House of Lords
Disabled People: Blue Badge Scheme
(12 years ago)
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Lord Harrison
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what are the results of the consultation on the workings of the blue badge scheme for the disabled.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the consultation on the personal independence payment and eligibility for a blue badge closed just three weeks ago. The responses are currently being read and analysed. This is an important decision to make and Ministers will take the time needed to ensure that all the relevant issues are taken into consideration. The Government will announce their decision shortly and will publish a summary of the responses.
Lord Harrison
My Lords, given that general practitioners know best the mobility and medical capabilities of current blue badge holders, was it not a bureaucratic and costly folly to vest within overpressed and understaffed local authorities the sensitive task of assessing eligibility for a blue badge, especially when that task was so often assigned to box-ticking junior staff with absolutely no medical knowledge? When will this Government respond to this semi-detached Prime Minister and do something about those who deserve blue badges getting them?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the only thing I agree with the noble Lord on is his point about box-ticking. Applicants’ GPs act as patients’ advocates and are not always best placed to assess mobility or to advise on badge eligibility. In 2008, the Transport Select Committee reported that using an applicant’s own GP to assess eligibility,
“is likely to produce a bias in favour of approving the application”.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, we think it is better to have an independent assessment.
Lord Reid of Cardowan
My Lords, why are GPs considered to be qualified to decide on just about everything else on commissioning but not on this?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the policy is to have independent assessment to avoid putting the GP in an invidious position.
Lord Elystan-Morgan
Is it the case that the ministry took the view that it could not rely upon the integrity and the professional competence of the practitioner, and was there any evidence to support that prejudice?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, disabled people’s groups, such as the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee, agree that greater use of independent mobility assessments is needed to determine eligibility fairly and robustly.
Lord Richard
My Lords, will the independent assessors be medically qualified?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, independent health professionals such as physiotherapists and occupational therapists are often best placed to assess eligibility due to their professional knowledge of mobility.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes
My Lords, is it not a fact that in the central London boroughs, where disability badges are slightly more restricted and you must have an additional badge from the local borough, the system has been working very well? People from the borough also rely on a report from a GP. Does the Minister not think that the more serious problem is abuse of the blue badges, whereby very fit people are using them when they have nothing to do with a disabled person?
Earl Attlee
My noble friend makes a very good point. There is nothing to prevent an applicant producing evidence from his or her GP outlining their condition. My noble friend is quite right to identify the abuse, which is a big problem. However, the blue badge improvement service will greatly assist in reducing the abuse.
Lord Wigley
My Lords, if there is a reduction in the number of badges given out as a result of the consultation, will those who lose their badges be eligible for an appeal process and will that not add a further cost to the whole system?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, there is an appeal process—I have unfortunately forgotten exactly what it is, but I shall write to the noble Lord. It is important to understand that the number of blue badges issued has gone up and up. There are already 2.5 million badges. As you increase the number of blue badges, you can get into a position where you dilute the benefits.
Lord Dubs
My Lords, in assessing the results of the consultation, will the Minister bear in mind that there are sometimes quite confusing differences in the operation of the scheme for disabled drivers from one London borough to another? If one lives in a particular borough and uses a blue badge only there, it is easy, but if one goes into the central London boroughs—Kensington, Westminster and Camden—the rules are different and it is extremely confusing for people because they do not know what the rules are and they are not clearly stated anywhere. The best thing might be if all the boroughs operated in the same way.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I shall draw the noble Lord’s points to the attention of my honourable friend Mr Norman Baker.
Baroness Brinton
My Lords, given the debate that has gone on about the new process, I have just been through it and have found it to be very smooth and very fast. It is extremely helpful and the advice from various medics was useful. The noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, asked about abuse of disabled bays. What can the Government do to encourage the reduction of abuse? In France, the supermarket chain, E.Leclerc, has a notice under wheelchair signs that says, “You take my space; you take my handicap”.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I should make it clear that the blue badge scheme has no effect off road on private land. However, supermarkets are bound by the provisions of the Equality Act and need to provide disabled parking bays. I am quite confident that a supermarket will take into consideration that a blue badge is on display and I would imagine that most responsible supermarkets would do their best to avoid abuse of disabled parking spaces because it is a morally bankrupt thing to do.
Lord Davies of Oldham
The Minister has adduced two reasons for why there may be improvements to the blue badge scheme. The first is that it may reduce fraud, which we would all welcome. The second, which I think much of the House would be very doubtful about, is that doctors have been too lenient in the past and that it is best if they are kept at some distance from the issue. In that case, what estimate has the department made of the reduction that is likely to occur in the number of blue badges issued?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, in future, the number of blue badges to be issued will depend on the results of the consultation and on what decision Ministers make. Our problem is that the passported benefit is from the personal independence payment rather than the higher rate mobility component of the disability living allowance. That is going to be a different system. It is bound to produce a variation but we do not know exactly what that variation will be. Another difficulty is that the data sets are quite poor, so it is difficult to assess what the outcome will be.
Government: Cars
(12 years ago)
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Lord Hoyle
To ask Her Majesty’s Government why the Government Car and Despatch Agency car allocated to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills was not manufactured in the United Kingdom.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the main car allocated to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has recently been replaced with one manufactured in the UK. Since 17 September 2012, the Japanese-produced Toyota Prius was changed for a Toyota Avensis manufactured at the Burnaston plant in Derbyshire.
Lord Hoyle
I welcome that news because—and I think the Minister will agree—the department should act as a shop window for our highly successful British motor industry. I believe that the news will be welcomed all around this House.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his comments. The government ministerial car fleet is about 50% British and 50% foreign. However, I will add a note of caution, because the supply chain for the motor industry is international now. For instance, the BMW Hams Hall engine plant produced 433,000 engines for BMW plants around the world.
Lord Brabazon of Tara
My Lords, Toyota is a leading manufacturer in this country and a great asset to British manufacturing. It makes a great many cars here and, better still, exports a great many of them. Does it really matter if the particular model concerned is not made here, when Toyota contributes so much to this country?
Lord West of Spithead
My Lords, carrying this over to other areas of manufacturing, does the Minister agree that if we do not buy something in this country, other people will not buy it? This is particularly pertinent to defence contracts. In the White Paper, we said we would try to sell lots of things abroad; but no one will buy stuff if you do not buy it yourself. It is rather important that we buy things that we make here.
Earl Attlee
The noble Lord is absolutely brilliant at asking questions that are wide of the Question on the Order Paper.
Lord Wright of Richmond
My Lords, is the Minister aware that, when I was in the Diplomatic Service, there was a requirement that ambassadors and heads of mission abroad should use British cars? I had great difficulty in getting a definition out of the Department of Trade and Industry as to exactly what a British car was.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the reason for that was in one of the very first answers I gave—that the motor industry supply chain is very much international. Another point to remember about government procurement is that we are bound by the European procurement rules, which restrict our course of action. However, we are 50:50 British and foreign in the fleet.
Lord Davies of Oldham
My Lords, an undoubtedly British car is the London taxi, which is symbolic of everything London stands for in terms of transport. The company Manganese Bronze is in very serious trouble, to the extent that 400 taxis have been withdrawn because of steering difficulties and the firm is not able to manufacture any others. This is extremely serious as far as the London taxi service is concerned, which is of course valued by very large numbers of people. Has the department begun thinking about the answers to those problems?
Earl Attlee
The noble Lord is even more ingenious than the noble Lord, Lord West. He knows perfectly well that the specifications for London taxis, which are very peculiar, are determined by the mayor’s office.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
My Lords, the change is welcome, but would the Minister speculate on what would be the response in France, for example, which is subject to the same EU rules, if government entities were not to buy vehicles wholly manufactured in France?
Lord Addington
My Lords, is it not a point of pride that this Government are using far fewer cars and that our Ministers are now travelling on public transport, and thus might be in a better position to make decisions about the future of that transport?
Earl Attlee
My noble friend makes an important point. I do not even use public transport to get to the Department of Transport. I walk; it takes me 10 minutes exactly. The important thing is that we have reduced the size of the ministerial car fleet from about 200 to 92.
Lord Bates
Will not my noble friend consider increasing the number of cars available to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, so that it can travel widely communicating the news that we have had the fastest growth in GDP, by 1%, over the past quarter and that employment is at a record level in this country?
Earl Attlee
My noble friend is ingenious as well. Government cars are issued to Ministers when they are needed.
Viscount Simon
My Lords, following the question from my noble friend Lord Davies of Oldham, and, again, I fear, being slightly wide of the Question on the Order Paper, is the noble Earl aware that the company that manufactures black cabs has ceased trading and that the companies that will replace them are, I believe, based in Germany?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I am aware of the difficulties of Manganese Bronze and the cabs, but that is of course a little wide of the Question on the Order Paper.
Armed Forces: Local Overseas Allowance
(12 years ago)
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Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the rationale for the reduction of the local overseas allowance (LOA) in relation to Operation Kipion.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Astor of Hever)
My Lords, local overseas allowance is paid to service personnel serving abroad to contribute to the necessary additional local cost of living in a particular country. Rates are not directly linked to Operation Kipion or any other operation. The most recent review of LOA was conducted during the strategic defence and security review, and the subsequent LOA conventions were implemented worldwide in two phases: on 1 May 2011 and 1 April 2012. Their impact varied with location, depending on the total cost of living differential relative to the United Kingdom. As with all allowances, the Government are concerned to ensure that LOA is managed in a way that is fair to service personnel but also, in a time of austerity, to respect the taxpayers’ need for value for money and financial restraint.
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that informative response in what is a rather complicated area, but I wonder whether I can press him a little further. During a visit to the Gulf this summer, service men and women raised with me the unfairness that they perceived in allowances, particularly for junior ranks. Will the Minister commit to looking again at the local overseas allowance in Bahrain which, as I understand it, has been cut substantially, is much less than that paid in the UAE and no longer reflects the cost of living, making it difficult to go off-ship when alongside? Will he consider including in this year’s budget the hotel allowance, which allows service men and women to spend time away from the service environment with family and friends, to repeat its welcome inclusion in the current budget? Given the Government’s commitment to the key principles of the Armed Forces covenant, does he accept that those cuts have had a real impact on in-theatre personnel?
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, the delivery of the policy that the noble Baroness mentions lies with the Service Personnel and Veterans Agency LOA team at Gosport. It conducts visits to the main locations, including Dubai and Bahrain, and decides the rates based on the local cost of items that service personnel need to buy. There may be legitimate reasons why rates differ even in postings quite close to each other, but the noble Baroness makes a very important point. We recognise the role that a fair system of allowances plays in keeping morale high. I have therefore asked my officials to look into the whole issue of Dubai and Bahrain to see whether the system is working as it should and will get back to her.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill
My Lords, on a more general theme, when the cuts to local overseas allowances were announced, it was suggested by the Army Families Federation that because of the reductions, the Army might find it harder to find volunteers to go overseas and that Army messes would fill up, with unaccompanied postings becoming the norm. Can my noble friend tell us whether those fears were justified?
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, I do not think that the fears were justified. The SDSR set out a requirement to reduce expenditure on service personnel allowances by around £250 million in order to achieve the level of savings required by the economic situation in defence. It is accepted that these changes will be unpopular, and some of them may require adjustments to lifestyle, but they are a necessary part of the department’s contribution to the Government’s overall programme to reduce the deficit. To reassure my noble friend, we regularly review these allowances.
Lord Burnett
My Lords, over recent decades much of the outstanding work done by the Royal Navy has been sensitive, and therefore it has not been publicised. I hope that my noble friend agrees that the Royal Navy’s minesweeping expertise is second to none. Is he able to tell the House the value and importance that our allies attach to the Royal Navy’s contribution to Operation Kipion?
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, the success of Operation Kipion is measured by the fact that our efforts to reassure our Gulf partners through providing a constant presence in the region continue to ensure access and basing in Gulf states. This is vital to support Operation Herrick. The Royal Navy is at the forefront of mine countermeasure capabilities in experience, expertise and technology. The US/UK/French patrols in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz are a routine part of our commitment to the free movement of international shipping in the region. In recent years our ships have played a significant role as part of the combined maritime forces of the Bahrain-based coalition naval force drawn from 25 nations, with missions including counterpiracy, counterterrorism and the maintenance of security in and around the Gulf. These are all highly valued by our allies, including the United States.
Lord Rosser
My Lords, an MoD survey of which the Minister will be well aware has shown that nearly two-thirds of officers in the Army, the Navy and the RAF now rate their own morale as low. That is twice the level it was in 2010. What plans do the Government have for improving the morale of our Armed Forces?
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, I do not share the noble Lord’s pessimistic view of the morale of the senior Armed Forces but, as I said, we are constantly reviewing morale, allowances and everything else that leads to morale in the Armed Forces.
Lord Geddes
My Lords, I was fervently hoping that some other noble Lord would ask this question—but, in my appalling ignorance, what is Operation Kipion?
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, Operation Kipion replaced Operations Telic and Calash. It covers operations in the Arabian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf of Aden, off the coast of Somalia and in Iraq. The latter is a defence section at the embassy, where we have a number of service personnel.
Lord Reid of Cardowan
I thank the Minister for his willingness to have his officials investigate the alleged anomalies. When he does so, I am sure he will bear in mind that although, of course, in a time of austerity, all the sacrifices and cutbacks must be shared, the Armed Forces are unique because very few of those who have a contract with the country or the Government have a contract stating that their service will be accomplished even until death. Will he bear that in mind when he looks at some of these matters affecting morale in the Armed Forces?
Lord Astor of Hever
The noble Lord makes a very good point. I have looked very carefully at all the rates that the noble Baroness brought to my attention, and I think there is an issue. The amounts are very small, but it is very important to sailors, soldiers and airmen who are out there, and it is very important that we look at it again.
NHS: Children’s Congenital Heart Services
(12 years ago)
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The Lord Bishop of Leicester
To ask Her Majesty’s Government why the removal of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation equipment from Glenfield Hospital does not form part of the review by the Independent Reconfiguration Panel into children’s congenital heart services in Leicestershire, Lincolnshire and Rutland.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)
My Lords, the Independent Reconfiguration Panel—the IRP—provides advice to the Secretary of State on the plans that the NHS puts forward for significant change to services. The legislation does not allow it to review decisions taken by the Secretary of State. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State has asked the IRP to review the Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts’ decision on the future pattern of children’s congenital heart surgery and its consideration of the impact of that, which may include possible consequences for this service at Glenfield.
The Lord Bishop of Leicester
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his Answer. In the east Midlands we appreciate the Secretary of State’s decision to review his predecessor’s decision on the future of children’s congenital heart services in Leicestershire, Lincolnshire and Rutland. However, in view of the unique and exceptional network of expertise with a world reputation supporting the so-called ECMO unit—expertise that, once dismantled, would be very difficult to reassemble—does the Minister accept that its future is inextricably linked to the future of children’s congenital heart services? Will he give an undertaking to this House that he will press that point on the Secretary of State?
Earl Howe
My Lords, I accept that there are interdependencies between the provision of children’s cardiac surgery and the children’s ECMO service. If new evidence emerges or there are exceptional circumstances, such as a change in circumstances following either the Independent Reconfiguration Panel review or any judicial review that may occur, then my right honourable friend the Secretary of State may wish at a future time to review the earlier decision.
Lord Bach
Is the Minister aware of how absurd it would be to have an independent report on the future of the heart unit but to exclude any consideration of the fate of the ECMO unit? As the right reverend Prelate said a few minutes ago, they are inextricably linked; indeed, the Minister seems to have conceded that there is a link between them. I remind him that Members of another place from all parties and from different parts of the country made it clear in their excellent debate earlier this week that the two are linked. As the Minister’s right honourable and learned friend Sir Edward Garnier said:
“We all know that the current decision is wrong and needs to be dealt with”.—[Official Report, 22/10/12; col. 188WH.]
Will the Government please look at this again before the whole country—
Earl Howe
My Lords, I hope that my initial Answer will have made it clear that we expect the Independent Reconfiguration Panel to look at the issue in the round, and that includes the consequences of the JCPCT’s decision, were that to be carried through. I hope that that is sufficiently reassuring. However, what the panel cannot do, in law, is review the decision of the Secretary of State. It can, however, take all the circumstances into account, and I believe that it should do so.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I remind the House of my health interests in the register. I would like to press the Minister on that point. In the other place on 22 October, the Minister there made it clear that the decision to transfer the ECMO to Birmingham was made as a consequence of the decision of the Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts. Given that the Independent Reconfiguration Panel is now reviewing the decision of the Joint Committee, are the Government not being unnecessarily legalistic on this point? It would be quite open to the Secretary of State to ask the reconfiguration panel for its advice on the question of the ECMO position. Why on earth does he not do that?
Earl Howe
My Lords, I can only repeat what I said in my initial Answer to the right reverend Prelate: my right honourable friend has asked the IRP to review the decision around children’s cardiac services and its consideration of the impact of that, which may include consequences for the ECMO service at Glenfield. I hope that that Answer puts this question into context. While the IRP cannot review the Secretary of State’s actual decision about the ECMO, which, as the noble Lord rightly said, followed on from the original decision of the JCPCT, nevertheless there are interdependencies between the two services that we expect to be taken into account by the panel.
Lord Walton of Detchant
My Lords, may I express the hope that this review will be concluded speedily? The whole issue of the facilities for paediatric cardiac surgery across the UK has been under consideration for about two years. I have an avuncular interest, of course, in the future of the cardiac unit in the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle, which is one of the most outstanding in the country. I ask for a speedy conclusion because the whole organisation and reorganisation of cardiac paediatric surgery have to await the Secretary of State’s decision.
Earl Howe
The noble Lord, as ever, makes an extremely important point. Children’s heart surgery has been the subject of concern for more than 15 years. Clinical experts and national parent groups have repeatedly called for change, and there is an overwhelming feeling that the time for change is long overdue. I accept the noble Lord’s point that a decision should be reached as speedily as possible. I am advised that the IRP will report to the Secretary of State on 28 February 2013, or following the conclusion of any judicial review if such a review takes place.
The Lord Bishop of Leicester
My Lords, is the Minister aware, in spite of the technically clear Answer that he has given, that the overwhelming medical opinion is that the removal of this unit could lead to significant loss of children’s lives? Are he and the Secretary of State able to contemplate that possibility with equanimity?
Earl Howe
My Lords, of course I do not regard any possibility of children losing their lives with equanimity. I can only say that that aspect was carefully looked at by the JCPCT with strong clinical advice. It reached the conclusion that it would be safe to move the ECMO service to Birmingham.
Business of the House
(12 years ago)
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Lord Strathclyde
That the debates on the Motions in the names of Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve and the Earl of Listowel set down for today shall each be limited to two and a half hours.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in the name of my noble friend on the Order Paper.
Arrangement of Business
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, this will be a rather longer statement but, I hope, somewhat welcome.
My right honourable friend the Leader of the House of Commons made a statement last week about the sittings of the other place up to its return in January 2014. It may be for the convenience of this House if I now do the same. It is rather a long statement, since we are looking rather a long way ahead. Therefore, to save Members from reaching for their diaries, a note of all the dates that I am about to give is, of course, available in the Printed Paper Office and will be circulated with the next edition of Forthcoming Business.
I make this statement with the usual and very necessary caveat that all of these dates are subject to the progress of business. I have already announced the dates of the autumn long weekend and Christmas Recess. I do, however, propose to add one day to the Christmas Recess, namely Thursday 20 December. The House will therefore rise on Wednesday 19 December. However, we do not actually lose a day of sitting. We will sit an extra Friday because I have substituted Friday 14 December in order to enable the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury to lead a debate that day, shortly before his retirement from office.
I hope to provide for a short recess in February, rising on 14 February and returning on 25 February; which, before noble Lords think to consider it, on this occasion coincides with an adjournment of the House of Commons.
I hope that we will rise for Easter at the end of business on 27 March, and return on 15 April; and for Whitsun at the end of business on 22 May, returning on 3 June.
It remains my intention that, subject to progress of business, this House should not sit in September 2013.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
To that end, my Lords, we will rise for the Summer Recess on 30 July and return on 8 October. There will be a short adjournment in the autumn, from the end of business on 12 November, returning on 18 November. We will rise for Christmas at the end of business on Wednesday 18 December 2013, and return on Tuesday 7 January 2014.
I hope that noble Lords will accept this as a long-range forecast and that, as ever, everything has to be subject to the progress of business. But I am very optimistic that we will be able to keep to those dates. If we follow this pattern, we will sit for the same number of weeks as the Commons in 2013. It will be a slightly, although not much, different pattern but I think that it will better suit the Members and business of this House.
I expect that the Queen will open a new Session of Parliament in state in the course of the spring but, as ever, the dates of Prorogation and State Opening will be announced later in the normal manner.
Arrangement of Business
(12 years ago)
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Baroness Stowell of Beeston
My Lords, the next debate is time limited, as noble Lords have resolved today. As is clear on the speakers list, the Back-Bench contributions are limited to eight minutes, with the exception of that of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill of Bengarve. My reason for highlighting the eight minutes is that, as noble Lords will know, the Whips Office takes great care to ensure that the maximum amount of time is allocated to Back-Benchers within the constraints of the two-and-a-half hours. On this occasion, if everyone sticks to the limits that have been set out, we will have only one minute spare for the noble Baroness to respond. This debate is very tightly timed. Therefore, if when the clock shows eight minutes I look a little agitated, I hope noble Lords will understand why.
Media Standards and Media Regulation
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve
That this House takes note of the relationship between media standards and media regulation.
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve
My Lords, it is a privilege to open this debate on media standards and regulation, and to do so at this stage in events. Some noble Lords may be wondering whether this is the right time to debate this topic, given that Lord Justice Leveson has yet to report on his inquiry into the sad and sometimes criminal practices that have made media standards and regulation an urgent issue. Ministers will, of course, not wish to take a position on media standards and regulation in advance of his report. I think that we all recognise that as the context of this debate. However, I believe that we still lack a clear view of the sorts of issues that will be at stake when Lord Justice Leveson reports. Therefore, this is, on the contrary, rather a good point at which to have an initial debate, which I hope can help pave the way for later and more detailed consideration. I look forward with great pleasure to hearing the speeches from so many noble Lords today.
I begin by declaring an interest as the incoming chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The issues raised by this debate bear on rights of freedom of expression, rights to privacy and many related rights. Everything that I shall say in this debate draws on work done across the previous decade on a wide range of speech rights, including international debates in political philosophy and jurisprudence. None of it draws on positions taken by the commission that I shall shortly begin to chair.
I shall focus on two questions. The first is whether media regulation can be used to support media standards without risk of censorship. I think that that is a formulation of the fundamental issue. And, if it can, what sort of media regulation would be compatible with a free press? Discussion of the first question is already widespread and it is often said that any regulation, other than self-regulation, far from supporting media standards and freedom, would corrupt them. Others think that media regulation and media freedom need a statutory basis; namely, regulation that can use specific and limited powers to investigate and to sanction failures.
The particular form of regulation provided by the Press Complaints Commission has come in for a lot of criticism, even by those who think that self-regulation of some other sort could be made to work. In my judgment, however, the details of the PCC complaints process are only part of what has been defective. We should not expect a complaints procedure of any type to make more than a minor, if useful, contribution to maintaining media standards. Media content is not a consumer good in the standard sense but is a public good in the economists’ sense of the term. Complaints procedures alone therefore cannot do much to secure media standards. That may, of course, have been part of the appeal of the PCC approach in certain quarters. In the event, the governance and funding of the PCC did not enable it to achieve even those benefits that a good complaints procedure might have achieved. The defects of its complaints so-called resolution procedure have been amply documented by Full Fact, an independent fact-checking organisation, whose recent briefing demonstrates the sad limitations of the PCC’s supposed commitment to accuracy and the ways in which complainants have been let down.
Those who are searching for alternative and more adequate forms of self-regulation have made many suggestions, and I will be interested to hear proposals that other noble Lords may think could be made to work. My own belief is that there are strong reasons to be sceptical about the possibility of devising adequate forms of self-regulation, even if the format of a complaints procedure is seen for what it is. Let me remind your Lordships of a few of those reasons. This is certainly not a new problem, and the evidence that self-regulation will not work is now very substantial. Since the first Royal Commission on the Press, set up in 1947, there have been repeated attempts to find an effective form of media self-regulation. Across more than 60 years, all have come to grief, as has been documented by the Media Standards Trust in its recent report A Free and Accountable Media and covered in recent briefings from the Foundation for Law, Justice and Society. So the burden of proof that self-regulation can work now sits squarely with its proponents. The history of successive failures in self-regulation provides strong evidence that it always ends up as self-interested regulation.
Secondly, the task of convincing others, and above all the public, is much harder than it would have been in the 1940s, for several reasons. Society has changed in immense ways; other institutions and professions have lost the privilege and the culture of self-regulation, making it hard to see how such privilege can be justified or can work for the media. Thirdly, self-regulation is not, contrary to some assertions, necessary to protect media freedom. We know that because other countries which also enjoy a free press have found approaches to media regulation, not self-regulation, that are compatible with press freedom. I call attention to Lara Fielden’s recent report for the Reuter’s Institute, titled Regulating the Press: A Comparative Study of International Press Councils.
Finally, proponents of self-regulation all too often assert that the press should be free, “apart from requirements to comply with the law”. That may be true, but shows nothing about what form the law should take. The assertion simply begs the question of showing which forms of media regulation are, and which are not, compatible with a free press and adequate standards of journalistic practice.
I turn now from the question of whether regulation must be ruled out in principle to consider which sorts of regulation are and which are not acceptable. Why should we support and protect one or another conception or configuration of media freedom? What do appeals to freedom of the press, or freedom of expression justify? What limits do they set on permissible statutory regulation? Do they require specific approaches to statutory regulation? These fundamental questions cannot be settled by mere assertion, yet recent discussions often do no more. Appeals are made to rights of free speech and a free press or, as we have been used to saying since the Universal Declaration and the European Convention on Human Rights 50 years ago, rights to freedom of expression. So far, so good, but an appeal to a charter, declaration, constitution or convention is in itself no more than an argument from authority. But these documents are respected authorities. Similarly, US debates of press freedom appeal to the First Amendment to their constitution, which asserts that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of press, and they too appeal to good authority. These august documents do not justify any specific configuration of media freedom. That is both because declarations and constitutions do not do justifications, and because they are very indeterminate. They offer only starting points for justifying press freedom, and each requires interpretation. The accounts of press freedom that emerge from the best reasoned interpretations of human rights documents will be the best justifications that we can offer for specific configurations of media freedoms.
If this point seems contentious, it may help to remember that these authoritative documents do not proclaim absolute rights. They point to a range of rights each to be realised in ways that respect other rights. Article 10(1) of the European Convention starts with a ringing and well known assertion:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers”.
However, Article 10(2), so much less read and so much less cited, qualifies this point by stating that:
“The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others”,
and so on. So much for the thought that a mere appeal to human rights documents is going to settle anything, but what else do we have? I believe we have a lot more. The best arguments we have will not justify unconditional media freedom but they will show us something about the acceptable limits of media freedom, and thereby the acceptable limits of regulation.
One argument often invoked is that media freedom is necessary for discovering truth. The argument has deep roots in British political thought: John Milton wrote in Areopagitica,
“though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?”.
It pains me to say this but Milton’s argument is doubly defective as a justification of media freedoms. Truth is often worsted in free and open encounters: that is why we regulate speech where truth matters: for example, in courts of law and academic publishing.
Secondly, we need media freedom that also protects speech that does not even aim at truth, such as literary and artistic expression and horoscopes. Where media speech aims to discover truth, disciplines analogous to, but different from, those needed in other truth-seeking endeavours matter. Pausing for a moment on that specific point, we shall need to think about special protection for genuine—I emphasise “genuine”—investigative journalism. We discussed this to some extent exactly three months ago today in a debate on the Select Committee on Communications report on investigative journalism, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood.
We also hear frequent references to another landmark of British political thought, John Stuart Mill’s famous argument on behalf of rights of self-expression for individuals. However, it is one thing to say that individuals have rights of self-expression, and Mill’s argument applies to individuals, not to organisations, which are not “selves” in the relevant sense. In general, I believe we are right when we think we should regulate the speech of powerful organisations, and we must consider the case for statutory regulation of media communication, but the problem is: how is this to be done in a way that is compatible with the necessary media freedoms? My suggestion is that the media should be free to communicate any content they choose provided that the processes they use enable their intended audiences to follow, understand and assess that content. Regulation of process but not content would protect media freedom but also media standards. Good journalism has always aimed to do this.
