London Airport: New Runway

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I was going to say that my noble friend’s timing was impeccable—almost. He is quite right to say that now that we have the Davies commission report, as I said yesterday in repeating the Statement of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State, it is right that the Government should now consider carefully the very detailed and balanced report. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister said yesterday during Prime Minister’s Question Time:

“The guarantee that I can give … is that a decision will be made by the end of the year”.—[Official Report, Commons, 1/7/15; col. 1473.]

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, surely the challenge for government in the immediate term is utilising best the airport capacity that we have? Stansted’s runway is only 50% used and it has a useless rail link that is slow and unreliable. Should not the Government be investing in that rail link to make sure that that capacity is used first and used effectively?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Lord raises a very valid point and we are looking at areas of surface transport. He will be well aware that the commission made an interim report. Various recommendations came out of that on improving certain facilities: for example, the station at Gatwick Airport is being improved. Issues were raised about road networks, which is part of our investment strategy, and regional airports such as Birmingham and Bristol are, among others, receiving support in terms of improving the surrounding road network.

Davies Commission Report

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating this important Statement, which was delivered by the Secretary of State for Transport in the other place. The Official Opposition join with him in thanking Sir Howard Davies and his team for the vital work they have done since 2012 in producing this very important report.

I take this opportunity to praise Heathrow and Gatwick for the campaigns they have run in recent years which have been educative for the public and have often been conducted with an eye to giving information rather than just propaganda.

This substantial work has got one very important feature. Sir Howard Davies has proceeded to a clear recommendation:

“A new Northwest Runway at Heathrow delivers more substantial economic and strategic benefits than any of the other shortlisted options, strengthening connectivity for passengers and freight users and boosting the productivity of the UK economy”.

Aviation plays a very substantial role in our economy and it has the potential to play a greater one. The sector employs hundreds of thousands of people, contributes more than £50 billion to our GDP and pays the Exchequer more than £8 billion every year in tax revenues. But we know that the growth of our aviation sector is at risk. Heathrow has been full for 10 years; Gatwick will become full over the next five. It is therefore quite clear that we need additional capacity. That is the case made by Sir Howard Davies in the report but, as the Minister indicated, there are details regarding the report that we need to consider.

We, as the Opposition, present the following tests which we think need to be met so that the public can have confidence that this is the right way to move forward. The recommended expansion in capacity must go hand in hand with efforts to reduce CO₂ emissions from aviation, allowing us to meet our legal climate change obligations. We also need to ensure that local noise and environmental impacts have been adequately considered, and will be managed and minimised. The benefits of expansion must also be felt in every corner of the country, including any infrastructure, employment and supply chain benefits; regional airports must be supported, too. If these conditions can be met, it is quite clear that it is in the long-term interests of the country to carry out the report’s main recommendation. I therefore hope the noble Lord will appreciate that, given strenuous efforts to ensure that these tests are met, the Official Opposition will support the construction of an additional runway at Heathrow.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, this is a worthy report but I suppose we could say, “Here we go again —another report on the airports of south-east England and another recommendation for Heathrow”. There has also probably been another not very ringing endorsement of such a report. A Statement that says in almost its last sentence:

“It deserves respect and consideration”,

is hardly a ringing endorsement from the Government.

The Liberal Democrat position is very different from that of the Official Opposition, in that we believe there is no need to expand airport and runway capacity in the south-east. One thing to illustrate that is in the report itself, which clearly states that airports in the south-east will reach full capacity in 2040. That is 25 years ahead. We certainly need to plan ahead on major infrastructure projects in this country but some 25 years ago, back in 1990, I was lucky enough never to have seen an email and I certainly did not have a smartphone. I had also never participated in a videoconference, which is perhaps more relevant. Over that time, Stansted, which has capacity, has increased its ability to take extra flights.

Yes, Heathrow is full. As the Minister said, it has been full for 10 years. In fact, it has always been full but you manage businesses, as Heathrow and other airports do, by making sure that your fixed assets are fully used. If you have an asset that is not being fully used, you are not managing it properly. Airport capacity will clearly be used as much as it can be and we will find that at Heathrow, as a prime airport in the UK. We would no doubt quickly find that it was true with a third runway as well.

I now move on to the fourth runway, which the report goes into. There is an illustration here of how the report looks at the future. It says categorically that,

“there is no environmental or operational case for a fourth runway at Heathrow”.

If that is the case, I find it difficult to understand why the third is so important, given that Heathrow salespeople, if they are up to their measure, will make sure that the capacity of the third runway is used fully and as soon as possible.

