Regulator of Community Interest Companies

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Leong, for that point. This is not an assessment that the Government have undertaken; it is the responsibility of Companies House. With more data now available following our reforms, the registrar will be able to undertake this research. I would say, however, that this is a sector where there will be relatively high turnover. A lot of these are social businesses with very limited amounts of capital; some are experimental and it is absolutely right that they behave like companies, with the element of success or failure. Ultimately, the number of CICs is growing every year, in significant compensation for those that are being dissolved, and we are very pleased to see that.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the rules allow for 35% of a CIC’s distributable profits in one year to be paid out in private dividends. What figures do the Government have on the average amount across the sector that is being paid out in dividends, and how is that monitored?

National Minimum Wage

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Wednesday 21st February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

I think everyone on all sides of the House agrees with the noble Baroness that we owe a great deal of gratitude to those who work in the social care sector. It is a fact that a lot of them are on lower wages and we would like them to be paid more, but at the end of the day we now have 10% of the workforce on a national living wage that underpins their prospects, and it is now the responsibility of businesses and employers to increase the training and skills of our workforce so that they can earn more in the market.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, my question follows on from the Minister’s answer to the noble Lords, Lord Woodley and Lord Leong. The Minister spoke about young people being scarred by periods of unemployment, but just imagine trying to live on £6.40 an hour for an under-18, which is what it is going up to in April, or £8.60 an hour for 16 to 20-year-olds. Does the Minister not think that young people are being scarred by the inability to afford healthy food or decent accommodation, or indeed to live any kind of life, while struggling to survive? Their costs are no lower than anyone else’s. Surely they should be paid enough money to live on.

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that. The ambition that we should all share is for everyone to have rising wages as they improve their skill levels and for our young people to get meaningful jobs out of school that allow them to be trained and earn more as they progress in their career.

Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 5th February 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 131 in this group. It is my understanding, and of course the Minister may correct me, that the investment that a student makes in their university course comes under the Bill—that the relationship is one between consumer and provider. Indeed, since this is the largest purchase that a student will make before they buy a house, it seems entirely appropriate that the sort of safeguards in this Bill should apply to university courses. If that is the case, then paragraph 29 on page 362 forbids universities marketing their courses to children, and that does not seem quite right. I would like to understand how the Government see the confluence of those two factors.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise to speak briefly on Amendment 133 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and I have attached our names. I express support in passing to the attempts to restrict fake reviews, which are clearly an absolute plague online and a cause for considerable concern. I, like many other consumers, very much rely on reviews these days. I am also interested in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. I very much oppose the whole structure by which students are regarded as consumers. The Green Party’s position is that education is a public good, which should be provided for free, but his point raises some interesting questions, on which I would be interested in the Minister’s answers.

Amendment 133 is about so-called drip pricing. I found various government surveys producing different figures on the cost of this to consumers, ranging from £1.6 billion to £2.2 billion each year. We are all familiar with this, unsurprisingly, given that more than half of entertainment providers, transport providers and communications businesses use this as a regular practice: “Get this bargain price. Get in now. Click here: it will cost you only £10”. Mysteriously, as you go through the process, the price keeps going up and up. People fill in all the steps in the forms, fill in their names, tick to say that they have read the terms and conditions—even though they have not—and spend all that time and energy, but suddenly the price is three times what it started as. They feel as though they have spent all that time, so it is worth going hunting around again? Do they have that time?

What we are seeing is very much a change in what might have been considered service businesses; consumers are instead servicing them, with their time, energy and efforts. This is an important area, on which people need transparency. In the cost of living crisis, it is worth noting that so-called budget airlines are particular offenders. Most people think, particularly for a long-distance journey, that luggage is not an optional extra, not to mention that a family travelling should not have to pay extra for seats together. Amendment 133 is a particularly important amendment and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend has added her name to that of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, on his Amendment 130. We share his concern that online marketing should not be used to promote products or services by mimicking particular brands. In some ways, it is much easier to fool consumers online into thinking that a particular product has the same characteristics and spec as a branded product. As the noble Lord argued very well, we are all familiar with how cheaper and sometimes inferior products on the shelves are designed to mislead the purchaser. This simple amendment is worth supporting for that reason alone.