I finish with brief examples not drawn from the grand heights of investigative journalism, on which we are so often rightly asked to focus, but from the daily content of humbler journalism, in which much is hidden from audiences that they need to know if they are to assess content. I suggest that if the media were required to be transparent in some of the ways in which they have insisted other organisations and professions should be transparent, we might add a great deal to media standards. I suggest three possible forms of transparency. One is openness about payments from others. At present we cannot tell whether money has been paid to secure certain content. Did celebrities pay for it? Who paid for the lovely clothes, hotels and meals that are supposedly reviewed? I think that readers, listeners and viewers should be able to tell. Why should advertising standards not apply to all paid-for content, including that paid for or provided in kind?
Secondly, there should be openness about payments to others. At present, audiences cannot tell which media content has been purchased. Even where it is not possible to reveal the name of the vendor, surely it could be made clear that certain content had been acquired by payment.
Thirdly, there should be openness about interests. Owners, editors, programme makers and journalists, like many others, have interests. However, they remain curiously exempt from requirements to disclose them. The media often demand transparency about the interests of others in powerful organisations. I suggest that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander too.
Finally, we must, of course, protect investigative reporting and think with care. There is much more to be said about the protection of genuine investigative journalism, about the limited nature of anti-monopoly provisions and about the domination of British newspapers by owners who are not taxpayers. I have merely pointed to some of the things we need to consider at this stage and I look forward to hearing other contributions.
Lord Wakeham
My Lords, I begin by saying how pleased I am to see my noble friend Lord Younger of Leckie sitting on the Front Bench. His father was a great friend and colleague of many of us over many years and I am tempted to say that if he makes half as good a speech as his father would have made in these circumstances he will do very well indeed.
I congratulate the noble Baroness who initiated this debate. She did it with the style and wisdom that we expect from her. While I am not sure I agree with everything she said, she put her case extremely well and it needs to be taken notice of.
We all wait with interest to see what Lord Justice Leveson will say and I will try to set out as best I can what I said when I gave evidence to him. Many people have grappled with the issues of press regulation and standards for many years. We have had royal commissions, and inquiries have come and gone. In the 1990s, I was involved in government when we were trying to decide what to do, and I was the chairman of the Press Complaints Commission for seven-and-a-half years. The truth is that there are not many potential models of self-regulation. Either the industry runs it or the Government run it. I do not believe that there is any magic formula that has not been tried.
My experiences as chairman of the Press Complaints Commission led me to conclude that self-regulation is certainly not perfect, but it did work, by and large, for the public and that should be our main concern. Self-regulation is practical and flexible and I am extremely glad that my noble friend Lord Hunt has found a way to develop it through the use of contract law, which is a real improvement. Statute, on the other hand, is fraught with difficulties. First, let us consider the public. Self-regulation may provide rough and ready answers but it does it quickly and it does it free and with common sense. Regulation through statute drags on for years. For example, there was a recent case involving Ofcom where it reached an adjudication 18 months after the programme was broadcast. That is crazy, and if it had happened when I was running the PCC, there would have been a dickens of a row. It is costly because statute means lawyers. The newspapers would fight it and people complaining would have to drag in lawyers as well, so the public would lose. The cost would be prohibitive. I read in the paper the other day about a footballer who lost a privacy case. He probably deserved to—I do not know enough about the case—but it cost him £500,000 to fight it. If that is what is offered by a statutory system, it is of no use at all to ordinary people in this country.
Then there are the unforeseen consequences. When the Human Rights Bill was going through this House—I see in his place the distinguished former Lord Chancellor, who disagreed with me pretty strongly at the time—I said that my worry was that Article 10 would produce a privacy law that would be available to the rich and those who wish to conceal things from the newspapers, but would be of no use at all to the ordinary person in this country. That is what has happened. As a result, we have an expensive system of taking cases to court, but 99% of the public are not able to access it. We also had the difficulties of injunctions and so on, which brought the law into disrepute.
There is also the practical problem of the internet. How could you put statutory controls on a weekly paper, such as the one in my former constituency, the Maldon and Burnham Standard, when a blogger with half a million followers can escape those statutory controls? You cannot make statute work when there are so many content providers. The world is a completely different place from 10 years ago and it will change again in the next 10 years. A statute would be out of date long before it ever left the House.
Finally, there is for me the crucial question. I do not see how you can make a statutory system work without a licensing system. What do the Government do if publishers refuse to sign up? Many would refuse to do so. Do you fine them? Do you send them to prison? Or, ultimately, do you stop them publishing? Unless you are prepared for those things, you can never make a statutory system work.
So we await Leveson. But as I told him—and he was not very pleased with this—even if the Government do not act on his report, he will have made a real contribution because he has caused us, once again, to focus on these important issues.
Lord Puttnam
My Lords, 10 years ago the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, delivered a seminal series of Reith Lectures entitled “A Question of Trust”, which quickly become a touchstone for many in your Lordships’ House. Had it enjoyed a similar influence on the proprietors and editors of sections of our national press, we would almost certainly not be here this morning. That is because, when it comes to it, this debate is all about trust and the vacuum created when it ceases to exist.
Few of us could possibly have imagined, when the news became public that Milly Dowler’s phone had been hacked, that the result would be a horrifying and long drawn-out exposure of sections of the UK media—one that has at times beggared belief in the descriptions of criminal behaviour by those who, for many years, had acted as though they were all but untouchable. It is understandable that they had come to feel that way with regard to a self-administered Press Complaints Commission; it is a great deal more troubling in their relationship with “the long arm of the law”.
Here was a small but immensely powerful clique of people who appear to have acknowledged no rules other than those that accelerated their personal and political ambitions. More disturbingly, it quickly became evident that this was not simply about an “out of control” media. No, these systemic behavioural patterns, with their pragmatic self-justifications, had leeched far deeper into civil society—into the police and politics and, in fact, into just about every nook and cranny of British public life.
A few years ago, when I was travelling the world with UNICEF, I found myself in countries where the notion of democracy—certainly as we know it—was, to put it mildly, something of an abstraction. At the time I concluded that, so long as a nation could develop a reasonably well-trained, honest and impartial judiciary, it would eventually manage the difficult and sometimes painful transition to a fully functioning nation state. However, the trail of deception, as it began to emerge from the Leveson inquiry, made me begin to question that assumption.
I was forced to come to terms with the fact that once the media, politicians and the police begin to collude with each other, or to discover a shared agenda that is neither transparent nor in the best interests of the public at large, even the finest judiciary in the world is at that point rendered effectively powerless. If there is a toxic triangle of a needy and fragile politics that believes itself to be dependent upon, or is simply in thrall to, an element of the media—an element that in turn has managed to infiltrate the very highest levels of law enforcement—once those relationships have become corrupted, then the game is effectively up for the rest of us. I understood for perhaps the first time that, taken together, these seeming “pillars of society” form an intricate and interrelated ecology, and that the development of malign intent in one leads almost inevitably to the corruption of the others.
Surely I am not alone in feeling angry at the way in which, for well over 20 years and without any apparent sense of irony at the extent of their own mendacious hypocrisy, sections of the media have been exploiting the rest of society—angry at the predatory manner in which they have pounced upon our frailties, exploited our weakness, preyed on our fears, fanned our petty jealousies and trumpeted our inadequacies, all in the guise of freedom of expression. One has only to look at what we now know went on in relation to the Sun’s coverage of the Hillsborough tragedy to see it as part of a systemic pattern of behaviour—a pattern of behaviour of an entirely different order from that which the BBC would appear, quite wrongly, to have permitted. It is my most sincere hope that nobody—at least, here in your Lordships’ House—will attempt to claim any kind of spurious equivalence between what is alleged at the BBC and the litany of crimes and misdemeanours revealed by the Leveson inquiry. To do so would be the purest humbug.
Why does all this matter? It matters because I believe that Britain, not much over a year ago, came frighteningly close to a kind of silent putsch. Ironically, it was only the tragic death of Milly Dowler and the media frenzy that followed that allowed us to get a good, long, hard look at what had been going on, and most reasonable people discovered that they did not much like what they saw.
I am the son of a newspaper man. I have a blood tie to the notion of a free press that is every bit as great as that of Elisabeth Murdoch. However, as she emphasised in her recent, and altogether excellent, MacTaggart lecture:
“With great power comes great responsibility”.
That being unarguably true, the crucial question becomes: has the great power of the press been handled with appropriate levels of responsibility, let alone empathy? Most of the evidence gathered by the Leveson inquiry would suggest that that has been far from the case.
In a speech on Monday, the Prime Minister made the point that personal responsibility lies at the heart of our criminal justice system, and of course he is absolutely right. Similarly, I am sure that I was not the only Member of your Lordships’ House to experience an overwhelming sense of admiration at his handling of the Bloody Sunday and, more recently, the Hillsborough apologies. Nor could I have been alone in finding his use of the phrase “double injustice”—a phrase which I understand he personally coined—to be absolutely profound. Surely the political and social catharsis generated by those two announcements should encourage politicians of all parties to see that there are very real alternatives to the traditional world of cover-up and evasion.
Given the lessons learnt from those recent experiences, it seems reasonable to hope that the Prime Minister, having caught the Zeitgeist and understanding the possibilities opened up by a new type of visible justice, will not allow himself to become the latest in that long line of well-intentioned leaders who, when push came to shove, buckled in the face of media intimidation. He has a unique opportunity to take the side of those who want to clean the stables and against those whose sole objective is to continue to make hay in the way they always have done, whereby in their desire to shock and stupefy, they have managed to become the actual enemies of the possibility of social harmony—the type of society we briefly glimpsed during those few magical Olympic and Paralympic weeks.
We have arrived at an important watershed, and Lord Leveson and his colleagues have some difficult and incredibly important judgments to make in the next few weeks. Without the backstop of some form of legislation, whatever system of regulation Lord Leveson recommends can only be as robust and honest as its most reluctant participant, against whom rapid and affordable access to justice must be guaranteed.
I searched the evidence obtained by the inquiry for signs that serious journalists, as they move between print and broadcast media, find the regulatory environment of the latter in any way inhibiting. I could find none. Similarly, if you ask any British editor why American newspapers and magazines, protected as they are by their first amendment rights, continue to employ fact-checkers, you will find it very hard to get a coherent explanation. The truth is that the British press and its editors have to become as accountable as the rest of civil society. They are not a special case and they have only themselves to blame for having lost the argument for exceptionalism and, with it, the right to self-regulation.
In conclusion, I suggested earlier that what we have been encouraged to think of as individual and self-sustaining pillars of freedom are in fact an intricate eco-system, all elements of which are required to prove themselves capable of trust and all of which are required to behave with equal probity, or, quite inevitably, each will infect the other until all have become corrupted.
Lord Razzall
My Lords, although the noble Baroness’s Motion clearly refers to the media generally, from the debate so far and, I suspect, from the interest in the debate, it is obvious that it will focus on press regulation and what should be done about it. I think two principles should underpin any reform of press regulation. First, the system needs to be capable of putting a stop to the kinds of ethical, immoral journalistic practices that have emerged from the Leveson inquiry. During the course of several months, we have heard a powerful and depressing catalogue of the distress suffered by ordinary people—not just celebrities—at the hands of a press that often appeared to be acting cynically and ruthlessly to exploit other people’s pain. Of course, there are not just the victims of phone hacking, but also the Liverpool supporters at Hillsborough who, all those years ago, witnessed the deaths of 96 football supporters and who were victims of recklessly inaccurate reporting in the Sun newspaper. The second test, it seems to me, should be that any reform should prevent any government intervention in a free press. As the Deputy Prime Minister said last week,
“Of course it would be completely unacceptable to do anything that allows politicians and governments to intrude upon the content of what the media do”.
However, turning to the criticism that the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, had indicated to those who are suggesting some statutory underpinning, there is a very clear distinction between a statute that allows political interference in what newspapers want to publish and an entirely independent body, established in law, that holds powerful press interest to account for implementing their own codes of conduct. In other words, it is certainly possible to keep front-line self-regulation that allows the press to police itself and deal with complaints at the speed that the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, referred to and then establish an independent backstop regulator, with powers carefully prescribed in law, which does not interfere with content but simply ensures that the self-regulated keep their own promises. Of course, one would not allow any politicians any place on that backstop body.
We surely all agree that we cannot allow the continuation of a system that has failed time and time again. Since the 1940s, there have been three royal commissions and three further inquiries or reviews that took evidence from newspaper proprietors and editors, each publishing a report and recommendations. We all remember the Calcutt committee—I think that is what the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, referred to—which was established in 1989, after flagrant and repeated breaches of ethical standards by national tabloid newspapers in the 1980s. That was when reference was made to a drink in the last chance saloon. We need to remember that it was the friend of the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, Rupert Murdoch, who prostrated himself before that committee promising real change. Despite the recommendation from Calcutt in its second report in 1993 that some statutory element was required, the Government were persuaded not to implement those recommendations and, 20 years later, we are back to the same issue.
I am not being sycophantic in commending what my noble friend Lord McNally said during the progress of the Communications Act 2003 when he introduced an amendment which would have required the PCC to send an annual report to Ofcom, to be included in Ofcom’s report to Parliament, in order to allow more parliamentary scrutiny. However, Labour resisted those amendments with suggestions that that was a slippery slope to a state-controlled press. I see the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, nods, remembering that debate. My noble friend Lord McNally also talked in that debate about the need for the PCC to be formed into a genuinely independent body at arm’s length from editors with compulsory membership and with the power to impose serious financial sanctions of up to seven figures. That, I suspect, is where we shall end up again now, nine years later.
Reference has been made to the press industry. To refer to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, as the press industry is probably inappropriate but he has proposed a new contractual arrangement to which there are a number of ingredients of which noble Lords will be aware, but they all require the continual involvement of editors and proprietors. A truly independent system of regulation requires independence from editors and proprietors as well as independence from government. It requires the ability to provide redress and sanctions, including fines. It requires the ability to investigate when things go wrong, and it needs the ability to compel membership from large and powerful press corporations that have, for far too long, thought themselves untouchable, Mr Desmond.
It works perfectly well in other industries. Virtually every other industry in this country has been subjected to comprehensive overhauls in transparency and accountability. The medical profession, the legal profession, the financial industry, pharmacists, coroners, social workers, teachers, local councils, and the BBC have all been reformed in accordance with modern, 21st century demands for justice and fair dealing—all except the press. Let us take the judiciary. We jealously guard the independence of our judiciary and judges are appointed by an independent and statutory Judicial Appointments Commission. We do not complain that our judges are state appointed.
We must surely agree that the system now needs to be changed. The Government must have the resolution and determination to stand up to the newspaper editors and proprietors and say, “We will not allow this to happen again”. It is a unique moment in British media history in terms of promoting great public interest journalism and making sure that the kinds of abuses that have gone on for years in some of our newspapers can never be repeated without proper redress for victims and proper respect for the vast majority of journalists who want to get on with a vitally important job.
The public agree. A recent opinion poll by the organisation Hacked Off demonstrates that 78% of the public want an independent body established by law to regulate the press and 77% believe that it is no longer acceptable for proprietors and editors to control the complaints system. The Deputy Prime Minister has made it clear that the Government have asked Mr Justice Leveson and his colleagues to do a job. Assuming that he comes up with proposals that are proportionate and workable, we should implement them. We should support that view.
Lord Janvrin
My Lords, I add my thanks to my noble friend Lady O’Neill for instigating this debate this morning, particularly as I was a member of the Joint Committee on Privacy and Injunctions that reported earlier this year.
I pay tribute to my noble friend’s contribution to the thinking in this area over many years, not least in her Reith Lectures of 2002 entitled “A Question of Trust”. I mention that, as did the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, because the question of trust lies at the heart of this issue of effective press regulation, a point to which I shall return.
I agree that it is timely to have this debate on some of the key principles underlining the whole question of regulation before the Leveson inquiry reports, because it offers an opportunity to probe a little more deeply into the “what” and the “why” of effective press regulation before tackling the “how”, and in particular whether there should be a new system of self-regulation or the introduction of some form of statutory underpinning.
The “what” of effective press regulation is trying to answer the question, “What should that regulatory system be for?”. The distinction to which my noble friend drew attention is important. She drew attention to the fundamental distinction between the regulation of content and the regulation of process. It goes without saying that anyone should tread exceedingly carefully if talking about the regulation of content. I do not think that anyone seriously doubts that a regular supply of independent, informative, critical, investigative, irreverent, entertaining press content is essential to any free and democratic system as we understand it, certainly in this country.
There are of course restrictions on press freedoms, which were mentioned by my noble friend, particularly in terms of defamation or the difficult balance to be struck with the individual’s right to privacy. That raises the related question of how best to define the public interest. Those crucial issues, which will rightly be drawn into the debate on effective press regulation are hugely important, but I want to concentrate my brief remarks today on the regulation of process and conduct.
What do we mean by the effective regulation of journalistic conduct? We are talking, for example, about standards of fairness, balance and the separation of fact and opinion, or the conduct in the way in which stories are obtained or inaccuracies are corrected. This seems to be the key point: how can effective press regulation maintain, and if possible improve, standards of practice and behaviour? Certainly accepted codes of conduct have a crucial role to play, setting out what is judged acceptable and what is not. Any new regulatory system needs to be the setter of standards and, if possible and where necessary, the mechanism of change as society’s views on those standards evolve. It seems to me that the best people to determine what those standards should be are those in the media and the press industry itself. They know their business and how best to define best practice; in other words, self-regulation has relevance when setting the rules.
But the question of what a regulatory system should be for does not end there. It is about upholding those rules and standards: how do people seek redress when they think that standards have been breached? An effective system will allow a quick, simple and affordable way for individuals to challenge newspapers on their behaviour and standards. Some form of arbitration or ombudsman role—one with teeth, as many now accept—seems essential. Here, independence is imperative and this to my mind is where self-regulation in the form of arbitration, however it is dressed up, seems to undermine the whole principle of independence and weaken trust in the system.
That brings me on to the “why” of press regulation. Why is effective press regulation so crucial in today’s age? In my view, the greatest threat to the best of our media in this country lies not in overregulation, but in the commercial pressures of the digital age. Fewer people are buying newspapers, local or national, because they can get their news elsewhere—online—and they can get their opinion elsewhere, from the blogosphere. But we are much more likely to be willing to continue to pay for news and opinion if we know that they are of the highest standards; in other words, if we trust the provider. This seems to be the best reason for effective press regulation. If it helps to maintain and drive up standards, effective press regulation can contribute to the commercial viability and health of the industry, not detract from it. As a point of detail, I am not sure that those who argue for self-regulation have thought creatively enough about certification or kite marking in this whole business, not only as a way of driving up standards but in order to encourage the widest possible adherence to any regulatory system.
This brings me to the “how”. The question in my mind is: how do you arrange an effective system of press regulation that is truly independent of government, business or the newspaper industry itself? It has to be universally accepted by the press, it has to set standards, to act as an arbiter and ombudsman, and have the teeth and the sanctions to ensure that those standards are met. Can it do all these things without some form of statutory underpinning and yet be considered to be truly independent? I look forward to seeing what the Leveson inquiry concludes.
Lord Fowler
My Lords, first, I congratulate the noble Baroness on initiating this debate, and the very cogent way in which she put the issues. I find myself in great sympathy with the points she made; rather more, I might say—very mildly of course—than the case put by my noble friend sitting beside me. But I join him in welcoming the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, whose father we all remember with enormous affection.
I am so old that when I joined the Times at the beginning of the 1960s, the front page was entirely covered with advertisements; there were no garish headlines; the writers were anonymous; and the paper took pride in the fact that it was accurate and a journal of record. One might think that it was an old, fuddy-duddy newspaper, waiting to be told what to write rather than to investigate, but that was not remotely the case. I remember the then editor, William Haley, a very upright and honest man, telling the assembled staff what their role was. “The job of a newspaper,” he said, “is to reveal”, and he was right—that is its job. Years ago it was to reveal the conditions in the Crimea; in recent years the equipment of the British troops in Iraq or Afghanistan, or the position with regard to thalidomide.
I entirely defend the right of the media to reveal, to probe behind what officialdom wants kept secret, and I entirely defend and applaud the media when they stand up for human rights and expose injustice. That is overwhelmingly in the public interest. But do not ask me to defend the activities of those who pry, sometimes illegally, into the private life of the citizen, or employ photographers with long-range cameras to get personal shots of celebrities, or bribe the police or other officials in order to get a story. The task is to offer a defence to the public against the rogue reporters while allowing newspapers the total freedom to expose the truth and work in the public interest.
No one claims that that division is easy. That is why, many months ago, I advocated an independent inquiry into phone hacking. I am told that I was the first in Parliament to do so, so I applaud very strongly the way that Lord Leveson has gone about his work. His inquiry has been comprehensive and fair. Frankly, what I deplore is the undoubted effort that is now taking place to denigrate and rubbish the report, even before anyone in Parliament or the public has had the opportunity of reading it. Let no one doubt that there is a campaign in motion to do just that.
Perhaps I might say in parenthesis to my own Front Bench that it was the Prime Minister and the Government who set up this inquiry and they were totally right to do so. It is certainly not open to any member of the Government to dissociate themselves or attack the inquiry process. There may well be differences of view at the end, but we should at least wait to see what Lord Leveson has to say. We should also acknowledge the part that the inquiry has already played in revealing what has been taking place. We now know that around 1,000 people were the likely victims of phone hacking, that it was not an isolated rogue reporter who was responsible but an organised conspiracy, and that the abuse stretched way beyond the News of the World to other newspapers.
The inquiry has given the clearest indication that the country is getting serious about the abuse that has taken place. It has also shown how truth can be revealed, not in a piecemeal way but comprehensively. That is what concerns me about the various different inquiries that are taking place into the Jimmy Savile case. Of course, the action or inaction of the BBC should be investigated but to get a complete picture so should other areas, such as the health service. I was Health Secretary for six years. I met Mr Savile once or twice in that time, as did my predecessors and successors. Did no one at Stoke Mandeville, Leeds or Broadmoor know about his activities? Was information passed on, and if it was, what then happened? These are not just questions of historic importance; they have total relevance today if any similar thing should happen again. That is why I believe that the public would be best served by one inquiry designed to reveal what really happened and the lessons that could be learnt from it.
As far as the BBC is concerned, I am bound to say—and I speak as a defender of the BBC—that its response to the allegations has been somewhere between woeful and shambolic. I return to a point that I and my former committee made previously: the BBC in responding to issues of this kind would be much better served by a chairman who was the real chairman of the BBC and an independent body for complaints, rather than a system that is ridiculously divided between the executive on one side and the BBC Trust on the other.
Therefore, the perennial problem of the BBC is the trust and the perennial problem of the press is the Press Complaints Commission. Let us be clear on one point, to put it at its most moderate: the national press—because it is predominantly the national press that we are talking about—has a case to answer. Since Leveson was set up, we have seen a newspaper closed down and 40 journalists arrested, and the clearest evidence has been accumulated that the public interest has been ignored. If this was some other industry, it would be the press themselves who were calling for radical reform and saying that action should be taken.
We need a complaints system which is demonstrably independent and which is not seen as a defence mechanism for the press; we need a system where the public interest is put first; we need a system which is as fearless as the best of the newspapers that it is reviewing; and we need a system which includes all newspapers and where there is a power of investigation into abuse.
Then, of course, there is the question of whether there should be a statutory element. Having argued that we should wait for Leveson, I just say this: no one is arguing for overriding statutory controls that limit the legitimate interests of the press. Equally, however, I find it difficult to accept the argument that any kind of statutory underpinning will lead to the end of free journalism as we know it. That is a ludicrous overstatement of the case.
Following Leveson, we have the opportunity of putting things right. I say to the Government that we do not want any more words about drinking in the last-chance saloon. That time has passed. What we want now is action in the public interest, providing us with a free press but with proper safeguards for the legitimate rights of the public. We have all seen in the past how reports have been shelved due to the opposition that can be whipped up. We all know what the easy way is to get newspaper headlines, but I hope that, this time, Ministers will consider most the interests of the ordinary citizen.
Lord Sugar
My Lords, there is a need to crank up regulations controlling the media. They have, for far too long, run wild with very little control. A few weeks ago in this Chamber, we discussed the Defamation Bill, and this debate today touches on some of the same ground. Regrettably, in the case of defamation, your Lordships are considering easing up and, some may argue, actually making life easier for the media to continue to run wild.
What we have seen in the past few years is the complete decay of decency and morals in the media. They do not seem to exist at all in the printed media and sometimes, I regret to say, in television. Desperation to get a story has led editors to stray from honesty and truthfulness to using unfair means of finding or creating devious angles on a story, or even tricking the subject of the story by illegal means. Of this, of course, your Lordships are fully aware in light of the recent inquiry carried out by Lord Leveson.
It is my opinion that journalists should be licensed. Moreover, editors should be made responsible for what is printed in their newspapers or broadcast on their TV channels and they, too, should be licensed. I do not see any room for self-regulation. There should be an authority which dishes out, for want of a better expression, yellow cards or ultimately red cards for those who continually abuse the system—or, to use our American cousins’ terminology, “three strikes and you’re out”. In other words, we should say, “Your newspaper, your television channel, has been guilty of publishing lies or indulging in irresponsible journalism under your watch and, therefore, you are banned from operating as a newspaper or television editor”—in the same way that company directors are disqualified from running companies when they act irresponsibly and illegally.
The Press Complaints Commission, I regret to say, is weak—I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, because I know that he was the chair of it. However, I take a point that he raised about a footballer having to spend half a million pounds to defend himself and to get some justice. Well, does that not answer the question? If the Press Complaints Commission actually had some clout among the press, one would not have to go and spend any money with lawyers; it would actually punish the media. I do not care what anyone might say to argue with that statement; I can assure you that there are very few, if any, in the printed media who take the PCC seriously.
There was a day when the once great newspaper, the Sunday Times, would spend months working on a story, breaking news on some revelation. The journalism was carried out very diligently and carefully so that the content of the finished article was accurate. Those stories would take weeks, if not months, to develop and were kept under wraps until they broke, bringing massive revelations. These days, newspaper editors are demanding a story a day. They are forcing their staff to fabricate stories—to make up stories—to provide compelling headlines for their front pages. It is this pressure which is inducing staff to act illegally in the manner which the Leveson inquiry has covered in full.
It is impossible for journalism to be treated in the same way as a production line. You can not fabricate stories in matters of public interest simply because events are not occurring as regularly as newspapers would like them to. It is because of this that you get low-class journalism where journalists are trained to trick contributors to their articles or programmes, where content is edited in such a manner that is misleading, and where headlines are created from throwaway remarks or taken completely out of context. A double-page spread in the Sun today accuses the noble Lord, Lord Sugar, here of “blasting” the BBC. The other day, I made the fatal error of giving somebody an interview about enterprise and youngsters, and it resulted in me “blasting” the BBC. Of course, this morning, my telephone was blasting with calls from executives at the BBC—as if they have not got enough to worry about at the moment—asking me what this was all about.
Let us consider a situation where a camera crew has forgotten to switch off a microphone or deliberately left it switched on. This of course happened to the former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. It was quite natural that he may have had some comments to make privately in the car, but, unbeknown to him, his microphone was still on. This was not proper journalism; this is the sort of thing that needs to be controlled.
Another example is the murder of Jo Yeates in Bristol, where the pressure on journalists was such that they effectively accused her landlord of her murder—he was questioned by police and found not to be guilty—but, nevertheless, they had him hung. That was absolutely diabolical journalism at its worst. The whole Madeleine McCann story is another example where, because of the same pressure to produce something when there was nothing new to report, the press just made stuff up and it all ended up with them having to print front-page apologies. The damage was done and you can never repair that damage.
I hope that the Leveson inquiry not only reaches conclusions about things that have been done but produces some practical recommendations on regulating the media, with provisions that can result in prosecution for people who act illegally and, more to the point, the suspension of high-profile editorial staff—as well as significant fines of a quantum similar to those imposed by, for example, the FSA when a financial services company steps over the line. If necessary, those responsible should be banned from practising their profession in the same way as a lawyer or doctor would be struck off if they had acted improperly.
Lord Grade of Yarmouth
My Lords, I declare an interest as a current, and fairly recent, lay member of the Press Complaints Commission. In the interests of meeting the eight-minute guillotine, I hope that the noble Baroness will take my thanks and congratulations on this debate as read.
I declare my sympathy for Lord Justice Leveson. It is hard to imagine a more difficult task than the one with which he is currently engaged, evidenced by your Lordships’ debate today. Recent events suggest that it is not getting any easier. We have just had two press controversies involving unethically obtained photographs of members of our Royal Family—Prince Harry in Las Vegas and the Duchess of Cambridge in France—which have vividly highlighted the problem of content regulation in a global digital media market. I doubt it has escaped Lord Leveson’s attention that the photographs of the Duchess were published in countries with regulatory regimes offered as possible solutions for the UK. On this evidence, his menu of available options seems to be shrinking.