Heathrow is irresistible. Asking for a fourth runway is irresistible to the management of Heathrow, as they asked for terminal 5 after terminal 4. What the report really says is that Heathrow is in the wrong place. If the environmental or operational issues are wrong for a fourth runway, a third runway is clearly wrong now.

On climate change, we can be very proud of a 20% reduction in emissions since 1990, yet airline emissions in the UK have gone up by some two-thirds. Is that compatible or is it a contradiction of policy, given that the Government have, quite rightly, committed themselves to the climate change policies and budgets of the Climate Change Act 2008?

On air quality, page 196 of the report states that,

“none of the schemes improve air quality compared to a scenario where no expansion takes place”.

On connectivity, I agree that there is a real issue around regional airports being squeezed out by Heathrow, but the report recommends that the Government should be prepared to use public service obligations. There is nothing in there saying that these should be mandatory.

On noise, the reports states that,

“an independent aviation noise authority should be established with a statutory right”,

which sounds very strong, but it concludes with “to be consulted” over noise levels in the west. That is clearly another very weak recommendation.

I have two questions for the Minister. It is said that this autumn’s decision will give a clear direction. Will there be an actual decision in October? Most importantly, the Statement says that,

“we will need to decide on the best way for achieving planning consents quickly and fairly if expansion is to go ahead”.

Will the Minister confirm that that “if” is still an option?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, for his support for the Statement. I join him in extending thanks to all involved in the report. He and the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, raised issues around climate change. In the short time we have had to digest quite an extensive report, I am sure that both noble Lords will acknowledge that the commission has done a great deal of work on looking at how threats to the environment and to air quality can be mitigated. Certainly, the Government will look at those elements as part of our decision on the report.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies, also raised local concerns and the impact on the local community. Indeed, he may have noted the suggestion in the report for a local community board to be established, which would evaluate the impact of any expansion and its operation. It is not unprecedented: I am sure the noble Lord is aware that Amsterdam Airport Schiphol operates a similar board for local interests. His point about local, regional airports was also raised by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. Of course, as the Statement said, and as the report acknowledges, this is not just about the south-east and London; it is about the country. The issue of our regional airports is important and the Government will respond accordingly, but the report has dealt with that issue.

The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, asked about October and the question of “if”. I am not going to give a commitment at the Dispatch Box on what the Government’s decision will be, but the Government have said we will press ahead. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State and, indeed, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister have today both stated the importance of moving forward on this and we will return to the issue with the Government’s review in the autumn.

Severn Bridge: Tolls

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

Crossings in Scotland are a devolved matter, as the noble Lord is aware.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, will the Minister put travellers’ minds at rest and confirm that over the period of this Parliament the Government, through Highways England, will not introduce tolls on new roads in England? Clearly, tolls are a blunt instrument and should not be used for roads because they divert traffic—just as, indeed, the tolls over the Severn have diverted a lot of traffic through the villages of Gloucestershire.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I am sure the noble Lord is aware that where tolls are used, there is a specific purpose. As I have already said, the issue concerning the crossing we are discussing relates to ongoing maintenance. As far as the Government’s commitment to the roads programme is concerned, I am sure the noble Lord is aware that we have already committed to £24 billion-worth of road improvements, and that will continue over the next five-year period.

North of England: Transport

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I regularly travel up from the south-west of England to Newcastle. I get on a cross-country train quite regularly that literally wanders through the area of the north of England that we are talking about at the moment, through Sheffield, Wakefield, Westgate, Leeds, Doncaster, Darlington and Durham—if am lucky, in that order. One thing I am not subjected to is to have to make the trip on a Pacer train. I am sure that the commuters of the north will be very interested to hear from the Minister whether those Pacers have an unlimited lifespan under government plans for the north. We hope that they do not.

One of the other things about this debate—it was echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Prescott—is that there will probably be very little disagreement about the plan around the House. The report that this debate is based on was a coalition government report which was based on previous reports from previous Governments. The challenge is to move on. However, it is quite clear that there is a problem.

I looked at some figures from the LSE while preparing for this debate. We have looked at the so-called long boom of 1992 to 2007 and found that GVA growth in the south generally—which included the east Midlands but not the West Midlands—was 4.5% per annum. In London it was as high as 5.6%, but in the north it was down at 2.9%. Over that period, there has been a long divergence. Importantly, the metropolitan areas outside London provide only some 27% of English GVA, which is much less than equivalent cities elsewhere in Europe and European Union member states. There is an imbalance there. Quite strangely, and counterintuitively, although a large number of international companies locate themselves in London, if they do not locate there then they tend to locate in urban and even in rural areas rather than in England’s other metropolitan areas. Traditionally, the metropolitan areas outside London have been low job creators and had lower productivity, so there is a need to mend that gap. In the old days we used to call it regional policy. That is what I called it as an economics student, but for some reason we do not like the phrase these days. It smacks too much of planning and all sorts of things that I suspect this Government would not particularly like.

