Carers: Unpaid Leave
Lord Jones Excerpts(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Lord Callanan (Con)
The noble Baroness makes an important point. As I said, we will look for alternative vehicles to deliver this policy. For the details, we will of course look at any proposals in potential legislation.
Lord Jones (Lab)
My Lords, further to the deeply committed remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, how can we, as a nation, more generously and more widely acknowledge the magnificent contribution of carers—perhaps more than 1.5 million of them in Britain? Is it not a great army that is low paid and yet works so hard every day? Is not caring in a home very demanding of skill and application? Why not institute some form of national awards, perhaps decided by the centre, to encourage and help carers to give even more for those who need?
Lord Callanan (Con)
The noble Lord is absolutely right. Certainly, that is a good suggestion, and I shall take it back for the department to have a closer look at. It would seem like a good idea. I remind the House that we have a substantial programme of support in place—as we saw only recently in the crisis—for carers and others. Low-income households benefit from a means-tested benefit cost of living payment of £650. Those living in the same household as a disabled person for whom they care get £150. Families with a pensioner in the household benefit from a pensioner cost of living payment of £300—and that is just in the latest package of support offered by the Chancellor. So of course there are always other things that we can look at, but we are fulfilling our responsibilities to the caring community.
Boiler Upgrade Scheme (England and Wales) Regulations 2022
Lord Jones Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Lord Jones (Lab)
My Lords, so much detail, so much complexity. I thank the Minister for his introduction to these historic regulations. They presage building operations in pretty well every conventional house in Britain. Perhaps there will have been nothing like it since the immediate post-World War II years, when we addressed the consequences of Göring’s Luftwaffe and Adolf Hitler’s rocketry on our homes and factories.
I served in three Administrations as a young man, and I recognise the nature of these regulations. They are the product of a dedicated department and a concerned Government, and they could have been presented by any concerned previous Government of yesteryear, but now is a unique challenge. The vocabulary and phrasing is reassuring in its familiarity, with the prosaic title and then the vocabulary which we know well: standards, eligibility, budgets, grant values, investigation, offsetting, a code, vouchers and regulation. It is the whole panoply of the reassuring, everyday Civil Service vocabulary that, in fact, describes a quite revolutionary proposition, and one so soon to impinge on the private, ordered, domestic life of pretty well everyone. It is startling that, almost in successive years, our fellow citizens have willingly signed up to lockdown—a kind of partial, self-imposed house arrest—and now to inviting plumbers, heating engineers and inspectors into virtually every one of their traditional houses.
Like many others in your Lordships’ House, I am fully signed up to green, and one cannot argue with the statistics: they are very daunting. Understandably, the Government must do their duty here and take the nation with them, whatever the difficulties. The regulations will go forward. The nation—the planet—faces mighty consequences if the Government do not present regulations such as these. However, in the context of this debate, one can ask: are they appropriate as they stand? I found the regulations’ executive summary and Explanatory Memorandum helpful amid the plethora of challenging small print, but summations raise further questions. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee report, the 32nd of 2019-21, has drawn special attention to these regulations: namely, that they are politically and legally important. Are the Government confident that there will be customer protection adequate to prevent mis-selling? What plans and what detail have the Government prepared to protect the unsuspecting household consumer? Are the regulations overambitious in their targeting?
The scrutiny committee raises doubts aplenty. Is not the 10-point plan flawed? None of this has been done before, and it is a massive challenge to government and every citizen, whose home will be invaded, necessarily, by the regulations. To install 600,000 heat pumps per year is hugely ambitious. This is a project totally new to government, to the trade and, most importantly, to the citizen. Our people are already under huge pressure from inflation and are soon to be impacted by colossal increases in their heating bills. Is not 600,000 heat pumps a year in six years overambitious?
The committee raised the question: where shall the tradesmen, the crafts women and men, the jobbing builder, electrician and plumber come from? There are no such assurances in the regulations. Is it not the case that we already find it hard to gain the prompt services of trades men and women? At paragraph 36, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, in heavy type, draws special attention to this challenge. Reading between the lines, the committee is not at all assured by what the Government plan.
These regulations nowhere refer to the hugely inconvenient domestic consequences for the millions of families who will endure great inconvenience—literally dust, noise and disturbances of every kind. They do not consider the certain, unwelcome impact on the poor, the elderly, the sick and the disabled—indeed, the ordinary and the house-proud. There are to be costs for the citizen so inconvenienced. Surely, since the regulations bear down on virtually every householder, they should have been presented by the Government to the Chamber of the House itself. These issues require full and lengthy examination. Why have they not been taken on the Floor? Perhaps the Minister will respond. The House is not questioning the Minister; this Committee is—and it is rather a naked Committee, if I may say so.
