Pension Schemes

Debate between Eleanor Laing and Alistair Carmichael

Thursday 2nd May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Carmichael]

It pains me to say it, but I think the right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. What might have started with the oil and gas companies is clearly going much wider.

I should declare an interest, as I hope to be the beneficiary of a defined benefit pension, if I live that long, having been in the House before the move to career average earnings in 2011.

I will not rehearse what I said about the decision of BP, Shell and others not to pay a discretionary increase, which mattered significantly to their pensioners at a time when inflation was running north of 11%. However, it is worth reminding the House that a fundamental point of fairness is at stake here. When one is past retirement age, one no longer has the choices one has when one is of working age. If someone in employment is unhappy with the money they get for the work they do, they can look around and find another job, or they may choose to retrain and do something else more profitable. Once someone is of retirement age, they no longer have that choice and flexibility, which is why it has long been established as a matter of public policy that the beneficiaries of pension schemes require protection. After all, this is simply deferred income, with our being paid later, after we have stopped working, for the service we have done. It is a fundamental aspect of that protection that it should take as its starting point the undertakings that were given.

At BP and Shell, and I do not doubt ExxonMobil, people were given vigorous encouragement to join pension schemes and invest in them. They were given undertakings at the time that one advantage of a big pension scheme at a company such as that was that they would later in life have an income that was protected against inflation. So a question of good faith is at play here.

I have no doubt that for many of the big corporates, the BPs, Shells, Hewlett-Packards and so on, the possibility of paying money to those who are no longer economically active and contributing to their business is tiresome and inconvenient. I never cease to be amazed by the extent to which those at the top of these big corporates seem to think that somehow the corporates are as big as they are simply because of the role that they have played. They do not seem to understand that they are the inheritors of businesses that were built by others, who are now among those who would be the pension beneficiaries. If one is to stand on the shoulders of others, it is always good to respect the fact that one enjoys the view one has because of the shoulders on which one stands. I am sorry to say that that seems to have been forgotten in the boardrooms of too many of our large corporates.

I have expressed these concerns about BP, in particular, before. I remind the House that I have a large number of BP pensioners in my constituency, because for many years BP operated the oil terminal at Sullom Voe. It was a good employer and we valued its presence in the community for many decades. I am concerned now to see that BP pension fund trustees with a collective 94 years of membership of the fund have been replaced with four with precious little involvement, two of whom are citizens of the United States. Since we last debated this issue, both Shell and BP have again refused any discretionary increase to their beneficiaries—in essence, they are doubling down.

The briefing I have received from the Shell Pensions Group is of particular concern. As it is crafted succinctly and concisely, I shall, with your indulgence, Madam Deputy Speaker, read it into the record. It says:

“Shell has imposed this benefits cut upon its pensioners during a period when:

the Fund was in healthy surplus and well able to afford full cost of living increases without call upon Shell’s sponsor covenant; and

Shell, its shareholders and senior executives benefited hugely from the same energy crisis that was already causing their pensioners extremely high rises in their cost of living.”

The Shell Pensions Group has done considerable and detailed research on that point. From the actuarial reports and the scheme’s accounts, it concludes that

“during the same period, instead of a balanced approach using about 25% of the surplus (as quoted by Shell as necessary for a full cost of living increase) to the immediate benefit of the 93% of members whose pensions are currently deferred or in payment, the Trustee has largely opted to dissipate the surplus by massively accelerating completion of its Low Reliance (upon Shell) investment transition plan. This fifteen year plan was commenced in 2018, but with the acceleration opportunity provided by the surplus arising from increased bond deals, it was almost fully completed in 2022.”

That is where the money that could have funded the pension increases has gone. It has gone into accelerating a programme that was supposed to take 15 years and instead has been concluded in four years.

I am afraid to say to the Minister that the Shell Pensions Group also has strong concerns about the consultation that he launched on 24 February, under the heading “Options for Defined Benefit schemes”. It says:

“We are therefore aghast that…the Pension Minister opened a new consultation…with a view to identifying ways of encouraging and enabling sponsors of DB schemes to claw back surpluses. We feel that the foregoing demonstrates that sponsors require no assistance or encouragement in that and on the contrary, stronger measures are necessary to hold the surplus for the benefit of the beneficiaries, particularly in contributory schemes in which they have invested their own money by way of deferred salary and additional voluntary contributions.”

