Lords Chamber

Thursday 9th July 2026

(began 2 months ago)

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11:06
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None Portrait Tributes to Lord MacKay of Clashfern Baroness Smith of Basildon, Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal (Labour)
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to the highest legal offices of state is a testament to his extraordinary talent. Rising to become dean of the Faculty of Advocates before. Before serving with distinction as Lord advocate. His deep grounding in Scottish law brought a rigorous analytical clarity to everything he did, a perspective that enriched the entire jurisprudence of the United Kingdom. My Lords, in 1987, Margaret Thatcher broke with centuries of tradition by appointing a Scottish lawyer as Lord Chancellor of Great Britain for a decade, serving in both Margaret Thatcher and John Major governments.

Lord Mackay occupied the Woolsack with a quiet revolutionary authority. He was an historic, modernising Lord Chancellor. He shepherded the Children Act of 1989 through this House onto the statute book, a piece of legislation that radically reshaped family law, firmly establishing that a child's welfare is the court's paramount consideration, and that has stood the test of time. My Lords, Lord Mackay, though he never sought conflict, he was also never afraid of controversy. If he believed it served the public good and he introduced him.

Pioneering reforms to the legal profession that expanded access to justice for millions. Yet for all his grand achievements on the national stage, he retained that gentle humanity and his characteristic warmth and friendliness. Whether it was a word passed in the corridors of your Lordships' House, or pulling up a chair for lunch in the long room, you would welcome his company. My Lord. Like many others, I'd listen in admiration and often in awe when he spoke in the chamber of in committee.

He'd speak without notes, always making insightful and pertinent comments, perfectly crafted and delightfully concise. My Lords, when he retired from this House in July 2022 after more than four decades of dedicated service, it says so much of his character that he didn't use his final remarks to dwell solely on the great offices of state or the complex legislation he championed. Instead, he drew our attention to the prayers that began our proceedings each day, stating, and I quote from speech, I believe that I have been sustained until now by answers to what we pray for at our opening every day.

My Lords, that was the essence of James Mackay. He possessed a mind capable of mastering the most intricate complexities of constitutional law, with a heart that saw, valued and respected every individual and contributed to the life of Parliament. My Lords, he was a giant of the law, a faithful servant of the Crown, and a deeply cherished member of this House. We send our deepest, most heartfelt condolences to his family his wife, his son, his daughters, his friends and colleagues, and all those who knew and loved him.

My Lords, he will be sorely missed. Yeah.
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Lord True Portrait Lord True (Conservative)
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My Lord, I thank the noble Baroness Sater Lord Privy Seal for her warm tribute to our late, beloved friend and colleague, Lord Mackay of Clashfern. And when I say Mackay of Clashfern. And when I say our beloved colleague, my Lords, I mean all of us, all here who knew mean all of us, all here who knew him and heard him for over 40 years as a member of this House. I can think of few, if any, peers who were so sincerely liked and admired on all sides, as was James Mackay.

Now the noble Baroness set out some of his extraordinary achievements. Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, Lord advocate, Scottish law, Lord, Lord of appeal in ordinary. Lord Chancellor for ten years, a Knight of the Thistle, and latterly honoured by his Queen as Lord clerk, Register of Scotland. Never was such a string of great garlands laid on the brow of a more humble man. Not only humble in origin, though he was that, but a man of abiding humility. As our leader said, pomposity and pride were utterly alien to him in the being or in the seeing of them.

The core of his life was the Bible, and that higher power on which he long and regularly reflected. He observed the Lord's day, and when I was new in number ten, I remember. Switch explaining to me not only that you shouldn't ring the Lord Chancellor on a Sunday, but you couldn't, and the line would stay dead. His deep Christian faith moulded a bedrock of principle. He never sought conflict, as our leader said, but he didn't flinch from difficulties if the cause was just.

And, as she said, the first member of the Scottish bar ever to sit on the Woolsack, he set out to break restrictive practices in the law and open access to justice to more people. It didn't make him popular, but he saw it through. And among many legislative achievements, not only the Children Act, to which the noble Baroness rightly referred. Also, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, which brought clarity, like the Children Act in difficult fields of morality and law. He never intended to be a lawyer.

He had the rare distinction of first class degrees in maths from both Edinburgh and Cambridge, where he was, in fact the senior wrangler, an achievement, and he taught maths before reading for the bar. My Lords, this was testament to the extraordinary clarity and precision of James Mackay's mind, and his unerring ability to discern the truth of arguments and determine solutions. The very essence of a good judge. Yet, my Lords, how lightly he carried his great wisdom and learning, always expressed in the simplest language.

As the noble Baroness said, spoken softly and with the most beguiling humour. He had unimpeachable integrity and a fierce independence of mind, which, perhaps was his Highland character, and he graced that great office of Lord Chancellor, speaking truth and justice to power in the Cabinet, defending the rule of law and presiding in this House. My Lords, he was a kindly man, generous in his advice to others, courteous to a fault, with a twinkle in his eye and a quizzical air.

Actually, that made you feel, perhaps, that he was puzzled. Others couldn't see the solutions as swiftly as he did, and after he went to the backbenches, he used to sit on that second row behind the Minister. And when you were at the despatch box and you saw by your shoulder that hand creeping over the back of the seat to haul himself to his feet, you knew you were in for either. The most testing challenge to your arguments from one of your friends, or else the most simple and compelling exposition of the case.

You had actually been floundering for an hour to try to explain to the House, for James Mackay was a great parliamentarian, also a lover of this place and loved by it. So let's remember our brother as a righteous man. Never judge mental, but never afraid to judge between good and evil. A great reformer and a loving family man, Boyd. For 68 years by his remarkable wife and three children, to whom our prayers and sympathy go out. My Lords, this polity, this house, this United Kingdom will never see the like of Lord Chancellor Mackay again.
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Earl of Kinnoull Portrait The Earl of Kinnoull (Crossbench)
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Amen. >> Amen. >> My Lords, it's a great privilege to follow three such speeches and the cries of dismay that greeted the Lord speaker's sad news of the death of the noble and learned Lord. Lord Mackay of Clashfern were as loud on our benches as anywhere else in the House, having, as we do so many of his friends and colleagues from the legal world, from Whitehall, from Scotland, and this House in general, on his enablement in 1979 he chose as his motto Manu justI by the hand of a just man.

And we've heard much of the relevance of this choice so far, and I'll return to it. But I wanted to reflect on his 15 years as Lord clerk Register, the oldest remaining great office of state in Scotland. This was originally a post connected with Scotland's records, and he was therefore one of the four commissioners of the Regalia of Scotland who were responsible on behalf of the Crown for looking after, among other things, the Stone of Scone. The stone was originally taken from Scone Palace, which is by Perth in 1296, and in 1996, thanks to the efforts of Lord speaker, who was then Secretary of State for Scotland, it made it back as far as Edinburgh Castle.

Around about the time of Covid, the commissioners of the regalia had to consider whether the stone would be moved from Edinburgh to Perth, and I was the chairman of the relevant museum in Perth. The four commissioners consisted of three judges and Nicola Sturgeon, and they were in receipt of a tremendous amount of incredibly technical advice concerning security conditions of light and humidity, historical context and so on. The fog of a difficult case. James stopped me one evening in the house and asked a simple question how much would it cost in Perth to see the stone? I said it would be free.

It's rather expensive in Edinburgh at the moment. At £17, he remarked. He had no other questions and he had cleared the fog, and shortly after the commissioners, under his gentle and persuasive skills, reached their decision. About a year after the stone had arrived at the new museum in Perth, I saw James at an event in Scotland and went to say hello. He immediately asked me what had happened to the stone in its first year, and I told him that more than 250,000 people had come a higher high multiple over the previous Edinburgh numbers, and his eyes naturally sparkled and his smile broadened.

An example of Manu justI. In this house. I was going to add one other anecdote, but unfortunately it's already been given because I remember sitting next door to a conservative Minister at the long table and him telling me that the most scary thing of being a Minister in the chamber was not actually Lord Foulkes getting up, and he's not there in his face now, or indeed the Lord speaker getting up in days of yore. But it was actually the gnarled hand coming over the thing.

And you knew that you had no satisfactory answer to give to whatever the question would be. That hand, of course, being the hand of the just man, the man you used to. But I thought I would end on a very simple other thing, which was that when Mrs. Thatcher offered him the role of Lord Chancellor, he told her that he wasn't a conservative, and it wouldn't be silly.
11:21
Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Portrait The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury (Bishops)
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My Lords. condolences and comments of the previous speakers. They have spoken so eloquently. Lord Mackay was kind, welcoming and generous in this House and we on these benches have been very grateful over the years for his gentle but persuasive advice and support. A strict sabbatarian and teetotaller in the best traditions of the Scots Reformation. As we have heard, he would regularly refuse to work, but also to travel, or even to give interviews that might be broadcast on a Sunday and would regularly worship at the Free Presbyterian Church in Inverness, where he also served as an elder as well also at All Souls, Langham Place in my previous Diocese of London, he was a firm believer in moderation.

At a gathering of the Faculty of Advocates, Lord Mackay had laid on a spread of tea and toast, complete with a tiny pot of honey. One of the lawyers in attendance contemplated the pot and remarked, contemplated the pot and remarked, I see your Lordship keeps a bee. He was a great supporter of the Bible Society in Scotland, and was its honorary president until his death, championing the role of the Bible and the role it played in informing our laws, behaviours and also our society.

He even went as far as publishing a booklet which he distributed to Scottish lawyers, describing the Bible as the foundational sourcebook for the Scottish legal system. His legal mind was second to none, and he demonstrated a deep respect for the distinct traditions of Scots, Scottish and English law and the Constitution. Regarding the Constitution, he would often refer to the biblical stories of Daniel and Esther and to the phrase it's all about the law of the Medes and Persians, and the irrevocable and binding nature of a decree from a king.

It was not just his knowledge of the Constitution and his operation, but also his ability to sum up complex arguments. That was impressive. And many of us will know that, having done that, it. It is not an easy task. I note that Lord Hacking, in a debate on the Seafarers Wages Bill in 2022, revealed to the House that in 1990 Lord Mackay had been. Had had the rare honour of being the one few people other than a bishop to read prayers in the House as the bishop had been delayed.

His love of the Highlands was legendary, and he was never happier than being back in Inverness, but also was equally equally at home in London, where until quite recently he could also be seen walking from his home in the temple to the house, refusing all offers of assistance or a lift. My Lords, we keep his family and friends in our prayers and I will finish by using the words from the Church of Scotland's Burial service. We give thanks to God through His Son Jesus Christ, that for Lord Mackay all sorrows are ended, that death itself is past, and that he has entered into the rest that remaineth assured for God's people.

We join these prayers with the assurance of God's presence, that it will remain with Lord Mackay, his family and friends, in their his family and friends, in their loss and comfort. Amen. Amen.
11:25
Lord Hope of Craighead Portrait Lord Hope of Craighead (Crossbench)
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Do I have to add just a word to say something about the way he say something about the way he performed his duties to the house, the truly remarkable way and the stamina that he exhibited. Three stamina that he exhibited. Three things were different in his day. First of all, when you look to the woolsack, you would see him in his woolsack, you would see him in his day dress of the full bottomed wig, the stockings and buckled shoes which he wore every day.

And our timings were different. It was quite usual for the house to sit after 11:00. Indeed, not unusual to sit after midnight, and I'm recorded in Hansard of speaking in the Scotland Bill at 1230 2:30 a.m. but Lord Mackay was always there. He regarded it as his duty to remain on the Woolsack whenever the house sit, and for how long it sat. And the other thing that's different is that there was no team of deputy chairman in his day. I think there was one person who could take his place when it was necessary, but that team did not exist.

So the rotor of leaving the bench, the woolsack from time to time was not there. I remember one day he sat there for eight hours in an important debate with only 20 minutes difference, and the stamina which he exhibited was quite extraordinary. The Lords. I never heard him complain. It was his sense of duty that kept him going, and it was a truly remarkable performance. There were three events, turns of events in his life which made all the difference. The first was shortly before he was approached to be Lord advocate.

He had been offered the place and accepted the place to be a judge in Scotland. The Lord advocate, the Lord advocate who gave him that offer turned. Begun to realise that Labour were going to lose the election as indeed they did. He said to James, I'm sorry, I've changed my mind and all the excitement of the offer of a place on the bench disappeared overnight and James was very much taken aback. But the fact was, because he wasn't a judge and hadn't accepted that offer, he was available.

When Mrs. Thatcher approached him and said, do you know faculty, I need your help because the other candidate for Lord advocate was not suitable. It was his time as Lord advocate as five years that really cemented his relationship with Mrs. Thatcher, which led ultimately to the appointment when Lord Havers sadly fell ill to be Lord Chancellor. These were three events that all turned out in James's favour. He was fortunate that the Lords. Indeed, we were so fortunate to.
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Lord Hanson of Flint Portrait Lord Hanson of Flint, The Minister of State, Home Department (Labour)
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Noble friend makes an important point. Immigration is a very sensitive issue, but it's also one which is multifaceted. We have the which is multifaceted. We have the figures on net migration which are falling. We have the issues around asylum claims which are being asylum claims which are being increased in the processing. We have the number of small boats which we're reducing, and we have which we're reducing, and we have to deal with that. And we also have the very valuable contribution that many people who've come to this country make, from doctors to bus drivers to factory workers, to people involved in our society as a whole.

So I would say to those on the far right who seek to exploit this, we are a cohesive, multicultural society. We have people here who are contributing and we have certain challenges we have to meet, but this government

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is prepared to meet them. Under the points based system, many people came into this country many people came into this country with a variety of visas. But in the last two years, over half a million people have acquired British citizenship. What assessment has citizenship. What assessment has the government done of the Home Secretary's proposed policy change to extend the right to acquire ILR to extend the right to acquire ILR and, I assume, citizenship to ten years in terms of the number of people gaining British citizenship
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Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Portrait Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (Liberal Democrat)
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fully committed to it. It's a treaty that has kept us safe for over half a century, underpinning over half a century, underpinning international security by constraining the spread of nuclear weapons. While disappointing that weapons. While disappointing that consensus could not be reached in New York, the Review Conference covered a thorough examination of covered a thorough examination of global progress to implement NPT obligations over the past four years to identify positive progress years to identify positive progress and those areas that remain challenging.

We will continue to work with partners across the world to strengthen implementation of the treaty across all three of its pillars.

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My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply, and I know. She. Will appreciate that the threat

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Will appreciate that the threat of nuclear war is as great as it ever was. So obviously, the fact that NPT didn't reach a consensus was very disappointing, as she says. was very disappointing, as she says. But can she say that the government But can she say that the government will continue with all the energy it has to pursue the things that it pursued very well before the treaty? And those included the UK's capacity in verification science, the nuclear safeguards, strategic stability and arms control negotiations, and particularly diplomatic engagement, because really, diplomatic engagement is the absolute prime issue in keeping us safe in before we ever reach world disarmament, which we may never reach.
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Lord Vallance of Balham Portrait Lord Vallance of Balham, Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero) (Labour)
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All recognise. regulation, >> Will the Minister explicitly confirm and ensure that a human in confirm and ensure that a human in command approach will apply to the any use of AI in vaccine approvals and pharmacovigilance, so that decisions on approvals and safety monitoring are always taken by qualified human experts, rather delegated to algorithms or an

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automated system alone. The MHRA, I think, is one of the most important and best regulators most important and best regulators in the world for medicines, and none of the requirements for a an none of the requirements for a an AI assisted vaccine design are different than those for a normal one. In other words, it's got to be one. In other words, it's got to be looked at in the same way, at the same sort of safety requirements. And the MHRA is looking at how it can use AI, but certainly as part of a human linked process.

And there will be people making these

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decisions. My Lords, of. Course, the best recent example

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Course, the best recent example of vaccine technology is the pandemic and Covid, and the UK rightly champions the 100 day mission to develop vaccines against any future pandemics. AI, as I'm sure the noble Lord, the Minister sure the noble Lord, the Minister is aware, can rapidly compress that discovery phase through genomic discovery phase through genomic surveillance, lab validation and manufacturing. How then, given that, is the AI being incorporated into the 100 day mission?

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Thank you. As the noble Lord says, the 100 day mission was something that was endorsed at the something that was endorsed at the 2021 G7, and I was very involved in that process. AI will be a critical that process. AI will be a critical part of how we do vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics, and I'm optimistic that this makes the I'm optimistic that this makes the 100 day mission really quite achievable, particularly for vaccines. But and this is an
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None Portrait Oral questions: Scale of humanitarian need in Venezuela following the earthquakes on 24 June Baroness Bi (Labour)
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My Lords, I beg leave to ask the question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
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Baroness Chapman of Darlington Portrait Baroness Chapman of Darlington, Minister of State (Development) (Labour)
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I this is it is an important point, and there are, without a doubt, going to be long term needs to strengthen the state as there were before the earthquake happened. But those have become more and more into sharp relief since the devastating incidence of the two quakes we were before this happened. I think the only G7 country with a functioning team in Caracas. We had a charge there who has led the team incredibly well through very difficult circumstances.

We'll maintain that position and we will work with partners, allies, organisations within country as well to to work out what the right role is for the United Kingdom in this context. It's no longer, I think, the best way to go about these responses, to be trying to to provide everything and to, to act as a pseudo state. That is not what we wish to do. We need to work in a way that recognises local leadership, local, custom, local language, local provision.

The role of faith leadership in Venezuela is important too, and that is the way

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that we'll go about this. My Lord. That concludes oral

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My Lord. That concludes oral questions for today. Noble Lords may want to take a moment to move around the chamber quickly and Questions Questions on Questions on an Questions on an answer Questions on an answer to an urgent question asked in the House of Commons on Wednesday, the 8th of July, on the European Entry System. My Lords, there have clearly been serious issues across Europe this year in relation to the new European entry System, and it is no secret that implementation has been poor.

However, the European Union poor. However, the European Union seems to be under the impression that the new entry exit system is working well. Can I ask the noble or the Minister what discussions have the government had with the have the government had with the European Union about improving the system?
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None Portrait Urgent Question: To ask His Majesty’s Government what measures will be put in place to ensure that holiday travel and business freight will not be delayed at UK ports. International rail terminals and airports as a result of the imposition of the European Entry System (EES) Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Conservative)
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The government is in constant
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None Portrait
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Questions on a statement made in the House of Commons on Monday, the 6th of July, on foreign

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interference in UK politics. My Lords, I thank the noble

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My Lords, I thank the noble Minister for the opportunity to ask questions on this statement, and I also thank Sir Philip Rycroft for also thank Sir Philip Rycroft for his thorough review. O. On these benches, we've consistently supported measures to tackle foreign interference in our democracy. We also recognise the value of Sir Philip Rycroft's review. However, an independent review is not a substitute for ministerial engagement with political parties. We're recommendations affect the rules by which political parties compete with one another.

Government have traditionally sought broad political agreement before legislating the threats posed by hostile states are real and growing, so protecting the integrity of our democratic system is fundamental to maintaining public confidence in our elections. Every political party represented in this House has a shared interest in ensuring that foreign interference, illicit finance, and attempts to undermine our democratic processes are robustly addressed. However, we remain concerned that both the process the government have adopted and aspects of the proposals now being taken forward.

As my noble friend Lady Fin said last during last week's debate, there's a simple constitutional principle at stake. The rules governing political finance are not ordinary legislation. They are the rules by which political parties compete with one another. Governments are therefore the trustees of those rules, not their proprietors. The reason that convention exists is straightforward government should not use their parliamentary majority unilaterally to legislate on finances of their political opponents. Once that principle is abandoned, it becomes easier for future governments of any political persuasion to do the same.

That risks importing the kind of hyper partisan approach to electoral law that has proved so damaging elsewhere. For many years, governments of all political persuasions have recognised that changes in this area should, where possible, be developed through consultation and broad cross-party agreements, rather than imposed unilaterally by the government of the day. That is why the government's approach is so disappointing. Rather than waiting for Philip Rycroft's review to conclude, Ministers introduced the representation of people's Bill before publishing their response.

They've now chosen to cherry pick two recommendations from that review and insert them into the bill through significant government amendments during the stages in the other place, without first engaging in proper cross-party talks, simply informing political parties of changes after they've already been drafted is not consultation. Why did the government not publish a consultation paper for more informal or convene proper cross-party discussions before deciding to legislate? My Lords, constitutional conventions exist precisely because changes to the rules are democratic.

Competition should not come as a surprise to those expected to operate within them. An independent review is valuable, but it's not a suitable political consensus on the rules governing political competition. However, the government have immediately accepted two recommendations from the Rycroft review. A moratorium on cryptocurrency and a £100,000 annual cap on donations from overseas elections before publishing their full response to the review or consulting political parties on how these proposals should operate. More troubling still, these measures are intended to have a retrospective effect from March this year, political parties are therefore expected to comply with legal requirements, whose detailed legislative provisions have not yet been debated by
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Lord Pack Portrait Lord Pack (Liberal Democrat)
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Parliament or indeed published in draft. That is full on draft. That is full on retrospective legislation and is constitutionally very difficult to was the representation of people's Bill introduced before the Royko Rycroft review had been reported, general election, why did Ministers not pause the bill for a matter of weeks to bring forward a coherent urgently with electoral reforms, why were the political finance provisions not introduced in separate legislation, as previous governments have done? Can the Minister also explain what consultation has taken place with the Electoral Commission, parliamentary authorities and political parties on these proposals? What additional resources will be provided to ensure that any new regulatory responsibilities can be implemented effectively? Finally, legislation is only one part of the answer.

Effective enforcement is equally important. Can the Minister therefore tell the House what additional resource will be provided to the Electoral Commission and any other enforcement bodies to ensure that these reforms can be properly implemented and enforced? My Lords, good policy requires more than good intentions. It requires proper consultation, careful scrutiny and in this area, above all, broad political consensus. We will continue to support proportionate measures that genuinely, genuinely strengthen our democracy against foreign interference. But we urge the government to return to the long established constitutional principle that the rules governing political competition should be made with political parties, not simply imposed upon them.

Protecting our democracy should unite Parliament, not become another area for partisan legislation.

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My Lords. I will resist the temptation to ask the noble Lord, the Minister, to remind us what consultation the previous conservative government carried out with either his party or mine over, for example, changing or mine over, for example, changing the electoral system for elections of mayors or indeed expense limits for general elections, but instead for general elections, but instead to the to the heart of the matter. These benches very much share the concern set out in the Rycroft concern set out in the Rycroft review about the risk of foreign money influencing or corrupting our politics, and therefore broadly welcome the government's commitment to implementing the report.

I do, however, have some concerns about the intended speed of implementation, some of the loopholes that will remain, and one particular issue that is not mentioned in the government's response, which I suspect the Minister can successfully predict. But turning first to the intended pace of implementation, recommendation number four regarding non-party campaigners and related issues on this, the government has said it will, quote, commit to consultation and further work. So not committing to action even on that one, on recommendation 14 on internet advertising, the government has promised quotes, proposals in due course and then on recommendation 16 on think tanks and associated issues.

The government's commitment is that it will, quote, will consider opportunities for further work. I fear you can almost hear the wheels of Whitehall grinding to a halt, as you consider that phrase of considering opportunities for further work. So I hope the noble Lord, the Minister, can set out some clear timelines for the government's intended progress on those recommendations, which are, after all, on substantive major issues such as the role of online advertising. Turning to the question of loopholes I've raised before, this question about the government's apparent inconsistent approach between politics and the media, the government appears to be sticking to a significant control test for companies that permits greater foreign ownership of a company that donates to our politics than is permitted for a company that owns one of our newspapers.

It remains to be unclear why the government thinks that a lower level of protection against foreign interference is appropriate for our politics than it is for our media. And I hope the noble Lord, the Minister, might be able to clarify that the government is proposing, and I think in a broad sense, this is a welcome step in the right direction. Introducing a new threshold of £2,230, above which pre-campaign donations to individual candidates would need to be declared. Now, that sounds a reasonable threshold until one remembers that British wide political parties will typically stand 633 or not contesting the speaker seat 632 candidates across the country 632.

Lots of 2000 a bit pounds gets you to nearly £1.5 million worth of donations that could legally, legitimately and in secret be made unless the government also proposes to go a little bit further and introduce some aggregation requirements around those donations to individual candidates. So I hope the noble Lord, the Minister, will be able to tell us what is intended on that front and indeed, the the government statement is rather silent on whether such similar protection will be extended to, for example, elections to the Mayor of Greater Manchester or the mayor of.

Of London. Those amongst other elected posts at other levels of election have important power, and although we have not had yet a track record of having to worry about foreign money in such elections, it would seem to me prudent to extend such protections. Finally, turning, of course, to the issue of the consolidation of election law and the dangers, costs and complexity that arise from the sort of messy and fragile state of election law. I've used the parallel of a teenager with a messy bedroom in the past.

The government never quite decides now is the time to start cleaning up that bedroom, the Ryecroft review said. I quote, I urge the government to consider action in this area now, because that was a boxed out urging of the government to consider, rather than a formal recommendation. The government's response so far has been silent on that particular part of the Ryecroft review, so I hope the noble Lord, the Minister can tell us, having been urged by Ryecroft to consider this issue, what consideration it has come to, one specific example, because consolidation does not have to be a big project put off forever to only be done in one big bang, it's possible to pick off little
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Lord Lemos Portrait Lord Lemos, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government) (Labour)
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will apply to donations they make between today and the date of the commencement of the measures, including any regulated today on commencement, the cap and minimum residency period will apply in the same way as for those who in the same way as for those who were formerly overseas electors. As we previously announced, we will introduce a moratorium on all introduce a moratorium on all political donations of any amount made by by a cryptocurrency. The arrangements around crypto are arrangements around crypto are simply too opaque.

Building on previous announcements and in response to the review, I am now safeguards. We will amend the corporate donation test so that it is based on post-tax profits rather than revenue, measured over five years, to prevent a double counting, we will introduce a new donor declaration to be made by anyone donating above a specified threshold. We will engage with the Electoral Commission and political parties as we develop the declaration, including an appropriate threshold. We are introducing a raft of transparency measures.

We will also strengthen rules and transparency on donations to candidates. Candidates will have to declare that donations used to fund campaigning, as the noble Lord Lord Pack said prior to formally becoming a candidate are from permissible sources. Donations in that period above 2300 will need to be £2,230 will need to be cleared. The noble Lord Lord Pack asked me about aggregation. We have no plans to to to legislate on aggregation. At the moment. We recognise how vital it is for the health of our democracy that we have a regulator that is fearless, fearlessly independent and to the noble Lady's point, properly resourced to do the job that we are asking it to do.

And that is why, to ensure the independence, we are also appealing the government's powers to designate a strategy and policy statement for the Electoral Commission. Beyond political finance, we will take steps in both in the representation of the people's Bill and more broadly, to implement these important reforms. Perhaps I can quickly come in the time I have left to me, and if I don't manage to cover everything, I will come back to noble Lords on consultation. I don't think I have anything to add to the noble Lord Lord Pack gave very adequate response on the history, so I shan't.

I shan't go over that again. I do, however, accept the point that the noble Lady made, that we are trustees, and not proprietors of the political finance system. I take that very seriously. I take very seriously the risks of tit for tat. I said this in the debate last week, and we. And the risks that future governments might get into a sort of prisoner's dilemma. I don't, however, accept that these reforms are partisan, hyper partisan or otherwise. And I do agree with the noble Lady that that is not a scenario.

We we want to see the parliamentary parties panel of the Electoral Commission has continued discussions between parties, but I will give the noble Lady this assurance that I will, as this legislation proceeds, which I will be taking through your Lordships House, I will engage in a lot of detail with anyone who's keen enough to talk to me. The noble Lord Lord Hayward has already had the pleasure of my. My company on the. On these matters, so. And I bow to his superior knowledge.

I can see him waiting to rise to his feet on. Resources of the Electoral Commission. I take the point that the noble Lady makes just very quickly on the point that noble the noble Lord Lord Pack made. I do take very seriously the question about online adverts and indeed misinformation online generally. I don't think any of us. I see the Lord Clement-Jones nodding. I don't think any of us feel that we cracked it, to be blunt. And this is an area that we'll have to continue to think about in relation to political representation, online advertising and so on.

We'll all be here on this subject for some years to come. I think foreign ownership of the media. I hope the noble Lord will forgive me if I don't get don't don't get drawn into that. But I take the point he makes. I've discussed already our plans on on aggregation and on consolidation. I think I did answer actually last week, but I'm very happy to repeat my answer, which is that the government wants to fulfil the commitments it's made in its in its manifesto and as a first step, but I better not say that, because that might get me into a whole lot of trouble.

But but but that is our priority. And you can understand why why that is our priority. But I do understand the arguments. And the noble Lord Lord Hayward made the same arguments to me yesterday about consolidation on the 1695 act. I'll have to come back to the Lord.

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I commend the statement. Despite that absence, in my knowledge, to your Lordships. My Lord.

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My Lord. My Lords, before we move on to backbenchers, I just want to remind backbenchers, I just want to remind the House that the next 20 minutes are reserved for questions from backbenchers only, and I know the whole House would appreciate these whole House would appreciate these rules being adhered to in order to ensure as many noble Lords as possible get a suitable opportunity possible get a suitable opportunity to ask questions to the Minister. So that means questions, not speeches or statements.

Lord Lemos has referred to me. Can I, in opening echo what Lord Pack said, and I'm pleased to see Lord Kennedy in his seat, since I've noted. Notified him that I intended to quote him from July the 15th, 2022, in Hansard, where he said, I hope that when we get a new Prime
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire Portrait Lord Wallace of Saltaire (Liberal Democrat)
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talk about think tanks. I was listening the other night in a committee room upstairs to a number of experts on foreign interference, talking about foreign governments funnelling money through think tanks in Britain to influence our political debate, including not not only the Russian but the the last Hungarian government. And I therefore urge the government to consider including those forms of indirect political influence to shape the political debate and the noble Baroness Hayter may also add that PR firms are also engaged in this.

