Gibraltar: UK-EU Negotiations

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

I assure the noble Baroness and your Lordships’ House that the United Kingdom’s support for Gibraltar is steadfast, and we will not agree anything that compromises Gibraltar’s sovereignty. I also agree with the noble Baroness about the importance of ensuring that an agreement is reached in the interests of all. Let us not forget workers, which the noble Lord, Lord Collins, mentioned, with whom we are engaging directly. About 15,000 workers cross from Spain into Gibraltar, which is about 50% of the workforce. That demonstrates the importance of getting a deal that works for all.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I am a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Gibraltar, so I visit it regularly. I have been to see the airport, particularly the side that has been built for Spain. What is expected for someone like me arriving by air at Gibraltar Airport and going through both Spanish and British immigration? I am wondering how that is going to work.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

I am sure that when they see the noble and learned Baroness, there will be a nod through at both ends.

There will be two processes; there will be checks by both Gibraltar and Spain. We are negotiating a mobility agreement that will allow for that free passage. At the moment, as the noble and learned Baroness will know, a double check is done for anyone visiting Gibraltar and Spain. Negotiations are in a good place, and once they reach a more defined status, we will update the House. With regard to the Schengen agreement, we are not going to be asking, nor will Gibraltar be joining, but there will be a mobility agreement in that respect.

Child Labour and Artisanal Cobalt Mining in the DRC

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Thursday 30th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I can absolutely reassure the noble Lord. We regularly raise the conflict in eastern DRC with the Governments of DRC, Rwanda and elsewhere in the region. We judge doing this privately to have more impact. In these conversations, we urge all parties to deliver on their commitments agreed through the Nairobi and Luanda processes. This includes the withdrawal of armed groups, including M23, and the ceasing of all external support to armed groups operating in the DRC.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as co-chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on modern slavery and the vice-chairman of the Human Trafficking Foundation. Have the Government looked at the way in which the Americans deal with supply chains, by having hot goods that are not entitled to enter the country? If they have not looked at that, would they do so?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I will certainly take that back. I thank the noble and learned Baroness for her work in this area. It is vital that we are able to define accurately and have complete transparency through supply chains. As a previous questioner identified, cobalt is vital for technologies that we want to see that will help lower emissions, and it is used in a whole variety of daily products. We must make sure that it is not mined using child labour or slavery and that we are requiring companies to be transparent in their supply chains.

Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 (Substitution of Cut-off Date Relating to Rights of Way) (England) Regulations 2023

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I thank my noble friend. I noted his point about Oflog. I will write to him with a detailed reply and convey his sensible suggestion to my colleagues at Defra. I hope they will be able to take that forward because it is a good suggestion.

I am conscious of the time, but I know there is concern about resourcing. I have talked about local authorities but, on funding for voluntary bodies, we recognise and value the important work carried out by the voluntary sector over many years to identify and apply for historic rights of way to be legally recorded. We want to continue the good working, particularly at a local level, between organisations such as the Ramblers and the land managers and the local authority through local access fora to get these issues resolved in a timely way.

A concern was raised about exceptions. Regulations to except certain historic rights of way from extinguishment will be laid as soon as possible. Officials are currently working with stakeholders to complete these regulations as part of our wider package of rights of way reforms.

There was some interest in what exactly is going to be excepted. We have committed to introduce regulations that will except unrecorded historic rights of way from extinguishment in a number of different ways. This will include all rights of way subject to applications that have not been concluded before 1 January 2031, rights of way in urban areas, and those that appear on the list of streets or National Street Gazetteer that are shown as maintainable at the public expense. Where the recorded width of a historic right of way is less than the actual true width, regulations will ensure that the width necessary for the continued safe and convenient passage of users will be saved from extinguishment—a key concern of many campaign groups.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

I am sorry to interrupt the Minister. I am not a rambler and I do not walk on footpaths nowadays, but I fail to understand why the Government are prepared to extinguish some unrecorded rights of way. I find that very odd: you will have some exceptions but there may be many that are extinguished. I fail to understand, from what the Minister has said, why the Government are doing this.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

This was a product of an Act that was passed many years ago. There was a cut-off date of 2026 to give certainty, because otherwise this will roll on and on. It is also for people to be able to understand the complications in certain areas, such as biosecurity and safety. In the past, many footpaths went through farmyards, which are now not safe places for walkers to go, so this is also to be able to divert those paths to where they are safe, and protect stock from issues related to that. But the key point is about creating certainty; that is what we seek to do. By 2031, we should be able to get most of those historic rights established. I hope I have been successful in getting that point across, but I am happy to follow this up with meetings or further correspondence with noble Lords.

