the failings of the system to protect children and vulnerable people within the NHS from the foul predations of Jimmy Savile. I trust that, when we have had time to digest the report and the other reports that are under way, we will be able to give due time in this House to discuss the lessons learnt. In the mean time, we know we have a problem with sexual and physical abuse of children, older people and disabled people. We hear of new cases every week. Of course, the law forbids this sort of behaviour, but, sadly, it does not prevent it happening, and the effects on victims last a lifetime.

The figures are disturbing. The UK’s latest report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child admitted:

“The number of children in England who were subject to a child protection plan increased by 47% between 2008 and 2012”.

This is the same percentage increase as that recently reported by the NSPCC in cases of emotional abuse being reported to the police. I welcome the Government’s plans to clarify the law on that in the Serious Crime Bill.

Last year, the Children’s Rights Director consulted children in England receiving care services and found that 10% felt that they were not enjoying their right to be kept safe from all sorts of harm. Last May, the National Crime Agency reported that a new threat has emerged on the internet. While the number of static images of child abuse remains stable, there is a sharp rise in live streaming of videoed child abuse and paedophiles’ use of the “hidden” or “dark” web. These sites do not emerge when one is using normal search engines and are therefore not easily detected. These people are unscrupulous and clever and we need more resources to catch them. I was pleased to note that, following government initiatives, the Internet Watch Foundation is now able proactively to seek out criminal content and, thanks to funding from a number of UK ISPs, has tripled the number of staff engaged in finding and destroying such imagery.

Recent high-profile cases, as well as that of Jimmy Savile, have shown that there are others who have got away for years with abusing children or vulnerable adults. In some cases, nobody knew about it apart from the victims. They did not have confidence that they would be believed or that anything would be done, and therefore did not report it. In some cases of elder abuse, the family has resorted to placing hidden cameras in the room, in order to prove the unacceptable treatment of their elderly relative by those charged with caring for them.

However, in most of these cases there were suspicions. Indeed, in some cases professionals looked into the issue and wrote reports, which were then ignored. This tells me that we need a massive culture change. Many serious case reviews indicate failures to protect, failures to report abuse or act upon reports, and failures of professionals to communicate with each other and with the authorities. I suppose that it is inevitable that we focus on failures, but while we lament those we must remember and applaud all those who care for children and vulnerable adults in a professional and compassionate way. I do believe that attitudes are changing, and it is hard to believe that the reports from Rochdale, which at the time were not acted upon, would be ignored today. The culture has changed, but my question today is whether it has changed enough. I do not believe that it has.

So I now pose three questions. Are we doing enough to prevent abuse happening? Do we know enough about how and why it happens, and what works in other places? Are we doing enough to deal with the perpetrators, and bring justice and support to the victims?

Perhaps I could deal first with prevention. Prevention involves providing training and qualifications, screening staff and volunteers—in the way that Jimmy Savile was not screened—and ensuring that children and vulnerable people know their rights, and know where to go for help if they are attacked. Prevention also involves decent child protection services, and proper therapeutic treatment for perpetrators, so that they do not do it again.

I have always felt that a child is his or her own best protector. We can do what we can to protect a child, but we cannot sit on her shoulder all the time. This is why it is so important that children are taught in every school, through a balanced PSHE course, how to protect their own personal integrity and how to keep safe, including in their use of the internet. They also need to be taught what a healthy, non-abusive relationship looks and feels like, and who to turn to in case of fear or of actual abuse. I believe that this is every child’s right.

Schools need proper oversight from Ofsted of their safeguarding policies and practice. Indeed, Ofsted is the only statutory body given specific responsibility for ensuring that schools keep children safe. Unfortunately, the methods and infrequency of Ofsted inspections make that difficult to do—my noble friend Lady Sharp will speak in more detail about the shortcomings of the inspection system. Then we need to provide decent children’s services. I have every sympathy for cash-strapped local authorities and social workers with large caseloads, and I support the policy of giving freedoms to local authorities to spend the money locally in the best possible way for them. However, I am very relieved that, after careful consideration, the Government have announced that they will not allow authorities to delegate children’s safeguarding services to profit-making organisations. It is vital that there is no chance of the profit motive being put before the welfare of a child.

We must then minimise the opportunity for perpetrators to reach vulnerable children. Here, the DBS checks, formerly called CRB checks, and training for organisations in safe recruitment practices are vitally important. Many organisations have found to their cost that DBS checks alone are not enough, as they only identify those who have offended before, and are no use against first-time offenders or those who are clever enough to avoid detection. There has recently been some streamlining of the system, and the numbers being barred have fallen. I would like to ask my noble friend the Minister how that new system is working. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, will have more to say about this.

Many serious case reviews have highlighted failures of professionals to communicate. I believe that there is a very strong case for some common training elements for those working with children, so that the professionals understand each other’s perspectives, and are more likely to communicate with each other during their career. The Lucy Faithfull Foundation has an excellent programme called Stop it Now! to raise awareness about the dangers of child abuse, and to help those who are concerned about their own sexual proclivities to avoid offending. Such preventive work is to be applauded, and we need more of it.

