House of Lords
Census Day
Lord Newby
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to publicise census day on 27 March.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
My Lords, were there a topical question for today, my noble friend might well have secured it, because this is the day when the first household forms will be sent out. Advertising for the 2011 census has already started. The first television advertising began on 21 February and will continue up to and beyond census day on 27 March. In England and Wales there will be a national campaign, including TV, online and outdoor advertising on, for example, billboards and bus shelters. Separate targeted advertising is aimed at black and ethnic minority audiences, students and young people who are traditionally hard to reach.
Lord Newby
My Lords, given the importance of the census information and in light of the fact that in 2001 many people did not complete a form, and with a return rate of under 80 per cent in some London boroughs, how confident is the Minister that completion rates will be higher this time, particularly among households where English is not the first language?
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
My Lords, the Government share my noble friend’s concerns. There are areas of the country where returns are low, and those are the very areas where accurate information can often assist government decisions on resource allocation. I should remind the House that £100 billion-worth of resource allocation depends on the sort of information that the census provides. The advertising campaign is therefore constructed to that end. The organisers have been working in partnership with local authorities to plan and prioritise engagement, and advertising with voluntary groups, organisations and community leaders to promote the census.
Baroness Coussins
My Lords, have the Government identified what interpretation and translation services they need to complete the census, and how have the relevant specialists been recruited?
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
A large number of specialists have been recruited and translations of the questions and information leaflets will be available in 56 languages. There will also be drop-in centres located in local communities to assist in completing the forms where that will be of help. Community leaders are being encouraged to become involved in helping to complete the forms.
Lord Geddes
My Lords, I may have misheard my noble friend, but in his original Answer, did he say that advertising was going to go on beyond census day; and if so, why?
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
I am afraid that much of the effort involved in the census has to be made in chasing those who have not returned the form. The task of some 35,000 field staff will be to chase up the addresses from which no return has yet been received. That is the reason for the chase-up advertising.
Lord Campbell-Savours
My Lords, is it not rather ironic that all this effort is being put into the census when the same is not being done for electoral registration?
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
I think that the noble Lord has made that point before when we were discussing other matters, and I appreciate his contribution on this. I am sure that he will agree that getting accurate information is important for proper and effective government.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes
Does the Minister accept that there is a certain lack in the census? There is no way of taking into account illegal immigrants—the “invisible” people, of whom it is estimated there are many hundreds of thousands in this country—if they cannot be identified in any way, and do not wish to be.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
My Lords, it is a household census; therefore the head of the household is responsible for accounting for the people within it on census day. When the Government examine the future of the census, the points that my noble friend has made will be borne in mind.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, it is rumoured that this will be the last census in its current form because of cost. Can the Minister confirm whether that is the case? If it is, how will such data be collected in future? These data are important not only for current planning purposes but for historical purposes as well.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
I thank the noble Baroness for that question. The cost of conducting a census is £487 million—an enormous sum which Governments have found has augmented over time. The Government are indeed looking at alternative methods. It may be possible to have much more real-time information—after all, at the end of the 10-year period, the data are already very out of date. A project beyond 2011 has been set up to provide and examine alternatives to the current paper-based method of collecting these data. It will report within the next three or four years.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
My Lords, can the Minister tell us how many families there are in this country whose English is not sufficiently good to understand the census form?
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
We cannot be sure, which is part of the reason why the census exists. It will inform that debate.
Lord Maclennan of Rogart
My Lords, given the importance of the information to be obtained by the census and the uncertainty about its future, will the Minister make certain that, on this occasion, very careful study is made of the value for money of the contracts that have been placed to carry it out?
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
Yes. Although the contracts have been placed under open tender, the Cabinet Office and the Government in general have a policy of transparency in contracting and of making sure that cost-effectiveness is at the top of the list.
Lord Hughes of Woodside
My Lords, the census form arrived in our household today and, on immediate reading, it seemed to state, “complete on 27 March or as soon as possible thereafter”. It is not immediately apparent to me—I may have to look at it again—that there is a closing date for putting in the information. Is there such a closing date on the census form?
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
The chase-up period will go on until 9 May. It may be necessary for people who are absent to complete the form after 27 March, but the Government’s objective is to have a snapshot view on 27 March. That is the end in mind. I should add that it is possible to complete and submit the form online in anticipation of 27 March, if one wishes to do so.
Lord Christopher
My Lords, my impression is that not many people have seen the form yet. I had the misfortune of getting it this morning. I glanced at it only very quickly, and will not ask the unkind question of whether the noble Lord has seen it, but I think that it runs to 32 pages. It provides some notes for what you should do if you make a mistake—well, there is some opportunity there, I can assure the noble Lord. So my question really is: what steps are proposed to monitor the accuracy of returns, even for those of good will who might wish to return them? I did the census 60 years ago, for £10, when every form was taken and completed by an operative, but we are now relying on the public.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
I am pleased to hear that the noble Lord received his form this morning; he is higher in the alphabet than I am, so mine might come a little bit later—but I have actually downloaded a form online. I will make sure that a copy of the form is available in the Library for examination.
Education Maintenance Allowance
(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many young people they estimate will be affected by the cancellation of the education maintenance allowance.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)
My Lords, the EMA is currently paid to 45 per cent of 16 to 18 year-olds in full-time education at a cost of £560 million a year. Research commissioned by the previous Government showed that about one in 10 of those receiving EMA would not have continued in learning without it. We are currently considering the replacement arrangements with the aim of targeting support more closely on those facing the greatest financial barriers to participation.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
I thank the Minister for that reply. Is he aware that some colleges have estimated that up to 50 per cent of young people will have to leave post-16 education when the EMA payments stop, thereby joining the growing ranks of those not in education, employment or training? Has the department considered the economic and social impact of this? Would it not have made more sense to finalise the details of the new discretionary scheme before announcing the end of the EMA, to minimise the upset and uncertainty that many young people who do not know whether they will qualify under the new scheme are feeling?
Lord Hill of Oareford
On the noble Baroness’s second point about sequencing, I accept the force of her argument. As she will know, the Government were confronted with a situation where they had to take urgent decisions rapidly because of the scale of the deficit, and we took those decisions first. I take her point, but we acted in the way that we did because we needed to start cutting the deficit quickly. On her first point, I am aware of the views of many principals of sixth-form colleges and young people, who have expressed concerns to me about the loss of the EMA. The noble Baroness referred to 50 per cent; I come back to the research commissioned by the previous Government which looked at the impact and stated, consistently across two or three pieces of work, that about one in 10 said that they would not have carried on. We will target the arrangements we work out on those who need help most, because I accept that we need to ensure that the children who face the greatest barriers get help to carry on in education and training.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his undertaking to concentrate on those young people who need the support most. Does he agree that young people in care, who have had the poorest of starts, need support to access education? Will he make certain that they do not lose out because of this change?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I agree with the noble Earl about the importance of children in care. It is a consideration that the Government will have to bear very much in mind as they work out exactly how to deliver targeted help. I accept in full the force of his comments.
Baroness Walmsley
Does the Minister accept that for young people in rural areas the cost of transport to and from a sixth form or college can be very high? Is that one of the priority areas that the Government are considering while studying what to put in place of the EMA?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I accept completely my noble friend’s point about the element of transport costs, particularly in rural areas where it makes up a proportionately larger amount of the costs a young person might have. It remains the case that local authorities have a statutory duty to make arrangements—either through provision or funding—for transport for those groups. As she will know, currently the discretionary fund operated by colleges does not allow payment for transport. While one does not want to get to a scheme whereby all the discretionary fund goes on transport, or to relieve local authorities of that statutory duty, nevertheless we are looking at the point she makes about the importance of transport, particularly in rural areas.
Lord Tomlinson
Is the Minister aware that there is no golden rule that said you had to make these cuts in educational maintenance allowance—that it is a matter of judgment? Is he further aware that it is our view, which we suspect will be shared by the majority of the people in this country on 7 May, that in exercising that judgment the Government got it right—oh! I mean that the Government got it wrong—and that this side of the House is correct?
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, I will pass on the endorsement by the noble Lord. I fully accept that it is about judgment. Overall in the settlement got by the Department for Education, particularly on the schools side, we managed to maintain cash flat per pupil and to fund a pupil premium. One would always like to have more but I accept the point about judgment. The Government made the judgment across the piece that the priority was to cut the deficit and get those interest payments down. In due course, we will be happy to be judged on that judgment.
The Lord Bishop of Leicester
My Lords, does the Minister accept that among the categories that may require special attention under the review are black and minority-ethnic communities who often place a high value on education but come from poorer homes and are more dependent on this kind of help than many others?
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, the Government want to look at a number of groups carefully in the replacement scheme. One group is children in care. There are issues to do with rurality and transport, as my noble friend has raised. I also accept that there are particular issues of the kind that the right reverend Prelate has raised. In all this, we want to make sure that the most effective help is delivered locally to those children who need it most.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
My Lords, are we now seeing an unfortunate pattern from the Secretary of State for Education—a rush to cut without any apparent concern for the consequences and no attempt to consult beforehand? Does the Minister not regret that, on EMAs, Booktrust, school sport, music tuition and of course the Building Schools for the Future programme, the Secretary of State has failed to undertake the normal processes of consultation that really should be part and parcel of good government? Is that not why he is getting so many of these things wrong?
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, I think I said in my first answer that, as with other departments, my department has been driven by the underlying need to grapple with the inherited financial situation. In those circumstances, where one is ratcheting up the debts, I do not accept that it is wrong to press ahead in dealing with those issues.
Immigration: Asylum Seekers
(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Avebury
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will exercise the power in Section 94(5) of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 so as to restore the right of appeal against refusal of asylum to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual people from Jamaica, Nigeria and Ghana.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, unsuccessful asylum claimants have a right of appeal to the UK courts. Designation under Section 94(5) does not deny a right of appeal to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual applicants from designated countries including Jamaica, Nigeria and Ghana. However, claims from nationals of non-suspensive appeal designated countries that are clearly unfounded must be certified as such and can be appealed only from outside the UK. There are no plans to change this.
Lord Avebury
My Lords, the UKBA has collected figures on LGBT asylum seekers since last July, immediately after the Supreme Court ruling that the wrong test was being applied to them. How many cases have been recorded for each of these countries since then? If the overwhelming majority of them were either granted asylum on their application or allowed an appeal notwithstanding the provisions of the Act, does my noble friend agree that the law should correspond with the practice, as it already does for women?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the noble Lord suggested that the wrong test was being applied previously. We are happy with the new test in HJ and HT. He asked me to cite some statistics and I will write to him, but a clearly unfounded claim is one that is so clearly without substance that it is bound to fail even were all other aspects of the applicant’s claim accepted. Certification is subject to judicial review.
Lord Rosser
My Lords, if it is the Government’s view that the right of appeal already exists, as I understand the Minister to have said, in the light of the recent Supreme Court ruling that application for asylum should be accepted if it is satisfied that a gay person who lived openly would be liable to persecution in the country of origin, would it not be appropriate to amend Section 94(5) of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act to add sexual orientation to the list of specific descriptions of named categories of people who have the right of appeal?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, no, because all cases are considered on their merits. If there is no reason to suspect that an applicant is not gay and he comes from a homophobic state, he will have a good claim for asylum.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, the Minister will understand the comments made by those who have been subject to these procedures—that, for instance:
“If you do not fit”,
the border agency’s,
“view of a stereotypical gay person then they don’t get it—how do I prove I’m a lesbian?”.
I am not asking the Minister to give a direct answer now but perhaps to take my question back to consider it, because I have not given him warning of it. In Section 94, there is the opportunity for the Secretary of State, when he thinks that it is appropriate, to add other attributes. Is the word “reasonably” implied when the Secretary of State has to consider those other attributes?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the noble Baroness is right on her first point on the difficulty of reliably determining whether someone is gay or not. I accept that point. But if the claim is not clearly unfounded, the applicant will be able to put that to officials and, if necessary, to an appeal court.
The noble Baroness talked about Section 94. We do not think that it is necessary to make a further designation under Section 94 as she suggests.
People Trafficking
(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Doocey
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what measures are in place at King’s Cross St Pancras International station to prevent children being trafficked into the United Kingdom.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, all passengers arriving at King’s Cross St Pancras have been cleared for immigration purposes at juxtaposed controls in France and Belgium. The primary function of officers at St Pancras is to undertake checks for prohibited goods and restricted items. If there was any suspicion that a child arriving at St Pancras was at risk, the UKBA would refer to the appropriate authorities.
Baroness Doocey
My Lords, does the Minister accept that that means that a 12 year-old child can travel from Europe to St Pancras without any checks at all on their safety when they get here? Would he not agree that there ought to be a specialist child protection team at St Pancras to ensure that children trafficked into the UK are not being brought in and then used for sexual exploitation and benefit fraud?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, there is no need for a specific team at St Pancras as the noble Baroness suggests, because the necessary checks are carried out in France and Belgium by specially trained UKBA officials. Obviously, a child travelling on their own would arouse some suspicion and attention from officials, who are very likely to intercept them and satisfy themselves that everything is in order.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, I think that the Minister is unduly optimistic about the way in which children come into this country. I declare an interest as the co-chairman of the All-Party Group on Human Trafficking. Is he aware that the majority of children trafficked into this country are never actually identified at all? Some are identified and go into local authority care, but very large numbers of missing children are not identified by local authorities as trafficked.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I am certainly not unduly optimistic, and I was far more apprehensive about taking this Question than the previous Question. Trafficking is a hidden crime and, for that reason, is difficult to measure and detect. It is usually for sexual exploitation, labour exploitation or domestic servitude. Some 1,048 individuals were referred to the UK’s human trafficking victim identification and support framework, the national referral mechanism, from 1 April 2009 to 30 September 2010. Those are the ones whom we know about because they have been referred, so to an extent the noble and learned Baroness is quite right—this is a serious problem.
Baroness Goudie
My Lords, is it not correct that the European convention on human trafficking was amended at the end of last year and that the United Kingdom has decided not to sign up to that amendment? Would it not be right now, after what the Minister has said further to what we know about human trafficking, for the Government to sign up to that? The amendment would ensure tougher border controls, tougher recovery of money across borders and a longer time for victims to be taken care of. Will the Minister please take this back since the UK is, through its Government, one of the two countries that has not signed up?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the noble Baroness is experiencing exactly the same difficulties as I did when researching this. There is the convention and there is the directive. We are confident that the UK is compliant with the Council of Europe trafficking convention, an issue that is already in place. The noble Baroness is referring to the EU trafficking directive. We are looking closely at that directive’s text and considering its merits. If we conclude that opting in to the directive would benefit the UK, we can apply to do so. The UK has a strong record in the fight against trafficking and already complies in both legislation and practice with most of what the draft directive requires.
Lord Laming
My Lords, the Government have been looking at that directive for some considerable time. Can the noble Earl assure the House that a decision will be made shortly, rather than allowing this situation to drift on indefinitely?
Earl Attlee
The noble Lord makes an important point. The issue is coming to fruition and when we see the final text we will determine whether we will opt in.
Baroness Scott of Needham Market
Is the noble Earl aware that when a specialist unit was set up at Heathrow it found that, of 1,800 unaccompanied children, half were under 11 and one-third were deemed to be at risk in some way? Have the Government given any consideration of whether the age at which children can travel unaccompanied is appropriately set?
Earl Attlee
The noble Baroness makes an important point. I am quite confident that we have considered carefully the matter of the age of the child. However, where the child is obviously younger or more vulnerable more attention will be paid by the UKBA officials.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, can the Minister tell me what role the British Transport Police has to play, particularly in relation to those two passenger stations? Also, in view of the Government’s dangerous proposals to politicise our police forces through elected police commissioners, what changes are envisaged for the British Transport Police?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, this issue is primarily a responsibility of the UKBA, not the British Transport Police. However, if those police saw a child at St Pancras or at any other station who appeared to be vulnerable in any way, but particularly to trafficking, it would obviously be their duty to do something about it and to refer the child to the local authorities.
Lord Elystan-Morgan
Can the noble Earl tell the House how many prosecutions there have been in the past 18 months in respect of this serious criminal enterprise, and how many of those have been successful? Should not those agencies responsible for gathering evidence be greatly strengthened so that credible cases can be brought before the courts?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, some of these cases are extremely difficult to prosecute. What distressed me a lot was that there were very few prosecutions for sexual exploitation. However, the police and the CPS use every legitimate means at their disposal to disrupt this trade and make it difficult and unprofitable for the perpetrators. This approach has led to convictions for a range of serious charges including rape, brothel management and money-laundering. It is also important to note that where charges are brought against suspected traffickers they may not be charged with specific offences of trafficking, depending on the facts of the case.
Lord Clarke of Hampstead
My Lords, I suggest to the Minister that this is not a new concern. Forty years ago on Camden Council we were worried about vulnerable people turning up at Kings Cross, Euston and St Pancras and being at the mercy of evil people. In the Minister’s earlier Answer he said that, once located, vulnerable people would be passed over to the statutory authorities. Is he convinced that the local authorities—in this case, probably Islington and Camden—have sufficient resources and the proper trained personnel to deal with these people, who are in a terrible state when they have escaped the clutches of the people who bring them in?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the noble Lord raises an important point, but very few trafficked children appear at St Pancras for the reasons that I have described. However, considerable numbers turn up at Stansted and Heathrow, and both Hillingdon Council and Essex Council have made progress on improving some of their statistics, which in the past were not very good at all.
Lord Roberts of Llandudno
My Lords, what co-operation is there between us and other member countries of the European Union that are also on the line that leads to St Pancras?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, when UKBA officials intercept a child being trafficked in France or Belgium, that child is quite properly handed over to the French or Belgian authorities. We are confident that they have the necessary procedures and facilities in place because they are signed up to the same conventions as we are.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, will the Minister assure the House that the UKBA officials in the juxtaposed zones in Belgium and France have the right capacity to identify people perpetrating this, given the difficulty that he has highlighted in doing so? Is there social work input into what they do? Perhaps he might write to me with the details of their training.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I am convinced that UKBA officials are specially trained to be able to detect children being trafficked. There are tell-tale signs when something is wrong, and I am confident that they are properly trained in that respect.
Communications Committee
The Chairman of Committees
That Lord Inglewood be appointed a member of the Select Committee in place of Lord Dixon-Smith, resigned; and that Lord Inglewood be appointed Chairman of the Committee in place of the Earl of Onslow.
Public Bodies Bill [HL]
(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Berkeley
“The Trinity House.”
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 67A, 88A, 139A and 165A. This is a group of probing amendments. I am keen to understand the Government’s intentions on the three general lighthouse authorities—Trinity House, the Northern Lighthouse Board and the Commissioners of Irish Lights—and to see how that connects, if indeed it does, to the possible changes to other maritime organisations, specifically the Marine Management Organisation, which we will discuss in Amendment 80 later today.
The Government have included two of the three GLAs in Schedule 7. I think that the schedule is now to be withdrawn, but it would be good to hear the Minister’s confirmation of that. In some ways, it is a pity that Trinity House will be removed from Schedule 7, given that, after all, Trinity House was founded by Henry VIII and most of us refer to Schedule 7 as a good Henry VIII clause. It is rather sad if that is to happen, but I am sure that we will all survive.
I am not going to go into the details of the general lighthouse authorities—I had the Second Reading of my Private Member’s Bill here a few weeks ago—but the issue within the Public Bodies Bill is a question of governance. The three GLAs are unique organisations in that they fix their own budgets and get the Government’s approval. Having given their approval, the Government make the ship owners pay whatever is needed to balance the books. That is not strong governance in my view. The previous Government allowed the charges to ship owners to go up by 67 per cent in one year, which was very excessive. More recently, the present Minister for Shipping, Mike Penning, has announced that he has sorted out the Irish question. In this context, that relates to the fact that ships coming into British harbours pay the dues that also provide a significant subsidy to the Commissioners of Irish Lights. That is good. Ministers have also announced that the budget for the GLAs will reduce by something like 17 per cent over three years. That is not enough but it is much better than nothing. Maybe there should be benefits in the structure as well.
Another inconsistency among the three GLAs concerns the Freedom of Information Act. The Northern Lighthouse Board is subject to FOI, whereas Trinity House is not. I know that discussions are going on between the Ministry of Justice and Trinity House but it is rather odd that there is this inconsistency. The Commissioners of Irish Lights cover Northern Ireland as well as southern Ireland and are generally seen to be most generous in their payment of their staff. A Written Answer I received a few months ago suggested that six of their senior executives were paid more than €1 million. That seems quite excessive for managing some lighthouses. They are not subject to FOI because they are partly managed by the Republic of Ireland.
It is good that the Government are cutting off the Irish subsidy by the end of this Parliament, but could the Minister in responding explain what, if anything, the Government intend to do about the governance structure of the three GLAs? There is not much incentive at the moment for them to cut costs or for the Government to make them do so. The shipping lines pay whatever the Government decide. Therefore, I would be very pleased to hear what the Minister has to say in response. I beg to move.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, I spoke in an earlier fascinating debate on the Irish lights and other matters in this field. I hope that this is a probing amendment. I listened with interest to the questions. As a lad who was born and brought up in Harwich, which is now the hub of the Trinity House universe, I would be deeply opposed to seeing it abolished, which is what the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, appears to seek to insert into the Bill.
Lord Davies of Oldham
My Lords, the House is grateful to my noble friend for raising this matter yet again. As he rightly said, we had the opportunity to discuss these issues at the Second Reading of his Private Member’s Bill. However, there are some interesting dimensions to this, which we were not able to clarify entirely on that occasion. Indeed, it was suggested that I had made a slight slip—a rare occurrence, as the House will appreciate—when I referred to the payments to the Irish being a subsidy. As my noble friend has rightly identified, it is not a government subsidy; the money is paid by the ship owners and those who pay the dues. The payments are close to being a subsidy, given that people have no choice but to pay and the Government enforce them. Nevertheless, that is one indication of how careful one must be in dealing with these issues.
The Government are to be congratulated on having sorted out aspects of the finance of this issue to do with previous support, which was paid directly to the Irish for the Irish lights. Nevertheless, my noble friend has drawn attention to a number of interesting questions. On Second Reading, the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, responded as accurately and as effectively as he could, anticipating that we would have further discussion in Committee. However, it would be helpful if the Minister responded to some of the contradictory aspects that obtain across this area, not least the freedom of information aspect with regard to Trinity House. I hope that he is able to throw light on these somewhat troubled waters.
Lord Greenway
My Lords, I admire the tenacity of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, on this matter which, as the Minister well knows, we have discussed on a number of occasions. I declare a non-pecuniary interest as an elder brother of Trinity House and I will address my remarks mainly to Trinity House. Despite what the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said, I do not think that it would be within the powers of any Government of this country to enact something relating to a body set up in Dublin in the Republic of Ireland. Therefore, any thought of doing things with regard to Ireland must be out of order.
The noble Lord’s other main concern relates to the payment of light dues and particularly to the efficiency of the general lighthouse authorities. The previous Administration commissioned a report by Atkins, which looked into further efficiencies that could be made in addition to those that have already been made over a number of years, certainly in the case of Trinity House. Its recommendations were accepted and are being implemented through the new general lighthouse authority joint strategic board, which was set up by the Atkins review. In parallel, the Shipping Minister asked the GLAs to consider how they might achieve an additional reduction in expenditure, averaging 25 per cent over the period ahead, which Trinity House will deliver in full through a six-year programme. This programme has also been accepted by the Minister.
Any change to the existing governance arrangements of the GLAs would bring significant risks and costs. For this reason, I suggest that the amendments are unnecessary.
Lord MacKenzie of Culkein
My Lords, I also pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Berkeley for raising this matter again. As the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, said, my noble friend is tenacious. However, I am sorry to say that I disagree with the points that he has made. We debated this matter extensively on 21 January and I want to reiterate a couple of points from that debate. The WS Atkins report went into considerable detail on the general lighthouse authorities. The British and Irish Governments have dealt pretty comprehensively with the so-called Irish question and the new strategic board has been set up which will drive further reductions in costs. At the end of the day, the shipping companies pay these costs.
Last Saturday I picked up a lovely little book about the Bell Rock lighthouse, comprising a series of articles written by an assistant lightkeeper in about 1904. The foreword to the book describes how the lighthouse authorities in the UK work. One of the interesting points was that, despite repeated reductions in costs around the turn of that century, the shipping companies were demanding that they should not pay light dues and that the lighthouse authorities be funded out of imperial taxation. Nothing has changed in 110 years.
I do not know many, if any, organisations that could have cut their costs and increased efficiency in the way that the lighthouse authorities have. There have been massive cuts in personnel, huge advances in technology, and that is the way forward. If technology moves forward and becomes affordable, I have no doubt that there will be further reductions in light dues. For the present, however, I see no useful purpose in pressing these amendments. I am pleased to note that the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has said that they are probing amendments.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
My Lords, this has been a useful debate—I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, believes that to be the case—and I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. This is a probing amendment and I accept that in my response. I understand the noble Lord’s purpose, because he has proposed for some time that the general lighthouse authorities that serve the coast of the United Kingdom and Ireland should be merged into one body. Indeed, mention was made by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, of the Bill that the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has presented to the House. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord MacKenzie of Culkein, for his contribution that shows that a lot of progress is being made in this area. It is an opportunity for the use of technology that the authorities have taken advantage of. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, for his involvement with those bodies, particularly Trinity House. I hope that my noble friend Lord Newton of Braintree will accept that these are probing amendments. I respond in that spirit.
I should explain to noble Lords that the Commissioners of Irish Lights has functions in relation to Northern Ireland and to the Republic of Ireland. Moreover, it is a body established in Dublin under Irish law. In case people fantasise about people earning enormous salaries, no staff member earns €1 million in the employment of that body. It is not for the UK Parliament to purport to abolish or otherwise this body or its functions in relation to the Republic of Ireland.
A recent independent study by the consultants Atkins, to which reference has been made—it was a comprehensive review—addressed the provision of marine aids to navigation and concluded that the present arrangements, whilst complex, achieve the basic objective of ensuring the safety of the mariner and provide high-quality, comprehensive and integrated maritime aids to navigation all around the British Isles. Notably, Atkins recommended some changes to the governance of the general lighthouse authorities through the creation of a joint strategic board. Since last year, with the Shipping Minister’s endorsement, the joint strategic board has worked closely with the Department for Transport and the three general lighthouse authorities to identify further efficiency measures to drive down running costs.
The general lighthouse authorities are no strangers to minimising their costs, as the noble Lord, Lord MacKenzie, said, by adopting new technology, estate rationalisation, joint operational initiatives and the generation of income from their commercial activities. These organisations have ensured that the level of light dues that pay for their work is 40 per cent lower in real terms than in 1993. Indeed, Atkins concluded that the general lighthouse authorities have a strong track record in identifying and realising efficiencies and cost reductions within their operation and support functions. These directly benefit ship owners through reduced burdens on the general lighthouse fund and the real-terms level of light dues.
I know that the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has pursued this issue with terrier-like commitment, but I hope that I have been able to provide some clarity on the recent progress that we have made in this area of policy.
I am afraid that I am not in a position to answer the question on the Freedom of Information Act and its application to the various authorities, but I shall try to do so and will write to the noble Lord with that information. With that in mind, and in view of the general lighthouse authorities’ excellent reputation for delivery, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Berkeley
I am very grateful to the noble Lord. Before I withdraw the amendment, perhaps I may invite him to comment on Amendments 139A and 165A. In the light of the statement that the noble Lord made on the previous occasion that we debated this matter, it is not clear to me whether Trinity House and the Northern Lighthouse Board are meant to remain in Schedule 7 or whether they will be among those that are to be removed. My amendments would remove these two authorities from Schedule 7 to avoid them being changed; the Government have included them in Schedule 7 but they may want that schedule to be removed. My original question was: if the Government want them in Schedule 7, what are they going to do with them when they are in that schedule? Therefore, in theory, the noble Lord should accept my Amendments 139A and 165A on the basis that there will be no change for these two organisations.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
I thank the noble Lord for his ingenuity in this respect. He should know that I have added my name to those opposing the question that Schedule 7 stand part of the Bill. Therefore, Schedule 7 will not apply to the Bill, and the noble Lord can rest at east that there will be no way in which these bodies will be included in that schedule.
Lord Berkeley
I thank the noble Lord for that explanation, which gives me great comfort. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Bach
I have played a very limited part in this Bill so far, so I hope that the Committee will forgive me if I do not get the spirit of it straightaway. I have been involved in other matters that have taken up quite a large amount of the House’s time.
I make it clear at the start that this is a probing amendment. However, that does not imply that we on this side are satisfied with the way in which Her Majesty’s Government are supporting victims of crime. It has often been said in this House, in particular, that for years victims were the forgotten people of the British criminal justice system. Sometimes they were not listened to; sometimes they were not consulted; and quite often they were not given the information that they were entitled to know. To sum that up, they were not treated as seriously as they should have been. However, I believe that there has been something of a revolution during the past 15 years or so, largely down to some fantastic victims’ organisations that have grown in strength over that period, becoming effective and powerful players, but also because of the work and extra resources that the previous Government—the Labour Government—put in to this part of the criminal justice system. In the past, the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, has been graceful enough to acknowledge that resources and effort were put in by the previous Administration.
As I understand it, victims’ panels, with which the amendment is concerned, have worked well and, importantly, they have been able to give victims direct access to government in its widest sense but to Ministers, too, and of course vice versa. However, we are told that the Victims’ Advisory Panel is to go. Some suggest that it may have gone already and I would like the Minister to comment on that.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)
My Lords, I am grateful for the questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Bach, about the Victims’ Advisory Panel. Let us be quite clear: the Victims’ Advisory Panel is not a body that gives help to victims. It does what it says on the tin: it is an advisory panel. It was established in 2003 and is a statutory, advisory, non-departmental public body, established to enable victims of crime to have their say in the reform of the criminal justice system. This is not a cost-driven proposal, although the abolition of the panel will save up to £50,000 a year.
The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Bach, is valid: that the appointment of the Victims’ Commissioner, Louise Casey, has changed the priorities and many of the things that the Victims’ Advisory Panel aimed to do have now been overtaken by the Victims’ Commissioner. Since her appointment, the Victims’ Commissioner and her team have regularly met victims in the course of their work; they have met more than 300 groups and individuals since May 2010. The Victims’ Commissioner has organised workshops and focus groups with victims of crime, organisations that represent victims and their families and organisations that provide services to victims. She and her team have also held specialist meetings with young people who have been affected by crime and carried out in-depth telephone interviews with members of the public.
It is not true that the Government have turned their back on victims of crime—quite the opposite. We have looked at a relatively small body with a relatively limited remit and taken the opportunity to remove it while also taking on board the opportunity to use the Victims’ Commissioner and her work much more extensively. The proposed abolition will in no way limit the opportunity for victims to articulate their opinions. The existence of the Victims’ Commissioner is a more effective and flexible means to ensure that victims’ views are independently represented to government. The Government’s intention to abolish the panel is in no way a reflection on the efforts of its members or the important recommendations that it has made to improve victim and witness services.
Lord Clinton-Davis
Did the coalition give any indication in the election that they were going to abolish the panel? What was the position of the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative Party?
Lord McNally
One of my weaknesses as a politician is that I am never expert on the specific pledges made in election manifestos. The last one that I remember in detail is one that I helped to write, but I will not mention which one and for which party. When the coalition took office, we took a general view. I will not produce groans from the party opposite, but in the light of the financial situation that we inherited—
Lord McNally
Absolutely on cue. That was the situation. I am not claiming that the £50,000 being saved by abolishing the panel will right the public finances. What is more important is that the coming into being of the Victims’ Commissioner, a creation of the previous Government, has overtaken the work of this relatively small body. I do not think that it is possible to put the interpretation on it that the noble Lord, Lord Bach, did, because the Victims’ Commissioner has in the past year been carrying out an extensive consultation with the public and victims, which will feed in very much in the way that the work of the panel has. As I said, I strongly doubt whether in either manifesto there was a commitment to this body one way or the other.
Lord Clinton-Davis
I can tell the noble Lord that there was no such commitment in either case.
Lord McNally
I will not say anything about the noble Lord and his dedication to reading election manifestos in detail, but it is often said that the only people who read election manifestos in great detail are the opponents of the parties that write them. I am absolutely willing to accept that.
The proposed abolition of the panel is based on the understanding that the Ministry of Justice will, through the commissioner and as a matter of course, continue to consult victims’ groups and engage with a vast range of criminal justice system agencies and voluntary and community sector groups on matters related to the views of victims.
On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Bach, there is a large number of groups doing very good jobs on this, so it is over-egging the pudding a little to say that closing this relatively small group with a very short lifespan, which has been overtaken by the work of the Victims’ Commissioner, is going to damage victim support in the way that was suggested. Indeed, the victim sector contains many organisations set up by victims themselves that focus on specific issues such as homicide and sexual violence. The commissioner provides a valuable function in helping the Government to engage with this sector by ensuring that future policy is informed by the views of an appropriately broad and diverse range of individuals and groups. The commissioner has been meeting victims, and these representative groups across the country tell her their own experience of what has been happening. She is currently consulting on a range of issues, including the treatment of young victims and witnesses in cases that involve adult defendants and provision for the bereaved. Additionally, the Ministry of Justice has invited the commissioner to consult widely on and to participate in two of the department’s priority strands of work: the development of a more transparent sentencing framework and victims’ views relating to the rehabilitation of offenders and ways in which the victim might contribute to reducing offending.
The Ministry of Justice will continue to consult and meet victims and victims’ groups. We have just commissioned a full review of the services and support offered to victims of crime. Officials have commenced, as part of the review, a series of workshops with victims’ representatives to consult them on future strategy. These workshops have been attended by the Minister with responsibility for victims’ issues, the honourable Member for Reigate, Mr Crispin Blunt.
The proposal to abolish the Victims’ Advisory Panel should not be taken to indicate any wavering in the coalition Government’s support for victims of crime. Although the panel was set up to offer advice to the Secretary of State for Justice on matters relating to victims, it has never provided any form of victim support. The Government remain committed to ensuring that appropriate support is available for the most serious, vulnerable and persistently targeted victims of crime and to ensuring that the concerns of victims of crime are heard. I hope that I have reassured the noble Lord, Lord Bach.
On the specific question about WAVES, I will have to write to the noble Lord. I will investigate what has happened. On the crime survey, I have not been briefed that there is any threat to it, but I will inquire and write. I say to the noble Lord that I can understand why and, as I have said, I do not disagree that the previous Administration gave priority to the victims of crime. Building partly on their bringing in the Victims’ Commissioner, the removal of the Victims’ Advisory Panel is not the threat to victim support that he might have suggested in moving this amendment, which I hope he will withdraw.
Lord Newton of Braintree
Before the noble Lord, Lord Bach, withdraws his amendment, I shall express my frustration that the amendment on the Valuation Tribunal Service was not moved, because I anticipated that it would give me my first, and possibly my last, opportunity to be fully supportive of the Government in the course of these proceedings. I take this amendment as a similar opportunity. First, I express my sympathy to the noble Lord, Lord McNally, on his inability to remember the detail of everybody’s election manifesto. Secondly, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, that I take his observation to mean that there was no reference at all to the Victims’ Advisory Panel in the two manifestos, from which it appears to me to follow that there was no commitment to keep it regardless of changes in circumstances. Thirdly, the noble Lord, Lord Bach, made some perfectly good points, but they did not have much to do with the question of whether there was a need to keep this body. Fourthly, I thought that my noble friend made an overwhelming case in saying that there is no need for this panel now that we have the Victims’ Commissioner. The commissioner can take advice from whomever she wishes, so I support the Government.
Lord Bach
I thank all those who have spoken in this debate. The Minister has clearly persuaded at least one member of the governing coalition of the wisdom of his words, and I congratulate him on that. I thank him warmly for his full answer to this amendment and for dealing with the other questions that I asked. I look forward to his letter. I thank my noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis, too, for asking a very pertinent question. Like all good cross-examiners, he knew the answer to his question before he asked it.
Victims are a serious and substantial issue and I make no apology for talking about them in more general terms when I introduced my short amendment. I cannot say that I am totally satisfied with the Minister’s answer because I do not believe that the Victims’ Commissioner, a post that we set up and that the present Government very much support, was necessarily meant to be at the expense of the advisory panel, which is due to be abolished. There seems to be no reason why the two should not work hand in hand. Maybe there would not be as many advisory panels as there were before the commissioner was appointed, but the direct contact that there was between Ministers and victims of crime under the advisory panel system should be encouraged; it was of considerable use and advantage to Ministers.
My noble and learned friend Lady Scotland, who is in her place today, reminds me that she used to chair one of the panels. She says that she got a great deal of information and knowledge from it that might not be so available to Ministers in the future. This is meant as no criticism of the Victims’ Commissioner, who is an outstanding public servant, as the Committee knows well. I just ask the Government to think again about whether they should get rid of the concept of this advisory panel altogether. They should ask themselves whether the panel did not add something to the very difficult relationship between victims of crime and government.
Lord McNally
On the point about the thinking behind this, I note that a year before the Victims’ Commissioner took up her post the then Minister wrote to all the members of the advisory panel, whose terms were all coming to an end, asking them to stay on for an extra year until the commissioner was appointed. The panel members agreed to work on until May 2010, which suggests that even the previous Administration might have thought that the arrival of the Victims’ Commissioner would call into question the future of the panel. That relates to the question that the noble Lord, Lord Bach, asked me earlier about whether the panel had already been abolished. There was this hiatus because the previous Administration had not appointed a new panel. I suspect that it was thought somewhere that there would be an overlap between the Victims’ Commissioner and the work of the advisory panel.
