EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement

Viscount Bridgeman Excerpts

Friday 8th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Bridgeman (Con) [V]]

My Lords, this debate has been a reminder, if ever one were needed, of the vast amount of work still to be done between the UK and the EU. It is essential that those further talks and negotiations start off on the right foot, and that, from the outset, both parties aim for the establishment of a genuine partnership between two sovereign bodies so that, for example, on the international stage they can on occasion speak with authority for Europe—and Europe, in this context, most definitely includes the United Kingdom.

I can foresee that, in the early stages of the post-Brexit era, this relationship could prove a shade delicate. On the EU side, there may well be a sense of frustration—or shall we say that in negotiations of this nature there has to be an acceptance that no one side is the outright winner? However, I suggest that it is for the United Kingdom side of the partnership that we hope will develop to take this initiative that extra mile beyond half way. My noble friend Lord Frost, with the Brexit achievement under his belt, and his team and their successors will be ideally placed to take the lead in furthering that partnership.

I suggest that one of the beneficiaries of this hopefully successful partnership will be NATO, which has had a rough time during the Trump presidency. This could not be a better time to acknowledge afresh NATO’s strategic importance. This country has had its differences with France, but relations between the two militaries have always been surprisingly good. Our two nations are alone in Europe in having a serious military presence, and that is but one of many reasons why this new international order presents a great opportunity for NATO to re-establish itself.

House of Lords Bill [HL]

Viscount Bridgeman Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 21st October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Bridgeman (Con)]

My Lords, I too thank my noble friend Lord Elton for the work that he has put into this Bill and I appreciate the wide consultation that he has undertaken. The Bill is to be welcomed because it is a constructive attempt to address the problem of the size of the House, which dominates our thinking at present. My noble friend has made the point that it is complementary to other related measures which may be on the table for consideration or debate at some point in the future, an example being that of possible legislation to abolish the by-election of hereditary Peers.

Several other schemes are being introduced to restrict the size of the House, many of which are based on the arithmetic of linking its composition either to votes cast, seats won, or a combination of both based on the results of the last general election. I think that the Bill in the name of my noble friend Lord Elton would fall into that category. All of them will involve a cull of Peers who are currently Members of your Lordships’ House. As my noble friend Lord Strathclyde and others have pointed out, there is only one example of this, which was the House of Lords Act 1999. There will be many Members of your Lordships’ House who will recall the sadness and bitterness that accompanied the process. Perhaps I may retrospectively pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Strathclyde for the sensitivity and skill with which he conducted that process.

Every cull will cause its personal problems, but my noble friend’s Bill has one positive feature. Unlike most of the arithmetical schemes which are based in some form on the results of the most recent general election, this Bill provides that the proportion of Peers surrendered by each category is the same. This is a very important point. We have had an example which according even to my limited arithmetic would mean around 800 Peers being reduced to 600. I suggest that this arrangement will be seen both inside and outside the House as more equitable than some of the other proposals where the proportion surrendered, geared to the results in the Commons, will vary widely between the categories. My noble friend Lord Caithness was slightly more specific about this point.

The process of reducing our numbers under this Bill will be relatively straightforward in the case of the three main political parties. For the Cross-Benchers it will be a challenge, but I suggest that the members of that group will be well able to achieve a mutually acceptable procedure. However, I have one problem about the proposed reduction. On the first time there is no problem but can my noble friend reassure me that, under paragraph 6 of the new Standing Order, in the case of a large number of Peers being appointed by the Prime Minister there is not a danger of the advantage to that party being carried through to subsequent Parliaments? I shall leave that with my noble friend, and in conclusion I congratulate him on the work he has put into this Bill.

Abortion (Disability Equality) Bill [HL]

Viscount Bridgeman Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 21st October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Bridgeman (Con)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Shinkwin for bringing forward this Bill. It is a courageous move. On the face of it, it restricts the options available to a mother faced with the appalling dilemma of knowing that she is carrying a seriously disabled foetus, and of having the time available for making a decision on abortion reduced under these proposals from the whole period of pregnancy to the first 24 weeks. I am very well aware that I speak after the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, who articulated this issue so eloquently.