As part of what we need to control and to insist on transparency, at the very least in where the money is coming from. Can I also suggest that we should have a Defending Democracy task force, which reports to Parliament about what it is defending and what the threats are, so as to inform and alert us all to where we are. And may I also add, I was the lead on our benches in for the 2022 bill. I have been trying to recall the consultations which the then conservative government had with other parties.

I must admit I must have forgotten they took place. I was unaware that there was any form of constitutional convention, and I will welcome the paper from the conservative benches about the Constitutional Convention when it was shaped, how the conservative government previously used it in consultation with other papers, and perhaps at that point we may be able to discuss this new

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Constitutional Convention further. Yes, yes. I don't think I have anything to

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I don't think I have anything to add to the noble Lords final point, other than it sounds a bit like the Schleswig-Holstein question to me, Schleswig-Holstein question to me, but. But I would say on the question about think tanks and so on, I've already said in my speech on, I've already said in my speech how the principle behind this bill, which is that we are seeking to
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Lord Shamash Portrait Lord Shamash (Labour)
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across Europe are suffering the same issue about money coming in, possibly from Moscow and elsewhere, not least Armenia, not least Hungary recently, and Moldova, and a considerable amount of time and effort has been spent by people to think of how actually they can tighten up the rules and make things more effective. What I'm concerned about here, and it's been touched on about the issue about enforcement, and I may mention this last week when this matter did come up, is if, for example, since things changed since last week, if council if count Binface was actually going to be the recipient of several hundred thousand pounds from some foreign donations, and he were to win that election in Clacton, and many might think that he'd like to see him win that.

But that's another matter for another time, in another place. The concern, though, is what would be the ability to enforce against him. He would be the successful then member of Parliament. And what I'm concerned about is whether the representation of the people as drafted has the teeth to be able to get and remove that particular member of Parliament. Now there's a recall of Parliament Act 2014, which is not properly covered by this, and I would wonder whether the Minister could actually give some advice to think carefully how we are going to deal with this particular problem, and maybe something he could write to me, or

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we could meet with and have a discussion about some future. I already have a date to meet

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I already have a date to meet the noble Lord Lord Shamash, so we can certainly pick this point up can certainly pick this point up then. But I would say that these individual breaches and potential breaches and allegations and so on are matters for the Electoral Commission, and it's our job to empower them to to deal with them
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Baroness Ashton of Upholland Portrait Baroness Ashton of Upholland (Labour)
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response. And in the future. My Lords, I should begin my remarks by paying tribute to the noble Lord Lord Cromwell, who's not in his place today, but who is the place today, but who is the instigator of this inquiry. I'm very grateful to him for proposing and championing, championing that your Lordships needed to consider our relationship to and work in space. The committee was fortunate to have such a brilliant team of clerks and advisors who made this report come alive. It astonishes me how they were able to guide us through such a challenging subject, keeping us within the framework of a report based on evidence but never kerbing our enthusiasm for the subject and apparently becoming experts on the subjects.

Within days of being given the task of supporting our work. Sabrina. Steph Scott, you are truly fantastic. Sarah, thank you for your work in communications. And Michelle, we could not have asked for a better external advisor on behalf of the committee. Thank you, my Lords. Most of all, I want to pay tribute to the noble Lords who formed themselves into the Space Committee with a fabulous combination of enthusiasm and curiosity. I have performed many functions in your Lordships House, but never chaired a committee before, and my colleagues were a joy to work alongside.

We even had a space baby during one of our public sessions. My noble friend Viscount Stansgate, who brought its wealth of experience in science and will do so again today, was momentarily distracted by the news of his new baby granddaughter's arrival. It added to the urgency we felt for this subject, with all its potential that it could offer her a better future. Perhaps inspired by the new family member, he made the point that space would be an integral part of the lives of her generation.

The noble Lord Lord Clement-Jones in my chaired in my occasional absence, for which I'm extremely grateful, bringing his legal knowledge as well as enthusiasm, especially in tackling some of the environmental questions on our visit to the Harwell Space Cluster in Oxfordshire. With over 100 space businesses where the European Space Agency and the UK Space Agency before it was folded into the department. And I pay tribute to the noble Lord Lord Willetts for his role in that. A business leader said to us there that he'd had many visits where people barely asked a question and feared we might not have much to say.

My Lords, we were impossible to stop. Some of us were more impossible than others, barely catching the train back and still with lots to say. My award for enthusiastic questioning goes to my noble friend Lord Shamash, who brought not only his legal prowess, but also his unstoppable ability and interest, which delighted the businesses that we met. I'm only sad we were unable to have this debate before the noble Lord Lord St John of Bletso left the House. He'd hoped to make his farewell speech on this report, and on behalf of the committee, I send him all our good wishes in our lifetimes.

My Lord, space has moved from the almost science fiction launch of Sputnik, the early pioneers of Mercury in Gemini, through the developments of Sutton Five and the heady days of the Apollo missions. Many, though not all, of the committee remembered the anticipation of Apollo Eleven's grainy photographs from the surface of the moon and the crisis of Apollo 13. Still my favourite film. We have witnessed the buildings of the International Space Station, the Soyuz missions, the work and the tragedies of the space shuttle and seen are largely two.

Country race and collaboration, transformed to a time when 90 countries have space programs. China has its own space station in orbit, and indeed, the world has not seriously worked together on how to regulate space since the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. Ten years ago. There were 2000 satellites. By 2030, we'll have a minimum of 6000, and the possibility of 100 000. We've seen our relationship with space change our everyday lives in ways that seemed barely possible only a few years ago.

Most of the time, we're unaware of our reliance on what happens above us. 18% of our GDP is reliant on satellites, and were we to lose our PNT, positional navigation and capabilities for just one week, it would cost our report. We had the benefit of an extraordinary group of witnesses and teachers. We held 24 evidence sessions, received 106 written submissions, and heard from 62 witnesses. We had masterclasses from astronaut Chris Hadfield and Tim Peake on their experience past and present.

Future astronaut John McFall gave us insights into his ambition for his time in space. Professor Brian Cox aided us immensely, even interviewing me at the conclusion of the report to gain greater publicity for our work and of the businesses we met. I should single out Clear Space, who braved the security needs of your Lordships' House to bring in their robotic arm designed to catch satellites in orbit to service, repair or remove them. Experts in law, regulation, climate issues all gave us the benefit of their knowledge.

We heard from many of the over 60 universities engaged in space. Research discovered there were 84 observatories engaged in space work, and recognised that this sector had grown much faster than the rest of the economy over a number of years. We spend 1% of the global space budget and get a 5% share of the market. In a global space economy anticipated to grow 20% 60% by 2030 and by 2035, predicted to be worth £1.8 trillion. My Lords, we took the decision to focus primarily on the economic benefits, the challenges of promoting space safety, especially as there are over 4000 tracked pieces of space debris in orbit and almost a million smaller pieces capable of damaging satellites due to the velocity of their travel and the partnerships that allow us to scale up our engagement.

We were mindful that 50% of expenditure on space comes from the Ministry of Defence, that there are many dual purpose technologies and that in the context of resilience, satellite services are critical infrastructure. I'm very grateful for the advice of Major General Tedman, Head of Space Command. Had we had longer, we would have delved more into these areas. But with the defence review and the committee currently examining issues of resilience, we are confident that some of these vital issues will have or have been examined.

We hope the government will put all these reports together in thinking about next steps. The noble Lord Lord Lansley paid particular attention to our links with defence, and I look forward to his contribution, which I'm sure will feature this today. What surprised us the most, my Lords and I believe comments colleagues will comment on this is just how far space, working, working space has become part of our infrastructure, the landscape for much of our economy. Satellites enable more precision farming, as anyone watching Clarksons farms will note, GPS allows autosteer systems to guide tractors with extreme precision, minimising overlaps, saving fuel and reducing crop damage.

Weather satellites help farmers to plan vital not just in the UK, but especially in areas suffering from the extremes of climate change and disruption. And financial investors can assess crop health, estimate yields and so on. Using satellite technology, where information is scarce, shipping companies use navigation satellites to locate track locations on their phone, not just of vessels, but of their contents. Most of us use GPS to work out our travel routes, avoiding traffic jams and disruptions. Online banking uses satellite for internet connectivity and in remote or rural areas, provides connections to logging to a bank.

In the medical field. We heard from witnesses like Bill orbit about the potential to manufacture drugs that work more effectively with fewer side effects, allowing patients to administer complex drugs safely at home. Others spoke about the advantages of growing skin and organs in microgravity. On Tuesday. This week, a British Start-Up mass balance announced it is sending a miniature autonomous orbital lab to space to help develop new dementia drugs by watching how the complex proteins that cause Alzheimer's fold and clump in microgravity.

My Lords, one of the most exciting areas we heard about was how the UK is an early mover in orbital servicing, assembly and manufacturing companies like Astroscale and Clearspace, developing technologies to clean up space debris and service satellites in orbit. Space Forge developing fully returnable satellites designed to manufacture the next generation of higher performance semiconductors, making things like vehicle chargers and 5G networks significantly more efficient. With the cost of launch becoming significantly reduced, largely due to reusable rockets.

The potential to do more in space increases. And that brings us on to the geographical advantage we have in launch capabilities as an island where rockets can avoid populated land and access polar orbits. Saxophone Spaceport in Shetland has announced a launch window for a possible rocket test flight in August or September, with German firm RFA expected to be the first to carry out tests this year. I'm sure the Nobel Baroness Barran Lord Borwick will have more to say on this subject, but the committee was mindful of the need to ensure a really good business case for the launch site.

My Lords were well aware we must not miss opportunities and heard evidence of the need to have our own capacity to launch, but we are keen to hear from government on how they see the future for a commercially successful launch capability, and whether a spaceport capability offered to international clients has the potential to be useful commercially for this country. My Lords, as a Royal Society have said, space technologies will become even more fundamental and integral to modern economies. That requires government think government departments to be building into their forward thinking the value and use of space in all sectors.

We've heard the same creed occur for decades about how to make government join up in its thinking. I know that the noble Lord Lord Tarassenko will offer his insights into higher education, the needs to support R&D and thinking across government. We have made proposals for a space Minister dedicated solely to this work, and an envoy to work alongside businesses, universities and feed into government. It's crucial that we address the needs of start ups to grow up. It's not confined to this area and often spoken of as a British malaise.

Greatest invention, then brought on board by others. We heard how companies are approached all the time to move to the USA, the Gulf or elsewhere. We're lucky that some are firmly committed to this country, but they can only stay if they can access the resources they need. So I hope the Minister will tell us what more can be done. Many businesses talked about the importance of moving from grants to contract, and what a difference that would make. Can the government do this and at speed, having certainty in contracts, plus the ability to more effectively leverage other investment as a consequence, was a big part of the ask that many felt would make a difference.

As the noble Lord Lord Booth-Smith on the committee pointed out, private sector investment needs to be improved, a strategy to promote investment and opportunities should be part of the government's efforts to boost economic growth in this area. But businesses spoke, too, about the challenges of skill shortages up to 95% in some cases. This is not just about scientific knowledge and innovation. Successful for successful business. All kinds of skills are needed. As the noble Baroness Baroness Bonham-Carter not able to be here today reminded us, this is about steam, not just Stem.

Arts and humanities play their parts too. Opportunities and education play a key part. As my noble friend Baroness Donaghy with her long experience in the world of work, reminded us and no doubt will today. But in a time when the Milburn Report speaks so passionately and alarmingly about her, young people called for shorthand purposes. NEETs. Surely this is an area we could invest in in job training space sparks imagination, but requires practical skills to make the imagined real. A campaign to engage some of the 1 billion young people should surely be considered.

How exciting this could be for those who, one way or another, have had few opportunities or been seized of the possibility. My Lords, is intense competition in this field. Those who succeed will be those who develop strong national strategies that align government industry around national advantages and shared goals, and who understand that rapid changes need to harness this new future. The noble Baroness Baroness Stowell, with her deep understanding of AI and her knowledge of the need to move on these major challenges at speed will, I'm sure, have much to offer our debate here.

We have the opportunity across the country with our space clusters, space catapult, prime small businesses, universities and institutions to significantly boost our economy. Not everything we should do, we should do alone. Our role in the European Space Agency is key. Our partnerships with NASA, Japan, Canada, Australia are all important. I look forward to hearing more of what is being proposed. My Lords, here are real opportunities for economic growth and new industries, offering new products from regulation and legal services to testing and building satellites, engineering and space, new medicines offering farmers greater crop yields, shipping and shopping, or simply getting safely from one place to another.

And every government department should be involved in working out what we should do. This is as important as the Industrial Revolution was in the 18th and 19th century. For determining our future. We stand on the cusp of something remarkable. Space is the enabler for the way we will live. Whether we rise to the challenge, invest in this potential and take the best kind of risk is up to this government in this moment. Now is the time to seize

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that moment. In other words, act now or lose out. I beg to move. The question is that this motion

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The question is that this motion be agreed to. And my Lords, I congratulate the

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And my Lords, I congratulate the Committee on an excellent report which really is a magisterial review of the issues in space policy and also brings out the opportunities for us as well. I opportunities for us as well. I should declare an interest as chair of Saxavord spaceport, which has already been referred to, and before that, as chair of the UK Space Agency, I gave evidence to
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Lord Willetts Portrait Lord Willetts (Conservative)
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the committee about the agency. My history here is that when I arrived history here is that when I arrived as a Minister in 2010, with SpaceX as one of my responsibilities, I as one of my responsibilities, I inherited plans from the previous Labour government, the excellent Labour government, the excellent Lord Drayson, to create a new UK space agency as an arm's length body that. Plans from the previous body that. Plans from the previous Labour government, which I then implemented, and in my final year as chair of the space agency, I loyally implemented the new Labour Government's plans to get rid of the space agency as an arm's length body.

Those are, of course, the ups and downs of politics, which many of us in this House are aware of. But I have to say that in the interim, what had happened was a decision several years ago to split policy in the department from operations in the agency, and that model was not working. It is absolutely right to bring together policy and operations, and if that is inside DSIT with its broader links to other departments, so be it. And I wish all, all success to the new space agency once again bringing all those roles together.

But I hope the Minister will be able to ensure the House that real, deep technological expertise within the space agency will be preserved even within the Whitehall department. A key theme of the report is the excellent opportunities that we have, and I certainly regard launch as one of them. Saxavord is the UK's great opportunity to have a vertical launch capability, and it has already received support from the government. One of the themes of this report is, of course, the many different ways in which government can support the space sector, and one of the ways to do that is through procurement.

So can I ask the Minister that if, for example, the government backs financially launch in the UK and launch companies, will it also encourage them to launch their rockets from Oxford? And similarly, if the Mod is planning launch when they are planning the planning the launch of satellites, will they be encouraged to consider sex offered as a launch option? It is striking at the moment how saxavord the main military interest in using us, comes from Germany and the Kensington treaty linking Britain and Germany means that now there is very significant interest from the German military in using saxophone to launch the very large commitments to new satellite constellations they've made.

It would be great if that were matched with some interest from our mod. The German interest in Saxavord is has to be looked at against the backdrop of the EU Space Act, which is briefly referred to in the report, but does present an increasingly tricky challenge for the UK space sector. It is pretty protectionist about EU companies and EU provision, but the irony when it comes to launch is that the main is mainland EU is space locked. There is no viable space launch capability within the mainland of the EU.

Europe's two vertical launch options are at Saxavord in Scotland and at Andoya in Norway, which is in the European Economic Area. So I hope the Minister will be able to assure the House that she will absolutely do her best to ensure, in conversations and negotiations with the EU that the EU Space Act does not, is not a protectionist barrier to British space companies or launch from the UK. The report rightly brings out the importance of promoting investment in space and that.

Where is. That brings us to another important initiative the rise of the public finance institutions the so-called puffins, the National Wealth Fund, the British Business Bank, which are a really important tool for promoting co-investment, bringing together private finance and public finance. And again, they are referred to in the excellent report. However, the word in the space sector is that the National Wealth Fund has decided that it will not invest in space, despite space being identified as one of the priorities in the industrial strategy.

So I hope the Minister can assure the House that the National Wealth Fund will consider investing in space, and that space companies with suitable propositions should be able to bring them to the MWF, as well as the British Business Bank. Finally, I could just mention one of my most frustrating experiences having advocated the government taking its stake in OneWeb has been observing the ways in which, sadly, that opportunity was not taken in the way that it could have been.

We're now in the position where it is part of Eutelsat, and it is striking how, as Eutelsat decides which commission satellites, they're not being built in the UK and where to launch their satellites. That's not happening from the UK. It is not too late to use OneWeb in the way that we originally envisaged as a strategic opportunity for us to advance our interests in space. I congratulate the Committee on its excellent report and look forward to the

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ministerial response. Lord Jay. It was a privilege to be a member of the UK. Engagement be a member of the UK. Engagement with Space Committee served so well by his two clerks, Sabrina Ashgar by his two clerks, Sabrina Ashgar and Steve Coulter, and expertly chaired by the noble Lady Baroness Ashton of Upholland. I realised that she was going to be a wonderful chair when she persuaded our first witness to join her and some members of the committee to drink champagne with him immediately after his appearance
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Lord Tarassenko Portrait Lord Tarassenko (Crossbench)
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before our committee. Only later did it become clear that Professor did it become clear that Professor Brian Cox appearance before our committee had coincided with his committee had coincided with his birthday. Apart from the noble Lord Lord Booth-Smith, and here, maybe disagreeing with the chair, I disagreeing with the chair, I believe that all members of the committee could recall seeing the committee could recall seeing the moon landing on TV in August 1969. But despite having witnessed this extraordinary event for humankind, and perhaps because we had, or perhaps because we had done so, we were still not fully aware of the importance of space to the UK economy.

Not only that, but the role that it plays in UK's defence and national security. Those two words, dual use, featured regularly in the evidence presented by our witnesses. It was not possible for us to ascertain how well co-ordination between DSIT and MoD worked to deliver Cross-governmental space policy. It is my view that the DSIT Minister responsible for space at the time, did not manage to convince the committee that he was fully aware of the detail of the Ministry of Defence's space plans.

And yet we now know that a long awaited defence investment plan has allocated 3.2 billion of direct investment in space for the next four years. So my first question to noble Lady, the Minister, is to ask how closely involved she was as a DSIT Minister responsible for space in helping to shape the allocation for space in a defence investment plan. My Lords, the space sector shares several of the positive characteristics of other deep tech sectors in the UK, a thriving academic base in our universities, a rapidly increasing number of start ups and a global economy within its domain, growing at about 10% per annum.

It delivers 7 billion GVA with a labour productivity 2.3 times the UK average. And yet the UK only ranks 16th in space investment as a proportion of GDP behind the US and most major European countries, as well as Japan, South Korea and Israel. And this low level of investment has been compounded by fragmentation and lack of focus. The government has attempted to address this issue by first recognising space as a priority frontier sector within the Advanced Manufacturing Sector plan of its 2025 industrial strategy.

Secondly, in March this year, the noble Lady the Minister announced that the government would prioritise funding in four subsectors satellite communications assured access to space, in-orbit servicing, assembly and manufacturing, ISAM and space domain awareness. Now, my Lords, such prioritisation is defensible, provided that it remains possible for innovative university labs or start-ups to access funding for research and development at side of the chosen subsectors. And here, space weather research provides a salutary tale. Back in 2007, the newly formed and the noble Lord, Lord Willis, will remember this Science and Technology Facilities Council Stfc decided to stop funding solar terrestrial physics.

Eventually, after parliamentary intervention and other steps, the Natural Environment Research Council agreed a rescue package. Fast forward to 2026 and today the UK space weather community built from that research on solar terrestrial physics, stands as a world leader in operational forecasting crucial to the aviation industry. Because solar flares can disrupt the radio communications used by aeroplanes on polar and remote routes. Yet the underpinning research was initially written off in 2007. My Lords UK are at present engaged in a rather fraught dialogue with the physics community about the funding allocation for Fcfc.

I therefore asked the noble Lady, the Minister, whether DSIT will carry out an impact assessment of the flat settlement. In effect, cuts proposed by Ukri in physics funding, which will include the consideration of their possible impact on space research. Finally, the noble Lady, the Minister has recently answered questions in this House about AI sovereignty. There has a Commons science, Innovation and Technology Committee published a report two days ago on science, diplomacy, sovereignty, strategy and the global race, in which it argues that tech sovereignty should encompass not only AI but also space and quantum.

So my final question to the noble Lady. The Minister, is to ask whether she agrees that the subset of space technologies beyond assured access to space should be designed as sovereign capabilities for the UK, and whether any work is going on within DSIT and MoD to investigate how we might improve resilience in these space capabilities without, in the words of the Prime Minister, telegraphing our specific vulnerabilities to hostile actors.

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Here. My Lords, I thank the noble Lady Baroness Ashton of Upholland and Baroness Ashton of Upholland and the whole committee for this extremely enthusiastic report. I suspect I will be taking a suspect I will be taking a different perspective to every other speaker in this debate, because I'm going to start from because I'm going to start from down here on solid Earth, a planet that we have comprehensively
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Portrait Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party)
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that we have comprehensively trashed, where we've exceeded seven of our nine planetary boundaries, as identified by the Stockholm Resilience Centre. We talk about what's happening up in space, but what we do up there has huge impacts down here on the earth. And my I start from the proposition that Britain's place in space, both in terms of the activity happening from our own land and our global diplomatic and other efforts need to keep that in mind. There are very useful things we can do from space.

We can see how fast the Amazon is being destroyed, how fast the peatlands of the Democratic Republic of Congo are suffering. We can watch the depletion of water, aquifers, all of these things. It's important for us to understand what we're doing and we need space. We need to use space to do that. But we also don't have to do everything we possibly could do in space. We have choices, just like we have choices about whether we use huge amounts of energy and water for data centres, for so-called artificial intelligence, and we need to think before we act.

And some noble Lords may recall the cautionary tale of the UK's first military satellite, Skynet one a. It was launched in 1969. It was somewhere in the mid 1970s, deliberately moved because it was no longer in use. It's now in an inconvenient orbit. No one can find the records of where and how that was done and the whole circumstances. There's one man in his 80s who probably was the person responsible, but can no longer remember the details. We need to think about the long term impacts of what we do, not just short term throw things up and think we can forget about them.

And as has already been alluded to, we are already crowding space. I note that in 2021, the G7 leaders summit in Cornwall was debating the sustainable use of space back then, and it will only have got worse. 85% of the 28,000 routinely tracked objects in earth orbit were debris that no longer serve a purpose. Just as the oceans swirl with our junk, so does near space. Now, the report acknowledges in paragraph 315, page 95, that one of the foremost challenges of our of the ongoing space economy is the threat of the so-called Kessler event, the case where one satellite explodes or has an impact.

It then sends debris into a wide field and expands and expands. And that brings up another important point that I think we need to consider is relying on things in space, is relying on services and operations from that fragile environment. One of the things I learnt when I was doing the Armed Forces Parliamentary scheme was how all of our traffic lights are timed from space. Kessler events. Just think of that's just one small example of the impact that it could have.

So relying on space is something we have to think about when we're thinking about our resilience and security. There's also the environmental pollution impacts 100 to 200 tonnes of hardware that is out of control, re-enters the Earth's atmosphere every year. The impact, should it land on a major city are, of course, very significant. But wherever it lands, it has impacts. In June 2025, after an Elon Musk SpaceX rocket exploded after launch in Mexico, there were die offs of fish, dolphins and sea turtles.

And I know it's just this week that the Australian Space Agency has identified the likely source of mysterious large balls that washed up on a beach north of Townsville. They are thought to be safe, safe space debris from pressure vessels from a space launch vehicle. Crews in protective suits were placing the spheres in hazmat barrels under police guard. This is a risk and an environmental concern. I do want to come up with 1 to 1 final point, because I think this is really important in the report that I need to stress stress on.

In paragraph 251, the report notes that the EU Space Act announced in June 2025. The third pillar of it is sustainability. Operators must must reduce the environmental impact of their activities in space. Now, I find this is one element of I have to take question what the committee is proposing, because there is a suggestion in here that we might as a non EU member for the moment anyway, that we might find a competitive advantage by having lower environmental standards.

Well, I would like to put a question to the noble Lady, the Minister. I would hope that she would reassure me that that's not the direction that we would want to take. And I note also that the committee does note in paragraph 255 that actually, if we did have different lower standards from the EU, that would actually impose costs on operators in doing those things. So, my Lords, let's think before we act. We haven't done that with so much of what we've done on earth, on this

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planet. Let's think before we act in space. My Lords, it's a great pleasure

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My Lords, it's a great pleasure to follow the noble Lady and to participate in this debate, as indeed it was a very great pleasure indeed it was a very great pleasure to be part of the Committee under the superb chairmanship of the noble Lady, Baroness Ashton. And I noble Lady, Baroness Ashton. And I have to say we. I think we are. Are able to say we produced for a sessional Committee something of very great substance in a very short space of time, and I thought it was only because of the support we received.

The. The volumes of evidence that we received, the enthusiasm with which people supplied us with evidence and our Secretariat, we were able to
13:38
Lord Lansley Portrait Lord Lansley (Conservative)
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achieve that so and and doing so with great enjoyment. I think the with great enjoyment. I think the enthusiasm and enjoyment I had from being part of the committee is something I hope to to replicate something I hope to to replicate with other committees. I should draw attention to my interest, which I do want to. And it bears upon my views in relation to the upon my views in relation to the report. The. I was many years ago, in 1981, in Space branch of the Department of Industry, as it then was, and we were writing space policy.

We did both policy and operations in those days. But one of the things we chose to do was not to take part in future space transport systems, i.e. Ariane, which is one of the major European Space Agency programmes. Instead, we chose to focus on satellite communications and earth observation, and. And subsequent decades demonstrated that the UK industrial and economic return from that investment was far in excess of what was subsequently able to be achieved by France, for example, through its investment in Ariane.

I might say to my noble friend, French Guiana is part of France, so the French would be very unhappy at the thought that there wasn't a launch capability in Europe in inverted commas, because it happens in French Guiana. But but let me also say, because I think here I, I think I'm in sympathy with something that the noble Lady Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle said. I actually think earth observation is not only vitally important task, but actually we have terrific advantages in this country that we've built up over decades, not only in the production of satellites and so on, which is important, but actually in the integration and analysis and use of data.

Declare an interest. In 2017 and 19, my wife's company and I helped out with it was contracted by the European Commission to do work on Copernicus data and how SMEs could use Copernicus data for so many applications. So I do wonder about the the decision not to have earth observation as one of our continuing space objectives. And I do question we raised in the committee's report the need for there to be a business case and an economic rationale for the launch capability.

I look forward to listening to the noble, my noble friend Baroness Mobarik on this subject, but I think it's got to be very much proven, because otherwise we are investing through ESA, potentially in ways that will not deliver the economic return that earth observation could have done. I do want to turn just to defence matters. The Defence Investment plan has now been published. We can see the 3.2 billion figure. I can only identify in my amateur way about half of that and what that's going to be spent on.

What I can see is that we're not going to be continuing with the invest further investment in the Skynet six programme. And I think actually, understandably, we are engaging in a process of trying not only to have, as it were, on satellite communications, a system of systems, but also on a thing like narrowband communications for command and control, having space as a service, and tapping into Viasat and Eutelsat and OneWeb and Starlink for that matter, and a whole range of, of, of services provided by our own capabilities, but particularly by the capabilities of allies and commercial providers that actually can give us more resilience.

But I think it would be interesting to hear from the Minister about what that rationale is, where, where defence is concerned. We did see many potential dual use capabilities. Just one example. Some of our partnerships like that, which I am particularly keen on, partnership with Japan, who have a launch capability, who have some fantastic technology. They're not producing these things ostensibly for defence purposes, although actually something like the Active Debris Removal Program mission, which is led by Astroscale, who are a Japanese UK company, would be vital in terms of things like dealing with the debris in space, but also actually gives one a capability which is able to deal with, for example, satellites in space that are a threat to other satellites and to be able to, to, to, to respond and deal with those.

So I was slightly disappointed to see that the government response said we would by now on the active debris removal mission, expect to have seen the award in March of this year. It's now July and we haven't seen it yet, so I do hope we can see that rapidly. Also, I think we have seen at several points in the government's response to the report, the need for there to be a one government response to space, and that this would be reflected into the spring space publication.

As it was described. It is no longer spring. So I do ask the Minister to tell us, do we have that one government publication which would give, I think, I hope, a lot of substance to what the future Defence Investment Plan looks like to how we can deliver on our industrial strategy and our space priorities, which is both a foundational technology and a frontier technology. And I hope we see that at perhaps even as soon as during the Farnborough Air Show.

The clue to our report is, I think, in the title act now. And the government's response did promise some things which we haven't seen, and I hope we will see them now

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very rapidly. Thank you. My Lord. It's a pleasure to contribute to this debate on the report of the Committee on the report of the Committee on the United Kingdom's engagement with space. Before turning to the substance of the report, I wish to substance of the report, I wish to pay tribute to our chair, the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton of Upholland, and to my fellow committee members and to my fellow committee members and our wonderful clerk, Sabrina and Scott. This was one of those inquiries where the process itself inquiries where the process itself was immensely rewarding.

We embarked upon it not as experts in the field, but as colleagues, united by a desire to learn a fascination with the opportunities and challenges of space, and a shared commitment to producing a report that could make a meaningful contribution to policy. What we lacked in technical expertise we certainly made up for in curiosity, enthusiasm and a genuine passion
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Baroness Mobarik Portrait Baroness Mobarik (Conservative)
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for the subject. I also thank the many witnesses who gave evidence. many witnesses who gave evidence. Their generosity with their time, knowledge and experience made this a remarkable journey of discovery for us all and greatly enriched our understanding of the issues before us. The report covers a wide range us. The report covers a wide range of important matters, from skills and regulation to investment, innovation and international innovation and international cooperation. All deserve careful consideration. However, today I wish to focus on what I believe is one of the most strategically important issues facing the United Kingdom space sector sovereign launch capability space is no longer the preserve of scientists and explorers, but an essential component of our economic prosperity, national security, and daily lives.