We recognise the benefits that our rights of way reforms will bring, and are working to complete and lay the necessary secondary legislation as soon as we can. Officials will continue to work closely with key stakeholders, including Members of this House, to ensure that all sides will benefit from these reforms.

The noble Earl, Lord Russell, raised a point about the cut-off date; there are approximately 4,000 applications for definitive map modification orders waiting to be determined by local authorities, most of which are applications to recorded historic rights of way. We expect the volume of applications to increase up to the cut-off date, which is why we have committed to ensuring that all applications remain live after the cut-off date until they are concluded—a key concern of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. The reforms we are introducing will help to address the backlog, making it faster and less expensive to resolve historic rights of way applications. Commencing and extending the cut-off date now has provided certainty to all parties, both that the cut-off date will have effect and over when it will apply. By extending the date to 2031, we have provided an additional five years to submit these applications. We fully recognise the importance of regulations specifying exemptions from extinguishment, and we are committed to introducing these as soon as possible.

The noble Earl, Lord Russell, asked about the additional financial burden. I think I have addressed that. This will be a continuing concern for local authorities. We recognise that, but we hope that there are existing resources available to suit this. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked how many local authorities are affected. All local authorities in England are affected—all 317 of them. The stakeholder working group meets monthly and has all parties of interest attending. It is chaired by a senior Defra official, and Ministers take close interest in what they bring forward and have been key to the debate surrounding this.

I recognise that a great many other points were raised. I do not believe I have the opportunity to answer them all in detail, but I will reply in letter form, if I may. I thank noble Lords for their attention. I hope that what I have said has persuaded the Members who tabled these Motions of this Government’s commitment to greater access and to seeing historic paths recorded.

Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 7th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, I draw attention to the suggestion that Clause 20 should not stand part. During these Committee debates, we have addressed a number of extraordinary provisions in the Bill that give exceptional powers to Ministers, but Clause 20 really does take the biscuit, if that is a parliamentary expression. Let me emphasise what it provides. It provides that the role of the Court of Justice in Luxembourg is excluded, which we will all have a view about, but it goes on to say that Ministers can, by regulations, recreate the role of the European Court of Justice. Is it not quite extraordinary that a Minister should be able, by regulations, to confer a power on an external body to sit as the final judicial body determining issues that are relevant for the purposes of English law? Whether you agree with the role of the Court of Justice or disapprove of it, it cannot be constitutional for a Minister of the Crown to have an exceptional power to decide who and what is the final court of appeal for this country.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

I very much support what the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said, and add that it seems quite astonishingly narrow-minded and short-sighted to want to be rid of the European court in these circumstances. We heard at length last week about the effect on electricity, but there is a wider effect.

May I just put in a word of defence of the European court? I happened to visit it on numerous occasions. It has made some extraordinarily sensible decisions that have affected this country and particularly women, which is one of the reasons I support it. It is quite extraordinary that a Conservative Government, who I always thought had a broad view, should be quite unbelievably narrow-minded, and that some quite erroneous view of sovereignty should be taking over from the crucial role that the ECJ has to play in the work we are considering.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

I echo, from a non-legal point of view, the points made by the previous two speakers but, when looking at the European Court of Justice and its role under the protocol, I imagine that even the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, would not contradict the point that I am about to make, which is that the properly constituted British Government, supported by the properly constituted British Parliament, entered into a treaty that gave a role to the European Court of Justice. That is a simple fact. It is there, written. It is another simple fact that there is no provision in the protocol to remove that role of the European Court of Justice—none.