In the case of care of older people, it is training, qualifications and proper oversight that is needed. Families need to know what quality of care is being offered to their elderly relatives. I was therefore delighted to read in a Parliamentary Answer last week that regulations will soon be introduced to allow the CQC to take robust action against providers that do not offer an acceptable quality of care, and will produce ratings of care quality to provide users with a fuller picture than they now get. Will my noble friend the Minister comment on these plans? I would also like to ask why a Law Commission recommendation to streamline disciplinary codes covering more than 30 health and care professions has been shelved by the Government. It seems to me that such arrangements could act both as a deterrent and as an effective measure for dealing with wrong-doing.

I turn now to knowledge of abuse. Knowledge means doing research about causes and about what works, bringing information together and disseminating knowledge of best practice. Knowledge also means ensuring that those who know what is going on report the facts to the authorities. I have been informed by lawyers who acted for dozens of Jimmy Savile’s victims that the most shocking revelation of all was the number of victims who had reported what had happened at the time to someone in their institution, only to be ignored and their claims covered up. One girl in Stoke Mandeville told a nurse what Jimmy Savile had done, only to be told, “You’re making a mountain, you silly girl. Do you know what he does for our hospital?”. That is why I believe that we need mandatory reporting, which would make it a new offence for those in a position of caring to fail to report knowledge or reasonable suspicion of abuse in a regulated activity. By “regulated activity” I mean schools, hospitals and so on, as defined in Schedule 4 to the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006, although the definitions would need amending to exclude such confidential helplines as ChildLine and Stop It Now!. This has been done successfully in Australia, so I do not believe that it would be a problem here.

We would also need to deal with patient confidentiality, such as when a child discloses information to a doctor. The fact is that many of Savile’s offences took place in schools, hospitals and prison institutions, where vulnerable people and children should have been able to rely on being safe. Fortunately, we now believe children better than we used to. However, in many cases, in order to secure a conviction we need the corroboration of adults who know what has happened. Keir Starmer, the former Director of Public Prosecutions, knows this well, which is why he supports this change in the law. Victims universally support such a change, and tell us that it would not prevent them from reporting the abuse themselves. Indeed, they would be encouraged to do so if they knew that the person to whom they confided was obliged by law to do something to make it stop.

Often ChildLine advisers will encourage children to report the abuse to a trusted adult. In that situation, the child must be able to have confidence that, if they do so, their disclosure will be properly dealt with, and no concern about reputational damage would get in the way of that adult doing the right thing by that child. The only way they can have that confidence is to make failure to report abuse an offence. The intention is not to put people in prison but to change the culture, and I believe that it would help workers to report abuse if they saw it as a public duty and not as telling tales. There is also considerable public support for this. In a recent independent poll of the public, 96% of people supported it.

We also need more research about how mandatory reporting is working in Australia, and I call on the Government to support a current application to the Nuffield Foundation to fund such a research project. Its aim is to identify barriers to identification and reporting by teachers of suspected child sexual and physical abuse and serious neglect, and to identify effective practice. This would fill a declared gap in the DfE’s research portfolio.

Of course, mandatory reporting would apply not just to teachers. I also support the call from 88 MPs, led by Tim Loughton MP, to ask the Home Secretary to set up a Hillsborough-style inquiry into organised sexual exploitation of children. We need to restore trust in the system by learning the lessons of all the cases that have come to light, rather than just having the present drip-feed of information.

Finally, I come to my third question. Justice involves encouraging victims and witnesses to come forward and ensuring that they are treated properly, so that they can give their evidence clearly and consistently. Justice for potential victims also means that perpetrators are given programmes to tackle their perversion and ensure that they do not commit more crimes. Without those programmes, those imprisoned may well go on to reoffend after release. We are not protecting children if we allow that to happen.

I was recently privileged to sit on a commission of inquiry into child sexual abuse, facilitated by Barnardo’s. It became clear from the evidence that we heard that there was a lot of good practice, but a great deal more needs to be done. I support all the recommendations in our report, which would help the police and the justice system to support young witnesses and enable them to help to bring their torturers to justice. My noble kinsman Lord Thomas of Gresford and my noble friend Lord Paddick will deal with those issues in more detail.

Finally, as an honorary fellow of UNICEF, I must support its calls for improvements to the Modern Slavery Bill in relation to trafficked children, child pornography and child prostitution—although I abhor the use of the latter term and would like it removed from the legislation. There is no such thing as a child prostitute.

On this day of shocking revelations of how we have let victims down in the past, I look forward to hearing from my noble friend about how the Government plan to improve their protection of vulnerable people, young and old.

Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies and Credit Unions Act 2010 (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2014

Lord Newby Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2014 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Newby]

That the Grand Committee do consider the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies and Credit Unions Act 2010 (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2014.