Lord Bach
The Committee will be grateful to the Minister for mentioning that point, but it does not take away from the fact that the previous Government were not committed to scrapping the Victims’ Advisory Panel. At the time, it would have been quite understandable for a Minister, knowing that an election was due and that whoever became the Victims’ Commissioner would want to look at the position once he or she had taken their place, just to write that letter. Is it really the main, or an important, motivating force of the Government that it is worth saving £50,000 or whatever per year and that the good work done by the Victims’ Advisory Panel should be put on one side? There is a case for saying that the Victims’ Advisory Panel should continue in some form—perhaps a modified form. However, I am grateful to the Minister for his response. We will consider carefully whether we will bring this back again on Report. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Warner
Lord Warner
My Lords, it is appropriate that we move from discussing victims to discussing the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales because many of the victims of young offenders are themselves young people. I am moving this amendment in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, because I am deeply concerned about the Government’s decision to abolish the YJB, particularly regarding the inconsistency of that decision with the content of their own, perhaps I may say, rather creative White Paper, Breaking the Cycle, with its emphasis on prevention and rehabilitation.
First, I declare an interest as the first chairman of the board between 1999 and 2003 when I left to become a Health Minister, which I suppose is a logical kind of progression. I was very involved in developing the policy on the youth justice reforms, of which the board was a part. In deciding to abolish the YJB, the Government have shown very poor understanding of the history of unsatisfactory youth justice policies that led to the reforms.
Putting responsibility for youth justice back into a government department with many other responsibilities would simply repeat the mistakes of the past—dare I say, especially post-1979. It was the failure of the Home Office to work with other agencies and to deal with the special needs of children who offend that led to the establishment of the board after the highly critical 1996 report by the Audit Commission entitled Misspent Youth. Given that the Government think that the board’s job is done, which I find surprising, does the Minister really believe that young people will stop offending because the Ministry of Justice is in the driving seat? We should stop pretending that the board’s work is complete, for reasons that I will outline.
The history of youth justice is one of fantasy and error. The fantasy is that young people will grow out of offending, so we do not need to do too much. For some young people that may well be true, but for many the culture of offending that surrounds their daily lives is deeply established, difficult to resist and requires specialised interventions that are bespoke to young people. The error is to avoid the uncomfortable fact that many of the agencies involved with young people who have offended have no history of working together to tackle these complex issues and are reluctant to commit resources to this area without much prodding.
The purpose of the YJB was to oversee the work of the multi-agency youth offending teams and to keep on the case of their participating agencies, as well as to produce research and new ideas of what works best with young offenders. That work continues to need the attention of a national body which is independent of government and composed of members and staff with expertise in dealing with young offenders. This expertise has taken a decade to build up. Now the Government want to throw away all the hard work that has been done because of some misguided idea that they can save a bit of money and get the board’s work done by a few civil servants and, perhaps I may say, a motley crew of transient Ministers—that goes across the political spectrum—both of which are groups with no lasting investment in the work of youth justice. This is a costly error of significant proportions both for young people and the communities affected by their offending behaviour. The Government will find this out in a few years’ time as youth crime figures rise and more young offenders are banged up in costly, overcrowded establishments with fewer and fewer proper educational or behavioural change programmes.
Not everything that the YJB has done has been perfect; mistakes have been made. The reduction in research expenditure, for example, was a mistake. But the board’s overall achievements are considerable. Over the past 10 years, there has been a 30 per cent reduction in the number of young people brought into the youth justice system, from 90,000 to 60,000 young people. This policy of diversion, started in my time, has gathered pace since then, but it takes investment in and commitment to preventive programmes and independent board leadership to do this in a criminal justice system that is all too often preoccupied with short-term considerations. Stopping young offenders reoffending is one of the hardest things to do in criminal justice, but the latest figures show that between 2000 and 2008, the volume of reoffending by young people dropped by 25 per cent. At the end of 2008, the number of young people held in custody was under 2,000 compared with around 3,000 when the YJB was set up. It was the board that introduced more intensive supervision in the community to give the courts an alternative to custody. It is these reforms and improvements that the Government are now choosing to put in jeopardy with their ill-considered abolition of the board.
It is not just me banging on about something I helped to establish; independent reviews have said much the same thing. In 2004, the Audit Commission’s review of the reformed youth justice system said:
“The new structure works well. The YJB sets a clear national framework with minimum standards and takes a lead role in monitoring progress and developing policy”.
Dame Sue Street, a former Permanent Secretary in her government-commissioned 2010 review of the YJB concluded that:
“Overall, the YJB earns its place as a crucial part of a system which aims to tackle one of the most serious social policy issues in the country”.
Another government patsy, the National Audit Office, in a report published in 2010 said:
“The board has been an effective leader of efforts to create and maintain a national youth justice system with a risk-based approach, and in recent years key youth crime indicators have been falling substantially”.
The Public Accounts Committee endorsed the NAO report and the central role of the YJB in its report published less than a month ago. The PAC went on to say in that report:
“The planned abolition of the Youth Justice Board has arisen from a policy decision and not as a result of any assessment of the board’s performance. The Board has developed and maintained a distinctive focus on youth in the justice system and has contributed to positive outcomes in recent years. There is a risk that some of the factors that made the Board successful will be lost in the transition”.
It is not a risk, but a racing certainty that absorbing the YJB’s functions into the Ministry of Justice will be a major setback for an effective youth justice system and will have to be reversed in the future.
When the youth justice reforms were designed in 1996 and 1997, we gave careful thought to and took expert advice on the issue of putting the YJB’s functions in the Home Office. We decided that innovation, monitoring and encouraging local performance, tackling bad performance, reducing custody, increasing prevention and leading change would not be advanced by placing the functions in a government department. I would suggest that most objective observers would say pretty much the same thing today. Even as we consider this Bill, my intelligence is that a bureaucratic struggle is going on in the Ministry of Justice about who gets these functions, thereby reducing job losses in the successful part of the MoJ that wins the struggle. Despite its chequered career, which compares unfavourably with the YJB, the National Offender Management Service seems to be the front runner to absorb the work of the board. Can the Minister give a categoric assurance that under no circumstances will any of the YJB’s functions be transferred to NOMS or the Prison Service?
Before I close, perhaps I may be permitted to detain the House briefly with an anecdote from my time as YJB chairman which illustrates my concerns. We discovered that the Prison Service was in breach of its contract for providing education by keeping youngsters in their cells and not sending them to education classes. After repeated warnings and threatened sanctions, nothing changed, so I authorised the withholding of a monthly payment to the Prison Service. This captured the attention of top management and led to a major row, played out in front of the then Home Secretary. Eventually, the Prison Service got its money, but only after a significant improvement in performance. Frankly, I cannot see the MoJ’s civil servants deploying challenge mechanisms of that kind to underperforming large-service providers, but perhaps the Minister will tell us that a series of Rottweilers is now staffing the MoJ.
I close by giving the Minister some youth justice advice from an old hand. It is not unusual for people of previous spotless character to fall into bad company. They suddenly find themselves in a successful gang after being ignored by everyone for years. “What is wrong with a bit of vandalism?”. But it is never too late to change, and to go in for an intensive course of restorative justice and see things from the victim’s point of view. I am prepared to set the Minister up with an intensive programme of rehabilitation before Report in the hope of returning him to the straight and narrow. We might even be able to find a compromise between absorption into the Ministry of Justice and staying as an NDPB by using the model of an arm’s-length executive agency with independent non-executive directors. When I was working in the YJB, we never gave up on anyone, even Ministers. I beg to move.
Lord Ramsbotham
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, and the noble Lord, Lord McNally, for the time, care and attention that they have devoted to meeting and briefing those of us who are involved on this Bill, particularly on this contentious issue.
In 1809, elements of my regiment, the Rifle Brigade, were greeted by those whom they were relieving during the mismanaged and ill-fated expedition to the island of Walcheren with the words, “Good luck, boys. You, too, are being made the sport of theory”. These came to mind as, incredulously, I read in the briefing paper on the abolition of the Youth Justice Board the statement:
“The Government believes that independent oversight of the youth justice system is no longer required”.
With that coming on top of the impact statement for the Public Bodies Bill’s stating that the Bill will have no impact on either the criminal justice system or human rights, I can only conclude from the proposed abolition of the one body responsible for overseeing youth justice within the system and the oversight of the human rights of young people involved with it that, as in 1809, theory has been allowed to subsume common sense.
The Youth Justice Board has been publicly recognised by Ministers as having played a critical role in transforming the delivery of youth justice, creating a safer, more distinct secure estate, reducing offending and reoffending by young people, and overseeing the successful establishment of youth offending teams, of which the Minister, Crispin Blunt, has said:
“The multi-agency YOT approach to justice that is embedded in local communities and heavily focused on rehabilitating offenders is the right way forward. One of my aims in my job is to adapt the adult system on the lessons from the youth system”.
If it has achieved, and is achieving, so much, why remove it? The secret of its success is that one organisation has provided continuous and focused oversight of a very particular part of the criminal justice system. Abolish it, and you risk all that has been achieved, and could be achieved in the future, by maintaining the momentum of progress.
In his letter dated 3 March to those of us interested in this amendment, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, said:
“The government is committed to maintaining a dedicated focus on the needs of children and young people in the youth justice system”.
The letter also states:
“We are not seeking to revert the system to that which operated in the 1990s”,
and,
“Our current proposal, subject to the outcome of the Rehabilitation Revolution consultation … is that the main functions of the Youth Justice Board should be delivered within the Ministry of Justice’s Policy Group”.
But the Minister is proposing precisely the system that operated and failed in the 1990s.
I first became aware that all was not well with the administration of youth justice in the first week of my appointment as Chief Inspector of Prisons in December 1995, when I was alerted to the appalling treatment of and conditions for young offenders, particularly those under the age of 18 held in Prison Service custody. At that time the Social Services Inspectorate was responsible for inspecting all facilities for children in this country under the age of 18, except for those in the hands of the Prison Service, which claimed Crown immunity from the provisions of the Children Act 1989. This was something that I immediately campaigned to have changed and eventually happened following court action by the Howard League, but that is another story.
I therefore invited a social services inspector to come with me on my first inspection of a young offender institution at Onley—a split site, which holds both those between 15 and 18 and 18 to 21 in separate accommodation—to assess the conditions for and treatment of children who were held there. She told me that if it had been a social service or local authority children’s custody centre it would have been closed because of the lack of acceptable facilities or a suitable regime for children.
I then found that, as I had feared and as remains the case today, no one in the Prison Service was operationally responsible and accountable for children in prison and, therefore, there was no one whom Ministers could task with making the necessary improvements or chase when these did not materialise. For some inexplicable reason, the Home Office and the Prison Service believed that the young offender estate could be directed and overseen by bureaucratic diktat from people in policy branches. The results that I saw on the ground, over and over again, confirmed by experts, proved how wrong they were. On what evidence does the Minister think that substituting the Ministry of Justice for the Home Office will make it right now?
Against this backdrop, I well remember the collective sigh of relief among all those involved with youth justice when the Youth Justice Board was first introduced because they could now work face to face with someone responsible and accountable, who could come round and see for him or herself what they were doing on the ground, rather than impersonally with faceless bureaucrats behind desks in Whitehall ministries. I was naive enough to hope that making someone responsible and accountable for, amongst other things, the treatment of and conditions for children in prison, would be followed by similar appointments for other groups of prisoners. Because we were responsible for monitoring and hopefully influencing the treatment and conditions of children in custody, my inspectorate worked very closely with the YJB from the outset, passing on all our observations and recommendations as soon as possible, and very soon we began to see improvement because the YJB was able to override deficiencies in Prison Service management by requiring it to satisfy conditions and treatment criteria laid down in contracts.
The Minister will be familiar with the Crime and Disorder Act 1998—Chapter 37 of 1998—which established the Youth Justice Board. I will quote only from Clause 41(5)(f), which states that, among other functions, the board’s functions shall be,
“to identify, to make known and to promote good practice in the following matters— … the operation of the youth justice system and the provision of youth justice services; … the prevention of offending by children and young persons; and … working with children and young persons who are or are at risk of becoming offenders”.
How successful has it been? In addition to what Ministers have said, the Public Accounts Committee, to which the noble Lord, Lord Warner referred, said in its report:
“The Board has been an effective leader of efforts to create and maintain a national youth justice system, with a risk-based approach, and in recent years key youth crime indicators have been falling substantially”.
Like the Public Accounts Committee, I do not pretend that the YJB as currently constituted is perfect; improvements could and should be made both to its place and role in the criminal justice system hierarchy and the scope and methods of its activities. However, those can be rectified through the traditional review process. They do not justify the abolition of something that has proved itself to be a sensible agent of progress. The ideological reasons behind its abolition have been hinted at already by the noble Lord, Lord Warner.
My reason for pointing this out is that there appears to be an inherent contradiction between what is proposed in the Bill and what is in the Ministry of Justice Green Paper, Breaking the Cycle, from which I quote two statements. First,
“A ‘Whitehall knows best’ approach has stifled innovation both at national and local level”.
Secondly,
“A top-down approach has concentrated on process instead of results. Prisons and probation services were assessed on the basis of hitting multiple targets and whether they had complied with detailed central requirements. There was insufficient focus on whether they were delivering the right result for the public and communities”.
The Cabinet Office appears to be saying in the Bill that, yes, trying to run operational functions top-down from Whitehall clearly does not work and the practice is condemned. Yet although the alternative—appointing a named person to be responsible and accountable for independent oversight of operational functions—is successful where Whitehall has failed, it is no longer required because its laid-down role conflicts with the government policy, as confirmed in the letter from the noble Lord, Lord McNally, from which I have already quoted, which states:
“The YJB has primarily an oversight and a commissioning role, and it is this role that we propose to continue in the Ministry of Justice”.
Change is the name of the game. The rehabilitation revolution has been publicised as a “once in a generation” opportunity for change, ignoring the fact that it is only seven years since the last “once in a generation” change with the introduction of NOMS. It seems the Cabinet Office must make the only change possible, namely reverting to the “Whitehall knows best”, top-down approach that it has condemned, pretending—because it says so in its impact statement—that reintroducing failure will have no impact on the criminal justice system.
I thought that the Alice in Wonderland nature of all this had been exhausted until I read some words of the Minister for Prisons, Crispin Blunt, published on 14 January. He said:
“With Ministers making themselves more accountable, independent oversight of the youth justice system is no longer required, and the Ministry of Justice is able to lead an effective system going forward, building on the improvements that have already been made”.
What on earth does he mean by “more accountable”? Ministers have always been responsible and accountable for the YJB, as the chairman of the YJB has been to them. Is Blunt implying that it needs to be in the Ministry of Justice because accountability will be easier to exercise in the same building, or is he frightened by any suspicion of independent oversight? It is unfortunate that, in the recent past, there has been a lack of clarity about whether it was the Secretary of State for Justice and the Prisons Minister or the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families and the Children’s Minister who were ultimately accountable for the YJB, but that is a matter for Ministers, not the YJB, to resolve. It is important that the YJB chairman should know precisely to whom he or she is accountable. Lest Ministers think that I am a lone voice in all this, let me again quote from the Public Accounts Committee report, which I read only after I had prepared my remarks to the Committee:
“The abolition of the Board raises a question about how a national focus on reducing offending by young people and reducing the use of custody will be maintained”.
On previous occasions in this House, I have wished that the clocks should now show the letters “PANT”—for “People Are Not Things”—instead of “0:23”; Ministers responsible and accountable for the conditions for and treatment of young people in contact with the criminal justice system must surely realise that, because so many of them are damaged and vulnerable, they need care that is positive and personal, transparent and consistent, provided and led by people. An impersonal, commissioned approach to that task, conducted by bureaucrats in policy departments, is neither practical nor sensible, as has been proved. I hope that, faced with that reality, Ministers will not be tempted to think of delegating oversight within the Ministry of Justice to the National Offender Management Service. NOMS would be a wholly unsuitable organisation because, first, it is not a service; secondly, it is all about adults; thirdly, within it, the Prison Service has already gobbled up the Probation Service; and, fourthly, its management structure is about commissioning and not oversight.
I will not mince words. On the basis of what I have seen, I regard the flagrant abolition of a personal system, responsible and accountable for the care of vulnerable and impressionable young people, reverting to a failed impersonal one, as nothing other than thoroughly irresponsible. The Government have had the courage and good sense to listen to reason about other parts of this Bill. I appeal to the Minister to adopt the same approach to the proposed abolition of the Youth Justice Board.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
I support many of the coalition Government’s initiatives on criminal justice, which makes it absolutely surprising to me that, among all the good initiatives, they should go in for the idea of abolishing the Youth Justice Board. I strongly support the noble Lords who have spoken to the amendment.
It seems extraordinary to me that a government department, the Ministry of Justice, which has a huge remit and numerous issues that it needs to resolve, would want to take in-house dealing with youth justice. If it chooses to do that, there will be an inevitable loss of expertise and specialisation in relation to child and youth offenders, who are, as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said, wholly different from adults and need to be looked after separately.
There is a huge importance in continuing the good work of reducing reoffending—and there has been a substantial reduction in reoffending—but it needs to go much further. To achieve this, we need a separate body from government to monitor and support that important initiative of reducing reoffending. Could the Government think again and consider that if it works, why break it?
Lord Dholakia
My Lords, I am delighted to speak to this amendment in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Warner and Lord Ramsbotham. During my time on the Front Bench for the Liberal Democrats, I have been a firm advocate of the work of the Youth Justice Board. Even now, I continue to be so, despite the fact that it may affect my promotional prospects in the coalition Government. I would go even further. Despite my criticism of the plethora of criminal justice legislation in the life of the previous Government, I have held out YJB as a success. Credit must be given to the noble Lord, Lord Warner, followed by Professor Rod Morgan and now Frances Done. Each of these individuals, as chair of the Youth Justice Board, has provided sound leadership and positive outcomes. Their contribution to the work of the YJB should be recognised and applauded.
My interest has not been limited to the YJB; in fact, the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, will recollect that he advocated a debate on a women’s justice board, and I was delighted to support him in that initiative. It is hardly appropriate for me to opt out of my support for the Youth Justice Board.
I am delighted that my noble friend Lord McNally has written to noble Lords in advance of this debate. I thank him for that, as it helps to clarify the Government’s stance on this matter. I commend my noble friend for maintaining a dedicated focus on the needs of children and young people—precisely the objective of the Youth Justice Board. I am delighted that he intends to retain the youth offending teams which deliver youth justice on the ground—precisely the objective of the Youth Justice Board—and that those are not going to be abolished. Again, that is very much a sound judgment.
I am also assured that the department does not intend to dilute in any way the commissioning of a secure estate that is driven by the needs of young people and that the YJB’s oversight and commissioning role will be preserved. As the noble and learned Baroness has just mentioned, the question therefore arises: why mend the system if it is not broken? Would it not be better to retain the YJB and to amend those aspects of its role that the coalition Government want to change, in line with their commitment to localism?
The YJB has a positive story to tell. It has diverted young people from the criminal justice process, which is remarkable when we think that 74 to 75 per cent of young people offend within two years of leaving a penal institution in this country. It has also helped to reduce the reoffending rate, the effect of which can be seen in the reduced numbers in our penal institutions. I suspect that its success depends, to a great extent, on the fact that it is an arm’s-length body. That factor may be compromised if the main functions are to be delivered within the Ministry of Justice policy group.
I suggest to my noble friend the Minister that the best way to proceed is perhaps to allow the YJB to continue its present functions but at the same time to introduce pilot schemes in some areas, to see which of the two systems is better able to meet the needs of young offenders. Perhaps my noble friend could look at this suggestion and come back on Report so that we can be satisfied on the most appropriate way to tackle this problem. It is right that we devise a system that is effective. Public confidence will be shaped by the quality of the service that we provide rather than by looking at a simple argument of reducing the resources.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, and supported by my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham. It troubles me that something that has proved to be so valuable is being done away with. Look at the numbers of young people under 18 held in custody at any one time, which have reduced significantly. Whereas in December 2000 there were 2,704 young people in custody, in December 2010 there were 1,918. The bulk of the reduction in the numbers of young people in custody has taken place over the past two years; at their peak, custody numbers were as high as 3,200. There has been a significant reduction in the numbers of young people in custody while the Youth Justice Board has been at work, saving the taxpayer the huge sums of money needed to keep those young people there.
I am grateful to the Government for the briefings that they have allowed us to have on this area. I am deeply grateful for the commitment that the Government have shown to vulnerable young people, starting with the work done by the right honourable Iain Duncan Smith. I also admire very much the work of Tim Loughton MP in his area as Minister for Children, so I am puzzled by this proposal. As vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for children and young people in care and leaving care, I am well aware that 50 per cent of the girls and 25 per cent of the boys and young men in custody have come out of the care system. Very many of those young people have come from deeply damaging backgrounds. They are often troubled and need a system that is child-centred and attends to their needs. It is still far from that, but there has been much good progress.
On Friday, I visited Wetherby young offender institution, particularly to see its Keppel unit, which caters for the neediest young people in YOIs. Most children in the criminal justice system are kept in young offender institutions. What I saw there was that being recruited to work with these young people were officers who particularly wanted to work with children. Generally, officers come from the adult system to work with young people in custody, so they have no particular interest when they get trained up to do this work—they have no vocation to work with children—yet they work with these children, who are often deeply vulnerable, in the secure estate.
What I found at the Keppel unit particularly was a positive ratio of young people to prison officers. Within the system, there is always supposed to be a designated personal officer for the young people. The idea behind that is that many of these young people have never experienced what it is to have a relationship with an interested elder man. Many of them have not had fathers or any stable familial experience. It is tremendously important to them and to their rehabilitation that they have something of that kind. Unusually at the Keppel unit, the ratio with prison officers is something in the region of 2:10, so each young man has a personal officer and two support officers. Sitting down with them and speaking to them, I heard—and this has not been my experience of other young offender institutions—of the very positive experience that they had with their prison officers.
Another issue that comes up again and again when visiting these secure units is the cliff-edge that young people experience when they leave the secure estate. No matter what good work takes place while they are in custody, they move out into the community, they are lost, they do not get the support that they need to get back into education and they do not get the right accommodation. This has been vigorously addressed by the Youth Justice Board. Frances Done, its chair, has been building consortia of local authorities. That has brought chief executives and chairs of local authorities into the secure estate and highlighted to them their responsibility to look after these children once they leave. I pay tribute to the work of my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham in ensuring that local authorities recognise their responsibilities, particularly to looked-after young people. He referred to the Munby judgment in this area.
The Youth Justice Board has also overseen the introduction of advocacy services for young people in the secure estate. This has been a very positive step forward. Advocates can go and speak to young people about their needs—for instance, when they move on from the secure estate—and be their voice to ensure that those needs are addressed. Unfortunately, the contract for this expires in, I think, 2013, so without the Youth Justice Board one has to be concerned that there will not be advocates in future. I would appreciate an assurance from the Minister that consideration will be given to looking at the rules in this area so that we can perhaps enshrine advocacy as a right for children in the youth justice system. Many of these children will see their parents very seldom, if they even have parents to visit them, so they need someone to look after their interests.
I am troubled by this proposal from the Government. I am grateful for the care that the ministerial team is taking to reassure us that careful consideration is being given, but I hope that more can be done by the Government to meet the concerns of my noble friend and all the noble Lords who have spoken in this debate.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of an advisory group to the Prison Reform Trust, which by sheer coincidence is meeting tomorrow to consider its response to the Green Paper, Breaking the Cycle. I join my noble friend Lord Warner in congratulating the Government—that is perhaps the first time I have done so since joining your Lordships’ House—on a refreshingly open approach to an issue on which I fear that my party did not excel in general when in government. That said, the Youth Justice Board was a commendable feature of that Government’s policy and I entirely endorse what all the speakers today have said about it.
The reality, though, is that this country has a fairly shameful record on youth justice, only partly alleviated by the very good work of the Youth Justice Board. It is true that, thanks in good part to the board, the number of children and young offenders now in custody has diminished over recent years, but it very much needed to. Over many years, we had, and I suspect that we still have, a significantly higher number of children and young people in custody than most other countries in the European Union—something like six times more than France and 100 times more than Finland, with a figure in the UK of around 25 per 100,000 in the population.
Looking at the composition of that group of young people, one can perhaps understand the reason for their entering the justice system. Thirty-nine per cent of children in custody have been on the child protection register and/or have been neglected or abused. Forty-eight per cent have been excluded from school. Eleven per cent of children in custody have attempted suicide. Indeed, the latest figure is that one young offender commits suicide every month while in custody. The youth offending team officers report that children who have learning impairments or difficulties more frequently receive custodial sentences than those who do not. Fifty per cent of young offenders are committed to custody for non-violent crimes. There is a real issue over the number of such children. What is perhaps even more striking is the level of educational attainment and the IQs of those in custody. Twenty-three per cent of young offenders in custody have an IQ of less than 70. Another 36 per cent have an IQ of between 70 and 79. We are dealing, on any view, with a significantly disadvantaged part of the population.
The Youth Justice Board has done excellent work, particularly, as the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, mentioned, in co-operating with local authorities in tackling this problem. However, there is little financial advantage to those authorities in so doing. Two councils have been singled out in the documents that I have just read in preparation for tomorrow’s meeting: Leeds and Hull. The latter is still a Liberal Democrat-controlled council. The former was until recently, effectively, a coalition-controlled council; it was a Conservative and Liberal Democrat administration. There is no party-political point to be made here. Both authorities invested considerably in dealing with young offenders. The Prison Reform Trust concludes that they saved the Government millions of pounds but did so at the expense of their own council tax payers and services. There is a role for local government in dealing with this, but it is one that imposes burdens on local authorities, which must be borne in mind as part of a developed approach to dealing with these issues.
The Prison Reform Trust has yet to make its conclusions known or to determine its response to the Green Paper. However, it looks as though it will suggest that the sentencing guidelines that have recently been published should be supported. The guidelines state:
“Before imposing a custodial sentence as a result of re-sentencing following breach”—
many of these young offenders find themselves the subject of custodial sentences following the breach of a previous order—
“a court should be satisfied that the YOT and other local authority services have taken all steps necessary to ensure that the young person has been given appropriate opportunity and support necessary for compliance”.
There are also recommendations for bail legislation. Just as we criminalise young people at an earlier age in this country than anywhere else in Europe, so we remand them in custody at a younger age than anywhere else in Europe. That should be reviewed, too.
The Prison Reform Trust will also make some observations on the assumption, which I hope will turn out not to be correct, that the present proposals for how the functions of the Youth Justice Board could best be delivered by the Ministry of Justice will stand if that remains part of the Government’s policy and if Parliament approves. Two particular concerns are likely to emerge. One is that the responsibilities of the Youth Justice Board for commissioning a secure estate and placing individual young people in custody should be fulfilled by MoJ staff working within the youth justice unit, rather than NOMS. While commissioning and placing in the juvenile secure unit are clearly important parts of this role, they are not well met by current young offender provision. The secure estate team should be separate from those dealing with adult custody so that independent decisions are made that make custody truly appropriate to the needs of vulnerable children. All this suggests the key importance of independence and the ability to work with local partners, particularly local authority services and the local community sector, which has a clear role in helping to resolve the huge problems faced by many of these young people.
Like other noble Lords, I hope that the Government will seriously think again about this matter. I cannot see what is to be gained by translating the functions of the Youth Justice Board into what is effectively a bureaucracy, thereby diminishing its visibility and public accountability and the capacity to work at the appropriate level—that is, locally, in conjunction with other partners—and reducing the independence that ought to be brought to bear on a crucial social issue of this kind. I hope that the Government will think again about this.
Viscount Eccles
My Lords, I cannot resist following the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, as he used the word “bureaucracy”. We are faced with a point of principle comprising the difference between administration and management. Ministers manage and civil servants administer. To bureaucracy—regrettably, perhaps—the process is more important than the outcome, which does not make the bureaucrat a good manager. Ministers are short of time. They would do all the good things to which expert noble Lords around the House have referred if they could and if they had the time and energy to do them. However, if they cannot, to ensure that they get done they need to delegate their management to somebody else.
I am very sympathetic in principle to the idea of being able to collapse functions back into departments but in this case the Government should think very carefully about whether that is an appropriate thing to do. It seems to me from what has been said that the management challenge is considerable and that the possibility of Ministers having sufficient time to guide their administrative colleagues in the department to do the things in the right way is pretty remote. Therefore, we should think carefully before we take the delegated responsibility to manage away from the Youth Justice Board. It is not so much a matter of independence—we tend to use that word rather loosely as regards non-departmental public bodies—but of giving a group of people the responsibility and space to manage complicated matters which, arguably, are better managed outside the department rather than inside it.
Baroness Linklater of Butterstone
My Lords, as is clear, there is widespread concern around this House about the Government's plan for the abolition of the YJB, and indeed more widely among those organisations which work with children in trouble. I add my voice most wholeheartedly to theirs. This concern arises for a variety of reasons. Despite the consultations which have taken place with civil servants, the detail of the practicalities of how any change will actually work once it has been subsumed into the MoJ is a cause for concern, particularly if the quality and scope of what the YJB is doing and achieving are to be sustained. It has developed an extremely important role and expertise in this very specialised field.
From my recent contact with the YJB and the many other agencies that work with children who offend, or are at risk of offending, I know how good and important the YJB’s work has become, particularly in the past few years. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Warner, for his vision in setting it up in the first place. However, there is considerable anxiety and distrust about what is likely to emerge beyond the immediate future if the YJB is abolished. There is particular concern, which has also been echoed around the Chamber, that elements of the YJB’s work will be taken over by NOMS, which is specifically an adults’, not a children’s, service. Indeed, it is not really a service at all, as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, rightly said. NOMS inevitably lacks the expertise required for children and is therefore quite inappropriate. I hope that when my noble friend the Minister replies, he can assure us that NOMS will not take over YJB functions.
This is because children who offend are not small adults to be taken over like a series of parcels. Indeed, they are the most vulnerable, disadvantaged, complicated and challenging individuals in our society. They are children who have experienced a “disproportionate experience of loss”—indeed, one in eight has actually experienced the death of a parent or sibling—while 76 per cent have had an absent father and 33 per cent an absent mother. Thirty-nine per cent are on the child protection register, 75 per cent have lived with someone other than a parent at some time, and 40 per cent—I repeat, 40 per cent—have been homeless. The rate of children with special educational needs or who are underachieving is 46 per cent, while 90 per cent of boys who offend have been excluded from school. Finally, around 85 per cent of those in custody have mental health problems.
This is a tragic picture. Those alarming children who we see on street corners, possibly collecting ASBOs, are quite likely to have no real loving home to go to that any of us might recognise. The gang members who carry knives may be doing so because they themselves are in a state of fear from what others may do to them, and the gang is their only family. This is why a specialist body for children in trouble should be maintained, just as in medicine and teaching there is a distinction in provision between children and adults. We have a duty of care to all our children, which is or should be a priority of government and all its agencies and sectors. This should never be more true than when things are going wrong.
In my experience, while troubled children command considerable care and concern in the public mind, children who are in trouble do not. These children tend to have not our sympathy but our censure. I am not arguing for sympathy, but I am arguing for the knowledge, skill and understanding that are vital to how we manage and treat such needy children so that they do not offend or reoffend. Our society should be safer as a result. To do this, we need on the ground not only the multiplicity of agencies that are the bedrock of provision but a body that has the experience, knowledge and understanding to stand at the interface between all the elements of the justice system and give leadership and coherence to the very complex whole. The YJB does exactly that. It works with the complexity of the youth justice system that spreads across three government departments—the MoJ, the Home Office and the DfE—as well as the DH and DCLG, and the range of local agencies, to bring some coherence and leadership to a complex framework for youth justice services.
Lord Elton
My Lords, so much that needs answering is building up around my noble friend on the Front Bench like a snow drift that I feel, if I add too much, he will not have his hands free to start digging. Therefore, I propose to make only two points at this stage, although I fear that there will be much more to be said after he has given his answer.
My points arise from the fact that in my party, as in others, there is a convention that when you intend to make a strong stand against your own party, you are honour bound to write to all Ministers and to the Whips. I dutifully wrote to my noble friends on this Front Bench and to the responsible Minister in another place. That responsible Minister, for whom I have a great deal of time, Mr Crispin Blunt, wrote me a letter, which I regret I do not have with me, that contained two points which I clearly remember and which I thought worth mentioning.
The first was that I inferred from it—I think not wrongly—that the principal motives he was giving for this move were the fact that the reoffending rate was stuck at around 75 per cent, which is far too high. It is worth saying that that results from a change in the population in which the reoffending occurs. At least two noble Lords have pointed out a 30 per cent reduction in reoffending and a substantial reduction in the YOI population. That is because the YJB has been faithfully carrying out a policy of which we all approve, and of which my right honourable friend the Secretary of State also approves, which is to keep young people out of custody. Who do you keep out of custody first? The answer is those least likely to immediately offend again. So you have a diminishing number of harder-nosed inmates who are more likely to reoffend, and when they come out they do reoffend. What is surprising is not that the statistic has not gone down, but that, as a result, it has not gone up. That is a mark of success by the YJB.
The second point I draw to your Lordships’ attention is that, in his reply, the honourable Minister, Crispin Blunt, suggested, indeed asked me—I will not say implored as it gives the wrong impression—to get in contact with some youth offender team leaders before I contributed to this debate. I suppose he suggested that in the expectation that my case would be weakened and his would be strengthened by the process. However, the opposite is true. There was one who, I thought a little timidly, did not wish to be committed, even though I said that everything was unattributable, but the others were quite clear in their own minds that this is a serious threat. A number of them thought that it would inevitably result, as your Lordships can clearly see, in a reduction in the quality of service, control and care which these young people receive. They said that the YJB had started off being bureaucratic, but that it had learnt not to be and in the past two years, in particular, it had made great progress in that direction. They said it had been a wonderful gift to them in providing a means of sharing best practice round the country. All these disparate and very complicated teams could work out the best standards to apply and learn from each other regularly. They said that they had succeeded in raising the profile of juvenile offenders when it had been, most unfortunately, too low before and that people now knew what they were about.
I have some experience in the administrative side of this area: I have considerable experience as a Minister and three and a half years of very relevant experience in the Home Office. I am sure and I hope that my noble friend will attempt to reassure us but, although he is saying that they will take all the personnel from YJB and simply move them into the Ministry of Justice so that it will still be staffed by people with straightforward, hands-on experience in their own area, I do not think he will tell you who will replace them when they retire. I fear that, as they will then be integrated members of the Civil Service, they will be replaced by integrated members of the Civil Service who have not had such experience. Indeed, I am told that those who are understudying the job at the moment are having to come out of their offices and learn for themselves what they have not learnt from their own experience.
That means that in two or three years’ time, whatever assurances we are given now, it will be back to bureaucracy. For all the reasons that have been iterated so variously, powerfully and persuasively around the House so far, I strongly advise my noble friend to listen to noble Lords and to whatever else it may be necessary for me and others to say after his lengthy reply, which I now eagerly await.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, I did not intend to speak in this debate, but in listening to the speeches, I could almost hear the Minister’s reply. I just add three short points. First, when the coalition began, I was extraordinarily encouraged by its approach to offenders and rehabilitation and felt that it was developing a real understanding of what would make a difference and, as the noble Lord said, the factors that lead to the offending of young people in particular. Secondly, I was encouraged because I felt that we now had a Government who would listen and, on listening to evidence, could change their mind. I think that that is the sign of a mature Government. The press may make something of the Government changing their mind, but I think that ordinary folk see that as a strength.
The three points that I want to make are as follows. First, all the evidence points to the fact that, as the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, said so eloquently—I will not repeat speeches that have been made—bureaucracies do not run organisations well; we have to find alternative structures. I can say that from a long career as a director of social services, having been in three non-departmental public bodies and having reorganised at least three huge departments to ensure that the service was delivered more directly. The Youth Justice Board has learnt—a point that I will repeat. As the chair of the Children and Families Court Advisory and Support Service, I know how long it takes to change a service to something that delivers not simply the service as before but one with outcomes—not outputs—for children that make a difference. My second point is based on that. The present Government should be looking for structures that represent people; not structures that meet a particular dogma or even, dare I say, a manifesto. The Government have already made changes; they could look at this one.
My third point is very different from those that have been made by others—I shall not repeat all that has been said about the vulnerability of those young people, which I know as well as anyone in the House. At the moment, there is a decrease in reoffending. If we take the long view—and I have the long view, having been in social work since 1963; I assure your Lordships that I am not that old, but I have been working there for a long time—we know that what leads to offending is young peoples’ life chances. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, has continually talked to us about children who go through the care system and end up in our prisons, young offender institutions or the mental health system.
At the moment, there is an increase in the number of children coming through the care system. I can judge that only by the fact that, a few years ago, CAFCASS was dealing with 86,000 children; at the moment, we have 145,000 children in private and public care. They are children coming through the care system and children who will be in divorce. I often stand up for single mums, but we know that broken families give children less life chance.
Let us look at what is likely to happen in future. I hope that local authorities will be able to develop their services, but with the necessary reductions in their budgets, that will be very difficult. Unless those preventive services are on the ground and we stop the large number of children coming through the courts and into the care system, it is inevitable—because all experience tells us—that we will have an increase in the number of young people in the young offender, prison and mental health systems. Therefore, it is crucial that the Government hold on to the professional expertise and to what works. I am not saying that the Youth Justice Board is the end of all that might be wonderful because everything needs review at some point, but we know that it is better than going back into departments where people do not have that professionalism and expertise because it is very difficult to build them fast. If the Government want to hold their position in caring for children and keeping the numbers down, then they need to hold on to those people who know how to do it, who know how to manage those teams and work with them and who know about multidisciplinary working with young people in the very difficult climate that we all know we are facing as a result of the economic position.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, those of your Lordships who were in the Chamber about an hour and a quarter ago when I was assiduously seeking to gain some brownie points from my Front Bench in order to have some cash in the bank to spend later will know that later has now come. Before I say anything else, I perhaps ought to declare some kind of interest in that I chair a mental health trust which runs a low-secure unit and provides mental health services to a young offender institution in the vicinity. That does not make me an expert in the sense that many of those who have spoken are experts, but it gives me an interest in the matter.
