Wales: Economy
Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Carlile of Berriew
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare. I agree with everything he said. He focused on Welsh universities, and I would like particularly to mention the work done by the University of Glamorgan. It is doing a remarkable job in converting the old skills of mature students into new skills for new industries. However, we are not seeing those new skills being put to work to best effect. I also congratulate my noble friend Lord German on obtaining this debate and on his lucid opening speech. I, too, look forward to the reply to the debate from my noble friend Lady Randerson, whose presence on the Front Bench and expertise about Wales adds to your Lordships' House. In both my noble friends Lord German and Lady Randerson we have two experts on Wales with great experience from the Welsh Assembly Government.
In your Lordships' House and, indeed, in the other place there is much knowledge and wisdom on the Welsh economy. I am not sure that it is always used to best effect in the formation of government policy. This includes my noble friend Lord Roberts of Conwy, who served as a Minister for many years and knows the interstices of Wales inside out. It includes the noble Lord, Lord Rowe-Beddoe, who was chairman of the Welsh Development Agency for a number of years, and it also includes the current Member of Parliament for my old constituency of Montgomeryshire, Glyn Davies, who served as chairman of the Development Board for Rural Wales for several years. It also includes the noble Lord, Lord Jones. I twice tried to unseat the noble Lord in what was then called East Flintshire. Even when my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford, as he now is, and I supported the suggestion that the Olympic Games should be brought to Wrexham, we failed dismally in our attempt to unseat the noble Lord, Lord Jones. It was a good idea for the day, while it lasted.
Lord Carlile of Berriew
I am grateful to the noble Lord.
We have heard in this debate so far about south Wales and north Wales and we are going to hear a little from me about mid-Wales, which should never be forgotten. I wish to remind your Lordships that industry, business and commerce in Wales are not merely about the M4 and A55 corridors. There is an enormous amount of Wales and a fine population in between.
Certainly in my time as Member of Parliament for Montgomeryshire, the Welsh Development Agency and the Development Board for Rural Wales provided much assistance to investment in Wales—especially the DBRW in rural Wales. Advanced factories were built and occupied. Perhaps they have had their time but they were a very good idea. Unfortunately, many of the businesses that occupied those factories and many of the businesses that took assistance from the WDA and the DBRW turned into small permanent businesses, not sizeable permanent businesses. As I see it, that is the failure of economic policy in Wales over the years. It has all been too small, too sporadic and too impermanent.
One major gap in Wales was eventually identified by John Redwood when he was Secretary of State for Wales. It is, I am sure, the only thing that I agree with him about or have ever agreed with him about—apart, possibly, from the idea that it was probably better if he did not try to sing the Welsh national anthem in Welsh. John Redwood identified—and my noble friend Lord Roberts of Conwy was a Minister at the time—the absence of a venture capital industry in Wales, and there remains no venture capital industry in Wales. Those of us who have had any dealings with sovereign wealth funds abroad or larger investment schemes know that Wales rarely features in the conversation because there is nothing specific about Wales as a place where venture capital can develop and be invested advantageously.
The banks in Wales are showing as much lack of imagination today as they showed five, 10, 15 or 20 years ago. They are fee-driven and risk-averse. I do not believe that the banks in Wales show the same attitude to new industry, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, as they show in many parts of England. They are rarely proactive in presenting the availability of their funds to new industry in Wales. They should be following government policy and doing so but, unfortunately, they are not.
The venture capital industry has a great opportunity in Wales. Its biggest contribution would be the establishment of large new businesses, but in order for that to be achieved the Government need to introduce or establish something like venture capital champions who would be able to go out to the world outside and hunt down investment funds which are available both in the United Kingdom and abroad, thereby strengthening Wales as an investment point and making it one of the first places where companies should look if they have funds to invest.
For well over 10 years now I have been a non-executive director of one of the very few listed public companies in Wales, Wynnstay Group plc, which has operated successfully and steadily in a sector which remains unfashionable—the agriculture industry. We should not forget that there is a large agriculture industry in Wales. For every Rachel’s Organics there are potentially another 10 companies of a similar kind. In rural mid-Wales there are entrepreneurial farmers but, to be frank, there are not many of them, and few of those would claim to be entrepreneurial. However, given the encouragement of venture capitalists with imagination, we could build up a large dairy sector so that Wynnstay Group plc would be one of the smaller companies, not the biggest, in its sector in Wales.