As geopolitical competition intensifies and our reliance on space based infrastructure grows assured, access to space becomes ever more important. We have world class expertise in satellite design, engineering and advanced manufacturing, but we remain dependent upon others to place our assets into orbit. That dependence creates vulnerabilities and limits our ability to respond rapidly to both commercial opportunities and national security requirements. If there is one conclusion I have drawn from this inquiry, it is that the United Kingdom must think and act with greater ambition.

We cannot afford to be timid in our endeavours. We should not be content with a single launch location or place all our hopes in one facility. Resilience requires redundancy in every other area of critical national infrastructure. We recognise the importance of backup systems and alternative capabilities. Access to space should be no different. A nation serious about the ability to launch from our own soil should seek to develop more than one operational spaceport, ensuring flexibility, resilience and continuity in the face of technical, commercial or geopolitical disruption.

I recognise, of course, that funding is never straightforward. Public finances are under pressure and competing priorities are many, but transformative national projects are rarely achieved through conventional thinking. If we believe that sovereign access to space is of strategic importance, then we should be prepared to explore innovative partnerships between government, industry and private investors. There are creative ways to unlock investment if there is clarity of purpose, confidence in the vision and a determination to succeed. On joining the National Resilience Select Committee this year, I have become even more convinced that independent access to space should be viewed as an element of our national security architecture.

Space is no longer a peripheral concern. It underpins communications, navigation, intelligence gathering, defence capability and the critical services that sustain modern economies. The ability to place assets into orbit from our own soil is not simply an industrial or commercial ambition, it is also a matter of national readiness and strategic security. An example of that ambition would be the completion of the development of the Sutherland spaceport. Having already invested £7.5 million of public funds before being put on hold.

It requires a similar sum and a mere seven months to complete. Failing to finish the project would risk wasting the investment already made and deny the United Kingdom a strategically important capability, and I refer members to my declared interest, as outlined in the report. And Sutherland's location on the mainland was considered one of its major advantages both practical and safe, Sutherland should not be judged simply as a regional project, but as a part of the United Kingdom strategic infrastructure.

We build such infrastructure because it provides capability, resilience and security, the economic benefits to the region and nation follow. A self-reliance based nation should have complementary capabilities, not competing ones. Different launch sites can serve different missions, payloads, and orbital requirements. Multiple operational spaceports can provide the redundancy and flexibility that any serious national infrastructure demands. Through my work on the National Resilience Select Committee, I have become convinced that spaceports alongside our ports, airports and naval bases should now be regarded as part of our critical national infrastructure.

Will the noble Baroness, the Minister, accept that resilience requires more than one operational spaceport to provide the redundancy and flexibility necessary? Space capability cannot be created overnight if we postpone decisions until demand is overwhelming or the next crisis arrives, we will already be too late. If we are serious about our national resilience, we must also be serious about assured access to space. My Lords, this report sets out both the opportunity and the urgency before us. I hope the government will seize that opportunity and act with the pace that our national

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security and our future prosperity demand. My Lords, what a pleasure to

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My Lords, what a pleasure to follow the noble. Lady and to take part in this debate and and to part in this debate and and to thank my noble friend for the masterful way in which she introduced the report, and made introduced the report, and made every single point that I jotted down to say myself. And the other thing I wanted to say at the thing I wanted to say at the beginning is that to thank all my fellow members of the committee, because it was a very happy committee, and we were very enthusiastic and conscientious about the work that we did.

And I reread our report in the run up to this debate. It's a really good report, and I think it will last
13:51
Viscount Stansgate Portrait Viscount Stansgate (Labour)
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the test of time, because space is an area for the future. Now, we've. an area for the future. Now, we've. I also wanted to thank our excellent staff. We had an extremely interesting visit, of course, to the Harwell campus, and course, to the Harwell campus, and we had some very interesting people giving evidence to us. We have evidence from people that people evidence from people that people have heard of, like Brian Cox and and Tim Peake. And I also want to and Tim Peake.

And I also want to mention the professors, Adam Wheeler and Lord Docherty, because they also and many others did. It's hard to know really what to say. The first thing, and I wish there were more members in the chamber here, because it would be very educative for them. First thing to say about space is anything but empty. And if you look at our report, I think it's figure four, the absolute exponential growth of satellites in the last few years. And people may not realise just how many there are.

And it does, of course, bring the type of problems of space debris, which I'll come back to in a moment. I think there are 5000 tracked items of debris, and some suggested up to a million others that are small enough to do real damage in the International Space Station has had to adjust its orbit to avoid collision. In November last year, the Chinese astronauts were stranded in space because the spacecraft that was going to take them back to earth had been hit by space debris, a pretty serious situation.

They did manage to get back safely. And of course, we did have my noble friend referred to it. They brought in this satellite with an arm that would go and sort of grab, if I can grab my noble friend here as an example and slow it down, slow down the satellite so that it would be released back and burn up in the atmosphere. Actually, at the moment the same thing is going on in reverse. NASA are trying to save a space telescope by taking another object up there and pushing it into a higher orbit so it doesn't fall to earth.

Can I just say something about this business of and the amount of stuff in space which does fall to earth and gets burnt up? I think the noble Lady Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle made a perfectly good point about the pollution aspects. We are. We live in a very polluted earth and we must guard against the dangers of being. What was said in evidence by one of our witnesses being a pollution sandwich between debris in space and on earth. Now. The other thing, well, I think it does bring great challenges.

Of course, another thing to say about space has been said by many people already is just how vital it is to us on earth. There is a sentence about somebody born in 2025, and I'm very grateful for my noble friend for mentioning that it happened to include my own first granddaughter, whose lives are going to be dominated by what happens in space. And our report lists some of them for the full colour version of the report, which I recommend you see the photographs we chose deliberately chosen in order to make it clear to people that space matters.

I met the farmer who I had an interesting conversation with at my granddaughter's first birthday, and it's just as relevant in farming and of course, the other ways in which it's matters in day to day life without global positioning systems, where literally would we be, my Lords? And we don't at the moment need a satellite to tell us that the weather is hot and going to stay hot. But all these things are vital now when it. There are a few. And the pharmaceutical. Things have been mentioned too, and we're going to find a lot more of this.

I would say to my noble friend, the Minister, that it is important for the structure of government to do justice to the subject that we are having under discussion, and I think there needs to be more. A more direction from government. We're about to have a new Prime Minister. It'd be nice also to have a space Minister and. But nevertheless, we need to address a lot of the other things, like the skills, challenges. Heaven knows, there should be careers advisers in schools pointing out the unbelievable opportunities of the future for people working in the space area.

But the point I really want to make is this, that the I want to draw attention not just to this report, but a report not yet debated in this House from the Science and Technology Committee called rather dramatically bleeding to Death for Science and Technology Growth Emergency, which tackles the way in which we are unable in this country to scale up businesses. And this applies just as much to space. And all the companies that I hope will prosper in the UK space economy of the future, which is a very big part of the economy.

And the sooner Her Majesty's His Majesty's Treasury understand that, the better. But access to scale up capital is going to be terribly, terribly important. Now my time has run out, so I. I will end by by repeating what has already been said, which is that our subtitle, Act Now or Lose Out, is a plea to the government to grasp the opportunity before us and help make the UK a real leader in the space

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economy of the future. My Lords, by the time you get to

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My Lords, by the time you get to your feet and nine people already spoken, an awful lot of things that I would want to say have already I would want to say have already been covered. But I just want to repeat again, sort of the delight. It was fun to be on the committee. It was fun to be on the committee. It was very charmingly chaired. And thank also to to the clerks. It's a thank also to to the clerks. It's a bit like getting the band together to see you all present together, and it's something, sadly, that we.
13:57
Lord Shamash Portrait Lord Shamash (Labour)
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And there's a case for actually reconstituting ourselves. I don't know whether that's remotely possible, but that's something I. I possible, but that's something I. I raise the title of the committee, as it's been said, is simply act now or lose out. And nothing could now or lose out. And nothing could actually be more accurate. It's important that the government take on board the extremely rapid growth on board the extremely rapid growth that's happening in the world stage in relation to space development. We have world leading experience We have world leading experience and expertise and commitment to across our science sector and of course, our academic sector.

We must, however, do everything we can to maximise and apply those skills to seeing that the sector grows. It is said that the global space is currently valued at over £500 billion. It is expected to grow significantly to an average of about 7 to 8% a year, which is an enormous rate of growth. As a nation, we can't miss out on this opportunity. The government has made it clear that it is committed to economic growth. Space is an ideal sector to promote and provide huge scope for such growth.

I am, however, very concerned that, as I note from the recent Defence Investment Plan published last week and was touched upon by my noble friend Viscount Stansgate, that though it states that the space is a critical national infrastructure sector, the figure set out in that defence plan is only 3.2 billion.

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True, there is a suggestion that this figure may would be Increased in coming years. But you must know now, these are comparatively small sums. If you think of what's happening in the think of what's happening in the global space financial environment. I asked my noble friend the I asked my noble friend the Minister, what steps could be taken for members of the Special Inquiry Committee to meet with my noble friend, the Minister and the relevant Minister in the other place as soon as possible, to further discuss the options for the future, how best to progress this.

It is a pity, as has been mentioned, that the house is not as full as one would like to see, and I really hope that the Minister will give some thought about how either we could reconstitute our Committee, or that whether there is something that could be done in a meeting across the the ministerial complex to how we could take things further. The US and Elon Musk, via his SpaceX and Starlike, has 7000 active satellites. China has 1200. The UK has 630 to 670 satellites.

The UK s are mainly small and suborbital. The Ministry of Defence has about six. The rest are commercially owned by the. To facilitate our broadband links and that is simply our position. The PNT position. Navigating and telephony system. I would like to see the UK take advantage of the fact that we are not space locked by that, and it was mentioned earlier, I think, by the noble Lord Lord Lansley. By that I mean, which is a policy and practical term to emphasise the strategic importance of having reliable sovereign access to space.

As such, we should expand our two main launch sites at Saxavord and Shetland, the vertical launches and in Cornwall. For horizontal Lordships, we need to be able to launch our own orbital satellites. We regret to do so, however, this very morning on the today programme, maybe many of you heard it. The Shetland Space Centre have announced a test launch this August. That is the future and must be encouraged. One of the regrets, and I know Baroness Mobarik and I were rather regretful that we couldn't find an excuse to persuade the committee to go up to Saxavord and have a look round.

That would have been interesting. I blame the chairman for that. But what can you do? It's undoubtedly the case that SpaceX has an insatiable demand for funding. Money is tight, we all know that. Very tight. But I respectfully suggest that a more collaborative approach be adopted by furthering our partnership with the European Space Agency, reaching out to private capital alongside public funds, which must be a sensible way forward to ensure that we as a nation do not miss out on this rapidly expanding area.

It will provide huge numbers of jobs and wonderful opportunities to the nation as a whole, and I hope that the Minister, having considered what I have said, actually agrees with me. Thank you.

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Well, it's a great pleasure to. Follow the noble Lord Lord Shamash and to serve alongside him Shamash and to serve alongside him and all the other very enthusiastic members of the Space Committee, and indeed to serve under the excellent chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton of Upholland. I Lady Ashton of Upholland. I congratulate her not just for her excellent introduction to this debate, but also for leading us to produce our report, and I join her
14:01
Baroness Stowell of Beeston Portrait Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Conservative)
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and other noble Lords in thanking the Committee staff for their hard work and indeed, all those who gave evidence to us, both oral and evidence to us, both oral and written throughout our inquiry. And if nothing else, I think that the Committee has done the House a considerable service in highlighting both the opportunities highlighting both the opportunities presented by the UK's space economy and the risks of failing to seize them. And, as has already been them. And, as has already been mentioned by several noble Lords, the title of our report, Act Now or Lose Out, captures this challenge perfectly.

My Lords, I, I welcome the what seems to be a growing recognition across government that space is now a strategic capability, and although our Committee did not major on defence in the context of the UK space sector, perhaps to some. My frustration by my noble friend Lord Lansley. It's worth noting that the Strategic Defence Review makes clear that satellites are critical national infrastructure, and we've already heard from from others that satellites underpin our communications, navigation, financial services, energy networks and national defence.

And so, in the 21st century, sovereign satellite capability is no less important to our resilience than secure energy infrastructure or telecommunications. So my concern is not that the government lacks ambition when it comes to space, but that it still lacks focus. And strategy is about making choices. We cannot lead in every part of the space economy, so we must decide where Britain should build sovereign capability, where we should work with trusted allies, and where we can rely on the commercial market.

Now for me, though, I don't think I'm alone, although I'm sure my noble friend Lady Marek may differ with me. One capability stands above all others, and that's sovereign capability in satellites themselves. The recent and ongoing conflicts have demonstrated beyond doubt the importance of satellite communications, positioning, intelligence and earth observation. So it's no surprise, therefore, that the Strategic Defence Review speaks of sovereign capability. But sovereignty is not achieved by simply being an aspiration. It requires sustained investment and clear priorities.

Now, the previous government's intervention in OneWeb demonstrated that it understood the strategic importance of sovereign satellite capability. And I note my noble friend Lord Willetts comment about the current government's reluctance to take advantage of its golden share. But the challenge still remains of ensuring we build globally competitive British space companies here in the UK. And that brings me to a subject on which I have spoken about before. Scaling British technology companies and the noble Viscount Stansgate highlighted this.

Now I hope I brought several things to the work of the Space Committee, but I think if there was one thing of value I did bring, it was what I had learned from chairing the Communications and Digital Select Committee, and especially as a noble Baroness. The chair was so gracious to acknowledge the work that we did on AI, large language models and scaling tech businesses. Now, as she said, Britain is exceptionally good at creating innovative businesses. We are much less successful at helping them become globally significant companies.

Headquartered here, we celebrate the Start-Up but too often lose the scale up. But that is no longer simply an economic weakness in sectors such as AI, quantum and space. It is becoming a strategic vulnerability. If we cannot build companies of global scale, we will struggle to build sovereign capability. So I welcome the government's greater emphasis on scale ups in both the industrial strategy and the Defence Industrial strategy, and it is particularly encouraging that defence procurement is increasingly seen as a means of helping innovative British companies grow.

But strategies do not build companies. Customers do, and the government has one of the most powerful tools available. Its procurement power by becoming an intelligent first customer for British space companies, it can create the demand and confidence that enables promising firms to scale, attract investment and remain British as they grow. If we want genuine sovereign capability in space, we must move beyond funding excellent research to building globally competitive businesses. That means patient capital, smarter procurement and above all, clear national priorities.

So can I ask the Minister which space capabilities does the government believe must be sovereign, which should be delivered through trusted allies, and which can safely be left to the commercial market? Until those choices are made explicit? We have an ambition for sovereignty, but not yet a sufficiently prioritised strategy for delivering it. Britain begins this race with world class science, outstanding engineers and innovative entrepreneurs. Our challenge is no longer to prove that we can innovate. It is. It is to ensure that British innovation becomes British capability and British capability becomes British

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industrial strength. Yeah. My Lords, can I, as a former

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My Lords, can I, as a former member of the committee, all of us, I suppose, could be described as I suppose, could be described as space cadets. Can I begin by warmly thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton of Upholland, for her superb, superb chairing of the committee and for her really inspiring
14:07
Lord Clement-Jones Portrait Lord Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrat)
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and for her really inspiring introduction today? And can I also join with her and other members of the committee in thanking all of the staff to the Committee and our advisors and all our evidence givers, including the celebrities that the noble Baroness mentioned earlier and thank. Can I thank also all noble Lords who've contributed so enthusiastically to what has been, I think, an extremely illuminating debate as the noble Baroness Stowell Beeston said the title of the report absolutely captures the challenge.

It serves as both a stark warning and a brilliant roadmap for our future. As we've heard today, the UK space sector is an invaluable national asset. It generates nearly 19 billion a year in income, directly, employs over 52000 people in highly skilled jobs, and underpins approximately 18% of our entire GDP. Some £364 billion. We possess immense comparative strengths that we must champion from Glasgow, which builds more small satellites than anywhere else outside California, to our pioneering in-orbit servicing, assembly and manufacturing ISAM sector.

We also boast unique downstream advantages, with the City of London primed to be the pre-eminent global centre for space finance, law and insurance. And as we've heard today, the UK space sector is an invaluable national asset. But we must not be complacent. The hard data shows that the UK's global market share in space has fallen from 5.1% in 2020 to just 4.2% in 2023. My Lords, we're sliding backwards because our nearest competitor nations, are aggressively ramping up their public investments.

While the UK relies on short term, fragmented funding cycles. As we consider these economic opportunities, we must be clear eyed about the intense international competition we face, particularly the overwhelming dominance of the United States. The recent record breaking IPO of SpaceX vividly illustrates the sheer scale of American financial and industrial might. In this domain. Noble Lords today have talked about the importance of sovereign UK launch capability. Noble Lord Willetts, noble Baroness Ashton Baroness Mobarik and noble Lord Shamash.

The committee's report was absolutely right to warn that the UK and the rest of the world have become dangerously overreliant on a single commercial entity for orbital launch and satellite communications. This is a profound strategic vulnerability. We cannot simply outsource the resilience of our critical national infrastructure to a single overseas monopoly, nor to the unpredictable political and commercial whims of one billionaire. This stark reality underscores exactly why the government must step up as an anchor customer to help our own domestic firms scale up, and why we must urgently pool our sovereign capabilities with our European partners to truly grasp the scale of this domestic opportunity, we need only to look at our world leading capabilities in earth observation, which were focussed on by the noble Lord Lansley in particular, satellite data is rapidly becoming the new gold of the global economy.

Earth observation is absolutely vital for monitoring climate change, tracking deforestation, predicting natural disasters and enabling precision agriculture. Yet, as the committee heard, adoption of these services outside the space sector remains far too slow because many organisations still view space as complex or irrelevant. And this is exactly where the government must step in by acting as a smart procurer, buying earth observation data to improve our own public services, whether for national flood mapping, monitoring, coastal erosion or infrastructure planning, the government can act as an anchor customer.

This will immediately de-risk private investment, help our individual innovative SMEs scale up and ensure the UK captures its rightful share of this market. And I very much appreciated what the noble Baroness Stowell had to say on the whole scale up aspect, my Lords. But space is no longer just an economic frontier. It is, as many noble Lords said, a critical national infrastructure. It is increasingly congested, contested and competitive. Our national security and resilience rely heavily on the space domain, from tracking climate change to the vital encrypted communications provided by our Skynet military satellites.

To secure these economic and security benefits. The committee committee's message is unequivocal the UK government must provide a coherent, funded strategic direction. Industry is crying out for the government to pivot from being a small scale grant funder to acting as a reliable smart anchor. Customer procurement contracts rather than just R&D grants. As the noble Baroness Ashton said, are essential to de-risk projects, crowd in private capital and help our brilliant SMEs scale up into globally competitive businesses. Yet the government's official response to this excellent report, My Lords, is frankly lacking in the urgency required.

Instead of publishing the detailed National Space Capability Development Plan that the sector needed and which the government the Committee demanded by the end of 2025, the government deferred the hard details to no. Lord Lansley described a spring space publication, and now it seems it's promised a plan for space for later this year. My Lords, could the Minister confirm exactly what is intended? This deferral of decisions is not simply is simply not good enough. As Professor Silvester Kaczmarek powerfully highlighted in his recent briefing to peers, deep tech firms cannot scale their businesses on what are described as future documents.

The government's response offers process when industry definitely desperately needs delivery. My Lords, can I therefore press the Minister on three specific matters today? First, given the government's insistence on absorbing the UK Space Agency into DSIT, will they urgently publish a clear accountability map so that industry knows exactly who owns strategy, procurement, strategy, procurement and regulation across Whitehall? Second, when will the government publish a concrete procurement route that includes specific targets for SME participation? And third, how does the government plan to create an open assurance pathway for the complex, AI driven autonomous missions of the future? If we want to lead the world in active debris removal so positively mentioned by the noble Viscount Stansgate and the noble Baroness Bennett and secure space operations, we must have the regulatory frameworks to prove these AI systems are trustworthy and secure.

My Lords, the government's response to this committee is characterised, I'm afraid, by a failure to grasp the nettle. Not only have they absorbed the UK Space Agency into a Whitehall department, but they explicitly rejected the committee's sensible recommendations to appoint a dedicated Minister Minister for space to drive cross-government co-ordination. On these benches, we align very closely with the committee's recommendations. First, on European cooperation, the committee rightly called for urgent decisions on our participation in flagship EU programmes like Galileo and IRIS two to provide industry with certainty.

The government has stated it cannot make decisions, yet we are clear we must pool our sovereign satellite navigation capacity by fully rejoining the Galileo system and confirming our participation in IRIS two. We cannot rely solely on foreign owned systems for our critical position, navigation and timing needs. Second, on governance and strategic focus, the committee explicitly warned against the fragmentation of space policy across Whitehall and expressed deep concern over the absorbed absorption of the UK Space Agency into DSIT on these benches.

We believe that this merger is a strategic error. My Lords, why is the government dismantling the autonomy of our National Space Agency at the very moment it's proving its commercial worth? An independent UKSA is crucial to present a unified interface with the European Space Agency, maintain specialised technical focus and champion UK interests internationally. So, my Lords, we do continue to call on the government to reverse that decision. My Lords, we must tackle the skills gap to so mentioned by a number of noble Lords with genuine ambition, which includes implementing broader reforms to the apprenticeship levy to allow space firms the flexibility they need for responsive training and micro-credentials.

My Lords, we cannot maintain our leadership on deferred decisions and structural dilution, so I urge the Minister to take the bold decisions identified by the committee, deliver a clear and actionable space strategy and, in the words of the report, act now,

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before we lose out. Here.

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Here. My Lords, I to begin by thanking. The noble Baroness, Lady Ashton

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The noble Baroness, Lady Ashton of Upholland, and indeed every member of the Committee, for what is a powerful and timely report, although I must say my principal reaction is one of envy. I rather wish I'd been on the committee, but the report, I think, makes a genuinely compelling case that space policy is central both to our national security and to our future prosperity, and the space economy does not get the attention it deserves either in this House as the noble Viscount, as the noble Lord Viscount Stansgate has pointed
14:18
Viscount Camrose Portrait Viscount Camrose (Conservative)
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out, or with the public more generally. So I'm delighted that both through this report and in both through this report and in this excellent debate today, we have some small chance to address have some small chance to address that. My Lords, the report reminds us that much of modern life depends us that much of modern life depends on space technologies, and many of us enjoy these technologies without us enjoy these technologies without even realising this from satellite navigation, banking systems and weather forecasting to logistics, these capabilities underpin a very significant portion of our economy.

I mean, I was really struck by the estimate that some 18% of UK GDP relies on satellite services alone. The committee is absolutely right to argue that Britain possesses many strengths and great potential in this area. We both world class universities, innovative companies, growing launch capability and internationally respected scientific expertise. But the question before us today is whether we have the strategic focus needed to realise and to unleash our collective vast potential. We, on these benches, welcome the government's recognition that space forms part of our critical national infrastructure, and that it represents an important opportunity for economic growth.

We also acknowledge the steps that have been taken to support skills development and to improve strategic coordination across government. However, as has been concluded by the committee, ambition alone is not enough. Businesses require certainty. Investors require confidence and researchers require long term support. So without clear priorities and more consistent delivery, innovative British companies, there is a risk, as many noble Lords have pointed out, may simply choose to scale elsewhere. Many of the committee's recommendations, I think, deserve really serious consideration.

The call for clearer strategic direction, better cross-government coordination, a funding model that helps firms scale beyond the research stage, greater support for skills. Excuse me, and an agile regulatory framework all speak to the practical steps needed if we are to compete in an increasingly crowded global marketplace. And let us make no mistake, it really is an increasingly crowded global marketplace. As many noble Lords have pointed out, there is also a critical national security dimension, as the committee and noble Lords have recognised, civil and defence capabilities are becoming ever more closely intertwined.

And I was unsurprised to note the increasing use of the dual use terminology throughout the report and in our in our debate today, investing in technologies with both commercial and strategic applications both strengthens our resilience and at the same time creates opportunities for economic growth. The previous government recognised this through the publication of the National Space Strategy in 2021, providing for the first time a comprehensive framework bringing together civil, commercial, defence and security objectives. That's an important foundation.

It has been some time, though, since that publication during which this government clearly has been in power now over two years, or just coming up two years. I think the challenge now is ensuring that that strategy continues to be translated into delivery. So with with those thoughts in mind, I would be very grateful if the noble Lady, the Minister, could address the following questions. First, combined with some of the sums that the noble Lord Lord Lansley brought up in the Defence Investment Plan, how much government spending will be dedicated to R&D and manufacturing in the space economy? Second, what further steps are being taken to help innovative UK space companies access the capital they need to grow and to remain headquartered in this country.

Third, how? I recognise this is a huge question that stretches far beyond space, but is critical here. How can we improve government procurement to support our space industry participants of all sizes? And I was particularly concerned, by the way, with with the remarks of my noble friend Lord Willetts, who report that the National Wealth Fund are simply giving out that they do not want to invest in space. And I do urge the noble Lady, the Minister, to get to the bottom of that as soon as possible, because clearly that would be a very serious error.

Fourth, how does the government intend to ensure that the UK remains internationally competitive in the space sector, particularly as we have heard other nations increase investment and develop their own capabilities? And finally, while the government has, as we have heard, rejected the committee's recommendation for a dedicated space Minister, how will they ensure that effective cross-government leadership and accountability are maintained across departments or all. May we see a change of mind on that as the new Prime Minister steps in.

Like other noble Lords, I echo the sentiment entirely that the title act now will lose out is entirely appropriate. We have the talent in this country, we have the science, we have the potential, and we have the industrial capability to succeed. The opportunity is there. The task now is to ensure that government policy matches that ambition, and it's in that spirit. I look forward to the minister's response. Yeah.
14:25
Baroness Lloyd of Effra Portrait Baroness Lloyd of Effra, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology) (Labour)
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My Lords, I'm pleased to respond. noble friend Baroness Ashton of Upholland for securing this debate and for her committee's important report on this matter. I'd also report on this matter. I'd also like to thank the chair for her expert leadership of the very thorough work and what seems to thorough work and what seems to have been enjoyable work the Committee has taken out undertaken. It's also a particular pleasure to have heard the appreciation across your Lordships House on the importance of the space sector today and the enormous potential it holds for the future.

As we've heard, the space dimension of our economy is coming to the fore. The UK has a strong space sector, with over twice the UK's average productivity and with global satellite services underpinning nearly 18% of UK's GDP. Beyond our financial services and well known uses in telecommunications, space technology is helping farmers increase crop yields and enabling faster, more effective responses to natural disasters such as floods. And as we've heard, it's a sector that contributes over £18 billion to the UK economy and employs over 55,000 highly qualified people.

And I've also had the pleasure of meeting many of the industrial and scientific partners who make up this sector over the past year. It is a sector that relies on a strong partnership with government. Every pound invested by the government through the European Space Agency sees a 7.4 £0.09 return into the UK economy and in 2024 2025 alone, the UK Space Agency activity is estimated to have catalysed £2.2 billion in investment and revenue across the UK space sector.

And as is also recognised by My noble Lords today, space is also critical for national security and defence, providing intelligence, communication and navigation required to keep the UK and citizens safe. Recently, and reflecting many of the recommendations of the committee. We have taken further action already to support our space sector and one of our strengths is the one government coordinated approach. Noble Lords have asked about the governance of space over the last year. Ministers from across government have met together four times to discuss critical issues for the space sector.

Our capabilities and support our teams work together, in particular across defence, national security, all parts of DSIT and transport to align our approach. A clear example is the UK's National Space Operations Centre, a joint civil military command bringing together the UK Space Agency, UK Space Command and the UK and the Met Office Space Weather Operations Centre centre. Together they help protect critical space assets we rely on every day and provide the central hub for the UK space. Domain awareness.

In response to my noble friend Lord Shamash question, I would be very happy to meet with him and other members of the committee to talk further about how we work together on that front in respect of noble Lords. Questions about the UK Space Agency's move into the Department. It is an important step towards closer collaboration, reducing duplication and gaining greater consistency across strategy, policy and delivery, whilst retaining that world leading expertise and technical advantage that the noble Lord Lord Willetts referred to.

Our upcoming space strategy will set out how space remains a government priority and in a funded way, and how the coordinated vision will ensure the very best outcome of the UK. But I can reassure noble Lords that we have been taking action. In the interim, I set out the strategic direction alongside £500 million in funding. In my speech at Spacecom Expo earlier this year. I'm sure the committee will be looking forward to reading the strategy when it is published, which unfortunately will now not be before summer recess.

Noble Lords have asked or commented about prioritisation. As I set out earlier this year. We are moving further and faster in the areas that matter most to the UK's future in space. One of those areas is satellite communications, which are indeed critical for national security and resilience. And in response to the questions from Baroness Saul of Beeson and to Lord Tarassenko question, the sovereign capability is indeed an important consideration. As we look at satellite communications and the Skynet programme run by MoD, provides that sovereign capability in sitcoms, and we have increasing sovereign capability in space domain awareness as well.

In response to the questions posed by the noble Lord Lord Willetts and the noble Lord Lord Clement-Jones and others, DSIT is leading cross deep Cross-governmental work to develop our proactive relationship with Eutelsat, which will include working with defence colleagues on requirements following the publication of the Defence Investment Plan. UK launches not yet currently operational, but we are encouraging the company to take advantage of the UK's capability as this becomes available. We are also encouraging the company to take more advantage of the UK's world leading satellite manufacturing and supply chain capabilities.

In response to the questions from my noble friend Lord Shamash and Baroness Mubarak, who I've also had the opportunity to discuss the opportunities of Sutherland earlier this year. Assured access to space is critical to our national security and our economic growth. To Lord Mance point, it is both of those objectives that has caused this national security as well as economic growth that has has caused it to be a priority for for this government, and we are making significant progress towards that ambition.