In another place, where I was for 31 years, one’s duties frequently took the elected Member to the older decaying council estates, now referred to as social housing. Successive Governments granted welcome moneys for their modernisation. Often, tenants remained in their homes while all around them work men and women hacked and altered. They lived amid noise, dirt and dust, and their possessions were locked away in distant containers. It was unpleasant, to say the least. The fear is that many tens of thousands receiving heat pumps shall endure the same. What shall the Government do to ameliorate these inevitable problems?
Lastly, the Government are fortunate to have the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, to present these challenging regulations. After all, he negotiated the pitfalls of the Brexit legislation with considerable aplomb. He would have been a marvellous member of the “Test Match Special” team of quite some years ago, alongside Messrs Johnston, Trueman, Bailey and the “Alderman”. The latter described clever defence against good bowling as “nurdling away”. The noble Lord, Lord Callanan, nurdles away so matter-of-factly and skilfully when he takes to the Dispatch Box to present these detailed, complicated regulations.
Lord Carrington (CB)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his clear explanation of how the scheme will work. However, like the noble Lord, Lord Jones, I await the Minister’s response to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s specific comments relating to how the scheme will work in making progress towards the Government’s ambitious target of 600,000 installations by 2028 and on how realistic the Government’s current projections and targets are, given the six-year timetable.
I also want to know from the Minister why there is a seven-week delay in the introduction of the scheme. This causes severe problems for both manufacturers and installers who have geared up for the scheme’s introduction on 1 April. Will the RHI scheme be extended to cover this gap? Can the Minister also confirm that this scheme will run its full course, unlike the green homes grant, and tell us what will happen if the take-up goes beyond 30,000 installations per year? Is funding contemplated for that?
I am also interested in the Minister’s response to the part that other measures and technologies can play in achieving the same ends. Can he provide confirmation that they will receive similar financial support and incentives? Although the financial support that the boiler upgrade scheme will provide is welcome and necessary, it is important to recognise that heat pumps and biomass boilers are just two of a range of technologies that will help us to reach net zero. We need to take into account the diverse nature of the United Kingdom’s stock of domestic and non-domestic properties. This requires us to be flexible in the choices we make regarding the low-carbon solutions that are employed.
For instance, heat pumps are not appropriate or effective in a vast number of properties. Given this, the Government should adopt a technology-neutral approach to the decarbonisation of home heating, ensuring that the most appropriate and suitable solutions are used on a case-by-case basis. BEIS’s figures indicate that, in the off-grid space, roughly 1.7 million homes use fuel oil for heating, while another 220,000 use LPG. For many of these properties, which are often older, uninsulated and listed and where insulating is either unfeasible or extremely challenging, installing a retrofitted heat pump could cost £30,000 or more. Even with the maximum amount of government support, home owners in these instances would be left with a bill for £24,000 or more.
One interesting option for such properties is renewable liquefied gas, a fuel source with almost zero carbon emissions that is made from a range of sustainable feedstocks including food waste. Renewable liquefied gas can effectively utilise existing infrastructure to deliver affordable decarbonisation solutions for both domestic and non-domestic properties. Keeping costs down for the consumer is particularly important in ensuring an equitable transition. Giving too much weight to any one technology, such as heat pumps, risks leaving people behind on the journey to a greener future. I urge the Government to remain open-minded and give due consideration to those homes that are the hardest to decarbonise, where a one-size-fits-all approach is not appropriate.
Exports: Support for Businesses
Lord Jones Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Lord Callanan (Con)
I do not know the validity of those numbers. I will certainly speak to the department and find out whether that is the case, but I take the thrust of the noble Viscount’s question. The export support service acts as a single point of inquiry for businesses and traders. We have expanded the provisions that we are offering. Export Finance, of course, is world leading. We have trade ambassadors based in a whole range of our embassies around the world to help exporters to expand their potential.
Lord Jones (Lab)
My Lords, does the Minister acknowledge the huge contribution made by the British aerospace industry, still a great reservoir of skills and success and perhaps edging beyond £8 billion in its annual exports? What prospects are there for more research grants for this great industry, bearing in mind the exciting possibilities and potential of composites for ever more green flight? Lastly, he might consider a visit to Broughton in north-east Wales, where some 5,000 aerospace workers construct the wings for the successful, world-beating Airbus company. There he would see the consequences of investment, which means more and more British exports.
