Hong Kong Military Veterans: Settlement

Lord Davies of Brixton Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Once again this proves the industriousness of the people of Hong Kong.

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, clearly, this is welcome news. Can the Minister say anything about the pensions that these veterans will receive? I should declare an interest: I have advised the Gurkhas on their arrangements and I am aware of the problems there. Will the pensions be commensurate with these veterans’ new situation?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, that strays into another department’s area of responsibility, but I will look into it.

Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill

Lord Davies of Brixton Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 8th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the Bill. This has been an interesting debate, and clearly issues will be raised in Committee. I have a relatively narrow point and a specific question directed to the Minister. Will his Home Office, the Treasury and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport—as I think it is now—talk to each other? We have three pieces of legislation coming before us. There is this Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill which is having its Second Reading. The Online Safety Bill has had its Second Reading and is waiting for Committee, and the Financial Services and Markets Bill is currently in Committee. There is considerable overlap between these pieces of legislation. As highlighted by the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, we had to put off a meeting of the Committee on the Financial Services and Markets Bill to take part in this debate.

They overlap as most economic crime or fraud, particularly that affecting individuals, is now committed online. Most fraud is almost by definition financial. People are defended against fraud and financial harm by financial regulators and the rules set for internet providers, so there is a clear overlap between these different pieces of legislation. On the Financial Services and Markets Bill, we had an interesting debate about the Government having a proper fraud strategy, which is clearly relevant to today’s discussions. That is an issue we are likely to return to on Report.

In the Online Safety Bill, there is a problem with the issue of “legal but harmful”. To know something is illegal, you have to wait for it to become illegal—for the fraud to come to fruition—but we need to stop the fraud before that stage. Those familiar with fraud will know that often the markers are there before you get to the stage of illegality. We need to have an overall look at the different issues and at what protection is available before it is too late and the criminal act has been perpetrated. The best way to deal with fraud and economic crime more generally is to make life difficult for the fraudsters. Will the Minister give a commitment to work in the context of this Bill with his colleagues in other departments to ensure that there is an overall view? I am pleased to report that I have finished in a shorter time than the noble Lord, Lord Young.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I will come back to the noble Lord on that in writing.

To respond to the point raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, the inclusion of an explicit regulatory objective will put it beyond doubt that it is the front-line regulators’ duty to promote adherence to the economic crime rules set out in the relevant guidance and legislation, and that they may carry out such regulatory action as appropriate to carry out this objective. That should avoid unnecessary challenge in relation to regulators’ compliance activity, which can make monitoring and enforcement costly. These types of activities could include, for example, the imposition of financial penalties, requesting information—the type of information will obviously differ on a case-by-case basis—awareness-raising and all other supervisory monitoring work that regulators may carry out in promoting the regulatory objectives.

I thank my noble friend Lady Stowell of Beeston for raising the issue of regulation of the legal and accountancy sector. The money laundering regulations 2017 ensure that key professionals identify their customers and understand the purpose behind transactions, including the source of funds. While regulated businesses have legal requirements under the MLRs to implement robust anti-money laundering policies, controls and procedures and to identify and verify the identity of their customer, any money laundering is a criminal offence under the prevention of organised crime Act, and businesses outside the regulated sector may still choose to implement AML controls. Measures in this Bill will aid legal services regulators in upholding the economic crime rules, including for money laundering, and remove the cap on SRA fines for breaches of these rules.

As already acknowledged by my noble friend and colleague Lord Johnson, the Bill forms a key part of the wider government approach to tackling economic crime, sitting alongside the national security Bill, the Online Safety Bill, the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill, and the forthcoming economic crime plan 2 and fraud strategy. The Online Safety Bill is ambitious and forward-looking legislation that will tackle online harms, including fraud and fraudulent advertising. It will bring fraudulent user-generated content and fraudulent online advertising within scope of the online safety regulatory framework in order to increase people’s protection from the devastating impact of scams posted across the biggest websites; that will include social media apps and dating sites. Also included are romance scams, which can cause devastating psychological harm and are estimated to cost £60 million a year.

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been an interesting debate. Can we have just a couple of words about co-ordination of government policy across these different Bills?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I can reassure the noble Lord that there is co-ordination across government departments; we are in conversation with each other about these various Bills.