With Saxavord, the Europe's first licence vertical launch site, which is expected to see the first launch this summer, we have established a world leading regulatory regime and secured a comprehensive set of international agreements to enable launch operations from the UK. The third area we set out as a priority is in-orbit servicing, assembly and manufacturer manufacturing and the fourth space Domain Awareness. These are the capabilities that will drive growth, strengthen resilience and protect our ability to operate in space.

So we are pivoting to support our support to that, where we will have greatest impact. Prioritisation is challenging and it requires government to intervene assertively if we are to succeed, and we know that space industries thrive with that clear prioritisation, but also with the right funding, the clear public procurement approach, the right regulation and strong international partnerships. First, on financing, we are increasing the financing for space in recognition of many of the long term projects. That, of course, includes areas such as earth observation.

The government is increasing the UK s budget in 2526 by 8%. That funding for space is inclusive of our subscription to Copernicus is carried forward to over three point 3,000,000,000/26, 27 to 2930. Wider civil funding for space from other departments and organisations, from science funded by Ukri to critical meteorological services provided by the Met Office. Membership of Eumetsat to plan procurements of satellite services from other departments will further bolster this by over £900 million to the questions posed by Lord Tarassenko and others about research.

The. The Stfc has spent considerable period of time engaging with the particle physics, astronomy and nuclear physics community, its advisory bodies, Scientific Board and Council to understand the implications of different options and gather feedback from across the sector. Given the significance of that decision, it was right to test options, understand the impacts and ensure that expert advice was fully reflected in the final outcome. That engagement has now concluded, and Ukri is, I think, setting out the outcome of this prioritisation extremely shortly, if not just now, to the point of skills.

This, of course, my noble friend Baroness Ashton and the noble Lord, the noble Viscount Viscount Camrose, highlighted. This is, of course, incredibly important. There are some areas of targeted education and future workforce programming which is supported by the Department in UKSA. But that of course goes alongside other government programmes such as Tech First and the Advanced Manufacturing Skills package. As noble Lords have mentioned, the Defence Investment Plan, published on the 30th of June, sets out future spending priorities, demonstrating clearly the importance of further developing capability in Sacramento ISR and SDA.

The capability of defence funding to 2930 is 2.3 billion for sitcoms and 880 million for space based ISR and space control, and together with the UK Space Agency funding, Ministry of Defence funding and planned activities across the rest of government and arm's length bodies, we anticipate this funding for space over the spending review will exceed £7.4 billion, a substantial increase over previous spending review periods to the points raised by the noble Baroness Baroness Stowell, the noble Viscount Viscount Camrose, my noble friend Viscount Stansgate.

The importance of supporting companies commercialise and grow is is very well made and well taken, and we are moving away from serial grants to more structured contracts for services. Some of the. Some of. And we are also supporting companies as they grow. Some of this relates to wider changes. For example, the. The announcements by the. And the the by the Chancellor. Under the mansion House agreement. Visas for talent, the support for the British Business Bank and some of this is space specific, such as the Unlocking Space for Investment programme.

And we are committed to supporting British companies, develop next generation space technologies. At London Tech Week, I announced a new investment of more than £9 million to support early stage UK companies through the UK Innovation and Science Seed Fund, as well as a 10 million investment into the Welsh companies. Space Forge, which is pioneering in-space manufacturing technology. So that action is happening now to the points, important points raised by my noble friends Baroness Ashton and by Lord Willetts and Baroness Stowell of Beeston.

Procurement is indeed extremely important and the balance around contracts and small, small scale grant funding. Our upcoming space strategy will set out how we will refocus grant programmes and use contracts to support innovation, but we are also currently making greater use of contracts for innovation, which enable public sector organisations with work with businesses to test innovative solutions and build the evidence needed for wider adoption. And I absolutely agree with the noble Lord Lord Clement-Jones that this can bring real benefits.

We have awarded contracts for innovation through our partnership with the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs in Northern Ireland to improve water quality monitoring in Loch Lord Hannay. Support for an earth observation enabled flood forecasting service at the University College Hospitals, Coventry and Warwickshire NHS trust and with the Home Office. This. This procurement for innovation is very important and we will continue to innovate in many different areas. Lastly, regulation, all cutting, all cutting edge applications of technology need agile regulation and space is no exception.

From the changes in the liability and indemnity regime for satellites to regulatory sandboxes for rendezvous and proximity operations, we have taken action and will continue to do so. For example, with space multi-mission licensing and re-entry. I'd like to come on to talk about international partnerships and collaboration. They have always been a feature of advances in space and given the global uncertainty, are more important than ever, we are strengthening our international partnerships. In 2025, the UK committed £1.7 billion to ESA programmes over the next five years, which deliver against our objectives and leverage international collaboration to drive economic growth in the UK and bolster national security here.

We also to the to the point of Lord Lansley collaborate, for example with Japan and France, with bilateral funding including Light Bird, where UK universities are helping explore the universe's early earliest moments to the point made by noble Lord Lord Clement-Jones and noble Lord Lord Willetts. On Europe, we are clear eyed about the changing regulatory environment in Europe. The proposed EU Space Act will have implications for UK companies and for our wider cooperation with European partners.

We are engaging actively with the EU to shape that discussion where we can. But we will also act, where necessary, to ensure that UK industry remains competitive. Our access to markets is protected and our regulatory framework continues to support innovation and growth. We have unique capabilities and assets in the UK, from locations such as Shetland for launch, and Europe will be stronger with the UK as a trusted partner. It is also important to recognise the US partnership is critical in both the civil and national security domains within the civil domain.

Our collaboration through missions such as NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, where the UK led instrumentation is transforming our understanding of the universe, continues to open new scientific frontiers and on national security, we rely on deep transatlantic transatlantic cooperation in respect of the important points made by the noble Baroness Baroness Bennett of Castle and the noble Viscount, my noble friend Viscount Stansgate on space sustainability Stansgate on space sustainability and debris. Space sustainability is evolving, is evolving.

With the increased use of space, we are clear that this is not something that one country alone can do. Our aim is to ensure that long term growth in space does not come at the expense of its long term, safe and sustainable use, including by shaping international norms and standards, investing more in space domain awareness and debris removal technologies, and working with partners to build global tech capability. The UK our licensing regime, already expects operators to minimise debris creation through through robust mitigation measures, and we will strengthen that further through clearer guidance and incentives for more sustainable missions.

To conclude, as we know, space underpins the systems we rely on every day, from finance, energy and transport to emergency services, enabling the secure communications, navigation and timing to keep this country running. That is why strengthening our space capability is not simply an ambition for the future. It is something that is a strategic priority now and one that we will build on further in our upcoming space strategy.
14:43
14:44
None Portrait Short debate: Progress made towards the drafting Defence Readiness Bill recommended by the Strategic Defence Review; and the scope of the Bill will include national resilience to encompass preparations for other risks contained in the National Risk Register Lord Harris of Haringey (Labour)
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My Lords, I remind the House of my registered interest as chair of the National Preparedness Commission. The starting point for today's debate is that we live in turbulent, uncertain, volatile turbulent, uncertain, volatile world. The need for the nation to be better prepared and resilient is ever more pressing. We are closer to widespread war in Europe than we have been for over 60 years. We've seen the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the routine targeting of civilian infrastructure with cheap drones and cyber attacks.

But my Lords, this country is already subject to hybrid and grey zone aggression. The Salisbury poisonings using nerve agents, the arson attacks on industrial sites, Jewish premises and even properties associated with the Prime Minister. Cyber attacks, such as those on Marks and Spencer's, the co-op and JLR and submarines taking an unhealthy interest in the undersea cables and pipelines on which we rely. The SDR recommended that there should be a defence readiness bill with a framework of powers to improve the preparedness of key industries and to ensure sufficient supplies to support critical national infrastructure and the Defence Forces.

An essential part of our commitment to article three. The need to ensure the continuity of government and vital services requiring resilience against all types of shock, including natural disasters and cyber attacks, as well as military threats. A defence Readiness Bill, although originally promised for early this year, was not in the King's Speech. But my noble friend, the Minister has assured us that work is on. It is progressing inevitably. Legislation that codifies how to prioritise the supplies and support needed in the event of a national defence emergency is complex, but, my Lords, the Bill must include national resilience more broadly and address what, as a nation should be our core preparations to equip us for the acute risks contained in the published National Risk Register and the longer term slow burn threats in the government's chronic risk analysis.

So what is actually needed is a National Resilience and Defence Readiness Bill, and the unfortunate delay permits that wider focus. The country's resources may have to be mobilised, not just in the event of hostilities against the nation, but also in other civil emergencies, not necessarily arising from nation state action. Mechanisms are needed for another pandemic for extreme weather events precipitated by climate change and so on. We know that the Swedes, like most other European countries, have a booklet that goes to every household if crisis or war comes, what do we have in the UK? Well, we've got the gov.uk prepare website.

That's a separate story. I might come back to it, but the Swedes also have a booklet for companies. It recognises the decisive role of businesses in ensuring that society continues to function. The message in that, and I quote, is when your company is prepared to operate under the threat of war, it is also better equipped to manage pandemics, natural disasters and other peacetime crises. And that is a message that should apply here. It is not just about geopolitics and the threats from Russia or wherever.

It is about being ready for everything else as well. We've just seen the highest temperatures ever recorded in May, and again, the highest temperature ever recorded in June. These had consequences. The largest number of category one call outs ever for the London Ambulance Service. Train disruptions and IT failures. Last year's hot temperatures saw wildfires, with the busiest night for the London Fire Brigade since the blitz. And then there were the unprecedented 12 named storms in the 2324 storm season, to say nothing of West Nile virus being found in mosquitoes in Britain.

So what should a National Resilience and Defence Readiness Bill encompass? It should set the framework to enable us to make the best use of the nation's resources in the event of hostile action. Importantly, not just above, but also below the threshold of war. And it should systemise how military and civilian reserves can be maintained. And I see the noble Lord Lord Harlech in his seat. But just as importantly, that framework should be readily activated in the event of other emergencies like the Climate Change Act, which has got some parallel provisions, it needs to place a duty, a duty on government departments, public bodies, local authorities, large businesses and organisations to build their resilience and bolster their preparedness to respond to all sorts of threats and emergencies.

And it should place reporting obligations and obligations on the government and other agencies to report back regularly on what they are doing in respect of their resilience and preparedness. It should establish an independent, arm's length body, a bit like the Climate Change Committee, to monitor the the adequacy of the progress made. It would effectively be marking the government's homework, which I appreciate. My noble friend the Minister may not like, but it is an important component, and it should mark that homework to see what is being done to build the nation's resilience, the progress being made on defence readiness and national preparedness.

And it would need an annual report to Parliament, and this House and the other place would need to set up committees to scrutinise progress. And as the world becomes more transactional, dare I say, deals based with increasing competition for strategic raw materials, we will need to mandate stockpiles and take action to protect our sovereign capacity in key areas. We have, after all, the most open economy amongst the G20 our food supplies, our pharmaceuticals, plus key industrial materials are imported and vulnerable to blockades and embargoes.

We need to be ready for those imports to be disrupted or even shut off. And in the event of conflict, we will need to be able to divert the nation's resources to support to the support of our military and homeland defence so legislation is needed creating the mechanisms to deliver that collective national endeavour needed to defend our country and make it resilient against all the other shocks that we may face. Every part of government, every part of society, every business, large and small.

Indeed, every one of us has to see resilience and defence preparedness as part of their responsibilities. It must be designed in. It must be part of the national fabric, and we might not have long. That is why we need the National Resilience and Defence Readiness Bill as soon as possible. And, my Lords, in the spirit of the outgoing Mayor of Greater Manchester's article, in today's times, we must deliver that and I quote, concerted action to enhance our resilience. Starting at the local level.

I beg to move.
14:52
Baroness Neville-Jones Portrait Baroness Neville-Jones (Conservative)
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Customary to. >> Customary to. >> Say what a pleasure. >> It is. >> To follow the previous speaker, and I do so with genuine enthusiasm. Lord Harris has chaired the Preparedness Commission with great vigour, and it has produced a great deal of extraordinarily detailed and really high quality work, much of it, it seems to me to be quite oven ready for government to take on. So I think we have a good start there. But as his own speech has just pointed out, there's still an awful lot of work to to do.

And I have 1 or 2 questions for government as well. And on Tuesday, there's going to be the Second Reading of the Cybersecurity and resilience bill. And that's an important part of a necessary part indeed, of wider resilience. I might say that we waited quite a long time for that. It doesn't, however, answer the question, what do we mean when we talk about the whole of government, or, for that matter, more ambitiously, the whole of society, which is phraseology about about resilience, which has taken hold over the last couple of years.

It seems to me there's a great question mark about what it really means, however. If we're going to make it mean something, it does seem to me that the whole of society implies a general strengthening of the sinews of society, a lot of it actually physical as well as digital, and a much, much wider participation beyond government in all in organisations and individuals involved in the development of of the security itself and in its maintenance. Well, that's not a it's not virgin territory.

There are models. And Lord, Lord Harrison mentioned them, and they're notably, I suppose, in Scandinavian countries where among several of them there is a form of national service of various kinds. And there's household preparation for emergencies. And that includes emergencies of a kind which are not necessarily involving conflict. And there is also extensive shelter provision in some countries. I mean, the most obvious example of that is to be found in Finland, where life for a wide segment of society can can an extremist be maintained underground? That's obviously a.

The roots of such extensive provision, I think, lies in that country's geography and history. I'm not sure that this country would go for that. Our historical experience has been different, where our planning has largely focussed on the continuity of government and essential services. But in adopting whatever model we do, there is still much, and I really do mean much, that we could learn from the Scandinavian approach. But my question to government is the following what model are we going for? Do we use the phrase home society? And when we when we use it, what do we mean by it? Do we mean do we have anything in our mind's eye when we use the phrase as far as I can see, we have.

We've not done a great deal so far under the heading resilience. Beyond the sort of work that the Preparedness Commission has been doing within. With an aim of any particular model emerging. There's also. I don't mean me. I don't mean to say by that that there has no. We've been idle. That's not the case, because Lord Toby has cited. For instance, there is climate work done, and there are other examples, but it's. None of that has been drawn together, and none of it, as far as I can see, has yet taken any form, any legal form.

And we. Nor do we have, it seems to me, any settled machinery of government to take implementation forward. The role and organisation of the Cabinet Office and its relationship to Cobra has in recent years been altered and then changed back and. And yet other forms of of resilience are going to be located elsewhere. It's DSIT to my surprise, which has found itself not just promoting science, technology and innovation, but is responsible for ensuring secure structures for cyber government, for cyber, for cyber in government.

So dotting responsibility for security around government does seem to me to be pretty odd when it has previously had a home in the Cabinet Office. And the Cabinet Office is a welcome antidote to. One of the other problems that we face in the structure of our government, which is the shortcomings that arise from the lead government department model. Now, the Strategic Defence Review specifically mentioned the need to increase protection of our vulnerable CNI infrastructure, and it called for a defence readiness bill, as Lord Toby's mentioned.

We need to enable the mobilisation of our reserves and and our industry to war readiness levels. But there is a problem about delay. Mr. Luke Pollard, in another place, has said that the bill will only come towards the end of this parliamentary session, and the way he put it rather suggested to my ears that it might not come even then. So I do hope we can have some reassurance from the Minister. After all, NATO's assessment is that by 2030, Russia may decide to step up its existing level of aggression in Europe for something which is truly, truly frightening.

We need to be ready. But aren't we cutting it fine with all our preparations. I would say to fine. The government talks about a national dialogue on defence, and this House, I think, agrees strongly with that. But it does need to start and start ASAP to make sense and to be clear and to be honest with the electorate for what they may be involved in. It does need to include aspects which come under the heading of resilience, and it should include things like, is there going to be some kind of national service? So I come back to my question.

What is the government going to propose to the country by way of whole of society approach? What is going to be asked of us? It seems to me that a significant chunk of the picture is still missing. So when he replies, could the noble Lord, the Minister, begin to fill in some of the detail?
14:59
Baroness Wheatcroft Portrait Baroness Wheatcroft (Crossbench)
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I commend the noble Lord Lord >> I commend the noble Lord Lord Harris of Haringey on securing this important and timely debate and important and timely debate and introducing it in such a persuasive way. And I confess to being somewhat daunted to be following the noble Baroness, noble Lady Baroness Neville-Jones, whose experience is so relevant to this debate, and whose speech was full of questions that need to be answered. But coming after the chairman of the National Preparedness Committee and a former Secretary of State for security, I am a mere amateur in this area.

So I start from a different point of view, that of someone who has studied and been active in business. And in that capacity, I've encountered many a risk register. And my Lords, I've noted a tendency to believe that once a risk is identified and placed on the register, it's been dealt with in the government's latest incarnation of the National Risk Register, 89 specific areas of risk are identified. I wonder if the government is in any way confident that each of these is being addressed.

In his foreword to the document, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Pat McFadden, who chairs the Cabinet Committee on Resilience, stresses the need for transparency about risks and says we need everyone to play their part in building resilience. And of course, he's absolutely correct. If businesses are to be successful in navigating their way through risks, they need to involve all their people in the effort. It's no good. The chief risk officer identifying the risks.

The risk committee poring over them and nodding. And so it is with the country. In a company, everybody has to be involved. They have to know the risks and they have to be involved in addressing them. It's the same in the country. And my concern is the government is failing to involve the public. Pat McFadden refers to the guidance of the public at the government's Prepare website. Lord Harris of Haringey made reference to it. But could the noble Lord Minister perhaps tell the House how many people have actually visited that site? How many even know of its existence? If they were to take a look, they'd find that it refers to emergencies such as flooding, fires and power cuts.

The noble Lord, Lord Harris, has made the case for such risks to be integral to any national resilience plan. And he's right. But we've got to stop being so squeamish about the fact that we face another, increasingly real risk war. Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, in his pivotal strategic Defence review, spelt out the danger we're underprepared, we're underinsured, we're under attack. We are not safe. This is not an easy message to hear, but it's the truth.

And there should be no further delay in ensuring that the public is made fully aware of this. Talk about a national conversation. A national dialogue has long been promised. But my Lords, this isn't the subject for a cosy fireside chat or interminable consultations. The government needs to tell the public what the risks of warfare are that we now face, and ensure that people are prepared. Talking about it just doesn't do the job. Other countries face up to the problem.

They're very effective in getting their message across without unnecessary, unnecessarily scaring people. And for some, of course, like Taiwan and Finland, they can see the threat. It's in such close proximity. But technology means that the enemy doesn't need to be visible. Russia has assassinated people on our soil, infiltrated our electoral process. It's made its presence well and truly felt. As Lord Robertson said, we are not safe. So I ask the noble Lord, the Minister, when will the government take its responsibilities seriously, trust the public and tell them to be ready to prepare.

National resilience and defence readiness are not different things. They should be addressed together and a joint bill is clearly the answer. After all, how often have we seen the military called in to help in civil situations? But public involvement is crucial. Reserve forces must be recruited, volunteers lined up and trained, and businesses and the education sector must be brought into the effort. In Finland, senior business leaders train alongside government officials in how to build resilience.

Schools prepare their pupils. But, my Lords, we shy away from being frank with our children, yet they regularly see images of war and violence. Are they supposed to think it could never happen here? Might it not be far more reassuring to be told that the threats there. But we can deal with it. This is what you've got to do to help the Foreign Secretary, Yvette Cooper, in a recent essay, admitted that successive governments have failed to level with the country on defence.

We haven't yet had the kind of public engagement we need. Well, my Lords, now is the time to put that right. The National Resilience and Defence Bill should kick off a concerted effort across the country to be prepared. Benjamin Franklin said by failing to prepare, you're preparing to fail. And he wasn't only a founding father of the United States, but the man who invented bifocals. So a man of vision. If we have a vision of peace and security, we need to start working for it now.
15:06
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Portrait Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party)
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My Lords, it's a very great pleasure to follow the noble Lady pleasure to follow the noble Lady Baroness Wheatcroft. And I have to say, listening to her speaking about the 89 lines of the risk register, I'm perhaps inspired by the fact that I was yesterday with the campaign group more than a score doing SATs exams. Perhaps we could set an exam for when we have a new government and government. It's a couple of months afterwards they can all sit down and do an exam on the risk register and prove that they actually understand it, and then tell us what they're going to do about it.

Now, I like all speakers already, and I have no doubt all coming speakers. I wish to, first of all, thank the noble Lord, Lord Harris, for securing this debate and the brilliant work that he and the Preparedness Committee do. But we begin this debate in a bad position. Yes, there are many concerns about the lack of resilience and defence capacity in the UK, but I'm referring to a much, much more specific issue, an issue for this House, this Parliament. We don't have the information we need to understand the crucial basic problem of food security and the lack of it in the UK.

I'm referring, of course, to the Joint Intelligence Chiefs report on the impact of nature's collapse and food security. The problem around the world. Now, I note that just yesterday, Mary Kay, the Minister for the for Defra, told MPs that a redacted 14 page version of some of the findings, published after repeated Freedom of Information requests in January, should provide enough information. The Cabinet Office refused to send a Minister or official to the Environment Audit Committee to answer these questions.

Now this is really a serious cause for concern. And as the noble Lady Baroness Wheatcroft said, this appears to be in a context in which the government is focussed on trying not to scare people, specifically on the issue of food security. I've heard testimony from multiple experts who've been trying to get the government to warn the public about the insecurity of our food supplies, about the need where they can. And of course, for many, it's not financially viable to create some private food schools, stores and also stores of fresh water.

Drinking water kept up to date regularly. I've been asking the government about whether it will consider holding public government stores of food. Switzerland holds three months for the whole country and is looking to go to 12. I got a very clear answer in a written question from the government. No, we're not considering that. We think the market will provide. I'm afraid that's not what the experts are saying. And like others who've already spoken, I don't think that keeping the public in ignorance is the way to manage this situation that produces fear.

It produces anger. Something we're seeing a great deal of being honest and open with the public about the fact that we have a huge food security issue, and we need to think about changing our entire food system to tackle this. And in the meantime, providing points of security along the way is crucially crucial. So I think coming back to the noble Lord, Lord Harris's question, you can now see very clearly where I and the Green Party are on the question of whether we just need a defence readiness bill or a much broader defence and Resilience Bill.

As the noble Lord Harris said, we face many threats in this age of shocks as we have now shifted our global climate from the very stable Holocene into the very unstable Anthropocene. Great many health threats, some of them, many of them associated with biodiversity collapse. And as cross-referencing to the last debate, when we were talking about space, we have a society that's and an economy that's hugely dependent on satellites. And we were hearing about the risk of the Kessler effect of a cascading loss of the satellites on which we are entirely dependent.

These are all risks we need to understand, assess and manage. Now, I thought the noble Lady Baroness Neville-Jones contribution was really interesting, because I think the noble Lady is absolutely right that we haven't really defined the whole of society. It's a term that's thrown around, and I'm actually going to suggest that we need something broader than that, than whole of society. We've seen in a very obvious example of this, Finland and Poland are both considering rewetting their peatlands as a potential defence against Russian aggression.

We have to think about the state of nature. And yes, I am cross-referencing my bill on Friday. The state of nature as part of our security and resilience. The peatlands is very obvious, but if we have healthy soils, clean rivers, clean air, then we are a much more resilient, stronger society able to take whatever is thrown at us, at us. So more than whole of society, we have to think about a whole of the system, human and more than human. The resilience of all of those systems together is a measure of our security as a society.

And that, of course, means, and this is where I'm going to lose some people who've been with me up to now while we keep chasing growth, growth and resilience chasing. Those are two different directions. We think about a seedling that's growing at great speed, heavily fertilised, lots of lots of irrigation water. That's not the seedling that's going to survive in tough conditions. If you haven't looked after the soil, if you haven't ensured that it can stand up against the wind. We need something that's tough, something that's strong stuff, something that can take knocks.

And simply chasing growth is the opposite direction from that and a dangerous direction.
15:13
Lord Harlech Portrait Lord Harlech (Conservative)
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My Lord, it's a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. And she's Bennett of Manor Castle. And she's right. I was with her up until up until the divergence of growth and resilience. Like other noble Lords, I'm truly grateful to the noble Lord Lord Harris of Haringey for tabling this question and for the authority he brings to it through his work at the National Preparedness Commission. I declare an interest as a serving officer in the Army Reserve and as vice chair of the all party parliamentary Group on climate, Nature and Security.

The core purpose of a Defence Readiness Bill is right the power to mobilise our reserves and our industrial base before a crisis becomes a conflict is precisely what the Strategic Defence Review was correct to demand. But the question before us is not only when the Bill will come, it is what it should contain. On that, the noble Lord is asking exactly the right question. The instinct to keep this bill narrow, to treat it as purely a purely military instrument for purely military emergency, misunderstands the threats set out in our own national risk register.

The register draws no neat line between hostile state action and everything else. It lists pandemic influenza, severe flooding, prolonged power failure and the cascading loss of critical national infrastructure. When any of those materialises, the mechanisms we reach for are strikingly similar to the ones this bill would create. We call on the reserves, we lean on logistics and private sector capacity, and we depend on the local resilience forums to hold the response together on the ground. It makes little sense to build those powers for one category of shock and leave them unavailable for the others.

There is a further dimension this House should not overlook, and it is the state of the infrastructure on which all of our resilience ultimately rests. Much of it is ageing and some of it is frankly crumbling. We cannot be resilient against a pandemic, a flood or a hostile act. If the pipes, the grid and the water storage the country depends on are already failing under ordinary conditions. I think it was in the Sporting Events Bill where the noble Lord Lord Foster of Bath, was talking about the Olympics and how London 2012 Olympics, how the traffic lights could could be controlled positively in order to let sports people and officials through without delay.

But conversely, that could be cyber attacked or gridlocked. But I think anyone trying to drive through London, not in the middle of the night, may think that we're already under some sort of traffic light attack. Renewing that infrastructure is itself an act of national preparedness. And here lies the opportunity, because when we rebuild, we can design in security and resilience from the very start, hardening these assets against both the storm and the saboteur, rather than bolting protection on afterwards at far greater cost.

Upgrade and protection are not competing claims on the budget. Done together, they are one investment. So take one example. We desperately need new water storage, yet no major reservoir has been completed in England since 1992. The nearest new scheme, the Fens Reservoir, is not expected online until 2036 and the Lincolnshire Reservoir not until 2014. That is more than a decade away for infrastructure we need now. I do not accept that a reservoir should take the better part of 15 years to deliver.

With the will and the planning regime built for urgency rather than delay. There is no reason a scheme of this kind should not be built in more than 2 or 3 years. If we're serious about resilience, we must be serious about the pace at which we build things that make us resilient. My Lords, this is not scope creep for its own sake. It is a matter of coherence and our treaty obligations. Article three of the North Atlantic Treaty requires each of us to maintain the resilience to withstand and recover from major shocks, and that resilience is not distinguished by the origin of the shock.

The noble Lord, Lord Harris, has proposed that this bill follow the model of the Climate Change Act 2008, with a statutory duty to assess our baseline preparedness, set targets for improvement and report annually on progress. And I find that a persuasive architecture. We don't need to completely start from scratch. I think we we can build a national resilience framework, which is a benchmark to our preparedness. Using means already at our disposal. As a starting point, you could use the military framework of fighting power.

So the conceptual. How do we think about resilience? What are our strategy and tactics for dealing with such a shock? The moral this is the national conversation which other noble Lords have have spoken about. This is the why, the understanding why we need to be resilient, the motivation and then the physical. This is the flood defences, the backup generators, the stores of. Of bottled water. So I think the the the concept already there. We just need to implement them and do so at pace.

So I put two questions to the noble Lord, the Minister. First, will the mobilisation powers in the forthcoming Defence Readiness Bill be capable of activation for the civil emergencies listed in the National Risk Register and not solely for escalation toward armed conflict? And second, will the government commit to a breakdown of the £4.2 billion allocated to the reserves between now and 2030? That's page 61 of the dip for anyone who's checking. Given the importance to the reserves of in year funding.
15:19
Baroness Smith of Newnham Portrait Baroness Smith of Newnham (Liberal Democrat)
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My Lords. Haringey has brought forward a very timely debate. And if we were in any doubt of that, we only need to think about the business of the House already today, where there was a statement on an independent review into countering foreign financial interference and influence and interference in UK politics, something that one might begin to think about could be contributing to, if not hybrid warfare, something against which both politicians and ordinary members of society need to be aware.

We've heard about hybrid threats, the noble Lady Baroness Wheatcroft reminded us about the poisonings on our soil. Other noble Lords may, like me, have received an email this morning from Cyber Security, which is the Lords phishing education programme. And they sent me a little email saying the email below is something that we sent to you to try and make sure that, you know, you wouldn't get caught out by phishing. Well, again, that isn't something that we would necessarily think about as defence readiness.

And yet it's the sort of issue that we need as a whole of society to be thinking about. And there was a set of questions from the noble Lady Baroness Neville-Jones, about what do we mean by the whole of society? I have assumed from reading the SDR, listening to the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, and from other contributions today, and from the Minister, when he's been speaking in the past, that the whole of society really means what it says on the tin, that we need to be prepared, not just as policy makers, not just as the Ministry of Defence, not just as people who are dealing with individual specific issues about security or cyber security, hard security, critical infrastructure.

But every individual we've heard already today about the fact that some countries, particularly our new NATO allies, Finland and Sweden, do a very good job in preparing their citizens. What lessons has His Majesty's Government taken from our partners and allies? Because circulating booklets to households is one thing and to businesses, as the noble Lady Baroness Wheatcroft suggested. But is that really going to do the job? Are people really going to feel they're going to look. Oh, it's a leaflet that's come through the letterbox.

I better read it and make a note of it and get my wind up radio and my battery torch and make sure that I've stopped the cupboards and got clean water. Or are they going to do what they may do? Now, obviously, as a liberal Democrat, I don't want to believe this, but I understand that when we put leaflets through letterboxes, sometimes they don't get read, sometimes they go directly into the recycling bin. And that's probably if we're lucky.

Now, obviously, if leaflets are going out for national resilience and preparedness, they have a measure of gravitas and weight coming from the government. But equally, I think there is a real danger that people won't necessarily read a document. So we need to be very open to a whole range of different approaches in terms of how do we actually go out and have the conversation that the government has talked about. And the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, has talked about, because it can't just be leaflets through doors and a conversation in and of itself isn't enough either.

