Intelligence and Security Committee: Russia Report

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

My Lords, all Members of the House will have noted the comments in the committee report in relation to your Lordships’ House. It is extremely important that we should all be on our guard against the activities of the Putin regime. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mance, has written to the appropriate committee of the House on the recommendations made in the report.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

We are not able to hear the noble Lord, Lord Rowe- Beddoe, and we have come to the end of the Private Notice Question.

Income Equality and Sustainability

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Wednesday 6th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the most reverend Primate for securing this debate and for the wonderful way in which he introduced it. This is such an important subject. Many of your Lordships will have seen the front-page lead in last Saturday’s Guardian with the headline “UK’s corona divide”, and,

“People living in poorest areas dying at twice the rate of those in richest areas”.


This is based on new data from the Office for National Statistics.

In my two minutes, I want to draw attention to the part played by tobacco in contributing to these shocking figures. Smoking rates among people in routine and manual jobs are more than twice the national average. Among people who are unemployed, smoking prevalence rises further. Nationally, half the difference in life expectancy between rich and poor is due to higher smoking rates among those on low incomes. Smoking caused around 78,000 deaths in England last year and over 400,000 hospital admissions. Data from the UK Covid symptom tracker app shows that smokers are more likely to report Covid-19 symptoms, and smokers with the virus who need hospital care are more likely to die than non-smokers.

This should be a wake-up call. We must do more to improve population health and reduce health inequalities, not just respond in times of crisis. Investing in tobacco control and stop-smoking services to achieve the Government’s ambition of a smoke-free England by 2030 would reduce health inequalities, save lives and lift over a million people out of poverty. While tobacco addiction pushes smokers into poverty, the tobacco industry makes over £900 million in profits in the UK each year. A polluter-pays charge on the tobacco industry, as advocated by the APPG on Smoking and Health—I declare an interest as one of its officers—could provide sustainable financing for the tobacco control measures needed to deliver the Government’s smoke-free ambition and support the majority of smokers who want to quit to do so.

Honours System

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I take seriously the point made by the right reverend Prelate. People do give reasons for turning down honours; those reasons are not made public. In the letter which my right honourable friend the Prime Minister wrote to my noble friend last year, when this issue was raised, she said that it was “rare” for an honour to be turned down for this reason. But we will try to dig further, in the light of the comments of the right reverend Prelate, and see to what extent this is a real disincentive.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

My Lords, the New Year Honours List of 1969 contained a life peerage for Sir Learie Constantine, who took his seat in this House 50 years ago today. On the House of Lords website, there is a very fetching photograph of the bust of Lord Constantine, with the Lord Speaker and the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin. Lord Constantine’s bust, borrowed from the National Portrait Gallery, is in the Royal Gallery from today. Will the Minister encourage all Members of your Lordships’ House to attend the event on 1 May, when this iconic figure will be celebrated in a seminar and lecture in the Robing Room? There, Members can pay their own tribute to the first Afro-Caribbean Member of your Lordships’ House.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I entirely endorse what the noble Lord has said. As he was speaking, I could see noble Lords writing in their diaries the date he referred to.

Capita

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Tuesday 24th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The Government will hold Capita, and indeed other suppliers, to the terms of their contract and take appropriate steps if those terms are ever broken.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

My Lords, would it be helpful if the House were reminded of what the Companion says about procedure on Urgent Questions? They are treated as Private Notice Questions, which in turn are treated as similar to normal Oral Questions. In particular, the answers and supplementary questions on a Private Notice Question must be brief to allow as many people as possible to come in.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

If that was a rebuke to me, I am glad. I plead guilty, and I am sure that will have been noted. I will be as quick as I can with the responses to the following Urgent Question.

