Census (England and Wales) Order 2020

Lord Clark of Windermere Excerpts

Tuesday 12th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab)]

My Lords, I am a great fan of the decennial censuses and have made use of many of them over the years. The censuses provided much crucial information to assist administrators and policymakers at national and local level for more than two centuries. In addition, they are invaluable tools for historians in providing a picture of communities and societies at a moment in time. When, after 100 years, the details of the participating individuals are revealed, they become essential sources of information for those tracing their family tree, which is a burgeoning interest.

The Office for National Statistics planned the 2021 census with great diligence and in doing so consulted widely, adding new questions and querying established ones. Others have raised questions on ethnicity, gender status and sexual orientation, so I shall not develop that.

With modern means of collecting information and the ability of IT to tap into wider sources worldwide, what was appropriate in years gone by is not so today. I recognise that and that changes have to be made, but there is value in having one major respected piece of work providing a picture of society every 10 years. That is very useful. Finally, may I press the Minister on the rumours that the 2021 census will be the last? Is that the case or is the jury out? Let us never forget that a continuum is essential.

Public Appointments: Diversity

Lord Clark of Windermere Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

When I re-read my noble friend’s document I was struck by the sentence:

“Currently, talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not”.


He is absolutely right. One of his recommendations, concerning CVs, is that we should take non-standard CVs into account. His report states that,

“lived experience ... is a talent”.

Standard CVs and application processes sometimes do not reflect the life history of those who have a disability. I hope that when the noble Baroness sees our response to my noble friend’s document, she will recognise that we have taken on board some of the unconscious discrimination against those with a disability when it comes to public appointments.

[Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very supportive of the Government’s efforts in this field but I want to raise one point. The Minister just said that talent is everywhere. It is indeed everywhere but, unfortunately, appointments are largely concentrated in the south-east of England. Will the Government make an effort to see how the spread is in other counties throughout the United Kingdom?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord is quite right. Discrimination is not just about gender, race or disability; it is also about age, diversity of experience and regional balance. My noble friend’s recommendations, although focused on disability, have wide implications for other underrepresented groups, not just in the public sector but in the private sector as well.

Short-Term Letting

Lord Clark of Windermere Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

It is a breach of a tenancy agreement with a registered social landlord to sublet, and if anyone had any information that was happening, the local authorities would take tough enforcement action to make sure that people on the housing waiting list had access to that accommodation.

[Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab)]

My Lords, until 2015, all landlords were able to charge all property cost against taxation. That was stopped, with the exception of holiday lets, the owners of which can charge everything, including mortgage repayment, against taxation. Are these London-focused lets subject to the general Act, whereby you cannot claim relief, or are they the same as holiday lets?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I fear that that goes beyond my limited knowledge of the tax system. They would certainly have to declare the income; on whether they can set off against that income the related costs of letting it, I would have thought the answer was yes. Perhaps I can make some detailed inquiries of HMRC to see which of the regimes the noble Lord referred to—particularly regarding setting off interest—is applicable to holiday lets.

Housing: Rental Market

Lord Clark of Windermere Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am grateful to my noble friend. In our recent debate on housing the spokesman for the Opposition mentioned the scheme in Newham and invited me to visit Newham to see it in operation. I agree with my noble friend that selective licensing is a useful tool, among other measures, to assist local authorities in addressing serious problems in the private rented sector in specific areas. The department plans to carry out a review of selective licensing shortly, which will apply to properties let under tenancies or licences as people’s only or main residence in the private rented sector. Finally, the London Borough of Newham has submitted its proposals for a licensing scheme for all private landlords in the borough, which the department is currently considering. We will certainly take on board my noble friend’s commendation in that process.

[Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab)]

My Lords, I draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that the Question is not only about London. Will he look at the possibility of extending the financial arrangements that now apply to longer-term renting to short-term renting—because otherwise so much damage will be done to rural areas and villages?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, who raised this issue on a previous occasion. I will look at it. However, it is important to remind the House that many farmers are diversifying into tourism and the short-term letting of accommodation that may be surplus to their requirements is a useful source of income. It is important that rural areas that depend on tourism have a good supply of short-term accommodation for letting in order to support a viable tourist industry.

Housing: Planning Laws

Lord Clark of Windermere Excerpts

Wednesday 25th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness. She will know that in the housing White Paper we consulted on the irreplaceable habitats to which she has just referred. We will clarify the strong protection for ancient woodland and aged or veteran trees, which has been set out in the National Planning Policy Framework.

[Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Noble Lords]

This side!