I was thinking back to an incident not that long ago, when I was misled into buying a product like Lemsip, simply because the colour of the packaging was almost identical. It was so simple and easy to take the thing off the shelf and put it into the basket but, when I got home, the product was inferior. This is about not just price but quality. This amendment is well worth our support.

Amendment 131 from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, asks an important question. It is a niche issue for this legislation, but I am nevertheless looking forward to hearing the Minister clearly explain that universities can or cannot continue to market themselves to pupils and parents. All parents, along with their children, want to receive accurate information that is easily accessible and, more importantly, verifiable so that informed choices can be made. As the noble Lord argued, this is one of the more expensive areas of parents’ expenditure on their child’s education and it is only right that we set high standards for the content of the material that is made available to those making applications, and that it is verifiable.

I now turn to Amendments 132, 133 and 144 in the name of my noble friend Lady Jones. Amendments 132 and 144 should be taken together. They would insert into Schedule 19, which deals with commercial practices, the circumstances considered where there is an unfair reference to the marketing of a counterfeit or dangerous good and would empower enforcement officers to require the removal of relevant listings from the internet. We think that this is a fairly self-explanatory process, which should provide protection for consumers from shoddy goods. If the Minister insists that this is not the place for these amendments, perhaps he can explain how else consumers are to be protected and how else this false marketing is to be tackled.

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[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

I want to persist a bit more on that. We are now almost at the end of Committee, and Report is probably two or three weeks away. That is not a lengthy period in which to get the drafting right and for us to have that discussion, so I ask that we get a really early draft of these amendments. The wording is important and that will help my noble friend Lady Jones to form a view about whether it covers what we are after here.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

This is of great concern to many consumer groups, so it is important to publish and make it publicly available so that people are able to examine, think about and get legal advice on it. It is not just the people in this Committee but broader society that really needs to have the chance to input into this crucial issue.

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

I thank both noble Lords for those interventions. I am happy to get this to noble Lords as quickly as possible. The whole point of the consultation is to allow consumer groups, which are very vocal on this issue, to be heard, and they have already fed into the process, but I take the point about expedition.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for his Amendment 130 on product packaging. It seeks to legislate against traders potentially copying packaging or other reference material in order to mislead consumers into thinking that the product in question is from the original manufacturer or mislead them about the specifications or characteristics of the product. I thank the noble Lord for giving us a number of examples, which we can all recognise. I agree with him about the importance of ensuring that consumers are not misled.

However, we believe the concerns underpinning this amendment are already addressed through the prohibition on misleading actions in Clause 224 and the banned practice in paragraph 14 of Schedule 19 to the Bill. These prohibit promotions that mislead consumers into thinking that they are purchasing a product or service from a particular manufacturer when they are not. The provision in Schedule 19 achieves what this amendment seeks to do and applies equally to all products and services. Should a trader try to copy another well-known product’s packaging, this would be deliberately misleading to the consumer looking to purchase a product, as currently set out in the banned practice in paragraph 14 of the Schedule and Clause 224.

The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, referred to previous CMA work on this issue. I am pleased to say that there is currently an in-depth CMA study of the grocery section, which has already spurred government action on price labelling rules. The study continues and I would expect it to pick up poor practices of the sort he highlighted. The noble Lord also made an important point about the importance of effectiveness. The additional powers given to the CMA and the courts under Part 3 aim to achieve just that. I hope he will feel comfortable in withdrawing his amendment.

I thank my noble friend Lord Lucas for his Amendment 131, which seeks to exclude universities from the currently banned practice of advertising that includes a direct appeal to children to buy products or to persuade their parents or other adults to buy products for them. This schedule replicates the banned practice in paragraph 28 of Schedule 1 to the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.

There is no evidence that these regulations, which have stood since then, have prevented universities or similar institutions from providing information on themselves or the courses they offer. The banned practice in question is unlikely to stop universities or other providers advertising their courses. However, to ensure that there is no misunderstanding, further information on application can be clarified in a non-statutory way, such as through the guidance that will be issued for the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, also pointed out the importance of universities providing accurate information. This is an area where there has previously been enforcement action, which highlights the importance of it being within the scope of consumer law. I hope that my noble friend Lord Lucas will feel comfortable not moving his amendment.

Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 31st January 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a real pleasure to follow the noble Baroness and agree with every word that she said. I particularly applaud the specificity around software and hardware becoming obsolete by software not being maintained by the manufacturers who, in effect, make obsolete well before its time the hardware that sits alongside that.

I rise to speak to my Amendment 201. In many ways, the only build I would put on what the noble Baroness has said is around expanding to broader sectors the whole concept of right to repair. Perhaps before my time, or perhaps not, there used to be a symbol, a mark of quality, on many products: “Made in Britain; built to last”. That can go well beyond these shores, but it is not a bad line to consider when we think about right to repair.

All that my Amendment 201 seeks is for products to have their proper, natural and appropriate life cycle. We are in the middle of an environmental emergency, with difficult macroeconomic headwinds and a cost of living crisis. Right to repair speaks to all these issues. In no sense is it the silver bullet, but it is an important part of what we can practically and effectively and should do. It is not increased, burdensome regulation; it is taking a very British approach to a particular problem and with very little difficulty solving it within this Bill.

Amendment 201 proposes changing the Consumer Rights Act 2015 by inserting a right to repair so that, before a purchase is made, information must be provided on the repairability of a good, including whether it has been produced with repairability in mind, whether there are spare parts and how to access them, and the likely cost involved. Similarly, in situations where repairs can be performed safely by the purchaser, the information required includes whether information exists on how to do so, and, if so, how the purchaser can get their hands on it. It is straightforward and it makes economic, environmental and social sense.

To echo what the noble Baroness said, it is—this is positive—a particularly British way of going about things. We can cut those piles of unnecessary electric waste, change how technology operates and have a positive impact across so many sectors of our economy, positively benefiting our society. I look forward to the Minister’s response; this would be a good amendment to accept.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Holmes; I agree with the intent if not exactly the detail of his amendment—I will come back to that. It is also a great pleasure to take part in the debate on this group of amendments, so ably introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and following the powerful arguments presented by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. As at Second Reading, much of what she said about right to repair is exactly what I would have said, so I will not say it again; I will just cross-reference her speech, as I did at Second Reading on the same subject.

I have attached my name to Amendment 109 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, as well as her Amendment 134 on greenwashing. Had there been space, I would also have attached my name to the amendments on right to repair. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and I have been having a little race in various groups.

I start with Amendment 109. It is worth reflecting for a moment on the fact that, as a country, we have legally binding climate and emissions targets. The Committee on Climate Change has been awaiting a new chair for 18 months—reports suggest that at least two Members of your Lordships’ House are in line for that and waiting to find out their fate—and its chief executive has just stood down. Despite all that, it put out a statement yesterday—handily, given the timing of today’s Committee—stressing strongly that, following COP 28,

“the obligation on every country is now to push even harder”

on climate action. It said that the UK needs

“even greater domestic climate ambition to reinforce the UK’s international standing”—

something that the Government are often concerned about. Crucially, it noted

“a significant delivery gap to the UK’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) of reducing emissions by 68% by 2030”.

The independent Committee on Climate Change is saying that we are not doing enough, what we have now is not sufficient and we are not meeting the international obligations that we have signed up to. It is in that context that we need to look at Amendment 109, which could be hugely powerful. We are talking about commercial practices failing to protect consumers in the promotion and supply of goods and services by digital means. This relates to the detailed discussion we had on the previous group of amendments about flights and package holidays and the ways in which they are promoted and people are given information about their environmental impacts.

Since our conference in Brighton last autumn, the Green Party has been calling for a ban on high-carbon advertising. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, may not entirely thank me for this, but I suggest that this amendment, in essence, implies a ban on high-carbon advertising. For the avoidance of doubt, this is a suggestion not that we should stop anyone flying or taking any action that they need to, but about whether we should allow expensive, continual bombardment—on the internet, from digital screens everywhere we go, on public transport and from every quarter—to purchase things that we might not otherwise have purchased.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, before the Minister sits down, I come back to his response to Amendment 109 about not meeting our net-zero targets. I can probably paraphrase what he said as, “It’s all fine here and everything’s on track”. How would he align that with the statement from the Committee on Climate Change yesterday that there are significant delivery gaps for our NDCs for 2030?

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that. This is not a perfect science. We are on a journey to net zero and will get there by 2050. We have been very clear on the milestones that we need to hit along the way. As far as the UK is concerned, there is absolutely no going back on our commitment to hit that target, but it is a transition, and it will take a generation. I am very clear that we will get there.

