Heritage Rail: Young People
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(4 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Faulkner of Worcester
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their response to the report of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Heritage Rail, Engaging the Next Generation: Young People and Heritage Railways.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)
My Lords, first, I express my appreciation to all noble Lords, and the right reverend Prelate, who have put their names down to speak in this debate, especially those who took part in the inquiry carried out by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Heritage Rail. I declare an interest as a vice-chair of that group, and as president of the Heritage Railway Association. The HRA is a remarkable organisation whose 300-strong membership includes no fewer than 156 operational railways. These stretch for 562 miles—almost the same distance as from London to Mallaig on the north-west coast of Scotland. There are also 460 heritage railway stations, a similar number to those managed by Northern Rail.
From the pioneers on the Talyllyn Railway in 1953, and the first standard-gauge heritage railway, the Bluebell, in 1960, heritage railways have come a long way. They attract 13 million visitors a year, employ around 4,000 staff and depend on 22,000 volunteers. Railways were Britain’s gift to the world, starting with Trevithick’s locomotive of 1804, and the first railways in other countries were built by British engineers such as the Stephensons—father and son—and Brunel. The first steam locomotives in France, Germany, America and many other countries were made in Britain. This contributes to the strong interest of visitors from other countries in the origins of their own railway systems.
The economic benefits of railways and tramways spill over into the wider communities, with research suggesting that local economies benefit by almost three times the turnover of the railway or tramway. That in turn suggests that heritage rail is worth as much as £400 million to the UK economy.
Rail enthusiasts, of course, have their own agendas and itineraries, but the location and nature of many railways also appeal strongly to visitors to the UK. Heritage rail’s full contribution to Britain’s inbound tourism economy is not easy to measure, but there is no doubt that it is as significant as that of many of the UK’s other international attractions such as Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London, Edinburgh Castle and others.
Heritage railways also support local economies through employment and spending on supplies. Many operate in rural areas where alternative employment is limited and the opportunities for jobs in engineering non-existent. They also provide valuable skills training, often in areas where employment opportunities, particularly for skilled workers, are low. They provide entry level jobs for a wide range of skills and disciplines. For younger staff and volunteers, they offer a valuable training ground for subsequent jobs on the mainline network.
Recognising this, and following the publication of the all-party group report, the HRA has introduced a new annual award for outstanding young volunteers, which I have the privilege of sponsoring. Earlier this year, the first awards were made to seven exceptional young people working on heritage railways around Great Britain and Northern Ireland. For students, a steam railway offers a living example to support so much of the school curriculum, particularly the STEM subjects of science, technology, engineering and maths, but also history, geography, economics and geology.
For older volunteers, steam railways offer an active and productive activity for people who might otherwise have a sedentary lifestyle. They unite people from a wide range of backgrounds and a wide geographical area, supporting social cohesion. I commend to your Lordships Nicholas Whittaker’s comment in his book Platform Souls: The Trainspotter as 20th-Century Hero:
“Trainspotting has always been a democracy, embracing all men, from right scruffs to Right Honourables.”
Heritage railways bring big environmental benefits through the green corridors that they provide, with their own flora and fauna. Perhaps surprisingly in view of this, heritage rail in the UK is unsubsidised. Other than modest grants, for which bidding is often competitive, the industry pays its own way.
Heritage rail travel in the UK is not limited to the sector’s own track. The country’s mainline network owners understand the historic and commercial benefits of steam-hauled trains, carrying passengers in heritage carriages on substantial journeys across some of the country’s most spectacular scenery, using iconic locomotives such as “Flying Scotsman”. Other heritage railways provide public transport services or sustainable tourist transport, especially at destinations where car-free access is a benefit, such as national parks.
Britain is the only country in the world that has passed legislation specifically to ensure that we secure the preservation of evidence which is significant to the nation’s railway history. No other industry in the UK is viewed in this way, and I am happy again in this House to pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, for his willingness back in 2013 to listen to me and other noble Lords and agree that the statutory powers contained in the Railway Heritage Act 1996 to designate artefacts and archives would be maintained following the abolition of the Railway Heritage Committee.