Relevant document: 1st Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, the regulations represent the latest step in the Government’s drive to deliver improved legislation for registered societies in Great Britain, by which I mean co-operatives and community benefit societies, hitherto known as industrial and provident societies, as well as credit unions. The regulations relate to how we refer to this group of businesses, and make the necessary changes in secondary legislation to enable new industrial and provident societies in Great Britain to register as either a co-operative society or a community benefit society.

Around 6,000 co-operatives and community benefit societies are registered across Great Britain. They come in all shapes and sizes and cover a diverse range of activities and industries. Their continued popularity is evidenced by growing numbers of members. Some of these mutually run businesses already refer to themselves as co-operatives or community benefit societies, and many industry stakeholders now regard the expression “industrial and provident society” as old fashioned.

The sector requested a formal change of description in legislation to modernise the language used to describe these businesses, which will enable them to become more relevant to members and the general public. I imagine that most people would have a sense of the terms “co-operative” and “community benefit society”, but many might struggle to describe quite what an “industrial and provident society” might be.

These regulations will make amendments to secondary legislation consequential upon the commencement of Section 1 of the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies and Credit Unions Act 2010 as re-enacted in the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014, which lays down new registration requirements for societies in Great Britain, other than credit unions.

As well as requiring a new society to be registered as a co-operative society or a community benefit society, the 2014 Act refers to all societies registered under the 2014 Act or before 1 August 2014 under existing legislation—including credit unions—as “registered societies”. The consequential amendments reflect those changes for Great Britain, but will preserve references to industrial and provident societies in Northern Ireland legislation.

Any new societies registering under one of the new terms from 1 August will not face any additional costs. For existing societies, only those that choose to amend their description may incur minimal costs; for example, to replace stationery or to amend website information. In any case, the sector has indicated that any costs as a result of registering under a new description will be more than offset by the benefit of using language that is more transparent to the public and their members.

These regulations form a small part of the Government’s wider commitment to support mutuality. Beyond this, a number of changes to mutuals legislation have been progressed during this Parliament. Those included a package of measures that came into force in April, which included: increasing the amount of withdrawable share capital an individual can invest in a society from £20,000 to £100,000, making it easier and cheaper for societies to raise capital; giving the FCA additional powers to investigate a society if suspected of unlawful or improper behaviour; making insolvency rescue procedures available to societies that previously would have had no alternative but to be wound up; and simplifying electronic registration for new societies.

Linked to the regulations we are discussing today, the Government also brought forward the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014, which was announced by the Prime Minister in January 2012. The Act has now gained Royal Assent and is due to come into force in August this year. It is a consolidation Act, which brings together and modernises the existing legislation for co-operatives, and was requested by the sector.

Today’s regulations are a necessary step in the work under way to strengthen the legislation for the co-operatives and community benefit societies. They form part of the wider package of measures implemented during this Parliament to strengthen and support the mutuals sector. The changes included in these regulations have received wide support from the sector.

[Lord Graham of Edmonton (Lab)]

My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to welcome this stage of the legislation and the changes. In looking at my research, I am reminded of the efforts of John Roper—the noble Lord, Lord Roper—who played a large part in getting credit unions on to the agenda. Since then, Ed Balls in his ministerial capacity welcomed the issue and moved it forward. Of course, the present Minister, who I am delighted to see in his place, and his colleague the noble Lord, Lord Freud, have played a major part in keeping the issue alive.

I go back not to 1844 but to 1852 and the first industrial and provident societies Act. One of my studies has been co-operative law, and from 1852—certainly to 1863 and then into the 1890s and beyond—there have been genuine attempts to improve the raison d’être of co-operation as an economic form. There has been no objection. I am a Newcastle upon Tyne co-op society man, and one of my jobs for a period was to pay out the dividend accrued. That was the way in which many members of what I am still proud to call the working class saw an opportunity to save for the rainy day; it was marvellous. They would keep and take out of the dividend what they wanted, but they knew it was safe, secure, guaranteed and that it was their own.

We come to governance and changes, and of course this is not the place to go wider than the topic that we have here. That is why I was delighted to notice in a document from ABCUL, the association of British credit unions, that the ministry has already earmarked £38 million to be available for leadership training. It has been a great sadness to see something go catastrophically wrong for an organisation of this kind—there are thousands of credit unions and more than a million individual members—but one discovers that it was not the principle that was wrong, but the manner in which it was led or monitored. As a consequence, there have been blemishes in the credit union movement; I will not say more or less. However, I am delighted that one aspect of the legislation is to continue the good work that has already been done to ensure that those who have the temerity and courage to start a credit union will have the backing in due time of an organisation and of leadership. There must be nothing more catastrophic or devastating for a group of people, be it small or large, who have put their faith in a savings bank or whatever one likes to call it only to find that they have been let down by a lack of oversight and tightness. Having followed the development of legislation, I am certain that, in time, credit will be given to all three main parties in the House and many people will be rewarded by organisations which are sustainable and guaranteed.