Publication of the Duchess’s photographs started in France, the country cited as having the model of strict privacy legislation—the same law that was ignored by the French magazine editor, who seemed confident that any resulting court penalty would be comfortably offset by increased circulation. Pictures were then published in the Republic of Ireland, whose system of press regulation is regarded by many as the model for the UK, with an ombudsman recognised by statute—the “statutory underpinning” many commentators and many of your Lordships are seeking for the UK. Photos then appeared in Sweden, where they have the only self-regulatory press council in Europe with the ability to fine publications that transgress. One of the only countries in Europe to operate a statutory press council is Denmark, which even has the power to jail a recalcitrant editor; and the pictures of the Duchess appeared there too. All the while, blogs across America were reproducing the images based on the freedom written into their own constitution.
I say all this not to suggest that any of the systems in other countries are wrong or that their examples should be ignored, but rather to make the point that the issue is a remarkably complicated one, however simplistic some of the rhetoric around it has become. Regulation of the press is a paradox, and a problem that has been around for hundreds of years, not because of a lack of willingness to solve it but because there are no easy answers. However, just because a perfect solution does not exist, that does not mean that we cannot now have a better system. If nothing else, I am hopeful that Lord Leveson’s deliberations will redefine, and then codify in writing for the first time, the role of a new, enhanced, self-regulatory body.
In the usual blame game that follows any controversy in the UK, the old PCC has been accused and found guilty in the court of the commentariat for failing to act in ways that were well outside its remit. It was not set up or resourced as a policeman for the press, to instigate investigations into suspected wrongdoing by the press or proactively to oversee standards. It was set up to offer a free, fair and fast service for those seeking redress from publications for falsehoods, inaccuracies and so on. It has carried out this role, and continues to carry it out, with commendable independent diligence. Some Members of both these Houses of Parliament who have publicly criticised the PCC have themselves enjoyed the benefits of the PCC’s ex-post—and often more important ex-ante—abilities to prevent or correct inaccurate or intrusive stories.
We are all aware, of course, of the genesis of the inquiry: the shameful actions of the News of the World et cetera. Criminal acts were perpetrated and must be punished. I cannot resist asking your Lordships what the old PCC was supposed to have been able to do to prevent phone hacking when the threat of a prison sentence proved an inadequate deterrent. However, that is a matter not for regulation but for law enforcement. Indeed, Lord Leveson himself has acknowledged that the question of criminal behaviour is for the police to examine. His inquiry, thus far, has scarcely illuminated the issue of phone hacking at all.
When Lord Leveson reports, he will be doing the British public interest a great service if he lays out a new and much enhanced written remit for the successor to the PCC, giving it powers and resources to continue its complaints role, investigate proactively and play the lead role in auditing compliance arrangements within individual titles and in naming and shaming where there are deficiencies. I believe that the proposals put forward by the newspaper industry, with some input from the Press Complaints Commission and my noble friend Lord Hunt, will become a valuable part of the solution, subject to some preconditions.
The creation of a new body with a new written remit is necessary, enshrining some principles: it must be independent, and the appointment of all its members, and the chair, must be public and transparent and independent of the press; its funding must be secure and adequate, and there needs to be a commitment that the industry will provide sufficient funds to allow the regulator to do its work; it must have powers to investigate without the trigger of the complaint, and have the mandate, resources and powers of investigation to examine systemic issues as they arise; and it must be wide-reaching. In an online age, universality of regulation is not possible. Ofcom, a statutory body, currently has no powers over broadcasters’ websites, so we cannot envisage that the new system will catch everyone. However, all the major players must see that it is in their own interests to join in and to stay in.
As your Lordships may well know, my experience comes mostly from the world of broadcasting. However, while I applaud the effectiveness of statutory broadcast regulation, I do not endorse it as a model for the press. Broadcasting regulation is a creature of a peculiar circumstance: the ability to exploit spectrum, a national resource that is rightly controlled by government, such that licensing is therefore necessary. Because of the universal distribution of content enjoyed by television, there are statutory requirements of taste and decency, and, of course, impartiality. None of this is true of the press. Rightly for a statutory regulator, it is worth noting that Ofcom has no ex-ante powers to restrain publication, a crucial PCC function.
We do not have long to wait for Lord Leveson’s report. He has the opportunity to produce something that will be so much clearer and more wide-ranging than what has come before. I finish by saying that, meanwhile, we should not forget that it was the journalism of the Guardian newspaper that laid bare the shortcomings of News International and the British press.
Lord Stoneham of Droxford
My Lords, I welcome this debate and agree especially with my noble friend Lord Fowler, who said that we should not pre-empt Lord Leveson. He deserves the respect of our listening to what he has to say and considering his recommendations. There are two principal issues for him to address. I do not think that there is any argument but that we have to strengthen the regulation of press standards. The other question is whether market dominance was a major contributory factor to the problems we have recently experienced.
On the first question, I think it is accepted that we are going to have to strengthen regulation of standards. We also have to recognise that public perception in this is as important as the reality of what we are doing. The question is how to do that while continuing to encourage accessibility and help for the ordinary person in the street who has a genuine grievance; and whether the public will let us build on what we have or whether we have to have a complete transformation by getting it on to a statutory format.
I do not want to spend much time on the second question, of whether market dominance was a factor, but I believe that it did contribute to the problem. An arrogance grew up in part of News International—I saw it because I worked there—that made senior people think that they were untouchable because they had politicians, the establishment and the police in their awe, if not in their pay. In their tabloid titles, no one was worrying about the risks of what they were doing or the consequences when they were finally challenged and found out.
There are some key points that Leveson needs to look at in detail. It is not generally a popular thing to say, although some today are saying it, that the Press Complaints Commission has a list of achievements and has made considerable improvements. It is not right to say that the press ignores it—in fact, huge sections of the press respect it and work with it assiduously. It deals with complaints and has drawn up, over 20 years, a comprehensive, regularly updated code of practice which stands scrutiny—it is what we want. Practically everything is in there, it just needs enforcing and following.
However, the public perception has not caught up with the reality; I accept that. Leveson will obviously have to take things on further, but how? Politicians have failed to deal with the market dominance issue over the past 30 years. It clearly needs an independent process with clear parameters to deal with that. I have to say that the problems in that area do not bode very well for politicians setting up a statutory system. Also, Lord Leveson cannot ignore the ongoing revolution in the industry. There has been a huge decline in print media. There is a convergence of print and all forms of broadcast media, and the growth of social media and blogs means that they, rather than the press or the broadcasters, are often setting the press agenda. Frankly, there is no point introducing heavy-handed regulation of print media when all below are free to ignore it and, as the courts have shown, very difficult to regulate.
What does Leveson need to do? I believe that he needs to build on what we have and strengthen a new Press Complaints Commission. He needs to build on what I think—despite what the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, said—is the pretty effective complaints handling system that it has put in place over the past 20 years. The reforms initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, deserve support. However, standards of behaviour in individual companies need addressing—the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill. We need to look at the process; the errors and weaknesses of the PCC in that regard need to be addressed. As we know, it failed on the hacking issue and there was a weakness in our system. In all respects, the successor to the PCC needs to be and to be seen to be independent of the industry in all respects—on appointments and development of the editors’ code—and it must cover everyone. All newspaper companies and the new generation of bloggers must sign up. We cannot have companies simply dropping out of the system when they dislike a particular decision.
The test for what Leveson recommends for regulation is for me as follows. First, he needs to concentrate on how we protect and support the ordinary person in the street—not the rich and famous, with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Sugar. People such as the noble Lord have the resource and advice they need to protect themselves. We need to look at how someone such as Christopher Jefferies, the retired teacher who was pilloried and harassed by the media frenzy of the Bristol murder case, can be helped and protected. We need to look carefully at how the PCC has started to develop its pre-publication support services for people caught in such situations. A flexible, low-cost system will always be better than one dominated by lawyers.
Leveson also has to ensure that every media company is in the system. We must have incentives to join or penalties for not joining. Involvement in the new body may have to be through encouragement, because it provides better protection for those companies in the courts on defamation or public interest cases, cheaper insurance or even tax incentives. The public also accept the need for some sort of sanction. The only thing that I would say is that we have to be careful not to be too severe, because that would drive everybody to the lawyers, slow the process, reduce accessibility and increase costs. When I worked in the media, I always found that a small donation to charity was the best way to resolve disputes. We need to have a culture of that and use larger fines for systemic and repeated breaches.
The successor to the PCC needs to raise its public profile; it needs to be effective and to deliver. It is not good enough if the public perceives that it is simply reacting to the pressure of statutory regulation threats when it comes forward with reforms. It needs to be more proactive and to take over promotion of the profession of journalism, so that it is not seen as just a trade rather than a profession.
The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, ended his witness statement to Leveson by saying:
“This would not be a case of self-regulation being granted one grudging, last chance; it is independent self-regulation being given its first chance. The public interest, for me, is embodied by a free and responsible press—a press that recognises and cherishes the considerable privileges it enjoys, and conducts itself accordingly”.
I agree wholeheartedly with that.
Lord Inglewood
My Lords, I begin my few remarks by joining other speakers who have thanked the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, for introducing this debate. I must declare an interest as the chairman of the CN Group, a regional media company based in Cumbria.
As the noble Baroness said in her elegant introduction, I also chair the Select Committee on Communications and, as she said, just before the summer break we debated our report on the future of investigative journalism. I do not propose to go over anything in that document, other than to draw attention to our discussion of the issues thrown up by journalists breaking the law—they contend, in the public interest—and our conclusions, which are very similar to those reached independently by the Director of Public Prosecutions. Indeed, the committee may come back to a number of those issues.
Currently, the committee is working on a report on convergence which, as my noble friends Lord Grade and Lord Stoneham pointed out, will throw up a number of difficult questions of regulation. At this stage, the problem seems to be getting bigger and more difficult, so I shall not add any comments on that at this point.
I have always taken the view that, in general, people are basically decent. Although our ideas and definitions vary, we all want to live in a world and society where, by and large, things are what they seem to be. As for the media, people expect that what is sold to them as news or comment on news is not incompatible with the facts underlying the story and concerns things of significance.
The media, certainly in this country, are not merely private fiefdoms for their paymasters, owners, editors or journalists to promulgate whatever they like. In some way, that is analogous to the expectation that advertisements should have some recognisable relationship with the product being promoted and its attributes. Indeed, in all civilised societies, constraints are placed on individuals’ freedom of action to protect the legitimate and proper interests of other people and to stop them being harmed gratuitously. Because there has been widespread concern about those issues, regulation above and beyond the general law has been introduced to surround the media. After all, the purpose of regulation is to hold the ring and ensure that trust is embedded in the institutions and organisations affected.
The current crisis—for that is what I think it is—has caused the public to believe that regulation in respect of the media, in all its various forms, is not working properly. We must not intellectualise this too much—we must not be too clever about it—because if we try to do that, we miss the fundamental point. I am sure that there is a widespread feeling across the country, regardless of the underlying truth of the details of some of the propositions, that things have gone awry.
As a matter of principle, it is essential that the Government and Parliament—which is different from the Government—are kept as far apart from the detailed regulation of the media as possible. It is one of the consequences and characteristics of the crisis that we are in that both the Government and Parliament are not the subject of widespread trust at present. The problem is compounded when we realise that the press and the media more widely are equally no longer fully trusted. While I believe that we must not overstate the case, there is real scepticism of regulation in whatever form it may come because it is felt variously that on occasions it is less than completely impartial, that it has no real teeth, or both.
It all boils down to a lack of confidence and trust. Whatever the outcome of the current debate and the discontent through which we are going, no amount of changing the regulatory architecture will help by itself, nor will changes in the modus operandi of those engaged in the sector, unless that trust and confidence is restored. Everything boils down to that, and whatever changes come—and changes must come, but let us not forget that there is more than one way of skinning a dead cat—unless that trust is restored, our current nationwide discontent with the media and of the media will remain. I do not believe that to be a healthy state of affairs for a free country since a plural, confident, free but fair media is a defining characteristic of the kind of country we want the United Kingdom to be.
Lord Soley
My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, and I share her view that a free press is a vital ingredient of a free society. A free press is an extension of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. It is not, and should never have become, a freedom for large corporate organisations to trash the lives of others and—when they chose to do so—to mislead the British public by presenting factual inaccuracies on quite a large scale.
Although it is important that we wait for Leveson, I hope that when the report comes the Government will indicate very quickly that they intend to legislate for a new regulatory system, which I shall come to in a moment. If they do not do so, I will look at bringing forward a Bill of the type that I presented to the House of Commons in 1992. I would make significant changes to that Bill, but the core would stay the same on media standards, to which the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, referred. Had that Bill been accepted at the time and become law on those issues of media standards—and I say this to the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, who, as Chief Whip of the Conservative Government of the time, played such a crucial part in seeing that that Bill did not become law—then the press would not have had such a bad time as it has had in recent years. It is very important to understand that. I say that knowing that I did not get everything right in that Bill, and there is one crucial change I would have made.
We would do well to remember that CP Scott said 90 years ago:
“Comment is free, but facts are sacred”.
If the media could get back to that, then we would go a long way to solving many of the problems. There is a tough choice to be made between state regulation and self-regulation. I do not agree with my noble friend Lord Sugar that we should have licensed journalists, but I also disagree profoundly with the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham. As I said to him back in 1992, just because you have a regulator that is backed up by statute, that does not mean, as he said in his speech, that you have to license journalists. There are other ways of dealing with this, and I will come to them in a moment.
One reason why we want regulation kept out of state control of any kind is that there is a difference, as the noble Lord said earlier, between electronic media and printed media. Print media in this country have always been campaigning media, which means that they pursue political objectives; so the Guardian is seen as left wing and has a left-wing spin—and it is a spin—on its stories, and the Daily Mail has a right-wing spin on its stories. The BBC and ITV do not, although anybody on the left will tell you that they are on the right and anybody on the right will tell you they are on the left—but that is the way it goes. By and large, the campaigning nature of newspapers is an important thing to protect. That does not mean that the BBC and ITV are not capable of doing good investigative journalism with state regulation; they are, and they do. It is clearly not an either/or. It is more subtle than that.
I would favour a non-statutory body, but a non-statutory body has to have real teeth. That is what I want to say a little about. An independent Press Complaints Commission has to be independent of the media. I found nothing more offensive in the old Press Complaints Commission than the fact that the code of conduct was drawn up by an editor—largely by Paul Dacre, the editor of the Daily Mail at the time. The fatal flaw in that is that they tended to write something with let-out clauses. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, who said that the Press Complaints Commission’s code is good. It is not; it is bad. If you read it as a straightforward thing, it seems right. It says all the right things about not invading privacy unnecessarily and so on, but it has big get-out clauses. One of those says, quite simply, that it is all right to print anything if it is in the public interest to do so. That overrides all the other things and conditions. The press can say, “It is in the public interest, so we’ll do it”. There are other clauses where, had I more time, I could point out how cleverly worded they are. They allow a big let-out from the PCC.
Any regulation should not include pre-publication censorship. In a way, that is one of the core points. Do not put in pre-publication censorship: pre-publication censorship of a story would inhibit the freedom of journalists and editors. However, the other side of that is that they must take responsibility for what they do, whether in the court or in front of the regulatory body. That is what I mean when I talk about the freedom and responsibility of the press. There should be a conciliation service, but it should be backed up by some help for those people who complain. Those who need help are not people like me or people in powerful positions. They are small people who need someone to take their case for them, and possibly take it to court. The regulatory body should be funded like other regulatory bodies—I shall not go into that now because it is a long issue—and it should also have, and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Grade, here, the power to call for evidence and witnesses and be able to assert that power.
Let me deal with what happens in the case of a breach. Again, I disagree profoundly with the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, on this. There are a number of ways of dealing with a newspaper group or person who does not follow the PCC code or join the PCC. I shall give two simple examples in view of the limited time. If an organisation refuses to join the new independent body, one of the things you can do is say that its right to have the VAT exemption on newsprint is lost. That is a helpful fact. The other thing you can do—and you can do both these things—is allow the courts to recognise that a newspaper that is a member of the PCC and has shown a good record in its general observance of the PCC code will get a reduced sentence when it breaches, but one that is not and has not would receive a heavier fine if it breached the code. There are a number of ways to punish the newspaper if it tries to avoid the code.
Bear in mind that, by and large, although there are obviously very big exceptions to this, and clearly Jimmy Savile is one, people’s sexual lives should not be on the front pages of newspapers. Most sex stories are run because they sell newspapers. Newspapers’ hypocrisy is enormous. I always made it very clear that I would feel much more confident in defending the right of newspaper editors to protect privacy if I had seen photographs of, for example, their wives sunbathing semi-naked in a private setting, but you never see that and you never hear about their private lives. You only hear about the private lives of others, although there are one or two exceptions to that. The public interest is to have some form of regulation backed up by statutory powers, which must provide the new regulatory body—not unlike the Advertising Standards Authority—with the ability to take a case to court. Those are the ways forward.
My final point is about the coverage of politics. I disagree again with my noble friend Lord Puttnam. I think he was very naive in the Power report about the relationship between politics and the press. It is a very important relationship that needs to be protected, but it is being abused, as he rightly says. The reality is that politicians need the press, and vice versa. The way in which we use that is important, but it ought to be publicly open, and there also ought to be some controls on it too, not least in announcing the relationship between the press and politicians at times. Remember, though, at times stories would not run if you did not have a relationship between the elected politicians and the press.
Lord Black of Brentwood
My Lords, I declare an interest in this debate as a director of the Telegraph Media Group and chairman of the Press Standards Board of Finance, and draw attention to my other media interests in the register. I join other noble Lords in our gratitude to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill.
Over the past few years, the media have been subject to the most unprecedented scrutiny. We have had the criminal investigations into phone hacking and payments to public officials. This has been the biggest police operation in British criminal history, bigger even than the investigation into Lockerbie. At its height it has had over 170 police officers involved, conducting dawn raids on the homes of journalists, which, if they had taken place in Zimbabwe, we would rightly have condemned.
We have had at least six parliamentary inquiries scrutinising every detail of this subject. None of them has recommended statutory controls of the press. Then, of course, we have had the Leveson inquiry, which has deployed powers of investigation even more sweeping than those granted to the Chilcot inquiry into the origins of an illegal war. It has cost £5.6 million, taken evidence from 474 witnesses and the record of its hearings runs to 3.2 million words. No industry in modern times has endured such in-depth, microscopic scrutiny.
In passing, I regret that in this maelstrom of inquiries two key issues have largely been overlooked. The first is the absence from the debate of the one thing that is changing the face of the media more than anything else and will have a far longer-term impact on the culture, practices and ethics of the press than any other factor: the internet. The second is the international perspective—namely, how what happens here in the UK will be magnified around the world. A little more of that later.
I am not an apologist for the past nor for some of the terrible things that we have heard about and the abuses that have taken place. My concern today is not so much history as the future. Change, as we have heard, is coming; a new regulatory system is to be put in place. Tougher controls are needed to protect the public. The key question, though, is what kind of change will raise standards and protect the public’s right to know. The answer, in my view, is a stark choice. Here I am afraid I disagree with my noble friend Lord Fowler. That choice is: do we want state regulation of the press or a free, independent press? We should be clear at the outset that this is a binary choice—there is no easy middle way. We either have self-regulation, rooted in the industry but independent of it, or we have some form of state regulation. You can dress it up as “underpinning” or “recognition”, but at the end of the day they amount to the same thing.
Here is the reality of that choice, going forward. On the one hand we have a model for self-regulation pioneered by my noble friend Lord Hunt and worked up in co-operation with him by editors and publishers. It is a proposal for an entirely new system of tough, independent and durable regulation. It would be a radical departure from the past. For the first time, it would be buttressed by law—not statute law, which would be so damaging to free speech, but civil law. It would have real powers of investigation of the sort that we have heard demands for today, and of sanction to deal with breakdowns in standards, including fines against newspapers of up to £l million. It would provide speedy redress for complainants. For the first time, it would have guarantees of structural independence from the industry. Above all, it would bring about a renaissance in internal governance within publishers because of a new system of certification, which would have a real impact on standards. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Janvrin, that kitemarks and certification would be a key part of this system. I also assure my noble friend Lord Stoneham that many of the very sensible requirements that he pointed to in a new regulatory system would be met by my noble friend’s proposals. This system would be deliverable swiftly, without the need for legislative intervention. Even if there were no legal challenge to some form of statutory-based system, it would probably take three years to set up. If we got a green light, the industry could have this up and running in three months.
The other option, on the other hand, is a statutory one. That brings with it huge implications for our democracy. The Lord Chief Justice said recently that,
“the independence of the press is a constitutional necessity”.
Indeed—all other freedoms depend on it. However, the press cannot be independent if politicians are involved in regulating it in some way, no matter how slight or how tiny—no matter how much of a dab of statute there was in regulating it. Statutory controls, however small, would produce what Professor Tim Luckhurst in a pamphlet today describes as a “constitutional absurdity”:
“parliamentary scrutiny of a body the electorate depends upon to scrutinise parliament”.
The imposition of statute would not simply be a constitutional abomination, striking at the heart of the thousands of newspapers and magazines in the UK whose voice was never heard at Leveson, and which bear no responsibility for the problems that gave rise to it. More importantly, it would be totally unworkable. It would certainly require a form of licensing to make it operate, as my noble friend Lord Wakeham said—not licensing of journalists, as the noble Lord, Lord Soley, suggested, but the licensing of publications and publishers. And I am afraid that the noble Lord’s alternative of some form of VAT exemption has already been ruled out by the European Commission.
It would be impossible to define the “newspaper industry” in a digital age. It would drive many successful online publishers abroad, ironically meaning that the coverage of a statutory system would be much smaller than a self-regulatory one. It would be unstable, subject to constant legal challenge, and it would be of little use to members of the public. As my noble friend Lord Wakeham said, statutory complaints systems are slow and legalistic.
Embarking on such a massive constitutional change and introducing even the tiniest political interference into the press would require overwhelming evidence of need. In my view, none has been presented. It is therefore little surprise to me that a Joint Committee of Parliament, of which I and the noble Lord, Lord Janvrin, were members, concluded:
“we do not recommend statutory backing for the new regulator”.
I mentioned just now the impact of decisions about press regulation beyond our shores. We have responsibilities there too; this is not just a domestic issue. The UK has been blessed with three centuries of press freedom but many around the world do not have that luxury. This is an area that this House should care deeply about. Across the world, freedom and self-regulation are on the march. In Sri Lanka, Botswana, Swaziland, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia, real progress has been made in recent years in dismantling state controls. Those new-found freedoms are fragile, though, and an ill wind from the UK would easily hand the initiative back to those who wish to control the press, a point made to the Leveson inquiry by the World Press Freedom Committee.
Rushing to embrace statute in response to events that were above all the result of a failure of law would place us in great danger. It is playing with fire. At risk are not just the personal freedoms of the British public, which depend on a free press, but also the future of many countries in the world that look to us for an example. I began by saying that change is coming—radical change. The proposal for a new self-regulatory regime will create here the toughest system of press regulation anywhere in the free world. Let us grasp that opportunity for change, rooted in the constitutional necessity of an independent press that is the guarantor of all our freedoms, and let us get on with it.
Baroness Uddin
My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, for bringing this debate to the House. Since the events of 9/11 and 7/7, media attention on Muslims and the Muslim community has dramatically increased. Studies conducted by Cardiff University media school, among others, and commissioned by Channel 4 analysed some 974 stories and found that approximately two-thirds of all “news hooks” for stories about Muslims either involved terrorism, religious issues such as Sharia law, women in the context of forced marriage and highlighting the cultural differences between British Muslims and others or were simply about so-called Muslim extremism. These stories all portrayed Muslims as a source of conflict, emphasising differences. By contrast, however, only about 5 per cent of stories were based on problems faced by British Muslims, and only on very rare occasions was there a mention of anything inclusive or positive.
Noble Lords will be familiar with sociologists’ thinking on how media impact on society. They refer to the two concepts of “agenda setting” and “framing”. “Agenda setting” refers to ways in which the media, through an emphasis on some issues and not others, help to shape particular concerns of our time. “Framing” contextualises it so that society can make sense of that issue. Take immigration as an example. For decades now, the media have framed this issue in terms of colour and threat rather than the desperate demand for labour required in post-war Britain. This has successfully led to immigration being looked at as an alien concept and immigrants as aliens.
Similarly, the agenda set by the British media has been distinctly anti-Muslim. One study found that terrorism was the dominant issue in headlines referring to minorities. When the text of the reports was analysed, terrorism was the second most frequent issue, with immigration being the first. Where Muslims were referred to in the texts, the report showed that they were overwhelmingly referred to in relation to terrorism. In the few cases where Muslims were given a direct voice as speakers in the story, the majority were associated with terrorism.
Clearly, then, there is a disconcerting amount of evidence which indicates the partisan and partial way in which Muslims and Islam are represented in the British media. The consequence of this anti-Muslim agenda set by the media is a framing process which sees a war between “us” and “them”. “Us”, according to the media, happen to be harmless individuals who are being taken advantage of by “them”, who are a burden on the state, agents who corrupt or pollute our culture, or criminals and terrorists who are a threat to our society, our security and way of life.
The British media profess tolerance but the daily news coverage and comment columns demonstrate just how conditional that tolerance is, and they promote a regard for Muslims not as citizens with equal rights and varying views but as visitors in “our” country. Such is the demonisation process that media stories are deliberately manipulated to attack Muslims. We know that these attacks impact significantly on all aspects of their lives including—and this is deeply troubling—employability.
Many noble Lords may be aware of the Department for Work and Pensions study conducted a few years ago, which brutally illustrated the highest discrimination that exists against those with Muslim-sounding names. Take one newspaper which splashed a front-page story in 2006 which described a “Muslim hate mob” vandalising a house near Windsor and leaving an obscene message on the drive. According to the paper, the house was due to be rented by British soldiers returning from a tour of Afghanistan. An MP was quoted in the article as saying:
“If there’s anybody who should f*** off”—
I apologise to the House—
“it’s the Muslims who are doing this kind of thing”.
It may come as no surprise to your Lordships’ House to learn that there were no Muslims involved in the story. The house was in an affluent area and anonymous callers had objected to the arrival of the soldiers as it might lower house prices.
Such headlines and stories are legion. It would make depressing listening if I recited any number of them. They are a shameful illustration of the worst kind of press reporting, where a particular section of the community is targeted. But why should the media adopt this approach? Why do we not hear about the Ministry of Justice statistic that 2.3 million “show and account” powers were used? There are twice as many stop-and-searches of Asian people per head of population compared to others. Further, there are 37,000 racially and religiously aggravated offences recorded by the police which are hardly reported. Well, we now know through submissions made to the Leveson inquiry how closely sections of the media work collaboratively with law enforcers, politicians and government. We have since come to learn and understand that individuals and organisations do not operate in a vacuum under these circumstances. They are influenced and guided by the political and accepted norms of the culture around them. It must be obvious to many of us that media coverage of Muslims and Islam is far from being of the proper standard we should and must expect from our media.
Many I have spoken to, young and old, men and women, professional and housebound, believe that the response to 9/11 and 7/7 by leaders in the US and UK, and the ensuing reporting in our media, have inexorably led to a rise in anti-Muslim feelings in our society which has, in a number of high-profile cases, been recognised as institutionalised discrimination. The consequences are significant. I can detail many examples of institutional discrimination which are faced by British Muslims in terms of education, the criminal justice system and, simply by having a Muslim name, their prospect of employability.
It must therefore be said that the state and its institutions must bear some responsibility. Through its pronouncements, declarations, laws and edicts, it sets the tone and tenor of this progressively corrosive climate in society, of which the press is a part, where Muslims and Islam are the fifth column. The Leveson inquiry has given us a unique opportunity to redress what has been a systematic demonisation and criminalisation of a community. We must hope in the next few weeks, when Lord Justice Leveson reports, that his inquiry has taken heed of the seriousness of the evidence provided in this regard by an assortment of witnesses including former tabloid and broadsheet reporters.
Nothing should hold back the ability of the press to hold government and public officials to account. Equally, there must be something to allow ordinary citizens, including affected communities, to hold the press to account. Lord Justice Leveson needs to recognise the hurt caused to our communities and the anger within them, and to make recommendations which allow all citizens, regardless of their origin, culture or faith, to live without fear.
Viscount Eccles
My Lords, I need to be forgiven for not directly following the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin. I will start with something of a challenge. There has been quite a lot of talk about independence, and independence of statutory arrangements. We will be debating these matters further, and I shall be looking for examples of true independence where there is statutory regulation. I do not quite see, where Parliament is sovereign, that you can ever arrive at what I would describe as independence.
When thinking about media standards, I want to follow much of what my noble friend Lord Stoneham said, and concentrate upon those who are the subject of human interest stories and did not expect or wish to be caught up in media attention and become news. They may on many occasions—there is plenty of evidence for this—find it difficult to cope with the questioning, cameras, offers of advice, talk about money and everything that goes with a long-running human interest story, and even with less important stories.
