Offensive Weapons Bill

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 28th January 2019 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

My Lords, I remind the Committee that, if there is a Division in the Chamber, we will adjourn for 10 minutes from the sound of the Division Bells. I also draw the Committee’s attention to the fact that, on the Marshalled List, there are explanatory statements to some of the amendments. These are included as part of a trial of their use and they have no procedural impact, lest anybody should be in any doubt.

Clause 1: Sale of corrosive products to persons under 18

Amendment 1

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Brexit: EU Citizens in the UK

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, there has been quite a lot of highlighting of this, both in the press and by the Government. The Government will open the public phase of the registration scheme on the 21st of this month and we hope that more people will sign up to it; thousands have done so already.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, is the Minister confident that nothing done by any government department or agency of government has contributed to provoking this anxiety? If she is confident of that, why?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, we have the lessons of history to learn and certainly the Windrush scandal—which happened, of course, over decades—helped in that endeavour. As time has gone on and identity assurance is much more important in the digital age, so these schemes will add to the confidence of both the public and the Government that we are assuring the right of people to be here and their identity.

Immigration: Hostile Environment

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Thursday 14th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Bassam for introducing this debate. It is already clear that it is raising a number of extremely difficult and very emotional points which it will be necessary for the Government to hear and to take seriously.

I want to come at this from a slightly different angle. There is an old aphorism which says, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me”. However, there can be few less accurate or less helpful aphorisms available to us. Language is powerful. Everyone knows this, from those like the actors and writers among whom I have spent my life, for whom it is their professional stock in trade—which of course incudes politicians—through to children taunting each other in the playground. It can galvanise and persuade, in good ways and in bad; it can terrify or pacify, enable or silence; and it can bring together or it can divide. It works on the imagination—the source of all our creativity but also of our most acute vulnerabilities. We are more aware now than perhaps we have ever been of the impact of language on mental health—how, for example, the extended reach which the internet provides has amplified the potential for people to be attacked, threatened and demoralised just with words.

All Governments know that they must choose their words carefully, so we must assume that there has been nothing accidental about the rhetoric adopted in public discussion of immigration in the past few years or in the legislation it has given rise to. I accept, as most people do, that there must be rules about who is and is not allowed to come into this country and remain here, but the problem with the use of phrases such as “hostile environment” is that they frighten and demoralise not only those who may be in breach of those rules but, as we have already heard from my noble friend Lord Morris and the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, for example, those who have done nothing wrong.

More insidiously, they give licence to the expression of generalised prejudice and antagonism—sadly, never too far below the surface in any society—towards whole categories of people by emphasising their “otherness”. Recalling those grotesque “Go Home” vans a few years back, I really wonder what the Home Office, and more particularly the then Home Secretary, was thinking. Who ever thought that that was any way for a Government to address their own citizens? We should have learned from the hideous lessons of history how dangerous it is to use divisive language to stigmatise. Surely “us” is far more important than “them”.

Many years ago, one of my sisters met and married a Jamaican man who had come to the UK in the 1950s, not actually on the “Empire Windrush” but in that era. He was a delightful person—an entertainer, magician and escapologist—who in 1968 became the first Afro-Caribbean performer in the UK to receive the Inner Magic Circle Gold Star. Noble Lords might imagine what a welcome visitor he was to my house when my children were small. Shortly after they married, he and my sister returned to Jamaica, where their two children were born. They came back to the UK in 1991 in order for those children to complete their schooling.

I tell this bit of family history for two reasons. The first is to make the obvious point that my brother-in-law and his children fall exactly into the category of people about whom quite unjustified suspicion has been stirred up by recent Home Office activity. As it happens, I do not believe that either of the children, now grown up, have fallen foul of the rules, and my brother-in-law sadly died in 2006, before the current legislation. But I wonder whether he would have had the kinds of problems that have been described to us, had he lived. So I have thought a lot in recent weeks about how it must feel to wonder if, despite everything being in order, your right to be here might suddenly be called into question; if perhaps, after all, you do not really belong. Because the second, equally obvious, reason for mentioning them is that the people I am talking about are not “them” and not “other”—they are my family; they are our family; they are us.

