Brexit: Civil Service Code

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I am not familiar with the reports referred to by the noble Lord, but neither I nor any other Minister is auditioning for a part in an Orwell drama.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, this goes much wider in terms of the pressure on the Civil Service to abandon that key element of impartiality. Does the Minister accept that there is a very real danger at the moment, with the Civil Service being asked to collude with procurement policies that not only lack transparency but border on nepotism? Margaret Thatcher’s phrase, about whether someone is “one of us”, is now applied to appointments inside and outside the system. In such circumstances, while we can get rid of a Government when they lose trust, once we lose trust in our institutions, in the application of our law or in the impartiality of our Civil Service, we will be seen by the rest of the world as a tinpot regime.

[Lord True (Con)]

I do not agree with that and I regret that the noble Lord—with his enormous experience in government, which I hugely admire—takes that view. Everybody in this House and outside who has had experience of working with the Civil Service, as I have over many years, understands the relationship. Sometimes we each have to do things—even Ministers—that, in our heart of hearts, we do not agree with. There is a clear process for civil servants who believe that they are being required to act in a way that conflicts with the code. That system exists and is set out in writing; it is available to the House and I am happy to circulate it to Members. The safeguards are there.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 15th September 2020 Grand Committee

One of the features of a democratic system is that the elected Member is accountable to the residents of the constituency they serve, not just the electorate. How much more difficult will that be if these boundaries in Brecon and Radnor are extended? I believe it reduces the voice of people in the area. There is a fear in Wales that we are going to lose a lot of seats. It is important for constituencies such as Brecon and Radnorshire that we can maintain the present boundaries. I hope the Minister will accept this amendment and keep Brecon and Radnorshire as a protected constituency.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I will be brief because I do not have the power to reminisce like my noble friend Lord Lipsey or the recollections of my noble friend Lady Gale of traversing the constituency and seeing more sheep than people and presumably getting more and more frustrated as election day dawned.

My great-grandfather was born in mid-Wales, and I have a great affection for the area. I primarily put my name to this amendment because it demonstrates, if nothing else, the absurdity of having rigid numerical targets for the impositions of the Boundary Commission and then exempting islands and Ireland from the requirement while constituencies with 3,000 square kilometres are left to fend for themselves in arguing the case for a balance between the size and rurality of the constituency and the logic of being able to represent people adequately with individuals able to make contact with their constituency MP other than on Zoom or by text.

It seems to me that the Government have put the Boundary Commission in an impossible situation. The only thing I can say about the debates we have been able to have —and they have been extremely powerful, including earlier this afternoon—is that it might help the commissioners and those doing the leg work for the commission to understand much more powerfully just what the challenges on the ground are. I hope by the time they get the final remit that the Government will have adjusted their requirements and whatever amendments we are able to pass on Report will be kept in the House of Commons. Without them, we are going to get some absolute absurdities and contradictions. Speaking to this amendment and highlighting the position of Brecon and Radnorshire is a way of demonstrating that a little common sense should apply. I understand that we are nudging nearer to greater parity of numbers across the bulk of the country but we should stick rigidly to giving power to the Boundary Commission to make sense of local requirements.

[Lord Tyler (LD) [V]]

My Lords, there have been some very powerful contributions on what looked like a very small problem, although it is for a very big area. I know this constituency quite well. One of my brothers has lived there for over 60 years, and I spent a great deal of time in the company of my splendid colleagues Richard Livsey and Roger Williams, both of whom will be well known to many Members of your Lordships’ House and, no doubt, to the Welsh Members of this Grand Committee. They were both very effective MPs for that constituency. Knowing that area, I have great sympathy for the arguments that have been made. However, I will underline and reinforce the point made by my noble friend Lady Humphreys.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 8th September 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Tyler (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I am delighted once again to find myself in broad support of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes. It is almost embarrassing to find myself in his company because we do not always agree, but on this occasion I have a strong reason for doing so. Before I get to the specific point on extending the period from eight years to 10 years, which I broadly endorse, I want to pick up the point he made about the wonderful and unexpected commitment of the noble Lord, Lord True, to equal value for equal votes—I hope I quote him correctly—and for making the system entirely fair in that respect. It would inevitably lead to a better system of elections, because the present system is ludicrously unfair and does not give equal weight to equal votes.

