Protection of Freedoms Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Wednesday 15th February 2012 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Berkeley]

56A: After Clause 104, insert the following new Clause—
“Public authorities
(1) The Freedom of Information Act 2000 is amended as follows.
(2) In Part VI (other public bodies and offices: general) of Schedule 1 (public authorities), after “The Consumer Panel established under section 16 of the Communications Act 2003” insert “The Corporation of Trinity House”.”

[Lord Berkeley]

This amendment is designed to include Trinity House within the scope of the Freedom of Information act. The noble Lord, Lord Henley, has reminded the House this evening that a review of the FOI Act is going on, which is very welcome, but I am hoping that the Government will accept my amendment on the basis that they have already committed to include Trinity House in the FOI Act, as I shall demonstrate, and it would save a lot of time and effort.

Trinity House is the lighthouse and navigation aids authority that maintains the navigation aids around the coast of England and Wales. I think it should be included because I believe it is a public body. Ships going into UK ports pay light dues into a central fund called the General Lighthouse Fund, which is administered and disbursed by the Department for Transport to the three lighthouse authorities in England, Scotland and Ireland. This amendment would bring Trinity House in line with the Northern Lighthouse Board, which looks after the lights in Scotland and is already covered by FOI. If Ministers are concerned about how much extra work it would be for the GLF, I understand that the Northern Lighthouse Board has received just over 40 FOI inquiries, so I do not think it is any great effort for lighthouse authorities to be included.

I thought of including the Commissioners of Irish Lights in this amendment, but since the Minister for Shipping, Mike Penning MP, is at the moment negotiating with the Irish Government a very welcome change so that the lights around Ireland are not funded by ships going into UK ports by the time of the next election, I thought I would leave the Commissioners of Irish Lights out.

The Independent Light Dues Forum wrote to the Ministry of Justice on 25 January 2011 welcoming the ministry’s announcement about opening public bodies to public scrutiny and the possibility of including Trinity House within FOI. The ministry responded on 23 February last year saying that Trinity House would be consulted about possible inclusion, which is absolutely right, of course. On 5 May, I received a letter from the noble Lord, Lord McNally, that stated:

“We intend to extend the Act to bodies which we believe to perform functions of a public nature, such as the Trinity House Lighthouse Service, through secondary legislation under section 5 of the Act rather than the Protection of Freedoms Bill”.

He did not say why. It would achieve the same objective if this Bill were amended now.

When she replies, will the Minister say why it matters which legislative route is to be used to deliver the same outcome? I think it is quite important that this happens quite quickly. It is a year since this was first raised, and I hope that the Minister will accept my amendment, if only to avoid me bothering her again. I beg to move.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for his introduction of his amendment. As he explained, the Government announced on 7 January last year our intention to consult a number of bodies about them being subject to the Freedom of Information Act by virtue of an order made under Section 5(1)(a) of the Act. It is a shame that the noble Lord, Lord Wills, is not in his place because this is relevant to the earlier debate.

A body may be included in such an order to the extent that it exercises functions of a public nature. As the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said, this consultation includes the Trinity Lighthouse Service and is currently ongoing. The consultation process is an important one. It is designed to ensure that all relevant legal and policy factors are considered before a final decision is made about whether some, or all, of the functions of a body such as Trinity House should be covered by the Act.

The Corporation of Trinity House undertakes a number of important functions. Without wishing to express a view while the consultation is ongoing, I can understand why the noble Lord might consider its functions as a general lighthouse authority to be the sort of thing that could be covered by the FOI Act. As he said, the letter that he received from my noble friend Lord McNally stated that to be the case. The fact that the Northern Lighthouse Board is already covered obviously provides another point of comparison.

However, the Corporation of Trinity House also undertakes a number of other functions as a charity and as a provider of deep sea navigation pilots for ships trading in northern European waters. In light of this, we need to consider carefully which, if any, of the corporation’s functions should be brought within the Act. The consultation process currently taking place is designed to allow for this sort of consideration to take place.

