Steel Industry

Lord Moylan Excerpts

2nd reading
Saturday 12th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, during the speech of my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral, I carefully watched the Labour Benches and, when he made some moderate criticisms of the Government, he faced what might be described as a certain degree of genteel barracking. What I did not see on the faces of those on the Labour Benches opposite was any suggestion or hint of apology—an apology, first of all, for rushing this legislation through Parliament with practically no scrutiny, when it, or something like it, must have been foreseeable in recent weeks. There is no apology at all for the policies chosen to implement net zero, which have included ramping up the price of electricity to an unprecedented level, and one that has no comparison in similar economies—as explained with such patience by my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford. There has been no apology for the incompetence of their negotiations. An insight into their negotiating ability has already been given to us in relation to the Chagos Islands, and now we see something similar happening with the steel industry. There has been no apology for their recent resultant decision to block the domestic mining of coal fit for coking. This is no way to treat Parliament and no way to treat our industrial sector—and no way to treat the workers involved and their families.

I accept that there may be a case for extraordinary measures in the case of steel production, for the reasons set out—I thought quite well—by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, in relation to defence and the needs of our industry more broadly. What I am not persuaded of is the assertion that steel is somehow exceptional. There may be a case for that but, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, pointed out, the case needs to be made and, so far, the Government have done nothing but assert it. Even the speech just now from the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, did nothing but assert what is so special about steel. What about other industries under threat from high electricity prices? What about glass, chemicals, cars and concrete? Do the Government have a plan? Are these extraordinary measures that we are taking today part of a strategy, or are they simply the result of panic?

The Bill itself is remarkable. It is not in fact nationalisation, as the Minister was keen to point out. It is in some ways almost worse: it is the confiscation and control of a private company, for whatever reasons, with no safeguards and no sunset clause, as things currently appear. Who knows—one may be inserted in the Bill before it completes its passage.

I conclude with a question that illustrates the rush with which the Bill has been prepared. In Clause 3(4)(a), the Bill allows the Secretary of State to enter the premises “using force if necessary”. I am curious to know whose force he is going to use; he does not have a force at his own disposal. The Bill does not give him powers to direct police forces to enter the premises and creates no provision, that I can see, whereby he can apply to the court for something that would allow bailiffs to operate. I would simply like to know, as a practical matter, how the Secretary of State is going to exercise this power to use “force if necessary”, should the owners of the factory choose to close the doors in his face.

Steel Industry (Special Measures) Bill

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Committee stage
Saturday 12th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Freeman of Steventon (CB)]

My Lords, I speak very briefly to my Amendment 2. Clause 3(4) makes it clear that the Secretary of State has power to enter premises and make orders on the premises, but the wording in subsection (4)(a), in which it says that

“the Secretary of State may … be accompanied by any person”

could be read to imply that the powers are invested in the Secretary of State in person—that is, that the Secretary of State themselves would need to be present on the premises. After speaking to the Public Bill Office, I wanted to give the Government the opportunity to clarify that a designated representative of the Secretary of State would be imbued with these same powers, so that any intransigent company could not seek to delay government action by demanding that the Secretary of State was present in person.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I rise on the back of that very interesting amendment to take the brief opportunity to ask again the question that I asked when we debated the Bill earlier today, which relates to the same clause of the Bill—namely, when the Bill says that the Secretary of State has the power to exercise force on entering premises, which force in practice would he intend to use? The Bill gives him no power to direct chief constables; it would be practically, and probably constitutionally, improper for him to send civil servants from his department to force entry into premises. There is also no provision in the Bill allowing him to seek a warrant that would result in bailiffs being able to enter the premises.

I genuinely want to know how, in practice, the Secretary of State would exercise force. When I asked that question in today’s earlier debate, I did not get a satisfactory answer—or, indeed, any real answer at all. I have no doubt that, now that the Minister has had the opportunity to discuss it with the Attorney-General, who is sitting next to her, it may be possible that she can answer me in her response to this debate.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to the amendment tabled in my name. I am conscious of the extraordinary powers that are being granted to the Secretary of State today.