Some noble Lords will have heard the debate on Tuesday evening about the immigration and nationality regulations concerning fees for registering citizenship. There were many powerful speeches, but I was impressed in particular by the words of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby, who was in his place but no longer is. He said:

“Citizenship is the privilege that glues a country together and enables a Government to have a culture of law and order that people respect and work in and where they support each other”.


He later said that,

“the civic energy that we need to offer welfare, support, friendship and kindness to make human life more bearable is under stress more and more”.—[Official Report, 12/6/18; cols. 1663-64.]

A strong civil society encourages us to use empathy and respect in our dealings with one another. Governments should do the same. The language of hostility and suspicion should have no place in official discourse. Even difficult, unwelcome messages can be delivered humanely. To misquote an old song, “It ain’t what you say, it’s the way that you say it—that’s what gets results”.

Women and Girls: HIV

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

Of course we recognise the great strength of the Global Fund, but we are also excited about the Ross fund, a £1 billion research initiative that will focus on malaria and other infectious diseases. At this moment, I do not have enough detail of the initiative to tell the noble Baroness more but, as always, I am open to her speaking to me about it once I have more details.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, while it is obviously appropriate today to focus on the very large populations with HIV outside this country, will the noble Baroness agree that it is important that we remember that HIV/AIDS is a public health issue in this country, where there are groups that are significantly at risk? Could she therefore encourage her colleagues to make sure that as, for example, funds to local authorities reduce, public health campaigning towards getting people tested and ensuring that treatment is available does not diminish?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is right to bring the question back home. It is a mandatory duty for local authorities to ensure that the services are available and accessible to those who require them. If the noble Baroness would like further detail on that, I will be more than happy to write to her.

Bishops and Priests (Consecration and Ordination of Women) Measure

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Tuesday 14th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, to follow my noble friend Lord Cormack when I clearly come from a very different position might seem difficult, but I respect everything that he has said. I start by relating an anecdote. My step-grandmother died earlier this year. She was absolutely clear that she did not want her local woman vicar to take her funeral. The loving generosity of the incumbent not only to make the arrangements for somebody else to come and take that service but also to remove herself from the village on that day was very moving. I am quite sure that the magnanimity of which the noble Lord speaks is not only there, but comes from the heart of those who feel that today will see a long wrong righted while understanding that that is not a universal view.

There has been some jumping round the centuries since we started this debate, and I am minded of the joke when I was a bursar of a Cambridge college. At a bursars’ meeting there was an argument about the applicability of VAT on chapel repairs—it is the sort of thing you get used to at Cambridge bursars’ committees. After 20 minutes of debate, the bursar of St John’s turned to the bursar of a 17th-century college and said, in an exasperated tone, “You post-Reformation colleges just don’t understand our problems”.

I am reminded of the research by my noble friend Lord Tyler on the very early days of the precursor to your Lordships’ House, the council that King John founded. Although there is no evidence of women attending the council, there were women on the council because there were abbesses who were wealthy enough to be taxed, which is of course why King John wanted them there. So as and when there are women Bishops in this House we need to remind them that, while they may be the first to actually sit on the Bench, they will not be the first to have actually been appointed to the Bench.

Nearly half a century ago at my girls’ school, growing in faith, a group of us used to chat after our confirmation course and tea and biscuits about what we wanted to do in the future. We did not call it women’s ministry, but we talked about it in those days. We all felt very clearly that God was calling us to do something yet we did not know what it would be. We knew it was not just going to be the wife of the vicar, or a Sunday school teacher, although I have certainly been the latter. One of my school friends from those days was the first woman ordained on 12 March 1994. She will always say it is because her surname began with a “B”, but the truth is she was in that first group. Another close friend of mine was the reverend mother of an Anglican order. Both demonstrate that long before we moved to a position where we have bishops in the Church of England, even within my own shortish lifetime women’s ministry has been extremely important.

