UK Convergence Programme
Lord Haskel Excerpts(5 years ago)
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Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)
My Lords, I was somewhat taken aback by the Minister’s opening statement. I of course recognise that the process we are involved in is a largely technical one with a very short duration so far as the United Kingdom is concerned when we leave the European Union, but the Minister addressed himself to issues as if this extraordinary word “Brexit” had never been coined and the phenomenon had never existed. Every single question that has come subsequently related somewhere to the impact of Brexit. I hope the Minister will reply to these questions in full, because his opening statement dwelled on the sunny uplands and what he regarded as favourable forecasts at present. I do not find the OBR’s forecast on where growth is at present and where it will be in three years’ time as a particularly favourable position. Indeed, it is a lower figure than that which obtained over 30 years or so prior to 2010. I am amazed that the Minister seems to think the Government are on the high road to success with this rather deplorable figure, starting at 1.2%.
The noble Lord, Lord Vaux, indicated that there are real dangers of assets being transferred and the capacity of the British economy reduced during these Brexit developments. There was a great deal of commentary about the fact that that would happen and we should not be at all surprised that we are getting increasing evidence of it happening. Yet the Minister presented this document—this response to Europe—as if we were pretty well in steady state and the economy was easy to analyse and forecast.
In fairness to the OBR, it made it quite clear that this is a notoriously difficult time to present forecasts of any validity. Yet none of this seemed to cloud the Minister’s position in his opening statement. I hope the questions and points that have been made lead him to respond fully to the situation. After all, he knows that we are right at the bottom of the league table on productivity, and have been for most of the Conservative Government’s time in office—since 2010. All sorts of strategies have been presented that would go towards improving our productivity, but we are still doing very poorly. It is therefore no small wonder that we have problems with growth and competition.
We are well aware that big decisions are being taken which threaten our economy. The decline in the German economy may give us some comparative advantage, in that for a short period we have had a slightly more secure position. But its decline is overwhelmingly in the manufacturing industry, where we have the greatest difficulty presenting any real competition, and in the motor industry. What solace is that meant to bring to the Minister, given that he is about to be part of the process whereby we cast ourselves on to the international trade situation, while busy disentangling ourselves from our strongest economy—the European one? The two largest economies are pursuing policies of protection and are concerned about the development of trade. So it will not do.
I understand the Minister’s point that as far as Europe is concerned, in past years this particular requirement has been treated in a fairly light-hearted fashion in this House. So it should be, in normal times. However, we are not in normal times. We are in times of very real strategic threat to our economy. It will not do for the Minister to think that one can ignore the small aberration of Brexit at present because the economy is under good guidance. After all, he knows better than most of us here how crucial the financial services are—to the Treasury in terms of receipts and to our economy in terms of employment. Therefore, when it is identified that there are clear cases of the financial services transferring their assets from the UK elsewhere, we ought to be worried.
I ask that in his summing up, the Minister replies to each contribution that has been made. Each focused on the important dimension of anxiety about the economy, yet the noble Lord was busy glossing over this in an opening statement which looked as if he was more concerned with “The Wizard of Oz” than with the real economy.
Lord Haskel (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister told the House that we are going to have 1.6% growth. I imagine that this is because of lack of investment and low productivity. If we had 2% growth, we would then be faced with inflation, but that word did not appear in the Minister’s statement. If we do do better than 1.6% growth, are we going to have to deal with inflation? What are the Government going to do about that?
Lord Bates
I thought it was a J curve; I think the J curve is non-inflationary employment growth, and the Laffer curve might be the other one. However, I will take a break there in case I am completely shot down on that—I am not saying it is one or the other.
It is a point that increasing growth feeds through into inflation, just as the historical view was that if you fell below 5% unemployment, the tightening of the labour market would feed through into wage inflation. That we have not seen. Although it is now below 4%, CPI inflation is still at about 1.9%. We are within that constraint. If I can get the exact model from our wizards in the Treasury, I will write in answer to that and other points, and reassure the noble Lord. Perhaps he is about to give me the answer to his own question.
Lord Haskel
Why does the Minister not write to me? It is very difficult. Statements such as the one he just made compartmentalise the economy. Inflation takes it all into account. That is why I raised the point, because the Minister did not mention it in his first statement.
Lord Bates
I am very happy to put it in writing. Also, should the noble Lord be familiar with anyone serving on the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England, I am quite sure they would have the answer completely to hand.
I thank noble Lords for the debate. I am sorry I was not able to answer some of their detailed points; I will put them in a letter, copy it to noble Lords who took part in the debate and place a copy in the Library.
Children: Covert Human Intelligence Sources
Lord Haskel Excerpts(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Williams of Trafford
The noble Lord will appreciate that I cannot talk about operational matters. I hope he will be comforted by the fact that the use of a juvenile as a covert human intelligence source is only in exceptional circumstances.