The Select Committee report has given careful consideration to this matter. Along with most of those to whom I speak, I am well pleased with the recommendations of the report in that regard.

BP also continues to double down. There continues to be no formal engagement with the pensioners’ group—what the previous chief executive officer called “the zero- engagement strategy”. I would have loved to have been at BP’s annual general meeting this year; by all accounts, it sounds to have been a heated affair. The analysis published recently in The Times by its financial editor ties in very well what BP is doing with the concerns we should all have about the future direction of travel. In a recent article, the financial editor wrote:

“Everyone at least pays lip service to the notion that meeting pension promises in full is paramount. No surplus should be touched without a meaty asset buffer being built up. No sponsor should be allowed to extract cash without showing a strong covenant—providing reassurance that it will still be around to pick up the pieces if things go wrong.

But even those safeguards aren’t nearly enough to fully protect members, according to a trenchantly argued submission from a ginger group of BP pension fund members, the BP Pensioners Group. Attempts by employers to evade their promises will be “legion” it says; they will “trim back or remove any benefit possible”; they will “abuse loopholes” in the rules to maximise their clawbacks. They will push hard to minimise what members should “reasonably expect”.

It also warned that the prospect of executive bonuses being fattened up by success in grabbing back surpluses will be far more potent in driving company behaviour than any residual feeling of responsibility to ensure schemes pay every last penny of promised pensions. The message is that it could all end up in an unseemly scramble.”

The article continues:

“The bitter dispute with BP is just “a foretaste” of how relations between many other DB pension fund members and their former employers are going to sour if the surplus-grabbing reforms are pushed through without proper safeguards. The old world is dead.”

That sums up very well the tension between surplus clawback and the need to honour the commitments that were given to beneficiaries. We see so often this mismatch, which affects the ability of the citizen to take on the big corporate, or the big public body. This is just the private sector version of what happened to the sub-postmasters. The Post Office was big enough, strong enough and well enough connected simply to ignore the sub-postmasters, to lie about them, to straight-bat their concerns, and to deny what was obvious to everyone until they could no longer manage to do so.

What is the agenda here, and ultimately who will be the winners and the losers? It is pretty obvious that the pensioners will not be the winners. We should consider the reputational damage that the issue is doing to BP and Shell. Obviously, any oil and gas company these days has to be a fairly thick-skinned corporate entity, but still I ask myself why they simply refuse to engage. Why are they denying the very obvious and clear justice of the case being put forward by their own pensioners groups? I find it difficult to see any explanation other than that the funds are being fattened up before being hived off to insurance companies or others.

The Times—The Thunderer—is not the only news outlet to have reported on BP pensions recently. On 29 March 2024, the PR Newswire reported a case in Houston, Texas, in which the judge told BP that it must reform its pension plan, following an eight-year legal battle over pension losses. Again, we are dealing with big corporates, which have deep pockets and can see off the attention of the small pension beneficiaries. PR Newswire said:

“A group of Standard Oil of Ohio (Sohio) oil workers received a winning decision…after an eight-year legal battle with BP Corporation North America, Inc. (BP), in a huge victory for oil workers, with a federal judge ruling that BP”—

this is worth paying attention to—

“‘committed fraud or similarly inequitable conduct’ in how it announced a pension formula change more than 30 years ago…Federal judge George C. Hanks, Jr., ruled that BP violated the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) of 1974 and plaintiffs”—

that is, the workers—

“are entitled to appropriate redress by ‘equitable relief.’ The court ruled plaintiffs demonstrated BP committed multiple violations of ERISA in its communications to its employees…The Sohio retirees maintained, since 1989, BP had insisted the new formula would provide benefits as good as or better than the old formula. The judge agreed and found there is a pension shortfall for many.”

It is worth reflecting exactly what the people who took that case were motivated by: the work that they had done for BP. The article continues:

“Fritz Guenther, lead plaintiff, dedicated his work life to BP often in dangerous conditions on the North Slope of Alaska. He worked two weeks on, two weeks off for years relying on BP’s representations regarding his retirement. While he is still healthy, he says many of his colleagues face health issues, while others still have died within the past eight years. The retirees’ legal fight is taking place against a backdrop of a retirement wave nationwide, with the US Census Bureau estimating that one in five Americans will reach the age 65 or older by 2030.”