However, my noble friend Lord Shinkwin has seen this problem in a different light—a vision shared by most of the speakers today, and reinforced by his own personal experience. He is supported by a huge body of outside evidence from the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Disability Rights Commission and the UK report on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Furthermore, the parliamentary inquiry into abortion for disability specifically recommended the repeal of Section 1(1)d of the 1967 Act. Finally, there is the legal opinion prepared by Hugh Preston QC, who agrees that the Bill—as others have said—is succinct and limited in its scope. I am grateful to my noble friend for reading extracts from this opinion, which is very realistic. Incidentally, the document reminds us that there is a relatively low threshold for aborting a disabled baby under Section 1(1)(a) .

My noble friend recalled the statistics that revealed the large number of abortions on the grounds of disability that had taken place over the past five and past 20 years respectively. He also mentioned that there has been only a tiny decrease in overall abortion numbers of 0.32% over the period 2005 to 2015. My noble friend has significantly described the law as it stands as “abortion by stealth”, and most certainly not what was intended by the Abortion Act 1967 or the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990.

In conclusion, I congratulate my noble friend on his meticulous research and the compelling case he makes, given his truly personal experience, for the removal of Section 1(1)(d) of the Abortion Act, which this Bill proposes. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Bill [HL]

Viscount Bridgeman Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

On Report, it is allowed.

[Viscount Bridgeman (Con)]

My Lords, I have a small point to make. I declare an interest as chairman of a foundation school, Reed’s School, founded 200 years ago for the orphans of city clerks. It became a member of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference 60 years ago, maintains the foundation and has a considerable outreach, particularly to schools in east London, in parallel, in many ways, with Tonbridge School.

The school is a member of the HMC but, significantly, also of the Society of Heads, the conference of smaller schools, many of which would probably be in the 7% that is accepted as falling behind in the standards of public benefit. Many of these schools—my noble friend Lord Moynihan has made a passing reference to this—are struggling to keep their heads above water, and they simply do not have the resources to undergo the public benefit that is required.

This has been a very hot topic between the Charity Commission and all the governing associations, the various heads and governors, for 10 years now. In Committee I voiced my opposition to the word “minimum”; I felt that that was an unnecessarily prescriptive word on a matter that depends so largely on mutual recognition between the two sectors. I suggest that Clause 1 is already in the Bill, as the Minister said in Committee, and the bar for the second new subsection will have to be so low as to have to embrace the schools that are struggling. We are then into the one-size-fits-all category, which has been mentioned by a number of noble Lords. I suggest that the way forward is this continual dialogue between the Charity Commission and these various bodies. Let us not forget that peer pressure within these bodies will likely play a large part.

[Baroness Heyhoe Flint (Con)]

My Lords, I speak in support of the principles of this amendment. I urge the Minister to spend more time in the summer considering the excellent concessions that my noble friend Lord Moynihan and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, have managed to achieve. In the past, as has been documented, a high proportion of our medal winners and test series winners—is this perhaps a moment when we should hold a minute’s silence for the England men’s cricket team?—and of the successes and indeed the membership of those teams has come from the public school sector. We should consider the amendments seriously; we can give the opportunities to those at grass-roots level who never get the chance to play on decent facilities. We can build from the grass roots more successful national teams, in which we take such pride.

It is not so much about winning medals and various series, but it should be a matter of good governance for independent schools that are charities. You could almost change the meaning of CSR from corporate social responsibility to charitable social responsibility. We should give those who have never had the chance to play sport on quality facilities a chance to move forward and reap the accolades that many of those from public schools have achieved. I am not in favour of statutory legislation to ensure that this happens but hope that independent schools can find it in their hearts to share their facilities with the community, and that the Government will accept the guidance of the Charity Commission to give all youngsters a sporting chance, not just those who have the backing of deep pockets and privilege.

Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Bill [HL]

Viscount Bridgeman Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a former general secretary of the Independent Schools Council and as the current president of the Independent Schools Association and of the Council for Independent Education. As I recite these names, it perhaps gives an illustration of the diversity that exists in the independent sector, which, viewed from the outside, is often depicted as a rather monolithic affair determined to keep on its own side of a Berlin Wall. Nothing could be further from the truth, as this debate so far has indicated.