What we are talking about is a breach of our international commitments. I am sure one of the noble Lords on the Front Bench will again hotly deny that this is the case because, like the Red Queen in Alice, their only argument is, “It is so because I say it is so”. Fortunately, that is not a terribly convincing argument in this place, where occasionally—not all the time—reason has a way of prevailing. I should like to suggest that we recognise this reality, which is that the Government’s attempt to remove the European Court of Justice unilaterally from two international treaties, which they entered with the consent, support and approval of Parliament, is a breach of our international commitments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for raising the point. The Government have always anticipated that the United Kingdom courts will be the final arbiter. The clause to which the noble Lord just referred your Lordships provides for the creation of a reference mechanism, but United Kingdom law would ultimately prevail.

The noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, addressed us on Amendments 42 and 43A. I argue that those proposed new clauses are in some respects unnecessary and in some aspects of their drafting inappropriate. Article 14(b) of the protocol already requires the specialised committee to

“examine proposals concerning the implementation and application of this Protocol from the North-South Ministerial Council and North-South Implementation bodies set up under the 1998 Agreement”.

That is an appropriate and valuable role. We submit that, by contrast, the noble Baroness’s amendments would create a statutory obligation for the United Kingdom to support

“proposals relating to the regulation of goods made by the North/South Ministerial Council and other North-South implementation bodies”.

That would cede control over the United Kingdom Government’s stance in the joint committee to a council in which the Irish Government sit. We consider that that would be inappropriate. The Government already ensure that representatives from the Northern Ireland Executive, as I said, are invited to meetings of the joint committee which discusses specific Northern Ireland matters, and which is attended also by the Government of Ireland. Therefore, we submit that there is already ample opportunity for representations to be made at the joint committee from both north and south.

We submit that the aspects of new clauses obliging the Government to lay reports before Parliament are also unnecessary. The Government have committed already to lay Written Ministerial Statements in Parliament before and after each meeting of the joint committee, and already do so. We also provide explanatory memoranda on matters to be discussed at joint committee meetings.

There is a more fundamental objection yet. The Bill is designed to restore the balance across all three strands of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. The analogy with the milking stool has already been made: the three legs are of equal importance. To further empower the north-south dimension to the comparative detriment of the east-west dimension, as the amendment would do, will, we submit, exacerbate the problems facing Northern Ireland and undermine that delicate balance of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. In that spirit, I urge the noble Baroness to not move her amendments.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

Can I just ask the noble and learned Lord as a lawyer what he was meaning when he gave an explanation on Clause 20(3)? I may be very stupid, but I could not understand a word of it.

[Lord Stewart of Dirleton (Con)]

The noble and learned Baroness doubtless speaks rhetorically. I have the utmost respect for her intellect, as does the whole House. My position, which I sought to express, was that the clause will provide a mechanism by which a reference could be laid before the Court of Justice of the European Union, but that ultimately British law, in whatever of the three jurisdictions it is operating, will prevail over that. It is a reference procedure.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, as we go through this Committee, we are discussing clauses that confound constitutional principle in ever more astonishing ways. I entirely agree with what was just said by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. It is quite extraordinary that we should be asked to approve a clause that would confer power on a Minister to make by regulations

“any provision … including provision modifying this Act”.

The Committee has heard a number of powerful speeches over its four days explaining why it is wasting parliamentary time in analysing the Bill when it is a sideshow to the need to resolve the dispute with the EU. Whatever view you take about that issue, what is a manifest waste of time is for this Committee, and for Parliament on Report, at Third Reading and in the House of Commons on ping-pong if it comes to that, to debate, amend and approve legislation after lengthy debate, only for Ministers to have the power to say, “I don’t care about that. Parliament might have agreed it, but I’m going to set it aside. I’m going to substitute something else.” What is the point of parliamentary debate if that is what a Minister can do?