Lord Callanan (Con)
I totally endorse the noble Lord’s sentiments. The aerospace industry is hugely successful, including at the Airbus site that he referenced in Broughton in north Wales. A number of other companies across the UK are also providing excellent aerospace exports. Of course, we want to do everything that we possibly can to encourage them. The aerospace industry has had a particularly difficult time during the pandemic, with not many people flying anywhere.
Cost of Living
Lord Jones Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Jones (Lab)
My Lords, it is always instructive to follow my noble friend Lord Sikka. I thank my noble friend Lord Whitty for his choice of debate. I know of his union life, when he devilled at the highest level brilliantly for the low waged. As a director of the apparatus of the party, he presented manifestos that sought to enhance the lives of the unemployed and the underprivileged.
Born in 1937 and growing up during World War II and the immediate post-war years, one recollects the frequent complete loss of domestic power for many hours. The great winter of 1947 tormented us all and Lord Manny Shinwell’s Cabinet career collapsed when he could not deliver coal to the power stations. In those days, there was only one warm room in the house; it is a history of when we were all in it together. Of course, there was heating—personal heating by hot water bottle. It was a time when one woke up to ice on the inside of the windowpane and when chilblains denoted the cold house and the bus stop queueing routine, as my noble friend Lord Young recalled.
Much has changed. However, climate change has not abolished the contemporary cold house. The cold house does not add to the hope for human happiness. It destroys morale. It makes the young children therein quarrelsome and can impinge on the everyday health of its tenants. Eating and sleeping in a constantly cold house can be soul destroying. There are households where there is always a wintertime contest between the semblance of warmth and debt—for example, the manipulation of the credit cards that the householder might have. There is the predicament of the low-waged having weekly recourse to the church or chapel food bank. The noble Lord, Lord Bird, has great insights here.
We in your Lordships’ House live here, swathed in our ermine and surrounded by carvings, statuary, murals, Axminsters and gilt. We septuagenarians and octogenarians notice the Chamber temperature and the difference between our Monday sittings and the rest of the week. Our civilisation puts man on the moon and speeds us in five hours from London to Edinburgh, while millions of our fellow citizens live in homes where daily payment and warmth are for ever in consideration.
An Englishwoman’s home is her castle and it should not be a bone-chillingly cold castle. We do not convincingly enable the young single mother, with her several youngsters, to face those six or so draughty, cold months surrounded by warmth. She and they may well be on benefits and, at the grass roots, it is a daily life of difficult decisions and stress. It is wrong, unjust and hurtful to the young ones. How many such households exist? Is it in the tens of thousands? Perhaps it is hundreds of thousands in our nation of 60 million-plus—a nation still fissured by wealth and poverty, class and expectations. Will the Minister make an estimate? If he can, our debate should then have better context.
These households exist in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland as well as in England. As a one-time Prince of Wales said, in the lovely land of Wales—one’s own homeland—something must be done. It is still a truism. Some homes today have had their gas and electricity turned off. Does the Minister have any idea of the numbers? It is a fact that the household budget of even the comfortably off is dominated by major day-to-day outgoings: first, of course, the gas and electricity bills; then the council tax; then the filling of the tank of the still-ubiquitous petrol and diesel cars; and then all those other necessitous direct debits to the public utilities and the ever-growing number of insurers. It is getting harder and harder.
Over many decades, successive differing Governments have offered up bureaucratic, credible alibis on energy, but still the problem remains. The bald, cunning, devious Kremlin gangster has not even started yet. In all this, what of the high-energy-demanding British steel industry? What, indeed, of manufacturing generally?
Shipments of Radioactive Substances (EU Exit) Regulations 2019
Lord Jones Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Henley) (Con)
My Lords, this new instrument is being made under powers set out in Section 8(1) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. It is being made to address specific inoperabilities arising from the UK’s withdrawal from the European Atomic Energy Community —Euratom—and would come into force on exit day only in the event of no deal between the UK and the EU. The instrument corrects deficiencies in retained EU law by revoking and replacing Euratom Regulation 1493/93 on the shipments of radioactive substances between EU member states. This instrument applies to the whole of the UK.
The regulations ensure that advance declarations will continue for shipments of sealed radioactive sources from the EU into the UK in the event of no deal. They enable the UK competent authorities to check that UK importers comply with requirements for the safe storage, use and disposal of sources before shipments are made. This process of advance declarations maintains the oversight of the UK competent authorities of the destinations and recipients of the sealed sources shipped into the UK. Therefore, in relation to imports, the regulations provide continuity for regulators and operators in a no-deal scenario.