--- Later in debate ---

If we were to accept this amendment now, we would effectively be pre-empting the outcome of the current consultation. The consultation must be allowed to run its course. Having made the case for bringing Trinity House within the scope of the Act, and in light of me having repeated and restated the points that my noble friend Lord McNally made to him in his letter last year, I hope that the noble Lord feels able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Berkeley]

Perhaps I might ask the noble Baroness about the length of the consultation period. The letter that I quoted from, dated 5 May 2011, from the noble Lord, Lord McNally, said:

“We are currently in the process of consulting the bodies concerned”.

It is very unusual for a government consultation to go on for nine months. Have the Government started another consultation? It is very good to have such long consultations, but it is a bit unusual. When is the consultation on the Trinity House issue going to finish? I would be very grateful for the noble Baroness’s response.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

We certainly plan to conclude the consultation fairly soon, and to bring an order under Section 5 for all the new public bodies that we are currently consulting on later in the year.

[Lord Berkeley]

I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for that answer and I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 56A withdrawn.

Railways: Theft

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Monday 3rd October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the right reverend Prelate for drawing that to our attention and for emphasising the problems that we and the church are facing. I know that he has been in touch with the Home Office and that Ministers have responded to the church’s concerns about these matters. He is quite right to draw attention to the advantage of the cashless model, but there are other matters that we could look at, such as design, material and even, I understand, reviewing the properties of the copper and lead themselves to see whether they can be made more traceable in due course.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that it is not only the railways and power transmission that are affected but telecoms cables? Is he also aware that a lot of these people just stuff the cables into containers and export them? Am I right in detecting a lack of urgency in the Government coming up with a solution, which could be very serious?

[Lord Henley]

I completely refute the idea that there is a lack of urgency. Only the day before my noble friend left the job that I am now in, she hosted a meeting of Ministers from a whole range of departments to look at the problems facing us and what we ought to do. However, I am grateful to the noble Lord for pointing out that an awful lot of this metal is not going to scrap metal dealers but going straight into containers and being exported. I have mentioned the role that the Environment Agency has to play in that, which we will look at.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Lords Chamber

I hope very much that the Minister can accept the spirit of these amendments. The previous Government attempted to do that and were not able to produce exactly the right solution. She has the opportunity to produce a lasting solution for the future of the BTP’s powers and jurisdictions. If she does that, the travelling public, railway staff and the officers of the British Transport Police will be greatly in her debt.

[Lord Berkeley]

I support all these amendments, too. I will not repeat what the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and my noble friend Lord Faulkner have said because I fully support all their contributions, but it is worth pointing out that the BTP is pretty unique as a very specialist police force. I think the statistics are that half of its officers tend to operate in London, both on the Underground and on the main line, and the rest are split between the main line elsewhere in the country and Network Rail.

When it comes to dealing with incidents—whether it is some of the bad behaviour that my noble friend Lord Faulkner was mentioning or cable theft on the railway, which is a very serious issue and delays many trains—the BTP’s specialist knowledge in working safely on the lines, where there are sometimes high-speed trains and which sometimes can be electrified, is probably unique. When one has been delayed on the railways and has seen the difference in response professionalism between the local force that probably has not had much experience of this and the BTP, it brings into focus how important it is that the BTP’s expertise is maintained and enhanced.

It is absolutely essential that the ideas behind these amendments—that the BTP is put on the same footing as Home Office forces—are accepted. I hope the noble Baroness will accept the principle, but I wonder whether there is a problem because the BTP is the responsibility of the Department for Transport and other forces are the responsibility of the Home Office. I sometimes detect a kind of tension between the two, which the two previous noble Lords have also alluded to. I hope that these amendments will help to improve relationships and—something I see as being thoroughly important—enable BTP officers to move around, not just on the railways but in adjacent areas where they need to do their work without the constraint of having to apply to go into another force’s territory.