Maternity Leave, Adoption Leave and Shared Parental Leave (Amendment) Regulations 2024

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Tuesday 30th January 2024 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade and Scotland Office (Lord Offord of Garvel) (Con)]

My Lords, these regulations were laid in draft before the House on 11 December 2023. They are being introduced using powers inserted into the Employment Rights Act 1996 by the Protection from Redundancy (Pregnancy and Family Leave) Act 2023. I was pleased to note that the latter, as a Private Member’s Bill, attracted support from all sides both here and in the other place. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, and Dan Jarvis MP for bringing that important Act forward.

According to research published in 2016 by the then Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Equality and Human Rights Commission, one in nine mothers reported that they were dismissed or made compulsorily redundant where others in their workplaces were not, or treated so poorly that they felt they had to leave their job. If scaled up to the general population, that could mean as many as 54,000 mothers a year. Although that data is from some time ago, we know that the problem persists.

Under the Maternity and Parental Leave etc. Regulations 1999, which we call MAPLE for short, redundancy protections are already in place for a mother on maternity leave. These regulations put a mother on maternity leave in a preferential position in a redundancy situation. There are parallel negotiations that have the same effect for parents taking adoption leave or shared parental leave. Under MAPLE, before making an employee who is on maternity leave redundant, employers have an obligation to offer them a suitable alternative vacancy if one is available, not just to invite them to apply for one.

The regulations we are debating will extend that existing redundancy protection so that it is available during pregnancy and for a period after returning to work from relevant parental leave. That is maternity, adoption and shared parental leave. This will help to address the issues that the research identified. We hope it will alleviate some of the anxiety about job security that a pregnant woman or new parent may face.

The new regulations will amend the existing regulations covering relevant parental care. This means that MAPLE-type protections could be in place from the point when a woman tells her employer she is pregnant and continue for 18 months after the birth of the child, which will include the period of relevant parental leave.

The 18-month protection period has two main purposes. First, it ensures that a mother returning from 12 months of maternity leave will receive six months’ additional redundancy protection when she goes back to work. This meets the commitment that the Government made in the consultation response. Secondly, a single, consistent and clear period of protection is a simple way of accommodating the flexibility of shared parental leave, as well as the interaction between it and other types of parental leave. Creating a bespoke approach for these and other scenarios would have introduced considerable complexity into the regulations, which is why we have opted for the simplicity and clarity of a single period of protection.

The period of protection from redundancy on return to work is activated immediately when someone returns to the workplace following a period of maternity or adoption leave. However, the regulations introduce a minimum qualifying period for those taking shared parental leave alone; by “alone”, I mean that they would have previously not taken a period of maternity or adoption leave. This is to avoid the situation where a parent who has taken just a few weeks of shared parental leave receives 18 months’ additional protection in a redundancy situation.

When we spoke with the stakeholders, they considered that it would be disproportionate to extend this level of protection to someone who had taken only a short period of shared parental leave. For this reason, the regulations require a parent to have taken a minimum period of six continuous weeks of shared parental leave to activate the additional redundancy protection once they have returned to work.

These measures will provide valuable support and protection for pregnant women and parents after parental leave. The Government are pleased to have supported the Private Member’s Bill and have delivered these regulations.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise briefly in an unusual situation. We Greens in your Lordships’ House are sometimes accused of not giving the Government credit where it is due, but I want to congratulate the Government on this statutory instrument and applaud the progress that is made in it.

We should also applaud the fact that behind this has been a huge amount of campaigning of public concern. I note that the charity and campaigning group, Pregnant Then Screwed, which took four awards at the Third Sector Awards last year, has been campaigning on these issues for a very long time and is making real progress. This is a real demonstration that campaigning works; we have seen something happen here, so I can only congratulate the campaigners and the Government on this.

I want to put a couple of questions to the Minister. What are the Government going to do to ensure that employers and employees know about this change in the law? What kind of publicity campaign will there be? The Minister referred in his introduction to the fact that the figures that the Government were relying on were quite old. Are there plans to update and take assessment both of the current situation and of what happens in the months and years after this statutory instrument comes into effect? What reporting back will there be to the House and the other place so that we can continue to monitor this important area, given that it is important to individuals and households, but also important to ensure that people are able to remain in the workplace?