That was the nature of the commitment that BP employees in America gave to the company, and it is a measure of the moral bankruptcy that appears to be at the heart of that corporate that it could not see that payback was necessary for these people in their retirement.

I will touch briefly on the Work and Pensions Committee report to which I have repaired. I apologise for doing something that I was always told not to do as a law student: I will read from the rubric, rather than the substance of the report. I welcome what the Committee said about scheme surplus and governance. In particular, the executive summary says:

“Many schemes are much closer than they expected to being able to enter a buy-out arrangement with an insurer to secure scheme benefits.”

I touched on that earlier. The Committee was also right to talk about the various reasons why the flexibility would be advantageous to wider interests. There is a balance to be struck between the company, the beneficiary, and the national interest, in relation to the money being available for investment. That balance has to be properly struck, and it will inevitably slew towards the interests of Government and corporate interests, unless the necessary protections are put in place.

The Committee also observed:

“We note the current consultation on the level of funding a scheme would need to have for surplus extraction to be an option. However, strong governance will also be essential. We recommend that DWP should conduct an assessment of the regulatory and governance framework that would be needed to ensure member benefits are safe and take steps to mitigate the risks before proceeding.”

In this brave new world for defined benefit pensions, that is a warning that the Minister and the Government would do well to take onboard. If they do not, I am afraid that the losers at the end of the day will be our constituents, the beneficiaries of such pension schemes. We will look back in years to come, and we will see that the cases of BP, Shell, ExxonMobil, Hewlett-Packard and others are simply the canaries in the coalmine.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee.

Asylum and Migration

Debate between Eleanor Laing and Alistair Carmichael

Thursday 14th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this necessary and timely debate. It is necessary because the common thread that has run through just about every contribution is the lack of transparency and accountability in the way the Home Office goes about its business, and in how it accounts to this House for the way in which it goes about its business. It is timely because, as the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) said, The Guardian has published an article today about Home Office immigration database errors that affect more than 76,000 people. The hon. Lady, I think, said that it was a guddle. If I may say so, I think that is an uncharacteristic understatement on her part; in fact, it certainly meets the test for being called a right bùrach.

At the heart of the system, the Atlas tool is used by immigration officers and Home Office officials for processing any asylum or immigration dealings. That is underpinned by the snappily titled person centric data platform, which stores a migrant’s interactions with UK immigration systems over time, including visa applications, identity documents and biometric information. It stores the records of 177 million people and is part of a Home Office project to digitise fully visa and immigration systems that has cost more than £400 million since 2014. The PCDP records feed into Atlas, so that Border Force officials can view information and some people seeking to track their own applications can access them—and that is where the problems come to light.

There is an issue of something called “merged identities”. Essentially, merged identities, as I understand it, are of two ordinary people; for example, Madam Deputy Speaker, you may have an application that is live, so you might go in and find my picture attached to your data, or vice versa. How on earth can a Home Office official processing applications possibly hope to make sense of that? Indeed, the person accessing this information online will of course immediately be upset and alarmed at what they are finding; this is something that can bring up very profound feelings. It is an issue not just of data mismanagement—as the hon. Member for Glasgow Central said, the Information Commissioner’s Office is looking into this—but that strikes at the right and opportunity of an individual to access some of the most basic services, rented housing, accommodation, healthcare and so much else.

There is a substantive matter here. Clearly, this is yet another botched Government IT project, but the issue of process matters as well. Members of the House have been asking about the operation of Atlas and the PCDP and they have been given assurances by Ministers. The Minister for Legal Migration and the Border, the hon. Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove), who I had hoped might be in the debate today—fortunately for him, he is not—has given said in a written answer that no “systemic issues” have been identified with Atlas, but the documents that have been seen by The Guardian today clearly contradict that. Either the Minister has been misled by his officials, or he has been told something by his officials that he did not think would be advantageous for Parliament to hear, so the information and the answers have been framed in a particular way. Either way, it is clear that the culture within the Home Office is one that does not respect parliamentary accountability.