I will briefly speak in response to the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Freeman of Steventon. It is my understanding, having been in government, that anything in the name of the Secretary of State can be automatically delegated to a civil servant, but it cannot go beyond that. As we have seen in a number of cases, civil servants already have some powers to gain entry, but only in relation to specific Acts of Parliament—so perhaps this amendment would give a wide-ranging element.

This is clearly not an occasion to use the Civil Contingencies Act, but something that surprises me about this Bill is that the powers being given to the Government and the Secretary of State today are extraordinary and go way beyond what happened with the Coronavirus Act 2020. The inspiration for my amendment comes from the Bill that was presented to Parliament then. It set out that, to have scrutiny, a report would be put forward by the Secretary of State—over several periods, not just a year—and that there would be a debate on that report. Having a report matters because it would bring together how the powers have been used: have they been used in the way that both Houses anticipated? It may even extend to the provision of how the finances would be distributed for the regulations we have yet to see.

Overall, it is important that, when we give these powers for just one industry—I guess that if we were to name the company it would end up being a hybrid Bill, so that has been deliberately avoided to make sure that it covers the entire steel industry—we should be able to have regular discussions, not simply because this is the steel industry but due to the scale of the powers being granted. To that end, that is why I have literally lifted, with a bit of adjusting, what happened in the Coronavirus Act. Frankly, for something that took over our country in such an unprecedented way, I hope that the Government would concede to think carefully about how they will report back to this House and how this House can be involved.

Online Safety Act 2023 (Category 1, Category 2A and Category 2B Threshold Conditions) Regulations 2025

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, this is a regret amendment, and the conduct of Ofcom and the Government on this matter is surely deeply regrettable, for all the reasons that have been given by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Morgan and Lady Kidron. The treatment of small but high-risk services in these regulations simply frustrates the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, to Schedule 11, which was approved by this House and accepted by the Government in the Commons. It contradicts what the Minister, Mr Scully, said in the Commons when he accepted the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, approved by this House, and it fails to address the mischief in this context, which the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and others have clearly identified. I, too, would like to see or even to understand what possible legal advice has led to this lamentable position. The impact of the service does not—it cannot—depend only on the number of users. That was the whole point of the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan.

The Minister suggested two arguments, as I understood her, but it is not good enough for her to say—if I may respectfully say so—that small services are still unable to act in an illegal manner. The Act is, of course, designed to provide further regulation—especially so because the criminal law is, regrettably, a blunt and slow instrument. Nor am I persuaded by the Minister’s suggestion that it is simply too difficult to draft regulations to address small but high-risk services. I simply do not accept that the expertise of the department and parliamentary counsel cannot come up with an appropriate regulation to address this mischief.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I wish to speak to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, in relation to Wikipedia in particular. Noble Lords who took part in Committee on the Bill will recall that on several occasions I asked the Minister at the time—now my noble friend sitting on the opposition Front Bench—whether Wikipedia would be in scope of the regulation and, if so, whether it would have consequences which would make it impossible for Wikipedia, a charity, to continue with its existing model. My noble friend was unable at the time to say that; he said it would be a matter for the regulations and, indeed, for the regulator. Now here we are, nearly two years later, and we have some regulations, and I have the same question to put to the Minister on the Front Bench today. It appears to me—I must say that I have no interest to declare other than that I am an inveterate user of Wikipedia—and as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said, that we are still left in a state of confusion about this. Regulation 3 says that for large sites—those with more than 34 million users—two criteria have to be met. One is that it has that number of users or more, and the other is that it

“uses a content recommender system”.

In paragraph (2), a content recommender system is broadly defined; for example, it says that it is not simply algorithms by means of machine learning but algorithms by machine learning or “other techniques”. The verb is not simply “determines” but

“determines, or otherwise affects, the way in which regulated user-generated content of a user, whether alone or with other content, may be encountered by other users of the service”.

Wikipedia indeed uses techniques for sending people articles and information that relate to what they have shown an interest in in the past. Would it be caught or not? What are the consequences of Wikipedia being caught? There are many, but I would like to test one out on noble Lords. I do not claim that this is definitive law, because, I suspect, much of the Act will need to be determined in the courts before we know what the definitive interpretation is.