Those of us involved in railway heritage have a duty to ensure that what is important to Britain’s railway history is preserved and made available for present and future generations to enjoy. We do this in a variety of ways. The most important is to maintain world-class railway museums which tell the complete railways story, from their effect on social, business and industrial life through to demonstrating the very latest developments in modern railway operations. The National Railway Museum York, part of the Science Museum Group—I declare a former interest as a recently retired trustee and deputy chair—is the very best example, and maintains the proud tradition of free entry. Another member of the family is the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester, which contains the world’s oldest surviving railway station at Liverpool Road, dating from 1830.
Only people over 50 now have any memory of steam working on the BR network, but subsequent generations are just as engaged and knowledgeable about the steam railway as we were. We need that to continue to ensure an adequate succession of younger volunteers who can acquire the skills and continue the operation of this precious legacy of heritage railways for future generations to enjoy. It is not easy. Regulation is more stringent than when the movement started, and safety, quite rightly, is more closely managed and overseen than in the past. The cost of materials rises as Britain’s industrial base shrinks, and in some cases the future supply of basic raw materials such as coal is in doubt—as we heard in a recent debate—and is the subject of the APPG’s current inquiry.
The last thing the movement needs is obsolete legislation that hinders the recruitment and retention of that next generation of volunteers to carry the torch forward. Yet that is the position with the Employment of Women, Young Persons, and Children Act 1920, a piece of legislation introduced following the establishment of the International Labour Organization in 1919—an era when, of course, no heritage railways existed and working conditions were vastly more dangerous than they are today. The concept of employment was deemed to include volunteers by the Education (Work Experience) Act 1973, which disapplied the 1920 Act in the case of children undertaking work experience. But this does not address the situation where a young person wants to volunteer for work on the railway on a long-term basis and is not linked to a work experience scheme.
Counsel’s opinion, taken by the HRA, confirms that this prohibition on working on railways extends to ancillary activities, effectively barring under-16s from enjoying the experience of working on a steam railway. The experience of member railways is that this period between the ages of 14 and 16 is crucial for many youngsters in deciding the activities, interests and career choices they want to follow as they grow up. Losing them at this early stage leaves the movement with insufficient young volunteers of 16 or over.
The issue has been discussed with Ministers and officials, and back in July 2017 I introduced a Private Member’s Bill, the Heritage Railways and Tramways (Voluntary Work) Bill, which would have resolved the issue. As it was so far down the list, it is unlikely, even in this extraordinarily long Session, to make progress. But assuming that the Government are unwilling to support primary legislation, I ask the Minister whether they would be prepared to consider secondary legislation under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, which I understand from the HRA’s legal team would achieve the desired result. That Act makes express provision for the 1920 Act to be amended by statutory instrument by the Secretary of State and so enables the removal of the prohibition on the engagement of young volunteers in the activity of heritage railways. I make this request to the Minister today: will he please help us to resolve this anachronism and, in the first instance, use his good offices to convene a meeting with the Heritage Railway Association and myself that involves his department, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Transport? Between us, we can resolve this issue.
Discrimination in Football
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Ashton of Hyde
I completely agree with my noble friend. We were talking about racism, but the title of the Statement says “Discrimination”—that means discrimination of all kinds. We have taken that on board. Incidentally, a representative of Stonewall was present at the round table, so I absolutely accept my noble friend’s point and we are keen to make progress in that area as well.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)
My Lords, I listened to the Minister’s Statement from the Gallery of the House of Commons. Like others, I was impressed by the consensus that existed in the House and by the Minister’s enthusiasm and commitment to what she was saying and what she intended to do. I had a sinking feeling of déjà vu, though, because 21 years ago—almost to the day—the Football Task Force, on which I served as vice-chairman, delivered its report, Eliminating Racism From Football, to the Minister for Sport. The task force had seven objectives, of which the first and most important was eliminating racism and encouraging wider participation in the game by ethnic minorities.
The task force made 14 recommendations directed at the Football Association, local authorities, the professional players’ association, clubs and government. A number of those recommendations have been carried out. Indeed, the changes in the law to which the Minister referred came about as a result of some of the recommendations we made on incitement and football spectators’ behaviour. But the fact that we are now still concerned with racism and that it is not just rearing its head again but in the culture of the game—not in the culture of rugby; I readily accept the point made by the noble Lord—needs to be seriously addressed.