I hope that, when the Minister for Countering Illegal Migration, the right hon. and learned Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), comes to reply to the debate, he will tell the House what the Government knew about the problems with the Atlas system and the person centric data platform that underpins it, when they knew that, and why they have not brought information about it to the House. The Guardian has done a tremendous service to this House by exposing the full extent of Home Office failure, but that should not be necessary. We should not be relying on investigative journalists and on people blowing whistles from inside the Home Office; we should be able to take on trust what we are told, but we are told very little, and, on the basis of what we have read in The Guardian today, it seems that we can cannot even trust that.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the shadow Minister.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Eleanor Laing and Alistair Carmichael

Committee of the whole House
Wednesday 19th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call Alistair Carmichael.

[Mr Carmichael]

Thank you, Dame Eleanor. It is perhaps not a novelty to see you back in the Chair, but it is still a great pleasure none the less. I am delighted to serve with you in control.

I rise to speak to amendment 7, which stands in my name and those of my hon. Friends. In doing so, I should indicate at this stage that it is my intention to divide the Committee and establish opinion on it. The effect of amendment 7 would be to freeze the level of duty on the production of spirits. The Minister kept saying these are Scotch whisky amendments. He maybe knows me too well, but I would readily concede that many other spirits will be affected by this, and they are just as important. I think the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) will speak to her amendments, which do relate specifically to Scotch whisky, but I have had discussions with her, and she tells me that SNP Members are in fact minded to support our amendment, instead of pursuing their own. She will doubtless speak for herself, as she always does, later in the debate.

When we consider that 70% of the gin produced in this country is, in fact, produced in Scotland—my constituency has no fewer than four gin distilleries, and we find that situation replicated across Scotland—the impact of rises in duty are not just going to be felt by areas that produce Scotch whisky. We have also seen a number of distilleries appearing in recent times—a much smaller number, but it is significant none the less—producing rum. So it is important that we have a coherent strategy for the excise duty on these products. The difficulty I have with what I hear from the Treasury Minister is that it is difficult to discern exactly what the Government are trying to achieve in this Budget.

Scotch whisky in particular is very important to the UK as part of our manufacturing base. Indeed, it is an enormously important part of our export portfolio. It is also critical for many of the most economically fragile communities that can be found around the highlands and islands of Scotland. I was born and brought up on Islay, and people will know the importance of the whisky industry, and in recent years the growth of whisky tourism to that economy. In my constituency we have Highland Park and Scapa. Occasionally other interests are declared, but we still have only two producing distilleries. They are very important to our local community, not just in relation to the jobs they provide directly, but because of the spin-offs—the visitor centre, the merchandising, and the visitors that those distilleries bring to the community. Whisky tourism is enormously important, and it is it enormously important that the whisky industry has confidence that the Government are on their side. I am afraid that the signals we have seen from this Government in recent months have been, if I am to be kind to them, mixed at best.

The Chancellor was right to say in December that there would be a freeze on duty. We welcomed that, as I am sure did others. Three months later, to then turn around and whack a duty increase on spirits in the region of something just north of 10%, makes us wonder what the Government are trying to achieve. When I was Secretary of State for Scotland, along with Danny Alexander, who was Chief Secretary to the Treasury, we argued successfully for a 2% duty cut. In 2015, the Red Book of the day said that that would bring with it a reduction in the amount of duty received and revenue brought in, but in point of fact we brought in more revenue with a lower level of duty than had been the case before it was cut.

If we are trying to do something that will bring in more money to the Treasury, surely a duty freeze, at the very least, should be on offer. Indeed, Treasury data illustrates the point well, because a recent history of cuts and duty freezes has actually had a beneficial effect on revenue brought in. For some reason, we now seem determined to introduce a duty increase that will have an inflationary impact, and for some of the most economically fragile communities in the country that will have the effect of stymying growth.

The position laid out by the Minister on sales of beer was exceptionally interesting. He will be aware that spirits account for one third of the serves of alcohol consumed in this country, but less than one fifth of the units consumed. On the other hand, beer has 60% of the units consumed but accounts for less than 50% of the serves. It is clear that the effect of this measure will be inflationary and have a detrimental effect on the economic growth that we are all supposed to be pursuing.