There seem to me to be two questions to ask about these stories. How accurate are the facts which come across in the telling of these stories? Are the conclusions reached interim conclusions or final conclusions and are they believed by the writers to be true? I have two tests from long ago; I do not believe that there was a golden age when everybody behaved incredibly responsibly. One was the story of a Catholic priest. I was probably 17 at the time. He told us that he had been caught up in the Underground when there had been an accident in the late 1940s. There were injuries and, as I remember it, there were deaths as well. He went down into the Underground and did his job as a Catholic priest. He came up after a considerable period of time, pretty shattered, to be greeted by the cameras and the questioners who had not been allowed down into the Underground. In his exasperation, he said, “My God, mind your own business”. The next day his picture appeared in the newspaper and the caption below was, “I am here on God’s business”.
The second story concerned Beaverbrook. You have to be quite old to remember much about Beaverbrook. I think that it was the “Beachcomber column” which hounded—I do not think that that is too strong a word—my father. It was a gossip column, which came to no conclusions because it wanted the public to come to their own conclusions. However, the gossip was handled, with scant regard to the facts, in such a way as to try to make sure that the public thought, “Well, this is a man not to follow. This is a man with views that cannot be right because look what sort of a person he is”.
Therefore, I start with a scepticism about the press and great caution. Subsequently, in pretty mundane appearances of things close to what I was doing, just occasionally I have been reinforced in these views. In a small headline, I was described as a civil servant. Never mind what the article said, but it would have taken about two minutes, or possibly five, for the sub-editor—it was in a headline—to check whether I was a civil servant. Of course, I was not. Over that period, I would give the press about six out of 10, which is possibly generous, for the accuracy of the facts.
What about the truth of the conclusions? I do not think that the press is much interested in the truth of the conclusions because the story dominates. Its test is not what is in the public interest but what interests the public, which I think has always been the case. Probably, it was exactly the same in 1800 as regards the satirists and the broadsheets on the high street.
In facing up to this reality, what is to be sensibly done? The first thing that we should remember is not to underrate the public, who have a healthy scepticism. There perhaps is a tendency—we fall to this temptation in your Lordships’ House—to think that others do not keep up as well as we do ourselves, which is probably a mistake. I also think that we should remember that we all love a drama, to be excited and to have something which has been built into a story that we would like to read. Perhaps we get the media that we deserve.
Much has been said about Leveson. I believe that the most brilliant evidence was that given by Matthew Parris. I commend it to noble Lords and hope that they will read it among all the other millions of words. There was a disenchantment in that evidence as regards the reality and the acceptance. He suggests that phone hacking is only the logical consequence of double mirrors, impersonation and long-range lenses.
Statutory legislation will not work. As has been correctly said, it is slow and process is more important than outcome. Perverse incentives come in. If I am subject to rules and I am very clever, I may think, “You’ve set the rules; now I am going to see how I can get round them”. That is what happens always and everywhere with statutory regulation. Again, I challenge people to find a system of statutory regulation where that does not happen. Better would be the common sense of the people; a shake-up of the PCC; peer-group pressure; establishment of the things that we do and do not do; and some internal system of penalising those. The idea of civil law contracts is very good. That would serve us better than legislating for statutory regulation.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
My Lords, I should like to add my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, for securing this timely debate and to congratulate her on her new role as chair of the EHRC, which she joins at interesting times. The noble Baroness laid out the issue with her customary clarity and set the standard for this excellent debate. I should also like to pick up on the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Janvrin, who helped us to focus on the key issues which have underpinned so many of the speeches that we have heard. What exactly is the problem? Why is the status quo unacceptable? How should we, if we decide to do so, resolve matters going forward?
I think that it is common ground in this debate that it is in the public interest to have a free press, which, as many noble Lords have said, is fundamental to our society and to our democracy. However, we have to balance that against the fact that at the moment print journalism as we have known it for so many years is under intense pressure. I am afraid that it is no longer about revealing matters. To use the phrase used by the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, it is no longer about breaking the news because this comes to us in so many different forms, particularly from Twitter and the blogosphere. It is no longer sustainable as a business because the advertising that has supported it has moved to the internet or is moving that way.
Finally, there are few media barons who are willing to pay the losses in return for the influence that they might gain from supporting print journalism as they have in the past. All those factors taken together have contributed to an unacceptable culture and a practice to which many noble Lords have referred today and which I am sure will continue to be in our thoughts as we move towards the Leveson report.
Several noble Lords, particularly my noble friend Lord Puttnam, mentioned that the consequence of all this was a loss of confidence and trust, especially among the public. In some of the lobbying that was sent around in advance of this debate, it was interesting to read that some 75% of voters favour regulation that is independent of the newspaper industry. We should perhaps listen to that voice.
Why is the status quo unacceptable? As my noble friend Lord Puttnam said, this crisis seems to be different from all the others that we have been hearing about. This seems to be systemic and the ecosystem itself may be collapsing. Two deep-seated problems have led to abuses such as the phone hacking and invasion of privacy suffered by the Dowlers, the McCanns and others, which led to the establishment of the Leveson inquiry, as well as the concentration of media ownership and an inadequate system of press complaints.
We need to think again about definitions of media. The internet, particularly the growth of self publication, is a game changer. Nevertheless, it is important not to have monopolies of ownership in our media. A monopoly generally inhibits a diversity of views, competition and new entrants to the market. It is bad for our democracy and bad for consumers. Increasingly, we have to look at cross-media ownership and ownership across different media platforms. Labour’s evidence to the Leveson inquiry suggested that there could be a percentage cap on the media market for a single organisation not owning more than 30%.
On press complaints, Labour supports a strong and free press that can hold politicians to account, which is essential in a democracy. But a strong and free press must have responsibilities too. The Press Complaints Commission has failed victims of press abuse, and it was a system appointed by the press, financed by the press and run by the press for the press. Any new system for press complaints needs to be independent of politicians but also of serving editors and proprietors. It must be accessible, straightforward for anyone to use and not just for the rich. It must apply to all newspapers and be able to enforce its rulings against them.
What needs to be done? The noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, said that even if the evidence of failure by the recent history of self-regulation was not overwhelming, the burden of proof that self-regulation can work lies with the proponents. We have heard powerful arguments from the noble Lords, Lord Wakeham, Lord Grade and Lord Black, although not, sadly, from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who is carefully scribbling away but not speaking.
Lord Hunt of Wirral
As the noble Lord has raised the point, perhaps I may assist. It is very important that I of all people who has put forward a model should not be seen in any way to pre-empt the decision of Lord Justice Leveson.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
I thank the noble Lord for that gracious intervention.
I think that the arguments are not very strong and I wonder whether the noble Lords protest too much. I do not think that the test set by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, would have been satisfied. Politicians have a habit of setting up false questions and then giving the answers that they want; so I profoundly disagree that this is a binary choice. It is not a question of self-regulation or some sort of draconian statutory regulation. As we have heard, most other professions, including judges, are regulated and there do not seem to be so many problems there. It is unhealthy for any industry to be its own judge and jury; it is all the more unhealthy for the press, which has the power and has used that power in recent times, to cover up its own wrongdoings by failing to report it. Any successful system should include the following: independence from proprietors and editors; independence from other interests, including government; the ability to provide effective and speedy redress; the ability to investigate when things go wrong; the ability to impose sanctions, including a must-carry-apology-and-corrections power; the ability to compel membership; and a regular submission to external inspection.
We may be able to learn from—but we do not need to follow—other models, such as the Irish press council, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Grade, which is recognised by statute but not set up by statute, or the new Australian body, which is an independent statutory body constituted through independent appointments procedures whose constitutional role is defined as “enforced self-regulation”.
A new law introducing effective regulation could contain safeguards against political abuse and guarantees of independence from politicians. Effective regulation does not prevent solicitors or doctors doing their jobs, nor would it prevent journalists from doing theirs. The press has great power, and with great power goes greater responsibility.
Journalism in the broadcast media is subject to regulation backed by statute. It is the most trusted in the country and very clearly free from political influence. Journalism is already subject to statute in relation to defamation, data protection, contempt of court and human rights, not to mention tax, without that meaning political control. Effective regulation would surely benefit and protect journalists in their work, as it would bear down on the practices of the culture that gave us hacking, blagging, serial libelling and bullying. It would protect the public and begin the work of restoring public confidence in the press.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
My Lords, first, I take this opportunity to thank the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, for tabling this debate and drawing attention to this most important issue, and at such a significant moment, as we await Lord Justice Leveson’s findings on his inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the press. I also take this opportunity to congratulate the noble Baroness on her recent appointment as chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and I am sure that it will flourish under her leadership. The noble Baroness is of course a most respected contributor to this debate, tackling the issue of press and media freedom a decade ago as part of her 2002 Reith lecture series, “A Question of Trust” and more recently in contributions including her 2011 Reuters memorial lecture, “The Rights of Journalism and the Needs of Audiences”, and a development of that argument which she presented earlier this year in evidence to the Leveson inquiry.
In terms of the Leveson inquiry itself, it will be of little surprise to your Lordships that it would not be appropriate for the Government to prejudge its findings by speculating here about what it may contain, or indicating any sense of preference for the recommendations. But that does not stop this Chamber from debating the issues that will need addressing once Lord Justice Leveson has reported. It is important to state very clearly that, come what may, the Government recognise the fundamental importance of freedom of speech and a vigorous press to support this as part of the democratic process. The press plays an essential role in holding the powerful to account; it brings matters of public interest to the fore, informing citizens, and enabling them to exercise their democratic rights. Of course, it also entertains and educates them. As the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, states, it secures the communication on which social, cultural and political life depend. Whatever steps are taken, it is vital that we maintain a press that is free to conduct this important role in our society. My noble friend Lord Black highlights the important point that Great Britain is a beacon in the Commonwealth, and indeed the world, for setting the bar high for press freedom.
The Government set up the Leveson inquiry last year in response to the phone-hacking scandal, culminating in the news that Milly Dowler’s phone had been hacked by the News of the World. The Government are determined to get to the bottom of all that journalists and their agents were doing in hacking into phone messages, what the police knew when, what they did about it, and how we might learn lessons for the future. But it is important to remember that phone-hacking is illegal; regulatory reform should not therefore be about creating a system that prevents illegal behaviour, as that remains a matter for the courts. What it must do, however, is tackle the culture and practices that provided the context in which that illegal behaviour became widespread. In doing so, we need to separate out actions that were, and which remain, illegal and subject to the criminal law from those which are issues of culture and operational standards, though the two are linked. I agree with my noble friend Lord Fowler that the Leveson inquiry is proving to be thorough, full and detailed.
It is important that going forward the regulatory framework for the press is effective, ensuring that the systematic failings as evidenced through the inquiry are not repeated, as my noble friend Lord Razzall iterated in strong terms. When he set up the inquiry, the Prime Minister said that he wanted to aim for independent regulation of the press. That remains the Government’s ambition and, as the Prime Minister has recently said, we must be able to look the Dowler family in the eye with any future solution.
In considering these issues, the noble Baroness’s work gives us some very useful tools which help us to frame the debate. She asks us to take a step back, to consider what role we expect of the media in society more generally; what we mean by media freedom; and importantly, where the corresponding balance may lie between its freedom and its responsibility towards the public it serves. The noble Baroness also articulates the importance of understanding first what we are trying to regulate—that is, the standards—before it is possible to understand or debate what may be an appropriate form of regulation to uphold these. As she points out, there is a crucial distinction between regulating media processes and attempting to control media content, or the difference between the how and the what. Let us be clear, the Government agree with her that we must not stray into the regulation of content itself, beyond the application of the general rule of law as it already applies today. The noble Lord, Lord Janvrin, also made that important point. By articulating media process as the focus of regulation, therefore, it is possible to distinguish very clearly where we should engage in debate in order to assess whether regulatory solutions are likely to encroach upon media freedoms.
The noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, goes on to state that media standards as currently formulated are not sufficient. She argues there are three essential ingredients needed to ensure the public are presented with accessible, intelligible and assessable information through the media. It is the last point, the assessability of information presented to the public by the media, that she feels is least well served, as she has highlighted so eloquently today.
I turn now to a number of observations from noble Lords who have spoken. First, my noble friend Lord Eccles rightly focused on the human interest stories, when individuals are caught up unwittingly in a media storm. I agree with him that they have a particular right of protection—but, as he pointed out, without statutory regulation.
My noble friend Lord Stoneham pointed out in detailed terms the importance of looking at market dominance. I can confirm that Lord Justice Leveson is looking at media ownership and plurality—and there is hope that he will comment on that when he reports.
The noble Lord, Lord Janvrin, made a strong point about having a stronger and more effective code of conduct. I agree with that, and I have noted it. This particular code of conduct has of course to be accepted and respected by all stakeholders.
The noble Lord, Lord Sugar, made the point that there has never been such a demand for stories. He said that these stories are produced so quickly, to keep the media going, that media standards are lowered. Certainly that is something that needs to be looked at in terms of media process. It comes back to the lack of assessability.
Several comments were made about the internet and convergence. My noble friends Lord Inglewood and Lord Black spoke on that subject, making some powerful points, along with my noble friend Lord Wakeham and the noble Lord, Lord Janvrin, about the increasing power of the internet and the power of media contact and stories that can be experienced across a wide variety of platforms, from print to online publishing to TV, video, smart phones and tablets. In other words, it has become an extremely complex landscape. Stories can go viral and almost immediately they are global, so there are very important issues around convergence. These will be considered by the Government in their communications review. As your Lordships will know, a White Paper will come out in the new year. Surely responsibility for process must ultimately lie with the originator. Only the originator of a story can answer for that, as the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, pointed out.
I note from following the inquiry that Lord Justice Leveson has received a range of proposals for future press regulation. I felt it was easiest to present these by placing them on a continuum or a sliding scale. These proposals ranged from at the one end a continued form of self-regulation through to a fully fledged statutory approach at the other. However, I note that today no speaker has focused on the regulation side in great depth.
I would like to pick up a number of comments that were made about self-regulation and the degrees of self-regulation that we hope are being considered. The noble Lord, Lord Black, referred to the work that my noble friend Lord Hunt has done in making some proposals and, indeed, pioneering a form of self-regulation that they believe will be a way forward. It is a form of self-regulation backed by contracts between the press and the regulator. As my noble friend Lord Black pointed out, that regulation would essentially be buttressed by civil law and would not be statutory. It would have real powers of investigation and sanctions to deal with breakdowns. My noble friend Lord Black mentioned that fines of up to seven figures would be possible. However, such fines would need to be proportionate to the size of the media involved. Then the question arises of why a publication would sign up to this. Let us presuppose that publications signed such a contract. We assume that this would be a rolling five-year contract. In essence, if any publication decided to pull out, that would be a breach of contract and penalties would be involved. Let us assume that those penalties would be strong enough to prevent them so doing.
A number of incentives to join such a scheme are being considered, as has been mentioned by noble Lords today. They include legal incentives: for example, partial defence in defamation cases, as in the Irish cases, and a defence can be claimed by members of a regulator. In addition, there would be a cap on damages in civil court cases as an incentive to join and a delay in court proceedings to allow complaints to be followed up. The noble Lord, Lord Soley, mentioned a financial incentive. Publications that signed up to the scheme would be subject to a zero rate of VAT.
Kitemark schemes have been mentioned. I believe this is an interesting way forward in that publications that did join up would in effect be accredited and would have a kitemark attached to them, which would give them a great deal of credibility. This was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Janvrin. The noble Lord, Lord Soley, was very helpful in highlighting these incentives.
Taking a further step along the sliding scale, the introduction of an underpinning statute was suggested. This option would still see the continuation of self-regulation in day-to-day practice, but with the provision of backstop powers for use in the event that it was failing. Put forward by the Media Standards Trust among others, this option would provide additional teeth and involve creating a small body which would oversee the regulator or regulators. Such a body would be able to intervene if certain agreed standards were not met by the regulator, adding a further layer of accountability to the system and a safeguard if the regulator was not performing as it should.
Returning to the arguments made by the noble Baroness in opening this debate, I note that, having established that regulation should be limited to media process, she argued that an element of statutory underpinning is now needed to place it on an effective footing. While any system needs to safeguard media freedom, the distinctions made by the noble Baroness today are helpful in focusing the debate more specifically on the question we must all consider: the extent to which the freedom to publish would be impacted by underpinning the regulation of some aspects of press processes. If such a course were taken, we would need to think very carefully and safeguards would need to be put in place. I note the passionate argument of my noble friend Lord Black of Brentwood against state intervention, particularly that any use of statute risks sliding down a slippery slope. However, I think it is helpful to be clear that regulating process may not be the same as regulating content if it came to a form of statutory underpinning.
The outcome of any new system must be to give the public confidence that the press is operating responsibly and that all complaints will be transparently and fairly handled, while allowing the press to remain free to continue pursuing world-class journalism. The key question must be: what constitutes the most effective way of achieving these ends? They would be achieved by a system that is appropriately independent of the press, government and politicians, is accountable, has teeth and is capable of delivering access to fair, cheap, quick and reliable justice for victims, which is what everyone has called for during the Leveson inquiry.
As the Prime Minister has recently commented:
“We don’t want heavy-handed state intervention”.
However, he added:
“The status quo is not an option”.
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. There cannot be any of us who has not learnt a great deal. I particularly wish to thank the Minister for the care with which he has followed my lines of argument. It is rare to find at the Dispatch Box such a detailed grasp of the various lines of argument that are put forward round the House and I appreciate that very much.
As we listened to positions that challenged each of us in various ways, it occurred to me that we have to be very careful about our future use of the term “independent”. Surely what we want are independent media. Sometimes I felt that the adjective was sliding to and fro between the media and the regulation. There are many different forms of regulation. I would be extremely critical of—what shall we call it?—a full waterfront mode of regulation for the media. I do not think that it could serve its purpose. As I suggested, I would be highly appreciative of a complaints service that really served the needs of the public in a way that at its best the Press Complaints Commission has succeeded in doing. However, one has to say that often it has not left members of the public feeling that their complaint was heard or that the corrections had an adequate prominence to constitute any sort of reparation.
There is a long way to go. We wait for Lord Justice Leveson to give us the next chapter, but I am sure that we will be back debating these things in the not-too-distant future. When we do, I hope that we can, as it were, put on one side the thought that there is one position that owns the label “independent regulation”. As I suggested, self-regulation does not automatically count as independent regulation. It is too often and too readily a form of self-serving regulation. But, equally, we can all of us imagine forms of statutory regulation which would probably kill the goose as they sought to protect it. I believe that statutory regulation will in the end be needed but only on a very narrow front to enable independent bodies to have the necessary powers. The thought that it can be done by the civil law is, of course, highly attractive but you have to contract in at the beginning, and there is the rub. Not everybody will wish to contract in at the beginning. Therefore, departing will carry no sanctions for them and we will have perhaps a small, high-quality press that has contracted in and others who see that there is profit and advantage in remaining an outlaw. Therefore, we have not solved the problem. We did not expect to do so this morning, but I do not regret having this debate at this time. I thank everybody who has contributed.
Children: Looked-after Children
(12 years ago)
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The Earl of Listowel
That this House takes note of the standards of service for looked-after children and, in particular, the Government’s response to changes in residential childcare in the light of recent child protection failures.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I am most grateful to my Cross-Bench colleagues for allowing me a slot for this debate, to my noble friend Lord Laming, the Convenor, for prompting me to table this Motion and for his advice, and to the noble Lords who have decided to contribute this afternoon. I also pay tribute to Tim Loughton MP, for many years a consistent champion for looked-after children and the social workers who serve them and until recently Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children and Families. As a Minister, he never tired of speaking to looked-after children and care leavers. It was good for the morale of the whole service that we knew we had a Minister who was listening to our concerns. I am reassured that his replacement as Minister also has a long track record of experience, most recently as chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Looked after Children and Care Leavers and of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Adoption and Fostering. Mr Timpson has also recently produced a report on the education of looked-after children which I commend to your Lordships and which is available on the website of the Who Cares? Trust, the charity that clerks one of the parliamentary groups.
Finally, I thank Ann Coffey MP, chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Runaway and Missing Children and Adults. Her report on children missing from care, together with the work of campaigning journalists such as Andrew Norfolk of the Times, exposed the great variability of quality in residential care and gave rise to some very good work from the Government in response.
I declare my interest as a trustee of the child welfare charity the Michael Sieff Foundation. As vice chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Looked after Children and Care Leavers, I have listened for 10 or 12 years to young people from care, to their carers and their social workers, who come into Parliament to share their experience with us. I am very grateful for the trouble they have taken to warn us of their concerns.
It may be of assistance to begin with a brief description of the principles behind working with children who have experienced the kind of trauma experienced by many children taken into care. To the best of my understanding, the principles are as follows: early abuse, including neglect, of children by their principal carers can cause a significant impact on their development which may be enduring and difficult to reverse. The impact of parental abuse, including neglect, may be mitigated by many factors, the most important of which is the child’s genetic inheritance. Children who have experienced trauma of this kind may find it difficult to trust carers, to permit intimacy and to allow themselves to be loved. They may seek to sabotage relationships or test them to the point of destruction. They may be overly self-critical and critical of others. They may have an unquenchable need for attention. They may find attention very uncomfortable. They are often very complicated and needy young people. If they do not receive adequate early support in recovering from their trauma their personalities may become less flexible with age and they may develop a persistent personality disorder.
Key to recovery from early trauma is finding a person who can stick with the child and whom the child cannot, as it were, destroy through his overt or veiled attacks. Most of us have experienced in our lives the sensation of a love that is not returned. There is a similarity between this and a child’s experience. For a child, it may be as if the love of his life has spurned him and he can never love or trust another again. Learning to love again is the key to recovery from such trauma.
I would like to explore certain themes and questions with you. Most important is the development of the workforce: the child and family social workers, the residential childcare workers and the foster carers. Will the Minister undertake today to improve the qualifications of staff in residential childcare? Will he look very carefully at the call to move to a foundation degree level workforce in children’s homes? On the subject of consultation, the practice of providing groups of staff, managers, foster carers and social workers with an appropriately qualified clinical professional to help them reflect on their relationships with their children and families on an ongoing basis is widely recognised as necessary but is far from universally practised. In particular, given the mental health needs of children in residential care, it is beyond belief that there is no consistent support for staff to help them manage the needs of these children. Will the Minister consider introducing regulations to require that children’s homes receive ongoing clinical support from a professional from an accredited list?
Children’s residential care needs an institutional base to ensure steady improvement over time. Will the Minister examine carefully the Scottish Institute for Residential Child Care and the College of Social Work and see how the best of these models can be adopted for our own children’s homes?
Finally, residential childcare needs a champion. Will the Minister look, for example, at the work of Louise Casey the former homelessness tsar, champion for victims and, most recently, lead on families with complex needs? Will he seek to appoint someone of the ilk of Moira Gibb, the Chief Executive of the London Borough of Camden, who led the work on social work reform or Professor Eileen Munro, author of a very important report on child protection services? Both have been effective champions for social work.
These are the key themes I would like to explore today. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Laming, who will look more closely at recent child protection concerns. He authored the report of the inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbié and has been a chief inspector of social services. I regret that there will not be time for me to speak about the health needs of looked-after children, concerns about their education, about transition from care or about the introduction of looked-after status for 16 and 17 year-olds on remand. On these matters I will say only that the mental health needs of these children must not continue to be overlooked. Their health assessments need to capture mental health needs. The dedicated looked-after child and adolescent mental health services need to be funded and protected in this difficult time. In particular, the mental health needs of pre-schoolers, the children under five who account for about 30% of those coming into care, need to be better identified.
On education, the looked-after children virtual school heads have been a very welcome introduction in recent years. The concern now is that they are being cut. Will the Minister ensure that this vital role is put on a statutory basis to make sure there is no deterioration in the educational attainment of looked-after children?
On leaving care, it is absolutely vital that the pilots allowing young people to stay with their foster carers past the age of 18 are rolled out across the country as soon as possible. Can the Minister give a timeframe for when this will happen? The Deputy Children’s Commissioner has found that sexual exploitation of children in care—as concerning as that is—is but a drop in the ocean compared with the exploitation of young people as they leave care and move into often inappropriate accommodation.
The Government are moving to bring children on remand into looked-after status. This will significantly increase the burdens on local authorities at a time when they are most hard pressed. Local authorities may find themselves with responsibility for these young people to the age of 24. Can the Minister assure the House that local authorities will be resourced adequately to meet this new challenge?
Both this and the previous Government have made significant improvements to services for looked-after children. The previous Government introduced ring-fenced funding for looked-after children under Quality Protects, introduced a minimum qualification in children’s homes of national vocational qualification level 3 and saw an increase in young people leaving care to go on to university from 2% to 8%. This Government have raised the bar for entry to social work, have implemented the newly qualified status for social workers introduced by the previous Government, and are implementing many of the important recommendations of Professor Eileen Munro’s review. They have promised the appointment of a chief social worker. I ask the Minister when he expects that appointment to be made.
Nevertheless, increasing numbers of children entering care, the worst recession that we have known and particular concerns about the sexual exploitation of children in residential care indicate that forward momentum has to be sustained. I suggest that this can be done by taking the following steps—or at least steps that can contribute. I would encourage the Government to place the development of social workers, foster carers and residential childcare workers right at the top of their agenda. It was heartening to read this week of the winner of the annual teaching awards, a woman fast-tracked into teaching with an excellent academic record and strong interpersonal skills. This is just the kind of person needed in services for looked-after children. It is most encouraging to see the fast-tracking model being applied to social work. I praise here the work of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, who regrets that he cannot be present, and others in doing this.
On the continent, we see far more teachers and social workers choosing to become foster carers. Please can the Government support teachers and social workers to make that choice? Please will the Minister consider a similar fast-track approach for residential childcare—a care first, which learns from the experience of placing pedagogues in children’s homes and ensures that candidates need to be placed in supportive environments and not just parachuted into homes unsupported.
I invite noble Lords to remember the research by Professors Petrie and Cameron, and others at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, which compared homes in Denmark, Germany and England. Some 90% of staff in Danish homes had degree-level qualifications; the figure was 50% in Germany but only 30% in English homes. Yet in Germany and Denmark, half the children in care are in residential care, compared to 10% in this country. Homes in England are generally the last resort. Our children’s needs are generally of a much higher level of complexity and urgency, yet our staff are far less well equipped than their continental peers.
I can recall visiting the manager of a children’s home in Maida Vale, north London, five years ago. She had 30 years’ experience as a manager, postgraduate qualifications and a couple of degrees behind her, but she deeply regretted that many of her staff were barely literate. My experience of working in and visiting children’s homes has led me to admire many of the staff. I have met remarkable people making a difference to vulnerable children, often against great odds. These are extraordinary people. Some of the therapeutic communities in particular are remarkable and tremendous places to work, but the quality of staff is highly variable between and within homes. Our most vulnerable children need and deserve consistent expert care—staff who are confident about what they are doing; who understand the principles behind what they do; who can reflect and respect teachers, clinical psychologists and social workers and are respected by them; who have excellent interpersonal skills; who can engage children who may spit and hit; and sustain a relationship with such children over months and years. This work can be the most rewarding imaginable—working with a team and seeing the immense difference that one can make in a child’s life. It has attracted people of the calibre of Paul Ennals, the former chief executive of the National Children’s Bureau; Hilton Dawson MP, founder of the parliamentary group and now director of the British Association of Social Workers; and Sue Berelowitz, Deputy Children’s Commissioner. They all started their careers in children’s homes. This work is among the best ways to learn about children. It can attract the best, as it does in Denmark and Germany, if staff feel supported and valued in what they do.
Paul Connolly, best-selling author and a graduate of an abusive children’s home—now a father of two and an entrepreneur—spoke to me recently about why he succeeded while four of his contemporaries died before they reached the age of 30. He explained that he had always sought out adults to whom he could aspire. For him, he found them in the boxing gym neighbouring his home. He was befriended and became a boxer himself. What he wants most now for children in children’s homes is that they, too, have adults to whom they aspire. The chief executive officer of the Mulberry Bush Organisation, John Diamond, has convened a group of academics to look at establishing a foundation degree for residential care. I very much encourage the noble Lord to consider this as the next step forward.
I must shortly conclude. I should like to remind your Lordships of the words of Sir William Utting in his report in the 1990s on children living away from home, People Like Us. He wrote, and I paraphrase, “The best safeguard for children is an environment of overall excellence”. Confident, carefully recruited, well qualified and well supported staff are less likely to be awed by some celebrity or be bullied into silence or complicity. Confident staff are more likely to gain the trust of their children and minimise the child’s risk of running away—or follow that child if he or she seeks to disappear. Effective staff are more likely to be trusted by their children and to learn of any abuse from guests, volunteers or staff.