I am very glad indeed to hear the acknowledgements of the widespread support that is given by the Independent Schools Council to the growth of partnership activity. The results are summarised in a publication called the ISC Annual Census 2015. A great deal of detailed material is going to be made available in September on a website Schools Together, which will give a great wealth of case studies and examples of what schools are doing in sharing facilities with their local communities and state schools. It will be an extensive website because there is so much to record.

I think the issue comes to this: is there a role for the law in this matter? We are at one in acknowledging that much has been done. I stress the ISC’s continuing encouragement for the further expansion of such schemes and have very serious concerns about the implications of an attempt to specify how independent schools that are charities should demonstrate public benefit. All charities are of course required to provide public benefit. Would it be right to single out independent schools for specific guidance on what they should do? I also question whether this would be expedient because schemes for sharing facilities that are likely to succeed will do so when they reflect a deep and genuine desire on the part of state schools, local communities and independent schools to be involved in them.

Local wishes should determine what happens. It is important to remember that independent schools vary greatly in size and character. More than 50% have 350 pupils or fewer. Only a tiny minority have large endowments; the vast majority are wholly dependent on fee income. What they can do will vary from place to place depending on size and on how local communities and state schools wish to work with independent schools. I emphasise that the 1,200 schools belonging to the Independent Schools Council are keen to work with local schools and communities, contributing to the activities of local communities and work in state schools. These things are innate to them these days, forming part of the charitable ethos and purpose of the schools.

If partnership schemes are to deliver benefits to all involved—local communities, state schools and independent schools, which are enriched by partnership—I suggest that the best course is to give every encouragement to voluntary local arrangements and not seek to impose a set of requirements across the board, which I suppose would be known these days as a one-size-fits-all approach.

[Viscount Bridgeman (Con)]

My Lords, while supporting the sentiments behind these two amendments, I have a small difficulty with the drafting. Surely in proposed new subsection (5) of both amendments, engaging fully implies aspirations towards an ideal. I feel that this does not lie easily with the word “minimum” in proposed subsection (6) of the two amendments. For example, a school that very reluctantly complies with the minimum requirements may be well aware that it is not engaging fully. The local community and, indeed, the Charity Commission, may feel the same way. Therefore, if these two amendments find favour with the Government, I suggest that they should be redrafted so that the two proposed subsections are absolutely compatible.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

My Lords, these are well-meaning amendments. Who cannot be swayed by the brilliant call from my noble friend Lord Moynihan for consistency and for building on the memories of 2012, and, indeed, by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, talking about the importance of music and the arts? However, my noble friend Lord Lexden has sounded a cautionary note. I fear that putting all this into statute may open a Pandora’s box. I am not against opening a Pandora’s box but, before doing so, let us be clear that that is what we are going to do and what may follow as a result.

Just to give some brief background, the Committee is aware that the roots of charity came from the dissolution of the monasteries. Before that, the church educated people, promoted religion and acted as, in modern terms, a social services department by looking after the sick, the destitute and the disabled. When that ceased to be done by the church, it was done by the private sector, if I may call it that. Those three purposes were presumed automatically to be charitable. There was a fourth category—such other activities as may be presumed to have a public benefit. That meant that for the vast majority of charities up to 2006 there was a presumption of public benefit. If one struck out every charity that had anything to do with education, religion and social services, a whole heap of charities would be removed and we would be left with a small number that depended on the definition of “public benefit”.

The public benefit test was introduced in 2006, when the Labour Government’s Bill removed presumption and made every charity show that it was providing a public benefit. I am not saying whether that was a good or a bad thing; it is just what happened. It meant that the public benefit test went from being concerned with a very small number of charities to being the keystone of the arch. Every single charity now had to live with that. That was a very big change and the question of how that public benefit test should be set and enforced occupied many hours of the debates on the Charities Bill, as it was in 2004 to 2005. I was a newcomer in the House at that time and I listened to lengthy speeches. The noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, from the Labour Benches made a 45-minute speech on what is a religion, to the increasing worry of his Whip and his Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, who rightly thought that we were never going to leave that group of amendments. I promise that I shall not speak for 45 minutes this afternoon.

The conclusion reached was that there was no ideal solution and that the least worst option was to give responsibility to the Charity Commission and to keep charities as far as possible away from the political fray. Lord Phillips of Sudbury, who is no longer with us but who then led the charge on these things, was the Peer who introduced the amendment that now forms Section 13(4) of the 2011 Act, which reads:

“In the exercise of its functions the Commission is not subject to the direction or control of any Minister of the Crown or of another government department”.

