Grand Committee
Local Government Finance Bill
(12 years, 5 months ago)
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The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Colwyn)
My Lords, should there be a Division while we are sitting, we will adjourn for 10 minutes.
Clause 9 : Council tax reduction schemes
Amendment 72
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I shall also speak to our other amendments in this group. The amendments would defer the requirement on local authorities to introduce a council tax reduction scheme by one year so that it will be made no later than 31 January 2014 to come into effect on 1 April 2014. I am delighted to see that this has the support of both parts of the coalition, or at least I think it does since noble Lords have put their names to it, but perhaps things have changed. We should recognise that the Secretary of State has a power under the Bill to defer the introduction of these requirements, but seems intent on rushing ahead with the current timetable. This amendment is not designed to be a wrecking amendment. We have made clear our preference for any council tax support scheme to be part of universal credit, or at least for there to be a national system. However, should this preference not prevail, what is to be put in place must be properly thought through and consulted on, be capable of implementation and be fair.
Designing a council tax support system is not to be taken lightly. Council tax benefit, despite its relatively low take-up, currently offers support to nearly 6 million recipients: by definition, the poorest and the most disadvantaged. The Bill provides only the framework for what is required. The detail will come with the regulations and we are told that these will definitely be with us before Report, but that could be October. We have the statement of intent, but it is not the definitive position and an addendum is promised, and perhaps we can inquire when that will be forthcoming. As I say, designing a benefit or support system is never straightforward. People do not all live straightforward and routine lives that can easily be categorised and encompassed within a simple set of rules. The Government’s own timeframe, in designing and implementing universal credit, is in part recognition of this. It is new territory for local councils. Administering a system is one thing; designing one is something else, especially as the design is supposed to encompass clear work incentives and to sit alongside both the universal credit and the existing benefit system for some years to come.
The current council tax benefit system is hugely complex and no doubt this is one of the reasons for low take-up, but it has a whole raft of components that are there for good reasons. This is not an exhaustive list, but the matters catered for include a basic applicable amount, disabled child premiums, disability premiums, enhanced disability premiums, severe disability premiums, carers’ premiums, the ESA support group component and the ESA WRAG component. There is a disallowance of certain benefits that we compute in income, which include attendance allowance, child benefit, constant attendance allowance, and DLA care and mobility components. There are income disregards at different rates, deduction of income for childcare costs for lone parents, permitted work rules, the second adult rebate alternative, the backdating of claims and the run-on provisions. Moreover, the interface with universal credit is complex, and we will debate that in more detail in subsequent amendments.
This is not only about deciding whether universal credit will feature as income in a council tax support scheme. There are related allowance issues, embedded in the current system, which might be otiose or need to be supplemented: the treatment of unearned income, childcare costs and passporting. Currently, I understand that some two-thirds of council tax benefit recipients are passported on to 100% benefit. Having to means-test all these will present a major administrative burden for local authorities. Of course, we have not yet had the final details of universal credit. These are not due, we understand, until the autumn. Perhaps the Minister will confirm that that is his understanding.
What is the current expectation of when all the detail will be known? How confident is the Minister that local authorities have a full understanding of the intricacies of the possible interactions between universal credit and the existing system? What is the current understanding of the volumes that will flow on to universal credit next year? Which features of the default system reflect the interface with universal credit? We know that universal credit is going to be taken as income, but that is just one component.
We are told in the statement of intent that in prescribing the requirements of those who have reached the qualifying age for state pension and for the default scheme, the requirements will replicate as far as possible the existing provisions. Can we be advised of the detail where the provisions are not replicated? I am happy to have that by letter if it is not available this afternoon.
Of course, the risks for councils are huge. The system is no longer to be demand-led AME-funded. Financial risk passes to local authorities together with the 10% cut—or indeed more—in central government funding. As London councils point out, the focus in the short term may be the 10%, but there is a need to consider the sustainability of any system in the longer term. Increased demand and take-up will add to cost.
The need for local authorities to have more time should be obvious. If the Government want local authorities to have regard to local factors and to have schemes that deliver positive incentives to work, those local authorities need the capacity to do the job properly. To have to do this in short order at a time of considerable turbulence, when staffing levels are under pressure, budgets are being cut, system and organisational changes due to housing benefit are being rolled into universal credit—
Lord Colwyn
My Lords, I think everyone has returned. Shall we continue with the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie?
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I was explaining that to have to do this in short order at a time of considerable turbulence—when staffing levels are under pressure, budgets are being cut, and systemic and organisational changes due to housing benefit being rolled into universal credit are being contemplated—is simply unreasonable. At this point, perhaps I should refer to the report of the Local Government Chronicle from 16 February this year. It says:
“More suppliers have joined in the criticism of the government’s welfare reform timetable that risks leaving councils to foot the entire bill for a £480m gap in council tax benefit funding. With Capita having already labelled next year’s deadline ‘impossible’, other suppliers have confirmed they have raised the issue with the Department for Communities and Local Government. As previously reported by LGC, Capita wrote to more than 150 customers in January telling them: ‘It will not be possible to put new systems in place by March 2013, when councils are due to set up their own council tax benefit schemes incorporating a 10% cut in funding’”.
If local authorities are to fulfil the task of taking account of local factors, and in particular to deliver positive work incentives in drawing up a draft scheme, they must know the detail of the universal credit, which will come into existence in 2013. This is especially so given the need for consultation. The statement of intent requires a billing authority to consult any major precepting authority that has the power to issue a precept to it, then to publish a draft scheme, and then to consult such other persons as are likely to have an interest in the operation of the scheme.
What is the latest time at which the Government think that consultation can proceed under these provisions? As for major precepting authorities, it has yet to be determined how funding is to be allocated between the tiers. Although the final say is with the billing authorities, any disagreement on the draft at this point might have considerable impact on the timing of the publication of a draft scheme. Those others who are likely to have an interest in the operation of the scheme could be a very wide group of people.
We discussed last week that it should certainly include local precepting authorities, which will bear part of the cost. When the Government have felt fit to remind local authorities of their responsibilities under the Equality Act 2010, making it clear that they will have to consider how a scheme might affect people who share a relevant protective characteristic, they will certainly need to consider the impact of their scheme on disabled people.
Local authorities have a specific duty under the Child Poverty Act to work with local partners to reduce and mitigate the effects of child poverty. They will be required to take into account their local child poverty needs assessment in designing and developing localised schemes. They will also need to have regard to the position of those at risk of becoming homeless. The statement of intent makes it abundantly clear that inadequate consultation could lead to judicial review, a matter to which we will return shortly.
The Government know that they are putting local government in an extremely difficult position by this timetable. That is why they are validating consultation commenced before the passing of the Act and why they are implicitly encouraging a consultation period of less than the 12 weeks encouraged by the code. This simply will not do. The statement is clear about the prescribed pension credit age scheme, and the Government have been clear that, in developing local council tax reduction schemes, vulnerable groups should be protected. They declined to define further “vulnerable groups”, but we will press them on that later.
Vulnerable groups should be protected and are clearly entitled to be consulted in a meaningful way. The Government are offering or insisting on one they made earlier, in the form of a default scheme. This is designed to be equivalent to existing arrangements. Of course, for those tempted to take this up or who are left with no practical option but to do so, that comes at a cost, because they will have to find the 10% cut in funding. Those who cannot live with the default system are encouraged to adopt a system using the same factors as present, as that would reduce the amount of time and expense in changing the IT systems. That is hardly a principled base on which to build a council tax benefit system.
If local authorities are to play the part required of them, whether we agree with it or not, it must surely be right for them to be given time to do the job properly. We are well aware that councils are working hard to meet the exceptional challenges that this legislation brings. Local government has a strong history of delivering the near impossible, but the timetable must be judged not by the pace of the quickest and the best resourced—those who have a ready pool of extra resources from second homes and empty properties—but surely by the least well resourced, who run the risk of having the default scheme imposed with the 10%-plus hit on services.
We are aware that there is a view that if there is to be a year’s deferral, the Government will extract their 10% by some other means. The Government seem to be adept at finding money here or there for a waste collection scheme or change in fuel duty. However, this is fundamentally about fairness; the Government are asking a lot of local authorities. A chance to do the job properly in the interests of the poorest and most disadvantaged is not unreasonable. I beg to move.
Lord Jenkin of Roding
My Lords, I added my name to some of these amendments. I do not need to go quite as far back as 16 February, which was the date of the Local Government Chronicle article from which the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, quoted. I go back to a meeting held on 28 May for London Councils, which that body asked me to chair and which was attended by a number of your Lordships. It was addressed by senior officials of London Councils and it aroused in me considerable apprehensions about the timetable to which the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, referred. At that time, it was clear to those officials that a number of councils in London would have difficulty in adhering to the timetable. That caused me some alarm. My noble friend Lady Hanham will remember that I came to see her and expressed some of the anxieties that had been voiced on that occasion. My noble friend undertook to take account of them and asked that the bodies write to her directly because she had not had quite the same message from the officials in her department, and they did.
However, since then it has become apparent that quite a lot of councils have taken the bit between their teeth. They have realised where they are, and that they will have to devise and adopt schemes for council tax support, as required by the Bill. I am sure that many of them have no wish to be involved in a default scheme, although that is always a fall-back. They have got on with it.
Indeed, when I consulted the Local Government Association—I do not think I need to declare my interest again—its members’ view was made clear to me. Given, as the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, said, that £500 million savings have to be found in any event, and one remembers that actually the commitment for that goes back to the initial statement in 2010, the dangers of postponement exceed the dangers of trying to keep to the timetable. In putting my name to the amendment, I wanted primarily to raise the anxieties that had been expressed by London Councils, recognising, as does the noble Lord, that this is not a universal view of local authorities.
The main problem that London Councils saw in implementing the date in the Bill is that it would be nearly impossible for councils to be able to achieve what they wanted to achieve by the due date, given the administrative problems with which they would be faced. More particularly, they would be faced with IT problems. Councils, as everyone knows, use a great deal of IT in drawing up their budgets, devising policies and administering the results of their decisions. Much of that is quite properly outsourced to expert providers. At that time, back in May, London Councils saw that there would be some difficulty in getting those providers to come up with the necessary changes.
However, as I said, it now becomes clear that a good many councils are getting on with it. It is to the credit of local government that they are not sitting back, holding up their hands in horror and saying that they cannot deal with it. They do not wish to be where they are, but they have to accept that the Government have set the timetable and they are jolly well going to do their best, as the representatives of the people in the area for which they are councillors, to go ahead and get on with it.
The Earl of Lytton
I rise simply to refer to the points that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, made. I attended the excellent meeting that he convened with London Councils. Its views on the problems of the lead-in time for dealing with IT have been corroborated by the views of the Institute of Revenues Rating and Valuation. Larger authorities might well have significant IT capability in their own right, but that cannot be said of all authorities, and I think that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, was saying that while some authorities are clearly getting on with the work, others will lag behind until a package is available to them. That is where the fear is.
In the period leading up to when an authority has a useable IT system, there is a question of a brief, and possibly of tendering and commissioning. A programme has to be written, or there has at any rate to be some sort of alteration to an existing programme, which has to be tested, and the staff have to be trained. At the moment, we are right on the edge of the summer holiday period when a lot of people are likely to be away and capacity in all areas of commercial endeavour, not least in the IT world, will be challenged. I simply echo what the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, said and ask the Minister whether any investigation has been done on the realities of preparing the IT, bearing in mind that all local government finance is heavily dependent on it. What reassurances can the Minister give the Committee?
Lord Tope
My Lords, my name originally appeared on Amendments 78 and 79, and I am concerned that it still appears on Amendments 85 and 88A. That was a mistake. To the extent that I may have had a part in that, I apologise to your Lordships. I do not support postponement and had never intended my name to appear on amendments in this group. I want to say why. I am pleased that we are having the debate. This is important, so a debate on the amendments is necessary.
Had the Government been minded in, say, May or April, while the Bill was in the other place, to postpone the implementation day, I would not have been too unhappy. Indeed, I would probably have been happier if they had abandoned this part of the Bill altogether, but that was not to be. I might have been happier for that to happen provided that the £500 million reduction was also going to be postponed. That, of course, was never going to happen—and we knew that. I have therefore always been at best ambivalent about postponement. That was certainly an earlier view generally across local government. I do not for one moment claim to speak for all local government, but that of which I have any knowledge and contact broadly does not support postponement, for some of the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, alluded to when speaking to the amendments in his name.
Let us deal first with the issue of software. Back in February, when the Local Government Chronicle article was written, there was certainly considerable concern, not least among the suppliers, about whether the software could and would be completed in time. We all know that the record on IT systems has not always been perfect. I hope that the Minister, who must be better informed than me, will be able to comment on this, but my understanding—both from my direct knowledge of my own authority and one or two others that I know a bit about, but more particularly through the LGA, which has been in discussions with the software suppliers—is that that concern is considerably less now than it was in February or more recently. As much as anyone is brave enough to be confident before these things are done, there is no longer the level of concern and alarm about the issue that there once was. However, I speak only with limited knowledge and not with any personal authority. I hope that the Minister can assure us on that very particular point.
The other concern, quite rightly, is whether local authorities would have all the information that they needed before preparing and consulting on their draft scheme. I hope, as the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, said, that the Minister will reassure us about the information that is not yet published. Much of it is already published and more is to be published this week, perhaps even today, but I have not been able to keep up with that. The noble Lord referred to the autumn. Let us say that by the time we return in October, all the necessary information will have been published as completely as it can be before enactment.
In view of that, we once again look at being where we are rather than where we might wish we were. Quite a number of authorities, including my own, have accepted that it is going to happen in April and have drawn up a consultation scheme. My own authority agreed its consultation scheme in June with all-party agreement—which, in my authority’s case, is both-party agreement—and is now out to consultation on that scheme. Later, our neighbouring authority of Kingston did the same and drew up a slightly different scheme, and that scheme is out for consultation.
I know that many other local authorities are in a similar position—we might wish we were not, but we are. The process is now under way. The considerable work under pressure that has been alluded to, quite correctly, is now under way. My personal view, and the impression I have from those with whom I am in touch, is that at this stage we would not welcome postponement. We might have done a month or two ago or even a few months ago, but at this stage we are so far down the road that we need to accept that this is going to happen. There are different views about that, but we are well down the road on it and we need to get on and make the best we can of it.
Local authorities of all political persuasions generally have a very good record of coping with what is often thought to be impossible, or certainly very difficult, whether that is the front-loading of the budget reductions that we have all experienced or the many other difficult measures. The fact that local authorities quite rightly protest when these measures are proposed and implemented, but when the time comes have to buckle down and deliver, does not mean that they were wrong to protest in the first place. It simply means that local government actually has a very good record of achieving these things. I therefore hope that if this is going to happen in April and proceeds with few, if any, problems, it will not be thought by central government that local government is again crying wolf. It is not; local government is actually getting on and delivering in the way that it always has.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Local authorities’ experiences are very different around the country. For example, if you are a smaller council and you are a district authority, which has to have two stages of consultation, you cannot make the deadline work. The latest information I had from Norfolk was that one local authority had a different supplier from the other six. The other six had their supplier coming through with their package only in the third to fourth week in June. They will probably have to spend four to five weeks cutting and slicing the stats to see what the implications will be for different permutations of the discount scheme, which will take them until the end of July. August, to some extent, is a fairly dead month. Once they have come up with the scheme, possibly in early September, it then has to go to consultation with the precepting authority, the county council, which will take perhaps a month, given that it has a committee cycle of six weeks or sometimes longer. That comes back to the district council, which has to amend its scheme. By this time it is the middle of October.
After the scheme is amended, which may take until the end of October, it goes out for consultation perhaps in November. Three months’ consultation takes it into February. It is a pity that it has to go into the financial estimates in December. In other words, it cannot be done if the district council is squeezed, through no fault of its own, on the one hand by software suppliers not producing the package until late June and on the other by having to have two rounds of consultation—perfectly reasonably—with the county council above all as well as 12 weeks with the public. I do not see how the deadline can be met.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill
I do not have to take my name off the top of this amendment because it was never there. However, I share the natural anxieties of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, whose name is to one of these amendments.
The argument put forward in these amendments is to put off till tomorrow what should be done today. There is never a good time to do this. Putting it off will not solve this or help in any way. The argument put forward by noble Lords is that we need a greater lead-in time. The Olympics had a great lead-in time for security but there was still a mess at the end. There may be a mess at the end of this and there may be a mess at the end of the Olympics, but greater lead-in times do not necessarily solve problems.
As other noble Lords have said, local authorities have put in a lot of work. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, says, some are further advanced than others. A district council is, by nature, a smaller authority than a London borough, so size should make it easier to deal with IT, benefits and the like. However, you still need a scheme, although the amount of money involved may be vastly different. I worked with a district council and I am still a London borough councillor, and it is different. The answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, who makes a very valid point, must be that we need to find a way in which those district councils and other councils that are not that far advanced can be assisted. That is why the Local Government Association, London Councils, neighbouring councils such as Norfolk council, which the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, described, and the regional authorities have to help those councils through the experience of others. A small district authority should not have to reinvent the wheel.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
The problem is that in a district council—a billing authority—you have two rounds of consultation to go through. There is the precepting authority. Then you amend your scheme. Then you go out to the public for three months. Then you amend your scheme again before it is accepted. That, as much as the software, is the problem. I entirely take the noble Lord’s point about co-operation.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill
I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, that there have to be different consultations. An authority may have a £500 million revenue expenditure, as Barnet authority has, but you have to focus your mind within that authority and, even if there are two or three levels of consultation, it has to be done. There is a short time in which to do it, but there is time.
The noble Lord, Lord Tope, talked about there being a difficult time over the next few months. I agree. Central government and local government, the Olympics and all sorts of organisations are having a difficult time, but local authorities have a history of rising to the occasion. I believe that they are doing that and that they will continue to do so. Therefore, I am against postponement.
Lord Beecham
The difference between this round of change and a general round of changes is that hitherto we have had to cope with a national scheme. There has been the shift of national and domestic rates, the introduction of the poll tax, and the introduction of the council tax—and they were national schemes. One factor in the present round is that consultation has been meaningful and that people will naturally want to see what is happening in their adjoining authority. The authorities may well consult, but as the whole purpose of this misguided legislation in my view is to create variety across the whole country, and no doubt even within county areas, presumably people will want to know how their scheme, as a resident, compares with the scheme in the adjoining district or in another district at the other end of the county.
These decisions will be very difficult for councils to make and, I would have thought, equally difficult for their residents to understand. They will certainly be concerned—it is the intention of the Bill—if they come up with a wide range of options that will then be exercised. In this very tight timescale, how will the citizen or the organisations that will act as advocates for groups of citizens—we shall come on to some of those in more detail later—be able to contribute meaningfully to this consultation process? There will not be time to weigh the implications of one scheme against another. This is a third dimension to the problems that my noble friends have outlined, and I do not think that they have been taken into account in the way in which the Bill has been drafted and the way in which the Government are proceeding.
Lord Smith of Leigh
I remind the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, that the Olympic Games’ security problems were caused because of the outsourcing of security. As the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, reminded us, much of the council tax administration is also outsourced, so that may not augur well for us to get a successful conclusion.
I was interested in the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Tope, about his authority already being out to consultation. I question whether the timing is right. Amendment 73 proposes a change to the consultation, and other amendments might come through, so that the consultation that his authority has undertaken might not be the right one when an amendment is passed. That is the danger of rushing it too early.
I would welcome from the Minister in responding to the debate, in addition to answering the questions asked by my noble friend Lord McKenzie, a timetable for the publication of the Government’s default scheme. That would be helpful.
Lord Tope
I agree with the noble Lord, and frankly I was surprised when I saw it in the committee papers back at the beginning of June. However, the way in which my authority worked—and I played no direct part in this—was on the basis that the scheme had to be finalised by the end of January. Therefore, working back from that date, given the committee system that we have now adopted thanks to the Localism Act, it was necessary for the draft consultation to be agreed in committee in June. I am not arguing that it is desirable, and I accept that in the course of the consultation there may well be changes. I am quite sure that at the end of the consultation there will be changes as a result of the consultation, never mind any other changes, but unless local authorities start to get on with it now, they will get into difficulties with the timing. I say to the noble Lord that he may need to look at the timing in Wigan as well.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
The phrase keeps going through my mind, “More haste, less speed”. It is no criticism of local authorities, but we have to remember that devising a means-tested benefit scheme is very complicated. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies pointed out, councils face a difficult task in squaring a number of circles in devising schemes—and my noble friend Lord McKenzie outlined some of those circles and squares earlier. They have little experience or expertise in designing means-tested support schemes, and very little time to do it. It worries me that we are requiring local authorities to rush this process when they have to take account of so many factors in working out their means test, balancing all the different vulnerable groups that they are supposed to take into account while having their latitude squeezed by having to protect pensioners.
My noble friend Lord McKenzie pointed out that councils will have to take account of their child poverty needs assessments because they have a duty under the Child Poverty Act. A recent survey by 4Children found that fewer than half of English local authorities have a child poverty strategy in place, and 35 of those without a strategy do not even have a needs assessment, so presumably before they can work out their council tax benefit scheme they will have to do a child poverty needs assessment, which will slow things down as well. We will go on to talk about some of the other factors that they need to take into account—disabled people, carers and so forth. It really worries me that, all right, they may have schemes in place, but they will then have a year in which local people will be finding all sorts of holes in those schemes. It will not be us who suffer but local people in need.
Baroness Sherlock
I want to add one brief comment. If I understood correctly, the noble Lord, Lord Tope, suggested that the Committee should not try to press amendments that would delay the scheme because local authorities have already begun to consult on it. I do not want to overly stress the importance of Parliament, but surely the point of this exercise is for us to get the Bill right. If the Government have placed local authorities in a position where they are asking them to start the scheme so early that they are required to consult before Parliament has finished scrutiny of the Bill, surely that is a problem for us, not for them.
Lord Tope
I do not want this to turn into too much of a dialogue, but I said that I welcomed the amendments because it is important that we have this debate. Personally, I do not support them. They will not come to a vote today, but in the unlikely event that they come to a vote in October, which will be a bit late, I will not support them. I am not urging people to press them or not press them. As I said, I actually welcomed the amendments so that we could have the debate. I expressed a view on it, as we all do.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, we have had an interesting discussion on the timing of the implementation of these reforms. As the Committee knows, this reform is about delivering real decentralisation and contributing to deficit reduction—a contribution that must start from 2013.
The funding for the scheme is also a key component of the new business rates retention system. We are not reinventing a whole new system but providing flexibility and not necessarily complexity for councils to deliver a saving and to tailor schemes to their own circumstances with minimal prescription.
In answer to many Members of the Committee, we are building on our statement of intent and we are today publishing two key sets of regulations, particularly about prescribed requirements. Those regulations are coming out today in draft, which will allow councils to press ahead with the implementation without looking over their shoulders to central government prescription. That is why I am confident in saying that councils will be ready to implement these reforms for April 2013.
We need to do everything that we can to allay any concerns. It is interesting to note that experts in local government on this side of the Committee seem to believe that these changes can be implemented, including with the necessary consultation. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, told the Committee that district councils cannot meet the timescale because they need to consult twice.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I am sure that other councils may have had their software packages back in May, but from the county about which I have a little knowledge, I understand that the majority of councils use the same software supplier and it did not come through until nearly the end of June. That means that the proper consultation could not be gone through until councils had already decided on the scheme. That is the dilemma. Both factors were operating: the late supply of software through no fault of their own, and the fact that as a billing authority and not a unitary authority they in effect have two rounds of consultation. Again, that is perfectly proper, but you have a pincer movement on the timetable.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I will carry on for a moment.
Just to be clear, all billing authorities required to bring forward a scheme must consult with their precepting authorities and with the public. That is as much the case for London boroughs or unitary councils as for district councils. Taken together, Amendments 72, 78, 79, 85 and 88A would delay the start for localised council tax reduction schemes by a year, pushing back introduction from 2013 to 2014. I am sure that noble Lords only intended to test the Government’s policy and, like my noble friend Lord Tope, welcome the debate.
Let us be absolutely clear. The saving scored in the spending review has to be found, as pointed out by my noble friends Lord Jenkin of Roding and Lord Tope. This is a key element of our deficit reduction plan that we must meet. Delaying the implementation of localised council tax reduction schemes would come with a cost.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, skilfully queried what we would use these cost savings for. He talked about refuse bins. However, he will be aware that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport has announced a major programme of investment in our railway system. We can either spend money on council tax benefit or take a little cut on that and a little cut elsewhere, then put it all together in order to spend money on developing our infrastructure and promoting growth in the United Kingdom.
Lord Beecham
Will the noble Earl remind me of how much is being devoted to deferring the increase in fuel duty?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, that is always the danger of straying from local government affairs. My point is that the 10% cut in council tax benefit is painful, and I do not deny it, but we have very good projects to spend the money on.
Localising support for council tax is an important localist reform that gives local authorities a greater stake in the economic future of their local area and stronger incentives to get people back into work. It helps to make local authorities fully accountable for decisions over council tax levels and strengthens the incentives to drive down fraud and error. Localisation also has the advantage of giving local authorities real control over how a reduction in funding is managed. It will enable local authorities to offer council tax reductions that match local circumstances and local funding while supporting local policies. Local authorities will take different approaches to managing the reduction, but that is localism in action. Local authorities know their services, their taxpayers and their vulnerable groups, and are best placed to take decisions that affect them.
Delaying localisation does not mean that there will be no saving. There will still be more than £400 million savings to find in 2013-14. Funding for council tax support makes up a significant amount of the local share in the retained business rates system. Not giving local authorities control over this funding from the outset will significantly reduce the funding in the local share and so reduce the incentive that retained business rates are intended to deliver. I know that many noble Lords are supportive of the proposals to enable local authorities to keep a share of the proceeds of growth and would be keen to see local authorities benefit even more from growth. Not localising council tax support would have the opposite effect.
Concerns have been expressed about local authorities’ readiness to implement the schemes. I should like to remind the Committee of the number of significant steps taken by the Government to ensure that local authorities are well placed to press ahead with the development of their local schemes. We have paid £30 million of initial funding to help meet the costs of planning and analysing draft schemes for both billing and precepting authorities. We have provided a free online calculator to help local authorities analyse the potential impacts of their proposed schemes. We have published statements of intent, setting out the details of what will be covered in secondary legislation. We have issued a consultation setting out provisional funding allocations for all authorities. We have published guidance to ensure that local authorities understand their existing responsibilities in relation to vulnerable groups, which I know was a very important point for many noble Lords. We have published guidance setting out the general principles of supporting work incentives to help local authorities design support.
The Government have been clear that local authorities must ensure that they are on the front foot in preparing for this reform. There are things that councils should be doing to help in their preparations: understanding the circumstances of those in their area who currently claim support; ensuring that elected members are aware of the decisions they will need to take; engaging with precepting authorities, such as police and fire authorities; and preparing for consultation.
My noble friends Lord Jenkin and Lord Tope, the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, talked about IT issues. Noble Lords are right to suggest that local authorities and IT suppliers are already getting to grips with the problem. However, there is no need to go for a new and complex system in year one. I would add that if I was an IT supplier, I would point out initially how difficult and expensive it will be because it would be a sensible thing to do in order to try to encourage delay, but noble Lords know that we cannot delay.
The Bill was amended on Report in the other place to make clear that local authorities are able to consult precepting authorities, produce a draft scheme and consult more widely—all before the Bill receives Royal Assent. This was intended to support local authorities in their preparations. I am pleased to note that some local authorities, including that of my noble friend Lord Tope, have already embarked on a public consultation on their schemes.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, talked about the complex matters that LAs will have to take into consideration. However, it seems that LAs are already getting stuck into their work and that it is not an insurmountable obstacle. Local authorities are best placed to take decisions about who should receive support with their council tax. Councils should have the flexibility to manage the reductions in central funding that are crucial to our plans for reducing the deficit. Local authorities should also have a strong incentive to grow their economy by bringing as much funding as possible into the retained business rates system as early as possible and giving them every reason to go for growth.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked whether the universal credit details will be available. He is right to suggest that they will be available in the autumn. He also touched on the default scheme. LAs could opt to use the default scheme, but perhaps with some amendment to secure some easy savings. Local authorities could choose to develop a more sophisticated scheme later, but that is a choice that they will have to make.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response and all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate, particularly my noble friends who spoke in support of the proposition. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, passed on their concerns about the apprehensions that still exist out there over the readiness of all local authorities to deliver.
I shall comment first on the contribution of my noble friend Lady Lister, who made a crucial point. Designing systems of benefit can be complex. People’s lives are complex. How does the Minister deal with the point that my noble friend raised about the lack of child poverty strategies? The Government themselves have issued literature that says that councils should have regard to their obligations under the Child Poverty Act. However, here we are, knowing that there is a big gap in the system but the Government want local authorities to press ahead irrespective of that. That issue alone opens up the prospect of judicial review in a whole raft of cases.
No one is arguing—I certainly am not—that local councils are simply sitting back and ignoring all this. I accept that local councils have a strong track record of delivering in very difficult circumstances. However, in something such as this, surely the key point concerns the time capacity of all councils to be able to deliver. The consequence of councils not being able to deliver, particularly those that are less well resourced, is that they are more likely to have to fall back on the default system or to have it imposed on them. That is a double whammy for them: not only do they not have sufficient opportunity to look at local needs but they must pick up the 10% funding tab. That seems particularly iniquitous.
My noble friend Lord Beecham made the point that we are not dealing here with a national scheme. Local authorities that are dealing with the process will perhaps want to weigh one scheme against an adjoining scheme. My noble friend Lady Hollis talked about the issues of timing in two-tier authorities. My understanding is that in that first round of engagement, even though there does not have to be formal agreement between an upper tier and a district or authority, there is meant to be a meeting of minds and a process by which it can take place. That has to be a real process and it takes time. That is a different process from reaching a conclusion and then consulting widely among a range of people on its outcome. I suggest that that requires something much more substantial.
We recognise that deferral would mean that the so-called localisation of council tax could not deliver the saving that the Government are looking for in that way for 2013-14. I simply reiterate the point that the Government have been adept in other ways in finding funding for this or that project. Looking across the whole of government, I find it difficult to believe that something of an equivalent scale could not be delivered in this case.
I object to the characterisation of what is happening as a little cut here and a little cut there. We are talking about reductions in support for some of the poorest people in our communities. I would not characterise that as a little cut here and there.
The Minister said that nobody was required to reinvent a whole new system, but the reality is that we have a whole new system coming down the track called universal credit. We are not arguing here that council tax should be part of that, although the more one goes into the detail the more blindingly obvious becomes that argument. But that is not what this amendment is about—it is trying to probe the interaction and relationship between universal credit and any revised council tax benefit system. There are lots of points where it ought to interact, if we want to have issues around work incentives properly structured.
The IFS booklet—and what on earth would we do without the IFS?—has a complex chapter on this. But if the details of universal credit are not going to be known until the autumn, which the Minister has confirmed, how can local authorities properly take the detail into account in devising their schemes and consulting on their schemes? It is a practical impossibility. Quite apart from the time needed to understand and test what those interactions with that system should be, it seems entirely wrong to say that it is irrelevant to the timing when it is fundamental.
The Minister did not answer the point about what components of universal credit were at the moment incorporated in the default scheme that the Government are going to impose. We know one aspect of it—that universal credit will take account of income—but that is just one of the possible interactions. What are the consequential changes to the allowances, the housing component and a range of other things? Presumably, the Government have taken a view at least in respect of the default scheme. It would be helpful to know the detail.
The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, said that we should not put off until tomorrow what we could do today. I do not disagree with that, but we are not asking for time for local authorities to sit back and do nothing. We are asking for some local authorities that will struggle the most to get a meaningful system in place to have a bit more time to get it right. So we do not judge this by the well resourced and bigger councils that do not need to worry about the cost of it because they have plenty of second properties on their patch and can generate extra revenue from that. The smaller and more challenged resource-constrained are the ones that we particularly speak for in this amendment.
I see that we will not have a meeting of minds on this across the Room this afternoon—
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute again. The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, talked about the complexities of the scheme. Yes, I understand that it is a very complex area and there are lots of factors to be taken into consideration. However, if a local authority wants to have a complex scheme, it can have one in later years, and it can go for a simple scheme perhaps based on the default scheme in year one.
The noble Baroness raised a very interesting point about the child poverty strategy. We are merely stating that there are existing strategies that councils need to consider in developing schemes. However, she raised a very interesting point about absent child poverty strategies. I will look into the issue and come back to her.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
I thank the Minister for that. I was talking about the absence of a needs assessment in particular, because if you do not have a needs assessment you cannot assess the needs of the people whom your scheme is supposed to help. I should add that there is no such thing as a simple means-tested scheme.
Earl Attlee
I was just about to say that the absence of these schemes is no reason not to go forward with the scheme.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, was concerned about universal credit details not being available until the autumn, but I am confident that local authorities will have all the information that they need from the statement of intent that we have already made and the regulations that are coming out in draft today.
Lord Smith of Leigh
My Lords, I have received an e-mail that tells me that a factory employing 100 people on my patch is going to be closed, so that will give me more problems with the council tax benefit. Local authorities have got into trouble over reductions in expenditure in local authorities through legal challenges. Usually, consultations have not taken account of the equal rights of all groups of people, and that is really important. We need to make sure that we do not fall into this trap and create a minefield. Could the Minister give us a timescale for when the department intends to produce the default scheme? I think that might be helpful.
Earl Attlee
Today, yes. I remind noble Lords that, in respect of the difficulties of devising schemes, we have provided £30 million for local authorities.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I pick up on the point about complexity. I do not think that local authorities are anxious to devise complex schemes; they are trying to devise relevant schemes, particularly those that are focused on poorer members of their communities. It is good news that the default scheme details have been issued today, but I struggle to see how they might be comprehensive if some key aspects of the universal credit are not going to be available until October. Surely how those two things sit together is pretty important for the development of schemes.
The Minister said that the regulations issued today would cover issues about the protected arrangements. Perhaps he could answer a specific question. How does the protection given for pensioners apply to households with two people entitled to state pension credit if one person has reached that age and the other is below that age?
Earl Attlee
On the point about universal credit, we are aware that the approach in the regulations needs further refinement, and we will continue to work with the DWP on the detailed approach to be able to set this out for LAs in the autumn. However, we believe that that provides a clear general indication of how we intend income to be taken into account in the default scheme, which is intended as a legal back-stop and not a model scheme. While LAs will be free to adopt or build on the approach taken in the default scheme regulations, they will not be compelled to do so if they bring forward their own scheme. I hope that that helps the noble Lord.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I understand the point. If the details of the universal credit that we know can be taken account of only generally in relation to the default scheme, which may or may not help the authorities that want to rely on that, surely it is equally the case for any other tailored scheme that a local authority may wish to devise. How can it consult on something that inevitably is incomplete? We are trying to get an answer to that point. I am not sure that we shall succeed this afternoon. We have given this matter a good airing. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Tope, said that we should make the best we can of this. Frankly, that is not good enough when we are devising detailed benefit schemes. We ought to have a higher standard than that. I think that is being denied to some local authorities by this timetable. For the time being, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Donaghy
Baroness Donaghy
My Lords, as this is the first time I have moved an amendment in this Committee, I declare my interests. I am not a vice-president of the Local Government Association, but 22 years ago, which seems quite a long time ago now, I was president of NALGO, which at the time was well known as a local government-related trade union.
I wish to probe the Minister about the steps that the Government are encouraging local authorities to take when consulting their staff on the effectiveness of the scheme. I would like to see that written into the Bill, as too often local government staff are forgotten when it comes to major changes of this kind. Earlier in Committee, the noble Lord, Lord True—I am sorry he is not in his place—asked that consultation between local authorities and the Government should be genuine and should not just go through the motions. I believe that the same applies to genuine consultation between local authorities and their staff. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, paid credit to local government for getting on with the job in hand. I endorse that view. I add that that credit would be due to local government staff and the work that they do on these schemes.
The importance of involving staff—I am not just talking about the local agreements that take place—is that they have local knowledge and professional expertise to ensure that we have the best possible schemes. I shall be brief as I believe this speaks for itself. As a former chair of ACAS, who constantly urged consultation as a matter of course, as it was proven time and time again that it improved the motivation of staff and buying into a particular scheme, I hope that the Minister will be able to give me a reassurance that the staff will be fully involved in these schemes. I beg to move.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I suppose there are two aspects of effectiveness that councils will need to address. The first is the sheer practicability of the scheme and how it can be delivered. We have heard some of the problems that councils face, but assuming that the software goes all right and the mechanical side of the process is, as it were, addressed, there is another issue on which I would have thought it would be very desirable for local authorities to engage with their staff, and that is the assessment of the impact of different proposals within the schemes. The Government are rightly saying in the context of this Bill that councils will need to address the equalities issues and we have heard some of those raised this afternoon, but they will also need to weigh the interests of one group in the community against another group.
That is not a matter for officers in the finance department, with all due respect to them. It should involve the relevant officers and, of course, the elected members dealing with the different groups in the community. It might be social workers looking at the needs of the disabled or children’s services, or welfare rights officers or other officers dealing with different groups in the community—the Armed Forces covenant might apply, for example, to which the Government draw attention. There needs to be collaboration on the policy side rather than on the purely administrative side, as was implicit in my noble friend’s amendment.
Bearing that in mind, I wonder whether the Government have actually had any discussions beyond the consultation process in general with relevant bodies in the professions about the way in which these changes might impact on particular client groups and particularly on the equality duties to which they are at pains to draw the attention of local authorities. Both at the individual local authority level and at the national level where people are professionally engaged with these issues, I would have thought that a proper consultation is needed in order to assess the impact of the various possibilities that will be canvassed and allow the best possible informed decisions to be made at local level, given that the cost of any concession will be borne by other groups within the pool of people eligible for council tax relief. This is a transfer of a burden from the taxpayer as a whole to other council tax payers in the community, particularly those receiving the benefit. These are very complex matters that have to be taken into account, and they should be informed, as I said, on the basis of the experience and knowledge of those working with the groups particularly in that vulnerable category to which the Government draw attention.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, for her explanation of her amendment. I strongly agree with her sentiment but I cannot agree with the amendment, which would require local authorities to consult staff on the effectiveness of the scheme. Front-line staff involved in the administration of council tax and council tax benefit will have important insights into the delivery of these services and awareness of the people affected by them—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. I would hope that all managers, as a matter of routine, would seek the views of staff when taking decisions about services. This is important for ensuring quality services and it is important for staff morale. This is as true for local authorities as it is for any other organisation. From my experience, if you do not consult effectively, you will not lead effectively and therefore you will not have desirable outcomes.