I remind those who care to read this debate—it is very welcome to have a debate on Wales in your Lordships’ House without the inhibition of embarrassing the Assembly or embarrassing ourselves by trespassing on the Assembly—that there are many advantages to investment in Wales. It has a reliable workforce. In Wynnstay, the company to which I referred, the churn of employees, in statistical terms, is almost nil. Once a company is established in Wales, it becomes a family too. The noble Lord, Lord Jones, referred to the Shotton steelworks. I have friends in Wales whose families were in the Shotton steelworks for three generations, including the noble Lord, Lord Jones, and there may be families with a longer connection. We have a very reliable workforce with very little churn.
I think it is fair to say, without a cliche and without sounding sentimental, that people who go to work in Wales go there to work and, therefore, the productivity of Welsh industry is high and the workforce loyal. The typology of a Welsh company is stability. I cannot think of an investor who, when he or she decides to invest in building a new factory somewhere, is not looking first for stability, which we offer. That is not said often enough on our behalf. I support the Question in this debate, which urges the Welsh Assembly Government and the United Kingdom Government to go out and look for work in Wales on the basis of its undoubted virtues.
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Carlile of Berriew
I apologise for not being here for the earlier part of the debate. Would my noble friend agree that one should insert an additional factor into the argument—that the vast majority of people who are sentenced to short terms of imprisonment have mental health issues? If we had a stronger community mental health sector, they should not be in custody; they should be in residential or community mental health care.
Baroness Linklater of Butterstone
I thank my noble friend for that, and regard it as very remiss of me for not having mentioned it earlier.
I have listened to what my noble friend Lord McNally said, and am delighted to hear that further investigations into certain things on the justice front, such as community sentences, are being taken forward. That will be very important. I will ponder what he has said until we return at Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Carlile of Berriew
My noble friend will recall that it was part of the vaunt of the coalition that the statute book would be tidied up so that there were far fewer redundant statutes. There are in fact hundreds and hundreds, possibly thousands, of redundant statutory provisions—I have a book of them upstairs by my desk. Given that this has not been brought into force now for nine years, in the spirit of clear statute-making would it not be better simply to repeal the original provision and, if the Government wished to have something like it in the future, to introduce that in a proper way in a Bill?
Baroness Northover
My Lords, that is exactly what I asked and I was assured that in fact the Government wanted to keep the possibility of this being implemented. We therefore need to make sure that it is, as it were, complete.
Lord Carlile of Berriew
My noble friend clearly did not understand what I was suggesting: that it is, to put it plainly, senseless to have something on the statute book nine years after it was enacted, with absolutely no intention of bringing it into force.
Lord Carlile of Berriew
No, this provision is from 2003 and it has not been brought into force for nine years. Is the right answer to this not to repeal the 2003 provision in question? If the Government then have some constructive suggestions for imposing imprisonment, if it be merited, on people who have been given a community sentence, why do we not start again with those provisions? In reality, my noble friend is not going to suggest for one moment that the Government will bring this redundant provision into force.
Baroness Northover
I assure my noble friend that in fact I understood him very clearly the first time. I asked, as this was introduced in 2003, changed in 2008 but not complete, why we would not seek to repeal it. However, I was told that the Government wish to retain this, in the possibility that it might be implemented—although with no intention of doing that at the moment. I fully support what he says about trying to rationalise legislation in all areas, and I worked very hard on the companies legislation, the first elements of which were finally rationalised relatively recently, after 100 years. I realise that these things can take a long time, but I take very much the point that legislation needs clarity. However, I hope that in this instance the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, will understand what I am arguing here and be willing to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Carlile of Berriew
My Lords, I, too, support the amendment, which was moved so ably by the noble Baroness, who has done a great deal of work in bringing it to the attention of your Lordships. I shall make four points briefly.
The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, said that this is an epidemic affecting the nation. She is of course right, but it is not a new epidemic. It is absolutely shameful that this epidemic has been affecting the nation to a greater and greater extent for, perhaps, the past 150 years. My noble friend Lord McNally got into a little difficulty earlier when he mentioned Dickens to the Committee, and probably rather wished that he had not. I think I will not be controverted if I say that Dickens describes the effect of drink on young and, in many cases, very poor people in London very graphically in a way which has developed over the years. It is absolutely shameful that this epidemic has been allowed to continue for so long and it is about time that we did something about it. This proposal promises a great deal.