Lord Haskel (Lab)
When we discussed this on previous occasions, the Minister promised us a much higher level of judicial supervision over the process. Is that in place?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
At the time, I said that Lord Justice Fulford, the Investigatory Powers Commissioner, provided the oversight needed. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, had referred to judicial oversight, which I explained would require primary legislation. I said that Lord Justice Fulford provided a sufficient level of oversight and that it was satisfactory at this point.
Economy: Budget Statement
Lord Haskel Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Haskel (Lab)
My Lords, my noble friend Lady Smith is absolutely right: this Budget is designed to deal with the political problems of the Government and not the economic and social problems of this country. Most people would simply not recognise the picture painted by the Minister in his opening speech. Perhaps this Budget had to be short term while Brexit negotiations continue, but how much more inspiring it would be if the Chancellor had also recognised the real economic and social problems described by many noble Lords and started to take steps to rectify them—steps to even out the inequality of wealth; steps to review the basis on which we pay tax; steps to get the country working more efficiently by lifting productivity and moving towards the high-wage, high-skill economy that we all seek.
The noble Lord, Lord Fox, spoke of the direction of travel. Surely the direction of travel for the Budget has to be away from an economy which puts us near the bottom of the G20 for productivity and investment yet number five in size, and where one-third of households will depend on universal credit while most of those households are in work. Low-productivity work with high employment is the classic formula for inflation. The Minister will know of numerous visits to Germany to learn why their productivity outstrips ours. They all report that it is largely due to vocational training, training which has evolved over time. Together with investment, this seems to be the key lesson. Lowering corporation tax does not seem to have encouraged this. Indeed, we have seen many companies investing in buying back their own shares to enhance executive pay.
The Minister spoke of the apprenticeship levy, which is meant to improve skills, but it is not working. He spoke of 3 million apprenticeships yet, as the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, told us, it is not working. Yes, the Chancellor has instituted a review of how the levy will function, but that is after 2020. What is the point of a review of the levy system when the private sector firms that deliver training are performing so poorly? The largest one, for the retail sector, went bust. Learndirect had to be rescued with public money. Virtually all the training companies received very poor ratings from Ofsted. The result is that large companies are doing it themselves or recruiting from overseas and the rest struggle with a reduced public sector.
In the public sector, FE colleges are being starved of funds and, as the House of Commons Education Select Committee recently reported, only eight of the 24 Russell group universities offer degree apprenticeships. Because of inflexibility in the education system, part-time students have dropped by 51% since 2010. This is to the detriment of reskilling and learning while remaining at work, which is an opportunity most of us would like to have. This is one reason we have low productivity, low earnings, high employment but a huge shortage of skills. It is the economy that the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, described. Where are the effective steps that the Budget could have taken to reverse this direction of travel?
We are told that the Government are being less rigid about austerity. That is a step in the right direction, but the size of the step the Chancellor has taken is very small. This is well illustrated on page 89 of the Red Book. Table B1 sets out the full list of expenditure items in the scope of the welfare cap. On the right are those items now not in scope; a total of five. On the left are those items still in scope of the welfare cap: a total of 26. Yes, austerity may have been moderated, but three-quarters of the £12 billion in welfare cuts, including next year’s benefits freeze, will still go ahead. What this tells us is that if we are to return to the quality of welfare and the standard of living we had before the recession, we will have to raise more government revenue. The fact is that we do not raise enough tax. I hope we will raise more tax by growing the economy and making it more productive.
Meanwhile, the Budget could have taken steps towards a fairer, more acceptable tax system that raises more revenue. For instance, it could have moved towards taxing wealth rather than income, by equalising income tax and capital gains. It could have broadened the tax base and helped local councils by revaluing property, so that expensive houses really do pay more council tax. This is long overdue and it is these disproportionate property taxes that have contributed to the rigidities of the housing market. Yes, of course it could have taxed higher earnings. A national insurance scheme for care, which includes premiums paid by pensioners, seems to have attracted interest and support and would help the NHS by reducing bed blocking in an ageing society. And what about a financial transaction tax, as a sign that the Government support their own industrial strategy, a strategy that creates wealth and does not support activities which extract wealth or simply transfer it? That would be much preferable to lowering the VAT threshold, which would place administrative burdens on a lot of small businesses, as the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, explained.
The digital services tax—if it is ever implemented—is a small part of the taxes that Tax Watch tells us have been avoided by the main internet platforms. A so-called unitary tax would raise more money and be a lot more equitable; that is why it is finding favour in the EU. Yes, the Government have introduced a future high streets fund but this money is not new. It is allocated from the national productivity investment fund and is a good example of short-term tinkering. I put it to the Minister that increased spending by raising revenue is a lot more prudent than increasing spending based on a theoretical windfall, which came about because the OBR has rebased its calculation for the short-term forecasting of revenue. The noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, warned us about this.
There is nothing in the Budget about climate change or tackling wealth inequality, and very little about making work pay. This Budget continues to commit us to a low-growth, low-skill, low-pay and low-standard-of-living economy. We should be doing a lot better than this.
Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Juveniles) (Amendment) Order 2018
Lord Haskel Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a former controller of covert human intelligence sources—CHISs—or police informants as they are otherwise known, although I have never controlled child CHISs. As I approach my fifth anniversary in this place, I hope that noble Lords will accept that tabling a regret Motion is not something I do lightly. The Government have introduced regulations that appear to weaken and/or not provide enough protection for children employed by the police as CHISs. Both the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and the Joint Committee on Human Rights have raised concerns about the whole regime of police using children as CHISs. As a result, on 18 July, we debated a take-note Motion, moved by a member of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, in Grand Committee.
There are three main concerns. The first is that a child aged 16 or 17 can be recruited as a police informant without a parent, guardian or appropriate adult being present, even though it is illegal to interview a child of those ages under caution about a criminal offence without such a person being present. The parent or guardian of a child under 16 does not have to be present when a child is recruited as a police informant but, in that case, an appropriate adult must be.
Secondly, the period for which a child can be authorised as an informant by these new regulations has been extended from one month to four months, although the authorisation has to be reviewed every month. The authorisation must be given by a very senior police officer or equivalent, but to date we have not been able to get a clear answer on what the difference is between a one-month authorisation being extended on a monthly basis and a four-month authorisation that is reviewed monthly. Either the safeguards are being weakened, in that the review is less thorough or is conducted by a lower-ranking officer, or there is no need to change the previous arrangement, where an authorisation had to be extended monthly.
The explanation—knowing that the authorisation is only for one month could limit how the child could be deployed—does not hold water. I speak from operational police experience. In seeking the original authorisation, the deploying officer could explain that the deployment is going to last several months and that the officer will be asking the senior officer to extend that authorisation. The senior officer could then indicate whether he would be minded to do that, taking account of how dangerous the assignment is and the impact on the child. In my experience, it would be much easier for a senior officer not to extend an authorisation than it would be for him or her to pull the plug on a four-month authorisation which he or she had already given, as doing so would not call the original authorisation into question.
At the same time as this apparent weakening of the safeguards, the Minister says people are becoming involved in more serious crime, such as child sexual exploitation, violent gangs, drug dealing and terrorism. It therefore appears that the dangers faced by child CHISs is increasing while the safeguards are either insufficient or being weakened.
The third issue concerns Article 3 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which the UK is a signatory. It states:
“In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration”.
The text refers to the best interests of “the child”—not “all children” or “society as a whole” but, in this case, to the child being used as a child informant. When can it be in the interests of that child to be asked to return to the paedophile, the criminal gang, the county lines drug dealer or the terrorist group in order to provide information to the police, given that the child is obviously in danger in those situations? These are not my concerns alone; some are shared by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and the Joint Committee on Human Rights.
Before debating the take-note Motion in Grand Committee, I gave notice to the Minister of the points the Government should cover in that debate—namely, the three issues I have just outlined. Despite this, and numerous interventions during that debate, the Government appeared to be unwilling, or unable, to answer the questions. Why were child informants afforded less protection than criminal suspects? What is the difference between extending a monthly authorisation and a four-monthly authorisation reviewed monthly? And how is the deployment of a child CHIS compliant with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child?
To be fair to the Minister—who is not only very competent but somebody I like on a personal level—she is not the only one. There is ongoing correspondence between the chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Minister of State for Security and Economic Crime; the chair has not yet received satisfactory explanations from that Minister either.
Last week, I had the pleasure of meeting both Ministers together, at the same time; the official from the Home Office who is leading on this issue was also present. At this meeting—albeit that it was a meeting for another purpose, at the end of which I ambushed them—I again set out the three issues on which we have yet to receive a satisfactory answer.
There are no longer any excuses for the Government not to answer these questions. Our duty in this House is to hold the Government to account. When they are unable or unwilling to account for their actions, as happened during the take-note Motion debate, the Government cannot be expected to get away with it. My regret Motion is as much about sending a message to the Government that this House will hold them to account, despite their inability or unwillingness to account for their actions, as it is about the substantive issues. That having been said, there are other noble Lords, outside organisations and members of the public who are very concerned about the whole idea of using children as police informants. Indeed, one children’s organisation is crowdfunding to take the Government to judicial review over the use of children as CHISs, which it believes is incompatible with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
There are worrying signs here of a direction of travel. Not only do the Government appear to be sacrificing the rights of children in exchange for information, but they appear to be prepared to sacrifice people’s right to life by not insisting on death penalty assurances when the UK provides evidence to foreign law enforcement bodies—not just in one-off cases, but if necessary to secure data exchange treaties. The latter issue is for another day, but let us hope the Government are not prepared to sacrifice peace in Northern Ireland in exchange for a Brexit agreement. I beg to move.
Lord Haskel (Lab)
My Lords, I am a member of your Lordships’ Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, and somehow it has fallen to me to voice the concerns of the committee. It was I who spoke in the debate in July to which the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, referred. This order was presented to the committee as a matter of administrative convenience: extend the authorisation from one to four months and you reduce administration—simple. Perhaps it is because many of us are parents that we wondered why juveniles were being used in covert activity in the first place. The Explanatory Memorandum spoke of safeguards but not how they would be implemented, and it was silent on the number of juveniles involved. We requested more details, but we were still not satisfied, and so the committee decided to report this regulation to the House, both in our weekly report and in a Motion to Take Note—that was the debate in July.