The theme that I want to expand on is based on the optimistic assumption that this investment programme will go ahead. With the highways reorganisation and the fact that we have control plans for railways, there is certainly a much greater probability that these investments will take place. I want to look at the type of investment and how we might implement it. In terms of developing countries, we often talk about leapfrogging technologies in energy, telephony systems and IT. One of the important aspects of this investment in transport in the north is that we should try to leapfrog ahead of the current technologies. Reading through the plans at the moment, I am not sure that that is being sufficiently considered.

In Manchester, we already have the example of what is probably one of the best tram systems and networks in Europe, let alone the UK. We have HS2 heading for the north, a topic that I will come back to. I was very pleased to see the inclusion of smart information systems that are needed for transport systems to be successful in any region. Reading the report, however, we see that there is a huge amount to do in resolving legal contracts and conflicts in those systems. All that needs to be sorted out and will take some time. Of course rail and interconnectivity are also talked about but, beyond that, there are some missing areas.

However good the rail system, cars and motor transport will continue to be important, particularly in a region that stretches over the distances we are talking about here. It seems that there is no discussion of clean-car technologies. In London, although provision is still poor, we have something like 850 charging points for electric vehicles, while the figure in Manchester is still in the 300s. The system in Paris, for example, has moved on from its equivalent of the “Boris bike” to an electric car-sharing service which was formed in 2011. It sounds pretty wacky and zany in many ways but it has in fact been remarkably successful, with 150,000 members, 4,000 charging points and something like 1,500 vehicles. Should we not look at testing, establishing and running a similar system in the northern powerhouse, rather than relying on old technologies? The company running the Paris system is starting to look at establishing itself in London, but let us move it abroad. The Government are investing something like £19 million in driverless vehicle research. This may be looking rather further ahead but I note that, of the four schemes planned for that research, none is in the north. Surely we should be encouraging that area of experimentation for future economic development.

I have not really seen anything mentioned about cycling. Clearly, very few people are going to cycle from Manchester to Leeds—it is challenging enough to cover the short distances involved where I live in Cornwall. However, the average proportion of travel done by cycle in English cities is 2%. We should be able to get that up to 10%. It is 25% in Holland, which is much flatter. As part of our road structure and planning in urban areas, surely we should take lessons from London and seek to physically separate cycle lanes from roads. Of course, there are pedestrians as well.

I was particularly pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, mentioned freight. I was in the freight industry for some 20 years, and it seems to me that that area is often left out. One area that was not mentioned was the Manchester Ship Canal, now owned by the Peel Group. Transport for the North has estimated that some 90% of containers are at the moment imported through southern ports, yet 60% of those are destined for the Midlands as well as the north. That is an incredibly stupid economic result and something that should not happen. The Manchester Ship Canal is very restricted in terms of the size of vessels, but is running at a capacity of 7% at the moment. I know that, as part of the Atlantic gateway project, ports are hoping to improve that, and I hope very much that the Manchester Ship Canal will be part of that freight solution, together with the developments that move along from there.

There are a number of areas where we should look forward to having a cleaner technology and a different solution in the north. I have one or two questions for the Minister. Clearly, inclusivity in the north is as important as it is in the south, and all the transport planning is around urban and metropolitan areas. I do not read anything about rural areas at all. Contrary to some of our images, the north has some of the most extensive area of rurality in England. What do we do about that? How do we capture the benefit of those transport investments to make sure that we can bring further money back in to make sure that that process happens more quickly?

A Daily Telegraph article called “Capturing the value” in January estimated that the Crossrail project would put up house prices in Whitechapel by some 54% and in Woolwich by some 52%, with Bond Street being at the bottom of the queue in five years’ time. How will we capture those benefits to be able to bring them back into public infrastructure?

Lastly, investment is one thing—and the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, was right again in wanting to get on with that—but there is also the ongoing cost. London is often seen as the model for certain parts of the north, certainly for Greater Manchester; we have £3 billion- worth of public subsidy for Transport for London and a £400,000 per annum subsidy for London Buses. For what is expected to be a fiscally neutral solution in terms of combined authorities, how are we going to meet that annual requirement on subsidy, or avoid it, to make sure that the infrastructure works properly?