[Lord Clark of Windermere]

There is nobody standing on that side, so I shall carry on. The noble Lord mentioned the green belt. As he is aware, there is a peculiarity in relation to this in national parks, where many houses are disappearing from local occupancy and being turned into holiday cottages, whereby they escape the right-to-buy legislation and get 100% tax relief not only on mortgage repayments but on all furnishings, and do not pay council tax or a community charge. Will the Minister negotiate with local authorities in these areas to see whether we can manage this a bit more sensibly and provide residences for local people?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I agree with the objective that the noble Lord has outlined. I am very happy to open discussions with the Local Government Association on the specific issue that he raised to see whether there are any further measures we can introduce to meet the objectives we both share.

Historical Sexual Abuse in Football

Lord Clark of Windermere Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

That is so important. We need to have appropriate, robust safeguards in place to make sure that, as parents and grandparents, we can feel safe that, when our children go and play sport, they are properly protected. But equally, as the Secretary of State said in her Statement, all across the country, every day, there are volunteers who are doing magnificent work with children. Of course, we hope that this is a minority—we do not know until we look into it—but the majority of volunteers are doing a marvellous job with children, encouraging them to take part in sport, get involved with other children and take exercise. Those people must not be forgotten.

[Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab)]

I declare an interest as a non-executive director of Carlisle Football Club. Like most football clubs at the lower level, we think that we are clear, but none of us is complacent, and the Football League has been very helpful in providing information. We tend to know the youngsters who play for us, but it is important that any inquiry looks at the Premier League, which has tens of thousands of young people going for training six days a week. I suspect that those are the people who are most susceptible today, and I hope that we look at the activity of the Premier League.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

The noble Lord makes a very good point. I understand that it will be looked into as well.

Parliament and Central Government: Relocation

Lord Clark of Windermere Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Chester]

My Lords—

[Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

The right reverend Prelate has a very good point; if they have any sense, they will not.

[Lord Clark of Windermere]

My Lords, what I know is certain is that the people of the north of England would appreciate Civil Service jobs there. Before being so dismissive, would the Government be prepared to have discussions with the BBC, which took an inspired and successful decision to move so much of its activity to MediaCity, on the border of Salford and Manchester?

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

Yes, that was certainly a very good decision by the BBC. That is why the Government Property Unit, which is in charge of seeing how the departments work with their civil servants, is indeed trying to drive this radical reshaping of the Civil Service estate, and so encouraging departments to move their civil servants out of London, as I said earlier. That could well be to the north and it would certainly encourage people from the north to take those jobs.

First World War: Centenary

Lord Clark of Windermere Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Clark of Windermere]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to commemorate the centenary of the First World War.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, on 11 October this year the Prime Minister announced a series of measures to commemorate the centenary of the First World War. The Government’s preparations will include national commemorations for key events, including for the outbreak of the war on 4 August 2014. Key partners in this include the Imperial War Museum, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and local groups and schools across the country.

[Lord Clark of Windermere]

I thank the Minister for that Answer and the Government for the way in which they are approaching this very delicate commemoration. As it is so delicate, is the Minister aware that it could be easily sidetracked? The Government seem to share the view of most of us that the aim of the commemoration in this country is to recognise the extraordinary bravery, courage, heroism and gallantry of the millions of conscripts and volunteers who came forward to do their patriotic duty before returning to civilian jobs. Will he therefore be vigilant that nobody seeks to sidetrack this commemoration into other purposes, such as glorifying militarism?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I entirely share the noble Lord’s concerns. The Prime Minister in his speech at the Imperial War Museum to launch this said that the important elements that the Government wanted to see in this process of commemoration, which will last about five years, are remembrance, youth and education. This huge series of events in our history and in the history of a large number of other countries included an awful lot of civilian and industrial issues. It transformed the role of women. The Bradford Industrial Museum will be among those leading a recollection of what happened in the transformation of the industrial base of that northern city. So we will be commemorating a great deal which is not simply about the Armed Forces.

Parliamentary Boundary Commission: Electoral Administration

Lord Clark of Windermere Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clark of Windermere]

My Lords, I am very pleased to participate in this debate, which is turning out to be a very thoughtful debate with a great many knowledgeable contributions. I, too, am indebted to my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours for enabling us to have this debate and for launching it in a very fearless manner. It is ironic that we, in this House, are able to raise some concerns—indeed, many concerns— from another place. My noble friend described the concerns absolutely accurately and has done democracy a great service today by permitting this debate and by launching it as he has done.

Although one’s first thought is that this debate is about parliamentary boundaries, my noble friend mentioned electoral administration matters because he has recognised that we cannot examine boundaries in isolation. They are affected by many other factors that were raised so well by my noble friends previously. One thing on which we all agree is that the democracy in this country and in this mother of parliaments, so long seen as a paradigm of democracy, is in severe difficulties at this moment in time.