A conversation is useful, but we actually need that to be the start, not the end. It needs to be the opportunity to be persuading people, wherever they are in the United Kingdom, whatever their background, whatever their work interests, whatever their personal interests and circumstances that they need to stop and be much more aware. There are parts of the country I understand where people still feel they can leave their front door unlocked and nobody will walk in. Most of us don't feel like that, and we need to be making people aware that there are all sorts of other aspects of their lives where they need to be aware and mindful of what may be coming forward, but in order not to cause any sort of unwelcome emergency on the Liberal Democrat benches, I have understood that the whips like us to arrive many minutes before the start of the next item of business.

So I noticed the noble Lady Baroness Goldie, arrived 15 minutes after me, but when I arrived on my benches, I could see a look of relief from one of our whips, so I thought I'd timed my arrival well and I particularly thought I'd arrived my arrival well, because I then listened to the noble Lord Viscount Camrose in the previous debate about space, and the reason it was so interesting was because as I listened to him, I thought if I just did shorthand and repeated what he had said at the end of the debate on space, it would have been perfectly suitable for a debate about national readiness or defence readiness and resilience, because he was talking about businesses needing certainty.

As the noble Lady Baroness Wheatcroft pointed out. And that's something that is absolutely crucial for our defence readiness. Businesses need to know what the government's priorities are. They need to know when contracts are likely to be let. As the noble Lord Viscount Camrose also said, there is an increasingly crowded marketplace. He was talking about space, which is one aspect of defence, but it's also true in other aspects of defence as well. But in particular, and this is the point where, like the noble Lord Lord Harlech, I beg to part company from the noble Lady Baroness Bennett, because dual use technology is hugely important and the whole of society approach should be about persuading individuals, but it also needs to be about working closely with businesses, partly about defence, investment and R&D.

But finally, on reserves, as the noble Lady Baroness Dacres has pointed out in the debate on Monday, the role of reserves is crucial, but we need to prepare businesses to be aware that their reserves may be called up and that needs to be part of a whole of

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society planning process. My Lords, may I say to the noble Baroness Ladysmith, I would not Baroness Ladysmith, I would not take, when I arrive for a debate as a model for anything, and I. I can say without fear of contradiction, say without fear of contradiction, my whips will endorse that sentiment. Can I say that I, too, sentiment. Can I say that I, too, am grateful to the noble Lord Lord Harris of Haringey for enabling this debate? It is not only timely, this debate? It is not only timely, it is important, and for the persistence with which he has pursued these critical issues of resilience and preparedness for which I thank him.

I want to structure my contribution around three simple propositions the Defence Readiness Bill is not ready. The national conversation that was supposed to accompany it is currently mute, and the Treasury's purse strings, as evidenced by the dip, remain bleakly closed. Now. Each failing compounds the others, and together they explain why. A year on from the Strategic Defence Review, we are still debating proposals rather than debating action. On the first point, let me let me be blunt about the timeline.

The Strategic Defence Review recommended this legislation over a year ago. It was absent from the King's Speech in May. Ministers have told the Other place and indeed this House that proposals are being developed, that officials are working at pace and that the Bill will come forward later in this Parliament. Words, My Lords, but no date, and the authors of the review themselves have made no secret of their frustration at the yawning gap between the urgency of their conclusions and the glacial pace of their implementation, a frustration I think we all inferred from the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Harris today, speaking in front of the Defence Select Committee this week, the noble Lord Lord Robertson of Port Ellen said, we are running out of years and the reality is the challenge is now bigger and more serious and earlier than we anticipated.

And yet the defence investment plan itself does not come up to it. These are the words of the noble Lord, and I think those words should bring the government up short. Now, the second point, the national conversation and the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, is absolutely correct. This is not some fireside chat. The review was explicit that a whole of society approach requires the government to level with the country about the threats we face, the sacrifices resilience may demand and the roles that reserves industry, local authorities and ordinary citizens might all be asked to play as the noble Lord, Lord Harris, so eloquently, indeed chillingly described a Lords instigating at least the planning for how that conversation should be structured and then roll out could have started a year ago.

Where is it? Is the noble Lord the Minister still the lead on it, or is that to be found somewhere else in government?
15:29
Baroness Goldie Portrait Baroness Goldie (Conservative)
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I hope it is the noble Lord, the Minister, who is the lead on it. And if there is any ambiguity, I And if there is any ambiguity, I have a piece of advice for him. You plough the furrow and make the others follow, because I happen to others follow, because I happen to think you make a good job of it. Now, my noble friend Lord Harlech is absolutely correct when he pointed out, because quite apart from the financial implications of from the financial implications of all of this, he rightly pointed out that if the government intends to ask the public to accept new obligations, whether on mobilisation or infrastructure or on preparedness in their own communities, then the public has to be brought into this discussion long before the legislation is passed, not presented with it as a fait accompli.

This vacuum, in my opinion, is doing damage and potentially creating danger because complacency is filling the void. And the watchword should be urgency. Now, thirdly, and perhaps most tellingly, the Treasury, every government document in this subject is written in the conditional commitments. When circumstances allow ambitions for the next Parliament, targets that recede as a calendar advances, the 3% ambition remains an ambition. So the gulf between what the review says is needed and what the Treasury is willing to make available remains.

And, if anything, fiscal pressures have made that gulf wider and starker, and the same timidity that produced ten months of delay in the defence investment plan is stamped all over this bill. A readiness bill that arise without the resources to make readiness real will be a bill in name only, a framework, a skeleton, if you like, with no functioning limbs. And I ask the noble Lord, the Minister, to give an assurance to the House that this legislation will not simply become another unfunded commitment layered on top of all the others.

So, Lords, three questions for the noble Lord, the Minister. When precisely will this Bill be introduced? What concrete steps are being taken to start the national conversation at the SDR said was indispensable. And can the Minister confirm if the Treasury has agreed to fund the powers this Bill will create, or are we again being asked to legislate first and pay later? My Lords, I think we are all agreed that the country's resilience is critical and it cannot be built on aspiration alone, however worthy.

And I hope when he replies that the Minister can offer some comfort and provide some details of substantive proposals rather than rhetoric.
15:32
Lord Coaker Portrait Lord Coaker, The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Labour)
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I'll certainly never resort to rhetoric. So the the the noble rhetoric. So the the the noble Baroness can be stopped by my reassurance on the on on that level. Can I start, though, by thanking my my noble friend Lord Harris for introducing such an important debate and thank everyone who's contributed to it. Can I just start by by saying clearly that the MoD is, of course, developing this work, and I'll say a little bit more about that. The overall responsibility for all of this work across the whole of government is with the Cabinet Office.

And that's the. I know noble Lords understand that, but I think it's important to to to lay down. Again, the coordinating function is for the Cabinet Office. But notwithstanding that, of course, the. The Ministry of Defence has a crucial role and will do what it can to, I think, accelerate the progress that many have mentioned in it. Can I also say to the noble Baroness Bowles, Baroness Goldie and a number of others who've contributed to this debate, that the Defence Ready Readiness Bill will be introduced in this Parliament.

I can't go any further than that, but I think somebody I can't remember which contribution it was, said it would be introduced in the next Parliament. The government's intention is to introduce. It's in in this Parliament, which I think is as far as I can go. Can I just say as well, in terms of the scope of the bill, which goes to the heart of the question and the point of the debate from the noble Lord, Lord Harris, that the the scope of what the Defence Readiness Bill should contain is under discussion.

And so there is, as I say, a debate and a talks going on about what the scope should actually be. But alongside that, of course, many of the other points that have been raised are the responsibility of other government departments. And there are other pieces of legislation which at the same time are being looked at, which actually deal with some of this. And in fact, one example that's just come to mind for me is the Civil Contingencies Act. So there's all of those sorts of other pieces of legislation which are important as well.

Can I also draw my noble Lord, said the chamber to the attention to draw people's attention to that. There are NATO has seven resilience requirements. And of course, as part of NATO, these are requirements that we accept and all of the members of NATO accept, and they deal with many of the sorts of points that have been raised continuity of government energy supplies, uncontrolled movement of people, food and water resources, mass casualties, civil communications systems, civil transportation schemes, all of those that deal with some of the infrastructure problems and challenges that Lord Harlech mentioned, so that all of those are part of a readiness programme, which all member states in NATO will be will be looking at.

Can I also point out, I think it's a really important point. Another people have mentioned that Lord Harris mentioned about the changing nature of warfare and the importance to understand that warfare is about cyber, is about climate is about all of the things that we've talked about is about information and the need for us to address those as well in any plan that we bring forward. Can I say to Baroness Neville-Jones, I've answered the point about when the bill would be introduced and the noble Baroness was was asking about that.

She asked me to define a whole of society. And I, I think I think Baroness Smith did it quite well. I mean, we can we can tie ourselves in knots in this, in what whole of society means. But we all know what we're talking about is everybody's responsibility. Every part of society has a, has, has a part to play, whether it be business, whether it be industry, whether it be government agencies, whether it be voluntary organisations, the military, individuals, groups of people, and the list goes on and on.

The devolved administrations, local authorities, local local resilience forums, all of those sorts of things have to be involved in bringing a plan together and be involved in, in, in any conversation. The, the, the challenge is how you do that in a constructive and coordinated way that's not fragmented in any way. So as I say, the the whole of society is noble. Baroness wants to.

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Yeah. So thank you. Yeah. The Minister for making that clear. But it is an ambitious. that clear. But it is an ambitious. In my in my view it should be. And it is an ambitious aim.

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it is an ambitious aim. I thank the noble Baroness for for those the comments that that for those the comments that that she's just made in answer to, to Baroness Prentis points. I mean, I think the point I was making I'd think the point I was making I'd make to her, which I've just is from the NATO's resilience action, because she can see there's many of the sorts of, of, of things that need to be, will need to be addressed and, and, and will be addressed as we go forward.

I, like I suspect many people in the chamber would disagree with her about growth. I've never seen growth in the environment as conflicting. If you want good. If the good growth. And then you need. Also alongside that. That means you need to care for the environment. You don't. But you have to have growth in the economy and to, to try and bring about that growth, I think is a really, really important point. I've mentioned the point about. Those sorts of things in just in the points about the NATO seven resilience actions.

Can I just go to Baroness Wheatcroft point? National conversation is absolutely fundamental, and we accept that. If I was going to criticise myself, I'd have to say after two weeks, I think I mentioned to to the noble Baroness, I've been moved from national conversation in the reorganisation of that has gone to another person in the Department. I've taken on a couple of other functions within the Ministry of Defence, and that's gone to somebody else. But I'll come to it in a moment about something that I tried to leave.

I wouldn't say it was ploughing a furrow, but it was an attempt to get it moving. The but but just to say seriously to to Baroness Wheatcroft, of course, it's really important. The the national conversation, really fundamental to it. And we will take. We're not frightened of doing it. I'll tell you what the discussion is. What's the right way of doing it? You know, that's that's the conversation and that it's difficult. And what exactly is it the message that you want to get across? You have to ensure that people can rise to the challenge without scaring or frightening them either.

And it's there's a discussion and debate which would take place if we had it in here about what that actually means and what that actually should be. But the noble Baroness is quite right about the need to for a national conversation and for us to, to move more quickly. Lord Harlech mentioned. And can I say to him a note, as I always try to do his service as an active reservist, he will know in the Armed Forces Bill currently due in committee in September, that there are a number of measures in there with respect to the the reserves, and one of them is to reduce the threshold at which you can recall reserves from almost imminent war to a war readiness.

And I think it'd be interesting if committee for us to debate what actually war readiness means. And I think that would maybe be the time. The noble, if I might suggest, might want to put an amendment down and just to, to not to vote on it, but to, to explore what the government's thinking is with respect to that. But I think that if we are trying to lower the threshold, and I think he he makes an important point around that. I know the wider point is I think that Lord Harris was is should it be not just war, but actually some of the other things that we've talked about.

And that would be a debate and discussion that we could have on the issue of that. He will know there's an additional sums of money which are being made available, and usually you would leave it up to the reserve commanders to themselves. Just look at how that might be allocated. I've answered many of the points in that, that the noble Baroness, Baroness Baroness Morris, has raised the the point of a national conversation, the lessons from Finland and in particular some of the other Baltic countries, is the way they found to speak to their people without worrying them unduly, but alerting them to the to the change.

I think the big thing about what Finland and others do and their example to us, and I think the noble Baroness Baroness Goldie was talking about this as well, and others having the debate is the importance of homeland defence. The military and conflict has always been seen as war in the traditional sense, almost from a UK point of view, going overseas or going onto the continent of Europe. Whereas actually we're talking about now the threat to the homeland and how we deal with that, I think, is a really important challenge for us all, because actually it takes the UK into a territory that perhaps we've not been into for quite a significant period of time, and particularly since we've not been occupied in that sense, depending on how far you go back.

But you understand the point that that I'm making the noble Baroness Goldie asked about the national conversation. And she's quite right. That will be somebody else's responsibility. But I have drawn up. There is work that I've done within the department, which hopefully will help move it forward. As she will know, there's drafts and drafts and so on. So hopefully that will move it forward. But we are alert in the department to the need for the Mod to move forward and then to talk with other government departments about what responsibilities they need and what responsibilities they should have in order to deal with something which is really, really important.

I've answered a point about the Defence Readiness Bill, perhaps not to the certainty the noble Baroness would want on finance. We've had the debate and discussion about it. I know she's specifically asked about the Defence Readiness Bill, but we can be assured that we will make the case of the importance of that to be funded properly. But can I thank all who've participated in this debate? It's a hugely important debate. There are all sorts of things going on across government and across society to deal with this particular issue.

It is an absolute priority for the government, and I know it's an absolute priority for all of us in here. And I think what all of us want is to try and accelerate that progress and accelerate the process. I think the noble Baroness Wheatcroft point was to get on with it, and I think we'd all agree with that. But can I just finish by saying again to my noble friend,

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Lord Harris, thank you for introducing the debate. It's been a very important one. My Lords. We perhaps might take a moment

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We perhaps might take a moment to move before the next debate Motion Motion for Motion for debate. Constitution Committee report on the rule of law.
15:44
None Portrait Debate: Report from the Constitution Committee 'The Rule of Law: Holding the line against Tyranny and Anarchy' Lord Strathclyde (Conservative)
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Lord Strathclyde Lords, it's a. >> Lord Strathclyde Lords, it's a. >> Great pleasure to be able to introduce this debate as chair of introduce this debate as chair of the Constitutional Constitution Committee. My Lords, people have heard many times, many politicians and others praying in aid, adherence to the rule of law and the vowing to its importance. Yet very few people seem to understand what it represents and just how fundamental it is to our Constitution. At the end of last year, the Constitution Committee conducted a long and detailed inquiry into the rule of law and published its report towards the end of the year.

This was also prompted by a sense that the rule of law was being threatened in many parts of the world. We wanted to understand the extent to which we in the UK should also be concerned by that. It was a privilege to chair the committee and during this inquiry, and I'm grateful to all those who contributed to it, our witnesses and my fellow members, whose knowledge and experience they greatly strengthened the final report and some of whom are speaking in debate today.

I'm sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich and the noble Baroness Brady Hamwee and their time constraints meant that they had to scratch, and they played an important part in our deliberations. I also want to mention in particular our excellent secretariat and clerks who delivered our witnesses, our drafts and good humour, even when we became embroiled in the weeds of the subject. Over nine months, we received more than 100 written submissions and heard from judges, practising lawyers, the police, journalists and young people.

We deliberately sought views from people not normally asked for those views. The result is a report that seeks to provide an accessible evolution to our understanding of the rule of law, as well as to ask whether we're doing enough to preserve and strengthen it. The rule of law is one of the defining principles of our constitutions. It has deep roots in our history, reaching back centuries all the way to Magna Carta. And many argue beyond the rule of law is one of the foundations upon which both democratic government and personal liberty depend.

That's why we subtitled our report Holding the Line Against Tyranny and Anarchy, recognising that the rule of law protects us from the tyranny of an overbearing state and the mob rule of anarchy, it guards against both extremes. But it's also more than this the rule of law underpins economic prosperity, facilitating business and trade in the UK. It contributes to our global reputation, not least because businesses from all over the world choose to have their contracts governed by English law.

Given its importance, it is unsurprising that the rule of law is frequently invoked in this House and elsewhere. We proclaim our attachment to it. We vow to protect it. But my Lords, what does it actually mean? The answer to that is not always straightforward. The rule of law is a slippery concept that is difficult to pin down. It's also beset by complicated academic and political debates about so-called thick and thin conceptions, which differ over whether human rights and international law are part of the rule of law.

These debates around the definition of the rule of law give the impression that it is a contested idea, but is it is deeply embedded as a British value in ideas of fairness, equality and justice. When, some years ago the noble Lord noble and learned Lord, Lord Bingham, made a key set of definitions of the rule of law, and the Committee sought to build upon his definition. The committee's view was that the rule of law is perhaps best understood as a culture.

People obey the law because they trust that others will do the same. They accept court judgements because they trust the independence and integrity of the judiciary. They engage in business and trade because they trust that contracts will be respected and enforced. This culture is under strain. Increasingly, people lack confidence in the rule of law. They see increasing amounts of street crime, shoplifting, bicycle and mobile phone theft, but doubt that the offenders will ever be caught or fear that the police will be disinterested in what they perceive to be mostly irrelevant crime.

The perpetrators are rarely held to account. Others encounter lengthy delays in the justice system, whilst being faced with prohibitive costs. To access legal advice and representation. At the same time, some politicians and parts of the media tell them that judges undermine Parliament and pursue personal agendas. The collective effort is to weaken confidence in the rule of law and the institutions responsible for upholding it. One area, my Lords particularly concerned the committee was the treatment of the judiciary.

Judges, both individually and as a whole, have been increasingly vilified in public debate. They're accused of interfering in politics, of deciding cases according to their personal views, and this has spilled over into personal attacks and threats to their safety. When these attacks need to stop. That is not to say that discussion and debate of judgement is off limits. Certainly not. But judges themselves should be able to carry out their job without fear of retaliation. Otherwise, there is a threat to the independence of the judiciary.

The government must set the tone and in promptly and clearly dismissing misleading information about judgements. And it has a duty to defend the judiciary against unwarranted attacks. The Lady Chief Justice, in her evidence was particularly strong in the subject and we agreed with her. Of course, I have little time for judges seeking to expand their own boundaries, or indeed indulging in judicial activism, but I wholly accept their constitutional independence. Access to justice is a further essential part of the rule of law.

There is no point having laws and rights if they cannot be enforced and upheld. However, we frequently heard about backlogs, delays and difficulties obtaining legal advice and representation. The government must take divisive, decisive action to improve access to justice and to tackle delays. Not the blunt instrument of scrapping jury trials, but it should explore creative solutions. Technology has an important role to play in realising efficiencies across the justice system, such as digitising remaining paper based processes where appropriate.

The use of alternative dispute resolution should also be encouraged, and we also looked at the role of Parliament. As we all know, parliamentary sovereignty is the supreme constitutional principle. But Parliament also has a responsibility to the rule of law, especially as we carry out our primary role on legislation. Laws should be clear, they should be accessible. They should be capable of being understood by those expected to obey them. Excessive complexity, performative legislation and the inappropriate use of delegated powers all make these objectives harder to achieve.

And my Lords, I should add that this government is not the sole government to be guilty of doing these things. It has happened in previous governments too, but we should never stop in seeking to improve the quality of our legislation and reducing our reliance on delegated powers. We therefore urge parliamentarians to keep the rule of law front and centre when scrutinising legislation and the government when drafting it. My Lords, the central message of our report is that the rule of law is not just a constitutional principle, but the invisible thread that governs our everyday lives.

It is most definitely not just the concern of lawyers alone, it matters to everyone. That is why we should start with children. It should be better taught and understood in schools. This is what enables citizens to challenge power businesses to invest with confidence, communities to live in peace, and democratic government to command legitimacy. These are what count and help provide stability in a complex world. But also, we should take pride in the United Kingdom's long tradition of respect for the rule of law.

But as I said earlier on, pride must never become complacency. There can be no doubt that the rule of law faces genuine pressures. Those pressures can be addressed, but only if we recognise them and actively choose to defend

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the rule of law. My Lords, I beg to move. My question is that this motion

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My question is that this motion be agreed to some. It was a great privilege to serve on the Constitution Committee, serve on the Constitution Committee, and it was a great pleasure to serve under the chairmanship of Lord Strathclyde, particularly for Lord Strathclyde, particularly for this important report, and as the House might expect, he conducted the Committee with tremendous brio
15:54
Baroness Andrews Portrait Baroness Andrews (Labour)
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the Committee with tremendous brio and with a great sense of democracy within the Committee as well, and I'm afraid I shall have to apologise to the House, because I am bound to repeat. But to reinforce much of what he has said about the significance of the report and the way we pursued it, it's the singular task of the Constitution Committee to hold the elements of constitutional democracy up to the light, to show how it works for real people, and this was one of the most penetrating outcomes of that very important report.

And six months on with the Iran war more unsettled than ever and with the rule of law increasingly embattled, it's paramount that we in the UK are unconditional. I think in our commitment to the principle and the practice of it at home and abroad, and that's why this committee was so important and so timely. But it was a brave choice, my Lords, brave chair, and it was a very challenging inquiry in breadth and depth, reaching back, as Lord Strathclyde said, to the roots of our democracy, but also into a very uncertain future.

I'm Tom Paine, whom I lay claim to as another resident of Lewes, would have applauded the title, particularly the subtitle The Rule of Law Holding the Line Against Tyranny and Anarchy, because it articulated his own deep conviction in the American context of 1776 that in free countries the law ought to be king, and there ought to be no other. My Lords, 250 years on, us being put to the test every day in the United States, and the Committee was only too aware of that.

And as we've heard already, the passions attached to differing interpretations of the rule of law, the vocabulary of thick and thin, to the extent that it would have been very easy to fall prey and to fall into an academic and sterile hole. But we did not. We did debate where the boundaries of the rule of law might fall, but we focussed on what the rule of law means in the experience of people in their daily lives. And that was why it was important.

But we also looked at the challenges to the justice system and to Parliament itself. And we looked hard at the contract, which is wired into our culture, which has meant that trust in the law to keep us safe has lasted for centuries, but there was no escaping the evidence that this reciprocal culture is at risk. And that evidence suggests the disrespect for the law has been emboldened since Covid, with the paradox of draconian legislation, which was felt by many not to have been evenly applied.

And there is no doubt, as Lord Strathclyde alluded to, the infamous attacks on judges as the enemies of the people some years ago gave the green light for attacks on the independence of the jury of the judiciary, and we were particularly shocked by the evidence he's already cited and by the very stark statement of the Lady Chief Justice that the judges now need to have moral courage and I would say physical courage as well, in the light of the evidence. Second, the evidence showed that the culture of trust in the law to work for everyone equally is also fragile.

To defeat tyranny and anarchy, justice must be seen to work to be accessible, effective and fair. It is a truism, my Lord. But like all truisms, it is actually true. The evidence suggests that for many people, this is simply not the case. Our witnesses came from across the spectrum. Judges and community activists all agree that free legal advice was virtually invisible in some communities and in the whole of Greater Manchester, there is only one law centre for 2.8 million people. Most advice is now limited to information.

It does not go as far as legal assistance and part of that failure, compounded by documented legal aid. The horrendous waiting lists for the courts, including people who were on remand, the physical disintegration, the decay of the legal estate and the growth of crimes which are anything but victimless. No wonder people feel that the idea of justice is meaningless as far as they're concerned. The system itself feels disempowered, and part of the problem is that the law is not taught early enough, or widely enough or broadly enough, and our recommendations address all these issues, and I have alerted the Minister to a specific question, which is what happened to the Legal Support Strategy Delivery Group, which was set up by the MoJ.

But for this place there is the most profound question, which is how confident can we be in our own future as the bulwark against tyranny and anarchy? My Lords, the Victorians were better informed about Parliament than we are. What has happened to the political reporters or the serious commentators virtually disappeared. My Lords, do Members of Parliament all we in this House know enough about the Constitution, the legal system? What constitutes legal certainty? To be clear where the risks are, do we know who is accountable for safeguarding the Constitution? Do our laws stand the test of the basic requirements that they should be clear, accessible, prospective, predictable, possible to obey, free of conflict? Does Parliament use its power to interrogate Ministers to hold them to account? My Lords, if I were marking this paper, I would give the house a C plus.

At best, the volume of legislation is only one issue take pensions regulation. It has grown from 3000 pages to 165,000 pages since 1990. Worse is the sheer complexity which defeats even the most distinguished lawyers themselves, I think, with fear of the forthcoming legislation only so reform the loss of killing schedules, the delays in employment consolidation, the accumulative legislation required to correct and revise few can find meaning, let alone definitive meaning. On the other hand, equally dismaying or skeletal bill which evades interrogation, careless delegation, which hides decisions which cannot be changed.

These are serious and very familiar charges in this House. This is our special subject, my Lords. We need to not debate more, but to act now. And as the report emphasises, Parliament must take its constitutional responsibility seriously and I would act visibly. My Lords, I will return to the Constitution of England, he said, is so exceedingly complex that the nation may suffer for years together without being able to say in which part the fault lies. And every political physician will advise a different medicine.

He was right about the Constitution, but he was wrong about our report because our report was very clear in respect of its diagnosis and prescription. We are seeking not to blame, but to identify and incentivise the responsibility for ensuring the rule of law is not an abstract construction, but is positively promoted in every respect. I thank you.
16:02
Lord Burnett of Maldon Portrait Lord Burnett of Maldon (Crossbench)
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May I start by declaring an interest as a serving member of the supplementary panel of the Supreme supplementary panel of the Supreme >> Court of the United Kingdom. My Lord, the report of the Constitution Committee to which I Constitution Committee to which I contributed as a member is a timely reminder of the importance of the rule of law as a vital rule of law as a vital constitutional safeguard. It's something that is largely taken for granted, but the fact that it's been the subject of so much discussion in recent years is itself a sign of growing concern about its vulnerability.

I congratulate our chairman, the noble Lord Lord Strathclyde, on his skilful navigation through a subject which is apt to get diverted into academic byways and alleyways, and by focusing on the practical. In the few minutes available, I wish to touch briefly on two subjects the independence of the judiciary, to which there has already been reference, and a discrete aspect of access to justice, judicial independence, my Lords, is central to the rule of law. It is reflected in the judicial oath to do right to all manner of people after the laws and usages of this realm, without fear or favour, affection or ill will.

Judicial independence enables judges to administer justice impartially and to treat equally those who appear before them. Equality before the law is a cardinal principle. Our report noted the importance of judicial independence. Independence, of course, from the Executive and Parliament, but also from all who might seek to put pressure on courts, not just politicians. That includes the press, large corporations, trade unions, activists and campaigners. Judges are required to resist all such pressure. Now judicial independence, as we've heard, is undermined when judges are attacked personally for a decision or their integrity is impugned, an expression of disagreement with the outcome of a case is entirely unobjectionable.

But the growth of personal vilification, in which, regrettably, from time to time, politicians have joined, crosses the line into a direct assault on the independence of the judiciary. Examples are multiplying. And even this week, a High Court judge has been accused by disappointed litigants of a complete and obvious whitewash. My Lords judges speak through their judgements and cannot answer back. That is why the Constitutional Reform Act imposes duties on the Lord Chancellor to defend the independence of the judiciary.

The Committee recognised that a culture of hostility towards the judiciary has been allowed to develop in recent years because of inappropriate, often inaccurate, public criticism by politicians and others with inadequate defence from government. We distinguish in the report between discussion and debate about judgements and personal attacks on judges or the judiciary as a whole, as Lord Strathclyde has noted, such attacks should stop. Importantly, we added that Ministers, and particularly the Lord Chancellor, must speak out in defence of the judiciary when it comes under attack.

It needed say, and I fear, that obligation will become more onerous as time goes by. Now, my Lords, the very existence of a functioning court and tribunal system with an independent judiciary means that most disputes are sorted out before lawyers are involved, before proceedings are threatened or issued, and even when issued, many are resolved without a final determination. But cases which do need final resolution by the courts must be capable of being heard in a timely fashion.

Timeliness, my Lords, at least in my opinion, is more important than the fixation on outstanding case numbers. Now is not the time to talk about the difficulties in the criminal courts. We may yet get an opportunity to do so. Or maybe we won't. My views are well known and do not align with the centre of gravity of legal opinion. But my short point is a general one. When Parliament legislates with the result that new rights and obligations are created, government must ensure that the relevant courts and tribunals are ready to deal with the increased caseload.

The late noble and learned Lord Lord Atherton, raised this issue powerfully with respect to the significant changes found in the recent renter's rights legislation, both as passed and as originally proposed by the last government. Similar points have been made regarding the employment rights legislation. My Lords, it's doubtful whether the courts and tribunals that will deal with the resulting disputes can do so in a timely fashion. Legislation and legislating is not the end of the story.

My Lords. If the rights created cannot be readily and quickly enforced, they may turn out

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to be hollow. We should never start a speech

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We should never start a speech with an apology, but I do sincerely apologise if I have to leave before the end of the debate to get back the end of the debate to get back up to Scotland. I hadn't expected the debate to be taken so late and I didn't want to withdraw. I was I didn't want to withdraw. I was very keen to participate in this
16:08
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Portrait Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Labour)
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important topic as a member of the Constitution Committee at the time, and it is a vital topic. I was a bit sceptical about it. I thought it had been. If members know by the lawyers and. A very dry topic. But it's really proved, as the noble Baroness Andrews said, to be a really important issue. And this is a really excellent report from the Constitution Committee, may I say, ably chaired by Lord Strathclyde, he and I have crossed swords in Ayrshire from time to time, but I really do pay great respect to him for the way he chaired this report.