I look forward to hearing what the noble Baroness will say in response and I thoroughly support these amendments.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, I shall make only three brief points. Like the others who have spoken, I should like to hear what the Minister will say in response to the case that has been put forward. When I spoke to these amendments in Committee, I am afraid I got into the history of the BTP but I will not repeat that. Noble Lords will know that my concern for and interest in the branch is real.

The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, gave us an interesting history and pointed out some of the difficulties that the BTP has faced in trying to make its case to the Government. Those are very powerful and persuasive points. The additional comments from my noble friends Lord Faulkner and Lord Berkeley have made a pretty irresistible case. It is time to look at how the geographic forces interrelate with the BTP and vice versa. The safety of the travelling public and the interests of all concerned would benefit from that. I am concerned that it is perhaps more complex than has been said in the past few minutes. Therefore, we shall need to look at that sometime. However, I hope the Minister will reassure us that she will not leave it to ordinary processes and that, on this occasion, she will tackle what is required positively to give us some hope that the situation will not be allowed to drag on, and so that we get some resolution to these points.

Police: Officer Numbers

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I am afraid I am at a loss to know to what Question the noble Lord is referring, but I will look into it.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I wrote down very carefully the answer that the Minister gave to a previous question. She said that there is no link between the number of officers and the level of crime. Does it therefore follow that if we had no police officers that would not affect the level of crime?

Identity Documents Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 21st December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, the Government have given it further consideration and decided that they are not going to supply refunds. That was the position of the House of Commons. It is very clear that the Government are not going to avail themselves of the opportunity to waive financial privilege. This amendment would impose a charge on the taxpayer. Our view is that the taxpayer should be saved from having the charge imposed. Citizens are also taxpayers, not simply purchasers of ID cards.

On the substance of the matter, I say that we should have a sense of proportion about £30. It is absolutely not the same as, for instance, the example cited by the noble Lord opposite of assisted places for children. Of course, if a child had an assisted place, their educational career depended on it, and the policy changed, one would not cut off a child who was in mid-educational career. That is utterly different from a payment of £30. We should keep a sense of proportion. We do not believe that the purchase of the card constitutes any kind of contract between the Government and the taxpayer. Therefore, we do not believe that there is an obligation on the Government to refund the money, so the Government do not intend to do so.

The card will no longer have a database behind it to demonstrate its validity. Of course, it will not be an illegal act for someone to use it when they go to the pub. However, it has no legal validity, and one could perfectly well use a passport or driving licence for that purpose. For all these reasons, the Government do not believe that it is right—

[Lord Berkeley]

Will the Minister explain what would happen if someone used one of these ID cards to go for a short holiday on the continent? It is a lot cheaper to buy an ID card than a passport. She may say that £30 is nothing to people who go on holiday, but that is a slightly arrogant approach. She says that the card could be used in pubs that ask for ID, but that no one will be able to check it against a database. However, we all know, from going into and out of this country, that there are different ways of being checked by electronic means. Will these identity cards still work when one goes through immigration or will they be cancelled?

The Minister says that the database has been abolished. I doubt whether any database ever gets abolished, because MI5 or someone else will want to keep it. At what stage will the ID card not work when one goes through immigration, and what is the other solution? Not everyone has a driving licence—why should they? Will it be the case that one cannot go abroad unless one has a passport, so that going abroad will not be possible for people who cannot afford a passport? I would be glad if the Minister would respond to some of those questions.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The ID cards will not have a database behind them. The previous Government decided that the database should be separate from the passport database. It is not possible to join up the two databases because they are not compatible; that is one of the problems. This database will not exist. Therefore, the ID card, although it might be regarded as a courtesy proof of age, for instance in a pub, will have no legal validity at the border. The receiving country might be willing to accept it, but I fear that the individual might not get back into this country because they would have to show a document that had a database behind it.