It is clearly the right thing to do. However, in terms of balance, it is worth reminding ourselves that Crossrail is being built at the moment in London at a cost of £15 billion, and the whole of the overground rolling stock in stations is being refurbished. Crossrail 2 is likely to cost £27 billion and the Northern Line extension £1 billion—and, of course, HS2, which will only get to the north in something like 2032, will cost £43 billion, much of that into the south-east. So, yes, we must have a northern powerhouse and narrow that gap, but there are many challenges to making it happen.

EU: Migration

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

We totally agree with that. I have to say that the figures that I have are that there are 2.3 million EU nationals living in the UK and 1.4 million British citizens living in the EU. Those are very important for the success of the single market, which has already been referred to. Of course we welcome people who genuinely want to come here to work, study or visit.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, the United Kingdom has a proud record of campaigning for the enlargement of the EU and bringing our eastern colleagues in Europe into the fold of the European Union. We have had great credit for that in the past. Is it not a great shame that through our rhetoric we are turning those countries that came into the European Union in 2004 from friends into people who resent our attitudes towards them?

[Lord Bates]

I do not accept the premise that we are alienating people. People recognise that there are legitimate concerns here; if proper transitional arrangements are put in place, that can aid relations between both countries, such as the ones that we have used in the case of Croatia, which will remain in place until 2019.

European Union: Justice and Home Affairs

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Thursday 8th May 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, my contribution to this debate will be more generic. Perhaps I ought to warn the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, that I will probably be quite brief and he will have plenty of time to put his questions.

This has come about through the Lisbon treaty and the changes that took place there. I, for one, really welcome what the Lisbon treaty did in two areas of this subject. First, we got rid of the pillar system of the European Union, which someone like me who understands Europe to a reasonable degree found totally complicated. We started to make Europe more understandable to the political elite in individual member states; I doubt that it has got down to citizens yet, but at least it has simplified that process. Secondly, it meant that, by getting rid of the justice and home affairs pillars, those areas came into normal legislative procedure, which meant that we have at least an increased level of transparency of legislation and discussion in the European Parliament—the Council of Ministers was not exactly great at transparency. Clearly there are arguments in the opposite direction about national vetoes, but that move in transparency and public understanding of how the EU works, and simplification rather than complication, was extremely good.

Of course, we are already generally opted out of Schengen, although we opt in to certain of its provisions. It seems slightly ironic that while our tourist and business sectors are getting het up about the Chinese being able to visit us, we have independently gone down the road of effectively starting to recognise Schengen visas, with some additional help. That is positive and important for the UK economy, but there are some moves in the opposite direction. Of course, we are not part of the eurozone, either. Other states opt out of various areas as well. The Irish Republic has opted out of some of these areas or has the ability to opt in. Denmark has opted out of the common defence and security policy.

My general point is that when we talk about British membership of the European Union, there is a great barrier to our taking the leading role that we normally do in most areas, particularly in justice and home affairs, when we seem semi-detached from a lot of what the European Union is doing. I therefore generally regret that we go through these procedures of opting out and opting in, marginalising ourselves to some degree—although all British Governments have managed to keep their profile high and be persuasive within European Councils. However, this whole area of opting in and out is not good for the general national interest. I regret that as we start, in certain parts of the House at least, to talk about amending treaties and perhaps becoming an even more marginal member of the European Union, when we should be taking and keeping our rightful place as a leader of change and in the work with our European partners to be a leader within the European Union.

I particularly want to make a couple of points on how important justice and home affairs are. Certain parts of the other place are quite vociferously against the European arrest warrant. I agree absolutely with the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, that we need to make sure that there is no gap there. Clearly, that would be a charter for criminals and more than a slap in the face for victims. It is one of the most important areas as regards citizens’ involvement and benefit from the European Union and being assured that victims of crime are able to bring the perpetrators of those crimes to justice across borders within the European Union. That is absolutely fundamental to community interest.

All the way through the Government have said, “We will decide each of these issues on national interest”, and I never see that questioned. Clearly, none of us can disagree with that, but I will be very interested to hear from the Minister how we define national interest in those areas. Does it refer to the national interest of our criminals, our victims, or more relevantly, old people or young people, the business community, consumers, rural or urban areas? The term “national interest” can be used very easily as a way of explaining why we do or do not do things as regards opt-ins, opt-outs and other areas of EU policy. That route is too easy and is too much of a cliché in the way it is used. We have a very diverse community in the United Kingdom, and what is good for one part is not necessarily good for another. I will be interested to hear the Minister’s reflections on that area.

However, the most important thing is that these discussions are concluded quickly and effectively. We are where we are, but the United Kingdom needs to remain a committed, leading and important member and a great benefit to the European Union and the broader European community as a result of our commitment to making Europe work.