When I was a Sunday school teacher 20 years ago, just as the debate was raging about the ordination of women, I asked my Sunday school class how they felt about it. Even then, they did not understand what the issue was, and the girls in particular all saw that the women deacons in our church and those women who had special ministries were part of God’s plan for us here. Now they are adults, they are also fulfilling their own role in whatever way God sends them and it was wonderful to hear that a third of our vicars are now women. For those of us who are politicians and cheeky enough to comment about today as being a great day, when we look at the number of women MPs just at the other end of the corridor we perhaps ought to be mindful that we also have some way to go.

I sat in the public gallery of Synod at Church House on 20 November 2012 and I also attended the very helpful bishops’ meeting the following day for Peers and MPs. It is evident that the long consideration and careful love in the views of the House of Bishops and the House of Clergy in working with those for whom this has been theologically difficult has moved us to a different place. Justifiably there remain concerns yet, as a humble member of the Church of England, I feel quite clearly that in five or 10 years’ time we will have all forgotten what the deep issues were because we will have moved into a new era and be tolerant and understanding as our Lord would want us to be.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, I should like to speak briefly, first as a member of the Ecclesiastical Committee—which I count a great privilege—and secondly as, in some way, a representative of the many, many people in this country who are not members of the Church of England, or indeed of any church, but who are none the less, in some curious way, deeply attached to the Church of England. We are people who have grown up in a world in which the ministry of the Church of England has been very important to the social and, indeed, the political fabric of this country. Those of us who are in that place have watched the progress of this issue about women bishops over the past few years initially with considerable dismay and latterly with—yes—joy. Even for those like me, for whom the theological issues are not the main matter in dispute, there was a question of the role and the importance of the church in wider society. The fact that it stood out against the consecration of women for so long undermined some of its credibility in the communities in which it was ministering.

I live in, and am a trustee of the church in, a parish which, I am very sorry to say, still holds out against women priests. Therefore, I do not think that at least some of the people with whom I spend some of my time in that parish will be all that pleased to see this Measure go through. However, as I said, there are many people in this country who are not members of the church but who are very glad that it is there, both at the parochial level and more widely, and for whom this is a good moment. We should record our gratitude to the most reverend Primate for leading this last bit of process, which has resulted in this Measure coming forward.

Finally, we should just remember that, although I fully understand and respect the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, about the Church of England’s place within the wider ecumenical movement, it is none the less different from other churches because it is an established church. It is part of the polity, and the politics, of this country in a most unusual way. I hesitate to call it unique, because I cannot altogether authenticate that, but it is certainly most unusual. That is why all of us, not just the members of the church, have an interest in this Measure, and all of us, even respecting the theological differences which make it difficult for some people to accept this, should none the less see this as a very good day for the church and for the country.

[The Lord Bishop of Rochester]

My Lords, I stand here as one who has had the privilege—at least it felt like that most of the time—of chairing the General Synod’s steering committee, which brought this last piece of legislation to fruition. In that regard, I put on the record during this debate in your Lordships’ House appreciation —some of which has already been expressed—for the contributions and hard work of so many who have brought us to this point, where I think most of us are pleased to be.

Reference has been made to patience, which the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, mentioned, and which has been shown by many, as well as understandable frustration and all sorts of other things, too. We need to place on record our thanks to those who have continued —yes—with patience, but also with some sharpness at times to persuade, to lobby and to keep this issue at the forefront of our minds, our attention and our action over recent years. I also put on record appreciation —which does not get done too often—of those who have been our advisers on the national staff of the Archbishops’ Council, who have been tireless in their efforts to enable us to find the legislative and other ways to come to where we are today.

I also put on record appreciation for those who have continued to have their misgivings and reservations about the rightness of making this move, not least because many of them, as is witnessed by the vote in General Synod so recently, have brought themselves to the point of recognising that this is the way in which the church as a whole must go forward, and either voted in favour or declined to vote against when it came to the final vote. Many of those people, not least those who are traditional Catholics, have contributed generously and valuably to the process and the outcome that we have reached at this point.

Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Wednesday 30th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

Again, my noble friend will know that built into the Bill was protection for religions that did not want to conduct same-sex marriages, as well as for those within religions that decided that it should be allowed—so we have no evidence of that at all.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister set out very clearly the Government’s intentions as far as the implementation of the Act is concerned. It was very reassuring to hear from the right reverend Prelate the current views of the church. However, I do not think that either she or—if I may say with respect—he addressed the question that the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, raised about the loss of employment that followed this incident. Can the Minister say anything further about the application, for example, of the Equality Act or any employment Act in situations where people lose their job over their sexuality?

[Baroness Northover]

As the noble Baroness may remember, the protections given to various religions in the equal marriage Act protect them in this regard from the operation of the Equality Act. It is up to the Church of England, but I note what the right reverend Prelate said.

Economy: Culture and the Arts

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the gap. I will take a few seconds to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, on collecting around her such an eminent bunch of speakers who have created a remarkable debate this afternoon. I agree with virtually everything that has been said. However, I would particularly like to associate myself with the speeches of the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, and the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Finsbury, both of whom have said most of what I wanted to say—much more eloquently than I ever could, and certainly not in the time I have.

I have spent my whole professional life in and around arts organisations. I have served in senior executive capacities in many and am currently serving in non-executive capacities for several, including the Roundhouse in north London, the National Opera Studio and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Being able to engage with those companies as they grow and develop, even in these very difficult times, is a source of enormous pride for me. Pride is something which has been mentioned several times and we should remember that the arts and culture are legitimately a source of pride, both for us as individuals where we are lucky enough to be associated with them, and for the nation as a whole. We must not let that pride go.

I looked very closely at the Arts Council’s work when it last restructured its portfolio following the comprehensive spending review three years ago. It did an extraordinarily good job. It has not always done an extraordinarily good job, but it did on that occasion and I was very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, gave it due credit. But I and the Arts Council warned that if it was forced to deal with another round of cuts similar to those which it was then absorbing, the consequences would be very serious. And lo, today we see in the article by Charlotte Higgins in the Guardian evidence that the Arts Council itself is briefing of the serious damage that it anticipates will be inevitable as a result of the comprehensive spending review, which we are due to hear about. Even allowing for the fondness of journalists for bad news stories, this really is a very grim scenario that we are facing.

I want to say what this feels like to people in the arts organisations that are likely to be affected. It feels like Groundhog Day only much worse. The noble Lord, Lord Grade, mentioned that he has been around long enough to have seen previous depressions, and so have I. I was in arts organisations in the 1980s when they struggled with very hard times. The one thing that is really different now is that the arts and culture, since John Major created the Department of National Heritage, which turned into the DCMS, have had a seat at the Cabinet table. It would be catastrophic if it were now to lose that influence. Will the Minister please stress to his colleagues in the DCMS and the Treasury how very important it is that that seat at the Cabinet table is preserved and that, whatever difficulties the sector faces in the future, it has an advocate at the most senior level in government?

Ethical and Sustainable Fashion

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall]

My Lords, I join everyone else in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Young, for securing the debate—it is indeed very timely, in view of the article in the Guardian today—and for her excellent and comprehensive overview of the issues. I am glad that the debate is to be answered by the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, for many reasons, not least, and I hope he will not mind my saying this, because we could all agree that he is unarguably one of the most stylish Members of your Lordships’ House.

I had not intended to speak—I should be singing—but I wanted to make a couple of short points. However, they have all been made by other speakers and so I will quickly pick up on a couple of matters that other people have spoken to and expand them a little. My noble friend Lord Stone spoke about buying less and wearing it more. That is absolutely at the heart of how we change human behaviour in this area. It will be difficult because in the developed world we have become addicted to over-consumption, and fashion is no exception. I am a complete serial offender in this respect. I have that wardrobe full of misguided purchases, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Young, referred, which were bought in haste and without due consideration. I am very ashamed of it, but unfortunately that does not stop me doing it.

We buy too much of everything because we can and because the market is geared towards high volume and low costs, as we have heard from many other speakers. We have largely forgotten how to value, restore, maintain and sustain the clothes that we wear. We are shamefully and shamelessly profligate.