And I think the most striking observation from the report is that the greatest threat to the rule of law doesn't actually come from a dramatic crisis, but can emerge gradually through declining institutional standards, through weakened scrutiny and political rhetoric, which encourages the loss of faith in our democratic institutions. If you take the case of Henry Novak, OK, the police did fail in their duty, but they are being held accountable. And as the report says, failures within individual failures within institutions should not be used as an excuse to undermine that institution completely.

But sadly, in the Novak case, before the facts were established, reform UK immediately sought to use this tragedy to claim, wrongly, that Britain has a system of two tier policing against white people, and this is the kind of dangerous politicking that the report warns against. The committee is also equally clear that no individual or institution is beyond scrutiny, and the conviction of Peter Murrell for embezzling more than £400,000 from the SNP is an example which reminds us vividly of the consequences of the failure of internal governance.

This case exposed the prolonged weakness of accountability and oversight in one of our largest parties in Scotland, and with the more recent revelations of over £1 million missing from the Yes Scotland campaign, there is sadly more yet to come. You know, an organisation where the leader and the chief executive are married couples, a married couple where anyone who raised questions as they did, were summarily dismissed and where accountants resign in protest, sadly, is an example of the failure of the rule of law.

The rule of law depends on transparency, on independent oversight, and on the confidence that wrongdoing will ultimately be exposed. And that's not yet the case in the SNP scandal. The committee's most important message is that there is a difference between demanding better of our institutions and encouraging the public to lose faith, faith in them, and that distinction really matters. When police make mistakes, they're investigated. If political parties fail, we should seek to reform them. If government's overreach, then Parliament should take them to task.

Those aren't signs that the rule of law has failed. They are actually evidence that the constitutional safeguards are working. The real danger is when political leaders suggest that the whole system is irredeemably corrupt or biased. Once confidence in democratic institutions is lost, it's very, very difficult for it to be rebuilt in this country. Two of the threats to our democracy are dark money, Russian, of course, but also from the USA, which we heard in a statement earlier today, influencing our politics.

And also, sadly, the increasing level of disengagement in elections and politics, particularly among young people. And that's why elsewhere, later on in this session, I'll be arguing that we should be closing loopholes in our electoral finance laws. We heard that again earlier today, and I will be supporting the introduction of compulsory voting, which has proved so successful in Australia. My Lord, the most recent example of a crypto billionaire giving Farage £5 billion is not an isolated case, but it does remind us that there is a real danger of very rich people, both at home and overseas, taking or trying to take control of our democratic institutions.

Unless we take urgent steps to avoid it. Similar is returning to the report. It's not just about constitutional law, but constitutional responsibility. It reminds us that the rule of law is sustained by institutions which are accountable by Parliament, exercising effective scrutiny and political leaders choosing responsibility over rhetoric. And these recent examples of the exploitation of the Henry Novak case by reform, indeed, of the failure to scrutinise the candidates by the Green Party and the corruption and lack of transparency of the SNP show in different ways how the confidence in our constitutional settlement can be weakened.

But the answer isn't to diminish confidence in our institutions, but to find ways, as this report says, to ensure that our institutions are transparent, are accountable and are worthy of trust while resisting those who seek to turn any failures into evidence that the rule of law itself has collapsed. That is, as the report says, the road to tyranny and the road to anarchy which we must resist. Yes.
16:14
Lord Waldegrave of North Hill Portrait Lord Waldegrave of North Hill (Conservative)
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My Lords, it is a particular pleasure to not only to follow the noble Lord Lord Foulkes restored noble Lord Lord Foulkes restored happily to full health, but to find oneself on the same side of the argument as him. Because for a good argument as him. Because for a good many years in another place, I had to suffer from being on the wrong side of the argument, and that was a very uncomfortable. I join with all the other members who have spoken in paying tribute to our chair and to the other members.

I read some of the other day that that Michelle Obama said she'd never met a white man who suffered from imposter syndrome. Well, all I can tell you, my Lord, is that when the noble and learned Lords on our committee got going, I certainly felt imposter syndrome. Lord Anderson Lord Bellamy Lord Burnett of Maldon. I mean, they're wonderful, but they're also practical people, as well as being very good lawyers and the other members. And we've heard from two others already. I think we can all be proud of this report.

I am thinking fitting, my Lords, that we debate this fundamental matter in the same week that we grieve Lord Mackay, who, if you wanted an embodiment of what the rule of law meant, practical but also learned he was it. And I can tell you I won't, because I'd get into trouble with former colleagues of a couple of occasions in the Cabinet, which I was privileged to serve with him, when more, shall I say, robust colleagues were going off in one direction or another, and that beautiful Scottish brogue brought them back onto the safe line.

Nobody wanted to argue with him. Now I want to make three short points. I won't repeat, though. I endorse everything that's been said by colleagues so far. First of all, it does reflect something that noble Lord Lord Foulkes has just said. There's a terrible cliche about at the moment that everything is broken in this country. Whenever we say that we give, we give succour to our enemies, both abroad and at home. The rule of law is not broken here. Which is not to say that we shouldn't, as this report is.

Be very careful to identify where new threats may come from, where present failings which can be corrected should be undertaken. But let us have enough of that cliche. My Lords. We have the rule of law and we must protect it. My second point is this for most of the last century, when civilisation faced destruction either by Hitler or by Stalin, most attention was perhaps paid to the rule of law as guardian against tyranny. Big brother was the most potent fear and a reasonable one.

Now, my noble Lords, the danger of tyranny is, of course, remains, and a very real danger. It is in much of the world. But we now must also watch for the other danger, anarchy. The irony is that our far bigger state has not become an all powerful big brother. Can we really imagine that any of our departments of state would be as efficient as the terrifying departments in George Orwell's book? I don't think it would actually work. It might even be described as being broken.

The point is that as the state has become bigger, the paradox is it's also become weaker. It's become an enormous juggernaut with its wheels stuck up to the axles in mud. We face a paradox, an enormous state which cannot plausibly reassure its citizens that it knows how to carry out its two central tasks defence against foreign enemies and satisfactory maintenance of the law for ordinary people at home. And it's the report concern for the maintenance of the confidence by Ordinary people in the rule of law that I want to just add a little more colour to today.

To quote the then Lord Chancellor and present Home Secretary, we cannot accept a situation when she was in evidence to us. We cannot accept a situation where there is a sense that someone came in, robbed a shop and absolutely nothing happened. When I asked her if she thought that the illegal arrival of small boats on our shores without apparent consequence undermined respect for the law, she answered yes, and she was right. There is beginning to be an anxiety, beginning to be a real anxiety, that elements of the rule of law are a bit of a bluff now, noble Lords, all is far from lost, and the splendid report by the noble Lords, Lord Blunkett and Herbert, will greatly help to strengthen the police, I believe, if it's follow, if they're followed through, and it's absolutely vital that the ordinary citizen understands that the state has not backed off its fundamental duty to to face down criminality, big or small, at home as well as abroad.

Third and final point, my noble Lords, that the rule of law is based on consent or at least acceptance. Law. Law long precedes democracy, but without it. In Lord Soames words, to the committee, society is simply a fight for the most effective deployment of force, consent or allegiance means understanding of and acceptance of the process by which laws are made. For us, it is Parliament and the ancient and subtle generation of common law. That is why there is a problem with, for example, the ECHR.

It is not that the judges are wicked or that all the judgements are bad. Many are easily accepted as excellent. The problem is that the citizens consent is not embodied in the process by which those laws are developed. There is not, or not yet at least, a genuine community of Europe which lies behind that body of law in the way that England and Scotland and the whole of the United Kingdom lie behind our law. So when the convention stops us, stops this Parliament for doing things that the people want.

People do not understand why that is. And now we face and Lord Burnett is written powerfully about this, an expansion of attempted jurisdiction by the International Court of Justice, which is going to drive us mad if we are not careful and will face us with the same problems we must. We. Those who raise these issues are not against the rule of law, not against the rules based order in the world. But we are warning and anxious that if we simply sign to.

To courts and laws which our people don't feel embody their own feelings, we will find ourselves in difficulty. It's very difficult to leave these things, but it is not a criticism of the rule of law to raise questions about those issues. My noble Lords, the UK remains a bastion of the rule of law. It is well defended by the outstanding practitioners who appeared before our committee, but it's a bastion whose defence we

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should never take for granted. Yes. Well done.

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My Lords. It's a great pleasure to follow the honourable. Oh, I to follow the honourable. Oh, I think, my Lords, it's it's a think, my Lords, it's it's a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, and to echo his words about the
16:22
Baroness Laing of Elderslie Portrait Baroness Laing of Elderslie (Conservative)
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and to echo his words about the late Lord Mackay of Clashfern, the very embodiment of wisdom and decency, and a great Scots lawyer. It was a privilege to have known him. My Lords, it was an interesting challenge to be a member of the Constitution Committee, which undertook the inquiry on which this report is based. We've already heard from some of the distinguished Lords who served on the committee, and not only do I agree with all of the points they have made, I thank them for all that I learned while sitting in their company during this inquiry.

It's a widely held misconception that examining aspects of the Constitution is nothing more than a dry, old academic exercise undertaken by dry, old academics. It isn't. This was a genuine inquiry. We explored a very wide range of issues and aspects, and we asked questions to which we didn't already know the answers. We were often surprised by the conclusions to which we came. After having considered the evidence. But, my Lords, why does this report matter? Why does this debate matter? May I make three brief points in answer to that question? First, it matters, my Lords, because one of our important conclusions was that safeguarding the rule of law is a shared responsibility.

That responsibility lies not only with judges and lawyers, not only with Ministers, parliamentarians, civil servants and public authorities. It lies with every citizen to maintain a free society, we must nurture a widespread culture of respect for the principles of the rule of law. I hope that perhaps this debate, although let's be honest, it might not quite compete for audience figures with England against Norway, it probably won't even compete with children's television. But I sincerely hope that the fact that we are having this debate is a small step in our quest to create a wider understanding of the importance of our constitutional conventions.

I've seen in many schools I've visited over the years some excellent examples of citizenship education, but sadly, we discovered during our inquiry that this excellence doesn't occur widely throughout the country. Perhaps the end of term report for most schools on the subject of citizenship education would be. Must try harder, and I'm sure that the Minister will respond that citizenship education is a statutory requirement, and indeed it is. But teachers need more help, more training themselves so that we can ensure that lessons are actually being effectively delivered.

The committee's recommendation at paragraph two, four six in particular, deserves to be taken forward by the government if it concerns helping schools to deliver education on citizenship, because giving children an understanding that constitutional principles are the very foundations of our free society is the first step in creating good and responsible leaders for the next generation. Second, my Lords, the rule of law is not merely an abstract concept or a legal doctrine. It's the constitutional condition upon which our entire democracy depends.

It is not, as some ill informed commentators like, to imply, an impediment to effective government. On the contrary, it is the condition which gives government its legitimacy at a time when democratic institutions across many countries face increasing pressure, it's more vital than ever that the people have confidence that power is being exercised lawfully, transparently and accountably. The rule of law is universal. Nobody is above the law. The government is subject to the law, just as is any citizen.

As several recent cases heard in the Supreme Court have rightly reinforced, liberty is secured, my Lords, not by the exercise of power, but by its restraint through the law. Let us hope that we do not have to encounter an extremist government here in Britain. But we see extremism growing elsewhere right now, upholding the rule of law. And I argue that having this debate is part of that process. Upholding the rule of law is our defence against extremism.

The government cannot bully the people. Third, the committee considered Lord Bingham's first principle, as Lord Strathclyde mentioned in his excellent introduction to our debate this afternoon. Lord Bingham's first principle is that the law should be accessible, intelligible, clear and predictable. The report expresses concern that legislation has become increasingly lengthy, technically complex and dependent upon delegated powers. But, my Lords, we are legislators. We have a duty to hold the government to account in order to bring the laws.

We are making more in line with Lord Bingham's principle. Well over 200 years ago, in 1801, the great William Pitt said, where law ends, tyranny begins. I hope that this report and this debate goes some way to drawing general attention to that universal and timeless truth.

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Now, I ask the first person to speak this afternoon can claim no speak this afternoon can claim no part whatsoever in the production of this report. Therefore, independently express my own view and the views of many to whom I have spoken on its excellence, on have spoken on its excellence, on the fact it needed doing and what it said needed saying. So you you it said needed saying. So you you all deserve a great thank you. But having said that, I want to turn to
16:29
Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd Portrait Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (Crossbench)
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deal with one topic, partly to deal with one topic, partly to reinforce in one minute area the strength of this report and what I strength of this report and what I want to draw on is what I have observed has been happening observed has been happening elsewhere in Europe and how steps have been taken to undermine the rule of law. And we need to learn rule of law. And we need to learn from those. And I think the central lesson we learn is that those who seek to undermine the rule of law make the judiciary the prime focus of their plans and their actions.

Can I give you four examples? First, you weaken public confidence primarily through attacking judges, through the media, exploiting inefficiency in the courts or delays and attacking what might seem incautious decisions or incautious extrajudicial statements. Secondly, undermining the self-governance and unitary structure of the judiciary. Thirdly, appointing compliant candidates to high judicial office and then using disciplinary proceedings and other measures to remove strong judges. These are means of which they are readily available. Examples, particularly in Hungary and Poland.

What has happened in neighbouring countries in the last few years? It's all been done, as Lord Foulkes pointed out subtly, and it has been done in some cases with some considerable success. Now, why should we bother to learn from elsewhere? We have our long traditions, our conventions. We have the Constitutional Reform Act, particularly seeing Lord Faulkner of Worcester, its author, and E. And so we say, why bother? I think we should. And I'd like to look at four matters.

First of all, areas where I think we really do need action and which the report underlines the need for action, that is, communications. The Judicial Offices press office was set up by Lord Woolf with the help of Sir Hayden Phillips, just as the act came into existence. But there is a need to keep it up. To date, the media has changed beyond all recognition and therefore I strongly endorse what is said at paragraph 123 of the report in the message it sends to government and the judiciary.

The government, it appears from paragraph 36, have the message. I hope the judiciary will get it too, because they must appreciate that if they don't take responsibility for the way they communicate, someone else will do it for them. And it's an important lesson it must be learned. Secondly, the effective and timely running of the courts now, resources play an immense part in the way in which you can administer justice. But judges have a responsibility too, and the responsibility from which they cannot run away.

They need to put right things that are wrong or systems that don't work. And here the Constitution Committee, maybe not in this report, but generally has played an important role by holding judges to account for anything that has gone wrong in the courts, but that holding to account is extremely beneficial because it enables the judges in a neutral forum, as Parliament is for them to point out what the problems are, which are so often a lack of adequate resources.

And so here is an important role of the Constitutional Committee. And the third matter to which I wish to refer was the protection against attacks on judges. The report is more than 100% correct. If you can have such a concept at paragraphs 112 to 114. In drawing attention to this. But it is important that restraint is shown on by everyone concerned that judges have to be as careful as media magnates, and Cabinet Ministers should be. It's a very, very important principle, and if there are mistakes made, as has been done so successfully by the Lady Chief Justice in recent weeks, you put things right quickly and people can see that now.

Those are things where I think the Constitution Committee points an important message and has an important role. Can I briefly touch on other areas where I think there is just a role to be careful appointments? The jack is extremely important, but its role is not properly understood. And the first step of any Minister who wishes to subvert the judiciary is to get control of appointments. We need to make certain that the Appointments Commission is strong. Secondly, by the system that was devised for disciplining judges, we have shielded ourselves from the accusation of people that, like Mr.

Berlusconi, could make the judges looked after themselves. But the operation of the system needs careful monitoring. And thirdly, self-governance of the judiciary. I welcome strongly what is in the bill, which I hope will be taken forward, at least in this respect, to bring together the courts and the tribunals. It is important that the judiciary is unified now, what conclusion should we draw as to the role of the Constitution Committee? It seems to me that the examples we see from elsewhere, and the matters on which we need to keep an eye, are something I would hope the Constitution Committee can, over the years, keep an eye.

It's very important when the heads of the judiciary come that. And when Ministers come that a health check is made on each of the aspects that safeguard the independence of the judiciary, maybe I could persuade Lord Strathclyde and his successors to take up this role, because vigilance, as it's been said so strongly, is absolutely essential. And we need not merely to say it, but we need a mechanism. And that mechanism should be the

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Constitution Committee. The matters we. Debate today are both. Sombre

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Debate today are both. Sombre and urgent. Sombre because, as the committee's report highlights, the challenges faced by the rule of law in contemporary society are very in contemporary society are very grave. To give only one example, the then Lord Chancellor said in evidence to us that the justice
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Lord Bellamy Portrait Lord Bellamy (Conservative)
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evidence to us that the justice system, and I quote, is not worthy of the name justice. Surely a breathtaking condemnation of the present state of affairs. Urgent not least because the evidence to the Committee suggested widespread public disillusion with the surely basic idea that the laws will protect us all, which protect us all will actually be enforced and indeed evenly applied. Today, I'd just like to highlight the rule of law as experienced by the ordinary citizen in daily life as Lord Strathclyde, whose chairmanship I would like to pay my personal tribute has already indicated.

The rule of law, as a phrase, is not just the protection against the arbitrary power of the state. Vital though that is, the rule of law is essential to the everyday functioning of a peaceful and orderly society. Every citizen is expected to obey the law and the counterpart, the compact. The bargain which underpins the whole of society, is that those that do not obey the law must be held to account. But if that does not happen, as others have already said, if laws can be broken with impunity, then public confidence in the very idea of a society governed by the rule of law is weakened, leading ultimately to the anarchy referred to in the title of your committee's report.

As the committee highlighted the widespread public perception that laws against, for example, shop theft, car theft, phone theft, house burglary or fare dodging broken with impunity is a major, insidious. And as the Lord Lord Foulkes has pointed out, gradual threat to the rule of law to which one could add, for example, fly tipping, the pollution of the rivers, dodgy vape shops, online fraud and so on. Not to mention the daily spectacle of people smugglers operating with apparent impunity.

As the noble Lord Lord Waldegrave has rightly emphasised. Even more important, my Lords, is the principle that the law must be enforced equally and fairly. If the law is perceived to be enforced unequally, that compounds the problem. In particular, as the Committee points out, perceptions of bias and discrimination within the police, even if unfounded in. In fact, those perceptions corrode public confidence in the rule of law. If we add to these matters the delays in the criminal courts, the delays in the civil justice system, and the numerous difficulties of access to justice summarised in chapter six of your committee's report.

One can understand the dissolution of the general public with law enforcement at the moment and the effectiveness of our legal system. Lords. I am reminded of those opening scenes in measure for measure, when in ancient Vienna, law and order has broken down, and in Shakespeare's words, liberty plucks justice by the nose. Antonio is sent by the Duke to restore order, and he cries, let us not make a scarecrow of the law. It is a vivid image of a legal system that has allowed to become a tattered, lopsided and ineffective system.

My Lords, we are not yet. Thankfully at that point, and I would certainly agree with the noble Lords, Lord Foulkes and Lord Waldegrave and others that our system is not broken. But one cannot pretend or thrust under the carpet or ignore some of the matters, some of the threats which I have mentioned it. It is in these circumstances, my Lords, that in. I would suggest that we have to. All those in politics and in public life should treat the threats to the rule of law that are the subject of this debate with the utmost seriousness.

Politically. Justice and the rule of law have all too often been an afterthought, coming behind health, welfare, education and so on. But in truth, the rule of law is the keystone upon which everything else depends. Nurturing and protecting that keystone is a matter of the highest importance. I would suggest, not only morally, but also politically. Yes. Earlier today, as others have already said most movingly, we paid tribute to the life of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Chancellor, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, who embodied in his office of Lord Chancellor and in his person the authority and dignity of the rule of law.

Let us try to live up to the example of Lord Mackay, and once again place the rule of law, a healthy justice system, fair and effective law enforcement and access to justice at the core and centre of our public life. With all the resources and attention to excellence that is required. My Lords, let us never make a scarecrow of the law.

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Yeah, well, sir. My Lords, as the second member speaking today's debate, who did speaking today's debate, who did not contribute to the report, I would also like to commend the would also like to commend the Constitution Committee for this excellent report, which focuses on the common ground that we have on the common ground that we have on the rule of law and on practical challenges, and I will pick out a
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Lord Verdirame Portrait Lord Verdirame (Non-affiliated)
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challenges, and I will pick out a few themes. First, on judicial review. The committee rightly says that judicial review should not be presented as a blocker to government action. The government, in its response from last February, accepts that, but points out quite fairly that judicial review can cause delays to government projects. The government referred to changes it was considering to increase efficiency and certainty, and I was wondering if the noble Baroness, the Minister, could perhaps update the House on those plans.

This might be quite urgent because the latest Ministry of Justice figures show some positive trends in the length of civil proceedings, and the government must be commended for that. But they also reveal a dramatic increase in judicial review applications in the first quarter of 2026, there were around 1300 new applications in that quarter. That's up 98% on the same quarter of 2025. And throughout 2025, there was also an increase. Perhaps the Minister can tell us a bit more about the reasons for this increase and what the government is doing to ensure that the courts can cope.

Second, as we heard before, attacks on judges undermine the rule of law. But the same is true also of attacks on practising lawyers. And I'm afraid no political side is immune from those. From one side. There have been attacks on lawyers for wealthy clients or sanctioned individuals, and from other sides there have been attacks on lawyers acting for asylum seekers. All these attacks violate the same basic principle. Lawyers should not be associated with their clients. And of course, there are serious allegations of malpractice.

Those should be investigated thoroughly and promptly. There is another reason, perhaps, why public trust in the profession has been undermined, and that has to do with how lawyers engage with the media and on social media. When I was called to the bar, there were very strict rules on media engagement. We were prohibited from expressing personal opinions to the press in cases in which we were involved in any public commentary. That is, barristers we offered had to be objective and fair minded.

The purpose of these rules was to reassure the public about the independence of the bar. I'm afraid we now see some advocates thinking of advocacy in the American sense, where advocacy means campaigning. In our tradition, the two are not the same. An advocate is not a public campaigner, and advocates must maintain their independence. Our right not to be associated with our clients carries a corresponding responsibility, which is to keep a distance from our clients and not to become too closely identifiable with them.

It is also wrong and risks discrediting the legal profession in the eyes of the public. For lawyers to describe some legal work, for example, acting for claimants against the government as inherently more valuable than other legal work. For example, representing the government in defending those claims. We cannot look to the government for answers to these challenges because, as the government says in the response, ethical standards are ultimately a matter for the independent regulators. But this is. The noble Lord Lord Strathclyde pointed out, isn't just about rules or guidelines.

It is really about a culture that we're trying to defend. And I think it falls on practising lawyers. And I think many of us speaking today are lawyers to ensure that standards in that culture do not slip. The third area that I would like to address briefly is on the positive uses of artificial intelligence. One of the recommendations of the report is that short summaries of judgements be produced in as many cases as possible. This is already the practice of the Supreme Court in a number of other courts do that in high profile cases, but producing an accurate summary is quite resource intensive.

However, high quality AI summaries can be produced more widely. For example, through the Fine Case Law platform at the National Archives and some commercial legal databases already do something similar. Does the Ministry have any plans in this in this area? I was pleased to read in the government's response about the positive feedback to the new. On the new AI capability for generating killing schedules, and I wonder if the Minister can say whether there are plans to expand the system so that all of us involved in scrutinising legislation can use that kind of facility very regularly.

Legislative scrutiny is key to the rule of law. We all perform that function here, but we do need the help of these very practical tools for assessing quickly legislation. And finally, I will say something on the one footnote in the report with which I disagreed. It was a footnote that stated that some evidence before the committee was sympathetic to including international law within the rule of law, while other evidence, apparently including that that came from myself, advocated the contrary position. Well, that is not quite my position.

I agree with everything the report says about our obligation to comply with international law, whether treaties or customary international law. But the question whether international law in its present state satisfies the conditions of the rule of law is a much more complex one, and I refer to the noble and learned Lord Maude Brunette's excellent foreword to a recent policy Exchange report, in which he says that the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on climate change and the litigation that it may pave the way for, does risk undermining the legitimacy of international law and the rule of law.

And indeed, a recent study has revealed that a very reliable predictor of how ICJ judges will vote in a given case is how their home states vote in the UN General Assembly. And imagine if it could be shown that in a domestic court, judges decisions could be predicted based on where the judges come from. We would have a rule of law, a problem. Now, of course, we must comply with international obligations. We must support these institutions, and we must continue to promote the international rule of law.

But we have to understand that this remains an intensely political environment, and that the international legal order is still very much a work in progress. And like much work in progress, it can be set back by an excess of zeal. My Lords, I'm very glad to be.
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Viscount Stansgate Portrait Viscount Stansgate (Labour)
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Able to make a brief >> Able to make a brief contribution to this debate. >> I wasn't a member of the. wanted.

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wanted. To be a member of the committee, and I hope my remarks are not going to rule me out from consideration to rule me out from consideration in future, but I would like to applaud the report and the speech of the noble Lord in introducing it. And can I, incidentally, pay my own tribute to Lord Mackay of Clashfern, who was widely admired in the household in which I grew up. Now we're rightly proud of our legal heritage. And as a matter of fact, earlier this afternoon we had a debate about the UK's role in the space economy and one of the aspects members may not realise it, but one of the aspects is looking ahead.

We very much hope that the UK can be a centre for the international arbitration and the regulation of space, which is going to become more and more important. I'd like to just direct my few remarks to that part of the report that deals with Parliament and its own role in making the law. Now, I was brought up to believe in the supremacy of the House of Commons and parliamentary sovereignty, but I'm bound to say that my first visit to the Royal Courts of Justice gave me a very different view of the law, and given the eminence of the legal members of the House here, I hope you won't mind if I say that my memory was going to the Royal Courts of Justice with my dad, who had been elected for the fourth time as the Member for Bristol South East, refused entry to the House of Commons.

The only member in the 20th century to be refused entry, having been elected and in the course of the judgement before an election court which consists of two judges. Of course, it was held that the ruling of Mr. Justice Dodderidge in 1626 took precedence over the electors of Bristol South East in electing their Member of Parliament. So you'll appreciate that that shaped my view of the law to some extent. Now, I think the story of our country and Parliament and power in this country over the last few hundred years has been, of course, a progress and a change from a power of the monarch to the power of Parliament, but in particular now power of a Prime Minister who who exercises so many of the powers of a monarch, used to hold and does so in his name.

But I would argue that the balance of power between the executive and the legislature has changed and is to the disadvantage of the legislature, and I think that this is illustrated in by that part of the report, which deals with the issue of delegated legislation. And yes, it's true you can't do everything in primary legislation. But that's not to say that the Secretary legislation receives the scrutiny that it should. And I think what is is happening is that our inability, in effect, to reject secondary legislation, much less to amend it, is eroding and could erode in the longer term, some element of respect for the rule of law, because Parliament itself is unable sufficiently to exercise control over it.

And a few years ago we had a debate in this House promoted by the noble Baroness Cavendish, about the use of skeleton bills. And it was a very interesting debate, and I recommend it to anyone, because it is true that over a period of time, and I don't blame any one government for it at all, I'm happy to blame them all. The temptation is to introduce legislation that enables Ministers, in particular, to have greater powers exercised through secondary legislation, and I think that what is happening, mention was made of the fact that change can sometimes be slow.

Well, I think there is a pressure cooker building up here and I can't predict when it may burst. But I wonder if the my noble friend the Minister could address this because the report lists 11 questions. I think it is that the Constitution Committee applies when it's looking at bills before giving its view. And they're all very, very good questions. And I'd like to end by just asking my noble friend, the Minister, whether she could give what I would call an honest assessment of the extent to which these questions are, in fact, considered by the government in producing the bills, because they are all good questions.

And I think this House would like to feel that the government was taking seriously the need to for Parliament to be as effective as possible in its scrutiny and to have them exercised accordingly.
16:54
Lord Young of Acton Portrait Lord Young of Acton (Conservative)
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My Lords, I declare my. >> Interest as the director of the Free Speech Union. One of the key findings of this excellent report findings of this excellent report is summarised as follows. Quote, public confidence in the judiciary is vital for trust in the fair administration of justice. This requires that judges make decisions independently of bias and external influence, and that they are perceived to do so, it continued. However, the committee stated that the stated confidence was being increasingly challenged by political rhetoric that criticised the judiciary, and this was being amplified on social media.

This is the aspect of the report that I'd like to talk about today. What is legitimate and illegitimate criticism of the judiciary, particularly the senior judiciary, in chapter four of the report, in the section headed Attacks on Judges and the judiciary, it rightly says that, quote, the judiciary, as with any other state institution, should not not be immune from scrutiny or criticism, unquote. But the report goes on to say that while attacks on judgements are fair game, attacks on judges are not.

In particular, it condemns attacks that claim a decision is based on a judge's political views or political bias. The Lady Chief Justice is quoted in the report, singling out newspaper articles about outrageous, outrageous judicial overreach articles which use the words leftie liberal describe decisions as crazy, with the implication being that such attacks attributing political bias to judges originate, for the most part with the populist right, not the left. Frances Gibb is quoted in the report saying, quote, every so often you get an eruption, often in the tabloid press against judges, but it scarcely needs pointing out that such attacks come from both sides of the political divide.

I'm thinking, in particular of attacks on the Supreme Court for the decision it made in the For Women Scotland case. Maggie Chapman, a green SNP MSP who was the deputy convenor of Holyrood's equalities committee at the time, accused the Supreme Court justices of, quote, bigotry, prejudice and hatred, unquote. And we heard similar, if not quite so extreme criticisms from Stonewall, the LGBT consortium and the Good Law Project. More recently, following this week's judgement in the case against Associated Newspapers, the Duke of Suffolk and the noble Lady, Baroness Lawrence issued a joint statement attacking Justice Nicklin and accusing him of, quote, a complete and obvious whitewash.

As the noble Lord Lord Burnett of Maldon pointed out, I share the report's view that if the public is to maintain confidence in judges and the judiciary, there should be no perception of political bias. But are such accusations always based, in the words of the report on inappropriate and often inaccurate public criticism by politicians and journalists on misinformation? Last year, Robert Jenrick MP, then the shadow justice Minister, pointed out that over 30 immigration judges have links to open borders charities.