During this process, it became apparent that juveniles were being used for far more dangerous activities than just checking on shopkeepers selling alcohol to minors, including activities relating to serious crime, drugs and terrorism. These activities put them in danger of violence and sexual assault, and all sorts of associated mental, physical, psychological and educational problems. Together with other noble Lords, we spoke of our concerns in the debate in July. The Minister sought to reassure us with more detailed safeguards, but many of us remained concerned.
Meanwhile, I was contacted by Rights Watch UK. It was concerned that human rights and the rights of the child were being ignored, and suggested that we should refer this to the parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights. After the debate, your Lordships’ committee did this, and the Joint Committee took it up with the Government through a series of questions. Its members share our concerns about the safeguarding of juveniles and what they call scope creep. As the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said, this correspondence continues and there are meetings. This view is shared by another children’s charity: Just For Kids Law. It has contacted me and its lawyers have issued a pre-action letter to the Home Office seeking judicial review on this matter. During this time, there has also been press coverage, and I have received several letters from concerned parents.
As I said, the history is important because, at each stage, the Government have introduced further support for the juveniles and more detailed safeguards. For example, the numbers involved are now recorded; the authorising officer will weigh the intelligence benefits against the potential negative impact on the juvenile; and there will be more judicial and police scrutiny, and at a higher level. However, we remain unsure how consistent this will be across the various police forces and how it will be properly carried out.
The task of your Lordship’s Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee is to judge whether these reassurances and changes are sufficient. But it is for the House to decide whether this is a proper activity for juveniles and whether our police, judicial and security services provide adequate support and supervision.
This is not a party-political matter. As the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, explained, it is a security issue, a human rights issue and a rights of the child issue. Before the Government ask us to enact this legislation, with the increased assurances which they have given, I hope they will wait to see what comes out of the human rights correspondence and the judicial review. I feel sure that this is the view of most people in the House, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, I am pleased that my noble friend Lord Paddick has moved this Motion. I should declare an interest: I am a trustee of the organisation Safer London, which works to prevent and address young people’s involvement in crime, including running a gang exit programme for the Metropolitan Police and now MOPAC. In that role, I recently undertook some quite basic safeguarding training; safeguarding is of course very relevant to this issue. It seems to me that the thinking about safeguarding has developed; I wonder whether the thinking about the use of young people in the role of covert human intelligence sources has developed in tandem.
I asked somebody who I know through Safer London about this issue, and I was given the following example, which I think well illustrates the concerns that have been expressed. A young woman of 17, who was described to me as “on the edge of care”, whose parents were separated and who had been between boroughs, was exploited by a man who—this is very common—she thought of as her boyfriend. He was selling a group of girls, including her, for sex. The police were looking for information on him and she was left in her situation so that she could provide information. In other words, she was exploited by him and continued to be exploited by him, and was, arguably, exploited by the police. Eventually, she witnessed a murder. She was drawn into it, and not just as a witness, as she was asked to dispose of clothes and other items afterwards. How was her consent to this tested? No significant adult in her life knew of her involvement, and we must ask ourselves what qualifies a police officer to make the assessment that is needed here. This is obviously a question of training, but the officer making the assessment must also be independent from the particular investigation. I, for one—and this is nothing other than common sense—find it hard to believe that officers can easily put aside their loyalties to police colleagues in the investigation for which they have responsibility.
What is the position of corporate parents of a child in care? So many young people who are caught up in crime are, or have been, in care, or have low-level learning difficulties. Crucially, what support is given after the event? This is no doubt one of those muddy situations: a perpetrator may also be a victim, or a victim may be a perpetrator. I am told that it is not that uncommon for the police to offer witness protection in exchange for assistance—or, at least, they are very often asked to do this. As I say, it is quite a muddy situation.
My noble friend’s Motion regrets the lack of consultation with organisations concerned with human rights and the welfare of children. I suspect all of them would have raised similar points, and probably made the point that 16 year-olds are often not very mature, and indeed, neither are 18 year-olds. I do not know where vulnerability stops. To indicate how vulnerable young people might feel, I gather that it is not unusual for someone who was a gang member and is in a young offender institution to request segregation—solitary, in other words—because of fear of other gang members in the same institution.
Debt Advice Services
Lord Haskel Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Haskel
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of demand for debt advice services; and what steps they are taking to reduce the level of household debt.
The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Lord Bates) (Con)
My Lords, the Government recognise that demand for debt advice is currently higher than supply. That is why we are increasing the funding for publicly funded debt advice. Although the level of household debt in relation to income is significantly down since the financial crisis, we realise that some people struggle with debt, which is why we are creating a breathing-space scheme to help people to get out of problem debt.