The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, asked whether the Government have consulted professional bodies. I am sure that there is a wide network of contacts between my department and the relevant professional bodies.
However, I do not think it appropriate to make this consultation a requirement on local authorities in relation to council tax reduction schemes. We have to move away from hand-holding and we have to trust that local authorities have the insight to consult their staff, as I am confident that they have. To impose this requirement would add another administrative burden on local authorities that would be nothing other than unnecessary red tape. I therefore hope that the noble Baroness will feel free to withdraw her amendment at the appropriate point.
Baroness Donaghy
I thank the Minister for his reply. Naturally I am disappointed that he is not willing to put the proposed amendment into the Bill. However, I welcome his very positive statement about consulting staff and I think that that will be seen as some reassurance. In that spirit, I agree to withdraw my amendment.
Baroness Donaghy
“( ) In exercising its powers under subsection (2)(b), the authority must have regard to the impact of the scheme on work incentives for those persons in the area, including for those who are in employment or actively seeking employment.”
Baroness Donaghy
It bears repeating that council tax benefits are in-work benefits. Nearly 750,000 people are non-passported recipients of council tax benefit and in work. It is the most comprehensively claimed benefit, despite the fact that a large number of eligible older people do not claim. People who do claim are in low-paid and often part-time work.
It is government policy to rationalise work incentives, which is why universal credit is being introduced. I realise that there is a genuine debate to be had about whether council tax support should be an integrated part of universal credit or whether it should be localised, as the Government are proposing, but it must be accepted that allowing council tax support to vary throughout the country and introducing it before universal credit undermines any simplification and will make it impossible to judge how well work will pay.
The DCLG advice to councils is:
“The system”—
that is council tax support—
“should not be too complex as to create a disincentive to work”.
The noble Earl said earlier that the Government had given the councils minimum prescription, but that is one of them: work incentives should not be undermined. That statement is the only reference to work incentives. Like TIF 1 and TIF 2, which we discussed the other day, this important topic is not on the face of the Bill. The purpose of my amendment is to ensure that it is central to any council tax support system, so that one government department does not undermine the intentions of the whole Government.
Bearing in mind what the noble Lord, Lord Tope, said about not making Second Reading speeches, I believe that there are at least seven disincentives to work contained in the many council options papers that I have seen. Working people need more transparency and more certainty and I believe that by pointing out these seven work disincentives I am offering an opportunity for the Government to avoid them.
The first is the 10% cut, which noble Lords have already spent considerable time on, so I will be brief. Let us take for example Rossendale, with 44% of pensioners and 56% of adults of working age. A 10% cut will lead to a 20% cut in council tax benefit. Once vulnerable groups are defined and exempted, the cut will be “in excess of 20%”.
Being presented with a council tax bill or an unexpected increase in that bill could be the pivotal point for some working families in deciding that work does not pay. Where are the greatest numbers of working people who will be affected? In County Durham, there are 5,810 working recipients of council tax benefit, more than 8,000 in Manchester, more than 6,000 in Liverpool and 3,500 in Wigan and Salford each. Those are some of the poorest areas in the country. Yet South Bucks has only 420 and the City of London 40. That is a redistribution of wealth which is shameful and which will have consequences for employment and the administration of justice when we see the courts being clogged up chasing large numbers of puny arrears.
The second disincentive to work is an interesting illustration of the mixed messages that we get from the Government. I do not know if it is muddled thinking, doing insufficient homework, the left hand not knowing what the right is doing, speaking before brain engagement, plain doublespeak or a combination of some of the above. Frankly, I do not care, but let us take the option being considered of non-dependant deductions being further exploited. In the June 2010 Budget, the Government decided to upgrade non-dependant deduction rates in three stages. They had been frozen since 2001-02. The intention was to reduce fiscal deficit and, according to the impact assessment by the DWP, to,
“provide an expectation that adults make a reasonable contribution towards their housing costs”.
One objector said:
“If a family living on benefits wants their adult child to stay living at home they are actually penalised—as soon as that child does the right thing and goes out to work. You get what’s called a non-dependant deduction, removing up to £74 off your housing benefit each week. I had a heartrending letter from a lady in my constituency”—
there is a hint there—
“a few weeks ago who said that when her son leaves college next month, her housing benefit will drop significantly, meaning her family may have to split up. This doesn’t seem right”.
The objector was the Prime Minister in a speech only two weeks ago, but councils are considering making this worse as one of their options.
The third disincentive would be by increasing tapers, let us say to 30%. I know that we have had some discussion of this already. Anyone on housing benefit and council tax support will have a marginal tax rate of 95%—65% taper on housing benefits plus a 30% taper on council tax support. In other words, they would keep 5p of every extra £1 pound that they earned. That is not very encouraging, is it?
The fourth disincentive being considered is to remove working tax credit income disregards by varying amounts. One local authority has said:
“Government wants us to incentivise work so this would be against their policy intentions. However, the Working Tax Credit income disregards in UC are sufficiently generous as to allow for a reduction in the earned income disregards applied to local CTS”.
That particular authority estimated that working people could lose between £2.21 and £4.43 per week.
The fifth disincentive is to make workers with income greater than needs contribute more through increasing the rate of withdrawal from 20% to, say, 25%, 27.5%, or 30%. All working people in this category would lose between £0.64 and £1.12 per week.
The sixth disincentive is capping support at the level for band D, E or F. That would have the greatest impact on the older worker and those with children. The asset-rich older person of working age may have to downsize to make ends meet. The difference could be a reduction of £3.72 to £4.10 a week.
The last disincentive, the Committee will be pleased to note, is that everyone pays something, usually 20% to 25%, which is a return to the poll tax but without anything included within income support, jobseeker’s allowance or ESA to cover it. That would hit the poorest hardest and add to local authority billing costs as they clog up the courts with chasing bad debts.
No one is claiming that dealing with poverty-trap issues is easy. Neither is it easy to be clinging on to the job market by your fingernails, trying to raise a family and provide a roof over your head. When I arrived in Westminster two years ago, I was shocked by the ease with which this world swallows its own propaganda. In my world, I have close family members whose job prospects are grim and friends who rely on Mr Beeston’s payday loans, where one unexpected event tips the balance between managing and not managing. The Government have to show that they are serious about keeping low-paid working people afloat and I hope that the Minister will accept my amendment in the spirit in which it is intended. I beg to move.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for explaining her amendment, which she has done with some useful detail. I have plenty to say, but perhaps I will have to write to her on some of the detail after consulting my officials.
Amendment 74 would require local authorities to have regard to the impact of their scheme on the work incentives for those in work or actively seeking work. The noble Baroness is right to point to the importance of local schemes supporting incentives to work. It is of the utmost importance that people get more overall income in work than out of work and that people should get more overall income from working more and earning more. It will not be in the interests of local authorities to design schemes that discourage work, locking their residents into low aspiration and poverty. Making local authorities financially responsible for the provision of support gives them a real stake in getting people back into work.
To aid local authorities in designing schemes that support positive work incentives and the objectives of universal credit, we have already published guidance setting out the key design features that could support work incentives and which local authorities will want to consider in designing their schemes. The guidance considers the main design features of local schemes that can be used to support work incentives, including how income from universal credit is treated, how other income is treated and the point at which support is withdrawn. It also considers other factors that can influence decisions about work, including how the scheme is administered and communicated to applicants.
Data sharing related to universal credit between the Department for Work and Pensions and local authorities will be an important way in which local authorities can ensure that their schemes work with the grain of universal credit. The Department for Communities and Local Government and the Department for Work and Pensions are working together to ensure that the necessary data-sharing arrangements can be put in place. We want to ensure that, where possible, local authorities continue to have access to the same data on claimants of existing benefits and will be provided with a breakdown of the full universal credit award before the application of any tapers or sanctions, together with the final amount that the claimant receives.
Furthermore, the Government are doing everything in their power to reduce the risk of potentially unhelpful interaction between local schemes and national universal credit. Indeed, changes have already been made to the proposed design of universal credit to increase some income disregards. These changes will help to reduce the risk of “dual tapering”, where council tax support and universal credit are withdrawn simultaneously, leading to higher marginal deduction rates—the rate at which the gains from increased earnings through work are reduced by the withdrawal of benefits and increased tax—and will help to ensure that the incentives to enter work remain strong.
Finally, as I have already mentioned, we are today publishing draft regulations that set out how we propose to treat universal credit income under the default scheme. We will continue to work with the DWP on the detail of the approach, but we believe that it provides a clear general indication of how we intend to take UC income into account in the default scheme. Local authorities will be able to consider whether to take this or a similar approach. With those explanations, I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
The noble Earl referred to data sharing, in particular to help in the transfer of people who otherwise would be in receipt of 100% benefit under the existing system. I think that all the documentation we have seen talks about the Government working on these matters. Can the noble Earl say when that process is going to be completed? Will the arrangements for data sharing definitely be in place by 1 April 2013? I think that he also said that the Government are doing “everything in their power” to ensure a sensible outcome so far as universal credit is concerned. One would dispute that because the phrase “everything in their power” could include putting council tax benefit where it belongs as part of that. But the noble Earl said specifically that they have addressed the issue of income and how that is to be dealt with—I think we understand that, because we touched on it in an earlier session. What other adjustments so far as universal credit and its interrelation with other schemes are concerned are currently being contemplated? Will the Government be publishing any thoughts, analysis or guidance?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Is the Minister saying that, in the default scheme, UC will be counted as income? He has had the advantage of seeing the regulations. We have not seen them so I just wanted some information. Is he assuming that UC will be included?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the answer to that question is, I understand, yes. My answer to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, is that clearly the arrangements for data sharing will have to be in place by 1 April, otherwise it will not work. We are working to ensure that the data-sharing arrangements are in place at the appropriate moment. Universal credit will come in next October.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Is the Minister saying that the appropriate moment by which the arrangements have to be in place is October?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I think that this revises my initial comments. Universal credit will come in next October.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Perhaps I may press the Minister on that point because it was originally understood that in October next year all new claimants would be claimants for universal credit. There seems to have been some change to that and this issue is obviously important because local authorities have to assess the volume of claims that they will deal with. Can the Minister confirm that the arrangement is that all new claimants coming through from October 2013 will go straight into universal credit and not into JSA, ESA or income support?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
The legacy cases will spend two, three or perhaps four years coming across.
Earl Attlee
The noble Lord asked some complex questions. The noble Baroness mentioned legacy claims. It will be best if I write in detail on all those points, including the noble Baroness’s point about legacy claims.
Baroness Donaghy
I thank noble Lords who have contributed to the debate and the Minister for his reply. It was beginning to feel a bit like Google Earth, whereby you home in on one house that will be in receipt of universal credit next October. It will be interesting to see exactly how many are in receipt of it by next October. I am disappointed of course that the Minister is not willing to put these provisions in the Bill. I think that I understand why, because it is a contradiction in terms to call this scheme a work incentive scheme. All the points that I have raised exposed that. Nevertheless, I realise that we are not going to have a meeting of minds on this and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Sherlock
“( ) In exercising its powers under subsection (2)(b), the authority must have regard to the impact of the scheme on disabled people in the area.”
Baroness Sherlock
My Lords, I shall also speak to Amendment 76A in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Lister of Burtersett. I am grateful for a briefing from a variety of voluntary organisations, including Scope and Carers UK.
At present, national rules are clear, if not simple, on the treatment of disabled people and carers within means-tested benefits. These two amendments are designed to try to draw out for the greater understanding of the Grand Committee how those two categories of people will be treated under the new regime. At the moment, the equality impact assessment published by the Government suggests that nearly half of all council tax benefit is paid to households that may contain an adult claiming a disability-related benefit. The figure could be higher if it included disabled children. We are therefore talking about a significant proportion of the caseload now in receipt of council tax benefit and who may be presumed to be receiving council tax support in the future. This is not simply a marginal group.
At present, if someone receives income-related employment support allowance, they are passported on to maximum council tax benefit. If they have to be means-tested, some benefits and allowances are ignored completely—for example, the DLA care and mobility components, constant attendance allowance, exceptional severe disablement allowance, severe disablement occupational allowance paid because of an injury at work or a war injury or, indeed, mobility allowance paid under the war pensions scheme. In other words, the current council tax benefit makes significant provision to ensure that disabled people are given adequate support to enable them to meet their council tax liability.
I am sure that other noble Lords will be aware that there is considerable concern abroad among organisations that work with a variety of disabled people about what is going to happen in the future. The uncertainty out there is very worrying to disabled people and their families.
I anticipate that the Minister may reply that this is a matter entirely for local authorities. I base my predictive powers on his previous answers, but I may be completely wrong and I shall be delighted to be so. He may simply say that it is entirely up to local authorities how they should go about doing that; they have total freedom to decide how they treat disability in the council tax support schemes. However, I would like to test whether there are any limits to that freedom. To that end, I have some specific questions for the Minister. The various DCLG documents on localising support have been kind enough to remind local authorities of their various obligations under the Equality Act and other legislation such as the Disabled Persons (Services, Consultation and Representation) Act 1986; under the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970, which includes a range of duties relating to the welfare needs of disabled people; or, indeed, under the Housing Act 1996, which gives local authorities a duty to prevent homelessness, with special regard to vulnerable groups.
However, these documents are a little light on advice about what kind of scheme might meet the requirements of this assortment of legislation. We turn to the matter of guidance on what constitutes a vulnerable person at a later amendment, in the name of my noble friend Lady Hollis, but meanwhile can the Minister advise the Committee to what extent disabled people currently entitled to council tax benefit are protected under equalities legislation? Do local authorities have to continue existing full exemptions or can they modify as they see fit? If they can modify as they see fit, would the Minister be content if some local authorities, for example, were to count DLA as being income for the purposes of council tax support, while others were not? If that were all right, we could find two people with identical conditions, identical incomes and identical circumstances, living in neighbouring boroughs whose entitlement to council tax support would differ solely because of which side of the line they came from. That may be true of other categories as well.
I want to explore the implications of that for a minute. We have all read the marvellous IFS report on the scheme. The IFS looks at the potential incentives that this change could give to local authorities in a variety of ways. In doing so, it identifies what the incentives could be, although it does not suggest that authorities would necessarily act intentionally based on those incentives. It suggests that the change could give an incentive to a local authority to discourage low-income families from living within its borders because it would be more expensive.
I wish to look at what the implications could be in this area. Let us suppose that there were a difference in entitlement to council tax support for someone receiving DLA on one side of the border compared with the other. The difference in cash may not be huge but may make a significant difference to the income of the person concerned. Would that constitute an incentive for disabled people in that circumstance to live on one side of the borough line rather than on the other? If it did, what might that do to other costs that might follow? I am thinking, for example, of the social care costs that might then be a liability to one authority rather than to another because of a desire of someone in that situation to live in one authority rather than in a neighbouring authority. Is that a policy consequence? If that were to happen, would the Minister be content with that? Is that simply part of what happens in a free market of local authorities determining what kind of support they give? Have the Government considered that? Perhaps the Minister could tell us.
Thirdly, what assessment have the Government made of the cumulative impact on disabled people of the variety of changes and cuts to benefits and services that have preceded this? In that respect, I wonder where the Minister thinks disabled people should go for advice on these schemes and where the best place would be for them to go to understand the implications of changes in council tax support.
Finally, the Government made it clear on the initial consultation that the rationale for seeking no change in council tax benefit payments for pensioners was that they would not expect them to seek paid employment to increase their income. However, the original consultation document I think went on to explain that there were other groups to whom the Government may wish to ensure that local authorities offer support, and that these groups might not be expected to increase their income through work. Given that certain benefits are given to people who are not expected to work by definition, could the Minister comment on the appropriate distinction for a local authority to choose to give full support to pensioners but not to someone who receives a disability benefit that says that they are not expected to work?
The implications of this could be significant. The local authority plans, as my noble friend described just now, to take potentially 20% off the top of the modest disability income of someone who has no ability to increase their income through work and has never been expected to pay council tax in the past. The implications for that individual and for the authority trying to collect money from that individual, through a range of enforcement mechanisms available to it, are only too easy to imagine. If any noble Lords have a failure of imagination, they may recall various noble Lords’ speeches about what happened with the poll tax when local authorities tried to extract money from some very poor families who were suffering a variety of problems.
Amendment 76A relates to carers. This is an area in which again I need some help from the Minister. Council tax is paid at a flat rate, regardless of how many people live in a property, but if only one person lives in a property, or no one who is treated as such, a discount can be applied to the bill. Noble Lords will realise that a number of people are disregarded and treated as not living in the property when calculating council tax. At the moment, a category of people are seen as carers who can be disregarded entirely when working out whether someone must pay council tax and, if so, how much should be paid. At present, to be disregarded as a carer, someone must provide care for at least 35 hours a week, live in the same property as the person they are caring for, and must not be the spouse, partner or parent when caring for a child aged under 18, and the person being cared for must either receive the highest rate of the care component of DLA or the higher rate of attendance allowance or constant attendance allowance.
I hope that I will be forgiven for reading all this into the record, but I want to understand what happens. Will any change be made to council tax liability for carers in that category when the new regime comes in? I am not referring to council tax support but to liability for council tax itself. It may be in the documents, and I apologise if I failed to find it, but otherwise I hope that the Minister will be able to explain the situation.
I could go on great length about the other implications for means-tested benefits and carers, but I shall put just one more specific question. How should local authorities treat carers’ allowance in deciding what council tax support should be available? The Minister may want to reply only in respect of the default scheme, but, as I say, I have not had an opportunity to look at it. How will carers’ allowance be treated in assessing entitlement to council tax support under the default scheme?
Carers are a group of people who have been struggling a lot over recent years. A Carers UK survey of over 4,000 heavy-end carers conducted last year showed that four in 10 were already in debt as a result of caring, that the stress of money worries was affecting the health of half of them, and that many were cutting back on essentials such as food. What assessment have the Government made of the likely impact on carers and the people they care for, and what will the costs be of providing social care should carers find that they are not in a position to carry on as a result of this change?
Finally, I should point out that I had originally considered tabling amendments that would try to draw out the impact on a number of categories of people. I could have tabled a similar amendment on the impact on child poverty, which my noble friend Lady Lister raised. I could have tabled an amendment on the impact on homelessness. I could have tabled an amendment on the impact on larger families. I mention this because it is easy to say that the Government want to protect certain categories of people, but, as my noble friend has just explained, if councils are to be encouraged to protect those in work, on whom should the burden fall?
I live in Durham, where the council is doing its absolute best to see how it can address the scheme well, but half of the current recipients of council tax benefit are pensioners, so if it did nothing else, it would mean a cut of 20% for the rest. Once the council takes account of higher levels of disability—in a very poor county—what should it do then? Should it try to protect those who are not expected to work? If so, who should pick up the benefit? If one takes into account the impact on child poverty in the area, again a very poor one, the council might feel that it has to take other steps. If we are not careful, we will end up with one family in Easington paying the entire council tax liability for the whole borough. I make a joke only to make a point. There will be a stage by which only so many circles can be squared.
There is a problem with simplicity. The Minister sought earlier to encourage us by saying that councils could set up simple schemes; they do not have to make complex ones. However, in welfare benefits, simplicity and fairness pull in opposite directions. When the Welfare Reform Bill was being considered in Grand Committee, I commented then that the best example of this is support for children. Child benefit is very simple but it is not fair. If it were the only kind of support, it would not be fair. Tax credits for children are very fair, but even I would not say that they are simple, and I was involved in designing them. I just said that child benefit is an example of something that is simple, but thanks to the recent changes it is going to be less simple. However, noble Lords will take the point. That is the difficulty in dealing with all these different categories. If a county council is to try to be fair to all these groups, not to mention protecting itself from potential legal challenge under the variety of legal instruments I have described, it is going to be difficult for it also to be simple. If it is going to be simple, it may struggle to deliver that by next April. I beg to move.
Baroness Browning
My Lords, I have not participated in proceedings on the Bill so far, but we have now come to the clauses on disability. I refer the Committee to my interests in the register, particularly in respect of autism. I want to add to the initial remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock. I hope that the Committee will forgive me for singling out autism, but it is the only disability that has the benefit of statute, through the Autism Act 2009. I believe that that is the only piece of statute that relates specifically to a particular disability.
I have to inform my noble friend that I am becoming rather disconcerted as various pieces of legislation that relate to disability, particularly on the question of council tax benefit, come forward. I worry that Ministers are not consulting, particularly with the Department of Health, which has responsibility for the Autism Act. It is a relatively new piece of legislation on the statute book. The will of the House was to be taken forward in what Parliament intended to be an improvement in the lives of autistic adults in particular. At its heart, the Autism Act was to enable more adults with autism to lead independent lives. It is worrying that, through legislation such as this part of the Bill, there may well now be problems with localism to the degree that certain councils may not be fully aware of—or may ignore—their need to take account of the autism strategy that is associated with the Autism Act.
My first question to my noble friend is: what discussions have his department had with the Department of Health in drafting the clauses on disability and local authorities’ ability to implement and make progress on the autism strategy? I draw the Committee’s attention to the strategy Fulfilling and Rewarding Lives, which states that adults with autism should live in accommodation that meets their needs. That is what we hope the strategy will bring forward. It states:
“Local authorities are required to take account of the needs of adults with autism when considering housing provision”.
It also states that local authorities need to fulfil the equality duty by taking account of the needs of adults with autism in respect of housing.
I seek reassurance from my noble friend that the Autism Act has been discussed and will, even with the choice of localism, continue to be implemented by local authorities that now have that statutory duty under a different piece of legislation. I hope that my noble friend will accept that, while I single out autism because it has the protection of other statutes, I share the concerns outlined today by the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, over disability in general. The people who are in receipt of disability benefits—who are already subject to a lot of change and disruption—will find council tax eligibility being added to quite a long list of changes in their lives. Not only will the process cause them distress but it will affect them financially, which could ultimately affect that very important ability to live independently.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Browning. What I have to say follows on very well from what she said. My noble friend Lady Sherlock asked some searching questions of the Minister. I want to pick up on the one about cumulative impact. Ringing in my ears are the words of the late Lord Newton, who reminded us in proceedings on several Bills that we have to look at these pieces of legislation together, not separately—yet we always look at them separately.
I have just been reading two relevant reports, which I would like to bring to noble Lords’ attention and which emphasise the question of cumulative impact. One is from Demos and Scope, and says:
“Disabled households are not benefits recipients—they are parents, employees, students, home owners, older people and citizens. They rely on the same diverse range of services as everyone else, but the Government’s failure to grasp the whole picture beyond the welfare reform agenda can lead to an underestimation of the cumulative impact these hundreds of individual cuts can have on each multi-service-using household”.
We are now potentially adding to those cuts, which is why it is so important that there is a proper impact assessment that takes the cumulative impact into account.
The other report, by Citizens Advice and the Children’s Society, says:
“We are very concerned that the scale of the cuts in support for some groups of disabled people has not yet been properly understood, because the changes have been viewed in isolation”.
Again, the danger is that we view the changes here in isolation.
The other point that I want to make refers to carers, who tend to get overlooked constantly. I was slightly bemused because the impact assessment referred to carers as one of the vulnerable groups that local authorities need to take into account, yet the DCLG document, Localising Support for Council Tax Vulnerable people—Key Local Authority Duties, does not seem to mention carers as a group whose needs need to be taken into account. Could the Minister explain which of the two documents local authorities are supposed to take account of, and why there is this inconsistency in the reference to carers as a vulnerable group?
Lord Shipley
I will make three very brief points on these two amendments. The first is simply to acknowledge that, given that council tax support is to be localised, it should therefore follow that local councils have the responsibility for deciding what their schemes entail. That seems a very important principle. We will debate later the role of the Secretary of State in defining any exclusions at all.
Secondly, a scheme agreed by a local authority would be inappropriate if it did not have regard to disabled people and carers, not least for the reason that it would not meet the need of an equality impact assessment if due regard had not been given. However, the list is not exclusive, and we shall shortly go further into the definition of vulnerability. One weakness of the Bill at the moment is that it does not actually define vulnerability adequately.
I agree absolutely with the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, on the cumulative impact and the Government’s understanding—and this is not a particular criticism of this Government, because it has always been the case. Governments are not very good at seeing the cumulative impact of their legislation and the whole picture. A number of us have become very reliant upon the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation for pointing out some of these things to us, sometimes one would hope before the event but occasionally after the event as well. Governments should be smarter at understanding the cumulative impact of what they are doing.
However, in all this there is another option for local councils, which is to maintain their current schemes effectively and to make the cost of that a general charge on council tax. I might come back to that when we talk about vulnerability, because, where council tax will be localised, vulnerable people will have to be protected. How nice it would be if we had more than one additional band in the council tax banding—not just band I but maybe some further ones—because there is a real risk of redistribution occurring from those who are less well off to those who are better off, as the IFS and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation keep pointing out to us.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Andrews)
My Lords, there is a Division in the House and we will adjourn for 10 minutes.
Lord Deben
My Lords, I rise to say a word or two about the disablement issues; that is why I have come for this part of the Committee. It seems to me that we have not covered the point properly. We have talked about the lack of thinking in the round, but we have not talked about the fact that it becomes more important given the circumstances that we are in at the moment. My 35 years as a Member of Parliament led me to have some pretty grave doubts about some of the claims that people made. You had only to sit in your surgery to see with what tiredness they came in and with what alacrity they left, complaining about some illness or other in the mean time. It was one of those sad things and it was a real problem. The Government—perfectly rightly, in my view—have approached that, and in doing so they have reminded lots of people that some people have claimed invalidity or impairment of one sort or another improperly. The difficulty with that is that it is necessary to put things right, but that creates an atmosphere that can be extremely deleterious to people who genuinely are disabled or in real need of help.
The points that have been raised on both sides of this Committee are very important at this time in particular. It is extremely important to get the balance right and to remind people, particularly local authorities—and some still do need reminding—of the very considerable difficulties in which many disabled people live and the need for them to treat these issues with a degree of sensitivity that I am not sure is found universally. I want to look at that background just for one moment.
Secondly—and I address my noble friend the Minister very carefully—it really is time that the Government got out of their problem; and it is genuinely a problem of all Governments. After all, the Government are telling everybody, rightly, that we should have joined-up thinking. We have pathfinder operations to try to get people to have joined-up thinking about property locally, local councils and government property and to try to get various organisations to work out their problems together. So we have a Government very keen on reminding people about this, and yet they still have not dealt with the central issue that we still have silos when it comes to this kind of issue.
I am interested in the comment that we all have to look to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the Institute for Fiscal Studies and others—it is hoped before but certainly afterwards—to see the real impact. The question that I really want to ask my noble friend is: will he take back to the Government, in his own inimitable way, the request that it is about time that they learnt from these outside bodies? Why have we had this kind of discussion for as long as I can remember in politics, both here and in the other place? There is nothing new about this. It has always been true.
Why is it so hard for Governments ever to learn a lesson such as this? I remember the difficulty when I was Secretary of State for the Environment of trying to get government offices to have all their area offices and headquarters of other offices in the same town so that you could actually get a job done. You often used to have to go to five different towns to make any kind of decision, and then you would discover that the area covered by each department was different, as far as that region was concerned. We got over one or two of the more extreme cases, but the thing that really worries me is that the conversation that we have just had—which, after all, has been most amicable and agreed on both sides—is one that we have had too often.
I wonder whether this Committee might be the one in which we could say enough is enough and that this is a matter for governments seriously to deal with. Otherwise, it does not matter who is on which side. We will go on having this discussion. If it is not about disability, it will be about something else where as similar problem arises—where the Department of Health, the Department for Work and Pensions, the department responsible for local government and everyone else have not really got together to see how their various concerns impact on particular individuals.
This is the effort of a long-time Member of Parliament and a very long-serving Minister to say that having failed myself, and being honest about that, do you think that we could on this occasion bring it home to someone who is very much above the pay grade of anyone in this Committee? This is something that the Government have to take seriously. It is very boring, constantly, to have this conversation, with good-hearted people on both sides of the House saying the same things and, in the end, knowing very well that it will not have the effect that we really want.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, this has been an interesting debate with some extremely perceptive contributions. I very much welcome the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Deben. He and I occasionally crossed swords during his tenure at the Department of the Environment, as it then was, but he was right to say that we need a balance in the view of claimants that is so often the focus of public debate in the media and, sometimes, by politicians. There are always some who abuse the system, but they are not by any means in the majority. There are many people who do not claim who should claim, whether it is for disability or other things. That reference to balance is highly desirable.
However, I am slightly nervous about his reference to government offices because there certainly was a problem and the Government have certainly solved it—they have closed them. There are now no government offices for people in the regions to go to. It has all been centralised. However, his fundamental point is right. The Government need and have failed, so far as one can judge in connection with the Bill, to look across departmental interests and the client groups that may be represented by various government departments.
It is interesting that there is no specific mention of disability or any other particular category in the impact analysis, although it is a significant element in the Bill, the Government illustrate only the impact on pensioners and other age groups. The analysis does not refer at all to disability as a specific issue and yet, as we heard from the brilliant forensic analysis by my noble friend Lady Lister, there is a huge problem that affects a variety of people with different disabilities and conditions, and of course their carers, which clearly must be taken into account.
Lord Beecham
In all events, it is fairly modest, but that will also disappear unless it is retained. If it is retained we come back in a vicious circle to the fact that it will be retained essentially at the expense of the working poor, whom, I say with due respect to the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, we constantly hear that this whole scheme is designed to incentivise. That mantra is wearing a little thin. It is absurd to imagine that the whole burden can simply be borne by those people. It may have to be, if the Government require councils to do it or if councillors feel obliged to do it, because it is unlikely that they would be able to fund any move towards meeting the needs of this or any other group.
However, it is clear that authorities should consider the impact of the scheme on disabled people in their areas. I would like to know whether the Government have conducted any kind of analysis and tried any kind of modelling, with or without the assistance of individual local authorities on how this might work in practice. If they have not, frankly, that would be disgraceful. They may have and, in that case, I commend them. But there is no evidence in the impact analysis that anything like that has happened. In a matter of this significance, for this group in particular but not only for this group, that is simply not good enough.
At all events, these amendments at least focus some attention on the issues. They have the disadvantage of not supplying the answer in terms of the financial resources to meet those needs—and again one would have to go back to the Government. When it suits the Government, money can be found. As I implied in the question to the Minister, who is not departmentally responsible for these matters although he is something of a transport buff, money has been found to fund the deferment of the increase in fuel duty. There may or may not be good reasons for doing that—perhaps there are, but it was found. Apparently, the somewhat hapless Treasury Secretary believes that there was significant under-spending across government from which that money was drawn. Perhaps some of that money might have been used to moderate the impact of these provisions. Again, there was the other obsession of the Secretary of State about weekly bin collections, for which £250 million was offered. I gather that not much of it has been accepted, so there may be a saving there. As my noble friend pointed out earlier this afternoon, that money might be used either for the purposes of delay, which does not seem to be likely to commend itself to Ministers, or at least to help meet the needs of the very groups which they will apparently be advising local government to protect as far as possible.
The Government need to be honest about this. If they are not going to provide resources, they should acknowledge that local authorities will find it extremely difficult to do so. They should not be raising expectations that it will be done easily, if at all. That would be a shabby way in which to proceed, and I know that the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, are not politicians of that stamp—absolutely not. But those with greater responsibility than, unfortunately, lies within their powers, need to demonstrate that that is not a course that they wish to pursue.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, for the explanation of her amendments. Noble Lords have asked a number of questions about specific groups and local authorities’ responsibilities in relation to those groups. I want to be clear that the legal requirements that established those duties, which your Lordships have already considered as part of legislation, will remain. As accountable public bodies, local authorities will need to continue to take account of all relevant duties. I am grateful to noble Lords for bringing some of those duties to the attention of the Committee.
The noble Lord, Lord Deben, asked me some interesting questions about the organisation of the machinery of government. I am confident that I know how to exercise that machinery but it is rather above my pay grade to try to change it by addressing the issues that he raises. The noble Lord used the term “above my pay grade” after I had drafted my speaking notes on his contribution.
The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, talked largely about financial issues. It is important to remember that, across local government spending, this is only a 0.4% reduction in the budget.
Earl Attlee
The 0.4% refers to these specific reductions.
The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, tested us on the overall government policy. I am fully signed up to all government policy, as the noble Lord will know.
Amendment 76 would require local authorities to have regard to the impact of their scheme on disabled people in their area. This is an important consideration and local authorities already have responsibilities in relation to disabled people. These include their responsibilities under the public sector equality duty in Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 which requires authorities, in the exercise of their functions, to have due regard to equality between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and people who do not share it. Equality legislation explicitly recognises that disabled people’s needs may be different from those of non-disabled people. Therefore, public bodies should take account of disabled people’s disabilities when making decisions about policies or services. This might mean making reasonable adjustments, or in some cases treating disabled people more favourably than non-disabled people to meet their needs.
The Department for Communities and Local Government has already published guidance reminding local authorities of the statutory framework in which they operate and their existing responsibilities to people in vulnerable situations, including responsibilities under the equality duty. Therefore, I do not believe that an additional duty to have regard to the needs of disabled people is needed, especially when local authorities have an already established and understood framework of responsibilities.
Amendment 76A would require local authorities to have regard to the impact of its scheme on carers in the area. I was asked several questions about carers, including whether we would change existing relief for them. There are no plans to make any changes to the existing relief. I was also asked how the default scheme takes carers into account. The default scheme preserves the current CTB regime as far as possible. CTB makes provision for carers through a specific income disregard.
Baroness Sherlock
Before the Minister leaves that point, I want to be sure that I understand what he has just said. I specifically asked how carers’ allowance would be treated in the default scheme. Could he tell me how carers’ allowance is to be treated? Is he saying that there will be no changes from the current treatment under the default scheme?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I expect I shall get some inspiration on that point in a moment.
My noble friend Lady Browning asked how local authorities should have regard to the Autism Act. She raised local authorities’ other responsibilities, particularly in relation to the Act. That is precisely why we have not proposed a new and potentially cost-cutting definition. Local authorities have a range of duties that they will want to consider. My noble friend is right to point to the Autism Act as one of the key matters that needs to be considered.
The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, claimed that there was no reference to carers in the guidance. The guidance is not exhaustive. It highlights some key legal duties.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
Surely the Minister will accept that if it does not highlight carers, the chances are that carers’ needs will not be taken into account.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, they are already taken into account. We are not saying that carers should not be taken into account. A competent local authority will take the needs of carers into account. Why would a local authority not? That is part of its duties.
I was asked whether pensioners and other vulnerable groups are protected. Low-income working families in an area will face a cut in support. Local authorities will have choices about how they manage the reduction in funding. They will be able to choose whether to pass the reduction on to council tax payers, using their flexibility over council tax, or to manage the reduction within their budgets. I know that noble Lords do not like hearing it, but that is the fact.
Lord Beecham
Can the Minister explain what flexibility councils have, given the capping regime?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, council tax support is part of the total rate retention support. Local authorities can make arrangements for their scheme. They do not have to rely just on the funds relating to council tax benefits.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I wonder whether the Minister could help me on one further point. He talked about pensioners being protected. Can he deal with the point about the circumstances in which one member of a couple may have reached state pension age but the other has not? Is that household protected under the Government’s proposition?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, it is clear that I am going to have to write to noble Lords on a lot of these points.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I understand that the Minister will have to write. Could he pick up the point about one of the problems being that different presumptions and rules are associated with the range of benefits that we currently have when couples straddle the pension age, and will he say what is proposed for universal credit? As I am sure the Minister will know, if one of you is below pension age, both of you will be treated as though you are below pension age. That is not the situation now. There are in effect two sets of schemes, according to whether you are a newcomer into UC or a legacy claimant, and cutting across that will be a CTB discount scheme, which is supposed to embrace both. Perhaps the Minister can take on the issue of this complexity when he writes.
Earl Attlee
It may help the Committee if I explain why I am experiencing such difficulties. The proposed amendment talks about disability in very general terms. If noble Lords table an amendment that deals specifically with their concern, I can address that concern specifically, but I am struggling to answer these very technical questions, which are too detailed for me to answer at the Dispatch Box. If I had a more detailed amendment, I could do so.
I would like to say a few more words about carers. Carers provide a vital role in society, and I expect that local authorities will want to consider what provision to make for this important group. Currently council tax benefit makes provision for people who are carers through a specific income disregard and a premium towards their applicable amount. Local authorities will be free to do so under localised council tax support.
The Department for Communities and Local Government is working with the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure that local authorities will continue to receive data on current benefits and universal credit. This could include data that would help local authorities to identify carers so that they are able to provide support in the future if they choose to do so under the terms of their schemes.
Baroness Sherlock
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to making this a very interesting and useful debate. I have learnt much from it.
I am slightly smarting from the Minister’s criticism that my amendment is too general. By referring to disabled people in general, I was seeking to avoid detaining the Committee by tabling a whole succession of amendments dealing with a full range of disabilities, which I might reasonably have done; but I have learnt my lesson for the future. I shall look forward to visiting the Public Bill Office with more regularity in future.
I asked the Minister at least eight questions, and I do not think that I got answers to any of them, since “inspiration” did not arrive in time. I was not trying to ask technical questions; I was trying to draw out, so that the Committee could understand, what the implications of these changes are for some of the most vulnerable groups in our country in order that we might understand whether we needed on Report to seek to take any specific steps to protect those groups. Given that, I would be very grateful if the noble Earl, when his team has had the opportunity to reflect and to give him all the appropriate advice, would agree to pick up specifically the range of questions that I mentioned when he comes to write. I would add that, even though it might have sounded general, the point about the possible unintended consequences of having neighbouring authorities with different regimes and what that might do to drive both differential costs between authorities was particularly important. Although it might sound like a debating point, it was intended to try to find out to what extent the Government had modelled for that.