The best gift that we can give these children is to surround them with professionals and carers of the very highest quality. If this Government continue to address the status of residential childcare workers, foster carers and social workers adequately, they will be leaving an inheritance of which they can be well proud.
Baroness Brinton
I start by declaring an interest because my husband and I provided foster respite care for a brother and sister to whom, 11 years ago, we then became formal guardians. Their experience is very different to many of the experiences that I am sure that we will hear about, in that they came just to one placement—us.
I thank the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for bringing forward this vital topic for debate in your Lordships’ Chamber. We often say those words but here it is particularly pertinent. Looked-after children, especially those in residential childcare, are the responsibility of each and every one of us, but sadly the catalogue of child protection failures just continues, and we do not seem to learn the lessons from the individually tragic cases, whether they are Victoria Climbié or the young girls so horrifically abused—and ignored by social services and others involved in their care—in Rochdale.
This week is National Care Leavers’ Week, and it is good that looked-after children can now get proper transitional support, rather than being dumped by the state at the age of 18. Transition to independence is vital, but it is shocking that less than 4% of care leavers stay on with their foster carers past the age of 18, with well over a third living on their own. Only a handful—8%, as we heard from the noble Earl, Lord Listowel—go on to higher education, which is often, I am sorry to say from my experience working in the university sector, not supporting them appropriately and ill prepared to give them the support they need. This situation results in a much higher drop-out rate from among looked-after children than from the average student body.
I commend the Prince’s Trust’s From Care to Independence project, which will provide 1,000 care leavers with one-to-one support, and will form the basis of a much-needed long-term research study. We need to understand exactly what support these young people need. Advocacy is critical to successful transition. I ask the Minister if the Government will consider giving all children in care a statutory right to independent advocacy as a part of care reviews and placement planning, not just as part of the complaints process.
The incidence of children running away from either foster homes or residential care homes is shocking. In fact, it is three times more likely than for other children. These children are the most vulnerable in our society. Many have been through repeated placements that have not worked for a variety of reasons. Regardless, each placement breakdown further compounds the child’s lack of sense of worth and esteem, and is more likely to bring further disruptive behaviour. These children are often scared and angry—a potent mix. It is estimated that 10,000 looked-after children go missing every year. These children are much more likely to be sexually or physically abused, involved in substance misuse or resort to stealing and begging to survive: a fast-track route into the criminal justice system or, worse, self-destruction.
I said that the number of children going missing was an estimate, because we have a serious failure of information-sharing at present. When Ofsted publishes reports of residential homes, it does not automatically send copies to either the local authority with direct responsibility for the child or the local authority where the home is based, and these days the number of out-of-borough placements are increasing. It is vital that this happens, not least because the receiving local authority may not be aware of all the out-of-borough children placed in its area and so cannot alert other important local services, such as education, health and particularly the police, to provide the appropriate support.
I ask the Minister whether that error can be rectified. It is a simple matter of adding one or two local authorities to the circulation list, rather than relying on the authorities to peruse the Ofsted website as reports on individual homes come out. It seems to me that this is part of the joined-up thinking that every inquiry into the failure of safeguarding cases talks about. Let us make it easier for them. Can the Minister also report on the DfE task and finish group looking at out-of-borough placements and say when the Government will publish its findings?
Another problem is that the Department for Education data on missing children is collected differently from the police data. ACPO’s definitions make a distinction between missing and absent children and often do not trigger searches until a child has been away for more than 24 hours. Frankly, that is too long. I know that there is frustration with children who repeatedly go missing from residential homes but, as the Rochdale case showed us, 24 hours is too long away: the abuse can happen within a very short timescale. The child then returns to the residential home and may disappear again. The Children’s Society’s Still Running survey shows that 52% of looked-after children in the survey had run away overnight on at least one occasion.
The Serious Organised Crime Agency and UK Missing Persons Bureau report on children missing from care highlighted the problem of the difference in the way that data are collected. Can the Minister encourage the DfE, the Local Government Association and ACPO to agree on a standard definition, and please can it be collected consistently? We need to know the scale of the problem. The Still Running survey gives a much higher level of running away than the figures supplied by the police, and it is suspected that many of the police data are under-reported, whether by them or by local authorities.
I add my congratulations and thanks to those expressed by my noble friend Lord Listowel to the Minister, Tim Loughton, who has done an enormous amount of work in this area. He made a very positive statement in another place on 3 July about the skill set needed for staff in residential homes. It appears that in a number of places the professional relationship between the staff and the looked-after children in their care just has not worked. There have been reports of staff unable to prevent children running away and, with children moving from placement to placement, there is virtually no time for staff to get to know a child and their background before the first crisis hits. Knowledge of their background might prove helpful in knowing how to handle the crisis. That must change. We need professional qualifications for staff in residential homes, as has already been mentioned. These staff, after all, are looking after children with the most complex problems imaginable. With fewer and fewer local authority-run homes, what check is there on the qualifications of residential home staff in private homes? Can the Minister say whether there will be further requirements on privately run residential homes to demonstrate that their staff have qualifications and to undertake continuing professional development on a regular basis?
If noble Lords have ever talked to looked-after children in the care system, or met them later in their lives, they will know that it is obvious right from the start where the system has worked for them or failed. I want to end by talking about a young man whom I met 10 years ago when Cambridgeshire County Council reviewed its fostering arrangements, including a new and comprehensive guide for foster parents. I was one of the councillors on the panel. We were lucky enough to have as one of our expert members on the panel a young man who was just starting out at university and who had been in foster care since he was seven. I shall call him Tom. He had moved from placement to placement in the early years but had been with one family for the preceding six years, and that relationship had transformed his life. He said that without their love and care, including that of his foster siblings, he would probably not have managed to stay on at school until, let alone beyond, the age of 16. He was the first person in his family to go to university. Through the generosity of his foster parents—and at no inconsiderable cost to them—they had kept his room for him during the holidays, otherwise he would have been on his own at his university halls of residence in the holidays.
Tom knew exactly what we needed to do, including the need for support after the age of 18, which thankfully is now much more available. His sage advice then meant that Cambridgeshire was able to give its foster parents a really effective head start in their support for youngsters in their care. Do enough local authorities actually seek the advice of the young people in their charge?
Sadly, Tom’s experience is not the norm. Local government talks about corporate parents, and rightly so, but I think that this term needs to extend beyond councillors and the professionals involved in the work with looked-after children. All of us in public life have a responsibility. That responsibility extends beyond learning the lessons from the dreadful incidents of the past—although we must do so—to ensuring that looked-after children get a consistent, supportive and reliable service that will give them the basis to rebuild their lives after their traumatic start.
Lord Laming
My Lords, I also congratulate the noble Earl on securing this important debate. His commitment to this subject commands the respect of the whole House. It was a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, who has already made such a helpful contribution to the debate.
I feel sure that on all sides of the House it is recognised that removing a child or young person from the care of their parents is a decision of immense significance. The state has to be careful about exercising such power. Clearly checks and balances must be in place so that the exercise of such authority is reasonable and demonstrably in the best interests of the child.
If the state makes the momentous decision to remove a child from parental care, then at the very least that brings with it the huge responsibility of ensuring that the state is a “good parent”. Sadly, it is all too clear that often that may not be so, yet the state has not only a legal duty but a moral responsibility to ensure the safety, well-being and proper development of each child and young person for whom it becomes a substitute parent. It has a responsibility to ensure that that child or young person has the best opportunity to recover from what has happened in his or her early life and to develop into a fulfilled citizen in our community.
Sadly, the reality is that many of the children coming into the care of a local authority have been let down by the adults in their lives to whom they were entitled to look for care and protection. Instead, they will have experienced chaotic lifestyles, serious neglect or even deliberate harm. The duty of the state is, first, to ensure that these children and young people are provided with a safe place to live that provides a consistent, reliable framework offering a structure to their daily lives. It is from this foundation of that secure framework that it is possible to make an individual assessment of their needs and the beginnings of an individual care plan that will promote their recovery and development.
In the past, most children and young people coming into care had an initial experience in a specialist residential home. These homes generally had skilled and highly regarded staff. Of course, we all know that some establishments turned out to be absolutely ghastly, and appalling things were done to children who were easily exploited and even abused. The haste with which foster care has come to be relied on as the main and, generally, the only way of responding to the needs of children has led to residential care being neglected, downgraded and often regarded as a placement solely of last resort.
In my view, the rush into foster care was influenced, sadly, not by a belief that it was right for every child for most of their time in care but, regrettably, because it was seen as a much cheaper option. Of course, there can be no doubting that our society is deeply indebted to a large number of wonderful foster parents who should rightly be regarded as heroes of the state. That phrase in no way overstates their contribution to our society. They are heroes of the state. However, that is not a justification for the serious neglect of residential care. We need the widest range possible of facilities to meet the needs of these very damaged children and young people. The very best homes provide not only stability but also the staff who are able to begin the important therapeutic work which facilitates the healing process so that a young person can begin to trust adults again, to develop self-confidence and become optimistic about their future.
By 1998 it became evident that some local authorities, particularly inner-city local authorities, were closing all of their children's homes and moving the residents to distant places which offered—guess what?—the cheaper option. In exceptional circumstances, we all know that it may be right to send a child a long distance from their home area and their environment but, sadly, these decisions are seldom taken with the needs of the child or young person in mind, and are almost entirely dictated by the financial cost to the authority. When a placement is hundreds of miles away, who ensures the quality of care that is provided to that young person? Who provides continuing contact with the child? Who can the child or young person turn to when things go wrong in their lives?
My fear is that these placements are often characterised by nothing more than “out of sight, out of mind”. Is it any wonder that many of these young people receive either seriously inadequate or no education? Is it a wonder that they run away? Given so little opportunity for them to develop their potential or to be helped to prepare for adulthood, is it any wonder that so many end up in penal establishments? One of the most chilling comments I have ever read came about when a senior officer concerned with the recent cases in Rochdale was asked how a 14 year-old girl in care was able to be out of the home so late at night being sexually abused. He is reported to have said that for this child, “This was a lifestyle choice”. No vulnerable child in the care of the state should be given the option to be away from the protection of the services designed to promote their well-being.
I hesitate to burden the House with a personal experience, but I am encouraged to do so only because it is of no credit to me, yet the impact on me has endured. I hope it will have an impact on the Minister, who is very well respected in this House. For more than 20 years, I had been responsible in a large local authority for all of the social care services. The announcement that I was leaving the authority to take up another post attracted the attention of the local media. Before I left I attended a well publicised event, which was at a facility for adults with special needs. During the visit, the officer in charge of the day centre told me that there was a young man outside who wanted to meet me. She had invited him in to meet me and offered him tea but he refused. He would not come in so I had to go outside, which I was happy to do. I met a young man in the second half of his teenage years. He told me that he had been in the care of the local authority almost throughout his life; I had been the director of social services throughout his whole life. The few formal letters that he possessed had my name at the top, so before I left the local authority, he wanted to meet me so he could put a face to my name. That young man had spent his entire life in the care of the authority for which I was the chief officer responsible for his services, yet I did not even know that he existed. Nothing has been so powerful in making me realise the burden of responsibility that we have for the care, protection and development of these young people. I was then, and I remain, chastened by that experience because we must never allow these young people, who are our responsibility, to be lost in the system. It happens so easily.
I met a young woman who had been in care and who told me she had been sent to 19 different placements, and that with every placement there came a move to a different school. Is it any wonder that her education had been disrupted? We must take the needs of these young people more seriously than we have done in the past. We know the ingredients of good-quality residential care. We know how to ensure that children and young people in care can have the disruption in their lives minimised by our facilitating continued contact with their wider family, their grandparents, their friends and their school. I urge the Government to set up an independent, comprehensive and robust review of residential childcare services in this country. I believe that nothing less will do. In an earlier report, I ended by saying, “Just do it”. Today, I end with a plea to the Minister, “Please do it”.
The Lord Bishop of Leicester
My Lords, it is a privilege and somewhat humbling to follow the noble Lord, Lord Laming, who has made such an impassioned speech. I express my gratitude to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for tabling this important debate, for his eloquent and passionate introduction and for his clear explanation of what it takes to introduce a damaged young person to the idea of trust and love as a basis for adult life.
Given the recent cases of child sexual exploitation in Rochdale, Derby and Torbay that have been widely publicised and the clear failures in our child protection system, this is a timely debate. The stories from those places seem to have a number of features in common. First, children and young people end up in residential care after multiple placement breakdowns caused by their challenging behaviour, or rather caused by the inability of adults to support their needs and uncover what is behind such challenging behaviour. As one young person involved with the Children’s Society put it recently, “No one thinks there is a problem with the placement; it is always the child”.
Secondly, these incidents involve adolescents who have experienced serious abuse and neglect or have witnessed very traumatic events in their lives. Such children need high-quality support but, as others have said so persuasively, they often experience the very opposite. Thirdly, they have run away or have gone missing on numerous occasions, especially while in residential care and those episodes have not been adequately responded to. Fourthly, the most important common thread is that these children were often seen by professionals involved in their lives as troublemakers, unco-operative and beyond help, rather than as troubled young people, crying out for help.
It is important for us to grasp these things if we want to understand why, in many cases, residential care is not meeting the needs of children and young people. It would not be possible to erase a child’s past experience but patience, empathy and perseverance, combined with knowledge and clear systems for multi-agency working and accountability, should help each child to be able to look, with hope, into the future.
It is not only the cases of child sexual exploitation that demonstrate some of the failures in our care system. Serious child case reviews show children in care taking their own lives or dying of drugs overdoses. One of the key indicators that a child is at risk is if they run away. Many of these children have had difficult starts to their lives and experienced neglect, abuse or trauma. As a consequence, these children are often extremely vulnerable, and when they go missing they are in great danger of being physically or sexually exploited.
The recent all-party parliamentary group inquiry into children who go missing from care highlighted, as others have said, the failure of the state to look for the most vulnerable children and laid bare the often appalling and shocking results. So my first major point is that running away should be seen as a sign that a child or young person needs help.
As has already been pointed out, it is estimated that around 10,000 children go missing from care every year, but many of these children go missing repeatedly, amounting to more than 40,000 incidents a year. The link between frequent episodes of running away and the risk of sexual exploitation is absolutely clear. The APPG inquiry into children who go missing from care found that perpetrators target children’s homes specifically because of the high vulnerability of the children in them and how easily they can make contact with the children. I would like to raise with the Minister a point that has already been mentioned. When will the new definitions of “missing” and “absent” currently being piloted by ACPO be published? Will it include an assessment of the risks related to children categorised as absent?
My second point is that placement stability is one of the most important factors determining the success of care experiences, and has a significant impact on long-term outcomes for children in care. Of the 65,000 children looked after in England in 2011, 14,500 children, which is 22%, had two placements during the year, and 11% had three or more placements. Children in care need stability and to build trust with the people in their lives. How can they feel safe if they are moved so many times a year?
I know that the Government are also concerned about the number of cross-boundary placements. From April 2011, local authorities have a duty not only to ensure that there is enough provision in their local area to meet the needs of the children but that decisions about placements outside their local area are made only by request to a senior nominated officer in the authority. Justification has to be presented in each case to demonstrate the benefits of such placements to the young person.
Surely there is a need now to ensure that local authorities are complying with that duty and that children are placed outside of the authority only when it is clearly in their best interests. What are the Government’s plans to ensure that local authorities comply with those duties?
Thirdly, when the Children’s Society consulted with young people in care about the quality of care that they received, young people said that they wanted an opportunity to have regular chats about their lives with someone. Some suggested that it would be good to have informal meetings with their social worker every six weeks “because sometimes you do not understand the badness of the thing you are in”. For young people placed away from their families and friends, “the care system is an isolated place and you do not want to isolate people further”.
Although young people have a right to express their views when decisions are made about their care to and participate in review meetings, and the local authority has a duty to ascertain their wishes and feelings, they often say how powerless they feel and that they are not in control of events that shape their lives. As a result, running away is one of the only ways that they can express that control.
Research demonstrates that where children are listened to, take part in decisions about their care and get explanations about the decisions made, they are more likely to be happy about their placements, more likely to achieve stability and to share information if they do not feel safe. Advocacy is instrumental in ensuring that children are supported to participate in these decisions. What are the Government doing to ensure that children and young people have the support of an advocacy service when they need help with communicating their wishes and feelings to those who make decisions about their lives?
Finally, as others have said, the support and quality of the workforce in children’s homes is critical to a young person’s experience of care. The variable quality of staff in children’s homes working with very vulnerable children is a concerning issue, with standards often unacceptably low, as others have clearly demonstrated. Workforce development and the academic standard of the residential care workforce in England is much lower than in other European countries. The poor levels of training for staff are also often exacerbated by the high changeover in children’s homes due to low pay and an overreliance on agency workers. What are the Government doing to ensure that staff who work in children’s care homes have the same high standards of qualification and training as in other European countries?
Above all, changes are needed in attitudes. As one young person put it to the Children’s Society, “Basically, I used to go missing all the time … and I mentioned to one of the workers, I went to a girl’s house and there was like prostitution going on there. I went back and told one of my care workers about what had happened. They just saw it as prostitution, they thought ‘she might be a prostitute’ and that’s all they wrote down. They never took time to listen to how I felt about it”.
The phrase “they never took time to listen”, is telling. That, above all, illustrates the need for cultural change in residential child care that we must seek in the years ahead.
Baroness Benjamin
My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for securing this important debate and congratulate him on his excellent speech. I declare an interest as a vice-president of the children's charity Barnardo’s, which has extensive knowledge and experience of looked-after children in residential care. I speak today about the charity’s concern.
There are currently more than 6,000 children in residential care homes. These are often the most vulnerable children with the highest levels of need. These children usually do worse on a whole range of measures, including educational achievement and social well-being, than other children in the care system—that is, those who are being fostered or who have been adopted. This is not to argue against the use of residential care. For some, it is the most appropriate, and sometimes the only, option. But we need to make sure that we get it right for these particularly vulnerable children.
I am particularly concerned about the vulnerability of young people in residential care to sexual exploitation. This issue has gathered much attention in the media recently, but Barnardo’s has been working on it for several years. Barnardo’s works with young people who have been exploited and staff hear how men wait outside care homes to befriend these unwitting children. They befriend them with gifts and pretend kindness, waiting for the child to fall in love with them before abusing them.
I want to be clear about what I am talking about. The term “sexual exploitation” is a euphemism. We are talking about young people being manipulated by predatory abusers who often use drink and drugs, and then being raped, often repeatedly. One 15 year-old girl whom Barnardo’s worked with went missing from her residential care home. Eventually, she revealed what was happening to her. A man aged 33, more than twice her age, had been taking her away, abusing her and tying her up, then taking videos of her and posting them on the internet. Barnardo’s hears of how other children return to their care homes with severe physical damage from the rape they experience time and time again. This all makes me weep, and I am sure it makes noble Lords weep too. It shames us as a society that we allow this horror to happen.
Organisations such as Barnardo’s do a lot to repair the damage that is done to these young people, but where a child’s home is provided by the state they should be able to feel safe there, especially as many of these vulnerable children have already been through abusive and traumatic experiences in their young lives. So what needs to be done? We need to look at who is charged with the responsibility of looking after these children. I find it greatly concerning that such a low qualification standard is required in order to work in residential care homes. Underqualified staff may have excellent experience, empathy and interpersonal skills, but specialist qualifications would, if administered correctly, only add to these skills. The national minimum training standards are welcome, but surprisingly they are not a requirement, and therefore we must ensure that best practice becomes common practice. To safeguard and protect these vulnerable children, all staff should be trained to recognise the signs of sexual exploitation such as, for example, prolonged or unexplained absences from the care home, or frequently having unexplained gifts or money. Most important is that they should know how to respond effectively.
Noble Lords may have seen the map of the location of children’s homes published in the Times earlier this year. It shows a clustering of homes in certain areas of the country and demonstrates that the majority of care homes are located in those areas where property is the cheapest. As the noble Lord, Lord Laming, said in his speech, it cannot be right for the price and availability of property to be the key determining factor in where residential care is placed. We clearly should not be putting our most vulnerable young people into areas of high crime, drug use and established sex industries, areas where young children can easily be preyed upon. It does not have to be like this and it should not be like this because there is considerable scope for alternative forms of provision. For example, Barnardo’s is piloting a project that involves using specialist, highly trained foster carers to care for children who are the most at risk of sexual exploitation. It is great that the Government have supported this time-limited pilot, but I urge them to consider how it can be continued and to look at other innovative approaches.
In the debate on the Queen’s Speech, I mentioned that there is also a need for much more joined-up working, in particular between those concerned with child protection and looked-after children, who sadly do not always communicate well. We need to see a real focus from the Government on this issue. They have been paying a lot of attention to adoption and fostering, and this looks to be continued in the children and families Bill. That is most welcome, but we also need to look really carefully at residential care. I want to ask my noble friend if the Government will take this issue seriously and give it some consideration. I await with great interest the report due in December of the quality expert group. It has been looking at the quality of provision in children’s homes, including the commissioning, location and ownership of the homes, as well as the qualifications and skills of the workforce.
Improving the experiences of young people in residential care is not a simple matter and there is certainly no magic bullet. But we have an absolute moral and social duty to do everything we can to care for children who have no one else to care for them. The Government have shown real leadership with their publication of an action plan on sexual exploitation. However, we are only at the beginning of a long road. I urge the Government to consider this matter very carefully, and to act decisively and with urgency to protect the most vulnerable children in society. They deserve it, and we must all make sure that this happens.
Lord Ramsbotham
My Lords, I begin by joining in the congratulations offered to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, on obtaining this debate and pay tribute to his continuous championing not just of the causes of the children we are talking about, but particularly of the staff who have the responsibility of looking after them. I also thank Edward Scott in the Library for producing, as is so often the case, such a comprehensive briefing for us. I want to talk not so much about the particulars of this subject, but rather more generally around the service of looked-after children. Like other noble Lords, I shall quote some of my own experiences as justification for making suggestions.
When I took over as the Chief Inspector of Prisons in 1995, my first experience was that of inspecting Holloway prison, where I discovered that four 15 year-olds were somewhere in the establishment who the governor knew nothing about. When we found them, it turned out that all four had been in care. Immediately I went to see the then Chief Inspector of Social Services, my noble friend Lord Laming. We decided that we had to have some form of partnership so that whenever I went to inspect anywhere where children were incarcerated, I would have a social services inspector with me. My noble friend ensured that an inspector would be available. During the first inspection we carried out of an establishment holding children, the social services inspector and I found all sorts of horrors which should not have been happening, not least that the Prison Service was claiming Crown immunity from the Children Act 1989; in other words, the status of children was not being officially recognised. We fought against that, even threatening to take the Secretary of State to judicial review. Eventually it was overruled.
It was symptomatic of the way children were being treated. We were also shocked to find that 55% of young offenders had experience of care and, as others have said, many of them had been in care either for their whole lives or in excess of two years. Most disturbing of all was the frequency of change of location, foster parents and social workers. The result was that we agreed that it would be sensible for the different inspectorates to come together and produce a joint inspection to which we would all contribute since we were all dealing with a particular aspect of safeguarding children. The first joint inspectors’ report was published in October 2002, and I shall quote two paragraphs from it. Paragraph 4.18 states that,
“some young people in care have reported in the past that they had had five or six social workers over the past year, and so had lost confidence in social workers and looked for continuity and consistency of planning to the chairperson of their reviews”.
That is absolutely the wrong way of going about it. Further on in the report, paragraph 4.41 states:
“Staff from many agencies emphasised the importance of regular supervision. They saw it as a key element in maintaining quality and therefore safeguarding children. They reported that frequency and quality of supervision could vary. The quality of supervision was strongest within the probation service where it was backed up with regular appraisal”.
Before taking part in the debate I checked to see whether that last sentence was still the case. Sadly, it is not, because of what has happened to the probation service in recent years. I would ask the Minister to take note of that, because next week we are to start work again on the Crime and Courts Bill, and we will focus on the importance of having a viable probation service, which makes a very important link to some of these looked-after children.
What are we doing about this? I will tell the House a little bit about where we are getting with an organisation called the Secure Foundation—formerly the Young Offenders Academy—which is an attempt to produce a different type of looking after children who come into the hands of the criminal justice system and the state. It is a combination of the Foyer Federation’s accommodation for homeless children, custody for those who are the bottom end of the criminal spectrum, and looking after those serving community sentences, who are on the cusp between the two. The idea is to set up one site within a one-mile radius by public transport so that people are available, and give these children activities, education, work and substance abuse treatment, of course, but also other activities linked to the local area.
The key thing that came out of the advisory board that looked at all this, which included social workers, local government and other people, was that it is essential that there should be long-term contact with a responsible adult. That is why people should not be moved. This project is now called the Secure Foundation because the emphasis is on the security of young people, and it is currently being targeted in Haringey following the riots. Thankfully, the Mayor of London is co-operating with a number of organisations which have produced money for a pilot. It is interesting that this focusing also includes the problem of the children in care, who of course will qualify for attending such an academy, where they will have that long-term contact with people who can help them.
I am chairman of the All-Party Group on Speech and Language Difficulties, which has been conducting an inquiry into the link between social disadvantage and speech, language and communication needs. I pay tribute to the Minister because his interest in this subject is recognised and hugely appreciated by all those working in the area. We have come up with some very disturbing facts and figures that show that children with high IQs from poor backgrounds—I do not mean poor financially but in terms of care—are overtaken at the age of five and a half by children with low IQs from good backgrounds. This is not acceptable.
I am very encouraged that the Department of Health and the Department for Education are developing pathways for regular assessment of children linked to remedial treatment to enable them all to engage with education at the age of seven, and go on through the system. I am aware that there is a lot of work going on with those with special educational needs and disabilities, but we must not forget the ones with difficulties, and who do we find coming out as the most victimised in all the disadvantage that we see? It is children in care. As they are the state’s responsibility, this should not be.
My final two points concern oversight and supervision. I was very sad when the office of Chief Inspector of Social Services was abolished in 2005, not because it was failing but as a budgetary measure. Thankfully, this House saved some of the other inspectorates but not that one. I think that the movement of young people to Ofsted and the elderly to the CQC has made social services the poor relation of both, and that there is a link between some of the troubles that have happened and the loss of that inspectorate. I ask the Minister very seriously to investigate bringing back the Social Services Inspectorate so that there really is a champion, as there used to be, to make certain that the consistency of delivery of services, particularly to children in care, can be restored.
Secondly, in the Queen’s Speech it was said that the roles of the Children’s Commissioner and the Children’s Rights Director would be brought together. I understand that that is going to be discussed in the children and families Bill that is to come before this House next year. At the moment the Children’s Rights Director has responsibility for children in care. It is very important that whoever takes over the joint post should have responsibility for all children in the care of the state, whether in care or custody or wherever. The key word that must be in all their care is consistency. The chances are that if someone is overseeing the result of the neglect that happens in care when children come into custody, they may be the champion to lead us out of this.
Finally, I cannot help citing an experience in 1812—I was not there myself—when my regiment was marching to inevitable disaster at Walcheren. The people whom my regiment was relieving called out, “Bad luck, boys—you, too, are being made the sport of theory”. I hope to goodness that theory can end and fact can drive forward the treatment of these children.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, it is always a great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham. As usual, we have all learned a great deal from what he has said. I join other speakers in thanking my noble friend Lord Listowel for this debate and paying tribute to his undoubted expertise in and concern for high standards in the area of looked-after children.
This afternoon’s debate is not dissimilar from the one that took place a few weeks ago on the importance of child development and well-being—except that this debate is focused not just on ensuring well-being for all UK children, vital though that is, but on effectively protecting the most vulnerable group of children from exploitation and sexual abuse. Of course, I mean children who, for one reason or another, have had to be placed in the care of their local authority.
I am not going to repeat the concerns I expressed in that debate about the potential for exploiting such vulnerable children through the rapid growth of complex modern media techniques—except perhaps to say that Jimmy Savile’s horrifying and equally undetected volume of crimes has reminded us of yet another area of child abuse and exploitation that has remained hidden for far too long. That appalling discovery is on top of the Rochdale gang of nine men recently sent to prison who, as we know, had deliberately targeted, groomed and sexually abused looked-after children from local residential care homes.
We also know that the number of children trafficked into the UK has risen, with the official number of 234 children in 2011 believed in reality to be more than double that, with about half of these trafficked for sexual exploitation. Today, like other noble Lords who have spoken, I want to be reassured that some of the most glaring inadequacies in service standards are going to be addressed and tackled; above all, that there will be much better information-gathering and indeed agreement about what basic information is required as well as shared.