The instrument covers the shipment of sealed radioactive sources. This means a radioactive material encapsulated by another material, usually metal, to prevent exposure. Such sources are widely used in industry, agriculture and medicine. Examples include sources to inspect the quality of welds on gas and water pipelines, to kill bacteria in food, to kill cancer cells in medical patients and to sterilise medical equipment. Approximately 100 businesses import radioactive sealed sources in the UK and the vast majority are in England. The regulations do not delay or restrict the UK’s ability to import such sources from the EU as they provide continuity with current practices.
Following exit, UK importers of sealed radioactive sources from the EU will be required, as previously, to make an advance declaration demonstrating that they comply with national requirements for the safe storage, use and disposal of sealed sources before shipments from the EU to the UK can take place. This declaration will be sent to the relevant competent authority in the UK, which will acknowledge receipt as per previous processes. The competent authorities are the ONR for nuclear-licensed sites and the UK environment agencies for non-nuclear licensed sites. The UK importer will then be required to forward the declaration to the EU-based exporter before the shipment can be made. These declarations can last for up to three years and cover more than one shipment. The UK will recognise all declarations made before exit day following the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. Shipments can continue to be made under existing declarations until those declarations expire.
In the event of no deal, the system cannot continue to operate in exactly the same way as now as the UK will no longer be a member state. The instrument maintains current arrangements in so far as possible, with three changes. First, the instrument applies only to imports from the EU into the UK, and will not apply to exports from the UK to the EU. This reflects the UK’s position outside the EU and that this legislation can cover only the arrival of shipments in the UK.
Secondly, the obligation on exporters in EU member states to submit a quarterly return of all shipments will no longer apply. This is because the UK cannot place an obligation on EU exporters to submit a return to a UK-based competent authority.
Thirdly, the instrument places the legal obligation to make an advance declaration on the UK importer, whereas the Euratom regulation placed the legal obligation to obtain the advance declaration on the EU exporter. This technical legal change is made for jurisdictional reasons but makes no difference to what is required of the importer in practice, since it would have needed to provide the information to the exporter. Therefore, requirements for making the declaration for UK importers remain the same.
The changes do not place any additional practical requirements on industry or regulators. We expect a very small, one-off familiarisation cost to all industry of between £1,400 and £9,000. Subject to Parliament’s approval of the regulations, guidance for operators will be published online in March alongside targeted industry engagement. Officials have been engaging with affected operators through various fora and channels, including the Environment Agency’s small users’ liaison group and the Radioactive Substances Policy Group. My department drafted this instrument in collaboration with the devolved Administrations, the UK environment agencies and the ONR.
In conclusion, the regulations are essential to demonstrate the UK’s continuing commitment to the highest safety standards for the control of radioactive substances and to ensure maximum continuity for UK importers. I beg to move.
Lord Jones (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his exposition. I acknowledge that this is a complex and highly technical subject, but it is important to all citizens. I note on the first page of the document that “competent authority” means,
“in Wales, the Natural Resources Body for Wales”.
On page two, some lines down, it states that “shipment”,
“means the transport from the place of origin to the place of destination, including loading and unloading, of sealed sources”.
Should we presume that this refers to a sea voyage, as opposed to a road or rail journey? The word “shipment”, on paper, seems a trifle ambiguous.
In north Wales there are two nuclear power stations: Trawsfynydd in Meirionnydd and Wylfa in Anglesey, or Ynys Môn. I believe that the former is dormant and the latter is to be replaced, although I understand that plans for the new Wylfa are now on hold, which is a cause for concern across the island. It is not my intention to query those issues as such, but can it be presumed that shipment from plants such as these—should there be a need for shipment—would begin by road or rail? As I said, “shipment”, as referred to on page 2, is a trifle ambiguous. I recollect seeing the transportation by rail southwards from north-west Wales of a flask mounted on a rail-wagon frame. The flask, which was large and possibly made of steel or iron, was engaged within the train in just one wagon and was easily identifiable to people like me in the locality as a flask connected with the plants that I have instanced.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister very much for presenting this statutory instrument. Obviously, this is not just a consequence of the Brexit decision but of the Euratom decision, so I put it on record that we regret that it is necessary. In the debate in the other place, this was billed as the last SI connected to Euratom, although I think the next one is as well, so I am not sure how that works. I know that previous SIs have been dealt with by my noble friend Lord Teverson.