I urge the Government to reflect very carefully on the points raised by all noble Lords in this debate, but, this being Grand Committee, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
“( ) No regulations under paragraphs 2 and 4 of the new Schedule 1A to the LGFA 1992 shall be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by resolution of each House of Parliament.”
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, this is a brief and, I hope, straightforward amendment that I trust the Minister will accept in principle, if not in its detailed wording.
Schedule 4, as we are all now well aware, introduces a new schedule to the Local Government Finance Act 1992 and hence the framework for the council tax reduction schemes. However, regulations under paragraph 2 of the schedule can cover a range of matters, including stating who must or must not be included in a scheme, maximum and minimum reductions, and what might be included to mirror existing arrangements. Paragraph 4 covers regulations for a default scheme. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, in its fourth report of the Session, reviewed the powers of the Bill and concluded:
“The change from national rules to local schemes is not an insignificant one in an area of law that the government acknowledges must secure appropriate support for vulnerable individuals, and the constraints and requirements imposed by regulations under paragraph 2 will form an important feature of the local schemes. It seems likely that some authorities may model their own schemes on the ‘default scheme’ established by regulations under paragraph 4. In the light of that, we recommend that the Bill should require the affirmative procedure for regulations under paragraphs 2 and 4 of new Schedule 1A”.
This is what the amendment seeks to achieve. I beg to move.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the effect of the amendment would be to make regulations prescribing the requirements for a local scheme and prescribing a default scheme subject to the affirmative procedure. I fully recognise that these regulations will be vital to the operation of local schemes and that provisions in the default scheme could influence the decisions that local authorities take about the shape of the scheme that they wish to operate for working-age claimants, which will generally not be covered by the prescribed requirements.
It is because of the importance of both sets of regulations that the Government published their statements of intent in May, setting out in great detail what they intend to cover in these regulations. Importantly, the statement of intent made clear that with a very few limited exceptions the effect of these regulations would be the same as those currently in operation in relation to council tax benefit: that is to say, local schemes will be required to include provision in respect of pension credit-aged claimants that is the same as the current council tax benefit scheme. For the default scheme, regulations will recreate the current scheme for all claimants.
We are today publishing the draft regulations for the local scheme—which in the main will set out the requirements relating to those of state pension credit age, and which I will refer to as the pensioner regulations—and the default scheme. This will put beyond doubt that our intention is to recreate the effect of existing council tax benefit regulations in the default scheme and to require equivalent provision to be made for those of pension credit age in all local schemes.
Council tax benefit regulations have been in force in various forms for a number of years. Local authorities understand their operation and effect. It is not our intention to bring in significant new untested processes and procedures, and by publishing draft regulations well in advance of the regulations actually coming into force, and ahead of Royal Assent, there will be considerable opportunity for scrutiny by local authorities, Members of this House and the other place.
The default scheme is not intended to apply generally, but only in those authorities who fail to adopt a scheme in time, and for the first year of the localised scheme. Thereafter, any scheme in operation in a local authority will in effect be its adopted scheme, and it will be able to review and alter or replace it for 2014. I understand that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has indicated that additional scrutiny is needed because local authorities may choose to model their schemes on the default scheme. If they choose to do this, they will in effect be choosing to model their scheme on the existing regulations. The changes that we will be making in bringing forward our own regulations will be limited and largely confined to taking into account changes in other parts of the welfare system. While local authorities may choose to model their schemes on the default scheme, they will not be required to do so.
In relation to the pensioner regulations, government may from time to time need to amend the regulations. This may be needed to amend cash values in the means test, or to reflect future changes to the welfare system. It would not be a good use of parliamentary time to require a debate each and every time an amendment is required.
In conclusion, I am not persuaded that it is sensible to make subject to the affirmative procedure regulations that will recreate provisions that have been in operation for a number of years and that will be published in draft form for consultation while this Bill is still before the House and well before Report. This will give noble Lords ample opportunity to debate the regulations, and I am not clear what value there would be in further parliamentary debate at the point where they are made. In publishing draft regulations now, noble Lords will nevertheless be able to consider while the Bill is still before Parliament what, if any, provisions in the draft regulations differ sufficiently from the existing regulations to warrant making the regulations subject to the affirmative procedure. I therefore suggest that the noble Lord withdraws his amendment.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. I must say that I am a bit taken aback. I thought that it would be pretty much routine to accept the recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. I thought that the reasoning was a bit spurious. It is welcome that regulations have been published now and welcome that we will, I hope, have some chance to debate them when we get to Report, although debating at that stage is not necessarily the iterative process that we could have in Committee.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Can my noble friend recall any other instance in the past 10 years or so when recommendations from the Delegated Powers Committee suggesting that we go for an affirmative rather than negative procedure have not been followed by the Government?
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I cannot. I can remember one occasion as a Minister when I was minded not to take the advice, but Ministers always did if it was pressed upon them. I am truly shocked by what the Minister says. We have other business to debate tonight so I am not going to prolong the thing, but this is something to which we will come back on Report because I do not think that the answer is satisfactory. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“Council tax discount: vulnerability
The Secretary of State shall issue guidance to all local authorities determining who shall be considered vulnerable for the purposes of eligibility for council tax discount.”
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I was hoping that we would get to this amendment tonight, so we decided that it was not wise to spend time debating Clause 9 stand part.
The amendment would require the Secretary of State to issue guidance as to who is vulnerable. After the sequence of amendments and discussions that we have had, I think that we need that. At the same time, I want to raise the deeper issue behind it, and I assure the Minister that this is in no sense a technical issue but an issue about policy. I therefore look forward to his reply. On his complaint that we sometimes raise things that are technical, that is of course what Grand Committee is for compared, with Report or Second Reading. If we cannot explore the technicalities here, where can we? I take it a little amiss to be reproved for asking about things that are technical and that cannot therefore be answered in this Committee.
Baroness Browning
My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment because it is a very reasonable request to the Government. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, has made a compelling case to do with the individual, as opposed to the locality. If we are about anything in this place, surely we are about how legislation affects the individual. The consequences of not taking the impact on the individual into account are profound, not least in an area where there is, as we have discussed, a lot of other legislation and the cumulative effect could have unintended consequences.
I was very grateful that the Minister’s office sent me a paper, Localising Support for Council Tax: Vulnerable People—Key Local Authority Duties, which I have studied. I was rather concerned to see from the introduction that the Government, despite having,
“been clear that, in developing local council tax reduction schemes, vulnerable groups should be protected”,
none the less go on to explain, in paragraph 1.3, that, with the exception of,
“applicants of state pension credit age … the Government did not intend to prescribe the protection that local authorities should provide for other vulnerable groups, but would consider what guidance was needed to ensure local authorities were able take into account existing duties in relation to vulnerable groups in designing their schemes”.
It would be helpful to hear how the Government intend to put that promise into practice and to have a better understanding of how the Government define vulnerable people, particularly those who come under the category of disability. The Government have prayed in aid the equality duty by which all local authorities are bound. The relevant protected characteristics are covered by the equality duty. Disability is just listed as “disability” but there are other vulnerable groups there. It is important to get more clarification of that vulnerability.
I say to the Committee that you could write my knowledge of local government finance on the back of an envelope; it is very much based on my 18 years as a Member of Parliament, dealing with constituency casework. There are certain things that I spent a lot of time dealing with but others that are quite a mystery to me. However, one thing that is clear throughout the country is that you have district authorities that will administer council tax, as will unitary authorities, but a lot of the vulnerability of the individual is not actually dealt with by a district council but by a county council. You could argue that unitaries should have an overview of the whole shooting match and a better understanding of it, but as regards disability and the individual’s needs, a social services department will have a lot of knowledge and awareness of what those needs are, but you could not expect the district council administering the council tax to have very much knowledge of them at all. I cannot see an obvious tie-up between the two.
Lord Deben
My Lords, I am so often in agreement with the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, that I hesitate to intervene, but this is entirely the wrong way round and I deeply disagree with her. This is a very important aspect of what we are doing because the problem with localism is that everyone who has ever been concerned with centralism will find on every occasion that it will be better done by those clever people at the centre. What was behind the noble Baroness’s comments was to say, “The vulnerable will be protected only if we at the centre make sure that no one has any input on this at all in case they might make a different measure and balance, given their available resources”.
I must say that I really wonder what I would say if I had been a local councillor and had heard her comments about what was likely to happen if the local council had made these decisions. The noble Baroness represented a Labour council that decided that in local terms it would bilk the Government’s policy on the sale of council houses. It said, “We have a right to do this”. My noble friend was the one who had to stop the council doing that because it was a government policy, but the council took its own view. It was against the law. It actually broke the law in order to uphold localism as it saw it.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, we did not break the law. I actually won the first round for judicial review. It was only when subsequently it was clear that it would cost the local authority a lot of money if we went to appeal—against Lord Denning—that I decided that we would negotiate. What then happened was that the regional officer was sent in to run the sale of council housing for us and, after six weeks—I was deposed as housing chair—he came knocking at my door saying, “Could we discuss this?” He was hidden behind a huge bouquet of flowers. I said “Of course, of course”. He said, “No one will work with me because when I’m gone, you will still be there”. I said, “Oh, dear me”. We negotiated and six weeks later, he went off to Africa as a chaplain and we went back to where we were.
Lord Deben
As we are going down memory lane, I will just remind the noble Baroness that no other local council thought what her council thought about the law. Everyone else accepted that the law was as it was, and indeed it was the law of the land. I am not blaming her for it; I was cheering her on. In those days, she did think that localism mattered, even in a matter so clearly a national policy. My problem with everything she has said is that I have heard it again and again, but normally from officials. Normally it is central government civil servants who sit there and say, “Better not, Minister. If you allow people down there to make decisions, you never know what might happen”. I would say this to her: you have got to start somewhere. Why can we not start here? After all, council tax is a local tax. It is ludicrous to say that the tax is local but the arrangements for the tax rebate should be national. I find that unacceptable and therefore I hope very much that the Ministers will not read out a concession or a helpful comment. I want the Ministers to be tough about this and say, “This is a matter for local authorities”. If local people don’t like it and think the local authority has not been generous enough or has not used the extra funds from something it is able to control—I hope that local authorities will be controlling more and more because I believe in localism—those local people have in their hands the ability to change the authority. This is exactly what has destroyed local government over the years, and my party has been as guilty of it as others. We are always frightened about giving local councillors the real decisions about things.
I do not want to go too much into the detail, but I can also argue that not all reasons for local council tax rebates are central and national. I can cite a lot of examples where the pressures and the concerns about vulnerability are different in some parts of the country from others. Rural areas have different demands with regard to vulnerability from close-knit communities. I merely say that one could go through a list of those.
I come now to the thing that really made me stand up. It was the use of the phrase “postcode lottery” by the noble Baroness. It is a Daily Mail argument that she should never use.
Lord Deben
We want postcode decisions, not a postcode lottery. We want local authorities to make their own decisions about their own communities and their own priorities. What has been wrong in this society for too long is the use of this ridiculous argument.
The noble Baroness says, “You may be on the wrong side of the line”. Well, frankly, that depends on what you think is the wrong side of the line. It may be that in a particular locality, scarce resources are used in a different way from the neighbouring locality. That does not mean to say that you are on the wrong side of the line, it means that you are on the wrong side of the line as defined by the noble Baroness. That is the trouble. Central government has always believed that defining these lines is the business of central government and never of anyone else.
When I was Secretary of State for the Environment I remember addressing a local government conference. When I said that I believed we should do nothing in Brussels that we could not do in Westminster, but what we had to do in Brussels we should do well, and we should never do anything in Westminster that we could do in county hall, but that anything we do in Westminster should be done well, I was cheered. When I went on to say that we should nothing in county hall that we could not do in district council offices, I was cheered again. But when I said that we should do nothing in district council offices that we could not do in the parish council, I was booed. Why was that? It was because everybody believes in subsidiarity—up to there. The moment you talk about subsidiarity below them, all hell breaks loose. The world will fall apart and vulnerable people will be totally stamped on—because we are the only people who know.
That was a very good example of “the man in Whitehall knows best”. It was always the purpose of centralists to claim that no one else could make decisions. I have been longing to say this about the postcode lottery and the moment has come, because it is exactly that which we are fighting against. I must say to my noble friend the Minister that, if she gives way on this, she will be taking away the fundamental element of proper localism; that is, you risk local people making decisions that are different from those that you would make. That is the challenge of localism. The noble Baroness has given us the opportunity to take the most difficult example and say, “No, here we stand”.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
How then would the noble Lord explain why council tax benefit was originally included in universal credit and the White Paper, why all the planning assumptions were based on that and why it was only subsequently extracted in a deal between departments? How does this have anything to do with localism as a principle?
Lord Deben
It is because the Government have not gone far enough yet; that is the whole point. I would have a different structure, but the noble Baroness must not ask me to answer for the Government. I am lucky enough to be formerly a Minister and to be able to say one or two things which need to be said. I disagree with the noble Baroness, but she will find on other occasions that I am stalwart in support of some of the things that she says which this Government do not agree with. However, on this occasion, I beg my noble friend to stand firm.
Baroness Donaghy
I must admit that I enjoyed that. I even agree with one or two points that the noble Lord, Lord Deben, made. I look back to the days when local government had real power and it would be good if that happened again. Given the more centralist-inclined Governments that we have had during the past 30 years, that is probably not very likely.
As your Lordships will see, my name is attached to the amendment. That was a mistake; it was a case of mistaken identity. When the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, went to table the amendment, my name was put down instead of hers. I cannot imagine why, but I was very happy to keep my name on it even though I did not put it there. Incidentally, on the same day, having sorted out that one to our satisfaction, I sat down and found that my name had been added to a debate in the main Chamber on the misuse of alcohol. I was considerably more worried about that.
Baroness Browning
I would have been very happy to have had my name added to the debate on the misuse of alcohol.
Baroness Donaghy
I thought that there might be some misunderstanding, so I went to the office to sort it out and realised that it was the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, who was supposed to be on the speakers list and not me. However, since then, my post box has been full of mail from organisations urging me to carry on my campaign against misuse of alcohol. That was to add a little to the fun.
I understand that the amendment, to which my name is attached, is to some extent a contradiction in terms, which is what I accused the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, of doing earlier on. If we get a national description of vulnerability, it will go against the spirit of imposing these varying cuts on different people. However, the whole point of the amendment is to show how difficult it will be to make judgments about who is vulnerable in different areas of society. I come from a town where, in the case of some kinds of vulnerability, people are treated very badly in the streets, being knocked over, booed, spat at and all sorts of things. There is not much understanding there. The local council may well attract quite a bit of support if those people are all cut from local council tax benefit.
Making judgments about what I would regard as a human right is a serious issue and should be compared with making judgments about, for example, the right of a local person to vote in or vote out their council. There is a worry there. What we are expecting at the moment is that councillors should do more and more for less and less resource, which is very much what Governments have been doing for quite a long time. This is the basic Hobson’s choice, with councils being asked to do an impossible job impossibly. They are going to be making decisions about work incentives, as I said earlier; they are being told to exempt pensioners, who in some areas are the majority of those who enjoy this particular benefit, and they are being asked to identify those considered vulnerable but given no guidance about it. All I have to say is that I am very glad that I am not a local councillor. It must be a horrible job to have to do. But if we are going to have a debate about centralism versus localism, let it at least be a comprehensive issue and not just a rather enjoyable debate of this kind. It should be one where we can genuinely ask where those decisions should be taken. When they interfere with people’s basic human rights, I think that there is a difficulty.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I would not agree that being a local councillor is a horrible job, but it is quite often more difficult than people imagine. I have two fundamental questions that I want to raise arising from the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis.
In relation to what my noble friend Lady Rumbold said—
Lord Greaves
My noble friend Lady Browning, I am sorry. The noble Baroness is being mixed up with everybody today. I have been mixing them up for many years. I am coming to the view that perhaps we should close down this Grand Committee and go home, but we shall struggle on.
On the points that my noble friend Lady Browning made about local councillors, I believe that they will be able to make a good fist of this, but the problem is, as the amendment says, they will be making it on the basis of different criteria and views in different places. The question is whether that is a legitimate argument in favour of localism so well put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, or whether it is a step too far.
The noble Lord attacked the postcode lottery, and I, too, cringe when I hear that phrase. It is an attack on localism and local decision-making by centralists everywhere, whether they are in the Daily Mail, the Labour Party or anywhere else. It is not a phrase that I would ever use, and it is something that I attack all the time. However, we do not want everything done at parish council level. I can imagine a situation in which the next time this country decides to go to war and invade a country such as Iraq the Army will be raised in a traditional manner by people going round and rounding people up whom they find in the fields and streets. Each parish council will be allowed to decide whether people should be rounded up from its parish, or not. That may be the way in which the Army is going with its cuts—that is the future—but I doubt it.
I am making a very important point, which the noble Lord, Lord Deben, made, that there are levels of government. I am a passionate localist and believer in subsidiarity, but I am also a federalist in the sense that there are different layers of government. The important thing is that each layer of government and democratic control should be responsible for those things appropriate to that layer. The noble Lord mentioned the European Union and Westminster, local authorities and parishes. The principle should be to push things down to the relevant levels. That is what I believe in. The argument is not whether everything should be done at parish level or even district council level—although I would be delighted with that, as long as we had the funding. The argument is what the appropriate level is to push things down to. The argument we have here is whether the council tax reduction—the council tax benefit, as it is now—should be a national benefit under which people in the country are all treated the same or whether that itself is appropriate to localism. On balance, I come to the view that it should be a national benefit decided at national level, precisely for the reasons that noble Lords have put forward. I do not think that that makes me any less of a localist.
The problem with the amendment was raised by the equally passionate speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, in moving it. She was speaking to the question of the level of the council tax reduction which will take place, whereas the amendment is about something more fundamental. The noble Lord, Lord Deben, explained the difference: it is about eligibility, not the level of the benefit. None of us have any hope of persuading the Government on the level of the benefit. I think that they are absolutely determined that it will go ahead on the basis that local authorities will make their own decisions. However, it ought to be possible to persuade them that the amendment has merit, particularly if the guidance was made on the basis not that it was government guidance of the traditional sort, which is actually an instruction which you disobey at your peril, but genuine guidance, where local authorities could improve the protection for disabled people—in other words, if the government’s guidance was an accepted minimum. Discussion might take place around that idea.
My second point was to go back to the 1930s. I am conscious that when I picked up the point made by the noble Baroness about the 1930s last week, Hansard thought that I had said the 1830s. Let me make it clear that I am talking about the 1930s, but the system was very much the same in the 1830s. The reason why the system of benefits was nationalised and the old localised Poor Law was abolished is that too many places were being too mean. The local position with the workhouses, and so on, was in some places unacceptable and therefore had to be raised to a standard level for everyone. The danger is that if you allow local authorities to decide on the level of benefit or, as we are now discussing, eligibility, some will behave in an appalling manner. That results in the wheel turning and rules and regulations having to be set out to prevent them doing that.
However, that was not always the case. There was at least one instance in the London Borough of Poplar in the 1920s, when it was run by a man called George Lansbury, when the local authority started to behave in a very generous manner and, in particular, started giving out relief—in other words, benefits in cash and kind that meant that people did not have to go into the workhouse but could continue to live in the community. The local authority was taken to court and to judicial review and was prevented from being too generous.
I say to the Government: be careful what you wish for, because the time will come, when economic growth resumes in this country, when it is easier for local authorities and other bodies to develop new schemes. Local authorities will have been given a power of general competence and at some time—who knows when?—there may be resources for local authorities to do things that central government think are outrageous because they are being too generous, not too mean. As I said, be careful what you wish for.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
The noble Lord, Lord Deben, gave us a rousing speech, but I did not hear him address the argument made by my noble friend Lady Hollis, which is that the needs arising from vulnerabilities are not locally determined, they are the same, regardless of where a person lives. I wonder whether the noble Lord would argue that the Government were wrong to protect pensioners from above, because for some reason, pensioners are being treated as part of a national scheme whereas people below pension age, who may be just as vulnerable, are not being treated as part of a national scheme.
Lord Deben
I thought that I made it clear that the assessment of vulnerability does not necessarily have to be central . I do not happen to think that if it were local it would be any less unpleasant or pleasant than if it were done centrally. As to the comment about whether the Government are protecting this group rather than another, I was suggesting that this is at least one step in the direction in which local people can have some real control over what they want to do.
The idea that they will all be less generous than the Government seems to be rather rude about locality and it shows that in the end people do not believe in localism because they always think that people at the top will make a better decision than people at the bottom. I just happen to think that Suffolk County Council does it much better.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
I certainly do not want to be rude about local authorities. Some things should be locally determined, but this is not one of them. I am sure that my noble friend Lady Hollis will return to that much better than I could.
I want to raise one point that I know will cut absolutely no mustard with the noble Lord: the position of people who move between local authorities, which some government policies encourage them to do. If there is no national guidance on vulnerability, they will not know how they will be treated when they move from one authority to another. The researchers in the report that I quoted earlier by Demos and Scope, said that they were struck by an “oppressive sense of uncertainty” that many disabled people were living with which,
“clearly jeopardised their emotional wellbeing”.
Without clear guidance, that uncertainty will be aggravated.
It is not only disabled people who feel uncertainty; it is part of living in poverty. There is a sense of insecurity and uncertainty. At least national guidance would allow people to know how they would be treated when they moved from one authority to another.
Lord Shipley
Perhaps I may raise one issue that we have not pinned down yet: whether the failure to define “vulnerability” may prove to be a legal issue that could be challenged through judicial review? I would appreciate the Minister's guidance in reply as to whether the Government are really happy that the failure to define “vulnerability” may actually prove to be a difficulty.
I think that vulnerability includes the working poor. They may not immediately be regarded as a vulnerable group, but in terms of all the benefit changes in welfare reform that are being implemented, they may prove to be seriously vulnerable. The Secretary of State should issue guidance on what “vulnerable” means. I think back to several long debates in the Localism Bill about what “sustainable development” meant. It actually mattered that we reached a common understanding. Without a common understanding between different local authorities acting in the spirit of localism, which I applaud, I fear that you may end up with judicial review from organisations that believe that their council has not properly considered the definition of “vulnerability”. It would therefore be much better if the Secretary of State issued guidance. That guidance could be advisory as opposed to statutory, but there needs to be a government view about this. Otherwise, we will head for some difficulty in the months ahead.
Baroness Sherlock
I would like to pick up where the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, left off because he made the point that I was going to make. I want to add just one thing. Irrespective of the debates about where the decisions should be located in general, the point about vulnerability is one that the Government brought into play. He said that the Government made a decision and said, in their own documentation:
“The Government has been clear that, in developing local council tax reduction schemes, vulnerable groups should be protected”.
The Government have put this issue out there, so it is not unreasonable for a local authority to say, “What do you mean by ‘vulnerable’?”. I spoke to one local authority last week that was extremely concerned that, almost irrespective of what definition it chooses, it will end up being subject to legal review because it will exclude some people, and it cannot imagine any way in which it could do that that would not have that consequence. In responding, the Minister may point out that a local authority could choose to adopt the default scheme and therefore the legal responsibility would lie with the Government, but that would work only if the authority has the resources available to be able to make good the difference. It does not apply to any other scheme or variation of it that it could take on.
I am very much with the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, who pointed out that there is a very real risk, in addition to the legal point, that the Government are raising expectations by reassuring everybody that vulnerable groups will be protected without explaining what that means. That makes it even harder for local councils to justify whatever decision they take that is short of the total quantum of vulnerability that could be defined out there.
I will make one final point, triggered by something that the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, said. One of the difficult areas in policy and one of the reasons why some decisions should be made centrally is that some kinds of vulnerability are not seen on a sufficiently large scale in an individual area for local councils to be expected reasonably to understand them and make prescriptions about them. It is analogous, perhaps, to health policy where, in commissioning, there will still be certain kinds of rare conditions that are dealt with centrally. Sometimes there are good policy reasons, even if one is being localist, to have guidance coming from the centre so that people can reasonably be expected to understand vulnerabilities that they may not encounter every day. Can the Minister perhaps address that as well?
Lord Smith of Leigh
My Lords, I have found this debate and the ones previously on Amendments 76 and 76A fascinating. I need to remind noble Lords that I am still leader of Wigan Council. Therefore, for me, this is not a theoretical debate. I will have to determine a scheme within my authority, with colleagues, that will decide who is eligible, who is not eligible, which group will be regarded as vulnerable and which group will not be regarded as vulnerable. It will not be easy. I was going to say that it is not a zero-sum game, but I remind noble Lords that it is not even a minus 10% game; it is a minus 20% game if we exclude pensioners. So we are lucky in that sense.
I find myself agreeing with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said about localism. I recognise what he said and I agree with it. Where I would differ from him and what we need to recognise is that local authorities come at this with very different needs in terms of the number of people who are receiving council tax benefits, as has been said earlier, and the potential changes, as I mentioned earlier. I already know from being in this meeting that I have 100 more people who will be regarded as needing council tax benefits as a result of their factory closing this afternoon. So these things are changing all the time, and we need to recognise that.
I have had some interesting solutions to my dilemma from various quarters today, such as applying reserves. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, is absolutely right. My treasurer is already coming to me to say, “You are going to lose probably £500,000 on your council tax collection because these people are not going to be able to afford to pay the cost, so you have to think about that”. We have talked about the problems of increasing demands on council tax benefits as it becomes a local thing, and I think that the noble Lord is right that we will do it much better than it is done at the moment, so that probably will encourage more people who do not claim at the moment to start to claim.
Earlier in this Bill we talked about the problems of business rates and the fact that they will have some risk element, so we will have to put that in. We talked about the flexibility of council tax, which is a very interesting phrase. Perhaps the Minister could let me know whether he means by “flexibility of council tax” that he is going to allow me to put the council tax up and is not going to require me to hold a referendum. I cannot believe that anyone sensible is going to say that they are going to have a referendum to put council tax benefits up: “Please vote for it and you will pay more council tax”. We would never win that, so it is not going to work.
We have heard that we should make further cuts. In my authority I am planning £66 million of cuts over four years. The Government thankfully gave me some warning and we have them in place. If I now have to make more cuts to accommodate all this—probably between £2.5 million and £3 million-worth—where are they going to come from? What have I got to do that I am not already looking at? I need to remind noble Lords that it is the vulnerable groups who rely most on councils’ services. If I cut services to vulnerable groups, they suffer. I can put up daily charges or raise the qualification for receiving social care. All these things affect vulnerable groups and there is no easy solution.
The difficulty for me is this. Presumably all the people we give council tax benefit to are regarded as vulnerable people, otherwise we should not be giving them that benefit. If we start to define vulnerability—here I echo what the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said, as well as the comments of other noble Lords about the needs of different groups in communities—the danger is that we will define who are the deserving and the non-deserving poor. In the future, there will be people who get council tax benefit support and those who either get less or nothing.
A lot of vulnerable groups have strong lobbying sectors, but the ones who do not get that kind of support are the working poor. I remind the Committee that we are talking about a marginalised and alienated group in our society made up of people who do not vote very much at the moment. But they could be tempted to vote by extremists who say, “We will listen to you”. It is happening in certain communities. People are listening to those who are giving them false promises. We know that Respect, which was mentioned by the noble Baroness, the BNP or whatever group it is will offer things that they cannot deliver. The result of this Bill and the way we will have to design the council tax support scheme will drive more and more people to the political extremes. Are we doing a good job here?
Lord Best
My Lords, I am provoked to give a short preview of the amendments tabled in my name that are to follow—but not tonight. However, I thought I might briefly whet appetites because they relate so closely to what we are talking about. I see that noble Lords are all agog.
These amendments are about more localism. They are about removing some of the inhibitions on councils deciding precisely how they want to raise the funds that will pay the £400 million the Treasury is waiting for. They are about whether pensioners are included or not included as a vulnerable group being decided locally. This is the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Deben. In my full and unamended speech I will say that there are many grounds on which pensioners might already be treated slightly more favourably than some of the other vulnerable groups. I will contend that in respect of the groups that are considered to be vulnerable, local authorities should have greater discretion, and suggest that local authorities should also have greater flexibility in how they raise council tax, not only in respect of the current discounts for empty and second homes, but in respect of single person discounts. I will explain that if local authorities were allowed to vary the single person discount, currently fixed at 25% and set centrally by diktat from Whitehall, some might choose to reduce that discount across the board to 20%, meaning that all those who currently receive it would have to pay another 46 pence a week. It is not a vast sum, but it would raise more than the £400 million across the piece and make it unnecessary for us to define vulnerable groups and get ourselves into all kinds of tangles in reducing support for the very poorest in our communities. In advance of moving those amendments and in the context of this debate, I thought that noble Lords might like to hear the preview.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, we have had a longer and more entertaining debate than many of us thought we would have. We had the Browning versions, two of them, and we have had an interesting conflict between Norfolk and Suffolk. I hesitate to arbitrate between those two counties. In relation to the remarks by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, from time to time, I have been tempted to form a society for the preservation of the postcode lottery. In some areas of policy, it is absolutely the right line to take. We have had too much regimentation and prescription nationally about what should and should not be done.
However, we are not talking about policies here but about the people’s basic right to a minimum income. To take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, to its logical conclusion, we would have differential benefits across the piece. We would have different benefits for disabled people, pensions, child benefit and whatever up and down the country, determined locally. The noble Lord shakes his head, but where is the difference? The difference that he advances is that council tax is raised locally, but that is an irrelevance to the person looking at his disposable income that he has to deploy in support of his family. Where the localism part should come in—not the faux localism of the Poor Law—is that you would have a national basic minimum entitlement which, if the local authority thought it right, you could increase and enhance benefits. That would seem to be a reasonable application of localism because everybody is guaranteed a national minimum and locally the community may decide to augment it but, in our view, it should not be in a position to reduce it.
One of my noble friends, or perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, referred to Localising Support for Council Tax Vulnerable People. Paragraph 3.4, about equality information and engagement, states in connection with child poverty that:
“authorities will be required to take into account their local child poverty needs assessment”.
That is fine.
“Local authorities should be able to design localised council tax reduction schemes in a way that best suits local circumstances, tailored to what child poverty looks like”—
looks like—
“in the local area”.
I will tell you what child poverty looks like in any area. It is the undernourished child going to school, perhaps dependent on free school meals. These days, he may have to go to a breakfast club to get a breakfast. According to a recent survey, 50% of teachers are going into schools with food that they can distribute to the children. Child poverty is children going badly clothed, living in fuel poverty so the house is cold, and perhaps with dysfunctional families, although that is, of course, not simply a financial matter. This can occur anywhere. These children can be found in the city that the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and I have represented and led and in the city that the noble Lord, Lord Smith, still leads. They can be found in villages in Suffolk, I guess, and in Norfolk, and in Kensington and Chelsea for that matter. They can be found anywhere. As my noble friend said, it is not locality that determines the character of poverty. It may possibly exacerbate a basic condition of poverty, but locality is not the determining condition, and it should not be locality that determines the basic support given to children in poverty or, indeed, to any other vulnerable group. To say that this is somehow an issue of localism is to pervert the proper definition of localism. The noble Lord has advanced a weak argument—from the best of motives because, in policy generally, he has a strong point. But in this area it is entirely misconceived.
Lord Deben
Let us take child poverty of the kind that the noble Lord described which is certainly true in some of our villages in Suffolk. It is up to the local authority to decide whether it is going to spend its resources making sure that those children all have a hot meal and all have breakfast rather than by having a special element in the council tax arrangements to deal with that. If the noble Lord feels that there is not enough elbow room for local authorities, I wish he would listen to his noble friend’s comments, because it seems to me that we should be pushing for many more opportunities for local people to have the resources to do the things that matter. How you deal with poverty in very distant rural areas is very different from the way in which you deal with it in Limehouse.
Lord Beecham
With respect, a decent basic family income is needed. That is the starting point. I entirely agree with him about the other things. Matters for local concern include how much should be put into the school meals service, what price should be charged for school meals, and how you promote the take-up of these benefits. That is a strong function of local government, particularly as the Government, as I said in a previous debate in Committee, declined to say, in answer to a parliamentary Question of mine, that they would make efforts to increase the take-up of benefits. The £1.8 billion of unclaimed council tax benefit—much of it, by the way, due to owner-occupying pensioners—is a matter that local councils could and should be promoting.
In my authority, I helped to initiate the welfare rights service in 1974, when I was chairman of the social services committee. Under administrations of different political colours, it has been a very successful authority in promoting take-up of one kind or another. However, that is not the same thing as having a sound basic income. Of course, some authorities have been looking at options. I have here 13 pages of options about local council tax support and one of them is to remove child benefit income disregards. At the moment, that is a national provision. That is one option that they are considering and no doubt they will be consulting, along with the other 40 or 50 recommendations, in the short time that they have before they have to implement them, as we heard earlier. The effect of that on 2,025 families would potentially be an average difference per week of £3.09. That is not a lot to anyone in this room but for people who are living on the margins, that £3 a week is quite significant. That is something that, under the dispensation of the noble Lord, Deben, that particular council has on the table, although I am not saying that it will choose that. I do not think that this is at all acceptable.
We are debating this matter in the Moses Room. We have Moses and the “Judgment of Daniel”. It occurred to me that the judgment of another of my co-religionists might have been relevant in these debates, the judgment of Solomon, as that is what we are looking at. We are looking at utterly impossible decisions about how you carve up—not in this case a child—child benefit or many of these other benefits. That is not acceptable in a modern society.
To return to the remarks made earlier this afternoon by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, there is certainly a balance between local and central. The Government are offloading responsibilities to localities in a way that is absolutely irrelevant to the needs of the people who most need that basic entitlement which, thank God, has been extended to them since we got rid of the Poor Law and that kind of local decision-making which was in the hands of a minority of people which so damaged the lives of generations of our citizens.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I refer to the comments just made by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, and by one or two other Members of the Committee about the present situation. The noble Lord has defined people in poverty and children in poverty and what is happening now under a national scheme. It is not a scheme that is operated by local authorities but one that is operated nationally. I am sure that the noble Lord will have known of many people who have looked for disability allowance and carers’ allowance, who have not been granted them. Do not start by thinking that the current scheme is brilliant because it is not. There are certainly disparities across the country where there are different needs. There may be different needs in cities or in rural areas for children in poverty and children in need. It is for local authorities to decide where those vulnerable people are. There will be more disabled people and pensioners in one local authority than there will be in another. Would it not be right for that local authority to have the right to make the decisions on what is required and make a scheme according to what it knows and who lives in the area? We have had a long dissertation today on vulnerability but it actually turned out to be yet another go at the scheme itself.
The fact of the matter is that the council benefit scheme was removed entirely from universal credit and there is therefore not the slightest point in trying to equate the two and include the scheme again. We are dealing with a situation where localism and local authorities are going to deal with council tax benefit, otherwise there would not be any such benefit—or else there would have to be some form of top slicing to enable the money to be raised. Let us get real about this. Let us be absolutely clear what we are talking about. We are talking about putting the scheme locally because we believe—I accept that the Opposition does not—that local authorities can be trusted to develop schemes that are relevant to people in their areas.
The noble Baroness and one or two others talked about the dividing line between what happens regarding those schemes in Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea, Rotherham and Preston. Local authorities are already administering schemes. They make decisions daily on criteria regarding who is eligible for one scheme or another. They do that in relation to children, old people, health and public health. They are making decisions all the time. Why say that they cannot make decisions on this? Of course they can and they consider what schemes they should put together.
The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, produced 20 options. If I was putting together a scheme such as this, I would expect at least 50% of the options to be totally unacceptable. I would know that they were totally unacceptable and that they would never get further than the discussion stage. However, you have to look at those options and take them into account. We need to shift this discussion on to the basis of looking at what local authorities are doing and what they need to do. The council tax benefit scheme is already there with its criteria and all its ramifications. Local authorities know what the current scheme involves.
I simply do not accept the arguments that have been put. I very much thank my noble friend Lord Deben for one of his rare but gallant performances, and for providing some sparkling entertainment between him and the noble Baroness who moved the amendment. The whole discussion turned into an interesting event.
I have screeds of notes that I can tell you all about. Let us start with the setting of guidance on vulnerability, which the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, asked to be included in the Bill. I do not know of any guidance in a Bill, but I know that guidance can be positively directed. The guidance is out today and people can look at it to see what it involves. There is no definition of vulnerability, which needs to be dealt with at a local level. Local authorities are already working within the definitions and they know what they are. Noble Lords look sceptically at me, but if local authorities do not do that, they are not very good local authorities and it is time that someone took a decision about having them changed. Local authorities are well aware of their responsibilities and the guidance will help practitioners to understand the statutory framework in relation to vulnerable people because that is already there. We discussed that earlier when my noble friend Lord Attlee was answering from the Front Bench.
The guidance will remind local authorities of the statutory framework in which they operate and their existing responsibility in relation to people who are vulnerable. Those responsibilities are also included in the statutory duty. Local authorities will have to take account of the equality duty; that is very relevant to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, about disabled people. They have a statutory responsibility to look at that in making local schemes and to have due regard to the need to advance equality of opportunity between people who share the relevant protected characteristics. That is there and they will have to look at it.
I am sure that everybody here knows the relevant characteristics covered by the equality duty. They are age, disability, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, and sex and sexual orientation. The disabled fall very clearly within those criteria. The equality duty is not prescriptive about the approach a public authority should take in order to comply with its legal obligation. However, authorities do have to think consciously about the need to do the things set out in the aims of that duty. I am sure that local authorities will not want to be found wanting under those circumstances. Carers are already covered under the legislation—I think it is this legislation. They will have to be taken into consideration in the same way as part of this.
Baroness Sherlock
Under what legislation are carers to be taken into account? I am not sure what the noble Baroness is referring to.
Baroness Hanham
Oh crumbs, I will stop swinging from the lights. The council tax benefit regulations take carers into account and I am sure that local authorities would want to do that.
Lord Greaves
I apologise to my noble friend, who is doing rather well. In what context will council tax benefit regulations apply when council tax benefit is abolished?
Baroness Hanham
I suspect that they will stay in place, but I will answer that later. I will write to my noble friend. I do not want to be wrong because I am doing very well here.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
It seems unlikely that council tax benefit regulations will apply once council tax benefit is abolished, so rather than prolong the Minister’s agony, perhaps she will write to us as to what statutory authority will ensure that carers’ needs are taken into account as part of the vulnerability guidance.