The Chief Medical Officer tells us that we should safely consume 14 units per week—I think I have read this correctly—per week. If we are to consume 14 units of cider, we pay £1.13 in tax. If we consume 14 units of wine, we pay £3.36 in tax. But if we consume 14 units of spirits, we pay £4.06 in tax. To put it another way, Scotch whisky, and spirits as a whole, are taxed 256% higher than cider, and 16% higher than wine.

It was presumably for that reason that the Secretary of State for Scotland is reported in The Scotsman as having argued against it. This was not some source quoted as saying that, but the Secretary of State himself. He said that he was disappointed the Chancellor acted in the way he did. I think we can all very much share the disappointment of the Secretary of State for Scotland. For the avoidance of doubt, I did let him know that I would be referring to him in the course of my speech. Our real disappointment, however, is that, having publicly disagreed with the Government on the matter, I have a strong suspicion that if it is put to a Division he will be in the other Lobby. It is all very well to wring your hands, but if, when the moment comes and the Division bells ring, you are not prepared to do what you know is right for such an important industry in Scotland in so many of our communities, then I feel we are, as politicians, failing in our duty to our constituents and those whom we seek to serve.

We heard a lot from the Minister about the harmonisation of duties, but the House has heard the truth of the matter. The position in relation to on-sales consumption of beer will widen the gap. It simply makes no sense. If the Minister can answer no other question when he comes to respond, can he answer this: what strategy are the Government seeking to deliver by bringing forward a duty increase in excess of 10%? I do not see it. It flies in the face of the Treasury’s own data and contradicts it. It is difficult to understand what the purpose of it is, other than simply an attitude that says, “Well, you’ve had it good for a few years now, so we’re going to treat you differently and it’s time for you to take some of the pain.” An industry as important as the production of spirits deserves rather better consideration from the Treasury.

Scottish Independence and the Scottish Economy

Debate between Eleanor Laing and Alistair Carmichael

Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I was doing the arithmetic and I had some doubts as to whether the House was in fact quorate, as I would expect there to have to be 40 votes. But I must clarify that although the Tellers read out that the Ayes were 38, in order to calculate the quorum I have to add in four Tellers and myself, because I am here. Therefore, the House is quorate—only just, but the House is quorate. So I appreciate the point of order that the right hon. Gentleman makes. It is not for me to say anything at all about what the Government might or might not do, but I am quite sure that those on the Treasury Bench will have heard the point he made, and indeed the past six hours of debate, and he will have the opportunity to pursue the matter in the usual way.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Have you received any indication from the Home Secretary that she intends to make a further statement to the House about the detention centre at Manston? You will have been aware that on Monday, the Home Secretary said:

“What I have refused to do is to prematurely release”—

the split infinitive is hers, not mine—

“thousands of people into local communities without having anywhere for them to stay.”—[Official Report, 31 October 2022; Vol. 721, c. 639.]

It is reported today that last night exactly that happened. A bus full of detainees was taken from Manston to Victoria station, where they were left abandoned; apparently, one was left to sleep rough overnight. That surely contradicts what the Home Secretary told the House. She has something to answer for. It would be useful for the House to know whether she intends to come here and explain herself or whether, yet again, she has to be brought here.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. As he will know, the Chair has no responsibility, which is fortunate, for what Ministers say at the Dispatch Box or indeed for what any Member says in the Chamber. [Interruption.] I would hope that those currently at the Dispatch Box would have the decency not to speak when I am answering a point of order.

The right hon. Gentleman has made his point, which would be better made to Ministers than as a point to the Chair. At business questions tomorrow, he will have an opportunity. If he seeks to bring any Minister to the House to answer a question, he knows the formalities, such as an urgent question, that he can use.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Debate between Eleanor Laing and Alistair Carmichael

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 28th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Carmichael]

The hon. Lady will have heard the noisy protests in this Chamber every Wednesday between 12 and 12.30. We are okay, because we are protected by parliamentary privilege, but surely if Conservative Members want to end noisy protests, they should be prepared to practise what they preach.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Some of us do try to keep that under control. We try our very best amid a lack of co-operation.

