House of Lords: Gender Equality

Countess of Mar Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I may be in some trouble with my noble friend but that was actually in my brief.

[The Countess of Mar (CB)]

My Lords, as the last hereditary woman left standing, I ask the Minister to ask the Chief Whip to support the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, in their requests.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, my noble friend the Chief Whip will have heard both those bids and they will be discussed through the usual channels.

European Parliament Elections: Non-UK EU Citizens

Countess of Mar Excerpts

Wednesday 5th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister may well want to write to me with the answers to some of these questions. I declare an interest as someone who has had a residence in Brussels for the last 40 years, although of course I have been able to vote in only the last couple of elections. I think there is a misunderstanding about what this directive says. The Minister stated that all member states are required to,

“send the details of any EU citizens’ declarations to the state they are a citizen of, ‘sufficiently in advance of polling day’”.

What is the definition of “sufficiently in advance”, and how many declarations did we send to other member states? Could he write saying how many declarations were received from each member state for the elections in 2014 and 2019? Could he also tell us what use they were put to? When I filled in my declaration in Belgium, I was not asked for an address in the United Kingdom, so how is this used to check that people have not voted twice? As a further complication, being a joint citizen of the Irish Republic and the United Kingdom, this year I registered myself in Brussels as a citizen of the Republic of Ireland. How, in any way, could the Republic of Ireland know this, since I am not eligible to vote in the Republic of Ireland as it has different regulations? I just ask—

[The Countess of Mar (CB)]

My Lords, does the noble Lord appreciate that Urgent Questions should be treated in the same way as Oral Questions? Members should ask two questions, briefly.

[Lord Balfe]

I apologise. There are a number of points, but I will leave it at that.

Verify: Digital Identity System

Countess of Mar Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

There is an issue of commercial confidentiality in publishing the amount paid to the five identity providers, but if the noble Lord wants to know the cost of the Verify programme, I should be more than happy to write to him and place a copy in the Library.

[The Countess of Mar (CB)]

My Lords, we electronically tag all our animals—I speak as a former farmer. Why cannot we electronically tag humans? We could all have microchips, and then we would know where we were.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

House of Lords: Register of Hereditary Peers

Countess of Mar Excerpts

Wednesday 25th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I say to the noble Baroness that her Government had 13 years, from 1997 to 2010, in which to address this issue but they did not do so. They had a further opportunity in 2010, when the Equality Act, to which I referred, was introduced to address it and they declined so to do. So far as the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is concerned, we had a good debate at Second Reading. I set out the Government’s view at that point, and we look forward to its Committee stage when my noble friend the Chief Whip finds time for it. The noble Baroness said that some of her best friends were hereditary Peers; my line manager, the Deputy Chief Whip, is a hereditary Peer.

[The Countess of Mar (CB)]

My Lords, as the last female hereditary Peer left standing, I ask the Minister whether he is aware that I support the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. We have gone on for too long with elections. We no longer know the electorate as well as we should and it is time that we called an end to them.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

As I said, the House will have an opportunity, when we debate the further stages of the noble Lord’s Bill, to come to a conclusion. When I summed up, I indicated the views that were for and against. I think I ended up by saying that in one sense, the Bill was premature, because we were waiting for the report of the noble Lord, Lord Burns. Hopefully, that report will be in the public domain by the Committee stage.

NHS: Congenital Heart Disease

Countess of Mar Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

We do not yet know that it is not going anywhere. A public consultation is coming forward, and the Brompton is not the only hospital concerned; it concerns a lot of hospitals all around the country. It is fair that it should go to a public consultation. Everybody will then have a chance to put their views, and that is going to be the way forward.

[The Countess of Mar (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that as well has having surgical expertise, part of the patient’s recovery depends on having access to their friends and their family? When the NHS is deciding these things, will someone please ensure that if a hospital is a long way away from where people live, the families are given funding for travel, because many people cannot afford to do so, and, if necessary, given accommodation in the hospitals where the operations take place?