Indeed, such is the breadth of this provision that a Minister would have a power to substitute in the Bill something that he or she approves of that has been specifically rejected by Parliament. Parliament might have passed an amendment against the views of the Government, yet, under this clause, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, said, two weeks or three years later the Minister can say, “That may be what Parliament has done, but I’m going to insert something different”. As the noble and learned Lord said, we really have to take a stand. This cannot be right in principle and it cannot be acceptable to Parliament.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

I want to add to the two speeches that have just been given, with every word of which I agree. The Minister may say that we are being hypocritical, as was said earlier, because there have been earlier Bills where we have allowed Henry VIII clauses; but I have been in this House since 2006 and in my time I have never seen a Bill anything like this one, with enhanced Henry VIII powers—or Henry LXIV powers. To my knowledge, in my time we have never had a Bill that has gone so far beyond what one might almost call the “normal” Henry VIII clauses. I entirely agree with what the noble and learned Lord and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said. It really is time that the Government stand back and ask, “Is this actually reasonable? What is it that we are trying to do?” It is utterly unacceptable.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, it is very hard to follow those three eminent contributions. The egregious nature of this clause and its subsections goes beyond parliamentary affrontery because they impinge on the devolved Administrations as well. Not content with abusing this Parliament, Clause 22(6) will abuse the other Parliaments in the UK as well by creating new powers for Ministers of the Crown over those of devolved authorities. As the delegated powers memorandum blithely puts it:

“Where a matter would normally fall within the legislative competence of the devolved administrations and the passage of devolved primary legislation would not be appropriate”,


as the Minister of the Crown would say, “or timely”, on a timetable that the Minister of the Crown would set,

“it may be appropriate to create a new devolved delegated power by exercise of this power.”

It is a Trojan horse for abusing not only Parliament but Parliaments.

I have not been a Member of your Lordships’ House for as long as the noble and learned Baroness but I have been here nine years and I was a member of a devolved authority. This is not how we should be making legislation at all. This is the clause about which Sir Robert Neill said at Committee stage in the Commons,

“this is Henry VIII, the six wives, Cardinal Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell all thrown in together”.—[Official Report, Commons, 13/7/22; col. 370.]

The serious issue is that I do not know what limits the Government expect there will be on these powers. Could there be new criminal penalties? If not, they should not be within this. How about new tax powers? If that is not the intent, it should not be made possible by this Bill. Could it affect any part of the withdrawal agreement on other rights and freedoms? If that is not the Government’s intent, they should say so, but there are no such restrictions.

This is a Trojan horse, and in looking at some of the clauses a side of me wonders whether I should oppose it. It is so broad that we could rejoin many of the EU institutions we have left—just from this wee clause in this wee Bill. That might suit our Benches, so perhaps we had better not complain too much. Through Clause 22(6) and other sweeping regulation-making powers, we could rejoin the customs union and many of the institutions. If that is not the Government’s intention, the Minister should say so at the Dispatch Box. If he does not, we could use it for that purpose.

More seriously, and I will close on this, the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, has been consistent since the outset in using a phrase that has struck me: this is not what we do when it comes to international law. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, hoped over the weekend that this was all a dream and that he would arrive here on Monday to find that, like Bobby Ewing in “Dallas”, these three days in Committee never really happened. I arrived back in the country this morning from speaking at a parliamentary gathering in Buenos Aires—a network of parliamentarians supporting the International Criminal Court—in the presence of the president of the ICC. I have to say to the Minister that there have been very few times that I have been embarrassed to say that I am a British parliamentarian, but the knowledge of parliamentarians from across the world about what we are doing with this legislation shocked me. They know what we are doing. There are international gatherings about how Parliaments can support the international rules-based system, the ICC and international standards in law. This is not what we do. But it is even worse than that because our Government tell other countries what they should not do, but we are doing it at home. This is an opportunity to stop it. I hope that, even at this stage, the Government will listen to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and just stop it.

Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to support Amendments 21B, 21C and 23C in the name of my noble friend Lord Hain. It is a pleasure to follow him as well as the noble Lord, Lord Deben, the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and the noble Lord, Lord Kerr.