Immigration Statistics

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Monday 12th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I agree that the public should have confidence in the statistics produced by the ONS, particularly on migration. These are an important input to policies on housing, health, education and other public services. The ONS will use powers in the Digital Economy Act, which has recently passed into legislation, to access data from other government departments. This will complement the information it already has from the IPS. By accessing not only exit data from the Home Office but information from HMRC, from the DfE on school rolls and from GPs on GP lists, it will be able to strengthen and enrich—the word it has used—the statistics on migration, and in turn this will enhance confidence. The Government do not make forecasts on migration but the ONS produces what it calls estimates.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

Is there any serious member of Her Majesty’s Government—with the possible exception of the Prime Minister—who does not believe that overseas students should not be included in immigration statistics? Is it not time that this change was made and a message of hope given to our universities?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord will recall that this issue was debated extensively by your Lordships when the then Higher Education and Research Bill went through this House. When the Bill left this House an amendment was carried to delete overseas students from the migration figures. When that legislation hit the statute book, that bit was omitted. In the meantime, the ONS will continue to follow the UN standard, which is to count anyone who is here for more than a year as a long-term migrant. That practice is followed by the USA, New Zealand, Canada and Australia. There is an impact on services if people stay here for longer than a year, and the ONS, which is independent, has decided to continue to use the United Nations definition.

Historical Sexual Abuse in Football

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

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

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

I too declare an unpaid interest as a vice-president of the National League, formerly known as the Football Conference. Does the Minister agree that one of the most worrying aspects of these dreadful allegations is the way that they were ignored by the football authorities when they were first made and that it is only as a result of the press coverage in the last few days that they have come to light? The Minister referred to other sports. Do the Government have any information about whether similar allegations are likely to be forthcoming concerning those sports? Will the helpline to which the Statement referred—its announcement is very welcome—be extended to help other people who may have experienced the same sort of event?

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

The normal contact for someone with an allegation is the police. Since this has come out, 250 people have already contacted the police in England and Wales. The Secretary of State’s letter went out to all sports bodies, telling them that they need to look at their governance to make sure they have the appropriate safeguards in place. The governance code which came out in October covers these points. It will be important for sports bodies to make sure that they are complying with the things the noble Lord mentioned: if they do not, they will not get funding in future.

Record Copies of Acts of Parliament

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

As I say, that is very much the position. The position is as I have just said, and we have to await the outcome of the committee this afternoon.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

Does the Minister think that the letter from the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, in the Times deserves to be printed on vellum and preserved for posterity?

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

That is a very interesting point.

Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Bill [HL]

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I will, if I may, very briefly second what the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, has said. We will take this away and consider whether we should provide a different form of words. I have to say I was puzzled by the quotation from Ofsted—

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

Forgive me, but if the noble Lord is speaking, he must move his amendment at the end of his speech.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My apologies. I had not understood that that was the way Committee stages went. In that case, we will talk off the Floor. I will ask for the exact quote from Ofsted and we will return to this.

Deregulation Bill

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Lords Chamber

We must ask the Minister to confirm that he intends to come out with those full regulations, and agreement from people on them, because it is unrealistic to expect everyone to say, “The Government are going to look after us all”. There was a reference to a £20,000 fine, but that is never applied just for lack of planning permission. These things are just creating a diversion from the essential point that no one will have any protection unless very satisfactory powers are agreed with local authorities. I ask the Minister to give me that advice—that he will be sure that there will be full consultation—and to confirm that at long last, the results of the year-old consultation will be published. Why have they never been published?

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

Is the noble Baroness seeking to withdraw her amendment?

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

I am waiting for the Minister to reply before I do.

Hong Kong

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I can only agree, but it is up to all of us and the Members of the other place, as well as all those involved in democratic politics, to re-enthuse the British public with democratic politics as far as we can and, in particular, in the next five months.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

My Lords, bearing in mind that the noble Baroness’s question refers to democracy in the region, will the Minister take the opportunity to pay tribute to the people of Taiwan, who change their Governments regularly through the ballot box, and whose parliamentary system is very close to our own, unlike that of mainland China? I declare an interest as co-chair of the British-Taiwanese All-Party Parliamentary Group.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there are a number of states across east, south-east and southern Asia that have made successful transitions to democracy. There are others that have some way to go. We welcome the evidence in a range of Governments there of the rule of law, open elections and the transition from one head of Government to another, all of which are fundamental. These are principles to which good Governments and well run economies should adhere.