My noble friend Lady Morgan of Cotes raised the information-sharing clauses and how they work in tandem with the provisions in the data protection Bill. Historically, businesses have faced two challenges in sharing data for the purposes of combating economic crime: the duty of confidentiality that they owe to their customers, which is also known as the Tournier rule, and data protection requirements. The ECCT Bill addresses the first of these, the data protection Bill the second. As the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, asked, we are in continuous conversation with other relevant government departments to bring a co-ordinated response across all these Bills.

I have endeavoured to address all the contributions made by noble Lords today. I look forward to further debate and discussion—

Independent Cultural Review of the London Fire Brigade

Lord Davies of Brixton Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti for promoting this debate on this important issue, which I very much welcome. As someone who lives in London, I start by paying tribute to the men and women of the London Fire Brigade, to whom we all owe such an immense debt. I am also appalled by this report. I do not need to speak extensively on this issue: it speaks for itself and previous speakers have made the points.

I congratulate the commissioner on his approach to this issue, which is to be welcomed in a public servant. I have to declare a sort of interest as a past member of the Greater London Council in the early 1980s, when the first serious attempt was made to confront these issues in the London fire service. I always regarded the changes we brought about—or at least initiated—at that time as one of our successes. I very much endorse what my noble friend Lady Thornton said about the role of John Carr. It was a group effort but he very much led the changes that we made at that time. There are, however, two important lessons to be learned from that. First, obviously, we did not do enough. The problems have continued and still need to be addressed. Secondly, dealing with these issues is not a one-off: it is not something where you make some changes, set down some objectives, say “All will be well” and that is it—the issue is dealt with. It is an issue that must be the unrelenting and unceasing focus until that golden day when all society changes. It must always be a priority at all levels of management. If you read the report, you can pick out where the key failures have been and where they need to be addressed. It is a report very much to be welcomed.

It has to be said that having this report in itself represents some form of progress. Clearly, there is more to it than just the prejudice that persists throughout society as a whole. I am pleased that, as already mentioned, the report goes out of its way to distinguish the situation in the fire service from that described in the recent report about the culture in the Metropolitan Police Service. Nevertheless, there are sufficient similarities, along with reports about what has happened in the Armed Forces, to suggest that there is a particular dynamic at play in the disciplined services. This obviously involves initiation ceremonies and the like, but there seems to be more to it than that. There is a common link in what the report refers to as the “tight knit team spirit”. Done right, it is an essential element of the service, but too often it has clearly become toxic.

I shall not attempt a full analysis of this today, but my first question to the Minister is: do the Government see any general pattern—any wider pattern—here and, if so, what are they going to do about it? What responsibility do the Government have to address those issues and pay them more attention?

Secondly, the two recent reports relate to London, but do the Government see the need to take the initiative in encouraging or facilitating similar work across the country as a whole? Obviously, this will be part of the ongoing work of the relevant inspectorates, but is there a need to take a more proactive approach?

Turning specifically to consideration of what work needs to be done in the light of the report on the London Fire Brigade, I pay tribute to the response of the FBU. This has been clear. It regards the reported incidents of racism and misogyny as extremely alarming. It believes that there is no place for such behaviour or attitudes in the fire and rescue service or its trade union. It has also said that it will review the effectiveness of its own rules and policies in the light of issues raised in the report, as well the issues it has itself identified through its members. This is to be welcomed, as any solution requires the involvement of all parties, not least the Government. Can the Minister tell the House what plans they have to support the work needed arising from this report?

A section of the report perhaps most relevant here is that on the level of morale within our fire service. Obviously, low morale provides no excuse for what has happened—absolutely not—but it makes it more difficult to achieve a solution to make the necessary changes. The national Government have significant power over the fire service, so it is reasonable to ask them to tell us what they will do to improve the morale of the fire service in London and, by extension, across the country as a whole.

Finally, I would like a response from the Minister on what specific action the Government might consider is needed around the effect that the report will have on recruitment into the service. Anybody hearing about this report or reading it could well think that this is not the job for them. That is an important issue which the Government could have an important role in addressing.

Scammers

Lord Davies of Brixton Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The noble Lord is quite right: in the year to March 2022 people aged over 75 were less likely to be a victim of fraud than those aged between 16 and 74. He makes an extremely good point and I will take it back to the Department for Education.

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, the report to which the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, referred states that

“all people have the capacity to become victims of fraud, regardless of perceived vulnerability.”