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

My Lords, this is the second time that we are meeting across the Dispatch Box. If it continues, people will start talking. I thank the Minister for the overview and explanation of this statutory instrument, which builds on the Protection from Redundancy (Pregnancy and Family Leave) Act 2023. I fondly remember the debate on this Bill last spring. It was the first time I had the honour of speaking from the Front Bench in the main Chamber. Not only did the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, praise the work of the TUC in the development of this legislation but we agreed to have a massive group hug.

Pleasingly, almost exactly nine months after this group hug, are now delivering additional legislation through this statutory instrument. It provides similar rights in a redundancy situation to pregnant women and new parents who have recently returned from a period of maternity, adoption or shared parental leave lasting six weeks or more. Additionally, the protection will now start when the employee tells the employer about the pregnancy.

This legislation is supported by my friends and colleagues in the trade union movement. In fact, some of these measures were discussed in the preparation of the Bill last year, which, at the risk of disrupting this very collegiate atmosphere, I remind noble Lords was a Private Member’s Bill from my friend, the honourable Member for Barnsley Central.

As supportive as we are of this change, it does not come without implications for employers, especially those who may be considering restructuring shortly after the instrument comes into effect on 6 April, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. What steps are the Government taking to make sure employees are prepared? Additionally, is there any additional monitoring for the implementation period where employees may not be abreast of the new law?

Among other possible difficulties with implementation, women may now feel under pressure to inform their employer of their pregnancy very early if there is an impending redundancy exercise. What consideration have the Government given to this likelihood and potential steps to help protect women from this? Another potential difficulty comes from the notification requirements and record keeping. The regulations are not clear as to the form of the notification required. Can the Minister shed any light, or would this be a matter for the courts? Would oral notification suffice, and what would then happen if accounts varied?

Since 2019, we have been promised more than 20 times an employment Bill that will

“protect and enhance workers’ rights as the UK leaves the EU, making Britain the best place in the world to work”.

Will the Minister finally accept that this long-promised Bill is a mirage and will not be delivered? I look forward to his responses to our various questions. Other than that, we are very supportive of these regulations.

Code of Practice on Reasonable Steps to be taken by a Trade Union (Minimum Service Levels)

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle]

As an amendment to the motion in the name of Lord Johnson of Lainston, to leave out all the words after “that” and to insert “this House declines to approve the draft Code of Practice on Reasonable Steps to be taken by a Trade Union (Minimum Service Levels) because it exposes trade unions to liability of up to £1 million, makes trade unions act as enforcement agents on behalf of employers and His Majesty’s Government, reduces the rights of workers to withdraw their labour, introduces legal uncertainty, and breaches international labour commitments.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the House is colloquially calling this a “fatal amendment”. I know there are many people watching this debate who may not regularly watch your Lordships’ House, so I will define it as saying, “This House declines to approve the draft code of practice”. That is what is happening here.

In speaking to my amendment, I am picking up the baton on this subject from my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, who worked on the legislation. She is currently enjoying an extremely well-earned short break. That is a right to decide not to come to work that Members of your Lordships’ House can exercise with total freedom but which these regulations, the code and the legislation behind them seek to deny to millions of workers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

My Lords, I greatly thank all noble Lords who participated in this debate. I hope to clarify some key points, which are well labelled on the Government’s website and in the code.

I begin by thanking my noble friend Lady Noakes for her comments. This is a code, not a law. The whole point about this code is to enable unions to know how they can safely operate once they have taken reasonable steps to ensure that minimum service levels have been applied. The noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, mentioned that I came from a business background. He is correct and, from my point of view, this will provide welcome clarity to enable us to operate effectively. It does not impose anything or any type of activity: it simply makes recommendations. If you look at the concepts such as the template, that is the recommended template. It is not necessarily the template by which unions will have to operate. I would have thought that it would be very helpful for unions to have a template construction in that way to enable them to feel safe when they are communicating with their members.

I wish to raise something that I consider most valuable when debating this point and this code. Minimum service levels, as operated by the Act and structured by a useful guide such as this code, really—in my view and in the view of the Government—should be the last resort. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, made apparent the crucial point that it is through collaboration with employers, businesses and unions that we will have strong relations. The noble Lord, Lord Fox, also made that point. The timelines imposed by the Act and referred to in the code are quite short, but are designed to fit within the strike legislation, enabling a 14-day announcement of a strike, a seven-day turnaround for the work notices, and then further days to refine that.