My second point is about the experience of the courts. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Mr Hogan-Howe, who supports the amendment at least in principle, came to London after a gap following a period when he was the chief constable of Merseyside. On every Monday morning—I do not wish to be Liverpoolist about this; I am merely using a city I love as an example—in the magistrates’ court in Dale Street, there is a procession of young men and some young women who have been in custody over the weekend because of mostly, but not always, relatively low-level offences committed because of uncontrolled drinking. Bridewells such as the Liverpool Bridewell on a Friday and Saturday night are a sad piece of evidence as to the effects of drink taken to excess by young people.
I do not want to sound sanctimonious about this. Teaching people responsible drinking is a very good idea. We want families to teach their children responsible drinking, which you will have seen in fairly large measure after Wales’s victory over Ireland at the last gasp of the match last weekend—I knew that that would provoke my noble friend Lord Thomas from his slumber in front of me.
My point is that in every magistrates’ court and every Crown Court—this goes to serious levels of offending —although we tend to talk a great deal about the effect of drugs, believe me, the effect of drink is ubiquitous. Any of us who has practised or has sat in those courts knows that it attracts every kind of crime and affects every class in society and every age group, but particularly the young.
Thirdly, I mention legal aid. We have spent a lot of time in this Committee trying to find ways to save money without removing legal aid. If there is one sure way to save money on legal aid, it is by reducing the incidence of serious crime by the introduction of this kind of measure. I confess my interest as president of the Howard League and feel that I can put my hand on what passes for my heart and say to my noble friends on the Front Bench: if there is one guaranteed way of saving a great deal of money on legal aid in the very serious and middling sectors of crime, it is by adopting this kind of measure.
My fourth point is about the revolving door of imprisonment. In one connection we heard earlier from the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, about 3,000 people who found themselves in prison because they were in breach of an order made in respect of a non-imprisonable offence. That is just one example of a huge cohort of people who find themselves in prison for breaking the law, although not terribly badly, relatively speaking. There is no cause of that door revolving at high speed greater than the misuse of alcohol. I believe that it would be completely irresponsible if we were not to seize this opportunity provided by the noble Baroness and have some serious pilot projects of the kind described in the amendment. I respectfully suggest to my noble friend on the Front Bench that in fact Liverpool would be a very good place to have a pilot because it has the community court, which was introduced by the previous Government. It is working extremely well and has won plaudits all around the world. In partnership with the community court, this kind of system could offer something towards reducing crime.
There is an analogy here. Drug treatment and testing orders—DTTOs—administered by judges, have been extremely effective in reducing drug-taking at a relatively low level. I have spoken to a number of circuit judges who have had to administer these orders and to a man and woman they believe that this kind of measure, which seeks to reduce the level of substance misuse gradually, works really well, mainly because it ceases to be authoritarian and engages the partnership of the person concerned. It works because most people who commit violent offences when they are, for example, under the influence of drink regret it afterwards and do not want to appear before a court in the future.
On those grounds, I support the amendment as strongly as I can and I hope that we will hear a positive response from the Front Bench.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, I start by giving the apologies of my noble friend Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, whose name appears on the amendment. Unfortunately, he had to leave for another engagement.
I very strongly support the initiative set out by the noble Baroness. As has been said by others, it is a real recognition of the role that alcohol plays in crime, especially in domestic violence. The link between alcohol and domestic abuse is well known, as is the link between alcohol and cases of child protection. Alcohol Concern has demonstrated how often the criminal behaviour is repeated if the alcohol abuse is not tackled. As more than one of its clients has said, “He only hits me when he’s been drinking”. But as the alcohol support worker would reply, “If you knew you were going to hit the person you most loved once you were drunk, do you think you’d have that first drink?”.
The fact that so many men continue to take that first drink shows how valuable an intervention aimed at offenders could be. The sobriety scheme could play a role in this. I do not think that it is enough on its own, as I think that there needs to be some alcohol referral work to go alongside it. People who fail to tackle their misuse themselves are likely to need some assistance to work in parallel with breath-testing. That may involve some fairly brief intervention by experienced staff, and I believe that this scheme, working in parallel with the provision of such help, could make a real difference. The running of a pilot scheme, as suggested, is just the way to see whether this would work and whether, together with some brief interventions, it could help to deal with people who have a drink problem but who, by themselves, simply cannot get it under control. It could make a difference to the continued problem drinking of those who have broken the law.