I have nothing specific to talk about, because, being associated with the Co-operative movement even now, I am certain that if there were matters to be raised I would have been asked to raise them, and I have not been. I am not looking for trouble these days, so I do not write to somebody asking whether there are any points they want to make. If a point wanted to be made, they would have made it to me and other Members who have a close association with the Co-operative movement. I simply say to the Minister who has carried this legislation through that he will get no trouble from me, because I understand that a great deal of consultation has been done with the Co-operative Credit Union, Co-operatives UK and ABCUL, which plays a vital part in providing leadership. I believe that this is as big a step forward as was taken in 1844, when the Rochdale Pioneers took a leap forward. They were not the first co-operative in the country, but they are looked on as the founders of the modern Co-operative movement. After 180 years, who is to blame anybody for accepting that something that was relevant in 1844 and 1852 requires an overhaul, which is what it has had with this legislation? There has been no malice or agitation. I think that it is generally accepted in the country that small businesspeople are just as competent to run the affairs of a body such as a credit union as anybody else, provided that they have sound principles, that there is oversight and that, from time to time when required, the members will be faced with the fact that they will have do something drastic. To the Minister and anyone who is listening I say, on behalf of myself and others in the Co-operative movement, “Well done”.

The best guarantee of an audience at the City Hall in Newcastle was when there was a fear that the dividend was in danger or that a general manager was going to be sacked. I was there on two occasions when those things were prospective. We have to avoid that situation. I speak as an ex-student of the Co-operative movement. There are a number of other noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, who have a strong connection with it. I wish this legislation well and congratulate all three main parties on having done a very good job on behalf of millions of people.

Some reference was made to numbers. I have some figures, too. There is great co-operative movement in Ireland. It is strong on credit unions. The same goes for the West Indies. A number of people have come from there and established their lives here. Across the world, the principle of co-operation as an economic and social force is well founded and I am proud to stand here and say on behalf of all those people, “Thank you very much”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, for his generous welcome to this statutory instrument. He spoke eloquently about the role of the divvy. The divvy had a particular place in the Newby household because my mother in 1931 went to work in what was then called the check department of the Leeds co-op. Her role was to work out the divvy for the members of the co-op. She—and as a result I—have fond memories of the divvy and the part it played in working-class communities at the time. The noble Lord is absolutely right to say how important it was to people. That explains why the Co-operative movement was so strong at the time.

The noble Lord also drew attention to the funding that the Government are giving to the credit union movement. As he said, the DWP has earmarked £38 million for its credit union expansion project. The aim is to get credit unions to have a million more members by 2019. This is an ambitious target, but it will be achieved only if the leadership of the sector is well qualified. As the noble Lord said, skilled practitioners are needed to make it work and there are a lot of downside risks if they do not, so we hope that this funding will substantially help in doing this. I can also tell the noble Lord that only yesterday the Treasury launched a 12-week call for evidence and opinions on what more we can do to help credit unions to grow sustainably in future. We hope that we are not resting on our laurels, but are continuing to push this agenda forward.

The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, asked a number of specific questions. He was right that this statutory instrument just changes the nomenclature. It has no other substantive components to it. He asked about consultation. The original consultation that is referred to in the documentation was undertaken in 2007, and this was taken into account when the 2010 legislation was drafted. These regulations flow from that 2010 primary legislation and simply implement that. The Treasury did not undertake a formal review, but talked to Co-operatives UK and other stakeholders in the sector informally, just to confirm that their view had not changed. I can confirm that their view had, indeed, not changed. They very much welcome this, simply as part of bringing the nomenclature and thereby the sector more up to date.

I can confirm that the regulations are a permissive piece of legislation. An industrial or provident society currently in existence can do nothing if it opts to do so. The noble Lord asked what is being done to explain what the options are if one opts to change. The FCA is preparing guidance notes to bring the legislation to the attention of the sector, and to set out what its members need to do if they are changing status. However, as I said in my introduction, the cost involved in doing that will be minimal. We hope that many current industrial and provident societies will simply do it as they change their stationery and upgrade their websites.

Having dealt with noble Lords’ points, I hope, I commend the regulations to the Committee.

Motion agreed.

Economy: Interest Rates

Lord Newby Excerpts

Wednesday 18th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Barnett]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the analysis of likely interest rate movements by the Governor of the Bank of England.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, the UK’s monetary policy framework, set out in the Bank of England Act 1998, gives operational responsibility for monetary policy to the independent Monetary Policy Committee, the MPC. Decisions on setting bank rates are for the judgment of the MPC, with the aim of meeting the inflation target of 2% in the medium term.