I shall raise a couple of points. First, the Minister was clear that this relates to sealed transportation, yet the Explanatory Notes are clear that it covers both sealed and unsealed transportation, so I am a little confused about that. Certainly, in the debate in the other place, the Opposition Front Bench spokesperson also expressed some concern over how these regulations extend into the unsealed transportation—“unsealed” being vials, for example—of nuclear material. I would welcome some explanation from the Minister of why he chose not to talk about unsealed transportation while the Explanatory Notes are clear on that. Perhaps he could spend some time adding detail to that.
The Minister was clear that this is one-way legislation, which it has to be in that it applies to imports from the EU into the UK. It was clear that this affects about 100 concerns in the UK. On reciprocal travel, I am not aware that there is much material of this nature travelling in the opposite direction, but what is BEIS’s analysis of the traffic in the opposite direction, and what impact would that have were the European Union not to reciprocate in equal measure to the way we have gone about continuing the Euratom process?
The noble Lord behind me—I am afraid I do not know his name—
Lord Fox
I guessed it was Wales. The noble Lord mentioned competent authorities, and obviously the ONR is a competent authority to handle this kind of material. What extra competence is required of the environment and natural resource agencies highlighted in the Minister’s speech to manage this process?
Finally—again, this came up in the other place—there was some confusion between the Minister and some MPs in the debate over the ability of this process to continue to track radioactive material as it moves around the United Kingdom. The Minister seemed clear that it was competent to do this, and that was brought into question. The Minister promised to write to the Opposition Front Bench spokesperson on this subject. I am not aware that that letter has gone out but, given that the Minister in the other place saw fit to write on this subject, it would be helpful if the Minister could let us know the content of that letter to underline the competence or otherwise of this process to continue to track these materials as they travel throughout the United Kingdom.
Lord Henley
My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Grantchester, Lord Fox and the noble Lord, Lord Jones, of Wales, as we shall now refer to him, if he is happy—I am sure he will be—with such a grand title.
Lord Henley
I think the less said about last Saturday the better, but that is another matter. I shall start, because of last Saturday, by dealing with the noble Lord’s question, which is pretty straightforward. I can assure him that “shipment” refers to any form of transport. It might have the word “ship” in it, but it also covers trains, which, as he knows, have been used a great deal over the years to move nuclear waste and nuclear materials around all parts of England, Wales and Scotland. Whether by road or whatever, “shipment” covers everything.
I note also what the noble Lord said about Wylfa. Now is neither the time nor the place to go over that again. We hope that something will emerge in due course, but he knows the reasons why that could not go ahead.
I turn to the questions asked by the noble Lords, Lord Fox and Lord Grantchester. On whether the measure covers both sealed and unsealed transportation, I know that my honourable friend Mr Harrington is meeting his opposite number, Dr Whitehead, about that tomorrow. I hope they will be able to resolve whatever uncertainties there were between the two of them on that matter. I hope also that they will be able to follow up the confusion relating to tracking and deal with the letter to which the noble Lord, Lord Fox, referred.
Carriage of Dangerous Goods (Amendment) Regulations 2019
Lord Jones Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Jones (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister again for his exemplary exposition. This is a most important instrument. I look at page 5, under “Interpretation of Part 1”, and I see the words “ionising radiations”, “dose consequences”, “endangered persons”, “exposure” and,
“‘emergency services’ means those police, fire and ambulance services that are likely to be required to respond to the radiation emergency”.
I support what the Minister proposes and I will not detain the Committee but I will give an insight.
Some of your Lordships may have heard of CP Snow, a novelist who ended up in your Lordships’ House and was at one time a Minister under a trade union leader who was a Cabinet Minister, Mr Cousins. As a novelist, CP Snow wrote a series of 11 novels, Strangers and Brothers. One—which I have read, as I have the others—is relevant to these regulations, in a historical sense if no other, and might be of interest to the Minister and his able colleagues in the department who brief him.
The novel in question is The New Men, which describes, clearly based on what had happened, the consequences of an individual receiving an unwanted dosage—that is, a radiation emergency, the words in the regulation. The novel is set in north-east Wales in the small village of Rhydymwyn, where the first steps of Britain’s attempt to make an atom bomb were taken under the cover of chemical substances that were possibly to be used in war. That small village is outside Mold, the county town of Flintshire, and I have always lived within eight or nine miles of it.
Snow describes the scientists who were transplanted from their dreaming spires and assisted by university men from Liverpool and Birmingham, to name but two centres inhabited by the scientists who were making, or attempting to make, our first bomb. Noble Lords may know that the attempts were ended and went lock, stock and barrel to Los Alamos in New Mexico. A former Member of the other place wrote a tract entitled How the Americans Stole Britain’s Bomb. That is not for me to describe further.