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

The noble Countess raises a good point. NHS England recognises that it may be difficult for the families involved having to travel further, which is why a number of standards will certainly address that point.

Food Poverty

Countess of Mar Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, that takes a great deal of consideration and the Government certainly will do so. The report recommends that free school meals should be provided in the holiday period. That involves a lot of implications and cost, which the Government of course will have to consider.

[The Countess of Mar (CB)]

My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that many of these people are living in multioccupancy buildings, with either shared cooking facilities or none, and have extreme difficulty in providing proper square meals for their families? Can that be taken into account when people are criticising them for not being able to support themselves?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I agree with that. Another of the recommendations in this excellent report, which I encourage noble Lords to read in full, is that landlords should be expected to supply basic cooking facilities and equipment. There was also some good material on encouraging people to grow their own food. I have had some association with the charity in Shipley that deals with people who have mental health problems, runs a series of allotments and indeed encourages people to grow their own food and then cook it themselves. There is a whole range of issues that we need to address, some of which the Government can address but quite a lot of which civil society is at least as well equipped as government in addressing.

Deregulation Bill

Countess of Mar Excerpts

Tuesday 18th November 2014 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (The Countess of Mar) (CB)]

My Lords, if there is a Division in the Chamber while we are sitting, the Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division Bells are rung and will resume after 10 minutes.

Clause 68 agreed.

Elections: Weekend Voting

Countess of Mar Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, it is only six years since the previous Government looked at this. I am not aware of any strong pressure for change and there are disadvantages with all other days of the week. If we were to move to weekend voting there would be a strong argument for having two-day voting and that would be a much more complicated exercise in other ways.

[The Countess of Mar (CB)]

My Lords, we are getting the conception that all schools close on voting days. In my locality we vote in the village hall. In the next ward to us they vote in the village hall. Are there not enough community centres and village halls for people to be able to vote in them and for schools to remain open?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

A whole range of places, including church halls, are indeed used for polling stations. It often happens, however, that the primary school is the most convenient place in a village or town district for people to get to and for disabled people in particular to be able to go into.

Courtesy Titles

Countess of Mar Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we spent some time on Fridays on a Private Member’s Bill on this very question. The House was some way from consensus on it the last time we debated it.

[The Countess of Mar (CB)]

My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that there is a precedent? In 1392 and 1408, when there were two Countesses of Mar in their own right, their husbands were made Earls for their lifetime on the basis that the women could not go to war or sit in Parliament. However, I have asked my husband and he said that he does not want to be Earl of Mar because he neither wants to go to war nor to sit in Parliament.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am very grateful for that remark. I was aware of that precedent and I am told there was another Scottish precedent, from the 16th century, in which the husband was refused the appropriate title.

Health: Birth Defects

Countess of Mar Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[The Countess of Mar (CB)]

My Lords, I do not think I am likely to get to nine minutes. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, for bringing this subject to our attention this evening.

Under normal circumstances, I would prefer that young women should all have a good balanced diet with plenty of fresh fruit and leafy vegetables, regardless of whether or not they were considering pregnancy, to give them sufficient folic acid to prevent neural tube defects and, come to that, a very large number of other subclinical conditions linked with folic acid deficiency. Unfortunately, life does not work like that. Many young people—women and girls in particular—lead rather frenetic lives and tend to eat on the hoof. Food which takes little preparation and cooking is the easiest way for them to get their calories. Many have little idea of the nutritional values of the food they eat and cooking a good, balanced meal comes very low in their order of priorities. Others simply cannot afford to buy fresh green vegetables and fruit on a regular basis. While some cereal and snack manufacturers fortify their products with folic acid, these too might be out of range for those on benefits. No amount of education or health promotion material can overcome these problems.

As a mother and grandmother of healthy girls, I find it hard to imagine the anguish and grief that a pregnant woman suffers when told that she is bearing a baby with neural tube defects. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, has pointed out the abortion rates for this condition. She and her partner have to decide whether they wish to continue with the pregnancy. She has the added knowledge, and the guilt that would accompany it, that if she had taken folic acid before she became pregnant, or immediately she knew that there was a possibility that she was pregnant, she might have prevented potential disaster.