Immigration Bill

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, there have been many times in our history when we have had a hostile environment for immigration. Perhaps one of the more justified ones was when my own family came from Denmark, a European state—but of course it was not then, in the years 800 to 1000. It was more of a Norse confederation when we came in, and we certainly pillaged. I do not know what else we did, but we took the lands of Suffolk, where my predecessors were—a wonderful county, much enriched by us Norse and the Danes. It was right that there should have been a hostile reaction to those boats coming across the North Sea into—well, it was not the land of Angles then, but Saxon England.

What concerns me is this theme that has come through of hostile environments, created not so much by the Government, though I will come back to that later, but by the public. It is a real issue. I would come back to the theme of leadership that my noble friend Lady Hamwee mentioned, and how we deal with that.

To me, one of the biggest symbols of that hostile environment being set by us, the elite of political power, was the immigration vans. What they said was, “Go home or face arrest”, and then, like some sort of buy-one-get-one-free ad in a supermarket, “106 arrests last week in your area”. You look at that and you think, “Well, actually, that is factually correct: if you are illegal, then we wish you to go home. That is right”. But what an environment, and what a way to state your message. Of course, that did not just go over the TV screens in the United Kingdom or on our own “News at Ten” and other bulletins. It went worldwide. That is the problem about the UK brand that has been created by some of these actions.

What we have managed to do through this, certainly over the new year period, is fundamentally upset our allies in the European Union, the leaders of Bulgaria and Romania. Perhaps even more important, we have upset Donald Tusk, the leader in Poland, one of our potentially greatest allies in Europe in much of what we want to deliver. Most of Eastern Europe was alongside us in our agendas around Europe. Much of that friendship, that work we have done in the past to encourage them into the union has been thrown away by the sort of attitudes that we have shown at a governmental level within the United Kingdom. I highly regret that.

I say to noble Lords opposite that I was filled with great sadness last year, I think it was, when the Labour Party apologised for letting in our colleagues from the new member states of Eastern Europe on their accession to the European Union. There we had a smart, competitive advantage. The best and the brainiest and the most valuable of those citizens came across, first, not to other parts of continental Europe and the eurozone but to us and to Ireland—to our countryside and to our factories, certainly in the far south-west. It was a great boost to our economy. I am very sad that the Labour Party has admitted being wrong and said sorry for that. I think it was one of the great things that Britain did in fulfilling what it said in terms of enlargement of the European Union being important.

My noble friend Lord King mentioned that perhaps we need to think again about mobility in Europe. Perhaps we do, but it was Great Britain that pushed the agenda of enlargement, knowing exactly what the rules were. We were the country that pushed enlargement most, and now, because of that move back again, we are looking very strange within a European context.

This hostile environment shows a country, economy and population that are naturally successful and confident as being inward-looking and fearful. That is not helped by our continued bickering over the rest of European Union.

I was privileged to come into this House in 2006, during the previous Government. One of the things that struck me then was that every year we would have what I called “panicked Home Office syndrome”. There would be a Bill coming into Parliament every session to make the Government look tough on terrorism, or tough on crime. Most of them would be incredibly long Bills, and they took a long time to go through—but most of the powers were already there, and once the Bills were passed they were not implemented. They were not about effect but about headlines; they were about the Government making themselves look tough. I worry that this might start again in terms of the immigration debate because, as noble Lords have already said, in many ways this is not an issue that needs to be dealt with by legislation. I am sure that some aspects should be, but really it is about the competent management of the government that manage these areas—in this case, primarily the Home Office.

In the provisions of the Bill—and many noble Lords have said this already, so I will not delay the House—I am concerned that there is a risk of pushing illegal immigration, which is wrong and needs to be solved, further underground. It is a problem of discrimination, potentially, by landlords in this case—probably not so much by the clearing banks and with current accounts, but certainly by landlords. It is also about the authorities. We have had a couple of examples. I know Chinese restaurants in the south-west that have been raided several times. I cannot think of one instance in which any European or British restaurant or fish and chip shop in Cornwall or Devon has been raided, but ethnic restaurants are targeted by the authorities. This degrades our authority. It is the wrong way to approach this, but it is a temptation. I suspect it will continue.

There are some good things, though. Exit controls clearly make a lot of sense. I quite like being able to walk through an airport where I do not have to check out, but I agree that it is quite a good control. Even there, we often forget as Members of this House that we are members of a common travel area. The UK wilfully does not have control over its own borders: we share them with the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and, more importantly, the Republic of Ireland. I would be interested to hear from my noble friend the Minister whether the border checks and these various other aspects of border control are to be implemented by the authorities in the Republic of Ireland on the same scale and at the same time. I suspect that that is not completely the case.