The House needs to understand that financial crime destroys lives and destroys families. Will the Government give an unambiguous commitment to include protection against financial harm in the Online Safety Bill?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I have already outlined some of the legislative work going on, and I am not going to unequivocally commit to doing anything in other Bills at the moment. I will go on to one other point which perhaps refers to the previous question: one of the more effective tools at the moment is Friends Against Scams, to which I referred in my opening Answer. It is run by National Trading Standards and encourages people to educate others about fraud. People sign up, do an online training course and then share it. More than 1 million people have signed up. That sort of work is very valuable.

Violent Crime, Gang Activity and Burglaries

Lord Davies of Brixton Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, I join previous speakers in thanking my noble friend Lord Snape for introducing this important debate. It is clear from what we have been told so far that the Government are not doing enough to address the problems. There is not a simple solution, but I do not think the solutions are mysteries. We know where we need to go; it just takes an effort of will and the resources to achieve it. We know that the solution does not rely on tough talk. We have to reject the “bad actor” model of crime as a simple way out. We have to recognise that society as a whole has a responsibility to set the circumstances in which crime will not flourish. The obvious example of this is poverty and what society can do to alleviate the circumstances in which crime will develop. I think that is well understood. What is also understood, but I want to say more about, is the intersection between crime and poor mental health.

I need to be clear that I am not saying that people with poor mental health are a cause of crime. They are actually far more likely to be victims of crime than the culprits. There is no doubt, however, that improvements in mental health services can have a major impact on the current levels of crime, including violent crime and gang activity, both in reducing the incidence of crime in the first place and then in more effectively supporting the measures that we can take to ensure that the perpetrators of crime can escape the cycle of their criminal activity.

I draw particular attention to the joint inspection report by the Inspectorate of Constabulary, the Crown Prosecution Service, the Inspectorate of Prisons, the Inspectorate of Probation and the Care Quality Commission. Last year they produced a report that set out some important conclusions about what needs to be done. They identified how thousands of people with mental illness are coming into the criminal justice system each year, but their needs are being missed. That, of course, is a tragedy for us as well as for the individuals concerned. There is a shortage of services and there are long delays in accessing what services are available—made worse by the pandemic, of course. A specific problem is delays in reports for the court and for transferring extremely unwell prisoners into secure mental health hospital beds. Clearly, these problems do not help. They let down the individuals and society as a whole.

One interesting reference in the report is the finding that police officers had a good understanding that the causes of minor crime required a health response rather than a crime response. This is a key issue. I hope we will address these issues in the context of the forthcoming mental health Bill, and I hope the Minister can tell us in his reply that the Government understand the nature of this problem and that dealing with the issues that people have identified today is a priority.

Secondly, I want to say something as a resident of the inner city, where youth crime is a particular concern. It needs to be understood that it is not a middle-class panic about crime in the inner city. The people who really suffer from crime in the inner city tend to be those who are least well off; they are the real victims of what is going on. It is not a question of victims versus criminals and a case of just locking them up, going hard on them and throwing away the key. Most of the young people who tragically fall into this cycle of crime are victims of crime themselves and have gone through difficult and challenging childhoods. It is not just a question of telling parents to be tougher; those parents are struggling as well. The parents themselves have often had complex childhoods, and they need support. That is the pattern and, if we do not fund services correctly and fully, we will see these problems repeated generation after generation.

I thank my noble friend Lady Warwick of Undercliffe for a very clear and good exposition of the issues involved, particularly in county lines crime, and the fact that children are being exploited. I very much hope the Government will give a clear response to the points raised. It is a wide problem, but it is worth emphasising again that there is a specific issue of local services, both from councils and from community groups. It is a totally false economy to cut back support for this work with young people, because we pay a higher cost in the longer term. I ask the Minister to say something specifically about the support provided by public services and the community to support young people so that they do not fall into this cycle.

In my final minute, I want to say something about the police. We very much rely on the police to look after us, and that is right. That is why it was of particular concern to get the report from the noble Baroness, Lady Casey. It seems that the Metropolitan Police is addressing these issues, and we need to recognise the good work it is doing. Last night the Met Excellence Awards showed the good side of what the police can do. We have to encourage that and root out the problems identified by the noble Baroness’s interim report.

Financial Fraud: Vulnerable People

Lord Davies of Brixton Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, I really came to this debate as a spectator, because I wanted to hear the Government’s response to the excellent issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey. However, there is one aspect of the way the issue was posed which gave me pause for thought. The way in which it has been framed makes me think that there is a wider issue involved.