I pay my own tribute to Herman Ouseley—the noble Lord, Lord Ouseley—who was a member of the task force and made a terrific contribution to the report on racism. I ask the Minister to go back to the department and get off the shelf the report we produced in 1998 to see how much of it has relevance today. I declare an interest as a vice-president of the National League and of Level Playing Field. If we had more time, I would talk about disabled access in football, but I will do that on another occasion.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
On that subject, a representative of Level Playing Field was also at the round table.
I take the noble Lord’s point. I will read the 1998 report he referred to again, but I am sure it is relevant. We should be aware that there have been big changes over 20 years, not only in sport and football. You can tell that by looking at some 1980s and 1990s television programmes. It is amazing what was considered normal in those days but, as I said earlier, we are not complacent about this. That is why the Minister for Sport convened this round table at fairly short notice and included representatives of all parts of the game, plus the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and several NGOs involved in discrimination of all sorts. We are determined to take note of the sort of things the noble Lord is saying and deal with them quickly.
Electronic Communications and Wireless Telegraphy (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Ashton of Hyde
Yes, the body they would appeal to is part of the Competition and Markets Authority; it obviously has a completely different dynamic to the European Commission, which is there to harmonise the single market. It is true that they expressed those views, and it is probably fair to say that the sector would like as many avenues for appeal as possible—it is regarded as a reasonably litigious sector—but it was felt that because that was for harmonisation, it was not appropriate.
I can say that the industry, including that part of the stakeholder group referred to, is keen that the SI should be taken forward, because it wants clarity and a consistent regulatory framework. To that extent, it is happening.
Lord Adonis
The noble Baroness cannot make an observation unless I give way to her and I am not giving way to her, if she will forgive me.
Will the Minister agree to publish the minutes of the stakeholder group that he has referred to? It seems to me important in our proceedings that we understand what the consultation responses in fact were, as they were clearly at variance with what the Government have done. Will the Government do that before this matter comes before the whole House?
The Deputy Chairman of Committees
It might be helpful if I put the initial Question, which is that the Grand Committee do consider the draft Electronic Communications and Wireless Telegraphy (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, I am informed that I can publish them.
Armistice Day: Centenary
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)
My Lords, we are now almost at the end of this commemorative journey. I start by saying how proud I have been to serve on the Government’s World War I advisory board, along with other speakers in this debate. At meeting after meeting, I have been impressed by the diversity and dignity of the events that have been organised in all parts of the United Kingdom, in Ireland, and in France and Belgium. Others have spoken of the brilliance of the DCMS team, and I pay particular tribute to David Thompson and Jennifer Shaw for keeping the show on the road so brilliantly.
In preparing for today, I looked back at what was said in your Lordships’ House in June 2014, on the eve of the centenary of the start of the conflict. I commented in that debate that a great deal of preparation had been put in place and hoped that it would capture the imagination of as many people as possible. I also, perhaps slightly prematurely, paid tribute to the work of Dr Andrew Murrison MP, the Prime Minister’s special representative for the centenary commemoration, and I am delighted to be able to do so again, four years on, as have other speakers in this debate. Since the summer of 2011, there have been no fewer than seven Secretaries of State at the head of DCMS but, fortunately, there has been only one Dr Murrison. It is greatly to his credit that the tone and content of the commemoration programme has been correctly nuanced. It would have been so easy to get this wrong, but that has not happened. The theme of commemoration not celebration is right, as is the determination to combine the traditional act of remembrance with new initiatives to engage as much of the population as possible, especially young people. In such a fractured and divided world, it is great that the commemoration programme has succeeded in bringing us together—members of all races and ethnic groups, young and old particularly.
My involvement in the commemoration came about almost by accident. Towards the end of 2001, when I was still a relatively new Member here, I received a letter from a Belgian senator who warned me that the Flanders Government planned to extend the A19 motorway across Pilckem Ridge, the scene of some of the fiercest fighting in the Ypres Salient—a road which would have cut the battlefield in two. I was sufficiently intrigued by this to pay a visit to Pilckem Ridge during that Christmas Recess. I found that it remained largely untouched by development.