On the NHS, I fundamentally believe that we should have a welcoming society which, on the whole, resists charging visitors for their medical conditions. If we have tourism with people coming for specific medical treatment, that is clearly wrong, but otherwise we should err on the side of generosity rather than trying to tighten up something that is probably not manageable.

Sham marriages are clearly an issue and need further attention as well, although a lot of those powers are already there. However, as my noble friend Lord Avebury asked, where is the legislation that also says that British citizens should have the unimpeded right to marry who they wish? I do not see that in the Bill. It would seem to be a fundamental right—something that we would want to offer all our fellow citizens—yet we cannot have it at the moment.

The main problem I see is one of fear. Yes, it is a fear of immigration but also of everything behind it. There are two main strands to the solution for that. One is the boring one of management: managing the process better and properly, not through legislation. The other strand, as my noble friend Lady Hamwee said, is that of leadership, in that we have to make it clear that the exchange of immigration and emigration—all the circular movement of people—is generally positive. It needs to be managed and not to be a drain on the UK economy. I am certain that it is quite the opposite of that. We need to put out that message, rather than being completely defensive about it.

I congratulate the Government, as other noble Lords have done, on our foreign aid budget, which makes sure that the problem of excessive migration will go down over the long term. I am also delighted to see that we are not following the example of Australia by using the Royal Navy to push North Sea ferries back into the territorial waters of our European colleagues. Neither are we committing asylum seekers to the island of Sark, which would be the equivalent of some of the Australian operations.

I will finish on this point. We have just had a report from the Government on flooding in the south-west. I come from Cornwall, where one of our big concerns has been to try to get the message out that Cornwall and Devon are still accessible. You can still come and visit us to enjoy our attractions. You can come and locate your business there and you will not be isolated. We have put out the hashtag #openforbusiness for the south-west. If we are not careful and continue with this hostile environment for migration, we will have to start to persuade people by saying strongly that we are open for business in the United Kingdom as well.

Drugs

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and the all-party group on this excellent report and on bringing this debate before the House today. When I was doing some research in this area, the thing that really encapsulated the problem for me was a United Nations report saying that, in 1998, the decision was taken to work towards the “elimination or significant reduction” of illicit drug production and abuse by 2008. We are, of course, five years on from that. The United Nations decided to extend that programme for 10 years but I guess it had no confidence whatever that there would be any greater success over that following decade either.

One of the things that strikes me about this debate is that there is a psychology in the back of people’s minds that the drugs problem, and drugs themselves, can somehow be uninvented—that we can hide them away and they will disappear. However, the reality is, as the report says so well, that we now have multiplying types of drugs and that these products will not go away. There is also the fact that any debate seems to forget that where there is a demand, there will be a market and there will be supply. That is the way that human beings, human society and global society work.

I spent most of my professional life in the freight industry, where I was very much involved in supply chains. One of the things on which I want to concentrate is the even more difficult area of the international global supply chain for illicit drugs. It is different for different drugs categories. Cannabis is now the most consumed drug but is often produced within the nations where it is consumed. Synthetic drugs, as the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, has said, often come through the post or through the internet. However, there is still, regrettably, huge international global traffic in cocaine and opiates. We do not know the exact figure of course, but that market is worth something like $500 billion per annum—1% of global trade. We are handing that 1% of global trade to organised crime; to people who are out there to make money and are not worried about the consequences. We have to find a way of making that supply chain part of an established route, which is far more difficult than legalising or regulating the consumption side.

Why is that important? It is important because of the countries, nations, peoples and communities that are destroyed by the 90% of the drugs market that is driven by North America and Europe. In Mexico, there have been some 60,000 deaths and murders directly related to the drugs trade, a number of them mass killings. In Venezuela, between 1990 and 2008, the murder rate per annum increased from 2,000 to 16,000. In the United Kingdom, we have roughly 500 homicides a year, which puts that somewhere in context. In Colombia, 300,000 refugees moved from that country to Ecuador. The whole problem here is that this illicit trade is undermining developing countries and even some countries that are moving up towards developed status.

I have the privilege of being chair of the All-Party Group for Guinea-Bissau, a west African state which used to be a Portuguese colony. I shall conclude by quoting two passages from a recent publication, Guinea-Bissau: Lessons from Africa’s first Narco-State. It states that,

“trafficking networks have coopted key political and military leaders and transformed Guinea-Bissau into a hub for illicit commerce, particularly the multibillion dollar international trade in cocaine. This has directly contributed to instability in Senegal, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, and elsewhere in Africa … Drawn by the lucrative revenues, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and other militant groups in West Africa have also been linked to Guinea-Bissau trafficking … While narcotics traffickers initially targeted Guinea-Bissau because of its weak oversight and governance capacity, the drug trade has dramatically compounded these drivers of instability while spawning others”.