This is a difficult issue for Governments of all complexions because the prevailing economic orthodoxy says that consumption equals growth, and growth is the only game in town. I can see that we have got problems but we should surely be wondering whether that model is itself sustainable. I rather doubt that it is.

Fashion, of course, is very much about novelty and therefore inevitably about consumption. However, at its best it is also about beauty, craft, skill and durability, and it is often about small businesses doing one thing really well. Does the Minister agree that one of things the Government can do is to put as much support as they can behind small businesses in fashion, as well as trying to persuade the large businesses to change their practices, which I do not deny is extremely important?

We must not forget that sustainable fashion is, of course, about sustainability, but it is mainly about fashion. If we do not get the fashion part right—that is, if the fashion that comes as sustainable is not as good as, if not better than, other fashion choices we could make—then it will never get off the ground. That is why we need small businesses that have creativity built into them.

My final point goes to the heart of how we can keep those small businesses coming: our education system. The system that we have at present, as we have already heard, has allowed some very talented people to come through and has allowed the fashion industry in this country to be world beating in many respects. If we do not keep the education system balanced so that the creative education necessary to allow those talents to emerge is properly sustained and valued, we shall find in a few years’ time that we are not the world beaters that we once were. I would extend that into the higher education sector where, as I should probably have said at the start, I have a personal interest in the excellent work of the Centre for Sustainable Fashion, which has been mentioned many times today, because my son works for it. What he has learnt through being part of that team has engaged my interest and I hope that there will be more units like the Centre for Sustainable Fashion in future, and that they will themselves be sustained.

Ingram National Park Visitor Centre

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Wednesday 31st October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

I remind the right reverend Prelate that how the national park decides to spend its resources is not a decision for Defra. I am sure that the national park will be listening. As I say, it is working closely with the Ingram village hall committee to try to ensure that information is available and it is doing a number of other things. I was also incredibly impressed by the number of volunteers who were involved in this park, as with others, and it may well be that some work needs to be done to try to see how that can be brought forward to make sure that there is the kind of coverage that the right reverend Prelate refers to.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall]

My Lords, I thought that the Minister told the House that the funding for this park was being reduced from £3 million to just short of £2.3 million.

[Noble Lords]

The figure was £2.9 million.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall]

In which case, I withdraw my question.

[Baroness Northover]

I would like to clarify that last year the figure was over £3.1 million, this year it is £2.9 million and next year it will be £2.7 million. I realise that that is a reduction, but it is for the national park to work out how it is going to prioritise things.

Health and Social Care Bill: HIV/AIDS Programmes

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Wednesday 21st March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

I thank my noble friend Lord Fowler for all that he has done in this area, not least on this particular change, which we were very happy to announce we would be taking forward. The important thing here is the protection of our population. The House of Lords Select Committee had rightly flagged that if some overseas visitors who were not currently covered were left in that situation, there would be an increased risk to our population. I am extremely glad to say that we have extended treatment to cover that group so that we can look after our population. We are on course for the timetable that we laid out before, and this should be introduced in the autumn.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall]

My Lords, what incentives does the Minister think there will be for local authorities, once they have public health responsibilities, to invest properly in the prevention of HIV/AIDS when the treatment costs will not fall to them? Can she confirm that currently a very much smaller proportion of funds is spent on prevention compared with the enormous cost of treatment? It would be in everyone’s interests if that balance were addressed somewhat.

[Baroness Northover]

The local authorities will commission the prevention and testing services. They have a public health outcomes framework that they need to address to drive up the situation across the board in public health. There are incentives within that for them to try to improve the health of their populations. Local authorities are best placed to understand the public health pressures, which are not just in this area, on their local populations.

On prevention and treatment, the emphasis in recent years—under the previous Government, as under ours—has been on the high-risk groups, particularly gay men and people from the sub-Saharan region. Those are the groups at greatest risk. However, a sexual health policy document is being worked on at the moment. If it is felt that it is important to feed into it that there is a need for nationwide emphasis on this matter, now is the time to emphasise it.