The problems of financial fraud affect everyone, in the sense that the noble Lord reflected in his Question. I truly believe that we are all vulnerable. Characterising a subset of people as vulnerable implies that maybe the rest do not need to worry, but in one way or another, at some stage of our lives, we are all vulnerable. Those of us who have an arrogant view of our own capabilities are probably even more vulnerable than those who know their weaknesses.

Whatever is done in this area has to be part of a wider assessment of what the Government can do to provide protection. What leads on from that is that taking action on fraud is too late; action is required before the fraud takes place. The problem we have is that the system is a commercial one, in which a lot of money is involved. It is hardly surprising that fraud and crime will occur; crime goes to where the money is. We have a systemic problem of fraud; it is part of the natural operation of the system that it will arise, so action really needs to be taken much more down the line than after the event, when people suffer. It is at the early stage where the most effective action could or should be taken.

Of course, we have to talk in this context about online fraud, and we look forward to debates on the online safety Bill. The situation has been worsened by the pandemic, with our reliance on online means of communication and commerce increasing, so the opportunities for fraud have increased with it. My own interest is almost inevitably in pension fraud, which is the area that I am most familiar with. It is clear that an awful lot of fraud that occurs in this area is unreported, because people do not know or do not find out until it is too late—or they do know, but they are ashamed and feel foolish. I am not as familiar with other areas of financial fraud, but my assumption is that it is broadly the same there.

The issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, on the plethora of regulators is one that I very much hope that the Government will address. I am really here to hear the response from the Minister, which I look forward to with some interest.

Black Dog Crisis Management Company

Lord Davies of Brixton Excerpts

Monday 11th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, I am sure that the terms of reference and the details of that inquiry will be laid out in due course, but I will certainly take the noble Baroness’s points back.

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, the department is to be congratulated on seeking help in this area. I see from the organisation’s website that its specialist areas of expertise include

“providing consultancy support to help clients to understand the leadership roles, responsibilities and behaviours required for effective decision making.”

We hope that the department will make full use of this skill.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his point. The skills of the company were particularly useful in the context of the issue of the migrant crossings.

Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy

Lord Davies of Brixton Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

The noble Baroness mentions a very sensible point: this is a global crisis, in many ways, because helping these people requires a global response, and co-ordinating effort is eminently sensible. I cannot give her details on what is going on, but there is a co-ordinated approach across government, and certainly lots of bilaterals are going on at this moment with my noble friend Lord Ahmad and other Ministers across the world.

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, I take this opportunity to join other Members of the House to press the Minister to facilitate, as a matter of urgency, safe passage for those Afghan citizens who worked specifically on UK-funded academic research to advance the UK’s international development agenda? They have risked their lives undertaking fieldwork in areas of policy and practice that the Taliban see as a threat to their objectives.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

As I said to other noble Lords, the ACRS will prioritise those people who have assisted UK efforts in Afghanistan and who face particular risk from the Taliban because of their stance on democracy and human rights or because of their gender, sexuality or religion.

Policing and Prevention of Violence against Women

Lord Davies of Brixton Excerpts

Tuesday 16th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]]

The noble Lord talks such sense on these matters, and I agree with that “educate your son” placard. If we, as parents, do not teach our children the boundaries and they do not learn them at school, how will they know what is and is not acceptable, and how will they know what respect is? As the noble Lord says, failing to protect our women in turn fails to protect our children as well.

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I first endorse strongly the sentiments expressed earlier by my noble friends Lord Rosser and Lady Blower. My concern is that the title of the Statement, “Policing and Prevention of Violence against Women”, fails to acknowledge the true nature of the problem. We should not just refer to “violence against women”; we must always make it clear that it is really violence by men against women that is the problem. Every opportunity should be taken to emphasise that it is us men who are the problem. As such, I am glad that the Minister has mentioned the importance of culture. Therefore, the question is: what steps are the Government taking to play their part in the required cultural shift by men?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]]

The noble Lord makes a very important point: we should not just say “violence against women”—we should say, “violence by men”. However, it is not always violence by men; it mostly is but not always. The Government are clearly in the middle of the Domestic Abuse Bill and all the provisions therein. I thank my noble friend Lady Newlove for bringing forward the issue of non-fatal strangulation, which seems to be much more at large in some sexual behaviour and, of course, often leads to death—it is often at the heart of domestic violence. We have done much on forced marriage and female genital mutilation, which are all particularly female-focused, of course. We have done much in the 11 years that we have been in power, and I pay tribute to my right honourable friend Theresa May, who was at the original inception of this.