It further states:

“Meanwhile, economic growth has been episodic, human development indicators have been stagnant, and a humanitarian emergency imperilling 300,000 people looms”.

That number of people represents a major proportion of the country’s population.

The result of our not tackling that trade is the wasting of a number of developing countries. If we solve the problem in one country, it moves to another. We have to make that trade part of the establishment. It is difficult, but we have to take that challenge forward.

Immigration Rules: Impact on Families

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Hamwee for bringing this issue to the fore and for her work on the inquiry that she led. One of the big differences between the United Kingdom and, say, Egypt, is that there is a very broad political consensus. Although we may argue between different sides of the House, and on occasion even more on this side of the House, at least we have fundamental principles that we believe in. Whether we are Liberal Democrats, social democrats, socialists, libertarians or Conservatives, we have certain values in common. They include, perhaps, the market economy, democracy, the rule of law, and all the things that bind us together and ensure that we have a stable, long-term democracy.

Two elements of that come within the area of family life. One is that the state should not determine who you can or cannot marry. The second is that families ought to be able to live together; the state should always allow them to live together. We can all think of exceptions. Sham marriages, of which there have been many, should be prevented; forced marriages are illegal and wrong; and the state splits up families when there is criminality by sending criminals to penitentiaries and prison, which clearly is right. However, whether families choose to live together, and who we marry, should be up to us as citizens. In particular, they are our rights as British citizens.

We have heard some of the background figures. Some 5 million UK citizens live abroad. We think of all the citizens from other countries who live here, but 5 million of us are elsewhere. Every year something like 150,000 of our citizens migrate from the UK for more than one year. They are not necessarily retired people—or gangsters, who used to go to Spain before the European arrest warrant but now go further abroad. Some 90% of them are of working age. Perhaps more importantly for this debate, two-thirds of them are single; they are not married when they go. We also know—I know this from my own family—that people go abroad, to university and to study, and they go abroad on gap years. Those areas are expanding.

What happens to the 90% of young, single people when they are working abroad and wanting to get on with life? Strangely enough, they tend to meet people and fall in love with them. We should celebrate that. Strangely enough, a large number of them get married and, praise the Lord, have children. This has happened in my extended family, and it will be something that increases. However, as we have heard, it is estimated that some 47% of these people would not have an income that would enable them to come back as a family unit, with or without their children, to the United Kingdom.

I will give two examples that I have come up against. I went to Buenos Aires over Christmas and the new year, because two members of my extended family had got married and had a son, who now has Argentinian as well as British citizenship. They invited us out there, and we met another British citizen who had married a Brazilian woman. Now they as a family can no longer come back to the United Kingdom. I have had correspondence from someone whose family I knew a long time ago and who now lives in Canada. She is now married. She cannot come back to the United Kingdom with her spouse because they are not able to fulfil the income requirements.

We talk about those bad guys, the tax exiles, but we now have marriage exiles from this country, and children of British citizens who cannot come back and grow up in British society if they want to. We have British grandparents in this country who are unable to meet, look after and nurture their grandchildren and to see them grow up. That is the outcome of these regulations and of the legislation behind them.

Where do we look for our guidance? I looked back at some of the 2010 election manifestos. First, I looked at the Conservative manifesto, and I would like to bring the House’s attention to it. Right at the beginning it mentioned families. On page 41, and I am utterly with my Conservative coalition brothers and sisters on this, it stated:

“We will … make Britain the most family-friendly country in Europe … Strong families are the bedrock of a strong society … We will help families with all the pressures they face … We will not be neutral on this … Britain’s families will get our full backing across all”—

I emphasise “all”—

“our policies”.

That clearly includes immigration and migration. Those points were reflected in the coalition agreement, which stated on page 14:

“The Government believes that strong and stable families of all kinds are the bedrock of a strong and stable society. That is why we need to make our society more family friendly”.

We are failing in this area, particularly on this issue. It will be a growing one, and it will affect all our families. It affects mine, although I am pleased to say that my wife’s son-in-law managed to gain entry before these arrangements came into play. I am an absolutist in this area, and I ask the Minister: do the Government, too, believe that the state should not determine who can marry or whether families can stay together?

Global Migration and Mobility (EUC Report)

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I was quite encouraged by the direction of government policy on migration last week. I remember landing a couple of years ago at Stansted Airport; I was coming from somewhere in Europe—I cannot remember where. It was soon after the UK Border Agency was formed. I came into the immigration hall, which had black and white signs saying, “You are about to cross the border of the UK”. It was menacing. I was afraid. I was very afraid. It was as if we were there, whether we were British citizens, visitors or—heaven forbid—“irregular” migrants trying to come in, and we were going to be found out and that would be it.