The Children’s Society is surely right to be concerned that children who go missing repeatedly are not, apparently, always considered to be at risk. It is surely not sensible that Ofsted does not share the location of children’s homes with local police, thus reducing their ability to safeguard effectively. I hope that the Minister will be able to report that a change in this practice is under way.
Another issue is that, in some parts of the country, looked-after children often experience multiple placements and are often located a long distance from family and friends, also involving quite often a change in school. Surely, as others have said, the only acceptable reason for moving a young person out of their home area is if it is clearly in their best interests. There is far too little emphasis as well on what each looked-after child wants and whether the local authority has genuinely listened and acted on their wishes. For them to have the right to an advocate to speak on their behalf on these issues is therefore essential. So it is disturbing to hear that, although theoretically available, one third of all local authorities do not report any spending on this service. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester, I hope that the Minister will confirm that the Government are considering giving all children in local authority care a statutory right to independent advocacy as part of placement planning.
It is surely interesting—in fact, I would say extraordinary—that nearly half the 5,000 children living in children’s homes are apparently placed outside their local authority area despite the fact that local authorities have a duty to provide sufficient homes within their own area. It will be valuable to hear the Government’s view on that.
As I have mentioned already, placements outside a child’s home local authority often also include the need to change schools, which can have an unsettling effect on looked-after children’s academic results. A 2011 study showed that only 53% of looked-after pupils achieved the expected level in English and only 52% in maths at key stage 2, compared to the average student’s achievement of 82% in English and 80% in maths. Therefore, monitoring and supporting looked-after pupils’ academic achievement is clearly important. School governors have some responsibility for admissions, and under certain circumstances, as we know, a looked-after child can be admitted even if the school is already full. That is in addition to the school’s duty to prioritise looked-after children if the school is oversubscribed. All these are fairly recent changes, but we need to hear how they are working and that they are being followed. Again, I hope that the Minister will agree that all our schools should continue to give particular emphasis to ensuring that looked-after pupils achieve their potential.
The last issue that I want to address is the importance of the use of early intervention policies, particularly with families which have had problems for generations. So much money could be saved and the potential of young lives realised if this approach was prioritised. Certainly, the fact that many more midwives and health visitors are being recruited over the next few years will be an important step in the right direction, particularly if that is combined with more co-operation, training and information-sharing between all professionals involved. Voluntary organisations such as Home-Start already play an important role here. They need proper recognition and support, as do kinship carers and foster parents. Noble Lords have already mentioned the importance of additional support or funding for fostered children who need an additional period of placement from, for example, age 18 to 22. With all these schemes, as we all know, adequate resources are vital to seeing that results are achieved.
It is heartening to note that all directors of children’s services across the country are clearly concerned about these inadequate standards. In their paper, What is Care For?, they ask for a total re-examination of the care system. Andrew Webb, vice-president of ADCS and one of the authors of the paper, has said:
“The care system serves some of the most vulnerable children and young people in our society, and sometimes, frankly, it does not serve them as well as it could”.
Let that be encouragement to the Minister and the Government to show what really important changes they can make.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for introducing this very timely debate and pay tribute to the work that he has done in this House. Ever since I have been in it, he has been a great champion for looked-after children and done a great deal to bring them to our attention and that of successive Governments, which is a substantial achievement.
Perhaps it is because I am an economist by training that I quite often like to start by trying to put a problem into perspective in terms of figures. Therefore, I found the House of Commons briefing, which came out in May this year and provides some of the statistics about children in care, very interesting. It told me—and a number of people have mentioned this already—that there are some 65,000 looked-after children in England, which is a very small proportion, about 0.6%, of the total number of children in this country. The figure has increased slightly during the past five years. In 2007, it was 59,000. Perhaps the influence of Baby P and the Haringey affair connected with it have meant that more children have been placed into care.
Most of these young people in care—58% of them—are aged from 10 to 18, while 36% are aged one to nine and 6% are under one. Boys account for 56% of them and girls 44%; 77% are white and 23% black, ethnic minority or of mixed race. I found this an interesting set of statistics: 62% are in care because of abuse or neglect at home, 12% because they come from dysfunctional families and 9% because of family stress. In other words, 83% of those in care are there because of problems with their families and 62% of them because there has been neglect or abuse at home. That is very significant. Only 14%, about 8,000, are in residential accommodation, putting children’s homes, residential care homes and residential schools together. Although there has been a change in the law, approximately half of these are still outside the area where their family is located. In other words, they cannot easily meet up with their families, with all the consequences that a number of noble Lords have drawn attention to.
The cost to the state of those in residential care is about £1 billion a year. In other words, each one of those young people costs the state rather over £100,000. The cost of those in foster care—the large majority of them—is £2.5 billion, approximately £37,000 per child. When the noble Lord, Lord Laming, talked about the financial advantages of putting children into foster care, you can see the difference. I know that the local authority where I live, Surrey County Council, has been much influenced by the very substantial cost of putting children into residential care, partly because it managed to close most of its own residential homes and has had a very expensive time trying to cope with the number of young children.
As my noble friend Lady Brinton mentioned, it is not surprising that we see quite a number of children running away, particularly from residential care, yet there are no adequate statistics at the moment. Again, I echo noble Lords who have asked the Minister whether we are going to get some adequate statistics about those who are running away. In the light of all this, it is not really surprising that these vulnerable young people, many of whom have been abused to start with at home, should find themselves involved in the many cases there have been over the years including, recently, those in Rochdale and Derby, and perhaps not least the Jimmy Savile situation, which has been very much before us over the past few weeks.
I was interested in the quotation that was given in the briefing produced for us by the Library. I pay tribute to Edward Scott, because I thought it was an extremely useful briefing. It quoted the chief executive of Barnardo’s, who said:
“Our services have heard countless stories of men waiting outside care homes to befriend these unwitting children, some as young as twelve, desperate for love”,
which picks up a point made by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, about the need for these young people to feel, and to be, loved. The chief executive continued:
“Men attract them with flashy cars, gifts and feigned kindness, waiting for the child to fall in love with them before abusing them on a scale which is incomprehensible to most, but sadly very real”.
I will quote two further bits that come from the same briefing. One is from the review from the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre:
“Offenders often act together, establishing a relationship with a child or children before sexually exploiting them. Some victims of ‘street grooming’ may believe that the offender is in fact an older ‘boyfriend’; these victims introduce their peers to the offender group who might then go on to be sexually exploited as well. Abuse may occur at a number of locations within a region and on several occasions. ‘Localised grooming’ was the term used by CEOP in the intelligence requests issued to police forces and other service agencies in order to define the data we wished to receive”.
Given that situation, it is and was extremely disturbing that the internal review from Rochdale stated:
“However, for those children who came into contact with children’s social care, it often appeared that ‘no further action’ would be taken. Case files state that the children were often considered to be ‘making their own choices’ and to be ‘engaging in consensual sexual activity’”.
That is extremely disturbing, but there is a real dilemma for those who run children’s homes. They often contain some of the more difficult young people, 14, 15 and 16 year-olds who have proved to be difficult to put into or keep in foster care. Do you treat those young people reasonably as grown-ups, or do you lock them up? Locking them up just makes them more resentful. If you want them to grow into adults and take responsibility for their lives, the last thing that we want to do is for those homes to be seen as prisons.
The response one sees in Rochdale reminds one very much of the problem that arose in relation to Victoria Climbié and Baby P: a failure of joined-up working on the part of the local agencies, which, because of those failures, missed opportunities to take early and preventive action. I had cause to discuss issues of youth policy with Surrey Police not long ago, and one issue that came up on that occasion was its feeling that it wanted to work much more closely not just with local social services but with schools. As it pointed out, often, if the family is chaotic and dysfunctional, the schools see things happening before anybody else, because the children react at school. It said that it would be so useful if it knew when children were misbehaving in school sometimes, because that would make it aware of the fact that problems were rising in that family and then it, and social services, could take preventive action.
Many of us have asked: where should we go? I pick up on the basic recommendations of the Munro report. What should be done about this? One aspect is early intervention. Where there are dysfunctional or chaotic families or where abuse is known, the sooner one can put together teams that work with that family, the more probable it is that something can be done about it. We want early intervention wherever possible.
Eileen Munro’s second recommendation is to give professionals the time and scope to do the job properly. The story that we have heard so frequently is of inconsistent care, of so many placements, so many social workers—due to the turnover, and so forth. We also know how hard pressed many social workers are, what huge caseloads they are often expected to bear and the fact that they are not given the time to do the job properly. It came up in the Munro report that too much time is spent on bureaucracy and that there are too many tick-boxes, and not enough time looking after the children—developing, as the noble Lord, Lord Laming, said, the therapeutic and healing processes necessary.
I have two final points: the need for more joined-up thinking; and the point that the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and others made, the need for proper training, continued emphasis on training and the quality of people in the service.
Baroness Hollins
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Listowel for securing this debate and for his important opening speech. I worked for many years as a child psychiatrist and a psychiatrist with children and adults with learning disabilities, and have had a research and clinical interest in the mental health and behavioural consequences of abuse.
My daughter is also a consultant psychiatrist working with troubled parents and their infants, so I will start my contribution by reflecting on the importance of secure attachments for all children. As my noble friend said so powerfully, children who have been rejected, neglected or abused have to learn to love and learn to trust—possibly for the first time. Early intervention is critical, and we know from American research that family health partnerships are effective in reducing the need for care away from the child’s own family, and have longer-term intergenerational benefits. Do not forget that a large percentage of girls leaving care are pregnant within a year. The provision of peer mentors is a promising initiative that is being evaluated in a study at St George’s, University of London by Gill Mezey and her team in the hope of easing the transition to adulthood for these vulnerable young women.
Some of the most vulnerable parents are those with learning disabilities. This is a group that I have worked with as a psychiatrist. It is almost standard practice for their children to be taken into care. I will say more about this shortly. I will also draw attention to the high number of children with learning disabilities placed in care. Commissioning the right mental health services is very important. Child and adolescent mental health services treat serious diagnosed disorders, but we need more preventive services too and we need more skilled practitioners who recognise the signs of abuse and its emotional and behavioural impact. This means better training of front-line staff, but also more integrated services and better awareness of the mental health needs of disabled looked-after children. In the light of recent child protection failures, the emotional well-being of looked-after children must be first and foremost. It is the key to the prevention of abuse and exploitation, and it is equally important in the healing process after abuse has occurred. What we see time and time again is how crucial early identification and intervention are for those entering the care system. Crucially, since the national child and adolescent mental health services review report in 2008, little seems to have changed according to both young people in care and professionals.
Children under five raised in institutions experience more psychiatric disorders, but those placed in stable foster homes have much better mental well-being and securer attachments. One review of data sources in England estimated that disabled children constitute between 10% and 25% of the looked-after population. Disabled children may be particularly vulnerable to abuse and neglect, which is a common reason for entry into care. The NSPCC reports that children with disabilities are 3.8 times more likely to be neglected, 3.8 times more likely to be physically abused, more than three times more likely to be sexually abused and four times more likely to be emotionally abused than other children. Children with learning disabilities in care are even more likely to run away than other children.
Disabled children in England are a distinct subgroup who are less likely to achieve a permanent placement. Research suggests that disabled children are more likely to display a high level of behaviour that their carers find challenging. This is particularly relevant when we think about stability. Evidence suggests that emotional and behavioural problems have a strong association with placement breakdown. Research shows that the prevalence of mental disorders decreases with the length of time a child has spent in a stable placement. Half of those who have been in their current placement for less than a year have mental health problems compared to a third of children who have been in their current placement for at least five years. That is an improvement.
The findings show that, despite various changes in policies and provision of care, the prevalence of children with recognisable mental health disorders—around three-quarters—has not diminished. For those trying to access services, Sheffield City Council and NHS Sheffield found that in February more than 260 looked-after children had been waiting for child and adolescent mental health services for more than 18 weeks, with some facing waits of up to 44 weeks. This is not acceptable. Services are not flexible enough. Children are expected to go to them instead of the services being flexible and approachable, which these children need.
Difficulties that local authorities have in finding placements for disabled children result in inappropriate placements, including the use of 52-week-a-year boarding schools or, and I myself know of examples of this, disabled children being placed in respite provision, where every week different children will be sharing their corridor, their bathroom and their mealtimes. Permanent placements for disabled children in respite facilities are not acceptable. Disabled children might be placed in adult residential facilities rather than family placements. Local authorities have also documented an increased use of out-of-area placements for disabled children so they are likely to live further away from their families and communities, creating problems in monitoring and problems for their families in maintaining contact. This is especially the case for children with learning disabilities, who may sometimes require psychiatric in-patient admission as well. There are very few specialist units that would accept children with a learning disability who had mental health problems or challenging behaviour. One of the learning points from the Winterbourne View abuses was that abuse is more likely to happen when the person is placed far from home. The victims in that case were adults, of course, but we should have the same concerns for disabled children who are placed away from home.
Then there are the children with a mild or borderline learning disability. They are unlikely to attend youth groups of any sort and often have a background of abuse, making them more vulnerable to sophisticated grooming techniques. This form of exploitation, as we know and have heard today in several speeches, often begins with positive attention from adults, something that these children particularly crave. Flattery and gifts are a new experience for them and they welcome it. They may not have the insight into social behaviours and relationships to determine that while this is how things are beginning, it is most certainly not how they will end.
The education of front-line staff is necessary with regard to spotting the tell-tale signs of possible abuse: a new mobile phone, new clothes or an older man presenting as a boyfriend. Not only is education necessary but the empowerment of front-line staff and carers to communicate their concerns to relevant bodies is essential. Carers may not have the confidence that they have the skill set necessary to make a judgment call over a complex situation. They may feel that they are not expert enough to determine a young person’s capacity to engage in a particular behaviour. These carers need support and training to help them with these difficult situations. Even for a professional it can be difficult to make a capacity assessment on a 17 year-old girl with a mild learning disability, a complex social background and mental health issues who is engaging in sexual behaviours.
Education is also needed before children reach care. Many parents try to use social services to assist them with the emotional and behavioural difficulties that they are experiencing with their children, but they often do not get past the duty desk. Those who do not meet the threshold criteria for a service but who often have a need for mental health services may not be recognised, and may not know where to turn for help. A survey of 440 childcare social workers found that 30% were unaware of local resources available to support the children and families of, for example, those with ADHD. Many inexperienced practitioners did not recognise the importance of psychiatric assessment.
Without appropriate support, training and confidence, how can we expect carers to know that they are the ones probably best placed to carry out such an assessment and, if required, intervention? Empowering those who care is the key to offering these children the protection that they deserve and the chance to enjoy the innocence of childhood.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, I thank the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for tabling this debate today and add my tribute to his tenacity and effectiveness in pursuing the interests of vulnerable and looked-after children. As it happens, regrettably, child protection issues have been highlighted in the media again recently, but the noble Earl’s strength is that he has continued to champion these issues consistently, long after the media circus has moved on. I also thank all the other noble Lords who have contributed to this thoughtful and challenging debate.
Although we will have differences with the party opposite on some issues, this is not primarily a party-political debate. There is no monopoly of wisdom when it comes to managing the damaging fallout that can occur from family breakdown. There have been child protection failures under both Labour and Conservative Governments. While we remain proud of the progress that the previous Government made on child safeguarding, clearly more needs to be done.
Many of the issues raised in the debate today go to the heart of good parenting. Good parents struggle to balance their children’s welfare with their freedoms. The rules and expectations change from generation to generation, complicated by the fact that new models of family unit are becoming more common. Meanwhile, we know that children are reaching puberty at an earlier age. The sexualisation of young girls through media and celebrity is heightening the pressures upon them. Personal, social and sexual education is being marginalised in the curriculum, leaving children without the tools to spot and avoid exploitation. For example, at its very simplest level, teenagers need help in differentiating between lust and love. They need to identify what is a real boyfriend, as a number of people have mentioned in the debate this afternoon.
For good, committed parents, guiding their children’s growth and development in this minefield is a challenge. When the state has to step in as a substitute parent, the dilemmas quickly multiply. The noble Lord, Lord Laming, rightly emphasised that there is a moral duty on the state as well as a statutory responsibility to step up to the plate in the role of a good parent. He has talked about how challenging that can be.
I am not saying the care system cannot get things right. Of course it can. As we have heard, there are wonderful success stories of transformative fostering, adoption and residential home placements. We need to learn from these examples and celebrate them, but the reality is that they are still not getting it right in sufficient numbers enough of the time.
We are all too aware of harrowing stories of care system failures and we are rightly shocked and angry that this can be allowed to happen. However, regrettably, behind the headlines are everyday stories of parental neglect and abuse with which the care system is struggling to cope. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, gave a moving example of the potential personality disorders that can be faced by children who feel at a young age rejected and unable to be loved and respond to love. What is the fate of those children? We know, for example that the number of children in local authority care is rising from a number of statistics mentioned this afternoon. The research that I have uncovered talks about the number reaching over 67,000 last year. The prime cause of those children being taken into care is to protect them from neglect or abuse.
Unfortunately, however, we also know that the subsequent life chances for those young people are not good. For example, the gap between the educational achievements of looked-after children compared with their peers is actually growing, with just 13% of children in care achieving 5 GCSEs A to C grades last year, compared with 57% of all children. We also know that looked-after children are three times more likely to end up unemployed than their peers. These failings in the care system are not headline grabbing, but they still stand as a reminder of how we are failing these young people on a day-to-day basis.
What needs to be done? One of the things that became clear when I was researching material for this debate was the wealth of independent analysis and advice on child protection issues which has been commissioned in recent years, including Select Committee reports, all-party parliamentary group reports and the excellent reports from the noble Lord, Lord Laming, and Professor Munro. All have provided wise and thoughtful counsel on this issue, and contain good, practical advice on assessing and managing the complex issues involved. I also pay tribute to the work of the all-party group on children who go missing in care, and that of the deputy children’s commissioner into child sexual exploitation. Both reports contain far-reaching recommendations on the training of staff, the location of residential homes, the role of safety risk assessments, the need for better liaison with the police and the responsibilities of local authorities and Ofsted to drive up standards.
Their recommendations are urgent and compelling, and I join other noble Lords in hoping that the Minister will be able to update us this afternoon on the progress being made, for example, to improve the data on children missing from care; on clarifying the responsibility of Ofsted to share locations of children’s homes with the police; and on the steps being taken to prevent the scandal of out-of-borough placements being made for economic reasons rather than in the interests of the child.
Beyond that, there are three more fundamental themes that I would like to highlight today. First, improving the quality of relationships between the child and those charged with protecting them is crucial. Children have to have adults in their lives who they absolutely trust. The adults have to understand the children’s lives and have high expectations and aspirations for them. Continuity and the provision of long-term support from a caring and loving adult should be at the heart of our care provision. As we have heard, the more that placements break down, the less likely it is that a subsequent placement will be a success. It becomes a downward spiral. Even though we know that, more than 10% of children in care are being moved more than three times a year. As the noble Lord, Lord Laming, quite rightly expressed it, they simply become lost in the system.
I agree with the previous Children’s Minister, who argued that the possibility of a placement breakdown should be treated with as much concern as a child being removed from its birth family. Therefore, will the Minister update the House on the steps being taken by the Government to minimise these multiple placements? Decent relationships cannot be formed if front-line professionals do not have the time, resources and training they need to support the child. Social worker caseloads are on the increase, with one in six social workers having more than 40 cases and more than half believing that their caseload is unmanageable.
The sector continues to suffer a crisis in morale and there is a worrying lack of experienced social workers staying in the system, with many quoting burnout as a key reason for the high turnover. That is why we support initiatives to raise the professional standing of social work, including raising the status of the College of Social Work, the appointment of a chief social worker and a fast-track system similar to Teach First in education which would train top graduates and guarantee employment, provided they commit to a minimum of two years working with disadvantaged children. As we have heard today, we also need to address the particular skills gap and the undervaluing of the work of those in the residential care sector, as has been effectively highlighted by a number of noble Lords.
However, regrettably, the situation on the ground is destined to worsen as the huge cuts in the early intervention grant, youth services and local authority children’s services feed through the system. The Children Act 2004, quite rightly, made it a statutory duty for the police, health and children’s agencies to work together on child protection but the funding for all those sectors is under attack and they are retreating back to their core functions rather than prioritising co-operation. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, and the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, both gave very moving examples of what can happen when you do not have joined-up working and, conversely, the advantages that can occur when this is addressed effectively.
Meanwhile, there are now more than twice as many staff employed in the education department’s free school unit as there are in the safeguarding unit. So while we all understand that there is pressure on budgets, it does also come down to government priorities. Will the Minister agree to look again at what more can be done to ensure that agencies involved in child protection are obliged to work collaboratively with adequate, and ring-fenced, funding?
Finally, it is absolutely paramount that we continue to put the needs of children and young people before their parents or any other adults, and that they are given a strong voice in decisions that affect them. They have a right to be heard, and systems have to be in place to ensure this is a reality. As we have heard, running away from care or befriending potential exploiters is a graphic way of children asserting some control over their own lives, however misplaced that can be. As the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, rightly said, the solution cannot simply be to lock them up as a result of that. I echo the views of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and others, in supporting the case for an independent advocate who can form a lasting, and I hope trusted, relationship as a vital first step in strengthening children’s voices. I hope that the Minister can confirm that that will be actioned.
Sadly, we cannot guarantee that there will be no further child protection failures, but we already know many of the steps that are needed to minimise such tragedies in future, including those proposed by Professor Munro and the deputy children’s commissioner. The very least that we can do is to ensure that their recommendations are implemented speedily and in full. I look forward to hearing that the Minister concurs with this view and that the Government are now ready to act.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)
My Lords, we have heard, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, said, a number of thoughtful, powerful and at times moving contributions to this afternoon. Like others, I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for giving us this opportunity. It is a timely debate in a number of ways, because the issues that we have been discussing are very much in the news at the moment and because precisely the issues that have been raised by noble Lords are ones that my honourable friend Mr Timpson, the Children’s Minister, and the Secretary of State are considering actively. We have set up various groups, looking precisely at those issues, to which I will come back in a moment. I will ensure that all the contributions that we have had this afternoon are fed into that process, and I know that Mr Timpson will be interested to see all of them.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, for the way in which she approached the issues this afternoon. I agree this is not a party political issue. Governments of all complexions have tried hard, and often sadly come up short, to make progress. I would argue that early on this Government signalled their determination to improve the life chances of children in care, and have acted with urgency to bring about reform. My Secretary of State was himself adopted, and the new Children’s Minister grew up with over 80 foster children. I say this, not to claim some virtue on their behalf, but because both of them know from their personal experience the transformational power of care when things go well and the terrible waste when they do not. I speak for both of them when I say that they certainly understand the urgency of action, which is a theme that all noble Lords this afternoon have picked up in different ways.
We certainly know that the life chances generally and the educational achievement of most looked-after children is far worse than for other children. We have heard some of the figures already about performance in GCSEs. We know that over one-third of care leavers are not in education, employment and training, compared with around 17% for other young people. But behind the headline figures that we have heard this afternoon, there is quite a lot of variation across the country. We know that in some local authority areas 26% of children who have been in care for 12 months will get their 5 GCSEs, including English and maths, while in others that figure is only 6%. The rates for care leavers who are not in education, employment or training range from 15% in some local authorities to 69% in others. This variation shows how far we have to travel, but also gives us grounds for hope, because if all areas could do as well as the best, we could make real progress. That is one of the reasons why last year the Prime Minister announced that we will publish performance tables which show how well local authorities are looking after children in care. That will help us share best practice.
We have talked this afternoon about a whole range of issues affecting looked-after children: adoption; the importance of the workforce, which was a recurring theme; fostering; and healthcare. I will come back to what we are doing in all these areas, but I think it is important to start by taking head on, and talking about, the most extreme cases of failure of the sort that were brought so horribly to our attention by the case in Rochdale, but also others about which we have heard this afternoon. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, rightly asked me for an update.
On the day that the Rochdale court case ended, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State asked the deputy children’s commissioner to produce an accelerated report of her child sexual exploitation inquiry focusing on the particular risks facing looked after-children in children’s homes. The Government have also benefited from the excellent joint inquiry carried out by the two all-party groups, in which I know the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, had an important hand. Together, those highlighted three main areas for action, of which the first was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, but others alluded to it. The first main area for action concerns the need for better and more consistent data and for better information sharing. I agree with noble Lords that we cannot have a situation where the figures published by the Department for Education on the number of children missing from care are so different from those produced by the police. Neither should we have a situation where Ofsted cannot share the names and addresses of children’s homes with the police, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, rightly pointed out.
The second area that was raised concerns out-of-area placements. While there can be reasons for children to be placed out of area, a figure of 45% seems on the face of it to be far too high. I agree with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Laming, about the questions that that high figure gives rise to, some of which are economic, as he rightly pointed out.
The third area concerns the quality of the care and the provision offered. We announced at the beginning of July the immediate steps that we would take and I will quickly run through them. My noble friend Lady Sharp of Guildford referred to data. We have written to all local authorities asking them to review their own data collections and to check their figures against those collected by local police forces. The department has been working over the summer with an expert group involving representatives from children’s services, Ofsted, ACPO, The Children’s Society and others to develop a proposal for a better data collection system. That group’s work has largely concluded and my ministerial colleagues will consider the recommendations put to them. I hope that as a result of that we will be able to address these important issues that have been raised. The deputy children’s commissioner’s report and the joint inquiry both recommended that we should make it possible for Ofsted to share information about the location of children’s homes with other relevant authorities, not just with the police, as appropriate. Work on that is already in hand and we will consult on amended regulations to make that possible later in the autumn.
Out-of-area placements were raised initially by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester and, towards the end of the debate, by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins. We announced in July that we would set up a group specifically to advise us on out-of-area placements. It has been looking at a range of issues, including the dependence of some local authorities on out-of-area children’s homes, which are often situated a considerable distance away—indeed, many miles away. The group has been considering how to ensure that there is much better scrutiny, planning and assessment of needs and risks before decisions are taken to place a child at a distance. It has also been looking at whether further changes to the care planning framework are required to ensure that local authorities will always respond appropriately when difficulties emerge in children’s placements and at the need for all children’s homes to work collaboratively with their local police forces and other local safeguarding services. It has also been looking at the respective responsibilities of the placing authority and the host authority to make sure that there is no slip between those, and at their responsibilities for monitoring the quality of the care in homes and the steps they should take if they consider that a home is failing to offer children the supervision and support that they need. That group has been meeting frequently over the summer. It finished its work at the end of September and its proposals will shortly be made for Ministers’ consideration.
I turn more generally to the quality of provision. A third group was set up and given a broad remit to look at the quality of provision, including the qualifications and skills of the workforce. It is looking at questions relating to models of ownership and location of homes, a point raised by my noble friend Lady Benjamin; how to improve commissioning practice; considering how homes can offer better environments to help children overcome their difficulties; what staff development is needed to manage children’s behaviour; and considering the effectiveness of current arrangements to drive improvements across the sector. It is open to this group to consider the kind of issues raised by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, when he talked about the appointment of a champion. The group has been meeting monthly over the summer and is carrying on meeting. It is due to finish its work in December, following which Ministers will consider what further action is necessary in the light of its recommendations. I am not able to announce precisely what those next steps are but I hope I have been able to demonstrate that a large amount of work is being taken forward which looks precisely at the issues raised today. Over and above this, officials have been getting a better understanding of the issues by visiting 20 local authorities. In addition to visits to children’s homes, they have spoken to practitioners, commissioners and, of course, children and young people themselves.
That is a quick update on where we are on residential childcare. If I may, I will summarise other steps we are taking to improve support for looked-after children across a broader front. We have been taking action to improve the progress of adoption, to increase the number and quality of foster parents, to raise the quality of the workforce, to raise educational achievement and, importantly, to improve support for care leavers.
On adoption, in March 2012 the Government published an action plan for adoption to speed up the process. We will introduce new primary legislation to prevent local authorities from delaying an adoption by searching for a perfect match, particularly around the child’s ethnicity. We will make it easier for children to be fostered by approved prospective adopters while the courts consider the case for adoption so that they can stay in one home with the same parents and the chopping and changing that noble Lords have referred to can be minimised. If a match has not been found locally within three months of a child being recommended for adoption, they will be referred to a national adoption register so they can find a match in a wider pool of prospective adopters.
As far as fostering is concerned, we are working with the sector to strengthen long-term fostering arrangements, particularly for older children. We are trying to increase the numbers and range of people coming forward to foster and to increase placement quality and matching. We will develop training and support for foster carers and the social workers involved in fostering to improve knowledge sharing and support good practice. I would argue that fostering is consistent with a regular family setting and that children and young people can benefit from placements, but I agree with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Laming, that for others a children’s home may be a more appropriate offer. We should not think that that is a placement of last resort and that all children should automatically be placed in foster arrangements.