One serving judge, he pointed out, openly celebrated the defeat of the last government's Rwanda plan on social media. Surely this activity has played a part, perhaps a small part, but a part nonetheless. In the perception of bias in the decisions of the upper tribunal. More pernicious are the requirements, as part of the processes for selecting members of the senior judiciary, that applicants affirm their support for diversity and inclusion in the judicial skills and abilities framework against which the Judicial Appointments Commission assesses applicants.

One of the effective working criteria is takes an inclusive approach to those with differences from themselves, and is able and willing to challenge the inappropriate behaviour of others under leadership skills, it says. Applicants are expected to ensure an inclusive culture for all, irrespective of background. Now, I'm sure most noble Lords don't regard such requirements as political, but I would remind noble Lords that reform UK, for all their recent setbacks, are still leading in the polls and I suspect that many supporters of that party would regard these criteria as political.

Do we not want supporters of right wing parties to have confidence in judges and the judiciary? The commitment that applicants for silk are required to make is stronger still. The KC competency framework has five competencies and competency D diversity action and understanding requires that an applicant quote demonstrates an understanding of diversity and cultural issues, respects the needs and cultural wishes of others, and is proactive in addressing the needs of others from all backgrounds, end quote. The indicators include.

Quote takes positive action to promote diversity and equality of opportunity. Unquote. Quote confronts discrimination and prejudice when observed in others, does not let it pass unchecked, unquote and quote acts as a role model for others in handling diversity and cultural issues. Is there not a risk that the that these requirements will contribute to the perception of bias, whether accurate or not? Take the requirement that applicants for silk are required to take positive action to promote diversity. To some people, that will sound like code for.

Take positive action to promote people who aren't white men. The requirement to respect the needs and cultural wishes of others is, I submit, something of an ideological litmus test, requiring those wishing to take silk to affirm their alignment with the principles of equity, diversity, and inclusion. Note it doesn't simply ask applicants to tolerate the cultural wishes of others, which may be a wish that women should cover their heads, my Lords, but respect them. I think it's worth bearing in mind that the latest batch of High Court appointments all took silk before they were appointed.

They all passed this ideological litmus test. Is it not wanting to have your cake and eat it, my Lords, to on the one hand, insist that members of the senior judiciary should affirm their commitment to EDI at various points as they clamber the judicial pyramid a contested ideology, I think it's fair to say. And on the other, condemned journalists and politicians for launching political attacks on senior judges in 2024, the Bar Standards Board consulted about introducing a new duty to promote EDI in its code of conduct that was rightly condemned by a broad coalition within the legal profession, including the Law Society.

Surely the same requirement has no more place in the KC competency framework than it does in the Bsb's Code of Conduct, and I was, I'm afraid, disappointed that the report didn't recommend its removal from the KC framework, as well as its removal from the Judicial Skills and Abilities framework. My Lords, I think I share the concerns of the report that critics of judges and the senior judiciary in particular should play the ball and not the man. But if we want to achieve that ambition, I think we have to stop insisting that the man affirm his commitment to a politically commitment to a politically contested ideology.

Yeah.
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Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury Portrait Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury (Crossbench)
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Lord, I would like to echo other non contributors who have expressed appreciation of the outstanding report produced by the noble Lord report produced by the noble Lord Lord Strathclyde and his committee, and to thank them for the very substantial work which clearly went substantial work which clearly went into it. The wide scope of the rule of law and the multifarious topics which it covers are well illustrated by the excellent speeches which preceded this one, and what was said. I virtually agreed with all of what was said virtually, maybe a cautious lawyer's word in the circumstances.

The rule of law is not only an essential ingredient, maybe the most important ingredient of a civilised, just and peaceful society. It is, as Lord Strathclyde mentioned in in his speech, a serious economic value to people. The 2024 Nobel Prize

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Was awarded to three economists who demonstrated that the rule of who demonstrated that the rule of law and sound sound institutions are fundamental to sustained long term growth. This is supported by a survey of over 300 large international companies carried out international companies carried out by the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law, which I have the honour of being president of, and the Economic and Economic Economist Intelligence Unit of 2015. This survey established that the rule of law was the third most important factor in deciding where to invest behind ease of doing business and a stable political environment.

And both of those two are strongly influenced by the rule of law. However, the rule of law is as potentially precarious as it is precious. Thus, it is not something which has much traction with the average citizen. Ask him or her which is more important, that the UK retains the rule of law, or that England win the World Cup, and I fear the latter might well be the runaway winner and a. Particularly in a democracy, what the average citizen thinks is pretty important.

We need to explain to people above all the young. As a number of people here, particularly Baroness Laing of Elderslie, have emphasised why the rule of law matters. What the rule of law can do for them. And as the committee rightly records, public legal education is a key enabler of the rule of law, culture and education in this context should concentrate not on high faluting principles, but on practicalities which non-lawyers care about. But education is a long term project, and we have to face the fact that with a general election no more than three years away, we may be in a precarious situation.

The precariousness is all the greater under the UK's unique constitutional arrangements. Unlike almost every other country, we have no codified, overriding constitution. Instead, as noble Lord Viscount Stansgate said, we have parliamentary supremacy, which means that Parliament in practice, the other place, can do what it wants. Any safeguard, whether statutory, whether judge made, whether founded on convention, could be swept away in an afternoon by a simple majority of constitutionally challenged parliamentarians. And then we do not have separation of powers.

So a Prime Minister and a Cabinet can often get members of the other place to vote the way they want. And that reinforces the precariousness. If in a Liberal government ever commanded a majority. Remarkably little by way of checks stands in their way. If the rule of law can be trampled on by the head of the executive in a country like the United States, with its overriding constitution and its separation of powers, how much easier, it might be, asked, would it be to trample on the rule of law in this country? The flexible constitution, which has served us so well for over three centuries, may also contain the seeds of its own destruction.

I mentioned the relative absence of checks on the executive, and one such check is the Human Rights Act, a topic on which this report, otherwise very thorough, is strangely quiet in a country without overriding constitutional principles. The. The existence of a statutory document which enshrines fundamental individual rights is essential for the rule of law. The indirect incorporation of the European Convention into our law by the cleverly drafted statute ensures that fundamental rights are enshrined in our domestic law, and they can be reinforced by the courts, but without impugning or impinging on parliamentary supremacy.

And although I do not agree with every Strasbourg court judgement, and I believe that the convention could do with some overhauling, I am very much against withdrawing from the convention. But if we do decide to join Russia and Belarus in being the only European countries outside the convention, we would be undermining the rule of law in the UK if we did not have. As we withdrew an equivalent set of human rights involving similarly effective, constitutionally appropriate judicial powers. And talking of judges, I don't have much to add to what has been said by previous speakers, but it is essential that we maintain the independence of the judiciary at all levels and in all ways.

And as the US experience has again shown us, it is essential that we keep party politics away from the judiciary and the judiciary, away from party politics. Judges have no democratic legitimacy and should be appropriately cautious about stepping into policy issues, but sometimes they are called to do so. As with the two Miller cases, where they had to face a dispute between the executive and the legislature. But apart from such cases, they should, as I say, keep out of political issues.

I, in the. I have little to add to what's been said, apart from adding my fond memories of Lord Mackay of Clashfern. If ever anyone stood for the rule of law in an acceptable, coherent and attractive way, it was him, and we. It is somehow appropriate that we are having this debate in the week

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that he sadly died. Yeah. My Lord.

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I have little of the experience personal experience of Lord Mackay to be able to say anything to be able to say anything substantial. But as a former church leader myself, and speaking to him leader myself, and speaking to him as a wee free, we had animated and friendly conversation on more than
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Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Portrait Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Labour)
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friendly conversation on more than one issue. So at that level and in those terms, I add my own expression of admiration for and enjoying the memory of Lord Mackay. It's astonishing that the report that I should say that this is the fourth speaker. I'm now am a member of the Constitution Committee. We are restoring the focus. And I have to say that for a report of this kind to have generated a debate of this kind with this divergence of views is itself a tribute to the report.

And I thank all those who have spoken before. I said in my membership of the committee that I was not from a political background, and others around the table were not from a legal background, and others around the table were. And so I must be vox populi in the. Except that I did have Lord Foulkes of. Of Cumnock. And of course he never hesitates to be the vox populi himself, but it is. It has been for me a learning experience.

Baroness Laing talked about being a member of a committee where she had as much to learn as to contribute, and I certainly feel that way myself. Indeed, I felt it was like a prolonged seminar. I remember in 1962 signing up for a lengthy seminar series on 14th century Icelandic literature, and I must say that I felt then, as I feel now, that the learning that I acquired in the course of that has equipped me for life in all its shades and colours.

It has been a privilege to be part of a committee chaired by the noble Lord Lord Strathclyde. I thought seriously about adjectives. For him genial is one and skilful is another. The third you'll have to wait for when we cross in the corridors. But the learning, the learning around the table, the experience around the table, the opportunity to have breakfast with the judges of the Supreme Court, things like that have registered in my memory and made me as an ordinary member of the public, far more aware of these luminaries who appear in the press, who now have become personalised simply by those simple events.

In contributing to this debate. I don't want to add to any of the substantial things that have been said about judges, for example. I want to fix my attention on solicitors. The Law Society sent us a briefing, and in general, the Law Society simply said this was a pretty good report. But there was one point at which it raised a question which I want to lay before members now in in my contribution. And it is really that. And we had mentioned but Lord Neuberger just a moment ago about the extent to which we ought to listen to or interpret or whatever things that come out of Strasbourg.

Well, I am a member of the delegation that goes from this Parliament to Strasbourg to the Council of Europe. And just over a year ago, they produced a convention for the protection of the profession of lawyer, or in short, the Luxembourg Convention, aware that across Europe, and certainly we are not immune. Immune from it here in this country, lawyers, solicitors are on the front line of people's opinion and violence and abuse. When certain things happen, like the 2020, for example, riots that took place in the north of England after that rather dreadful, dreadful tragedy that took place there.

And lawyers are reporting in greater and greater numbers that they are being subject to the the same kind of popular, violent and abusive comments as judges. And so we must think about them. And for me, what I want to ask His Majesty's Government and my noble friend the Minister here is simply why, if we could sign the convention a year ago, when it was produced in Strasbourg, we have not yet ratified it, because until we ratify it and take it into our own system, as it were, the solicitors it seeks to defend will not have the defences that they're looking for in the protocol.

And then finally, something rather more personal. And I make no apologies for it. It's a little story in my own life, but it's an elephant in the room that I feel I must bring into the debate. I mentioned it when we were with the judges from the Supreme Court and also to my friends. I consider them to be that. I just love being working in a cross-party group. I just think it's marvellous when we're so party oriented to have that opportunity.

But I mentioned it there to see my first memory of a court, unlike my. My noble friend Lord Stansgate was not in the High Court of Justice. It was a magistrates court, and it was way back in 1947, when I was five years of age, I. When I was on one side of a big mahogany door, that's what registered in my memory, on the other side of which my parents were fighting out their marriage. And a divorce ensued, and my mother brought us up.

And just the two boys in a simple one room for the rest of our lives. But I don't tell the story to evoke tears or pathos or anything like that. It's simply that when my mother died and I'm going back home in a month to honour the commemorate the 50th anniversary of her death, her estate amounted to one cardboard box of documents and one of those documents, which I'd never seen before, simply was from my father's solicitor, indicating that since his client had proved to the satisfaction of the court that my mother was the guilty party, he was writing to tell us that we, my mother and her two boys must get out of the family home within a fortnight, and that shaped and coloured the entire rest of my life.

I tell the tale for a simple reason. We heard about access to justice in the second speech. Access to justice is one thing, but fairness for the people involved in the justice is another, and it's money that enters into things at that stage. My father could afford a lawyer and my mother couldn't. She was the guilty party and obliged, therefore, to raise two boys in abject penury for their first formative years. So let's look at these things in the round.

Let's offer solicitors the protection they want. But let's never forget that glib phrases like access to

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justice need to be quantified and measurable. My Lords.

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My Lords. I'm not a member. Of the Constitution Committee. I

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Of the Constitution Committee. I was, though, its first chair. My Lords, I welcome this excellent Lords, I welcome this excellent report from the committee. I endorse all the recommendations it
17:16
Lord Norton of Louth Portrait Lord Norton of Louth (Conservative)
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makes, as I shall argue, it deserves a wide audience. The Committee provides a first class analysis of the meaning of the rule of law. It's a concept that is core to a liberal democracy, as the committee recognises the basis of. It predates by centuries the development of democracy. It is at the heart of the liberal part of the hyphen. It can be traced back to the origins of the English polity. Recognisable, I would argue, in the coronation oath of the 10th century.

As the report recognises, there are in essence two problems in upholding the rule of law. One, as we've heard, is in the failings of the institutions of the state to ensure that it is upheld and, crucially, seen to be upheld, and the other is a public lack of knowledge, not so much of the core concept, but of its centrality in the means by which it is upheld. The failure of public institution to uphold the rule of law, be it through partiality or inadequate resources, give succour to those who seek to undermine confidence in the British political system.

This is exacerbated by the nature of social media and AI. Two weeks ago, we debated the challenges posed to our system of government by disinformation, not least by disinformation disseminated by bodies opposed to our way of life. Disinformation is a major challenge to a democratic polity. People now have short attention spans and often do not bother to interrogate the credentials of those posting claims online. We're generating a gullible society. The long term implications are horrendous.

I argued then that the response needed not only to be reactive, countering disinformation but also proactive, ensuring that we have a population that understands and appreciates the value of our system of government, not just the way it operates, but the values that underpin it. As the report argues, we need to ensure that all those who are engaged in upholding the rule of law the courts, police, parliament and other public bodies do so and are seen to do so. We need to address both the resources, not least the physical resources, but also the personnel, ensuring that those engaged in public life are appropriately trained, that they fully understand their task and are well led.

In terms of policing. I very much welcome the report of the Police Leadership Commission, chaired by my noble friend Lord Herbert, and the noble Lord Lord Blunkett. We need to ensure that the courts and Parliament do their job effectively and that each understands and respects the position of the other. The relationship should be one of democratic dialogue, not one of competing authority. However, the key point I wish to make this afternoon is that these changes, while necessary, are by no means sufficient.

Here I follow the comments of my noble friend Baroness Laing. The report concludes by stressing the need for public legal education that needs putting within the broader remit of citizenship education. Ensuring citizenship education is embedded in our education system is crucial for the well-being of the British polity. As I said in the debate on disinformation, we are in reactive mode in dealing with this information by malign agencies, but we must be proactive in ensuring we have an informed population, understanding not just how the system works, but why it matters to everyone.

Citizenship education is an essential tool in restoring public trust in our institutions. That trust is undermined by how some public servants behave, but also by ignorance and a willingness to believe. False claims spread through social media. I welcome what the government have announced about citizenship provision for 2028, and I welcome the resources provided by Oak National Academy. But the key point is not just ensuring that those resources are available, but in ensuring that schools have the ability and the incentive to teach it effectively.

It needs to be taught by trained citizenship teachers, not teachers drafted in from other subjects. It needs to contribute to league tables. No school should be rated as outstanding or good, unless it's delivering citizenship to the highest standard. But citizenship education needs to extend beyond schools. It needs embedding in the wider society. We should be ensuring that what is in this excellent report, or at least a summary, reaches far and wide to civic bodies and basically any organisation that draws people together.

It should be required reading for anyone applying for citizenship. More challengingly. We must reach those who do not usually engage in civic activities. In many respects, those are the people we most need to reach. My Lords, this report deserves more than simply being debated in this House and then left to gather dust. We need to take it as a manifesto for action. The government need to act on it. We have the government response to the report, which is welcome, containing, as it does, a series of actions to address.

The first problem I mentioned, though not addressing holistically and addressing the second not quite as an afterthought, but in four short paragraphs at the end. My Lords, the key issue is to recognise the sheer importance of problems to the health of our political system. There needs to be more joined up thinking from the top, treating the issue for what it is a national crisis. My Lord. It's a.
17:23
Lord Moraes Portrait Lord Moraes (Labour)
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Yes. >> Yes. >> My Lord. It's a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord Norton. to follow the noble Lord Norton. This is one of those places where probably the only place where you follow a speaker who was actually on your reading list for constitutional and administrative law, and I do. I don't know why I feel the need to say that I passed no distinction, by the way, but I did pass. And I know he was a young professor, you know, writing at a very early time certainly appeared in my list.

My Lords, the noble Lord Lord Strathclyde talked about how this report was put together, and I think I must be number 8 or 9, not on the committee, but really willing to to see how valuable this report is because it does something very difficult, which is to look at these thin and thin, thin and thick concepts of of the rule of law. On the one hand, the very profound idea of what the rule of law is at the very highest level, the Bingham level, and then the really, you know, day to day stuff that people have to deal with at the noble, my noble friend the Minister has to deal with in her department, delays, access to justice, access to legal aid, where it's available, you know, all the nitty gritty stuff that people have to deal with in their lives and have had to for a long time, but now it becomes more acute and difficult.

So the report brings together both of these things. And I think people have spoken very noble. Lords have spoken very eloquently about it. I wanted to give and how much has been covered. I wanted to just light on one issue, which was, in my experience, which might conceptualise what is happening here in the UK, to give us to give some perspective in the late in the 20 tens, I was chair of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee in the European Parliament.

Sounds very boring. Unfortunately, under the treaties it gives you formal powers along with the Commission and the council to investigate rule of law breaches or alleged rule of law breaches. That again, sounds fairly mild. It is nothing mild about it. It required months of going to countries like Hungary and Poland. Slovakia, yes, even Malta, where there were rule of law crises, genuine rule of law, crises. And under the treaties, there was an obligation to address those, investigate those crises.

And I just want to give perhaps the House an idea of what the Nobel Lord Waldegrave mentioned about when we say our system is broken and compare it to what is happening in some countries. He did us a favour, by the way, by saying that up front in these countries, when you visit, what you find is that first of all, there is a deep anxiety even amongst those who support the government, who may be moving to a more autocratic position.

This is a very important point. It speaks to the independence of judges from party politics, which Lord Neuberger mentioned. Independence is not a perfect state for judges in Poland or in Hungary or in Slovakia. And by the way, in Slovakia, it was a centre left government that was in crisis. So it's not all about party politics and the right or whatever. What I found was this first of all, if you talk to judges, lawyers, community groups, anyone who's interested, business people in Poland, and this was the article seven of the treaties first invoked because of the crisis of rule of law in Poland.

Today, it's much repaired. And what you find that they say is, look, the first thing is we feel very anxious about this. Why? Because the older generation of. Emerged from communist states where there is no independence. State judges, state police, state institutions. It is the very opposite of independence. So even amongst those who wanted to move in a more autocratic direction, they were deeply anxious for the younger generation. And this has been said in the government's response. It's been said in the report, the rule of law is a very live issue.

It's about the economic health of the country, not just cultural and identity issues, but they actually believe that when their country is looked at in a certain way, it inhibits investment in their country. It inhibits a certain image of their country. And I think that is also important. And it's something that that I saw when I was in those countries. When you go to countries like Slovakia, for example, where there was a rule of law crisis because of widespread allegations of government corruption, corruption amongst judges, and so on.

Again, people and by the way, investigative journalists were murdered when they were investigating it. It was real stuff. When you examine what is going on, what people want and what people respect, and very often they would mention Lord Bingham Bingham Centre, they want a model which is about independence. They don't believe it will be perfect. And this speaks to this point about whether judges are party political or not, is, Lord Neuberger said. The issue is we, the judges, have to be as independent as we can have them to be independent.

They are also human beings. The issue is not to be overtly party political in our systems. That is the point. And that is all they were asking for. So in Poland, they did not want a set of judges that were pro-government at that point to be replaced by a set of judges that were pro the opposition. No. They wanted judges who were as independent and as objective as possible. That would restore the rule of law. It would also affect the enforcement elements of, of, of the rule of law, the police and all of those agencies.

That had been a real nightmare under communism. These were now post-communist states. So I think those were the lessons I learned. And it contextualises what's happening here. So to return to what the noble Lord Lord Waldegrave said about everything being broken, there are clearly issues that my noble friend the Minister has to to deal with delays and legal aid and all sorts of issues. The Ministry of Justice is not an easy department these days. In this context, they have to fight for resources.

And really, what I want to say is this, that the rule of law is not some sort of nebulous kind of abstract concept. Before I was doing this debate, I spoke to my son, I shouldn't do this because he probably doesn't want me. He just finished his GCSEs. He really doesn't want me to talk about what I'm doing in the House of Lords. But I did say to him, you're 16, you've just finished your GCSEs. What is the rule of law? What does it mean to you? And then I regretted saying it because I thought, he's just not going to answer.

But he actually did answer. He said, oh, it's it's it's an idea, he said. And then he paused as teenagers do, and he said, it's rules. And then he paused again and he said, and we're good. We're good at in our country, he said, which I thought was really interesting. Isn't it really interesting? Because in every country I visited where the rule of law mechanism was under attack, they cited the United Kingdom as a robust set of institutions. Some problems, but they can be corrected.

And this report, in my opinion, my Lords, really contributes to that journey.

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My my. Lords. Lord Shinkwin is taking part remotely and I invite Lord Shinkwin

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to speak. My Lords. It is a pleasure to follow the

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It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord Lord Moraes and I join with other noble Lords in paying with other noble Lords in paying tribute to our much loved noble friend, the late Lord Knight II of
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Lord Shinkwin Portrait Lord Shinkwin (Conservative)
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friend, the late Lord Knight II of Lord Spellar, and in congratulating my little friend Lord Strathclyde for a powerful tool to. Action that he and his Committee have produced in this report. My Lords, I agree with my former tutor, naturally and noble friend, the noble Lords, Lord Norton of Louth, that this is a major report, not just in terms of its 93 pages and almost 30 recommendations, but also in its significance. It does, as the noble Lords, my little friend said, deserve a wide audience.

In a few minutes annotated, I will focus on the conclusions and recommendations which relate to a section of society all too often regarded as in significance. This is absolutely not a criticism of the report, but it underlines my point, because as far as I could see, disabled people didn't figure in it at all. I'm not suggesting that there should be some tokenistic checklists of protected characteristic groups who must always be mentioned, regardless of the subject matter.

Rather, I would suggest that many disabled peoples life experiences would actually support some of the report's observations, conclusions and recommendations. I will focus my remarks on paragraphs 26, 49, and 50 in particular with regards to paragraph 26 and the role everyone has to play in upholding the rule of law and the importance of our understanding what a society that displays the rule of law looks like in practice. For me, paragraph 49 hits the nail on the head.

It states that it's about the value system that underpins the rule of law. It is surely, sadly right that as the report argues, if the core values of equality, fairness and justice, and I quote, are not present or are perceived not to be present in our society, then the rule of law is liable to be degraded and to break down and to break down. My Lords, I give one pertinent example of a wheelchair user dressed in a suit and tie, who was weaving across Parliament Square only last month.

Three teenage lads passed by. Each laughed at him in turn, and one was heard to say to the other two have you seen that video? Shot him, perhaps, but not unusual for this individual. And I would suggest for many disabled people whose disability makes them look different. What was clear in that moment was that these young people had absolutely no concept of the values of respect, equality and fairness that inform the rule of law torture.

Indeed, such concepts might just as well have been so abstract as to be completely alien to their thinking. That is how far we have progressed as a society in the 31 years since your Lordships' House passed the Disability Discrimination Act. That is how much the rule of law culture has been degraded, undoubtedly aided by the subversive subculture of ridicule and hatred spawned by social media, whose role in misinformation isn't highlighted in paragraph 117 of the report.

Social media seemingly grants a licence to laugh at and in some cases, dehumanise other human beings on account of their difference. My Lords, being a pair of feral affords no protection from prejudice. I know, because I was a real child being laughed at. My Lords, I also relate as someone with a mobility impairment to paragraph 50 and how confidence in the rule of law is challenged by perceptions of disrespect for the law, particularly when this is seen within those institutions that play a role in upholding the rule of law, such as law enforcement.

I know I'm not the only member of your Lordships' House who must wonder why on earth the police for whom I have the greatest respect are failing to enforce the law with regards to cyclists going through red lights and cycling on pavements, both of which pose an enormous risk to disabled people as well as non-disabled people, and both of which are illegal. It was only take from inexpensive, well publicised social media campaign, backed up with real penalties rather than just warnings being awarded to lawbreaking cyclists, including those using e-bikes for the public to get the message.

This is the rule of law on the roads enforced by those with responsibility to uphold it. The police you have absolutely nothing to fear as long as you don't break it. My thoughts in conclusion, the judiciary is quite rightly at the apex of society. It deserves our respect. But surely an equally crucial indicator of how much the rule of law is respected in practice is the degree to which IT and culture and value system underpinning it are upheld in situations affecting the most vulnerable members of society, not those with the most power.

The report may not mention disabled people specifically, but that does not make its conclusions and recommendations any less relevant to them or important. I thank the Constitution Committee for their work, and hope very much that the noble Baroness Minster will show in her reply that the government is determined to respond positively in practice.

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My Lords, it's a privilege to follow the noble Lord Lord Shinkwin. In this debate.

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In this debate. In a world where so-called strong men are ruling with tyranny strong men are ruling with tyranny and anarchy around the globe, in total disregard of the rules based international order, we should international order, we should consider ourselves hugely fortunate to live in a country where compliance with the rule of law is compliance with the rule of law is still considered important. The Constitution Committee's report is an invaluable reminder of the
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Lord Carter of Haslemere Portrait Lord Carter of Haslemere (Crossbench)
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central part the rule of law plays or should play in the way our Constitution works in practice, because the rule of law is so critical and compliance with it or critical and compliance with it or not has consequences for all of us. I'm going to start at the very end of the committee's report, which of the committee's report, which recommends, quote, huge improvement in the way it's taught as part of citizenship education. It's a point citizenship education. It's a point that's already been made by a number number of noble Lords the noble Lady Baroness Laing, the Noble and learned Ward Lord Neuberger, and the noble Lord, Lord Norton.

And I'm not going to repeat the points that they have made, albeit that was the first part of my speech. That's one of the hazards of coming towards the end of the pecking order. I should declare an interest, since my private member's bill would require citizenship to be taught by trained teachers to all the key stages of the national curriculum. I'm going to elaborate, therefore, on why citizenship education is so important. Engaging our young people with the Constitution will help to combat their apathy towards politics and politicians.

I think it's a point that the noble Lord Lord Foulkes made earlier. Recent surveys reveal that they feel deeply disconnected with the political establishment, and some are even disillusioned with democracy itself, feeling that politicians largely ignore their needs. Perhaps this explains why only 37% of 18 to 24 year olds voted in the last general election. Part of the problem is that ONS statistics show there's a low level of trust in the political parties. This carries the danger that our young people will be drawn to a more authoritarian system and to populism, as is happening in countries like the USA, the Netherlands and Germany, among others.

This was the noble Lady Baroness May's warning in her memorable Lord speakers lecture last year. One reason why there is scepticism about the political establishment is because parties don't keep the promises they they make. As Lord Bingham said in his definition of the rule of law and quoted by the committee, Ministers in whatever party must exercise their powers for the purpose for which they are conferred. And to my mind, that includes not just the well known padfield principle in public law, but also keeping faith with undertakings.

Breaking promises undermines our democracy and leads to the political turmoil we've seen over the last ten years, where the only stable thing in number ten has been Larry the Cat. There are many examples over both Conservative and Labour administrations, but I want to point to Henry VII clauses. Shortly after Labour came into office, we were told in an impressive Bingham lecture by the Attorney General on the rule of law that there was a need to consider the balance between primary and secondary legislation and the use of Henry VII's powers, since it raises real questions about how we're governed and therefore affects each and every one of us on a daily basis, we were told the government would lead by example, yet through no fault of the attorney, I should say they are increasingly being used by departments to make policy that should more appropriately be made by primary legislation.

The committee's words, not mine. Governments of any colour which fail to deliver on what they have said, undermine trust in our democracy, which is inextricably linked to the rule of law. Henry VII's clauses can be used, as we know, to amend primary legislation, but like all SSIs, they're subject to significantly less scrutiny than than primary legislation. As we know, they can't be amended, but only struck down. But when was the last time any ESC was rejected? One is spoilt for choice in terms of recent examples of Henry VII's powers, but just look at those which apply by virtue of section 54 of the Children's Well-Being and Schools Act.

These are Henry VII's powers, which are well concealed in other legislation by being applied via the back door section 54 to a vast array of new statutory provisions by by virtue of amendments to that other legislation, legislation should be clear and accessible. As we've heard. This brings me to my last point, which is that legislation is difficult to navigate, even for lawyers, let alone laypeople. The fact that many acts of parliament consist largely of amendments to previous legislation makes the task doubly difficult.

The recent representation of the people Bill is a classic example of a bill heaping yet more complexity onto an already hugely complex political parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. Again, the Constitution Committee has said legislation should be clear and accessible. To conclude where I started, we need to engage our young people with our precious constitution, combat some of their apathy towards politics and politicians, restore public trust in our political leaders, and make the legislative process clearer and more accessible.

All this would help enhance interest among our young people in citizenship issues, including the rule of law, and help create the political leaders of the future.

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My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord in this follow the noble Lord in this debate, but it's alarming that respect for the rule of law, once unquestioned, should be unquestioned, should be increasingly fragile, and that this vital requirement of our ordered and free society is under threat. If belief in the rule of law is eroded, that society becomes less eroded, that society becomes less free and less ordered, endangering us all. This thoughtful report and
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Lord Blackwater Portrait Lord Blackwater (Conservative)
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I congratulate my noble friend Lord Strathclyde and his committee on their work and him on his excellent their work and him on his excellent speech. Introducing. This debate mentions the most egregious problems. They're summed up by problems. They're summed up by what's been perceived as two tier justice. There's much debate to be justice. There's much debate to be had about whether those perceptions of the police, as enforcers of our laws and of the judiciary who laws and of the judiciary who dispense justice, are real or illusions.