Pre-1915 photographs show the same farm buildings and the same field layout. The landscape has acquired more than a dozen Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries, places of peace and tranquillity, visited by more than 150,000 people from the United Kingdom every year. It was where John McCrae, sitting in the back of a field ambulance close to what became the Essex Farm Cemetery, wrote “In Flanders Fields”, quoted by my noble friend Lady Crawley so movingly earlier. Below the fields of Pilckem Ridge, outside the cemetery, lie the remains of countless soldiers—perhaps as many as 200,000. The undeveloped farming area provides a peaceful last resting place for them, although fresh remains are found every time the fields are ploughed.
When I returned to the UK, I tabled an Oral Question in this House which led to many Members saying that they wanted to support the campaign to stop the motorway and preserve the Pilckem Ridge battlefield. As a result, we established the All-Party Parliamentary War Heritage Group, which continues to this day, with the remit of promoting and supporting the protection, conservation and interpretation of war graves, war memorials and battlefield sites. Two distinguished academics—Peter Barton and Professor Peter Doyle—volunteered to become involved having heard about my visit to Ypres, and Professor Doyle is still the group’s secretary. I continue to serve as co-chair, alongside Sir Jeffrey Donaldson MP, a fellow member of the Government’s World War I advisory board.
As a group, we engaged with the Flanders Government and, to their great credit, they abandoned the plans for the motorway extension. Now, each year, they organise impressive commemoration events around 11 November. This year, for example, they are having as their 15th “Flanders Remembers” event a concert in St Paul’s Cathedral on 8 November.
So much has been going on in the past four years that it is impossible in a single speech to cover more than a few examples. I hope, therefore, that the House will allow me to concentrate on just two areas where I have some personal involvement.
The first is the Worcestershire World War 100 programme. This is a partnership led by the Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service under the inspired leadership of Dr Adrian Gregson, deputy leader of Worcester City Council, and directed from The Hive, Europe’s first joint university and public library. The 2011 to 2019 programme includes council and independent museums, archives, the university, the cathedral, regimental associations, Army museums, trusts, local libraries, charities, the Western Front Association, the Royal British Legion and armed services’ benevolent funds. The project cost was £674,000, which attracted a Heritage Lottery Fund grant of £353,000.
Examples of what has been done include a people’s collection—material loaned or deposited and collected by local people in towns all over the county. The World War I bell tent has had 40 outings at shows, weekend events, schools, libraries and community groups—including in urban and rural schools in more deprived areas and with local ethnic communities—with re-enactors and other activities including poetry and poppy making. There have been displays marking specific centenary events involving Worcestershire regiments—such as the battles of Gheluvelt, Gallipoli, Qatia, Passchendaele and the spring offensive—plus longer-term exhibitions on the theme of “Back in Blighty” and the paintings of Benjamin Williams Leader.
The programme has organised heritage trails and exhibitions on the lives of Worcestershire’s very own Vesta Tilley and Studdert Kennedy—Woodbine Willie—as well as a war memorials bike ride. The “Fields of Battle: Lands of Peace” outdoor photographic exhibition by Mike Shiel, which many of your Lordships may have seen elsewhere, has been seen by 400,000 people. The South Eastern and Chatham Railway carriage which brought back the bodies of Edith Cavell and the unknown warrior came to the Severn Valley Railway on loan this summer. I should declare an interest as president of the Heritage Railway Association. Worcester will play its part in the Victoria Cross paving stone programme and is organising a military parade of the Mercian Regiment in honour of Fred Dancox VC.
The story is the same the length and breadth of the country. There has scarcely been a town or village which has not held its own commemoration. In my last few seconds, I pay a special tribute to the International Guild of Battlefield Guides; I have the honour to be its patron. It advises me that 1,800 schools have taken part in the battlefield tours programme and 6,500 teachers and students have been on a battlefield tour, many guided by guild members. They bring the former battlefields to life for the teachers and students. Guild guides have also played a key role in special school tours which commemorated a range of battles, including Loos, the Somme, Arras, Vimy Ridge, third Ypres and the spring offensive. The international programme was part of the Amiens 100 commemorations.