I am in absolutely no doubt, and all the research indicates, that the protocol is essential to allowing the lights to stay on in Northern Ireland and on the island of Ireland—because we have been in a single electricity market since 2007. The evidence is there to suggest the support of young people for ending political and economic uncertainty, plus their support for action on climate change. I declare an interest as a member of your Lordships’ protocol committee; we took evidence in Northern Ireland and from community groups, and the most important issue to them was not the protocol: it was addressing the cost of living crisis and the cost of doing business crisis.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, referred to the fact that a significant proportion of people are opposed to the protocol. I acknowledge that there is unionist opposition to the protocol, but I also acknowledge that a large majority of Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly who wrote to the then Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, indicated their support for the protocol—and, in so doing, indicated their support for an end to that political and economic uncertainty. One way in which we can have economic certainty in Northern Ireland is through the continuation of the single electricity market, which deals with issues to do with decarbonisation and climate change. It is essential that the lights keep functioning, but it is fundamental to our businesses on the island of Ireland.

It is worth noting that the protocol provisions addressing the single electricity market on the island seek to ensure the continued operation of that wholesale electricity market from the end of the transition period. That is to be achieved by Northern Ireland continuing to align with a number of European Union directives on wholesale electricity. A report from the House of Commons some years ago indicated that Article 9 of the protocol, alongside Annexe 4, secures the continuation of Northern Ireland’s participation in the single electricity market on the island of Ireland. In that 2017 parliamentary report on Brexit and energy security, the parliamentary committee expressed its support for the preservation of the single electricity market, noting that it benefited Northern Ireland in energy security, decarbonisation and energy prices.

For those reasons, I make a special plea, as a resident in Northern Ireland, to support the amendments proposed by my noble friend Lord Hain. I urge the Government to accept them, because it is vitally important that there is a means to prevent unintentional and indirect negative consequences of excluding the jurisdiction of ECG on the functioning of the single electricity market. In that respect, I look forward to the Minister’s response.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, referred to a large section of the population not supporting the protocol. We took evidence this morning from Peter Sheridan, the chief executive of Co-operation Ireland—and I freely admit that I am a member of that board. It was excellent evidence that clearly highlighted the fact that yesterday he was talking to loyalists and, in their evidence, they did not highlight any particular issues about any return to violence. He had a very constructive meeting with them, from what he told us. So things are not as acrimonious or about to tip into violence as some would suggest.

I urge support for the amendments and, in so doing, support to underpin the single electricity market, which has been an excellent product since 2007.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I wonder whether we should stop and think for a moment. The electricity issue that has just been raised is the most serious—but not the only—disastrous situation that will occur if this Bill is passed in its present form. Since we appear to be having the opportunity for constructive discussions between the United Kingdom—or parts of it—and Ireland and the EU, rather than killing the Bill, which I would like to do, perhaps we might look pragmatically at what might be achieved. Perhaps the Government would seriously consider not proceeding with the Bill until they can see whether the current constructive discussions are bearing fruit. If they do not bear fruit, perhaps they could bring the Bill back in a considerably altered form.

I will add one small point to the splendid speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, about necessity or appropriateness. It may just be that the Government could think about whether they could not require “appropriateness” in every single clause. There must be some clauses where “necessity” would be the reason for changing. I understand why we do not have a Bill with a great deal of information, because it might cut across the negotiations that are being made—but, while they think about how they could improve the Bill, if they were prepared to pause it, they could look at this point about why much of what they are asking by way of regulation could not be by necessity and not appropriateness.

Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 31st October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

To prevent the noble Lord, Lord Bew, having to get up and sit down again, I ask him again to appreciate and acknowledge that, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said, nobody in the debates we have had, whether at Second Reading, on the first day in Committee or today, is arguing to invoke Article 16. No one is advocating its use, let alone now. All that is being said is that the legal argument of necessity invoked by the Government is undermined by the fact that they have never resorted to the use of Article 16; hence necessity is on very shallow foundations.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, is there not a very short answer to all of this: not to proceed with the Bill?

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

My Lords, if I may make a short point before the Minister gets up to speak, it is clear that we are going to have a debate on international law and so on about every set of clauses. All I want at this stage is to draw attention to the actual situation and practical reality for people moving goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, as a result of the application of EU customs law for those goods coming to Northern Ireland. Briefly, and cutting through the arguments about international law, let us have a look at the reality.