I do not want to make many points because they have all been made, and I cannot think of a word, so far, with which I have disagreed. Indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, understated the position: there has not, so far, been a word that I take to be supportive of the Government’s current position, including, if I read them aright, the remarks made by my noble friend Lord Eccles, which I took to mean, and I agree with them, that this is not an issue of whether Ministers are accountable—of course they are accountable—it is a question of how that accountability is best exercised and through what machinery it is best exercised. I share the views expressed by the noble Lords, Lord Warner and Lord Ramsbotham, and others that this line that independent oversight of the youth justice system is no longer required is, frankly, a heresy that flies in the face of all historical experience. We are all agreed that when the YJB was set up, the system was a mess and needed improving. We are all agreed that it has been improved. What we do not agree is that because there was a mess that has been to some degree improved we should now go back to put the whole thing into the same type of machinery that created the mess in the first place. That is the proposition we are being asked to adopt.
My final point, except one, is that I am slightly saddened by all this because of the link that has been made by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, with the admirable White Paper Breaking the Cycle. This is inconsistent with the spirit of Breaking the Cycle. It is certainly an approach that, if persisted in, could alienate many of us, including me, who very much support the thrust of Breaking the Cycle and who believe that it is productive and a sensible way forward. I really do hope that the Minister will be able to give us some hope of further thought, discussion and compromise on this.
Indeed, I was much attracted by the idea that was introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, and supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, of a possible NDPB with non-executive directors. That could be a better mechanism, but, whatever else, we need something other than just abolishing the YJB, the proposition that is implied in the schedule at this stage. I do hope that my noble friend will be able to give us some hope of change.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, I shall, at what looks like being the end of this debate, be very brief. I, too, am a huge supporter of the Youth Justice Board, particularly in its latter years. Frances Done has done a quite remarkable job, as I think we have all said. We have had such a compelling debate that I really cannot bring myself to believe that the Minister will be able to reject such a range of compelling arguments.
I will make just one point that is pretty much based on what my noble friend Lady Howarth has just said. I really do think that built into the system as it is there will be a likely growth in the number of young people who are deprived and who are in huge danger of continuing their life in the criminal justice system. Just think back to Keith Joseph and his “cycle of deprivation”. That said it all. Let us face it; we did not do much to reduce the number of those coming into that cycle until quite recently. I hope that what we have seen the beginning of will contribute to that, but we need to look much more widely. Early intervention will certainly be one of them—and I mean very early—as well intervention as at other stages at which problems are identified.
I thank the Minister for the way in which he has kept us informed and for his latest letter on 3 March. I am concerned that the type of big society that the Government are backing will have different approaches in different areas. We have the Youth Justice Board, which does a marvellous job of co-ordinating different departments and putting the whole view to others to take note of. However, in the future, so far as I can see it, we will have individual bodies with their own views, which the Government encourage. What about the bodies that, frankly, do not think that this is a priority? My question to the Minister is this: what are the Government going to do to encourage them to change their minds? They must have something up their sleeve —I will not call it a bribe, but I think that that is what I mean—to change their policies and to realise just how huge the long-term cost will be in not addressing this whole subject.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal
My Lords, on behalf of Her Majesty's loyal Opposition I give my wholehearted support to the amendment moved so ably in the names of my noble friend Lord Warner and the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. I declare an interest because, as the Minister knows, I too was a Minister with responsibility for the YJB at a number of stages.
I bow to no one in my admiration and affection for the Minister, and I commend him for his bravery in seeking to reply to what has been an overwhelming debate. However, I urge him, perhaps with great expedition, to take immediate advantage of the very kind and generous offer which my noble friend Lord Warner made to him and to submit himself to the intensive supervision and treatment so that he can be restored to his previous good conduct. We know that for someone who has always been of good behaviour, returning to good behaviour is easier when the treatment is swift and direct, so let me assist.
I hope that it is by way of comfort when I say to the Minister that when considering this amendment I reasonably anticipated—although I did not see who would be here—that one would expect to hear from the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, the noble Lords, Lord Dholakia and Lord Elton, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, my noble friend Lord Beecham and the noble Baronesses, Lady Linklater and Lady Howarth. I have to confess that I was surprised that their ranks were swelled by the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, and I was warned that the noble Lord, Lord Newton of Braintree, could be added to the list, because he was not on it before I entered the Chamber.
All that I can say to the Minister is that when I was in a similar position to that which he now occupies and was privileged to be a Minister, the one thing on which I could absolutely rely was the trenchant support which the Youth Justice Board would rightly receive from all sides of the House. One of the first leading the charge when he sat on the Liberal Democrat Benches would always have been the noble Lord, Lord McNally, ably assisted or led by the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia. He is only lucky that several other noble Lords are not also here—the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and others—to swell the ranks. But he can imagine what they would all be saying to him at this moment. The Tory Benches have been distinguished today by our hearing from the noble Lord, Lord Elton, but the Minister knows well that the Chief Whip—the great noble Baroness, Lady Anelay—had she been on the opposite Benches, would have given two barrels in relation to these issues too. I hate to tell the noble Lord that my estimation is that he has been holed below the water and that his ship is sinking fast. Of course, there are a number of things he can do to rectify that situation.
I know that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, believes that the Youth Justice Board has done a splendid job and has achieved much. What I do not understand is why he thinks that the job of the YJB is over when the vulnerability of those young people, who are still ensnared by criminality and the tentacles of dysfunction, means that they persist in needing the specialist care and holistic treatment which the YJB so ably provides. I say holistic because, as has already been made clear in the very eloquent and informed speeches which have gone before me, the YJB encompasses issues which are far broader than those which remain the preserve of the Ministry of Justice.
The board’s success has rested in no small part on its ability to draw together issues which are the responsibility of a number of different government departments—the Ministry of Justice, the Department of Health, the Department for Education, the Department for Communities and Local Government, and my old office of the Attorney-General—together with local and other public authorities in the third sectors. As such, youth justice is now a national system, albeit that it is primarily locally delivered. It really has enabled an array of agencies in criminal justice, which need to work in an integrated way with a range of organisations providing services to children and young people, to do so. As a consequence, the youth justice system is necessarily complex and I know that the noble Lord understands that complexity. Therefore I am puzzled as to how the innovative multi-agency work that the Youth Justice Board does so well, and which it has hitherto been able to develop by working in unison with all the other agencies, is going to be continued.
Lord McNally
My Lords, the noble and learned Baroness sees an open goal when there is one before her, but she has approached it with charm and a great degree of kindness. Thinking of which quotes come to mind, I considered Sir Robert Peel who said during the Corn Law debates, “You must answer them, for I cannot”, but I know that that is not my responsibility this afternoon. I shall settle for Denis Healey’s “When you’re in a hole, stop digging”. I fully acknowledge the widespread feeling around the House about this matter and I am sure that feeling and indeed that passion will be noted by my colleagues.
I have noted, as did the noble and learned Baroness, that we have had all the usual suspects on parade, plus one or two others. I am keeping a tab on the noble Lord, Lord Newton. Earlier today, he went 4-3 ahead in terms of interventions that are supportive of me when I am at the Dispatch Box, but that lasted for only an hour and now he is back to 4-4. I went to Braintree the other week to speak to the Braintree Liberal Democrats and had to spend a good part of the evening hearing what a wonderful Member of Parliament the noble Lord was, so his lack of support is even more hurtful.
However, I understand where people are coming from on this. I understand also what the YJB set out to do and what it has achieved. A number of noble Lords have pointed out that it does not have a perfect record, but it is neither my job nor my wish to detract in any way from its achievements over these past 10 years. In 2000, there was a need for the YJB to provide coherent leadership and to establish a new youth justice system. However, the youth justice landscape has changed immeasurably since then. We fully intend to retain the youth offending teams and a dedicated secure estate, which are not being abolished with the Youth Justice Board. However, Ministers should be accountable for youth justice.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Warner, and others for their comments about the Green Paper. It was rather unkind of him to describe Ministers as a motley crew; I would prefer to acknowledge the fact that all Ministers are birds of passage. It was a little unfair to describe the idea of bringing the Youth Justice Board within the Ministry of Justice variously as vandalism, bureaucratic diktat, Whitehall-knows-best, reintroducing failure and care by people who do not care. Those are not fair descriptions of civil servants in large departments, who carry out considerable management functions without the advantage or otherwise of arm’s-length bodies. If those descriptions were true, everything would be opted out from our Civil Service.
I note some of the views expressed about NOMS, although it already has responsibilities within the youth justice system. I shall try to say where the department is coming from at the moment but then perhaps address some of the specific points which rained down on me during the debate. In doing so, I immediately pay tribute to the record of the noble Lord, Lord Warner, with whom I had a very good discussion, as I did with the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, about the origins of the Youth Justice Board. They both gave a vivid description of the situation prior to the board coming into being. It is not true that the youth justice system is the poor relation, nor is there any danger of it being so under our proposals.
The youth offending teams will remain in place. They are perhaps the greatest of the Youth Justice Board’s achievements. The holistic approach at local level of the youth offending teams has achieved real success and we want to build on that. Our reforms will build on the progress made by the YJB while restoring direct ministerial accountability for the delivery of youth justice.
The Government believe that youth justice, which involves the incarceration of children, is an important issue for which Ministers, not unelected arm’s-length bodies, should be accountable. The principal aim of the youth justice system, as established by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, is to prevent offending and reoffending by children and young people under the age of 18. It is a system in which local authority-led youth offending teams have the primary responsibility for delivering youth justice on the ground. These YOTs comprise representatives from local authorities, health, education and children’s services. The system also includes a dedicated national commissioned secure estate for young people. Both these crucial delivery elements will be retained and neither will be adversely affected by the reforms we are proposing.
This is not because the YJB does not itself deliver front-line services. The YJB was established by the 1998 Act to provide leadership and coherence to the new system by exercising oversight functions. Its abolition is therefore a separate issue to the future of the youth justice system because its functions are to oversee local YOTs, disseminate effective practices, commission a distinct secure estate and place young people in custody. These functions are, of course, crucial in support of the effective delivery of youth justice and will, therefore, be transferred to the Ministry of Justice under our proposals, with an appropriate senior and visible level of leadership.
Since its establishment, the YJB has undoubtedly helped to transform the youth justice system. It oversaw the establishment of local youth offending teams and has fulfilled an important role in reducing offending and reoffending by young people by spreading best practice and helping to make youth justice a priority for local authorities. It has also put the delivery of youth justice at the forefront of local authority partnership working and has driven up standards in a discrete secure estate for young people. As I have said before, the noble Lord, Lord Warner, as the first chair of the Youth Justice Board, must take credit for bringing a level of coherence to the system and for raising the profile of youth justice issues.
There were good reasons why the YJB was initially established at arm’s length from government. This gave it the autonomy to make much needed changes and enabled staff with expertise in front-line delivery to lead the national rollout of youth offending teams. However, a decade on, the context in which youth justice is delivered has changed enormously, with youth offending teams now fully embedded at the local level and children’s services delivered through children’s trusts. The Government therefore believe that the oversight function of the YJB should be performed in a different way. Further, Ministers are ultimately accountable for youth justice and it is therefore right that they alone should be responsible for overseeing its delivery. Bringing the YJB function into the Ministry of Justice represents the most effective way to continue to secure the best outcomes for young people.
In reaching this decision the Government have taken into account the recommendations of the review of the YJB by Dame Sue Street, to whom I have also spoken. It should be pointed out that whether or not the YJB should be abolished was not within the scope of her study. The issue was also covered by the Ministry of Justice’s own review of public bodies.
We remain committed to maintaining a dedicated focus on the needs of children and young people in the youth justice system, while ensuring that there are appropriate and proper links to the wider criminal justice system, and that this system serves to protect the public. We also want to capture and replicate some of the best elements of the Youth Justice Board. The YJB successfully brought together staff from a number of different backgrounds, including staff with a direct experience of youth justice, social and health services, police and probation officers. This mix of skills and knowledge enables us to inform Government policy, both in Westminster and Cardiff, while also maintaining effective links with local delivery.
Lord Elton
The noble Lord said that not enough attention was paid to the youth offender teams. I specifically asked the Government to pay more attention to the youth offender teams, which do not want the Government to go on with what they are now proposing.
Lord McNally
The noble Lord gives me the opinion of the youth offender teams. It is always a bit dubious when noble Lords claim to know the opinion of a section under inquiry. In fact, we are also in contact with youth offender teams, but I take the point that he mentioned them.
I am trying to see whether there is anything that I should particularly answer beyond these points. As I said at the beginning, it is a cheap shot to say that bureaucracies cannot run things. The term bureaucracy is easily slung around. I take the point that we should concentrate on structures not dogma. The issue is not dogma but whether, within the constraints that we face, we can organise this more effectively. I take on board the criticisms and we are listening.
If the noble Lord, Lord Warner, wishes to test the opinion of the House, that is his right to do so. He is a former Minister and there are a number of others around. One of the problems as well as pleasures of being a Lords Minister is that, when you are in a position like this, you cannot make policy on your feet. You can take it back to colleagues and you can listen. I have listened and I will take the issue back to colleagues, if the noble Lord, Lord Warner, is in a mood to take that in the spirit that it is offered. I cannot promise beyond that, as he knows. As many have said, gathered together in the House today is an enormous level of ministerial, local government, social service and charitable experience that any Government willing to listen should listen to. I will take this away and am also happy to talk further with the noble Lord on the matter, but that is as far as I can go today, having set out where we are trying to go and why.
Viscount Eccles
There has been no mention of money or expenditure, which is not what this House has come to expect when discussing parts of this Bill. Does my noble friend have anything to say about that?
Lord McNally
The Youth Justice Board has at its disposal about £500 million a year, most of which is spent in procuring secure places. It is not that cancelling the Youth Justice Board would save £500 million or £400 million a year or whatever—I think that the estimate is something like £6 million over the period of this spending review. We are not arguing this as a money-saving exercise. Our judgment is that, successful though the Youth Justice Board has been, it has done its job and we want to try to do it differently within the Ministry of Justice while keeping much of the ethos of the Youth Justice Board and much of the lower structure at local level that has been the basis of its success. However, I am interested to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Warner, has to say to my reply.
Lord Elton
My Lords, I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Warner, will be minded to make up his mind at this rather early stage and decide whether to test the opinion of the House. There is one thing that I would like to impress on the Minister—that no matter how hard his hand may be pressed to his heart when he gives an undertaking that something will be kept for ever out of NOMS or that personnel will be recruited for ever from outside the Civil Service, his hand will wither and he will pass away and the statute will survive. Therefore, I hope that the rock-bed minima that we will require before agreeing to this part of the Bill can be expressed, and the Government must undertake to express them, in a parliamentary instrument, which, if it is to be revised, will have to have the approval of Parliament again. That is the only way in which to preserve a ministerial undertaking beyond the life of one Parliament—and, sometimes, for even less than that.
The other thing that I am tempted to dwell on is the context in which the Government are making up their mind. The Minister is operating in two contexts. One is a political context in which a coalition is committed to a bonfire of the quangos. I could make a long speech about that, but I remind my noble friend the Minister that the function of a bonfire is to get rid of rubbish. You do not hack fruiting branches off a healthy tree and chuck them on a bonfire. That should not be any constraint on the Minister.
Then there is the administrative context at the heart of a substantial government department. I have been in such a place and I, beyond anybody, admire the independence and rectitude of the Civil Service. But in this case, the Civil Service is faced with swingeing cuts in personnel. The Minister asks for advice on how to set up a body of 12 people, each of whom he appoints, whose chairman he appoints and all of whose functions he can dictate—that is all in the statute setting up the body under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. It is entirely his responsibility and he is entirely answerable for it already. The question is where that advice is coming from; it is coming from a department, which has, as far as I know, been asked only for the positive arguments and how to sell this measure to Parliament. When there is a prospect of those 12 places, and the 301 people employed by the body, suddenly being drafted into the department, diminishing the need for redundancies by that number, the department is not going to drag the seabed to find arguments against.
I hope that my noble friend the Minister will encourage his honourable and right honourable friends to stand aside from where they are at the moment—in the heart of their department—and look at this from outside, as we do, as people passionately concerned for the future welfare for the children of this country.
Lord McNally
That is the second intervention that has reminded me what a bird of passage is ministerial office, for which I am duly grateful. I take note of the intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Elton. What would have happened if I had said that I was going to stand firm? I have said that I would take the matter back; I cannot make any more promises than that. I would be interested in having further talks with the noble Lord, Lord Warner, but I am interested to hear what he has to say having listened to this debate.
The Earl of Listowel
I am grateful that the Minister has undertaken to take the concerns of the whole House back to his colleagues and to reflect on what has been said, but I have a couple of questions about specific points.
First, on advocacy and social work provision in young offender institutions, advocacy has been put in place by the Youth Justice Board for a number of years now. I declare an interest as patron of Voice, an advocacy provider in several young offender institutions. It seems very clear to me, when I speak with advocates and visit young offender institutions, that this service is very much valued by the young people but also by the governors of those institutions. They can be particularly helpful in working to encourage local authorities when people are resettled to provide them the services that they need to resettle successfully. Will the Minister in the interim, between this and the next stage of the Bill, look at the role of advocates and, at the next stage, give some reassurance about advocacy provision under the new arrangements?
The second point that I should like to ask him about is social work provision in young offender institutions. My noble friend Lord Ramsbotham referred to the Children Act 1989 and how there was some lack of clarity about whether it applied to children and young people in the secure estate. The Munby judgment established that local authorities were indeed responsible for the welfare of young people, particularly in care, in prisons. Social workers were appointed by the last Government to each young offender institution. In the course of time, the Government gave responsibility for running those posts to local authorities, but there was no agreement among local authorities on how they should be funded. Sadly, half or perhaps more than half of those posts are vacant. I would be grateful if the Minister could look at this situation in the interim, between now and the next stage, and give some reassurance that there will be a continual push to ensure that those vacancies are filled and that the important work that those social workers provide for those young people is delivered to them as needed. We have heard today how vulnerable those children are and their need for expert support in young offender institutions.
Lord McNally
I shall certainly take that back. Part of the problem with the two issues that the noble Earl raises—both the advocacy commitment and the social worker commitment—is that they are responsibilities of local authorities. One thing that we have made clear in this approach is that we intend to make local authorities much more responsible for the delivery of these parts of the youth justice system. However, we note the point and can return to it at Report.
Lord Warner
My Lords, I am grateful to all those who have spoken in this debate, especially the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, who appears to have damaged his career prospects in doing so.
I began to feel a bit sorry for the Minister as the afternoon wore on. He dealt with the debate with his customary charm and evasion, and I pay tribute to those skills—particularly with some of the noises coming from behind him. If he thinks that he has trouble with me, I think that he has a lot more trouble with the noble Lord, Lord Elton.
It is interesting that five former Ministers spoke today from different Benches. They all showed a healthy scepticism about the ability of government departments to take on these jobs. It is worth bearing in mind that it is not just a load of head-bangers like me who are saying that but some of the Minister’s colleagues, who have spent their time in the salt mines of government. I note that the Prime Minister was not entirely overwhelmed by the performance of the Civil Service this week in some areas of its activity, so if the Minister gets too energetic in defending the MoJ’s civil servants, he may want to think about whether he will join the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, in the doghouse in terms of his ministerial prospects.
There is quite a lot here for the Minister to dwell upon. Perhaps I might just correct him and others who spoke this afternoon: they are youth offending teams not youth offender teams. It helps you to convey a sense of knowledge about the sector if you get the titles right, I have always found. I will not spend long talking about the issues that were raised but I will spend a few moments on the secure estate. The noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, raised the interesting point about money. He was quite right to do so, because the secure estate gobbles up most of the Youth Justice Board’s budget. It will gobble up a lot more money if the good work that Francis Done and others have done is not continued to keep down the number of young people going into custody down. The Government might find that any savings they make by taking some of these functions in-house will, in a few years, result in a some surprises in the Ministry of Justice’s budget if not such a great job has been done as that carried out by Youth Justice Board in commissioning services and keeping youngsters out of custody.
The noble Lord, Lord Elton, raised an interesting point, which I would certainly want to reflect on before Report. It was an important point about whether one can ensure the good behaviour of future Ministers in this regard.
The Minister mentioned that his colleagues wanted the adult criminal justice services to learn from the advantages of the youth justice service. That is a praiseworthy objective, but it seems to me that he is more likely to achieve that if he looks at the instrument that was used with the youth justice services to try to drive change. It took a long time to get some of these programmes—their structures, relationships and working practices—changed when the Youth Justice Board was set up. The youth offending teams did not all say, “Hurrah! Parliament has passed the Crime and Disorder Act and we’re all going to change our practices”. It took a lot of hard graft to get people to do that. You are seeing the results of that hard graft coming through in the work of the Youth Justice Board in the past few years. Before you throw it all away, you need to think about how long it takes to get change in most public services.
I will reflect on what the Minister said. I am after not a Pyrrhic victory but a real victory. I am very encouraged by some of the responses from across the House on this amendment. I will reflect on everything that was said, but in the mean time I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
Lord Whitty
Lord Whitty
My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 65 and to speak to the associated amendments. My noble friend Lord Warner just said that he was beginning to feel sorry for the noble Lord, Lord McNally. It may be that my compassion is more easily triggered than his, but my feeling sorry for Ministers started very early on in this Bill—particularly for the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, who has had to sit through the bulk of it.
These amendments are designed to improve the procedure for this Bill, both during the remaining stages of the primary legislation and in how we deal with secondary legislation in what remains of the Bill when it is eventually passed. The first five amendments in this group are essentially paving amendments for Amendments 113 and 119, which are the substantive ones and appear quite late in the Bill. It would have been better had we found a hook to hang them on earlier in the Bill, but Clause 8 deals with the procedure for developing the secondary legislation. In other words, these amendments are designed to help, whether the Front Bench opposite believes that or not. It was unfortunate that from the beginning the Government refused the suggestion of a Select Committee, but the amendments provide an alternative to that in relatively straightforward terms.
As I do not really need to remind the Government or the Committee, we have already seen great chunks of the Bill having to be dropped, partly on substantive grounds and partly on procedural grounds. We have lost forestry and much about the Ministry of Justice quangos which were to be merged or abolished under the Bill. I understand that we are about to lose the whole of Schedule 7 and I think we applaud the Government’s flexibility on that, but they ought never to have got to this stage and the Bill should not have been constructed as it was.
We need a clear and more formal explanation from the Government of why these great lists of quangos are deemed suitable for abolition or merger. I appreciate that before each Committee session we get a list of the quangos that are likely to come up for decision during it, but they do not really suffice. Today, for example, for our enormously important debate on the Youth Justice Board, which excited great interest here in Committee and beyond, we had five lines explaining the reasons for abolishing that board.
My next amendment deals with an organisation for which there are two lines of explanation. Again, I appreciate that the Minister and his colleagues have sent us several other letters to try to explain this more clearly. However, it would be much more sensible if a clear explanation were put before Parliament, rather than one in the form of regulations and incomprehensible cross-references between clauses and existing legislation, of why the Government deem, for example, that the Youth Justice Board or Ofgem, or any of the regulators, should be abolished and the context in which those decisions are being made. There will shortly be a debate about the Equality and Human Rights Commission, for which we have two whole pages of explanation. It is central to a lot of our law and our approach to society, yet we do not have a realistic explanation of why the change is proposed. As a result, the Government have had to concede a lot of the Bill at the first hurdle.
The Government have also conceded that in some other areas they will in any case need primary legislation. Late the other night, and during the previous Session of Parliament, it was conceded that the self-regulating replacement for the Security Industry Authority would need new primary legislation with statutory backing. If that is the case, the point of having this in secondary legislation falls and the point of these lists—and the whole structure of the Bill—begins to fall. The amendments that I propose here would allow us to proceed with the Bill as it is, unsatisfactory though I think most of the Committee by now deems it. It would at least mean that we were assured that when we came to the secondary legislation stage, both Houses would have before them a very clear explanation to debate and vote on before proceeding with the abolition or the merger of any such bodies.
Baroness Turner of Camden
My Lords, I support my noble friend. I spent part of my previous career sitting on various quangos, some of which are included in the Bill. I must say that I thought that the quango-sitting that I did was very useful, that our contribution was a good one and so on. I would like to think that they would not simply be closed down and consigned to what the noble Lord, Lord Elton, described as the “bonfire of the quangos” without adequate examination by Parliament. That is exactly what my noble friend is suggesting: before the quangos are dispensed with, there should be a thorough examination, Parliament should determine whether or not they were valuable or useful and should continue to operate and, unless that happened, the quangos should continue to operate. Perhaps they would do so in a different form but the functions would not be dropped; there would be some provision for the functions that they had carried out to be performed in future. I hope that my noble friend’s arguments will attract support from the Government. The amendment seems to be very reasonable, proposing that Parliament must have the final say. That is very important, and I hope that the Government will be prepared to accept it.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, I am not sure I have any brownie points left in the bank after various earlier exchanges but I hope I have a few. I express my sympathy with the general thrust of the point that was made very well by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and which has just been supported. I imagine it will be further supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter.
There is, as I have said on several occasions in the House, a complete lack of intellectual coherence in the approach that is being adopted towards different bodies, particularly in respect of those parts of the Bill relating to the Ministry of Justice. I will not go on again now—although I will later—about the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council, which I formerly chaired. However, we have a curious situation in which the AJTC is in—and for the moment stays in—Schedule 1 but the other two justice councils, which were in Schedule 7, have been cast out. The Civil Justice Council’s terms of reference were those on which those of the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council were modelled. Nobody has explained why what is right for the Civil Justice Council is wrong for the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council, with which it overlaps. Picking up the fundamental thrust of what the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said, there is a case for a coherent explanation, across the board, of what the Government are doing. I hope we may get at least some assurance on that in the course of my noble friend’s response.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, as predicted, I support these amendments. Amendments 65, 69, 77, 85 and 101 in this grouping all refer to the exercise of powers being subject to Clause 8. I therefore invite the Committee to look at Clause 8, which sets out the matters to be considered by the Minister, and to look at Amendment 107 in my name. It is not before us today because it was discussed earlier in Committee—on day one, when it was grouped with an amendment tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Lester and Lord Pannick. Your Lordships may remember that their amendment was accepted, contrary to the wishes of the Government. Although my amendment was not voted on at that point, I hope that might mean that the Government will therefore accept Amendment 107 in due course.
Amendment 107 is fundamental to the amendment standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Whitty, which is in front of us at the moment. It seeks to amend Clause 8, which requires consideration to be given only to the efficiency of the bodies concerned and their accountability to Ministers. However, Clause 8 as it stands makes no reference to the purpose of those bodies as set out in legislation. Therefore, my amendment, although not before us now, would add to the matters to be considered under Clause 8,
“achieving the aims and objectives of the body where these are specified in legislation”,
where this and another place have created a body for a particular reason. That does not, to my mind, mean that those bodies can never be abolished, changed or merged. It means that their objectives, and how those objectives should be achieved if they are still relevant, should be taken into account when any question of merger or removal is on the cards. As predicted, I thoroughly support the amendment, and this grouping, in the name of my noble friend Lord Whitty. However, that is slightly on the assumption that a body’s purpose will also be considered under Clause 8 at the point at which it would be implemented.
Lord Borrie
My Lords, it has been a long time since we last discussed these matters in Committee. Perhaps I may be forgiven for forgetting that I had added my name to that of my noble friend Lord Whitty on one of the amendments that we are now considering—Amendment 85. Since I did so, I cannot see any great reason to be in favour of one amendment but not the others. I am particularly glad to see Amendment 113 in the name of my noble friend Lord Whitty. Surely it is essential that the Minister, when making an order under these provisions, should give the reasoning behind the change of status—the transfer or modification—from one to another. Surely one wants a ministerial explanation.
I have, however, come to doubt—this is really a question to my noble friend Lord Whitty—the need for the first five of his amendments, including the one that he is moving. He asks that, in relation to orders to transfer the functions of one body to another, or to modify a body’s functions, the Minister should pay attention to Clause 8. However, Clause 8 itself says:
“In considering whether to make an order … the Minister must”—
I emphasise—
“have regard to the following objectives”,
which include efficiency, effectiveness and accountability. I do not disagree with the point just made by my noble friend Lady Hayter, but I ask the mover of the amendment to clarify why he wants to insert certain phrases that seem to indicate simply that the Minister must consider matters referred to in Clause 8, when that is what Clause 8 itself says.
Lord Rosser
My Lords, I, too, hope that the Minister will welcome this group of amendments. As my noble friend Lord Whitty said, they are helpful amendments, which do not seek to change, amend or delete any body or group of bodies listed under Schedules 1 to 6. The amendments simply require the Minister concerned to lay before both Houses of Parliament, for debate and approval, a report setting out the Government’s reasons for changing the status of any body or group of bodies listed in the schedules before making the order enabling that change in status to be implemented, with a few exceptions where primary legislation will still be needed. Orders can be only accepted or rejected but not amended, and the Government will seek to push them through considerably more rapidly and with considerably less debate than would apply had the change in status been made through primary legislation.
The amendments of my noble friend Lord Whitty will enable a somewhat fuller discussion to take place. They will also enable Members of both Houses, as well as the public and interested parties, to comment and express their support, opposition or reservations over what the Government propose for the body or group of bodies in question in a proper and open public debate before the Government make a final decision on whether to proceed with the order and its detailed provisions. Such a development would at least begin to address the democratic deficit that the Government are fostering through the absence of any pre-legislative scrutiny, followed by seeking to change or abolish by statutory instrument bodies with important roles, which were in many cases set up by Acts of Parliament.
There would also be another advantage in that it would enable the Government to reflect further on their proposals and intentions on which bodies, or groups of bodies, should have their role and status changed or abolished. It is already clear that this Bill was cobbled together in a great hurry, which is why there has been so much backtracking, albeit welcome backtracking. This has not happened because this is a listening and open Government but rather because this is a Government who seem to think that instant decision-making is the same thing as effective decision-making.
The requirement under these amendments for a report to be made to both Houses that would have to be debated and approved would encourage the Government to think carefully about the necessity and justification of what they are proposing, and would ensure that the implications have been properly thought through and addressed and that the proposals have been subject to challenge and scrutiny in a way that would never be achieved through the laying of a statutory instrument. A statutory instrument is not meant to be the way of implementing what in many cases will be significant change but rather constitutes the detailed implementation of a change which has already been the subject of properly parliamentary scrutiny and debate. That proper parliamentary scrutiny and debate is not happening under the terms of this sweeping Bill, with Ministers all too often simply hoping to get away with saying that the full case for what they are proposing, the implications of their proposals and how it is intended to implement the changes, as well as the details, will have to await the statutory instrument.
I am sure the Minister knows that the Bill has been rushed and is ill thought out and that proper, pre-legislative scrutiny, for a start, would have been beneficial to all concerned, not least to the Government themselves. The usual excuse for the rush—namely, to make quick savings to reflect the Government’s exaggerated claims about the financial situation—was not given because the Government are unable to provide costed figures on savings that might result from the Bill, or even costed figures showing that there will be any savings at all. I hope that the Minister will now accept these amendments and show that the Government’s repeated words about openness and transparency are not simply smooth and meaningless platitudes.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, I hope that I might, without abusing the rules of Committee stage, make a brief further intervention as I had not anticipated the thrust of the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, on her Amendment 107, for which I apologise. It may be helpful to the Minister if I give him notice of this. As I understood it, the noble Baroness was complaining that the provision in Clause 8 about efficiency, effectiveness, economy and accountability was not sufficient. I hope that my Amendment 106A focuses on that point at least as clearly by saying that one should also take into account,
“fairness, openness, transparency and justice”.
I would like to see some values incorporated into what the Government have to take account of in these matters. Even if my noble friend cannot give me an assurance on that today, I hope that he will reflect on it.
When I made a somewhat similar point to the previous Government, the then Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton of Upholland, immediately took the point and brought forward an amendment to introduce values in a similar context into the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007. Therefore, I hope that that precedent will carry some weight, whether today or in the future.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, for initiating this debate with his amendments as it is agreeable to return to the way in which the Bill operates, having discussed individual bodies at length. The noble Lord gave very good value, as he always does. I thank all noble Lords who have participated. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, drew the attention of the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, and, indeed, that of my noble friend Lord Newton of Braintree, to Clause 8. We are still looking at Clause 8 as the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee asked us to do so. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has a slightly jaundiced view of the way in which the Government have established dialogue on the Bill. We are genuinely seeking to introduce a necessary vehicle to deal with the reform of public bodies. I think that there is general agreement on that across the Committee. The previous Government had such a policy and we seek to pursue it in our turn.
The group of amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, would require that, before laying an order under Clauses 2 to 6, a Minister must lay before Parliament a report setting out the reasoning for any change in the status of a body or bodies he or she proposes to make, with the said report being subject to debate and approval by resolution in each House. Amendment 119 would introduce an additional requirement for a report where an order affects a body or office within a particular set of categories. I hope the noble Lord will agree with that summary of what he is seeking to do.
The Government agree that Parliament should have access to appropriate information regarding any proposals to use powers under the Bill. The government amendments that we have introduced in Committee reflect this. In the first instance we have sought, along with Peers from across the House, to introduce a new requirement for Ministers to consult in relation to proposed changes under the Bill. Secondly, government amendments have been tabled which would require any draft instrument laid before Parliament to include an explanatory document which includes details setting out the reasoning behind the order.
These requirements give Parliament ample opportunity to scrutinise the reasoning behind the laying of an order. Amendment 113 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, would effectively require an additional affirmative resolution process for a report concerning a proposed order before the order itself could be made. This amendment risks Parliament being asked to debate a report on a proposed order prior to the consultation on the said order having been concluded. Additionally, it would create a new burden on Parliament itself and on departments as they seek to deliver on the reform package to which the coalition Government are committed.
Amendment 119 would require a Minister making an order affecting a group defined as an economic regulator or a consumer body to place a report before Parliament setting out the reasons for the proposals in the context of that group of bodies as a whole. The Government, of course, recognise that changes to public bodies should not be considered in isolation. I assure the noble Lord that this was not the case for those reforms set out by my right honourable friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office on 14 October. In this instance all reforms were agreed at Cabinet level and involved extensive dialogue between departments. I particularly appreciate the spirit of the noble Lord’s amendment in relation to relatively discrete groups of bodies such as the so-called economic regulators, where a shift in regulatory practice for one could potentially impact on regulatory stability across the sector, and where it is therefore right that Government act in a proportionate, joined-up manner.
As I said at Second Reading—I am happy to reiterate it—the Government intend the economic and regulatory functions of bodies such as Ofcom and Ofgem to be excluded from the powers of the Bill for precisely this reason. I do not believe that it is necessary to place such a requirement in the Bill, because the Government expect Ministers to consider such issues as a matter of course and because our Amendment 118, which requires Ministers to produce an explanatory document with a draft statutory instrument setting out the reasons for an order, will provide another opportunity to inform Parliament of such matters. For example, where a change is proposed to a consumer body or any other body, the Government will be required by Amendment 118 to give reasons for the order that relate to considerations including efficiency, accountability and effective delivery of public functions.
I take note of this debate, in which there have been valuable contributions—not least the ideas on Clause 8 proposed by my noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter—and I hope that, given my assurances with regard to our commitment to sharing information with the House, the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Maclennan of Rogart
Before my noble friend sits down, will he briefly animadvert on the nature of the explanatory document that he has it in mind to produce? Explanatory Memoranda about Bills often state that they are there only to explain the content, not to provide evidence that has led to formation of the policy. Furthermore, such memoranda frequently state that they are explaining only those matters that are obscure or not clear in the Bill. What is required to be helpful to the deliberative process is an undertaking that these memoranda will contain evidence explaining the policy.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
A requirement under our amendments will be that the explanatory documents are properly reasoned and describe not just what a statutory instrument proposes but the reasoning behind the change. They will also include an impact assessment. The idea is that these should be full documents. I understand what my noble friend is saying and I am grateful for his intervention, because Explanatory Memoranda to Bills frequently explain only what a particular clause might seek to do, not its implications. The requirement is that the explanatory documents should explain the reasoning behind a Minister’s approach to laying a statutory instrument.
Lord Whitty
My Lords, I am grateful for the Minister’s reply. Indeed, at one point he used the word “agreeable”, which perhaps raised my expectations too much. This short debate has demonstrated a need for the Government to provide a clearer explanation of what they are doing in this area. I saw the noble Lord’s Amendment 118 and, like the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, I thought that that related to Explanatory Memoranda of the type that normally relate to content, rather than strategy and context. If the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, is saying that the content of the explanatory document will go somewhat wider, I accept that that goes some way towards what I am arguing for.
In relation to the procedural points made by my noble friends Lord Borrie and Lady Hayter, when these amendments were drafted there was another amendment—we have now considered it—in addition to her Amendment 107, which would have strengthened Clause 8 and made more sense of it. I had hoped that that could have been sorted out later, if the Government had stated that in principle they were accepting these amendments. However, Clause 8 as it stands asks the Minister to take these matters into consideration but does not require him to explain them to Parliament in any form. I am concerned that Parliament should, at some stage in the process, hold a substantive debate on the total strategy that lies behind the reason for abolishing or changing the nature of a particular body.