Lord Haskel (Lab)
Recently, there have been many reports of the rise in the number of people seeking debt advice and seeking loans to pay basic household bills. Many of these people are in work. National Debtline, the IPPR, McKinsey, and now the National Audit Office tell us that the cause is exploitative and precarious terms of employment, which enables low-value jobs, instead of encouraging productivity and investment in skills and trades. There was a time when we spoke of work being a way out of poverty, but under this Government it seems that the opposite is true. How will the Government make employment the answer and not the cause of this rise in household debt?
Lord Bates
I am sorry but I do not accept that; the evidence does not point to it. Over 3 million more people are in work in this country. We have seen one of the largest increases for the lowest-paid in this country through the introduction of the national living wage. As a result of basic tax thresholds being raised, the typical taxpayer in full-time work is £1,000 better off. That is not to diminish in any sense the fact that there is a serious problem with personal debt in this country. It is about 16.5% less than its pre-crisis levels when inflation is taken into account. That is why we are taking the steps that we are.
Investigatory Powers (Codes of Practice and Miscellaneous Amendments) Order 2018
Lord Haskel Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, the regulatory framework governing the use and authorisation of investigatory techniques provided for by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, or RIPA, ensures that the public authorities empowered to use these important techniques do so in compliance with the right to privacy under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Noble Lords will be aware of how important these provisions are, along with those in related legislation, including the Investigatory Powers Act, to the vital work undertaken by the intelligence and law enforcement agencies, as well as by other public bodies with enforcement or regulatory functions. These Acts allow for the authorisation of investigative techniques that are used by investigators to obtain intelligence and evidence to disrupt the activities of serious and organised crime groups, prevent terror attacks, establish guilt, and ensure that our agencies can locate and safeguard vulnerable and missing people.
The RIPA framework ensures that there are strong, transparent safeguards in place that are appropriate to the intrusive nature of these investigatory powers, so that they are used lawfully and proportionately. This is developed further by the significant strengthening of safeguards and changes to the oversight of all investigatory powers brought about through the Investigatory Powers Act. These strengthened safeguards, therefore, together with the clear requirements set out in the codes of practice and the rigorous independent oversight provided by the Investigatory Powers Commissioner, establish clear limits around the use of these powers, and ultimately provide reassurance to the public that the powers are being used in ways that serve the best interests of us all.
The Investigatory Powers (Codes of Practice and Miscellaneous Amendments) Order 2018 introduces three revised codes of practice, as well as making some amendments and updates to the public authorities authorised to use surveillance powers under RIPA. The order also makes a minor technical amendment to provisions on the use of combined warrants under the Investigatory Powers Act 2016. I am aware that the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, is keen that we also discuss today the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Juveniles) (Amendment) Order 2018, which amends the existing authorisation regime for the use of people under the age of 18 as covert human intelligence sources. I thank him for giving the Committee the opportunity to hear about the extensive safeguards in place.
The revised codes of practice provide guidance on covert surveillance, property interference, covert human intelligence sources, or CHISs, and the investigation of protected electronic information—activities which are regulated by RIPA as well as by the Police Act 1997 and the Intelligence Services Act 1994.
First issued in 2002, the CHIS and covert surveillance codes of practice were last updated in 2014. They, along with the investigation of protected electronic information code, which was introduced in 2007 and has not been updated since, have all been updated, mainly to reflect the changes brought about by the Investigatory Powers Act. These include the creation of the new Investigatory Powers Commissioner, the changes made by the introduction of equipment interference as a technique separate from the existing property interference powers, and the need to mirror the strengthened safeguards for the handling of confidential and privileged material.
Other updates and clarifications have been made to the guidance to reflect and improve current operational practice. We consulted publicly on them at the end of last year. For instance, the guidance on procedures to be followed where investigators use the internet for covert investigatory purposes or where covert surveillance is undertaken by means of drones, and the provisions intended to reinforce the safety of covert human intelligence sources, have all been expanded.
In addition, we are updating the lists of the public authorities and officers able to authorise the use of directed surveillance and covert human intelligence sources. These updates ensure that public authorities can continue to authorise the use of investigatory powers following changes to their organisational structures and remove any authorities that no longer require the powers, and are in themselves a safeguard against the inappropriate or indiscriminate use of the investigatory powers. They ensure that their use is limited to specified public authorities and can be authorised only by specified officers within those authorities who have sufficient authority and expertise.
Lastly, we are correcting a technical error in the Investigatory Powers Act provisions for authorising a combined warrant, reflecting Parliament’s clear original intention that warrants should last for six months, rather than the clearly far-too-short period of two working days. This timely improvement will assist our intelligence services in their work of identifying and disrupting threats to our national security.
All the changes to the codes of practice and the authorisation framework for the powers ensure that the highest standards continue to be required of those using the powers and that they are underpinned by ever-stronger safeguards against their misuse. I commend the order to the Committee and hope that during the debate I can provide reassurance to the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, and others on the use of juveniles as CHISs. I beg to move.