Baroness Hanham
I do not want the noble Baroness to think that any of this has put me into agony. We will write about council tax benefit; but it is all there under the default scheme.
I was asked a number of questions—in fact, there have been a number of stirring speeches—and I have already responded to my noble friend Lady Browning: I do not think that guidance will be in the Bill, but the guidance is there now and she can see what it is.
I am sorry that I cannot remember who asked the question, but I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, about how the precepting authorities and the precepted authorities will work. There will be a requirement to consult: the billing authority will have to consult with the precepting authority to make sure that their policies are aligned. That seems to be the most sensible way of doing it and, presumably, if there is a great difficulty between one and the other, they will resolve it themselves.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, this is not a formality: I thank everyone who has taken part. In a way, the Committee caught alight on this, and it is good that that was on such an important issue.
The noble Baroness, Lady Browning, was right when she said that there was an issue about precepting and billing authorities, which the Minister referred to at the end: the knowledge is on one side and the billing authority is constructing the discount scheme on the other. The lesson that I suggest to the Minister that we take from that is a different one: that you should certainly consult and should have time to consult. She should therefore think again about her response and that of her colleague, the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, to my noble friend’s amendment about the ability to delay, because I assure her that it just will not be possible to get the schemes in alignment and, having done that, to move them out to public consultation all within the financial cycle, ready for introduction in April. That will not work. The Minister, as well as the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, has made our point for us in spades. I hope that as a result she will be able to review the Government's position on the amendment in due course.
I have the greatest admiration for the noble Lord, Lord Deben; on many issues we have been side by side and he was the Minister who, above all, stopped planning in local authorities being subject to the free market, a legacy bequeathed by his colleague Nicholas Ridley, a former Secretary of State for the Environment, which allowed many of us to protect our historic buildings, streets and centres. The noble Lord is in the book of the almost very good in most local authorities, and I am sure that he would want to keep that reputation intact.
No one doubts that planning is a local decision. Obviously there are inspectors and so on, but none the less it is local. However, when you have a number of elderly folk who need care and support and the local authority—rightly, in my view—makes a decision about whether it is more appropriate in its area to go for residential care or, possibly because it is a rural area, to go for extended domiciliary services, it is right and proper that one local authority should differ from another according to the geography and nature of the locality. The noble Lord and I have no differences about that; I was not in local government for 25 years to knock localism. That is why I bothered with it, as do many people in this Room today.
However, it is not a matter of centralism versus localism when you come to the individual entitlement to income. It is simply a different category. In planning, the planning authority is acting as umpire between local residents and car drivers. In residential care, it is a case of deciding how a particular type of need is best met, and many flowers may bloom. However, individual entitlement to income is a basic human right and not part of the proper territory of debate between centralism and localism. This is not about the clever people in the centre knowing best, to copy the noble Lord’s words—that really is an absurd statement—but neither do local people know best. Will the noble Lord argue equally that, because joblessness rises in a locality, unemployment benefit should be locally determined? I await his reply.
Lord Deben
Unemployment benefit does not relate to a local tax. We are talking about a local tax, and in a locality it would be sensible for a local council, for example, to say that the way to deal with child poverty in this area is to spend the money on providing the means for them to be fed because it had discovered that by doing it in another way the children did not get the food because the parents used it elsewhere. That is a perfectly reasonable thing for people to decide.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
We could have another argument about whether to have cash or benefits in kind, but the point about income is that it is a national entitlement. We have accepted that for unemployment benefit, I think. Even though the lack of a job may arise because of the peculiar distinctiveness of the locality, we do not then say that, as a result, that should determine the level of unemployment benefit. Equally in housing, rents and policy are determined locally. Is the noble Baroness going to argue that housing benefit should also be a local benefit as opposed to a national one? I do not think so. The main argument that he has used is that because council tax is levied locally, council tax benefit should be structured locally. That takes no account of the fact that half the country is in two-tier authorities where they have no control over what the precepting authority may levy on the billing authority, yet the billing authority takes the problem, cost and moral responsibility for the discount scheme that runs. As a former MP for an area with a rural district council in Suffolk, the noble Lord will know that as well as anyone. His argument does not run in two-tier authorities—it cannot, because the council tax is not generated by the billing authority that is constructing the discount scheme, and any toughness in the scheme to impress on people what their value for money is does not relate to that particular billing authority.
Lord Deben
They do have control over it—they have an election. If they do not like what the county council has done they can vote against it. If the noble Baroness is really saying that the only system that people can understand is a single-tier system, she is making a mistake that is very much wider than this. Many people know which do what, and, if they do not like what one of them does, they vote against them in the local election, as we all know.
Lord Beecham
Does my noble friend agree that although there is a significant reduction in the amount of central government support for the benefit, it is still approximately 90% government funded? So it is going towards a council tax, but the funding is still essentially central. Unfortunately, some more of it will fall on the locality as a result of what the Government are doing, but the greater part is still centrally funded.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, that is absolutely true, even more so in two-tier authorities where 75% of the expenditure that falls on local residents is through the county council precept. The precepting authority does not have to do the same as the billing authority, which has to devise the discount scheme.
I understand the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, on the postcode lottery, because I would defend local decision-making as far as possible. The point here is that what a local authority has in terms of resources will depend on the accident of the demography of its particular locality. If only 30% of its population are pensioners, it will have to find a lower degree of cut on people’s working age than if 60% of its population are pensioners. That is an accident of demography. Equally, when anybody seeks help with their council tax discount, it will be determined not by their own efforts, their willingness to vote or the resources of the local authority, but by how many pensioners and other vulnerable people are ahead of them in the queue. That is not localism; it is rationing by queue, with central government having already determined that certain constraints, such as the number of pensioners, shall be imposed on the system. In that sense it is random—you need not call it a postcode lottery, but it is one. The size of cut that your locality will face is accidental, and it will not necessarily bear a resemblance to your particular need. Even though it may be identical in the neighbouring authority, it will experience a different income because the demographics will be different. That is not reasonable.
I suggest to the noble Lord and the Minister that if there were no proposition to find £500 million of cuts, there would be no such scheme about localising council tax benefit before us today. This is not localism; it is the exporting of cuts to localities by central government and then dressing it up in the fancy clothes of localisation issues, even though people’s needs have not originated by virtue of the locality and the random demography of that patch will determine who gets what. That is not localism. It is exporting cuts without any constraints, which will be experienced differentially by vulnerable people who happen to have been unlucky in the lottery of living in one authority rather than another. I regard that as deeply unfair.
As my noble friend Lord Smith said about where the cuts will fall, it is not about centralism versus localism but about the centre exporting its cuts. The noble Lord, Lord Best, may speak to his amendments on a subsequent day in Committee. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, was absolutely right. Given this distinctiveness between local authorities, there will be judicial reviews. Mencap will run them if CPAG does not, according to how they are treated. They will probably have a very good case.
The Minister said that local authorities should, in her words, develop schemes that are relevant to their authorities. That challenges the core of my argument. She assumes that vulnerability and poverty are so peculiar and distinctive to a particular local authority as to justify separate local schemes. I simply do not accept that for one moment. Whether you are autistic, have a disability, are a carer with an elderly mum or are a child in poverty, it is not generated by your locality although it may be experienced in your locality. Given that it is not distinctive to your locality, it is not relevant to your local authority. Therefore, there should be a national scheme.
I leave the Minister with two questions. Who will she exclude from the scheme? We know that pensioners are automatically covered. Unfortunately, we have not had the pleasure of seeing the guidance because it did not come out on Friday but on the very day when we are sitting. Therefore, we cannot cross-refer to it, which is shame. The Minister says that vulnerable people will apparently be protected. The working poor will also need to be protected, so who is not? That is 100%. Who is not protected? Who does the Minister think should see their council tax benefit cut, given that pensioners, vulnerable people and the working poor and their incentives are protected?
Secondly, if there was no £500 million cut, does the Minister think that any local authority in the land would seek to establish its own distinctive council tax scheme and to pull it out of universal credit? She knows that would not happen. I have put two questions to her. She is welcome to respond to me—to tell me what is wrong with council tax benefit, who is already covered but should be excluded and whether, if we did not need £500 million of cuts, any local authority would touch this scheme with a barge pole. I think everyone in this Room today knows the answer to all those questions. They are not answers that enforce the Minister’s argument.
Baroness Hanham
I have answered the questions that the noble Baroness has asked me today if not on previous days. I am sure we will return to them. We have had an extremely wide debate today, although we are not over our time. I repeat that local authorities know very well who their local people who need help and support are. That is a very localist issue. The noble Baroness may not agree with me but those are my words on the subject. She gave me the opportunity to say so.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I simply disagree. According to the knowledge of the local authority—or not as the case may be—individuals may see their entitlement to income support decreased. However, the time is late; I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, this may be a convenient moment to adjourn the Committee until Thursday at 2 pm.
House of Lords
Schools: Primary School Places
(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to create 450,000 additional primary school places across England before the next general election.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)
My Lords, while it is the responsibility of local authorities to manage the supply of primary places, we have doubled the rate of spending on primary school places from the levels we inherited. In addition, we have allocated a further £1.1 billion over the past year, bringing to £2.7 billion the total we have given to local authorities so far to support additional places. We are working closely with local authorities and will work to reduce costs so that every pound spent goes as far as possible.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
I thank the Minister for that reply. Can he assure parents that sufficient, properly designed classrooms will be provided to meet all this extra demand? Does he agree that it is unacceptable for teaching to take place in temporary buildings that are not designed for this purpose, as increasingly seems to be the case currently? Do the Government now accept the folly of cancelling the Building Schools for the Future project without having a comparative school-building programme in place? Why are they continuing to give priority to funding new free schools when are not necessarily sited in places of greatest demand and there still remains a shortfall in funding for the more urgently needed extra primary places?
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, trying to work backwards, first, so far as free schools are concerned, of the primary schools that we announced on Friday with proposals to come forward for 2013, nearly 90% of those are in areas of basic need where there is a shortage of places. I agree that good design is important but do not accept that temporary buildings cannot be part of a solution. Local authorities need to be free to make the judgments that they think are best to respond to the pressures that they have locally. Generally, as I said with the figures that I have set out, we have doubled the funding we are putting into primary school places. The birth rate started to rise in 2002; it peaked in 2008; so the Government are trying to address a serious challenge in the problem of the growing numbers that we have inherited.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, is the Minister concerned about the number of primary school head teachers now nearing retirement and how to replace them? Are the Government looking closely at the pilot of 20 school leaders from primary schools in the Future Leaders charitable trust this year, which was so successful for secondary school leaders? Will the Government be looking at that and thinking carefully about how we secure sufficient highly skilled head teachers for primary schools for these 450,000 children?
Lord Hill of Oareford
Yes, my Lords. The quality of teaching in primary schools is obviously hugely important and I was encouraged to see today that, for the first time, the number of men applying to teach in primary schools has increased. I think all sides of the House would find that a welcome development. I agree with the noble Earl on the importance of the kind of example that he cites and I am sure we can learn lessons of the kind that he sets out.
Lord Tope
My Lords, is the Minister aware that the Greater London Authority’s population prediction shows that there will be more than 150,000 additional primary-aged children living in London in 10 years’ time? Is he further aware that, in addition to funding all the extra places necessary, a particular problem in London is where to put the new classrooms and the new schools? What will the Government do to help access to sites for new schools in London?
Lord Hill of Oareford
The noble Lord is right that there is a particular challenge in London with the availability of sites. We intend to work with local authorities to give them capital and to help identify sites. The responsibility for that resides with local authorities, but I agree that the Government must work with them and help to find ways of making sure that we can find as many sites as possible.
The Lord Bishop of Newcastle
My Lords, given the continued popularity of church schools, and noting that many are oversubscribed, will the Minister ensure that local authorities have regard to the balance of denominational places in an area by involving diocesan boards of education in decisions about where to target the extra funding that he has mentioned?
Lord Hill of Oareford
It is important that local authorities should make sensible decisions about where places are needed, irrespective of the type of school. The Government have made it easier for good, popular schools to be able to expand. Church schools, typically voluntary-aided schools, are their own admissions authorities and so have the ability to expand, but local authorities should address decisions about where to increase places irrespective of the school type.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
My Lords, does the Minister agree that it would not be right for an academy to expand to take in primary school pupils, taking away sports facilities from that academy, in an area where the local authority, in Pimlico, says that there is not a need for more primary school places?
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, I know the case to which the noble Baroness refers. With regard to new primary provision, in many cases where there is new free school provision coming in, there is a basic need. In the specific case to which she refers, it is also the case that we are trying to increase the supply of excellent places and the academy that is seeking to open a primary has done a brilliant job in turning around a school that was previously failing. It became a sponsored academy under the previous Government. If it can extend that to primary school children, I think that it will be doing a good job.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford
What proportion of children in primary schools, given the pressure on places, is likely to be in classes of more than 30 in the next few years?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I am not able to give my noble friend precise figures, partly because we are working with local authorities to get a better understanding of the particular pressures at a very local level. I am advised that the number of classes of more than 30 has been falling, but we will need to keep an eye on that and the legislation dealing with it remains in place.
Georgia: Public Services
(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Harries of Pentregarth
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what lessons they are learning from the introduction of “one-stop shops” for public services in Georgia.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, the Government are always willing to learn from examples of good practice from overseas. I compliment the noble and right reverend Lord for highlighting the Georgia case. He may be aware that US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, has just made some very complimentary remarks about the Georgian public service halls. The wider public sector in the UK has already done a great deal on one-stop shops, working across organisational boundaries and making it easier for customers to access services in a more joined-up fashion. The implementation of the Government’s Digital by Default agenda will provide government information and services online and in one place that will be simpler, clearer and faster for users.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth
I thank the Minister for his reply. I am indeed aware of the Government’s desire to reform public service provision. As he has mentioned, the example of Georgia is truly remarkable. While driving to one such public service hall when I was there recently, our escort asked us for our details. When we arrived only 15 minutes later we were all presented with replica Georgian passports. This was just one example of their speed and user-friendly approach. Will the Minister encourage different government departments to look at the actual design of these halls, because whatever we have in the way of digital provision, there will still need to be a place where some people can go? Secondly, will he see if they can work together, perhaps with the Post Office, in such public service halls?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I congratulate the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harriesvili, on his new citizenship. On the question of design, I have looked at the pictures of some of these new public service halls in Georgia—they are magnificent buildings, on a scale that I do not think would be easily accepted by the media in this country; it is easier for a country that is coming out of a socialist era in the way that Georgia is doing. The Government are aware, however, that the Georgian provision depends heavily on using new technology, and that parallels exactly what we are attempting to do with the Digital by Default exercise.
Lord Haworth
My Lords, Georgia is a small, faraway country about which we tend to know very little, although today we now know a little more. The question raised by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, about the way in which Georgia has developed one-stop shops is extremely important. I was with him on the visit to the facility in Rustavi and I was also issued a passport by the Georgians in double-quick time. I also went to a similar facility in a small community high up in the Caucasus, where exactly the same provision is being extended. The modernised interface between public and state that these facilities embody is highly impressive. The Minister may not want to take it from me but he has already mentioned Secretary of State Clinton, although he did not quote her words about,
“very creative and impressive advancements”,
and “modern technological wonder”. Will the Minister reflect on this and possibly consider inviting a delegation of Georgians to come to this country to share best practice with us?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I received a detailed briefing from the Georgian embassy this morning, as they discovered that I was due to answer this Question. We are doing a number of things that work in the same direction: we are looking at the provision of the public service estate, and the capital assets pathfinder exercise, working between central and local government, is looking precisely at how you can bring offices together so that services are integrated. In Hampshire, the new Havant public service village, which is the furthest along in this development, is a project that will bring together Hampshire County Council, Havant Borough Council, Hampshire PCT, Hampshire and Isle of Wight police, Capita, Citizens Advice and other voluntary sector partners in the same building. The aim is to transform public service delivery in Havant. That is very much the sort of thing that we have in mind and, incidentally, will save a considerable amount of space by the time it has finished.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, G4S is an international company but I have absolutely no idea whether it has yet been engaged in Georgia.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, we are about to have elections for police and crime commissioners, with material only on the web and no leaflets. Digital by Default, which the Minister has mentioned, will do for some, but there are a lot of people who need all sorts of things such as passports, licences and debt advice. Could the Minister go to Georgia himself or possibly send Francis Maude there to see what we could learn about people still needing face-to-face advice?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I have been to Georgia three times in the last 15 years and would love to go there again. The speed at which our population is moving towards using digital services is quite remarkable and I find, as someone of the older generation—like everyone else here, if I may put it tactfully—the estimates of how many people will use digital services by preference in 10 years’ time very encouraging. However, as in Georgia and the Havant exercise, people who do not find digital access quite so easy will still need assistance to help them use facilities that are more easily available online.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, does the Minister agree that the £4 billion new investment programme announced today for our rail network needs to be accompanied by a more streamlined planning system and that following the abolition of the Infrastructure Planning Commission, the Secretary of State has become the one-stop shop for major projects? Will the noble Lord confirm that the planning process will be better as a consequence?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, that is a little wide of the Question. However, I did book my train tickets for the next two weekends from London to Saltaire online this morning so I am moving in the right direction in using digital means. In terms of planning, all I have done in respect of railways this morning is to check exactly what the Castlefield corridor, part of the new northern hub, is.
Baroness Knight of Collingtree
My Lords, is my noble friend aware that there is absolutely no need for him to go to Georgia, nor indeed for visitors to be brought over from there, when they have an excellent ambassador, from Georgia, here in London? I suggest that he talks to the ambassador.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I am embarrassed to admit that I taught the current Georgian ambassador in 1995 and 1996.
Gibraltar
(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Hoyle
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what has been their response to incursions into the British sovereign waters off Gibraltar by the Spanish Guardia Civil.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Hoyle, and with his permission, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)
My Lords, the Royal Navy challenges Guardia Civil and other Spanish state vessels whenever they make unlawful maritime incursions into British Gibraltar territorial waters. In such cases, we also make formal protests to the Spanish Government through diplomatic channels, making clear that such behaviour represents an unacceptable violation of British sovereignty.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
My Lords, the Minister is well aware that in spite of the fact that Gibraltar territorial waters are recognised by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, there has been a considerable increase in incursions by Guardia Civil vessels into Gibraltar territorial waters. There were none in 2009, eight in 2010, 280 in 2011 and well over 160 this year. In light of that escalation, and to avoid any further increase, will the Government join the Gibraltar Chief Minister, the honourable Fabian Picardo, in challenging our good ally Spain to refer the matter for determination by the International Court of Justice or by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea? Otherwise, on behalf of Gibraltar, will we take the matter to those international courts ourselves for final determination?
Lord Howell of Guildford
The noble Lord is quite right about the increase in the number of these incursions. The problem about referring the issue to the International Court of Justice is that of course it requires all involved parties to agree to it, which does not appear to be in prospect. We believe that the right way forward is the one we are adopting, which is that the response should be measured, we should continue to press the Spanish Government very carefully and there is no point raising the temperature or tension in these matters, as they can be resolved by discussion. We would like of course to go back to the trilateral talks based on the Cordoba agreement, if we could. They were progressing, but that route, too, seems blocked. The way forward is, as I have described, to insist that these are unlawful maritime incursions and should not be accepted. We raise them in the strongest possible terms with the Spanish Government at every opportunity.
Lord Luce
My Lords, is the Minister aware that some 12 years ago, when I was governor of Gibraltar, we faced similar problems, and that there are lessons to be learnt from all this? In welcoming the setting up of the working party by the Government of Gibraltar to work with Spanish fisherman and environmental experts to try to find a way forward, will the Minister nevertheless assure the House that the British Government are providing whatever naval presence is needed to uphold sovereignty?
Lord Howell of Guildford
Yes, I can give that assurance, and there have been no complaints from the Gibraltar Government about the lack of adequate resources. There is the Gibraltar squadron, which has two patrol craft, some rigid-framed inflatable boats and crews. The responses they work out can be preceded by radio warnings, but they are effective and will continue, so I can give that assurance.
Lord Kilclooney
My Lords, has the increase in these incursions not really arisen since the European Union decided that, as regards environmental matters, the waters around Gibraltar were Spanish and not British? Is this being challenged and are the Government doing anything to expedite the court case?
Lord Howell of Guildford
I am not sure that that is the right analysis. That case, which continues, is about how these waters are designated as a European Union special site of community importance, and it is being disputed. The immediate pattern seems to have been that with the new Gibraltar Government the informal agreement which allowed Spanish fishermen certain opportunities to fish, entirely on an informal basis, has ended and the resultant tensions have been fostered by the fact that Spanish fishermen now come accompanied by Guardia Civil vessels, which obviously raise the tension further. That is the cause of the difficulty now. The other issue that the noble Lord raised continues to be disputed vigorously because these are British sovereign waters and any designation as an EU site will be the responsibility of the British and Gibraltar Governments.
Lord Roper
My Lords, will the Minister tell the House what other steps are being taken to resolve practical problems between Spain and Gibraltar?
Lord Howell of Guildford
There are a range of detailed practical problems that can and should be arranged and should be discussed. We would like to see a move back to the previous trilateral arrangements, which included the British Government, the Spanish Government and Gibraltar and were a good forum for making progress. At the moment, that is not encouraged and does not seem to be favoured by the Spanish Government, so I have to report that the linkages to deal with these smaller matters are really either informal or in small groups. No general strategy is being successfully carried forward, and we would like to see one developed.
Lord West of Spithead
My Lords, does the Minister agree that this escalation in events is quite worrying and that while one understands efforts to defuse the situation, we need to do more to get the message across that this is unacceptable? We might otherwise find ourselves in the position we were in on 15 July 1798, when HMS “Lion” took on four Spanish frigates, capturing one and sending the rest running—a position we would not like to be in again.
Lord Howell of Guildford
The noble Lord is absolutely right that it could develop seriously, but from the point of view of the Spanish fishing community, the Spanish Government, ourselves or the people of Gibraltar there is no interest in escalating this to the point of any kind of physical action. Therefore, we think that dialogue is the best way forward. We have good relations with the Spanish Government. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary met the Spanish Foreign Secretary on 29 May and discussed it, and we think this is the right channel through which to develop a better dialogue and to meet all these detailed issues, including the fishing incursions. Once we have solved them, we would take a broader view about whether Spain is going to co-operate closely with us and Gibraltar on the kind of trilateral regime we had before, but the first thing is to solve the fishing dispute.
Lord Swinfen
My Lords, what is done with the vessels that are caught illegally operating in Gibraltarian waters? Are they destroyed?
Lord Howell of Guildford
They are escorted and moved out of British sovereign waters by our patrol craft. They are asked to go and they go.
Syria: Olympic Truce
(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Hylton
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will propose within the United Nations that steps be taken to apply the Olympic Truce in Syria during at least the period of the 2012 Games, and if possible for the traditional 100 days.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)
My Lords, we are committed to the Olympic Truce’s ideals of conflict prevention and peace. In the case of Syria, the six-point plan of the joint special envoy, Kofi Annan, sets out clearly the steps to a ceasefire. This has not been implemented by the Syrian regime, despite its undertaking to do so. We are therefore pressing for full implementation of the Annan plan to stop the terrible violence in Syria and allow a Syrian-led political transition.
Lord Hylton
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his reply. It seems that the Annan plan has not been accepted in any way by the Syrian Government. Will Her Majesty’s Government consider barring access to this country for the Olympic Games to Syrian athletes, officials and even spectators unless they agree to a truce?
Lord Howell of Guildford
Anyone applying to enter the United Kingdom is treated according to our Immigration Rules. If an individual is currently the subject of a European Union or UN travel ban, they will not be able to come to the Games. However, I emphasise that this is a matter that relates to individuals, not to teams generally, groups or nationalities. I repeat: accreditation to the Olympics will be refused to any individual who may present a safety or security risk, or whose presence at the Games or in the UK would not be conducive to the public good.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine
My Lords, my noble friend mentioned the Annan plan. Amnesty International reported today that Syria is in a state of civil war. In his Statement to the House of Commons on 11 June, the Foreign Secretary said that if there was a full civil war the Annan plan would be set aside and the United Kingdom would move to a resolution in the Security Council. Are the Government co-operating with the French to do so next week?
Lord Howell of Guildford
My understanding was that it was the International Red Cross that raised the concept of civil war, although whether it is qualified to establish an accepted viewpoint is debatable. The British Government are looking at the issue in the light of what has been said and the continuing, horrific and totally unacceptable level of violence. I cannot say more than that at the moment. We have not reached a clear view on the point that my noble friend raised.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean
My Lords, the Question of the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, is topical for the worst of all possible reasons—we have heard of another appalling atrocity this weekend. I am sure that the Government are very concerned about these terrible reports of slaughter after slaughter, but will the noble Lord tell us whether, the Annan plan notwithstanding, any thought is being given to the creation of safe havens on the borders of Syria, where people can go when they feel that they are in such appalling danger? I am sure we all feel that this is a terrible situation, but we seem utterly stuck in it.
Lord Howell of Guildford
I can understand the noble Baroness’s feelings. On the broad issue, Kofi Annan is now in Moscow pressing the Russians who—with the Chinese—are a key part of this story, so that we can move to a Chapter 7 UN resolution. As for safe havens, of course thought is being given to these matters, but the noble Baroness knows that for them to be policed and operated on Syrian soil means the involvement of personnel and conditions inside Syria which simply do not exist at the moment. They would involve much higher risks and many more dangers than we face even at present. As to safe havens, the authorities in Turkey have created some refugee havens and areas to which many people have crossed the border and entered. However, safe havens and corridors within Syria have been considered but are not a realistic possibility as we see it at the moment.
Lord Bates
Although I share my noble friend’s revulsion at the events in Syria, the fact is that Syria is a co-sponsor of the Olympic Truce resolution which this Government have done so much to promote, and which this Government proposed to the UN General Assembly last year. These are desperate times and there is a case for desperate measures. Could not one of those measures be to use the Olympic Truce which comes into force on 27 July as the basis on which a delegation involving the previous proposers of the Olympic Truce, China, and the next proposers of the Olympic Truce, Russia, could go to Damascus under the auspices of the UN and the IOC to plead for Syria to honour this important commitment?
Lord Howell of Guildford
First, I acknowledge and salute my noble friend Lord Bates’ work in promoting the Olympic Truce ideal, which is widely supported. Of course, the British Government took the lead in co-sponsoring UN Resolution 66/5 on, “Building a peaceful … world”. The question that my noble friend rightly poses, through some very creative thinking, is whether we could not somehow involve China and Russia in joint action to mount more pressure on Damascus—indeed, on both sides in Syria—to cease their appalling and violent activity. A short while ago my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary agreed with Mr Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, a joint statement on co-operation on the ideals of the Olympic Truce. There is a basis there for further discussion. I am also sure that Kofi Annan will be raising the matter in Moscow now while we are discussing it here. The basic ingredients are there for something along the lines that my noble friend mentioned. However, I am afraid that it is a long haul ahead and there are many difficulties in the way. But the truce is a potential asset in trying to move forward and get a grip on this horrific situation in Syria.
Legislative Reform (Annual Review of Local Authorities) Order 2012
Baroness Garden of Frognal
That the draft Legislative Reform Order laid before the House on 10 May be approved.
Relevant document: 1st Report from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, considered in Grand Committee on 12 July.
Further Education Institutions and 16 to 19 Academies (Specification and Disposal of Articles) Regulations 2012
Lord De Mauley
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 24 May be approved.
Relevant document: 3rd Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, considered in Grand Committee on 12 July.
Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (Authority to Carry) Regulations 2012
(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Henley
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 30 April be approved.
Relevant document: 1st Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, considered in Grand Committee on 12 July
Smoke-free Private Vehicles Bill [HL]
Lord Ribeiro
My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the order of commitment be discharged.
Supply and Appropriation (Main Estimates) Bill
(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Grocott
My Lords, I rise only to reflect that if this were a fully elected House, the proceedings that have just taken us about 30 seconds would probably have taken us three weeks instead.
Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill [HL]
15:36 - Division on Amendment 2 - Ayes: 164 / Noes: 195 - Amendment 2 disagreed.
17:39 - Division on Amendment 11A - Ayes: 186 / Noes: 217 - Amendment 11A disagreed.
Lord Browne of Ladyton
Lord Browne of Ladyton
My Lords, as I explained on the first day in Committee, having set out to legislate in language that is,
“intended to be easier for everyone to understand”—[Official Report, 22/5/12; col. 761.]
that is, in plain English—it is arguable at least that the Government have failed that test in the first effective sentence, which is in the third line of the Bill. It reads:
“There is to be a Groceries Code Adjudicator”.
As I argued on the first day in Committee, I know no one who speaks plain English who uses that construction. This is not the most important issue that we will discuss in relation to this Bill but it gives your Lordships’ House an opportunity to discuss this issue of plain English, which occupied us intermittently throughout our debate in Committee. Unfortunately, we did not find a comfortable way in which to deal with all aspects of this and some of them may recur in our deliberations on Report.
In order to make my point, I attempted to improve this sentence by simply amending it to read, “There will be a groceries code adjudicator”. I was told by the Minister that that changed the meaning of the sentence and that the construction I had chosen was a prediction and not a statement of fact. However, she graciously agreed to take this matter away and to think on it. Perhaps I may say that that was not surprising because, arguably, the sentence:
“There is to be a Groceries Code Adjudicator”,
also appears to me to have an element of prediction about it.
However, the Minister having graciously offered that opportunity, I grasped it. I too have thought about this sentence. With the assistance of a conversation with the Bill team, I now propose an amendment which reads:
“A Groceries Code Adjudicator is established”.
Now neither of us is in the prediction business. We are in the present tense and this Bill will now establish a groceries code adjudicator, which I hope will find favour with the Government. At this stage of my short life in your Lordships’ House, I should be delighted if I were able to improve a piece of legislation. This is an opportunity for the Government to accept this amendment. I beg to move.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
My Lords, this side is entirely supportive of my noble friend’s amendment. I simply ask the Minister if she could briefly update us on her conversations with the noble Lord, Lord True, and his concerns about plain English and the sense of the preambles in the Bill, which were raised in the last moments in Committee.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Baroness Wilcox)
My Lords, the issue of plain English was raised at Second Reading. It was revisited at some length in Committee. The Government have considered this further. Noble Lords will recall that we discussed the possibility of saying, “There will be an adjudicator” or “There shall be an adjudicator”. I am glad to say that the proposal in the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Browne, is consistent with previous Bills and, I hope, clearer for those reading the Bill. In the spirit of this, and having heard the positions of several noble Lords in Committee, I would be happy to accept the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Browne.
As to an update on my conversations with the noble Lord, Lord True, I have a fulsome response for him later in the proceedings. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, will kindly leave it until then for me to respond.
Lord Browne of Ladyton
My Lords, I hope I do not spoil the achievement of having the Government accept this amendment, but I cannot resist the temptation to express how delighted I am that I have managed to effect change to legislation in your Lordships’ House. I am absolutely sure that as we devote a substantial part of the immediate future to discussing the immediate future of your Lordships’ House, this will be cited as a historic moment in which the revising powers of the Chamber were exercised to the benefit of the ordinary people of the country.
Lord Grantchester
“The Groceries Supply Order
(1) The Secretary of State must make an order to establish the Groceries Supply Order by statutory instrument.
(2) The Secretary of State shall commission a review by the Office of Fair Trading, in consultation with the Adjudicator, into the effectiveness and scope of the Groceries Code to report no later than two years following the commencement of this Act.
(3) An order may not be made under subsection (1) until a review under subsection (2) is completed.
(4) An order made under subsection (1) is subject to the approval of both Houses of Parliament.”
Lord Grantchester
My Lords, I declare my farming interests on the register. In moving Amendment 2, I am also speaking to Amendment 26. Having investigated the grocery market on two separate occasions, the Competition Commission found that abuses of market power by retailers damage suppliers’ confidence and their ability to innovate and invest. In turn, this can lead to a reduction in choice and availability and increased costs to consumers. The Competition Commission in 2010 set up a strengthened code of practice and the Bill sets up the adjudicator to enforce the code. We wish to see it enacted as soon as possible.
In Committee, we debated the anomaly that the Bill creates the office of an adjudicator to hear and rule on complaints brought under the groceries supply code of practice, which itself is not on a statutory footing. It was also brought to the House’s attention by the Delegated Powers Committee that the code may be altered or revoked without any parliamentary involvement. This amendment seeks to clarify that Parliament will be able to scrutinise the code’s workings.
Notwithstanding the strengthening of the code in 2010, my noble friend Lord Knight of Weymouth gave further examples of the complaints not covered under the code. The Food and Drink Federation has also given examples of further abuse, such as the unilateral deduction of invoices without sound business reasons or prior agreement. The amendment requires that the Office of Fair Trading, which has competence for the code, must set up a review in consultation with the adjudicator into the effectiveness and scope of the code, to report no later than two years after the Bill becomes enacted. It is vital that the workings of the code are updated and are relevant and responsive in an organic sense to changing market conditions.
Last Wednesday, more than 2,500 dairy farmers came to Parliament to make public the cuts and their concerns about a drop in prices of more than 10% on short notice this spring. At present, this situation is not covered by the code, which only covers the relationship between the top retailers and their immediate suppliers. The code does not cover the whole supply chain. The downward pressure from supermarkets is simply transferred from suppliers to their suppliers. The response of supermarkets to seeing their suppliers reduce prices down the supply chain is to immediately demand a share of the margin created—that is to say, a further reduction to their prices.
This is not the first or an isolated example in the dairy industry. In response to a similar situation in 2002, my noble friend Lord Whitty, when he was Minister of Agriculture, set up the Dairy Industry Supply Chain Forum to encourage relationships through the supply chain. That was 10 years ago. It is disappointing that the dairy industry has not improved over that time. The problems persist.
In response to the EU dairy package, the Minister of State in another place seeks a voluntary code, through Dairy UK, between processors and their suppliers. Indeed, in reply last Wednesday to a question from the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, the Minister—the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach—confirmed the situation. My understanding is that the issues covered are rather limited and unlikely to solve the problems. The Minister says that, without voluntary agreement, he will legislate, but my understanding is that that is not believed. He should legislate. This amendment gives him two years to make it work. If after a review we find that the situation has not improved—and we have seen no evidence over many years of any improvement—the OFT will be able to take effective action, highlighted by the experiences of the adjudicator.
I have highlighted the situation in the dairy industry. I am told that similar problems occur in other sectors. The amendment seeks to give the adjudicator and the OFT wide scope to make an effective code of practice work throughout the supply chain. I beg to move.
Lord Cameron of Dillington
My Lords, I first declare my interest as a farmer. I put my name to the amendment because it is important that we remain as flexible and light on our feet as possible in changing circumstances in this area. The effectiveness of the groceries code adjudicator is dependent on the effectiveness of the code. Both are equally important. It is surprising that while the adjudicator and his role are continually under review in Clauses 15 and 16, the review of the code is not given such emphasis.
Clause 13 in its simplicity is not sufficient. It sets out what the adjudicator could do but does not give me any confidence that anything will happen. It is important that as the adjudicator gains more experience, and as all the players inevitably try to push the rules to the limit, we should be able to review their roles and the rules involved. Circumstances change. The rules of rugby change from year to year and from time to time. The rules of Parliament relating to MPs’ and Peers’ expenses change. There are always new problems to be dealt with and overcome. We need to ensure that we can overcome the shortcomings in a structural way—hence subsection (2) of the proposed new clause.
The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, mentioned the problems of the dairy industry. I do not know whether any review of the dairy code in the light of these recent developments would necessitate change, but the matter would certainly be worth looking at. It is vital that the groceries supply code of practice is not set in concrete. The amendment represents the necessary Kango hammer to free it.
Lord Whitty
My Lords, my Amendment 31 is in this group. I apologise to the Minister and the House that I was only a passive presence at Second Reading, and even more passive in Committee, despite my long-standing interest in the subject. I wish the Bill well and I am glad that the Government brought it forward.
I will resist the temptation to give my Second Reading speech now. I will say two things. First, as my noble friend Lord Grantchester said, it is 10 years since I started grappling with this issue and urging the noble Baroness’s predecessors, the competition authorities, to take this seriously. We have had the code since then and this begins to give it serious teeth.
Since I left office as a Minister I have also been a consumer champion. Occasionally I was leant on to say that it was not in the interests of consumers to have a go at the supermarkets by means of the groceries code. Supermarkets have made a very impressive contribution to consumer benefit, in terms of choice, price and convenience. However, it is not in the interests of consumers, even in the medium term, for part of the supply chain to be wiped out, or for supply at the retail end to be restricted in terms of competition if that is done by a large-scale operator. Consumers have benefited from supermarket activity, but they would not benefit from the supermarkets overstretching their ability to control the market.
It is also true, in defence of supermarkets, that it is not only they who could abuse their power in the supply chain and engage in the kind of activity that they are accused of, and which my noble friend and others referred to earlier in our debates on the Bill. As we know with the current situation of milk production, there is a question mark over the behaviour not only of supermarkets but also of large milk processors. My amendment does not seek immediately to broaden the scope of the code but it suggests that, were Amendments 2 and 26 adopted—in other words, were there to be a review—it may well be that it is not just the large retailers that should be included within the code’s provisions. In those circumstances the Minister would not have to wait another 10 years for primary legislation to extend the code and the adjudicator’s powers but, in the light of the reviews required by the other two amendments in this group, would be able by order to extend the provisions of the code to other large operators within the supply chain. That would be beneficial to the small suppliers; it would also give some clarity and restraint to those who were tempted to overuse their monopsonistic or oligopsonistic powers within the food chain. It would be an improvement to this Bill if the possibility of so doing were included in the primary legislation at this stage, rather than have to come back to it in a few years’ time.
Baroness Wilcox
My Lords, I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, is eager to see a living code that will be responsive to the adjudicator’s experience of the groceries market. Other noble Lords have said they feel the same way, and I understand those concerns. I would like to discuss the noble Lord’s specific amendments but shall first address the issue of principle at stake here.
