Nuclear Test Veterans: Medals

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, in 1992, I led a delegation of British parliamentarians to the Maralinga test site. While I very much welcome the award at long last—70 years on—of medals to British nuclear test veterans, I ask the Minister what the position is now on monetary compensation for them and their families. She will know that a study in 1999 found that an extraordinary 30% of these veterans had already died, mostly in their 50s, from cancers and other conditions. This is hardly surprising as air crew were required to fly through the mushroom cloud and servicemen were ordered to walk, run and crawl across the site to see how much nuclear fallout adhered to their uniform.

Moreover, as my noble friend Lord Coaker mentioned, a disproportionate incidence of birth deformities, cancers and infant mortalities has been found in the veterans’ children. Given the arguments that took place between the Governments of the UK and Australia about responsibility for compensation, and given the years of obfuscation by the MoD before it agreed in 1988 to compensate our own veterans, to what extent can the Minister assure the House that appropriate compensation has now been paid? Do the Government intend to take further steps to fulfil any legal and moral obligations to servicemen and their families, to civilian families and to the traditional owners of the lands where the tests took place?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I am glad to have the further experience of the noble Lord. Although I was not aware of his visit, he brings great emotion to this subject, which is very helpful on a day when we have made a great deal of progress in this area. He will know that there is an established process for all veterans, including nuclear test veterans, to be able to claim compensation where they believe they have a service-related condition. Veterans UK has worked with the British Nuclear Test Veterans Association—whom I take this opportunity to congratulate—to develop enhanced guidance to support claimants belonging to the nuclear test veterans community, which is available on GOV.UK.

In addition to the medals, a wider package was announced—the oral history project, which is important in remembering the victims involved. I have taken part in oral history projects and they are extremely valuable, as this one will be for the veterans, their families and everyone else involved. Charities will also be able to bid for a separate £200,000 fund to support activities.

House of Lords (Peerage Nominations) Bill [HL]

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 18th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Norton, warmly for introducing the Bill. I thank, too, the Lord Speaker for reminding Downing Street, on behalf of your Lordships’ House, that it would be an abuse of the spirit of the constitution if the departed Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, were again to flood the House with new creations, possibly ignoring objections to individual nominations by the House of Lords Appointments Commission—a fortiori, outgoing Prime Minister Liz Truss. I also thank the members of the existing Appointments Commission for their determination to maintain propriety in the appointments process.

This Bill is one more measure in a programme of incremental reform of the House of Lords, which has been discussed by many of us across the House over the years and has extensive support. Less than revolutionary though the Bill may be, the enigmatic provisions of Clause 7(3), on “additional criteria”, could point the way to significant and beneficial change. I believe strongly in an appointed House. Were we to have an elected second Chamber, the primacy of the House of Commons would be undermined, and the democratic accountability of the Executive muddied. The question remains, however, of how to achieve recognition by the public of the legitimacy of an appointed House.

The existing Appointments Commission has no statutory basis and is the creature of prime ministerial patronage. The authority that it has derives only from the wisdom and steadfastness of its members. It has minimal influence on the appointment of nominees put forward by party leaders. Rationing by Downing Street has significantly reduced its scope to put forward new Cross-Bench Peers. The size of the House has grown inordinately, with mass appointments of political Peers. Whatever the individual merits of new colleagues, the scale and partisanship of appointments has damaged both the reputation and the functioning of the Lords.

If a statutory appointments commission, an SAC, were to be created, it could do much to address the problem of legitimacy and provide over time a more rationally constituted and respected second Chamber. The way to this is indicated in Clause 7(3), which permits the SAC to propose additional criteria for appointments, and in Clause 7(4), which requires that in so doing it must have regard to the diversity of the UK population. It is essential that, as the Bill provides, such criteria are approved by both Houses of Parliament. My hope is that the SAC, in proposing further criteria, would be bold in its proposals. It should invite Parliament to task it to construct a second Chamber, the composition of which provides not only gender balance but a due representation of minorities, age groups and the regions and nations, as well as a spread of occupational and cultural backgrounds. A method should be determined for addressing the difficult issue of how to establish an appropriate balance of the parties in the House of Lords, within the overall requirement of this legislation that no one party may have an absolute majority. An appointed Chamber thus reconstituted, on a basis explicitly approved by the House of Commons, would have legitimacy while being no threat to the democratically elected House.

This reform may be difficult to reconcile with unfettered discretion for party leaders to appoint to the Lords whoever they and their parties wish. That freedom should be subordinated, in the interests of parliamentary democracy, to an overriding duty for the SAC to achieve a suitable balance of skills, backgrounds and party allegiance. It should be accepted, therefore, that the SAC will have a greater power than HOLAC to say no.