I am no longer a magistrate, unlike my noble friend, but when I was a magistrate I would have loved the possibility of a rehabilitation order to monitor alcohol consumption. I believe that we should place victims centre-stage when we assess these amendments. Not only is most domestic abuse—that is the phrase used, although we used to call it “wife battering”—alcohol-fuelled but so, as we have already heard, is violence on the streets and against property, and there would be considerably less of that without the addition of drunkenness. When are we going to take action, as this House could do tonight, and do what ordinary, decent people want, which is to reduce the alcohol-related disruption to their lives?
This is an enabling measure. It does not require courts to impose it. It is an opportunity for someone with a propensity to misuse alcohol in a way that damages others, not themselves, to have a period of sobriety with, it is hoped, help, thus improving their family life as well as the well-being of others. The amendment would allow a magistrate to do this only if alcohol caused or contributed to the offence and the offender had a propensity to misuse alcohol and was willing to comply with the requirement.
My noble friend Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe was very anxious to make the point that a sunset clause could be added to a provision for such pilots so that, if they had not taken place after a year, the provision would not be needed on the statute book. Might that help the Government to accept the proposal? I very much hope that they will grasp with both hands this excellent idea of a pilot.
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Ramsbotham
My Lords, I support these amendments but have one cautionary tale for the Government. Before that, I echo the words of my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf towards the end of his speech, when he said that restorative justice is not for everyone. This I remember being made very clear to me some 15 years ago when I was introduced to restorative justice by Sir Charles Pollard, then the chief constable of Thames Valley Police, to whom all those interested in restorative justice owe a huge debt of gratitude for the determination with which he has followed it.
Not long ago, he asked me whether I would like to attend a restorative justice conference at HMP Pentonville, which was extremely ably chaired by a young policeman. The case involved three young women whose flat had been burgled by a young and chaotic man to fuel his heroin habit. During the early part of the conference it was discovered that this young man had been born of a teenage mother and had three young children himself by teenage mothers. He could not read and had an alcohol problem. The girls explained why they felt so strongly about their flat being burgled and everyone was in tears. The agreement was that the young man should be put through a drug treatment course, taught to read and put on an Alcoholics Anonymous course. As he left, and there was a spirit of hope in the room, one of the young women said to him, “Furthermore, will you write to us every month to tell us how you’re getting on?”, which I thought was an extremely good addition. They left in a spirit of hope and I then said to the governor of Pentonville, who was there, “How much of that can you deliver?”. He said, “None”. I said, “How dare you let those people go? Unless you can support what is being recommended, all the hope engendered by this process is dead”.
Therefore, if, as I hope, the Government accept these amendments, I hope they will add the rider that those who are responsible for staging the conferences and seeing that they happen must make certain that what is agreed actually happens, so that the whole process is not undermined.
Lord Carlile of Berriew
My Lords, bearing in mind the cautionary tale of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, I nevertheless, like him, strongly support these amendments. First, these amendments seem to suggest practical effectiveness. Most of the crimes that we are concerned with in this general purview are committed by immature young men. The evidence for restorative justice is that it gives them a sharp wake-up call and makes a dramatic contribution to their growing-up process, which is a very good reason to use restorative justice techniques.
Secondly, restorative justice of the type that has been discussed is cost-effective. From my experience of practice, I can imagine many marginal custody situations of a kind that come before magistrates’ courts and the Crown Court every day of the week—common burglary, criminal damage, lower-level assaults and other offences at a similar level—in which effective restorative justice conferences might mean the difference between custody and a community penalty, and result in a substantial saving of money to the state.
Thirdly, I strongly support the view of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, that this should be put into statutory form. I have a feeling that we might hear that it is not necessary to do so because it is, after all, open to judges and magistrates to adjourn cases for good reasons in any event. However, placing this in statutory form will have a number of effects. Although judges try very hard not to make law whenever possible, they try even harder to respond to the law that has been given to them. If they see this kind of provision in statutory form, it will have certain—and I mean certain—repercussions. One is that the training of magistrates, from which the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, gave us some graphic illustrations earlier, will undoubtedly place greater focus on restorative justice.
Those of us who from time to time attend what used to be called the Judicial Studies Board, which is now called the Judicial College, know that immediately the Judicial College, in its search for new and interesting courses, introduces new modules on restorative justice because it is included in statute, there will not be a judge in England and Wales—magistrate or judge at every level—who does not begin to focus on the potential of restorative justice conferences and opportunities. It seems to me that the key to this measure in many ways is putting it into statutory form, as that would highlight its potential throughout the judiciary. I hope that we will hear my noble friend the Minister responding in a way that not only is positive about restorative justice—we know that he will be positive—but that recognises the advantages of putting it into the statutory form suggested.