The evidence across the battlefield guiding industry is that bookings for 2019 are higher this year than was evident 12 months ago. That is interesting, and flies in the face of the accepted wisdom that the end of the centenary would mean a huge fall in battlefield tourism, and perhaps in remembrance. That is not so, and numbers are higher due to a wider percentage of the UK population being aware of the Western Front battlefields as a result of the centenary and the successful way in which it is being commemorated. That is a really positive legacy.
Breaching of Limits on Ticket Sales Regulations 2018
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)
My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, who has such a distinguished record in combating this terrible problem of ticket fraud and the exploitation of consumers. I also have one two questions for the Minister, which follow on from what the noble Lord has said.
The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, referred to the company viagogo. Has anything come of the warning by the Consumer Minister, Margot James, who advised anyone planning to buy tickets on resale websites, “Don’t choose Viagogo—they are the worst”? The Advertising Standards Authority has referred viagogo to National Trading Standards, citing a series of transgressions breaching the UK’s advertising code. Where has that inquiry got to and can the activities of viagogo in the United Kingdom be curbed, if not closed down altogether?
What steps have been taken to ensure that the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 provisions, which make it an offence to resell football tickets in Britain at more than list price, are being observed? What prosecutions have followed of people who have breached those provisions—not only viagogo but other companies using bots and touts in the way described by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan? Noble Lords with long memories will recall that that legislation was brought in not as a consumer protection measure but as a public safety and anti-hooliganism measure to solve the problem of fans of rival groups mixing together in a hostile manner in football grounds. One of the ways in which that could have been curbed was by ensuring that tickets were not being sold to anyone through undesirable sites such as viagogo and others.
Those are my only questions. I welcome the regulations and I hope they achieve the result the Minister has set out for them.
The Earl of Glasgow (LD)
My Lords, it is very important that the draft regulations laid before the House on 26 April should now be approved, and therefore I enthusiastically support this Motion. Bots in particular must be abolished. They were a method by which digital touts, which is what I call them, could acquire tickets for sporting and cultural events for the secondary ticketing market and resell them at greatly inflated prices. My concern, though, is that these unprincipled secondary market touts are clever and cunning. They will continue to find ways of trying to circumvent these regulations. It is therefore important that the National Trading Standards authority or another body like that is given more powers to monitor the regulations and, when necessary, prosecute offenders.
However, bots and the secondary ticketing market are not the only reasons why West End theatre prices for popular shows have risen so steeply over the past 10 years. Of the 40 or so main West End theatres, more than three-quarters of them are owned by just four companies. It is the theatres, not the producers of the shows, that fix the ticket prices, arrange special deals, determine the publicity and control the ticket agents, of which in each case they will be one themselves. It seems that this small number of theatre companies, acting as a sort of unofficial cartel, are in a position to dominate the London theatre market. Does the Minister agree that there should be an investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority, or again some similar organisation, into this very unsatisfactory situation?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
I have to be careful—I may not have been as careful as I should have been—to distinguish between the bots themselves and the ticketing platforms. Obviously, it is more difficult with regard to the bots, which are, in effect, ticket-purchasing software that could be anywhere, on any computer. I do not think I said that we were doing this. I am just highlighting the fact that following the money is important. I do know that payment providers such as Visa and PayPal do not want to deal with organisations or people who are committing an offence.
The noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, asked about the effectiveness of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, which creates an offence,
“for an unauthorised person to … sell a ticket for a designated football match”.
I am not an expert and I will have to follow this up but I think the problem is that that was enacted following the recommendation in Lord Justice Taylor’s final report on the Hillsborough stadium disaster. Lord Justice Taylor was specific that the offence be limited to football because of its unique public order risk. I am not sure it is right to try to address other issues through that. It was for public order reasons more than ticket resale and pricing reasons. But I am happy to look at that and get the noble Lord more detail from someone who understands the law on this.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester
I am grateful for that answer. If the Minister is able to find out some more information, that would be very helpful. The point about the 1994 Act was to try to achieve proper segregation at football grounds for public order reasons. The difficulty was that if tickets were freely available from unauthorised sellers in the street—this was before the days of internet purchase—it would not be possible to segregate crowds. That is what Lord Justice Taylor was concerned about. But the fact that that offence exists still makes it illegal for companies which are engaged in the secondary market to sell football match tickets unless they have the express permission of the football authorities.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
I understand and am grateful to the noble Lord for that. I absolutely agree that the offence was instituted for public safety reasons. But I will go into that in a bit more detail.
The noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, asked about theatre companies and tickets being concentrated in four companies. I have to plead the fact that this is not actually anything to do with this measure. Obviously, how those companies allocate tickets is a matter for them. As far as the Competition and Markets Authority is concerned, that is exactly its job—to look at competition—so the matter could be taken up with that authority.
The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, raised us to a higher plane, as always, when he asked what the definition of a ticket was. What is a ticket? I think that the nature of tickets has changed with technological developments. If this appears to be an issue when we review how the regulations are operating, we will consider how to address it. I should say at this stage that I said during the passage of the Bill that, once we had let the regulations bed in, we would look at how the technological developments were working and whether the regulations were sufficient. I said that we would consider that in the future when we saw how the regulations were working. As with many issues to do with the internet, I do not pretend that this will solve 100% of the problems with the resale of tickets, but the fact that we are creating an offence that stops multiple tickets being bought by machines to prevent fans getting a fair chance will solve a lot of problems. We will have to consider in future whether any other things need to be addressed—not least because of technological developments, which are moving fast.
I hope that I have covered most or all of the issues raised. With these regulations, alongside the ticket information requirements in the Consumer Rights Act and the enforcement work of the Competition and Markets Authority, National Trading Standards and the Advertising Standards Authority, we hope that the events industry will have the tools it needs to improve the opportunities for fans to buy tickets for events at a reasonable price and to protect them from being exploited. I ask that these draft regulations be approved.
Tourism
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(6 years ago)
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Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)
My Lords, may I ask the Minister a slightly shorter question? Is he aware of the contribution that heritage railways make to the tourist economy? On the latest estimate, it is somewhere between £250 million and £300 million a year, particularly in the coastal and rural areas to which he referred in his Answer. Could he please have a look at the Written Answer his noble friend Lord Henley gave me last week about the future supplies of coal, which are so important to steam railways, and give an assurance that, after 2023, coal supplies will continue to be available?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, I do not have specific figures on heritage railways, but I can assure the noble Lord that I shall not shunt his question into a siding and, with the help of my noble friend Lord Henley, I shall endeavour to smoke out the answer.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
Absolutely. That is why the tourism industry has brought its sector deal together. It is with BEIS at the moment and I believe the department will comment on it imminently.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester
My Lords, in my enthusiasm to ask my question, I omitted to declare my interest as president of the Heritage Railway Association.
Data Protection Bill [HL]
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(6 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
My Lords, I rise to speak to another rather wide-ranging group, in terms of numbers, although I think we will find the amendments are a theme and variation on an issue that will run through not just this Bill but a number of Bills to come. I refer to secondary legislation and powers in the future when it is necessary for the Government of the day to try to change that which has been set down in primary legislation in the past.
Amendment 22, which kicks this off, is taken very largely from the report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. I make no apology for that. I think it is a very good report, as always, from that committee which does a fantastic job on what we are doing. I think I am probably interposing in a dialogue that may be carrying on out of our direct ken since normally in this matter one would get a memorandum, which I think we have seen, and I thank the Minister and the Bill team for that. The first response from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee will make some comments and I think it likely that the Minister and his colleagues will respond to that. We are only in the early stages, so I suspect we are a bit previous on this point.
However, this is an issue of some substance that may well be in all the Brexit-related Bills soon to arrive in your Lordships’ House, which suggests that we might just have a quick canter around it at the moment.
In preparing for this particular area, I had thought that we would just stick with Clause 9, but I was drawn into also putting in Clause 15, because there is an interesting point here that I wanted to raise with Ministers. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Paddick, have had less restraint, and therefore we are covering quite a large number of the issues raised by the DPRRC. I look forward to hearing the response and to the wider contributions from those who have tabled amendments in this group.
The main theme that seems to run through this is what the committee says in paragraph 20 of its recent report, that,
“we take the view that the memorandum does not adequately justify the breadth of the power in clause 9(6) of the Bill, and that it is inappropriate for Ministers to be given carte blanche to rewrite any or all of the conditions and safeguards in Schedule 1 by regulations in order ‘to deal with changing circumstances’ instead of bringing forward a Bill”.