The Government will have spent £340 million through the Trader Support Service helping traders process 2.3 million customs declarations for trade between two parts of the United Kingdom. For those 2.3 million declarations, by the end of the year the taxpayer will have forked out almost £350 million, and that comes on top of the movement and assistance schemes and other schemes designed to help people with the paperwork. According to some estimates, it could amount to £500 million. That support is not guaranteed to continue into the future. It has been extended for another year but at some point those costs will have to be borne by hauliers—the companies which move those goods—and consumers. There will certainly be a massive increase in the cost of living. Already, as a result of the paperwork that people have to go through, even with that support we have seen example after example of firms in Great Britain simply refusing to have any further dealings with Northern Ireland. It is simply not worth their time, effort or money, even with those vast millions going into the Trader Support Service.

I urge noble Lords to look at what people in companies such as McBurney Transport and McCulla—the people who transport goods to the Irish Republic as well, not just Northern Ireland—are saying about the paperwork and the reality of these customs burdens on trade between one part of the United Kingdom and another, and then tell people that this is a sensible way of approaching it. We need change. I understand the arguments about international law and all of that but we need to have this rectified. We cannot continue to fork out this kind of money and still have companies refusing to do business with one part of the United Kingdom; namely, Northern Ireland.

Water Companies: Borrowings

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

It is a good question and a number of steps are being taken at the moment. As part of the commitment that the water companies have made on investment, the numbers for which I provided earlier, we are seeing a lot of work being done between them to invest in schemes that will transfer water between areas of need and areas of plenty. We have already seen water transferred from the Lake District to the Manchester area, and from Wales to the Liverpool area. Work is under way at the moment by Anglian Water to transport water—from an investment of around £400 million—which, once completed, will mean an entirely new network longer than any motorway in the UK. That investment is happening and will continue to do so.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, is the Minister not being somewhat complacent? Beaches across the country have been unusable in this hot weather. Should the noble Lord not be worried about that?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I am deeply worried about it. As I said, I do not pretend for a second that we do not have a problem with pollution; we do. Incidentally, this is not a UK problem but one that affects countries across the European Union. But I also said, rightly, that this Government are the first to take these steps. There is now a legal requirement for those companies to take action; that did not exist before. Our plan will require water companies to deliver the largest ever infrastructure programme, with £56 billion of capital investment over 25 years. If it is followed through, the plan will protect biodiversity, the ecology of our rivers and seas and the public health of our water users for generations to come. As I said, we now have the tools to do this, but of course it is for future Governments, including this one, to ensure that they are used to their maximum.

Shortage of Workers

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

Immigration policy is not in the DWP’s gift. I suggest the noble Lord takes that up with the Home Office, although I am happy to help by diverting his question to the Home Office. The noble Lord is correct about Ukrainian refugees: we have done a lot to get them into the benefits system and get them national insurance numbers. I am pleased to say that a lot of them are highly skilled and qualified, and we look forward to integrating them into the workforce.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, fruit and vegetables are rotting in the fields. What on earth are the Government doing to get enough seasonal workers to pick them?

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

Send Boris!

Russia: Sanctions

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

I am sure the Home Office has heard the point which the noble Lord has made quite clearly. This is evident in the steps taken recently by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary in support of Ukraine, and her response to many of the points raised in your Lordships’ House. As I said, we are looking at the full picture. I stress the point that there are many Russians in the United Kingdom who are dual nationals. There are many Russians who do not have British citizenship but are residing in the UK. There are many Russians in Russia, as we saw in St Petersburg, who are totally and utterly against Mr Putin and his Government. It is important that we stand by them as well.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I ask the Minister why there are no applications to the court for freezing orders.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

As I have said, and as the noble and learned Baroness will know, all the actions we are taking, including the sanctions policy, are based on a legal framework to ensure that first sanctions can be applied. Equally, there needs to be a legal recourse for those people who feel that a sanction has been applied against them which is not justified. I assure the noble and learned Baroness that the legal framework is very much incorporated into our sanctions framework.