The adjudicator should clearly be responsive to needs within the industry, not only by prioritisation but by clarifying the code through advice and guidance. The adjudicator should also be able to use their front-line position to raise issues with the competition authorities, which are responsible for the groceries supply order and the groceries code contained within it.
As the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, has said, the specifics of the dairy industry are being considered elsewhere in government. The adjudicator is not intended to address every problem in the sector, and the adjudicator’s role is clearly limited to the relationship between retailers and their suppliers under the groceries code.
Nevertheless, proposals in this grouping go beyond this natural evolution of the code’s interpretation, and risk undermining the basis for the code itself. Those involved in ensuring that this Bill reached Parliament—campaigners, Select Committee members or Ministers—have emphasised that the justification for this Bill lies in a rigorous market investigation and a finding by the independent competition authorities. This justification would be severely undermined if changes to the code were made without proper process through the competition authorities.
This principle goes beyond the issue of the groceries market and concerns the competition regime as a whole. It is a fundamental principle of the competition regime that remedying competition problems should be addressed by the independent and expert competition authorities, rather than directly by Ministers or Parliament. Oversight of these remedies is likewise the responsibility of the independent competition authorities.
This was at the core of the reforms introduced by the previous Government in the Enterprise Act 2002, which removed Ministers from competition decisions. As the then Secretary of State said at that Bill’s Second Reading:
“The Bill therefore provides that, in the vast majority of cases, with the exception of national security cases only, decisions will be taken by independent competition authorities, free from political interference”.—[Official Report, Commons, 10/4/02; col. 45.]
This principle is continued in the Government’s further reforms set out in the current Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill. Although the competition authorities are rightly accountable to Parliament for their overall performance, this is quite different from Ministers or Parliament debating or overseeing particular remedies.
In the case of the code, this means that responsibility for oversight of the code lies with the Office of Fair Trading under Section 162 of the Enterprise Act, not with the adjudicator, as Amendment 26 would have it, nor with the Secretary of State or Parliament, as Amendment 2 sets out. Equally, it is for the competition authorities to decide whether or not to amend the code—not, as the noble Lord, Lord Whitty proposes, the Secretary of State.
I remind noble Lords that the adjudicator has a statutory duty to make recommendations to the OFT if he or she thinks the code should be changed. This provides a flexible way for issues to be escalated whenever needed and therefore contributes to a truly living code, while respecting the existing structure of the Enterprise Act.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
I am struggling with the Minister’s argument that the amendment in my name and the names of other noble Lords jeopardises the independence of the decision-making. All we are seeking to do in Amendment 2 is have a review by the Office of Fair Trading. There is no presumption about what the outcome of the review would be; we are just suggesting that there should be a review. And in Amendment 26 all that is being suggested is a slight change in emphasis. I respectfully suggest to the noble Baroness that it ought to be a happy compromise for the adjudicator to report annually on the effectiveness of the code. If the adjudicator independently thinks that the code is working fine, he or she should say so. If he or she thinks that there is a problem, he or she should say so, every year.
Baroness Wilcox
I hope that I have not been too wordy in my response. It is just that there was a real point of principle here. I felt it was worth going over the ground to make sure I had made it clear that we did not feel that these amendments were relevant at this time. I repeat that responsibility for oversight of the code lies with the Office of Fair Trading under Section 162 of the Enterprise Act, not with the adjudicator, as Amendment 26 would have it, nor with the Secretary of State or Parliament, as Amendment 2 seems to set out. Equally, it is for the competition authorities to decide whether to amend the code, not the Secretary of State, as the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, proposed. I hope that I have clarified the Government’s position.
Lord Whitty
We accept that the primacy of the competition authorities in these amendments could be clearer and that the precise wording may not be appropriate. Can the Minister not agree to take away these amendments and write them in such a way that makes the competition authorities’ role clear while establishing the principle of a review and the fact that that review might recommend an extension of the code? That is a point of substance. I take the point of maintaining the role of the competition authorities but a relatively minor amendment from the Minister at a later stage might help.
Baroness Wilcox
I am always nervous arguing with the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, given his experience as a Minister and the fact that he was head of the National Consumer Council, a role that I also held. I know the breadth of his knowledge on this subject, which is why I took such a long time to give my answer. This is as far as I can go. I hope that when the noble Lord reads in Hansard that the Bill already requires the adjudicator to recommend changes to the OFT, he will see that I have covered most of his worries and that he will withdraw his amendment.
Lord Grantchester
My Lords, we agree that the code is a responsibility for the OFT—that is not in dispute—but we believe that the Minister is getting involved in the EU dairy package between the processors and the dairy farmers. We think that makes her reasons for not accepting the amendment slightly disingenuous. It may be that at Third Reading we can further refine this amendment so that her officials are as happy with it as we are, but we wish to enshrine in the Bill a review, and one that looks into the possibility of an extension of the code throughout the supply chain. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, and my noble friend Lord Whitty for their support. I do not hear a large volume of support behind the Minister so I beg leave to test the opinion of the House.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
Lord Knight of Weymouth
My Lords, the amendment in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Grantchester relates to the role of Parliament in respect of the new office of the groceries code adjudicator. In pushing the amendment which we discussed in Committee and bringing it before the House today, we do so, believe it or not, in the spirit of the coalition agreement. I remind noble Lords that the coalition agreement stated:
“We will strengthen the powers of Select Committees to scrutinise major public appointments”.
In Committee, I reminded noble Lords that that followed manifesto commitments from both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats at the election.
Since we met in Committee, a letter from the noble Baroness’s ministerial colleague, Norman Lamb, to my colleague in the other place, Ian Murray, has to some extent further clarified the Government’s position. Mr Lamb writes that,
“the Government believes that posts which should be subject to pre-appointment hearings will generally be senior non-executive roles which either: play a key role in regulating Government; play a key role in protecting and safeguarding the public’s rights and interests particularly in relation to the actions and decisions of Government; or where it is vital for the reputation and credibility of the public body in question that the post holder, and is seen to be, independent of Ministers and Government”.
I think that the Government need to reflect on whether the BIS and EFRA Select Committees should have a role in confirming the appointment of the groceries code adjudicator, given what the Government are saying. The new office that we are establishing in the Bill is important. It is something which has to have a certain reputation and credibility, and which has to be independent of Ministers and government. I think that this office passes the tests that Mr Lamb sets out in his letter to Mr Murray, although I know that the Minister himself does not agree. He goes on to say:
“The Government does not consider that the groceries code adjudicator, though very important to the groceries sector, would fall within these categories”.
I think that the Government need to reflect on this. I am not going to push this to a vote today, because this is the sort of concession that the Government should want to make to the other place as it is their Select Committees that will have a role in confirming the appointment. However, I would strongly advise, if the Minister is willing to take advice, that this amendment is entirely in the spirit and wording not only of what the coalition agreement, her party’s manifesto commitment and her coalition partner’s manifesto say, but of what, in effect, at least one of the tests that Mr Lamb sets out in his letter to Ian Murray says. I therefore beg to move, for the sake of the debate.
Lord Borrie
My Lords, I support my Front-Bench spokesman who has just introduced this amendment. I hope I am right in thinking—the Minister will no doubt correct me if I am wrong—that the Bill currently going through the other place requires that the head of the proposed Competition and Markets Authority should be appointed by a Minister with the approval of the appropriate departmental committee. If that is so, and I am glad to think that it will be so, it emphasises the point that the Minister made in relation to the last amendment—namely the need to firmly establish the competition authorities’ independence of Ministers. She kindly said that this followed the Enterprise Act of the previous Government in their efforts to emphasise the independence of the competition authorities. It seems to me unduly subtle to say that the head of the Competition and Markets Authority, which is to be created shortly, is of a higher calibre of significance and importance than the groceries adjudicator. It is true that the groceries adjudicator’s role is narrower than that of the Competition and Markets Authority but, none the less, it is significant in its field. Indeed, the Government’s whole introduction of the Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill is based on the notion that, in a certain area of significance to the consuming public—supermarkets—the independence to be achieved by the appointment of this adjudicator is of some importance. I therefore hope that the Minister will agree with my noble friend who has introduced this amendment.
Lord Cameron of Dillington
My Lords, I am not so certain about this amendment—in fact, I think that I oppose it. If your Lordships have ever been involved in the appointment of a public post you will know that the criteria are very strict and there are many hurdles to be jumped, with independent assessors sticking strictly to the criteria and two or three interviews. I therefore think that this extra hurdle is an unnecessary piece of red tape. I know that it is common practice in the United States, for instance, to throw candidates for this sort of posts to the wolves before they have even got their feet under the table—the wolves, by the way, are the Select Committee—but I think that this is unnecessary. We want someone who is rational, methodical and good at making judgments in a legal or semi-legal context. We do not necessarily want someone who is used to the hurly-burly of political life and who might have to understand that when an MP is being rude to him he does not mean it. He is either showing off or trying to make a name for himself and just getting carried away.
I am opposed to the amendment. Perhaps that is simply because I do not have a particularly high opinion of MPs’ ability to take the right sort of decisions in this instance. It is better to leave it up to the usual channels to appoint a valid candidate who will really be able to do a good job.
Baroness Wilcox
My Lords, before I get any further I would like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, for supporting me, and I will of course respond to the noble Lord, Lord Knight, as well. First, however, I would like to respond to the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, by saying that the role he mentioned is much more significant to the economy as a whole; whereas this role, as he acknowledges, is much more specific, and as such we do not feel that the same type of scrutiny is required. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Knight, that I still feel that it would be inappropriate to lay down in primary legislation a requirement for Select Committee oversight. The procedure for pre-appointment scrutiny was clearly set out in the document published at the time of the previous Government and involves discussion between the Secretary of State and the chair of the relevant Select Committee, not primary legislation. As for whether the adjudicator is a significant enough office to warrant pre-appointment scrutiny, I consider that, despite its importance to the groceries sector, it is not significant enough according to the criteria set out by this Government. However, as any scrutiny would ultimately take place through a committee in the other place, I am sure that if the other place feels strongly enough on this topic then there will be further discussion on the issue at a future stage there. For the moment, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, clearly has a relatively low opinion of MPs, which may be shared by others. I would not wish to test that for one moment. The Minister is probably right that it is up to the other place to try to assert the reputation of Members of Parliament, perhaps by shifting on this issue. The noble Baroness said that it is not general practice to set out Select Committee oversight in primary legislation. I am comfortable enough with that. If her ministerial colleague Norman Lamb is happy, when the Bill reaches the other place, to stand up and say, “Let’s please not put this in primary legislation, but we will refer it to the relevant Select Committees for confirmation”, that will do me. If the noble Baroness does not want this to be in primary legislation, that is fine. On the basis that the proposal lives to fight another day elsewhere, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Browne of Ladyton
Lord Browne of Ladyton
My Lords, the effect of this group of amendments is to anticipate the passing into law of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, which my noble friend Lord Borrie referred to in the previous debate and the provisions of which will combine the competition authority with the Office of Fair Trading. Those two bodies will be merged to create the Competition and Markets Authority. In Committee I spoke to a similar group of amendments but I did not press them too hard because I anticipated that I would be met with an argument that those amendments were premature, the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill being at the early stages of its passage through Parliament. I was not disappointed because the noble Baroness explained in reply that that was exactly her position. I refer noble Lords to col. 99 of the Official Report of the first day in Committee.
The Government’s opposition to this group of amendments was one not of principle but of timing. The noble Baroness pointed out that as the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill had not yet received a Third Reading in the other place—indeed, I think that it only goes into Committee tomorrow in the other place—it would be presumptuous of the Government to accept an amendment at this stage, and that she or another Minister would table similar if not identical amendments at a later stage once the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill had matured and crystallised sufficiently for such amendments not to be presumptuous.
Baroness Wilcox
My Lords, on the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Browne, I appreciate that the Competition and Markets Authority, when established, is likely to take on the functions of the OFT and the Competition Commission that are relevant to the adjudicator. The Bill will eventually need to be amended to reflect this. We were very grateful for the noble Lord’s understanding attitude in Committee and suggested that these amendments should be considered at a later stage of the Bill.
Last week, the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill passed through Committee in the House of Commons but is still some way from enactment. For this reason, the Government believe that these amendments are still somewhat premature. Furthermore, I ask noble Lords to note that Clause 58 of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill includes a power to make consequential amendments to enactments, including enactments made in the same Session as that Bill. Even if this Bill were not amended during its passage to refer to the Competition and Markets Authority in place of the OFT and the Competition Commission, that power could later be used to bring it into line following enactment. Today the noble Lord has asked why the same approach is not taken on every Bill. The answer is that each Bill is different and the Government will consider what approach to take on a case-by-case basis. In this case, where it is relatively easy to amend either Bill at a later stage, the Government have decided to amend it at that later stage and I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Browne of Ladyton
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for responding to my amendments in what I suspect is the only way that she could. I am reminded of an experience that I had when I was a young solicitor with a client who had a dreadful drink problem. On one occasion I met him in the cells of the local sheriff’s court, and he had a summons for being drunk and incapable and a summons for breach of the peace. I asked him how he was pleading and he said not guilty. I said, “What’s the defence?”, and he said, “As far as breach of the peace is concerned, I was so drunk that I couldn’t speak, so I could not have been shouting and swearing. I am an alcoholic”. I said, “What about the drunk and incapable?”. He said, “I’m teetotal. I don’t drink”. I said, “These defences would appear to be inconsistent”. He said, “But you’re a young man at the beginning of his legal career. You will learn that two separate cases have two separate defences”. I am struck that to some degree my life has come full circle.
I do not intend to press this to the vote at this stage, but I hope that at some point the amendment, along with the position that the Minister has been put into in trying to defend these contradictory positions, may encourage those who draft legislation to be a wee bit more consistent. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Whitty
“(3) If a trade association or other third party refers a dispute to arbitration, the Adjudicator may—
(a) accept appointment as arbiter;(b) appoint another person to arbitrate;(c) dismiss the dispute referred as trivial or vexatious or providing insufficient prima facie evidence.”
Lord Whitty
My Lords, the amendment goes back to the basic problem about the relations within the food supply chain between the supermarkets and small and medium-sized suppliers and all the attempts to enforce the code and its predecessors without statutory backing. Whether we like it or not, there is an atmosphere of apprehension, anxiety and fear among small suppliers to supermarkets, and a feeling that if they raise problems with the supermarkets under the code, they are in danger of retaliatory action at some later stage—their contracts will be ended, curtailed or put on to a less beneficial basis.
I am aware that this was discussed in Committee and indeed there have been discussions about it since it was first raised, but Clause 2 still appears to allow disputes to be referred to the adjudicator only by the supplier themselves or, alternatively, by the large retailer. My amendment would explicitly allow a case to be referred to the adjudicator by a third party—an appropriate trade association or a farming union—and this would relate to issues that covered more than one supplier, or perhaps only one supplier but where there were general implications of the outcome of that particular case. The amendment would allow third- party initiation by a trade association or farming union but possibly also other third parties that were appropriate—for example, an agricultural charity.
This would not be an open-ended requirement. As with the large retailer, the adjudicator would not have to take the case under this amendment. While Clause 2 requires the adjudicator to take a case from the supplier, although not the large retailer, my amendment would give the adjudicator sufficient grounds for not taking it, on the grounds either of it being trivial or vexatious or because of a lack of prima facie evidence. The argument that this would be used against the supermarkets on spurious grounds by campaigners who were opposed to supermarket activity in unrelated fields would not be a good reason for rejecting the amendment. It would relate to genuine supplier problems but it would protect the supplier, the farmer and the small business from the fear of being retaliated against at a later stage. It would support that supplier if the NFU or trade association took up the case.
I appreciate that the Minister may not like the wording—her officials rarely do—but this must be something on which she could go a little further than she did in Committee to assure us that third parties could take such cases. Only that, I feel, would put an end to the apprehension and the fear among small and not so small suppliers, which are at a serious disadvantage with supermarkets. They would be protected under this code and other legislation. I beg to move.
Lord Browne of Ladyton
My Lords, I will speak to the amendment standing in my name, which seeks to insert a mechanism for ensuring the independence and the qualifications of an arbitrator appointed under the code by reference to the provisions of this Bill. It generates, I would argue, a valuable opportunity for the Minister to explain a very complex part of this legislation, which, without an explanation in the Official Report of our deliberations, I fear may not be understood by those who come to apply, or seek to apply, the provisions of this Bill in relation to the code.
As we have already heard, this is a unique piece of legislation, because the basis of it is a code that is owned by the Competition Commission. If the code is repealed, then all this legislation becomes redundant. I embarked on the amendment of this particular part of the Bill because of my then limited understanding of both the arbitration legislation as it applied in England and Wales and the Arbitration (Scotland) Act 2010, which has been passed by the Scottish Parliament and, in part, now applies to Scotland, but which is not yet fully commenced. I was unsure how all these things interacted, but I was certain that at some stage it would be necessary for the Government to make it perfectly clear that the provisions of that legislation, which were carefully debated and thought through both in this Parliament and the Scottish Parliament, and were designed to generate an independent and properly qualified process of arbitration, would properly be applied to this legislation when enacted and to the processes that it was creating. The more I got into it, the more I began to appreciate just how important that was.
With the leave of the House, I will take a few minutes to explain some of this complexity but will leave it to the Minister to explain how all this works. In my discussions with the noble Baroness and her Bill team, both of whom have been extraordinarily generous with their time and in explaining this, we have between us uncovered areas in which this Bill and the code could be improved. I have not endeavoured to do that in this particular amendment, and have removed other amendments that I proposed, because I am confident that at some stage in the progress of this Bill the Government will themselves bring forward some amendments that deal with those issues that have now been uncovered.
This amendment, on plain reading, concerns the qualifications and appointment conditions for an arbitrator under the Bill and has had the benefit of shining a spotlight on a particularly unclear and potentially confusing part of the Bill. To understand how this Bill works, one has to understand the interaction of the arbitration provisions in the Bill with the existing arbitration laws in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and also with the arbitration provisions in the code itself. It is not easy to follow all this. We are not helped by the fact that the Explanatory Notes compound this lack of clarity rather than resolving it. In particular, paragraph 30 states that the provisions of the Arbitration Act 1996 will “broadly” apply and that,
“the Arbitration (Scotland) Act 2010 will broadly have a similar effect in applying the Scottish Arbitration Rules, except so far as this would be inconsistent”,
with the groceries supply order or the Bill. That was not intended to be clear. It is intended just to report the position which is quite difficult to work out.
Baroness Wilcox
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and the noble Lord, Lord Browne, for these amendments. Regarding the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, for reasons I shall explain, we do not believe it should be possible for third parties to refer disputes to arbitration. Clause 2 simply supplements the arbitration provisions in the groceries supply order 2009. Article 11 of the order does not allow a trade association or other third party to refer a dispute to arbitration so, if we provided that in the Bill, we would be departing from the order. In any event, we do not think that it is right that a third party should be able to refer a dispute to arbitration. A dispute is between a retailer and a supplier, not with a third party. If a supplier seeks compensation or some other remedy for its own benefit, it should come forward to submit the dispute to arbitration itself and on a named basis. This is consistent with the normal way in which disputes between two parties are resolved. Any other approach would risk unfairness to the retailer concerned. However, a trade association or other third party will be able to complain to the adjudicator if it considers that a retailer has breached the code. The adjudicator could then take that information into account in deciding whether to commence an investigation. That is how third parties can get involved. There is a distinction between arbitrations, which must be between retailers and suppliers, and investigations, where the adjudicator will be able to consider information from any source, including trade associations.
The remainder of my remarks are now directed more to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Browne, concerning the process for appointing an arbitrator, and to explaining why his amendment is not necessary. As I say, Clause 2 supplements the 2009 order. Because the order and the Bill provide for arbitration between retailers and suppliers, the arbitrations will be statutory arbitrations for the purposes of the Arbitration Act 1996 for England, Wales and Northern Ireland and of the Arbitration (Scotland) Act 2010. In the latter case, Clause 21(6) applies the provisions of the 2010 Act, pending that Act coming into force in relation to arbitrations under the Bill.
Section 94 of the Arbitration Act 1996 applies the provisions of Part I of that Act to every statutory arbitration, but this is subject to the adaptations and exclusions in Sections 95 to 98 of that Act. Also, the provisions of Part I will not apply to the extent that they are inconsistent with the groceries supply order 2009 or with the Bill; that is why I used the word “broadly” in referring to Section 94 in Committee. In Scotland, the effect of Section 16 of the Arbitration (Scotland) Act 2010 is similar in applying the Scottish arbitration rules set out in Schedule 1 to that Act to arbitrations under the 2009 order and the Bill. Again, there are certain exceptions set out in Section 16 and, again, the Scottish arbitration rules will not apply to the extent that they are inconsistent with the groceries supply order or the Bill; that is also why I used the word “broadly” in referring to Section 16 in Committee.
I will briefly give a couple of examples of inconsistency. The mechanism for the appointment of an arbitrator in Clause 2 of the Bill and provisions in Article 11(7) of the order for the payment of the arbitrator’s costs will each take precedence over provisions in the Arbitration Act 1996 and the Scottish arbitration rules about appointment and costs. I should also explain at this point that Article 11(6) of the order provides for the arbitration to be conducted in accordance with the rules of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators or any other dispute resolution body nominated by the appointed arbitrator. The rules of the relevant dispute resolution body and/or provisions of Part I of the Arbitration Act 1996 and the Scottish arbitration rules will protect the parties against the risks of the arbitration being carried out by an arbitrator who is not capable, impartial and fair. I refer in particular to Sections 24, 33 and 68 of the Arbitration Act 1996 and to rules 8, 10, 12, 24 and 68 of the Scottish arbitration rules.
In addition, it is worth noting that the adjudicator, as a public authority, must act reasonably and respect the right of the parties to a fair trial in appointing any arbitrator. Those duties will also act as a safeguard against the appointment of an arbitrator who is not capable, impartial, independent and fair. All that means that the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Browne, is not necessary.
Lord Whitty
My Lords, I thank the Minister for making clear the distinction between a complaint leading to an investigation and one leading to arbitration. However, I still think that there should be a means whereby someone could represent a supplier through the arbitration process as well as triggering an investigation. This may not be the appropriate clause to amend in that respect. The Minister made it clear that we would have to amend the code in order to do that, which I accept.
However, the net effect is that in this Act, the code and all its operations, we have not solved the basic imbalance of power to enable individual suppliers to have the confidence to take a case under this code. Until we do that, this will be only a limited protection, which is welcome in itself and for the teeth that this Act will give them. But it does not address all the fears and apprehensions of farmers and small businesses who are reliant on supermarket orders that they will be treated absolutely fairly.
I suspect that the Minister’s colleagues will get this amendment back in another place, probably from her own side. Therefore, this is not a closed case but, for now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Howard of Rising
“( ) In deciding whether to carry out an investigation, the Adjudicator may consider only one or both of the following—
(a) information provided by a supplier;(b) information that is publicly available.”
Lord Howard of Rising
My Lords, in moving Amendment 8, I shall speak also to Amendments 19 and 20. Before so doing, I declare interests both as a farmer and a supplier to supermarkets. I still cannot get my mind around why there should have been a change from the original drafting of the Bill, which limited complaints to those directly concerned in a transaction. My amendment seeks to do so, so that only those concerned with the business could complain. I can only think that the people who changed this have absolutely no connection with reality or commerce because there is bound to be some form of malicious or frivolous complaint. Anybody who doubts that has only to look at the world around us, where they cannot even fix LIBOR without doing it how it should not be done.
With something that is so open to abuse, it is only right that there has to be some form of corrective mechanism. Indeed, in the Bill there is the ability for the arbitrator to ask for costs from those who put in malicious complaints. Amendment 19 obliges the arbitrator to seek costs. He does not have to seek all of his costs, it is discretionary. Nevertheless, it would act as a deterrent to those who wish to behave badly if it was a certainty that they would have to pay for it. Amendment 20 emphasises that deterrent by asking the adjudicator to include actions that he takes so that it can be seen that he is dealing with those who make irresponsible complaints. This is a very important and necessary amendment to the Bill. I beg to move.
Lord Razzall
My Lords, the problem with the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, is that when we drill down, the real reason why the previous regime did not work is because a lot of farmers are very nervous and want to preserve their anonymity. That is why the regime, which I know the noble Lords, Lord Howard of Rising and Lord Borrie, and the noble Viscount, rather wish had been maintained, did not actually work in practice. Farmers were afraid that were they to complain and lose their anonymity, they would be victimised by the 10 major supermarkets. That is the reason we want to have this Bill. The amendment would go to the heart of the Bill and that is why it should be rejected.
Lord Cameron of Dillington
My Lords, I too am not convinced by any of these amendments, and I support the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, in that. The amendment undermines the point of the Bill and the adjudicator; there is currently an imbalance between the power of the various parties involved in the food supply chain which the Bill tries to redress. Thus, to tie the hands of the adjudicator in this way is not particularly helpful. After all, if we are trying to minimise spurious and vexatious complaints, is it best to limit the complaints to the supplier who may have been personally affected, or is it best to have their grievance or grievances assessed and filtered by a trade association and others, who might be able to point out what is reasonable and what is not? That, of course, is quite apart from the point about anonymity raised by the noble Lord, Lord Razzall.
I am afraid that I cannot support Amendments 19 and 20. The whole point of the Bill is to defend the little man against the power and possible bullying tactics of the big man. The whole point of the groceries code is that legal redress is too costly to risk, even if one thinks one has a case and does not have to succumb to the threat of delisting or other bullying tactics. I like the word “may” in Clause 10 because it deals with time wasters and those who are trying it on, but I strongly object to “must” in Amendments 19 and 20, which would undermine the flexibility of the adjudicator and thus much of the point of the Bill.
Lord Plumb
My Lords, I rise for the first time after something like an hour and a half of debate. I am very concerned at the way it has gone so far. I declare an interest as a farmer. In the course of the debate, I thought about the 2,500 farmers who were in Central Hall last week. Every one of them would have difficulty understanding what we have been talking about. We have rightly been talking about legal aspects of the Bill, because they have to be right and clear. However, what concerns the farmer at the moment, as a supplier of goods, is simply fairness in the marketplace. Therefore, farmers believe someone should be appointed to see that that is achieved.
That person—I presume that it will be a team—will have to take responsibility for dealing with issues not only fairly but correctly and with full understanding of what the job is about. They are not there to be involved in competition but to deal with investigation of the market that exists, or of the market that should be. The other day in Central Hall, the Minister held up a pint of milk and a bottle of water to illustrate the difference in price—56p as against 83p. A lot of questions must be asked. Surely it goes without saying that something has to be done and someone must be appointed.
If the person who is appointed finds unfairness on the other side, let it be so. That is their role and responsibility in this field. I do not agree with the amendments in this group, tabled by my noble friend Lord Howard. This amendment would leave the Bill in a similar form to the draft Bill that we saw in May 2011. Nothing has changed, and we are trying to bring about changes in the interests of the industry with which we are concerned.
The amendment would seriously narrow the sources of evidence that the adjudicator could use in launching an investigation into a possible breach of the code. That would be of considerable concern. The powers need to be broadened to allow credible evidence from any person who is prepared to come forward with a legitimate reason for asking the adjudicator to take responsibility and deal with an issue. All organisations, including charities, will have to be able to provide evidence of a breach of the code. This is a crucial element in safeguarding the adjudicator’s duty to protect the identity of the complainants. Therefore it is essential that the investigatory powers in the Bill are safeguarded but not complicated by cumbersome rules that could delay the process of ensuring a fairer functioning supply chain.
Lord Whitty
My Lords, I will be brief because the noble Lord, Lord Plumb, has spelt it out. It would be extraordinary if Amendment 8 were accepted and carried by this House. I accepted with some reluctance the noble Baroness’s indication that it would not be possible for third parties such as farming associations or unions to bring cases. I can understand that, but the idea that they should be cut out of providing information or that the adjudicator should be constrained from looking at that information and considering it before making his or her judgment seems extraordinary. I hope that the Minister will reject Amendment 8. It would tie the adjudicator’s hands and be unfair to the complaining supplier.
Viscount Eccles
My Lords, following on from the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, I do not understand,
“information that is publicly available”
as stopping anybody doing anything. The only thing a trade association, for example, has to do is to make its report on an alleged breach of the code public; it does not have to quote the names of companies. It cannot just go to the adjudicator with verbal information. It has to take the trouble to find out where the problems are.
I have huge sympathy with the immense consternation that is going on among dairy farmers. It is an extremely uncomfortable process. If the NFU has reason to believe that the code is not being observed, there is a case for it to collect as much evidence as it wishes from its members, who stay anonymous, and put its report about these breaches of the code into the public arena, presenting it at the same time to the adjudicator. That is a tremendous protection to both the public and the adjudicator; otherwise we shall all be left with a suspicion that what is happening is rumour and hearsay. It seems tremendously important that people’s reasons for doubting whether the code is being adhered to become public.
Lord Borrie
The noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, seems to have forgotten that the whole requirement in this Bill is that the investigation can properly go ahead only if there is a reasonable suspicion on behalf of the adjudicator that an investigation is required. That is the essential requirement in the Bill and I do not think it appropriate, for many of the reasons mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Plumb and Lord Whitty, and others, that it has been so difficult up to now because of the difference in bargaining power between the suppliers and the retailers. In addition to the requirements that are already in this clause, there is no need to establish that the information should be made public, for example by the NFU.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
My Lords, I was ready to give an impassioned speech to try to persuade the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, that he was wrong, but I think we have heard enough really good arguments from all sides of the House, so I will not delay the House by doing so. I will simply use the opportunity to thank the National Farmers’ Union, the Food and Drink Federation and the Federation of Small Businesses for their robust position on this, in saying that we should oppose these amendments.
Baroness Wilcox
My Lords, the question of who should be able to complain to the adjudicator has been discussed extensively: in consultation, at pre-legislative scrutiny, at Second Reading and in Committee. Along with most noble Lords who have spoken on this issue, the Government consider that the adjudicator should be able to consider evidence from any relevant source when deciding whether to commence an investigation.
The ability of the adjudicator to consider evidence from any source has been described by supplier groups as essential to the adjudicator’s operation. Furthermore, it simply makes sense. If the adjudicator has reasonable grounds to suspect a breach of the code, he or she should be able to initiate an investigation, no matter where the information came from.
My noble friend Lord Howard of Rising has explained that his concerns are motivated in part by the possibility of vexatious or malicious complaints and that is the issue behind Amendments 19 and 20. The Government certainly have some sympathy with this concern. No one wants to see the adjudicator’s time wasted or businesses put under a burden due to vexatious complaints. However, it is important that in the wording used we take into account what is customary as well as the need not to scare off legitimate complainants. As I said in Committee, this is intended to be a strong test directed at irresponsible complaints rather than simply erroneous or weak ones. I note also that the discretionary power to recover costs currently applies to the recovery of costs from both retailers and complainants. There seem to be few grounds for strengthening the requirement on one side without similarly strengthening it on the other. In either case the Government consider that the discretion provided by the word “may” allows the adjudicator to treat each case on its merits. The Government therefore consider that the Bill as it stands provides a necessary deterrent against vexatious complaints. The adjudicator can consider imposing costs on a complainant whose complaint is vexatious or wholly without merit but we do not think it should be mandatory or near-mandatory.
Regarding the amendment to produce an additional annual report, that would be an unnecessarily burdensome piece of bureaucracy. In paragraph 15 of Schedule 1 the adjudicator is already required to keep proper accounts and prepare a statement of accounts each year. These accounts would need to include any costs recovered from retailers or complainants. The application of the power to recover costs could be included in the annual report prepared under Clause 14. I therefore ask the noble Lord to consider withdrawing his amendment.
Lord Howard of Rising
I thank the Minister for her remarks and all other noble Lords who have spoken. I just want to point out that it is normal that there is an imbalance between the person paying and the person receiving the money. Why there should be protection in this case I do not know, even though it would be to my own personal benefit. Amendments 19 and 20 come into effect only if the system of complaints is being abused. I cannot see that charging those who have committed the abuse for the cost they have incurred can in any way be unfair. Indeed, it is unfair the other way because it is the people about whom they are complaining who have to pay all the costs. That said, I will not pursue the matter further and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Wilcox
Baroness Wilcox
My Lords, in Committee my noble friend Lady Byford raised an important question about when the adjudicator should pay travel expenses, which received a great deal of support from the Committee. She asked whether the 10-mile threshold on paying travel expenses was appropriate in rural areas, given that in such areas public transport is often very limited. This amendment is in both our names but the spirit of the amendment is all hers. I am merely speaking to it on her behalf as for personal reasons she cannot be here today. Rather than basing travel expenses on distance or time, we have simply specified that if the adjudicator requires a person to attend a particular place, the adjudicator must pay all that person’s travel expenses. I am grateful to the noble Baroness for bringing this issue to my attention and I hope that noble Lords are happy with this solution, which should benefit all those required to give evidence, particularly in rural areas. I beg to move.
Lord Plumb
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on what she has just said. I know that her noble friend Lady Byford will be thrilled to hear the news—in fact, she had already assumed that that would be the answer that she would get. For that reason, I thank the Minister for accepting the amendment. It is extremely important and will be recognised as such as time passes.
Lord Browne of Ladyton
“(c) the reasons for the findings and any action taken or proposed”
Lord Browne of Ladyton
My Lords, Clauses 4 to 10 govern how the adjudicator should conduct investigations and carry out his further powers of enforcement following investigations. Amendment 10 would amend Clause 5, which is the second of those clauses which relate to the publication of reports following investigations. The clause requires the adjudicator to publish a report, which is appropriate. Subsection (2) sets out what the report must specify as a minimum. The amendment would add to that minimum requirement the requirement for a statement of reasons for any finding made by the adjudicator and any action taken or proposed to be taken by him. I moved a similar amendment on the first day in Committee at col. 119 of the Official Report, where I set out the arguments for a requirement for reasons in a report in these circumstances. I do not intend to rehearse those arguments other than to say that it is my firm belief that, if reasons are set out, such a requirement would reduce rather than increase the possibility of challenge at a later date. In the absence of reasons, my experience is that people challenge to find out reasons.
This is consistent with my whole approach to the Bill—I say this for the benefit of the noble Lord, Lord Plumb, who has not had the opportunity to hear me speak in support of the Bill or of its objectives. I have in the past expressed my strong support for the Bill and the mechanism that it creates. My purpose in seeking to amend the legislation is to try to make it clearer, and to make it work more effectively and in a way in which those who need to have confidence in it can do so. I understand the necessity of the legislation, which has to be put at the heart of a relationship which is otherwise deeply unfair and potentially operates to the disadvantage of smaller suppliers. It is helpful to have this opportunity to make it clear that that is my objective. If I am seen to be unduly technical or legal about some of the amendments, I reassure noble Lords that they are all designed to make the legislation work better and to give the Minister the opportunity to explain the necessarily complicated process of how it will work. It may not have been immediately obvious to everybody that there was clarity in the Minister’s response to the amendment that I proposed earlier. I commend her for that, because it will enable those who need to read the reports of our debates to understand the mechanism much better.
When I moved the amendment in Committee, I was grateful for the support of the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, and my noble friend Lord Borrie. I was grateful, too, for the implied support of the Minister, who said that she thought that it was reasonable that the report should give reasons. She offered to speak to me further about it. I have taken advantage of that opportunity and have had a conversation also with her Bill team, whose help in advancing some of my intentions in relation to the Bill I have referred to. The result of that is a changed amendment which I hope is more felicitously worded than that which I proposed in Committee. I commend the amendment to the House and beg to move.
Lord Howard of Rising
My Lords, I speak to Amendment 11, which is grouped with Amendment 10, the sensible amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Browne. This amendment would seek the inclusion of comments made by the retailer to the adjudicator, and it seems to me only reasonable that both sides of the argument are included where a report is issued. The industry is particularly sensitive to public reputation and it would be unfair if it was not allowed to make its case at the same time as being criticised.
Viscount Eccles
My Lords, I do not wish to repeat the arguments made in Committee but I support these two amendments.
Lord Browne of Ladyton
My Lords, before the Minister speaks I should perhaps indicate—for the purpose of the record—that I also support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising. I think it is entirely consistent with what is fair in relation to the conduct of this process.
Baroness Wilcox
My Lords, as I said in Committee, the reports that the adjudicator must publish at the end of each investigation are a vital part of his or her accountability, and an important way of keeping retailers, suppliers and consumers informed of his or her work. While I can understand the intention behind the amendment of my noble friend Lord Howard of Rising, I am not sure that it is necessary. If a retailer wishes to make a public comment on the report, it will be free to do so by issuing a press release or publishing a statement on its website. For this to be included as an annexe to the report itself would appear somewhat unusual, particularly as there would—due to confidentiality—be less possibility of a similar statement from any suppliers.
Furthermore, we think it important that the report is clearly the adjudicator’s report and the adjudicator’s alone. The report should be fair and impartial and should not be coloured by commentary from a retailer with which the adjudicator may or may not agree. As I say, the retailer will be free to make its own statement, and similarly the adjudicator will have no right to have his or her comments on that statement included in it. I therefore ask the noble Lord not to press that amendment.
To move on to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Browne, I said two weeks ago that this was interesting and reasonable—he repeated my words exactly—and upon further consideration I am happy to say that my opinion has not changed. It is eminently sensible to require the adjudicator’s investigation reports to contain the reasons for the decisions made, and I am therefore happy to accept that amendment.
Lord Browne of Ladyton
My Lords, I am overwhelmed by the scale of my success this afternoon. I suspect I may retire from the lists now. This will be a day that I will never repeat. I thank the noble Baroness for her consistent approach in this case. I thank her and her Bill team once again for their co-operation and engagement with me in an attempt to try and make this amendment work better, and it does. I think that we have, between us, improved the Bill.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
Lord Knight of Weymouth
My Lords, we consider Amendments 15 and 18 to be consequential to Amendment 11A and therefore, if the House passes Amendment 11A, it should be aware that it would also be voting to pass Amendments 15 and 18. I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Curry and Lord Cameron, for their support for those two amendments. Amendment 11A specifies that the adjudicator has the power to fine in any circumstances that he or she sees fit as soon as Clause 6 is commenced. That is, it gives the right to fine from day one. It therefore follows that Amendment 15 to Clause 9, which deletes those powers being introduced by order of the Secretary of State, and Amendment 18, which deletes Schedule 3 detailing the order-making process by the Secretary of State, should also be agreed to.