That remains an outstanding issue. When we reach Amendment 118, I hope that the Minister can expand further on how he sees this issue. However, the essential point is that Parliament by this Bill is giving up the right to revert to primary legislative procedure in relation to an organisation that was originally set up after full debate on primary legislation. We need a clear explanation if we are going to cut corners in that way. I still hope that we get there in the secondary, if not in the primary, legislation. If the Minister, before we consider Amendment 118 or at Report, can put a few bones on that, I should be extremely grateful. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“Report on the merger of the UK Film Council and the British Film Institute
(1) Before making an order under section 2 in respect of the UK Film Council, the responsible Minister must report to Parliament with details on which body will be responsible for performing the following functions currently discharged by the UK Film Council—
(a) supporting film exports;(b) protecting intellectual property and combating film theft;(c) providing film research, statistics and market intelligence; and(d) providing co-production support and diversity initiatives.(2) One year after an order has been made to merge the British Film Institute and the UK Film Council under this Act, the responsible Minister must report to Parliament on—
(a) the performance of the British Film Institute in discharging its function to promote the UK as an international filming location and to raise the profile of British films abroad;(b) the performance of the British Film Institute in discharging its function to develop new and emerging talent in film production throughout the UK;(c) the performance of the British Film Institute in discharging its function to ensure that a broad range of films are available for the British public; and(d) the criteria used and funds allocated and distributed by the British Film Institute for film production in the UK.”
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
My Lords, the Bill deals with the questions of whether certain functions undertaken by government should be devolved to public bodies and how to ensure that these bodies are accountable. The Government are supposed to check whether a function needs to be carried out at all and then to apply certain tests to determine whether a public body is the “right delivery mechanism”.
Our case is that film policy fits these tests and that government has been right to establish public bodies to deal with the delivery of its objectives. The issue is which bodies and how they are to be brought into a relationship of accountability to Parliament. The purpose of the amendment and those in the group is to review and, if possible, to learn lessons from the situation that has arisen because of the precipitant decision of the Government in July 2010 to abolish the UK Film Council. The purpose of the amendment is also to safeguard the position of its main successor, the British Film Institute, and thereby give an opportunity to your Lordships to celebrate the outstanding achievement of British talent and skills in the recent Oscar and BAFTA ceremonies.
I declare a past interest as former director of the British Film Institute. I thank my noble friends Lord Wills and Lord Judd for putting their names to these amendments. My noble friend Lord Puttnam apologises for not being present. He was here last week when we nearly reached consideration of the amendments; indeed, that would have been well timed, because it was the night after the Oscar ceremonies, for which we were on tenterhooks. Unfortunately, he is now abroad and cannot be with us today.
By all accounts, this was one of the best years for British films in the BAFTAs and one of the best years for British nominations in the Oscars across all the technical specialisms, as well as in acting, producing and directing. I am sure that I speak for all noble Lords in sending our warmest congratulations to all those involved. “The King’s Speech” joins nine other British films that have won an Oscar for best picture. Colin Firth richly deserves his best actor accolade. Tom Hooper is the latest British director to be honoured and joins Danny Boyle, Sam Mendes, Anthony Minghella and Dickie Attenborough—to name but a few of the most recent winners. With the winners for the best original script, David Seidler, and best supporting actor, Christian Bale, Britain kept up its remarkable record of success. We are good at making films.
On another occasion, I should like to draw attention to the excellent work being done, perhaps behind the scenes, at the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield, which had another good awards season, with 40 graduates involved in the BAFTA nominations and 25 working on films that garnered Oscar nominations. We are good at films and at training people for film.
“The King’s Speech” was supported by the UK Film Council with lottery funding and is already the most successful British independent film of all time. It has taken a staggering £42 million so far in the UK and has grossed $278 million worldwide. It is reaching new audiences. Indeed, one could say that it boldly goes where no British film has gone before. As a result of the modest investment made by the UK Film Council, millions of pounds will be recycled back into supporting the UK film industry. In that sense, the film perfectly makes the case for the UK Film Council’s work.
The last Government were considering a merger between the BFI and the Film Council but wanted the bodies themselves to come up with a workable proposal. In abolishing the UK Film Council by press release, the Government threaten one of the outstanding achievements of the past 10 years, during which time film became one of the UK’s real success stories and a hugely dynamic part of the creative industries and the creative economy. Not all of this can be directly attributable to the UK Film Council, but it is worth noting that the UK box office has grown by 69 per cent over the past 10 years and is now worth £1 billion per annum. The UK film industry now contributes more than £4.5 billion a year to the UK’s GDP and returns more than £1.2 billion to the Exchequer in tax payments. The UK film industry directly employs around 36,000 people and, in total, supports about 100,000 direct and indirect jobs. Over the past 10 years, inward investment—mainly US films made here—has surpassed £5.4 billion and film exports have reached a record £1.3 billion. The Film Council, over its lifetime, has invested over £160,000 of lottery funding into more than 900 films and shorts, which have won more than 300 awards, entertained more than 200 million people and helped to generate over £700 million at box offices worldwide.
I said earlier that the Government had been precipitate in abolishing the UK Film Council. Contrast, if you will, its demise with the careful way in which the previous Government set up the body a decade ago—a process in which I played a small part. Working from an initial proposal from the BFI, a working group co-chaired by the right honourable Tom Clarke MP, the Film Minister, and Stewart Till from the industry consulted widely across industry and abroad before the report, A Bigger Picture, was delivered to the Secretary of State and then implemented. Many of the findings of that report are very relevant today.
Film is both art and business. The British director John Boorman once called it the business of “turning money into light”. It is creative and innovative, it powers growth, it stimulates employment, it drives tourism and, as the Americans have recognised from the earliest days, it can promote both cultural and physical goods. If we are to diversify the British economy, we need to support and nurture our creative industries. Film is a collaborative industry and it ought to be at the heart of our drive to develop the creative industries, drawing as it does on so many other allied industries, increasingly in the new technologies.
However, we in Britain have a schizophrenic attitude to film. Is it a coincidence that the Royal Opera House dominates Covent Garden, that the National Theatre draws eyes across the Thames and that the Royal Festival Hall stands proud beside it, but that the National Film Theatre is hidden under Waterloo Bridge, every screening potentially ruined by the traffic grinding its way across above it and audiences constantly frustrated about how to find their way in, let alone watch a movie?
The machinery of UK film is complex, with many moving parts, and there is a need for a single body to continue the work of turning the UK film sector into a professional, co-ordinated and powerful industry, capable of making and distributing movies that will earn back their investment across the world. Every Government in the world, including that of the USA, support their film industry. We have the talent and the facilities—our records show that. What the industry wants is a long-term, stable partnership with government.
When I first put down this amendment to the Bill last year, I did not know at that time that the majority of the functions of the UK Film Council were to be transferred to the BFI. Although I regret the way in which this was done, I support that decision, which I think was the right one. I am confident that the senior management and the board of the BFI will rise to the “challenge”, as the Minister Ed Vaizey put it, of becoming the,
“new strategic body to oversee the future development of film in this country”.
However, closer inspection of the plans gives me cause for concern. I understand that only 44 of the 76 UK Film Council posts are to be transferred to the BFI, as no funding is earmarked for several of the functions currently undertaken, including support of film exports, protecting intellectual property and combating film theft, and providing co-production support. Can the Minister give us some explanation of what is to happen to these functions and why it was felt that they were not central to the future development of film in this country?
Of the 44 posts that are transferring out of the UK Film Council, I understand that four are to go to Film London, which is to take over the functions of the British Film Commissioner and be responsible for promoting the UK as a base for making films across the world. Film London is a good body with an excellent track record, but separating out the functions of inward investment not only from the BFI but from the eight regional film agencies, which are combining to form Creative England, and the film agencies in the three nations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland seems an odd way of restructuring this vital area. Can the Minister give us an idea of how this will work in practice and what benefits will flow from the new arrangements?
Lord Wills
My Lords, in rising to support the amendments that my noble friend Lord Stevenson has so eloquently presented and to which I have added my name, I draw the Committee’s attention to my declaration of interests as set out at Second Reading of the Bill on 9 November last year.
The success of “The King’s Speech” at the Oscars, at other awards ceremonies and at the box office this year has been widely celebrated, as indeed has the success of other British films. These are tremendous achievements. “The King’s Speech” was a tremendous achievement for the writer, the director, the actors and everyone involved in its production, and that includes the UK Film Council. As Iain Canning, one of the producers of that film, said, the film,
“wouldn't have been made without the UK Film Council”.
As we have heard and as your Lordships will know, the UK Film Council is now no more. It was abolished last year by the Government by press release. It was hard to understand why the Government took that decision last year, but it is even harder to understand today when we see the tremendous success of these films in which the UK Film Council has played such an important role. The UK Film Council was a flourishing public body competing in a ferociously competitive marketplace. It has helped to treble the turnover of the British film industry in the past 10 years. It supported the development of new filmmakers, funded imaginative and innovative British films, and ensured that British audiences could have access to all the glories of the cinema, with a wider choice of films made available to audiences throughout the country.
So why did the Government do this? In what last year the Observer rather charitably called an,
“impassioned defence of his decision”,
the Secretary of State explained that it was “simply not acceptable” to use taxpayers’ money to fund an organisation that pays its top eight executives more than £100,000 each. That was the justification that he gave. However, the Secretary of State was wrong in saying that. In fact, there were only six such executives, and if that was to be the criterion for scrapping the UK Film Council, why hand its functions over to the British Film Institute, whose latest accounts submitted to the Charity Commission show that seven of its staff received remuneration packages of more than £100,000? That is seven—one more than the number of people in the UK Film Council receiving such packages. It is not clear whether this exercise will save money overall and I would welcome any comment that the Minister may have about whether we will see any savings from bringing those two bodies together.
I entirely accept that no organisation has a right to an eternal existence but, if politicians are going to butcher successful organisations operating in a world of which they seem to have very little knowledge and understanding, they would be well advised to have good reasons for doing so. That is all the more important when the organisation in question depends for its success on a very rare combination of skills: a commercial eye for an audience, an intimacy with the medium, a human empathy with creative artists, the ability to nurture and to develop them, and an inspirational excitement about the cultural and economic benefits which film can offer and which my noble friend Lord Stevenson so eloquently set out. Such organisations are very hard to create and when they work as well as the UK Film Council was working, they should be cherished, not arbitrarily destroyed.
This organisation was scrapped without consultation, just through a press release, and, as far as I am aware, Ministers have not even had the elementary courtesy at any point since then to say anything in praise of the UK Film Council's remarkable achievements, not even about its role in the creation of “The King’s Speech”. I note the contrast with the debate which we had earlier today when the noble Lord, Lord McNally, under assault from all sides of the House, still found it possible to pay tribute to all the good work done by the Youth Justice Board. By contrast, Ministers who take responsibility for this in the other place—I obviously make an exception for the Ministers on the Front Bench in this House who are completely blameless in this respect—have not even had the elementary courtesy to say one word in tribute to the organisation which, apparently, they have so arbitrarily scrapped.
Why should the exceptionally talented people who work for the UK Film Council hang around working for a public body when they all have so many other options—much more lucrative options, in most cases—and when they are treated with such discourtesy by the Secretary of State who will determine the future of film in this country? I understand that the haemorrhaging of talent has already begun. Able and experienced professionals are leaving the public sector for other jobs and no doubt more will follow. Successful organisations such as the UK Film Council exist in a fragile ecology and politicians meddle at their peril.
Of course, there are profound challenges facing film in this country but this casual and ill thought-through decision is not the way to meet them. My noble friend Lord Stevenson has already said that last year the British Film Institute and the UK Film Council discussed a merger and both sides decided, after lengthy discussion and after securing legal advice, that there would be significant problems in making it work. That is not surprising. They are very different organisations. One is essentially a cultural organisation and the other is an industrial organisation. They may sound as though they are all in the same industry and they both have the word “film” in their titles, but culturally, organisationally and in terms of their focus they are very different organisations. It is not surprising that they should have found a merger difficult to work through. That is not difficult to understand at all. It is entirely predictable that much the same sorts of problems are now being encountered in trying to bring these two organisations together. I hope that all responsible Ministers are taking an active interest in the discussions between the BFI and the UK Film Council and can find a way of making this merger work.
Amendment 65A draws attention to some of the unease that has been created by how the functions which have been discharged by the UK Film Council will be discharged in this new era. All mergers, all kinds of takeovers, whatever you want to call this current process, are difficult in every industry and every business. It is notoriously difficult to make them work successfully. I hope that Ministers are not just standing by and relying on all the talented, highly motivated and able people on both sides of this debate to bring this off themselves. Ministers may have to intervene to bring about a successful conclusion and I hope that they will do so.
In responding to the amendment, I ask the Minister to say whether the Government will ensure that the UK Film Council’s research and statistics unit will carry on that essential work long term. I understand that the funding is guaranteed for one year but will they ensure that it is carried on long term? Without a market intelligence function like this, the BFI will be making decisions in the dark. I should be grateful if the Minister could tell the Committee what estimate has been made of the impact of not funding film exports. Film exports under the guidance of the UK Film Council have grown by 92 per cent. As my noble friend Lord Stevenson has already said, in 2008, film exports amounted to more than £1.3 billion. At a time when the Government are placing so much of their hopes for economic recovery on growth in exports, why are they taking away the support function from such a crucial industry? Can the Minister name other crucial industries where support for exports has been similarly scrapped?
Can the Minister also say who will take over the UK Film Council’s role in opening up film to as wide and diverse an audience as possible? How will the BFI demonstrate a strategy which reflects its new responsibility for the entire film sector and not just BFI-related exhibition and distribution? What can the Minister say to assure this House that the BFI will be committed to representing the interests of the film industry as a whole as well as the UK Film Council has done in the past? That is crucial as technology and the economic structure of the industry are changing very fast. What can the Minister say to reassure the film industry and this House that the BFI will address effectively such key issues as film theft, piracy, pay-TV platforms, which are especially important now that Sky has become so market dominant in acquiring film rights for television, and the smooth transition of the film industry to new digital models? As I have already said, the BFI has essentially been a very successful cultural body, so what can the Minister say to reassure everyone that it can successfully take on this complex and demanding new role?
In the coming years, Ministers—I direct my remarks to Ministers in the other place—will be judged by how far the film industry measures up to the benchmark now set by “The King’s Speech”. Ministers may move on to new jobs in Government or to none but the Ministers responsible for this decision now risk being remembered as the politicians who carelessly and needlessly destroyed an important part of the infrastructure of the British film industry. They now have to prove that what they have put in its place will be an improvement. I very much hope that they can do so. These amendments give the Government an opportunity to offer reassurance that they now understand that. I hope that they will take it.
Lord Triesman
My Lords, I add my support to the amendment of my noble friend Lord Stevenson and join him in congratulating those who won the Oscars. I perhaps should not forget the BAFTAs, which are more local and also well worth winning, as the same pattern of achievement was there.
I want to address the Committee on this amendment as I had the very good fortune to be the first person designated as the Minister for Intellectual Property, a role which I know that the new Government have also taken on as a ministerial post. The enjoyment from that role came from being involved not only in helping to drive forward businesses but in assisting in the development of cultural industries. I was under no illusion while doing so that Governments do not create business; they simply do their best to set out the conditions in which business might be able to thrive. The advantages of doing that are that, certainly in this country, we are unlikely to make much of our living doing many of the things which we have traditionally done, but we make a very good living from being successful in the creative industries.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall
My Lords, I add my support to the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Stevenson. I do so as someone who served until the general election on the Select Committee on Communications of your Lordships' House. Shortly before the election, the committee produced a detailed report on the state of the UK film and television industry as it was then—that is only just over a year ago.
A lot of the evidence taken by the committee then was in the wake of another huge success for the British film industry, although of a rather different nature from that of “The King's Speech” which we have been celebrating today. That film was “Slumdog Millionaire”, which also had huge success at the Oscars and elsewhere and depended for some of its success not on money from the UK Film Council but on a small amount of money, very early in the film’s development, from Channel 4. The reason that I mention that in relation to the amendment is that, as my noble friend Lord Wills just remarked, the UK film industry exists in a very fragile ecology. Its fragility concerns how difficult it is not so much to get things finished as to get them started.
The UK Film Council’s intervention, which allowed “The King's Speech” to be made, was at the beginning of that process. Anyone who has spent time over the past few weeks reading all the interviews and material generated by the success of “The King's Speech” will know that Tom Hooper, his screenwriter and the other people—the small group who believed in the project—struggled to get it going. Always, when we look at UK films that have big success, we think, “Of course. Why would it not be successful?”. It is not like that. One valuable thing that the UK Film Council has done, which is mentioned in the amendment, is to collect data and research on all the various ways in which the UK film industry is active. Those data reveal that the industry is in constant flux. It has moments of huge success and, at other times, moments when its success falls away.
In my view, that is partly because the industry has a relatively small domestic market. It has to get out there and sell itself into a wider world market before it can really start to make money. That is why film export is so important and why it is therefore necessary for the Government and the Minister, when she comes to reply, to explain how the film export aspect of the work of the UK Film Council will be supported and continued as we go on. The American film industry has a massive domestic market, and films can be a success in America using just that domestic market. Our film industry cannot rely on that market. It has to get out there and sell itself. The success of “The King’s Speech” is remarkable in that it has become a worldwide success. That is very hard to achieve from a UK base, and anything that is likely to undermine the continuing success of UK film by not properly supporting the export side of it is very much to be regretted.
I would also like to mention one other thing that is not specifically mentioned in this amendment, but I hope the Minister will find something to reassure the Committee about it when she comes to reply. It is about supporting film artists at an early stage in their career. Whether you are a director or a writer, the difficulty of getting your work funded at an early stage in your career is extreme in this country. That is probably an issue everywhere, but it is certainly so here. Among its many functions, the UK Film Council has over the years put some money into development and into making sure that a certain number of screen writers get to develop their work. I would like to feel that the Government understand the importance of this function and that when they come to review the way in which the functions of UK Film Council are to be transferred to the BFI that aspect of what it has been doing will be protected.
It is a very great matter of pride to all of us when a film such as “The King’s Speech” comes along and has such extraordinary success at home and in America, but it is an extremely long, hard journey to get a film such as that up and running and to get it to be as successful as that film has been. We cannot afford to lose any of the potential support for UK film makers.
Baroness Benjamin
My Lords, I, too, support Amendment 65A, particularly subsections (1)(d), (2)(c) and (2)(d). I declare an interest as an actress, broadcaster and producer. I shall speak first on subsection (1)(d) and the subject of diversity. For nearly 40 years now, I have spoken about the need to reflect diversity in film and media and, over those years, there have been many attempts to address the issue. Yet, sadly, this year, it was glaringly noticeable that there were no black or Asian nominees in the BAFTAs or the Oscars, which I find shocking in the 21st century. This is why I am supporting this amendment to ensure that provision is made actively to continue to address this situation.
I fear that this will not be undertaken because there is currently no diversity strategy in place at the BFI beyond a diversity programming group, which delivers various seasons and the Lesbian & Gay Film Festival. I find it difficult to understand that a modern organisation such as the BFI is without a focused diversity strategy that is actionable and measurable externally throughout the film industry. Diversity requires strong leadership from an individual to ensure success. It cannot just be an add-on to a blanket organisational remit. There is far too much proof that, although people mean well, there are always other priorities. The BFI says that it is passionate about diversity, but how will it demonstrate that to a diverse talent pool that wants more of what the UK Film Council’s diversity department has been delivering for the past few years?
My concern is that without an industry-focused diversity strategy there will be no further collaborations between the Film Fund, which distributes the funding, and the film sector to provide career-enhancing opportunities for diverse talent, which, in broadcast terms, relates to the new Equality Act. I fear that without a diversity strategy no one will actively provide real job opportunities, either in front of or behind the camera, thereby sending a clear message to the sector that diversity is not a vital necessity in order to reflect modern Britain. This will be disastrous.
Over the past few years, the UK Film Council has supported diversity projects to support the sustainability of diverse talent through proper training opportunities. These have been wide-ranging. They included: funding scriptwriters, runners and make-up artists; graduate fellowship schemes through Diversity in Visual Arts; funding digital shorts for disabled film-makers; supporting a mentoring scheme with Skillset and Women in Film and Television; and pioneering an outreach project with Pinewood Studios that hopes to encourage a greater diversity of applicants for apprenticeships and jobs. Ultimately, diversity offers the UK’s highly skilled but fragmented and diverse workforce the chance to strengthen their careers through strategic support. The industry is united in a single vision to ensure the inclusion of modern voices, so it is imperative that the BFI continues to uphold this vision and puts in place a diversity strategy overseen by experienced people. I urge the Government to ensure that that happens.
I now move on to subsections (2)(c) and (2)(d). I want to highlight the need to allocate a percentage of funds for films targeted at children and young people. The state of UK children’s film production is dire. In 2010, the UK Film Council made only six grants totalling £113,500 towards children’s and young people’s films. This works out at 0.75 per cent of the UK Film Council’s budget for filming in that year. Over the years, it was always believed that little was being done to produce culturally significant, good-quality British films for children, but it is clear to see that children’s films are a highly popular genre, as recent reports on UK film audiences in 2010 show that most of the popular films received U or PG certificates and so were classified for children.
Yet the problem for British film does not lie with trying to attract an audience to watch the films. Instead, it occurs with trying to keep the money made by successful children’s films in this country. Many of the most profitable and lucrative films since 2006 have been British-born stories and ideas, yet they were not necessarily UK film productions, as we do not have the money to make large-budget blockbusters. These are films such as “The Chronicles of Narnia”, “Harry Potter”, “Pirates of the Caribbean”, “The Golden Compass” and, most recently, “Alice in Wonderland” and “Fantastic Mr Fox”. The accomplishments of these films show that, through investment in quality children’s films, large profits can be achieved and this can bring about a good return. It also shows that, by investing in ourselves, we will be able to keep profits at home and put them straight back into funding and making even better British films for children.
The real question at hand is how the British film industry can benefit from UK children’s film productions. On 21 January 2011, BAFTA, along with members of the Danish film industry, hosted an event entitled, “Is Something Rotten in the State of Children’s Cinema?”. The event focused on the work done by the Danish Film Institute, since the UK is facing similar issues to those dealt with by it a few years ago. Denmark now has a strong film industry in which Danish kids’ films take 38 per cent of all box office takings. This can be linked to its film Act in 1997, under which an allocated 25 per cent of the state-funded film budget is put directly into funding children’s films. This figure has been ring-fenced, which has allowed Danish film-makers to produce films specifically for children. From 1999 to 2008, the market share of Danish films for children and young people was a staggering 41 per cent of the total and, in 2010, it rose to 50 per cent. What the Danes have done to create this success is quite simple; their film industry has made sure that there has always been a seat at the table for children’s film. This in turn strengthens the partnership between Danish and international producers and creates a balance between Danish and foreign participants in the technical and creative areas of production.
If the Government encourage the BFI to adopt the Danish model and if the BFI actively promotes the availability of funds for UK children’s film productions, this will attract co-production, create an active UK children’s film market and establish a creative outlet for our talented British creators so that they too can stand on the world stage and be honoured, like those who created celebrated films such as “The King’s Speech” this year. An agreed percentage of funds should be allocated to UK film productions for children and young people to enable this to happen, so I support this amendment.
The Earl of Clancarty
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, on tabling Amendment 65A, which I support, as it is an imaginative amendment that seeks to discuss the UK Film Council and the British Film Institute and how their continuing respective functions will relate to each other. It quite deliberately uses the term “merger”.
I will speak to the work of the British Film Institute and to my concerns and hopes for this important organisation in the light of the changes that are to be made. Its multifaceted work does not have a primarily commercial imperative. Its work is inherently good for British culture and British society as a whole. Film has become, as in other countries but particularly in Britain throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, part of the lifeblood of the nation, so the BFI is as relevant today as it has been in the past and will be in the future.
Over decades, the BFI has done tremendous work, not least in saving, restoring and rediscovering British films that would otherwise be lost because of the fragility of the film medium. My own father, Terry Trench, worked in the post-war British documentary film industry, mainly as an editor but sometimes as producer or director. His films are among the close to a million titles that the BFI now holds in its national archive. My father was one of a number of still often unsung heroes of the original British documentary film movement, although now there is a much greater interest in this tradition, due in no small measure to the BFI—the success of its DVD compilations such as “Land of Promise” are a testament to this.
Indeed, the BFI is keen to allow work to be as accessible as possible to the public, although, given the copyright issues, this is not always easy. As it happens, the very first film that my father edited was directed by Anthony Asquith. The BFI recently restored Asquith’s early features, including “Underground”, leading directly to something of a critical reappraisal of his work. At present, the BFI is in the process of restoring nine of Hitchcock’s silent films in readiness for a retrospective in 2012, which in the year of the Olympics will garner considerable international interest.
I think on reflection that it could be a good thing if the UK Film Council was merged with the BFI—I choose my words carefully. However, I hope that this will not lead to the current BFI becoming some type of junior partner within this cinematic coalition, as with clear overall leadership its current role could and should be kept intact and necessarily as properly funded as the UK Film Council, which I understand from Ed Vaizey’s announcement on Thursday stands to benefit from a well deserved multimillion-pound injection of financial support, just as the BFI faces an undeserved 15 per cent cut in funding.
Ideally, the BFI would become the guardian of film of the past, the present and the future—the Paul Newman Butch Cassidy role to the UK Film Council’s Robert Redford Sundance Kid, if you will. However, if the overall framework overburdens the BFI and then threatens its current work, the merger will be a disaster, whatever extra funding the UK Film Council in effect receives, as there will be no legacy to aspire to and no heritage to make. In the light of this, I call on the Government to look carefully at the balance of funding and to reappraise those cuts, which are aimed at the heritage of the national film industry.
We are still fighting the same ideological battles as 50 years ago, even though the stages for such battles might have changed. My father worked for the state-funded Crown Film Unit, a much respected quango that was set up to replace the GPO Film Unit, whose work of course included the celebrated “Night Mail”. What then happened in 1952 to the Crown Film Unit, fresh from its recent BAFTA and Oscar-winning triumphs? A newly elected Conservative Government abolished it, the reason cited being financial in a time of austerity. I hope very much that the BFI goes from strength to strength and that the Government will continue to support its important work.
Lord Judd
My Lords, I have a brief observation to make. We heard a very enthusiastic speech from the Prime Minister in recent days about regenerating the imaginative drive of British industry. We are good at the creative arts and we are good at universities. Why do we have this generalised bureaucratic approach to sweeping legislation instead of getting down to the task—the real discipline—of looking specifically at each of these sectors and the things that are happening in them and devising the strongest possible arrangements to support them in maximising their success? Their success is beyond doubt and it is absolute madness to have been through an episode in which the talent that had got together and that was fulfilling the job so convincingly has been undermined, demoralised and fragmented by what has been proposed. How on earth does this relate to what the Prime Minister was talking about at the weekend? I ask the Government, even at this late stage, not just to try to patch up what has happened and try to find some acceptable solution but to look at the whole thing again and ask how they can really ensure that they have the strongest possible and most dynamic arrangements in place to enable the film industry, and indeed the universities, to succeed as they should.
Earl Cathcart
My Lords, I was not going to speak in this debate, but two things strike me. Here, I ought to declare my interest in that, in my past life, I was the chairman of a film production and distribution company.
First, my gut feeling about the merger is that it would be much better to have one body speaking to the British film industry and combining all the functions of the two existing organisations. This would reduce overheads, produce greater efficiencies and allow the new body to focus on the important issues for the film industry—in other words, to be one strong voice for the British film industry. Before these amendments came before us today, I asked one or two noble friends who are in the business for their views. I am told that not all but many eminent practitioners think that the Government in this instance have got it just about right.
Secondly, I am not 100 per cent sure why these amendments are being discussed today in our deliberations on the Public Bodies Bill. I did not think that either the UK Film Council or the British Film Institute were public bodies. They are not statutory bodies, so as excellent and as passionate as this debate has been, surely it should have been conducted outside the confines of this Bill.
Baroness Rawlings
My Lords, this has been a fascinating debate with, as is so often the case in your Lordships’ House, contributions by dedicated and knowledgeable Peers who are passionate about their subject. I am grateful to those who introduced these amendments but I want to be clear from the outset that the Public Bodies Bill is not the right place to debate the abolition of the UK Film Council or the transfer of functions to the British Film Institute. The UK Film Council is a company limited by guarantee. The British Film Institute is a registered charity established by royal charter. Neither is a statutory body, so neither has a place in the Public Bodies Bill.
However, Amendment 67B, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Stevenson and Lord Wills, and Amendments 77A and 85B, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Stevenson, Lord Wills and Lord Judd, would include the UK Film Council and the British Film Institute within Schedules 2, 4 and 5. Amendment 65A, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Stevenson, Lord Puttnam and Lord Wills, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, would create a duty for the Government to lay before Parliament a report following a merger under Clause 2.
I will consider these amendments together. In answer to the remark made by the noble Lord, Lord Wills, about recognition from Ministers of the success of “The King’s Speech”, as recently as last week the Minister, Ed Vaizey, praised the UK Film Council in a speech at the UK Screen Association. That is on public record. The Government remain absolutely committed to supporting the British film industry. The decision to abolish the UK Film Council should not be misconstrued as an attempt to undermine the industry. I urge noble Lords to consider the substance of our proposals before coming to conclusions as there is a certain amount of support for this merger even from the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson. While the UK Film Council is being abolished, its most important functions will be retained, many of which will move across to the British Film Institute. These functions include the distribution of lottery money, support for films in the regions, the media programme and the certification unit that is essential to film tax relief.
The noble Lord, Lord Wills, was rightly concerned that the British Film Institute’s research and statistics unit should be retained. I can assure him that we, as well as the industry, believe that that is critical. Discussions are progressing well between the BFI, Film London and the UK Film Council, and we are confident that the transfer in April will leave no gap in the service provided to the UK film industry. The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, is right that we are looking for the full transfer in April 2011. As referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, the DCMS is currently discussing with the industry and the BFI the solution to funding the research and statistics unit. My noble friend Lord Cathcart made a very valid point and he is absolutely right. I am most grateful to him for reminding us yet again that these bodies have no place in the Bill.
British film-making continues to have a bright future under this Government. The film tax credit, which is worth more than £100 million each year to the British film industry, will continue with the certification unit moving across from the UK Film Council to the British film industry. Lottery funding available for the industry will increase from the current £27 million to £43 million by 2014, an increase of more than 50 per cent. The success of films such as “The King’s Speech” shows that we can be proud of the country’s contribution to film-making and I was delighted that this contribution was acknowledged at last week’s Oscar ceremony, as well as at the BAFTAs and the Golden Globe Awards. I should like to add my congratulations to all those involved to those of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson.
The noble Lord, Lord Wills, asked several questions. He asked whether talented staff will have a fulfilling future. We agree and would hope that they will. Transfer arrangements are currently the subject of due diligence discussions between the British Film Institute and the UK Film Council. He also asked about film exports, as did the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. Tough government decisions have had to be taken and priorities established but the UK Film Council continues to work with the industry to promote film exports. The noble Lord and my noble friend Lady Benjamin asked about responsibility for diversity issues. I can assure them that it is part of the fuller policy remit. The noble Lords, Lord Wills and Lord Triesman, asked about piracy and we understand their concern. The BFI does not represent the film industry on IP issues. The responsible agency for public policy is working with the industry.
We have had an interesting debate and I should like to remind your Lordships once again that these are not statutory bodies and should not appear in the Bill. However, I have taken note of the points and some of the constructive ideas. If I have not answered all questions asked by noble Lords I will of course take them back to the department. I should also like to remind your Lordships that the additional statutory reporting requirement is not feasible as it relates to a merger under Clause 2 of bodies which have no place in Schedule 2. I would therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response. In some senses, this debate has proved to be exactly what we had hoped that it would when we put down the amendments. We did so in a spirit of discussion and debate, which I hope has not been misconstrued on the other side. It is clearly a probing amendment. You cannot reinstate that which should not be instated in the first place and you certainly cannot abolish it subsequently since it has already been abolished. So we were in somewhat of an Alice in Wonderland world. We expected to be caught out and indeed we were.
However, in so doing, the debate has been exactly as we had hoped it would be. There have been contributions from all around the House, which have covered all aspects of what we thought was an important issue. We have made the point that this is something that will not wait simply on some arbitrary definition of what is a statutory body and what is not. I said at the very beginning of my remarks—I am sorry that the Minister did not come back to this—that if the general point being made in this Bill is that bodies devolved from government to bodies whether statutory or not is an important feature of our constitutional hardwiring, why is it that we are not able to work into our system a method under which those bodies can be asked to report back to Parliament so that we can have the sort of discussion which we so patently have had today? That is a question which the noble Baroness might like to take back and think about as we move towards the Third Reading of the Bill.
Several extremely valuable points were made during the debate. I particularly enjoyed those made by the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, which she has made to me on many occasions when I was in a position to do something about them. I suffered then and I think we have all suffered again today as we realise how bad we are about the diversity issues to which she drew our attention, and how much neglect there is in our overall concern about culture if we do not nurture our children. I wish the noble Baroness all the best in carrying on with putting these points forward. It may not be the case that the Danish model is the right one, but it is certainly something that we should be looking at, and I hope that the BFI will take it forward.
The noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, was too modest when talking about his family’s experiences. I think that there is an Oscar lurking in there somewhere, along with other prizes, and we should celebrate that with him. He made the point exactly as one would expect: when we have something successful in the country—we had the Crown Film Unit that did fantastic work which is now being restored and reissued to audiences—when it is doing particularly well, we tend to chop it down on the grounds of cost.
My noble friend Lady McIntosh said that we always have to think about how to get started in the industry. It is not a traditional industry in the sense that you can join at the bottom and work your way up; rather it is one that is feast or famine. If you have a success you are able to build on that, or you may have a series of failures. What you have to do is create a context within which work can be supported and nurtured and in which new people can always be brought forward. Creativity lies in the innovation of the young, not in the successes of the old, and we have to make sure that we get that right.
My noble friend Lord Judd drew attention to the imaginative drive that permeates throughout many ministerial Statements these days. Why on earth can we not recognise that the creative economy is one of the places that we will get the returns we need? It must be backed with really sensible proposals that will take it forward and thus out of the traditional modes with which we have been trying to support it. My noble friend Lord Triesman made the important point that IP is the key to a lot of future creative activity and that those who try to abuse it are often linked into other criminal behaviour. We are going to be in serious trouble if we cannot think through how the rights to creative activities are being taken away from the creators up to the point where sometimes they will not invest in order to achieve the benefits that we would like from them.
All in all, we have had a particular debate. I felt that the Minister did not really pick up on what the excellent speech of my noble friend Lord Wills was about. My noble friend tried to say that while we are supportive of where we are, because we are going to have a merger between the UK Film Council and the BFI whether we like it or not, there are some good things to say about it. The noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, drew attention to the problems that can arise where a cultural body takes on a commercial wing. But the BFI has done production before and, I think, can rise to the challenge going forward. However, as my noble friend Lord Wills said, we now have a benchmark. We know what success means in this world. I recommend to Ministers that they should think carefully about where the UK Film Council took our film industry so that, when we are able to debate this issue again, we can think again about the benchmark and consider whether the changes that are being brought forward now are sufficient and can succeed in achieving a sustainable British film industry, something that all noble Lords will join me in saying that they want.
As I said, this is a probing amendment and I do not intend in any sense to embarrass either my own or any side by taking it to a vote. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Sports Grounds Safety Authority Bill
Estates of Deceased Persons (Forfeiture Rule and Law of Succession) Bill
Social Fund Maternity Grant Amendment Regulations 2011
(13 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
20:54 - Division on Lord Touhig's Motion - Ayes: 112 / Noes: 149 - Motion disagreed.
Lord Touhig
To move to resolve that this House regrets that Her Majesty’s Government have laid before Parliament the Social Fund Maternity Grant Amendment Regulations 2011 (SI 2011/100) at unnecessary speed and without providing more information on the impact on new mothers and children in low-income families; and notes with concern that the regulations will remove funds from some of the poorest families during the crucial early months of a child’s life.
Relevant document: 20th Report from the Merits Committee.
Lord Touhig
My Lords, my noble friend Lady Sherlock secured this debate and I pay tribute to her for doing so. However, it is with great regret that she has had to withdraw, and she has asked me to speak in her place. I agreed to do so willingly, but alas I fear that I will not execute the task as well as she would have done. I should also declare an interest as president of HomeStart in my former constituency of Islwyn.
The two poorest groups in our society are those at the extreme end of the age range—pensioners and young children—and the change the Government are making to the Social Fund Maternity Grant is an outright attack on young children born into some of the poorest families in Britain. Put simply, at present women receiving certain means-tested benefits can get a grant of £500 to help with the costs of a new baby. The Government intend to abolish this payment for the second and subsequent children. A woman who gives birth to a new baby will lose the grant if she already has another child aged under 16 in the household.
The Government are planning £9 billion of cuts in the tax and benefits system, and some £4 billion of those are going to come from child support. I believe that this shows that the Government are out of touch. They assume that parents need only to spend the grant to acquire a pram, a pushchair, a cot, baby clothes and all that is needed for a newborn child just once in a lifetime. I suppose they imagine that all these things can be stored away as the first child grows out of them in case another child follows, and they assume that this storage can go on for 16 years.
This is an attack on some 150,000 of the poorest families in Britain. The Government are taking this step without proper consultation and against the advice of well-known family support groups such as Gingerbread and the Social Security Advisory Committee. Yes, even the advice of the Social Security Advisory Committee, the independent body which provides impartial advice to the Government on these matters, is being ignored. The advisory committee has described the proposals to restrict the maternity grant as lacking a “coherently argued rationale” and has stated that they appear to run counter to Government policy to abolish child poverty by 2020.