Last week, I came back from Estonia, a country that is suffering from net migration of much of its population. However, we would not want to stop that because, during its Soviet occupation, the one thing Estonia’s citizens could never do was to get out. Their great freedom is that they now have mobility. I came back to Gatwick Airport and, as I came into the passport hall, there was a pull-up sign that said, “Welcome, international students”. The only trouble was that I walked past it without noticing and my wife, who is also interested in these affairs, had to draw it to my attention.

I congratulate the Minister. We have at least changed the tone of how we enter the UK, and are on occasions welcomed rather than seen as a threat, even coming back to our own homes, families and houses.

Like many fellow noble Lords, I thought this was a very good report, mostly because it is very factual—it is a myth-buster—and brings out a number of issues that are important to understand. A couple of them were what we think of as problems we have with migration; the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, was absolutely right in certain areas of his analysis. However, if we think in terms of refugees and that Pakistan has 1.7 million within its borders, that may put some things into perspective.

We must understand that most irregular migration is the result of overstays rather than people coming in clandestinely in boats, aeroplanes or in similar sorts of ways. However, I was quite astounded by the figure of what the report calls the dependency ratio, which effectively is the number of retired people in relation to the workforce, and by the fact that in 2008 that was some 25%—hardly anything at all—but by 2060 it will have risen to 53%, as predicted in the UK and elsewhere. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, that perhaps one problem is that without migration we would be building old people’s homes but with absolutely no one to help us in our dotage and old age. The way in which that dependency ratio threatens our future and that of the next generation is a real issue.

I will concentrate on a couple of areas. First, something that is often forgotten but, I was delighted to see, is mentioned in the report, is the fact that we have two travel-free areas within the European Union—and indeed they creep outside it. One of them, of course, is Schengen, but we also have the common travel area which includes not only the UK and the Republic of Ireland but the islands which are not part of the EU—although we should remember that Schengen includes a number of non-EU states as well.

Something I had not thought about before, but which would be very sensible in terms of future government policy, would be to try to align the policies of those two travel areas far more carefully. Whether you are a tourist, a visitor, in business, a business manager or director, a high roller or whatever, you have to go through two visa procedures to visit a country in the Schengen area and the UK and the Republic of Ireland. That is understandable, but if those visa procedures were similar or pretty well the same, it would solve many issues.

The other issue was on the readmissions agreements and treaties with third countries. Again, we as the United Kingdom—whether we just give the impression that we do it or whether as I believe we actually do it—try to cut off our nose to spite our face to prove something in terms of being distinctly non-core EU, while prejudicing and harming our own national interests.

I will speak very briefly on the issue that I feel is most important from an ethical point of view. That issue of the reunification of families is in the report. I, like my noble friend Lady Hamwee, have received a certain amount of correspondence about British citizens who are unable to do three major things these days. First, they are unable to bring their proper spouse—not one from an arranged marriage—to join them in the UK. Secondly, UK citizens living abroad who have been married abroad are unable to come back to their home country, and the rest of their wider family are unable to enjoy their marriage together because the partner, who may be non-EEA, cannot come back. Then there is even the not unusual situation where the spouse outside the UK, without UK or EEA citizenship, is the person who primarily looks after the children, who are probably British citizens as well, who are then also unable to come to the UK.

Is it not part of our fundamental British DNA that, as regards a real marriage, under no circumstances should the state be able to determine that a husband and wife—or a wife and wife, or husband and husband, or wherever we get to with the other Bill—should not be able to live together in family life? That to me is a fundamental, English—probably British, but certainly English—principle of life that we must protect, yet we are now failing to do so. That problem will get worse, as I know from my own extended family. In the next generation, some members of my extended family are married to Singaporeans, while others live and work in Argentina. They travel abroad and often meet their future spouses abroad, and these multinational families and marriages will happen more and more. What we are doing through our migration policy is saying to them, “I am sorry, you cannot live together in your country of birth”. All sorts of people are able to do that, but the thresholds are far more difficult than often we believe.

My ancestors migrated from, I think, Denmark around the first millennium into what is now the county of Suffolk. I do not know whether my ancestor was invited or whether he made his way across the North Sea uninvited and unwelcome. However, I surely know that when he or she married a spouse of their choice, they were able to reside in Suffolk for however long they wanted to, and consequently I was able to migrate to the Celtic nation of Cornwall, where there are no such divisions. This is absolutely fundamental to the DNA and principles of our national life.