The theory is that the employer and the unions will have done a great deal of work to prepare for the scenario so that effective work notices can be issued. It is not unreasonable for an employer and a union to be expected to collaborate very closely to ensure that this process can be as smooth as possible. At no point does this code, in any way, derogate the right to strike. It gives vital clarity on the relationship between the union and the employer. It actually goes further than that: it protects the rights of unions and the rights of the union members, so that they know where they stand.

A number of noble Lords raised points about reasonable steps, and they are just that. This has been quite well clarified by previous discussions in the sense that, so long as the union can prove that it has taken reasonable steps to ensure that the work notices are properly served and communication has taken place and that workers are not prevented from attending a work site, it can consider itself relatively safe when it comes to the process that may be placed on it in the courts by an employer. That is the whole point of the code: to make the unions feel safer and to ensure that an act around a strike can be properly orchestrated.

In conclusion, I ask for the support of this House. What we are discussing here is a code that will enable a great degree of welcome clarity and was called for by all sides on this debate. There have been a number of consultations to which the Government have responded, making changes to the code to bring to bear some of the very sensible points that were raised to ensure that it is reasonable, practical, fair and clear. It balances the unions’ and individuals’ rights to withhold their labour, while crucially providing minimum service levels so that the public can go about their business and the economy can sustain itself.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, we have had a very strong debate. I do not think the Minister answered my direct question about when, if your Lordships’ House allows this through, it will come into operation. Perhaps he could answer that now.

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I said at the beginning of my opening remarks that it will come into effect once it has been laid, so in the next three days.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I thank the Minister for that information: it is useful for the world to know that we will be facing this situation in three days’ time.

We have had a useful debate: this code of practice and all these statutory instruments that we are debating today have been very thoroughly critiqued. The noble Lord, Lord Hendy, made a powerful statement about the way in which the UK is, yet again, placing itself beyond the international pale in terms of norms and legal standards.

Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 5th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, in that spirit of consensus, I declare my former position as editor of the Guardian Weekly. Noble Lords will find an unusual degree of confluence between what you might describe as the two ends of the media spectrum, in that I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Black, on the issues of artificial intelligence use and the digital giants’ use of material coming from mainstream and private publishers without declaring or making fair payment for that.

There are so many Bills coming through alongside this one that I am not sure where this next issue belongs, but much of what is described as generative artificial intelligence is actually plagiarism on a giant scale. I declare a meeting last week with UK Music, which is very much pushing for the idea that the source material of anything that is generated through these kinds of technologies needs to be declared, as well as the way in which it has been generated. These are issues that need to be raised.

A number of noble Lords declaring their creative endeavours made me think that I should declare that I have a book forthcoming in April, Change Everything: How We Can Rethink, Repair and Rebuild Society, published by Unbound.

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

Hear, hear!

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

Thank you. I have an interest in seeing that that is not open to being rehashed, reused or recycled without my consent, yet as far as I am aware we have no capacity to do that. That is something we need to think about in this Bill and more broadly.

It is a pleasure to take part in a debate in which we are seeing an unusual degree of consensus. Noble Lords have had plenty of time to prepare for the passage of the Bill through your Lordships’ House. It is widely acknowledged to be necessary and it is broadly headed in the right direction, so the department needs to be warned that that will probably produce a strong desire to improve it in Committee and on Report. I am reminded of the most recent similar Bill that I can think of, which is what is now the Domestic Abuse Act, which left this House a lot stronger than it arrived after a lot of consensual and constructive cross-party contributions.

As many have said, the Front-Bench contributions have been very informative. I will pick up one point from the Minister: I do not share the enthusiasm for unicorns. Unicorns have often turned out really to be phoenixes that crash and burn but then are not capable of rebirth, at great cost in human and financial suffering. As many noble Lords have said, we have an ecology that has seen many exciting, new and creative independent businesses swallowed up—minnows swallowed up by sharks—and we need to think about how we can create a different kind of ecosystem. It is worth focusing on the fact that the digital world was born into an oligarchic system, where a big four—or perhaps a big five or six —dominate all sectors of our economy, so it is perhaps not surprising that we have arrived at a system with very little diversity in it and a few large players.