The quality of the workforce was an important theme discussed this afternoon. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, talked particularly about a workforce having the confidence to be able to work with these vulnerable children and stand up to a range of different people in the promotion of their interests. We are looking to receive proposals from the expert group looking at quality on how to raise the skills and competence of care workers and managers in children’s homes.
The very first review set up by the Secretary of State after the Government came in in May 2010 asked Professor Eileen Munro to conduct a wide-ranging review of child protection. She noted concerns that social work had become over-regulated and that the profession needed to move towards greater professional control, which was a point made by my noble friend Lady Sharp of Guildford. The 15 recommendations made by Professor Munro in her final report will help to create a less bureaucratic system and an environment where social workers are better able to focus on the needs of children, young people and families. I completely agree with the points about the need to raise the level of skills and qualifications in the children’s home workforce. That is why the expert working group is looking at whether the entry level of skills and qualifications needs to be raised. It will explore models used in other countries, the potential place of specialisms and the scope for professional registration.
I was asked specifically about progress on the appointment of a new chief social worker, which was one of the recommendations in Professor Munro’s report. The Department for Education and the Department of Health carried out a recruitment exercise for the chief social worker over the summer but, first time around, that did not lead to a suitable candidate being identified. Ministers are looking at a revised specification and we expect to advertise shortly. I will be able to update the House on that soon. The Government are extremely supportive of the work led by the Social Work Reform Board and the College of Social Work to drive up standards in the social work profession. As to the specific point about learning from the Centre for Excellence for Looked After Children in Scotland, DfE officials have had discussions with it and I agree that we should seek to learn from that experience, in particular in relation to the scope for professional regulation and improved qualification requirements.
Education was another theme. The Government have taken a number of steps to try to promote the interests of looked-after children. For example, they now attract the pupil premium. We have made sure that looked-after children have top priority in school admission arrangements, which is important. One piece of evidence that comes up repeatedly is that too many children in care end up in the poorest schools. Therefore, we should consider giving them priority in admissions arrangements for the best and most popular schools. Looked-after children are a priority group to receive the maximum amount for the 16 to 19 bursary. We have also made sure that they will be prioritised for a free early-years place for two year-olds.
We have encouraged local authorities to have a senior education officer, a virtual school head, to track the progress of every child in care so that they receive the support they need. I accept that practice varies, and we will therefore continue to explore what more can be done to bring greater consistency to the role of the virtual school head. Every school, including academies, also has a legal duty to have a designated teacher for looked-after children. That teacher works with the virtual school head to make sure that the child’s personal education plan is being implemented.
The interests of the child are clearly not just educational—as the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, and the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, reminded us; the emotional well-being and the broader well-being of the child are equally important. All local authorities have to ensure that looked-after children have a health plan, and the pathway plans for care leavers address health issues. They must have an annual health assessment that covers their mental and physical health. There is statutory guidance in place, binding on local authorities and the NHS, about their respective roles and responsibilities in meeting those needs. The headline message the guidance seeks to emphasise to local authorities and the NHS is that the health assessment for looked-after children should not be an isolated event but part of a continuous activity to ensure the provision of high-quality healthcare. The Government’s mental health strategy places a new emphasis on early intervention and prevention to help tackle the underlying causes of mental ill health.
We have tried to maximise the incentives to care leavers to attend further and higher education courses. There is a personal adviser when they wish to resume education and training up to aged 25, and we are funding local authorities to give care leavers a higher education bursary of £2,000. We have supported the development of children-in-care councils to share best practice and argue for the best from their local authorities.
We will also be launching a care leavers’ charter, as part of National Care Leavers’ Week, which we are in the middle of. This charter will summarise young people’s statutory entitlements as well as make clear the core expectations, values and intentions around good corporate parenting.
My noble friend Lady Brinton and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, highlighted the importance of the staying-put arrangements. I agree with them that the best local authorities are using staying-put arrangements to ensure that care leavers can continue to live and get support from their foster carers. We know that those who are in staying-put arrangements are more than twice as likely to be in education as those who are not. The revised leaving-care guidance issued in April 2011 encourages local authorities to consider introducing staying-put provision as part of their range of options to provide care leavers with suitable supported accommodation.
The issue of multiple placements was raised. I certainly accept and agree entirely that it is disappointing, to say the least, that the number of children moving placements three times a year has not fallen. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester first brought this to our attention. We think that our programme to improve the quality of foster placements and children’s homes will lead to greater stability for more young people. However, the quality of commissioning and placement planning are critical so that children are matched to the placements that best meet their needs. Therefore, we urge local authorities to consider how to strengthen their practice, including using evidence-based interventions such as keeping multidimensional treatment foster care and multisystemic therapy.
A recurring theme was the importance of children in care having an advocate. It is obviously right to put children at the centre of the care planning process. Each looked-after child has a social worker and an independent reviewing officer. They also have access to an advocate, as well as to an independent visitor. I was asked specifically about putting this on to a statutory basis. I am not able to provide an answer to that today but I can say that the Government are exploring how advocacy services can be strengthened further.
The noble Lord, Lord Laming, stressed the importance of urgency and called for an independent inquiry. I hope and believe that the extensive programme of work under the three working groups that I have spoken about will cover the ground and lead to an action plan for improvement. Because that is urgent, we want to press on with that work, but I hope and believe that by the end of the year, when the noble Lord, Lord Laming, sees the outcome of this work, he will feel reassured that the Government are gripping the matter in a way that I know he would want.
I do not pretend that the Government have all the answers but I hope I have shown that we are trying to address the issues in a range of ways. As my noble friend Lady Benjamin said, we are at the beginning of a long road and there is a way to go.
The debate this afternoon has highlighted many of the issues that we face. It has shown some of the good things that are happening, but it has given us a sobering reminder of some of the problems and has underlined the need for urgency. The Government share that sense of urgency. I know that my honourable friend Mr Timpson will consider anything that can improve the life chances of the vulnerable children who most need our support, and I will ensure that all the practical suggestions and advice that the Government have been given this afternoon are put before him, and he will reflect on them.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I am very grateful for the care with which the Minister has replied. As I said, I was most grateful for the Government’s response back in June, when these concerns were raised, and for the setting up of the working groups. All that is very welcome indeed. Recently the Minister invited me to meet the head teacher of Rugby School with regard to the setting up of the Springboard charity, which helps vulnerable people on the edge of care to get into some of our best boarding schools. I take my hat off to him for this endeavour.
I am most grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. A number of important themes have been raised but I know that at this stage I should not go into any detail. I shall look very carefully at what the Minister has said. Many of the young people from care who have come before our parliamentary group over the years have voiced the anxiety that Members of Parliament and Members of the House of Lords may not be hearing their concerns. I shall ensure that this debate is circulated as widely as possible among them so that they know their concerns are being heard and acted upon.
Again, I thank noble Lords for taking part today.
Treatment of Homosexual Men and Women in the Developing World
(12 years ago)
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Lord Lexden
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the treatment of homosexual men and women in the developing world.
Lord Lexden
My Lords, I bring before your Lordships an international issue of great importance. Injustice and inhumanity stalk our world and, sadly, they take many forms. I have sought this short debate in order to draw attention to one of their cruellest and most pervasive manifestations: the gross discrimination suffered by homosexuals in many countries of the world.
Millions of our fellow human beings today are liable to arrest, conviction and punishment—punishment of great severity—because of their sexual orientation and that alone. Their human rights, enshrined in internationally agreed conventions for the benefit of all mankind, are breached many times over. Equality, privacy, dignity, freedom of expression, assembly and association, freedom from torture and from inhuman and degrading treatment—all these and other rights which form part of the established code of human rights law are being flouted in many countries where homosexuals are concerned.
Under international law, popular dislike or moral disapproval of homosexuality can never be a sufficient justification for setting aside human rights. As the head of the Supreme Court of Zimbabwe, Chief Justice Gubbay, stated, in 2000, as regards equality rights:
“The courts cannot be dictated to by public opinion … Those who are entitled to claim the protection of rights include … the marginalised members of society”.
Yet in many developing countries, homosexuals are marginalised, unprotected and oppressed because of the lack of respect for their human rights in the laws under which they live. In at least 76 countries, consensual, adult, same-sex relations are criminal offences for either men or women, or in some cases both. Punishment can be death in seven countries, including Iran, Sudan, and parts of Nigeria and Somalia. In six others, including Malawi and Malaysia, same-sex relations are punishable by hard labour or by corporal punishment.
Long terms of imprisonment, often far in excess of 10 years, can be imposed on homosexuals in 38 countries, including Jamaica, Barbados, Kenya, Gambia, Tanzania, Libya, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Even if they are not enforced rigorously, these grossly discriminatory laws create a climate of grave anxiety and fear for homosexuals in the many countries where they are on the statute books. It is a climate in which violence and persecution can flourish virtually unchecked. Its victims cannot seek protection from the state, for the state regards them as criminals, and the forces of law and order may well collude with their persecutors. Many instances of persecution and suffering have been carefully recorded and documented by the Human Dignity Trust, an international non-governmental organisation dedicated to challenging discriminatory laws against homosexuals, with which I have worked closely in preparing for this debate.
Here are just two case studies. The first relates to Uganda where a young man, Toby, was attacked at school for being gay. The police were called; they beat him severely. Returning home, he told his parents about his sexuality. Fearing for his safety, they hid him in the attic of the house. That night a mob, accompanied by the police, came to the house. Unable to find Toby, they turned on his family. When Toby came out of hiding after the attackers had departed, he found, in his words, “The house covered in blood and his own family, his mother, father, two brothers and two sisters dead in the sitting room. They had all been shot”. Toby now lives in the United Kingdom.
My second shocking story, which comes from the Human Dignity Trust’s thick files of cases, is set in Jamaica whose criminal code prohibits sex between men. A wave of persecution and violence has been suffered by gay people connected with the Jamaican Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays, known as J-Flag. Its co-founder was brutally murdered in 2004. But a 30 year-old social worker, Gareth, refused to be deterred from working for the organisation, despite sustained threats. “No matter where you go”, he was told, “we are going to find you, kill you and burn J-Flag down”. Yet for years Gareth remained in Jamaica, committed to promoting the welfare of the homosexual community. Eventually, with many misgivings, he felt forced to claim asylum in Canada. The Human Dignity Trust is now bringing a case on behalf of Gareth and J-Flag before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Last week, Gareth and a group from Jamaica came to Westminster. It was a privilege to listen to them describing in calm, resolute and unemotional terms their determination to secure humane and just treatment for homosexuals in the land they love.
There are many Tobys and many Gareths in many countries in our world today. They are the inevitable consequence of laws which criminalise homosexuality. The Organisation for Refuge Asylum and Migration has this year estimated that more than 175 million people—nearly three times the population of the United Kingdom—live in circumstances where they are at risk of persecution because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. But as we grieve and as we protest at this state of affairs, we must also remember where the laws criminalising homosexuals in many countries came from. They came from Britain, which alone among the European empires of the 19th century possessed a criminal code under which homosexuals faced severe penalties just for expressing their love and physical desire for one another.
In India in the 1820s, Thomas Macaulay, later the greatest of all the Whig historians, devised a legal system which incorporated Britain’s then firm and unbending intolerance of homosexuality. The Indian penal code became the model for the legal systems of Britain’s colonies in most of Africa and Asia. The love that had freely spoken its name and found expression in their native cultures became, in the definition of their new British-imported law, an unnatural offence. Thus it is that today, 42 of the 54 nations of the Commonwealth criminalise same-sex relations.
A wind of change has blown briskly and steadily in other parts of the world since that remarkable turning-point in 1959; the publication of the Wolfenden report. The strength of the movement for change has been powerfully assisted by rulings of the European Court of Human Rights, most notably, as far as the United Kingdom is concerned, by the case brought by my friend Jeff Dudgeon which extended the legalisation of homosexuality to Northern Ireland. The crimes for which homosexuals were once punished for simply being homosexuals no longer exist in any European country from the Republic of Ireland in the west to Vladivostok in the Russian Federation in the east, although the threat of discriminatory laws remains in some parts of the east. They have also been eliminated from the older countries of the Commonwealth.
Voices of compassion are being heard strongly in the world today, particularly in the Christian churches. The most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York has affirmed,
“the equality of all human beings, ‘heterosexual’ or ‘homosexual’”.
The Anglican Church of Southern Africa has made clear its opposition to the criminalisation of homosexuality. In 2008, the Vatican’s delegation to the UN General Assembly called for the elimination of,
“every sign of unjust discrimination towards homosexual persons”.
Many people the world over are now asking the Churches to put their position beyond all doubt by saying simply and clearly: criminalisation is wrong.
How is the message of justice and compassion that is coming from so many quarters, particularly our Churches, to be translated into action? It has been, and continues to be, done through the courts of law. Judicial challenges have helped to overturn laws criminalising homosexuality in countries as diverse as Fiji, Ecuador, the United States and India. This very day, a challenge is being mounted in the Belize courts supported by the Human Dignity Trust, the International Commission of Jurists and the Commonwealth Lawyers Association. Their leading counsel is the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, who is as a result unable to contribute to this debate as he wanted to do. He has authorised me to say on his behalf that “the case, if successful, is likely to have an important impact on similar laws in other former British territories. In my view there is no conceivable legal or moral justification for continuing in the 21st century to criminalise homosexual activity between adults. To treat this as criminal conduct has no single redeeming feature”.
The time has come for all the world’s principal international institutions to commit themselves unequivocally to this important cause. The United Nations has this year given a ringing endorsement of the case for urgent action. Speaking in March, the Secretary-General gave powerful support to decriminalisation. Clear plans are now needed to put his strong and most welcome words into practice.
Here in Britain, we look naturally to the Commonwealth too, not just because of historic ties, but because under this Government it features more prominently in our foreign policy. In 2010-11 an Eminent Persons Group was established to consider the future of the Commonwealth. Its report called for the repeal of laws criminalising homosexuality. Their existence, the report said, called into question,
“the commitment of member states to the Commonwealth's fundamental values and principles, including fundamental human rights and non-discrimination”.
This is probably the first debate to be held in a national legislature on the global persecution and criminalisation of the LGBT community. I pay tribute to all the organisations and campaign groups which strive for the full application of human rights to the LGBT community. On many occasions, the Government have underlined their strong belief that compassion and justice must prevail. I ask my noble friend the Minister to make it clear in her reply to the debate what action the Government are taking now, and whether they are considering fresh initiatives to help rid the world of laws which have sustained inhumanity and injustice for far too long.
Lord Rea
My Lords, many people in the developing world will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, for raising so cogently this important and disturbing issue. Although we may condemn the draconian laws and practices he has described, we should not forget that it is only quite recently in historical terms that this country and other industrialised democracies have repealed laws which prohibited same-sex relationships. Although the law has been liberalised in the UK and other countries in the north, and many prominent people, including MPs and Ministers, are now able openly to declare their sexual orientation, powerful prejudice is still there among a substantial minority of the population. A well-known example of that is the problem that the most reverend Primate has had with some of his bishops both here and abroad. The noble Lord, Lord Lexden, has pointed out that the intolerant and puritanical attitudes to gay sex that prevail in many developing countries may be a relic of colonialism, and that before the colonial era there was a much more permissive attitude.
How does this social and legal condemnation of homosexual people affect their health, particularly in terms of HIV infection? I was privileged to serve last year on the House of Lords Select Committee that looked into HIV and AIDS in the UK, which was chaired very ably by the noble Lord, Lord Fowler. Although sexual orientation and HIV infection are different entities, there are parallels, particularly regarding stigma and social rejection. To quote from the Select Committee’s report, we found that:
“Stigma and lack of understanding can undermine HIV prevention efforts … and can also impact upon adherence to treatment”.
The double prejudice that gay people with HIV suffer from makes it even more difficult for them to get access to treatment and the follow-up which is necessary. In many countries they are thwarted in obtaining treatment by laws and attitudes that criminalise or shun them.
HIV infection was of course first discovered 30 years ago among gay men, so the disease is associated with gay sexual behaviour. However, heterosexual transmission in Africans is now more common than homosexual transmission both at home and among the diaspora. HIV infection itself is nevertheless still much more common in gay men than heterosexuals both here and in Africa; 19 times more common, in one study quoted in the recent excellent report of the Global Commission on HIV and the Law. Stigma and discrimination play a significant role in causing and maintaining these high rates. In Caribbean countries where homosexuality is criminalised, such as Jamaica and Guyana, which are both Commonwealth countries, the prevalence of HIV is around one in four gay men, while in countries that do not criminalise same-sex sexual activity, such as Cuba and the Bahamas, it is only around one in 15. Can the Minister who is to reply outline the response of DfID to this unacceptable situation? I am aware that the Government are concerned about the issue and that they have played an important role in bringing it on to the international stage.
However, there is still a long way to go, with discriminatory legislation being passed or debated in Uganda and several other countries in the Commonwealth and elsewhere; I mention particularly eastern Europe. A fundamental step should be to encourage and support citizens and civil society who oppose these outdated and misguided laws in those countries. We should encourage them to put pressure on their Governments to repeal them as soon as possible.
This is not an impossible task. For example, the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, the Independent Commission on AIDS in Asia and the UN special rapporteur on the right to health, as well as a meeting of Commonwealth Foreign Affairs Ministers, have all recommended repealing laws that prohibit sex between consenting adults of the same sex, as have courts in Hong Kong and Fiji, as was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Lexden.
However, action on the ground is less evident than declarations of intent. The clear evidence that punitive discriminatory laws encourage the spread of HIV infection should act as a stimulus to repeal them. I hope that the noble Baroness can outline the moves the Government are taking to encourage international action as well as words.
A further line of attack should surely be to encourage treatment centres for HIV and AIDS to be freely open to people of any sexual orientation. DfID devotes a substantial proportion of its budget to the prevention and treatment of HIV. I hope the noble Baroness can assure the House that the special problems encountered by gay and other sexual minority groups in getting access to medical help are taken fully into account.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, for his powerful and comprehensive speech. I declare a number of interests. I am a patron of the Human Dignity Trust; I am also a friend of the Sigrid Rausing Trust and on the board of the OSI Justice Initiative, both of which have given vital funding support to the Human Dignity Trust, without which the work could not be done.
This is a unique human rights issue. There is an overwhelming body of comparative domestic and international case law which treats provisions that purport to criminalise private, consensual, adult homosexual conduct as contrary to fundamental human rights and constitutional protection. This is in no sense about the imposition of western values in supporting decriminalisation; all that is being asked is that each state uphold its own properly understood guarantees of dignity, privacy and equality.
I am to be followed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester. Whatever the different views on gay marriage within the church, I am sure he will confirm that there is no disagreement among the Bishops that criminalisation is wrong and unjustifiable.
This is also an important refugee issue. The words of wisdom of the two Scottish members of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in the Cameroon case that was decided in 2011 warrant repetition. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, explained:
“For many years the risk of persecution in countries where it now exists seemed remote. It was the practice for leaders in these countries simply to insist that homosexuality did not exist. This was manifest nonsense, but at least it avoided the evil of persecution. More recently, fanned by misguided but vigorous religious doctrine, the situation has changed dramatically. The ultra-conservative interpretation of Islamic law that prevails in Iran is one example. The rampant homophobic teaching that right-wing evangelical Christian churches indulge in throughout much of Sub-Saharan Africa is another. The death penalty has just been proposed in Uganda for persons who engage in homosexual practices. Two gay men who had celebrated their relationship in a public engagement ceremony were recently sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment in Malawi. They were later pardoned in response to international pressure by President Mutharika, but he made it clear that he would not otherwise have done this as they had committed a crime against the country's culture, its religion and its laws. Objections to these developments have been greeted locally with derision and disbelief”.
The noble and learned Lord continued:
“The fact is that a huge gulf has opened up in attitudes to and understanding of gay persons between societies on either side of the divide. It is one of the most demanding social issues of our time. Our own government has pledged to do what it can to resolve the problem, but it seems likely to grow and to remain with us for many years. In the meantime more and more gays and lesbians are likely to have to seek protection here, as protection is being denied to them by the state in their home countries. It is crucially important that they are provided with the protection that they are entitled to under the Convention”.
This is a very different issue. Lord Rodger, the other Scottish member of the Supreme Court, also went into the extent to which we are obliged under asylum law to give protection to gay people who are facing persecution elsewhere. We have a direct, practical interest in this country in eliminating elsewhere persecution of gay people who otherwise will have to seek safe haven here. I hope that this debate will help to stimulate the work already being done by the Government.
I have written to my noble friend the Minister with some questions in order that she might be able to seek advice on some of them, and I very much hope that she can. They are: where does the decriminalisation of homosexuality across the globe fit into the Government’s priorities? Should the protection of the LGBT communities from persecutory harm not be a specific priority of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office? Can the Minister clarify exactly how the Government work with the Commonwealth to promote decriminalisation? Can she also clarify the Government’s position on aid conditionality as it relates to serious systemic violations of gay and lesbian people’s rights in countries which receive UK aid? Do the Government agree that the criminalisation of consensual sexual relations between adult men in private is a violation of international human rights law and the rule of law? Finally—I apologise for so many questions, but at least I have given notice of them—will the Government consider joining as a partner Government making a donation to the Global Equality Fund established in December 2001 by the United States State Department to advance and protect the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons around the world?
The Lord Bishop of Leicester
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, for spelling out so powerfully and persuasively the scale and horror of the threats faced by many gay people around the world. Noble Lords will be aware that in 1967 it was the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, who spoke in this House to support the decriminalisation of homosexuality in this country, thus making a clear distinction in British law between a moral and a criminal issue.
As noble Lords will now know, no such distinction exists in many parts of the world and, as a result, people are suffering horrendous abuse and even death for being who they are and loving who they love. Many of us have met people who have shared the most disturbing personal stories, including a very small number who have been granted asylum on grounds of sexual orientation in this country.
Others in this debate have rehearsed the ways in which laws criminalising same-sex sexual activity between adults have been repeatedly found in international law to violate fundamental human rights, and this debate serves also to highlight effectively the way in which criminalisation gives rise to persecution. I want, however, to concentrate on the way in which discriminatory interference in the private sexual conduct of consenting adults is an affront to the fundamental Christian values of human dignity, tolerance and equality.
It is of course no secret, as others have made clear, that on the ethics of homosexual practice the churches in general and the Anglican communion bishops in particular are deeply divided, but that cannot and must not be any basis for equivocating on the central issue of equality before the law of all human beings whether heterosexual or homosexual. Further, many of us who are bishops in this country value and treasure our links with particular dioceses around the Anglican communion. We respect and appreciate the different, and often sharply divided, theological approaches which lead to different stances on the ethical issues. But, as the Lambeth Conference of 1998 made clear, there is not and cannot be any place for homophobia in the church, and all are to be welcomed regardless of sexual orientation.
Few have spoken on this issue as unequivocally as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who said in 2010 at the United Nations High-level Panel on Ending Violence and Criminal Sanctions on the Basis of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity:
“All over the world, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are persecuted. They face violence, torture and criminal sanctions because of how they live and who they love. We make them doubt that they too are children of God—and this must be nearly the ultimate blasphemy”.
Indeed, in recent years, successive statements from the leaders of major Christian denominations in the West have made similar points, including perhaps most consistently, those from the Society of Friends, which has stated:
“We affirm the love of God for all people, whatever their sexual orientation, and our conviction that sexuality is an important part of human beings as created by God, so that to reject people on the grounds of their sexual behaviour is a denial of God’s creation”.
The noble Lord, Lord Lexden, has issued a direct challenge in his opening speech. He said that many people the world over are now asking the churches to put their position beyond all doubt, by saying simply and clearly that criminalisation is wrong. I will put my position beyond all doubt—and I know I speak for other Members of this Bench—by stating it in as clear terms as I can. If criminalisation leads, as it evidently does, to gay people concealing their own identity, that must be wrong; if criminalisation leads to many living in fear, that must be wrong; if criminalisation leads to the prospect of persecution, arrest, detention and death, that must be wrong; and if criminalisation means that LGBT people dare not turn to the state when facing hate crimes and violence, that must be wrong too.
It is within the adult lifetime of most of us in this House that the law was changed in this country to decriminalise homosexual acts. However, for our children’s generation, such a state of affairs must feel like ancient history—as appropriate to the moral climate of today’s society in this country as the burning of witches. We must all urgently pursue this journey to a completely new climate in those many countries of the world where same-sex relations are criminal offences. I very much hope that this debate will serve that cause.
Lord Fowler
My Lords, I strongly agree with everything that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester has said and applaud the lead that he has just given. It was an exceptionally strong speech and one that deserves to be well heard around the country.
The trouble with this House is that you wait for weeks for a debate that you want to take part in and two come along on the same day. My noble friend spoke with great force and I congratulate him on two counts: first, on the debate itself, which is of crucial importance around the world; and, secondly, on choosing a subject that I and the noble Lord, Lord Black of Brentwood, can agree on after our slight difference of emphasis on the media.
The extent of discrimination against homosexual men and women is not really remotely in dispute. The figures speak for themselves, and many of them have been given already: 175 million people are living under conditions where they are at the risk of persecution on account of their sexual orientation, and 76 countries criminalise consensual, adult, same-sex relations, among them 42 of the 54 countries of the Commonwealth.
I want to concentrate for one moment on some of the consequences that that discrimination can have. As perhaps one or two Members of the House know, I seek to work and help in the HIV/AIDS area and will just remind the House of the position there. Some politicians talk, optimistically, about a cure, but the fact is that almost 2 million people a year die from AIDS. For every person put on treatment, two new people are infected. Hundreds of thousands of people do not get the treatment they need, or come to it too late for it to be fully effective
Consider what effect discrimination can have in that context. If there is the threat of criminal sanction, people do not come forward for testing, let alone for treatment. The result is that HIV spreads. Health providers are obviously less likely to offer their services if they can be accused of aiding a crime. The laws are often used by the police to prohibit HIV prevention activity. That is a disastrous position. I must add that it is by no means restricted to developing countries. The Culture Select Committee in the other place said that it thought that homophobia in football was a bigger problem than racism.
The worst problem in Europe is in Russia, where the treatment of gay and lesbian people can be discriminatory and severe, and where Madonna, no less, is being prosecuted. Her offence is calling for tolerance towards sexual minorities. I remember being in another country and talking to the organiser of a group who was hoping for better treatment. I said, “You must be on radio and television a lot”. “Oh no”, he said, “I am not that brave”. He feared the ostracism that he would encounter.
I give just one further example. Earlier this year, I spent a week in Ukraine, considering the HIV situation. At a meeting with groups representing men who had sex with men, sex workers and drug users, I heard a long list of complaints about police harassment and corruption, backed up by the courts, which would invariably accept the police story. I must have looked a bit sceptical until a worker with the excellent international HIV/AIDS Alliance intervened to say, “I can confirm it all; I worked for the police for 12 years”. That is the nub of the position. In Ukraine, there is now the prospect of a new law which would prevent essential health education and information aimed explicitly at the homosexual community.
In brief, five o’clock on a Thursday evening in a short debate may not be exactly the best time to start this debate, but the public should be in no doubt of the importance of the subject that my noble friend has raised. They should be in no doubt that discrimination against gay and lesbian people around the world is not just a major problem, it is an affront to everything that most of us feel is decent. We should also recognise that, in some countries, far from advancing, the position is getting worse. We need to take action against that.
Baroness Nye
My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, for initiating this important debate. As he and other noble Lords have so clearly stated, criminalisation of homosexuality violates international law. It denies rights to privacy, equality and dignity and has a negative impact on HIV/AIDS prevention, as the noble Lords, Lord Fowler and Lord Rea, so powerfully argued.
The figures that form the backdrop to this debate deserve repetition: 76 countries around the world still have penal laws; that is 42 out of the 54 Commonwealth countries. That includes 11 in the Caribbean which, in the short time available, is the area on which I shall concentrate. Most Caribbean countries have penal punishments of 10 years or more. There are a few, such as the Dominican Republic, Cuba and the Bahamas, where the LGBT community enjoys some degree of security, and the British Overseas Territories, such as Anguilla and others, where the law was changed in 2001. Although celebrating the fact that the law has been changed, public antipathy is still high and discrimination remains. So it was good that the issue of human rights, including discrimination against the LGBT community, was raised at CHOGM in Perth last year.
The Prime Minister, in an interview, went further and linked human rights reform to the allocation of British budgetary support. While I agree with his motives, I am unsure that this approach will work. When you look at the response in the Caribbean, I think the Government need to think again. No independent Caribbean country receives general budget support from Britain and therefore would not be affected by this policy. However, this fact did not get in the way of an angry response in the media about an ex-colonial power exerting undue influence over other Governments, especially as it was the same colonial power that had devised the laws in the first place.
Some civil society groups think that this announcement will be counterproductive as it will,
“tend … to exacerbate the environment of intolerance in which political leadership scapegoat LGBTI people for donor sanctions”.