Then there is the question of the timescale of the transition, which the Bill does not address. The challenges we face are pressing, and there are other schemes afoot for replacing this House with an institution altogether different. If we are to preserve an appointed House, reform of it had better not be as glacial as Lords reform usually is. We should start by approving this Bill.

European Union (Future Relationship) Bill

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

3rd reading & 2nd reading & Committee negatived & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, critics complain that Brexit and the trade and co-operation agreement will somewhat reduce economic growth, but should maximising growth be paramount? They regret too that we will lose freedoms to study, to start a business, to live; even, the Observer laments, to fall in love in Europe. Those who foresee such a diminished life for us ignore that we will regain a fundamental freedom: the freedom to make our own laws, in our own Parliaments, accountable to our own citizens, with those laws applied in our own courts, subject to no foreign jurisdiction. That parliamentary sovereignty is the great prize.

There has been much misrepresentation of the concept of sovereignty. The term does not denote untrammelled freedom of action; all nations operate within constraints—of physical and economic reality, power politics, the need to negotiate and compromise. The point is obvious and banal. It is not a ground for deriding Britain’s reassertion of sovereignty, properly understood as the right to legislative autonomy and self-government. As democrats, we should treasure sovereignty. Some who oppose Brexit deplore invocation of sovereignty as populism, a fantasy of British exceptionalism, anachronistic, a slide into isolation and ugly nationalism. It should not be any of those things. To reclaim our sovereignty is to articulate anew the liberal constitutionalism that led us over centuries to develop parliamentary government. If British exceptionalism means a proud and tenacious attachment to parliamentary democracy, I embrace that exceptionalism now and for our future.

Why do politicians who applaud the assertion of democratic values in other countries regard it as retrograde in our own? Why do they assume that as a self-governing democracy we will not enter alliances with mutual obligations for mutual advantage, working with the European Union and across the globe on the great issues that require international co-operation, honourably observing international law?

Since the 1970s, we have witnessed, with sadness and foreboding, a growing disaffection from Westminster. It has been no coincidence that this has happened since the enactment of the European Communities Act 1972. There have been other sources of political disaffection for sure, but the fact that Westminster alienated sovereignty—abdicating to Brussels its responsibility to govern across a broad range of policies—has been a primary one. Westminster now has the opportunity to recover the respect of our people. This is Britain’s opportunity for democratic renewal. I say to my friends who are despondent: we only need faith in our democratic capacity, confidence that we can govern ourselves successfully and ambition to be a model to the world.

UK-EU Negotiations

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

My Lords, consideration on security matters is obviously ongoing. The safety and security of our citizens is the Government’s top priority. We obviously hope for a negotiated outcome in every area and have had constructive exchanges with the EU on future co-operation in this area. I do not believe that there is a reason to think that such an agreement should be beyond us.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the fact that we are negotiating free trade agreements in parallel with the USA and Japan is serving to concentrate the minds of EU negotiators, who are beginning to show more pragmatism. Will not this process of parallel negotiations strengthen our ability to achieve satisfactory environmental and animal welfare standards in all our free trade agreements?

[Lord True]

My Lords, as he often does, the noble Lord has made a cogent and powerful point. The United Kingdom Government are obviously negotiating in good faith for a free trade agreement across the board on merit because we believe that free trade is of the greatest possible benefit in improving conditions for people across the world. Of course, if the different parties with whom we are negotiating wish to make cross-calculations, that is entirely a matter for them. However, I can certainly assure the noble Lord—the Prime Minister has been absolutely explicit on this—that our commitment to environmental standards and to standards generally will not be weakened by any of the negotiations that we are undertaking.

EU: Trade and Security Partnership

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True [V]]

My Lords, the noble Baroness refers to some very important factors in our international relationships. Mr Frost is doing an excellent job for his country, in line with the decisions of Parliament and the people. As for wider foreign policy, I alluded to that in the previous answer.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, as the EU grasps that we will not extend the transition period, will it not recognise that it is very much in its own economic interests to set aside ideology and make a free trade deal? In any case, is it not absolutely in our interest not to be tied into contributing billions to the Commission’s new budget and subsidising a eurozone economy that was in dire trouble even before the pandemic?

[Lord True [V]]

My Lords, I try not to criticise any aspect of the European Union from this Dispatch Box but, that apart, I agree with that the noble Lord has just said.

Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill [HL]

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 13th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Bird, made a powerful and deeply felt speech. In introducing his Bill, he calls in Wales to redress the balance of the United Kingdom. Rightly, he challenges us to be more responsible, more far-sighted, more cohesive and more altruistic in our policy-making. The prototype legislation in Wales has induced that approach. My noble friend Lady Wilcox described how that has been the case in Newport under her leadership.

These are dark times. We stumble around doubting the ability of democracy to address looming existential risks, such as the cumulative effects of austerity, child poverty and the cycle of deprivation. There is debt, global population increase and mass migration, artificial intelligence and the consequences of our technological ingenuity far exceeding our wisdom. There are nuclear weapons, biological warfare, terrorism, pandemics—natural or engineered—and systemic financial vulnerability. There is toxic waste, loss of biological diversity and climate change. We fear, if not the extinction of human life, the extinction of the human spirit in the dystopias of political malice created by the likes of Putin, Trump, Modi, Bolsonaro and Orbán, or in the spiritual deserts of addictive behaviours and mass consumerism.

The philosopher Toby Ord has noted in his book The Precipice that whereas in the past the prospect of apocalypse arose from divine wrath or natural cataclysm, the existential risks that we now foresee are man-made. We bring our woes upon ourselves but, with better policy-making, we can in principle save ourselves.

Why is it so difficult for enlightened policy—for preventive policy—to prevail? One difficulty is that even on a basis of research, evidence and rigorous thought, with the best of intentions, people do not agree about what an enlightened policy is. The cleverest plans are found wanting in the face of life’s complexity and unpredictability. There is also the problem of what Christian theology terms original sin—perhaps the one empirically verifiable Christian doctrine. Improvidence, greed, cruelty, fatalism, cynicism and despair are ineradicable from the human condition. Political leadership should appeal to the better part of human nature, as Jacinda Ardern seeks to do, but too often it does not. Politicians, and even officials, are no less fallible than those they seek to lead.

So long as we have elections, or until enough voters become more altruistic and far-sighted, the electoral cycle will induce short-term views. There are institutional factors that we could, however, ameliorate. One is the fragmentation of government across Whitehall and the border warfare between central, devolved and local government within the UK. The Bill would help us to do that. But then, if we co-ordinate better internally, what can one country on its own achieve without a transformation in international co-ordination?

The Bill also raises constitutional difficulties. It is highly centralising. Who will hold this powerful commissioner to account? It thrusts yet more greatness on the judges. Who will speak for future generations? Perhaps your Lordships’ House: we all love our grandchildren, but I am not sure Extinction Rebellion would accept that.

I do not want to fall into the sin of despair. This model of legislation has been beneficial in Wales and we should be thinking very seriously about how we can better serve the well-being of future generations. I hope the Government’s commission on the constitution will address itself to better enabling us to do that. The noble Lord, Lord Bird, presents us with a very proper challenge.

EU: Future Relationship

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

My Lords, I thought I had said in the Statement and afterwards that they will be approached in terms of mutual respect. But mutual respect and friendship—as I think my noble friend will understand from our happy relations in this House—does not always mean absolute identity on everything.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Lord to the Dispatch Box very warmly. May I tempt him to enter into the philosophical discussion? Was not the very point of Brexit that we should reclaim that part of our sovereignty that we lent to the European Union, and does not the sovereignty of a democratic state reside in its ability to make its own laws in its own Parliaments and Assemblies, accountable to its own people? The sovereignty of that people also resides in their ability to have those laws applied and interpreted in their own courts. To reclaim sovereignty is therefore not to advance propositions about power in international relationships or economic independence. It is simply about the right to national autonomy.

That being so, is it not inconceivable that the Government should accept the principle of dynamic alignment, thereby tying a democratically elected Government in this country in the future to accept whatever new regulations and laws might be promulgated by the institutions of the European Union? Should not the EU therefore, if its negotiators really care about the well-being and prosperity of its peoples, move quickly to agree a trade deal that involves no tariffs or quotas, and enables us to pursue the friendly, co-operative and mutually advantageous trading arrangements that surely we all should seek?

[Lord True]

Yes, I very much agree with the noble Lord’s analysis but I think that the House, when it has a Minister for a brief time, does not want a philosophical discussion. But I take his side in the discussion that he will no doubt have with the noble Lord afterwards, and agree with what he said. Our objective is to have a free trade agreement; that is what we have asked for and what the EU once offered. It is my hope that we will get there and have the other agreements that the Statement refers to as well. Our approach is based on a precedent that the EU has accepted with other nations. We see no reason why it should not be accepted. The EU has not asked for the kind of alignment that the noble Lord referred to in a number of other agreements that it has already accepted.