The committee then slightly changes its position by recognising that currently this is under the affirmative procedure, quite a strong measure to have in play in legislation, and suggesting an alternative approach:
“It may be appropriate … for Ministers to have a more focused power enabling them to update specific paragraphs”.
Maybe that is a line the Government will take. The essence of this is Henry VIII powers—how egregious they are and how bad it would be in future to come across them. At the same time we have to balance that against the obvious need, particularly in this Bill—as we have already discussed we are talking about fast-moving technology, although it applies in other areas—for some flexibility on the part of the Government of the day to bring forward amendments and changes as and when required. It is a balance and has to be struck properly, but the first shots in this have tended to be that Ministers are too aggressive. We await further discussions, but that is the ground which we will be traipsing around.
Amendment 106A relates to Clause 15(1)(b), at line 44 on page 8, which talks about,
“the power in Article 23(1) to make a legislative measure restricting the scope of the obligations and rights mentioned in that Article where necessary and proportionate to safeguard certain objectives of general public interest.”
I take this to be a quote from the GDPR. It is therefore couched in language which I think would be unexceptional if we were transposing the GDPR into the Bill, but of course we are not, and we are not allowed to amend it. The question really is what a legislative measure is. This is not a rhetorical question, because I would like an answer. In our system, as I understand it, Secretaries of State bring forward legislation in the form of a Bill. If they are not doing that, they bring it forward in secondary regulations. But a legislative measure has no apparent meaning in terms of the work we do—maybe the Minister will confirm that this is perfectly right. But for the moment, this probing amendment not only underlines the point made by the DPRRC in relation to the power in Clause 15 but is also about the particularity of the language used. I beg to move.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
I remind the Committee that if this amendment were to be agreed, I would be unable to call Amendment 22A for reason of pre-emption.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I regret I was not able to speak to the Bill at Second Reading, but I take great delight in speaking to it this evening, on Amendments 22, 23, 107, 138 and Clauses 15 and 111. I am well aware that the Bill is extremely important. The digital age brings all sorts of opportunities for us but also lots of challenges, and it is absolutely right to keep up to date and make sure that we have legislation in place for the big questions of privacy in such rapidly changing times. When the current data protection legislation came in, most people were still getting to grips with email, and sending a text message on your mobile phone was a really fancy way of communicating. It is time that the legislation was updated.
The sheer volume and depth of personal data that are now floating around online would have been unimaginable then. We share the deepest and most personal details of ourselves quite freely these days, or at least some of us do. The Bill seeks to set important new standards for the protection of people’s data and give them more rights over how their data are used. So far, so good—for example it would allow some of us to ask the social media companies to delete any stupid comments we made a decade or so ago, which might help some MPs currently.
Battle of Passchendaele
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(6 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)
My Lords, I join others in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Black of Brentwood, for securing this debate, and congratulate him on his brilliant opening speech. I had the privilege of attending the two days of commemoration in Flanders on 30 and 31 July, which I went to as a member of the Government’s World War I centenary advisory board—and I shall say a bit about that in a moment. I also want to talk about other aspects of the commemoration programme, as we move towards the anniversary of the armistice in November next year.
We have been reminded today about the horror that was Passchendaele and the unimaginable scale of the casualties on the allied and German sides. After the wettest summer for 30 years, the ground under foot was a quagmire, and the mud was so deep that men and horses drowned in it—described by Siegfried Sassoon in his heart-breaking poem, “Memorial Tablet”, quoted to such effect by the noble Lord, Lord Black, in his speech.
One soldier who fought at Passchendaele and survived was Harry Patch, who died in 2009 at the age of 111, the last British survivor of the trenches. I had the privilege of meeting him in Ypres the year before, when he paid his last visit to the Western Front. His Great War service was uncovered only in 2000, when he began to talk of his wartime experiences. He was an ardent spokesman for the promotion of peace, saying that war benefits no one but merely leaves individuals and families irretrievably scarred. He travelled back to the battlefields of Ypres regularly during the last decade of his life, and attended the “Last Post” ceremony at the Menin Gate, always promoting the same message: dialogue, rather than show of arms. He agreed to meet a German veteran while in Ypres in 2006, and their coming together was a powerful symbol of reconciliation. I think that he would have agreed with David Lloyd George, about whom the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, spoke, when he described Passchendaele in his war memoirs as,
“one of the greatest disasters of the war... No soldier of any intelligence now defends this senseless campaign”.