The novel that I have been referencing is an attempt by the insightful novelist, who was engaged in science and the upper echelons of the Civil Service, to describe the making of our bombs. These regulations relate to that, and it may occasionally be the duty of any Parliament to consider how a regulation first came about. Once again, the novel is The New Men by CP Snow, part of the 11-novel Strangers and Brothers sequence.
My question, if I may pose it, is: how many shipments, if any, are by road annually? Is there any information that the Minister can give responsibly?
Lord Jones
My Lords, I restate my question: how many shipments, if any, are by road annually? I presume that transportation is inevitably through urban centres. Is the Minister able to give us any detail or information of any responsible kind? The proposals on page 7, looking at emergency plans, are clearly well-considered and very sound, but who oversees them? What arm of the British state is responsible in the end for these emergency plans, when one takes into account the chain of command?
I referred very briefly to the village of Rhydymwyn in the county of Flintshire, where the dosages were first suffered. I conclude by telling the Committee that there was an upshot in 1979. It was a general election, and as a Minister I found myself in the wilds of Meirionnydd, not a million miles from Blaenau Ffestiniog. I was hunted in that locality by the constabulary, on the basis of urgent representations made by officials from my department at that time. They had established that in the proximity of Rhydymwyn, which was making something like mustard gas but deep in the bowels of the buildings, there was the beginnings of a trace of atomic energy. The point was: my officials told me that the road outside that factory had shown evidence of collapse, and very dangerous substance material was feared to be leaking. It did not happen, but that is the context of these words.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing this statutory instrument. I am enjoying the novelty of dealing with one that is not related to Brexit, so it is almost like a holiday among all the others.
I have three points to make. First, I welcome the extension of the definitions of an emergency. Some of those are quite subjective in their description—for example, “quality of life”. I wonder what work has gone on to make sure that an emergency is indeed an emergency, and that transporters are not exposed to unwarranted legal action through what would be described as a loose definition in the Act. What impact analysis has been done on the litigation risk around the looseness of the term?
It was very helpful that the Minister brought up the issue of whether this was in order around the Transfrontier Shipment of Radioactive Waste and Spent Fuel (EU Exit) Regulations 2018. He mentioned that these regulations would in the event automatically be nullified—“nullity”, I think, was the word he used. How is that nullifying process triggered? Is it part of an overall Bill where a group of SIs or parts of SIs are triggered? My sense is that only a part of this SI gets nullified; or is all of it nullified? What is the mechanism for the triggering of its nullification?
The noble Lord, Lord Jones, paints an interesting picture of his home village. I cannot help thinking that it must be very beautiful and he is hell-bent on keeping people out with tales of mustard gas and atomic leaks.
Lord Fox
There is another point to consider. Essential to this is the definition of an emergency worker. Is it someone who is predetermined as an emergency worker? We have heard of the heroic efforts of ordinary engineers and ordinary people during the massive meltdown of the Japanese reactor, and we know that in Chernobyl heroic individuals took it upon themselves to be part of an emergency exercise. Although there is a definition of emergency workers in the SI, it is clear that, if there is an emergency—let us hope it never comes to pass—individuals will become de facto emergency workers by their proximity to what is happening. They perhaps are not covered by these regulations. In any case, how do you limit these people to 500 millisieverts when they are in the middle of an emergency? They do not necessarily have monitoring equipment to hand; they are dealing with an emergency. While this is a useful limit, no emergency is planned, so unless these people are already wearing the necessary monitoring equipment, they will not be monitoring the dose; and if they are accidental emergency workers—if you follow my drift—they will not have that monitoring equipment either. I would welcome the Minister’s response to those three points.
Lord Henley
My Lords, again I thank all three noble Lords for their contributions; in particular I thank the noble Lord, Lord Jones, for his insights on CP Snow, particularly The New Men. It is a long time since I read any CP Snow, but I feel that I must go back and read some.
Lord Jones
May I recommend to the noble Lord Corridors of Power, which delineates activities here in this House?
Airbus
Lord Jones Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Henley
My Lords, my noble friend is right to point out that we are in the middle of negotiations with the Commission, and it is important that we get those right. Obviously, there will not be clarity until negotiations are completed.
Lord Jones (Lab)
My Lords, will the Minister accept that the north-east Wales Airbus factory—6,000 strong—makes a magnificent contribution to Britain’s skills? It does training, high-tech and apprenticeships, directly in the line of Mr Chamberlain’s pre-war factory programme, which was Vickers, Hawker, BAE and now Airbus, which as a factory keeps the global fleet of Airbus aloft. If Britain is to retain her greatness, must not blue-chip companies such as Airbus be assured that their supply chains will be secure after Brexit? I declare my interest in the register.