[Lord Barnett (Lab)]

My Lords, I take it from that that the noble Lord is saying that the Chancellor agreed with the Governor of the Bank of England. It was a long-winded Answer but I assume that was what was saying. It has very serious consequences in many different areas for people who are already paying interest rates of well above 0.5%. However, the biggest problem is growth. At the moment it is very good, but the consequences of higher interest rates could be very serious for growth, and could mean that growth levels might not be sustainable. What evidence does the Minister have for saying that inflation is going to rise so much that we require this interest rate hike?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I did not actually say that. As the noble Lord is aware, the level of inflation at the moment is at a low of 1.5%. The Governor of the Bank of England has made it clear, through the work in reviewing forward guidance, that interest rates will rise when the Bank believes that excess capacity in the economy is being used up and where the forward outlook is for higher inflation over a two-year period, which is the remit of the MPC. The Bank has made it very clear, though, that any increase in interest rates, whenever it takes place, will be gradual, and that any new equilibrium rate of interest that is reached is likely to be significantly less than the 5% that obtained before the financial crash.

[Lord Wrigglesworth (LD)]

Does my noble friend not agree that it is useful to set the current rate of interest in context? For instance, if one looks at the period during which the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, was Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the median rate was something like 10%, and rose to even 15%. Is it not quite an achievement to retain a level of interest rates below 3%, and should we make sure that people do not fear a rise, exaggerate it and damage economic growth?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, that is an important point. As I said in answer to the earlier question, any increase in interest rates is likely to be gradual and to reach a new equilibrium that is lower than it was in the past. It is worth saying that mortgage payments are at a historically low level in terms of proportion of income, and that rates would have to rise by 4% to get to the 2007 proportion of income. Nobody, I think, whether it is the Bank of England or independent experts, has suggested that interest rates are likely to rise by that much in the foreseeable future.

[Lord Peston (Lab)]

My Lords, to place this important Question in context, is it the Government’s view that there are two possible aims of economic policy: the first is that we should maintain as high a rate of real, sustainable growth as is feasible, and the second is that we should maintain a stable, low inflation rate? Bearing in mind that those two objectives are not always compatible, what is the Government’s view of what the policymakers ought to be doing at the moment?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, the Government have given the MPC the role of ensuring that inflation stays as near as possible to 2%. As the noble Lord knows, subject to that, the Government have given the committee the role of pursuing their policies in terms of employment and growth. Separate to what the Bank is doing, the Government have set in train a whole raft of policies, whether they be apprenticeships, reducing national insurance payable by businesses or increasing tax-free investment allowances, which we believe will lead to growth—non-inflationary growth. It is extremely interesting in terms of those two, as he says, incompatible points, that during the life of this Government we have been able to generate an additional 2 million jobs, and inflation over the period has, if anything, fallen.

[Lord Lawson of Blaby (Con)]

My Lords, is it not simply the case that the 0.5% policy rate was a crisis rate, set because of the economic crisis in which this country was plunged, and the fact that we are now likely gradually to come to more normal rates of interest is a tribute to the fact that we are successfully emerging from that crisis?

[Lord Newby]

The noble Lord is exactly right. One of the benefits of a gradual increase in interest rates will be that savers, who have had a very poor return on their savings, will start to get what they would consider a more normal return in the future.

[Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Government contemplate giving forewarning of a rise in interest rates? It is quite clear that people have become used to this very low rate indeed, and the Minister is beginning to indicate that it is not going to be tolerated for much longer.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, there is incessant speculation in the media about when interest rates might rise. The Governor of the Bank of England and the MPC’s inflation report help to guide people as to when this is likely to be the case. In February, the latest inflation report set out a number of criteria against which the Bank would judge when rates should rise. Anybody is capable of seeing how the economy is going and reading what both the governor and commentators say about when such rate rises are likely.

Personal Service Companies (Select Committee Report)

Lord Newby Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. It is correct to say that, with the exception of the noble and learned Lord on the Opposition Front Bench, all noble Lords who have spoken served on the committee, and therefore I can doubly thank them for the work they undertook on a very short timescale. As the noble Lord, Lord Myners, pointed out, this is an extremely complicated area, while my noble friend Lord Higgins made observations on the procedure in terms of the pace of the committee’s work. The Government response, however inadequate some noble Lords feel it to be, and the speed with which we have been able to hold this debate are a good example of your Lordships’ House scrutinising how we attempt to implement public policy, and I hope that it will be followed more frequently in the future.

I hope that I am able to reassure the House that the Treasury and HMRC take this report and the issues it raises extremely seriously. There is one area where I am not going to be able to satisfy noble Lords, which is their understandable irritation at the non-attendance of a Treasury Minister. The experience of your Lordships’ House of Treasury involvement in the work of its Select Committees over a number of years has been variable. When I served on the Joint Committee on the draft Financial Services Bill, not only did the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day refuse to turn up, he refused to allow his officials to turn up and he refused to allow them to send a written response to our questions on the administrative workings of tax on the basis that it would undermine the sovereignty of the Commons in that area. We thought that that was very unsatisfactory at the time. I can assure the House that I drew this committee’s views to the attention of colleagues in the Treasury before the debate and that I will do so again.

However, I think that both the Treasury and HMRC take the work of the committee very seriously and they are acting in response to that work. In some cases the committee has looked at and made recommendations in areas where work was already under way, but some of the recommendations made by the committee are being taken forward where work was not under way, specifically in relation to the questions around personal service companies’ self-assessment returns and employers’ returns. As a result of the work of the committee, these are now being reviewed with stakeholders with a view to making any necessary changes as soon as practicable. That is a concrete example of the influence of the committee in getting real change.