The department responsible, the Department for Work and Pensions, has stated that:
“This change will undoubtedly cause hardship for some cases. However this will not impact on the child poverty figures”,
due to the fact that maternity grants are one-off lump-sum payments which do nothing to increase annual income. The department is known across Whitehall as DWP, which is also a word in Welsh—“dwp” means stupid and daft in the head. Anyone who actually believes that this measure will not impact on child poverty is not taking the issue seriously at all. Indeed, Gingerbread has said:
“The DWP fails to recognise the significant and negative impact that this measure will have on the ability of poor and low-income families to buy essential baby equipment. Single parents are more likely than couple families to be poor: 52% of children in single parent families grow up poor. If a single parent has just separated from a partner, they are likely to have experienced a drop in income. If they are pregnant, or later become pregnant and cannot claim the [grant] because they already have a child under 16, many will struggle to buy items such as a pushchair, cot and car seat. If they have fled domestic violence and have no belongings for themselves or their other child, this situation is [made even worse]. The impact is likely to be particularly great where there is more than a two-year gap between children”.
Gingerbread also points out that the,
“DWP mistakenly assumes that [the grant] will have been claimed for the first child”,
But the organisation’s helpline suggests that large numbers of people do not claim the grant for their child through ignorance or the complexity of the tax and benefits system.
The Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee of your Lordships' House said that the Government’s target of 24 January for the coming into force of the instrument in order for the change to take effect in April of this year,
“has severely curtailed both the time available for consultation and for Parliamentary scrutiny”.
Furthermore, the SSAC was able to consult for only nine days on this proposal—a dismally short period. Alas, this is becoming typical of the Government, who seem to view consultation and scrutiny as optional, rather than viewing them as mechanisms which can improve government proposals and mitigate their worst, ill-thought-out effects.
As the Merits Committee noted, no impact assessment has been provided to Parliament. Little information has been given on the costs of alternative policy options and the department had not explained why the option chosen was preferred. Again, this looks like policy made on the hoof for short-term political, rather than long-term welfare, considerations.
The Social Security Advisory Committee suggested that the way in which Government have alighted on some decisions as part of this policy change lacks reasoned explanation. The committee pointed to the way in which the Government had arrived at the exceptions to the new rules, and why the option to restrict to payments who are the only children under 16 in a family was chosen above the other options presented to them. The proposal is that if there is a child in the family under the age of 16, there is no entitlement to the maternity grant. The SSAC believes that,
“this is an unreasonably high threshold and should be set at a much lower age, possibly as low as five”.
This point is reiterated by the Merits Committee, which noted:
“The rationale for limiting eligibility to households where there is no child under 16 is not explained. While it is reasonable to expect some recycling of baby equipment among siblings, the SSAC points out that it seems unrealistic to think that parents of a fifteen year old would retain baby goods that long”.
My wife and I have four children, and there was a five-year gap between the birth of our third and fourth children. I can tell your Lordships that when the fourth child arrived we had to go out and buy a whole new lot of equipment.
The advisory committee states that,
“the changes to the rules for Sure Start Maternity Grants are based on an assumption that the payments are made on the basis of meeting additional expenses incurred by the purchase of new items regarded as necessary for a baby, and that they fail to recognise ongoing or recurrent costs such as the need for the mother to eat healthily or for the home to be kept sufficiently warm”.
This would suggest that this policy, like so many that the Government have put forward, has not been properly thought through.
One respondent to the advisory committee noted that,
“each pregnancy and preparation for a baby costs an average of £1,600, and that this estimate does not simply include the ‘hardware’ required but also additional heating and travel costs for hospital visits: so there are considerable costs that cannot be met by ‘recycling’ goods from a previous pregnancy”.
The Government have not properly considered what costs incurred for children apply to every child and cannot be mitigated by hand-downs. As a result, their proposal to restrict maternity grants to the first child looks increasingly muddled and will produce significant hardships for families across the country.
There will be an intervening period of eight to 12 months between the introduction of the new rules for maternity grants and the introduction of mitigating measures to extend Social Fund budgeting loans to include maternity items. The Social Security Advisory Committee said that,
“this would mean that many people will be left without any alternative means for meeting the additional expenditure incurred by a second or subsequent baby beyond going without or having to resort to high cost lenders”.
One of the most worrying aspects of the proposals is the lack of a safety net for those who lose their grant. While a loan facility will eventually be available, the changes are not being put in place at the same time. The mitigation measures will not come into effect until at least eight months after the cuts to maternity grants have been implemented.
The committee said that it was particularly concerned about this, stating:
“It would be a difficult enough step for someone who would have been entitled to an SSMG of £500, to go to having to apply for a budgeting loan for the required items. But it is an entirely different matter if there is no provision to be made at all within the benefits system and they were expected to borrow commercially instead. People eligible for an SSMG would be unlikely to have access to low-cost credit – indeed many would need to borrow at APRs in excess of 100 or even 200%”.
The advisory committee urged the Government to look at halving their budget for this grant and to look at the impact of other changes; for example, to housing benefit, health in pregnancy grant and tax credits. It said that no such evaluation of the rationale had been presented to them. Respondents to the advisory committee pointed out that the cuts in the maternity grant will cause hardships for families which may translate into additional costs for other bodies such as local authority social services departments and the NHS. The SSAC therefore concluded that a more tempered level of saving may be achieved than other outcomes would yield.
The committee also observed that the low-income families eligible to apply for the grant are those most likely to have been in temporary accommodation or in homes with cramped conditions, which would make it unlikely that they would have had places for long-term, regular storage of baby equipment. Anyone with a new child knows how much stuff children can generate as they grow up and grow out of their baby clothing and equipment. People living in cramped conditions simply cannot keep such things just in case they have more children. The policy ignores conditions in low-income families and the realities of their situations, quite possibly because too many in the Government have no experience of, or any concern about, people living in such conditions. Most concerning, it risks exposing children born into low-income families to poverty from the moment they are born. That simply cannot be right for the fourth-richest country on the planet. It is not morally right either.
Rather than listening to the SSAC, the body which is supposed to advise the Government on these issues, the Government have instead pushed ahead blindly and said that they have no plans even to review the policy. It is typical of the arrogance that this Government now display that they never seem to listen to reasoned arguments or objections from any outside source, but rather they assume that they are right and that everyone else is wrong.
The Merits Committee concluded:
“This instrument seems to have been inadequately planned and explained”.
It wisely suggested that your Lordships,
“may wish to press the DWP for a better explanation of why the other options suggested were not pursued and what the anticipated impact on new mothers and children in low-income families will be”.
I hope that the Minister has some encouraging answers.
Baroness Massey of Darwen
My Lords, I support the Motion of Regret put so ably by my noble friend Lord Touhig. I shall speak very briefly and widen out the debate a little.
There has been a lot of discussion in your Lordships' House recently on early intervention. There have also been many reports recently, including one by Frank Field on child poverty and one by Graham Allen on early intervention. I thought and hoped that the Government would have understood the importance of spending now to save later.
During the recent debate on parenting of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, I was greatly impressed by a statement from the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. He cited the Graham Allen report on early intervention, which said that decades of expensive late intervention had failed. In his response, the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Hill, said:
“I hope that it is also fair to say that this Government, like the previous Government, recognise the importance of the early years in children's lives and development”.—[Official Report, 3/2/11; col. 1500.]
How true, but do the Government still recognise that?
This measure, cutting a grant to low-income families, may well contribute to both poverty and to poorer outcomes for children. It may not seem like much money, but it is to some people and some families generally. The loss of the money could affect the lives of not only the child or children—and some people have twins—but also affect the relationship between the parents. Stress can be created by poverty, and poverty affects relationships. It also affects maternal health, which is a key to good health and achievement in children.
Baroness Gale
My Lords, I support the Motion of Regret of my noble friend Lord Touhig.
That word “regret” is important. The Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee, in its devastating report of 3 February, made a number of points relating to the withdrawal of the Sure Start maternity grant for most pregnant mothers. One of the points it made is that the Office for National Statistics survey found that,
“less than 10 per cent of second and subsequent children were born more than five years after the first or subsequent child”.
The effect of this means realistically that the grant is now paid only for the first child because, if there are children in the family under 16, in no circumstances will the maternity grant be paid.
The Merits Committee also suggests that,
“The House may wish to seek clarification of why age 16 was chosen as the threshold as opposed to say age 5 or 10”.
I therefore ask the Minister why the age of 16 was chosen. It is highly unlikely, for example, that if there is a 15 year-old child in the household—or even a 10 year-old—any equipment from that child could be used for the new baby. The expenditure would be very like having a first child, but with no help whatever from this Government.
The charity Gingerbread, commenting on the emergency Budget of June 2010, said:
“A family having a second child could be over £1,200 worse off this year than last year. These cuts will be deepest for the most vulnerable families”.
The charity Family Action said,
“low income families will find it tough to meet the needs of their newborn children and families returning to work will be stung by cuts to tax credits and childcare costs. We know from talking to the new parents who access our services how vital these funds are in giving families and their children the best possible start in life. Now they’ll be on the back foot from birth, thanks to the Government’s policies”.
In his statement on the Social Fund Maternity Grant Amendment Regulations 2011—published in the Act paper—the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions says:
“Around 150,000 families in receipt of a qualifying benefit at the point they have a second or subsequent child will be affected by this measure. In order to help mitigate the effects for some of these families, the forthcoming Welfare Reform Bill will include a measure to open up the Social Fund budgeting loan scheme to enable loans for maternity items to be made available. However, due to the discrepancy in timing between the introduction of the changes to eligibility to Sure Start Maternity Grants in April 2011 and the date the provision in the Bill comes into force (expected to be early 2012), families will not be able to take advantage of the extended access to Budgeting Loans during this period”.
The Government saying that “families will not be able to take advantage” must be the understatement of the year.
This is the coalition Government’s timetable; they are in charge of it. They could do something about it but they have chosen not to. This means that there will be no government help available for women who are expecting babies between 11 April 2011 and some unknown date in 2012. What are these mothers expected to do? Do they go without? Do they go to a charity or to their church to see whether they can get some help? Perhaps they may be able to get a loan from a bank. If not, perhaps, as my noble friend Lord Touhig said, they may be able to take out a loan with some organisation where a very high interest rate will be charged. What a worry for a pregnant mother.
Of course, depending on the age of the first child, there may be some items that can be used, but there are always additional costs for every child and this can be a strain on a family budget. However, as things stand now, there is no chance of help from this Government. I ask the Minister to listen to the charities which have expertise in these matters and to reconsider what help can be given from April to the date when the Welfare Reform Bill will be enacted.
We know this legislation has been rushed through, allowing only nine days for consultation by the Social Security Advisory Committee, and without proper consultation and scrutiny it is lacking in evidence. I am not aware of any impact assessment and I wonder why there has not been one. I ask the Minister to take careful note of what has been said and the effect that this proposal will have on the families that once qualified for such support under a Labour Government but will no longer receive such support.
Lord German
My Lords, I should like to take a rounded view of these regulations and put them in the context of the activity of the Government in terms of poverty. There are some issues which noble Lords on the Benches opposite have raised which require some answers from the Minister and I shall raise one or two myself.
First, it is important to recognise that these regulations have the effect of providing a level of savings within the DWP budget—that is undeniable—and that these types of decisions are never easy. At face value, of course, this could be simply seen as yet another cost-saving exercise, which is the thrust of the previous three speeches. However, it should also be looked at in the broader context. I shall examine both sides of the issue in my contribution to the debate.
I preface my remarks by posing a question to the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, the mover of this Motion of regret. I shall not correct him on his Welsh mutations; I shall explain to him afterwards—
Lord German
Yes, the “d” should be a “t”.
The question is about the level of savings that he and his party are looking for in the public finances and whether they are put back into good order within five years or, as I understand it from his party, within seven years. Perhaps he can tell me because I have been struggling to find the answer to the question. What is the level of interest on the loan that the country now has and the debt that we have to repay if it is to be spread over seven years rather than five, which I think was his party’s policy? At the moment we have to repay £120 million a day in interest for the next five years. If we went for the seven-year position, what savings would we need to look at from within the budgets of all the departments in the country? I still fail to understand that. As we all know, it is easy to stand up and say, “Do not cut this or that”, if in the end the summation does not add up to the figure—which I understand is the position of the Labour party at the moment.
However, I recognise that this is part of a package designed to save money and that, if the circumstances for the country were appropriate, we would not have wanted to do this. If the finances were strong, I doubt whether this would have appeared on the horizon. Fundamentally, the judgment here comes down to the question of whether this particular set of regulations fits within the whole scheme of reforms and changes to our work and benefits regime, in the context of the economy as we find it. You cannot see one particular benefit set in isolation without considering the rest. Right from the beginning when the universal benefit regime was talked about in your Lordships’ House, and through the discussion and questions about it here, I have always been attracted by one of its fundamental aims—a fundamental aim of the whole revision of the benefits structure from its current complex base to something much more straightforward and simple—which is to lift people out of poverty. The impact assessment produced by the Government showed figures which, frankly, would have made everybody around this Chamber smile.
The principal aim of the universal benefit Bill and the new work programme is to lift people out of poverty. That programme itself requires investment: it has a £4.5 billion price tag. Part of that has to be funded from within the savings that can be made from the department, and part is coming from new money that the Treasury has made available. In making this change in these regulations, are we ensuring overall that the poorest and most vulnerable are being supported while helping to lift large numbers of our people out of poverty? That is the fundamental question against which you set these regulations. If the answer to that is yes, then, clearly in the context of that whole regime, you have to move forward upon that basis.
There are some problems and concerns, and some of them have been raised already. I echo some of them and pose a new one in questions that I hope the Minister will answer at the end. First, we have this interim period between the universal benefit Bill passing through your Lordships’ House and its becoming an Act in our country. In that interim period, the current interest-free loans will no longer be available. There is a danger that the people who find themselves put in most difficulty by these regulations will turn to high-cost lenders. What comfort at all can the Minister offer for where these people might turn in that interim period so there will be no difficulties for them? It is a short, one-off period before the new loan arrangements for purchasing, say, a cart, buggy and all those matters are in place.
Secondly, as has already been alluded to, what happens when a second child is born in a family and there has been no claim for the first child? You can imagine the circumstances where that might happen. Someone who is in work, has appropriate leave and reasonable funding behind them, might decide that it is not worth the effort, hassle or for other reasons—it might be that parents provide some of this equipment—and do not apply for the grant. Then perhaps there is a period of no work and when it comes to the second child it is difficult to find that sort of money. What happens when this is the first application within the family but the application is for the second child? Again, I would value an answer from the Minister.
Lord Liddle
My Lords, I respond in part to what the noble Lord, Lord German, has just said. My noble friends have made a strong case for why this measure should not be made by the Government. The noble Lord makes a perfectly fair point: we are in a mess with our public finances and what else would we do? In these circumstances, political choices have to be made. The thing that worries me about the Government’s policies is that, yes, there is a welcome increase in the child tax credit, but if you put that on one side there is an accumulation of things that will hit very poor families particularly hard. We had a debate last year—it was one of the first debates that I spoke in when I arrived—on the child trust fund, which is being abolished. We know that the housing benefit changes will particularly affect poor families in rented accommodation in high-rent parts of the country; some of those might well be young families where there has been a separation and the only alternative is to move into high-rent property. We know that the Sure Start budgets are being preserved, but only in cash terms, and that there is quite a squeeze on them.
In terms of political priorities, the Government have decided to target poor families, I am afraid to say. That is morally very wrong. It belies the claim that in addressing the crisis—I do not underestimate the fact that we have a very serious public finance problem— we are all in this together. Frankly, the people who are being targeted are the people who do not have a strong voice, who perhaps are not very politically motivated and who do not often go to the ballot box, although they may do so a little more frequently from now on than they have in the recent past. None the less, they are people who do not have a record of voting in elections and they are easy game in political terms. That is what I find so disreputable in this targeting of poor families with cuts.
One thing that we have all learnt in the past 10 or 15 years from a lot of new evidence is that there is, first of all, a clear relationship between poverty and stress in the family and between stress in the family and child development. Many eminent experts have validated that relationship, but we are choosing as a result of this measure to increase the pressure on those poor families, which will lead to more stress and have a negative impact on child development.
Some people in the government parties think that if you face a choice of priorities it is better to spend the money on services than on financial transfers. There is a bit of that here and I think that it is one of the reasons why the Government decided to tackle the welfare budget. Of course, there are reforms in the welfare budget that we all want to see. I am not saying that there should not be any reform in the welfare budget, but it is wrong to characterise this kind of thing as a handout; it has a profound effect on opportunity in later life and is vital if we really believe in opportunity. All the parties in this Chamber say that they believe in equal opportunity but, if we believe in equal opportunity, focusing the available money on poor families and helping their children to get a good start in life is one of the most important things that as a society we can do.
Lord Blackwell
As I listen to this debate, I find myself completely out of sympathy with those proposing this Motion. It reminds me of attitudes that I thought we had moved past, of assuming that the state has an unlimited pot of money and that any spending is necessarily morally good. Of course, we all like justifying giving money to people, but the truth is that welfare has two sides to it. Every pound that we give to a family who are welfare recipients is a pound that we take in tax from another family who are having to bear the burden of supporting the first family.
A measure of welfare is, of course, an essential part of a modern society, but it is not a one-way street. We have to balance the amount of money that we spend on our welfare budget with the amount that we are prepared to take off other hard-working families who are not receiving these benefits. When people think about families spending additional money on new equipment for new children, they should spare a thought for the hard-working families who are also often poor but not in receipt of welfare benefits and who are not being given money to go out and buy a new buggy, cot or changing mat et cetera. Those people resent paying extra money in tax when they do not think it absolutely necessary that the recipients get it.
I would not and do not criticise the fact that there is the grant for first children, which is appropriate, but I do not accept the argument that the most useful way in which we could spend extra money taken in tax is to make this grant available for subsequent children. If we want to deal with equality of opportunity, I would much rather spend that money on education than give it to people to spend on buying a new buggy. We need to keep this in perspective and accept that there are two sides to every pound spent on welfare. It is not simply about taking money out of some endless pot owned by the state.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, for reminding us of some of the attitudes that still live strongly within the Conservative Party. I am astounded that no Member on those Benches leapt to their feet to dissociate themselves from those remarks.
I commend my noble friend Lady Sherlock for tabling this Motion. I know that she feels passionately about the issue and that it is only unforeseen circumstances, to which she has to attend, that prevent her from being here today. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Touhig for stepping into the breach and moving this important Motion and to my other noble friends for their contributions to the debate and for setting out so clearly why this, of all the Conservative cuts, is emblematic of the unfairness in the way in which the parties opposite have gone about reducing the deficit and in the political choices that they have made in doing so, as my noble friend Lord Liddle said. It is far from the case that we are all in this together, as the cumulative impact of their cuts falls hardest on women and children, as many commentators have demonstrated, and on the poorest families. Before I touch on that broader issue, I shall deal, first, with the anomalies in the amendment as it stands in its own terms and, secondly, with the manner in which it was introduced.
This grant was designed, first, to help low-income families—not all families, as it was targeted on those with very low incomes—with the essential expenditure that we all know is considerable around the time of a baby’s birth. Secondly, in a point not yet touched on tonight, the grant was made conditional on receiving advice from a health visitor or midwife to try to ensure that those women who particularly need maternal services but who often do not seek them, or do not seek them early enough, were introduced to antenatal services.
The amendment to the regulations, as we know, will restrict the grant from this April to low-income families where the baby is the only child under 16 in the household. If this grant has to be restricted, and I do not accept that that choice was inevitable, the threshold of 16 years for other children in the household is ridiculously high, for all the reasons that my noble friends have given. It will exclude families who, for example, contain older children from a previous relationship, a young sibling or another young relative of one of the parents. It will disproportionately affect larger families, including those who tend to feature in some minority ethnic groups. It will particularly hit poor families in overcrowded accommodation where the space to keep bulky equipment for years on end is well nigh impossible. The first question that the Minister has to answer tonight is on why the threshold of 16 years has been chosen. Why not, at the very least, accept the much more reasonable and understandable recommendation from the Social Security Advisory Committee’s consultation of five years? What is the rationale for 16 years?
The restriction of the grant will also mean that some of the most disadvantaged mothers will not now have to have that early appointment with a health professional and so will be less likely to access antenatal services when they should. Gingerbread has pointed out that many low-income single mothers have poor experiences of maternity services and are more reluctant to get involved with them. Research published last year by the Royal Society of Medicine shows that single mothers were less likely to have accessed antenatal care within 12 weeks of pregnancy, to have had a scan, to have had a postnatal check or to have initiated breastfeeding. This lack of early care has serious and long-term consequences for the well-being of their children. We know from the nurse/family partnership projects the long-term benefits in the quality of the parenting and the impact of that on positive child development and maternal well-being that follows from close engagement with antenatal and postnatal services.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud)
My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, for bringing forward the Motion, which has given us a chance to discuss the issues. I have listened with great interest to the points that have been made around the House.
Before I go into specifics, I apologise for the fact that these regulations were laid very close to the date on which they came into force, and for the lack of courtesy this showed the House. I have asked officials in the Department for Work and Pensions to review where the processes broke down on this occasion so that we can avoid similar situations in future. I hope this will reassure Members that we have taken the criticisms seriously and are striving to ensure that Parliament always has at least 21 days to consider regulations. During the period of policy formulation there were some difficult and sensitive issues to be resolved about how we defined the family unit and what, if any, exceptions would apply. These may, on the face of it, appear to be straightforward changes. However, it was important that we got the policy right before pressing ahead with the regulations. I acknowledge that we underestimated the time that was needed to undertake this work, which is a lesson learnt for future policy development.
As women can claim the Sure Start maternity grant up to 11 weeks before their baby is due, it was necessary for the regulations to come into force on 24 January for them to apply to babies due on or after 11 April of this year. If they did not, we risked reducing the planned savings by around £1.4 million for each week the change was delayed. Any delay could have impacted on our wider reform strategy, which is to refocus resources from small, poorly targeted, ad hoc payments on to a wider package of ongoing support for those in greatest need, initially through changes to tax credits and the personal allowance, and in the longer term through universal credit.
In response to the questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Gale and Lady Hughes, I confirm that an impact assessment was published in January. I regret the misapprehension that has circulated. There were some criticisms of the extent of the impact assessment. In particular, it was thought that there was inadequate information on ethnicity. That was due to the fact that the data simply were not available for that piece of analysis. However, the impact assessment as a whole was available.
As noble Lords have already described, the amendment to the Social Fund Maternity Grant Regulations limits payment of the £500 grant made to low-income and benefit-claiming families to the birth of the first child only. It was announced as part of last year’s emergency Budget in June. The change will come into effect for all births on or after 11 April. It will also apply to adoptions and other similar arrangements. The previous policy, under which a family could receive a grant of £500 for each child, was a generous one. It was also expensive and poorly targeted. It took no account of the number of children the family had already or of the fact that families, whatever their income, do not buy new items for each subsequent child. Our new approach is the most equitable way of providing support to low-income households with a new child. This was one of a range of measures needed to reduce the deficit we inherited from the previous Government, which, as my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer commented at the time, is the largest budget deficit of any economy in Europe, with the notable exception of Ireland.
The urgent need to manage the deficit has presented a series of difficult choices. We have not shirked from this responsibility. As a result we are dealing decisively with the country’s record debts, planning for the future, making sure that work pays, while at the same time remaining committed to protecting the most vulnerable in society. The decision to restrict the Sure Start maternity grant to the first child was not an easy choice. We believe, however, that the new policy targets support to those families who are starting from scratch, without any baby clothes or equipment, and so for whom the one-off costs are highest. The reason we have structured it so that the payment goes to the first child—this picks up the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes—is because in this way we ensure that the mother will receive antenatal health advice and is connected to those services at the beginning of the building of her family.
The intention for this grant—picking up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Touhig—was never to cover all the costs of healthy eating. It was related to maternity items and associated costs of having a new baby. The Healthy Start vouchers, which remain in place, are designed to cover that requirement.
My noble friend Lord German asked a series of questions on how the structure works. Currently, a family receives a payment for each child in a multiple birth. Under the new structure, a multiple payment will be made if the first birth is a multiple birth but not if a subsequent one is. My noble friend asked what would happen when a second child was born but there was no claim associated with the birth of the first one. The grant would not become available under those circumstances given the structure that we have.
We are mindful that this change may mean that some low-income families need to borrow to cover certain costs associated with the birth of the second or subsequent child. To protect the poorest from the risk of high cost or even illegal borrowing, my honourable friend the Minister for Pensions has included provisions in the Welfare Reform Bill, which is in another place, to extend access to budgeting loans for maternity items, which are currently exempt. This will ensure that the poorest households have access to interest-free borrowing. I hope that noble Lords will support this important measure when it reaches this House.
As noble Lords have pointed out, we recognise that there will be a gap of around nine months between the point at which Sure Start maternity grants are restricted and Royal Assent of the Welfare Reform Bill. However, families will continue to have access to existing financial support. For example, budgeting loans are already an important source of financial support to the most vulnerable families when they face unexpected financial pressures. Currently, people are able to apply for a loan for a broad range of needs, including new or replacement furniture, household items and clothing. While maternity items are specifically exempted from the current budgeting loan scheme, families expecting a new baby may require funding for items that fall within the broad categories that are currently met by a payment. I would encourage people to use this scheme in this period, where appropriate.
Lord Touhig
I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in what has been a very good short debate. I especially thank my noble friends Lady Massey, Lady Gale, Lord Liddle and Lady Hughes for their important contributions. I am very sorry that we were unable to convince the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell. I do not think that £4 billion of cuts in child support, hitting the poorest in our community, is defensible. The noble Lord, Lord German, might have taken issue with my use of the Welsh word “dwp”, but then of course he is not a man from the Gwent valleys. He seemed a little uncomfortable defending Tory cuts. I have only one word to say to him and his colleagues on the Liberal Benches, and that word is “Barnsley”.
The Minister was right to offer an apology at the start, because there has been a failure in proper communication and consultation on this measure. However, I think that the most disadvantaged in our society need to know that some people are on their side. The great socialist, James Maxton, said that poverty is man-made and is therefore open to change. I think that one way to demonstrate that it is open to change is by testing the opinion of the House tonight.
Public Bodies Bill [HL]
(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Whitty
Lord Whitty
My Lords, this is genuinely a probing amendment, and I shall not spend a lot of time on it. I suppose the probe could be distilled to the question: why? The Central Arbitration Committee and the Certification Officer vaguely operate in the same area of life and are indeed serviced by the staff of ACAS, but they do very different jobs. One of them is effectively an arbitrator and the other is a regulator. It is not normal to confuse the two roles. Indeed, confusing the two roles in other fields is generally frowned upon, particularly in the area of regulation where the role of the regulator as against the role of the ombudsman is kept very distinct. They are slightly different in that the CAC acts as an arbitrator between trade unions and employers, in the main, and in some specified statutory functions, whereas the certification officer effectively regulates the internal affairs of trade unions, employers’ associations and other friendly societies.
The fact that they are drawn from two bits of the secretariat of ACAS does not mean that the two secretariats can be merged without causing some difficulties. The cost saving seems to me to be negligible, if it is positive at all. Inside information tells me that it might save one photocopier and possibly a fax machine as well, but that is likely to be offset by the increased cost of having two headings on the notepaper for the new organisation, the name of which has presumably yet to be devised.
My more serious point is that there is a potential conflict of interest here unless the two secretariats remain seriously Chinese-walled. Somebody who is dealing with a dispute between a trade union and an employer should not be the same person who is dealing with an issue between a trade union and one of its members. Unless those two duties are kept separate, there is a potential or apparent conflict of interest. This has worked perfectly well hitherto, and there have been no great hiccups. The two organisations perform different roles, and I do not see the point. Perhaps the Minister can explain. I beg to move.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, I think my noble friend has said it all. I am grateful to him for raising the proposed merger of these two bodies. Here we have two small but very important organisations that deal with related areas of law but are distinct in their functions. As my noble friend said, one is a regulator and one is an arbitrator. It is fair to say that everybody who knows the two organisations, the people involved and their work is bemused about why they are being merged. They wonder whether it is just a paper exercise in order simply to decrease the number of quangos. The cost savings are potentially very small. I will be grateful if the Minister will tell me what costs will be saved. My noble friend made a point about the separation that must exist between the two functions. It is extremely important that there should be walls, be they Chinese or otherwise, and we need to know that they will exist if the two bodies are merged.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
I thank the noble Lord for moving this amendment. He very effectively described the functions of both bodies. They have both existed for many years, and both operate in the sensitive area of trade union and industrial relations law. I stress that the Government value their roles. They are both expert in their respective fields, and they both enjoy solid reputations for impartiality. The similarities do not end there. They both undertake judicial functions, they have a shared understanding of judicial procedures, their officeholders and support staff both possess detailed knowledge of trade unions and of industrial relations more broadly. Both bodies are relatively small and are both housed in the same building. They both receive administrative support from ACAS—the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service. There is therefore already significant linkage between the two bodies, and the Bill will take that process a stage further by merging them. Some efficiency savings will be produced as a result, but I have to say to the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, that they are not likely to be huge. The total budget costs for both organisations are about £1.25 million, so the efficiency savings will not be huge, but there will be some. In particular, their support staff could be deployed more flexibly to meet the peaks and troughs of case loads.
A merger would also simplify the institutional landscape and avoid any potential confusion in the eyes of users about their respective roles. Therefore, the Government consider that a merger is advantageous to all concerned. A merger will not affect the underlying law which these bodies help to enforce. I should add that the Government have no plans as a consequence of this merger to change the various rights and duties embodied in trade union law. Our intention is to ensure that the merger will not affect the experience of persons, be they individuals, unions or employer groups, who currently use the services of these bodies. In particular, we want to maintain the same procedures which the CAC and the CO currently apply when considering their respective cases. BIS, which has a lead responsibility for these two bodies, has already discussed the potential merger with the CAC, the CO and ACAS, and has sought the views of the TUC and the CBI. We believe that we have reached an understanding on how a workable merger can be achieved.
In summary, there is a strong case for these two small bodies to be merged. We believe that this can be achieved without prejudicing in any way the performance of their important and sensitive duties, and I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Whitty
Well, my Lords, that was a bit thin. The Government are keeping the functions of the two organisations, which they recognise are distinct. The organisations already have good administrative support and operate quite sensibly, and there is virtually no cost saving, if any. The one point that he made with which I disagree is that the users of those organisations know perfectly well what they are for, and they are distinct. If a member has a complaint about his trade union, he does not want an arbitrator, he wants someone to tell that trade union that it has been acting against its own rules in the way in which it has dealt with him, whereas the CAC is in essence an arbitrator. The Government wish to make this tidier, and BIS wants to cross another organisation off the list. I am not going to make a big point about this, but the reality is that there is no rationalisation, no overlap and no administrative saving. There is, however, a lingering doubt that there might be some conflict of interest when the noble Lord talks about rationalising the role of the two secretariats. That might come back and bite us, although the probability of that happening is fairly low. Nevertheless, it is still there, and the appearance of a Chinese wall will at least be necessary, in which case any administrative rationalisation will be even less. I will not press this amendment tonight and I will not press it again, although I do think that the Government’s argument is a bit thin. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester
My Lords, I, too, will be brief. In moving Amendment 66A, I do not oppose the Government’s decision to merge the Gambling Commission and the National Lottery Commission. Indeed, I strongly support that for reasons I will explain. I believe that it would be helpful for the Committee to hear more about the Government’s plans for the regulation of gambling. The suggestion that the National Lottery should be regulated by the Gambling Commission first surfaced in the report of the Joint Scrutiny Committee on the draft Gambling Bill published in April 2004. I had the privilege of serving on that committee, along with seven other Members of your Lordships’ House, two of whom I am delighted to see in the Chamber—the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, and my noble friend Lady Golding.
I recall that the committee spent a considerable amount of time considering whether there should be a single regulator. The Joint Committee heard evidence in favour of the proposition from a variety of witnesses, including the Royal College of Psychiatrists, which stated that,
“it is … vital that the Gambling Commission should regulate all types of gambling, including spread betting and the National Lottery”.
The then Government, in the form of the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, said to the draft scrutiny committee that,
“there are benefits in plural regulation rather than having a single regulator”.
My much-missed friend, the late Lord McIntosh of Haringey, added that,
“the principal reason why we did not have the National Lottery coming under the Gambling Commission was that the National Lottery Commission has an additional objective of maximising the return to good causes, whereas the Gambling Commission has the three objectives of excluding crime, [promoting] fairness, and protecting the vulnerable”.
I think that I speak for most members of the Joint Scrutiny Committee if I say that we found this last argument a little hard to follow. Ever since the National Lottery was introduced in the mid-1990s it has enjoyed a protected and somewhat contradictory regulatory environment where its regulator is supposed to reconcile the two conflicting aims of protecting players and at the same time encouraging them to spend as much as possible on lottery products so as to fulfil their remit of maximising the return to good causes. In the end, we came to the conclusion expressed in paragraph 126 of our report, which states:
“The Committee is attracted to the idea of a single regulator, and takes the view that there would be distinct advantages for the National Lottery if it were to be included within the remit of the Gambling Commission rather than excluded from it as proposed in Clause 222 of the draft Bill. We are not convinced that the proposed structure will ensure consistency of approach across the gambling sector, particularly on key issues such as problem gambling and player protection”.
How very interesting that this Government have come to the same view.
However, I am bound to ask the Minister whether the Government have thought through all the issues. Have they, for example, decided that there is no longer the need for a statutory body which has within its remit the encouragement of people to spend more on lottery products so as to maximise the return to good causes? If that is what they are saying, I would have no problem with that as I have always taken the view that it is the job of a lottery operator rather than the state to promote lottery gambling. But that is a significant change of policy to which we will need to return to debate it at greater length. Where they would get into real difficulty is if they gave the Gambling Commission the job of promoting the lottery as well as regulating it. I should like to be reassured that that is not what they are planning.
I should make clear again that I am not opposed to the merging of the National Lottery Commission and the Gambling Commission. I just want to be assured that Ministers have thought through the consequences, as I believe we did on the Joint Scrutiny Committee seven years ago, and that they have a clear idea of how these potentially conflicting interests can be reconciled. I beg to move.
Baroness Thornton
My Lords, 72 per cent of the population gambled in the past year, so it is important that we get the regulation of gambling, whether it is through the National Lottery or at a casino, right. I took part as a Back-Bencher in the passage of the Gambling Act through your Lordships’ House with particular reference to the consequences for children and young people, which is why I am here today.
The Gambling Commission has been a great success as our regulatory body for most, if not all, gambling. As my noble friend said, it regulates betting, bingo, casinos, slot machines and lotteries, but not spread betting or the National Lottery. Its aims are to keep crime out of gambling, to ensure that gambling is conducted fairly and openly and to protect children and young people. Like my noble friend, I have some questions to ask.
The first question is to do with reconciling the contradictions in the proposal in relation to a body such as the National Lottery Commission, which promotes the success of the National Lottery in order to ensure that it makes a great deal of money for good causes but is also there to safeguard people from the dangers of gambling.
The Gambling Commission does three things extremely well and I should like to know what will happen to them in any new organisation. The commission is responsible for the Responsible Gambling Fund and the Gambling Research, Education and Treatment Foundation, both of which are relatively new bodies. The bulk of the money from the Responsible Gambling Fund goes to the work of GamCare, which does a very important job in helping people and families with gambling problems. I should like to know whether the work of GamCare will be jeopardised. The GREaT Foundation raises the required funding to support the work of the Responsible Gambling Fund. What will happen to these bodies under the new regime?
My third question concerns what will happen to the British Gambling Prevalence Survey, which has been an important spotlight that the Gambling Commission has shone on the gambling habits of the nation. It tells us who is gambling, how they are gambling and what the dangers are. I would be interested to know what is going to happen to that survey.
I started by being concerned, as I was while the Gambling Bill was going through this House, about the protection of the young. One of the great successes of the Gambling Act 2005 has been the introduction of age verification technology, which is part of the protection making online gambling that much safer for children and young people. I know that the National Lottery has the same sort of age verification safeguards, so I am reassured by that, but I would like to think that any new body would take heed of the need to protect children and young people from new technology as it advances in terms of gambling.
Baroness Rawlings
My Lords, Amendment 66A moved by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, would remove the Gambling Commission and the National Lottery Commission from Schedule 2 and therefore retain the existing arrangements of two separate bodies. As the previous Administration had announced their intention to merge the two commissions in its last Budget on 24 March 2010, I am surprised that there should be a challenge to the proposal now. The Government are committed to increasing the accountability and reducing the number and cost of public bodies. We believe that merging the Gambling Commission and the National Lottery Commission will help to achieve this aim while preserving the appropriate and effective regulation of both sectors.
The National Lottery Commission is a non-departmental public body responsible for licensing and regulating the National Lottery, including protecting the interests of its participants and maximising the amount of money available for good causes. The Gambling Commission is an NDPB responsible for regulating commercial gambling, along with providing advice to central and local government on gambling and its regulation.
The new body, to answer the question put by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, will retain the existing functions of both commissions and will be well placed to advise on gambling and National Lottery matters. It will make co-ordination of regulation easier and will facilitate greater understanding of gaming and technological developments. Both bodies worked with the department to develop the business case for the merger. The chairmen and chief executives of both bodies discussed it with the Minister for Tourism and Heritage before it was agreed. The department has set up a project board to take forward work in relation to the merger, and the chief executives of both bodies sit on it. We estimate that the merged body will be in place from summer 2012, with some co-location of the bodies in advance of that.
