Lord Lemos (Lab)

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for participating in this debate today. I think all noble Lords will agree with me that it has been an immensely powerful debate, with a deep sense of reflection and consideration, and I greatly welcome the sense of consensus and collaboration that has prevailed throughout the discussion today. That demonstrates—as does the whole genesis of the Bill—a phrase that my noble friend Lord Blunkett used: there is strength in adversity, and it is that strength and the spirit of that which we seek to draw on in taking the Bill forward. I particularly thank the noble Lords who drew on their personal experiences—I was very moved by that. I have to say that it is a humbling privilege for me to be responsible for progressing the Bill through your Lordships’ House. I am very proud to be doing that and to be following my noble friend Lady Levitt, who has done such a distinguished job to get us to where we are today. I will seek to address as many of the issues as I can, but I know I will fail. I have not a hope in hell of addressing all the issues that were raised in 45 speeches, and I am not terribly good at namechecking everyone who spoke, but I will try my best. On the detailed comments about scopes made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, and the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, for letting me off the hook of having to reply to them all this evening, but I will respond to them in detail, both in writing and in Committee. I have already written to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, on some of these matters, and we will continue to engage in that way. I promise to write in detail to all noble Lords who have participated in this debate because I know, as I say, that I will get as far as I can but I will not be able to deal with everything. I look forward to continuing to meet with all noble Lords who are interested. Some noble Lords have specifically mentioned that they would like to meet me. I would be delighted to do that, and I will meet with others too. Between now and the debates in Committee, I will also meet with campaigners and family members, including, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, the Devine family—I would be delighted to do that. We shall continue these discussions in Committee. I will now turn to some specific items that have been raised. My rough rule of thumb is to try to deal with the issues raised by the largest number of Peers, if I can, but I will see how I do. Every one of your Lordships who has spoken in this debate made the point that this is about culture change. If we do not achieve that, we have seriously failed in our duty. I do not have time to namecheck all noble Lords, but I will just mention the noble Lord, Lord Wills, whom I have had the pleasure of speaking to several times, and the work he has done over a long time on all this, and the work that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has done through the Joint Committee on Human Rights. I was very struck by the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, to which I will return in a moment. I will first set out the Government’s position on the ways in which we can ensure this is effective at the cultural level as a prevention mechanism. I very much agree with the comments made by the noble Baronesses, Lady Sanderson and Lady Cavendish, that there are strong interdependencies here, and the Bill comes as a package rather than as a series. The Government will publish statutory guidance to support public authorities to establish the codes that the Bill requires, to ensure they meet the requirements of the Bill. We have had a number of important and interesting observations about how we can do that effectively, and I am very happy to continue those discussions. I am very interested to continue discussing how we can, through the Bill, begin to drive ethical behaviour throughout the organisation. A number of noble Lords have made the point about the junior ranks, and I take that very seriously. I was very struck by the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, on leadership. The noble Lord, Lord Barber, made the same point. We all know that that is the centre of what we are discussing here. The Government, under the former Prime Minister, commissioned the new Ethics and Integrity Commission to work towards becoming a centre for excellence for codes of conduct. That is an independent body and the Cabinet Office duty of candour team is working closely with the officials of the Ethics and Integrity Commission on how we take this forward. As part of that, the Ethics and Integrity Commission will research and develop guidance on codes of ethics that will be published on its website, so all public authorities will have access. But I am not seeking to argue that through those traditional means we can bring about the culture change that we seek. The observations by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, on the social and psychological aspects of the changes we are seeking seemed to me very pertinent. This is not just a legal exercise. I was very struck by the phrase of the noble Baroness, Lady Cavendish: we cannot delegate our conscience to regulators. I know that to be true, having worked in private sector and public sector regulation myself, including in the financial services. Regulators can help, but it is our job as legislators and as the Government to set the tone. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, that I always welcome a cricketing metaphor: to follow through on that, I know that is the way to the boundary. A number of noble Lords made the point about resources and the displacement effect of resources. I want to come back to that in Committee. But my main point is to say that the Government take this very seriously. We have no investment in these codes of ethical guidance being ineffectual or failing, or undermining the whole purpose of the Bill. We want to get this right and we will work closely with your Lordships to do so. We are all on the same side. I was going to say we all share the same scepticism. Scepticism is the wrong word, but we share many of the same concerns that this may not achieve either what we want or as much as we want. We will certainly come back to that. I turn now to the national security services. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, for her observations and I want to reassure her, and the security services generally, that the Government take very seriously the points that she raises about the sensitivity and the vulnerability of this and how significant it is for national security. But I am pleased that she said she thought the arrangements we have set out are adequate. I also want to thank my noble friend Lord Beamish, who I know, with the Intelligence and Security Committee, has done a lot of work on this to get us to where we are. The Government believe we are in a stable place from which to go forward in a way that both protects national security, including protected information about national security, and ensures that the security and other services are within the scope of the Bill. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for his comments and drawing on his enormous experience, and also my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti, who has played an important role and spoke with great force about the need to protect national security. I note the observation from the noble Baroness, Lady May, on the possibility that these arrangements may be cumbersome. I take that very seriously, particularly as it comes from, if I may say, someone with her experience and distinction. But the Government think that, as far as the national security services are concerned, we have reached a stable and balanced place. I will say a word or two about the NHS and the duty of candour, because that has been referred to by a number of people. The intention of the NHS duty of candour is to ensure that providers are open and transparent with people who use their services. This duty of candour is different, as noble Lords know, so we hope it will work in a different way. I reassure my noble friend Lord Blunkett that the duty of candour will apply to all officials, former and current, even if they have new jobs. I was very interested in the comments made by a number of noble Lords about the no-blame culture, which raise some philosophical questions about our whole approach to this and the efforts of Jeremy Hunt in the NHS. I absolutely assure the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, that the Bill covers the Post Office. A number of noble Lords have spoken about aspects of the Horizon scandal, and I will certainly write specifically about all the questions that surround Horizon. A number of Lords also raised the Independent Public Advocate. I am very clear that the Government support—I think the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, was very politely questioning this—and welcome the role of the IPA as an extremely important early intervention for victim support. I discussed it with my Commons colleague, Minister Davies-Jones, this morning, and I am meeting Cindy Butts tomorrow. We are very committed to this and we absolutely recognise—as I think I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson—that a role for the IPA in these situations will be enormously helpful in achieving what I regard as one of the most important goals: to help the families to get to the truth quickly. We are not resistant to all that. I look forward to discussing how that will work in practice with many noble Lords. A number of issues were raised about legal aid. I do not have the time to go through them all. I will just say that the principle we are working with is to try to correct the asymmetry that exists at inquests between public bodies and families and survivors. That is what we will seek to achieve, not just through the provisions for legal aid, which I am happy to discuss in more detail—I am very happy to meet the noble Lord, Lord Bach, to talk about it further—but through the constraints on public bodies to use legal representation in a proportionate and responsible way that does not place onerous duties on families, the bereaved and survivors. I turn quickly, in the two or three minutes left to me, to two or three more important issues. On whistleblowing, the prediction that the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, made of how I would respond was correct: we are about to launch a consultation very soon—not “in due course” but very soon. I want to defend where we stand on this. We are talking here about whistleblowing in the public sector, but all noble Lords know that there are many concerns about whistleblowing in the private sector. They may not be quite the same, but the Government are concerned about protecting whistleblowers across the board. That is what we hope to achieve through the work of my colleagues in the Department for Business and Trade and a number of other things. I am afraid that we want to wait for that, but I am very happy to continue to discuss it. The principle of the role of whistleblowers is already mentioned in the way the Bill is crafted and how the code of ethics is set out—I will not set it out now, in the interest of time. We believe that we have addressed the question of whistleblowing in the way we have drafted the Bill, but we will take it forward for both the public and private sectors. That is our intention and what I hope we will do. The Hicks campaign was discussed by the noble Lord, Lord Alton. My noble friend Lady Levitt met with my noble friend Lady Kennedy; I would be delighted also to meet with my noble friend Lady Kennedy. The Hicks campaign goes to what I think is one of the hearts of the matter: if families cannot get to the truth quickly, accountability and consequences will not follow. The truth is the foundation stone on which accountability and consequences follow. I have run out of time. I will just say one or two other things. In relation to Northern Ireland, I want to reassure my noble friend Lady Ritchie that the duty will automatically apply in the limited number of inquests that will resume as a result of the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill. I can reassure her that we are working closely in discussion on how this duty of candour work will be taken up through the legacy commission. I really am out of time now, but I promise to write on a number of other issues, including misleading Ministers and the destruction of documents and police records. On the extension of this duty to subcontractors, the Government are very open to thinking about that further. We will talk about self-incrimination and the interaction with FOI, which we feel we are in a good place on but are very happy to discuss. We will come back to some of the issues that my noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, raised around the harm threshold. I will also write about historic injustices, command responsibilities and the obligations on parliamentarians. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, is in an unusual place. I looked up and saw that her seat was empty. I will write about how we arrive at our views on public bodies in scope, including universities and financial services. I am sorry that it has been a bit rushed, but I hope that I have dealt with some of the issues, and I promise to deal with the others in writing. I look forward to engaging with all noble Lords at Committee stage. I beg to move.