Lord Haskel (Lab)
I thank the Minister for introducing the order and for raising the question of the juveniles order. I think it would be of convenience to the Committee if we debated them together.
I sit on your Lordships’ Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Our task is to consider and scrutinise all the Government’s regulations and orders—what is known as secondary legislation. We report weekly on what we think would be of interest to the House and what gives us cause for concern. Normally we do this on paper, but we thought that the regulation regarding juveniles warranted further debate.
Our committee is a mixed bunch. Our chairman—the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne—and other members of the committee are here. We are from all sides of the House. There are some old hands, like me, and some welcome new faces. Some have had experience in government. But the one thing that most of us have in common regarding this order—and I include Jane White, our experienced and effective adviser, who worked on the order—is that we are parents and, as parents, we know that young people in their mid to late teenage years are going through a time of great change, when they are vulnerable and often need support. Our concern is that the order does not provide that necessary support and understanding.
We wrote to the Home Office, saying that the Explanatory Memorandum—EM—explained why this extension of one month to four months was administratively convenient. Yes, the Explanatory Memorandum acknowledged the need to take account of the welfare of the young people. But it was not clear how this would be achieved. We wrote to the Minister for Security and Economic Crime about this concern. In reply, he justified the use of these young people, explaining that young people are increasingly both perpetrators and victims of crime and so are increasingly able to assist in the prevention and prosecution of crime. He certainly acknowledged the need to look after the young people’s welfare and said that the code was being updated—that is the code of which the Minister has just spoken.
The Explanatory Memorandum has indeed been updated. It mentions some of the safeguards and says why they are needed. But what is still missing is exactly how the welfare and safety of these juveniles will be achieved.
Working undercover can be made to look very attractive to a juvenile, but what about the risks? There is the risk of being beaten up, of sexual exploitation, of reprisals, as well as the impact on their education and on their mental health. The Home Office reports that it has to deal with an increasing number of mental health problems. The Minister is also silent on the number of young people involved in this undercover work, so we ask: is it right to put one juvenile in jeopardy for the greater good?
Economy: Productivity
Lord Haskel Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Haskel
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the conclusion reached by the Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence in their paper Below the Aggregate: A Sectoral Account of the UK Productivity Puzzle, published in May, that some of the UK’s largest and most internationally competitive companies account for the biggest reduction in UK productivity growth.
The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Lord Bates) (Con)
My Lords, the Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence paper is an important addition to the evidence base, highlighting sectors where recent productivity slow-down has occurred. However, it remains unclear why this slow-down has occurred, why other sectors did not make stronger contributions to productivity growth before the crisis or to what extent this explains our long-standing productivity weakness.
Lord Haskel (Lab)
Does the Minister agree that this report, plus the further research from the Bank of England, indicates that our slow productivity growth is less due to the long tail of zombie companies but reflects the weaknesses of the business model applied by some of our biggest and best known companies—a model that incorporates share buybacks, high short-term bonus culture, and lower corporation tax and tax allowances that do not encourage investment. Will the Minister dust off the industrial strategy and review it so that these lessons can be learned?
Lord Bates
I assure the noble Lord that there is no dust on the Government’s industrial strategy. In fact, we have invested some £31 billion in a productivity investment fund for exactly that type of challenge. Moreover, we are conducting a further business productivity review, which is open to submissions along the lines that the noble Lord has referenced until 6 July. He will be aware, as a keen student of this area and indeed very experienced in it, that there has long been a UK productivity puzzle—that is why the centre titled the paper in that way—and it has existed since the 1950s and the 1960s. It has been suggested that, at a sectoral level, productivity gains are easier to make in the manufacturing sector than in the service sector and we have traditionally been a service area. We are far from complacent on this and are making progress on a whole range of issues to ensure that we improve our performance in the future.
Economy: Spring Statement
Lord Haskel Excerpts(6 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Haskel (Lab)
My Lords, I feel sorry for the Minister. It must be embarrassing having to speak to a Statement the words of which are largely irrelevant to most people’s concerns. The Chancellor speaks of light at the end of the tunnel. Stagnant wages have eroded the public belief that this light can lead to broad-based prosperity. People believe that all it now does is add to inequality.
The Treasury said that the Spring Statement is not a Budget but a response that it is obliged to make to updated OBR forecasts, so what is the point of this Statement? We need a Statement that speaks to public anxieties and insecurities. That is why we are here. We are not here to have a selective debate about many economic forecasts. For instance, the Chancellor spoke of improved productivity. He must have been referring to output per hour because output per worker is virtually unchanged.
What are all these anxieties and insecurities that we ought to be dealing with? First and foremost must be the crisis in public services, services delivered by Whitehall and, perhaps more importantly, those delivered by local authorities. We all know that austerity has left these services much reduced, with most local authorities—of all parties—in severe financial difficulties. This means that local government is facing an even bigger funding gap by 2020. Already it is unable to fulfil its statutory duty on nearly half the children’s services it has to provide. More than 1 million elderly people are living with their care needs unmet, and local authorities are finding it difficult to recruit staff because pay does not meet rising costs.