The question of whether the adjudicator should have the power to fine from day one concerns what makes an effective regulator. We have seen regulatory failure in recent times in respect of banks—much as I applaud the action of the FSA in exposing and then fining Barclays over the LIBOR scandal.
How much better would it have been if we had had an effective Press Complaints Commission? Perhaps the grotesque scandal of phone hacking could have been prevented if there had been a regulator with more teeth than just the ability to name and shame. Clearly, the powerful forces of the media have not feared their regulator or the threat of a statutory regulator with real power.
I welcome the Government’s conversion to the principle that the adjudicator may need the power to fine. They listened to the Select Committees, and that is good, but this is not a wholescale Damascene conversion. If they are coming back down the road, it is with no great conviction, as they are not offering those powers from day one of the operation of the adjudicator.
Of course, that should be no great surprise, as it is arguable that the Bill is full of lukewarm commitment. There is no sign of wanting to keep the code alive and updated as circumstances change, as we have discovered. The Bill to establish the adjudicator includes the power to abolish the office by ministerial diktat, as we will debate later today. The concession to allow complaints by third parties was also given in response to the Select Committee, but along with a clause to allow the Government to change their mind back again by another order. The charge of foot-dragging is reasonable.
If the Government were truly listening to the Defra and BIS Select Committees in the other place, the power to fine would be available from inception. The Government said in response to the Select Committee's recommendation:
“If there is evidence of significant non-compliance with the Groceries Code and the existing regime seems not to be sufficiently effective, there is the prospect of a swift introduction of financial penalties, without the need for primary legislation”.
That is their main argument for the way the Bill is currently constructed. The key phrase here is “swift introduction”. Even with the concessions on adjudicator guidance that we will debate shortly, it will still take a long time.
As things currently stand, first, the adjudicator will get up and running and run investigations following complaints. Then, when a significant breach is found, the retailer is named and shamed. It is hard to see that taking less than a year. Then, after a reasonable period, more complaints and another investigation, there may still be significant non-compliance. That will take another year. The adjudicator then decides to use that as evidence of the need for powers to fine and recommends accordingly to the Secretary of State. I find it hard to believe that the decision to fine in principle would then take less than three months for the Secretary of State to consider. Then there will be a consultation on that decision in principle for it to be confirmed and the process of moving orders through Parliament to begin. That will take not less than six months. Then, the adjudicator has the powers and can launch another investigation following a further complaint and then use the powers to fine.
No one can seriously believe that all that can be done sooner than three years after the adjudicator was established. So much for swift introduction. The National Farmers’ Union has always supported fines, but now appears to concede reserve powers because it does not want to delay the Bill. I respect its concern. We have listened carefully to it throughout, but if we decide today to improve the Bill by allowing what others, such as the Federation of Small Businesses, still want, there need be no delay. The FSB has e-mailed me to say:
“We remain concerned that without the ability to impose significant financial penalties, the Adjudicator will find it difficult to be fully effective. While powers contained within the Bill, particularly the ability to name and shame, are important, we believe that the Adjudicator will need a full range of penalties available to it as soon as it is set up to ensure that it is able to deal with the complaints it may face”.
I also refer your Lordships to the campaign on this Bill led by ActionAid, which includes an extraordinary alliance of organisations, as diverse as the FSB, the Country Land and Business Association, Unite the Union, the World Wildlife Fund, WSPA, Friends of the Earth, the Church of England and the Campaign to Protect Rural England—not necessarily normal bedfellows as a group. They say that Parliament should ensure that the adjudicator can,
“launch investigations on the basis of credible evidence provided by third parties, such as business associations, NGOs, trade unions and MPs”.
They add that they should be able to do this from day one. The Government have already agreed in Amendments 16 and 23 that the adjudicator may upon appointment begin drafting guidance on the use of fines, and that concession is welcome. However, that means that, unless the Government decide to dig in their heels and change the Bill back in the Commons, if your Lordships’ House is minded to agree these amendments now there need be no delay. On this side of the House, we are absolutely committed to this Bill making rapid progress. That is why we took it quickly through Committee in the Moses Room, with an extended day; that is why we are progressing relatively quickly today; and that is why we have delivered on our side to the commitment to conclude Lords’ consideration of all stages of the Bill by the Summer Recess.
I would like to add one more thing—on listening. As we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Plumb, and my noble friend Lord Grantchester, feelings are running high in the dairy sector about how exploited liquid milk producers are. When discussing this crisis with these producers, I tried to reassure them that Parliament was listening and legislating through this Bill, but too many have given up on us and do not believe that we will make any difference. Without the power to fine from day one, they may be right and another chance to rebuild trust in this Parliament will be lost. However, I am pleased that some retailers are listening to these producers, including some supermarkets. I take this opportunity to mention a welcome initiative by Sainsbury’s. In April, the farmers who supply Sainsbury’s milk voted to move to an industry-leading cost of production-based supply model. Following their first pricing review of dairy costs, they increased the price they pay farmers for milk by 0.26p to 30.56p per litre from 1 July. That is a marginal amount, but it is welcome and I am happy to pay tribute to the fact that there are some supermarkets that want to make progress.
Not all large retailers are acting voluntarily, however, so we need to push them down the road of responsibility. It all comes down to whether the adjudicator should grow teeth or be born with them. We are in the process of bringing a guard dog into the world to protect the groceries supply code. Currently, our hound will be able to patrol the perimeter, to sniff out and investigate intruders or potential intruders. The beast will be able to bark if it finds anything, in the hope that someone will notice or that the intruders will think someone will notice and therefore voluntarily back off. However, if the intruders persist, they will do so in the knowledge that the dog has no teeth; it is all bark and no bite, all name and shame and no fines. I hope our guard dog never has cause to bite, but I do want potential intruders to worry that it might and that it can take a chunk out of their profits straight away—not in the future if we decide later perhaps that it needs teeth. We need effective regulation of overmighty vested interests. Retailers making multibillion-pound profits are very mighty indeed. Their suppliers need protection from an effective regulator, and that regulator needs the power to fine from the start.
Baroness Randerson
My Lords, I am surprised at the noble Lord’s ferocity on this given the record of the previous Government, which although well-intentioned was hardly decisive and swift on this issue. I think his judgment that it would take three years to bring in fines is very speculative. However, I am sympathetic to his argument. Certainly, I have been listening very carefully to the idea that we need fines from the start.
For that reason, I am very pleased to see Amendments 16 and 23 from the Government in this group, which will ensure that financial penalties can be brought in quickly. Bearing in mind the Government’s philosophy, which is light-touch regulation, I can see that this fits in with that philosophy.
Lord Cameron of Dillington
My Lords, I put my name to Amendment 15 because I am very much in favour of the immediate application of financial penalties where, after due process, a clear breach of the code has emerged. I do not believe that merely naming and shaming will have any effect at all. Supermarkets know that, in the short term, their customers shop with them largely because they are local. Why would the supermarkets still be chasing a further 44,000,000 square feet of retail space in a recession if they did not believe that? They need more retail space nearer to more customers.
Shoppers stick to their habitual supermarkets either because they are local, as I said, or because they get to know where things are on the shelves and find it much easier to shop that way. It seems that very few supermarket customers actually make shopping decisions based on ethical or moral grounds. There are one or two but they are very few. I suspect that some supermarket staff believe that any publicity is good publicity, so I do not believe that naming and shaming will work. Supermarkets have to feel the effects of their misbehaviour in their pockets, or at least to know that they could.
Clause 9(1) seems to be merely a delaying tactic, which will put off the much-needed effects of this Bill for yet another year or so—maybe three, as the noble Lord, Lord Knight, said—until the Secretary of State grips the issue. I believe we should try to grip the issue now and that the introduction of an effective adjudicator has been delayed long enough. Frankly, there is no point in having an adjudicator unless he or she has the powers to be effective. Of course, we all hope that if they have such effective powers, those will in itself be enough to make it unnecessary for them to be used. However, the powers must be effective, and I do not believe that they will be without the ability to fine.
Lord Borrie
My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Cameron. He has made a clear case and, of course, my noble friend on the Front Bench, Lord Knight of Weymouth, made a very powerful case, for a power to fine from day one—in other words, under the Bill itself—without having to wait for some subsequent statutory instrument which may come into force some year or so later. My noble friend Lord Knight made the powerful point that the Government’s commitment to this is lukewarm. Yes, we have the Bill—that is something and it is important; the Government have indicated that it is important—but then they draw back. They draw back from the possibility, among other weapons to be used by the adjudicator, of a fine.
Who might be subject to a fine? We are talking about powerful businesses. Not any supermarket, but only the 10 most powerful supermarkets in the country could possibly be subject to the Bill. Will they be frightened off doing what some of them have done up to now—which is why we have the Bill in the first place—by the other powers that are mentioned; naming and shaming and so on? I do not think so. Mind you, they may not, because of their power, be terribly put out by a substantial fine, but fines can be very effective as a deterrent and, after all, that is what we are mainly concerned about: not the actual imposition of a fine, two fines, or whatever, but the deterrent value of a fine. To have that deterrent value from now, from the moment when the Bill becomes law, rather than at some distant point in the future, is what makes a real difference, it seems to me. I trust that we may succeed in getting the Government to agree to this change.
The Lord Bishop of Newcastle
My Lords, I, too, would prefer to have fines in the Bill from the outset, because I believe, like many noble Lords, that that is the most effective way of enforcing the groceries supply code and also that it will prevent the transfer of excessive risk down the supply chain. Nevertheless, like us all, I do not want to delay the Bill any longer than is necessary; I want to get it implemented as soon as possible. I am anxious that, if this power were to be given from day one, it would mean the creation of a rather complicated appeals system which could delay the passing and implementation of the Bill even further and for some considerable time. I would like to be assured about that, if any noble Lord can do so. I wonder whether naming and shaming is the crucial issue for the moment, providing, of course, that retailers are not to be given a statutory right of appeal. I would rather get on with this as soon as possible, even though my own preference would be to have fines in the Bill from day one.
Lord Plumb
My Lords, I have been very impressed with what I have heard. I did not expect that there would be many in this House who would press for immediate action. I can see the point very clearly—what the right reverend Prelate has just said is absolutely right—but I would like the Minister to say whether, if there was a delay in the powers being implemented, it would complicate things and make it a much more complicated Bill. I see no reason for that, but it is a question that needs to be answered. If it would, can the Minister say, or give us a guesstimate as to how long it would be before those powers are implemented?
Lord Whitty
I, too, support this amendment. It seems to me that this clause as it stands, combined with Schedule 3 and the possible orders under it, the nature of which we do not yet know, could seriously constrain the nature and instances of the financial penalties which the adjudicator felt able to impose.
There are difficulties here. If I look at other regulators, adjudicators or ombudsmen, a delay has rarely awaited the Secretary of State before the provisions for their powers came into practice. I do not see any particular argument why that should be the case here, either immediately, in terms of the year or so’s delay in giving the powers, or in how the powers are exercised in broad terms.
I was going to widen the debate, and I shall still mention this point: financial penalties are one thing—the “fines”, as we normally call them—but quite often the most obviously appropriate remedy would actually be compensation to the supplier that had been disadvantaged by the behaviour and practices of the retailer. I have an amendment following this group that deals with that issue, but it deals with it rather crudely. I have now read the Committee proceedings on this, which indicate the complexity of writing in compensation in the way that I am proposing, and I will therefore not be moving that amendment. However, there ought also to be some process whereby financial penalties are augmented by the ability of the arbiter or the adjudicator to refer the possibility of compensation to appropriate authorities.
In reality, naming and shaming is not enough. Although I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, that it can be important for the reputation of the company, fines are even more important in terms of that reputation. At the end of the day, though, the organisation that has been disadvantaged is the small business, the farmer or whoever it is who has been at the receiving end of the abuse. Somehow within this regulation and code there ought to be an ability for the adjudicator to recommend, possibly under the powers of recommendation, that the issue of potential compensation is referred to the appropriate legal authorities. That is missing at the moment, although it could be included within the recommendations.
The point here is that we should not be placing undue time delays or undue constraints on the ability of the adjudicator to impose sufficient redress. If we removed Schedule 3 and altered Clause 9, we would be able to put the Bill into operation as rapidly as possible and establish a more equitable balance within the supply chain.
The Duke of Montrose
Is part of the purpose of the adjudicator that the disadvantaged person should not be identified? If that is so, how do they go about talking about compensation?
Lord Whitty
The person is not necessarily unidentified; that depends on the supplier. I know that those arguments were made in Committee and I accept that it would not be for the adjudicator to impose compensation or the level of it themselves. However, it ought to be open to the adjudicator to be able to say, “It looks as if a supplier or a number of suppliers have been disadvantaged by this practice and the issue should be referred, effectively, to the courts”. That could be part of the recommendatory powers. That is not the central issue on this group of amendments, though; they are really to remove the constraints on the Secretary of State and allow the adjudicator to have a whole range of potential financial sanctions.
Lord Howard of Rising
My Lords, contrary to what has been said by some this afternoon, naming and shaming is a genuine deterrent. In a cut-throat, highly competitive business such as this—reading the results of supermarket chains shows how very quickly they can go downhill from having made substantial profits—naming and shaming is a real deterrent. I also hope that the Minister will remember that the only person who actually pays those fines in the end is the consumer.
Baroness Wilcox
My Lords, I do not want anyone to think we are lukewarm. We introduced this Bill as a priority and did so as soon as possible in this Session. Ever since we started discussing the establishment of an adjudicator, people have been concerned to know whether the adjudicator will have teeth. Central to that discussion has been financial penalties: should they be available at all, should they be a reserve power and how easy should they be to introduce? We are discussing now whether they should be introduced from the beginning. These are of course important questions.
We have carefully considered the sanctions available to the adjudicator and are convinced that this is indeed a Bill with teeth. The wide information-gathering powers, the ability to recover costs from retailers and the ability to raise a levy in a way that causes offenders to pay more all mean that no retailer will want to risk breaching the code. These aspects all ensure that those who breach the code will face a real cost.
However, more important is the sanction of “name and shame”, or the requirement to publish information as it is more properly known. I can assure you, as someone who has worked in this sector directly supplying supermarkets, that this will be an important deterrent, for reputation is extremely important to our biggest retailers. My noble friend Lord Howard of Rising has just spoken from his own experience in support of this. No retailer will want to be publicly named and shamed as having breached the code or having been found against for an action that does not appear to be fair or right. Every customer who goes into that shop will know that this has happened. Furthermore, every retailer will know that financial penalties are in reserve and that, with the amendments the Government tabled last week, they can be brought in very swiftly. Clearly, all retailers will want to avoid this.
I have shown that the adjudicator has teeth. I have shown that the existing powers and sanctions are sufficient to hold retailers to account and give them a clear incentive to obey the code. However, that is not enough. It is not sufficient to show that introducing fines from the outset is not necessary, since people could justly say that we might as well give the adjudicator the power just in case. However, if the power to impose financial penalties is granted, it is very likely to be used. Obviously, each case will be treated on its facts but enforcement authorities will tend, over time, to use the full range of sanctions available to them. That is why I would like to set out why the Government believe that introducing financial penalties from the outset is not only unnecessary but actively undesirable. The reasons for this are twofold. The first concerns proportionality and the second concerns culture.
We must remember that this is a very difficult time for business and our economy is going through a troubled period. Although regulation is sometimes necessary, we must strive to ensure that it is proportionate, so as not to impose unnecessary costs on business. We must also remember that the large supermarkets do a great deal of good for our country, as was confirmed by the Competition Commission in its report. As well as providing employment, their fierce competition has provided unprecedented choice for consumers and driven down food prices in recent years. Currently, with many ordinary families feeling the pinch of both wage freezes and inflation, the big supermarkets’ contribution to keeping prices down is particularly important. The fact that they have to compete with each other publicly, for us all to see, is equally important and another reason why being named and shamed in the middle of all this is not going to please any supermarket group.
Of course, the Competition Commission also found problems in the use of buyer power with respect to suppliers—that is why we are introducing this Bill. However, this is a sector that is fundamentally working well, and that is why we should strive to regulate it in as moderate a way as possible, unless and until it is shown that this is not effective. If compliance with the code can be achieved through “naming and shaming”, that will be far better than imposing fines, the cost of which might ultimately be borne by the consumer anyway.
The second reason for preferring a regime without fines concerns the culture that we are trying to create. The issue of culture was discussed very helpfully in Committee by the right reverend prelate the Bishop of Wakefield and is something I would like to return to. The goal of this Bill, and of the great majority of us in this Chamber, is to encourage retailers to comply with the code. It is not to punish them—that helps no one. It is to make sure they treat their suppliers fairly. The question is how best to encourage that culture of compliance.
The Government believe that the best way is through a proportionate, regulatory regime, focusing on advice, guidance, investigations and name and shame, backed by the threat of financial penalties in reserve. In such a way, the retailers will be encouraged to comply with the code. A punitive, adversarial culture, such as that which would be created by financial penalties, could also work—but much more slowly and at a much higher cost.
I ask noble Lords whether they would prefer that the adjudicator carries out four investigations a year, in each one identifying breaches of the code and correcting them, or that he or she carries out just one, imposes a financial penalty and then gets bogged down by a lengthy court battle as the retailers fight appeal after appeal? Make no mistake, if fines are needed, they will be brought in. The Government are very clear on this. The amendments I have tabled, which noble Lords will be discussing shortly, demonstrate our intent. By removing the double layer of consultation and by allowing the adjudicator to publish guidance on fining prior to being given the power to impose fines, we have ensured that fines can be brought in swiftly if necessary. However, we should first give the more moderate regime a chance.
One might expect the suppliers would push for the retailers to face the maximum penalty. That is their right. However, they have also acknowledged the need to be proportionate. I cite the briefing of the British Brands Group, which has said that fines are “not essential” and of the NFU, which has said that it will not be arguing for the Bill to be amended to allow fines from the outset, provided the Government’s amendments to streamline the process are accepted. If the suppliers are being so measured, should not the Government and Parliament also take a proportionate approach and decide on the most proportionate remedy that will be best for both the country and the economy as a whole?
This is already a Bill with teeth. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
My Lords, there we have it. The Minister started off by saying she was not lukewarm but then spoke with passion as to why the supermarkets should not be fined right now. That was lukewarm about fining supermarkets if ever I heard it. I am grateful to noble Lords who have spoken in this debate, all of whom, with the notable exception of the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, supported fining in principle. I would urge the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and her party to vote with their principles rather than with the lame excuses that they have been given. I say to the right reverend prelate the Bishop of Newcastle that the Bill itself sets out how the powers to fine would be introduced, and it is perfectly clear that allowing the powers to fine from day one would not delay the passage of the Bill and the establishment of the adjudicator. However, if we do not pass this amendment, the adjudicator will begin without the powers that he wants and without the teeth that we need as the threat to make sure that people abide by this code. I would like to test the opinion of the House.
Lord Howard of Rising
“(2) A large retailer, subject to any enforcement measure set out in this section, may appeal against those measures to the Competition Appeals Tribunal.
(3) If the Adjudicator requires information to be published, the large retailer may appeal to the Competition Appeals Tribunal—
(a) prior to any information being published; or(b) following the publication of any information.”
Lord Howard of Rising
Both this amendment and Amendment 14 deal with appeals. The Minister was gracious enough in Committee to say that she would look at this and she produced a forceful argument in a letter to the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, pointing out the benefits of appealing to the High Court rather than to the Competition Appeal Tribunal. If one accepts her arguments, that still leaves open the question of the ability to appeal. If there is a financial penalty, it is all right to appeal. If there is a recommendation, there is no need to appeal. That leaves publishing information where the only remedy is a judicial review, which seems cumbersome, expensive and would involve delay, which, from debates in Committee, I know that the Minister thinks is unacceptable and undesirable. It would be only fair to have the right of appeal against naming and shaming, which, after all, can be more expensive to a supermarket than a financial penalty. That is to say, the damage to reputation can be considerably greater than a fine. If one is allowed to appeal on a financial penalty, there should surely be a right to appeal on something which could be an even greater punishment and more expensive. I beg to move.
Lord Plumb
My Lords, I can assure you that my noble friend Lord Howard really is a noble friend, although in this respect we disagree on the way forward. His amendment suggests that enforcement measures taken by an adjudicator, including naming and shaming, will be subject to the right to appeal to an appeals tribunal. This would surely lead to sclerosis of the adjudicator’s operations and the appeal could become bogged down in an attempt to enforce the groceries code. As we have already heard in the debate so far, there are avenues for retailers if they believe a decision is unfair, such as judicial review. This is the case with the Food Standards Agency. It could refuse to take remedial action, and a Competition Appeal Tribunal is available for making those decisions, such as with the OFT or the commission. I said earlier and I repeat: the adjudicator will not make competition decisions. The job is to investigate whether the groceries code is coupled with fair play in the marketplace. I therefore do not support this amendment.
Lord Browne of Ladyton
My Lords, out of consistency I support the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, in Amendment 14. I said in Committee that my view was that the appeals processes, the potential of judicial review which has been generated by this Bill and the existing law are unnecessarily complicated and could be greatly clarified. I do not think that the issues at stake in relation to a decision such as naming and shaming are of anything other than the order in which it is guaranteed that a large retailer will test by judicial review whether or not that decision is appropriate. I expect—and we should anticipate—that these issues will be of such moment to large retailers that they will deploy their legal resources in a way that guarantees a degree of review of any decision. Had the noble Baroness been minded to accept Amendment 11 proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, I would not have felt it necessary to support this amendment, which introduces to the Bill what I consider to be not only an element of fairness, but one of reality. Had the noble Baroness been minded to allow or require the adjudicator to publish with any report of an investigation the response of a large retailer and make it public, then I would have thought that this would have been sufficient. In the absence of that, a large retailer will want to be vindicated and we will get litigation. It would be better contained inside the process. I know this is not a position supported by most people who broadly take my view of this legislation, but I support it.
Lord Borrie
My Lords, if there is a “naming and shaming” proposal from the adjudicator, according to Clause 8 he or she has got to give written notice specifying,
“what information is to be published … how it must be published… and… the time by which it must be published”.
Clearly, there has to be a response to that. While it is not called an “appeal”, none the less, because notice has to be given by the adjudicator as to what he intends and the supermarket can respond to that, there is a time factor, and there is in effect an opportunity for the supermarket to say further things that it wants to say.
The common-law rule of natural justice, which we all know about, is that everybody has a right to be heard before some decision is made which may be adverse to them. The rule of natural justice as I have always understood it is that you only have an opportunity to be heard once. You cannot call upon some right of appeal under that rule, because that would be giving you the right to be heard twice, and that is not the position. Of course, there is always judicial review but that is, I admit, limited in that you have to show something seriously wrong with the decision, and that no reasonable person would have made such a decision. It is fair enough that anybody should have a right of judicial review to have that checked, but no case for an appeal has been made out. The whole set-up of the adjudicator is meant to be fairly speedy and so on. Subject to the points I have mentioned—you have to be given advance notice about naming and shaming, and you have a right to respond to that—there is no call for any more than that.
Baroness Wilcox
My Lords, the question of appeals is important and I can fully understand the desire of my noble friends Lord Howard of Rising and Lord Eccles to return to it at this stage of the Bill. However, although we have considered the matter carefully, the Government’s position remains unchanged.
Financial penalties clearly deserve a full merits right of appeal and the Bill provides for this. However, the other sanctions, including the requirement to publish information, have no direct legal consequence against a retailer. A recommendation is just that and is not binding, and a requirement to publish is essentially simply about distributing and sharing information which will, in all likelihood, be in the adjudicator’s investigation report. For this reason, therefore, judicial review is sufficient.
Although a judicial review will not normally involve a reconsideration of all the factual evidence, it could consider whether the adjudicator had reached a decision which was not supported by the facts, or had taken into account irrelevant facts or had failed to take account of relevant facts. I draw a comparison with the Financial Services Authority. Under the terms of the Financial Services Bill currently proceeding through this House, the FSA—or, in future, the Financial Conduct Authority—may issue public warning notices about a specific firm. Before making such a notice, it must give the firm the opportunity to comment, but there is no right of appeal before publication. Issuing a public warning notice in this way is, given the potential impact on reputation of the financial services firm in question, similar in consequence to our requirement to publish information which also has the benefit of warning those who deal with a retailer that they have been found in breach of the code. The requirement to give the firm the opportunity to comment is similar to that provided in Clause 5(4) of this Bill. This is similar to what the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, has also said on this point.
Furthermore, as I said in Committee, a full right of appeal, requiring the repetition of a detailed fact-finding exercise, could seriously delay the requirement to publish and so substantially diminish its impact. In particular, we expect a full merits appeal of this kind normally to take significantly more time than a judicial review because it involves a reconsideration of all the facts. Taking these matters into account, the Government consider that a full right of appeal is needed only against financial penalties, and that otherwise the possibility of judicial review by the court would be sufficient.
On whether appeals should be in the CAT or the High Court, this is a finely balanced question and I have written to Peers on this matter already. We do not think it would be wrong for either the CAT or the High Court to hear such appeals, nor do we think there is likely to be a significant difference in speed. However, on consideration, we do not think using the CAT would make the best use of its expertise, which is, of course, in competition matters. This is because, although introduced on competition grounds, the context of the adjudicator’s functions concerns contractual and commercial relationships between retailers and suppliers. The expertise needed to address these practices can be found in the High Court, or the Court of Session in Scotland. We do not think that the particular specialist expertise of the CAT is needed in order to consider the adjudicator’s decisions.
A further practical issue is whether, if the CAT were to hear appeals against financial penalties, appeals against costs or judicial reviews of all decisions of the adjudicator were also to be referred to the CAT. To the extent any appeals or reviews remained in the High Court, one could see two separate appeals or reviews on related subjects being taken forward in different fora at the same time. On the other hand, if they all took place in the CAT, this could lead to the CAT making rulings on matters even further from its core competition remit. That is a difficulty which is avoided by the Bill as we have it now. Therefore, in conclusion, we consider that appeals should most appropriately be to the High Court. I therefore ask the noble Lords to consider withdrawing their amendments.
Lord Howard of Rising
I thank the Minister for her remarks. I accept that the High Court would be as good a place as the Competition Appeal Tribunal. However, if an appeal is acceptable for a financial penalty, surely an appeal should also be acceptable for naming and shaming. It seems to me that fair play is the objective of this Bill, so surely there should be fair play in the application of the code by the adjudicator. Fair play surely would mean the right of appeal if someone thinks that the adjudicator has got it wrong.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Browne, for his support and I endorse his comment that, if there is to be no right of appeal, there should be an opportunity for the retailers’ arguments to be included with any report produced by the adjudicator. Having made those points, to which I hope that the Minister will listen, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Wilcox
Baroness Wilcox
My Lords, the question of financial penalties has been central to our deliberations on the Bill. It is, as we have heard today, an important question. The Government have consistently stated their view that financial penalties should be a reserve power, but that it should be possible to bring them in quickly if they prove to be necessary. At Second Reading and in Committee a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Knight, Lord Grantchester, Lord Razzall and Lord Teverson, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Byford and Lady Randerson, and others, expressed the view that the Bill as drafted did not achieve this. Noble Lords indicated that the process for introducing fines was unnecessarily slow and bureaucratic and that it should be simplified. After careful consideration, I agree that noble Lords were right that the process was too slow. The Government have therefore decided to bring forward these amendments.
The amendments draw on the inspiration of the noble Lords, Lord Knight and Lord Grantchester, in that they allow the adjudicator to publish guidance on how it would use financial penalties in advance of the Secretary of State making the order that would confer that power. This means that if the power is granted it can be used straight away, without the need for further consultation, provided that the adjudicator has already published the necessary guidance under Clause 12. To accompany the amendment to Clause 12, we have deleted paragraphs 4 and 5 of Schedule 3.
I would also like to touch on the need for the Secretary of State to consult before introducing financial penalties, an issue which the noble Lords, Lord Razzall and Lord Teverson, raised in Committee. We think that this provision needs to be retained as it would be inappropriate to introduce such a significant change with no consultation. However, my officials have examined the Bill and advised that this consultation could, if desired, take place simultaneously with a triennial review by the Secretary of State. That would further streamline the process if the introduction of fines were being considered at a similar time to a triennial review, although I remind noble Lords that an order under Clause 9 and Schedule 3 does not have to await a triennial review.
We have, as I say, also deleted paragraphs 4 and 5 of Schedule 3 to accompany the amendments to Clause 12. This means that fines could be introduced within six months of the need being identified. All it will require is a three-month consultation and an affirmative order. These amendments have been supported by three of the major supplier organisations: the NFU, the Food and Drink Federation and the British Brands Group. I hope that noble Lords agree that these amendments will significantly streamline the introduction of fines and that they are able to give them their support. I beg to move.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for the concession which results from our debate in Committee. I would also like to take this opportunity to ask again the question that her noble friend Lord Plumb asked in the previous debate. Assuming that the adjudicator has consulted on the guidance around using the powers to fine, how long will it take, once the Secretary of State has made the decision, for these powers to be introduced?
Baroness Wilcox
I am delighted to answer the noble Lord’s question. Fines can be introduced within six months or so of the need being identified. I thought that I had just said that but I am very happy to repeat it.
Lord Howard of Rising
Lord Howard of Rising
My Lords, this group of amendments is aimed at making it compulsory for the adjudicator to give advice to those seeking it from him. At the moment, there is no obligation. There is a strong argument that he should give advice. The opposing argument has been that he might get involved in frivolous requests if it is compulsory, and that that would mean unnecessary expense. A solution to that would be to make it compulsory to give advice to the large retailers which have to live by this code. They pay his expenses, so they are unlikely to incur unnecessary expense. Perhaps the Minister will consider this point and come back to us at Third Reading. I beg to move.
Lord True
My Lords, I intervened briefly in Grand Committee to support my noble friend on part of the amendments in this group. I think that he has already implied the following point in what he said. Clause 12(3) states:
“The Adjudicator may publish guidance about … steps that large retailers need to take in order to comply with the Groceries Code”.
I believe that the adjudicator must give such guidance; otherwise the position would be nonsensical. In Committee I gave the possible example of my local authority publishing a parking order but not putting up signs to say during which hours the parking scheme would operate and with people having to apply to find out that information.
With respect to my noble friend, I think that his amendments are probably rather widely drafted. Looking at the phrase, “may publish guidance about any other matter relating to the groceries code”, I can understand why my noble friend on the Front Bench might want to resist it. However, it might be a fruitful course, between now and Third Reading, if the Government thought about the more confined area to which my noble friend referred. It would seem to offend against natural justice not to tell people the steps they must take to comply with a code which could lead to their being fined, named and shamed or whatever. I hope the Minister will consider that specific point which arises from my noble friend’s Amendment 22 in this group.
Baroness Wilcox
My Lords, I have sympathy for the spirit of all three amendments. On Amendments 21 and 22, we certainly consider that an important role of the adjudicator will be to provide advice and guidance. That is why we have included these clauses. It is clearly better if the adjudicator can encourage compliance with the code through light-touch means, such as advice, rather than by enforcing it after a breach has been committed through sanctions. However, as I think my noble friend Lord Howard of Rising would concede, we cannot make these provisions mandatory. The adjudicator must be able to prioritise his or her workload and cannot be required to give advice in all circumstances to any of the 10 retailers or thousands of suppliers who might have a question. Even limiting the “must” to the retailers, could be open to abuse by one retailer at the expense of others.
I ask noble Lords to keep in mind here that the adjudicator will be a public authority and will be required to act reasonably in responding to requests for advice. In that context, some discretion for the adjudicator is appropriate. Equally, while guidance is crucial, I would emphasise that the adjudicator is already required under Clause 12(1), to publish guidance about how he or she will carry out his or her core operations. It would not be meaningful to have a mandatory requirement for the adjudicator to publish guidance on “any other matter relating to the groceries code”. Again, there has to be some flexibility for the adjudicator.
On the other hand, the Government certainly consider that the adjudicator would normally answer reasonable requests, and should normally provide advice where this would aid in the core objective of encouraging compliance with the code. Similarly, sufficient guidance should be provided to ensure that retailers and suppliers have the clarity they need to interact effectively with the adjudicator. This is similar to the expectation that we would have of a local authority. If the adjudicator was not acting appropriately in giving advice and guidance, I am sure that the Secretary of State would take steps to remedy this by issuing guidance to the adjudicator under Clause 15(8). The adjudicator has a statutory obligation to take account of such guidance in carrying out his or her functions, which I hope offers some reassurance to my noble friend Lord Howard.
On Amendment 24, although again I can sympathise with the principle behind the amendment, I do not consider it necessary. This is because the Bill, in Clause 12(4), already requires the adjudicator to consult any persons whom he or she thinks appropriate before publishing guidance. In the vast majority of circumstances this would include the retailers. In the unlikely event that the adjudicator did not consult the retailers before publishing guidance, in a case where it was clear that he or she should have done so, there would be the possibility of judicial review. The adjudicator will be very aware of this, meaning that Amendment 24 is not necessary. I would, therefore, ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Howard of Rising
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her remarks, disappointing as they are. Of course, the point is that it is always the adjudicator who chooses what advice to give whereas there may be some area that is in doubt which the large retailers would like to know about. Perhaps they will be comforted by the Minister’s remarks, and by the fact that any future Secretary of State will be able to read in Hansard what is expected and call the adjudicator to order. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Baroness Wilcox
“( ) If the Secretary of State makes an order under section 9 authorising the Adjudicator to impose financial penalties, the Adjudicator must publish guidance about the criteria that the Adjudicator intends to adopt in deciding the amount of a penalty (and this requirement can be satisfied by guidance published before the order is made).”
Baroness Wilcox
“( ) The Secretary of State must lay a copy of the report before Parliament.”
Baroness Wilcox
My Lords, I would like to propose government Amendment 28. I am sure that noble Lords will agree, whatever their perspective on the adjudicator, that it would be appropriate and helpful for a copy of his or her annual report to be laid before Parliament. This should improve scrutiny of the adjudicator both here and in the other place. I hope that noble Lords will welcome this, whether they look forward to taking the opportunity of the report being laid to bury the adjudicator or to praise him. I therefore beg to move.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
My Lords, I am going to mark this one down as a victory for us as we moved a very similar amendment in Committee. I would not want my noble friend Lord Browne to think that he had got two and I had not got any at all, so I am very grateful to the Minister.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
“( ) An order under subsection (2)(a) or (b) is subject to the super-affirmative procedure (see Schedule (Super-Affirmative Procedure)).”
Lord Knight of Weymouth
My Lords, in moving Amendment 30, I shall also speak to Amendments 43 and 44. As we interpret the letter that I referred to earlier from the Minister’s friend in the other place, Norman Lamb, to Ian Murray, regarding Select Committee confirmations of the appointment of the adjudicator, it did not show in a good light the Government’s esteem or priority with regard to the adjudicator. However, unlike the Government, we think that this is a significant new public body doing a very important role that people have long campaigned for, not just in the countryside but across the supermarket supply chain.
We therefore think that the process by which this body could be got rid of should mirror what we came up with in this House in the Public Bodies Act. Noble Lords will remember that when the Public Bodies Bill first started here it was not a great piece of legislation, with widespread use of Henry VIII powers, and the relevant committees of this House tore it to shreds. As a result, I am pleased to say the Government listened and we had a much improved Bill by the time it left this House, including introducing the super-affirmative procedure—which we have merely replicated in Amendment 44—for getting rid of public bodies that were listed in that Act. I am simply proposing that we should use the same process for the groceries code adjudicator. It is entirely logical. I suspect that the Minister will resist this amendment, although I would be delighted if she did not. Could she confirm in her reply that it is a cross-government policy that the super-affirmative procedure is particular to the Public Bodies Act and as new public bodies are created by the Government, they will use the affirmative procedure and not the super-affirmative procedure? If that is now cross-government policy, it would be helpful for your Lordships’ House to know, so if the Minister could help in that respect, if not by agreeing to the amendment, that would be wonderful. I beg to move.
Lord Cameron of Dillington
My Lords, I am all in favour of sunset clauses for quangos and for posts that are created. I believe it is right that such posts and bodies should be reviewed from time to time to see whether they are fulfilling their purpose or their effectiveness. However, it is also right that they should be reviewed under a proper procedure and consultation with all the relevant parties including Parliament, in spite of my perhaps slightly rude remarks about professional politicians earlier. Clause 16(2) provides for a very inexplicit kind of review for the Secretary of State to carry out. It does not say anything about what sort of review this is. Are we talking about the Secretary of State’s kitchen cabinet or the Treasury? What sort of review is this? Something definitely needs to be clarified. I believe that Amendment 44, albeit with its rather longwinded, legalistic caveats, is probably as good as one can get in terms of clarification. However, I will wait and hear what the Minister has to say about this.
Baroness Wilcox
My Lords, I fully understand the sentiments behind these amendments. All three parties have expressed their agreement that an adjudicator is needed, and the Government have no wish to enable the abolition of the adjudicator without proper parliamentary scrutiny. I remind noble Lords that the intention of Clause 16 is to bring the Bill into line with the broader policy on sunsetting and review, and the need to ensure that regulations and regulators can be removed once there is no longer a need for them. It does not indicate intent to abolish the adjudicator or transfer their functions, but is simply standard practice.
The noble Lord, Lord Knight, suggested that the Government intended to set a precedent for the abolition of new public bodies by affirmative order. It may be the case that it is appropriate to require the abolition of some public bodies by super-affirmative order, but one must consider this on a case-by-case basis, depending on the nature of the body or office. In the case of the adjudicator, first, the adjudicator will not be a “body” in the usual sense of the word but an officeholder, with only a small number of staff who will be seconded rather than directly employed. The adjudicator’s powers will extend to only one area of the economy: the groceries sector. Furthermore, he or she will have a tightly defined role: to enforce the groceries code.
Furthermore, as I said in Committee, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee scrutinised the Bill carefully. The committee is dedicated to the inspection of the procedures for delegated powers, and the Government take its recommendations very seriously. Given the purpose of the Bill and its specificity regarding the functions of the adjudicator, the committee decided that the affirmative procedure would be satisfactory and proportionate in this case.