The Government believe that, over time, the merger will generate cost savings and more efficiencies, which should help to reduce pressures on existing sources of funding, including fees. For example, we anticipate that by far the greater part of the NLC’s annual budget for accommodation will be saved. Specifically, the Government expect the new merged body to manage on the same administrative budget as the existing Gambling Commission. On whether GamCare will be protected and on the future of the British Gambling Prevalence Survey, I will write to the noble Baroness. In light of my explanation, I should like the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester
My Lords, I made it clear in my opening sentence that the purpose of tabling the amendment was not to challenge the decision to merge the two bodies; the point of a probing amendment is to give us the opportunity to ask some questions. The main question that I asked was whether the new body would have the function of promoting the National Lottery in the way that the National Lottery Commission has had till now—in other words, encouraging people to spend money on it at the same time as regulating it and attempting to protect the public. I say with great respect to the Minister that she has not answered that question. If she is writing to my noble friend in response to her question about GamCare, perhaps she will be kind enough to write to me as well. Certainly at this time of night, and on an issue that I agree is not absolutely central to the Bill, although it is still important, I do not intend to press the amendment.
Baroness Rawlings
I will of course write to the noble Lord. I apologise for not giving him the information earlier.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester
I beg leave to withdraw the amendment, but look forward to hearing from the Minister in due course.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, this debate relates to the order-making power given to Ministers in relation to the constitutional arrangements of the bodies listed in Schedule 3. I am concerned that very considerable power is given to Ministers in this Bill, and this is an example of that.
Perhaps I may reiterate a point that I made when we started scrutinising this Bill some few weeks ago: we have no objection in principle to a proper review of the public bodies contained in the Bill and to their abolition if they have reached the end of their useful life. Nor do I doubt the need for such bodies to be appropriately accountable to Ministers. However, there also has to be some distance and independence. There is clearly no point in having a public if it does not feel that it has independence. That is why I am worried about the effect of the power in Clause 3. It has the potential for a chilling impact on the behaviour of boards. If boards are aware that, on a whim, a minister can get rid of the chair and members through an order-making power, that would have an undue influence on their behaviour. We will come later to a similar amendment to Schedule 4 in relation to the financial arrangements.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for this opportunity. We are making progress in a direction with which he will be content and with which I am content. Perhaps I can bring together the various changes that have been made as a result of our amendments.
As the noble Lord rightly points out, this group of amendments deals with Clauses 3 and 4. Clause 3 gives a Minister the power to make provision, by order, to alter the constitutional arrangements of any body or any office listed in Schedule 3—but only those listed in Schedule 3. Of course, now that Schedule 7 has gone, the list is finite. For example, in the case of the Theatres Trust, we intend to do away with the Secretary of State’s role in the appointments process, which will increase the body’s independence as it moves towards charitable status.
The noble Lord referred to Clause 4, which is a parallel clause with different purposes—it concerns funding arrangements—but is structured in the same way. Clause 4 confers on the Minister the power to make an order modifying the funding arrangements of a body or office listed in Schedule 4. In this regard—I am giving examples which I hope demonstrate the purpose to which these clauses will be put—the Government intend to reform the Drinking Water Inspectorate by allowing it to recover its costs from the water industry, bringing this body into line with the existing principle that it is the businesses which benefit from regulation, not the taxpayer, who should bear the cost of the regulation. The previous Government concurred with this approach.
In considering these clauses as a whole, I understand that the noble Lord is primarily concerned that these powers could be used to restrict the independence of bodies. Indeed, the noble Lord said that one of his anxieties was that, by granting Ministers the power to amend the governance or funding arrangements of bodies, the Bill would enable Ministers to threaten the position of chairs or board members who have displeased the Government, or constrain the ability of a body to carry out its work by squeezing its functions. While I seek to reassure the House that the Government have no intention of acting in such a manner, I understand the sentiment behind these concerns. However, the appropriate way to deal with them is to place appropriate limits on the power of Ministers to act, both within the Bill and elsewhere, rather than to abandon the powers altogether.
As with all the principal order making powers in the Bill, the uses of Clauses 3 and 4 are restricted by the conditions described in Clause 8 and elsewhere. Under the proposed government amendments, Ministers would be required to set out the rationale for an order in an explanatory memorandum when laying a draft order before Parliament. I explained that in a previous debate on an amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. Ministers would thus be held accountable for the use of the power in relation to the particular considerations in the Bill, including the effectiveness of public functions. A change in funding which, for example, would leave a body unable to carry out its public functions properly would be unlikely to meet this objective. I cannot envisage a situation in which a Minister would wish to make such an order. I can further assure the House that in light in particular of today’s third report from the Delegated Powers Committee, the Government are considering whether it is necessary to clarify Clause 8 further. I hope that that provides some reassurance to the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, in light of his previous amendments.
It is also important to remind the House that we are continuing to engage with the noble Lord, Lord Lester, and other noble Lords in relation to his Amendment 175, with the intention of ensuring that the safeguards applying to the order-making powers in the Bill include appropriate protection for the necessary independence of public functions. Furthermore, as I have said, the removal of Schedule 7 from the Bill will ensure that no body or office can be listed in Schedules 3 and 4 and be subject to the powers there unless its inclusion has been approved by Parliament through primary legislation. I hope that this change to the structure of the Bill provides the House with a strong reassurance that full parliamentary scrutiny will be central to the operation of these powers.
In addition to the protections present and planned for the Bill itself, there are safeguards which rightly limit the power of Ministers. First, in terms of appointments and governance, chairs and board members are in most cases appointed in line with rules issued by the independent Commissioner for Public Appointments. This ensures that appointments are made on merit following an open and transparent process. The Government are further committed to strengthening the role of Select Committees to scrutinise major appointments, giving Parliament an effective voice in the process. In addition, for certain appointees who must be demonstrably independent of Ministers, the terms and conditions or relevant statute will provide safeguards to reinforce the officeholder. This might include pre-appointment scrutiny by Parliament or appointing certain officeholders on a single, non-renewable term so that the decisions and actions of those officeholders are not, and are not perceived to be, motivated by a desire to be reappointed. Examples of office holders listed within the Public Bodies Bill that fall within these categories include the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the chairs of regulatory bodies such as Ofcom.
I wish to emphasis the Government’s position that it is right for Ministers to have a role in public appointments and the governance of public bodies. The Commissioner for Public Appointments code of practice clearly states that the ultimate responsibility for making public appointments rests with Ministers. Ministers should remain answerable and accountable for the overall performance of public bodies and have the ability and authority to intervene if a body is failing. This must include the ability, in extreme cases, to remove board members. The balance that the Government must strike, met by the safeguards I have described, is to retain this principle of accountability while ensuring that public bodies are able to act independently of ministerial influence where required.
That is also the case in relation to the powers in Clause 4, which relates to funding mechanisms. The Government’s position is that ultimate decisions on the allocation of funding must rest with Ministers, who are ultimately accountable for the delivery of public service by central government and for public expenditure within their spending review settlements. It is for precisely that reason that it is against Cabinet Office rules, for example, for public bodies to use public funds to employ PR or marketing consultants to lobby government or Parliament for more funding. We could not support amendments to Clause 4 which would risk undermining that principle. It is also right that Ministers have the assurance that public money is being spent appropriately. In the case of most NDPBs, Ministers and departments must be consulted by public bodies before they exercise certain financial powers such as borrowing or capital expenditure. We believe that the powers that Clause 4 would confer on Ministers are entirely in keeping with this position; they do not establish a new status quo but rather reaffirm ministerial accountability for public expenditure.
It is taxpayers who ultimately fund public bodies in most cases, and I am confident in suggesting that the citizens of this country expect government to account for its use of their money, no matter by whom it is eventually spent. On this basis, I believe that the removal of Clause 3 or 4 from the Bill would be a disproportionate measure, as it would remove Ministers’ ability to take forward the type of changes that I described earlier and instead require primary legislation for such changes, regardless of their nature. As well as preventing or delaying sensible reforms, the removal of Clauses 3 and 4 would run contrary to the principle of ministerial accountability for the performance of public bodies and their use of taxpayers’ money. While I agree with noble Lords who have highlighted the need to safeguard the independent delivery of some public functions, I believe that this can and should be achieved through other means, such as the safeguards within the Bill and outside it.
I am sorry to have taken some time over this, but this explanation probably goes to the heart of many of the concerns that noble Lords have expressed about how the Bill empowers Ministers and the balances that we seek to set within the architecture of the Bill to ensure that this is not abused. On this basis, I contend that both clauses should stand part of the Bill. In the light of the reassurance that I have supplied, I seek the noble Lord’s support on this. Furthermore, I ask the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, whose amendment is I think included in this grouping, not to press his amendment.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, for a full response to the issues raised. He went a very long way to reassuring me about how this will operate. I do not disagree with him when he says that ultimately Ministers must be accountable. I very much agree with that, but it is also my contention that there is very little point in setting up these bodies unless they, too, have a degree of independence of judgment. The concern has always been that some of the clauses in the Bill will hang like a sword of Damocles over those bodies and inhibit their independence. I take very much the point that the Minister raised that one critical issue here is Clause 8 and the matters to be considered by Ministers when making an order under Clauses 1 to 6. I know that there is a lot of discussion taking place about this, and I hope that there will be a positive outcome. It also takes place in the context of Clause 10 and the order-making procedure. We will come to that in a couple of days’ time. But the Minister has reassured me to a very great extent tonight on this particular matter.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Henley)
I assure the noble Lord that the hard men have done nothing. All I am advised is that he is ill.
Lord Judd
In the noble Lord’s absence, I beg leave to move this amendment and to speak to its group. I should perhaps remind the Committee of my interests: I am a vice-president of Campaign for National Parks and president of the Friends of the Lake District, an area that includes a very fine national park. At the outset, I shall say a word on why the parks matter, because this amendment is not free-standing but relates to their purpose. In our stressed society, many would argue that the parks have become more important than ever as a place for spiritual and physical renewal. They also have a tremendous contribution to make in the sphere of biodiversity and, potentially, a significant part to play in combating carbon pollution and all the rest.
We have yet to hear why the inclusion of national parks authorities and the Broads Authority in this Bill is either appropriate or necessary. The suggestion that their inclusion is to give them more flexibility in operating does not, frankly, sit comfortably with the extent of ministerial diktat that the Bill will provide. Most of the provisions are, in any case, unnecessary given the flexibility that already exists within the Local Government Acts and Part 8 of the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006—or NERC, as it is known—on administrative arrangements. National parks authorities and the Broads Authority are, as they were originally described, special-purpose local authorities, but this level of intrusion by the national Government of the day threatens to undermine their independence. This group of amendments would remove national parks authorities and the Broads Authority from the Bill and, I assure the Committee, therefore have widespread support.
Clause 3 appears to give Ministers the power to change many aspects of how national parks authorities work, including their name, their accountability to Ministers, their powers to employ staff, the number of members, the procedures for member appointment and, indeed, the appointment of the chair. The concern reflected in these amendments is about the extent of the power that would be given to Ministers to alter the composition of those authorities and the Broads Authority. Defra has linked this clause to the current consultation on the governance of national parks authorities, which aims to improve their local accountability. However, the consultation is based on six simple, open questions and, until we have a clear picture of the response to them, it is surely not possible to propose what, if any, constitutional changes might be right. Indeed, including such far-reaching provisions in the Bill to deliver outcomes that have not yet been established is, I suggest, obviously premature.
Schedule 3 does not seem necessary given the flexibility that already exists in Part 8 of the NERC Act 2006. If, as I gather Defra has suggested, the intention is to provide greater flexibility for amending the membership of the Broads Authority, only that authority should be mentioned and only in relation to the specific issue of membership, not the wide range of constitutional issues listed in Clause 3.
Clause 5 gives the Minister the power to transfer the national parks authorities’ functions to an eligible person or to modify those functions by order. In practice, that would mean that, if a national park authority or the Broads Authority upset the Minister of the day through its planning decisions, the Minister could order that authority to transfer its land-use planning functions to the department, to another local authority or to a company limited by guarantee and so on. This would mean that the authorities would be constantly living with the potential threat of having powers taken away in the event of an unpopular decision, but one that would be right in terms of the purposes of the parks. That would inevitably have consequences for their freedom to operate, their willingness to innovate and, potentially, the robustness of their decision-making.
At this point I should put a question to the Minister: how do the Government value the three provisions in relation to the functions of the national parks authorities and the Broads Authority—statutory functions, such as the land-use planning functions and other detailed matters such as the making of tree preservation orders, and any function, statutory or discretionary, that the authority might undertake to deliver its statutory purposes? Those purposes are set out in Section 5 of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949. They are,
“conserving and enhancing the natural beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage”,
and,
“promoting opportunities for the understanding and enjoyment of the special qualities of those areas by the public”.
There is of course an additional purpose where the Broads are concerned, relating to navigation. I suggest that it is highly disturbing that under the terms of the Bill Ministers could change the purposes for which national parks and the Broads have been designated by order rather than through primary legislation. That is a significant and sweeping proposal.
Clause 6 gives the Minister the power to make provision by order to authorise the national park authority or the Broads Authority to delegate some or all of its functions to an eligible person, including another local authority, a company limited by guarantee or the Minister himself. While this does not explicitly relate to an authority’s planning function, it is rather hard to imagine what else it could be about. National parks authorities and the Broads Authority can currently choose to enter into agency agreements with other authorities on the delivery of their development control function, as is happening in the newly established South Downs National Park. This arrangement ensures that the authority remains ultimately responsible for the delivery of the development control function and that it is able to monitor and, where necessary, amend arrangements so that they do not prejudice the delivery of park purposes. Full delegation would not give it the same ability to monitor arrangements, as it would be delegating responsibility for them to another body. Significantly, the transfer parts of Schedule 5 and all of Schedule 6 can already be achieved using Part 8 of the NERC Act. Unlike under Clause 5(1)(b), a transfer could be done then only with the agreement of the authority.
Clause 8 requires Ministers to have regard to various objectives in considering whether to make an order under Sections 1 to 6. Surely, if we ever have this clause, it ought to require Ministers to be able to demonstrate that these objectives will be met, rather than merely having regard to them.
I have had all sorts of reassurances from Ministers about their intentions and their commitment to the parks and I genuinely believe that what they are saying is what they believe. I respect them for that, but I suggest that it is unfortunate that the parks and the Broads Authority were brought within the Bill, as they have an immensely important role to fulfil. I see some noble Lords present who from time to time have had quite acute criticisms of the parks, but those criticisms can be taken up with the park authorities as they stand and are established. I ask the Minister to consider seriously the intention of these amendments and I hope that what he says tonight will meet some of the concerns that I have expressed. I beg to move.
Lord Maclennan of Rogart
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Greaves, from his bed of sickness, asked me to intervene in this debate to make a few points. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, has made many of those points, which will inevitably shorten the remarks that I feel obliged to make. In a sense, I will underline the principles that he raised.
The first question that I put to the Minister is: how are we and those who care about the national parks to divine what the coalition Government seek to achieve by the inclusion of the national parks authorities in Schedules 3, 5 and 6? The coalition agreement indicated:
“We will review the governance arrangements of National Parks in order to increase local accountability”.
At the time, that was taken to mean considering the possibility of the direct election of the indirectly appointed council members of the national parks authorities, although that was not made explicit. However, that is what the authorities considered that it indicated.
The second issue, which was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, is about the Defra consultation. The consultation asked six questions, but those questions did not bring great clarity to what the Government had in mind by including them in the consultation. They were very open questions about whether the membership of the authorities should be changed and whether the process for selection could be improved. There was certainly no reference to direct election in place of indirect election from the local authorities. I understand that the consultation is now complete and the answers were submitted to the Government on 1 February. It would be of interest to know what the Government’s response to that process is and what conclusions they have drawn from the submissions that have been made.
The third issue is to discover which powers and functions of the national parks authorities the Government have in mind to alter and in what way. The national parks authorities are essentially hybrids: they are partly quangos but they have local authority functions, including particularly powerful functions in respect of planning and development, which could be and are exercised by local authorities in other parts of the country. This raises the question of how any change would have the effect of devolving more powers to the localities if what the Government seek is more influence over the direction of decision-making.
It may be thought that the powers already exist to provide for greater flexibility through the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006, which the noble Lord, Lord Judd, also referred to. The Act specifically provides for flexible administrative arrangements for designated bodies, including the national parks authorities. Consequently, it appears that the only reason why this measure might be considered necessary, and for including these authorities in the Bill, is that the approval of the Secretary of State is not sufficient under the 2006 Act. The proposals must be approved by the national parks authorities. On the face if it, this looks as though it is a direct transfer of authority to the Secretary of State. That may not be the intention, but we need to hear what the Government have in mind.
It is clear that there is already grave disquiet among the national parks authorities about the inclusion of this provision in the Bill. Many of the friends organisations, those who live in the national parks and some who are employed by the authorities are considerably concerned about it. If the Government are not able to give a precise indication of the purposes of this inclusion in terms of restructuring, I predict that there could be a considerable backlash from the public. I do not say that it will necessarily be on the scale of that aroused by the forestry provisions, but no one should underestimate the regard and affection felt by many people for the national parks, not only by those living in and depending on the organisation and management of the national parks but by those who see them as an important escape from the pressures of life. Those people are deeply concerned that the 9.3 per cent of our country that is included in the 10 national parks in England should be maintained with its heritage, beauty, natural conservation and many of the other fortunate happenings in these areas. I hope that the Minister will reply to these questions, which certainly exercise many people around the country.
Lord Deben
My Lords, I hope very much that we maintain the more than 9 per cent of the country which is so protected. However, I do not suggest that the national parks should always go on in exactly the same way and that the elected Government should not interfere with them in any way. For four years I was responsible for the national parks. I do not think that anybody could have criticised the way in which I sought to protect the countryside. However, the national parks are a problem because in many ways their structures do not meet today’s needs. It is perfectly true that you could suggest that Ministers may not behave perfectly but to seek to protect a section of the population and more than 9 per cent of the land to the extent that no one can propose necessary alterations is unacceptable. Such a situation has arisen only once before in connection with the church. I much prefer the church to be in that position, as long as it is the true church, but that is a different issue. I say that in the presence of the right reverend Prelates. It is difficult to defend the argument that a certain organisation should be immune from government concern and the necessity for the Government to deal with the nation as a whole.
A national park, which will be nameless, seemed to me to represent neither the people it was supposed to represent nor the people who lived in its area. As Secretary of State there was nothing I could do to protect them against the pretty extreme decisions that the relevant national park authority took. We have to have a balance here. The way in which Ministers have explained how they intend to use this provision leads me to believe that we have the right balance. It is not acceptable to believe that the only way you can protect this area of Britain is by exempting a particular structure from any kind of debate. All that this provision seeks to do is to give the Government the opportunity to represent the generality of the population’s relationship with the particularity of the national parks.
I therefore hope that Ministers will not give way to these proposals but will seek of course to give maximum independence to the national parks. However, in the end, Ministers have to uphold the interests of the generality of the public and it seems unacceptable to have a system which excludes them from doing so. Having been in that position, I believe that I was not able properly to protect people in certain national parks from the way in which institutions operated, because they were so independent that there could be no second choice. That is not acceptable in a democratic society, particularly when a national park authority is not directly elected or when the people concerned are not in that position.
I very much hope that Ministers will accept the good offices and good grace of the noble Lord, Lord Judd, but accept also that many people who live in the national parks are hoping for a proper way in which the fiat of a national park authority could, at least at some stage, be questioned by those who are elected. I therefore very much support this part of the clause.
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, it is interesting to follow the noble Lord, Lord Deben. My interest is in the Norfolk Broads, rather than the national parks. I note that in the coalition agreement the Broads Authority was not included in the same bracket of potential changes.
My interest in the Norfolk Broads came from having the privilege of chairing a Select Committee when the Broads Authority brought forward a private Bill to change its structure. It was interesting listening to the different petitions made over a number of days. There was the challenge of balancing the conservation and navigational issues, and of balancing the interests of those who wanted to drive motor boats at high speed and those who wanted to sail in comparatively narrow areas. The most important issue that came out of that evidence was that all the people who petitioned had the interests of the Broads at heart. Most of them, but not all, lived locally and were prepared to accept a structure and compromise that gave them as much of what they wanted as they recognised was reasonable. That represents a much better way of managing an area such as the Norfolk Broads than doing it by central government. However, we can probably debate that later.
I asked the Broads Authority whether it had been consulted by the Government about these potential changes. It was very brave to put its answer in writing, which stated that the authority had not had any detailed discussions with the Government. That is rather sad, actually. Surely the whole point of these potential changes is that the Government should consult the people involved. The authority is very concerned about its inclusion in Schedules 3, 5, 6 and 7. That is a pretty wide range of options that cannot give the authority much comfort as to where it will go. Its feeling, which I fully support, is that it would not mind if its name was changed to the “Broads National Park”, but that that would change the emphasis of its objectives and how they were implemented. Not only that, but the conservation budget has to be kept separate from the leisure budget, and there are special arrangements for navigation officers and so on. The authority was also concerned about the governance procedures and worried that the Government would be getting into too much detail. There was also the potential for changes to the reports and accounts process.
I have not heard anything so far that indicates that there would be benefit to the inclusion of the Broads Authority in any of these schedules. If it has to be in one, it believes that Schedule 3 is the least bad. The Broads Authority spent a lot of effort putting through the private Bill. It cost time and money, much of which came from its users. Why should it not be allowed to get on with what it does pretty well rather than having yet further uncertainty and changes? The Minister may have some different ideas about this, in which case I should be very pleased to hear them.
Lord Cameron of Dillington
My Lords, like many noble Lords, I have a great love for and affinity to our national parks. In my case, that probably stems from the fact that I was conceived at about the time of the legislation in 1949 and came into the world roughly when it received Royal Assent. However, in my capacity as chairman of the Countryside Agency, I have also had the privilege of overseeing the creation of two of the more recent additions to the national park family—the New Forest and the South Downs.
Our national parks are very special and they are unique to the UK. They are not wide, open, wilderness spaces, as in less densely populated countries; they are parks for a crowded nation in the 21st century. The Peak District National Park, for example, has, I believe, some 21 million people living within an hour’s drive of it. It is a very special place and has very special value because of that fact. Our national parks also have very special governance arrangements, and rightly so. Although they are privately owned, they are politically managed in terms of their appearance—the planning aspects—their environmental characteristics, their economic and social well-being and their accessibility. All that comes about through a fine balance between local government and the local people, and they bring benefits to the nation as a whole. Of course, that fine balance has been thrashed out in various bits of legislation since 1949 and it is something that we tamper with at our peril.
I realise that the Government are currently going through a consultation on the precise form of local representation regarding the national parks, and that is absolutely right. There have been problems with some local representation in some national parks in the past. I am sure that in today’s big society improvements can be made to the local representation, but I wonder whether we need the heavy hand of Schedules 3, 5 and 6 to achieve this. As ever, these schedules might be satisfactory and mean no harm to the national parks in the hands of today’s Ministers. I am sure that the Minister shares our love of national parks and can reassure us that his Government have no wish to interfere with the unique planning powers that keep them so special, even when those planning powers are delegated to others, as with the South Downs. However, what of the future? Should we allow Schedules 3, 5 and 6 to stand indefinitely as a threat to national park authorities? Even if the current Government’s honourable intentions are spelt out clearly for now, it seems to me that the Bill would be better off with greater clarity and also with a sunset clause. I noticed that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, in responding to the stand part debate on Clause 3, steered towards responding to the sunset clause, but he seemed to veer away from it at the end. Perhaps I got that wrong and did not quite understand what he was saying, but it would be interesting to have some clarity on that.
Baroness Quin
My Lords, the Public Bodies Bill contains many important bodies but it is somewhat frustrating to have to deal with important bodies such as these at something of an unsocial hour. However, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Judd for speaking to the amendments in the way that he did, and indeed for moving Amendment 70 in the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, to whom we wish a very speedy recovery.
These amendments relate to important bodies which are well established and, as the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, said, rightly attract a great deal of public enthusiasm and support. Therefore, we need to scrutinise this part of the Bill very carefully.
All noble Lords who have spoken in the debate have tried to get at the Government’s thinking regarding these bodies and why they have been incorporated into the Bill. Certainly, the attachment to the national parks and the Norfolk Broads is very clear-cut. The creation of national parks has been a big event ever since the Act of 1949, the designation of the first park being the Peak District. For our part, the Labour Government are proud of having presided over the creation of two new national parks in the New Forest and the South Downs.
As well as public support for the national parks, there is already a long-standing campaign for them, to which the noble Lord, Lord Judd, referred; he also referred to his role in that campaign. In a briefing, the Campaign for National Parks has submitted its views on the inclusion of national parks in this part of the Bill. I shall not read that out, but many of the points in the briefing have already been referred to by many noble Lords. I hope that the Government will look at the briefing carefully and respond to it before Report so that we feel we are better informed about the Government’s attitude and their intentions.
At present, as noble Lords have pointed out, there is a considerable amount of uncertainty. My noble friend Lord Hunt referred to the sword of Damocles hanging over organisations. There is a worry that what is being proposed will undermine the independence and the basic purposes of these organisations. Again, for that reason, I urge the Minister to give us some reassurance about what the Government have in mind on these issues. In many ways, it seems that we are doing things the wrong way round but, if the Government have certain changes in mind, they should come forward with them and try to make a convincing case for them, then have the consultation and then make the decision about the way forward. Putting national parks in the Bill appears to pre-empt the consultation, which has just closed, on the future governance arrangements of the parks.
My noble friend Lord Berkeley said that he understood that there had been no real consultation or discussion with the Government about the Norfolk Broads. I hope that the Government will address that point in reply. We have had consultation, which is something, but it would be good to have from the Minister a flavour of the results of that consultation and any interim thinking within the Government as a result of the responses to the consultation.
A number of noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Judd, asked whether the provisions in the Bill were necessary because it seemed that they could be covered by other legislation already in force, particularly the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006. I am not absolutely clear whether that would cover the Norfolk Broads as well as the national parks. There seem to be claims that it could and claims that it could not, but perhaps that is something which the Minister could clarify in his response.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Deben, that I do not think anyone on this side is saying that things should be ossified for all time in terms of national parks or the Norfolk Broads or any other organisation. None the less, as the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, said, these schedules seem to be a rather heavy-handed way of approaching the issue. He also came out with an interesting thesis that perhaps we were influenced by legislation passed at the time when we were conceived or born. I was trying to think what might have been on the statute book when I was born but I do not know. Perhaps we should all check as a result of what he has said.
The Norfolk Broads were referred to by my noble friend Lord Berkeley. They seem to be very much akin to a national park but they have the additional special requirement that they have to protect navigation. They have the roles of conserving wildlife, enhancing natural heritage, promoting opportunities for understanding and enjoyment of the area, and have regard to the economic and social interests of those who live and work there. Therefore, it seems that we are talking about organisations which broadly have the same functions and purposes, whether it be the Norfolk Broads or the national parks.
More uncertainty has been created when there is already uncertainty because of the difficult decisions on funding that have to be taken. I know that there is considerable concern in my local national park in Northumberland at present. Indeed, a letter has been issued for a claim for judicial review because of the lack of consultation and the feeling that this has not been a fair and transparent process. We are talking here of people who are not natural opponents of the Government but who feel seriously about their responsibilities and want to have the necessary resources to carry them out.
The government amendment makes clear that we are dealing only with national parks in England. I understand that, but I hope that the Government will discuss with the devolved authorities the way forward for national parks—not in any way to impinge on the devolution settlement; that is the last thing I would want given the recent vote in Wales. However, the national parks are a precious asset for all of us. There must be many people in England who treasure Snowdonia, just as there are many people in the Scottish Borders who treasure Northumberland. For those reasons, I hope that there will be proper discussion with the devolved Administrations.
In conclusion, the Government's reaction is extremely important. We need reassurance about the valuable role that those organisations play. Given their popularity in the country as a whole, the Government tamper with them at their peril.
Lord Henley
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 70 and all the amendments that go with it, and obviously address the government amendments, Amendments 74A, 95A and 105ZA. I will not comment on what legislation was going through when I was born, as did the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington. The noble Baroness, Lady Quin, rather coyly refused to comment on what legislation might have been going through when she was born. Those are matters for all of us to think of in due course.
I underline and fully accept what the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said, about the importance of national parks and their iconic nature—the fact that they are national parks. As my noble friend Lord Deben said, they cover 9 per cent of the land area of England— or is it the UK? I forget which, but it is large. As my noble friend said—he did not use these words but I think that he would accept them—they should not be cast in stone. He did not want them to be protected in the way that some of the church lands were in the past until Henry VIII appeared. I am no Henry VIII on this occasion. I want full protection of the national parks and I want them to work as best they can. I hope that in dealing with the amendments I can assure the House that that is exactly what we are going about.
Currently, they are managed by bespoke public authorities. I make the point that they are bespoke and vary from authority to authority. They are not identical. They are constructed on local government lines, but those authorities have been doing an excellent job since they came into being, some as long ago as 1948, when the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, was conceived—or was it when he was born?—and for a long time since.
Just as they have been doing an excellent job, the local authorities, and the planning boards which preceded them—in some cases, until much later, thinking of the more recent national parks—also did a very good job. However, those authorities now face the challenge of ensuring that they can continue to deliver their core purposes in very different times: in what—dare I say it?—are rather straitened times. They seek to minimise the impact of the spending reductions on their front-line services and see how they can continue to improve what they can offer in some areas.
National park authorities have a long tradition of managing very small budgets, engaging with their local communities and making very good use of volunteers. That experience will serve them well in devising innovative approaches to delivering key services in future. The important point to get across—this is dealing with the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, particularly when he discussed the six questions that were put by the Government to the national parks authorities and others in that consultation—is what they do in the future. We are currently considering the responses to that consultation on their governance arrangements and honouring the commitment made in the coalition agreement. The consultation closed on 1 February, and we are committed to announcing the outcome of that by the end of March. I can give an assurance to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, that the Broads Authority was consulted, as were all the other authorities, about what was going to happen and what it thought would happen. The six questions were put to it, and it was made aware of what the Bill would allow Defra and it to do. It might be that the Broads Authority and some of the others do not feel that they were consulted enough. If that is the case, the door will still be open, and my honourable and right honourable friends will listen to what they have to say.
Lord Berkeley
I shall quote from an e-mail from the chief executive of the Broads Authority dated 29 November, which is when I thought we were going to start discussing this. He stated:
“We haven’t had any detailed discussions with the Government”.
Lord Henley
The noble Lord said that the e-mail was dated 29 November. That is some months ago. My assurance is that there have been discussions with the Broads Authority. I will certainly write to the noble Lord if that is not the case, but the assurance I am giving to the Committee is that there have been discussions and consultations and we will certainly listen to what it has to say.
Each national park authority and the Broads Authority have suggested improvements which meet the needs of each individual authority. I go back to the words I used earlier: “bespoke arrangements”. They each have different needs that must be met, reflecting the expectations of the people who live in, work in or engage with the national park or the Broads Authority. Their suggestions will form the basis of the agreed outcomes which we plan to announce before the end of the month. If the noble Lord is worried that consultation has not been open enough, and I have heard criticisms of consultations that have not been open enough, I refer him to the letter sent out by my honourable friend Mr Benyon in August last year. I think it is worth quoting the penultimate paragraph:
“I can assure you that, at this stage, I have no fixed view. I am well aware of the strong feelings any review will generate. I also appreciate that National Parks differ greatly in how they are run and how they are accountable and engage with the local population. The Department and I are approaching this process in an open and transparent manner with no pre-conceived formula for National Park structures or governance”.
The noble Lord could not wish that to be more open or transparent. It is there on the table in writing. We will continue to offer that openness and transparency.
Provisions in the Bill will allow us to work quickly, effectively and flexibly with all those authorities to review all key aspects of their governance arrangements. It is governance arrangements that we are discussing. It is not some sword of Damocles that is being held over them, as noble Lords are implying. It will allow the national park authorities to focus resources on the key tasks that can be delivered only through the authorities themselves while also formally permitting other groups, of which there are many, with a real and supportive interest in national parks to take forward functions where it is appropriate so to do.
Lord Judd
My Lords, first, I thank everyone who has participated in this very interesting debate, not least the Minister for his reply. It has been good, in particular, to have the full-hearted support of those on my own Front Bench. I thank them very much for that.
I must say that if we wanted an indication of the quality and significance of the parks, to which noble Lords have already referred, it was epitomised by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, when he talked about the coincidence between his arrival into the world and the creation of the parks. It is good to have him on side as well.
I am also very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, who referred to the strength of feeling among the public about the importance of the parks. Indeed, in every survey of public opinion, a very large majority of the population has said how much it believes the parks matter. That places a heavy responsibility on all of us.
The noble Lord, Lord Deben, introduced some very important points and did so very reasonably. Of course, ultimately, the Secretary of State has responsibilities for things that happen in his sphere, but the noble Lord also said that this should be decentralised as far as possible. That is the balance that has to be struck. As always in these things, this is not just about the words but about the driving energy behind it all. I ask the Minister to accept—I think he has recognised this—that there is a real anxiety that this could give an awful lot of power to Ministers with very few checks and balances. That issue still has to be addressed, and I really would be grateful if the Minister could come back on Report with more specific proposals on how that anxiety could be met.
Lord Henley
It might assist the noble Lord if I remind him of the timing of this Bill. I do not think that we will get to this bit of Report until after Easter. We will certainly have completed the consultation, and will therefore have made one or two noises, if I can put it in those terms, between this stage of the Bill and the next stage. That is on the understanding that we have the usual two weeks between stages, depending on when the Bill finishes. However many days we have on Report, I do not think, as I said, that we will get to this bit of the Bill much before or much after Easter.
Lord Judd
Those are encouraging words indeed from the Minister. Indeed, his noble friend, who has been leading on this Bill, has made similarly encouraging remarks to me outside the Chamber. We wait to see what happens, but the more that can specifically be said to meet the outcome of the consultation the better.
I was going to make the point that the parks authorities are in a sense trustees of this very special inheritance of the nation, and trustees should be independent and should feel able to be independent. They have the job of striking a balance between the communities who live in the parks and the national interest, because the parks are national parks for the enjoyment and regeneration of the population of the nation as a whole. It is a balance to be struck and the park authorities, in their independence as trustees, are well placed to do that. It is free of the hurly-burly of political considerations as they come up tactically, not least towards election times and things of this sort.
My anxiety is not that we will wake up one day and find that the parks have gone but that my grandsons may come to inherit a sort of rather nice home county as distinct from the national park as it should and could be. In my view, if we take the spiritual needs and the needs of a stressed and hard-working nation seriously, the national parks should be a place of contrast. The job of the trustees is to keep that contrast and not just to turn it into an extension of suburban Britain.
In thanking those who have participated, I should also say that it was good to have the special knowledge of my noble friend Lord Berkeley. I want to demonstrate to the noble Lord, Lord Deben, among others, how seriously I take this point. I am a great admirer of the national parks in the United States. They are very exciting, fine places, which have survived different administrations, but they are wildernesses. We have a much more difficult and delicate task because ours have living communities in them and the situation is not the same. I would argue therefore paradoxically that that is why trustees with independence in the form of the park authorities are so important so that they can make their judgments as objectively as possible.
I thank all those who have participated and the Minister for his response, which, I dare to say, was encouraging. I look forward to what he will be able to say at later stages when the consultation is complete. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Inglewood
“Church Commissioners.”
Lord Inglewood
My Lords, this probing amendment is specifically triggered by the announcement last autumn from the Church Commissioners in which they declared their intention to sell 12 paintings by Zurbarán, which are currently in Auckland Castle, County Durham. At that time it also appeared that they wished to sell the castle, but it now seems that they may have changed their mind. It was also prompted by the commissioners’ plans to sell Rose Castle, the traditional see house of the Bishops of Carlisle and one of the few places away from here where in the reign of King Edward I the English Parliaments met, and the apparent estate management muddles at Hartlebury Castle, the traditional see house of the Bishops of Worcester. Each of these bishops’ palaces and its contents is by any definition part of our national patrimony. For those of your Lordships who do not know them, they are described in the Durham, Cumbria and Worcestershire volumes of the Pevsner’s Buildings of England series, which are in the Queen’s Room in the Library. Ownership of these assets has devolved to the Church Commissioners, a public body set up by Parliament, inter alia, to hold the church’s property in a fiduciary capacity. They are in no legal sense part of the Church of England.
Traditionally, the bishops’ palaces and their associated assets, which might in shorthand terms be described as church treasures, were the property of the diocesan bishop for the time being. They were only finally vested in the Church Commissioners under the terms of the Episcopal Endowments and Stipends Measure 1943. Interestingly, the terms of the measure indicate that, in respect of this class of asset, they are not held charitably, which contrasts with the endowments of the church also held by the commissioners—those which inter alia go back to the ecclesiastical commissioners and Queen Anne’s bounty—which are held charitably. Clearly, different considerations apply to the different classes.
One of my personal, political concerns is the preservation of our heritage and I have been involved over the years in a number of ways. I also happen to have lived all my life in Cumbria and to have close family connections with County Durham where once, spectacularly ineffectively, I stood for the European Parliament. While I myself confess to a personal preference for bishops living in bishops’ palaces, just as I think the Queen should live at Buckingham Palace and the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth, I accept entirely that, as times change, this may no longer be appropriate. However, in such circumstances I do think it is important, in the wider public interest, that the buildings are not simply sold to the highest bidder, but rather an appropriate future use is found for them, ideally from my perspective with some diocesan involvement. I should add that I am also a communicating, albeit somewhat inadequate, Anglican. I believe as well that the best way of trying to take things forward in circumstances such as this is by discussion and negotiation rather than by confrontation. To that end I and some like-minded colleagues approached the Church Commissioners to see how that might be achieved for Rose Castle, and a number of cordial meetings have been held with the Church Commissioners and their officials, at some of which I have been present. The commissioners are aware of my amendment.