Lord Henley
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord for emphasising just what skills and talents we have in north Wales; for that matter, we have them in other parts of the country. He was right to bring that to the attention of the House. As I said in earlier answers, we want to make sure that we continue to benefit from those skills, and I think Europe and the rest of the world will want to. That is why we will continue to negotiate as we are.
Small Business Commissioner (Scope and Scheme) Regulations 2017
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Henley) (Con)
My Lords, the purpose of the statutory instrument before us today is to establish further detail about the Small Business Commissioner’s complaints scheme, as well as which small businesses qualify to use the complaints service.
Late payment remains a significant issue in the United Kingdom. According to data on business population estimates published by my department in October 2016, 99.3% of the 5.5 million private sector businesses were small businesses and 99.9% were small or medium-sized businesses.
Latest BACS Direct Credit figures report that the overall level of late-payment debt owed to small and medium-sized businesses stands at £14.2 billion. This is completely unacceptable for the small and medium business sector in the UK, which we all rely on for jobs, goods and services. There is no place for this sort of unfair payment culture in a well-functioning economy.
Provisions in the Enterprise Act 2016 established the Small Business Commissioner. I take this opportunity to welcome Mr Paul Uppal into the role as the United Kingdom’s first Small Business Commissioner, following the announcement of his appointment by my right honourable friend in another place the Secretary of State, Greg Clark, on 2 October this year.
Mr Uppal’s role will be crucial in supporting small businesses to resolve payment disputes with larger businesses and will help drive a culture change in payment practices and how businesses deal with each other. The commissioner will provide general advice and information to small businesses, delivered through the commissioner’s website, signposting businesses to existing support and dispute resolution services.
The website has been specifically developed so it is fit for purpose. My department has received positive feedback that it meets an information and service need currently not met. I can report that development work on the website was completed yesterday and the website will be launched alongside the rest of the Small Business Commissioner’s service before the end of this calendar year, subject to the proceedings before us today. Since the debate in another place on 21 November, the Small Business Commissioner and his team have also begun their programme of stakeholder engagement and have begun recruiting additional staff who will provide support on complaints casework.
The commissioner will be able to consider complaints from small business suppliers about payment issues with their larger business clients and make relevant recommendations. We are aware that small businesses may refrain from making a payment-issue complaint about a larger business for fear of it being detrimental to their relationship—for example, resulting in a threat to terminate their contract or similar bully-boy tactics. The regulations therefore ensure that the commissioner is not required to name the complainant to the respondent. They also allow the commissioner to disapply the condition that the small business making the complaint must talk to the larger business about the complaint before coming to the commissioner, where the commissioner considers that to do so would have a significant detrimental effect on the commercial interests of the small business making the complaint. The Act makes it clear that, in any report on complaints, the commissioner cannot name the complainant unless the complainant agrees to being named.
The commissioner can accept and consider complaints that relate to matters which occurred in the period between 6 April 2017 and the formal launch of the complaints service, as well as those relating to matters occurring after the launch date. This broadens access to the complaints service and will help the Small Business Commissioner gain impetus as soon as the office is officially open for business. The complaints service will launch as soon as possible following Parliament’s approval of these regulations, as has already happened in another place.
The Enterprise Act 2016 sets out the broad framework for the Small Business Commissioner. These measures apply to the whole United Kingdom. These regulations provide further detail about what a small business is for the purposes of qualifying for the commissioner’s services, including the complaints service. The regulations also provide further detail about the complaints scheme itself.
The regulations set out that a business must have a headcount of fewer than 50 staff on one of the assessment dates or during one of the assessment periods to qualify to use the commissioner’s services. They also set out the requirements that must be met before presenting a complaint; the requirements as to the form and content of the complaint; and the time limit for presenting a complaint, and the power of the commissioner to fix and extend time limits and to dismiss complaints. They also set out the matters that the commissioner must take into consideration when determining whether an act or an omission complained about was fair and reasonable, and the factors to be taken into account when deciding whether to identify a respondent in any report of any complaint.
My department consulted on how the Small Business Commissioner would handle complaints between 13 October 2016 and 7 December 2016, and published draft regulations in February this year. We understand that the key message from respondents to the consultation was that the regulations should be simple so that the Small Business Commissioner’s services are as efficient and effective as possible.
The regulations before us will enable the Small Business Commissioner to accept complaints on payment matters from small business suppliers about their larger clients. This is an important part of the Small Business Commissioner’s role in supporting small business. I commend these regulations to the Committee and I beg to move.