I thank noble Lords for drawing our attention to the important issue of parliamentary scrutiny. However, one must also consider the issues of parliamentary time and efficiency. The investment of resources required for the super-affirmative procedure would not be proportionate to the functions of the adjudicator. In accordance with the recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, we are satisfied that the affirmative procedure is the most appropriate.
The noble Lord, Lord Cameron, asked about the Secretary of State’s review. It is referred to in Clause 15 and would require full consultation with retailers, suppliers and other stakeholders. Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Knight, indicated the importance of listening to committees of the House during the passage of the Public Bodies Bill. We are listening to the relevant committees on this Bill. Given these explanations, I hope that noble Lords will feel satisfied and will not press their amendments.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
My Lords, that was a brief but interesting debate. I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, for his support. The comments of the Minister are now on the record—another demonstration of a somewhat lukewarm view of this body. I do regard it as a body rather than an officeholder. The super-affirmative procedure was used in respect of the Commission for Rural Communities, which was largely an office of the rural advocate. This is one of the many examples in the Bill of where the super-affirmative procedure is used.
This will be a very powerful body—much more powerful than some of the bodies that are being abolished using the super-affirmative procedure. The Minister talked on some occasions about the power of name and shame. On others, when it was convenient, naming and shaming was described as a less powerful ability. I disagree with her. However, given the oddity of the Bill—as my noble friend Lord Browne set out, the Government could get rid of the code without even coming to Parliament—I will not press this, because if they chose to do that without even the “by your leave” of Parliament, we would have a referee without any rules and it would be a straightforward matter to get rid of the post. I am happy to withdraw my amendment.
Lord True
My Lords, I have taken the unusual step of tabling an amendment to transpose two clauses—the effect of which I will come to shortly—to draw the attention of the House to a point that I was not able to raise at Second Reading because I was on local authority business. It was discussed briefly in Grand Committee, but proceedings were curtailed. I do not intend to detain the House long on the matter, but it gives rise to important issues.
I refer to the manner of writing sub-headings in italics, “How does the Adjudicator arbitrate disputes? … How does the Adjudicator carry out investigations?”,
and so on. This is a new way of writing Bills which is reminiscent of the “frequently asked questions” pages on government websites. I tried to use one such page on the HMRC site the other day and was very glad after 10 minutes of struggling to get through to a nice lady who was able to help me.
I was told, first, that there was no discussion with the House about the new way of writing Bill sub-headings. When I asked the House authorities, they said that it had not been discussed and, since the drafting of the Bill was the responsibility of the noble Lord in charge—in this case, a Minister of the Crown—it would not fall within the terms of reference of the Procedure Committee of your Lordships’ House. The Public Bill Office confirmed that it was not possible to amend such sub-headings. My noble friend circulated a very helpful note to noble Lords demonstrating that the Government can contrive to amend the sub-headings in response to issues that are raised in Parliament. That is by grace and favour of the Executive, not by the will or desire of Parliament.
I am suspicious of these sub-headings for several reasons. The first argument put to us is that they are in plain English. I do not think that many of them are. On page 2, line 3, the heading is, “How does the Adjudicator carry out investigations and enforce their findings?”. That is 11 words, whereas “Investigation and enforcement”—which was the old way of doing things and is what is meant—is three words. On line 11 of page 4, the heading is, “What advice, guidance and recommendations does the Adjudicator give?”. That is nine words. Once the sub-heading would have been, “Advice and guidance”. That would be plain English. There are many other examples in the Bill, but I will not take the House through them.
Once we start changing the way in which legislation is written, whatever our good intentions there is the risk, in an area where Parliament has little direct control, that we will tend towards more descriptive writing. Noble Lords will remember that in the late 1990s we had rather more exciting titles to legislation, with “stakeholders” starting to appear in the gracious Speech. There is a risk that value judgments could interpose.
If the sub-headings are intended to be plain English traffic lights or signals to help the public find key matters in Bills, Parliament ought to have some responsibility for them. In Committee, I gave the example of the sub-heading, “How is the Adjudicator supervised?”, which covers the issue of abolition that noble Lords have just discussed. If you are slipping through these sub-headings, you would not find it. Who decides to highlight these things? There are clear difficulties.
Before Clause 14 there is the sub-heading, “What are the Adjudicator’s reporting requirements?”. Again, if a member of the public were accessing the Bill by means of these signposts, they would go to the sub-heading, but the text covers only Clause 14, which concerns the annual report that the adjudicator must publish. However, there are many other reporting requirements on the adjudicator in the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, won a victory in respect of one of the reports that the adjudicator has to present. The sub-heading goes much wider than the subject of the annual report covered in Clause 14. A real plain English heading for Clause 14 would be the good old, “Annual report”. Why not choose that? Why have this new and potentially misleading wording? I realise that these matters may be beyond my noble friend the Minister, who has been incredibly helpful in responding to them, so I hope that the powers-that-be will think again about the misleading effect that some of these sub-headings might have, or the incomplete information that might be given.
I will not repeat the arguments I gave in Committee about logical inconsistency. I understand that my noble friend has responded positively in relation to the sub-heading on line 1 of page 9: “Will this law mean other changes to the law?”. This is logical nonsense. When the Act comes into effect, the amendments to other legislation will already be law, so the sub-heading is totally illogical. I understand from my noble friend that it is proposed to rethink that. In Committee we discussed the sub-heading on line 3 of page 8: “How is the Adjudicator funded?”. However, the clauses covered, Clause 19 and 20, both speak in terms of how the adjudicator “may” be funded; for example:
“The Adjudicator may require … a levy”,
or:
“The Secretary of State may make grants”.
The new-style sub-heading is illogical because it uses “is” and gets into “may”/“must” arguments.
I agree with the Government that we should keep the law as plain as possible, using short, simple English. The more words you use, the more risk there is of inconsistency. The confusion that can be caused by the placing of headings is illustrated by my amendment, which proposes that Clause 17 should be moved to below Clause 18 because both clauses relate to the handling of information by the adjudicator and the sub-heading is: “How does the Adjudicator handle information?”. I understand that my noble friend has an answer to that.
I will bring my remarks to a conclusion, but we seem to be straying into unnecessary territory. If the Government—the masters of plain English—wish to give the public new signposts to find their way around legislation, let us not complicate the face of legislation; why not have a separate, short document, which may be available electronically? If people wanted to find out what the adjudicator’s reporting requirements were, you could have brief references to Clause 5, Clause 14 and so on, and people could be signposted around the Bill. The way it is done now just leads you to one clause, which gives an incomplete answer.
If this well meaning approach is intended to go forward, for it to be really accessible it should be done separately, not on the face of legislation. If Parliament is not going to be able to amend these sub-headings—and it never has been able to—we should leave the Bill absolutely simple, which would not risk any question of executive value judgments or misleading placement of sub-headings. The pursuit of plain English guidance could be done in a short companion to the legislation, if that is required. The more we go to electronic access to legislation, the more these kinds of sub-headings will become important.
I hope that my noble friend is going to give a favourable response on the sub-headings that will justify the points that I have made. Obviously I do not intend to press this matter to a Division but it affects both Houses of Parliament, and it is reasonable to bring it to the attention of Parliament, given that this is the first Bill in which this new manner of writing legislation has arisen. I beg to move.
Lord Howard of Rising
My Lords, I support my noble friend. While he was speaking, I looked through these new italicised sub-headings and was rather entertained. The first one is “How does the Adjudicator arbitrate disputes?”, and the next word down is “Arbitration”. The second sub-heading is “How does the Adjudicator carry out investigations and enforce their findings?”, and the next word down is “Investigations”. The third sub-heading is “What advice, guidance and recommendations does the Adjudicator give?”, and the next word down is “Advice”. Surely if anything is superfluous, these things are.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
My Lords, as I indicated in Committee, I think the noble Lord, Lord True, has a point. At Second Reading I said that I did not find these “folksy” headings—as the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, called them—offensive. I think they are fine, but the noble Lord, Lord True, is right that we here in Parliament should have the ability to amend them. He made mention of the responsibility of the Bill Minister in respect of these headings; of course there are also Private Members’ Bills, where you have to trust the individual parliamentarian to get it right. You could have a campaigning parliamentarian bringing forward Private Member’s legislation who would use the fact that Parliament cannot amend these sub-headings to say some quite odd things.
As the noble Lord, Lord True, says, if we are going to go down this road, the Government and the parliamentary authorities need to give some consideration to how we in Parliament can have some say over these sub-headings and not just leave it to informal chats with whoever is responsible for the Bill.
The Duke of Montrose
If the Government feel that they need these interrogatory questions put in print, are the Explanatory Notes not also available online, along with the Bill? Could these questions not be laid out in the Explanatory Notes rather than in the Bill itself?
Baroness Wilcox
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord True, for bringing forward this interesting amendment. While we cannot support this specific amendment, I am able to take into account the noble Lord’s broader points about ensuring that sub-headings are accurate and clear.
First, italicised sub-headings in themselves are not a recent innovation. For example, the Slave Trade Act 1873 groups its clauses using italicised sub-headings such as “Seizure of Slave Ships” and “Bounties”. Although the approach to the precise wording of these italicised sub-headings may have changed, the Government have always striven to write in a way that communicates meaning as clearly as possible to the audience of the day. I have placed a note about this in the Library of both Houses.
Turning to the noble Lord’s specific amendment, I believe that Clause 17 should remain under the sub-heading “How is the Adjudicator supervised?”, because the purpose behind allowing the Secretary of State to require information from the adjudicator is to allow him to supervise the adjudicator through triennial reviews. This is quite separate from the vital issue of how the adjudicator should ensure that it upholds confidentiality when handling information, even though it is clear from Clause 17(2) that there is some relationship between these issues.
However, I have been able to take into account the noble Lord’s points concerning the wording of sub-headings. I have raised these concerns with the Public Bill Office, which has agreed to change “How is the Adjudicator funded?” to “How may the Adjudicator be funded?”, and “Will this law mean other changes to the law?” to “Amendments and transition”.
I hope that the noble Lord is content with these changes, and I am sure that the process of considering the amendments and discussing them for this Bill will help ensure careful drafting of similar headings in future Bills. I therefore beg the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord True
I thank my noble friend for that response. Rather like the noble Lord, Lord Browne, I should not be churlish when I have a minor victory, as he put it. I do not really see it that way, although I am very grateful for the gracious response of my noble friend the Minister.
The reality is that this style of writing, with question marks, et cetera, is new; it is intended to be new, and when a Government or an Executive make such a change from the traditional, rather arid way of wording these things, it must be construed to be intended to have an effect. That will arouse the interest of other people. I said in Grand Committee, rather fancifully perhaps, that the courts might look at whether this was part of the intention. As the courts, like Parliament, never look at these sub-headings I think that is extremely unlikely. In the course of this debate I believe I have demonstrated that the sub-heading “What are the Adjudicator’s reporting requirements?” above Clause 14 is also nonsense because it does not cover the reports on investigations and so on. I hope my noble friend will take that point to colleagues, because the powers-that-be need to think carefully about this approach.
I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Howard and the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, who spoke in this debate. I am interested in the point that the noble Lord, Lord Knight, raised about Private Members’ legislation. It had not occurred to me but it is a significant point. I am also grateful for the support from my noble friend the Duke of Montrose, who made a very sensible suggestion that this signposting could be done to the side of the legislation. In the electronic age it might be much more helpful to do it via the Explanatory Notes or an introduction to the Explanatory Notes. The powers-that-be may want to consider that. I do not wish to detain the House so without more ado I thank the Minister and I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Browne of Ladyton
Lord Browne of Ladyton
My Lords, if this regime is to work in the way in which all parties in this House intend it to work, suppliers will have to have complete confidence in the confidentiality of their communications with the adjudicator. One can envisage a reluctance from small suppliers, who will see the possibility that they will lose future contracts, from communicating with the adjudicator if they do not think that he and his staff will respect that confidentiality. The purpose of these amendments directed to Clause 17, which deals with the adjudicator’s obligation of confidentiality, is to toughen that obligation up. These five amendments do that in two ways. Two of them extend the obligation of confidentiality beyond the adjudicator to his or her deputy and staff. Two of them remove “may” and make the obligation of confidentiality overtly mandatory and not potentially discretionary by replacing it with “must”, although I am prepared to accept as a matter of law the point that the Minister made when she responded to a similar amendment in Committee. The fifth and last amendment creates a criminal offence for a breach of confidentiality. I will speak to them by reference to the Minister’s responses to similar amendments when we discussed this in Committee.
In relation to extending the obligation beyond the adjudicator to the deputy adjudicator and his or her staff, the Minister’s response was that she was confident that that obligation was already extended beyond the adjudicator. As the Minister and others who were there will remember, we were pressed for time on that day because we had a joint ambition to conclude the Committee stage by a particular time. I am inviting the Minister to go beyond a simple expression of confidence and to explain the mechanism that makes her so confident that the obligation on the adjudicator applies also to the deputy adjudicator and the staff of the adjudicator’s office when it is not spelled out in the Bill.
As far as replacing “may not” with “must not” in terms of respecting confidentiality is concerned, we have already discovered today that in the positive “may” and “must” are not interchangeable. But I am told that “may not” and “must not” have the same force, which I think is right as a matter of law. That is the expression the Minister used; I do not claim credit for it. It occurs to me that if we are legislating for the public and both words mean the same, if we mean “must not” why do we not say “must not”? If we are endeavouring to encourage a degree of confidence in this role on the part of people who are deeply vulnerable then we should say “must not” if we mean “must not”.
Finally, and this is a much more important point, there is a lacuna in this Bill that the obligation of confidentiality is not backed up by any sanctions for breach. We are all aware of the vulnerability of electronic communication and therefore the probability that almost every public office will leak. Something will get out. There is no sanction for a breach in this Bill because the Minister told me that she is confident that the adjudicator and his staff will respect confidentiality. In my time in Government I worked in five different departments and I had confidence in all of them that they would not leak and that they would respect confidentiality. I might find it difficult retrospectively to find evidence that that confidence was well placed.
The Minister went on to say that if a person suffers damage from a breach, then there is the potential for that person to claim damages from the adjudicator or to seek an injunction to prevent a disclosure. But it will be too late if it is leaked. The injunction will mean nothing. In any event, unless one gets a super-injunction, as we have discovered in this country, the very fact that one is seeking an injunction always reveals or at least points to the information. It is very doubtful that any of the people whom we are seeking to protect by this legislation will be in a position to get a super-injunction, not that we would want them to, so they are left with damages.
I envisage this sort of situation. I am a supplier to one of these great monoliths, one of the 10 supermarket chains that we are seeking to regulate by this. I supply them with whatever—fresh strawberries or something; it does not matter. I have a complaint. I tell the adjudicator. The adjudicator says, “There is something in this complaint. In fact, this reveals a very important issue. I am going to take this all the way”. It leaks to my retailer that I was the cause of this complaint. It has caused them a lot of embarrassment and probably cost them a lot of money. I do not get another contract. I challenge anybody to tell me how I will convince any court against the battery of lawyers I will face if I choose to sue Tesco or Asda or any of the 10 retailers—I should not name them; it does not matter who it is—that the damage that I suffered was a direct result of the fact that I complained to the adjudicator. It will be impossible, so there needs to be a sanction. The Minister in her response to me in an earlier debate implicitly accepted that there needs to be a sanction. There is no sanction. Injunction does not fit the bill and it is fanciful to think that small suppliers—everybody is small compared to these supermarkets—will be able to take on the challenge of proving in an action against the adjudicator that it was the adjudicator’s negligence in allowing the confidentiality to be breached that caused the loss.
The Bill needs to impose a criminal sanction to toughen up the confidentiality obligation to the maximum effect. I am supported in this because there are many other pieces of legislation in which this device is used. I have uncovered two but I am sure that researchers would uncover many more. I already know the answer to that so the Minister does not need to deploy the answer that she deployed against me earlier. They are different pieces of legislation so these are different sets of circumstances that require different responses. I am a great believer in consistency. If we can impose a criminal offence on, for example, the legal aid authorities if they breach confidentiality then we should impose the potential for criminal offence on the adjudicator and his staff. I beg to move.
Baroness Wilcox
My Lords, the adjudicator’s obligation to maintain strict standards of confidentiality is integral to the Bill. I therefore thank the noble Lord, Lord Browne, for his careful consideration of how we can make these standards exacting.
As I said in Committee, the Government are confident that the deputy adjudicator and people acting on behalf of the adjudicator would be bound by the duty of confidentiality as set out in the Bill. The deputy and the individuals acting for the adjudicator have no functions which are independent of the adjudicator and can only carry out the adjudicator’s functions. In doing so, they will be subject to the same restrictions as the adjudicator. If a person acting on behalf of the adjudicator breaches Clause 18, normal agency principles will make that a breach of Clause 18 by the adjudicator. Additionally, we are convinced that the words “may not” and “must not” have the same force and meaning here.
The noble Lord has raised the issue of plain English with regard to the amendments. We are confident that the Bill has the correct legal sense as it stands. Although it would not be wrong to use “must not”, we believe that “may not” is slightly better here. The words “may not” in their context here are clearly intended to be prohibitive. If they were permissive, it would mean that the adjudicator was allowed not to make unauthorised disclosures, which would not make sense. If further clarification were needed, the words “prohibitions contained in this section” are used in Clause 18(5).
The noble Lord has also suggested that the creation of a criminal offence is needed to discourage breaches of confidentiality. This seems unnecessary, as the adjudicator will be a public authority and be expected to take his or her statutory duties very seriously.
Perhaps I might also remind noble Lords that Schedule 1 provides for the Secretary of State to,
“dismiss the person if satisfied that the person is unable, unwilling or unfit to perform his or her functions”.
Serious breaches of confidentiality, either personally or from those working for him, have the potential to satisfy these requirements. We therefore believe that the threat of dismissal will be a sufficient deterrent, if indeed a deterrent is needed.
There are therefore ample reasons for the adjudicator and those working for the adjudicator to take care over confidentiality. I agree that strict confidentiality requirements will be essential if the adjudicator is truly to eradicate the climate of fear that we are aiming to address in the Bill. The Government are confident that the Bill provides for these requirements as it stands. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Browne of Ladyton
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for the care that she has again taken to address these issues having previously thought that she had seen me off in Grand Committee. I am pleased that we now have further clarity about the basis for her confidence in relation to the extension of the obligation to the deputy adjudicator and his staff—that is helpful. I maintain the position that, if “must not” and “may not” mean the same thing, “must not” is preferable, particularly when you are trying to build confidence among people who are in a weakened position—if they were not in a weakened position, we would not be doing this. I am disappointed, however, in the Minister’s failure to appreciate that there needs to a sanction for a breach of confidentiality which does not imply the dismissal of the adjudicator himself, because that, too, is about building confidence. If people see that a criminal offence will have been committed if their confidentiality is breached, their confidence in the legislation will be increased. I hope that the Minister’s confidence that there will be no leaks is well placed. I will regret it, as much as she will, if she is wrong. I just think that, in this internet age that we live in, it is fanciful to imagine that we are capable of creating an organisation that is leak-proof. However, I have been seen off on this occasion and I shall not come back. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Howard of Rising
( ) The Adjudicator may require the payment of a levy only if an order made by the Secretary of State is in force setting out the amount of the levy and authorising the Adjudicator to do so.”
Lord Howard of Rising
My Lords, the amendment would allow large retailers to be consulted when the levy is set. It seems only reasonable, if they are paying the bill, for them to have some voice. The amendment would not oblige the adjudicator to listen to them, but they may make some points which are worth while and even suggest that he take more money than he is asking—who knows?
I also have Amendment 41 in this group. While I accepted the points that the Minister made in Committee about not wanting to create bureaucracy and making sure things were easily handled, I suggested before I withdrew the amendment that any surplus funds at the end of one year should be used in the next year. I think that this might be acceptable to Her Majesty's Government and would be grateful if the Minister could confirm it.
Lord Razzall
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 39, which is in my name. It is of fundamental importance in relation to the levy funding, because Clause 19(5) indicates that the amount of a levy should be the same for all retailers. We have all received considerable lobbying, particularly from Waitrose, which feels that this is rather unfair and that the amount of the levy should be adjusted so that the retailers which have been penalised or named and shamed the most should pay a higher levy than those which have been penalised less. Waitrose, having taken this line of argument, obviously thinks that it is likely to offend and be named and shamed less than other retailers. It is a straightforward amendment, simply reflecting what I would regard as common sense: that when the amount of the levy is adjusted each year, the people who have been named and shamed the most should pay the most in the next levy.
Lord Teverson
My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendment. It seems to me natural justice that when retailers have to pay a levy, the levy should be related to their culpability, the nuisance and aggravation that they have caused and their contraventions of the code. It is absolutely right that the levy should reflect that and that, in the case of those organisations which have not crossed the adjudicator’s desk, an invoice should not cross theirs either.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
My Lords, I am supportive of all the amendments in this group. I suspect that a concession is coming the way of the Liberal Democrat Benches. While I have disagreed with virtually everything that the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, has said on this Bill, he has made a valuable contribution to it and I think that he has got a point here. A graceful concession from the Minister on this one, too, would be wonderful.
Baroness Wilcox
My Lords, the amendments tabled by my noble friends Lord Howard of Rising and Lord Eccles are ones that we have discussed before. As I said in Committee, the Government’s intention to fund the adjudicator via a levy is clearly set out in the Bill and in previous policy statements, so I see no need to require an order to be made first.
Regarding the suggestion of consultation on any increase of the levy, my worry is that this would add unnecessary bureaucracy and inflexibility. The adjudicator’s workload will vary depending on the number of complaints received. In some years, it may have very few, in which case the levy needed would be small. In other years, it may carry out major investigations requiring considerable resources, and I remain convinced that the safeguard of requiring the Secretary of State’s approval is the best way to balance flexibility and accountability.
On the subject of flexibility, my noble friends have also tabled an amendment regarding the returning of any unused funds to the retailers. While I believe that “may” adds helpful flexibility, I can assure them that any unused funds would certainly be taken into account when calculating the size of the next levy, so that no more was raised from the retailers than was absolutely necessary. I would therefore ask the noble Lords to withdraw those amendments.
With regards to the amendments tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Razzall and Lord Teverson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, in Committee, I indicated that the Government were sympathetic to an amendment along these lines. The Government have always stated that the intention should be that as soon as he or she has sufficient experience, the adjudicator should move to a differential levy. After consideration, it therefore seemed unnecessarily bureaucratic to require an order to be passed before this could be done and I am grateful to the noble Lords for bringing forward this amendment.
The fact that individual levies would still need to be approved by the Secretary of State will provide an adequate safeguard against abuse. Furthermore, the ways in which the levy can be raised are clearly specified. The levy must be the same for each retailer or else based on criteria broadly intended to reflect the expense and time the adjudicator expects to spend in dealing with matters relating to each retailer. It could not, for example, be proportional to turnover as that would not fit these specifications.
Noble Lords have said that they wish to see a system in which those who behave badly pay more. The Government concur with this sentiment and I am therefore happy to accept this amendment.
Lord Howard of Rising
I am grateful to my noble friend for indicating that the surplus in one year would be set off against the next year. I am completely gobsmacked at getting some support from the noble Lord, Lord Knight. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Razzall
Lord Razzall
I would like to thank the noble Baroness for her gracious acceptance of this amendment. I beg to move.
Lord Razzall
Olympic Games: Security
(12 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Henley)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall repeat as a Statement an Answer given by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary to an Urgent Question in another place. It is as follows:
“Mr Speaker, since I updated the House on Olympic security last week there have been several allegations in the media, and I want to deal with each of them.
First, it was reported that Ministers knew there would be a shortfall in security staff last year. This is untrue. HMIC reported, at my request, on LOCOG’s security preparations last September, and it recommended several measures. HMIC reported again in February and concluded that LOCOG had plans in place to deliver the required number of security personnel. Neither HMIC report identified specific problems with G4S scheduling.
Secondly, it was reported that the Minister for Crime and Security had attended meetings in which he was told there was a security staff shortage. In fact, G4S repeatedly assured us that they would overshoot their targets. As I told the House on Thursday, G4S only told the Government that they would be unable to meet their contractual obligations last Wednesday and we took immediate action.
Thirdly, it was reported that we must have known about the shortfall because the military was put on standby in April. This is also not the case. Seven thousand five hundred troops have been part of the security plans since December. A further 1,000 were on standby in the event of flooding or other such civil emergencies, and we placed a further 2,000 on standby as a precaution in case the threat level increased. The 3,500 troops whose deployment I announced last Thursday are a direct response to the failure of G4S to meet its contractual obligations. A further contingency will remain.
The Government have strengthened the oversight of the security planning operation since we came to office. I would like to go through, briefly, what has happened since the bid for the Games in 2005.
From the beginning, the organisers planned to use private sector personnel for venue security. LOCOG confirmed they would be using private sector security personnel well before the 2008 Beijing Olympics. LOCOG started the procurement process for security personnel in April 2010.
When we entered government in May 2010 we instigated a comprehensive review of Olympic safety and security planning overseen by the then Security Minister the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones.
That audit and review identified a shortfall in LOCOG’s venue security budget, which we addressed in the Comprehensive Spending Review, but we recognised that with a project of this size and scale, even this additional funding might not ensure the level of security we needed. So I also asked for outside assurance of LOCOG’s venue security planning.
In 2011, I commissioned Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary to carry out an inspection of LOCOG’s venue security plans. As I have already said, this led to several recommendations that were acted upon by the Home Office, the police and LOCOG.
LOCOG and the Home Office monitored delivery throughout the following months. G4S assured LOCOG and the Government continuously that it would be able to deliver its contractual obligations, but on Wednesday 11 July, following the difficulties with scheduling which the company has acknowledged, G4S notified LOCOG and the Government that it would not be able to provide the numbers of security personnel specified in its contract.
I want to be clear that this was the first time that G4S admitted to any Minister that it would not be able to deliver the numbers of security personnel that it had promised. We acted immediately to make further contingency arrangements by agreeing the deployment of 3,500 further troops. That brings the total military contribution to the Games to 17,000, including personnel from all three services.
G4S has failed to deliver its contractual obligations, but we have the finest military personnel in the world—troops who are willing, ready and able to step in when their country calls—and we can be sure of their professionalism in helping to deliver a safe and secure Olympic Games”.
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for coming to the House this evening to repeat the Statement.
I have listened carefully to the Statement and in it the Home Secretary says that following a report from HMIC in February 2012, LOCOG and the Home Office monitored delivery throughout the following months. How was that done? What were those checks and monitoring systems that the Government put in place to ensure that security personnel were being trained and would be in the right places at the right times? Did the Home Office and LOCOG fail in their monitoring, or did the Government and LOCOG just hand over the entire security operation to G4S with no checks or monitoring other than a government Minister sitting in meetings listening to false assurances from G4S?
I noted what the Home Secretary said in her Statement about the Minister, James Brokenshire, not receiving information about security staff shortages. So what was the purpose of James Brokenshire attending those meetings? What happened at those meetings? Did LOCOG and the government Ministers just sit there and listen to assurances from G4S that it was on target and everything was okay? Did anyone ask for evidence that that was the case?
Did the Government say, “Is everything going to plan and on time?”. Did G4S say, “Yes”, and did the Government just say, “That’s okay”? If the Home Secretary’s Statement, repeated in your Lordships’ House, that the Home Office and LOCOG weremonitoring delivery, is accurate, it is hard to understand the Home Secretary’s Statement, when she says later:
“I want to be clear that this”—
that is, Wednesday 11 July—
“was the first time that G4S admitted to any Minister that it would not be able to deliver the numbers of security personnel that it had promised”.
It is essential that we know about the monitoring arrangements to which the Home Secretary refers in her Statement. Will the Government publish the minutes or notes of the meetings that James Brokenshire attended on behalf of the Home Office? Can we have an assurance that that is not the usual way that the Government do business with business partners?
When the Home Secretary was asked earlier whether she could confirm the exact number of security staff that G4S would provide for the Games, she appeared unable to do so. I have been given a transcript of what she said in the House of Commons. She said:
“They are, they are, we are, continuing to accredit personnel for G4S and they are continuing to schedule personnel for the Olympic games and the precise balance of the numbers … they will be providing … will become clear over the next few days. But this is, this is, well, I suggest to Honourable Members opposite that they actually look at the statements that have been made by G4S about how they are dealing with this issue and what the problem is and the suggestion that somehow … this is a problem for us is not the case”.
What number of personnel is G4S now saying that it will be able to provide for the Games? What action are the Government taking to ensure that we can all have confidence in the training, support, management and adjustable arrangements for security staff to be in the right place at the right time?
Can the Government assure your Lordships’ House that the shortfall of security staff now being provided by G4S will not result in any additional cost to the public purse? I am greatly relieved that contingency plans were in place, although, obviously, government failures to identify the problem meant that they are having to be used very late in the day. I have great confidence in our Armed Forces—more than in G4S or the Government—but are the Government satisfied with the accommodation arrangements being provided for the Armed Forces, as this is being done at very short notice? I have received a number of reports—I would be happy to receive assurances that they are not correct—of soldiers having to be put up in shopping centres, school gyms and hurriedly constructed large shed-type accommodation. What will be the costs of those and who will meet them?
The Government have assured the Armed Forces that they will not be out of pocket for any family holidays or events that they have booked. That is small consolation for a soldier who has been in Afghanistan and now sees his leave cancelled to undertake security arrangements for the Olympics. Can you imagine how much he would enjoy being with family and friends? Who is meeting those costs?
There is great pride in London hosting the Olympics, and we all want it to be a fantastic experience for everyone who attends and takes part, but the Government really have to get their act together.
Lord Henley
My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness in her final remarks. I think that all of us want to ensure that this will be a great experience for all those not only taking part in but attending the Olympics. Across all parties, on all sides of this House and another place, we want to ensure that. We also want to ensure that we deal with security matters in the most appropriate manner. That is why I can give the noble Baroness an assurance, as I did in repeating the Statement, that we increased the amount of money available for security after reviews that took place just over a year ago. That was the right thing to do, and we made sure that we have the right plans in place. When these problems arose, as the noble Baroness should have acknowledged, our contingency plans came into effect very well, and there were ways to deal with these matters.
If I may, I will deal with the questions that the noble Baroness put to me one by one. She first asked how we were monitoring these matters. I could run through an extensive list of meetings that Ministers—both the Home Secretary and my honourable friend Mr Brokenshire—had with LOCOG and G4S, but I shall not delay the House at this stage by detailing every meeting, all of which I have listed here. I assure her that we can make public in due course how many meetings there were and when they took place. I will take advice as to whether minutes of those meetings can be made available, but I shall not answer that question for the moment.
I can say that G4S provided detailed data—as it should; that is part of the contractual arrangements—and detailed assurances. As my right honourable friend made clear in her Statement, it was only on 11 July, last week, that G4S admitted that the programme was not on track. I do not think that noble Lords opposite should try to suggest that there is some conspiracy going on. There has been, I will not say a cock-up, but let us say a failure of management, which was not quite what it should have been. I do not know whether the noble Baroness heard the comments made by the chairman of G4S this morning on the radio, but that became apparent from them.
The noble Baroness then asked what numbers G4S will be able to provide. Again, I cannot give her the exact number at this stage. It will depend on how many complete the training and make it through the accreditation process. G4S cannot yet provide a precise answer, but that is no different from other sporting events—although I appreciate that this is a much bigger sporting event—that take place regularly. Sporting events of this sort obviously have to be dealt with by firms of this sort because there is no way that the Government could do it on our own.
On the costs to the public purse, G4S has confirmed that it will meet any extra costs associated with the military deployment, including accommodation and compensating soldiers for any lost leave. On the noble Baroness’s last point, again, I cannot precisely answer what accommodation will be provided for the additional soldiers, but we will ensure that they are accommodated in the most appropriate manner. I can give the categoric assurance that none will be out of pocket in any way and there will not be any extra cost to the public purse, because that will be met by G4S.
Lord Higgins
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the important thing now is to plan for the immediate future rather than to look further forward? Who is now in overall charge of the security operation? Is a single individual in charge for both those recruited by G4S and the troops who are now being brought in? Secondly, there are reports that the computer to be used to allocate people to their posts was not working properly. Is it working now? Finally, there have been questions whether those recruited have the necessary language qualifications. Is that a problem or not?
Lord Henley
My Lords, working backwards through my noble friend’s questions, if people do not have the appropriate language skills, they will not get accreditation to work. I cannot comment on whether the computer has not been working at the moment but I will make inquiries and let my noble friend know. As for who is in charge of the overall security operation, obviously, in the end, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary is in overall charge and that will cascade down through all the usual people below her. The Armed Forces will report to their individual officers, but others will be involved in the process working out. G4S employees will obviously be a responsibility for G4S, but they must be properly accredited before they begin to work on such matters.
Lord Elystan-Morgan
My Lords, I raise two questions of a legalistic nature. First, when the contract was placed with G4S, how many other bodies, agencies or companies were in any way shortlisted for consideration? Secondly, the Minister has assured the House that G4S intends to compensate in full any losses suffered. Is that a term of the contract? Was it a penal clause or is it an aspiration on the part of G4S?
Lord Henley
My Lords, I do not have the details of the contract in front of me, but I can once again give the assurance that G4S has made it quite clear that it will meet the extra costs resulting from the errors that it has made. I can categorically assure the noble Lord that there were others who bid, but I am not in a position at this stage to say who they were.
Lord Prescott
My Lords, this is the third time in eight days that Parliament has received assurances from this Government that the security of the Olympic Games will not be compromised. The Government’s desperation in drafting in not only the Armed Forces but now the police is an indication of the total failure of the private companies involved to deliver on their contractual requirements to ensure Olympic security. Have the Government investigated the question I raised with the Minister during the Statement last Thursday regarding the fact that there are other companies almost bound to collapse and not provide their contractual requirements on fire security matters? Can the Minister tell me?
The desperation involved in drafting in the armed services clearly shows that the Holy Trinity of the Government, LOCOG and G4S has contributed to the failure to provide proper security for the great experience of the Olympics to which the Minister refers. Will the Government reconsider the possibility, particularly with regard to G4S and the police, of the intention to privatise our police forces? G4S is already negotiating for both the West Midlands and Surrey police forces. Will the Minister support the police authority in the Surrey area, which has cancelled its G4S contract, and will he encourage the West Midlands authority to do the same? When will he recognise that public service cannot be replaced by private service?
Lord Henley
My Lords, the noble Lord overstates his case, and overstates it rather badly. There is no question of privatising the police force, as he claims, although obviously there are certain parts of police work that can be done by private sector companies. That does not mean we are privatising the police force, which is a separate issue and nothing to do with what is happening here.
We are talking today about the security of the Olympics and different bits of security that will be carried out by different people. As the noble Lord knows perfectly well, private companies are always brought in to provide most of the basic security at any major sporting event in terms of checking bags and checking people as they go in. This is what happens at Wembley, at test matches, at Wimbledon and on many other occasions. The Olympics are no different, except they are bigger.
We entered into a competitive process with a number of companies—G4S won and it has not delivered as it should have done. We have made this clear today and in earlier Statements. We have appropriate contingency plans in place to make sure that if G4S failed in part of its job we could meet our obligations to have an appropriately secure Olympics. That is what we are going to have, so I think the noble Lord going on a rant of this sort is not helpful and does not do any good. We had made sure that we have answered all relevant questions—that is what we hope to do to as well as providing a properly secure Olympics.
Lord Dannatt
My Lords, I am sure that the Members of this House want to see a safe and secure Games, and that the last-minute increase in the size of the Armed Forces participation in the security operation will help to guarantee this. It is sad that we have had to have these sharp discussions in advance of the Olympics, attracting negative publicity, but that is life. I am sure the Minister would agree that there should be an investigation after the Games as to how we got into this position. Not wishing to prejudge that, I would like to place it on record, as the Minister did in his Statement, that when the Games were awarded to London in 2005 it was said that they would be civilian-run. However, that defies recent history about very large sporting events such as other Olympic Games. Was it not complacent of the Government of the day not to have planned from the outset for considerable use of the military, which has experience of dealing with large numbers of people and of using a clear chain of command, and might well have prevented the situation that we find ourselves in now?
Lord Henley
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord for his words, particularly when he says that we should not at this stage be making negative comments about the Games. We want them to be a good set of Games—we want them to be secure, but not to be seen as “the security Games”. I am also grateful for his comments about what happened at earlier stages when we were not in government in terms of the original plans for the Games and how they were set up.
It is quite right that we are making use of contingency plans to bring in extra military service personnel to help out on some aspects of the Games, and that earlier on we brought in an extra 5,000 specialists from the Armed Forces to address security matters that only they could ever have dealt with, as we see from HMS “Ocean”, moored in the Thames, and other things that the private sector obviously cannot produce. We are talking here about providing some extra military personnel to deal with the problems created by the issues that G4S had. I am grateful to the noble Lord for his comments.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, can the Minister assure the House that adequate training will be available, given that so many individuals will be coming to the job so late, and that the right training will be given to people designated to particular jobs? There was an unfortunate item on the news last night when a young man who was said to have been put forward by G4S—I think it was more than he was set up than put forward—indicated his difficulties with language.
As a more general and principled question, will the G4S contract be published? Before I am told that it is commercial and in confidence, I raise the point that both parties to a contract can agree to vary that sort of clause and perhaps G4S can be persuaded that it would be in the public interest, in both senses of the word, that the contract should be published.
Lord Henley
My Lords, I can give my noble friend an assurance that everyone doing a job involving security will have adequate training and we shall make sure that people who do not have adequate training will not be accredited.
Regarding whether the G4S contract will be published, that might be a matter for both parties to consider after the event, so let us leave it until then. It might be that G4S wishes to publish it, or that some sort of post-mortem, as my noble friend is suggesting, might be appropriate after these Games. I do not think it is proper that we should create fears that are not necessarily there at this stage.