On each occasion, I was struck by the commissioners’ proposition at the heart of the debate that, once a see house is declared unsuitable by the commissioners, it then becomes part of the church’s endowment and can therefore subsequently be handled only in order to achieve the maximum financial benefit for the Church of England, that being an inevitable consequence of being charitable. This proposition worried me. I do not want to make any claims for my abilities as a lawyer, but it felt all wrong in the terms in which it was put. Over a period of weeks and months I kept on thinking about this and could not reconcile myself to it. Finally, not all that long ago, I turned to the Episcopal Endowments and Stipends Measure 1943, and I have to admit that I was extremely startled by what I found. I must apologise to your Lordships because my remarks now become a trifle esoteric, not least since I dare say that, over the years, the Episcopal Endowments and Stipends Measure 1943 has rarely been mentioned in this Chamber.
I was surprised because inter alia the measure contains quite comprehensive stipulations regarding see houses, their adaptation and disposal in order to safeguard—to use a shorthand form of words—their heritage, importance and value. In the case of Rose, I knew that the steps had not been taken. It crossed my mind that it was conceivable that the commissioners might have unilaterally flouted the statutory requirements, but I have to admit that I did not think that was very likely. I therefore read the measure in detail and with considerable care, and I suddenly realised that, because of what I am sure was probably a drafting error, it appeared that it might be argued that the commissioners could go through what looks like a loophole and entirely get round the protection offered by the measure. Clearly, that is one of its most fundamental purposes.
By virtue of the provision at paragraph 3(1)(c) enabling the commissioners “otherwise to dispose” of a see house, the safeguards expressly in place to protect such houses in the case of demolition, conversion or sale have been—I am sure unintentionally, as I have said already—entirely bypassed. By the device of transferring, that is, disposing, of the see house into another category of asset that they hold as an endowment, the commissioners now appear to be arguing that they are obliged to turn them into cash cows. I have serious doubts about the legal effectiveness of this, but as I have already mentioned, I do not want to claim to be a better lawyer than I am. Hence I have sought and been given some informal advice by a Chancery lawyer that, in his view, this probably does not work. Nevertheless, it might be, as the commissioners are arguing, an ingenious way of selling one’s own or, for that matter, yours and my heritage for a mess of pottage. The transfer would have the effect of the philosopher’s stone in turning a see house subject to significant heritage obligations into gold. It is a form of money laundering which looks as if it may be being used to get round the clearly laid out purposes of the law of the land in order to benefit the commissioners. Even if it is a legally effective course of action, which I doubt, this seems to be a quite unacceptable exercise of its powers by a public body. In my opinion, the behaviour of the commissioners needs to be looked at. The Public Bodies Bill—as I have said, the Church Commissioners are a public body—gives the Minister powers to effect changes to the governance of bodies by order. I think we should think about this.
However, I shall conclude with three points. First, the Minister told me informally some time ago now, and before he had heard my remarks today, that while the Church Commissioners fell within the terms of the Long Title of the Bill, it was not government policy to deploy the powers in respect of them. Having heard what I have said, I hope that he will think on what I have been talking about. Secondly, through him and independently as a Member of this House, I would ask the Attorney-General, who one will appreciate is an ex-officio Church Commissioner, to look into this matter straightaway. In particular, and without prejudice to any other matters, will he consider whether what the commissioners are doing in these cases amounts to a disposal in the terms of the measure? If it does, is it being achieved by the commissioners in breach of their fiduciary duties? Thirdly, if the commissioners have behaved within the law, is their behaviour in all the circumstances an appropriate exercise of powers by a public body? Perhaps the Attorney-General would let me and the House know—before Report if he can—his general response to this request.
Finally, perhaps I may ask the right reverend Prelate to say on behalf of the commissioners whether, bearing mind what I have suggested and fear may happen, they will impose an immediate moratorium on all the manoeuvres and plans for sale in respect of these bishops’ palaces until a thorough investigation is carried out. I beg to move.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester
My Lords, I support Amendment 70A, to which I have added my name. The Committee should be greatly indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, for tabling it. As far as I can establish, this is the first time for many years that your Lordships have had the opportunity to debate the activities of the Church Commissioners. My trawl of this House’s Hansard for the past five years has not produced a single example. That is in contrast to the other place, where the Second Church Estates Commissioner answers Questions for up to 15 minutes every month. He represents the Church of England in the House of Commons. Curiously, seven Members of this House—two most reverend Primates, four right reverend Prelates and the Lord Speaker—are all currently Church Commissioners, yet none of them speaks officially for them. I understand that, until 1977, it was possible for Members of your Lordships’ House to address questions to the Archbishop of Canterbury, but that was done away with on the advice of the Procedure Committee. Given what the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, said about the de facto public body nature of the Church Commissioners and the fact that they appear to be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act, there appears to me to be an accountability deficit relating to their activities to which we should perhaps return on another occasion.
Perhaps I may use this opportunity briefly to express my concern over how the commissioners are managing and attempting to sell one of the finest see houses in the country, Hartlebury Castle—referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood—which was the home of the Bishops of Worcester from the 13th century up to 2007. It is a grade 1 listed building. It contains the magnificent Hurd Library, which was created in 1782 by Bishop Hurd, an ancestor of the noble Lord, Lord Hurd of Westwell, and is the last example in Britain of an integrated library containing the books for which it was originally created. There is also a great hall and a marvellous chapel, which reminded me when I went round it of the one depicted in the original television production of Brideshead Revisited.
Since 1966, the north wing of Hartlebury Castle has housed the Worcestershire County Museum, which also occupies a number of outbuildings on the site. In 2007, on the retirement of Bishop Selby, the commissioners decided that his successor, John Inge, should have his residence in the city of Worcester in a house by the cathedral and announced their intention to sell Hartlebury. That decision has aroused great controversy for the very reason that noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, gave; that is, the commissioners claim that their charity obligations require them to sell it to the highest bidder.
There are numerous other areas of concern, such as inadequate consultation with local interests, the lack of any strategy for dealing with historic assets, of which the Hurd Library is the prime example, and lack of care for the building. I am told that, during the recent cold spell, Hartlebury was heated for only four hours a day and, unsurprisingly, there were numerous burst pipes over Christmas, followed by floods that were unchecked for several days.
On the question of the sale, the commissioners are determined to put the house on the market in April 2012. In my view and that of the members of the Hartlebury Castle Preservation Trust, who are desperately attempting to raise the money—I declare an interest as one of their patrons—it is quite wrong for them to be driven only by a requirement to make the most from a sale that they can, regardless of how inappropriate the use to which any new owners may put the house. Surely it must be possible for this house, and the other see houses to which the noble Lord referred, to remain in public ownership with the running costs met by a body such as a charitable trust or, possibly, the National Trust. Something needs to be done to allow genuine local interests, who have a real vision of what these houses can contribute to the local community, to have their chance to show what they can do. That is why I strongly support the moratorium proposed by the noble Lord on the sale of other assets by the Church Commissioners. I hope that the Minister will agree and maybe, if one of the right reverend Prelates is able to contribute on behalf of the Church Commissioners, they will agree as well.
Lord Boswell of Aynho
My Lords, I, too, have appended my name to the amendment. I commend my noble friend Lord Inglewood for the erudition and articulacy of the case that he has put, particularly in relation to the legal arguments, which I am not competent to follow, and on the need for accountability of the Church Commissioners. I do not need to rehearse the arguments at length, but the debate so far has revealed a lacuna in our accountability. I say to the right reverend Prelates who are in their places that, in my experience of dealing with the Church of England and as a loyal Anglican who has dealt with legislation in another place, there is a need to articulate the interests of what might be termed the Bishops’ Bench for shorthand and of the Church Commissioners, because it is not always clear that there is a united voice in these matters. So it has been right to expose the issue of accountability.
The second issue, about which many of us in the House feel strongly, is the need to preserve the heritage. I would not make this specific to the affairs of the Anglican Church but there are a number of people sitting on a number of trusts in different capacities who have heritage assets that may or may not have strayed into their ownership as a result of past arrangements. I am thinking, for example, of a certain involvement that I had with the Coram Foundation and the Foundling Hospital at one stage and the legally intense issues, some time ago, in terms of the disposition of their paintings; or, indeed, Royal Holloway College, at which one of my daughters was a student, and the Turners that it had to sell. There is a real tension and we should reflect on ways in which—rather along the lines of the work that my noble friend Lord Inglewood does in relation to the reviewing of the export of works of art—we can run some of these heritage issues past accountability before it is too late to do so.
I make those two points in the full knowledge—and, indeed, having discussed them with Mr Baldry, the Second Church Estates Commissioner, who used to be my constituency neighbour when I was in another place—that there are real issues for the resourcing of the Church of England. We fully understand that it must make the best use of its assets—it has an important pastoral task, to which I warm—but it must not do so at the expense of these other considerations. That it has a need for the money may be a necessary and appropriate argument, but it is not quite sufficient to justify everything that may have taken place, as described by my noble friends and others. This is an area in which we need to sharpen up and make sure that it is meeting its wider obligations as well as its specific and precise ones to resource the church.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, and his noble co-signatories for tabling the amendment. We have heard something of the present plight of Rose Castle and Hartlebury Castle and the great Hurd Library that it contains.
I was fortunate to be educated at the Winchester Cathedral choir school. As a little boy, I played cricket in the lee of the ruins of Wolvesey Castle, the old palace of the Bishops of Winchester. It sits close to the late 17th-century baroque palace, which I believe is still the residence of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester, yet one wonders for how much longer, as the Church Commissioners seem determined to dispose of their patrimony.
The patrimony of the Church of England, our established church, is also the patrimony of the nation. Of course we recognise that the Church Commissioners have a responsibility to keep the Church of England afloat financially, to pay pensions and so forth. No one underestimates the difficult challenge in that, but the church’s responsibility is not just to the material bottom line or to itself. It is far larger. The church’s patrimony of buildings and art is essential to the physical and metaphorical fabric of the nation. The Church of England and our society remain inextricably members one of another. Many right reverend Prelates understand this entirely and are deeply committed to the preservation of the heritage that they have the privilege of presiding over.
In Norwich, the cathedral city in which I now live, there was recently an exhibition entitled “The Art of Faith: 3,500 Years of Art and Belief in Norfolk”. Stephen Fry wrote, in a foreword to the catalogue, that the history of Christianity is,
“part of a larger continuum”.
As he put it, artefacts created as an expression of faith,
“speak for all of us across time”.
Gail Turner, reviewing the exhibition in the Times, wrote about the,
“relationships between faith, creativity, commerce and geography”.
People making buildings and other artefacts as expressions of Christian faith have for millennia made sense for all of us of our place in the world.
The patrimony that the Church of England claims as its own has been paid for by the tithes, donations, rents, taxes and lottery tickets of the community. Whatever may be the formal legal position—the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, explained to us that that is in significant respects doubtful—morally this patrimony belongs to us all. Some 45 per cent of grade 1 listed buildings are Church of England parish churches. The Church of England has been happy to benefit from the listed places of worship grants scheme that was negotiated by my right honourable friend Gordon Brown, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury. It has been happy to benefit from the funding that English Heritage has been able to provide for cathedrals and for the repair grants for the places of worship programme jointly funded by English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund.
When I was Minister for the Arts, deans of two of our great cathedrals came to see me to ask whether public money could be found to support cathedral choir schools. While, to my regret, the Arts Council was unable to accede to that request at the time, it was an entirely reasonable request, because cathedral music is the fountainhead of so much of the musical life of our nation. Hundreds and thousands of lay volunteers help to care for church buildings. There is a two-way obligation of mutual support between the church and society in respect of the heritage. The nation has a stake and a right in the music of the church and its cathedrals, its bishops’ palaces and the works of art that are contained within them. This is all part of our national heritage and it is not simply for the Church Commissioners to sell off as they will.
It is not a question here of the bishop in his castle and the curate at his gate and of the church having some duty of radical equalisation in the accommodation arrangements for both. As the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, suggested, as a society we want to be able to look up to bishops, just as we do in your Lordships’ House. The people of this country do not want bishops to live in semi-detached houses. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, that they want them to live in palaces. I am aware that the beauty of holiness, Laudianism, has been from time to time controversial in the history of the church, but I am also aware that the church’s commitment to art as an expression of spirituality has always returned. I hope and believe that modernism, plainness and aesthetic banality will prove to be passing fashions in the life of the church.
In this fourth centenary year of the King James Bible, when church leaders are asking us to rediscover the literary genius of the Anglican heritage, which has been an inspiration not only to our nation but to the world, how can they sell out their other heritage? It might be gratifying to the hair-shirt tendency and the puritans, but it would be a betrayal of centuries of spirituality and social leadership. How can the Church Commissioners be so philistine as to contemplate this? Are they proud of their record of selling Georgian rectories? After the bishops’ palaces, will they sell the grade 1 listed churches, send them to follow the old London Bridge to Arizona, where I fear that there would be plenty of eager buyers?
Lord Lester of Herne Hill
I hope that the noble Lord will not think that what I am about to say is in any way discourteous, but he plainly has a bee in his bonnet. He has spoken about it now for over 10 minutes and we have got the point. I wonder whether it is really necessary to read out quotations, as he has been doing, when we understand his point that the Church Commissioners should be within the Bill.
Lord Howarth of Newport
I feel deeply advised by the noble Lord, Lord Lester. I was at the point of concluding and I appreciate that I have detained the Committee longer than I should at this stage of the evening, but a number of noble Lords feel that we are talking about important issues. There are other, better ways for the church to raise £500,000 a year. That the Church Commissioners are contemplating doing it in this way is disgraceful. To protect the wider national interest from these depredations, I support the amendment.
The Lord Bishop of Leicester
My Lords, I must present to the Committee the apologies of the right reverend prelate the Bishop of London, who is the chair of the commissioners. He cannot be in the Committee this evening because of his ecclesiastical responsibilities. I declare an interest as a diocesan bishop of the Church of England in receipt of a stipend from the Church Commissioners and in expectation, or at least hope, of the receipt of a pension in due course.
I fear that I will deeply disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, by explaining that I live neither in a palace nor a castle, nor have I any desire to live in them. I live in a house in a street in Leicester where I can offer hospitality and from which I can discharge my ecclesiastical responsibilities with a whole range of connections and networks, which seem to be widely appreciated in the city, the county and the region. Leaders of civil society there have never given me or my predecessors any reason to suppose that by not living in a more exalted dwelling I am somehow deficient in discharging my responsibilities.
I offer the Committee four reasons for urging that this amendment be resisted: first, the established acceptance that Parliament does not take the initiative in legislating on church affairs; secondly, the existence of already robust governance arrangements; thirdly, the Church Commissioners’ clear charitable obligations; and, fourthly, their record of public consultation in detail and consistently on contentious transactions, contrary to what has been alleged in the Committee this evening.
Since 1919, Parliament has rightly left matters concerning the church’s internal governance entirely to the church. Parliament has the power to find ecclesiastical legislation inexpedient and apply pressure to the church in various ways, but direct ministerial oversight seems neither necessary nor proper. This is not to argue that the commissioners should be free from scrutiny, but the amendment seeks to increase the level of governance upon the commissioners at the very time that they have become subject to regulation by the Charity Commission, given that they lost exempt status on 1 June 2010.
In no sense is there an accountability deficit here. The commissioners were not unaccountable before the Charity Commission registration. Their report and accounts are laid before Parliament and the General Synod. As has been pointed out, the Second Church Estates Commissioner is answerable in the other place and regularly gives an account of the commissioners’ proceedings. I need hardly remind your Lordships that the occupants of this Bench are Members of your Lordships’ House. There are six state commissioners: the Prime Minister, the Lord President of the Council, the Secretaries of State for the Home Department and for Culture, Media and Sport and the Speakers of both Houses of Parliament, to whom whistleblowers have recourse.
The amendment, as we have heard, is motivated primarily by concerns about the commissioners’ responsibility for the national heritage. Your Lordships may be interested to know, in passing, that the Church of England, quite apart from its many other activities and the support of its clergy costs, raises between £400 million and £500 million a year from voluntary donations to support the built heritage of England, 60 per cent of which is the responsibility of the church. Let us not suppose that the church is somehow engaged in money-grabbing activities to save small pockets of money here and there; much larger sums are raised thorough the encouragement of the dioceses, of the bishops and of the churches in every locality to support our church buildings.
The Church Commissioners are not themselves a heritage body. They have fiduciary responsibility for the management of the assets with which they have been entrusted. Parliament gave them the responsibility to provide the maximum sustainable support, within their strong ethical investment framework, for their beneficiaries. They must not support today’s church at the expense of tomorrow’s church, and this means being strong enough to resist pressure, which the current governance structures enable.
Of course the commissioners must also act responsibly and transparently, which leads to the second point in this thread—that the commissioners are already actively involved with a wide range of local communities, seeking ways of satisfying their trustee duties while giving weight to local and national views about heritage and other issues. Your Lordships may be interested to know that, when an incumbent diocesan bishop becomes 62 and retirement age is in view, a full consultation takes place in the diocese about the suitability of the see house, possible alternatives and developments. There is consultation across a wide cross-section of civil society in every diocese.
For example, the commissioners have had discussions with local stakeholders about the future of Rose Castle—I shall say more about that in a moment—and they have given a local trust the opportunity to raise funds to purchase Hartlebury Castle. They are also currently engaging with a group chaired by the Lord Lieutenant of Durham that is exploring the retention of the Zurbaráns at Auckland Castle.
Let me say a little more about that. It is important for noble Lords not to believe everything that they read in the press on this matter. The sale of the paintings could raise at least £15 million for the church’s work across the country, especially in areas of the greatest need. The return on £15 million when invested, plus saved insurance and security costs, is equivalent to the cost of about 10 priests in perpetuity, in addition to the support we already provide. I remind your Lordships that the church is constantly being encouraged to play its part in the big society; to exercise its role in every local community; to ensure there is local leadership, which must be trained, housed, stipended and engaged with local people; to provide chaplains to schools, hospitals, prisons, universities and other organisations; and to play its part in engagement with other faith communities. All of this requires proper funding.
Lord Foster of Bishop Auckland
My Lords, I support the amendment and I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, for the time that he has given to researching the legalities. I am not qualified either to support or to challenge these but I am most grateful to him. I am grateful, too, that he mentioned the Zurbaráns. My noble colleague pronounces it differently —I think a member of the Royal Family would agree with him—but, none the less, I call them Zurbaráns.
I have a great regard for the Church Commissioners. I would not agree with all the remarks made by my noble friend. I have had the great pleasure of serving with four Bishops of Durham, all of whom lived in Auckland Castle, which was part of my constituency for 26 years. It was a great joy to work with each of them. Indeed, I was a trustee of Auckland Castle for more than a decade and gave a great deal of my time to trying to reduce its financial burden on the Church Commissioners. We had considerable success during that period, before the trust was disbanded only last year.
The reason I support the amendment is that we are not arguing against the fiduciary responsibilities of the Church Commissioners, but we believe that they should also have a responsibility to pay due regard to national, local and regional heritage. After all, King John stayed at Auckland Castle in 1203, so I gather. The bishops of Durham were always prince bishops. Indeed, the county of Durham described itself as the land of the prince bishops. They were very powerful people indeed in those days and colossal figures in the whole political, social and economic life within the county of Durham and the wider authority.
I have been discussing this matter with the Church Commissioners for 15 years. On three occasions they have sought to sell the castle and the paintings, and on three occasions we have managed to dissuade them from doing so. On the last occasion, the campaign was ably led by bishop Tom Wright with the support of the Bishop of London, to whom the right reverend Prelate referred, and ultimately with the support of the Church Commissioners. I am very grateful to him for what he said and for the spirit in which he said it.
The commissioners have not always taken the same view. There was a period 15 years ago when they wanted to sell off all the bishops’ palaces as quickly as they could, but I think that reflected the position of a single commissioner. They departed from that view and have taken a much more sensible view over about the past decade. Now they are in discussion with Durham County Council and the group chaired by the Lord Lieutenant of Durham, of which I am a member. We are very pleased to be discussing this matter with the Church Commissioners.
However, it would be enormously helpful if the Church Commissioners had a duty to pay due regard to national and local heritage. After all, the Zurbaráns have been there for 250 years. They were bought for £150 by the bishop to celebrate the changing of the law in this place to extend the civil and political liberties of the Jews. What a wonderful thing he did 250 years ago. In the north of England we celebrate the great fact that we had such a progressive bishop, and we have had several since then. The bishop wanted to celebrate this deeply unpopular step among society at large by buying the Zurbarán paintings and extending the long dining room of the castle in order to hang them there. They have hung there ever since. We are enormously proud locally of the castle and of the Zurbaráns. The commissioners need to take all that into consideration.
I am still hopeful that we can come to a sensible conclusion on this issue. I am very grateful to the noble Lord for giving me the opportunity to speak in support of the amendment.
Lord Deben
My Lords, I shall not keep your Lordships' House long but I want to make a further point. The Church of England is in a very real sense the guardian of the nation’s ecclesiastical treasures. It received them in circumstances which would be inconceivable today. We all have an interest in this. For many years I sat on the Ecclesiastical Committee as an Anglican and then as a Catholic. That change was perfectly reasonable because the Ecclesiastical Committee of the two Houses is there to ensure that decisions made perfectly properly by the Church of England do not detract from the interests of Her Majesty’s subjects as a whole.
The problem with the argument put forward by the right reverend Prelate is that it seeks to suggest that the Church of England is not the Church of England but a sect that is able to use its resources for its particular interests at a particular time. I warn the right reverend Prelate that his argument is very dangerous because his presence in this House is earnest of the fact that the Church of England is not thought by our society to be merely a sect. I have to admit that I left the Church of England because I believed that by making choices of a theological kind, it had changed—
The Lord Bishop of Leicester
Will the noble Lord agree with me that the argument I have been adducing is that the Church Commissioners have a responsibility to use the assets the church has acquired historically in whatever way they judge to be in the best interests of its service to the whole nation. That is precisely the basis of the argument for certain disposals; those wider interests should be borne in mind in the management of the church’s assets.
Lord Deben
The right reverend Prelate is making a judgment that I am suggesting is in fact, on this occasion—probably only on this occasion—erroneous. The fact is that the Church Commissioners are making a choice about how the historic property of the Church of England should be used in today’s world without, frankly, any thought of either tomorrow or yesterday. The Church of England has a duty to remember the interests of the whole church. This money will be applied to a number of charitable purposes, but the disposal will deprive our society of some very valuable things.
I hope that the right reverend Prelate will allow me to use a biblical comparison. Many people criticised Mary Magdalene for using valuable ointment on the feet of our Lord. He said very clearly that they were wrong in their judgment. My problem with right reverend Prelate’s argument is that I have heard it before. When I was a member of the General Synod of the Church of England, I argued that the assets of the church that protected the pensions of the right reverend Prelate and others should, in fact, be applied only to socially responsible investments. The secretary of the Church Commissioners got up and said, “We apply them using the very best advice of the City of London”. I said, “I thought the church was supposed to lead and set the example, not blame the City of London or suggest that the City can make moral judgments”. My noble and right reverend friend Lord Harries took the Church Commissioners to court on this issue and I am sad that he did not win. However, the Church Commissioners have changed their views on this.
This is the second reason why the right reverend Prelate is wrong, because if the Church Commissioners can invest, not for the best return on their money but on the basis that they will invest only in things that are proper for the Church of England to invest in, the church is making a judgment, not about what it can make the most money out of, but one which comes from its Gospel doctrines. I have to say that the idea that you could sell and allow to be taken—because that is what will happen if the position cannot be changed—from the walls of that great house a memorial to a moment in history when the Church of England stood up for the Gospel doctrines in a way which was remarkable for that century would be a manifest betrayal of the Church of England’s duty to look after the interests of the whole nation, rather than to seek to make an immediate profit for the use of a particular attitude and a particular church. That is not the role of the Church of England. This money is going to be spent not to protect interests in which all of us can join but to protect those of a no doubt very noble but particular position of the Church of England.
Lord Deben
I shall give way to the right reverend Prelate but I shall just finish this one point. The Church of England has to learn that, if it is to continue to have a place in our society, it has to show a generosity of spirit which it has not shown in this debate. It has not yet understood that it is the guardian of something that it did not buy. A bishop bought these pictures, and a church with which it is no longer connected built those great palaces. The Church of England has a duty to respect the past. It has a duty to pass it on to the future and not to say to today’s generation, “I’m very sorry, it’s nothing to do with us. We can sell this, use the money and it will go”. It cannot do that and still claim the privileges for which I have fought, and will continue to fight, even though I am not an Anglican. However, every time it does not understand what my noble friend Lord Inglewood was saying, it undermines the establishment of the Church of England.
The Lord Bishop of Leicester
I wonder whether the noble Lord can help me with the criticism that he seems to be levelling at the Church of England as being irresponsible in its custodianship of the heritage that it holds. I find that a quite extraordinary charge and it is one that I do not think has been substantiated by anything that the noble Lord has said.
In my diocese, I am the custodian of 300 medieval churches. It is an extraordinary heritage experienced by every diocesan bishop right across the land. Tonight, we are discussing whether the Church Commissioners should have responsibility for deciding how best to house the diocesan bishops of today and tomorrow. A number of references have been made to our history, some of them to the 12th and 13th centuries. I am sure it will not have escaped the notice of your Lordships that circumstances today are very different from those of the 12th and 13th centuries. You simply cannot manage a built estate today on precisely the same principles as applied then. There are different considerations and many pressures on the Church of England and the Church Commissioners. Some of those pressures include many people arguing that in an age of austerity it is inappropriate for bishops to be housed in castles and palaces. That is also a consideration that needs to be weighed. It is not reasonable to say that the Church of England is somehow, in a cavalier manner, disregarding its past and future responsibilities. I made precisely that point in my remarks. It has to weigh all of those and walk a tightrope between its responsibilities to its heritage, to the wider community, to the nation and to the gospel.
The noble Lord quoted the story of Mary Magdalene pouring precious ointment over the feet of our Lord. That is an important example, but the question for this House to resolve tonight is who is best placed to interpret that tradition, the Church Commissioners and the Church of England, established under Parliament by law, or the Secretary of State? I suggest that the present arrangements protect that interpretation more satisfactorily than whoever happens to be the Minister in charge from time to time.
Lord Deben
I promise not to hold your Lordships' House any longer, so I shall reply specifically to that. If I felt that the Church of England had carried through its necessary duties in a way that was commensurate with its great heritage, I would not be supporting the amendment. If the argument of the right reverend Prelate were made by anyone else, no one would take it seriously. If anyone said, “I am very sorry. I am now running a business and it is really very difficult for me to keep this house as it is”, people would say, “I’m afraid that is your responsibility; that is what happens if you have been given the house; you have to look after it properly”. It is all right arguing about the churches, but you cannot make any money out of the churches.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill
I am a Jewish atheist and, therefore, have no special interest, but I regard what the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester has said as totally cogent and convincing. I believe that the question he has asked has not been addressed by the noble Lord or by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth: who is to decide, the church under the separation of church and state, or a Minister? Unhesitatingly, I agree with every word that the right reverend Prelate has said. When I listen to noble Lords talking about palaces, I am reminded of the absurd and pompous discussions we had about judges’ lodgings and the notion that High Court judges could not be judges unless they were insulated from the public and lived in those amazing country houses. This is exactly the same argument; it is reactionary and I do not believe that the law of charity or the other mechanisms do not adequately protect the public interest.
Lord Deben
I say to my noble friend that I have never claimed that bishops should live in these palaces. I do not want them to live in these palaces. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, thinks that, but that is not my argument. My argument is that the Church of England has a specific role in our society which involves accepting that it has a duty of care of that which it largely has received and did not itself create; someone else created it and it was handed on. The fact is that the Church of England has failed. Of course, it does not sell the churches; no one wants to buy medieval churches; it sells the things it can make money out of. Therefore, I unhesitatingly say that it will be very much better for the Church of England if a Minister were able to remind it of its duty, not just to the moment, not just to the future, but to the past, and its role, dependent on the fact that it is the Church of England; and if it forgets that, many of us will have to change our minds about its place here and in the establishment.
Viscount Eccles
My Lords, I do not want to detain the House for a long time and I shall not. My noble friend Lord Deben has gone too far, as he did when he did not renew me as chairman of the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. He came to a very bad judgment about that and I entirely support the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester in his thesis.
I make one practical point about the Zurbaráns in Auckland Castle. The Church Commissioners are responsible for £5 billion worth of financial and property assets. The income from that funds 16 per cent of the church’s expenditure. The other 84 per cent comes, largely, from the congregations of the church and from, as the right reverend Prelate said, appeals for repairs and appeals for lead for the roof which needs renewing and so on. I think that the Church Commissioners and the church should take account of two things as they consider the position of the Zurbaráns. They need the support of their congregations. I do not think that it is certain that they will get £15 million for the Zurbaráns. The last time that this came up, as the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bishop Auckland, will remember, the Bowes Museum got an estimate from the market—not from Christie's or Sotheby's—and quoted £6 million, not £15 million or £20 million, which I think was the Sotheby's quote. So there is an issue about the risk which the Church Commissioners are taking with these pictures, which has nothing to do with the romantic story of Bishop Trevor, and that one of the pictures is a copy by Mr Pond for 24 guineas and the other pictures cost 21 guineas each. That is a very romantic story that has all the connotations of the disabilities of the Jews and all those things.
However, if the congregation in the north-east supported a solution which meant that the Church Commissioners could add on, shall I say, £12 million to £5 billion, you could say that that is likely to be a good judgment, not a bad one. With respect to the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, I do not think that the church has to hang on to every asset. One could suggest that it sells the divorce papers of Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon, which sit in the library in Lambeth Palace. I do not know how much they would make, but I would guess quite a lot of money.
We should not get tremendously excited about this. It is a practical issue, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester has presented it to us. It is full of practical judgments, but the church needs the support of its congregations. I say rather quietly that in the north-east, there is the Dean of Durham—I remind the House that there is no Bishop of Durham at the moment. Durham Cathedral has an appeal out now. Are the Church Commissioners absolutely certain that they will not lose by raising £12 million and having an income of £360,000 a year—the Church Commissioners’ assets yield 3 per cent—because congregations will say, “If you can do this and that, we are not going to give you so much money every Sunday or when you make an appeal”?
The Lord Bishop of Chester
I know that the hour is late and I shall make only a few brief comments to put certain things on the record—not repeating, I hope, what has been said. I declare an interest as a member of the board of governors of the Church Commissioners —four bishops are elected to the board.
The first is to say that the Church Commissioners is a charity. I ask the Minister whether any of the other bodies listed in Schedule 3 is a registered charity. That is an important question to ask if we are thinking of adding the Church Commissioners to the list. The Church of England itself is not a public authority. That was clarified by the Judicial Committee of your Lordships' House a few years ago in the Aston Cantlow case. It is a public authority for only certain limited purposes. We have been speaking in a carefree way, as if the Church of England is simply a public authority. It is not. For certain purposes it is, and there is a rather delicate ecology that lies behind everything here. There is no such legal entity as the Church of England. The Church of England is a symbiotic, organic collection of different bodies, each with certain degrees of independence. The noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, was wrong when he said that in no legal sense are the Church Commissioners part of the Church of England. They are part of that symbiotic connection, and you can disturb that and lots of other things without intending to do so.
The cost of maintaining the historic houses has progressively risen and taken a progressively greater proportion of the income of the Church Commissioners for several decades. That poses the question: how do you responsibly allocate the income for different purposes when you find that the cost of maintaining historic houses, which we know is great, is a constant upward pressure? Those are the decisions that the Church Commissioners are best placed to handle.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, I rise for two minutes. I was going to say that this was going to be an interesting discussion, but actually I found it a deeply shocking discussion. I am shocked by some of the allegations that have been made this evening. I think that the church has got a very difficult tightrope to walk at this very difficult economic time. Of course it has to care for our heritage, and I am sure that it does care for it deeply, as the right reverend Prelates have said, but its first responsibility at any time should be towards the flock and the people for whom it cares. In doing that, of course, it must also take into account the heritage that we all cherish. I am going to sit down now, but I think that this debate has been perhaps more inflamed than it should be. It perhaps demonstrates the need for greater scrutiny of the Church Commissioners, and I think that perhaps that is something that the Government and the church itself could look at because clearly there is a demand for perhaps more conversations and discussions about things that are going on. However, I am pretty much appalled by some of the things that have been said this evening.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
My Lords, I have enjoyed listening to the debate, but I share some of the noble Baroness’s observations on it. Perhaps it is the lateness of the hour. There is scarcely enough time to consider a topic as significant as this. I think I would have enjoyed the debate more if it had not been in the Public Bodies Bill, but it is clearly not an appropriate topic for this Bill, so I am going to address my remarks purely on those grounds. I think the House may well discuss methods whereby the scrutiny of church affairs could be brought back to this House in some way, but that is a matter for the House authorities. It is certainly not a matter for the Public Bodies Bill.
There are three reasons why the Government cannot accept this amendment, and they have been said. The first is that the Church Commissioners fall outside the scope of the Bill. They are not a non-departmental public body but essentially a non-governmental body and a charity under the scrutiny of the Charity Commissioners.
The second reason is the historic relationship between Parliament, government and the Church of England—perhaps we have seen why this separation of the estates is so important in the nature of the debate that we have had this evening. Since the enabling Act 1919 set up the Church Assembly, now the General Synod, it has been accepted that Parliament does not in practice legislate on the internal affairs of the Church of England without its consent. The mechanism laid down in that Act for legislating on the Church of England included the constitution of the Church Commissioners through synodical measure. There are, of course, methods by which Parliament can put pressure on the church to act, but the noble Lord’s amendment seeks to return to a position in which Ministers would have a direct power to intervene in the governance of the commissioners.
The third reason is that the commissioners’ board of governors, of which the right reverend Prelate is chairman, as trustees of a charity, are under a fiduciary duty to manage their assets in the way that best enables them to achieve their charitable purposes. It is therefore for them to determine how best to do so, including by deciding whether to dispose of particular assets. It is not a matter for Ministers to regulate in the case of this or any other charity. I therefore urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Inglewood
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. I must say that when I moved the amendment I had no idea what direction the debate would take, but I did not anticipate that it would move in the way in which it did. I particularly thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester for arguing the case that he did in the way in which he did, and I thank my noble friend Lord Deben for his counter point. In a way, it drew a lot of the argument into the open and made it clear that these issues are perhaps not as clear as we all like to think they are at first blush. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester asked me whether I would withdraw the use of the words “money laundering”. I shall do so, although what I actually said was “a form of money laundering”, and I bracket those words with “the philosopher’s stone that turns base metal into gold”.
I will make one technical point and then one more general point. The technical point is that the Church Commissioners are not completely charitable. The point of the 1943 measure is that they hold certain funds that include the bishops’ palaces, which are not held charitably—and I base that not on my own inadequate legal knowledge but on Halsbury’s Laws of England in the Library of the House. The relationship between the Charity Commissioners, the Church of England and its assets is perhaps not as straightforward as any of us quite think.
I will also make a point that no one else has made this evening but which I feel has something to do with this. In religious matters, enthusiasms gain prominence from time to time—we have seen this in a number of areas, such as the Reformation and the iconoclasm of Byzantium—in which so enthusiastic do people become about a particular way of looking at things that they perhaps feel that they can ignore everything else in the pursuit of it. My sense as an individual, as one of the foot-soldiers in the Church of England, is that there is currently a great movement against the kind of things that I was talking about. I hasten to add that I hope your Lordships noticed that I never said that bishops should live in bishops’ palaces; I said that if bishops ceased to live in bishops’ palaces, proper and legitimate steps should be taken to look after the heritage interest that they represent. I added in parenthesis that I had a personal preference in that direction, but that is quite different. I am concerned that, if we have a kind of cultural revolution, as we have seen from time to time in churches, the Red Guards should not destroy all the things that matter in effecting the changes that they want to see.
It is ultimately for the Church of England to decide what it wants to do but I believe that we all have a legitimate interest in the assets of the Church of England and that society as a whole has a legitimate interest in what happens to them. After all, these particular buildings are listed and the civil authority is not simply decoupled from them.
It is late. We have had a lot to think about, and I hope that we shall continue to think about it. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Thornton
Baroness Thornton
My Lords, in speaking to Amendment 71, I shall speak also to Amendments 88 and 138 and give my support to Amendment 78. The noble Lord, Lord Lester, and I are under the cosh tonight, so I will try to be as brief as I can. As regards this Bill, many noble Lords have been concerned that the proposed process and mechanisms to modify or abolish public bodies might have been unconstitutional and disproportionate, and in this case may jeopardise the crucial independence of the EHRC and other public bodies working on equality and human rights issues.
When I think of all the bodies listed in this Bill, the fact that the organisation established to safeguard equality and human rights, the independence of which is vital, should be subject to a procedure which may threaten that independence to act on behalf of those discriminated against, including against the state, has to raise questions. We suggest that consideration should be given to removing the EHRC from this Bill and making changes to its functions, powers and constitution through the normal parliamentary procedures of primary legislation.
I am very pleased to note that the Minister has been working with the noble Lord, Lord Lester, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, on the safeguards that should apply to orders made under the Bill, particularly in relation to Amendment 175. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, for meeting me and I hope that the Government will reach a conclusion that offers protection for the necessary independent exercise of these public functions.