Covid-19: Contracts and Public Inquiry

Debate between Eleanor Laing and Alistair Carmichael

Wednesday 7th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Carmichael]

Actually no: it is not an either/or. I think it is eminently possible to have a quick and dirty analysis. In fact, given that we may be looking at further waves, vaccine resistance and the rest of it, I think it is very important that we do have an early analysis of some of the public health aspects. However, that should not be a barrier to a fuller and more thorough analysis of things when we have the full facts available to us. As I say, other public inquiries have proceeded in that way, and I see no reason why this one should not.

The reason why I think it is particularly important that we have an early start is that, as we read in many of the newspapers, the Government’s intention is possibly to go to the country in a general election as early as 2023. An inquiry that starts now might have a fighting chance of bringing at least preliminary decisions to this House and to the public before that point. One that starts in the spring of next year—we know that spring is a moveable feast in Government calendars—will almost certainly still be doing its work when it comes to a general election in 2023, if that is when we get it.

The point is that, in March last year, this House gave a lot of power to the Executive—unprecedented amounts of power. Those powers for the most part, actually, have been unused, but still the Government insist on holding on to them, because that is in the nature of Governments. Once Parliament gives power to the Executive, the Executive are always very reluctant to give it back. We can go back as far as the granting of the power to force people to carry identity cards in 1939. We might have thought that that would finish in 1945, but in fact it was the early 1950s before a court ruled that the emergency had passed and the carrying of identity cards was no longer necessary.

I also want this inquiry to look at what the decision-making process was to ensure that we continued with these emergency powers, because I would suggest that the moment had probably passed in September of last year and had almost certainly passed by March of this year when we renewed them for the second time. So there are questions that can be answered now. They must be answered now, and it is in the interests of politics and the standing of this place that they should be answered now.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I hope that Members will now keep their speeches to under five minutes, because then everybody will get a chance to speak.

Point of Order

Debate between Eleanor Laing and Alistair Carmichael

Wednesday 23rd June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Did the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) say the 14th of February?

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

The fourth day. I have other plans for the 14th. [Laughter.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I am glad to hear that—so do I.

I will now briefly suspend the House in order that arrangements can be made for the next item of business.

Safe Streets for All

Debate between Eleanor Laing and Alistair Carmichael

Monday 17th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am very grateful to you.

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), who made a very thoughtful contribution. He said a lot in four minutes, characterised by the fact that, of course, he knows what he is talking about, because he has not just a political understanding but professional experience of criminal justice. In particular, when he spoke of sentencing and how rehabilitation should be at the heart of our prison system, there was nothing he said with which I could disagree personally or politically.

When listening to the Home Secretary, however, it struck me that if we ever wanted to generate a bob or two, we could bring out a new parlour game called “Who said it and when?” because there were points in her speech when I felt that I could have been listening to just about any Home Secretary that I have heard speak at the Dispatch Box in the last 20 years. I have lost count of the number of times I have heard Home Secretaries stand there talking about “Cracking down on this” or “Getting tough on that”. It is always the rhetoric of toughness, whereas we know that, in fact, getting things right in criminal justice is often about doing things that are difficult—and difficult to explain in the tabloid press—but that are also right and effective.

We heard as much tonight when the Home Secretary talked about setting centrally driven targets in order to improve policing. Centrally driven targets will not improve policing; it is community policing, rooted in the community that it is there to serve, that will improve policing and produce the outcomes. We have heard this for decades: the rhetoric goes on, yet year after year our streets and communities become less safe for our people, and the rhetoric does not change.

I also discern in the Queen’s Speech an emerging pattern from this Government, and it is one that disturbs and concerns me. Yet again, I am afraid, the Conservatives have been pleased to style themselves in opposition as liberals, and perhaps even occasionally as libertarians, but they are increasingly authoritarian in government. The moves in the carry-over Bill in relation to the right to protest are misjudged and ill-conceived, and I think that, ultimately, they will be counterproductive.

The hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst referred to the question of judicial review. Any Government who believe in the rule of law should have absolutely no difficulty putting the decisions that they have taken before the court. If those decisions are right and legal, they should have no problem in the courts; and if they are not right and legal, they should want to change them in any event.