In response to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, about the individual representation of individual constituencies, I never saw a problem in being an elected Liberal Democrat Member for one part of Cornwall, while recognising that Liberal Democrats in other parts of Cornwall would no doubt welcome multimember seats for the whole area, so that everybody would be better represented in political support, as well as individual local support. It is not necessarily a contradiction to be strongly in favour of local representation but, at the same time, of multimember proportional representation.

I was extremely proud to be a Member of Parliament for North Cornwall. Indeed, I think that I was the longest-serving Member for North Cornwall since the seat was founded in 1919, if only by a few months, as there have been frequent changes there. Nevertheless, I have a long family tradition connecting me with that part of Cornwall. I was told, by my mother in particular, that my ancestors arrived in north Cornwall in 1066, so the connection was strong. I was very proud that even though the electorate had grown to 87,000 by the time I retired in 2005—it was then redistributed within a big change of all the boundaries in Cornwall—I think I was nevertheless able to give good service. I do not find this argument about the size variance so persuasive that we have to stick to a very narrow margin. We will of course come back to that later in the Committee’s consideration.

The key issue that noble Lords have referred to, so far as I am concerned, is that if you do the calculation on a narrow basis—and too often—you create a degree of disruption which is entirely inimical to taking full account of the interests of the communities concerned and their integrity. It is not just for the convenience of the elected Member, which noble Lords referred to; it is for the communities themselves, if they constantly have to face disruption. That is surely the issue we should address and it is not properly addressed in the present Bill. It is not just about the eight-year cycle. There is also the issue of the very narrow variance, to which several of us have already referred this afternoon. That will come back as the core issue for the whole of the Bill.

I was struck by what the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, said about the balance between more remote constituencies in some parts of the United Kingdom and those in London and the south-east. I am sure he is right, particularly if it is combined with a degree of rurality, where the geography makes it difficult for the communities concerned and their elected representative to communicate effectively with each other. That is extremely important, and therefore an additional reason why we have to approach with care the too frequent and massive disruption from relatively small-scale changes in the electorate. That would clearly be the case if the Bill went through in its current form. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, is absolutely right on that point.

Given what my noble friend Lord Rennard said in the previous debate about the missing 9 million, I also emphasise that if we find that that figure is still there as these current proposed Boundary Commission examinations go forward, we will also find some very curious results coming out. That would be another argument for taking this a bit more slowly and trying to improve the degree of registration—automatic registration, I hope—as my noble friend said. We therefore cannot rush this process, only then to find it is way out of date.

The key issue in the Bill is surely to give people confidence that it is not going to be a rushed job—a job which does not fully take account of local circumstances, or which creates new and artificial boundaries, or which has a salami effect where one constituency is slightly out of kilter and a number of others in that part of the country therefore have to be changed too. Once the newly elected 2019 entrants to the House of Commons recognise the dangers of having too quick, too narrow and badly considered boundary changes, I believe that they too will take our view that this will be a mistake and moving in the wrong direction.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

I am pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and to commend my noble friend Lord Foulkes on his two entertaining speeches this afternoon. They were both extensive and informative: I know more about the change of name in south Ayrshire than is good for me, but he made some extremely useful points. I did not know that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, had relatives who invaded Britain in 1066, which is another revelation.

I am joining in because this emphasis on numeric equality is dangerous. Just like the algorithm which was applied to examinations this year, it places a particular imperative at the centre when it should often be ancillary. It is clear that on boundaries, with the exceptions already enunciated about islands on the edges of the UK, you cannot have constituencies with vast disparities of numbers. Equally, to have in place a tight numeric value and therefore a restriction on the commission being able to take into account sensible, logical community-related issues is a nonsense.

By the way, we ought to note—I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, will correct me if I am wrong—that quite a lot of boundary changes have taken place over the last 20 years. My own former constituency was substantially expanded in 2010 on the back of local authority re-warding boundary changes, which often take place in this country. The devolved Parliaments have also seen such changes.