Moreover, the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition has said that the threat, if acted upon, would erode gains made by the Caribbean over the past 10 years in reducing deaths from AIDS through access to retroviral treatments. There have also been accusations of foreign intervention by opponents of the legal challenge mounted by the United Belize Advocacy Movement to Section 53 of the Belize criminal code which, as has been said, is being supported by international organisations.
I share the view of many in the developing world when I say that I do not believe that support for advocacy groups in the countries where change is needed causes the same problems as imposing conditionality by donor nations. This is especially true in Caribbean countries where there is a lack of educational information, a reluctance to engage in the issue of decriminalising homosexuality and where a culture shift is required. Sadly, most churches in the Caribbean also have a strong influence on the political parties to maintain the status quo. However, if they heard the speech by the right reverend Prelate they would probably change their minds because it was very powerful. Supporting civil society groups in changing the nature of the debate and understanding would go a long way to help change public opinion, and I would like to hear from the Minister what the Government are doing to promote civil society groups.
The Caribbean will be affected by the European Parliament’s decision to concentrate future support on the least developed countries, as highlighted by the new Jamaican Prime Minister in her address to the General Assembly. During last year’s Jamaican election campaign, Portia Simpson Miller, as leader of the PNP, responded to a question about homosexuals in government in a TV debate by saying:
“Our administration believes in protecting the human rights of all Jamaicans. No one should be discriminated against because of their sexual orientation. Government should provide the protection”,
and that she would review the legislation. Given that Time magazine had asked if Jamaica was the most homophobic place in the world, given the violence and the culture of murder music, this was a very courageous thing to say in the middle of an election campaign. However, since her landslide election victory she has made no moves to change the law. Reports to J-Flag, which is the only gay rights organisation in Jamaica, show that violence and discrimination have tripled since 2008, but Time magazine has selected Portia Simpson Miller as one of the world’s 100 most influential people because of this stance. Activists have welcomed her inclusion on the list, even though there has been no action, as a way of incentivising her to follow up on that election commitment. Perhaps in the parlance of No. 10’s nudge unit, she should be nudged to make some progress. As the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, said, advocacy groups have lodged a case with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and a favourable ruling would obviously add to the pressure for change.
Pressure and support for civil society groups must continue to be applied at every opportunity. In January this year, four British Ministers, led by the Foreign Secretary, attended the biennial UK-Caribbean Forum in Grenada. The meeting took place on a Cariforum-wide basis with the Dominican Republic as a full participant and Cuba and the British Overseas Territories attending as observers. Instead of the usual communiqué at the end, there was a more detailed action plan talking about the economy, security and all those very important issues which promote British and Caribbean interests, but nowhere can I find any reference to the Secretary of State raising the issue of human rights and the treatment of homosexual men and women in the Caribbean. I know that the Secretary of State raised it at the Commonwealth People’s Forum in Perth last year when he said:
“The UK would like to see the Commonwealth do more to promote the rights of its lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens. It is wrong in our view that these groups continue to suffer persecution, violence and discrimination”.
Everyone would agree with that, and I think it deserves repeating, but I am concerned that no opportunity is lost to raise these issues, and I would be very grateful if the Minister could allay my fears and confirm that this issue was raised by the Foreign Secretary or any of the other Ministers who attended that meeting, and that they will continue to do so.
Baroness Brinton
My Lords, I express my gratitude to my noble friend Lord Lexden for securing today’s debate on this significant human rights issue and for his excellent and helpful opening speech. I am glad that the coalition Government promote homosexual rights around the globe, pledging support for LGBT rights worldwide and working with the European Union and United Nations in persuading other nations to do the same.
The EU and the UN agree that LGBT rights are human rights. However, as we have heard in this debate, the picture elsewhere is not so encouraging. The African Union does not mention LGBT rights in its charter, and some developing nations in Africa abuse homosexuals with what amounts to a state mandate. What is the UK doing within international organisations to encourage developing nations to adopt policies for the protection of homosexuals?
In the 2012 DflD Equality and Diversity Information Report, the Government claim that:
“Quiet diplomacy is often the most effective way to make progress in this sensitive area”.
However, our complicity in these abuses endangers the lives of individuals in these nations, to which the UK provides millions of pounds in aid.
According to the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, it is illegal to be a homosexual in two-thirds of the world’s least developed countries, as categorised by the UN Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States. Although the Government say that they intend to improve this situation, not enough is being done to inhibit those nations from prosecuting, jailing or killing people simply for being gay.
Two of the world’s worst offenders are Somalia and Sierra Leone. In Somalia homosexuality is a crime punishable by imprisonment, flogging or even death. Somalis who dare to speak out in gay support centres online often receive death threats. In Sierra Leone the police harass and beat citizens as punishment for their sexual orientation. Shockingly, the rape of lesbians in Somalia is sometimes arranged by the victim’s own family in a cruel attempt to alter their sexual preferences, according to a US Department of State report. Discrimination against LGBT individuals is rampant in Sierra Leone’s education, employment and housing and, sadly, the Sierra Leone constitution offers no protection to homosexuals for the abuses committed against them.
The Prime Minister hinted that UK foreign aid will be contingent upon LGBT rights in Prime Minister’s Questions on 26 October last year, yet the UK has made no official indication of any requirement for either of these countries to improve their treatment of homosexuals. In fact, DfID is actually increasing aid by millions to both Sierra Leone and Somalia. The Government clearly have the resources to confront those countries about their horrific human rights records but they remain virtually uninhibited in terrorising their own people for homosexuality. What is the UK doing to promote the protection of homosexuals in each of these countries? I also ask the FCO what the UK can do to promote LGBT rights in developing countries not linked to us by aid.
It is time that more nations emulated developing nations like Nepal. Though local activists admit that there is a lot more to be done, Nepal’s LGBT rights have been determined in its people’s own terms. Instead of translating European labels and terms, Nepal uses its own concept, “metis”. This culturally relevant identification has led to widespread acceptance and support of homosexuals. In fact, Nepal is home to Asia’s first openly gay parliamentarian, Sunil Pant. Mr Pant is an iconic LGBT rights advocate in Nepal. He founded the Blue Diamond society, credited with persuading his Government to make reforms such as including the defence of homosexuals in its budget. In 2011 Nepal began to collaborate with NGOs in formulating even better protections for LGBT individuals in its new constitution. Nepal is a least developed nation but also a pioneer of LGBT rights.
Sadly, as other noble Lords have suggested, past British colonialism has been credited by Human Rights Watch, among others, with spreading homophobia worldwide. It is time for the Government to ensure that there are fewer cases like Sierra Leone and Somalia and more like Nepal. Are we encouraging developing nations to formulate culturally relevant definitions to promote LGBT rights? The time has come for the Government to help to replace a legacy of hate, which we condemn, with one of tolerance and acceptance that we strive for.
Lord Black of Brentwood
My Lords, we should all be indebted to my noble friend Lord Lexden, who has worked hard to secure this debate. His speech was extremely powerful, its contents raw and shocking, and its message profoundly important.
I start with a simple question: why should this matter to us? It is important to explain why the UK, with this House in the vanguard, should care. I have four reasons. First, as my noble friend explained, we caused this problem. That so many people around the globe still suffer from legal discrimination is one toxic legacy of empire. It is our duty to help sort that out.
Secondly, we must recognise that if we do not do anything to tackle the problem, it will manifest itself at our borders, as the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, said, as people persecuted on grounds of sexual orientation rightly seek asylum here, for in their own country they may be degraded, tortured or killed. It is our duty to help.
Thirdly, we should understand that this is not a problem simply confined to faraway parts of the globe. It occurs in countries that we regularly visit. Many do business in Russia, yet many regions in Russia, most notably St Petersburg, have introduced legislation to punish homosexual propaganda. In Lithuania, a member of the EU, the Parliament is currently progressing an anti-gay Bill. In Tunisia, where many people go on holiday, the Government have recently refused to decriminalise homosexuality. This problem is on our doorstep. It is our duty to help.
Finally, we owe it to those who fought prejudice and legal barriers to equality in our own country to take their legacy, and apply it in those countries where intolerance and bigotry still exist. As a gay man who has lived his life in a tolerant, liberal atmosphere and who has never had to fight discrimination because my forebears fought that battle for me, I believe we need to act in gratitude and, sometimes, in memory of them. That is why we should care, and should help.
In those tasks, we have the support of a number of organisations: the Human Dignity Trust, which is tackling the issue at its core, Stonewall and Kaleidoscope, which are working to make this world a better place. I salute them.
I am an optimist. The march of history is on our side. We should recognise that some progress has been made. In recent years, Fiji, as we have heard, India, Nicaragua, Panama and Nepal have all decriminalised homosexuality, with others such as the Seychelles committed to do so. Botswana, Mozambique and Mauritius have adopted legislation to prevent workplace discrimination, though penal codes still punish private behaviour in those countries.
The awful news is that as we debate this here today, at least 12 people world wide are currently in prison for violating laws that punish those who are born gay, lesbian or bisexual. Another 13 await trial. Three imprisoned are in Nigeria and eight in Cameroon. One—a 27 year-old man—is in Saudi Arabia, where his five-year prison sentence was accompanied by 500 lashes. In Cameroon, Jean-Claude Rogere Mbede is appealing a three-year sentence for sending an intimate text message to man who he thought was his friend. I am delighted that the Human Dignity Trust, supported by Clifford Chance, will be using his case to challenge the law criminalising homosexuality. In the same country, Yntebeng Pascal is awaiting trial for being “too effeminate”.
Perhaps they are in some ways the lucky ones, for they are still alive. Those figures of the number of people in prison do not include people executed in one of the seven countries where being gay is a capital crime. They do not include thousands who die from AIDS because LGBT people are excluded from effective HIV prevention programmes, or where stigma drives the illness underground where it is untreated. I was appalled to hear from the brave Jamaicans that I met with my noble friend Lord Lexden that HIV infection rates in that country are 32 times higher among men who have sex with men than among heterosexuals. Nor do the figures include the gay men who commit suicide because of the scorn they suffer when the structure of law discriminates against them—as many as 250 in Peru in recent years. They do not include those, such as David Kato in Uganda, who have been murdered for standing up for gay rights, or the Kenyan man stoned to death in a Nairobi slum by a mob in June of this year. In the chronicle of man’s inhumanity to man, in too many parts of our world, the suffering of gay men and women still stands out as a terrible indictment, including a significant number, as we have heard to our continuing shame, in the Commonwealth.
I said earlier that I was an optimist. I am also a realist and I know that there is a limit to what our Government can achieve. But we can do something. Of course, resources are tight, but we should, as a priority, commit to supporting decriminalisation programmes. We can work with the EU, which magnifies our influence, to tackle the problem. DfID can make sure that its human rights commitments include LGBT rights and decriminalisation in particular. That would sit in tandem with the vital work that the Human Dignity Trust is doing to tackle the problem at source in the structure of law. We must hold the feet of the Commonwealth to the fire to turn its fine words into action.
Finally, success in the areas that we have been talking about today—legislation, human rights, litigation and institutional barriers to equality—is but one first step. In many ways, the second is even more difficult; that is, cultural change. Let us consider this: in the UK, the structure of law changed in 1967. It probably took four decades for public opinion to catch up with the change in law. In the Commonwealth, in the developing world, that task will be even greater. That is but one reason why we must not delay in the first step. Time is not on our side.
Lord Smith of Finsbury
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, for tabling this important debate and for the compelling way in which he introduced the subject to us. During the past 15 years, we have made huge progress in the UK in securing the rights and liberties of lesbians and gay men. We have recognised, thank goodness, that the love of one man for another or one woman for another does not make them any less valid or human.
Across all Europe and some parts of the United States, the same is true. But elsewhere, especially in the developing world, it is a much sadder story. In this debate, we have already heard about the 76 countries which have criminal laws against same-sex relationships, especially that 42 of the 54 countries of the Commonwealth have such criminalised laws. The continued existence of discrimination, violence and criminalisation in so many Commonwealth countries is particularly shaming. There is a bitter irony, as we have already heard, in that most laws in these countries have been inherited from us. I believe that that gives us a special responsibility to do whatever we can to help to change things.
There is an even more perverse irony. Many of these countries justify their laws and behaviour by arguing risibly that somehow homosexuality is something imposed on them and imported from the colonial West. In fact, precisely the reverse is true. Discrimination was imposed on them by the colonial West. There are horrific stories of the treatment meted out to people simply because they are gay.
In Jamaica, Brian Williamson and Steve Harvey were brutally murdered because they had dared to found the Jamaican Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays. In Uganda, a young lesbian woman was denounced and beaten by her father, thrown into prison, and beaten and brutally raped by the police in prison. Two young women in Cameroon were attacked by a mob for being lesbian, with their arms broken by being snapped. Of course, the anti-homosexuality Bill now proposed in the Ugandan Parliament by Mr David Bahati MP would impose life imprisonment and, in some cases, a death penalty for sexual acts between men. These sorts of laws and actions shame our humanity; they mock any hopes that we might have of nurturing civilisation and decency across the world.
So what can we here in the UK do to help to bring about change? First, we can support the excellent work of organisations such as the Human Dignity Trust, the Kaleidoscope Trust and Human Rights Watch, which are challenging what is happening. Secondly, as individuals and Governments, we can speak out about these abuses, highlight them, give international publicity to them and protest formally and informally. International pressure can work; we have already heard about the Malawi case of the two gay men who were convicted of unnatural acts and gross indecency for holding an engagement ceremony. They were sentenced to 14 years’ hard labour in prison. Because of international pressure, the president pardoned the couple in question—but even more, the president who then took over from him, Joyce Banda, has announced that her Government will repeal the ban on homosexual acts. She has since indicated that progress may not be very fast in doing this, but the principle has been established as a result of international pressure.
Thirdly, we can ensure that when desperate people flee to our shores seeking asylum because of their fear or experience of discrimination and violence arising from their sexual orientation, we do not turn them away. Fourthly, we can and should support as strongly as we can those brave people who are standing up for their human rights and dignity in their own countries. Last week, I met a young man called David Kuria Mbote, who is the first openly gay black person to run for national office in Africa. He is a candidate for the Kenyan senate in next year’s elections; he is a remarkable person, and very brave. Part of his argument to his electors is that he is an outsider; he is different—he is not part of the establishment. That gives him a real advantage when it comes to rooting out corruption and reforming the political system. People are responding well to his message, although I fear that there are tough times for him ahead.
Ultimately, this is about winning the world for diversity and a welcoming of difference. Some 28 years ago, the leaders of the then group of seven major countries said:
“We believe in a rule of law which respects and protects without fear or favour the rights and liberties of every citizen, and provides the setting in which the human spirit can develop in freedom and diversity”.
That is what it is all about—recognising, accepting, welcoming and enjoying diversity, seeing it as an essential ingredient of freedom and making sure that that message is spread right around the world.
Baroness Jenkin of Kennington
My Lords, I am delighted to join other noble Lords in supporting my noble friend Lord Lexden in this debate. For the second time this week, I find myself a tail-end Charlie, at the end of a debate in which many points that I planned to make have been powerfully and eloquently made by other noble Lords. The red pen has once again been busy through my speech.
Being gay in many countries may be legislatively legal but a practical impossibility. The sad reality is that oppressive regimes and political persecution deny homosexuals the rights that we here in Britain have come to take for granted. Simple acts, such as Pride marches or even efforts to tackle HIV among homosexual men, are outlawed. When modest progress has been made, it is often all too easy to turn back the clock and deny people the rights that they have only just begun to enjoy. That is why this debate is so important. Britain’s strength lies in the freedom that it offers and the tolerance that it shows to all individuals; we, therefore, must be committed to supporting fundamental principles of human rights. In my view, that must include standing against efforts to persecute and discriminate against individuals on the basis of their sexuality. While accepting our international obligations, there are limitations to how Britain can influence and guide. As we have heard, many countries, especially those within the Commonwealth, still wrestle with legislative structures from a bygone colonial era which codify punishment for homosexual activity. As the noble Lord, Lord Smith, said, we have also seen recently in countries such as Uganda a highly effective propaganda effort to caricature homosexuality as a western affliction imported to threaten traditional values.
We should also take this opportunity to reflect on the scale of the challenge that remains. As we have seen in this country, legislative change is an important precursor to changes in society, with strong political leadership precipitating huge shifts in public attitudes to homosexual men and women. Consequently, while government efforts to ensure that British aid is not abused by homophobic regimes are welcome, we must also strive to ensure that these efforts do not inadvertently deprive deeply vulnerable people of vital aid to feed or care for themselves and risk inflaming further homophobic sentiment. The UK’s approach, set out in July 2011, goes some way to remedying this situation. The Government, while reducing the amount of aid given to support the budgets of other Governments by half, will ensure that trusted NGOs and other channels will be used to make sure that poor people in poverty do not suffer as a result. I believe that this approach will make better use of UK aid money and at the same time target support for the most vulnerable people in our world.
However, the Government are only one agent for change. We must also recognise the importance of business and commerce which provide vital inward investment and employment in many developing countries. They are engines of change, too. In preparing for this debate, I read Stonewall’s helpful, recently published booklet which provides guidance for employers on how they can further support their homosexual staff wherever they may be based around the world. It features the work of major employers such as Barclays, Ernst and Young and Simmons and Simmons, which are making enormous strides in practical ways to ensure that they can have the best personnel wherever they need them around the world. By doing so they are beginning to shift attitudes of their global workforces, both in their offices and beyond, whether in London or Lagos, São Paulo or Singapore.
In conclusion, what further efforts are the Government making to ensure that British aid is reaching the most vulnerable in our world while at the same time ensuring that this aid is not abused by homophobic regimes? How are the Government working with British businesses to support equality in the developing world? Finally, what are the Government doing to promote the idea that our success as a 21st century nation has been, and will continue to be, best secured by ensuring that all our citizens can live and work free from this discrimination?
Baroness Barker
I wish to speak briefly in the gap and raise two issues which I think have not been raised in the debate. A number of noble Lords have referred to the fact that in October 2011 the British Government announced conditionality in regard to the overseas aid budget. Will the Minister tell us exactly how the Government intend to monitor that policy and its implementation? The noble Baroness, Lady Nye, well expressed the fear that that policy could create a gap into which right-wing evangelical churches might step to influence poor people in developing countries. I do not think any of us would wish to see that. However, we do wish to see the overseas aid budget being used to advance equality and diversity. If our Government were to monitor this carefully, we could come up with a new model of overseas aid funding for ourselves and other Governments. That would be an important provision.
My second point is a very minor one. Could the Foreign and Commonwealth Office operate a scheme whereby its travel advice states the factual case of each country in relation to the law governing lesbians and gay men? I think that many people know about the awful situation in Uganda, Ghana and perhaps in the Ukraine. However, there are other countries where the situation is perhaps as bad but is not as well known. I would like travellers to be able to use their own independent economic power to not support those countries which are highly discriminatory and to support the ones which are not. We might include in that some of the states of the United States of America which currently appear to be going back to a time of discrimination which we thought had passed.
Lord Collins of Highbury
My Lords, if there is a coalition I am extremely proud of it is the one that has initiated and backed this debate. In particular, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, for putting down the Question which has prompted the discussion.
This country can celebrate the fact that all the major parties are united on this subject. Over the last 25 years the situation for lesbian, gay and bisexual people in Britain has changed significantly. I am also proud that much of that progress was made under the last Government though we should not underestimate the problems that remain, in particular the level of homophobia in our schools. However, Britain can now rightly claim to be a beacon of equality to the world of gay people. Sadly, as we have heard in this debate, this progress is not reflected in the developing world. From Iraq to Uganda, lesbian and gay people are still systematically persecuted. As we have also heard in this debate, this prejudice often stops gay people accessing the healthcare, education and employment they need.
This is why decriminalisation worldwide is so important. However, even in countries where homosexuality is legal, lesbian and gay people are often subjected to human rights abuses. South Africa was the first country in the world to enshrine the human rights of gay people in its constitution in 1993. Yet lesbians in South Africa still live in fear of so-called “corrective rape”. As we have also heard, the freedom of expression and association of gay people is regularly denied in countries closer to home such as Russia, Ukraine and Serbia.
As the noble Lord, Lord Black, has said, we cannot pretend that this does not affect us here. Gay people around the world look to Britain to offer them refuge from this discrimination. Britain and our partners have an important role in challenging these human rights abuses. It is not, however, without risk. There is increasing opposition to the “western” notion that gay rights are human rights. We need only to look at the recent resolution, proposed by Russia at the United Nations Human Rights Council and passed with the support of 25 other states, affirming that “traditional values” should be the basis of human rights. This has given credibility to the abuses perpetuated by anti-gay Governments around the world. This is one of the many reasons why diplomatic action is so important. I welcome the way that the FCO is now working closely with organisations such as Stonewall, the Kaleidoscope Trust and others that have been mentioned in the debate, on how they can oppose these efforts to legitimise human rights abuses of gay people worldwide. Placing conditions on the recipients of development aid might also play a role, but we cannot ignore the risk that removing aid from countries for human rights abuses against gay people may affect the poorest in those countries. Not only would that give fuel to those who argue that homosexuality is something being imposed on those countries by the West, it may—as we have also heard in this debate—worsen the situation for gay people. They are likely in any case to be among the poorest and most disadvantaged in countries that receive aid, and unable to access jobs, education or healthcare. Nor can we ignore the fact that we are not the only suppliers in the aid marketplace. It would be disastrous if we pushed recipient countries into the arms of donors such as Iran and China, and we must not lose what influence that we already have in those countries.
As we have heard—and this is a main issue—real progress on gay equality will ultimately come from grass-roots movements. However, we need to help create the conditions where those local gay rights movements can emerge. So in conclusion I should like to ask questions of the Minister. What direct assistance will the Government provide, either financially or politically, to support the development of lesbian, gay and bisexual movements worldwide? What will the Government do to encourage aid charities, through which significant amounts of DfID investment is delivered, to support lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals and movements globally? Finally, will the Government ensure, through the UK Border Agency, that lesbian and gay people are provided with a real safe haven when they flee from the persecution that has been described today?
Baroness Northover
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Lexden for introducing so effectively this important debate on the treatment of homosexual men and women in the developing world. We have heard from him, the noble Lord, Lord Black, and others the terrible circumstances that many homosexual people face across the world.
I am glad that we have given sanctuary to Toby, whose terrible case my noble friend Lord Lexden cited, but I recognise that he can never fully recover from his appalling experience. I hear what my noble friend Lord Lester has said about religious fundamentalism and how this may be becoming worse. I welcome the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester’s statement that discrimination is “an affront” to Christian values. I welcome his clear condemnation of such discrimination. I also commend the work of the Human Dignity Trust, Kaleidoscope and other organisations that are working to address these issues internationally.
We are talking about people who are often scared to be who they are. In many cases they conceal their sexual orientation or gender identity from their family, friends and societies. They often rightly fear victimisation, violence, detention, imprisonment and even death, simply because of who they are.
We are absolutely clear that human rights are universal and apply equally to all people. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 affirms as much, but we hear from my noble friend Lord Lexden and others how these rights are breached. However, I can confirm to the noble Lord, Lord Lester, that criminalisation of homosexuality is clearly a violation of international law. We have strong commitments both to international human rights and to international development. Development cannot be achieved without respecting rights, and my noble friend Lady Jenkin is right to link those.
UK aid is used to promote an environment in which all people can claim their rights in open societies. We look for ways to ensure that people who are marginalised or excluded for whatever reason, including sexual orientation, can access the information, service and resources they need to lift themselves out of poverty. It is often those people who are at the risk of human rights abuses in developing countries who need our help the most. In 2011—various noble Lords referred to this—we strengthened our partnership principles. These require that before providing direct support to Governments, we assess their shared commitment to reducing poverty, respecting human rights, improving public financial management, fighting corruption and being more accountable to their own citizens.
The noble Lord, Lord Smith, noted the actions taken in Malawi. Recipients of aid are aware of the pressure in relation to human rights, and I hope that that is also reassuring to the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin.
The noble Lord, Lord Collins, asked about the assistance that we provide to support the development of relevant movements world wide and what we do to encourage charities to support these movements. As other noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Nye, and others, have noted, civil society plays an important role in supporting the rights of homosexuals in developing countries. We provide targeted support to locally led groups so that they can tackle discrimination and support communities in accessing the resources and services that they need. For example, through a £52 million partnership with the International Planned Parenthood Federation, we are supporting members of the LGBT rights organisations in improving access to health services.
The noble Baroness, Lady Nye, was right that it is very important to support groups in civil society, but she pointed out the difficulties of being, as it were, heavy-handed—a point reiterated by the noble Lord, Lord Collins. Clearly, working internationally to ensure the recognition of human rights law is very important, although I heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Nye, that that can be counterproductive. She also asked what we are doing to challenge these countries. Obviously, how we approach this matter varies from country to country.
Noble Lords have heard what is happening in Malawi. I point out that we have raised our concerns about the Bill in Uganda at the most senior levels. The former Minister for Africa raised this when he met President Museveni in March and he did so again with the vice-president in August. We have also raised our concerns regarding the Bill in the Ukraine, and that has been reiterated through the EU. In Ethiopia, Lynne Featherstone, my honourable friend in the Commons, has raised this issue with the former Prime Minister. In Russia, we have made it clear that legislation is incompatible with Council of Europe guidelines.
My noble friend Lady Brinton asked about Somalia and Sierra Leone. In relation to Sierra Leone, the principle of human rights will kick in because that country has just received the last tranche of budget support. Therefore, human rights provisions will be applied if and when more money is sent through.
If I miss out anything, given the number of issues that noble Lords have raised, I shall write to them.
The noble Lords, Lord Rea and Lord Fowler, raised the issue of HIV/AIDS and the stigma attached to it, as well as the difficulty that people have accessing the care that they need. Both noble Lords will be aware that the United Kingdom is strongly supporting the funding of the International HIV/AIDS Alliance. We are acutely aware of the particular challenges that homosexuals face in this regard. Alan Duncan, the Minister of State, announced in July new DfID resources for the Robert Carr fund, supporting global and regional networks to improve HIV responses reaching key populations.
My noble friend Lord Lester asked whether the Government are considering joining, as a partner Government, the Global Equality Fund. We are impressed by the model of the Global Equality Fund. We are not currently considering supporting it but we are funding work that complements the fund. When I was briefed on this, I was particularly pleased to hear about the support that we are giving to a four-year programme at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex to strengthen effective policy options on sexuality, poverty and law. This is the biggest programme of its kind that we know of, and the UK is putting £1.25 million into it. That is a very welcome development.
We support country-level funding for LGBT programmes and groups, as well as providing opportunities to access funding through the FCO’s human rights and democracy programme. Noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Lester, asked me about that.
Clearly, this is a major challenge and despite the work we are doing, we do not underestimate the huge amount that still needs to be done. The UK is working internationally, as I have mentioned. It plays a key role in building support through a number of international organisations, including the United Nations, working towards global decriminalisation of homosexuality. We also work with EU partners, which is increasingly important in this area. EU member states and the European External Action Service have committed to develop a strategy on co-operation with third countries on the human rights of LGBT persons, including working through the UN and the Council of Europe. We are determined to contribute fully to a robust and effective EU strategy in this regard.
We are also pleased that the refreshed Canada-UK joint declaration, signed by our two Prime Ministers and by the Foreign Secretary in September, now includes a commitment that we will work together to continue to press countries around the world to repeal aggressive and punitive laws criminalising homosexuality, which are incompatible with human rights.
My noble friends Lord Lexden, Lord Lester, Lord Black and others mentioned the Commonwealth. We are hugely encouraged to hear that Commonwealth Foreign Affairs Ministers, at their meeting on 29 September, agreed the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group recommendations that access to treatment for HIV/AIDS should be without discrimination and that discriminatory laws that impede access to treatment should be addressed. As a valuable partner in promoting human rights globally and in helping to deliver UK human rights priorities, we are committed to working with the Commonwealth to help them to uphold the values of human rights.
The Commonwealth modernisation agenda for 2012 includes the delivery of a charter for the Commonwealth which reflects its core values, including strengthening language on opposing discrimination on all grounds, which would cover this area. I can assure my noble friend Lord Lester and others that our embassies and high commissions around the world also play an important part in this regard. I know that the Department for International Development is seeking opportunities to promote human rights, including in this area.
My noble friend Lady Barker flagged up an interesting point. The FCO travel advice includes guidance specifically on the situation for LGBT people in relevant countries. It may be that some of that information might be used to good effect in the way that she suggests.
The noble Lord, Lord Collins, is right: we are united on this. The UK has an important role to play in international efforts to promote tolerance and non-discrimination against homosexuals and to address discriminatory laws. This debate has been an important reminder of how this is indeed a case of human rights and individuals’ ability to live their lives free from poverty or fear.