There are people who object on principle to what they regard as mass medication. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, again has made very clear that it is not without consent. We are all aware of the objections to fluoridation of drinking water. I know that there have been discussions about removing calcium fortification in flour, although these seem to have stalled. Few people realise that, as well as calcium, our white flour is already fortified with thiamine, iron and niacin. They also ask why they should have to have their products made with flour fortified to prevent disease in a very small minority. I believe very strongly that, in the case of folic acid, flour should be fortified. This belief is endorsed by researchers at the Institute for Science and Society at the University of Nottingham in their 2007 report The Ethical Implications of Options for Improving the Folate Intake of Women of Reproductive Age.

The prevalence of neural tube defects started to fall before folic acid supplementation was introduced in the 1970s. Perhaps the abortion laws that came in around that time had some effect. When I was newly married I was told to avoid eating green potatoes because these were seen as the cause of spina bifida. The prevalence fell quite steeply for about 20 years but it has remained stubbornly at between eight and 15 per 10,000 pregnancies since the 1990s. One possible reason could be that nearly half of pregnancies are unplanned; by the time a woman finds she is pregnant it is too late for the supplements to have the greatest benefit.

Most of the UK population eats white flour in some form or another as part of their staple diet, although we must not forget those who are gluten sensitive and do not eat wheat for medical or other reasons. A standard loaf of bread is relatively cheap and filling. It tends to be a substantial part of the diet of those who cannot afford fresh fruit and vegetables or other foods rich in folic acid, such as offal and pulses. It seems likely that fortified bread has a better chance of reaching the target than education or promotional campaigns to encourage this group of women to take folic acid as a precautionary measure. It would also catch those who have unplanned pregnancies.

As well as preventing neural tube defects, folic acid may have a role in reducing congenital heart defects, cleft lips, limb defects and urinary tract abnormalities. It may also help to protect the unborn infant from disease in the mother. It seems to be important that vitamin B12 levels are checked as there is concern that high prenatal levels of folic acid combined with low B12 may cause epigenetic changes. There is a complex interaction between B12, folic acid and iron. As our flour is already fortified with iron we would need to ensure that B12 deficiency would not be masked by the other two.

As the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, has already said, concerns have been voiced about the possibility that folic acid fortification might mask vitamin B12 deficiencies in the elderly and that it might cause bowel cancer, but recent research would appear to negate both these concerns, particularly for the elderly. There would appear to be very little, if any, risk from fortified bread to the general population—indeed, it might even prevent a number of subclinical conditions which could become serious, particularly in the elderly.

The one small concern that I have is that, if white flour is fortified, it will be difficult to determine the folic acid status of women who want to become pregnant or who are pregnant because we will not know their average daily intake. The Department of Health recommends that,

“‘all women who could become pregnant should take 400 microgrammes”—

that is, 0.4 milligrams—

“of folic acid per day as a medicinal or food supplement prior to conception until the twelfth week of pregnancy”.

The RDA for folate equivalents is 600 micrograms. The BMA suggests that the guidance level set for the UK of 1 milligram a day is satisfactory,

“provided there are appropriate controls on mandatory fortification to ensure that individuals do not exceed the upper intake level of 1mg per day”.

There must be huge variations in the amount of white bread and other white flour products that UK consumers eat on an average daily basis. How are we to ensure that young women get enough folic acid to protect their unborn children, or that the elderly do not get too much? What advice about additional supplements will be given to women of child-bearing age who do not eat a lot of bread and to those who have had a previous pregnancy with neural tube defects or who have a genetic risk? We need to be cautious about depending too much upon fortification of white flour with folic acid to solve all the problem of neural tube defects. Nevertheless, that is not an excuse for not doing it.

I support the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, who is himself supported by the BMA, the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition, the Department of Health’s Committee on Medical Aspects of Food and Nutrition Policy and the Food Standards Agency. I hope that the Government will listen to him.