Let us take as an example the case of some loathsome foreign dictator or other such character whose article on Wikipedia is less flattering than he might wish it to appear and he has a complaint about this. Wikipedia will consider it and then probably throw it in the waste-paper basket. If he seeks by some means to change the content of the article, of course, the editors of Wikipedia, who are a distributed network largely of volunteers, will intervene to change it back and try to ensure that it still reflects what is known to be reality. But under Section 64 of the Online Safety Act, one may apply to become a verified user. Obviously, I do not expect the loathsome person himself to apply to become a verified user; there will be some stooge, some student, some trainee or some character somewhere willing to register on their behalf who could then change the article, but because they are a verified user, under Section 15(10)(a) of the Act, they would acquire immunity to peer review. What they wrote on Wikipedia could not then be changed by the editors, because they were a verified user and had that protection.

I offer that as a genuine possibility. Noble Lords know that I am not a lawyer. This could be tested in the courts and found otherwise but, on the face of it, it appears that this sort of consequence would accrue. So I come back to the same question that I have been asking to no real effect now for two years. Perhaps when she comes to reply, the Minister can give me a definitive answer. Is Wikipedia in scope of this regulation? Is it covered by Section 3 or not? We would like to know.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, often in this House one is tempted to wander down memory lane and is filled with wonderful memories of good times and shared experiences, but none so present as the one that was referred to by the noble Baroness when she spoke earlier about the Online Safety Bill. I felt resonances up and down my back as I remembered the moment at which I decided that there was no point in reading my speech at Second Reading, which was full of sound and fury, full of anger, full of things that I was determined to see in the Bill, but realised that we all agreed about it and that the best thing was to say simply that we would work together to get the best Bill that we could out of the resources available across the House—and they are significant. As we have heard today, that worked—or it did until today.

I am very sad that I feel I will have to support the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, in only my second appearance against my party. I felt very strongly that we had an agreement in the last Parliament, signed, sealed and signified by both Houses and agreed to by the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, who is in his place. It bound any successor Government to operate within the terms of that Act. I find it egregious that the Government are seeking a way of not doing that, for reasons that I can only guess at but seem to be more about winning friends in strange places across the Atlantic than seeing the best for our people, particularly our children, in the United Kingdom.

There is an irony in that there would have been a way of avoiding this. I do not want to embarrass the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, again, but we adopted towards the end of the Bill what I called the Parkinson rule, and rightly so because I felt that he was brave in proposing it. It was not the convention of the time, nor a structure or system that fit well within our current procedures in this House. The intention was to recognise the complexity and difficulty in the Online Safety Bill, now Act, and to invite the Government to share with the Select Committees of both Houses —the SIT Committee in the Commons and the Communications and Digital Committee in the Lords—draft material relating to the Online Safety Bill because we had a hunch that there would be issues that would need to be hammered out more clearly and more effectively than the arrangements for dealing with secondary legislation in this House currently allow. That might change, but until it does there is no way in which we can debate and discuss except through a regret amendment—or, as one might have been tempted to do on this occasion, through a fatal Motion—to an instrument which clearly has come out wrong, does not reflect the wishes of the House and may do damage which ultimately will end up in people’s lives. The responsibility will lie with the Government if they do not listen to what we are saying today.

The Parkinson rule was accepted by the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson. I quote from Hansard, although not entirely because there are some reservations which I want to skip over, though I am sure that they can be checked out. He said that the Government would

“ensure that the relevant committees have every chance to play a part in that consultation by informing them that the process is open”—

which is good—and that they would

“where possible, share draft statutory instruments directly with the relevant committees ahead of the formal laying process … on a case-by-case basis, considering what is appropriate and reasonably practical”.—[Official Report, 19/7/23; cols. 2351-52.]

That system has not been implemented by the Government.

I wrote to my noble friend the Minister while she was ill, and she has very kindly responded to me. She says she feels that the spirit of the agreement has been carried out in how the Government told both committees that there were statutory instruments on the way and that this was sufficient to meet the implications of the Parkinson rule. Given that three days’ notice was given before they were laid, that does not meet the requirement.