The committee did not confine itself just to the use of personal service companies, but looked more widely into the engagement of workers in today’s labour market, and that was reflected in a number of speeches in the debate. The UK has one of the most flexible labour markets in the world and we recognise that that is one of the reasons why our economy has been more resilient and has recovered faster than many other western economies. We recognise that personal service companies are a key feature of this flexible and dynamic labour market and will continue to contribute to its growth. Regrettably, however, as noble Lords have made clear, there are those who see such arrangements as an opportunity to avoid paying their fair share and there is abuse of the system, not least among those on low pay who are often unaware of the situation in which they find themselves. Clearly, that is not right. The Government have provided a clear mandate to HMRC to ensure that everyone pays the right amount of tax. One of our biggest challenges is effectively to tackle avoidance while encouraging genuine enterprise. We have introduced a plethora of measures to encourage enterprise, but at the same time we have legislated to stop avoidance and help HMRC bring money in more quickly. Since 2010, we have introduced 42 changes to tax law in order to close loopholes and we have invested an extra £1 billion in the area of preventing and deterring tax avoidance, thus bringing in billions of pounds for the Exchequer.

IR35 is the central theme of the committee’s report. It is one of the best known, least popular and least well understood pieces of anti-avoidance legislation. HMRC has been working hard to change this, and I shall come on to it later. However, the real starting point of the debate is the analysis carried out by HMRC on the estimates, which showed that more than half a billion pounds of Exchequer receipts would be at risk were IR35 to be abolished. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, said that she was sceptical about the figure, as undoubtedly was the noble and learned Lord, Lord Davidson of Glen Clova. I am not sure whether my noble friend Lord Palmer dismisses the figure altogether, because he is not normally a man who likes to throw away 550 million quid. The assessment made by HMRC is robust—to use the word of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Davidson—but inevitably there are challenges around estimating the deterrent effects of anything. While we can quibble over whether it should be £550 million or slightly more or slightly less, the bald point is that I do not think anyone who looks at this would doubt the broad conclusion that hundreds of millions of pounds of revenue depends on keeping IR35 in place, and that is why we are going to do so. All our past experience has shown a number of UK incorporations to be very sensitive to available tax incentives. Therefore, we believe that there continues to be a compelling need for this legislation.

In 2011, the Office of Tax Simplification recommended that HMRC improve the administration of IR35. Since then, HMRC has been working with stakeholders, including the IR35 forum, to help people understand the legislation, to reduce the burden on compliant businesses and to address many of the concerns that were subsequently raised by the committee. The committee concluded that the guidance issued on how the system works was “far from satisfactory”. A comprehensive review of the guidance has been undertaken and new guidance was published one week ago following widespread consultation. We are confident that it will be an improvement.

One area in which HMRC has been making substantial changes is how it conducts IR35 inquiries. Many noble Lords touched on this area. I think there has been a certain amount of confusion about the numbers. When it was first introduced, the number of IR35 reviews was extremely high: more than 1,000 in 2002. It then fell dramatically so that in the final year of the previous Government there were 12. That number has now increased to 256, which shows a considerable increase in effort and commitment to ensure that this is not a voluntary area of activity. As we pointed out in our response to the committee, three new compliance teams were created in April 2012, and a fourth team has been put in place over the past year to further enhance HMRC’s ability to respond to IR35 risk.

Is this enough? How do you decide on the very many competing claims for the use of HMRC compliance staff? The answer is that HMRC has to do a risk assessment across the whole range of its activities, which attempts to work out how best to deploy the resources at its disposal. In this area HMRC has looked afresh at the way in which it assesses risk to enable it better to target those who deliberately flout the rules. The number of people involved and the number of cases that have been taken reflect the fact that it has decided to give a greater priority to this issue.

However, HMRC recognises that there is more to be done. In partnership with the forum, it is currently reviewing how it administers IR35 in the round, including the compliance strategy. HMRC and the forum will publish a joint report, with recommendations, in the autumn. A number of noble Lords referred to the forum. Its role has developed since its inception so that its external members now feel that they are driving forward its agenda. It is looking at the contract review service, about which there have been a number of complaints, and the business entity tests, which are being reviewed and changed, very much with the full participation of the forum.

As noble Lords have said, when it was introduced IR35 legislation was looking at people on relatively high salaries and in the professions. Clearly, there has been a big change over the past 15 years in that a very large number of low-paid workers have been brought within the net of personal service companies. Some of these low-paid workers are being forced or enticed into structures, including personal service companies or umbrella companies, and they are clearly in many cases unaware of the full implications of those arrangements.