Only this week the report on a study by the Democratic Audit concluded that democracy in this country is in “long-term terminal decline”, that the British constitutional arrangements are “increasingly unstable”, and that the UK is below average among the wealthy democracies of the OECD. I am sure that those conclusions concern us all; they need to and they do. We all continually bemoan the fact that fewer and fewer people participate in voting, and more and more people say, “It does not matter what we do”. There have been attempts by both the previous Government and the present Government to address the problem. The conclusion must be that very few of these initiatives have actually worked. There have been certain suggestions this morning that are obvious and which in times past we perhaps followed as a norm. We ought to look at those again.

Much more effort ought to go into cross-party, consensual agreement. This is not to the advantage of the Labour Party, the Conservative Party, the Liberal Democrat party or whatever party. This is our democracy, and it is crucial that we work together to try to find a way out of the morass that we are in at the moment. I go along with colleagues who have made the point today that no party leader has been very helpful in the way in which they responded to the crisis in the other place a few years ago. Too many good, honest politicians were left to hang out to dry. We in Parliament are at a loss because of that. It is time to look again at the current state of our democracy.

I can understand that, in opposition, this Government decided that they had to have a new approach. I think that it was a bit simplistic in some ways. They talked about the big society and they wanted to progress localism, and no one can disagree with those ideas; they are very good ideas. In a democracy, no one can be against trying to be more inclusive and to bring more people into the running of the system. Informal arrangements on occasions can work better than a more formal structure, but I think that what we have seen is a substitution of one for the other. I rather deplore the way in which it has been quite commonplace to deplore and to demean the role of the state. The state has a critical role in the way in which society functions and the way in which the quality and the standards of life, and indeed our rights and liberties, are protected.

I cite an example from today. We see on the news the necessity of the state being brought in to ensure that there is security at the Olympics, because G4S, the private company, has failed. At the end of the day, we need the state. I use that as a very pragmatic example. It is not the best of examples, but it is a timely one.

I do not blame this Government, because I believe that generally their response to tackling some of the problems of democracy is well meaning. On occasions, too much stuff is done on the back of an envelope, and things are seen in isolation and not as a whole. I blame my own party in government for how it increased the amount of money spent in constituencies at election time. I used to boast that anyone could stand in Britain at a general election, because all you needed was a couple of thousand pounds. I used to boast in particular to my American colleagues, who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to contest elections. Access to stand for elections is important.

Quite frankly, I was very shocked indeed when I looked at the constituency in which I live and from which I take my title “of Westmorland”. I was staggered to find that at the last general election the Liberal MP, Mr Tim Farron, who is a very good and active Member of Parliament, in the long election campaign period of six months spent not £2,000, £5,000 or £10,000 but £41,241 in getting elected. His Conservative opponent was not far behind, on £38,000, while the Labour candidate spent less than £3,000. That makes the point. I am not saying for one moment that people buy seats, but the competition and need for financial resources are clearly quite crippling—and I do not blame this Government for that. This is in addition to the normal parliamentary expenses, which rightly the sitting MP claims. That is an example of where we have rushed in to take decisions that have not been helpful.

I was going to say a few words about registration, but I shall refrain from doing so because my noble friend Lord Wills dealt with it very adequately. It cannot be right that we are sleepwalking into a system where millions of people will be removed from the electoral register. We need to be reassured on this balance of accuracy versus completeness, and I hope that the Minister will reassure us in his response today that we will get completeness as well as accuracy before the new system becomes completely incorporated at this point.

My noble friend Lady Taylor highlighted something that is absolutely critical. Our system of democracy in this country is representative. In the past we may have rejected or attacked alternative systems of democracy. We attacked the communist system of democracy, where the farm workers, trade unions and state industrialists had representatives. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union had representatives. We said, “Well, that’s not democracy, because we believe democracy to be representative”. We are now seeing with this boundary review, as my noble friend Lady Taylor said, that numbers are the key. If you start from Cornwall or from Cumbria, you come up with a different conclusion. Because of their nature, if you reduce numbers and stick to a quota with very little movement, the ramifications of where you start are great.

I believe that we have lost a great deal in the notion of representative democracy and the sense of place that is so important. In every country in the world, the identification with a locality is very important. That has been a strength of our democracy. I hope that when the Government look again at the boundaries and come back to us next year, something can be done to work out a system where a sense of place in a representative democracy becomes the centre of the constituency and not just sheer numbers.