Finance Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

2nd reading & Committee negatived & 3rd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 17th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I draw attention to my declaration of interests. I endorse entirely the opening remarks made by my noble friend at the very beginning of this debate on the macro position. I draw attention to the fact that, while we are debating this, our withdrawal from the world’s third-largest trading and economic bloc, the emerging conflict with China and the prospects in relation to the presidential election in November in the United States pale much of what we are debating into insignificance.

Nevertheless, I would like to endorse many of the remarks made about the digital services tax and draw attention to the current anomaly in business rates, which the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, has just referred to. Let us take the largest business rate payer in the country, Heathrow. Airlines and airports are not flavour of the month at the moment, but tens of thousands of jobs are at stake, not just in the business itself but in all the businesses that are absolutely dependent on it. It is necessary for the Government to be prepared at least to defer the national business rate for major enterprises such as Heathrow and other airports, while continuing to allow relief for retailers who have benefited from that.

Much has been said already about education and training. The £1.5 billion over five years for infrastructure for further education is welcome, but we need a massive injection of revenue so that the young people who are currently in further education can continue and those who are displaced by the terrible unemployment that faces young people have the opportunity of education and training—including apprentices who are receiving training, both on and off site, who are likely to lose their job and, with it, their training. Flexibility and responsiveness in making this possible are crucial.

We should also stop the attack on higher education. We can be in favour of further education without denigrating one of our greatest international earners and something that we should be proud of. Mention has already been made of research, not least by the noble Baroness, Lady Bull. Some of our substantial research funding comes not from government or the private sector but from the transfer from overseas students so that the cross-funding and cross-subsidisation of research can continue. Government really must recognise this.

Finally, on decentralisation, it is crucial that we put resources into local government and ensure that it can play a pivotal part in co-ordinating the future recovery of our economy

Covid-19: Restrictions

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Blunkett]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what further steps they plan to take by the end of June to adjust the restrictions in place for those isolating due to the COVID-19 pandemic; and what advice they have sought from experts not represented on the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies to inform any such steps.

The Question was considered in a Virtual Proceeding via video call.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)]

My Lords, as set out in the Government’s Covid-19 recovery strategy, we have advised people who are clinically extremely vulnerable to follow shielding guidance by staying at home at all times and avoiding all non-essential face-to-face contact until the end of June. However, we will continue to review that and will issue further guidance about shielding and social distancing as new evidence emerges. I assure the noble Lord that the Government continue to seek advice from a wide range of policy experts on this matter.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, the number who are shielding and are therefore in rigid lockdown appears to have risen to 2.5 million, and many, by the end of June, will have been doing so for 14 weeks. Surely there will need to be urgent advice to them on mental and physical health and also on employment rights, as well as resourcing of local government and the voluntary sector, even though many of us feel that it is not sustainable to keep that number of people in rigid lockdown for very much longer.

[Lord True]

My Lords, the noble Lord makes an important point about mental health. The Government have stressed at all times that there needs to be a balance in these matters. However, the scientific advice is clear that the groups concerned are at the greatest danger of suffering severely from this virus. That has been the reason for the advice, which, as I said, is under continual review.

Ministerial Code: Breaches

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

My Lords, I will not speculate on how long the work, which has only just begun, will last. It is in everybody’s interest that it be performed as swiftly but also as thoroughly and fairly as possible. The findings will be presented to the Prime Minister and then it will be a matter for his judgment what might or might not follow.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister reflect that it would be deeply unfortunate if, as with the BBC or the courts, the people’s Government versus the Civil Service overrode the duty of people to be encouraged to work sensibly on behalf of the people we seek to represent? As a former special adviser, will he reflect that, after seven months, it would have been perfectly reasonable for the Home Secretary to have approached the Prime Minister and Cabinet Secretary to arrange a sensible departure for the Permanent Secretary if she could not get on with him? Is it not a worry that she might not be able to get on with anybody?

[Lord True]

My Lords, again I will not be tempted to follow a personal line, except to say that the noble Lord, when he was an outstanding Home Secretary, was never backward in coming forward with his views. It is in everyone’s interest that the heat is taken down a bit and the facts are established; once the facts are established your Lordships and the rest of the world can address their consequences.