Lord Jones (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his pithy introduction. The regulations surely have to be welcomed. It must be good news to many thousands of SMEs. I refer to the register of interests: I am president of Flintshire Business Week and Deeside Business Forum, which sits across the England/Wales border and has some 9,000 jobs. It is based at Deeside Industrial Park, which has 260 companies at least, most of which are SMEs. There is considerable interest from companies such as these in the regulations. Do we yet have a commissioner’s name in mind? Who shall choose? Shall it be salaried? What salary might it be?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I refer to my entry in the register of interests, including my chairmanship of Red Tractor, which helps British branding, including some small businesses, to have their food assured and to sell it into the market.
There was a flurry in the Printed Paper Office this afternoon as some of us sought papers on the Small Business Commissioner. Eventually, we discovered papers entitled “Enterprise”. Of course, small business and enterprise go hand-in-hand. I share a passion for both, as noble Lords may know. It was fantastic to be involved in the passing of the parent legislation for these regulations. I welcome Mr Paul Uppal to his job—I believe he is the new Small Business Commissioner. Perhaps the Minister could kindly tell us a bit about him and why the Secretary of State has appointed him to this vital job for small business. I commend the role of the Federation of Small Businesses in ensuring that the Small Business Commissioner not only is now on the statute book but will be up and running once these regulations have been passed.
While regretting the length of the regulations—although obviously I support them strongly, brevity and simplicity are the most important features of law-making—I am sure that the Minister will keep the regulations and the rules and operation of this important new office under review so that we can ensure that it delivers better payment terms for small businesses in the way we all hope it will.
Steel Industry
Lord Jones Excerpts(7 years ago)
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Lord Jones (Lab)
My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Mendelsohn’s approach to the steel industry. He has put a coherent and positive challenge to the Government in a most committed manner. For Britain to retain her national greatness, we will always need a steel industry. A great nation must have the capability to defend itself in a time of war. The summation of that is the “defence of the realm”. It is hard to envisage a Britain without a steel industry being capable of defending itself from a hostile nation or nations.
I see that steel is a foundation industry. It is the basic industry and all else flows from steel, even in a digital age of global influences. For our armaments, our manufacturing and our services, steel must always be there. Last year, there was a serious question mark over the British steel industry’s future. Port Talbot, a mighty and productive steel plant, was at risk. Port Talbot has had a great steel record in modern times. It has met every challenge concerning productivity, including the challenges of demanning. Today, Port Talbot is a manufacturing linchpin in Wales, and it must remain so. It is a British manufacturing priority and it deserves to remain a respected steel producer worldwide for its workforce to have secure employment and decent pensions.
I pay tribute to my noble and learned friend Lord Morris of Aberavon, who has been a most successful, long-standing advocate for Port Talbot steel, and I see that my noble friend Lord Brookman is in his place. I humbly say that he was a fine leader of the steel workers’ union for many years. Indeed, he was the lion of the Ebbw Vale steel plant, and at the steel plant in north-east Wales he was highly regarded when a general secretary. He faced up to massive changes in Britain’s steel industry and to many tens of thousands of steel redundancies—a great cascade, almost all at once. He faced up to it, like the workforce he led, in a most noble way.
Britain has four nuclear-armed submarines at the heart of our defence strategy. The Ministry of Defence is currently considering the next nuclear-armed submarine defence strategy. For the life of me, I cannot see Britain backing this core defence strategy without a viable, confident, productive steel industry. Surely Her Majesty’s Government will confirm their commitment to a long-term British steel future, especially emphasising the centrality of Port Talbot in British and Welsh steel production. This is surely a strategic requirement.
In the time remaining, I must praise the north-east Wales steel plant of Shotton, which is my homeland. It is a hugely efficient and most profitable plant. The Shotton team is collaborative and co-operative and always delivers on time. It has won recent significant investment, even at a time of great insecurity for steel both in Wales and globally. It deserves its recent vote of confidence. As a finishing plant employing hundreds, it is, of its kind, the jewel in the British steel crown. Whatever the challenge, the Shotton steel team never falters. We remember when in a previous era it employed some 13,000 steel-workers. Historically, ours has been an industrial steel culture.
I see that the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Prior of Brampton, is in his place. In another place, quite some time ago, I recollect a Cabinet Minister bearing the same name. The then Secretary of State James Prior was a good Minister in the early 1980s. I faced him across the Dispatch Box, and in those days he was facing the challenge of retraining and employing tens of thousands of redundant steelworkers. He did his best, always, but surely a viable steel industry is now a matter of national security and a priority.