Baroness Billingham
My Lords, we are where we are, and I entirely agree with the Minister that this is not the time for looking retrospectively and trying to find out what happened. However, the fact of the matter is that every week, every day and almost every hour we hear things that are completely disconcerting to the general public and to the people who are going to be involved in the Games, both participants and spectators. The role of the Government should always be the safety of those people and it has to be their priority. I am sure that the more the general public read, the more they are losing confidence and faith in what the Home Secretary has been doing. Heaven knows how we got ourselves into this predicament. I do not want to put it too worryingly, but it looks as if we are almost in a national security crisis and I want to know how bad it has got to be before the Minister does something about that. Every single thing that we have heard today indicates that the security we have always promised to the people coming to watch these Games is not going to be in place. So what is the Minister’s next move—we want to know?
Lord Henley
My Lords, again, I suspect that the noble Baroness is exaggerating by saying that every day there is some new problem. There were problems last week and over the weekend there were further press reports that have now been dealt with by my right honourable friend in her Answer, where she made it quite clear that most of them are completely untrue. Although I appreciate that not many have been doing it in this House, when I listened to the debate in another place there was a great deal of unnecessary point-scoring on questions of security. It is very dangerous of the party opposite. I can assure the House that we take security as the absolute top priority but we do not want to turn these Games into the security Games. We want to ensure that there is appropriate protection of individuals, and that will happen. That is why we have reacted as we did and why we set up the contingency plans that we have. They have come into effect as a result of the failures of G4S.
Lord Glentoran
My Lords, I was part of the Bill team that worked with Tessa Jowell for several years, from the first time that we brought the Bill through all the way up until the election. We worked together to make sure that these Games were delivered by the British Parliament as a cross-party project. Up until today or yesterday, that has been so and I beg noble Lords not to start nitpicking on cross-party points.
Lord Henley
My Lords, I am very grateful for what my noble friend said, particularly about Tessa Jowell and all the work that she has done for the Olympics ever since she put that bid in some time back in 2002, or whenever it started. The point that she made, which again I think my noble friend will be aware of, is that this is not the time to start trying to point-score on a political basis, as has been happening. We want to ensure that we have a good and successful Games, and that they are secure Games. However, we do not want security to dominate them so that they become a security Games. We want a good, successful Games that everyone will enjoy.
Baroness Tonge
My Lords, could the Minister persuade our Government to talk to the Government of Israel about transferring, as a good-will gesture, the G4S personnel who are currently guarding—rather brutally—the illegal settlements in the Occupied Territories of Palestine? Could he persuade them to transfer those people, thus making the Games a great experience for Palestinians as well as for Londoners?
Lord Henley
My Lords, I do not think that is a point that I need to respond to.
Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate
My Lords, in asking this question I declare an interest that is in the Lords register. Is the Minister aware of the advanced technical means of securing large perimeter areas by means such as radar, which obviously reduce the manpower required for these purposes? Is he aware that some 18 months ago an approach was made to the Olympic security authorities by a company that secured Sydney harbour in Australia? Presentations were given and considerable interest was shown by those who received the presentation but, unfortunately, there does not appear to have been any follow-up by those in charge of security at the Olympic authorities.
Lord Henley
My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord that technology can obviously always play a very important part in security but it would be a very rash and foolish Government who relied only on technology. In the end, one needs to have feet on the ground and to have people there who are properly trained and accredited to do the right job.
Lord Patten
My Lords, in declaring my interest as a member of the advisory board of the British Olympic Association, whose foremost concern is for the training, welfare, health and, above all, security of British athletes, I congratulate my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Home Office very warmly on the action that she has taken. Is my noble friend the Minister convinced, looking forward not back at any post-mortem that might happen, that in the next few weeks—and indeed more than that—the chief executive and top management team of LOCOG have the capacity and capability to be good customers of the security that they are paying for and commissioning? They are in the front line, and have been for many years, in commissioning the security that we have had. Secondly, I also ask my noble friend for an absolute assurance that as the Olympic Games morph and transmogrify into the Paralympic Games there will be no diminution whatever in the level of security provided during the Paralympics as compared to the Olympics, because soft targets are easy targets.
Lord Henley
My Lords, I give an assurance to my noble friend that we will maintain security at whatever is the appropriate level on the advice that we receive from those who have an interest in security matters. It is therefore unlikely to be relaxed as the Olympics morph, as my noble friend put it, into the Paralympics. As regards the assurances that he would like from me personally about LOCOG, I have not been involved in any discussions with the officials and management of LOCOG but my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has, as has my honourable friend Mr James Brokenshire. I think they could give assurances to my noble friend that they are satisfied that it will ensure that we maintain the right level of security.
Lord Addington
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that this is probably the biggest mistake we have had in the preparation of the Games so far? Will he assure the House, and indeed Parliament, that when we review everything to try to get the soft legacy, which will probably be the biggest part of the legacy of this, we will get a full review of what happened, when and why, so that we can study it at leisure? There should not be any point-scoring now and we should make sure that we learn what has actually happened and ensure that the next Games or event does not repeat these mistakes. Let it make its new ones.
Lord Henley
My Lords, I think my noble friend was at the same meeting as me when a number of potential Olympic ambassadors were briefed, and he will then remember that the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport said that, however well things went, there were likely to be mistakes. That is in the nature of things and we will look at those mistakes afterwards and ensure that we resolve them so that they do not happen again. My noble friend asks that we ensure that we do not have any further mistakes the next time we have the Olympics. I appreciate that there are one or two Members of this House who might remember the previous Olympics back in 1948. I do not and I am not sure that I will be around for the next time.
Lord Henley
I appreciate that my noble friend is now saying that there will be the Commonwealth Games in Scotland in two years’ time. I am sure that the Scottish Government will be taking all possible advice on these matters and will learn as much as they can from any possible mistakes that may or may not have happened.
Finance Bill
(12 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Sassoon)
My Lords, as noble Lords are well aware, when this Government came into power they inherited the largest peacetime deficit in our history. We are doing everything possible to get the economy moving and to deal with the enormous debts we inherited. Last week’s Fiscal Sustainability Report by the Office for Budget Responsibility highlighted the importance of the Government’s plans to ensure the long-term sustainability of the public finances. Our consolidation plans build on last year’s public sector pensions deal, which the OBR has identified as instrumental in preventing further increases in public sector net debt over the long term.
This Bill implements further reforms to improve the state of the economy. Despite the challenging economic backdrop, we remain committed to supporting growth. The Bill introduces a number of changes to encourage growth in our economy and help businesses of all sizes. The Government have clearly set out their ambition to have the most competitive tax system in the G20. The competitiveness of our tax system diminished over the last decade, as our competitors cut their corporation tax rates. We have taken action to address this. Clauses 5 and 6 make further cuts to the main rate of corporation tax, to a rate of 23% next year. This will be followed by a further cut in the Finance Bill of 2013. A cut in the main rate of corporation tax benefits businesses right across the country. As the CBI said:
“The additional cut in the headline rate of corporation tax will help make the UK a more attractive place for companies to invest, do business and create jobs”.
The Bill also introduces new controlled foreign companies rules designed to improve the UK’s tax competitiveness. These reforms will ensure that this is done in a way that reflects modern, global business practices, significantly reducing the compliance burdens of business. As my right honourable friend the Chancellor said in his Budget Statement, this reform,
“will stop global firms leaving Britain, as they were, and encourage them to start coming here”.—[Official Report, Commons, 21/3/12; col. 802.]
WPP and other major companies have recently announced that they are considering a return to the UK, or that they will move their tax domicile into the UK.
Alongside these reforms, the Bill also introduces a patent box to encourage innovative activity in the UK, but competitiveness is not only about the corporation tax rate. We had been told that the 50p rate of income tax was damaging to our competitiveness and that it would not raise revenue. Indeed, the HMRC report, published alongside the Budget, sets out that the 50p rate is distortive, is damaging to international competitiveness and is an economically inefficient way of raising revenue. In short, the 50p rate has failed. The analysis by HMRC shows that the yield would be, at best, £1 billion and, at worst, may raise nothing at all. This is because the behavioural response has been substantially larger than expected. The 50p rate has damaged the UK’s competitiveness at the very time we must do all we can to improve it. That is why we will reduce the additional rate to 45p from next year. As the CBI said:
“Reducing the 50p income tax rate will send a clear signal that Britain is open for business”.
We want to make the UK the best place in Europe to start, finance and grow a business. That is why the Bill introduces measures to enable greater investment in our small and medium-sized companies. The increases to thresholds and better targeting of the enterprise investment scheme and venture capital trusts in Clauses 39 and 40 will allow businesses to raise equity more easily. The Bill also establishes the new seed enterprise investment scheme to encourage investment into new, early-stage companies by providing tax relief of 50% to investors.
The Bill also provides for individuals. The increase in the personal allowance in Clause 3 will set the value at £8,105 from 6 April this year and we have announced a further increase of £1,100 next year, the largest ever increase in cash terms. The Government are taking 2 million people out of income tax and providing a tax cut to 24 million people. This is a major step towards our commitment to raising the personal allowance to £10,000 by the end of this Parliament.
The Bill also makes changes to the age-related allowances that support our objective to make the tax system simpler and easier for people to understand, but no pensioners will be worse off in cash terms as a result of these changes and this year our triple lock will see the basic state pension increase by over £275. This is £127 more than the previous Government’s plans.
This Government are responsive to the concerns of working families and businesses about the cost of living and the challenges of running a business. That is why we have deferred the fuel duty rise, so that road users are paying 10p a litre less in taxation than they would be doing had Labour still been in power. As RAC Foundation director Professor Stephen Glaister said:
“This is good news for drivers and good news for the country”.
As noble Lords know, this Government have also had to make difficult decisions so that we can tackle the deficit. This includes withdrawing child benefit from households earning more than £50,000. This is a fair way to make savings. We are also taking steps to ensure that the wealthy pay their fair share. The Budget package ensures that the wealthiest will pay five times more than the cost of reducing the additional rate of income tax. The introduction of a new higher rate of stamp duty land tax at 7% on properties sold for more than £2 million will raise over £1 billion in the next five years. The new stamp duty land tax enveloping entry charge rate of 15% will deter those seeking to put their high-value property into corporate structures to avoid tax. The introduction of the UK-Switzerland agreement will ensure that we address the tax loss from those who put their money into Swiss banks to evade tax, and we are tackling tax avoidance with measures in the Bill raising over £1 billion in total.
We will also raise revenue from those sectors that are better able to pay. The increase in the bank levy in Clause 209 will ensure that that the levy will raise around £10 billion from banks over the course of this Parliament, yield that is helping to ensure that we can reduce the deficit, which in turn ensures the stable, low interest rates that are of such benefit to our economy.
The Government are committed to greater consultation on tax policy changes. Most of the measures in the Bill were announced at Budget 2011 and have been subject to extensive consultation. We published more than 400 pages of draft legislation for comment in December and received more than 450 comments. This consultation has ensured better legislation with fewer changes required.
The Bill sets out changes to improve our competitiveness, encourage investment and support our businesses through the recovery. Of course, we always said that recovery would be choppy. In fact, last year the independent Office for Budget Responsibility revealed that the underlying damage to the economy, and our challenge in repairing it, was much greater that anyone had thought. However, we are doing everything possible to confront Britain’s problems, get the economy moving and deal with the enormous debts we inherited. The Bill builds on the progress that the Government have made to date to help families, help business and support economic growth, and I commend it to the House.
Baroness Kramer
My Lords, because of the way in which legislation progresses through the Commons and through this House, I feel that all of us present tonight have discussed all the issues contained in the Bill on numerous occasions. I have to confess to a small temptation just to say, “Please refer to speeches I made earlier”. It means that I shall be brief and just hit on the few issues that I wish to highlight.
To me, the most important measure in the Bill is the raising of the starting threshold for income tax to £8,105 this year and to more than £9,000 next year. Two million low-income earners will have been taken out of paying income tax altogether by this and previous lifts in the threshold and, as the Minister said, some 24 million middle and low-earning income tax payers will have seen their income tax bills reduced by about £330. This has to be right. It moves us well on the way to a starting threshold of £10,000, as set out in the coalition agreement. As a Liberal Democrat, I see it as a significant move towards a threshold that, in essence, starts above the minimum wage, with the notion that there is a relationship between earnings on the minimum wage and the point at which income tax starts. I believe that that has to be right as a major incentive into work and a major measure to tackle long-term poverty.
Cutting taxes significantly at the bottom end of the earnings spectrum is now pretty much taken for granted as the right thing to do across all the parties. I only have a short memory, but I remember all the debates not long ago when this looked pretty revolutionary. The Labour Party chose not to do it in what were considered to be times of plenty, so the fact that it is now being achieved in times of austerity will, I hope, embed this type of philosophy across all the things that we do, no matter which party we come from, as we look at taxation in the future. This is one of the most progressive tax strategies that Governments have adopted in recent years. It has the character of a permanent change and to me is far more effective than the one-off one-year VAT cut that has sometimes been proposed by Labour—which, interestingly, would help the richest members of our community the most.
The Bill also continues to strengthen support for business. I am particularly pleased with the increased incentives for small businesses, new start-ups and entrepreneurs. However, I ask the Government to look at extending the enhanced capital allowances regime to small businesses more widely than just to those in the enterprise zones. I am a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Rebalancing the British Economy, an excellent group that I recommend to the House. Of all the evidence that the group has heard, I have been most struck by that given by Brompton Bicycles, a firm that sells a conventional product but is successful in large part because its manufacturing processes are at the cutting edge of technology. UK small businesses desperately need to accelerate their adoption of new manufacturing technologies to compete and grow. They may not be high-tech in their products, but to be high-tech in their manufacturing tends to make them much more competitive and effective. Incentives to invest in these new processes for small businesses are crucial and I encourage the Government to put this high on their agenda.
The tax avoidance measures in the Bill are very welcome and, I would say, long overdue. Stamp duty has been a particular concern of mine because avoidance by the wealthy is so unfair to the ordinary house buyer. The Bill clamps down on some schemes that use domestic corporate structures to avoid stamp duty, though, in my reading it has not yet eliminated what I would call the Cayman Islands problem—the number of properties that are now already in Cayman Islands trusts or will be put into them in future, avoiding not just stamp duty but also capital gains and inheritance tax. I hope that the Government will make a move on that very soon because it remains a significant loophole and a real sore to every taxpayer who pays up on stamp duty.
Economic growth overshadows all fiscal and economic debates. I am therefore pleased that the Funding for Lending scheme was launched last week by the Treasury and the Bank of England. However, it strikes me as extraordinary that the Treasury and the Bank of England have had to set up a scheme in such a way that banks can get discounted loans only by actually maintaining or increasing lending. That tells you that that they have responded to just about nothing else. To me, that underscores the argument for banking reform, which, hopefully, will be a major occupation for this House after Christmas.
This is a sensible Bill that has been produced in difficult times and I very much hope that we will see it pass.
Lord Browne of Belmont
My Lords, I spoke in this debate last year to express my concern that, despite numerous statements by the Prime Minister before and since the general election about the importance of recognising marriage in the tax system, nothing has happened. It is a great sadness to me that, one year on, that is still the case.
Let us be very clear: the commitment to recognise marriage was in the Conservative manifesto and made it into the coalition agreement, so it is not a policy that has been dropped because of the coalition. The Liberal Democrats have formally been given the right to abstain and, in embracing the coalition agreement, have consented to this. This should ensure a majority adequate to secure the passage of the measure, given that not only Conservative Members of another place will vote for the proposal. There is therefore no reason why the Government should not action their commitment and every reason why they must.
Of course I understand that the coalition agreement pertains to the period 2010-15, so I am not suggesting that the Government have reneged on their commitment. What I am saying is that, given the importance of this commitment, it is a great shame that it has not been given greater priority. Moreover, because of developments since 2010 and the time that it will take to introduce a transferable allowance, I consider that it is now imperative that the introduction of the allowance be made a top priority for 2013.
UK residents find themselves in a relatively unusual position. Only 20.9% of people living in OECD member states are subject to individual taxation without spousal allowances or credits. Most of these live in just two countries—the United Kingdom and Mexico. Among highly developed large economies, the UK is alone in operating a tax system that ignores spousal obligations.
Given that we fail to recognise marriage in the tax system, it is hardly surprising that many married couples in the UK are treated less well than they would be in other developed countries, on average. When the commitment to recognise marriage in the tax system through a transferable allowance was made in 2010, the latest available figures demonstrated that the tax burden on a one-earner married couple with two children and on average wage was 33% greater than the OECD average. Consequently, UK residents faced a greater disincentive to marriage than did most people living in the developed OECD world.
That is of importance for two reasons. The first is child development. The social science evidence is very clear: marriage provides a much more stable environment for child development than cohabitation, so there is no public policy merit in making it harder for people to marry here than in other developed countries. This is hugely important, because the evidence also shows clearly that children raised in stable two-parent homes do much better on average, according to every relevant benchmark, than children raised in single-parent homes. I do not say this to criticise in any way single parents, who for the most part do an excellent job in what sometimes are extremely difficult circumstances, and I believe that they deserve our full support. Rather, I say it because we need to ensure that public policy does not make it more difficult for couples who want to marry to do so in the UK than in other developed OECD countries. If we do not make this change, “broken Britain” should come as no surprise to us.
The second reason is choice. In approaching choice, I am aware that some people find the idea that fiscal policy has anything to do with marriage ridiculous. They assert that people get married for love and they give the impression that any reference to fiscal consideration in the context of marriage is somehow crass and insensitive. These people, who usually in my experience are very well off, make the basic mistake of confusing two different decisions. As I said in last year’s debate, of course people do not fall in love for fiscal reasons. However, when they fall in love and decide that they want to be together, they face a choice: do they marry or cohabit? It is in making that decision that fiscal considerations are very real, particularly if you are on a low to modest income. Statistics demonstrate that 90% of young people aspire to marry, so why then is the marriage rate at an all-time low and the cohabitation rate at an all-time high? Clearly, people have not stopped falling in love and deciding that they want to be together.
I do not want to suggest for a minute that increasing cohabitation is just, or even primarily, the result of fiscal policy—undoubtedly there are other significant cultural factors—but I suggest that fiscal policy is a contributory factor for the evident disconnect between the aspiration to marry and the level of marriages. The fact is that people in the UK fall in love and decide that they want to be together in a context where the option of marrying is more difficult than it is for most people living in the developed OECD world.
Bringing ourselves into line with international best practice and recognising marriage in the tax system will help to make it no more difficult for those who aspire to marry in the UK to do so than is the case for most OECD residents. Moreover, I contend that the case for recognising marriage in the tax system is even stronger today than it was in 2010. Analysis of the latest OECD figures carried out by CARE and presented in Taxation of Families 2010/11 reveals that a one-earner married couple with two children and an average wage now face a tax burden that is 52% greater than the OECD average, a significant increase on the 33% figure for 2010.
This deeply disturbing deterioration impels us to delay no longer the introduction of the transferable allowance. The Prime Minister, who has talked so much about supporting marriage, cannot allow a situation to develop in which the tax disincentives to marriage increase significantly under his premiership. He must ensure that, at least in terms of fiscal policy, it is no more difficult for couples to marry in the UK than it is across the OECD on average.
Before I conclude, I wish to touch on the extremely important subject of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and the IT changes that will need to be implemented in order for the transferable allowance to be given effect. It has been suggested that it could take a year or more for HMRC to make the necessary changes. In the light of this, there are five key questions for the Minister.
First, has the Treasury asked HMRC to assess how long it will take to make the requisite IT changes to introduce the transferable allowance? Secondly, if the answer to the above question is yes, how long did HMRC estimate and, if the answer is no, will the Minister urgently ask them to make an estimate? Thirdly, has the Treasury instructed HMRC to start making the necessary IT changes to facilitate the introduction of the transferable allowance? Fourthly, if the answer to the third question is no, will he urgently ask HMRC to begin making the necessary IT changes? Fifthly, when do the Government intend to bring forward legislation to formally introduce the transferable allowance?
I look forward to the Minister’s reply. If he does not have all the information to hand today, I would be most grateful if he would write to me and place a copy of the letter in the House of Lords Library.
Lord Flight
My Lords, I will say a little about small business and the EIS. The Minister stressed the importance of small businesses in his speech, and I think everybody across all shades of party opinion knows that small business can provide extra employment and boost the economy, and that the proportion of GDP and employment it represents continues to grow.
The EIS has been a considerable success and raised some £12 billion of high-risk equity for small businesses. It was interesting that the French Government sent a delegation over to the UK to look at why the EIS had worked so much better in the UK than the French scheme had in France, even though, on the face of it, the French scheme looked to be more generous. I also make the point that equity is just as important as debt—small businesses cannot, and should not, view bank borrowing as a substitute for equity. As a buffer for survival, equity is absolutely necessary.
At this point, I declare an interest, which is duly in the register, as chairman of the EIS Association, the not-for-profit trade body representing the various professionals involved in promoting and creating EIS offerings. My colleagues from the EIS Association have had an extremely constructive dialogue with HMRC and I pay tribute to the good will and constructive actions of particular individuals in trying to address some of the issues that need addressing, which the Finance Bill does to some extent. I was extremely pleased that the Government listened to the proposals to widen the coverage of the EIS and deal with the follow-on situation of small companies that had survived and grown a bit but needed some more equity capital. It was a pity that the Government were obliged to delay getting EU state aid clearance, as I do not see that these sorts of measures are any of the business of the EU. I am very pleased that the Government did listen and have addressed that.
I am therefore a little disappointed in respect of two big areas in the Finance Bill. The first is the limiting of loss relief to £50,000, or 25% of annual income, which changes the risk-reward nature of EIS investment. In a way, the Government have given with one hand, by widening the parameters, but taken back with the other hand with that measure. Given that small company investment is extremely high-risk, what the loss is going to be with small companies that fail is a material consideration. I know there is some amelioration of that in that losses can be spread over two years for tax purposes, but I feel that this was slightly a political measure and not really thought through in terms of its impact. For all those who invested under EISs in the past on the basis of loss relief, it is also retrospective in that it is being changed after they took the decision to invest based on the then risk/reward parameters.
A minor point is that the list of qualifying investments has been looked at from the negative side but not from the positive side. I cannot see why nursing homes and hotels are not qualifying investments. As the record shows, neither is an area where people make instant profits and both are socially useful. There is a case for reviewing the rules on a positive side.
The second point is perhaps the most material. The EISA has had constructive discussions with the Treasury for some time on measures to stop what I think we and the Government have viewed as abuse of the EIS, where the basic objectives, which we all understand, are being rather used for tax schemes and getting around the rules. Everybody in the industry broadly understands what those abuses are and is pretty constructive about dealing with them. This has led to the new rules in the Finance Bill that create Section 178A of the Income Tax Act 2007. It introduces new disqualifying arrangements which apply to VCTs and the new SEISs as well as EISs. These include test conditions A and B, and if either is met the arrangement is disqualified. I shall read condition A because I get very upset that the drafting of a law in this area can be so entirely opaque:
“Condition A … is that as a result of the money raised by the relevant issue being employed for the purpose of the relevant business activity, the whole or the majority of the amount raised is, in the course of the arrangements, paid to or for the benefit of a party or parties to the arrangements or a person or persons connected with such a party”.
I am afraid it is extremely opaque. I think I know what it is getting at: that where an EIS-qualifying company is to some extent fronting for a larger company that is underwriting its business risk, it is clearly not cricket. I wish that things such as that could be drafted in a way that is a little clearer and more straightforward.
The second condition, condition B, outlaws where a part of business venture, not otherwise qualifying, would qualify. For example, if, say, old people’s homes do not qualify, you separate out a restaurant in the old people’s home which would qualify. Candidly, I cannot particularly see the harm in that if it is employing people and providing a service. It would again be helpful if what the condition means were clear, but I question whether it is of much economic use.
The even bigger issue is that the new arrangements include a process for advanced assurance guidelines by HMRC. This is a form of pre-clearance. In the light of those very opaque conditions A and B, it is almost necessary in order for people to know whether an EIS proposition is okay. It is therefore helpful, but my first point is that it will require HMRC to be adequately resourced to provide and assess these pre-clearances. If not, there will be delays in the funding that small business badly needs.
I believe the initial draft of the Revenue’s guidance notes have, for some reason, been fairly widely circulated, which was not intended. As the notes stand, they are capable of being interpreted in an extremely unhelpful way. Most people know the issues that these guidelines are getting at but, on the face of it, the wording could unintentionally disqualify a range of businesses, especially developing, building, owning and operating solar, wind and other energy projects benefiting from ROCs. Typical characteristics of such investments are: that the majority of the investment comes from one or other EIS fund or VCT; where the business is a start-up; the customer servicing and maintenance function has to be outsourced initially because the business cannot afford to do it itself; and if there are any major engineering or other capital costs, they need to be outsourced to a third party until the business is large enough to be able to afford them. The guidelines include these four characteristics as disqualifying the business for an advanced clearance guideline under something called VCM21035. I cannot believe that it is the Government’s intention to disqualify, in particular, start-ups. It does not mean that these investments are automatically disqualified for EIS relief, but they are disqualified for this new advanced clearance. Of course, the new advanced clearance will, in practice, become an effective prerequisite in that no one is going to invest in an EIS proposition unless it has an advanced clearance under the new arrangements. The guidelines do not say, but could usefully do so, that—notwithstanding the specific guidelines—if the promoters believe the business is not abusive they should explain when they apply for advanced clearance. I think that is particularly relevant to the point I just made about start-up companies in the solar industry.
I also understand that the objectives of most of the fairly extensive clauses in the guidance notes go quite a lot further than what is in the Bill, which I do not think is necessarily intended. The guidance would be much more practical and helpful if it gave illustrations of the things that it seeks to disqualify. As the guidance stands, it would be much more practical for EIS funds to invest in follow-on situations and to avoid start-up seed capital. Again, this is entirely at odds with the objective of the new SEISs.
I hope the guidance notes will be reviewed and refined. At present, they will cause too much uncertainty and lead to a reduction in the flow of EIS funds to perfectly reasonable propositions. The essence of the point is that VCM21035 sets out where HMRC will decline to give advance assurance. At present, as I have just said, this is well beyond the new disqualifying principles within the Act. It also gives HMRC too much discretion to pick and choose whether or not companies get advance clearance. I am sure it is not the Government’s intention to disqualify start-ups from being largely funded by VCTs and EIS funds, nor to disqualify companies which in their early stage need a certain amount of outsourcing.
Finally, another issue that delays the flow of EIS funding is MiFID. Advisers need to be ever more protective if they are to promote EISs to their clients. It is not just a question of their clients signing to say they are a sophisticated investor; the adviser needs to write a paper saying why he considers the client to be a suitable investor for something as high-risk as the EIS. The bottom line is that, other than the most sophisticated advisers, most give up and say, “Well, we’re really not attached to this area. It is too difficult and too risky”. To the extent to which we can have any flexibility under MiFID, it is necessary to make it easier for intermediaries and financial advisers to be able to promote EIS investments.
Lord Davies of Oldham
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, probably expressed what we are all likely to feel about this debate. We have had in the House a series of economic debates and questions and many opportunities to consider the Budget and its ramifications over quite a considerable period. That may just account for tonight’s fairly limited attendance in consideration of the Finance Bill. Of course, we all recognise the limitations of this House in considering the Bill, but there is no doubt that in the context of the developing economic situation and the Government’s actions over the past few months, it feels as though it has been with us for a very long time indeed. This is not, however, the Bill which the Chancellor introduced. The outstanding feature of this Finance Bill is that it was trailed from the Treasury before the speech was made; the kind of approach which back in 1946 caused a Chancellor to be dismissed for speaking out of turn. These days, of course, trailing things is looked upon as a high political art form, though a great deal of what was trailed then did not turn out to be reality.
We had not been very long into discussions on the Finance Bill before the Government began to exercise a dizzying series of U-turns, whether it was on hot food, static caravans, improvements to listed buildings or charitable donations. All were changes which the Government then dressed up as the result of consultation, when in fact the proposals in the Budget were repudiated by a Chancellor who was fast losing confidence in his own decision taking. The result is that we will have from the Minister a paean of praise to the wisdom of the Government for the way they have handled the economy, with ne’er a mention in his speech of where the resources are meant to come from to fill the gaps which these subsequent concessions have caused in the revenue. We thought many of these original measures were misconceived; the Government have merely spread consternation by their rethinking of the position. The other characteristic of all Treasury Ministers—and the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, enjoys his part in that role—is that they appear to address everything to deal with the nation in terms of the Finance Bill being concerned with business, taxation and how the country pays its way.
Those are important considerations. They ought to be a substantial part, and inevitably are, of every Budget. But where is the concern about the society that the Bill will impact upon? Where is the concern about social justice? Apart from the phrases about us being “all in this together”, where is the evidence? The Minister indicates that giving a substantial tax concession to millionaires—not mentioning, of course, that the Cabinet consists largely of millionaires—is merely a reflection of the fact that the tax does not raise too much. Of course, there is no consideration at all of the impact upon the nation of a Government asking it to take the deprivations that occur in this Budget: the loss of benefits and the onslaught on vulnerable people in our society. There is no consideration at all that giving a concession to millionaires creates a symbol of a totally unfair approach to government. Is it therefore not surprising that the Government are losing their credibility among the nation, as is clearly evidenced every time the Prime Minister loses control of his arguments at Question Time in the other place?
I understand what the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, says about taking low-paid people out of income tax. Of course that is to be welcomed. However, she must also recognise that the major priority enjoined by all those who are concerned about the state of British society—and a number of other western societies as well—is that some tackling was necessary during the years when we were in Government of the excessive degree of child poverty, which was a stain upon our society and measure of the unfairnesses which our society metes out. Children, after all, are not responsible for the state they are in, but everybody recognises the crippling disadvantages of being born and trapped in poverty. The Government, of course, are ensuring that that trap becomes even more vicelike in its control through the significant reductions in benefits. We know what that means for children in poverty.
Of course, it may be that some concession was made to lower-paid workers, but it certainly was not made to pensioners. The Government have abandoned their commitment to the age-related allowance for pensioners in line with inflation, and introduced their granny tax.
We have argued that this Budget is so manifestly unfair and inappropriate that the unfairness is being felt throughout society. It is also utterly and totally ineffective. I do not have detailed questions to ask the noble Lord; that is just as well, as I hope that he would be able to restrain his winding-up speech to reasonable limits and he has a great deal to respond to from the noble Lord, Lord Flight—and, indeed, from the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Belmont.
However, I add one caveat to the noble Lord, Lord Browne: we have got to be somewhat judicious in this House when we are commenting on and playing our part in making laws which apply to those who are a generation or two behind us. Their mores are different. That is not to say that we do not recognise that so many value marriage; that is why weddings take place with great panache all the time. I imagine that many noble Lords in this House enjoy, as I do myself, a situation where my marriage is reaching almost 50 years; so I am certainly not going to be against marriage. But I am counselling against giving advice to a generation which has got a different approach to the way in which it expresses its commitments between man and woman. We would all recognise that a decade or so ago expression particularly on the Conservative Benches of this House on issues of equality for homosexuals was totally different from the perspective with which the Conservative Party responds today. I am not so sure about its entire membership in this House but certainly its agreed policy as regards its Members of Parliament. I have slight anxiety about dictating to a younger generation what the incentives should be with regard to their social relationships.
I have one question for the Minister: what is his response to the International Monetary Fund’s announcement today that growth will be 0.6% lower than the Government and the OBR have forecast for this year and will be 0.6% lower next year? The Government are left with the prospect of 0.2% growth this year. What an emergence from a double-dip recession that represents. Even the following year, only 1.6% growth is forecast. Therefore, both years will be manifestly below the average for advanced countries of 1.9% growth.
We are falling further behind in terms of growth and there will be a reduction in our resources. That is why the Government are in such difficulty with regard to their Budget, and why there are such privations on the least well off in our society. Ordinary people are feeling the pinch. There was not a word from the Minister or a single word in this Finance Bill about anything to do with unemployment and scarcely anything to do with employment. One million young people are unemployed. Is the Minister suggesting that they are responsible for that? Have the Government not got some responsibility for tackling those issues? I ask: what in this Bill relates to those issues? There is nothing. After all, if there had been anything, I am sure that the noble Lord would have referred to the issue but, of course, he did not.
We have a Finance Bill which partially reflects the total incompetence of this Government and their dizzying U-turns over the Budget proposals. The Budget is inherently and manifestly unfair, which leads to the nation rejecting and being critical of those who introduced it.
This recession was made in Downing Street. If the Chancellor concentrated rather less on his main bête noir—the Shadow Chancellor, Ed Balls—and a little more on the real economy, we might see a rather better approach to the crisis that this nation is in. It is absolutely clear that part of this is driven by the fundamental beliefs of the Chancellor and those who support him. They are using what is undoubtedly a crisis with regard to public finances to indulge in their commitment to create the smaller state—to reduce welfare and care for those in need. They did it in the 1930s and they are doing it in the second decade of the 21st century. It did not get us out of recession in the 1930s and will not now. The proof is already there. Meanwhile, it is the ordinary citizen of this country who pays the price.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, as I respond to this debate on the Finance Bill, I thank the dedicated band of noble Lords for contributing to this short and, what was until the last intervention, rather focused debate, before the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, went off in many different directions. This year’s Finance Bill follows an unprecedented degree of consultation and engagement, and implements many of the changes announced at the Budget. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, that there were some 200 measures in the Budget and on three of them, after consultation, we made appropriate changes. Therefore, I think that his characterisation of the Budget-making process, and the changes since, is way off the mark.
First, I will address one or two of the specific points raised before returning to the bigger picture. I start by thanking my noble friend Lady Kramer for pointing out what the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, seems not to recognise—that we are now engaged in the most progressive tax strategy of any Government in recent years. I completely agree with her. Not only is that the case but it is demonstrably the case. No previous Government have put distributional tables into the Budget document so that it is completely clear where the majority of the pain is falling, which is on those with the broadest shoulders in the top percentiles of the income distribution. I can assure my noble friend that as we carry on the progress on these many issues, we will make sure that we are very alive to loopholes. On stamp duty, for example, there are clearly questions, with possible ways of doing sub-sales avoidance and so on.
My noble friend mentions one offshore financial centre. I think that the agreement with Switzerland, which I referred to in my opening speech, shows that we will work tirelessly to take all appropriate action on that front. The noble Lord, Lord Browne of Belmont, makes a powerful case in relation to marriage. I would not go as far as the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, in rebutting that case. The coalition agreement commitment remains in place. We keep that commitment, as we do all taxes, under review. The noble Lord would not expect me to say any more this evening, but he has put on the record very clearly his feelings on this matter.
As to the IT systems of HMRC for transferable allowances, again it is an area of questioning that has been raised in another place. There is nothing I can usefully add. We do not tend to give a running commentary on HMRC operational matters. If there is anything more I can do to shed light on the specific questions that the noble Lord, Lord Browne, raises, of course I will write. However, my strong feeling is—as I suspect he realises—that I will not be able to give him anything more on that, but he makes his points very clearly.
My noble friend Lord Flight made some very technical but important points around EIS and VCT schemes in particular. He made the important point that some £12 billion of equity has been raised. These schemes have been extremely successful. As I outlined in my opening speech, we want to expand them. At one point my noble friend characterised them as giving with one hand and taking with the other. We do not see it like that. We have consulted extensively on detailed rules. Many industry groups contributed to the consultation and strongly supported the complete package of changes. However, my noble friend made his point very clearly. We keep these matters under continual review and if there are ways of making the guidance clearer and more helpful, I am sure that his thoughts will be taken on board. I will draw them to the attention of relevant officials. I also take the general point about clearer English, which is something of which we need to be reminded on a regular basis.
The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, launched a quite extraordinary attack—with which I agreed on a number of matters. My principal point of agreement was with the statement at the end of his speech that this is a recession made in Downing Street. I completely agree. The structural deficit that caused the recession to be as deep and severe as it is came from the overspending in the six years up to the financial crisis of 2008, when the previous Government diverted from the plans they had been left by my right honourable friend the previous Chancellor but three, Kenneth Clarke, who left the nation’s finances in a fine state. If the previous Government had carried on with his plans for a few years more, things would not be in the state that they are.
Lord Davies of Oldham
Would the noble Lord extend the same criticism to all the other advanced countries that face exactly the same issues?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, we were left with the largest structural deficit in the G20. We have brought it down from more than 11% to 8%, so we are making good progress—but the size of the task was bigger than in any other major economy.
Without rebutting the full litany and charge sheet—noble Lords would not thank me for keeping them much longer tonight—I absolutely rebut suggestions that we are insensitive to the societal and distributional effects of our measures. I explained the transparency with which we set out the effects of the Budget. It is those on the highest incomes who will pay most. The real results of what we are doing are the 800,000 new jobs that the private sector has created in the past two years. It is only by the private sector creating new jobs that we will be able to afford the better public services that the country needs and the lower taxes that we deserve. New jobs, falling unemployment and falling inflation are the things that the Government are concentrating on, and which the Budget continues to underpin.
Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, referred to today’s announcement by the IMF that downgraded global growth prospects. He was right to draw attention to it. The IMF forecast minus 0.3% growth for the eurozone this year. It forecast that the Italian economy will contract by 1.9% and the Spanish economy by 1.5%. It forecast that US growth would be only 2%, and it downgraded forecasts for emerging economy growth. It is in the face of those very strong headwinds that we have to carry on with our deficit reduction programme of tight fiscal discipline and loose money. I am very happy to talk about the 1930s. We do not have time to do it in detail, but tight fiscal discipline and loose money is precisely the prescription that caused a significant increase in growth through the 1930s.
In conclusion, this Government have taken difficult decisions to eliminate our structural current deficit over the coming four years and stimulate a private sector recovery. This strategy has been endorsed by the IMF, the OECD, the European Commission, ratings agencies and UK business organisations. We have always said that recovery would be choppy and our plans would necessarily incorporate a degree of flexibility. This Bill further delivers our commitment to improve our competitiveness, encourage investment and support our businesses, large and small. At the same time, it removes hundreds of thousands of individuals from income tax and helps reduce the cost of living for families across the country, and makes these changes in a way that is fairer and more consultative than any Finance Bill before. I commend this Bill to the House.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
My Lords, even though we have concluded all the business on the Order Paper, we expect to receive a message from the Commons tonight. At the moment I cannot offer guidance on a specific time, so I therefore beg to move that the House do adjourn during pleasure until a time to be announced on the annunciator.