I am also aware that the Government have said that they will shortly consult on options for reforming the EHRC. However, the consultation paper has not been published. The Government’s stated intention is to refocus the commission’s work on its core functions of regulating equality and anti-discrimination law in Great Britain, of fulfilling EU equality requirements and of being a national human rights institution.
I understand that Ministers are also considering transferring some of the commission’s functions and services to government departments or contracting with private or voluntary sector bodies to undertake them. The Government have indicated that this may include the commission’s helpline and grants function. I would point out that ahead of this constitution and before details are known, the Public Bodies Bill will give Ministers significant powers to modify the functions, powers and constitutional structure of the EHRC.
It has a distinctive constitutional role in Britain’s democratic system in holding the Government to account, which was highlighted by the Joint Committee on Human Rights prior to the EHRC’s establishment. The JCHR said that the EHRC had a similar role constitutionally to the Electoral Commission, the National Audit Office and the parliamentary commissioner for administration, and therefore should be accountable directly to Parliament. Similarly, it is entirely appropriate that Parliament would have a full role in debating any proposed amendments to the EHRC’s powers and functions. Indeed, when we were taking the Equality Act 2006 through Parliament there was a significant amount of debate about the independence of the new body being created. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Lester, paid a pivotal role in persuading my Government to ensure that the EHRC had a great deal of protection of its independence—and quite right too.
The EHRC requires independence from government in relation to its functions, its structures and the exercise of its powers as a requirement of the United Nations Paris Principles of national human rights institutions. If Ministers were able to modify the powers, functions and constitution of the commission by ministerial order, what questions would that raise about independence and how would it affect our ability to maintain a status as a national human rights institution?
Finally, I turn to what is in many ways the most important question and one that I discussed with the Minister earlier today. The question is whether the Bill would allow any future Governments to modify and abolish the HRC by ministerial order and take legal action against that. This is an issue on which we need clarification, part of which has already been given by the Minister in the earlier exchange. Perhaps I may put it in simple language. If this Government proceed as outlined in the Bill and, after consultation, use the statutory instruments at their disposal to reform the HRC and use the powers in Parts 3, 4 and 5 to change it, could another Minister with even more enthusiasm than the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, and her colleague, Lynne Featherstone, come along in three years’ time and start the whole process over again? Does the Bill give them the powers to do that? It seems to me that that is a very serious matter indeed. I beg to move.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill
My Lords, I, too, have put my name to this amendment and the others in the group. As the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, has already mentioned, I did play a part when we were enacting the Equality Act 2006, the legislation which provided safeguards for the Equality and Human Rights Commission when it was being set up. The particular safeguards that we negotiated when the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton of Upholland, was the Minister were, first, that the Secretary of State should pay to the commission,
“such sums as appear to the Secretary of State reasonably sufficient for the purpose of enabling the Commission to perform its functions”.
The second one provided that the Secretary of State,
“should have regard to the desirability of ensuring that the Commission is under as few constraints as reasonably possible in determining—
(a) its activities,
(b) its timetables, and
(c) its priorities.
The third concerned the merit appointment of the commissioners. Those safeguards were put in because originally the Bill would have allowed Ministers to be very interventionist in relation to the commission. The then Government showed what I think was open-minded wisdom in realising that these safeguards were needed. So naturally I was concerned when I saw that the commission was in three schedules and, indeed, in Schedule 7, too.
I pay tribute to the patience of Ministers, but especially of their civil servants who have to be even more patient, in discussing the kind of safeguards that are needed not only in relation to this commission but also to any other bodies that are subject to the powers contained in the Bill. We are now very close to agreeing on general safeguards, without which I would have very great concerns, particularly in relation to the commission. But I am not quite in a position to tell the Committee what I think might be the safeguards that would be an improvement on Amendment 175, which is the amendment that the Committee has in effect already approved. It is important that these safeguards are put in place during the Committee stage in order that we know where we are when we get to the Report stage.
The particular safeguards that I think are very important for this commission are, first, safeguards of its independence when it is performing a judicial function, as it does, of course, when for example it is deciding whether to find someone liable for unlawful discrimination. It has to act independently and impartially in doing that. Secondly, the commission has oversight or scrutiny functions and can bring legal proceedings. Often those proceedings are brought against government departments, so it is important that Ministers should not be in a position to try to nobble the commission or persuade it not to perform its strategic law enforcement functions. Thirdly, it is important that there should not be overkill; that sledgehammers should not be used to crack a nut.
If those safeguards were in place, the Equality and Human Rights Commission would be quite wrong in suggesting, as it has in its latest briefing, that it should be outside the Bill altogether. Provided those safeguards are in place, the commission should not be immune from the kind of changes which it would be sensible to make and which are indicated in the briefing that the Government have published. Unfortunately, we do not yet have the consultation paper, but we have the benefit of a briefing note from the Government which indicates that they consider that there is a clear need for an independent equality regulator and a national human rights institution, and that the original aims of the commission are very much in line with the coalition Government’s new approach on equality as set out in the equality strategy, Building a Fairer Britain—I say amen to that.
The Government have also made it clear that difficulties in the transition process from the old commission and the breadth of the new commission’s duties have contributed to the underperformance of the commission to date, referring among other things to the report by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, to which I was party, as well as to the Comptroller and Auditor-General and the Public Accounts Committee. That is a good reason why the Government, although they have decided to retain the commission—I am delighted by that—wish to reform it. They have also said that they want the commission to become a valued and respected national institution focusing on its core role as a strong, modern equality regulator and UN-accredited national human rights institution but being able to show that it is using public money wisely. I do not want to wash linen in public, whether clean or otherwise, but there is no doubt that there have been arguments between the commission and the Government when the Government have sought to ensure proper financial regulation and accountability and so on and the commission has asserted its independence. I suppose that I can claim to be one of the great-grandfathers of the commission since I was there even in the 1970s when we first set up the EOC and the CRE. I think that there is a difference between self-government, which provides the independence which is needed, and irresponsibility when it comes to financial control. Therefore, provided the safeguards are in place, I think that the commission has to be accountable—I am sure that it would not disagree with this—when it comes to value for money.
What I suggest this evening—or rather this morning, since we have now just passed midnight—is that we should not proceed further with this subject other than to listen to the Minister, because we need to get the safeguards in place as soon as we can. Those safeguards are generic; they are to apply not only to the commission. Once they are in place, I believe that the Government’s aims will be legitimate and that we can proceed further.
I have had a developing interest in this matter over a number of years. At one stage in another place, I held a Front Bench brief on behalf of my party for disability issues at the time when the first discussions were taking place about a coalescence of the various bodies. I also had, for separate and unrelated reasons, an interest in both gender and racial equality issues. I supported, and I am very glad that we have effected, the merger of these various bodies. However, just as in relation to the previous amendment we discussed I bear no malice towards the Church of England in suggesting its inclusion in the Bill, I bear no malice towards the Equality and Human Rights Commission in suggesting that its position should be maintained within this schedule.
We need to concentrate on its main responsibilities while preserving its independence. Having had, because of those Front Bench responsibilities, dealings with Trevor Phillips, for example, at the time these bodies came together, and a number of constructive discussions about this, I do not think things have quite gelled as they might have done. There is more work to be done in taking the inefficiencies out of the system and in concentrating on core business. However, I would not like that to be interpreted by the Minister or anyone else as code for saying that there is no role for the EHRC. In the previous Equality Bill, when I had become before my retirement from the other place a Back-Bencher, I had immense support from the EHRC on some of the issues—for example, in introducing a long and complex amendment about a principles clause, which did not commend itself to the previous Administration, and also, indeed, in suggesting that there might be a human rights responsibility alongside the public sector equality duty.
As my noble friend Lord Lester said, there are some very important points about turning the ability of the commission to operate independently where there are defects, or arguments about defects, in the public sector. That integrity has to be maintained. The basic job which the commission was set up to do is worthwhile. We need to make sure that we clear out of the way any of the clutter and that that duty is clearly and effectively discharged.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, most things have already been said but perhaps I may say that, for the moment, I support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lady Thornton. I say “for the moment” because, like many other noble Lords, my principal concern relates to the independence of the commission. I believe that the commission fulfils a vital function in ensuring compliance with equality and human rights law. Clearly, the discussions that are taking place between the Government, the noble Lord, Lord Lester, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, are extremely important. When we get the revised Bill back before Report, we may find that many changes have been made, which will make me feel much more confident about the fact that the commission appears in certain schedules.
Like other noble Lords, I am delighted that the commission will no longer feature in Schedule 7, and nor will any other body. However, like my noble friend Lady Thornton, I am constantly perplexed by the way in which consultations follow legislation at the moment. I hope that in future we will have consultations before legislation, because that is the right way forward.
My noble friend asked the Minister about what future Ministers might be able to do in relation to the maintenance of the commission in the schedules. I reiterate a question asked earlier by my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath about sunsetting. At an earlier stage I said that on behalf of my Benches I was very much in favour of sunsetting the whole Bill. However, when we see the recast Bill on Report, perhaps rather than sunsetting the whole Bill I might be in favour of sunsetting the schedules, so that the bodies that appear in the schedules can have some confidence that, at the end of this process and whatever has happened to them in the mean time, they will be free to evolve. They need that security of knowing that they are not constantly going to feature in the schedules. I would be grateful for the views of the Minister on sunsetting the schedules.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
I thank the noble Baroness for tabling these amendments and for the productive meeting that we had earlier today. This will, I hope, be a fairly brief debate, but it has certainly been productive, because this is one of the key bodies within the Bill. It is emblematic of the desire of all noble Lords to have a facility to reform public bodies while retaining their essential core activities and their independence.
The inclusion of the Equality and Human Rights Commission in each of these schedules was not an afterthought. The Government made it clear in their announcement of 14 October that they intend to retain but substantially reform the commission, refocusing it on its core functions of regulating equality and anti-discrimination law in Great Britain, fulfilling EU equality requirements and being a national human rights institution under the United Nations. We also intend that it should provide better value for the taxpayers’ money spent on it—something that it has so far failed to do.
The Government intend to set out their proposals for the commission in a consultation document shortly. I hope that this will be available on Report. However, I can assure your Lordships that the combination of needing to focus the commission on its core functions and at the same time improving its value for money means that our consultation exercise will include proposals relevant to all three schedules mentioned in this group of amendments.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Thornton and Lady Royall, raised a point about what happens to bodies having had a process of reform within the schedule. Do they remain in a permanent state of anxiety and is there a case for sunsetting? We are actively considering proposals similar to that which the noble Baronesses suggested. Above that, any statutory instrument can include a proposal for a body or office to be removed from the schedule in which it appears. It can be done in that way, but I appreciate the concerns of the noble Baroness. I extend an invitation to her to talk further about this because it is a mechanism that would make the Bill much more effective, if we can find ways of closing the schedules after the period of reform.
I know that this is a matter of concern to a number of noble Lords, so I can assure the Committee that we recognise the importance of the commission being able to independently administer its core regulatory functions as well as those founded on international and EU obligations. In particular, the Lord Chancellor recently made it clear when giving evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights that the commission’s independence as a national human rights institution would remain untouched. I am happy to repeat his assurance and hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, can accept it.
It is appropriate that I pay tribute to the work being done by my noble friend Lord Lester of Herne Hill and indeed by other noble friends, such as my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern and my noble friend Lord Maclennan, who in the early days pointed out a number of deficiencies that he felt needed to be addressed. I am grateful to join in the tributes paid by my noble friend Lord Lester to the Bill team, which has worked extremely hard in trying to find a way through on this matter. I hope that my noble friend Lord Boswell can feel content that we are achieving what we would seek to do in reforming this institution without changing its independence from government. Therefore, I ask noble Lords to accept the inclusion of the EHRC in each of these schedules as a necessary measure. It is properly safeguarded and narrowed in scope by the removal of Schedule 7. I urge the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Thornton
I thank the Minister for that reply and thank the noble Lords, Lord Lester and Lord Boswell, and my noble sister. It is actually International Women’s Day now—we are 21 minutes into it—so I thank my noble friend Lady Royall for her remarks.
We are now at the point when there is nothing much more that we can say in this Chamber, so we now need to continue our discussions. I accept the invitation to continue talking to the Minister. I beg leave to withdraw.
Lord Maclennan of Rogart
Lord Maclennan of Rogart
I beg to move the amendment standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Greaves, who for reasons of health is unable to move it himself and has asked me to do so. Amendment 72 and others related are concerned with the internal drainage boards, which operate principally under the Land Drainage Act 1991 and are independent operating authorities. They form a specialist but important part of the systems of local governance in their areas. There are 154 of these bodies in England and they have an important role in managing water level and flood risk. Their activities include action in emergencies, maintenance of pumping stations where necessary and providing planning advice to local authorities.
The Association of Drainage Authorities, which is the national body that represents the IDBs, is unhappy about the inclusion of these bodies in the Bill and has suggested that primary legislation would be more appropriate. There are at least two opportunities for considering this matter in this parliamentary Session. The first is through the Localism Bill, which it has been suggested by the association would be a better way in which to make specific modifications to the legislation, including amalgamation of the boards. The association has also drawn attention to the fact that the Government are proposing to produce a water White Paper in June and believes that that would be likely to be followed by a water Bill, which would provide another appropriate route through primary legislation, allowing full scrutiny to take place and extensive parliamentary debate if necessary. I rise simply to ask the Government why they feel it appropriate to include the IDBs in this Bill and why they have not preferred to wait for the primary legislation intended to be produced relatively soon.
Some concern has been expressed by these bodies—particularly by the chief executive of the ADA—that local people, including volunteers, with considerable local knowledge, freely offer advice to help to reduce the risk of flooding to people, property and land. These concerns are worthy of being addressed in the debate. I have no doubt that the Minister will be able to explain the Government’s position. I beg to move.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester)
I must advise the Committee that if this amendment is agreed to, I shall not be able to call Amendment 72A for reasons of pre-emption.
Lord Cameron of Dillington
My Lords, I support these amendments. When I spoke at various stages of the Flood and Water Management Bill, it was mainly about the importance of the integrity of catchment management plans and of the local knowledge and understanding of water management in each and every catchment. A crucial part of that knowledge and understanding can be found in the IDBs. There are more than 130 IDBs, covering nearly 1.3 million hectares of England and Wales, and I happen to know that whenever they were looked at by MAFF—and, I dare say, by Defra, although I am unaware of any analysis or report in the past 10 years—they have been shown to be exceptional value for money, because the work they do would cost the state millions of pounds more if they were not there.
The IDBs are managed largely by volunteers with professional, historical and local knowledge and expertise that is unequalled on their patch. They are really good examples of how the big society should work and remain a major delivery partner in flood management. While they continue to protect agricultural, commercial and domestic property, they are also reinventing themselves to protect habitats, SSSIs, and environmental issues such as lichen, insects, wildflowers and barn owls, to name but a few.
I accept that their purposes and procedures, organisation and membership should always be reviewed in the light of modern practice but the value, knowledge and local expertise they represent should not be undermined or wasted—at least, not on our watch. I also accept that their membership may need broadening in the light of new financial arrangements. I understand that that is beginning to happen and that there are already broader interests in the environment and the like, which should be represented in their membership. However, I worry a little about the Environment Agency being responsible for their amalgamations and boundary changes in “non-contentious cases”. Does that mean that the IDBs involved have to agree with the proposed changes? I would worry if the Environment Agency had the power to take over any IDB responsibilities without their consent because that would be a waste of local expertise and, probably, of money. It would be unlikely to lead to any greater efficiency. Can the Minister address the definition of “non-contentious cases”?
Finally—I repeat this every time I stand up on this Bill—while this Government may have indicated their immediate intention is not necessarily to undermine or dramatically alter the functions of IDBs, I always worry about the long-term issue of leaving them in Schedules 3 and 5 in case some future Government threaten those highly important bodies. Once again, it seems that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, is moving slightly closer to sunset clauses in the Bill. I heartily endorse that he moves even closer.
Baroness Quin
My Lords, a number of important questions have been raised in this short debate and I am grateful for that. Indeed, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, for moving the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, who I very much supported in initially tabling these amendments. Like the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, I also pay tribute to the work of the internal drainage boards. The more that I have read about them, the more valuable they seem. Certainly I have received some letters about them from members of the public, seeming to value the work that they do in particular localities. I was amazed to read somewhere that these have a long history, going back to 1252. However, I understand that the more immediate legislative base of the work of the organisations actually dates from the Land Drainage Act 1930.
The noble Lord, Lord Cameron, said that he understood that no revision of the organisations had taken place in the past 10 years. I had understood that in 2004 there was some revision of the rules and procedures of the internal drainage boards. Perhaps the Minister could confirm that and tell us whether or not that revision of rules and procedures was successful or, indeed, whether there is some aspect of them that the Government feel that they want to make further changes to. Again, like the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, I am not really clear what the Government want to do by including these bodies in the Bill.
I endorse the comments that have been made that the bodies seem to be very flexible. They operate in ways that suit the different areas, and in that sense they are something of a success story—it is a case of local management responding to local situations, which seems to be in line with the Government’s thinking on localism. I also note, though, that the Government’s own paper explaining their attitude to the Public Bodies Bill says that one of the changes they want to make is to make the bodies more responsive to local needs and more reflective of local interests. My understanding is that they already operate in such a manner and involve local communities in the way that the Government seem to want them to. Perhaps the Government can explain that aspect of their policy.
The drainage boards play an important role in reducing flood risk, a tremendously important issue at present. As the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, mentioned, they also have an important role regarding the natural environment, even on such issues as vegetation clearance works, which they seem to do in a sensitive way. Indeed, when crises occur, many of them provide a 24-hour contact number and extended office hours. They seem to be organisations that work flexibly and well in all circumstances. One of the letters that I received mentioned the fact that the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Natural Environment and Fisheries in another place said:
“From a personal point of view I see IDBs as a good example of what the Prime Minister wants to see happen around the big society. All the IDB members give their time, their local know-how and their skill, free of charge all for the benefit of wider society”.
Again, these are strong endorsements, so we need an explanation before Report of why exactly these bodies have been put into the Bill.
I echo the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, about the Environment Agency making decisions about these bodies in the circumstances that seem to be outlined. The agency itself is mentioned in the Bill and indeed in this group of amendments. Given the late hour and the complexity of the agency’s operations, I cannot do anything other than skirt over its role, but again it would be good if the Government divulged some of their thinking about the future role of the Environment Agency. Have they had discussions with the agency about its role or any suggested changes that the Government want to make?
Is it the Government’s aim to move forward with the consent and the agreement of the agency and its staff? That is also an important point. The agency has staff who are worried that somehow or other their status or their independent stance might be penalised if it is not felt to be totally in accordance with government priorities. They want reassurance about their role, their independence and their status in future.
I shall not say anything more at this stage but I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some information, if not entirely in the course of this debate then in writing so that we have good information on which we can base our attitude when these matters come up again on Report.
Lord Henley
My Lords, I might have to spend a few minutes on this but I hope I can satisfy most of the points that have been raised by noble Lords. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Maclennan for moving this amendment on behalf of his noble friend Lord Greaves.
As noble Lords will know, IDBs manage flood risk and the drainage of agricultural land. In doing so, they also seek to conserve and enhance the environment in those areas of special drainage need where they operate. They play an important role, which is recognised by their inclusion as flood risk management authorities in the Flood and Water Management Act 2010. Like my honourable friend Mr Benyon, I pay tribute to what the IDBs did in the manner that was cited by the noble Baroness, Lady Quin. She also made it clear that the Land Drainage Act 1991 sets out the IDBs’ functions and the arrangements under which they operate, but reminded us that those are based on considerably earlier legislation. She took us back to the 13th century. I do not know whether there was legislation at that stage but she is certainly right in saying that one can go back a long way.
The main issues that arise are restrictive arrangements on governance, limits on the functions of the IDBs and burdensome procedures for changing boundaries and other arrangements. In respect of governance, dealt with under Clause 3 and Schedule 3, the law currently means that, even where most of the funding is from local authorities, an authority can have no more than one member more than half the total membership of a board—the so-called bare majority. This weakens the incentives for efficiency, which would be present with a stronger relationship between sources of funding and levels of representation. I hope that the noble Baroness will accept that point. In addition, despite the wider environmental function of IDBs, there is no provision for specialist members to represent those functions, or other wider interests, on the boards. Experience has shown that specialists can add greatly to the effectiveness of boards.
In respect of the functions of IDBs, in terms of Clause 5 and Schedule 5, it is not proposed to transfer those functions to any other body—I give that assurance—or to take away any functions. However, simplification of some of the burdensome procedural requirements so that, for example, IDBs can formalise their rules or procedure with Environment Agency consent, rather than ministerial consent, requires modification of the functions of IDBs. In addition, as the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 imposes a sustainable development duty in relation to IDBs’ flood risk functions, and as their flood risk and drainage roles are hard to separate, it is important to align these duties to improve clarity and certainty. For example, where certain works have a bearing on soil carbon, this would be a relevant consideration whether the aim of the work was flood risk management or land drainage.
For the sake of flexibility and efficiency, we are also exploring the possibility of IDBs having the power to carry out other related water management functions in their areas. The Government will keep this under review and will propose a transfer of functions to the IDBs if and when that is appropriate. It is for these reasons that we have included IDBs in Schedule 5. This will mean a more flexible framework for IDBs, which will allow them to adapt to change and therefore put them on a stronger footing. I repeat the assurances that my honourable friend has given and his phrase about IDBs being part of the big society.
As I have explained, at present the procedure for IDB boundary changes, amalgamations and reconstitutions —that is, changes to board memberships and other matters relating to IDBs—is very lengthy and cumbersome, involving advertising and consideration of objections by the Environment Agency and Defra. We would like to simplify this process by giving the Environment Agency the power to approve these changes other than, for example, in the dispute cases. This is what the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, referred to. I make it clear to the noble Lord that cases described as “non-contentious” are those where there is no dispute. Therefore, in the non-disputed cases there would be no need to have ministerial involvement. I hope that that assurance will be sufficient to satisfy the noble Lord. The aim of that is to reduce the bureaucratic controls and to allow IDBs to be more responsive to change. For this reason the Environment Agency is also listed in Schedule 5.
There is also a lengthy procedure involving Defra and the Environment Agency in respect of varying maps that show the extent of watercourses deemed to be “main river”. The Environment Agency is responsible for those watercourses. Hence some changes can be significant but others relate simply to alterations in the course of a river. We propose to give the agency the power to make these changes in respect of uncontested, non-contentious changes. That again would reduce unnecessary administrative costs.
The noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, asked about the legislative timetable and whether there were other more appropriate Bills in which to tackle this issue. There is no guarantee that a water Bill will be brought forward. From my own experience over the years—no doubt this is the experience also of the noble Baroness, Lady Quin—I know that there is uncertainty about the legislative timetable and about obtaining the agreement of colleagues. The noble Baroness gives a wry grin but it is sometimes difficult to agree on relatively minor changes. Therefore, we think that it is prudent to provide for these relatively minor changes in the Bill rather than to delay them further. However, I give an assurance that the Bill requires consultation to take place before any order is made. I guarantee that that will take place.
Government Amendments 72A and 94A in the name of my noble friend Lord Taylor restrict the order-making power of government Ministers to IDBs that are wholly or mainly in England. This is a result of reaching agreement with the Welsh Assembly that it is more appropriate for Welsh Ministers to have this power for those IDBs which are wholly or mainly in Wales.
Lord Henley
I am very grateful for that “Hear, hear” from the Cross Benches. For the reasons I have explained, I hope that the Committee will agree to the Government’s amendments and that my noble friend will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Maclennan of Rogart
My Lords, I am extremely grateful to my noble friend for his full response to the debate which has given us the information that we sought. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 73 in the name of my noble friend Lord Whitty and speak to his Amendment 79, which refers to the Chief Inspector of Drinking Water, my Amendment 80, which relates to the Marine Management Organisation, to which Amendment 155 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, also refers, and to Amendment 81 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, which relates to Natural England. All these bodies have a very significant responsibility in terms of sustaining and protecting the environment. Will the Minister explain why these bodies are covered in the Bill? The noble Lord has sat very patiently through much of our deliberations on the Bill. He will know that part of the concern felt about the Bill is that the independence of organisations listed in a number of the schedules is called into question, given the ability of Ministers to intervene, change their governance structure and finance and merge or abolish them simply through an order-making power. There is therefore a general concern about the architecture of the Bill, and one is concerned when one sees these organisations listed, because in terms of protecting the environment it is important that they can discharge their responsibilities independently, without undue interference or influence from a government body.
Lord Cameron of Dillington
My Lords, I wish to speak to the amendment on the Joint Nature Conservation Committee. I first declare an interest as a past member of the JNCC. I am sure that the role it performs could be done better. In my time there, there was a view—not perhaps mine, because I was not necessarily involved—that the staff seconded to the JNCC by the various constituent bodies were not always the best that could be found. I do not know whether that remains the case, but I do not dispute the possibility of potential reform within the JNCC.
However, the JNCC is an important body. Nature does not necessarily conform to man’s boundaries, whether administrative or national. Furthermore, there are bits in between the constituent parts of the United Kingdom, such as firths, seas and skies, which are in a sort of no-man’s land where the JNCC plays an important role. Nature conservation in the UK has to be managed, researched, protected and even enhanced on an international basis. This could not happen in the absence of the JNCC.
Just as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has done, I ask the Minister: what is the long-term intention here? I am sorry to be boring about this, but, once again, can we please have a sunset clause in case a future Government come up with a different answer to that question?
Baroness Quin
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Hunt for moving or speaking to the amendments that highlight the situation of a number of important organisations listed in the Bill. It is useful to highlight these issues in Committee and then evaluate how to take the debate forward at Report.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, I refer first to the JNCC. It was good to hear the knowledge that he acquired as a former member of that organisation. My understanding is that the JNCC acts as an adviser to Her Majesty’s Government and the devolved Governments. I ask the Minister what discussion there has been with the devolved Governments about the structure of the committee, its work and what changes are envisaged. I stress, as did the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, that the committee does a lot of important work: it has an important European role; it carries out important work on biodiversity, which is a priority for the Government and for most Members of this House; and it disseminates a lot of information to ensure, for example, that details of EU policy decisions in this area are disseminated to conservation bodies throughout the country and to other key stakeholders. Therefore, it has a lot of important functions.
Am I right in understanding that the changes that the Government are proposing to the JNCC are rather minor? It would be useful to know that. According to the information provided by the Government, the aim is apparently to improve the cost-effectiveness of the committee and reduce the environmental costs of its operations. I do not know what assessment has been made of its environmental costs, so perhaps the Minister can give us further information about that.
My noble friend Lord Hunt also mentioned the Marine Management Organisation, and I shared his surprise that it should figure in the Bill. It is a new organisation and was set up very much with cross-party support, which was very welcome. In a recent debate that we had in Grand Committee on a statutory instrument that made a minor change to the work of the organisation, I know that the Minister gave a strong endorsement of the MMO’s work. Therefore, I reiterate the questions asked by my noble friend. Why is the organisation in the Bill, and what changes, if any, are envisaged to its operation?
In this group of amendments there is also reference to the Drinking Water Inspectorate. Again, this has an important role in providing information on research, regulations and water testing products and in providing independent reassurance that water supplies in England are safe and that drinking water is acceptable to consumers. That independent scrutiny of water company activities is very important and we want to be assured that it is not going to be in any way jeopardised. Having looked at the DWI’s website, I can see that it provides a lot of information to the public in its list of events and in its general climate of openness. Again, I hope that that will not be jeopardised in any future changes.
Finally, another vital organisation is Natural England, which also figures in these amendments. Some considerations similar to those that apply to the MMO are relevant here. Although not as new as the MMO, Natural England is a fairly recent organisation. It was set up in 2006 with, I understand, all-party support. It establishes and cares for England’s main wildlife and geological sites, nature reserves, SSSIs and so on. It is also important in designating areas of outstanding natural beauty and so forth. It is probably best known to Members of the House as the body responsible for administering the agri-environment schemes—environmental stewardship schemes and others—amounting to some £400 million a year. That is obviously a vital role which will need to continue in the future.
Can the Minister clarify in what areas the Government envisage Natural England charging fees for its activities? I understand that that has been mentioned. Perhaps the Government can also give us an indication of future funding changes relating to Natural England. Our view is that we do not want to undermine the effectiveness of what seems to us to be a very effective organisation. Again, therefore, as with the other bodies in this group of amendments, we would like some reassurances that will help us to decide how to examine these issues as we proceed towards Report.
Lord Henley
The noble Baroness suggested that what we are dealing with are rather minor changes. I can assure her that they are not rather minor but very minor. The amendments would remove these four Defra bodies from the Bill, which would be unfortunate as the very minor changes that we are proposing are not only modest but help to improve the efficiency of these bodies. They remove a financial burden from the taxpayer, which is something that we should all seek to do.
I shall deal with the four bodies in turn, starting with the Joint Nature Conservation Committee. As the noble Baroness says, it advises the Government and the devolved Administrations on behalf of United Kingdom conservation bodies on UK-wide and international nature conservation. Its core role is to co-ordinate biodiversity surveillance and information management across the United Kingdom in support of better policy implementation and decision-making to help to meet the UK’s EU and international obligations.
In consultation with the devolved Administrations, which jointly fund and sponsor the JNCC and the United Kingdom conservation bodies, the Government seek to ensure that it is operating as efficiently and as cost-effectively as possible. I wish to make it clear that the JNCC fully supports those aims and the committee has discussed a number of measures such as reducing the number of board and committee meetings and reducing the number of committee representatives. The committee has also discussed a proposal to amend its corporate status to allow it to operate as a conventional non-departmental public body, rather than through a company limited by guarantee, as at present. All those changes will enable the JNCC to streamline certain administrative procedures and to reduce its running costs. Some of these proposals—for example, reducing the number of committee representatives—would require changes to primary legislation. That could be the subject of an order made using powers in this Bill. That is why it is listed in Schedule 3.
Other bodies are listed in Schedule 4 in order to modify their charging powers. The reason is not to increase the funding of these bodies but to ensure that those who create the costs of carrying out functions bear that cost. At present, those costs are not fully recoverable and, as a result, the burden falls on taxpayers. I should like to set out the proposals in respect of each body. Starting with the Drinking Water Inspectorate, the Government propose to enable the DWI to implement a charging scheme to enable the inspectorate to recover the cost of much of its regulatory work undertaken on behalf of the water industry. At present the DWI is funded entirely by Defra and, therefore, its costs of operation fall to taxpayers. Allowing the inspectorate to charge the industry for its regulatory work will result in a saving to taxpayers of around £1.9 million a year. On the introduction of a charging scheme, water companies will be able to pass on the costs to consumers, which we reckon will increase the average annual water bill by some 15p, not a very large sum.
The MMO, as the noble Baroness rightly reminded us, is a very new body. It was created under the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009. Many noble Lords, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, who sadly is not here today, will remember with much fondness the passage of the Bill through this House. There are charging provisions relating to marine licensing in that 2009 Act. I understand why the Committee might wonder why we need to modify those so soon after the Act was adopted. We are proposing the inclusion of the MMO for specific purposes which would avoid taxpayers subsidising marine licence applicants. The main purpose is to allow us to remedy a shortcoming in the 2009 Act, although I fail to understand why there should be a shortcoming in an Act passed by the previous Government. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, will remember its passage. The shortcoming prevents the MMO from fully recovering the costs that it will incur in relation to marine licences, once the new marine licensing system comes into force in April this year. I stress that without that power there would be costs that would have to be met by taxpayers.
Natural England is also included in Schedule 4 to modify its charging powers. This is solely to remove an ambiguity under existing law. Natural England already has powers to make charges in relation to its licensing functions under a variety of enactments. These powers are all worded in a way which gives rise to doubts over their scope. For example, although it can create a charge for issuing licences, it is unclear whether the existing powers allow Natural England to make a charge where it receives an application for a licence which is subsequently withdrawn or refused. Natural England is therefore included in Schedule 4 so that the Secretary of State can amend and clarify existing legislation and thereby make the extent of the existing charging powers clearer.
Finally, I turn to the government amendment, Amendment 79A. As noble Lords will understand from debate on previous amendments, it restricts the order-making power of Ministers to the Drinking Water Inspectorate in England. Welsh Ministers will be given corresponding order-making powers for the DWI in Wales through the appropriate provisions in the Bill.
I hope that the Committee will be prepared to accept Amendment 79A and that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, will feel able to withdraw his amendment and not press the others in the group.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Henley, for his comprehensive response to the amendments in the group. He explained very clearly that these are minor changes which should help to improve efficiency: the JNCC fully supports the aim; the amendment for the Drinking Water Inspectorate is to improve the charging regime. I cannot accept that there is a shortcoming in the 2009 Act. It took six months to go through your Lordships' House; it cannot possibly have a shortcoming.
The Minister explained that the amendment on Natural England was to remove ambiguity; and that government Amendment 79A was to respect the wishes of the Welsh Assembly Government. This is a good opportunity to acknowledge the referendum success last week, which I am glad to do. The answers of the noble Lord, Lord Henley, seem entirely reasonable. The problem is that a new Minister could come on the scene and use the Bill to make draconian changes to those bodies because they are listed in the schedules. That is why, in the end, we come back to the architecture of the Bill.
My worry is that, for instance, Natural England is not always the most favoured of organisations sponsored by the department. The very fact that it appears in one of the schedules is a kind of sword of Damocles, which the department and the Minister’s officials can hold over Natural England. Although his response tonight has been entirely reasonable, I remain concerned about the fundamental architecture of the Bill. Of course, in the light of his response, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Henley
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, responded to the question that we raised about Clause 4 when we debated Clause 3 stand part. I appreciated his response. We look forward to further debate on Wednesday on this matter, but the response he made very much applies to this part of the Bill as well.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, this amendment is on the Marshalled List in the name of my noble friend Lord Whitty. We listened carefully to the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, earlier this evening concerning the protections that will be in place for the economic regulators listed in this Bill. The changes proposed to Ofcom obviously fall into this category. I was very much persuaded by the arguments made earlier by my noble friend Lord Whitty that, by allowing these changes to remain part of the Bill, Parliament is giving up the right to revisit their wider strategic and ongoing role through the medium of primary legislation. There are some concerns about the detailed changes proposed for Ofcom under the powers of this Bill but, more importantly, we are keen to secure a powerful and meaningful role for Ofcom as an independent regulator in the future.
Last week, this House had what can only be described as a spirited debate about the Government’s proposal to allow Mr Murdoch to take over the remaining shares in BSkyB. It is fair to say that considerable concerns were expressed about this from around the Chamber. If anything, the mood of that debate would have supported a stronger and more interventionist role for Ofcom in ensuring media plurality in the future. In this final debate tonight, can the Minister reassure me that the overarching responsibility for Ofcom to maintain a diverse media and prevent a narrowing and damaging spread of ownership will be maintained if the proposals in this Bill go ahead? What guarantees is she able to give that Ofcom’s independence will not be compromised by an overreliance on being asked to report only at the discretion of the Secretary of State?
These are important issues, which have already been touched on during earlier debates, but I take this opportunity to say that it is important that we are satisfied that the proposals in the Bill do not weaken Ofcom’s independent status. I beg to move.
Baroness Rawlings
My Lords, Ofcom is a highly respected organisation that, since its creation by the Office of Communications Act 2002, has successfully regulated one of the most dynamic and diverse sectors. The media and communications market has developed significantly since Ofcom was created and it is only appropriate that eight years later we take the opportunity to make some small changes to how it operates.
Amendment 82 would prevent changes to Ofcom’s funding arrangements. We believe that in the current environment it is only right that Ofcom should have the ability to charge for certain services to alleviate the effect of cuts. Under the Communications Act 2003, Ofcom is not currently permitted to charge operators for this work and, at present, meets the £400,000 per annum cost of the work out of a grant in aid from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Most other countries currently charge for this work, so we would be bringing Ofcom into line with international practice by allowing it to charge for this service.
Amendment 96 would mean that we could not change the way in which Ofcom carries out its functions. In the Communications Act 2003, the structure of Ofcom’s committees was set out in a disproportionately prescriptive and detailed manner. It makes sense to allow Ofcom the flexibility to streamline the structure to meet the requirement and to reflect the diverse needs of the people involved as it best sees fit. This should not compromise its independence. The ability to reshape the structure of the various advisory committees, panels and boards should also lead to a reduction in bureaucracy and could save Ofcom around £100,000 a year.
Following the Government’s decision to table an amendment to remove Clause 11 and Schedule 7 from the Bill, Ofcom will not appear as previously tabled, so Amendment 158 has been withdrawn from the Marshalled List. I ask the noble Lord to withdraw Amendment 96.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness and of course I shall not press my amendment to a vote. I would say only that the arguments about Ofcom are very similar to the arguments put forward in our debate on the previous group of amendments. The problem is the very appearance of such a body in this Bill, notwithstanding the commitments given at the Dispatch Box by Ministers. This also relates to whether we will reach some sort of agreement on sunset clauses and on the extent to which a body lives on in this Bill for a long time. A time limit would provide great reassurance.
The noble Baroness has said that Ofcom is in the Bill for eminently sensible reasons. Our problem is that, in a couple of years’ time, Ministers might take against Ofcom and use their powers to make much more radical changes. The context is what we have described as the architecture of the Bill. I am hopeful that in the next few weeks we will be able to decide a sensible way forward that enables the Government to undertake reviews of these bodies. I fully accept that they have every right to do so, but they should do so in a way that secures their independence as far as that is appropriate and with proper parliamentary scrutiny. I am grateful to the noble Baroness and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.