The public want to hear what the Government are going to do to end this crisis. Yes, local government can put up car parking charges and can keep more of business rates, but this is minor. It needs to be allowed to do things such as charge more on expensive properties or second homes, or be able to borrow more to build more council houses. Perhaps we will have to pay social insurance to help fund the care of the elderly. We may even have to have road pricing. We are a relatively low-taxed country and some forms of higher taxation may indeed be inevitable. We need solutions not debates.
Meanwhile, in April spending and social security cuts will affect 11 million families. Three-quarters of the scheduled welfare cuts have yet to take place. Small improvements reported in the Statement are not going to compensate. What we need in the Spring Statement are some ideas of how we are going to deal with this. For instance, do we really need a cut in the banking levy? The Chancellor wants to consult about VAT on internet sales and on tax paid by the big technology companies. We have been consulting on this, to my knowledge, for five years. What we want to know is what is to be done. The Chancellor wants to consult on terms of payment. To my knowledge, we have been consulting on this for 25 years. I ask the Minister: who else is there left to consult? We now have a Small Business Commissioner. It is his job to deal with this and stop companies delaying payments as a matter of policy to conserve their cash flow—companies such as Carillion which use this policy to conserve their cash and pay in 120 days. Again, it is action we need, not consultation.
The other major anxiety is about jobs. Real wages are falling because wage growth is lower than inflation. Yes, the GDP was higher than the 1.5% predicted but it still leaves wage earners worse off. Yes, there is growing employment but much of it is insecure. Good jobs demand new skills, new attitudes and new investment. Instead of just updating OBR figures, why cannot all these anxieties and all these consultations be given a lot more meaning and effect by putting them in the context of our industrial strategy? That strategy was designed to deal with these issues, to improve our productivity, our investment, our infrastructure and our skills.
Hundreds—perhaps thousands—of people responded to the Government’s Green Paper and helped contribute towards the industrial strategy that is intended to promote our economic growth and improve our standard of living and our quality of life. Yet the Statement is virtually silent on this. Instead of reporting on the OBR forecast, why do the Government not use the Spring Statement to give us a progress report on the industrial strategy? That would have a lot more meaning for people. This is what is relevant to people’s concerns, particularly at this time when it is becoming ever more apparent that, whatever the outcome of the negotiations, Brexit is going to make us worse off by knocking a couple of per cent off our GDP.
We have been told several times that the Chancellor needs to keep a reserve in case Brexit goes wrong. Of course, we all know the answer to that. The real problem is that the economy is not doing as well as it should. So can we please have more concentration on the industrial strategy and less on austerity, because one seems to be cancelling out the other? In this Statement there are no big ideas as to how we are going to deal with these problems. We need a Spring Statement that explains how we can maintain the fair society and the strong economy that we all seek.
Budget Statement
Lord Haskel Excerpts(6 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Haskel (Lab)
My Lords, the OBR’s Blue Book for this Budget is one of the most depressing that I can remember. My noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe and others have reminded us that the largest change it makes in its forecast is to revise down the trend or potential of productivity. The Minister does not need me to tell him the impact that this will have on our standard of living or the prospects for our economy. Virtually every other speaker has told him.
Some noble Lords and some economists say that this forecast is too pessimistic. The Minister pointed to full employment and the increase in average hours worked, but much of this work is low skilled with low pay and does not lift people out of poverty. Much of the increased hours figure is due to inward migration, but the policy now is to reduce migration. Indeed, it is already happening, and it is difficult to see productivity gains coming from this or any other part of Brexit, so I would say that the Blue Book is probably about right.
International agencies, such as the OECD and the IMF, seem to agree. Indeed, they compare our gloomy prospects with the other 27 countries in Europe which are forecast to have their fastest growth in 10 years. Of course, the Minister enthusiastically announced some new spending, but not nearly enough to cover the cost of inflation. The Red Book and NHS executives indicate that the health service needs much more money to meet the pressures it is under, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth told us that the Budget failed to resolve the health and social care split, and my noble friend Lady Bakewell explained why. The investment in housing is welcome but, again, not nearly enough, and the figure for universal credit for next year is too low, as other noble Lords have said.
The help on business rates is welcome, and so is the extra money for investment in research and development, but will it make up for the loss of European Union Horizon 2020 science funding? It is already dropping off. Meanwhile, we still need to discourage short-term corporate governance and do more to encourage private investment. The extra funding for the British Business Bank is welcome and so are the plans for working with industry to design a national retraining scheme, but I put it to the Minister that this is not nearly enough to deal with the size and scope of the problem we have, and it will not deal with our changing economy. That change is illustrated by the interesting fact that appeared last week that Babcock International, one of our major engineering companies, is being replaced in the FTSE 100 by Just Eat, a clever algorithm enabling thousands of low-paid messengers to deliver meals, largely from fast food restaurants and shops. This is a move towards the more intangible economy which we are only now beginning to understand. It helps to explain some of our inability to deal with inequality and productivity, but the Budget is silent on this, and that is another reason why drastic measures are required.