The conclusion of that long debate was that the public benefit test should be put to the Charity Commission and that the commission should be given a wraparound of avoiding political interference.

I accept the point made by my noble friend Lord Moynihan that the initial public benefit guidance from the Charity Commission after the 2006 Act was unduly financially oriented. I think that everyone now recognises that there was too much emphasis on scholarships and bursaries and not enough on the hearts and minds that both these amendments are driving at—namely, the provision of sporting facilities, arts and music. Of course, following the independent schools tribunal, the guidance has now been revised and things are not quite as they were.

The Pandora’s box that could be opened is that if my noble friend were inclined to accept these amendments the Charity Commission would no longer be truly independent. You cannot be a little independent—you are either independent or you are not. Others might have their own ideas of what could be added to the list of things that the Charity Commission should consider and would have to take into account in considering the public benefit test. I need not remind the Committee that the OSCR—the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator—has a different public benefit test. It requires that when the public benefit test is set, it should have particular regard to institutions that charge fees. That might be something to consider in this country in order to match the public benefit test in England with that in Scotland. I am concerned about how this might develop and, once the stitch is removed, how this theme might run through the charity sector. Slowly and inexorably, charities might find themselves moving towards the political stage, with all that that entails.

My noble friend made an important point about the uneven application of consistency. We have come across private schools that have been not unwilling but unable to provide the sorts of issues that my noble friend Lord Moynihan mentioned—a point also made by my noble friend Lord Lexden. A rural prep school that is badly endowed and has no local community is going to find it very hard to deal with the sorts of provisions that appear in these two amendments.

Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Bill [HL]

Viscount Bridgeman Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Bridgeman (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Low, with his outstanding experience particularly in the field of charities for the disabled.

After a maiden speech there is sometimes a perfunctory statement from the following speaker that we hope to hear future interventions from the maiden speaker. However, glancing at the forthcoming business, and indeed at this Bill, I see that we are fortunate in not having to wait long to hear again from the noble Lord—who in this case is my noble friend the Minister.

It is a paradox that charity is one of the noblest of human sentiments—a point which my noble friend Lord Borwick expanded on—but, in the context of the administration of charities, it is also, as my father would have said, open to abuse by individuals who are less than totally satisfactory. I note that the Joint Committee, so ably chaired by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, outlined three issues on which regulation is required: honest mistakes that trustees make, persistent mismanagement of charities, and deliberate abuse where people go out of their way to abuse their position in a charity for personal gain or some other non-charitable purpose. The committee added that the third was, fortunately, the rarest, but also hard to assess accurately. It is therefore appropriate that a major part of the Bill—Clauses 2 to 12—deals with the question of disqualification.

In England and Wales it is the duty of the Government, through the Charity Commission, to tread the fine line between policing the administration of charities with a firm hand but, at the same time, with an appropriate—if not light, then certainly imaginative and helpful—touch. I suggest that the Bill is a further small but significant step towards giving effect to those intentions. I pay tribute to the work of the Joint Committee, chaired by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and the statutory review by my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, together with the Law Commission’s work on social investment. Their work has contributed to the creation of a Bill that is not only reasonable and constructive but, if I may say so, realistically constructive.

The tightening of the provisions on disqualification is timely. Of the many loopholes that have been closed I particularly welcome the action to address the glaring anomaly that permitted disqualified trustees to hold other trusteeships or, indeed, senior management positions in charities. That is addressed in Clause 10(2) with the introduction of new Section 181A, to which my noble friend Lord Hodgson referred.

Clause 1 inserts new Section 75A, which provides the commission with the power to issue a warning to a charity or a charity trustee. This is particularly welcome as it reinforces the concept of proportionality without the need for a statutory inquiry. The Explanatory Notes—I echo the words of my noble kinsman Lord Chandos—have been particularly helpful on the Bill. They give three useful examples of when the warning power could be used, relating respectively to unauthorised payments, governance problems—for instance, a repeated failure to call AGMs—and where a statutory inquiry would be disproportionate. The introduction of this procedure has many advantages, not least in freeing up time for the commission to concentrate on more serious matters.