The report mentions crimes far too familiar, such as mobile phone theft, Rolex rippers and the epidemic of shoplifting that appear to continue with impunity. And I'm delighted my noble friend Lord Shinkwin mentioned that posse of cyclists around England, not just in London, who seem to think the rules of the road do not apply to them. The tyranny in the subtitle of this report may for the moment, be hyperbole. But the anarchy is brewing nicely. The report is. My noble friend Lord Norton of Louth has said, gives a very good definition of the rule of law.

However, to communicate the idea unequivocally and effectively, it must be kept simple. Let me presume to suggest what the decent, law abiding majority of our people understand by the term, the better to understand how to reverse erosion of the ideal. First, there must be a body of law that we widely accept. Such laws have authority if they have long existed as part of the common law, handed down by courts and accepted by Parliament and people, or they will have been passed in the other place and agreed by this House before receiving the Sovereign's Assent.

That process leaves, or should leave no cause for complaint. Second, the police must enforce the law with absolute equality. Respect for the rule of law cannot endure accusations of two tier policing. We must not, as noble Lord Lord Foulkes said earlier, prejudge the inquiry into the conduct of officers. In the shocking case of Henry Novak, murdered last December. However, many have seen the body cam footage, which raises deeply disturbing questions about training and the attitudes and practices encouraged by senior officers.

It is vital that these questions are answered. Third, as well as people having ready access to justice, the judiciary must be perceived to operate entirely impartially and not as activists, an accusation thrown at some immigration judges. The recent disquiet about lenient sentences for two teenage rapists, now reversed by the lady chief justice, has highlighted problems with sentencing that ever more rigorous guidelines were supposed to have eliminated. There's no evidence our laws lack authority, but plenty that they are inadequately enforced.

The public wants blatant, law breaking, rigorously punished. Otherwise, anarchy will indeed grow as more people see less reason to conform. I understand entirely how difficult correcting this will be. Though financially overstretched, Britain needs more police, more prisons and a swifter criminal justice system, with more courts and more judges given also the need to increase our defence budget. This accentuates the urgency of cutting the welfare Bill to realistic levels so that Bill to realistic levels so that Bill to realistic levels so that that money can be depressingly often extreme cases or the Walter Mitty chief constable who lied about serving in the Falklands.

But there are other damaging perceptions. Something is wrong with priorities when precious resources are, for example, wasted sending police to caution people for being rude on social media, as happened just a week ago to a man in Chiswick, or when police are perceived as missing in action, as shown in footage broadcast last weekend of thugs fighting in broad daylight in the streets of once sedate Bournemouth, with a drug deal being done openly in public. There. Equally, as has been mentioned, people wonder why shops whose main function appears to be money laundering are allowed to proliferate in our high streets.

Our present Home Secretary seems a woman of ability and resolve. However, we plainly have some immediate senior police officers into whom she should urgently put some backbone in that context. I was delighted to read the report on police leadership by the noble Lord Lord Blunkett and my noble friend Lord Herbert of South Downs, which I hope we shall have a chance to debate. At length. As we've heard, the Constitution Committee's report mentions political rhetoric and social media criticising the judiciary. Free expression is implicit in a free society.

However much some may dislike it, none of us is perfect and is the occasional revision of lenient sentences shows this includes judges, but I entirely agree with the noble Lord Lord Burnett of Maldon that personal vilification is entirely unacceptable. The Lady Chief and the MoJ should reflect upon why judges are criticised and how better to obviate such criticism. My Lords, lawlessness is deeply demoralising. It is also increasingly dangerous. A fundamental message should go out from this debate that the rule of law will fall into contempt if police will not, or cannot make it their priority to enforce existing laws.

And if courts cannot rapidly and effectively process the criminals they catch, and if guilty, punish them in a fashion that

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protects and demoralises the public. There has been unanimity around this chamber in welcoming the fact this chamber in welcoming the fact that we're debating the rule of law in the week in which we honour and commemorate a great upholder of the rule of law, Lord Mackay of Clashfern. There's also a degree of unity around the chamber about unity around the chamber about welcoming the report itself, and the work and leadership of Lord Lord Strathclyde, who has enabled Lord Strathclyde, who has enabled us as a committee to produce such a welcomed report.

What is the rule of law, as it is understood in the British Constitution, not the rule of lawyers and not the takeover by judges of the policy making role of
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Lord Beith Portrait Lord Beith (Liberal Democrat)
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political leadership. It is primarily the mechanism by which the use and misuse of power are the use and misuse of power are regulated. That applies to the use of power by the state, but also the use of power by commercial use of power by commercial businesses on which we rely to deliver public services and also to protect us, sometimes from protect us, sometimes from aggressive neighbours. We expect a lot from it. As Lord Sumption has put it, the rule of law is a body put it, the rule of law is a body of principles without which we cannot exist as a society because in their absence, human relations are nothing more than a contest in the deployment of power.

Although the rule of law helps us to safeguard democracy, the two concepts are not the same. It is at least theoretically possible for the rule of law to operate in a society in which laws are not made democratically. We had that with the suffragettes. For example. We had the rule the oppressor. But there are those, particularly some in politics, who see the rule of law as an impediment to the pursuit of political objectives. They resent and rail against judicial review of executive action, which they see as inhibiting the rapid implementation of policies.

They believe that the democratic authority to pursue. But judicial review of executive action does not turn the judge into a policy maker. It allows the judge to determine whether the executive has the legal power to do what it is proposing, whether it has followed accepted procedure and whether it is manifestly irrational. In considering the rule of law, it's important to recognise that it sits alongside the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. Parliament is free to make whatever laws it chooses, and no Parliament can bind its successors.

We do not have a written and entrenched constitution. The day job of the committee, as I sometimes call it, is actually to look at all legislation to see what constitutional implications it has, and to alert the House to dangers and constitutional threats, such as were explained by Lord Carter earlier on in. The legislation is constructed the belief that no one should be above the law or beyond its scope is fundamental to the way British people understand our democracy. I say that no one should be above the law, because people are far from confident that that is true in practice.

We saw that during the Covid pandemic, when the public were being instructed not to visit their dying relatives in care homes, while those who issued these instructions were having parties in Downing Street. There's one law for them and there's one for us, was the cry, the eventual finding of Ministers and officials for the parties was a needed corrective. There was further damage to the rule of law during Covid because Ministers and officials made statements which confused legal prohibitions with mere guidance, leading the police to impose fixed penalty fines, which were later overturned when they came before the courts.

The concept of the rule of law suddenly acquired visible significance in the lives of citizens. Ventus has suggested President Trump's intervention over the matter of a red card being suspended. That illustrates how suddenly an issue present the fact that observing rules and making sure they apply to everybody is fundamental to our democracy works.

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Yeah, yeah. Governments need the rule of law. Often they find it irksome or inconvenient, but without it, inconvenient, but without it, governance would become impossible. In words used by the committee. The rule of law is holding the line against tyranny and anarchy. So against tyranny and anarchy. So governments ought to be more careful with their actions and their words to support rather than undermining the rule of law, even unintentionally. Too often, governments see law as a way of governments see law as a way of signalling disapproval of actions or behaviour.

Law defines penalties and punishments for failure to obey it. It is not a press release or a policy statement. Yet new laws are brought before Parliament on the basis that the government must be seen to be doing something about an acknowledged problem, even when there's no prospect that the new law will usefully add to the substantial amount of law already on the statute book, this law will send a powerful signal. Ministers say that's not what laws are for laws to determine, conduct and penalise people who don't carry out that conduct.

The rule of law is not simply a legal principle. It's. A culture depends on acceptance that will each oblige to obey the law and an expectation that other people will do so. When I drive a car across the street, or indeed, as Lord Shinkwin pointed out, when I go in a wheelchair down the street, it's in the reasonable expectation that all but a few of the other drivers and pedestrians will keep to the law to observe the Highway Code. Otherwise, I wouldn't want to risk getting behind the wheel or crossing the street.

And for most people, most of the time, it's not fear of getting legal penalty which governs their behaviour. It is a culture in which we expect the law to be largely kept. Constitution Committee set out in detail, which has been explained by noble Lords in this debate. The various principles involved in the rule of law. It's easy to see ways in which we fall short of these principles. Delays and backlogs in the criminal courts are appalling, and access to civil justice is restricted, both by delays and by the cost.

Yet we do have genuinely independent judges, unbiased and not subject to control by the executive. We have complex ways of making the law, statute, law, regulations, statutory guidance, common law and that complexity makes it difficult for individual citizens and costly and therefore dependence on the voluntary sector of law centres in the Cab who cannot meet all the demands, we may have to develop artificial intelligence tools to help fill this gap there. AI is already widely used to process routine legal work.

Early legal advice can often avoid much higher costs than the courts and should be a priority. Now, what can the government do to protect the rule of law? It should defend it and the judges who carry it out, it should educate people about it in ways which have been put forward in the course of this debate. It should improve access to the law, and it should make better and preferably

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fewer laws. Yes.

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Yes. My Lords, I thank the noble Lord Lord Strathclyde for securing what Lord Strathclyde for securing what has been an excellent debate. I also join other noble Lords in thanking the Constitution Committee, thanking the Constitution Committee, many of whom are currently in their place, and I must say in a similar vein to the noble Lord, Lord Waldegrave, and the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, who talked about
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Earl of Effingham Portrait The Earl of Effingham (Conservative)
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legal eminence. It is a huge honour and privilege to be speaking in a and privilege to be speaking in a debate on the rule of law, following no fewer than four noble following no fewer than four noble and learned Lords, as defined by the companion. Due to their previous seniority and renowned previous seniority and renowned expertise within the judiciary. My Lords, at the start of this Parliament, the government declared that the rule of law would be the lodestar of its term words, which commanded support from all sides of your Lordships House.

But surely the true measure of government is found not in opening ministerial speeches, but in the legislation that follows. And with all due respect to this government, there appears to have been a deviation away from that very lodestar. The Committee reminds us that the rule of law performs a dual function. It protects citizens against arbitrary power, but it also protects society against disorder and lawlessness. It is the line held against both tyranny and anarchy. It is difficult to point to a better illustration of the first danger than the government's courts modernisation Bill.

His Majesty's loyal opposition readily acknowledges the serious pressures facing the criminal courts. Victims must deserve timely justice, and defendants should not wait years for their cases to be heard. But surely constitutional rights should not be treated as administrative burdens. The noble Lord Lord Verdirame gave your Lordships an insight into the potential power of AI and the noble Lord. Lord Strathclyde flagged digital technology to reduce waiting lists. And we would ask, is this something that the government is working on? The noble and learned Lord Lord Neuberger referenced the Constitution, which had served us so well for three centuries, and the right to trial by jury has outlived centuries, precisely because it represents a profoundly important foundation stone, namely, that justice is not administered solely by the state, but with the participation of the public themselves.

It is one of the principal safeguards against the concentration of state power. Yet the government now proposes to remove that safeguard for significant categories of criminal offences, not because the constitutional principle has changed, but because a number of Ministers, purportedly not all regarded as more efficient to do so. And we would say that efficiency is indeed a legitimate and worthy objective of government. But efficiency has never been the highest constitutional principle. If it were, many of our liberties would long ago have disappeared.

And I should say that the noble Lord Lord Waldegrave and the noble and learned Lord Lord Bellamy were absolutely correct when they said, the system is not broken. The UK is a brilliant country, but as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Keith advised, a health check on the judiciary is a most sensible proposal. The committee also reminds us that the rule of law requires legal consistency and coherence. The noble Baroness, Lady Lange, quite rightly proposed that people must have confidence that power is being

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Exercised fairly and equally, and there must be a widespread and there must be a widespread culture for the respect of the law. Citizens should be able to Citizens should be able to understand what the law requires and why Parliament has legislated and why Parliament has legislated as it has. Citizens are entitled to expect that one Act of Parliament will not contradict another. will not contradict another. Enacted only weeks before. Yet too often the perception is that the government's legislation appears to have been drafted in departmental silos rather than.

According to any co-ordinated approach to criminal justice or constitutional government. When justifying the stripping back of the right to jury, the Lord Chancellor claimed that defendants are gaming the system by electing Crown Court trials for relatively minor offences. The Minister for courts publicly asked, do we think that someone who has stolen a bottle of whisky from a mini mart should receive the right to trial by jury? But in the Crime and Policing Act, the government included a clause specifically to designate low value shoplifting as a triable either way, offence.

In other words, there is a right to jury trial. If the noble Baroness, the Minister will please clarify the government's position. I think many noble Lords would be grateful if the Minister for courts believes that shoplifting offences are examples of minor offences for which jury trial should be removed. But just months later, another Minister believed that low level shoplifting offences are sufficiently serious to justify expansion into either way territory. It is understandably challenging to reconcile the government's position.

Some would suggest that this is a government legislating without a coherent direction on criminal justice, and a suboptimal way to uphold the rule of law. My Lords, if the Courts Modernisation Bill demonstrates one threat to the rule of law, the government's sentencing reforms illustrate another. The noble Lord Lord Strathclyde reminded us that perpetrators are rarely held to account. The noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, mentioned disrespect for the law. The noble and learned Lord Lord Burnett ended his contribution by flagging the system is undermined if rights are not enforced.

The noble and learned Lord Lord Bellamy talked about widespread public disillusion that laws will be must be actioned and evenly applied, and the noble Lord Lord Waldegrave highlighted a shop being robbed and nothing happens. The noble Lord Lord Blackwater summarised it with a laser laser focus when he flagged that it's alarming that the law, once unquestioned, is now fragile. There is an epidemic of shoplifting, and the noble Lord Lord Shinkwin reminded us of the. Of the posse of Non-law abiding cyclists all over the country.

So, without wishing to state the obvious laws which are not enforced, or whose consequences become increasingly increasingly remote in inevitably lose their deterrent effect. The government's new presumption against short custodial sentences rests upon the proposition that imprisonment should become an exceptional, rather than ordinary, response to a significant range of offending. This means that some shoplifters who now have the right to a trial by jury will waste time and resources in the Crown Court, only then to be given a suspended sentence and face no prison time.

Surely we should ask, does this make sense? The committee rightly reminds us that the rule of law depends not only upon citizens obeying the law voluntarily, but upon public confidence that the law will be upheld fairly and consistently. Rights cannot exist without responsibilities, nor can legal obligations exist without meaningful consequences. The rule of law must be respected. A non-compliance must carry a real expectation of sanction. My Lords. Public confidence is further eroded when, on those occasions where offenders do receive custodial sentences, prisoners who should be behind bars are mistakenly released.

The public are entitled to expect that criminal justice is administered fairly but also competently, and under this, government, releases in error have more than doubled. At the end of last year, a convicted sex offender was released by mistake. The Lord Chancellor expressed considerable remorse at the individual's release, promising to remove him from the streets as soon as possible. Yet under this government's new sentencing reforms, those convicted of such a crime will not go to prison in the first instance.

And this raises serious questions. Is it a coincidence that the previous safeguarding Minister resigned and has publicly called for exemptions to the government's indiscriminate early release proposals? Indeed, the Prime Minister in waiting has quite rightly expressed apprehension at the prospect of sex offenders being released early this autumn. It should be no surprise that His Majesty's loyal opposition motion in the other place on Tuesday regarding early release, was carried through unopposed and in fact supported by a number of government backbenchers.

And finally, my Lords, the noble and learned Lord Lord Bellamy referenced Shakespeare in 1584. The noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, talked about American independence. In 1776, the noble Baroness Lord Leong referenced William Pitt in Finish Finish briefly Finish briefly by Finish briefly by referencing Edward Burke, a renowned political thinker from the 1700s who observed the society is a partnership not merely between the living, but between those who are dead, those who are living and those yet to be born.

This country's constitutional arrangements are part of that inheritance. They have evolved over multiple centuries because they reflect lived experience and deep wisdom around the relative balance between liberty and authority. That balance is never maintained by accident. It is because the rule of law guards against tyranny and anarchy that that it remains one of the defining principles of our Constitution. And that is why respect for the rule of law is absolutely critical and must be adhered to and respected, which has been so well p
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Baroness Levitt Portrait Baroness Levitt (Labour)
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My Lords, I want to begin, as I have so many of your Lordships, by saying a few words about the late Lord Mackay of Clashfern. Many have Lord Mackay of Clashfern. Many have spoken of his career as having been one of exceptional distinction, and observed that he served this country with great integrity and wisdom. I echo that, and I want to add a brief memory of my own. I met Lord Mackay a number of times when he was Lord Chancellor, and I was a member of the Bar Council.

I was a member. I was, in fact, the most lowly and undistinguished member of the Young Barristers Committee, having been called to the bar by the year before and being still in pupillage at the time. Lord Mackay was unfailingly kind and courteous to me, and always asked me what I thought, and it really was the mark of a man to notice the least significant as well as the most important. We send the best wishes and great sympathies of your Lordships House to his family.

He's going to be greatly missed. My Lords, I thank the noble Lord Lord Strathclyde for having chaired the Constitution Committee during its inquiry into this really important topic, and for securing this very interesting debate. The issues debated today seem to take on ever greater significance in modern times, and this has been reflected in the contributions of all those who have participated today. And it has been, as one would expect, of exceptionally high quality. I am grateful to the noble Lord Lord Strathclyde and to the members of the Committee for their thoughtful report.

The government recognises the growing public interest in what the rule of law means, not only in principle but in our fellow citizens experience as they go about their day to day lives. The report rewards careful reading, together with the committee's earlier work on the roles of the Lord Chancellor and the law officers, and on relations between the executive, the judiciary and Parliament. These issues concerning constraints on how Ministers act and how the different branches of our Constitution work together are fundamental to a healthy democracy and to the strength of the rule of law in responding for the government today.

I am not going to repeat everything we've said in our response to the report, but highlight a number of key themes, and I begin with the government's commitment to the rule of law. I want to make this government's position clear. We have been unequivocal in our commitment to upholding the rule of law from the moment we were elected, and we recognise that this commitment is a constitutional responsibility which must be carried into practice. It requires, amongst other things, the protection of judicial independence and respect for the institutions that sustain democratic life.

Because, my Lords, the rule of law is not merely an abstract constitutional principle. Laws that are fair and clear, courts that are known to adjudicate impartially are among the stabilising features of a functioning democratic society. They provide the framework which allows our citizens to order their affairs, resolve disputes, hold public authorities to account and conduct business with confidence, and the government agrees with the committee that this is not something that we can ever take for granted. And indeed, as other members of your Lordships' House have said around the world, we have seen that the rule of law is weakened or even breaks down when governments act unchecked or when judiciaries are put under political pressure.

The government's evidence to the committee referred to what has been described as a global rule of law, recession, and in that context, vigilance is essential. This government has described the rule of law as one of the most enduring of British values. It's not uniquely British, of course, but it has long shaped the constitutional development of the United Kingdom and its constituent nations. Over time, safeguards for judicial independence have developed, and the limits of executive power have been settled, and those achievements require constant vigilance as well as careful and disciplined maintenance.

The relationship between government, parliament and the courts is central to the health of our democracy. A strong rule of law depends not only on what statutes say, but on the habits of restraint, mutual respect and accountability that govern the way the institutions behave towards one another. Within that framework, the constitutional roles of the Lord Chancellor and the law officers. And I notice that my noble and learned friend, the Attorney General, has materialised on the seat next to me. These are of particular importance.

The committee returned to these questions, and the Lord Chancellor recognised the continuity between this report and the committee's earlier work on those offices. Their responsibilities form part of the architecture through which the rule of law is upheld within government itself, and indeed, the Lord Chancellor and the Attorney General have led the way in setting out the government's commitment to the rule of law, which started in the very early days of this government with the my Noble and learned friends. Bingham lecture, both within the United Kingdom and on the international stage.

The noble Lord, Lord Norton, observed that many of our fellow citizens, perhaps broadly unaware of what is meant by the rule of law. But of course it concerns us all. It's a subject not only for lawyers or for constitutional specialists. It matters to every person who expects the laws to be applied fairly, decisions to be taken lawfully, rights to be upheld and state power to be exercised within proper limits. So anyone who buys a house opens a business. Or, as the noble Lord Lord Beith observed, falls out with a neighbour, is entitled to trust that society is effectively and fairly regulated by law.

And against that background, I turn to a few of the themes that have been raised by your Lordships during today's very interesting debate, and I start with judicial independence. It is one of the clearest themes in the committee's report, and the government is clear in its agreement. Independent courts are of fundamental importance. There are vital protection against overreach by the executive, and their impartiality gives the public confidence in our justice system and brings stability not only to public life, but to social and importantly, to business relationships as well.

The government is concerned about the danger posed by baseless attacks on the integrity of judges, and we agree with the many noble Lords, which includes Lord Strathclyde, noble and learned Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, the noble Lord Lord Beith, my noble friend Baroness Andrews, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett, that in recent times we have seen a regrettable and intolerable, intolerable rise in reckless criticism of judges. We see their impartiality being called into question and attempts to bring their independent role into the political fray.

The government is also very concerned that abuse of the judiciary, on social media and elsewhere has led to unacceptable threats to judges safety. The Lord Chancellor has spoken out against such attacks, and has made clear his concern about attempts to erode public trust in the independent judiciary. Now, of course, judicial decisions will often be debated, scrutinised and criticised and we agree with the noble Lord, Lord Young of Acton, about the fact that that is entirely proper in a democratic society. But our position is that such debate must proceed with care, accuracy and respect for the constitutional roles of the courts.

The committee's observation, echoed by the Lady Chief Justice, that this is a shared responsibility and that we are stronger together, is an important one, and I am sure we can all agree on that point. But where the government does not agree with Lord Young of Acton is in his suggestion that the requirement that our judges and our cases have understanding of the principles of inclusion, and to suggest that this is some kind of ideological brainwashing, I think I may speak for many when I say I am proud that our judges respect, understand and embrace the values of our diverse society.

And our diversity is not just about colour, it's also about disability. And I think we will all have been moved by what was said by the noble Lord Lord Shinkwin about his experience as a wheelchair user recently. We understand that that understanding in our judges is how we preserve their independence. I turn now to the committee's consideration of issues relating to legislation, legal certainty and the legislative process. We recognise that the rule of law is shored up by the approach that we take to the ordinary business of governing.

In the clarity of the laws, we pass the discipline of legislative practice, the quality of scrutiny and the strength of institutions. The office of the Parliamentary Counsel publishes materials and drafting guidance designed to ensure that legislation is clear, accessible and consistent, and they give further support to legal clarity by reviewing bills to make sure that legislation is comprehensible, including to those who do not have a detailed knowledge of the subject. And we also recognise and pay tribute to the essential role played by committees of this House, which carry out scrutiny of legislation as it progresses.

That is critical to maintaining the integrity of our legislative process. The issue of delegated powers was raised by my noble friend Viscount Stansgate and the noble Lord, Lord Carter. We do take seriously that and agree that delegated powers should be properly framed and strike the right balance between what is put in primary legislation, and the flexibility that can sometimes be offered by delegated legislation. The government publishes a delegated powers memorandum for each bill that contains such powers, setting out the proposed powers, their purpose and justification.

And this memo, alongside the Bill, will be subject to rigorous scrutiny by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. My Lords, the committee's report highlights several important challenges relating to the maintenance of an effective justice system, and these were raised by the noble Lord Lord Strathclyde, the noble and learned Lord Low Lord Burnett of Maldon and the noble Earl of Effingham, and these include delays in courts and tribunals and issues in accessing legal advice and representation. Government is well aware of the scale of the challenge, and we are committed to reducing backlogs and improving the performance across courts and tribunals, and steps are being taken to increase judicial capacity.

Working closely with the judiciary, the government is also exploring the scope for achieving greater efficiency through the innovative use of technology across courts and tribunals, and that does include AI enabled tools for tasks such as transcription and document summarisation, with a view to supporting more timely case progression. We also agree with the Committee on the importance of a properly functioning system of legal aid. The scope of legal aid provision is under review, and I can reassure my noble friend Baroness Andrews, that there has been considerable investment in the legal aid system, for example, in response to the acute pressures in the housing and immigration sectors, the government has increased fees in these categories for the first time since 1996.

We have also increased criminal legal aid, solicitor's fees and invested up to £34 million a year for criminal defence advocate legal aid fees. The government agrees that people and businesses must be enabled to resolve disputes quickly and fairly. I turn now to the question of trust in policing. This has been raised by a. In fact, before I turn to that, I'm just going to say that on this. The subject of what is happening in terms of delays in the courts, the noble Lord Lord Verdirame asked four questions.

I'm looking at the clock. I'm going to write to him, I think, and place a copy in the library, if I may, because there are answers to all of those, but I don't really have the time now to go into them. The details I think he would want. Turning now to the question of trust in policing raised by noble Lords Lord Waldegrave, Lord Strathclyde, Lord Blackwater and Lord Bellamy and Lord Shinkwin, we acknowledge that confidence in policing declines. If there is a perception that the police are not consistently effective in responding to crime, and this can be contributed to by a reduced visible presence in neighbourhoods and lower satisfaction among victims with how incidents are handled.

Trust is shaped by how fairly and respectfully people feel that they are treated, particularly in the use of intrusive powers such as stop and search, where perceived disproportionality can undermine confidence among some communities. Government is rebuilding trust in policing by being more effective in tackling the crimes that have the greatest impact on communities. The police have been successful in reducing knife crime, but we do recognise that less dramatic crimes, such as anti-social behaviour, can have a corrosive effect on confidence in communities, and that is why we have brought in a number of new orders designed to reduce this.

I agree with my noble friend Lord Foulkes, that the term two tier policing is mainly used to drive division and hatred, and it does undermine the brave work of police officers up and down the country who do their jobs as they should, without fear or favour. An irresponsible claims of two tier justice are not supported by the evidence, and they risk undermining confidence in the institutions that uphold the rule of law. The noble Lord, Lord Carter, the noble Lady Baroness Laing, the Noble and learned, Lord, Lord, Lord Neuberger all mentioned the teaching of the rule of law in schools, and the government completely agrees that a healthy democracy depends on informed citizens.

It is important to present the rule of law as a foundational principle. In this context, work to improve the education given to young people on these points is well underway. For example. For example, the work by the Attorney General's office has been doing with the Oak National Academy Academy and the Association of Citizenship Teachers to develop new lesson plans on the rule of law for all key stages and new lesson plans were launched on the 2nd of July. More broadly, the Attorney General's Youth Ambassadors programme recruits young people from across the United Kingdom and plays an important role in ensuring the rule of law, as communicated across the United Kingdom and beyond, in a way that is accessible, engaging and rooted in the voice of the youth.

My noble friend Lord Griffiths asked about the ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on the protection of the profession of the lawyer. I ask for the answer to that, and I'm afraid all I can say is that we're working towards ratification. I'm afraid it's not what the noble my noble friend is hoping for. I can't give him any more than that at present. My noble friend Baroness Andrews asked about the legal support strategy group. I'm happy to tell her it next meets on the 28th of July.

The noble Earl of Effingham has used this debate, I'm afraid to say, to turn it into rather a partisan attack on the government. I do hope that he will forgive me, and your Lordships will forgive me for not going into the issue of jury trials today. My Lords, the government welcomes the committee's contribution, together with the further thoughts that have been expressed in your Lordships House today. We'll continue to reflect carefully on the recommendations the Committee has made. We should not take our courts and tribunals, or the wider constitutional culture that supports them for granted.

Events in other parts of the world show what can happen when public confidence in these institutions is undermined. The challenge before us is not a theoretical one. It's a practical constitutional responsibility, and this government is dedicated to ensuring that the rule of law remains not only a defining principle of our Constitution, but a lived reality in the governance of the country. I agree with the noble Lord Lord Waldegrave Britain is not broken. We are proud of the United Kingdom's long history of respect for the rule of law.

But our pride must be matched by vigilance for.

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My Lord, may I say how grateful I am to the noble Baroness, and to all those who spoke in the debate. all those who spoke in the debate. I'm particularly pleased that the noble Baroness again said that the noble Baroness again said that the government had unequivocal support for the rule of law. I never thought that they wouldn't have had unequivocal support. But it's good to reaffirm these things. And in that context, can I very much welcome the noble and learned Lord,
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Lord Strathclyde Portrait Lord Strathclyde (Conservative)
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the Attorney General, to our deliberations? It's a pleasure to see him today. I was struck right early on in the debate between something that noble Lord Lord Foulkes said, and my noble friend Foulkes said, and my noble friend Lord Waldegrave Lord Foulkes is a long term, well known political heavyweight bruiser of the Labour Party. And of course, my noble friend Lord Waldegrave is renowned friend Lord Waldegrave is renowned for his intellectual integrity and great skills. And yet the two of them got together on this committee and agreed wholeheartedly with every aspect of this.

And none of us should be surprised by this, because, of course, the rule of law is genuinely universal. It is part of the reason of why we are here. And while I regret, as my noble friend said earlier on Lord Lord Blackwater, that, you know, why are we debating this subject? We occasionally do need to reaffirm the underlying beliefs of the rule of law and how important that they are, which is why I also very much welcome what Lord Thomas and Lord of Cwmgiedd and Lord Verdirame, who joined this debate, saying they hadn't been on the committee, but they felt so moved to do because there were some really important matters that we discussed and needed to be to be covered.

I'm also particularly grateful to those noble Lords and noble friends who talked about Parliament and legislation, and also the noble Baroness said about legislation. I said earlier on, we are we are all guilty of sometimes trying to rush things through Parliament. But the Constitution Committee and some of the other committees in the House are ever vigilant of secondary legislation and powers. For Henry VII's powers being taken inappropriately. We all understand the pressures that fall upon government, but it's important that we should safeguard our own integrity.

My Lords, if I could just finish off by making a final tribute to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, who sat on that woolsack for ten years as Lord Chancellor, as Lord speaker and as head of the judiciary, and whose integrity shone from every pore, pore, and I. I like to think that he, too, would have very much enjoyed this debate, and I'm very grateful to all those who took part and Lord Sahota, I think. I beg.

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My Lords, the question is that this motion be agreed to. As many of that opinion will say, content. The country's not content. The

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contents have it. My Lord, I now move that we adjourn the house. Thank you.
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