I agree with other noble Lords that the key to these more drastic measures must lie in the industrial strategy. If we take it seriously, if it becomes our priority, if it embraces society as a whole and not just the economy and if we reorganise all of government to carry it through and not just simply have the industrial strategy as part of a government department, we will have a chance of success, this time, because the other nine industrial strategies I remember have mainly failed. It has to involve everybody and teach skills to young and old. The digital monopolies and platforms that we depend on have to be properly regulated to allow for competition, as the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, told us. It must deal with the tax loopholes which have only recently been revealed, not only overseas but here, as others have said. We have to be more serious about this. Certainly the strategy has to harness digitalisation and artificial intelligence, but driving all of this has to be part of the work of the proposed industrial strategy council. I hope that it will be a council equivalent to the Office for Budget Responsibility, that it will monitor and report sector by sector on what they need to do to be competitive and successful and perhaps push some of the improvements that the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, spoke about earlier. Why not have a branding campaign to go with all this, just to show that we are addressing it?
If we ignore this warning, and a period of decline sets in, we all know what will happen. It will polarise our society and politics even more around identity, nationality and income. Dealing with all these social problems will become even more difficult. Alan Milburn’s letter of resignation said it all, and so did the Rowntree report. So let us accept the OBR forecast, but let us prove it wrong by implementing our industrial strategy throughout government, throughout society, and throughout business and industry.
The noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, told us that this is a bigger challenge than Brexit. This could well mean perhaps putting Brexit on hold. I agree with my noble friend Lord Livermore that surely it is more productive to have hundreds of our best civil servants, and the £3.7 billion budgeted, working on this instead of on Brexit, when it looks as if we will have to retain most of our existing regulations anyway to keep trading with the EU. I agree with my noble friend Lord Darling that it would also provide time for the Government to unite behind a single policy and decide where we want to be and what that policy is to be.
I want to prove that forecast wrong. So let us change our priorities—and if this Government cannot agree on that, they will have to make way for one who will.
Household Debt
Lord Haskel Excerpts(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Haskel (Lab)
My Lords, I too congratulate the right reverend Prelate on tabling the Question. He really has been a persistent campaigner on household debt. Sadly, he does not seem to have much support from the Government Benches this evening.
In this House, we have frequently heard how household debt is incurred not through reckless spending but by borrowing to pay for the necessities of life and for expenditure on basic living—costs such as food, clothing and accommodation. Quite rightly, noble Lords speak of the risks. The problems of household debt are rarely contained within the household. The risk is that they spill out into the rest of the community and become society’s problems in the form of broken families, disruption of work, homelessness, stress and mental ill-health. These problems are passed on to the next generation. We are told that more than a third of British children will soon be growing up in relative poverty. Surely this transcends left/right politics.
A third of households with serious debt problems have people in work. The Government are proud of the employment figures, but there is something wrong with an economy where working people cannot afford to live. Yes, the Financial Guidance and Claims Bill should help by improving the quality of assistance and, I hope, by providing some respite to desperate people, but such a large number of working households in this kind of financial difficulty must indicate that the minimum wage, tax credits and housing benefits are just not working.
Surely another indication that the system is not working is the fact that four years ago there were hardly any food banks. Today, there are 2,000. Another indicator is the rise of a third in county court judgments regarding consumer debt. Yes, tax credits are being merged into universal credit with the intention of improving the incentives to work, but the right reverend Prelate and several reports have shown that this is not working either.
Economics will not solve this problem quickly. Household incomes are virtually static. Inflation is rising and the recent interest rate rise will not help. The Office for Budget Responsibility has given up forecasting a meaningful rise in productivity. So we fall back on government action. That is why the Government should support the Living Wage Foundation, which encourages companies to pay the voluntary living wage, which is above the national minimum wage. Some 3,600 companies have signed up to it, including some FTSE 100 companies. Many companies have found that it also makes good business sense. The living wage is independently calculated and reflects the real cost of living. Yet many of our largest companies still pay people less than the independently calculated living wage, preferring bogus self-employment or having low pay subsidised by us, the taxpayer, in the face of soaring executive pay and aggressive tax avoidance. No wonder the present system is under attack. Obviously the Government have to get it to work better.
All noble Lords who have spoken have mentioned the concerns of the Financial Conduct Authority. The Monetary Policy Committee is in charge of monetary policy and the Financial Conduct Authority in charge of financial conduct, but clearly they are in conflict. As we have heard, the FCA is very concerned about the rise in private debt. The Monetary Policy Committee is concerned about inflation and the money supply. There is clearly a conflict in achieving both objectives. Have the Government issued any guidance as to where the priorities lie and whose concerns in fairness should take priority? Or are the Government just drifting along hoping for the best and waiting to see what happens?
The right reverend Prelate is right. Insupportable household debt is a big contributor to the economic and social conditions causing the alienation and discontent which have captured our political life. Action is required, and quickly. What are the Government going to do?