Another significant feature of the Bill is Clause 13, concerning social investments. This has been well covered, particularly, again, by the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos. I am grateful to the Minister for his helpful guidance on this part of the Bill. I particularly welcome new Section 292A(5) introduced under this clause. It addresses the distinction between a loss of investment and a total loss of funds—again, referred to by the noble Viscount. However, I had some difficulty with this new section, as did my noble friend Lord Borwick, but the Minister has been very helpful in clarifying that a social investment has to satisfy the two conditions set out in proposed new Section 292A(2): first,

“directly furthering the charity’s purposes; and”,

secondly,

“achieving a financial return for the charity”.

The implications of social investment are quite considerable because of the additional obligations on trustees imposed under new Section 292C, and I have no doubt that this will come back in Committee.

This is a valuable complement to the previous charity Acts and the commission is to be congratulated on giving effect to the many valuable recommendations submitted to it. I have no doubt that they will be further refined as the Bill makes its way through this House and another place.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Viscount Bridgeman Excerpts

Thursday 24th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Bridgeman (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for his masterly—if deeply worrying—overview of this problem. Article 18 speaks to the very core of who we are and, indeed, is an essential component of our identities as human beings. We are having this debate against the dreadful news that for the first time in the Christian era there are now no Christians at all in Mosul. This is perhaps mitigated in some small part by the welcome news of the safe arrival in Rome this morning of Meriam Ibrahim, who was sentenced to death in Sudan.

An illustration of how the religious freedom problem in India criss-crosses all faiths is the persecution in India of the Dalit community, formerly known as “the untouchables”. They are persecuted not only if they convert to Islam but also if they convert to Christianity. As many noble Lords have said, freedom of religion or belief ensures that we are not compelled to believe anything that we do not want to, taking agnostic or atheistic positions if we choose. It is important that Article 18 does not stand alone. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is clear on this. Freedom of opinion or expression, freedom of association or assembly, and freedom of religion or belief are three strands that together make up that greater freedom, vested in human dignity, to which all people of good will aspire.

Around the world, sadly we see conflict situations where respect for freedom or belief has to be the crucial element in any sustainable peace. Reference has already been made to the current crisis in Iraq, the conflict in Rakhine State in Burma, and post-conflict situations such as Sri Lanka, to name only a few. There are currently two glaring cases of abuse of or contempt for Article 18 in North Korea and Eritrea, to which the noble Lord referred. I hope that the Minister can assure the House that Her Majesty's Government are doing their utmost to secure implementation of the recommendations of the UN commission on North Korea and will support the UN commission of inquiry on Eritrea announced earlier this year. It is only by ensuring that Article 18 remains firmly on the agenda, and by seeking to tackle violations of it in a systematic fashion, that we can hope to have some impact on the many desperate situations faced by so many in the world today.

What steps can we take? Religious tolerance for those of us living in the United Kingdom very much begins at home. I was interested in the references by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry and my noble friend Lord Patten to Magna Carta, which plays such a great part in American culture as well as our own. This country has a proud record of tolerance. It sets an example possibly more appreciated by our neighbours than we sometimes realise. I note the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, lest we get too smug; the noble Lord, Lord Singh, made reference to this; and I was deeply moved by what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, as to his origins. The tradition of your Lordships’ House, part of the bricks and mortar of this place, is that a speaker is willed by the House, whatever his or her political views, to give of his or her best. My predecessor in this debate, the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, has given an interesting sideline on the internet implications of this.

This tolerance by example needs to be carried out into the wider world of Article 18, to be raised wherever possible as a high priority at bilateral and multilateral levels. I am pleased to see that the FCO’s latest democracy and human rights report states that,

“every minister … is an ambassador for religious freedom”.

That action is being taken to educate those within the department and across government on how better to tackle these issues—again, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, referred to this. It is also important that the European Union speaks, for once, with one voice in implementing its guidelines on freedom of religion and belief, and I would welcome an update on progress from my noble friend the Minister.

In conclusion, I refer to the work of the office of the UN special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, who is not in his place. I understand that, despite a reported shortage of funding for his department, he has nevertheless championed, in addition to his own brief, some sensitive but important issues, including women’s rights. Here, again, I would welcome an update from my noble friend the Minister.