In this year’s Finance Bill, we tackled a particular model that was being used to engage workers as self-employed when in reality they should have been employees. I hope that demonstrates that we take this area extremely seriously. As part of our concern about how low-paid workers are treated, we are also committed to increasing compliance with the national minimum wage. HMRC actively targets employers who flout their responsibilities and investigates complaints against them. Just last month, a number of those who failed to pay the national minimum wage were named by HMRC for their failure to comply. We have quadrupled the maximum penalty payable by employers who break the law in respect of the minimum wage to £20,000 and we will be legislating in this Session to increase the maximum penalty per underpaid worker to £20,000. So we are doing quite a lot in that area.

However, we recognise that there are a number of problems in ensuring that low-paid workers are aware of what is happening to them and of their rights. At one level, this is a question of joined-up government. Obviously, HMRC is not the only arm of government dealing with people in this situation. HMRC is working with the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, the Home Office and BIS to address the issue of low-paid workers’ rights, in particular in relation to their employment status, how they are engaged and how they are paid. HMRC has a pay and work rights helpline, which provides individuals with a confidential route to discuss these issues. We have updated the guidance on employment status and HMRC’s employment status indicator tool, both of which are accessible online, along with two explanatory factsheets. HMRC is now working more closely with BIS on how to improve the dissemination of the relevant guidance.

I was very taken by the comments of my noble friend Lady Bakewell about people who are really at the bottom end of the income and opportunity ladder, who are often illiterate. Clearly, how one reaches people in that situation is extremely complex and difficult—they are certainly not going to use the employment status indicator tool, whatever they do. We recognise the need to put further effort into dealing with that issue.

A number of noble Lords expressed concern that the Government were not taking enough action in respect of the public sector and off-payroll workers. I think that is rather unfair. The Chief Secretary made it clear to all departments that they needed to limit the length of time any off-payroll worker was employed to six months or less. There has been a review of how this has operated, which has led to action being taken against two departments, the Department for Transport and Defra, which failed to bring senior executives on to the payroll. Defra was fined £102,000 and the Department for Transport £398,000. Real action is being taken and I suspect that the Permanent Secretaries of those departments, as accounting officers, do not like the fact that they are being fined by the Treasury for not doing what they are supposed to be doing, and that this will prove to be a good corrective.

Questions were asked about local government and the devolved Administrations. With regard to local government, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government wrote to the LGA to highlight the issue and has published guidance on it while the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has written to the devolved Administrations in similar terms, so we are taking serious action to ensure that the public sector acts to stop some of the abuses at the top end. With regard to what happens further down the scale, should the public sector have a very strong presumption against using personal service companies for people who earn less than the current reviewable amount of £220 a day?

[Lord Higgins]

Where is the money to pay the fine coming from? Is this simply a transfer from one part of the Government to another? Is it an appropriate sanction? Should someone not be fired?

[Lord Newby]

Well, it is a transfer of money from one part of the Government to another, but this is hardly surprising since it is one part of the Government that has transgressed a rule set by another part of the Government. As for firing senior civil servants for not having kept this properly under review, I am rather tempted by the suggestion—but if it were a principle, we would rapidly find that there was a depletion of civil servants, not specifically in this area but from a whole raft of other areas where there may have been the odd transgression that was not stamped down on quickly enough.

The noble Lord, Lord Davidson, asked an extremely interesting question about the Scottish situation and the relationship between the UK and Scotland, and asked whether there had been discussions with the Scottish Administration on this issue. I am not absolutely sure but I am almost sure; I suspect that there have not been.

This debate has confirmed that personal service companies play a vital role in the UK economy. However, there are those who seek to exploit such arrangements to gain a tax advantage. Because of this, in our view there is still a clear need for IR35. However, there is still more to be done in improving its administration, and HMRC, in partnership with the IR35 Forum, is working very hard on this. We welcome the committee’s recommendations, which will help with this very important work.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill]

Before the Minister sits down, I wish to take up the point about the £500 million saving, which the Minister said I had little regard for. My regard is that it is mythical—there is no proof of it. If HMRC has proof of this, will it bring it forward? The problem with a deterrent is that it is hard to tell what you have deterred and how much you have gained. If there are people who should have been in IR35 and were then brought into it, specific details would be available of the money that had been recovered. I say to my noble friend the Minister that I have no confidence in the figure of £500 million; if I had, I would not have raised the matter.

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I think the point is: what would happen if the restraint were lifted? Would individuals pay more or less tax? HMRC has looked at the behaviour of individuals in a whole raft of other areas where it has a lot of experience, and has drawn what it believes to be reasonable conclusions—which I have looked at and which seem reasonable to me. By definition, though, you cannot absolutely pinpoint how much evasion of tax you have deterred; that is impossible to do with any degree of certainty.

Airports: Heathrow Third Runway

Lord Newby Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Spicer]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what forecast they have made of the tax revenue which will be raised from employment and investment as a result of the construction of a third runway at Heathrow.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, the Government have not made any forecasts of this type. The Airports Commission has been tasked with independently assessing the options for proposed new airport capacity and will present its analysis and conclusions in its final report in summer 2015. In the mean time, the Government do not propose to comment on any of the shortlisted options.