My aim is not to repeat what has already been said, so I am going to tick off some points that have been well covered. On the issue of subscriptions to charities, mentioned by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, among many others, I would note that one of my favourite charities, English Heritage, is among those that were very concerned about this issue. It is clearly something that your Lordships’ House will need to address.

Picking up from the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Black, on the issue of small, independent news providers I think that many noble Lords will have received a briefing from the Public Interest News Foundation—some have referred to it. We desperately need local news, supporting local democracy and local communities, and these are areas where we desperately need action.

I associate myself also with the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, not currently in her place. Right to repair is something that I have long been working on and I look forward to seeing what we can do in that area, so I will not repeat any of that.

We could hear the passion of personal experiences in how many noble Lords focused on the difficulty of ending subscriptions. My suggestion to the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, is that if you do not know the CEO, you need a strong social media following. A grumble on social media is often very effective. I would like to think that, if we did that enough, it might have some impact on encouraging companies to do a better job of allowing people to escape from subscriptions that they no longer wish to have.

However, I shall focus the main part of my speech on an area that I believe no noble Lord has yet covered, by looking at the issue of advertising. We are all of us, both online and through screens in train stations, on roads and in many other places, exposed to thousands of digital advertisements more or less daily. It is really crucial that, to protect consumers from misinformation and harm, advertising needs to be properly and thoroughly regulated. However, we currently have a system that is slow and opaque and is definitively failing. The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority is not an independent regulator; it is self-funded by the advertising industry. Any complaints which the ASA handles are essentially therefore marking its own homework, so we need to look at this regulatory gap as a matter of urgency. We should have a regulator that is independent and transparent and one that can take timely action.

I will focus on the role of the companies that are advertising products in terms of producing waste, pollution and environmental harms, and ignoring human rights. Recent research published by the Financial Times shows that Shell, one of the world’s top polluters, is estimated to have spent £220 million on advertising in 2023, much of that explicitly aimed at younger people. I have to share a case study of one of my favourite examples of this because its sheer uselessness and inaccuracy has to be noted. A couple of years back, going through the Eurostar terminal, I peered around a corner into an entirely unused area of the terminal where there was an advert from Exxon about plans for green energy from algae—something that Exxon has subsequently got out of entirely. At the time, the company was defending itself about this and its spokesperson said that the company had spent more than $350 million trying to develop biofuels from algae, which was more than double what it spent on advertising—greenwashing, anybody?

It is worth noting that, if noble Lords go back to when the Government first announced the Bill, we were promised protection from greenwashing. That was going to be a central part of the Bill, but in the Minister’s introduction we heard no similar focus on the protection from greenwashing that we are looking for. I would suggest that we can go further than protection for actively misleading issues, and I will look to table amendments on this.

In this climate emergency, as we speak in the middle of the COP 28 talks, we need to acknowledge that advertising is a push factor for the generation of a massive amount of unnecessary carbon emissions. The Green Party is calling for a ban on high-carbon advertising—fossil fuels, flights and SUVs are major examples, but it might also include fast fashion, meat and dairy and the banks that are funding the likes of BP and Shell. I can feel your Lordships wincing at this point, but I would point out that there is no right to advertise. We have a choice to decide what our society looks like and what people are bombarded with. We do not have to say, “It’s open slather and you can do whatever you like”. An obvious area for this is cigarette advertising, on which we have long had tight controls, but I also note that Transport for London now restricts advertising on a range of products including junk food and is close to banning gambling promotion. France and Amsterdam are also looking at working on banning high-carbon adverts. We can choose what the future looks like.

There is so much to do, but I finish on the point of how so many of the Bills that your Lordships’ House is dealing with are interrelated. I do not think anyone has yet referred to the fact that we are speaking in the “fraud capital of the world”—I am quoting UK Finance here—and we really need to cross-reference this with what is happening in financial advertising. It is a huge problem that consumers need so much protection from.

Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 20th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for all the engagement and patience he has shown over the last few weeks and months, not just with me but with a wide congregation. We now have something that is much better than when it began its journey through the House, so I thank the Minister for that.