Looking back at the commemorative events held in Flanders this summer, I would like to put on record my admiration and appreciation for everyone who made it possible for those two days to be so memorable and appropriate. I have been to many “Last Post” ceremonies at the Menin Gate, but the one on 30 July was extraordinary, as was the event in the Market Square the same evening. The digital imagery projection on the Cloth Hall was effective and striking and, by using the words of the people who were there 100 years earlier, gave a real sense of the suffering, endurance and sacrifice. The events on the following day, 31 July, were also very special. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission organised a powerful and moving ceremony at their Tyne Cot Cemetery, which, like those in Ypres the night before, was attended by members of our Royal Family and the King and Queen of Belgium, with our Prime Minister and members of the Government—one of whom was the noble Lord, Lord Ashton, I think. The commitment of all of them to ensuring that those two days were so successful reflects great credit on everyone involved, and I would particularly like to put on record my appreciation for the hard work behind the scenes of the DCMS team, Dave Thompson, Jennie Shaw and Clare Pillman, who all went the extra mile to ensure that everything worked so well.
With regard to other events going on now and planned for the coming months, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission tells me it will be doing all it can to ensure that the flame of remembrance is kept alight. I share the admiration expressed for the CWGC by other speakers in this debate. It has opened a new visitor information centre in Ypres, which was visited by the Prime Minister during the UK commemorations in July. This centre enables it to help all those who make the pilgrimage to the Ypres salient to find out more about the work of the commission and the 400 cemeteries and memorials that it cares for in that small stretch of the Western Front. The commission is placing young interns at Tyne Cot, welcoming those who visit, and telling the stories of those who fell—an initiative financed by the LIBOR fund, perhaps proving the truth of the old saying that it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good. The commission’s new charity, the CWGF, will be fundraising to continue that work, and expand it to include young people from all over the Commonwealth in 2019.
We should also express our appreciation to the Government of Flanders, who continue to be so supportive of the CWGC and of all member Government commemorations, and who have this year pledged over €3.8 million to help maintain and conserve some of the historic structures. I take this opportunity to thank them for agreeing over a decade ago to abandon plans for the extension of the A19 motorway across the Ypres salient, which would have destroyed the tranquillity of Pilckem Ridge. They did that in response to representations by Members of this House, who, with me, founded the All-Party Parliamentary Group on War Heritage in 2002. All these initiatives will help ensure that visitors to the battlefields of Flanders will continue to be able to honour those who fell long after the centenary is past.
Now everyone is preparing for 2018. As the paper considered by the Government’s World War I advisory board last week says:
“Commemorating the centenary of the war in 2018 is one of our greatest challenges to date. So far we have focused on highlighting and telling the story of a specific battle or engagement. In 2018 we have a far more complex narrative to convey, together with issues of tone – both throughout the year and on 11th November specifically”.
How we commemorate 1918 will, I am sure, be the subject of a separate debate in your Lordships’ House. I just express the hope that the high standards set in the first three years of the commemoration period in terms of tone, nuance and content are sustained through to November 2018. I have consistently supported the non-partisan and cross-party way in which the Government have approached the commemoration programme. The combination of school battlefield visits, national events, the enhancement of the Imperial War Museum, the active involvement of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and the encouragement of local initiatives is absolutely right.
In my own city of Worcester, a great many initiatives have been taken—the city of Woodbine Willie, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby reminded us. The next significant event is on 4 November in St Helen’s Church. It is planned to include exhibitions, short talks, Army, Navy and Air Force cadets, re-enactors and children’s activities. The day’s activities will start with a short service at 10 o’clock led by the Royal British Legion chaplain, which will include a one-minute silence and the “Last Post”.
There are countless other such events taking place across the country. I am happy to pay my tribute to the Prime Minister’s special representative, Dr Andrew Murrison, for the trouble he has taken to include as many organisations and individuals as possible in the plans to commemorate the centenary.