[Lord Spicer (Con)]

If it requires a third runway to make Heathrow fully effective, I suspect that many if not most of your Lordships would accept that it should be built. Indeed, I guess that many of your Lordships will agree with me that it is almost bound to be built at some point in the future. The Cornish, I think, would call that “shortly”, but we would just say “in the future”. There is only one supplementary question that I can think of to ask my noble friend—politely and agreeably, I hope—and that is: when?

[Lord Newby]

I am tempted, of course, to say “shortly”, but it is the next Government who will respond to the report of the Davies commission. However, I think that it is worth pointing out that the Davies commission concluded that although one new runway will be needed, it will not be needed in the south-east until 2030.

[Lord Soley (Lab)]

Does the Minister recognise, with the Chinese Prime Minister and trade delegation in town, that this will not be the first time that the Chinese have raised with us the lack of runway space at our premier hub airport for their expanding economy? Why, then, does the Minister persist with this silly idea that Britain is closed for business because we do not expand our airports?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, it is not for the Government to decide the priorities of individual airlines flying out of Heathrow or anywhere else. However, the noble Lord will be aware that, in September last year, British Airways launched a new service from Heathrow to Chengdu. He will undoubtedly also be aware that our current bilateral flight agreement with China, which sets a constraint on the number of flights that we can have to China, is up for review. Discussions on that will take place next month.

[Lord Brabazon of Tara (Con)]

Does my noble friend have any estimate of the current number of people employed around Heathrow—not at Heathrow, but around Heathrow—in businesses directly involved with Heathrow, such as hotels, catering, freight and others? What would happen to them if Heathrow were to move?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I am not going to speculate on what might happen in any scenario, but one of the key points which I think lies behind the noble Lord’s question is that having an aviation hub in the UK is extremely important for the economy. The aviation sector employs tens of thousands of people and the Government believe that maintaining that hub status is very important.

[Lord Barnett (Lab)]

Would the Government care to give us a case for delaying the decision—or is it the Lib Dems’ fault?

[Lord Newby]

I am tempted to say that I sometimes think that everything is the Lib Dems’ fault. However, this is an extremely important decision. It is a difficult decision, and it is very important that it is taken after the fullest possible consideration of all the factors.

[Lord Mawhinney (Con)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bradshaw]

I wonder whether the Minister might turn his mind to the very effective competition that Gatwick and Birmingham are now providing against Heathrow. Perhaps he will he also say that this is not simply a matter of tax revenue; it is very wide-ranging research about the impacts on employment and revenue for the Treasury, which takes a lot of time. I am certain that whoever caused the pause did so in the proper interests of the country.

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, my noble friend raises a very important point—which is that whatever happens in terms of a particular airport in London in the future, it is very important that we have a range of airport capacity. Manchester Airport and Birmingham Airport play very important roles. My noble friend also referred to Gatwick. On current projections, Gatwick has spare capacity at the moment and will not fill it until about 2020.

[Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister accept two propositions: first, that good aviation links are vital for Britain’s competitiveness and our future economic success; and, secondly, that to govern is to choose? What items in the manifesto of the two coalition parties carried the rubric, “We will make up our minds possibly in five years’ time on this issue”?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, the noble Lord will have to contain his impatience as far as manifestos are concerned, I suspect. I would just point out to him and to the House that the five airports serving London currently offer at least weekly direct services to more than 360 destinations worldwide. That is more than Paris, Frankfurt or Amsterdam.

[Lord Mawhinney]

My Lords, in his earlier answer my noble friend correctly said that it is not the job of the Government to dictate to airlines to which airports they should fly. In the event that Heathrow ceases to provide a suitable hub for this country, given overcrowding, and airlines start to move out, is it thereby implied that it is all right for the Government to tell airlines where they should not fly from, even if it is not all right to tell them where they should fly from?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I do not think that it is a good idea for Government to try to micromanage the commercial decisions of individual airlines.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a question that the noble Lord can answer. Will he tell the House, please, how many international flights have migrated from Heathrow to Schiphol, Charles de Gaulle and Düsseldorf in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013? If he cannot answer now, will he do so in writing?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I am happy to ask colleagues at the Department for Transport to write to the noble Lord, but I do not think that the matter is as straightforward as that. Individual airlines have a whole raft of decisions to take into consideration when they decide what they are going to do. To say simply that lack of capacity is always the cause of the kind of decision that the noble Lord talks about is to oversimplify the matter. However, I will suggest to my colleagues in the Department for Transport that they drop him a line.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Newby Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, I remind the House that, in view of the large number of speakers in today’s debate, we have set a five-minute advisory time. I also advise the House that the G7 Statement will be repeated tomorrow after Oral Questions, rather than today. On these bases, it should be possible for the House to rise by 10 pm.

Church of England (Miscellaneous Provisions) Measure

Lord Newby Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales to acquaint the House that they, having been informed of the purport of the Church of England (Miscellaneous Provisions) Measure, have consented to place their prerogative and interest, so far as they are affected by the Measure, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Measure.

Motion

Moved by