I am very pleased with two particular changes in this batch of amendments from the Government. First, that key, vital objective has been added for the registrar, so that it is absolutely crystal clear culturally for the organisation Companies House to know what it has to do. Added to that, giving her more discretion on how she delivers on that is very sound because, of course, it will be a mobile battlefield and she will have to be more fleet of foot.

Lastly—and I have said this before, but I think it is important that it goes on the record—we should not underestimate the extent of the cultural change needed in Companies House to move from being, as my noble friend said, a passive recipient of data to something far more dynamic and intelligent. That is why this reporting to Parliament—albeit with a sunset clause up to 2030—is really important to keep driving the momentum of that change. Every single employee of Companies House will need to be thoroughly retrained in this new mission.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I apologise for my croakiness; the hay fever is definitely winning. I join others in welcoming, in these government amendments, that we have seen significant change since Committee. It is worth highlighting a couple of comments from the Minister’s introduction. He said that the aim of the Bill to drive dirty money out of the UK; I hope we can all agree that that is essential. He also said that we had seen so many people abusing our open system; I think we have to acknowledge that we invited those people in, and that that is the situation we created. We are now trying to fix it.

In that light, I very much welcome the fact that the Minister said that we need to see how these changes bed in before going significantly further. I want to make sure that we acknowledge, and see on the record, the fact that the Government have acknowledged that this is not enough, and that a lot more will need to be done, in what is, after all, as described by UK Finance,

“the fraud capital of the world”.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, there are political Bills, where the House divides on political issues and argues among itself, and there are Bills of practical importance, when the House can come together and pull in the same direction. We will not all agree about everything, but the motives behind what we are proposing have been similar. In this case, it is about helping to clear up and clean up a bad situation, and to do so in the best possible way. The Minister and his colleagues, the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, must be congratulated on their openness and their listening ears. They have not just listened but acted on what they heard, and we should all be grateful that we have moved in this direction.

I am pleased that I can agree with the noble Lords, Lord Leigh of Hurley and Lord Agnew, in their characterisation of these changes, which are important. I think the change to the mission of Companies House is absolutely fundamental. It is vital that it is there, and it then plays to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, about the culture change, as well as, I think, giving the flexibility and understanding that—again, as the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, said—this is going to be a mobile struggle that we have to move forward.

This group of amendments is followed by other groups which are other examples of where listening has turned into positive changes. From these Benches, we are really pleased that we are moving in this direction, and are grateful that we have done that. As we have heard, the Bill is improving as a result. So we are very supportive of these measures, and continue to be supportive of the other measures that we will hear about later.

Scottish Government: Expenditure

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Tuesday 6th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

The response to that question given by the head of the Civil Service in Scotland, JP Marks, was that he is entirely impartial and is there to do the bidding of the party in power, elected at the ballot box. It is in the manifesto of the SNP that it wants to break up the United Kingdom and hold an independence referendum, even though only a third of Scots want that. It has been in power for 15 years and has not been able to move it forward from a third, which means that the project has effectively failed and which is why we say: please get back to the day job of running the country more efficiently.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I am happy to put the case for the progressive force of the Greens in the Scottish Parliament in your Lordships’ House. The Minister mentioned the deposit return scheme. I am sure he would want to take this opportunity to correct a misstatement by the Secretary of State for Scotland on BBC Scotland’s “Sunday Show”, which suggested that the glass recycled under the scheme was going to be crushed into aggregates. The head of Circularity Scotland has said that threatened £10 million of investment, when the figures are that on launching the scheme 90% of the glass is to be reused, and 95% as the scheme goes ahead. Do the Government understand those facts and are they dealing with their consideration of this case on those facts?

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

The chief executive of Circularity Scotland said that the Scotland DRS could work very well without glass. We recommend that we all work together to put in a unitary scheme, reminding ourselves that we still have one United Kingdom.

Car Industry

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Wednesday 17th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

The money that has already been allocated is fundamental to the future. Through the APC, we have invested in 188 collaborative zero-emission, low-carbon R&D projects to the tune of about £1.4 billion. That is a clear indication of our level of commitment. I see no reason why that should not continue.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the noble Lord opposite referred to the raw materials necessary for electric car batteries. Will the Minister acknowledge the concerns about the environmental and labour conditions under which such materials are sourced? Will the Government pay very close attention to this?