Time is short and there is one point that I wanted to put on the record. I am in total agreement with the Home Secretary’s comments condemning the scenes on our streets and online in relation to antisemitism, specifically in London. I think I come at the Israel-Palestine question from a rather different point of view from that held by the Home Secretary, but even for somebody who is as staunch a supporter of the Palestinian cause as I am, there can be no place in this debate for what we saw, and we in this country help nobody in Palestine by evincing sentiments that are antisemitic. On that, at least, I hope there will be a measure of consensus across the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

It is very good to hear the right hon. Gentleman mention consensus in that respect. As a rabbi in my constituency was brutally attacked yesterday—many people may be aware of this—I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for having just articulated what I would have liked to say myself if I were able to do so. I am delighted to tell him that Essex police have arrested two young men in connection with the attack on the rabbi, which was an absolute disgrace.

We now go to a limit of three minutes, I am afraid, and I call Caroline Nokes.

Overseas Operations (Service Personnel And Veterans) Bill

Debate between Eleanor Laing and Alistair Carmichael

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

From the point at which I first became aware of its proper formulation, I have been a supporter of the military covenant. It has always seemed to me to be a statement of decent common sense. The covenant has been important for the past two decades because of the way in which it has shaped and, indeed, changed the debate in politics on matters relating to the military. It has given us something around which we can all unite and is a common starting point for us all. The debate in this House and in the community at large has been much the better for that.

It is for that reason that I have particular regret about the way in which the Bill has come to the House today and—I have to say—about the way in which we have debated it. There has been a degree of heat and asperity in this debate that does not serve this House, or those in our armed forces whom we seek to protect, well. I ask the House, and not just those on the Treasury Bench, to reflect on that. I am aware that I may even have been part of it myself, but on reflection I think those who serve in the armed forces deserve better than this.

As I said to the Secretary of State, there is an easy consensus to be built around taking action against vexatious civil dreams. Unfortunately, what we have heard in support of the Bill does not really build that consensus; we have heard a conflation of civil and criminal procedure, with a view to justifying the otherwise unjustifiable changes to criminal procedure. I have very little problem with the part of the Bill that relates to the regulation of claims. What Phil Shiner did was absolutely unconscionable. If we want to stop that sort of thing, the first point ought to have been to call in the regulatory authorities in the legal profession. If we really want to address that problem, that would be the first place I would start to look.

I wish to put on record the concerns that my right hon. and hon. Friends and I have about the Bill. First, there is the question of a presumption against prosecution. The Secretary of State said earlier that I was a right hon. and learned Member; he was not quite right: I was but a humble solicitor. In fact, in the early stages of my legal career, I served as a prosecutor—as a procurator fiscal depute—and it was useful experience. I cannot think of any other example of this presumption in legislation, and I counsel the House that it is a dangerous one.

I want to focus on the use of torture, because this illustrates very well the lack of logic in not having torture in schedule 1 to the Bill. Where there is evidence of torture, no prosecutor sitting in his or her office should say, “Well, there is clearly evidence of torture, but it is presumed that we will not prosecute it.” What sort of signal does that send? But if we read the Bill, we see that its architecture is such that torture is clearly designed to belong in schedule 1, along with sexual offences. That makes perfect sense. As I have said, that is a matter of logic, not of law. The provisions in schedule 1 cover eventualities whose use is never in any circumstances acceptable, so surely that is where torture belongs. Not to put it there suggests that the use of torture in warfare is in certain circumstances acceptable, and that is a proposition for which there should be no support in this House. In suggesting that, we risk doing ourselves serious damage and, worse than that, we ill serve those whom we seek to support and to help through the passing of this legislation. The people who will be most damaged by the application of that presumption against prosecution in relation to torture are those who serve and have served in our armed services. As I said in my intervention on the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald), the purpose of prosecution is to prove beyond reasonable doubt that something has or has not happened. This presumption will work against that, and at the end of the day, the people who will lose as a result are those against whom suspicion exists.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

After the next hon. Member to speak, the time limit will be reduced to three minutes so that we can try to give an opportunity to as many people as possible to participate in this important debate, but now I call Stuart Anderson to speak for five minutes.