I will make a slightly further point: she would have seen that we are now working with the International Criminal Court, specifically on crimes that are committed within Ukraine. This is a point which noble Lords, in particular, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, have raised with me. We are moving forward in that respect as well.

Environment Bill

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 9th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, on Motion C, I too congratulate my noble friend the Duke of Wellington on all his amendments throughout the passage of the Bill to which I have added my name. It has been a pleasure to work co-operatively across the House, including with the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, and the noble Lord, Lord Oates.

Indeed, noble Lords’ scrutiny has achieved many important improvements. I therefore thank our excellent Ministers—my honourable friend Rebecca Pow in the other place and my noble friend the Minister—my noble friend Lady Bloomfield, and the entire Bill team for their engagement, hard work and willingness to be persuaded to finally accept the need to place duties on the water companies. I also commend the work of my honourable friend Philip Dunne in the other place, who did so much to move this forward.

At last, the Bill places a direct legal duty on the water companies. The government amendment seems to me to produce what we and my noble friend the Duke of Wellington were aiming to achieve with the most recent amendment. There is considerable public concern that the Environment Agency is not using its existing powers, has relied too much on self-reporting and has consistently tolerated repeated illegal discharges which damage our waterways and public health. I am grateful to the Government that they have now specified both the environmental and human health aspects.

It will also, as other noble Lords have said, be important to monitor and oversee sewage discharges far more rigorously and to track and reduce such unacceptable discharges so that companies do not rely on not being caught as the most cost-effective way to proceed. I have sympathy with the frustrations of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, but I believe that, although in an ideal world we would not want to start from here, we are not dealing with the situation that we would all wish to see. After years of neglect and companies having behaved so egregiously, I do not believe that this can be addressed instantly. Therefore, it will take time to undo the neglect. I believe that the Government must and will take the necessary actions, but of course we will see over time.

Currently, we have two excellent Ministers who are committed to the aims of the Bill, for which I am most grateful. I also briefly congratulate the noble Lords, Lord Krebs and Lord Anderson, on the pressure they have put on to improve the independence of the OEP. Overall, I believe that this House has achieved a significant amount. We have pushed the Government as far as we possibly can, and I hope that we will now accept the government Motions and be rightly proud of this landmark Bill.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I have rightly stayed silent up to now, having been content with listening, as I have done throughout. I think noble Lords are hugely to be congratulated for encouraging and indeed pushing the Government into a much more favourable position which I think, as the noble Baroness has just said, we ought to accept. I remain particularly concerned about one thing: the discharge of sewage into rivers and chalk streams. How on earth will the Government really see that this is properly monitored? Because if it is not monitored, it is a waste of time.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

Very briefly, I was very keen that all the amendments in your Lordships’ House, when they went down to the other place a couple of weeks ago, should be accepted, but we are where we are and it is a good illustration of a degree of co-operation between the two Houses. I do wish that the other place would not look on us as competition, or adversaries, but rather as a complementary Chamber very much influenced by those with real knowledge and experience, as has been marvellously illustrated this afternoon by the speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Krebs and Lord Anderson of Ipswich, and the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington.

Led by our Cross-Benchers, we have achieved a considerable degree of improvement to a Bill that started out as a somewhat flawed flagship. I think now we can take a certain quiet pride. It is not perfect; it would have been better had more of our amendments been accepted and had those before us not been doctored a little, but we must not be churlish. However, I do hope that the other place will come to regard your Lordships’ House as not a competitor or an adversary but a complementary Chamber that can add real value. If one compares the depth of the debate in your Lordships’ House with what happened rather briefly in another place, we can be gently satisfied and quietly proud of what this House has achieved.

It would be churlish to sit down without saying to my noble friend Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park that we appreciate what he has done. However, in future Bills it would be a good idea if Ministers in your Lordships’ House were given a little more latitude to be responsive at the Dispatch Box—a little more authority, because they deserve it, and my noble friend Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park has given a lifetime of service to the causes embraced in the Bill. This is a satisfactory afternoon and it would be spoiled by any Division.